Intellectual Property,Scientific Independence,and the Efficacy and Environmental Impacts of Genetically Engineered Crops

Neoliberalism is the political ideology behind efforts to commercialize university science. The development of genetically engineered (GE) crops has facilitated the commercialization process because GE crops generally have more restrictive intellectual property protections than conventional crops. Those restrictions have led some to question whether long‐term university research and innovations are being compromised to protect short‐term intellectual property interests. This concern is evident in two letters submitted by public‐sector entomologists in February 2009 to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The letters asserted that scientists are prohibited from conducting fully independent research on the efficacy and environmental impact of GE crops. In response to the letter, the American Seed Trade Association (ASTA) negotiated an agreement between university scientists and seed companies to protect industry property rights while enabling university scientists to conduct research with more independence. Through a survey of public‐ and private‐sector entomologists who are members of two regional entomologist research groups, we document scientists' perspectives on the adequacy of the ASTA agreement and whether those scientists have experienced limitations on their research projects involving efficacy and environmental impacts. Our findings show that limitations exist and that certain forms of public knowledge about crops are likely being compromised. These findings have implications for the legitimacy of current risk management institutions, as well as for future technological breakthroughs and innovations.     

Building a Collection of Canadian Newspapers

Abstract

This article discusses the functionality of the Dynix Serials Module. Core functions such as searching, check-in, claiming, and binding are described. Most serials work can be accomplished within this single module by selecting various options from several menu sets. The procedures described are based on Release 181 of the system. Serials Review 2002; 28:45–48.     

Systems and structures — toward bio-social anthropology

Systems theory in America, and Structuralism on the Continent, offer concepts and methods for bridging the gap between the natural and the social sciences. Rather than describing their objects of investigation, both approaches build high-level theoretical models of certain of their features and offer the models for investigation and comparison with those of other model-building disciplines. The unity of the objects of investigation is thus sought through the unity of the conceptual constructs and the models applicable to them (v. Bertalanffy and Lévi-Strauss). It is argued here that significant isomorphies obtain between the systems theoretical model of biological phenomena on the one hand, and the structuralist model of societal phenomena on the other. A survey of the basic postulates of General System Theory and its model of the biological organism, and of Structuralism and its model of human social structures, leads to the conclusion that each of these systems or structures can be analyzed in terms of certain invariant theoretical constructs, such as non-summativity, self-regulation, control of entropy through feedback, hierarchical internal and external relations, and others. Thus, while applying to different levels of organization, biological and anthropological models appear isomorphic, justifying a unified yet non-reductionist philosophical view termed integrated pluralism. Built on the here outlined premisses, bio-social anthropology, a new hybrid discipline, could link the investigation of the natural and the social worlds by conceiving of organismic and of societal phenomena as different levels of organized complexity embedded within a consistent and unitary, but hierarchic and multidimensional sequence of natural order.