bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Understanding the ‘Zuma Tsunami’
Authors: Southall Roger
Published: September 2009

Jacob Zuma's defeat of Thabo Mbeki's bid to serve a third term as the president of the African National Congress (ANC) at the party's 52nd National Conference in Polokwane in December 2007 provoked a torrent of analysis. In large part, this was because Zuma himself was a highly controversial and contradictory figure. On the one hand, the ANC's new president was at the time having to fight against myriad charges of corruption through the courts; on the other, although highly patriarchal and conservative, he had earned the backing of the political left within the Tripartite Alliance and, apparently, the enthusiastic support of many among the poor. This article identifies eight ways in which the ‘Zuma tsunami’ was represented in the public discourse in South Africa, identifying their sources, motivations, limitations and overlaps, and concludes that the confusion around the issue of ‘what Zuma means’ represents a moment of extreme political fluidity within the ANC.
Defence Expenditures, Arms Procurement and Corruption in Sub-Saharan Africa
Authors: Willett Susan
Published: September 2009

In November 2007, the UK Department for International Development (DFID) launched its ‘Transparency in Defence Expenditure’, or TIDE, initiative, designed to fight corruption in military expenditures and arms procurement. Its initial focus was on sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), a region regarded as the most corrupt in the world. By focusing solely on the bribe-takers in SSA while studiously avoiding reference to the bribe-makers, DFID has opened itself up to accusations of double standards and hypocrisy. Corruption in arms procurement in SSA represents a small segment of a complex global pipeline that links Western arms firms and licensing governments to corrupt foreign officials and offshore financial institutions; tackling this web of corruption requires major reforms at the level of global governance, not just in governance procedures in SSA. With an analysis limited by inappropriate neoliberal methodologies and tainted by the alleged corrupt practices of British arms firms operating within SSA, DFID has been forced to put its TIDE initiative on the back burner.
Fighting HIV and AIDS: Reconfiguring the State?
Authors: Harman Sophie
Published: September 2009

US$10 billion goes to fight HIV and AIDS annually. This money has been accompanied by the introduction of quasi-governmental bodies, a mushrooming of civil society actors and high-level political commitments of states and international agencies. This article argues that the multiplicity of actors involved in the HIV and AIDS response has led to a re-modelling of the state in East Africa. Moreover, this re-modelling does not exist in isolation of wider trends within the global political economy, but is instead led by the World Bank as part of its wider governance reform agenda in which notions of sovereignty and partnership are challenged under the rubric of ownership. The article considers the role of the National AIDS Councils, the president, civil society and the Ministries of Health in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda within the World Bank's Multi-Country AIDS Program to explore this relationship.
The International Criminal Court and African Conflicts: The Case of Uganda
Authors: Souaré Issaka
                      K.
Published: September 2009

For more than two decades, the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has been committing some of the most appalling human rights violations and war crimes against civilian populations in northern Uganda. The Ugandan Government has been unable to defeat the rebel movement and effectively protect the civilian populations from its carnage. This situation led the government to pass the Amnesty Act of 2000 in a bid to entice the group's leaders to end the fighting. Subsequently, the International Criminal Court (ICC), at the request of the Ugandan Government, issued arrest warrants in 2005 for the five main leaders of the movement, a move regarded by some as the main stumbling block to peace in Uganda, as the rebels are insisting on the annulment of these warrants before they can sign a definitive peace agreement. This article examines the dilemma that this situation seems to have created in the peace process in Uganda. It concludes that the ICC should be firm in combating impunity, but flexible in accepting other alternatives to attributive justice whenever necessitated by the situation, as its own statute acknowledges.
Women's Organisations Seeking Gender Justice in the Sudan 1964–1985
Authors: Halim Asma
                      Mohamed Abdel
Published: September 2009

The Sudan had a multiple legal system governing various aspects of its people's lives, however Shar`ia has been applied consistently to family law. Shar`ia, Muslim's interpretation of religious norms expressed in the Qura'n and Sunna, differed according to the time and place of application. This article compares two women's groups, the Sudanese Women's Union and the Republican Sisters, discussing the factors that shaped their methods and conceptualisation of their quest to seek gender justice without losing religious legitimacy. The Republican Sisters proved that a reinterpretation of Islamic norms can be advocated by a religious group, and not just by secular ones. The political and social climate had, and continues to have, a significant effect on the laws and the ways women react to their suppression in the name of religion.
Rab2 directs a stop-loss program
Authors: Short Ben
Published: September 2009

Small GTPase supports dense core vesicle maturation in worm neurons.
Impaired dense core vesicle maturation in Caenorhabditis elegans mutants lacking Rab2
Authors: Edwards Stacey L. , Charlie Nicole K. , Richmond Janet E. , Hegermann Jan , Eimer Stefan , Miller Kenneth G.
Published: September 2009

Despite a key role for dense core vesicles (DCVs) in neuronal function, there are major gaps in our understanding of DCV biogenesis. A genetic screen for Caenorhabditis elegans mutants with behavioral defects consistent with impaired DCV function yielded five mutations in UNC-108 (Rab2). A genetic analysis showed that unc-108 mutations impair a DCV function unrelated to neuropeptide release that, together with neuropeptide release, fully accounts for the role of DCVs in locomotion. An electron microscopy analysis of DCVs in unc-108 mutants, coupled with quantitative imaging of DCV cargo proteins, revealed that Rab2 acts in cell somas during DCV maturation to prevent the loss of soluble and membrane cargo. In Rab2 null mutants, two thirds of these cargoes move to early endosomes via a PI(3)P-dependent trafficking pathway, whereas aggregated neuropeptides are unaffected. These results reveal how neurons solve a challenging trafficking problem using the most highly conserved animal Rab.
UNC-108/RAB-2 and its effector RIC-19 are involved in dense core vesicle maturation inCaenorhabditis elegans
Authors: Sumakovic Marija , Hegermann Jan , Luo Ling , Husson Steven J. , Schwarze Katrin , Olendrowitz Christian , Schoofs Liliane , Richmond Janet , Eimer Stefan
Published: September 2009

Small guanosine triphosphatases of the Rab family regulate intracellular vesicular trafficking. Rab2 is highly expressed in the nervous system, yet its function in neurons is unknown. In Caenorhabditis elegans, unc-108/rab-2 mutants have been isolated based on their locomotory defects. We show that the locomotion defects of rab-2 mutants are not caused by defects in synaptic vesicle release but by defects in dense core vesicle (DCV) signaling. DCVs in rab-2 mutants are often enlarged and heterogeneous in size; however, their number and distribution are not affected. This implicates Rab2 in the biogenesis of DCVs at the Golgi complex. We demonstrate that Rab2 is required to prevent DCV cargo from inappropriately entering late endosomal compartments during DCV maturation. Finally, we show that RIC-19, the C. elegans orthologue of the human diabetes autoantigen ICA69, is also involved in DCV maturation and is recruited to Golgi membranes by activated RAB-2. Thus, we propose that RAB-2 and its effector RIC-19 are required for neuronal DCV maturation.
Yvh1 is required for a late maturation step in the 60S biogenesis pathway
Authors: Kemmler Stefan , Occhipinti Laura , Veisu Maria , Panse Vikram Govind
Published: September 2009

Before entering translation, preribosomal particles undergo sequential late maturation steps. In the case of pre-60S particles, these steps involve the release of shuttling maturation factors and transport receptors. In this study, we report a new maturation step in the 60S biogenesis pathway in budding yeast. We show that efficient release of the nucleolar/nuclear ribosomal-like protein Mrt4 (homologous to the acidic ribosomal P-protein Rpp0) from pre-60S particles requires the highly conserved protein Yvh1, which associates only with late pre-60S particles. Cell biological and biochemical analyses reveal that Mrt4 fails to dissociate from late pre-60S particles in yvh1Δ cells, inducing a delay in nuclear pre–ribosomal RNA processing and a pre-60S export defect in yvh1Δ cells. Moreover, we have isolated gain of function alleles of Mrt4 that specifically bypass the requirement for Yvh1 and rescue all yvh1Δ-associated phenotypes. Together, our data suggest that Yvh1-mediated release of Mrt4 precedes cytoplasmic loading of Rpp0 on pre-60S particles and is an obligatory late step toward construction of translation-competent 60S subunits.
Coordination of membrane events during autophagy by multiple class III PI3-kinase complexes
Authors: Simonsen Anne , Tooze Sharon A.
Published: September 2009

Autophagy or “self-eating” is a highly conserved pathway that enables cells to degrade pieces of themselves in autolysosomes to enable their survival in times of stress, including nutrient deprivation. The formation of these degradative compartments requires cytosolic proteins, some of which are autophagy specific, as well as intracellular organelles, such as the ER and Golgi, and the endosome–lysosome system. Here we discuss the cross talk between autophagy and intracellular compartments, highlighting recent exciting data about the role and regulation of the Vps34 class III phosphatidylinositol (PI) 3-kinase in autophagy.
Philosophical Aesthetics: An Overview
Authors: Levinson Jerrold
Published: September 2009

This article focuses on the domain of aesthetics and various problems and issues associated with aesthetics. Aesthetics is the branch of philosophy devoted to conceptual and theoretical inquiry into art and aesthetic experience. This article offers first an outline of the structure of philosophical aesthetics as a whole, and then a selective sketch of the development of Anglo-American aesthetics over the past fifty years, focusing on five central topics: the concept of the aesthetic, the definition of art, the ontology of art, representation in art, and expression in art. The three foci of aesthetics are labeled as art, aesthetic property, and aesthetic experience.
History of Modern Aesthetics
Authors: Guyer Paul
Published: September 2009

The first part of this article reviews a number of recent general approaches to the history of modern aesthetics. Some of the most prominent work on the history of the subject by philosophers working within the paradigm of analytical aesthetics has not had much to say about some historical questions, but instead has taken both the very existence of the field of aesthetics and its post-eighteenth-century identification with the philosophy of art pretty much for granted; such work has generally used interpretations of historical figures, especially from the eighteenth century, to support or criticize positions in contemporary aesthetics. The second part of the article is a bibliographical essay listing some of the most important recent work on the major movements and individual figures in aesthetics from the beginning of the eighteenth century to the middle of the twentieth.
Aesthetic Realism 2
Authors: Bender John W.
Published: September 2009

Aesthetic property realism would seem to be committed to at least some version of the following two claims: (a) there is a distinctive category of predications or attributions used in describing art works and other objects of our aesthetic attention; and (b) it is correct to construe these attributions as asserting that certain aesthetic properties exist and are objectively true of art works and other objects. Although anti-realist challenges have focused mainly on deconstructing (b), there has also been considerable scepticism over (a), i.e. over the very concept of aesthetic properties. The distinction between the aesthetic and the non-aesthetic is one of those distinctions that has strong intuitive credibility but yields grudgingly to philosophical analysis.
Aesthetics of Nature
Authors: Budd Malcolm
Published: September 2009

The long period of stagnation into which the aesthetics of nature fell after Hegel's relegation of natural beauty to a status inferior to the beauty of art was ended by Ronald Hepburn's ground-breaking paper (1966). In this essay, which offers a diagnosis of the causes of philosophy's neglect of the aesthetics of nature, Hepburn describes a number of kinds of aesthetic experience of nature that exhibit a variety of features distinguishing the aesthetic experience of nature from that of art and endowing it with values different from those characteristic of the arts, thus making plain the harmful consequences of the neglect of natural beauty. The subtlety of Hepburn's thought precludes simple summary, and this article does no more than enumerate a few of his themes that have been taken up and developed in the now flourishing literature on the aesthetics of nature (although not always with the nuanced treatment accorded them by Hepburn).
Definition of Art
Authors: Stecker Robert
Published: September 2009

The project of defining art most commonly consists in the attempt to find necessary conditions and sufficient conditions for the truth of the statement that an item is an artwork. That is, the goal is normally to find a principle for classifying all artworks together while distinguishing them from all non-artworks. Sometimes the goal is set higher. Some look for a ‘real’ definition: that is, one in terms of necessary conditions that are jointly sufficient for being an artwork. Sometimes the aim is to identify a metaphysical essence that all artworks have in common. This article surveys the main trends that mark the history of the project of defining art in the twentieth century before discussing the most important efforts in the past thirty years.
Ontology of Art
Authors: Davies Stephen
Published: September 2009

Ontology is the study of the kinds of things there are in the world. The ontology of art considers the matter, form, and mode in which art exists. Works of art are social constructs in the sense that they are not natural kinds but human creations. The way we categorize them depends on our interests, and to that extent ontology is not easily separated from sociology and ideology. Nevertheless, some classifications and interests are likely to be more revealing of why and how art is created and appreciated. There are a number of traditional classifications of the arts, for instance in terms of their media (stone, words, sounds, paint, etc.), their species (sculpture, literature, music, drama, ballet, etc.), or their styles or contents (tragedy, comedy, surrealism, impressionism, etc.). The ontology of works of art does not map neatly on to these classifications, however.
Medium in Art
Authors: Davies David
Published: September 2009

In its most general sense, a medium is a means of transmitting some matter or content from a source to a site of reception. The function of a medium, so construed, is mediation. Natural media such as air and water mediate the transmission of sounds. An art medium, then, is presumably something that mediates the transmission of the content of an artwork to a receiver. Art media, so conceived, have been characterized in a number of different ways: as material or physical kinds (e.g. oil paint, bronze, stone, bodily movements); as ranges of sensible determinables realizable in material or physical kinds (e.g. pitch, tone, texture, colour); as ways of purposively realizing specific values of such determinables (e.g. brushstrokes, gestures), or as systems of signs (‘languages’ in a more or less strict sense).
Expression in Art
Authors: Ridley Aaron
Published: September 2009

It is natural to assign a significant role to artists in artistic expression, and perhaps to do so by extrapolating from the role we assign to people when they express themselves in everyday, non-artistic contexts. When, for instance, we say of someone's face that it expresses pleasure, we ordinarily take it that the pleasure revealed there is the person's own pleasure, and that the expression on their face is to be explained by the pleasure that they feel. In ordinary, non-artistic cases, then, we take the expression to reveal the state of the person, and the state of the person to explain the expression. The temptation is to suppose that the same must be true of artistic expression. The temptation, that is, is to suppose that a work of art expressing anguish both reveals and is to be explained by the artist's own anguish. But things may not be as straightforward as that.
Style in Art
Authors: Ross Stephanie
Published: September 2009

The work of two contemporary philosophers in particular, Nelson Goodman and Richard Wollheim, has done much to clarify our understanding of style and of the complex issues with which style becomes intertwined. This article looks through the lens of their proposals. In ‘The Status of Style’, Goodman emphasizes that ‘Style comprises certain characteristic features both of what is said and of how it is said, both of subject and of wording, both of content and of form’. This is an important corrective to the temptation to take style as entirely constituted by formal or surface qualities. Goodman makes his point with examples drawn from nonfiction.
Creativity in Art
Authors: Alperson Philip
Published: September 2009

Perhaps no other concept seems as fundamental to common thinking about the arts as the concept of artistic creativity. This is not because creativity seems to most people to be unique to art. Quite the contrary: we speak freely of creative activity in the sciences, in academic disciplines, in cooking, in sports, and, indeed, in virtually every area of human productive endeavour. Nor is this surprising. Creating and making are closely associated etymologically (from the Latin creare) and in the popular mind, and it does no violence to common sense to say that what can be made or done can be made or done creatively. Nevertheless, creativity, if not a necessary condition of artistic practice, seems at least a hallmark or a characteristic feature of art generally. And so we think of artists as creating their works, we think of works of art (including physical things, performances, events, and conceptual objects and structures) as artistic creations, and we praise artists, their works, and even entire artistic epochs for their creativity. Many people take artistic creation to be the quintessential human creative activity.
Interpretation in Art
Authors: Currie Gregory
Published: September 2009

Interpretation requires some degree of thought rather than the operation of merely subpersonal level processes, as with understanding literal meaning. It requires judgement applied to the object of interpretation. It requires creativity on the part of the interpreter. But the kind of creativity that contrasts with the application of mechanical procedures must be distinguished from the kind that contrasts with discovery. Some theorists have wanted to insist that interpretation creates meaning for the work rather than discovering meaning in it. So interpretation is meaning-assignment brought about in the right way, and we cannot tell whether an assignment of meaning is an interpretation without inquiring into its antecedents.
Value in Art
Authors: Stecker Robert
Published: September 2009

Questions about artistic value are not nicely uniform or all raised at the same level of inquiry. In this article they are divided up into three groups of issues: meta-aesthetic, ontological, and normative. The first of these concern the nature of a judgement of artistic value. The second concerns the nature of such value itself. The last concerns the core question of what is artistically valuable about art, and how one brings the various valuable features of a work to bear in arriving at an evaluation of the work. Though these are different questions, there are not sharp boundaries between them. The article begins with the latter two issues, saving meta-aesthetics for last.
Beauty
Authors: Zangwill Nick
Published: September 2009

This article discusses several related issues about beauty. These are: the place of beauty among other aesthetic properties; the general principle of aesthetic supervenience; the problem of aesthetic relevance; the distinction between free and dependent beauty; the primacy of our appreciation of free beauty over our appreciation of dependent beauty; personal beauty as a species of beauty; and the metaphysics of beauty. In contemporary philosophy, beauty is often thought of as one among many aesthetic properties, albeit one with a special role.
Humour
Authors: Carroll Noël
Published: September 2009

Humour is a pervasive feature of human life. It's found everywhere — at work and at play, in private and public affairs. Sometimes we make it ourselves; often we pay others to create it for us, including playwrights, novelists, filmmakers, stand-up comics, clowns, and so on. According to some, like Rabelais, humour is alleged to be distinctively human, a property of our species and no other. But even if that is not the case, humour seems to be a nearly universal component of human societies. Thus, it should come as no surprise that it has been a perennial topic for philosophy — especially for philosophers ambitious enough to attempt to comment on every facet of human life. Plato believed that the laughter that attends humour is directed at vice, particularly at the vice of self-unawareness.
Narrative
Authors: Wilson George M.
Published: September 2009

Narratology is the general theory of narratives and the structures they exemplify. The classical structuralist narratology of Todorov, C. Bremond, A. Greimas, and early Roland Barthes was concerned primarily with narrative as narrative product. In selecting that emphasis and in other methodological matters, these authors were influenced by their proto-structuralist predecessors, Russian formalists such as V. Shklovsky and V. Propp. Theorists in the linked traditions highlighted the fact that stories, both fictional and non-fictional, can be represented in very different narrative discourses. Indeed, the same story can be rendered in discourses that have been constructed within different media, such as literature, film, or theatre. A key analytical task of structuralist narratology has been to delineate the features of stories that are invariant across the fiction/non-fiction division and across the variety of their more specific realizations in different discourses and media.
Art and Knowledge
Authors: Gaut Berys
Published: September 2009

The question of whether art gives us knowledge is as old as the philosophy of art itself: Plato in The Republic argued that, although poetry purports to give knowledge, it in fact does no such thing, but produces a mere deceptive appearance of knowledge. In contrast, Aristotle in The Poetics argued for the capacity of poetry to give its audience knowledge of universals. The dispute has reverberated down to the modern period, and a large part of the contemporary debate is still concerned with the classical form of the question. This can be dubbed the epistemic question: can art give its audience knowledge? Though the questions are rarely distinguished, there is a distinct issue which also needs to be addressed under the general rubric of art and knowledge.
Art and Morality
Authors: Kieran Matthew
Published: September 2009

The idea that the moral character of a work may be intimately linked to its artistic value can be traced back to Aristotle, who suggests that moral criteria help pick out tragedies that are good or bad as such. Indeed, when outlining the correct standards in dramatic art, he claims that ‘it is correct to find fault with both illogicality and moral baseness, if there is no necessity for them and if the poet makes no use of the illogicality (as with Euripedes and the case of Aegeus) or the baseness (as with Menelaus's in Orestes)’. One way of taking this claim is to hold that the moral character of a work may affect its artistic value indirectly. This article turns first to an examination of this kind of view.
Music
Authors: Davies Stephen
Published: September 2009

Despite the attention that the philosophy of music has attracted, the focus of philosophers on music has been rather narrow. Until the 1990s, it fell almost exclusively on the works of Western instrumental classical music, and these were approached for the interest of their form and expressiveness rather than for their wider cultural significance. Since then, there has been a growing interest in performance and improvisation, in popular types of music such as rock, in the technology of recordings, in non-Western music, and in the broader social setting within which music is presented and appreciated.
Painting
Authors: Feagin Susan
Published: September 2009

This article identifies four categories of issues that arise in relation to painting as an art. The first concerns the ontological status of paintings as physical objects: the importance of different types of paint and their material support, the values contingent on them, and the conservation and restoration issues that arise because anything physical is subject to decay. The second category concerns the perception and valuation of visual form and attempts to define painting's nature and value in purely visual terms. The third explores ontological and interpretive issues raised by the different forms painting takes in different cultures. The fourth concerns personal agency and autonomy in relation to personal expression, to representations of individuals and cultural practices within painting, and to ties between painting's epistemic potential and its social status.
Architecture
Authors: Graham Gordon
Published: September 2009

This article traces the ideas that have marked and divided the major architectural fashions of the last 150 years, and the refinements that have been given to these ideas by philosophers of architecture working within a wider philosophical perspective. In fact, despite the differences between the various schools of thought just alluded to, it is not difficult to detect an underlying unity in the central conceptual problem that both philosophers and architects have sought to address. This may be summarized in the question ‘How is architecture to be secured a place in the sphere of the aesthetic?’ or, more simply, ‘What makes architecture an art?’
Sculpture
Authors: Hopkins Robert
Published: September 2009

Philosophy has not had a great deal to say about sculpture. There is brief mention of it in Kant's third critique, and there is longer discussion in Schopenhauer (1969) and Hegel (1974). More recent writing with philosophical content is as often to be found in the output of theoretically minded critics and art historians as in that of professional philosophers. Nonetheless, sculpture does present genuine philosophical problems. This article concentrates on the aesthetic question of sculpture, and says a little about sculptural representation.
Theatre
Authors: Woodruff Paul
Published: September 2009

Philosophy of art began, for European cultures, with Plato's criticism of theatre and Aristotle's account of tragedy; modern philosophical discussion of the arts has been less oriented to theatre, which has generally been submerged in the broader topics of literature and fiction and, most recently, obscured by the rising interest in film. This article explains what theatre is threadbare. Theatre has become increasingly hard to define; traditional theories allowed theatre to melt into literature, while ideas that were new in the twentieth century shattered the comfort of what was thought to be the Aristotelian model and demanded that thinkers about theatre recognize the unique implications of theatre in religion, politics, and the life of community.
Photography
Authors: Warburton Nigel
Published: September 2009

Photography is the most widespread form of visual communication using still images. Since its invention the medium has not changed substantially, or at least not until the recent invention of digital photography. The uses to which photography has been put and the conventions surrounding those uses have, however, evolved significantly. Those analytic philosophers who have written about still photography have for the most part focused on quite a narrow range of topics. Their main concern has been to characterize the nature of the causal link between object photographed and photographic image.
Film
Authors: Gaut Berys
Published: September 2009

Today the philosophy of film is in a thriving state. Indeed, for quality, variety, and interest of the work being carried out, the philosophy of film is arguably rivalled among the philosophies of the individual arts only by the philosophy of music. It also exhibits a striking feature which, if not unique among the philosophies of the arts, is at least highly unusual: many philosophers and film theorists are interacting with each others' work and learning from each other. Much, though certainly not all, of the work of philosophers has been critical of aspects of film theory, but the interaction has been fruitful for both disciplines. This interplay is witnessed by several anthologies in which both film theorists and philosophers of film are included.
Environmental Aesthetics
Authors: Fisher John A.
Published: September 2009

The rapid growth of concern for the natural environment over the last third of the twentieth century has brought the welcome reintroduction of nature as a significant topic in aesthetics. In virtue of transforming previous attitudes towards nature, environmentalist thinking has posed questions about how we conceptualize our aesthetic interactions with nature, the aesthetic value of nature, and the status of art about nature. Although environmental concerns have undoubtedly motivated the new aesthetic interest in nature, the term ‘environmental aesthetics’ connotes two overlapping but distinct themes, one emphasizing the aesthetics of nature as understood by environmentalism, the second focusing on the notion of environments of all sorts as objects of appreciation.
Comparative Aesthetics
Authors: Higgins Kathleen
Published: September 2009

One of the first questions that arises in efforts to conduct comparative aesthetics is whether or not the terms ‘art’ and ‘aesthetics’ are inextricably bound to certain cultures and their presuppositions. Since the Enlightenment, the dominant Western conception of ‘fine’ art is distinguished from that of ‘crafts’ used in everyday life. A work of art is understood to be designed primarily for contemplation; if it serves any other practical function, this is considered to be secondary. Theorists disagree on the criteria for judging the work of art, but typically these are linked to a state of mind in the observer (whether emotional, intellectual, or some combination of the two). Works of fine art, being geared to reflective appreciation, are at home in institutional environments that are free from the distractions of everyday life, such as the concert hall or the museum.
Aesthetics and Evolutionary Psychology
Authors: Dutton Denis
Published: September 2009

The applications of the science of psychology to our understanding of the origins and nature of art is not a recent phenomenon; in fact, it is as old as the Greeks. Plato wrote of art not only from the standpoint of metaphysics, but also in terms of the psychic, especially emotional, dangers that art posed to individuals and society. It was Plato's psychology of art that resulted in his famous requirements in The Republic for social control of the forms and contents of art. Aristotle, on the other hand, approached the arts as philosopher more comfortably at home in experiencing the arts; his writings are to that extent more dispassionately descriptive of the psychological features he viewed as universal in what we would call ‘aesthetic experience’. Although Plato and Aristotle both described the arts in terms of generalizations implicitly applicable to all cultures, it was Aristotle who most self-consciously tied his art theory to a general psychology.
Aesthetics and Cognitive Science
Authors: Currie Gregory
Published: September 2009

The subject of this article is the connection between art and all those aspects of mind that have, to some degree, an empirical side. It covers results in neuropsychology and neuroscience, in cognitive and developmental psychology, as well as in various parts of the philosophy of mind. This article, however, ignores questions about the natural history of our mental capacities. To the extent that art has human psychology as its subject, there must be potential for conflict with the sciences of mind. As philosophers have recently noted, results in social psychology challenge our ordinary conception of human motivation, suggesting that moral character either does not exist at all or plays an insignificant role in shaping behaviour.
Aesthetics and Ethics
Authors: Eldridge Richard
Published: September 2009

To the extent that these neo-Aristotelian value realisms offer multi-dimensional accounts of the good and very flexible appreciations of different virtues (of both character and art) in different contexts, they account well for the varieties of characters, actions, and works of art that we value. But it is not always easy to see exactly how the particularism fits with the objectivism. When there is that much variety in judgements of value, often indexed to local cultural or historical circumstance, then, even if it need not be true, the thought that such judgements are mere expressions of individual or social preference looms. When, in contrast, the overall theory of the good or the beautiful is given more shape and content, so that common features of beauty or goodness in different particulars are discernible, then the particularism lapses.
Aesthetics of the Avant-Garde
Authors: Horowitz Gregg
Published: September 2009

All responsible inquiry into the contemporary state of avant-garde art must acknowledge the possibility that no such art exists. Such non-existence would be dismaying news for a lot of people because, despite the possibility that the concept refers to nothing, many writers and artists continue to invest in it as if its capacity to illuminate contemporary artistic and aesthetic practices were a given. If one inclines towards believing that there was an American avant-garde in those years, one is likely to find that Sayre's roster of participating figures includes the expected artists and movements: Carolee Schneeman and Robert Morris, Judy Chicago and Robert Smithson, Fluxus and the Judson Dance Theater, and so on.
Aesthetics of the Everyday
Authors: Sartwell Crispin
Published: September 2009

‘Everyday aesthetics’ refers to the possibility of aesthetic experience of non-art objects and events, as well as to a current movement within the field of philosophy of art which rejects or puts into question distinctions such as those between fine and popular art, art and craft, and aesthetic and non-aesthetic experiences. The movement may be said to begin properly with Dewey's Art as Experience (1934), though it also has roots in continental philosophers such as Heidegger. The possibility of everyday aesthetics originates in two undoubted facts: firstly, that art emerges from a range of non-art activities and experiences, and, secondly, that the realm of the aesthetic extends well beyond the realm of what are commonly conceived to be the fine arts.
Aesthetics and Postmodernism
Authors: Shusterman Richard
Published: September 2009

This article focuses on the philosophical issues, themes, and theories of postmodernism and how they impact on the field of aesthetics. But it begins with a brief historical overview of how postmodernism evolved in the past half-century from a specific artistic style concept to a notion of very general social and cultural significance. It then explores the nasty tangle of ambiguities and tensions in the concept of postmodernism and goes on to survey its major philosophical theories. It concludes by considering what consequences postmodernism should have for aesthetic theory and what a postmodern aesthetic would be like.
Aesthetics and Cultural Studies
Authors: Knight Deborah
Published: September 2009

Cultural studies in its first and second phases was an avowedly political undertaking, clearly associated with the British New Left as well as with Marxist social and political philosophies. By the 1970s and 1980s, Birmingham-style cultural studies was producing work on subjects such as ideology, language, discourse and textuality, the role of police, youth subcultures, and audience response to popular and mass cultural texts. The third phase of cultural studies, roughly from the late 1980s to the present and especially in its ‘international’ tendencies, moves away from a commitment to Marxism — especially from a commitment to Marxist political economy — and focuses increasingly on what Douglas Kellner describes as a ‘postmodern problematic’ dealing with ‘pleasure, consumption, and the individual construction of identities’.
Tristable electrical conductivity switching in a polyfluorene–diphenylpyridine copolymer with pendant carbazole groups
Authors: Liu Gang , Liaw Der-Jang , Lee Wei-Yi , Ling Qi-Dan , Zhu Chun-Xiang , Chan D. Siu-Hung , Kang En-Tang , Neoh Koon-Gee
Published: September 2009

Tristable electrical conductivity switching and non-volatile memory effects are demonstrated in a conjugated copolymer of poly(2,6-diphenyl-4-((9-ethyl)-9
H
-carbazole)-pyridinyl-
alt
-2,7-(9,9-didodecyl)-9
H
-fluorenyl) (PPCzPF). The indium–tin oxide (ITO)/PPCzPF/Al device can be switched from the low-conductivity (off) state to the first high-conductivity (on-1) state at 1.8 V, with an on/off current ratio of approximately 100. The device can be further switched from the on-1 state to the next higher conductivity (on-2) state at 2.4 V, with an on-2/on-1 current ratio of approximately 20. All the three conductivity states are accessible, stable and non-erasable. The tri-level conductance switching can be explained in terms of field-induced conformational ordering of the polymer chains and enhanced charge-transfer interaction at the PPCzPF/ITO interface.
From silicon to organic nanoparticle memory devices
Authors: Tsoukalas D.
Published: September 2009

After introducing the operational principle of nanoparticle memory devices, their current status in silicon technology is briefly presented in this work. The discussion then focuses on hybrid technologies, where silicon and organic materials have been combined together in a nanoparticle memory device, and finally concludes with the recent development of organic nanoparticle memories. The review is focused on the nanoparticle memory concept as an extension of the current flash memory device. Organic nanoparticle memories are at a very early stage of research and have not yet found applications. When this happens, it is expected that they will not directly compete with mature silicon technology but will find their own areas of application.
Enhancement of electrical bistability through semiconducting nanoparticles for organic memory applications
Authors: Das Bikas C. , Pal Amlan J.
Published: September 2009

We report that an enhancement in electrical bistability in devices based on organic molecules can be achieved by the introduction of semiconducting nanoparticles. Here, devices based on alternate layers of a dye in the xanthene class and CdSe nanoparticles have been compared with devices based on the individual components. Results from dye/CdSe devices have yielded an appreciable enhancement in electrical bistability compared with those based on the dye or the nanoparticles. The enhancement is due to augmented carrier transport through the nanoparticles to the dye that consequently undergoes a change in its conformation, having a higher conductivity. We have evidenced read-only and random-access memory applications in the dye/nanoparticle hybrid system.
Electrodeposition of copper tetracyanoquinodimethane for bipolar resistive switching non-volatile memories
Authors: Müller Robert , Rouault Olivier , Katzenmeyer Aaron , Goux Ludovic , Wouters Dirk J. , Genoe Jan , Heremans Paul
Published: September 2009

Electrodeposition experiments of the charge-transfer complex copper tetracyanoquinodimethane (CuTCNQ) (where TCNQ denotes 7,7′,8,8′-tetracyanoquinodimethane) on noble metal electrodes (M=Pt and Au) were optimized in order to produce suitable layers for bipolar resistive switching cross-bar M/CuTCNQ/Al memory cells. Corresponding memories exhibited up to more than 10 000 consecutive write/erase cycles, with very stable on and off reading currents and an on/off current ratio of 10. CuTCNQ electrodeposition techniques were furthermore optimized for growing the material in 250 nm diameter contact holes of complementary metal oxide semiconductor dies with tungsten bottom contacts.
Gold nanoparticle charge trapping and relation to organic polymer memory devices
Authors: Prime D. , Paul S. , Josephs-Franks P. W.
Published: September 2009

Nanoparticle-based polymer memory devices (PMDs) are a promising technology that could replace conventional silicon-based electronic memory, offering fast operating speeds, simple device structures and low costs. Here we report on the current state of nanoparticle PMDs and review some of the problems that are still present in the field. We also present new data regarding the charging of gold nanoparticles in metal–insulator–semiconductor capacitors, showing that charging is possible under the application of an electric field with a trapped charge density due to the nanoparticles of 3.3×10
12
 cm
−2
.
Overview of organic memory devices
Authors: Prime D. , Paul S.
Published: September 2009

The demand for more efficient and faster memory structures is greater today than ever before. The efficiency of memory structures is measured in terms of storage capacity and the speed of functioning. However, the production cost of such configurations is the natural constraint on how much can be achieved. Organic memory devices (OMDs) provide an ideal solution, in being inexpensive, and at the same time promising high performance. However, all OMDs reported so far suffer from multiple drawbacks that render their industrial implementation premature. This article introduces the different types of OMDs, discusses the progress in this field over the last 9 years and invokes conundrums that scholars of this field are currently faced with, such as questions about the charging mechanism and stability of devices, contradictions in the published work and some future directions.
Considering population and war: a critical and neglected aspect of conflict studies
Authors: Thayer Bradley A.
Published: September 2009

This study analyses the relationship between war and population. The impact of the growth and decline of population on important types of warfare—great power, small power, civil war as well as terrorism—is illustrated, with the objective in each case to be descriptive of risk. I find that population change has a significant impact on each, with the greatest causal impact on small power conflicts, civil war and upon terrorism. I conclude with some reasons for guarded optimism about the incorporation of population as a component of analysis in the discipline of international studies, and for the potential to devise new solutions to prevent conflict.
Sola schola et sanitate: human capital as the root cause and priority for international development?
Authors: Lutz Wolfgang
Published: September 2009

This paper summarizes new scientific evidence supporting the hypothesis that among the many factors contributing to international development, the combination of education and health stands out as a root cause on which other dimensions of development depend. Much of this recent analysis is based on new reconstructions and projections of populations by age, sex and four levels of educational attainment for more than 120 countries using the demographic method of multi-state population dynamics. It also refers to a series of systems analytical population–development–environment case studies that comprehensively assess the role of population and education factors relative to other factors in the struggle for sustainable development. The paper also claims that most concerns about the consequences of population trends are in fact concerns about human capital, and that only by adding the ‘quality’ dimension of education to the traditionally narrow focus on size and age structure can some of the long-standing population controversies be resolved.
Stall in fertility decline in Eastern African countries: regional analysis of patterns, determinants and implications
Authors: Ezeh Alex C. , Mberu Blessing U. , Emina Jacques O.
Published: September 2009

We use data from the Demographic and Health Surveys to examine the patterns of stall in fertility decline in four Eastern African countries. Contrary to patterns of fertility transition in Africa that cut across various socio-economic and geographical groups within countries, we find strong selectivity of fertility stall across different groups and regions in all four countries. In both Kenya and Tanzania where fertility decline has stalled at the national level, it continued to decline among the most educated women and in some regions. While fertility has remained at pre-transition level in Uganda over the past 20 years, there are signs of decline with specific groups of women (especially the most educated, urban and those in the Eastern region) taking the lead. For Zimbabwe, although fertility has continued to decline at the national level, stall is observed among women with less than secondary education and those in some of the regions. We link these intra-country variations to differential changes in socio-economic variables, family planning programme environment and reproductive behaviour models. The results suggest that declines in contraceptive use, increases in unmet need for family planning, increasing preferences for larger families, and increases in adolescent fertility were consistently associated with stalls in subgroup fertility across all four countries. These results are consistent with models that emphasize the role of declines in national and international commitments to family planning programmes in the premature stall in sub-Saharan fertility transition.