Bartók and the Violin Music of Maramureș

The Second Rhapsody, one of Bartók’s technically most demanding concert pieces for violin, arranges archaic-improvisatory bagpipe imitations for concert performance. The arrangement itself shows a well-designed, coherent structure: the succession of dances, tonally and motivically related between each other, outline a kind of evolutionary progression from free motive-structure to strophic form. Bagpipe-music had a long-term influence on Bartók’s violin music, figuring as episodes in original works like the two Violin Sonatas or the Violin Concerto; but none exploits the genre to such an extent as the Second Rhapsody. The violin pieces with motive-structure of fascinatingly wild and virtuoso character were among Bartók’s major discoveries of the collecting trips to the Maramureş region. For the Rhapsody Bartók chose melodies from the one-time Ugocsa county, whose music, closely related to that of Maramureş county, was considered by him “the most interesting in our country [i.e., Hungary of the time], due exactly to its primitive character.” In Maramureş these melodies are less eccentric; instead, the violinists have a broader and more varied repertoire of dance music. In my article I discuss the different types of violin music of this region, focusing on structural, melodic, or interpretational elements that were of special interest for the composer. For this investigation I have made use of the primary sources of the respective collections: phonogram recordings, field notations, later transcriptions.

The role of microglia in neuropsychiatric disorders and suicide

This narrative review examines the possible role of microglial cells, first, in neuroinflammation and, second, in schizophrenia, depression, and suicide. Recent research on the interactions between microglia, astrocytes and neurons and their involvement in pathophysiological processes of neuropsychiatric disorders is presented. This review focuses on results from postmortem, positron emission tomography (PET) imaging studies, and animal models of schizophrenia and depression. Third, the effects of antipsychotic and antidepressant drug therapy, and of electroconvulsive therapy on microglial cells are explored and the upcoming development of therapeutic drugs targeting microglia is described. Finally, there is a discussion on the role of microglia in the evolutionary progression of human lineage. This view may contribute to a new understanding of neuropsychiatric disorders.

Prostate cancer evolution from multilineage primary to single lineage metastases with implications for liquid biopsy

The evolutionary progression from primary to metastatic prostate cancer is largely uncharted, and the implications for liquid biopsy are unexplored. We infer detailed reconstructions of tumor phylogenies in ten prostate cancer patients with fatal disease, and investigate them in conjunction with histopathology and tumor DNA extracted from blood and cerebrospinal fluid. Substantial evolution occurs within the prostate, resulting in branching into multiple spatially intermixed lineages. One dominant lineage emerges that initiates and drives systemic metastasis, where polyclonal seeding between sites is common. Routes to metastasis differ between patients, and likely genetic drivers of metastasis distinguish the metastatic lineage from the lineage that remains confined to the prostate within each patient. Body fluids capture features of the dominant lineage, and subclonal expansions that occur in the metastatic phase are non-uniformly represented. Cerebrospinal fluid analysis reveals lineages not detected in blood-borne DNA, suggesting possible clinical utility.

From Food Gathering to Horticulture: The Food Getting Techniques of Shompen of Great Nicobar Island

Classical social evolutionists generally assumed that the transformation of human societies from one particular mode of production to another is an evolutionary progression. It is a passage from hunting–gathering to herding and cultivation as alternative strategies to exploit a ‘given’ environment. This article portrays the strategies adopted by the Shompen to expand and ensure optimal diet throughout the year. The local environmental conditions and the state of technology the community has achieved had its bearing upon determining the nature of adaptive strategy evolved. The Shompen unlike their counterparts in the Andaman Islands have developed a multipronged strategy to survive at a distant, remote and inaccessible habitat in a largely isolated island that too through independent innovation of certain technologies. In this article, an attempt has been made to establish that the progression of societies was not always linear as assumed by the classical social evolutionists.

Whole-proteome tree of life suggests a deep burst of organism diversity

An organism tree of life (organism ToL) is a conceptual and metaphorical tree to capture a simplified narrative of the evolutionary course and kinship among the extant organisms. Such a tree cannot be experimentally validated but may be reconstructed based on characteristics associated with the organisms. Since the whole-genome sequence of an organism is, at present, the most comprehensive descriptor of the organism, a whole-genome sequence-based ToL can be an empirically derivable surrogate for the organism ToL. However, experimentally determining the whole-genome sequences of many diverse organisms was practically impossible until recently. We have constructed three types of ToLs for diversely sampled organisms using the sequences of whole genome, of whole transcriptome, and of whole proteome. Of the three, whole-proteome sequence-based ToL (whole-proteome ToL), constructed by applying information theory-based feature frequency profile method, an “alignment-free” method, gave the most topologically stable ToL. Here, we describe the main features of a whole-proteome ToL for 4,023 species with known complete or almost complete genome sequences on grouping and kinship among the groups at deep evolutionary levels. The ToL reveals 1) all extant organisms of this study can be grouped into 2 “Supergroups,” 6 “Major Groups,” or 35+ “Groups”; 2) the order of emergence of the “founders” of all of the groups may be assigned on an evolutionary progression scale; 3) all of the founders of the groups have emerged in a “deep burst” at the very beginning period near the root of the ToL—an explosive birth of life’s diversity.

Laughing Out Loud! Investigations on Different Types of Laughter

This chapter summarizes findings on the production, perception, and cerebral processing of different types of laughter, such as friendly laughter, tickling laughter, ‘schadenfreude’ laughter (expressing the pleasure about somebody’s misfortune), and taunting laughter. It discusses the articulatory and acoustic patterns related to these different types of laughter. The majority of acoustic patterns specifically linked to distinct types of laugher are related to voice parameters, such as fundamental frequency, and the involvement of the oral and nasal cavities. This may result in coughing-like or snoring-like features of laughter. The chapter argues that this may constitute a link to the evolutionary progression of emotional expression. Regarding laughter perception, the chapter presents studies showing that different types of laughter can be classified by listeners based solely on acoustics. Moreover, it reports specific changes in laughter perception, such as in the case of gelotophobia (the fear of being laughed at) and social anxiety. Lastly, the chapter shows data on the neurobiological underpinnings of laughter perception in healthy subjects, as well as the neural correlates of the negative attention bias observed in patients with social anxiety. The identification of neurobiological correlates of cognitive biases during laughter perception may provide a promising target for evaluation of therapeutic interventions such as neuropsychological training, non-invasive brain stimulation, or neural feedbacktraining in further research projects. To conclude, laughter is a multi-faceted expression of both emotional and social interaction. Studies on how laughter can impact social interaction can be particularly helpful for future work on patients suffering from anxiety.

Darwinism as Religion

This chapter prepares the way for the purpose of the book, to use war as a case study for the claim that in major respects, thinking based on Darwin’s ideas—“Darwinism”—has from the first functioned as a form of secular religion, a variety of humanism. Although natural selection makes it very implausible to claim that there is an inevitable evolutionary progression up to humankind, this has not stopped Darwinians, from Darwin himself through to people like Edward O. Wilson today, seeing such progress and using this belief as a peg on which to hang social and moral views, in major respects alternatives to the social and moral views of Christianity. Often, as in the case of Julian Huxley, the intent to produce an alternative religion is made explicit. Rival views on the illicit use of seminal fluid are used as an illustration. For Christians, through self-abuse, it leads to degeneration. For Darwinians, through the failures of the sexually profligate, it leads to advance.

CONDITION OF SUBSTANCE SEARCH ALGORITHM FOR SOLVING REACTIVE POWER PROBLEM

In this paper, Condition of Substance Search (COS) algorithm is introduced to solve optimal reactive power dispatch problem. The Condition of Substance Search (COS) algorithm is based on the simulation of the shape of substance incidence. In Condition of Substance Search (COS) algorithm, individuals follow molecules which interrelate to each other by using evolutionary operations which are based on the corporal principles of the thermal-energy motion mechanism. The algorithm is developed by considering each condition of substance in harmony with different exploration–exploitation ratio. The evolutionary progression is alienated into three phases which emulate the three condition of substance: solid, liquid & gas. This technique can considerably improve the equilibrium between exploration–exploitation, however preserving the high-quality search ability of an evolutionary approach. The proposed Condition of Substance Search (COS) algorithm has been tested on standard IEEE 30 bus test system and simulation results show clearly the improved performance of the projected Condition of Substance Search (COS) algorithm in reducing the real power loss and voltage stability also enhanced.