Credit in the Body of Christ (Northern France, 1300-1600)

This paper examines a practice that is nearly imperceptible to historians because the bulk of evidence for it is to be found in the interstices of the beaten paths of legal and social history and because it mixes economic and religious matters in a strikingly unfamiliar manner. From the thirteenth to the sixteenth century, excommunication for debt offered ordinary people an economical, efficacious enforcement mechanism for small-scale, daily, unwritten credit. At the same time, the practice offered holders of ecclesiastical jurisdiction an important opportunity to round out their incomes, particularly in the difficult fifteenth century. This transitional practice reveals a level of credit below that of the letters of change, annuities secured on real property, or written obligations beloved of economic historians and historians of banking. Studying the practice casts light on the transition from the face-to-face, local economies of the high Middle Ages to the regional economies of the early modern period, on how the Reformation shaped early modern regimes of credit, and on how the disappearance of ecclesiastical civil justice facilitated the emergence of early modern juridically sovereign territories

Gallicanisme et Réforme : le constitutionnalisme de Cosme Guymier (1486)

En précisant les raisons pour lesquelles la France n’a pas suivi la Réforme, on néglige bien souvent les rapports entre l’ecclésiologie et la pensée politique. On voit toujours en Seyssel le représentant du « constitutionnalisme médiéval » et l’on ne rend jamais compte des liens entre le conciliarisme et la politique de l’Université et du Parlement de Paris. Cet article réévalue ce sujet au moyen du commentaire de la Pragmatique Sanction/par Cosme Guymier (1486), décrétiste et parlementaire qui unit la pensée conciliariste à la politique gallicane. Son œuvre est la première d’un mouvement qui allie la monarchie absolue et le Parlement contre les hérétiques, et qui suggère l’inutilité constitutionnelle de la Réforme pour la France.In investigating why France failed to become Protestant, one does not often look at the relation between ecclesiology and political thought. One takes Seyssel to be the exemplar of "medieval constitutionalism" and never accounts for the connection between the ecclesiology and politics of the Parlement and University of Paris. This article will examine this connection through Cosme Guymier’s commentary (1486) on the Pragmatic Sanction. Canonist and magistrate, he joined conciliarist political thought to Gallican politics, hinted at the beginnings of what would later unite the absolute monarchy and the Parlement against heresy, and suggested why the Reformation was constitutionally unnecessary in France

What variables explain differences in coaching salaries for Division I women\u27s sports?

This paper examines the possibility of discrimination based on gender and/or race in NCAA Division-I coaching. High-profile male coaches earn higher salaries than female coaches, which could reflect labor-market discrimination. This paper investigates the determinants of coaches’ compensation. Because the number of female coaches in men’s sports is trivial, this study is limited to women’s sports. Using salary data from the 2012 fiscal year for public universities in three Division-I conferences – Missouri Valley, Big 10, and Big 12 – I look at a variety of revenue and non-revenue generating women’s sports. I model head coaches’ annual salaries as the dependent variable and numerous career and collegiate statistics as the independent variables. I do not find a statistically significant effect of gender or race with respect to earnings

L’ecclésiologie du royaume de France : l’hérésie devant le parlement de Paris dans les années 1520

Je vais traiter de la contribution des modes de penser l’église à la formation de l’état moderne en France, car le débat ecclésiologique, surtout des canonistes, relie la réforme conciliaire du xve siècle, nourri dans les Facultés de Théologie et de Décret à Paris jusqu’aux années 1520, à l’absolutisme évident sous Charles VII, croissant sous Louis XI, s’institutionnalisant sous Charles VIII et Louis XII et réalisé dans le seconde moitié du règne de François Ier. J’entends par « l’absolutisme..

Concentrating mixtures of neuroactive pharmaceuticals and altered neurotransmitter levels in the brain of fish exposed to a wastewater effluent

Fish can be exposed to a variety of neuroactive pharmaceuticals via the effluent discharges from wastewater treatment plants and concerns have arisen regarding their potential impacts on fish behaviour and ecology. In this study, we investigated the uptake of 14 neuroactive pharmaceuticals from a treated wastewater effluent into blood plasma and brain regions of roach (Rutilus rutilus) after exposure for 15 days. We show that a complex mixture of pharmaceuticals including, 6 selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, a serotonin-noradrenaline reuptake inhibitor, 3 atypical antipsychotics, 2 tricyclic antidepressants and a benzodiazepine, concentrate in different regions of the brain including the telencephalon, hypothalamus, optic tectum and hindbrain of effluent-exposed fish. Pharmaceuticals, with the exception of nordiazepam, were between 3–40 fold higher in brain compared with blood plasma, showing these neuroactive drugs are readily uptaken, into brain tissues in fish. To assess for the potential for any adverse ecotoxicological effects, the effect ratio was calculated from human therapeutic plasma concentrations (HtPCs) and the measured or predicted fish plasma concentrations of pharmaceuticals. After accounting for a safety factor of 1000, the effect ratios indicated that fluoxetine, norfluoxetine, sertraline, and amitriptyline warrant prioritisation for risk assessment studies. Furthermore, although plasma concentrations of all the pharmaceuticals were between 33 and 5714-fold below HtPCs, alterations in serotonin, glutamate, acetylcholine and tryptophan concentrations were observed in different brain regions of effluent-exposed fish. This study highlights the importance of determining the potential health effects arising from the concentration of complex environmental mixtures in risk assessment studies

Development of a common carp (Cyprinus carpio) pregnane X receptor (cPXR) transactivation reporter assay and its activation by azole fungicides and pharmaceutical chemicals.

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via the DOI in this record.In mammals, the pregnane X receptor (PXR) is a transcription factor with a key role in regulating expression of several genes involved in drug biotransformation. PXR is present in fish and some genes known to be under its control can be up-regulated by mammalian PXR ligands. Despite this, direct involvement of PXR in drug biotransformation in fish has yet to be established. Here, the full length PXR sequence was cloned from carp (Cyprinus carpio) and used in a luciferase reporter assay to elucidate its role in xenobiotic metabolism in fish. A reporter assay for human PXR (hPXR) was also established to compare transactivation between human and carp (cPXR) isoforms. Rifampicin activated hPXR as expected, but not cPXR. Conversely, clotrimazole (CTZ) activated both isoforms and was more potent on cPXR, with an EC50 within the range of concentrations of CTZ measured in the aquatic environment. Responses to other azoles tested were similar between both isoforms. A range of pharmaceuticals tested either failed to activate, or were very weakly active, on the cPXR or hPXR. Overall, these results indicate that the cPXR may differ from the hPXR in its responses and/or sensitivity to induction by different environmental chemicals, with implications for risk assessment because of species differences.JC was funded by a Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council Case studentship supported by AstraZeneca UK Ltd. (grant reference BB/G529332), and co-supported by the AstraZeneca Safety Health and Environment Research Program. AL was supported by grants from the Natural Environment Research Council (NE/D002818/1 and NE/E016634/1) and DEFRA awarded to CRT. Defra (UK) funded a research visit of SM to the University of Exeter under the UK-J programme. COS-7 cells were a gift from Inês Castro, University of Exeter. AstraZeneca Ltd. develops, produces, and markets a wide range of pharmaceutical agents

Investigating the Effects of Stress on Cognitive and Emotional Moral Decision Making

The dual-process theory accounts for how moral judgments are made: personal emotional dilemmas and impersonal cognitive dilemmas (Greene, 2007). In the Fisher and Ravizza (1992) Trolley Problem personal dilemma, you stop a runaway trolley and save all the workmen by pushing and killing one person on the tracks. In the Trolley Problem impersonal dilemma, you divert a runaway trolley and save all the workmen by throwing a switch and diverting the trolley killing one person on the tracks. In support of the dual-process theory, brain imaging research has demonstrated that brain regions linked with emotion (e.g., amygdala) are activated during the personal dilemmas, and brain regions associated with working memory (prefrontal cortex, parietal lobe) are activated during the impersonal dilemmas. Stress can interfere with rational, deliberative processes, causing decision-makers to rely on intuitive, automatic processes. In the present study, we are including two stressful conditions - physiological and cognitive - in order to see if stress has a differential effect on utilitarian decisions. Participants listened to moral dilemmas while experiencing baseline, stressor and control conditions. Stress was self-reported on an 11-point scale. Significance was found in utilitarian decisions, with the majority of participants reporting it “was appropriate to kill” during baseline and cognitive stress (i.e., counting backwards). Participants reported it was “not appropriate to kill” during physiological stress (i.e., cold pressor task). In addition, participants reported more stress during cognitive stress and more pain during physiological stress. In conclusion, utilitarian decision making seems to be affected when experiencing physiological stress

A practical method of measuring the human temporal contrast sensitivity function

One of the more significant indicators of neural age-related loss and disease is reduced temporal processing speed. It would, therefore, be useful to have an accurate and practical device that measures the full range of an individual's temporal processing abilities (characterized as the temporal contrast sensitivity function, TCSF). 70 subjects (15-84 yrs) were tested. A small tabletop device utilizing electronic control of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) was constructed that delivered a 1-degree, 660 nm test (the modulation depth of which could be adjusted directly by the subject) centered within a 10-degree 660 nm surround. The method provided a TCSF that had a shape consistent with past studies (peaking around 8 Hz). Also consistent with past work, the largest age-decline was found at the highest frequencies and for the central fovea (r = 0.47, p<0.0001, ~2 Hz per decade). Psychophysical assessment of temporal vision offers an easy and dynamic measure of central visual function

togeny and Dynamics of the Gonadal Development, Embryogenesis, and Gestation in Xenotoca eiseni (Cyprinodontiformes, Goodeidae)

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Karger via the DOI in this recordWe characterized the ontogeny and dynamics of gonadal development, embryogenesis, and gestation in captive stocks of the viviparous redtail splitfin, Xenotoca eiseni. Using histology, we showed that gonads were fully differentiated at the time of birth with a male:female sex ratio of 1:1 in the captive stock. External secondary sex features included a modified anal fin and a distinctive orange tail coloration. These features first appeared at 4 weeks after birth and were discriminative for males thereafter. There was no sex-related dichotomy in body size, and X. eiseni reached sexual maturity at approximately 12 weeks of age. We found no evidence for sperm storage in females. Gestation normally took 6 weeks, and there was a positive correlation between female body size and the number of offspring produced, with up to 27 offspring for a single pregnancy. Yolk is the main food source for developing embryos for the period up to 2 weeks, and thereafter, trophotaeniae in embryos act as nutrient exchange surfaces in the ovarian lumen, which subsequently undergo complete regression within 2 weeks of birth. In our final analysis, we discuss the great potential of X. eiseni as a model for studying the effects of chemicals on sexual development.University of Exete

Disruption of the prostaglandin metabolome and characterization of the pharmaceutical exposome in fish exposed to wastewater treatment works effluent as revealed by nanoflow-nanospray mass spectrometry-based metabolomics

Fish can be exposed to a complex mixture of chemical contaminants, including pharmaceuticals, present in discharges of wastewater treatment works (WwTWs) effluents. There is little information on the effects of effluent exposure on fish metabolism, especially the small molecule signaling compounds which are the biological target of many pharmaceuticals. We applied a newly developed sensitive nanoflow-nanospray mass spectrometry nontargeted profiling technique to identify changes in the exposome and metabolome of roach (Rutilus rutilus) exposed to a final WwTWs effluent for 15 days. Effluent exposure resulted in widespread reduction (between 50% and 90%) in prostaglandin (PG) profiles in fish tissues and plasma with disruptions also in tryptophan/serotonin, bile acid and lipid metabolism. Metabolite disruptions were not explained by altered expression of genes associated with the PG or tryptophan metabolism. Of the 31 pharmaceutical metabolites that were detected in the effluent exposome of fish, 6 were nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs but with plasma concentrations too low to disrupt PG biosynthesis. PGs, bile acids, and tryptophan metabolites are important mediators regulating a diverse array of physiological systems in fish and the identity of wastewater contaminants disrupting their metabolism warrants further investigation on their exposure effects on fish health