bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Unity, Uniformity and Diversity: the Anglican Liturgy in England and the United States, 1900-1940
Authors: Dudley Martin
Published: March 2016

‘Uniformity’, declared Sir John Nicholl, one of the greatest of Anglican ecclesiastical lawyers, ‘is one of the leading and distinguishing principles of the Church of England - nothing is left to the discretion and fancy of the individual.’ At the Reformation the English Church was distinguished not by the decisions of councils, confessional statements, or the writings of particular leaders, but by one uniform liturgy. This liturgy, ‘containing nothing contrary to the Word of God, or to sound Doctrine’ and consonant with the practice of the early Church, was intended to ‘preserve Peace and Unity in the Church’ and to edify the people. It was also opposed to the ‘great diversity in saying and singing in Churches within this Realm’ and, abolishing the liturgical uses of Salisbury, Hereford, Bangor, York, and Lincoln, it established that ‘now from henceforth all the whole Realm shall have but one Use’. This principle of liturgical uniformity was enshrined in the several Acts of Uniformity from that of the second year of King Edward VI to that of the fourteenth year of Charles II, amended, but not abolished, in the reign of Queen Victoria. It was a principle conveyed to the churches in the colonies so that, even if they revised or abandoned the Book of Common Prayer in use in England, as the Americans did in 1789, what was substituted was called ‘The Book of Common Prayer and declared to be ‘the Liturgy of this Church’ to be ‘received as such by all members of the same’. The principle of uniformity was modified during the Anglican Communion’s missionary expansion. The Lambeth Conference of 1920 considered that liturgical uniformity throughout the Churches of the Anglican Communion was not a necessity, but the 1930 Conference held that the Book of Common Prayer, as authorized in the several Churches of the Communion, was the place where faith and order were set forth, and so implied a degree of uniformity maintained by the use of a single book.
St Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury, and the ‘First Books of the Whole English Church’
Authors: Emms Richard
Published: March 2016

Early in the fifteenth century, Thomas of Elmham, who grew up in Norfolk and became a monk of St Augustine’s abbey, Canterbury, began to write and illustrate an ambitious history of his monastery. It may be that his interest in history arose from his early years at Elmham, site of the see of East Anglia in late Anglo-Saxon times. This could explain why he became a monk at the oldest monastic establishment in England instead of at the local Benedictine houses, such as Bury St Edmunds, Ely, or Norwich. Clearly he developed his historical interests at St Augustine’s with its ancient books and relics, even though, apart from the chapel of St Pancras and St Martin’s church nearby, pre-Conquest buildings were no longer to be seen.
Biblical Authority in the Writing of Pope Innocent IV (1243-54)
Authors: Martin Susan
Published: March 2016

When discussing the thirteenth-century concept of Christian unity, Jack Watt asserted, ‘Too little is as yet known of the interaction of theological and canonical thought to be able to say with precision just what the canonists contributed to this development among more abstract thinkers and what they received from it.’ Thirty-five years on this comment largely remains true for our knowledge of the inter-relation of theology and canon law in the thirteenth century. Little attention has been paid to the impact of theology on canon law, and even less to canon law on theological thinking. G.R. Evans claimed, ‘Canon law glosses tend to be conservative and less theologically sophisticated than contemporary theological work.’ That comment could be seen as an explanation for how little attention has been paid to the theological content of canonical writing. However, canon law glosses were written principally to investigate law. The area of ‘sophistication’ was different. Yet, this is not to say that there was no interest in theological questions and their possible solutions on the part of the canonists. All canon lawyers had a theological education, and they cited biblical references to support their arguments extensively. This paper aims to show that the use and understanding of contemporary medieval theology had an important impact on the writing of thirteenth-century canon lawyers, which should not be readily overlooked by modern scholars.
Luther and the Book: The Iconography of the Ninety-Five Theses
Authors: Cummings Brian
Published: March 2016

Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses are not perhaps the book of the millennium, but they have some claim to being one of the books of the half-millennium. Few books in Church history can have had as much effect as this single-page broadsheet. Through this text, or so it is sometimes represented, Western Christianity was cut in two. The Ninety-Five Theses heralded the new age of print, with its capacity to transform culture in ways which have a strong resonance with our own ‘age of information’. The theses, it was said, were known throughout Germany in a fortnight and Europe in a month. With some justice, the theses have been described as the publishing event of the sixteenth century, and the first media sensation of the modern era.
‘The Good Old Way’: Prayer Book Protestantism in the 1640s and 1650s
Authors: Maltby Judith
Published: March 2016

Between 1640 and 1642 the Church of England collapsed, its leaders reviled and discredited, its structures paralysed, its practices if not yet proscribed, at least inhibited. In the years that followed, yet worse was to befall it. And yet in every year of its persecution after 1646, new shoots sprang up out of the fallen timber: bereft of episcopal leadership, lacking any power of coercion, its observances illegal, anglicanism thrived. As memories of the 1630s faded and were overlaid by the tyrannies of the 1640s … the deeper rhythms of the Kalendar and the ingrained perfections of Cranmer’s liturgies bound a growing majority together.

Professor John Morrill, quoted above, has rightly identified a set of historiographical contradictions about the Stuart Church in a series of important articles. Historians have until recently paid little attention to the positive and popular elements of conformity to the national Church of England in the period before the civil war. The lack of interest in conformity has led to a seventeenth-century version of the old Whig view of the late medieval Church: the Church of England is presented as a complacent, corrupt, and clericalist institution, ‘ripe’ – as the English Church in the early sixteenth century was ‘ripe’ – to be purified by reformers. However, if this was the case, how does one account for the durable commitment to the Prayer Book demonstrated during the 1640s and 1650s and the widespread – but not universal – support for the ‘return’ of the Church of England in 1660?This paper contributes to the larger exploration of the theme of ‘the Church and the book’ by addressing in particular the continued use by clergy and laity alike of one ‘book’ – the Book of Common Prayer – after its banning by Parliament during the years of civil war and the Commonwealth.
Provision of Books for Poor Clergy Parochial Libraries in the British Isles and the North American Colonies, 1680–1720
Authors: Jacob W.M.
Published: March 2016

For ministers of Word and sacraments in a reformed Church, books were part of their stock-in-trade. By the late seventeenth century books were widely available, and theological books were the staple of the publishing trade. Possession of books distinguished the inventories of deceased clerics whose wills were proved in consistory courts from their lay neighbours, but books were still too expensive for poorer clergy to buy.
Writing the History of the English Bible in the Early Eighteenth Century
Authors: Mandelbrote Scott
Published: March 2016

The letter of Scripture suffering various Interpretations, it is plain that Error may pretend to Scripture; the antient Fathers being likewise dead, and not able to vindicate themselves, their writings may be wrested, and Error may make use of them to back itself; Reason too being bypassed by Interest, Education, Passion, Society, &c…. Tradition only rests secure.

The 1680s were a difficult decade for the English Bible, just as they were for so many of the other institutions of the English Protestant establishment. Roman Catholic critics of the Church of England, emboldened by the patronage of James II and his court, engaged in controversy over the rule of faith and the identity of the true Church, much as they had done in the early years of the Reformation or in the 1630s. Nonconformists and freethinkers deployed arguments drawn from Catholic scholarship, in particular from the work of the French Oratorian Richard Simon, and joined in ridicule of the Bible as a sure and sufficient foundation for Christian belief.
Cultural conflicts in the missions of saint Boniface
Authors: Keep David
Published: March 2016

A passing comment from a visitor from Fulda to the thirteen hundredth anniversary celebrations for the birth of Boniface at Crediton on 5 June 1980 aptly sums up the purpose of this paper. He observed that without the work of Boniface there could have been no Bismarck. Thus in a sense the Wessex missionary who was so much more a papal legate than an evengelist laid the foundation for the third as well as the second Reich when he consecrated Pepin III king of the Franks in 751. Whether like John Foxe ‘we find of him in stories, that he was a great setter-up and upholder of such blind superstition, and of all popery’ or like his latest biographer we consider that ‘a devotion and a perseverence equal to that which he so nobly exhibited will be needed if our fragmented Church is to become that one true family which the Saviour himself desired it to be’, there is no doubt that he worked for a supranational rather than an intertribal ideal. He has as much claim as Benedict to be the patron saint of a united Europe since it was his work which inspired the imperial decrees of 743, 754 and 757 which made the Rule obligatory. Christopher Dawson’s judgement that he was ‘the greatest Englishman’ is based more on his subtle blending of Frankish with papal influence over the Saxons and his diplomatic regularisation of the Frankish church. As a missionary he is one of a noble line of Celts, Angles and Saxons who converted the heathen. This tradition inspired his original visit to Radbod of Frisia in 716 and his work with Willibrord 719-21.
The Benedictine revival in the north: the last bulwark of Anglo-Saxon monasticism?
Authors: Dawtry Anne
Published: March 2016

The midland houses of Winchcombe and Evesham restored monasticism to the north in a fervent and wholly English form. No one can read the history of this migration and the subsequent history of Durham without feeling that here, at least, English monastic life was sound.’

In these words, Knowles summed up his view of the type of monastic observance which was instituted in the houses of the northernrenovatioafter the Norman Conquest. Certainly there were important Anglo-Saxon elements present in the revival of Benedictine monasticism in the north of England; Durham, Whitby and St Mary’s, York, owed much to the Anglo-Saxon monastic life as retained at Worcester and Evesham after the Norman Conquest.
Royal control of the church in the twelfth-century kingdom of Sicily
Authors: Loud G. A.
Published: March 2016

For the king, after the fashion of tyrants, had reduced the church in his kingdom to slavery’. So John of Salisbury stigmatized king Roger II of Sicily. He continued that ‘instead of allowing any freedom of elections [Roger] named in advance the candidate to be elected, so disposing of all ecclesiastical offices like palace appointments’. This picture has been accepted by modern historians with very few reservations. To quote the standard history of the Norman kingdom of Sicily of Ferdinand Chalandon, still unrivalled after more than seventy years, ce qui caractérise la situation des évêques a l’époque normande, c’est la dépendance absolue où ils se trouvent vis-à-vis du roi.
Religion, nationalism and national identity in medieval Spain and Portugal
Authors: Linehan Peter
Published: March 2016

A no ser por el Clero, y en especial por el Episcopado español’, declared Vicente de Lafuente a century ago, ‘España sería un pais sin historia, pues la historia sin escribir no es historia’. Lafuente himself was a layman—though it did not always show—with conventional views regarding the ‘democratic tyranny’ of his age which a spell as rector of Madrid university during the student and other troubles of the mid-1870s served only to reinforce. He found it odd that he rather than an ecclesiastic should have written the first ecclesiastical history of Spain. A committee of churchmen had been formed in Rome for the purpose in 1747, but it is too soon to report on the outcome of that venture. Lafuente’s history, though more than a century old, is still the only full-scale work of its kind by a Spaniard—’and since that time there is not a single chronicle that I can discover; though (like John of Salisbury in his day) I have found in church archives notes of memorable events which could be of help to any future writers who may appear’. In presenting some of these notes here, in the context of the theme of this conference, I find myself altogether less daunted by the notion of nationalism, which a self–respecting medievalist is expected fastidiously to eschew, than by the problem of how to evaluate the testimony of so many witnesses, clerical and lay, medieval and modern.
Lollardy: the English heresy?
Authors: Hudson Anne
Published: March 2016

Sythen witte stondis not in langage but in groundynge of treuthe, for tho same witte is in Laten that is in Grew or Ebrew, and trouthe schuld be openly knowen to alle manere of folke, trowthe moueth mony men to speke sentencis in Yngelysche that thai han gedired in Latyne, and herfore bene men holden heretikis.

Such is the opening sentence of the tract known in the only surviving manuscript as Tractatus de Regibus. The text owes much of its material to Wyclif’s De Officio Regis, though the prologue does not derive from this source, and is undoubtedly of lollard origin; its date cannot be later than the early fifteenth century. The sentiments of the first part of the sentence are typically Wycliffite, though not exclusively so. The interesting part of it is the last clause, and particularly the word herfore. I want in this paper to investigate the implications and validity of this word. The meaning of the word is superficially clear: ‘for this reason are men considered heretics’—most modern writers would use ‘therefore’.
The first century of English protestantism and the growth of national identity
Authors: Fletcher Anthony
Published: March 2016

Their sense of national identity is not something that men have been in the habit of directly recording. Its strength or weakness, in relation to commitment to international causes or to localist sentiment, can often only be inferred by examining political and religious attitudes and personal behaviour. So far as the early modern period is concerned, the subject is hazardous because groups and individuals must have varied enormously in the extent to which national identity meant something to them or influenced their lives. The temptation to generalise must be resisted. It is all too easy to suppose that national identity became well established in England in the Tudor century, when a national culture, based on widespread literacy among gentry, yeomen and townsmen, flowered as it had never done before, when the bible was first generally available in English, when John Foxe produced his celebrated Acts and Monuments, better known as the Book of Martyrs. Recent work reassessing the significance of Foxe’s account of the English reformation and other Elizabethan polemical writings provdes a convenient starting point for this brief investigation of some of the connections between religious zeal and national consciousness between 1558 and 1642.
Eighteenth-century Geneva and a changing Calvinism
Authors: Kirk Linda
Published: March 2016

Calvin’s reformed Geneva had as its motto post tenebras lux; the city set on a hill found an identity not only in maintaining the precarious miracle of political independence but in the God-given task of preserving truth and shedding light. In the sixteenth century the republic bore witness to its salvation through a corporate life of ordered righteousness, by printed propaganda and through a stream of missionaries and martyrs. Sympathisers also poured into Geneva but while many sixteenth-century exiles from France and French-speaking territories had quickly assumed important office in the Genevan church and the economic and political life of the republic, those who arrived after 1685 found themselves for the most part trapped in second-class employment enjoying second-class civil rights. Briefly, the central change was that Calvin’s city had depended for its survival on the commitment and capital of newcomers—like Calvin himself—while eighteenth-century Geneva had bred and trained its own clergy and men of affairs. In 1769 Jacob Vernet wrote of the hereditary right of the Genevan citizen to his rôle in the city’s life.
Religion and the doctrine of nationalism in England at the time of the French revolution and Napoleonic wars
Authors: Stafford William
Published: March 2016

The Maxim my country right or wrong is unquestionably difficult and perhaps impossible to justify; certainly no Christian can easily regard the nation as the supreme object of loyalty. Yet during the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars intensive efforts were made in press and pulpit, through the courts and through informal social pressure, to enhance patriotism. Patriotism almost certainly became stronger and more widely diffused. How did the denominations respond to this dilemma? My aim is to suggest some links between denominational affiliation and attitudes to nationalism. The topic is an important one; at this time religion usually set the terms of the debate about loyalty.
Bishop Gosse of Liverpool (1865–1872) and the importance of being English
Authors: Doyle Peter
Published: March 2016

The papal bullUniversalis Ecclesiaeof 1850 set up a hierarchy of bishops with ordinary power to replace the vicars apostolic who had ruled the catholic church in England since 1688. It stated explicitly that the new bishops were to have all the necessary powers to rule their dioceses in the same way as titular bishops elsewhere, and it spoke clearly about the resumption of the ‘common law of the church’ in England. Yet the commitment of the Roman authorities to a fully independent hierarchy was not wholehearted. The church in England was to remain under the aegis of the Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith (Propaganda), whose normal brief was to look after missionary territories not stable enough to have properly constituted hierarchies. According to the bull, the English bishops were to send regular reports on the state of their dioceses to Rome, and were to be diligent in informing Propaganda ‘of everything which they shall think profitable for the spiritual good of their flocks’.
The Scottish religious identity in the Atlantic world 1880–1914
Authors: Aspinwall Bernard
Published: March 2016

In the generation before the first world war, Scottish national identity was found not in the church, established or free, but in the town hall; in an ethical Christian community faith rather than ‘churchianity’. For Scotland was a working model of the civic church of W. T. Stead. In particular in Glasgow, that faith of the ‘new’ professional layman proved itself flexible, responsive to urban social problems and readily exportable. Civic patriotism was at once national and international.
Ulster presbyterians and Irish nationalism
Authors: Holmes R. F. G.
Published: March 2016

The stubborn resistance of the protestants of Ulster to the Irish national movement is a notorious fact of modern Anglo-Irish history. Though such resistance to national movements by a minority is by no means a unique phenomenon in the history of nationalism, it may be, as Peter Gibbon claims, in hisOrigins of Ulster Unionism,that ‘nowhere else has such a movement encountered a rival of comparable effectiveness, popular support and staying power’. Much of that popular support and staying power came from the presbyterians of Ulster, for, as T. W. Moody has written:

The stronghold of Ulster protestantism has always been the presbyterian church, rooted in the Scottish reformation and maintaining close and continuous contact with Scotland. Probably the most important social institution of protestant Ulster, it is the only church in Ulster whose members are concentrated in the province and whose structure and government are provincial.

Significantly, until the formation of the general assembly of the presbyterian church in Ireland in 1840, the mainstream presbyterian body in Ireland was the synod of Ulster.
Councils and synods in thirteenth-century Castile and Aragon
Authors: Linehan Peter
Published: March 2016

In 1228 Gregory IX dispatched as his legate to the Spanish Peninsula the Paris theologian and Cardinal-Bishop of Sabina, John of Abbeville: the first legate sent there since before the Fourth Lateran Council and the last to come during the entire thirteenth century in the cause of ecclesiastical reform. During his stay, which lasted for some fifteen months, he held at least three councils, but of only one of these—the Lérida Council of March 1229—have the statutes come down to us intact. Though he visited Portugal as well as Castile and Aragon, this brief communication is concerned only with John’s impact on the Castilian and Aragonese Churches during the central years of the century, and with a summary consideration of the quite different reception which John’s reform programme received in each place.
Education in English ecclesiastical legislation of the later Middle Ages
Authors: Haines Roy M.
Published: March 2016

Provincial and diocesan legislation provided a coherent system of religious education at a time when opportunities for study were few. It is true that in content little was new, but there was much in the way of reiteration, development and expansion, with particular attention to the practical details of implementation.

Mediaeval education is often discussed in terms of clerical education on the one hand, and of lay education on the other. In this context they are one. The priest had first to learn before he could teach, and what was taught can roughly be summed up as faith, morals, and knowledge of the Church’s law. It remains true that some things were more appropriate for the clerical than the lay ear.
The Convocation of 1710: an Anglican attempt at counter-revolution
Authors: Bennett G. V.
Published: March 2016

The Revolution of 1688 began for the clergy of the Church of England an era of grave crisis. It was not merely that the deposition of James II had posed for many of them a critical question of conscience. More serious were the effects of the Toleration Act of 1689 which quickly showed themselves in diminished attendances at church, and in a marked decline in the authority and status of the parish priest. By its literal provisions the act permitted dissenters a bare liberty to worship in their own way; but, as interpreted by successive administrations and by the great majority of the laity, it effected an ecclesiastical revolution. Although various statutes required all Englishmen to attend their parish-church each Sunday, and though the act merely permitted them to go to a meeting-house instead, it was widely held after 1689 that church-attendance was voluntary. The ecclesiastical courts continued to exercise their traditional jurisdiction in matrimonial, probate, and faculty causes, and over the clergy; but their coercive authority over the morals and religious duties of the laity became virtually impossible to enforce.
Explaining Durable Business Coalitions in U.S. Politics: Conservatives and Corporate Interests across America's Statehouses
Authors: Hertel-Fernandez Alexander
Published: March 2016

Scholars of business mobilization emphasize that national, cross-sector employer associations are difficult to create and maintain in decentralized pluralist polities like the United States. This article considers an unusual case of a U.S. business group—the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)—that has succeeded in creating a durable coalition of diverse firms and conservative political activists. This group has emerged since the 1970s as an important infrastructure for facilitating corporate involvement in the policymaking process across states. Assessing variation within this group over time through both its successes and missteps, I show the importance of organizational strategies for cementing political coalitions between otherwise fractious political activists and corporate executives from diverse industries. A shadow comparison between ALEC and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce further serves to reinforce the importance of organizational structure for business association management. My findings engage with literatures in both American business history and comparative political economy, underscoring the difficulties of forming business coalitions in liberal political economies while also showing how savvy political entrepreneurs can still successfully unite otherwise fragmented corporate interests. These conclusions, in turn, have implications for our understanding of business mobilization and corporate influence in politics.
Moderating effects of social engagement on driving cessation in older women
Authors: Pachana Nancy A. , Leung Janni K , Gardiner Paul A , McLaughlin Deirdre
Published: March 2016

Background:

Driving cessation in later life is associated with depression. This study examines if social support can buffer the negative effects of driving cessation on older women's mental health.

Methods:

Participants were drawn from the 1921–1926 cohort of the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health (ALSWH) and included 4,075 older women (aged 76–87 years) who drove at baseline, following them for three years to assess driving cessation. The outcome variable was mental health, measured by the mental health index (MHI) of the SF-36. The explanatory variables were social support factors, including social interaction, whether the women were living alone or with others, and engagement in social activities. Control variables included age, country of birth, area of residence, ability to manage on income, marital status, and general health.

Results:

Main effect results showed that poor mental health was predicted by driving cessation, low levels of social interaction, and non-engagement in social activities. There was a significant interaction effect of driving status by social activities engagement on mental health. Women who remained active in their engagement of social activities were able to maintain a good level of mental health despite driving cessation.

Conclusion:

Engagement and participation in social activities can help older women who stopped driving maintain a good level of mental health.
HUMAN CAPITAL PRODUCTIVITY, ENDOGENOUS GROWTH, AND WELFARE: THE ROLE OF UNCERTAINTY
Authors: Diene Mbaye , Diene Bity , Azomahou Théophile T.
Published: March 2016

Several policies or interventions have been implemented in developing countries with the ultimate goal of improving educational outcomes and human capital. Although many empirical studies have pointed to mixed results of these interventions, the role of uncertainty arising from the state of nature about the educational environment and household characteristics in the efficiency of these interventions still lacks an economic mechanism. This paper aims at developing a theoretical framework that links policy interventions to educational outcomes. We characterize optimal policies and determine the conditions for enhancing social welfare.
Weak interest in the weaker language
Authors: BERNARDINI PETRA
Published: March 2016

Carroll's paper (Carroll) is most welcomed and shows that the weaker language is still to be explored from various points of views. Over twenty years after the publication of Schlyter's paper, “The weaker language in bilingual Swedish-French children”, not only is the topic of the weaker language of simultaneous bilinguals still a clearly under-researched area, but it is also, as Carroll shows, a crucial domain of research in the discussion of properties and constraints of the human Language Making Capacity (LMC).
THE ENTHUSIASM OF DAVID RICARDO
Authors: WALTER RYAN
Published: March 2016

Britons viewed speculative thinking as a primary cause of the French Revolution and the disorders that followed. In this context, Edmund Burke and others identified a form of enthusiasm that was theoretical, not religious, in nature, but which also corrupted reasoning to disastrous effect. This article investigates how this accusation was made against David Ricardo and his political economy, and the variable defences that he deployed. The result is to uncover the language that was used to appraise political economy in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, along with the intellectual disciplines that were prescribed to protect economic reasoning from falling into fantasy.
Associations Between Interpersonal Relationships and Negative Affect in Adolescents
Authors: Lennarz Hannah K. , van Roekel Eeske , Kuntsche Emmanuel , Lichtwarck-Aschoff Anna , Hollenstein Tom , Engels Rutger C. M. E. , Granic Isabela
Published: March 2016

Abstract. Previous studies focused mostly on predicting the adjustment of adolescents based on distinct coping strategies. However, people generally do not use only one coping strategy, but rather select from a repertoire of coping strategies. This study aimed to identify these repertoires by categorizing adolescents by the coping strategies they use and by examining whether these typologies moderate the well-established relationship between negative affect and interpersonal relationships (e.g., close, acquaintances, alone). The experience sampling method (ESM) was used to assess negative affect and the interpersonal relationships of 280 adolescents (Mage= 14.19, SDage= .54; 59% girls) at nine randomly chosen times on six consecutive days. Coping strategies were measured with a questionnaire prior to ESM. Latent profile analysis revealed two profiles: passive copers and active copers. Furthermore, all participants reported less negative affect when they were with people with whom they had close interpersonal relationships (family and friends) than when they were with acquaintances (class or teammates) or alone. No moderation of coping typologies was revealed. The results underscore the importance of close interpersonal relationships to buffer against negative affect during adolescence and support the notion that the relationship between negative affect and close interpersonal relationships is strong, as it is not moderated by the method used to deal with negative events.
Without Conscious Effort
Authors: Lo Lap-Yan
Published: March 2016

Abstract. Tonal language speakers perform well in discriminating lexical tones in their own language. However, it is unknown whether their proficiency extends to the nonlinguistic context. This study compared the accuracy of performance of Cantonese and English speakers on tonal discrimination tasks. The findings demonstrated that the Cantonese speakers performed better than the English speakers in discriminating lexical tones in the linguistic context, even when the stimuli could not be consciously perceived. Nevertheless, there was no significant performance difference between Cantonese and English speakers in discriminating nonlexical tones in the nonlinguistic context. The results demonstrate the excellence of the linguistic component to tolerate noise. Moreover, the contrastive findings obtained in this study suggest that the transferability of the experience with lexical tones to nonlinguistic activities can be highly contextualized.
Nucleation of amorphous shear bands at nanotwins in boron suboxide
Authors: An Qi , Reddy K. Madhav , Qian Jin , Hemker Kevin J. , Chen Ming-Wei , Goddard III William A.
Published: March 2016

The roles of grain boundaries and twin boundaries in mechanical properties are well understood for metals and alloys. However, for covalent solids, their roles in deformation response to applied stress are not established. Here we characterize the nanotwins in boron suboxide (B6O) with twin boundaries along the "Equation missing" planes using both scanning transmission electron microscopy and quantum mechanics. Then, we use quantum mechanics to determine the deformation mechanism for perfect and twinned B6O crystals for both pure shear and biaxial shear deformations. Quantum mechanics suggests that amorphous bands nucleate preferentially at the twin boundaries in B6O because the twinned structure has a lower maximum shear strength by 7.5% compared with perfect structure. These results, which are supported by experimental observations of the coordinated existence of nanotwins and amorphous shear bands in B6O, provide a plausible atomistic explanation for the influence of nanotwins on the deformation behaviour of superhard ceramics.
Inhibition of IL-1R1/MyD88 signalling promotes mesenchymal stem cell-driven tissue regeneration
Authors: Martino Mikaël M. , Maruyama Kenta , Kuhn Gisela A. , Satoh Takashi , Takeuchi Osamu , Müller Ralph , Akira Shizuo
Published: March 2016

Tissue injury and the healing response lead to the release of endogenous danger signals including Toll-like receptor (TLR) and interleukin-1 receptor, type 1 (IL-1R1) ligands, which modulate the immune microenvironment. Because TLRs and IL-1R1 have been shown to influence the repair process of various tissues, we explored their role during bone regeneration, seeking to design regenerative strategies integrating a control of their signalling. Here we show that IL-1R1/MyD88 signalling negatively regulates bone regeneration, in the mouse. Furthermore, IL-1β which is released at the bone injury site, inhibits the regenerative capacities of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). Mechanistically, IL-1R1/MyD88 signalling impairs MSC proliferation, migration and differentiation by inhibiting the Akt/GSK-3β/β-catenin pathway. Lastly, as a proof of concept, we engineer a MSC delivery system integrating inhibitors of IL-1R1/MyD88 signalling. Using this strategy, we considerably improve MSC-based bone regeneration in the mouse, demonstrating that this approach may be useful in regenerative medicine applications.
Zbtb20 promotes astrocytogenesis during neocortical development
Authors: Nagao Motoshi , Ogata Toru , Sawada Yasuhiro , Gotoh Yukiko
Published: March 2016

Multipotent neural precursor cells (NPCs) generate astrocytes at late stages of mammalian neocortical development. Many signalling pathways that regulate astrocytogenesis directly induce the expression of GFAP, a marker of terminally differentiated astrocytes. However, astrocyte specification occurs before GFAP expression and essential factors for the specification step have remained elusive. Here we show that Zbtb20 regulates astrocyte specification in the mouse neocortex. Zbtb20 is highly expressed in late-stage NPCs and their astrocytic progeny. Overexpression and knockdown of Zbtb20 promote and suppress astrocytogenesis, respectively, although Zbtb20 does not directly activate the Gfap promoter. Astrocyte induction by Zbtb20 is suppressed by knockdown of Sox9 or NFIA. Furthermore, in the astrocyte lineage, Zbtb20 directly represses the expression of Brn2, which encodes a protein necessary for upper-layer neuron specification. Zbtb20 is thus a key determinant of astrocytogenesis, in which it collaborates with Sox9 and NFIA, and acts in part through direct repression of Brn2 expression.
Multi-spectral Metasurface for Different Functional Control of Reflection Waves
Authors: Huang Cheng , Pan Wenbo , Ma Xiaoliang , Luo Xiangang
Published: March 2016

Metasurface have recently generated much interest due to its strong manipulation of electromagnetic wave and its easy fabrication compared to bulky metamaterial. Here, we propose the design of a multi-spectral metasurface that can achieve beam deflection and broadband diffusion simultaneously at two different frequency bands. The metasurface is composed of two-layered metallic patterns backed by a metallic ground plane. The top-layer metasurface utilizes the cross-line structures with two different dimensions for producing 0 and π reflection phase response, while the bottom-layer metasurface is realized by a topological morphing of the I-shaped patterns for creating the gradient phase distribution. The whole metasurface is demonstrated to independently control the reflected waves to realize different functions at two bands when illuminated by a normal linear-polarized wave. Both simulation and experimental results show that the beam deflection is achieved at K-band with broadband diffusion at X-Ku band.
Attenuation of Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilm formation by Vitexin: A combinatorial study with azithromycin and gentamicin
Authors: Das Manash C. , Sandhu Padmani , Gupta Priya , Rudrapaul Prasenjit , De Utpal C. , Tribedi Prosun , Akhter Yusuf , Bhattacharjee Surajit
Published: March 2016

Microbial biofilm are communities of surface-adhered cells enclosed in a matrix of extracellular polymeric substances. Extensive use of antibiotics to treat biofilm associated infections has led to the emergence of multiple drug resistant strains.Pseudomonas aeruginosais recognised as a model biofilm forming pathogenic bacterium. Vitexin, a polyphenolic group of phytochemical with antimicrobial property, has been studied for its antibiofilm potential againstPseudomonas aeruginosain combination with azithromycin and gentamicin. Vitexin shows minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) at 260 μg/ml. It’s antibiofilm activity was evaluated by safranin staining, protein extraction, microscopy methods, quantification of EPS andin vivomodels using several sub-MIC doses. Various quorum sensing (QS) mediated phenomenon such as swarming motility, azocasein degrading protease activity, pyoverdin and pyocyanin production, LasA and LasB activity of the bacteria were also evaluated. Results showed marked attenuation in biofilm formation and QS mediated phenotype ofPseudomonas aeruginosain presence of 110 μg/ml vitexin in combination with azithromycin and gentamicin separately. Molecular docking of vitexin with QS associated LuxR, LasA, LasI and motility related proteins showed high and reasonable binding affinity respectively. The study explores the antibiofilm potential of vitexin againstP. aeruginosawhich can be used as a new antibiofilm agent against microbial biofilm associated pathogenesis.
Ultra rapid in vivo screening for anti-Alzheimer anti-amyloid drugs
Authors: Espargaró Alba , Medina Aina , Di Pietro Ornella , Muñoz-Torrero Diego , Sabate Raimon
Published: March 2016

More than 46 million people worldwide suffer from Alzheimer’s disease. A large number of potential treatments have been proposed; among these, the inhibition of the aggregation of amyloid β-peptide (Aβ), considered one of the main culprits in Alzheimer’s disease. Limitations in monitoring the aggregation of Aβ in cells and tissues restrict the screening of anti-amyloid drugs to in vitro studies in most cases. We have developed a simple but powerful method to track Aβ aggregation in vivo in real-time, using bacteria as in vivo amyloid reservoir. We use the specific amyloid dye Thioflavin-S (Th-S) to stain bacterial inclusion bodies (IBs), in this case mainly formed of Aβ in amyloid conformation. Th-S binding to amyloids leads to an increment of fluorescence that can be monitored. The quantification of the Th-S fluorescence along the time allows tracking Aβ aggregation and the effect of potential anti-aggregating agents.
Low Energy Atomic Models Suggesting a Pilus Structure that could Account for Electrical Conductivity of Geobacter sulfurreducens Pili
Authors: Xiao Ke , Malvankar Nikhil S. , Shu Chuanjun , Martz Eric , Lovley Derek R. , Sun Xiao
Published: March 2016

The metallic-like electrical conductivity of Geobacter sulfurreducens pili has been documented with multiple lines of experimental evidence, but there is only a rudimentary understanding of the structural features which contribute to this novel mode of biological electron transport. In order to determine if it was feasible for the pilin monomers of G. sulfurreducens to assemble into a conductive filament, theoretical energy-minimized models of Geobacter pili were constructed with a previously described approach, in which pilin monomers are assembled using randomized structural parameters and distance constraints. The lowest energy models from a specific group of predicted structures lacked a central channel, in contrast to previously existing pili models. In half of the no-channel models the three N-terminal aromatic residues of the pilin monomer are arranged in a potentially electrically conductive geometry, sufficiently close to account for the experimentally observed metallic like conductivity of the pili that has been attributed to overlapping pi-pi orbitals of aromatic amino acids. These atomic resolution models capable of explaining the observed conductive properties of Geobacter pili are a valuable tool to guide further investigation of the metallic-like conductivity of the pili, their role in biogeochemical cycling, and applications in bioenergy and bioelectronics.
Paper-based upconversion fluorescence resonance energy transfer biosensor for sensitive detection of multiple cancer biomarkers
Authors: Xu Sai , Dong Biao , Zhou Donglei , Yin Ze , Cui Shaobo , Xu Wen , Chen Baojiu , Song Hongwei
Published: March 2016

A paper-based upconversion fluorescence resonance energy transfer assay device is proposed for sensitive detection of CEA. The device is fabricated on a normal filter paper with simple nano-printing method. Upconversion nanoparticles tagged with specific antibodies are printed to the test zones on the test paper, followed by the introduction of assay antigen. Upconversion fluorescence measurements are directly conducted on the test zones after the antigen-to-antibody reactions. Furthermore, a multi-channel test paper for simultaneous detection of multiple cancer biomarkers was established by the same method and obtained positive results. The device showed high anti-interfere, stability, reproducible and low detection limit (0.89 ng/mL), moreover it is very easy to fabricate and operate, which is a promising prospect for a clinical point-of-care test.
Non-hermitian quantum thermodynamics
Authors: Gardas Bartłomiej , Deffner Sebastian , Saxena Avadh
Published: March 2016

Thermodynamics is the phenomenological theory of heat and work. Here we analyze to what extent quantum thermodynamic relations are immune to the underlying mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics. As a main result, we show that the Jarzynski equality holds true for all non-hermitian quantum systems with real spectrum. This equality expresses the second law of thermodynamics for isothermal processes arbitrarily far from equilibrium. In the quasistatic limit however, the second law leads to the Carnot bound which is fulfilled even if some eigenenergies are complex provided they appear in conjugate pairs. Furthermore, we propose two setups to test our predictions, namely with strongly interacting excitons and photons in a semiconductor microcavity and in the non-hermitian tight-binding model.
Enrichment of IFN-γ producing cells in different murine adipose tissue depots upon infection with an apicomplexan parasite
Authors: Teixeira Luzia , Marques Raquel M. , Ferreirinha Pedro , Bezerra Filipa , Melo Joana , Moreira João , Pinto Ana , Correia Alexandra , Ferreira Paula G. , Vilanova Manuel
Published: March 2016

Here we report that lean mice infected with the intracellular parasite Neospora caninum show a fast but sustained increase in the frequency of IFN-γ-producing cells noticeable in distinct adipose tissue depots. Moreover, IFN-γ-mediated immune memory could be evoked in vitro in parasite antigen-stimulated adipose tissue stromal vascular fraction cells collected from mice infected one year before. Innate or innate-like cells such as NK, NK T and TCRγδ+ cells, but also CD4+ and CD8+ TCRβ+ lymphocytes contributed to the IFN-γ production observed since day one of infection. This early cytokine production was largely abrogated in IL-12/IL23 p40-deficient mice. Moreover, production of IFN-γ by stromal vascular fraction cells isolated from these mice was markedly lower than that of wild-type counterparts upon stimulation with parasite antigen. In wild-type mice the increased IFN-γ production was concomitant with up-regulated expression of genes encoding interferon-inducible GTPases and nitric oxide synthase, which are important effector molecules in controlling intracellular parasite growth. This increased gene expression was markedly impaired in the p40-deficient mice. Overall, these results show that NK cells but also diverse T cell populations mediate a prompt and widespread production of IFN-γ in the adipose tissue of N. caninum infected mice.
The degradation potential of PET bottles in the marine environment: An ATR-FTIR based approach
Authors: Ioakeimidis C. , Fotopoulou K. N. , Karapanagioti H. K. , Geraga M. , Zeri C. , Papathanassiou E. , Galgani F. , Papatheodorou G.
Published: March 2016

The dominance and persistence of plastic debris in the marine environment are well documented. No information exists in respect to their lifespan in the marine environment. Nevertheless, the degradation potential of plastic litter items remains a critical issue for marine litter research. In the present study, polyethylene terephthalate bottles (PETs) collected from the submarine environment were characterized using ATR-FTIR in respect to their degradation potential attributed to environmental conditions. A temporal indication was used as indicative to the years of presence of the PETs in the environment as debris. PETs seem to remain robust for approximately fifteen years. Afterwards, a significant decrease of the native functional groups was recorded; some even disappear; or new-not typical for PETs-are created. At a later stage, using the PET time series collected from the Saronikos Gulf (Aegean Sea–E. Mediterranean), it was possible to date bottles that were collected from the bottom of the Ionian Sea (W. Greece). It is the first time that such a study has been conducted with samples that were actually degraded in the marine environment.