Ego-Splitting and the Transcendental Subject. Kant’s Original Insight and Husserl’s Reappraisal

In this paper, I contend that there are at least two essential traits that commonly define being an I: self-identity and self-consciousness. I argue that they bear quite an odd relation to each other in the sense that self-consciousness seems to jeopardize self-identity. My main concern is to elucidate this issue within the range of the transcendental philosophies of Immanuel Kant and Edmund Husserl. In the first section, I shall briefly consider Kant’s own rendition of the problem of the Egosplitting. My reading of the Kantian texts reveals that Kant himself was aware of this phenomenon but eventually deems it an unexplainable fact. The second part of the paper tackles the same problematic from the standpoint of Husserlian phenomenology. What Husserl’s extensive analyses on this topic bring to light is that the phenomenon of the Ego-splitting constitutes the bedrock not only of his thought but also of every philosophy that works within the framework of transcendental thinking

China and the changing economic geography of coffee value chains

For the past three centuries, the economic geography of the global coffee sector has been characterized by the supply of beans from tropical countries for consumption in North America and Europe, with various modes of value chain coordination enacted by lead firms to ensure reliable and affordable supply. This pattern is now fundamentally changing, with growth in coffee consumption in emerging markets, including China, exceeding that in established markets. But China is not only a growing consumer market, it is less well known that rapidly increasing agricultural production in Yunnan province of southwest China has also inserted the country as an important source region for coffee, and this has been pivotal in facilitating the emergence of Chinese lead firms in the sector. This article presents the emergence of China, and Chinese firms, at a critical juncture for the structure and governance of the global value chain for coffee. The processes through which this is occurring are outlined, and the implications for regional development prospects across Southeast Asia are discussed. We argue that the changing economic geography of coffee value chains, and their increasing driven-ness by Chinese actors, is starting to reshape the regional coffee industry in profoundly new ways

The influence of constraint rolls on temperature evolution and distribution in radial ring rolling

Producing nearer to net-shape hot rolled rings whilst meeting demanding product property requirements is a major industrial challenge, especially in high value materials such as Nickel-based superalloys. Recent process innovations propose additional tooling to improve control over the geometric accuracy, but it is not known what influence this will have on the temperature distribution and product properties. To study this, a set of 24 thermally-coupled numerical simulations was conducted for a key material test case, Inconel 718, with a furnace temperature of 1030 C. The thermal parameters used in the model were validated against an a newly conducted full industrial trial, and both average surface temperature prediction and rolling tool temperature were found to be accurate to within + 10C. The set of simulations focused on the production of two target ring geometries; for each target ring, four different rolling scenarios were developed, covering a realistic range of machine operating parameters. All eight of these scenarios were simulated with three different tooling set-ups, using two, four and six constraint rolls. For a typical rolling scenario with two constraint rolls, the average surface temperature was found to drop by 79 C after transfer to the machine, and then by a further 54 C during rolling. Trebling the number of constraint rolls doubled the temperature drop to 113 C. By comparison, a factor 2.7 increase in rolling time led to a factor 3.0 increase in temperature loss to 166 C. Simulations for the second, slenderer, target geometry predicted comparable surface temperature drops, but increased temperature loss in the core of the ring. In Inconel 718 regions of the ring that drop below 900 C experience strongly retarded dynamic recrystallization, rendering them prone to damage. Trebling the constraint rolls was found to increase the area vulnerable to damage by 0% – 20%, across the 8 scenarios. These predictions suggest that the influence of constraint rolls could to some extent be mitigated by reasonable reductions in rolling or transfer time. However, if used to produce slenderer, nearer to net-shape rings with larger overall reductions and longer process times then temperature and product property control will be difficult

The influence of constraint rolls on temperature evolution and distribution in radial ring rolling

Producing nearer to net-shape hot rolled rings whilst meeting demanding product property requirements is a major industrial challenge, especially in high value materials such as nickel-based superalloys. Recent process innovations propose additional tooling to improve control over the geometric accuracy, but it is not known what influence this will have on the temperature distribution and product properties. To study this, a set of 24 thermally-coupled numerical simulations was conducted for a key material test case, Inconel 718, with a furnace temperature of 1030 °C. The thermal parameters used in the model were validated against an a newly-conducted full industrial trial, and both average surface temperature prediction and rolling tool temperature were found to be accurate to within ±10 °C. The set of simulations focused on the production of two target ring geometries; for each target ring, four different rolling scenarios were developed, covering a realistic range of machine operating parameters. All eight of these scenarios were simulated with three different tooling set-ups, using two, four and six constraint rolls. For a typical rolling scenario with two constraint rolls, the average surface temperature was found to drop by 79 °C after transfer to the machine, and then by a further 54 °C during rolling. Trebling the number of constraint rolls doubled the temperature drop to 113 °C. By comparison, a factor 2.7 increase in rolling time led to a factor 3.0 increase in temperature loss to 166 °C. Simulations for the second, slenderer, target geometry predicted comparable surface temperature drops, but increased temperature loss in the core of the ring. In Inconel 718 regions of the ring that drop below 900 °C experience strongly retarded dynamic recrystallization, rendering them prone to damage. Trebling the constraint rolls was found to increase the area vulnerable to damage by 0–20%, across the 8 scenarios. These predictions suggest that the influence of constraint rolls could to some extent be mitigated by reasonable reductions in rolling or transfer time. However, if used to produce slenderer, nearer to net-shape rings with larger overall reductions and longer process times then temperature and product property control will be difficult

Transcriptome analysis of Aspergillus flavus reveals veA-dependent regulation of secondary metabolite gene clusters, including the novel aflavarin cluster

The global regulatory veA gene governs development and secondary metabolism in numerous fungal species, including Aspergillus flavus. This is especially relevant since A. flavus infects crops of agricultural importance worldwide, contaminating them with potent mycotoxins. The most well-known are aflatoxins, which are cytotoxic and carcinogenic polyketide compounds. The production of aflatoxins and the expression of genes implicated in the production of these mycotoxins are veA dependent. The genes responsible for the synthesis of aflatoxins are clustered, a signature common for genes involved in fungal secondary metabolism. Studies of the A. flavus genome revealed many gene clusters possibly connected to the synthesis of secondary metabolites. Many of these metabolites are still unknown, or the association between a known metabolite and a particular gene cluster has not yet been established. In the present transcriptome study, we show that veA is necessary for the expression of a large number of genes. Twenty-eight out of the predicted 56 secondary metabolite gene clusters include at least one gene that is differentially expressed depending on presence or absence of veA. One of the clusters under the influence of veA is cluster 39. The absence of veA results in a downregulation of the five genes found within this cluster. Interestingly, our results indicate that the cluster is expressed mainly in sclerotia. Chemical analysis of sclerotial extracts revealed that cluster 39 is responsible for the production of aflavarin