Anarchism, virtue ethics and the question of essentialism

In this thesis I examine anarchism and virtue ethics and their relationship with each other through the virtue ethics of Alasdair MacIntyre and virtue ethically informed practical anarchism of Benjamin Franks. MacIntyre’s now classic book of After Virtue where he presents his influential revival of Aristotelian virtue ethics serves as a route for Franks’ effort to explicitly combine the political theory of anarchism with virtue ethics. MacIntyre’s theory puts emphasis on practices as the most salient feature of virtue ethics in contrast to other characteristics of Aristotle’s virtue ethics and his overall philosophical theory, such as justification of slavery and systematic subordination of women, which are redolent of his metaphysical biology. Defining virtue ethics as practice-oriented and stressing the consistency between means and ends, i.e. prefiguration, of actions enables MacIntyre to offer virtue ethics as a suitable alternative to alleged moral confusion brought by Enlightenment inspired moral philosophies of utilitarianism and deontology. For Franks practice-oriented virtue ethics has considerable amount of resemblance with anarchism’s ethical commitment to prefiguration both historically, exemplified by anarchists’ disagreement with Marxists during the First International over the use of state apparatus during revolutionary struggle, and contemporarily, as in the anarchist-influenced Occupy Movement. Based on MacIntyre and Franks’ theories I come to identify the question of essentialism, i.e. what is the essence of our existence, as difficult for both of them and in more generally for the philosophical traditions of anarchism and virtue ethics. I argue for the implementation of materialism to remedy inadequacies found both in MacIntyre’s later era Thomism, and Franks’ theoretical weakness for proper justification to the reason why one ought to accept and adopt anarchist position. I also come to claim that materialism, as in drawing focus on the material constitution of our being and environment, offers invaluable resources beyond anarchism and virtue ethics to the general discourse of political and moral philosophy

Tieto kalavarojen käytön ja hoidon suunnittelussa

Kalataloudellisten käyttö- ja hoitosuunnitelmien (KHS) laatimiseksi tarvitaan tietoa kalatalousalueiden kalatalouden nykytilasta ja historiasta, kalakantojen ja kalastuksen tavoitteista, konkreettisista toimenpiteistä, joilla kalakantojen ja kalastuksen tavoitetilaa pyritään saavuttamaan, kalastuksen valvonnan järjestämisestä sekä kalakantojen ja kalastuksen seurantojen toteuttamisesta. Tässä raportissa on koottuna kalatalouden keskeisten toimijoiden (järjestöt, ely-keskukset ja metsähallitus) näkemyksistä siitä, mikä tieto on kaikkein tärkeintä KHS-suunnittelussa ja mitä tarpeellista tietoa puuttuu. Keskeisiksi tiedontarpeiksi tunnistettiin mm. tieto kalakantojen tilasta, kestävän kalastuksen tavoitetilan määrittely, tieto kalastusrajoituksista, eri tarkoituksiin parhaiten soveltuvien alueiden määrittely, valvonnan tarve ja monenlaiset seurannat. Keskeisiä tiedon puuteita ja kehittämistarpeita tunnistettiin näissä samoissa teemoissa, mutta myös esimerkiksi viitearvojen ja mittareiden määrittelyssä kalavesien tilan kuvaamiseksi ja seuraamiseksi. Ympäristö-, kalakanta- ja kalastustietoa on olemassa ja niiden hyödyntäminen on keskeisen tärkeää erityisesti ensimmäisellä KHS-kierroksella. Tietovarantoja pitää kuitenkin kartoittaa, kuvata ja arvioida sekä muokata tarpeeseen sopivaksi sekä avata suunnittelun käyttöön. Lisäksi tarvitaan uudenlaista tiedonkeruuta ja seurantaa. Luken tietovarantojen arviointi on aloitettu. Toimijat myös arvioivat mitä seurantatietoa kalatalousalueet voisivat jatkossa itse tuottaa. Sopiviksi seurantamenetelmiksi nähtiin muun muassa vesialueiden käyttäjien toiveiden selvittäminen, lupamyyntitedon keruu, koekalastukset, kyselyt kalastajille, kalastuskirjanpito, saalisnäytteiden keruu ja pienimuotoiset merkintätutkimukset. Toimijoilla on laajasti halua osallistua seurantatiedon määrittelyyn ja hankkimiseen.201

The Effect of Atomic Layer Deposited Overcoat on Co-Pt-Si/γ-Al2O3 Fischer–Tropsch Catalyst

Atomic layer deposition (ALD) was used to prepare a thin alumina layer on Fischer–Tropsch catalysts. Co-Pt-Si/γ-Al2O3 catalyst was overcoated with 15–40 cycles of Al2O3 deposited from trimethylaluminum (TMA) and water vapor, followed by thermal annealing. The resulting tailored Fischer–Tropsch catalyst with 35 cycle ALD overcoating had increased activity compared to unmodified catalyst. The increase in activity was achieved without significant loss of selectivity towards heavier hydrocarbons. Altered catalyst properties were assumed to result from cobalt particle stabilization by ALD alumina overcoating and nanoscale porosity of the overcoating. In addition to optimal thickness of the overcoat, thermal annealing was an essential part of preparing ALD overcoated catalyst

The Effect of Atomic Layer Deposited Overcoat on Co-Pt-Si/γ-Al2O3 Fischer–Tropsch Catalyst

Atomic layer deposition (ALD) was used to prepare a thin alumina layer on Fischer-Tropsch catalysts. Co-Pt-Si/gamma-Al2O3 catalyst was overcoated with 15-40 cycles of Al2O3 deposited from trimethylaluminum (TMA) and water vapor, followed by thermal annealing. The resulting tailored Fischer-Tropsch catalyst with 35 cycle ALD overcoating had increased activity compared to unmodified catalyst. The increase in activity was achieved without significant loss of selectivity towards heavier hydrocarbons. Altered catalyst properties were assumed to result from cobalt particle stabilization by ALD alumina overcoating and nanoscale porosity of the overcoating. In addition to optimal thickness of the overcoat, thermal annealing was an essential part of preparing ALD overcoated catalyst.Peer reviewe

The Effect of Atomic Layer Deposited Overcoat on Co-Pt-Si/γ-Al2O3 Fischer–Tropsch Catalyst

Atomic layer deposition (ALD) was used to prepare a thin alumina layer on Fischer–Tropsch catalysts. Co-Pt-Si/γ-Al2O3 catalyst was overcoated with 15–40 cycles of Al2O3 deposited from trimethylaluminum (TMA) and water vapor, followed by thermal annealing. The resulting tailored Fischer–Tropsch catalyst with 35 cycle ALD overcoating had increased activity compared to unmodified catalyst. The increase in activity was achieved without significant loss of selectivity towards heavier hydrocarbons. Altered catalyst properties were assumed to result from cobalt particle stabilization by ALD alumina overcoating and nanoscale porosity of the overcoating. In addition to optimal thickness of the overcoat, thermal annealing was an essential part of preparing ALD overcoated catalyst

Evaluating Students in Translating Courses - Prospects and Pitfalls

Our chapter aims to discuss and analyse various evaluation and assessment methods used in evaluating both individual translation assignments and students’ overall course performances in higher education translator training. It would appear that evaluation methods often fall into the sphere of ‘tacit knowledge’, i.e. teachers develop and apply their own evaluation tools, but these are seldom actively or publicly shared. We start by briefly discussing the impact of assessment on student learning in general, and in particular as related to translation competences. We discuss different approaches to evaluating assignments, for example grading vs not grading; forms of teacher feedback; self-evaluation and peer evaluation. In regard to assessing course performance, we discuss methods such as continuous assessment; end-of-course exams; and various combinations thereof. Throughout the paper, we include a student perspective on evaluation by citing student feedback. We conclude that while different methods can be successfully applied at various stages of translator training, all evaluation should be designed along the lines of constructive alignment.Peer reviewe

Cohesion beyond EU territoriality? Reflections from the ESPON project TERCO

Territorial co-operation has become an integral part of European Union Cohesion Policy, and is regarded as an instrument towards achieving the EU policy objective of Territorial Cohesion. Since the inception of the INTERREG Community Initiative in the early 1990s, EU-funded cross-border, transnational and inter-regional co-operation has enabled diverse actors to co-operate in a variety of fields, thus contributing to territorial integration through the common identification of problems and solutions for territorial development, exchange of knowledge, benchmarking, processes of learning and, not the least, 'getting to know each other'. Also across its external borders, the European Union has facilitated cross-border co-operation through a (though, uneasy) combination of INTERREG and TACIS funding, which has recently been replaced and simplified by the European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument (ENPI). Cross-border co-operation across the external border both shares similarities and exhibits differences with co-operation across the EU's internal borders. Although, the types of actors involved and priorities and project contents on the ground are generally similar, high politics and large economic trends have significant impact on EU-external border regions. This is true also for the Finnish-Russian borderlands, which had been for a long time separated by a closed border and the distress of forced land cession, and which, two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, includes an EU-external 'neighbourhood'. Co-operation across this external border is also conditioned by the macro-level framework of factors such as political relations between the EU and Russia, intricate and variable customs regulations, changing border regimes and a general 'ambiguity between co-operation and control' (Cronberg 2003). Leaving from the assumption that territorial cooperation contributes to territorial cohesion/integration across borders, we seek answers to questions including the following: To what extent this is true in the context of external borders of the European Union? Are there any signs of territorial cohesion/integration across the Finnish-Russian border? Using findings from the empirical analysis carried out in the TERCO project (ESPON 2013), this paper thus also sheds light on the potential schisms between internally oriented cohesion policy and externally oriented neighbourhood policy

XRCC1 and XPD genetic polymorphisms, smoking and breast cancer risk in a Finnish case-control study

INTRODUCTION: It has been suggested that individuals with reduced DNA repair capacities might have increased susceptibility to environmentally induced cancer. In this study, we evaluated if polymorphisms in DNA repair genes XRCC1 (Arg280His, Arg399Gln) and XPD (Lys751Gln) modify individual breast cancer risk, with emphasis on tobacco smoking. METHODS: The study population consisted of 483 incident breast cancer cases and 482 population controls of Finnish Caucasian origin. The genotypes were determined by PCR-RFLP-based methods. Odds ratio (OR) and confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated by unconditional logistic regression analyses. RESULTS: No statistically significant overall effect in the breast cancer risk was seen for any of the studied polymorphisms. However, a significant increase in breast cancer risk was seen among ever smoking women if they carried at least one XRCC1-399 Gln allele (OR 2.33, 95% CI 1.30–4.19, p(int )0.025) or XPD-751 Gln/Gln genotype (OR 2.52, 95% CI 1.27–5.03, p(int )0.011) compared to smoking women not carrying these genotypes. The risks were found to be confined to women smoking at least five pack-years; the respective ORs were 4.14 (95% CI 1.66–10.3) and 4.41 (95% CI 1.62–12.0). Moreover, a significant trend of increasing risk with increasing number of the putative at-risk genotypes (p for trend 0.042) was seen. Women with at least two at-risk genotypes had an OR of 1.54 (95% CI 1.00–2.41) compared to women with no at-risk genotypes. Even higher estimates were seen for ever actively smoking women with at least two at-risk genotypes. CONCLUSION: Our results do not indicate a major role for XRCC1 and XPD polymorphisms in breast cancer susceptibility, but suggest that they may modify the risk especially among smoking women