Intimacy with the natural world: A humanistic perspective

Thomas Berry\u27s intimacy with the natural world is not an alternative to the anthropocentric-biocentric dispute, which belong to the same rationality. The frontier story and environmentalism are both part of the same rationality because they ignore people. While anthropocentrism is focused on the utilization of natural resources, biocentrism is focused on nature\u27s conservation. The frontier and environmental narrative provides the explicit genealogy of intimacy-alienation, which are always in counterpoint with each other. Further still, if intimacy means only intimacy with the natural world , then it is a hypostatization of wilderness that indicates more alienation. Nevertheless, in my interpretation, intimacy has become inherently humanistic. Because intimacy and alienation represent the dialectical naturalization of humans and humanization of nature, they configure more an appositional polarity than an oppositional dualism. If intimacy is taken out from its biocentric encasement and moved to a humanistic perspective, then it seems to be a plausible normative concept. Since the evolution of humanism coincides with the three hermeneutical cycles (Renaissance humanism/frontier story: 1500--2000; Enlightenment humanism/Industrial Revolution: 1800--2000; Existentialism/Environmentalism: 1960--2000), I retain its major tenets, such as autonomy, moral choice, thinking, the search for meaning, and virtues. The critique on Western tradition should not be centered on being humanistic as in its distorted anthropocentric capitalist drive. Capitalism is oriented to satisfy itself rather than people\u27s needs. Economy depends on politics, which depends on ethics. As such, they are oriented to care for human life in first place and subsequently to preserve and sustain the production and reproduction of all life. Hence, population growth and the development of human life is the only source of meaning. Rather than an obstacle, it should be the variable through which we should program any project. Malthusianism is axiologically eliminated from this analysis. Transformed urban, rural, and natural landscapes are normative and moral landscapes that ought to support life in general and humane life in particular. The ethics of liberation has life as guiding principle and opposes to alienation. Intimacy has finally acquired a new meaning as the liberation of the victim\u27s oppression

Updated opacities from the opacity project

Using the code autostructure, extensive calculations of inner-shell atomic data have been made for the chemical elements He, C, N, O, Ne, Na, Mg, Al, Si, S, Ar, Ca, Cr, Mn, Fe and Ni. The results are used to obtain updated opacities from the Opacity Project (OP). A number of other improvements on earlier work have also been included. Rosseland-mean opacities from the OP are compared with those from OPAL. Differences of 5-10 per cent occur. The OP gives the 'Z-bump', at log(T) 5.2, to be shifted to slightly higher temperatures. The opacities from the OP, as functions of temperature and density, are smoother than those from OPAL. The accuracy of the integrations used to obtain mean opacities can depend on the frequency mesh used. Tests involving variation of the numbers of frequency points show that for typical chemical mixtures the OP integrations are numerically correct to within 0.1 per cent. The accuracy of the interpolations used to obtain mean opacities for any required values of temperature and density depends on the temperature-density meshes used. Extensive tests show that, for all cases of practical interest, the OP interpolations give results correct to better than 1 per cent. Prior to a number of recent investigations which have indicated a need for downward revisions in the solar abundances of oxygen and other elements, there was good agreement between properties of the Sun deduced from helioseismology and from stellar evolution models calculated using OPAL opacities. The revisions destroy that agreement. In a recent paper, Bahcall et al. argue that the agreement would be restored if opacities for the regions of the Sun with 2 × 106T 5 × 106 K (0.7-0.4 R) were larger than those given by OPAL by about 10 per cent. In the region concerned, the present results from the OP do not differ from those of OPAL by more than 2.5 per cent

The Evolution of Rice Production Practices

This paper presents a summary of the evolution of major practices in rice production over the last 100 years in the country. These practices essentially evolved out of the changes in the varieties introduced and planted by Filipino farmers, which have to change the manner by which production and postharvest operations have to be done in order to maximize productivity and reduce costs. Varieties were introduced in three major periods: the pre-Green Revolution era dominated mainly by traditional varieties which were planted once a year, the Green Revolution period of 1966 to 1988 which was characterized by the diffusion of modern high-yielding varieties which are planted for two seasons per year, and the post-Green Revolution period from 1989 to the present times. As varieties changed over time, farmers practices also changed to attain maximum yield potential of the varieties as well as in response to goals of higher productivity, greater efficiency, and, for the present period, environmental sustainability

Work Motivation and Job Satisfaction of Employees before and after Company Reorganization: A Case of an Electric Cooperative in the Philippines

This study was conducted to determine and compare the work motivation and job satisfaction of the employees before and after the cooperative reorganized sometime in 2015. Using descriptive comparative research design with survey questionnaire as data gathering instrument, the study involved 70 purposively chosen respondents from the said cooperative found out that motivation and job satisfaction levels of the respondents significantly increased after the reorganization. The study recommends that the current management continue striving to keep the level high

Comparison of Brans Promethee multicriteria decision method and Promethee modified by authors for the optimization of an erosion control integral plan in Chaco area in Salta province (Argentine)

Chaco area is situated in the Province of Salta at North West of Argentine. The desertification is a big problem. In order to mitigate the problem it is necessary to take into account not only pedologic criteria but the economical, environmental, cultural and sociological criteria. Six sub zones have been established following previous studies. Eight criteria and six alternatives have been introduced in the model. Following the results of the study carried out by a collaborative project between UPM and UCS financed by AECID (1) were established several initial matrix. Brans Promethee multicriteria decision method (MCDM) was applied and the authors modified that method introducing weights like in Electre metho