We describe here recent work on the molecular genetics of mitosis in the filamentous fungus Aspergillus nidulans. Aspergillus is one of three simple eukaryotes with powerful genetic systems that have been used to analyze mitosis. The modern molecular biological techniques available with this organism have made it possible to use mutations to identify genes and proteins that play an important role in mitosis. Three Aspergillus genes that affect mitosis are described. One gene, nimA, is specifically expressed late in the cell (...) cycle and codes for a putative protein kinase that induces mitosis, even in cells blocked in S‐phase. The second gene, bimG, codes for a putative phosphatase that interacts functionally with the nimA kinase. The third gene, bimE, codes for a protein that suppresses mitosis during interphase, apparently by keeping nimA turned off. None of these genes appear to be similar to any of the genes affecting mitosis that have been characterized in other eukaryotes, but rather appear to be elements of a system that prevents mitosis from occurring during interphase. (shrink)

Insect molting is elicited by a class of polyhydroxylated steroids, ecdysteroids, that originate in the prothoracic glands. Ecdysteroid synthesis in the prothoracic glands is controlled in large measure by a peptide hormone from the brain, prothoracicotropic hormone (PTTH), which exists in two forms and is released into the general circulation as a result of environmental and developmental cues. The means by which PTTH activates the prothoracic glands has been examined at the cellular level and the data reveal the involvement of (...) cAMP, calcium, calmodulin, cAMP‐dependent protein kinase and the ultimate phosphorylation of a 34 kDa protein tentatively identified as ribosomal protein S6. (shrink)

Benedict Spinoza is feted as the philosopher par excellence of the popular democratic multitude by Antonio Negri and others. But Spinoza himself expresses a marked ambivalence about the multitude in brief asides, and as for his thoughts on what he calls “the rule of multitude,” that is, democracy, these exist only as meager fragments in his unfinished Tractatus Politicus or Political Treatise. This essay addresses the problem of Spinoza’s multitude. First, I reconstruct a vision of power that is found in (...) the Ethics but that tends to be overlooked in the scholarly literature: power is not just sheer efficacy or imposition of will, but rather involves a capacity for being-affected; I call this the conception of power as sensitivity. The second part of my argument shows how, given Spinoza’s emphatic political naturalism, the conception of power as sensitivity can be extended to his political philosophy to shed light on what Spinoza calls potentia multitudinis, or “the power of the multitude”—a term found solely in the Political Treatise and nowhere else in his oeuvre. This juxtaposition reveals significant qualifications to the liberatory potential of the multitude currently claimed in the scholarly literature. (shrink)

It has often been said that the Zhuangzi 莊子 advocates political abstention, and that its putative skepticism prevents it from contributing in any meaningful way to political thinking: at best the Zhuangzi espouses a sort of anarchism, at worst it is “the night in which all cows are black,” a stance that one scholar has charged is ultimately immoral. This article tracks possible political allusions within the text, and, by reading these against details of social, political, and historical context, sheds (...) light on another strand of the Zhuangzi—one that questions prevailing normative values because it is fiercely critical of scholarly complicity with violent imperial territorial consolidation. (shrink)

The recent ‘material turn’ focuses on materiality in two distinctive ways: one, by including nonhuman agencies, another, by mining indigenous knowledges for alternative conceptions of agency and human–thing relations. A troubling gap persists between the two endeavours. The gap insinuates an us–them dichotomy and, more importantly, curtails communication between radically different visions of thingly agency – thereby impeding the political drive of these conceptual enterprises. This article is an essay in cross-cultural transposition. Through a close reading of a story of (...) a useless tree in an ancient proto-Daoist text, Zhuangzi, the author shows how its fabulist and oneiric form illuminates a distinctive perspective on uselessness. Conversely, the trope of uselessness lets us begin from what she calls a ‘situated affectivity’ amidst more-than-human materialities. The article concludes with a brief comparison of three modalities of uselessness from different ‘cosmologies’ of thought – a foretaste of the potentials of cross-cosmological endeavours. (shrink)

There has been a long debate on whether demonstratives are directly referential as Kaplan originally argued, or indirectly referential like a definite description. I propose a new analysis of demonstratives that combines intuitions from both direct and indirect approaches. The demonstrative is analyzed as an indirectly referential expression with a binary maximality operator that takes two arguments, where the second argument can be a deictic pointing, an anaphoric index, or a relative clause. Direct reference is encoded not in the meaning (...) of the demonstrative but in the meaning contributed by the pointing gesture, thus capturing both direct and indirect uses. I further propose that some pronouns in English function as demonstratives, realizing the binary structure and competing with the demonstrative. The main advantages of this proposal include (a) deriving the distribution of pronominal and adnominal demonstratives systematically; (b) capturing the unique interaction that demonstratives have with a pointing gesture; and (c) locating English demonstratives against a larger, cross-linguistic picture. (shrink)

This exploratory qualitative study investigated how doctoral students reported their personal and professional interaction experiences that they believed might facilitate or impede their academic pursuits in biomedical research. We collected 19 in-depth interviews with doctoral students in biomedical research from eight universities, and we based our qualitative analytic approach on the work of Miles and Huberman. The results indicated that among different sources and types of interaction, academic and emotional interactions from family and teachers in various stages essentially affected students’ (...) persistence in the biomedical science field. In addition, co-mentorship among peers, departmental environment, and volunteer experiences were other essential factors. This study also found related experiences among women and underrepresented minority students that were important to their academic pursuit. (shrink)

Eating locally continues to be promoted as an alternative to growing concerns related to industrialized, global, corporate agriculture. Buying from local famers and producers is seen as a way to promote a healthier diet, reduce environmental impacts, and sustain communities. The promotion of the local food movement presents the question: is it possible to feed a community primarily from the foods produced locally? We conducted a systematic analysis comparing the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) recommended dietary requirements for the (...) estimated 2008 population with annual local agricultural production for the years 2004–2008 within the counties of the Willamette Valley growing region. Our results indicate that current agricultural production in this highly fertile region does not meet the dietary needs of the local inhabitants for any of the USDA’s six food groups: grains, vegetables, fruits, dairy, meat and beans, and oils. In the most recent year of our analysis, 2008, Willamette Valley agriculture production met 67% of annual required grains, 10% of vegetable needs, 24% of fruits, 59% of dairy, 58% of meat and beans, and 0% of dietary oil requirements. Over the past 5 years there have been significant fluctuations in crop production, particularly in 2006 when grain yields dropped to 29% of needs met. Additionally, many of these commodities are exported as cash crops, thus not contributing to meeting local food needs. We discuss these results as well as areas of potential for increasing production of edible crops for local consumption in the region. (shrink)

THE following further instances and parallels, and additional usages, may supplement the colloquialisms, &c, in Plato's dialogues which were listed and studied in a former article. 1. Colloquialisms More examples and parallels for usages previously noted: Charm. 154 b 4, Crat. 418 b 8, Phaedo 92 d 4, Parm. 126 c 6, 127 b 1, Polit. 290 d 7, Laws 630 b 7.

'ground-breaking anthology... wide array of perspectives on WW1, from both sides of the fighting' -B. Adler, Choice 'a very fine anthology' -Times Literary SupplementThe First World War inspired a huge outpouring of writing that, until recently, was thought to be almost the exclusive preserve of men. Yet the war also acted as a catalyst which enabled women writers to find a literary and political voice. This anthology bears witness to the great variety and scope of women's writing about the war. (...) Covering the years 1914-1930, the book brings together little-known writing from across the world, drawing on a wide spectrum of genres from letters and diary entries to essays, novels, and short stories. Among the celebrated writers featured in this anthology are: Radclyffe Hall, Sylvia Pankhurst, Maud Gonne, Rebecca West, May Sinclair, Olive Schreiner, Colette, Vera Brittain, Gertrude Stein, Katherine Mansfield, HD, and Virginia Woolf. (shrink)

With the rise of naturalism in the art of the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance there developed an extensive and diverse literature about art which helped to explain, justify and shape its new aims. In this book, David Summers provides an investigation of the philosophical and psychological notions invoked in this new theory and criticism. From a thorough examination of the sources, he shows how the medieval language of mental discourse derived from an understanding of classical thought.

The dominant feature of eighteenth-century aesthetic is the inquiry and discussion concerning the theory of “taste.” There is material or bibliographical evidence of this in the rapid sequence of treatises, essays, inquiries, observations, and controversies on this subject, extending from the close of the seventeenth to the last years of the eighteenth century, and bearing the names, in France, of Dacier, Bellegarde, Bouhours, Rollin, Seran de la Tour, Trublet, Formey, Bitaubé, Marmontel, and, still more eminent, of Montesquieu, Voltaire, d’Alembert; in (...) England, of Addison, Hume, Gerard, Home, Burke, Priestley, Blair, Beattie, Percival, Reid, Alison; in Italy, of Muratori, Calepio, Pagano, Corniani; in Germany, of Thomasius, J. U. König, Bodmer, A. von Schlegel, Wegelin, Heyne, Herz, Eberhard, J. C. König, and, by German influence in Hungary, Szardahely; and, greatest of all, Immanuel Kant, whoseCritique of Judgmentconsists in the main of a critique of the aesthetic judgment of taste. (shrink)

In L. Frank Baum's story, Ozma of Oz, which is a sequel to Baum's much more famous story, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Dorothy and her companion come upon a wound-down mechanical man bearing a label on which are printed the following words: Smith and Tinker's Patent Double-Action, Extra-Responsive, Thought-Creating Perfect-Talking MECHANICAL MAN Fitted with our Special Clock-Work Attachment Thinks, Speaks, Acts, and Does Everything but Live As Dorothy and her companion are made to discover when they wind (...) up this man, he is indeed capable of doing all the things of which his label boasts—acting, speaking and even thinking. But as Tik-Tok himself insists, and no one in the story casts doubt on the matter, he is not alive. (shrink)

This volume starts where the four-volume work by Johannes Hoffmeister, Briefe von und an Hegel, left off. It consists of excerpts from letters, diaries, memoirs, newspaper and journal articles, etc., much of which has never been published before. What emerges is a conflicting picture of Hegel, the man--from which the reader can take his choice. The comments are from contemporaries: relatives, friends, acquaintances, students, colleagues, admirers, critics, and last, but not least, enemies. The chapters are organized chronologically by city of (...) residence, beginning with Stuttgart, 1770-1788, and covering the periods in Tübingen, Bern, Frankfurt, Jena, Bamberg, Nürnberg, Heidelberg, and Berlin. There is a special chapter on the period immediately following Hegel's death, and a final chapter on After-Effects. The biggest chapter by far is the one on the Berlin period, which spans the longest space of time and also covers the time when Hegel's fame had reached its zenith. All told there are 769 excerpts from the pens of such varied personalities as Karl, Christiane, and Marie Hegel, Hölderlin, Goethe, Schelling, Karl Rosenkranz, Eduard Zeller, Fichte, Schleiermacher, Schiller, Schlegel, Brentano, Savigny, Michelet, Schopenhauer, Victor Cousin, Heine, Feuerbach, Bouterwek, Varnhagen v. Ense, K. F. Zeller, Arnold Ruge, Ranke, Eduard Gans, and many others. This book will undoubtedly figure prominently in future biographies of Hegel. However, it is not only for the Hegel specialist. Those who are interested in that specific period of German culture and those who simply enjoy anecdotal historical commentary will find much of interest and amusement here.--H. B. (shrink)

Este texto procura traçar algumas linhas gerais da articulação entre música e ironia (ou audição musical e hermenêutica) no romantismo. Procura-se explorar a apropriação original que Søren Kierkegaard fez das “técnicas” hermenêuticas desenvolvidas por Friedrich Schlegel e Friedrich Schleiermacher.