The presence and role of microbes in human cancers has come full circle in the last century. Tumors are no longer considered aseptic, but implications for cancer biology and oncology remain underappreciated. Opportunities to identify and build translational diagnostics, prognostics, and therapeutics that exploit cancer's second genome—the metagenome—are manifold, but require careful consideration of microbial experimental idiosyncrasies that are distinct from host‐centric methods. Furthermore, the discoveries of intracellular and intra‐metastatic cancer bacteria necessitate fundamental changes in describing clonal evolution and selection, (...) reflecting bidirectional interactions with non‐human residents. Reconsidering cancer clonality as a multispecies process similarly holds key implications for understanding metastasis and prognosing therapeutic resistance while providing rational guidance for the next generation of bacterial cancer therapies. Guided by these new findings and challenges, this Review describes opportunities to exploit cancer's metagenome in oncology and proposes an evolutionary framework as a first step towards modeling multispecies cancer clonality. Also see the video abstract here: https://youtu.be/-WDtIRJYZSs. (shrink)

The unexpected roles of the microbiota in cancer challenge explanations of carcinogenesis that focus on tumor-intrinsic properties. Most tumors contain bacteria and viruses, and the host’s proximal and distal microbiota influence both cancer incidence and therapeutic responsiveness. Continuing the history of cancer–microbe research, these findings raise a key question: to what extent is the microbiota relevant for clinical oncology? We approach this by critically evaluating three issues: how the microbiota provides a predictive biomarker of cancer growth and therapeutic responsiveness, the (...) microbiota’s causal role(s) in cancer development, and how therapeutic manipulations of the microbiota improve patient outcomes in cancer. Clarifying the conceptual and empirical aspects of the cancer-associated microbiota can orient future research and guide its implementation in clinical oncology. (shrink)

Cancers rely on multiple, heterogeneous processes at different scales, pertaining to many biomedical fields. Therefore, understanding cancer is necessarily an interdisciplinary task that requires placing specialised experimental and clinical research into a broader conceptual, theoretical, and methodological framework. Without such a framework, oncology will collect piecemeal results, with scant dialogue between the different scientific communities studying cancer. We argue that one important way forward in service of a more successful dialogue is through greater integration of applied sciences (experimental and clinical) (...) with conceptual and theoretical approaches, informed by philosophical methods. By way of illustration, we explore six central themes: (i) the role of mutations in cancer; (ii) the clonal evolution of cancer cells; (iii) the relationship between cancer and multicellularity; (iv) the tumour microenvironment; (v) the immune system; and (vi) stem cells. In each case, we examine open questions in the scientific literature through a philosophical methodology and show the benefit of such a synergy for the scientific and medical understanding of cancer. (shrink)

In Dependent Rational Animals, Alasdair MacIntyre attempts to ground the virtues in a biological account of humans. Drawing from this attempt, he also tries to answer the question of why we should care for the severely disabled. MacIntyre’s difficulty in answering this question begins with the fact that his communities of practices do not naturally include the severely disabled within their membership and care. In response to this difficulty, he provides four reasons for why we should care for the severely (...) disabled. I argue that three of these reasons are inadequate, and that the fourth is incomplete although it does point in a promising direction. I conclude that a more satisfactory answer requires a further extension of the central development from After Virtue to Dependent Rational Animals, and I draw from Wendell Berry, whose work MacIntyre admires, to provide an illuminating illustration of what such an answer might look like. (shrink)

On the standard simple foundationalist interpretation of Thomas Reid’s epistemology, his epistemic appeals to God seem problematic. These appeals are generally dismissed as dogmatic, viciously circular, or mere irrelevant pieties. This chapter responds first that, even on the standard foundationalist interpretation, theism can sometimes boost the epistemic justification of first principles. It then argues that Reid’s epistemology is plausibly interpreted as containing coherentist strands. While not generally necessary for knowledge, coherence can boost the justification of our basic beliefs, and this (...) boost in justification can be valuable in certain contexts. Because many of Reid’s epistemic appeals to God—including those that are viciously circular on the standard interpretation—are coherence-generating, this interpretation provides a plausible explanation for how theism can boost the justification of various first principles, including first principles about the reliability of our faculties. (shrink)

The role of theism in Thomas Reid’s epistemology remains an unresolved question. Opinions range from outright denials that theism has any relevance to Reid’s epistemology to claims that Reid’s epistemology depends upon theism in a dogmatic or a viciously circular manner. This dissertation attempts to bring some order to this interpretive fray by answering the following question: What role or roles does theism play in Reid’s epistemology, particularly in relation to the epistemic justification of first principles? Chapters 2-4 lay the (...) foundation for answering this question and clarify some terminology. Chapter 2 distinguishes key senses in which Reid uses the terms “principle” and “first principle.” Chapter 3 argues for a novel interpretation of common sense and the principles of common sense. This interpretation avoids a number of objections to Reid’s principles of common sense. Chapter 4 considers the initial externalist justification of Reid’s first principles. It shows Reid has a surprisingly well-developed proper-functionalism and brings to light several overlooked elements of his epistemology. Chapters 5-8 argue theism can and does play various important and philosophically respectable roles in Reid’s epistemology, particularly in relation to the justification of first principles. Chapter 5 argues that even on the standard foundationalist interpretation of Reid’s epistemology, theism can and does boost the justification of first principles. Chapter 6 shows Reid’s epistemology is not a form of simple foundationalism but contains coherentist elements. This enables theism further to boost the justification of first principles. Chapter 7 reveals that Reid’s epistemology contains different kinds or levels of knowledge, and shows that theism enables the highest form of knowledge, which I call scientia. Chapter 8 argues that within Reid’s epistemology theism helps protect and preserve the justification of first principles. (shrink)

Reading and reflecting on real cases helps ethics come alive for students. Good cases grip our attention, engage our imagination, and show the real-life implications of abstract ethical theories, ideals, commitments, and policies. Finding good case studies is both difficult and time-consuming for instructors, so I was excited to learn about Glenn McGee’s book Bioethics for Beginners: 60 Cases and Cautions from the Moral Frontier of Healthcare. According to the publisher, its target audiences are “courses in bioethics, medical ethics, and (...) applied ethics.” The book sounded promising.McGee’s book contains ten chapters, or “cautions,” plus a conclusion. Each chapter consists of anywhere from three to nine loosely associated “cases.” The cases average about one and a half pages each, but they vary significantly in length. The shortest cases are less than a page while the longest is twelve pages .All sixty cases, as well as the two sections that compose the conclus .. (shrink)

Peter Singer’s 1971 essay “Famine, Affluence, and Morality” sparked a surge in interest among philosophers in the obligations of the global rich beneficently to assist the global poor. Richard Miller argues that Singer’s account is too demanding and proposes his Principle of Sympathy as an alternative to it. I first argue against Miller’s view and, in particular, his insistence that the value of pursuing worthwhile goals that are close to one’s heart significantly weakens one’s obligation to assist the least well-off. (...) Secondly, I critique Singer’s account and argue for a substantially revised version thereof. The Moderate Principle of Sacrifice that I defend includes four revisions to Singer’s account. These revisions allow it adequately to account for nonmoral value; the suffering of donor as well as recipient; serious need rather than just poverty; and the need for a long-term approach to global poverty relief. (shrink)

In this timely study, Dawes defends the methodological naturalism of the sciences. Though religions offer what appear to be explanations of various facts about the world, the scientist, as scientist, will not take such proposed explanations seriously. Even if no natural explanation were available, she will assume that one exists. Is this merely a sign of atheistic prejudice, as some critics suggest? Or are there good reasons to exclude from science explanations that invoke a supernatural agent? On the one hand, (...) Dawes concedes the bare possibility that talk of divine action could constitute a potential explanation of some state of affairs, while noting that the conditions under which this would be true are unlikely ever to be fulfilled. On the other hand, he argues that a proposed explanation of this kind would rate poorly, when measured against our usual standards of explanatory virtue. (shrink)

Pike, Gregory K Eugenics is not usually a topic for polite conversation. The first thought that typically springs to mind is Hitler's euthanasia programme, the master race and the attempted extermination of the Jews. However, an examination of the social history of eugenics reveals that in practice it operated in many other contexts, and its conceptual meaning is much broader. And while that social history has usually been confined to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the core ideas (...) in eugenics have been part of dreams about the human condition for millennia. It is therefore not surprising to find various modern practices, some driven by new technology, subsumed under the rubric of eugenics. Eugenics as an idea is certainly resilient, even if at times it has been elusive. Indeed, perhaps it is resilient because it is elusive. In summary, eugenics is powerful yet poorly understood. Because it appeals to utopian dreams of a better future, where humans can be freed from their 'biological slavery', as Margaret Sanger put it, it remains pervasive even if cryptic. The new eugenics is sanitised, framed as autonomous choice, and unlike the ill-informed version of the 20s and 30s or the nasty Nazi variety. But it is nonetheless potent and its various manifestations are expressions of powerful ideas that remain firmly embedded in the collective human consciousness. (shrink)

Previous long-term memory research found that angry faces were more poorly recognised when encoded with averted vs. direct gaze, while memory for happy faces was unaffected by gaze. Contrasti...

The hypothesis that high levels of religiosity are partly caused by high disease loads is in accord with studies showing that societal dysfunction promotes mass supernaturalism. However, some cultures suffering from high rates of disease and other socioeconomic dysfunction exhibit low levels of popular religiosity. At this point, it appears that religion is hard pressed to thrive in healthy societies, but poor conditions do not always make religion popular, either.

Some of us have suggested that what fiction makers do is offer us things to imagine, that this is what is distinctive of fiction and what distinguishes it from narrative-based but assertive activities such as journalism or history. Some of us hold, further, that it is the maker's intention which confers fictional status. Many, I think, feel the intuitive appeal of this idea at the same time as they sense looming problems for any proposal about fiction's nature based straightforwardly on (...) the identification of fiction with the to-be-imagined. I formulate a very weak version of the proposal which is not vulnerable to some objections recently presented. My formulation is in terms of supervenience. But while this version is weak, it is also quite precise, and its precision brings into view certain other problems which have not so far been attended to. To the extent that these problems are serious, the prospects for an intentional theory of fiction look, I am sorry to say, poor; the version susceptible to the objections is weak, and anything weaker still but not so susceptible could hardly be thought of as a theory of fiction, though it might supplement such a theory. (shrink)

Catholic Social Teaching, in considering economic and patient justice, calls for “participating in patient care.” Corporations often are accused of not paying their fair share, which in turn has led to demands for government regulation to lower drug prices in the United States. Meanwhile, the millions of dollars spent by pharmaceutical foundations to help lower-income patients is not seen as corporations’ taking such responsibility to assist patients. The view that CST demands lower costs for prescription pharmaceuticals from corporations that make (...) excess profits misapplies CST principles and does not consider the pricing structure for drugs on a global scale. While a preferential option for the poor is needed, there needs to be a better definition of the poor. This paper looks to broaden the view of CST in regard to corporations and the preferential option for the poor when applied to the current cost of pharmaceuticals. (shrink)

I want caregivers who are solid, well-rounded, well-grounded people and who relate well to other people. That probably means they have a pretty good sense of humor. I would also expect any doctor with a sense of humor sometimes to find humor in some of the more difficult aspects of patient care, and even to make jokes about very serious things—about tragedies, poor prognoses, deaths. Humor can also be put to good use in human interactions—it’s not just something I’d expect (...) to see in normal, healthy human interactions; it can be an exceptionally powerful tool for moving a conversation forward, and for bringing people in the conversation together. But of course, it has to be used properly. I don’t want my doctor to .. (shrink)

The Covid‐19 pandemic has highlighted connections between health and social structural phenomena that have long been recognized in bioethics but have never really been front and center—not just access to health care, but fundamental conditions of living that affect public health, from income inequality to political and environmental conditions. In March, as the pandemic spread globally, the field's traditional focus on health care and health policy, medical research, and biotechnology no longer seemed enough. The adequacy of bioethics seemed even less (...) certain after the killing of George Floyd, whose homicide showed in an especially agonizing way how social institutions are in effect (and often intentionally) designed to make the lives of black people go poorly and end early. Whether bioethics needs to be expanded, redirected, and even reconceived is at the heart of the May‐June 2020 issue of the Hastings Center Report, which is devoted to questions provoked by and lessons emerging during this pandemic. (shrink)

Many theorists have been attracted to the idea that literature can help us penetrate the mystery of time. Argues that the track record of the works they appeal to is poor. Finds some common ground with the literary philosophers, and suggests ways in which fiction might tell us things about time; But alsosuggests that there is very little to be hoped for from this programme. A belief to the contrary is largely the result of a misunderstanding about what counts as (...) a question about time. (shrink)

At 41 weeks, the patient had been delivered by Cesarean section for failure to progress at Hospital A in the same city. Three days after birth she suffered a respiratory arrest. Resuscitation and ventilator support were initiated promptly but the child did poorly, and shortly after this first arrest, the parents were told by the child's physician that she had no chance of recovery. Nevertheless, the mother continued to insist that the child be kept on a respirator and aggressive support (...) be maintained. (shrink)

James is a seventy‐two‐year‐old man with end‐stage dementia who was transferred from another hospital. At the time of transfer James had sepsis from two multidrug‐resistant organisms, respiratory failure requiring ventilatory support, renal insufficiency, pancytopenia, and hypotension requiring vasopressors. He has severe contractures and foot drop, has a feeding tube, and has been nonverbal for several months. His son, Paul, is requesting full code and treatment focused on recovery despite James's extremely poor prognosis.Paul is James's only child, and James's wife is (...) deceased. Paul says he has the “gift of prophecy” and knows for certain when God is speaking to him. “God,” he says, “doesn't lie.” He says that he and his father spent years preaching together and have witnessed many healings. He believes that they are being “rebuked” because at a time when his father was too tired to travel much, they held fewer revivals and did not save enough souls.James's condition has worsened slowly. He has almost no urine output and does not breathe over the ventilator. He is extremely volume overloaded; his toenails have bloodied and popped off. By hospital‐day twenty‐one, he had only corneal reflexes. The medical team is troubled; if James is to stay on the ventilator, he will need a tracheostomy, but this would only further prolong what has already been an agonizingly prolonged dying process.Paul continues to pray for his father to get up. (shrink)

The authors of this essay have been committed practitioners and teachers of Philosophy for Children in a variety of educational settings, from pre-schools through university doctoral programs and in adult community and religious education programs. The promotion of critical thinking has always been a primary goal of this movement. But communal practices of critical thinking need to include other kinds of democratic conversation that prompt us to see others as full-fledged persons and to be curious about how our being in (...) community with them makes growth and self-correction possible. As we continue to experiment and innovate in new contexts we see ourselves continuing the inquiry around expanding the inclusivity of conversations about basic human concerns. In this essay we describe an inclusive strategy called the story circle, that was first developed as a method of popular education in Denmark and was then adapted as a tool of social change among poor and dis-empowered American citizens in Appalachia. Story circles were later utilized in a philosophical living-learning community and most recently coupled with Lipman and Sharp’s dialogue method of the community of philosophical inquiry. The authors of this paper have combined story circles with the community of philosophical inquiry in a variety of contexts. In each iteration, telling one’s own story and listening carefully to the stories of others can be equally revelatory actions. (shrink)

In Feb. 2022 Sungho Kimlee passed away. In his memory, we present this revised and abridged version of a portion of his dissertation, Factions and Orders: from Machiavelli to Madison. Sungho summarized the work as follows: “Since antiquity, thinkers have held that every society consists of two hostile orders – the few and the many. But they have disagreed on the proper method for defusing this civic divide, and their various proposed remedies can be classified into three approaches. The first (...) approach aims to eliminate the division between the rich and the poor by abolishing private property. Plato’s Republic inaugurated this method, which was later embraced with ambivalence by Thomas More and vigorously defended by Karl Marx. The second approach merely aims to contain the harmful effects of the binary civic divide. Plato proposed two methods for accomplishing this in the Laws: Plutarch championed the first method, and Aristotle the second. My dissertation traces the genealogy of the third approach – the method of supplanting the binary civic divide with more numerous divisions. This oft-neglected method was pioneered by Rousseau, who prescribed the creation of artificial divisions by the state as a remedy for majority factions. (shrink)

Although perceptual grouping has been widely studied, its mechanisms remain poorly understood. We propose a neural model of grouping that, through top-down control of its circuits, implements a grouping strategy involving both a connection strategy (which elements to connect) and a selection strategy (that defines spatiotemporal properties of a selection signal to segment target elements and facilitate identification). We apply the model to a letter discrimination task that investigated relationships among uniform connectedness and the grouping principles of proximity and shape (...) similarity. Participants reported whether small circles formed a global letter E or H, and these circles could be connected by a line or be embedded in a matrix of squares. In the model, a good grouping strategy for this task consists of a connection strategy that connects circles but not squares for all conditions and a selection strategy that uses a selection signal of varying size, depending on whether squares were present. Consistent with empirical results, which were verified in two replication studies, model performance is worse with distractor squares, and line connectors improve performance only in the condition with squares. Rather than relying on abstract grouping principles, we show how the empirical results can be explained in terms of observers implementing a task-dependent grouping strategy that promotes overall performance. (shrink)

End-of-life decision making is fraught with ethical challenges. Withholding or withdrawing life support therapy is widely considered ethical in patients with high treatment burden, poor premorbid status, or significant projected disability even when such treatment is not ?futile.? Whether such withdrawal of therapy in the aftermath of attempted suicide is ethical is not well established in the literature. We provide a clinical vignette and propose criteria under which such withdrawal would be ethical. We suggest that it is appropriate to withdraw (...) life support, regardless of the cause of the critical illness or disability, when the following criteria are met: (1) Surrogates request withdrawal of care and the adequacy of surrogates is confirmed, (2) an external reasonability standard is met, (3) passage of time, perhaps 72 hours, to allow certainty regarding the patient's wishes, and (4) psychiatric morbidity should be considered as grounds for withdrawal only in truly treatment-refractory cases. Fundamentally, we believe the question to ask is, ?If this were not an attempted suicide, would a request to withdraw care be reasonable?? We believe that under these circumstances, such withdrawal of life support, even in an individual who has attempted suicide, does not constitute physician assistance with suicide and is distinct from physician aid-in-dying in several important respects. (shrink)

Despite their ethical intentions, ethically minded consumers rarely purchase ethical products (Auger and Devinney: 2007, Journal of Business Ethics76, 361–383). This intentions–behaviour gap is important to researchers and industry, yet poorly understood (Belk et al.: 2005, Consumption, Markets and Culture8(3), 275–289). In order to push the understanding of ethical consumption forward, we draw on what is known about the intention–behaviour gap from the social psychology and consumer behaviour literatures and apply these insights to ethical consumerism. We bring together three separate (...) insights – implementation intentions (Gollwitzer: 1999, American Psychologist54(7), 493–503), actual behavioural control (ABC) (Ajzen and Madden: 1986, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology22, 453–474; Sheeran et al.: 2003, Journal of Social Psychology, 42, 393–410) and situational context (SC) (Belk: 1975, Journal of Consumer Research2, 157–164) – to construct an integrated, holistic conceptual model of the intention–behaviour gap of ethically minded consumers. This holistic conceptual model addresses significant limitations within the ethical consumerism literature, and moves the understanding of ethical consumer behaviour forward. Further, the operationalisation of this model offers insight and strategic direction for marketing managers attempting to bridge the intention–behaviour gap of the ethically minded consumer. (shrink)

Intensity profiles of emotional experience over time have been found to differ primarily in explosiveness and accumulation. However, the determinants of these temporal features remain poorly understood. In two studies, we examined whether emotion regulation strategies are predictive of the degree of explosiveness and accumulation of negative emotional episodes. Participants were asked to draw profiles reflecting changes in the intensity of emotions elicited either by negative social feedback in the lab or by negative events in daily life. In addition, trait, (...) and state usage of a set of emotion regulation strategies was assessed. Multilevel analyses revealed that trait rumination was positively associated with emotion accumulation. State rumination was also positively associated with emotion accumulation and, to a lesser extent, with emotion explosiveness. These results provide support for emotion regulation theories, which hypothesise that rumination is a central mechanism underlying the maintenance of negative emotions. (shrink)

The feasibility of reversing human aging within a matter of decades has traditionally been dismissed by all professional biogerontologists, on the grounds that not only is aging still poorly understood, but also many of those aspects that we do understand are not reversible by any current or foreseeable therapeutic regimen. This broad consensus has recently been challenged by the publication, by five respected experimentalists in diverse subfields of biogerontology together with three of the present authors, of an article (Ann NY (...) Acad Sci 959, 452–462) whose conclusion was that all the key components of mammalian aging are indeed amenable to substantial reversal (not merely retardation) in mice, with technology that has a reasonable prospect of being developed within about a decade. Translation of that panel of interventions to humans who are already alive, within a few decades thereafter, was deemed potentially feasible (though it was not claimed to be likely). If the prospect of controlling human aging within the foreseeable future cannot be categorically rejected, then it becomes a matter of personal significance to most people presently alive. Consequently, we suggest that serious public debate on this subject is now warranted, and we survey here several of the biological, social and political issues relating to it. BioEssays 24:667–676, 2002. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:On PartnershipRyan Schwarz, Duncan Smith-Rohrberg Maru, Dan Schwarz, Bibhav Acharya, Bijay Acharya, Ruma Rajbhandari, Jason Andrews, Gregory Karelas, Ranju Sharma, and Mark ArnoldyRecently, Bayalpata Hospital, in the rural district of Achham, Nepal almost collapsed under the weight of its own staff's discontent. The hospital had been largely abandoned until 2009 when our organization, Nyaya Health, renovated and opened it in partnership with the Nepali government. Since then, the (...) hospital has seen great progress and has experienced widespread community support. Nonetheless, earlier this year, a broad-based staff revolt occurred, led primarily by our senior clinical staff members, raising concerns that Nyaya's management policies were ineffective, and wages and benefits were too low. The unrest included everything from a strike, limiting services to our patients, to aggression against non-strikers and slander and racist comments in public media against the Nyaya Health Board of Directors. Ultimately, the conflict was resolved, though not without the departure of our three most senior clinicians. The incident deeply damaged staff morale [End Page 101] and impeded basic services to our patients, and from our perspective as a leadership and management team, it was deeply troubling and spiritually challenging. We have learned much in the wake of the strike, but here we focus more narrowly on the concept of partnerships in our work by examining the recent strike and the two key issues that lead to it: wages and benefits, and management policies at Bayalpata Hospital.In grappling with the recent staff crisis, some of our leadership team expressed concerns that we would never be able to develop a true partnership in Achham if our senior-level employees led strikes against the organization. The leaders of the strike were our most well-educated and high-ranking staff. They were also individuals who had come to work for us specifically citing the moral imperative of our work, and their pride in helping to serve the poorest of the poor. One leadership team member asked, "What is 'partnership' then? We came into this work with the premise that we would work together, with our partnership built around the right to health—but who are our partners if they lead strikes damaging the very services our collective mission aims to offer?"Another leadership team member commented, "The first time I visited Achham I was invited for tea at Meena's* house (one of Nyaya's midwives). We arrived at her house and Meena greeted us warmly. She showed us in to a small room: there was no furniture, but there was an immaculately swept mat which we joined her on. We drank tea, seated on her rug, and listened to her tell us how she had come to live in the house, how she had come to work for Nyaya, and her pride in now being able to provide both for her own children, as well as, the children of her relatives. As the only employed family member, she now had the challenge of providing for all of them. When we question our partnership, I'm taken back to Meena's warm, but extremely poor, home. She has worked for Nyaya for almost four years. She has helped our organization provide free care to over 75,000 people. Is this not a type of 'partnership'?"Allow us to offer some background on the issue of wages—Meena has been with our team since 2008, and has been paid about $2,500 per year—a generous wage compared to other employers in the region. Meena was one of the striking staff members. Among other concerns about the way the hospital was being run, she and other staff asked indignantly why we couldn't provide them with higher wages, better benefits, and more resources, both for her and the hospital. Notably, Meena's salary (and the rest of our staff's) was well above her equivalent in other, more urban hospitals (to compensate for the extremely remote area in which we work), and in a district where most families are farmers, our staff's salaries occupy the highest income bracket in the region. Nonetheless, as is common throughout the world in both rich and poor areas... (shrink)

Sustaining soil fertility is essential to the prosperity of many households in the mid-hills of Nepal, but there are concerns that the breakdown of the traditional linkages between forest, livestock, and cropping systems is adversely affecting fertility. This study used triangulated data from surveys of households, discussion groups, and key informants in 16 wards in eastern and western Nepal to determine the existing practices for soil fertility management, the extent of such practices, and the perception of the direction of changes (...) in soil fertility. The two principal practices for maintaining soil fertility were the application of farmyard manure (FYM) and of chemical fertilizer (mainly urea and diammonium phosphate). Green manuring, in-situ manuring, slicing terrace risers, and burning plant residues are rarely practiced. FYM usage was variable with more generally applied to khet land (average 6053 kg fresh weight manure ha−1) than to bari land (average 4185 kg fresh weight manure ha−1) with manure from goats and poultry preferred above that from cows and buffaloes. Almost all households (98%) apply urea to khet land and 87% to bari land, with 45% applying diammonium phosphate to both types of land. Application rates and timings of applications varied considerably both within and between wards suggesting poor knowledge transfer between the research and farming communities. The benefits of chemical fertilizers in terms of ease of application and transportation in comparison with FYM, were perceived to outweigh the widely reported detrimental hardening of soil associated with their continued usage. Among key informants, FYM applied in conjunction with chemical fertilizer was the most popular amendment, with FYM alone preferred more than chemical fertilizer alone – probably because of the latter’s long-term detrimental effects. Key informant and householder surveys differed in their perception of fertility changes in the last decade probably because of differences in age and site-specific knowledge. All key informants felt that fertility had declined but among households, only about 40% perceived a decline with the remainder about evenly divided between no change and an increase. Householders with small landholdings (< 0.5 ha) were more likely to perceive increasing soil fertility while those with larger landholdings (> 2 ha) were more likely to perceive declining fertility. Perceived changes in soil fertility were not related to food self-sufficiency. The reasons for the slow spread of new technologies within wards and the poor understanding of optimal use of chemical fertilizers in conjunction with improved quality FYM may repay further investigation in terms of sustaining soil fertility in this region. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:IntroductionFrom the closing decades of the fourteenth century onwards, reform attempts within the various religious orders gained impetus under the banner of so-called Observant movements. In nearly all orders, these Observant movements advocated a return to the lifestyle of an imagined pristine beginning in the face of a real or perceived crisis.1Within the Clarissan world, there were a number of signs pointing towards such a crisis. Adherence to the (...) rule, as well as a viable form of communal religious life could be conspicuously absent by the later fourteenth century. This was not solely the result of failing religious stamina, due to the interference of lay benefactors or sheer lack of motivation among the choir nuns. From the later 1340s onwards, many religious houses suffered heavily from recurrent Plague epidemics and the effects of prolonged military campaigns.This was particularly visible in some areas in France that were touched by the Plague and the Hundred Years War. In Toulouse, the Clarissan monastic community was reduced from around 80 women in 1330 to just four by 1370. Other houses more or less disappeared altogether because of the Plague, as was the case in Carcassone, Lavaur, Narbonne and Samatan, and had to be refounded. The Clarissan monasteries of Auterive, Béziers, Boisset, Les Cassés, Gourdon, and Le Pouget were heavily damaged or completely destroyed by warfare, and needed rebuilding.2In many cases, surviving nuns from destroyed monasteries extra muros moved into town. They had to restart their community life under very difficult circumstances. To make ends meet, the women sometimes had to engage in forms of economic exploitation of their goods that were not in line with the requirements of their rule. To make up for extreme losses in population and revenue, they also had to resort to recruitment practices that brought in people not equipped to embrace the vows of poverty, abstinence and obedience.There was no uniformity in the ways in which reforms were initiated. Nor did they always have the same results. This becomes clear as soon as we take into account the choice for a specific rule, the implementation of additional reform constitutions and convent statutes, and the role played by nuns and abbesses, secular authorities, secular clergymen and, of course, leading Observant and non-Observant friars of the Franciscan order.The Tordesillas congregationAn early attempt at reform in Castile resulted in a congregation named after the Poor Clare monastery at Tordesillas. This royal foundation had been created around 1363 to perform intercessory prayers on behalf of Pedro I of Castile and his new wife Maria of Padiella. The house was well endowed, and papal privileges freed the house from episcopal oversight, in line with important Urbanist houses elsewhere.3 In 1377, this autonomy was augmented, when Pope Gregory XI, ‘for certain reasons’ , freed the house from control from the Franciscan provincial minister.4 This might have been motivated by thoughts towards religious reform.5In any case, the new Castilian ruler Juan I was not content with the nuns’ intercessory works for the royal family. He obtained several papal bulls from the Avignon Pope Clement VII to entice the monastery to return to its former “observance” of the rule and its prayer obligations. These bulls made the Franciscan confessor of the king, friar Fernando of Illescas, perpetual visitator of the Tordesillas house, with full powers for the duration of his life.6 He could remove the abbess from office and enter the monastic enclosure to correct abuses. He could also absolve nuns and monastic personnel from sins and excommunication, as well as appoint and dismiss confessors and deliver punishments.7From 1410 onwards, the Tordesillas reform model began to attract other monasteries, which coagulated into the reform congregation of Santa Maria la Real or Santa Clara de Tordesillas. By 1447.. (shrink)

This is a reply to and critique of Gregory Mankiw's recent paper "Defending the One Percent".

The quality of the educational experience for students may be at risk if they are not taught in ways that are effective and pertinent. While educational institutions (administrators, faculty senates or a combination) may try to compel faculty members to gain knowledge of and utilize up-to-date learning and instructional design strategies, these faculty members may baulk at this mandate, citing academic freedom as their right to design their courses in any way they see fit. Following is a discussion exploring the (...) issue, suggesting that regardless of how academic freedom is interpreted, faculty members have an ethical obligation to deliver instruction in ways that do not violate students' rights to learn. Consequently, institutions have a right as well as a duty to compel their faculty members to follow through with this obligation. (shrink)

A re-issue of Gregory Bateson's classic work. It summarizes Bateson's thinking on the subject of the patterns that connect living beings to each other and to their environment.

This text offers a reflection on the nature and significance of narrative in human communication.

The Histories of Gregory of Tours are among the most important literary testimonies for the transition period from Late Antiquity to the early Middle Ages. The verdict on the Latin literature and language of the first centuries of the Frankish Empire has often been very negative. Krusch and Levison, who published today’s still authoritative critical edition of the Histories, also assumed that Gregory’s original text could only have been written in poor Merovingian Latin. This paper presents arguments for (...) a new edition of the Histories from different perspectives. Gregory’s testimonies in which he addresses his own linguistic and grammatical deficiencies or the necessity of writing in a simple language, have to be viewed and evaluated within the larger tradition of statements of this kind in (Late) Antiquity. They should, thus, not be read as evidence for the argument that Gregory’s Histories were written in poor and incorrect Latin. An assumption of this kind, however, has influenced Krusch’s and Levison’s evaluation of the manuscripts of Gregory’s Histories and is thus reflected in their reconstructed text, even though quite a few manuscripts offer a much better text. This approach has repeatedly been criticised by different scholars; my paper joins this criticism. In assessing the various manuscripts of Gregory’s Histories, the editors have to make a decision regarding the presumed quality and state of Gregory’s Latin. My paper, therefore, also offers a case-study of Gregory’s stylistic and rhythmic arrangement of his text. The analysis of the so-called prose rhythm provides important evidence in favour of a positive assessment of Gregory’s level of education and thus of his linguistic and grammatical proficiency. This can also be viewed as an argument for a new and appropriate edition. (shrink)

Presenting the first book-length study in English of Aristotle's Sophistical Refutations, this work takes a fresh look at this seminal text on false reasoning.

The book explores the theological understanding of the human person. It does so by placing the theology of person in Karl Rahner's writings in dialogue with the philosophy of the relational person in the works of John Macmurray. It is through the method of dialogue that new insights into the theology of person arise.

Offers step-by-step techniques for a wide range of creative digital photography projects, from greeting cards, recipe pages, invitations, and illustrated books to panoramas, collages, bound photo albums, DVD slide shows, and Web galleries Perfect for the exploding digital photography market, which has grown from 6.7 million cameras sold in 2000 to a projected 42 million in 2005 Released to hit stores right after the 2004 gift-giving season, it's the perfect companion to the author's previous bestsellers, which include 50 Fast Digital (...) Camera Techniques. (shrink)

Psychophysical scaling models of the form R = f, with R the response and I some intensity of an attribute, all assume that people judge the amounts of an attribute. With simple biases excepted, most also assume that judgments are independent of space, time, and features of the situation other than the one being judged. Many data support these ideas: Magnitude estimations of brightness increase with luminance. Nevertheless, I argue that the general model is wrong. The stabilized retinal image literature (...) shows that nothing is seen if light does not change over time. The classification literature shows that dimensions often combine to produce emergent properties that cannot be described by the elements in the stimulus. These and other effects cannot be adjusted for by simply adding variables to the general model because some factors do not combine linearly. The proposed alternative is that people initially judge the entire stimulus – the object in terms of its environment. This agrees with the constancy literature that shows that objects and their attributes are identified through their relations to other aspects of the scene. That the environment determines judgments is masked in scaling studies where the standard procedure is to hold context constant. In a typical brightness study the essential stimulus might be the intensity of the light or a difference between the light and the background. The two are perfectly confounded. This issue is examined in the case of audition. Judgments of the loudness of a tone depend on how much that tone differs from the previous tone in both pitch and loudness. To judge loudness people first seem to process the stimulus object in terms of differences between it and other aspects in the situation; only then do they assess the feature of interest. Psychophysical judgments will therefore be better interpreted by theories of attention that are based in biology or psychology than those that are based in classical physics. (shrink)