Esoteric Theories Research Articles

From esoteric theory to therapeutic antibodies.

Theoretical analyses of amino acid and nucleotide sequences of immunoglobulins have provided a unique approach to the understanding of structure and function of antibodies. Variability plots unambiguously identified that the antibody-combining site is formed by six short complementarity determining regions (CDRs), three each from light and heavy chains. Since three-dimensional (3-D) foldings of framework regions (FRs) are similar among different antibodies, the 3-D configurations of CDRs from a specific antibody can be predicted based on their amino acid sequences. The resulting structure forms a compact surface that fits the antigen molecule tightly. The third CDR of the heavy chain (CDRH3), which is coded by the D-minigene together with the N- and/or P-segments, appears to play a unique role in fine fitting between antibody and antigen molecules. In order to maintain biological activities, the grafting of mouse CDRs onto human FRs should closely match the human FR amino acid sequences with the original mouse antibody. Similarities between human and mouse FR sequences that have been preserved for over 20 million years of evolution can be a useful tool in humanizing mouse antibodies.

Family therapy and the glamour of science

It is argued that family therapy has adopted esoteric and unrelated theories from ‘New Science’ in order to maintain its glamour and individuality in comparison with other therapies. One unfortunate consequence of this is to limit the development of the practice of family therapy by prejudicing empirical validation. An alternative approach which attempts to integrate linear and systemic viewpoints is suggested.

Transducer longitudinal‐vibrator equivalent circuits and related topics

Ralph Woollett and this author began careers as Navy scientists in 1947. Advances in underwater electroacoustic transducers and their materials are described by illustrating lifetimes in parallel paths. Early activities of Woollett emphasized magnetostriction. In 1947, barium titanate ceramic ferroelectrics were introduced and began a revolution in transducer material technology. For transducer design and analysis, the esoteric theory is often interpreted in relation to equivalent circuits. Woollett used such equivalent circuits in transducer design and in the study of materials for transducer applications. The topic of longitudinal‐vibrator transducers and materials is described with reference to some of Woollett's works including his dissertation.

Three‐component seismic data: Researcher’s toy or interpreter’s tool?

Until recently, three‐component seismic data were primarily used by researchers because they were expensive to shoot, difficult to interpret and provided the interpreter with little additional information. Thus, the operations‐oriented geophysicist did not have much reason to request that three‐component data be shot. However, new approaches to solving these problems—namely, polarization filtering, three‐component amplitude versus offset (AVO) analysis and new techniques for interpreting shear waves—have transformed three‐component seismic data from the realm of esoteric theory to that of the immediately practical. This type of data is now a viable tool for the interpreter.

Chernobyl: The invisible threat

The psychology of response to threat in wartime or peacetime disasters is still not widely understood. The accident at the No. 4 Unit at Chernobyl nuclear power station directly threatened over 1000 persons who were at the plant following the accident and 135 000 people within a 30 km radius. People died or were exposed to high levels of radiation because the invisible and delayed threat from radiation was ignored while fighting the fire and during the ten-day evacuation period. The purpose of this paper is to describe the Chernobyl accident and its impact on the local population and emergency service workers. There are many lessons to be learnt from the Chernobyl accident but while the Soviets and the rest of Europe are hastily revising factor safety plans it is also time for an assessment of the implications for wartime. There are strategic implications for the exposure of defence forces moving into irradiated areas and evacuation plans for civilian populations close to nuclear reactors. With Chernobyl, the Soviets have consolidated a research advantage oh the post-attack recovery period. Twenty years before the Chernobyl accident there.was a similar accident at Kyshtym on the edge of the Siberian plain. The Kyshtym accident may have assisted subsequent preparations by. the emergency services of fire, health and militia. At all important facilities there are civil defence plans for public relocation and 20 hour civil defence courses. Following Chernobyl the Soviets have benefited from research on the regeneration of agriculture and monitoring of the irradiated population. This population included young fit men who were at the accident and 135 000 civilians. The effects of the Chernobyl accident on NATO countries have already included a loss of agricultural production and anti-nuclear propaganda. Prior to the accident, part of the propaganda against nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons was developed through esoteric scientific theories of nuclear winters and the end of the world. These have captured the public's imagination in a twentieth century version of the doomsday myth. The initial public reaction in

Theoretical Perspectives on the Arts, Sciences and Technology

What separates Leonardo from the various other contemporary art magazines (for example, Artforum, Arts, Art in America, Artnews) is less its noncommercial status than its active interest in the relation of art to science and technology. Leonardo has always maintained the belief that art and science are closely related activities. Much current art today is produced in a resolutely antiscientific mood. Nobody was astonished when a famous, important painter was recently described, in all apparent seriousness, in a gallery catalogue as an alchemist [1]. Whether critics emphasize the craft tradition on one hand, or take up esoteric postMarxist theories on the other, the practice and thought of art is effectively isolated from work in science and technology. Given this situation, what could be more welcome than an extended study of art as a science? The publication of M.J. Rosenberg's The Cybernetics of Art: Reason and the Rainbow provides a welcome opportunity to think about these issues [2]. My discussion falls into five parts. I begin by explaining why artificial intelligence (AI) [3] researchers believe that computer simulations of creative thinking are possible. Second, I consider some objections to their research, which, although not ultimately convincing, are relevant to the exploration of the links between art and science. Third, I summarize Rosenberg's approach, indicating how he adopts important ideas from the psychologist Herbert Simon. Fourth, I point to limitations in Rosenberg's theory by contrasting it with Richard Shiffs recent study of Cezanne's work. Finally, I ask what work by art historians can contribute to scientific

The Political as Intensity of Everyday Feelings

t's a convention, so I've been told, that whoever gets the Fontane Prize for literature says something about Fontane. And it should be in the form of an address that should be in some way festive. I have in consequence ventured upon the title: "What Fontane says to us for example." In doing so I wanted to stick to the "for example." The consequence of this for me was that I had first to read Fontane thoroughly. It would certainly be easier for me if I were allowed to speak about Holderlin, Kleist, Kafka, Doblin, Joyce, Amo Schmidt, or about Marx. Marx, for example, in literary and linguistic terms would be a great practitioner of the montage work of art. His apparently esoteric theory contains a startling number of narratives and stories. If you resolved the theory into the experiences and the stories it contains, you would very quickly notice, as soon as you tell it in the form of stories and narratives, that the theory has nothing to do with orthodoxy. Back to Fontane. What occurs to me is that Fontane is often quoted but that these quotations do not fully grasp him. He shows a notable indirectness in everything that he writes; that is the conversational tone. And for that reason I don't want to try today to present you with a col-

Absolute Versions of Incompleteness Theorems

Absolute Versions of Incompleteness Theorems

The puzzle of sharecropping: A survey of theories

The geographically pervasive and historically tenacious institution of sharecropping has always been a fruitful source of great economic controversies. While the earlier writings were almost universal in their disapproval of sharecropping (and seemed to ascribe little or no rationale for the persistence of it), an important characteristic of recent writings has been to uphold a plurality of views regarding the virtues of this institution. Not only have the recent papers been quite successful in highlighting the basic rationale behind the continuance of this somewhat enigmatic institution, they have addressed themselves to a number of important issues hitherto unexplored. Many strands of recent theoretical analyses have been brought to bear on the analysis of these problems, ranging from the simple competitive model to the esoteric theory of core, from the tricky Coase theorem of property rights to the intricate theory of portfolio behaviour, the principal-agent formulation and recent advances from the economics of information. Based on the present survey of theories, it seems fair to conclude that these recent sophisticated models have been quite illuminating and hold promise of further insights in future.

Bibliothecal Deltiology

BEFORE MISUNDERSTANDING OCCUR I should explain at once that this essay has nothing whatsoever to do with the latest esoteric theories of library management. It concerns the rather more gentle art, or science, of collecting picture postcards of libraries. An innocuous pastime, you will agree, and one which may be indulged in without fuss or bother or, indeed, any great expenditure of time, energy, or money. It all started when I received cards from two ex‐students, one from Port Elizabeth, the other from New Hampshire. Admittedly the first featured the Mayor's Garden, ‘flanked by old buildings and modern structures,…a quiet refuge in this busy port and industrial city’. But there, large as life and twice as ugly, behind a monument of the old Queen, stands the Public Library, built in that curious mishmash style typical of the last years of Victoria's reign. The second was of the tower of The Baker Memorial Library, Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H., a 1928 building but in a style strongly reminiscent of a James Gibbs eighteenth‐century church. For someone who has always suffered from an over‐developed magpie instinct it was enough, and this highly specialized branch of deltiology took its place in the long line stretching back through books, old comics, postage stamps, matchbox labels to the very beginnings of car numbers.

Ayn Rand's Novels: Art or Tracts? Two Additional Views

IN A RECENT ARTICLE in this Journal, Max E. Fletcher attempts accomplish two things: (a) demonstrate that Harriet Martineau and Ayn Rand, writing 150 years apart, have both devoted themselves using fiction as a vehicle for simplifying and conveying the esoteric theories of laissez-faire economics the reading public; and (b) provide some explanation of the content of Martineau's and Rand's work. Fletcher's thesis is that both these writers had the same purpose or mission, i.e., to convert their reading publics a firm belief in the principles of a self-regulating market system (1). Fletcher then goes on state that, in pursuit of their common purpose, Martineau and Rand reverse the intention of most great novelists create first a work of art, and only secondarily an educational tract. The novels of Martineau and Rand, Fletcher claims, primarily sugar coatings for tracts (2). Perhaps Mr. Fletcher should have concentrated on interpreting the work and purposes of Harriet Martineau. Tn this instance his evidence is persuasive, it is supported by Martineau's autobiographical writing (which Fletcher has troubled himself include), and there are doubtless very few active Martineau scholars today take issue with him. Such is not the case, however, with the work and purposes of Ayn Rand. Fletcher's central thesis, as regards Ayn Rand, is completely mistaken; it is not supported by evidence (even by Fletcher!); it is contradicted by Miss Rand's own autobiographical writing (which Fletcher has not troubled himself include); and there are, today, many active Ayn Rand scholars, one of whom, on the basis of his article, Fletcher evidently is not.

The Indigenismo of the Peruvian Aprista Party: A Reinterpretation

FOR OVER FORTY YEARS, scholars studying Latin America and Peru have been bombarded with hundreds of books, pamphlets, broadsides, and articles supporting, condemning, or explaining the Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana (Apra). However, even a casual glance at the literature reveals that it is almost totally polarized between the fervent supporters of the party and its equally fervent detractors. Apra has been pictured by its admirers as a grass-roots lowerand middle-class reform movement designed end foreign and oligarchical domination of the economy, incorporate the Indian mass into national life, and democratize the socio-political structure of the country. One United States scholar wrote: The Apristas have demonstrated the vigor of their ideas. Their slogan in 1966, just as it has been for over four decades, is 'Apra Si, Comunismo No.' They continue, as always, teaching, organizing, and working for the Peru of their ideal-free, just, and happy.-1 Critics of Apra have long characterized the party as being composed of communistic terrorists who desire not the betterment of Peruvian society, but rather its total destruction. One historian recently wrote that Apra sought to tear down the whole Peruvian social, economic, and political structure so as replace it with one based exclusively on their own esoteric theories, rather than on a consensus of national opinion. They were in Peru fully as subversive an element as is the Communist Party today in the United States.2

Wedding Ring Dermatitis

To the Editor:— The most common cause of wedding ring dermatitis ( 206 :2526, 1968) has not been discussed in your letters column along with the more esoteric, radioactive, and psychoanalytical theories. Together with the privileges of the plain gold band go the responsibility of the breakfast, lunch, and supper dishes; the most common cause of wedding ring dermatitis is dishpan detergent trapped beneath the band, which is apt to tighten, abetted by the usual increase of weight which happens after marriage and which, distributed from head to toes, includes the ring finger. Any woman could have told you gentlemen this.

Esoteric Theories and Erroneous Statistics in Studies of Prejudice

Statistical pseudo-sophistication miiay be the cause for Edwini H. Rhyne's finding that differential learning theory rather thani authoritarian personality theory accounted for attitudes towards Negroes and Jews. There are strong logical and empirical grounds for concluding that differences in the magnitude of his summary statistic-phi-were caused by discrepancies in the row and columni distributions on his data. A replication of a central part of Rhyne's survey yields results contrary to Rhyne's w-ihen a summll1ary statistic niot biased by the marginal distri

Esoteric Theories and Erroneous Statistics in Studies of Prejudice

Esoteric Theories and Erroneous Statistics in Studies of Prejudice