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Hazra, Lakshminarayan, and Pubali Mukherjee. Self-similarity in Walsh Functions and in the Farfield Diffraction Patterns of Radial Walsh Filters. Singapore: Springer Singapore, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2809-0.
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Heil, Christopher, Carlos A. Cabrelli, and Ursula M. Molter. Self-Similarity and Multiwavelets in Higher Dimensions (Memoirs of the American Mathematical Society). American Mathematical Society, 2004.
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Aijmer, Karin. Modality and Mood in Functional Linguistic Approaches. Edited by Jan Nuyts and Johan Van Der Auwera. Oxford University Press, 2015. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199591435.013.22.
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The chapter deals with functional approaches to mood and modality. The focus is on Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) associated with Halliday’s writings, Dik’s Functional Grammar (FG), and the mainly American functional school of Role and Reference Grammar (RRG). The positions taken by these schools can be described as “structuralist-functionalist” in that they propose models relating form to function. It is shown that a layered representation in some form is required to account for the role of mood and modality. Halliday’s interpersonal grammar has been further developed under the heading of Appraisal. It is typical of this and related theories that it emphasizes the similarity between modality and other types of attitudes which can be expressed by language.
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Statistical Learning with Similarity and Dissimilarity Functions. Berlin, Germany: Logos-Verlag Berlin, 2004.
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Jia-Wei, Hong. Computation: Computability, Similarity and Duality (Research Notes in Theoretical Computer Science). Financial Times Management, 1987.
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Pittelkow, Mark R., Charles L. Loprinzi, and Thomas P. Pittelkow. Pruritus and sweating in palliative medicine. Oxford University Press, 2015. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/med/9780199656097.003.0112.
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Itching (pruritus) and sweating (perspiration, diaphoresis) are physiological functions of the skin that normally serve human existence well. Itching is the sensory input arising from the skin and mucous membranes that alerts man to potentially harmful insults from physical, chemical, and biological sources. The reflex of scratching is closely linked to the perception of itch, and in most situations functions effectively as an aversive motor response to relieve the sensation and protect the skin. Similarly, sweating is a well-developed and finely coordinated sudomotor response designed to regulate body temperature and prevent hyperthermia. However, both pruritus and sweating have the potential to function aberrantly and develop into pathological conditions that create significant suffering and morbidity. This chapter provides a practical overview of the normal function and pathophysiology of pruritus and sweating, and offer a variety of therapeutic options and general comforting measures for patients experiencing these maladies.
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Gorman, Jack M. Brain Imaging. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/med/9780190850128.003.0005.
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The blood–brain barrier vigorously limits what can get into and out of the brain, making our ability to understand brain function much more difficult than with any other organ in the body. The modern era of brain imaging began about a half-century ago with the introduction of computed axial tomography (CAT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Although CAT scanning shows brain structure in great detail and revolutionized the precision of medical diagnosis, including of brain disorders, it has had relatively little impact on psychiatry because most psychiatric illnesses do not involve visible abnormalities of the size, shape, or volume of brain structures. Similarly, although we have gained some insights from structural MRI, it primarily shows us the anatomy of the brain. Three other variants of MRI, however, have been extremely useful in studying psychiatric issues: functional magnetic resonance imaging, diffusion tensor imaging, and magnetic resonance spectroscopy.
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Mason, Peggy. Spinal Cord. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/med/9780190237493.003.0004.
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The spinothalamic and lemniscal pathways carry somatosensory information from the periphery into the brain while the corticospinal pathway carries motor commands from the brain to motoneurons of the spinal cord. Following these pathways through the spinal cord allows the student to infer lesion location from symptoms. To exemplify the clinical importance of sympathetic outputs from thoracic segments, Horner syndrome is described. Similarly, the common problems caused by spinal cord injury on sacral parasympathetic functions are stressed. The contributions of specific spinal segments to breathing, hand and foot dexterity, and micturition are emphasized. Working through the logic of the symptoms caused by spinal hemisection (Brown-Séquard syndrome), pyramidal stroke, and syringomyelia provides the student with a clear framework for understanding spinal function in the clinical context.
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Jacobsen, Dean, and Olivier Dangles. Energy flow and species interactions at the edge. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198736868.003.0007.
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Chapter 7 elucidates the relationships between the structure and functioning of aquatic ecosystems at high altitude through the description of material cycles and food webs. Following the landscape continuum model, material cycling is profoundly influenced by the physical structure of the waterscape (e.g. vegetation cover); as a result a great diversity of energetic pathways characterize high altitude waterscapes, along an autotrophy–heterotrophy gradient. Similarly, high altitude aquatic food webs embrace a great diversity of trophic compartments, feeding strategies, and processes (trophic cascades and terrestrial subsidiarity) that are profoundly shaped by environmental harshness. Harsh conditions also generate stress gradients along which the strength and direction of species interactions (from competition to facilitation) and their functional role (e.g. as ecosystem engineers) are modified. The resulting structural and functional changes affect in turn species coexistence and trigger potential ecosystem shifts.
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Castellani, Claudia, and Marianne Wootton. Crustacea: Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199233267.003.0021.
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This chapter provides an introduction to the Crustacea, one of the most abundant and diverse components of the plankton. Within a single net-haul, the vast diversity within this group, coupled with the large number of species and the morphological similarity both between species and between developmental stages, can often pose a significant identification challenge even to experienced taxonomists. Although all Crustacea originally share a common body plan, their morphology can differ quite markedly due to different degrees of expression of body segmentation patterns and as a result of the loss or morphological modifications of paired appendages. There is also considerable variation between groups in the structure and function of the appendages on different body regions.
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Small, Mario Luis. Relevance and Empathy. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190661427.003.0006.
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This chapter suggests that the graduate students approached weak ties because of a desire to confide in someone who would understand their predicament as they themselves saw it. In other words, they sought people from whom they could expect what psychologists have termed cognitive empathy. Talking to those confidants, even if weakly tied, was often worth the risk. The chapter considers the relation between risk and expectations before discussing how students often justified their motivation to talk to an acquaintance as a function of the topic at hand; this form of trust is what Russell Hardin has described as a “three-part relation,” and philosopher Annette Baier, as a “three-part predicate”: “A trusts B with valued thing C.” It shows that the students commonly found empathy in one of several different forms of similarity, suggesting a mechanism through which homophily operates.
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Horing, Norman J. Morgenstern. Graphene. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198791942.003.0012.
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Chapter 12 introduces Graphene, which is a two-dimensional “Dirac-like” material in the sense that its energy spectrum resembles that of a relativistic electron/positron (hole) described by the Dirac equation (having zero mass in this case). Its device-friendly properties of high electron mobility and excellent sensitivity as a sensor have attracted a huge world-wide research effort since its discovery about ten years ago. Here, the associated retarded Graphene Green’s function is treated and the dynamic, non-local dielectric function is discussed in the degenerate limit. The effects of a quantizing magnetic field on the Green’s function of a Graphene sheet and on its energy spectrum are derived in detail: Also the magnetic-field Green’s function and energy spectrum of a Graphene sheet with a quantum dot (modelled by a 2D Dirac delta-function potential) are thoroughly examined. Furthermore, Chapter 12 similarly addresses the problem of a Graphene anti-dot lattice in a magnetic field, discussing the Green’s function for propagation along the lattice axis, with a formulation of the associated eigen-energy dispersion relation. Finally, magnetic Landau quantization effects on the statistical thermodynamics of Graphene, including its Free Energy and magnetic moment, are also treated in Chapter 12 and are seen to exhibit magnetic oscillatory features.
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Segraves, R. Taylor. Pharmacotherapy and Psychotherapy for Sexual Dysfunctions. Oxford University Press, 2015. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/med:psych/9780199342211.003.0022.
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Well-controlled, double-blind, multisite investigations have demonstrated the efficacy of phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitors for the treatment of erectile problems of mixed etiologies. A large number of studies affirm that serotonergic antidepressants delay ejaculation in men with premature ejaculation. Similarly, studies have demonstrated the efficacy of transdermal testosterone therapy in restoring sexual function in women after oophorectomy. There is suggestive evidence of the efficacy of cognitive-behavioral therapy in the treatment of sexual dysfunction in both sexes. However, the number and methodological rigor of such studies are limited and the effect sizes tend to be smaller than studies of pharmacological therapies.
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Altman, Michael J. Hindoo Religion in American National Culture. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190654924.003.0003.
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This chapter argues that representations of “Hindoo religion” functioned in American national culture to reinforce a white Protestant American identity. The chapter analyzes representations of “Hindoo religion” in American public school textbooks and the popular magazine Harper’s New Monthly Magazine. Public school textbooks constructed an anthropology through which they understood human difference. These textbooks ranked human difference across categories of race, civilization, and religion. They taught American children that they were part of a superior enlightened, white, Protestant identity. Similarly, magazines such as Harper’s New Monthly Magazine use “Hindoo religion” as a foil for superior white American Protestantism. American popular culture thus constructed American identity by representing the Hindoo Other.
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Jones, Susan. Choreographic Re-embodiment between Text and Dance. Edited by Mark Franko. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199314201.013.26.
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This chapter explores the aesthetics of the experimental modernist fiction of Joseph Conrad and Samuel Beckett to open up debates about reenactment of dance in the twentieth century. Using the theories of Gabriele Brandstetter and Paul Ricoeur to explore correspondences in dance and literary skepticism about narrative, the discussion shows how both writers interpolate their stories with fleeting passages of gesture or movement phrases that syncopate and undermine the teleological flow of narrative. This discussion suggests a choreographic re-embodiment between dance and text that focuses on communication beyond words. The similarity of Conrad and Beckett lies in their uses of gesture, but while Conrad’s movement phrases re-embody early twentieth-century expressivism, Beckett’s look back to early twentieth-century innovations in abstraction which examine the mechanical function of the body, rhythm in time and space. Beckett does not reference a mental (or emotional) state, whereas Conrad’s gestures are affective, identifying an emotional interiority.
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Kastan, David Scott. Naughty Printed Books. Edited by James Simpson and Brian Cummings. Oxford University Press, 2015. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199212484.013.0016.
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TheIndex librorum prohibitorum, first issued in 1559, the Roman Catholic Church’s official effort to ban certain books, is often contrasted with John Milton’sAreopagitica, so often claimed the foundational text of a modern notion of freedom of expression. But the opposition is more a function of a modern desire than of historical fact. The two texts do not so much display this reassuring opposition as their unnerving similarity. This article examines and attempts to undo some of the oppositions that have structured most of the scholarly discussion on the subject of censorship: Catholic versus Protestant, state versus individual, repression versus freedom. All of these play their role in an undeniably appealing history of liberty and toleration, but it is not a history that has much purchase in early modern England, as may be shown by a consideration of the efforts of the Church and authorities in England to prevent the circulation of what they called “naughty printed books.”
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Stogicza, Agnes, Bartha Peter Tohotom, Edit Racz, Andrea Trescot, and Alan Berkman. Complex Regional Pain Syndrome of the Upper and Lower Extremity. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/med/9780190271787.003.0011.
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Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) is a chronic debilitating pain condition of the extremities; it can affect, less commonly, other areas of the body (face, pelvis, abdomen). Its early presentation—pain disproportionate to the injury, skin temperature changes, hyperalgesia, allodynia—is often not recognized, delaying treatment. In later phases, with sympathetic nervous system involvement, it presents with skin and muscle atrophy, hair loss, allodynia, loss of function, and decreased range of motion. In severe cases, it can spread from one area to the other. Imaging findings (X-ray, MRI, bone scintigraphy) are nonspecific. They are used to support the diagnosis, and to exclude conditions that can present similarly. Treatment is challenging and includes physical therapy, psychologic support, medication management, and minimally invasive interventions to decrease pain, to positively influence the sympathetic nervous system, and to preserve function. A multidisciplinary approach is likely to be the most beneficial.
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Secunda, Shai. The Talmud's Red Fence. Oxford University Press, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198856825.001.0001.
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Rituals governing menstruation were an important aspect of Babylonian Jewish life, and they took shape within the context of Sasanian Mesopotamia, where neighboring religious communities were similarly animated by menstruation and its assumed impurity. The Talmud’s Red Fence: Menstruation and Difference in Babylonian Judaism and its Sasanian Context examines how the Talmudic rules of menstruation functioned within the dynamic space of Sasanian Mesopotamia. It argues that difference and differentiation between pure and impure, women and men, gentile and Jew, and the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds drove the development and observance of the Talmudic discourse of menstrual impurity, which influences Jewish life to this day. The Talmud’s Red Fence exemplifies Irano-Talmudic research—the effort to understand the Babylonian Talmud within its Sasanian Iranian context. To this end, it reads the Talmud alongside relevant Zoroastrian, Mandaic, and Syriac Christian texts to shed light on this previously overlooked aspect of late antique religious life. The book shows how the Talmudic menstrual rituals developed in conversation with other Sasanian religious communities, especially with Zoroastrians, who had a developed a similarly legalistic discourse of menstrual purity. And it considers the challenges of using an androcentric text to reconstruct a feature of late antique Jewish life that is intimately connected to the female experience.
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Gray White, Deborah. Introduction. University of Illinois Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.5406/illinois/9780252040900.003.0001.
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This chapter explains that the book looks at masculinity by examining, in both contemporary and historical perspective, the different ways that the Promise Keepers, the Million Man marchers and gay men approached masculinity, fatherhood, marriage, and issues of race, faith, and sexuality. Similarly, it explores how different groups of women approached femininity, feminism, motherhood, marriage, and sexuality, and examines their historical and contemporary ability to work across race, class, gender, and sexuality. It explores how African Americans navigated post-blackness, and how lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders negotiated their struggles with inclusion. As such, Lost in the USA reveals how intersectionality functions in the lives of local people and how it works and affects relationships and coalitions.
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Baxter, David, Sam Ghebrehewet, and Gill Marsh. Immunization. Oxford University Press, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/med/9780198745471.003.0019.
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Immunization has been used by human societies for more than a thousand years to control a number of important vaccine-preventable infections. Currently an infant born in an industrialized society will be immunized against more than 25 pathogens by 13 months of age; an elderly person in the same country will similarly be offered protection against 28 pathogens. The main reasons for continuing with immunization programmes in the face of declining rates of vaccine-preventable diseases/infections are discussed. This chapter also looks at the different vaccines that are widely used in many countries, describing the four main types and explaining how they utilize the body’s natural defence systems to provide protection. Vaccines are the most complex agents used by healthcare workers and this chapter reviews their different components and explains their different functions.
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Rothstein, Mikael. Rituals and Ritualization in New Religions Movements. Edited by James R. Lewis and Inga Tøllefsen. Oxford University Press, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190466176.013.24.
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New religions are religions. The fact that they are new is important, but it does not change the fact that they are religions. Similarly, rituals in new religions are rituals with the same functions and basic structures as those found in traditional religious settings. However, during the formative period of any given religion, the religious emphasis will be of a special kind. Members of new religions typically consider themselves an elite, they believe that they live in special times, they await great transformations, sometimes their teachings is clouded in esoteric structures, and they position themselves in a more or less outspoken opposition to the prevailing societal and religious order. These traits are all identifyable in the new religions’ ritual lives. Introducing several examples this chapter illustrates some of the more important aspects of these mechanisms.
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Martin, Jeffrey J. Intellectual Impairment. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190638054.003.0043.
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Athletes with intellectual impairments (II) are starting to attract more research attention. With their reinstatement into the Paralympics, along with the Special Olympics in the United States, athletes with II are also garnering more public attention. This chapter reviews research on athletes with II, in three areas. First is the psychosocial dynamics of sport participation. For instance, it appears that many athletes with II have difficulty maintaining motivation, yet they possess task and ego-type goals like all athletes. Psychological skills for performance enhancement are then discussed. Goal setting, for example, is an excellent tool for helping athletes with their motivation. The last area covered is research on support personnel. A defining feature of athletes with II is their reduced cognitive and functional abilities, communication limitations, and slower ability to develop sport skills. Some athletes might take substantial time to learn psychological skills, whereas other athletes may pick up various skills quite readily. Similarly, coaches may need more patience for athletes whose attention wanders or are easily distracted.
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Martin, Jeffrey J. Quality of Life. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190638054.003.0029.
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People with disabilities report having a wide range of quality of life. Quality of life is typically determined by life satisfaction, and negative and positive affect. Although people with disabilities face many individual, social, and environmental challenges, they often express a good to excellent quality of life. Having a good quality of life, despite these many challenges, is known as the disability paradox. Similarly, the erroneous assumption by many able-bodied people that individuals with disabilities must have terrible lives is also part of the disability paradox. The purpose of this chapter is to examine research showing how exercise can be an important vehicle to enhance quality of life. An overview of quality of life theories, concepts, measurement, and definitions is presented, followed by a review of the research and the mechanisms behind the association between physical activity and quality of life. For instance, feelings of mastery, increased functional fitness, enhanced social support from group and partner exercise, and biological mechanisms are all plausible mechanisms undergirding the salubrious effects of physical activity.
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Corcoran, Andrew W., and Jakob Hohwy. Allostasis, interoception, and the free energy principle: Feeling our way forward. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198811930.003.0015.
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Interoceptive processing is commonly understood in terms of the monitoring and representation of the body’s current physiological (i.e. homeostatic) status, with aversive sensory experiences encoding some impending threat to tissue viability. However, claims that homeostasis fails to fully account for the sophisticated regulatory dynamics observed in complex organisms have led some theorists to incorporate predictive (i.e. allostatic) regulatory mechanisms within broader accounts of interoceptive processing. Critically, these frameworks invoke diverse—and potentially mutually inconsistent—interpretations of the role allostasis plays in the scheme of biological regulation. This chapter argues in favor of a moderate, reconciliatory position in which homeostasis and allostasis are conceived as equally vital (but functionally distinct) modes of physiological control. It explores the implications of this interpretation for free energy-based accounts of interoceptive inference, advocating a similarly complementary (and hierarchical) view of homeostatic and allostatic processing.
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Bliwise, Donald L., and Michael K. Scullin. Sleep and cognition. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198778240.003.0004.
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Possible associations between sleep and cognition are provocative across different domains and hold the promise of prevention or reversibility. A vast array of studies has been reported. Evidence is suggestive but hardly definitive. We provide an overview of this literature, adopting the framework of Hill’s perspective on epidemiological causation. With rare exception, formal meta-analyses have yet to appear. Apparent consistency of findings suggests relationships, but the diversity of findings involving specific components of cognitive function raises interpretative caution. Large effect sizes have been noted, but small-to-moderate effects predominate. Natural history data are similarly enticing, and studies of biological plausibility and gradient indicate likely neurobiological substrates. Perhaps the ultimate population-health criterion, demonstration of reversibility of impairment, remains elusive at best. This area offers an exciting topic for future work.
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Lopotenco, Viorica. DEVELOPMENT OF THE NEW INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL ARCHITECTURE AT THE NATIONAL FINANCIAL SYSTEMS LEVEL. RS Global S. z O.O., 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.31435/rsglobal/027.
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The fundamental purpose of this paper is to analyze the transformations in the international financial architecture and their impact on the national financial system. The analysis of the international financial architecture's functioning mechanism suggests its similarity with the software system structure. It is static in the way the system functionality is decomposed and divided into implementation teams. The efficiency of international financial architecture's functioning depends mainly on how balanced and interconnected its elements are. Thus, according to systems theory, only by overcoming the deformation of the international financial architecture at all its levels, it is possible to increase the financial system's overall performance. In this regard, maintaining a dynamic balance in the development of the international financial architecture as an integral unit of its structural elements and functions is becoming of urgent importance. This aspect of the research allows the creation of an instrumental and methodological basis for forecasting the directions for further developing the international financial architecture in the context of the globalization of the world economy at the national financial systems level. This study concludes that the complex solution of the international financial architecture challenges involves creating the foundations for implementing progressive structural changes in the economy and contributing to sustainable economic development.
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Kornfield, Sara L., and C. Neill Epperson. PTSD and Women. Edited by Charles B. Nemeroff and Charles R. Marmar. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/med/9780190259440.003.0013.
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It is generally accepted that women are at greater risk of lifetime post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) than men. Both gender differences in trauma exposures and cognitive response to trauma as well as sex differences in neuroendocrine function are thought to contribute to the differences in prevalence of PTSD across the lifespan. For women, reproductive transitions such as puberty, pregnancy, and menopause are particularly relevant, as ovarian and stress hormones as well as neurosteroids exert profound effects on the central nervous system. Similarly, pregnancy and childbirth can be experienced as traumatic events leading to exacerbation or new-onset PTSD. This chapter reviews the relevant literature regarding PTSD in women to highlight the importance of considering gender and sex as risk and resilience factors. The chapter is organized according to reproductive stage, as PTSD symptoms and treatment implications vary across the female lifespan.
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Pravadelli, Veronica. The Male Subject of Noir and the Modern Gaze. University of Illinois Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.5406/illinois/9780252038778.003.0004.
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This chapter discusses the transition between the classical war films of the early 1940s and the anticlassical film noirs of the later half of the decade. This period can be roughly described in terms of a dual crisis, seen at the level of representation and at the level of the subject's capacity to act and to know. The chapter then examines noir's visual and narrative regime, especially its ability to express in purely visual terms certain modern tenets such as the psyche's split nature, the notion of embodied subjectivity, and the failure of vision and seeing. Similarly, noir alters the function of verbal language: the protagonist's subjective narration is often the only key to knowledge and truth, and words seem to take up the role previously assigned to vision and action. Meanwhile deep focus photography alters the terms of visuality.
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Seelarbokus, Chenaz B. International Environmental Law. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.013.229.
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Over the course of the twenty-first century, international environmental cooperation has been spurred through various new international environmental institutions and programs, and a dramatic strengthening of international environmental law-making. With the burst of environmental treaty-making the corpus of international environmental law (IEL) has expanded to include significant international environmental agreements (IEAs) in the sphere of climate change, ozone layer depletion, biodiversity, and so on; as well as the recognition of important principles such as good neighborliness and the common heritage. IEAs function similarly to international treaties—indeed, the only difference between an IEA and other international treaties lies in the subject matter. IEAs function as the instrument for laying down the principles of international laws binding upon states was established by the 1815 Congress of Vienna. Over the years, IEAs have not simply increased in number, but have also undergone an evolution in their structural design. In the early 1930s, IEAs tended to be simple in terms of their requirements, vague in terms of their objectives, and utilitarian in their ethos for protecting the environment. With time, however, as environmental sciences evolved to incorporate new principles and concepts, the structure of IEAs has followed in tandem to incorporate the new understandings and the new concerns.
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Ching Angela, Wong Wai. The Politics of Remembrance. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198722618.003.0022.
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The genealogies section of 1 Chronicles 1: 1 to 9: 34 is known as the ‘genealogical hall’ which shares the function of a traditional Chinese ancestral hall in which ancestors are to be remembered as a testimony to a unified origin of the clan. Similarly, when Israelites lost their temple and the land, the Chroniclers tried painstakingly to make sense of Israelite history by ‘registering’ (yahas) the lost tribes into the genealogies for a unified Israel for the future. When Paul Riceour asks the people to ‘re-member’, it is not just about not-forgetting but also keeping in mind of those who are members of our community who were lost to human tragedy. This chapter will study the meaning of writing back into history through the cross-textual readings of the genealogies hall of 1 Chronicles and the politics of memories for the traumatic Chinese events.
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Harley, Arreon. The Gang Mentality of Choirs. Edited by Frank Abrahams and Paul D. Head. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199373369.013.25.
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Choirs function very similarly to street gangs in that they have the power to radically transform lives, especially those of poor at-risk youths. Adolescents join gangs for the same reason adults join a choral community—to meet their needs. Often in the inner city, neither the familial unit nor the schools and community centers can provide the holistic solutions necessary to meet students’ needs, forcing them to go elsewhere. This chapter examines ways that choirs fulfill those needs, showing how several choral programs provide and/or supplement four basic needs according to the hierarchy of needs of Abraham Maslow (namely physiological, safety, love/belonging and esteem) and lead adolescents to a healthy and constructive place of self-actualization. Most importantly, this chapter explores how and why choral music has the power to transform lives of disenfranchised youths, preparing them for higher education and lives that contrast with their upbringing.
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Henricks, Thomas S. The Social Life of Play. University of Illinois Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.5406/illinois/9780252039072.003.0008.
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This chapter focuses on the social life of play. As the patterning of human relationships, social context shapes play by offering behavioral formats or directives that both support and restrict our actions. Such directives are manifested in countless situations and at different levels of abstraction; they constitute the social reality of our lives. In that context, the chapter examines play as a “social construction of reality”—that is, a process of reality construction and maintenance. It discusses three levels of social reality: self-identity, social relationships, and social structure. It also considers George Herbert Mead's play and game stages of development, play as performance and presentation, Georg Simmel's play form of association, Erving Goffman's theory of frame utilization, social functions of play, and play's relationship to power and privilege. The chapter concludes by revisiting Pierre Bourdieu's argument that similarly situated groups of people develop their own tastes and style of life that afford them personal satisfaction and easeful interaction.
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Kirchman, David L. Elements, biochemicals, and structures of microbes. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198789406.003.0002.
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Microbiologists focus on the basic biochemical make-up of microbes, such as relative amounts of protein, RNA, and DNA in cells, while ecologists and biogeochemists use elemental ratios, most notably, the ratio of carbon to nitrogen (C:N), to explore biogeochemical processes and to connect up the carbon cycle with the cycle of other elements. Microbial ecologists make use of both types of data and approaches. This chapter combines both and reviews all things, from elements to macromolecular structures, that make up bacteria and other microbes. The most commonly used elemental ratio was discovered by Alfred Redfield who concluded that microbes have a huge impact on the chemistry of the oceans because of the similarity in nitrogen-to-phosphorus ratios for organisms and nitrate-to-phosphate ratios in the deep oceans. Although statistically different, the C:N ratios in soil microbes are remarkably similar to the ratios of aquatic microbes. The chapter moves on to discussing the macromolecular composition of bacteria and other microbes. This composition gives insights into the growth state of microbes in nature. Geochemists use specific compounds, “biomarkers”, to trace sources of organic material in ecosystems. The last section of the chapter is a review of extracellular polymers, pili, and flagella, which serve a variety of functions, from propelling microbes around to keeping them stuck in one place.
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Naicker, Saraladevi, and Graham Paget. HIV and renal disease. Edited by Vivekanand Jha. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/med/9780199592548.003.0187_update_001.
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The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection epidemic has particularly affected the poorest regions of the world. HIV can directly or indirectly affect different aspects of renal function, and results in a variable expression of kidney disease.Acute kidney injury (AKI) occurs in approximately 20% of hospitalized patients. The prevalence of chronic kidney disease (CKD) amongst HIV-infected patients is reported at 3.5–38% in different regions of the world. The complex interplay between the pheno- and/or genotypic variants of the virus, the genetic make-up of the host, and environmental factors determine the clinical manifestations of renal disease. The association of APOL1 gene variants G1 and G2 with the risk of focal segmental glomerulosclerosis explains the high frequency of HIV-associated nephropathy (HIVAN) in populations of black ethnicity.Anti-retroviral therapy (ART) is effective in preventing progression of HIVAN. Some of the drugs used in ART regimens are potentially nephrotoxic and require dose adjustment or even avoidance in CKD. Progression to end-stage renal disease (ESRD) in HIVAN has been reported to correlate with the extent of chronic damage quantified by renal biopsy.HIV-infected patients requiring dialysis, who are stable on ART, are achieving survival rates comparable to those of non-HIV dialysis populations. Similarly, HIV infection does not seem to adversely affect patient and graft survival rates after kidney transplantation, and there has been no increase in the prevalence of opportunistic infections in transplant recipients on effective ART.
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Fuchs, Thomas. Ecology of the Brain. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/med/9780199646883.001.0001.
Full textAbstract:
Overcoming the brain centrism of current neuroscience, Ecology of the Brain develops an ecological and embodied concept of the brain as a mediating or resonance organ. Accordingly, the mind is not a product of the brain: it is an activity of the living being as a whole, which integrates the brain in its superordinate life functions. Similarly, consciousness is not an inner domain located somewhere within the organism, but a continuous process of engaging with the world, which extends to all objects that we are in contact with. The traditional mind–brain problem is thus reformulated as a dual aspect of the living being, conceived both as a lived or subjective body and as a living or objective body. Processes of life and of experiencing life are inseparably linked. Hence, it is not the brain, but the living human person as a whole who feels, thinks, and acts. This concept is elaborated on a broad philosophical, neurobiological, and developmental basis. Based on a phenomenology of the lived body and an enactive concept of the living organism as an autopoietic system, the brain is conceived in this book as a resonance organ, mediating the circular interactions within the body as well as the interactions between the body and the environment. Above all, a person’s relations to others continuously restructure the human brain which thus becomes an organ shaped by social interaction, biography, and culture. This concept is also crucial for a non-reductionist theory of mental disorders, psychiatry, and psychotherapy, which is developed in a special chapter.
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Wójcik-Gładysz, Anna. Ghrelin – hormone with many faces. Central regulation and therapy. The Kielanowski Institute of Animal Physiology and Nutrition, Polish Academy of Sciences, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.22358/mono_awg_2020.
Full textAbstract:
Discovered in 1999, ghrelin, is one of the peptides co-creating the hypothalamicgastrointestinal axis, otherwise known as the brain-gut axis. Ghrelin participates in many physiological processes and spectrum of its activity is still being discovered. This 28 amino acid peptide ‒ a product of the ghrl gene, was found in all vertebrates and is synthesized and secreted mainly from enteroendocrine X/A cells located in the gastric mucosa of the stomach. Expression of the ghrelin receptor has been found in many nuclei of the hypothalamus involved in appetite regulation. Therefore it’s presumed that ghrelin is one of the crucial hormones deciphering the energy status required for the maintenance of organism homeostasis. Ghrelin acts as a signal of starvation or energy insufficiency and its level in plasma is reduced after the meal. Neuropeptide Y (NPY) and agouti-related peptide (AgRP; NPY/AgRP) neurons located in the arcuate nucleus (ARC) area are the main target of ghrelin in the hypothalamus. This subpopulation of neurons is indispensable for inducing orexigenic action of ghrelin. Moreover ghrelin acting as a neurohormone, mainly in the hypothalamus area, plays an important role in the regulation of growth and reproduction processes. Indeed, ghrelin action on reproductive processes has been observed in the systemic effects exerted at both hypothalamus-pituitary and gonadal levels. Similarly the GH-releasing ghrelin action was observed both on the hypothalamus level and directly on the somatotrophic cells in the pituitary and this dose-related GH releasing activity was found in in vitro as well as in in vivo experiments. In recent years, numerous studies revealed that ghrelin potentially takes part in the treatment of diseases associated with serious disturbances in the organism energy balance and/or functioning of the gastrointestinal tract. It was underlined that ghrelin may be a hormone with a broad spectrum of therapeutic effect on obesity and anorexia nervosa, as well as may also have protective effect on neurodegenerative diseases, inflammatory disorders or functional changes in the body caused by cancers. In overall, ghrelin treatment has been tested in over 100 preclinical studies with healthy volunteers as well as patients with various types of cancer, eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. It was observed that ghrelin has an excellent clinical safety profile and emerging side effects occurred only in 3–10% of patients and did not constitute a sufficient premise to discontinue the therapy. In general, it can be concluded that ghrelin may be sufficiently used as a prescription drug.