The Culture Wars and american jews

Autor podejmuje problem stanowiska amerykańskich Żydów w konflikcie kulturowym. Środowiska żydowskie w Stanach Zjednoczonych, traktujące Amerykę jako historyczną szansę stworzenia liberalnego ustroju równych praw – w historii Europy tradycyjnie im odmawianych – zostały postawione wobec dylematu samookreślenia się wobec ewolucji liberalnej. W efekcie nastąpił ich podział z powodu zauważenia obecności w ewolucji liberalizmu pewnych zjawisk antywolnościowych i antyamerykańskich. Artykuł jest podsumowaniem dyskusji na ten temat

The Origin and Significance of Reverse Zoning in Melilite from Allende Type B Inclusions

In many Type B Allende inclusions, melilite is reversely-zoned over restricted portions of each crystal. Textural relationships and the results of dynamic crystallization experiments suggest that the reverselyzoned intervals in these Type melilites result from the co-precipitation of melilite with clinopyroxene from a melt, prior to the onset of anorthite precipitation. When clinopyroxene begins to precipitate, the Al/Mg ratio of the melt rises, causing the crystallizing melilite to become more gehlenitic, an effect which is negated by crystallization of anorthite. Because the equilibrium crystallization sequence in these liquids is anorthite before pyroxene, melilite reverse zoning can occur only when anorthite nucleation is suppressed relative to pyroxene. This has been achieved in our experiments at cooling rates as low as 0.5°C/hour. Our experiments further indicate, however, that reverse zoning does not form at cooling rates ≥50°C/hour , probably because the clinopyroxene becomes too Al-rich to drive up the Al/Mg ratio of the liquid. Type inclusions with reversely-zoned melilites must have cooled at rates greater than those at which anorthite begins to crystallize before clinopyroxene but <50°C/hour. Such rates are far too slow for the Type droplets to have cooled by radiation into a nebular gas but are much faster than the cooling rate of the solar nebula itself. One possibility is that Type B's formed in local hot regions within the nebula, where their cooling rate was equal to that of their surrounding gas. Other possibilities are that their cooling rates reflect their movement along nebular temperature gradients or the influence of a heat source. The sun or viscous drag on inclusions as they moved through the nebular gas are potential candidates for such heat sources

A Private Underworld: The Naked Body in Law and Society

In general, the literature on privacy stresses, quite naturally, our right to keep things private, or to make our own decisions. The individual, the citizen, is the center of gravity. There is a great deal of material on the limits of privacy, on threats to privacy, and the like. In this Article, the authors want to discuss what one might call mandatory privacy: those aspects of life that we are required to keep secret, hidden, or private, the things that we must keep private, whether we want to or not. This is a subject that has been mostly, though not entirely, ignored in the privacy literature. The authors conclude that there is no longer an ironclad rule that the body, or at least the private parts, have to remain that way: private. It has become a matter of choice. Forced bodily privacy has declined; now it is much more a matter for each person to decide, although there are still strong rules about behavior that seems threatening, abusive or pathological

Origin of uranium isotope variations in early solar nebula condensates

High-temperature condensates found in meteorites display uranium isotopic variations (^(235)U/^(238)U), which complicate dating the solar system’s formation and whose origin remains mysterious. It is possible that these variations are due to the decay of the short-lived radionuclide ^(247)Cm (t_(1/2) = 15.6 My) into ^(235)U, but they could also be due to uranium kinetic isotopic fractionation during condensation. We report uranium isotope measurements of meteoritic refractory inclusions that reveal excesses of ^(235)U reaching ~+6% relative to average solar system composition, which can only be due to the decay of ^(247)Cm. This allows us to constrain the ^(247)Cm/^(235)U ratio at solar system formation to (7.0 ± 1.6) × 10^(−5). This value provides new clues on the universality of the nucleosynthetic r-process of rapid neutron capture

Cash, cattle, and coffee : the cultural ecology of economic development in the highlands of Papua New Guinea

This thesis is concerned with the adaptations made by a village population in the highlands of Papua New Guinea to the new environments created in the process of economic development. The perspective of the cultural ecology of economic development. is used to examine the impact of cash-earning activities on the natural environment, the subsistence system, and the structure of social relationships. The analysis of the intricate linkages and feedback relationships within the local system as well as those binding it to the outside world are emphasised in this perspective. The impact on the subsistence system is stressed because resource-use activities provide the link between the human population and the natural environment. The major focus is on the effects of the introduction of smallholder cattle projects. The structure of social relationships in the village has changed significantly. Economic differentiation has increased as cattle project leaders, who use their relatively exclusive links with government agencies to legitimate their control over the projects and the enclosed land,receive a disproportionate share of the revenues. Environmental degradation has also occurred. Overgrazing resulted in weed infestations, an increase in soil bulk density, and accelerated erosion, which reduce the agricultural utility of the land. The enclosure of a large area near the hamlets for the cattle projects has displaced subsistence gardens farther from the village. As a result, the burden o£ harvesting has increased, the quality of garden maintenance has declined, and more gardens are located in the zone of maximum danger from sorcery. In addition, the allocation of much time to constructing cattle projects caused a decline in planting subsistence gardens and a subsequent food shortage, which was exacerbated by the depredations of.the village pigs. The analysis is extended to include the impact of coffee production and other externally-derived activities such as beer drinking and gambling. The allocation of time to these activities decreases labour inputs into the subsistence system. It is concluded that the enthusiastic commitment to cash-related activities in the village reduces the flexibility of the subsistence system, its level of production, and its resilience. As a result, the previous condition of subsistence affluence has changed to one of subsistence malaise. A comparative perspective reveals that the changes occurring in the village are widespread, though not universal; cash-earning activities often have a detrimental effect on the natural environment and the subsistence system, foster greater individualism, and facilitate an increase in economic differentiation. It is concluded that the nature of the linkage between the local system and the external, dominating system is the critical variable in influencing the impact of cash-earning activities on village systems

Protective effect of prostacyclin on postischemic acute renal failure in the rat

Protective effect of prostacyclin on postischemic acute renal failure in the rat. Infusion of prostacyclin (PGI2) reportedly attenuates renal ischemic injury in the dog and the rat. In the dog, PGI2 is a potent renal vasodilator; in the rat a direct action on the renal vasculature is not always apparent. To determine whether or not the protective effect of PGI2 on postichemic ARF was hemodynamically mediated, studies were performed in uninephrectomized Sprague–Dawley rats before and after a 40 minute period of complete renal artery occlusion. In response to the preischemic infusion of PGI2 for 30 minutes at 160 ng/kg body wt/min i.v. (N = 7), MAP and RBF fell to 86 ± 7% (P < 0.0001) and 84 ± 9% (P < 0.05) of baseline values, respectively. RVR initially declined to 81 ± 9% of baseline values (P < 0.025) but returned to 102 ± 13% of baseline values prior to the period of ischemia. Following the period of ischemia, reflow of blood in the rats receiving PGI2 was delayed when compared to rats not receiving PGI2 (N = 1). RBF returned to only 76 ± 19% of the initial values in PGI2-treated rats (P < 0.01) but to 90 ± 12% of the initial values in rats receiving buffer alone (NS). Observations made during the ensuing 48 hours in animals treated with either 80 (N = 8) or 160 ng/kg/body wt/min (N = 7) for 30 minutes before and four hours after the period of ischemia indicated that renal function improved to a greater extent in the PGI2-treated animals than in buffer–treated animals (N = 15) as judged by significantly–greater mean values of V, UOsm, UCr and CCr. On the second day after ischemia, CInwas significantly greater in PGI2-treated animals than in the postischemic animals receiving buffer alone (77 ± 45 vs. 33 ± 20 µl/min/100 g body wt; P < 0.05) despite the fact that no differences were found in the mean values of RBF (3.59 ± 1.08 vs. 3.43 ± 0.32 ml/min/100 body wt. Blinded analysis of the histological sections revealed significantly less evidence of tublar epithelial cell necrosis in the PGI2-treated animals (P < 0.005). The data indicate that the protective effect of PGI2 on the renal response to ischemic injury in the Sprague–Dawley rat is not related to changes in RBF or RVR. Instead, the beneficial effect of PGI2may be a result of cytoprotective properties as has been demonstrated in other tissues

Transition between immune and disease states in a cellular automaton model of clonal immune response

In this paper we extend the Celada-Seiden (CS) model of the humoral immune response to include infectious virus and cytotoxic T lymphocytes (cellular response). The response of the system to virus involves a competition between the ability of the virus to kill the host cells and the host's ability to eliminate the virus. We find two basins of attraction in the dynamics of this system, one is identified with disease and the other with the immune state. There is also an oscillating state that exists on the border of these two stable states. Fluctuations in the population of virus or antibody can end the oscillation and drive the system into one of the stable states. The introduction of mechanisms of cross-regulation between the two responses can bias the system towards one of them. We also study a mean field model, based on coupled maps, to investigate virus-like infections. This simple model reproduces the attractors for average populations observed in the cellular automaton. All the dynamical behavior connected to spatial extension is lost, as is the oscillating feature. Thus the mean field approximation introduced with coupled maps destroys oscillations.Comment: 27 pages LaTeX + 7 Figures Postscrip

OCPAT: an online codon-preserved alignment tool for evolutionary genomic analysis of protein coding sequences

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Rapidly accumulating genome sequence data from multiple species offer powerful opportunities for the detection of DNA sequence evolution. Phylogenetic tree construction and codon-based tests for natural selection are the prevailing tools used to detect functionally important evolutionary change in protein coding sequences. These analyses often require multiple DNA sequence alignments that maintain the correct reading frame for each collection of putative orthologous sequences. Since this feature is not available in most alignment tools, codon reading frames often must be checked manually before evolutionary analyses can commence.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Here we report an online codon-preserved alignment tool (OCPAT) that generates multiple sequence alignments automatically from the coding sequences of any list of human gene IDs and their putative orthologs from genomes of other vertebrate tetrapods. OCPAT is programmed to extract putative orthologous genes from genomes and to align the orthologs with the reading frame maintained in all species. OCPAT also optimizes the alignment by trimming the most variable alignment regions at the 5' and 3' ends of each gene. The resulting output of alignments is returned in several formats, which facilitates further molecular evolutionary analyses by appropriate available software. Alignments are generally robust and reliable, retaining the correct reading frame. The tool can serve as the first step for comparative genomic analyses of protein-coding gene sequences including phylogenetic tree reconstruction and detection of natural selection. We aligned 20,658 human RefSeq mRNAs using OCPAT. Most alignments are missing sequence(s) from at least one species; however, functional annotation clustering of the ~1700 transcripts that were alignable to all species shows that genes involved in multi-subunit protein complexes are highly conserved.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The OCPAT program facilitates large-scale evolutionary and phylogenetic analyses of entire biological processes, pathways, and diseases.</p