A Legacy of Resistance: The Case of the Freckenhorst Baptismal Font

Since 1823 the consecration date of 1129 for the Church of St. Boniface, inscribed on the Freckenhorst baptismal font from the imperial convent of St. Boniface (Westphalia, Germany), has continued to be considered, by some, the date for when the font was carved. For over two hundred years this precocious date has divided academic communities, despite the numerous and comprehensive counter arguments asserting that the font is a later twelfth century if not early thirteenth century vessel. This raises the question, “Why has there been such resistance to recognize this vessel as a later product of the prolific Westphalian stone industry?” This article reviews the historiography to uncover the roots of the ‘sanctified status’ that the Freckenhorst font acquired over the centuries from the post-Imperial period of Germany through the two World Wars. The literature reveals not only why the Freckenhorst font came to symbolize ‘Germanic ingenuity’ for German art historians but also the challenges and changes within the evolving discipline of art history and the scholarly networks that connected art historians in the first half of the twentieth century

Psychopathy to Altruism: Neurobiology of the Selfish–Selfless Spectrum

The age-old philosophical, biological, and social debate over the basic nature of humans as being “universally selfish” or “universally good” continues today highlighting sharply divergent views of natural social order. Here we analyze advances in biology, genetics and neuroscience increasing our understanding of the evolution, features and neurocircuitry of the human brain underlying behavior in the selfish–selfless spectrum. First, we examine evolutionary pressures for selection of altruistic traits in species with protracted periods of dependence on parents and communities for subsistence and acquisition of learned behaviors. Evidence supporting the concept that altruistic potential is a common feature in human populations is developed. To go into greater depth in assessing critical features of the social brain, the two extremes of selfish–selfless behavior, callous unemotional psychopaths and zealous altruists who take extreme measures to help others, are compared on behavioral traits, structural/functional neural features, and the relative contributions of genetic inheritance versus acquired cognitive learning to their mindsets. Evidence from population groups ranging from newborns, adopted children, incarcerated juveniles, twins and mindfulness meditators point to the important role of neuroplasticity and the dopaminergic reward systems in forming and reforming neural circuitry in response to personal experience and cultural influences in determining behavior in the selfish–selfless spectrum. The underlying neural circuitry differs between psychopaths and altruists with emotional processing being profoundly muted in psychopaths and significantly enhanced in altruists. But both groups are characterized by the reward system of the brain shaping behavior. Instead of rigid assignment of human nature as being “universally selfish” or “universally good,” both characterizations are partial truths based on the segments of the selfish–selfless spectrum being examined. In addition, individuals and populations can shift in the behavioral spectrum in response to cognitive therapy and social and cultural experience, and approaches such as mindfulness training for introspection and reward-activating compassion are entering the mainstream of clinical care for managing pain, depression, and stress

High-temperature excess current and quantum suppression of electronic backscattering in a 1-D system

We consider the electronic current through a one-dimensional conductor in the ballistic transport regime and show that the quantum oscillations of a weakly pinned single scattering target results in a temperature- and bias-voltage independent excess current at large bias voltages. This is a genuine effect on transport that derives from an exponential reduction of electronic backscattering in the elastic channel due to quantum delocalization of the scatterer and from suppression of low-energy electron backscattering in the inelastic channels caused by the Pauli exclusion principle. We show that both the mass of the target and the frequency of its quantum vibrations can be measured by studying the differential conductance and the excess current. We apply our analysis to the particular case of a weakly pinned C60 molecule encapsulated by a single-wall carbon nanotube and find that the discussed phenomena are experimentally observable.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

An Hybrid Approach for Identification of Breast Cancer using Mammogram Images

Breast Cancer (BC) is the first among the cancer deaths in women all over the world. Mammography is broadly perceived as the best imaging methodology for the early location of BC. Mammography examination reduced the BC death in spite of increasing number of noticed malignancies during the last decade. Although it is the best reliable method for early location, it has several limitations. One essential viewpoint is that the exactness rate tends to diminishing when doctors' examined high volume of mammograms. This work mainly concentrates on identifying regions containing small clusters of micro calcifications to categorize the tissue as being regular or irregular. Potentially cancerous tissue is distinguished from normal tissue by analyzing features of a given region within a mammogram. Therefore, feature extraction and saliency play an important role in cancer detection