This essay draws upon Gramsci’s understandings of law and of the philosophy of praxis to develop a critical analysis of international law in the constitution and potential revolutionary transformation of the contemporary global political economy. The analysis illustrates the analytical utility of Gramscian conceptions of historical bloc and hegemony in capturing the significance of international law as an effective historical force. It also extends these conceptions, theoretically, by arguing that the global political economy is undergoing a process of juridification in (...) which a commodified legal form provides the template for economic and political regulation. The commodity form theory of law is presented as the key to understanding the significance of international law under the culture of global capitalism. (shrink)

Reaction time to detect a phoneme target in a sentence was found to be faster when the word in which the target occurred formed part of the semantic focus of the sentence. Focus was determined by asking a question before the sentence; that part of the sentence which comprised the answer to the sentence was assumed to be focussed. This procedure made it possible to vary position of focus within the sentence while holding all acoustic aspects of the sentence itself (...) constant. It is argued that sentence understanding is facilitated by rapid identification of focussed information. Since focussed words are usually accented, it is further argued that the active search for accented words demonstrated in previous research should be interpreted as a search for semantic focus. (shrink)

This paper is the report of a meetingthat gathered many of the UK's most senioranimal scientists with representatives of thefarming industry, consumer groups, animalwelfare groups, and environmentalists. Therewas strong consensus that the current economicstructure of agriculture cannot adequatelyaddress major issues of concern to society:farm incomes, food security and safety, theneeds of developing countries, animal welfare,and the environment. This economic structure isbased primarily on competition betweenproducers and between retailers, driving foodprices down, combined with externalization ofmany costs. These issues must be addressed (...) by acombination of legislation, restructuring ofthe market, and use of public funds. Themeeting included workshops that made otherrecommendations for research and education. Themost urgent requirement is recognition thatchange is needed and development of a visionfor what that change must achieve. (shrink)

Regulatory authorities have advised smokers who would not or could not quit smoking to switch to lower tar cigarettes. Smoking such cigarettes was seen as a means of reducing the harm caused by smoking, but not as offering a ‘safe’ smoking option. Correspondingly manufacturers have been required to place tar and nicotine information on packet labels and/or advertisements. This paper explores the possibility that the conventional format for conveying tar and nicotine information could be responsible for the belief, held by (...) a significant proportion of smokers, that some brands of lower tar cigarettes are absolutely ‘safe’. To deal with this situation it is suggested that changes should be made to health warnings, and tar and nicotine communications. Proposed changes to the latter are evaluated in terms of their ethical and public health implications. The authors conclude that brand specific warnings and a classification of cigarettes as either ‘Very Dangerous’ or ‘Dangerous’, is best suited to reconciling consumer needs for information with the public health objectives of reducing the harm caused by smoking. (shrink)

Few aspects of social behavior tell us more about a culture than those practices that involve the roles it assigns to models and copies. Under interpretation, such conduct reveals its attitudes toward authority and antiquity, its sense of identity and regard for security, and the relative importance that it attached to imitation and invention. To varying degrees, all societies display these concerns, but in none were they so firmly grounded in a considered theory of the relation between prototype and derivative (...) as they were in Byzantium. An example from the domain of law will illustrate, though not explain, this cultural difference. As against the Roman tradition in which the use of copies as evidence in court was prohibited, at least from the tenth century on Byzantine tribunals accepted the legitimacy of certified copies of documents. The very word used for an official copy—ison, meaning equal— suggests the conceptual distinction between it and the terms copie, Kopie, kopiya, and so on, in modern languages, all derived from the Latin word for abundance. (shrink)

Coral bleaching has impacted reefs worldwide and the predictions of near‐annual bleaching from over two decades ago have now been realized. While technology currently provides the means to predict large‐scale bleaching, predicting reef‐scale and within‐reef patterns in real‐time for all reef users is limited. In 2020, heat stress across the Great Barrier Reef underpinned the region's third bleaching event in 5 years. Here we review the heterogeneous emergence of bleaching across Heron Island reef habitats and discuss the oceanographic drivers that (...) underpinned variable bleaching emergence. We do so as a case study to highlight how reef end‐user groups who engage with coral reefs in different ways require targeted guidance for how, and when, to alter their use of coral reefs in response to bleaching events. Our case study of coral bleaching emergence demonstrates how within‐reef scale nowcasting of coral bleaching could aid the development of accessible and equitable bleaching response strategies on coral reefs. Also see the video abstract here: https://youtu.be/N9Tgb8N-vN0. (shrink)

In its proposals for a Performance Related Pay scheme for teachers the Labour Government has presented appraisal as having a dual role. It is to be used to determine the pay of teachers making reference to quantitative targets; and to facilitate teachers' professional development. This article examines the tensions between these two functions of appraisal.

While 'space' and 'place' appear as key concepts in the study of culture, their complexity and mutability require ever-new frameworks when approaching them critically. Including chapters by authors from different fields, career stages, and geopolitical backgrounds, the contributors in this edited collection scrutinize the changing dynamics of space and place in relation to current political, social, and environmental urgencies across the globe. With chapters investigating both real and imaginary spaces and places, the diversified discussions included in this collection provide a (...) cohesive study for disclosing latent understandings of multiple phenomena characterizing the world in which we live. From the protests in Egyptian and Turkish squares, to the power-related narratives embedded in institutional buildings, from the development of the commercial arena in Victorian and Edwardian London, to the effects of current environmental concerns on the evaluation of urban and rural locations, the volume ultimately serves as a progressive connection of fields, minds, and outlooks through an innovative, pluralistic vision. This interdisciplinary focus not only emphasizes the centrality of spaces and places when disentangling the complexities comprising our past and present, but also suggests a more pluralistic approach for exploring fundamental concepts in future spaces and places studies. (shrink)

STS scholarship has produced important insights about relationships between the roles of peer review and the social construction of knowledge. Yet, barriers related to access have been a continual challenge for such work. This article overcomes some past access challenges and explores peer review normativities operating in the new discipline of Engineering Education. In doing so, it contributes new insights about disciplinary development, interdisciplinarity, and peer review as a site of knowledge construction. In particular, it draws attention to an aspect (...) of peer review not previously discussed – how peer review normativities are shaped by disciplinary origins. A content analysis of peer review documentation revealed that a hyperfocus on methods, which can be traced back to disciplinary origins, continues to be a guiding normativity. However, interviews with editors revealed that they do not acknowledge that normativity. Implications of those findings and their misalignment are discussed, as are contrasts with the history of other disciplines. (shrink)

In this article, Marjorie Silliman Harris offers a critical reading of Henri Bergson’s view of freedom as a creative act by the fundamental self.

Our world is littered with examples of the cannibalisation by secondary authors of the thoughts of original thinkers, rehashed as rule-books and manuals on how to live our lives. No such distortion of an idea has had the lasting success of Saint Paul’s corruption of the life and thoughts of Jesus of Nazareth—man or myth we’ll never know. Nietzsche’s over quoted remark, “God is dead,” belies his frustration that in 2,000 years, Western civilisation has not invented for itself a new (...) god. His project of exposing Paul as a charlatan in his penultimate work, The Anti-Christ, hardly disguises Nietzsche’s belief that he could have done a better job, in his case celebrating everything that Christianity stood against: the lost glories of our ancient past symbolising our ‘natural’ human instincts. This essay reassesses assumptions about Nietzsche and his intentions in writing The Anti-Christ to reveal the philosopher’s deep affinity for the original, pre-Christian sage,who provided the main character and plot for Paul’s fiction. (shrink)

In the course of his closing remarks at the Copenhagen Congress, the then President of the Association International des Études Byzantines reminded those who worried about the state of our field of “the rule that science may begin with imagination but … rests on factual documentation rather than conjecture”. As one who was (and is) less troubled about the way things were (and are) going, an art historian may be permitted to point to an example in which a document can (...) be shown to corroborate educated guesswork, and consequently to demonstrate one way in which peace between the two camps can (at least on this occasion) be achieved. The result may not be the absolute certainty demanded by our ancien président, but it comes as close to proof as anything available in a domain notorious for its lack of “factual documentation”. The method in question is triangulation—a third datum brought to bear on two previously known bodies of evidence—and the example that of the Middle Byzantine silks that display images of eagles. At issue is the belief that surviving examples were originally gifts offered to foreigners who in turn presented them to institutions or individuals of the Latin church. (shrink)

Si oblitus fuero tui, Jerusalem, oblivioni detur dextera mea.” When Jerome commented on Ps. 136.5, he interpreted the passage allegorically. Sitting in exile by the waters of Babylon, the Israelites had hung their harps on the willows and, in a foreign land, would not sing the songs of Zion. Yet they refused to forget their origin, preferring, as King James's translators put it, that “my right hand forget her cunning.” Jerome observes that this is always the hand whose work remembers (...) the Lord. Yet clearly, by the early fifth century, the idea of manual dexterity had become a trope, a figure in some higher argument. Augustine compares the “lower gods”, reduced to performing menial tasks in the administration of the universe, to workers in the silversmiths' quarter through whose many hands a vessel passes before it is finished, even if it could have been perfected by any skilled member of their team. Slightly more pragmatically, Justinian's Digest mentions a piece of silver plate, brought on approval to a client's house by a uascularius but then inadvertently destroyed, as an instance actionable under the laws of contract. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)