Meaning and Anti-Meaning in Life and What Happens After We Die

The absence of meaningfulness in life is meaninglessness. But what is the polar opposite of meaningfulness? In recent and ongoing work together with Stephen Campbell and Marcello di Paola respectively, I have explored what we dub ‘anti-meaning’: the negative counterpart of positive meaning in life. Here, I relate this idea of ‘anti-meaningful’ actions, activities, and projects to the topic of death, and in particular the deaths or suffering of those who will live after our own deaths. Connecting this idea of anti-meaning and what happens after our own deaths to recent work by Samuel Scheffler on what he calls ‘the collective afterlife’ and his four reasons to care about future generations, I argue that if we today make choices or have lifestyles that later lead to unnecessarily early deaths and otherwise avoidable suffering of people who will live after we have died, this robs our current choices and lifestyles of some of their meaning, perhaps even making them the opposite of meaningful in the long run.

p16 Represses DNA Damage Repair via a Novel Ubiquitin-Dependent Signaling Cascade

Squamous cell carcinoma driven by human papillomavirus (HPV) is more sensitive to DNA-damaging therapies, such as radiation, than its HPV-negative counterpart. Here we show that p16, the clinically utilized surrogate for HPV positivity, renders cells more sensitive to radiation via a ubiquitin-dependent signaling pathway, linking high levels of this protein to increased activity of the transcription factor SP1, increased HUWE1 transcription and degradation of ubiquitin-specific protease 7 (USP7). Activation of this pathway in HPV-positive disease leads to an absence of TRIP12, decreased DNA damage repair, improved response to radiation and better clinical outcomes. Conversely, repression of this pathway in HPV-negative disease is druggable via USP7 inhibitors under clinical development, resulting in potentiation of radiation response. Our findings may lead to improved outcomes for patients with HPV-negative radioresistant tumors, while allowing decreased intensity of therapy for patients with HPV-positive tumors.

Classification of PSIs and Their Lexical Categories

In chapter 2, the author lays out a classification of polarity-sensitive items (PSIs) and their lexical categories. PSIs include negative polarity items (NPIs), free-choice items (FCIs), positive polarity items (PPIs), and negative concord items (NCIs). General indefinites display different distributions than do NPIs. Indefinite nouns like ħada and iši function as NPIs, and they are distinct from indefinite nouns (general indefinites) that occur in the context of negation. This chapter discusses the distinctive features of NPIs and PPIs, such as scope widening. Two different types of PSIs interact with negation in interesting ways: NPIs and NCIs. One key difference between the two is that NPIs cannot function as fragment answers without negation and can occur in nonnegative contexts, such as interrogative and conditional contexts. NCIs display the opposite behavior. This chapter describes the distribution of the disjunctive particles walla/willa/ʔam ‘or’ and the negative counterpart wala ‘nor’ in polarity contexts and their status as structures for coordinate complexes in Arabic.

p16 Expression Represses DNA Damage Repair via a Novel Ubiquitin-Dependent Signaling Cascade.

Squamous cell carcinoma driven by human papillomavirus (HPV) is more sensitive to DNA-damaging therapies, such as radiation, than its HPV-negative counterpart. Here we show that p16, the clinically utilized surrogate for HPV positivity, renders cells more sensitive to radiation via a ubiquitin-dependent signaling pathway, linking high levels of this protein to increased activity of the transcription factor SP1, increased HUWE1 transcription and degradation of ubiquitin-specific protease 7 (USP7). Activation of this pathway in HPV-positive disease leads to an absence of TRIP12, decreased DNA damage repair as well as improved clinical outcomes. Conversely, repression of this pathway in HPV-negative disease is druggable via USP7 inhibitors under clinical development, resulting in potentiation of radiation response. Our findings may lead to improved outcomes for patients with HPV-negative radioresistant tumors, while allowing decreased intensity of therapy for patients with HPV-positive tumors.

Die UEFA Champions League als politischer Mythos. Einigung Europas oder Entfremdung der Fans?

The article seeks to describe and discuss the UEFA Champions League as an eventually emerging political myth. This continent-wide competition in top-level European club football has been rendered both an „integration engine“ (contributing to a further amalgamation of societies of supporters and interested Europeans in a lifeworldy sphere) as well a „grave digger“ of football (due, for instance, to its detrimental effects on some national competitions across Europe). Following from that, we distinguish between two countervailing narrative strands, with several motives and sub-narratives in both, that have the potential to either cement or to undermine the mythological nature of the Champions League. Whereas the positive narrative hints at politically relevant forms of societal integration through the presence of a continent-wide, de facto league of top football clubs, the negative counterpart suggests that the Champions League is a driver for (over-)commercialisation and a threat for the integrity of „true“/traditional football. We argue that these two Champions League narratives do not seem to (completely) neutralise each other. While fans may be alienated by the commercialisation triggered through the Champions League, at the same time the Champions League may have a unifying effect by widening perspectives, fostering a common continental communicative space, or constituting an engine of lived integration. In the remainder we seek to outline possible avenues of future research into how football fans - not so much elite commentators such as politicians, club and association officers, scholars and journalists - indeed perceive of the Champions League and hence link up to the two broader narratives identified.

Appreciation in online English tourism advertising discourse: an appraisal analysis

This research examines the manifestation of Appreciation system in online tourism advertising discourse. The data is picked out from ten advertisements posted on Youtube by Expedia Group, an American travel group and are qualitatively and quantitatively analysed with the help of the Concordance AntConc software. The findings show that three subcategories of Appreciation which are Reaction, Composition and Valuation coexist in this discourse with different distribution. Besides, positive Appreciation and its negative counterpart are unevenly distributed in the samples, with the rate of 1: 9. Negative Appreciation, however, contributes to the ignition of visitors’ curiosity and desire to discover the destinations rather evoke unfavourable views of the appraised. Besides the conclusion, some implications for applying the research result to English teaching and learning in Vietnam are also provided at the end of the paper.

Epistemic Injustice and Recognition Theory: A New Conversation —Afterword

The notion of recognition is an ethically potent resource for understanding human relational needs; and its negative counterpart, misrecognition, an equally potent resource for critique. Axel Honneth’s rich account focuses our attention on recognition’s role in securing basic self-confidence, moral self-respect, and self-esteem. With these loci of recognition in place, we are enabled to raise the intriguing question whether each of these may be extended to apply specifically to the epistemic dimension of our agency and selfhood. Might we talk intelligibly—while staying in tune with Honneth’s concepts and their Hegelian key—of a generic idea of epistemic recognition? Such an idea might itself be seen to apply at the same three levels to indicate: first, basic epistemic self-confidence; second, our status as epistemically responsible; and third, a certain epistemic self-esteem that reflects the epistemic esteem we receive from others. The papers in this volume surely sound a chord in the affirmative, and together they steer us towards a multifaceted conception of how epistemic injustice is related to epistemic misrecognition, and indeed how we might construe a positive relation of epistemic recognition.

On some mysteries, asymmetries and derivation of potential de construction in Chinese

In this paper, some mysteries and asymmetries of the Chinese potential de construction are investigated. It is shown that a morphosytnactic approach is conducive to accounting for these puzzles. First we explore the possibility of taking de and its negative counterpart -bude as functional heads (cf. Tsai 2001; T. Wu 2004). It is proposed that bude could be a functional head with the negative potential (i.e. impossible/impermissible) meaning. This could be evidenced by both empirical data and theoretical deduction. It is argued that bu in V-bu-R, which is distinct from the normal pre-verbal negative morpheme bu, is actually bude. This helps to explain why the negative potential meaning is involved in V-bu-R. Meanwhile, V-de/bude and V-de/bu-R are both assumed to be formed through Morphological Merger (cf. Marantz 1988; Embick & Noyer 2001, 2007, etc.). Meanwhile, we have discussed some asymmetries observed between V-de/bude and V-de/bu-R and some paradigmatic asymmetries between potential V-de construction and its negative potential V-bude construction. It is assumed that these syntactic asymmetries may be due to some morphological operations related to de and bude.

Imperatives in Ashaninka Satipo (Kampa Arawak) of Peru

This chapter’s goal is to survey Ashaninka Satipo (Arawak) commanding communicative moves. It argues that imperatives form a paradigm consisting of the first person cohortative construction with the discourse particle tsame ‘come on’, second person canonical imperative construction characterized by a special intonation, and the third person jussive construction formed either with the intentional =ta on the lexical verb or on the copula kant ‘be this way’. In positive commands, the verbs are inflected for irrealis. The canonical imperative has a negative counterpart, whereas the cohortative and jussive verb forms lack them. While commanding, conversationalists tend to select specific linguistic resources which reflect their group membership status. Social equals have recourse to the same linguistic means as conversationalists in superior roles, but they also use the ‘want’ and ‘wish’ constructions and counter-assertive pronouns. The basic second person imperative forms are employed irrespective of the social status.

Long-Term Recurrence-Free Survival after an Unplanned Reduction in Radiotherapy for HPV-Positive Oropharyngeal SCC: Two Cases and a Review of the Literature

There is currently no clear distinction between the treatment of HPV-positive and HPV-negative oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OPSCC). HPV-positive OPSCC has been demonstrated to be more radiosensitive than its HPV-negative counterpart. Despite this, patients with HPV-positive OPSCC continue to receive a full dose of radiation (70 Gy) outside clinical trials. However, this high dose comes with considerable morbidities, including severe mucositis, dysphagia, and xerostomia. We describe the cases of 2 patients with HPV-positive OPSCC who received two cycles of high-dose cisplatin at 100 mg/m2 on 3 separate days, along with concurrent radiotherapy at 50 Gy in 25 fractions for one and 46 Gy in 23 fractions for the other. During treatment, both patients experienced significant acute-phase toxicities—including grade 3 mucositis, grade 3 nausea, and grade 2 dermatitis—and their treatment regimen was stopped before its planned completion. Nevertheless, after a follow-up of 75 and 78 months, respectively, neither patient exhibited any evidence of disease. Late toxicities included grade 1 xerostomia, grade 1 pharyngeal-phase dysphagia, and grade 1 dysgeusia with some foods. We conclude that de-escalating the dose of radiation for HPV-positive patients by 30% and identifying which patients can safely be treated with this level of dose reduction warrants further study.