Modern Evolutionary Biology and Brazilian Population Genetics: Theodosius Dobzhansky at the University of São Paulo

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tito Brige de Carvalho

On the one hand, much has been written on Theodosius Dobzhansky’s central role in the development of the field of population genetics and modern evolutionary theory, as well as on his sociopolitical worldview in the middle of the Twentieth Century. On the other hand, much has also been written on Dobzhansky’s role in the institutionalization of genetics in Brazil, where he spent a considerable amount of time. Unfortunately, these literatures developed without any points of intersection or cross-reference. This article places Dobzhansky’s work in Brazil in the broader contexts of the science and politics of its historical period.

1878 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 633-671 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Macfarlane

The experiments to which I shall refer were carried out in the physical laboratory of the University during the late summer session. I was ably assisted in conducting the experiments by three students of the laboratory,—Messrs H. A. Salvesen, G. M. Connor, and D. E. Stewart. The method which was used of measuring the difference of potential required to produce a disruptive discharge of electricity under given conditions, is that described in a paper communicated to the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1876 in the names of Mr J. A. Paton, M. A., and myself, and was suggested to me by Professor Tait as a means of attacking the experimental problems mentioned below.The above sketch which I took of the apparatus in situ may facilitate tha description of the method. The receiver of an air-pump, having a rod capable of being moved air-tight up and down through the neck, was attached to one of the conductors of a Holtz machine in such a manner that the conductor of the machine and the rod formed one conducting system. Projecting from the bottom of the receiver was a short metallic rod, forming one conductor with the metallic parts of the air-pump, and by means of a chain with the uninsulated conductor of the Holtz machine. Brass balls and discs of various sizes were made to order, capable of being screwed on to the ends of the rods. On the table, and at a distance of about six feet from the receiver, was a stand supporting two insulated brass balls, the one fixed, the other having one degree of freedom, viz., of moving in a straight line in the plane of the table. The fixed insulated ball A was made one conductor with the insulated conductor of the Holtz and the rod of the receiver, by means of a copper wire insulated with gutta percha, having one end stuck firmly into a hole in the collar of the receiver, and having the other fitted in between the glass stem and the hollow in the ball, by which it fitted on to the stem tightly. A thin wire similarly fitted in between the ball B and its insulating stem connected the ball with the insulated half ring of a divided ring reflecting electrometer.


Author(s):  
Anna D. Bertova ◽  

Prominent Japanese economist, specialist in colonial politics, a professor of Im­perial Tokyo University, Yanaihara Tadao (1893‒1961) was one of a few people who dared to oppose the aggressive policy of Japanese government before and during the Second World War. He developed his own view of patriotism and na­tionalism, regarding as a true patriot a person who wished for the moral develop­ment of his or her country and fought the injustice. In the years leading up to the war he stated the necessity of pacifism, calling every war evil in the ultimate, divine sense, developing at the same time the concept of the «just war» (gisen­ron), which can be considered good seen from the point of view of this, imper­fect life. Yanaihara’s theory of pacifism is, on one hand, the continuation of the one proposed by his spiritual teacher, the founder of the Non-Church movement, Uchimura Kanzo (1861‒1930); one the other hand, being a person of different historical period, directly witnessing the boundless spread of Japanese militarism and enormous hardships brought by the war, Yanaihara introduced a number of corrections to the idealistic theory of his teacher and proposed quite a specific explanation of the international situation and the state of affairs in Japan. Yanai­hara’s philosophical concepts influenced greatly both his contemporaries and successors of the pacifist ideas in postwar Japan, and contributed to the dis­cussion about interrelations of pacifism and patriotism, and also patriotism and religion.


2013 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-47
Author(s):  
Claire Warden

The multi-spatial landscape of the North-West of England (Manchester–Salford and the surrounding area) provides the setting for Walter Greenwood's 1934 play Love on the Dole. Both the urban industrialized cityscape and the rural countryside that surrounds it are vital framing devices for the narrative – these spaces not simply acting as backdrops but taking on character roles. In this article Claire Warden reads the play's presentation of the North through the concept of landscape theatre, on the one hand, and Raymond Williams's city–country dialogism on the other, claiming that Love on the Dole is imbued with the revolutionary possibility that defines the very landscape in which it is set. From claustrophobic working-class kitchen to the open fields of Derbyshire, Love on the Dole has a sense of spatial ambition in which Greenwood regards all landscapes as tainted by the industrial world while maintaining their capacity to function independently. Ugliness and beauty, capitalist hegemony and socialistic hopefulness reside simultaneously in this important under-researched example of twentieth-century British theatre, thereby reflecting the ambivalent, shifting landscape of the North and producing a play that cannot be easily defined artistically or politically. Claire Warden is a Lecturer in Drama at the University of Lincoln. Her work focuses on peripheral British performances in the early to mid-twentieth century. She is the author of British Avant-Garde Theatre (Palgrave MacMillan, 2012) and is currently writing Modernist and Avant-Garde Performance: an Introduction for Edinburgh University Press, to be published in 2014.


Finisterra ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 36 (72) ◽  
Author(s):  
Teresa Pinto Correia ◽  
António Cancela Abreu ◽  
Rosário Oliveira

IDENTIFICATION AND CHARACTERISATION OF LANDSCAPE IN PORTUGAL –This paper presents the concepts and methodology used in the study «Identification and characterisation of landscape in continental Portugal» undertaken by theDepartment of Landscape and Biophysical Planning of the University of Evora for the General Directorate for Spatial Planning and Urban Development (DGOT-DU) at the Ministry of the Environment and Spatial Planning, between 1999 and 2001. On the one hand, the methodological approach developed is based on the methodologies used recently for the same purpose in different European countries and on the way landscape has been considered in various European documents in the last years. On the other hand, it is also based on the team’s concern to approach the landscape as an holistic entity, and to examine its various components: ecological, cultural, socio-economic and sensorial. The set aim has been to define landscape units and to characterize these units in relation to the present landscape and the recorded trends, related problems and possibilities. Thus, the cartography relative to selected variables has been combined and related to satellite images and field surveys. The results of cross-referencing all this information has than been combined with expert examination of landscape coherence and character within each unit. The assessment was completed after careful bibliographic research and consultation with regional experts. The result is a flexible approach that combines objective analysis with a more subjective assessment, which the team considered fundamental for a true understanding of landscape.


THE BULLETIN ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (390) ◽  
pp. 44-49
Author(s):  
R. Aetdinova ◽  
I. Maslova ◽  
Sh. Niyazbekova ◽  
O. Balabanova ◽  
Zh. Zhakiyanova ◽  
...  

The article justifies for the need to identify and to keep track, in practice, of different groups of risks inherent in educational institutions under current conditions of pandemic and post-pandemic transformation of education under the influence of modern world uncertainty. Transformation of education functions in the epoch of digital economy changes the content and types of risks concomitant to the activities carried out by schools. Schools belong to the most conservative types of organizations. However, the environment in which schools operate is constantly changing. An educational institution, as any enterprise, has to engage in the activity aimed at risk management. Manifestation of the risk is, on the one hand, fraught with threats and damage, on the other hand, with opportunities. Assessment of possible threats and risks allows timely projection of undesirable results, creation of a system for situational response to unforeseen circumstances and, in the final analysis, formulation of a strategy for development of the university which would allow achievement of modern high quality education, its fundamentality and conformity to important topical requirements of the personality, society and state. Causes of developing risks characteristic of educational institutions are disclosed. External and internal risks characteristic of educational institutions, sources generating them and the importance of managing them are analyzed. The analysis of risks made reveals multi-varied threats and opportunities in the external and internal envi-ronment of the institution and their ability to have a significant effect on educational, organizational and financial activities of the schools.


2020 ◽  
pp. 36-40
Author(s):  
M. V. Ternova

The article analyzed concept of the study of art by Robin George Collingwood (1889-1943), a well-known English neo-hegelian philosopher. His significant part of the theoretical heritage is connected with the explanation of the nature of art and with the consideration of its condition during the period of the changing Oscar Wilde era to the era of Rudyard Kipling. The circle of problem such as content and form, character, image, mimesis, reflection, emotion, art and "street man" identified. All of them in Collingwood's presentation and interpretation significantly expanded the space of research not only English, but also European art criticism. The concept of study of art is "built" on the basis of an active understanding of historical and cultural traditions accented. The concept of art criticism of R.G. Collingwood – a famous English philosopher of the XIX-XX centuries, on the one hand, has self-importance, and on the other, although based on the traditions of contemporary humanities, still expands art history analysis of aesthetics through aesthetics and psychology. Recognizing the exhaustion of the English model of romanticism, R.G. Collingwood tries to outline the prospects for the development of art in the logic of the movement "romanticism – realism – avant-garde", which leads to the actualization of the problem of "mimesis – reflection". At the same time, the theorist's attention is consciously concentrated around the concept of "subject", the understanding of which is radically changing at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. Theoretical material in the presentation of R.G. Collingwood is based on the work of Shakespeare, Reynolds, Turner, Cezanne, whose experience allows us to focus on the problem of "artist and audience". It is emphasized that Collingwood's position is ahead of its time, stimulating scientific research in the European humanities. The existence of indicative tendencies, which are distinguished in the logic of European cultural creation of the historical period, is emphasized.


Author(s):  
Stephan F. De Beer

This article reflects on the unfinished task of liberation – as expressed in issues of land – and drawing from the work of Franz Fanon and the Durban-based social movement Abahlali baseMjondolo. It locates its reflections in four specific sites of struggle in the City of Tshwane, and against the backdrop of the mission statement of the Faculty of Theology at the University of Pretoria, as well as the Capital Cities Research Project based in the same university. Reflecting on the ‘living death’ of millions of landless people on the one hand, and the privatisation of liberation on the other, it argues that a liberating praxis of engagement remains a necessity in order to break the violent silences that perpetuate exclusion.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Freytag

This work undertakes a systematic reconstruction of the debates that took place over the course of several decades up to the beginning of the 21st century between Derrida on the one hand and Searle and Habermas on the other. It shows that the linguistic theories and the theories of communicative understanding developed by Searle and Habermas are based on inferences from the contingent individual case to the general. Searle draws ontological, Habermas anthropo-political conclusions, both with essentially naturalistic signatures. Derrida, on the other hand, raises epistemological objections and consequently develops a metaphysics of free subjects for whom conversation cannot necessarlily be presumed. The explicit dedication to ethics in Derrida's late work is due to his insight that the possibility of language and understanding is due to silence. Derrida's lasting merit lies in enriching the philosophy of language with a secretology. This study has been awarded the Kant Prize of the Institute of Philosophy of the University of Bonn and the "Prix de la République Française", awarded by the French Embassy and the University of Bonn.


2012 ◽  
pp. 327-349
Author(s):  
J.G. Alcázar ◽  
M. Marvá ◽  
D. Orden ◽  
F. San Segundo

We describe our experience of using the following mathematical tools: an e-learning platform (Moodle), several components of the WIRIS software suite for mathematics education (the formula editor, WIRIS CAS, and WIRIS-Quizzes), the dynamical geometry package GeoGebra, the computational knowledge engine Wolfram Alpha, and the mathematics software system SAGE. Our aim in this chapter is two-fold: on the one hand, we report the use of these tools in Math refresher courses. On the other, we provide sufficient information about them for readers to decide on the usefulness of these tools in their own particular context (maybe different from that of a refresher course). More specifically, for each tool we give a general description, some comments on its use in Math refresher courses, and a list of (general) advantages and drawbacks.


2021 ◽  
pp. 65-74
Author(s):  
Christelle HOPPE

This article presents the highlights of the learning experience within the teaching-learning scheme of French as an additional language as it was proposed to international students at the university to ensure pedagogical continuity during the health crisis between April and June 2020. Through vignettes that give an overview of the course, it proposes, on the one hand, to reflect on the pedagogical choices that were made in order to measure their effects effectively. On the other hand, it looks at the role of the tasks and the way in which they stimulate interaction, articulate or organise the cognitive, conative and socio-affective presence at a distance in this particular context. What emerges from the experience is that the flexible articulation of a set of tasks creates an organising framework that helps learners to shape their own curriculum while supporting their engagement. Overall, the pedagogical organisation of the device has led to potentially beneficial creative and socio-interactive use.


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