C.S. Lewis and the Angelic Hierarchy

After describing the belief in the Angelic Hierarchy as central to ancient spiritual cosmology, both Scriptural and Neoplatonic, this paper identifies Lewis\u27s fascination with it in both his fiction (the Ransom trilogy) and his nonfiction (The Oxford History of English Literature in the 16th Century excluding Drama and The Discarded Image). Often viewed by Moderns as a mythological hangover from pre-Modern times, belief in the Angelic Hierarchy is a key component of what Lewis calls the Discarded Image. For those tempted to think that Lewis\u27s interest in the Angelic Hierarchy was merely love for the beauty of the old model, or else merely the mythic backdrop of his fictional Random trilogy, this paper reveals Lewis\u27s actual personal belief in the reality of the Angelic Hierarchy: the fact that God comes filtered to us through the hierarchies of angelic spiritual beings. Lewis\u27s essay The Empty Universe reveals that the ancient spiritual cosmology has been increasingly replaced with a modern materialist worldview, leading not only to the dryads leaving the trees but also ultimately to the abolition of man

FORMAS DE ALUMÍNIO EM SOLO SUBMETIDO A DIFERENTES MANEJOS E ROTAÇÕES DE CULTURAS

The use of different tillage systems and winter crop plants over a long period of time on a clayed and naturally acid soil can promote changes in the forms of aluminum present in the soil, reducing the possibility of its toxicity to major crops. The aim of this study was to evaluate different forms of aluminum in a Oxisol in an experiment conducted by IAPAR (Southwest of Paraná) for 23 years. In the region, which was originally covered by Atlantic Forest, two systems of tillage (no-tillage (NT) and Conventional Planting System (CPS) were employed using the cultivation of six different species of winter plants (lupine blue, hairy vetch, black oats, turnip, wheat and fallow) in sequence to soybean and corn in the summer. In October 2009, there was the collection of soil samples at five different depths (0-5, 5 -10, 10-20, 20-30 and 30-40 cm). The forms of aluminum present in the soil were determined using various extractants: ammonium oxalate and 0.2 M sodium dithionite, sodium bicarbonate, for forms of aluminum present in the mineral fraction of soil; 1M potassium chloride, for the exchangeable form of aluminum in the soil, copper chloride 0.5 M lanthanum chloride and 0.33 M for the aluminum complexed forms of the active sites of soil organic matter (MOS), and 0.1 M sodium pyrophosphate. Three different methods were used for determining the aluminum content in the extracts: titration with 0.0125 M NaOH followed by back titration, atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS) and fluoride ion selective electrode (ESIF)*, and the three methods have presented limitations. In the assessment of the forms of Al in the soil under different tillage systems and with different crops in the rotation system the ESIF method was used for determination of the aluminum content in the different extracts. The use of a tillage that promotes the maintenance of soil organic matter and biomass of soil with cover crops and NT, did not lead to reduced availability of exchangeable aluminum in the soil, whose structure (mineral oxides and 1:1 iron and aluminum clay minerals ) and naturally acid pH, constitute a source of this element, which can be toxic to plants. Concentrations of non exchangeable aluminum (organically complexed) in the surface layers of soil were higher for the treatments with vetch, turnip and fallow in NT

Severe osteoarticular involvement in isotretinoin-triggered acne fulminans: two cases successfully treated with anakinra.

Acne fulminans (AF) is a severe form of inflammatory and ulcerated acne associated with fever, malaise, joint swellings and polyarthralgia.1 Osteoarticular lesions are often described and can be radiologically indistinguishable from those observed in synovitis, acne, pustulosis, hyperostosis and osteitis (SAPHO) syndrome.2,3 SAPHO is an autoinflammatory disease characterized by osteoarticular and cutaneous manifestations, the latter including nodular and fulminans acne, hidradenitis suppurativa and palmoplantar pustulosis.3 Thus, AF is considered part of the SAPHO spectrum.

Cover Crop Productivity in Contrasting Growing Conditions and Influence on the Subsequent Crop

In arable systems, cover crops provide multiple ecosystem services involved in soil protection and fertility. They can efficiently compete against weeds, control erosion or recycle nutrients. The supply of these services is however largely dependent on cover crop growth as most of the services are related to biomass production. The choice of a cover crop adapted to the growing conditions is thus essential. Growing mixtures instead of sole crops is expected to be a way to overcome variable growing conditions and to insure high biomass production.Different field trials have been conducted from 2013 to 2016 in Nyon, Switzerland to assess cover crop biomass production and stability, and their influence on the following crop. Indian mustard, field pea, black oat and phacelia were sown as sole crops and in mixtures with different diversity levels (2, 3 and 4 species). A mixture of 11 species (50% of legumes and 50% of other species) was also tested. Biomass production was assessed about three months after seeding, just before the seeding of the next main crop, in two 0.5 m × 0.5 m quadrats. For each cover crop, a risk of failure, e.g. the probability of producing less than 3 t/ha (minimal biomass allowing to provide the services expected from cover crops), was estimated. Weed pressure was appraised by weed biomass in quadrats. The yield of the following main crop, here winter wheat, was determined after harvesting with a combine harvester, at wheat maturity, in summer. Sole crops showed very contrasting performance according to the growing conditions. Pea was the most productive in low yielding conditions with 2 t/ha while other sole crops produced only 0.5 t/ha. Pea was barely more productive in high yielding conditions, reaching only 3 t/ha when cover crop average was 6 t/ha. By contrast, mustard and oat showed high production potential in these conditions, exceeding 7 t/ha. Pea should thus be favoured when the growing conditions are clearly identified as limiting (low N availability), while oat or mustard should be chosen in favourable conditions. However, in general, conditions are hardly predictable. Our results showed that mixtures should be preferred as they were adapted to a wider range of environments than sole crops, performing well regardless of the conditions and resulting in a lower risk of failure than sole crops. The 11-specie mixture revealed that generally 4 to 5 species are sufficient to insure a good performance regardless of the conditions. Regarding cover crop effect on the following crop, we evidenced the importance of high biomass production for efficient weed control and positive influence on crop yield in no till treatments.Our results showed that cover crop mixtures rather than sole crops should be chosen as they insure high biomass production and thus a good supply of ecosystem services. In addition, cover crop cultivation, even for a short period, proved to be paramount to the maintenance of grain yield and soil fertility on the long term, especially in reduced tillage systems

Combining EEG source connectivity and network similarity: Application to object categorization in the human brain

A major challenge in cognitive neuroscience is to evaluate the ability of the human brain to categorize or group visual stimuli based on common features. This categorization process is very fast and occurs in few hundreds of millisecond time scale. However, an accurate tracking of the spatiotemporal dynamics of large-scale brain networks is still an unsolved issue. Here, we show the combination of recently developed method called dense-EEG source connectivity to identify functional brain networks with excellent temporal and spatial resolutions and an algorithm, called SimNet, to compute brain networks similarity. Two categories of visual stimuli were analysed in this study: immobile and mobile. Networks similarity was assessed within each category (intra-condition) and between categories (inter-condition). Results showed high similarity within each category and low similarity between the two categories. A significant difference between similarities computed in the intra and inter-conditions was observed at the period of 120-190ms supposed to be related to visual recognition and memory access. We speculate that these observations will be very helpful toward understanding the object categorization in the human brain from a network perspective.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures. Accepted for 2016 IEEE Workshop on Statistical Signal Processin

Böden im Auge behalten

Der Herbst ist die ideale Jahreszeit für Bodenuntersuchungen. Mithilfe von Spatenprobe, Bodenprofil oder Mini-3DBodenprofil kann jeder seine Böden selbst untersuchen

Une joute intellectuelle au détriment du jeu? Claude Lévi-Strauss vs Roger Caillois (1954-1974)

En 1954-1955, un violent débat intellectuel opposa Roger Caillois à Claude Lévi-Strauss autour du relativisme culturel. Prenant la forme d’une joute oratoire, ce conflit marqua ces deux grandes figures de la vie intellectuelle française. Par la suite, il est remarquable que Caillois se posait en théoricien du jeu, tandis que Lévi-Strauss semblait éviter de relancer la polémique en se désintéressant du sujet. L’influence du structuralisme explique peut-être en partie le manque d’intérêt que les ethnologues manifestèrent alors pour les activités ludiques.In the years 1954-1955, a violent intellectual debate opposed Roger Caillois to Claude Lévi-Strauss around the issue of cultural relativism. This confrontation which took the form of an oratory joust has left profound marks on these two great Frech intellectual figures. It is remarkable that afterwards, Caillios posed himself as a theorician of games, while Claude Lévi-Strauss seemed to avoid the polemic by disinteresting himself from the topic. The lasting influence of structuralism may explain in part the lack of interest of ethnologists toward ludic activities

A Classification of Feminist Theories

In this paper I criticize Alison Jaggar’s descriptions of feminist political theories. I propose an alternative classification of feminist theories that I think more accurately reflects the multiplication of feminist theories and philosophies. There are two main categories, “street theory” and academic theories, each with two sub-divisions, political spectrum and “differences” under street theory, and directly and indirectly political analyses under academic theories. My view explains why there are no radical feminists outside of North America and why there are so few socialist feminists inside North America. I argue, controversially, that radical feminism is a radical version of liberalism. I argue that “difference” feminist theories – theory by and about feminists of colour, queer feminists, feminists with disabilities and so on – belong in a separate sub-category of street theory, because they’ve had profound effects on feminist activism not tracked by traditional left-to-right classifications. Finally, I argue that, while academic feminist theories such as feminist existentialism or feminist sociological theory are generally unconnected to movement activism, they provide important feminist insights that may become importanby showing the advantages of my classification over Jaggar’s views.Une analyse critique de la description des théories politiques féministes révèle qu’une classification alternative à celle de Jaggar permettrait de répertorier plus adéquatement les différents courants féministes qui ont évolués au cours des dernières décennies. La nouvelle cartographie que nous proposons comprend deux familles de féminisme : activiste et académique. Cette nouvelle manière de localiser et situer les féminismes aide à comprendre pourquoi il n’y a pas de féminisme radical à l’extérieur de l’Amérique du Nord et aussi pourquoi il y a si peu de féministes socialistes en Amérique du Nord. Dans ce nouveau schème, le féminisme de la «différence» devient une sous-catégorie du féminisme activiste car ce courant a eu une influence importante sur le féminisme activiste. Même si les courants de féminisme académique n’ont pas de rapports directs avec les mouvements activistes, ils jouent un rôle important dans l’énonciation et l’élaboration de certaines problématiques qui, ensuite, peuvent s’avérer cruciales pour les activistes. Nous concluons en démontrant que cette nouvelle classification représente plus clairement les différents féminismes et faciinfluencé le féminisme