The idea of human freedom is essentially rooted in the concept of human development, according to Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen's 'Development as Freedom' thesis. And the idea of human progress is a construct that is designed around the axis offreedom. What is freedom? Is it only lack ofsocietal constraint, withdrawal of discipline and punish, willing suspension of the panoptic super ego that they address as the 'mainstream'? Or is freedom a concept much more fundamental, to be read into the texts (...) of Rabindranath Tagore, Romain Rolland or Walden? Sociologists claim that civilization is what we are and culture is merely an arrangement of artifacts that we happen to use during the course of our politics of everyday life. Civilization, however, is also a system of values that is handed down generations as a movement of socialization that laymen identify as 'progress'. (shrink)

A major contradiction of globalisation lies in the universalisation of the imperatives of international finance-capital. The ascendancy of international finance has kept inter-imperialist rivalry under check since the past few decades, and imperialist nation-states under its imperatives have displayed greater unity under the leadership of the US. But the dominance of speculative finance and the deflationary impact it generates, threatens to precipitate worldwide recession. The US is trying to pre-empt any potential competition in this milieu, by pursuing an aggressive and (...) unilateralist military policy of endless war. However, the capacity of the US to sustain such high levels of military expenditure and debt-induced consumer spending is circumscribed by the fragility of the dollar hegemony in the backdrop of the growing indebtedness of the US vis-à-vis the rest of the world. Re-appearance of recessionary conditions in the US would be set the stage for inter-imperialist contradictions as well as the contradiction between imperialism and the Third World to play themselves out and create possible ruptures in the present world order. (shrink)

The temporality of historical flows can be understood through the paradigm of oceanic circulations of water. Historical processes are not linear and tunneled but circulatory and global, like oceanic currents. The argument of distributed agency deriving from the ‘ontological turn’ dovetails with the oceanic paradigm of circulatory histories. The latter allows us to grasp modes of both natural and historical inter-temporal communication through the medium of the natural and built environment. Yet the inclination in these new studies to deny any (...) particular privilege to human will or design risks neglecting the changing role of human agency. Analytically I distinguish historiographical time from historical time. Historiographical time may be seen as the purposive capture of historical processes for various goals whereas historical time is more continuous with natural flows. More than origins and causes, the paradigm emphasizes the ramifying con-sequences of purposive actions. The gap in our understanding of the two temporalities has had a devastating impact on the planet. (shrink)

While there is much writing on the nation as the subject of linear history, considerably less attention has been paid to the dimension of the nation as the always identifiable, unchanging subject of history. This unchanging subject is necessitated by the ascendancy of the conception of linear time in capitalism in which change is viewed not only as accelerating, but can no longer be framed by an ultimate source of meaning such as God. Ostensibly, linear history is the falling of (...) events into the "river of time," but national history also posits a continuous subject to gather these changes. Such a subject is recognizable only by the spiritual qualities of authenticity, purity, and sacrality. The nation-state and nationalists stake their claim to sovereign authority, in part, as custodians of this authenticity.A range of figures, human and non-human, come to symbolize a regime of authenticity manipulable to some extent by nationalists and state-builders. This essay focuses on the instance of women in early twentieth-century China. Nationalists and cultural essentialists tended to depict women as embodying the eternal Chinese civilizational virtues of self-sacrifice and loyalty and to elevate them as national exemplars. The essay also examines cases of how women themselves may have perceived this role as exemplars and concludes that while there was considerable subversion in their enunciation of this role , there was sufficient reference to the prescriptive code of authenticity in their self-formation to sustain the regime of authenticity. The essay ends with some thoughts about the changing relationship between authenticity and intensifying globalization in the contemporary world. (shrink)

© The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Japanese Society of Plant Physiologists. All rights reserved.Cell walls of grasses, including cereal crops and biofuel grasses, comprise the majority of plant biomass and intimately influence plant growth, development and physiology. However, the functions of many cell wall synthesis genes, and the relationships among and the functions of cell wall components remain obscure. To better understand the patterns of cell wall accumulation and identify genes that act in grass (...) cell wall biosynthesis, we characterized 30 samples from aerial organs of rice at 10 developmental time points, 3-100 d post-germination. Within these samples, we measured 15 cell wall chemical components, enzymatic digestibility and 18 cell wall polysaccharide epitopes/ligands. We also used quantitative reverse transcription-PCR to measure expression of 50 glycosyltransferases, 15 acyltransferases and eight phenylpropanoid genes, many of which had previously been identified as being highly expressed in rice. Most cell wall components vary significantly during development, and correlations among them support current understanding of cell walls. We identified 92 significant correlations between cell wall components and gene expression and establish nine strong hypotheses for genes that synthesize xylans, mixed linkage glucan and pectin components. This work provides an extensive analysis of cell wall composition throughout rice development, identifies genes likely to synthesize grass cell walls, and provides a framework for development of genetically improved grasses for use in lignocellulosic biofuel production and agriculture. (shrink)

This book is an essential guide for veterinarians, veterinary faculty and policymakers for understanding the core competencies of a fresh veterinarian. The book briefly covers competencies in preclinical, paraclinical, and clinical subjects including anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, veterinary jurisprudence, animal management & welfare including nutrition and breeding, infectious and non-infectious diseases, disease epidemiology, diagnosis, and treatment, prevention, control and zoonoses, surgical and other clinical interventions. The book further includes other competencies, including biologicals, anti-mortem, and post-mortem inspection, certifications, applied one health aspects, (...) review and analysis of scientific evidence, international trade and regulations, and organization of veterinary services. It also highlights the importance of effective communication, interpersonal skills, record keeping and management of a small veterinary hospital, health informatics, etc. The book breakdowns the must-have competencies of a global veterinarian into different topics and subtopics for easy comprehension and further learning. It enables the professional standard-setting & regulatory bodies and academicians in improved curricula designing and implementation and more importantly tries to bring uniformity in day one veterinary graduates’ competencies globally, enhancing the movement and employability of veterinarians across the world. (shrink)

Gluten ataxia is a rare immune-mediated neurological disorder caused by the ingestion of gluten. The diagnosis is not straightforward as antibodies are present in only up to 38% of patients, but often at lower titers. The symptoms of ataxia may be mild at the onset but lead to permanent damage if remain untreated. It is characterized by damage to the cerebellum however, the pathophysiology of the disease is not clearly understood. The present study investigated the neurochemical profile of vermis and (...) right cerebellum and structural changes in various brain regions of patients with gluten ataxia and compared it with healthy controls. Volumetric 3-D T1 and T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging in the three planes of the whole brain and single-voxel 1H- magnetic resonance spectroscopy of the vermis and right cerebellum were acquired on 3 T human MR scanner. The metabolite concentrations were estimated using LC Model while brain volumes were estimated using the online tool volBrain pipeline and CERES and corrected for partial volumes. The levels of neuro-metabolites were found to be significantly lower in vermis, while N-acetyl aspartate + N-acetyl aspartate glutamate and glycerophosphocholine + phosphocholine was lower in cerebellum regions in the patients with gluten ataxia compared to healthy controls. A significant reduction in the white matter of ; reduction in the volumes of cerebellum lobe and thalamus while lateral ventricles were increased in the patients with gluten ataxia compared to healthy controls. The reduced neuronal metabolites along with structural changes in the brain suggested neuronal degeneration in the patients with gluten ataxia. Our preliminary findings may be useful in understanding the gluten-induced cerebral damage and indicated that MRI and MRS may serve as a non-invasive useful tool in the early diagnosis, thereby enabling better management of these patients. (shrink)

The Confucian doctrine of _tianxia_ outlines a unitary worldview that cherishes global justice and transcends social, geographic, and political divides. For contemporary scholars, it has held myriad meanings, from the articulation of a cultural imaginary and political strategy to a moralistic commitment and a cosmological vision. The contributors to _Chinese Visions of World Order_ examine the evolution of tianxia's meaning and practice in the Han dynasty and its mutations in modern times. They attend to its varied interpretations, its relation to (...) realpolitik, and its revival in twenty-first-century China. They also investigate tianxia's birth in antiquity and its role in empire building, invoke its cultural universalism as a new global imagination for the contemporary world, analyze its resonance and affinity with cosmopolitanism in East-West cultural relations, discover its persistence in China's socialist internationalism and third world agenda, and critique its deployment as an official state ideology. In so doing, they demonstrate how China draws on its past to further its own alternative vision of the current international system. Contributors. Daniel A. Bell, Chishen Chang, Kuan-Hsing Chen, Prasenjit Duara, Hsieh Mei-yu, Haiyan Lee, Mark Edward Lewis, Lin Chun, Viren Murthy, Lisa Rofel, Ban Wang, Wang Hui, Yiqun Zhou. (shrink)

The essays in this volume edited by Axel Schneider and Thomas Fröhlich deal with a crucial topic, namely discourses around the concept of progress in China. Although numerous authors, including Prasenjit Duara, Luke Kwong and others,1 have dealt with this issue, this volume goes further by examining the details of the interpretation of ideas of progress and showing that the incorporation of linear time in China was far from linear.The book is divided into an Introduction, three parts, and nine (...) chapters. The first part, "Initial Conceptual Encounters," consists of two chapters, Kai Vogelsang's "The Chinese Concept of Progress" and Takahiro Nakajima's "The Progress of Civilization and Confucianism in Modern East... (shrink)