Understanding terrestrial carbon metabolism is critical because terrestrial ecosystems play a major role in the global carbon cycle. Furthermore, humans have severely disrupted the carbon cycle in ways that will alter the climate system and directly affect terrestrial metabolism. Changes in terrestrial metabolism may well be as important an indicator of global change as the changing temperature signal. Improving our understanding of the carbon cycle at various spatial and temporal scales will require the integration of multiple, complementary and independent methods (...) that are used by different research communities. Tools such as air sampling networks, inverse numerical methods, and satellite data allow us to study the strength and location of the global- and continental-scale carbon sources and sinks. Bottom-up studies provide estimates of carbon fluxes at finer spatial scales and examine the mechanisms that control fluxes at the ecosystem, landscape, and regional scales. Bottom-up approaches include comparative and process studies that provide the necessary mechanistic information to develop and validate terrestrial biospheric models. An iteration and reiteration of top-down and bottom-up approaches will be necessary to help constrain measurements at various scales. We propose a major international effort to coordinate and lead research programs of global scope of the carbon cycle. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:"And They Sang A New Song":Reading John's Revelation From The Position Of The LambJ.A. Jackson (bio) and Allen H. Redmon (bio)Then one of the elders said to me, "Do not weep. See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and the seven seals." Then I saw between the throne and the four living creatures and (...) among the elders a Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered.—Revelation 5:5–6In an interview with Markus Müller, René Girard asserts the importance of taking into account the apocalypticism of Christianity. Apocalypse, Girard reminds us, "means revelation: apocalypto means to open up and to show the truth. But it also means absolute violence, so the apocalypse is a violent revelation and a revelation of violence" (Girard 1996). That the Revelation is a violent revelation has been well established. Despite textual evidence that would beg those who approach the text to do just the opposite, readers have fixated on the violence of the Revelation since its inception, finding in it God's final retribution against those who persecute the Church.1 Commentators such as Dennis E. Johnson, William Hendricksen, and George Elden Ladd have produced recent, full-length commentaries that champion the appearance of a Christ in Revelation ready to establish himself as a military champion and exact his revenge on those who persecute him (see, for example, Johnson 2001; Hendricksen 1998; and Ladd 1993). These accounts, and those that follow suit, are blinded by the violent revelation of John's apocalyptic narrative and fail to see the poem's revelation of violence—the other, prophetic half of what Girard rightly contends exists in Christian apocalypse.This error is understandable to some extent. Read in its own light and apart from the Gospel revelation as understood by those familiar with mimetic [End Page 99] theory, one has no hermeneutical principle for recognizing the end to which John is writing. The victims of the text can be ignored in the precise way that all victims are disregarded when the scapegoat mechanism functions properly. Such should not be the case in the Revelation, though, a text in which the scapegoat mechanism is exposed and pushed to its logical conclusions. John offers his reader a glimpse into the way this mechanism will function when all that is left is wall-to-wall violence, when one is left with only two alternatives: succumb to the mechanism and reciprocate its violence, or extricate oneself through nonreciprocation (and potentially die).In the margins of the violent revelation in John's apocalyptic vision, a revelation of violence emerges that can expose humankind's potential to annihilate itself and the mechanism with which it will do so. When read through the lens of mimetic theory, one discovers that John's narrative delivers a revelation of violence, an explicit naming and unmasking of the sacrificial mechanism that can capture for the reader not only the machinations of the sacrificial apparatus but one's own potential participation in it as well. As such, the poem can posit itself as a commandment (a Thou-shall-not-murder) that ultimately refuses the temptation to respond to violence in violence.The fact that John uses the apocalyptic to present this directive should not be surprising. Girard writes: "Only through the mediation of the scapegoat mechanism can violence become its own remedy, and the victimage mechanism can only be triggered by the frenetic paroxysm of the 'crisis.' This means that the violence, having lost its vitality and bite, will paradoxically be more terrible than before its decline. As the whole of humanity makes the vain effort to reinstate its reconciliatory and sacrificial virtues, this violence will without doubt tend to multiply its victims, just as happened in the time of the prophets" (Girard 1978, 195–96). While Girard's commentary on biblical eschatology and apocalypse refers mainly to the scapegoat mechanism as it applies to and is revealed in the Gospel texts, we see the immediacy and the frenzy of the apocalyptic and the ubiquitous violent mimetic appropriations also performed in John's Revelation.2 John captures... (shrink)

Objective: To determine the views of people with multiple sclerosis (MS) and professionals in relation to confidentiality, consent and access to data within a proposed MS register in the UK. Design: Qualitative study using focus groups (10) and interviews (13). Setting: England and Northern Ireland. Participants: 68 people with MS, neurologists, MS nurses, health services management professionals, researchers, representatives from pharmaceutical companies and social care professionals. Results: People with MS expressed open and altruistic views towards the use of their personal (...) information to facilitate service provision and research, placing trust in responsible guardianship and legitimate use of their information. Participant’s proposed that people with MS should be able to select their individual level of involvement in a register using levels of consent. It was agreed that access to the register should be governed by a guardianship committee composed of a range of stakeholders. People with MS did not wish their details to be used by marketing agencies and did not consider this a legitimate use of their data. Whilst participants were positive of the role a register could play in promoting research, participants felt that access to data by pharmaceutical industries should be administered by the guardianship committee. People with MS are concerned should their employers be able to access their personal information. Professionals were more cautious than people with MS in their approach to the use of patient personal data within a register. Conclusions: Whilst all stakeholders were positive of the benefits of an MS register, development of such a resource must incorporate robust data security and guardianship measures in order to ensure that, whilst opportunities are maximised, risks to the privacy of individuals and legal challenges to professionals are avoided. (shrink)

A sample of 523 newly ordained female Anglican clergy in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales completed the Eysenck Personality Profiler. The data demonstrated that the female clergy tended to be less extravert than women in general, less neurotic than women in general, and less toughminded than women in general. These findings help to clarify the way in which women clergy tend to project a characteristically masculine personality profile in respect of one major dimension of personality, but a characteristically feminine personality (...) profile in respect of the other two major dimensions of personality. (shrink)

© 2016 Regents of the University of California.The Review summarizes much of particle physics and cosmology. Using data from previous editions, plus 3,062 new measurements from 721 papers, we list, evaluate, and average measured properties of gauge bosons and the recently discovered Higgs boson, leptons, quarks, mesons, and baryons. We summarize searches for hypothetical particles such as supersymmetric particles, heavy bosons, axions, dark photons, etc. All the particle properties and search limits are listed in Summary Tables. We also give numerous (...) tables, figures, formulae, and reviews of topics such as Higgs Boson Physics, Supersymmetry, Grand Unified Theories, Neutrino Mixing, Dark Energy, Dark Matter, Cosmology, Particle Detectors, Colliders, Probability and Statistics. Among the 117 reviews are many that are new or heavily revised, including those on Pentaquarks and Inflation. The complete Review is published online in a journal and on the website of the Particle Data Group. The printed PDG Book contains the Summary Tables and all review articles but no longer includes the detailed tables from the Particle Listings. A Booklet with the Summary Tables and abbreviated versions of some of the review articles is also available. (shrink)

Environmental ethics has traditionally focused on a defense of the intrinsic value of animals and wild habitats. However, this ethical project needs to be supplemented by a consideration of the kind of culture that can take such an ethical point of view seriously. This essay argues that one component of an environmentally responsible culture is its domesticated environment. How we construct the domesticated environment has an impact on our perception of our own identities and our relations to wild nature. If (...) we care about wild nature, we must also care about the domesticated environment in which we live our lives. This essay contributes to an ethical reflection on the need to overcome the traditional dualism between domesticated and wild, built and natural that permeates environmental ethical thinking. (shrink)

Environmental ethics has traditionally focused on a defense of the intrinsic value of animals and wild habitats. However, this ethical project needs to be supplemented by a consideration of the kind of culture that can take such an ethical point of view seriously. This essay argues that one component of an environmentally responsible culture is its domesticated environment. How we construct the domesticated environment has an impact on our perception of our own identities and our relations to wild nature. If (...) we care about wild nature, we must also care about the domesticated environment in which we live our lives. This essay contributes to an ethical reflection on the need to overcome the traditional dualism between domesticated and wild, built and natural that permeates environmental ethical thinking. (shrink)

quidnam homines putarent, si turn occisus esset, cum tu ilium in foro inspectante populo Romano gladio insecutus es negotiumque transegisses, nisi se ille in scalas tabernae librariae coniecisset iisque oppilatis impetum tuum compressisset?

As generally interpreted this line leaves much to be desired because of its unwieldy construction. It is true that est ut plus a form of possum is a common periphrasis in Lucretius . Quite common also is Lucretius' use of the infinitive as a nominative substantive . But the combination of fieri mirarier with the already periphrastic erat ut posset results in ‘a very clumsy phrase.… The line should be regarded as one which Lucretius might have improved on revision’.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Plotinus and the Parmenz'des B. DARRELL JACKSON IN 1928 E. R. DODDSARGUED that the first two hypotheses of Plato's Parmenides are the primary source of Plotinus' doctrines of the One and of Nous. I Dodds' main evidence was a list of parallels between the Parmenides and the Enneads? He argued further that the Neoplatonic interpretation of the Parmenides as positive metaphysics was neo-Pythagorean in origin. Several Plotinus scholars (...) have accepted and extended Dodds' view of the importance of the Parmenides for Plotinus. This group includes ]~mile Br6hier, ~ A. H. Armstrong, 4 Hans-Rudolf Schwyzer, 5 and Paul Henry. n But Dodds' position is by no means universally accepted. Elmer O'Brien has recently argued that the Plotinian One was derived ultimately from Philo and mediated to Plotinus through Albinus and Numenius. 7 He says that Dodds' case, though good, is not convincing. It. A. Wolfson has been the great advocate of the Philonic origin of Plotinus' views. According to Wolfson, the doctrines attributed by Plotinus to Plato are not Plato's but mainly Philo's. 8 Others see Plotinus in varying degrees of dependence upon Plato. Philip Merlan holds that Plotinus is more in debt to the immediate successors of Plato and to Aristotle's interpretation of Plato than to the Platonic writings themselves. 9 C. J. de Vogel sees Plotinus as dependent upon Plato for a hierarchy of being which was accepted and elaborated by various middle Platonists and Gnostics. 1~According to de Vogel, the Parmenides wus not importan% in this hierarchy tradition, n In this article I shall re-examine Dodds' position. I believe the case for Plotinus' dependence upon the Parmenides can be strengthened. I shall try to do this by examining the systematic relation of Plotinus' thought to the Parmenides. Dodds x"The Parmenides of Plato and the Origin of the Neoplatonic 'One'," The Classical Quarterly, XXII (1928), 129-142. 2Ibid., 132 f. *In the introductions to Enneads V.3 (esp. pp. 43 f., 46 f.), V.5 (pp. 87 ft.), VI.4-5 (pp. 161163,165-168),and VI.7 (pp. 49, 60) in his Bud~ edition and translation of the Enneads (Paris, 1931-38). 4The Architecture of the Intelligible Universe in the Philosophy of Plotinus (Cambridge, at the University Press: 1940), pp. 14-28. In his article "Plotinos", Vol. 21, pt. 1 of Paulys Real-Encyclopgdie der Klassischen Altertumswissenschaft, 1951, cols. 552-554. eIntroduction to the second edition of Stephen MacKenna's translation of the Ennead.~ (New York: Pantheon Books Inc., n. d.), pp. xli-xliv. Elmer O'Brien (ed. and trans.), The Essential Plotinus (New York: Mentor, 1964),p. 15. 8"Albinus and Plotinus on Divine Attributes," Harvard Theological Review, XXXXV (1952), 115. 9From Platonism to Neoplatonism (2n ed. rev.; The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1960). 10"On the Neoplatonic Character of Platonism and the Platonic Character of Neoplatonism," Mind, LXIII (1953), 43-64. 11Ibid., 58. [3]5] 316 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY considered only parallel terminology. I shall in addition look at parallel argumentation and conclusions. Furthermore, since Dodds accounts only for Plotinus' first two hypostases, I shall consider the relation of the third hypostasis (soul) to the Parmenides. My primary interest is not the source of Plotinus' interpretation of the Parmenides but the way he carries that interpretation out. TM The former issue has often been focal in the literature on this subject. ~8It is certain thay many of the ideas used by Plotinus were already in circulation. But it is equally certain that in his combination of these ideas of a hierarchy, of transcendence, etc., Plotinus is original. I shall argue that this originality of combination is largely determined by an interpretation of the Parmenides. I should add that I am not concerned with whether Plotinus' interpretation is correct. ~4 In the following pages I shall attempt to show three things: (1) how Plotinus explicitly interprets the Parmenides, (2) to what extent he draws upon the language of the Parmenides, and (3) to what extent Plotinus' system may be understood by its relation to the Parmenides. I. Plotinus' Interpretation of the Parmenides The obvious place to begin an analysis of Plotinus' relation to the Parmenides is Enneads V... (shrink)

All commentators on these lines make two assumptions about the first clause, that means ‘sitting in judgement’, ‘punishing’, or the like, that the which is its subject as well as that of is the second in a series of two: the subsequent slaying punishes or sits in judgement on the previous; thus the slaying of Cly taemnestra herself will sit in judgement upon that of Agamemnon, just as that had sat in judgement upon the of Iphigenia. Then opinions differ as (...) to whether is to be taken as the object of both verbs, or of one but not the other. (shrink)

Barrett finds lines 1010–15 difficult. He says that ‘hovers between “an heiress as my wife” and “marriage with an heiress”’, that ‘a Greek heiress did not inherit property as her own: it passed not to her but with her, to her husband and ultimately to her children.—In Attic law a widow was never : a man's property went to his legitimate children.