Involuntary Particularism: What the Noahide Laws Tell Us about Citizenship and Alienage

This article argues that the Jewish picture of the Noahide laws, laws thought to apply to all non-Jews but particularly to those who would reside in a Jewish commonwealth, can shed light on how to balance a strong sense of citizenship with reasonable policies towards Lawful Permanent Residents. The article enunciates models for how to adapt the provisions of one legal system to another, shows that the Noahide system demanded that non-Jews accept fundamental aspects of a Jewish worldview in order to live among them, and then applies those lessons to argue for a reinvigorated view of American citizenship and a reconsideration of the meaning of lawful permanent residence

Editorial: seagrasses under times of change

© The Author(s), 2022. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Winters, G., Teichberg, M., Reuter, H., Viana, I. G., & Willette, D. A. Editorial: seagrasses under times of change. Frontiers in Plant Science, 13, (2022): 870478, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2022.870478.Awareness of the ecological importance of seagrasses is growing due to recent attention to their role in carbon sequestration as a potential blue carbon sink (Fourqurean et al., 2012; Bedulli et al.), as well as their role in nutrient cycling (Romero et al., 2006), sediment stabilization (James et al., 2019), pathogen filtration (Lamb et al., 2017), and the formation of essential habitats for economically important marine species (Jackson et al., 2001; Jones et al.). Despite their importance and the increasing public and scientific awareness of seagrasses, simultaneous global (e.g., ocean warming, increase in frequency and severity of extreme events, introduction and spread of invasive species) and local (e.g., physical disturbances, eutrophication, and sedimentation) anthropogenic stressors continue to be the main causes behind the ongoing global decline of seagrass meadows (Orth et al., 2006; Waycott et al., 2009).This research was partially funded through the BMBF project SEANARIOS (Seagrass scenarios under thermal and nutrient stress: FKZ 03F0826A) to HR and MT. MT was partially funded through the DFG project SEAMAC (Seagrass and macroalgal community dynamics and performance under environmental change; TE 1046/3-1). IV was supported by a postdoctoral research grant Juan de la Cierva-Incorporación (IJC2019-040554-I) and from MCIN/AEI /10.13039/501100011033 (Spain)

The Tropical Seagrass Halophila stipulacea: Reviewing What We Know From Its Native and Invasive Habitats, Alongside Identifying Knowledge Gaps

Halophila stipulacea is a small tropical seagrass, native to the Red Sea, Persian Gulf, and the Indian Ocean. It invaded the Mediterranean Sea 150 years ago as a Lessepsian migrant, but so far has remained in insulated, small populations across this basin. Surprisingly, in 2002 it was reported in the Caribbean Sea, where within less than two decades it spread to most of the Caribbean Island nations and reaching the South American continent. Unlike its invasion of Mediterranean, in the Caribbean H. stipulacea creates large, continuous populations in many areas. Reports from the Caribbean demonstrated the invasiveness of H. stipulacea by showing that it displaces local Caribbean seagrass species. The motivation for this review comes from the necessity to unify the existing knowledge on several aspects of this species in its native and invasive habitats, identify knowledge gaps and develop a critical strategy to understand its invasive capacity and implement an effective monitoring and conservation plan to mitigate its potential spread outside its native ranges. We systematically reviewed 164 studies related to H. stipulacea to create the "Halophila stipulacea database." This allowed us to evaluate the current biological, ecological, physiological, biochemical, and molecular knowledge of H. stipulacea in its native and invasive ranges. Here we (i) discuss the possible environmental conditions and plant mechanisms involved in its invasiveness, (ii) assess the impact of H. stipulacea on native seagrasses and ecosystem functions in the invaded regions, (iii) predict the ability of this species to invade European and transoceanic coastal waters, (iv) identify knowledge gaps that should be addressed to better understand the biology and ecology of this species both in its native and non-native habitats, which would improve our ability to predict H. stipulacea's potential to expand into new areas in the future. Considering the predicted climate change scenarios and exponential human pressures on coastal areas, we stress the need for coordinated global monitoring and mapping efforts that will record changes in H. stipulacea and its associated communities over time, across its native, invasive and prospective distributional ranges. This will require the involvement of biologists, ecologists, economists, modelers, managers, and local stakeholder

Rise and Fall of a Multi-sheet Intrusive Complex, Elba Island, Italy

Elba Island intrusive complex: multisheet laccoliths, sheeted pluton, mafic dyke swarm. Laccolith magma fed from dykes and emplaced in crustal discontinuities (traps). Pluton growth by downward stacking of three magma pulses. Laccoliths and plutons: different outcomes of similar processes in different conditions. Emplacement of excess magma in a short time led to massive gravity slide

Intrinsic Stability of Temporally Shifted Spike-Timing Dependent Plasticity

Spike-timing dependent plasticity (STDP), a widespread synaptic modification mechanism, is sensitive to correlations between presynaptic spike trains and it generates competition among synapses. However, STDP has an inherent instability because strong synapses are more likely to be strengthened than weak ones, causing them to grow in strength until some biophysical limit is reached. Through simulations and analytic calculations, we show that a small temporal shift in the STDP window that causes synchronous, or nearly synchronous, pre- and postsynaptic action potentials to induce long-term depression can stabilize synaptic strengths. Shifted STDP also stabilizes the postsynaptic firing rate and can implement both Hebbian and anti-Hebbian forms of competitive synaptic plasticity. Interestingly, the overall level of inhibition determines whether plasticity is Hebbian or anti-Hebbian. Even a random symmetric jitter of a few milliseconds in the STDP window can stabilize synaptic strengths while retaining these features. The same results hold for a shifted version of the more recent “triplet” model of STDP. Our results indicate that the detailed shape of the STDP window function near the transition from depression to potentiation is of the utmost importance in determining the consequences of STDP, suggesting that this region warrants further experimental study