Earlier Work Research Articles

An early Prussian study on the composition of milk from 1871

Connections between the 2 scientific fields of physiology and dairy science have existed for a very long time-since the 19th century. One possible explanation for this circumstance could have been the necessity for financial support, which might have played a significant role for many theoretical physiologists to conduct studies on dairy products. This study discusses a correspondence written by the physiologist R. Gscheidlen to J. A. Winter, the main editor of the German (previously Saxon) journal "Schmidt's Yearbooks on the Entire Field of Domestic and Foreign Medicine" ("Schmids Jahrbücher der in-und ausländischen gesammten Medicin"). Gscheidlen submitted a review manuscript on the composition of milk to Winter's journal. In that work, which was published later as the first issue's very first article of the first volume (of in total 4 quarterly volumes) in 1871, Gscheidlen mainly refers to Eduard Kemmerich, who later became a pioneer of cattle breeding in Argentine. Therefore, studies on dairy products and on dairy science, although regularly not very significant from a theoretical and physiological point of view, obviously had concrete implications for practical purposes. Furthermore, other parts of Winter's journal, volume 1871, indicate that Gscheidlen tried to connect these studies with his early theoretical works on physiological metabolism. These theoretical studies included experiments that already explored basic principles of the urea cycle from today's point of view. Of course, these works, which were partly carried out on animals, must have been extravagant and expensive. For that reason, it is possible to assume that early dairy science and other scientific fields in Germany around 1870, which were linked to the developing food industry, had a very significant influence on the advances in theoretical metabolism physiology.

The Historical Development of the Concepts Underlying the Design and Construction of Targeted Coordination Polymers/MOFs: A Personal Account.

Presented here is a personal account of how the ideas and concepts underlying the design and construction of coordination polymers/MOFs developed historically - from the earliest conjectures in the 1970's about the possibility of using pre-organized building blocks to construct targeted polymeric structures, to the initial experimental implementation of these ideas in the mid-80's and to the introduction of the name MOFs in the 90's. The early exploratory work with pre-organized building blocks described in this article paved the way for the subsequent explosion of research activity in the CP/MOF area and for the generation of an essentially unlimited range of designed coordination polymer structures promising a variety of useful properties.

Development and labour resistance: a class composition perspective on import-substitution industrialisation in Chile and Argentina

Research on labour and development has demonstrated the significance, both analytically and politically, of labour for understanding the political economy of development. Analyses of labour regimes highlight the central role of reorganised workplaces and changing labour processes in value chains across the global economy. Research in global labour studies illustrates the ways in which concepts and theorisations of labour struggles emanating from the Global North struggle to capture the dynamics of labour conflict in the Global South and their wider impacts. This article argues that the revival of autonomist ‘class composition’ approaches can advance a labour perspective on development by shedding light on the importance of labour’s defeats when mapping the contours of the political economy of development. This approach reveals how what E.P. Thompson called the ‘dead ends’ of labour history are essential to understanding the grounds upon which state and capital reorganise to contain workers’ demands and struggles, thereby setting new conditions for these struggles to re-emerge. Drawing on insights from the early work of Antonio Negri, the article will examine how processes of working-class composition and decomposition occurred within the trajectory of import-substitution industrialisation in Chile and Argentina, establishing new labour regimes in its early crises. The article demonstrates this through original archival research using industry journals and publications from the textile industry in Chile and metalworking industry in Argentina.

Physio-omics? Robotic development, software engineering, and machine learning for high throughput, whole animal physiology assays as a path to disease mechanism and drug discovery

Measurement and analysis of cardio-respiratory function in animal models is essential for our understanding of functional and disease mechanisms that pave the way for human therapeutics and treatments. However, physiological phenotyping in conscious animals is often an onerous process requiring significant observer time, attention, and manual effort while being susceptible to bias and variability that ultimately limits the kinds of questions that can be asked and answered. Once data is collected, comprehensive and accurate analysis is challenging as it often requires either the use of expensive commercial software(s) with limited flexibility to meet the investigator’s needs or lab developed scripts that are often arduous and require specialized skills to utilize, resulting in incremental insights. Here we present an overview of our high throughput physiology assessment and analysis pipeline for interrogating disease mechanisms and enabling drug discovery in congenital cardio-respiratory disorders such as the lethal sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). We first developed a closed loop robotic platform for automated neonate cardio-respiratory experiments (Looper) that enables automated interventional studies (i.e. hypoxic induction or drug application) based on real-time physiological feedback during the experiment. We show that deployment of multiple Looper platforms in parallel enables an order of magnitude increase in data collection for a single observer over a single workday and is highly scalable to achieve yet greater outputs. When combined with well designed genetically engineered or other disease mouse models, large scale genetic, molecular, and cellular mechanistic insights and drug discovery become feasible through physiological screening paradigms. Next, we developed an open-sourced cardio-respiratory assessment software tool (Breathe Easy) that enables facile deep interrogation of terabytes of data in a high throughput fashion while offering extensive customization capabilities to allow for unique case by case analysis by more skilled users. Breathe Easy output offers near publication ready graphical outputs with significance markings and statistical tables for rapid presentation of results through manuscripts and web-publishing. Lastly, we will present our early work leveraging our robotic and software pipeline to build an analytical machine learning framework that can predict cardio-respiratory failure (death) with high temporal specificity (more than 10 min out) in our SIDS like assay and our efforts to utilize the trained algorithms for 1) real-time prediction, feedback, and intervention application in our SIDS like assays on the Looper platform to screen small molecules for novel therapeutics; 2) elucidating unique physiological mechanisms through comparative training in distinct SIDS models; and 3) determining the potential for these machine learning approaches to be used in human polysomnographic recordings to identify at risk infants. R01HL161142, R01HL130249. This is the full abstract presented at the American Physiology Summit 2024 meeting and is only available in HTML format. There are no additional versions or additional content available for this abstract. Physiology was not involved in the peer review process.

Differential Activation of TAS2R4 May Recover Ability to Taste Propylthiouracil for Some TAS2R38 AVI Homozygotes.

Bitterness from phenylthiocarbamide and 6-n-propylthiouracil (PROP) varies with polymorphisms in the TAS2R38 gene. Three SNPs form two common (AVI, PAV) and four rare haplotypes (AAI, AAV, PVI, and PAI). AVI homozygotes exhibit higher detection thresholds and lower suprathreshold bitterness for PROP compared to PAV homozygotes and heterozygotes, and these differences may influence alcohol and vegetable intake. Within a diplotype, substantial variation in suprathreshold bitterness persists, and some AVI homozygotes report moderate bitterness at high concentrations. A second receptor encoded by a gene containing a functional polymorphism may explain this. Early work has suggested that PROP might activate TAS2R4 in vitro, but later work did not replicate this. Here, we identify three TAS2R4 SNPs that result in three diplotypes-SLN/SLN, FVS/SLN, and FVS/FVS-which make up 25.1%, 44.9%, and 23.9% of our sample. These TAS2R4 haplotypes show minimal linkage disequilibrium with TAS2R38, so we examined the suprathreshold bitterness as a function of both. The participants (n = 243) rated five PROP concentrations in duplicate, interleaved with other stimuli. As expected, the TAS2R38 haplotypes explained ~29% (p < 0.0001) of the variation in the bitterness ratings, with substantial variation within the haplotypes (AVI/AVI, PAV/AVI, and PAV/PAV). Notably, the TAS2R4 diplotypes (independent of the TAS2R38 haplotypes) explained ~7-8% of the variation in the bitterness ratings (p = 0.0001). Given this, we revisited if PROP could activate heterologously expressed TAS2R4 in HEK293T cells, and calcium imaging indicated 3 mM PROP is a weak TAS2R4 agonist. In sum, our data are consistent with the second receptor hypothesis and may explain the recovery of the PROP tasting phenotype in some AVI homozygotes; further, this finding may potentially help explain the conflicting results on the TAS2R38 diplotype and food intake.

Patriarchal Dominance in English Literature

Patriarchal dominance has been a prevalent theme in English literature throughout its history. Many literary works reflect and critique the societal norms and power structures that have historically favored men over women. Patriarchal norms prescribe rigid gender roles and expectations for men and women, reinforcing stereotypes and inequalities. Women are often relegated to traditional roles as caregivers, homemakers, and subordinate members of the family, while men are expected to be the primary breadwinners and decision-makers. These gender roles perpetuate unequal power dynamics and limit women's autonomy and agency. Prominent examples include Shakespeare's plays, where gender roles and power imbalances are often central to the plot, and classic novels like Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice," which explores women's limited options in a patriarchal society. Over time, literature has evolved to challenge and subvert these patriarchal norms, with authors like Virginia Woolf and Charlotte Perkins Gilman addressing issues of gender inequality and women's autonomy. Feminist literature and criticism have also played a significant role in analyzing and deconstructing patriarchal themes in English literature. Patriarchal dominance, characterized by the historical and societal power imbalance that favors men over women, has been a recurring theme in English literature throughout the ages. This theme reflects and critiques the prevailing gender norms, roles, and inequalities that have persisted within different periods and cultures of English-speaking societies. From early literary works to contemporary literature, patriarchal dominance remains a complex and enduring subject of exploration.

Ferroptosis Biology.

Ferroptosis is a regulated cell death modality triggered by iron-dependent lipid peroxidation. Ferroptosis plays a causal role in the pathophysiology of various diseases, making it a promising therapeutic target. Unlike all other cell death modalities dependent on distinct signaling cues, ferroptosis occurs when cellular antioxidative defense mechanisms fail to suppress the oxidative destruction of cellular membranes, eventually leading to cell membrane rupture. Physiologically, only two such surveillance systems are known to efficiently prevent the lipid peroxidation chain reaction by reducing (phospho)lipid hydroperoxides to their corresponding alcohols or by reducing radicals in phospholipid bilayers, thus maintaining the integrity of lipid membranes. Mechanistically, these two systems are linked to the reducing capacity of glutathione peroxidase 4 (GPX4) by consuming glutathione (GSH) on the one and ferroptosis suppressor protein 1 (FSP1, formerly AIFM2) on the other hand. Notably, the importance of ferroptosis suppression in physiological contexts has been linked to a particular vulnerability of renal tissue. In fact, early work has shown that mice genetically lacking Gpx4 rapidly succumb to acute renal failure with pathohistological features of acute tubular necrosis. Promising research attempting to implicate ferroptosis in various renal disease entities, particularly those with proximal tubular involvement, has generated a wealth of knowledge with widespread potential for clinical translation. Here, we provide a brief overview of the involvement of ferroptosis in nephrology. Our goal is to introduce this expanding field for clinically versed nephrologists in the hope of spurring future efforts to prevent ferroptosis in the pathophysiological processes of the kidney.

Steven Weinberg and Higgs physics

As a tribute to Steven Weinberg, we summarize the immense impact that he had on the understanding of the mechanism of spontaneous symmetry breaking and on the physics of the Higgs boson. In particular, four landmark contributions to this field are highlighted. A first one is his early work with Goldstone and Salam on spontaneously broken continuous symmetries that paved the way to the Higgs mechanism. A second towering breakthrough is his model of leptons which later became the Standard Model of particle physics and for which he was awarded the Nobel prize with Glashow and Salam. A third seminal work is the so-called Weinberg-Linde lower bound on the Higgs boson mass that was derived from the requirement of the stability of the electroweak vacuum. Finally, we summarize his important contributions in model-building of new physics with extended Higgs sectors and their possible impact in flavor physics and CP-violation. The historical aspects as well as the contemporary way of viewing these four major topics are summarized and their impact on today Higgs physics, and more generally particle physics, is highlighted.

Ruth Barcan Marcus on the Deduction Theorem in Modal Logic

ABSTRACT In this paper, I examine Ruth Barcan Marcus's early formal work on modal systems and the deduction theorem, both for the material and the strict conditional. Marcus proved that the deduction theorem for the material conditional does not hold for system S2 but holds for S4. This last result is at odds with the recent claim that without proper restrictions the deduction theorem fails also for S4. I explain where the contrast stems from. For the strict conditional, Marcus proved the deduction theorem for S4 though restricted to arguments with necessary premises. I discuss Marcus's result and analyze her philosophical position on the significance of the deduction theorem for modal systems designed to express the notion of deducibility.

The Complexity of LTL Rational Synthesis

In rational synthesis , we automatically construct a reactive system that satisfies its specification in all rational environments, namely environments that have objectives and act to fulfill them. We complete the study of the complexity of LTL rational synthesis, when the objectives are given by formulas in Linear Temporal Logic. Our contribution is threefold. First, we tighten the known upper bounds for settings that were left open in earlier work. Second, our complexity analysis is parametric, and we describe tight upper and lower bounds in each of the problem parameters: the game graph, the objectives of the system components, and the objectives of the environment components. Third, we generalize the definition of rational synthesis by adding hostile players to the setting and by combining the cooperative and non-cooperative approaches studied in earlier work.

“The A.M. Kovalev’s Conception of ‘Just Society’ in the Context of Current Political and Philosophical Discussions”

In modern political and theoretical discourse, the concept of a ‘ just society’ is usually perceived as a normative idea that expresses the notion of what society “should be”. Nowadays, social justice as a political slogan is becoming an increasingly universal requirement made by social movements, political parties and groups regarding the ways of social organization and its functions. Regardless of the different interpretations, it is inseparable from other related concepts, such as ‘equality’, ‘ freedom’ and many others. It also represents the projection of various concepts of justice on social relations in individual countries, regions, and, finally, throughout the world (‘global justice’ on the scale of all mankind). Comparative analysis of the A.M. Kovalev’s concept of a just society and the main trends in the interpretation of this idea in modern Western socio-political theory indicate that the methodology developed by an outstanding Russian scientist can rightfully be considered one of the most promising. Its distinguishing feature is the creative interpretation of a set of ideas about a just society, dating back to the early works of Marx. It is combined with the analysis of the ideas of the Western European Enlightenment, the philosophy of Kant, Hegel and Fichte, the evolution of the social philosophy of the Frankfurt School and other equally influential areas of modern political theory (R. Aron and others). An analysis of modern political theories shows that the dyad “ justice / state” constitutes the ontological core of the political and philosophical discourse, in the structure of which the ideas of Marxism play an important role. In the A.M. Kovalev’s theory of a just society, the various assessments of the heuristic potential of Marxism acquire additional incentives, opening the way to new creative discussions. The article is dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the birth of A.M. Kovalev.

In memoriam Prof. Dr. Dr.h.c.mult. György Jenei

Professor Dr. Dr.h.c.mult. György Jenei, the doyen of Central and Eastern European Public Administration, passed away peacefully on 4 February 2024; born in 1942, he was 82 years old. He was for many decades the leading figure of the field in our region; he personified it; he had preserved it during darker times; and he had led it again to prominence since 1989, with persistence, integrity, and style. He did so both in form and in contents – the former both at his home, Corvinus University of Budapest, and in his many leadership functions in professional and scholarly associations, including the NISPAcee Presidency during the crucial years of the Global Financial Crisis. And he truly did carry the torch of Public Administration during the times when its inefficiency was not an accident, but a core part of the local system; Professor Jenei’s early work on Max Weber was undertaken at a time when this was a politically highly incorrect thing to do.

Status and distribution of Paraguayan Procyonidae and Mephitidae (Mammalia: Carnivora)

Two species of procyonid (Nasua nasua and Procyon cancrivorus) and one species of mephitid (Conepatus chinga) have long been documented to occur in Paraguay, but very little has been published about their ecology in the country since the early 19th Century works of Azara and Rengger. Data on the distribution and status of these species in the country is collated from museum specimens, published literature and reliable observations to provide a basis for future research. A hierarchical approach is taken towards types of record and maps are provided that distinguish these for all species. All three species remain common in the Chaco region west of the Paraguay River, and all are considered of Least Concern. However, this region is experiencing high levels of deforestation and data to assess the potential declines of the species is unavailable. The two species of procyonid are also widespread in the Oriental region, but the status of Conepatus chinga there is unclear. There are multiple reports from the Atlantic Forest region but documentation is limited to fecal molecular samples. Clarifying the distribution of that species in the Oriental region is a priority for research.

Feature Engineering Versus Deep Learning for Scene Recognition: A Brief Survey

Scene recognition is an important computer vision task that has evolved from the study of the biological visual system. Its applications range from video surveillance, autopilot systems, to robotics. The early works were based on feature engineering that involved the computation and aggregation of global and local image descriptors. Several popular image features such as SIFT, SURF, HOG, ORB, LBP, KAZE, etc. have been proposed and applied to the task with successful results. Features can be either computed from the entire image on a global scale, or extracted from local sub-regions and aggregated across the image. Suitable classifier models are deployed that learn to classify these features. This review paper analyzes several of these handcrafted features that have been applied to the scene recognition task over the past decades, and tracks the transition from the traditional feature engineering to deep learning which forms the current state of the art in computer vision. Deep learning is now deemed to have overtaken feature engineering in several computer vision applications. Deep convolutional neural networks and vision transformers are the current state of the art for object recognition. However, scenes from urban landscapes are bound to contain similar objects posing a challenge to deep learning solutions for scene recognition. In our study, a critical analysis of feature engineering and deep learning methodologies for scene recognition is provided, and results on benchmark scene datasets are presented, concluding with a discussion on challenges and possible solutions that may facilitate more accurate scene recognition.

Endeavor for Self-Realization

This paper focuses on the reactions of three professors and architects (Jan E. Koula, Vladimír Karfík, and Alfred Piffl) to how the totalitarian political regime restricted and interfered with creative and academic freedoms in the period starting with the introduction of architectural education at the Slovak University of Technology and ending with the so-called “normalization” period in the former Czechoslovakia. All three of them were already active in interwar Czechoslovakia and thus had rich experience with working under democratic conditions, and their early work was influenced by the interwar avant-garde movements. After World War II, in part thanks to their pioneering work at the Slovak University of Technology, they got caught up in the system of the authoritarian socialist state. The central question that this study asks is how the trio dealt with the totalitarian regime, which stood in contrast with the democratic period of interwar Czechoslovakia that formed them as architects, and brought further limits to their work. Based mostly on material from their personal estates and period publications, we reveal how each of them found his own way to deal with the totalitarian regime, and we argue that even its limitations did not make Koula, Karfík, and Piffl abandon their beliefs and creative credos completely.

Stesk po domově a mezní situace. K Jaspersově rané recepci díla S. Kierkegaarda

The study focuses on the relationship between K. Jaspers and S. Kierkegaard. First, it evaluates the current scholarship regarding Jaspers’ reception of Kierkegaard’s thought; second, it offers an independent analysis of Jaspers’ early work (especially the 1909 Heimweh und Verbrechen, and then the Psychologie der Weltanschauungen). It is demonstrated that Jaspers’ early work on nostalgia presents the first case study of limit situations (Grenzsituationen). The paper traces the link between Kierkegaard’s conception of aesthetic existence and Jaspers’ concept of limit situations. It is shown that Jaspers’ study of nostalgia can be considered the original inspiration for the idea of limit situations, and that, at the same time, it was arguably Kierkegaard who had helped Jaspers to develop this germinal idea into a broader notion of limit situations.

Moral theology in search of a method: metaphysics or phenomenology?

The link between faith and reason, theology and philosophy is neither external nor accidental; the word logos in the name of theology rather indicates the internal connection between the two kinds of cognition. Karol Wojtyła - John Paul II is one of the few theologians of the 20th century who was proficient in the use of two philosophical languages and methods: the metaphysical and the phenomenological one. The article shows how, in his early work – the 1953 habilitation dissertation, Wojtyła reflects on the usefulness of metaphysics and phenomenology for the ethical analysis of the acting subject – crucial for both philosophical ethics and moral theology.

Reassembling Visionary Physics : Donald Ault, Bruno Latour, and William Blake’s Mathematical Scenographies

Donald Ault’s work on William Blake constructs what Bruno Latour calls a scenography of a fact: an aesthetics that shifts “attention from the stage to the whole machinery of a theater.” Instead of the purified, sterile aesthetics typified by images of scientists engaged in total absorption on their object of analysis, Blake presents mathematical scenographies as visionary experiences continuously unfolding the aesthetics of fragile facts as matters of concern. Starting with his 1968 book Visionary Physics and continuing through his early unpublished work using complex variables to map the ontological transformations depicted in The Book of Urizen , this article suggests that Ault’s scholarship can be understood as a series of visionary experiments on the aesthetics and ontology of scientific facts. Ault envisions that every act of preservation in Blake’s work is also an act of transformation and becoming. As such, he anticipates later developments in Latourian lab sociology, actor-network theory (ANT), and media archaeology. Along with Latour’s pamphlet What is the Style of Matters of Concern? and its meditation on Alfred North Whitehead’s understanding of the bifurcation of nature, Ault’s mathematical scenographies provide an alternative to the neo-realist defenses of science that would reduce all experiments to acts of objectivity-making.

Voyeurism, Desire, and Narrative Subversion in Colette’s Claudine Novels

ABSTRACT This essay positions the French author Colette’s earliest works, the Claudine novels, at an inflection point in queer feminist discourses of the early 1900s. Combining recent critical explorations of the sexological and literary roots of the lesbian figure at the fin de siècle, queer theories addressing the power and limits of the heteronormative gaze, and an examination of Colette’s development of a queered authorial persona in the course of her career, I argue that the “fluffy”, “commercialized” Claudine novels in fact make use of stylistic innovation in order to subvert contemporary expectations of the lesbian narrative. Colette’s generative denial of the male gaze in her depiction of Claudine’s affair with her woman friend, Rézi, results in the adoption of a deliberately evasive, self-obliterating narrative perspective. In this, Colette anticipates later explorations of subjective desire and authorial persona in the canonically modernist works of Virginia Woolf, Radclyffe Hall, and Natalie Barney. In their exploration of the alternative modes through which an authentic desire experienced between two women might be narrativized in the twentieth century, the Claudine novels’ use of generic subversion, shifting narrative personae, and strategically fragmented prose mark them as key works in a developing sapphic modernist canon.

Prisoner, Sailor, Soldier, Spy: Hobbes on Coercion and Consent.

This article examines Thomas Hobbes's notorious claim that "fear and liberty are consistent" and therefore that agreements coerced by threat of violence are binding. This view is to a surprising extent inherited from Aristotle, but its political implications became especially striking in the wake of the English Civil War, and Hobbes recast his theory in far-reaching ways between his early works and Leviathan to accommodate it. I argue that Hobbes's account of coercion is both philosophically safe from the most common objections to it and politically superior to the seemingly commonsensical alternatives that we have inherited from Hobbes's critics.