Vital Center Research Articles

:What Happened to the Vital Center? Presidentialism, Populist Revolt, and the Fracturing of America

:<i>What Happened to the Vital Center? Presidentialism, Populist Revolt, and the Fracturing of America</i>

MacLeish/Oppenheimer, Trump, and the Conquest of America

Archibald MacLeish (Pulitzer prize-winning poet/playwright) published his highly acclaimed essay “The Conquest of America” in the August 1949 Atlantic Monthly. His essay focused on an American crisis of national purpose, and central to his account is the importance of a national image for America. In particular, he called for a redeclaration of American purpose by appealing to a Jeffersonian “Revolution of the Individual.” MacLeish’s friend Robert Oppenheimer responded to his essay with high praise but also criticism. In this article, we use the MacLeish/ Oppenheimer exchange as a springboard for a discussion of the crisis of American democracy today exemplified by the election of Donald Trump. We take a synthetic approach, relying not simply on MacLeish/Oppenheimer but more importantly on contemporary scholars. We attempt to construct an American image with a realistic meaning for today. The image includes three interweaving political components—Liberal Democracy, Liberal Nationalism, Liberal Internationalism—complemented by America’s historical role as Democracy’s Vital Center. After sketching this national image, we discuss each component, touching on several contemporary issues as well as the general nature of the image in light of Trump and the current crisis of American democracy.

Semiconductors in the Digital Age: Evolution, Challenges, and Geopolitical Implications

Semiconductor Industry, the Foundation of the Contemporary Technological Revolution, has been continuously evolving from the early transistors to today’s advanced microchips. Historically dominated by powers such as the United States, the last decade has witnessed the rise of Asia, especially China, as a vital center for production and research, reshaping the geopolitical balance of the sector. Driven by the growing demand for electronic devices and digitization, the industry faces challenges such as the recent chip shortage, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, emerging technologies like tunnel gate transistors, graphene, and resistive memory promise to further revolutionize the field. This narrative review provides a comprehensive analysis of the evolution of semiconductors, highlighting technological innovations, current challenges, and geopolitical implications, with a special focus on the intersection between economy and technology.

Significant Reduction in Precipitation Seasonality and the Association with Extreme Precipitation in the Hai River Basin of China from 1960 to 2018

The Hai River Basin (HRB) serves as a vital center for the population, economy and politics in northern China. Natural hazards, particularly floods, pose significant risks to the region, often attributed to extreme precipitation events. Changes in precipitation seasonalitycc play a pivotal role in influencing precipitation extreme events. Therefore, this study presents a comprehensive analysis of precipitation seasonality and its impact on precipitation extremes in HRB. By implementing a novel relative entropy method, we calculated the precipitation seasonality indicators using daily precipitation observations from 1960 to 2018 in HRB. We found a significant decreasing trend in precipitation seasonality (−0.03 decade−1, p = 0.04), accompanied by an earlier onset date (4.0 days decade−1, p = 0.01) and longer duration (4.3 days decade−1, p = 0.03) of the wet season. Notably, these trends are notably concentrated in the Beijing-Tianjin administrative regions. Additionally, a lower precipitation seasonality value indicated a more evenly distributed precipitation throughout the year, resulting in reduced occurrences of precipitation extremes. Consistently, we observed two precipitation extremes, extreme wet day precipitation R99T and maximum 1-day precipitation RX1Day, which exhibited significant decreasing trends at the rate of −0.5 mm decade−1 (p = 0.02) and −1.4 mm decade−1 (p = 0.05), respectively. Furthermore, we detected significant positive correlations of 0.31 (p = 0.02) and 0.35 (p = 0.01) between precipitation seasonality and precipitation extremes (R95T and R99T), suggesting that a more evenly distributed precipitation across seasons corresponds to fewer precipitation extremes over the past sixty years. Metropolitan areas, in particular, experienced a noteworthy reduction in precipitation seasonality and a decreased frequency of precipitation extreme events. The findings of this study shed new light on the intricate relationship between precipitation seasonality and extreme events, further helping policy making develop effective risk regulations for agriculture, floods, and urban waterlogging, ensuring sustainable development within the HRB.

Office Obligation as Civil Virtue: The Crisis of American Democracy, November 3, 2020–January 6, 2021, and After

This essay develops a new theoretical and empirical understanding of the contemporary crisis of American democracy. Between November 3, 2020, and January 7, 2021, President Donald Trump battled to overturn the results of the American presidential election, launching myriad lawsuits and pressuring hundreds of electoral officials. Confronting this antidemocratic assault was a resilient civil sphere that sustained “office,” an institution that, in a democratic society, inspires faith in the Constitution and loyalty to “we the people.” After investigating how this civil institution empowered electoral and legal officials to fight off Trumpian pressures, I focus on Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and US Vice President Mike Pence, examining how they emerged as widely admired icons of civil courage. After Trump’s defeat, the televised hearings of the January 6th Commission created a “civic ritual” in the midst of which Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney became another icon, symbolizing the renewal of a “civil conservatism.” A new, if still precarious, vital center emerged, allowing Democratic prosecutors finally to launch criminal proceedings against Trump. Yet, the Republican Party remains unreconstructed and, for this reason, the future of American democracy is still in doubt.

The role of medial prefrontal cortex in cognition, aging and Parkinson disease

The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is a vital center for executive control, influencing cognition, emotion, memory, and sociability. Specifically, the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), a part of the PFC, monitors actions toward goals, aids decision-making, and regulates cognitive control. It assesses outcomes relative to expected rewards, selects appropriate behavior based on continuous performance analysis, and facilitates strategic adaptation in response to adverse results. Unfortunately, these cognitive functions decline with age due to changes in neuroplasticity, especially in neurodegenerative disorders like Parkinson's Disease (PD) and Alzheimer's Disease (AD). Neurodegenerative diseases disrupt normal brain activity, leading to tissue atrophy and cognitive impairment caused by degeneration and neuronal death. PD is the second most common neurodegenerative disease globally, characterized by a decline in neurotransmitters and dopaminergic neuron death in the substantia nigra, along with the presence of Lewy bodies. Recognizing these factors as risk factors for PD development is crucial. This article examines how aging affects cognitive activities regulated by the mPFC, a pivotal region for critical cognitive functions. By applying predetermined criteria, the review selects the most relevant articles to provide a comprehensive understanding of cognitive deficits mediated by the mPFC in both healthy and pathological aging.

O naukowej pasji i wrażliwości poetyckiej. Wokół działalności naukowo-badawczej i twórczości lirycznej Haliny Twaranowicz

The article describes nearly forty years of professional work, and the academic and literary career of one of the most prominent Belarusian and Polish poets, a long-time researcher at the Janka Kupala Institute of Literature of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus and the Department of Belarusian Philology of the Institute of East Slavonic Philology of the University of Bialystok – Halina Twaranowicz, Ph.D., professor of UwB. The text describes her significant research achievements, publications, and editorial output. Also presented is a discussion of her organizational activities as Head of the Department of Belarusian Philology at UwB, which, also with her significant contribution, has become a vital center of Belarusian literary studies. One of the most important centers of Polish Belarusian studies next to the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin. The final part of the article contains reflections on the specificity of Halina Twaranowicz’s lyrical works.

Intellectual Freedom and Social Justice, Together Again: Schlesinger’s &lt;em&gt;Vital Center&lt;/em&gt; and Library Activism

Contemporary debates within American librarianship, and in the country at large, often frame intellectual freedom and social justice as competing or opposed values, but looking back to earlier moments in the intellectual history of libraries and the country demonstrates the fundamental and interdependent relationship that exists between civil liberties and civil rights. In the early Cold War period, librarians and the American Library Association (ALA) engaged in an activist campaign to protect intellectual freedom from threats like anti-communist censorship and loyalty oaths. At the same time, historian and public intellectual Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.’s The Vital Center: The Politics of Freedom laid out a program of radical centrism, capturing the intellectual currents that informed ALA documents like the 1948 Library Bill of Rights and 1953’s The Freedom to Read. Revisiting Schlesinger’s work underscores the extent to which, both historically and in the present, racism and oppression represent primary barriers to the intellectual freedom of Americans and provides an opportunity to explore new framings of fundamental values within the library profession.

What Happened to the Vital Center? Presidentialism, Populist Revolt, and the Fracturing of America. By Nicholas F. Jacobs and Sidney M. Milkis. New York: Oxford University Press, 2022. 362p. $99.00 cloth, $29.95 paper.

What Happened to the Vital Center? Presidentialism, Populist Revolt, and the Fracturing of America. By Nicholas F. Jacobs and Sidney M. Milkis. New York: Oxford University Press, 2022. 362p. 29.95 paper. - Volume 21 Issue 1

Response to Joshua N. Zingher’s Review of What Happened to the Vital Center? Presidentialism, Populist Revolt, and the Fracturing of America

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The regulation of electron distribution on Fe Lewis acidic sites within silicon skeleton and its contribution to Ketoprofen ozonation

Lewis acid site was vital center for activating O3 during catalytic ozonation process. Herein, we proposed a strategy to enhance the Lewis acid strength of Fe-MCM-48 (FeM) by fluorination. Fluorinated Fe-MCM-48 (FFeM) exhibited the better catalytic ozonation efficiency towards Ketoprofen (KET), a kind of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug. 87.4 % TOC removal was obtained by F2.5Fe0.8M/O3 process, but only 27.5 % and 52.7 % were found by sole ozonation and Fe0.8M/O3 processes, respectively. Comparative characterizations, experiments and DFT calculations showed that fluorinated FFeM was regular sphere with three dimensional duct channel and large SBET. Doping of F reduced particle size, implanted electron withdrawing Si-F group and formed the electron poor center around Fe atom, which enhanced Lewis acid strength of FFeM. Protonated hydroxyl groups on Lewis acid sites were the main active sites for O3 activation. Greater amount of O3 were absorbed on the surface of FFeM and the greater O3 utilization rate, •OH and •O2– generation rates were obtained by FFeM/O3 process. Common anions such as Cl−, SO42− and NO3– and Humic acids (HA) had little effect on KET removal but inhibited TOC removal in FFeM/O3 process. •OH, •O2– and Fe(IV) = O oxidation were accounted for KET degradation. 16 kinds of intermediates generated from KET degradation and 4 pathways were deduced.

Claustrum modulates behavioral sensitivity and EEG activity of propofol anesthesia.

The claustrum has long been regarded as a vital center for conscious control. Electrical stimulation or damage to the claustrum can result in decreased awareness or loss of consciousness, suggesting that the claustrum may be a target for the action of general anesthetics. This study aimed to determine the role of the claustrum in propofol anesthesia. We first applied a fiber photometry calcium signal recording system to record the claustral neuronal activity during the entire process of propofol anesthesia. Chemogenetic activation of claustral neurones was then performed to verify their role in anesthesia. Finally, muscimol (GABAa receptor agonist) and gabazine (GABAa receptor antagonist) were microinjected into the claustrum to determine whether their GABAa receptors were involved in modulating propofol anesthesia. EEG and behavioral indicators, such as anesthetic sensitivity and efficacy, were recorded and analyzed. An evident anesthesia-related change in claustrum neuronal activity was suppressed during propofol-induced unconsciousness and restored following recovery from anesthesia. Chemogenetic activation of claustrum neuronsresults in attenuated propofol sensitivity, a shorter anesthesia duration, and an EEG shift toward wakefulness. Manipulation of GABAa receptors in the claustrum showed bidirectional control of propofol sensitivity, as activation decreases anesthesia efficiency while inactivation augments it. Additionally, inhibiting claustrum GABAa receptors increases cortical EEG slow waves. Claustrum neurones and their GABAa receptors are implicated in the modulation of propofol anesthesia in both behavioral and EEG assessments. Our findings create scope to reveal the brain targets of anesthetic action further and add to the existing evidence on the consciousness-modulating role of the claustrum.

State Building in Crisis Governance: Donald Trump and COVID-19.

State Building in Crisis Governance: Donald Trump and COVID-19.

A test of the maintenance of the effects of imagined contact framed with supportive social norms as a teacher-led field intervention

As the arrival of refugees and asylum seekers continues to increase, schools continue to become a vital center for children to develop positive intergroup attitudes. Teacher-led activities can become useful tools in sustainable prejudice reduction. A field intervention incorporated normative in-group influence with imagined intergroup contact to reduce children's anti-refugee bias. Ten primary school classes (N = 269, Mage = 10.69 years) were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: (a) class norm-framed imagined contact (n = 88), (b) family norm-framed imagined contact (n = 49), (c) religious in-group norm-framed imagined contact (n = 51), or (d) standard (n = 80) imagined contact. Teachers facilitated a series of four imagined contact activities over 4 weeks, with anti-refugee bias measured at baseline and 2 weeks after the final activity. Imagined contact framed in the class context was associated with significantly lower post-intervention contact intentions bias as compared to standard imagined contact. There were no significant effects of family or religion norm framed imagined contact conditions. Findings are discussed in relation to the feasibility of teacher-led school-based interventions and the importance of a supportive normative context in the classroom for anti-refugee bias.

Gifted Greek: The Enigma of Andreas Papandreou

Gifted Greek: The Enigma of Andreas Papandreou

ARCHITECTURAL FEATURES OF ALEPPO CITY AND RESIDENTIAL AREAS

Aleppo is a very important historical city in Syria with the most important ancient settlement. In this respect, the fact that Aleppo is one of the oldest cities still inhabited has gained international fame. Aleppo's strategic importance originates from its being an important connection point between East and West and remaining an important political, economic, religious, and vital center due to its mediation between the eastern and western worlds throughout its past periods. In addition to being a civilization and culture meeting point between East and West, Aleppo is also the meeting point of trade caravans and the key to trade exchanges between the two sides. The history of Aleppo city dates back to ancient times. Therefore, many different architectural styles are seen in the city. The purpose of this article is to discuss the architectural features of Aleppo's residential areas by revealing the reasons for the different characteristics of Aleppo’s residential area.

(2021) Volume 2, Issue 4 Cultural Implications of China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC Authors: Dr. Unsa Jamshed Amar Jahangir Anbrin Khawaja Abstract: This study is an attempt to highlight the cultural implication of CPEC on Pak-China relations, how it will align two nations culturally, and what steps were taken by the governments of two states to bring the people closer.

(2021) Volume 2, Issue 4 Cultural Implications of China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC Authors: Dr. Unsa Jamshed Amar Jahangir Anbrin Khawaja Abstract: This study is an attempt to highlight the cultural implication of CPEC on Pak-China relations, how it will align two nations culturally, and what steps were taken by the governments of two states to bring the people closer.

The Vital Center Reborn: Redefining Liberalism between 9/11 and the Iraq War

Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a set of liberal intellectuals promoted a vision of liberal renewal at home and abroad, hoping to create a new political and foreign policy paradigm. They sought to revive a form of early Cold War “Vital Center” liberalism by supporting democratization and human rights, designing a liberal version of patriotism, and supporting confrontations with illiberal autocracies and radical Islamists. They hoped to reverse decades of liberal decline in domestic politics, to distance themselves from the political left, and to critique President George Bush's response to 9/11, which they viewed as unilateralist, militaristic, and intellectually vapid. This revival of optimistic, universalist liberalism represents the peak of liberals’ post–Cold War belief in the ability of U.S. power to spread presumably universal values. The failure of the Iraq War, which many of these thinkers supported, undermined this brief project and returned liberals to a more cautious, defensive mindset.

Transaction Man: The Rise of the Deal and the Decline of the American Dream

Transaction Man: The Rise of the Deal and the Decline of the American Dream

Exhibition Review Nā Māla: Layered Landscapes of Kona Coffee Heritage, curated by Mina Elison. Donkey Mill Art Center, Kona, Hawaiʻi, October 24, 2020 – December 12, 2020.

One such place on Hawaiʻi island where the arts are being pushed into new directions is the Donkey Mill Art Center (DMAC), a community art center founded by the Hōlualoa Foundation for Arts and Culture (HFAC) and located in the town of Hōlualoa, in the ahupuaʻa (a type of Hawaiian land division) of Keauhou, in the moku (district) of North Kona. Although the institution’s name is unassuming, connoting the region’s coffee history and honoring the historic Donkey Mill that serves as the flagship building and campus of the organization, DMAC functions as a vital center of creative production in this part of Hawaiʻi island. Throughout the year, DMAC organizes classes, demonstrations, workshops, presentations, and most importantly for this review, exhibitions that celebrate various art mediums, including but not limited to ceramics, drawing, painting, printmaking, mixed media, fiber arts, metal works, photography, and Hawaiian arts. In 2020, Nā Māla: Layered Landscapes of Kona Coffee Heritage, was one of DMAC’s in-house exhibits, organized by Communications Director and Curator Mina Elison.