How far from Jerusalem? Tropical customs and the question of race in the Book of John Mandeville

The Book of John Mandeville, while ostensibly a pilgrimage guide documenting an English knight’s journey into the East, is an ideal text in which to study the developing concept of race in the European Middle Ages. The Mandeville-author’s sense of place and morality are inextricably linked to each other: Jerusalem is the center of his world, which necessarily forces Africa and Asia to occupy the spiritual periphery. Most inhabitants of Mandeville’s landscapes are not monsters in the physical sense, but at once startlingly human and irreconcilably alien in their customs. Their religious heresies, disordered sexual appetites, and monstrous acts of cannibalism label them as fallen state of the European Christian self. Mandeville’s monstrosities lie not in the fantastical, but the disturbingly familiar, coupling recognizable humans with a miscarriage of natural law. In using real people to illustrate the moral degeneracy of the tropics, Mandeville’s ethnography helps shed light on the missing link between medieval monsters and modern race theory.

Equivalent differential equations for nonlinear dynamical systems

A technique for obtaining approximate periodic solutions to nonlinear ordinary differential equations is investigated. The approach is based on defining an equivalent differential equation whose exact periodic solution is known. Emphasis is placed on the mathematical justification of the approach. The relationship between the differential equation error and the solution error is investigated, and, under certain conditions, bounds are obtained on the latter. The technique employed is to consider the equation governing the exact solution error as a two point boundary value problem. Among other things, the analysis indicates that if an exact periodic solution to the original system exists, it is always possible to bound the error by selecting an appropriate equivalent system.

Three equivalence criteria for minimizing the differential equation error are compared, namely, minimum mean square error, minimum mean absolute value error, and minimum maximum absolute value error. The problem is analyzed by way of example, and it is concluded that, on the average, the minimum mean square error is the most appropriate criterion to use.

A comparison is made between the use of linear and cubic auxiliary systems for obtaining approximate solutions. In the examples considered, the cubic system provides noticeable improvement over the linear system in describing periodic response.

A comparison of the present approach to some of the more classical techniques is included. It is shown that certain of the standard approaches where a solution form is assumed can yield erroneous qualitative results.

As razões do direito: um estudo da razão pública a partir do modelo liberal-igualitário de John Rawls

Em 1993, John Rawls, notável filósofo e professor da distinta Harvard University, publicou seu Political Liberalism, um livro em que pela primeira vez sintetiza sistematicamente o conceito de razão pública, uma ideia chave de sua teoria da justiça como equidade (justice as fairness). Segundo Rawls, a razão pública consiste fundamentalmente no modo e conteúdo adequados ao debate e à fundamentação de escolhas essenciais de justiça no espaço público de uma democracia constitucional. Nesse sentido, Rawls advoga que o único meio razoável de justificação da coerção estatal reside no reconhecimento e/ou obtenção de consensos (overlapping consensus) em relação às escolhas essenciais de uma sociedade democrática, o que só é possível se atores públicos e privados se despojarem de suas respectivas doutrinas filosóficas ou morais abrangentes ao debater e decidir tais questões essenciais de justiça. A presente dissertação tem por objetivo analisar a proposta de razão pública de Rawls, dentro do contexto de sua teoria da justiça como equidade, propondo-se a verificar se o pensamento rawlsiano procede no contexto jurídico-filosófico da pós-modernidade e se a sua teoria pode ser concretamente aplicada aos ordenamentos jurídicos contemporâneos, em especial no que tange ao conteúdo e pleno exercício da liberdade religiosa pelos cidadãos de um estado constitucional democrático.

Living on the hyphen: diaspora, identity and memory in Jamaica Kincaids Annie John / Lucy and Esmeralda Santiagos When I was Puerto Rican / Almost a woman

Esta dissertação tem por objetivo investigar o desenvolvimento de identidades de sujeitos diaspóricos em formas de narrativas nas quais a memória tem um papel crucial. As autobiografias e os memoirs têm despertado a curiosidade de muitas pessoas interessadas nos processos de construção de identidade de indivíduos que vivem em realidades singulares e nos relatos que dão sobre suas próprias vidas. Assim, o crescente interesse em diásporas e nos decorrentes deslocamentos fragmentários, provocados pelo distanciamento de raízes individuais e pelo contato com diferentes códigos culturais, poderiam legitimar as narrativas autobiográficas como maneiras estratégicas de sintetizar os nichos de identificação de autores e autoras que experimentaram uma ruptura diaspórica. Desta forma, ao analisar estes tipos de narrativas, deve-se estar atento às especificidades de algumas escritoras que passaram por processos diaspóricos e a como elas recorreram as suas memórias pessoais para, em termos literários, expressar suas subjetividades. Considerando todas essas idéias, tenciono usar Annie John e Lucy, de Jamaica Kincaid e When I Was Puero Rican e Almost a Woman, de Esmeralda Santiago como fontes de análise e amostras do desenvolvimento de identidades diaspóricas em narrativas autobiográficas

Direito e interpretação na tradição do positivismo jurídico: uma análise de John Austin, H. L. A. Hart e seus críticos

O objetivo desta dissertação de mestrado é examinar as teses centrais do positivismo jurídico de John Austin e de H. L. A. Hart. Analiso inicialmente as críticas que Hart faz à teoria do direito como comando, proposta inicialmente por Austin na primeira metade do século XIX. Em seguida, ocupo-me das críticas de Ronald Dworkin ao positivismo jurídico, bem como das tentativas recentes de se retomar a teoria do direito como comando. Por fim, procuro mostrar de que forma a discussão em torno das críticas ao positivismo legal foi recebido no contexto do debate teórico-jurídico no Brasil.

Spatial-temporal excess mortality patterns of the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic in Spain

Background: The impact of socio-demographic factors and baseline health on the mortality burden of seasonal and pandemic influenza remains debated. Here we analyzed the spatial-temporal mortality patterns of the 1918 influenza pandemic in Spain, one of the countries of Europe that experienced the highest mortality burden. Methods: We analyzed monthly death rates from respiratory diseases and all-causes across 49 provinces of Spain, including the Canary and Balearic Islands, during the period January-1915 to June-1919. We estimated the influenza-related excess death rates and risk of death relative to baseline mortality by pandemic wave and province. We then explored the association between pandemic excess mortality rates and health and socio-demographic factors, which included population size and age structure, population density, infant mortality rates, baseline death rates, and urbanization. Results: Our analysis revealed high geographic heterogeneity in pandemic mortality impact. We identified 3 pandemic waves of varying timing and intensity covering the period from Jan-1918 to Jun-1919, with the highest pandemic-related excess mortality rates occurring during the months of October-November 1918 across all Spanish provinces. Cumulative excess mortality rates followed a south-north gradient after controlling for demographic factors, with the North experiencing highest excess mortality rates. A model that included latitude, population density, and the proportion of children living in provinces explained about 40% of the geographic variability in cumulative excess death rates during 1918-19, but different factors explained mortality variation in each wave. Conclusions: A substantial fraction of the variability in excess mortality rates across Spanish provinces remained unexplained, which suggests that other unidentified factors such as comorbidities, climate and background immunity may have affected the 1918-19 pandemic mortality rates. Further archeo-epidemiological research should concentrate on identifying settings with combined availability of local historical mortality records and information on the prevalence of underlying risk factors, or patient-level clinical data, to further clarify the drivers of 1918 pandemic influenza mortality.

Monteiro Lobato: editor gráfico (1918-1925)

O objetivo desta dissertação é mostrar como se deu o envolvimento de Monteiro Lobato com o design gráfico enquanto editor e gestor de suas editoras: a Edições da Revista do Brasil, a Monteiro Lobato e Cia. e a Cia. Graphico-Editora Monteiro Lobato, no período de 1918 a 1925. A análise gráfica das publicações editadas por Lobato, neste intervalo, serviu como fio condutor da pesquisa. Por fim, foi feita uma descrição gráfica dos exemplares coletados, que foram produzidos no mesmo período.

Early marine growth in relation to marine-stage survival rates for Alaska sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka)

We tested the hypothesis that larger juvenile sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) in Bristol Bay, Alaska, have higher marine-stage survival rates than smaller juvenile salmon. We used scales from returning adults (33 years of data) and trawl samples of juveniles (n= 3572) collected along the eastern Bering Sea shelf during August through September 2000−02. The size of juvenile sockeye salmon mirrored indices of their marine-stage survival rate (e.g., smaller fish had lower indices of marine-stage survival rate). However, there was no relationship between the size of sockeye salmon after their first year at sea, as estimated from archived scales, and brood-year survival size was relatively uniform over the time series, possibly indicating size-selective mortality on smaller individuals during their marine residence. Variation in size, relative abundance, and marine-stage survival rate of juvenile sockeye salmon is likely related to ocean conditions affecting their early marine migratory pathways along the eastern Bering Sea shelf.

Compreendendo a utopia realizável: uma defesa do ideal de justiça distributiva da teoria de John Rawls

O trabalho tem por objetivo articular uma defesa da teoria de justiça distributiva de John Rawls, considerando-se, para tal, as mudanças que o autor efetuou em sua teoria de justiça como equidade. Assim, a pesquisa tomará como base não somente o critério de justiça distributiva que se consolidou em Uma Teoria de Justiça, através do princípio da diferença, mas também avaliará de que forma este ideal continua presente nos textos posteriores do autor: O Liberalismo Político e O Direito dos Povos. Para tal, o estudo retomará as críticas cosmopolitas à proposta de internacionalização da teoria de justiça como equidade e, à luz destas, apresentará uma defesa do projeto de Rawls, evidenciando elementos do mesmo que estão alinhados ao projeto de justiça distributiva e sugerindo que sua proposta teórica é coerente com as premissas de Uma Teoria de Justiça, apesar de o princípio da diferença não estar presente entre os princípios fundamentais que devem ser estabelecidos entre os povos. Logo, trata-se também de uma proposta interpretativa que se vincula à compreensão (minoritária) de que as mudanças teóricas efetuadas por Rawls em sua teoria não a tornaram incompatível com seu projeto originário estabelecido em Uma Teoria de Justiça.

Educação e modernidade : o pensamento educacional dos Jesuítas, John Lock e Jean-Jacques Rousseau na era das ciências e da Filosofia Moderna

Esta pesquisa faz parte do eixo temático Educação e Cidadania, em sua linha de pesquisa Produção Social do Conhecimento, do Mestrado em Educação da Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro - UERJ. É uma pesquisa bibliográfica. Trata de um estudo sobre a educação na Modernidade. Analisa três correntes do pensamento pedagógico dos séculos XVII e XVIII, que tiveram profunda repercussão em todos os sistemas educacionais do mundo ocidental, capaz de influenciar pedagogos e filósofos da educação na elaboração de propostas para a educação Moderna. Traz uma análise do pensamento educacional dos religiosos católicos jesuítas, de John Locke e de Jean-Jacques Rousseau, apontando visões pedagógicas particulares, muitas vezes antagônicas. Esboça uma síntese dos principais ideais dessas correntes de pensamento, que, com certeza iluminaram a produção do conhecimento educacional da Modernidade e as concepções pedagógicas contemporâneas. Em síntese, busca resgatar os ideais dessas três correntes de pensamento pedagógico e a sua contribuição na elaboração do conhecimento educacional e na formação da cultura do mundo ocidental; entende ser a apropriação desse conhecimento uma das formas de se ajudar a pensar a questão da cidadania.

Stanford University’s John Otterbein Snyder: Student, Collaborator, and Colleague of David Starr Jordan and Charles Henry Gilbert

John Otterbein Snyder (1867–1943) was an early student of David Starr Jordan at Stanford University and subsequently rose to become an assistant professor there. During his 34 years with the university he taught a wide variety of courses in various branches of zoology and advised numerous students. He eventually mentored 8 M.A. and 4 Ph.D. students to completion at Stanford. He also assisted in the collection of tens of thousands of fish specimens from the western Pacific, central Pacific, and the West Coast of North America, part of the time while stationed as “Naturalist” aboard the U.S. Fish Commission’s Steamer Albatross (1902–06). Although his early publications dealt mainly with fish groups and descriptions (often as a junior author with Jordan), after 1910 he became more autonomous and eventually rose to become one of the Pacific salmon, Oncorhynchus spp., experts on the West Coast. Throughout his career, he was especially esteemed by colleagues as “a stimulating teacher,” “an excellent biologist,” and “a fine man.

John Nathan Cobb (1868–1930): Founding Director of the College of Fisheries, University of Washington, Seattle

John Nathan Cobb (1868–1930) became the founding Director of the College of Fisheries, University of Washington, Seattle, in 1919 without the benefit of a college education. An inquisitive and ambitious man, he began his career in the newspaper business and was introduced to commercial fisheries when he joined the U.S. Fish Commission (USFC) in 1895 as a clerk, and he was soon promoted to a “Field Agent” in the Division of Statistics, Washington, D.C. During the next 17 years, Cobb surveyed commercial fisheries from Maine to Florida, Hawaii, the Pacific Northwest, and Alaska for the USFC and its successor, the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries. In 1913, he became editor of the prominent west coast trade magazine, Pacific Fisherman, of Seattle, Wash., where he became known as a leading expert on the fisheries of the Pacific Northwest. He soon joined the campaign, led by his employer, to establish the nation’s first fisheries school at the University of Washington. After a brief interlude (1917–1918) with the Alaska Packers Association in San Francisco, Calif., he was chosen as the School’s founding director in 1919. Reflecting his experience and mindset, as well as the University’s apparent initial desire, Cobb established the College of Fisheries primarily as a training ground for those interested in applied aspects of the commercial fishing industry. Cobb attracted sufficient students, was a vigorous spokesman for the College, and had ambitions plans for expansion of the school’s faculty and facilities. He became aware that the College was not held in high esteem by his faculty colleagues or by the University administration because of the school’s failure to emphasize scholastic achievement, and he attempted to correct this deficiency. Cobb became ill with heart problems in 1929 and died on 13 January 1930. The University soon thereafter dissolved the College and dismissed all but one of its faculty. A Department of Fisheries, in the College of Science, was then established in 1930 and was led by William Francis Thompson (1888–1965), who emphasized basic science and fishery biology. The latter format continues to the present in the Department’s successor, The School of Aquatic Fisheries and Science.

Humpback and Fin Whaling in the Gulf of Maine from 1800 to 1918

The history of whaling in the Gulf of Maine was reviewed primarily to estimate removals of humpback whales, Megaptera novaeangliae, especially during the 19th century. In the decades from 1800 to 1860, whaling effort consisted of a few localized, small-scale, shore-based enterprises on the coast of Maine and Cape Cod, Mass. Provincetown and Nantucket schooners occasionally conducted short cruises for humpback whales in New England waters. With the development of bomb-lance technology at mid century, the ease of killing humpback whales and fin whales, Balaenoptera physalus, increased. As a result, by the 1870’s there was considerable local interest in hunting rorquals (baleen whales in the family Balaenopteridae, which include the humpback and fin whales) in the Gulf of Maine. A few schooners were specially outfitted to take rorquals in the late 1870’s and 1880’s although their combined annual take was probably no more than a few tens of whales. Also in about 1880, fishing steamers began to be used to hunt whales in the Gulf of Maine. This steamer fishery grew to include about five vessels regularly engaged in whaling by the mid 1880’s but dwindled to only one vessel by the end of the decade. Fin whales constituted at least half of the catch, which exceeded 100 animals in some years. In the late 1880’s and thereafter, few whales were taken by whaling vessels in the Gulf of Maine.

O jogo de espelho das colonizações: nacionalismo e pós-colonialismo na obra de Edward W. Said

O objetivo desse trabalho é compreender a produção intelectual do autor palestino, Edward W. Said, cuja trajetória heterogênea representou em larga medida uma metáfora teórica dos seus maiores dilemas políticos e conceituais, alguns deles constitutivos do objeto dessa tese. Entendemos que Said define a Cultura como lócus privilegiado para compreender a dominação colonial e, posteriormente, incorpora um discurso político para a formação da chamada identidade nacional Palestina. Procuramos demarcar o paradoxo central da sua obra que diz respeito ao convívio teórico da abordagem pós-colonial com a busca da historicidade do ethos nacional palestino. Entendemos que o paradoxo do Nacionalismo, sua estreita vinculação com o debate pós-colonial e os percursos teóricos decorrentes do engajamento progressivo com a causa nacional Palestina subsidiam outras reflexões que possuem interrelação. São essas; a representação do intelectual na sociedade contemporânea, a relação entre texto e realidade histórica, entendida por meio do conceito de mundanidade, a categoria de exílio como condição ontológica e metáfora epistemológica e o problema da relação entre cultura e imperialismo. Esses percursos de análise orientam-se por um objetivo mais geral que é a análise da centralidade e respectiva atualidade da obra de Edward W. Said na Historiografia Pós-Colonial.