Hot Time In The Summertime

THE plump brown grasshopper hit with a small splash at his feet. Not bothering to land on its legs, it skidded and rolled almost as far as it jumped, before righting itself and leaping again. Laughing quietly at the insect, he looked up the road to the shimmering horizon..

Metaethical Contextualism and the Problem of Disagreement: When Somebody Must Be Wrong

Metaethical contextualism is a form of moderate contextualism according to which the truth-conditions of normative utterances are sensitive to some salient standard, norm, or theory that is determined by the context of utterance. Metaethical contextualism implies that two speakers might utter grammatically contradictory normative sentences without expressing contradictory propositions, leaving the view vulnerable to the \u27problem of lost disagreement\u27. The problem of lost disagreement occurs when two parties to a dispute disagree, but their utterances don\u27t express exclusionary truth-conditional content: they might both be right. While metaethical contextualists have proposed plausible solutions to the problem of lost disagreement, these solutions are ultimately unsatisfying, at least in contexts where one would expect exclusionary truth-conditional content. In this paper, I develop a form of metaethical contextualism that predicts exclusionary truth-conditional content in some contexts of disagreement, thereby assuaging any concerns that metaethical contextualism fails to adequately account for normative disagreement

The function of imagery in Antony and Cleopatra

The modern scholar attempting any detailed analysis of imagery in the poetry of Shakespeare may well proceed with caution. The lack of a clear and definite statement of terms, the unwillingness to come first to grips with the problem of definition before proceeding with that of analysis may produce pitfalls for the unwary; and although modern studies - especially those of Miss Caroline Spurgeon and her followers - have cast much light upon Shakespeare’s use of imagery, they do not altogether escape the charge of carelessness. Much work remains to be donel and the need for a reconsideration of the work already accomplished, together with a careful re-analysis of the function of imagery in the text of Shakespeare itself, is unquestionable. Herein, then, we have the purpose as well as the justification of the present study. The method of the study will involve: (A) the careful counting and listing of all the images in a mature Shakespearean tragedy; and, (B) the classification of these images according to what appears to be their technical function in the drama itself

Interpretation of ambiguous pronouns in adults with intellectual disabilities

Background — Pronouns are referentially ambiguous (e.g. she could refer to any female), yet they are common in everyday conversations. Individuals with typical development (TD) employ several strategies to avoid pronoun interpretation errors, including the subject bias — an assumption that a pronoun typically refers to the subject (or, with the closely related order-of-mention bias, the first-mentioned character) of the previous sentence. However, it is unknown if adults with intellectual disability (ID) share this strategy or the extent to which the subject bias is associated with non-verbal abilities or receptive vocabulary. Methods — We tested 22 adults with mixed-aetiology ID on their interpretation of ambiguous pronouns using the visual world eye-tracking paradigm and by asking a follow-up pronoun interpretation question. A group of TD adults was also tested to establish the strength of the subject bias with our materials and task. Results — Adults with ID did demonstrate the subject bias, but it was significantly less robust than that seen in TD. For participants with ID, the subject bias was influenced by non-verbal IQ and receptive vocabulary at different stages of processing. Conclusions — Given the frequency of pronouns in conversation, strengthening the subject bias may help alleviate discourse and reading comprehension challenges for individuals with ID, particularly those with lower non-verbal and/or vocabulary skills

The essential role of bursicon during Drosophila development

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The protective external cuticle of insects does not accommodate growth during development. To compensate for this, the insect life cycle is punctuated by a series of molts. During the molt, a new and larger cuticle is produced underneath the old cuticle. Replacement of the smaller, old cuticle culminates with ecdysis, a stereotyped sequence of shedding behaviors. Following each ecdysis, the new cuticle must expand and harden. Studies from a variety of insect species indicate that this cuticle hardening is regulated by the neuropeptide bursicon. However, genetic evidence from <it>Drosophila melanogaster </it>only supports such a role for bursicon after the final ecdysis, when the adult fly emerges. The research presented here investigates the role that bursicon has at stages of <it>Drosophila </it>development which precede adult ecdysis.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We addressed the mechanism and timing of hormonal release from bursicon-positive motor neurons at the larval neuromuscular junction. Our findings indicate that vesicle membrane proteins which are required for classical neurotransmitter release are also expressed at these peptidergic motor neuron terminals; and that these terminals secrete hormones including bursicon at the neuromuscular junction, coinciding with larval ecdysis. This release surprisingly occurs in two waves, indicating bursicon secretion preceding and following the ecdysis sequence. Next, we addressed the functional significance of bursicon signaling during development, by disrupting the expression of its receptor, rickets, in different target tissues. We determined that rickets is developmentally required in the epidermis and imaginal discs for proper formation of the prepupa. It is also required to harden the pharate adult cuticle before eclosion. Significantly, we have also found that the available rickets mutants are not genetic nulls as previously believed, which necessitated the use of targeted RNA interference to disrupt rickets expression.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our results are consistent with the view that bursicon is the insect tanning hormone. However, this is the first study to rigorously demonstrate both its release and function during development. Importantly, we provide new evidence that bursicon release can precede the initiation of larval ecdysis, and that bursicon tans the puparium. Our results firmly establish bursicon signaling as essential to insect growth and development.</p