Notion Of Canon Research Articles

EBF Deficient Hematopoietic Progenitor Cells Potentialy Differentiated into Immature B Cell: EBF1 Dispensable for B Cell Linage Commitment from Pro-B to Pre-B Stage

Introduction: Canonical notion demonstrates that Cell fate is determined by transcriptional factor. Accordingly, the lineage specific transcriptional factors have been investigated for various kinds of cells. Especially, in the hematopoietic system, the extensive research for lineage specific transcriptional factors had elucidated the transcriptional factors which regulated lineage commitment. B cell commitment and development requires the activities of multiple transcription factors, including the early B cell factor (EBF), PAX5, and E2A. These transcription factors regulate B cell development in a stage specific manner. The hematopoietic progenitor cells which are deficient for any of them, cannot commit B cells. Among them EBF1 is presumed to be more potent. Rescue early pro B cell to induce the expression of several key proteins including RAG that enable gene rearrangement to occur by opening of IgH locus.We found that the B cell developmental arrest caused by EBF1 deficiency can be rescued by a single non coding RNA. These B cells which are deficient EBF1 but showed the expression of CD19, B cell lineage specific surface marker and VDJ recombination, molecular markers of B cell commitment in vitro B cell differentiation system cocultured with Tst4 cells, stromal cell lines. We further investigated the quality and differentiation potential of these B lineage commitment cells in the in vivo mouse model and elucidated the mechanism of this phenomenon.Material and methods: We collected EBF1−/− fetal liver hematopoietic progenitor (Lin−) cells and cultured them on TSt-4 stromal cells after infecting with non coding RNA and control vector in IMDM medium containing cytokines and then injected it into NOG mice. Collect bone marrow (BM), thymus and spleen from those mice. Then comprehensive Gene-Expression analysis, real time PCR for VDJ recombination analysis was performed and checked surface marker by flowcytometry.Result: We analyzed BM and spleen of non coding RNA infected EBF1 KO cells injected mice and found the expression of CD19 in BM as well as in spleen and upregulated of B220 also, comparing with control vector expressed cells. Furthermore, surface IgM expression of CD19 positive cells in the spleen is upregulated compared with the cells in the BM (Figure 1). Several target genes of the non-coding RNAs were identified by use of cDNA array analysis and luciferase reportor assay. Among them, several genes were involved in TGF beta pathway. As TGF beta family and the pathway, has been reported a critical factor which is negatively regulating B lymphopoiesis (Figure 2). We hypothesized that TGF beta family genes such as Tgfβr3, Acvr2a, are responsible for B cell differentiation for which EBF1 is dispensable .We cultured EBF KO cells for 14 days with and without TGF beta 1,2,3 antibody and Activin A antibody on TST4 cells. We found that increase mean intensity (MFI) of B220 into antibodies positive cocultured cells (Figure 3) to suggest, the suppression of TGF beta pathway is partially responsible for B cell differentiation under EBF1 deficiency.Conclusion: Canonical notion of cell fate determination of B cells defines that EBF1 is an indispensible factor for B lymphopoiesis. However, from our previous and present study it is proved that without EBF1 B cell development can progress to pro B to pre B cell and Immature B cell stage and “VDJ recombination” occur in the absence of EBF. Furthermore, in vivo mouse model, EBF1 deficient hematopoietic progenitor cells differentiated into IgM positive cells. Therefore we can conclude that EBF is dispensable of VDJ recombination, opening of IgH locus, binding of RAG protein and B cell differentiation to the mature stage. One of the mechanisms is possibly due to the stimuli from microenvironment, such as TGF beta family and pathway. Furthermore, the detail mechanism of IgH locus opening, epigenetic changes and chromatin remodeling around the IgH locus in the absence of EBF is under investigation. [Display omitted] [Display omitted] [Display omitted] DisclosuresChanda:Japan Society for the Promotion of Science(JSPS): Research Funding.

The Canonical Debate Today: Crossing Disciplinary and National Boundaries

The Canonical Debate Today: Crossing Disciplinary and National Boundaries

Poetry and Sociality in a Global Frame

Poetry and Sociality in a Global Frame Walt Hunter (bio) Dowdy, Michael. 2013. Broken Souths: Latina/o Poetic Responses to Neoliberalism and Globalization. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. $30.00 sc. 296 pp. Furani, Khaled. 2012. Silencing the Sea: Secular Rhythms in Palestinian Poetry. Stanford: Stanford University Press. $55.00 hc. 312 pp. A formidable hermeticism has long held sway over Anglophone poetry criticism. While criticism of other literary genres expands its grasp, most notably into new sociological approaches to literature, knowledge of the tropes and schemes of poetry serves as a border check for those interested in poetic criticism, slowing contemporary poetry’s reception, inhibiting pedagogy, and operating in general like a canon of revealed truths. Generally speaking, to read poetry means to learn the history of poetic devices and to recognize the various appearances (or absences) of this history in an individual poem: why a line break works the way it does, why a metaphor appears where it does. But these claims about poetic design do not only represent a neutral language specific to literary study or a convenient mechanism for distinguishing between traditional and avant-garde strands of poetry. By attributing a private and individual, rather than global and material, foundation to the aesthetics of poetry, such claims also prevent poetry from being recognized as a social form. As a result, canonical notions of line, verse, and enjambment are theorized as though poetry developed and continues to develop in monastic seclusion from the political economies and emergent precarities of modern global capitalism. [End Page 129] No sustained analysis exists in which the history of poetry and poetics is reread in the light of the history of globalization. Books on Anglophone poetry in particular have been cautious in adopting a postcolonial, global, or transnational critical perspective and, in general, complacent in upholding the immutable value of a small set of formal devices and traditions. Within this tradition, however, there are critics who are moving toward a global and socially attuned poetics. Jahan Ramazani’s The Hybrid Muse (2001) and A Transnational Poetics (2009) link poetic tropes of metaphor and figures of irony with theories and themes of hybridity, migration, and exile in postcolonial Anglophone poetry. After Ramazani, the Jamaican poets Claude McKay and Louise Bennett can no longer be treated as marginal, neither to postcolonial studies nor to poetry, while the Irish poet W. B. Yeats and the Trinidadian poet Derek Walcott, who are already the subjects of a voluminous critical corpus, appear newly relevant. Focusing on the late nineteenth century, Virginia Jackson’s Dickinson’s Misery: A Theory of Lyric Reading (2005) calls attention to the processes by which a variety of poetic genres had been “lyricized” into a single, dominant genre, at the same time that it incites new histories of poetic subgenres, genealogies of American poetry, and compelling defenses of lyric as a collective voice (Costello 2012) or the “performance of an event” (Culler 2009, 887). Meanwhile, Stephen Burt’s many accessible reviews of contemporary poets bypass altogether the retrenched arguments for conceptual and lyric forms. The cultivation of a catholic taste for multiple, often discrepant styles in poetry, rather than buttressing a single framework of value, makes Burt a welcome voice in the wake of Language and post-Language scuffles over the politics of poetic form and political identity. Most recently, the poetics of precarious life under neoliberal conditions has been the object of attention by a scattered group of leftist poets and thinkers, including Anne Boyer (2014), Stefano Harney and Fred Moten (2013), Jasper Bernes (2013), Christopher Nealon (2011), Joshua Clover and Keston Sutherland (2013), Franco Berardi (2012), Judith Butler (2013), Chris Chen (2013), and Rob Halpern (2013). If we place this work alongside emergent, innovative work on post-war Anglophone, Russian, and Nigerian poetry by critics as diverse as Jennifer Ashton (2013), Marijeta Bozovic (2014), and Nathan Suhr-Sytsma (2013), it becomes immediately apparent that the entire field of poetry and poetics has taken on a new urgency and a pluralism of method. There is no reason why more work on poetry cannot wager the ambition, strength of argument, accessibility, and cross-disciplinary reach of groundbreaking books on globalization and culture such...

Paired-end analysis of transcription start sites in Arabidopsis reveals plant-specific promoter signatures.

Understanding plant gene promoter architecture has long been a challenge due to the lack of relevant large-scale data sets and analysis methods. Here, we present a publicly available, large-scale transcription start site (TSS) data set in plants using a high-resolution method for analysis of 5' ends of mRNA transcripts. Our data set is produced using the paired-end analysis of transcription start sites (PEAT) protocol, providing millions of TSS locations from wild-type Columbia-0 Arabidopsis thaliana whole root samples. Using this data set, we grouped TSS reads into "TSS tag clusters" and categorized clusters into three spatial initiation patterns: narrow peak, broad with peak, and weak peak. We then designed a machine learning model that predicts the presence of TSS tag clusters with outstanding sensitivity and specificity for all three initiation patterns. We used this model to analyze the transcription factor binding site content of promoters exhibiting these initiation patterns. In contrast to the canonical notions of TATA-containing and more broad "TATA-less" promoters, the model shows that, in plants, the vast majority of transcription start sites are TATA free and are defined by a large compendium of known DNA sequence binding elements. We present results on the usage of these elements and provide our Plant PEAT Peaks (3PEAT) model that predicts the presence of TSSs directly from sequence.

A multi-focused proof system isomorphic to expansion proofs

The sequent calculus is often criticized for requiring proofs to contain large amounts of low-level syntactic details that can obscure the essence of a given proof. Because each inference rule introduces only a single connective, sequent proofs can separate closely related steps---such as instantiating a block of quantifiers---by irrelevant noise. Moreover, the sequential nature of sequent proofs forces proof steps that are syntactically non-interfering and permutable to nevertheless be written in some arbitrary order. The sequent calculus thus lacks a notion of canonicity: proofs that should be considered essentially the same may not have a common syntactic form. To fix this problem, many researchers have proposed replacing the sequent calculus with proof structures that are more parallel or geometric. Proof-nets, matings, and atomic flows are examples of such revolutionary formalisms. We propose, instead, an evolutionary approach to recover canonicity within the sequent calculus, which we illustrate for classical first-order logic. The essential element of our approach is the use of a multi-focused sequent calculus as the means for abstracting away low-level details from classical cut-free sequent proofs. We show that, among the multi-focused proofs, the maximally multi-focused proofs that collect together all possible parallel foci are canonical. Moreover, if we start with a certain focused sequent proof system, such proofs are isomorphic to expansion proofs---a well known, minimalistic, and parallel generalization of Herbrand disjunctions---for classical first-order logic. This technique appears to be a systematic way to recover the "essence of proof" from within sequent calculus proofs.

Formal continuity implies uniform continuity near compact images on metric spaces

The localic completion of a metric space induces a canonical notion of continuous map between metric spaces. It is shown that these maps are continuous in the sense of Bishop constructive mathematics, i.e., uniformly continuous near every compact image.

The Island and the Madhouse: Rethinking the Subject and the Archipelago in Recent Cuban Literature

Aunque estoy a punto de renacer,no lo proclamare a los cuatro vientosni me sentire un elegido:solo me toco en suerte,y lo acepto porque no esta en mi manonegarme, y seria por otra parte unadescortesiaque un hombre distinguido jamas haria.Se me ha anunciado que manana,a las siete y seis minutos de la tarde,me convertire en una isla,isla como suelen ser las islas.Mis piernas se iran haciendo tierra y mar,y poco a poco, igual que un andantechopiniano,empezaran a salirme arboles en losbrazos,rosas en los ojos y arena en el pecho.En la boca las palabras moriranpara que el viento a su deseo puedaulular.Despues, tendido como suelen hacer lasislas,mirare fijamente al horizonte,vere salir el sol. la luna,y lejos ya de la inquietud,dire muy bajito:?asi que era verdad?-Virgilio Pinera, Isla, 1979Although I am about to be reborn,I will not proclaim it to the four windsnor feel myself a chosen one:it was just my luck,and I accept it because it is not in myhandsto refuse, and it would, moreover, be adiscourtesywhich a distinguished man should nevercommit.It's been announced to me thattomorrow,at six past seven in the evening,I will become an island,an island as islands usually are.My legs will make land and sea,and slowly, like a Chopin andante,trees will begin to come from my arms,roses from my eyes and sand from mychest.In my mouth the words will dieso that the wind can howl at its pleasure.After, lying as islands usually do,I will look fixedly at the horizon,I will see the sun rise, the moon,and far now from any anxiety,I will say very sofdy:so it was true?Contemporary Cuban literature has mostly been read in relation to the political and socioeconomic context of the Cuban Revolution's post-Soviet period, which obviously is a singular condition of the writing of the island. In this essay, however, I would like to adopt a different scope and explore this literature's Caribbean connection through Edouard Glissant's concepts of relation, archipelago, and diversion. Cuba's connection with Caribbean canonical writing has nevertheless quite often been problematic. On the one hand, Cuba has a very strong notion of nation and national literary canon, in which the gaze of the metropolis and of Latin American avant-gardes is rather more present than is the case for its Caribbean neighbors and in which the insular condition returns once and again as a motif. On the other hand, some Cuban writers, such as Alejo Carpentier and Antonio Benitez Rojo, could even be considered as foundational within a Caribbean context of repeating islands. I will take a point of departure from Glissant's notion of archipelago in relation to one novel in particular, Desde Los Blancos Manicomios (2010), by Margarita Mateo. In this discussion, I will show the ambivalence and the limits of these concepts by Glissant, which deal simultaneously with the limits of belonging and detachment of a community or imaginary identity. I will discuss whether the use of archipelago stands for a deterritorialization and fragmentation in Mateo's novel and whether it produces agency for the subject. This contemporary novel seems to deal above all with the self as such, within an archipelagic constellation of cultural identity in which foundational fictions of belonging are also quite present. This constellation serves as a commentary on those foundational texts, as an interwoven texture of poststructuralist thinking and intertextual voyage.Not only as a scholar but also as a fictional writer, Mateo, who was born in Havana in 1950, offers a refreshing voice in Cuba's contemporary cultural field. …

Conservative in Form, Revolutionary in Content: Rethinking World Literary Canons in an Age of Globalization

In pursuit of the twinned goals of canon transformation and the globalized study of literary form, I propose three ways for forging a canon responsive to the political present. The first and most obvious proposal is empirical: increasing the canon’s global scope will enable the canon’s formal conservatism to encompass Sinic, Indic, and Islamic traditions alongside the many other knowledge systems that have been obscured within mainstream literary history. Second: reconceptualize the notion of canonicity. Third: develop a method for reading texts through cross-cultural juxtapositions that the texts’ creators could not have envisioned.

A Single Micro-RNA Can Completely Rescue B-Cell Differentiation Arrest Due To EBF1 Deficiency: Can Micro-RNA Control Cell Fate As a Potential Alternative Of Transcriptional Factor?

IntroductionCell fate and lineage specification have been thought to be largely regulated at the level of transcription. However, regulation of differentiation at the transcriptional level alone does not appear to explain all hematopoietic cell fate decisions, suggesting the presence of other as-yet-unknown mechanisms. EBF1 is critical transcription factors in B-lymphopoiesis. Ectopic EBF1 expression promotes B cell development in multipotent progenitor cell (MPP). EBF1is deleted and downregulated in different B cell malignancy like some ALLs and Hodgkin lymphoma.MicroRNAs are noncoding RNAs that are vital to many cell functions and that post-transcriptionally repress target mRNAs. Each miRNA is thought to have several target mRNAs, and computational predictions suggest that more than a third of all human genes are targets of miRNAs. However, in cell fate determination, it has been thought to act as only a fine tuner.Recently we reported that miR-126 drives MLL-AF4 ALL cells, exhibiting both myloid and B cell surface markers, towards B cell without upregulating of EBF1, E2A, and PAX5, which are critical transcriptional factors in B cell lineage commitment. Moreover, miR-126 could induce partial B lymphopoiesis in EBF1 deficient hematopoietic cells (HPCs) (Okuyama.K et al. PNAS).In the present study, in order to challenge the canonical notion that cell fate is governed solely by transcriptional factors, we investigated whether miRNA have full potentiality to induce B cell development in EBF1 deficiency. Material and methodsWe introduce several different miRNA in EBF1-/-hematopoietic progenitor (Lin-) cells and cultured them on TSt-4 stromal cells in IMDM medium containing stem cell factor, IL-7, and Flt3 ligand (10 ng/mL each). Then comprehensive Gene-Expression analysis, genomic PCR for VDJ recombination analysis and flowcytometric analysis for B-cell lineage markers were performed. ResultAmong the miRNA we analyzed, miR-195 induced expression of CD19, an established B lineage marker, and upregulated of B220 , B cell associated marker, comparing with control vector expressed EBF1 KO HPCs (Figure 1a). Then we investigated the molecular marker of B committed cells,“ VDJ recombination”. In miR-195 transduced EBF1KO cells, V to DJ recombination were completed, while the control was not (Figure 1b). Based on the results obtained from surface and molecular markers, miR-195 transduced EBF1KO cells were identified as B committed cells suggesting that miR-195 can rescue B lymphopoiesis in EBF1 deficiency. Finally our microarray data shows that overexpression of miR-195 in EBF1 KO cells upregulates B cell lineage commitment genes such as Pax5, Bcl11a, VpreB1, Cd79a, lamda5 and E2A which are downsteam targets of EBF1 and downregulates the myeloid lineage specific genes which are also antagonized by EBF1 in B cell lineage specification (Figure 2a). [Display omitted] [Display omitted] Next in order to clarify its mechanism, we studied the target genes of miR-195. Tgfβr3, Smad7, Acvr2a, Lats, HGF, and Pbx3 were identified as the targets of miR-195 by luciferase assay in 293T cells (Figure 2b). TGF beta family and the pathway, has been reported to suppress B lymphopoiesis. We hypothesized that TGF beta family genes such as Tgfβr3, Smad7, and Acvr2a, are responsible for transcription factor independent B cell differentiation by miR-195. Further analysis is now under investigation. ConclusionMiR-195 induces CD19 expression, completion of VDJ recombination and upregulation of B cell related genes in EBF1-/-HPCs while neither PAX5 nor E2A are able to upregualte B cell related genes or induce CD19 expression in the absence of EBF1. It suggests that miR-195 is more potent than E2A and Pax5 in this system and acts more than a fine tuner in B cell lineage specification. In the canonical notion, cell fate is determined solely by transcriptional factors. Our study challenges this notion, proposing that miRNA might have potential to be an alternative of transcriptional factors in some condition (Figure 2c). As we all know, impaired differentiation by deregulation of transcriptional factors is one of “hit” to leukemia development. Accordingly miRNA can potentially rescue this deregulation to become promising therapeutic target. Disclosures:Ando: Alexion: Research Funding.

Discourse Presentation and Speech (and Writing, but not Thought) Summary

This paper outlines the detailed nature of a relatively neglected phenomenon in discourse presentation and considers its consequences for discourse presentation theory. Careful consideration of the phenomenon of clearly intended speech and writing summary, as well as other phenomena where discourse is clearly presented but not reported, helps us to preserve in a focused way the canonical notion of varying degrees of faithfulness in the reporting of speech and writing originating in anterior contexts, something which is necessary, in my view, to explain the prototypical effects of the different categories on the discourse presentation scales in contexts (e.g. fictional speech) where speech is clearly being presented but not reported. I make a distinction between what I call ‘proposition-domain summary’ (where individual propositions are summarized) and ‘discourse-domain summary’ (the summary of larger stretches of discourse), and suggest that, whereas proposition-domain summary is usually associated with what has usually been called the Narrator’s/reporter’s Representation of a Speech Act (NRSA) on the speech presentation scale and its equivalent (NRWA) on the writing presentation scale, discourse-domain summary can in principle be presented using any of the categories on the speech and writing presentation scales. Consequently, I want to propose scales of speech and writing discourse-domain summary to match the traditional speech and writing presentation (i.e. ‘proposition presentation’) scales. I also suggest that the notion of summary does not sensibly apply to thought presentation and consider the theoretical consequences of this. Along the way, I will (i) propose a minor, but hopefully helpful (because I think it is more accurate and clearer), change in the naming of the discourse presentation categories and their associated acronyms, (ii) discuss some interesting ambiguous cases, (iii) consider how we become aware in reading the presenting text that discourse is being summarized and (iv) correct some errors in Short (1988) and chapter 10 of Leech and Short (2007 [1981]).

Canon and Canonicity: The Formation and Use of Scripture. Edited by EINAR THOMASSEN.

The virtue of balancing the available historical evidence as carefully as possible is crucial in the study of the Christian bipartite canon. This book on canon formation and canonicity, edited by Einar Thomassen, makes a welcome contribution in this regard. The eleven essays included were originally written as part of ‘Highways and Byways’, an interdisciplinary project at the Department of Classics, Russian and Religion at the University of Bergen, Norway. The main concern of the project is to study ‘the Christian idea of “orthodoxy” ’. Following von Harnack’s understanding of the emergence of normative Christian faith—episcopate, rule of faith/creed, and scriptural canon as the regulative ecclesiastical structures—the essays aim at shedding light on ‘some of the many problems involved’ in the establishment of the canon of Scripture as one dimension of orthodoxy. Thomassen’s opening chapter, ‘Some Notes on the Development of Christian Ideas about a Canon’, provides nuanced and creative comments on the Christian canon formation. The commonly sharp distinction made by some scholars between canon as norm and as list is rightly softened. It is pointed out that the category of list or catalogue is not only late, but also rare in comparison with that of normativity: ‘When ancient Christian texts speak about “canonical” books, it is often the normative quality, or the authoritativeness, of certain books that is intended, rather than their inclusion in a particular list of titles’ (p. 9). An interesting observation in this connection—which has been made only by a few scholars—is the obvious connection between these two notions of biblical canonicity, since ‘a list may in itself represent a norm’. As it turns out, this is what is at stake not only in the Christian use of the Greek concept, but also within other domains, such as the drawing of astronomical canon tables: ‘[L]ists and norms are two different things. But in so far as some lists have a normative purpose, there is an area where the two categories overlap’ (p. 10). It therefore also makes perfect sense to view the biblical canon formation as a process. The critical scholarly task, then, may be to provide models for the ‘archaeology of the various layers that contributed to its production’. Thomassen here takes the reader back to the beginning, with ‘the proto-canonical phase’ consisting of: (a) a memory phase—the preservation and/or the invention of a memory about Jesus of Nazareth, out of which ‘a certain number of sayings, to which special authority was accorded, were distilled from the memory about Jesus’; (b) the formation of a ten-letter Pauline epistolary canon written to seven churches (whereas the sayings of Jesus have a revelatory quality, the letters of Paul, in the author’s view, ‘are not divine revelation’); and (c) the formation of extended narratives about Jesus, so-called Gospel writings (including words and deeds; cf. Acts 1:1). A common feature found throughout these layers ‘is the fact that during the first two centuries the words of Jesus possessed a special authority in themselves that can without doubt be called canonical’ (p. 15). The ‘canonization phase’ is discussed under two subheadings, ‘the Idea of a Christian Canon’ and ‘Verification of the Apostolic’. The essay closes with some reflections on canon as tradition and canon as revealed text. Even if not fully convincing, the following two claims are worth pondering further: (a) the view of the apostolic writings as inspired arose from the creation of the two-testament Bible, through the assimilation of the apostolic writings to the already established pattern of prophetically inspired Scripture, and (b) ‘once the Bible as a whole had consolidated its position as a constitutive element of Christian tradition, that position itself secured for it a status as sacred object. In this way, the Bible became a holy book’ (p. 25).

Astrocytes, but Not Microglia, Rapidly Sense H2O2 via STAT6 Phosphorylation, Resulting in Cyclooxygenase-2 Expression and Prostaglandin Release

Emerging evidence has established that astrocytes, once considered passive supporting cells that maintained extracellular ion levels and served as a component of the blood-brain barrier, play active regulatory roles during neurogenesis and in brain pathology. In the current study, we demonstrated that astrocytes sense H(2)O(2) by rapidly phosphorylating the transcription factor STAT6, a response not observed in microglia. STAT6 phosphorylation was induced by generators of other reactive oxygen species (ROS) and reactive nitrogen species, as well as in the reoxygenation phase of hypoxia/reoxygenation, during which ROS are generated. Src-JAK pathways mediated STAT6 phosphorylation upstream. Experiments using lipid raft disruptors and analyses of detergent-fractionated cells demonstrated that H(2)O(2)-induced STAT6 phosphorylation occurred in lipid rafts. Under experimental conditions in which H(2)O(2) did not affect astrocyte viability, H(2)O(2)-induced STAT6 phosphorylation resulted in STAT6-dependent cyclooxygenase-2 expression and subsequent release of PGE(2) and prostacyclin, an effect also observed in hypoxia/reoxygenation. Finally, PGs released from H(2)O(2)-stimulated astrocytes inhibited microglial TNF-α expression. Accordingly, our results indicate that ROS-induced STAT6 phosphorylation in astrocytes can modulate the functions of neighboring cells, including microglia, through cyclooxygenase-2 induction and subsequent release of PGs. Differences in the sensitivity of STAT6 in astrocytes (highly sensitive) and microglia (insensitive) to phosphorylation following brief exposure to H(2)O(2) suggest that astrocytes can act as sentinels for certain stimuli, including H(2)O(2) and ROS, refining the canonical notion that microglia are the first line of defense against external stimuli.

Discourse presentation and speech (and writing, but not thought) summary

This article outlines the detailed nature of a relatively neglected phenomenon in discourse presentation – speech (and writing but not thought) summary – and considers its consequences for discourse presentation theory. Careful consideration of the phenomenon of clearly intended speech and writing summary, as well as other phenomena where discourse is clearly presented but not reported, helps us to preserve in a focused way the canonical notion of varying degrees of faithfulness in the reporting of speech and writing originating in anterior contexts, something which is necessary, in my view, to explain the prototypical effects of the different categories on the discourse presentation scales in contexts (e.g. fictional speech) where speech is clearly being presented but not reported. I make a distinction between what I call ‘proposition-domain summary’ (where individual propositions are summarized) and ‘discourse-domain summary’ (the summary of larger stretches of discourse), and suggest that, whereas proposition-domain summary is usually associated with what has usually been called the Narrator’s/Reporter’s Representation of a Speech Act (NRSA) on the speech presentation scale and its equivalent Narrator’s/Reporter’s Representation of a Writing Act (NRWA) on the writing presentation scale, discourse-domain summary can in principle be presented using any of the categories on the speech and writing presentation scales. Consequently, I want to propose scales of speech and writing discourse-domain summary to match the traditional speech and writing presentation (i.e. ‘proposition presentation’) scales. I also suggest that the notion of summary does not sensibly apply to thought presentation and consider the theoretical consequences of this. Along the way, I will (i) propose a minor, but hopefully helpful (because I think it is clearer and more accurate), change in the naming of the discourse presentation categories and their associated acronyms, (ii) discuss some interesting ambiguous cases, (iii) consider how we become aware, when reading the presenting text, that discourse is being summarized and (iv) correct some errors in Short (1988) and Chapter 10 of Leech and Short (2007 [1981]) .

Measuring morphological canonicity

The question of regularity within morphological paradigms has been formerly addressed within approaches falling in the scope of Canonical Typology (Corbett 2003). The aim of this paper is to provide a means for assessing the notion of morphological canonicity through original measures developed within our new morphological framework PARSLI. In particular, we introduce original measures for non-canonical phenomena such as heteroclisis, deponency, defectiveness and overabundance. We introduce PARSLI a new model for inflectional morphology using an inferential-realisational approach (Matthews 1974; Zwicky 1985; Anderson 1992). Our model precisely provides a formal representation of the lexicon/grammar interface. It relies on a formal definition of a lexical entry and a complete formal apparatus for computing all relevant form realisation rules for each lexeme, including stem formation rules. Realisation rules themselves may be expressed through any suitable realisation-based formalism (e.g. PFM or Network Morphology). We introduce several formal innovations such as inflection zones, that constitute partitions of given inflection classes. They are in particular used in modelling heteroclisis.

From Margin to Centre: Postcolonial Identities and Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father

This article considers Barack Obama's autobiography, Dreams from My Father (1995), as extending a tradition of African-American life writing that is characterised by negotiations of identity. It examines how Obama draws upon the rhetorical and literary strategies evident in nineteenth-century narratives and twentieth-century re-workings of the original African-American autobiographical form. The article suggests ways in which Dreams from My Father can also be viewed in relation to postcolonial theory and postcolonial life writing. Therefore, as well as focusing on the relationship between Obama's memoir and African-American autobiography, I also examine the links between postcolonial life writing and contemporary theory in relation to both Dreams from My Father and Obama's Presidential acceptance speech. The article aims to contribute to contemporary re-theorisations of the meaning of postcolonial that seek to expand the notion of a postcolonial canon to include not only the subject at the ‘periphery' but also those at the ‘centre' in the twenty-first century. Obama articulates a transnational and collective consciousness in his attempt to accommodate difference and the individual.

Development of Behçet’s disease in a Caucasian with human leukocyte antigen B51 after immigration to Japan

We herein report a 32-year-old Caucasian woman with human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-B51 who developed Behçet's disease after immigration to Japan. She was born and raised in Finland and had never experienced any clinical symptoms related to Behçet's disease before immigration to Japan. None of her family members in Finland had similar problems. Two years after the immigration, she developed typical clinical symptoms of Behçet's disease. This report strongly supports the canonical notion that the interaction of genetic factors, such as HLA-B51, with environmental factors specific to the countries in the Silk Road area, including Japan, may play a pivotal role in the pathogenesis of this disorder.

John Thelwall and the Politics of Sympathy

AbstractJohn Thelwall's diverse achievements in the fields of literature, science and politics have been read as the reason for his omission from the Romantic literary canon. But Thelwall’s scientific research arms him with a unique understanding of the connections between these disciplines, which upset the very notion of canonicity. Thelwall’s model of sympathy, developed in hisEssay Towards a Definition of Animal Vitality(1791) offers a physiological understanding of the term which he applies to radical effect in his literary and political works. For Thelwall, sympathy is the physical force through which one organ of the body is inextricably connected with the rest. This physical model radicalises the sentimental tropes Thelwall employs inThe Peripatetic(1793), where benevolence is figured as an instinctive impulse. In Thelwall’s political lectures, sympathy is an index of solidarity, but its rational, material basis offers a riposte to charges that Thelwall seeks to exploit the unruly energies of his audience. Thelwall figures sympathy instead as the medium for his political ideal, the diffusion of information and ideas.

Strange Likeness: The Use of Old English in Twentieth-Century Poetry. Chris Jones . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Pp. x+266.

Strange Likeness: The Use of Old English in Twentieth-Century Poetry. Chris Jones . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Pp. x+266.

Old Landmarks, New Landscapes

Old Landmarks, New Landscapes

The Classic: Sainte-Beuve and the Nineteenth-Century Culture Wars by Christopher Prendergast

MLR, 104.4, 2009 1151 the author's journey to the sources of the Senegal and Gambia rivers in 1818. A naval position enables Mollien to travel to Africa and may also account for his occasional observations on opportunities for colonial expansion or commercial exploitation. Yet, the dominant tone of the text does not echo contemporary, Eu rocentric discourses of alterity, but is rather suggestive of a mode of encounter more readily associated with later travellers writing against colonialist paradigms of intercultural contact. By virtue of travellingwithout a European companion, for example, Mollien's contact with indigenous peoples is unmediated. This disrupts the conventional investment of power and control in the European, forMollien is largely dependent on the hospitality of those he meets for food, shelter, or the right to passage. Only items such as coral or tobacco offer him a commodity with which to bargain. The processes of encounter are thus not unilateral?the white European does not discover the black African?but are based, rather, on ex change. By extension, theEuropean becomes the object of the exotic gaze, regarded with hostility or hilarity, but always curiosity. This curiosity is reciprocated in the textual narrative, but not inways that other' the peoples encountered. Rather, Mollien resists homogenization by reporting in detail the customs, codes, beliefs, and landscapes of each individual tribe, as well as explicitly contesting colonialist stereotypes ofAfricans as cruel and uncivilized. Indeed, Mollien frequently estab lishes commonality between Europeans and Africans. His interpersonal encounters may result inboth celebratory and condemnatory vignettes of individuals, but this coexistence suggests balance, a willingness to look beyond monolithic preconcep tions. The text also offers a captivating tale of adventure, danger, and suspense. It opens with Mollien being shipwrecked on theMeduse and reaches its close with a rapid succession of threats on his life,with a perfidious guide, and grave illness. A highly informative introduction into the history of exploration in West Africa prefaces Mollien's narrative, including such fascinating, but little-known, facts as the Chinese trade in West Africa as early as that of fifteenth-centuryPor tuguese explorers. The availability ofMollien's narrative to a wider audience in the form of this new edition ismost welcome. The textwill be of considerable interest to those working in the fields of travelwriting and colonial/postcolonial studies. Cardiff University Margaret Topping The Classic: Sainte-Beuve and theNineteenth-Century Culture Wars. By Christo pher Prendergast. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2007. x+3i5pp. ?60. ISBN 978-0-19-921585-0. Many French scholars know by sight the several feet of shelf space occupied by the twenty-nine volumes of Sainte-Beuve's Causeries du lundi and Nouveaux lundis; some have dipped into these volumes in pursuit of a particular article or illumi nating comment; few have examined them in their own right.Moreover, on first reading Christopher Prendergast's introduction, one may indeed wonder why the 1152 Reviews mere fact of saving a set of Lundis, cast offby his college library, should have led him to bother with a writer with whose anti-democratic views he patently feels so little sympathy. Yet, as this study convincingly shows, Sainte-Beuve, though increasingly slippery, reactionary, and sycophantic in his conversations' with his Second Empire newspaper readers, stands nevertheless as amajor cultural figure of nineteenth-century France, reflecting and inflecting the intellectual debates of his day, as he engages in an ultimately vain attempt to shore up the belletrist notion of an elite French-inspired cultural canon against the democratizing German-led discourses of comparative philology, comparative mythology, and ethnography. Discussion of twentyyears' worth of articles (1848-68), covering a huge variety of authors, topics, periods, and places, presents amajor analytical and scholarly chal lenge. Prendergast's clear central argument starts by skilfully steering the reader through Sainte-Beuve's paradoxical conception of the classic as a phenomenon simultaneously universal and specifically French, rooted in the great writers of classical Latinity, notably Virgil, and carried forward through theMiddle Ages and theRenaissance to a new flowering in the great seventeenth-century authors of Le Roi-Soleil. It then considers the nineteenth-century challenges which this comfort ing notion of the classic aims to counter and contain: the intellectual competition...