Artificial Consensus Research Articles

Unpacking Forest Stewardship Council certification in Chile: The scope and limitations of neoliberal market‐driven governance for achieving sustainable development

AbstractThe Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is an international NGO promoting sustainable forest management by setting standards and certifying timber as eco‐friendly. After facing significant resistance from the Chilean forestry sector, which is plagued by environmental and territorial conflicts, FSC began certifying Chile's main forestry corporations in 2010. This article examines the implementation of FSC's standards by addressing two questions. First, how does FSC function in practice, including the roles of consultants, chambers, and instruments in the certification process? Second, what are the scope and limitations of FSC in achieving sustainable development and managing forestry industry conflicts? Elaborating on 24 interviews with key forestry stakeholders, ethnographic fieldwork, and documentary analysis, the findings indicate that FSC enhances management practices in the forestry industry by promoting legal compliance, rational production management, and improved relations between firms and local communities. FSC provides a green imaginary that ‘cleans up’ timber production as conflict‐free, facilitating its free circulation in the international market. However, as a private governance system, FSC is based on an artificial consensus that has limitations such as power imbalances between firms and communities, limited sanctioning power, and close ties with large industry actors. This neoliberal form of governance fails to resolve structural problems between industry and indigenous communities, yet it creates strategic opportunities for mediating the relationships between actors. In Chile, FSC enables incomplete citizenship for communities and serves as a ‘soft regulation’ for firms, reducing the likelihood of increased State regulation in the forestry sector.

Fine-mapping the immunodominant antibody epitopes on consensus sequence-based HIV-1 envelope trimer vaccine candidates

The HIV-1 envelope glycoprotein (Env) trimer is the key target for vaccines aimed at inducing neutralizing antibodies (NAbs) against HIV-1. The clinical candidate immunogen ConM SOSIP.v7 is a stabilized native-like HIV-1 Env trimer based on an artificial consensus sequence of all HIV-1 isolates in group M. In preclinical studies ConM SOSIP.v7 trimers induced strong autologous NAb responses in non-human primates (NHPs). To fine-map these responses, we isolated monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) from six cynomolgus macaques that were immunized three times with ConM SOSIP.v7 protein and boosted twice with the closely related ConSOSL.UFO.664 immunogen. A total of 40 ConM and/or ConS-specific mAbs were isolated, of which 18 were retrieved after the three ConM SOSIP.v7 immunizations and 22 after the two immunizations with ConSOSL.UFO.664. 22 mAbs (55%) neutralized the ConM and/or ConS virus. Cross-neutralization of ConS virus by approximately one-third of the mAbs was seen prior to ConSOSL.UFO.664 immunization, albeit with modest potency. Neutralizing antibodies predominantly targeted the V1 and V2 regions of the immunogens, with an apparent extension towards the V3 region. Thus, the V1V2V3 region is immunodominant in the potent NAb response elicited by two consensus sequence native-like HIV-1 Env immunogens. Immunization with these soluble consensus Env proteins also elicited non-neutralizing mAbs targeting the trimer base. These results inform the use and improvement of consensus-based trimer immunogens in combinatorial vaccine strategies.

DEVELOPMENT OF METHODS FOR ASSESSMENT AND SELECTION OF UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLE FOR MINE RECONNAISSANCE

Object of research: comparative assessment and selection of an unmanned aerial vehicle for mine reconnaissance sample. Investigated problem: substantiation of the methodological apparatus for comparative assessment and selection of an unmanned aerial vehicle for mine reconnaissance sample, taking into consideration the presence of both quantitative and qualitative indicators. Main scientific results: the methods of comparative assessment and selection of an unmanned aerial vehicle for mine reconnaissance sample is developed. The technique is based on an expert method, which allows a drone sample to be evaluated and selected objectively, taking into consideration the presence of both quantitative and qualitative indicators. At the same time, group interaction and discussion of experts are realized. When the judgments do not coincide, an artificial consensus is not imposed. The number of experts is not limited. The experts are not linked in any way. The need to ensure transitive consistency (10–12 %) makes it possible to record attempts by an expert (experts) to artificially overestimate the indicators of one of the drone samples (or the one being evaluated), therefore, the indicators of another sample will automatically deteriorate. The principle of impartiality and fairness is maintained. A well-trained objective coordinator is not required, and the reality is that the absence of the disrupting the problem solution possibility is due to a change in the psychological situation among the experts. Area of practical use of research results: humanitarian demining in the interests of ensuring the detection of mines for various purposes by sappers from a safe distance. At the same time, an increase within the probability of mines detecting is ensured due to special equipment installed onboard the drone. Innovative technological product: a technique has been developed that allows not only assessing the drone samples for mine reconnaissance objectively, but making an objective choice of a sample for specific requirements also. Scope of application of the innovative technological product: clearance of the terrain remaining after the end of hostilities. With the help of unmanned aerial vehicles, a significant acceleration of the demining process is possible, especially in those territories where mines are installed and being for a sufficiently long time.

Democracy as consensus? The case of artificial consensus

We consider here how democracy cannot be reduced to consensus and majorityvoting without taking in count contextual systemic social properties. We intend Democracy as context-sensitive, emergent property of social systems. We consider possible empirical confirmatory approaches to be used in case of strategic decisions as in thecase of the Brexit. We present the example of medical practice where no physician would decide a medical treatment on the base of a diagnosis having little more than fifty percent of probabilities to be true (neither a judge would condemn a defendant in court). In the post-industrial, knowledge societies we must face the end of the identity between universal suffrage and democracy.

Design, biological activity and signaling pathway of bovine consensus omega interferon expressed in Pichia pastoris

The bovine IFN-ω (BoIFN-ω) multigene family is located on chromosome 8, which has 14 potential functional genes and 10 pseudogenes. After aligning 14 BoIFN-ω subtypes and assigning the most frequently occurring amino acids in each position, one artificial consensus BoIFN-ω (CoBoIFN-ω) gene was designed, optimized and synthesized. Then, CoBoIFN-ω was expressed in Pichia pastoris, which was demonstrated to have 3.94-fold and 14.3-fold higher antiviral activity against VSV on MDBK cells than that of BoIFN-ω24 and BoIFN-ω3, respectively. Besides this, CoBoIFN-ω was confirmed to have antiviral activity against VSV on BL, BT, PK-15 cells, and against BEV, BHV-1, BPIV3 on MDBK cells. Additionally, CoBoIFN-ω could bind with bovine type I IFN receptors, and then activate the promoters of NF-κB, ISRE and BoIFN-β, and induce the transcription of ISGs and expression of Mx1 and NF-κB p65, which suggested CoBoIFN-ω exerts antiviral activity via activation of the JAK-STAT signaling pathway. Overall, this research on CoBoIFN-ω not only extends and improves consensus IFN research, but also reveals that CoBoIFN-ω has the potential to be used in the therapy of bovine viral diseases.

From the mountain sanctuary to the nation

Reflecting on a long itinerary of research in the Aurès begun in the 1970s, and the significance today of the ‘high’-cultural model of nationalism advanced by Ernest Gellner (which drew on Weberian sociology in principle and the example of Algeria empirically), this article considers the historical roots and the long-term consequences of the incorporation, via the Islamic reformist (islah) movement of Abdelhamid Ben Badis and his followers, of local cultural producers and local social spaces into an Algerian nation-state politically defined by the hegemony of the National Liberation Front (Front de Libération Nationale (FLN)). Close examination of local and familial strategies for the accumulation and reinvestment of spiritual capital reveals both the local importance, beginning in the 1930s, of linkages to the emerging national sphere and the absence, at a national level, of competition for religious and cultural legitimacy that would contest the imposition of a uniform, hegemonic vision of national community. The reformist movement itself would suffer from the monopolisation of control after independence by the FLN party-state. While the limitations of this model, and the artificial consensus it created, were subsequently revealed in the obstacles to a critical intellectual life and the more radical disaffection of younger generations, it seems that there were few or no other ways, in the 1930s–50s, to articulate local society and national aspirations effectively.

A Novel Quantitative Fluorescent Reporter Assay for RAG Targets and RAG Activity

Recombination-Activating Genes (RAG) 1 and 2 form the site specific recombinase that mediates V(D)J recombination, a process of DNA editing required for lymphocyte development and responsible for their diverse repertoire of antigen receptors. Mistargeted RAG activity associates with genome alteration and is responsible for various lymphoid tumors. Moreover several non-lymphoid tumors express RAG ectopically. A practical and powerful tool to perform quantitative assessment of RAG activity and to score putative RAG-Recognition signal sequences (RSS) is required in the fields of immunology, oncology, gene therapy, and development. Here we report the detailed characterization of a novel fluorescence-based reporter of RAG activity, named GFPi, a tool that allows measuring recombination efficiency (RE) by simple flow cytometry analysis. GFPi can be produced both as a plasmid for transient transfection experiments in cell lines or as a retrovirus for stable integration in the genome, thus supporting ex vivo and in vivo studies. The GFPi assay faithfully quantified endogenous and ectopic RAG activity as tested in genetically modified fibroblasts, tumor derived cell lines, developing pre-B cells, and hematopoietic cells. The GFPi assay also successfully ranked the RE of various RSS pairs, including bona fide RSS associated with V(D)J segments, artificial consensus sequences modified or not at specific nucleotides known to affect their efficiencies, or cryptic RSS involved in RAG-dependent activation of oncogenes. Our work validates the GFPi reporter as a practical quantitative tool for the study of RAG activity and RSS efficiencies. It should turn useful for the study of RAG-mediated V(D)J and aberrant rearrangements, lineage commitment, and vertebrate evolution.

Crystal Structure of a Multidomain Human p53 Tetramer Bound to the Natural CDKN1A (p21) p53-Response Element

The p53 tumor suppressor protein is a sequence-specific DNA-binding transcription factor. Structures of p53 bound to DNA have been described, but, so far, no structure has been determined of p53 bound to a natural p53-response element. We describe here the structure of a human p53 homotetramer encompassing both the DNA-binding and homo-oligomerization domains in complex with the natural p53-response element present upstream of the promoter of the CDKN1A (p21) gene. Similar to our previously described structures of human p53 tetramers bound to an artificial consensus DNA site, p53 DNA binding proceeds via an induced fit mechanism with loops L1 of two subunits adopting recessed conformations. Interestingly, the conformational change involving loop L1 is even more extreme than the one previously observed with the artificial consensus DNA site. In fact, the previously determined loop L1 conformation seems to be a transition intermediate between the non-DNA-bound and CDKN1A-bound states. Thus, the new structure further supports our model that recognition of specific DNA by p53 is associated with conformational changes within the DNA-binding domain of p53.

A constrained consensus problem using MPC

This paper presents an MPC (Model Predictive Control) based consensus algorithm which solves a consensus problem in which constraints are imposed on the increment of the state of each agent. After making an artificial consensus trajectory using a previously designed consensus algorithm, the MPC is used to make the agent track the consensus trajectory. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.

Value Plurality among Conservation Professionals

Debate on the values that underpin conservation science is rarely based on empirical analysis of the values conservation professionals actually hold. We used Q methodology to investigate the values held by international conservation professionals who attended the annual Student Conference in Conservation Science at the University of Cambridge (U.K.) in 2008 and 2009. The methodology offers a quantitative means of examining human subjectivity. It differs from standard opinion surveys in that individual respondents record the way they feel about statements relative to other statements, which forces them to focus their attention on the issues they believe are most important. The analysis extracts the diverse viewpoints of the respondents, and factor analysis is used to reduce the viewpoints to a smaller set of factors that reflect shared ways of thinking. The junior conservation professionals attending the conference did not share a unifying set of core values; rather, they held a complex series of ideas and a plurality of opinions about conservation and how it should be pursued. This diversity of values empirically challenges recent proposals for conservation professionals to unite behind a single philosophy. Attempts to forge an artificial consensus may be counterproductive to the overall goals conservation professionals are pursuing.

Similar T-Cell Immune Responses Induced by Group M Consensus Env Immunogens with Wild-Type or Minimum Consensus Variable Regions

Consensus HIV-1 genes can decrease the genetic distances between candidate immunogens and field virus strains. To ensure the functionality and optimal presentation of immunologic epitopes, we generated two group-M consensus env genes that contain variable regions either from a wild-type B/C recombinant virus isolate (CON6) or minimal consensus elements (CON-S) in the V1, V2, V4, and V5 regions. C57BL/6 and BALB/c mice were primed twice with CON6, CON-S, and subtype control (92UG37_A and HXB2/Bal_B) DNA and boosted with recombinant vaccinia virus (rVV). Mean antibody titers against 92UG37_A, 89.6_B, 96ZM651_C, CON6, and CON-S Env protein were determined. Both CON6 and CON-S induced higher mean antibody titers against several of the proteins, as compared with the subtype controls. However, no significant differences were found in mean antibody titers in animals immunized with CON6 or CON-S. Cellular immune responses were measured by using five complete Env overlapping peptide sets: subtype A (92UG37_A), subtype B (MN_B, 89.6_B and SF162_B), and subtype C (Chn19_C). The intensity of the induced cellular responses was measured by using pooled Env peptides; T-cell epitopes were identified by using matrix peptide pools and individual peptides. No significant differences in T-cell immune-response intensities were noted between CON6 and CON-S immunized BALB/c and C57BL/6 mice. In BALB/c mice, 10 and eight nonoverlapping T-cell epitopes were identified in CON6 and CON-S, whereas eight epitopes were identified in 92UG37_A and HXB2/BAL_B. In C57BL/6 mice, nine and six nonoverlapping T-cell epitopes were identified after immunization with CON6 and CON-S, respectively, whereas only four and three were identified in 92UG37_A and HXB2/BAL_B, respectively. When combined together from both mouse strains, 18 epitopes were identified. The group M artificial consensus env genes, CON6 and CON-S, were equally immunogenic in breadth and intensity for inducing humoral and cellular immune responses.

Fine Mapping of Pre-S Sequence Requirements for Hepatitis B Virus Large Envelope Protein-Mediated Receptor Interaction

Previous studies showed that the N-terminal 75 amino acids of the pre-S1 domain of the hepatitis B virus (HBV) L protein are essential for HBV and hepatitis delta virus (HDV) infectivity. Consistently, synthetic lipopeptides encompassing this sequence or only parts of it efficiently block HBV and HDV infection, presumably through specific interference with a cellular receptor. Crucial for both virus infectivity and the inhibitory activity of the peptides are N-terminal myristoylation and a highly conserved motif within the N-terminal 48 amino acids. To refine the sequence requirements, we synthesized a series of HBV pre-S1 peptides containing deletions, point mutations, d-amino acid exchanges, or genotype-specific sequence permutations. Using the HepaRG cell line and a genotype D-derived virus, we determined the specific inhibitory activities of the peptides and found that (i) lipopeptides with an artificial consensus sequence inhibit HBV genotype D infection more potently than the corresponding genotype D peptides; (ii) point mutations, d-amino acid exchanges, or deletions introduced into the highly conserved part of the pre-S1 domain result in an almost complete loss of activity; and (iii) the flanking sequences comprising amino acids 2 to 8, 16 to 20, and, to a less pronounced extent, 34 to 48 gradually increase the inhibitory activity, while amino acids 21 to 33 behave indifferently. Taken together, our data suggest that HBV pre-S1-mediated receptor interference and, thus, HBV receptor recognition form a highly specific process. It requires an N-terminal acyl moiety and a highly conserved sequence that is present in primate but not rodent or avian hepadnaviruses, indicating different entry pathways for the different family members.

Human cloning and human dignity: the report of the President's Council on Bioethics

Few avenues of scientific inquiry raise more thorny ethical questions than the cloning of human beings, a radical way to control our DNA. In August 2001, in conjunction with his decision to permit limited federal funding for stem-cell research, President George W. Bush created the President's Council on Bioethics to address the ethical ramifications of biomedical innovation. Over the past year the Council, whose members comprise an all-star team of leading scientists, doctors, ethicists, lawyers, humanists, and theologians, has discussed and debated the pros and cons of cloning, whether to produce children or to aid in scientific research. This book is its insightful and thought-provoking report. The questions the Council members confronted do not have easy answers, and they did not seek to hide their differences behind an artificial consensus. Rather, the Council decided to allow each side to make its own best case, so that the American people can think about and debate these questions, which go to the heart of what it means to be a human being. Just as the dawn of the atomic age created ethical dilemmas for the United States, cloning presents us with similar quandaries that we are sure to wrestle with for decades to come.

Between past and Future: The Revolutions of 1989 and Their Aftermath by Sorin s> Antohi Vladimir Tismaneanu (review)

REVIEWS I73 interchange. The consequence has been the continuing economic decline of the RFE, its effective economic isolation, and its increased incapacity to deal with the challenge of integration into the broader economies of North East Asia. As Michael McFauleloquently argues, the futureof the RFE is perhaps the greatestchallenge for the Russian federal authoritiesand highlights their relativeimpotence in the face of local mafia-basedauthoritarianforces.As the other contributorsstress,the failureof the RFE to engage meaningfullywith the necessity to integrate in the broader economy of North East Asia only accentuates the challenges of managing their relationswith theirvastly more populated Chinese neighbour. The broaderregionalimplicationsof Chinese-Russianrelationsarecovered in the final section of the book. Martha Brill Olcott provides an insightful account of how the evolution of the relationship might impact on Central Asia. While noting that China is currentlysatisfiedwith a Russian hegemony of the region, she persuasively argues that China would be likely to fill any vacuum ifRussia'spost-imperialwithdrawalwere to continue. HarryGelman providesa contributionwhich looksmore broadlyinAsiatoJapan and Korea. It is a rather surprisingomission in Rapprochement andRivalry that there is no specific assessmentof the challenges presented to the United States from the burgeoning Sino-Russianrelationship. Overall, though, this is an informative and broadly balanced set of contributions which focus coherently on the key issues in the bilateral relationship. While attention is properly given to the multiple obstacles and weaknessesin the relationship,the book challengesthe assumptionthat this is a purelyrhetoricalor purelymalign strategicpartnership.As GilbertRozman argues,this is a relationshipwhich is 'likelyto endure and even to strengthen' (p. I49) and the challenge for the outside world is to channel this rapprochement in a broaderand positive multilateralframework. Geneva Centrefor Security Policy ROLAND DANNREUTHER Antohi, Sorin, and Tismaneanu, Vladimir (eds). Between PastandFuture.The Revolutions of1989 andTheirAfternath. CentralEuropeanUniversityPress, Budapest, 2000. xii + 4I4 pp. Notes. Index. fI 7.95 (paperback). THEeditors of this collection of essaysgive something of a hostage to fortune in situating this book within the 'retrospectiveand prospective ruminations' that the tenth anniversary of the fall of communist power in the erstwhile Eastern Europe has evoked, and in 'refraining from pushing for artificial consensus or superficialhomogeneity'. What keeps the book together is, the editorshope, a 'common quest for the meanings of what I989 epitomizes and symbolizes' (p. xii). With such a rationale the book is about as close to a dictionarydefinitionof a symposiumas one can get, and it has the meritsand faultsof a true symposium. It is difficult not to suspect that it is their confidence in the authors that enables the editors to riskan unorchestratedtext. Those twenty-two authors I74 SEER, 8o, I, 2002 include many who have made a distinguishedcontributionto the studyof the region and there is no room in a review to list all their particularmerits. In mentioning certainof them my intention is ratherto illustratethe themes that emerge fromthe workratherthan distributinglaurels. Two particularthemes standout. The firstconcernsthe natureof the events of I989 in the region. Here a menu of views is offered around the terms revolution(a number of authors,often subliminally),or 'refolution'(Timothy Garton Ash reproduces here his familiar mix of revolution and reform), or rebirth(KarolSoltan). A second theme is composite. At its centre are the questions raisedby the democraticaspirationsof the protagonistsin the eventsof I989 andthe upshot of these aspirations.Given the historyof the ten subsequentyears there is an air of melancholy over the discussion of these questions. From that core question of what became of the aspirationsof i 989 (concerning mostly the northern tier) stems a furtherquestion arising from the dismal events in the former Yugoslavia.What price the vaunted Western liberal democracy if it fails to cope with challenges within Europe itself? Among many perceptive views offeredI would directthe readerto those of MartinPalous,one of whose conclusions is that 'it is essential [. . .] to see the limitations of the liberal paradigm to understand not only the similaritiesbut also the differences between Europe before and after the ruinous attack on its identity by totalitarianideologies' (p. I I7). In so many ways we are presented with the geopolitics of Europebefore I939, and yet the worldhas moved on. To which it might be added thatwhilstdespondency in the face of Bosnia and Kosovo is justified, the challenge is a new one of universal importance as...

Membrane Topology of an ATP-gated Ion Channel (P2X Receptor)

Western blots of Xenopus oocyte membrane preparations showed that the apparent molecular mass of the wild type P2X2 receptor (about 65 kDa) was reduced by pretreatment with endoglycosidase H. Mutagenesis of one or more of three potential asparagines (N182S, N239S, and N298S) followed by Western blots showed that each of the sites was glycosylated in the wild type receptor. Functional channels were formed by receptors lacking any single asparagine, but not by channels mutated in two or three positions. Artificial consensus sequences (N-X-S/T) introduced into the N-terminal region (asparagine at position 9, 16, or 26) were not glycosylated. Asparagines were glycosylated when introduced at the C-terminal end of the first hydrophobic domain (positions 62 and 66) and at the N-terminal end of the second hydrophobic domain (position 324). A protein in which the C terminus of one P2X2 subunit was joined to the N terminus of a second P2X2 subunit (from a concatenated cDNA) had twice the molecular mass of the P2X2 receptor subunit, and formed fully functional channels. The experiments provide direct evidence for the topology originally proposed for the P2X receptor, with intracellular N and C termini, two membrane-spanning domains, and a large extracellular loop.

THE THEORY, PRACTICE AND POLITICS OF MANPOWER PLANNING: AN ANALYTICAL CRITIQUE WITH EMPIRICAL ILLUSTRATIONS FROM THE N.H.S.

Since individual and/or sectional interests are embedded in organisational relations, the meaning and significance of manpower plans will depend very much on the political and career systems of which they are both a condition and a consequence. Manpower planning can never be seen simply as a technical solution to practical problems for insofar as it reflects and reinforces power‐knowledge practices within organisations, it is as much part of the problem as of the solution. The post‐Griffith climate of industrial management in the NHS is leading to the imposition of an artificial consensus through bureaucratic and technicist means, rather than identifying and developing new ways to mobilise the creative collective power of the majority, who at present remain peripheral to, and disinterested in, their organisation.

Relativism and the problem of epistemological loneliness.

A commentary on the sense of isolation and estrangement which commonly accompanies the relativism ushered in by the emergence of formal operational thought, and a detailing of several regressive strategies frequently employed by adolescents in their efforts to accommodate to this plurality of solitudes. It is suggested that the stereotypy, cliquishness and press toward conformity common among adolescents, as well as the penchant for abstraction and the susceptability to secular and nonsecular conversions often characteristic of this age group, can be understood as attempts to cope with the estrangement of social relativism through the imposition of a kind of artificial consensus. Such essentially regressive solutions are viewed as a by-product of a standard of cognitive development which regards maturity as a kind of exclusive trafficking in abstract relativistic thought. This view is contrasted with an alternative construction of cognitive development which rejects the notion that concretism is an intellectual handicap of middle childhood, that centered or figurative thinking is a conceptual stage to be overcome, and that thoughts freed of all contracdiction are the mark of conceptual maturity. This second and dialectical view of development is proposed as a perspective which permits a brand of cognitive growth that does not sacrifice the particular to the general nor condemn the adolescent to the vertigo of relativism.