Extremes are Typical. A Game Theoretical Derivation

In this paper we argue that a typical member of a class, or category, is an extreme, rather than a central, member of this category. Making use of a formal notion of representativeness, we can say that a typical member of a category is a stereotype of this category. In the second part of the paper we show that this account of typicality can be given a rational motivation by providing a game-theoretical derivation.

Communities of Practice of Transition: An Analytical Framework for Studying Change-Focussed Groups

In this article, we consider a previously unidentified form of community of practice: the community of practice of transition. Our exemplar data come from two separate studies, one of a group for trans young people and one of an online divorce support community. Such communities differ from other communities of practice because the transition process itself is the focus and the shared practice of the community. We argue that communities of practice of transition differ from ‘classic’ communities of practice in four main ways. First, and most salient, there are differences in relation to time and its importance. Second, and following from this, there are differences in relation to the focus of trajectories into and through the group, which affect who is able to become a central member. Third, the role and characteristics of central members of the community are different from those found in a traditionally conceived community of practice: moving out of a transitional state (and, therefore, out of the community) is key to old-timer status. Finally, reified events are highly salient in communities of practice of transition, and more important than reified objects. We argue that the concept of a community of practice of transition challenges and expands many of the assumptions underpinning the community of practice as a framework for analysing the dynamics and operation of groups and how identities are forged in and through them. Most significantly, we argue that time needs to be taken more seriously in relation to communities of practice.

Virginia and After

When Leonard returned from Ceylon after seven years on home leave, his growing doubts about a career in the civil service, and his falling in love with Virginia Stephen, led him to resign. For the rest of his life he would be a central member of the Bloomsbury Group and deeply involved in its cultural and literary activities. On his marriage in 1912, he devoted himself to enabling his wife to become an extremely important writer and to being the custodian of her work after her suicide in 1941. Together they founded the small but highly successful publishing house, the Hogarth Press. Through his innumerable reviews he was a major literary figure, but he abandoned fiction after his second novel, The Wise Virgins. After Virginia’s death, his life was enriched through the companionship of Trekkie Parsons. Also in his last decade he wrote five superb short volumes of autobiography.

Targeting STAT3 signaling in kidney disease

The Janus kinase/signal transducer and activator of transcription (JAK/STAT) signaling pathway is a multifaceted transduction system that regulates cellular responses to incoming signaling ligands. STAT3 is a central member of the JAK/STAT signaling cascade and has long been recognized for its increased transcriptional activity in cancers and autoimmune disorders but has only recently been in the spotlight for its role in the progression of kidney disease. Although genetic knockout and manipulation studies have demonstrated the salutary benefits of inhibiting STAT3 activity in several kidney disease models, pharmacological inhibition has yet to make it to the clinical forefront. In recent years, significant effort has been aimed at suppressing STAT3 activation for treatment of cancers, which has led to the development of a wide variety of STAT3 inhibitors, but only a handful have been tested in kidney disease models. Here, we review the detrimental role of dysregulated STAT3 activation in a variety of kidney diseases and the current progress in the treatment of kidney diseases with pharmacological inhibition of STAT3 activity.

Ernst, Max (1891–1976)

Max Ernst was a painter, sculptor and printmaker. He was born in Germany, but he lived in Paris and then New York; he returned to France in the 1960s. An encounter with Ernst’s work reveals an unconventional frame of reference marked by a ceaseless search for new forms of expression — forms capable of responding to an era of fragmentation and a loss of faith in the Enlightenment ideals of reason and progress. Ernst was an early leader of Dadaism in Cologne and a central member of the surrealist movement. Indeed, his work is full of intentional contradictions and red herrings, yet it is possible to detect technical and thematic foci throughout his oeuvre: birds, forests, petrified cities and the natural sciences. In order to give form to the visions of his unconscious mind, Ernst developed a number of semi-automatic methods of creation: ‘grattage’ (scraping paint from the canvas); ‘frottage’ (taking rubbings); ‘decalcomania’ (a form of image transfer); and ‘oscillation’ (swinging a pierced paint can so as to drip paint on the canvas). His approach was partly derived from Sigmund Freud’s (1856–1939) psychoanalytic theories, an influence shared by the surrealists Paul Éluard (1895–1952) and André Breton (1896–1966). Taking war as his primordial experience, Ernst wrestled with multiple forms of expression to produce an extensive and enigmatic body of work that limns the experience of living in a period of bewildering social and political upheaval.

Lisa Randall: The Technological Sublime

In 2008 a rap video by Kate McAlpine went viral (nearly eight million views at present). Not your typical rap video, it takes place in the tunnel of the Large Hadron Collider and on the grounds 100 feet above. During the performance, the computer-generated voice of Stephen Hawking chimes in as part of a periodic call and response. Throughout, the lyrics are replete with technical terms like “protons,” “lead ions,” “antimatter,” “black holes,” “dark matter,” “Higgs boson,” “Standard Model,” “graviton,” “top quark,” and acronyms like “ALICE,” “ATLAS,” and “CMS.” Here is the central refrain: . . . The LHC accelerates the protons and the lead And the things that it discovers will rock you in the head. The Higgs boson, that’s the one that everybody talks about And it’s the one sure thing that this machine will sort out. . . . McAlpine’s was a prophesy that proved right on target. In 2016, François Englert and Peter Higgs won the Nobel Prize in physics for a conjecture they had made over a half century earlier, a mathematically driven leap of faith that became a scientific fact when the Higgs boson was detected—a hitherto mysterious but absolutely central member of the particle zoo. It was a discovery that confirmed the otherwise highly confirmed Standard Model, the explanatory centerpiece of the quantum world. At five billion dollars, the detector of the Higgs, the Large Hadron Collider, is the most expensive scientific apparatus ever built. It is a Mount Everest of machines, the apotheosis of the technological sublime. This form of sublimity is near the center of Lisa Randall’s professional life, the only means by which her deepest conjectures about the universe can be demonstrated. Hers is a flight into the scientific stratosphere tethered to events that she hopes will be observed by two incarnations of the technological sublime: the Large Hadron Collider or the GAIA satellite. When the UK funding for the Large Hadron Collider was still in question, Science Minister William Waldegrave challenged British physicists, telling them “that if anyone could explain what all the fuss was about, in plain English, on one sheet of paper, then he would reward that person with a bottle of vintage champagne.”

‘The vsuall speach of the Court’? Investigating language change in the Tudor family network (1544–1556)

This paper considers how micro-level analysis can enrich our understanding of macro-level processes of language change, using a case study of the Tudors. It explores how language use in the Tudor family network relates to the role of the Court in the supralocalisation of innovative forms during the sixteenth century. Using an original corpus of correspondence and other autograph writings, I conduct a comparative analysis of the language of Elizabeth Tudor with her siblings, parents and caregivers. The findings suggest that Elizabeth’s siblings, Mary I and Edward VI, were progressive in changes localised at the Court, but that Elizabeth’s caregivers and peripheral kin may have influenced Elizabeth’s uptake of non-Court-based changes. Using Network Strength Scores to represent the social experiences of Elizabeth and her nearest kin, it appears that Elizabeth’s changing position within the Court network, from a peripheral to more central member, may have played a part in the Court’s catalyst effect for the supralocalisation of innovative forms, and the emergence of an overtly prestigious “norm” in Early Modern English.

Investigation on Spot Welding Effect on Truss Core Panel for Crashworthiness

One of the main concerns of the automotive industry is reduction in structural weight of automobiles. Reduction of weight on vehicles has been proven to lower the usage of fuel, and therefore save a lot of energy in order to move from one place to another. At the same time, reduction of weight often means reduction in material usage, often regarded to be threatening structural strength of parts, components or vehicles body in white (BIW). Truss Core Panel, which has been developed from the study of origami engineering, specifically plane-tilings and space fillings, is a suitable candidate because it can be produced from thin sheet metals and can be joined using spot welding. In this paper, method for evaluating truss core panels for crashworthiness has been established based previous research on crashworthiness evaluation on thin shells. The effect of different configuration of spot welding has been investigated. The number of spot weld (n) along central member and side members of truss core panel has been varied and modeled from n = 2, 4, 6 ... to n = 30, and compared to a truss core panel model that is fully welded along central member and side members. The results also show that it is possible to attain similar mean crush force to fully welded structure with smaller number of spot welds.