bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Introduction to “Art, Signs, and Cultures” (1977)
Authors: Cohen Joshua I.
Published: June 2023

This document, translated from the original French, is an edited transcript of a conversation between the Senegalese painter Iba Ndiaye, the French art historian Jean Laude, and a moderator, Roger Pillaudin. It took place on the occasion of the Festival des arts et cultures africaines in Royan, France (March 1977), and was later broadcast on the radio channel France Culture. What stands out in the conversation is the way Laude seeks to negate Ndiaye's cross-cultural experience and background, and arguably his very legitimacy as a contemporary artist. Laude's insistence on adhering to neat categories (linguistic, national, artistic) in engaging with Ndiaye, coupled with Ndiaye's steady defiance of these categories, point to broader tensions between structuralism and area studies, on the one hand, and poststructuralism and postcolonial studies, on the other. The conversation also invites careful scrutiny of the problem of Eurocentrism, in the sense that Laude's structuralist position is in fact anti-Eurocentric: colonialism is condemned for destroying local traditions, which are in turn revered at the expense of allegedly derivative expressions emerging from the same societies. Ndiaye nevertheless holds his own against Laude's aggressive paternalism, and manages to call into question a number of the art historian's assumptions around the perceived axes and obligations of artistic identity.
The Plausibility of Sampling as an Algorithmic Theory of Sentence Processing
Authors: Hoover Jacob Louis , Sonderegger Morgan , Piantadosi Steven T. , O’Donnell Timothy J.
Published: June 2023

Words that are more surprising given context take longer to process. However, no incremental parsing algorithm has been shown to directly predict this phenomenon. In this work, we focus on a class of algorithms whose runtime does naturally scale in surprisal—those that involve repeatedly sampling from the prior. Our first contribution is to show that simple examples of such algorithms predict runtime to increase superlinearly with surprisal, and also predict variance in runtime to increase. These two predictions stand in contrast with literature on surprisal theory [Hale, 2001; Levy, 2008a], which assumes that the expected processing cost increases linearly with surprisal, and makes no prediction about variance. In the second part of this paper, we conduct an empirical study of the relationship between surprisal and reading time, using a collection of modern language models to estimate surprisal. We find that with better language models, reading time increases superlinearly in surprisal, and also that variance increases. These results are consistent with the predictions of sampling-based algorithms.
‘He thinks he is inspired, and he is mad’
Authors: Sobkowiak Piotr
Published: June 2023

During the last decades of the eighteenth century, knowledge about Siberia inspired Catherine II to create the main character of one of her comedies, The Siberian Shaman. Taking Foucault’s dispositif-concept as its theoretical premise, the present paper discusses the historical context in which The Siberian Shaman was written, deconstructs the identity of the comedy’s main character, and explores the socio-political purposes for which the comedy was written. By utilising the perspective of entangled history of religions and the methodology of historical discourse analysis, this paper shows that the comedy’s alleged “shamanic” content and “anti-shamanic” purpose cannot be taken for granted. Rather, the discourse in The Siberian Shaman should be read as Catherine II’s own engagement with the themes of unreason and madness within the philosophical, socio-political and religious context of the period.
The Role of Mission Schools in the Development of Football in Nigeria, 1904–1994
Authors: Amaefule Adolphus Ekedimma
Published: June 2023

The development of football in Nigeria owes a lot to the pioneering Christian missions in the country, especially, the schools they founded. This article examines the particular role that selected Catholic Mission Boys’ Secondary Schools played in this regard from 1904 when the first recorded football match was played in Nigeria, to 1994, when Nigeria’s national football team, the Super Eagles, qualified for the World Cup for the first time. This way, the article contributes to existing literature on: a) the history and development of football in Nigeria b) the role of Christian missions in the development of modern Nigeria c) the relationship between Christianity and sports, in this case, football.
Monnica’s Bishop and the “filius istarum lacrimarum” (conf. 3,21)
Authors: van Oort Johannes
Published: June 2023

Augustine is known as “the son of tears.” This essay searches for the meaning of this expression. Based on conf. 3,21, first the background of the African bishop who spoke the winged words is analysed. Not only had he once been handed over to the Manichaeans as an oblate, but he had also become acquainted with their writings. Especially from this experience he gives his advice to Monnica: her son will come to the right insight legendo, i.e. by reading Manichaean texts. From Manichaean texts that recently have become known, some characteristic elements of conf. 3,21 and especially the expression “filius istarum lacrimarum” appear in a new light.
Luther vs. the Lutherans (and Catholics)
Authors: Cumming Nicholas A.
Published: June 2023

This article examines the reception and authority of Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon in Francis Turretin’s (1623–1687) Institutio Theologiae Elencticae (1679–1685). Scholarship on the reception of the Reformers in seventeenth-century Calvinism has continued to grow and I argue that Turretin utilized both Luther and Melanchthon in fluid and diverse ways. In particular, Luther and Melanchthon, alongside being authorities against Roman Catholicism, were also used as evidence against the “innovations” of seventeenth-century Lutherans. For Turretin, Luther and Melanchthon were two of God’s prophets sent at the Reformation and Catholics and Lutherans needed to return to “pure” Reformed doctrine as illustrated by Luther and Melanchthon. Though these two were not the only sources of authority for Turretin, they were substantial witnesses against Lutheran and Catholic innovations in the post-Reformation period. Ultimately for Turretin, Luther and Melanchthon were more Reformed than they were Lutheran.
Reform the Pope, Reform the Papacy
Authors: Bellitto Christopher M.
Published: June 2023

Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464) was not an uncritical supporter of papal authority. This essay recounts a nuanced understanding of his development by looking at a number of treatises and sermons focused on the reform of the pope as person and therefore of the reform of the papacy as institution. Cusanus believed the pope’s authority was grounded in the faith and office of Peter and not personally in Peter’s successor, who could therefore fairly be corrected. The successor to Peter was no more the rock than Peter as a human being had been. Consequently, Cusanus’ recommendations for papal reform began with the personal reform of the pope as a faithful Christian first and not as a prelate. His critiques did not thereby threaten the papacy as an institution but, in fact, were intended to improve the man holding the see of Peter and in so doing to reform the office and its exercise.
The Mechanisms of Royal Generosity (1939–1760 BCE)
Authors: Bardoňová Martina
Published: June 2023

Gift-giving was, and in many societies still is, one of the key social phenomena. The gifts were more than just goods given to somebody. Economically they represent an important means to procure needed goods. Socially, they expressed relationships between donors and recipients and was among the means for an individual to exercise power over another. The present study is conceived as a first step to understanding the complex problem of gift-giving during the Middle Kingdom. Its main aim is to outline the patterns of royal generosity visible in the Twelfth Dynasty (c.1939–1760 BCE) textual sources and to contextualize them with respect to the general findings of evolutionary psychology and Social Exchange Theory.
‘Top-Down’ or ‘Bottom-Up’ Modernisation: Local Railway Entrepreneurs in the Ottoman Empire in the Second Half of the 19th Century
Authors: Antonova-Goleva Boriana
Published: June 2023

In 1857 a local group headed by Bulgarian merchants from the town of Şumnu applied for the Rusçuk and Varna railway concession, in what was one of the earliest attempts by Ottoman subjects to carry out such a capitalist undertaking. Since their application was officially and unofficially supported by the Sublime Porte, this article discusses the genesis and unfolding of this local project as one which resulted both from a ‘top-down’ initiative instigated by the Ottoman government and a ‘bottom-up’ enterprise influenced by new trends in Ottoman economic life.
Ice Crystal Size Distributions in Tropical Mesoscale Convective Systems in the Vicinity of Darwin, Australia: Results from the HAIC/HIWC Campaign
Authors: Brechner Peter , McFarquhar Greg M. , Schwarzenboeck Alfons , Korolev Alexei V.
Published: June 2023

Total ice water content (IWC) derived from an isokinetic evaporator probe and ice crystal particle size distributions (PSDs) measured by a two-dimensional stereo probe and precipitation imaging probe installed on an aircraft during the 2014 European High Altitude Ice Crystals–North American High IWC field campaign (HAIC/HIWC) were used to characterize regions of high IWC consisting mainly of small ice crystals (HIWC_S) with IWC ≥ 1.0 g m−3 and median mass diameter (MMD) < 0.5 mm. A novel fitting routine developed to automatically determine whether a unimodal, bimodal, or trimodal gamma distribution best fits a PSD was used to compare characteristics of HIWC_S and other PSDs (e.g., multimodality, gamma fit parameters) for HIWC_S simulations. The variation of these characteristics and bulk properties (MMD, IWC) was regressed with temperature, IWC, and vertical velocity. HIWC_S regions were most pronounced in updraft cores. The three modes of the PSD reveal different dominant processes contributing to ice growth: nucleation for maximum dimension D < 0.15 mm, diffusion for 0.15 < D < 1.0 mm, and aggregation for D > 1.0 mm. The frequency of trimodal distributions increased with temperature. The volumes of equally plausible parameters derived in the phase space of gamma fit parameters increased with temperature for unimodal distributions and, for temperatures less than −27°C, for multimodal distributions. Bimodal distributions with 0.4 mm in the larger mode were most common in updraft cores and HIWC_S regions; bimodal distributions with 0.4 mm in the smaller mode were least common in convective cores.
Does the Convention on Biodiversity Safeguard Biological Diversity?
Authors: Müller Frank G.
Published: June 2023

This paper attempts to assess and evaluate some of the economic implications of the Convention on Biological Diversity. After outlining the main principles and the scope of this Convention, the following issues are addressed: the determination of the ‘optimal’ level of biodiversity loss, the meaning of incremental costs, and monetary evaluation problems of ecological resources and the problems it poses for the funding mechanism (GEF). The paper concludes with a discussion of the issues of commercialisation and access to genetic resources.
The Birth of a Research Animal: Ibsen's The Wild Duck and the Origin of a New Animal Science
Authors: Zwart H.A.E.
Published: June 2023

What role does the wild duck play in Ibsen's famous drama? I argue that, besides mirroring the fate of the human cast members, the duck is acting as animal subject in a quasi-experiment, conducted in a private setting. Analysed from this perspective, the play allows us to discern the epistemological and ethical dimensions of the new scientific animal practice (systematic observation of animal behaviour under artificial conditions) emerging precesely at that time. Ibsen's play stages the clash between a scientific and a romantic understanding of animals that still constitutes the backdrop of most contemporary debates over animals in research. Whereas the scientific understanding reduces the animal's behaviour, as well as its environment, to discrete and modifiable elements, the romantic view regards animals as being at one with (or violently disconnected from) their natural surroundings.
Human Rights in an Ecological Era
Authors: Aiken William
Published: June 2023

After presenting a brief history of the idea of a human right to an adequate environment as it has evolved in the United Nations documents, I assess this approach to our moral responsibility with regard to the environment. I argue that although this rights approach has some substantial weaknesses, these are outweighed by such clear advantages as its action-guiding nature and its political potency.
Women, Shelter and the Environment
Authors: Steady Filomina Chioma
Published: June 2023

The aim of this paper is to point out the logic of the links between shelter, women and the environment in order to understand this important dimension of the crisis in human settlements, particularly in the provision of human shelters. It also discusses the relationship of this crisis to processes of development which are both unsustainable and detrimental to the well-being and socio-economic situation of people in general, and women and children in particular. This paper then attempts to evaluate the effect of development strategies that aim to alleviate the problem and examines some successful initiatives which have promoted both sustainable development and the involvement of women in sustainable human shelter activities. It finally argues that solutions to the problem of human shelter will be ineffective without consideration of women's needs, concerns and contributions in this important aspect of sustainable development.
Sustainability
Authors: Attfield Robin , Wilkins Barry
Published: June 2023

This paper supplies a critique of the view that a practice which ought not to be followed is ipso facto not sustainable, a view recently defended by Nigel Dower. It is argued that there are ethical criteria independent of the criterion of sustainability. The concept of sustainability is thus retrieved for the distinctive role and the important service in which environmental and social theorists (paradoxically including Dower) have hitherto employed it, not least when debating the nature, merits and demerits of sustainable development.
Existence Value, Welfare and Altruism1
Authors: Aldred Jonathan
Published: June 2023

Existence Value has become an increasingly important concept as the use of cost benefit analysis has spread from traditional applications to attempts to place monetary value on, for instance, a rare wetland habitat. Environmental economists have generally accepted the tensions arising in the existence value concept from the range of recent applications, but it is argued here that their various attempts to resolve the difficulties have largely failed. Critics from outside economics, on the other hand, typically claim that the very notion of existence value as understood in economics is flawed, and urge its abandonment altogether. This paper suggests instead a fundamental redefinition of existence value, which, it is argued, (i) explains a number of diverse problems posed by the usual meaning of the term in economics; (ii) does not strain the intentions of respondents to ‘willingness-to-pay’ surveys; (iii) is consistent with a more realistic model of rational choice in environmental decision-making; and (iv) is sensitive to criticisms from environmental ethics.2
Four Dogmas of Environmental Economics
Authors: Sagoff Mark
Published: June 2023

Four dogmas have shaped modern neoclassical economics. The first proposes that markets may fail to allocate resources efficiently, that is, to those willing to pay the most for them. The second asserts that choices, particularly within markets, reveal preferences. The third is the assumption that people always make the choices they expect will benefit them or enhance their welfare. The fourth dogma holds that perfectly competitive markets will allocate resources to their most beneficial uses. This is the doctrine of the invisible hand.

I argue that these dogmas of applied welfare economics should be abandoned. One consequence of doing so will be an increased interest in the institutional context of production. A second will be a turn toward empiricism.
How Would you like your ‘Sustainability’, Sir? Weak or Strong? A Reply to my Critics
Authors: Beckerman Wilfred
Published: June 2023

This article concentrates on the Jacobs and Daly criticisms ( Environmental Values, Spring 1994) of my earlier article in the same journal (Autumn 1994) criticising the concept of ‘sustainable development’. Daly and Jacobs agreed with my criticisms of ‘weak’ sustainability, but defended ‘strong’ sustainability on the grounds that natural and manmade capital were ‘complements’ in the productive process and that economists are wrong, therefore, in assuming that they are infinitely substitutable. This article maintains that they are confusing different concepts of ‘complementarity’ and ‘substitutability’. It is also argued that, in fact, they do both sell crucial passes in their defence of strong sustainability without providing any clear criteria for their abandonment of it in certain cases. It is also denied that the fact that environmental services may provide different satisfactions from those obtained from other goods and services elevates it to the status of some over-riding moral value, or that discounting future costs and benefits is ‘unfair’ to future generations.
Environmental Quality and the Quality of our Way of Life
Authors: Boersema Jan J.
Published: June 2023

Today, sustainable development is generally accepted as a guiding principle. The present relation societies have with the natural environment is considered as being not-sustainable. However this presupposes some idea about the quality of the environment and of activities affecting the environment and, as a consequence, of the quality of life. In this article I defend the proposition that the limited progress made with respect to the environment – despite all the good intentions – could be due to a potential conflict between ‘quality’ and sustainable development. In other words: our interpretation of the concept of ‘quality’ is not compatible with the aims of sustainability. Some consequences for research and policy of accepting this proposition are discussed.
In and Out of Time
Authors: Gault Richard
Published: June 2023

This paper explores the nature of time and its relation to our concerns for the future. It is shown how a new sense of time, chronological time, emerged with the rise of science and modernity. This now familiar time is rarely questioned. Yet, it is argued, this time is intimately bound up with our contemporary problems and our failure to effect solutions.

In analysing chronological time it is revealed that the future is devoid of reality in it. This absence of a real sense of the future explains our careless despoiling of the environment. To save our environment we need to resurrect a real sense for the future: only then can the future be truly valued. This means re-discovering another sense of time. This other time is named kairological time. In kairological time there is a more vivid awareness of the future. In this time, too, new ways of acting for the future are opened up. Possibilities for a wiser way to the future in part stem from a revaluation of the past. So the sense of being out of time to save ourselves and our planet can be overcome by a living in this other time, kairological time.
Beauty for Ever?
Authors: Lee Keekok
Published: June 2023

This paper is not primarily about the philosophy of beauty with regard to landscape evaluation. Neither is it basically about the place of aesthetics in environmental philosophy. Rather, its aim is to argue that while aesthetics has a clear role to play, it cannot form the basis of an adequate environmental philosophy without presupposing that natural processes and their products have no role to play independent of the human evaluation of them in terms of their beauty. The limitations, especially of a subjective aesthetics, are brought out through examining the decision of the National Trust in the Lake District to restore Yew Tree Tarn, thereby ‘to ensure its beauty will be permanent’. But should a landscape (an ecosystem for that matter) be ‘frozen’ against natural changes in order that its beauty be preserved ‘permanently'? If not, what counter principle(s) can one invoke to argue against such a philosophy of management or at least to limit such intervention in its name? The National Trust is committed ‘to preserving the beauty and unique character of the Lake District’. Its unique character includes its geological formations which make the area beautiful. But geological processes are dynamic. Should their products necessarily be subordinated to aesthetic considerations? If so, are they not in danger of being treated like a work of art, an artefact which we, humans, are entitled to preserve against change? In a conflict between the requirement of conserving beauty of the landscape on the one hand and natural processes at work which might undermine that beauty on the other, should aesthetic considerations always have priority? This paper will explore these related issues. However, the restoration of Yew Tree Tarn as opposed to the failure in Yosemite to intervene to prevent one of its lakes from drying out are merely used as handy examples to lead into such theoretical exploration which should, most certainly, not be interpreted as a general indictment of the overall management policies of the National Trust on the one hand, or endorsement of those of the Yosemite National Park on the other.
Ecosystem Health: Some Preventive Medicine
Authors: Jamieson Dale
Published: June 2023

Some ecologists, philosophers, and policy analysts believe that ecosystem health can be defined in a rigorous way and employed as a management goal in environmental policy. The idea of ecosystem health may have something to recommend it as part of a rhetorical strategy, but I am dubious about its utility as a technical term in environmental policy. I develop several objections to this latest version of scientism in environmental policy, and conclude that our environmental problems fundamentally involve problems in our institutions of governance, our systems of value, and our ways of knowing. These are the problems that most need to be addressed.
Deep Ecology as an Aesthetic Movement
Authors: Lynch Tony
Published: June 2023

Many deep ecologists call for a ‘new ecological ethic’. If this ethic is meant to be a moral ethic, then deep ecology fails. However if deep ecology is interpreted as an aesthetic movement, then it is both philosophically coherent and practically adequate.
Ecology: Scientific, Deep and Feminist
Authors: Peterson Markus J. , Peterson‡ Tarla Rai
Published: June 2023

The application of hierarchy theory to ecological systems presents those who seek a radical change in human perspectives toward nature with a unique window of opportunity. Because hierarchy theory has enabled scientific ecologists to discover that the window through which one chooses to observe a system influences its reality, they may now be more amenable to including the perspectives of deep and feminist ecologists into their self-definition. A synergy between deep, feminist, and scientific ecology could improve environmental policy by encouraging more ecofeminists to encompass the marginalisation of nonhuman life-forms within the ethic of care, more deep ecologists to encompass the issues of overconsumption and militarisation within the anthropocentric-biocentric polarity, and more scientific ecologists to scrutinise the politics behind their investigations.
Facts about Natural Values
Authors: Elliot Robert
Published: June 2023

Some environmental philosophers believe that the rejection of anthropocentric ethics requires the development and defence of an objectivist meta-ethical theory according to which values are, in the most literal sense, discovered not conferred. It is argued that nothing of normative or motivational import, however, turns on the meta-ethical issue. It is also argued that a rejection of normative anthropocentrism is completely consistent with meta-ethical subjectivism. Moreover the dynamics and outcomes of rational debate about normative environmental ethics are not determined by any particular choice between meta-ethical subjectivism and objectivism. These different meta-ethical views sustain analogous moves in normative debate, although they offer rather different accounts of what underlies these moves. They also provide for analogous links between moral ‘belief’ and motivation, although again they offer rather different accounts of what underlies these links. In the course of defending these conclusions a subjectivist account of intrinsic value is developed and defended.
Global Population Growth and the Demise of Nature
Authors: Warner Stanley , Feinstein Mark , Coppinger Raymond , Clemence Elisabeth
Published: June 2023

Global human population expansion is rooted in a remarkably successful evolutionary innovation. The neolithic transformation of the natural world gave rise to a symbiosis between humans and their domesticated plant and animal partners that will expand from a current 20 per cent to 60 percent of terrestrial biomass by the middle of the coming century. Such an increase must necessarily be accompanied by a concomitant decrease in wildlife biomass.

We suggest that current trends in population growth are unlikely to abate for three reasons: first, there are intrinsic biological pressures to reproduce regardless of social engineering; second, the character of the domestic alliance makes it a formidable competitor to wildlife; and third, the timeframe before population doubling is, from a biological perspective, virtually instantaneous. This paper draws from a wide body of research in the biological and social sciences. We neither condone nor endorse this picture of inexorable population increase. Rather, we appeal for a change in the nature of the discussion of population among environmentalists, to focus on the question of how best to manage what wildlife will be left on the margins of a domesticated world.
The Consequentialistic Side of Environmental Ethics
Authors: Holbrook Daniel
Published: June 2023

There are two principles often found in environmental ethics – self-realisation and environmental preservation. I argue that these are two logically independent principles. An analysis of its essential features shows that the preservation principle should be based on actual consequentialism, for it is only the actual effects of our actions and policies that are important to the main issues of environmental preservation. Aldo Leopold's land ethic is found to be an example of a consequentialistic theory of environmental preservation.
Environmental Values, Anthropocentrism and Speciesism
Authors: O'Neill Onora
Published: June 2023

Ethical reasoning of all types is anthropocentric, in that it is addressed to agents, but anthropocentric starting points vary in the preference they accord the human species. Realist claims about environmental values, utilitarian reasoning and rights-based reasoning all have difficulties in according ethical concern to certain all aspects of natural world. Obligation-based reasoning can provide quite strong if incomplete reasons to protect the natural world, including individual non-human animals. Although it cannot establish all the conclusions to which anti-speciesists aspire, it may establish many of them with some clarity.
Discourse Ethics and Nature
Authors: Krebs Angelika
Published: June 2023

The question this paper examines is whether or not discourse ethics is an environmentally attractive moral theory. The answer reached is: no. For firstly, nature has nothing to gain from the discourse ethical shift from mono-logical moral reflection to discourse, as nature cannot partake in discourse. And secondly, nature (even sentient animal nature) has no socio-personal integrity, which, according to discourse ethics, it is the function of morality to protect. Discourse ethics is a thoroughly anthropocentric moral theory.
Biodiversity as the Source of Biological Resources: A New Look at Biodiversity Values
Authors: Wood Paul M.
Published: June 2023

The value of biodiversity is usually confused with the value of biological resources, both actual and potential. A sharp distinction between biological resources and biodiversity offers a clearer insight into the value of biodiversity itself and therefore the need to preserve it. Biodiversity can be de-fined abstractly as the differences among biological entities. Using this definition, biodiversity can be seen more appropriately as: (a) a necessary precondition for the long term maintenance of biological resources, and therefore, (b) an essential environmental condition. Three values of biodiversity are identified and arranged in a hierarchy: (1) the self-augmenting phenomenon of biodiversity maintains (2) the conditions necessary for the adaptive evolution of species and higher taxa, which in turn is necessary for providing humans with (3) a range of biological resources in the long term. Two broad policy implications emerge: increments of biodiversity should not be traded off against biological resources as if they were the same, and the conservation of biodiversity should be a constraint on the public interest, not a goal in service of the public interest.
Non-Anthropocentrism? A Killing Objection
Authors: Lynch Tony , Wells David
Published: June 2023

To take the idea of a non-anthropocentric ethic of nature seriously is to abandon morality itself. The idea of humanity is not an optional extra for moral seriousness. Non-anthropocentric environmental ethicists mistake the kind of value non-human entities may bear. It is not moral value, but aesthetic value.
Environment as Discourse: Searching for Sustainable Development in Costa Rica
Authors: Nygren Anja
Published: June 2023

This study analyses the social and political discourses related to environment and sustainable development in Costa Rica. The central interest is on those development institutions and ideologies that promote social interventions in the name of sustainable development, and on those social processes and economic relations on which the discursive formation of environment and sustainability is articulated. Four different kinds of ideologies of environmental sustainability are analysed: Environmentalism for Nature, Environmentalism for Profit, Environmentalism for the People, and Alternative Environmentalism. The study highlights the complexity of political discourses that construct the relationship between nature and society, and the multiplicity of the means by which the control over natural resources, within the internally differentiated development apparatus, is defined.
Weak Panpsychism and Environmental Ethics
Authors: Andrews John
Published: June 2023

Weak panpsychism, the view that mindlike qualities are widespread in nature, has recently been argued for by the prominent ecofeminist Val Plumwood and has been used by her to ground an ethic of respect for nature. This ethic advocates a principle of respect for difference, the rejection of moral hierarchy and the inclusion of plants, mountains, rivers and ecosystems within the moral community.

I argue that weak panpsychism cannot, convincingly, justify the rejection of moral hierarchy, as it is compatible with it. Also the intentional criterion of mind, employed by weak panpsychism, which includes teleology, has the counter-intuitive implication of giving machines moral status. I cast doubt on the claims that (i) intentionality is a necessary condition for moral status and that (ii) it is sufficient for the ascription of agency. It is suggested that any account of intentionality that allows it to be predicated of mountains, rivers etc. would be widely, and correctly regarded as a reductio of that account. Finally an aesthetic reinterpretation of weak panpsychism is offered.
Natural Resources, Gadgets and Artificial Life1
Authors: Luper Steven
Published: June 2023

I classify different sorts of natural resources and suggest how these resources may be acquired. I also argue that inventions, whether gadgets or artificial life forms, should not be privately owned. Gadgets and life-forms are not created (although the term ‘invention’ suggests otherwise); they are discovered, and hence have much in common with more familiar natural resources such as sunlight that ought not to be privately owned. Nonetheless, inventors of gadgets, like discoverers of certain more familiar resources, sometimes should be granted exclusive but temporary control over their inventions as an incentive for making unknown items widely accessible
Democracy and Environmental Decision-Making
Authors: Rippe Klaus Peter , Schaber Peter
Published: June 2023

It has been argued that environmental decision-making can be improved be introducing citizen panels. The authors argue that citizen panels and other models of citizen participation should only be used as a consulting forum in exceptional cases at the local level, not as a real decision-making procedure. But many problems in the field of environmental policy need nonlocal, at least regional or national, regulation due to the fact that they are of national importance. The authors argue that there are good reasons not to institutionalise national citizen panels. They advocate the view that more reasonable and more competent solutions can be found by introducing forms of direct democracy.
Emotion, Science and Rationality: The Case of the Brent Spar
Authors: Huxham Mark , Sumner David
Published: June 2023

In June 1995, a campaign by Greenpeace forced the multinational oil company Shell to cancel its planned disposal of a redundant oil installation in the Atlantic. The Brent Spar incident attracted massive publicity and was influential in changing government policy on marine disposal of waste. During and following their campaign, Greenpeace were criticised as emotive and irrational by Shell and academic scientists. This paper looks at the arguments used during the debate, using literature, interviews and questionnaires. We investigate the use of key environmental words and phrases and ask what is meant by rationality in this context. We discuss some of the lessons that should be learnt from the incident by policy makers and scientists.
Silencing Philosophers: Minteer and the Foundations of Anti-foundationalism
Authors: Callicott J. Baird
Published: June 2023

In ‘No Experience Necessary: Foundationalism and the Retreat from Culture in Environmental Ethics’, Ben A. Minteer forgivably misconstrues my critique of moral pluralism. Contrary to Minteer's representation: I do not accuse moral pluralists of ‘moral promiscuity'; nor do I posit a ‘master principle’ to govern all human action respecting the environment; and although I offer conceptual foundations for environmental ethics, I do not claim that they rest on certain, a priori, and non-empirical intuitions. Rather, the conceptual foundations I offer for environmental ethics are largely scientific. Contrary to Minteer's representation: I do consider a multiplicity of contexts in which ethical actions are situated; and I do respectfully attend to and creatively engage a variety of cultural points of view, both western and nonwestern, in constructing environmental ethics. Anti-foundationalists, such as Minteer and Bryan G. Norton, ironically pose an insidious threat to democratic discussion and debate of environmental values, because they themselves posit, but do not frankly acknowledge, foundational beliefs.
Frailty in primary care: challenges, innovations, and future directions
Authors: Ludlow Kristiana , Todd Oliver , Reid Natasha , Yaman Hakan
Published: June 2023

Frailty is one of the biggest challenges to healthy ageing, and yet our understanding and management of frailty is in its infancy. In this editorial we outline challenges, innovations and future directions in frailty research in primary care, and invite contributions to BMC Primary Care’s “Frailty in Primary Care” Collection.
A functional near-infrared spectroscopy study on hemodynamic changes of patients with prolonged disorders of consciousness responding to different auditory stimuli
Authors: Lu Haitao , Jiang Jin , Si Juanning , Wang Yizheng , Huang Fubiao
Published: June 2023

Treating prolonged disorders of consciousness (pDoC) is challenging. Thus, accurate assessment of residual consciousness in patients with pDoC is important for the management and recovery of patients. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) can be used to detect brain activity through changes of oxygenated hemoglobin/deoxygenated hemoglobin (HbO/HbR) concentrations changes and has recently gained increasing attention for its potential applications in assessing residual consciousness. However, the number of fNIRS studies assessing residual awareness in patients with pDoC is still limited. In this study, fNIRS was used to evaluate the brain function in 18 patients with pDoC, including 14 vegetative states (VS) and 4 minimally conscious states (MCS), and 15 healthy controls (HC). All participants accepted two types of external stimuli, i.e., active stimulation (motor imagery, MI) and passive stimulation (subject’s own name, SON). The results showed that the mean concentrations of HbO/HbR in the prefrontal cortex of the HC during the passive stimulation were significantly lower than those of the active stimulation, and the fitting slope was high. However, the hemodynamic responses of the patients with pDoC were opposite to those of the HC. Additionally, the mean concentrations of HbO/HbR increased as the level of consciousness decreased during passive stimulation. Our findings suggest that the residual level of consciousness in pDoC patients can be assessed by measuring brain responses to different stimulations using fNIRS. The present study further demonstrates the feasibility and reliability of fNIRS in assessing residual consciousness in patients with pDoC, providing a basis for its expanded clinical application.
Tumor necrosis is an underappreciated histopathologic factor in the grading of chondrosarcoma
Authors: Lazarides Alexander L. , Abar Bijan , Leckey Bruce , Martin John T. , Kliassov Evelyna G. , Brigman Brian E. , Eward William C. , Cardona Diana M. , Visgauss Julia D.
Published: June 2023

Background

Cartilaginous neoplasms can be challenging to grade; there is a need to create an evidence-based rubric for grading. The goal of this study was to identify histopathologic features of chondrosarcoma that were associated with 5-year survival and to compare these to traditional patient, tumor and treatment variables.

Methods

This was a retrospective review of all patients undergoing surgical resection of a primary chondrosarcoma with at least 2 years of follow up. All specimens were independently reviewed by two pathologists and histopathologic features scored. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed utilizing Kaplan Meier and proportional hazards methods to identify variables associated with 5-year disease specific survival (DSS) and disease free survival (DFS).

Results

We identified 51 patients with an average follow up of 49 months eligible for inclusion. 30% of tumors were low grade, 45% were intermediate grade, and 25% were high grade. In a univariate analysis considering histopathologic factors, higher tumor mitotic rate (HR 8.9, p < 0.001), tumor dedifferentiation (HR 7.3, p < 0.001), increased tumor cellularity (HR 5.8, p = 0.001), increased tumor atypia (HR 5.8, p = 0.001), LVI (HR 4.7, p = 0.04) and higher tumor necrosis (HR 3.7, p = 0.02) were all associated with worse 5-year DSS. In a multivariate analysis controlling for potentially confounding variables, higher tumor necrosis was significantly associated with disease specific survival survival (HR 3.58, p = 0.035); none of the factors were associated with DFS.

Conclusions

This study provides an evidence-based means for considering histopathologic markers and their association with prognosis in chondrosarcoma. Our findings suggest that necrosis and LVI warrant further study.
Intact revision rotator cuff repair stabilizes muscle atrophy and fatty infiltration after minimum follow up of two years
Authors: Lacheta Lucca , Siebenlist Sebastian , Scheiderer Bastian , Beitzel Knut , Woertler Klaus , Imhoff Andreas B. , Buchmann Stefan , Willinger Lukas
Published: June 2023

Background

The extent of fatty infiltration and rotator cuff (RC) atrophy is crucial for the clinical results after rotator cuff repair (RCR). The purpose of this study was to evaluate changes in fatty infiltration and RC atrophy after revision RCR and to correlate them with functional outcome parameters.

Methods

Patients who underwent arthroscopic revision RCR for symptomatic recurrent full-thickness tear of the supraspinatus tendon between 2008 and 2014 and were retrospectively reviewed with a minimum follow up of 2 years. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was performed pre- and postoperatively to assess 1) tendon integrity after revision RCR according to Sugaya classification, (2) RC atrophy according to Thomazeau classification, and (3) fatty infiltration according to Fuchs MRI classification. Constant score (CS) and the American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeon (ASES) score were used to correlate functional outcome, tendon integrity, and muscle degeneration.

Results

19 patients (17 males and 2 females) with a mean age of 57.5 years (range, 34 to 72) were included into the study at a mean follow-up of 50.3 months (range, 24 – 101). At final evaluation, 9 patients (47%) presented with intact RCR and 10 patients (53%) suffered a re-tear after revision repair. No progress of fatty infiltration was observed postoperatively in the group with intact RC, atrophy progressed in only 1 out of 9 patient (11%). Fatty infiltration progressed in 5/10 patients (50%) and RC atrophy increased in 2/10 patients (20%) within the re-tear group. CS (42.7 ± 17.7 preop, 65.2 ± 20.1 postop) and ASES (47.7 ± 17.2 preop, 75.4 ± 23.7 postop) improved significantly from pre- to postoperatively (p < 0.001). A positive correlation between fatty infiltration and RC integrity was detected (r = 0.77, p < 0.01). No correlation between clinical outcome and tendon integrity or RC atrophy was observed.

Conclusion

Arthroscopic revision RCR leads to reliable functional outcomes even in case of a recurrent RC retear. An intact RCR maintains the preoperative state of fatty infiltration and muscle atrophy but does not lead to muscle regeneration.

Level of evidence

Level IV; Therapeutic study.
Medical care costs at the end of life among older adults with cancer: a national health insurance data-based cohort study
Authors: Jo Minjeong , Lee Yunji , Kim Taehwa
Published: June 2023

Objective

Along with aging, the elderly population with cancers is increasing. The costs of end-of-life (EOL) care are particularly high among cancer patients. The purpose of this study was to investigate the trends in medical costs in the last year of life among older adults with cancer.

Design, setting, and participants

Using the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Services (HIRA) database for the period 2016–2019, we identified older adults aged ≥ 65 years who had a primary diagnosis of cancers and high-intensity treatment at least once in the intensive care unit (ICU) of tertiary hospitals.

Main outcomes and measures

High-intensity treatment was defined as receiving at least one of the following treatments: cardiopulmonary resuscitation, mechanical ventilation, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, hemodialysis, and transfusion. The EOL medical treatment costs were calculated by dividing periods 1, 2, 3, 6, and 12 months from the time of death, respectively.

Results

The mean total EOL medical expense per older adult during the year before death was $33,712. The cost of EOL medical expenses for three months and one month before subjects’ death accounted for 62.6% ($21,117) and 33.8% ($11,389) of total EOL costs, respectively. Among subjects who died while receiving high-intensity treatment in the ICU, the costs associated with medical treatments that occurred during the last month before death were 42.4% ($13,841) of the total EOL expenses during the year.

Conclusion

The findings indicate that EOL care expenditures for the older population with cancer are highly concentrated until the last month. The intensity of medical care is an important and challenging issue in terms of care quality and cost suitability. Efforts are needed to properly use medical resources and provide optimal EOL care for older adults with cancer.
Availability and accessibility of HIV self-tests and self-sample kits at community pharmacies in the Netherlands
Authors: Kandil Chaima , Hugtenburg Jacqueline , Heijman Titia , Bos Hanna , Teichert Martina , Finkenflügel Renee , de Coul Eline Op
Published: June 2023

Background

In 2016 the WHO declared HIV self-testing and self-sampling an effective and safe test option that can reduce testing barriers. HIV self-tests and self-sampling kits (HIVST/HIVSS) are available for purchase at Dutch community pharmacies since 2019. We investigated the availability and accessibility of HIVST/HIVSS in community pharmacies, and factors associated with test availability.

Methods

An online survey among all Dutch community pharmacies (n = 1,987) was conducted between April and June 2021. Availability of HIVST/HIVSS and experiences of pharmacists with the test offer were analyzed with descriptive statistics. The association of pharmacy and pharmacists’ characteristics with HIVST/HIVSS availability was explored by logistic regression analysis.

Results

In total, 465 pharmacists completed the questionnaire. Of the responding pharmacists, 6.2% (n = 29) offered HIVST/HIVSS. The majority (82.8%) sold between 0 and 20 tests per year. In total, pharmacies sold an estimated 370 HIVST/HIVSS per year. Pharmacies having HIVST/HIVSS available were less often located in moderately-urbanized to rural neighborhoods (OR 0.35, 95%CI 0.16–0.77 versus highly-urbanized), and were less often located in moderate-to-low SES neighborhoods (OR 0.40, 95%CI 0.18–0.88 versus high-SES). Reasons for not offering HIVST/HIVSS by pharmacists were no or little demand (69.3%), and not being familiar with these tests (17.4%). 52% of the pharmacists provided information about testing to test buyers. Reported options to improve the test offer were giving advice about (performing) the test to test buyers (72.4%), placing tests visible on the counter (51.7%), and advertisement (37.9%).

Conclusion

HIVST/HIVSS have a limited practical availability in Dutch community pharmacies since their introduction in 2019, especially in lower-urbanized and lower-SES areas. Further research is needed to explore how to expand access to HIVST/HIVSS through community pharmacies in the Netherlands, and how to tailor it to the needs of pharmacy clients.