Managing to harvest? Perspectives on the potential of aquaculture

Aquaculture has been one of the most rapid and technically innovative of food production sectors globally, with significant investment, scientific and technical development and production growth in many parts of the world over the past two decades. While this has had a significant effect on the global supply of aquatic food products and had an important impact in rural and urban food supply and employment in many developing economies, growth and increasing internationalization has not been without concern for natural resource use, environmental impact and social disruption. The expectations for production and diversification are now significant and while the scientific and technical means are already available to meet much of the intended targets, practical constraints of investment, profitability, resource access and system efficiency are likely to become far more important constraints for the future. This review offers a contemporary perspective on the ways in which the sector might develop, its interactions with constraints and the strategies that may be required to ensure that future development is both positive and sustainable.     

Up,down, and away: placing privilege in Bucharest,Romania

Anthropologists have become increasingly sophisticated in the analysis of class by detailing the urban margins, by ‘studying up’ to examine elite wealth, and by charting the rise of the global middle classes. The anthropological commitment to depth, however, tends to keep these three strata separate in ways that mirror analytically the kind of segregation observed on the ground. Tight analytical framings risk obscuring the co-ordinates of privilege, especially in cities such as Bucharest, Romania, which are being rapidly transformed by foreign direct investment (FDI). This article, by contrast, moves across Bucharest's diverging strata to explore the complex interconnections between the pursuit of FDI, urban planning, and increased class separation. Ethnographically, the article examines the production of three kinds of emergent spaces – homeless shelters for the very poor; high-rise towers for the truly elite; and metro stations designed for the middle classes – to trace the interrelated politics of belonging and exclusion in a rapidly transforming city. The article suggests that these efforts, successful as they may be at ordering competing claims to the city, produce a landscape that cements unequal class relations into the built environment. Taken from Bucharest, this analysis offers wider insight into the future of contemporary urbanism in the European Union but also in cities the world over that are being similarly remade to attract global capital.     

Theory from the South: Or,how Euro-America is Evolving Toward Africa

‘The Global South’ has become a shorthand for the world of non-European, postcolonial peoples. Synonymous with uncertain development, unorthodox economies, failed states, and nations fraught with corruption, poverty, and strife, it is that half of the world about which the ‘Global North’ spins theories. Rarely is it seen as a source of theory and explanation for world historical events. Yet, as many nation-states of the Northern Hemisphere experience increasing fiscal meltdown, state privatization, corruption, and ethnic conflict, it seems as though they are evolving southward, so to speak, in both positive and problematic ways. Is this so? In what measure? What might this mean for the very dualism on which such global oppositions rest? Drawing on recent research, primarily in Africa, this paper touches on a range of familiar themes—law, labor, and the contours of contemporary capitalism—in order to ask how we might understand these things with theory developed from an ‘ex-centric’ vantage. This view renders some key problems of our time at once strange and familiar, giving an ironic twist to the evolutionary pathways long assumed by social scientists.     

Global Health Care Justice,Delivery Doctors and Assisted Reproduction: Taking a Note From Catholic Social Teachings

This article will examine the Catholic concept of global justice within a health care framework as it relates to women's needs for delivery doctors in the developing world and women's demands for assisted reproduction in the developed world. I will first discuss justice as a theory, situating it within Catholic social teachings. The Catholic perspective on global justice in health care demands that everyone have access to basic needs before elective treatments are offered to the wealthy. After exploring specific discrepancies in global health care justice, I will point to the need for delivery doctors in the developing world to provide basic assistance to women who hazard many pregnancies as a priority before offering assisted reproduction to women in the developed world. The wide disparities between maternal health in the developing world and elective fertility treatments in the developed world are clearly unjust within Catholic social teachings. I conclude this article by offering policy suggestions for moving closer to health care justice via doctor distribution.     

Some Intellectual Genealogies for the Concept of Everyday Resistance

Concerns with how cultural factors influenced agrarian social change remained an abiding interest in the work of James Scott. I begin by sketching out the context of debates in Marxist theory, development studies, and social and political anthropology that, during the 1980s, turned to relations between ideas, power, and processes of conflict and change in a world of new postcolonial nations and rapid agrarian development. In the article, then, I carefully examine the ideas Scott developed about resistance and hegemony in conversation with the work of E. P. Thompson. Tracing the genealogy of Scott's ideas about hegemony and rural social protest, I comment in some detail on the literature on resistance that arose in anthropology during the 1980s and the role of Scott's Weapons of the Weak (1985) in shaping that literature while interacting with Subaltern Studies (Guha 1982–87), studies of social movements, and examinations of power in interpersonal relations.     

Perfectly complementary nucleic acid enzymes

The ability to maximize the use of available nucleic acid sequence space would have been crucial during the presumed RNA world and confers selective advantage in many contemporary organisms. One way to access sequence space at a higher density would be to make use of both strands of a duplex nucleic acid for the production of functional molecules. As a demonstration of this possibility, two pairs of nucleic acid enzymes were engineered to be perfect complements, each with the capacity to adopt a distinct structure and catalyze a particular chemical transformation. Both members of each pair of enzymes exhibited nearly the same level of activity as the canonical form of the corresponding catalytic motif. The ability to generate functional nucleic acids encoded by both strands of a duplex has implications for the evolution of catalytic nucleic acids and the prospects for realizing maximum functionality from a given genetic sequence. Present address (Scott T. Kuhns): CancerVax Corp., 9393 Towne Center Drive, San Diego, CA 92121, USA     

Postcoloniality,National Identity,Globalisation and the Simulacra of the Real

The focus of this paper is a famous boys' boarding school in the North Indian city of Dehra Dun. The Doon School was founded in 1935 and was soon hailed by a wide cross section of post-colonial Indian intelligentsia as the site for the production of the ‘modern’ Indian citizen. The discussion below suggests that contemporary social analysis needs to focus on specific sites of the production of the discourses of the nation and citizenship rather than simply announce their dissolution as an ‘inevitable’ by-product of ‘globalisation’; this seems to be the stand taken by certain strands of theorisation in the so-called globalisation debate and in particular versions of cultural studies. I argue that rather than having simply dissolved, the ‘national’ emotion, at least in the Indian context, may have been transformed into the production of ‘post-coloniality’ as a differentiating category to distinguish the ‘progressive’ populations of the nation-state from its ‘backward’ counterparts. I employ Baudrillard's concept of the ‘real’ in order to argue for situated analyses of the contemporary global condition where analyses of the relationship between nation-states and of the asymmetries within them continue to be important political tasks.     

Looking for middle ground in cultural attraction theory

In their article, Thom Scott‐Phillips, Stefaan Blancke, and Christophe Heintz do a commendable job summarizing the position and misunderstandings of “cultural attraction theory” (CAT). However, they do not address a longstanding problem for the CAT framework; that while it has an encompassing theory and some well‐worked out case studies, it lacks tools for generating models or empirical hypotheses of intermediate generality. I suggest that what the authors diagnose as misunderstandings are instead superficial interpretive errors, resulting from researchers who have attempted to extract generalizable hypotheses from CAT and bring them into contact with the analytical and inferential models of contemporary cultural evolutionary research.     

Global Flows of Development Models1

In spite of the fact that development is one of the most powerful and malleable contemporary discourses, its dissemination on a global level still needs a framework of analysis. Development entails a vast array of modelling devices of the natural and social worlds. Its dissemination is subject to the logics of dissemination of discourses and models and of their transformation into hegemonic visions of the world. The analysis of global flows of development models supposes the analysis of the dissemination of a discursive matrix, of its different components (of diverse levels of abstraction) and the different modes through which such dissemination occurs. I will explore the existence of the diffuse and concentrated modes of dissemination of development models, their characteristics and dynamics in order to provide a framework to think the different ways development is disseminated and naturalised in today’s globalised world.     

Cosmopolitan theology: Fethullah Gülen and the making of a ‘Golden Generation’

Global conditions, under which an increasing number of Muslims in the world currently live, do not just generate idioms of purity often adduced to global Islam, but also new and diverse forms of sociability and notions of global citizenship. This article addresses, as an example in case, Hizmet, one of the fastest growing contemporary Islamic movements. Hizmet and its founder Fethullah Gülen propagate a global Islamic doctrine with explicitly cosmopolitan underpinnings. However, there seems to be a contradiction between the cosmopolitan inclusiveness and universality of Gülen's global message, and strong internal hierarchical structures and the disciplining modes of teaching and training that are applied by the movement to teach the doctrine. I will argue that there is no contradiction between these two aspects when we focus on the central position of ‘hermeneutics of the self’ and civic responsibility in Gülen's theology.     

Editor's Note

As readers of Soviet Psychology are aware, it has been my policy over the years to present historical materials that are pertinent to understanding contemporary Soviet and world psychology. By and large, I have come upon such materials through discussions with Soviet scholars or by following the lead in relevant articles. When I first read Jaan Valsiner's lucid and informative book Developmental Psychology in the Soviet Union, I was immediately struck by the gold mine of materials to which Professor Valsiner had succeeded in gaining access. First among these was the work of Mikhail Basov, to whom Valsiner devoted an especially illuminating chapter in his monograph.     

干细胞领域研究、开发及市场的全球态势分析

干细胞由于其巨大的研究和应用潜力而成为全球关注焦点。许多国家的政府、研究机构和企业对其加大投入,并取得了巨大的进展。与干细胞相关的论文和专利数量在2001年后均快速增加,其临床和临床前研究的数量也越来越多,但目前仍以脐血干细胞项目为主。美国在干细胞研究领域的各个方面均处于世界顶级地位。中国与干细胞相关的论文和专利数量也居世界前十位,但没有一家机构居世界先进行列,也缺乏新产品研发。面对美国相关政策的放宽所带来的格局变化,中国应该积极应对。     

Two faces of representation: on the neuroscience of folk psychology

Much work in contemporary philosophy of mind and neurophilosophy hinges on the concept of ‘representation,’ but that concept inherits a problematic ambiguity from neuroscience, where scientists may distinguish between cognitive and physiological levels of representation only tacitly. First, I explicate two potentially distinct senses of representation corresponding to these levels. I then argue that ambiguity about the nature of representation in philosophy of mind is problematic for at least one prominent philosophical project that aims to use neuroscientific work on representation to defend the existence or explanatory relevance of intentional mental states, namely Schroeder’s (2004) scientific explication of desire in terms of the neurobiology of reward. I argue that philosophical treatments of the relationship between cognitive and neural architecture must attend more carefully to the ambiguity in the concept of representation. I conclude by outlining a strategy for addressing the gap between levels of representation, one that privileges a local or narrow philosophical approach to interpreting scientific concepts and data over a global or general approach.     

Constructivist Models of Mind, Contemporary Psychoanalysis, and the Development of Culture Theory

Researchers in a number of fields, including contemporary psychoanalysis, are contributing to the development of a dynamic model of mind that acknowledges the contributions of biology and social experience to the construction of human consciousness and subjectivity. In this paper, I examine this emerging model of mind and I discuss its implications for the development of Culture theory. I argue that theories of culture must reflect the fluidity and complexity of the psychological states that underlie the culture process, and I suggest that even highly conventional models of action, thought, and feeling are rarely, if ever, internalized, appropriated, or reproduced without some degree of modification, refashioning, and personalization. I propose person-centered ethnography as one of the methods by which we can explore the complex relations among culture, mind, and behavior, [constructivist models of mind, contemporary psychoanalysis, culture theory, self and subjectivity, person-centered ethnography]     

Evolution of total net fitness in thermal lines: Drosophila subobscura likes it 'warm'

Fisher's fundamental theorem states that heritable variation for net fitness sets a limit to the rate of response to natural selection. How will temperate (i.e. cold‐tolerant) species cope with contemporary rapid global warming? Using three‐fold replicated lines of Drosophila subobscura that had been allowed to evolve for 4 years (between 32 and 59 generations) at 13 °C (cold), 18 °C (the supposed optimum temperature), and 22 °C (warm) I assess here how net fitness changes according to thermal environments. Net fitness was estimated following the classical approach in population genetics of competing over a number of generation in outbred experimental populations multiple wild‐type O chromosomes (homologous to arm 3R in D. melanogaster) independently derived from each base thermal stock in an otherwise homogeneous genetic background against a balancer chromosome. Warm‐adapted populations (‘warm‐adapted O chromosomes’) performed comparatively well at all tested temperatures. However, net fitness was severely reduced in cold‐adapted populations when transferred to warmer conditions. It seems, therefore, that thermal fitness breath for D. subobscura flies is positively associated to temperature. These findings are discussed in relation to the fast world‐wide clinal shifts in the frequency of genetic markers correlated with current climate change.     

Centralized mouse repositories

Because the mouse is used so widely for biomedical research and the number of mouse models being generated is increasing rapidly, centralized repositories are essential if the valuable mouse strains and models that have been developed are to be securely preserved and fully exploited. Ensuring the ongoing availability of these mouse strains preserves the investment made in creating and characterizing them and creates a global resource of enormous value. The establishment of centralized mouse repositories around the world for distributing and archiving these resources has provided critical access to and preservation of these strains. This article describes the common and specialized activities provided by major mouse repositories around the world.     

Globalizing Languages: Ideologies and Realities of the Contemporary Global System

Globalization is best understood as a phase of decentralization of wealth and power in the world arena that is a hallmark of a decline in economic hegemony, a phase accompanied by enormous dislocations and migrations of people, by class polarization and cultural fragmentation, and by the rise of new powerful regions. The current period of globalization is also characterized by a decline in the capacity of states to nationalize, and, consequently, by the upsurge of a series of alternative identifications, such as those based on indigenousness, regional location, and immigrant status. These fluctuations in power, as well as the formation of new identities that accompanies them, have significant implications for understanding contemporary linguistic ideologies and practices: Reconfigurations of identification lead to the formation of hierarchical spaces reflected in ranked local usages of languages. Using the example of Hawaii, this article outlines fundamental relations between contemporary global processes and cultural identity with an eye to assessing their significance for understanding linguistic change. [Keywords: globalization, linguistic change, language identity, Hawaiian language]     

The final stages of the global eradication of poliomyelitis

The global incidence of poliomyelitis has dropped by more than 99 per cent since the governments of the world committed to eradication in 1988. One of the three serotypes of wild poliovirus has been eradicated and the remaining two serotypes are limited to just a small number of endemic regions. However, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) has faced a number of challenges in eradicating the last 1 per cent of wild-virus transmission. The polio endgame has also been complicated by the recognition that vaccination with the oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV) must eventually cease because of the risk of outbreaks of vaccine-derived polioviruses. I describe the major challenges to wild poliovirus eradication, focusing on the poor immunogenicity of OPV in lower-income countries, the inherent limitations to the sensitivity and specificity of surveillance, the international spread of poliovirus and resulting outbreaks, and the potential significance of waning intestinal immunity induced by OPV. I then focus on the challenges to eradicating all polioviruses, the problem of vaccine-derived polioviruses and the risk of wild-type or vaccine-derived poliovirus re-emergence after the cessation of oral vaccination. I document the role of research in the GPEI''s response to these challenges and ultimately the feasibility of achieving a world without poliomyelitis.     

Parasite Stress Predicts Offspring Sex Ratio

In this study, I predict that the global variation of offspring sex ratio might be influenced in part by the level of parasite stress. From an energetic standpoint, higher gestational costs of producing a male offspring could decrease male births in a population with limited resources. This implies that, any factor that limits the parental resources could be expected to favor female offspring production. Human sex ratio at birth (SRB) is believed to be influenced by numerous socioeconomic, biological, and environmental factors. Here, I test a prediction that parasite stress, by virtue of its effects on the general health condition, may limit the parental investment ability and therefore could influence the SRB at the population level. The statistical analysis supports this prediction, and show that the level of parasite stress has a significant inverse relation with population SRB across the world. Further, this relation is many-folds stronger than the association of SRB with other factors, like; polygyny, fertility, latitude, and son-preference. Hence, I propose that condition affecting ability of parasites (but not adaptive significance) could be a likely causal basis for the striking variation of SRB across populations.     

Mind the gap: Encountering contemporary art through play

Knowing how to approach and experience contemporary art is a challenge to many people outside the art world. Emerging contemporary art, as the newest of this genre, is often the most challenging. This article recounts my own early struggles as a researcher in this field, and proposes a way of understanding the interaction between artist, artwork and perceiver based on my observations of how contemporary artists encounter each others' work. I argue that contemporary art, and especially emerging contemporary art, creates a space to play by creating an intentional gap in the physical form and/or the semantic structure of the artwork. The object of play is the co‐investigation of an idea initiated by the artist, facilitated by the form of the work and furthered by the encounter. Play, it is argued, is essential to emerging contemporary art as an activity, a communicative frame and a disposition. I draw from earlier theoretical connections between art, play and liberation, challenging some of these assertions, and bringing others into relevance in the contemporary context.