Showing papers by "University of Haifa published in 1973"

Encoding of geographic dialects in the auditory system of the cricket frog.

Abstract: The frequency sensitivity of the auditory nervous system of cricket frogs (Acris) varies geographically. This variation is closely matched to the spectral energy in their mating calls, thus enabling them to respond preferentially to the calls of their local dialect.

Adaptive Variation in Size of Cricket Frogs

Abstract: Geographic variation in body size (BL) and relative foot size (F/B) was studied across the ranges of two sibling species of cricket frogs, genus Acris (Hylidae)in North America. Acris crepitans has a large range in eastern and central states extending from mesic woodlands to xeric grasslands, whereas A. gryllus has a limited range in southeastern states in mesic woodlands. Measurements of BL and F/B of 5,286 frogs from 108 localities were divided into 11 biogeographical regions and subjected to discriminant and multiple regression analyses. BL varies primarily in A. crepitans, negatively correlated with annual rainfall, which is its best single predictor, accounting for about .50 of size variance. A combination of three humidity variables explains .60 of BL variance.Desiccation experiments indicate that loss of body weight and vital time limit regress linearly on size and are highly correlated with it. Larger frogs lose less water and reach their limit of tolerance in twice as long a time as do small ones. F/B in both species is positively correlated and best predicted by a combination of temperature, precipitation, and longitude or sympatric anuran species. It is suggested that BL is casually related to humidity, large size being an adaptation to arid climates, and that F/B is casually related to predation pressure and/or competition for food, large F/B being an adaptation for increased jumping efficiency.

Adaptive color polymorphism in cricket frogs.

Abstract: Spatial and temporal variation in frequencies of genetic polymorphisms provide a powerful tool for studies of evolutionary dynamics in natural populations (Ford, 1964; Mayr, 1963 and references therein). Morphological polymorphisms are a special case of genic variation based on simple genetic systems and are often directly related to environmental conditions (Lewontin, 1967). They provide simple natural experiments whose outcome may directly test evolutionary theory and estimate essential parameters such as selection pressures, population structure and migration rates. The polymorphism of shell color and banding in the snail Cepea provided a useful test case for competing theories of polymorphism (Cain and Shepard, 1954; Lamotte, 1959). Furthermore, polymorphic systems may help to assess the differential response within and between closely related species to environmental conditions, a major unsolved problem of descriptive population genetics (Lewontin, 1967). North American cricket frogs, genus Acris (Hylidae), comprising two sibling species, are suited for such population studies. They vary geographically in vertebral-stripe color polymorphism (Pyburn, 1956, 1961a,b) and protein polymorphisms (Dessauer and Nevo, 1969; Salthe and Nevo, 1969) as well as in size

The origins of the process of proletarianization and urbanization of arab peasants in palestine

Abstract: In this paper we analyze three aspects of proletarianization of Arab villagers during the mandate period in Palestine, 1919-1948: the causes leading to the proletarianization of peasants, the status of the new proletariat as defined by the power structure and labor market, and factors determining the level of urbanization of a peasantry become proletariat. Essentially, the process of proletarianization of Arab peasants in Palestine has its origins during the period we discuss. Although space does not allow us to make comparisons with other areas of the world, or go beyond the period mentioned, we believe our analysis throws light not only on the origins of peasant proletarianization-migratory labor-urbanization process in general but, as well, on the continuation, at present, of many of these processes in Israel (for Arabs) and elsewhere. Although, during the 19th century, wages for agricultural workers (for harvesting, threshing, haulage, and so on) in the Arab village were mainly in kind, money wages and payments were not unknown. For example, Arab villagers, often in the hundreds, were hired as wage workers in the first Jewish settlements in Palestine during the last decades of the 19th century. However, the overall economy and social structure of Palestine was agrarian. In 1919 the estimated population was 673000; of the 606000 Arabs, 521000 were Moslems, 78000 were Christians, and others were 7000; Jews were 67000. More than three-€ourths of the majority Moslem population was rural and to be found in some 1,000 villages. Jews and Christians were predominantly town dwellers. Large numbers of Arab agriculturists lived in towns that were essentially market, commercial, and administrative centers. In 1922, only Jerusalem had more than 50000 inhabitants; the second largest town, Jaffa, had 32000.2*’4*27 It was with the first years of the 1920s, at the beginning of the British mandate, and at the beginning of relatively large-scale Jewish immigration to Palestine, that a tendency, which was to become definite, for Arab peasants to work for wages outside the village, began. This process continued through alternating periods of sharp increase and decline up to the end of the mandate, in 1948.

A Cross-Cultural Comparison of the Structure of Vocational Interests

Abstract: Cole and Hanson (1971) and Edwards and Whitney (1972) analyzed responses of American Ss to several interest inventories. They found the occupational fields to have the following circular configuration in terms of Holland's (1966) classification of occupations: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprise, and Conventional. Two interest inventories were constructed on the basis of Roe's (1956) classification of occupations and were administered to 170 Arab samples and to three samples of Jewish Ss with n's of 231, 220, and 296. The structure of the occupational fields emerged from a smallest-space analysis. It was found that vocational interests have a similar circular configuration in Western and non-Western cultures.

On the strategy of social planning

Abstract: Social planning deals centrally with human values—values which are important even though they do not appear as explicit factors in the classical problems of social welfare. The philosophical question as to whether facts can provide a logical basis for values need not be considered by the planner. He focuses, rather, on the specific interplay of values and facts in the concrete context of his concern. In the analysis of this interplay we can distinguish a number ofprinciples, criteria for the specification of social ends; for instance, the maximin principle, that improvements in a value distribution consisting in cutting off the bottom of the distribution have priority over raising the top. Social ends, in turn, are analysable intoideals, goals, andobjectives—directions, regions and points, respectively, in the value space. Cutting across these are the desiredqualities of the experience of pursuing those ends, qualities allowing for the assessment of planned alternatives by configurational judgment, rather than by a presumed summation of component values.

The nature and change of peasant economies1

Abstract: Summary THE NATURE AND CHANGE OF PEASANT ECONOMIES Part I presents a general type of peasant economy. It discusses the major specific aspects of this: the family farm production-consumption unit, the village as an economic organization, the market and money in the peasant economy, the political economy of peasant societies. It ends with a conceptual differentiation of the scholars sharing the assumption of a specific peasant economy but divided over the hierarchy of the interlinked qualities so defined. Part II is devoted to the diversity of peasant economies, while focusing on the typical patterns of their change included under the umbrella term of modernization. It reviews in these terms the aspects of the peasant economy delineated in Part I. In addition it presents the issue of the processes responsible for the ‘spontaneous’ disintegration of the peasant economy under the impact of urban centred and market-directed national economies, while recalling those opposing processes which, often simultaneously, restructure and re-establish specifically peasant social characteristics. Part III turns to agrarian policies and the impacts of state intervention on peasant economies. It deals with the aims of such interventions, with land reform, and with the major programmes of reconstruction and transition of peasant economies today: ‘betting on the strong’, collectivization, and the transformation of the peasant into a ‘modem’ farmer. Resume NATURE BT EVOLUTION DES ECONOMIES PAYSANNES Cet article est une prtsentation des principaux caracteres des economies paysannes: l'exploitation familiale, unite de production et de consommation, le village, infrastructure economique, le marche et la monnaie, la politique economique dans les societes paysannes. Cette analyse se termine par une classification, en fonction de leur systeme d'interpretation, des specialistes, qui, soutenant l'idee d'une economie paysanne specifique, sont divises sur la hierarchisation des interrelations evoquees. La seconde partie est consacree a la diversite des economies paysannes et insiste plus particulierement sur les modtles d'evolution caracteristiques, inclus sous le terme general de «modernisation», en integrant les differents aspects, analyses prcedemment, de l'economie paysanne. Enfin, l'article presente l'aboutissement de processus responsables de la desintegration «spontanee» de l'economie paysanne sous l'impaa d'economies nationales orientees vers l'urbanisation et l'economie de marche, tout en rappelant l'existence de tendances opposees-et parfois simultanees-qui restructurent et reinstaurent des caracteristiques sociales paysannes specifiques. Une troisieme partie aborde le probleme des politiques agraires et de l'impact des interventions de 1'Etat sur les economies paysannes: buts de ces interventions, reformes agraires, principaux programmes de restructuration et de transition (aide preferentielle a l'elite agricole, collectivisation, transformation du paysan en «fermier moderne»).

Test of Selection and Neutrality in Natural Populations

Abstract: MORE than a century after the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species, the question of the relative contribution of selected and nonselected (“neutral”) genetic variation to evolution is still unresolved1,2.

The D 48 As a Measure of General Ability among Adolescents in Israel

Abstract: The D 48 was administered to four samples of adolescents in Israel: one sample of 557 boys from grades 7 to 11 and three samples of seventh-grade pupils with n's of 127, 950, and 161. The results showed a progressive increase of D 48 means from grades 7 to 11 and concurrent validities of .46 to .59 against different criteria of seventh-grade scholastic achievements. Highly similar validity coefficients were found in other countries. Cross-culturally equivalent data were also found for the correlation of the D 48 with the Progressive Matrices and for the order of difficulty of the D 48 items. The results support the suitability of the D 48 as a cross-cultural measure of general ability in terms of these circumscribed aspects and suggest the promising potential of tests similarly based on a cross-culturally common background of perceptual experience.

Cognitive Styles Among Adolescents in Israel

Abstract: La validite interne (construct validity) des mesures de style cognitif, c'est-a-dire le test de la baguette et du cadre (RFT) et le test des formes enfoncees (EFT) a ete examinee sur un echantillon de 557 adolescents israeliens entre la septieme et la onzieme annee scolaire. L'etude des correlations entre les resultats aux deux mesures de style cognitif et a des tests d'aptitude et questionnaires de personnalite mettent en doute l'equivalence empirique du RFT et du EFT, et la plausibilite de l'interpretation avancee par Witkin et al, (1962) concernant la source de la variance commune a ces deux mesures de la dependance du champ et a certains tests d'aptitude. L'auteur conclut que les resultats obtenus aux RFT et EFT ne doivent pas necessairement ětre interpretes en recourant aux concepts de dependance du champ et de differenciation psychologique-donc refletant une dimension de personnalite sous-jacente-mais peuvent parfaitement s'expliquer en termes d'aptitudes ou capacites requises par ces deux ...

Serial learning and filled and unfilled delay intervals: Effects of informative feedback contingencies

Abstract: The effects of filled and unfilled delay intervals both preceding and following informative feedback was studied in a serial learning experiment. Unfilled dalay as well as filled and unfilled postfeedback delay intervals were found to facilitate learning in comparison to immediate informative feedback. The effect of filled delay did not differ significantly from that of immediate informative feedback. The results are interpreted in terms of a short-term/long-term storage mechanism.