Unchanging Nature Research Articles

Commons, Coase, and the Unchanging Nature of the Social Provisioning Process

:We compare the analytical approach of John R. Common and Ronald H. Coase to institutional analysis and social provisioning. In particular, we examine their similarities in (i) the definition and role of institutions in the economy, (ii) the allocative (social provisioning) role of institutions in the economy, and (iii) the inescapable and unchanging role of institutions in shaping the social provisioning process. We contend that Commons and Coase had more in common than did Coase and many of his followers in the “new institutional economics.” In particular, the two had strong similarities in both (a) their insights into the nature of institutions in the legal-economic nexus that is the foundation of the economy and (b) their methods for conducting economics research. Because this role of institutional evolution is, as Warren Samuels noted, an inescapable and unchanging part of an economy’s social provisioning process, it will remain an integral part of any such work in the future, regardless of the “school of analysis” or methodological approach.

The changing and unchanged nature of inequality and seniority in Japan

Wage inequality declined in the 1990s, while it increased in the 2000s for full-time male workers in Japan. We find that a decreased return to firm-specific human capital, which has been neglected in previous empirical analyses of inequality, is a key factor preventing a rise in wage inequality during the prolonged period of economic stagnation, known as Japan’s lost decades. We also find that, while changes in returns to general and specific human capital contributed to narrowing wage inequality in the 1990s and widening wage inequality in the 2000s, a significant fraction of the increase in wage inequality in the 2000s is attributable to composition effects arising from an increased share of educated and experienced workers, among whom wages are more dispersed.

Free-volume Study in GeS2-Ga2S3-CsCl Chalcohalide Glasses Using Positron Annihilation Technique

Positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy combined with Doppler broadening of annihilation radiation was applied to study free-volume entities in Ge-Ga-S glasses having different amount of CsCl additives. It is shown that the structural changes caused by CsCl additives can be adequately described by positron trapping modes determined within two-state model. The results testify in a favor of rather unchanged nature of corresponding free-volume voids responsible for positron trapping in the studied glasses, when mainly concentration of these traps is a subject to most significant changes with composition.

Socio-Political Commitment in Seamus Heaney's Poetry

In recent times, various critics and theorists have problematized the concept of a literary artifact as expressing an unchanging human nature. No utterance is now considered innocuous. All cultural expressions are related to the social and political context. Current theories have displaced the liberal humanist concept of ‘universal’ literature. Even the works that have no overt political overtones are held to be political. In this paper, I shall examine this relationship between poetry and politics in Heaney's poetry and try to decipher, with the aid of textual analysis, Heaney's approach towards poetry as politics.

Iranian Exilic Poetry in Australia: Reinventing the Third Space

I've wrapped the moon's head in a scarf,slipped the bracelets of the world on her wrists,rested my head on the gypsy sky's shoulderand goodbye . . . (Talebi, Belonging 161)AN IRANIAN POET SETS OFF TO AUSTRALIA AND STARTS HER JOURNEY WITH THESE words. Her long poem, alternating between the Iranian and the Australian spaces, tells about the possibilities of reinventing the Self into exile, for herself and her generation.Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran and the ensuing economic, political, and intellectual restrictions, a significant number of Iranian writers have settled abroad, primarily in Western countries. Approximately one million Iranians have migrated to North America, Europe, and Australia. Around 35,000 Iranians now live in Australia (Census Explorer). Some were already writers in Iran and continued their work in the diaspora; some started to write in their new country; some write in Persian and some in English or other European languages. In-betweenness is a common theme that runs through exilic Iranian texts, but this is expressed differently depending on the writer's relation to his/her host country, to the homeland, and to the diasporic space. This feeling of in-betweenness comes to create a Third Space that is emblematic of contemporary Iranian writings and to a large extent reflects diasporic writing. This article will question how the transnational movement of Iranian writers cements the Third Space and will bring new findings to the concept of Third Space as applied to Australia.It will focus on the poems of Grânâz Moussavi, a well-known young poet living in Australia, who travels and forth between Australia and Iran. She is a representative of her generation of young diasporic writers, integrated into the Iranian literary milieu, and to a lesser extent into the Australian one, unique in her kind in Australia as most Iranian writers who keep in touch with the Iranian cultural scene live in Europe or North America. Moussavi was born in 1974 in Tehran. She has so far published four collections of poems, the latest in 2011 being self-published. Her poetry has been translated and published in French, English, Swedish, Spanish, Portuguese, and Kurdish. She migrated to Australia in 1997, graduated in Film studies from Flinders Lkiiversity, then obtained a PhD from the Lkiiversity of Western Sydney. She is also a filmmaker and her first feature film λ/fy Tehran for Sale, released in 2010, is the first feature coproduction between Iran and Australia. It was screened in many international film festivals. She frequently visits Iran and returned to live there between 2006 and 2009 (Moussavi, personal communication). This and forth is reflected in her poetry, which is about her living between two worlds and her constant longing and belonging. Through Moussavi's poetry, will show that the Third Space created by her displacement does not dissolve the Self in multiple identities. Moussavi's poems help to give new meaning to the Third Space and original perspectives on it by offering it as a way to implement the continuity of her Self and her belonging to an unchanging nature, far from national belongings.Many Iranian writers cannot go to their homeland, due to fears of persecution, and live in a perpetual state of exile. Even though Moussavi often goes to Iran, she does not envision a grand homecoming. Fier poems make clear that, in the present situation, she will not relocate to Iran. her poem Denunciation in the collection Barefoot Till Morning, she writes,1Let's go with giant leapTo any city of the world and that on our cheeks the stamp of exileNot be a shame (88)But at the same time, she concludes her poem Bell with the line I want to go back (27), and she repeats it at the beginning of one of her latest poems, In the Phone Booth:I want to go backAll my months are travelAll of them (Red Memories 44)Because of her constant longing for Iran, one can also argue that she is an exile, according to Flamid Naficy's definition: What turns an emigre, expatriate, refugee, immigrant, or a person in diaspora into an exile is this double relationship to location: physically located in one place while dreaming of an unrealizable return to another (Naficy 17). …

“I AM has sent me to you:” How Thomas Aquinas’ understanding of the divine names illuminates the way in which he reconciles impassibility and compassion in God

Contemporary debates on divine impassibility generally offer two options: either affirm a suffering God who loves and cares, or uphold an impassible God who turns a blind eye to the cries of his people. For Thomas Aquinas, divine impassibility (along with the other divine attributes: simplicity, infinity, immutability, etc.) is not inconsonant with divine compassion. God’s unchangeable nature affirms, not undermines, God’s ability to love. This paper, acknowledging the inadequacy of these two incomplete and dichotomous categorizations, will argue that Thomas’ understanding of the divine names in the Summa Theologiae, 1a, q. 13 illuminates the way in which he reconciles impassibility and compassion in God.It is not the goal of this paper to defend either the idea that God does or does not suffer, nor to affirm or deny the doctrine of divine impassibility on a scale any larger than the work of Thomas and selected contemporary scholars who assist in the project of unpacking and analyzing his thought. It is the goal of this paper to examine in as close a way as possible how Thomas’ defense of divine impassibility can be placed in dialogue with his understanding of the way that humans know and name God, ultimately revealing the inadequacy in the polarizing assumption that an immutable God cannot love.I will begin by analyzing the structure and implications of Thomas’ defense of divine impassibility in Question 9. This will be followed by an analysis of how, in Thomas’ understanding, human knowledge of God, including God’s attribute of impassibility, affects human capacity to name God, here drawing heavily on the insights David Burrell. I will then explore the theological and scriptural implications of Thomas’ assertion that “The One Who Is” is the most appropriate name for God, ultimately arguing that an understanding of the Hebrew scripture from which this name is drawn reveals that God’s love and compassion on behalf of his suffering people is not opposed to but rather relies upon his unchanging nature.

Challenging the ‘urban myth’ of psychopathy untreatability: the High-Risk Personality Programme

Psychopathy has long been framed as a special challenge in criminal justice contexts, in part due to the supposedly untreatable nature of psychopathic offenders. Indeed, previous failed attempts to ‘treat’ this particular group have resulted in a widespread pessimism about treatment efficacy amongst correctional professionals. This pessimism has focused on the inherent unchangeable nature of psychopathic traits, especially those associated with Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) Factor 1 items and the challenge of developing an effective therapeutic alliance with hostile, manipulative offenders. It is argued that this negative stance is neither unanimous nor justified because of poor consistency of population definition and methodological problems with structural and functional attributes of traditional treatment approaches. This article describes an experimental intervention – the High-Risk Personality Programme (HRPP) – a New Zealand prison-based group intensive treatment programme designed to reduce violence with a psychopathic group, and create opportunities to devise rehabilitative solutions with a challenging group.

Possible left endoventricular myxoma in a patient with deep vein thrombosis of the lower limbs: a case report

Introduction: We describe an unusual case of left ventricular myxoma associated with deep vein thrombosis (DVT). Materials and methods: A 79-year-old woman was admitted with bilateral proximal DVT that developed while she was on warfarin. The anticoagulant therapy had been started (after 2 weeks of low-molecular weight heparin) 1 month earlier in a Cardiologic Unit, where the patient had been treated for ‘‘left ventricular thrombosis associated with acute pericarditis’’. After discharge, the patient continued to experience malaise, recurrent dizziness, dyspnea, flushing, and progressively severe leg swelling despite transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) findings of normal left ventricular function. She was finally admitted to our Unit for ultrasound studies for possible DVT. On admission the INR was in the therapeutic range with increased C-reactive protein (CRP), thrombocytopenia, mild anemia, anti-PF4 antibodies, lupus anticoagulant (LAC), a positive direct Coombs test, and mildly increased anti-platelet and anticardiolipin antibody levels. Malignancy, SLE, and inherited thrombophilia were excluded by a broad-spectrum instrumental and laboratory investigation. Since heparin-induced-thrombocytopenia could not be excluded, the warfarin was replaced with fondaparinux (7.5 mg/day). Given the persistence on TTE of a ‘‘small floating mass’’ at the left ventricular apex, we suspected the previously diagnosed thrombosis was actually an unusually located myxoma, and this diagnosis was confirmed by CT and MRI. The patient also had markedly increased serum levels of interleukin 6 (IL-6), regarded by many as a marker of cardiac myxoma and the source of the constitutional symptoms and immunologic features (‘‘activity’’) of these lesions. The patient is now well except for recurrent flushing episodes. The IL-6 level is still high although the ESR, CRP, LAC have normalized. Since isolated IL-6 increases are associated with recurrence in PMR patients, we consider our patient at risk for relapse of systemic illness. Results: Three cases of cardiac myxoma associated with DVT have been reported. Myxoma production of IL-6 could explain the extracardiac symptoms and the inflammatory/autoimmune activation that caused the DVT. Discussion: Although histologic confirmation is lacking, the features of this case strongly suggest an atypical-site myxoma, in particular the concordant findings generated by the various diagnostic exams and unchanging nature of the ventricular lesion during follow-up.

Folk devils and racist imaginaries in a global prism: Islamophobia and anti-Semitism in the twenty-first century

Rather than discourse this article argues that the challenge facing anti-racist scholars is to grasp the visceral, atavistic nature of the differential social imaginaries and deep-seated psychological fears of difference and sameness that constitute contemporary racisms and their historical mutations. Is it the case, as Said argued, that essentialized, contrastive racist constructions of Islam and Judaism persist over many centuries or is it possible that current affairs – globally transmitted violent encounters such as 9/11 or the Gaza Cast Lead operation – can transform racist imaginaries about the essential and unchanging nature of protagonists, Jewish and Muslims, and in doing so, unconsciously reverse earlier stereotypes? Depicting three paradigmatic racist folk devils, the paper examines the particular conundrums associated with anti-Zionism and its equation with the ‘new’ anti-Semitism. It concludes by exploring the implications of self-critique in seeking peace between Muslims and Jews.

From Melancholia to Prozac: A History of Depression by Clark Lawlor

Health & History ● 15/2 ● 2013 125 what they believed was a contagious disease, Chapter 3 argues that in actual practice, army doctors drew on both western medical practices and traditional medicine to treat their patients. In this way, the book also provides a window to the transition from East Asian traditional medicine to scientific medicine, and evidence of medical pluralism (which continues to this day.) In 1921, Ōmori Kenta, professor of medicine at Keiō University Medical School presented his research findings that beriberi was caused by a lack of vitamin B in the diet (Chapter 5). After continued resistance, by 1939, the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s Department of Public Health and Prevention moved to standardise rice milling to ensure that people received enough of the vitamin. The outbreak of war with China in 1937 meant that the Japanese government had to take decisive action (Chapter 6). This book is arguably one of the most significant studies published in English on the history of Japanese medicine since William Johnston’s magisterial study of The Modern Epidemic: A History of Tuberculosis in Japan (Cambridge, Mass: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1995). It is engagingly written, with each chapter beginning with an historical episode that throws light on the concerns of each chapter. The content is very accessible with no prior knowledge of Japan or medicine required. At the same time, it offers a sophisticated study of a complex topic. As the author so convincingly shows, at stake was not only the lives of soldiers, the health of the nation, and the good of the empire, but also scholarly reputations. MORRIS LOW UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND Clark Lawlor, From Melancholia to Prozac: A History of Depression (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). ISBN 978 0 19 958579 3 (HC). xi + 265pp. This elegantly written book begins by vividly describing the lifelong miseries of body and mind that afflicted Samuel Johnson, the great eighteenth-century lexicographer and critic. Physically Johnson was a large man who suffered from a multiplicity of ailments that ‘gave a gloomy cast to his whole course of thinking’. He was also haunted by the events of his childhood, the terrors of which we can 126 BOOK REVIEWS only guess. Visiting the town of his birthplace, the aged and ailing Johnson alarmed friends by visiting a local market place, where he stood a considerable time in the cold, pouring rain, doing penance for refusing to look after his bookseller father’s stall, when it stood on the same spot over fifty years before. Much of the first half of this book draws on a variety of texts, from the Graeco-Roman era to our own times, to fashion equally engaging and sympathetic portraits of men and women tortured by the anxiety and overwhelming sadness that we now know as depression. Chapter 1 explores a range of Greek literary and medical texts, focusing in particular on the Galenic tradition of accounting for abnormal behaviour as stemming from humoural imbalances within the bodily economy. The author also draws attention to the long-lasting idea that melancholy was all too often essential to genius, having its origins in Aristotelian thought. They note too that with Christianity, depressive illness additionally came to be understood in terms of personal consciousness of sin and attendant fears of damnation. Chapter 2 traces discursive representations of melancholia during the early modern period, drawing attention to the persistent, but not unchanging nature, of Galenic psychology and the Aristotelian notion of melancholy as essential to intellectual and artistic creativity. The chapter convincingly uses the dramatic example of Hamlet to illustrate the complexities of accounting for anxiety and sadness by the early sixteenth century. Chapter 3 covers relatively well-known ground, explaining how the new physics of the seventeenth century informed the way in which the nature and causation of profound sadness and anxiety were understood in western European scientific and wider intellectual circles. Older, Galenic humouralist physiology was now synthesised with perceptions of the body as essentially a mechanical system, animated by the same forces sustaining observable regularities in the physical universe. By the mid-eighteenth century, this explanatory framework had undergone an important shift to encompass the idea...

Specifika koncepta praznine v zenu in nespremenljiva narava sebstva

Osnova zena je budistična modrost, kar pomeni spoznanje in izkušnjo budistične praznine. To vodi v prebujenje in razsvetljenje. Zen se smatra za sintezo budističnih, daoističnih in konfucijanskih elementov. Zaradi tega uporaba daoističnih in konfucijanskih terminov v zenu pogosto privede do napačnega razumevanja budistične praznine. Praznina ne pomeni popolne praznine, ampak to, da vse stvari nastanejo skozi soodvisni izvor in so minljive, zato nimajo v sebi nespremenljive narave sebstva. Kljub temu velja, da je koncept praznine težko dojeti in da lahko vodi napačno razumevanje koncepta v nihilističen pogled na svet in v neupoštevanje etičnih smernic.

Possibile mixoma endoventricolare sinistro in paziente con TVP degli arti inferiori: considerazioni da un caso clinico

Summary Introduction We describe an unusual case of left ventricular myxoma associated with deep vein thrombosis (DVT). Materials and methods A 79-year-old woman was admitted with bilateral proximal DVT that developed while she was on warfarin. The anticoagulant therapy had been started (after 2 weeks of low-molecular weight heparin) 1 month earlier in a Cardiologic Unit, where the patient had been treated for “left ventricular thrombosis associated with acute pericarditis”. After discharge, the patient continued to experience malaise, recurrent dizziness, dyspnea, flushing, and progressively severe leg swelling despite transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) findings of normal left ventricular function. She was finally admitted to our Unit for ultrasound studies for possible DVT. On admission the INR was in the therapeutic range with increased C-reactive protein (CRP), thrombocytopenia, mild anemia, anti-PF4 antibodies, lupus anticoagulant (LAC), a positive direct Coombs test, and mildly increased anti-platelet and anticardiolipin antibody levels. Malignancy, SLE, and inherited thrombophilia were excluded by a broad-spectrum instrumental and laboratory investigation. Since heparin-induced-thrombocytopenia could not be excluded, the warfarin was replaced with fondaparinux (7.5 mg/day). Given the persistence on TTE of a “small floating mass” at the left ventricular apex, we suspected the previously diagnosed thrombosis was actually an unusually located myxoma, and this diagnosis was confirmed by CT and MRI. The patient also had markedly increased serum levels of interleukin 6 (IL-6), regarded by many as a marker of cardiac myxoma and the source of the constitutional symptoms and immunologic features (“activity”) of these lesions. The patient is now well except for recurrent flushing episodes. The IL-6 level is still high although the ESR, CRP, LAC have normalized. Since isolated IL-6 increases are associated with recurrence in PMR patients, we consider our patient at risk for relapse of systemic illness. Results Three cases of cardiac myxoma associated with DVT have been reported. Myxoma production of IL-6 could explain the extracardiac symptoms and the inflammatory/autoimmune activation that caused the DVT. Discussion Although histologic confirmation is lacking, the features of this case strongly suggest an atypical-site myxoma, in particular the concordant findings generated by the various diagnostic exams and unchanging nature of the ventricular lesion during follow-up.

Quantitative Measurement of Mass Transport Using Vortex Rings

Basic experiments were performed to investigate the use of vortex rings as a means to transport a small amount of fluid. The compact and unchanging nature of vortex rings is suitable to obtain high-density distribution of the transported fluid within a specific confined region. A certain amount of fluid in a cylinder was discharged into a quiescent fluid in the water tank by a piston through an orifice 20.0 mm in diameter. The fluid distributions transported by a set of 10 vortex rings, by 20 vortex rings, and by a single, short puff-like jet were quantitatively analyzed and compared. For all ejection conditions, the total volume of discharged fluid and the average ejection velocity through the orifice are the same (78.5×104 mm3 and 125 mm/s, respectively). The particle count method was used to quantitatively measure the distribution of the transported fluid. As a result, the vortex rings were found to be superior to the single short discharge for transporting a fluid to obtain a high density distribution in a narrow region.

근린공원 시설유형에 따른 이용실태 및 만족도에 관한 연구

In this study this author made research and analysis on physical status and characteristics of community parks in Ik-san provinces and also depending on its potential resources such parks were classified into constructed parks and unconstructed parks and status of use of such parks and level of satisfaction were studied. Through this paper this author strived to provide basic data required for forming green track of land for the parks. Required time for visiting community parks either constructed or unconstructed type was within 40 minutes or less. However constructed parks appeared to be more convenient for access in comparison with natural unconstructed parks. Mostly they were used by residents in neighboring community and also residents in the area around it were found as using it frequently. At the time of using community parks either constructed or unconstructed types means of access were mostly by walking or by riding bicycles. Thus considering large number of users of such parks are from neighboring community it appeared that parks with its simplicity and convenience in terms of distance and with rich nature were preferred by users rather than large scale parks at distance. In terms of time frame of use and motivation of visit constructed parks were used mainly for exercise and relaxation in the morning at parks and its facilities whereas un constructed parks were mostly used in the afternoon for for walking and chatting and rest under with time to spare at shadows of its trees. Time spent at parks were composed mostly of rest and walking more frequently than exercise and leisure activity thus it was different from motivation for visiting parks. As for evaluation of use of parks natural elements, unique environment, trees and lawns featured highly in unconstructed parks in comparison with constructed parks. Thus it seemed visitors are more conscious of forest and landscape in a form of unchanged nature. Thus for community parks first consideration should be heightening accessibility in view of primary concern for convenience by users rather than facilities or environmental conditions.

Burial, Baptism, and Baseball: Typology and Memorialization in Marilynne Robinson'sGilead

It avails not, time nor place--distance avails not. --Walt Whitman, Crossing Brooklyn Ferry The Rev. John Ames knows he is dying. His challenge is to record his memories so that his young son can his begats and learn the life lessons of a father he barely has time to know (Robinson, Gilead 75, 133). Marilynne Robinson's novel Gilead, (1) told in Ames' voice, is the story of a man sifting, analyzing, and categorizing memories to fight the true enemy--not physical death, but linear time and the inevitable process of forgetting. He describes the problem by quoting a stanza of Isaac Watts' 1719 hymn, O, God, Our Help in Ages Past: Time, an ever-rolling stream, Bears all its sons away; They fly forgotten, as a dream Dies at the opening day. (103) These lines, quoted frequently on American tombstones of the eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, are especially appropriate for a novel full of burials, from literal graves for bodies, Bibles, hymnals, and guns to the narrator's burial of a story that hovers over Ames' life until he resurrects it in the second half of the book. Ritualized burial, of course, is not so much a matter of disposal as of memorialization: a way to attach the abstract to the concrete and thus fix it in time and space so that it is always at hand. Memorialization--the physical presence of a tombstone, for example--ensures that what time bears away is not, indeed, forgotten. The rest of Watts' hymn also counters the mutability of physical life by imagining personal identity subsumed eventually within the unchanging nature of an eternal God, who, as Ames says later, holds the whole of lives in (115). And herein is a paradox: both memorialization and theology suggest that the only way to preserve the memory of a life may be to lose it in collective memory, a process that Ames resists rather decisively. If the end of human life means the unalloyed joy of what Watts calls our eternal home in God, Ames is skeptical. He is not willing to believe we will forget sorrow altogether. That would mean forgetting that we had lived, humanly speaking (104). In other words, he can come to grips with being gone, but not with forgetting or being forgotten. And so he engages in an act of creation that echoes the mythic narratives of Genesis 1 and 2, in which God creates the world with words. Quoting George Herbert a few pages later, Ames acknowledges that Preservation is a Creation, and more, it is a continued Creation, and a Creation every moment (111). Writing, a sacred act that has always felt to Ames like praying, both creates his life in all its singularity and situates it within the eternal (19). Like prayer, writing allows mortals to commune with the immortal. As Ames tells his son, you read this, I am imperishable (53). Looking at it another way, writing mediates between what Laura Tanner calls the textured particularity of Ames' daily existence in time and his that daily life can also be part of an eternal realm in which time has no sway. This mediation process raises two questions: How does a person facing death experience life in a meaningful way? and How does a person immersed in savoring his last days face death in its most horrifying form, the possibility of ceasing to exist even in memory? Tanner is interested in the first question and I in the second. She describes the way Ames' perception sharpens and slows so that his senses function with greater clarity and time seems to slow down, a compensatory process neuroscientists associate with the old or gravely ill people facing their own death. She notes that this heightened allows Ames to live in the concrete world even while he is building memories by translating his life into abstract typological patterns, (229-33). (2) By typological patterns I assume she means those biblical stories such as the Exodus that often serve Christians as a shorthand version of human experience--what some might see as the substitution of a cliche for thoughtful reflection. …

The Geometry of God by Uzma Aslam Khan

deeply disturbed woman. She is par ticularly aware of her own absurdi ties, how she pretended to be an emancipated woman, "a whole life inventing balls for myself/' Instead of being free, she has never rebelled against her chains. Her life has been a series of almosts: she almost refused to walk down the aisle to her wedding, she almost leaves her husband, she almost commits sui cide. Her narrative mixes the pres ent with unhappy memories of the past, of how her father made money during the war by taking the prop erty of Jews and her mother did not complain, of how her sons don't love her. Louise often loses control of her emotions: for no reason she calls a young man flirting with a young woman a liar and a dog; on the beach she deliberately throws a child's ball where it can't be found. Hospitalized with a possible cancer, she bites her husband when he kiss es her goodbye, then wonders why he does not come back to see her. After two months in the hos pital, Louise leaves without notice and wanders the streets, consorting with prostitutes and masturbating in sordid hotel rooms before returning to the apartment she shared with her husband. Anticorps is a humorous but cruel portrait of a woman unable to take charge of her own life. Adele King Paris Uzma Aslam Khan. The Geometry of God. Northampton, Massachusetts. Clockroot / Interlink. 2009. 384 pages. $18. isbn 978-1-56656-774-9 The Geometry of God is Pakistani writer Uzma Aslam Khan's fourth novel, and as an anglophone writer living in Pakistan and writing about the lives of Pakistani people, Khan distinguishes herself by her insis tence on using English as a language of aesthetic and literary expression, and not so much the language of a wanna-be Western ethos. Khan's fourth novel strikes us immediate ly as deeply rooted in the ancient and modern history of Pakistan, particularly its archaeological past since two of its major characters are paleontologists?Zahoor, the distinguished Darwinian scientist, and Amal, his granddaughter who becomes the first woman paleon tologist in Pakistan. Paleontology as a metaphor works especially well with this novel about transforma tions: the four main characters? Zahoor, Amal, her blind sister Mehwish, and their friend Noman? all undergo qualitative changes with each new relationship with the world sedimenting into a collective well of humility for the sheer fact of their existence at all. Zahoor cau tions Amal as they walk the old city streets of Lahore: "Search less for the designs of unchanging nature and more for the designs of unchanging men and women." In a prose at times eccentric and whimsical?as in Mehwish's pho nic transcription of the Urdu and English she hears around her?but always precise and poetic, The Geom etry of God traces the fortunes of the four characters and Pakistan from independence (1947) as an Islamic democracy through the military dic tatorship of General Zia and into contemporary times. The geometry of God is an apt metaphor, not mere ly for the blending of science and faith that animates the central con flict in the plot but also for the lov ing spatiotemporal handling of the Pakistani landscape?from the inner courtyards and crowded cities to the Nota Bene Ma?ssa Bey Above All, Don't Look Back Senja L Djelouah, tr. University of Virginia Press A fictionalized account of the aftermath of the 2003 Algerian earthquake, Bey's novel follows a woman as she "makes her way though a city, a life, and a sense of self " destroyed by catastrophe. Adrian Castro Handling Destiny Coffee House A Cuban-Dominican poet and If? priest, Castro's third collection of poetry combines English/Spanish, and Yor.uba. One of his previous works was a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice selection. July - August 2010 i 63 WORLD LITERATURE IN REVIEW ^^ ^^^^^ ^H I Salt Ranges of Punjab as well as the reduction of all this expanse into the eccentric and mystical "boxes" that the blind Mehwish makes for each person she encounters. The novel is divided into five chapters or "Gate...

On The Conquest of Human Nature: Ancients, Moderns—Medievals, Futures

“The modern project was originated as required by nature (natural right), i.e. it was originated by philosophers; the project was meant to satisfy in the most perfect manner the most powerful natural needs of men; nature was to be conquered for the sake of man who himself was supposed to possess a nature, an unchangeable nature; the originators of the project took it for granted that philosophy and science are identical. After some time it appeared that the conquest of nature requires the conquest of human nature and hence in the first place the questioning of the unchangeability of human nature: an unchangeable human nature might set absolute limits to progress. Accordingly, the natural needs of men could no longer direct the conquest of nature; the direction had to come from reason as distinguished from nature, from the rational Ought as distinguished from the neutral Is.” — Leo Strauss 1 “We must take a look at the foundations of the modern age. These are with particular clarity in the thought of Francis Bacon. That a new era emerged—through the discovery of America and the new technical achievements that had made this development possible—is undeniable. But what is the basis of this new era? It is the new correlation of experiment and method that enables man to arrive at an interpretation of nature in conformity with its laws and thus finally to achieve ‘the triumph of art over nature’ (victoria cursus artis super naturam). The novelty—according to Bacon’s vision—lies in a new correlation between science and praxis. This is also given a theological application: the new correlation between science and praxis would mean that the dominion over creation—given to man by God and lost through original sin—would be reestablished.” — Benedict XVI 2

Color contrast processing in human striate cortex

Color constancy refers to the unchanging nature of the perceived color of an object despite considerable variation in the wavelength composition of the light illuminating it. The color contrasts between objects and their backgrounds play a crucial role in color constancy. We tested a patient whose right striate cortex had been removed and demonstrated that he made no use of color contrast in judging color appearance but instead made judgments based simply on wavelength comparison. This was shown by presenting pairs of colored stimuli against a background color that gradually changed across space. When presented with such displays, both normal observers and those with cerebral achromatopsia (cortical color blindness) judge the color appearance of such stimuli on the basis of the chromatic contrast the stimuli make against their background rather than on the physical wavelengths of the light emitted from them. However, our patient made no such use of color contrast but, instead, made color discriminations simply on the basis of wavelength composition. This is consistent with recent findings from monkey electrophysiology that identify cells in early cortical visual areas that signal local contrast and so contribute to the likely mechanism for achieving color constancy.

Conjugal America: on the public purposes of marriage

The institution of marriage has become perilously weak in America. Changes in law over past three decades, such as spread of no-fault divorce and broad acquiescence to cultures of divorce and intentional childlessness, have stripped traditional marriage of important legal supports. Half of all marriages end in divorce and just as many are childless. Conjugal America seeks to recapture real purposes of marriage and unchanging nature of this most vital and fundamental human institution.Confronting contemporary issues and drawing heavily on natural and social sciences, each chapter also reaches into past to find truths grounded in human experience. Carlson reexamines basic bond of marriage to procreation, showing that this tie has been no less than foundation of unwritten sexual of Western civilization. He also shows how Gnostic heresy, which despises procreation, posed a stark danger to early Christian movement and to the sexual constitution of our own time as well. He then dissects claims regarding evolution of showing that true marriage always represents vital connection of sexual with economic.Carlson explores political nature of marriage showing, why every ambitious totalitarian government seeks above all to destroy marriage, and why true marital bond actually stands for liberty. He concludes by arguing for necessity of marriage policy. Because both nature of centralizing state and pressures of modernity have altered family circumstances, new protections and encouragements to marriage are now imperative. Conjugal America will be central to new debate on marriage and its purposes. This book sees current moment as an opportunity to revitalize a necessary institution that has recently been abused and neglected and reinstate it as primary source of commitment and care in modern world.

Self-Control and Variability Over Time: Multivariate Results Using a 5-Year, Multisite Panel of Youths

Gottfredson and Hirschi claimed, as part of their general theory of crime, that a child’s criminal propensity, what they called level of self-control, is fairly fixed by age 10. Low self-control children, they further claimed, exhibit greater proclivities for delinquency and analogous behaviors than children with high levels of self-control. They see self-control levels for children at both ends of the spectrum—and their propensities for crime and analogous behaviors—as immutable over the life course. The authors explore the self-control levels, self-reported illegal behavior, and supporting attitudes exhibited by a panel of youths from in six cities at five points in time. Some of our findings substantiated Gottfredson and Hirschi’s claims (e.g., claims linking self-control, sex, and race or ethnicity); however, other findings are at odds with their theory (e.g., the unchanging nature of self-control). The authors review the implications of these findings for self-control theory.