‘Hip to be Irish’: ethnicity and Bourdieu's ‘Forms of Capital’

A ‘new Irish’ American ethnicity surfaced in the 1980s – according to a number of scholars and journalists – and is comprised of what some consider to be more ‘authentic’ and ‘traditional’ Irish cultural attributes. Defining authentic and traditional Irishness is complicated, however, by the recent influx and highly visible forms of economic capital and media attention stemming from the Celtic Tiger – the surge of economic prosperity that began in Ireland in the 1990s – and the commercializing of Irish music and dance – such as Riverdance. In this paper, I propose, through my study involving Irish language enthusiasts, that this ‘new’ form of Irish ethnicity is more the result of rather than the reason for this surge in popularity. I use Pierre Bourdieu's ‘Forms of Capital’ in questioning the ‘new Irish’ American ethnicity, arguing instead that a deeply seated, less-visible reservoir of cultural and social capital form the basis for this perceived contemporary ethnicity.     

Natural solution to antibiotic resistance: bacteriophages ‘The Living Drugs’

Antibiotics have been a panacea in animal husbandry as well as in human therapy for decades. The huge amount of antibiotics used to induce the growth and protect the health of farm animals has lead to the evolution of bacteria that are resistant to the drug’s effects. Today, many researchers are working with bacteriophages (phages) as an alternative to antibiotics in the control of pathogens for human therapy as well as prevention, biocontrol, and therapy in animal agriculture. Phage therapy and biocontrol have yet to fulfill their promise or potential, largely due to several key obstacles to their performance. Several suggestions are shared in order to point a direction for overcoming common obstacles in applied phage technology. The key to successful use of phages in modern scientific, farm, food processing and clinical applications is to understand the common obstacles as well as best practices and to develop answers that work in harmony with nature.     

The ‘Frank J. Myers Rotifera Collection’ at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia

The Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia (ANSP) houses the world’s most comprehensive collection of Rotifera on microscope slides. A particular strength of this major reference collection and type repository lies in the excellent preparation of specimens in life-like extended state and its balanced coverage of the phylum. The collection is almost worldwide in scope, and currently comprises 774 valid taxa, equalling a taxon coverage of 88.2% (families), 75.4% (genera), and 39.1% (species) compared to taxon numbers currently known to occur worldwide. A searchable database plus illustrated catalog has now been published on CD-ROM and on the Academy’s website. The poor representation of Rotifera in natural history collections and their generally poor curation and conservation is commented upon.     

The spectre of ‘spurious’ correlations

Summary Ecologists often standardize data through the use of ratios and indices. Such measures are employed generally to remove a size effect induced by some relatively uniteresting variable. The implications of using the resultant data in correlation and regression analyses are poorly recognized. We show that ratios and indices often provide surprising and spurious results due to their unusual properties. As a solution, we advocate the use of randomization tests to evaluate hypotheses confounded by spurious correlations. In addition, we emphasize that identifying the appropriate null correlation is of utmost importance when statistically evaluating ratios, although this issue is frequently ignored.     

The ‘curse’ of Westermarck 1

This article consists of a critical application of recent theory of nationalism to the unusual case of Mauritius. It is a poly‐ethnic and poly‐religious society whose inhabitants neither share a mythical distant past nor consider themselves culturally identical, but where nation‐building has nevertheless been moderately successful since the late 1960s. Through an examination of the processes of institutional and cultural nation‐building in the island, it is argued that the current Eurocentric view of the nation (notably as a culturally homogeneous imagined community) must be modified to fit cases like this one. Thus, the value of nationalism and nationhood as comparative concepts is questioned.     

The message of ‘The Other North Sea’

This paper explains the objectives of organising the symposium ‘The Other North Sea’. A major goal is the submission of the conclusions and content of this symposium to the North Sea Task Force, an initiative of the Second Conference on the Protection of the North Sea (London, 1987) which is responsible for preparing a Quality Status Report on the North Sea by mid-1993. The conclusions and recommendations of the symposium are summarised and presented to the North Sea Task Force in connection with the preparations for the 1993 Quality Status Report. The paper stresses the need to subdivide the North Sea into areas of ecological entity and underlines the advantages of using diatom and meiofauna assemblages as indicators for present and past environmental actors in sediment conditions. A plea is also made for the promotion of research to improve understanding of disturbance of sensory perception and behaviour as an ecologically relevant early warning signal. The major role of fisheries in inducing changes of seabird and harbour porpoise populations is highlighted.     

The fine structure of ‘homology’

There is long-standing conflict between genealogical and developmental accounts of homology. This paper provides a general framework that shows that these accounts are compatible and clarifies precisely how they are related. According to this framework, understanding homology requires both (a) an abstract genealogical account that unifies the application of the term to all types of characters used in phylogenetic systematics and (b) locally enriched accounts that apply only to specific types of characters. The genealogical account serves this unifying role by relying on abstract notions of ‘descent’ and ‘character’. As a result, it takes for granted the existence of such characters. This requires theoretical justification that is provided by enriched accounts, which incorporate the details by which characters are inherited. These enriched accounts apply to limited domains (e.g. genes and proteins, or body parts), providing the needed theoretical justification for recognizing characters within that domain. Though connected to the genealogical account of homology in this way, enriched accounts include phenomena (e.g. serial homology, paralogy, and xenology) that fall outside the scope of the genealogical account. They therefore overlap, but are not nested within, the genealogical account. Developmental accounts of homology are to be understood as enriched accounts of body part homology. Once they are seen in this light, the conflict with the genealogical account vanishes. It is only by understanding the fine conceptual structure undergirding the many uses of the term ‘homology’ that we can understand how these uses hang together.     

Production and characterization of alloplasmic lines of a triticale ‘Rosner’

Summary The transfer of cytoplasms of various Triticum and Aegilops species to a hexaploid triticale (Rosner) has been attempted using 30 alloplasmic lines and a euplasmic line of common wheat as cytoplasmic donors. The average rate of F₁ hybrid production (seed setting rateXgermination rate) following an ordinary method of crossing is only 0.09%, whereas this rate is increased to 3.1% by use of embryo culture. The first backcross of the F₁ plants with triticale pollen is again difficult, the hybrid production being 0.9%. Further backcrosses proceed smoothly in most cases. As a consequence, the following seven cytoplasms have been transferred to triticale: T. dicoccum, T. aestivum, Ae. squarrosa, Ae. cylindrica, Ae. juvenalis, Ae. ovata and Ae. speltoides. None of these alien cytoplasms causes more meiotic instability than does the triticale's own cytoplasm. Two cytoplasms of T. dicoccum and T. aestivum, both belonging to the B plasma type, have no effect upon any of triticale's characters. Two D type cytoplasms of Ae. squarrosa and Ae. cylindrica cause about 50% reduction of male fertility but exert no other remarkable effects. This fact suggests a partial functional compensation of the effect of a 1D chromosome upon interacting with D cytoplasm by a rye chromosome substituting for it in triticale. A D² cytoplasm of Ae. juvenalis causes earlier heading and complete male sterility, accompanied by some reduction of growth vigor. An M⁰ type cytoplasm of Ae. ovata and an S type cytoplasm of Ae. speltoides cause a great heading delay, complete male sterility, and severe reduction of vigor. From the viewpoint of triticale breeding, none of these cytoplasms appears superior to the triticale's own cytoplasm. However, from the viewpoint of genetics, the hexaploid triticale is an effective tester for differentiating the B, S, and D plasma types.Contribution No. 466 from the Laboratory of Genetics, Faculty of Agriculture, Kyoto University, Japan     

‘HypothesisFinder:’ A Strategy for the Detection of Speculative Statements in Scientific Text

Speculative statements communicating experimental findings are frequently found in scientific articles, and their purpose is to provide an impetus for further investigations into the given topic. Automated recognition of speculative statements in scientific text has gained interest in recent years as systematic analysis of such statements could transform speculative thoughts into testable hypotheses. We describe here a pattern matching approach for the detection of speculative statements in scientific text that uses a dictionary of speculative patterns to classify sentences as hypothetical. To demonstrate the practical utility of our approach, we applied it to the domain of Alzheimer''s disease and showed that our automated approach captures a wide spectrum of scientific speculations on Alzheimer''s disease. Subsequent exploration of derived hypothetical knowledge leads to generation of a coherent overview on emerging knowledge niches, and can thus provide added value to ongoing research activities.     

Production of Anti-glucagon Antibodies in Poly-L-lysine “Responder” Guinea-pigs

THE availability of anti-glucagon antiserum would greatly facilitate studies on the action of the pancreatic peptide hormone glucagon (molecular weight 3,48s)¹; this peptide is poorly immunogenic^2–8. Grey et al.⁹ report that immunization of rabbits with a glucagon-haemocyanin conjugate yielded antibodies of high affinity. We now describe a method of producing and assaying antibodies to glucagon in which glucagon is coupled to poly-L-lysine (PLL). Immunization of guinea-pigs with glucagon-PLL conjugate yields large amounts of high affinity anti-glucagon antibody; the immune response to PLL and hapten-PLL conjugates is determined by a dominant autosomal genetic factor¹⁰.     

The role of nodal roots in prostrate clonal herbs: ‘phalanx’ versus ‘guerrilla’

The influence of nodal rooting on branching was studied in three evolutionarily and morphologically diverse species of prostrate clonal herbs: Tradescantia fluminensis (a monocotyledonous extreme ‘phalanx’ species), Calystegia silvatica (a dicotyledonous extreme ‘guerrilla’ species) and Trifolium repens (a dicotyledonous intermediate species). In all three, branch development from axillary buds is regulated by a positive signal produced by roots together with inhibitory influences from both pre-existing branches and shoot apical buds (apical dominance). Responses to nodal roots are cumulative and increased root activity leads to more vigorous bud outgrowth. In the absence of nodal roots, a single basal root system is unable to maintain continued extension growth of the shoot. We suggest that as individual nodal roots and stem internodes are both short-lived in these nodally-rooting clonal species, the plants’ investment in them is minimal. Thus, in contrast to perennial species lacking nodal roots, individual root systems in prostrate clonal herbs are small and stems have little secondary thickening and development of long-distance transport tissues. Hence the decline in extension growth of the shoot in the absence of nodal roots could be linked to the weak development of long-distance transport tissues in their relatively thin horizontal stems and to resource sharing between primary stems and lateral branches (as suggested by the greater retardation of primary stem growth in the more profusely branched ‘phalanx’ species (Trifolium and Tradescantia) than in the weakly branched ‘guerrilla’ species, Calystegia). These findings are consistent with the view that the long-term persistence of genotypes of nodally-rooting prostrate species is dependent upon them encountering the moist conditions required to facilitate the continual development of new young nodal root systems.