Reasons, impossibility and efficient steps: reply to Heuer

Ulrike Heuer argues that there can be a reason for a person to perform an action that this person cannot perform, as long as this person can take efficient steps towards performing this action. In this reply, I first argue that Heuer’s examples fail to undermine my claim that there cannot be a reason for a person to perform an action if it is impossible that this person will perform this action. I then argue that, on a plausible interpretation of what ‘efficient steps’ are, Heuer’s claim is consistent with my claim. I end by showing that Heuer fails to undermine the arguments I gave for my claim.

Economists are not dismal, the world is not a Petri dish and other reasons for optimism

One of the recurrent themes in the debate around how to ensure global food security concerns the capacity of the planet to support its growing population. Neo-Malthusian thinking suggests that we are in a situation in which further expansion of the population cannot be supported and that the population checks, with their dismal consequences envisaged by Malthus, will lead to a new era of stagnant incomes and population. More sophisticated models of the link between population and income are less gloomy however. They see population growth as an integral component of the economic growth which is necessary to ensure that the poorest achieve food security. An undue focus on the difficulties of meeting the demands of the increasing population risks damaging this growth. Instead, attention should be focused on ensuring that the conditions to ensure that economic growth accompanies population growth are in place.

BTBPs versus BTPhens: some reasons for their differences in properties concerning the partitioning of minor actinides and the advantages of BTPhens

Two members of the tetradentate N-donor ligand families 6,6′-bis(1,2,4-triazin-3-yl)-2,2′-bipyridine (BTBP) and 2,9-bis(1,2,4-triazin-3-yl)-1,10-phenanthroline (BTPhen) currently being developed for separating actinides from lanthanides have been studied. It has been confirmed that CyMe4-BTPhen 2 has faster complexation kinetics than CyMe4-BTBP 1. The values for the HOMO−LUMO gap of 2 are comparable with those of CyMe4-BTBP 1 for which the HOMO−LUMO gap was previously calculated to be 2.13 eV. The displacement of BTBP from its bis-lanthanum(III) complex by BTPhen was observed by NMR, and constitutes the only direct evidence for the greater thermodynamic stability of the complexes of BTPhen. NMR competition experiments suggest the following order of bis-complex stability: 1:2 bis-BTPhen complex ≥ heteroleptic BTBP/BTPhen 1:2 bis-complex > 1:2 bis-BTBP complex. Kinetics studies on some bis-triazine N-donor ligands using the stopped-flow technique showed a clear relationship between the rates of metal ion complexation and the degree to which the ligand is preorganized for metal binding. The BTBPs must overcome a significant (ca. 12 kcal mol−1) energy barrier to rotation about the central biaryl C−C axis in order to achieve the cis−cis conformation that is required to form a complex, whereas the cis−cis conformation is fixed in the BTPhens. Complexation thermodynamics and kinetics studies in acetonitrile show subtle differences between the thermodynamic stabilities of the complexes formed, with similar stability constants being found for both ligands. The first crystal structure of a 1:1 complex of CyMe4-BTPhen 2 with Y(NO3)3 is also reported. The metal ion is 10- coordinate being bonded to the tetradentate ligand 2 and three bidentate nitrate ions. The tetradentate ligand is nearly planar with angles between consecutive rings of 16.4(2)°, 6.4(2)°, 9.7(2)°, respectively.

10 Reasons Why the Internet Is No Substitute for a Library

In an effort to save our culture, strike a blow for reading, and, above all, correct the well-intentioned but horribly misguided notions about what is fast becoming Intertopia among many nonlibrarian bean counters, here are 10 reasons why the Internet is no substitute for a library.

O PROEJA ensino médio no ifrn, campus Caicó: causas da desistência e motivos da permanência

This dissertation deals about the theme of National Integration Program of the Professional Education to the Basic Education in the form of Youth and Adults Education - PROEJA, which was developed at the Federal Institute of Education Science and Technology of Rio Grande do Norte - IFRN - Campus Caicó. It aims to analyze the causes of the abandonment and the reasons for the permanence of students within the mentioned program. To substantiate this research, we used methodologically, some procedures such as bibliographical research, documentary analysis, semi-structured interviews and focus group. To analyze the data, we discussed the contradiction that involves duality and educational compensation based in the struggles and achievements of rights at the core of public policies for high schools, for vocational education and the education of youth and adults in the 2000s. We analyze the integrated high school under PROEJA, having as reference the conception of the total human formation; the inseparability of the primary education system and vocational education and the integration of knowledge and expertise as a whole, discussing the specificities of the modality EJA, discussing the causes of abandonment and the reasons for the permanence of the students of education for youth and adults (EJA) in the primary education system. As for the results, we found that although the PROEJA be a program that aims to provide a complete human formation to contribute to the full citizenship of their graduate members, what is announced in the document that guides its creation has not been materialized in Caicó Campus. The curriculum of the course was not designed for the students of EJA, nor teachers have had an adequate training to work with these specific individuals, and its specificities of being workers with differentiated learning times have not been considered. In addition, the courses are predominantly of instrumentalist characteristics. This indicates that the material and institutional conditions to achieve the promised total and complete training have not being fully materialized at the researched school. Associated with the difficulties concerning the intra-school and extra-school conditions, personal and socioeconomic conditions which are related to the obligation to work that implies in limitations to balance work, school and family, they influenced in the interruption of the school trajectory of these subjects. Through research, we confirmed that the motives of students who remain have to do also with intraescolares conditions the quality of education (qualification of technical staff and teachers) involved in the educational process, as well as socioeconomic and personal issues represented by the support of colleagues and family.Then it is concluded that the causes of abandonment and the reasons of the permanence are of institutional, socioeconomic and personal origins. Finally, it is observed that capitalist society demands as much as possible high levels of educated workers, and at the same time makes difficult the access to that education for much of the population, and it is not randomly. The objects of that exclusion are the popular worker classes and their children