De-politicizing language: obstacles to political theory's engagement with language policy

This article argues that while there exists considerable overlap and potentially productive dialogue between political theory and language policy scholarship, any such effort will be hampered by the dominant approaches to political theory that assume individualistic and instrumentalist conceptions of language. Augmenting the language ideologies approach to such questions, I argue that within political theory there are resources to address such issues. After summarizing a few key contributions of recent political theory to debates on linguistic justice and language rights, the article turns to the writings of John Locke to analyze the underlying conception of language in these approaches. It concludes by suggesting that the key developments that language scholars have focused on in terms of the rise of global English, questions of native versus non-native ownership of language, changes in the nation-state and the context of global capitalism create the conditions in which such liberal and individualistic are unlikely to have significant purchase for scholars of language and language policy. I conclude by suggesting other theoretical resources that yield more attractive perspectives including Antonio Gramsci, Valentin Volos¡inov and Mikhail Bakhtin.https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10993-014-9323-

A problem-solving approach to pastoral care with emphasis on the social context of Christian ministry

This thesis presents a new approach to pastoral care called problem-solving. Part I begins with a discussion of the nature and purpose of pastoral ministry; then looks at methods of care in the field of social work practice. Problem-solving is discussed as a comprehensive and flexible model for pastoral care; a process that can be adapted to work with individuals, groups, and the community at large, and thereby a means of expressing the social concerns of the Christian Gospel.Part II presents a theory of human behaviour for interpreting and explaining problems encountered in ministry. The theory is the product of an interdisciplinary approach which correlates insights from systematic theology with insights from the social and psychological sciences. Two fundamental units of interaction, the human relationship and the social transaction, are examined in the theological perspective. Several diagnostic tools are presented for analysing problem situations in social and theological context.Part III sketches in broad outline a program for pastoral ministry that integrates the three generic methods of social work practice: casework, group work, and community work into one comprehensive approach to pastoral care. In distinction from Part II, here is a theory about how behaviour can be changed or modified in the act of care — it is, in other words, practice theory. Illustrations and examples are provided which are based on my experience as a minister and community worker in the city of Glasgow.Part IV discusses the writings of three major pastoral theologians: Eduard Thurneysen, Thomas Oden, and Seward Hiltner. The work of each author is presented and then critiqued in regards to methodology, knowledge base, practice theory, and theological frame of reference The preference is for a methodology which encourages two-way dialogue and correlation between theology and the human sciences; a theory of human behaviour which includes insights from both psychology and the social sciences; a practice theory that can be adapted to human needs at different levels of social involvement; and a theological frame of reference which expresses the social dimensions of God's plan for the world. The purpose of this section is also to draw attention to a two-fold danger, commonly found in much of pastoral literature, of doing pastoral theology from a static, closed, and individualistic perspective or with no systematic theological frame of reference at all.Part V seeks to avoid this two-fold danger by adopting a new theological framework for pastoral ministry. Pastoral care is described as a ministry of word-in-deed in response to a theological understanding of God's Word as God's deeds in the midst of human events Attention is directed to the importance and purpose of the "world" in God's redemptive plan and the Church is described as an instrument of God's mission to the world. The aims and goals of pastoral care are discussed in the context of the Kingdom of God and problem-solving is seen as a mode of preparation; a way of becoming intentional about the demands of Christian ministry. This section completes the search for a new frame of reference by offering a theology of the Word which is dynamic in perspective and social in scope

On Gramsci and the international: a textual analysis

"An earlier version of this article was presented at the 7th Pan-European International Relations Conference, Stockholm (9–11 September 2010)."Antonio Gramsci's thought has strongly influenced the fields of IR and IPE through the work of Robert Cox, Stephen Gill, Kees van der Pijl and others, engagements often gathered (not uncontroversially) under the rubric of an ostensibly unified "neo-Gramscian" position or ‘the Italian School’. The emergence of such interventions into IR/IPE has sparked controversy regarding whether Gramsci’s work can be legitimately applied to "the international," both from within IR and in other fields. This article examines the validity of such critiques of "neo-Gramscian IPE," which we argue rely on problematic characterisations and little evidence from Gramsci's writings. More substantively, we provide an exegesis of the role of the international dimension in the construction of central categories of Gramsci’s thought and his approach to nation-state formation and international organisations such as the Catholic Church and the Rotary Club, which have been regrettably neglected by all facets of these discussions. We demonstrate that Gramsci can indeed be understood as a theorist of the international, whose approach is particularly salient for the present historical conjuncture.https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/review-of-international-studies/article/on-gramsci-and-the-international-a-textual-analysis/E4056810A0B8E06A32D821E9F00B5DD

ASTRALogy: Unrealistic Expectations?

Revascularization versus medical therapy for renal-arter

Piazza: Data Management Infrastructure for Semantic Web Applications

The Semantic Web envisions a World Wide Web in which data is described with rich semantics and applications can pose complex queries. To this point, researchers have defined new languages for specifying meanings for concepts and developed techniques for reasoning about them, using RDF as the data model. To flourish, the Semantic Web needs to be able to accommodate the huge amounts of existing data and the applications operating on them. To achieve this, we are faced with two problems. First, most of the world\u27s data is available not in RDF but in XML; XML and the applications consuming it rely not only on the domain structure of the data, but also on its document structure. Hence, to provide interoperability between such sources, we must map between both their domain structures and their document structures. Second, data management practitioners often prefer to exchange data through local point-to-point data translations, rather than mapping to common mediated schemas or ontologies. This paper describes the Piazza system, which addresses these challenges. Piazza offers a language for mediating between data sources on the Semantic Web, which maps both the domain structure and document structure. Piazza also enables interoperation of XML data with RDF data that is accompanied by rich OWL ontologies. Mappings in Piazza are provided at a local scale between small sets of nodes, and our query answering algorithm is able to chain sets mappings together to obtain relevant data from across the Piazza network. We also describe an implemented scenario in Piazza and the lessons we learned from it

Improved test of Lorentz Invariance in Electrodynamics using Rotating Cryogenic Sapphire Oscillators

We present new results from our test of Lorentz invariance, which compares two orthogonal cryogenic sapphire microwave oscillators rotating in the lab. We have now acquired over 1 year of data, allowing us to avoid the short data set approximation (less than 1 year) that assumes no cancelation occurs between the $\tilde{\kappa}_{e-}$ and $\tilde{\kappa}_{o+}$ parameters from the photon sector of the standard model extension. Thus, we are able to place independent limits on all eight $\tilde{\kappa}_{e-}$ and $\tilde{\kappa}_{o+}$ parameters. Our results represents up to a factor of 10 improvement over previous non rotating measurements (which independently constrained 7 parameters), and is a slight improvement (except for $\tilde{\kappa}_{e-}^{ZZ}$) over results from previous rotating experiments that assumed the short data set approximation. Also, an analysis in the Robertson-Mansouri-Sexl framework allows us to place a new limit on the isotropy parameter $P_{MM}=\delta-\beta+{1/2}$ of $9.4(8.1)\times10^{-11}$, an improvement of a factor of 2.Comment: Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Preliminary Advice on Fruit Handling, Seed Pretreatment and 'Germination' of Embryos of Prumnopitys andina

Prumnopitys andina is a member of the Podocarpaceae native to Chile and Argentina. It is known to be relatively easy to propagate vegetatively, but germination from seeds is poor and can be spread over at least four years. This paper describes the methods that were used to raise 89 seedlings from 262 seeds (=34%) in less than 1 year. The sequence involves i) completely removing the fleshy sarcotesta; ii) thoroughly washing the seed-coat; iii) `pretreating' the imbibed seeds by incubating them in moist peat and sand at a daily alternating 10/15°C for several months (to allow 'maturation' or `after-ripening' / 'dormancy breakage' at present we do not know which); iv) carefully cracking the seed-coat in a vice and extracting the embryo; v) culturing clean, firm, healthy (=-`viable') embryos on moist filter paper at a daily alternating 20/30°C (with lights during the 30°C phase); [vi) where necessary, freeing the cotyledons of all seedlings that become trapped in the female gametophyte]; vii) transplanting seedlings to conventional nursery practice. A further 1008 seeds are continuing 'pretreatment' to investigate whether this will increase the proportion of seedlings per viable embryo or better still lead to a much less labour intensive seedling emergence from intact seeds

Subalternity and Language: Overcoming the Fragmentation of Common Sense

Abstract Th e topics of language and subaltern social groups appear throughout Antonio Gramsci's Prison Notebooks. Although Gramsci often associates the problem of political fragmentation among subaltern groups with issues concerning language and common sense, there are only a few notes where he explicitly connects his overlapping analyses of language and subalternity. We build on the few places in the literature on Gramsci that focus on how he relates common sense to the questions of language or subalternity. By explicitly tracing out these relations, we hope to bring into relief the direct connections between subalternity and language by showing how the concepts overlap with respect to Gramsci's analyses of common sense, intellectuals, philosophy, folklore, and hegemony. We argue that, for Gramsci, fragmentation of any social group's 'common sense', worldview and language is a political detriment, impeding eff ective political organisation to counter exploitation but that such fragmentation cannot be overcome by the imposition of a 'rational' or 'logical' worldview. Instead, what is required is a deep engagement with the fragments that make up subaltern historical, social, economic and political conditions. In our view, Gramsci provides an alternative both to the celebration of fragmentation fashionable in liberal multiculturalism and uncritical postmodernism, as well as other attempts of overcoming it through recourse to some external, transcendental or imposed worldview. Th is is fully in keeping with, and further elucidates Gramsci's understanding of the importance of eff ective 'democratic centralism' of the leadership of the party in relation to the rank and fi le and the popular masses