Many of the features that distinguish the vertebrates from other chordates are derived from the neural crest, and it has long been argued that the emergence of this multipotent embryonic population was a key innovation underpinning vertebrate evolution. More recently, however, a number of studies have suggested that the evolution of the neural crest was less sudden than previously believed. This has exposed the fact that neural crest, as evidenced by its repertoire of derivative cell types, has evolved through vertebrate (...) evolution. In this light, attempts to derive a typological definition of neural crest, in terms of molecular signatures or networks, are unfounded. We propose a less restrictive, embryological definition of this cell type that facilitates, rather than precludes, investigating the evolution of neural crest. While the evolutionary origin of neural crest has attracted much attention, its subsequent evolution has received almost no attention and yet it is more readily open to experimental investigation and has greater relevance to understanding vertebrate evolution. Finally, we provide a brief outline of how the evolutionary emergence of neural crest potentiality may have proceeded, and how it may be investigated. BioEssays 30:530–541, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Foucault’s critique of early modern political theory aimed at displacing sovereignty as the principle of intelligibility of power. In the genealogical literature since Foucault, sovereignty has become a residual category lacking analytic specificity, largely displaced by governance, in turn equated with politics. We argue that Foucault and the Foucauldians have not understood that the flourishing of governance has presupposed a symbolic regime with a division of knowledge-power-law characteristic of the democratic sovereign. The conflation of governance with politics, together with the (...) sliding of sovereignty under governance, has left Foucauldians unable to diagnose the dangers present in varying possible sovereignty-governance configurations. (shrink)

At anaphase chromosomes move to the spindle poles (anaphase A) and the spindle poles move apart (anaphase B). In vitro studies using isolated diatom spindles demonstrate that the primary mechano‐chemical event responsible for spindle elongation is the sliding apart of half‐spindle microtubules. Further, these forces are generated within the zone of microtubule overlap in the spindle midzone.

Four lectures on the Philosophy of Religion are included in this compact book along with an extra chapter on the psychology of belief in God. In a search for an acceptable theism, the author examines religious faith and human personality via many theories and facets of thinking, referring to psychologists, theologians and philosophers who have battled with similar questions. Originally published a year after the lectures were presented, this is an interesting classic volume by a well-known theorist of the early (...) Twentieth Century. (shrink)

In today''s business environment, the knowledge-based society, globalisation, and information and communication technologies (ICT) have increased the role of "intangible" values of assets and resources for all industries. As a result there is an increased role for knowledge intermediaries; one of these, advertising, plays an important role in affecting consumer choice and knowledge. Ethical issues which arise for traditional purveyors of intangibility – cultural industries such as art, music, or film, spread to advertising. Building on our perspective of the measurement (...) of intangibles we propose a new categorisation of types of goods or services, and a framework for identifying some future ethical challenges in today''s global knowledge based society. (shrink)

One of the most extensive yet least conclusive methodological debates within religious studies revolves around the question of what, precisely, the phenomenology of religion is and what contribution it can make to the study of religion. I do not intend to answer this important question here. To do so satisfactorily would require a range of historical, philosophical and methodological inquiry which would go quite beyond the bounds of a single article. My intention in this paper is, by comparison, unambitious. It (...) is to take one view of what phenomenology of religion is and to consider an area outside that usually explored by students of religion which can, nonetheless, shed some light on how religions might be studied in a way which is in accordance with the phenomenology of religion so understood. What follows will offer an answer to the question of what contribution one particular understanding of phenomenology might make to the study of religion, but no attempt will be made to establish whether or not this particular understanding ought to be regarded as normative. (shrink)

In a discussion-note in Mind, Father P. M. Farrell, O.P., gave an account, in what he admitted to be an embarrassingly brief compass, of the Thomist doctrine concerning evil. There is one sentence in this discussion which at first glance appears paradoxical. Father Farrell has been arguing that a universe containing ‘corruptible good’ as well as incorruptible is better than one containing ‘incorruptible good’ only. He continues: ‘If, however, they are to manifest this corruptible good, they must be corruptible and (...) they must sometimes corrupt.’ The final words, despite Father Farrell's italics, strike one as expressing, not a self-evident truth, but a non sequitur. The fact that I am capable of committing murder does not entail that I will at some time commit it. It is not immediately obvious that a similar entailment holds in the case of corruption and corruptibility. (shrink)

Banking, in common with other areas of finance, is often considered an amoral field focused purely on risk and return. However, ethics does have an important role to play, both traditionally and as business and banking evolve. Based on a speech to a European Union conference on financing small and medium–sized enterprises , this paper seeks to provide an overview of ethics in banking using three terms. Integrity is important to generate the trust necessary for any banking system to flourish, (...) responsibility highlights contemporary banks’ need to take into account the consequences of their lending policies, and affinity refers to a set of relatively novel ways in which depositors and borrowers can be brought closer together than they are in conventional western banking. (shrink)