Much research has studied the importance of play for children's development. However, questions of its political importance and our public institutions' duties to protect it have been largely ...neglected. This article argues that childhood play is politically important due to having both intrinsic and instrumental value, and it suggests that the duty to protect the capability for play in childhood falls especially on the public health system. If this argument succeeds, it follows that we have stronger duties toward our children than we currently believe.
Many unicellular flagellates are mixotrophic and access resources through both photosynthesis and prey capture. Their fitness depends on those processes as well as on swimming and predator avoidance. ...How does the flagellar arrangement and beat pattern of the flagellate affect swimming speed, predation risk due to flow-sensing predators, and prey capture? Here, we describe measured flows around two species of mixotrophic, biflagellated haptophytes with qualitatively different flagellar arrangements and beat patterns. We model the near cell flows using two symmetrically arranged point forces with variable position next to a no-slip sphere. Utilizing the observations and the model we find that puller force arrangements favour feeding, whereas equatorial force arrangements favour fast and quiet swimming. We determine the capture rates of both passive and motile prey, and we show that the flow facilitates transport of captured prey along the haptonema structure. We argue that prey capture alone cannot fulfil the energy needs of the observed species, and that the mixotrophic life strategy is essential for survival.
The important cereal crop Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench biosynthesize and accumulate the defensive compound dhurrin during development. Previous work has suggested multiple roles for the compound ...including a function as nitrogen storage/buffer. Crucial for this function is the endogenous turnover of dhurrin for which putative pathways have been suggested but not confirmed.
In this study, the biosynthesis and endogenous turnover of dhurrin in the developing sorghum grain was studied by metabolite profiling and time-resolved transcriptome analyses. Dhurrin was found to accumulate in the early phase of grain development reaching maximum amounts 25 days after pollination. During the subsequent maturation period, the dhurrin content was turned over, resulting in only negligible residual dhurrin amounts in the mature grain. Dhurrin accumulation correlated with the transcript abundance of the three genes involved in biosynthesis. Despite the accumulation of dhurrin, the grains were acyanogenic as demonstrated by the lack of hydrogen cyanide release from macerated grain tissue and by the absence of transcripts encoding dhurrinases. With the missing activity of dhurrinases, the decrease in dhurrin content in the course of grain maturation represents the operation of hitherto uncharacterized endogenous dhurrin turnover pathways. Evidence for the operation of two such pathways was obtained by metabolite profiling and time-resolved transcriptome analysis. By combining cluster- and phylogenetic analyses with the metabolite profiling, potential gene candidates of glutathione S-transferases, nitrilases and glycosyl transferases involved in these pathways were identified. The absence of dhurrin in the mature grain was replaced by a high content of proanthocyanidins. Cluster- and phylogenetic analyses coupled with metabolite profiling, identified gene candidates involved in proanthocyanidin biosynthesis in sorghum.
The results presented in this article reveal the existence of two endogenous dhurrin turnover pathways in sorghum, identify genes putatively involved in these transformations and show that dhurrin in addition to its insect deterrent properties may serve as a storage form of reduced nitrogen. In the course of sorghum grain maturation, proanthocyanidins replace dhurrin as a defense compound. The lack of cyanogenesis in the developing sorghum grain renders this a unique experimental system to study CNglc synthesis as well as endogenous turnover.
This paper argues in defence of sufficientarianism that there is a general flaw in the most common critiques against it. The paper lays out sufficientarianism and presents the problems of ...indifference, of outweighing priority, and of discontinuity. Behind these problems is a more general objection to the abruptness of the sufficiency threshold relying upon an assumption regarding arithmeticism about value. The paper argues that sufficientarians need not accept arithmeticism about value and that the commonly held critiques of sufficientarianism are in fact instances of the numbers fallacy pertaining to the construction of numerical counterexamples that gain intuitive traction from 'empty numbers' - numbers without meaningful content in reference to the view under investigation. The paper concludes that we should remain sceptical about such use of numerical counterexamples, and while this does not by itself prove sufficientarianism correct, it is an important and novel contribution to its justification.
We analyze how a key component of fiscal governance, the ability of governments to pass a budget on time, affects government bond yield spreads. Based on a sample of 36 US states from 1988 to 1997, ...and using an original data set on budget enactment dates, we estimate that a 30day budget delay has a cumulative impact that is equivalent to a one-time increase in the yield spread of around 10 basis points. States with sufficient liquidity incur no costs from late budgets, while unified governments face large penalties from not finishing a budget on time.
•We analyze the effect of late budgets on US states’ bond yield spreads.•We estimate that a 30day budget delay has a cumulative impact of around 10bp.•States with sufficient liquidity incur no costs from late budgets.•Unified governments face large penalties from not finishing a budget on time.
An electrochemical approach is presented for constructing a monolayer or near monolayer of molecules on conducting surfaces by degradation of a multilayer film formed via reduction of aryldiazonium ...salts. Usually, grafting of surfaces employing aryldiazonium salts results in the formation of intertwined multilayers in a difficult controllable polymerization reaction. However, if the chemical system selected contains a cleavable group, a subsequent degradation of the polymeric network may allow the formation of a thin reactive molecular layer. As chemical systems, diazonium salts of diaryl disulfides (ArSSAr) were selected to produce surface-confined thiophenolates, but an extension of the approach to include other functionalities is straightforward. The thiophenolates (ArS-) may be reversibly oxidized to disulfides to establish a covalently attached ArSSAr/ArS- redox pair at the surface. Analysis of the surfaces was carried out by means of cyclic voltammetry, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and atomic force microscopy.
A comprehensive understanding of the ethics of the COVID-19 pandemic priorities must be sensitive to the influence of social inequality. We distinguish between ex-ante and ex-post relevance of social ...inequality for COVID-19 disadvantage. Ex-ante relevance refers to the distribution of risks of exposure. Ex-post relevance refers to the effect of inequality on how patients respond to infection. In the case of COVID-19, both ex-ante and ex-post effects suggest a distribution which is sensitive to the prevalence social inequality. On this basis, we provide a generic fairness argument for the claim that welfare states ought to favour a healthcare priority scheme that gives particular weight to protecting the socially disadvantaged.
In this article, I offer an account of when and why inequality is problematic. I build this account upon the central elements of the sufficiency view—that justice is concerned with eliminating ...noncomparative deficiencies rather than comparative inequalities. The account that I develop here is concerned with an inequality if, and only if, it involves an instance of noncomparative deficiency; either material or social. I then conduct an analysis of suggested reasons to care about inequality identified in recent studies of the politics of inequality, and I argue that the sufficiency account can explain the reasons that empiricists give for their concern with inequality. Upon that analysis, I conclude that we have strong reasons to be concerned with inequalities, but that these reasons stem from our acceptance of the sufficiency view rather than from an intrinsic worry with inequality.
在本文中, 我解释了不平等在何时以及为何是成问题的。我的论述建立在知足观点的核心元素上, 即公正关心的是消除非比较性的不足, 而不是比较性的不足。我在此提出的论述关心那些包含且仅包含非比较性不足情况的不平等, 不管其是物质或者是社会相关的。我随后分析了最近关于不平等政治的一些研究关心不平等原因, 并认为知足观点可以解释实证家们为何关注不平等。在此分析的基础上, 我认为, 我们有很强的理由去关注不平等, 但是这些原因来自于我们对于知足观点的接受, 而非来自于对不平等的本质上的担忧。
Sufficiency and Satiable Values Nielsen, Lasse
Journal of applied philosophy,
November 2019, 2019-11-00, 20191101, Letnik:
36, Številka:
5
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
This article identifies value‐satiability sufficientarianism as a distinctive version of the sufficiency view, which has been ignored in the literature on distributive justice. This is unfortunate ...because value‐satiability sufficientarianism is much better equipped than alternative sufficiency views to cope with the standard objections against sufficiency. Most often, sufficientarianism refers to satiability as a feature of moral principles and reasons. But value‐satiability sufficientarianism also invokes satiability in the space of value‐theory, as it determines the sufficiency threshold at the point where justice‐relevant values have been completely fulfilled. The article gives examples of how this view is widely apparent in the literature, and it provides some reasons in its favour. It then presents the two standard objections against sufficientarianism – the threshold objection and the indifference objection – and argues that these critiques do not apply to value‐satiability sufficientarianism. The general argument of the article therefore proves sufficientarianism more difficult to refute than is commonly credited.
Many consider play a natural part of childhood, and although there is disagreement in the literature on what essentially defines “play” in childhood, philosophical theories of play tend to support ...this initial consideration. But is childhood play also something we owe each other within a framework of educational justice? This is a question yet to be addressed. In this paper, I answer this question affirmatively. I take off from a generic account of educational justice and argue that childhood play should be considered a central entitlement of this account. I then argue in line with the capability approach that if we ought to protect childhood play, it should be children’s capability for play rather than the functioning of play that needs protection. I end by offering an account of the capability for childhood play.
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