The volume analyzes the natural philosophical accounts and debates concerning the vegetative powers, namely nutrition, growth, and reproduction. While principally focusing on the early modern approaches to the lower functions of the soul, readers will discover the roots of these approaches back to the Ancient times, as the volume highlights the role of three strands that help shape the study of life in the Medieval and early modern natural philosophies. From late antiquity to the early modern period, the vegetative (...) soul and its cognate concepts have played a substantial role in specifying life, living functions, and living bodies, sometimes blurring the line between living and non-living nature, and, at other moments, resulting in a strong restriction of life to a mechanical system of operations and powers. Unearthing the history of the vegetative soul as a shrub of interconnected concepts, the 24 contributions of the volume fill a crucial gap in scholarship, ultimately outlining the importance of vegetal processes of incessant proliferation, generation, and organic growth as the roots of life in natural philosophical interpretations. (shrink)

The article briefly analyzes the concept of a person, arguing that personhood does not coincide with the actual enjoyment of certain intellectual capacities, but is coextensive with the embodiment of a human individual. Since in PVS patients we can observe a human individual functioning as a whole, we must conclude that these patients are still human persons, even if in a condition of extreme impairment. It is then argued that some forms of minimal treatment may not be futile for these (...) patients; they may constitute a form of respect for their human dignity and benefit these patients, even if they are not aware of that. Moreover, it is important to consider the symbolic significance of care: while many believe that PVS is a kind of imprisonment, for others providing food and fluids is the only way to testify our proximity to these persons. The best policy would be to provide, as a general rule, artificial nutrition and hydration to PVS patients: this treatment could be withdrawn, after a period of observation and reflection by the family and proxies, on the basis of the proxies' objection to the continuation or of the patient's advance directives specifically referring to this situation. (shrink)

In the sixteenth century the Stoics were deemed friends of humanist Christians, but by the eighteenth century they were attacked as atheists. What happened in the intervening period? In the middle of this period falls Ralph Cudworth’s True Intellectual System of the Universe (1678), which contains a sustained analysis of Stoic theology. In Cudworth’s complex taxonomy Stoicism appears twice, both as a form of atheism and an example of imperfect theism. Whether the Stoics are theists or atheists hinges (...) on whether their God is conscious and intelligent, or alive but unconscious like a plant or vegetable. Is God sentient or is he a mindless vegetable? (shrink)

The historical development of a field of human knowledge progresses like the solution of a jig-saw puzzle, the full extent of which is completely unknown. What begins as an ocean may become only a lake; what starts as a grove of trees may develop into a forest. As study advances through the decades, the situation is repeatedly surveyed and the interpretation of the whole is modified to accord with the added information. For these reasons, conceptions and generalizations periodically undergo alteration, (...) as effectively stated and discussed by Cooper. Universal conformity in such conceptions is of course hardly to be expected in matters that deal largely with speculation rather than with simple experimental data. (shrink)

A growing number of studies show that a significant proportion of patients, who meet the clinical criteria for the diagnosis of the vegetative state (VS), demonstrate evidence of covert awareness through successful performance of neuroimaging tasks. Despite these important advances, the day-to-day life experiences of any such patient remain unknown. This presents a major challenge for optimizing the patient’s standard of care and quality of life (QoL). We describe a patient who, following emergence from a state of complete behavioral unresponsiveness (...) and a clinical diagnosis of VS, reported rich memories of his experience during this time. This case demonstrates the potential for a sophisticated mental life enabled by preserved memory in a proportion of patients who, similarly, are thought to be unconscious. Therefore, it presents an important opportunity to examine the implications for patient QoL and standard of care, both during the period of presumed unconsciousness and after recovery. (shrink)

A patient is diagnosed with the persistent vegetative state (PVS) when they show no evidence of the awareness of the self or the environment for an extended period of time. The chance of recovery of any mental function or the ability to interact in a meaningful way is low. Though rare, the condition, considering its nature as a state outwith the realm of the conscious, coupled with the trauma experienced by the patient's kin as well as health care staff (...) confronted with painful decisions regarding the patient's care, has attracted a considerable amount of discussion within the bioethics community. At present, there is a wealth of literature that discusses the relevant neurology, that elucidates the plethora of ethical challenges in understanding and dealing with the condition, and that analyses the real-world cases which have prominently featured in the mainstream media as a result of emotionally charged, divergent views concerning the provision of care to the patient. However, there is scarcely anything in the published scholarly literature that proposes concrete and practically actionable solutions to the now widely recognized moral conundrums. The present article describes a step in that direction. I start from the very foundations, laying out a sentientist approach which serves as the basis for the consequent moral decision-making, and then proceed to systematically identify and deconstruct the different cases of discord, using the aforementioned foundations as the basis for their resolution. A major intellectual contribution concerns the fluidity of the duty of care which I argue is demanded by the sentientist focus. The said duty is shown initially to have for its object the patient, which depending on the circumstances, can change to the patient's kin, or the health care staff themselves. In conclusion, the proposed framework represents the first comprehensive proposal regarding the decision-making processes involved in the deliberation on the provision of life sustaining treatment to a patient in a PVS. (shrink)

We describe and analyse how large herbivores strongly diminished a woody vegetation, dominated by the unpalatable shrub Sambucus nigra L. and changed it into grassland. Density of woody species and cover of vegetation were measured in 1996, 2002 and 2012 in the grazed Oostvaardersplassen. In 2002 and 2012 we also measured density and cover in an ungrazed control site. In 2002 we measured intensity of browsing and bark loss of Sambucus shrubs in the grazed and control sites. In (...) the grazed site the density of Sambucus and Salix spp. declined significantly between 1996 and 2012, and large areas changed into grassland. In the control site the density of Sambucus increased significantly during this period, the density of Salix spp. did not change, and the vegetation consisted of a mixture of woody species and a field layer dominated by tall herbs. In 2002 and 2012 the percentages of dead Sambucus shrubs were significantly higher in the grazed site than in the control site. In 2002 the percentages of twigs browsed and ring barked stems of Sambucus shrubs were significantly higher in the grazed site than in the control site. Our results show that debarking caused mature Sambucus shrubs to die, but that heavy browsing may have helped this process. Our results also point to a significant neighbour effect on the break down of Sambucus, suggesting that Aggregational Resistance and Associational Palatability were both active. Essential conditions for the break down of this woody vegetation were the presence of large herbivores, the low ratio between the areas of summer and winter feeding habitats and the competition amongst herbivores. Browsing may have been responsible for seedling death, as seedlings were found only in the control site and not on the old and newly established grasslands in the grazed site. (shrink)

Greece's agricultural economy has undergone a gradual process of adjustment since World War II. While farm numbers have been reduced and average farm size has increased, the relative size of the farm population is still large by European standards. The slow rate of consolidation and adjustment in the agricultural sector of Greece is influenced by the following three factors: (1) lack of developed markets for long term capital; (2) multiple job holding among Greek farmers; and (3) protective agricultural policies.Greece's accession (...) into the European Economic Community in 1981 has shifted her trade patterns towards her European partners. In terms of agricultural trade, Greece exported considerably more agricultural goods to EEC members in 1987 than was imported from EEC countries. Greece's agricultural trade balance with all nations of the world is roughly one to one, i.e., agricultural imports equal agricultural exports in value. Since entry into the EEC, Greece has improved her degree of competitiveness or self-sufficiency in vegetables, citrus, and wine, but has reduced her self-sufficiency or competitiveness in meat and livestock products.Improved competitiveness of Greece's agricultural sector in the 1990s will require adoption of known production technologies, reduction in government bureaucracy, development of new technologies for improving product quality and minimizing plant diseases, reduction in production and marketing costs, and more effective domestic and export group marketing strategies. (shrink)

This article focuses on a slightly earlier period in its investigation of the meanings of and associations with the term normal than Cryle and Stephens have done in their recent book. It looks at the establishment and rapid demise of the Ecole normale (normal school) in Paris in 1794–5, founded on the same model as a school for the manufacture of arms that had operated in spring 1794, and suggests that this model was not only responsible for some of (...) the problems the Ecole normale experienced, setting up unachievable expectations of rapid efficacy, but also had an impact on what its name was assumed to mean. Moving between, on the one hand, an analysis of explicit (and opposing) definitions of what the term normal meant, and, on the other, an account of how the Ecole normale was set up and what it was set up to do, this paper agrees with Cryle and Stephens that the term was ‘formed in controversy’, and fills in the intellectual and philosophical context from which the notion of the statistical norm would emerge. (shrink)

This article focuses on early British vegetation science, in particular on the British Vegetation Committee. In earlier histories of (plant) ecology, the period of the Committee's life, 1904-1913, renowned for its surveys and its maps, was depicted as a brief prelude to British plant ecology. This article traces the course of "survey" and "ecology" within the Committee, demonstrating that survey and ecology were both distinct and intertwined within the Committee. The Committee adhered to two lines of research, (...) one analyzing relatively large areas of vegetation on a small scale (few details), and the other, relatively small areas on a large scale (great detail). When the Committee was founded, vegetation research of relatively large areas dominated, but the balance gradually swung towards research on small areas. Two prominent Committee members, Smith and Tansley, furthermore advocated two research plans, a national survey plan and an ecological research plan. These diverging ideals however co-existed peacefully and uncontroversially, in contrast to a survey and ecology dichotomy suggested in earlier accounts. An analysis demonstrates the intertwinement of survey and ecology in the period of the Committee's existence. The "ecological expeditions" also mapped vegetation, and the scale of the "survey work" moreover increased in the Committee's early years. Only by acknowledging their intertwinement can the fate of a particular kind of "survey-research" be understood. My analysis shows that this kind of vegetation research did not survive the Committee because of its ecological orientation. This conclusion contradicts the impression prevailing from earlier historical accounts, viz. that British survey work failed because it was insufficiently ecological. (shrink)

À Dikili Tash, les vestiges architecturaux néolithiques en terre à bâtir, le plus souvent préservés sous la forme de fragments brûlés, ont fait l’objet d’une étude morpho-technologique systématique dans le cadre du deuxième programme de recherches (1986-2000). La démarche s’inscrit dans une problématique plus générale, dont l’objectif est de reconstituer la maison néolithique en tant que système technique. Une de ses originalités est de recourir systématiquement aux expérimentations pour valider les hypothèses d’interprétation et mettre au point plusieurs référentiels. Les résultats (...) obtenus apportent une multitude d’informations sur la nature des composants de la terre à bâtir et sa préparation, en particulier sur le choix privilégié de la balle comme dégraissant végétal. Ils mettent en évidence des techniques de construction peu attestées pour cette période, comme la construction des murs en torchis sur poteaux jointifs, des voûtes de four par empilement de colombins et des silos sous forme de corbeilles enduites scellées par une chape de terre à bâtir. (shrink)

Patient outcome after serious brain injury is highly variable. Following a period of coma, some patients recover while others progress into a vegetative state (unresponsive wakefulness syndrome) or minimally conscious state. In both cases, assessment is difficult and misdiagnosis may be as high as 43%. Recent advances in neuroimaging suggest a solution. Both functional magnetic resonance imaging and electroencephalography have been used to detect residual cognitive function in vegetative and minimally conscious patients. Neuroimaging may improve diagnosis and prognostication. These (...) techniques are beginning to be applied to comatose patients soon after injury. Evidence of preserved cognitive function may predict recovery, and this information would help families and health providers. Complex ethical issues arise due to the vulnerability of patients and families, difficulties interpreting negative results, restriction of communication to “yes” or “no” answers, and cost. We seek to investigate ethical issues in the use of neuroimaging in behaviorally nonresponsive patients who have suffered serious brain injury. The objectives of this research are to: (1) create an approach to capacity assessment using neuroimaging; (2) develop an ethics of welfare framework to guide considerations of quality of life; (3) explore the impact of neuroimaging on families; and, (4) analyze the ethics of the use of neuroimaging in comatose patients. (shrink)

The Royal College of Physicians of London published the 2013 national clinical guidelines on prolonged disorders of consciousness in vegetative and minimally conscious states. The guidelines acknowledge the rapidly advancing neuroscientific research and evolving therapeutic modalities in PDOC. However, the guidelines state that end-of-life decisions should be made for patients who do not improve with neurorehabilitation within a finite period, and they recommend withdrawal of clinically assisted nutrition and hydration . This withdrawal is deemed necessary because patients in PDOC (...) can survive for years with continuation of CANH, even when a ceiling on medical care has been imposed, i.e., withholding new treatment such as cardiopulmonary resuscitation for acute life-threatening illness. The end-of-life care pathway is centered on a staged escalation of medications, including sedatives, opioids, barbiturates, and general anesthesia, concurrent with withdrawal of CANH. Agitation and distress may last from several days to weeks because of the slow dying process from starvation and dehydration. The potential problems of this end-of-life care pathway are similar to those of the Liverpool Care Pathway. After an independent review in 2013, the Department of Health discontinued the Liverpool Care pathway in England. The guidelines assert that clinicians, supported by court decisions, have become the final authority in nonconsensual withdrawal of CANH on the basis of “best interests” rationale. We posit that these guidelines lack high-quality evidence supporting: 1) treatment futility of CANH, 2) reliability of distress assessment from starvation and dehydration, 3) efficacy of pharmacologic control of this distress, and 4) proximate causation of death. Finally, we express concerns about the utilitarian-based assessment of what constitutes a person’s best interests. We are disturbed by the level and the role of medical authoritarianism institutionalized by these national guidelines when deciding on the worthiness of life in PDOC. We conclude that these guidelines are not only harmful to patients and families, but they represent the means of nonconsensual euthanasia. The latter would constitute a gross violation of the public’s trust in the integrity of the medical profession. (shrink)

The two vegetative cell types of the acellular slime mould Physarum polycephalum ‐ amoebae and plasmodia ‐ differ greatly in cellular organisation and behaviour as a result of differences in gene expression. The development of uninucleate amoebae into multinucleate, syncytial plasmodia is under the control of the mating‐type locus matA, which is a complex, multi‐functional locus. A key period during plasmodium development is the extended cell cycle, which occurs in the developing uninucleate cell. During this long cell cycle, many (...) of the changes in cellular organisation that accompany development into the multinucleate stage are initiated including, for example, alterations in microtubule organisation. Genes have been identified that show cell‐type specific expression in either amoebae or plasmodia and many of these genes alter their pattern of expression during the extended cell cycle. With the introduction of a DNA transformation system for P. polycephalum, it is now possible to investigate the functions of genes in the vegetative cell types and their roles in the cellular reorganisations accompanying development. (shrink)

For a period of several weeks in 2008, Mind Australia, a large government-funded, community-managed mental health organization, displayed massive banners and billboards, saturating the advertising spaces of Southern Cross Station, the main interstate and regional train and bus interchange in Melbourne. During this period, I passed through Southern Cross Station a number of times on my way to visit a friend in the country; whether I wanted to engage with these texts or not, I was unable to avoid (...) them.On the left-hand side of one of these billboards is an image of a confident, carefree woman shopping for fruit and vegetables; she is slim and neatly dressed, wearing tight blue jeans with a bright orange top and jacket... (shrink)

Introduction: the age of reflexion Part I. Romanticism: 1. Romanticism and the sciences David Knight 2. Schelling and the origins of his Naturphilosophie S. R. Morgan 3. Romantic philosophy and the organization of the disciplines: the founding of the Humboldt University of Berlin Elinor S. Shaffer 4. Historical consciousness in the German Romantic Naturforschung Dietrich Von Engelhardt 5. Theology and the sciences in the German Romantic period Frederick Gregory 6. Genius in Romantic natural philosophy Simon Shaffer Part II. Sciences (...) of the Organic: 7. Doctors contra clysters and feudalism: the consequences of a Romantic revolution Nelly Tsouyopoulos 8. Morphotypes and the historical-genetic method in Romantic biology Timothy Lenoir 9. ’Metaphorical mystifications’: the Romantic gestation of nature in British biology Evelleen Richards 10. Transcendental anatomy Philip F. Rehbock 11. Romantic thought and the origins of cell theory L. S. Jacyna 12. Alexander von Humbolt and the geography of vegetation Malcolm Nicholson Part III. Sciences of the Inorganic: 13. Goethe, colour, and the science of seeing Dennis L. Sepper 14. Johann Wilhelm Ritter: Romantic physics in Germany Walter D. Wetzels 15. The power and the glory: Humphrey Davy and Romanticism Christopher Lawrence 16. Oersted’s discovery of electromagnetism H. A. M. Snelders 17. Caves, fossils and the history of the earth Nicholas A. Rupke Part IV. Literature and the Sciences: 18. Goethe’s use of chemical theory in his Elective Affinities Jeremy Adler 19. Kleist’s bedlam: abnormal psychology and psychiatry in the works of Heinrich von Kleist Nigel Reeves 20. Coleridge and the sciences Trevor H. Levere 21. Nature’s book: the language of science in the American Renaissance David van Leer 22. The shattered whole: Georg Buchner and Naturphilosophie John Reddick. (shrink)

The landscape of the Sundarbans today is a product of two countervailing forces: conversion of wetland forests to cropland vs. sequestration of the forests in reserves to be managed for long-term sustained yield of wood products. For two centures, land-hungry peasants strove to transform the native tidal forest vegetation into an agroecosystem dominated by paddy rice and fish culture. During the colonial period, their reclamation efforts were encouraged by landlords and speculators, who were themselves encouraged by increasingly favorable (...) state policies (land grants, tax incentives, cadastral surveys, and eventually colonization projects and subsidized irrigation) designed by revenue officials to maximize the rate of transformation of wetland forest to taxable agricultural land.In the late nineteenth century, as the rate of agricultural conversion increased, the colonial Forest Department succcessfully sought to preserve large areas of the remaining Sundarbans tidal forest by giving them legal status as Reserved or Protected Forests. These forests were intensively managed to provide a sustainable supply of timber and firewood for the increasing population of southern Bengal. Institutionalization of conflicting policies by the Revenue and Forest Departments reflected the escalating needs for both food and forest products as the colony grew. Today, supplies of some economically valuable trees have been depleted, and some mammals are locally extinct (although the Bengal tiger remains), but government policy in both Bangladesh and India now favors use of the Sundarbans as forest rather than its transformation to agricultural land. Further expansion of cropland to meet the grain demands of the burgeoning Bengali population in both nations has largely taken place outside the boundaries of the Sundarbans. Overexploitation of these forests for wood products remains a possibility, but large-scale clearing for rice paddies is unlikely under present policies. (shrink)

In the period 1800–1870, French physicians approached psychic illness (Philippe Pinel’s “neurosis”) within competing “cerebralist” and “visceralist” frameworks. Cerebralism, which dominated the specialty of mental medicine, sought the origins of psychic illness in lesions of the brain and central nervous system. “Visceralism,” upheld by generalists, clung to the view of the ancients that psychic disorder was seated in the abdominal viscera. The distinction enjoyed credibility thanks to widespread acceptance of Xavier Bichat’s “two lives” doctrine, which demarcated functions of the (...) central and the “vegetative” nervous systems. Once the “two lives” conception was undercut after midcentury, cerebralists sought to draw disturbances of appetite, digestion, and eating within the domain of the central nervous system. This essay suggests that historical study of “hysterical anorexia” and related disease entities that displaced “neuroses of the stomach” has overemphasized sociocultural determinants to the neglect of the internal dynamics of biomedical science. (shrink)

La question des productions agricoles à Délos a fait l'objet d'un intérêt renouvelé ces dernières années : les vestiges d'aménagements agricoles, les fermes et les inscriptions ont été réétudiés. Une des questions en suspens concernait la destination des pressoirs situés dans la ville : produisaient-ils du vin ou de l'huile? En 1997, la fouille d'une installation de pressurage située dans le Quartier du théâtre a permis de démontrer qu'il s'agissait d'une huilerie. Aménagée au début du Ier s. av. J.-G, elle (...) comportait deux pressoirs à levier, trois récipients de décantation et six pithoi de stockage. Elle était installée dans une maison dont les origines remontaient au Ve s. av. J.-C. et qui, depuis lors, avait connu plusieurs remaniements. Outre des données nouvelles sur l'histoire du quartier, cette fouille apporte des éclaircissements sur la végétation des îles proches, sur les variétés d'olives cultivées et sur l'économie de la fin de la période hellénistique. Ces realia rééquilibrent la documentation tirée des inscriptions en faisant une certaine place à l'oléiculture au moins aux IIe et Ier s. av. J.-C. (shrink)

Simulations using idealized numerical models can often generate behaviors or patterns that are visually very similar to the natural phenomenon being investigated and to be explained. The question arises, when should these model simulations be taken to provide an explanation for why the natural phenomena exhibit the patterns that they do? An important distinction for answering this question is that between ‘how-possibly’ explanations and ‘how-actually’ explanations. Despite the importance of this distinction there has been surprisingly little agreement over how exactly (...) this distinction should bedrawn. I shall argue that inadequate attention has been paid to the different contexts in which an explanation can be given and the different levels of abstraction at which the explanandum phenomenon can be framed. By tracing how scientists are using model simulations to explain a striking periodic banding of vegetation known as tiger bush, I will show how our understanding of the distinction between how-possibly and how-actually model explanations needs to be revised. (shrink)

Publication date: 26 January 2017 Source: Author: Edward Echidime Eke, Michael A. Oyinloye, Isaac Oluwadare Olamiju - African cities are experiencing uncontrolled expansion. The focus of this paper is to evaluate the impact of urban expansion on landuse types of Akure for the period of 1972 to 2009. In analyzing the u rban expansion of the cit y, 1972 MSS, 1986 Landsat Thematic TM and Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus images for 2002 and 2009 satellite image captured from googleearth (...) website were used in a post classification comparison analysis to map the spatial dynamics of landuse / land cover changes and identify the urban expansion of Akure. Questionnaire was also used to determine the factors responsible for the expansion of Akure. The findings showed a rapid expansion in the built-up are a of Akure from 1.00% in 1972 to 2.46% in 1986, 2.46% in1986 to 3.90% in 2002 with an annual growth rate of 10.63% and 3.66% due to increasing population of Akure within these periods respectively. Prediction made showed that the built-up of A kure would expand to 2.66 % in 2022. Th e study recommends review of the outdated 1980 master plan and development control mechanism that will guide the rapid expansion that had been accompanied by loss of vegetation in Akure. (shrink)

During meiosis, homologous chromosomes must pair in order to permit recombination and correct chromosome segregation to occur. Two recent papers1,2 show that meiotic pairing is also important for correct gene expression during meiosis. They describe data for the filamentous fungus Neurospora crassa that show that a lack of pairing generated by ectopic integration of genes can result in silencing of genes expressed during meiosis. This can result in aberrant meioses whose defects are specific to the function of the unpaired gene. (...) Furthermore, mutations affecting the silencing mechanism have been selected in a gene encoding a putative RNA‐dependent RNA polymerase. This finding indicates the involvement of a meiotic specific post‐transcriptional gene silencing mechanism (PTGS) similar to that observed in vegetative cells in N. crassa and other organisms. Finally, this gene product is essential for normal meiosis, suggesting that RNA‐dependent processes are fundamental to the sexual cycle. BioEssays 25:99–103, 2003. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

One of the earliest and most‐fundamental pattern‐ formation events in embryonic development is endoderm and mesoderm specification. In sea urchin embryos, this process begins with blimp1 and wnt8 gene expression at the vegetal pole as soon as embryonic transcription begins. Shortly afterwards, wnt8/blimp1 expression spreads to the adjacent ring of mesoderm progenitor cells and is extinguished in the vegetal‐most cells. A little later, the ring of wnt8/blimp1 activity moves out of the mesoderm progenitors and into the neighboring endoderm cells. Remarkably, (...) this moving ring of gene expression has now been shown to be controlled entirely by transcriptional cis‐regulatory logic.1. BioEssays 30:412–417, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Herbaria principally host and study collections of dried vegetal specimens, and the curators and researchers employed there are mainly systematic botanists working on plant taxonomy. Twenty years ago, a textographic investigation of the University of Michigan Herbarium was conducted as part of a larger study. In this follow-up inquiry, we investigate what sort of changes have – or have not – occurred over the intervening period. Two of the five original Herbarium informants are still working there, and mainly through (...) text-based interviews and discourse analysis we trace their subsequent careers and research outputs. We find that there has been considerable technological change since the 1990s, such as the growth of molecular studies, the digitization of specimens, and the use of the web, which has greatly impacted the processes of scholarly textual production. However, technological effects on the highly distinctive genres of systematic botany turn out to be more moderate. This genre set, comprising monograph, flora, treatment, and protologue, remains little known to those who study the more general discourses of the academic and research worlds. (shrink)

National scientists have elaborated the reform's gist, approaches, stages and consequences in the Ukrainian agricultural sector during the XX - XXI centuries. These studies have been conducted by N. Zhulkanych, S. Zhyvora, M. Zyza, M. Lendiel, E. Mazur, O. Malyarchuk, V. Nechytailo and many others. The paper aims to perform the comprehensive study of general trends and peculiar features of the agricultural development of the Ukrainian SSR in 1963-1990 and to define actual advances and drawbacks on the basis of analysis (...) of historical records and scientific literature. The object of research is agriculture as part of socialist economy in the USSR. The subject of research is the implementation features of agricultural policy of the Soviet power in the Ukrainian SSR, using the Western region of the Republic as an example. The economic strategy of the Soviet power involved a long-term industrialization of the agricultural sector. A distinguishing feature of the industrialization process was the use of systems of machinery in all branches of agriculture. The technological chain had to embrace the process from the sporadic application of machinery to the overall mechanization and automation of crop and livestock farming. The industrial background of production predetermined the implementation of the system of machinery with extensive power consumption, i.e. with the new technical bases. The resolutions of the March Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee defined the economic priorities and capacity development of the Republic. Capital investments were the economic basis for the increase of production potential of collective and state farms, solution of social problems in rural regions. The land productivity was increased mainly by means of land reclamation and production chemization, use of organic and mineral fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, etc. The supply of mineral fertilizers increased, but most of them were of low quality, non-concentrated and unbalanced in nutritional ingredients. In its turn it caused irreparable damage to the environment and polluted agricultural products with chemicals. The chemization undermined the population health and disrupted the ecological balance. Despite ultimate achievements in the rise of the industrial level of agriculture of the Ukrainian SSR, it didn't meet the needs of collective and state farms. A great number of labour-intensive processes in animal and crop farming were performed manually. In state farms, contrary to collective farms, the stock of tractors was newer, but much smaller. For many years the USSR was in the top ten countries of the world in terms of consumption of energy and proteins, contained in food products per capita. However, the food patterns were inconsistent with the scientifically grounded norm. Structural imbalance of the food ration was the manifestation of the food crisis in the USSR. To meet primary needs of Soviet citizens in food products the May Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee adopted the "Food Program of the USSR for the Period until 1990 and Measures of Its Implementation". The main issue of the Food program was to increase grain harvest. Grain production was the basis for food and fodder supply of the country. Alongside with a substantial increase in food products output in public economy the attention was given to the development of subsidiary individual holdings and fruit-and-vegetable cooperatives. The cooperatives and subsidiary holdings produced a great number of dairy and meat products, vegetables and fruits both for their own needs and for sale in collective farm markets. The state food program predetermined the solution of agricultural problems by means of formerly used methods. The major problem of agriculture had to be solved by means of increase in the gross grain harvest. Thus, the implementation of agricultural policy of Soviet power in the Ukrainian SSR lead to great changes in agricultural production. At that time there appeared such new branches of economy specialized in services to agricultural production as waterworks and land reclamation, feed mill industry, farm building, machine engineering for animal farming and fodder production, procurement of agricultural products and agricultural processing. The study of this policy implementation proves that the average annual rates of agricultural production increased but they were inconsistent with high investments. On the one hand, the Food program testified the "food crisis in the USSR", demonstrating the lag of the world socialist community from capitalist states. On the other hand, it had to increase the level of food self-sufficiency, decrease the procurement of agricultural products from abroad and promote the solution of the world food problem in general. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Time and History in Alois Riegl's Theory of PerceptionMichael GubserIn an early essay, the Austrian art historian Alois Riegl (1858–1905), a pioneer of the modern discipline of art history, linked the creation of the zodiac images in calendar art to the designation of constellations in the heavens.1 Ancient calendar artists observed the motion of stars across the night sky and attempted to map them into recognizable patterns representing specific (...) temporal periods. Their efforts inscribed the cyclical temporality of the heavens into the images of the ancient calendar. This inherent temporality came to characterize all art forms in Riegl's work; his choice of calendar art as his earliest research topic heralded a career-long interest in the connection between temporality and artistic form. Art objects, he believed, were temporal as well as spatial. Just as the light from constellations reflected a deep history, artworks illuminated the passage of time by visually re-presenting the perceptual world of past eras.Riegl's work has garnered attention in recent decades among art historians and non–art historians alike. This interest is due in part to the renewed concern for disciplinary origins that art history, like other fields, has experienced in the wake of poststructuralist critiques. Scholars outside of art history have taken note of his work because of its broad scope and relevance for the study of historiography and perception; Riegl's work provides models for linking the analysis of specific artworks with a history of perception, exploring the relationship between monuments and memory, and analyzing the nature of visual modernity. Interest in Riegl also stems from his acknowledged impact on such preeminent philosophers and historical theorists as Erwin Panofsky, Paul Feyerabend, Gilles Deleuze, Fèlix Guattari, and above all Walter [End Page 451] Benjamin.2 Figures as varied as Georg Lukács, Karl Mannheim, Walter Gropius, and Mikhail Bakhtin have cited his work favorably.3 Riegl is perhaps best known for his attempts to dismantle the hierarchy of high and low art, his attack on the preeminence of classical aesthetic ideals, and his effort to construct a universal history of style. The combination of these commitments led him to consider European and non-European craft genres that fell outside conventional definitions of art. In books such as Problems of Style, Late Roman Art Industry, and The Group Portraiture of Holland, Riegl examined the high arts, decorative arts, and manufactured artifacts alike, gleaning insights into the structure of an era's perception from close descriptive analyses of its artwork.4 In Problems of Style, Riegl traced the development of ancient vegetal decorative motifs toward their fulfillment in the naturalized tendrils and acanthus leaves of Greek ornament. A single, universal development encompassed seemingly distinct motivic forms, and creative innovation was driven by an inner formal logic. Similarly, Late Roman Art Industry, the [End Page 452] epoch-making work that Walter Benjamin described as a revolution in art historical method,5 traced the gradual development of space as an object of artistic concern in the late Roman Empire. In this volume, Riegl explored his controversial notion of the Kunstwollen, or artistic will, which asserted art's autonomy on the basis of a formal creative volition internal to artworks.6 Finally, The Group Portraiture of Holland documented the emergence and decline of a "typically Hollandish painting" emphasizing space and attention.7Riegl scholars have frequently attempted to situate his art history within a variety of philosophical traditions, an effort complicated by Riegl's limited citation of sources. Several scholars have linked Riegl's historical vision with the embattled tradition of Hegelian philosophy. Riegl's teleology; his stress on the unified, internal, and purposive development of art; his notion of art as mind overcoming material; and even his emphasis on the role of the viewer in art all have a distinctly Hegelian resonance. Wolfgang Kemp fits Riegl squarely within a late-nineteenth-century Hegelian revival,8 Michael Podro incorporates him within a Hegelian critical tradition of art history that spanned the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,9 and Michael Ann Holly posits a clear trajectory, linking Kant and Hegel with Riegl and Panofsky.10Others, however, just as firmly reject this... (shrink)

Plant reproduction is vital for species survival, and is also central to the production of food for human consumption. Seeds result from the successful fertilization of male and female gametes, but our understanding of the development, differentiation of gamete lineages and fertilization processes in higher plants is limited. Germ cells in animals diverge from somatic cells early in embryo development, whereas plants have distinct vegetative and reproductive phases in which gametes are formed from somatic cells after the plant has made (...) the transition to flowering and the formation of the reproductive organs. Recently, novel insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying male germ‐line initiation and male gamete development in plants have been obtained. Transcriptional repression of male germ‐line genes in non‐male germ‐line cells have been identified as a key mechanism for spatial and temporal control of male germ‐line development. This review focuses on molecular events controlling male germ‐line development especially, on the nature and regulation of gene expression programs operating in male gametes of flowering plants. BioEssays 29:1124–1132, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Kepler is mainly known among historians of science for his astronomical theories and his approaches to problems having to do with philosophy of science and ontology. This paper attempts to contribute to Kepler studies by providing a discussion of a topic not frequently considered, namely Kepler’s theory of the soul, a general theory of knowledge whose central problem is what makes knowledge possible, rather than what makes knowledge true, as happens in the case of Descartes’s and Bacon’s epistemologies. Kepler’s theory (...) consists of four issues: the theory of the different sorts of soul—that is, the human soul, the animal soul, the vegetable soul, and the Earth soul—concerning their faculties, the differences and the resemblances emerging among them, the relation they maintain with their own bodies and the world, and the distinction soul–world. The paper discusses these issues from a historical perspective, that is, it reconstructs the way they appear in three periods of Kepler’s career: the period prior to the publication of the Mysterium cosmographicum, the period from 1596 to 1611, and the period of the Harmonices mundi libri V. Finally, Kepler’s epistemology is briefly contrasted with Descartes’s and Bacon’s in order to suggest that Kepler’s could be seen as a third way to understand the philosophical origins of Modernity.Keywords: Johannes Kepler; René Descartes; Francis Bacon; Anima; Force; Animism. (shrink)

Floods are one of the main natural disasters, which cause huge damage to property, infrastructure, and economic losses every year. There is a need to develop an approach that could instantly detect flooded extent. Satellite remote sensing has been useful in emergency responses; however, with significant weakness due to long revisit period and unavailability during rainy/cloudy weather conditions. In recent years, unmanned aerial vehicle systems have been widely used, especially in the fields of disaster monitoring and complex environments. This (...) study employs deep learning models to develop an automated detection of flooded buildings with UAV aerial images. The method was explored in a case study for the Kangshan levee of Poyang Lake. Experimental results show that the inundation for the focal buildings and vegetation can be detected from the images with 88% and 85% accuracy, respectively. And further, we can estimate the buildings’ inundation area according to the UAV images and flight parameters. The result of this study shows promising value of the accuracy and timely visualization of the spatial distribution of inundation at the object level for the end users from flood emergency response sector. (shrink)

Some recent trends of modern biology, which seem to have a most consequential influence to the further treatment of the problem of the origin and evolution of flowering plants, are shortly reviewed in this article.Several new discoveries and observations about pollinating insects revealed to some extent the mystery of the evolution of flower types. The deciphering of the definite signs and codes of communication among social insects and the interpretation of a well developed sign language of bees belong to the (...) most remarkable achievements of modern biology indeed. Besides its revolutionary impulse in the field of animal behavior these discoveries helped to solve several problems in the evolution of flowering plants.An attempt is made in this article to classify the existing main flower types according to their evolutionary tendency from primitive → simple → radiate → protected → zygomorphic flowers In this assortment of flower types is reflected the historical development of flowering plants since their early beginning in Cretaceous period till their domination in the recent world vegetation .In this evolution of flower types is mirrored further the progressive evolvement of numerous senses of the pollinating insects. The pollinators of the Middle Mesozoicum were surrounded by primitive flower types and could distinguish but some primitive colors like white, yellow and green.Two different methods of classification of flowering plants are used in this study. A typological assortment of flowers according to their ecological characteristics is co-ordinated with the taxonomic classification of phylogenetic groups . The evolution of angiosperms can be studied more successfully, if both the typological and taxonomic trends of this groups are analyzed.Quelques nouvelles découvertes et essais sur la dissémination du pollen par les insectes sont discutés du point de vue de l'évolution des types de fleur. L'activité sélective et la stabilité de ces insectes se trouvent être des facteurs les plus conséquents dans l'évolution des types de fleurs.Deux méthodes différentes de classification des plantes angiospermes sont employées dans cette étude. Un assortiment typologique de fleurs suivant leurs caractéristiques écologiques est coordiné avec la classification systématique des groupes phylogénétiques . L'évolution des angiospermes peut être étudiée avec plus de succès si les méthodes typologiques et systématiqes sont appliquées.Es werden in diesem Aufsatz einige neue Versuchsergebnisse über die wechselseitigen Beziehungen zwischen den pollenübertragenden Insekten und der Entwicklungsgeschichte der Blütentypen näher erörtert.Es sind unter diesen Umständen zwei verschiedene Arbeitsverfahren für die Klassifikation der Blütenpflanzen angewandt worden. Eine typologische Einteilung nach den ökologischen Merkmalen und eine systematische Schilderung nach den phylogenetischen Gruppen . Die Anwendung von diesen beiden Methoden gestattet uns eine bessere Übersicht über die Entwicklungsgeschichte der Blütenpflanzen. (shrink)

Faire l'éloge de la Vie, en partant de la Terre qui l'abrite, lui assurant un habitat aussi propice qu'instable. Contempler cette lumière qui nous en révèle la Beauté. Parcourir le monde des micro-organismes, déjà là à son origine, et toujours omniprésents ; indispensables, bien que quelquefois dangereux, ils ont presque tout inventé. S'émerveiller de ce monde végétal qui évoque l'éternelle jeunesse, que nous convoitons tant. Revenir sur cette épopée de la Vie sortant de l'eau mais la conservant en elle comme (...) trésor caché. S'interroger enfin sur ce labyrinthe de la Vie que nous explorons encore et toujours, mais dont le dessin nous reste un mystère, alors que s'ouvre peut-être une quatrième période d'avancée marquante de l'humanité, et que connaissances et croyances continuent de nous dire leurs vérités respectives. Depuis son enfance dans les paysages du Carladez, jusqu'à son expérience en recherche appliquée, immunologie et biotechnologies, l'auteur revient sur son parcours d'homme, de scientifique et d'industriel en nous conviant à découvrir et observer les diversités de la Vie, qui invente en continu les Futurs de son Passé. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Comment on Hospice of Washington's PolicyJohn A. Robertson (bio)The recent history of medical ethics may accurately be described as a history of coming to terms with personal autonomy and informed consent across the range of medical practice. Nowhere has this recognition been more important than in decisions to withhold or withdraw life-sustaining medical procedures from terminal and chronically ill patients.Despite the widespread acceptance of autonomy in these decisions, many (...) people—physicians, families, and policymakers—have balked at extending it to the withdrawal of artificially supplied fluids and nutrition. The symbolic connotations of food and water have led some persons to perceive cessation of medically-supplied fluids and nutrition to be a cruel, barbarous act, rather than the merciful respect for the dying patient that such withdrawal usually represents.Two recent events might help resolve the controversy, and ensure that decisions about artificial fluid and nutrition are handled like any other medical intervention—according to patient and family choice and patient welfare. One event is the Supreme Court decision in Cruzan (Cruzan v. Director of Missouri Department of Health, 110 S.Ct. 2841, 1990). Although the Supreme Court upheld Missouri's constitutional power to require artificial nutrition for a patient in a persistent vegetative state, its decision was not based on the symbolic importance of artificial fluids and nutrition. No Supreme Court justice saw a significant difference between medically-supplied nutrition and hydration and other medical interventions, thus allowing them to be discontinued either directly or by advance directive on the same basis as other medical interventions.The second event is the publication of the statement of "Philosophy Regarding Medical Intervention to Supply Fluids and Nutrition" by Hospice of Washington (or similar statements by other organizations). This statement is useful and important because it removes the issue of food and water from its symbolic overlay [End Page 139] and places it in the real context of dying hospice patients. It makes clear that the overriding consideration should be benefit to the patient "in accord with the patient's wishes or those of the appropriate surrogate(s) for the patient." Depending on those wishes and their impact on the patient, this position may or may not involve medically-supplied fluids and nutrition.This statement is also helpful in showing the medical complexity of such decisions in terms of their actual effect on dying patients. Rather than an either/or position, it recognizes that fluids may harm a dying patient by increasing discomfort, and that "persons near death do not ordinarily tolerate substantial volumes of enteral feedings." Thus rather than adhere to a symbolically-based position about the meaning of food and water to a dying patient, the important thing is to look to that patient's needs and give fluids or not, as the patient's wishes and situation demand.Fortunately, the law in most jurisdictions will recognize such a position. In those few jurisdictions that have made a fetish of artificial fluids and nutrition, the law should be changed, for the HOW statement makes clear that such a position may actually end up harming dying patients. Patient welfare should be privileged above all else, and patient welfare may often entail that fluids and nutrition not be medically supplied. Even then, however, caregivers will look to patient comfort and remedy dry mouths and lips with lubricants and ice chips.The HOW statement is, in my view, a very useful guideline not only for hospices but for hospitals, too—for any situation in which a patient is terminally ill and soon to die. A somewhat different set of issues arises, however, when the patient is chronically ill and incompetent, and will survive for long periods with medically-supplied fluids and nutrition. Recognition of patient rights in those situation should also permit cessation of fluids and nutrition on the same basis that respirators, antibiotics, and other life-sustaining measures may be withheld. But the withholding of medically-supplied fluids and nutrition from a patient who no longer has interests in surviving in an extremely debilitated condition raises different issues from withholding fluids that could cause such discomfort and nutrition when the patient is imminently dying. In either case, patient... (shrink)

In this study, we sought to assess the predictors of outcome in patients with disorders of consciousness (DOC) after severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) during neurorehabilitation stay. In total, 96 patients with DOC (vegetative state, minimally conscious state, or emergence from minimally conscious state) were enrolled (69 males; mean age 43.6 ± 20.8 years) and the improvement of the degree of disability, as assessed by the Disability Rating Scale, was considered the main outcome measure. To define the best predictor, a (...) series of demographical and clinical factors were modeled using a twofold approach: (1) logistic regression to evaluate a possible causal effect among variables; and (2) machine learning algorithms (ML), to define the best predictive model. Univariate analysis demonstrated that disability in DOC patients statistically decreased at the discharge with respect to admission. Genitourinary was the most frequent medical complication (MC) emerging during the neurorehabilitation period. The logistic model revealed that the total amount of MCs is a risk factor for lack of functional improvement. ML discloses that the most important prognostic factors are the respiratory and hepatic complications together with the presence of the upper gastrointestinal comorbidities. Our study provides new evidence on the most adverse short-term factors predicting a functional recovery in DOC patients after severe TBI. The occurrence of medical complications during neurorehabilitation stay should be considered to avoid poor outcomes. (shrink)

In struggling to free science from theological implications, Huxley let his own philosophical beliefs influence his interpretation of the data. However, he was certainly not unique in this respect. Like the creationists he despised, he made many important contributions to the issue of progression in the fossil record and its relationship to evolutionary theory. Certainly other factors were involved as well. Undoubtedly, just the sheer inertia of ideas played a role. He was committed to a theory of type and was (...) heavily influenced by von Baer, who argued that one could not rate the different types as being higher or lower than the others. By the mid-1850s his animosity toward Owen had become extreme and he tried to discredit the man whenever possible; yet, as I have pointed out, he also was more than willing to cite Owen's early work when it suited his needs.But I believe the crucial factor in Huxley's eventually accepting progression was that he finally disassociated it from the idea of divine plan. This happened gradually through the 1860s and 1870s, as more and more fossil finds provided support for Darwin's theory. In evaluating this new evidence that supported gradualism, Huxley also realized that progression was an intrinsic part of Darwin's theory:The hypothesis of evolution supposes that at any given period in the past we should meet with a state of things more or less similar to the present, but less similar in proportion as we go back in time... if we traced back the animal world and the vegetable world we should find preceding what now exist animals and plants not identical with them, but like them, only increasing their differences as we go back in time, and at the same time becoming simpler and simpler until finally we should arrive at that gelatinous mass which, so far as our present knowledge goes, is the common foundation of all life.In concluding his first lecture to the Americans, he told them: “The hypothesis of evolution supposes that in all this vast progression there would be no breach of continuity, no point at which we could say ‘This is a natural process,’ and ‘This is not a natural process.’”85 Finally for Huxley, progression was no longer linked to Divine Plan. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:"Everything is Breath":Critical Plant Studies' Metaphysics of MixtureElisabeth Weber (bio)In her book Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, Robin W. Kimmerer contrasts two creation stories that are thoroughly incompatible. One starts with an all-powerful male creator calling the world and its vegetation and animals into existence through words, and forming the first human beings from clay; the other starts with Skywoman tumbling through (...) the air with seeds in her fist from the Tree of Life growing in Skyworld. One ends with the condemnation of woman to give birth in "very severe" pains, with the cursing of the ground ordered to "produce thorns and thistles" as punishment for man who will eat his food only after "painful toil," and the expulsion from the garden; the other ends in gratitude for the collective caring of the animals, with the creation of "a garden for the well-being of all." One includes an original fall from grace whose burden will be passed down from generation to generation; the other acknowledges suffering without a trace of the burden of unearned guilt. One predicts death as a return to the dust from whence mankind was created; the other imagines death as becoming plant and fruit, as becoming gift, a rejoining the spirits of all ancestors, human and others, who surround the living in everything that is. The threat of one is the inexorability of a trajectory "from dust to dust" and the latter's association, with Plato, of something so diffuse that it doesn't merit a concept or idea; the promise of the other is an abiding relationship with all that is, the reciprocity of giving and gratitude, and the gladly assumed responsibility for the "inspirited" land.Kimmerer comments:Same species, same earth, different stories. Like Creation stories everywhere, cosmologies are a source of identity and orientation to the world. They tell us who we are. We are inevitably shaped by them no matter how distant they may be from our consciousness. One story leads to the generous embrace of the living world, the other to banishment. One woman is our ancestral gardener, a cocreator of the good green world that would be the home of her descendants. The other was an exile, just passing through an alien world on a rough road [...].1 [End Page 117]Cosmologies express collective imaginairies that have evolved over hundreds, even thousands of years. The Iroquois story recounted and rendered accessible by Kimmerer is one of countless creation stories that constitute an "important genre in many preliterate traditions" (Zolbrod 5). Kimmerer suggests that even though the Judeo-Christian creation story may have receded into the background of Western collective consciousness, it plays a role in the planet's devastation. What strikes the reader in the story of Skywoman is the centrality of reciprocity, of relation, and, as the woman's name indicates, the significance of the sky. While this might mean, on planet Earth, the atmosphere–the Earth's sky is blue because of the surrounding atmosphere–the implications of the sky's preponderance reach beyond the planetary into the cosmological. The "sky is not what is above. The sky is everywhere: it is the space and the reality of mixture and movement, the definite horizon starting from which everything has to draw itself" (Coccia 218-219) in order to breathe and live.In order to continue to breathe, breathe in the long-term, the long-term, that is, as Barbara Kingsolver put it in one of her poems, "from a tree's / way of thinking" (7), non-human kin's "way of thinking" will need to play a role in humans' self-understanding. Kyle Whyte underlines that it is not enough to respond with urgency to specific ecological crises (fires, flooding, etc.) alone, but, rather, "urgency must be aimed at addressing ecological and relational tipping points together":U.S. settler colonialism, for example, in a short period of time, inflicted displacement, drastic ecological changes, and lost or disrupted relationships with hundreds of species that indigenous peoples depended on through kinship ties for generations. These changes are more extreme than what many nonindigenous persons fear most about moving beyond... (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to compare several street typologies (distributed from center to suburb) in Tirana, Albania while taking into consideration pedestrian behavior on these pathways. The streets "Myslym Shyri," "Bllok," "Kombinat" (an extension of Kavaja's Street), and "Ana Komnena" (formerly "Fusha e Aviacionit") will be the primary focus of this study. The following variables will be taken into account such as pedestrian behaviors, street identity, dissatisfaction, walking distance when shifting to another zone, effects of greenery on pedestrians, (...) time spent, points of interest, frequency, pavement quality, preferred walking periods, gathering places, utilization of benches, ambulant sellers, impact of vegetation and greenery, water basins, preference for public transportation, and road signs. Direct observations and a questionnaire will be used to determine the accurate information. The study should provide recommendations as guidance for municipalities and stakeholders to better understand the behavior of pedestrians in Tirana’s context. The streets that pedestrians frequent the most include the "Bllok" area and "Myslym Shyri" Street. The pedestrian resident population on "Myslym Shyri" street, which is dominated by people of all ages, including children, youth, and the elderly, has a slight advantage over the "Bllok" neighborhood. Furthermore, there is a wide variety of urban elements on Ana Komnena Street (formerly known as "Fusha e Aviacionit"). Meanwhile, the pedestrians on Kombinati’s street suffer a little bit more because of the traffic congestion and vehicle pollution. (shrink)

Climate change is a threat to food system stability, with small islands particularly vulnerable to extreme weather events. In Puerto Rico, a diminished agricultural sector and resulting food import dependence have been implicated in reduced diet quality, rural impoverishment, and periodic food insecurity during natural disasters. In contrast, smallholder farmers in Puerto Rico serve as cultural emblems of self-sufficient food production, providing fresh foods to local communities in an informal economy and leveraging traditional knowledge systems to manage varying ecological and (...) climatic constraints. The current mixed methods study sought to document this expertise and employed a questionnaire and narrative interviewing in a purposeful sample of 30 smallholder farmers after Hurricane María to identify experiences in post-disaster food access and agricultural recovery and reveal underlying socioecological knowledge that may contribute to a more climate resilient food system in Puerto Rico. Although the hurricane resulted in significant damages, farmers contributed to post-disaster food access by sharing a variety of surviving fruits, vegetables, and root crops among community members. Practices such as crop diversification, seed banking, and soil conservation were identified as climate resilient farm management strategies, and smallholder farmer networks were discussed as a promising solution to amass resources and bolster agricultural productivity. These recommendations were shared in a narrative highlighting socioecological identity, self-sufficiency, community and cultural heritage, and collaborative agency as integral to agricultural resilience. Efforts to promote climate resilience in Puerto Rico must leverage smallholder farmers’ socioecological expertise to reclaim a more equitable, sustainable, and community-owned food system. (shrink)

This paper offers a historical analysis of contemporary practices of shopping for vegetables in the highly dynamic context of urban Hanoi during the period from 1975 to 2014. Focusing on everyday shopping practices from a food safety perspective, we assess the extent to which the policy-enforced process of supermarketization has proven to be an engine of change in daily vegetable purchasing while improving food safety. In depicting transitions in shopping practices, we combine a social practices approach with historical analysis. (...) Providing a historical analysis of a broad and complex spectrum of everyday practices of purchasing fresh vegetables, we identify the key drivers of change. We discuss different modalities of shopping and demonstrate that no single retail modernization format can be said to exist. Rather than contrasting an idealized supermarket model with the traditional modalities of food shopping, we offer a varied, more diverse set of shopping practices that displays different strategies for coping with food safety issues. When discussed from a historical perspective, food practices are shown to be highly dynamic, being constantly reinvented and reconfigured by consumers who use their established skills, routines, and social networks to sometimes resist top-down enforced supermarketization while developing the coping strategies that best suit their local circumstances. (shrink)

Porphyry's account of the nature of seeds can shed light on some less appreciated details of Neoplatonic psychology, in particular on the interaction between individual souls. The process of producing the seed and the conception of the seed offer a physical instantiation of procession and reversion, activities that are central to Neoplatonic metaphysics. In an act analogous to procession, the seed is produced by the father's nature, and as such it is ontologically inferior to the father's nature. Thus, the seed (...) does not strictly speaking contain a full-fledged vegetative soul. Rather, it acquires its vegetative soul only while it is being actualized by an actual vegetative soul. This actualization takes place primarily at conception, where the seed as it were reverts back and becomes obedient to the mother's nature, but continues through the period of gestation. In this way, Porphyry can account both for maternal resemblance and for ideoplasty. He uses the Stoic language of complete blending to describe the mother's relation to the seed and embryo, and this reveals that he thinks of individuals as having their own unique individual natures (as opposed to sharing in a single universal nature). In the course of developing this theory, Porphyry makes significant revisions to his philosophical predecessors' views in both embryology and botany. He revises Aristotle's verdict on the relative importance of the female in generation as well as Theophrastus' explanation of the biological mechanics of grafting. Although Plotinus nowhere addresses embryology in the same detail as Porphyry does, we can conclude from his remarks on seeds and plants that his own views were similar to those of his student. (shrink)

Early animal embryos are patterned by localized egg cytoplasmic factors and cell interactions. In invertebrate chordate ascidians, larval tail muscle originates from the posterior marginal zone of the early embryo. It has recently been demonstrated that maternal macho‐1 mRNA encoding transcription factor acts as a localized muscle determinant. Other mesodermal tissues such as notochord and mesenchyme are also derived from the vegetal marginal zone. In contrast, formation of these tissues requires induction from endoderm precursors at the 32‐cell stage. FGF–Ras–MAPK signaling (...) is involved in the induction of both tissues. The responsiveness for induction to notochord or mesenchyme depends on the inheritance of localized egg cytoplasmic factors. Previous studies also point to critical roles of directed signaling in polarization of induced cells and in subsequent asymmetric divisions resulting in the formation of two daughter cells with distinct fates. One cell adopts an induced fate, while the other assumes a default fate. A simple model of mesoderm patterning in ascidian embryos is proposed in comparison with that of vertebrates. BioEssays 24:613–624, 2002. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

In the sacred texts, human beings are described as being created in the most beautiful way. In order to understand and define its integrity of existence in the most accurate way, it is necessary to know both its biological and spiritual aspects. In addition to the well-known and generally accepted characteristics of humans such as will and responsibility, there are also basic realities that constitute humans such as nafs, soul and mind. One of the most powerful factors that make a (...) person virtuous or worthless both in the presence of the Creator and in the eyes of people is the nafs. The nafs has many different meanings such as ”the essence of man, soul, person, self-being, mind, life, lust, desire, the source of bad habits".Philosophers, Sufis and theological scholars with different philosophical ideas in different periods in the history of thought have discussed and evaluated the subject of the nafs. Pythagoras considered the nafs as a substance separate from the body, Democritus as fire or heat, Plato as a substance that gives movement to the body. Aristotle, on the other hand, pointed out the difficulty of defining the soul and talked about three types of the nafs: vegetative, animal and human. The concept of nafs, on whose definition philosophers cannot agree, has a strategic importance as it is accepted as the point of separation of good and evil in religious literature. Because the human nafs, by its nature, has a structure that is prone to worldly pleasures, human desires, wishs and passions. Likewise, human beings are creatures of will, and thanks to this feature, they have the ability and freedom to establish positive and negative relationships and evaluate the beings and events around them. What should be the attitude of a person who has these characteristics towards pleasures, desires and passions? The main theme of our study is Mawardi's answer to this question and the solutions he identified. It was stated that having will makes humans different and superior to other living creatures. In this context, what is expected from a person is to use his will to control his nafs by displaying a sensitive, conscious and astute attitude towards the desires of his soul. It is observed in real life that failure to control one's nafs creates undesirable consequences both individually and socially. If the nafs cannot be controlled consciously, a person may become a victim of excessive passion for the world and the things in it. It is possible for humans to become arrogant and proud and to corrupt the environment, society and the world and make it uninhabitable as a result of pursuing their desires. Therefore, there is a need for a constantly dynamic and active consciousness regarding this feature of the nafs. There is no positive situation that an uncontrollable, undisciplined nafs that is a slave to its desires and passions will bring to its owner. The undisciplined and uncontrolled nafs causes individual, religious, moral and social traumas such as taqiyya, insincere words and actions, formal religious attitudes and behaviors, and alienating others for simple, primitive reasons. This is the point that the thinker focuses on and draws attention to. If a person can manage to control and discipline the passions and desires of his nafs by using his will, space will be opened for virtues that will bring happiness to individual and social life, such as brotherhood, solidarity, altruism. Mawardi evaluated this issue in the fifth chapter of his work Edebü'd-Dünyâ ved-Dîn. Mawardi, who thinks that education is an important factor in the reformation of the nafs, says that the mind and revealed knowledge given to man by God are indispensable elements of this struggle. Because he thinks that the alliance of reason, revelation and knowledge is necessary in distinguishing between right and wrong and in being patient with the harmful and evil tendencies of the nafs. A person who takes revelation, reason, knowledge and wisdom as a guide and whose emotions, thoughts and behaviors are shaped by this guide will not be defeated by his nafs. For this reason, Maverdi emphasizes especially when evaluating the subject of “Literary of the soul” that a person needs decency in adulthood as well as in childhood. In this context, he identified issues such as arrogance, pride, false envy and wrath, which he thought could hinder the evolution of virtue and virtue in individual and social life, and also showed the reasons for these and how to combat them. (shrink)

I first visited the Galápagos Islands in June 1998, and little was as I expected. Rather than craggy barrens covered with scrub, lush foliage beautified many islands. Rather than flourishing coastal habitats, surface water temperatures were well above normal, and throughout the archipelago dead or dying sea lions, sea birds, and marine iguanas littered the shores. All of this was the result of increased rainfall and the disruption of the normal upwelling in waters surrounding the archipelago caused by the 1997–1998 (...) El Niño event. When I visited Galápagos again, in February 1999, the islands were suffering one of the driest periods on record, and terrestrial vegetation had died back; but the cool, nourishing upwelling had resumed, and the marine environment was thriving.A “study in contrasts” aptly describes the two extremes in environmental conditions in the Galápagos Islands in 1998 and 1999 and, as Edward Larson captures beautifully in this book, many aspects of their history. Indeed, a theme that emerges in Larson's historical account of the Galápagos is one of irony. Compare Herman Melville's characterization of the islands as “an archipelago of aridities, without inhabitant, history, or hope of either in all time to come” , with modern biologists' and eco‐tourists' view of the Galápagos as “hallowed ground” and “enchanting”; the view of Galápagos as a place where one can so easily see Creation with the view that is is a place where one can so easily see evolution ; the popular belief that Darwin used Galápagos finches as the basis of his theory of natural selection with the reality that a complete picture of Galápagos finch evolution didn't emerge until it was unveiled in 1947 by David Lack, who renamed “Galápagos finches” “Darwin's finches”; the treatment of Galápagos as a land of plenty from which early sailors, buccaneers, and greedy naturalists removed tens of thousands of tortoises with its current status as a land in which a single tortoise named Lonesome George is an icon for conservation worldwide; and its small stature in terms of geographical size with its monumental stature in terms of impact on the history of biological science.Expanding on the last contrast, Larson offers the following insight from Robert Bowman: “No area on Earth of comparable size has inspired more fundamental changes in Man's perspective of himself and his environment than the Galápagos Islands” . As such, the comprehensive history of the place provided by Larson is well justified. It is also fascinating, and Larson tells the tale well—concisely, occasionally with wit, and always with inclusive documentation. The text is divided into three parts, the first covering the period from the discovery of the New World, including Galápagos in 1535, to Darwin's legendary visit in 1835 and the subsequent publication of On the Origin of Species in 1859; the second, the explosion of interest in the archipelago by American and European naturalists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; and the third, the remarkable transformation of the Galápagos between World War II, during which it served as a military base for the United States, to the present. Following and cited in the text are sixty‐three pages of notes, a veritable gold mine of references to classic and obscure published material that demonstrate both how thoroughly Larson researched the topic and how persistently this small archipelago has pervaded scientific, governmental, religious, and public thought.This book is more than a historical account of scientific exploration in Galápagos; it is also a dramatic story of the history of Galápagos in human thought. By incorporating thoughts and findings of nearly every famous, infamous, and forgettable player in Galápagos exploration in roughly chronological order and in the context of prevailing social or scientific mores, Larson provides an extraordinary glimpse into human nature. Regarding the evolution of human thought in conceptualizing organic evolution, Larson demonstrates that spiritual concerns or other constraints prevent some individuals from progressing intellectually, others eagerly abandon all tradition to embrace new concepts, and still others find middle ground. As noted poignantly, no less than ironically, by Larson, creation science, not evolution, is taught in Galápagos schools, and this once‐pristine archipelago is now bustling with humans and the predictable problems that accompany us. The history of Galápagos, both in terms of its ultimate fate and its influence on human thought, is not finished. The sequel to Evolution's Workshop may be equally intriguing. (shrink)

Geoerchaeological Study in the site of Aghios Ioannis, Thasos The geoarchaeological research conduct at Aghios Ioannis give information to reconstruct the environmental changes in a small coastal plain since the Late Neolithic. Despite the human impact testified by the development of land use by cattle breeding and cultivation since this period and until the Antiquity period, they underline the lasting stability of the area. Intensive land use had begun really during the Late Antiquity period but the cultivation (...) have not deeply altered the environment and enhanced the soil erosion. The development of cattle breeding and fires of the vegetation during the Byzantine and the early Ottoman periods have lastingly changed the environment responses. The geomorphic system become more sensitive and the direct or indirect consequences of the fire activity are more dramatic. This research reveals the high diversity of the environmental responses to human activities changes and demonstrates the impossibility to define a global model of environmental and landscape changes even at the scale of a small Aegean island. (shrink)

This bibliographical review of the modelling of the mitotic apparatus covers a period of one hundred and twenty years, from the discovery of the bipolar mitotic spindle up to the present day. Without attempting to be fully comprehensive, it will describe the evolution of the main ideas that have left their mark on a century of experimental and theoretical research. Fol and Bütschli's first writings date back to 1873, at a time when Schleiden and Schwann's cell theory was rapidly (...) gaining ground throughout Germany. Both mitosis and chromosomes were to be discovered within the space of thirty years, along with the two key events in the animal and plant reproductive cycle, namely fecondation and meiosis. The mitotic pole, a term still in use to this day, was employed to describe a morphological fact which was noted as early as 1876, namely that the lines and the dots of the karyokinetic figure, with its spindle and asters, looks remarkably like the lines of force around a bar magnet. This was to lead to models designed to explain the movements of chromosomes which take place when the cell nucleus appears to cease to exist as an organelle during mitosis. The nature of those mechanisms and the origin of the forces behind the chromosomes' ordered movements were central to the debate. Auguste Prenant, in a remarkable bibliographical synthesis published in 1910, summed up the opposing viewpoints of the vitalists, on the one hand, who favoured the theory of contractility or extensility in spindle fibres, and of those who believed in models based on physical phenomena, on the other. The latter subdivided into two groups: some, like Bütschli, Rhumbler or Leduc, referred to diffusion, osmosis and superficial tension, whilst the others, led by Gallardo and Hartog, focussed on the laws of electromagnetism. Lillie, Kuwada and Darlington followed up this line of research. The mid-20th century was a major turning point. Most of the modelling mentioned above was criticized and fell into disuse after disappearing from research publications and textbooks.This marked the onset of a new era, as electron microscopes made possible the materialization and detailed study of the macromolecular elements of the fibres, filaments and microtubules of the cytoskeleton. The successive phases of (a) de Harven and Bernhard's 1956 discovery of the centriole's ultrastructure, (b) its identification with the basal body of the cilia and flagella, confirming the theory set out by Henneguy and von Lenhossek (1898–99), (c) the universal presence of microtubules in animal, vegetal and eukaryotic protist cells, (d) the polymerization-depolymerization induced reversible transformations of the tubulin pool in mitosing cells (Inoue, 1960), (e) ultrastructural comparative studies of the mitotic apparatus of eukaryotes illustrating the Pickett-Heaps integrating concept of the MTOC (microtubule-organizing centre), (f) the possibility ofin vitro experiments on mtocs or on microtubules, brings us upon the present day, which has seen the focus placed on the concept of motor-proteins (kinesin, dynein) and on cell cycle models. The latter are based on a close coincidence between the observable modifications of the mitotic apparatus and the periodic variations in intracellular concentrations of calcium or of certain enzymes (cyclins, Cdc2) during the main transitions of the cell cycle. (shrink)

In their three thoughtful commentaries on my essay, Prentice, Mahoney and Moore and Lantos reflect on the challenges that I set out: can we make sense of the notion of a good death, and can we use art and music to provide any insights into it?1–3 I was thinking about these questions again while reading this week of yet another UK legal dispute relating to life-sustaining treatment for a child. In January, the High Court heard the case of Pippa Knight, (...) a 5-year-old girl with profound brain injury who is in a persistent vegetative state, and has been ventilated in an intensive care unit for a protracted period.4 All of the experts giving evidence in the case agreed that Pippa lacks any ability to feel pain and that there is sadly no prospect of improvement. Her mother (and some of the experts) believed that, given the absence of pain, it would not be harmful and would be in Pippa’s best interests to attempt to transition her to long-term ventilation at home. Pippa’s treating doctors contended that it would be in her …. (shrink)

Persons who experience severe brain injury often suffer significant disorders of consciousness. Anoxic injuries from cardiac arrest or strokes and traumatic injuries from falls, vehicular crashes, or assaults can result in several conditions in which patients lose or have diminished consciousness for an extended period of time. Two such conditions that create considerable public confusion and controversy are the vegetative state and the minimally conscious state. Although these conditions have generated significant medical and academic research, the general public and (...) policymakers are often confused about the nature of VS and MCS. The most recent evidence for this confusion is the acrimonious public debate, the extensive media coverage, the prolonged litigation, and the attempts of various governmental officials to intervene in dealing with the plight of Terri Schiavo. (shrink)

The saying that `Australia rode to prosperity on the sheep's back' never had more than a small measure of truth; it is better rephrased as `Australia has enjoyed limited periods of modest prosperity through the near-destruction by sheep of a fragile native vegetation'. Sheep, however, have had a cultural role in Australia that needs to be understood if the failures of the wool industry leadership are to be grasped. This role has had a long history, in part Biblical (the (...) Good Shepherd, the episcopal crosier, pastoral care), greatly reinforced by the Enclosures of the 18th century in Britain, promoting an idealized landscape of trees and grass. Settlers found Arcady in eastern Australia, often prepared for them by Aboriginal land use; in came the sheep, the lawn-mowers of the day, and up went the place names, from Camden Park on. `Parks' had social status. Landscapes of trees and grass were much admired, but lacking an understorey, essentially rather sterile from an ecological point of view. The grassy open woodlands were painted by the likes of Hans Heysen, while Tom Roberts painted the shearers. They became the very image of Australia, but the landscapes are dying, and the isolated trees are not regenerating. Many of the images remain potent. But sentiment will not pay the bills of the new century, so it is farewell to Arcady. The nymphs are long departed. This essay, like Gaul, is divided into three parts, the first of which considers sheep and the pastoral industry as a land use: the second is about the politics of wool; the third, about Arcady in Australia, is a theme that helps to explain the first two. (shrink)

Butte, Montana, lies at the headwaters of the nation's largest Superfund site. Donald MacMillan's book is a morality tale about this environmental travesty—a story of damaged health and environment, futile efforts by citizens and government to halt that damage, and demoralization resulting from those failed efforts.MacMillan's story covers the period from the 1880s to the 1930s. In the first phase, he describes the struggle between the young city of Butte and negligent smelter owners. In the second, the smelter owners (...) shifted the problem to a nearby town and surrounding farmers. In the third, the federal government attempted to enforce conservation policy.When miners first settled Butte in the 1860s, they found a lush valley high amid the peaks of the Continental Divide. By 1890 Butte was a major source of copper for a growing nation. Ore was roasted in open heaps a city block long. Sulfur and arsenic fumes killed vegetation for miles around. When winter inversions trapped smoke, residents suffered nosebleeds and vomited in the streets. Up to eighty people a month died in this town of just 40,000.The city sent abatement notices. Mine owners ignored them, arguing, “No smoke, no wages for workingmen.” Though open heap roasting ended because it was inefficient, new roasting furnaces did little to ease the problem. The growth of the Anaconda Copper Mining Company did end the problem—at least for Butte residents. By 1906 nearly all of Butte's ore was shipped twenty‐six miles down the valley to ACM's Anaconda smelter. Each day it belched thirty tons of arsenic and 2,500 tons of sulfur into the air. Whole herds of horses, cattle, and sheep lay wasted in the fields. ACM paid $330,000 for damages within five miles of the Washoe but refused compensation to more distant farmers.Afflicted farmers filed a lawsuit, offering to settle for a $1,175,000 buyout of their 60,525 acres. ACM declared their land not worth $500,000 and then spent nearly $1 million to prove it. Farmers lost when the judge—who socialized with ACM executives—found against the farmers in 1909. ACM had utilized “best known methods” and therefore should not be liable for any damages.Smoke poisoned national forest lands as well as farmers' fields. Trees within twenty‐five miles of Anaconda were dead or damaged. President Theodore Roosevelt and Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot initiated an investigation through the U.S. attorney general's office that eventually sought $4 million in damages from ACM. The company stalled, hoping for a more tolerant administration following the elections of 1908. In 1911 President William Howard Taft, trusting industry to do the right thing, created the “Anaconda smoke commission”—a group of industry and government advisors—to oversee ACM's implementation of pollution controls. In 1916 ACM's smelter still emitted sixty‐two tons of arsenic and 1,700 tons of sulfur each day.In 1924 ACM finally took effective steps to remove most of the arsenic from its emissions. Because of high demand for arsenic insecticides to fight boll weevils, ACM made considerable profit on arsenic recovery. Problems with farmers ended when the farmers, financially bankrupt from their lawsuit, sold “smoke rights” or easements to ACM. Problems with the federal government ended after 1928 when President Herbert Hoover, who promoted government‐industrial partnership, approved the swap of healthy ACM timberlands for damaged national forest.As a resident of Butte, it is hard for me to keep in mind that this is a historical account. Although ACM's smelting operations ended in 1974, the legacy of cultural and environmental damage lingers on. The morning newspaper reported forty‐six homes in Butte contaminated with lead and arsenic: “The federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry is conducting an investigation, and encourages all children to be tested.”. (shrink)

In general, our concepts take shape by way of contrast. Geoffrey Lloyd commented almost 60 years ago on “the remarkable prevalence of theories based on opposition in so many societies at different stages of technological development,” and he illustrated in detail the tendency of the ancient Greeks to think in binary pairs. One fundamental distinction, found in a wide variety of cultures, is that between human beings and other animals, or, more simply, between humans and animals, which serves to identify, (...) define, and privilege our own nature as a species. Classical Greek classifications do not invariably take the form of simple polarities, to be sure; thus, one might locate humanity within the ternary taxonomy of plants, animals, and human beings, or in the alternative triad of animals, human beings, and gods, where humanity occupies the middle tier. But whatever the larger paradigm, the essential differential between human beings and other animals was the presence or absence of reason. Plants, in Aristotle’s schema, possess a vegetative soul, which is to say, the capacity to grow and develop; animals have, in addition, the faculty of perception; but human beings are unique in possessing, in addition to these two parts of the psyche, reason or, in Greek, logos, a trait that we share with the gods (they differ from us in being immortal). (shrink)