The location of the temple of the mythical king Erechtheus, known as the “Erechtheion”, on the Acropolis of Athens is an old topographical problem. Over the centuries, the Erechtheion’s traditional identification with a part of the Karyatid Temple on the north side of the Acropolis has attracted considerable doubt. However, alternative locations have not been commonly accepted. The present article begins with an analysis of the problem and previous proposals. It then considers the hypothesis that the Erechtheion was situated on (...) the so-called “Dörpfeld foundation” in the middle of the Acropolis, the site of an Archaic building that was destroyed by the Persians in 480 BCE. Many scholars already locate the Archaic incarnation of the Erechtheion in a part of this building and suppose that, following its destruction, the Erechtheion was relocated to the Karyatid Temple. The present article, however, argues that the Erechtheion was not moved, but continued to be recognized in the Dörpfeld foundation until the end of antiquity. (shrink)

Les Panathénées, la « fête de tous les Athéniens », est de toutes les festivités de la Grèce antique la plus richement documentée. Les sources montrent que la fête était une représentation vivante de la ville. Elle avait lieu tous les étés : tous les quatre ans se tenaient les Grandes Panathénées, et les autres années, les Petites Panathénées. Cette fête célébrait la victoire des dieux sur les Géants, et en particulier le rôle d’Athéna dans cette victoire. Le cœur religieux (...) de la fête était u... (shrink)

La longue histoire de l’Acropole d’Athènes est une vitrine fascinante de la façon dont un patrimoine ancien peut être transformé, d’un sanctuaire païen à un sanctuaire chrétien, à une forteresse islamique, à l’autel symbolique de la Grèce moderne. De plus, ce site a suscité l’admiration presque religieuse des chercheurs et, comme dans le cas des marbres d’Elgin, a été contesté à de nombreux égards. L’auteur du volume analysé, William St Clair, un spécialiste des marbres d’Elgin et de divers a...

© 2015 Elsevier Inc.Postnatal organogenesis occurs in an immune competent environment and is tightly controlled by interplay between positive and negative regulators. Innate immune cells have beneficial roles in postnatal tissue remodeling, but roles for the adaptive immune system are currently unexplored. Here we show that adaptive immune responses participate in the normal postnatal development of a non-lymphoid epithelial tissue. Since the mammary gland is the only organ developing predominantly after birth, we utilized it as a powerful system to study (...) adaptive immune regulation of organogenesis. We found that antigen-mediated interactions between mammary antigen-presenting cells and interferon-γ -producing CD4+ T helper 1 cells participate in MG postnatal organogenesis as negative regulators, locally orchestrating epithelial rearrangement. IFNγ then affects luminal lineage differentiation. This function of adaptive immune responses, regulating normal development, changes the paradigm for studying players of postnatal organogenesis and provides insights into immune surveillance and cancer transformation. Plaks et al. (shrink)

BackgroundPreprint usage is growing rapidly in the life sciences; however, questions remain on the relative quality of preprints when compared to published articles. An objective dimension of quality that is readily measurable is completeness of reporting, as transparency can improve the reader’s ability to independently interpret data and reproduce findings.MethodsIn this observational study, we initially compared independent samples of articles published in bioRxiv and in PubMed-indexed journals in 2016 using a quality of reporting questionnaire. After that, we performed paired comparisons (...) between preprints from bioRxiv to their own peer-reviewed versions in journals.ResultsPeer-reviewed articles had, on average, higher quality of reporting than preprints, although the difference was small, with absolute differences of 5.0% [95% CI 1.4, 8.6] and 4.7% [95% CI 2.4, 7.0] of reported items in the independent samples and paired sample comparison, respectively. There were larger differences favoring peer-reviewed articles in subjective ratings of how clearly titles and abstracts presented the main findings and how easy it was to locate relevant reporting information. Changes in reporting from preprints to peer-reviewed versions did not correlate with the impact factor of the publication venue or with the time lag from bioRxiv to journal publication.ConclusionsOur results suggest that, on average, publication in a peer-reviewed journal is associated with improvement in quality of reporting. They also show that quality of reporting in preprints in the life sciences is within a similar range as that of peer-reviewed articles, albeit slightly lower on average, supporting the idea that preprints should be considered valid scientific contributions. (shrink)

The impact of COVID-19 on chronic pain in non-infected vulnerable South American subjects is unknown. Healthcare workers are at increased risk for CP. During the pandemic, many HCWs with CP kept working. Knowing how cognition is affected by CP in these subjects is an important subject for work safety. The attention domain has a pivotal role in cognition. Previously, the Continuous Visual Attention Test was applied to detect specific attention deficits in fibromyalgia patients. The present investigation described CP prevalence in (...) non-infected Brazilian HCWs during the pandemic and assessed HCWs’ attentional performance with the aid of the CVAT. This study was carried out at a reference University Hospital in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. HCWs of both sexes, aged 20 or older, were interviewed from August to December 2020. A 90-second version of the CVAT was performed. The average reaction time to correct responses and the respective intraindividual reaction time variability for correct responses to target was determined. Omission and commission errors were also calculated. Then, for each participant we calculated the Z-scores of the CVAT variables based on the distribution of CVAT performance of 211 healthy subjects. HCWs with Z-scores > 1.64 were classified as significantly impaired. From the 154 selected HCWs, 72 reported CP during the pandemic. Post hoc ANCOVAs showed that the average correct VRT was significantly higher in the CP group than in the non-CP group. The percentage of participants with impaired VRT performance was 30% in the CP group and 16% in the non-CP group. The difference between these two propositions reached significance. As VRT is associated with the sustained-attention subdomain, our data suggest that this subdomain is disrupted in the CP group. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Klio Jahrgang: 99 Heft: 2 Seiten: 464-484.

Religions, ideologies try to give a complete vision of the world a vision containing both its origin, explanation and a “normative kit”: a collection of precepts and rules, which should regulate human activities and behavior. Their synergetic meaning is clear: if embraced by all they allow for development of strong synergetic effects on the social macro scales. These in turn may lead to creation of order and beauty, of intellectual, spiritual and moral development within men and in society. In this (...) consist the elements of their natural—i.e. not explicitly reasoned out—wisdom. However, as they contain also some elements of harmful consequences—at least if they are literally accepted and in a fundamentalist manner practiced—they cannot be universally accepted. But—rejecting them we lose also the important sourcesof natural—or should we say instinctive—wisdom.Could the solution of this contradiction, of this one of the basic human sources of suffering be looked for in the modern science of complexity?Synergetics and the sciences of complex systems in general offer a solid scientific base for a meta-philosophical, universalist intellectual framework. Its offspring the social synergetics offers concrete propositions of optimized social structures. Optimized in the sense of espousing the main synergetic effects with being at the same time free of the negative “side effects” happening when religions or ideologies are the source of synergism.Finally a connection is discussed between the presented ideas and the concept of “love of wisdom”. The term “love of wisdom” may be understood as striving not only to possess a “sound and serene judgment regarding the conduct of life” but also a practical ability to act according to that judgment.This ability may be also expressed using the information-thermodynamic concepts of synergetics. Indeed without the ever continuing negentropy transformation neither survival of a complex system like man or society nor its continuing development—uncovering of all his “hidden potentials” is possible.To assure maximization of this transformation process creation of strong synergetic effects—of reinforcement, of positive feedback—between all human beings—i.e. not excluding any nations, any social groups, and any individuals—are necessary. Acting towards local and global realization of such a structure everywhere on our planet constitutes the essence of social wisdom.Removing all obstacles towards this goal—obstacles existing on the intellectual, emotional and spiritual level—should be one of the most important tasks of various institutions, of state structures, of purified from mythical elements ideologies, of man oriented sciences and above all of the modern universalism.Thus striving towards its realization is an expression of the love of wisdom. Of wisdom once based on the elements of mythos and now regained in the full light of Logos. (shrink)

(1984). A CALENDAR FOR THE MESSIANIC AGE A CONCEPT OF HENDRIK NICLAES, FOUNDER OF THE HOUSE OF LOVE / A Calendar for the Messianic Age, a concept of Hendrik Niclaes, Founder of The House of Love. Bijdragen: Vol. 45, No. 3, pp. 276-294.

While much discussion in bioethics, philosophy of science, and philosophy of medicine concerns the proper handling and uses of value considerations, there has been little discussion about how to identify or recognize values in medical/scientific discourse. This article presents a heuristic method for identifying values in such discourses. Values are defined as descriptions or conditions that guide human action and are praise- or blameworthy. Values manifest themselves in discourses in one or more of three dimensions: linguistic, causal, and descriptive; each (...) with distinctive “subtypes”. By recognizing the various ways that values manifest in discourses, a “values scholar” can ask relevant questions of the discourse and thereby come to recognize potential evaluative meanings in the discourse. Numerous examples are provided from the author's own research program. Strengths, limitations, and paths to developing the model are briefly discussed. (shrink)