"Mount Everest" is a vague name. That is (on the account here defended) there are many portions of reality all of which have equal claims to serve as its referent. We propose a new account of such ...vagueness in terms of a theory of what we shall call granular partitions. We distinguish different kinds of crisp and non-crisp granular partitions and we describe the relations between them, concentrating especially on spatial examples. In addition, we describe the practice whereby subjects use systems of reference grids as a means for tempering the vagueness of their judgments for example when they say that Libya straddles the Equator or that the meeting will take place between 2 and 3pm. We then demonstrate how the theory of reference partitions can yield a natural account of this practice, which is referred to in the literature as 'approximation'.
In his "The Construction of Social Reality," Searle presents an account of rights, responsibilities, obligations, duties, and similar entities in terms of the formula X counts as Y in context C, ...where "X" refers in the simplest case to some physical object or event and "Y" to the result of imposing upon X some deontic power or function. Smith attempts to show the limitations of this formula, focusing especially on the examples of contested property rights (where C is not uniquely defined), and of money in bank accounts and other phenomena (where no physical X-term is available). Searle responds to these criticisms, above all by pointing to the fact that some of the problems Smith raises are to be addressed not by an ontological analysis of social reality but rather through legal or political means.
The aim of this study was to compare the trace element content of children’s primary teeth from Uganda and the UK. The Ugandan teeth were from children living in an area where endomyocardial fibrosis ...(EMF), a cardiac disease, is prevalent. The latter has been putatively linked to insufficient magnesium intake and excess cerium exposure. Primary teeth were collected from 21 Ugandan and 27 UK children. The crowns and roots of the teeth were separated and the former digested and analysed for several major and trace elements by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) and atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES). In addition, the enamel and dentine of eight UK and seven Ugandan primary teeth were isolated via density separation and analysed as above. The data were assessed using non-parametric statistical tests. The Ugandan teeth contained significantly (
P < 0.05) greater concentrations of strontium, barium, cerium, lanthanum, praseodymium and significantly less zinc than the UK teeth. No significant difference in the concentrations of aluminium, calcium, copper, magnesium, lead and uranium were found. Analysis of enamel and dentine demonstrated that the former was enriched with several elements including cerium.
It is concluded, that the environment, influences the trace element content of primary teeth and this may be useful for monitoring nutritional status. With respect to a geochemical cause for EMF, there is no positive evidence that EMF in Uganda is associated with reduced magnesium and increased cerium uptake in primary teeth. This does not, however, exclude cerium from playing a role in the aetiology of EMF.
One way to detect, monitor and prevent adverse events with the help of Information Technology is by using ontologies capable of representing three levels of reality: what is the case, what is ...believed about reality, and what is represented. We report on how Basic Formal Ontology and Referent Tracking exhibit this capability and how they are used to develop an adverse event ontology and related data annotation scheme for the European ReMINE project.
Producing large volumes of high quality microalgae to feed shellfish and other organisms is a limiting factor in the development of the aquaculture industry. Feeding regimes yielding the highest ...conversion efficiencies of algal feed to molluscan growth are required to maximize the return on algal-culture investments. In the past we have used 12 specialized, manually-controlled molluscan rearing chambers to study nutritional requirements and growth of oysters, clams, and scallops. A computer-controlled, solenoid-valve system was added to automate seawater flow, volume of microalgal food delivered, and feeding duration independently for each chamber. Labor was reduced from 7 h per week to 3 h, while adding flexibility. Each chamber represents a model for a programmed nursery system. Evidence that superior growth of bivalves can be achieved by feeding regimes made possible by this apparatus are provided by an experiment with juvenile bay scallops (
Argopecten irradians). Published by Elsevier Science B.V.
As health systems around the world turn towards highly distributed, specialized and cooperative structures to increase quality and safety of care as well as efficiency and efficacy of delivery ...processes, there is a growing need for supporting communication and collaboration of all parties involved with advanced ICT solutions. The Electronic Health Record (EHR) provides the information platform which is maturing towards the eHealth core application. To meet the requirements for sustainable, semantically interoperable, and trustworthy EHR solutions, different standards and different national strategies have been established. The workshop summarizes the requirements for such advanced EHR systems and their underlying architecture, presents different strategies and solutions advocated by corresponding protagonists, discusses pros and cons as well as harmonization and migration strategies for those approaches. It particularly highlights a turn towards ontology-driven architectures. The workshop is a joint activity of the EFMI Working Groups "Electronic Health Records" and "Security, Safety and Ethics".
We consider the street experiences of a group of urban children living in a large East Midlands town in the UK. Our attention focuses upon an issue that has seldom been examined, neighbourhood ...bullying. We highlight how some children, through their propinquity within neighbourhood spaces, clash and collide to such an extent that their experiences of a locality become severely blighted. For these unfortunate young people local environments are tyrannical spaces, defined in terms of 'no-go areas', danger and threat. These are not remarkable geographies, however, and we suggest that like many school environments, where bullying has increasingly been recognised and disclosed, within many localities there is a 'hidden' geography of fear waiting to be uncovered. The paper is organised into five parts: first, we briefly examine the concept of bullying, particularly in relation to young people in schools; secondly, we extend these ideas into a neighbourhood context drawing upon recent ideas of 'self', 'other' and microgeographies; thirdly, we outline the research project from which this article emerges; fourthly, we look at some empirical evidence from an urban case study that draws attention to the form and consequences of neighbourhood bullying; lastly, we discuss the relevance of these findings to future policy and practice, particularly in relation to the management of neighbourhood spaces. We propose that systematically applied local strategies to tackle bullying within neighbourhoods are needed, particularly those which engage young people and adults together through a whole community approach.
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