Portrait of Jacob Levinstein

Shown at the age of 37, sitting on a sofa in informal clothes and holding a cigar. Very fine characterization and workmanship. Signed C.W. and dated lower right.

Sermon by Jacques Judah Lyons on the death of President William Henry Harrison

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IMIA working group on health record banking - How complex systems can cooperate towards having individual's consolidated data

This workshop aims at discussing alternative approaches to resolving the problem of health information fragmentation, partially resulting from difficulties of health complex systems to semantically interact at the information level. In principle, we challenge the current paradigm of keeping medical records where they were created and discuss an alternative approach in which an individual's health data can be maintained by new entities whose sole responsibility is the sustainability of individual-centric health records. In particular, we will discuss the unique characteristics of the European health information landscape. This workshop is also a business meeting of the IMIA Working Group on Health Record Banking.

The top 100 questions of importance to the future of global agriculture

Despite a significant growth in food production over the past half-century, one of the most important challenges facing society today is how to feed an expected population of some nine billion by the middle of the 20th century. To meet the expected demand for food without significant increases in prices, it has been estimated that we need to produce 70-100 per cent more food, in light of the growing impacts of climate change, concerns over energy security, regional dietary shifts and the Millennium Development target of halving world poverty and hunger by 2015. The goal for the agricultural sector is no longer simply to maximize productivity, but to optimize across a far more complex landscape of production, rural development, environmental, social justice and food consumption outcomes. However, there remain significant challenges to developing national and international policies that support the wide emergence of more sustainable forms of land use and efficient agricultural production. The lack of information flow between scientists, practitioners and policy makers is known to exacerbate the difficulties, despite increased emphasis upon evidence-based policy. In this paper, we seek to improve dialogue and understanding between agricultural research and policy by identifying the 100 most important questions for global agriculture. These have been compiled using a horizon-scanning approach with leading experts and representatives of major agricultural organizations worldwide. The aim is to use sound scientific evidence to inform decision making and guide policy makers in the future direction of agricultural research priorities and policy support. If addressed, we anticipate that these questions will have a significant impact on global agricultural practices worldwide, while improving the synergy between agricultural policy, practice and research. This research forms part of the UK Government's Foresight Global Food and Farming Futures project.

Averting biodiversity collapse in tropical forest protected areas

The rapid disruption of tropical forests probably imperils global biodiversity more than any other contemporary phenomenon(1-3). With deforestation advancing quickly, protected areas are increasingly becoming final refuges for threatened species and natural ecosystem processes. However, many protected areas in the tropics are themselves vulnerable to human encroachment and other environmental stresses(4-9). As pressures mount, it is vital to know whether existing reserves can sustain their biodiversity. A critical constraint in addressing this question has been that data describing a broad array of biodiversity groups have been unavailable for a sufficiently large and representative sample of reserves. Here we present a uniquely comprehensive data set on changes over the past 20 to 30 years in 31 functional groups of species and 21 potential drivers of environmental change, for 60 protected areas stratified across the world's major tropical regions. Our analysis reveals great variation in reserve `health': about half of all reserves have been effective or performed passably, but the rest are experiencing an erosion of biodiversity that is often alarmingly widespread taxonomically and functionally. Habitat disruption, hunting and forest-product exploitation were the strongest predictors of declining reserve health. Crucially, environmental changes immediately outside reserves seemed nearly as important as those inside in determining their ecological fate, with changes inside reserves strongly mirroring those occurring around them. These findings suggest that tropical protected areas are often intimately linked ecologically to their surrounding habitats, and that a failure to stem broad-scale loss and degradation of such habitats could sharply increase the likelihood of serious biodiversity declines.

En las raíces ideológicas de Montoneros : John William Cooke lee a Gramsci en Cuba

Desde 1945 la izquierda argentina no pudo resolver el enigma planteado por el hecho de que la clase obrera era peronista. Varios intentos teóricos fracasaron antes de que John William Cooke hiciera el suyo a mediados de los años sesenta. Influenciado por Gramsci, consideró que la clase obrera es una categoría histórica, por lo que el peronismo era la experiencia histórica de la clase obrera argentina y, como tal, revolucionario. Neutralizó el papel político de Perón convirtiéndolo en el símbolo de la identidad peronista. Por esto, la teoría de Cooke fue clave para que guerrilleros de izquierda se declararan peronistas sin que les importaran las opiniones e intenciones políticas de Perón. Las limitaciones de esa teoría quedaron expuestas cuando el general regresó a la Argentina y fue electo presidente por tercera vez.

Pensamento científico, integridade de caráter e coletividade: uma leitura sobre a ética da crença de William Kingdon Clifford

Nesta tese abordamos alguns aspectos das inter-relações entre conhecimento, ética e valores dentro da atividade científica segundo as ideias do matemático-filósofo vitoriano William Clifford. O nosso tema geral coloca em jogo o envolvimento da produção, da avaliação e da transmissão de conhecimento científico com os comportamentos, as responsabilidades e os traços de caráter do investigador. Nosso objetivo é oferecer uma introdução ao pensamento e a algumas produções intelectuais de Clifford, um autor pouco familiar ao público filosófico brasileiro, bem como uma descrição comentada de seu escrito mais famoso, intitulado A Ética da Crença. Mediante esse objetivo, extraímos suas concepções a respeito das características e consequências éticas do empreendimento científico. As questões que orientam a tese são as seguintes: de que maneira a produção de conhecimento estaria condicionada à personalidade e ao comportamento ético de quem se lança àquela prática? Em que medida essa prática promove o cultivo de características pessoais socialmente desejáveis e favoráveis? Quais as conseqüências para a sociedade dessa inter-relação entre o caráter do investigador e os valores epistêmicos que estes colocam em ação e, sem os quais parece não ser possível a obtenção de conhecimento confiável?

William Francis Thompson (1888–1965): a Preeminent Fishery Biologist of the Early and Mid Twentieth Century

William Francis Thompson (1888–1965) was a preeminent fishery scientist of the early to mid twentieth century. Educated at Stanford University in California (B.A. 1911, Ph.D. 1930), Thompson conducted pioneering research on the Pacific halibut, Hippoglossus stenolepis, from 1914 to 1917 for the British Columbia Provincial Fisheries Department. He then directed marine fisheries research for the State of California from 1917 to 1924, was Director of Investigations for the International Fisheries Commission from 1924 to 1939, and Director of the International Pacific Salmon Fisheries Commission from 1937 to 1942. He was also Director of the School of Fisheries, University of Washing-ton, Seattle, from 1930 to 1947. Thompson was the founding director in 1947 of the Fisheries Research Institute at the University of Washington and served in that capacity until his retirement in 1958. He was a dominant figure in fisheries research of the Pacific Northwest and influenced a succession of fishery scientists with his yield-based analysis of fishery stocks, as opposed to studying the fishes’environment. Will Thompson was also a major figure in education, and many of his former students attained leadership positions in fisheries research and administration.

William Francis Thompson (1888–1965) and His Pioneering Studies of the Pacific Halibut, Hippoglossus stenolepis

William Francis Thompson (1888–1965), as a temporary employee of the British Columbia Provincial Fisheries Department, was assigned in 1914 to under-take full-time studies of the Pacific halibut, Hippoglossus stenolepis. The fishery was showing signs of depletion, so Thompson undertook the inquiry into this resource, the first intensive study on the Pacific halibut. Three years later, Thompson, working alone, had provided a basic foundation of knowledge for the subsequent management of this resource. He published seven land-mark papers on this species, and this work marked the first phase of a career in fisheries science that was to last nearly 50 years.

William Francis Thompson (1888–1965) and the Dawn of Marine Fisheries Research in Californ

William Francis Thompson (1888–1965), an early fishery biologist, joined the California Fish and Game Commission in 1917 with a mandate to investigate the marine fisheries of the state. He initiated studies on the albacore tuna, Thunnus alalunga, and the Pacific sardine, Sardinops sagax, as well as studies on other economically important marine organisms. Thompson built up a staff of fishery scientists, many of whom later attained considerable renown in their field, and he helped develop, and then direct, the commission’s first marine fisheries laboratory. During his tenure in California, he developed a personal philosophy of research that he outlined in several publications. Thompson based his approach on the yield-based analysis of the fisheries as opposed to large-scale environmental studies. He left the state agency in 1925 to direct the newly formed International Fisheries Commission (now the International Pacific Halibut Commission). William Thompson became a major figure in fisheries research in the United States, and particularly in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, during the first half of the 20th cent

William Francis Thompson (1888–1965) and His Pioneering Studies of the Pacific Halibut, Hippoglossus stenolepis

William Francis Thompson (1888–1965), as a temporary employee of the British Columbia Provincial Fisheries Department, was assigned in 1914 to under-take full-time studies of the Pacific halibut, Hippoglossus stenolepis. The fishery was showing signs of depletion, so Thompson undertook the inquiry into this resource, the first intensive study on the Pacific halibut. Three years later, Thompson, working alone, had provided a basic foundation of knowledge for the subsequent management of this resource. He published seven land-mark papers on this species, and this work marked the first phase of a career in fisheries science that was to last nearly 50 years.

William Hope Hodgson's borderlands: monstrosity, other worlds, and the future at the fin de siècle.

William Hope Hodgson has generally been understood as the author of several atmospheric sea-horror stories and two powerful but flawed horror science fiction novels. There has been no substantial study analysing the historical and cultural context of his fiction or its place in the Gothic, horror, and science fiction literary traditions. Through analysing the theme of borderlands, this thesis contextualises Hodgson’s novels and short stories within these traditions and within late Victorian cultural discourse. Liminal other world realms, boundaries of corporeal monstrosity, and the imagined future of the world form key elements of Hodgson’s fiction, reflecting the currents of anxiety and optimism characterising fin-de-siècle British society. Hodgson’s early career as a sailor and his interest in body-building and physical culture colour his fiction. Fin-de-siècle discourses of evolution, entropy, spiritualism, psychical research, and the occult also influence his ideas. In The House on the Borderland (1908) and The Night Land (1912), the known world brushes against other forms of reality, exposing humanity to incomprehensible horrors. In The Ghost Pirates (1909), the sea forms a liminal region on the borderland of materiality and immateriality in which other world encounters can take place. In The Night Land and The Boats of the ‘Glen Carrig’ (1907), evolution gives rise to strange monstrous forms existing on the borderlines of species and identity. In Hodgson’s science fiction—The House on the Borderland and The Night Land—the future of the earth forms a temporal borderland of human existence shaped by fin-de-siècle fears of entropy and the heat-death of the sun. Alongside the work of other writers such as H. G. Wells and Arthur Machen, Hodgson’s four novels respond to the borderland discourses of the fin de siècle, better enabling us to understand the Gothic literature of the period as well as Hodgson’s position as a writer who offers a unique imaginative perspective on his contemporary culture.

'A Witty Book, but mostly feigned': William Richards' Wallography and perceptions of Wales in later seventeenth-century England

RAE2008