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Critical Assessment (critical + assessment)
Selected AbstractsCULTIVATING JUST PLANNING AND LEGAL INSTITUTIONS: A CRITICAL ASSESSMENT OF THE SOUTH CENTRAL FARM STRUGGLE IN LOS ANGELESJOURNAL OF URBAN AFFAIRS, Issue 1 2009CLARA IRAZÁBAL ABSTRACT:,The South Central Farm (SCF) in Los Angeles was a 14-acre urban farm in one of the highest concentrations of impoverished residents in the county. It was destroyed in July 2006. This article analyzes its epic as a landscape of resistance to discriminatory legal and planning practices. It then presents its creation and maintenance as an issue of environmental justice, and argues that there was a substantive rationale on the basis of environmental justice and planning ethics that should have provided sufficient grounds for the city to prevent its dismantling. Based on qualitative case study methodology, the study contributes to the formulation of creation and preservation rationales for community gardens and other "commons" threatened by eventual dismantlement in capitalist societies. [source] The ,New Minimalist Approach' to Private-Sector Development: A Critical AssessmentDEVELOPMENT POLICY REVIEW, Issue 4 2006Tilman Altenburg Recent literature on private-sector development emphasises the need to establish a ,level playing field' and tends to disregard selective supportive interventions. The most commonly highlighted elements are administrative simplification and effective property rights policies, with business services largely left to private providers - what we call the ,new minimalist approach' (NMA). However, the NMA is based on certain unrealistic assumptions and is barely backed by empirical evidence. A range of complementary public policies is needed to create competitive sectors and overcome internal constraints, especially in small-scale economies. [source] Flexible protein-protein docking based on Best-First search algorithmJOURNAL OF COMPUTATIONAL CHEMISTRY, Issue 9 2010Efrat Noy Abstract We developed a new high resolution protein-protein docking method based on Best-First search algorithm that loosely imitates protein-protein associations. The method operates in two stages: first, we perform a rigid search on the unbound proteins. Second, we search alternately on rigid and flexible degrees of freedom starting from multiple configurations from the rigid search. Both stages use heuristics added to the energy function, which causes the proteins to rapidly approach each other and remain adjacent, while optimizing on the energy. The method deals with backbone flexibility explicitly by searching over ensembles of conformations generated before docking. We ran the rigid docking stage on 66 complexes and grouped the results into four classes according to evaluation criteria used in Critical Assessment of Predicted Interactions (CAPRI; "high," "medium," "acceptable," and "incorrect"). Our method found medium binding conformations for 26% of the complexes and acceptable for additional 44% among the top 10 configurations. Considering all the configurations, we found medium binding conformations for 55% of the complexes and acceptable for additional 39% of the complexes. Introducing side-chains flexibility in the second stage improves the best found binding conformation but harms the ranking. However, introducing side-chains and backbone flexibility improve both the best found binding conformation and the best found conformation in the top 10. Our approach is a basis for incorporating multiple flexible motions into protein-protein docking and is of interest even with the current use of a simple energy function. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem, 2010 [source] Soft energy function and generic evolutionary method for discriminating native from nonnative protein conformationsJOURNAL OF COMPUTATIONAL CHEMISTRY, Issue 9 2008Yi-yuan Chiu Abstract We have developed a soft energy function, termed GEMSCORE, for the protein structure prediction, which is one of emergent issues in the computational biology. The GEMSORE consists of the van der Waals, the hydrogen-bonding potential and the solvent potential with 12 parameters which are optimized by using a generic evolutionary method. The GEMSCORE is able to successfully identify 86 native proteins among 96 target proteins on six decoy sets from more 70,000 near-native structures. For these six benchmark datasets, the predictive performance of the GEMSCORE, based on native structure ranking and Z -scores, was superior to eight other energy functions. Our method is based solely on a simple and linear function and thus is considerably faster than other methods that rely on the additional complex calculations. In addition, the GEMSCORE recognized 17 and 2 native structures as the first and the second rank, respectively, among 21 targets in CASP6 (Critical Assessment of Techniques for Protein Structure Prediction). These results suggest that the GEMSCORE is fast and performs well to discriminate between native and nonnative structures from thousands of protein structure candidates. We believe that GEMSCORE is robust and should be a useful energy function for the protein structure prediction. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem 2008 [source] The Quantification of Qualitative Survey Data: A Critical AssessmentJOURNAL OF ECONOMIC SURVEYS, Issue 5 2003Michela Nardo Abstract., Data obtained from business and consumer surveys are often used in forecasting models and in testing different expectation formation schemes. Their use, however, requires a previous step of transformation of the qualitative data into quantitative figures. This paper contains a critical review of the different quantification methods, highlighting the limits of their use in macroeconomic modelling. [source] Virtue and Community in Business Ethics: A Critical Assessment of Solomon's Aristotelian Approach to Social ResponsibilityJOURNAL OF SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY, Issue 4 2001Roger J. H. King [source] Recent Developments in Kidney Transplantation,A Critical AssessmentAMERICAN JOURNAL OF TRANSPLANTATION, Issue 6 2009K. L. Womer Rapid advances have been made in decreasing acute rejection rates and improving short-term graft survival in kidney transplant recipients. Whether these advances ultimately will lead to a commensurate improvement in long-term survival is not yet known. In recent years, greater attention has been placed on defining the precise etiology of graft loss, determining how far and with what agents we can minimize immunosuppression, and delineating the nature of both T-cell-mediated as well as antibody-mediated rejection. In addition, with the growing disparity of available organs and patients in need of a transplant, greater attention has been placed on optimizing allocation. In this minireview, we will focus on developments over the last couple of years, paying particular attention to insights, studies and observations that may attempt to elucidate some of these open questions. [source] A Critical Assessment of the Theoretical and Empirical Research on German Works CouncilsBRITISH JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, Issue 2 2002Carola M. Frege The article reviews the existing English- and German-speaking literature on the German works council. Three major research topics are discussed: the ontology and typologies of works councils; their current practice and transformation; and their economic outcomes. Although much research has been conducted on the internal functioning of the works council,management relationship, it is clear that we still know little about the determinants of different workplace relations and their outcomes. The article concludes by advocating a reviving research interest in the link between codetermination and political democracy. [source] Critical assessment of the applicability of gas chromatography-combustion-isotope ratio mass spectrometry to determine amino sugar dynamics in soilRAPID COMMUNICATIONS IN MASS SPECTROMETRY, Issue 8 2009Charlotte Decock Amino sugars in soils have been used as markers of microbial necromass and to determine the relative contribution of bacterial and fungal residues to soil organic matter. However, little is known about the dynamics of amino sugars in soil. This is partly because of a lack of adequate techniques to determine ,turnover rates' of amino sugars in soil. We conducted an incubation experiment where 13C-labeled organic substrates of different quality were added to a sandy soil. The objectives were to evaluate the applicability of compound-specific stable isotope analysis via gas chromatography-combustion-isotope ratio mass spectrometry (GC-C-IRMS) for the determination of 13C amino sugars and to demonstrate amino sugar dynamics in soil. We found total analytical errors between 0.8 and 2.6, for the ,13C-values of the soil amino sugars as a result of the required ,13C-corrections for isotopic alterations due to derivatization, isotopic fractionation and analytical conditions. Furthermore, the ,13C-values of internal standards in samples determined via GC-C-IRMS deviated considerably from the ,13C-values of the pure compounds determined via elemental analyzer IRMS (with a variation of 9 to 10, between the first and third quartile among all samples). This questions the applicability of GC-C-IRMS for soil amino sugar analysis. Liquid chromatography-combustion-IRMS (LC-C-IRMS) might be a promising alternative since derivatization, one of the main sources of error when using GC-C-IRMS, is eliminated from the procedure. The high 13C-enrichment of the substrate allowed for the detection of very high 13C-labels in soil amino sugars after 1 week of incubation, while no significant differences in amino sugar concentrations over time and across treatments were observed. This suggests steady-state conditions upon substrate addition, i.e. amino sugar formation equalled amino sugar decomposition. Furthermore, higher quality substrates seemed to favor the production of fungal-derived amino sugars. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Jürgen Habermas's Theory of CosmopolitanismCONSTELLATIONS: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CRITICAL AND DEMOCRATIC THEORY, Issue 4 2003Robert Fine In this paper we explore the sustained and multifaceted attempt of Jürgen Habermas to reconstruct Kant's theory of cosmopolitan right for our own times. In a series of articles written in the post-1989 period, Habermas has argued that the challenge posed both by the catastrophes of the twentieth century, and by social forces of globalization, has given new impetus to the idea of cosmopolitan justice that Kant first expressed. He recognizes that today we cannot simply repeat Kant's eighteenth-century vision: that if we are to grapple with the complexities of present-day problems, it is necessary to iron out certain inconsistencies in Kant's thinking, radicalize it where its break from the old order of nation-states is incomplete, socialize it so as to draw out the connections between perpetual peace and social justice, and modernize it so as to comprehend the "differences both in global situation and conceptual framework that now separate us from him."1 His basic intuition, however, is that Kant's idea of cosmopolitan right is as relevant to our times as it was to Kant's own. If it was Kant's achievement to formulate the idea of cosmopolitanism in a modern philosophical form, Habermas takes up the challenge posed by Karl-Otto Apel: to "think with Kant against Kant" in reconstructing this idea. What follows is a critical assessment of Habermas's response to this challenge. We focus here on the dilemmas he faces in grounding his normative commitment to cosmopolitan politics and in reconciling his cosmopolitanism with the national framework in which he developed his ideas of constitutional patriotism and deliberative democracy. [source] Rethinking the Emerging Post-Washington ConsensusDEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, Issue 2 2005Ziya Öni The objective of this article is to provide a critical assessment of the emerging Post-Washington Consensus (PWC), as the new influential vision in the development debate. The authors begin by tracing the main record of the Washington Consensus, the set of neoliberal economic policies propagated largely by key Bretton Woods institutions like the World Bank and the IMF, that penetrated into the economic policy agendas of many developing countries from the late 1970s onwards. They then outline the main tenets of the PWC, emerging from the shortcomings of that record and the reaction it created in the political realm. The authors accept that the PWC, in so far as it influences the actual practice of key Bretton Woods institutions, provides an improvement over the Washington Consensus. Yet, at the same time, they draw attention to the failure of the PWC, as reflected in current policy practice, to provide a sufficiently broad framework for dealing with key and pressing development issues such as income distribution, poverty and self-sustained growth. [source] Seismic design of RC structures: A critical assessment in the framework of multi-objective optimizationEARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING AND STRUCTURAL DYNAMICS, Issue 12 2007Nikos D. Lagaros Abstract The assessment of seismic design codes has been the subject of intensive research work in an effort to reveal weak points that originated from the limitations in predicting with acceptable precision the response of the structures under moderate or severe earthquakes. The objective of this work is to evaluate the European seismic design code, i.e. the Eurocode 8 (EC8), when used for the design of 3D reinforced concrete buildings, versus a performance-based design (PBD) procedure, in the framework of a multi-objective optimization concept. The initial construction cost and the maximum interstorey drift for the 10/50 hazard level are the two objectives considered for the formulation of the multi-objective optimization problem. The solution of such optimization problems is represented by the Pareto front curve which is the geometric locus of all Pareto optimum solutions. Limit-state fragility curves for selected designs, taken from the Pareto front curves of the EC8 and PBD formulations, are developed for assessing the two seismic design procedures. Through this comparison it was found that a linear analysis in conjunction with the behaviour factor q of EC8 cannot capture the nonlinear behaviour of an RC structure. Consequently the corrected EC8 Pareto front curve, using the nonlinear static procedure, differs significantly with regard to the corresponding Pareto front obtained according to EC8. Furthermore, similar designs, with respect to the initial construction cost, obtained through the EC8 and PBD formulations were found to exhibit different maximum interstorey drift and limit-state fragility curves. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Five Danish referendums on the European Community and European Union: A critical assessment of the Franklin thesisEUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL RESEARCH, Issue 6 2002Palle Svensson Denmark had five referendums in the period from 1972 to 1998 dealing with Danish membership in the European Community, the Single European Act, the Maastricht Treaty, the Edinburgh Agreement and the Amsterdam Treaty. Did the Danes really address these issues and involve themselves actively in the policy,making process on a vital issue or did they merely vote for or against the current government? The latter option represents the ,second order' elections argument advanced by Mark Franklin and others (see Franklin's article in this issue). If correct in this instance, it may have important and negative consequences for the potential of referendums to involve citizens more directly in the way they are governed. In this article, the Franklin thesis is assessed on the basis of data on voting behaviour in five Danish referendums on Europe and the democratic implications of these findings are discussed. [source] Common Threat and Common Response?GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION, Issue 3 2007The European Union's Counter-Terrorism Strategy, its Problems On the basis of an analysis of the European Union's common definition of the post-9/11 terrorist threat, this article provides a critical assessment of the EU's response. The EU has arrived at a reasonably specific definition of the common threat that avoids simplistic reductions and is a response that is sufficiently multidimensional to address the different aspects , internal and external, legislative and operational, repressive and preventive , of this threat. Yet the definition is undermined by differences between national threat perceptions. The preference for instruments of cooperation and coordination rather than integration, and poor implementation are having a negative impact on the effectiveness of the common response, the legitimacy of which is also weakened by limited parliamentary and judicial control. [source] Do social inequalities exist in terms of the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, control and monitoring of diabetes?HEALTH & SOCIAL CARE IN THE COMMUNITY, Issue 6 2010A systematic review Abstract The major increase in the prevalence of diabetes mellitus (DM) has led to the study of social inequalities in health-care. The aim of this study is to establish the possible existence of social inequalities in the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, control and monitoring of diabetes in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries which have universal healthcare systems. We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews for all relevant articles published up to 15 December 2007. We included observational studies carried out in OECD countries with universal healthcare systems in place that investigate social inequalities in the provision of health-care to diabetes patients. Two independent reviewers carried out the critical assessment using the STROBE tool items considered most adequate for the evaluation of the methodological quality. We selected 41 articles from which we critically assessed 25 (18 cross-sectional, 6 cohorts, 1 case-control). Consistency among the article results was found regarding the existence of ethnic inequalities in treatment, metabolic control and use of healthcare services. Socioeconomic inequalities were also found in the diagnosis and control of the disease, but no evidence of any gender inequalities was found. In general, the methodological quality of the articles was moderate with insufficient information in the majority of cases to rule out bias. This review shows that even in countries with a significant level of economic development and which have universal healthcare systems in place which endeavour to provide medical care to the entire population, socioeconomic and ethnic inequalities can be identified in the provision of health-care to DM sufferers. However, higher quality and follow-up articles are needed to confirm these results. [source] Reflections on and alternatives to WHO's fairness of financial contribution indexHEALTH ECONOMICS, Issue 2 2002*Article first published online: 28 FEB 200, Adam Wagstaff Abstract In its 2000 World Health Report (WHR), the World Health Organization argues that a key dimension of a health system's performance is the fairness of its financing system. This paper provides a critical assessment of the index of fairness of financial contribution (FFC) proposed in the WHR. It shows that the index cannot discriminate between health financing systems that are regressive and those that are progressive, and cannot discriminate between horizontal inequity on the one hand, and progressivity and regressivity on the other. The paper compares the WHO index to an alternative and more illuminating approach developed in the income redistribution literature in the early 1990s and used in the late 1990s to study the fairness of various OECD countries' health financing systems. It ends with an illustrative empirical comparison of the two approaches using data on out-of-pocket payments for health services in Vietnam for two years , 1993 and 1998. This analysis is of some interest in its own right, given the large share of health spending from out-of-pocket payments in Vietnam, and the changes in fees and drug prices over the 1990s. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] A critical assessment of the ecological risk assessment process: A review of misapplied conceptsINTEGRATED ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT AND MANAGEMENT, Issue 1 2005Lawrence V. Tannenbaum Abstract A frank assessment of present-day ecological risk assessments (ERA) for managed contaminated sites reveals that fundamental concepts regarding the receptors that are considered and the chemical exposures they experience are commonly misapplied. As a consequence, environmental managers are not being supplied with the information needed for proper decision making. The stepwise review of ecological risk issues provided here suggests that the ERA process needs to be severely revamped. Further, what is likely hindering the development of a refined ecological assessment process that is better suited to environmental problem solving and land management is the unwillingness of stakeholders to agree that much of the current ERA practice and convention is flawed. [source] Europe's Migration Agreements with Migrant-Sending Countries in the Global South: A Critical ReviewINTERNATIONAL MIGRATION, Issue 3 2010Aderanti Adepoju The past two decades have seen the steady emergence of various bilateral and multilateral migration agreements between Europe and migrant-sending countries in the global South. This article provides a critical assessment of the way the EU , and individual countries such as Spain, France and Italy , have played active roles in reshaping old and developing new strategies for keeping migration under control while opening up new opportunities for "regular" migration. It also discusses the extent to which migration agreements help migrant-sending countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America to optimize the link between migration and development. Based on an analysis of the contents of the migration agreements and their implementation, it has become obvious that there is still a long way to go to achieve "fair multilateralism" and create "win-win" situations between the EU and the poorer migrant-sending countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. [source] The changing landscape of European liberty and security: the mid-term report of the CHALLENGE projectINTERNATIONAL SOCIAL SCIENCE JOURNAL, Issue 192 2008Didier Bigo The article offers a critical assessment of the liberties of citizens and others living in the EU and the way in which they are affected by the proliferation of discourses about insecurity, and government and transnational agencies practices of reassurance, protection and coercion enacted in the name of the safety of citizen or their collective security, in which information about their identity is exchanged through new techniques of surveillance and control. It analyses first the apparent radicalisationisation of specific forms of transnational political violence and its effects on liberal policies. Next it assesses the threat assessments produced through technologies of risk management and the development of new technologies of surveillance. Third it describes the changing forms taken by the logic of suspicion and practices of exception and derogation, especially in relation to established understandings of the rule of law, to the multidimensional and continuous reframing of the enemy. It then discusses the impact of this on the rights and freedoms of citizens and foreigners, and finally it assesses the relation between the internal and external impact of illiberal practices, especially in the context of transatlantic relations but also of an increasingly interconnected world order, and the place of the EU in this world. [source] ,Liberal' vs. ,restrictive' perioperative fluid therapy , a critical assessment of the evidenceACTA ANAESTHESIOLOGICA SCANDINAVICA, Issue 7 2009M. BUNDGAARD-NIELSEN Background: Several studies have assessed the effect of a ,liberal' vs. a ,restrictive' perioperative fluid regimen on post-operative outcome. The literature was reviewed in order to provide recommendations regarding perioperative fluid regimens. Methods: A PubMed search identified randomized clinical trials and cited studies, comparing two different fixed fluid volumes on post-operative clinical outcome in major surgery. Studies were assessed for the type of surgery, primary and secondary outcome endpoints, the type and volume of administered fluid and the definition of the perioperative period. Also, information regarding perioperative care and type of anaesthesia was assessed. Results: In the seven randomized studies identified, the range of the liberal intraoperative fluid regimen was from 2750 to 5388 ml compared with 998 to 2740 ml for the restrictive fluid regimen. The period for fluid therapy and outcome endpoints were inconsistently defined and only two studies reported perioperative care principles and discharge criteria. Three studies found an improved outcome (morbidity/hospital stay) with a restrictive fluid regimen whereas two studies found no difference and two studies found differences in the selected outcome parameters. Conclusion: Liberal vs. restrictive fixed-volume regimens are not well defined in the literature regarding the definition, methodology and results, and lack the use of or information on evidence-based standardized perioperative care-principles (fast-track surgery), thereby precluding evidence-based guidelines for procedure-specific perioperative fixed-volume regimens. Optimization of perioperative fluid management may include a combination of fixed crystalloid administration to replace extra-vascular losses and avoiding fluid excess, together with individualized goal-directed colloid administration to maintain a maximal stroke volume. [source] On the performance of some aromaticity indices: A critical assessment using a test setJOURNAL OF COMPUTATIONAL CHEMISTRY, Issue 10 2008Ferran Feixas Abstract Aromaticity is a central chemical concept widely used in modern chemistry for the interpretation of molecular structure, stability, reactivity, and magnetic properties of many compounds. As such, its reliable prediction is an important task of computational chemistry. In recent years, many methods to quantify aromaticity based on different physicochemical properties of molecules have been proposed. However, the nonobservable nature of aromaticity makes difficult to assess the performance of the numerous existing indices. In the present work, we introduce a series of fifteen aromaticity tests that can be used to analyze the advantages and drawbacks of a group of aromaticity descriptors. On the basis of the results obtained for a set of ten indicators of aromaticity, we conclude that indices based on the study of electron delocalization in aromatic species are the most accurate among those examined in this work. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem, 2008 [source] An Empirical Assessment of Country Risk Ratings and Associated ModelsJOURNAL OF ECONOMIC SURVEYS, Issue 4 2004Suhejla Hoti Abstract., Country risk has become a topic of major concern for the international financial community over the last two decades. The importance of country ratings is underscored by the existence of several major country risk rating agencies, namely the Economist Intelligence Unit, Euromoney, Institutional Investor, International Country Risk Guide, Moody's, Political Risk Services, and Standard and Poor's. These risk rating agencies employ different methods to determine country risk ratings, combining a range of qualitative and quantitative information regarding alternative measures of economic, financial and political risk into associated composite risk ratings. However, the accuracy of any risk rating agency with regard to any or all of these measures is open to question. For this reason, it is necessary to review the literature relating to empirical country risk models according to established statistical and econometric criteria used in estimation, evaluation and forecasting. Such an evaluation permits a critical assessment of the relevance and practicality of the country risk literature. The paper also provides an international comparison of risk ratings for twelve countries from six geographic regions. These ratings are compiled by the International Country Risk Guide, which is the only rating agency to provide detailed and consistent monthly data over an extended period for a large number of countries. The time series data permit a comparative assessment of the international country risk ratings, and highlight the importance of economic, financial and political risk ratings as components of a composite risk rating. [source] Analysis of cake filtration data,A critical assessment of conventional filtration theoryAICHE JOURNAL, Issue 10 2006Soo-Khean Teoh Abstract Experimental results of constant-pressure cake filtration of aqueous suspensions of four kinds of particles: CaCO3, Kaolin, Kromasil and TiO2 is presented. The data reported consist mainly of filtration performance results, that is, the cumulative filtrate volume and cake thickness as functions of time, which were obtained using a newly developed multifunction test cell. Based on these data, the medium resistance and the average cake specific resistance at various operating pressure were evaluated and corroborated with the results obtained from the compression-permeability (C-P) cell measurements. The filtration results were also compared with predictions from the solutions of the appropriate volume-averaged equations of continuity using different pl , ps relationships. Generally speaking, with the appropriate pl , ps relationship, agreement between experiments and prediction was satisfactory. © 2006 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 2006 [source] A critical assessment of the ICH guideline on photostability testing of new drug substances and products (Q1B): Recommendation for revisionJOURNAL OF PHARMACEUTICAL SCIENCES, Issue 7 2010Steven W. Baertschi Abstract The ICH guideline on photostability (ICH Topic Q1B) was published in November 1996 and has been implemented in all three regions (US, EU, and Japan). The guideline describes a useful basic protocol for testing of new drug substances and associated drug products for manufacturing, storage, and distribution, but it does not cover the photostability of drugs under conditions of patient use. The pharmaceutical industry now has considerable experience in designing and carrying out photostability studies within the context of this guideline, and issues have been identified that would benefit from the revision process. The purpose of this commentary is to accomplish the following: (i) highlight issues proposed for consideration in the ICH revision process, (ii) offer a rationale for why these issues may compromise the design of a testing protocol and/or the results of the testing program, and (iii) provide recommendations for clarification of the guideline. © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc. and the American Pharmacists Association J Pharm Sci 99:2934,2940, 2010 [source] The Undecidable Grounds of Scientific Expertise: Science Education and the Limits of Intellectual IndependenceJOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION, Issue 2 2001Stella Gaon Motivated by the work of Hardwig (1985, 1991) on epistemic dependence and trust in expertise, we enquire into the nature and extent of the critical assessment that non-scientists can make,and that they should be taught to make,with regard to science. Our thesis is that critical assessment of science is possible for non-experts because at the basis of science is a set of norms, beliefs and values that are contestable by non-scientists. These norms, beliefs and values are of critical importance to science education and valuable to explore from a pedagogical perspective. [source] A critical assessment of the suitability of phosphite as a source of phosphorusJOURNAL OF PLANT NUTRITION AND SOIL SCIENCE, Issue 6 2009Arne M. Ratjen Abstract Marketing of phosphite-containing preparations for foliar application, together with recent reports of positive yield responses, has revived the question as to whether phosphite (HPO) is a suitable P source for plants. Two experiments using zucchini (Cucurbita pepo L. convar. giromontina) have been conducted to evaluate the P-nutritional effect of phosphite either provided via the substrate or as a foliar spray. Plants grown in a P-deficient substrate were severely damaged when phosphite was applied as foliar fertiliser and more drastically when provided via the substrate. Growth of P-deficient plants receiving phosphite as a foliar spray was impaired in a dose-dependent manner after foliar P application (concentrations 0.0, 0.9, 2.7, and 4.5 g P L,1), while foliar provision of phosphate improved plant growth and yield. In the youngest leaves of phosphite-treated plants, which had developed after foliar spray, phosphite accumulated to considerable extent, reaching a similar concentration as phosphate at tissue level. These results confirm that P-deficient plants are very sensitive to phosphite, which represents a nutritionally ineffective form of P. It should thus not be considered as a form of P suitable for fertiliser manufacture. [source] Toward a Critique of Latin American NeostructuralismLATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY, Issue 4 2008Fernando Ignacio Leiva ABSTRACT This article offers a critical assessment of the first postneoliberalism development framework that emerged in Latin America after 1990. The ability of neostructuralism to present an attractive narrative about a twenty-first-century "modernity with solidarity" is based on abandoning key tenets of ECLAC's structuralism and the thinking of Raúl Prebisch and Celso Furtado; namely, a focus on the distribution and appropriation of economic surplus and a framing of Latin American development problems in a world capitalist system. This article argues that Latin American neostructuralism's discursive strengths, as well as its analytical weaknesses, stem from the marginalization of power relations from key dimensions of the region's political economy. Since 2000, neostructuralism has exacerbated its descriptive, short-term perspective, further dulling its analytical edge, by focusing on policies that promote social cohesion and state intervention in the cultural and the socioemotional realm. [source] The CONSORT statement checklist in allergen-specific immunotherapy: a GA2LEN paperALLERGY, Issue 12 2009P. J. Bousquet The methodology of randomized clinical trials is essential for the critical assessment and registration of therapeutic interventions. The CONSORT (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials) statement was developed to alleviate the problems arising from the inadequate reporting of randomized controlled trials. The present article reflects on the items that we believe should be included in the CONSORT checklist in the context of conducting and reporting trials in allergen-specific immunotherapy. Only randomized, blinded (in particular blinding of patients, health care providers, and outcome assessors), placebo-controlled Phase III studies in this article. Our analysis focuses on the definition of patients' inclusion and exclusion criteria, allergen standardization, primary, secondary and exploratory outcomes, reporting of adverse events and analysis. [source] Sraffa's Legacy in Economics: Some Critical NotesMETROECONOMICA, Issue 3 2002Sergio Parrinello On the basis of a specific methodology attributed to Sraffa, I present a critical assessment of certain conflicting positions that characterize the book Critical Essays on Piero Sraffa's Legacy in Economics (ed. H. Kurz, 2000). A criticism is addressed to Samuelson's view according to which the assumption of constant returns is an essential ingredient of Sraffa's theory of prices. It is argued that the defence against Samuelson's attack from the Sraffian side could be strengthened following the above methodology and a certain neoclassical literature. Some questions are raised about the constructive scope of the theoretical work developed along the guidelines of Sraffa's book. [source] INVITED REVIEW: Plant self-incompatibility in natural populations: a critical assessment of recent theoretical and empirical advancesMOLECULAR ECOLOGY, Issue 10 2004VINCENT CASTRIC Abstract Self-incompatibility systems in plants are genetic systems that prevent self-fertilization in hermaphrodites through recognition and rejection of pollen expressing the same allelic specificity as that expressed in the pistils. The evolutionary properties of these self-recognition systems have been revealed through a fascinating interplay between empirical advances and theoretical developments. In 1939, Wright suggested that the main evolutionary force driving the genetic and molecular properties of these systems was strong negative frequency-dependent selection acting on pollination success. The empirical observation of high allelic diversity at the self-incompatibility locus in several species, followed by the discovery of very high molecular divergence among alleles in all plant families where the locus has been identified, supported Wright's initial theoretical predictions as well as many of its later developments. In the last decade, however, advances in the molecular characterization of the incompatibility reaction and in the analysis of allelic frequencies and allelic divergence from natural populations have stimulated new theoretical investigations that challenged some important assumptions of Wright's model of gametophytic self-incompatibility. We here review some of these recent empirical and theoretical advances that investigated: (i) the hypothesis that S -alleles are selectively equivalent, and the evolutionary consequences of genetic interactions between alleles; (ii) the occurrence of frequency-dependent selection in female fertility; (iii) the evolutionary genetics of self-incompatibility systems in subdivided populations; (iv) the evolutionary implications of the self-incompatibility locus's genetic architecture; and (v) of its interactions with the genomic environment. [source] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||