The most enigmatic feature of polytene chromosomes is their banding pattern, the genetic organization of which has been a very attractive puzzle for many years. Recent genome‐wide protein mapping efforts have produced a wealth of data for the chromosome proteins of Drosophila cells. Based on their specific protein composition, the chromosomes comprise two types of bands, as well as interbands. These differ in terms of time of replication and specific types of proteins. The interbands are characterized by their association with (...) “active” chromatin proteins, nucleosome remodeling, and origin recognition complexes, and so they have three functions: acting as binding sites for RNA pol II, initiation of replication and nucleosome remodeling of short fragments of DNA. The borders and organization of the same band and interband regions are largely identical, irrespective of the cell type studied. This demonstrates that the banding pattern is a universal principle of the organization of interphase polytene and non‐polytene chromosomes.Editor's suggested further reading in BioEssaysCaught in the act: Rapid, symbiont‐driven evolution AbstractFunction and evolution of sex determination mechanisms, genes and pathways in insects Abstract. (shrink)

We focus here on the intercalary heterochromatin (IH) of Drosophila melanogaster and, in particular, its molecular properties. In the polytene chromosomes of Drosophila, IH is represented by a reproducible set of dense bands scattered along the euchromatic arms. IH contains mainly unique DNA sequences, and shares certain features with other heterochromatin types such as pericentric, telomeric, and PEV‐induced heterochromatin, the inactive mammalian X‐chromosome and the heterochromatized male chromosome set in coccids. These features are transcriptional silencing, chromatin compactness, late DNA replication, (...) underrreplication or elimination in somatic cells, and formation of the heterochromatin state in early embryogenesis. Post‐translational modification of histones and the specific nonhistone protein complexes are shown to participate in the establishment and maintenance of silencing for all heterochromatin types. Many IH regions contain binding sites for HP1 and/or Pc‐G proteins and all the regions are sites of heterochromatin‐associated SuUR protein. Some IH regions are known to contain homeotic genes. Summarizing these data, we suggest that IH regions comprise stable inactivated genes, whose silencing is developmentally programmed. BioEssays 25:1040–1051, 2003. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

This study examined patterns of auxiliary provision and omission for the auxiliaries BE and HAVE in a longitudinal data set from 11 children between the ages of two and three years. Four possible explanations for auxiliary omission—a lack of lexical knowledge, performance limitations in production, the Optional Infinitive hypothesis, and patterns of auxiliary use in the input—were examined. The data suggest that although none of these accounts provides a full explanation for the pattern of auxiliary use and nonuse observed in (...) children's early speech, integrating input-based and lexical learning-based accounts of early language acquisition within a constructivist approach appears to provide a possible framework in which to understand the patterns of auxiliary use found in the children's speech. The implications of these findings for models of children's early language acquisition are discussed. (shrink)

Given its non-invasive nature, there is increasing interest in the use of transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation across basic, translational and clinical research. Contemporaneously, tVNS can be achieved by stimulating either the auricular branch or the cervical bundle of the vagus nerve, referred to as transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation and transcutaneous cervical VNS, respectively. In order to advance the field in a systematic manner, studies using these technologies need to adequately report sufficient methodological detail to enable comparison of results between (...) studies, replication of studies, as well as enhancing study participant safety. We systematically reviewed the existing tVNS literature to evaluate current reporting practices. Based on this review, and consensus among participating authors, we propose a set of minimal reporting items to guide future tVNS studies. The suggested items address specific technical aspects of the device and stimulation parameters. We also cover general recommendations including inclusion and exclusion criteria for participants, outcome parameters and the detailed reporting of side effects. Furthermore, we review strategies used to identify the optimal stimulation parameters for a given research setting and summarize ongoing developments in animal research with potential implications for the application of tVNS in humans. Finally, we discuss the potential of tVNS in future research as well as the associated challenges across several disciplines in research and clinical practice. (shrink)

Until at least 4 years of age, children, unlike adults, interpret some as compatible with all. The inability to draw the pragmatic inference leading to interpret some as not all, could be taken to indicate a delay in pragmatic abilities, despite evidence of other early pragmatic skills. However, little is known about how the production of these implicature develops. We conducted a corpus study on early production and perception of the scalar term some in British English. Children's utterances containing some (...) were extracted from the dense corpora of five children aged 2;00 to 5;01 ( N = 5,276), and analysed alongside a portion of their caregivers' utterances with some ( N = 9,030). These were coded into structural and contextual categories allowing for judgments on the probability of a scalar implicature being intended. The findings indicate that children begin producing and interpreting implicatures in a pragmatic way during their third year of life, shortly after they first produce some. Their production of some implicatures is low but matches their parents' input in frequency. Interestingly, the mothers' production of implicatures also increases as a function of the children's age. The data suggest that as soon as they acquire some, children are fully competent in its production and mirror adult production. The contrast between the very early implicature production we find and the relatively late implicature comprehension established in the literature calls for an explanation; possibly in terms of the processing cost of implicature derivation. Additionally, some is multifaceted, and thus, implicatures are infrequent, and structurally and contextually constrained in both populations. (shrink)

Spatial memory relies on encoding, storing, and retrieval of knowledge about objects’ positions in their surrounding environment. Blind people have to rely on sensory modalities other than vision to memorize items that are spatially displaced, however, to date, very little is known about the influence of early visual deprivation on a person’s ability to remember and process sound locations. To fill this gap, we tested sighted and congenitally blind adults and adolescents in an audio-spatial memory task inspired by the classical (...) card game “Memory.” In this research, subjects had to find pairs among sounds displaced on an audio-tactile device composed of loudspeakers covered by tactile sensors. To accomplish this task, participants had to remember the spatialized sounds’ position and develop a proper mental spatial representation of their locations. The test was divided into two experimental conditions of increasing difficulty dependent on the number of sounds to be remembered. Results showed that sighted participants outperformed blind participants in both conditions. Findings were discussed considering the crucial role of visual experience in properly manipulating auditory spatial representations, particularly in relation to the ability to explore complex acoustic configurations. (shrink)

The historical factors as well as the units of the cultural knowledge which are considered to have provided Chateaubriand’s books, and “The Genius of Christianity” in particular, with the success and the content are the subject of the present article. The following historical reasons which attracted the readers’ attention to the book have been defined: the disappointment of the society with the atheistic ideals of the revolution, the need for religious cult restoring, the authorities’ desire to stop strife in the (...) country and build relationships with Catholic Europe. The semantic content of the work also contributed to its popularity because it responded to the request of finding logic in the religion, had an emotional impact and dealt with the relevant issues of the morality by means of the cultural category of sinfulness. Scientific novelty of the research implies the following: the cultural category of sinfulness objectified in F.R. Chateaubriand’s book “The Genius of Christianity” having been analyzed for the first time as well as the author’s approach to the understanding and cultural information streamlining having been identified. More over cultural-historical factors promoting the book’s prominence among Chateaubriand’s contemporaries have been studied. The author’s using rational way while explaining the basis of the sin, resorting to the strict argumentation and the evidence-based methods, denying religious irrationality have been set. The conducted research has shown the key factors leading to the book’s relevance: the society’s necessity of the religion revival, the authorities’ support of this tendency specified by the political environment. (shrink)

The article presents the reconstruction of the views of F.M. Dostoevsky and Vl.S. Solovyov on the nature of relations between church and state. A line of mutual influence of thinkers in the context of the perception of Christian truth is drawn. It is shown that Dostoevsky was impressed by a series of lectures by Solovyov's "Readings on God-manhood" and adopted from them the idea of the possibility of religious and moral improvement not only of an individual, but of society as (...) a whole. The article shows that not without the Solovyov's influence Dostoevsky arrives at the Slavophil idea of sobornost and the impossibility of salvation outside of church communion, while speaking of the Church as an ecclesia, that is, an assembly of believers. The author of the article shows that the sophistic and mystical moments in the novel "The Brothers Karamazov" appear under direct influence on Dostoevsky's "Readings on God-manhood" and a joint trip of thinkers to the Optina Pustyn monastery. It is also noted that in the novel "The Brothers Karamazov" the idea was expressed about the gradual growth of the state into the truth of the Church. Solovyov continued this line within the framework of his project of free theocracy in the 1880s, developing the thought of F.M. Dostoevsky - about the Church as the best social order. At the same time, the article shows the principled position of both thinkers on opposing the ideal of socialism and the idea of the Christian community, within which the term "Russian socialism", formulated in the "Diary of a writer". The author shows that Solovyov in his work "Three speeches in memory of Dostoevsky" was the first to explain the term "Russian socialism" precisely through the concept of the Christian community. (shrink)

The article discusses the original critical dialectical approach of the Soviet philosopher Valentin F. Asmus. His publications on the heritage of Western philosophical thought in the journal Pod znamenem marksizma are examples of this approach. In the 1920s and 1930s, Asmus published a number of articles analyzing a variety of the ideas developed by Western European philosophers: “An Advocate for Philosophical Intuition (Bergson and His Critique of the Intellect)” (1926); “The Alogism of William James” (1927); “The Dialectics of Necessity and (...) Freedom in Spinoza’s Ethics” (1927); “Kant’s General and Transcendental Logic” (1928); “Cosmogony and Cosmology of Descartes” (1937); “Fichte and the Vocation of Scholar” (1937); “Nicholas of Cusa. Selected Philosophical Works” (1938); and “Tommaso Campanella” (1939). These articles differed from the journal’s usual rhetoric, which was shaped in accordance with the official Soviet state ideology. Asmus, through the thinkers he examined, showed the fundamental importance of philosophy for the human personality. This article argues that Asmus, despite his closeness to dialectical materialism, adapted the official terminology and issues in his historical and philosophical articles in a way that he advanced the human right to spirituality, creative activity, and individual freedom. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic is a health issue leading older adults to an increased vulnerability to unfavorable outcomes. Indeed, the presence of physical frailty has recently led to higher mortality due to SARS-CoV-2 infection. However, no longitudinal studies have investigated the role of neuropsychogeriatric factors associated with lockdown fatigue in healthy cognitive aging. Eighty-one healthy older adults were evaluated for their neuropsychological characteristics, including physical frailty, before the pandemic. Subsequently, 50 of them agreed to be interviewed and neuropsychologically re-assessed during the (...) lockdown and immediately after it. Moreover, during another home confinement, they performed a psychological screening to evaluate possible mood changes and fatigue. According to Fried's frailty criteria, at T0, 63% of the sample was robust, 34.5% pre-frail, and only 2.5% frail. Significantly, these subjects presented a decrease in handgrip strength and walking speed. Results from Principal Component Analyses and multiple regression models highlighted the contribution of “cognitive” and “psychological” factors in explaining handgrip strength and gait speed. At T3, lockdown fatigue was explained by higher scores on the Beck Depression Inventory and lower scores on the Trail Making Test part A. Results from a moderated-mediation model showed that the effect of psychomotor speed on lockdown fatigue was mediated by depression, with a moderating effect of gait speed. Our findings highlight the complex interrelationship between cognitive, psychological, and physical factors in the emergence of pandemic fatigue in a carefully selected older population. (shrink)

In the 1920s and 1930s, some of the most talented linguists of the Soviet Union, among whom one can highlight N. F. Jakovlev and E. D. Polivanov, were involved in the process of "language building". Their role in the success of this process is examined from the point of view of the phonological theory that they developed for creating scripts for the numerous peoples of the Soviet Union, Turkic and Caucasian above all. Jakovlev's phonology, that Polivanov termed "social phonology", was (...) very different from the one that N. Trubetskoj proposed some 10 years later. We will try to explain their ambitious script projects, which remain difficult to understand from the point of view of the modern phonology. (shrink)

This article presents the intellectual approach of an important thinker of the contemporary world, Michel de Certeau (1925-1986), to show its coherence. At the first look his work seems confusing: it addresses both the mystical phenomena of the past and the daily life of his contemporaries. His interests are multifaceted: he was at the same time theologian, historian, sociologist, philosopher of history. His work is a permanent research in a world in perpetual transformation. Although his main field of research was (...) history, his first works dealt with theological problems. The interest of M. de Certeau begins by the analysis of mysticism as a phenomenon characteristic of the beginning of modern times. This leads him to take a broader interest in history as a set of events that cannot be reduced to a “system”. The spiritual experience of that period offers a clue to understanding current events. A significant part of M. de Certeau’s works deals with the problem of “modernity” and “everyday life”. There is a will to “think about event”. In the last part of his life, he works on the anthropology of the everyday life of “ordinary” people, in order to show the capacity they have to “invent” their existence by “tinkering” with the materials they receive. The religious dimension permeates all his work, his religious themes embrace both historical and contemporary Christianity. Christianity is for him the “religion of event”. That is why it must always remain open to meeting the other. Throughout his creativity Michel de Certeau shows a great concern for the singularity of every person, spiritual experience, interrelations with others. (shrink)

Justification Logic is a family of epistemic logical systems obtained from modal logics of knowledge by adding a new type of formula t:F, which is read t is a justification for F. The principal epistemic modal logic S4 includes Tarski’s well-known topological interpretation, according to which the modality 2X is read the Interior of X in a topological space (the topological equivalent of the ‘knowable part of X’). In this paper, we extend Tarski’s topological interpretation from S4 to Justification Logic (...) systems with both modality and justification assertions. The topological semantics interprets t:X as a reachable subset of X (the topological equivalent of ‘test t confirms X’). We establish a number of soundness and completeness results with respect to Kripke topology and the real topology for S4-based systems of Justification Logic. (shrink)

A laughter that will bury you: the morality of plant-based meat irony When plant-based meats enter the foodscape, they face the challenge of how to communicate their nature and function to consumers: one strategy for navigating the tension between portraying conventional meat as something to be replaced and affirming their unique meaty tastiness is through ironic claims and performances. This paper seeks to analyse the moral stance of irony in plant-based meat advertisements, specifically when this irony involves the death of (...) animals. Firstly, it presents an argument showing that, from the standpoint of veganism, ironising about animals’ death can be a moral wrong. Secondly, by relying on an interpretation of irony that leverages its potential for subverting and criticising hegemonic viewpoints, it is shown that this kind of irony can serve as a form of resistance aimed at dismantling the pervasive indifference towards the killing of animals for producing meat. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to revisit Clement of Alexandria’s Paedagogus 2.5.45-8 discussing whether Clement holds a moderate position οf laughter or, like most early Christians, tends to an “antigelastic” position. Some scholars, such as Stephen Halliwell and Laura Rizzerio, have concluded that Clement holds an intermediate position between an optimistic approach to laughter and its condemnation. However, in this essay we argue that while Clement’s position is not a straightforward antigelastic one, his apparent acceptance of laughter is so (...) narrow that his moderate view ends up being compromised. Ultimately, he is strongly inclined to condemn laughter and to prescribe an ascetic life devoid of laughter. (shrink)

The title of this symposium, “Formal Simplicity as a Weight in the Acceptability of Scientific Theories,” to some people might seem to suggest that we are to be making positive proposals about how the concept of simplicity could be defined for formalized languages, defined so as to figure in a formalized theory of confirmation. I must confess at the start that I do not have any such ambitious object in view. I now feel, indeed, that premature formalizations have little power (...) to illuminate the philosophically interesting questions which cluster round the problem of the role of simplicity in scientific thinking. So in this short paper I wish merely to present some elementary considerations, not very novel ones, concerning the role which simplicity seems to me to play in our non-demonstrative reasoning about matters of empirical fact. Although many writers have sought to analyze the logical character of such reasoning, little unanimity has been attained in their over-all views; thus it is that though the considerations which I wish to present are elementary, they are not wholly uncontroversial. But because these matters are elementary in nature, I do feel it appropriate in discussing them to use homely examples of uncomplicated kinds, rather than elaborate examples drawn from the more sophisticated reaches of scientific theory; in doing so, I am taking it for granted that scientific inference as regards its logical character is fundamentally a refinement of everyday thinking, rather than a procedure of some essentially different nature. (shrink)

The intensive process of differentiation of knowledge that has in the past decade come to include philosophy has had the results, inter alia, that ethics, esthetics, and empirical sociology have undergone a kind of secondary "branching off" from the philosophy of society and culture . On the level of teaching this had the consequence that a department of esthetics and ethics was carved out of the department of historical materialism at the Philosophical Faculty of Moscow University, and was subsequently divided (...) into departments of esthetics and ethics, respectively. It was thus that the independent department of ethics made its appearance for the first time in the history of Moscow University. This occurred in 1969, and recently the department of Marxist- Leninist ethics marked its modest first decade. (shrink)

Many research ethics guidelines now oblige researchers to offer research participants the results of research in which they participated. This practice is intended to uphold respect for persons and ensure that participants are not treated as mere means to an end. Yet some scholars have begun to question a generalised duty to disclose research results, highlighting the potential harms arising from disclosure and questioning the ethical justification for a duty to disclose, especially with respect to individual results. In support of (...) this view, we argue that current rationales for a duty of disclosure do not form an adequate basis for an ethical imperative. We review policy guidance and scholarly commentary regarding the duty to communicate the results of biomedical, epidemiological and genetic research to research participants and show that there is wide variation in opinion regarding what should be disclosed and under what circumstance. Moreover, we argue that there is fundamental confusion about the notion of “research results,” specifically regarding three core concepts: the distinction between aggregate and individual results, amongst different types of research, and across different degrees of result veracity. Even where policy guidance and scholarly commentary have been most forceful in support of an ethical imperative to disclose research results, ambiguity regarding what is to be disclosed confounds ethical action. (shrink)

This essay by S. F. Davenport won the Norrisian Prize awarded by the University of Cambridge in 1924 and was published the next year. In it, Davenport examines the idea of 'immanence', which he defines as 'indicating the rapport between God and His creatures', and the possible application of the concept to the Incarnation of Christ. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Christology or Christian theology more generally.

“The forms of thought are first set out and stored in human language,” we read in the preface to the second edition of Hegel’s Science of Logic. Man thinks through language, and everything he “transforms into language and expresses in it contains a category, whether concealed, mixed, or well defined”. Language, then, harbors thought categories. There is a philosophy of language, but there is also a philosophy implied in language. How is this supposed to work? More specifically, how is this (...) supposed to work in Hegel’s own use of language?This paper is an attempt to give a simple answer to this question. There have been scholarly attempts to tie Hegel’s philosophy to his use of language.1 This paper... (shrink)

In his writings, Edmund Pellegrino analyzes four deficiencies in the humanity of those who fall ill: the loss of (1) freedom of action, (2) freedom to make rational choices, (3) freedom from the power of others, and (4) a sense of the integrity of the self. Since Pellegrino's analysis and commitment to virtuebased ethics preceded much of the attention later given by philosophers to the importance of the moral principle of autonomy (in contrast to beneficence) in patient care, it is (...) helpful to trace the source of his commitment to virtue-based ethics and his account of freedom to Aristotle's analysis of the human soul, as an entelechy of an intact and healthy living organism that, unimpeded by illness, moves itself to act, to actualize its intellectual potential in the form of making rational choices, and to free itself from the power of others by remaining independent and without need of continuous assistance, while at the same time retaining the integrity of a unified self that can act, think, and choose for itself autonomously. (shrink)

В книге анализируется дискуссия о природе сознания в современной аналитической философии. Для философов, ученых и всех, интересующихся проблемой сознания.