Goodmania (Polygonaceae), a new genus from California

A new genus,Goodmania, is described for the species currently known asOxytheca luteola Parry of central and southern California. A member of Polygonaceae, subfamily Eriogonoideae,Goodmania is an isolated genus, distinct fromEriogonum by the awned bracts, and fromOxytheca by its involucral bracts not forming a distinct tube, yellow flowers, non-glandular pubescence, and small, paired cauline leaves.Goodmania is seemingly related to the Death Valley endemic,Gilmania, but differs in having a whorl of five involucral bracts subtending the cluster of short-pedicellate flowers.     

A revision of the genus Oxytheca Nutt. (Polygonaceae)

The genusOxytheca of western North America and temperate South America consists of seven species which are keyed, described, discussed, illustrated, and mapped. They are divided among sect.Oxytheca, sect.Acanthoscyphus stat. & comb. nov., and sect.Neoxytheca sect. nov.Oxytheca dendroidea subsp.chilensis is given as a new combination, whileO. parishii var.cienegensis andO. parishii var.goodmaniana are described as new. The history and relationships of the genus are discussed. It is retained as distinct fromEriogonum and is thought to have arisen from the larger genus nearE. spergulinum, E. parishii, andE. apiculatum in subgenusGanysma. Cytological data indicatedn= 20.     

L’intersubjectif et l’intrasubjectif dans l’expérience de souffrance. Un regard psychanalytique

Psychoanalysis characterises subjectivity as a notion based on the “plurality of psychologically troubled persons”, revealed, for instance, in dreams. The author takes a closer look at a number of Freud’s dream analyses and argues that, in working with the dream, subjects often eject one of their psychologically troubled persons (often the “suffering child”) out of themselves, projecting the person into the Other. As a result, an intersubjective space is created, which is required to receive the divisions originating from the intrasubjective space. Freud’s 1895 Project, however, goes farther: the evacuation of the “disparate part” of the child to the Other grants access to logical and rational judgement, guaranteeing a child’s psychological life a fictional stability (the “Thing” or the “ego”). Freud adds that this process is possible if a Nebenmensch — or “fellow creature” — is present and has the quality of a “helping person” capable of receiving the child’s suffering cry. These two lines of thought, together, help clarify the intersubjective position underlying the analytical work: a tentative encounter between the patient’s distress and the analyst’s presence. Free-floating attention will enable the analyst to receive and hear this distress and ease the patient’s recovery of his or her intrasubjective space.     

‘Steps’ to Agency: Gregory Bateson,Perception, and Biosemantics

Gregory Bateson was welcomed into Biosemiotics as one of its precursors along with C. S. Peirce and Jacob von Uexküll He certainly endorsed Peirce pragmatic concern with learning as an essential characteristic of mammalian life, and also endorsed von Uexküll’s notion that the fundamental unit of animate existence is organism plus econiche. But he was at odds both with the subjectivism and with the cognitivism that connects Peirce to von Uexküll. Bateson rests his case on information theory which, he believes replaces many metaphysical notions that were the background to Peirce and von Uexküll’s approaches to ‘meaning.’ His idea of cybernetic ‘feedback’ in information circuits or networks yields a new understanding of recursiveness. Yet biofeedback in mammalian interaction had to be wrestled away from technical cybernetics and its thermodynamic rules about information, for the latter payed no attention to ‘meaning’ (“Bioentropy” section). Of the contrasts between Peirce and Bateson, the most significant is that Bateson regards ‘difference’ as primary to perception, while Peirce is concerned with continuity as primary from perception to cognition. This contrast is at the heart of Bateson’s Korzybski Lecture (see “On the Title of ‘Steps’” section), and shows how ‘difference’ in Learning develops orders and levels (see “Memory and Learning” section) leading to different categories of learning. With regard to perception, Bateson argues that the processes of perception do not bind perception to conscious awareness in any exclusive sense. Further, patterns of perception are not bounded by the skin for they include all external pathways along which information can travel. This recursive activity develops ‘agency’ (“Perception and Consciousness” section). We are ourselves interact with living mental ‘things’ but interactions with animate ‘creatura,’ is not the same as the objective interactions we purse in measuring inanimate material ‘things’ (pleroma) (“How Bioentropy Informs Bateson’s Notions of Pleroma and Creatura ” section). The grasping of context in communicative interaction, for example, is unique to creatura (“Context in Recursive Communication” section). Recognition of ‘difference’ occurs through communicative interactions and is meta-physical (without dimension). The pattern of interaction is the ‘thing,’ and ostensive aspects of communication are contextual, inclusive of all ‘external’ aspects vital for interpretation of ‘signals’ between initiators and responders to messages. Towards the end of his life, Bateson’s concerns with non-human conditions of ‘meaning’ and ‘mind’ in nature, resulted in his dropping several of the Peirce’s conditions of semiosis, as he looks at ‘meaning’ without language. He rests his method the propositional order of Peirce’s abduction rather than the latter’s full array of abduction, induction and deduction. Bateson is supported by the Biosemantics of Ruth Millikan, this paper will argue, who also believes that the derivation of meaning in animals through natural signs requires the stripping away of any ‘meaning rationalism’ (“Meaning Rationalism” section). Together they provide joint conclusions about as sign use in the ecosystems of creatura (“Conclusion” section).     

IsSchindewolf’s “Grundfragen der Paläontologie” still worth reading? An apologetic evaluation of his work

Roughly five years ago O.H. Schindewolf’s book “Grundfragender Paläontologie” was first published in English by the University of Chicago Press, about fifty years after the original German edition. Thus, for the first time a considerable number of English-speaking palaeontologists became acquainted with the author’s ideas of the evolutionary process. Inevitably, numerous book reviews followed, introducing “the new publication’. The predominant tenor is characterized by titels like “Magnificent wrongheadedness” or “Wonderfully, gloriously wrong”. By referring to recent results in developmental genetics and population ecology it is shown that Schindewolf’s ideas concerning the progress of evolution must by no means be interpreted simply as a product of a self reverential, wrongheaded spirit, preformed by the atmosphere of German romanticism. Truly, his ideas can be understood as the result of a scientific imagination which was not preoccupied by neo-Darwinian paradigms and was ahead of the biological knowledge of his time.     

Evolution de l’il et h’t’rochronie chez les trilobites ordoviciensormathops delo 1935 ettoletanaspis rabano 1989 (dalmanitidae,zeliszkellinae)

Ormathops species of Arenig (Fennian) and Llanvirn age(O. llanvirnensis, O. atava, O. clariondi) possess visual surfaces characterized by irregularities in the distribution of lenses. Yet, at early Caradoc time, the eyes ofOrmathops hupei are perfectly schizochroal. From the Arenig to the Lower Llanvirn, the same evolution can be noticed in the genusToletanaspis: the eyes ofT. borni andT. courtessolei n. sp., both from the Whitlandian of the Montagne Noire (southern France), show irregular lens-packing whereasT. trivignoi of Lower Llanvirn age has a schizochroal pattern of lenses. InOrmathops andToletanaspis, the schizochroal condition has developed independently from a primitive lens-packing system, probably through a paedomorphic (neotenic) “process”. Résumé: Les espèces d’Ormathops d’âges Arenig (Fennien) et Llanvirn (O.llanvirnensis, O. atava,O. clariondi) possèdent des surfaces visuelles caractérisées par des irrégularités de distribution des lentilles. Toutefois, au début du Caradoc, les yeuxd’Ormathops hupei sont parfaitement schizochroaux. De l’Arenig au Llanvirn Inférieur, la même évolution s’observe chez le genreToletanaspis: les yeux deT. borni etT. courtessolei n. sp., toutes deux du Whitlandien de la Montagne Noire (France méridionale), montrent une distribution irrégulière des lentilles tandis queT. trivignoi d’âge Llanvirn Inférieur présente des surfaces visuelles schizochroales. ChezOrmathops etToletanaspis, l’?il schizochroal s’est formé indépendamment à partir d’une surface visuelle primitive à lentilles irrégulièrement réparties, et ceci probablement par paedomorphose (néoténie).     

Bioethics and Biopolitics: Presents and Futures of Reproduction

This Bioethics and Biopolitics: Presents and Futures of Reproduction symposium draws together a series of articles that were each submitted independently by their authors to the JBI and which explore the biopower axis in the externalization of reproduction in four contexts: artificial gestation (ectogenesis), PGD for sex selection, women’s (reproductive) rights, and testicular cryopreservation (TCCP). While one contribution explores a “future” of reproduction, the other three explore a “present,” or better, explore different “presents.” What may counts as “present,” and what may count as “future,” has dramatically different connotations depending on the geographical declination of the tense.     

« L’enfer, c’est les autres »: approche phénoménologique de la relation à autrui

Garcin famously retorted in Jean-Paul Sartre’s play No Exit, “Hell is other people”, l’enfer, c’est les autres. But what exactly did he mean? I would suggest that the play’s most quoted line can serve as the key to understanding, from a phenomenological point of view, the relationships between others and me, and in particular why theses relationships can be so trouble-some. Is it not generally because we ask of each other what neither can offer in response? Perhaps we should give up the expectation that others are our salvation and accept our own contingencies.     

Statistical Description of Food Microstructure. Extraction of Some Correlation Functions From 2D Images

Two algorithms able to compute lineal-path distribution function L(z) and two-point correlation function, S ₂ (r ₁ ,r ₂ ) from 2D digital images of foods were developed and validated. Particularly, “Altamura” and “White” breads as well as “Napoli” sausages were studied. Lineal-path function was modeled by considering the foods as two-phase random systems composed from polydisperse overlapping disks. Instead, two-point correlation function was modeled by using a Debye’s equation. In all cases a good agreement between experimental and theoretical trend was obtained stating the high accuracy of the algorithms in the extraction of correlation functions as well as the possibility to model breads and sausages as two-phase random systems. Also, important morphological properties such as pores distribution, pore size homogeneity and their spatial distribution, were obtained. For instance, although the estimated radius of the pores was lower for “Altamura” bread rather that for “White”, its slowest decay of L(z) highlighted that the pores showed a high dimensional inhomogeneity.     

Structure-activity relationship of 4-azaindole-2-piperidine derivatives as agents against Trypanosoma cruzi

The structure-activity relationship of a 4-Azaindole-2-piperidine compound selected from GlaxoSmithKline’s recently disclosed open-resource “Chagas box” and possessing moderate activity against Trypanosoma cruzi, the parasite responsible for Chagas disease, is presented. Despite considerable medicinal chemistry efforts, a suitably potent and metabolically stable compound could not be identified to advance the series into in vivo studies. This research should be of interest to those in the area of neglected diseases and in particular anti-kinetoplastid drug discovery.     

Constructions dans l’analyse: le transfert comme construction d’un espace porteur et comme reconstruction

The author argues that Binswanger’s daseinsanalyse is far from contradicting what Freud established in the field of analytical therapy. On the contrary, it enriches psychotherapy by making explicit what it is capable of constructing. This paper focuses on the transferential aspect of this construction. Übertragung, or transference, calls upon the world of the patient, its emotional space inhabited by the patient’s body and the bodies of others. This world, along with its underlying dramatics, not only requires recognition, but also carriage (Tragung) to the analyst’s side, at least if the analyst is to succeed in revealing the unconscious part of this world to foster its transformation rather than repetitions of the mechanisms that freeze it. The author reflects on the “gestation” and “carriage” metaphors to show how therapeutically effective the “carrier-experienced space” can be.     

Letting the Air Out: <Emphasis Type="Italic">Aire</Emphasis> as an Empty Signifier in Oaxacan Understandings of Illness

“Air (aire, also aigre) in the body” is a frequent explanation of illness according to the traditional medical beliefs in Mexico. Anthropologists have generally scrutinized aire in the context of other common folk illnesses treated by traditional healers (curanderas). However, drawing on my research in the communities of Northern Oaxaca I suggest that aire occupies a more distinct position in the folk medical cosmology than it has usually been credited with. This distinction rests on the notion’s exceptional ambivalence and openness to multiple interpretations. “Air” is recurred to as the cause of illness mainly in situations where every other explanation, either “traditional” or “biomedical,” seems to be inadequate. The physical properties of air—its transparency, invisibility, apparent immateriality, near omnipresence, and virtual “nothingness”—render it a suitable explanation of the last resort. Local understandings of what aire “is” are often vague and elusive, and in many respects the term functions in folk medical discourse as an “empty signifier.”     

Hardness maximization or equalization? New insights and quantitative relations between hardness increase and bond dissociation energy

It has been overlooked that the change of hardness, η, upon bonding is intimately connected to thermochemical cycles, which determine whether hardness is increased according to Pearson’s “maximum hardness principle” (MHP) or equalized, as expected by Datta’s “hardness equalization principle” (HEP). So far the performances of these likely incompatible “structural principles” have not been compared. Computational validations have been inconclusive because the hardness values and even their qualitative trends change drastically and unsystematically at different levels of theory. Here I elucidate the physical basis of both rules, and shed new light on them from an elementary experimental source. The difference, Δη = η _mol – <η _at>, of the molecular hardness, η _mol, and the averaged atomic hardness, <η _at>, is determined by thermochemical cycles involving the bond dissociation energies D of the molecule, D ⁺ of its cation, and D ^? of its anion. Whether the hardness is increased, equalized or even reduced is strongly influenced by ΔD = 2D – D ⁺  ? D ^?. Quantitative expressions for Δη are obtained, and the principles are tested on 90 molecules and the association reactions forming them. The Wigner-Witmer symmetry constraints on bonding require the valence state (VS) hardness, η _VS, instead of the conventional ground state (GS) hardness, η _GS. Many intriguingly “unpredictable” failures and systematic shortcomings of said “principles” are understood and overcome for the first time, including failures involving exotic and/or challenging molecules, such as Be_2, B₂, O₃, and transition metal compounds. New linear relationships are discovered between the MHP hardness increase Δη _VS and the intrinsic bond dissociation energy D _i . For bond formations, MHP and HEP are not compatible, and HEP does not qualify as an ordering rule.     

Molecular identification of the industrially important strain Ogataea parapolymorpha

The thermotolerant strain 1-IR was isolated as a contaminant microflora of the industrial strain “Red” (the Netherlands) during the study of the baker’s yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The strain was assigned to the species Ogataea parapolymorpha by sequencing the 26S rDNA D1/D2 domain. The strain 1-IR was shown to be capable of efficient glucose and xylose fermentation at an elevated temperature of 45°C. In this respect, the strain 1-IR surpassed the thermotolerant yeasts O. polymorpha CBS 4732, NCYC 495, and O. parapolymorpha DL1. The prospects of using the O. parapolymorpha yeasts as producers of biofuel from lignocellulose wastes of agricultural and woodworking industries is discussed.     

Disability and Deviance: Dario Argento’s Phenomena and the Maintenance of Abledness as a Critical Framework

This exploration of disability directly applies Campbell’s understanding of “abledness” to the film Phenomena by Italian director Dario Argento. Phenomena (1985) explores, through the diegetic response to protagonist Jennifer Corvino’s ability to communicate with insects, the shifting cultural association between disability and deviance. The film begins with the traditional response to disability, what education psychologist Kaoru Yamamoto considers the cultural importance of classifying and interpreting disabled bodies by fitting them into a narrative of deviance for surveillance and control. Throughout Argento’s film, characters attempt to classify Jennifer; scientists seek to diagnose her “affliction” through the medical model of disability, while Jennifer’s schoolmistresses interpret Jennifer’s behavior as a disciplinary problem based in environmental factors. This represents the structural model of disability, but in each instance, the attempt to classify Jennifer fails to diagnose or discipline the supposed “deviant, disabled body.” Through this failure, the film dramatizes contemporary critiques of traditional models that examine disability, moving beyond to explore what Fiona Kumari Campbell has called “the maintenance of abledness” in sexed, raced, and modified bodies. By normalizing Jennifer’s ability, then, Phenomena offers a framework for examining the process through which elements of “abledness” become normalized, a concept which many theorists now argue should maintain the focus of disability studies.     

Additional cricetid and dipodid rodent material from the Erden Obo section,Erlian Basin (Nei Mongol,China) and its biochronological implications

New cricetid (Cricetops dormitor, Eocricetodon sp., Eucricetodon cf. E. wangae, Pappocricetodon schaubi) and dipodid (Allosminthus gobiensis n. sp., Allosminthus ernos, Allosminthus uniconjugatus, Allosminthus cf. A. majusculus, Primisminthus shanghenus, Sinosminthus sp.) occurrences from the “Lower Red”, “Middle Red”, “Middle White” and “Upper White” beds of the Erden Obo section in Nei Mongol, China are reported. They are first discovered in these horizons. On the basis of the comparison of the rodent assemblages, we consider that the age of the “Upper White” beds is early Oligocene, the age of the “Middle Red” and “Middle White” beds is probable more similar to the age of late Eocene Houldjin Formation and lower part of Chaijiachong Formation, and the age of the “Lower Red” beds is correlative to the Sharamurunian. The diversity of ctenodactyloid, dipodid, and cricetid appears to change, and the turnover in rodent fauna possibly responded to the environmental and climate change towards the end of middle Eocene.     

Fine structure of Leptomyxa ambigua n. sp. CCAP 1546/2 strain,formerly known as “Rhizamoeba flabellata” (Amoebozoa,Tubulinea, Leptomyxida)

The species Leptomyxa flabellata was described by Goodey in 1915 and re-isolated by Pussard and Pons in 1976. It seems that it was never seen (or never recognized) again since that time. The strain designated as “Leptomyxa flabellata CCAP 1546/2” was studied by Cann in 1984, however the quality of the electron microscopic images of that time was poor. Based on the cyst structure and size characters, Page in 1988 suggested that this strain is not co-specific with Goodey’s Leptomyxa flabellata, but represents a species ‘Ripidomyxa’ australiensis Chakraborty and Pussard, 1985, nowadays known as Rhizamoeba australiensis. In the present paper light- and electron-microscopic images of CCAP 1546/2 strain, which is now lost, are provided. Based on the morphological evidences it is suggested to establish it in a rank of a new species, Leptomyxa ambigua n. sp. Neither “true” L. flabellata Goodey, 1915 nor original R. australiensis Chakraborty et Pussard, 1985 are nowadays represented in the culture collections, and no original type material is available on both these species.     

Extended phylogeny of the Craspedida (Choanomonada)

Currently choanoflagellates are classified into two distinct orders: loricate Acanthoecida and non-loricate Craspedida. The morphologically based taxonomy of the order Craspedida is in need of a revision due to its controversial, paraphyletic and inconsistent systematics and nomenclature. In this study, we add molecular data (SSU and parts of the LSU rDNA) of six new Craspedida species isolated from saline, brackish and freshwater habitats to the existing knowledge. Four of these six organisms could be described as new species: Paramonosiga thecata, “Salpingoeca” euryoecia, “Salpingoeca” ventriosa, “Sphaeroeca” leprechaunica, whereas two are assigned to previous morphologically described species: “Salpingoeca” fusiformis Saville Kent, 1880 and “Salpingoeca” longipes Saville Kent, 1880. Paramonosiga is established as a new genus of the Craspedida based on its phylogenetic position. Extending the dataset by six additional sequences shows that the craspedid taxonomy is still unsolved as the type specimen Salpingoeca gracilis has not yet been sequenced and hence a clear assignment to the genus Salpingoeca is not possible. Trying to assign morphological and ecological data to phylogenetic clades is not successful. We give an improved/emended morphological diagnosis for the two redescribed species and add molecular data for all six species, shedding light on their phylogenetic position.