ASU Scholarship Showcase

In Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity, Roy Rappaport misses an opportunity to more tightly theorize the synergistic relationship between concepts of the divine, the psyches of ritual participants, and the adaptive dynamics of religious sociality. This paper proposes such a theory by drawing on implicit features of Rappaport’s account, fulfilling his goal of a “cybernetics of the holy.” I argue that concepts of the divine, when made authoritative for participants through ritual, have three important effects: they invite intense and meaningful reconstructions of personal identity according to paradigmatic examples; they act as a form of encoded social memory by organizing human relationship according to a “spiritual map”; and they provide the cognitive framework that make religious community organization robust, adaptive, and reproductive. We can characterize divine concepts as “specified absences” that ground each of these effects and link them together in a mutually-reinforcing set.

Forecasts of noise pollution from a highway line segment noise source are obtained from a sound propagation model utilizing effective sound speed profiles derived from a Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) limited area forecast with 1 km horizontal resolution and near-ground vertical resolution finer than 20 m. Methods for temporal along with horizontal and vertical spatial nesting are demonstrated within the NWP model for maintaining forecast feasibility. It is shown that vertical nesting can improve the prediction of finer structures in near-ground temperature and velocity profiles, such as morning temperature inversions and low level jet-like features. Accurate representation of these features is shown to be important for modeling sound refraction phenomena and for enabling accurate noise assessment. Comparisons are made using the parabolic equation model for predictions with profiles derived from NWP simulations and from field experiment observations during mornings on November 7 and 8, 2006 in Phoenix, Arizona. The challenges faced in simulating accurate meteorological profiles at high resolution for sound propagation applications are highlighted and areas for possible improvement are discussed.

Physical mechanisms of incongruency between observations and Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model predictions are examined. Limitations of evaluation are constrained by (i) parameterizations of model physics, (ii) parameterizations of input data, (iii) model resolution, and (iv) flux observation resolution. Observations from a new 22.1-m flux tower situated within a residential neighborhood in Phoenix, Arizona, are utilized to evaluate the ability of the urbanized WRF to resolve finescale surface energy balance (SEB) when using the urban classes derived from the 30-m-resolution National Land Cover Database. Modeled SEB response to a large seasonal variation of net radiation forcing was tested during synoptically quiescent periods of high pressure in winter 2011 and premonsoon summer 2012. Results are presented from simulations employing five nested domains down to 333-m horizontal resolution. A comparative analysis of model cases testing parameterization of physical processes was done using four configurations of urban parameterization for the bulk urban scheme versus three representations with the Urban Canopy Model (UCM) scheme, and also for two types of planetary boundary layer parameterization: the local Mellor–Yamada–Janjić scheme and the nonlocal Yonsei University scheme. Diurnal variation in SEB constituent fluxes is examined in relation to surface-layer stability and modeled diagnostic variables. Improvement is found when adapting UCM for Phoenix with reduced errors in the SEB components. Finer model resolution is seen to have insignificant (<1 standard deviation) influence on mean absolute percent difference of 30-min diurnal mean SEB terms.

Transdisciplinary research practice has become a core element of global sustainability science. Transdisciplinary research brings with it an expectation that people with different backgrounds and interests will learn together through collective problem solving and innovation. Here we introduce the concept of “transdisciplinary communities of practice, ” and draw on both situated learning theory and transdisciplinary practice to identify three key lessons for people working in, managing, or funding such groups. (1) Opportunities need to be purposefully created for outsiders to observe activities in the core group. (2) Communities of practice cannot be artificially created, but they can be nurtured. (3) Power matters in transdisciplinary communities of practice. These insights challenge thinking about how groups of people come together in pursuit of transdisciplinary outcomes, and call for greater attention to be paid to the social processes of learning that are at the heart of our aspirations for global sustainability science.

Differences in governance relationships and community efforts to remove an exotic, rapidly spreading invasive plant, the-mile-a-minute weed (Mikania micrantha), are explored in five case study community forests in the subtropical region of Chitwan, Nepal. An institutional analysis informs an examination of the de jure (formal) versus de facto (on the ground) institutions and actor relationships relevant to Mikania removal efforts. Contrary to the expectations set by the de jure situation, we find heterogeneous governance relationships and norms related to Mikania management across community forests. Content analysis of interview data illuminates reoccurring themes and their implications for social and ecological outcomes in the communities. Complex governance relationships and regular discussion of distrust of government and non-government officials help explain collective action efforts and management decisions. The content analysis suggests that Mikania is impacting people’s daily lives but the degree of severity and the response to the disruption varies substantially and is heavily affected by other problems experienced by community forest members. Our results indicate that understanding how the de facto, or on the ground situation, differs from the de jure institutions may be vital in structuring successful efforts to manage invasive species and understanding collective action problems related to other social-ecological threats. We present data-informed propositions about common pool resource management and invasive species. This study contributes to a better scientific understanding of how institutions mediate social-ecological challenges influencing common pool resources more broadly.

Many population centers in the American West rely on water from the Colorado River Basin, which has faced shortages in recent years that are anticipated to be exacerbated by climate change. Shortages to urban water supplies related to climate change will not be limited to cities dependent on the Colorado River. Considering this, addressing sustainable water governance is timely and critical for cities, states, and regions facing supply shortages and pollution problems. Engaging in sustainability transitions of these hydro-social systems will increase the ability of such systems to meet the water needs of urban communities. In this paper, we identify historical transitions in water governance and examine their context for three sites in the Colorado River Basin (Denver, Colorado, Las Vegas, Nevada, and Phoenix, Arizona) to provide insight for intentional transitions towards sustainable, or “water sensitive” cities. The comparative historical approach employed allows us to more fully understand differences in present-day water governance decisions between the sites, identify past catalysts for transitions, and recognize emerging patterns and opportunities that may impact current and future water governance in the Colorado River Basin and beyond.

The conscientious are morally conflicted when their moral dilemmas or incommensurabilities, real or apparent, have not been resolved. But such doublemindedness need not lead to ethical disintegration or moral insensitivity. For one may develop the moral virtue of doublemindedness, the settled power to deliberate and act well while morally conflicted. Such action will be accompanied by both moral loss (perhaps 'dirty hands') and ethical gain (salubrious agental stability). In explaining the virtue's moral psychology I show, among other things, its consistency with wholeheartedness and the unity of the virtues. To broaden its claim to recognition, I show the virtue's consistency with diverse models of practical reason. In conclusion, Michael Walzer's interpretation of Hamlet's attitude toward Gertrude exemplifies this virtue in a fragmentary but nonetheless praiseworthy form.

In this paper, we study oscillating solutions of the 1D-quintic nonlinear Schrödinger equation with the help of Wigner's quasiprobability distribution in quantum phase space. An "absolute squeezing property," namely a periodic in time total localization of wave packets at some finite spatial points without violation of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, is analyzed in this nonlinear model.

Explicit solutions of the inhomogeneous paraxial wave equation in a linear and quadratic approximation are applied to wave fields with invariant features, such as oscillating laser beams in a parabolic waveguide and spiral light beams in varying media. A similar effect of superfocusing of particle beams in a thin monocrystal film, harmonic oscillations of cold trapped atoms, and motion in magnetic field are also mentioned.

Foodways have been a component of archaeological research for decades. However, cooking and food preparation, as specific acts that could reveal social information about life beyond the kitchen, only became a focus of archaeological inquiry more recently. A review of the literature on cooking and food preparation reveals a shift from previous studies on subsistence strategies, consumption, and feasting. The new research is different because of the social questions that are asked, the change in focus to preparation and production rather than consumption, and the interest in highlighting marginalized people and their daily experiences. The theoretical perspectives the literature addresses revolve around practice, agency, and gender. As a result, this new focus of archaeological research on cooking and preparing food is grounded in anthropology.