Aworkshop was held August 26–28, 2015, by the Earth- Life Science Institute (ELSI) Origins Network (EON, see Appendix I) at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. This meeting gathered a diverse group of around 40 scholars researching the origins of life (OoL) from various perspectives with the intent to find common ground, identify key questions and investigations for progress, and guide EON by suggesting a roadmap of activities. Specific challenges that the attendees were encouraged to address included the following: What key (...) questions, ideas, and investigations should the OoL research community address in the near and long term? How can this community better organize itself and prioritize its efforts? What roles can particular subfields play, and what can ELSI and EON do to facilitate research progress? (See also Appendix II.) The present document is a product of that workshop; a white paper that serves as a record of the discussion that took place and a guide and stimulus to the solution of the most urgent and important issues in the study of the OoL. This paper is not intended to be comprehensive or a balanced representation of the opinions of the entire OoL research community. It is intended to present a number of important position statements that contain many aspirational goals and suggestions as to how progress can be made in understanding the OoL. The key role played in the field by current societies and recurring meetings over the past many decades is fully acknowledged, including the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life (ISSOL) and its official journal Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres, as well as the International Society for Artificial Life (ISAL). (shrink)

SUPERANNO A unique collection of photographs by WRA photographer Hikaru Iwasaki focuses on resettlement using photos of Japanese Americans following their release from WRA camps from 1943 to 1945. Author Lane Hirabayashi explores the use of photography in the WRA mission to encourage “loyal” Japanese Americans to return to society at large, and convince Euro-Americans this was safe. Hirabayashi also assesses the success of the WRA project, and the multiple uses of the photographs over time.

Apathy and depression are frequently observed as behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia, respectively, and are important for ensuring adequate care. This study aims to explore effective non-pharmacological interventions for apathy and depression with mild cognitive impairment and dementia. Five search engines including PubMed, Scopus, CINAHL, PsycInfo, and Web of Science were used to extract relevant studies. Inclusion criteria were studies that involved participants who were diagnosed with MCI or dementia, included quantitative assessments of each symptom, and employed randomized controlled (...) trials. Twenty studies were extracted, with interventions have been conducted in care facilities, the community, and hospitals. Participants in many studies had MCI or mild-to-moderate dementia but were not diagnosed with the subtypes of dementia. Few studies had set apathy and depression as the primary outcomes of non-pharmacological interventions. The findings suggested that emotional and stimulation-oriented approaches to apathy and depression would be useful for people with MCI or mild-to-moderate dementia. It would be helpful for therapists to assess the clinical features of the target symptoms for selecting suitable interventions. Additionally, increasing the number of randomized controlled trials focusing on apathy or depression as primary outcomes would offer a more definite conclusion for future systematic reviews. (shrink)

It has been claimed that in extending its critical problematic to the cultural sphere, Pierre Bourdieu transcends the economism of Marx’s concept of capital. I argue that this claim must be rejected. First, I show that Marx’s concept of capital was not economistic. Second, I trace Bourdieu’s changing understanding of capital, showing how it became less compatible with Marx’s over time. Third, I point out ambiguities in Bourdieu’s concept of capital that, despite gestures toward a Marxist understanding of capital, further (...) distance him from Marx. Fourth, I argue that Bourdieu tends to take the economic field and economic capital for granted, unlike Marx. I conclude that if different forms of capital are but extended forms of economic capital, the notion of economic capital that they extend is not a Marxist one. (shrink)

The recent declaration of the largest municipal bankruptcy in US history has propelled Detroit’s plight into the international spotlight. Though a victim of the general decline of US manufacturing, drawing on Thomas Sugrue’s pioneering work I argue that Detroit’s crisis is better understood as a specifically urban crisis. The city’s concentrated poverty and desolation and its fiscal straits are not reducible to broader economic trends, nor are they exclusively the product of political mismanagement. Rather, they are the outcome of a (...) long history of economic decentralization and racial segregation, made worse by a politico-administrative arrangement that distributes wealth and services unequally across the metropolitan area. By imposing municipal austerity, Detroit’s bankruptcy is unlikely to do much to address these fundamental inequalities. Any plan to revitalize the city must move beyond boosterism and tackle head on the problems of racial and economic segregation that continue to affect Detroit’s 700,000 residents. (shrink)

In this article we assess the general claim that Durkheimian sociology has reactionary, fascist, or totalitarian affinities, and the specific claim that Marcel Déat’s Durkheimian background was a significant factor in his becoming a Nazi sympathizer. We do so by comparing the different trajectories of the interwar generation of young Durkheimians and find that only one, i.e. Déat, can be said to have become fascist. Indeed, what characterizes this generation of Durkheimians is the variety of the ways in which they (...) responded to the crises of the interwar years, both politically and scientifically. Nonetheless, most remained on the political left, and during the war many younger members of the Durkheimian group either fled the country or were involved in the French Resistance. As the only personal link between the Durkheimian group and fascism, Déat’s career is of particular interest. Instead of Déat’s being an orthodox Durkheimian, his successive engagements embody the intellectual fragmentation and heterodoxy characteristic of the interwar generation. We outline Déat’s career by foregrounding the conjunctural and dispositional factors that we believe point toward a more plausible explanation of Déat’s transformation than does an internalist history-of-ideas approach according to which his political evolution can be explained by reference to an underlying intellectual continuity. Déat’s fascism is better explained by the repeated frustration of his political and intellectual ambitions that ultimately led to a fateful accommodation with Nazi power than by any tendency inherent to Durkheimian sociology. (shrink)

DBS Think Tank IX was held on August 25–27, 2021 in Orlando FL with US based participants largely in person and overseas participants joining by video conferencing technology. The DBS Think Tank was founded in 2012 and provides an open platform where clinicians, engineers and researchers can freely discuss current and emerging deep brain stimulation technologies as well as the logistical and ethical issues facing the field. The consensus among the DBS Think Tank IX speakers was that DBS expanded in (...) its scope and has been applied to multiple brain disorders in an effort to modulate neural circuitry. After collectively sharing our experiences, it was estimated that globally more than 230,000 DBS devices have been implanted for neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders. As such, this year’s meeting was focused on advances in the following areas: neuromodulation in Europe, Asia and Australia; cutting-edge technologies, neuroethics, interventional psychiatry, adaptive DBS, neuromodulation for pain, network neuromodulation for epilepsy and neuromodulation for traumatic brain injury. (shrink)

Something should be done for a better global environment as soon as possible. This paper investigates the direction of management of the global environment and proposes new, concrete ideas for it.

In the last few decades, the emergence of mid-scale, intermediated marketing channels that fall between commodity and direct markets has attracted growing interest from scholars for their potential to preserve small and mid-sized farms while scaling up alternative agrifood sourcing. When such mid-scale supply chains are formed among multiple business partners with shared ethics or values related to the qualities of the food and the business relationships along the supply chain, they may be termed “values-based supply chains.” Most of the (...) research on VBSCs to date has relied primarily on a case study approach that investigates the performance of VBSCs from the perspective of VBSC founders or leaders. In contrast, this research seeks out the perspectives of farmers who participate in VBSCs. A nationwide farmer survey conducted in 2017 offers original insights on farmer motivations for participating in VBSCs and how they are being used by farmers relative to other marketing channels. We find that VBSCs serve farms of all sizes. Overall, smaller farms were more likely to market a higher percentage of overall sales through their VBSC and more likely to rank their VBSC as one of the top three marketing channels in their portfolio. But it was the larger farms that were more likely to perceive VBSC-specific benefits. Our findings confirm that while there is a limited volume of product that such regional supply chains can currently handle, farmers view VBSCs as a valuable marketing option that aligns with their own values and preserves their product’s identity. (shrink)