bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Compositionality
Authors: Dever Josh
Published: September 2009

The question of whether natural languages have compositional semantics continues to attract considerable interest, as do questions about the reasons for wanting compositionality, the consequences of compositionality, and the very formulation of the principle of compositionality. This article begins by developing a precise definition of compositionality. In this article some technical consequences of that definition are explored. The article then examines two compositionally problematic semantic phenomena, and proposes compositional treatments thereof. The last section closes by asking why one might want a compositional meaning theory, and attempting to explain the philosophical significance of compositionality.
Opacity
Authors: Richard Mark
Published: September 2009

There seems to be a lot of opacity in our language. Quotation is opaque. The modal idioms are apparently opaque. Propositional attitude ascriptions seem opaque, as do the environments created by verbs such as ‘seeks’ and ‘fears’. Opacity raises a number of issues — first and foremost, whether there is such a thing. This article concentrates on the question of whether there is any opacity to be found in natural language, examining various reasons one might have for denying that apparent opacity is genuine.
Metaphor
Authors: Reimer Marga , Camp Elisabeth
Published: September 2009

Metaphor has traditionally been construed as a linguistic phenomenon: as something produced and understood by speakers of natural language. So understood, metaphors are naturally viewed as linguistic expressions of a particular type, or as linguistic expressions used in a particular type of way. This linguistic conception of metaphor is adopted in this article. In doing so, the article does not intend to rule out the possibility of non-linguistic forms of metaphor. Many theorists think that non-linguistic objects (such as paintings or dance performances) or conceptual structures (like love as a journey or argument as war) should also be treated as metaphors. Indeed, the idea that metaphors are in the first instance conceptual phenomena, and linguistic devices only derivatively, is the dominant view in what is now the dominant area of metaphor research: cognitive science. In construing metaphor as linguistic, the article merely intends to impose appropriate constraints on a discussion whose focus is the understanding and analysis of metaphor within contemporary philosophy of language.
Semantics for Nondeclaratives
Authors: Boisvert Daniel , Ludwig Kirk
Published: September 2009

This article begins by distinguishing force and mood. Then it lays out desiderata on a successful account. It sketches as background the program of truth-theoretic semantics. Next, it surveys assimilation approaches and argues that they are inadequate. Then it shows how the fulfillment-conditional approach can be applied to imperatives, interrogatives, molecular sentences containing them, and quantification into mood markers. Next, it considers briefly the recent set of propositions approach to the semantics of interrogatives and exclamatives. Finally, it shows how to integrate exclamatives and optatives into a framework similar to the fulfillment approach.
Meaning and Reference: Some Chomskian Themes
Authors: Stainton Robert J.
Published: September 2009

This article introduces three arguments that share a single conclusion: that a comprehensive science of language cannot (and should not try to) describe relations of semantic reference, i.e. word–world relations. Spelling this out, if there is to be a genuine science of linguistic meaning (yielding theoretical insight into underlying realities, aiming for integration with other natural sciences), then a theory of meaning cannot involve assigning external, real-world, objects to names, nor sets of external objects to predicates, nor truth values (or world-bound thoughts) to sentences. Most of the article tries to explain and defend this broad conclusion. The article also presents, in a very limited way, a positive alternative to external-referent semantics for expressions. This alternative has two parts: first, that the meanings of words and sentences are mental instructions, not external things; second, that it is people who refer (and who express thoughts) by using words and sentences, and word/sentence meanings play but a partial role in allowing speakers to talk about the world.
Triangulation
Authors: Glüer Kathrin
Published: September 2009

As an analogy, triangulation was introduced into the philosophy of mind and language in Donald Davidson's 1982 paper ‘Rational animals’. The analogy is used to support the claim that linguistic communication not only suffices to show that a creature is a rational animal in the sense of having propositional thoughts, but that it is necessary as well: ‘rationality is a social trait. Only communicators have it’. The triangulation argument employs the premise that in order to have any propositional thought whatsoever, a creature needs to have the concept of objective truth. To have this concept, however, it must stand in certain relations of interaction not only with objects or events in the world but also with other creatures sufficiently like itself. The most simple such situation involves a ‘triangle’ of two creatures interacting with each other and an object or event in the world.
Shared Content
Authors: Cappelen Herman , Lepore Ernie
Published: September 2009

A general and fundamental tension surrounds our concept of what is said. On the one hand, what is said (asserted, claimed, stated, etc.) by utterances of a significant range of sentences is highly context sensitive. More specifically, (Observation 1), what these sentences can be used to say depends on their contexts of utterance. On the other hand, speakers face no difficulty whatsoever in using many of these sentences to say (or make) the exact same claim, assertion, etc., across a wide array of contexts. More specifically, (Observation 2), many of the sentences in support of (Observation 1) can be used to express the same thought, the same proposition, across a wide range of different contexts.
Trusteeship Council
Authors: Wilde Ralph
Published: September 2009

This article examines the Trusteeship Council, a principal organ whose work was essential to the settlement arising from World War II. It involved establishing procedures for the independence of the defeated powers' colonies. This article details the pioneering efforts of the UN at facilitating the decolonization of trust territories. This is part of the world organization's contribution to the processes of self-determination for peoples in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Middle East. It also reveals that the work of the Trusteeship Council was linked to what may have been the most important political change of the twentieth century.
Secretariat
Authors: Jonah James O. C.
Published: September 2009

The author uses his experience as a senior international civil servant to conduct an analysis of staff members who are recruited to constitute what is referred to as the ‘second UN’. This article discusses the critical importance of independent and competent staff, as well as the efforts that were championed by Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld. It points out that politicians often blame government bureaucracies for failures and inadequacies. Diplomats are shown to have a convenient scapegoat and can point a finger at the UN bureaucracy instead of a lack of political will. This article also presents the author's view of the restoration and reinvigoration of the international civil service as the sine qua non of a strengthened United Nations in the new millennium.
Civil Society
Authors: Wapner Paul
Published: September 2009

This article shows how the approaches of the UN to non-government organizations (NGOs) and civil society have evolved. It points out there have always been tensions between the world organization's state-centered character and its aspiration to represent all the citizens of the world. The main concern of this article is the enhanced legitimacy and accountability that come from involving civil society in intergovernmental deliberations and programs.
Disarmament
Authors: Krause Keith
Published: September 2009

This article evaluates the achievements and limitations of the world organization in the field of disarmament. It stresses the role of the UN as part of the efforts to control arms as a way to achieve international peace and security. It also notes specific cases where progress was achieved or not, as well as the more recent efforts to handle the problems of anti-personnel land mines and small arms and light weapons. The article also tries to draw out some of the broader implications for international relations of the UN experience with formal multilateral arms control, among others.
Peacekeeping Operations
Authors: Doyle Michael W. , Sambanis Nicholas
Published: September 2009

This article attempts to analyze the effectiveness of contemporary UN peacekeeping as part of a comprehensive strategy to achieve sustainable peace. It shows that ‘success’ and ‘failure’ are from a subjective judgment from the evaluator. It examines peacekeeping and its interactions with peacemaking, peace enforcement, and post-conflict reconstruction. Furthermore, participation is viewed as the key variable in success, rather than a mere cessation of violence.
Sanctions
Authors: Cortright David , Lopez George A. , Gerber‐Stellingwerf Linda
Published: September 2009

This article looks at sanctions and the UN sanctions policy, the latter having matured significantly since 1990. The article provides an overview of all UN sanctions and discusses the UN sanctions against Iraq. The humanitarian impact of sanctions and the controversies surrounding it are discussed. The article also discusses sanctions assistance missions and the additional mechanisms for making sanctions more effective against law-violating regimes.
International Criminal Court and Ad Hoc Tribunals
Authors: Goldstone Richard
Published: September 2009

This article discusses contemporary international efforts to consolidate and codify significant portions of existing customary international law. It studies the ad hoc tribunals of the UN and pinpoints the successes and failures of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. The ‘completion strategy’ of both international criminal tribunals is discussed. The article also covers the creation of ‘mixed’ courts and a single model for international criminal justice, namely the International Criminal Court.
Humanitarian Action and Coordination
Authors: Crisp Jeff
Published: September 2009

This article presents an analysis of the history of UN humanitarian action in both natural and human-made disasters. It discusses a network of institutions that struggle to respond to ‘complex humanitarian emergencies’. It identifies the tensions over jurisdiction and turf, and then examines UN institutions and their NGP partners that go to the scene of modern humanitarian emergencies.
Health and Infectious Disease
Authors: Burci Gian Luca
Published: September 2009

This article reviews the main international and institutional legal aspects of cooperation in the fight against the plague of infectious diseases. It makes a particular reference to the role of the World Health Organization (WHO) and other agencies of the UN system. This article underscores the intrinsically international dimension of the realization of the essential importance of international cooperation.
Natural Resource Management and Sustainable Development
Authors: Schrijver Nico
Published: September 2009

This article discusses the effective management of the world's natural resources. It reveals that throughout its existence, the UN has had a huge impact on natural resource management, both operationally and conceptually. The article also shows that the initial clash between development and conservation has been reframed as ‘sustainable development’, which is a useful analytical framework to bridge the North-South divide.
Organized Crime
Authors: Madsen Frank G.
Published: September 2009

This article discusses a virtually unknown but growing role of the UN, which is its contribution to combating transnational organized crime. This includes illicit drug and human trafficking. UN efforts in this area are based on the Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The article stresses that reinterpretations of older conventions are important in modern times, where national authorities may be at a disadvantage in fighting illicit activity. The article determines that destroying terrorism and money laundering is similar to stopping the trafficking of illicit drugs and humans, since these should be intrinsic and not additional UN activities.
Democracy and Good Governance
Authors: Knight W. Andy
Published: September 2009

This article studies the overriding priority in approaches to development assistance and investment. It examines the role of the UN in promoting and encouraging democracy and good governance, and argues that the UN is in a position to strengthen and promote a new global norm that speculates upon democracy validates governance in the contemporary world.
Principal Organs
Authors: Luck Edward C.
Published: September 2009

This article discusses the proposals on the negotiating tables at the World Summit that deals with four of the principal organs: the General Assembly, ECOSOC, the Security Council, and the suspended Trusteeship Council. These proposals are situated in a proper historical context. It is also stressed that reform is a process and not an event, and that the United Nations adapts to changing circumstances faster than it adopts structural reform.
Financing
Authors: Laurenti Jeffrey
Published: September 2009

This article examines UN financing and its ability to act. It begins by looking at a charter framework and the changes or adjustments made to several economic data. It then discusses the UN peacekeeping activities and assessments for several countries, followed by the first financial crisis of the UN in the early 1960s. The article also covers budget approval, voluntary contributions, and alternative financing.
Widening Participation
Authors: Alger Chadwick F.
Published: September 2009

This article discusses the changing face of multilateralism. It emphasizes the need for pluralizing the voices heard in UN deliberations and taking the Charter Preamble's call more seriously. It shows that multilateralism has gone through a process of continual change throughout the history of the United Nations, and stresses the possibility that this dynamic process will continue well into the future. The article also reiterates the importance of getting involved in civil society organizations, local groups, and business groups, which would help change unconscious participants to conscious participants in international society.
Methods in Bioethics
Authors: Childress James F.
Published: September 2009

This article confines itself largely within boundaries of normative bioethics. It examines major types of principle-based methods (consequentialist, deontological, and pluralistic principlist methods), case-based methods, virtue ethics, ethics of care, and communitarian perspectives, along with some critical points from feminist perspectives and from rule-based theories. One cautionary note is in order: most of these types of method, theory, or perspective encompass a number of approaches that involve some degree of family resemblance. Since it will be impossible to examine all of these approaches in detail, the article highlights some major themes and criticisms, discusses a few representative positions in more detail, and sketches a few of their implications for practical decision-making about physician-assisted suicide and active euthanasia, topics addressed by proponents of all these methods, theories, and perspectives.
Mental Disorder, Moral Agency, and the Self
Authors: Kennett Jeanette
Published: September 2009

A person suffering a mental illness or disorder may differ dramatically from his or her previous well self. Family and close friends who knew the person before the onset of illness tend to regard the illness as obscuring their loved one's true self and see the goal of treatment as the restoration of that self. ‘He is not really like this,’ they will say with increasing desperation. Treatment teams and others, who have no acquaintance with the person when well, respond to what they see in front of them and do sometimes make harmful judgments of character based on the person's presentation when ill.
Policy‐Making in Pluralistic Societies
Authors: Holm Søren
Published: September 2009

Bioethics is not only concerned with analyzing the actions of individual moral agents; it also analyses policy decisions and thereby has an interface with political philosophy. Bioethicists often give unsolicited policy advice, but many also have more official roles on various kinds of ethics committees advising political decision-makers. This article aims to discuss the issues that arise when a state or other lower public authority has to make policy decisions in areas where there is at the same time moral and scientific uncertainty.
Justice and the Elderly
Authors: Mckerlie Dennis
Published: September 2009

Ethical concerns about the elderly are usually treated as a matter of justice. This is partly explained by the special status of the elderly in almost all economically developed societies. Public pension systems provide them with financial support, and publicly funded health care programs help to meet their health care needs. Those who are now old will have contributed to these institutions when they were younger, but it remains true that the elderly receive a degree of support from public institutions that the members of other age-groups typically do not receive. This institutional background naturally raises questions about distributive justice. Are the elderly receiving less, or more, than their fair share of health resources and economic wealth?
For Dignity or Money: Feminists on the Commodification of Women's Reproductive Labour
Authors: McLeod Carolyn
Published: September 2009

This article aims to lay out the ‘for money’ and ‘for dignity’ arguments that feminist ethicists have given about the reproductive labour women perform in providing oocytes or in getting pregnant for others. Feminist arguments about the morality of these two practices overlap significantly because, from a feminist perspective, the morally relevant facts about them are quite similar. Still, there are dissimilarities, stemming from the obvious fact that one practice involves giving up oocytes while the other involves giving up a baby after a pregnancy. Some arguments by feminists reflect this core difference, in that they apply specifically to one practice but not to the other. The article highlights when the relevance of a particular argument differs for these different reproductive practices.
The Definition of Death
Authors: Youngner Stuart J.
Published: September 2009

Two factors, medical science's growing control over the timing of death and the increasingly desperate need for organs, have led to a reopening of the debate about the definition of death and have forced a consideration of aspects of the determination of death that had never been addressed before. Without the pressing need for organs, the definition of death would have remained on the back shelf, the conversation of a few interested philosophers or theologians. This article examines some new questions raised by medical technology and the frantic search for new, morally acceptable sources of human organs over the past thirty years. This examination concludes that death itself is a social construct and that, in a pluralistic society such as ours, a conclusive definition of death or determination of the moment of death is out of the reach of both medical science and philosophy.
The Aging Society and the Expansion of Senility: Biotechnological and Treatment Goals
Authors: Post Stephen G.
Published: September 2009

Of the many topics worthy of discussion regarding older adults and bioethics, two seem to provide an especially pointed opportunity for reflection on our aging society. First, is aging itself something that biomedical researchers should focus on as a deficit to be overcome through eventual anti-aging treatments? While aging may not fall neatly into the disease category, it is clearly the primary susceptibility factor for the innumerable diseases of older adults, and therefore its potential deceleration consistent with the compression of morbidity might constitute a salutary biomedical goal. The aging society is no panacea to those who suffer from a host of chronic illnesses and feel overwhelmed by the burden of years. Second, we must concentrate on the most challenging problematic of our current aging society, assuming that anti-aging technologies will only become available in future decades. One immense problem is the harsh reality of irreversible progressive dementia, which will serve here as an example of the rise of chronic illness, for which age itself is the primary risk factor.
Population Genetic Research and Screening: Conceptual and Ethical Issues
Authors: Juengst Eric T.
Published: September 2009

Like all community-based public health campaigns, proposals to use genetic information to improve the health and welfare of communities, whether the old eugenic sterilization campaigns or the routinized population screening programs of today's ‘public health genetics’, can involve asking affected individuals to make special sacrifices or assume special responsibilities on behalf of the community's welfare. Moreover, unlike public health interventions that restrict individual liberties in order to prevent health problems which all community members risk more or less equally, genetic prevention strategies always require sacrifices on the part of the community who face the genetic risks in question on behalf of those who do not. The irony of ‘community genetics’ is that most human communities are much too heterogeneous to face universal gene pool disasters.
Enhancement
Authors: Murray Thomas H.
Published: September 2009

Understanding the ethics of enhancement begins with getting clear about the concept, as well as the factors likely to move people to pursue biomedical enhancement. This article first considers the usefulness of the distinction between therapy and enhancement for understanding the ethics of enhancement. Once the conceptual underbrush has been cleared away, we can move on to ethics. The next section examines critically a number of arguments that have been offered to defend biomedical enhancement, or, at least, to claim that efforts to deter it are either ethically or practically mistaken. Finally, the article considers a set of arguments that take the ethics of enhancement to be a serious matter and that gives reasons to question whether some biomedical enhancements, for some purposes, may be ethically suspect.
Pharmacogenomics: Ethical and Regulatory Issues
Authors: Decamp Matthew , Buchanan Allen
Published: September 2009

While acknowledging the potential benefits of pharmacogenomics as a methodology, a number of comprehensive reports in the past several years examine a multitude of ethical, legal, and social factors that may limit the extent to which these benefits are realized — and realized in ethically acceptable ways. This article aims to identify and explore the most basic ethical and regulatory issues that are likely to arise if pharmacogenomics becomes widely enough used to have a significant impact on research and clinical practice. First, however, it addresses the question of whether pharmacogenomic tests are unique when compared to other genetic tests and thus deserving of more or less stringent ethical and regulatory requirements.
Research in Developing Countries
Authors: Luna Florencia
Published: September 2009

This article examines the problems that research ethics confronts in developing countries and the impact that research in developing countries has had on research ethics. In order to show this it analyzes the first paradigmatic cases that gave rise to the ‘classic’ analysis of research ethics. Hence, in this article, many of the ethical concerns apply wherever research is conducted and are not particular to developing countries. Secondly, the article describes the complex process of research by analyzing different research actors and their interests in the current research process. Thirdly, it sketches some of the recent cases that have prompted fierce ethical debate surrounding research in developing countries.
Animal Experimentation
Authors: Norcross Alastair
Published: September 2009

This article takes the central issue concerning the ethics of animal experimentation to be the moral status of animals. Since most animal experimentation involves treating experimental subjects in ways that would clearly not be morally acceptable if the subjects were human, and since no animal experimentation involves the informed consent of the experimental subject(s), any attempt to justify such experimentation must include a defense of the claim that the moral status of animals differs significantly from that of humans. The influence of animal welfare advocates, in particular Peter Singer, Tom Regan, and their followers, but certainly dating back to Bentham and Mill, seems to have resulted in at least the grudging acceptance by the research community that animals have some moral status. That is, that the interests of animals should be taken into account when designing and justifying experiments involving them.
The Implications of Public Health for Bioethics
Authors: Kahn Jeffrey P. , Mastroianni Anna C.
Published: September 2009

At its core, public health introduces tensions between individuals' autonomy and the need to account for the perspectives and needs of communities and populations. It further raises social justice issues, including fair allocation of limited resources. This article examines and elaborates on these tensions and their resolutions using specific public health examples. Experiences in the 1980s and 1990s with HIV/AIDS provide a particularly rich collection of issues that brought ethical issues in public health to the public's attention, and in so doing challenged previously held assumptions about the appropriate consideration of individual rights in the context of population health objectives. Lastly, the article examines some of the ethical challenges arising in public health applications of recent science and technology advances, specifically the emerging area of public health genomics and the large scale collection and analysis of health information.
Global Health
Authors: Macklin Ruth
Published: September 2009

This article focuses on the access of people in developing countries to medications and medical services that are readily available to inhabitants of industrialized countries. There are, of course, other critical dimensions of public health that require action on a global scale. These include relief for large numbers of people who are starving or living at nearly subsistence levels; provision of a supply of clean, potable water for populations deprived of that essential resource; and the consequences for local agricultural production in countries in which globalization has led to deforestation of vast portions of the land. The focus here on access to health services and needed medications is not intended to minimize the importance of these other areas of global health.
Bioethics and Bioterrorism
Authors: Moreno Jonathan D.
Published: September 2009

The term ‘bioterrorism’ seems to have become a kind of shorthand for sowing terror through the use of other ‘unconventional’ weapons, especially chemical, nuclear, and radiological weapons, or ‘dirty bombs’. The ethical problems associated with these other threats are closely associated with those raised by biological agents. Therefore, this article necessarily refers to these related potential terrorist technologies, all of them made more available to militant organizations through the spread of knowledge and material in the post-cold war era.
Multicausality, Context‐Conditionality, and Endogeneity
Authors: Franzese Robert J.
Published: September 2009

This article talks about multicausality, context-conditionality, and endogeneity. It studies the problem of having too few observations or information before discussing in detail these three fundamental challenges for empirical analysis. This article stresses that context matters, which helps clarify the logical requirements of empirical evaluation from comparative history and some of the specific approaches to fulfilling those requirements used by quantitative methods.
Compliance, Consent, and Legitimacy
Authors: Hardin Russell
Published: September 2009

This article discusses compliance, consent, and legitimacy, which can all be used as strictly descriptive and positive terms. The last two, however, tend to be given a normative slant. Most of the discussion is on legitimacy. The first section provides the conceptual background of these three terms, particularly legitimacy. The next three sections discuss in detail consequentialist legitimacy, contractarian legitimacy, and theocratic legitimacy. Max Weber's definition of authority is studied in the last section.
Dictatorship: Analytical Approaches
Authors: Wintrobe Ronald
Published: September 2009

This article provides a survey of the work on authoritarianism, which takes an ‘economic’ or rational choice approach. The survey focuses mainly on two issues: the behaviour of dictators and the comparison of their economic performance and redistributive tendencies with democracies. It outlines the author's model about the behaviour of dictators, and then moves on to more recent contributions, such as the important developments within the North framework. The article also examines the Olson model and then studies recent work on economic performance and on redistribution. Theory and evidence are the main focus of the discussion.
Rethinking Revolutions: a Neo‐Tocquevillian Perspective
Authors: Pincus Steven
Published: September 2009

This article presents a neo-Tocquevillian perspective of revolutions. It begins by defining revolution and views modernization as a characteristic of revolution. Demography and state modernization are discussed in the following two sections. It then determines when state modernization gives rise to revolution and some of its open and closed outcomes. This article shows that revolutions occur only when the old regime commits itself to state modernization.
Party Systems
Authors: Kitschelt Herbert
Published: September 2009

This article conceptualizes party systems as being separate from parties. It identifies the systemic properties of party systems for the comparative-static analysis of competition. It also investigates the historical-evolutionary competitive dynamic of party systems, where a historical-comparative analysis comes into its own beyond the study of formal properties of party systems and competition. This article avoids discussing party systems as independent variables that may account for outputs and outcomes of democratic politics.
Political Clientelism
Authors: Stokes Susan C.
Published: September 2009

This article studies political clientelism. In the first section, the term clientelism can be defined as giving material goods in return for electoral support, where the criterion of distribution that the patron uses is simply: did you/will you support me? This section includes definitions of vote buying and patronage. The two waves of studies of clientelism and the link between clientelism and commitment are discussed in the subsequent sections. In the latter half of the article, the discussion tries to determine if clients are swing voters or core supporters, and looks at the causes and consequences of clientelism.
Context‐Conditional Political Budget Cycles
Authors: Alt James E. , Rose Shanna S.
Published: September 2009

This article studies the contextual determinants of incumbents' ability and incentives to engineer political business cycles in American states. It presents a short review of related literature to clarify how and why the theory of political budget cycles evolved. It describes the data and methodology — single estimation method of dynamic panel analysis — used in the study. The results of the study are discussed in the latter part of the article.
Economic Transformation and Comparative Politics
Authors: Frye Timothy
Published: September 2009

This article discusses how research on the transformation of command economies has contributed to the broader literature in comparative politics. It depicts the great variation in economic reform across countries over the last fifteen years, and examines how the European Union (EU), quality of governance, regime type, and interest groups influenced economic reform. The article attempts to identify ways in which stronger causal links between middle-range factors and economic reform can be linked. Arguments criticizing middle-range theories due to lack of causal depth are reviewed as well. The article ends by presenting an attempt to combine temporally proximate and distant factors into an explanation for reform outcomes in the region. The argument is focused on the impact of executive partisanship, democratic institutions, and the relation of the Communist Party to national sovereignty before 1989.
Stochastic expansions and Hopf algebras
Authors: Malham Simon J. A. , Wiese Anke
Published: September 2009

We study solutions to nonlinear stochastic differential systems driven by a multi-dimensional Wiener process. A useful algorithm for strongly simulating such stochastic systems is the Castell–Gaines method, which is based on the exponential Lie series. When the diffusion vector fields commute, it has been proved that, at low orders, this method is more accurate in the mean-square error than corresponding stochastic Taylor methods. However, it has also been shown that when the diffusion vector fields do not commute, this is not true for strong order one methods. Here, we prove that when there isnodrift, and the diffusion vector fields do not commute, the exponential Lie series is usurped by the sinh-log series. In other words, the mean-square error associated with a numerical method based on the sinh-log series is always smaller than the corresponding stochastic Taylor error, in fact toallorders. Our proof uses the underlying Hopf algebra structure of these series, and a two-alphabet associative algebra of shuffle and concatenation operations. We illustrate the benefits of the proposed series in numerical studies.
Wheat Cellular Membrane Thermotolerance Under Heat Stress
Authors: Dias A. S. , Barreiro M. G. , Campos P. S. , Ramalho J. C. , Lidon F. C.
Published: September 2009

Four genotypes ofTriticum aestivumL. andTriticum turgidumsubsp. durumchosen according to their genetic background diversity were subjected to heat stress after anthesis. Membrane permeability, lipid peroxidation and fatty acids (C14:0, C16:0, C16:1c, C16:1t, C18:0, C18:1, C18:2 and C18:3) were quantified. The estimation of the quantum yield of non‐cyclic photosynthetic electron transport was used as well as a test system to further evaluate the implications on thylakoid functioning. It was found differences within bread and durum wheat species concerning the capability to cope with high temperatures at the stage of grain filling. The genotype Sever showed high thermal sensitivity concerning membrane lipid peroxidation and membrane permeability, as evaluated by the increased production of ethylene and MDA, as well as by the impact on TFA (at the middle term of grain filling). In the durum wheat genotypes, differences were also found, with TE 9306 displaying high membrane stability, with no increases on membrane permeability, MDA and ethylene content. In this way, the observed changes on TFA in this genotype might have constituted a mechanism to allow qualitative lipid changes, reflected in lower unsaturation level of membrane FAs which is a positive trait under high temperatures.
Photosynthetic Activity and Soluble Carbohydrate Content Induced by the Cold Acclimation Affect Frost Tolerance and Resistance to Microdochium nivale of Androgenic Festulolium Genotypes
Authors: Pociecha E. , Płażek A. , Rapacz M. , Niemczyk E. , Zwierzykowski Z.
Published: September 2009

The aim of the experiment was to verify whether changes in photosynthetic activity measured by means of chlorophyll fluorescence techniques and soluble carbohydrate level induced during pre‐hardening and cold acclimation in androgenic forms of Festulolium are related to their winter hardiness and pathogen resistance. The study was performed on six androgenic genotypes of Festulolium, which differ in their degrees of winter hardiness. The chlorophyll fluorescence parameters and sugar content were measured in the control plants, pre‐hardened at 12 °C and cold‐acclimated at 2 °C. Cold acclimation at 2 °C, preceded by pre‐hardening at 12 °C, induced a decline in maximum PSII quantum efficiency (Fv/Fm) and in non‐photochemical quenching (NPQ). Exposure to 2 °C also resulted in reduced efficiency of energy conversion in photochemical processes (qp). The soluble carbohydrate amount increased in the susceptible genotypes and was associated with a decline in NPQ and current quantum yield of PSII (φPSII). In resistant plants, a decrease in the sugar content was observed, which could be explained by their consumption in metabolic processes initiated during cold acclimation. The changes in sugar content were associated with a decline in NPQ and qp.
Nerve injury‐related erectile dysfunction following nerve‐sparing radical prostatectomy: A novel experimental dissection model
Authors: Yamashita Shinichi , Kato Ryuichi , Kobayashi Ko , Hisasue Shin‐ichi , Arai Yoichi , Tsukamoto Taiji
Published: September 2009

Objectives:  To establish a new experimental rat model in order to define the mechanisms of erectile dysfunction (ED) and to evaluate the changes of neuronal nitric oxide synthase (nNOS) in the pelvic ganglia following nerve‐sparing radical prostatectomy.

Methods:  Sprague‐Dawley rats were randomized to sham operation, bilateral cavernous nerve dissection (BCND) and bilateral cavernous nerve resection (BCNR) groups. In the BCND group, the cavernous nerves were only dissected bilaterally from the major pelvic ganglion (MPG) to the apex of the prostate without crushing or cutting. At 1, 2, 4 and 8 weeks after surgery, we examined intracavernous pressure along with arterial pressure (ICP/AP), retrograde dye tracing using Fluorogold (FG) and expression of nNOS in the MPG.

Results:  Intracavernous pressure and arterial pressure in the BCND group was significantly decreased at 2 and 4 weeks after surgery compared with the sham group, and improved at 8 weeks. The number of FG‐positive cells in the MPG also recovered at 8 weeks. ICP/AP and FG‐positive cells in the BCNR group were greatly decreased until 8 weeks. The percentage of nNOS‐positive cells per total cells was not different between the sham and BCND groups during the experimental period, whereas that in the BCNR group gradually decreased with time.

Conclusions:  We established a novel rat model, in which cavernous nerve dissection alone caused nerve injury‐related ED. We believe that this cavernous nerve dissection model might help clarify the mechanism of nerve injury‐related ED and the recovery from ED after nerve‐sparing radical prostatectomy.
Glycaemic variability and complications in patients with diabetes mellitus: evidence from a systematic review of the literature
Authors: Nalysnyk L. , Hernandez‐Medina M. , Krishnarajah G.
Published: September 2009

Aim: The objective of this review was to assess the published evidence for an association between glycaemic variability and the development of chronic micro‐ and macrovascular complications in patients with diabetes mellitus (DM).

Methods: A systematic review of English‐language literature published from January 1990 through November 2008 was performed. Interventional and observational studies in patients with type 1 or type 2 DM reporting a measure of glycaemic variability and its impact on the development or progression of micro‐ and macrovascular diabetic complications were assessed.

Results: A total of 18 studies −8 on type 1 DM and 10 on type 2 DM patients–meeting the inclusion criteria were identified. Studies in patients with type 1 DM revealed that glucose variability has little impact on the development of diabetic complications. Only in two of the eight type 1 DM studies did glucose variability have a significant association with microvascular complications, but not with macrovascular complications. Among type 2 DM studies, a significant positive association between glucose variability and the development or progression of diabetic retinopathy, cardiovascular events and mortality was reported in 9 of 10 studies. Only one type 2 DM study reported no association between glucose variability and progression of retinopathy.

Conclusions: Based on this overview of the available evidence, there appears to be a signal suggesting that glucose variability, characterized by extreme glucose excursions, could be a predictor of diabetic complications, independent of HbA1c levels, in patients with type 2 DM. Better daily control of blood glucose excursions, especially in the postprandial period, may reduce the risk of these complications. Future prospective trials evaluating and comparing the effect of the control of glycaemic variability on the development of diabetic micro‐ and macrovascular complications are needed to further strengthen the evidence base.
Unravelling the effects of temperature, latitude and local environment on the reproduction of forest herbs
Authors: De Frenne P. , Kolb A. , Verheyen K. , Brunet J. , Chabrerie O. , Decocq G. , Diekmann M. , Eriksson O. , Heinken T. , Hermy M. , Jõgar Ü. , Stanton S. , Quataert P. , Zindel R. , Zobel M. , Graae B. J.
Published: September 2009

Aim  To investigate the effect of temperature, latitude and local environment on the reproductive traits of widespread perennial forest herbs to better understand the potential impacts of rising temperatures on their population dynamics and colonization capacities.

Location  Six regions along a latitudinal gradient from France to Sweden.

Methods  Within each region, we collected data from three to five populations of up to six species. For each species, several variables were recorded in each region (temperature, latitude) and population (local abiotic and biotic environmental variables), and seed production and germination were estimated. Resource investment in reproduction (RIR) was quantified as seed number × seed mass, while germinable seed output (GSO) was expressed as seed number × germination percentage. We performed linear regression and mixed effect models to investigate the effects of temperature (growing degree hours), latitude and local abiotic and biotic environment on RIR and GSO.

Results  Temperature and latitude explained most of the variation in RIR and GSO for early flowering species with a northerly distribution range edge (Anemone nemorosa, Paris quadrifolia and Oxalis acetosella). Reproduction of the more southerly distributed species (Brachypodium sylvaticum, Circaea lutetiana and Primula elatior), in contrast, was independent of temperature/latitude. In the late summer species, B. sylvaticum and C. lutetiana, variation in RIR and GSO was best explained by local environmental variables, while none of the investigated variables appeared to be related to reproduction in P. elatior.

Main conclusions  We showed that reproduction of only two early flowering, northerly distributed species was related to temperature. This suggests that the potential reproductive response of forest herbs to climate warming partly depends on their phenology and distribution, but also that the response is to some extent species dependent. These findings should be taken into account when predictions about future shifts in distribution range are made.
Governing Knowledge Sharing in Organizations: Levels of Analysis, Governance Mechanisms, and Research Directions
Authors: Foss Nicolai J. , Husted Kenneth , Michailova Snejina
Published: September 2009

abstract

We discuss and examine recent claims that research on knowledge processes has paid insufficient attention to micro (individual) level constructs and mechanisms and to the role of formal organization in governing knowledge processes. We review knowledge sharing research published in 13 (top academic plus top practitioner‐oriented) journals in the period 1996–2006 in relation to these two propositions. The review confirms the claim that the knowledge sharing literature is preoccupied with constructs, processes, and phenomena defined at a macro (collective, organizational) level and pay comparatively little attention to micro level constructs. The review provides less support for the proposition that formal governance mechanisms have been under‐researched in comparison to formal organization. Still, the multiple ways in which formal governance mechanisms may interact in influencing knowledge sharing outcomes have been under‐researched, as has the interaction between more informal aspects of the firm and formal governance mechanisms. We argue that future research on knowledge sharing needs to fill these gaps.
Palaeotrophic reconstruction and climatic forcing of mega‐Lake Eyre in late Quaternary Central Australia: a review
Authors: WEBB STEVE
Published: September 2009

Webb, S. 2009: Palaeotrophic reconstruction and climatic forcing of mega‐Lake Eyre in late Quaternary Central Australia: a review. Boreas, 10.1111/j.1502‐3885.2009.00120.x. ISSN 0300‐9483.

Extreme Quaternary climatic variation in Australia brought radical environmental changes to various parts of the continent. In this article, I discuss these changes in terms of mega‐lake development in Central Australia, and in particular the southern Lake Eyre Basin (SLEB). The formation of these features, together with the fossil record of the region, throws light on the palaeoclimatic and palaeobiological relationships of megafauna and other animal groups, and the trophic development required to support them. Australian continental drying during the late Quaternary has been noted by many workers, but this process was punctuated by strong pluvial episodes of decreasing strength from MIS 5e. Mega‐lake development during MIS 5 resulted from unusual monsoonal and evaporative patterns at that time. However, the climatic forcing behind mega‐lake formation and the rate of lake growth is not well understood, although species composition in SLEB aquatic fossil fauna assemblages attests to the size and development of these lakes and indicates their long‐term persistence. The degree of trophic development and the maintenance of broad, well‐bedded aquatic and terrestrial ecological frameworks and biotic variety support that conclusion. The fossil record contributes to our understanding of mega‐lake and palaeoriverine trophic complexity, the speed and duration of lake‐fill and the intensity and persistence of the supporting intracontinental moisture balance. Although other more remote mega‐lakes formed in Central Australia, they were not populated by complex trophic systems or megafauna populations. This discrepancy between the various geographic areas sheds light on the biogeography and population distribution of megafauna, thus helping form a better picture of the reasons behind the final extinction of relict populations of this group in MIS 4.