By 2050, global livestock production is expected to double—growing faster than any other agricultural sub-sector—with most of this increase taking place in the developing world. As the United Nation’s four-hundred-page report, Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options , documents, livestock production is now one of three most significant contributors to environmental problems, leading to increased greenhouse gas emissions, land degradation, water pollution, and increased health problems. The paper draws on the UN report as well as a flurry of other (...) recently published studies in order to demonstrate the effect of intensive livestock production on global warming and on people’s health. The paper’s goal is to outline the problems caused by intensive livestock farming and analyze a number of possible solutions, including legislative changes and stricter regulations, community mobilizing, and consumers choosing to decrease their demand for animal products. (shrink)

Octavio Paz fue un lúcido intérprete de su siglo. Este trabajo explora aspectos decisivos de su propia definición como poeta y ensayista, así como de su trayectoria creativa y crítica, altamente representativa de las transformaciones del artista y el escritor contemporáneos. Los ecos de sus experiencias, prácticas de sociabilidad y lecturas, unidos a su sensibilidad y lucidez, hicieron que ya desde sus primeros textos en prosa Octavio Paz contribuyera a la reconfiguración del ensayo como género. Proponemos leer algunos textos del (...) escritor mexicano en diálogo con las reflexiones de varios de los grandes refundadores del ensayo y la crítica en el siglo XX. Su búsqueda de una comunicación profunda entre poesía e historia, su esfuerzo por repensar críticamente la tradición, su exigencia de autenticidad y libertad en el quehacer del escritor, son algunos de los elementos que dieron lugar en sus ensayos a una nueva poética del pensar y a una nueva relación entre conciencia y transparencia. (shrink)

The question of why Plato censored poetry in his Republic has bedeviled scholars for centuries. In Exiling the Poets, Ramona A. Naddaff offers a strikingly original interpretation of this ancient quarrel between poetry and philosophy.

Processuality as refusal to “freeze,” “eternize,” and fragment reality is an attempt to deconstruct the I’s main mechanism, which is, as it was named in psychoanalysis, the compulsion of repetition. Through this deceit and illusion fabrication mechanism, the knowing I tries to “freeze”, to “fixate” and to fragment reality, through “catching” it in different images, formulae, dogmas, theories, ideologies, symbols and systems which become just as many “icons” or graven images of reality. This attempt of deconstruction is made from the (...) perspective of a philosophy/vision of process, quite sporadic in the Western space, bringing arguments from the perspective of Henri Bergson and Emil Cioran’s intuitionist philosophy, as well as from that of the new scientific paradigm of quantum mechanics. All these philosophies could be seen as philosophies of process, demanding as it were an understanding of reality in terms of process, and not of result. This understanding of process takes place with the help of intuition, the only one which can grasp, beyond the static, rigid and artificial concepts or categories of the intellect, the movement, “verb” or interior pulsation of things within the framework of an integration process which reveals the unity, non-separability, intercorrelation and mutual interconnectivity of things. (shrink)

Inconsistent information between an organization’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) commitments and perceived CSR (in-)action is a big challenge for organizations because this is typically associated with perceptions of corporate hypocrisy and related negative stakeholder reactions. However, in contrast to the prevailing corporate hypocrisy literature we argue that inconsistent CSR information does not always correspond to perceptions of corporate hypocrisy; rather, responses depend on individual predispositions in processing CSR-related information. In this study, we investigate how an individual’s moral identity shapes reactions (...) to inconsistent CSR information. The results of our three studies show that individuals who symbolize—i.e., display—their moral identity to the public more than they internalize moral values react less negatively to inconsistent CSR information. We also show that this weakens their anger and willingness to change company behavior. Furthermore, we find that this effect is amplified for extraverted but weakened for neurotic individuals. Our findings underline the importance of individual predispositions in processing CSR information. (shrink)

In this study, I examine the online discourse of the European refugee crisis on the micro-blogging platform, Twitter. Specifically, I analyze 100 tweets that include #refugeesnotwelcome, and explore how this hashtag is used to express negative feelings, beliefs and ideologies toward refugees and migrants in Europe. Guided by critical discourse studies, I focus on Twitter users’ discursive strategies as well as form and function of semiotic resources and multimodality. Twitter users who include this particular hashtag use a rhetoric of inclusion (...) and exclusion to depict refugees as unwanted, criminal outsiders. These tendencies align with current trends in Europe where nationalist-conservative and xenophobic right-wing groups gain power and establish a socially accepted discourse of racism. (shrink)

A recent report from the UN makes the case for “global data literacy” in order to realise the opportunities afforded by the “data revolution”. Here and in many other contexts, data literacy is characterised in terms of a combination of numerical, statistical and technical capacities. In this article, we argue for an expansion of the concept to include not just competencies in reading and working with datasets but also the ability to account for, intervene around and participate in the wider (...) socio-technical infrastructures through which data is created, stored and analysed – which we call “data infrastructure literacy”. We illustrate this notion with examples of “inventive data practice” from previous and ongoing research on open data, online platforms, data journalism and data activism. Drawing on these perspectives, we argue that data literacy initiatives might cultivate sensibilities not only for data science but also for data sociology, data politics as well as wider public engagement with digital data infrastructures. The proposed notion of data infrastructure literacy is intended to make space for collective inquiry, experimentation, imagination and intervention around data in educational programmes and beyond, including how data infrastructures can be challenged, contested, reshaped and repurposed to align with interests and publics other than those originally intended. (shrink)

Visual Perception of Shape, Space and Appearance Liliana Albertazzi. the sort I have in mind. What I am speaking of is the mandatory correlations between attributes of visual space (those of, e.g., surfaces, shape, distance, direction) and  ...

The framers of the U.S. Constitution believed that intellectual property rights were crucial to scientific advancement. Yet, the framers also recognized the need to balance innovation, privatization, and public use. The courts’ expansion of patent protection for biotechnology innovations in the last 30 years raises the question whether the patent system effectively balances these concerns. While the question is not new, only through a thorough and thoughtful examination of these issues can the current system be evaluated. It is then a (...) policy decision for Congress if any change is necessary. (shrink)

This interactive book is designed to help readers deepen their relationship with the Divine by connecting to the vibrancy of life. This cosmic message of hope is meant to be read without hurry, while taking time to ponder and absorb the wisdom of these great mystics.

Cyclin‐dependent kinases are Ser/Thr protein kinases best known for their cell cycle roles, where CDK1 triggers mitotic onset in all eukaryotes. CDKs are also involved in various other cellular processes, some of which, such as transcription and centrosome duplication, are coupled to cell cycle progression. A new study suggests that the mitotic CDK network is active at low levels in non‐dividing, differentiating precursors of multiciliated cells, and that it drives ciliogenesis. Manipulating the activity of CDK1 or PLK1 altered transitions between (...) the amplification, growth, and disengagement phases, in a manner analogous to the control of passage through different phases of mitosis. How the dynamics of the mitotic kinase network are controlled in these post‐mitotic cells, and whether other cell cycle regulators are also involved, remains unknown. In the present mini‐review we suggest that the redeployment of cell cycle regulators to control steps of differentiation in non‐dividing cells might be a more general, hitherto under‐recognized, feature of cell regulation. (shrink)

Objective: Theory and research suggest that the pursuit of personal goals that do not fit a person's affect-based implicit motives results in impaired emotional well-being, including increased symptoms of depression. The aim of this study was to evaluate an intervention designed to enhance motive-goal congruence and study its impact on well-being. Method: Seventy-four German students (mean age = 22.91, SD = 3.68; 64.9% female) without current psychopathology, randomly allocated to 3 groups: motivational feedback (FB; n = 25; participants learned about (...) the fit between their implicit motives and explicit goals), FB + congruence-enhancement training (CET; n = 22; participants also engaged in exercises to increase the fit between their implicit motives and goals), and a no-intervention control group (n = 27), were administered measures of implicit motives, personal goal commitments, happiness, depressive symptoms, and life satisfaction 3 weeks before (T1) and 6 weeks after (T2) treatment. Results: On two types of congruence measures derived from motive and goal assessments, treated participants showed increases in agentic (power and achievement) congruence, with improvements being most consistent in the FB+CET group. Treated participants also showed a trend-level depressive symptom reduction, but no changes on other well-being measures. Although increases in overall and agentic motivational congruence were associated with increases in affective well-being, treatment-based reduction of depressive symptoms was not mediated by treatment-based agentic congruence changes. Conclusion: These findings document that motivational congruence can be effectively enhanced, that changes in motivational congruence are associated with changes in affective well-being, and they suggest that individuals’ implicit motives should be considered when personal goals are discussed in the therapeutic process. (shrink)

The study of biodiversity spans many disciplines and includes data pertaining to species distributions and abundances, genetic sequences, trait measurements, and ecological niches, complemented by information on collection and measurement protocols. A review of the current landscape of metadata standards and ontologies in biodiversity science suggests that existing standards such as the Darwin Core terminology are inadequate for describing biodiversity data in a semantically meaningful and computationally useful way. Existing ontologies, such as the Gene Ontology and others in the Open (...) Biological and Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) Foundry library, provide a semantic structure but lack many of the necessary terms to describe biodiversity data in all its dimensions. In this paper, we describe the motivation for and ongoing development of a new Biological Collections Ontology, the Environment Ontology, and the Population and Community Ontology. These ontologies share the aim of improving data aggregation and integration across the biodiversity domain and can be used to describe physical samples and sampling processes (for example, collection, extraction, and preservation techniques), as well as biodiversity observations that involve no physical sampling. Together they encompass studies of: 1) individual organisms, including voucher specimens from ecological studies and museum specimens, 2) bulk or environmental samples (e.g., gut contents, soil, water) that include DNA, other molecules, and potentially many organisms, especially microbes, and 3) survey-based ecological observations. We discuss how these ontologies can be applied to biodiversity use cases that span genetic, organismal, and ecosystem levels of organization. We argue that if adopted as a standard and rigorously applied and enriched by the biodiversity community, these ontologies would significantly reduce barriers to data discovery, integration, and exchange among biodiversity resources and researchers. (shrink)

Written for a series of case studies titled “In the Humanities Classroom,” this contribution describes an undergraduate course on ancient rhetoric at Berkeley, in which Professor Ramona Naddaff was accused by a male student of demeaning women during a lecture and of causing him trauma in the process. He threatened to bring charges against her to campus authorities, claiming the support of fellow students. In her lecture, she had discussed the classical figuration of rhetoric—persuasive speech—as violence and sometimes rape. (...) In a discussion the following week, some students requested the use of “trigger warnings” before the utterance of words like rape. The instructor and her teaching assistant Katharine Wallerstein individually give their views of this disconcerting experience and comment on the difficulties of teaching critical thinking in the current political and cultural climate. They conclude that the language of personal rights and the demand for self-protection tend to come at the expense of teaching and learning alike. (shrink)

Bio-ontologies are essential tools for accessing and analyzing the rapidly growing pool of plant genomic and phenomic data. Ontologies provide structured vocabularies to support consistent aggregation of data and a semantic framework for automated analyses and reasoning. They are a key component of the Semantic Web. This paper provides background on what bio-ontologies are, why they are relevant to botany, and the principles of ontology development. It includes an overview of ontologies and related resources that are relevant to plant science, (...) with a detailed description of the Plant Ontology (PO). We discuss the challenges of building an ontology that covers all green plants (Viridiplantae). Key results: Ontologies can advance plant science in four keys areas: 1. comparative genetics, genomics, phenomics, and development, 2. taxonomy and systematics, 3. semantic applications and 4. education. Conclusions: Bio-ontologies offer a flexible framework for comparative plant biology, based on common botanical understanding. As genomic and phenomic data become available for more species, we anticipate that the annotation of data with ontology terms will become less centralized, while at the same time, the need for cross-species queries will become more common, causing more researchers in plant science to turn to ontologies. (shrink)

Involutive Stone algebras were introduced by R. Cignoli and M. Sagastume in connection to the theory of $n$-valued Łukasiewicz–Moisil algebras. In this work we focus on the logic that preserves degrees of truth associated to S-algebras named Six. This follows a very general pattern that can be considered for any class of truth structure endowed with an ordering relation, and which intends to exploit many-valuedness focusing on the notion of inference that results from preserving lower bounds of truth values, and (...) hence not only preserving the value $1$. Among other things, we prove that Six is a many-valued logic that can be determined by a finite number of matrices. Besides, we show that Six is a paraconsistent logic. Moreover, we prove that it is a genuine Logic of Formal Inconsistency with a consistency operator that can be defined in terms of the original set of connectives. Finally, we study the proof theory of Six providing a Gentzen calculus for it, which is sound and complete with respect to the logic. (shrink)

The scientific paradigm which I rely upon in the framework of this article is quantum mechanics, whose “cognitive revolution” consisted of replacing the classical principle of separability with the principle of nonseparability or global intercorrelation. According to this intercorrelation, highlighted at the subatomic level, the part cannot be separated from the whole, because every part has a global and instantaneous connection with the whole universe. For this reason the foundation of the world cannot be the part, but the whole, which (...) is therefore logically and ontologically prior to the part, i.e., self-consistent. Consequently, the principle of global intercorrelation elucidates and validates some of the oldest philosophical problems and intuitions about the unity or self-consistency of the world. An example in this sense is the bootstrap theory of American physicist Geoffrey Chew, which presents such striking similarities to the metaphysical system of Leibniz's Monadology that the two intertwine and mirror each other, like twin souls, to the extent that it could be stated that if Chew’s bootstrap theory represents the explanatory physical level of Leibniz’s metaphysics, then, analogously, Leibniz’s Monadology represents the explanatory metaphysical level of Chew’s physics. (shrink)

The presence of agriculture is diminishing in today’s society: it provides only a small percentage of jobs, and the number of visible farms that can provide exposure to agricultural processes is continuously decreasing. We hypothesize that the direct involvement with farm activities or interaction with farmers and visual appreciation of agricultural processes of all kinds, influences rural inhabitants’ relationship to agriculture. We assume that the latter plays a role in how far inhabitants are attached to their place, and more specifically, (...) perceive rural place. In this paper, we aim to initiate a discussion on this complex social relationship and suggest a model to capture fine interactions between relationship to agriculture and rural place attachment. We examine the direct and indirect effects from the density of resident farmers on these interactions. We set up a model using data from empirical research in Germany conducted in 2016. We surveyed rural inhabitants and interviewed farmers in villages purposefully sampled based on high and low density of resident farmers. To reveal underlying relationships among the latent constructs and more directly measurable indicators, as well as the indirect effect of farm presence on place attachment through its effect on forming perceptions about agriculture, we operationalized our analysis using a structural equation model. Besides a good model fit, our initial results indicate that rural inhabitants form stronger relationship to agriculture when the density of resident farmers is higher. Further, farm presence and attachment to rural place are positively related, but needs to be better captured. (shrink)

Review of Joseph Kim, Reformed Epistemology and the Problem of Religious Diversity.

En medio de una sociedad que nos invita constantemente a la extroversión, cabe preguntarnos si el encuentro con nosotros mismos a través de una actitud “interior” y reflexiva no puede representar un factor clave para detener, en alguna medida, el proceso de deshumanización que descompone a Occidente.

The central idea developed by the contributions to this book is that the split between analytic philosophy and phenomenology - perhaps the most impor tant schism in twentieth-century philosophy - resulted from a radicalization of reciprocal partialities. Both schools of thought share, in fact, the same cultural background and their same initial stimulus in the thought of Franz Brentano. And one outcome of the subsequent rift between them was the oblivion into which the figure and thought of Brentano have fallen. (...) The first step to take in remedying this split is to return to Brentano and to reconstruct the 'map' of Brent ani sm. The second task (which has been addressed by this book) is to revive inter est in the theoretical complexity of Brentano' s thought and of his pupils and to revitalize those aspects that have been neglected by subsequent debate within the various movements of Brentanian inspiration. We have accordingly decided to organize the book into two introductory es says followed by two sections (Parts 1 and 2) which systematically examine Brentano's thought and that of his followers. The two introductory essays re construct the reasons for the 'invisibility', so to speak, of Brentano and set out of his philosophical doctrine. Part 1 of the book then ex the essential features amines six of Brentano's most outstanding pupils (Marty, Stumpf, Meinong, Ehrenfels, Husserl and Twardowski). Part 2 contains nine essays concentrating on the principal topics addressed by the Brentanians. (shrink)

The paper examines the contours, features and developments of two faces of pluralism, as well as their interactions. First of all, based on the analysis of the pluralist theories, it underlines that pluralism is not perceived now only as a particular American school of thought, but mostly as a generic concept with meanings and connotations that vary from one epoch to another. Second of all, it scrutinizes the political pluralism in the United States, more exactly the relationship between constitutional pluralism (...) and party pluralism, as well as the pluralism of interest groups. The religious pluralism is seen both as denominational pluralism and as diversity of religious organizations. The paper shows that, in spite of the common ground in the constitutional provisions and much interference in their development, each of the two faces of pluralism has followed its own dynamics. Next, it focuses on the new religious pluralism, which has nourished controversies regarding its effects on democracy in America. Although prestigious scholars have warned that these new challenges face real perils, the author of this paper sides with those who see them less of a threat than an opportunity for democracy to develop new interactions and participative tools, without abandoning its principles and values. (shrink)

Un enjeu majeur pour les recherches actuelles dans les sciences de la vision consiste à mettre au point une approche dépendante de l’observateur – une science des apparences visuelles située au-delà de leur véridicité. L’espace dont nous faisons l’expérience subjective est en réalité hautement « illusoire», et les éléments de base du champ visuel sont des structures qualitatives, contextuelles et relationnelles, et non des indices métriques et dépendants du stimulus. Sur la base de nombreux résultats disponibles dans la littérature traitant (...) de la manière dont fonctionnent les divers constituants de l’espace, l’article décrit les éléments qualitatifs de base d’un tel espace et pose la question de la « géométrie» des apparences visuelles. Il formule enfin un ensemble de propositions pour d’éventuelles recherches poursuivant l’examen de l’espace visuel d’un point de vue expérimental. (shrink)

El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar las dos concepciones en torno a las semillas, es decir, en tanto bienes comunes (commons) y en tanto mercancías, e indagar cómo se produjo el pasaje de la primera significación a la segunda. Las simientes como bienes comunes se remontan a los orígenes de las civilizaciones e implican la conjunción de consideraciones de tipo natural, social, cultural, religioso. Las semillas como mercancías se arraigan a los inicios del sistema capitalista y la nueva manera (...) de entender las relaciones capital-trabajo y, en especial, el binomio capital-recursos naturales. El presente trabajo aplica principios y nociones marxistas que permiten arrojar luz en la idea de mercantilización a través de la tesis de la acumulación originaria y de la referencia a la acumulación por despojo. (shrink)