bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Addiction and Responsibility
Authors: Hyman Steven E.
Published: May 2013

This chapter defines and examines the coined concept of “cognitive control,” the underlying processes that would comprise our conscious exertion of will or reason to regulate our actions-a common but simplistic top-down understanding of the brain-and the failure of that control in the face of addiction. It also discusses the relative importance and distinction of neuroethics, as demarcated from bioethics, by explaining neuroscience’s direct relation with questions of rationality and, by extension, ethical principles. To combine these threads, the chapter notes that control is fundamentally connected to responsibility. An individual, then, who has lost the ability for cognitive regulation over the course of an addiction, for reasons of genetic or environmental vulnerability, poses a difficult ethical case. There remains much to learn about the pathophysiology of addiction, but the literature review here goes a long way toward covering the complex relation of addictive susbstances, the brain, behavior, and crime.
Incidental Findings in Magnetic Resonance Imaging Research
Authors: Detre John , Bockow Tamara B.
Published: May 2013

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) provides noninvasive assessment of brain structure and function and is increasingly used in both biomedical and behavioral research. While the direct risks of MRI are negligible,the use of MRI in large numbers of healthy subjects being scanned for research has led to the recognition that the identification of clinically unsuspected neuropathology, termed “incidental” findings, occurs commonly in the course of such research as may be associated with a variety of consequences such as anxiety, the need for more invasive evaluation on therapy, and may potentially affect insurability. As such, incidental findings represent a risk of MRI as well as a potential benefit if a treatable condition is identified early. This chapter addresses the ethical significance of incidental findings and the various approaches to their management in brain imaging research.
Implanted Neural Interfaces: Ethics in Treatment and Research
Authors: Hochberg Leigh , Cochrane Thomas
Published: May 2013

Until recently, treatments for neurological and psychiatric impairment have been largely limited to drugs, rehabilitation therapy or psychotherapy. These treatments are often only modestly successful in helping patients to recover function. In contrast to these approaches, the past twenty years have seen remarkable improvements in restoring lost nervous system function from brain-machine interfaces. While some neurotechnologies do not require surgery, this chapter focuses on implanted neural interfaces (INIs): devices placed in or around the brain and spinal cord for the restoration of mobility, hearing, vision, speech, balance, mood, or cognition.
Biologics and the Human Brain
Authors: Kimmelman Jonathan
Published: May 2013

Biologic based approaches offer a promising set of strategies for intervening in brain function and disease. However, their development and application is beset by a series of ethical challenges. Clinical development problems of consent capacity in research subjects, irreversible and indeterminate risk, monitoring of subtle alterations in brain function, and use of sham comparators. In addition, laboratory studies supporting translation can involve experiments that confer human-like brain functions on animals, raising questions about their moral status. As of this writing, clinical application of biologics has been limited to innovative care and medical tourism. The former raises questions about application of novel and risky interventions outside settings involving formalized evidence collection. Many oversees clinics offering biologics for brain disorders make fraudulent claims about their clinical utility, raising questions concerning how healthcare providers should communicate with patients about the risks and benefits of medical tourism. Once brain-based biologics enter routine clinical practice, they are likely to encounter issues of cost, expansion of morbidity for patients with serious illnesses, and performance enhancement.
Emotional communication in African elephants (Loxodonta africana)
Authors: Soltis Joseph
Published: May 2013

African elephants (Loxodonta africana) are thought by many to experience rich emotional lives. One window into the emotional lives of animals is through an examination of emotion as expressed in the voice. Here I review the evidence for the vocal expression of emotions in African elephants. In doing so, I also speculate as to how complex vocal communication systems in elephants and other animals could have evolved from simple vocal expressions of basic emotions.
Infant crying and the synchrony of arousal
Authors: Zeskind Philip Sanford
Published: May 2013

The communicative and emotional significance of the cry of the newborn and young infant is examined within a conceptual framework that focuses on a synchrony of arousal between infant and caregiver behavioral systems. Support for four basic elements of this framework are presented: (1) Infant crying results from changes in neurobehavioral mechanisms that produce nonspecific changes in the intensity of infant arousal; (2) Changes in the intensity of infant arousal are reflected in a graded and dynamic acoustic signal; (3) This graded signal affects the intensity of the arousal system of the caregiver in a synchronous, graded manner and (4) Specific responses to the cry are mediated by the receiver’s subjective affective state. The elements are further illustrated by examining responses to an unusually high-pitched cry sound found in infants at risk for physical child abuse. The significance of this conceptual framework for development and evolutionary models is considered.
Understanding spontaneous human laughter: The role of voicing in inducing positive emotion
Authors: Owren Michael J. , Philipp Michael , Vanman Eric , Trivedi Niyati , Schulman Allison , Bachorowski Jo-Anne
Published: May 2013

Available evidence indicates that human laughter can trigger emotion in listeners, particularly including positive affect. However, while listeners rate vowel-like, ‘voiced’ laughter as a positive event, noise-based, ‘unvoiced’ laughter recorded in the same, positive circumstances is not. Three experiments further examined listener reactions to laughter, including explicit rating of voiced versus unvoiced sounds, testing for unconscious, automatic evaluation, and recording responses in facial musculature, respectively. As before, only voiced laughter was rated positively. This outcome was furthermore mirrored both in automatic evaluations and in smiling-related, facial responses. The experiments thus show that positive, voiced laughter triggers true, corresponding emotion in listeners, but that positive, unvoiced laughter does not. The findings argue against viewing laughter as encoding laugher emotion, suggesting instead that listeners acquire emotional responses to these sounds through associative learning. Laughter may thus be understood as an evolved mechanism for influencing emotion and behavior in others.
On the orbito-striatal interface in (acoustic) emotional processing
Authors: Kotz Sonja A. , Hasting Anna S. , Paulmann Silke
Published: May 2013

This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of the functional roles of the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and the basal ganglia (BG) in the processing of vocal emotional expressions in humans. We suggest that the two structures may interface during the integration of verbal and non-verbal vocal emotional expressions during late, cognitive processing stages as evidenced by recent event-related brain potential (ERP) and behavioural patient evidence. In accordance with our recent network model on emotional speech processing (Schirmer and Kotz 2006), we propose that the BG and the OFC are critically involved in the integration and evaluation of vocal emotional expressions. However, the overview will also reveal that the OFC is functionally differentiated and may thus respond to emotional expressions during both early automatic and late controlled, evaluative processing stages. Which processing stages the OFC responds to may critically hinge on the nature of stimulus and task type. As both structural and functional subcomponents of the orbito-striatal interface appear to be comparable in humans and non-human primates, we finally speculate that this system may be involved in the processing of emotional vocalizations across different species.
Toward a neurobiology of musical emotions
Authors: Peretz Isabelle , Aubé William , Armony Jorge L.
Published: May 2013

The objective of this chapter is to present current knowledge about musical emotions from a neuropsychological perspective. With limbic mediation, consistency, and precociousness, musical emotions resemble other important classes of emotions that are important for survival. Because music seems to be a much larger culturally learning component, one may wonder how the relation between music and these neurobiological substrates should be conceptualized. Here, we examine the possibility that music is particularly suited (or designed) to invade emotion circuits that have evolved for emotional vocalizations.
Religious Freedom in the Liberal State
Authors: Rex Ahdar , Ian Leigh
Published: May 2013

Examining the law and public policy relating to religious liberty in Western liberal democracies, this book contains a detailed analysis of the history, rationale, scope, and limits of religious freedom from (but not restricted to) an evangelical Christian perspective. Focussing on the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and the European Convention on Human Rights it studies the interaction between law and religion at several different levels, looking at the key debates that have arisen. Divided into three parts, the book begins by contrasting the liberal and Christian rationales for and understandings of religious freedom. It then explores central thematic issues: the types of constitutional frameworks within which any right to religious exercise must operate; the varieties of paradigmatic relationships between organized religion and the state; the meaning of ‘religion’; the limitations upon individual and institutional religious behaviour; and the domestic and international legal mechanisms that have evolved to address religious conduct. The final part explores key subject areas where current religious freedom controversies have arisen: employment, education, parental rights and childrearing, controls on pro-religious and anti-religious expression, medical treatment, and religious group (church) autonomy.
6 Nonlinear systems∗
Authors: Wong Chun Wa
Published: May 2013

Nonlinear systems show two very different faces: unpredictability and unusual coherence. Unpredictability is shown to arise from instabilities and bifurcations that are highly sensitive to small changes in circumstances. They can give rise to deterministic chaos through bifurcation cascades. Strange attractors are shown to appear in multidimensional space. They are characterized by self-similar structures and fractional dimensions. On the other hand, unusual coherence appears when nonlinearity is counterbalanced by dissipation. This cancellation is shown to occur in persistent solitary waves called solitons and shock fronts called kinks. The concept of the superposition of nonlinear waves is discussed. Both classes of nonlinear phenomena are shown to have surprisingly simple mathematical descriptions.
The Primary Applicability of International Law and the Role of National Law
Authors: Kjos Hege Elisabeth
Published: May 2013

This chapter examines situations where international law could, or has been held to, be the primarily applicable law. The main factors that arbitral tribunals take into account in deciding to apply international law are an agreement by the parties to that effect, and the international nature of the claim invoked. An additional reason that has been used is the superior nature of international law vis-à-vis national law. The primary applicability of international law does not necessarily rule out a role for national law, as, firstly, the latter source may be applied indirectly when the nature of the international claim requires a determination of the parties' rights and obligations pursuant to national law, such as with respect to expropriation and ‘umbrella’ clause claims; and, secondly, national law could apply correctively, in a complementary or supervening fashion.
Concluding Observations
Authors: Kjos Hege Elisabeth
Published: May 2013

This chapter summarizes the preceding discussions and offers some final thoughts. It concludes that while the starting point of national and international courts is national or international law, respectively, both territorialized and internationalized arbitral tribunals settling disputes between foreign investors and host states are generally freed from such (constitutional) restrictions, and may ascertain the more appropriate law on the basis of more liberal considerations. It suggests the possibility of investment arbitration moving away from the traditional hierarchical doctrines of dualism and monism with their frequent focus on conflict, towards the direction of a system of ‘complementarity’ or even ‘mutualism’.
3 The modeling framework and what models represent
Authors: Titelbaum Michael G.
Published: May 2013

This chapter presents the core formal elements of the Certainty-Loss Framework (CLF). It therefore supplies the basic formal materials from which everything in the later chapters will be built. The chapter also provides CLF with a standard interpretation, explaining how each formal element represents an aspect of an agent’s doxastic state. Among CLF’s core constraints are Kolmogorov’s axioms, requiring agents’ degrees of belief to satisfy the probability calculus. This chapter also introduces Conditionalization, the traditional Bayesian norm for updating degrees of belief over time. Finally, the chapter illustrates CLF by presenting a model that analyzes the rational requirements on an agent in a fairly simple story.
Introduction
Authors: Boxall Ian
Published: May 2013

This introduction provides an overview of the book, locating the project within the wider discipline of New Testament studies. It offers a definition of reception history, together with the closely related terms, ‘history of interpretation’ (understood as a sub-category of broader reception history) and Wirkungsgeschichte (a term coined by Gadamer, and variously translated ‘effective history’, ‘history of effects’, ‘history of effect’, and ‘history of influence’). An account of the methodology employed in this study is also provided, describing how the material was located, selected, and organized into an interpretative narrative. The organizing principles were primarily chronological (attending to date, geographical location, and cultural context), and secondarily generic (categorizing interpretations within the same broad chronological period according to different genres and types of interpretation, thus allowing potential genealogical relationships to be traced).
Patmos in Early Patristic Tradition (2nd–5th Centuries)
Authors: Boxall Ian
Published: May 2013

This chapter examines the treatment of Patmos in the foundational early patristic period (2nd to 5th centuries). Given the paucity of Apocalypse commentaries in this period, most of the sources are biographical and hagiographical. Hence the dominant reading is literal, locating Patmos within the story of John, although often with more than mere historical interest, given the perceived parallels between John’s situation vis-à-vis a persecuting emperor and the situations of his early interpreters. Interpretations fall into two main groups: those which identify Patmos as place of exile (though with surprising diversity in details compared with the modern commentaries), and those which prioritize the role of the island as place of revelation, sowing seeds for the more creative aspects of medieval exegesis.
Lying
Authors: Miller Christian
Published: May 2013

Section one briefly mentions how the term ‘lying’ will be used before reviewing some of the recent research on lying behavior. Section two turns from behavior to the motivation behind lying. Section three begins to develop an account of what will be called Mixed Truthfulness Traits and outlines some of their underlying mental state dispositions and functional properties. This should help make it clear by section four why such a character trait is neither a moral virtue like honesty nor a moral vice like dishonesty.
Introduction
Authors: Gil Kook‐Hee , Tsoulas George
Published: May 2013

This chapter paints a general picture of the specific research background against which the papers in this volume were developed. Rather than focusing on specific issues relating to the chapters themselves we address some general issues in semantics, syntax, and morphology and summarize some general ideas in these areas, such as the structure of the clausal periphery and scope assignment, semantic parametrization and cross‐linguistic issues in semantics, etc. These are aspects of the research context instrumental, to varying degrees, in the development of the following chapters.
The International Minimum Standard and Fair and Equitable Treatment
Authors: Paparinskis Martins
Published: May 2013

Investment protection treaties generally provide for the obligation to treat investments fairly and equitably, even if the wording of the rule and its relationship with the customary international standard may differ. The open-textured nature of the rule, the ambiguous relationship between the vague treaty and equally vague customary rules, and States' interpretations of the content and relationship of both rules (not to mention the frequency of successful invocation by investors) make this issue one of the most controversial aspects of investment protection law. This monograph engages in a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between the international minimum standard and fair and equitable treatment. It provides an original argument about the historical development of the international standard, a normative rationale for reading it into the treaty rules of fair and equitable treatment, and a coherent methodology for establishing the content of this standard. The first part of this book untangles the history of both the international minimum standard and fair and equitable treatment. The second part addresses the normative framework within which the contemporary debate takes place. After an exhaustive review of all relevant sources, it is argued that the most persuasive reading of fair and equitable treatment is that it always makes a reference to customary law. The third part of the book builds on the historical analysis and the normative framework, explaining the content of the contemporary standard by careful comparative human rights analysis.
International Minimum Standard and the Law of Treaties
Authors: Paparinskis Martins
Published: May 2013

This chapter attempts to explain the contemporary practice of case-by-case development of fair and equitable treatment with the four corners of the law of treaties and without relying on general international law (to which the next chapter is devoted). After considering the possibility of viewing fair and equitable treatment as either a rule formulated in a general manner or a rule related to equity of different normative densities, the traditional interpretative framework of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties is adopted to the examine the practice. It is concluded that the practice of referring to pari materia interpretations cannot be explained within the traditional interpretative framework (without referring to general international law), and that the traditional rules on sources and interpretation have not been superseded by the recent developments.
International Minimum Standard and General International Law
Authors: Paparinskis Martins
Published: May 2013

This chapter addresses the positive side of the normative coin that was approached from the negative perspective earlier, exploring the possibility that customary law might provide the unifying framework. First, it is suggested that general international law may be brought within the interpretative process either by a direct reference or by being structurally relevant. Second, the argument is applied to the particular case study, suggesting that fair and equitable treatment refers to the international minimum standard or, at the very least, requires it to be taken into account in interpretation as relevant rules.
Conclusion
Authors: Paparinskis Martins
Published: May 2013

This chapter briefly concludes the book, summarising the tripartite structure and the argument made about the modern international standard. It remains to be seen whether future practice will develop the law in line with the traditional approaches, as has been largely the case regarding denial of justice, or resolves legal complexities in an innovative manner, as has been the case regarding the protection of property more broadly.
Dōgen on the Art of Engaging
Authors: Winfield Pamela D.
Published: May 2013

Chapter Four: Dōgen on the Art of Engaging focuses on key fascicles of Dōgen’s Shōbōgenzō that elucidate his inconstant view of imagery. On the one hand, Dōgen scorns a painting of Nāgārjuna manifesting the full moon samādhi (calling it nothing but a painting of a rice cake, the title of another fascicle). On the other hand, however, Dōgen avidly seeks out other Zen images, which he treats as icons. The audience he is addressing, the particular image under consideration, and the level of understanding of his interlocutors seem to be the deciding factors as to whether Dōgen approves of an image or not. His self-acclaimed possession of the True Dharma Eye (shōbōgen), it seems, ultimately makes him the arbiter of whether art can represent the enlightenment experience or not.
Markets and International Interest Rate Parity
Authors: LEE SUK HUN , MALLIARIS A. G.
Published: May 2013

This chapter provides a general overview of the international markets for foreign exchange (FX) and FX derivatives as well as the theoretical relationships that tie these markets together with interest rates and central bank policies. The chapter begins by summarizing the FX markets and discussing their current size and uses. It then details and distinguishes the various markets and FX products. The chapter also examines the FX derivative markets and presents the Garman and Kohlhagen pricing model. The theoretical relationships among returns, exchange rates, and interest rates are discussed, specifically examining equilibrium conditions and the Taylor rule. The chapter concludes by reviewing several recent developments in the global currency markets.
Central Banks and Economic Policy after the Crisis: What Have We Learned?
Authors: HALLETT ANDREW HUGHES , BARTOLOMEO GIOVANNI DI , ACOCELLA NICOLA
Published: May 2013

The recent financial crisis has led to an unprecedented degree of policy activism by central banks and governments, institutions that rely in particular on detailed announcements of current and future policies; on the use of unconventional policy instruments; and on a close coordination of monetary and fiscal policies to contain risk, manage recovery, and manage exit strategy. This chapter provides a review of the conditions needed for policies of this type to work as well as conditions when unconventional policy instruments or fiscal-monetary packages will be necessary. The key lesson for central bank policy in the future lies in the management of expectations and interinstrument coordination, which justifies publishing interest rate forecasts, spending plans, and tax rate projections in advance. In those cases, policy announcements, if properly communicated, can be used to extend the impact of both conventional and, more importantly in this context, unconventional policy instruments. The chapter also illustrates how the conflict between the desire to achieve short-run results and the need to achieve a long-run sustainable recovery can be managed.
Understanding Financial Market Failures
Authors: AGGARWAL RAJ
Published: May 2013

Most industrialized countries suffered a major breakdown of financial markets and systems during the period 2007 to 2009. This chapter reviews the causes and consequences of this financial market failure and its relationship with market inefficiencies to develop a framework for possible corrective regulations. The analysis combines insights from multiple fields such as finance, economics, and politics to understand the many reasons for market failure. This analysis is the basis for developing five practical principles to guide regulations required to mitigate the effects of market failures. The results should be of interest to individuals, money managers, business executives, and policymakers.
Is Psychopathy a Mental Disease?
Authors: Nadelhoffer Thomas , Sinnott-Armstrong Walter P.
Published: May 2013

Whether psychopathy is a mental disease or illness can affect whether psychiatrists should treat it and whether it could serve as the basis for an insanity defense in criminal trials. Our understanding of psychopathy has been greatly improved in recent years by new research in psychology and neuroscience. This illuminating research enables us to argue that psychopathy counts as a mental disease on any plausible account of mental disease. In particular, Szasz's and Pickard's eliminativist views and Sedgwick's social constructivist account of mental illness that might exclude psychopathy are not plausible, and there is no reason to exclude psychopathy under Boorse's and Scadding's biomedical accounts, Wakefield's harmful dysfunction account, and the DSM-IV-TR objective harm account of mental disease. The basic reason is that psychopathy involve neural dysfunction that increases risk of serious harm and loss to people with psychopathy.
Reading for the Test, Trying the Heroine
Authors: Schor Hilary M.
Published: May 2013

This chapter goes back to Paradise Lost and Eve in the garden, drawing on the nature of the “test” in the history of the English courtship novel, from Samuel Richardson and Jane Austen to Charlotte Brontë and George Eliot. At the heart of this chapter is a reading of the Marquis de Sade, Angela Carter, and being struck by lightning, the powerful and ironic version of enlightenment available for the heroine. The chapter focuses on the fascinating delay, the space of curiosity, between the proposition and the contract—the trial that is the heart of the realist novel and that makes possible (or not) the eventual marriage. Realism is itself a contract: a contract into which the reader enters, a contract that provides belief. This corresponds to formal philosophical ways of knowing, particularly through probability and problems of “credit,” what has been called the antimony of fictional knowledge.
Introduction
Authors: Givens Terryl L.
Published: May 2013

This introductory chapter begins with a discussion of fictional depictions of Mormonism, which often involve ridicule and hostility toward the religion. It then sets out the book's purpose, which is to show how fiction has served, in the case of Mormonism, to obscure the theological aspects of a century and more of discord and confrontation between Mormonism and American society. These religious roots of the conflict preceded the first allegations of polygamy, permeated the Missouri War and Illinois expulsion, continued into the Utah period, and inform the marginalization of Mormonism in contemporary American society. In the process, the book seeks to illuminate both the peculiar nature of the Mormon “heresy” and the contortions by which that heresy was reconstructed into a target more amenable to social censure and political solutions. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.
Global Cost-Benefit Analysis
Authors: Livermore Michael A. , Glusman A. J. , Moyano Gonzalo
Published: May 2013

While cost-benefit analysis is not as prevalent in developing and emerging countries, the use of cost-benefit analysis as an aid to environmental decision-making has expanded in recent years in countries throughout Latin America, Asia, and Africa. In the context of developing and emerging economies, cost-benefit analysis has special potential to add quality, transparency, and efficiency to environmental, public health, and safety regulation. While there are important differences between regulating in a large, advanced economy and a small, rising economy, appropriate use of cost-benefit analysis can help improve government decision-making in a range of different circumstances around the world. Growing environmental and public health threats from industrialization have increased demand for stronger environmental policies around the globe, bringing the need for a systematic tool to compare costs to benefits.
Putting a Price on the Future of Our Children and Grandchildren
Authors: Damon Maria , Mohlin Kristina , Sterner Thomas
Published: May 2013

Discount rates have a profound effect on estimates for costs and benefits that accrue over time or in the future. Given that minute differences in discount rates can result in enormous differences in future values, discounting implicates moral as well as technical issues. This chapter reviews some of the main issues that discounting presents and discusses some important recent debates over time-varying discount rates and the importance of relative prices when examining effects of public policy in the far future. The authors also collect and discuss the discount rates currently used by decision makers around the world, and explain how differences in level of development should and should not affect the discount rates used by analysts.
Is There a Role for Cost-Benefit Analysis beyond the Nation-State? Lessons from International Regulatory Cooperation
Authors: Alemanno Alberto
Published: May 2013

Cost-benefit analysis has historically been a domestic analysis that considers only the costs and benefits that accrue within the local country. However, as the world economy becomes more interconnected, the effects of decisions made by national actors are increasingly international in scope. For cost-benefit analysis to transcend its domestic origins, it must account for all effects, both domestic and international. While some recent examples provide hope that global cost-benefit analysis will prevail, most countries that use cost-benefit analysis continue to consider only domestic effects. International regulatory cooperation, spurred by an interest in facilitating free trade, has the potential to promote and shape a different, expanded version of cost-benefit analysis.
The Diffusion of Regulatory Oversight
Authors: Wiener Jonathan B.
Published: May 2013

Cost-benefit analysis is essentially the idea that good decision making requires weighing the benefits against the costs. An intuitive approach, its development is neither recent nor exclusive to any particular region. The author traces the roots of cost-benefit analysis’s international nature to conversations between American and French intellectuals during the late eighteenth century and discussing the modern process of "hybridization" through which ideas about cost-benefit analysis, regulatory impact analysis, and administrative review have spread throughout the world. The author argues that cost-benefit analysis grows not by the transfer of methods from developed to developing nations, but by experimentation, borrowing, adaptation, and integration. This process reflects the evolution of administrative systems generally, which is characterized by multiple sources of ingenuity and sharing.
The Role of the OECD in Capacity Building for Public Governance
Authors: Allam Miriam
Published: May 2013

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has played a key role in supporting the expansion of governance capabilities in Arab countries. Focusing on the work of the Middle Eastern and North African (MENA)-OECD Governance Programme and its Working Group on Regulatory Reform, this chapter chronicles the progress of administrative reform in light of recent developments. The Arab Spring has highlighted the urgency with which MENA governments must improve regulatory policy tools in order to achieve ambitious reform goals. The key to improving policymaking in the MENA region is the enhancement of organizational capacities. This can be achieved by peer learning and the sharing of technical expertise, which can integrate evidence-based decision-making tools into regulatory management.
Environmental Fuel Quality Improvements in Mexico
Authors: Rojas-Bracho Leonora , Garibay-Bravo Verónica , Stevens Gretchen A. , Echániz-Pellicer Georgina
Published: May 2013

The achievement of any policy goal is bound to confront the problem of conflicting interests, from actors both within and without government. This chapter describes the process that was undertaken and the challenges faced by the Mexican Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources in carrying out and obtaining approval of its cost-benefit analysis in support of regulations and standards. Given the lack of thoughtful discourse among the agencies and the lack of a central oversight office, there is a risk that different agencies may take advantage of the lack of federal cost-benefit analysis methodology standards to manipulate results. The authors contend that a strong federal regulatory framework for cost-benefit analysis is needed.
Health Care Costs of Urban Air Pollution in South Africa
Authors: Leiman Anthony
Published: May 2013

The reduction of costly negative externalities due to urban air pollution is a quintessential regulatory goal that agencies continue to grapple with. For developing countries, determining the proper regulatory solution for this problem requires the use of cost-benefit analysis. This chapter catalogs South Africa’s growing interest in the formal evaluation of air quality control interventions since the passage of the National Environment Management Air Quality Act No. 39 of 2004. The chapter discusses an analysis that the author conducted of the economic costs and benefits of a suite of air pollution control measures, which found that the greatest benefit-to-cost ratio is in low-cost interventions that help curb the household emissions of low-income households whose own members are the primary victims of poor air quality.
Economic Costs of Air Pollution in Singapore
Authors: Quah Euston , Chia Wai-Mun
Published: May 2013

Cost-benefit analysis is an appropriate tool for accounting for the negative effects of air pollution on domestic populations and for expressing those costs in economic terms. This chapter assesses the economic cost of air pollution on public health in 2009 in Singapore based on the newly revised air quality guidelines by the World Health Organization. This analysis suggests that the health costs associated with a 15 ?g/m3 change in concentrations of particulate matter in the air are roughly $3.75 billion-about 2.04 percent of the total gross domestic product of Singapore in 2009. This study shows how cost-benefit analysis can derive economic estimates using health data and benefit-transfer methodologies.
A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Resettlement Policy in Southeast Asia
Authors: Nabangchang Orapan
Published: May 2013

Developing countries often face acute pressures to deal simultaneously with conflicting policy goals. In a debate over the proposed resettlement of the village of Ban Pa Kluay, located in Ob Luang National Park in Chiang Mai Province in the Northern Region of Thailand, cost-benefit analysis resulted in the discovery of a compromise option involving neither resettlement nor complete nonintervention by the national government. Where equity and environmental concerns conflict, cost-benefit analysis can improve the quality of policymaking, but for it to fulfill its promise, the usefulness of the technique will need to be more broadly recognized by the public and by political actors.
Assessing Potential Carbon Revenues from Reduced Forest Cover Loss in Liberia
Authors: Donovan Jessica , Lawrence Keith , Neyor Christopher , Niesten Eduard , Werker Eric
Published: May 2013

The prospect of low-carbon economic development involves the valuation of myriad costs and benefits, and includes the consideration of a number of innovative proposals to spur growth without degrading environmental resources. This chapter describes Liberia’s wealth of forests and explains how a low-carbon development strategy for Liberia could include a number of cost-beneficial policies, the most obvious being a transition to more efficient agriculture. Other beneficial policies include accelerating the establishment of protected areas, ensuring that tree crop plantations are located on degraded land rather than forest areas, and introducing energy-efficient stoves for charcoal and fuel wood. The net benefits of changes to forestry policies are less clear, however: reducing the number of timber sales contracts would be cost-beneficial, but replacing commercial timber with carbon concessions is more marginal.
Introduction
Authors: Cabezón José Ignacio
Published: May 2013

The introduction to the translation sets forth the scope of the Lamp and its three major subdivisions: what is to be known (the Buddha’s doctrine), what knows this (knowing agents), and the nonduality of knowledge and the known.
From Enlightenment to Receptivity
Authors: Slote Michael
Published: May 2013

This revolutionary book argues that Western philosophy on the whole has overemphasized rational control and autonomy at the expense of the important countervailing value and virtue of receptivity. Recently, the ideas of caring and empathy have received a great deal of philosophical and public attention, but both these notions rest on the deeper and broader value of receptivity, and in From Enlightenment to Receptivity: Rethinking Our Values, the philosopher Michael Slote seeks to show that we need to focus more on receptivity if we are to attain a more balanced sense and understanding of what is important to us. Beginning with a critique of Enlightenment thinking that calls into question its denial of any central role to considerations of emotion and empathy, he goes on to show how a greater emphasis on these factors and on the receptivity that underlies them can give us a more realistic, balanced, and sensitive understanding of our core ethical and epistemological values. This means rejecting postmodernism’s blanket rejection of reason and of compelling real values and recognizing, rather, that receptivity should play a major role in how we lead our lives as individuals, in how we relate to nature, in how we acquire knowledge about the world, and in how we relate morally and politically with others.
How Important Is Morality?
Authors: Slote Michael
Published: May 2013

Both Kantianism and care ethics treat morality as important in itself, whereas recent forms of consequentialism deemphasize morality by treating moral considerations as fungible within the totality of our reasons for action. But care ethics and Kantianism think very differently about the importance of morality, and care ethics in particular stresses our empathic sensitivity as agents to the suffering and so on of others but also our second-order empathic sensitivity as observers to such agential empathic sensitivity. And it also contends that much that we find morally praiseworthy is praiseworthy for the empathy it exhibits and not for the rationality or rational considerations it is based on.
TiPs: a database of therapeutic targets in pathogens and associated tools
Authors: Lepore Rosalba , Tramontano Anna , Via Allegra
Published: May 2013

Motivation: The need for new drugs and new targets is particularly compelling in an era that is witnessing an alarming increase of drug resistance in human pathogens. The identification of new targets of known drugs is a promising approach, which has proven successful in several cases. Here, we describe a database that includes information on 5153 putative drug–target pairs for 150 human pathogens derived from available drug–target crystallographic complexes.

Availability and implementation: The TiPs database is freely available at http://biocomputing.it/tips.

Contact:  anna.tramontano@uniroma1.it or allegra.via@uniroma1.it
Reconciling PP and P′P′ precursor observations of a complex 660 km seismic discontinuity
Authors: Day Elizabeth A. , Deuss Arwen
Published: May 2013

High frequency precursors to P′P′ almost invariably observe a narrow 660 km discontinuity, whereas PP precursor studies at long periods struggle to detect a reflection from the ‘660’ despite its apparent sharpness to P′P′. To investigate these contradictory observations we compare PP and P′P′ precursors in the same region. Using short period P′P′ precursors we observe a sharp 660 km discontinuity, which appears to vary in depth substantially. The apparent topography on the ‘660’ is too large to originate solely from thermal variations, regardless of its cause, therefore indicating chemical variations at the base of the mantle transition zone. Long period P′P′ precursors show no ‘660’ as they are sensitive to a larger area and thus average out the apparent topography, in agreement with long period PP precursors. Instead, we see some evidence in both long period data types for a reflection from 720 km depth, which is likely to correspond to a phase change in the garnet system.
Correlation Between Acetylcholine Receptor Antibody Levels and Thymic Pathology in Myasthenia Gravis
Authors: Huang GZ , Lo YL
Published: May 2013

Myasthenia gravis is the most common chronic autoimmune neuromuscular disease. Anti-acetylcholine receptor (AChR) antibodies are found in at least 80% of patients with generalized myasthenia and have been implicated in disease pathogenesis. Thymic abnormalities are frequently found in seropositive patients, and the thymus is thought to be involved in generation of autoimmunity. This article reviews existing literature on the role of AChR antibodies in the pathogenesis of myasthenia gravis, and the correlation between AChR antibody titers and thymic pathology. Most studies found that highest titers are seen in thymic hyperplasia, followed by intermediate titers in thymoma, and lowest titers in atrophic or normal thymus. One publication found no difference between titers in thymoma and normal thymus.
A TAP1 null mutation leads to an enlarged olfactory bulb and supernumerary, ectopic olfactory glomeruli
Authors: Salcedo Ernesto , Cruz Nicole M. , Ly Xuan , Welander Beth A. , Hanson Kyle , Kronberg Eugene , Restrepo Diego
Published: May 2013

Major histocompatibility class I (MHCI) molecules are well known for their immunological role in mediating tissue graft rejection. Recently, these molecules were discovered to be expressed in distinct neuronal subclasses, dispelling the long-held tenet that the uninjured brain is immune-privileged. Here, we show that MHCI molecules are expressed in the main olfactory bulb (MOB) of adult animals. Furthermore, we find that mice with diminished levels of MHCI expression have enlarged MOBs containing an increased number of small, morphologically abnormal and ectopically located P2 glomeruli. These findings suggest that MHCI molecules may play an important role in the proper formation of glomeruli in the bulb.
A genome-wide resource of cell cycle and cell shape genes of fission yeast
Authors: Hayles Jacqueline , Wood Valerie , Jeffery Linda , Hoe Kwang-Lae , Kim Dong-Uk , Park Han-Oh , Salas-Pino Silvia , Heichinger Christian , Nurse Paul
Published: May 2013

To identify near complete sets of genes required for the cell cycle and cell shape, we have visually screened a genome-wide gene deletion library of 4843 fission yeast deletion mutants (95.7% of total protein encoding genes) for their effects on these processes. A total of 513 genes have been identified as being required for cell cycle progression, 276 of which have not been previously described as cell cycle genes. Deletions of a further 333 genes lead to specific alterations in cell shape and another 524 genes result in generally misshapen cells. Here, we provide the first eukaryotic resource of gene deletions, which describes a near genome-wide set of genes required for the cell cycle and cell shape.
Determination of the attP and attB sites of phage ϕCD27 from Clostridium difficile NCTC 12727
Authors: Williams Rachel , Meader Emma , Mayer Melinda , Narbad Arjan , Roberts Adam P. , Mullany Peter
Published: May 2013

TheattPregion of theClostridium difficilephage ϕCD27 was identified, located immediately downstream of the putative recombinase. The phage could integrate into two specific sites (attB) in theC. difficilegenome, one of which was in an open reading frame encoding a putative ATPase of an ABC transporter and the other in an open reading frame encoding a putative ATPase of the flagella protein export apparatus. The prophage was capable of excision and formation of a circular molecule and phages were spontaneously released at a low frequency during growth. Infection and lysogeny of aC. difficilestrain previously shown to be sensitive to ϕCD27 were demonstrated, leading to a reduction in toxin production. Finally, a putative repressor was identified which is likely to be involved in maintaining lysogeny in these strains.
The body temperature of active amphibians along a tropical elevation gradient: patterns of mean and variance and inference from environmental data
Authors: Navas Carlos Arturo , Carvajalino‐Fernández Juan Manuel , Saboyá‐Acosta Liliana Patricia , Rueda‐Solano Luis Alberto , Carvajalino‐Fernández Marcos Antonio
Published: May 2013

Tropical montane amphibians have been the focus of recent and crucial conservation efforts. These initiatives require understanding on how elevation influences amphibian body temperature beyond the simplistic assumption of a monotonical decrease with elevation. This study addresses patterns and potential for inference in this context.

As elevation increases, mean body temperature (BT) of tropical montane amphibians decreases linearly, but intrapopulation variation (VAR) in BT increases exponentially. These relationships are influenced by biome structure, but display both local nuances and species‐specific remarks.

Substrate temperature (ST) and BT hold a close relationship across elevation. The noise around this relationship is lowest in mid‐elevation cloud forests and maximum in the paramo, a biome above the tree line.

The relationships between BT and ST, and between elevation and either BT or VAR, are valuable to infer general patterns of thermal ecology for amphibians and to highlight species‐specific exceptional cases.

The BT of montane tropical amphibians can be estimated from temperature data collected at a scale compatible with the size and microhabitat of individual frogs. Estimates from elevation are valid as general trends that can be enhanced if natural history is taken into account. Worldclim data allow for rough inference only and have limited predictive power.

A framework is proposed to study how the BT and VAR of amphibians change with elevation. This framework encompasses information on biome structure and natural history.