The Invisible Worlds of Religion and Economy

Twelve years ago I accepted my Chair at ISS with an inaugural lecture entitled Rats, Cockroaches and People Like Us, in which I discussed the relation between people’s views of humanity and actual human rights. In it I made a plea for an intelligent use of the wide range of religious and spiritual resources available to people all over the world for the sake of human rights. In subsequent years I have expanded this argument by advocating the inclusion of religious resources for development in the broadest sense. Twelve years later it seems that, at least in the Netherlands, this remains a controversial proposal, especially in view of the great changes in the political climate at home and abroad since the dramatic events in 2001

Rats, cockroaches and people like us : views of humanity and human right

Many people appear to believe that there are a growing number of religious conflicts in the world, particularly since the end of the Cold War. On closer examination, however, it seems that the number of conflicts of the type which are today often labelled 'ethnic' or' 'religious' has in fact been growing since the 1950s'. Many such conflicts were already detectable in the period of the Cold War, but at that time, they were usually interpreted within a framework of East-West relations

Religion and Development. What’s in Two Names: Symposium on the 10th Anniversary of the Chair of Religion and Development, 11 June 2009

This compilation brings together in one booklet some of Professor Ter Haar’s most important essays and papers on the theme of religion and development - a ‘taster’ of the work she has produced over the past 10 years

Equipment, measurement and dose—a survey for therapeutic ultrasound

Background Dosimetry for Ultrasound Therapy (DUTy) is a large international project which addresses the development of a metrological infrastructure for the determination of ultrasound exposure and dose to tissue. Methods In order to seek the views of the wider therapy ultrasound community and to review dose and in situ exposure quantities that have been suggested or used previously, a web-based questionnaire containing a range of questions covering the type of ultrasound equipment that is used and the range of applications for which it has been developed was created at www.​surveymonkey.​com. This questionnaire was intended to cover any contemporary therapeutic ultrasound application (including physiotherapy, lithotripsy and drug delivery) and asked specific questions about quantification of in situ exposure and dose, especially as relevant to treatment planning, standardisation and/or regulation. Results This paper summarises the 123 responses submitted between February and September 2014 to the questions on clinical applications, equipment, quality assurance (QA) and measurement and standards, as well as to those relating to an understanding of “dose” in the context of ultrasound. The full set of anonymous responses is available in an additional Excel file. Conclusions The results clearly demonstrate the need not only for further improvements in measuring devices and for measurement guidelines but also for a wider dissemination and higher awareness of existing standards. Whilst it is unlikely that a single definition of dose can be sufficient for all ultrasound treatment modalities, the answers clearly indicate that many aspects would benefit from clear definitions of relevant dose quantities and shed light on the preferred form of such definitions

Commentary on the detection of bubble activity generated in ex-vivo tissue by high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) with respect to the generation of therapeutic lesions in tissue for the treatment of cancer

Cancer treatment by extracorporeal high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) is constrained by the time needed to ablate relevant tumour volumes clinically. Controlled cavitation might be used to optimise HIFU treatments, but such control requires a greater understanding of its role in lesion formation, and the provision of appropriate techniques to monitor cavitation in tissue. During HIFU exposure various forms of cavitation can occur: acoustic cavitation (both non-inertial and inertial), and bubble formation due to two thermally-driven effects (the vaporisation of liquid into vapour, and the exsolution of formerly dissolved permanent gas out of the liquid and into gas spaces). Different forms of cavitation gives rise to characteristic signals that can be monitored during HIFU. Furthermore, the character of the signal can change depending on the stage of the cavitation in question (nucleation, established cavitation, population effects etc.). Prior to undertaking experiments using tissue, studies were performed by exposing degassed water. The aim of these experiments was to test a detection system in a minimally attenuating medium known to cavitate, in order to provide data for comparison with ex-vivo tissue results.This report is written in support of the journal paper “A Study of Bubble Activity Generated in Ex-Vivo Tissue by High Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU)” by the same authors (McLaughlan et al. 2010). It outlines supporting material for the discussion and conclusions contained in that paper, a study involving monitoring clinically relevant HIFU exposures in degassed water and ex-vivo bovine liver. Monitoring is accomplished using a suite of cavitation detection techniques (exploiting passive and active acoustics, audible and ultrasonic emissions and electrical drive power fluctuations). The aim of the paper is to allow informed progress towards a monitoring system specifically tailored for use during clinical HIFU treatment

Focused Ultrasound-Mediated Hyperthermia in Vitro: An Experimental Arrangement for Treating Cells under Tissue-Mimicking Conditions.

An experimental arrangement that allows in vitro exposure of cells to focused ultrasound-mediated hyperthermia (43°C-55°C) in a tissue-mimicking phantom with biological, acoustic and thermal properties comparable to those of human soft tissue is described. Cells were embedded in a compressed collagen gel, which was sandwiched between 6-mm-thick slices of biocompatible, acoustically absorbing and thermally tissue mimicking poly(vinyl alcohol) cryo-gel. To illustrate the system's potential, cells were exposed using a 1.66-MHz focused ultrasound beam (spatial-peak temporal-average intensities (ISPTA) = 900-1400 W/cm2) that traced out a circular trajectory (5-8 mm in diameter). Real-time temperature monitoring allowed cells to be exposed reproducibly to a pre-determined thermal dose. An experimental planning tool that estimates the thermal dose distribution throughout the sample and allows spatial correlation with cell position has been developed. Treatment response was evaluated qualitatively using microscopy and cell viability testing. This experimental arrangement has significant potential for future, biologically relevant, in vitro focused ultrasound-mediated hyperthermia studies

Religion and politics in sub-Saharan Africa

In the considerable number of countries in sub-Saharan Africa in which political institutions have largely broken down, religious discourse can be seen as an attempted remedy by means of a reordering of power. The numerous popular texts on witchcraft and other perceived forms of evil reflect the preoccupations of Africans with the way in which power is exercised in their societies. Since these texts are particularly concerned with the dangers that can arise when power is not properly organized and controlled, they can be considered a commentary on a world in which power is seen as being too often an instrument of evil people who use it to destroy peace and harmony. This article sketches a theory which clarifies the relationship between religion and politics in Africa. It first discusses what religion is, and how it may best be studied. Then it examines a couple of popular religious texts chosen by way of illustration, before passing on to some further observations on the way in which power is organized and perceived in various African societies. Finally, it draws some conclusions about religion as a political idiom. ASC – Publicaties niet-programma gebonde

Africa's Religious Resurgence and the Politics of Good and Evil

ASC – Publicaties niet-programma gebonde

A model of acoustic absorption in fluids based on a continuous distribution of relaxation times

This work extends the quasi-equilibrium relaxation theory of sound absorption in liquids to the case of continuous distribution of relaxation times. Such extension is needed when absorption mechanisms are not confined to the action of viscosity and heat conduction, but are mainly due to the excitation of a large number of internal molecular degrees of freedom. In this case the conventional Navier–Stokes equations are not sufficient to describe the fluid motion, and additional equations are required to model normal relaxation stresses. When relaxation frequencies form a sufficiently dense distribution, as is the case for many biological fluids, it makes sense to consider the limit of continuously distributed relaxation frequencies, in order to obtain the required equation for normal relaxation stresses. In contrast to its discrete counterparts, the proposed method avoids the use of a potentially infinite number of relaxation equations for a given set of distinct relaxation frequencies. Instead, these are replaced by a single evolution equation of Boltzmann type whose right-hand side is a linear combination of the time derivatives of density and entropy. The rheological functions appearing before these derivatives are expressed in terms of the absorption coefficient. Since the dependence of absorption coefficient on sound frequency is measurable experimentally, these rheological coefficients can be recovered from experimental data. The key feature of the present study is that a closed system of equations of motion can be formulated directly from absorption measurement data on the basis of the theory proposed for the very wide range of absorption laws that can occur in practice. As an illustration of the generality of the present method, a number of absorption laws documented in the experimental literature are considered in detail, in order to derive the coefficients of the related systems of equations of motion for these liquids. For example, the methodology based on modelling of acoustic absorption in biologically soft tissue by the employment of fractional derivatives, which has been recently developed in the literature, is shown to be a special case of the proposed theory