Strict Distinction Research Articles

Diachronic causal constitutive relations

Mechanistic approaches are very common in the causal interpretation of biological and neuroscientific experimental work in today’s philosophy of science. In the mechanistic literature a strict distinction is often made between (intralevel) causal relations and (interlevel) constitutive relations, where the latter cannot be causal. One of the typical reasons for this strict distinction is that constitutive relations are supposedly synchronic whereas most if not all causal relations are diachronic. This strict distinction gives rise to a number of problems, however. Our end goal in this paper is to argue that it should be given up, at least in the context of the biological and the psychological sciences. To that effect, we argue that constitutive relations in this context are diachronic, thus undermining the aforementioned reason. We offer two cases from scientific practice in which constitutive relations are regarded as both diachronic and causally efficacious, review three existing ways of dealing with the apparent diachronic nature of interlevel relations in mechanisms and propose a new account of diachronic, causal constitutive relevance.

’n Nijmegenaar aan die Universiteite van Parys en Heidelberg in die latere Middeleeue: Die lewe en werk van Marsilius van Inghen (ca. 1340–1396)

A scholar from Nijmegen at the Universities of Paris and Heidelberg in the later Middle Ages: The life and work of Marsilius of Inghen (ca. 1340–1396). This article provides an introduction to the thought of the 14th-century Dutch intellectual Marsilius of Inghen, rector of both the University of Paris (1367, 1371) and the University of Heidelberg (1386). Inghen belongs to that special group of late Medieval nominalists, who were able to set nominalism up as a steadfast alternative to realism. Characteristic of his work was his rejection of real universals outside the human mind, his strict distinction between the capabilities of natural reason and truths in faith, his rejection of a suppositio simplex (in favour of a suppositio materialis ), his defense of the possibility of an 11th Aristotelian category (‘signs’) and his critique of the Aristotelian theory of projectile motion. Enormously influential at European universities at the time, even in Spain, Inghen is described as one of the brightest minds in Medieval intellectual history – yet Inghen is sadly still bypassed and overlooked in standardised introductions to Medieval philosophy. Intradisciplinary/interdisciplinary implications: As a millennium-long discourse, Medieval philosophy functions in a Venn diagrammatical relationship with Medieval history, Church history, patristics and philosophy of religion. Whenever ‘mainstream’ or ‘canonised’ Medieval philosophy is impacted from the niche research, it may well have implications that these closely related disciplines could take note of. Such is the case in this niche-reappraisal of the works of Marsilius of Inghen.

Spatial updating of allocentric landmark information in real-time and memory-guided reaching

The 2-streams model of vision suggests that egocentric and allocentric reference frames are utilized by the dorsal and the ventral stream for real-time and memory-guided movements, respectively. Recent studies argue against such a strict functional distinction and suggest that real-time and memory-guided movements recruit the same spatial maps. In this study we focus on allocentric spatial coding and updating of targets by using landmark information in real-time and memory-guided reaching. We presented participants with a naturalistic scene which consisted of six objects on a table that served as potential reach targets. Participants were informed about the target object after scene encoding, and were prompted by a go cue to reach to its position. After target identification a brief air-puff was applied to the participant's right eye inducing an eye blink. During the blink the target object disappeared from the scene, and in half of the trials the remaining objects, that functioned as landmarks, were shifted horizontally in the same direction. We found that landmark shifts systematically influenced participants' reaching endpoints irrespective of whether the movements were controlled online based on available target information (real-time movement) or memory-guided based on remembered target information (memory-guided movement). Overall, the effect of landmark shift was stronger for memory-guided than real-time reaching. Our findings suggest that humans can encode and update reach targets in an allocentric reference frame for both real-time and memory-guided movements and show stronger allocentric coding when the movement is based on memory.

Enactivism, Causality, and Therapy

Enactivism, Causality, and Therapy Shaun Gallagher (bio) In 1937, John Dewey delivered a lecture to the College of Physicians in Saint Louis. His clear message was that in the practice of medicine it does not suffice for physicians to treat just the body, or to look to just the body for the mechanism of disease. Emphasizing the relational nature of organism-environment, he argued that the physician must treat the whole patient and must therefore consider the environment of the patient. It makes no sense, he suggested, to provide medicine to address a problem with the patient's lungs and then to send him back into the coal mine. As he put it: "We must observe and understand internal processes and their interactions from the standpoint of their interactions with what is going on outside the skin" (1937, 326). Dewey's view of the relational nature of human existence has informed the action-oriented, affordance-based conceptions of enactivism, and this is reflected in Sanneke de Haan's essay that proposes an enactivist approach to psychiatry. Although I am in general agreement concerning the direction that de Haan takes in her article, I want to highlight two problems that are not addressed by the notion of sense-making. The first is theoretical and directly connected with the issue of integration that de Haan discusses. Specifically, it is the problem of causality. The second is practical and concerns the role of the psychiatrist. How should we think of causality with respect to the mix of factors to which de Haan points? The fact that there is existential meaning integrated with bodily, experiential, environmental, and social factors suggests that part of the psychiatrist's task is hermeneutical. How the patient understands herself and the world and what she values in life are part of what the psychiatrist should understand. This seems to be a very different task than identifying causal factors that might lead the patient to have such attitudes. Yet, such attitudes can also be addressed therapeutically. Do they play a causal role in a similar way to neural, environmental, or social factors? de Haan (note 11) is rightly skeptical of the notion of vertical integration and the top-down, bottom-up notions of causality that come with it. Sorting out the question about causality, however, is central to solving the integration problem. A number of theorists have highlighted the virtues of James Woodward's (2005) interventionist concept of causality in psychiatric contexts (e.g., Kendler & Campbell, 2009). I take this concept to be consistent with dynamical enactivist approaches because one can treat the arrangement of variables—bodily, experiential, environmental, social, and existential factors—as a dynamical gestalt involving reciprocal causal relations. The interventionist view stipulates that if one manipulates [End Page 27] variable A and this results in a change in variable B, then A and B are causally related. If the various factors that form the dynamical gestalt that constitutes a person's life are causally related, then we can understand both disease and therapeutic practice in terms of causal intervention. The physical or social arrangement that makes an environment toxic can clearly be a causal factor in the disease that, above a certain threshold, may generate changes in bodily (including neural), experiential, and existential factors. Therapeutic interventions on any of these factors may result in changes that affect the whole. The challenge of therapy is to decide which strategic interventions will work best for the individual patient. Importantly, as Kendler and Campbell point out, the interventionist notion of causality puts some critical bounds on an unruly holism that would claim everything as relevant. As de Haan points out, there are some philosophical complications about the distinction between causal and constitutive factors. In contrast to mechanistic approaches that attempt to maintain a strict distinction between etiology and mereology, that is, between diachronic causal relations and whole-part constitutive relations (e.g., Craver, 2007), enactivism understands dynamical causal relations to constitute the integrated gestalt of factors that make up the life of the patient (Gallagher, 2018; Kirchhoff, 2017). If philosophers wrestle with different perspectives on reductionism versus holism, or mechanistic versus interventionist conceptions of causality, one might...

Long-term outcome and prognostic factors of intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma involving the hepatic hilus versus hilar cholangiocarcinoma after curative-intent resection: Should they be recognized as perihilar cholangiocarcinoma or differentiated?

BackgroundPerihilar cholangiocarcinoma is defined as tumors arising predominantly at or near the biliary confluence, potentially consisting of two types: hilar cholangiocarcinoma (HC) and intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma involving the hepatic hilum (hICC). However, whether hICC and HC should be strictly distinguished or combined remains highly controversial. We aimed to compare the clinicopathological characteristics, prognostic factors and long-term outcome of hICC versus HC after curative-intent resection. MethodsBetween January 1998 and June 2015, a total of 325 patients with hICC (n = 146) and HC (n = 179) who underwent curative-intent resection were enrolled. The medical records of these patients were retrospectively reviewed. ResultsPortal vein invasion, larger tumors, and later T stage were significantly more common in hICC group. A total of 110 (75.3%) hICC patients and 119 (66.5%) HC patients experienced tumor recurrences, respectively. The median recurrence-free survival (RFS) and overall survival (OS) of hICC patients were significantly worse than those of HC patients (median RFS, 14.3 versus 22.7 months, P = 0.014; median OS, 21.7 versus 30.6 months, P = 0.032). Multivariate analysis revealed tumor size, satellite nodules, surgical margin, and histological grade as independent factors for OS in hICC patients. On the other hand, the presence of liver parenchyma invasion, portal invasion, lymphovascular invasion, later N stage, and positive surgical margin were associated with shorter OS in HC patients. ConclusionshICC showed distinct clinicopathological features, more aggressive biological behaviors, different prognostic factors, and worse prognosis in comparison with HC. Therefore, making a strict distinction between hICC and HC is necessary.

Good and Bad Philosophers in Plato's Euthydemus

In the dialogue's envoi, Socrates urges Crito to dismiss philosophers who propound useful observations and philosophers who produce good for nothing logoi. That strict distinction between philosophers misleading, for Socrates propounds an indisputably good for nothing logos at 292b5–6 and Dionysodorus utters a useful philosophical observation at 301a8–9. Dionysodorus' joke about the effect on Socrates, who stubbornly resisting the brothers' wisdom, of being in the presence of an ox (oxen, typically castrated, are docile) realized as Socrates abandons his stubborn resistance for a docile acceptance of the brothers' wisdom, as he says at 301b1–2, and is Dionysodorus by dint of that wisdom rubbing off on him.

Policy Diffusion and Telecommunications Regulation Wavre, Veronique Cham, Palgrave Macmillan (2019), 202 p., ISBN 978-3-319-70744-0

Policy Diffusion and Telecommunications Regulation Wavre, Veronique Cham, Palgrave Macmillan (2019), 202 p., ISBN 978-3-319-70744-0

Русские стяженные номинации с суффиксом –к(а) в социолингвистическом аспекте: от коммуналки к боевке

Active distribution of lexemes derived from combining attributive phrases in one word – in particular, using the -k(а) suffix – is often associated with their stylistic markedness and expressive tone. Often, however, set -k(a)-formations function as stylistically neutral: open letter – otrkrytka, student’s record book – zachyotka. The derivative model is active both in colloquial speech and terminology. -K(а)-nominates are described in literature (see the works by Isachenko, Kapanadze, Yanko-Trinitskaya, Vinokur, Lopatin, Zemskaya, Osipova, Veprevoi, Ustimenko) as the result of semantic condensation, lexico-syntactic inclusion, lexical ellipticism, univerbation, compression (and are called univerbs, compressives, sometimes distinguishing these types). Due to their tendency to relate to several referents, -k(a)-words tend towards polysemic functioning. The study explores mono- and polyreferenciality of univerbs, their polysemous nature, and young Russian native speakers’ understanding / treatment of mono- and polysemic -k(a)-lexemes. The article examines 32 relatively active (relevant at least in one meaning) derivational models with affixal -k(а) selected from several sources: the Internet; Contemporary Reverse Russian language dictionary; research, including dictionaries of compressives. Chosen were mainly derivatives from attributive combinations motivated by word-sign (adjective or participle) but without a strict distinction between univerbs and condensates. The informants (the students of HSE Lyceum, Moscow) were given a list that included 3 fillers to measure reliability and identify excessive speech creativity which might induce informants to interpret an uncommon word as known. Control group consisted of adults with technical and humanities background (12 people). The study objectives were to determine the prevalence and marginality of univerbs, as well as poly- and monoreferential lexemes; to identify the use of dominant and non-actualized values; to show similarities and differences of adolescent and adult usage of compressives and their functioning. Selected lexemes were interpreted differently in everyday and professional speech, in urban usage and regiolects, in neutral colloquial speech and slangs. According to the analysis of the Internet and the Russian National Corpus newspaper sub-corpus, the selected lexemes are, in most cases, polysemic. Monosemic univerbs are rare. However, multireferencial lexemes have dominant meanings that may change with time. According to the informants’ self-evaluation, almost all respondents know the common lexeme kommunalka, sometimes in two meanings. Almost no one, at the same time, knows the specialised term boevka even in its dominant meaning. Typical context for the proposed words was asked to test whether informants’ self-evaluation alligns with general speech practice. Fillers shhipkovka and dobrotka expectedly produced no contexts, and the most natural potential formation pripaska was put in context by 9 informants. Globalka and boevka are commonly disappearing in live speech regardless of the respondents’ age (this is consistent with their self-assessment), while ochka and durka are dominant in the proposed set of lexemes. Based on the data collected, there are 9 monoreferential lexemes distinguished by their context formation ability (nastolka, voenka, bezlimitka, durka, globalka, zabroshka, lichka, minusovka, vkusnyashka), none of which are derived from the respondents’ answers. As for contextual usage and suggested synonyms, there are 23 polyreferencial lexemes. Informants’ individual response to fillers and unfamiliar existing words is similar: when trying to interpret the meaning, their internal form (something motivated by an adjective or participle) is reconstructed. Contexts of use, synonyms and producing base are not specified in these cases. Overall, the fillers differ significantly from the existing words in the sample: reactions to them are rare even in the interpretations’ graph. Therefore, the general results of the study of existing words may be said not to be inspired by informants’ desire to cooperate or their excessive creativity.

Saint Thomas Aquinas on Salvation, Making Satisfaction, and the Restoration of Friendship with God

Saint Thomas Aquinas on Salvation, Making Satisfaction, and the Restoration of Friendship with God1 Rik Van Nieuwenhove THE THEMES OF “making satisfaction” and (to a lesser extent) “merit” in the thought of Thomas Aquinas are worth revisiting.2 A number of scholars have claimed that the seeds of a penal understanding of salvation lie in Aquinas’s notion of satisfaction. In contrast to St. Anselm, who operated with a strict distinction between punishment and making satisfaction, Aquinas, so they allege, would have blurred this distinction by introducing the notion of poena satisfactoria. In this manner Aquinas would have “paved the way” for a penal understanding of salvation. Gerald O’Collins, for instance, has argued that Aquinas’s soteriology contributed to the development of “a monstrous version of redemption: Christ as [End Page 521] the penal substitute propitiating the divine anger.”3 O’Collins further attempts to substantiate this claim by arguing that the language of divine appeasement is present throughout Aquinas’s writings. Others see this alleged rupture with Anselm as a cause for quiet gratification: a reading in which Aquinas supposedly anticipates some of the views of the Reformers strengthens their status as legitimate exponents of the tradition.4 There are undoubtedly important differences between Anselm and Aquinas. For example, Aquinas, perhaps following William of Auvergne’s own Cur Deus homo, allows for a plurality of models whereas Anselm offers only one. More importantly, in contrast to Anselm, Aquinas rightly emphasizes the need for our participation in Christ’s redemptive work: through the intimate union between Christ and his Body, the faithful can share in the merits of Christ.5 Thus, a genuine exchange can take place whereby Christ’s suffering can be satisfactory for us because of his union as Head with us, his Body; and our sufferings can become a participation in Christ’s, allowing us to become more [End Page 522] Christ-like.6 Moreover, as I will argue in this article, Aquinas will subtly but significantly recast Anselm’s doctrine in light of charity and friendship with God, where demands of a just retribution are not as stringent as they would be amongst those who are not friends. Before I delve into the main argument, a preliminary observation is in order. In my view, “making satisfaction” is neither the most innovative nor the most important theme in Aquinas’s soteriology. The young Aquinas follows Peter Lombard (and early thirteenth-century Scholastics) in book 3 of his commentary on the Sentences, distinction 18, focussing primarily on the merit that Christ attains through his charity.7 Distinction 19, however, offers a more diverse picture. Here Aquinas mentions other models, such as liberation from sin and the devil, redemption, and reconciliation. In distinction 20 we encounter the theme of making satisfaction (with one explicit reference to Anselm’s Cur Deus homo).8 References to making satisfaction and Anselm’s Cur Deus homo surface more frequently in book 4, especially in the treatise on penance, where we find an entire quaestio dedicated to it.9 This link between satisfaction and penitential practices is not without significance, as I hope to show in this article. Also, it is fair to say that Aquinas’s emphasis on distinct models evolves. In his commentary on the Sentences merit is the most important model of salvation. The theme of making satisfaction dominates the discussion in Summa contra Gentiles III, chapter 55. By the time he writes the Summa theologiae III, question 48, Aquinas presents a balanced account, offering a richly diverse picture of models of atonement, such as merit, making satisfaction, redemption, and especially sacrifice, which now receives an attention it had not enjoyed in his earlier [End Page 523] theological syntheses and which may very well be the most important one (as STh III, q. 48, a. 6, ad 3 appears to suggest).10 In what follows I want to consider whether a penal reading of Aquinas’s soteriology is plausible. I will first deal, albeit briefly, with the issue of the language of divine anger; second, and in more detail, I will discuss the notions of satisfaction and poena satisfactoria.11 After this I will treat of merit, charity...

On the Importance of the Philosophy of Well-being

Objective: A weak approach to well-being policy means that government’s goal should be to choose policies that make people better off over those that make them worse off, with other things being equal. The question is what kind of underlying assumptions should be fulfilled to achieve this goal. In particular, do policymakers have to agree on some substantive theory of well-being, like hedonism or objective list theory, or persist in choosing the formal preference satisfaction theory of well-being? According to Haybron and Tiberius (Well-being Policy: What Standard of Well-being?, “Journal of the American Philosophical Association” 2015, vol. 1, no 4), we can avoid raising such questions by drawing a strict distinction between the varieties of concepts or theories of well-being and policy processes aiming at promoting the well-being of citizens. They claim that such policies are “justified only when they are grounded in the conceptions of the well-being of those on whose behalf policy is being made”, and call this approach “pragmatic subjectivism” (p. 713). From their reasoning it follows that policymakers need not develop the appropriate concept of well-being, but can leave it to citizens to choose. The paper examines Haybron and Tiberius’ proposal and defends the claim that while theoretically we can avoid discussing the concept of well-being when we follow pragmatic subjectivism, we cannot do this in practice.Research Design & Methods: The paper uses an argument analysis.Findings: One way or another we will have to move in the direction of purely formalistic preference satisfaction theory or some substantive approaches like hedonism or objectivism. If we do not want to take for granted the incoherent intuitive concepts of well-being people hold, and because “well-being” is a normative concept, we have to develop philosophical theories of well-being that openly reveal their strengths and weaknesses.Implications / Recommendations: To facilitate the process of political decision-making, philosophically informed measures of well-being are needed. To a certain extent, those measures already exist, and they are widely applied by policymakers, e.g., GDP per capita, the Human Development Index or various happiness / subjective well-being indices. However, they seem to be either insufficient or purely philosophically informed.Contribution: The paper contributes to the development of the analysis of well-being and measures its philosophical underpinnings.

Artificial Darkness: An Obscure History of Modern Art and Media by Noam M. Elcott

Reviewed by: Artificial Darkness: An Obscure History of Modern Art and Media by Noam M. Elcott Brian R. Jacobson (bio) and Laura Isabel Serna Artificial Darkness: An Obscure History of Modern Art and Media by Noam M. Elcott. University of Chicago Press. 2016. $45.00 hardcover. $35.00 paper; also available in e-book. 312 pages. In the beginning there was nothing, and then there was artificial darkness. This, in several respects, is the thesis of Noam M. Elcott's book, which indeed begins by quoting Genesis. A series of arguments about the critical role that darkness played in early cinema and modernism follow, all intelligently formulated, elegantly constructed, and engagingly presented, though less groundbreaking than the author wants us to believe. An exquisitely illustrated book, Artificial Darkness: An Obscure History of Modern Art and Media traces the relationship between constructed darkness and artificial light, privileging the former by obscuring the latter. It focuses on an oft-studied set of objects: the magic lantern, phantasmagoria, spirit photography, and Pepper's ghost; Étienne-Jules Marey's motion studies; Georges Méliès and Segundo de Chomón's trick films; and Richard Wagner's Bayreuth theater, interwar movie houses, and Oskar Schlemmer's avant-garde ballets. Using these objects and practices, Elcott narrates something like cinema's emergence in the nineteenth century, although this story ends not with the medium's institutionalization or industrialization but instead with artificial darkness, a dispositif, not a medium, and with Schlemmer, an artist who used darkness but only rarely worked with film. Elcott's question is not where cinema came from so much as how and where darkness, one of cinema's defining features, developed with it. For cinema scholars, much of this, save perhaps Wagner and Schlemmer, will sound familiar, and those steeped in early film [End Page 171] historiography and media archaeology may strain to identify the "obscure" in a history we know in large part thanks to the New Film History.1 By ignoring that history's valuable insights, however, Artificial Darkness manufactures its own darkness—the black historiographical screen for its illumination. This is a problem not only for intellectual reasons but also because this book, in positioning itself as an interdisciplinary work that can speak not just to art history but also to cinema and media studies, misrepresents the latter. In doing so, it negates the very promise of interdisciplinarity. Turning away from both light and the significant interventions of more than two decades of film and media scholarship, Elcott argues in the book's introduction that "nearly all archaeologies of cinema betray themselves as paeans to lights and cameras when they climax at the legendary Lumière screening at the Grand Café on December 28, 1895."2 The "nearly" here is this book's essential rhetorical buttress, through which Elcott obscures so much work that has not focused on film and its cameras and thereby insists upon the novelty of his alternative to film history's supposedly light- and text-obsessed histories. That novelty rests on a restrictive dichotomy between artificial light and manufactured darkness, the former having, Elcott argues, blinded historians from the more important story of the latter. The introduction includes a series of "exclusions" to this strict distinction—noting, for example, that artificial darkness could not be total, that it sometimes required daylight, and that it "was much more proximate to artificial light than to other forms of darkness."3 These equivocations aside, the book insists that although "the histories of artificial light and artificial darkness overlap at important junctures … ultimately they are distinct."4 Focusing on where the darkness appeared, such as in film studios and theaters, the book examines a series of dispositifs, most often involving some version of a black screen, used to create the conditions for conjuring images. The book's first chapter focuses on Marey's Station Physiologique, site of the scientist's "proto-cinematic" studies of moving humans, animals, and objects. Between 1882 and 1886, Marey designed a series of structures to serve as backdrops for these photographic experiments. The essential innovation, inspired by chemist Michel-Eugène Chevreul, was a recessed tunnel lined in black curtains that limited light...

The role of the expert knowledge in politicizing urban planning processes: A case from Istanbul

This article discusses the relationship between the expert knowledge and the prospects of politicizing and democratizing urban planning. The term ‘experts’ refers mainly to urban planners, yet also includes architects, engineers and lawyers, who are specialized in planning. The article begins with a review of the critical literature on communicative planning, agonistic pluralism, agonistic planning and discussions on what needs to be done in planning focusing on the role of the expert knowledge. It argues that expert knowledge can gain different and multi-dimensional roles in urban planning processes, leading not necessarily to techno-management, yet contributing in their inclusiveness and conflict sensitivity. Encompassing both technical support and objective intermediation for local communities, it can both be utilized to build an agonistic space and help the communities better utilize the existing communicative/collaborative channels to voice their disagreements. By this way, it contributes in the politicization and democratization of planning processes. With this argument, the article also aims to challenge the strict distinction between ‘the politics’ and ‘the political’ as well as the related communicative–agonistic divide. The argument is supported by evidence from a case study on two informally built residential neighbourhoods in Istanbul, where there has been an active citizen opposition and involvement in a planning process.

Grid Average and Nodal Value in High Order Scheme

ABSTRACTThe concepts of nodal value and grid average in cell centered finite volume method (FVM) are clarified in this work, strict distinction between the two concepts in constructing numerical schemes is made, and common fault in misidentifying the two concepts is pointed out. The expansion based on grid average, similar to Taylor’s expansion, is deduced to construct correct scheme in terms of grid average and to obtain modified partial differential equation (MPDE) which determines the order of accuracy of numerical scheme theoretically. Correct high order scheme, taking QUICK (Quadratic Upstream Interpolation for Convective Kinematics) scheme as an example, is constructed in different approaches. Furthermore, the property of interpolation coefficients is analyzed. We also pointed out that for high order schemes, round-off error dominates the absolute error in fine grid and truncation error dominates the absolute error in coarse grid.

Predominantly cystic clear cell renal cell carcinoma and multilocular cystic renal neoplasm of low malignant potential form a low-grade spectrum.

Multilocular cystic renal cell carcinoma has been recently excluded from clear cell renal cell carcinoma (CCRCC) category and re-designated as multilocular cystic renal neoplasm of low malignant potential (MCRNLMP) due to its uniformly good outcomes. While strict distinction between MCRNLMP from predominantly cystic CCRCC (pc-CCRCC) is being emphasized, the significance of extensive true cystic component in CCRCC has not been investigated. Herein, we analyzed 57 MCRNLMP, 69 pc-CCRCC, and 46 non-cystic CCRCC. There were no statistically significant differences between the three subtypes in age, gender, and laterality. ISUP grades were 1 (73%) or 2 (27%) for MCRNLMP; for pc-CCRCC were 1 (31%), 2 (60%), and 3 (9%); and for non-cystic CCRCC were 1 (9%), 2 (52%), 3 (26%), and 4 (13%). MCRNLMP were either pT stage 1 (91%) or 2 (9%), pT stages for pc-CCRCC were 1 (92.5%), 2 (1.5%), and 3 (6%) and for non-cystic CCRCC were 1 (58.7%), 2 (6.5%), and 3 (34.8%). None of MCRNLMP patients developed recurrences or metastases, and only 1 contralateral kidney tumor and 1 metastasis developed in pc-CCRCC. In contrast, 19 patients with non-cystic CCRCC developed metastases (5-year PFS 58%, CI 38.3-73.5%), and 1 patient died of disease. Monosomy 3 was common in both MCRNLMP (3/3) and pc-CCRCC (6/7). This large series of MCRNLMP confirms its indolent behavior, shows that pc-CCRCC has significantly better prognosis than non-cystic CCRCC and may define the lower grade spectrum of CCRCC. We recommend that the presence and extent of CCRCC cystic component should be documented in the pathology report.

Capital and the Business Cycle A Synthesis (With a Didactic Exposition)

This paper presents a synthesis of capital theory and business cycle analysis. Capital is the neglected child of macroeconomics. Despite its obvious importance, capital has not received the attention that it deserves in modeling the business cycle. While many business cycle models pay no or very little attention to capital, the formation and structure of capital are an integral part of the exposition in this paper. Based on a strict distinction between the goods side and the monetary side of the economy, the present model combines time preference with the determination of the interest rate and puts these concepts consistently into a modified version of the standard growth model. The analysis then shows how monetary and fiscal policies produce business cycles. When the macroeconomic policy authorities calibrate the market liquidity and set the interest rate below the level set by the time preference of the economic actors, monetary and fiscal policy does not cure the business cycle but prolong the stagnation. The approach presented in this paper provides a framework for the analysis of macroeconomic policies and offers an innovative template for general macroeconomic analyses. The appendix adds a didactic exposition with indications for a course in macroeconomics guided by the main propositions of this paper. Following this plan, macroeconomic teaching and research could win consistency and regain the relevance that has been lost over the past decades.

Activated Carbon, Biochar and Charcoal: Linkages and Synergies across Pyrogenic Carbon’s ABCs

Biochar and activated carbon, both carbonaceous pyrogenic materials, are important products for environmental technology and intensively studied for a multitude of purposes. A strict distinction between these materials is not always possible, and also a generally accepted terminology is lacking. However, research on both materials is increasingly overlapping: sorption and remediation are the domain of activated carbon, which nowadays is also addressed by studies on biochar. Thus, awareness of both fields of research and knowledge about the distinction of biochar and activated carbon is necessary for designing novel research on pyrogenic carbonaceous materials. Here, we describe the dividing ranges and common grounds of biochar, activated carbon and other pyrogenic carbonaceous materials such as charcoal based on their history, definition and production technologies. This review also summarizes thermochemical conversions and non-thermal pre- and post-treatments that are used to produce biochar and activated carbon. Our overview shows that biochar research should take advantage of the numerous techniques of activation and modification to tailor biochars for their intended applications.

C=f(P): The trust, ‘general public utility’, and charity as a function of profit in India

AbstractWith an interest in historicizing contemporary philanthropic formations such as corporate social responsibility, this article outlines the modern Indian governmental coding of charity as a function of profit. To do so, it charts a trajectory of legal-fiscal policy on charitable tax exemption in India, especially since the 1940s. Informed by the study of vernacular capitalism, research on economization and on epistemologies of calculation, the analysis maps juridical trajectories on the idea of charity, its relationship with trade, and, more specifically, profit-making. It demonstrates how the legal mechanism of the public trust, which serves in the late nineteenth century to institutionalize a strict distinction and separation between charity and profit-making, later reconfigures and connects them by buttressing the main legal criterion for charity in India, that is, ‘general public utility’. This legal story is deployed to draw attention to philanthropy more broadly as a key terrain for research on processes of economization and neoliberal governing. At the same time, the argument also works against the grain of palimpsests in contemporary public discourse which stage a continuous and direct line from pre-colonial vernacular practices to Indian philanthropy today.

The Implicit as a Resource for Engaging Normativity in Religious Studies

This piece recommends the implicit as a resource for examining normativity within the study of religion. Attention to the implicit serves at least two purposes toward this end. First, it gives the scholar of religion a clearer sense of the norms of the communities she seeks to understand, norms that, depending partly on one’s methodological commitments, may be evaluated as well as described. Second, it deepens the scholar’s reflections on the implicit norms that guide her own work. These claims—which extend the work of Tyler Roberts, Kevin Schilbrack, and Thomas A. Lewis—are embedded within specific understandings of language and mind as drawn from Robert Brandom and Peter Ochs. Brandom and Ochs help speak to the questions of whether the academic study of a religious tradition can or should evaluate that tradition, answering “yes” and “it depends”, respectively. This presents scholars of religion with both a challenge and an opportunity. The challenge is that religionists no longer have recourse to a strict distinction between fact and value. The opportunity is that, by linking implicit facts and values to explicit analysis and evaluation, scholarly investigations can be expanded in both descriptive and prescriptive contexts.

Qualitative evaluation of mobile cancer apps with particular attention to the target group, content, and advertising.

Medical apps are gaining importance rapidly. Also in the field of cancer care, apps are offered. Yet, so far little is known with respect to their quality. In a pilot phase we developed a rating tool based on formal and content-related criteria for the assessment of cancer apps. We used this instrument on cancer apps available in the App Store (iOS) concerning breast, prostate and colorectal cancer. The results were stratified according to target group, content and advertising. We assessed 41 mobile cancer apps. Six apps (14.63%) scored very high, fifteen apps (36.59%) high, seventeen apps (41.46%) were deficient, and three apps (7.32%) were insufficient. The largest group of apps represents those apps with the "deficient" rating. The very good to good apps had reliable sources, a concrete intent/ purpose in their app description, and a strict distinction of scientific content and advertisement. Apps with the predicates "deficient" or "insufficient" had particularly poor ratings, e.g. in the subscales "information on sources" and "data protection". Almost half of the tested apps were deficient or insufficient. In order to improve safety of patients using apps, some regulation seems mandatory. Putting apps under the legislation for medical products might be one way to better regulate and control quality. Second, efforts should focus on the development of checklists that make it easier for patients to search for suitable cancer apps.

Adaptability and specificity of inhibition processes in distractor-induced blindness.

In a rapid serial visual presentation task, inhibition processes cumulatively impair processing of a target possessing distractor properties. This phenomenon-known as distractor-induced blindness-has thus far only been elicited using dynamic visual features, such as motion and orientation changes. In three ERP experiments, we used a visual object feature-color-to test for the adaptability and specificity of the effect. In Experiment I, participants responded to a color change (target) in the periphery whose onset was signaled by a central cue. Presentation of irrelevant color changes prior to the cue (distractors) led to reduced target detection, accompanied by a frontal ERP negativity that increased with increasing number of distractors, similar to the effects previously found for dynamic targets. This suggests that distractor-induced blindness is adaptable to color features. In Experiment II, the target consisted of coherent motion contrasting the color distractors. Correlates of distractor-induced blindness were found neither in the behavioral nor in the ERP data, indicating a feature specificity of the process. Experiment III confirmed the strict distinction between congruent and incongruent distractors: A single color distractor was embedded in a stream of motion distractors with the target consisting of a coherent motion. While behavioral performance was affected by the distractors, the color distractor did not elicit a frontal negativity. The experiments show that distractor-induced blindness is also triggered by visual stimuli predominantly processed in the ventral stream. The strict specificity of the central inhibition process also applies to these stimulus features.