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Studies on cultural evolution from archaeology, neuroscience and cognitive semiotics have shown the role of tool making for development of novel cognitive capabilities in early humans. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that tool making was a cognitive threshold from nonhuman primates to hominins. Tool making begun with rudimentary skills for tool production based on motor patterns, learned soc

Malafouris (2013) proposes that agency is an emergent product of the relational ontology of our material engagement. However, I suggest a distinction between meaning and agency for a better understanding of our relational ontology with things. Meaning is the payoff of the relational ontology, meaning emerges when an agent act within the world. Agency is the capability to act, signify, produce and

The performance of HVAC equipment, including chillers, is continuing to be pushed to theoretical limits, which impacts the necessity for advanced control logic to operate them efficiently and robustly. At the same time, their architectures are becoming more complex; many systems have multiple compressors, expansion devices, evaporators, circuits, or other elements that challenge control design and

Background: A palliative cancer diagnosis in a parent has a major impact on many aspects of their children’s lives. Studies show that professionals in the oncological field do not seem to offer relatives, in general, much attention. Aim: to explore how doctors and social workers handle children of cancer patients in order to understand the possibilities and difficulties in supporting children in s

This chapter focuses on taxation in Africa since 1900. Using existing data and insights from the literature, the chapter documents taxes collected by colonial and post-colonial states, exploring what was taxed, the types of taxes, the tax revenue patterns and the socio-political contexts shaping taxation policies. It begins by discussing the fundamental principles of taxation and forms of direct a

A key policy question is whether continued expansion of university education is beneficial for the marginally eligible student. In this paper we exploit an arbitrary university eligibility rule combined with regression discontinuity design to estimate the causal effect of university attendance on healthcare utilization amongst young adults in Sweden. We find that the eligibility rule leads to a cl

Children born to occupying soldiers during or after conflicts are in many ways an extraordinarily vulnerable population. These so-called children born of war (CBOW) commonly inherit the stigma of transgression and foreignness from their respective parents and face discrimination in post-conflict societies. Their specific vulnerabilities, though, emerge from multiple overlapping factors: the needs

Background: Spirometry reference values differ by race/ethnicity, which is controversial. We evaluated the effect of race-specific references on prevalence of lung function impairment and its relation to breathlessness and mortality in the US population. Methods: Population-based analysis of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2007–2012. Race/ethnicity was analyzed as bla