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Useful Idiots 2.0:Saving ‘Great Russian Literature’ from Cancel Culture or Extolling Russian Imperialism?
No full textNB: translated from the English into Albanian by Bardhyl SelimiNë fillim të vitit 2024, një çmim i ri për letërsinë ruse të pavarur (émigré) u themelua në Zvicër. Me kaq shumë autorë dhe librat e tyre të ndaluar në Rusinë e Putinit, kjo duket një nismё e lakmueshme. Megjithatë, qëllimet e çmimit pasqyrojnë ato të propagandës kulturore zyrtare ruse dhe injorojnë plotësisht kontekstin e luftës imperialiste të Rusisë kundër Ukrainës. Si rezultat, me vetëdije apo jo, themeluesit e çmimit dhe ekspertët pёrkatёs mbështesin imperializmin rus dhe luftërat koloniale të pushtimit
Indigenous coastal management in Papua New Guinea:resilience and the revitalization of <i>polepole </i>stone fish traps on Lovongai island
No full textOn Lovangai Island in Papua New Guinea, Indigenous communities have worked with Indigenous scientists and international anthropologists to document and revitalize traditional stone fish traps. These locally designed and enacted projects are an Indigenous form of coastal planning which refuses both state-planning and conservation organization planning. They are also a form of biocultural revitalization that foregrounds Indigenous sovereignty. Based on a traditional design, the Lovangai stone fish trap known as polepole works to provide pool habitat for important aquatic biota, to increase food security, to increase respect for, and interest in, traditional practices, and it is also hoped that it may contribute to prevention of coastal erosion. In this paper we describe the reciprocal collaborative process by which this project came to be, the methodology used, and the relationship between biocultural approaches to research and Indigenous-led resilience projects
Efficient burial of labile organic carbon in sediments of oxygenated Icelandic fjords
No full textFjords are hotspots of organic carbon (OC) burial, making them key components in the global carbon cycle. Recent research shows high marine OC burial even under oxic fjord water columns, broadening the scope of key drivers of OC burial therein. Here, we investigate the fate of marine OC in fjord sediments underlying oxic bottom waters in East Iceland. We estimate OC sources using stable isotopes, degradation using chemical biomarkers, and burial using 210Pb and 137Cs profiles. The average OC accumulation rates in East Iceland fjords was ~15 g OC m-2 yr-1, lower than the fjord global average of 54 g OC m-2 yr-1. Marine OC was the overwhelming source of OC to sediments and accounted for 91% of the OC buried in Iceland. The gradient in OC source from the head-to-mouth of the fjords was minimal, due to limited terrestrial vegetation and soil cover, low riverine inputs, and effective exchange with coastal waters. Lignin and total hydrolyzable amino acid biomarkers suggest negligible degradation of terrestrial OC and minor degradation of marine OC. Although a portion of marine OC was prone to remineralization in sediments, it represented only a small fraction of the total OC resulting in high OC transfer (burial) efficiencies of 68-96% within the top 25 cm of sediments. Overall, Icelandic fjords efficiently bury labile marine OC despite oxic water columns
3′<i>H</i>-spiro[dibenzo[<i>c</i>,<i>h</i>]xanthene-7,1′-isobenzofuran]-3′-one
No full textTarget compound 3′H-spiro[dibenzo[c,h]xanthene-7,1′-isobenzofuran]-3′-one (1) has long been known to be a by-product obtained from the preparation of naphtholphthalein. The structure of compound 1 was elucidated in the early 20th century; however, this compound has not previously been fully characterized using modern techniques. In this report, 1H NMR and 13C NMR spectra are provided. X-ray crystallography is also used to characterize the title compound for the first time
Marble Statuettes of the Roman Period
No full textThe excavations of the Athenian Agora have played a major role in bringing to light the rich sculptural legacy of ancient Athens. The project’s storerooms boast one of the most important bodies of sculpture from classical antiquity, covering the complete range and history of output in a storied center of artistic production. This volume presents, for the first time, the marble statuettes and statuette fragments, carved between the 1st century BCE and the 4th century CE, that have been excavated from the Agora since 1931. Comprising one in six figural sculptures found at the site, these works are testament to a thriving demand for small divine images in Roman-period Greece that has been insufficiently recognized until now. Among these broken and battered figures are the portraits of polytheistic Athens: naked Aphrodite at her bath, winged Eros assisting his mother, tired Herakles after a labor, teenage Artemis aiming her bow, attentive Asklepios dispatching cures. The author marshals a detailed and heavily illustrated catalogue of 672 objects to offer new data to the study of Greek iconography and sculptural production. Taken as a collective whole, the statuettes document the vibrant religion, society, and art of Athens and beyond
The evolution of infant-directed communication:comparing vocal input across all great apes
No full textHuman language is unique among communication systems since many elements are learned and transmitted across generations. Previous research suggests that this process is best predicted by infant-directed communication, i.e., a mode of communication directed by caregivers to children. Despite its importance for language, whether infant-directed communication is unique to humans or rooted more deeply in the primate lineage remains unclear. To assess this, we investigated directed and surrounding vocal communication in human infants and infants of wild nonhuman great apes. Our findings reveal that human infants receive dramatically more infant-directed communication than nonhuman great ape infants. These data suggest that the earliest hominins likely relied more on surrounding communication to become communicatively competent, while infant-directed vocal communication became considerably more prominent with human language. Human infants receive more directed communication than other great ape infants, indicating that it evolved alongside language
First-order aboutness theory
No full textWe seem to have a good grasp of how the subject matters of truth-functional composites depends on their components: it’s simply fusion (Hawke in Australas J Philos 96:697–723, 2018, Fine in Philos Studies 177:129–171, 2020, Plebani and Spolaore in Philos Q 71:605–622, 2021, Plebani and Spolaore in Philos Stud 181:247–265, 2021, Berto in Topics of Thought, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2022). But what relation should the subject matter of subsentential components bear to the subject matter of the sentences they feature in, and what to say about the quantified sentences of first-order predicate logic? Given how well we seem to understand sentential subject matter in the context of propositional logic, I propose a reduction of the subject matter of subsentential components and of quantified sentences to the subject matter of quantifier-free sentences. I argue that the view squares with the Fregean intuitions that gave rise to the construction of first-order logic as we know it today, motivating its adequacy as a theory of subject matter for first-order languages. I then show that this first-order aboutness theory has predictive and explanatory power, leading us to accept a modified version of Yablo’s (Aboutness, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2014) principle of immanent closure, as well as a new conception of arbitrary objects/reference. Finally, I propose some potential developments and restrictions
Competence and performance revised:pragmatic development may shape mentalizing development
No full textCognitive development research distinguishes between what children know (competence) and their ability to demonstrate their knowledge (performance). An experiment can fail to reveal a child’s competence if its design limits the child’s performance. This distinction allows researchers to design experiments that limit the impact of performance factors, leading to observations of competence earlier in cognitive development. The distinction is often used in a deflationary way, where performance factors are taken to be extraneous to the competence of interest, so that they are irrelevant to a theory of competence. Using the role of children’s pragmatic inferences in mentalizing development as a case, I argue that this is sometimes an implausible use of the distinction. Performance factors do not necessarily support deflationary explanations and so are not always extraneous. I develop the concept of a learning procedure which specifies the attentional and inferential constraints that govern the construction of children’s developing competences. Changes in children’s pragmatic inferences can critically reshape learning procedures with developmental consequences for mentalizing. This case has the wider implication that performance factors split into two kinds. Synchronic performance factors are extraneous to competence and track competence at a specific time. Diachronic performance factors are developmentally entangled with competence and affect competence over developmental time. I outline how these two kinds of performance can be teased apart empirically
Psychological mechanisms for individual recognition- and anonymous-societies in humans and other animals
No full textTo understand the nature and evolution of different kinds of societies, we must characterize the psychological mechanisms members use to identify who belongs. Across both individual recognition- and anonymous-societies, these range from physiological responses to individuals up to powerful conceptual representations of the group that license generalization and novel predictions. Sketching these mechanisms helps us understand the transition from the individual recognition societies of our ape ancestors to uniquely human forms of anonymous society.</p