Analyses of environmental DNAs have provided tantalizing evidence for “rozellida” or “cryptomycota”, a clade of mostly undescribed and deeply diverging aquatic fungi. Here, we put cryptomycota into perspective through consideration of Rozella, the only clade member growing in culture. This is timely on account of the publication in Nature of the first images of uncultured cryptomycota from environmental filtrates, where molecular probes revealed non‐motile cyst‐like structures and motile spores, all lacking typical fungal chitinous cell walls. Current studies of Rozella can (...) complement these fragmentary observations from environmental samples. Rozella has a fungal‐specific chitin synthase and its resting sporangia have walls that appear to contain chitin. Cryptomycota, including Rozella, lack a cell wall when absorbing food but like some other fungi, they may have lost their “dinner jacket” through convergence. Rather than evolutionary intermediates, the cryptomycota may be strange, divergent fungi that evolved from an ancestor with a nearly complete suite of classical fungal‐specific characters. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Dictionary of Scripture and Ethics ed. by Joel B. GreenTimothy J. SandovalDictionary of Scripture and Ethics Edited by Joel B. Green grand rapids, mi: baker academic, 2011. 912 pp. $60.00.An important addition to the scholarly literature that relates the Bible and ethics, the Dictionary of Scripture and Ethics (DSE) stands as a marker of how far that scholarly enterprise has come in the last forty years. As the (...) volume’s editor notes, if a generation ago James Gustafson lamented the paucity of efforts to link scripture and ethics, this is no longer the case in either ethics or biblical studies (1).DSE (to which I contributed one entry) is comprehensive, containing entries on a range of ethical topics and every biblical book. The volume includes an introduction delineating the organizational principles of the dictionary and three fine essays sketching the ethical shape of scripture, the history of relating scripture to ethics, and methodological issues in this endeavor. Published by a Christian press with entries betraying a mix of conservative (Catholic, evangelical) and liberal perspectives, DSE is oriented toward Christian scripture and Christian ethics. This is no criticism but an observation about DSE’s scope in relation to its title (21).In its approximately nine hundred pages, DSE contains some entries on ethical topics that barely allude to the biblical tradition while other entries on biblical material read not much differently from a standard Bible dictionary entry. Yet most articles on topics in ethics helpfully point to key biblical texts associated with the topic. Many others also deftly relate the history of thinking on an ethical issue and its biblical foundations. Most entries on the Bible likewise successfully sketch how biblical texts explore moral matters, and these articles regularly point out ethical “problems” that many biblical texts evoke for contemporary readers (e.g., concerning nationalism, violence, sexuality, and the like).Those of us in biblical studies who seek to articulate what Hans Frei called the “abiding significance” of the Bible sometimes falter in this effort, offering [End Page 222] stale, strained, or canned ideas about what passage X or Y “might mean for us today.” We falter, perhaps, because we have been deeply formed by the historical-critical study of the Bible. We thus often lack a vocabulary and logic, a different sort of discourse that does not merely translate into ethical and theological terms the exegetical findings we arrive at as classically trained biblical scholars but also engages in a quite different sort of exegetical work. In particular, the entries in DSE that treat broader topics in ethics will expose biblical scholars to different modes of relating critically to the texts than we are accustomed to. DSE will thus prove particularly useful for those of us who wish to explore and cultivate an exegetical practice as well as an identity as exegetes that is distinct from what emerges when we apply the historical and other critical tools that our training has bequeathed us (33).Ethicists can be assured that the entries on the Bible reliably sketch basic, current discussions in biblical studies although inevitably specialists will quibble over details and occasionally over broader issues—something the editor notes happens even between entries within DSE (2). As one of those quibbling specialists, I hoped to find an entry on “hermeneutics” or “biblical hermeneutics” in a volume so concerned with biblical interpretation, though a number of articles do, more or less, address such issues. I must leave it to ethicists to discern the quality and consistency of DSE entries on ethics.In short, DSE may offer only a first step for students and scholars seeking to relate scripture and ethics, but it is an important step.Timothy J. SandovalBrite Divinity SchoolCopyright © 2016 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Dictionary of Scripture and Ethics ed. by Joel B. GreenTimothy J. SandovalDictionary of Scripture and Ethics Edited by Joel B. Green grand rapids, mi: baker academic, 2011. 912 pp. $60.00.An important addition to the scholarly literature that relates the Bible and ethics, the Dictionary of Scripture and Ethics (DSE) stands as a marker of how far that scholarly enterprise has come in the last forty years. As the (...) volume’s editor notes, if a generation ago James Gustafson lamented the paucity of efforts to link scripture and ethics, this is no longer the case in either ethics or biblical studies (1).DSE (to which I contributed one entry) is comprehensive, containing entries on a range of ethical topics and every biblical book. The volume includes an introduction delineating the organizational principles of the dictionary and three fine essays sketching the ethical shape of scripture, the history of relating scripture to ethics, and methodological issues in this endeavor. Published by a Christian press with entries betraying a mix of conservative (Catholic, evangelical) and liberal perspectives, DSE is oriented toward Christian scripture and Christian ethics. This is no criticism but an observation about DSE’s scope in relation to its title (21).In its approximately nine hundred pages, DSE contains some entries on ethical topics that barely allude to the biblical tradition while other entries on biblical material read not much differently from a standard Bible dictionary entry. Yet most articles on topics in ethics helpfully point to key biblical texts associated with the topic. Many others also deftly relate the history of thinking on an ethical issue and its biblical foundations. Most entries on the Bible likewise successfully sketch how biblical texts explore moral matters, and these articles regularly point out ethical “problems” that many biblical texts evoke for contemporary readers (e.g., concerning nationalism, violence, sexuality, and the like).Those of us in biblical studies who seek to articulate what Hans Frei called the “abiding significance” of the Bible sometimes falter in this effort, offering [End Page 222] stale, strained, or canned ideas about what passage X or Y “might mean for us today.” We falter, perhaps, because we have been deeply formed by the historical-critical study of the Bible. We thus often lack a vocabulary and logic, a different sort of discourse that does not merely translate into ethical and theological terms the exegetical findings we arrive at as classically trained biblical scholars but also engages in a quite different sort of exegetical work. In particular, the entries in DSE that treat broader topics in ethics will expose biblical scholars to different modes of relating critically to the texts than we are accustomed to. DSE will thus prove particularly useful for those of us who wish to explore and cultivate an exegetical practice as well as an identity as exegetes that is distinct from what emerges when we apply the historical and other critical tools that our training has bequeathed us (33).Ethicists can be assured that the entries on the Bible reliably sketch basic, current discussions in biblical studies although inevitably specialists will quibble over details and occasionally over broader issues—something the editor notes happens even between entries within DSE (2). As one of those quibbling specialists, I hoped to find an entry on “hermeneutics” or “biblical hermeneutics” in a volume so concerned with biblical interpretation, though a number of articles do, more or less, address such issues. I must leave it to ethicists to discern the quality and consistency of DSE entries on ethics.In short, DSE may offer only a first step for students and scholars seeking to relate scripture and ethics, but it is an important step.Timothy J. SandovalBrite Divinity SchoolCopyright © 2016 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

One day, Matthew Eaton was walking through an impromptu animal shelter display at his local pet store when suddenly an eight-month-old kitten dug his claws into Eaton’s flesh. Eaton recognized that the “eyes of this cat and the curve of his claw” compelled a response analogous to those found in the writings of Buber, Levinas, and Derrida. And not just Eaton but a whole community of theologians have found themselves in an encounter with particular places and animals that demands rich (...) theological reflection. Eaton enlisted fellow editors Harvie and Bechtel to collect the essays in this volume, in which theologians listen to horses, rats, snakes, cats, dogs, and the earth itself, who become new theological voices demanding a response. In this volume, the voice of the more-than-human world is heard as making theology possible. These essays suggest that what we say theologically represents not simply ideas of our own making subsequently superimposed onto the natural world through our own discovery, but rather flow from an expressive Earth. With additional contributions from: Kimberly Carfore Lisa E. Dahill Celia Deane-Drummond Heather Eaton Nathan Kowalsky Abigail Lofte Jame Schaefer Cristina D. Vanin Mark Wallace Grace Y. Kao Chris Carter John Berkman Laura Hobgood. (shrink)

Has moral relativism run its course? The threat of 9/11, terrorism, reproductive technology, and globalization has forced us to ask anew whether there are universal moral truths upon which to base ethical and political judgments. In this timely edited collection, distinguished scholars present and test the best answers to this question. These insightful responses temper the strong antithesis between universalism and relativism and retain sensitivity to how language and history shape the context of our moral decisions. This important and relevant (...) work of contemporary political and social thought is ideal for use in the classroom across many disciplines, including political science, philosophy, ethics, law, and theology. (shrink)

A work of contemporary Christian political thought, this volume addresses the crisis of modern democracy evident in the decline of the institutions of civil society and their theoretical justification. Drawing upon a rich store of social and political reflection found in the Catholic and Neo-Calvinist traditions, the essays mount a robust defense of the irreducible identity and value of the social institutions_family, neighborhood, church, civic association_that serve as the connective tissue of a political community.

This paper introduces a special issue of Cognitive Science initiated on the 25th anniversary of the publication of Parallel Distributed Processing (PDP), a two-volume work that introduced the use of neural network models as vehicles for understanding cognition. The collection surveys the core commitments of the PDP framework, the key issues the framework has addressed, and the debates the framework has spawned, and presents viewpoints on the current status of these issues. The articles focus on both historical roots and contemporary (...) developments in learning, optimality theory, perception, memory, language, conceptual knowledge, cognitive control, and consciousness. Here we consider the approach more generally, reviewing the original motivations, the resulting framework, and the central tenets of the underlying theory. We then evaluate the impact of PDP both on the field at large and within specific subdomains of cognitive science and consider the current role of PDP models within the broader landscape of contemporary theoretical frameworks in cognitive science. Looking to the future, we consider the implications for cognitive science of the recent success of machine learning systems called “deep networks”—systems that build on key ideas presented in the PDP volumes. (shrink)

In this prcis we focus on phenomena central to the reaction against similarity-based theories that arose in the 1980s and that subsequently motivated the approach to semantic knowledge. Specifically, we consider (1) how concepts differentiate in early development, (2) why some groupings of items seem to form or coherent categories while others do not, (3) why different properties seem central or important to different concepts, (4) why children and adults sometimes attest to beliefs that seem to contradict their direct experience, (...) (5) how concepts reorganize between the ages of 4 and 10, and (6) the relationship between causal knowledge and semantic knowledge. The explanations our theory offers for these phenomena are illustrated with reference to a simple feed-forward connectionist model. The relationships between this simple model, the broader theory, and more general issues in cognitive science are discussed. (shrink)

Secondary education around the world has been significantly disrupted by covid-19. Students have been forced into new ways of independent learning, often using remote technologies, but without the social nuances and direct teacher interactions of a normal classroom environment. Using data from the School Attitudes Survey—which surveys students regarding the perceived level of difficulty, anxiety level, self-efficacy, enjoyability, subject relevance, and opportunities for creativity with regards to each of their school subjects—this study examines students' responses to this disruption from two (...) very different schools with two very different experiences of the pandemic. This paper reports on the composite attitudinal profiles of students in the senior secondary levels at each school. The findings challenged our expectation that the increased difficulty and anxiety caused by the disruption would reduce perceived opportunities for creativity. Indeed, our analyses showed that the students at both schools demonstrated generally positive attitudes toward their learning and strongly associated opportunities for creativity with other attitudinal constructs including enjoyability, subject relevance, and self-efficacy. These complex associations made by the students appear to have buffered the impacts of the disruption, and they may even have supported creative resilience. (shrink)

In this article we describe our approach to understanding wrongdoing in medical research and practice, which involves the statistical analysis of coded data from a large set of published cases. We focus on understanding the environmental factors that predict the kind and the severity of wrongdoing in medicine. Through review of empirical and theoretical literature, consultation with experts, the application of criminological theory, and ongoing analysis of our first 60 cases, we hypothesize that 10 contextual features of the medical environment (...) (including financial rewards, oversight failures, and patients belonging to vulnerable groups) may contribute to professional wrongdoing. We define each variable, examine data supporting our hypothesis, and present a brief case synopsis from our study that illustrates the potential influence of the variable. Finally, we discuss limitations of the resulting framework and directions for future research. (shrink)

BackgroundIt is commonly reported by editors that it has become harder to recruit reviewers for peer review and that this is because individuals are being asked to review too often and are experiencing reviewer fatigue. However, evidence supporting these arguments is largely anecdotal.Main bodyWe examine responses of individuals to review invitations for six journals in ecology and evolution. The proportion of invitations that lead to a submitted review has been decreasing steadily over 13 years (2003–2015) for four of the six (...) journals examined, with a cumulative effect that has been quite substantial (average decline from 56% of review invitations generating a review in 2003 to just 37% in 2015). The likelihood that an invitee agrees to review declines significantly with the number of invitations they receive in a year. However, the average number of invitations being sent to prospective reviewers and the proportion of individuals being invited more than once per year has not changed much over these 13 years, despite substantial increases in the total number of review invitations being sent by these journals—the reviewer base has expanded concomitant with this growth in review requests.ConclusionsThe proportion of review invitations that lead to a review being submitted has been declining steadily for four of the six journals examined here, but reviewer fatigue is not likely the primary explanation for this decline. (shrink)

Mosher and Bond (this issue) suggest experimental designs that are not appropriate for the research purposes they criticize. In defending their own research, they make contradictory statements about the realism of their guided imagery procedure for simulating rape. They present data that we believe provide evidence for the possibility that wrongful harm occurred in their previous research. We assert our right to study the ethics of research and object to specious charges of having threatened sexual freedom and being associated with (...) ideologues of the right and left. (shrink)

The commentaries reflect three core themes that pertain not just to our theory, but to the enterprise of connectionist modeling more generally. The first concerns the relationship between a cognitive theory and an implemented computer model. Specifically, how does one determine, when a model departs from the theory it exemplifies, whether the departure is a useful simplification or a critical flaw? We argue that the answer to this question depends partially upon the model's intended function, and we suggest that connectionist (...) models have important functions beyond the commonly accepted goals of fitting data and making predictions. The second theme concerns perceived in-principle limitations of the connectionist approach to cognition, and the specific concerns these perceived limitations raise for our theory. We argue that the approach is not in fact limited in the ways our critics suggest. One common misconception, that connectionist models cannot address abstract or relational structure, is corrected through new simulations showing directly that such structure can be captured. The third theme concerns the relationship between parallel distributed processing (PDP) models and structured probabilistic approaches. In this case we argue that there the difference between the approaches is not merely one of levels. Our PDP approach differs from structured statistical approaches at all of Marr's levels, including the characterization of the goals of cognitive computations, and of the representations and algorithms used. (shrink)

BackgroundThere is concern in the academic publishing community that it is becoming more difficult to secure reviews for peer-reviewed manuscripts, but much of this concern stems from anecdotal and rhetorical evidence.MethodsWe examined the proportion of review requests that led to a completed review over a 6-year period (2009–2015) in a mid-tier biology journal (Molecular Ecology). We also re-analyzed previously published data from four other mid-tier ecology journals (Functional Ecology, Journal of Ecology, Journal of Animal Ecology, and Journal of Applied Ecology), (...) looking at the same proportion over the period 2003 to 2010.ResultsThe data from Molecular Ecology showed no significant decrease through time in the proportion of requests that led to a review (proportion in 2009 = 0.47 (95 % CI = 0.43 to 0.52), proportion in 2015 = 0.44 (95 % CI = 0.40 to 0.48)). This proportion did decrease for three of the other ecology journals (changes in proportions from 2003 to 2010 = −0.10, −0.18, and −0.09), while the proportion for the fourth (Functional Ecology) stayed roughly constant (change in proportion = −0.04).ConclusionsOverall, our data suggest that reviewer agreement rates have probably declined slightly but not to the extent suggested by the anecdotal and rhetorical evidence. (shrink)

New targets for brain tumor therapies may be identified by mutations that cause hereditary microcephaly. Brain growth depends on the repeated proliferation of stem and progenitor cells. Microcephaly syndromes result from mutations that specifically impair the ability of brain progenitor or stem cells to proliferate, by inducing either premature differentiation or apoptosis. Brain tumors that derive from brain progenitor or stem cells may share many of the specific requirements of their cells of origin. These tumors may therefore be susceptible to (...) disruptions of the protein products of genes that are mutated in microcephaly. The potential for the products of microcephaly genes to be therapeutic targets in brain tumors are highlighted hereby reviewing research on EG5, KIF14, ASPM, CDK6, and ATR. Treatments that disrupt these proteins may open new avenues for brain tumor therapy that have increased efficacy and decreased toxicity. -/- . (shrink)

Planctomycetes, Verrucomicrobia and Chlamydia are prokaryotic phyla, sometimes grouped together as the PVC superphylum of eubacteria. Some PVC species possess interesting attributes, in particular, internal membranes that superficially resemble eukaryotic endomembranes. Some biologists now claim that PVC bacteria are nucleus‐bearing prokaryotes and are considered evolutionary intermediates in the transition from prokaryote to eukaryote. PVC prokaryotes do not possess a nucleus and are not intermediates in the prokaryote‐to‐eukaryote transition. Here we summarise the evidence that shows why all of the PVC traits (...) that are currently cited as evidence for aspiring eukaryoticity are either analogous (the result of convergent evolution), not homologous, to eukaryotic traits; or else they are the result of horizontal gene transfers. (shrink)

Community supported agriculture programs are transforming the way people relate to food and agriculture. Many researchers have considered the transformative potential of CSAs on economic, social, and environmental relations. They illustrate how participants are embedded in broader political economic transformations. The same focus, however, has not been given to CSAs’ transformative impact on individual shareholders—especially in terms of their relationship to food and health. We draw together literatures from behavioral economics, econometrics, and political ecology to evaluate the potential impacts of (...) CSA participation on food lifestyle behaviors. Using primary data drawn from a survey of four groups with distinct food acquisition environments, we compare respondents’ self-assessed food-related behaviors along three different categories: produce versus processed food consumption, food away from home consumption, and food acquisition and interest in nutrition. By documenting between-group differences, we confirm that shareholders display significant absolute differences to other groups along numerous indicators related to the above-stated categories and in general assessments of health. These differences correspond directionally to behaviors public health officials identify as correlated to beneficial health outcomes. We conclude by theorizing how the food environments delineated by a CSA exchange relationship provide unique reflexive opportunities for participants to develop diverse food-related skills and behaviors. (shrink)

Community supported agriculture programs are transforming the way people relate to food and agriculture. Many researchers have considered the transformative potential of CSAs on economic, social, and environmental relations. They illustrate how participants are embedded in broader political economic transformations. The same focus, however, has not been given to CSAs’ transformative impact on individual shareholders—especially in terms of their relationship to food and health. We draw together literatures from behavioral economics, econometrics, and political ecology to evaluate the potential impacts of (...) CSA participation on food lifestyle behaviors. Using primary data drawn from a survey of four groups with distinct food acquisition environments, we compare respondents’ self-assessed food-related behaviors along three different categories: produce versus processed food consumption, food away from home consumption, and food acquisition and interest in nutrition. By documenting between-group differences, we confirm that shareholders display significant absolute differences to other groups along numerous indicators related to the above-stated categories and in general assessments of health. These differences correspond directionally to behaviors public health officials identify as correlated to beneficial health outcomes. We conclude by theorizing how the food environments delineated by a CSA exchange relationship provide unique reflexive opportunities for participants to develop diverse food-related skills and behaviors. (shrink)