6. Schiller and Romanticism

To define romanticism is to attempt something which the romantics themselves insist cannot be done. But we can try to identify and then describe it, first pointing out what it is not. One stable element in romanticism has been its consistent rejection of its opposite, classicism. While no great piece of art has ever existed which did not contain elements of both romanticism and classicism, the partisans of these two different points of view have insisted that different emphases made it great. Where classicism emphasised analysis, objectivity harmony, wholeness, meaning, and discipline, romanticism stressed synthesis,subjectivity,disharmony, individuality,suggestiveness. and spontaneity. [excerpt

2. Victories of Political Liberalism

As we have already suggested in the opening paragraphs of this chapter, the roots of political liberalism antedated the nineteenth century. The philosophic principles of this creed were based on earlier ideas such as natural rights and utilitarianism. Political liberals held that human actions to be moral must be voluntary, and that a society seeking to follow the laws of nature must cherish individual liberty. Since they believed human reason was capable of discerning these laws, liberals believed that enlightened self-interest was an accurate guide for political action. In the next chapter we will take note of the kinship which existed between political liberals and economic liberals. Here we need only to say that both envisaged the chief functions of the state as primarily protective of life, liberty, and property, and active mainly to check abuses and prevent license. [excerpt

1. The Era of Metternichian Conservatism, 1815-1848

Before either political liberalism or nationalism could become institutionalized, the Continent passed through a period of conservative reaction. Taking their cue from Edmund Burke, who as early as 1790 strove to discredit France\u27s great experiment by associating it with the excesses of reason and revolution, many people blamed liberalism for the quarter century of war, and chaos that followed. The Reign Terror in France, under the sway of Madame Guillotine, gave a connotation of horror to the slogan of liberty, equality, and fraternity, Conservativeminded folk tended to regard the abstract ideas of freedom, brotherhood, and a society without class distinctions as mere will-o\u27-the=wisps leading inevitably to anarchy. In the interests of orderly government, the sacred rights of property, and the very existence of Western Civilization itself, they therefore set their faces resolutely against any doctrine which carried the liberal taint. [excerpt

Voyager 2 Observations of Plasma and Pressure Pulses

This paper provides the latest data from Voyager 2 on plasma characteristics in the heliosheath including the observations of pressure waves in the plasma and particle data. Models and observations show that solar transients drive pressure waves through the heliosphere. Pressure pulses that could drive heliosheath waves are observed near the previous solar maximum upstream of the termination shock. We show that the most recent data is consistent with the presence of pressure waves and compare the heliosheath waves with the pressure increases in the heliosheath. The magnetic field is better correlated with density and galactic cosmic ray intensities in the supersonic solar wind than in the heliosheath. The galactic cosmic rays are correlated with the plasma and particles with a ~30-day lag in both the supersonic wind and heliosheath

Darwin in Mind: New Opportunities for Evolutionary Psychology

Evolutionary Psychology (EP) views the human mind as organized into many modules, each underpinned by psychological adaptations designed to solve problems faced by our Pleistocene ancestors. We argue that the key tenets of the established EP paradigm require modification in the light of recent findings from a number of disciplines, including human genetics, evolutionary biology, cognitive neuroscience, developmental psychology, and paleoecology. For instance, many human genes have been subject to recent selective sweeps; humans play an active, constructive role in co-directing their own development and evolution; and experimental evidence often favours a general process, rather than a modular account, of cognition. A redefined EP could use the theoretical insights of modern evolutionary biology as a rich source of hypotheses concerning the human mind, and could exploit novel methods from a variety of adjacent research fields

Redefining Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone (GnRH) Cell Groups in the Male Syrian Hamster: Testosterone Regulates GnRH mRNA in the Tenia Tecta

Gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) regulates the production of testosterone via the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis and testosterone, in turn, regulates the GnRH system via negative feedback. We compared testosterone regulation of GnRH mRNA expression in four anatomically defined GnRH cell groups in juvenile and adult male Syrian hamsters, including a rostral population of GnRH cells in the tenia tecta. In situ hybridization histochemistry (ISHH) was used to measure GnRH mRNA in brains from castrated juveniles and adults treated with 0 mg or 2.5 mg testosterone pellets for one week. ISHH was performed on coronal sections using a 35 S-cRNA probe generated from Syrian hamster GnRH cDNA. Testosterone treatment resulted in a significant reduction in mean area of GnRH neurones covered by silver grains within the tenia tecta, but only a trend toward decreased GnRH mRNA in the diagonal band of Broca/organum vasculosum of the lamina terminalis (DBB/OVLT), medial septum (MS), and caudal preoptic area (cPOA). The effects of testosterone were independent of age. Frequency distribution analyses unveiled a significant reduction in the number of heavily labelled cells following testosterone treatment within the tenia tecta and MS. Simple regression analyses revealed a significant positive correlation between plasma luteinizing hormone concentrations and GnRH mRNA only in the tenia tecta. These data indicate that, overall, GnRH mRNA is modestly reduced by testosterone, and the most robust attenuation of GnRH mRNA occurs within the tenia tecta. This is the first report to link mechanisms of steroid negative feedback with tenia tecta GnRH neurones, providing a new focus for investigating brain region-specific steroidal regulation of GnRH synthesis.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/75357/1/j.0007-1331.2002.00787.x.pd

Assessing recent warming using instrumentally homogeneous sea surface temperature records

Sea surface temperature (SST) records are subject to potential biases due to changing instrumentation and measurement practices. Significant differences exist between commonly used composite SST reconstructions from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Extended Reconstruction Sea Surface Temperature (ERSST), the Hadley Centre SST data set (HadSST3), and the Japanese Meteorological Agency’s Centennial Observation-Based Estimates of SSTs (COBE-SST) from 2003 to the present. The update from ERSST version 3b to version 4 resulted in an increase in the operational SST trend estimate during the last 19 years from 0.07° to 0.12°C per decade, indicating a higher rate of warming in recent years. We show that ERSST version 4 trends generally agree with largely independent, near-global, and instrumentally homogeneous SST measurements from floating buoys, Argo floats, and radiometer-based satellite measurements that have been developed and deployed during the past two decades. We find a large cooling bias in ERSST version 3b and smaller but significant cooling biases in HadSST3 and COBE-SST from 2003 to the present, with respect to most series examined. These results suggest that reported rates of SST warming in recent years have been underestimated in these three data sets

Blobs in Wolf-Rayet Winds: Random Photometric and Polarimetric Variability

Some isolated Wolf-Rayet stars present random variability in their optical flux and polarization. We make the assumption that such variability is caused by the presence of regions of enhanced density, i.e. blobs, in their envelopes. In order to find the physical characteristics of such regions we have modeled the stellar emission using a Monte Carlo code to treat the radiative transfer in an inhomogeneous electron scattering envelope. We are able to treat multiple scattering in the regions of enhanced density as well as in the envelope itself. The finite sizes of the source and structures in the wind are also taken into account. Most of the results presented here are based on a parameter study of models with a single blob. The effects due to multiple blobs in the envelope are considered to a more limited extent. Our simulations indicate that the density enhancements must have a large geometric cross section in order to produce the observed photopolarimetric variability. The sizes must be of the order of one stellar radius and the blobs must be located near the base of the envelope. These sizes are the same inferred from the widths of the sub-peaks in optical emission lines of Wolf-Rayet stars. Other early-type stars show random polarimetric fluctuations with characteristics similar to those observed in Wolf-Rayet stars, which may also be interpreted in terms of a clumpy wind. Although the origin of such structures is still unclear, the same mechanism may be working in different types of hot stars envelopes to produce such inhomogeneities.Comment: Accepted to ApJ. 17 pages + 6 figure

Summer Distribution of Bowhead Whales, Balaena mysticetus, Relative to Oil Industry Activities in the Canadian Beaufort Sea, 1980-84

Aerial surveys in 1980-84 showed that summer distribution of bowheads in the Beaufort Sea varied markedly between years. Distribution varied both outside and within the "main industrial area" (MIA), the area of island construction, drilling and intensive ship and helicopter traffic. Numbers of bowheads in the MIA were high in 1980, lower in 1981, near zero in 1982 and very low in 1983-84. The few whales in the MIA in 1983-84 were mainly near its edges, contrary to 1980-81. These data, plus limited evidence from 1976-79, indicate that bowheads were numerous in the centre of the MIA in 3 of 5 years from 1976-80 (1976-77, 1980) vs. 0 of 4 years from 1981-84. One hypothesis is that progressively increasing industrial activities affected bowhead distribution after 1980. However, bowheads probably also react to variations in their zooplankton prey, which may be affected by year-to-year changes in oceanography and weather. Influences of natural factors on zooplankton and bowheads need to be better understood in order to assess whether oil exploration caused any of the observed changes in bowhead distribution.Key words: bowhead whale, Balaena mysticetus, Beaufort Sea, oil exploration, seismic exploration, aerial surveysDes relevés aériens effectués entre 1980 et 1984 ont montré que la répartition estivale des baleines franches dans la mer de Beaufort varie nettement d’année en année. Elle varie à fois à l’extérieure et à l’intérieur de la “zone industrielle principale” (ZIP), qui est la zone de construction de l’île, de forage et de circulation intense de bateaux et d’hélicoptères. Le nombre de baleines franches dans la ZIP était élevé en 1980, plus bas en 1981, près de zéro en 1982, et très bas en 1983 et 1984. Les quelques baleines présentes dans la ZIP en 1983 et 1984 étaient principalement à la périphérie, contrairement à 1980 et 1981. Ces données, jointes à des évidences plus limitées de 1976 à 1979, indiquent que les baleines franches étaient nombreuses au centre de la ZIP pendant 3 années sur 5, allant de 1976 à 1980 (1976, 1977 et 1980), par rapport à aucune année sur les quatre allant de 1981 à 1984. On avance l’hypothèse que les activités industrielles progressivement croissantes ont affecté la répartition des baleines franches après 1980. Cependant, les baleines franches ont probablement réagi aussi aux variations de zooplancton qui constitue leur nourriture et qui peut être affecté par les changements qui ont lieu d’année en année dans l’océanographie et le climat. I1 est nécessaire de mieux comprendre l’influence des facteurs naturels sur le zooplancton et les baleines franches afin d’évaluer si l’exploration pétrolière a provoqué l’un quelconque des changements observés dans la répartition de ces baleines.Mots clés: baleine franche, Balaena mysticetus, mer de Beaufort, exploration pétrolière, exploration sismique, relevés aérien