bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Leaf area index for northern and eastern North America at the Last Glacial Maximum: a data–model comparison
Authors: Williams John W. , Gonzales Leila M. , Kaplan Jed O. 
Published: August 2007

ABSTRACTAim  To estimate the effects of full‐glacial atmospheric CO2 concentrations and climate upon leaf area index (LAI), using both global vegetation models and palaeoecological data. Prior simulations indicate lowered LAIs at the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), but this is the first attempt to corroborate predictions against observations.Location  Eastern North America and eastern Beringia.Methods  Using a dense surface pollen data set and remotely sensed LAIs from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument, we evaluate the ability of analogue‐based techniques to reconstruct modern LAIs from pollen data. We then apply analogue techniques to LGM pollen records, calculate the ratio of LGM to modern LAIs (RLAI) and compare reconstructed RLAIs to RLAIs simulated by BIOME4. Sensitivity experiments with BIOME4 distinguish the effects of CO2 and climate on glacial LAIs.Results  Modern LAIs are skilfully predicted (r2= 0.83). Data and BIOME4 indicate that LAIs at the LGM were up to 12% lower than modern values in eastern North America and 60–94% lower in Beringia. In eastern North America, LGM climates partially counteracted CO2‐driven decreases in LAI, while in Beringia both contributed to lowered LAIs.Main conclusions  In both regions climate is the primary driver of LGM LAIs. The decline in eastern North America LAIs is smaller than previously reported, so regional vegetation feedbacks to LGM climate may have been less significant than previously supposed. CO2 exerts both physiological and community effects upon LAI, by regulating resource availability for leaf production and by influencing the competitive balance among species and hence the composition and structure of plant communities. Pollen‐based reconstructions using analogue methods do not incorporate the physiological effect and so are upper estimates of full‐glacial LAIs. BIOME4 sensitivity experiments indicate that the community and physiological effects together caused 10% to 20% decrease in LAIs at the LGM, so simulated RLAIs that are 80–100% of reconstructed RLAIs are regarded as consistent with data.
Maize streak virus‐resistant transgenic maize: a first for Africa
Authors: Shepherd Dionne N. , Mangwende Tichaona , Martin Darren P. , Bezuidenhout Marion , Kloppers Frederik J. , Carolissen Charlene H. , Monjane Adérito L. , Rybicki Edward P. , Thomson Jennifer A. 
Published: August 2007

SummaryIn this article, we report transgene‐derived resistance in maize to the severe pathogen maize streak virus (MSV). The mutated MSV replication‐associated protein gene that was used to transform maize showed stable expression to the fourth generation. Transgenic T2 and T3 plants displayed a significant delay in symptom development, a decrease in symptom severity and higher survival rates than non‐transgenic plants after MSV challenge, as did a transgenic hybrid made by crossing T2 Hi‐II with the widely grown, commercial, highly MSV‐susceptible, white maize genotype WM3. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first maize to be developed with transgenic MSV resistance and the first all‐African‐produced genetically modified crop plant.
Coordinated regulation of maize genes during increasing exposure to ultraviolet radiation: identification of ultraviolet‐responsive genes, functional processes and associated potential promoter motifs
Authors: Blanding Carletha R. , Simmons Susan J. , Casati Paula , Walbot Virginia , Stapleton Ann E. 
Published: August 2007

SummaryGenetic gain in the yield of modern maize reflects increased stress tolerance. The manipulation of genes for deliberate alterations in tolerance relies on an understanding of the regulation and components of stress responses. Transcriptome analysis of an ultraviolet (UV) radiation time course with paired treatment and control measurements yielded groups of coordinately regulated genes and gene ontology processes. A comparison of the patterns of gene expression with patterns of morphological changes allowed the identification of physiologically relevant gene expression regulons. A set of genes significantly affected by UV radiation in maize leaves was selected by linear modelling plus order‐restricted inference profile matches. This gene list was used to find upstream sequence motifs that predict the UV regulation of maize gene expression.
Talk the talk: Learner‐generated podcasts as catalysts for knowledge creation
Authors: Lee Mark J. W. , McLoughlin Catherine , Chan Anthony 
Published: August 2007

AbstractPodcasting allows audio content from one or more user‐selected feeds or channels to be automatically downloaded to one's computer as it becomes available, then later transferred to a portable player for consumption at a convenient time and place. It is enjoying phenomenal growth in mainstream society, alongside other Web 2.0 technologies that enable Internet users to author and distribute rich media content quickly and easily. Instead of using the technology for the mere recording and dissemination of lectures and other instructor‐centred information, the project reported on in this article focused on enabling students to create their own podcasts for distribution to their peers. The article describes how engaging in the podcasting exercise promoted collaborative knowledge building among the student‐producers, as evidenced through focus‐group interviewing and an analysis of the products of their shared dialogue and reflection. The findings suggest that the collaborative development of audio learning objects enabling student conceptualisations of disciplinary content to be shared with peers is a powerful way of stimulating both individual and collective learning, as well as supporting social processes of perspective‐taking and negotiation of meaning that underpin knowledge creation.
Seeking to institutionally embed lessons from a funded project: Experiences from the Digital Libraries in the Classroom Spoken Word project at Glasgow Caledonian University
Authors: Donald David , Wallace Iain 
Published: August 2007

AbstractThe Joint Information Systems Committee and the National Science Foundation programme, Digital Libraries in the Classroom (DLiC), addresses implications for the learning of the revolution in scholarly communication. What are the obstacles to undergraduates ‘ “writing” on and for the Internet’? Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) is a partner in one of the DLiC‐funded projects, Spoken Word. At GCU the focus was on the practical demonstration of the implications and potential for learning of a remote electronic library extremely and extensively rich in culturally significant multimedia; the archives of the British Broadcasting Corporation. This paper considers one significant objective—embedding the developments generated in the project. It considers the reactions of major stakeholders to the attempts of the project team to raise institutional awareness of developments and pursue a strategy to induce change. This account is interim; the project has a 5‐year life, from 2003 to 2008.
Introducing new cultural and technological approaches into institutional practice: an experience from geography
Authors: Durham Helen , Arrell Katherine 
Published: August 2007

AbstractWith increasing international collaboration in the delivery of higher education e‐learning programmes, the requirement for changes in institutional practice needs to be considered in relation to the creation of shared online resources. A group of academic and learning technologists involved in a US/UK project experimented with technology and a new cultural approach to creating learning material suitable for use in geography programmes on either side of the Atlantic. The methodology, called Collaborative Learning Activity Design was undertaken to develop a series of learning activities to support the use and understanding of the Global Positioning System. As a result of this study, effective communication, reliable and flexible technology and a robust, iterative methodology were identified as critical factors for successful outcomes. These outcomes included learning materials that are readily redeployable in other institutions and cross‐fertilisation of ideas and knowledge to produce higher quality resources. The experiences of designing and developing multi‐institutional learning materials from the viewpoint of practitioners at the University of Leeds are discussed in this paper.
Institutional perspectives: The challenges of e‐learning diffusion
Authors: Nichols Mark 
Published: August 2007

AbstractThere has been significant recent interest in the dynamics of institutional change and e‐learning. This paper reports on the findings from a series of discussions about e‐learning diffusion held with institutional e‐learning representatives from across the globe. In the course of discussion it became clear that in some institutions e‐learning was an accepted part of everyday activity, while in others it struggled to gain traction. There were identifiable common elements in those institutions that had appeared to have successfully engaged with e‐learning across their teaching and learning functions. The findings of this exploratory study indicate that institutions have either achieved a state of sustainable embedding for e‐learning, or else need to. Unless a state of institutional sustainability is achieved, it is likely that e‐learning activity will in the long term be limited to enthusiasts.
The effects of active versus reflective learning style on the processes of critical discourse in computer‐supported collaborative argumentation
Authors: Jeong Allan , Lee JeongMin 
Published: August 2007

AbstractThis study examined how message‐response exchanges produced in the interactions between active learners only, reflective learners only, active‐reflective learners and reflective‐active learners affected how often active versus reflective learners posted rebuttals to arguments and challenges across four types of exchanges that believed to promote critical discourse (argument–challenge, challenge–counterchallenge, challenge–explain, challenge–evidence) in computer‐supported collaborative argumentation (CSCA). This study found that the exchanges between reflective learners produced 44% more responses than in the exchanges between active learners (ES = +0.17). The reflective–reflective exchanges produced 47% more responses than the active–reflective exchanges (ES = +0.18). These results suggest that groups with reflective learners only are likely to produce more critical discourse than groups with active learners only, and the ratio of active–reflective learners within a group can potentially influence overall group performance. These findings illustrate how specific traits of the learner can affect discourse processes in CSCA and provide insights into process‐oriented strategies and tools for structuring dialogue and promoting critical inquiry in online discussions.
Guilt, Remorse and Victims
Authors: Cordner Christopher 
Published: August 2007

AbstractIn Shame and Necessity, Bernard Williams describes the experience of guilt in terms of fear at the anger of an internalised other, who is a “victim or enforcer.” Williams says it is a merit of his account that it shows how our guilt turns us towards the victims of our wrongdoing. I argue that his account in fact misses the most important form of guilt's “concern with victims”– the experience of remorse. I consider, and reject, one way of trying to supplement this lack in Williams's account of guilt. Finally, I sketch some features of remorse that suggest that remorse belongs to a very different moral picture from the one painted by Williams.
Moral Particularism Reconfigured
Authors: Gleeson Andrew 
Published: August 2007

AbstractIn one version, moral particularism says that morality has no need of principles. Jonathan Dancy has argued for this in his recently published Ethics Without Principles. For Dancy, the central issue is whether it is necessary for moral reasons to be codified in principles. He thinks not. This misses the point. Whether or not it needs to be or can be codified, moral agents should not follow rules, on pain of a bad‐faith rule‐fetishism. The authority of particular cases does not reside in any alleged failure of codifiability. It rests on the fact that moral agents cannot palm off responsibility for their actions on to experts or rules and that they must respond freshly to each case with an appropriate moral reaction: indignation, pity, remorse, etc. Ironically, this reconfiguration of the particularism issue follows from the proper appreciation of a passage from George Eliot, which Dancy cites as his own inspiration.
Regulating Lobbyists: A Comparative Analysis of the United States, Canada, Germany and the European Union
Authors: CHARI RAJ , MURPHY GARY , HOGAN JOHN 
Published: August 2007

Lobbying is central to the democratic process. Yet, only four political systems have lobbying regulations: the United States, Canada, Germany and the EU (most particularly, the European Parliament). Despite the many works offering individual country analysis of lobbying legislation, a twofold void exists in the literature. Firstly, no study has offered a comparative analysis classifying the laws in these four political systems, which would improve understanding of the different regulatory environments. Secondly, few studies have analysed the views of key agents—politicians, lobbyists and regulators—and how these compare and contrast across regulatory environments.We firstly utilise an index measuring how strong the regulations are in each of the systems, and develop a classification scheme for the different ‘ideal’ types of regulatory environment. Secondly, we measure the opinions of political actors, interest groups and regulators in all four systems (through questionnaires and elite interviews) and see what correlations, if any, exist between the different ideal types of system and their opinions. The conclusion highlights our findings, and the lessons that can be used by policy‐makers in systems without lobbying legislation.
AN ARGUMENT FOR AGENT‐NEUTRAL VALUE
Authors: Alm David 
Published: August 2007

AbstractThis paper argues (a) that to any agent‐relative value maker there will correspond an agent‐neutral value maker, and the latter explains the former; and (b) that to each agent‐relative constitutive ground there corresponds a neutral one, and the latter explains the former. It follows from (b), if not from (a), that agent‐neutral value exists if agent‐relative value does.
POLITICAL LIBERALISM WITHOUT SCEPTICISM
Authors: Quong Jonathan 
Published: August 2007

AbstractPolitical liberalism famously requires that fundamental political matters should not be decided by reference to any controversial moral, religious or philosophical doctrines over which reasonable people disagree. This means we, as citizens, must abstain from relying on what we believe to be the whole truth when debating or voting on fundamental political matters. Many critics of political liberalism contend that this requirement to abstain from relying on our views about the good life commits political liberalism to a kind of scepticism: we should abstain from relying on our views about the good life because we should be uncertain about the truth of those views. But this kind of scepticism is itself a controversial epistemic position which many reasonable people reject, thus apparently making political liberalism internally incoherent. This is the sceptical critique of political liberalism. This paper shows the sceptical critique to be false. The paper argues that the epistemic restraint required of citizens in political liberalism does not assume or imply any version of scepticism about our ability to know the good life. Liberal neutrality is motivated not by scepticism about our own views, but rather by a desire to justify fundamental political principles to others.1
‘An anthropological concept of the concept’: reversibility among the Siberian Yukaghirs
Authors: Jiménez Alberto Corsín , Willerslev Rane 
Published: August 2007

This article attempts to sketch a new anthropological epistemology. It does so by revisiting the work that concepts do in economic models, and by suggesting an alternative ‘anthropological concept of the concept’ for the economy. The article looks to how concepts create their own limits of meaning and uses the very idea of limit to rethink how conceptual thought out‐grows and transforms itself. We develop our epistemology by looking at the socio‐economic practices and institutions of the Yukaghirs, a small group of indigenous hunters, living along the Kolyma River in northeastern Siberia. The Yukaghirs' moment of creative possibilities is given through the reversibility of every one of their economic practices, informed by the work of a shadow force (ayibii) that aims for the limit. We gain insights from this notion of reversibility to rethink the purchase of the ‘economic’ in our contemporary world, questioning the validity of such ‘conceptual’ descriptions as virtualism or the knowledge economy.RésuméLes auteurs tentent ici d'ébaucher une nouvelle épistémologie anthropologique en revisitant l'action des concepts dans les modèles économiques et en suggérant un autre « concept anthropologique du concept » en économie. L'article étudie la manière dans les concepts créent leurs propres limites de signification et utilise cette idée de limite pour revoir la façon dont la pensée conceptuelle se dépasse et se transforme elle‐même. Les auteurs développent leur épistémologie par l'étude des pratiques et institutions socio‐économiques des Yukaghirs, un petit groupe de chasseurs indigènes vivant le long de la rivière Kolyma, dans le nord‐est de la Sibérie. Le moteur des possibilités créatives des Yukaghirs est constitué par la réversibilité de chacune de leurs pratiques économiques, informées par l'œuvre d'une force de l'ombre (ayibii) qui tend vers la limite. Cette notion de réversibilité fournit des éléments pour repenser l'emprise de « l'économique » sur notre monde contemporain et remettre en question la validité des descriptions « conceptuelles » telles que l'économie virtuelle ou celle de la connaissance.
A groundwork for West Indian cultural openness
Authors: Wardle Huon 
Published: August 2007

Sidney Mintz aptly describes the cultural openness characteristic of West Indian life. But his historical sociology leaves a gap in our understanding of what cultural openness consists in and how it is organized in the ethnographic here and now. Cultural openness needs to be considered with regard to, and as dependent on, active practices of ambiguation. A case study of religious experience in Kingston, Jamaica describes one person's involvement in the Jamaican cult Revival Zion, foregrounding concurrent processes of subjective disambiguation/commitment, diacritical/disjunctural cultural framing, and ambiguation. Ambiguation in the West Indies is driven by a need to express inter‐subjectively recognized truths for which there is no public moral terminology. Its wider context is the ‘theatre state’ quality of West Indian politics. Its results are cultural phenomena which elude categorical closure. Understanding how cultural openness is sustained in the Caribbean provides a contrastive insight into the Euro‐American experience of modernity.RésuméBien que Sidney Mintz décrive très pertinemment le caractère d'ouverture culturelle de la vie dans les Caraïbes, sa sociologie historique ne nous permet pas de comprendre en quoi consiste l'ouverture culturelle ni comment elle est organisée dans l'ici et maintenant ethnographiques. L'ouverture culturelle doit être envisagée par rapport aux pratiques actives d'ambiguation et en lien avec celle‐ci. Une étude de cas d'expérience religieuse à Kingston, à la Jamaïque, décrit l'implication d'un sujet dans le culte jamaïcain Revival Zion, jetant les bases de processus concomitants de désambiguation et d'engagement subjectifs, d'encadrement culturel diacritique et disjoncturel et d'ambiguation. Dans les Caraïbes, l'ambiguation est née de la nécessité d'exprimer des vérités reconnues au niveau intersubjectif et pour lesquelles il n'existe pas de terminologie morale publique. Elle s'inscrit dans le contexte plus large d'une qualité« d'Etat‐spectacle » de la politique aux Caraïbes. Il en résulte des phénomènes culturels qui échappent à la catégorisation. En comprenant comment l'ouverture culturelle se maintient dans les Caraïbes, nous obtenons par contraste une image de l'expérience euro‐américaine de la modernité.
Ethnicizing the subject: domestic violence and the politics of primordialism in Kazakhstan
Authors: Snajdr Edward 
Published: August 2007

This article examines how people understand domestic violence through primordialist notions of ethnicity in post‐Soviet Kazakhstan. Drawing on fieldwork among police, victim advocates, and Muslim activists, I examine how these groups ethnically frame, or ‘ethnicize’, the topic of domestic violence, its victims and perpetrators, as well as its root causes and possible remedies. From explaining away ineffective policing to blaming past imperialism, I show how ethnicizing violence has political significance for these different stakeholders, whose assertions about gender behaviour and the function of the law compete with one another in a multi‐ethnic state's transition from communism. I also discuss not only how these disparate identity positionings serve as local explanations and/or solutions, but also how they may inevitably contribute to concealing the problem.RésuméL'auteur étudie la manière dont certains peuples appréhendent la violence familiale à travers des notions primordialistes d'appartenance ethnique dans le Kazakhstan post‐soviétique. À partir d'un travail de terrain dans les milieux de la police, des défenseurs des droits des victimes et des activistes musulmans, il étudie la manière dont ces groupes inscrivent dans une argumentation ethnique ou « ethnicisent » la question de la violence familiale, de ses victimes et de ses auteurs, ainsi que de ses causes fondamentales et des remèdes possibles. De la justification de l'inefficacité policière à l'incrimination de l'impérialisme passé, l'auteur montre comment l'ethnicisation de la violence a une signification politique pour ces différents groupes. Leurs affirmations sur les comportements de genre et le fonctionnement de la loi se font concurrence dans le contexte de l'émergence d'un État multi‐ethnique sorti du communisme. Par ailleurs, il examine non seulement la manière dont ces positionnements identitaires disparates servent d'explications et ou de solutions locales, mais aussi comment ils peuvent inévitablement contribuer à masquer le problème.