In Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity, Roy Rappaport misses an opportunity to more tightly theorize the synergistic relationship between concepts of the divine, the psyches of ritual participants, and the adaptive dynamics of religious sociality. This paper proposes such a theory by drawing on implicit features of Rappaport’s account, fulfilling his goal of a “cybernetics of the holy.” I argue that concepts of the divine, when made authoritative for participants through ritual, have three important effects: they invite intense and meaningful reconstructions of personal identity according to paradigmatic examples; they act as a form of encoded social memory by organizing human relationship according to a “spiritual map”; and they provide the cognitive framework that make religious community organization robust, adaptive, and reproductive. We can characterize divine concepts as “specified absences” that ground each of these effects and link them together in a mutually-reinforcing set.

Transdisciplinary research practice has become a core element of global sustainability science. Transdisciplinary research brings with it an expectation that people with different backgrounds and interests will learn together through collective problem solving and innovation. Here we introduce the concept of “transdisciplinary communities of practice, ” and draw on both situated learning theory and transdisciplinary practice to identify three key lessons for people working in, managing, or funding such groups. (1) Opportunities need to be purposefully created for outsiders to observe activities in the core group. (2) Communities of practice cannot be artificially created, but they can be nurtured. (3) Power matters in transdisciplinary communities of practice. These insights challenge thinking about how groups of people come together in pursuit of transdisciplinary outcomes, and call for greater attention to be paid to the social processes of learning that are at the heart of our aspirations for global sustainability science.

Background: Clinical diagnostic research relies upon the collection of tissue samples, and for those samples to be representative of the in vivo situation. Tissue collection procedures, including post-operative ischemia, can impact the molecular profile of the tissue at the genetic and proteomic level. Understanding the influence of factors such as ischemia on tissue samples is imperative in order to develop both markers of tissue quality and ultimately accurate diagnostic tests.

Methods: Using NanoPro1000 technology, a rapid and highly sensitive immunoassay platform, the phosphorylation status of clinically relevant cancer-related biomarkers in response to ischemia was quantified in tissue samples from 20 patients with primary colorectal cancer. Tumor tissue and adjacent normal tissue samples were collected and subjected to cold ischemia prior to nanoproteomic analysis of AKT, ERK1/2, MEK1/2, and c-MET. Ischemia-induced relative changes in overall phosphorylation and phosphorylation of individual isoforms were calculated and statistical significance determined. Any differences in baseline levels of phosphorylation between tumor tissue and normal tissue were also analyzed.

Results: Changes in overall phosphorylation of the selected proteins in response to ischemia revealed minor variations in both normal and tumor tissue; however, significant changes were identified in the phosphorylation of individual isoforms. In normal tissue post-operative ischemia, phosphorylation was increased in two AKT isoforms, two ERK1/2 isoforms, and one MEK1/2 isoform and decreased in one MEK1/2 isoform and one c-MET isoform. Following ischemia in tumor tissue, one AKT isoform showed decreased phosphorylation and there was an overall increase in unphosphorylated ERK1/2, whereas an increase in the phosphorylation of two MEK1/2 isoforms was observed. There were no changes in c-MET phosphorylation in tumor tissue.

Conclusion: This study provides insight into the influence of post-operative ischemia on tissue sample biology, which may inform the future development of markers of tissue quality and assist in the development of diagnostic tests.

An understanding of tissue data variability in relation to processing techniques during and postsurgery would be desirable when testing surgical specimens for clinical diagnostics, drug development, or identification of predictive biomarkers.

Specimens of normal and colorectal cancer (CRC) tissues removed during colon and liver resection surgery were obtained at the beginning of surgery and postsurgically, tissue was fixed at 10, 20, and 45 minutes. Specimens were analyzed from 50 patients with primary CRC and 43 with intrahepatic metastasis of CRC using a whole genome gene expression array. Additionally, we focused on the epidermal growth factor receptor pathway and quantified proteins and their phosphorylation status in relation to tissue processing timepoints.

Gene and protein expression data obtained from colorectal and liver specimens were influenced by tissue handling during surgery and by postsurgical processing time. To obtain reliable expression data, tissue processing for research and diagnostic purposes needs to be highly standardized.

The conscientious are morally conflicted when their moral dilemmas or incommensurabilities, real or apparent, have not been resolved. But such doublemindedness need not lead to ethical disintegration or moral insensitivity. For one may develop the moral virtue of doublemindedness, the settled power to deliberate and act well while morally conflicted. Such action will be accompanied by both moral loss (perhaps 'dirty hands') and ethical gain (salubrious agental stability). In explaining the virtue's moral psychology I show, among other things, its consistency with wholeheartedness and the unity of the virtues. To broaden its claim to recognition, I show the virtue's consistency with diverse models of practical reason. In conclusion, Michael Walzer's interpretation of Hamlet's attitude toward Gertrude exemplifies this virtue in a fragmentary but nonetheless praiseworthy form.

Foodways have been a component of archaeological research for decades. However, cooking and food preparation, as specific acts that could reveal social information about life beyond the kitchen, only became a focus of archaeological inquiry more recently. A review of the literature on cooking and food preparation reveals a shift from previous studies on subsistence strategies, consumption, and feasting. The new research is different because of the social questions that are asked, the change in focus to preparation and production rather than consumption, and the interest in highlighting marginalized people and their daily experiences. The theoretical perspectives the literature addresses revolve around practice, agency, and gender. As a result, this new focus of archaeological research on cooking and preparing food is grounded in anthropology.

Scholarly communication is at an unprecedented turning point created in part by the increasing saliency of data stewardship and data sharing. Formal data management plans represent a new emphasis in research, enabling access to data at higher volumes and more quickly, and the potential for replication and augmentation of existing research. Data sharing has recently transformed the practice, scope, content, and applicability of research in several disciplines, in particular in relation to spatially specific data. This lends exciting potentiality, but the most effective ways in which to implement such changes, particularly for disciplines involving human subjects and other sensitive information, demand consideration. Data management plans, stewardship, and sharing, impart distinctive technical, sociological, and ethical challenges that remain to be adequately identified and remedied. Here, we consider these and propose potential solutions for their amelioration.

Rice is an essential crop in Ghana. Several aspects of rice have been studied to increase its production; however, the environmental aspects, including impact on climate change, have not been studied well. There is therefore a gap in knowledge, and hence the need for continuous research. By accessing academic portals, such as Springer Open, InTech Open, Elsevier, and the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology’s offline campus library, 61 academic publications including peer reviewed journals, books, working papers, reports, etc. were critically reviewed. It was found that there is a lack of data on how paddy rice production systems affect greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, particularly emissions estimation, geographical location, and crops. Regarding GHG emission estimation, the review identified the use of emission factors calibrated using temperate conditions which do not suit tropical conditions. On location, most research on rice GHG emissions have been carried out in Asia with little input from Africa. In regard to crops, there is paucity of in-situ emissions data from paddy fields in Ghana. Drawing on the review, a conceptual framework is developed using Ghana as reference point to guide the discussion on fertilizer application, water management rice cultivars, and soil for future development of adaptation strategies for rice emission reduction.