Directed cell migration is a fundamental component of numerous biological systems and is critical to the pathology of many diseases. Although the importance of secreted chemoattractant factors in providing navigational cues to migrating cells bearing specific chemoattractant receptors is now well‐established, how the function of these factors is regulated is not so well understood and may be of key importance to the design of new therapeutics for numerous human diseases. While regulation of migration clearly takes place on a number of (...) different levels, it is becoming clear that so‐called ‘atypical’ receptors play a role in scavenging, or altering the localisation of, chemoattractant molecules such as chemokines and complement components. These receptors do this through binding and/or internalising their chemoattractant ligands without activating signal transduction cascades leading to cell migration. The atypical chemokine receptor family currently comprises the receptors D6, DARC and CCX‐CKR. In this review, we discuss the evidence from in vitro and in vivo studies that these receptors play a role in regulating cell migration, and speculate that other orphan receptors may also belong to this family. Furthermore, with the advent of gene therapy on the horizon, the therapeutic potential of these receptors in human disease is also considered. BioEssays 29: 237–247, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

A supertask is a task that consists in infinitely many component steps, but which in some sense is completed in a finite amount of time. Supertasks were studied by the pre-Socratics and continue to be objects of interest to modern philosophers, logicians and physicists. The term “super-task” itself was coined by J.F. Thomson (1954). Here we begin with an overview of the analysis of supertasks and their mechanics. We then discuss the possibility of supertasks from the perspective of general relativity.

The evolutionary origin of human pair-bonds is uncertain. One hypothesis, supported by data from forgers, suggests that pair-bonds function to provision mothers and dependent offspring during lactation. Similarly, public health data from large-scale industrial societies indicate that single mothers tend to wean their children earlier than do women living with a mate. Here we examine relations between pair-bond stability, alloparenting, and cross-cultural trends in breastfeeding using data from 58 “traditional” societies in the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (SCCS). Analyses show that stable (...) conjugal relationships were associated with significantly later weaning among the societies in the SCCS. The relationship between pair-bond stability and age at weaning was not mediated by women’s ability to provision themselves or women’s kin support. Availability of alloparental care was also inversely related to age at weaning, and the association was not significantly reduced after controlling for frequency of divorce. This study indicates that among a woman’s kin relationships, a pair-bond with a child’s father is especially supportive of breastfeeding. These cross-cultural findings are further evidence that human pair-bonds may have evolved to support lactation. (shrink)

This article argues that we could improve the design of research protocols by developing an awareness of and a responsiveness to the social contexts of all the actors in the research enterprise, including subjects, investigators, sponsors, and members of the community in which the research will be conducted. ?Social context? refers to the settings in which the actors are situated, including, but not limited to, their social, economic, political, cultural, and technological features. The utility of thinking about social contexts is (...) introduced and exemplified by the presentation of a hypothetical case in which one central issue is limitation of the probability of injury to subjects by selection of individuals who are not expected to live long enough for the known risks of the study to become manifest as harms. Benefits of such considerations may include enhanced subject satisfaction and cooperation, community acceptance, and improved data quality, among other desirable consequences. (shrink)

This article argues that we could improve the design of research protocols by developing an awareness of and a responsiveness to the social contexts of all the actors in the research enterprise, including subjects, investigators, sponsors, and members of the community in which the research will be conducted. “Social context” refers to the settings in which the actors are situated, including, but not limited to, their social, economic, political, cultural, and technological features. The utility of thinking about social contexts is (...) introduced and exemplified by the presentation of a hypothetical case in which one central issue is limitation of the probability of injury to subjects by selection of individuals who are not expected to live long enough for the known risks of the study to become manifest as harms. Benefits of such considerations may include enhanced subject satisfaction and cooperation, community acceptance, and improved data quality, among other desirable consequences. (shrink)

Current scholarship on Clearchus’ Lives emphasizes a moralizing historiographical schema of pernicious luxury, in which truphē leads to koros, then to hybris, and finally to destruction. Yet all the fragments used to construct this theory are preserved in one late source, the Deipnosophistae of Athenaeus. A study of the diction and immediate context of these so-called fragments demonstrates that the moral themes are presented in language that is far more likely to originate in the cover text rather than in the (...) Lives. Furthermore, this moralizing schema that binds together acts both effeminate and hybristic – as if the one followed naturally from the other – cannot be found securely attested elsewhere in Greek thought before the Roman Era. Thus we argue that, based on the evidence that survives, it is anachronistic to suggest that Clearchus espoused this principle. In addition, those who study Hellenistic fragments need to scrutinize more carefully the exact phrasing and framework of the Deipnosophistae, and be more wary about Athenaeus’ attribution of contemporary values to his sources. (shrink)

At Quaestiones Graecae 32.298c–d, Plutarch raises the question, τίνες ο ειναται παρᾰ Μιλησίος, ‘Who were the Perpetual Sailors among the Milesians?’ he frames the circumstances of his answer using a genitive absolute clause: τν περ Θόαντα κα Δαμασήνορα τυράννων καταλυθέντων. In the absence of any other mention of these men in the extent sources, these words—especially the appellation τυράνων—have caused concern among editors and commentators of Plutarch. In the Teubner edition of 1935 Titchener changes τυράνων to the accusative τυράννους, while (...) Halliday in his Oxford commentary suggests that the word should be deleted as a gloss. Each of these suggested changes to the received text is motivated by the occurrence here of the common idiom ο πεί ⁺ Accus. nominis proprii. This expression is, from the time of Polybius on, frequently used by Greek historians to indicate succinctly a group or faction, especially one centred around an important personage. Furthermore, a rather odd periphrastic usage of this phrase has been identified by scholars of Greek grammar as common from at least the Roman period. In this usage, ο περί τινα I serves as the equivalent of the simple proper name. Thus τν περ Θόαντα κα Δαμασήνορα may be a periphrasis for Thoas and Damasenor alone. (shrink)

At Quaestiones Graecae 32.298c–d, Plutarch raises the question, τίνες οἰ ειναται παρᾰ Μιλησίος, ‘Who were the Perpetual Sailors among the Milesians?’ he frames the circumstances of his answer using a genitive absolute clause: τν περ Θόαντα κα Δαμασήνορα τυράννων καταλυθέντων. In the absence of any other mention of these men in the extent sources, these words—especially the appellation τυράνων—have caused concern among editors and commentators of Plutarch. In the Teubner edition of 1935 Titchener changes τυράνων to the accusative τυράννους, while (...) Halliday in his Oxford commentary suggests that the word should be deleted as a gloss. Each of these suggested changes to the received text is motivated by the occurrence here of the common idiom οἵ πεί ⁺ Accus. nominis proprii. This expression is, from the time of Polybius on, frequently used by Greek historians to indicate succinctly a group or faction, especially one centred around an important personage. Furthermore, a rather odd periphrastic usage of this phrase has been identified by scholars of Greek grammar as common from at least the Roman period. In this usage, οἱ περί τινα I serves as the equivalent of the simple proper name. Thus τν περ Θόαντα κα Δαμασήνορα may be a periphrasis for Thoas and Damasenor alone. (shrink)

Postural instability in Parkinson’s disease (PD) is characterized by impaired postural responses to transient perturbations, increased postural sway in stance and difficulty transitioning between tasks. In addition, some studies suggest that loss of dopamine in the basal ganglia due to PD results in difficulty using proprioceptive information for motor control. Here, we quantify the ability of subjects with PD and age-matched control subjects to use and re-weight sensory information for postural control during steady-state conditions of continuous rotations of the stance (...) surface or visual surround. We measure the postural sway of subjects in response to a pseudorandom, surface-tilt stimulus with eyes closed, and in response to a pseudorandom, visual-tilt stimulus. We use a feedback control model of the postural control system to interpret our results, focusing on sensory weighting as a function of stimulus amplitude. We find that subjects with PD can re-weight their dependence upon sensory information in response to changes in surface- or visual-stimulus amplitude. Specifically, subjects with PD behaved like age-matched control subjects by decreasing proprioceptive contribution to stance control with increasing surface-tilt amplitude, and decreasing visual contribution with increasing visual-tilt amplitude. However, subjects with PD do not decrease their reliance on proprioception as much as age-matched controls for small increases in surface-stimulus amplitudes. Levodopa medication did not affect sensory re-weighting behaviors for postural control. The impairment in PD subject’s ability to respond differently to small changes in surface rotation amplitudes is consistent with an increased threshold for perceiving proprioceptive signals, which may result from decreased signal-to-noise in the dopaminergic pathways associated with sensory processing and/or sensory integration. (shrink)

This book presents a collection of contemporary discourses that reconsider the relationship of democracy as a political ideology and American ideal and education as the foundation of preparing democratic citizens in America.

This is the fourth volume of the Clarendon edition of Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy and the first of three volumes of Commentary. It contains commentary on the text up to p. 327 of volume one - i.e. The Argument of the Frontispeice, Democritus to the Reader, and Partition 1 as far as the end of Section 2, Member 3, Subsection 15: 'Misery of Schollers'. In his study of morbid psychology as it was understood in his day, Burton cites (...) many other writers. No previous edition of the Anatomy has identified all of these or verified all his quotations. In addition to explanatory notes and translations of all the passages in Latin, this edition attempts to locate all Burton's sources in the actual books he himself owned or to which he probably had access. The last of the three volumes of commentary will contain a Biobibliography listing over 1,500 authorities referred to by Burton, many very obscure, and will give not only bibliographical details but information about the writers. (shrink)

This is the fourth volume of the Clarendon edition of Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy and the first of three volumes of Commentary. It contains commentary on the text up to p. 327 of volume one - i.e. The Argument of the Frontispeice, Democritus to the Reader, and Partition 1 as far as the end of Section 2, Member 3, Subsection 15: 'Misery of Schollers'. In his study of morbid psychology as it was understood in his day, Burton cites (...) many other writers. No previous edition of the Anatomy has identified all of these or verified all his quotations. In addition to explanatory notes and translations of all the passages in Latin, this edition attempts to locate all Burton's sources in the actual books he himself owned or to which he probably had access. The last of the three volumes of commentary will contain a Biobibliography listing over 1,500 authorities referred to by Burton, many very obscure, and will give not only bibliographical details but information about the writers. (shrink)

The restricted semantic ellipsis hypothesis, we have argued, is committed to an enormous number of multiply ambiguous expressions, the introduction of which gains us no extra explanatory power. We should, therefore, reject it. We should also spurn the original version since: (a) it entails the restricted version and (b) it incorrectly declares that, whenever a speaker makes an assertion by uttering an unembedded word or phrase, the expression uttered has illocutionary force.Once rejected, the semantic ellipsis hypothesis cannot account for the (...) many exceptions to the syntactic ellipsis hypothesis. So, we can safely infer that the Claim is true.(1)The Claim: Speakers can make assertions by uttering ordinary, unembedded, words and phrases.To the degree that the Claim reallyis in tension with the primacy of sentences (i.e., the view that (a) only sentences can be used to make assertions and (b) only sentences are meaningful in isolation) this doctrine must also be rejected. (shrink)

Fodor and Pylyshyn (1988), Fodor and McLaughlin (1990) and McLaughlin (1993) challenge connectionists to explain systematicity without simply implementing a classical architecture. In this paper I argue that what makes the challenge difficult for connectionists to meet has less to do with what is to be explained than with what is to count as an explanation. Fodor et al. are prepared to admit as explanatory, accounts of a sort that only classical models can provide. If connectionists are to meet the (...) challenge, they are going to have to insist on the propriety of changing what counts as an explanation of systematicity. Once that is done, there would seem to be as yet no reason to suppose that connectionists are unable to explain systematicity. (shrink)

© 2017. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.We present new observations of the low-mass companion to HD 984 taken with the Gemini Planet Imager as a part of the GPI Exoplanet Survey campaign. Images of HD 984 B were obtained in the J and H bands. Combined with archival epochs from 2012 and 2014, we fit the first orbit to the companion to find an 18 au orbit with a 68% confidence interval between 14 and 28 au, an eccentricity (...) of 0.18 with a 68% confidence interval between 0.05 and 0.47, and an inclination of 119°with a 68% confidence interval between 114°and 125°. To address the considerable spectral covariance in both spectra, we present a method of splitting the spectra into low and high frequencies to analyze the spectral structure at different spatial frequencies with the proper spectral noise correlation. Using the split spectra, we compare them to known spectral types using field brown dwarf and low-mass star spectra and find a best-fit match of a field gravity M6.5 ±1.5 spectral type with a corresponding temperature of K. Photometry of the companion yields a luminosity of log=2.88 ± 0.07 dex with DUSTY models. Mass estimates, again from DUSTY models, find an age-dependent mass of 34 ±1 to 95 ±4 M Jup. These results are consistent with previous measurements of the object. (shrink)

Ever since Ph. Kohlmann in his Teubner edition of the Thebaid asserted that he had used cod. Parisinus 13046, one of the MSS. formerly of St. Germain des Prés, this MS. has been known by reputation to his successors and other students of Statian textual problems, and, designed by the letter S, it is alluded to and cited in the edition of Garrod and in the newer Teubner of Klotz, which appeared in 1908. The two later editors confessed that they (...) themselves had not examined the MS., but were relying upon the information accessible in Kohlmann's edition. Doubts having been cast from more than one source upon Kohlmann's accuracy and the soundness of his reports, while at the same time the importance of S as a member of the ω group was emphasized by Mr. Garrod and Dr. Klotz in spite of the incomplete evidence at their disposal, it seemed worth while to the writer to examine the MS. for himself and to make a thorough collation of it. This has been done in the summer of 1932. (shrink)

This article describes a community service project in which M.B.A. students learn about and experience directly the dynamics of leadership and power. The purposes of this project are to help students better understand the social reality of powerlessness, and how they, through their political activism and influence management skills, can improve the situations and lives of powerless people in the local community. In so doing, students begin to see the connection between political action and moral ends, the fundamental learning objective (...) of this project.Wisdom is knowing what to do next. Virtue is doing it. (shrink)

The gist of Edward Said’s attack on Israel is that Zionism is racism. The very appearance of his essay in a special issue devoted to racism is an interesting fact in itself. But the fact that the editors up until now received no responses to Said carries special significance. It signals, or can be read as signaling, that the literary-critical establishment has reached a consensus and that liberal supporters of Israel in our discipline have retreated from the field.I may be (...) wrong about this, of course, for other explanations are possible, but Houston A. Baker, Jr.’s observations a year later on that special issue would seem to reinforce my view. Baker describes Said’s method as aiming “to prove that ‘A’ is as good as ‘B’ and to induce shame in defenders of ‘B’ who have made other axiological choices.” Baker protests against this method, however, since it gives too much play to “B,” so that “it is difficult to hear a Palestinian voice separate from the world of Jewish discourse.” Then he adds in parentheses: “”2 In Baker’s language, only Jews are likely to disagree, and these “Jews,” conceived as a unitary group, are a client state and are compared by means of allusion to the corrupt, libidinous king who executed the true prophet , the herald of Jesus. These comments are remarkable in any context, but especially so in a forum on racism. Robert J. Griffin is a lecturer in English at Tel Aviv University. He is currently working on two books, one on Samuel Johnson and one on literary historiography. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:An Introduction to Mādhva VedāntaRobert ZydenbosAn Introduction to Mādhva Vedānta. By Deepak Sarma. Ashgate World Philosophies Series. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003. Pp. xiii + 159. Paper.The school of Vedānta philosophy founded by Madhva (1238-1317 C.E.) is popularly known as Dvaita, a name Madhva himself never used and which is somewhat misleading, as it suggests a dualism while Madhva's philosophy is rather a pluralistic one. The adjective Mādhva, derived from (...) Madhva's name, is used to designate the followers of Madhva's Vaiṣṇava variety of brahminical Hinduism, and may be used to unambiguously identify this kind of Vedānta. Although this school plays an important role in the history of Indian thought, it has been sadly neglected by modern Vedānta scholarship, which tends to focus on Advaita and Viśiṣṭādvaita. The first serious modern study, written in German by Helmut von Glasenapp, was Madhva's Philosophie des Vishnu-Glaubens (Bonn, 1923), of which the English translation by S. Shrothri, Madhva's Philosophy of the Vishnu Faith (Bangalore, 1992), is not beautiful but has the merit that a few minor errors in von Glasenapp's pioneer work have been corrected in footnotes. In the well-known histories of Indian philosophy, Surendranath Dasgupta's treatment of Madhva (A History of Indian Philosophy, vol. 4) is considerably better than the rather scanty one by Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (Indian Philosophy, vol. 2, chap. 10, sections 6-14).The amount of Sanskrit writing in the tradition of Madhva is considerable, and in this still very living tradition there is a huge production of literature in modern Indian languages, almost all of it in Kannada, the tradition having originated and still having its stronghold in what today is the Kannada-speaking state of Karnataka in southern India (Madhva was a native speaker of Tulu, a language spoken in southwestern Karnataka, which has hardly any written literature). Among modern authors writing in English, the best known is B.N.K. Sharma (The Philosophy of Śrī Madhvācārya: A History of the Dvaita School of Vedānta and Its Literature), most of whose writings unfortunately suffer from a polemically sectarian outlook. As a general historical and systematic introduction to Madhva, his works, and his thought, the French La doctrine de Madhva by Suzanne Siauve (Pondichéry, 1968) remains unsurpassed. More recently, the most important studies of Madhva's works that appeared outside India are again in German, by Roque Mesquita: Madhva und seine unbekannten literarischen Quellen (Vienna, 1997; now also available in an English translation as Madhva's Unknown Literary Sources: Some Observations. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan, 2000) and his superb translation and study of one of Madhva's most important works, Madhva: Viṣṇutattvanirṇaya (Vienna, 2000).Madhva's doctrine is considered one of the three main currents in Vedānta, next to Viśiṣṭādvaita-Vedānta (the monistic doctrine formulated by Rāmānuja) and the variety that is best known in the Western world, Advaita-Vedānta (the illusionistic [End Page 665] monism that received its classical form at the hands of Śankara). According to the hagiography, Madhva grew up in an Advaitin environment but came to consider the Advaitins his main philosophical opponents, because monism, and particularly one that essentially denied the reality of the phenomenal world, did not support his Vaiṣṇava (recognizing Viṣṇu as the supreme being) devotional religiosity. He therefore sought to establish a pluralistic philosophy that did not dismiss phenomenal reality as illusory.Dvaita- or Mādhva-Vedānta is actually much more than the exegesis, sometimes rather imaginative, of the standard set of mainstream brahminical texts that one would expect from Vedānta. Madhva was a creative thinker, and his doctrine is an intellectual tour de force that seeks to combine elements from several sources and currents of religious and philosophical thought into one coherent whole: a philosophical terminology from Vedānta; ritualism from the Pāñcarātra āgamas; mythology from the Vedas, Upanishads, the great epics, and the purāṇas (Madhva wrote an extensive commentary on the Bhāgavatapurāṇa); and an ontology and epistemology that reveal the influence of Jainism.It... (shrink)

The present article attempts to evaluate various tenets of moral philosophy by reviewing empirical data from the field of organizational justice bearing on: (a) people''s concerns about fairness in organizations, and (b) the consequences of following or not following rules of justice. With respect to concerns about fairness in organizations, utilitarian claims that people believe that fairness requires distributions of reward based on merit were assessed. Similarly, evidence was reviewed bearing on the claim of psychological egoists that judgments of fairness (...) reflect a self-interested bias. Finally, Kant''s view that people should never lie was evaluated in light of evidence describing people''s actual attitudes toward lying. In all three cases, the underlying philosophical premises were concluded to be overly simplistic in view of complexities about human nature revealed in empirical research. In addition, evidence was reviewed that shed light on the teleological claims of utilitarians regarding the purported benefits of following two common organizational practices — using merit-based pay, and punishing harmdoers. Here, too, the empirical evidence (findings that these techniques do not consistently yield the greatest good for the greatest number) suggests that the premise underlying utilitarian thought is based on unfounded, overly simplistic assumptions about the effects of following various allegedly moral ideas. It is concluded that our analyses provide a useful first step toward the desired goal of business ethicists of integrating prescriptive and descriptive approaches to justice. (shrink)