Relativism and Objectivism about Truth

A short paper discussing and critiquing common claims that "truth is relative.

Ten common denominators of the top 10% of farmers

The New Zealand Kellogg Rural Leaders Programme develops emerging agribusiness leaders to help shape the future of New Zealand agribusiness and rural affairs. Lincoln University has been involved with this leaders programme since 1979 when it was launched with a grant from the Kellogg Foundation, USA.To lift the Average profitability and productivity performance of the Average New Zealand Farmer by identifying 10 minimum cost improved management techniques

URBAN.Boston (Urban Research-Based Action Network): Creating meaningful connections between community & academia

The Urban Research-Based Action Network (URBAN) is a national platform that facilitates community-based research, teaching, and learning for action across disciplinary lines, connecting scholars and community activists within and across cities. It was started in 2011 to honor the memory of activist scholar Marylin Gitell, and has received generous support from SAGE Publications. URBAN currently has 5 local nodes: Boston, Los Angeles, New York City, Northern California, and Philadelphia; as well as 3 discipline nodes: Education, Sociology, and Urban Planning. More nodes will be established in the future. In the meantime, efforts are focused on connecting academics and community partners nationally, locally, and based on discipline

The All Affected Interests Principle in Democratic Theory and Principle. IHS Political Science Series Working Paper No. 145, July 2017

The principle that all those affected by a collective decision should be included in the decision is long-standing, dating at least back to the Justinian Code (V,59,5,2) in Roman private law: “what touches all must be approved by all” (Quod omnes tangit debet ab omnibus approbari; see also Lane, this volume, for a history). Over the last several decades, the idea has migrated into democratic theory (Young 2000, chaps 1-2; Habermas 1996, 10511; Dahl 1970, 49-63, Benhabib 2004; cf. Fung 2013, Goodin 2007, Näsström 2011, Shapiro 2003, chap. 1). The reason, no doubt, is the principle expresses a very basic intuition about what democracy is good for: I should want to have a say in decisions that significantly affect my life. With say, I am part of networks of co-dependents who can collectively self-determine and provide opportunities for self-development while mitigating life-risks. Without it, I am likely to be subject to forces over which I have little or no control

Building a Political Constituency for Urban School Reform

In this article, I argue that urban school reform falters, in part, because of the lack of an organized political constituency among the stakeholders with the most direct interest in school improvement, that is, parents whose children attend urban schools. I examine community organizing as a potential strategy to build such a constituency. Drawing primarily upon extensive fieldwork research, I construct a case study of one of the country’s largest community organizing networks, the Texas Industrial Areas Foundation. I analyze the network’s Alliance Schools initiative to promote school reform in one hundred and twenty public schools in districts across the state. I find that organizing efforts like the IAF, despite important limitations, are beginning to create an external force for change in district policy as well as to collaborate internally with educators to produce change in the practice of education within schools

The tonoplast proton-translocating ATPase from the crassulacean acid metabolism plant Kalanchoë daigremontiana

A rapid procedure was developed for the purification and reconstitution into proteoliposomes of the tonoplast H⁺-translocating ATPase from the Crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) plant Kalanchoe daigremontiana. It involved the fractionation of crude tonoplast membranes with the detergent Triton X-114, resolubilization of the ATPase with octyl glucoside in the presence of an optimized lipid mixture and formation of liposomes on removal of detergent by gel filtration. The enzyme could be further purified by sedimentation through glycerol gradients. It contained polypeptides of apparent molecular mass 72, 57, 48, 42, 39, 33 and 16 kDa; the smallest of these was labelled by [¹⁴C]-dicyclohexylcarbodiimide. There was no evidence for the presence of any large subunits. In these proteoliposomes, ATP hydrolysis and H⁺-translocation were measured independently, by a coupled enzyme assay and by quenching of the fluorescence of a permeant weak base, respectivelyThe kinetic properties of the reconstituted plant ATPase were studied in detail. Rate equations derived from theoretical models of the enzyme's behaviour were fitted to experimental data by weighted non-linear regression, using a computer program that calculated the kinetic parameters that accorded to the optimal fit. The dependence of the rate of H⁺- translocation on the concentration of MgATP was well fitted by the Michaelis equation, with a Kᵐ value about 30 μM. ATP could be replaced by dATP, ITP, GTP, UTP or CTP and Mg²⁺ by Mn²+ or Ca²⁺; kinetic parameters for these substrates were determined. In contrast hydrolysis of MgATP showed complex kinetics which suggested either negative cooperativity between nucleotide-binding sites, or the presence of two non-interacting catalytic sites. Both the hydrolytic and the H⁺-translocating activities of the proteoliposomes were inhibited by nitrate, though not in parallel, the latter activity being more sensitive. Both activities were inhibited in parallel by bafilomycin A₁, which did not produce complete inhibition; the bafilomycininsensitive component had complex ATPase kinetics similar to those of the uninhibited enzyme. ADP behaved as an allosteric inhibitor of the ATPase, inducing apparent cooperativity in saturation with MgATP, together with a reduction in Vᵐᵃˣ .By fitting the experimental data to the concerted allosteric model proposed by Monod et al. (1965) a theoretical model was proposed in which the complex kinetics were due to the interaction between two substrate binding sites and a single inhibitor-binding site.Antibodies raised against specific subunits of the tonoplast ATPase were shown to cross-react with V-type ATPases from different species. Immunoblotting of the plant antibodies against the V-type ATPase purified from several bovine tissues has suggested the existence of isoforms of this particular enzyme

Transforming Public Education: The Need for an Educational Justice Movement

Nearly fifteen years after the passage of No Child Left Behind, the failures of our educational system with regard to low-income children of color remain profound. Traditional reform efforts have sought improvements solely within the confines of the school system, failing to realize how deeply educational failure is part of and linked to broader structures of poverty and racism. A social movement that creates political and cultural change is necessary to transform the racial inequities in public education itself and to connect this transformational effort to a larger movement to combat poverty and racism. The seeds of a new educational justice movement can be found in the rise of community and youth organizing efforts, in the development of teacher activism, and in the recent creation of new alliances at local, state, and national levels like those combating the school-to-prison pipeline. Many activists and educators have begun to offer a program for school transformation that connects to a broad agenda to combat racial segregation and economic insecurity, to improve housing, public health, and safety, and to reform immigration laws

An Assessment of Potential Habitat Corridors and Landscape Ecology for Long-Tailed Macaques (Macaca Fascicularis) on Bali, Indonesia

The relationship between Balinese long-tailed macaques, Bali\u27s cultural settings, and Bali\u27s physical settings was studied. A Geographical Information System (GIS) database was developed and analyzed to determine if forest corridors exist on Bali that may provide habitat connectivity between 42 Balinese long-tailed macaque troops. The GIS database was also analyzed to determine if the landscape type that has the highest percentage of overlap with the 42 Balinese long-tailed macaque home range sites is forest. The results indicate that connectivity between troops located within Bali\u27s western region is significantly higher than that for troops located in Bali\u27s eastern region. The results also indicate that a high percentage of the Balinese long-tailed macaque home range sites overlap with forest. Implications for the future conservation of Balinese long-tailed macaques and the significance of Balinese long-tailed macaques for the development of global biodiversity management strategies are discussed