Western Origin Research Articles

Multi-scale ancient DNA analyses confirm the western origin of Michelsberg farmers and document probable practices of human sacrifice.

In Europe, the Middle Neolithic is characterized by an important diversification of cultures. In northeastern France, the appearance of the Michelsberg culture has been correlated with major cultural changes and interpreted as the result of the settlement of new groups originating from the Paris Basin. This cultural transition has been accompanied by the expansion of particular funerary practices involving inhumations within circular pits and individuals in “non-conventional” positions (deposited in the pits without any particular treatment). If the status of such individuals has been highly debated, the sacrifice hypothesis has been retained for the site of Gougenheim (Alsace). At the regional level, the analysis of the Gougenheim mitochondrial gene pool (SNPs and HVR-I sequence analyses) permitted us to highlight a major genetic break associated with the emergence of the Michelsberg in the region. This genetic discontinuity appeared to be linked to new affinities with farmers from the Paris Basin, correlated to a noticeable hunter-gatherer legacy. All of the evidence gathered supports (i) the occidental origin of the Michelsberg groups and (ii) the potential implication of this migration in the progression of the hunter-gatherer legacy from the Paris Basin to Alsace / Western Germany at the beginning of the Late Neolithic. At the local level, we noted some differences in the maternal gene pool of individuals in "conventional" vs. "non-conventional" positions. The relative genetic isolation of these sub-groups nicely echoes both their social distinction and the hypothesis of sacrifices retained for the site. Our investigation demonstrates that a multi-scale aDNA study of ancient communities offers a unique opportunity to disentangle the complex relationships between cultural and biological evolution.

Are (second generation) young immigrants active citizens?: Case of the Netherlands

Abstract The Netherlands is a country of diverse, often contradictory and dynamically changing views and policies with regard to civic integration of immigrants. In this context, studying how young Dutch immigrants express their citizenship may provide valuable insight. This research analyses how Dutch youth of immigrant and local origin differ in forms of expression of their citizenship, with a special distinction between immigrants of western and non-western origin. Results of an analysis of a convenience sample of 376 Dutch students aged 10–19 years revealed that immigrant status was related to significant differences between students on several dimensions of citizenship, in particular in its passive forms: national identity and patriotism. National identity was significantly higher among youth who were not from an immigrant origin, while with respect to patriotism both youth without an immigrant origin and those of western immigrant origin scored higher compared with children of immigrants with non-western roots. Children of immigrants from western countries scored higher than youth of non-western descent and native Dutch children on three dimensions of (semi-)active citizenship: intention to vote; action for change; and civic virtues. Study results confirmed the concern that young immigrants of non-western origin in particular struggle with identification with the host country. It did not confirm popular concerns about limited loyalty to the host country or lack of civic engagement among young (second-generation) immigrants. The results of the study should be generalized with caution due to the nature of the utilized sample.

Sweet vernal grasses (Anthoxanthum) colonized African mountains along two fronts in the Late Pliocene, followed by secondary contact, polyploidization and local extinction in the Pleistocene.

High tropical mountains harbour remarkable and fragmented biodiversity thought to a large degree to have been shaped by multiple dispersals of cold-adapted lineages from remote areas. Few dated phylogenetic/phylogeographic analyses are however available. Here, we address the hypotheses that the sub-Saharan African sweet vernal grasses have a dual colonization history and that lineages of independent origins have established secondary contact. We carried out rangewide sampling across the eastern African high mountains, inferred dated phylogenies from nuclear ribosomal and plastid DNA using Bayesian methods, and performed flow cytometry and AFLP (amplified fragment length polymorphism) analyses. We inferred a single Late Pliocene western Eurasian origin of the eastern African taxa, whose high-ploid populations in one mountain group formed a distinct phylogeographic group and carried plastids that diverged from those of the currently allopatric southern African lineage in the Mid- to Late Pleistocene. We show that Anthoxanthum has an intriguing history in sub-Saharan Africa, including Late Pliocene colonization from southeast and north, followed by secondary contact, hybridization, allopolyploidization and local extinction during one of the last glacial cycles. Our results add to a growing body of evidence showing that isolated tropical high mountain habitats have a dynamic recent history involving niche conservatism and recruitment from remote sources, repeated dispersals, diversification, hybridization and local extinction.

Beware the winter is coming! Arab Spring in the global media

ABSTRACTThis study critically examines how the global media uses the concept of revolution when reporting about the Arab Spring. The understanding of the concept informed by historical Western revolutionary events perpetuates Eurocentrism which continues the inability to comprehend the regional, cultural, and political peculiarities of the Arab Spring. Media framing analysis reveals the use of the outdated notions of revolution based on six common attributes. The concept of revolution defined by the six attributes fails to address the events because it is delimited by its own Western origin and with its own understanding of modernization and progress. Such use of the concept is maintained by the media but also affects perception of the events while de-emphasizing their revolutionary character.

‘The Good Parent’ and ‘The Other Parent’: Medicalization, othering and social exclusion in Israeli professional discourse regarding learning disorders and difficulties

This lecture seeks to uncover the various textual techniques through which binary representations of ‘parenthood’ are constructed in the framework of clinical professional discourse of Israeli learning-disorders experts. Historically this discourse has constructed two contrasting parenthood representations: ‘parenthood of learning-disordered children’ on the one hand, and ‘parenthood of cultural deprived children’ on the other hand.The lecture posits the following main questions: Which textual representations of ‘parenthood’ were constructed in the framework of the aforementioned discourses? Which affinities can be identified between the textual representations and the contextual characteristics of social class, culture, ethnicity and educational capital? And which affinities can be identified between these representations and the explicit or implicit normative messages of ‘blame’, ‘responsibility’ and ‘agency’ embedded in the texts? Discourse analysis was implemented in order to uncover the mutual and contradictory construction processes. The analysis also reveals the stereotypical imputation of ‘normative’ parents with a well-off, well-educated and western origin population, as well as the stereotypical imputation of ‘problematic’ parents with a low class, little educated and eastern origin population. The lecture concludes by situating the texts in the social and historical context of their formulation: The processes of psychocultural othering which operated on low class, little educated and eastern origin parents are interpreted on the historical background of the class and ethnic hierarchical structure of the Israeli society. The conclusion also raises a conjecture regarding a rising new medicalizing ‘othering’ potential, a potential, which was already implicitly embedded in the analyzed historical texts.Disclosure of interestThe author has not supplied his/her declaration of competing interest.

Eastern versus Western Culture Pricing Strategy: Superstition, Lucky Numbers, and Localization

Eastern versus Western culture pricing practices differ with respect to price endings; however, Eastern cultures are increasingly influenced by Western multinational corporations. At the same time, increasing antiglobalization sentiment suggests the use of localization strategies in these markets. The authors investigate whether pricing practices still differ in this new environment, examine the role of superstition, and ask whether Western brands can benefit from localizing pricing practices. They explore the use of lucky number price endings and consumer responses to such pricing strategies in Singapore, an Eastern culture that is strongly exposed to Western multinational influence. Using a content analysis of newspaper advertisements and two experiments, the authors find that superstitious pricing practices continue, especially with high-priced items and brands of Eastern (vs. Western) origin. In the experimental studies, they find that superstitious pricing has a positive effect on price attractiveness and that foreign brands that localize their prices benefit from a more positive brand attitude.

Phylogeographic Identification of Tench Tinca tinca (L., 1758) (Actinopterygii: Cyprinidae) from the Northern Balkans and Adjacent Regions and its Implications for Conservation.

Jelena Lujić, Klaus Kohlmann, Petra Kersten, Zoran Marinović, Miroslav Ćirković, and Vladica Simić (2017) The tench, Tinca tinca, is an endangered freshwater fish species in the Balkans. However, there are no management and conservation strategies developed for this species so far. In order to be able to develop such strategies, we first determined the phylogeographic identity of 70 tench individuals from four countries (Serbia, FYRO Macedonia, Hungary and Croatia) by PCR-RFLP analyses of two nuclear markers (Act and RpS7) and one mitochondrial marker (Cytb). All makers enabled the identification of two major geographic clades of tench (Western and Eastern), while nuclear markers additionally enabled the identification of hybrids between the two clades. Based on the mitochondrial marker Cytb, tench populations can be separated into two distinct areas: areas north of the Danube River with the dominant Western origin, and areas south of the Danube River with the dominant Eastern origin. Data obtained for the Act gene demonstrated Eastern origin for most individuals (88.23%) while data obtained for the RpS7 gene demonstrated mixed origin with a high percentage of hybrids. The presence of high numbers of individuals with Western alleles for the RpS7 gene in areas south of the Danube may indicate a natural invasion of this phylogroup. According to these results, areas north and south of the Danube are identified as two main management units. Additionally, we identified the rare western haplotype W2 based on the Cytb marker which clearly indicated human-aided dispersals of tench in the investigated region and since some individuals with W2 origin were cultured, attention must be given to the genetic structure and identity of the introduced individuals, whether during introduction or reintroduction since biological and ecological consequences of the hybridization between the two major clades are still unknown. Finally, we propose and discuss management and conservation strategies for tench of both management areas.

Transformation of the urban patterns of istanbul under the effects of the modernization during the ottoman period

Westernization of Turkey arose from the declaration of The Tanzimat Charter in 1839 . .The modernization of Ottoman Empire inevitably brought changes into the administrative, socio-economic and spatial organization of the cities as well as in the lifestyles of urban dwellers Urbanization and economic, cultural, social modernization processes create new buildings and establishments . The spread of particular techniques and concepts of urban intervention that were developed in some Western countries and saw their influences in other Western countries and non-Western countries have also resulted in changes in the urban pattern. The spread of ideas and some planning approach in Turkey is thanks to Western engineers and architects for applying the new planning models throughout after the great fires of Istanbul in the 19 th century. The implementation of Western origin urban planning principles, modern technology and the image of Western cities have affected the formation of new urban development and reconstruction activities in Turkish cities especially in Istanbul. The aim of this paper is to analyse the effects of planning practices initiated by the urban reforms of Tanzimat on the urban pattern of Istanbul. These analyses are based on a hypothesis, as the Turkish planning practices in Tanzimat period were influenced by Western planning practices.

Westerns: A Woman's History by Victoria Lamont

Reviewed by: Westerns: A Woman's History by Victoria Lamont Cathryn Halverson Victoria Lamont, Westerns: A Woman's History. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2016. 210 pp. Cloth, $55. One frustration voiced by those working in the field of western women's literature is how often editors, peer reviewers, and well-meaning colleagues urge one to read and cite Jane Tompkins's 1992 West of Everything: The Inner Life of Westerns and, more recently, Nina Baym's comprehensive Women Writers of the American West, 1833–1927 (2011). With Victoria Lamont's Westerns: A Woman's History, however, we now have a more useful, more persuasive, and more provocative study about the West and women's cultural production by a scholar who has devoted her career to the subject. I am hopeful this book will become the new default recommendation, as it certainly warrants. In Lamont's words, Westerns: A Woman's History is "a revisionist account of the origins of the popular western" that recovers "the many women who helped constitute the genre" (1). It proves just how wrong Tompkins gets it in conceiving of the Western as "a male-authored backlash against the woman-authored sentimental novel" (2), as well as the fallacy of a more widespread belief that women's Westerns were necessarily domestic. That her mission is twofold makes Lamont's work of critical relevance outside of western studies: in addition to recovering authors and texts she uncovers the array of material conditions and cultural mechanisms that erased women's participation in the genre. As part of this investigation she consulted numerous archival collections. Chapter 1 focuses on the first important cowboy novel, Emma Ghent Curtis's 1889 The Administratrix, to show why Curtis "transforms her heroine into a man with a gun" (26) even as she argues for women's vaunted moral authority. Chapter 2 pairs Owen Wister's The Virginian, often identified as "the foundational western" (33), with Francis McElrath's exactly contemporaneous The [End Page 347] Rustler (1902). Both books were inspired by the range wars in Johnson County, Wyoming, but from this history produce very different plots and arguments. Chapter 3 turns to B. M. Bower and Caroline Lockhart, coupling biographical and critical inquiry to analyze the differing strategies by which these writers claimed "cultural authority over the emergent western novel" (54). "Why Mourning Dove Wrote a Western," chapter 4, demonstrates that Okanogan novelist Mourning Dove found the popular Western a more enabling genre than the ethnography she was urged to write, especially since it shared features with traditional Native storytelling. Chapter 6 hones in on pulp magazines to discuss the "western love story magazine," which was eventually deemed a second-rate imitation of the masculinist action Western despite emerging in tandem with it. Chapter 5, "Cattle Branding and the Traffic in Women," is especially ambitious, even as it consolidates earlier claims and reviews some of the texts and authors that appear in previous chapters. Lamont's collective reading of The Rustler, Bower's Lonesome Land (1912), and Katharine Newlin Burt's The Branding Iron (1919) offers an astonishing new view of the West. Having "displaced abolitionism as the origin of American feminism" (104), the West is rendered in these texts as "a space in which patriarchy is exposed and feminist consciousness is raised." Cows roam freely through Westerns, which describes female characters as both "literally rustled" and "figuratively rustled" (108), and my dream version of the book would include some commentary about Winnifred Eaton's 1924 Cattle, a "Why Onoto Watanna Wrote a Western." The study is an exemplar of what close reading can accomplish, and its prose is always polished, exact, and eminently lucid. Yet Lamont can express in a single dense sentence a concept or claim to which other critics might devote a paragraph, and I wished from the introduction more of the expansiveness and successive iterations of key arguments that characterize the body chapters. Her outline of the factors that suppressed the visibility of western women writers, for example, could have been amplified by some of the material in her recent review essay of the field, "Big Books Wanted: Women and Western American Literature in the Twenty-First Century...

Did Ottoman Sultans Ban Print?

This paper argues that the study of Ottoman printing developed from the European experience of print, and that this history continues to impact contemporary scholarship on the topic unduly. To illustrate this point, the paper provides a factual overview for incidents of printing among Ottomans and compares them to their historiographical portrayal. It then goes on to chart the life-cycle of the rumor that two Ottoman sultans banned print as it originated in early modern Europe, was adopted by nineteenth century Ottomans, and stabilized through twentieth century historians. The primary sources are texts of early modern European and Ottoman origin, and contemporary western and Middle Eastern origin.

Questioning Modernity in Indonesia and Malaysia ed. by Wendy Mee and Joel S. Kahn

Reviewed by: Questioning Modernity in Indonesia and Malaysia ed. by Wendy Mee and Joel S. Kahn Anton O. Zakharov Questioning Modernity in Indonesia and Malaysia Wendy Mee and Joel S. Kahn (eds) Singapore: NUS Press in association with Kyoto University Press, 2012. vi, 257 pp. Kyoto CDEAS series on Asian studies, 5. ISBN 978-9971-69-563-7 (paperback) The contemporary world faces many challenges, both conceptual and empirical. Modernity has been disputed or seriously questioned. Postmodernist rhetoric claims modernity to be rather outdated despite the fact that to be modern simply means to be contemporary, to be here-and-now; therefore postmodern is modern, too. The book edited by Wendy Mee and Joel S. Kahn offers a good overview of current trends in treating questions and/or controversies of modernity in Malaysia and Indonesia. In the Introduction, Mee and Kahn offer to release modernity from its Western conceptual framework and to treat it as culturally grounded discursive stories of ‘self-designated moderns … about themselves and their societies’ (p. 7). Mee and Kahn also criticize a conceptual link between modernity and cultural traits of Western origin, capitalism, secularization, instrumental rationality, individualization, and monetarization of values among them. The anthropologists argue that modernity in no way means Westernization, and accept Bruno Latour’s famous idea (We Have Never Been Modern, 1993) that even the West has ‘never been modern’ (p. 7), preserving ‘pre-modern’ traditions and practices in its cultural, social, political and even economic spheres. The book comprises three main parts: ‘Transnational and Border-zone Modernities’, ‘Nation-states and Citizenships’, and ‘Cultural and Moral Orientations’. The last part completely focuses on Malaysia, whereas the two earlier parts balance between Indonesian and Malaysian studies. (For criticism of the [End Page 157] predominance of Malaysian case-studies in the book see the review by Jennifer Yang Hui; taking a contrary stance, Kewin W. Fogg praises such a structure because ‘Malaysia especially is a paragon for a state project promoting ‘Islamic modernity’. The first part opens with Kahn’s chapter ‘Islam and Capitalism in the Frontiers and Borderlands of the Modern Malay World’, where he develops his theory of Other Malays: Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism in the Modern Malay World (Singapore University Press, 2006). Kahn shows a significant role played by Muslim entrepreneurs in modernizing economic developments on the fringes of the centre-oriented states at least since the 1870s. He reformulates Max Weber’s idea of the strong psychological connection between the growth of capitalism and religion in the way that, despite Weber’s thesis of inextricable ties between capitalism and Protestant ideology, the capitalist developments may be shaped and strengthened by Islamic imaginaries whereas Islam has played ‘an important role in shaping patterns of economic practice’ (p. 43). But Kahn also stresses that ‘it would … be a mistake to speak of a Southeast Asian version of Islamic capitalism’ because the ‘Islamic institutional framework is absent’ there (p. 43). In the chapter ‘Malay Social Imaginaries: Nation-state and Other Collective Identities in Indonesia’, Kenneth Young has shown that in the late nineteenth–early twentieth century there were several ‘imagined communities’ among the Malays and in the Malay World, namely rising secular nationalisms and the notion of an all-Muslim community, or ummah (watan java in Indonesian). These imagined communities, which Young follows Taylor in calling ‘social imaginaries’, were essentially modern. They shared anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist ideas but differed in their orientations and world-views. Secular nationalism in British Malaya focused on, and struggled for, the rights and privileges of the Malays as true native inhabitants of the Malay Peninsula. Secular nationalism in insular Southeast Asia, in the Netherland Indies, aimed to find and/or establish the unity of extremely diverse island populations. The unifying foundation lay in the common Malay language which had long been a lingua franca for merchants, sailors and pilgrims throughout the Indonesian/Malay archipelago; Malay became the basis of the official Indonesian language (Bahasa Indonesia). Sukarno’s five principles (Pancasila) also contributed to unifying nation building. The Indonesian secular nationalist discourse was also influenced by the perception of the local Chinese as ‘outsiders/outlanders’ despite the fact that these people spoke only a Malay/Indonesian language and...

Development and cross-cultural testing of the International Depression Symptom Scale (IDSS): a measurement instrument designed to represent global presentations of depression.

Self-report measurement instruments are commonly used to screen for mental health disorders in Low and Middle-Income Countries (LMIC). The Western origins of most depression instruments may constitute a bias when used globally. Western measures based on the DSM, do not fully capture the expression of depression globally. We developed a self-report scale design to address this limitation, the International Depression Symptom Scale-General version (IDSS-G), based on empirical evidence of the signs and symptoms of depression reported across cultures. This paper describes the rationale and process of its development and the results of an initial test among a non-Western population. We evaluated internal consistency reliability, test-retest reliability and inter-rater reliability of the IDSS-G in a sample N=147 male and female attendees of primary health clinics in Yangon, Myanmar. For criterion validity, IDSS-G scores were compared with diagnosis by local psychiatrists using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM (SCID). Construct validity was evaluated by investigating associations between the IDSS-G and the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ), impaired function, and suicidal ideation. The IDSS-G showed high internal consistency reliability (α=0.92), test-retest reliability (r=0.87), and inter-rater reliability (ICC=0.90). Strong correlations between the IDSS-G and PHQ-9, functioning, and suicidal ideation supported construct validity. Criterion validity was supported for use of the IDSS-G to identify people with a SCID diagnosed depressive disorder (major depression/dysthymia). The IDSS-G also demonstrated incremental validity by predicting functional impairment beyond that predicted by the PHQ-9. Results suggest that the IDSS-G accurately assesses depression in this population. Future testing in other populations will follow.

Divisible Atoms or None at All? Facing the European Contributions to Developments of Chemistry and Physics in China.

One of the most important Mid-European professor with more than six thousand academic descendants was the leading Slovenian erudite Jurij Vega. In broader sense, Vega's and other applied sciences of the south of Holy Roman Empire of German Nationality were connected with the mercury mine of Idrija during the last half of millennia. The Idrija Mine used to be one of the two top European producers of mercury, the basic substance of atomistic alchemists. Idrija Mine contributions to the history of techniques, their examinations and approbations is comparable to the other Mid-European achievements. The peculiarities of Idrija mining environment where people valued mostly the applicative knowhow is put into the limelight. The applicative abilities of Idrija employers affected the broader surroundings including Vega's Jesuit teachers in nearby Ljubljana and the phenomena of comparatively many China-Based Jesuits connected with the area of modern Slovenia. The Jesuits' Mid-European education and networks are put into the limelight, as well as their adopted Chinese networks used for their bridging between Eastern and Western Sciences. The Western origin of the scientific-technologic-industrial revolution(s) with causes for their apparent nonexistence in Chinese frames is discussed as another Eurocentric rhetorical racist question which presumes the scientific-technologic-industrial revolution(s) as something good, positive, and therefore predominantly European. The Chinese ways into progress without those troublemaking revolutions is focused for the first time in historiography from combined scientific, moral, religious, and economic viewpoints. The Chinese contributions to particular areas of research in chemistry and physics is focused to find out the preferences and most frequent stages of (European) paradigms involved in the Chinese networks. Some predictions of future interests of Chinese chemistry and physics are provided. The Chinese Holistic Confucian distrust in atoms is discussed as possible new paradigm which could rename the destructible divisible entities of future physics, and with more difficulties also of chemistry. The word atom meaning indivisible not compound entity is basically in contradiction with the characteristics of item it is supposed to describe. The suffix "a" provides a negation in Ancient Greek language. The suffix should be omitted to use tom (τομος) to manage the actual situation of a-toms (=Toms) as compound of elementary particles. In late 19th century after the European Spring of Nations actually two basically different concepts of atoms of chemists and physicists accomplished a kind of symbioses. The suggestion is put forward that while indivisible atoms soon became contradictions in physics, they still retain some value in chemistry which should be taken into account in the attempt to hange the name of atom. The research of human genome as the atom of genetics is similar in broader sense, while there is no basic problem with the nomenclature of genome. The genome manipulations are far less obstructed with Chinese traditions compared to Christian beliefs.

In Transit: The Formation of the Colonial East Asian Cultural Sphere, by Faye Yuan Kleeman

Faye Yuan Kleeman embarks on an ambitious task in her book, appropriately titled ‘In Transit’, setting out to examine the changing environment and attitudes of Japanese colonialism in the context of modernity. The book has two main strengths: the chronological narrative and the critical analysis of individual historical figures representative of certain categories. Its three sections are composed of two chapters each, which introduce the reader to the complexities of the Japanese colonial experience between the Meiji period and the end of the Second World War. The author provides the reader with a clear and focused introduction to the complex relationships between modernity, colonialism and the formation of a cultural empire. She centres her thesis on the rapid modernisation and social transformation of Japanese society, which also had repercussions in the colonisation and assimilation of Korea and Taiwan. She analyses these processes concentrating on three main aspects: the movement of people, the flow of cultural knowledge and ideology, and the circulation and transmission of art and material culture. Her aim is to explain the concept of ‘colonial modernity’, which was spread by Japan into neighbouring countries in East Asia. She also reminds us that Japan played a pivotal role in the dissemination and assimilation of concepts of Western origin, making them more accessible and acceptable to East Asian sensibilities than they were in their original form.

The Collaborative Dimension of Johan Gunnar Andersson’s Search for a Western Origin of China

The Swedish geologist Johan Gunnar Andersson, well known for discovering the first Stone Age culture in China, was for a long time criticized for trying to establish a ‘Western origin’ for his Yangshao finds. Not much has been written on how he went about to prove this theory and no composite account exists on what role other, mainly Swedish, scholars played in his project. This article aims to address this lacuna, outlining how geographer Sven Hedin, collector Orvar Karlbeck, as well as archaeologists Olov Janse and Ture J. Arne came to be engaged in the search for a Neolithic ‘Eurasian Highway’. Relying on Swedish archives the article will also shed light on the lead up to the Yangshao discovery and the aura of secrecy Andersson shrouded his later activities in China in.

Mexican origins for the Texas green turtle foraging aggregation: A cautionary tale of incomplete baselines and poor marker resolution

The green turtle (Chelonia mydas) foraging aggregation along the Texas coast has increased dramatically in recent years, but the source populations for these turtles have not been adequately resolved. Previous mixed stock analysis (MSA) based on 490 base pair (bp) mitochondrial control region haplotypes suggested a large Florida contribution, but widespread sharing of common haplotypes among potential source populations and incomplete source population baseline data precluded precise assessment. To test the hypothesis that Texas turtles may represent proximal western Gulf of Mexico (GoM) nesting populations, we analyzed novel rookery samples from Rancho Nuevo, Tamaulipas, Mexico (RNMX) and conducted oceanic connectivity simulations. The RNMX samples yielded haplotypes CM-A1.1 and CM-A3.1 in frequencies not significantly different from those of the central eastern Florida nesting population. However, mitogenomic sequencing identified a diagnostic mitochondrial SNP (mtSNP) variant that is fixed in RNMX relative to the Florida CM-A1.1 lineage. Pairwise comparisons indicate that the Tamaulipas rookery represents a discrete population relative to those previously described in the northern Greater Caribbean, warranting recognition of a western GoM management unit (MU). Contrary to previous findings, the Florida populations were ruled out as major contributors to the Texas aggregation through screening of the mtSNP. Mixed stock analysis incorporating the mtSNP data suggested a western GoM origin for approximately 70% of the Texas foraging aggregation, with Quintana Roo contributing the majority of the remainder. Backtracking simulations within an ocean circulation model were broadly congruent with genetic results in indicating substantial probability of oceanic transport from Mexican rookeries to the Texas coast (68%) while also dismissing the possibility of transport from the eastern Florida rookeries (0%). The mixed stock analyses and backtracking simulations are consistent with previous hypotheses implicating oceanic dispersal followed by natal homing by neritic juveniles to explain juvenile green turtle distributions. In contrast to a pattern of stepping stone connectivity across the remaining northern Greater Caribbean, the Texas foraging aggregation was distinct from all others analyzed in the region, including one in the eastern GoM. This isolation highlights the significance of Texas as developmental habitat for the proposed western GoM MU and reiterates the importance of continued international cooperation to facilitate recovery of this stock. This study also underscores the importance of satisfying underlying assumptions of mixed stock analysis in order to make robust inferences of connectivity.

Birds of Brier Island

Brier Island, Nova Scotia, Canada, at the southwestern entrance to the Bay of Fundy, has been known for years as a prime birding destination. It combines access to unusually rich gatherings of pelagic birds, the chance of seeing rarities in greater frequency than almost anywhere else in the province, and the spectacle of large volume land bird migrations. The island lies at the intersection of migratory routes along the east coast of North America. Because of intense oceanic turbulence in the adjacent shallow water, which is in close proximity to deeper water, rich feeding is available for nearshore seabirds and pelagic species. Of the 470+ species recorded from the Province of Nova Scotia as a whole, 355 have been recorded from Brier Island. Many of these are vagrants, mainly of western or southern origin in North America; others are common passage migrants that visit the island briefly in very large numbers, especially in autumn. Apart from possible vagrants in spring and fall, the island is noted for the abundance of passerine migrants in autumn, a striking hawk migration in September and October, late-summer gatherings of phalaropes, shearwaters, and storm petrels, and an abundance of overwintering alcids, loons, grebes, and sea ducks in winter. The island has been the site of bird-banding activity and of Christmas counts for more than 50 years. We provide an introduction to the physiography, geology, physical geography, oceanography, and ecology of the island, along with a list of the breeding birds, a comparison with Grand Manan, New Brunswick, an extensively annotated list of the birds plausibly reported from the island to the middle of 2011, describing occurrence, seasonality, and abundance of all species, and a checklist of the birds of the island. Species occurrence data available via the OBIS Canada data repository http://ipt.iobis.org/obiscanada/resource?r=brierisland_birds

The 1.78-kb insertion in the 3'-untranslated region of RXFP2 does not segregate with horn status in sheep breeds with variable horn status.

BackgroundThe mode of inheritance of horn status in sheep is far more complex than a superficial analysis might suggest. Observations, which were mostly based on crossbreeding experiments, indicated that the allele that results in horns is dominant in males and recessive in females, and some authors even speculated about the involvement of more than two alleles. However, all recent genome-wide association analyses point towards a very strong effect of a single autosomal locus on ovine chromosome 10, which was narrowed down to a putatively causal insertion polymorphism in the 3′-untranslated region of the relaxin/insulin-like family peptide receptor 2 gene (RXFP2). The main objective of this study was to test this insertion polymorphism as the causal mutation in diverse sheep breeds, including breeds with a variable and/or sex-dependent horn status.ResultsAfter re-sequencing a region of about 246 kb that covered the RFXP2 gene and its flanking regions for 24 sheep from six completely horned and six completely polled breeds, we identified the same insertion polymorphism that was previously published as segregating with horn status in these breeds. Multiplex PCR genotyping of 489 sheep from 34 breeds and some crosses between sheep breeds showed a nearly perfect segregation of the insertion polymorphism with horn status in sheep breeds of Central and Western European origin. In these breeds and their crossings, heterozygous males were horned and heterozygous females were polled. However, this segregation pattern was not, or at least not completely, reproducible in breeds with sex-dependent and/or variable horn status, especially in sheep that originated from even more southern European regions and from Africa. In such breeds, we observed almost all possible combinations of genotype, sex and horn status phenotype.ConclusionsThe 1.78-kb insertion polymorphism in the 3′-untranslated region of RXFP2 and SNPs in the 3′-UTR, exon 14 and intron 11 of this gene that we analyzed in this study cannot be considered as the only cause of polledness in sheep and are not useful as a universal marker to define the genetic horn status in sheep.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12711-016-0256-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

A comparison of civil religion and remembrance culture in Germany and Japan

AbstractJapan and Germany were allies during World War II, and both countries committed crimes. Even though the Nazi persecution of Jews in Germany was unprecedented in history, Japan has also been found guilty of serious misdemeanours. Today, Germany acknowledges the magnitude of its responsibility and strives to deal with this legacy. However, in Japan, we find no consensus on dealing with the matter. Nonetheless, it would be short-sighted to conclude that Germany did a better job than Japan from the outset. In analysing the different approaches to remembrance culture in the two countries, we use the theoretical framework ofcivil religionto assess the impacts of the respective civil religions on the culture of commemoration. We hereby analyzed the structural factors as well as the influence of individual political behaviour. Immediately after the war, neither Germany nor Japan were interested in coming to terms with their past. Both countries were subject to Western integration, and both countries experienced remarkable economic growth. One of the major differences between both countries concerns civil religion. While Germany no longer relied on strong nationalism-based politics and instead pursued European integration, in Japan. Shintôism has continued to influence feelings of national belonging, making it more difficult to establish a critical dialogue with the past. Further differences are apparent: the Western origin of Japan’s constitution, the conflicting international environment in Japan, the late regime change, differences in education and, most importantly, the impacts of generational change in Germany. The 1968 student generation strongly condemned Nazi aggression and demanded that the older generation face responsibility, which strongly contributed to a reappraisal of the past in the public sphere.

The Encounter of East Asia With Western Civilization in The 19th Century: Translation as A Means of Communication

This study examines how three East Asian countries - Korea, China, and Japan overcome and translated heterogeneities into a means of communication with Western civilization. Simultaneously, discussions on ways of translation were also examined to compare the stances of each country that accepted Western civilization. The governments of the 3 East Asian countries have commonly encouraged the translation works along with openness to Western civilization in the 19th century. Translation has usually been exploited as a means to rule colonized countries. However, the three countries have spontaneously encouraged translation, suggestive of the need to find alternate approaches to conventional ways in the study of translations in the post-colonial era. In the past, the three countries shared common Chinese characters that facilitated mutual communication. However, their point of view on communication with foreign countries differed. Japan has initiated the translation of the works of Western civilization since 16th century, thus gaining experience in the importance of mutual communication with foreign civilizations. Accordingly, the level of translation and the resultant culture have evolved more than in other countries. China likewise has a long history of translation, but most works of translation were conducted by people of Western origin. In Korea, despite the significant career in the operation of national translational-training school, the public recognition of translation and translators has been relatively negative. This poor acceptance of translation and translators might be the consequence of different results from communication mediated through Korean translation in the 19th century.