Beyond Transgression: Toward a Free Market in Morality

Richard A. Posner. Sex and Reason. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992. Pp. vii, 458. $29.95. With his special gift for contrariety, Judge Richard Posner places his ambitious investigation of the vicissitudes of sex under the aegis of a quote from Aristotle\u27s Nicomachean Ethics: Pleasures are an impediment to rational deliberation, and the more so the more pleasurable they are, such as the pleasures of sex - it is impossible to think about anything while absorbed in them. Posner then devotes the ensuing 442 dense pages to challenging Aristotle\u27s assertion. That sex and reason normally make incompatible bedfellows should not be taken as evidence that it is impossible to subject sex to the rigors of reason. Sex, Posner suggests throughout the book, must be considered as one form of behavior among many, no more nor less immune to the operations of the rational mind. Posner\u27s commitment to the power of rationality, as he understands it, constitutes the great strength and ultimate weakness of his work. And it is easy to imagine that many readers will find his rational foray into sex infuriating. He has no patience for the facile confusion of sex with passion, much less of sex with desire, which so mesmerizes contemporary critics. Posner\u27s discussion of sex has more to do with theories of animal behavior than with the feelings of individuals. In this respect the great strength of Posner\u27s book overlaps with its most disturbing weakness, namely, his determination to organize complex human behavior in predictable- and largely determined-patterns

Warfare And Word Play: A Postmodernist Rendering Of Civil War Memory And Literature

In Disarming the Nation, Elizabeth Young seeks to rectify the prevailing vision of the Civil War as a male exercise in nation build-ing and to discredit the prevailing view of the literature about it as a complemen-tary story of patrilineal self-generation. Deploring the myth of origins ...

The possibility of absolute calibration of analog detectors by using parametric down-conversion: a systematical study

Accurate calibration of photodetectors both in analog and in photon-counting regime is fundamental for various scientific applications, which range from "traditional" quantum optics to the studies on foundations of quantum mechanics, quantum cryptography, quantum computation, etc. In this paper we systematically study the possibility of the absolute calibration of analog photo-detectors based on the properties of parametric amplifiers. Our results show that such a method can be effectively developed with interesting possible metrological applications

Climate Change, Migration and the Cosmopolitan Dilemma

At its simplest, migration refers to the movement of people and their temporary or permanent geographical relocation. People have always been on the move and they have moved over great distances. In this article I set out a brief historical understanding of migration, and then focus on Europe and, finally, current dilemmas of European migration policy. In an era of climate change, war and uneven development, the pressures of migration have grown and could soon create an ever greater avalanche of movement. States act in a paradoxical way. On the one hand, they recognise the nature of the migration crisis and the necessity to broaden the definition of those who need urgent assistance. On the other hand, most host countries act on increasingly narrow definitions of those who warrant assistance and perhaps resettlement. This dilemma is examined and tentative steps are set down to show how it might be resolved

FMRI resting slow fluctuations correlate with the activity of fast cortico-cortical physiological connections

Recording of slow spontaneous fluctuations at rest using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) allows distinct long-range cortical networks to be identified. The neuronal basis of connectivity as assessed by resting-state fMRI still needs to be fully clarified, considering that these signals are an indirect measure of neuronal activity, reflecting slow local variations in de-oxyhaemoglobin concentration. Here, we combined fMRI with multifocal transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), a technique that allows the investigation of the causal neurophysiological interactions occurring in specific cortico-cortical connections. We investigated whether the physiological properties of parieto-frontal circuits mapped with short-latency multifocal TMS at rest may have some relationship with the resting-state fMRI measures of specific resting-state functional networks (RSNs). Results showed that the activity of fast cortico-cortical physiological interactions occurring in the millisecond range correlated selectively with the coupling of fMRI slow oscillations within the same cortical areas that form part of the dorsal attention network, i.e., the attention system believed to be involved in reorientation of attention. We conclude that resting-state fMRI ongoing slow fluctuations likely reflect the interaction of underlying physiological cortico-cortical connections

Therapeutic gene editing of T cells to correct CTLA-4 insufficiency

Heterozygous mutations in CTLA-4 result in an inborn error of immunity with an autoimmune and frequently severe clinical phenotype. Autologous T cell gene therapy may offer a cure without the immunological complications of allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Here, we designed a homology-directed repair (HDR) gene editing strategy that inserts the CTLA-4 cDNA into the first intron of the CTLA-4 genomic locus in primary human T cells. This resulted in regulated expression of CTLA-4 in CD4+ T cells, and functional studies demonstrated CD80 and CD86 transendocytosis. Gene editing of T cells isolated from three patients with CTLA-4 insufficiency also restored CTLA-4 protein expression and rescued transendocytosis of CD80 and CD86 in vitro. Last, gene-corrected T cells from CTLA-4-/- mice engrafted and prevented lymphoproliferation in an in vivo murine model of CTLA-4 insufficiency. These results demonstrate the feasibility of a therapeutic approach using T cell gene therapy for CTLA-4 insufficiency

Trait-Like Brain Activity during Adolescence Predicts Anxious Temperament in Primates

Early theorists (Freud and Darwin) speculated that extremely shy children, or those with anxious temperament, were likely to have anxiety problems as adults. More recent studies demonstrate that these children have heightened responses to potentially threatening situations reacting with intense defensive responses that are characterized by behavioral inhibition (BI) (inhibited motor behavior and decreased vocalizations) and physiological arousal. Confirming the earlier impressions, data now demonstrate that children with this disposition are at increased risk to develop anxiety, depression, and comorbid substance abuse. Additional key features of anxious temperament are that it appears at a young age, it is a stable characteristic of individuals, and even in non-threatening environments it is associated with increased psychic anxiety and somatic tension. To understand the neural underpinnings of anxious temperament, we performed imaging studies with 18-fluoro-deoxyglucose (FDG) high-resolution Positron Emission Tomography (PET) in young rhesus monkeys. Rhesus monkeys were used because they provide a well validated model of anxious temperament for studies that cannot be performed in human children. Imaging the same animal in stressful and secure contexts, we examined the relation between regional metabolic brain activity and a trait-like measure of anxious temperament that encompasses measures of BI and pituitary-adrenal reactivity. Regardless of context, results demonstrated a trait-like pattern of brain activity (amygdala, bed nucleus of stria terminalis, hippocampus, and periaqueductal gray) that is predictive of individual phenotypic differences. Importantly, individuals with extreme anxious temperament also displayed increased activity of this circuit when assessed in the security of their home environment. These findings suggest that increased activity of this circuit early in life mediates the childhood temperamental risk to develop anxiety and depression. In addition, the findings provide an explanation for why individuals with anxious temperament have difficulty relaxing in environments that others perceive as non-stressful