The National Research Council issued a report in 2009 that heavily criticized the forensic sciences. The report made several recommendations that if addressed would allow the forensic sciences to develop a stronger scientific foundation. We suggest a roadmap for decomposition ecology and forensic entomology hinging on a framework built on basic research concepts in ecology, evolution, and genet...

Helga Weisz, Sangwon Suh, and T. E. Graedel Research Domain Transdisciplinary Concepts & Methods, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, 14473 Potsdam, Germany; Department of Cultural History and Theory and Department of Social Sciences, Humboldt University Berlin, 10117 Berlin, Germany; Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 931...

This paper explores why Iran was a particularly fertile ground for repeated visitation of cholera in the 19th century. Along with certain unique Iranian cultural and religious factors, the author demonstrates how Iranian urban ecology, particularly the qanat system, contributed to the fatal spread of the epidemic. These multi-faceted conditions, the author concludes, resulted in distinct modes ...

The Whiting model aimed to provide a blueprint for psychocultural research by generating testable hypotheses about the dynamic relationships of a culture with the psychology and behavior of its members. This analysis identifies reasons why the model was so effective at generating hypotheses borne out in empirical research, including its foundational insight that integrated nature and nurture, i...

Scientific discourses are rhetorical constructs for interpreting, articulating, and coordinating the bits of information and knowledge produced by science. Discourses also help scientific communities promote and advocate particular strategies for action. A review of the literature on ecological integrity has led us to identify four scientific discourses: (1) Wilderness-Normative, (2) Systemic-N...

This paper examines the historical and socio-cultural underpinnings of immersive audio seen from the paradigms of Acoustic Ecology and Acoustic Communication. The paper offers the view that in order to understand the many implications of immersive sound, both from a design perspective and from a cultural studies perspective, we need to first examine its social and technological histories. The p...

In his last book, The Aesthetic Dimension (1978), Marcuse argued that a concern for aesthetics is justified when political change is unlikely. But the relation between aesthetics and politics is oblique: “Art cannot change the world, but it can contribute to changing the consciousness ... of the men and women who could change the world.” (p. 33). Marcuse also linked his critique of capitalism t...