Long-standing Claim Research Articles

“We are 9 degrees and sunny”: the use of personal pronouns with weather predicates

AbstractThis squib discusses a construction heard during weather reports on CBC Radio One in Manitoba whereby personal pronouns appear as the subjects of weather predicates. We show that the use of we/you in statements like we are minus 15 degrees and Brandon, you are sunny is unlike other non-prototypical uses for personal pronouns that have been noted in the literature and argue they index place rather than person. We note that the deictic coordinates of the utterance that are spelled out by these pronouns are necessary for a felicitous interpretation of weather statements, even though they are typically implicit. This implicit deixis, in turn, sheds light on a long-standing claim that weather-it, in contrast to a true expletive, is ‘quasi-argumental’ (Chomsky 1981). That is, we suggest that the deictic coordinates of an utterance are ‘quasi-arguments’.

Antibacterial activity and phytochemical screening of traditional medicinal plants most preferred for treating infectious diseases in Habru District, North Wollo Zone, Amhara Region, Ethiopia.

Ethiopia's healthcare system relies on traditional medicinal practices that use medicinal plants to treat human and livestock ailments. However, the lack of empirical validation regarding the efficacy of these treatments against specific infectious diseases necessitates rigorous scientific investigations. The objective of this study was to investigate the antibacterial activity and phytochemical screening on five selected medicinal plant species, namely Solanum somalense Franchet., Verbascum sinaiticum Benth., Rumex nervosus Vahl, Withania somnifera (L.) Dunal and Calpurnia aurea (Ait.) Benth. The plants were first identified jointly with local informants and later considering mainly their high informant consensus and fidelity level values for their efficacy in treating infectious diseases in the area. Ethanol and aqueous extracts were prepared from the plant materials, and their antibacterial activities were evaluated against standard bacterial strains, representing both gram-positive and gram-negative types. To assess the antibacterial activity of the extracts, the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) was determined using the broth dilution method. Additionally, phytochemical screening was performed using standard qualitative tests to identify various secondary metabolites. The results indicated antibacterial efficacy in the ethanol extracts of S. somalense, W. somnifera, and C. aurea against particular bacterial strains (S. somalense against S. agalactiae with MIC of 1.5 mg/mL; W. somnifera against S. aureus and E. coli, with MIC of 2 mg/mL; C. aurea against E. coli and K. pneumoniae, with MICs of 3 mg/mL and 3.5 mg/mL, respectively). The results of the phytochemical screening indicated the presence of steroids, alkaloids, flavonoids, saponins, and terpenoids. The selected medicinal plants demonstrated promising antibacterial activity against certain bacterial strains. The current findings support the long-standing claim of the traditional medical system of the study area for their continued use of these plants in their treatment of infectious diseases. Further investigation is required to isolate the responsible active compounds and characterize the constituents and description of their antibacterial effect for possible use in areas where these infectious diseases are major health problems.

The policy-planning capacity of the American corporate community: corporations, policy-oriented nonprofits, and the inner circle in 1935–1936 and 2010–2011

AbstractUsing a combination of network analysis and descriptive statistics, this study examines the extent to which six important and longstanding policy-oriented nonprofit organizations — foundations, think tanks, and policy-discussion groups — were connected via their directors with the 250 largest corporations in the United States in 1935–1936 and 2010–2011. The results demonstrate that the six nonprofit organizations included in the study were well integrated into corporate networks in both periods, and had an even greater integrative role in 2010–2011 than they did in 1935–1936. This finding supports the hypothesis that policy-oriented nonprofit organizations allow the corporate community to develop proposals, and to reach consensus, on major policy issues. This hypothesis is further supported by an overview of existing studies that illustrate the success of these organizations in shaping policy outcomes on a range of issues. Based on the overall results, the longstanding claim that corporations influence government primarily or solely at the “interest-group” level can be supplemented by the conclusion that policy-oriented nonprofits support a policy-planning process that links the corporate community to government on general issues. In addition, the findings cast doubt on the claim that the corporate community has lost its capacity for policy cohesion in recent decades, due primarily to a “fracturing” caused by a decline in bank centrality. Since general policies have been created within the policy-planning process since at least the mid-1930s, the decline in bank centrality is irrelevant to the corporate community’s ability to formulate general policy proposals.

The Road to Invasion: Analyzing the Forces Behind Iraq’s Invasion of Kuwait

Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait was largely prompted by Saddam Hussein and the Baathist party’s long-standing claim over Kuwait combined with Iraq’s desperate need for wealth to rectify the country's economic crisis after the Iran-Iraq war. Additionally, the invasion can be seen as Hussein’s hubristic, direct attempt to establish Iraq as the hegemon of the Arab world in a new post-Cold War era. The disputes leading up to the invasion highlight how Iraq’s deep-rooted territorial claims and the Kuwaiti government’s refusal to surrender control of disputed territories, led to increasing tensions and hostilities between the two countries. Kuwait’s refusal to surrender to Saddam Hussein’s economic demands surrounding Iraq’s debt to Kuwait and oil exports, angered Hussein leading him to take drastic measures to repair the Iraqi economy. Invading Kuwait offered a direct solution to Iraq's economic crisis and the brewing prominent, domestic resentment at the mismanagement of the distribution of Iraqi finances. Hussein’s overconfidence in Iraq’s military capabilities and naivete led him to develop a warped perception of the U.S. resolve to defend Kuwait. His past failures made him desperate, leading him to take the considerable risk of invading Kuwait. The decision to invade Kuwait was influenced by many factors. Saddam Hussein’s misjudgements led to a humiliating loss which worsened the economic climate in Iraq. International sanctions severely limited Iraq's trade, making it more difficult to rebuild the extensive infrastructure destroyed by the invasion. Ultimately, the invasion contributed to political instability in Iraq which lay the groundwork for the Iraq war.

Understanding of spatial correspondence does not contribute to representational understanding: Evidence from the model room and false belief tasks.

We examine the long-standing claim that understanding relational correspondence is a general component of representational understanding. Two experiments with 175 preschool children located in Norwich, United Kingdom, examined the use of a scale model comparing performances on a "copy" task, measuring abstract spatial arrangement ability, and the false belief task. Consistent with previous studies, younger children performed well in scale model trials when objects were unique (e.g., one cupboard) but poorly at distinguishing objects using spatial layout (one of three identical chairs). Performance was specifically associated with Copy task but not False Belief performance. Emphasizing the representational relation between the model and the room was ineffective. We find no evidence for understanding relational correspondence as a general component of representational understanding. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Dissecting Einstein’s Lightning-Strike Example

Einstein’s light speed postulate (LSP) is reviewed. It claims that the speed of light is independent of both the state of motion of the light source and that of the observer. An example is considered in which a light source is initially stationary in the rest frame of the observer. The light source then moves away with constant speed v relative to the observer. At the same time a light pulse is emitted in the same direction. According to the LSP, the speed of the light pulse is equal to c relative to both the stationary observer and the light source. It is shown that the LSP is unable to justify what happens after time T has elapsed, however, namely that the distance separating the light pulse from the observer is the same (cT) as it is for the light source. This is impossible since the observer and light source are no longer located at the same position in space. This procedure is referred to as “distance reframing.” It can also be used to prove that the above example is satisfactorily described by applying the Galilean velocity transformation (GVT). It leads to the conclusion that the speed of the light pulse relative to the stationary observer is c+v. i.e. greater than c, in direct contradiction to the longstanding claim of Einstein’s Special Relativity Theory (SR). One of the consequences of this development is that Einstein’s famous example of lightning strikes on a passing train is shown to be incorrectly interpreted as proving that the strikes do not occur simultaneously for a rider on the train and an observer on the station platform.

The Critical Review of the Discourse of North Korean Human Rights and International Anti-corruption: Focused on the Paradox of Human Rights and Sovereignty

The corruption scandal of North Korea has seen by UN reports said the food and humanitarian aid being diverted to corrupt bureaucrat, whereby requesting to open an investigation. Given int'l inquiry, North Korea has responded by the paradox of human rights and sovereignty, which reflected human security and the principle of nonintervention. That is not, however, only North Korea's assertion in which some way analogous to a long-standing claim of the third world : the issue of North and South, and imperialism versus anti-colonialism. From the sense, the analysis has focused the normative issue of human rights and state sovereignty, and has explored the sphere of the notion in which North Korea engaged the Third World enquiring the justice of the core in line with anti-corruption regime's evolvement. Secondly, it evolved to show what attributes the paradoxical logic to North Korean regime's highly rigid political sense, namely sovereign priority.

Network Effects and Competitive Response Timing

Traditional attack-response research suggests that successful attacks are those with delayed responses or those that go unchallenged by competitors while suggesting target firms respond immediately. However, this long-standing claim may not be generalizable to emerging digital platform markets characterized by indirect network effects, the interconnectedness between customers and complementors. This simulation study based on a Bayesian game-theoretic model uncovers temporal market dynamics among market participants with the given attack under indirect network effects and derives several contexts in which nonresponse can be a target firm’s winning strategy.

RADIOCARBON CHRONOLOGY OF THE MESOLITHIC-NEOLITHIC SEQUENCE AT DAMJILI CAVE, AZERBAIJAN, SOUTHERN CAUCASUS

ABSTRACTCurrent research indicates that full-fledged Neolithic societies emerged in the Southern Caucasus in the early sixth millennium BC, most likely through interaction with and/or the immigration of the Neolithic societies of Southwest Asia. However, the absence of late seventh millennium BC excavated sites has prevented us from being able to interpret the processes in relation to earlier indigenous foraging societies. The 2016–2019 excavations at Damjili Cave, west Azerbaijan, revealed a stratified cultural sequence of the key Mesolithic-to-Neolithic transition period for the first time. Its radiocarbon chronology identified a rather abrupt emergence of the Neolithic economy at around 6000 cal BC, at least in the study region, urging a reconsideration of the long-standing claim that some other form of earlier Neolithic society had existed before this. At the same time, the stratigraphic analysis of cultural remains revealed continuity in certain elements of tool manufacturing and use from the Mesolithic to the Neolithic. This complex situation shows the need for evaluating the degree to which indigenous foraging societies contributed to the Neolithization of the Southern Caucasus, rather than focusing merely on immigration models.

Ritual and authority in world politics

The contributions to this Forum on Ritual and Authority in World Politics examine the role that ritual performances play in the constitution of positions of authority and the maintenance of relations of authority in historical and contemporary international relations. The Forum takes as its point of departure three related observations: (i) that recent years have witnessed a remarkable upsurge of interest in ritual as a recurring feature of international practice, but (ii) that this recent interest in ritual has not extended, thus far, to the study of international authority, (iii) in spite of political anthropologists’ long-standing claim that the performance of ritual is absolutely crucial to the production of authority. The performance of ritual grounds, makes tangible and enhances various forms of authority, including forms of international authority, historical and contemporary. The contributions to this Forum demonstrate the veracity of that claim in five different empirical contexts—Byzantine diplomacy, early modern cross-cultural encounters, British imperialism in India, military lawyering in America’s armed forces, and the casting of ballots in Crimea and the US—and attempt also to explain precisely how it is that ritual served to undergird and stabilise authority in these various instances.

Rejigging the Jigsaw Country: A Constitutional Identity Crisis, Pseudo-Federalism and Subnational Impotence

Over 100 years since its amalgamation as a British colony and protectorate, and 61 years since its independence, the Giant of Africa - Nigeria, has fallen short of even the most pessimistic projections of its potential. In terms of development, economic advancement, standard of living and social welfare, Nigeria consistently ranks amongst the worst performing countries in the world, in spite of its being blessed with tremendous natural and human resources and being one of the world's largest producers of crude oil. Despite its longstanding claim to being an indissoluble federal republic, the country is rife with ethnic and religious conflict, agitations for true federalism and even secession. Following from the foregoing, this paper examines some of the foundational issues that have continually hindered Nigeria's development - its constitutional crisis of identity, its pseudo-federalism and the impotence of its constituent parts. The paper shall examine the features of a model federalist state, with a view to determining the veracity of Nigeria's claim to the practice of federalism, and shall propose a socio-political reorganisation towards designing an efficient governance model that reflects the heterogenous developmental needs of Nigeria's constituent parts.

Does NICE apply the rule of rescue in its approach to highly specialised technologies?

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), the UK’s main healthcare priority-setting body, recently reaffirmed a longstanding claim that in recommending technologies to the National Health Service it...

Brexit, the Misrepresentation of Democracy, and the Rock of Gibraltar

This short essay makes three points regarding Brexit that have not been widely considered in public or academic debate. First, Brexit advocates (Leavers) successfully misrepresented the referendum of June 2016 as a definitive expression of democratic will. (“The people have spoken.”) The slim majority result was less than such an expression, particularly because it ignored intercommunal and intergenerational democratic values—most profoundly, overriding clear majorities in Scotland and Northern Ireland which had voted to remain in the EU. Second, even though within a year of that referendum, a majority of Britons (Remainers) had come to oppose Brexit, political leadership among the Remainers was woefully ineffective. Some, like Prime Minister Theresa May, simply changed sides, wrongheadedly accepting the people-have-spoken rhetoric. Other Remainers continued to make their case, but did not effectively argue that people had not spoken. Perhaps, most crucially, the British “first past the post” electoral system provided no viable remain option in the December 2019 Parliamentary elections. Put simply, in the December 2019 Parliamentary elections, Remainers had no one to vote for. Third, hopes that the UK could easily rejoin the European Union (encouraged in part by remarks of EU leaders) are false. Article 49 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) requires that a state which has left the EU should go through a rigorous admission process. Since Article 49 requires unanimity among EU member states, any member with an objection to Britain rejoining could block readmission. Most troubling for Britain could be Spain’s long-standing claim for the return of Gibraltar to which the UK would be loathe to accede and from which Spain would be loathe to retreat.

International investment law in support of the right to development?

AbstractThere is a long-standing claim and ambition in international investment law that treaties and customary law contribute to economic development in countries hosting investment. However, this claim remains controversial and has been hotly debated among academics. The article explores how international investment law, understood as international investment agreements (IIAs) and their associated dispute settlement mechanisms, can support the right to development. It does so by analysing how rules regarding protection and flow of foreign direct investment have and can contribute to realizing the right to development and help achieve sustainable development goals. It finds that IIAs have had limited effects for promotion of investment into or restricting the policy space for least developed and low-income countries. It argues that potential effects of IIAs cannot be properly understood without taking into account other means of protecting and promoting foreign direct investment, i.e., national investment legislation and contracts. So far, national investment legislation is likely to have had more significant impact on flows of foreign direct investment and policy space of host countries than IIAs. Reforms of IIAs to increase synergies with the right to development will, therefore, have to be based on knowledge about and assessments of the dynamics between IIAs, domestic investment legislation, and investment contracts.

Merleau-Ponty on the Sexed Body

Abstract This paper engages with Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s account of the sexed body in the Phenomenology of Perception. I focus on his notion of the sexual schema to show that, contrary to a number of feminist critiques, it does not (1) posit a neutral body overcoded by culturally-contingent sexual determinations or (2) erase the feminine body, but is informed by Merleau-Ponty particular version of the phenomenological reduction whereby factic determinations are “bracketed” to permit the object under study to reveal itself as it is rather than as we wish it to be or have been conditioned to think it. I subsequently defend Merleau-Ponty against the long-standing claim that entwining sexuality with existence prevents an analytic and by extension positive conception of sexuality by arguing that he rejects the monadic logic that this charge is premised on to instead challenge us to think of sexuality in terms of its integration with an individual’s entire embodied, embedded existence. The result is an analysis that emphasizes the ambiguity, afoundationalism, individuality, and open-ended immanent expressivity of sexuality.

Exploring the Representation of Depressive Symptoms and the Influence of Stigma in Arabic-Speaking Refugee Outpatients.

The number of distressed refugees from the Arab world is relatively high in Germany and other host countries worldwide. For this specific population, substantial challenges and barriers have already been identified that hamper access to Germany's health care system. This study aims to contribute to this line of research by exploring the representation of depressive symptoms, both somatic and psychological, in order to inform clinicians about the most prevalent symptoms reported by Arabic-speaking refugee outpatients. Furthermore, this paper investigates the longstanding claim that mental health stigma fosters the expression of bodily distress. For these purposes, a total of 100 Arabic-speaking refugee outpatients, mostly Syrians, were recruited in Berlin, Germany. Somatic and psychological symptoms were assessed with the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ) 15 and 9, while stigma was assessed with the Brief Version of the Internalized Stigma of Mental Illness Scale (ISMI-10). Study results show that both somatic and psychological symptom severity was moderate while sleeping problems and energy loss were the most reported symptoms across both scales. Stigma was low and showed no association with somatic complaints in a multiple regression analysis, but was associated with more psychological symptoms. A principal factor extraction on the PHQ-15 items revealed five independent, somatic symptom clusters that were interpreted considering the rich poetic resources of the Arabic language. In conclusion, both somatic and psychological symptoms were commonly reported by Arabic-speaking refugees with symptoms of depression. Whereas, stigma does not seem to influence the expression of somatic symptoms, the present results provide first empirical indications for the relationship of symptom expression with the use of explanatory models and conceptualizations of mental illness within the Arabic culture and language. Future research efforts should be dedicated to enhancing our understanding of mental health care needs in this population as well as to exploring other mediators that might help explain the varying degree of somatic symptoms in depression across cultures.

Brexit, the Misrepresentation of Democracy, and the Rock of Gibraltar

This short essay makes three points regarding Brexit that have not been widely considered in public or academic debate. First, Brexit advocates (Leavers) successfully misrepresented the referendum of June 2016 as a definitive expression of democratic will. (The people have spoken.) The slim majority result was less than such an expression, particularly because it ignored inter communal and intergenerational democratic values - most profoundly, overriding clear majorities in Scotland and Northern Ireland which had voted to remain in the EU. Second, even though within a year of that referendum, a majority of Britons (Remainers) had come to oppose Brexit, political leadership among the Remainers was woefully ineffective. Some, like Prime Minister Theresa May, simply changed sides, wrongheadedly accepting the people-have-spoken rhetoric. Other Remainers continue to make their case, but did not effectively argue that people had not spoken. Perhaps, most crucially, the British first past the post electoral system provided no viable remain option in the December 2019 elections. Put simply, in the December 2019 Parliamentary elections, Remainers had no one to vote for. Third, hopes that the UK could easily rejoin the European Union (encouraged in part by remarks of EU leaders) are false. Article 49 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) requires that a state which has left the EU should go through a rigorous admission process. Since Article 49 requires unanimity among EU member states, any member with an objection to Britain rejoining could block readmission. Most troubling for Britain could be Spain's long-standing claim for the return of Gibraltar to which the UK would be loathe to accede and from which Spain would be loathe to retreat.

Acquisition of Demonstratives in English and Spanish.

The present work re-evaluates the long-standing claim that demonstratives are among infants’ earliest and most common words. Although demonstratives are deictic words important for joint attention, deictic gestures and non-word vocalizations could serve this function in early language development; the role of demonstratives may have been overestimated. Using extensive data from the CHILDES corpora (Study 1, N = 66, 265 transcripts) and McArthur-Bates CDI database (Study 2, N = 950), the language production of 18- to 24-month-old Spanish- and English-speaking children was analyzed to determine the age and order of acquisition, and frequency of demonstratives. Results indicate that demonstratives do not typically appear before the 50th word and only become frequent from the two-word utterance stage. Corpus data show few differences between Spanish and English, whereas parental report data suggest much later acquisition for demonstratives in English. These findings expand our knowledge of the foundations of deictic communication, and of the methodological challenges of assessing early production of function words.

Aeroacoustic noise generation due to vortex reconnection

We address our long-standing claim that vortex reconnection is one of the dominant sources of aeroacoustic noise in a number of canonical turbulent flows. The reconnection of two antiparallel vortices is studied via direct numerical simulation of the compressible Navier-Stokes equations in order to fully resolve the acoustic noise generation and far-field sound wave propagation. We show that the primary acoustic source is initially located at the contact point and then at the bridges, where reconnected vortex lines accumulate. At the start of reconnection, the sharp near-field pressure rise results in a high level of far-field noise with a clear dipole pattern. As more vortex lines reconnect and recoil from each other by self-induction, the near-field low-pressure zone extends in both the axial and lateral directions, which results in a quadrupole far-field noise. We thus reveal and quantify sound pressure levels and directivity during vortex reconnection. This work paves the way for further investigations of the reconnection generated noise, especially at higher Reynolds numbers.1 MoreReceived 11 March 2020Accepted 22 May 2020DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevFluids.5.062702©2020 American Physical SocietyPhysics Subject Headings (PhySH)Research AreasAerodynamic noiseVortex flowsFluid Dynamics

Fibrous Flagellar Hairs of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii Do Not Enhance Swimming

The flagella of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii possess fibrous ultrastructures of a nanometer-scale thickness known as mastigonemes. These structures have been widely hypothesized to enhance flagellar thrust; however, detailed hydrodynamic analysis supporting this claim is lacking. In this study, we present a comprehensive investigation into the hydrodynamic effects of mastigonemes using a genetically modified mutant lacking the fibrous structures. Through high-speed observations of freely swimming cells, we found the average and maximum swimming speeds to be unaffected by the presence of mastigonemes. In addition to swimming speeds, no significant difference was found for flagellar gait kinematics. After our observations of swimming kinematics, we present direct measurements of the hydrodynamic forces generated by flagella with and without mastigonemes. These measurements were conducted using optical tweezers, which enabled high temporal and spatial resolution of hydrodynamic forces. Through our measurements, we found no significant difference in propulsive flows due to the presence of mastigonemes. Direct comparison between measurements and fluid mechanical modeling revealed that swimming hydrodynamics were accurately captured without including mastigonemes on the modeled swimmer’s flagella. Therefore, mastigonemes do not appear to increase the flagella’s effective area while swimming, as previously thought. Our results refute the longstanding claim that mastigonemes enhance flagellar thrust in C. reinhardtii, and so, their function still remains enigmatic.