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Did Jewish Women Circumcise Male Infants in Antiquity? A Reassessment of the Evidence
Get PDFTwo diametrically opposed assumptions have influenced interpretations of circumcision rituals in ancient Judaism: either women performed the operation on their infant sons because children at birth and during infancy remained under the purview of the mother; or, conversely, men—specifically a ritual agent known as the mohel—performed circumcisions, because only they were typically granted authority to carry out the ritual. This study reassesses the pertinent texts, including Exodus 4 and passages from the books of Maccabees and the Babylonian Talmud (b. Šabb. 134a; b. Yebam. 64b; b. ʿAbod. Zar. 27a), to determine whether women in ancient Judaism may have circumcised their infant sons; and shows that an older, family-based ritual practice in which either mothers or fathers performed the operation was being replaced by late antiquity by a specialist-based ritual performed by mohels from outside the household
Development of webcam-collected and artificial- intelligence-derived social and cognitive performance measures for neurodevelopmental genetic syndromes
Get PDFThis study focused on the development and initial psychometric evaluation of a set of online, webcam-collected, and artificial intelligence-derived patient performance measures for neurodevelopmental genetic syndromes (NDGS). Initial testing and qualitative input was used to develop four stimulus paradigms capturing social and cognitive processes, including social attention, receptive vocabulary, processing speed, and single-word reading. The paradigms were administered to a sample of 375 participants, including 163 with NDGS, 56 with idiopathic neurodevelopmental disability (NDD), and 156 neurotypical controls. Twelve measures were created from the four stimulus paradigms. Valid completion rates varied from 87 to 100% across measures, with lower but adequate completion rates in participants with intellectual disability. Adequate to excellent internal consistency reliability (α = 0.67 to 0.95) was observed across measures. Test–retest reproducibility at 1-month follow-up and sta- bility at 4-month follow-up was fair to good (r = 0.40–0.73) for 8 of the 12 measures. All gaze-based measures showed evidence of convergent and discriminant validity with parent-report measures of other cognitive and behavioral constructs. Compari- sons across NDGS groups revealed distinct patterns of social and cognitive function- ing, including people with PTEN mutations showing a less impaired overall pattern and people with SYNGAP1 mutations showing more attentional, processing speed, and social processing difficulties relative to people with NFIX mutations. Webcam- collected performance measures appear to be a reliable and potentially useful method for objective characterization and monitoring of social and cognitive processes in NDGS and idiopathic NDD. Additional validation work, including more detailed con- vergent and discriminant validity analyses and examination of sensitivity to change, is needed to replicate and extend these observations
Albertania and Egbenema gen. nov. from Nigeria and the United States, expanding biodiversity in the Oculatellaceae (cyanobacteria)
Get PDFKnowledge of the tropical terrestrial cyanobacterial flora from the African con-tinent is still limited. Of 31 strains isolated from soil and subaerial samples col-lected in Lagos State, Nigeria, three were found to be in the Oculatellaceae,including two species in a new genus. Subsequently, isolates from micro-bial mats in White Sands National Park in New Mexico, United States, andfrom a rock near the ocean in Puerto Rico, United States, were found tobelong to the new genus as well. Cyanobacterial isolates were character-ized microscopically, sequenced for the 16S rRNA gene and associated ITSregion, and phylogenetically analyzed. Egbenema gen. nov., with three newspecies, as well as two new species of Albertania were differentiated fromall other Oculatellaceae. Both genera belong to a supported clade within theOculatellaceae that includes Trichotorquatus and Komarkovaea. The two newspecies of Albertania, A. egbensis and A. latericola, were from the same sam-ple, but were evolutionarily separate based on 16S rRNA gene phylogenies,percent identity below the 98.7% threshold, and ITS rRNA percent dissimi-larity \u3e7.0%. Egbenema aeruginosum gen. et sp. nov. was phylogeneticallyseparated from Trichotorquatus and Albertania but was in a clade with otherstrains belonging to Egbenema. The two Egbenema strains from the UnitedStates are here named Egbenema epilithicum sp. nov. and Egbenemagypsiphilum sp. nov. Our results support the hypothesis that further speciesdiscoveries of novel cyanobacteria will likely be made in soils and subaerialhabitats, as these habitats continue to be studied, both in tropical and tem-perate biomes
Guidebook for The Logic of Happiness
No full textThe Logic of Happiness guidebook, for both instructors and the students themselves, explores the logic concepts introduced in the novel through original readings and probing questions, enabling students to delve deeply and critically into the theories of an array of philosophers who explored the problem of how to find happiness in a complicated world filled with complicated people. Students who work through it will find themselves more thoughtful and discerning—and more prepared to work toward establishing for themselves a life that will bring them their own happiness
