Membership in voluntary organizations is associated with individual and social benefits. Due to the negative consequences of the global pandemic on older people, and the governmental challenges posed by population aging, voluntary membership is of great importance to society. To effectively promote volunteering among older people, it is necessary to understand the determinants of voluntary membership. This study analyses the influence of individual values—secular/traditional and survival/self-expression–on voluntary membership among European adults. Specifically, it examines which values orient two age groups, as (...) well as men and women toward a certain type of association. The sample of 31,985 comprises 60% of adults aged 50–64 and 40% aged 65–79; of which 56% are women and 44% men. The empirical estimation considers different levels of data aggregation: individual, national and welfare system, therefore multilevel analysis is used as an analytical strategy. Individual-level variables from the Integrated Values Survey and national-level variables from the World Bank and Eurostat are used. The results indicate that traditional and self-expression values promote membership in voluntary organizations in general more than secular and survival values. However, there are differences according to the type of organization. Furthermore, values are found to moderate the effect of age and gender on voluntary membership. (shrink)

© The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Japanese Society of Plant Physiologists. All rights reserved.Cell walls of grasses, including cereal crops and biofuel grasses, comprise the majority of plant biomass and intimately influence plant growth, development and physiology. However, the functions of many cell wall synthesis genes, and the relationships among and the functions of cell wall components remain obscure. To better understand the patterns of cell wall accumulation and identify genes that act in grass (...) cell wall biosynthesis, we characterized 30 samples from aerial organs of rice at 10 developmental time points, 3-100 d post-germination. Within these samples, we measured 15 cell wall chemical components, enzymatic digestibility and 18 cell wall polysaccharide epitopes/ligands. We also used quantitative reverse transcription-PCR to measure expression of 50 glycosyltransferases, 15 acyltransferases and eight phenylpropanoid genes, many of which had previously been identified as being highly expressed in rice. Most cell wall components vary significantly during development, and correlations among them support current understanding of cell walls. We identified 92 significant correlations between cell wall components and gene expression and establish nine strong hypotheses for genes that synthesize xylans, mixed linkage glucan and pectin components. This work provides an extensive analysis of cell wall composition throughout rice development, identifies genes likely to synthesize grass cell walls, and provides a framework for development of genetically improved grasses for use in lignocellulosic biofuel production and agriculture. (shrink)

A processualistic approach is offered in the study of that thinking giving rise to modernism from the historical cultural context in which the phenomenon has arisen and evolves. Built upon two opposing forces, it has collapsed after various centuries of development. Modernism is thus called to heroism and must regenerate, availing itself of its best of qualities: critical thinking, reflection and rational dialogue.

In a previous essay we demonstrated that quantum mechanical formalism is incompatible with some necessary principles of the mechanism conception still dominant in the physicist’s community. In this paper we show, based on recent empirical evidence in quantum physics, the inevitability of abandoning the old mechanism conception and to construct a new one in which physical reality is seen as a representation which refers to relations established through operations made by us in a world that we are determining. This change (...) is profound and radical, with immediate consequences on both Ontology and Epistemology. This work is our contribution to try to make more concrete how this new conception of the world might be. (shrink)

En primer lugar, el presente artículo analiza la potencialidad que tienen las prácticas artísticas y manifestaciones culturales desarrolladas en zonas periféricas, urbano-marginales de la ciudad de Guayaquil como un mecanismo de integración y cohesión social para prevenir la violencia. Para ello, metodológicamente se propone un abordaje cualitativo de experiencias desarrolladas en este campo por instituciones de cooperación al desarrollo, que trabajan en articulación con la Universidad de las Artes. Se parte entonces de la recopilación de evidencia documentada de ejecución de (...) proyectos, entrevistas y textos académicos, para luego desarrollar un análisis e interpretación de los procesos y resultados alcanzados en esas intervenciones realizadas principalmente en sectores como Isla Trinitaria y barrios del Noroeste de Guayaquil, sitios de alta conflictividad e inseguridad. En segundo lugar, se lleva a cabo un estudio analítico sobre algunos pensadores que tratan el tema de la violencia y de la paz. Estos estudios pueden iluminar y ofrecer herramientas teóricas para la resolución de conflictos. No todo está perdido y sin esperanza, es posible (re) construir y recuperar la armonía perdida. (shrink)

Las revistas ilustradas jugaron un papel fundamental en el proceso comunicativo durante el primer tercio del siglo XX. Las portadas cobraron relevancia al procurar el impacto en los receptores. Se presenta un análisis de los contenidos culturales en las portadas de las revistas ilustradas de información general publicadas durante la Segunda República española, con dos objetivos: averiguar si se produjo un cambio significativo en el modelo comunicativo y conocer la tipología de los contenidos. Las revistas analizadas han sido cinco: Blanco (...) y Negro, Nuevo Mundo, Mundo Gráfico, Estampa y Crónica. (shrink)

John Locke's philosophy was deeply affected by medicine of his times. It was specially influenced by the medical thought and practice of Thomas Sydenham. Locke was a personal friend of Sydenham, expressed an avid interest in his work and shared his views and methods. The influence of Sydenham's medicine can be seen in the following areas of Locke's philosophy: his “plain historical method”; the emphasis on observation and sensory experience instead of seeking the essence of things; the rejection of hypotheses (...) and principles; the refusal of research into final causes and inner mechanisms; the ideal of irrefutable evidence and skepticism on the possibilities of certainty in science. The science which for Locke held the highest paradigmatic value in his theory of knowledge was precisely medicine. To a great extent, Locke's Essay on Human Understanding can be understood as an attempt to justify, substantiate, and promote Sydenham's medical method. This method, generalized, was then proposed as an instrument for the elaboration of all natural sciences. (shrink)

In the Metaphysics, especially in Book X, are drawn the general lines of a henology. For the proper understanding of this doctrine it is necessary to reconstruct its argumentation from two fundamental basis: (1) the guide of puzzles or aporias that book III provides and (2) the ontological project announced in book IV where the relationship between ontology and henology is indicated. The fundamental feature of Aristotle's henology is that is a subordinate part of ontology. The role of henology is (...) for Aristotle primarily destructive, that is, with this doctrine it is intended to establish the impossibility of considering the ‘one’ (τὸ ἓν) as a principle of the entities. (shrink)

The focus of this work is the analysis of changes in completed family size and possible determinants of that size over time, in an attempt to characterize the evolution of reproductive patterns during the demographic transition. With this purpose in mind, time trends are studied in relation to the mean number of live births per family (as an indirect measure of fertility), using family reconstitution techniques to trace the reproductive history of each married woman. The population surveyed is a Spanish (...) rural community called Lanciego, located at the southern end of the province of Alava (Basque Country). A total of 24,510 parish records of baptisms, marriages and burials made between 1800 and 1969 were examined to obtain the demographic data set. For each reconstituted family, the variables included in the study were the number of live births per family or family size (FAMS), year of marriage (YEAR), age at marriage of both partners (AMAN, AWOM), wife’s age at the end of marriage (WEND), duration of marriage (MARD), age at first maternity (A1CH), length of reproductive span (REPS) and number of children dying before their first anniversary (MINF). Through a principal component analysis, three factors were found that explained more than 75% of the total variance. Association of variables in factors I and III was particularly useful in characterizing the variability of mean family size in pre-transitional, transitional and post-transitional cohorts. During demographic transition, a decreasing trend is observed in the variables FAMS, REPS and MINF, while variables AWOM, AMAN, WEND and A1CH show a tendency to increase over the 20th century. Results obtained by multiple regression analysis confirm that the best predictors of family size (dependent variable) were REPS and MINF, which between them explained over 85% of the total variation in FAMS (R2=0·853). In Lanciego, birth control seems to be present on the evidence of an increase in age at first maternity and a decrease in age at last parturition, indicating that the beginning of the reproductive span is delayed and its end is brought forward. Interaction between family size and infant mortality is discussed in the light of various hypotheses, including replacement of descendants, the so-called biological effect and the theory of r and k selection. (shrink)

Hace tan solo unos ciento sesenta años que la denominada cultura olmeca salió a la luz. En la historia de la definición de su estilo artístico ocupa un lugar destacado el artista mexicano Miguel Covarrubias. En el artículo realizamos un análisis pormenorizado de su obra, intentando mostrar la evolución de sus ideas artísticas y la importancia que tuvieron a la hora de configurar lo que hoy se denomina «estética olmeca». Se analizan sus presupuestos teóricos y la enorme influencia que (...) sus tesis tienen, aun hoy, a la hora de analizar la que muchos consideran la «cultura madre» de Mesoamérica. (shrink)

La descripción detallada de un hallazgo considerable de dirhames y fragmentos de dirhames realizado en las proximidades de Iznalloz (Granada) nos lleva a plantear una serie de cuestiones acerca de la trascendencia del reinado de `Abd al-Rahmán II en la historia numismática de al-Ándalus, sobre todo, lo relativo a la posible existencia de más de una ceca emisora.

For a standard Finsler F on a manifold M, the domain is the whole tangent bundle T M and the fundamental tensor g is positive-definite. However, in many cases, these two conditions hold in a relaxed form only, namely one has either a psuedo-Finsler metric or a conic Finsler metric. Our aim is twofold. First, we want to give an account of quite a few subtleties that appear under such generalizations, say, for conic pseudo-finsler metrics. Second, we aim to provide (...) some criteria that determine when a pseudo-Finsler metric F obtained as a general homogeneous combination of Finsler metrics and one-forms is again a Finsler-metric -- or, more precisely, that the conic domain on which g remains positive-definite. Such a combination generalizes the known -metrics in different directions. Remarkably, classical examples of Finsler metrics are reobtained and extended, with explicit computations of their fundamental tensors. (shrink)

In this work, the evolution of demographic and health patterns in a Basque rural population from Spain is analysed, as they relate to progress in demographic and epidemiological transition. For this purpose, parochial record data on 13,298 births and 9215 deaths, registered during the 19th and 20th centuries (180090) resulting from cardiovascular diseases and malignant neoplasms (post-transition causes). This last point is in contrast with observations from the first four decades of the 20th century, when infectious diseases and respiratory ailments (...) were determining factors in mortality among this population. The data provided by the study of the variation over time in demographic and health patterns indicate that reducing the risk of mortality is one of the most important preconditions for fertility decline. (shrink)