Sequences play a great role in mathematical communication. In mathematical notation, we use sequence ellipsis (. . . ) to denote "obvious" sequences like 1, 2, . . . , 7, and in conceptualizations sequence constructors like (i 2+1) i∈N. Furthermore, sequences have a prominent role as argument sequences of flexary functions. While the former cases can adequately be represented and reasoned about as domain objects in Open- Math and MathML, argument sequences are at the language level, and can only (...) be represented, but not reasoned with, since the necessary (sequence-schematic) axioms cannot be represented in the language. (shrink)

The myriad ways in which spatiality, or socially produced space, impinges on media texts is the overarching concern of this study. Responding to Edward Soja’s call for an assertive foregrounding of a critical spatial perspective, this article is an ontological reassertion of space in relation to news media discourse and argues that the socially constructed spatiality of a journalistic text is just as revealingly significant as its historicality and sociality. Introduced here is Critical Spatial Discourse Analysis (CSDA), a methodological framework (...) that employs the spatiocultural theory of Bill Richardson to enable a mapping of the various aspects of spatiality informing media texts. Edward Said’s imaginative geographies is also drawn upon to advance a geographical notation and mapping of the territorial imaginations underlying news media texts. The fundamental assumption of CSDA is that space is not only actively constituted in media texts but also constitutes and that it can, and indeed must be read and interpreted as any other text. A sample column from Turkey’s Sabah newspaper will be used to illustrate the application of CSDA to press coverage of democracy to see what might be revealed of those real-and-imagined spaces that are interposed and obscured in the text’s background. (shrink)

Focused on the impact of stringent intellectual property mechanisms over the uses of plant agricultural biodiversity in crop improvement, the article delves into a systematic analysis of the relationship between institutional paradigms and their technological contexts of application, identified as mass selection, controlled hybridisation, molecular breeding tools and transgenics. While the strong property paradigm has proven effective in the context of major leaps forward in genetic engineering, it faces a systematic breakdown when extended to mass selection, where innovation often displays (...) a collective nature. However, it also creates partial blockages in those innovation schemes rested between on-farm observation and genetic modification, i.e. conventional plant breeding and upstream molecular biology research tools. Neither overly strong intellectual property rights, nor the absence of well delineated protection have proven an optimal fit for these two intermediary socio-technological systems of cumulative incremental innovation. To address these challenges, the authors look at appropriate institutional alternatives which can create effective incentives for in situ agrobiodiversity conservation and the equitable distribution of technologies in plant improvement, using the flexibilities of the TRIPS Agreement, the liability rules set forth in patents or plant variety rights themselves, and other ad hoc reward regimes. (shrink)