Absence Of Precise Definition Research Articles

Operationalization of the best available techniques and best environmental practices in deep seabed mining regime: a regulatory perspective

Best Practices, including Best Available Techniques (BAT) and Best Environmental Practices (BEP), are typically included to provide for or promote particular practices, methods, measures, or standards in respect of the efficient recovery of a resource and the level of environmental protection. Deep seabed mining (DSM) is an activity to obtain mineral resources from the deep sea, which may have certain adverse impacts on the marine environment. International Seabed Authority (ISA), the regulator of DSM activities in the Area authorized by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), has introduced those terms in its Mining Code as critical tools for the reduction in environmental risks arising from DSM. Terms that are not included by the UNCLOS, such as BAT and BEP, are commonly invoked, yet often without specification in the regulatory discourse for DSM. In the absence of precise definitions and operational details, the terms BAT and BEP may not be able to function as anticipated in the DSM domain. Against this backdrop, this paper attempts to explore possible means by which the ISA might enable the contractor to operationalize the BAT and BEP, including providing definitions, their placement in the exploitation regulations, and the criteria for its operationalization in the Standards and Guidelines. This paper cites the existing international instruments that incorporate the terms BAT and BEP and takes particular note of DSM into account to highlight specific considerations for their practical implementation for DSM.

Recommended Musculoskeletal and Sports Ultrasound Terminology: A Delphi-Based Consensus Statement.

The current lack of agreement regarding standardized terminology in musculoskeletal and sports ultrasound presents challenges in education, clinical practice, and research. This consensus was developed to provide a reference to improve clarity and consistency in communication. A multidisciplinary expert panel was convened consisting of 18 members representing multiple specialty societies identified as key stakeholders in musculoskeletal and sports ultrasound. A Delphi process was used to reach consensus which was defined as group level agreement >80%. Content was organized into seven general topics including: 1) General Definitions, 2) Equipment and Transducer Manipulation, 3) Anatomic and Descriptive Terminology, 4) Pathology, 5) Procedural Terminology, 6) Image Labeling, and 7) Documentation. Terms and definitions which reached consensus agreement are presented herein. The historic use of multiple similar terms in the absence of precise definitions has led to confusion when conveying information between colleagues, patients, and third-party payers. This multidisciplinary expert consensus addresses multiple areas of variability in diagnostic ultrasound imaging and ultrasound-guided procedures related to musculoskeletal and sports medicine.

A lei da oligarquia de Michels: modos de usar

Poucos autores testaram, de modo sistemático e empiricamente referenciado, a validade da lei da oligarquia de Robert Michels. A falta de definições precisas sobre os conceitos de oligarquia e oligarquização sempre trouxe dificuldades para o teste de casos concretos. Nesse sentido, o objetivo do artigo é sistematizar conceitos e indicadores, propondo um modelo analítico capaz de dar conta de testes empíricos completos e comparáveis sobre a lei da oligarquia. O texto propõe definições empiricamente instrumentalizáveis dos conceitos mais relevantes, para em seguida sugerir indicadores concretos de mensuração da oligarquização, em dois eixos: a estabilidade dos dirigentes em seus cargos e o divórcio de opiniões entre líderes e liderados. A partir disso, desenvolve uma tipologia de classificação das organizações e aponta o que permanece da tese da oligarquia de Michels, como contribuição à teoria democrática atual.

Identifying sources of variability in scoliosis classification using a rule-based automated algorithm.

Use of a rule-based automated algorithm to determine sources of variability in radiographic classification. To determine whether unambiguous rules encoded in a computer program would ensure reliable classification. Reliability problems have been identified in classifications used in surgical planning for patients with thoracic idiopathic scoliosis, but the sources of unreliability are not understood. Objective classification methodology was tested on the King et al (1983) scheme. There were two novel components: 1) positions of the corners of vertebrae in radiographs were digitized relative to a defined axis system and used in automated evaluation of spinal shape parameters required for classification; and 2) the assignment of a classification was done with a rule-based algorithm. The algorithm was implemented after some ambiguities and absence of precise definitions in the King et al classification scheme had been resolved. The algorithm was tested with radiographs of patients having adolescent idiopathic scoliosis. The automated procedure could encounter reliability problems in cases in which a lumbar curve was very close to crossing the midline, thoracic and lumbar curves were of approximately equal value, when the apex level in the thoracolumbar region was ambiguous, when a Cobb angle was close to 10 degrees, or when the flexibility index was close to unity. Objective measurements and rule-based algorithms can eliminate some sources of interobserver and intraobserver errors in classification of spinal deformity. When classification parameters fall close to the boundaries for classification, reliability problems will persist.

Ecological Uses of Vertebrate Indicator Species: A Critique

Abstract: Plant and animal species have been used for decades as indicators of air and water quality and agricultural and range conditions. Increasingly, vertebrates are used to assess population trends and habitat quality for other species. In this paper we review the conceptual bases, assumptions, and published guidelines for selection and use of vertebrates as ecological indicators. We conclude that an absence of precise definitions and procedures, confounded criteria used to select species, and discordance with ecological literature severely weaken the effectiveness and credibility of using vertebrates as ecological indicators. In many cases the use of ecological indicator species is inappropriate, but when necessary, the following recommendations will make their use more rigorous: (1) clearly state assessment goals, (2) use indicators only when other assessment options are unavailable, (3) choose indicator species by explicitly defined criteria that are in accord with assessment goals, (4) include all species that fulfill stated selection criteria (5) know the biology of the indicator in detail, and treat the indicator as a formal estimator in conceptual and statistical models, (6) identify and define sources of subjectivity when selecting monitoring and intetpreting indicator species, (7) submit assessment design, methods of data collection and statistical analysis, interpretations, and recommendations to peer review and (8) direct research at developing an overall strategy for monitoring wildlife that accounts for natural variability in population attributes and incorporates concepts from landscape ecology.

Ritual and Popular Religion in Catholic Germany at the Time of the Reformation

‘Popular religion’ has of late been a much-discussed subject among historians of early modern Europe. Most of the best work has been on France, by French and North American scholars, while for Germany the subject is virtually ignored. Oddly enough, serious scholarship on ‘popular’ or ‘folk’ religion began in Germany at the opening of this century, and by the 1920s a major new field of historical enquiry had been established under the banner ofreligiöse Volkskunde.However, historians left the study of German popular religion to folklorists, a tendency perhaps reinforced by the rather dubious reputation the discipline ofVolkskundeacquired under the Nazi regime. Both before and after 1945, folklore scholars have contributed numerous important studies of popular religion in early modern Germany, but historians have been reluctant to follow in their footsteps. Some of this reluctance may be explained by the absence of precise definition as to what is meant by ‘popular religion’. It is often defined through the use of polar opposites, in terms such as ‘official’ and ‘popular’ religion. The former is institutional religion, the latter that which deviates from institutional norms. Another definition invokes an opposition between theory and practice.

Smooth Things: The Rockefeller Commission's Report on the Humanities

LITANY, 1900-1964 The a twentieth-century invention, term has never had clear meaning. Morton Bloomfield says it was in 1920s that word came indicate disciplines like literature, art, languages, philosophy, and some extent history.' Several writers on what one called sudden dramatic revival of humanities after 1920 (these writers never point out when flourished before) impressed by absence of precise definition: cursory examination of subject, writes Ralph B. Perry in 1938, revealed fact that term 'humanities' had no fixed meaning.2 A 1940 study of The Revival of Humanities in American Education (New York: Columbia University Press) by Patricia Beesley notes the absence of fixed formulae in connection with term; humanities are not be easily catalogued by reference any one concept of humanism (p. 3, p. 64). The term, when it refers anything specific, usually applies various subjects, although some (see, for example, Greene, p. 153) point out that term does not or should not denote subjects. Though never developed fixed meaning, from beginning it has almost invariably been used within one persistent context, key word in a litany of four constant parts. First is relation scientific. The very perception of humanities is apparently possible only with respect scientific. Beesley attributes rise of term efforts to denote a field comparable in breadth Social Natural Sciences (p. 3). Bloomfield says the awareness of their distinctiveness was created by rise of behaviorism social sciences; they came into existence as a separate branch of learning defend them-