In multiethnic and multi-religious democracies, the chronic danger is that candidates will engage in “identity politics,” appealing to one locally preponderant ethnic group against other groups. The usual formulas for composing multiethnic democracies—ethnic federalism and/or proportional representation—often exacerbate the problem, ethnicizing political campaigns and carving up the national legislature into ethnic blocs, each beholden only to its own group. An alternative approach—what I call “dispersed constituency democracy”—is to match each legislative seat with a constituency that reflects the overall ethnic composition (...) of the society in question, so as to encourage candidates to reach across ethnic divisions rather than play to locally preponderant ones. I propose a simple way to do this, and explore the likely consequences for national electoral campaigns and legislative dynamics over a range of demographic circumstances. I also consider supplemental devices for protecting minority rights that would be made possible by the proposed constituency system. (shrink)

Competition for resources is one of the main evolutionary explanations for dispersal from the natal area. For humans this explanation has received little attention, despite the key role dispersal is thought to play in shaping social systems. I examine the link between dispersal and resources using historical data on people from the small farming town of Oakham, Massachusetts (1750–1850). I reconstruct individual life histories through a variety of records, identifying dispersers, their age at dispersal, and their destinations. I find that (...) sex, father’s wealth and social status, and age at father’s death were all significantly associated with one or more dispersal variables. Birth order and number of siblings were not significantly associated with any of the dispersal variables. I also use wills and deeds to study transfers of land from fathers to sons. More stayers than dispersers acquired Oakham land from their fathers, but some sons who acquired Oakham land later dispersed. I discuss the causality underlying the relationship between dispersal and resource acquisition, as well as implications for a general understanding of human dispersal. (shrink)

To evaluate dispersal patterns and concentrations of macroscopic charcoal particles around Stollo settlements in sub-arctic Scandinavia, their distributions following experimental burning and soil concentrations around an alpine Stollo settlement dating between AD 700 and 1150 were recorded. After the burning 98% of recorded particles were 0.1-0.5 mm long, 90% were dispersed within 40 m of the fire, their mean concentration 40 m from the fire was 0.14±0.08 particles/cm2 and the concentration decreased with increasing distance. At the settlement, 95% of recorded (...) charcoal particles were 0.1-0.5 mm long, 94% were within 40 m of the hearths, the mean concentration declined with increasing distance, and concentrations were much lower than expected from the experimental burning (e.g. 17.6±2.4 particles/cm2, 40 m away). In conclusion: biological archives used for charcoal analysis in archaeological and vegetation history studies should be located ?40 m from settlements, and data obtained from charcoal analyses should be interpreted cautiously. (shrink)

Prayer in Islamic Thought and Practice. By Marion Holmes Katz. Themes in Islamic History, vol. 6. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Pp. ix + 243. $85 ; $29.99 ; $24.

In a recent study, female dispersal in nineteenth-century Sweden has been found to correlate negatively with access to resources: women with limited access to local resources tended to migrate more frequently. In this paper I review the literature to explore whether this observed correlation was derived from a relationship in which a woman’s limited access to resources worsened her position in the marriage market and led to migration, as a strategy to improve resources and this position. Many studies within a (...) variety of disciplines indicate that a woman’s propensity to disperse from her parish of birth variedinversely with her propensity to inherit resources. My review of the literature suggests that the less likely a woman was to inherit resources, the lower her probability of marriage, the later her expected age at marriage, and the earlier she left home, presumably to improve her resource base for marriage. (shrink)

Following Schelling (1960), coordination problems have mainly been considered in a context where agents can achieve a common goal (e.g., rendezvous) only by taking common actions. Dynamic versions of this problem have been studied by Crawford and Haller (1990), Ponssard (1994), and Kramarz (1996). This paper considers an alternative dynamic formulation in which the common goal (dispersion) can only be achieved by agents taking distinct actions. The goal of spatial dispersion has been studied in static models of habitat (...) selection, location or congestion games, and network analysis. Our results show how this goal can be achieved gradually, by indistinguishable non-communicating agents, in a dynamic setting. (shrink)

If utopias in the western cultural tradition owe their model of ideal, final, unitary order to the objective basis of metaphysics, have they not, like metaphysics, undergone a dissolution in Heidegger’s sense of Verwindung? Insofar as the very notion of unity, like that of an ultimate metaphysical foundation, now reveals its violence and will to domination and as we are interested instead in thinking utopia as a ‘project for emancipation’, the author suggests replacing the unity that was hitherto characteristic of (...) utopia with a multiplicity that is defended as a value and not as a phase of ‘confusion’ to be overcome. (shrink)

Many egalitarians incorporate a concern for interpersonal welfare inequality as part of their favored axiology – that is, they take it to be a bad-making feature of outcomes. It is natural to think that, if inequality is in this sense a bad, it is an impersonal bad (one that makes an outcome worse, while not in itself being worse for any person). This natural thought has been challenged. Some writers claim that egalitarian judgments can be accommodated by adopting an expanded (...) view of a person's good, according to which being worse off than others is one of the factors that, in itself, makes one's life go worse. The putatively impersonal bad of inequality is thereby “dispersed” among individuals. I argue that this dispersion strategy fails. In a slogan: if you care about inequality, do not disperse it. (shrink)

The ground-state dispersion energy of a pair of axially symmetric molecules is calculated, to arbitrary order in the inverse intermolecular separation, on the basis of London's anisotropic oscillator model.

Classical dispersion relations are derived from a time-asymmetric constraint. I argue that the standard causal interpretation of this constraint plays a scientifically legitimate role in dispersion theory, and hence provides a counterexample to the causal skepticism advanced by John Norton and others. Norton ([2009]) argues that the causal interpretation of the time-asymmetric constraint is an empty honorific and that the constraint can be motivated by purely non-causal considerations. In this paper I respond to Norton's criticisms and argue that (...) Norton's skepticism derives its force partly by holding causal principles to a standard too high to be met by other scientifically legitimate constraints. (shrink)

Accession Number: ATLA0001712129; Hosting Book Page Citation: p 207-225.; Language(s): English; General Note: Bibliography: p 222-225.; Issued by ATLA: 20130825; Publication Type: Essay.

Do we freely choose to do what we do? Or are we determined by what nature and history have made us? If we are so determined, then can we ever really be responsible for our actions? It is only by bad logic that metaphysics can deprive us of our freedom and our responsibility. But the contingencies of life are another matter. This paper argues that so many accidents of life create who we are and how we act that the responsibility (...) for what we do must be dispersed. There is no place where the buck stops. We are therefore called upon to moderate our resentment and to give up punitive morality in favor of a morality of love and redemption. (shrink)

The spatial aggregation/dispersion of the vegetation in a landscape affects landscape texture, with potentially important implications for its perception. The aim of the study was to investigate how plant dispersion and interspersion in small-scale landscapes could affect garden preference. Dispersion referred to the proximity and distance between plants, and interspersion referred to the degree of intermixing between plants of different species. Fifty-six participants evaluated 40 pairs of landscapes that differed in terms of plant dispersion or plant (...) interspersion. Participants were asked to rate their preference for each pair of landscapes. Furthermore, eye movements were recorded during the viewing time, and the number of fixations and fixation time were computed for each landscape image. Overall, plants arranged in a more dispersed and a more interspersed design resulted in a higher landscape preference. Dispersion was more effective than interspersion in affecting landscape preference. The number of fixations and fixation time were higher when viewing landscapes with plants arranged in a high-dispersion and high-interspersion layout. (shrink)

This paper offers a brief guide to implementation research and some of the conceptual and methodological issues it raises. In the course of reviewing investigations of the import of aspects of the 1988 Education Reform Act, it also considers the issues posed for education policy studies in a context where the 'centre' is connected to a dispersed and differentiated periphery.

ArgumentBy the time the members of the Surrealist group had fled Paris and dispersed at the beginning of World War II, they had taken account of quantum mechanics and were seeking various ways of assimilating its findings into Surrealist theory. This can be detected in writings issuing from the Surrealist milieu as early as the late 1920s. However, while writers and thinkers outside the field of physics swiftly expressed their awareness of the epistemological crisis brought about by quantum mechanics, Surrealism's (...) artists began to conscript the concepts and imagery of modern physics into their work only at the end of the 1930s. Focusing on two “second generation” Surrealist painters, the Chilean Roberto Matta and the Viennese Wolfgang Paalen, this article discusses the peculiar difficulties faced by artists in finding a language for the “new reality” revealed by the physicists, and argues that the relocation of Surrealism in a discursive field which includes quantum physics discloses the rationale behind its artists' shift to a semi-abstract language. (shrink)

Sandra Field, Jeffrey Flynn, Stephen Macedo, Longxi Zhang, and Martin Powers discussed Powers’ book China and England: The Preindustrial Struggle for Social Justice in Word and Image at the American Philosophical Association’s 2020 Eastern Division meeting in Philadelphia. The panel was sponsored by the APA’s “Committee on Asian and Asian-American Philosophers and Philosophies” and organized by Brian Bruya.

Based on the ›patchwork‹ as a concept of (political) heterarchy, the paper explores the formal and medial space of M. Brady’s collaged group portrait of the 36th US-Senate and House of Representatives (1859). Poised between unity and decomposition, the image constitutes a congenial map of American politics, its specific relationism and ›proximal distances.‹ However, Brady’s subsequent work sees this lose patchwork disintegrate during the Civil War and then solidify under Lincoln’s paternal rule.

The fourth volume in the series "Jean-Franðcois Lyotard: Writings on Contemporary Art and Artists" contains 48 texts written by Lyotard between the early seventies and 1998, the year of his death. Nine of these texts are previously unpublished papers on general aesthetics and the theory of art. The remaining 39 essays deal with 27 specific artists: Luciano Berio, Richard Lindner, René Guiffrey, Gianfranco Baruchello, Henri Maccheroni, Riwan Tromeur, Albert Ayme, Manuel Casimiro, Ruth Francken, Barnett Newman, Jean-Luc Parant, François Lapouge, Sam (...) Francis, André Dubreuil, Joseph Kosuth, Sarah Flohr, Lino Centi, Gigliola Fazzini, Bracha Lichtenberger Ettinger, Henri Martin, Michel Bouvet, Corinne Filippi, Stig Brogger, François Rouan, Pierre Skira Pastels, and Béatrice Casadesus. Many of these texts are notes or contributions to catalogues; some were published in now inaccessible journals. (shrink)

What's wrong with high executive pay? Beyond envy, is some issue of justice or fairness at stake? And what can anyone do about it? (A lot, as it turns out.).

Cooperative breeding in birds typically occurs when offspring – usually males – delay dispersal from their natal group, remaining with the family to help rear younger kin. Sex‐biased dispersal is thought to have evolved in order to reduce the risk of inbreeding, resulting in low relatedness between mates and the loss of indirect fitness benefits for the dispersing sex. In this review, we discuss several recent studies showing that dispersal patterns are more variable than previously thought, often leading to complex (...) genetic structure within cooperative avian societies. These empirical findings accord with recent theoretical models suggesting that sex‐ biased dispersal is neither necessary, nor always sufficient, to prevent inbreeding. The ability to recognize relatives, primarily by learning individual or group‐specific vocalizations, may play a more important role in incest avoidance than currently appreciated. (shrink)

Ad hominem arguments argue that some opponent should not be heard and no argument of that opponent should be heard or considered. The opponent has generally pernicious views, false and harmful. Moreover he is diabolically clever at arguing for his views. Thus, the ad hominem argument is essentially a device by which non-intellectuals try to wrest control of a dialectical situation from intellectuals. Stifling intellectuals, disrupting the dialectical situation, is an unpleasant conclusion, but no fallacy has been shown in what (...) leads up to that conclusion. (shrink)

Somaesthetics and Sport, edited by sport philosopher Andrew Edgar, marks the fifth volume of Brill’s book series, ‘Studies in Somaesthetics—Embodied Perspectives in Philosophy, the Arts, and the Hu...

In this article, I present a case for a kind of existential theology which would be philosophical and metaphysical, though not broadly Platonic and classical, and biblical though not illogical. What I present will be an attempt to clarify and justify what I call "existential hayatological theism". In so doing I will draw on insights from what Edmond La B Cherbonnier and Claude Tresmontant designated as "biblical philosophy" and "biblical metaphysics" as well as from the neo-classical philosophies of Charles Hartshorne (...) and Alfred North Whitehead, especially that of Whitehead. (shrink)

Lit from Within offers sincere seekers a road map for awakening the inner life-an inner life that can become a nourishing vehicle for existing in a kinder, healthier, more attuned way. Awareness teachings are a way in, and a way out. They are a way in to the vivid but formless realms of our body and mind, as well as a way out of the emotional agony of disconnection and meaninglessness.

Dislocation phenomena in natural language can be, and often are, thought of as the effects of movement transformations. We propose to handle these phenomena in terms of parser combinators [3, 8] that transform recursive descent parsers for a ‘deep structure language’ into parsers for a ‘surface structure language’. This combinator approach to extraction keeps close to the ‘movement’ intuition and gives a computational account of the well known island constraints on extraction first proposed in [7].

Acidity, generated in hypoxia or hypermetabolic states, perturbs homeostasis and is a feature of solid tumors. That acid peripherally disperses lysosomes is a three‐decade‐old observation, yet one little understood or appreciated. However, recent work has recognized the inhibitory impact this spatial redistribution has on mechanistic target of rapamycin complex 1 (mTORC1), a key regulator of metabolism. This finding argues for a paradigm shift in localization of mTORC1 activator Ras homolog enriched in brain (RHEB), a conclusion several others have now independently (...) reached. Thus, mTORC1, known to sense amino acids, mitogens, and energy to restrict biosynthesis to times of adequate resources, also senses pH and, via dampened mTOR‐governed synthesis of clock proteins, regulates the circadian clock to achieve concerted responses to metabolic stress. While this may allow cancer to endure metabolic deprivation, immune cell mTOR signaling likewise exhibits pH sensitivity, suggesting that suppression of antitumor immune function by solid tumor acidity may additionally fuel cancers, an obstacle potentially reversible through therapeutic pH manipulation. (shrink)

Plants are silent, still, or move slowly; we do not have the sense that they accompany us, or even perceive us. But is there something that plants are telling us? Is there something about how they live and connect, how they relate to the world and other plants that can teach us about ecological thinking, about ethics and politics? Grounded in Thoreau's ecology and in contemporary plant studies, Thoreau and Vegetal Thought offers answers to those questions by pondering such concepts (...) as co-dependence, the continuity of life forms, relationality, cohabitation, porousness, fragility, the openness of beings to incessant modification by other beings and phenomena, patience, waiting, slowness and receptivity. (shrink)

Architecture, Power, and Religion: Hatshepsut, Amun & Karnak in Context. By David A. Warburton. Beiträge zur Archäologie, vol. 7. Vienna: LIT Verlag, 2012. Pp. xxi + 400, illus. €76.90.

Neurite orientation dispersion and density imaging is a diffusion model specifically designed for brain magnetic resonance imaging. Despite recent studies suggesting that NODDI modeling might be more sensitive to brain development than diffusion tensor imaging, these studies were limited to a relatively small age range and mainly based on the manually operated region of interest analysis. Therefore, this study applied NODDI to investigate brain development in a large sample size of 214 subjects ranging in ages from 0 to 14. (...) The whole brain was automatically segmented into 122 regions. The maturation trajectory of each region was characterized by the time course of diffusion metrics and further quantified using nonlinear regression. The NODDI-derived metrics, neurite density index and orientation dispersion index, increased with age. And these two metrics were superior to the DTI-derived metrics in SVM regression models of age. The NDI in white matter exhibited a more rapid growth than that in gray matter. These diffusion indicators experienced conspicuous increases during early childhood and the growth speed slowed down in adolescence. Region-specific maturation patterns were described throughout the brain, including white matter, cortical and deep gray matter. These development patterns were evaluated and discussed on the basis of NODDI’s model assumptions. To summarize, this study verified the high sensitivity of NODDI to age over a crucial developmental period from newborn to adolescence. Moreover, the existing knowledge of brain development has been complemented, suggesting that NODDI has a potential capability in the investigation of brain development. (shrink)