bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Organophosphorus Intermediates. X. The Synthesis and Properties of the 1,4-Dioxo-2,3,4a,5,6,7,8,8a-Octahydro-1-λ-5-Phosphinoline System
Authors: Franisal N , Gallagher MJ
Published: February 2007

Addition of methyl 2-methoxycarbonylethylphosphinate to methyl cyclohexenoate followed by cyclization and hydrolysis affords a convenient route to the octahydrophosphinoline system. The reactions appear to be stereoselective and give predominantly the cis ring fused bicyclic compound. Stereochemistry is assigned largely on the basis of 13C n.m.r , spectra. Addition of methyl 2-methoxycarbonylethylphosphinate to cyclohex-2-enone and attempted cyclization of the resulting product is also reported.
A Novel Synthesis of the Lichen Depsidones Divaronic Acid and Stenosporonic Acid, and the Biosynthetic Implications
Authors: Elix JA , Jenie UA , Parker JL
Published: February 2007

The depsidones divaronic acid (24) (8-hydroxy-3-methoxy-1,6-dipropyl-11- oxo -11H- dibenzo [ b,e ][1,4]dioxepin-7-carboxylic acid) and stenosporonic acid (25) (8-hydroxy-3-methoxy-6-pentyl-l-propyl-ll-oxo-l1H-dibenzo[ b,e ][1,4]dioxepin-7-carboxylic acid) have been prepared by unambiguous synthesis, and have been shown to cooccur with colensoic acid, atranorin and chloroatranorin in the lichen Paraparmelia mongaensis. The syntheses employed a novel biomimetic-type approach which involved a Smiles rearrangement of a precursor meta-depside in the key step. This rearrangement has important biosynthetic implications and may account for the natural occurrence of isostructural depside-depsidone pairs.
SOX9 is required for maintenance of the pancreatic progenitor cell pool
Authors: Seymour Philip A. , Freude Kristine K. , Tran Man N. , Mayes Erin E. , Jensen Jan , Kist Ralf , Scherer Gerd , Sander Maike
Published: February 2007

The factors necessary to maintain organ-specific progenitor cells are poorly understood and yet of extreme clinical importance. Here, we identify the transcription factor SOX9 as the first specific marker and maintenance factor of multipotential progenitors during pancreas organogenesis. In the developing pancreas, SOX9 expression is restricted to a mitotically active, Notch-responsive subset of PDX1
+
pluripotent progenitors and is absent from committed endocrine precursors or differentiated cells. Similar to Notch mutations, organ-specific
Sox9
inactivation in mice causes severe pancreatic hypoplasia resulting from depletion of the progenitor cell pool. We show that
Sox9
maintains pancreatic progenitors by stimulating their proliferation, survival, and persistence in an undifferentiated state. Our finding that SOX9 regulates the Notch-effector HES1 suggests a Notch-dependent mechanism and establishes a possible genetic link between SOX factors and Notch. These findings will be of major significance for the development of
in vitro
protocols for cell replacement therapies.
Detection and avoidance of a natural product from the pathogenic bacterium
Serratia marcescens
by
Caenorhabditis elegans
Authors: Pradel Elizabeth , Zhang Yun , Pujol Nathalie , Matsuyama Tohey , Bargmann Cornelia I. , Ewbank Jonathan J.
Published: February 2007

The nematode
Caenorhabditis elegans
is present in soils and composts, where it can encounter a variety of microorganisms. Some bacteria in these rich environments are innocuous food sources for
C. elegans
, whereas others are pathogens. Under laboratory conditions,
C. elegans
will avoid certain pathogens, such as
Serratia marcescens
, by exiting a bacterial lawn a few hours after entering it. By combining bacterial genetics and nematode genetics, we show that
C. elegans
specifically avoids certain strains of
Serratia
based on their production of the cyclic lipodepsipentapeptide serrawettin W2. Lawn-avoidance behavior is chiefly mediated by the two AWB chemosensory neurons, probably through G protein-coupled chemoreceptors, and also involves the nematode Toll-like receptor gene
tol-1
. Purified serrawettin W2, added to an
Escherichia coli
lawn, can directly elicit lawn avoidance in an AWB-dependent fashion, as can another chemical detected by AWB. These findings represent an insight into chemical recognition between these two soil organisms and reveal sensory mechanisms for pathogen recognition in
C. elegans
.
Synthetic cooperation in engineered yeast populations
Authors: Shou Wenying , Ram Sri , Vilar Jose M. G.
Published: February 2007

Cooperative interactions are key to diverse biological phenomena ranging from multicellularity to mutualism. Such diversity makes the ability to create and control cooperation desirable for potential applications in areas as varied as agriculture, pollutant treatment, and medicine. Here we show that persistent cooperation can be engineered by introducing a small set of genetic modifications into previously noninteracting cell populations. Specifically, we report the construction of a synthetic obligatory cooperative system, termed CoSMO (
co
operation that is
s
ynthetic and
m
utually
o
bligatory), which consists of a pair of nonmating yeast strains, each supplying an essential metabolite to the other strain. The behavior of the two strains in isolation, however, revealed unintended constraints that restrict cooperation, such as asymmetry in starvation tolerance and delays in nutrient release until near cell death. However, the joint system is shown mathematically and experimentally to be viable over a wide range of initial conditions, with oscillating population ratio settling to a value predicted by nutrient supply and consumption. Unexpectedly, even in the absence of explicitly engineered mechanisms to stabilize cooperation, the cooperative system can consistently develop increased ability to survive reductions in population density. Extending synthetic biology from the design of genetic circuits to the engineering of ecological interactions, CoSMO provides a quantitative system for linking processes at the cellular level to the collective behavior at the system level, as well as a genetically tractable system for studying the evolution of cooperation.
Economics and Preventing Hospital-Acquired Infection: Broadening the Perspective
Authors: Graves Nicholas , Halton Kate , Lairson David
Published: February 2007

Objective.

To present a hypothetical model of the change in economic costs and health benefits to society that result from nosocomial infection control programs.

Design.

We use a modeling framework to represent how 2 types of costs change with nosocomial infection control programs: costs incurred by the hospital sector and community health services, as well as the private costs to patients. We also demonstrate how to value the health benefits of nosocomial infection control programs, using quality-adjusted life years.

Setting.

Hypothetical modeling to incorporate the societal perspective.

Subjects.

A cohort of 50,000 simulated patients at risk of surgical site infection following total hip replacement.

Intervention(s).

A total of 8 hypothetical interventions that change costs and health outcomes among the cohort by preventing cases of surgical site infection following total hip replacement.

Results and Conclusions.

We demonstrate that when infection control interventions reduce economic costs and increase health benefits, they should be adopted without further question. If, however, interventions increase economic costs and increase health benefits, then the trade—off between costs and benefits should be examined. Decision-makers should assess the cost per unit of health benefit from infection control programs, consider the impact on health budgets, and compare infection control with alternative uses of scarce healthcare resources.
Moxifloxacin Therapy as a Risk Factor forClostridium difficile–Associated Disease During an Outbreak: Attempts to Control a New Epidemic Strain
Authors: Biller Priscilla , Shank Beth , Lind Leah , Brennan Meghan , Tkatch Lisa , Killgore George , Thompson Angela , McDonald L. Clifford
Published: February 2007

An outbreak ofClostridium difficile-associated disease (CDAD) caused by the epidemic North American pulsed-field gel electrophoresis type 1 (NAP1) strain began after a formulary change from levofloxacin to moxifloxacin. Cases of CDAD were associated with moxifloxacin use, but a formulary change back to levofloxacin failed to reduce rates of disease. Substituting use of one fluoroquinolone with use of another without also controlling the overall use of drugs from this class is unlikely to control outbreaks caused by the NAP1 strain ofC. difficile.
Severity of Clostridium difficile–Associated Disease (CDAD) in Allogeneic Stem Cell Transplant Recipients: Evaluation of a CDAD Severity Grading System
Authors: Dubberke Erik R. , Sadhu Justin , Gatti Robert , Reske Kimberly A. , DiPersio John F. , Devine Steven M. , Fraser Victoria J.
Published: February 2007

The purpose of this study was to develop and test a Clostridium difficile-associated disease (CDAD) grading system based on presenting symptoms in allogeneic stem cell transplant recipients. Patients with severe CDAD had significantly shorter median survival times and more adverse outcomes than patients with mild or moderate CDAD.
Efficacy of Multiple Influenza Vaccine Delivery Systems in a Single Facility
Authors: Donato Anthony A. , Motz Lisa M. , Wilson Gregory , Lloyd Benjamin J.
Published: February 2007

We retrospectively investigated different inpatient influenza delivery strategies used during 3 consecutive years at a single institution. Vaccination rates were 3% for a physician reminder system, 21% for a manual standing order program, and 43% for a manual standing order program with a provider education program.
Recommendations for Surveillance of Clostridium difficile–Associated Disease
Authors: McDonald L. Clifford , Coignard Bruno , Dubberke Erik , Song Xiaoyan , Horan Teresa , Kutty Preeta K. ,   the Ad Hoc Clostridium difficile Surveillance Working Group
Published: February 2007

Background.

The epidemiology of Clostridium difficile-associated disease (CDAD) is changing, with evidence of increased incidence and severity. However, the understanding of the magnitude of and reasons for this change is currently hampered by the lack of standardized surveillance methods.

Objective and Methods.

An ad hoc C. difficile surveillance working group was formed to develop interim surveillance definitions and recommendations based on existing literature and expert opinion that can help to improve CDAD surveillance and prevention efforts.

Definitions and Recommendations.

A CDAD case patient was defined as a patient with symptoms of diarrhea or toxic megacolon combined with a positive result of a laboratory assay and/or endoscopic or histopathologic evidence of pseudomembranous colitis. Recurrent CDAD was defined as repeated episodes within 8 weeks of each other. Severe CDAD was defined by CDAD-associated admission to an intensive care unit, colectomy, or death within 30 days after onset. Case patients were categorized by the setting in which C. difficile was likely acquired, to account for recent evidence that suggests that healthcare facility-associated CDAD may have its onset in the community up to 4 weeks after discharge. Tracking of healthcare facility–onset, healthcare facility–associated CDAD is the minimum surveillance required for healthcare settings; tracking of community–onset, healthcare facility–associated CDAD should be performed only in conjunction with tracking of healthcare facility–onset, healthcare facility–associated CDAD. Community–associated CDAD was defined by symptom onset more than 12 weeks after the last discharge from a healthcare facility. Rates of both healthcare facility–onset, healthcare facility–associated CDAD and community–onset, healthcare facility–associated CDAD should be expressed as case patients per 10,000 patient–days; rates of community-associated CDAD should be expressed as case patients per 100,000 person-years.
An Outbreak of Severe Clostridium difficile–Associated Disease Possibly Related to Inappropriate Antimicrobial Therapy for Community-Acquired Pneumonia
Authors: Polgreen Philip M. , Chen Yi Yi , Cavanaugh Joseph E. , Ward Melissa , Coffman Stacy , Hornick Douglas B. , Diekema Daniel J. , Herwaldt Loreen A.
Published: February 2007

We report a severe outbreak of Clostridium difficile infection. According to a chart review, half of the patients who received treatment for bacterial pneumonia before they developed C. difficile infection may not have had pneumonia. Excessive use of the hospital's new pneumonia care plan during the influenza season may have contributed to the intensity of this outbreak.
Boundary spectra of uniform Frostman Blaschke products
Authors: Matheson Alec
Published: February 2007

A closed set

F
F

in the unit circle

T

\mathbb {T}

is the boundary spectrum of a uniform Frostman Blaschke product if and only if

F
F

is nowhere dense in

T

\mathbb {T}

.
A condition under which 𝐵=𝐴=𝑈*𝐵𝑈 follows from 𝐵≤𝐴≤𝑈*𝐵𝑈
Authors: Okayasu Takateru , Ueta Yasunori
Published: February 2007

We will give some sufficient conditions for a

p
p

-hyponormal operator,

p
>
0

p>0

, to be normal, and a sufficient condition for a triplet of operators

A
A

,

B
B

,

U
U

with

A
A

,

B
B

self-adjoint and

U
U

unitary such that

B
≤
A
≤

U
∗

B
U

B\le A\le U^*BU

necessarily satisfies

B
=
A
=

U
∗

B
U

B=A=U^*BU

.
Stabilization of Tsirelson-type norms on ℓ_{𝑝} spaces
Authors: Pelczar Anna
Published: February 2007

We consider classical Tsirelson-type norms of

T
[

A

n

,
θ
]

T[\mathcal {A}_n,\theta ]

and their modified versions on

ℓ
p

\ell _p

spaces,

1
>
p
>
∞

1>p>\infty

. We show that the modified Tsirelson-type norms do not distort any of the subspaces of the

ℓ
p

\ell _p

spaces. We prove that Tsirelson-type norms, being equivalent to their modified versions, may at most 2-distort

ℓ
p

\ell _p

spaces.
Varieties with a reducible hyperplane section whose two components are hypersurfaces
Authors: Sierra José , Tironi Andrea
Published: February 2007

We classify smooth complex projective varieties

X
⊂

P

N

X\subset \mathbb {P}^N

of dimension

n
≥
2

n\geq 2

admitting a divisor of the form

A
+
B

A+B

among their hyperplane sections, both

A
A

and

B
B

of codimension

≤
1

\leq 1

in their respective linear spans. In this setting, one of the following holds: 1)

X
X

is either the Veronese surface in

P

5

\mathbb {P}^5

or its general projection to

P

4

\mathbb {P}^4

, 2)

n
≤
3

n\leq 3

and

X
⊂

P

n
+
2

X\subset \mathbb {P}^{n+2}

is contained in a quadric cone of rank

3
3

or

4
4

, 3)

n
=
2

n=2

and

X
⊂

P

3

X\subset \mathbb {P}^3

.
A Berry-Esseen theorem for hypergeometric probabilities under minimal conditions
Authors: Lahiri S. , Chatterjee A.
Published: February 2007

In this paper, we consider simple random sampling without replacement from a dichotomous finite population and derive a necessary and sufficient condition on the finite population parameters for a valid large sample Normal approximation to Hypergeometric probabilities. We then obtain lower and upper bounds on the difference between the Normal and the Hypergeometric distributions solely under this necessary and sufficient condition.
A counterexample to Bueler’s conjecture
Authors: Carron Gilles
Published: February 2007

We give a counterexample to the following conjecture of E. Bueler: “The de Rham cohomology of any complete Riemannian manifold is isomorphic to a weighted

L
2

L^2

cohomology where the weight is the heat kernel."
Baire spaces, Tychonoff powers and the Vietoris topology
Authors: Cao Jiling , Tomita A.
Published: February 2007

In this paper, we show that if the Tychonoff power

X
ω

X^\omega

of a quasi-regular space

X
X

is Baire, then its Vietoris hyperspace

2
X

2^X

is also Baire. We also provide two examples to show (i) the converse of this result does not hold in general, and (ii) the Baireness of finite powers of a space is insufficient to guarantee the Baireness of its hyperspace.
Gem Associates with Ezrin and Acts via the Rho-GAP Protein Gmip to Down-Regulate the Rho Pathway
Authors: Hatzoglou Anastassia , Ader Isabelle , Splingard Anne , Flanders James , Saade Evelyne , Leroy Ingrid , Traver Sabine , Aresta Sandra , de Gunzburg Jean
Published: February 2007

Gem is a protein of the Ras superfamily that plays a role in regulating voltage-gated Ca2+channels and cytoskeletal reorganization. We now report that GTP-bound Gem interacts with the membrane–cytoskeleton linker protein Ezrin in its active state, and that Gem binds to active Ezrin in cells. The coexpression of Gem and Ezrin induces cell elongation accompanied by the disappearance of actin stress fibers and collapse of most focal adhesions. The same morphological effect is elicited when cells expressing Gem alone are stimulated with serum and requires the expression of ERM proteins. We show that endogenous Gem down-regulates the level of active RhoA and actin stress fibers. The effects of Gem downstream of Rho, i.e., ERM phosphorylation as well as disappearance of actin stress fibers and most focal adhesions, require the Rho-GAP partner of Gem, Gmip, a protein that is enriched in membranes under conditions in which Gem induced cell elongation. Our results suggest that Gem binds active Ezrin at the plasma membrane–cytoskeleton interface and acts via the Rho-GAP protein Gmip to down-regulate the processes dependent on the Rho pathway.
Functional Symmetry of Endomembranes
Authors: Saraste Jaakko , Goud Bruno
Published: February 2007

In higher eukaryotic cells pleiomorphic compartments composed of vacuoles, tubules and vesicles move from the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and the plasma membrane to the cell center, operating in early biosynthetic trafficking and endocytosis, respectively. Besides transporting cargo to the Golgi apparatus and lysosomes, a major task of these compartments is to promote extensive membrane recycling. The endocytic membrane system is traditionally divided into early (sorting) endosomes, late endosomes and the endocytic recycling compartment (ERC). Recent studies on the intermediate compartment (IC) between the ER and the Golgi apparatus suggest that it also consists of peripheral (“early”) and centralized (“late”) structures, as well as a third component, designated here as the biosynthetic recycling compartment (BRC). We propose that the ERC and the BRC exist as long-lived “mirror compartments” at the cell center that also share the ability to expand and become mobilized during cell activation. These considerations emphasize the functional symmetry of endomembrane compartments, which provides a basis for the membrane rearrangements taking place during cell division, polarization, and differentiation.
The Incarnation of the Word
Authors: Cullen Christopher M.
Published: February 2007

Bonaventure holds that God does all things with power, wisdom, and goodness; such as in the case of the restoration. If Incarnation is examined as a work of God in the light of power, wisdom, and goodness, we can see why it is the most perfect of all God's works, for there cannot be any greater act of power than to combine within a single person two natures: the human and divine. While Bonaventure stresses the gratuity of the redemption — that is, God was in no way obliged to save us — he is very clear that man could not have been saved by any healer other than God.
Diaspora of the Gods
Authors: Waghorne Joanne Punzo
Published: February 2007

From Chennai (Madras), India to London and Washington D.C., contemporary urban middle-class Hindus invest earnings, often derived from the global economy, into the construction or renovation of temples. South Indians often lead such efforts to re-establish authentic temples that nonetheless become sites for innovative communities, new visions of the Gods, and distinctive middle-class religious sensibilities. Although a part of the much-discussed resurgence of Hinduism, Gods and their ritual worship — not nationalistic ideology — center these enterprises. This book aims to go beyond the more common analytical starting points of identity, multiculturalism, transnationalism, or globalism to understand contemporary Hinduism. In both conversation and contention with current theory, the book highlights the Gods, their shrines, and the middle-class people who re-establish them. Using surveys of modern temples in Chennai, London, and Washington D.C. patronized by South Indians, it focuses on the ubiquity of certain Gods and Goddesses — but not all — their portrayal, the architecture of their new “homes”, and their place in the modern urban commercial and social landscapes. Arguing that this migration of Gods in tandem with people is not new, the book traces current temple architecture to Indian merchants who constructed new temples within a decade of the founding of Madras by the East India Trading Company in the initial era of the current world economic system. In the process, it questions the interrelationships between ritual worship/religious edifices, the rise of the modern world economy, and the ascendancy of the great middle class in this new era of globalization.
Mylapore
Authors: Waghorne Joanne Punzo
Published: February 2007

Colonial Madras surrounded and transformed ancient Mylapore into an inner-city neighborhood. This chapter traces the complexities of the modern reconstruction of “Tradition” through the Kapaleeswara Temple at Mylapore's center. Rare maps from the 1800s show that a new class of landholder-businessmen (Mudaliars), acting as Company middlemen (Dubash), rebuilt the current temple in the mid 1700s on the model of revered poetic descriptions of its ancient namesake but with its Lord, Shiva, now mirroring rising bourgeois values. Later, with the emergence of the Brahman-dominated bureaucracy and the equally Brahman-centered recreation of classical Sanskritic “Hinduism”, the prestige of temples declined. Soon Brahmans dominated Mylapore, which Milton Singer designated in the 1970s as the epicenter of the “Great Tradition”. Today, ritual life at the Kapaleeswara Temple thrives while neighborhood groups renovate surrounding temples, recreate rituals, and in the process rebuild a common middle-class religiosity, which encompasses but also subverts the Great Tradition with rural modalities.
Action, Belief, and Desire
Authors: Audi Robert
Published: February 2007

The parallels between the theoretical and the practical reason are extensive. This chapter considers the structural ones, such as the analogy between, on the one hand, inferential beliefs and the beliefs they are based on and, on the other hand, instrumental desires (desires for things as means) and the basic desires to which they are subordinate. Beliefs of conclusions we infer from certain premises can be justified by our beliefs of those premises. Desires with certain contents can be justified by further desires, above all when the former are desires to take means toward satisfying the latter, “premise” desires. The chapter explains some major substantive parallels between theoretical and practical reason.
Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple
Authors: Klawans Jonathan
Published: February 2007

This book reevaluates modern scholarly approaches to ancient Jewish cultic rituals, arguing that sacrifice in particular has been long misunderstood. Various religious and cultural ideologies (especially supersessionist ones) have frequently prevented scholars from seeing the Jerusalem temple as a powerful source of meaning and symbolism to those ancient Jews who worshiped there. Such approaches are exposed and countered by reviewing the theoretical literature on sacrifice and taking a fresh look at a broad range of evidence concerning ancient Jewish attitudes toward the temple and its sacrificial cult. Starting with the Hebrew Bible, this work argues for a symbolic understanding of a broad range of cultic practices, including both purity rituals and sacrificial acts. The prophetic literature is also reexamined, with an eye toward clarifying the relationship between the prophets and the sacrificial cult. Later ancient Jewish symbolic understandings of the cult are also revealed in sources including Josephus, Philo, Pseudepigrapha, the Dead Sea Scrolls, New Testament, and Rabbinic literature. A number of ancient Jews certainly did believe that the temple was temporarily tainted or defiled in some fashion, including the Dead Sea sectarians and Jesus. But they continued to speak of the temple in metaphorical terms, and — like practically all ancient Jews — believed in the cult, accepted its symbolic significance, and hoped for its ultimate efficacy.
Sacrifice and Purity
Authors: Klawans Jonathan
Published: February 2007

This chapter reviews theories of sacrifice and interpretations of purity, finding disparities in the ways in which they have been understood by scholarship in recent times. It argues that three biases in particular have unduly affected the analysis of these rituals, with the result that sacrifice has been denied the symbolic understanding more typically applied to purity rites. These biases include Christian and Jewish supersessionism and a contemporary cultural ambivalence toward overt violent rituals. It employs methods inspired by Mary Douglas and argues against approach taken by René Girard.
Temple as Cosmos or Temple in the Cosmos
Authors: Klawans Jonathan
Published: February 2007

This chapter analyzes two distinct symbolic understandings of the Jerusalem temple and its rituals. It finds evidence for a belief in the temple as representing the cosmos in Josephus, Philo and rabbinic literature, and evidence for a belief that the earthly temple represents a heavenly sanctuary in the Pseudepigrapha, Dead Sea Scrolls, and other rabbinic sources. It attempts to identify one or another of these two symbolic understandings as the precursor of the other are rejected.
Sinful People, Impure Priests, and Inadequate Structures
Authors: Klawans Jonathan
Published: February 2007

This chapter examines literature discovered at Qumran and related literature, including the Temple Scroll, with an eye toward describing more fully the anti-temple polemics articulated. It identifies sources making the following claims about the Jerusalem temple: that it is ritually defiled, morally defiled, ritually inadequate, and structurally insufficient. It also reconsiders the sources that ostensibly “spiritualize” the temple, arguing instead that these sources are rooted in beliefs concerning the temple’s importance and efficacy. Sectarian Jews emulated the temple’s rituals and priests in part because they looked forward to the temple being under their own control.
Introduction
Authors: Eisen Robert
Published: February 2007

This introductory chapter begins with a discussion of the fascination with the Book of Job as evidenced by the diverse body of interpretations throughout the ages from religious thinkers in Judaism and Christianity from late antiquity to modern academic scholars. It presents a background of medieval Jewish philosophy, and then reviews the major challenges that interpreters of Job have faced throughout the ages. The present study aims to go beyond providing a description of how medieval Jewish philosophers read the Book of Job by drawing much-needed attention to the exegetical literature in medieval Jewish philosophy in general. By analyzing how medieval Jewish philosophers interpreted the Book of Job, the exegesis of these thinkers is brought to light as an exciting chapter in the history of Jewish thought, which neither scholars of medieval Jewish philosophy nor scholars of medieval Jewish exegesis can afford to ignore. A proper examination of the commentaries chosen and an assessment of their significance both as philosophical and exegetical works require that these be discussed on a number of levels. For each commentary, the discussion will focus on three interfaces: between the commentaries and their antecedent sources, between the commentaries and the biblical text, and between the commentaries and the systematic thought of the medieval Jewish philosophers.
Phenomenal and Perceptual Concepts
Authors: David Papineau
Published: February 2007

This chapter focuses on the topic of phenomenal concepts. It develops and extends the comparison of phenomenal concepts with so-called “perceptual concepts,” to throw the nature of phenomenal concepts into clearer focus. A position against a recent argument by David Chalmers against the whole type-B strategy of defending physicalism by appeal to phenomenal concepts is defended.
Phenomenal Concepts and the Explanatory Gap
Authors: Chalmers David J.
Published: February 2007

Philosophers have reacted in different ways to the apparent explanatory gap between physical processes and consciousness. Some deny that any explanatory gap exists at all. Some hold that there is an explanatory gap for now, but that it will eventually be closed. Some hold that the explanatory gap corresponds to an ontological gap in nature. This chapter explores another reaction to the explanatory gap — those who react in this way agree that there is an explanatory gap, but they hold that it stems from the way we think about consciousness. In particular, this view locates the gap in the relationship between our concepts of physical processes and our concepts of consciousness, rather than in the relationship between physical processes and consciousness themselves.
Natural Justice
Authors: Binmore Ken
Published: February 2007

This book attempts to create an evolutionary theory of fairness. Sharing food is commonplace in the animal kingdom because it insures animals that share against hunger. Anthropologists report that hunter-gatherer societies which survived into the 20th century shared on a very egalitarian basis. What can such information tell us about the sense of fairness with which modern man is born? Using game theory as a basic tool, the book argues that fairness norms should be seen as a device for selecting an efficient equilibrium in the human game of life. Evolutionary arguments are then used to argue that the deep structure of this device resembles the original position formulated by John Rawls in his Theory of Justice. Such an evolutionary framework allows problems over welfare comparison and norm enforcement to be tackled in a manner that resolves the long debate between utilitarianism and egalitarianism.
Reciprocity
Authors: Binmore Ken
Published: February 2007

The folk theorem shows that cooperative behavior can be sustained as a Nash equilibrium in indefinitely repeated games — a phenomenon known as reciprocal altruism. The same theorem offers a solution to various other social mysteries. Who guards the guardians? How are authority, blame, courtesy, dignity, envy, friendship, guilt, honor, integrity, justice, loyalty, modesty, ownership, pride, reputation, status, trust, virtue, and the like to be explained as emergent phenomena? How do beliefs that many people privately know to be false survive?
What Developmental Biology Can Tell Us about Innateness
Authors: Marcus Gary F.
Published: February 2007

This chapter examines an apparent tension created by recent research on neurological development and genetics on the one hand and cognitive development on the other. It considers what it might mean for intrinsic signals to guide the initial establishment of functional architecture. It argues that an understanding of the mechanisms by which the body develops can inform our understanding of the mechanisms by which the brain develops. It cites the view of developmental neurobiologists Fukuchi-Shimogori and Grove, that the patterning of the part of the brain responsible for our higher functions is coordinated by the same basic mechanisms and signaling protein families used to generate patterning in other embryonic organs. Thus, what's good enough for the body, is good enough for the brain.
Strong versus Weak Adaptationism in Cognition and Language
Authors: Atran Scott
Published: February 2007

This chapter focuses on the issue of methodological usefulness of a strong versus weak adaptationist position in attempting to gain significant insight and to make scientifically important advances and discoveries in human cognition. Strong adaptationism holds that complex design is best explained by task-specific adaptations to particular ancestral environments; whereas weak adaptationism claims that we should not assume that complex design is the result of such narrowly determined task- or niche-specific evolutionary pressures in the absence of substantial corroborating evidence. It argues that in cases of certain domain-specific cognitive competencies (e.g., folk biology) strong adaptationism has proven useful but not necessary to recent progress in the field. In other cases (e.g., language), a weak adaptationist strategy has been arguably most productive in advancing scientific understanding, without precluding that the structures uncovered by other means are actually adaptations.
What Neurodevelopmental Disorders Can Reveal about Cognitive Architecture
Authors: Tager‐Flusberg Helen
Published: February 2007

This chapter begins with an overview of the controversy surrounding the study of children and adults with neurodevelopmental disorders, and how these inform theories of neurocognitive architecture. It weighs the arguments for and against what we might learn from studying individuals who have fundamental biological impairments. It then discusses the example of research on theory of mind in two different disorders — autism and Williams syndrome (WMS) — which has highlighted a number of important aspects of how this core cognitive capacity develops in both normal and atypical populations.
Causal Models
Authors: Sloman Steven
Published: February 2007

According to human perception, the world is full of causal systems composed of autonomous mechanisms that generate events as effects of other events. This chapter attempts to make this idea more precise and therefore more clear by making it more formal. It introduces the causal model framework as an abstract language for representing causal systems. It discusses the three parts of a causal model: the causal system in the world (i.e., the system being represented); the probability distribution that describes how likely events are to happen and how likely they are to occur with other events — how certain we can be about each event and combination of events; and a graph that depicts the causal relations in the system.
Observation Versus Action
Authors: Sloman Steven
Published: February 2007

Causality does not just tell us what to expect as passive observers, but what to expect when we take action, when we act as agents and intervene on the world. Causality concerns the effects of the actions we take. It also concerns the effects that actions that we do not actually take would have were we to take them. Causality at the most fundamental level concerns action. This chapter provides a means to represent action in the formalism.
Reasoning About Causation
Authors: Sloman Steven
Published: February 2007

This chapter discusses three kinds of reasoning that illustrate the central role of causality. The first part shows that causal considerations enter into how people think about some mathematical equations, that their thinking about equations reflects an underlying causal structure. The second part concerns social attribution, reasoning about why people do things. It is shown that people's explanations of behaviour depend on the causal model that they believe governs that behaviour. The third part concerns reasoning about counterfactual events.
The Psychology of Judgment: Causality Is Pervasive
Authors: Sloman Steven
Published: February 2007

This chapter focuses on the role of causal models in judgment. It is argued that causal modeling plays a central role in the process of judgment when the object of judgment can be construed as a causal effect. Such a construal is almost always appropriate in the legal domain where both crimes and accidents are effects of individual actions. It is also appropriate in scientific domains. Scientists are also in the business of building causal models, in their case to understand how the world works in general rather than to understand the circumstances of a specific event. Causal models are relevant to judgment in any domain in which physical, social, or abstract events cause other events. Causal models may well be the primary determinant of what is considered relevant when reasoning, when making judgments and predictions, and when taking action within such domains.
Categorical Induction
Authors: Sloman Steven
Published: February 2007

This chapter focuses on how we induce properties of the world. Some psychologists have been coming back to the view that induction is mediated by causal models — causal models that are often generated online through the application of causal principles, abstract causal relations that have general applicability. Such causal models help to explain how people make inductive inferences when the inference can be conceived as a causal effect, as in the ‘bananas have it; therefore, monkeys have it’ example. In other cases, inference involves analogy: a predicate is applied to one category because it is known to apply to an analogous category, as in the ‘tigers do it; therefore, hawks do it’ example. In such cases, the analogy seems to be between causal structures. Finally, causal models give a psychologically plausible way to think about why people sometimes show sensitivity to statistical information. Instead of assuming that people calculate statistics like measures of the variability of a property, the requisite information can be interpreted as a property's centrality in a causal model.
Locating Causal Structure in Language
Authors: Sloman Steven
Published: February 2007

This chapter discusses how we use aspects of language. It shows that we use causal models to produce and understand speech even when we have no idea that we are doing so. Two aspects of language are considered that illustrate this usage: what pronouns refer to and the meaning of conjunctions like and if. The meaning of if is especially complicated, and the details of the causal model framework are particularly helpful for understanding it.
Conclusion: Causation in the Mind
Authors: Sloman Steven
Published: February 2007

This concluding chapter attempts to draw out the general lessons of causal and interventional principles for an understanding of people, their situations, their problems, and solutions to their problems. Topics discussed include the role of causal models in how the mind works, fundamental claims of the causal modelling framework, what causal models can contribute to human welfare, and the causal modelling metaphor.
Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth
Authors: Audretsch David B. , Keilbach Max C. , Lehmann Erik E.
Published: February 2007

Public policy spanning a broad range of contexts, ranging from the European Union, to states, cities, and local communities around the globe has turned to entrepreneurship to provide the engine for economic growth, competitiveness in globally linked markets, and jobs. This book explains why entrepreneurship has emerged as a bona fide instrument of growth policy. The knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship suggests that entrepreneurship provides a crucial mechanism in the process of economic growth by serving as a conduit for knowledge spillovers. Investments in new knowledge and ideas may not automatically spill over and result in commercialization, as has typically been assumed in models of economic growth. Rather, the existence of what is introduced as the knowledge filter impedes the spillover and commercialization of investments in new ideas and knowledge. By penetrating the knowledge filter and facilitating the spillover of knowledge that might otherwise not be commercialized, entrepreneurship provides the missing link to economic growth. This new focus of entrepreneurship as a conduit transmitting the spillover of knowledge generates a series of theoretical propositions, involving not just the impact of entrepreneurship on economic performance and growth, but also the very nature of entrepreneurship. The book concludes that the new millennium may not be so much about the process of Joseph Schumpeter's creative destruction, where entrepreneurial startups displace and ultimately drive incumbent company's out of business, but rather characterized by creative construction.
Entrepreneurship Capital and Economic Performance
Authors: Audretsch David B. , Keilbach Max C. , Lehmann Erik E.
Published: February 2007

This chapter attempts to link entrepreneurship to economic performance. It provides empirical evidence consistent with the hypothesis that economic performance — output measured as GDP or economic growth — is positively related to the presence of a Standort's entrepreneurship capital. In particular, the empirical evidence based on German regions suggests that the neoclassical two-factor approach does not adequately explain economic performance, at least not in the case of contemporary Germany. Rather, including entrepreneurship provides a better explanation of why some regions exhibit a stronger economic performance than others. It is argued that the degree of entrepreneurial activity, which presumably reflects the underlying stock of entrepreneurship capital associated with a particular Standort, positively affects economic performance.
The Islamist Alternative to Globalization
Authors: Rosefsky Wickham Carrie
Published: February 2007

This article examines the construction of an Islamist version of modernity in the platform of the Egyptian Wasat (Center) party, which is one of the clearest and fullest elaborations of the modernist Islamist world-view and, as such, indicates both the extent and the limits of the ideological innovation which has occurred within the region’s Islamic movement over the past decade. The embrace of a “modernist” Islamic platform has facilitated the integration of some of Egypt’s Islamists into broader civil society networks at both the local and global levels, creating new realities on the ground which defy the “clash of civilizations” paradigm, which portrays the cultures of Islam and the West as diametrically opposed.
Prescriptive Environmental Regulations versus Market‐Based Incentives
Authors: Freeman Jody , Kolstad Charles D.
Published: February 2007

This chapter begins with a discussion of the rationale for evaluating the performance of market instruments for environmental regulation. It then describes how the volume combined the disciplines of economics and law to produce some important lessons and strong cross-cutting themes. An overview of the essays included in this volume is presented.
Tradable Permits with Incomplete Monitoring: Evidence from Santiago's Particulate Permits Program
Authors: Montero Juan‐Pablo
Published: February 2007

This essay extends the theoretical model of Montero (2004) and applies it to Santiago, Chile's total suspended particulate (TSP) program to compare the actual performance of this program with that of a hypothetically equivalent standards policy. In doing so, the production and abatement cost characteristics of affected sources and the regulator's perception about environmental damages are first recovered. Based on these estimates, it is shown that permits have provided large cost savings but also lead to higher emissions; about 6% higher than what would have been observed under an equivalent standards policy. However, the welfare loss from higher emissions is only 8% of the welfare gain from lower abatement and production costs. The theoretical and empirical results make a strong case for the wider use of pollution permits, even in situations where emissions are imperfectly observed.
An Economic Assessment of Market‐Based Approaches to Regulating the Municipal Solid Waste Stream
Authors: Menell Peter S.
Published: February 2007

This essay explores the potential for pricing mechanisms to help internalize the costs and benefits of municipal solid waste management. It provides a comprehensive history of the development of variable rate pricing strategies in the United States and explains the challenges involved in moving from conventional municipal solid waste regulation to such pay-as-you-throw systems. The empirical studies on the effects of variable rate pricing policies are reviewed, and it is argued that they have proven to be successful at increasing waste diversion from landfills. Although the net economic impact of variable approaches is still unclear (because of operational costs and adverse impacts), many cities have adopted them and seen their total cost of waste disposal decline.
A Proposal to Use Transactions to Leverage Environmental Disclosure and Compliance
Authors: Gerrard Michael B.
Published: February 2007

This essay proposes an information disclosure mechanism as a means of encouraging firms to comply with a variety of environmental laws. It argues that requiring environmental studies at the moment of property transfer could encourage compliance more than the traditional prescriptive approach. Such disclosure requirements are treated as market-based instruments because they take the characteristics of the property market into account when adjusting incentives, inducing buyers and sellers to move toward compliance when it is in their economic interest to do so, rather than in response to a legal mandate. The essay provides an overview of CERCLA's liability scheme, noting that it has led to improved practices for the generation, handling, and cleanup of hazardous waste, and has also established a precedent for imposing requirements on buyers and sellers at the moment of property transfer.
Thomas Jefferson and the Separation of Church and State
Authors: Smith Gary Scott
Published: February 2007

While many of George Washington’s contemporaries portrayed him as a devout Christian, Thomas Jefferson’s foes depicted him as an infidel and an atheist. Given how similar their religious views and practices were, these radically different appraisals of Washington and Jefferson are ironic. Religion mesmerized, tantalized, alarmed, and sometimes inspired Jefferson, and he discussed religious issues, movements, and leaders often in his conversation and correspondence and occasionally in his addresses and published writings. Religious issues played a major role in Jefferson’s life and presidency. He wrote the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1786) that disestablished the Episcopal Church, enshrined the principle of freedom of conscience, and helped prepare the way for the First Amendment. Since 1947 his metaphor of a “wall of separation” between church and state has dominated constitutional debate over the proper place of religion in public life and policy. Although he repudiated much of orthodox Christianity, the Virginian was a deeply religious man. Jefferson’s alleged lack of faith was a major issue in the hotly contested election of 1800. In an effort to discover the historical Jesus, he devised two different editions of the Gospels for his own use that eliminated all miraculous elements and focused on Christ’s ethical teachings. Although his supporters, his opponents, and academicians have, for the past two centuries, debated the nature of his faith and whether he should be labeled an Episcopalian, a deist, or a Unitarian, many scholars do not recognize how important Jefferson’s religious convictions were to his philosophy of government and career. Jefferson’s character and views of slavery are also examined.