Comment: Which Old Witch: A Comment on Professor Paulsen\u27s \u3ci\u3eLemon is Dead\u3c/i\u3e

International audienc

India and the Study of Kinship Terminologies

L’Inde et l’étude des terminologies de parenté. – L’étude des terminologies de parenté s’est développée au xviiie siècle à partir de l’ethnologie linguistique, laquelle souhaitait découvrir les relations historiques existant entre les nations en étudiant celles entre les langues en se servant de listes de mots du vocabulaire courant comprenant des termes de parenté. Lewis H. Morgan fut le premier à conceptualiser la terminologie de parenté en tant qu’ensemble intégré. L’Inde et la terminologie dravidienne ont joué un rôle important dans l’histoire des études de la parenté. La plupart des avancées actuelles concernant l’étude de la terminologie de parenté sont dues au structuralisme, bien que l’apport de l’évolutionnisme ne soit pas encore dépassé et que celui de l’historicisme reste encore à venir.The study of kinship terminologies grew out of the eighteenth-century project of linguistic ethnology, which sought to uncover the historical relations among nations by determining the relations among languages, using lists of core vocabulary items including kinship terms. Lewis H. Morgan was the first to conceptualize the kinship terminology as an integrated set. India and the Dravidian kinship terminology have played a large role in the history of kinship study. Most modern advances in the study of kinship terminology are owed to structuralism, though the contributions of evolutionism are not entirely in the past, and those of historicism lie largely in the future

The structure and composition of the Kautiliya "Arthasastra".

Chapter 1 summarizes the debate over the age and authorship of the Arthasastra and proposes to test the common assumotion that it is the work of a single author. Chapter 2 analyzes the five versions of the story of Candragupta and Canakya or Kautilya and finds that the Jain version best preserves the original legend, being closely paralleled by the Pali; that the Kashmirian version is late, and the Mudaraksasa largely fictive; that the Classical version, while betraying its Indian origin, gives uncertain testimony as to the content of the original legend; and that Canakya is an historical figure. Chapter 3 finds, in the structure of the Arthasastra, a priori grounds for supposing a composite authorship; summarizes some previous studies of authorship using statistical methods; and reports the results of a pilot study of the Arthasastra which throws doubt on the assumption of a unique author. Chapter 4 examines the distribution of certain words in Sanskrit works of known authorship, and having found that eva, evam, ca, tatra and axe safe discriminators of authorship, examines their distribution in the Arthasastra. Books 2, 3 and 7 of the Arthasastra, by this test, are homogeneous within themselves but are the work of three different authors. The affiliations of the shorter books are discussed. Chapter 5 inquires whether sentence-length and compound-length may he used to discriminate between different authors, and finds the former unacceptable but the latter promising. Chapter 6 exajnines Arthasastra passages used by Bharuci and Medhatithi in their commentaries on Manu and finds in the latter's reference to an Adhyaksapracara a possible predecessor of the Artharsastra. Chapter 7 reviews the conclusions as to the composition of the Arthasastra in the light of a statistical study of Vatsyayana's Kamasutra and briefly comments on the date and authority of the Arthasastra

Ultrathin Tropical Tropopause Clouds (UTTCs) : I. Cloud morphology and occurrence

Subvisible cirrus clouds (SVCs) may contribute to dehydration close to the tropical tropopause. The higher and colder SVCs and the larger their ice crystals, the more likely they represent the last efficient point of contact of the gas phase with the ice phase and, hence, the last dehydrating step, before the air enters the stratosphere. The first simultaneous in situ and remote sensing measurements of SVCs were taken during the APE-THESEO campaign in the western Indian ocean in February/March 1999. The observed clouds, termed Ultrathin Tropical Tropopause Clouds (UTTCs), belong to the geometrically and optically thinnest large-scale clouds in the Earth´s atmosphere. Individual UTTCs may exist for many hours as an only 200--300 m thick cloud layer just a few hundred meters below the tropical cold point tropopause, covering up to 105 km2. With temperatures as low as 181 K these clouds are prime representatives for defining the water mixing ratio of air entering the lower stratosphere

Sarcoma treatment in the era of molecular medicine

Sarcomas are heterogeneous and clinically challenging soft tissue and bone cancers. Although constituting only 1% of all human malignancies, sarcomas represent the second most common type of solid tumors in children and adolescents and comprise an important group of secondary malignancies. More than 100 histological subtypes have been characterized to date, and many more are being discovered due to molecular profiling. Owing to their mostly aggressive biological behavior, relative rarity, and occurrence at virtually every anatomical site, many sarcoma subtypes are in particular difficult-to-treat categories. Current multimodal treatment concepts combine surgery, polychemotherapy (with/without local hyperthermia), irradiation, immunotherapy, and/or targeted therapeutics. Recent scientific advancements have enabled a more precise molecular characterization of sarcoma subtypes and revealed novel therapeutic targets and prognostic/predictive biomarkers. This review aims at providing a comprehensive overview of the latest advances in the molecular biology of sarcomas and their effects on clinical oncology; it is meant for a broad readership ranging from novices to experts in the field of sarcoma.Peer reviewe

miRNA Expression in Colon Polyps Provides Evidence for a Multihit Model of Colon Cancer

Changes in miRNA expression are a common feature in colon cancer. Those changes occurring in the transition from normal to adenoma and from adenoma to carcinoma, however, have not been well defined. Additionally, miRNA changes among tumor subgroups of colon cancer have also not been adequately evaluated. In this study, we examined the global miRNA expression in 315 samples that included 52 normal colonic mucosa, 41 tubulovillous adenomas, 158 adenocarcinomas with proficient DNA mismatch repair (pMMR) selected for stage and age of onset, and 64 adenocarcinomas with defective DNA mismatch repair (dMMR) selected for sporadic (n = 53) and inherited colon cancer (n = 11). Sporadic dMMR tumors all had MLH1 inactivation due to promoter hypermethylation. Unsupervised PCA and cluster analysis demonstrated that normal colon tissue, adenomas, pMMR carcinomas and dMMR carcinomas were all clearly discernable. The majority of miRNAs that were differentially expressed between normal and polyp were also differentially expressed with a similar magnitude in the comparison of normal to both the pMMR and dMMR tumor groups, suggesting a stepwise progression for transformation from normal colon to carcinoma. Among the miRNAs demonstrating the largest fold up- or down-regulated changes (≥4), four novel (miR-31, miR-1, miR-9 and miR-99a) and two previously reported (miR-137 and miR-135b) miRNAs were identified in the normal/adenoma comparison. All but one of these (miR-99a) demonstrated similar expression differences in the two normal/carcinoma comparisons, suggesting that these early tumor changes are important in both the pMMR- and dMMR-derived cancers. The comparison between pMMR and dMMR tumors identified four miRNAs (miR-31, miR-552, miR-592 and miR-224) with statistically significant expression differences (≥2-fold change)

T Cells' Immunological Synapses Induce Polarization of Brain Astrocytes In Vivo and In Vitro: A Novel Astrocyte Response Mechanism to Cellular Injury

Astrocytes usually respond to trauma, stroke, or neurodegeneration by undergoing cellular hypertrophy, yet, their response to a specific immune attack by T cells is poorly understood. Effector T cells establish specific contacts with target cells, known as immunological synapses, during clearance of virally infected cells from the brain. Immunological synapses mediate intercellular communication between T cells and target cells, both in vitro and in vivo. How target virally infected astrocytes respond to the formation of immunological synapses established by effector T cells is unknown.Herein we demonstrate that, as a consequence of T cell attack, infected astrocytes undergo dramatic morphological changes. From normally multipolar cells, they become unipolar, extending a major protrusion towards the immunological synapse formed by the effector T cells, and withdrawing most of their finer processes. Thus, target astrocytes become polarized towards the contacting T cells. The MTOC, the organizer of cell polarity, is localized to the base of the protrusion, and Golgi stacks are distributed throughout the protrusion, reaching distally towards the immunological synapse. Thus, rather than causing astrocyte hypertrophy, antiviral T cells cause a major structural reorganization of target virally infected astrocytes.Astrocyte polarization, as opposed to hypertrophy, in response to T cell attack may be due to T cells providing a very focused attack, and thus, astrocytes responding in a polarized manner. A similar polarization of Golgi stacks towards contacting T cells was also detected using an in vitro allogeneic model. Thus, different T cells are able to induce polarization of target astrocytes. Polarization of target astrocytes in response to immunological synapses may play an important role in regulating the outcome of the response of astrocytes to attacking effector T cells, whether during antiviral (e.g. infected during HIV, HTLV-1, HSV-1 or LCMV infection), anti-transplant, autoimmune, or anti-tumor immune responses in vivo and in vitro