Aristotle's On the Soul

Aristotle's On the Soul aims to uncover the principle of life, what Aristotle calls psuchē (soul). For Aristotle, soul is the form which gives life to a body and causes all its living activities, from breathing to thinking. Aristotle develops a general account of all types of living through examining soul's causal powers. The thirteen new essays in this Critical Guide demonstrate the profound influence of Aristotle's inquiry on biology, psychology and philosophy of mind from antiquity to the present. They deepen our understanding of his key concepts, including form, reason, capacity, and activity. This volume situates Aristotle in his intellectual context and draws judiciously from his other works as well as the history of interpretation to shed light on his intricate views. It also highlights ongoing interpretive debates and Aristotle's continuing relevance. It will prove invaluable for researchers in ancient philosophy and the history of science and ideas.

Water as a thermodynamic parameter of biosphere evolution

Water has a profound influence on the evolution of the biosphere and can be regarded as a thermodynamic parameter. The priorities and objectives in this research include determining the hydrological features of rivers and lakes in the region as indicators of the thermodynamic activity of water in the evolutionary processes; hydrology and ecology of the cryptobiosphere; the effects of water on the evolutionary adaptations and strategies in living organisms in biogeochemical systems of different origins; and the hydrology of possible alternative stable states of biogeochemical systems.

The Future of Winckelmann’s Classical Form

Winckelmann’s thought and writing are routinely acknowledged to have had a profound influence on the artistic practices of the half-century after his death, known under the label ‘Neoclassicism’. Standard accounts of modernism in the arts, however, assume that this influence came to an abrupt end around 1815. According to such accounts, the anti-classical reaction that followed the Battle of Waterloo and the demise of Neoclassicism was itself a motive force in the generation of modern art and modernism. This paper argues, on the contrary, that Winckelmann’s ideas not only remained relevant, but gained in power through the generations after the fall of Napoleon. Mediated by critics and artists among whom Walter Pater and Frederic Leighton serve as the principal examples, Winckelmann’s thought made a decisive contribution to twentieth-century modernism. In particular, the articulation in both criticism and artistic practice of ideas about classical form, indebted to Winckelmann, had a subtler and more complex impact on the modernist doctrine of ‘formalism’ than literary or art historians have acknowledged. A renewed attention to classical form will help future scholars to write a more nuanced account of modernism in the visual arts. More importantly, it will call attention to artistic projects that have been excluded from histories of modern art due to reductive assumptions that classicism and modernism are inherently contradictory. The paper concentrates on Frederic Leighton as a case study of an artist whose historical importance and aesthetic merit have been occluded by reductive thinking of this kind.

Patriotism Spirit Using New Media Among Youth in Malaysia

New media plays a role by emphasizing communication channels in conveying national information to enhance the patriotism spirit. The effect will also necessarily give an evolution to the cultivating patriotism spirit among the youth. Past studies have shown that the patriotism spirit among youth is very low and loose. Based on such factors, a study on the importance of new media in cultivating patriotism spirit is implemented to identify the real factors that influence youth to be more patriotic. Four aspects that influence the cultivating patriotism spirit are studied to see its relationship and influence to the youth. Factors studied are behavior, learning process, current environment and construction of patriotism values. This study is based on quantitative study that uses survey as a data collection technique while respondents are among the youths in Malaysia selected through stratified random sampling technique. The findings of the correlation and multiple regression tests conducted found that the new media had a profound influence towards patriotism spirit among youth. Also, there is a positive relationship between the four factors studied. The behavioral factor had a very high and significant relationship with the values (p <.01, r = 0.82). Multiple regression analysis showed that the four factors influenced the cultivating patriotism spirit (p <.01, R2 = 0.73) which is 73 percent. This also has implications from the aspect of the importance of new media through the dissemination of national information to increase the spirit of youth patriotism. Keywords: New media, cultivating, patriotism, importance, youth.

Discovery of a class of giant virus relatives displaying unusual functional traits and prevalent within plankton: the Mirusviricetes

Large and giant DNA viruses of the phylum Nucleocytoviricota have a profound influence on the ecology and evolution of planktonic eukaryotes. Recently, various Nucleocytoviricota genomes have been characterized from environmental metagenomes based on the occurrence of hallmark genes identified from cultures. However, lineages diverging from the culture genomics functional principles have been overlooked thus far. Here, we developed a phylogeny-guided genome-resolved metagenomic framework using a single hallmark gene as compass, a subunit of DNA-dependent RNA polymerase encoded by most Nucleocytoviricota. We applied this method to large metagenomic data sets from the surface of five oceans and two seas and characterized 697 non-redundant Nucleocytoviricota genomes up to 1.45 Mbp in length. This database expands the known diversity of the class Megaviricetes and revealed two additional putative classes we named Proculviricetes and Mirusviricetes. Critically, the diverse and prevalent Mirusviricetes population genomes seemingly lack several hallmark genes, in particular those related to viral particle morphogenesis. Instead, they share various genes of known (e.g., TATA-binding proteins, histones, proteases and viral rhodopsins) and unknown functions rarely detected if not entirely missing in all other characterized Nucleocytoviricota lineages. Phylogenomics, comparative genomics, functional trends and the signal among planktonic cellular size fractions point to Mirusviricetes being a major, functionally divergent class of large DNA viruses that actively infect eukaryotes in the sunlit ocean using an enigmatic functional life style. Finally, we built a comprehensive marine genomic database for Nucleocytoviricota by combining multiple environmental surveys that might contribute to future endeavors exploring the ecology and evolution of plankton.

Role of tropical mid-latitude interaction in the genesis of a monsoon depression - A detailed case study

During northern summer, a monsoon stationary wave which maintains as part of its baroclinic structure three well-defined troughs, one each in the region of the Arabian sea, the Bay of Bengal and South China sea, frequently interacts with the mid-latitude baroclinic waves which amplify during their eastward passage with profound influence on the development of the monsoon troughs. The paper discusses the mechanism of this wave-wave interaction as suggested by the temporal evolution of the themla1 and wind fields associated with the waves and reports the findings of a detailed study of a case of tropical-mid latitude interaction in which the development of a monsoon trough led to the birth of a westward-propagating monsoon depression over South China.

A short term characterisation of wind and temperature over Maitri, East Antarctica

Polar Science is gaining increased importance in Climate Change studies because of the profound influence Polar Climatology has on the Global Climate. Research shows that Antarctica seems to be warming around the edges and cooling at the center at the same time. East Antarctica is climatologically colder than west Antarctica because of its higher elevation. A short term characterization of wind and the temperature over Maitri is attempted in this paper. Maximum and Minimum temperatures showed a tendency to decrease with winter contributing the most to the change. The Wind Directions were predominantly South-South-Easterly in summer and autumn and South-Easterly in winter and spring, with katabatic winds showing the maximum frequency in autumn. The wind speeds were found to be most variable in winter. Greater contributions to the wind chill temperatures were found from the winds, with the tendency for change being more prominent in the transition seasons.

L’ESEGESI CORANICA, IL SUFISMO SCIITA E LA METAFISICA DI IBN ʿARABĪ: CONSIDERAZIONI SULLA STORIA INTELLETTUALE DEL SUFISMO SCIITA NEL XIX SECOLO

Riassunto: Ibn ʿArabī ebbe una influenza profonda e duratura sulla tarda filosfia del mondo dell’Islam, in particolare nelle sue regioni orientali. La sua influenza fu talmente pervasiva che temi, vocabolario e concetti di origine ‘akbariana’ divennero comuni e prevalenti nella letteratura religiosa per moderna e moderna. Questo articolo tocca alcune di queste idee e concetti, in particolare l’approccio di Ibn ʿArabī alla nozione di ‘unità’ così come rialaborato nel lavoro di un importante, ancorché poco studiato sino ad oggi, maestro sufi sciita, Sulṭān ʿAlī Shāh Gunābādī (m. 1909). Questo studio del lavoro di Sulṭān ʿAlī Shāh dimostra come il maestro iraniano negozi la sua lealtà ideale nei confronti dello Shaykh al-Akbar, mantenendo al contampo una cristallina consapevolezza della delicatezza dei temi trattati prendendo le necessarie distanze dalla lettera della teoria, ove ciò fosse necessario, eppure nello stesso tempo corroborando la propria adesione intellettuale e spirituale al cuore della metafisica del maestro andaluso. Abstract: Ibn ʿArabī had a profound influence on later Islamic philosophy and mysticism, in particular in the Muslim East. His influence was pervasive to the point that Akbarian themes, vocabulary and main ideas are common currency in early modern and modern Iranian religious literature. This article covers the issue of some of these themes and ideas, namely Ibn ʿArabī’s understanding of ‘unity’ (waḥda), as exposed in the work of a prominent, albeit understudied, Shiʿi Sufi Master, Sulṭān ʿAlī Shāh Gunābādī (d. 1909). This survey of Sulṭān ʿAlī Shāh’s work shows how the Iranian master negotiates his allegiance to the Shaykh al-Akbar while maintaining a sharp awareness of the sensitivity of his main ideas, distancing himself from the letter of the theory when needed, while at the same time reinforcing his theoretical adherence to the core of the Andalusian master’s metaphysics.

Climate windows of opportunity for plant expansion during the Phanerozoic

Plants are likely to have had a profound influence on Earth’s long-term climate through their role in drawing down CO2 and emitting O2 into the atmosphere and their interactions with soils and minerals. Local climatic factors, including water availability, light, and temperature, play a key role in plant physiology and growth and have fluctuated substantially over geological time. However, the impact of these key climate variables on global plant biomass across the Phanerozoic have not yet been established.

Secretome from In Vitro Mechanically Loaded Myoblasts Induces Tenocyte Migration, Transition to a Fibroblastic Phenotype and Suppression of Collagen Production

It is known that mechanical loading of muscles increases the strength of healing tendon tissue, but the mechanism involved remains elusive. We hypothesized that the secretome from myoblasts in co-culture with tenocytes affects tenocyte migration, cell phenotype, and collagen (Col) production and that the effect is dependent on different types of mechanical loading of myoblasts. To test this, we used an in vitro indirect transwell co-culture system. Myoblasts were mechanically loaded using the FlexCell® Tension system. Tenocyte cell migration, proliferation, apoptosis, collagen production, and several tenocyte markers were measured. The secretome from myoblasts decreased the Col I/III ratio and increased the expression of tenocyte specific markers as compared with tenocytes cultured alone. The secretome from statically loaded myoblasts significantly enhanced tenocyte migration and Col I/III ratio as compared with dynamic loading and controls. In addition, the secretome from statically loaded myoblasts induced tenocytes towards a myofibroblast-like phenotype. Taken together, these results demonstrate that the secretome from statically loaded myoblasts has a profound influence on tenocytes, affecting parameters that are related to the tendon healing process.