Modern Descendants Research Articles

Cloning and analyses of a BPI/LBP cDNA of the Atlantic cod ( Gadus morhua L.)

Using the differential screening technique, a cDNA related to the mammalian family of lipid transfer/lipopolysaccharide-binding proteins was cloned from the Atlantic cod ( Gadus morhua L.). The gene is an ortholog of a recently identified gene of rainbow trout ( Oncorhynchus mykiss). Phylogenetic analyses suggest that teleost BPI/LBP are modern descendants of the ancestor of mammalian bactericidal/permeability-increasing protein (BPI) and lipopolysaccharide-binding protein (LBP), and a gene of the urochordate Ciona intestinalis is related to this gene family. Molecular modeling suggests that the structure of cod BPI/LBP is similar to mammalian BPI and LBP, while its highly basic character is similar to BPI. Cod BPI/LBP is constitutively expressed in head–kidney (HK) leukocytes. After intraperitoneal injection of bacterin high levels of cod BPI/LBP mRNA were detected also in peripheral blood cells and spleen, while moderate to low levels of transcript were found in heart, liver, gills, skin, brain, and intestine. We conclude that the patterns of charge and expression of cod BPI/LBP are more similar to mammalian BPI than to mammalian LBP.

Heart of creation: the Mesoamerican world and the legacy of Linda Schele

The core of this book focuses on current study of Mayan hieroglyphics as inspired by recently deceased Mayanist Linda Schele. As author or coauthor of more than 200 books or articles on Maya, Schele served as chief disseminator of knowledge to general public about this ancient Mesoamerican culture, similar to way in which Margaret Mead introduced anthropology and people of Borneo to English-speaking world. Twenty-five contributors offer scholarly writings on subjects ranging from ritual function of public space at Olmec site and gardens of Great Goddess at Teotihuacan to understanding of Jupiter in astronomy and meaning of water throne of Quirigua Zoomorph P. The workshops on history and writing that Schele conducted in Guatemala and Mexico for highland people, modern descendants of Mayan civilization, are thoroughly addressed as is phenomenon termed Maya mania - explosive growth of interest in epigraphy, iconography, astronomy, and cosmology that Schele stimulated. An appendix provides a bibliography of Schele's publications and a collection of Scheleana, written memories of the Rabbit Woman by some of her colleagues and students. Of interest to professionals as well as generalists, this collection will stand as a marker of state of Mayan studies at turn of 21st century and as a tribute to remarkable personality who guided a large part of that archaeological research for more than two decades.

A Reassessment of Matrilocality in Chacoan Culture

Recent research presented in American Antiquity (66:36-46) proposed that the prehistoric Puebloan communities of Chaco Canyon in the American Southwest conformed to a matrilocal pattern of postmarital residence. The inference of matrilocality at Chaco Canyon was based on the assumption that a number of the most likely modern descendants of the Chacoans are matrilocal, including the present-day Zuni and Hopi Indians, and that the household floor area had increased to a level indicative of female-based residence. The present study assesses these two important assumptions using biological and architectural data. Our results indicate the assumptions needed to infer matrilocal residence at Chaco Canyon might not be satisfied. The biological evidence indicates close relationships with both matrilocal and bilocal present-day populations, while the architectural evidence is more consistent with a male-based pattern of postmarital residence. Limitations to the study of postmarital residence at archaeological sites are discussed.

Increased Frequency of Cysteine, Tyrosine, and Phenylalanine Residues Since the Last Universal Ancestor

Analysis of extant proteomes has the potential of revealing how amino acid frequencies within proteins have evolved over biological time. Evidence is presented here that cysteine, tyrosine, and phenylalanine residues have substantially increased in frequency since the three primary lineages diverged more than three billion years ago. This inference was derived from a comparison of amino acid frequencies within conserved and non-conserved residues of a set of proteins dating to the last universal ancestor in the face of empirical knowledge of the relative mutability of these amino acids. The under-representation of these amino acids within last universal ancestor proteins relative to their modern descendants suggests their late introduction into the genetic code. Thus, it appears that extant ancient proteins contain evidence pertaining to early events in the formation of biological systems.

A Neurodevelopmental Approach to Specific Learning Disorders: Clinics in Developmental Medicine 145

A Neurodevelopmental Approach to Specific Learning Disorders: Clinics in Developmental Medicine 145

Transformations du genre romanesque

In the past few years, when I taught courses on eighteenth-century French literature in English translation to American undergraduates, I would often begin by showing brief clips from three Disney animated films: Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, and Cinderella. The students never had any difficulty identifying the films, but had only wild guesses to answer the question What do these films have to do with this course? They are, of course, all works of French fiction from the long eighteenth century, and an impressive demonstration of how much that old and foreign culture is still alive and familiar in middle-class twenty-first-century southern New Jersey. Readers of Eighteenth-Century Fiction would know the answer to my question, but even they sometimes need to be reminded, I think, of the diversity of the field so succinctly named in the journal's title. For Aladdin ou la lampe merveilleuse, La Belle et la bete, and Cendrillon are far removed from what English speakers usually mean by novel or French speakers by roman. They are tales of the supernatural, of fairies and genies, of spells and enchantments. They are short. They derive from folk traditions. They are, and always were, regarded as children's literature. Prose fiction as it flourished and evolved in France in the eighteenth century was marked by a profusion of subgenres. Some were obviously modern descendants of traditional forms such as the epic or tales in the style of Boccaccio, Marguerite de Navarre, and Cervantes. Some were parodie or burlesque versions of those traditional forms. Around the end

The Spiritual Self‐In‐Relation: Empathy and the Construction of Spirituality Among Modern Descendants of theSpanish Crypto‐Jews

The research that is presented here explores the role that empathic attachment plays in the development of the religious self. Based on an ethnographic study of modern descendants of the Spanish crypto‐Jews, the work applies self‐in‐relation theory to the study of spirituality and religious belief acquisition among a population of individuals who, in adulthood, have modified their religious world view as a result of their crypto‐Jewish heritage. The findings of the research expand the parameters of self‐in‐relation theory in three important ways: 1) through an examination of the role that empathic attachment plays in adult conversion patterns; 2) through the elaboration of a developmental model that considers the significance of empathic attachment for sons as w ll as daughters; and 3) through an investigation into the relationship between ethnicity and spiritual development.

The Indigenous people of the Caribbean

This volume brings together nineteen Caribbean specialists to produce the first general introduction to the indigenous peoples of that region. Writing for both general and academic audiences, contributors provide an authoritative, up-to-date picture of these fascinating peoples - their social organization, religion, language, lifeways, and contribution to the culture of their modern descendants - in what is ultimately a comprehensive reader on Caribbean archaeology, ethnohistory, and ethnology.

Geometry in Mangbetu Design

One difficulty in the use of African designs for mathematics instruction is our lack of knowledge of the artisans’ concepts and techniques. In many cases, that knowledge has been lost because of modern disruptions of traditional societies. Although the Mangbetu also suffered such losses—their modern descendants no longer create many of the patterns we discuss— their preoccupation with a geometric approach to design was so strong that some of its basic elements can be discerned in artifacts that have survived. This article introduces a few examples of Mangbetu designs and examines their underlying structure. We hope that teachers and students will join us in discovering the geometric basis for these beautiful patterns.

Six isoforms of cardiotoxin in Malayan spitting cobra ( Naja naja sputatrix) venom: cloning and characterization of cDNAs

Cardiotoxins are the most abundant toxin components of cobra venom. Although many cardiotoxins have been purified and characterized by amino acid sequencing and other pharmacological and biochemical studies, to date only five cardiotoxin cDNAs from Taiwan cobra ( Naja naja atra), three cDNAs from Chinese cobra ( Naja atra) and two more of uncertain origin (either Chinese or Taiwan cobra) have been reported. In this paper we show the existence of four isoforms of cardiotoxin by protein analysis and nine cDNA sequences encoding six isoforms of cardiotoxins (CTX 1-3, 4a, 4b and 5) from N. n. sputatrix by cDNA cloning. This forms the first report on the cloning and characterization of several cardiotoxin genes from a single species of a spitting cobra. The cDNAs encoding these isoforms, obtained by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), were subsequently expressed in Escherichia coli. The native and recombinant cardiotoxins were first characterized by Western blotting and N-terminal protein sequencing. These proteins were also found to have different levels of cytolytic activity on cultured baby hamster kidney cells. Four of the isoforms (CTX 1, 2, 4 and 5) are unique to N. n. sputatrix, with CTX 2 being the most abundant species constituting about 50% of the total cardiotoxins. The isoform CTX 3 (20% constitution) is highly homologous to the cardiotoxins of N. n. atra and N. n. naja, indicating that it may be universally present in all Naja naja subspecies. Our studies suggest that the most hydrophilic isoform (CTX 5) could have evolved first followed by the hydrophobic isoforms (CTX 1, 2, 3 and 4). We also speculate that Asiatic cobras could be the modern descendants of the African and Egyptian counterparts.

Birds and beasts of ancient Latin America

Elizabeth P. Benson provides an engaging overview of the depiction of animals in the pre-Columbian art of Latin America. Drawing on an extensive set of images (many of them previously unpublished) from the collections of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, and the Florida Museum of Natural History, she examines the practical, ritualistic, and mythic importance of animals in pre-Columbian life as well as the meanings that animals still have for the modern descendants of those indigenous peoples. Conveniently arranged by animal groups and beautifully illustrated, Benson's survey encompasses all artistic media and spans the pre-Columbian cultures of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. Providing information on animals and the beliefs surrounding them, the cultural contexts of their depiction, and the cultures to which they were important, Birds and Beasts of Ancient Latin America will appeal to archaeologists, cultural hisorians, and anthropologists; to anyone interested in pre-Columbian art and mythology; and to modern-day bird and animal lovers.

Building and loan associations in the U.S., 1880–1893: the origins of localization in the residential mortgage market

The paper offers an explanation for the localization of intermediated residential mortgage finance in the United States between 1880 and 1893. The focus is on building and loan associations that spread rapidly throughout the U.S. in the 1880s, and then held one-third of the nation's intermediated home mortgage debt until the 1930s. The modern descendants of these institutions, Savings and Loan Associations (S&Ls), emerged from the Great Depression as the most important institutional source of residential mortgage credit and continued to lend almost exclusively in local markets throughout the post-war period. The modern pattern of localization is often attributed to New Deal regulation, but I show that building and loans had adopted the principle of localization by the 1890s—long before they were required to do so by either state or federal regulatory authorities. I argue here that localization became best practice for building and loans because home builders and real estate professionals organized and managed these small, mutually-owned institutions to provide home mortgage credit for customers in their principal lines of business. These ancillary markets, especially home construction, were highly localized; so the organizers had incentives to safely manage an association only so long as it operated within these same boundaries. To support these conclusions I first examine and reject an alternative explanation of localization—that it allowed building and loan members to monitor each other. Secondly I show that home builders and real estate professionals continued to dominate the management of S&Ls well into the post-World War II era; and suggest that deregulation played a role in the S&L debacle of the 1980s when it accommodated the disruption of the close connection between thrifts and local building networks.

The Holy Land Appropriated: The Careers of Selah Merrill, Nineteenth Century Christian Hebraist, Palestine Explorer, and U.S. Consul in Jerusalem

The Holy Land Appropriated: The Careers of Selah Merrill, Nineteenth Century Christian Hebraist, Palestine Explorer, and U.S. Consul in Jerusalem Shalom Goldman (bio) I. Selah Merrill and the Jews of Palestine “The Jew needs to learn that his place in the world will be determined by what he can do for himself, and not so much by what Abraham did for himself four thousand years ago. It has a most mischevious effect to be always associating the modern Jews with eminent men and deeds in the remote ages of the past.”* So wrote Selah Merrill, U.S. Consul in Jerusalem, in a report on Palestine. Merrill felt impelled to include in his report a long section entitled “Jews and Jewish Colonies in Palestine” in response to the Blackstone Memorial of 1891, which petitioned President Benjamin Harrison to support the convening of an international conference to discuss Jewish claims to Palestine. The Blackstone Memorial had over four hundred prominent signatories, the vast majority of them Protestants; for many of them the contemporary Jews were the natural heirs of the ancient Hebrews: “Why not give Palestine back to them again? According to God’s distribution of nations, it is their home, an inalienable possession, from which they were expelled by force.” 1 It was just such restorationist sentiment that Merrill so vehemently opposed. His report calls the memorial “one of the wildest schemes brought before the public.” It is the “character and habits of the modern Jews” that will doom their Palestine settlement efforts to failure. According to Merrill, the originators of the petition “appear to be ignorant of two great facts, (1) that Palestine is not ready for the Jews and (2) that the Jews are not ready for Palestine.” Merrill’s sentiments were not unusual among American Protestant [End Page 151] elites, especially among those serving in the diplomatic and consular services. As Ruth Kark has noted, Merrill’s first term as consul (1882–84) coincided with the beginnings of Jewish agricultural settlement in Palestine. Merrill was in the unique position of being able to respond negatively to Jewish immigration, to oppose Jewish settlement, and to shape State Department attitudes towards these settlement efforts. As Peter Grose writes in Israel in the Mind of America, Merrill’s 1891 report was “the first considered assessment of the Jewish restoration in the State Department files.” As Merrill’s assessment was highly negative and artic-ulated by a man considered “the most serious and influential of the nineteenth-century Jerusalem Consuls,” its conclusion, that the U.S. should not lend any support to the settlement of Palestine by the Jews, was taken to heart by many of Merrill’s colleagues at the State Department. 2 In examining Merrill’s attitudes towards Jewish settlement in Palestine it is worth noting that Merrill’s 25 year career as U.S. diplomat (1882–1907) was preceded by three other careers. He served as a Congregationalist minister, teacher of Hebrew in a theological seminary, and archeologist in Palestine. Up to the time of his appointment to the Jerusalem consulate by President Arthur, Merrill’s life was devoted to the study of the Bible and the Holy Land, and of those very “eminent men and deeds in the remote ages of the past” whose modern descendants he so heartily disdained. Merrill’s study of the ancient Hebrews did not stop when he entered the consular service. During his tenure as consul in Jerusalem he deepened his knowledge of the Biblical world through study of ancient languages and recovery of lost artifacts. His books and articles—among them East of the Jordan (1881), Galilee in the Time of Christ (1881) and Ancient Jerusalem (1908)—demonstrate a flair for writing and an ability to popularize new discoveries. His influence on other archeologists and biblical researchers was considerable, though to a large extent unrecognized. This combination of acute interest in the ancient Hebrews and intense disdain for their modern descendants bears examination. While Christian writers on Judaism often displayed ambivalence toward Jews, Merrill’s case is especially intriguing because his attitude towards Jews had political consequences. With the advent of Zionism, these ambivalent attitudes affected the consideration of Jewish claims...

Images of Urban Native Americans: The Border Zones of Mixed Identities

Introduction The dominant photographic images of Native Americans, past and present, tend to focus on two geographical/culture areas, the Plains and the Southwest. These images become fixed in the American media as typical Native American physical/cultural characteristics. Native American images east of the Mississippi River are often ignored. This paper will focus on Native Americans of Eastern tribes with connections to Middle Atlantic and Northeastern Algonquin cultures and Southeastern tribes. Photographs and photo collages are from the author/artist's photo-documentation of Eastern, usually state recognized tribes. These images will show the unique physical characteristics of a people whose early contact led to interracial marriages with Europeans and later with free people of color. The tri-racial backgrounds of some Eastern native Americans created a physical blend that looks Caucasian, Native American, or Mulattoe, depending on familial racial marriage patterns. Unfortunately, in a racially conscious society like the United States, this hybridization has resulted in discrimination and legal identification problems on birth certificates for some Native American families. These visual images portray mixed Eastern tribes as a people who still possess a strong Native American identity, evident in their participation in Native American cultural events such as powwows, spiritual ceremonies, political activism, and the arts. Native Americans are still living in a society that cannot believe they are indigenous unless they are dressed in buckskin and feathers. That stereotype has been out of date on the east coast for two centuries. Americans in general have an inability to conceptualize historic change among Native Americans. This double standard is founded on an unrealistic concept of cultural identity in defining Native Americans and has placed a burden on modern descendants to prove that they are real Indians. Native Americans on the Atlantic Coast had been in contact with both Europeans and Africans for a long time and gradually absorbed some elements of their lifestyles. All three racial groups shared an emerging folk culture that included elements of African, European, and Native American lifestyles. After World War II, many Native Americans from the South looked for jobs in less segregated areas and migrated to northern cities to join the urban labor force. Interaction with urban Native Americans from other tribes (Northern and Southern) increased a PanIndian identification. The dominant American society has created an image of Native Americans that is a racial stereotype, an image that is a reflection of the problems of the dominant society (Strickland 1989). But Native Americans have their own self-images and do not need to be defined by others. Some modern Native Americans resemble their early ancestors; others show the results of intermixture with other races. It is up to persons of Native American descent to decide how we are to define ourselves racially and what aspect(s) of our heritage we wish to emphasize. Native American artists of mixed racial heritage who wish to explore that complexity in their artwork need to be encouraged and recognized. In my photo documentation of contemporary Native American art and culture, I try to show the diversity that is prevalent in the United States, as well as the Caribbean and Latin-America. I focus on groups such as the Powhatan, Lumbee, Shinnicock, Narragansett, Houma, Haliwa Saponi, Mohegan, and Taino that the government and even other Native Americans have tried to marginalize. State recognized tribes do not get the financial cultural backing that the more dominant federally recognized tribes receive. Exposure of neglected Eastern tribes through the visual arts and the mass media is one method of refuting our disappearance. The Politics of Mixed Identities In the literature concerned with Native American history there has been an abundance of information on the relationships between the indigenous inhabitants and the European immigrants, now the majority population. …

In Search of the Old Ones: Exploring the Anasazi World of the Southwest.

An exuberant, hands-on fly-on-the-wall account that combines the thrill of canyoneering and rock climbing with the intellectual sleuthing of archaeology to explore the Anasazi. David Roberts describes the culture of the Anasazi the name means enemy ancestors in Navajo who once inhabited the Colorado Plateau and whose modern descendants are the Hopi Indians of Arizona. Archaeologists, Roberts writes, have been puzzling over the Anasazi for more than a century, trying to determine the environmental and cultural stresses that caused their society to collapse 700 years ago. He guides us through controversies in the historical record, among them the haunting question of whether the Anasazi committed acts of cannibalism. Roberts s book is full of up-to-date thinking on the culture of the ancient people who lived in the harsh desert country of the Southwest.

From Scythia to Camelot: A Radical Reassessment of the Legends of King Arthur, the Knights of the Round Table, and the Holy Grail by C. Scott Littleton and Linda A. Malcor (review)

Niggling though these point may seem, they but scratch the surface of much greater problems, ones that suggest that Littleton and Malcor are poorly grounded in the history they need to know in order to demonstrate the validity or even the plausibility of their case. Indeed, given their thesis and the way they present it, one also wonders whether they even know the history of that history. It must be said, after all, that to argue the Scythian origins of Arthur is scarcely a radical reassessment when, in fact, it goes back for centuries and was first given popular form by Sharon Turner in the 1820s. Indeed, one still encounters it in some of the more occult and/or evangelical literature today, notable Adam Rutherford's Israel-Britain: An Explanation ofthe Origin, Function and Destiny ofthe Norse-AngloCelto -Saxon Race (1934, with many subsequent editions) and Herbert W. Armstrong's The United States and Britain in Prophecy (1967', with an equal number of subsequent editions). No scholar would want to buy into their tales of the Scythians as the Lost Tribes of Israel - and hence of Britons and Americans as the true inheritors of their manifest destiny - but at the same time anyone pursuing the Scythian connection should surely be aware of their existence and continuing appeal, for they suggest dimensions to the whole hypothesis that are badly in need of serious investigation. Nevertheless, in spite of all the defects that From Scythia to Camelot so clearly has, it makes a not-insignificant contribution to the ongoing debate about the mythic and folkloric sources of Arthurian literature. Much as one may doubt many of Littleton and Malcor's specifics, it is hard to put down their book still believing in the purely Celtic origins of those aspects of the story that seem to transcend simple authorial inventiveness. For that deepening of the mysteries involved, readers should be grateful. CHARLES T. WOOD Dartmouth College C SCOTT LITTLETON and LINDA A. MALCOR , From Scythia to Camelot: A Radical Reassessment ofthe Legends ofKing Arthur, the Knights ofthe Round Table, and the Holy Grail. Garland Reference Library of the Humanities, vol. 1795. New York and London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1994. Pp. xxxiii,401; 18 plates, 19 maps, and 11 genealogical tables in Appendix 2. isbn: 0-8153-1496-5. $66. In the last chapter of From Scythia to Camelot, Littleton and Malcor make the following claim: The evidence clearly suggests that, save for some unique historical events, the core of what later became the Arthurian and Grail literature was born on the steppes of ancient Scythia' (283). After reading their book, however, many readers may feel, as I do, that the authors did well to disclaim from the outset that they had discovered anything like 'the final "truth"' of this matter (xxxi). The authors employ a cultural diffusion model to argue that the most important Arthurian figures and themes originated in the culture of nomadic horse-riding peoples who inhabited the Eurasian steppes, an area known as Scythia to the Romans and Greeks. Between the second and fifth centuries B.CE. two tribes, the Sarmatians and the Alans, imported these figures and themes into the western Roman Empire. In support of their argument Littleton and Malcor offer a wealth of detailed information and speculation, divided into four parts. Part I, The Cultural and Historical Background,' consists of one long chapter detailing the early history of these Scythian tribes. Because of their martial prowess, both were eventually employed by the Romans to help defend the Empire. In the late second century the Iazyges (a.k.a. Sarmatians) were settled in northwest Britain along Hadrian's wall and during the fifth century the Alans were settled in parts of Gaul, principally in the southwest. Part II, 'Figures,' consists of four chapters. In the first, Arthur's name is derived from that of the prefect who initially commanded the Iazyges in Britain, Lucius Artorius Castus, while Arthur himself is derived from a Scythian prototype of Batraz, the central hero of the Scythians' modern descendants, the Ossetians. The most striking evidence they offer in support of this connection concerns the fate of the two heroes' swords. As he...

The Olympic Mountain Goat Controversy: A Different Perspective

Victor B. Scheffer (1993b) recently outlined his views on the controversy regarding the modern descendants of mountain goats (Oreamnos americanus) transplanted to the Olympic Mountains of Washington state in 1925. His comments are largely directed toward the veracity and utility of data mustered by the Fund for Animals in their argument for allowing the goats to remain, and they have responded directly to those comments (Anunsen & Anunsen 1993). Scheffer sides with Olympic National Park (ONP) and believes the goats should be removed. Here I address several of the state-

Delineation of separate brain regions used for scientific versus engineering modes of thinking

Powerful, latent abilities for extreme sophistication in abstract rationalization as potential biological adaptive behavioral responses were installed entirely through accident and inadvertence by biological evolution in the Homo sapiens sapiens species of brain. These potentials were never used, either in precursor species as factors in evolutionary increase in hominid brain mass, nor in less sophisticated forms within social environments characterized by Hss tribal brain population densities. Those latent abilities for unnatural biological adaptive behavior were forced to become manifest in various ways by growths in sophistication of communication interactions engendered by large growths in brain population densities brought on by developments in agriculture at the onset of the Holocene. It is proposed that differences probably exist between regions of the Hss brain involved in utilitarian, engineering types of problem conceptualization-solving versus regions of the brain involved in nonutilitarian, artistic-scientific types of problem conceptualization-solving. Populations isolated on separate continents from diffusive contact and influence on cultural developments, and selected for comparison of developments during equivalent stages of technological and social sophistication in matching 4000 year periods, show, at the ends of those periods, marked differences in aesthetic attributes expressed in cosmogonies, music, and writing (nonutilitarian thinking related to science and art). On the other hand the two cultures show virtually identical developments in three major stages of metallurgical technologies (utilitarian thinking related to engineering). Such archaeological data suggest that utilitarian modes of thought may utilize combinations of neuronal circuits in brain regions that are conserved among tribal populations territorially separated from each other for tens of thousands of years. Such conservation may not be true for neuronal circuits involved in nonutilitarian modes of thought. It is postulated that neuronal circuits involved in nonutilitarian modes of thought are located in specific regions of the brain that are divergent features between populations that have been territorially separated for tens of thousands of years. Anatomical PET and NMRI studies of brains of modern descendants of these cultures are proposed that would seek to define these inferred differences through proper protocols of stimulation devised by those investigators.

A turning point in mathematical learning theory.

This target article by Estes (1950) sparked the mathematical learning theory movement, which took seriously the goal of predicting quantitative details of behavioral data from standard learning experiments. The central constructs of Estes's theory were stimulus variability, stimulus sampling, and stimulus-response association by contiguity, all cast within a framework enabling predictions of response probabilities and latencies. The math models enterprise flourished during the period 1950-1975 and provided successful quantitative accounts of data from Pavlovian and instrumental conditioning, probability learning, verbal learning, concept identification, and other standard learning paradigms. The techniques have been assimilated into the armamentarium of theoretical psychology. Stimulus sampling theory has faded away as it has been transformed into modern descendants such as connectionism and information-processing models of cognition.

Les Guerriers-Chiens. Loups-garous et invasions scythes en Asie Mineure

Were-wolves and Scythian invasions in Asia Minor : the warrior-dogs Polyen's account (VII, 2, 1) of the Cimmerian defeat at the hands of « valiant dogs » and similar narratives (Ael., VH, 14, 46 ; Pollux, V, 47 ; Pliny, NH, VIII, 61, 143) are compared with evidence from a number of Indo-European traditions. Warriors were frequently compared with or seen as dogs and wolves in these traditions. Similar notions including initiation rites (for instance "bal", military expeditions taken by young men) existed among the Scythians and their modern descendants, the Ossetes. As a result of their defeat by the Scythians, the Cimmerians disappeared from Asia Minor. The classical tradition presumedly preserved a distorted fragment of a Scythian epic which qualified Scythian warriors as « valiant dogs ».