High-temporal resolution fluvial sediment source fingerprinting with uncertainty: a Bayesian approach

This contribution addresses two developing areas of sediment fingerprinting research. Specifically, how to improve the temporal resolution of source apportionment estimates whilst minimizing analytical costs and, secondly, how to consistently quantify all perceived uncertainties associated with the sediment mixing model procedure. This first matter is tackled by using direct X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRFS) and diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy (DRIFTS) analyses of suspended particulate matter (SPM) covered filter papers in conjunction with automatic water samplers. This method enables SPM geochemistry to be quickly, accurately, inexpensively and non-destructively monitored at high-temporal resolution throughout the progression of numerous precipitation events. We then employed a Bayesian mixing model procedure to provide full characterization of spatial geochemical variability, instrument precision and residual error to yield a realistic and coherent assessment of the uncertainties associated with source apportionment estimates. Applying these methods to SPM data from the River Wensum catchment, UK, we have been able to apportion, with uncertainty, sediment contributions from eroding arable topsoils, damaged road verges and combined subsurface channel bank and agricultural field drain sources at 60- and 120-minute resolution for the duration of five precipitation events. The results presented here demonstrate how combining Bayesian mixing models with the direct spectroscopic analysis of SPM-covered filter papers can produce high-temporal resolution source apportionment estimates that can assist with the appropriate targeting of sediment pollution mitigation measures at a catchment level

Meminimumkan Agency Problem dan Agency Cost dengan Menggunakan Konsep Islam Tentang Perusahaan: antara Teori dan Praktik

Theoritically, a company based on the principles of Islamic law (profit and loss sharing/PLS) is believed to be able to minimize agency problems and agency cost than the conventional companies,either in the aspect of the business philosophy, contract design, and control. However, the implementation of PLS is still facing a lot of obstacles, Hence, it is not surprising that models of PLS is not predominantly used by Islamic financial institutions, both in Indonesia and abroad. The cclassic argument on  why the model is not dominant because it is considered more risky. In order to contribute to the agency problems in the Islamic perspective, this paper, firstly, will explain and explore the arguments which show advantages of Islamic concept on company in reducing agency problems and agency cost. Secondly, this paper will reveal the obstacles and problems faced in the implementation of such concept. Thirdly, this paper will offer an alternative solution framework to address various issues and constraints faced by them. Solutions offered here includes understanding aspects of the Islamic business draft, micro and macro benefits, human resources, regulatory and performance measurement indicators of  Islamic financial institutions

Agency and Virtues

In the philosophy of action, agency manifests the capacity of the agent to act. An agent is one who acts voluntarily, consciously and intentionally. This article studies the relationship between virtues and agency to learn to what extent agency is conceptually and metaphysically dependent on moral or epistemic virtues; whether virtue is a necessary condition for action and agency, besides the belief, desire and intention? Or are virtues necessary merely for the moral or epistemic character of the agent and not his agency? If virtues are constructive elements of personal identity, can we say that virtues are necessary for action and agency? If we accept that virtues play a role in agency, the principle of “Ought Implies Can” makes us face a new challenge; which we will discuss. After explaining the concept of action and agency, I will study the relationship between agency and virtues in the field of ethics and epistemology. Ultimately, I conclude that not only in theories of virtue but also in other ethical theories, virtue is independently necessary for the actualization of agency; even if, conceptually, there might not be any relation between the two. In many cases, virtue can also have a crucial role in prudential agency. agency, action, moral virtue, epistemic virtue, the principle of “Ought Implies Can”. * Ph.D., Professor. Department of Islamic Philosophy and Theology, University of Qom, Qom, Iran. ׀ [email protected]

Multi-agency working

This chapter, therefore, examines the case for a strategic approach to joined-up services by reviewing the development and operation of multi-agency working in Scottish education, and considers the professional imperatives for collaboration between agencies, and the barriers which present significant challenges to action. The chapter begins by outlining the policy context in relation to making Scotland a fairer society through improving educational experience generally, and then discusses more particularly the emerging practice issues for multi-agency working by considering the case study of one significantly disadvantaged group: children and young people who are 'looked after' by local authorities

Agency and alienation

Book synopsis: Today the majority of philosophers in the English-speaking world adhere to the "naturalist" credos that philosophy is continuous with science, and that the natural sciences provide a complete account of all that exists--whether human or nonhuman. The new faith says science, not man, is the measure of all things. However, there is a growing skepticism about the adequacy of this complacent orthodoxy. This volume presents a group of leading thinkers who criticize scientific naturalism not in the name of some form of supernaturalism, but in order to defend a more inclusive or liberal naturalism. The many prominent Anglo-American philosophers appearing in this book--Akeel Bilgrami, Stanley Cavell, Donald Davidson, John Dupré, Jennifer Hornsby, Erin Kelly, John McDowell, Huw Price, Hilary Putnam, Carol Rovane, Barry Stroud, and Stephen White--do not march in lockstep, yet their contributions demonstrate mutual affinities and various unifying themes. Instead of attempting to force human nature into a restricted scientific image of the world, these papers represent an attempt to place human nature at the center of renewed--but still scientifically respectful--conceptions of philosophy and nature

Multi agency working

The theme of this chapter is 'joined-up' working, the concept of professionals collaborating to provide effective services for the most vulnerable children and their families. It considers the professional imperatives for collaboration between agencies and the barriers which present significant challenges to action. The chapter begins with an outline of the policy context. This is followed by a discussion of multi-agency working in the school context and the implications for practice in the more specific context of children and young people who are 'looked after' by local authorities

Agency and actions

Among philosophical questions about human agency, one can distinguish in a rough and ready way between those that arise in philosophy of mind and those that arise in ethics. In philosophy of mind, one central aim has been to account for the place of agents in a world whose operations are supposedly ‘physical’. In ethics, one central aim has been to account for the connexion between ethical species of normativity and the distinctive deliberative and practical capacities of human beings. Ethics then is involved with questions of moral psychology whose answers admit a kind of richness in the life of human beings from which the philosophy of mind may ordinarily prescind. Philosophy of mind, insofar as it treats the phenomenon of agency as one facet of the phenomenon of mentality, has been more concerned with how there can be ‘mental causation’ than with any details of a story of human motivation or of the place of evaluative commitments within such a story. This little account of the different agenda of two philosophical approaches to human agency is intended only to speak to the state of play as we have it, and it is certainly somewhat artificial. I offer it here as a way to make sense of attitudes to what has come to be known as the standard story of action. The standard story is assumed to be the orthodoxy on which philosophers of mind, who deal with the broad metaphysical questions, have converged, but it is held to be deficient when it comes to specifically ethical questions. Michael Smith, for instance, asks: ‘How do we turn the standard story of action into the story of ‘orthonomous action?’, where orthonomous action is action ‘under the rule of the right as opposed to the wrong’. Smith is not alone in thinking that the standard story is correct as far as it goes but lacks resources needed to accommodate genuinely ethical beings. Michael Bratman is another philosopher who has this thought; and I shall pick on Bratman’s treatment of human agency in due course