The complexity of neuroenhancement and the adoption of a social cognitive perspective

This contribution attempts to provide a broad perspective to the psychological study of neuroenhancement (NE). It departs from the assumption that, as the use of performance enhancing substances in sport, the use of substances with the aim of improving one’s cognitive, motivational and affective functioning in academic domains is a goal-directed behavior. As such, its scientific study may very well benefit from an analysis taking into account the psychological processes regulating people’s behavioral intentions and decisions. Within this broad framework, this contribution addresses several issues that currently seem to characterize the debate in the literature on neuroenhancement substances (NES) use. The first conceptual issue seeks to determine and define the “boundaries” of the phenomenon. The second issue concerns the empirical evidence on the prevalence of using certain substances for the purpose of NE. Finally, there is a debate around the ethical and moral implications of NE. Along these lines, the existing psychological research on NE has adopted mainly sociological and economic decision-making perspectives, greatly contributing to the psychological discourse about the phenomenon of NE. However, we argue that the existing psychological literature does not offer a common, explicit and integrated theoretical framework. Borrowing from the framework of doping research, we recommend the adoption of a social cognitive model for pursuing a systematic analysis of the psychological processes that dynamically regulate students’ use of NES over tim

New Earth Politics: Essays from the Anthropocene

Review of 'New Earth Politics: Essays from the Anthropocene', ed. by Simon Nicholson and Sikina Jinna

Institutional Fragmentation

the body of literature on institutional fragmentation and interlinkages has become quite extensive over the last 10-15 years, especially in global environmental governance research. This common ground and the merits of existing scholarly approaches notwithstanding, there are still major new conceptual, theoretical and empirical grounds to be explored. Conceptually, the literature could further go beyond additive accounts that are underspecified with regard to the quality of relations among various components of an institutional complex. Instead, more multi-criteria sets should be developed to assess and compare different degrees of fragmentation across environmental issue areas. Moreover, new methodical ground can be broken following the pioneering examples of different network approaches and mappings (Hollway 2013; Kim and Mackey 2013; Widerberg 2014). Similarly, more can be done to root the study of institutional fragmentation and interlinkages theoretically (Chambers et al. 2008, p. 7; cf. O. Young 2008, p. 134). What Underdal (2006, p. 9) observed nearly ten years ago for research on interlinkages also goes for fragmentation research today: the focus of explanatory approaches has been so far ‘primarily on interaction at the level of specific regimes and less on links to the kind of basic ordering principles or norms highlighted in realist and sociological analyses of institutions.’ Indeed, some the most influential approaches in the literature on institutional complexity suffice with basic ideas about causal pathways while falling short of more fundamental theoretical approaches that relate to concepts of power, interests, knowledge, norms or other scope conditions (e.g. Keohane and Victor 2011). Moreover, many studies still attend to the normative question whether a centralized or a polycentric global governance architecture is preferable (Biermann et al. 2009a; Ostrom 2010; Rayner 2010; Keohane and Victor 2011). This entangling of analytical and normative claims may have partly stood in the way of the development of more fundamental theoretical frameworks. To be clear: I do not mean to build a strawman argument here. As shown, various authors have begun to address this research gap more systematically, notably Oberthür and Stokke (2011), Gehring and Faude (2013), Zürn and Faude (2013) Orsini et al. (2013) and Van de Graaf (2013) – based inter alia on neoliberal institutionalism, sociological differentiation theory or functionalist approaches. As Zelli and van Asselt (2013) argue in the introductory article to a special issue on the institutional fragmentation of global environmental governance, causal explanations would not need to re-invent the wheel but could in part be derived from different strands of institutionalism and cooperation theory. This ‘institutionalism revisited’ could develop and examine assumptions that link the degree of fragmentation in a given issue area of environmental governance to, for instance: the constellation of power, drawing on neo-realist perspectives (cf. Benvenisti and Downs 2007); situation structures and constellations of interests, based on NEOLIBERAL INSTITUTIONALISM (cf. Rittberger and Zürn 1990; Van de Graaf 2013); major qualities of the issue area (e.g. the global or local nature of a good; the level of scientific certainty) and the question of institutional fit (O. Young 2002); conflicts among core norms or the contestation of discourses (Zelli et al. 2013; see also LIBERAL ENVIRONMENTALISM).Finally, a whole set of empirical themes merits attention of future single case studies or comparative analyses across environmental domains, for example:- the interactions between TRANSNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS and public institutions (Abbott 2014); - the consequences of fragmentation for different types of non-state actors, including further in-depth studies about the legitimacy, accountability and inclusiveness of complex governance architectures (Karlsson-Vinkhuyzen and McGee 2013; Orsini 2013); - the impact of fragmentation on the overall EFFECTIVENESS of a global governance architecture, by both QUALITATIVE COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS and QUANTITATIVE COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS, e.g. by adopting counter-factual approaches to an entire institutional complex (cf. Hovi et al. 2003; Stokke 2012); - the suitability and effectiveness of specific management attempts like ORCHESTRATION (Abbott and Snidal 2010);- the stability or fragility of institutional complexes, including the question whether they move towards a (new) division of labour (Gehring and Faude 2013) or rather towards new types of positional differences and conflicts (Zelli 2011)

Does regional cost-of-living reshuffle Italian income distribution?

This paper examines how spatial price differentials affect income distribution in Italy. The distribution of household income is “reshuffled” after controlling for the purchasing power of households residents in different regions, but only when housing price variations are included in the PPP index. Poor households living in Southern Italy alleviate their relative condition, but concentration of poverty still holds in the Southern part of the country.Income distribution, inequality, regional purchasing power parity, Italy.

Income Inequality, Cohesiveness and Commonality in the Euro Area: A Semi-Parametric Boundary-Free Analysis

The cohesiveness of constituent nations in a confederation such as the Eurozone depends on their equally shared experiences. In terms of household incomes, commonality of distribution across those constituent nations with that of the Eurozone as an entity in itself is of the essence. Generally, income classification has proceeded by employing “hard”, somewhat arbitrary and contentious boundaries. Here, in an analysis of Eurozone household income distributions over the period 2006–2015, mixture distribution techniques are used to determine the number and size of groups or classes endogenously without resort to such hard boundaries. In so doing, some new indices of polarization, segmentation and commonality of distribution are developed in the context of a decomposition of the Gini coefficient and the roles of, and relationships between, these groups in societal income inequality, poverty, polarization and societal segmentation are examined. What emerges for the Eurozone as an entity is a four-class, increasingly unequal polarizing structure with income growth in all four classes. With regard to individual constituent nation class membership, some advanced, some fell back, with most exhibiting significant polarizing behaviour. However, in the face of increasing overall Eurozone inequality, constituent nations were becoming increasingly similar in distribution, which can be construed as characteristic of a more cohesive society

Tyskt och franskt – Likheter och skillnader i centraleuropeisk konstmusik under sent 1800-tal

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Mixture Models and Convergence Clubs

In this paper we argue that modeling the cross-country distribution of per capita income as a mixture distribution provides a natural framework for the detection of convergence clubs. The framework yields tests for the number of component distributions that are likely to have more power than "bump hunting" tests and includes a natural method of assessing the cross-component immobility necessary to imply a correspondence between components and convergence clubs. Applying the mixture approach to cross-country per capita income data for the period 1960 to 2000 we find evidence of three component densities in each of the nine years that we examine. We find little cross-component mobility and so interpret the multiple mixture components as representing convergence clubs. We document a pronounced tendency for the strength of the bonds between countries and clubs to increase. We show that the well-known "hollowing out" of the middle of the distribution is largely attributable to the increased concentration of the rich countries around their component means. This increased concentration as well as that of the poor countries around their component mean produces a rise in polarization in the distribution over the sample period.

Partially Identified Poverty Status: A New Approach to Measuring Poverty and the Progress of the Poor.

Poverty measurement and the analysis of the progress (or otherwise) of the poor is beset with difficulties and controversies surrounding the definition of a poverty line or frontier. Here, using ideas from the partial identification literature and mixture models, a new approach to poverty measurement is proposed which avoids specifying a frontier, the price is that an agent's poverty status is only partially identified. Invoking variants of Gibrat's law to give structure to the distribution of outcomes for homogeneous subgroups of a population within the context of a finite mixture model of societal outcomes facilitates calculation of the probability of an agent's poverty status. From this it is straightforward to calculate all the usual poverty measures as well as other characteristics of the poor and non poor subgroups in a society. These ideas are exemplified in a study of 47 countries in Africa over the recent quarter century which reveals among other things a growing poverty rate and a growing disparity between poor and non poor groups not identified by conventional methods.Poverty Frontiers, Mixture Models, Gibrat\'s law, Partial Identification

PENGARUH PEMBERIAN EKSTRAK ETANOL BIJI JINTAN HITAM (Nigella sativa L.) TERHADAP FETUS PADA MENCIT DIABETES

Diabetes melitus adalah salah satu penyakit yang dapat terjadi pada masa kehamilan. Penyakit ini dapat menyebabkan pengaruh yang buruk terhadap janin seperti kelainan malformasi, makrosomia dan kematian. Pada penelitian ini, dilakukan pengujian mengenai pengaruh pemberian ekstrak etanol biji jintan hitam (Nigella sativa L.) terhadap fetus pada mencit diabetes. Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk mengetahui kemampuan ekstrak etanol biji jintan hitam dalam melindungi dan mengurangi kelainan dan cacat bawaan pada fetus. Kondisi diabetes pada hewan percobaan diperoleh dengan menginduksikan aloksan dengan dosis 200 mg/kgBB. Ekstrak biji jintan hitam diberikan secara oral dengan dosis 300 mg/kgBB, 600 mg/kgBB dan 1200 mg/kgBB pada hari ke-6 sampai hari ke-15 kehamilan. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa pemberian aloksan dengan dosis 200 mg/kgBB dapat menyebabkan kelainan pada fetus berupa cleft palate, tapak resorpsi, hambatan pertumbuhan, hemoragi dan kematian. Pada pemberian aloksan dan ekstrak biji jintan hitam pada dosis 300 mg/kgBB ditemukan kelainan berupa tapak resorpsi dan hambatan pertumbuhan. Pada pemberian aloksan dan ekstrak biji jintan hitam pada dosis 600 mg/kgBB hanya ditemukan fetus dengan hambatan pertumbuhan. Pada pemberian aloksan dan ekstrak biji jintan hitam pada dosis 1200 mg/kgBB ditemukan kelainan berupa tapak resorpsi, hambatan pertumbuhan dan hemoragi. Berdasarkan uji statistik ANOVA didapatkan hasil bahwa pemberian ekstrak biji jintan hitam tidak mempengaruhi berat badan induk dan jumlah fetus tetapi mempengaruhi berat badan fetus secara bermakna. Hasil menunjukkan bahwa pemberian ekstrak etanol biji jintan hitam belum mampu melindungi fetus secara keseluruhan dari cacat malformasi yang disebabkan oleh penyakit diabetes melitus. Kata kunci: biji jintan hitam, diabetes, cacat bawaan, etano

Global environmental governance in the Anthropocene: An introduction

The term Anthropocene denotes a new geological epoch characterized by the unprecedented impact of human activities on the Earth’s ecosystems. While the natural sciences have advanced their understanding of the drivers and processes of global change considerably over the last two decades, the social sciences lag behind in addressing the fundamental challenge of governance and politics in the Anthropocene. This book attempts to close this crucial research gap, in particular with regards to the following three overarching research themes: (i) the meaning, sense-making and contestations emerging around the concept of the Anthropocene related to the social sciences; (ii) the role and relevance of institutions, both formal and informal as well as international and transnational, for governing in the Anthropocene; and (iii) the role and relevance of accountability and other democratic principles for governing in the Anthropocene. Drawing together a range of key thinkers in the field, this volume provides one of the first authoritative assessments of global environmental politics and governance in the Anthropocene, reflecting on how the planetary scale crisis changes the ways in which humans respond to the challenge. This volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of global environmental politics and governance, and sustainable development