Adaptive immunity is unique to the vertebrates, and the molecules involved (including immunoglobulins, T cell receptors and the major histocompatibility complex molecules) seem to have diversified very rapidly early in vertebrate history. Reconstruction of gene phylogenies has yielded insights into the evolutionary origin of a number of molecular systems, including the complement system and the major histocompatibility complex (MHC). These analyses have indicated that the C5 component of complement arose by gene duplication prior to the divergence of C3 and C4, (...) which suggests that the alternative complement pathway was the first to evolve. In the case of the MHC, phylogenetic analysis supports the hypothesis that MHC class II molecules evolved before class I molecules. The fact that the MHC‐linked proteasome components that specifically produce peptides for presentation by class I MHC appear to have originated before the separation of jawed and jawless vertebrates suggests that the MHC itself may have been present at this time. Immmune system gene families have evolved by gene duplication, interlocus recombination and (in some cases) positive Darwinian selection favoring diversity at the amino acid level. (shrink)

The 2024 U.S. election will shape the future of global health policy, with crucial implications for continuing U.S. leadership in global health. The United States has long played a critical role in global health governance, through multilateral institutions under the United Nations (UN) and bilateral assistance to advance U.S. priorities. However, political shifts have challenged U.S. engagement in global health, with the politicization of global health policy threatening global governance under the World Health Organization (WHO) and dividing global health support (...) across political parties. This political polarization in global health proved catastrophic in the COVID-19 pandemic response and influential in the 2020 Presidential Elections. With the United States again seeking to advance global health policy, the 2024 Elections present a clear contrast in global health visions across U.S. political parties – with sweeping impacts on global governance, health funding, sexual and reproductive health, corporate regulations, tax equity, humanitarian challenges, and climate change. The future of U.S. leadership in global health hangs in the balance of this election, raising an imperative for candidates to highlight their global health positions and for voters to consider the global health implications. (shrink)

Research within psychology and other disciplines has shown that exposure to natural environments holds extensive physiological and psychological benefits. Adding to the health and cognitive benefits of natural environments, evidence suggests that exposure to nature also promotes healthy human decision-making. Unhealthy decision-making (e.g., smoking, non-medical prescription opioid misuse) and disorders associated with lack of impulse control [e.g., tobacco use, opioid use disorder (OUD)], contribute to millions of preventable deaths annually (i.e., 6 million people die each year of tobacco-related illness worldwide, (...) deaths from opioids from 2002 to 2017 have more than quadrupled in the United States alone). Impulsive and unhealthy decision-making also contributes to many pressing environmental issues such as climate change. We recently demonstrated a causal link between visual exposure to nature (e.g., forests) and improved self-control (i.e., decreased impulsivity) in a laboratory setting, as well as the extent to which nearby nature and green space exposure improves self-control and health decisions in daily life outside of the experimental laboratory. Determining the benefits of nearby nature for self-controlled decision-making holds theoretical and applied implications for the design of our surrounding environments. In this article, we synergize the overarching results of recent research endeavors in three domains including the effects of nature exposure on (1) general health-related decision-making, (2) health and decision-making relevant for application to addiction related processes (e.g., OUD), and (3) environmentally relevant decision-making. We also discuss key future directions and conclusions. (shrink)

Volume 24, Issue 10, October 2024, Page 120-121.

There are clear associations between the overall quantity of input children are exposed to and their vocabulary acquisition. However, by uncovering specific features of the input that matter, we can better understand the mechanisms involved in vocabulary learning. We examine whether exposure to wh-questions, a challenging quality of the communicative input, is associated with toddlers' vocabulary and later verbal reasoning skills in a sample of low-income, African-American fathers and their 24-month-old children. Dyads were videotaped in free play sessions at home. (...) Videotapes were transcribed and reliably coded for sheer quantity of fathers' input as well as the number of wh-questions fathers produce. Children's productive vocabulary was measured at 24 months using the McArthur Bates Communicative Development Inventory MCDI, and children's verbal reasoning skills were measured 1 year later using the Bayley Scales of Infant Development. Results indicate that the overall quantity of father talk did not relate to children's vocabulary or reasoning skills. However, fathers' use of wh-questions related to both vocabulary and reasoning outcomes. Children's responses to wh-questions were more frequent and more syntactically complex, measured using the mean length of utterance, than their responses to other questions. Thus, posing wh-questions to 2-year-olds is a challenging type of input, which elicits a verbal response from the child that likely helps build vocabulary and foster verbal reasoning abilities. (shrink)

Innovation is a key component of most definitions of culture and intelligence. Additionally, innovations may affect a species' ecology and evolution. Nonetheless, conceptual and empirical work on innovation has only recently begun. In particular, largely because the existing operational definition (first occurrence in a population) requires long-term studies of populations, there has been no systematic study of innovation in wild animals. To facilitate such study, we have produced a new definition of innovation: Innovation is the process that generates in an (...) individual a novel learned behavior that is not simply a consequence of social learning or environmental induction. Using this definition, we propose a new operational approach for distinguishing innovations in the field. The operational criteria employ information from the following sources: (1) the behavior's geographic and local prevalence and individual frequency; (2) properties of the behavior, such as the social role of the behavior, the context in which the behavior is exhibited, and its similarity to other behaviors; (3) changes in the occurrence of the behavior over time; and (4) knowledge of spontaneous or experimentally induced behavior in captivity. These criteria do not require long-term studies at a single site, but information from multiple populations of a species will generally be needed. These criteria are systematized into a dichotomous key that can be used to assess whether a behavior observed in the field is likely to be an innovation. (shrink)

After decades of single issue movements and identity politics on the U.S. left, the series of large demonstrations beginning in 1999 in Seattle have led many to wonder if activist politics can now come together around a common theme of global justice. This book pursues the prospects for progressive political movements in the 21st century with case studies of ten representative movements, including the anti-globalization forces, environmental interest groups, and new takes on the peace movement.

For young children, gesture is found to precede and predict language development. However, we are still building a knowledge base about the specific nature of the relationship between gesture and speech. While much of the research on this topic has been conducted with neurotypical children, there is a growing body of work with children who have or are at increased likelihood of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Here, we summarize the literature on relations between gesture and speech, including the role of (...) child gesture production as well as that of gesture exposure (caregiver gesture). We include literature on both neurotypical children and children with or at likelihood of ASD, highlight the similarities and differences across populations, and offer implications for research as well as early identification and intervention. (shrink)

While the 2022 Supreme Court of the United States decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization may bring the contingent rights of pregnant people to refuse interventions into sharper foc...

The commentaries have both drawn out the implications of, and challenged, our definition and operationalization of innovation. In this response, we reply to these concerns, discuss the differences between our operationalization and the preexisting operationalization if innovation, and make suggestions for the advancement of the challenging and exciting field of animal innovation.

Background Citizen science is increasingly prevalent in the biomedical sciences, including the field of human genomics. Genomic citizen science initiatives present new opportunities to engage individuals in scientific discovery, but they also are provoking new questions regarding who owns the outputs of the research, including intangible ideas and discoveries and tangible writings, tools, technologies, and products. The legal and ethical claims of participants to research outputs become stronger—and also more likely to conflict with those of institution-based researchers and other stakeholders—as (...) participants become more involved, quantitatively and qualitatively, in the research process. It is not yet known, however, how genomic citizen science initiatives are managing the interests of their participants in accessing and controlling research outputs in practice. To help fill this gap, we conducted an in-depth review of relevant policies and practices of U.S.-based genomic citizen science initiatives. Methods We queried the peer-reviewed literature and grey literature to identify 22 genomic citizen science initiatives that satisfied six inclusion criteria. A data collection form was used to capture initiative features, policies, and practices relevant to participants’ access to and control over research outputs. Results This analysis revealed that the genomic citizen science landscape is diverse and includes many initiatives that do not have institutional affiliations. Two trends that are in apparent tension were identified: commercialization and operationalization of a philosophy of openness. While most initiatives supported participants’ access to research outputs, including datasets and published findings, none supported participants’ control over results via intellectual property, licensing, or commercialization rights. However, several initiatives disclaimed their own rights to profit from outputs. Conclusions There are opportunities for citizen science initiatives to incorporate more features that support participants’ access to and control over research outputs, consistent with their specific objectives, operations, and technical capabilities. (shrink)

The perspectives of genomic citizen scientists on ownership of research outputs are not well understood, yet they are useful for identifying alignment of participant expectations and project practices and can help guide efforts to develop innovative tools and strategies for managing ownership claims. Here, we report findings from 52 interviews conducted in 2018 and 2019 to understand genomic citizen science stakeholders’ conceptualizations of, experiences with, and preferences for ownership of research outputs. Interviewees identified four approaches for recognizing genomic citizen scientists’ (...) ownership and related credit interests in research outputs: shared governance via commons models; fractional ownership of benefits; full and creative attribution; and offensive and defensive patenting. Interviewees also agreed that the model selected by any project should at least maximize access to research outputs and, as appropriate and to the extent possible, broadly distribute rights of control and entitlements to research benefits. (shrink)

BackgroundThe Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute is obligated to peer review and to post publicly “Final Research Reports” of all funded projects. PCORI peer review emphasizes adherence to PCORI’s Methodology Standards and principles of ethical scientific communication. During the peer review process, reviewers and editors seek to ensure that results are presented objectively and interpreted appropriately, e.g., free of spin.MethodsTwo independent raters assessed PCORI peer review feedback sent to authors. We calculated the proportion of reports in which spin was identified during (...) peer review, and the types of spin identified. We included reports submitted by April 2018 with at least one associated journal article. The same raters then assessed whether authors addressed reviewers’ comments about spin. The raters also assessed whether spin identified during PCORI peer review was present in related journal articles.ResultsWe included 64 PCORI-funded projects. Peer reviewers or editors identified spin in 55/64 submitted research reports. Types of spin included reporting bias, inappropriate interpretation, inappropriate extrapolation of results, and inappropriate attribution of causality. Authors addressed comments about spin related to 47/55 of the reports.Of 110 associated journal articles, PCORI comments about spin were potentially applicable to 44/110 articles, of which 27/44 contained the same spin that was identified in the PCORI research report. The proportion of articles with spin was similar for articles accepted before and after PCORI peer review.DiscussionJust as spin is common in journal articles and press releases, we found that most reports submitted to PCORI included spin. While most spin was mitigated during the funder’s peer review process, we found no evidence that review of PCORI reports influenced spin in journal articles. Funders could explore interventions aimed at reducing spin in published articles of studies they support. (shrink)

Childhood adversity is associated with altered or dysregulated stress reactivity; these altered patterns of physiological functioning persist into adulthood. Evidence from both preclinical animal models and human neuroimaging studies indicates that early life experience differentially influences stressor-evoked activity within central visceral neural circuits proximally involved in the control of stress responses, including the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (sgACC), paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus (PVN), bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) and amygdala. However, the relationship between childhood adversity and the (...) resting-state connectivity of this central visceral network remains unclear. To this end, we examined relationships between childhood threat and childhood socioeconomic deprivation, the resting-state connectivity between our regions of interest (ROIs), and affective symptom severity and diagnoses. We recruited a transdiagnostic sample of young adult males and females (n= 100; mean age = 27.28,SD= 3.99; 59 females) with a full distribution of maltreatment history and symptom severity across multiple affective disorders. Resting-state data were acquired using a 7.2-min functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) sequence; noted ROIs were applied as masks to determine ROI-to-ROI connectivity. Threat was determined by measures of childhood traumatic events and abuse. Socioeconomic deprivation (SED) was determined by a measure of childhood socioeconomic status (parental education level). Covarying for age, race and sex, greater childhood threat was significantly associated with lower BNST-PVN, amygdala-sgACC and PVN-sgACC connectivity. No significant relationships were found between SED and resting-state connectivity. BNST-PVN connectivity was associated with the number of lifetime affective diagnoses. Exposure to threat during early development may entrain altered patterns of resting-state connectivity between these stress-related ROIs in ways that contribute to dysregulated neural and physiological responses to stress and subsequent affective psychopathology. (shrink)

The inclusion of stakeholders and knowledge systems is increasingly valued in research to address complex socio-ecological challenges around the world. Often these projects take place in cross-cultural setting where external researchers risk perpetuating historically extractive research models that not only harm local communities but damage the validity of research projects. Responsible community engagement is increasingly recognized as a practice that can improve researcher-community relationships and research quality by incorporating principles of ethics, reciprocity, and power sharing. In partnership with local community (...) leaders, researchers from a U.S. university coded 76 research articles for indicators of responsible community engagement conducted in the Samburu, Kenya community since 2000. Findings from this study suggest that most of the research in Samburu has followed extractive models. Of the 76 articles reviewed many failed to acknowledge ethical protocols, did not address relevance of the study to the local community, and did not report any indication of outreach or community change as a result of the research. While a portion of articles showed evidence of community involvement in the studies, the involvement was primarily limited to secondary roles with little to no shared decision-making power over the research process. We discuss methodological considerations for future research and steps that must be taken in order to shift the norm and practice of academic research in sites such as Samburu, Kenya. (shrink)

This collection of essays is a sequel to the editors' 1976 volume Studies in Nietzsche and the Classical Tradition. Philosophers, theologians, and literary historians discuss important aspects of Nietzsche's attack on Judaism and Christianity. The book contains studies of his view of biblical figures, Luther and Pascal as well as comparisons of his thought with that of Spinoza, Lessing, Heine, and Kierkegaard. Nietzsche's critique of the Old Testament, the Jewish religion of the diaspora, and historical Christianity are also investigated. Of (...) the eighteen articles included here, thirteen were prepared expressly for this volume--five were translated from German, one from French, and one from Hebrew. Contributors to this volume are: Eugen Biser, Harry Neumann, Israel Eldad, Charles Lewis, Jorg Salaquarda, Joan Stambaugh, Max L. Baeumer, Brendan Donellan, Diana Behler, Sander L. Gilman, Gerd-Gunther Grau, Josef Simon, James C. O'Flaherty, Bernd Magnus, Georges Goedert, Hans Lung, and Karl Barth. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reading the Mind:From George Eliot's Fiction to James Sully's PsychologyVanessa L. RyanWhat is the function and value of fiction? Debates over these questions involve considerations that range from aesthetics to ethics, from the intrinsic values of the genre to its moral effects. Recently, largely under the influence of the cognitive sciences, the question has taken on a new cast: might science give us a new answer to these long-standing (...) issues? Studies such as Lisa Zunshine's Why We Read Fiction (2006), John Carey's What Good Are the Arts? (2005), and Alan Palmer's Fictional Minds (2004) are part of a growing area of interdisciplinary work on the relationship between art and consciousness.1 This body of work asks not just how our theories of consciousness inform our understanding of the process and function of [End Page 615] reading fiction, but also whether fiction itself might provide a key to new theories about the nature of consciousness.The nineteenth-century novel is often considered the high point in the literary representation of mind. Indeed, the terms "psychology" and "novel" are explicitly yoked in the nineteenth-century with the simultaneous emergence of both as discrete forms of intellectual and artistic activity. Not surprisingly, George Eliot has come to be identified with the term "psychological novel": in fact, Nicholas Dames argues that she was the first to couple the words psychology and novel in this way in an 1855 review where she contrasted Charles Kingsley's historical romance Westward Ho! with "those 'psychological' novels."2 While George Eliot initially used the phrase in what Dames calls "mock disdain," by the end of the nineteenth century the term "psychological novel" had gained currency as a straightforward description of a type of Victorian novel: Wilbur Cross, in his summary The Development of the English Novel, for example, describes the form as "stressing an inner sequence of thought and feeling, which is brought into harmony with an ethical formula and accounted for in an analysis of motive." Along with Elizabeth Gaskell and George Meredith, Cross also cites George Eliot as one of his central examples of the "psychological novel."3It seems natural, then, when a critic asks, "what is the special distinguishing function of the modern art of fiction?" to turn for an answer to George Eliot's novels and their close connections with psychological science. It is perhaps surprising that this still-current question was posed by the nineteenth-century psychologist James Sully (1842–1923) in an 1881 article in the journal Mind on "George Eliot's Art."4 His essay offers us a Victorian contribution to questions about the relationship of literature and psychology that are being addressed today by critics such as Sally Shuttle-worth, Athena Vrettos, Kay Young, Nicholas Dames, or Rick Rylance, especially [End Page 616] with respect to George Eliot. James Sully's essay not only provides valuable insight into how the Victorians themselves understood the role of psychology in the novel, but also helps to place contemporary debates about fiction and consciousness into sharper relief.In the wake of important studies, such as Rylance's Victorian Psychology and British Culture (2000), that have brought renewed attention to nineteenth-century British psychology, recent scholarship has shown the central role of Victorian debates about the mind in shaping the fiction of the period.5 Nineteenth-century mental science provided material and inspiration for works of literature, with imaginative writers eager to exploit and develop the narrative and thematic potential of contemporary psychological discourse and probe the problems it raised. Novelists such as Wilkie Collins, George Eliot, and Henry James turned to some of the most current work in the science of the mind, which they saw as the most sophisticated and credible approach to psychological realism available. These and other novelists rapidly absorbed the central terms of the new science as it considered problems of consciousness, identity, and memory, and brought them to life by dramatizing and questioning them in their fiction. James Sully's interest in George Eliot reflects this fruitful mid- to late-nineteenth-century cross-pollination between philosophers, scientists, and novelists who were interested in the nature of consciousness, psychology... (shrink)

Opéra en trois parties, Atlas, de Meredith Monk, a été donné au début des années 1990 à Paris, au théâtre de l'Odéon. C'est l'un des plus grands souvenirs de musique de ma vie. A cette époque, je ne connaissais pas grande chose à la musique dite contemporaine, j'y suis allé un peu par hasard, sans aucune idée préconçue ni a priori et j'en suis sorti complètement émerveillé. Atlas fait partie depuis vingt ans de mes CD favoris, que je me (...) passe et repasse avec un bonheur jamais démenti. Inspiré par la vie – hors (...) - Musique et Musicologie – GALERIE – Nouvel article. (shrink)

Que serait une exposition qui, au lieu de prendre place dans un musée ou dans une galerie, prendrait place au cinéma? (un projet de Mathieu Copeland, avec Chantal Akerman, Peter Downsbrough, Liam Gillick, John Giorno, Philippe Grandrieux, Isidore Isou, Philippe-Alain Michaud, Meredith Monk, Lee Ranaldo, Susan Stenger, Alan Vega, Jacques Villeglé, Lawrence Weiner, Apichatpong Weerasethakul...).

In their "traite de l'argumentation" perelman olbrechts indicate five factors contributing to the forces of arguments. the present paper is an analysis of each of these five factors taken in isolation; it indicates directions for operationalization of these factors. it stresses moreover that this multidimensional concept if it is to be used must lead to a weighted function of the five variables in order to be able to use the concept of "force of an argument." the absence of this weighted (...) function in po is deplored and it is argued that no theory of argumentation, even if it decides to remain completely descriptive, can be developed without definition of this weighted function. (shrink)