A Realistic Utopia: Global Justice and Public Justification

In the last three decades, liberal political philosophy has been increasingly concerned with the nature and extent of the moral responsibilities of members of different political communities to each other. John Rawls contributed to this debate in his final book, The Law of Peoples (LP). In LP, Rawls refused to extend his account of domestic distributive justice to international politics and argued that some non-liberal (yet decent) peoples can be membersin good standing of the international community. Many of Rawls’ critics maintain that this evidences a double standard, and accuse LP of being an incoherent extension of Rawls’ political philosophy to global politics. In this book I show that the opposite is true. I start by underlining the main discontinuities between Rawls’ accounts of domestic and international justice. I then show that these discontinuities can be explained by tracing the evolution of the idea of public justifi- cation in Rawls’ work. Rawls’ two theories of justice are the application of the same idea – public justification – in different political contexts

Water Collection and Distribution Systems in the Palermo Plain During the Middle Ages

It has been said that Palermo is short of available water. However, nothing could be more wrong. Well-documented Arab sources and narrative chronicles reported an abundance of groundwater resources in Palermo Plain since the Middle Ages. The scarcity of sources and surface water in the Palermo Plain, compared to the groundwater abundance, led the inhabitants to use groundwater both for irrigation and domestic usage through a complex and sustainable hydraulic system. Vertical and horizontal (qanāts) wells, conveyed water towards gardens and public fountains making the Arabic Bal’harm (Palermo) a flourishing town. When visitors walk through the streets of Palermo’s historical center, among Arab ruins and Baroque architecture, they hardly imagine that there is a wide and varied cultural heritage of underground cavities hidden in the basements where water flows in intricate networks fed from a numerous springs. Only in recent years was a part of this system brought to light. Moreover, the city still has a wide and fascinating water distribution system consisting of irrigation basin (gebbie), ingenious hydraulic machines named senie, and distribution chessboard of irrigation (saje) and drinking water (catusi) canals. The medieval water collection and distribution systems and their various components in the Palermo Plain are reviewed together with the influence of the Arab water management on environment

Characterization of a novel virus associated with the MVX disease of Agaricus bisporus

‘Mushroom Virus X’ (MVX) disease of the cultivated mushroom Agaricus bisporus first arose in UK during the 1990’s. This disease resulted in devastating crop losses in the UK and gradually became more widespread (e.g. Netherlands and Eire). Up to twenty-six, non-encapsidated, double stranded RNA (dsRNA) elements have been found to be associated with diseased mushrooms, and these are believed to be the result of a complex of viruses. Although considerable data has accumulated on the symptoms of infection, aetiological sources, epidemiology and molecular characterization of the MVX dsRNA elements are limited. Research described in this thesis focused principally on sequence characterization of a frequently occurring dsRNA element ( MVX 14.4), which was shown to be a novel Endornavirus. Assigned ‘Agaricus bisporus endornavirus 1’ (AbEV1), this represents the first endornavirus known to infect edible mushrooms. AbEV1 is the first MVX element to be fully sequenced. Putative domains for RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp), helicase and glycosyltransferase were identified and used in comparisons with other viruses. Characterization of an AbEV1- type dsRNA found in a culture sample derived from a wild Agaricus bisporus collection indicates a possible source of the MVX dsRNA infections. Epidemiological studies were used to demonstrate that the AbEV1 dsRNA was transmissible both vertically through spores and horizontally by mycelial anastomosis between infected donor and MVX free acceptor strains. As a first step in the effort to understand the role of AbEV1in MVX infections and to investigate possible host defence mechanisms, dsRNA hairpin sequences were introduced into A. bisporus by Agrobacterium-mediated transformation. Both helicase and RdRp sequences were able to confer resistance to the uptake of MVX dsRNA elements in transformants. These observations suggest that homology-dependent gene silencing pathway(s) may be present in A. bisporus and represent a residual antiviral defence mechanism. Advances and approaches developed in this project open new opportunities to characterize the other dsRNA elements from the MVX complex, to further our understanding of mycovirus infections and host responses, and to investigate the origins of infectious dsRNA elements.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Physicians’ misperceived cardiovascular risk and therapeutic inertia as determinants of low LDL-cholesterol targets achievement in diabetes

Background: Greater efforts are needed to overcome the worldwide reported low achievement of LDL-c targets. This survey aimed to dissect whether and how the physician-based evaluation of patients with diabetes is associated with the achievement of LDL-c targets. Methods: This cross-sectional self-reported survey interviewed physicians working in 67 outpatient services in Italy, collecting records on 2844 patients with diabetes. Each physician reported a median of 47 records (IQR 42–49) and, for each of them, the physician specified its perceived cardiovascular risk, LDL-c targets, and the suggested refinement in lipid-lowering-treatment (LLT). These physician-based evaluations were then compared to recommendations from EAS/EASD guidelines. Results: Collected records were mostly from patients with type 2 diabetes (94%), at very-high (72%) or high-cardiovascular risk (27%). Physician-based assessments of cardiovascular risk and of LDL-c targets, as compared to guidelines recommendation, were misclassified in 34.7% of the records. The misperceived assessment was significantly higher among females and those on primary prevention and was associated with 67% lower odds of achieving guidelines-recommended LDL-c targets (OR 0.33, p < 0.0001). Peripheral artery disease, target organ damage and LLT-initiated by primary-care-physicians were all factors associated with therapeutic-inertia (i.e., lower than expected probability of receiving high-intensity LLT). Physician-suggested LLT refinement was inadequate in 24% of overall records and increased to 38% among subjects on primary prevention and with misclassified cardiovascular risk. Conclusions: This survey highlights the need to improve the physicians’ misperceived cardiovascular risk and therapeutic inertia in patients with diabetes to successfully implement guidelines recommendations into everyday clinical practice

The just price and the gains from exchange

The paper explores a general framework for thinking about the idea of the just price. The approach is grounded in a basic aspect of the nature of exchange, namely, that the latter usually occurs when both parties believe they will be better off as a result. Put differently, an exchange is normally performed because both parties stand to gain something from it. The distributive question that arises from this observation is how one ought to divide such gains. The connection with the idea of the just price is not necessarily an obvious one, yet it is relatively straightforward. Assuming that an exchange involves money (or any unit of account), the price at which two agents transact will correspond to a specific division of the gains from the transaction. Conversely, any specification of a fair division of the gains from exchange individuates a specific price as the just or fair price. The paper analyzes the main features of this approach to the determination of the just price, explains one of its main virtues, defends it against an alleged weakness and criticizes as inadequate two of its traditional interpretations. The upshot of the discussion is that while the idea that the just price of a transaction depends on how the latter divides the gains from exchange does not suffer from general flaws and is in fact characterized by an important good making feature, the two principal ways in which it has been deployed are implausible

Reciprocity, Equality and International Justice

In this article I criticize a prominent account for resisting the extension of egalitarian justice to global politics. For Andrea Sangiovanni it is the reciprocity requirement generated by the provision of basic public goods that grounds egalitarian justice. Such basic public goods provision is absent internationally and this entails that egalitarian justice is only appropriate between citizens of the same political community. This article highlights the problematic empirical assumptions on which Sangiovanni's work builds. It proposes a more ample class of basic public goods necessary to act on a plan of life and maintains that whatever list we adopt, in a globalized world, basic public goods provision is often dependent on the international system. It goes on to suggest that the role of equality beyond borders is an important topic not only for relations between persons at the global level but also for inter-state interactions and that what we really should be worried about is the instrumental effects that inequality has when it comes to issues concerning poverty reduction and the shape of international regimes and institutions. © 2013 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd