Van Tuinen Research Articles

Foreword. Aesthetics and ontology in Etienne Souriau

Étienne Souriau was a refined and demanding thinker, with an aristocratic demeanour, far removed from the currents of ideas dominant in his time. A difficult and erudite author, out of tune with the times he lived in, he would seem the least likely candidate to appeal to a hurried and globalised public like that of the twenty-first century. A sophisticated representative of a rationalist positivism, no stranger to the Husserlian canon and not even insensitive to the motivations dear to the gnoseological debate of Cartesian and Kantian matrix (as well as to the major themes of classical metaphysics), Souriau pursues the ideal of a constructive philosophy, capable of understanding – and at the same time favouring – the advancement of the creative process conceived as a set of poetic acts and progressive dynamic operations. In his texts, Souriau is attentive to grasping the correspondences, exchanges and reciprocal transitions between one mode of existence and another, as well as the resonances between the various art forms in the different fields of knowledge, testing an original method that is epistemologically very fruitful.
 The aim of this monographic issue of Aisthesis dedicated to Étienne Souriau is to explore his thought in its multiple aspects, in order to measure its topicality in relation to the themes and problems that characterise contemporary philosophical debate, with particular reference to aesthetics and ontology as well as to the dense network of connections between the two fields. One of the most interesting characteristics of Souriau’s thought that has stood the test of time would appear to be its multifacetedness: the quality of lending itself to being applied even to spheres that are apparently very distant from reflection on art, such as cultural anthropology, political philosophy or morality. It seemed to us that it largely owes its relevance precisely to the intersections between one field of knowledge and another.
 The issue contains twelve contributions on Souriau that explore his main aspects in depth. They range from analyses devoted to the architecture of Souriau’s thought (his general philosophy) in the essays by Dominique Chateau and Filippo Domenicali, which can furnish a useful overall picture of the man, to essays that attempt to focus on the more properly ontological core of this thought, such as those devoted to the arabesque motif (Luigi Azzariti-Fumaroli), the theory of the soul (Sjoerd Van Tuinen) or the multiplicity of worlds (Noëlie Plé). Interspersed between these are contributions that focus more on the comparison between Étienne Souriau’s thought and the philosophers of his time, such as Dufrenne (Maryvonne Saison), or with well-known later philosophers who explicitly referred to him, prolonging his creative impetus, such as Gilles Deleuze (Casey Boyle) and Bruno Latour (Aline Wiame), the true architect of the current Souriau “comeback”. Finally, in addition to essays of a more theoretical nature, there are contributions that attempt to re-evaluate certain aspects of Souriau’s aesthetics, such as the fruitfulness of the cues that can come from his thought for the debate on animal aesthetics (Maddalena Mazzocut-Mis and Andrea Scanziani), or the possible topicality of his theory of forms (Isabelle Rieusset-Lemarie).
 In the “Miscellaneous” section, this issue hosts a number of studies that aim to explore the aesthetic implications of new technologies, the themes of ecological aesthetics, as well as to offer an unusual profile of Baumgarten.

Andrea Genre.

Andrea Genre.

What (not) to do with political emotions: a reply to van Tuinen

What (not) to do with political emotions: a reply to van Tuinen

Neoliberalism in Crisis: A review of The Politics of Debt: Essays and Interviews, edited by Sjoero Van Tuinen and Arjen Kleinherenbrink

Neoliberalism in CrisisA review of The Politics of Debt: Essays and Interviews, edited by Sjoero Van Tuinen and Arjen Kleinherenbrink Carey James Mickalites (bio) Van Tuinen, Sjoero, and Arjen Kleinherenbrink, editors. The Politics of Debt: Essays and Interviews. Zero Books, 2020. As I write this, governments the world over are calling boisterously for the "reopening" of global, national, and local markets in the face of the biggest pandemic since the 1918 influenza. The reasoning is familiar: work and consumption must return to recent levels of growth lest we slip into an unprecedented economic depression. Perhaps nowhere has this persistent and hysterical call been more pronounced than in the U.S., where sickly and irrational reactions to catastrophe have come to define the current regime. A healthy economy trumps public health. What we're witnessing is an insistence on the ultimate kind of debt: the demand for the sacrifice of countless human lives—particularly those lacking financial security of any kind—to prop up a fiction of economic and political credit. Of course, immediate history points to several indicators that make this fiction (and the burden it demands) both palpable and predictable. The dismantling of postwar public health protocols. The dangerous privatization of medical care. World leaders ignoring the advice of medical experts on the likelihood of a pandemic. Forced austerity. Gross polarization of wealth and access, such that the credit and health of the few are paid for by the debts and diseases of the many. All of this is deeply entrenched and familiar, its realities taking hold during the Reagan-Thatcher era and sticking while we collectively failed to consider structural change during and following the 2008 crash, instead letting our leaders bail out the culprits with public money. I could go on, but the point is that the "unprecedented" impact of COVID-19 is a symptom of the neoliberal policies that enslave governments and citizens to financial markets, in turn exacerbating one of the plainest contradictions of contemporary capitalism: the inevitability of the next crisis. At the risk of sounding like a historical (or hysterical) determinist, the current economic collapse was prepared for. If the coronavirus pandemic signifies the latest global crisis—and one in which finance markets and tech industries are ready to exploit threats to public health—then it also resoundingly affirms one of the key assertions running through van Tuinen and Kleinherenbrkink's The Politics of Debt: "more than a decade after the [2008] crisis, scholars, journalists and politicians alike agree that it is not a matter of if, but when the next crisis will hit" (11). The volume, consisting of six essays and five interviews, brings together the work of philosophers, economists, political scientists, and politicians to create a chorus of multidisciplinary voices that addresses the effects of the 2008 crash ten years on. (The volume was first published in 2018, and reissued in January 2020.) With the political normalization of debt at center stage, the editors, authors, and interviewees address the perils and supposed necessity of debt and crisis through historical, theoretical, and political-economic lenses. At first sight, the texts that make up The Politics of Debt may appear a fairly loose compendium. Topics include ancient and Christian moral injunctions against enforced debt; Hobbes and other early theories of sovereignty based on power as credit; genealogies of debt and guilt or sin à la Nietzsche; and the precarious financialization of every aspect of our political economies, public and private. Yet the book appears more unified when considered as part of a general intellectual trend on the left and center- (or liberal-) left that seeks to intervene in the injustices and contradictions of our contemporary political economy through historical and theoretical analyses. The Politics of Debt returns to the works of Foucault and Deleuze from the late 1970s and offers commentary on recent influential work by David Harvey, Wolfgang Streeck, Philip Mirowski, and Thomas Picketty, among others. Most of the essays and interviews share a few important assumptions and argumentative threads, at times by implication. Foremost is the specific historical entrenchment of neoliberal policy beginning in the 1960s, whose tendency to produce bubbles, crashes, mass unemployment and the like became all-too-evident...

Mannerism, Baroque, and Modernism: Deleuze and the Essence of Art

Going by the titles of his books, Deleuze has proposed two philosophical concepts for styles from art history: expressionism and baroque. It is true that he discusses many other notions from the history of style, but these are the only ones that are truly made to ‘exist in themselves’. Or might there be a third, buried like a wedge between its two neighboring concepts? Although the notion of mannerism recurs in several of Deleuze’s writings, it is never developed in any systematic way. Even in The Fold. Leibniz and the Baroque mannerism stays entirely subordinate to ‘its working relation with the baroque’. It is only in his last course at Vincennes, in which he draws a parallel between Michelangelo and Leibniz, that Deleuze wonders whether we possess ‘the means to give a certain philosophical consistency to the concept of mannerism’, which in addition he labels ‘the most evident, the most certain theme of our investigations this year’. My aim is to render mannerism separable again from the baroque. This will be done by putting attempts in art history and art criticism to give a definition of mannerism in interference with a close-reading of key passages in Deleuze’s work, especially from The Fold and Francis Bacon. The Logic of Sensation. From the concept of the ‘Figure’ developed in the latter, I will distillate an initial concept of mannerism as an art that proceeds by way of diagrammatic deformation. Subsequently, I will compare this concept to Deleuze’s concept of the Baroque (the ‘fold taken to infinity’) and argue that, while the baroque pushes the anti-classical and revolutionary ‘catastrophe’ of mannerism to the extreme, it simultaneously and paradoxically forms a conservative and restorative reaction to it. It is by exploring mannerism’s ‘very particular relations’ with the baroque, finally, that we can also discover in mannerism a precursor to 20 th century modernism and in Deleuze’s modernist allegiance several neo-mannerist tendencies. Mannerism, Baroque, and Modernism: Deleuze and the Essence of Art Sjoerd van Tuinen, 2012, Erasmus University Rotterdam

Taxonomic recommendations for British birds: Fourth report

Taxonomic recommendations for British birds: Fourth report

Constraining calibrations properly: reply to Hedges, Kumar and van Tuinen

Constraining calibrations properly: reply to Hedges, Kumar and van Tuinen

Ion Regulation of Homotypic Vacuole Fusion in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Biological membrane fusion employs divalent cations as protein cofactors or as signaling ligands. For example, Mg2+ is a cofactor for the N-ethylmaleimide-sensitive factor (NSF) ATPase, and the Ca2+ signal from neuronal membrane depolarization is required for synaptotagmin activation. Divalent cations also regulate liposome fusion, but the role of such ion interactions with lipid bilayers in Rab- and soluble NSF attachment protein receptor (SNARE)-dependent biological membrane fusion is less clear. Yeast vacuole fusion requires Mg2+ for Sec18p ATPase activity, and vacuole docking triggers an efflux of luminal Ca2+. We now report distinct reaction conditions where divalent or monovalent ions interchangeably regulate Rab- and SNARE-dependent vacuole fusion. In reactions with 5 mm Mg2+, other free divalent ions are not needed. Reactions containing low Mg2+ concentrations are strongly inhibited by the rapid Ca2+ chelator BAPTA. However, addition of the soluble SNARE Vam7p relieves BAPTA inhibition as effectively as Ca2+ or Mg2+, suggesting that Ca2+ does not perform a unique signaling function. When the need for Mg2+, ATP, and Sec18p for fusion is bypassed through the addition of Vam7p, vacuole fusion does not require any appreciable free divalent cations and can even be stimulated by their chelators. The similarity of these findings to those with liposomes, and the higher ion specificity of the regulation of proteins, suggests a working model in which ion interactions with bilayer lipids permit Rab- and SNARE-dependent membrane fusion.

PALEOGENE FOSSILS AND THE RADIATION OF MODERN BIRDS

MODERN GENERA OF birds arose mainly in the Neogene Period (1.8-23.8 mya), and modern species mainly in the Plio-Pleistocene (0.08-5.3 mya). Neogene fossil birds generally resemble modern taxa, and those that cannot be attributed to a modern genus or species can usually be placed in a modern family with a fair degree of confidence (e.g. Becker 1987, Olson and Rasmussen 2001). Fossil birds from earlier in the Cenozoic can be more challenging to classify. The fossil birds of the Paleogene (23.8-65.5 mya) are clearly attributable to the Neornithes (modern birds), and the earliest well-established records of most traditional orders and families of modern birds occur then. But the fossils tend to be primitive and more difficult to seat phylogenetically within the Neornithes (Dyke and van Tuinen 2004). Not a few early Paleogene fossils have been said to exhibit a mosaic of characters associated with two or more traditional families or orders (e.g. Peters 1992, Feduccia 1999, Mayr 2003a). An excellent example is an Eocene bird referred to the Psittaciformes that lacks the specialized skull of parrots (Mayr 2005a). Paleontologists sometimes resort to describing primitive fossils as petrel-like or hoopoelike (for instance) without referring them to the corresponding modern families (e.g. Houde and Olson 1992; Feduccia and McPherson 1993; Mayr 2000a, 2003b). Nevertheless, the primitive fossils of the Paleogene provide the earliest firm records of such diverse modern radiations as ratites (Houde 1988), owls (Mourer-Chauvire' 1987, Peters 1992), waterfowl (Ericson 1997, Olson 1999, Dyke 2001), ibises (Peters 1983), penguins (see Clarke et al. 2003), galliforms (Mourer-Chauvire 1992, Mayr 2000b, Dyke and Gulas 2002), passerines (Mourer-Chauvire et al.

Yeast Mps1p Phosphorylates the Spindle Pole Component Spc110p in the N-terminal Domain

The yeast spindle pole body (SPB) component Spc110p (Nuf1p) undergoes specific serine/threonine phosphorylation as the mitotic spindle apparatus forms, and this phosphorylation persists until cells enter anaphase. We demonstrate that the dual-specificity kinase Mps1p is essential for the mitosis-specific phosphorylation of Spc110p in vivo and that Mps1p phosphorylates Spc110p in vitro. Phosphopeptides generated by proteolytic cleavage were identified and sequenced by mass spectrometry. Ser(60), Thr(64), and Thr(68) are the major sites in Spc110p phosphorylated by Mps1p in vitro, and alanine substitution at these sites abolishes the mitosis-specific isoform in vivo. This is the first time that phosphorylation sites of an SPB component have been determined, and these are the first sites of Mps1p phosphorylation identified. Alanine substitution for any one of these phosphorylated residues, in conjunction with an alanine substitution at residue Ser(36), is lethal in combination with alleles of SPC97, which encodes a component of the Tub4p complex. Consistent with a specific dysfunction for the alanine substitution mutations, simultaneous mutation of all four serine/threonine residues to aspartate does not confer any defect. Sites of Mps1p phosphorylation and Ser(36) are located within the N-terminal globular domain of Spc110p, which resides at the inner plaque of the SPB and binds the Tub4p complex.

New approaches to understanding p53 gene tumor mutation spectra

The first p53 gene mutation arising in a human tumor was described a decade ago by Baker et al. [S.J. Baker, E.R. Fearon, J.M. Nigro, S.R. Hamilton, A.C. Preisinger, J.M. Jessup, P. van Tuinen, D.H. Ledbetter, D.F. Barker, Y. Nakamura, R. White, B. Vogelstein, Chromosome 17 deletions and p53 gene mutations in colorectal carcinomas, Science 244 (1989) 217–221]. There are now over 10,000 mutations extracted from the published literature in the IARC database of human p53 tumor mutations [P. Hainaut, T. Hernandez, A. Robinson, P. Rodriguez-Tome, T. Flores, M. Hollstein, C.C. Harris, R. Montesano, IARC database of p53 gene mutations in human tumors and cell lines: updated compilation, revised formats and new visualization tools, Nucleic Acids Res. 26 (1998) 205–213; Version R3, January 1999]. A large and diverse collection of tumor mutations in cancer patients provides important information on the nature of environmental factors or biological processes that are important causes of human gene mutation, since xenobiotic mutagens as well as endogenous mechanisms of genetic change produce characteristic types of patterns in target DNA [J.H. Miller, Mutational specificity in bacteria, Annu. Rev. Genet. 17 (1983) 215–238; T. Lindahl, Instability and decay of the primary structure of DNA, Nature 362 (1993) 709–715; S.P. Hussain, C.C. Harris, Molecular epidemiology of human cancer: contribution of mutation spectra studies of tumor suppressor genes, Cancer Res. 58 (1998) 4023–4037; P. Hainaut, M. Hollstein, p53 and human cancer: the first ten thousand mutations, Adv. Cancer Res. 2000]. P53 gene mutations in cancers can be compared to point mutation spectra at the HPRT locus of human lymphocytes from patients or healthy individuals with known exposure histories, and accumulated data indicate that mutation patterns at the two loci share certain general features. Hypotheses regarding specific cancer risk factors can be tested by comparing p53 tumor mutations typical of a defined patient group against mutations generated experimentally in rodents or in prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells in vitro. Refinements of this approach to hypothesis testing are being explored that employ human p53 sequences introduced artificially into experimental organisms used in laboratory mutagenesis assays. P53-specific laboratory models, combined with DNA microchips designed for high through-put mutation screening promise to unmask information currently hidden in the compilation of human tumor p53 mutations.

Ca2+ Binding to Calmodulin and Its Role in Schizosaccharomyces pombe as Revealed by Mutagenesis and NMR Spectroscopy

As a first step toward identifying the important structural elements of calmodulin from Schizosaccharomyces pombe, we examined the ability of heterologous calmodulins and Ca(2+)-binding site mutant S. pombe calmodulins to replace the essential cam1+ gene. A cDNA encoding vertebrate calmodulin allows growth of S. pombe. However, calmodulin from Saccharomyces cerevisiae does not support growth even though the protein is produced at high levels. With one exception, all mutant S. pombe calmodulins with one or more intact Ca(2+)-binding sites allow growth at 21 degrees C. A mutant containing only an intact Ca(2+)-binding site 3 fails to support growth, as does S. pombe calmodulin with all four Ca(2+)-binding sites mutated. Several of the mutant proteins confer a temperature-sensitive phenotype. Analysis of the degree of temperature sensitivity allows the Ca(2+)-binding sites to be ranked by their ability to support fission yeast proliferation. Site 2 is more important than site 1, which is more important than site 4, which is more important than site 3. A visual colony color screen based on the fission yeast ade1+ gene was developed to perform these genetic analyses. To compare the Ca(2+)-binding properties of individual sites to their functional importance for viability, Ca2+ binding to calmodulin from S. pombe was studied by 1H NMR spectroscopy. NMR analysis indicates a Ca(2+)-binding profile that differs from those previously determined for vertebrate and S. cerevisiae calmodulins. Ca(2+)-binding site 3 has the highest relative affinity for Ca2+, while the affinities of sites 1, 2, and 4 are indistinguishable. A combination of an in vivo functional assay and an in vitro physical assay reveals that the relative affinity of a site for Ca2+ does not predict its functional importance.

Assessing Construct Validity in Personality Research: Applications to Measures of Self-Esteem

This article addresses the assessment of convergent and discriminant validity in personality research. Four approaches are compared and contrasted for the analysis of classic multitrait-multimethod data, where three or more traits are measured with indicators derived from three or more methods. The approaches are the Campbell and Fiske criteria, the confirmatory factor analysis model, the correlated uniqueness model, and the direct product model. Pros and cons of the approaches are pointed out through a reanalysis of data originally collected by Van Tuinen and Ramanaiah, where global self-esteem, social self-esteem, and orderliness were each measured by true–false inventories, multipoint inventories, and simple self-reports. The Discussion considers guidelines for choosing among the approaches and further addresses procedures for nontraditional multitrait–multimethod data.

NorDistribution and Satellite Associations inCallithrix Jacchus

SUMMARYThe large number of NOR bearing chromosomes that participate in associations makes Callithrix jacchus a particularly good non-human primate species in which to study this phenomena. The data recorded on 1700 associations (in 17 animals) demonstrates that the distribution of chromosomes in the metaphase spread is not random with the observed associations involving short acrocentric chromosomes much higher than expected (p < 0.01). The presence of multiple pairs of acrocentric NOR bearing chromosomes including the Y-chromosome, questions LEDBETTER'S (1981) and LEDBETTER and VAN TUINEN'S (1983) conclusions that multiple pairs of NOR bearing chromosomes in primates evolved during hominoid evolution, and that NOR bearing Y-chromosome found in Hylobates syndactylus and Hylobates concolor arose in a recent common ancestor of these two species.

Nuclear Medicine Instrumentation Laboratory Exercises for Radiology Residency Training (AAPM Manual No. 1) by R. J. Van Tuinen and J. G. Kereiakes

<i>Nuclear Medicine Instrumentation Laboratory Exercises for Radiology Residency Training (AAPM Manual No. 1)</i> by R. J. Van Tuinen and J. G. Kereiakes

Rates of Karyotype Evolution

Haiduk and Baker (1982) gave an insightful interpretation of rate variation in karyotype evolution. Their descriptive nomenclature, however, is misleading-karyotypic (Baker and Bickham, 1980) is an inappropriate term to apply to what Haiduk and Baker recognize as simply an exceedingly rapid rate of karyotype evolution. Simpson (1944) coined megaevolution to defiote the emergence of taxonomic above the genus level, contrasting it with both microevolution (below the species level) and (above the species level). By 1953, however, Simpson had abandoned the term, as it served merely to obscure the continuity of process along the evolutionary hierarchy. To resurrect an obsolete term originally used to refer to the development of really high [taxonomic] categories (Simpson, 1953:339) and reapply it to radical reorganization of the banding patterns ... while other closely related species retained the primitive condition (Haiduk and Baker, 1982) is, I think, inappropriate and somewhat misleading. The phenomena to be denoted are fairly well-known, and perhaps most graphically exemplified within the genus Muntiacus (Cervidae). In M. reevesi both sexes have 2n = 46, while M. muntjak has 2n = 6 in the female and 2n = 7 in the male. This great cytological disparity occurs in spite of overwhelming morphological similarity and hybridization potential between the species (Wurster and Benirschke, 1970; Fredga, 1977; Shi Liming et al., 1980). Similar situations are also known for some groups of rodents (White, 1978; Elder, 1980), foxes (Bush, 1975), insectivores (Arnason, 1972), horses (Ryder et al., 1978), and gibbons (Marks, 1982; Shafer et al., 1983; van Tuinen and Ledbetter, 1983). The inference to be drawn is that the evolution of the chromosomes in these groups has proceeded much more rapidly than the evolution of either the morphology of these organisms or their genes. What needs to be recognized is that the karyotype represents a level of genomic organization and evolution phenomenologically distinct from the genotype and from the phenotype with which it is associated. Phrased another way, chromosomes are seen to have evolved according to rules of their own not clearly related to any properties of the organisms whose heredity they ... [are] supposed to be carrying (Darlington, 1978:447). If one wishes to call attention to the variation across taxa in the evolutionary rates of karyotypes, Simpson (1944) coined a term that can be transferred and applied to the level: tachytely, by which he denoted exceedingly rapid evolution within a group. I suggest, therefore, that if it is necessary to give a name to the phenomenon of high diversity among closely related species, chromosomal is a phrase more meaningful, accurate, and consistent with evolutionary terminology than karyotypic megaevolution. The application of Simpson's to the level of evolution is obviously an analogy, and it must differ from his original formulation in two important respects: (1) Simpson plotted a measure of macroevolution (the survivorship of supraspecific taxa) versus absolute time; and (2) he defined tachytely relative to a modal rate of evolution for a group, horotely. Unfortunately, for the study of rates of evolution, we have no measure of absolute time against which to plot chromosome rearrangement; the fossil record reveals nothing about the karyotype of the fossil animal. Further, there is presently no useful way to measure accurately the amount of karyo-