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ABSTRACT: Focusing on the question of the metaphysical possibility of change, the article explores a particular musical instance of change: the loss of world. Starting from the general observation that music plays a special role when it comes to the collapse of worlds, it studies two philosophical scenes (from Plato and Schopenhauer) in which music is thought as opening the possibility of change. In Plato, music occurs as an educational facilitator of (individual, personal) change that is ambiguously described in terms of sovereignty and groundlessness. In Schopenhauer, music is thought as the very edge of the world, where the loss of world (and the transition to religious renunciation) is a structural aspect of music’s very concept. This notion of music as being somehow outside, or on the margin of the world, but in a hyperbolical and almost redemptive sense, is then taken into a discussion of the Hollywood blockbuster The Big Short (2015), in which the (historical) 2007 collapse of Wall Street is prophesized by a number of marginal figures, one of whom entertains a special relation to music. Again, music appears as a figure (a cipher) of the change that these characters feel coming, and a shift near the end of the movie suggests a loss that not only affects the world, but this time also music. While music has historically been regarded as an agent of change (of feeling, concept, or sociality), here it would seem that it is music itself that is affected by the possibility of change beyond recognition, and perhaps beyond its own concept. The idea of music would then suggest a logic of change reminding on one hand of the eminent hyperboles of ancient music theologies (Augustine), and on the other hand the more recent accounts of change, apocalypse and miracles in such diverse thinkers as Derrida and Meillassoux, and in contemporary ‘apocalyptic’ novels such as David Markson’s Wittgenstein’s Mistress (1988). Does the loss of music in these works suggest a possibility of new worlds? KEYWORDS: Change. Metaphysics. Music. Hyperbole. Apocalypse.

This article analyses the legal development of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises (MNE Guidelines) and their implementation mechanism – National Contact Points (NCPs). Both the MNE Guidelines and NCPs have matured over the past 40 years. While the MNE Guidelines have broadened their scope of application by covering more themes, NCPs have evolved to become legally binding, resulting in the unique combination of soft-law guidelines with a legally binding implementation mechanism. The legal evolution of the MNE Guidelines and NCPs is analysed by extensively consulting their ›legislative‹ history and by referring to various cases that have been submitted to NCPs and courts. More complex questions are also addressed, for instance, regarding the relation between the MNE Guidelines and customary law and the MNE Guidelines’ legal status since their increased (partial) integration into hard law.This article aims to offer the first comprehensive overview of these often overlooked guidelines from a legal-historical perspective and discusses their multinormativity.

An alteration in the balance of autocrine/paracrine ovarian factors may lead to different diseases. The aim of the present report was to evaluate the relationship between insulin growth factor 1 (IGF-1) and leptin (Lp) in the progesterone (P) and estradiol (E) production after ovarian rat FSH stimulation. Thus, ovarian explants were incubated with FSH, IGF-1 and Lp, and P and E were evaluated by means of specific radioimmunoassays. FSH increased ovarian P and E production. IGF-1 synergized with FSH in P as well as in ovarian E production. Lp had not shown any effect on the FSH capacity to increase P and E in the ovarian tissue; nevertheless it reverted the synergistic effect of IGF-1 on FSH for P as well as for E. These data raise the possibility that abnormal Lp levels may contribute to infertility in women with polycystic ovarian syndrome by counteracting the sensitizing effects of IGF-1 in ovarian tissue.