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How well do brain organoids capture your brain?
Get PDFFunding: I.-H. P. was partly supported by NIH (GM111667–01, R01MH118344-01A1, R01MH118554-01A1, R01AA025080–01, R01CA203011-2), CSCRF (14-SCC-YALE-01, 16-RMB-YALE-04), Kavli Foundation, Simons Foundation, and NOMIS Foundation. G.J.S was partly supported by the Norwegian Research Council through its Centers of Excellence funding scheme (project number 262613).Brain organoids closely recapitulate many features and characteristics of in vivo brain tissue. This technology in turn allows unprecedented possibilities to investigate brain development and function in the dish. Several brain organoid protocols have been established, and the studies have focused on validating the architecture, cellular composition, and function of the organoids. In future, the improved and advanced organoid models will enable us to understand cellular and molecular features of the developing brain. However, several obstacles, such as the quality of the organoids, 3D structural analysis, and measurement of the neural connectivity need to be improved. In this perspective, we will provide an overview of the current state of the art of the brain organoid field, with a focus on protocols and organoid characterization. Additionally, we will address the current limitations of this evolving field and provide an understanding of the current brain organoid landscape and insight toward the next steps.Peer reviewe
1980 onwardsan attempt to stage a selfie of a generation
No full textThis article analyzes the 2012 production of the Egyptian play 1980 Onwards (1980 wa-anta tali’) and contends it stages Syrian playwright Sa’dallah Wannous’s allusion to an imaginary mirror placed on stage. The play explores one of the most common phenomena of our everyday spurred by technological progress—selfies—and ends when the cast takes an actual self-portrait. Before concluding each performance, cast members of the 2012 production took collective selfies that included the spectators and shared them on social media accounts associated with the show. This article examines how these selfies, while being instrumental in promoting the show among young millennial audiences, were also meaningful for the show itself. It suggests that the selfies strengthened the sense that the stage reflected the experiences of those in the auditorium. Furthermore, it argues that by doing so, these selfies amplified “the scream of a generation”—an expression used by playwright Mahmoud Gamal Hedeny and director Mohamed Gabr to describe their production. Thus, the selfies allowed the play’s effect to be felt beyond the theater, turning the show into a social media phenomenon.Peer reviewe
Affect, video games, and postdigital technogenesis in contemporary literary fiction
No full textAbstract redacte
Letters on a Regicide Peace : Edmund Burke and the Anglican tradition
Get PDFThis thesis is an attempt to explicate the relationship between Edmund Burke’s religious and political thought; with particular emphasis on his pamphlets ‘Letters on a Regicide Peace’, written at the close of his life. There have been a few dedicated articles to this topic previously. However, they have typically restricted themselves to exploding some myth about Burke’s churchmanship, before concluding that he was a ‘latitudinarian. In consequence, the first half of this thesis is an exploration of what it meant to be a latitudinarian in the Anglican church of the eighteenth-century, and an exposition of Burke’s contribution to those debates.
The second half of the thesis is an account of Burke’s evolving analysis of the French Revolution. It is my argument that this can only be fully explained if Burke’s religious commitments have already been satisfactorily presented and accounted for.
The Introduction deals primarily with recent historiography on the relationship of religious thought to intellectual history, and with scholarship on Burke in this sphere. It contains an assessment of the most recent major contribution to Burke studies: Richard Bourke’s Empire and Revolution, in which I explain how my treatment of this subject differs from Bourke’s. Chapters 1-2 constitute the first half of this thesis. Chapter 1 is an analysis of the emergence of latitude theology, and of Burke’s influence by and relationship to it. It then applies this analysis to Burke’s specific contribution to ecclesiological debates about the relationship between church and state in the eighteenth-century. Chapter 2 deals with Burke’s reaction to and engagement with dissenting thought, with particular reference to America. This provides scope for a deeper assessment of Burke’s attitude toward Establishment, which leads to a treatment of Burke as a product of the Irish Enlightenment as presented by Michael Brown. Chapter 3 argues that Burke came to see the French Revolutionary wars in terms of a religious crusade; and Chapter 4 applies the analysis of Chapter 3 to the particular problems of Ireland in the 1790s
Editing a new critical edition of the Grandes Études de Paganini by Franz Liszt
No full textThis presents a new critical edition of Franz Liszt's Grandes Études de Paganini [S141], addressing the lack of a reliable, comprehensive edition despite the work's significance in piano repertoire. The accompanying commentary provides historical context for Liszt's Paganini-inspired compositions and meticulously examines existing sources for both versions of the Paganini Études. It identifies prevalent issues in current editions of the Grandes Études de Paganini and proposes corrections and improvements to ensure a more accurate representation of Liszt's intentions. The submission also offers performance suggestions based on 19th-century traditions and Liszt's own teachings. Additionally, it includes the first edition of the orchestral version of Liszt's Weimars Volkslied [S87/10], providing its historical overview and editorial commentary. The author concludes by discussing how a musician's instinct can be a valuable tool in editing musical scores
Nationalism, trust, and activism among Italy's Eritrean diaspora
No full textThis thesis interrogates the ways that Italian colonialism in Eritrea and contemporary migration shape the political reality of Eritrean activists in Italy. Italy’s relationship to its colonial past must be understood in dialectic with the experiences of descendants of the colonies currently living in Italy. Eritreans in Italy are dismissed as generic ‘migrants’, which contrasts with the connection they feel to Italy and the centrality of Italian colonialism to the sense of Eritrean national unity which developed from Eritrea’s War of Independence from Ethiopia. Through an examination of activism undertaken by individuals who oppose the Eritrean government, the thesis explores how narratives ascribed to the Eritrean government’s own nationalism are deployed in support of Eritrean refugees and asylum seekers – labelled as traitors by the state. Such activism formulates a language of humanitarianism that serves as an alternative to otherwise silenced political discontent, thus challenging the strict control of the Eritrean state over much of Italy’s Eritrean diaspora.
The displacement of colonialism in Italy constitutes a paraphasic shift that reveals a gap between two historicities – the dominant Italian and the marginalized Eritrean. The theory of paraphasia developed in this thesis, expanding on Ann Stoler’s colonial aphasia (2011, 2016), considers Italy’s ‘occluded histories’ related to colonialism from the perspective of the formerly colonised. Rather than focusing on what is absent from Italian narratives of colonialism, paraphasia brings the gap between parallel narratives to the analytical forefront. This perspective highlights the way the postcolonial encounter is experienced by Eritreans in Italy and reveals a tension between belonging and exclusion which is mirrored in the political division present within Italy’s Eritrean diaspora. The concept of paraphasia offers a novel theoretical tool to interrogate the ways in which colonisers and former colonised subjects engage with and articulate a shared past in Italy
The gestural repertoire of Bwindi mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei) : gesture form and frequency of use
Get PDFFunding: European Union’s 8th Framework Programme, Horizon 2020 (802719).Over recent decades comprehensive catalogues of vocal, facial, and gestural signals have been established for most great ape species; however, a systematic description of wild gorilla gestural behaviour, particularly of the Eastern gorilla species, remains missing. We address this absence by cataloguing the physical form of gestural units used by 49 habituated wild mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei) from four social units in the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Uganda (n = 157 observation days over 8 months). We obtained a dataset of n = 3220 instances of intentional gesture, coded with a systematic ELAN-based framework (GesturalOrigins). Mountain gorillas employed a repertoire of 63 gesture actions, including potentially species-specific units, across 10 behavioural contexts. A latent class analysis on variants of gesture action expression split units further into 126 finer-grained forms (‘morphs’). We observed ~ 6 gestures per hour of observation time and species-level repertoire size was similar to those reported in both Pan species. Our study constitutes the first systematic description of the mountain gorilla gestural repertoire, providing a new understanding of their communication, filling current gaps in great ape gestural phylogeny, and complementing previous studies on their vocal signals. Living in cohesive, small-sized female-male bonded social units, gorillas show striking differences in social organisation as compared to Pan species and provide crucial context for theories on the potential ancestral states of human communicative behaviour.Peer reviewe
The new empires : conquest and subjugation in the 21st century
Get PDFInternational relations scholarship applies the terms “empire” and “imperialist” primarily to the post-World War II foreign policies of the United States and the fallen European great powers from the 19th-20th centuries. This fixation not only ignores the global nature of imperialism but has also left territorial acquisitions in the 21st century relatively unexamined. Conquering, non-Western powers have risen in the modern era that have come to shape, if not dominate, the international system and thus merit academic attention. The goal of this dissertation is to contextualize the actions of these states in the history of empires and will examine the Republic of Turkey, Islamic Republic of Iran, and People’s Republic of China primarily alongside the Second German Empire, Spanish Empire, and Venetian Republic, respectively. From these and other imperial analogies, the hope is that readers will be able to determine patterns of imperial behavior and glean from international relations history mechanisms by which to detect and counter their actions. More succinctly, this thesis will posit that empires bearing similarities in their arrangement, construction, maintenance, and geopolitical context can develop in much the same fashion. Furthermore, the findings of these comparisons support the conclusion that the 21st century will witness a resurgence of empire – in contrast to the imperial retraction of the 20th – and be known for its conquest, colonialism, cultural imposition, as well as economic exploitation in which liberal states will struggle to preserve the principle of self-determination
Dynamics of intercity migration propensity in China : evidence from an age-period-cohort analysis
Get PDFFunding: The authors would like to acknowledge support for this project from the CUHK Vice‐Chancellor’s PhD Scholarship from The Chinese University of Hong Kong.This research conducts a disaggregation of three major temporal interrelations – age, period, and cohort (APC) – to fully grasp variations in intercity migration propensity in China. Using repeated cross-sectional data from the Sixth Population Census in 2010 and the 1% Population Sampling Surveys in 2005 and 2015, we disentangle APC effects on the two-stage migration decision-making process through the Hierarchical APC model. The empirical findings are as follows: the likelihood of migration decreases as individuals age, persisting until their early 60s, after which a slight upward trend is observed. Migrants from the 1940–1985 cohorts exhibit an increasing propensity for migration, which later reverses in subsequent cohorts. However, the average intercity migration propensity does not significantly vary across periods. Furthermore, the decision of where to migrate – whether to move across provincial boundaries – also varies across APC factors. The propensity for interprovincial migration steadily declines with age. The contextual period effects are significant and partially result from the development of foreign-invested enterprises. Individuals born in the 1960s and 1970s are more likely to migrate interprovincially compared to their post-1980s counterparts. Sensitivity analysis confirms the robustness of these results. Our findings shed light on more nuanced mechanisms underlying the dynamics of intercity migration in China, particularly the effects of cohort replacement on migration.Peer reviewe
Northward shift of pre-monsoon zonal winds exacerbating heatwaves over India
Get PDFFunding: This work is financially supported by the Department of Science & Technology (SPLICE-Climate Change Programme), India, through Project DST/CCP/CoE/140/2018. The lead author acknowledges the fellowship support through DAAD In-Region Scholarship Programme South Asia.India has observed increasingly persistent heat extremes in recent decades. North-Central India, a highly populated region prone to heatwaves, has experienced record maximum temperatures (>48°C) during the pre-monsoon season. While studies have shown positive trends in heatwaves due to rising air temperature, we identify a shift in pre-monsoon mean daily maximum temperature over North-Central India, resulting in an increase in temperature by 0.7°C post-1998. The jump in temperature is associated with a northward migration of the subtropical westerly jet since 1998. We find that the meridional shift in the subtropical westerly jet explains more than 25% of the variability in heatwave characteristics over North-Central India, implying that the increase in heatwaves post-1998 is associated with a northward shift of the jet. These findings highlight that the exacerbation of heatwaves in North-Central India is driven by atmospheric dynamical changes triggered by a regime shift, further compounded by global warming.Peer reviewe
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