X-RAY TOMOGRAPHIC MICROSCOPY AS A MEANS TO SYSTEMATICALLY TRACK EXPERIMENTAL DECAY AND FOSSILIZATION

ABSTRACT Laboratory-based decay experiments have become commonly used to supplement our understanding of how organisms enter the fossil record. Differences in how these experiments are designed and evaluated, however, including dissimilarities in qualitative decay-scoring indices superimposed on variability in model organisms, renders any semblance of comparison between studies unreliable. Here, we introduce the utility of X-ray tomographic microscopy (μCT) as a means for reliable and repeatable analysis of soft-tissue decay experiment products. As proof-of-concept, we used a relatively simple experimental design with classic studies as comparators, and present our analytical protocol using μCT for capturing the entire volume of the decay subject. Segmentation software then allows for 3D volume analysis and high-resolution internal and external character identification. We describe the workflow from sample preparation, contrast-staining, and data collection to processing and analysis of the resulting data, using peppermint shrimp (Lysmata wurdemanni) as model organisms, and compare our results to previous taphonomic studies. These methods allow for improved visualization and quantification of decay and internal volume analysis with minimal handling as compared to traditional qualitative scoring methods. Using the same scoring criteria as previous studies, this study revealed similar decay results for certain features, while we were additionally able to detect other feature loss or alteration earlier—importantly without need for potentially distortive sample handling. We conclude that μCT is a more effective, straightforward, and exact means for extracting quantitative data on the progression of decay and should be adopted in future studies, where available, to streamline and standardize comparisons.

Imaginative vision of space in geopolitics: approach to study

The vision of space in critical geopolitics, expressed through the image, is defined. The geopolitical concept of space is interpreted as the result of the geopolitical interaction of the latter with the outside world. Its historical development, the nature of organisation and behavior in relation to other geopolitical entities play a decisive role in this regard. The accumulation of these processes over time forms the semantics of stereotypical political ideas about space, such as: mission, security, buffering, a tendency to integrate and interpenetrate attractiveness, conflict, centrality, peripherality, etc., expressing themselves in a geopolitical image. The images of space, which are becoming increasingly important in geopolitical interaction, direct modern geopolitics to a deeper understanding of the status, role and orientation of various entities expressing geopolitics. A system-representative model of the study of the geopolitical image of space as a basis of methodological orientation, presented as the main idea of the study, has been developed. The model synthesises the interaction between the main factors and elements that form the geopolitical vision of space, which are projected onto its image in a dependent relationship. With this model, we defend the idea of launching an algorithm that adequately structures the process of forming a geopolitical image of space. The attributes that determine the formation of the geopolitical image of space have been displayed: factors of perception of space of internal and external character; sources of space perception (social experience and education, art, media products, maps, media); geopolitical identification; geopolitical identity; geopolitical discourse; semantic stratification and the scale of the geopolitical image.

‘That’s what the dream says’: The use of normalizing devices in dream reports

The paper examines the discursive construction of dream reports. Based on a discursive constructionist approach, the study reviews problematic aspects of constructing dream narratives. Particularly, dream-tellers need to display the external character of their reports and to demonstrate that – although in their dreams they saw and did strange things – they are normal and reliable agents. Subsequently, particular ways in which people report on unrealistic content of their dreams are explored. For this purpose, the use of normalizing devices in dream reports published on dream-sharing websites is analyzed. The study demonstrates that several normalizing devices, including contrast structures and two-part structures – such as ‘At first I thought X. . . but then I realized Y’ and ‘I was just doing X… when Y’ – are employed in dream reports. The study also suggests that the proper use of these devices might possibly contribute to the trustworthiness of dream reports in everyday interaction.

CASE LAW OF THE EUROPEAN COURT REGARDING COMPLIANCE WITH THE PRINCIPLE OF IMPARTIALITY IN JUDICIAL PROCEEDINGS

The article is devoted to the essence of the principle of impartiality of a judge in court proceedings as a separate element of the right to a fair trial, defined by a number of national and international law provisions. It is substantiated that in the context of the significant impact of the European Court of Human Rights on the implementation of judicial proceedings in Ukraine, consideration of certain areas of its practice is particularly relevant not only for its understanding but also for effective application in a court. The study focuses on the subjective and objective factors of a judge's impartiality, their relationship and interaction. It was revealed that the subjective component of the judge's impartiality is the lack of internal convictions and views of the judge, indicating his interest in the outcome of the case. The objective component has an external character and is manifested in the presence of external factors that can influence the judge when considering the case. The most significant objective factors are: the judge's relationship or other close relationship with the participants in the trial, the judge's participation in the same trial in a different capacity, the possibility of pressure on the judge by other judges, especially the court administration, and by other authorities; officials on whom a judge's career or even his or her tenure may depend. This approach to the objective impartiality of a judge allows us to speak of its close connection with independence, which is much broader in content, but its essence is precisely the ability of a judge to freely and objectively make a decision on the case. A comparative analysis of the principle of impartiality of judges in the judicial process, which is applied in the practice of the ECHR and national courts, revealed certain differences. Thus, the position of the ECHR is that even in the slightest doubt about the bias of a judge that may arise by the part of the process, the burden of proving its absence lies on the judge by providing sufficient objective data. In national judicial practice often the approach is applied when a judge may not grant a request for recusal if he considers it unfounded, so the participant must prove the validity of his doubts about the judge's impartiality by himself.

Revision of the diagnostic characters of two morphologically similar snook species, Centropomus viridis and C. nigrescens (Carangiformes: Centropomidae)

Historically, the taxonomic identification of the two snook species, Centropomus viridis and C. nigrescens, has been challenging due to their morphological similarity and the inconsistency of the characters used for diagnosis. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the usefulness of the morphologic, meristic, and morphometric characters currently being used to identify C. viridis and C. nigrescens, based on molecular data. The results showed that the gas-bladder shape (i.e., C. viridis with diverticula and C. nigrescens without diverticula) was the only morphological character univocally related to genetic identification. Likewise, geometric morphometrics separated two groups; each corresponds to only one of two genetically (and gas bladder shape) identified species. Of all the meristic characters examined, only the second dorsal fin ray count (nine for C. viridis and ten for C. nigrescens) was related to the gas bladder shape and genetic identity; therefore, it is the only external character with a diagnostic utility to separate each species.

Boutwerk, Balthazar Barbosa, Willaschek e os Paradoxos da Filosofia do Direito de Kant

O artigo tem por objeto o exame de três registros de gritantes e distintos paradoxos na Doutrina do Direito de Kant. Registros feitos em tempos e contextos históricos diferentes por Friedrich Bouterwek, Marcus Willaschek e Balthazar Barbosa Filho. Bouterwek atribuiu a Kant a mais paradoxal das proposições jamais enunciadas por qualquer autor, a de que a mera ideia de soberania deve obrigar-nos a obedecer como a nosso inquestionável senhor a quem quer que se haja estabelecido como tal, sem que caiba indagar quem lhe deu o direito de comandar-nos. Willaschek aponta a incompatibilidade de duas teses centrais da doutrina kantiana: a do caráter externo dos vínculos jurídicos e a da incondicionalidade obrigacional do direito positivo, pois não é possível entender como é possível termo-nos como obrigados por imperativos jurídicos e, ao mesmo, vermo-nos internamente isentados do dever de obedecê-los. O ponto crítico de Balthazar é alegar que não pode haver na filosofia kantiana uma crítica da razão político e jurídica, simplesmente porque o conceito de imputação, base da normatividade própria dessas esferas, pressupõe uma pluralidade de agentes livres que, justamente, só pode ser uma pressuposição, pois nosso acesso à normatividade prática só pode ter lugar em primeira pessoa. No exame a que o artigo submete essas alegações, o artigo argumenta, em objeção à tese de Balthazar, que o caráter universal e categórico da força que vincula o sujeito quando confrontado com a lei moral em primeira pessoa necessariamente se desvaneceria se, ao mesmo tempo, ele não fosse tomado pela evidência de que a realidade objetiva dos princípios morais é não só instanciável, mas assegurada pela múltipla instanciação. Com relação às dificuldades levantadas por Willaschek e Bouterwek, o artigo argumenta que o princípio exeundum e statu naturali, enquanto norma metapositiva, anterior à divisão do domínio prático entre doutrina do direito e doutrina da virtude, permite ao mesmo tempo compreender a exigência de obediência ao poder constituído e a restrição das obrigações jurídico-políticas exclusivamente ao foro externo.AbstractThe object of the article is to examine three claims about three distinct and allegedly blatant paradoxes in Kant's Doctrine of Right. These three critical points had been made in distinct times and contexts by Friedrich Bouterwek, Marcus Willaschek e Balthazar Barbosa Filho. Bouterwek attributed to Kant the most paradoxical of all paradoxical propositions, the statement that by the mere idea of sovereignty we are obliged to obey as our lord who has imposed himself upon us, without questioning from where he got such right. Willaschek points out the incompatibility of two main theses of Kantian doctrine of right: the claims that the legal bounds are of external character and that they are the source of unconditional obligations, since it seems impossible to understand how it would be possible to be obliged by juridical norms and decisions and at the same time to be exempted of the internal duty of compliance. The radical objection of Professor Balthazar is the claim that in the context of Kantian Philosophy it is impossible to admit a critique of the juridical and political reason because the concept of imputation, ground of the normativity in these domains, requires not only the presupposition of free agents, but a true and secure epistemic access to them, which is, according to him, impossible considering that the moral law and the other practical principles are accessible for us only in the first person. In the course of the appraisal of such claims, the article contest that objection arguing that the universal and categorical force of the normative bound experienced by the subject when confronted with the moral law in the first person would ineluctably vanish if, at the same time, he had not been taken by the evidence that the objective reality of the moral principles is secured by multiple instancing. Regarding the difficulties raised by Willaschek and Bouterwek, the article argues that the principle exeundum e statu naturali, as a norm of meta-positive character, prior to the division of practical domains between the doctrine of right and the doctrine of virtue, is the cue both to the understanding of the requirement of unquestioning obedience to the constituted power and to the restriction of the validity of this requirement only in foro externo.

A new species of Mathania Oberthür, 1890 from Peru (Lepidoptera, Pieridae)

A new species of the genus Mathania Oberthür, 1890, M. hughesi Lamas, Farfán & Cerdeña, sp. n. is described from the southwestern slopes of the Andes of Peru, associated with xerophytic environments, between 2300 and 3500 m elevation. This new species is distinguishable from its congeners by the following external character: a black band on forewing dorsal surface at the end of the discal cell, extending from the costal margin to the base of cell M3-CuA1. Adults and male and female genitalia are illustrated and compared to other species of Mathania. In addition, we report Ligaria cuneifolia (R. et P.) Tiegh. (Loranthaceae) as host plant of M. hughesi.

Symbolic Action and Communication: Metaphor and Money in Kenneth Burke

The article examines how the social-critical vision of modern society stems from the key notions of Kenneth Burke's conception of “symbolic action”. The bridge between literary criticism and Burke's socio-anthropological constructions is the concept of motive. An authentic source of motives for human action is a metaphor that gives an image that is simultaneously poetic, imaginary and dynamic, moving (in the form of “third term” of the metaphor). The metaphor reveals unexpected, but essential unity of dissimilar things. And in this sense it serves as a model of inter-subjective relations. Group cohesion can be understood as an “extended metaphor” in which all group members have a common “third term”. Thus, Burke brings the fields of anthropology and poetics closer together. A metaphor is a relationship in which the elements do not absorb each other, but reveal the essence of each other, sublate their partiality, contingency, that is make up a collective form. This is the “paradox of substance”. The commonality of a tribe is not an abstraction that arises “after” individuals, but exists in the form of a generic substance in the individuals themselves. This defines the dialectic of identification: the individual coincides with himself by mediation of not-himself (some external “character”). The paradox of substance places symbolic actions in the general field of “symbolic communication,” in which the word is not only an external instrument, but an internal quality of individuals. Poetic imagery is the substance of the social. Metaphor in this capacity is contrasted with money, which, displacing metaphor as a principle of social coherence, undermines truly human motives (utilitarianism instead of communal poetics).

Dynamics of demand in the labor market in the southern regions of Russia during the COVID-19 pandemic

The events taking place in 2020 in the world in general and in Russia in particular have dramatically shaken up all spheres of public life. The quarantine measures have significantly blocked the channels of business interaction and enabled a pause mode in a wide range of economic processes. The state of the labor market during the crisis period is a defining indicator that demonstrates the strategies of employers and employees. This article studies the dynamics of a key indicator of the labor market — the demand for labor in the southern regions of Russia. The author aims to analyze the dynamics of labor market demand in a number of cities in southern regions of Russia in the key periods of spring 2020 events associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis covers six cities of southern Russia, located in different regions and significantly different specific structure of the economic sphere. The indicators of the southern regions as a whole were considered separately, which allowed to diagnose their condition and draw conclusions about ther particular “painful” dependencies. The labor market of the southern Russian cities is characterized by stable seasonality structures and highly specialized orientation in a number of territories. These private characteristics have a direct impact on complex economic indicators. The eployment of quarantine measures on the eve of the holiday season and preventive saturation with epidemiological security measures of the tourist business in the country threatened to turn into an economic disaster for a number of territories. The novelty of this topic lies in the fact that the forced lockdown had an external character and it highlighted a significant dependence of economic actions of business on the decisions of the authorities. The new conditions of destabilization were a test of stability of organizational links of different spheres of public life. An essential factor that destabilized the behavior of key labor market participants was the mass media, which spread false or unverified information. The author draws a conclusion about the characteristic avalanche-like declines and rises in demand in the labor market of the southern regions and about the uneven distribution of reactions in different cities with similar geographical locations.