When two causally independent processes each have a quantity that increases monotonically (either deterministically or in probabilistic expectation), the two quantities will be correlated, thus providing a counterexample to Reichenbach's principle of the common cause. Several philosophers have denied this, but I argue that their efforts to save the principle are unsuccessful. Still, one salvage attempt does suggest a weaker principle that avoids the initial counterexample. However, even this weakened principle is mistaken, as can be seen by exploring the concepts (...) of homology and homoplasy used in evolutionary biology. I argue that the kernel of truth in the principle of the common cause is to be found by separating metaphysical and epistemological issues; as far as the epistemology is concerned, the Likelihood Principle is central. (shrink)

It is still a controversial issue whether Reichenbach’s Principle of the Common Cause (RPCC) is a sound method for causal inference. In fact, the status of the principle has been a subject of intense philosophical debate. An extensive literature has been thus generated both with arguments in favor and against the adequacy of the principle. A remarkable argument against the principle, first proposed by Elliott Sober (Sober, 1987, 2001), consists on a counterexample which involves corelations between bread prices in Britain (...) and sea levels in Venice. The aim of this paper is to put into perspective criticisms to RPCC of the kind of Sober’s in the light of recent formal results regarding the so-called extendability and common cause completability. (shrink)

In this article we investigate how Latino immigrant farmers in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States navigate United States Department of Agriculture programs, which necessitate standardizing farming practices and an acceptance of bureaucracy for participation. We show how Latino immigrant farmers’ agrarian norms and practices are at odds with the state’s requirement for agrarian standardization. This interview-based study builds on existing historical analyses of farmers of color in the United States, and the ways in which their farming practices and (...) racialized identities are often unseen by and illegible to the state. This disjuncture leads to the increased racial exclusion of immigrant farmers from USDA opportunities. Such exclusions impede the transition to a “new era of civil rights,” as has been proclaimed by USDA leadership. Although efforts to address institutionalized racism on a national level may be genuine, they have failed to acknowledge this schism between rural Latino immigrants and the state, thereby inhibiting a meaningful transition in the fields, and continuing a legacy of unequal access to agrarian opportunities for non-white immigrant farmers. (shrink)

Global climate change is likely to become a major cause of future migration. Small Island States are particularly vulnerable since territorial destruction caused by sea level rise poses a threat to their entire existence. This raises important issues concerning state sovereignty and self-determination. Is it possible for a state to remain self-determining even if it lacks a stable population residing on a specific territory? It has been suggested that migrants from disappearing Small Island States could continue to exercise sovereign control (...) over their abandoned territory. Such an arrangement would allow them to retain a measure of self-determination. The question posed in this paper is whether this ?deterritorialized state proposal? is conceptually plausible and normatively acceptable. It is argued that the proposal is conceptually plausible if we adopt a gradual understanding of ?self-determination?, but that its normative acceptability is weak even if it is supplemented with compensatory measures. (shrink)

Elliot Sober ([2001]) forcefully restates his well-known counterexample to Reichenbach's principle of the common cause: bread prices in Britain and sea levels in Venice both rise over time and are, therefore, correlated; yet they are ex hypothesi not causally connected, which violates the principle of the common cause. The counterexample employs nonstationary data—i.e., data with time-dependent population moments. Common measures of statistical association do not generally reflect probabilistic dependence among nonstationary data. I demonstrate the inadequacy of the counterexample and (...) of some previous responses to it, as well as illustrating more appropriate measures of probabilistic dependence in the nonstationary case. A challenge to the principle of the common causeSober's argument and the attempts to rescue the principleProbabilistic dependenceNonstationary time seriesProbabilistic dependence in nonstationary time seriesDo Venetian sea levels and British bread prices violate the principle of the common cause? (shrink)

Does humanity have a moral obligation toward the estimated millions of individuals who will be displaced from their homes over the course of this century primarily due to sea-level rise as the earth's climate warms? What form should these actions take?

Sea-level rise (SLR) is a threat to coastal areas and there is growing interest in how social values, risk perception and fairness can inform adaptation. This study applies these three concepts to an urban community at risk of SLR in Botany Bay, Australia. The study engaged diverse groups of residents via an online survey. Cluster analysis identified four interpretive communities: two groups value work-life balance, are concerned about SLR and would likely engage in collective adaptation. The third group value everything (...) about Botany Bay and are active in organisations that could prove to be an important outreach. The fourth group were older men, disengaged from both SLR and policy but could respond to individual consultation and targeted communication. Thus, multifarious approaches can engage diverse communities in fair decision-making and transform community-facilitated adaptation. (shrink)

In the field of responsibility and climate change, much attention has been paid to actions and what we need to do in order to take responsibility. This paper shifts the perspective from what we should do to how we should be in order to be responsible. Looking at the case of local adaptation to sea level rise, the question of what characterizes a responsible planner is addressed. Departing from the idea of professional virtues, aspirational characteristics are extrapolated from three codes (...) of ethics for planners. The identified virtues are discussed in relation to the central challenges of adaptation to sea level rise, giving an indication of which virtues are most important in this given context. When placing the responsible planner in an institutional context, it is evident that while a virtue perspective should not replace a system analysis, it provides a valuable complement to the traditional action-focused discourse on responsible adaptation. (shrink)

In recent years, due to factors such as rising sea levels, several island nations such as Maldives, Tuvalu, Kiribati, and the Marshall Islands are in danger of disappearing completely. When the land of an island country disappeared, the human rights protection of Environmentally Displaced Persons in the migration process and the possible loss of their unique culture, language, and lifestyle have aroused great concern. We call such Environmentally Displaced Persons as EDPs. This study selects the EDPs’ data of 241 (...) countries or regions from 2008 to 2018, establishes an ARIMA model, and predicts the future population of EDPs. By combining the influencing factors of cultural loss, the risk assessment model of cultural loss is established to evaluate the possibility of cultural loss during the migration process of EDPs. We have established a Bayesian Network and a Fault Tree Model to demonstrate the improvement brought about by the implementation of policy recommendations from both qualitative and quantitative perspectives and use the method of fault tree analysis to illustrate the importance of policies from the degree of probability reduction after policy changes. Finally, based on the above model establishment and data analysis, corresponding countermeasures are proposed to protect EDPs’ human rights from being violated and their culture will not be lost. (shrink)

Prediction of daily rainfall is important for flood forecasting, reservoir operation, and many other hydrological applications. The artificial intelligence algorithm is generally used for stochastic forecasting rainfall which is not capable to simulate unseen extreme rainfall events which become common due to climate change. A new model is developed in this study for prediction of daily rainfall for different lead times based on sea level pressure which is physically related to rainfall on land and thus able to predict unseen rainfall (...) events. Daily rainfall of east coast of Peninsular Malaysia was predicted using SLP data over the climate domain. Five advanced AI algorithms such as extreme learning machine, Bayesian regularized neural networks, Bayesian additive regression trees, extreme gradient boosting, and hybrid neural fuzzy inference system were used considering the complex relationship of rainfall with sea level pressure. Principle components of SLP domain correlated with daily rainfall were used as predictors. The results revealed that the efficacy of AI models is predicting daily rainfall one day before. The relative performance of the models revealed the higher performance of BRNN with normalized root mean square error of 0.678 compared with HNFIS, BART, xgBoost, and ELM. Visual inspection of predicted rainfall during model validation using density-scatter plot and other novel ways of visual comparison revealed the ability of BRNN to predict daily rainfall one day before reliably. (shrink)

Value sensitive design aims at creating better technology based on social and ethical values. However, VSD has not been applied to long-term and uncertain future developments, such as societal planning for climate change. This paper describes a new method that combines elements from VSD with scenario planning. The method was developed for and applied to a case study of adaptation to sea level rise in southern Sweden in a series of workshops. The participants of the workshops found that the method (...) provided a framework for discussing long-term planning, enabled identification of essential values, challenged established planning practices, helped find creative solutions, and served as a reminder that we do not know what will happen in the future. Finally, we reflect on the limitations of the method and suggest further research on how it can be improved for value sensitive design of adaptation measures to manage uncertain future sea level rise. (shrink)

As the Panama Canal approached its fiftieth anniversary in the mid-1960s, U.S. officials concerned about the costs of modernization welcomed the technology of peaceful nuclear excavation to create a new waterway at sea level. Biologists seeking a share of the funds slated for radiological-safety studies called attention to another potential effect which they deemed of far greater ecological and evolutionary magnitude – marine species exchange, an obscure environmental issue that required the expertise of underresourced life scientists. An enterprising endeavor to (...) support Smithsonian naturalists, especially marine biologists at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, wound up sparking heated debates – between biologists and engineers about the oceans’ biological integrity and among scientists about whether the megaproject represented a research opportunity or environmental threat. A National Academy of Sciences panel chaired by Ernst Mayr failed to attract congressional funding for its 10-year baseline research program, but did create a stir in the scientific and mainstream press about the ecological threats that the sea-level canal might unleash upon the Atlantic and Pacific. This paper examines how the proposed megaproject sparked a scientific and political conversation about the risks of mixing the oceans at a time when many members of the scientific and engineering communities still viewed the seas as impervious to human-facilitated change. (shrink)

The favored economic position that Venice enjoyed in the eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea following the Fourth Crusade lasted only until the fall of the Latin Empire of Constantinople in 1261. During the next century the republic sought to reinstate its hegemony over the waterways and engaged in a prolonged struggle for maritime supremacy with its Ligurian rival, Genoa. The two cities were unable to resolve their debates over commercial privileges in key ports until 1381, following the conclusion of (...) the War of Chioggia. One of the features of this contest was a sharp rise in the instances of piracy and warfare between corsairs, particularly along the critical routes of Levantine trade. Genoa, however, was not the only power to challenge Venetian trade and domination. Robbery on the seas increased markedly as new adversaries edged their way onto the naval stage with greater intensity after 1300. The fourteenth century may have been a watershed in the history of naval plundering, marking a transitional phase during which the difference between pirates and corsairs crystallized. Moreover the years preceding the War of Chioggia reveal how Venice responded to the growing instability, how the commune implemented measures to deal effectively with multiplying threats, and, above all, how the republic's naval affairs reflected both remarkable elasticity and cohesion within the scope of state policies. (shrink)

This book offers an innovative approach to the analysis of the current crisis in the South China Sea. Moving beyond the spirit of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the mechanisms of which are limited to physical geography, it demonstrates how epistemological insights from the field of critical realist philosophy can reveal the importance of cultural and structural conditioning processes in social interactions, processes which shape the conditions for the emergence of crisis points along a spectrum (...) of conflict and cooperation. The potential for conflict resolution and the emergence of new regions in Pacific Asia much depends on the nature of such interactions at many levels (political-economic, semiotic and cultural) based on perceptions of what constitutes the "common" versus a Sinicised version of "Lebensraum". (shrink)

The Question Of The Relationship Between The Ultimate Reality Of The Universe, And Its Proximate Reality As Experienced By Us, Is Apt To Boggle The Mind. Nevertheless, The Hindu School Of Philosophy, Known As Advaita Vedanta, Tries To Render It Comprehensible At The Level Of The Individual Through Everyday Analogies Like Mistaking A Piece Of Seashell For A Piece Of Silver.

ArgumentIn Italy, only 2 per cent of the population consider scientists and experts to be society's leading personalities. Scientists are classified among the “weak social groups” and more precisely as those who have little influence either because they lack representation in the media, or because they lack resources. This article contributes to the current debate on science policies in Europe and addresses the question of why science has such a low reputation in Italy. How did this situation emerge and what (...) methods should be taken to tackle it beyond merely increasing financial resources? An historical overview of how Marcello Carapezza and Alberto Monroy created leading research centers in geochemistry and developmental biology in Palermo offers insight into the opportunities and threats posed by Italy's academic system. This brief analysis of the Italian academic system should interest international readers who want their country to evolve from a closed, corporative, centralized system into a country that can compete at an international level to attract talented students and resources and achieve a higher scientific reputation. (shrink)

In this paper I consider ways in which seawater––both on its surface and in its depths––opens up alternative forms of thought and expression in Homer, especially with respect to the body. By tracking the relationship between body and simile as it is mediated by the surface of the sea, I argue that water emerges as an especially mobile and adaptive medium for expressing the transformation that takes place between self and simile in Homer. In the Iliad, similes are well-known for (...) bringing weather, waves, and other aspects of the natural environment into the poem, whereas in the Odyssey those aspects more often introduce similes of their own. I offer a reading of the shipwreck scene in Odyssey 5 to suggest that the body’s struggle to stay afloat is matched there, on a formal level, by the role of waves in drawing simile and body to the sea’s surface. I then address a different kind of figurative language (closer to metaphor and associated with grief) that takes place in the depths, through readings of scenes in Books 18 and 24 of the Iliad and Archilochus fragment 13. (shrink)

The unfertilized sea urchin egg is a metabolically quiescent cell. Fertilization results in the activation of a variety of metabolic and biosynthetic pathways, including a 20‐ to 40‐fold increase in the rate of protein synthesis by 2 h after fertilization. This increase is regulated at a purely translational level without the need for new transcription. The greatest part of this increase is due to the translation of stored maternal mRNAs which were not translated in the egg. There is also a (...) 2‐to 3‐fold increase in the peptide elongation rate. The molecular and physiological mechanisms responsible for this activation process are beginning to be understood, and turn out to be much more complex than was anticipated. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Politics, religion and legal argumentation were inextricably intertwined in the reception of John Selden’s Mare Clausum/The Closed Sea (1635). The work’s writing and printing history is closely tied to Stuart foreign policy, particularly James I’s and Charles I’s attempts to tax the Dutch herring fisheries. Mare Clausum’s immediate impact on European international relations has received little attention from historians so far. It is clear, however, that government authorities in London, The Hague and Venice expected an official reply from Hugo (...) Grotius, author of Mare Liberum/the Free Sea (1609) and Swedish ambassador in Paris. Yet the latter declined to assist the Dutch authorities in this matter, blaming them for his imprisonment in 1618–1621 and his second banishment from Holland in 1632. The antipathy was mutual. The Dutch authorities abhorred Grotius’ pleas for religious tolerance and commissioned his Calvinist kinsman Dirk Graswinckel to respond to Selden instead. Graswinckel had already published Libertas Veneta/venetian Liberty (1634), a learned defense of the Republic of Venice’s political interests. In ‘Vindiciae maris liberi’/vindication of the Free Sea (written 1636–1637), he tried –but arguably failed – to reconcile Dutch claims to freedom of navigation, trade and fishing with Venetian claims to the Adriatic. It never appeared in print. (shrink)

Recent research on children's worlds has revealed how gender varies in salience across social contexts. Building on this observation, the author examines a highly salient gendered moment of group life among four- and five-year-old children at a youth soccer opening ceremony, where gender boundaries were activated and enforced in ways that constructed an apparently “natural” categorical difference between the girls and the boys. The author employs a multilevel analytical framework to explore how children “do gender” at the level of interaction (...) or performance, how the structured gender regime constrains and enables the actions of children and parents, and how children's gendered immersion in popular culture provides symbolic resources with which children and parents actively create categorical differences. The article ends with a discussion of how gendered interactions, structure, and cultural meanings are intertwined, in both mutually reinforcing and contradictory ways. (shrink)

The purpose of the present study is the understanding of Gentili's position on the law of the sea as expressed in his classic De iure belli . The key constitutive elements turn out to be: 1) the idea of the sea as 'res communis' to all mankind, which amounts to the concept of 'freedom of the sea'; 2) 'jurisdiction' of the coastal state on the adjacent sea, even on the high seas, in order to police crime and prevent/punish piracy. As (...) such these two key elements, if taken in isolation, are rooted in the civil law tradition, but their true meaning can only be captured by placing them in the intellectual framework of which they constitute an integral part. Firstly, the epistemic structure of discourse hinges on the new science of natural jurisprudence, as applied to the subject of 'ius gentium bellicum'; secondly, the constituent theoretical languages emanate from a distinctive combination of civil law, scholastic-theological and humanist traditions. This procedure enables us to highlight the strikingly original and distinctly modern traits of Gentili's perspective on the law of the sea, which emerges as a corollary of his project of international/global order. A project that is based on the crucial notion of 'respublica magna' of mankind, a notion encompassing the two notions of 'freedom' and 'jurisdiction' that constitute and define the legal regime of the sea.The Stoic humanist notion of universal human society as 'corpus unum' implies, first of all, 'freedom of intercourse', or 'ius communicationis', to start from 'free passage' and 'freedom of commerce'. It is in the context of his argument about these basic freedoms that Gentili is finally led to discuss the subject of the 'law of the sea'. But, not only the concept of 'res communis', or 'freedom of use', but also the concept of 'jurisdiction', or 'protection', are strictly related to the same foundational concept of 'respublica magna'. This is a crucial characteristic of Gentili's approach to world order that is proved by reference to two cardinal points of his new 'cosmopolitan justice': 1) the 'international right to punish', as exemplified by the legitimacy of the wars of 'humanitarian intervention' and of the wars in support of the 'common law of mankind'; 2) the 'occupation of vacant land', which again underlines the relevance of the principle of 'jurisdiction' by striking a balance between the principle of 'free use' of nature and the 'jurisdiction' of the local ruler.Such a reconstruction definitely rejects the traditional image of Gentili as a supporter of 'maritime protectionism', on the ground of his Advocatio Hispanica published posthumously in 1613 and containing his pleadings as Spanish advocate before the Court of Admiralty. The guiding assumption here is that the book is strictly of a forensic character and as such devoid of any coherent theoretical substance. To the contrary, in his De iure belli, far from anticipating the English position in favour of 'mare clausum', Gentili tends to anticipate the essentials of Grotius' position, especially at the level of the ethic of the 'modern cosmopolis' and the related theme of colonial empire. On this very plane of discourse, Gentili's thinking transcends the so-called battle of the books and emerges as especially significant in illuminating the wider and deeper intellectual currents that contributed to the development of what were to become basic standard positions of modern international theory. (shrink)

We show that the Bohmian approach in terms of persisting particles that move on continuous trajectories following a deterministic law can be literally applied to quantum field theory. By means of the Dirac sea model—exemplified in the electron sector of the standard model neglecting radiation—we explain how starting from persisting particles, one is led to standard QFT employing creation and annihilation operators when tracking the dynamics with respect to a reference state, the so-called vacuum. Since on the level of wave (...) functions, both formalisms are mathematically equivalent, this proposal provides for an ontology of QFT that includes a dynamics of individual processes, solves the measurement problem, and explains the appearance of creation and annihilation events. 1Bohmian Mechanics from Quantum Mechanics to Quantum Field Theory2The Dirac Sea Model3Equilibrium States and the Vacuum4Excitations of the Vacuum and the Fock Space Formalism5The Appearance of Particle Creations and Annihilations6The Merits of the Bohmian Approach. (shrink)

This book presents a thoroughly documented, comprehensive overview of perhaps the most urgent issue closely associated with global warming, namely sea level rise.Although evidence from the geologic past points to considerable variation of the average height of the world’s oceans, sea level rise has accelerated since the late nineteenth century, and is climbing even faster during the last 20 years, paralleling the rise in global temperatures.Could future greenhouse gas-induced global warming push the Earth’s climate into an unstable mode, triggering a (...) catastrophic meltdown of the polar ice sheets and threatening the livelihood of tens of millions of inhabitants of the world’s shorelines and low elevation islands? To broach this question, Vivien Gornitz turns to a detailed examination of the historical record, the causes, and the implications of sea level rise.After an introductory chapter providing background knowledge about the oceans and the complex phenomena associated with them, the .. (shrink)

We show that the Bohmian approach in terms of persisting particles that move on continuous trajectories following a deterministic law can be literally applied to QFT. By means of the Dirac sea model – exemplified in the electron sector of the standard model neglecting radiation – we explain how starting from persisting particles, one is led to standard QFT employing creation and annihilation operators when tracking the dynamics with respect to a reference state, the so-called vacuum. Since on the level (...) of wave functions, both formalisms are mathematically equivalent, this proposal provides for an ontology of QFT that includes a dynamics of individual processes, solves the measurement problem and explains the appearance of creation and annihilation events. (shrink)

The present article examines if the principle of freedom of the high seas as formulated by Hugo de Groot still plays a significant role in international law. The article starts from an analysis of De Groot's ideas on the law of the sea and then turns to the freedom of the high seas in the modern law of the sea. In both cases, the legal framework is assessed against the background of the activities that require regulation. Freedom of the high (...) seas, although it has lost ground to other ordering principles, remains significant at the level of principles. However, at the level of designing an effective regime for current problems in oceans management, which to a large extent are caused by deficiencies in the enforcement scheme implicit in freedom of the high seas, the writings of De Groot, in whose time those activities did not require any significant measure of international coordination and cooperation, offer little assistance. (shrink)

Gastrulation is the process of early development that reorganizes cells into the three fundamental tissue types of ectoderm, mesoderm, and endoderm. It is a coordinated series of morphogenetic and molecular changes that exemplify many developmental phenomena. In this review, we explore one of the classic developmental systems, the sea urchin embryo, where investigators from different backgrounds have converged on a common interest to study the origin, morphogenesis, and developmental regulation of the endoderm. The sea urchin embryo is remarkably plastic in (...) its developmental potential, and the endoderm is especially instructive for its morphological and molecular responsiveness to inductive cell interactions. We start by examining and integrating the several models for the morphogenetic mechanisms of invagination and tissue elongation, the basic processes of endoderm morphogenesis in this embryo. We next critique the proposed mechanisms of inductive gene regulation in the endoderm that exemplifies a concept of modular transcriptional regulation. Finally, we end with an examination of the current molecular models to explain cell fate determination of the endoderm. Recent progress at the molecular level should soon allow us to explain the seminal experimental observations made in this embryo over a hundred years ago. BioEssays 21:459–471, 1999. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

Classical embryological studies have provided a great deal of information on the autonomy and stability of cell fate determination in early sea urchin embryos. However, these studies were limited by the tools available at the time, and the interpretation of the results of these experiments was limited by the lack of information available at the molecular level. Recent studies which have re‐examined classical experiments at the molecular level have provided important new insights into the mechanism of determination in sea urchins, (...) and require us to re‐evaluate some long standing theories on the process of differentiation. (shrink)

Transformation of the sparrow and the butterfly -- Meeting the gods of poverty in a dream -- The greatest joys of the cicada and its cast-off shell -- The owl's understanding -- The centipede questions the snake -- The toad's way of the gods -- The mysterious technique of the cat -- Afterword by William Scott Wilson.

A graphic novel version of the classic book that first introduced Westerners to the samurai ethos. This graphic novel version of the cult classic Bushido brings the timeless secrets of the samurai to life. Originally published in 1905, Bushido was the first book to introduce Westerners to the samurai ethos. Written by Inazo Nitobe, one of the foremost Japanese authors and educators of the time, it describes the characteristics and virtues that are associated with bushido—honor, courage, justice, loyalty, self-control—and explains (...) the philosophy behind how samurai were educated and trained; the connection between the sword and the samurai; seppuku; and the position of women in samurai culture; among other themes. To this day,Bushido is considered a must-read for anyone who wants to understanding the soul of Japan and navigate their world with integrity and honor. (shrink)

Unholy human beings and holy humanity in Kant's critical and practical philosophy -- Independence from nature : preparing the ground for perpetual peace in the third critique -- The problem of international politics : human beings within the mechanism of nature -- The instruction of suffering : Kant's theological anthropology for a prodigal species -- An "all-unifying church triumphant!" -- Conclusion : believing in the possibility of salvation -- Epilogue : Kant and contemporary cosmopolitanism.

Multiple groups have interests that intersect within the new field of deep submergence archaeology. These groups‟ differing priorities present challenges for interdisciplinary collaboration, particularly as there are no established guidelines for best practices in such scenarios. Associating the term 'archaeology' with projects directed at underwater cultural heritage that are are not guided by archaeologists poses a real risk to that heritage. Recognizing that the relevant professional organizations, local laws, and conventions currently have little ability to protect pieces of cultural heritage (...) across disciplines and international boundaries, the authors propose institution-specific mechanisms, called Archaeology Review Boards , guided by local and international laws and conventions concerning cultural heritage, as the best means to provide oversight for academically centered archaeological activities at the local level. (shrink)

While 3/11 has altered energy policies around the world, insufficient attention has focused on reactions from local nuclear power plant host communities and their neighbors throughout Japan. Using site visits to such towns, interviews with relevant actors, and secondary and tertiary literature, this article investigates the community crisis management strategies of two types of cities, towns, and villages: those which have nuclear plants directly in their backyards and neighboring cities further away (within a 30 mile radius). Responses to the disaster (...) have varied with distance to nuclear facilities but in a way contrary to the standard theories based on the concept of the . Officials in communities directly proximal to nuclear power plants by and large remain supportive of Japan's nuclear power program, while those in cities and towns at a distance (along with much of the general public) have displayed strong opposition to the pre 3/11 status quo. Using qualitative data, this article underscores how national energy and crisis response policies rest strongly on the political economy, experiences of, and decisions made at the subnational level. (shrink)

In this study international legal experts explore legal concepts and contexts from diverse national and disciplinary perspectives. Themes range from legal and normative pluralism to the development of state law and legal systems, and from law's rhetoric and the potential utility of alternative vocabularies to the polyjurality of the present. The study combines theoretical analyses and case studies to create a rich picture of present scholarship on laws and norms and the state of contemporary legal complexity, each crossing traditional boundaries.

All over the world, distance mode of education is gaining a momentum and becoming more popular than conventional education. It is a system in which schools, universities and other educational agencies offer instruction wholly or partly by mail. Eritrea, a newly independent country in Africa has been facing many challenges particularly in its education sector. It does not have sufficient educational institutions at tertiary level, thus, distance learning which is more cost effective, could be an alternative method of higher education (...) for this country. The distance education programme could promote higher education by providing access to large number of urban people and disadvantaged groups in rural and remote areas including working people, fighters, women and other adults. An attempt has been made in this paper to discuss various issues related to the establishment and development of distance education. It also provides the distance education programmes that so far undertaken in Eritrea and highlights the potential for the distance education in the country. (shrink)

The present article examines if the principle of freedom of the high seas as formulated by Hugo de Groot still plays a significant role in international law. The article starts from an analysis of De Groot's ideas on the law of the sea and then turns to the freedom of the high seas in the modern law of the sea. In both cases, the legal framework is assessed against the background of the activities that require regulation. Freedom of the high (...) seas, although it has lost ground to other ordering principles, remains significant at the level of principles. However, at the level of designing an effective regime for current problems in oceans management, which to a large extent are caused by deficiencies in the enforcement scheme implicit in freedom of the high seas, the writings of De Groot, in whose time those activities did not require any significant measure of international coordination and cooperation, offer little assistance. (shrink)

We have sought to expound how Jan van Ruusbroec goes about representing the relationship of love between God and human beings by proceeding from God’s inner life of love. Therefore, in the first part of our paper we elucidated Ruusbroec’s view of the inner love reality of the Triune God. In the second part we explained how genuine Christian mystical life is founded within the intra-trinitarian life of love. Prior to discussing the characteristics of Ruusbroec’s trinitarian position, we dwelled upon (...) the author’s development of his idea of the Trinity from a personal perception of his relation with God, the embedding of Ruusbroec’s love-mysticism in traditional Christian faith and his repeated clarification of the Triune God from two perspectives: God’s nature and God’s essence. We found that, in his explanation of God’s nature, Ruusbroec underlines its fruitfulness as a way of demonstrating that God is one dynamic of love, without beginning or end, which ceaselessly and simultaneously consists in “flowing out” and “being flowed back”. This phenomenon, we stated, he associates with the concept, “oneness in threeness” and “threeness in oneness”. Through an exposition on the differing features of unity and the Persons of the Trinity, we came to the conclusion that the author in all of his works combines both the origin of “flowing out” and “flowing-back” with the Holy Spirit as the bond or unity of love of Father and Son. From this we concluded that none of the Persons is the principle or source of regiratio, i.e. return, to the unity. The view that God’s unity of Persons is the principle of exitus-reditus – and not only the third Person as recent scientific research has sought to demonstrate – is what we consider to be the heart of Ruusbroec’s trinitarian way of thinking. We ascertained, further, that the author not only links the unity of the Persons with fruitfulness; he believes that the same “fruitful” unity, drawing in the divine Persons on the level of God’s nature, is the “enjoying” unity on the level of God’s essence. By means of the distinction between God’s enjoying unity and the unity of God’s fruitful nature, Ruusbroec explicates the true facts of the intra-trinitarian life of love. The perception leads him to conclude that God, as a unity of Persons, is ceaselessly and simultaneously working and enjoying. In the second part, we illustrated how Ruusbroec’s trinitarian thought mirrors the basis of his mystical doctrine: the conviction that mystics are unified with the divine Persons both in working and enjoying, and that they are one reality of love with God. We explained how the author, first of all, maintains that mystics, who bear a full likeness to God’s fruitful nature, ceaselessly turn to good works and virtues, just as God, ceaselessly, through the divine Persons, flows out in love. We then avered that the likeness to God’s nature is not the result of human effort and that it arises from God’s touch within the human mind. Moreover, we showed that Ruusbroec, in accordance with his intuition that God’s fruitful unity is both out-flowing and inwarddrawing, believes that God is both impelling humans outward toward virtues and drawing them into God’s unity of love. In analogy with the first part of our argument – as far as the “return” of humans is concerned – we ascertained that our author is stressing the initiative of God’s unity of the Holy Spirit, i.e. the mutual love between the Father and the Son. We found the emphasis on God’s inward-drawing unity to be of great significance, because God’s unity of love also plays a crucial role with respect to the transition to “enjoyment” of human beings in God’s essence. We clarified how human beings, according to Ruusbroec, through the likeness to God’s nature, participate in the enjoyment of God’s essence with the divine Persons. We pointed out that the union in God’s essence is the most intimate experience, but not the end-point of the mystical life as, according to our author, contemplatives are directed, again and again, to good works. Lastly, we arrived at the conclusion that Ruusbroec considers the mystical life, like the life of God, to be ceaselessly consisting of action and enjoyment. However, it is not primarily the analogy with God’s trinitarian reality of love that Ruusbroecs stresses. Basically, he accentuates the fact that mystics ceaselessly experience unification with the divine Persons, both in working and enjoying. This means that mystics, united with the divine Persons in one enjoyment on the level of God’s essence, concurrently experience that, with the divine Persons, they also “share” in God’s “flowing” and “ebbing” on the level of God’s nature. On the basis of this we have affirmed that, according to Ruusbroec, God’s activity and enjoyment in the “Divinity Itself” is God’s activity and enjoyment in the human being, and the inverse. Moreover, we have shown how the author considers both moments to occur simultaneously, both in God and in human beings, meaning that the mystical life is continuously one reality of love with God. (shrink)

In this clear, accessible guide, Sean Hand sets Levinas's work in its intellectual and social contexts and examines: the influence of phenomenology and Judaism ...

North Korea references gender equality in its socialist constitution, but the de facto social and legal circumstances that women face in the country are far below the de jure status they are purported to enjoy. North Korean women endure extremely low public health standards and pervasive harassment. Yet their growing market power and social influence are underestimated. Women account for the majority of North Korean border crossers, and their informal economic activities are supporting families while modernizing the economy. This essay (...) examines the dangers of exploitation that North Korean women face and highlights the ethical and legal imperatives of supporting their roles in marketizing the economy and liberalizing the society in one of the worst human rights–violating states. Women are North Korea's most deserving recipients of international assistance and the country's most promising partners to the world. (shrink)

Collection of papers delivered at a symposium held in Lausanne, 10-11 September 2009.".

This collection explicates Levinas's major contribution to these debates, namely the idea of the primacy of ethics over ontology or epistemology.