Finding revelation in anthropology: Alexander Winchell, William Robertson Smith and the heretical imperative

Anthropological inquiry has often been considered an agent of intellectual secularization. Not least is this so in the sphere of religion, where anthropological accounts have often been taken to represent the triumph of naturalism. This metanarrative however fails to recognise that naturalistic explanations could sometimes be espoused for religious purposes and in defence of confessional creeds. This essay examines two late nineteenth-century figures – Alexander Winchell in the United States, and William Robertson Smith in Britain – who found in anthropological analysis resources to bolster rather than undermine faith. In both cases these individuals found themselves on the receiving end of ecclesiastical censure and were dismissed from their positions at church-governed institutions. But their motivation was to vindicate divine revelation, in Winchell’s case from the physical anthropology of human origins and in Smith’s from the cultural anthropology of Semitic ritual.

Tools for Assessing Outcomes in Studies of Chronic Cough: CHEST Guideline and Expert Panel Report

BACKGROUND: Since the publication of the 2006 American College of Chest Physicians (CHEST) cough guidelines, a variety of tools has been developed or further refined for assessing cough. The purpose of the present committee was to evaluate instruments used by investigators performing clinical research on chronic cough. The specific aims were to (1) assess the performance of tools designed to measure cough frequency, severity, and impact in adults, adolescents, and children with chronic cough and (2) make recommendations or suggestions related to these findings.

METHODS: By following the CHEST methodologic guidelines, the CHEST Expert Cough Panel based its recommendations and suggestions on a recently published comparative effectiveness review commissioned by the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, a corresponding summary published in CHEST, and an updated systematic review through November 2013. Recommendations or suggestions based on these data were discussed, graded, and voted on during a meeting of the Expert Cough Panel.

RESULTS: We recommend for adults, adolescents (≥ 14 years of age), and children complaining of chronic cough that validated and reliable health-related quality-of-life (QoL) questionnaires be used as the measurement of choice to assess the impact of cough, such as the Leicester Cough Questionnaire and the Cough-Specific Quality-of-Life Questionnaire in adult and adolescent patients and the Parent Cough-Specific Quality of Life Questionnaire in children. We recommend acoustic cough counting to assess cough frequency but not cough severity. Limited data exist regarding the performance of visual analog scales, numeric rating scales, and tussigenic challenges.

CONCLUSIONS: Validated and reliable cough-specific health-related QoL questionnaires are recommended as the measurement of choice to assess the impact of cough on patients. How they compare is yet to be determined. When used, the reporting of cough severity by visual analog or numeric rating scales should be standardized. Previously validated QoL questionnaires or other cough assessments should not be modified unless the new version has been shown to be reliable and valid. Finally, in research settings, tussigenic challenges play a role in understanding mechanisms of cough.

Natural cutaneous anthrax infection, but not vaccination, induces a CD4+ T cell response involving diverse cytokines

Background<p style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 11px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; overflow: visible; clear: both; line-height: 17.6000003814697px;">Whilst there have been a number of insights into the subsets of CD4⁺ T cells induced by pathogenicBacillus anthracis infections in animal models, how these findings relate to responses generated in naturally infected and vaccinated humans has yet to be fully established. We describe the cytokine profile produced in response to T cell stimulation with a previously defined immunodominant antigen of anthrax, lethal factor (LF), domain IV, in cohorts of individuals with a history of cutaneous anthrax, compared with vaccinees receiving the U.K. licenced Anthrax Vaccine Precipitated (AVP) vaccine.

We found that immunity following natural cutaneous infection was significantly different from that seen after vaccination. AVP vaccination was found to result in a polarized IFNγ CD4+ T cell response, while the individuals exposed to B. anthracis by natural infection mounted a broader cytokine response encompassing IFNγ, IL-5, −9, −10, −13, −17, and −22.

Vaccines seeking to incorporate the robust, long-lasting, CD4 T cell immune responses observed in naturally acquired cutaneous anthrax cases may need to elicit a similarly broad spectrum cellular immune response.

Early-type stars observed in the ESO UVES Paranal Observatory Project - V. Time-variable interstellar absorption

The structure and properties of the diffuse interstellar medium (ISM) on small scales, sub-au to 1 pc, are poorly understood. We compare interstellar absorption-lines, observed towards a selection of O- and B-type stars at two or more epochs, to search for variations over time caused by the transverse motion of each star combined with changes in the structure in the foreground ISM. Two sets of data were used: 83 VLT- UVES spectra with approximately 6 yr between epochs and 21 McDonald observatory 2.7m telescope echelle spectra with 6 - 20 yr between epochs, over a range of scales from 0 - 360 au. The interstellar absorption-lines observed at the two epochs were subtracted and searched for any residuals due to changes in the foreground ISM. Of the 104 sightlines investigated with typically five or more components in Na I D, possible temporal variation was identified in five UVES spectra (six components), in Ca II, Ca I and/or Na I absorption-lines. The variations detected range from 7\% to a factor of 3.6 in column density. No variation was found in any other interstellar species. Most sightlines show no variation, with 3{\sigma} upper limits to changes of the order 0.1 - 0.3 dex in Ca II and Na I. These variations observed imply that fine-scale structure is present in the ISM, but at the resolution available in this study, is not very common at visible wavelengths. A determination of the electron densities and lower limits to the total number density of a sample of the sightlines implies that there is no striking difference between these parameters in sightlines with, and sightlines without, varying components.

The androgen receptor fuels prostate cancer by regulating central metabolism and biosynthesis

The androgen receptor (AR) is a key regulator of prostate growth and the principal drug target for the treatment of prostate cancer. Previous studies have mapped AR targets and identified some candidates which may contribute to cancer progression, but did not characterize AR biology in an integrated manner. In this study, we took an interdisciplinary approach, integrating detailed genomic studies with metabolomic profiling and identify an anabolic transcriptional network involving AR as the core regulator. Restricting flux through anabolic pathways is an attractive approach to deprive tumours of the building blocks needed to sustain tumour growth. Therefore, we searched for targets of the AR that may contribute to these anabolic processes and could be amenable to therapeutic intervention by virtue of differential expression in prostate tumours. This highlighted calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase kinase 2, which we show is overexpressed in prostate cancer and regulates cancer cell growth via its unexpected role as a hormone-dependent modulator of anabolic metabolism. In conclusion, it is possible to progress from transcriptional studies to a promising therapeutic target by taking an unbiased interdisciplinary approach.

Introducing the CTA concept

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is a new observatory for very high-energy (VHE) gamma rays. CTA has ambitions science goals, for which it is necessary to achieve full-sky coverage, to improve the sensitivity by about an order of magnitude, to span about four decades of energy, from a few tens of GeV to above 100 TeV with enhanced angular and energy resolutions over existing VHE gamma-ray observatories. An international collaboration has formed with more than 1000 members from 27 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and North and South America. In 2010 the CTA Consortium completed a Design Study and started a three-year Preparatory Phase which leads to production readiness of CTA in 2014. In this paper we introduce the science goals and the concept of CTA, and provide an overview of the project. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The PREDICTS database: a global database of how local terrestrial biodiversity responds to human impacts

Biodiversity continues to decline in the face of increasing anthropogenic pressures such as habitat destruction, exploitation, pollution and introduction of alien species. Existing global databases of species’ threat status or population time series are dominated by charismatic species. The collation of datasets with broad taxonomic and biogeographic extents, and that support computation of a range of biodiversity indicators, is necessary to enable better understanding of historical declines and to project – and avert – future declines. We describe and assess a new database of more than 1.6 million samples from 78 countries representing over 28,000 species, collated from existing spatial comparisons of local-scale biodiversity exposed to different intensities and types of anthropogenic pressures, from terrestrial sites around the world. The database contains measurements taken in 208 (of 814) ecoregions, 13 (of 14) biomes, 25 (of 35) biodiversity hotspots and 16 (of 17) megadiverse countries. The database contains more than 1% of the total number of all species described, and more than 1% of the described species within many taxonomic groups – including flowering plants, gymnosperms, birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, beetles, lepidopterans and hymenopterans. The dataset, which is still being added to, is therefore already considerably larger and more representative than those used by previous quantitative models of biodiversity trends and responses. The database is being assembled as part of the PREDICTS project (Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems – www.predicts.org.uk). We make site-level summary data available alongside this article. The full database will be publicly available in 2015.

Mise en mouvement des jeunes de 16-17 ans en situation de précarité : facteurs associés à l'atteinte des objectifs d'intervention

La présente étude se penche sur les facteurs associés à l'atteinte des objectifs d'intervention dans les mesures de mise en mouvement chez les jeunes de 16-17 ans en situation de précarité. Au Québec, les effets de la pyramide démographique, l'essor de l'emploi atypique et les mutations économiques que subit le marché du travail peuvent engendrer une situation de précarité chez certains jeunes, dont les jeunes sans diplôme, les jeunes ayant été pris en charge par le système de protection de la jeunesse et les jeunes peu scolarisés. Dans cette perspective, des actions gouvernementales, sous forme de mesures, ont été mises en oeuvre en vue de fournir à ces jeunes un soutien dans leur insertion socioprofessionnelle et leur maintien à l'école. Nous nous intéressons à ces mesures, et plus particulièrement aux aspects personnels et contextuels des jeunes associés aux degrés d'atteinte des objectifs d'intervention. Les conditions associées aux participants de même que les mesures de mise en mouvement sont appréhendées sous l'angle de l'approche écosystémique. À cet effet, les objectifs de cette étude sont de déterminer les caractéristiques personnelles et les caractéristiques environnementales associées à l'atteinte des objectifs d'intervention des participants lors de leur passage dans ces mesures de mise en mouvement. À cette fin, les données employées proviennent d'une recherche évaluative de la mesure IDEO 16-17 (Yergeau, Bélisle, Bourdon et Thériault, 2009). Les participants (n=48) provenaient de différentes régions et étaient âgés de 15 et 19 ans. Alors que certains participants commençaient la mesure, certains participants interrogés avaient terminé la mesure. Parmi ces participants, 23 étaient des femmes et 25 des hommes. Un volet d'entrée leur était attribué selon leur problématique (mise en mouvement, persévérance scolaire ou rétablissement personnel). Des analyses bivariées ont été réalisées afin de relever les relations significatives entre les caractéristiques des jeunes, le degré d'atteinte moyen des objectifs d'intervention et la cote d'atteinte de l'objectif le plus associé au volet d'entrée. Deux régressions linéaires multiples ont également été exécutées afin de vérifier si les modèles employés expliquent une proportion significative de la variation du degré d'atteinte. Les résultats obtenus montrent la présence d'une corrélation positive entre l'âge des participants et le degré moyen d'atteinte des objectifs d'intervention. Ce résultat peut s'expliquer, entre autres, par une plus grande maturité et par un développement cognitif plus élevé des jeunes plus âgés. Aucun autre résultat significatif n'a été relevé. Toutefois, l'absence de résultats significatifs ne signifie pas que les liens entre les variables soient inexistants dans la réalité. L'absence de résultats significatifs peut s'expliquer en partie par certaines limites de la méthodologie, dont un échantillon hétérogène de taille modeste, une variance des variables dépendantes et certains paramètres de sélection du devis. Toutefois, certains aspects reliés à la nature même de la programmation souple de la mesure expliqueraient davantage l'absence de résultats, dont le manque d'adéquation entre le volet d'entrée et les objectifs d'intervention au plan d'action de même que la diversité et l'intensité variable des interventions inhérentes à l'étendue des problématiques des participants. Cette flexibilité caractéristique des mesures à programmation souple pose des défis méthodologiques et analytiques à la recherche et suggère au lecteur de nuancer l'interprétation des résultats. En conclusion, la présente recherche n'a pu déceler d'associations significatives entre le degré d'atteinte des objectifs d'intervention et les caractéristiques systémiques à l'étude. Certains aspects méthodologiques et de la nature de la mesure peuvent contribuer à expliquer l'absence de résultats significatifs. Comme il s'agit à notre connaissance de la première étude sur ce thème spécifique, il appert pertinent de poursuivre les études dans ce domaine.

The origins of C4 grasslands: integrating evolutionary and ecosystem science.

The evolution of grasses using C4 photosynthesis and their sudden rise to ecological dominance 3 to 8 million years ago is among the most dramatic examples of biome assembly in the geological record. A growing body of work suggests that the patterns and drivers of C4 grassland expansion were considerably more complex than originally assumed. Previous research has benefited substantially from dialog between geologists and ecologists, but current research must now integrate fully with phylogenetics. A synthesis of grass evolutionary biology with grassland ecosystem science will further our knowledge of the evolution of traits that promote dominance in grassland systems and will provide a new context in which to evaluate the relative importance of C4 photosynthesis in transforming ecosystems across large regions of Earth.

Revue des causes célèbres, politiques et criminelles : les procès de trahison : compte-rendu des débats judiciaires d'après la sténographie

1918/03/02 (N1)-1918/12/24 (N22).

Revue des causes célèbres, politiques et criminelles : les procès de trahison : compte-rendu des débats judiciaires d'après la sténographie

Variante(s) de titre : Les Procès de trahison

Revue des causes célèbres, politiques et criminelles : les procès de trahison : compte-rendu des débats judiciaires d'après la sténographie

1920/02 (A3,N59)-1920/07 (A3,N66).