The Contractor\u27s View

I would like to summarize five key areas of risk the government donor of the concession, financial institutions, or other types of project sponsors are exposed to and the contractors involved, which means the groups who are designing, delivering, and putting into operation those plants and installations for periods generally expected to be twenty, thirty, or thirty-five years. These five risk categories are: first, that the project has to be completed in time, within budget, and has to be kept in operation; second, that the project must generate the cash flow required for the debt service and the return on investment on the equity put in by the sponsors; third, the currency fluctuation; fourth, the erosion affecting the political environment; fifth, the general economic conditions that nobody really has control over

Inorganic chemistry: Direct syntheses from pure liquid SO3 and from trivalent and pentavalent nitrogen derivatives

From pure liquid SO3 direct synthesis reactions were carried out with N2O5, NO2Cl, NOCl which yielded N2O54SO3, 3SO3, 2SO3-NO2Cl2SO3-NOCl2SO3 and NOCl2SO3, the latter being obtained for the first time in the pure state. In all cases the crystallized product was obtained by separating the constituents of the mixture and then going through a single viscous liquid phase

On the acid disulphate (pyrosulphate) of nitrosyle

Crystallized HS2O7NO was obtained by reacting excess NO2 gas with liquid HSO3Cl. Stable to a melting point of approximately 105 deg, this reacted with nitrates from about 25 deg and formed M2S2O7, with an acid disulphate intermediary. Excess NO2, whether liquid or gas, reacted with HS2O7NO to five (NO)2S2O7

Female mating competition alters female mating preferences in common gobies

Mating decisions can be affected by intrasexual competition and sensitive to operational sex-ratio (OSR) changes in the population. Conceptually, it is assumed that both male and female mate-competition may interfere with female reproductive decisions. Experimentally, however, the focus has been on the effect of male competition on mate choice. In many species with paternal care as in the common goby Pomatoschistus microps, the OSR is often female-biased and female mate-competition for access to available nesting males occurs. Using the same protocol for 3 experiments testing the effect of a perceived risk of female mate-competition, I studied female preferences for nest-holding males differing in its nest size (large/small), body size (large/small), and nest status (with/without eggs already in nest) and measured mating decisions, spawning latencies, and clutch size. Regardless of the social context, females preferred males with larger nests. A preference for large males was only expressed in presence of additional females. For nest status, there was a tendency for females to prefer mating with males with an empty nest. Here, female-female competition increased the propensity to mate. The results of this study show that females are sensitive to a female competitive social environment and suggest that in choice situations, females respond to the social context mainly by mating decisions per se rather than by adjusting the clutch size or spawning latency. Females base their mating decisions not only on a male's nest size but also on male size as an additional cue of mate quality in the presence of additional females.Peer reviewe

Znotraj vrteče se negibnosti sedanjosti: Misli o Zhuangzijevih transkulturnih študijah na Tajvanu

Taiwan is an island in East Asia on which the complex effects of hybrid modernization have been experienced particularly directly and strongly. This situation also gave rise to perspectives in the study of literature and philosophy which differ significantly from those on the Chinese mainland. Why did transcultural philosophy find good conditions for development in contemporary Taiwan? This paper addresses this question by situating the recent development of “transcultural Zhuangzi-studies” within a larger cultural and political constellation. It begins with very general reflections on “transcultural Taiwan” and ends with a more specific discussion of Yang Rubin’s 楊儒賓 conceptual paradigm of a “material-energetic-spiritual subject”. My aim is to give an overview of the broader cultural and political situation, in which “transcultural Zhuangzi-studies” appeared and developed. Moreover, the paradigm of triadic subjectivity that Yang has been developing for decades can be read as “transcultural” because it allows the communication of different, often disparate cultural sources, classical and modern, Eastern and Western. This proposal is not only philosophically but also politically significant: Taiwan’s complex path to democratization and the development of this new “paradigm of subjectivity” deeply correspond to one another.Tajvan je otok v Vzhodni Aziji, ki je še posebej neposredno in močno izkusil zapletene učinke hibridne modernizacije. To stanje je prav tako pripomoglo k oblikovanju vrst perspektiv v literarnih in filozofskih študijah, ki se močno razlikujejo od tistih na celini. Zakaj je transkulturna filozofija našla primerne pogoje za razvoj prav na sodobnem Tajvanu? Članek to vprašanje naslavlja tako, da nedavni razvoj »Zhuangzijevih transkulturnih študij« postavlja v širšo kulturno in politično konstelacijo. Študija se začne s splošnim premislekom o »transkulturnem Tajvanu« in zaključi s podrobnejšo razpravo o Yang Rubinovi 楊儒賓 konceptualni paradigmi »materialno-energetsko-duhovnega subjekta«. Moj namen je podati pregled širše kulturne in politične situacije, v kateri so se prvič pojavile in razvile »Zhuangzijeve transkulturne študije«. Poleg tega je paradigmo triadne subjektivnosti, ki jo je Yang razvijal desetletja, mogoče brati kot »transkulturno«, saj dopušča prenos med različnimi, pogosto povsem drugačnimi kulturnimi viri, tako klasičnimi kot modernimi, tako vzhodnimi kot zahodnimi. Takšen predlog ni pomemben samo v filozofskem, ampak tudi političnem smislu: zapletena pot Tajvana k demokratizaciji namreč globoko sovpada z razvojem te nove »paradigme subjektivnosti«

Beyond Murderous Dialectics

This essay has been inspired by the writings of the contemporary Neo-Confucian philosopher Mou Zongsan and the German sinologist Wolfgang Bauer. It assumes that the power of Mao Zedong’s thought sprung from its ability to systematically subordinate the transformative philosophy of the classical Book of Changes to the Marxist model of revolutionary class struggle. If dialectical thinking requires thought to think against itself and thereby be able to continuously change itself from the inside, Mao seems to have been a master of dialectical thinking. One of the intellectual impulses for the Great Cultural Revolution was the radically unsentimental judgement that, in order for the socialist revolution to succeed, it was necessary to erase the ancient Chinese legacy of paradoxical thinking, and that this was a precondition of the possibility of Mao’s Sino-Marxist discourse. But the enormous power that Mao’s thought derived from the tension between revolutionary heroism and transformative flexibility revealed itself as self-destructive. Mao tried to fight against the failure of his revolutionary vision and the possibility that the wisdom of paradoxical thinking and the classical heritage of China could, finally, gain the upper hand in the ongoing struggle for modernization. From this perspective, this essay touches upon a contradiction, which can be understood as the principle contradiction of contemporary Chinese philosophy: the contradiction between the defence of Sino-Marxism as the ideological foundation of a “socialism with Chinese characteristics” on the one hand, and the renaissance of traditional culture and classical learning on the other, which entails a powerful challenge to this very foundation

Die Pflicht, sich gesund zu erhalten, als Pflicht gegen sich selbst bei Immanuel Kant

Entwicklung des Gedankens einer Pflicht gegen sich selbst, also losgelöst von einer sozialen Pflicht gegen andere, sich gesund zu erhalten nach Immanuel Kant. Dazu werden in dieser Arbeit die zentralen Begriffe der Kantschen Ethik erläutert und der Begriff einer Pflicht gegen sich selbst sich gesund zu erhalten, anhand eines Kapitels der Metaphysik der Sitten entwickelt. Der zweite Teil stellt den Bezug zum modernen Gesundheitsbegriff her und ordnet die Pflicht gegen dich selbts, sich gesund zu erhalten, in aktuelle medizinethische Diskussionen ein, wie z. B. die Frage nach einer Gesundheitspflicht im Rahmen der Krankenversicherung

Ecological variation along the salinity gradient in the Baltic Sea Area and its consequences for reproduction in the common goby

Although it has become clear that sexual selection may shape mating systems and drive speciation, the potential constraints of environmental factors on processes and outcomes of sexual selection are largely unexplored. Here, we investigate the geographic variation of such environmental factors, more precisely the quality and quantity of nest resources (bivalve shells) along a salinity gradient in the Baltic Sea Area (Baltic Sea, Sounds and Belts, and Kattegat). We further test whether we find any salinity-associated morphological differences in body size between populations of common gobies Pomatoschistus microps, a small marine fish with a resource-based mating system. In a geographically expansive field study, we sampled 5 populations of P. microps occurring along the salinity gradient (decreasing from West to East) in the Baltic Sea Area over 3 consecutive years. Nest resource quantity and quality decreased from West to East, and a correlation between mussel size and male body size was detected. Population density, sex ratios, mating- and reproductive success as well as brood characteristics also differed between populations but with a less clear relation to salinity. With this field study we shed light on geographic variation of distinct environmental parameters possibly acting on population differentiation. We provide insights on relevant ecological variation, and draw attention to its importance in the framework of context-dependent plasticity of sexual selection.Peer reviewe

Decreased feeding rates of the copepod Acartia tonsa when exposed to playback harbor traffic noise

Copepods present the largest and most diverse group of zooplankton and their feeding behavior can affect top-down and bottom-up processes. Thus, how efficient feeding is executed determines the abundance of copepods’ prey and their predators and, with that, carbon transfer and storage in ecosystems. The rise of anthropogenic underwater noise from shipping, oil exploration and exploitation, wind farm construction and operation, and more, is increasingly changing the marine acoustic environment. This acoustic pollution can have detrimental effects on biological life. Studies on this topic increasingly indicate that anthropogenic underwater noise adversely affects primary producers, marine mammals, fish, and invertebrates. However, little data exist on the effects of anthropogenic underwater noise on the feeding behavior of zooplankton.We measured significantly decreased ingestion rates and clearance rates of A. tonsa when exposed to harbor noise compared to ambient conditions. The negative impact of noise on the ingestion rates was found at all given phytoplankton cell densities between 1k to 10k cells ml−1. Clearance rates were fitted to the Rogers random predator equation which revealed significantly decreased capture rates on phytoplankton under the exposure of harbor noise while handling times remained the same in both sound treatments.Our results call for follow-up studies to focus on noise driven community-effects in field experiments to confirm laboratory results and to predict the outcome of a changing world with multiple stressors. Further, the underlying mechanism on how noise affects the feeding behavior of copepods is still unknown. Noise may distract copepods or mask hydromechanical cues of the prey. Noise may also adversely affect copepod physiology or morphology that would lead to changes in the feeding behavior. All potential mechanisms need to be investigated rigorously in future experiments

Touch and Breath

“Become hard!” is the supposedly “new tablet” that Nietzsche’s Zarathustra has placed above us. It can hardly be denied that modernization in particular has relentlessly imposed a need to develop one’s hardness and strength. Is it even possible to imagine a form of modernization based on the commandment to “Become soft!”? While this is the old and always new instruction to which Lǎozǐ pointed in his advice to become like water, Nietzsche finds it unbearable. He asks, “Why so soft?”, and “Why so soft, so retiring, and yielding?” And Lǎozǐ answers that hardness is deadly: “The hard and strong are the followers of death.” Then Nietzsche responds, “Don’t you want to conquer and win?” And Lǎozǐ replies, “The soft and weak win over the hard and strong”. Where are the modernizers who believe in the old “tablet” Lǎozǐ has given us in the praise of softness and weakness? Where are the modernizers who know about the hard but are able to preserve the soft? Where are the modernizers who are able to philosophize not with the hammer but with the brush? The “good old authoritarian character” (Theodor W. Adorno) has been educated to (masculine) hardness. For this mode of being human (feminine) softness is nothing but a form of weakness on which the creator wants to put his stamp. As a philosophical source of criticism of the authoritarian character, the Daoist classic Lǎozǐ has a value that can hardly be overestimated. It moves toward a paradigm of self-relation or subjectivity in which the eye and light cannot claim primacy as the means by which humans can access the true and the good, but touch and breath form a pivot by which they can learn to walk a Way that wanders between hardness and softness. Therefore, at the centre of character formation and cultivation is a self-relation described in the sixth chapter of the Lǎozǐ  by the paradoxical image of the “ravine” (gǔ 谷). The ravine is a natural image in which the hard stone of the mountain cliffs and the soft water flowing through them belong together. At the same time, this chapter of the Lǎozǐ has been associated with the motif of the female in commentaries since antiquity. Moreover, the analogy between the ravine and the female sex organ opens up a thought-provoking approach to the relation between the female and the soft in the Lǎozǐ. However, the ravine as a paradoxical image does not stop there. Rather, the Way it suggests leads in a direction that can be summed up in the phrase “knowing hardness and preserving softness”. In the following paper, the discussion of the female and the male in relation to the soft and the hard aims at a broader reflection on a theory and practice of breath (qì 氣) that constitutes a transcultural philosophy of the Way (dàozhéxué 道哲學)