Wage inequality and land and labor insecurity are critical barriers to sustainable palm oil production among those employed in Indonesia’s small-farm sector. Palm oil contract farming, a pre-harvest agreement between palm oil farmers and transnational processors and traders, facilitates smallholder participation in global agro-commodities markets, improves smallholder livelihoods, and promotes local economic development in rural communities. But negative externalities in contract farming can emerge depending on whether corporate guarantors of contract-farm assets manage farmer assets equitably. This study explores how contract (...) farming agreements between smallholder farmers of palm oil and futures traders of palm stocks impact the long-term economic development of smallholder palm oil farming in Indonesia. We examined the relative impact of transnational palm oil corporations on smallholder assets in the Indonesian palm oil industry using annual financial data (2003–2019) from Indonesian commodities trading firms. Temporal trends indicated that oligopolistic market conditions were strongly associated with a growing comparative advantage in palm oil, the asymmetric accumulation of land resources by transnational firms, and excessive firm revenues from palm farmer activities. Our regression modelling results suggested that the comparative advantage in Indonesian palm oil was driven by state-oriented policies such that benefit palm traders but disadvantage smallholder farmers. And, through non-metric multidimensional scaling, we demonstrated that smallholder farmers were inefficiently used by firms to produce palm oil, but that smallholder assets were a significant driver to firm revenue growth. Notwithstanding the adverse consequences on palm farmers, these results indicate a set of unique effects of palm oil contract farming on land and labor security in Southeast Asia. The paper reasons that a system of inequitable contract farming is operating in the Indonesian palm oil industry, whereby smallholder palm oil farmers are trapped by transnational firms into socio-economic farming schemes of low oil yield and non-market activity, thus providing palm firms with lucrative non-market revenue streams. Large transnational trading firms are thereby implicated in the long-run commodification of smallholder land for marginal fruit production while exploiting a farmer’s non-market advantages through the manipulation of farmer assets. (shrink)

Government’s responsibility to safeguard the public’s health through law has been part of the social contract since ancient times. Cicero declared salus populi suprema lex esto - “the safety of the people is the supreme law”. Disraeli proclaimed that protecting the public’s health is the first duty of the statesman. Of the ten most important public health achievements of the 20th century in the US., seven are directly related to legal interventions, including legislative interventions. As new and existing risks to (...) health risks emerge internationally, governments have consistently used the law as a tool to define the goals of public health, direct public health authorities to accomplish these goals, and equip them with the power and resources to do so.Tobacco control represents a salient example of how law can be used to ensure health. Like other public health laws, tobacco control laws have historic grounds. Government and other policymakers have enacted laws to control tobacco use for hundreds of years. The Russian church forbade tobacco use as an “abomination.”. (shrink)

Government’s responsibility to safeguard the public’s health through law has been part of the social contract since ancient times. Cicero declared salus populi suprema lex esto - “the safety of the people is the supreme law”. Disraeli proclaimed that protecting the public’s health is the first duty of the statesman. Of the ten most important public health achievements of the 20th century in the US., seven are directly related to legal interventions, including legislative interventions. As new and existing risks to (...) health risks emerge internationally, governments have consistently used the law as a tool to define the goals of public health, direct public health authorities to accomplish these goals, and equip them with the power and resources to do so.Tobacco control represents a salient example of how law can be used to ensure health. Like other public health laws, tobacco control laws have historic grounds. Government and other policymakers have enacted laws to control tobacco use for hundreds of years. The Russian church forbade tobacco use as an “abomination.”. (shrink)

Background COVID-19 has greatly impacted the health of incarcerated individuals in the US. The goal of this study was to examine perspectives of recently incarcerated individuals on greater restrictions on liberty to mitigate COVID-19 transmission.Methods We conducted semi-structured phone interviews from August through October 2021 with 21 people who had been incarcerated in Bureau of Prisons (BOP) facilities during the pandemic. Transcripts were coded and analyzed, using a thematic analysis approach.Results Many facilities implemented universal “lockdowns,” with time out of the (...) cell often limited to one hour per day, with participants reporting not being able to meet all essential needs such as showers and calling loved ones. Several study participants reported that repurposed spaces and tents created for quarantine and isolation provided “unlivable conditions.” Participants reported receiving no medical attention while in isolation, and staff using spaces designated for disciplinary purposes (e.g., solitary housing units) for public health isolation purposes. This resulted in the conflation of isolation and discipline, which discouraged symptom reporting. Some participants felt guilty over potentially causing another lockdown by not reporting their symptoms. Programming was frequently stopped or curtailed and communication with the outside was limited. Some participants relayed that staff threatened to punish noncompliance with masking and testing. Liberty restrictions were purportedly rationalized by staff with the idea that incarcerated people should not expect freedoms, while those incarcerated blamed staff for bringing COVID-19 into the facility.Conclusions Our results highlighted how actions by staff and administrators decreased the legitimacy of the facilities’ COVID-19 response and were sometimes counterproductive. Legitimacy is key in building trust and obtaining cooperation with otherwise unpleasant but necessary restrictive measures. To prepare for future outbreaks facilities must consider the impact of liberty-restricting decisions on residents and build legitimacy for these decisions by communicating justifications to the extent possible. (shrink)

We appreciate the opportunity to respond to Schneiderman and colleagues’ opinions on the recent Multiorganization Policy Statement, “An Official ATS/AACN/ACCP/ESICM/SCCM Policy Statement: Responding to Requests for Potentially Inappropriate Treatments in Intensive Care Units”. We will first point out three areas in which Schneiderman and colleagues seem to perceive a disagreement where there is none, then we will respond to their main criticisms of the Multiorganization Policy Statement. In doing so, we will point out areas in which we believe Schneiderman and (...) colleagues have either misunderstood or misrepresented the statement. First, we agree with Schneiderman and... (shrink)

In this paper we argue that autobiographical memory can be conceptualized as a mental state resulting from the interplay of a set of psychological capacities?self-reflection, self-agency, self-ownership and personal temporality?that transform a memorial representation into an autobiographical personal experience. We first review evidence from a variety of clinical domains?for example, amnesia, autism, frontal lobe pathology, schizophrenia?showing that breakdowns in any of the proposed components can produce impairments in autobiographical recollection, and conclude that the self-reflection, agency, ownership, and personal temporality are (...) individually necessary and jointly sufficient for autobiographical memorial experience. We then suggest a taxonomy of amnesic disorders derived from consideration of the consequences of breakdown in each of the individual component processes that contribute to the experience of autobiographical recollection. (shrink)

This study probes whether a prosopagnosic patient can make accurate explicit affective judgements towards faces. Patient MJH was shown photographs of faces of well-liked family members and public figures rated as “evil” by opinion polls. MJH was asked to rate each face on two 7-point scales (Likeability and Pleasantness). Since he is unable to explicitly recognise faces, his ratings were based on his evaluative reaction to the faces presented. In a second phase of the experiment, MJH was told the name (...) of the faces previously presented and asked to rate them using the same scales. MJH's Likeability ratings during the picture-viewing phase of the experiment and the explicit phase were highly correlated. Based on these findings, we propose that thought consists of an explicit declarative and an implicit emotional aspect, which may become dissociated in prosopagnosia. (shrink)

In this introduction we highlight Norbert Elias’s bold attempt to build a general model of the human sciences, integrating the social and natural sciences. We point to a range of different disciplines, emphasizing how he rarely developed a consistent critique of individual disciplines, though he often made some very fruitful suggestions about they should be reconceptualized in a relational and more integrative way. Based on our own research on survival units and the contributions to this special issue, we discuss the (...) innovative potential of his ambition for transdisciplinary research, while at the same time offering an overview of some of the limitations in his theoretical perspective. We reassess his attempt to integrate the natural and social sciences within one universal testable model, and, at the same time, we consider areas like religion and economics that were rarely systematically investigated in his own theoretical approach. (shrink)

Extending new verbs is important in becoming a productive speaker of a language. Prior results show children have difficulty extending verbs when they have seen events with varied agents. This study further examines the impact of variability on verb learning and asks whether variability interacts with event complexity or differs by language. Children in the United States, China, Korea, and Singapore learned verbs linked to simple and complex events. Sets of events included one or three agents, and children were asked (...) to extend the verb at test. Children learning verbs linked to simple movements performed similarly across conditions. However, children learning verbs linked to events with multiple objects were less successful if those events were enacted by multiple agents. A follow-up study rules out an influence of event order. Overall, similar patterns of results emerged across languages, suggesting common cognitive processes support children's verb learning. (shrink)

Bd. 1. A-B -- Bd. 2. C-F -- Bd. 3. G-Inn -- Bd. 4. Ins-Loc.

In recent years, cognitive neuroscientists have began to explore the process of how sensory information gains access to awareness. To further probe this process, event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging was used while testing subjects with a paradigm known as the “attentional blink.” In this paradigm, visually presented information sporadically fails to reach awareness. It was found that the magnitude and time course of activation within the anterior cingulate , medial prefrontal cortex , and frontopolar cortex predicted whether or not information (...) was consciously perceived during the critical period for the attentional blink. These results are discussed in light of a neural framework for conscious processing. (shrink)

A high percent of oxidative energy metabolism is needed to support brain growth during infancy. Unhealthy diets and limited nutrition, as well as other environmental insults, can compromise these essential developmental processes. In particular, iron deficiency anemia has been found to undermine both normal brain growth and neurobehavioral development. Even moderate ID may affect neural maturation because when iron is limited, it is prioritized first to red blood cells over the brain. A primate model was used to investigate the neural (...) effects of a transient ID and if deficits would persist after iron treatment. The large size and postnatal growth of the monkey brain makes the findings relevant to the metabolic and iron needs of human infants, and initiating treatment upon diagnosis of anemia reflects clinical practice. Specifically, this analysis determined whether brain maturation would still be compromised at 1 year of age if an anemic infant was treated promptly once diagnosed. The hematology and iron status of 41 infant rhesus monkeys was screened at 2-month intervals. Fifteen became ID; 12 met clinical criteria for anemia and were administered iron dextran and B vitamins for 1–2 months. MRI scans were acquired at 1 year. The volumetric and diffusion tensor imaging measures from the ID infants were compared with monkeys who remained continuously iron sufficient. A prior history of ID was associated with smaller total brain volumes, driven primarily by significantly less total gray matter and smaller GM volumes in several cortical regions. At the macrostructual level, the effect on white matter volumes was not as overt. However, DTI analyses of WM microstructure indicated two later-maturating anterior tracts were negatively affected. The findings reaffirm the importance of iron for normal brain development. Given that brain differences were still evident even after iron treatment and following recovery of iron-dependent hematological indices, the results highlight the importance of early detection and preemptive supplementation to limit the neural consequences of ID. (shrink)

ObjectiveHead and neck cancer treatments are known to significantly affect functionality and appearance, leading to an increased risk for body image disturbances. Yet, few longitudinal studies exist to examine body image in these patients. Based on a conceptual model, the current study aimed to determine, in patients newly diagnosed with HNC: the prevalence, level, and course of body image concerns; correlates of upon cancer diagnosis body image concerns; predictors of immediate post-treatment body image concerns; and association between body image concerns (...) and levels of anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, support, and alcohol and drug misuse.MethodsTwo hundred and twenty-three, newly diagnosed with a primary HNC were assessed using structured clinical interviews and psychometric measures at three, and 6 months after diagnosis. Primary outcome was 3-month, as it was most salient to body image disturbance. Multiple linear regression analyses were conducted on the potential body image predictors, based on the model.ResultsSixty-eight percent of patients with HNC presented some level of body image concerns. Body image concerns at baseline and post-treatment were significantly related and significantly increased from pre- to post-treatment. Immediately post-treatment, 89% presented some level of body image concerns. Correlates of body image concerns in patients with HNC at baseline included: physical symptom burden, difficulties with communication and eating, coping with the cancer diagnosis using denial, suicidal ideation, and having had a past anxiety diagnosis. When controlling for sociodemographic and medical variables, body image concerns in patients with HNC in the immediate post-treatment were predicted by: baseline body image, physical symptom burden, and neuroticism.ConclusionThis longitudinal study helps identify patients more susceptible to experience body image disturbance following head and neck cancer. Clinicians ought to pay special attention to body image concerns upon cancer diagnosis, physical symptom burden, and neuroticism, and may want to target these factors in future preventive interventions. (shrink)

There has recently been much debate about the idea of levying a tax on particular transactions on international financial markets. Economists have argued about how much revenue such an international financial transaction tax would raise and they disagree about what effects it would have on trade volumes, financial stability, and overall growth. Politicians have argued about the feasibility of introducing such a tax internationally and they disagree on its adequacy as a policy response to the current financial and economic crisis. (...) This article contributes to the debate about international financial transaction taxation by bringing the perspective of political philosophy to bear on the politicians’ and economists’ arguments about policy. I shall outline a framework for thinking about justice in finance, and defend the idea of an international financial transaction tax as an instrument for making the international financial system more just. (shrink)

We shall address from a conceptual perspective the duality between algebra and geometry in the framework of the refoundation of algebraic geometry associated to Grothendieck’s theory of schemes. To do so, we shall revisit scheme theory from the standpoint provided by the problem of recovering a mathematical structure A from its representations \ into other similar structures B. This vantage point will allow us to analyze the relationship between the algebra-geometry duality and the structure-semiotics duality. Whereas in classical algebraic geometry (...) a certain kind of rings can be recovered by considering their representations with respect to a unique codomain B, Grothendieck’s theory of schemes permits to reconstruct general rings by considering representations with respect to a category of codomains. The strategy to reconstruct the object from its representations remains the same in both frameworks: the elements of the ring A can be realized—by means of what we shall generally call Gelfand transform—as quantities on a topological space that parameterizes the relevant representations of A. As we shall argue, important dualities in different areas of mathematics can be understood as particular cases of this general pattern. In the wake of Majid’s analysis of the Pontryagin duality, we shall propose a Kantian-oriented interpretation of this pattern. We shall use this conceptual framework to argue that Grothendieck’s notion of functor of points can be understood as a “relativization of the a priori” that generalizes the relativization already conveyed by the notion of domain extension to more general variations of the corresponding domains. (shrink)

We analyze the geometric foundations of classical Yang-Mills theory by studying the relationships between internal relativity, locality, global/local invariance, and background independence. We argue that internal relativity and background independence are the two independent defining principles of Yang-Mills theory. We show that local gauge invariance -heuristically implemented by means of the gauge argument- is a direct consequence of internal relativity. Finally, we analyze the conceptual meaning of BRST symmetry in terms of the invariance of the gauge fixed theory under general (...) local gauge transformations. (shrink)

O percurso construído pelo pensamento de Albert Camus (1913-1960) perfaz uma unidade profunda entre Ética e Estética. Par- tindo de uma preocupação explicitamente ética, o autor acaba por ter de desenvolver uma antropologia filosófica, ou seja, um discurso sobre o homem que tem como núcleo um conceito que o reenvia àquilo que podemos chamar de dimensão estética para então, a partir daí, oferecer uma resposta àquele problema ético. Desse modo, pretendemos neste trabalho explicitar o caminho ao qual aludimos em três (...) momentos: (a) a existência humana como problema ético; (b) o discurso camusiano sobre o homem que tem como núcleo a noção de Passion e, por fim, (c) a elaboração de um novo éthos, partindo da noção de Paixão, como res- posta necessária ao problema existencial configurada como uma re-cri- ação ou correção permanente, à semelhança do ofício do Artista. (shrink)

According to the Categories, predicates can be ‘said of’ their subjects or they can be ‘present in’ their subjects. The said-of relation has received relatively little scholarly attention, and scholars disagree on the answers to four foundational questions about the relation. (i) What is it? (ii) Is it an essential relation? (iii) How is it related to predication? (iv) Is it primitive? I argue that A is said-of B just in case A is a formal part of B. On this (...) account, said-of is an essential relation and it is definable, but it is not defined in terms of predication. (shrink)

Bertrand Russell offered an influential paradox of propositions in Appendix B of The Principles of Mathematics, but there is little agreement as to what to conclude from it. We suggest that Russell's paradox is best regarded as a limitative result on propositional granularity. Some propositions are, on pain of contradiction, unable to discriminate between classes with different members: whatever they predicate of one, they predicate of the other. When accepted, this remarkable fact should cast some doubt upon some of the (...) uses to which modern descendente of Russell's paradox of propositions have been put in recent literature. (shrink)

Fix a weakly minimal (i.e. superstable U-rank 1) structure M. Let M∗ be an expansion by constants for an elementary substructure, and let A be an arbitrary subset of the universe M. We show that all formulas in the expansion (M∗,A) are equivalent to bounded formulas, and so (M,A) is stable (or NIP) if and only if the M-induced structure AM on A is stable (or NIP). We then restrict to the case that M is a pure abelian group with (...) a weakly minimal theory, and AM is mutually algebraic (equivalently, weakly minimal with trivial forking). This setting encompasses most of the recent research on stable expansions of (Z,+). Using various characterizations of mutual algebraicity, we give new examples of stable structures of the form (M,A). Most notably, we show that if (G,+) is a weakly minimal additive subgroup of the algebraic numbers, A⊆G is enumerated by a homogeneous linear recurrence relation with algebraic coefficients, and no repeated root of the characteristic polynomial of A is a root of unity, then (G,+,B) is superstable for any B⊆A. (shrink)

We give three counterexamples to the folklore claim that in an arbitrary theory, if a complete type p over a set B does not divide over $C\subseteq B$, then no extension of p to a complete type over $\operatorname {acl}(B)$ divides over C. Two of our examples are also the first known theories where all sets are extension bases for nonforking, but forking and dividing differ for complete types (answering a question of Adler). One example is an $\mathrm {NSOP}_1$ theory (...) with a complete type that forks, but does not divide, over a model (answering a question of d’Elbée). Moreover, dividing independence fails to imply M-independence in this example (which refutes another folklore claim). In addition to these counterexamples, we summarize various related properties of dividing that are still true. We also address consequences for previous literature, including an earlier unpublished result about forking and dividing in free amalgamation theories, and some claims about dividing in the theory of generic $K_{m,n}$ -free incidence structures. (shrink)

Our starting point is a somewhat obscure incident which has lately attracted some attention. The year is 429 B.C., and the place is Athens in the third year of the Peloponnesian war. The plague, which had broken out only a year before, was still claiming its victims. Yet military operations were in full swing, and the general Phormio operating in the Corinthian gulf against a Peloponnesian fleet was able to score an impressive victory. The Lacedaemonians were deeply dissatisfied. This was (...) the first sea-fight they had been engaged in, and they found it hard to believe that their fleet was so much inferior to that of the Athenians. They dispatched three advisers to Knemos, the admiral in charge, instructing them to make better preparations for another sea-fight. Additional ships were solicited from the allies, and those already at hand were prepared for battle. It is at this point that the incident in question occurred. Not to prejudge the issue, I quote the text in full leaving the controversial phrases untranslated: 4. And Phormio on his part sent messengers to Athens to give information of the enemy's preparations and to tell about the battle which they had won, urging them also to send to him speedily as many ships as possible, since there was always a prospect that a battle might be fought any day. 5. So they sent him twenty ships, but gave τ δ κυμξοντι special orders to sail first to Crete. Nικας γρ Kρς Γορτνιος πρξενος ν persuaded them to sail against Cydonia, a hostile town, promising to bring it over to the Athenians; but he was really asking them to intervene to gratify the people of Polichne, who are neighbours of the Cydonians. 6. So μν λαβν τς νας. went to Crete, and helped the Polichnitans to ravage the lands of the Cydonians, and by reason of winds and stress of weather wasted not a little time. (shrink)

El presente trabajo está dedicado a rastrear la influencia del pensamiento plotiniano sobre el revival de la lírica irlandesa bajo la pluma de su más célebre poeta: William Butler Yeats. Los escritos del Irlandés, en efecto, contienen alusiones directas al filósofo neoplatónico que constituyen la ‘punta del iceberg’, por así decirlo, de una impronta profunda y trascendente de la filosofía eneádica sobre la literatura yeatseana. Nuestro trabajo, por lo tanto, procura examinar el significado de este ascendiente e intenta poner de (...) manifiesto los caracteres propios de la relación personal, textual y conceptual que Yeats establece con Plotino en sus escritos. (shrink)

The results of tests carried out using next-generation genomic sequencing (NGS) possess a peculiar and perhaps unique ‘diagnostic durability’. Unlike most other forms of testing, if genomic results or data are stored over time, then it remains possible to interrogate that information indefinitely, without having to retest the patient. Another peculiar property of genomic results is that their interpretations are subject to change within relatively short time frames. For instance, a genomic variant that is of uncertain significance (VUS) at the (...) time of testing may shortly afterwards come to be understood as pathogenic (P) or benign (B). Moreover, variant classifications might be downgraded from likely pathogenic to VUS or B, or regraded from B to VUS. These two properties of genomic testing have important implications for the responsible implementation of genomic testing in healthcare. One of these is that they prompt the question whether diagnostic laboratories are morally required to routinely reinterpret their genomic variant classifications and reissue patient reports in the case of materially relevant changes. We take up this question in our paper, in which we argue against the existence of any general duty to reinterpret genomic variant classifications (as had been argued for by Appelbaum et al 1). Still, we maintain that a restricted duty to reinterpret ought to be recognised.2 We thank the authors of the commentaries on our paper for their attention to our argument and for their thoughtful responses to (and expansions of) our position. Oerlemans et al address …. (shrink)

Apresenta uma análise preliminar das manifestações dos autores das Ciências Sociais e Humanas dentro do campo da Biblioteconomia e da Ciência da Informação (B & C.I.), por meio do método bibliométrico e análise de citação. Com o objetivo de descortinar quais teóricos são convocados para a construção do conhecimento na produção científica dos campos supracitados, realizou-se uma pesquisa exploratória com vistas ao levantamento dos autores das Ciências Sociais e Humanas e, posteriormente, a verificação da ocorrência deles na produção indexada pela (...) Base de Dados em Ciência da Informação (BRAPCI). Foram identificados 180 autores, dos quais 91 apareceram pelo menos uma vez nas buscas empreendidas pelos nomes e sobrenomes desses autores das Ciências Sociais e Humanas. O resultado desta pesquisa demonstrou os dois autores mais citados, Michel Foucault e Pierre Bourdieu, bem como a presença de diversos autores das Ciências Sociais e Humanas na construção do conhecimento da Biblioteconomia e da Ciência da Informação, o que contribui para o fortalecimento e a consolidação de ambas. (shrink)

Some political philosophers believe that equality emerges as a moral concern where and because people coerce each other. I shall argue that they are wrong. The idea of coercion as a trigger of equality is neither as plausible nor as powerful as it may initially appear. Those who rely on the idea that coercion is among the conditions that give rise to equality as a moral demand face a threefold challenge. They will have to succeed in jointly (a) offering a (...) convincing account of the wrongness of coercion, (b) rendering cogent the idea that the demand of equality arises in response to the moral problem of coercion, and (c) identifying some types of interaction as relevantly coercive. This challenge, I believe, cannot be met. More precisely, I argue that two important accounts of coercion fail to meet it. (shrink)

In 1903, W. E. B. Du Bois addressed the question "How does it feel to be a social problem?". In 2008, Moustafa Bayoumi answered the same question for Muslims in the United States. Both Du Bois and Bayoumi provide powerful critiques against any notion that racialized minorities are inherently problematic. Both men generally argue that one cannot blame racialized minorities for the ill treatment they endure under systematic oppression. Du Bois and Bayoumi are two of many voices fighting against the (...) popular stigmatization of racialized peoples that include public intellectuals, civil rights activists, politicians, community leaders, educators, and many others. One of the things that all these voices have in common... (shrink)

Este trabajo se propone analizar las formas de pensar la relación entre las instituciones sociales y la corporalidad en la última edición del libro central de G. B. Vico, teniendo como eje vertebrador del artículo el tema viquiano de la gigantología.This paper proposes to analyze the ways of thinking about the relationship between social institutions and corporality in the last edition of the pivotal book by G. B. Vico. The article's basis is in Vico's theme of giantology.