Transition UGent: a bottom-up initiative towards a more sustainable university

The vibrant think-tank ‘Transition UGent’ engaged over 250 academics, students and people from the university management in suggesting objectives and actions for the Sustainability Policy of Ghent University (Belgium). Founded in 2012, this bottom-up initiative succeeded to place sustainability high on the policy agenda of our university. Through discussions within 9 working groups and using the transition management method, Transition UGent developed system analyses, sustainability visions and transition paths on 9 fields of Ghent University: mobility, energy, food, waste, nature and green, water, art, education and research. At the moment, many visions and ideas find their way into concrete actions and policies. In our presentation we focused on the broad participative process, on the most remarkable structural results (e.g. a formal and ambitious Sustainability Vision and a student-led Sustainability Office) and on recent actions and experiments (e.g. a sustainability assessment on food supply in student restaurants, artistic COP21 activities, ambitious mobility plans, food leftovers projects, an education network on sustainability controversies, a transdisciplinary platform on Sustainable Cities). We concluded with some recommendations and reflections on this transition approach, on the important role of ‘policy entrepreneurs’ and student involvement, on lock-ins and bottlenecks, and on convincing skeptical leaders

Mating games: cultural evolution and sexual selection.

In this paper, we argue that mating games, a concept that denotes cultural practices characterized by a competitive element and an ornamental character, are essential drivers behind the emergence and maintenance of human cultural practices. In order to substantiate this claim, we sketch out the essential role of the game's players and audience, as well as the ways in which games can mature and turn into relatively stable cultural practices. After outlining the life phase of mating games - their emergence, rise, maturation, and possible eventual decline - we go on to argue that participation in these games (in each phase) does make sense from an adaptationist point of view. The strong version of our theory which proposes that all cultural practices are, or once were, mating games, allows us to derive a set of testable predictions for the fields of archaeology, economics, and psychology.competition; cultural evolution; evolutionary psychology; play; sexual selection; strategies; handicap; mates; play;

Dust Penetrated Arm Classes: Insights from rising and falling rotation curves

In the last decade, near-infrared imaging has highlighted the decoupling of gaseous and old stellar disks: the morphologies of optical (Population I) tracers compared to the old stellar disk morphology, can be radically different. Galaxies which appear multi-armed and even flocculent in the optical may show significant Grand-Design spirals in the near-infrared. Furthermore, the optically determined Hubble classification scheme does not provide a sound way of classifying dust-penetrated stellar disks: spiral arm pitch angles (when measured in the near-infrared) do not correlate with Hubble type. The dust--penetrated classification scheme of Block & Puerari provides an alternative classification based on near-infrared morphology, and which is thus more closely linked to the dominant stellar mass component. Here we present near--infrared K band images of 14 galaxies, on which we have performed a Fourier analysis of the spiral structure in order to determine their near-infrared pitch angles and dust--penetrated arm classes. We have also used the rotation curve data of Mathewson et al. to calculate the rates of shear in the stellar disks of these galaxies. We find a correlation between near-infrared pitch angle and rate of shear: galaxies with wide open arms (the $\gamma$ class) are found to have rising rotation curves, while those with falling rotation curves belong to the tightly wound $\alpha$ bin. The major determinant of near-infrared spiral arm pitch angle is the distribution of matter within the galaxy concerned. The correlation reported in this study provides the physical basis underpinning spiral arm classes in the dust-penetrated regime and underscores earlier spectroscopic findings by Burstein and Rubin that Hubble type and mass distributions are unrelated.Comment: 13 pages, accepted for publication in MNRAS. For full paper go to http://webfiles.uci.edu/mseigar/papers/Seigar_DPclass.pd

Launching Delta Alliance, final report of phase 2

Delta Alliance is a network that aims to improve the resilience of the world’s deltas. It provides a foundation and framework for international knowledge sharing and development around delta issues. Phase 2 focussed on three components: developing the Delta Alliance organization, initiating network activities and (development of) research and knowledge sharing projects

Ideological diversity, hostility, and discrimination in philosophy

Members of the field of philosophy have, just as other people, political convictions or, as psychologists call them, ideologies. How are different ideologies distributed and perceived in the field? Using the familiar distinction between the political left and right, we surveyed an international sample of 794 subjects in philosophy. We found that survey participants clearly leaned left (75%), while right-leaning individuals (14%) and moderates (11%) were underrepresented. Moreover, and strikingly, across the political spectrum, from very left-leaning individuals and moderates to very right-leaning individuals, participants reported experiencing ideological hostility in the field, occasionally even from those from their own side of the political spectrum. Finally, while about half of the subjects believed that discrimination against left- or right-leaning individuals in the field is not justified, a significant minority displayed an explicit willingness to discriminate against colleagues with the opposite ideology. Our findings are both surprising and important, because a commitment to tolerance and equality is widespread in philosophy, and there is reason to think that ideological similarity, hostility, and discrimination undermine reliable belief formation in many areas of the discipline

The Structure and C=C Vibrational Frequencies of the all- trans Polyenes C2nH2n+2(n=2-15), C2nH2n(Me)2(n=2-13), and C2nH2n(tert-Butyl)2(n=2-5): Computational Results

Carbon-carbon bond lengths and C=C vibrational frequencies are reported for the linear, all-trans unsubstituted C2nH2n+2 (n=2-15), methyl capped C2nH2nMe2 (n=2-13), and tert-butyl capped C2nH2n(tert-butyl)2 (n=2-5) polyenes (C2h) calculated at the B3LYP/6-311++G(d,p) level. The C=C/C-C bond length alternation remains evident at this level for the unsubstituted and methyl capped polyenes as the chain length increases; the center-most difference in the length of the C-C/C=C bonds is ~0.06 Å for C30H32 and C26H26Me2. The Ag, in-phase, harmonic C=C Raman frequency for the unsubstituted polyenes decreases from 1699.2 cm-1 (n = 2) to 1528.9 cm-1 (n=15); the anharmonic frequency decreases from 1651.5 cm-1 (n = 2) to 1547.7 cm-1 (n = 8). The harmonic C=C frequency for the methyl capped polyenes decreases from 1717.9 cm-1 (n = 2) to 1539.6 cm- 1 (n= 13), and the anharmonic C=C frequency decreases from 1675.0 cm-1 (n = 2) to 1562.8 cm-1 (n = 7)

(Re)drawing the lines : the science of the stars in the late fifteenth century Sultanate of Cairo

This dissertation questions the role and place of cilm al-nujūm or ‘the science of the stars, in the late fifteenth century Sultanate of Cairo on the basis of two different but contemporary and indirectly related collections of manuscripts. The study can be situated in both History of Science and in Oriental Studies and therefore aims to come to terms with some of the big debates and narratives that have reigned these disciplines over the last decades. In the first part of this thesis, I discuss how. In order to come to terms with these debates, I argue that a history of science in Islamicate societies can no longer be humanist but should instead be material in outlook. Drawing on this conclusion, I discuss two collections of manuscripts pertaining to the science of the stars in the second and third part of this dissertation. In the second part, I focus on the collection of taqwīm treatises initiated by the muwaqqit or Islamic timekeeper Ibn al-Majdī (d. 850/1447). These texts have previously been looked at as scientific treatises used in the service of religion. The practice to which they pertained was explicitly presented as non-astrological. On the basis of a study of Ibn al-Majdī’s taqwīm corpus or corpus of texts, that is a corpus of texts on the compilation of ephemerides, I argue that a material approach towards these manuscripts in fact shows how none of the categories in this description is present in the historical actors’ categories. Presented as cilm al-mīqāt, the science of timekeeping or, more generally as cilm al-nujūm or the science of the stars, these practices were part of a science of the stars that could in present day terms be labelled scientific as well as religious and astrological. The terminology that is assumed to have been used for astrology in this period, cilm aḥkām al-nujūm, is never used in these works or by contemporary scholars referring to them. In the third part of this thesis, I discuss another late fifteenth century collection of manuscripts from the same period in which the term of cilm aḥkām al-nujūm was used. The works of al-Jamālī Yūsuf ibn Qurqumās al-Ḥamzāwī (d. 902/1497) and Aḥmad ibn Aḥmad Timurbāy (fl. late ninth/late fifteenth C.) bear the mark of a tradition of Neopythagorean, ṣūfī and illuminationist tradition of scholars studying the stars as signs in order to get closer to the invisible reality beyond the empirical world, and ultimately to God. Rather than using the present day categories of science, religion, and magic, this dissertation focusses on the categories that these scholars themselves used to identify their work and the material ways in which they ordered it. By doing this, the dissertation aims to upen up new avenues for research on the early modern history of science in Islamicate societies.Deze doctoraatsthesis handelt over de rol en plaats van cilm al-nujūm of ‘de wetenschap van de sterren’ in het laat-vijftiende eeuwse Sultanaat van Caïro. Dit onderwerp kan gesitueerd worden binnen de discipline van Wetenschapsgeschiedenis enerzijds en die van Oosterse studies anderzijds en tracht vanuit die gesitueerdheid een uitweg te bieden uit enkele van de grote debatten die deze disciplines de voorbij decennia hebben gekenmerkt. In het eerste deel van dit werk zal ik omschrijven hoe ik denk dat dit mogelijk is. Om tegemoet te komen aan deze debatten, stel ik, is het niet langer mogelijk om een wetenschapsgeschiedenis van de Islamwereld te beoefenen die humanistisch van aanpak is. De weg uit de patstelling die de grote debatten van beide disciplines opleveren, is om ze te combineren. Op basis daarvan wordt hier een materiele benadering van teksten verdedigd. Hiervan vertrekkend, worden er in het tweede en derde deel van deze thesis twee collecties manuscripten besproken. De eerste collectie is een verzameling taqwīm teksten oftewel teksten over en met tabellen die de lengtegraden van de planeten voor specifieke momenten oplijsten. Meer specifiek bespreek ik de traditie taqwīm-teksten die werd toegeschreven aan de Islamitische tijdsmeter of muwaqqit Ibn al-Majdī (st. 850/1447). Deze teksten werden in eerder onderzoek voorgesteld als wetenschappelijke teksten ten dienste van religie. De praktijk waartoe ze behoorden werd bovendien voorgesteld als expliciet anti astrologie. Op basis van een materieële studie van Ibn al-Majdī’s corpus stel ik hier echter dat geen van bovengenoemde categorieën overeenkomt met de beschrijving gegeven door de historische actoren die deze manuscripten produceerden en gebruikten. De manuscripten worden ingeleid als cilm al-mīqāt of de wetenschap van tijdsmeting of meer algemeen als cilm al-nujūm of de wetenschap van de sterren. Hoewel deze manuscripten in hedendaagse termen zowel zouden kunnen worden geclassificeerd als religieus, wetenschappelijk én astrologisch, is dat niet het geval in de terminologie van de historische actoren. De terminologie die wordt gelijkgesteld met astrologie voor deze periode is cilm aḥkām al-nujūm, maar deze komt niet voor in het taqwīm-corpus, noch in contemporaine teksten die ernaar verwijzen. In het derde deel van deze thesis bespreek ik een collectie laat-vijftiende eeuwse manuscripten waarin dat wel het geval is. De werken van al-Jamālī Yūsuf ibn Qurqumās al-Ḥamzāwī (d. 902/ca. 1497) en Aḥmad ibn Aḥmad Timurbāy (fl. late negende/late vijftiende eeuw) getuigen van een traditie neopythagoreïsche ṣūfī denkers en aanhangers van de illuminatieleer die de wetenschap van de sterren beschouwden als een opstap naar inzicht in de onzichtbare, immateriële wereld achter het empirisch waarneembare, en uiteindelijk ook in God. Eerder dan te teksten in te delen door gebruik te maken van de hedendaagse categorieën van wetenschap, religie en magie, focust deze doctoraatsthesis enerzijds op de categorieën die deze geleerden zelf gebruikten om zichzelf voor te stellen en anderzijds op de materiële wijze waarop ze de circulatie van hun teksten richting gaven. Op deze manier wil deze thesis nieuwe wegen openen voor voor wetenschapsgeschiedenis van de vroegmoderne Islamwereld