*2.1. Peptide Design and Synthesis*

The experimental HPTXaaZbb peptides were designed based on Gellman's YKL peptide [11,25,26] and hairpin peptides in our previous studies [3,22,23] (Figure 1a). The Tyr2 (in peptide YKL) was replaced with Thr [22] because the aromatic side-chain of Tyr may interact diagonally with the residue at position 9 due to the right-handed twist [11,27,28]. An acetyl group and a carboxamide group was incorporated at the N- and C-termini, respectively, to remove the terminal charges, preventing unintended electrostatic interactions [17]. Non-hydrogen-bonded sites at positions 4 and 9 were chosen as guest sites [3,22,23], which were near the center of the strands to avoid end fraying near the termini and excessive folding near the turn [20,21]. Our previous study placed the negatively charged carboxylatecontaining residues at position 4 and the positively charged ammonium- (or guanidinium-) containing residues at position 9 [22,23]. To investigate the effect of charged amino acid sidechain length upon swapping the position of the charged residues in the lateral cross strand ion-pairing interaction, the positively charged ammonium-containing residues (Xaa = Lys, Orn, Dab, Dap) and negatively charged carboxylate-containing residues (Zbb = Aad, Glu, Asp) were incorporated at positions 4 and 9, respectively, to give the experimental HPTXaaZbb peptides (Figure 1b). The peptides were named with an "HPT" prefix, representing hairpin peptide with Thr at position 2, followed by the positively charged Xaa residue at position 4 and the negatively charged Zbb residue at position 9.

**Figure 1.** Design of peptides to study the effect of charged amino acid side-chain length upon swapping the charged amino acid positions in lateral ion-pairing interactions. (**a**) The chemical structure of the experimental HPTXaaZbb peptides; (**b**) The sequences of the experimental HPTXaaZbb peptides, the unfolded reference HPTUXaaZbb peptides, and the folded reference HPTFXaaZbb peptides.

β The fully folded reference peptides and the fully unfolded reference peptides were necessary to determine the fraction folded population of the experimental HPTXaaZbb peptides [26]. For the fully folded reference peptides, cysteine residues were added to both termini of the experimental HPTXaaZbb peptides to form intramolecular disulfide bonds to give macrocyclic peptides to serve as the fully folded reference peptides HPT-FXaaZbb [3,11,22,23,25,26]. For the fully unfolded reference peptides, the DPro6 in the experimental HPTXaaZbb peptides was replaced with Pro to give the fully unfolded reference peptides HPTUXaaZbb [3,11,22,23,25,26], because Pro does not favor β-hairpin structures [11,26].

μ − The peptides were synthesized by solid-phase peptide synthesis using Fmoc-based chemistry [29,30]. The disulfide bond in the folded reference HPTFXaaZbb peptides was formed via charcoal mediated air oxidation [31]. All peptides were purified by reversephase high-performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) to higher than 95% purity and confirmed by matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF). Since the nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectra (chemical shift and line width) of analogous hairpin peptides did not change with concentration (20 µM to 10 mM) [3,11,12,32], the peptides in this study (2.0–15.4 mM) should not aggregate in solution. Accordingly, the experimental data should reflect the intramolecular interactions with minimal interference from intermolecular interactions.


*Article* **High Resolution Estimation of Ocean Dissolved Inorganic Carbon, Total Alkalinity and pH Based on Deep Learning**

**Charles Galdies 1,\* and Roberta Guerra 2,3**

**Abstract:** This study combines measurements of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC), total alkalinity (TA), pH, earth observation (EO), and ocean model products with deep learning to provide a good step forward in detecting changes in the ocean carbonate system parameters at a high spatial and temporal resolution in the North Atlantic region (Long. −61.00◦ to −50.04◦ W; Lat. 24.99◦ to 34.96◦ N). The in situ reference dataset that was used for this study provided discrete underway measurements of DIC, TA, and pH collected by M/V Equinox in the North Atlantic Ocean. A unique list of co-temporal and co-located global daily environmental drivers derived from independent sources (using satellite remote sensing, model reanalyses, empirical algorithms, and depth soundings) were collected for this study at the highest possible spatial resolution (0.04◦ × 0.04◦). The resulting ANN-estimated DIC, TA, and pH obtained by deep learning shows a high correspondence when verified against observations. This study demonstrates how a select number of geophysical information derived from EO and model reanalysis data can be used to estimate and understand the spatiotemporal variability of the oceanic carbonate system at a high spatiotemporal resolution. Further methodological improvements are being suggested.

**Keywords:** ocean acidification; ocean carbonate system; dissolved inorganic carbon; total alkalinity; pH; North Atlantic; spatiotemporal variability; earth observation; deep learning


Chapter 7 shows that artisans from different cultural milieus converged on AoE cities, either because of forcible political action (for example, they were forced to construct capital cities such as Nimrud or Nineveh) or because of the new economic or social opportunities offered by cities. Artisans could move from one cultural milieu to another more easily under the AoE, thus becoming a primary factor in the diffusion of shared material cultural styles across much of Eurasia. Although the phenomenon of intercultural style borrowing was not new to the AoE, it became more pervasive during these later periods, affecting not only the monumental and luxury arts but also common and non-elite material culture expressions. Artisans brought the styles of their homelands with them, creating the conditions for the emergence of hybridized styles that blended Mediterranean, Levantine, Mesopotamian and Central Asian features. In many cases, texts provide evidence of such a movement of artisans across regions. Style hybridization peaked in the Hellenistic period, and this positive trend continued afterwards, as a consequence of Greek cities which were founded in the Near East, and where artisans mixed Greek and non-Greek stimuli. In particular, the wide diffusion of Greek-inspired artistic features in the AoE, as well as their persistence through time, for example in the art of Gandhara, showed how easy the movement of artisans had become and how multi-ethnic the AoE cities were. The new hybrid styles probably appealed to the diverse inhabitants of the multi-ethnic cities.

Chapter 8 showed that governments and governance transformed during the AoE, reflecting population change and also facilitating it. While, in the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian periods, forced migrations and movement of populations diversified regions ethnically, policies encouraged ethnic intermixing through marriages between people of different ethnic groups. Foreigners served as mercenaries and participated in the military and governing affairs of the state at higher levels. Policies that moved people across regions on a larger scale and intermixed populations accelerated the emergence of commonalities between different groups. In the Achaemenid period, rulers portrayed themselves differently from their pre-AoE peers. Rather than celebrating their own conquests, the Achaemenids displayed themselves as unifiers of the cultures found within their empire. Happiness and perfection for all people were depicted as goals that the Achaemenid rulers aspired to, and the unification of different nations under their rule was seen as a means of achieving these goals. All the while, their policies, including forced and voluntary migrations, allowed ethnic intermixing and population movement. Governments still favoured their own elites, but they began to use the diversity within their states as a strength by investing in infrastructure and economic programmes. Rulers represented themselves as inheritors of the ancient crowns of places such as Egypt and Babylonia. The participation of foreigners in the economy became evident, which gave new opportunities to groups to succeed and benefit from larger empires that facilitated commerce through easier movement. Regional autonomy was given to some areas, but obligations were thereby incurred. Subsequent empires retained aspects of the Achaemenid system of governing.

The policies of later AoE empires show that they were ethnically more diverse; they had various national gods and temples, and acceptance of that diversity probably encouraged even more movement. Seleucid and Ptolemaic policies allowed the continuity of local cultural practices and built on many Achaemenid policies, and allowed the movement and integration of diverse populations into cities to accelerate. Greek populations that had migrated to the Near East demonstrate this accelerated process, but others from throughout the Near East were now also coming to such cities as Antioch. This is true of later states such as the Roman Empire, which respected local traditions in the Near East, as well as of the Sasanian Empire, whose rulers presented themselves as kings of both Iranians and non-Iranians, reflecting an inclusive attitude. Rebellions were often brutally put down, but the benefits obtained by local populations, as documented in texts, show that government policies allowed diverse groups to become established and thrive economically in some places. The rise of universal faiths presented new tools for integrating diverse populations by unifying them under one state religion.

The development of a common language, as described in Chapter 9, is another reflection of policies or social development that helped integrate some of the cultures found in larger empires, or at least make it easier for them to communicate. As populations moved across new areas, different groups began to share common languages. Aramaic, initially, and later Greek spanned large areas, connecting many regions from Europe to Central Asia. The continuity of empires in the AoE and their spread to new areas brought common languages to new regions. Shared languages facilitated long-distance movement and social integration, and newly arrived communities would have found it easier to integrate socially and economically into the new cities and other places they migrated to. The greater use of common languages facilitated more and easier communication, the spread of ideas and commerce. Households could now participate in extended trade and social contacts that might stretch across the Old World. Syncretism between Greek and Near Eastern and Egyptian languages was also seen in languages such as Coptic and Syriac. As Aramaic and Greek became the first truly globalized languages, many people, not just a restricted few as during the pre-AoE, were able to speak and write these languages. Shared languages also allowed the distribution of knowledge and the creation of centres of international academic research, such as the Library of Alexandria in Egypt and the Academy of Gundishapur in Iran.

Chapter 10 showed that the gods themselves and common religious ideas emerged and began to move in the AoE. No longer was worship of a specific god restricted to a small area within the Near East; some gods and their temples could be found hundreds of kilometres or more from their key shrines. Gods had already developed into national entities by the Bronze Age. During the AoE, shared religious ideas and faiths, such as the worship of Mithras and Isis, were evident on the eve of the rise of Christianity. The concept of shared faiths between many cultures had developed, and it incorporated more cultures as more populations came into contact. Zoroastrianism, the religion of the Achaemenid Empire, may have been the first of which the doctrine was meant to appeal to everyone, regardless of their ethnic background. At the very least, the rise of universal religions after the Achaemenid Empire reflected a continuity of what had already begun in the emergence of common cultural traits. In philosophy, too, universal concepts such as *arché* and *kosmos*, which had emerged in the Achaemenid period, spread across different areas.

By the rise of Christianity in the first century CE, populations had been widely dispersed, often living together in urban centres, and different ethnic groups were accustomed to having one ruler over them. Universal religions, like polytheistic beliefs such as the worship of Mithras and Isis, had integrated a heterogeneous mixture of religious ideas. These ideas, which included resurrection, final judgement and purification from sins, not only spread but also were shared by multiple, often universal religions, despite variations and different interpretations. The sharing of the beliefs and religious practices of widespread populations became another major cultural transformation as populations migrated and integrated. Furthermore, empires both facilitated the spread and sharing of ideas and helped to generate the concept of shared identity as different cultural groups lived together. Universal religions became for states a strategy for integrating their diverse populations, although this strategy did not always work, as universal religions often had narrower outlooks and more specific interpretations than non-universal ones. Persecutions on religion grounds became more frequent in the Sasanian, Roman and Byzantine states, but the religious hierarchy was a social ladder that different ethnic groups could climb. Universal religions, through proselytization, created new opportunities and facilitated links, such as economic networks, that probably helped to unite diverse populations.

## 11.4 Universalism as theory

The chapters presented are intended to show how universalism, as a pervasive social phenomenon that affected artistic, governmental, religious, linguistic and other forms of cultural expression, not only established itself but also developed to the point where it could perpetuate larger states and empires. The concept of universalism is better understood as a theoretical application that can explain how societies transform from fractured socio-political settings to more socially and culturally integrated societies, and how population movement made this change possible. What has been shown is that population movement is evident from the diversity of cultural traits and expressions found in the AoE. Over time, common cultural traits emerged in the diverse populations of the Near East, where universal ideas and material culture became evident. Universalism is made possible by the increased presence of diverse populations living together in the Near East and surrounding regions. Multiple cultural expressions are found as populations begin to live together, but those populations also begin to display common traits that emerged from an amalgamation of cultures.

Globalization, as discussed in Chapter 1, is a related concept. It is seen as a form of worldwide integration and interdependence of societies and cultures (e.g., see Ritzer 2010). However, movement of people to cities and towns is only one dimension of globalization. The study of globalization has generally focused on increased trade and social contacts, in which mass communication and technology play a critical role. While in the modern world this has led to greater commonalities, which have led to a type of universalism, how this is happening now is different from how it happened in the past. Globalization's definition includes migration, but it is not necessary. There is integration of technology, economy, language and other cultural features, but they are products of other kinds of interaction as well as migration. Furthermore, while globalization is affecting cultures throughout the world today, many regions are not witnessing migration and intermixing of populations. For instance, the influence of Western technologies and cultures on parts of Sub-Saharan Africa is not accompanied by large migrations of Westerners to Africa. Mass media and technologies have fundamentally shifted how the world is influenced by dominant political and economic powers today (Sparks 2007).

The key driver of universalism is movement that facilitates the development of common social phenomena. Close proximity of cultures allows more sharing and communication of cultural ideas. If a government is to be developed that addresses its diverse population, it has to provide space for other cultures to be openly expressed, allowing varied cultural identity to thrive in multi-ethnic cities. Close trade links, a common language, a shared religion and similar artistic forms were often products of close physical proximity and did not come into being only through long-distance communication or trade. As people from very different backgrounds lived together, for long periods and for various reasons, new institutions and common social bonds were needed that accommodated this diversity. Shared cultural attributes also provided new social opportunities to take advantage of population changes. Pre-AoE states did not address or facilitate social diversity in their states, although multiple cultures were often found. Official propaganda and the way regions were governed did not greatly encourage intercultural amalgamation and expression, though intermixing is evident on a smaller, regional scale in, for example the Late Bronze Age. Institutions in the pre-AoE did not fundamentally change to allow individuals from multi-ethnic backgrounds to gain a stake in society, or facilitate their movement to different and more distant areas within states and empires on the same scale as in the AoE. In effect, institutions and social developments in the pre-AoE did not assist larger states to continue, as societies within those states remained culturally and socially distinct.

#### 11.4.1 Movement and social change

Revisiting the conceptual model presented in Chapter 1 (Figure 1.2) allows a summary of our universalism framework. Movement brought about changes in the physical characteristics of cities, such as the presence of temples to a variety of gods, but institutions also made qualitative changes that adapted them to the new social reality. Social structures and norms that were unique became less distinct and began to blend, although a diversity of ideas continued to be found. Over time, many of these ideas became amalgamated, as expressed through art and knowledge. Cultural changes provided new opportunities, for example in trade, and incentivized further movement and new socio-cultural systems. Cultural change such as that expressed in the governments of the AoE, which accommodated more diverse populations, attracted those outside the larger states to migrate to areas that were more diverse. In other words, institutions made changes in response to people who were living in the diverse areas, and those changes encouraged others to move to these areas, so that a positive feedback loop of more social diversity and migration was established. The development of common languages made movement easier and facilitated the social integration of populations, as communication between diverse populations became easier.

We agree that something akin to globalization probably occurred in the AoE. Globalization, at least in some of its aspects, can be contemporary with or even complementary to universalism; some of the evidence in Chapter 6 on trade, for instance, may reflect long-distance trade that was not associated with major population movement. Trade on its own can increase the influence of one culture on another, through observation and through the incorporation of artefacts. However, a globalization perspective alone is not sufficient to explain how social expressions in the AoE changed in response to the diversity of populations. Nor does it explain why large states persisted after the collapse of one empire. For our purposes, population movement includes forced migration, colonization, military service, migration for religious reasons and movement for economic opportunity. Many factors, not just economic interests, created the conditions for universalism.

Migrations that fundamentally changed social structures such as those identified have occurred in other periods, including modern ones. Some forms of migration, such as the labour migrations that occurred in Europe in the 1960s, had little effect on wider cultural institutions, although changes to the law reflect society's way of addressing or accommodating the foreign populations now present in a state (Portes 2010). However, as migrations have become more large-scale, cultural change has become more evident and government and social actions focus more on developing policies in relation to new arrivals and adjusting to their presence (R. King 1993). Population movement can change existing institutions as they accommodate and respond to the newly arrived population and the ensuing social mixture. Subsequent changes to institutions may not only accommodate or reflect the existing migrants and a diverse population, but also encourage more migration to regions, as established communities arise that attract others from their places of origin. This, in many ways, describes some of the migration occurring today into Western states. Large neighbourhoods of foreign populations form in major Western cities as communities attract others from similar cultures. Institutions, social patterns and policies can reinforce patterns of cultural change as they encourage others from their groups to migrate.

Similar change is evident in post-contact South America after the fifteenth century CE: indigenous culture was not simply conquered, it was retained; it integrated foreign elements, and influenced the cultural development and institutions of the incoming Spanish migrants (Wightman 1990). A form of syncretism in native behaviour and actions, including religion, language and art, followed. Although many policies were forced on native populations, subtle cultural change was evident without any initiation from the colonial states. This demonstrates how universal or shared cultural developments can arise without policies that intended such outcomes. In the Islamic conquest of the seventh century CE, a wave of Arab migrants came to cities in the Near East, and this did in fact lead to noticeable changes not only in religion but also in the blending of new ideas in architecture, literature and art. In Persia, Arab migrants influenced Iranian culture, but Iranian culture also changed and influenced Arab migrants, so that the Arab and non-Arab populations showed greater integration with each other. In subsequent generations, the styles of Arab and non-Arab groups became less distinguishable. In effect, the traits became more universal. Islamic institutions, although brought by Arabs, were transformed by a century of contact with non-Arabs who had converted (Lapidus 2014). Learning institutions taught what was already well established in the Sasanian period, but blended it with Islamic thought and philosophy, including matter absorbed from other philosophies. Baghdad became one of the most cosmopolitan cities of the Abbasid period; an influx of diverse cultures and influences through migration helped its House of Wisdom become an international intellectual centre (Lyons 2009), and led also to new religious ideas within Islam, such as Sufism (Karamustafa 2007). As Baghdad emerged as an important centre for knowledge and Sufism, more migrants and adherents were attracted to the city. Movement to the city became a feedback mechanism that facilitated social change, and that social change led to further ease of movement, which encouraged more migrations from greater distances. This added to the positive feedback cycle, and other social changes occurred as more diverse ideas and influences became blended into the growing centre.

Conceptually, this type of change and growth in ideas and social change, along with population growth in the largest cities, such as Babylon, Antioch and Ctesiphon, shows similarity to Bettencourt *et al*. power law and scaling relationships. As population scales to higher levels, change becomes evident in other social characteristics that reflect that population change. As cities grow, they can displace greater and more distant trade and interactions, and lead to innovation, where more knowledge is shared and transmitted; such changes reflect new population levels. Limits to growth occur in the form of the exhaustion of available resources, changes in political or environmental circumstances, or even technology limitations that constrain how a city can grow. Typically, such growth cycles have been associated with economic growth, but feedback growth affecting social and cultural institutions based on migration is possible. As shown above, political and religious reasons can initiate movement and attraction to regions or cities. Conceptually, not only does what was shown in Figure 3.2 – that variable urban growth can be affected by return of attractiveness and ability to move – begin to have urban-specific influences, but also wider, regional transformations result as populations adjust to change. In other words, entire settlement structures and patterns respond to and interact with growth regions and centres.

Changes to urban patterns can happen at different rates; the costs of and limits to growth imposed by social and environmental constraints may reduce the capacity of large cities to attract people. Return of attractiveness and movement may reflect the limitations of resources. The feedback effects that create exponential growth or decline, or slow change in population, are reflected in the SIEM model presented in Chapter 3, which gives a formal model that explains how city populations can change under variable circumstances. In the Neo-Assyrian period, settlement structure change suggests migration. In the Achaemenid and later periods, movement was probably easier, as is evidenced by the more diverse populations found in cities and regions even further apart. Easier movement, and concentration of wealth and people, made it easier, over time, for regions to be incorporated into larger empires, which may explain why it took far fewer battles to conquer vast territories in later periods than in earlier campaigns such as those of Assurnasirpal II in the ninth century BCE. States concentrated their key resources, including their finances, in fewer cities over larger areas in which they held greater political and economic power, as easier movement attracted power and wealth to them. Empires, obviously, always had enemies, and this created borders, which at times made movement more constrained than it might have been. Perhaps this circumstance prevented some of the largest cities from growing even larger. Travel over great distances and migration were limited by the technologies available, including transport to bring food and resources to cities easily. Although, as demonstrated in Chapter 6, it became easier to move objects throughout the Old World in the Roman period and later, limitations to population movement probably restrained population growth in primate cities.

## 11.5 Complex systems theory: why large states continued in the Near East

The evidence for the growth of cities, and the limitations to that growth, along with the social change that occurred, can be explained using concepts from complex systems theory (N. Johnson 2009; J. H. Holland 2014). This theory can be useful to explain how cultural and social institutions changed as settlement and urban structures transformed. Complexity is not separate from the process of universalism described earlier. Rather, universalism, a process that explains the emergence of commonalities and that feedback into emergent systems, can be seen as a case of complexity. Complex systems can be understood as being composed of multiple actors and sub-groups that interact and that affect change and emergent behaviour and systems in a non-linear manner. The change is not proportional to the input provided by any actor or group; even simple interactions among actors at micro-levels, as in the case of migration, can lead to complex social outcomes, in a similar manner to what Bedau (2008) calls 'weak emergence'. For some universal concepts, such as common language or religion, population migration may initially have some limited effects, such as minor linguistic change, including shared words. However, as changes occur at some social levels, the combination of multiple changes may begin to affect other levels of society. When levels of migration are high or significantly intense, major institutional changes, including those that relate to governments, languages and religions, can emerge whereby those institutions begin to develop fundamentally different ideas that reflect social diversity.

What complex systems theory can help explain is how, as people interact through closer proximity, changes in larger social structures become evident. Bottom-up influences through small, personal interactions lead to larger, institutional changes. Such changes can occur at different timescales, but population infusion from different social groups, if its level is sufficiently high, is likely to lead to more pronounced institutional changes that cause traits to be shared by different cultural groups. These complex systems are also adaptive and can learn; they are 'complex adaptive systems'. In these systems, influxes of new social groups can influence how subsequent social, institutional changes occur. We saw this in cases such as the Hellenistic evolution of the satrapy system, in which new elements were added, and adapted, to a new social setting even though the system was learned from the previous style of government. Systems that create large states adapt and change to meet evolving conditions, often building on previous experiences and events that shaped the wider Near East. Many of the later empires adopted earlier methods of governing, modifying them, but not radically, as they learned from previous events. When universal religions became established there were more substantial social changes, but even in this field the change was gradual, and the polytheistic identities of populations changed only slowly – over centuries – across the Near East.

The continuity of large states and empires was not easily reversed, as populations, social change caused by movement, and concentrations of wealth made the Near East amenable to heterogeneous populations and to government by a single entity over vast distances. The political effect of universalism in the Near East was to facilitate the perpetuation of large states after the collapse of one state or empire. Institutions created incentives for populations to intermix and even to depend on each other, as in trade and military affairs. With fewer but larger significant centres, a smaller number of cities needed to be overcome than in the pre-AoE to gain political control over wider territory. Large areas of the Near East, such as the Jazira and the Khabur Triangle, had low-density settlements, while other regions, such as the Levant, grew into socially linked, important trade destinations that led to greater co-dependence between surrounding settlements. This made it far easier for larger territories to be associated politically. Socio-cultural changes, which led cultures to live closely together and to share many traits, became part of the social fabric over many generations as populations adapted to and learned from each other. Above, it was shown that governments had begun to facilitate and even enhance the multi-ethnic makeup of their states. This is another adaptive trait that was probably an outcome of increased population intermixing and encouraged even more migration. Common languages provided ways in which people could benefit more in a diverse society than if they were living in isolated communities. The rise of universal faiths created social bonds that went beyond ethnic identities. The emergence and continuity of universal concepts (e.g. religions) and large imperial administrations shows that institutions had adapted to the diverse populations within cities and across large states. Perhaps more importantly, those populations themselves adapted to the idea of one large state in which changes in the dynasty or state that governed did not lead to a re-emergence of the fragmented states common in the pre-AoE. The concept of 'King of Kings', or a ruler over many nations, became politically more palatable. Worshipping one's gods, speaking one's language and interacting with others from the same cultural background did not have to mean living in one's original homeland. After common social traits had begun to be established, empires and states had developed strategies for governing multi-ethnic and diverse states, and long-distance economic interdependencies had become the norm, few, but very large, urban areas arose, and universalism became a pattern not easily reversed.

The pattern of long-lived empires and large states represents a relative steady state or equilibrium which established itself after major changes caused by population movement. A part of complexity theory is the concept of dynamic equilibrium (Ramsey 2003: 87), in which a steady state emerges even during disruptions and changes that may, periodically, alter the wider system of larger states. Empires and large states are generally maintained, as the social systems within are quite resilient. Changes can happen over long historical cycles, in which a steady state emerges after a long period, but they can also occur quickly. In Near East empires, disruptions would reflect change, but the system was resilient, and regularly bounced back to its steadier state of large states throughout the AoE.

The equilibrium of empires and large states that occurred in the Near East was dynamic: political and social changes often occurred; new ideas and population groups were further integrated, along with new political powers, but larger states as a political reality in the Near East remained. Goldstone and Haldon (2009: 26) have indicated this for the wider Near East, as empires became the political norm. The political, social and wider economic systems that were created became self-perpetuating to the degree that, over time, which power was in charge did not matter. Change in the political order was continual, but states of similar size or sometimes even larger managed to emerge. Disruptions proved to be short-lived, as social and economic links now stretched across much wider regions, which enabled states to incorporate much wider territory. The incentives and structures that helped create larger states, including the spread of populations, wealth and trade, became too well established to be easily reversed. Larger states became something that populations got accustomed to; they became accepted by everyone from the lower social classes to the higher political elites, and the social bonds between the governed and the governing reflect an adaptation to more diverse populations.

During the pre-AoE there was a dynamic equilibrium, but that equilibrium point, during many periods within the pre-AoE, was of small or city-state entities, with the notable exception of Egypt, which was often unified. Empires emerged in the pre-AoE, but they did not remain stable for long periods. Settlement structures did not change substantially over many periods within the pre-AoE, during which patterns of material culture, trade, governance, language and religion do not suggest the population intermixing evident in the AoE. Not only was the emergent system in the AoE resilient, but also continued population movement reinforced an established pattern, which made large states and imperial systems the norm even during inevitable political change.

## 12 The impact of universalism

Given the abundance of data covering the pre-Islamic Near East, there does not seem to be a need to continue the argument of universalism into the Islamic period to demonstrate the significance of long-lived, large states having become the norm in the Near East and Egypt. One can, however, use information from the rise of Islam to show the continuity of universalism. Even as the old, polytheistic religions disappeared, cultures found new ways to create common social bonds that also allowed large states to redevelop. On the other hand, the modern Middle East has become far more politically fragmented than during the AoE.1 To conclude this book, and to demonstrate its wider relevance, this chapter discusses the continuity of universalism, the long-term significance of this concept for understanding later periods, and how current events in the Middle East may reflect an entirely different process.

## 12.1 Later evidence of universalism

With the rise of the Islamic Empire and the Umayyad Dynasty in the seventh century CE, an even larger entity than before emerged in the Near East and beyond. The apogee of empires originating in the Near East was reached in the eighth century CE, when the Umayyad Caliphate stretched from Spain, and at one point Islamic armies reached central France, to India and Central Asia (Egger 2016). The cities of Samarra and Baghdad were among the largest anywhere during the Abbasid period, and may have been the largest until as late as the nineteenth century. Baghdad grew to 7000 hectares or more (Kennedy 2006: 156), possibly seven times the size of Babylon at that city's peak in the AoE. Samarra was another of the great political capitals of the Abbasids, to the north of Baghdad, and is now one of the biggest archaeological sites anywhere, with an area of around 7000 hectares (Lassner 2000: 175).

Although the breakup of the Abbasid Empire was well underway by the ninth century CE, large political units characterized the Near East and North Africa until the end of the eleventh century CE. In the tenth and eleventh centuries, the Fatimids formed an empire based on Egypt that extended into parts of North Africa and the Levant (Brett 2017). At the advent of the Crusader period in the twelfth century, the wider Near East, in particular Anatolia and the Levant, had fragmented into several small states (MacEvitt 2008: 3). This return to small, fragmented states was probably ushered in by the combination of successor competition between the Seljuks (i.e., the Sultanate of Rûm**)** and the influence of European Crusader conquests (Tyerman 2008). The Crusader states became political players in the region, adding a new dynamic that altered the previous political balance, and influenced competition among neighbouring states. In the late twelfth century, the rise of the Ayyubid Dynasty, based in Egypt, enabled a large state to re-emerge across areas that were fragmented. This empire, including its dependencies, stretched from Libya to Iraq at its peak. In the thirteenth century the Ayyubids were succeeded by the Mamluk Dynasty, which lasted until 1517 (Holt 1986).

With the arrival of the Mongols, and the subsequent Black Death, the population of the Near East probably declined sharply, and urban life was disrupted in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The population of Cairo, for example, was reduced, possibly by half, in this period (Lockard 2015: 292). Baghdad's population may not have recovered fully until the twentieth century, as the city was devastated by the Mongol invasion and then the Black Death. Nevertheless, the Ilkhanate formed a large state during the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, despite major disruptions. In fact, this period ushered in the Silk Road's last great period of relevance in international trade, which included the famous travels of Marco Polo (Barisitz 2017).

In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, large areas of the Near East were conquered by the Ottomans, and for the next four centuries the Near East was often characterized by competing Iranian and Ottoman dynasties (Selvik and Stenslie 2011: 8). In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Ottoman realm stretched from Morocco to Iran and from Vienna to Somalia. However, vassal states, such as Kurdish states in Mesopotamia and Iran (the Baban and Ardalan dynasties), arose that allowed the Ottomans and the Iranians to create buffer regions and govern their wide realms more easily (Eppel 2016: 35). Throughout this period, very large cities dominated in an era of large empires. Istanbul, for example, was the peak of the urban hierarchy in the Ottoman Empire; it was a primate city in a similar fashion to cities in earlier empires in the AoE such as Antioch or Babylon (Goffman 2002). From the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, it is very possible that Istanbul was one of the largest cities in Europe and the Mediterranean region, only Cairo being anywhere close to it in population in the surrounding Near East and North Africa (Behar 2003: 1). Laws and actions were put in place to limit migration to Istanbul, as the city had become too large for the authorities to control (Kasaba 2009: 61). Movement was too easy, which allowed Istanbul's population to spiral to a level that created difficulties in infrastructure and policing. In the nineteenth century, cities throughout the Levant, Anatolia, Syria and Iraq were closely interlinked through trade and transport, movement facilitating the intermixing of populations and the transport of trade goods (McMeekin 2010; Schayegh 2014: 36). Such links displayed social interconnectivity in the region similar to that in the AoE.

Although the Ottoman Empire's dominance began to fray in the eighteenth century, the Near East around 1800 was still composed primarily of two large states, the Ottoman Empire and Persia, the latter of which had a succession of dynasties (the Safavid, Afsharid, Zand and Qajar dynasties). There were small states and tribal entities in the regions of Arabia, and some regions also acted as buffer states between the Persians and the Ottomans. Although smaller states did emerge, and regions in parts of the Near East sometimes lacked state authority, the longevity of the Umayyad, Abbasid, Seljuk, Ayyubid and Ilkhanate Empires*,* various Iranian empires and the Ottoman Empire showed the potential for very large states to continually emerge and politically dominate regions within the Near East and beyond for centuries after the AoE (Figure 12.1). The large Islamic-period empires, at their peak, reached areas comparable to or greater than the largest AoE states, such as the Achaemenid Empire. Other dynasties, such as the Mamluk and Persian dynasties, also produced large states. As in the AoE, patterns of very large, or primate, cities, which dominated large areas that contained few comparably sized cities, were found in some of these periods. Movement and socio-political integration appear to have continued in many areas, and many cities were ethnically diverse. The Fatimids, for example, had an ethnically and religiously diverse army that contained Christians, Africans, Armenians, Kurds and others (Lev 1991). Baghdad, as discussed in the last chapter, was another example of a cosmopolitan city. Cities, primate cities and large states continued to be largely multiethnic through the nineteenth century, albeit with some disruptions to this pattern, as seen during the Crusader period. Between the seventh and nineteenth centuries CE, the pattern of small states was still often

**Figure 12.1** Approximate areas of Islamic empires (in millions of square kilometres) and the Achaemenid Empire for comparison. Periods 1–5 represent the Umayyad, Abbasid, Fatimid, Seljuk and Ottoman Empires respectively

an exception in parts of North Africa and the Near East, similarly to the situation in the AoE.

## 12.2 Impacts of universalism

One of the observations that motivated this volume was that so much in the Bronze and Early Iron Age worlds of the ancient Near East seems unfamiliar to us, while the AoE reflects the prevalence of more familiar concepts and institutions. The complexities of the polytheistic cults that developed, the wide range of languages found in the ancient Near East, including those with difficult-to-read-and-write non-alphabetic scripts, and even the material culture that seems so distinct in different regions, are all characteristics seen clearly in the pre-AoE. We argue that, in the AoE, movement is not just a phenomenon that occurred but is fundamental to an understanding of the rise of institutions, norms, social integration and material culture that have a clear influence still seen today. Common bonds emerged that allowed populations to be more socially integrated, through political, economic, religious and other institutions.

Globally significant developments from the AoE that still shape our modern world – banking, coinage, investments, global trade, common alphabetic languages, universal-style government based on ethnically diverse states, ancient science, universal faiths, and even ideals such as multiculturalism – emerged, spread, or became more common, or greatly evolved, during the AoE. A simple comparison of the Bronze Age world and our own world today would show that the more ancient pre-AoE world was far more alien. In the AoE, large cities, comparable to our global metropolises, became places for multiple cultures to interact and live in, in which it was often accepted that multiple places of worship and belief systems could coexist. Cities could grow far beyond the physical limitations of the surrounding hinterland which were evident in the Bronze Age; they could receive goods on such a scale that their populations could reach unprecedented sizes. The urbanism of the AoE, in many places, did not resemble the urbanism of the pre-AoE. The use of coinage spread during the AoE; kings and emperors, sometimes calling themselves 'King of Kings', inscribed their faces on this medium of exchange, which became common across and between empires. People became accustomed to writing and speaking in multiple languages, while common languages facilitated multi-region and multi-ethnic interactions. The first two widespread common languages, Aramaic and Greek, survive, in different forms, today. The existence of libraries, including that at Alexandria, shows that knowledge could spread globally, as information accrued could be widely distributed and also be collected in a single central place. Governments attempted to realize universal ideals in the way they governed, and began to integrate and incorporate their foreign populations under one sovereign. Official propaganda celebrated diversity rather than showing different cultures as enemies; government institutions showed the hybrid effect of including multiple cultures. The economic systems of long-distance international trade by land and sea, which we have come to expect today, were also evident in the AoE.  Religious ideals and beliefs came to be shared across multiple cultures, something distinctly different from the pre-AoE.

The simple action of moving from a homeland in which one had lived for a long time and whose population was familiar to live in more ethnically mixed areas had a profound influence on societies in the AoE, as it does on our own societies. In Western states today, migration has become a major and politically divisive issue, as elections in mainland Europe, the UK and the US in 2016–17 have shown. Large-scale migrations are again evident and have begun to transform cities, including the world's primate and economically powerful cities. The elections indicated may be reactions to an increasingly multi-ethnic world. The AoE serves as a long-term example which could be useful for assessing the effects of migration in transforming societies and cultures. How will longterm migration affect Western states? While this is not an easy question to answer, the lesson from the AoE is that greater hybridization or syncretism is a strong possibility. Today's mass communication technologies make socio-cultural influences both different from and easier than those in the past, which may mean that an accelerated pace of change does not require as much population movement as previously seen (Friedman 2007). Another lesson from the AoE experience is that, despite the social tensions that population movement inevitably brings, large and resilient political entities, including new economic institutions and the knowledge that emerges from them, are possible outcomes of ethnically diversified and interconnected populations. This lesson may be particularly relevant to today's European Union and United States, which are at a crossroads between more integration, on the one hand, and more social fragmentation, on the other, and where the borders of states are being reasserted as harder boundaries.

## 12.3 Could today's Middle East reflect the reversal of universalism?

A benefit of this book is that it offers insight into how larger political entities can form while leading to more socially integrated societies. Although the AoE offers case studies that can be compared across time and for different societies, the region of study, at least politically, has now seemingly reversed many of the trends witnessed for the AoE.

As we look at the Middle East today, it is hard to imagine that this region once showed far stronger political cohesion. With the rise of the post-Ottoman states in the Middle East, connections between cities that were interconnected socially and economically as recently as the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Özyüksel 2014) began to weaken. The new political realities of the twentieth century meant that smaller regions exercised greater political power. The 17 countries and authorities that make up the modern Middle East and Egypt represent the diversity of powers that have arisen, based often on Western concepts of national and political boundaries in the post-World War I era.

There are remnants of a world that was once more socially integrated. These include the widespread use of Arabic and the practice of the shared faith of Islam across much of North Africa and the Middle East. It is true that political boundaries often did not coincide with religious and linguistic boundaries in the AoE and more recent empires, but there were fewer barriers, as large states were common. In the late nineteenth century, nationalism, which affected populations' attitudes towards the Ottoman authorities, became prominent in the Middle East, fuelled in part by greater contact with European nationalism and the events that resulted in the emergence of some nation-states there (Anderson 2016: 262). Western expansion had also begun: the British Empire controlled Egypt and parts of the Persian Gulf region (Black 2015). At the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the creation of the modern Middle East and its boundaries began a period of internal strife in many Middle Eastern states. New forms of competition emerged, as new actors gained political power, after the demarcation of new borders by the victorious French and British after World War I. After states gained their full independence, political fragmentation became entrenched as monarchies, and later republics and dictatorships, competed for regional influence, and new power bases emerged in cities and capitals across the region (Lewis 1994).

The extension of an increasingly politically fractured Middle East that arose in the twentieth century has not only continued but also accelerated in the twenty-first. Localism within states is now the norm, particularly after the 'Arab Spring' of the early 2010s, this time manifested through ethnicity, religious sects and sub-state actors. The civil war in Syria has produced numerous political actors; analysts have identified five major groupings: the government, 'mainstream' rebels, extremist rebels, so-called Islamic State and Kurdish groups. One can divide such groups even further, particularly the rebel groups. Iraq has increasingly been seen as three separate regions composed of mainly Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish populations, and even within these regions significant political divisions are found. Even relatively small Lebanon has extremist groups, Hezbollah and the Lebanese government competing for influence. Instability, such as that seen in Egypt, and war within Yemen underscore the likelihood that power rivalries among larger states and militant actors within states will persist for some time and become widespread in the region. Within different political groups, radical and less radical elements compete, further clouding the picture. The presence of Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL/IS/

Da'esh) and other militant groups is perhaps an indication of how some modern states, such as Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, have simply failed to control large parts of their countries politically. What is clear is that the Middle East today looks nothing like a politically integrated expanse, as ethnic groups and sub-state actors attempt to carve out their own regions of power, and political fragmentation has become more pronounced (Hazbun 2015). One may conclude that the region has become politically more similar to how it was in the pre-AoE period, when small, diverse states were found. Figure 12.2 compares a political map of Iraq, Syria and Lebanon in 2015 with one of the same area in the ninth century BCE, when political fragmentation was widespread, and shortly before the rise of universal states that persisted, arguably, into the Ottoman period. While the level of political fragmentation today is not as pronounced as in the ninth century BCE, we see that trends may be heading in that direction. If universalism characterized a period in the Near East that displayed more socially and politically integrated societies and cultural practices, are we seeing the reversal of this today?

The issue of 'reverse universalism' or the socio-political fragmentation of the modern Middle East is a large and complex topic. It should be discussed elsewhere in detail, but the long-term trend towards a modern Middle East broken into more independent and distinct entities is in stark contrast to the AoE periods. What are the processes that led to this trend and why are they happening? Clearly, foreign influences, whether the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, or the actions of the great powers after World War I in determining many of the modern state borders in the Middle East, have had some effect, which has been extensively covered elsewhere (see, e.g., Lowe and Dockrill 2002: 357). More time is probably needed to show whether long-term political fragmentation in the Middle East will transform social and cultural trends and institutions, which will, once again, alter the region's social and institutional fabric. The AoE stands as a drastically different case from the area as it is today. Perhaps, as a first step, monitoring how people move within the modern Middle East and how the region's urban centres and settlements are transformed, in size hierarchy and in social characteristics, could be key to understanding long-term, future socio-cultural change, as it was for the AoE.

### Note

<sup>1.</sup> For our purposes, the terms 'Near East' and 'Middle East' cover the same geographic area; however, we use 'Middle East' in relation to more recent periods, in particular those leading up to and after the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

**Figure 12.2** Map of Iraq, Syria and Lebanon in 2015 (top; after BlueHypercane761 2015) and the same region in 883 BCE with Assyria indicated (bottom; see Baudains *et al*. 2015: 6). The different colours indicate various competing political actors and entities in those periods

## Appendix

**Table A.1 Bootstrapping sampling method using well-fit least-squares Scenario 1 parameters for Southern Mesopotamia (SM) where the sampling probabilities are 0.05, 0.15, 0.25 and 0.5 for sites having a probability of not being simulated in a given run. Scenario 1's results (ratio is 0.0) are also included. Results reflect r2 averages for 500 runs. Cases include Early Dynastic (ED), Old Babylonian (OB), Kassite (KAS), Neo-Babylonian/ Achaemenid (NEO), Seleucid/Parthian (SEL) and Sasanian (SAS) settlements from Southern Mesopotamia**

**Table A.2 Bootstrapping sampling method using well-fit Spearman's rho (**ρ**) and least-squares Scenario 2 parameters for SM where the sampling ratios are 0.05, 0.15, 0.25 and 0.5. Scenario 2's results (ratio is 0.0) are also included. Results reflect averages for 500 runs for r2**

**Table A.3 Bootstrapping sampling method using well-fit least-squares Scenario 1 (Figure 4.11) parameters for the Khabur Triangle (KT) where the sampling probabilities are 0.05, 0.15, 0.25 and 0.5 for sites not being simulated in a given run. Scenario 1's results (ratio is 0.0) are also included. Results reflect averages for 500 runs. Cases include the Early Bronze Age (EBA), the Middle Bronze Age (MBA) and the Iron Age (IA)**

**Table A.4 Bootstrapping sampling method using well-fit Spearman's rho (**ρ**) and least-squares Scenario 2 (Figure 4.12) parameters for the KT where the sampling ratios are 0.05, 0.15, 0.25 and 0.5. Scenario 2's results (ratio is 0.0) are also included. Results reflect averages for 500 runs**

**Table A.5 Bootstrapping sampling results using well-fit least-squares Scenario 1 parameters for the Susiana Plain where the sampling probability is 0.05, 0.15, 0.25 and 0.5 for sites having a probability of not being simulated in a given run. Scenario 1's results (ratio is 0.0) are included. Results reflect averages for 500 runs. Cases include the Sukkalmah (SUK), Middle Elamite (MEL), Seleucid-Parthian (SEL) and Sasanian (SAS) periods**

**Table A.6 Bootstrapping sampling results using well-fit Spearman's rho (**ρ**) and least-squares Scenario 2 parameters for the Susiana Plain where the sampling ratio is 0.05, 0.15, 0.25 and 0.5. Scenario 2's results (ratio is**

**Table A.7 Bootstrapping sampling results using well-fit least-squares Scenario 1 parameters for Central Anatolia (CA) where the sampling probability is 0.0, 0.05, 0.15, 0.25 and 0.5. Results reflect averages for 500 runs in the MBA, IA, Hellenistic/early Roman (HEL) and late Roman/Byzantine (BYZ) periods.**

**Table A.8 Bootstrapping results using well-fit Spearman's rho (**ρ**) and least-squares Scenario 2 parameters for CA using 0.0, 0.05, 0.15, 0.25 and 0.5 sampling ratios. Results reflect averages for 500 runs.**

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 Its geographical coverage spans, from east to west, modernday Libya and Egypt to Central Asia, and from north to south, Anatolia to southern Arabia, incorporating modern-day Oman and Yemen. Its temporal coverage spans from the late eighth century BCE to the seventh century CE during the rise of Islam and collapse of the Sasanian Empire.

The authors argue that the persistence of large states and empires starting in the eighth/ seventh centuries BCE, which continued for many centuries, led to new socio-political structures and institutions emerging in the Near East. The primary processes that enabled this emergence were large-scale and long-distance movements, or population migrations. These patterns of social developments are analysed under different aspects: settlement patterns, urban structure, material culture, trade, governance, language spread and religion, all pointing at population movement as the main catalyst for social change. This book's argument is framed within a larger theoretical framework termed as 'universalism', a theory that explains many of the social transformations that happened to societies in the Near East, starting from the Neo-Assyrian period and continuing for centuries. Among other infl uences, the effects of these transformations are today manifested in modern languages, concepts of government, universal religions and monetized and globalized economies.

Mark Altaweel is a Reader in Near Eastern Archaeology at the UCL Institute of Archaeology having held previous appointments and joint appointments at the University of Chicago, University of Alaska, and Argonne National Laboratory.

Andrea Squitieri studied Archaeology of the Ancient Near East at the University of Turin and at UCL (PhD 2015). He has been a post-doc researcher since 2015 working in the Peshdar Plain Project, based at the Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich, focusing on the study of the eastern border of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.

**Front cover image:**  Photograph by Mike Peel, CC-BY-SA-4.0  **Back cover image:**  Photograph by A.Davey, CC BY 2.0

> **Cover design:** www.ironicitalics.com

**REVOLUTIONIZING**

**REVOLUTIONIZING A WORLD**

Mark Altaweel and Andrea Squitieri

**A WORLD**

From Small States to

Pre-Islamic Near East

Mark Altaweel

Andrea Squitieri

Universalism in the


**7. References**

16 Will-be-set-by-IN-TECH

panoramic map would be invalid during actual motion, limiting the robot's perception while it is moving. Continuously tracking the position of environmental objects during motion and incorporating the known ego-motion of the robot could be employed to create a continuously

To make the low-level attention model more consistent, it would be preferable to replace the skin and motion feature maps with their multi-resolution versions. By adding more cues to the low-level model such as depth information and audio source localization, the panoramic map can be extended to aid in navigation and manipulation tasks, as well as identification of speaker roles to follow conversations or identify the source of a query. This would provide a multi-modal basis to the existing model. If an object-recognition module is also integrated into the mid-level layer, it would widen the scope to scenarios involving objects and human-object

The semantic information stored in the panoramic attention map can be exploited to produce better motion models. For example, it is expected that a face belonging to a person is more likely to be mobile compared to an inanimate object resting on a table. Consequently, the

Spatial relationships in the panoramic map can also be used to deduce information about entities in the system. In Figure 9, one of the faces appears in a lower vertical position than the others. Given that the bounding boxes for both faces are in the same order of magnitude, the robot can infer that one person could be a child or sitting down. If the robot was not able to detect an inanimate chair in the region of the lower face, it could further deduce the face

C. Breazeal & A. Edsinger & P. Fitzpatrick & B. Scassellati(2001). Active vision for sociable

L. Itti & C. Koch & E. Niebur(1998). A model of Saliency-based Visual Attention for Rapid

robots, In: *IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, A*, vol. 31, pp 443-453.

Scene Analysis, In: *IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence*, vol.

Fig. 9. Child faces appears lower in panorama.

**6.2 Future work**

interactions.

belongs to a child.

28, pp 1254-1259.

**7. References**

updated panoramic map even while the robot is moving.

dynamic motion models can be tuned to the entity type.

**12**

*1Bangladesh 2Japan*

**User, Gesture and Robot Behaviour**

Md. Hasanuzzaman1 and Haruki Ueno2

*2National Institute of Informatics (NII), Tokyo*

 **Adaptation for Human-Robot Interaction**

*1Department of Computer Science & Engineering, University of Dhaka,Dhaka*

Human-robot interaction has been an emerging research topic in recent year because robots are playing important roles in today's society, from factory automation to service applications to medical care and entertainment. The goal of human-robot interaction (HRI) research is to define a general human model that could lead to principles and algorithms allowing more natural and effective interaction between humans and robots. Ueno [Ueno, 2002] proposed a concept of Symbiotic Information Systems (SIS) as well as a symbiotic robotics system as one application of SIS, where humans and robots can communicate with each other in human friendly ways using speech and gesture. A Symbiotic Information System is an information system that includes human beings as an element, blends into human daily life, and is designed on the concept of symbiosis [Ueno, 2001]. Research on SIS covers a broad area, including intelligent human-machine interaction with gesture, gaze, speech, text command, etc. The objective of SIS is to allow non-expert users, who might not even be able to operate a computer keyboard, to control robots. It is therefore necessary that

There are several researches on human robot interaction in recent years especially focussing assistance to human. Severinson-Eklundh et. al. have developed a fetch-and-carry-robot (Cero) for motion-impaired users in the office environment [Severinson-Eklundh, 2003]. King et. al. [King, 1990] developed a 'Helpmate robot', which has already been deployed at numerous hospitals as a caregiver. Endres et. al. [Endres, 1998] developed a cleaning robot that has successfully been served in a supermarket during opening hours. Siegwart et. al. described the 'Robox' robot that worked as a tour guide during the Swiss national Exposition in 2002 [Siegwart, 2003]. Pineau et. al. described a mobile robot 'Pearl' that assists elderly people in daily living [Pineau, 2003]. Fong and Nourbakhsh [Fong, 2003] have summarized some applications of socially interactive robots. The use of intelligent robots encourages the view of the machine as a partner in communication rather than as a tool. In the near future, robots will interact closely with a group of humans in their everyday

Although there is no doubt that the fusion of gesture and speech allows more natural human-robot interaction, for single modality gesture recognition can be considered more reliable than speech recognition. Human voice varies from person to person, and the system

these robots be equipped with natural interfaces using speech and gesture.

environment in the field of entertainment, recreation, health-care, nursing, etc.

**1. Introduction**


*2.1. Study Site*

The study was conducted at the Welgevallen experimental farm in Stellenbosch (33◦56 38.5 S, 18◦52 06.8 E), situated in the Western Cape Province of South Africa (Figure 1). Stellenbosch has a Mediterranean climate characterised by dry summers and mild winters, with a mean annual temperature of 16.4 ◦C [38]. Stellenbosch receives low to moderate rainfall, mainly during the winter months (June, July, and August), with an annual average of 802 mm [38], making water scarcity a real threat to irrigated vineyards. Soil deposits in the region comprise rich potassium minerals that are favourable for vineyard growth [38]. The Welgevallen experimental farm comprises well-established grape cultivars, including Shiraz and Pinotage; Pinotage being a red cultivar unique to South Africa. Welgevallen is used by Stellenbosch University for research and training, and additionally produces high-quality grapes for commercial use.

**Figure 1.** Location of the Welgevallen Shiraz vineyard plot used in this study. Background image provided by National Geo-Spatial Information (NGI) (2012).

#### *2.2. Data Acquisition and Pre-Processing*

To confirm the water stress status of vines, in-field stem water potential (SWP) measurements were captured using a customised pressure chamber (Figure 2) as used by [39,40]. Based on the experiments by [39,41], vines with SWP values ranging from −1.0 MPa to −1.8 MPa were classified as water-stressed, whereas vines with SWP values ≥ −0.7 MPa were classified as non-stressed. Imaging spectrometer data was subsequently acquired for a water-stressed and non-stressed Shiraz vine. Images were captured between 10:00 and 12:00, on 24 February 2017, to ensure that the side of the vine canopy being captured was fully sunlit.

**Figure 2.** Customised pressure chamber used to measure Stem Water Potential.

Images were captured using the SIMERA HX MkII hyperspectral sensor (SIMERA Technology Group, Somerset West South Africa). The sensor is a line scanner that captures 340 spectral wavebands across the VIS and NIR, i.e., 450–1000 nm, with a sensor bandwidth ranging from 0.9 nm to 5 nm. The sensor was mounted on a tripod (Figure 3A) to facilitate the collection of terrestrial imagery from a side-on view of the vine canopy. The sensor-tripod assembly was placed at a constant distance of one metre from the vine canopy to ensure that the full canopy of a single vine (approximately 1.4 m W × 1 m H) was captured per image (Figure 3B).

**Figure 3.** The hyperspectral sensor tripod assembly (**A**); and in-field setup when collecting terrestrial imagery of the vine canopy (**B**).

Due to sensor sensitivity and a deteriorating silicon chip, not all the wavebands could be utilised. Spectral subsets were, therefore, created per image. The spectral subsets consisted of 176 wavebands with a spectral range of 473–708 nm. Thereafter, raw image DN's were converted to reflectance using the empirical line correction algorithm [42]. Empirical line correction uses known field (or reference) reflectance spectra and linear regression to equate digital number (DN) values to surface reflectance by estimating correction coefficients for each waveband [42]. Following [42], a white reference panel, positioned in the vine canopy prior to image capture, was used for image correction. Image pre-processing was performed in the Environment for Visualising Images (ENVI) version 5.3.1 software. Using a 2 × 2 pixel region of interest (ROI), a total of 60 leaf spectra were extracted from each image—30 samples per class (stressed and non-stressed)—and used as the input for classification.


**1. Introduction**

In 2001, South Korea recorded a total fertility rate of 1.30, becoming the lowest-low fertility society, with this social phenomenon persisting to this day—the total fertility rate was 0.98 in 2018, 0.92 in 2019, and is expected to drop to 0.86 by 2021 [1]. In response, the government implemented several policies to address these low fertility issues, such as the "Third Master Plan of Low Fertility Aged Society" and "Housing Special-Provision Policy". However, most of these policies focused on multi-child families with three or more children, while fertility support for households with less than three children has been excluded.

According to the 2015 Newlyweds Panel Analysis of Housing Conditions by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, 16.2% of newlyweds currently do not have children, with more than 74.9% of households delaying their fertility plans due to difficulties in their careers, the burden of parenting, and economic circumstances [2]. Moreover, the average number of children of newlyweds is 1.16. Although the birth of a first child after marriage is most common for newlyweds, considering that newlyweds (defined as within five years of marriage) are the population group having children, it is necessary to implement targeted residential environment and housing policies to increase the fertility rate of newlyweds [3].

Recently, the residential environment has experienced rapid changes due to alterations in the social environment. The residential patterns of housing type, housing expenses,

**Citation:** Jeon, S.; Lee, M.; Kim, S. Factors Influencing Fertility Intentions of Newlyweds in South Korea: Focus on Demographics, Socioeconomics, Housing Situation, Residential Satisfaction, and Housing Expectation. *Sustainability* **2021**, *13*, 1534. https://doi.org/10.3390/su 13031534

Academic Editor: Colin A. Jones

Received: 13 January 2021 Accepted: 27 January 2021 Published: 1 February 2021

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**Copyright:** © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

housing tenure type, and residential period have had a significant influence on marriage and fertility [4,5]. Moreover, socio-cultural problems such as insufficient childcare support, parenting expenses, and marriage delays have been suggested as the cause of lowest-low fertility. Among these causes, housing issues are a critical factor directly contributing to the low fertility problem in South Korea.

Previous studies analyzed social, economic, and residential behavioral impacts on the fertility intention of married women to prepare measures counteracting low birthrates. Chun examined the cause of low fertility and the current state of housing policies related to fertility support and emphasized a necessity of the compatible residential setting for work and childcare, housing provision to support childcare and housework, social interest, and a shifted perception in the direction of residential policy for revitalizing the fertility rate [5]. In addition, Chun proposed that residential policies are the basis for supporting childbirth by empirically identifying the effects of housing policies on fertility support and the influences of residential charges on the birth rate [5]. Jeong critically reviewed the contents and problems of counter plans against the low fertility and highlighted the importance of political promotion to create an advantageous setting for childbirth via the reduction of childcare responsibility, the expansion of public childcare services, and the initiation of parental leaves [6]. Seo suggested age, parental value, the burden of costs, and career responsibility as the principal factors influencing the fertility intention of married women, i.e., the number of planned children [7]. Moreover, Seo underlined the significance of selective approaches across the number of born children, in contrast to a comprehensive approach, in order to deal with the issue of low fertility, as the beneficial capacity and child value were found to vary when women with a child plan to have additional children [7]. Jeong noticed the need for policies to alleviate the burden of delivering and parenting a child and the necessity of plans to promote the family support system to aid parenting, as suggested by the fertility age for the first child, educational levels, health status, and marriage satisfaction as the major influencing factors for the second childbirth [8]. Kang highlighted the necessity to create an overall environment that can reduce education and child-rearing costs, rather than temporary support, on the basis of a survey revealing that factors for the intention of the subsequent fertility were age, academic background, income, family make-up, and the number and gender of children [9].

These studies have crucial implications not only from an academic perspective but also from a political perspective, for what kind of and how much housing will affect marriage or fertility. However, housing itself has an impact, i.e., via residential patterns, rather than influencing marriage and fertility. Park et al. analyzed the relationship between housing and fertility [10]. Describing housing stability and parenting affinity as positive influencing factors on the fertility intention, Park states that facilities related to childbirth and parenting should meet the aspect of life convenience and increase the overall birth rate because these factors directly impact the fertility rate. Lee highlighted that the impact of housing on marriage and fertility differs depending on house ownership, housing type, residential period, housing purchase cost, and housing size, and that, thereby, differentiated housing policies should be approached by the types of housing [11]. Mulder and Billari investigated the association between fertility rates and homeownership regimes in Western countries [12]. They analyzed four types of homeownership regimes in terms of the owner-occupied housing and mortgage accessibility, and argued that countries with homeownership regimes with a high share of owners and low access to mortgages have the lowest fertility rates [12]. Masanja et al. studied factors driving the decrease in fertility rates in urban and rural areas in Tanzania [13]. The authors suggested the need for appropriate government policies and programs to match social changes that affect the fertility rate, such as small family sizes, improving the level of children's education, and a change in the social status of women. Vignoli et al. investigated the relationship between the fertility rate and the economic situation [14]. They found that the psychological stability of residents in the current residential environment is an important factor in fertility intentions. In addition, they argued that social and economic policies should be supported to increase the fertility

rate because employment security and economic conditions are related to a sense of stability in the residential environment. Sági and Lentner studied Hungarian pro-birth policies and reported a policy gap in housing subsidies [15]. The authors evaluated family policy interventions such as housing support, tax allowances, and other child-raising benefits and concluded that an optimal mix of family policy incentives could maintain sustainable level of birth rate levels, but not necessarily increase them.

Previous studies exploring the factors influencing fertility intention and childbirth planning have focused on demographic factors such as wife's age, income, education level, and family composition [8,9]; socioeconomic factors such as income and childcare expenses [5–7,13]; and housing factors such as housing type, size of housing, housing satisfaction, and housing costs [4,10–12,14,15]. In addition, the studies explored parental leave, employment stability, childcare-friendly environment, social awareness trends, and economic activities of women [5,6,10,13]. Table 1 summarizes the outcomes of prior studies on fertility and its effects on demographics, socioeconomics, and housing. Most of these previous studies analyzed influencing factors on the fertility intention on the basis of ordinary families, although the main subjects of pregnancy planning and childbirth.

**Table 1.** Previous studies on fertility and the influences of demographics, socioeconomics, and housing.

To overcome the limitations of previous studies, we first based our study on the influences commonly emphasized in fertility theories and previous studies. Available variables were extracted; classified into the characteristics of demographic, economic, and residential environments; and used for analysis. Second, factors affecting the fertility intention and plans of newlyweds, the main subjects of counter plans against low fertility, not ordinary households, were considered on the basis of national survey data. Third, to deal with low fertility issues, it is more important to selectively approach the number of born children rather than to comprehensively approach the fertility intention. On the basis of these assumptions, we identified whether there are differentiated characteristics between the influences on the period of the initial childbirth planning and the affecting factors on the plans for the first and second child.

The remainder of this study is structured as follows. Section 2 presents the research method, the selected model for empirical analysis, selected variables and the data analysis, and a descriptive analysis of the variables. In Section 3, on the basis of the influences revealed in prior fertility theories and studies, we extract and analyze the characteristics of demographics, socioeconomics, housing situation, residential environment, and housing expectation as derived from the Newlyweds Panel Analysis of Housing Conditions dataset. In Section 4, the significance of this study and future research directions are highlighted.

#### **2. Materials and Methods**

Publicly available microdata from the 2015 Newlyweds Panel Analysis of Housing Conditions released by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (https://mdis. kostat.go.kr) was used in this study [1,2]. In total, data on 2702 first-married couples within 5 years of marriage were selected for the analysis, whose marriages were reported from 1 January 2010 to 31 December 2014. Factors, such as the characteristics of demographics, socioeconomics, housing situation, residential satisfaction, and housing expectation were extracted on the basis of influences revealed in prior fertility theories and studies [3–6,14].

The demographic characteristics were categorized by the age of the wife, the duration of the marriage, and the residential region (metropolitan/non-metropolitan). The Republic of Korea is divided into 5 districts as follows: Seoul area (Seoul Metropolitan City), Gyeongin area (Incheon, Gyeonggi-do, Gangwon-do), Chungcheong area (Daejeon, Sejong Special Self-Governing City, Chungcheongnam-do, Chungcheongbuk-do), Jeolla area (Gwangju, Jeollabuk-do, Jeollanam-do, Jeju-do), and Gyeongsang area (Daegu, Ulsan, Busan, Gyeongsangbuk-do, Gyeongsangnam-do). The metropolitan region includes Seoul city, Incheon city, and Gyeonggi province. The wife's age value was generated by converting the date of birth. Economic characteristics were defined as income, mortgage (monthly expenses), and dual-income status. Pre-tax gross annual salary statements were used for income, and mortgages were applied to the analysis on the basis of mortgage statement as an average monthly expense.

The residential attributes were defined as housing ownership, rental status, and apartments or non-apartments. Residential satisfaction consisted of the satisfaction of the housing setting and environment of residential area. The housing setting satisfaction was based on the house location, housing condition, and management cost. The satisfaction of the environment of residential area was surveyed on satisfaction with local safety, local markets, transportation, neighboring nature, and child-friendly environment. The value of residential environment was calculated by averaging the satisfaction of housing setting and environment of residential area. The newlyweds' expected years of house purchase was classified as follows: less than 1 year, 1 to 3 years, 3 to 5 years, 5 to 10 years, more than 10 years, impossible, and unknown. Further residential circumstances were applied for the analysis using statements of the anticipated period for housing purchase.

We set up model 1, model 2, and model 3 to analyze factors affecting the fertility intention of newlyweds. Model 1 analyzed whether newlyweds had the intention to plan their fertility in particular situations, regardless of whether they have a child. Via model 2, the factors influencing the fertility intention for the first child were identified, and model 3 was applied to analyze the factors influencing additional childbirth, on the basis of first-married couples with one child only.

We used a binomial logistic regression for our statistical analysis. Logistic regression analysis was developed to alleviate the challenge of calculation, which is a disadvantage of the Probit model, with logistic regression being a model of selected probability assuming that the probabilistic utility is an independent distribution with a Weibull distribution. The purpose and procedure of the analysis are similar to linear regression analysis but differ in that ostensible-typed variables are applied as dependent variables. Logistic regression analysis utilizes odds, a ratio between the probability of occurrence and the probability of non-occurrence. The corresponding formula is expressed as Odds = p/(1 − p). The

concept of odds cannot be used for the general regression analysis with values between 0 and 1.

The concept of odds has 2 problems: the first is that it does not have negative (-) values, and the second is that the relationship among probabilities reveals an asymmetry around 1. As a method to solve these problems, natural logs are assigned to the values of odds, which is called logit. On the condition of a given explanatory variable, if the S-shape of a logistic function with a maximum value of 1 and a minimum value of 0, which represents the probabilities that a particular choice occurs or not, is converted to logit, it appears linearly. The formula is expressed as follows:

$$\begin{array}{c} \text{Odds} = \frac{\text{P}}{\text{I} - \text{P}} = \exp\left[\alpha + \text{B}\_{1}\text{X}\_{1} + \text{B}\_{2}\text{X}\_{2} + \cdots + \text{B}\_{\text{P}}\text{X}\_{\text{P}}\right],\\ \ln\left(\frac{\text{P}}{\text{I} - \text{P}}\right) = \alpha + \text{B}\_{1}\text{X}\_{1} + \text{B}\_{2}\text{X}\_{2} + \cdots + \text{B}\_{\text{P}}\text{X}\_{\text{P}} \end{array}$$

The concept of the odds ratio is used in the interpretation of the logistic regression analysis. The odds ratio refers to a change as Xi increases by a unit, given that the explanatory variable is constant. The formula is expressed as follows:

$$\text{Odds Ratio} = \frac{\text{Exp}\left(\mathbf{a} + \mathbf{B}\_1 \mathbf{X}\_1 + \dots + \mathbf{B}\_l (\mathbf{X}\_l + 1) + \dots + \mathbf{B}\_{\mathsf{P}} \mathbf{X}\_{\mathsf{P}}\right)}{\text{Exp}\left(\mathbf{a} + \mathbf{B}\_1 \mathbf{X}\_1 + \dots + \mathbf{B}\_l \mathbf{X}\_l + \dots + \mathbf{B}\_{\mathsf{P}} \mathbf{X}\_{\mathsf{P}}\right)} = \text{Exp}(\mathbf{B}\_l).$$

If the odds ratio is less than 1, the explanatory variable Xi has a negative (-) impact on the dependent variables, and if the odds ratio is larger than 1, Xi has a positive (+) influence. All analyses were performed using IBM SPSS Statistics ver. 22.0 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA).