bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Transient structured fluctuations in a two-dimensional system with multiple ordered phases
Authors: Krebs Zach , Roitman Ari B. , Nowack Linsey M. , Liepold Emily R. , Lin Binhua , Rice Stuart A.
Published: July 2018

We report the structure of transient fluctuations in the liquid phase of a two-dimensional system that exhibits several ordered phases with different symmetries. The density-temperature phase diagram of the system studied, composed of particles with a repulsive shouldered soft-core pair interaction, has regions with stable liquid and hexatic phases, a square solid phase, two separate hexagonal solid phases, and a quasi-crystalline phase with 12-fold symmetry. We have examined the character of the structured fluctuations by computing the same-time aperture cross correlation function of particle configurations in several fluid regions near to and far from phase transition lines. The two primary goals of our study are (1) determination if the spectrum of structures of the fluctuations in the liquid is broader than or limited to the motifs exhibited by the ordered phases supported by the system and (2) determination of the density domains in the liquid that support particular transient structured fluctuations. In the system studied, along a low-temperature isotherm in the temperature-density plane that intersects all the ordered phases we find that the liquid phase exhibits structured fluctuations with hexagonal symmetry near both liquid-hexatic transition lines. Along the same isotherm and in the stable liquid between the lower density hexatic-to-liquid and the higher density liquid-to-square solid transitions, we find that transient hexagonal ordered fluctuations dominate the liquid region near the hexatic-to-liquid transition and square ordered fluctuations dominate the liquid region near the liquid-to square solid transition, but both of these structured fluctuations occur at all densities between these transition lines. At a higher temperature, at phase points in the liquid above, but close to the density maximum of an underlying transition, there are ordered fluctuations that can be correlated with the structure of the lower temperature phase. Although it is expected that very close to a liquid-ordered phase boundary a structured fluctuation in the liquid will have the same symmetry as the ordered phase, it is not obvious that structured fluctuations in thermodynamic states deep in the liquid phase will be similarly restricted. The most striking result of our calculations is that no evidence is found in the liquid phase for structured fluctuations with other symmetries than those of the ordered phases of the system.
Communication: Mode-dependent excited-state lifetime of phenol under the S1/S2 conical intersection
Authors: Lai Hsin Ying , Jhang Wan Ru , Tseng Chien-Ming
Published: July 2018

Phenol can serve as a model for examining the deactivation of the aromatic amino acid tyrosine following UV excitation, which mainly occurs through a repulsive πσ* state along the O–H bond. The reaction barrier formed by the conical intersection between the optically bright S1 (ππ*) state and the dissociative S2 (πσ*) state does not inhibit O–H bond rupture even though the excitation energy is below the barrier height. To examine the O–H bond-rupture dynamics in association with the initial excited vibrational modes, we used a picosecond laser to investigate the vibrational-mode-dependent excited-state lifetime of phenol under the S1/S2 conical intersection. Unexpectedly short lifetimes were observed in the S1 state for a″ symmetric vibrational modes (including v4, v16a, τOH, and v5). These results clarify recent theoretical calculations showing that the relaxation from S1 to S2 either occurs via symmetry-allowed non-adiabatic transitions or is topographically linked to a lower energy minimum on the multidimensional potential energy surface.
Microfluidic on-chip immunohistochemistry directly from a paraffin-embedded section
Authors: Cho Chang Hyun , Kwon Seyong , Kim Segi , Hong Yoonmi , Kim Pilnam , Lee Eun Sook , Park Je-Kyun
Published: July 2018

We present here a novel microfluidic platform that can perform microfluidic on-chip immunohistochemistry (IHC) processes on a formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded section slide. Unlike previous microfluidic IHC studies, our microfluidic chip made of organic solvent-resistant polyurethane acrylate (PUA) is capable of conducting on-chip IHC processes consecutively. A narrow channel wall structure of the PUA chip shows effective sealing by pressure-based reversible assembly with a section slide. We performed both on-chip IHC and conventional IHC processes and compared the IHC results based on the immunostaining intensity. The result showed that the effects of the on-chip deparaffinization, antigen retrieval, and immunoreaction processes on the IHC result were equivalent to conventional methods while reducing the total process time to less than 1/2. The experiment with breast cancer tissue shows that human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) classification can be performed by obtaining a clearly distinguishable immunostaining intensity according to the HER2 expression level. We expect our on-chip microfluidic platform to provide a facile technique suitable for miniaturized, automated, and precise diagnostic devices, including a point-of-care device.
Prosodic and morphological focus marking in Ixcatec (Otomanguean)
Authors: Adamou Evangelia , Gordon Matthew , Gries Stefan Th.
Published: July 2018

This paper presents the first description of the expression of focus in Ixcatec, a nearly extinct language of Mexico. The study is based on experimental tasks carried out with the last three fluent speakers of Ixcatec. Prosodic analysis shows that in Ixcatec, a language with three lexical tones, contrastive focus is associated with raised F0, lack of focus is marked through lowered F0 and decreased duration, and corrective focus is signaled through various speaker-specific means. Finally, this study shows that morphological and phonetic properties display a complex interaction that contradicts the view that focus may be conveyed through either morphological or phonetic exponents but not both.
Factors behind variation in marking information structure
Authors: Mithun Marianne
Published: July 2018

Prosody and morphosyntax are exploited in most languages for expressing information structure, but the contributions of each vary. Some of the factors underlying the both cross-linguistic similarities and the variation are differences between the two, in particular (i) their patterns of development through time and (ii) their categoriality. While prosody does not normally lose its pragmatic force with frequency of use, syntactic and morphological constructions do. While pitch, intensity, and rhythm, are matters of degree, syntactic and morphological constructions, such as particular orders or the presence of markers, are categorical. Prosodic patterns appear to be tied to cognition more directly, such as the packaging of information into intonation units and correlations between prosodic prominence and pragmatic strength. These are generally more widespread. Syntactic and morphological patterns, the result of development over time, show more cross-linguistic variation. Interactions between the two are illustrated with examples from spontaneous speech in Central Pomo, a language indigenous to California. The patterns include the packaging of information into intonation units, the expression of different kinds of topics (given and continuing, continuing but reconfirmed, shifted, contrastive), and different kinds of focus (broad, narrow of various types, contrastive, corrective, exhaustive, and additive).
Subjects and focus in clefts
Authors: Palancar Enrique L.
Published: July 2018

This paper is an exploration of the syntax-pragmatics interface in the pseudo-clefts of Tilapa Otomi, an Oto-Manguean language of Mexico. The goal of this paper is to show that the focus phrase in the clefts of Tilapa Otomi is the subject of the cleft construction, which is entirely based on the copular construction. This claim has a theoretical interest because the alignment of focus and subject has been tainted as problematic in certain approaches to clefts that want the subject to be the topic. The subject in clefts in Tilapa Otomi conveys contrastive focus, but clefts in Tilapa Otomi may also be used as thetic constructions to express broad focus, in which case it is the whole clause that is in focus.
Draxin acts as a molecular rheostat of canonical Wnt signaling to control cranial neural crest EMT
Authors: Hutchins Erica J. , Bronner Marianne E.
Published: July 2018

Neural crest cells undergo a spatiotemporally regulated epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) that proceeds head to tailward to exit from the neural tube. In this study, we show that the secreted molecule Draxin is expressed in a transient rostrocaudal wave that mirrors this emigration pattern, initiating after neural crest specification and being down-regulated just before delamination. Functional experiments reveal that Draxin regulates the timing of cranial neural crest EMT by transiently inhibiting canonical Wnt signaling. Ectopic maintenance of Draxin in the cranial neural tube blocks full EMT; while cells delaminate, they fail to become mesenchymal and migratory. Loss of Draxin results in premature delamination but also in failure to mesenchymalize. These results suggest that a pulse of intermediate Wnt signaling triggers EMT and is necessary for its completion. Taken together, these data show that transient secreted Draxin mediates proper levels of canonical Wnt signaling required to regulate the precise timing of initiation and completion of cranial neural crest EMT.
1337 EURAMET.EM.M-S2 : supplementary comparison of national standard facilities in the field of measuring the polarization and specific total power loss in soft magnetic materials
Authors: Albrecht M , Malygin M A , Kupec Josef , Ulvr Michal , Appino Carlo , Hall Michael , Turner Steven
Published: July 2018

The unit magnetic power loss is essential for the development and optimization of soft magnetic materials for electromagnetic generators and engines. For the maintenance of the corresponding measuring systems in accordance to IEC 60404 it is necessary to compare the measurement facilities used by the NMIs involved. Since the last comparison has been accomplished in 1999 and the request for precise values for many of the actual applications is increasing in 2015 the decision was made to start a new international comparison. The work was done in the framework of the supplementary comparison 1337 EURAMET.EM.M.S2. Four NMIs of EURAMET and one NMI of COOMET took part to get information about their equipment used for the measurement of the magnetic power loss. A selection of a variety of samples was used. One grain-oriented, one homogenous Epstein-sample, one grain oriented, and one homogenous ring kernel where send to the NMIs to measure the specific power loss. After the evaluation of the data in agreement with the rules of EURAMET the results of the NMIs participating in the comparison can be judged as concerted which is an objective confirmation of the declared uncertainties. Only one partner should improve his equipment or widen the range of uncertainty.

Main text

To reach the main text of this paper, click on Final Report. Note that this text is that which appears in Appendix B of the BIPM key comparison database kcdb.bipm.org/.

The final report has been peer-reviewed and approved for publication by the CCEM, according to the provisions of the CIPM Mutual Recognition Arrangement (CIPM MRA).
Information Access, Conservation Practice Choice, and Rent Seeking in Conservation Procurement Auctions: Evidence from a Laboratory Experiment
Authors: Banerjee Simanti , Conte Marc N.
Published: July 2018

Existing research emphasizes the sensitivity of conservation auction performance and bidder behavior to auction design choices, as these auctions are not incentive compatible, meaning rent seeking must be controlled. Procuring agencies must decide how to provide bidders with information about the environmental quality of different conservation practices to manage the trade‐off between an increased probability of selecting the optimal practice and increased rent‐seeking behavior associated with this information. We use an induced‐value laboratory experiment to explore how access to quality information and variation in the bid‐submission protocol can best be combined to improve auction performance. We find that the auction performs best when a bid‐menu format, in which participants submit bids for all their practices, is combined with information about the environmental quality rank of available conservation practices.
gMCS: fast computation of genetic minimal cut sets in large networks
Authors: Apaolaza Iñigo , Valcarcel Luis Vitores , Planes Francisco J
Published: July 2018

Motivation

The identification of minimal gene knockout strategies to engineer metabolic systems constitutes one of the most relevant applications of the COnstraint-Based Reconstruction and Analysis (COBRA) framework. In the last years, the minimal cut sets (MCSs) approach has emerged as a promising tool to carry out this task. However, MCSs define reaction knockout strategies, which are not necessarily transformed into feasible strategies at the gene level.

Results

We present a more general, easy-to-use and efficient computational implementation of a previously published algorithm to calculate MCSs to the gene level (gMCSs). Our tool was compared with existing methods in order to calculate essential genes and synthetic lethals in metabolic networks of different complexity, showing a significant reduction in model size and computation time.

Availability and implementation

gMCS is publicly and freely available under GNU license in the COBRA toolbox (https://github.com/opencobra/cobratoolbox/tree/master/src/analysis/gMCS).

Supplementary information

Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Temporal-Order-Based Attentional Priority Modulates Mnemonic Representations in Parietal and Frontal Cortices
Authors: Yu Qing , Shim Won Mok
Published: July 2018

The respective roles of occipital, parietal, and frontal cortices in visual working memory maintenance have long been under debate. Previous work on whether parietal and frontal regions convey mnemonic information has yielded mixed findings. One possibility for this variability is that the mnemonic representations in high-level frontoparietal regions are modulated by attentional priority, such as temporal order. To test this hypothesis, we examined whether the most recent item, which has a higher attentional priority in terms of temporal order, is preferentially encoded in frontoparietal regions. On each trial, participants viewed 2 gratings with different orientations in succession, and were cued to remember one of them. Using fMRI and an inverted encoding model, we reconstructed population-level, orientation representations in occipital (V1–V3), parietal (IPS), and frontal (FEF) areas during memory maintenance. Unlike early visual cortex where robust orientation representations were observed regardless of serial order, parietal, and frontal cortices showed stronger representations when participants remembered the second grating. A subsequent experiment using a change detection task on color rings excluded the possibilities of residual stimulus-driven signals or motor preparative signals for responses. These results suggest that mnemonic representations in parietal and frontal cortices are modulated by temporal-order-based attentional priority signals.
An Autism-Related, Nonsense Foxp1 Mutant Induces Autophagy and Delays Radial Migration of the Cortical Neurons
Authors: Li Xue , Han Xin , Tu Xiaomeng , Zhu Dan , Feng Yue , Jiang Tian , Yang Youping , Qu Jia , Chen Jie-Guang
Published: July 2018

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a complex neurodevelopmental disorder that has a strong genetic component. Disruptions of FOXP1, a transcription factor expressed in the developing cerebral cortex, were associated with ASD. FOXP1(R525X) is a de novo heterozygous mutation found in patients with autism and severe mental retardation. To explore the neuronal basis of FOXP1(R525X) in ASD, we created Foxp1(R521X), a mouse homolog of the human variant. Ectopic expression of Foxp1(R521X) led to cytoplasmic aggregates and activated macroautophagy in neuroblastoma N2a cells and the developing neuronal cells. Cortical neurons expressing Foxp1(R521X) exhibited delayed migration and altered dendritic morphology. As a control, mutant Y435X that was expressed diffusively in the cytoplasm did not induce autophagy and migration delay in the cortex. The embryonic cortical cells had a minimal activity of nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) as assayed by a splicing-dependent NMD reporter. We hypothesize that the developing neuronal cells use autophagy but not NMD as a safeguard mechanism against nonsense mutant aggregates, resulting in impairment of the cortical development. This study suggests a novel mechanism other than heterozygous loss of FOXP1 for the development of ASD and may advance our understanding of the complex relationships between gene mutation and the related psychiatric disorders.
Parent-offspring conflict over reproductive timing: ecological dynamics far away and at other times may explain spawning variability in Pacific herring
Authors: Ljungström Gabriella , Francis Tessa B , Mangel Marc , Jørgensen Christian
Published: July 2018

Timing of reproduction may be of crucial importance for fitness, particularly in environments that vary seasonally in food availability or predation risk. However, for animals with spatially separated feeding and breeding habitats, optimal reproductive timing may differ between parents and their offspring, leading to parent-offspring conflict. We assume that offspring have highest survival and fitness if they are spawned around a fixed date, and use state-dependent life-history theory to explore whether variation in conditions affecting only parents (food availability and survival) may influence optimal timing of reproduction. We apply the model to Pacific herring (Clupea palasii) in Puget Sound, USA, where 20 subpopulations spawn at different times of the year. Our model suggests that relatively small differences in adult food availability can lead to altered prioritization in the trade-off between maternal fecundity and what from the offspring’s perspective is the best time to be spawned. Our model also shows that observed among-population variability in reproductive timing may result from adults using different feeding grounds with divergent food dynamics, or from individual variation in condition caused by stochasticity at a single feeding ground. Identifying drivers of reproductive timing may improve predictions of recruitment, population dynamics, and responses to environmental change.
Undermining the Restorative Potential of Compensatory Consumption: A Product’s Explicit Identity Connection Impedes Self-Repair
Authors: Rustagi Nimish , Shrum L J
Published: July 2018

When people experience threats to important aspects of their self-concept (e.g., power, intelligence, sociability), they often compensate by consuming products that symbolize success, mastery, or competence on the threatened self-domain (within-domain compensatory consumption). Our research examines whether such compensatory consumption is effective in repairing the self-concept. Across seven experiments, we show that whether compensatory consumption is effective depends on the extent to which the connection between the compensatory products and the threatened domains is made explicit. When the connections are made explicit (e.g., through product names and marketing slogans), self-repair is impeded, but when the connections are only implicit (product is inherently symbolic of self-threat domain), self-repair can be successful. We further show that these differential effects of product connection explicitness are mediated by rumination: explicit connections induce rumination about the self-threat, which undermines self-repair, whereas implicit connections cause no rumination, facilitating self-repair. Our research provides a reconciliation of conflicting findings on self-repair in previous research, and also shows that despite the differences in efficacy, consumers compensate regardless of whether product connections are implicit or explicit, which has implications for consumer well-being.
Benzene Exposure Response and Risk of Myeloid Neoplasms in Chinese Workers: A Multicenter Case–Cohort Study
Authors: Linet Martha S , Gilbert Ethel S , Vermeulen Roel , Dores Graça M , Yin Song-Nian , Portengen Lutzen , Hayes Richard B , Ji Bu-Tian , Lan Qing , Li Gui-Lan , Rothman Nathaniel ,   Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention–US National Cancer Institute Benzene Study Group, Ding Cheng-yu , Dores Graça M , Gao Yuan , Gilbert Ethel S , Hayes Richard B , Ji Bu-Tian , Lan Qing , Li Gui-Lan , Li Gui-Zhen , Linet Martha S , Liu Lian-Cui , Ni Yun-E , Niu Xin-Hua , Portengen Lutzen , Rothman Nathaniel , Sun Gui-Fen , Tang Qiang , Tian Hao-Yuan , Vermeulen Roel , Xiao Lu-Wu , Yin Song-Nian , Zhao Hong-Bin , Zhou Guang-Fa , Zhou Jie-Sen
Published: July 2018

Background

There is international consensus that benzene exposure is causally related to acute myeloid leukemia (AML), and more recent evidence of association with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). However, there are uncertainties about the exposure response, particularly risks by time since exposure and age at exposure.

Methods

In a case–cohort study in 110 631 Chinese workers followed up during 1972–1999 we evaluated combined MDS/AML (n = 44) and chronic myeloid leukemia (n = 18). We estimated benzene exposures using hierarchical modeling of occupational factors calibrated with historical routine measurements, and evaluated exposure response for cumulative exposure and average intensity using Cox regression; P values were two-sided.

Results

Increased MDS/AML risk with increasing cumulative exposure in our a priori defined time window (2 to <10 years) before the time at risk was suggested (Ptrend = 08). For first exposure (within the 2 to <10-year window) before age 30 years, the exposure response was stronger (P = .004) with rate ratios of 1.12 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.27 to 4.29), 5.58 (95% CI = 1.65 to 19.68), and 4.50 (95% CI = 1.22 to 16.68) for cumulative exposures of more than 0 to less than 40, 40 to less than 100, and at least 100 ppm-years, respectively, compared with no exposure. There was little evidence of exposure response after at least 10 years (Ptrend = .94), regardless of age at first exposure. Average intensity results were generally similar. The risk for chronic myeloid leukemia was increased in exposed vs unexposed workers, but appeared to increase and then decrease with increasing exposure.

Conclusion

For myeloid neoplasms, the strongest effects were apparent for MDS/AML arising within 10 years of benzene exposure and for first exposure in the 2 to less than 10-year window before age 30 years.
The growth and entrainment of cold gas in a hot wind
Authors: Gronke Max , Oh S Peng
Published: July 2018

Both absorption and emission-line studies show that cold gas around galaxies is commonly outflowing at speeds of several hundred km s−1. This observational fact poses a severe challenge to our theoretical models of galaxy evolution since most feedback mechanisms (e.g. supernovae feedback) accelerate hot gas, and the time-scale it takes to accelerate a blob of cold gas via a hot wind is much larger than the time it takes to destroy the blob. We revisit this long-standing problem using three-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations with radiative cooling. Our results confirm previous findings that cooling is often not efficient enough to prevent the destruction of cold gas. However, we also identify regions of parameter space where the cooling efficiency of the mixed, ‘warm’ gas is sufficiently large to contribute new comoving cold gas, which can significantly exceed the original cold gas mass. This happens whenever, tcool, mix/tcc < 1, where tcool, mix is the cooling time of the mixed warm gas and tcc is the cloud-crushing time. This criterion is always satisfied for a large enough cloud. Cooling ‘focuses’ stripped material on to the tail where mixing takes place and new cold gas forms. A sufficiently large simulation domain is crucial to capturing this behaviour.
Method and Apparatus for the Automated Delivery of Continuous Neural Stem Cell Trails Into the Spinal Cord of Small and Large Animals
Authors: Kutikov Artem B , Moore Simon W , Layer Richard T , Podell Pamela E , Sridhar Nithya , Santamaria Andrea J , Aimetti Alex A , Hofstetter Christoph P , Ulich Thomas R , Guest James D
Published: July 2018

Background

Immature neurons can extend processes after transplantation in adult animals. Neuronal relays can form between injected neural stem cells (NSCs) and surviving neurons, possibly improving recovery after spinal cord injury (SCI). Cell delivery methods of single or multiple bolus injections of concentrated cell suspensions thus far tested in preclinical and clinical experiments are suboptimal for new tract formation. Nonuniform injectate dispersal is often seen due to gravitational cell settling and clumping. Multiple injections have additive risks of hemorrhage, parenchymal damage, and cellular reflux and require additional surgical exposure. The deposition of multiply delivered cells boluses may be uneven and discontinuous.

Objective

To develop an injection apparatus and methodology to deliver continuous cellular trails bridging spinal cord lesions.

Methods

We improved the uniformity of cellular trails by formulating NSCs in hyaluronic acid. The TrailmakerTM stereotaxic injection device was automatized to extend a shape memory needle from a single-entry point in the spinal cord longitudinal axis to “pioneer” a new trail space and then retract while depositing an hyaluronic acid-NSC suspension. We conducted testing in a collagen spinal models, and animal testing using human NSCs (hNSCs) in rats and minipigs.

Results

Continuous surviving trails of hNSCs within rat and minipig naive spinal cords were 12 and 40 mm in length. hNSC trails were delivered across semi-acute contusion injuries in rats. Transplanted hNSCs survived and were able to differentiate into neural lineage cells and astrocytes.

CONCLUSION

The TrailmakerTM creates longitudinal cellular trails spanning multiple levels from a single-entry point. This may enhance the ability of therapeutics to promote functional relays after SCI.
“Good Old Days”
Authors: Lange Barbara Rose
Published: July 2018

Chapter 1 explores how musicians and dancers in the Hungarian folk revival have reflected on the social costs of masculinity in Hungary. It describes how in the 1990s and 2000s, Central European men were in crisis, as multiple conflicting masculinities emerged. The chapter explains how contradictions of masculinity already present in the region’s history and society had unfolded in the Hungarian folk revival of the 1970s. The chapter details how at the turn of the new millennium, Hungarian artists used folk music and dance to reflect on themselves as men. It details how some of these artists acted to change social pressures on men, focusing on two projects that critiqued Hungarian masculinity: Ferenc Kiss’s concept album Nagyvárosi bujdosók (Outlaws of the city) and Szabolcs Gombai’s dance piece A férfi tánca (Dance of a man).
Ági Szalóki and Multiethnic Femininity
Authors: Lange Barbara Rose
Published: July 2018

Chapter 2 details how female performers with Romani (Gypsy) and Magyar ancestry face constraints of mixed ethnicity and gender, discussing the career of singer Ági Szalóki. The chapter outlines how Magyar female performers singing music of all regional ethnicities contributed to the folk revival in Hungary from the 1970s to the present; the international star Márta Sebestyén gave inspiration to young minority performers such as Szalóki, who then oriented their solo careers toward the liberalized society and the middle class. The chapter details how Szalóki left a Balkan Romani-style band to pursue solo projects that blended folk song and jazz, resisting expectations that Romani and other folk music should sound rustic. The chapter argues that Szalóki’s projects got the best response in feminine spheres such as children’s music, even as her solo work challenged ideas around male leadership. It describes ways in which Szalóki spoke out against far-right nationalism.
Iran and the Ottomans after Nader Shah
Authors: Tucker Ernest
Published: July 2018

This chapter discusses correspondence in early 1761 between Ahmad Shah Dorrani and Ottoman Sultan Mustafa III. Just after Ahmad Shah secured control over northern India, he sent Mustafa a letter proposing that they divide Iran between them, since Ahmad had also recently conquered Khorasan. Ahmad also asked the Ottomans to give him land in Medina on which to build a mosque. Mustafa’s response was measured. It called on Ahmad to give charity to the poor if he wanted to show piety, but did not offer to provide him any land in Medina for building a mosque. The letter also asked Ahmad to honor the 1746 Kordan Treaty, which had created the basis for peace between the Ottomans and Nader Shah. The initial letter and its response are analyzed in the eighteenth-century context of the rapidly changing political circumstances of Iran as well as the Dorrani and Ottoman Empires.
Behind the Green Door
Authors: Taiz Lincoln , Taiz Lee
Published: July 2018

Chapter 14 explores literary and scientific reactions to the idea of sex in plants. England experienced a fashion for “phytoerotica”: bawdy verse, in which plants represented human genitalia, and classically inspired poetry, in which stamens and pistils were personified as husbands, wives and lovers. The former had little to do with plants. The latter served to teach the Linnaean sexual classification system. In reaction, some botanists rejected both the sexual theory and the Linnaean system. Two camps developed, the “sexualists” and the “asexualists”. J.G. Siegesbeck railed, “[Who] will ever believe that God Almighty should have introduced such…shameful whoredom for the propagation of the reign of plants.” The negative impact of the sexual system on the morals of women became the asexualist’s rallying cry. In 1759, the Pope banned all Linnaeus’s books and ordered them burned. Nevertheless, Erasmus Darwin’s “Loves of Plants,” with its fascinating female plant characters, was a hit.
Idealism and Asexualism in the Age of Goethe
Authors: Taiz Lincoln , Taiz Lee
Published: July 2018

The resurgence of asexualism in Germany in the nineteenth century coincided with the Naturphilosophie movement associated with Romanticism which arose in reaction to mechanical models of the universe, among them Baron d’Holbach’s. Johann Gottlieb Fichte, a Kant disciple, claimed that the “absolute ego” creates it’s own reality, which we mistake for the “real world”. Friedrich Wilhelm Schelling, the “philosopher king” of the Romantics, attempted a balance between Fichte’s subjective idealism and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s (relative) objectivism. In general, nature philosophers granted equal weight to reason and to the imagination, and adopted a pantheistic theology, influenced by Baruch Spinoza. Franz Joseph Schelver believed the production of seeds was a vegetative process. August Henschell dismissed Koelreuter’s hybrids as artifacts resulting from experimental damage. He thought the release of pollen freed the spiritual essence of the plant from base matter. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel also challenged the sexual theory of plants.
Sex and the Single Cryptogam
Authors: Taiz Lincoln , Taiz Lee
Published: July 2018

As Chapter 17 makes clear, the asexualist/sexualists controversy continued even as Johann Hedwig and Karl von Nägel demonstrated the existence of sex in cryptogams by discovering the Alternation of Generations (1782, 1784), hybridizers A. F. Wiegman and Carl Friedrich von Gaertner recieved prestigious prizes for their work, and Giovanni Battista Amici and Adolphe-Theodore Brongniart discovered—and confirmed—the pollen tube. Unconvinced, Matthias Jacob Schleiden, co-founder of the cell theory, insisted that ferns grow asexually from spores, and that spores, not seeds, are the primary units of propagation in seed plants also. He argued (1853) that the entire life-cycle of seed plants is based on duplicative cell divisions that produce seeds entirely by vegetative processes. Following the Aristotelian doctrine that the female parent provides the material substance of the embryo, he concluded pollen must be a female structure that reproduces vegetatively—thus making the case for a unisexual, plants-as-female model.
Introduction
Authors: Gatta John
Published: July 2018

The question of how space becomes place, through human experience and imagination, has for some time occupied scholars of diverse disciplines. This book pursues the further religious question of how places have acquired hallowed or spirit-bearing meaning throughout the course of American literary history—not only in Christian or semipantheistic terms but as outgrowths of the ancient Roman principle of a site’s genius loci. After an opening chapter devoted to representations of home places, commentary proceeds to a chapter devoted to resettlement and pilgrimage themes; then to an inquiry about imagination in place; then to a literary-steeped sampling of diverse American sites and landforms; and finally to a consideration of how place-making and site-based learning might figure in collegiate educational programs. Along the way, this book’s spirit-of-place readings range across texts by canonical figures such as Thoreau, Stowe, Cather, and Wendell Berry as well as an array of lesser-known writers.
Sacred Sites and Geographies
Authors: Gatta John
Published: July 2018

This chapter’s reflection on an array of sacred sites and geographies opens with commentary on spatially rooted orientations of the genius loci as variously represented in texts by Marilynne Robinson, Thoreau, Richard Tillinghast, Black Elk, Melville, and others. Writers have often envisioned both watercourses and mountains as vehicles of spirited presence. And the striking liminality of place dramatized in Melville’s Moby-Dick becomes inseparable from that novel’s deep-diving interrogation of the world’s potentially sacred character. The hallowed aura of American battlegrounds and burial grounds is memorably confirmed through the ritualizing rhetoric of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Wastelands, too, contain a spiritual fecundity variously evoked in nonfictional writings by Ed Abbey, Terry Tempest Williams, and Kathleen Norris. Even a metropolis like New York can be envisioned as a scene of grace-amid-struggle in writings by Dorothy Day, James Baldwin, and Alfred Kazin—from the respective faith-inspired standpoints of Roman Catholicism, disaffected Protestant Christianity, and Judaism.
In the Ruins of Self-Knowledge
Authors: Hagberg Garry L.
Published: July 2018

Oedipus Tyrannus is an exacting study in philosophical psychology, portraying a mind that oscillates between competing conceptions of the sources of knowledge, between layered self-deception and moments of self-knowledge, and between competing self-narratives or self-descriptions. This essay explores the philosophical significance of this play by examining these inner tensions as they manifest in thought, word, and deed. This significance is described in terms of a self gradually becoming able to imagine itself and to describe itself in ways initially believed to be the imagining and describing of an unknown other, where a kind of “spectral presence” by steps becomes ever closer to the mind of Oedipus. This culminates at the final point where that imagined presence comes to correspond identically and tragically with the uncovered self that is the true Oedipus.
Philosophy of Logic
Authors: Rouilhan Philippe de
Published: July 2018

Logic may be characterized as the science aiming at revealing the deep logical structure of statements and, correlatively, at evaluating the arguments involving such statements. This chapter focuses on the content of different categories of expression of ordinary language, a question that arises typically in the analysis of singular terms and propositional attitudes. It starts from the paradoxes of the “indiscernibility of identicals” and goes through two main solutions to these paradoxes: a “logic of sense and denotation” (à la Frege) and a “logic of meaning” (à la Russell). A logic halfway between the two is also discussed. In the closing section, a comparative appraisal of these solutions is proposed.
Philosophy of Mathematics
Authors: Bonnay Denis
Published: July 2018

Philosophy of mathematics deals both with ontological issues (what is it that mathematics studies?) and epistemological issues (how is mathematical knowledge possible?). This chapter reviews the main answers given to these two sets of issues, stressing how interrelated they are. It starts from the classical opposition between empiricist, rational, and critical approaches to set the sage and poses the question of mathematics’ relationship with experience as well as the one of the respective roles of intuition and logical principles. A detailed account of two anti-realist programs (finitism and intuitionism) is provided. Arguments in favor of realism are presented, and distinct realist views are distinguished. Having confronted the epistemological difficulties of various realist views, the last part of the chapter deals with naturalist perspectives and mathematical structuralism.
Philosophy of Social Sciences
Authors: Elster Jon
Published: July 2018

This chapter addresses problems and themes in the social sciences. Social sciences are understood specifically as sciences that have (or should have) the following minimal characteristics: their object of study is human behavior and they follow a certain number of methodological principles, including a marked effort towards analytical clarity; the investigation of causal explanations through the formulation of causal laws or at least causal mechanisms; and a subscription to a form of methodological individualism, if an amended one, which puts at the heart of social science the notion of choice. We discuss three principal themes. The first raises the question of the status of laws in the social sciences and, in particular, that of “consequence laws,” otherwise known as functionalist explanations. The second theme takes up methodological individualism, as compared to holistic approaches. The last theme concerns hypotheses of rationality and self-interested motivations, which increasingly figure in social scientific explanations.
Direct Realism and the Extended Mind
Authors: Maloney J. Christopher
Published: July 2018

Representationalism rightly treats perception as a type of cognitive representation. However, it wrongly proposes that perceptual content determines phenomenal character. Rather, it is the form, not the content, of a perceptual representation that constitutes phenomenal character. For direct realism is true: Perception is that form of cognition in which representation and represented are the same. Other forms of cognition recruit representations that are distinct from what they represent. In contrast, perceptual representation extends the mind's reach into the world by casting the very object perceived in the role of a self-referential demonstrative. By fusing representation and represented perception provides direct acquaintance with what is seen exactly as it is seen to be and thus determines phenomenal character.
Direct Realism and Illusion
Authors: Maloney J. Christopher
Published: July 2018

The supposed problem of perceptual error, including illusion and hallucination, has led most theories of perception to deny formulations of direct realism. The standard response to this apparent problem adopts the mistaken presupposition that perception is indeed liable to error. However, the prevailing conditions of observation are themselves elements of perceptual representation, functioning in the manner of predicate modifiers. They ensure that the predicates applied in perceptual representations do indeed correctly attribute properties that perceived physical objects actually instantiate. Thus, perceptual representations are immune to misrepresentation of the sort misguidedly supposed by the spurious problem of perceptual misrepresentation. Granted the possibility that perceptual attribution admits of predicate modification, it is quite possible that perceptual experience permits both rudimentary and sophisticated conceptualization. Moreover, such treatment of perceptual predication rewards by providing an account of aspect alteration exemplified by perception of ambiguous stimuli.
Donald Rindale
Authors: Bakan Michael B.
Published: July 2018

Years ago, long before he was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome at the age of twenty-one, Donald Rindale described music as “the only love of my life.” It’s different for Donald now. “Honestly, if my trombone got run over by a tank, I’d be delighted,” he asserts, adding that being a musician “was a wonderful chapter of my life, but that page has long been turned.” We first meet Donald as a musicology graduate student on the verge of falling out of love with musicology and in love with the study of law. At chapter’s end some four years later, he has just graduated from law school and is envisioning a legal career involving autism and disability advocacy. But Donald retains a nostalgic fondness for music, which in his reckoning has been kinder to him than most people have: “The music did not laugh, or judge, or make nasty comments, or quizzical facial expressions and gestures at the sight of some unexpected behavioral tendencies, among other things. For those reasons, I will always love it.”
Amy Sequenzia
Authors: Bakan Michael B.
Published: July 2018

Amy Sequenzia is a non-speaking autistic woman with cerebral palsy and seizure disorder, but the last thing she needs is your pity and the last thing she wants is to be your “inspiration.” Amy is proud of who she is: a writer, an activist, a difference maker. And she is also proudly autistic, to the point that when asked, “If you could wave a magic wand and make your autism ‘disappear,’ would you?” she replies, “I would break the wand before anyone could wave it.” Amy has synesthesia and experiences music as color. Music also enables her to experience bodily sensations that she claims would otherwise be unavailable to her. “I am usually not very aware of my body,” she writes. “To simply get up from a chair is sometimes hard, as if my body forgets how to move . . . . So when I feel the music inside my body, when I feel my blood running with the music, it is an amazing thing.”
Addison Silar
Authors: Bakan Michael B.
Published: July 2018

Life can be difficult for teenager Addison Silar, but music makes it easier. Addison copes with Asperger’s syndrome, bipolar disorder, and ADHD, not to mention being the biggest kid in virtually any class he takes, yet invariably one of the gentlest and thus a target for bullying. He has a rich imagination and dedicates much of his creativity to writing science fiction. This chapter chronicles his creation of an in-progress sci-fi novel, “The Unfortunate Project,” and especially the “writing to music” process he employs to transform musical sounds into fictional worlds. “[W]hen I put the music on I get a creative spark-type thing,” Addison explains, “’cause usually it’s hard for me to think, and when I get that creative spark I honestly couldn’t tell you what comes through my head, but I feel I’m able to take the song and in a sense manipulate it and put it into words.” Addison applies a similar music-infused process to the writing of poetry, yielding poignant verses such as this one: “That place your heart desires / It is shaped to your being / It has everything you want / And nothing you need / It belongs with you / Wherever you go / To help people that you don’t know.”
Introduction
Authors: Inclán María
Published: July 2018

This chapter introduces the main argument of the book, namely that democratic transitions bring about opportunities for insurgent social movements to mobilize, succeed, and survive, but these opportunities do not necessarily follow each other progressively. A democratization process might open up opportunities to launch a cycle of protests, and the movement’s great mobilization capacity might create opportunities for it to survive. However, these openings might not be enough to reach significant concessions. Opportunities for success depend on whether negotiations with insurgents are included in democratizing pacts among political elites. To illustrate these arguments, the chapter provides an account of the development of the Zapatista movement from its public emergence in 1994 through 2003. This time frame contextualizes the movement within Mexico’s democratic transition. The chapter closes with an overview of the organization of the book.
Opportunities for Success
Authors: Inclán María
Published: July 2018

This chapter first identifies democratization processes in which insurgents have successfully achieved their goals. It then compares those scenarios to one in which insurgents failed to better distinguish the conditions that might work as opportunities for them to succeed. These conditions are (1) being able to negotiate directly with the authorities, (2) having their interests included within democratizing pacts, and (3) counting with allies among elite actors negotiating peace and democratizing reforms. By applying these expectations to the case of the Zapatista movement, the chapter argues that when peace negotiations between insurgents and authorities occur separately from democratizing pacts among political elites, concessions to insurgent interests can be limited. Although insurgents might have allies in power and among those negotiating the new, more democratic order, if they are excluded from democratizing negotiations, their demands can easily be ignored.
Opportunities for Survival
Authors: Inclán María
Published: July 2018

This chapter reviews the assumptions that the literature makes about the role that mobilizing networks and discourse framing play in sustaining and achieving a social movement’s objectives. It compares these assumptions to the development of the Zapatista movement. Using illustrations from Zapatismo, the chapter shows how despite lacking opportunities for success, mobilizing opportunities can be enough for a movement to construct a transnational solidarity network of support to maintain its campaign. In doing so, it also highlights the long-term effects of transnational organizations in shaping a local movement’s discourse through time, which in turn may contribute to the movement’s survival. The ability of the movement to reframe its discourse also enables it to adapt to changing national and international political environments.
Punishment and Proportionality: Part 1
Authors: Deigh John
Published: July 2018

This essay concerns the question of the standard of justice by which the severity of punishment is determined relative to the seriousness of the crime for which it is inflicted. The essay puts forward the view that the standard by which the severity of punishment is determined to be proportional to the seriousness of the crime is the minimal amount of harm necessary to preserve social order. The view is based on an understanding of punishment as harm that is intentionally and openly inflicted on someone in retaliation for something he or she did. Such retaliation serves to preserve the social order when its targets are individuals who are less powerful than the retaliators or their agents. On this understanding of punishment, the standard the essay puts forward for determining the severity of punishment is more just than the standard applied to achieve optimal deterrence.