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1
Gao, Weijun, ed. Digital Analysis of Urban Structure and Its Environment Implication. Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore, 2023. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-6641-5.
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2
G, Saibaba, and Sreenivasa Rao K, eds. Structural adjustment and implication of human rights. New Delhi: Serials Publications, 2003.
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3
The analysis and cognition of basic melodic structures: The implication-realization model. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990.
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4
Altman, Yochanan. On managing volunteers: Absence of monetary compensation and its implication in managing voluntary organisations: the issues of motivation, control and organisational structure. Cranfield: Cranfield School of Management, 1991.
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5
Yŏnʼguwŏn, Sŏul Sijŏng Kaebal, ред. Sŏul ŭi sanŏp kujo pyŏnhwa wa taechʻaek: Chejoŏp ŭl chungsim ŭro = Changing structure of manufacturing industry in Seoul and its policy implication. Sŏul Tʻŭkpyŏlsi: Sŏul Sijŏng Kaebal Yŏnʼguwŏn, 1993.
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6
Marin, Mara. Modeling Commitment for Structural Relations. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190498627.003.0003.
Повний текст джерелаАнотація:
Chapter 2 extends the concept of commitment from personal to social structural relations and begins the argument that our implication in social structures puts us in relations analogous to those of personal commitments. This analogy has a descriptive and a normative element. Descriptively, this book’s notion of commitment captures the idea that social structures are the accumulated effects of our actions. Normatively, it captures the claim that we owe obligations to each other in virtue of our structural relationships to each other, that is, because our actions, accumulated over time, are responsible for reproducing the structure. It illustrates these claims with the example of a woman who attempts to change the gendered nature of parenting. This view of social structures as commitments is an antidote to the powerlessness we otherwise experience in our relation to unjust structures.
7
Gao, Weijun. Digital Analysis of Urban Structure and Its Environment Implication. Springer, 2022.
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8
Tomioka, Satoshi. Information Structure in Japanese. Edited by Caroline Féry and Shinichiro Ishihara. Oxford University Press, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199642670.013.42.
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Japanese is known to have rich encoding of information structure in its grammar. Focus and givenness can be prosodically marked, and there are syntactic structures that are sensitive to information structure, such as cleft sentences, right dislocation, and a variety of phonologically silent structures. This chapter introduces core empirical facts surrounding Japanese information structure, which form the basis of numerous theoretical endeavours. Special attention is paid to the properties ofwa-marked phrases. While the particlewais closely tied to the notion of ‘aboutness’ topic, it has other uses that are not obviously connected to aboutness. The grammar ofwa-marking also figures prominently in the discussion of a few additional issues that the chapter addresses, namely contrastiveness and its possible link to scalar implicature, and the recursively/embeddability of topicality in the context of ‘embedded root phenomena’.
9
Féry, Caroline, and Shinichiro Ishihara, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Information Structure. Oxford University Press, 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199642670.001.0001.
Повний текст джерелаАнотація:
This book offers a clear, critical, and comprehensive overview of theoretical and experimental work on information structure. Different chapters examine the main theories of information structure in syntax, phonology, and semantics as well as perspectives from psycholinguistics and other relevant fields. Following the editors’ introduction the book is divided into four parts. The first, on theories of and theoretical perspectives on information structure, includes chapters on topic, prosody, and implicature. Part II covers a range of current issues in the field, including focus, quantification, and sign languages, while Part III is concerned with experimental approaches to information structure, including processes involved in its acquisition and comprehension. The final part contains a series of linguistic case studies drawn from a wide variety of the world’s language families.
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Campbell, John. Validity and the causal structure of a disorder. Edited by Kenneth S. Kendler and Josef Parnas. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/med/9780198796022.003.0032.
Повний текст джерелаАнотація:
There are two aspects to validation: one is establishing the very existence of a disorder, the other is determining how good our methods are of determining the presence of the disorder. Both aspects depend on the conception of the disorder as something with a causal structure implicating the symptoms of the disorder. The symptoms may figure in this structure as effects of a single latent variable, or as homeostatically related merely to one another, or in some more complex structure. But without some such conception of the causal structure of the disorder, we have no idea what we are about trying to validate criteria for the disorder. The problem in psychiatry is that we currently seem to be demanding that those causal structures should involve relations between psychological and physical variables; and we have no idea how to think of those relations in terms of causal processes and causal mechanisms.
11
Genequand, Denis. Two Possible Caliphal Representations from Qaṣr al-Ḥayr al-Sharqı̄ and Their Implication for the History of the Site. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190498931.003.0006.
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Qaṣr al-Ḥayr al-Sharqī was founded as a madīna by caliph Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik. It is one of the largest Umayyad aristocratic settlements of the Syrian Steppe. Between 2002 and 2011, extensive fieldwork was conducted there by a Syrian-Swiss mission, with a strong focus on agricultural features and water systems, on structures with an economic role, and on vernacular architecture around the caliphal palace. Fieldwork also included the almost complete excavation of another aristocratic residence called Building E, which might have been a direct predecessor of the caliphal palace. This chapter aims at presenting up-to-date information about the plan of the latter structure, at discussing further some elements of its decoration, especially two carved stucco panels bearing caliphal representations, and at introducing new hypotheses for the history of the site in the early eighth century.
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Horn, Laurence. Information Structure and the Landscape of (Non-)at-issue Meaning. Edited by Caroline Féry and Shinichiro Ishihara. Oxford University Press, 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199642670.013.009.
Повний текст джерелаАнотація:
This article examines cases that illustrate the relation of information structure to truth-conditional semantics, grammatical form, and assertoric force. Before discussing the interaction between information structure and (non-)at-issue meaning, it considers the nature of information and what constitutes information. It then looks at two aspects of the common ground, common ground (CG) content and CG management, as well as the criteria of category membership. The article also explores the varying degrees of at-issueness, the role of rhetorical opposition andbutclauses, as well as the variable strength of at-issue content. The landscape of non-at-issue meaning is presented, and the distinction between conventional implicature and assertorically inert entailments is highlighted using a range of distributional diagnostics. The article concludes by analysing the relation between structural focus and exhaustivity using the semantic and pragmatic approaches.
13
Gullón, Pedro, and Gina S. Lovasi. Designing Healthier Built Environments. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190843496.003.0008.
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The “built environment” is comprised of human-made structures and systems, and aspects include access to and attractiveness of walkable destinations (e.g., retail stores, parks) and community design features (e.g., street connectivity, sidewalk access). A variety of built environment characteristics can influence health outcomes and behaviors, including physical activity, obesity, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and mental health, as well as sleep and use of tobacco and alcohol. This chapter discusses the large and complex accumulated research on the built environment as well as the methods used to study it, research challenges, policy implication, and how to bring together partnerships for policy change. This chapter also discusses the research conducted across populations (e.g., children, low-income individuals) and geographies (e.g., urban and rural geographies).
14
Gallagher, Shaun. Action and the Problem of Free Will. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198794325.003.0007.
Повний текст джерелаАнотація:
This chapter examines the concept of free will as it is discussed in philosophy and neuroscience. It reviews reflective and perceptual theories of agency and argues against neuro-centric conclusions about the illusory nature of free will. Experiments conducted by Benjamin Libet suggest that neural activations prior to conscious awareness predict specific actions. This has been taken as evidence that challenges the traditional notion of free will. Libet’s experiments, arguably, are about motor control processes on an elementary timescale and say nothing about freely willed intentional actions embedded in personal and social contexts that involve longer-term, narrative timescales. One implication of this interpretation is that enactivism is not a form of simple behaviorism. Agency is not a thing reducible to elementary neuronal processes; nor is it an idea or a pure consciousness. It rather involves a structure of complex relations.
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Fanning, Jennifer R., and Emil F. Coccaro. Neurobiology of Impulsive Aggression. Edited by Phillip M. Kleespies. Oxford University Press, 2015. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199352722.013.24.
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Aggression is a behavior with evolutionary origins, but in today’s society it’s often both destructive and maladaptive. The fact that aggression has a strong basis in biological factors has long been apparent from case histories of traumatic brain damage. Research over the past several decades has confirmed the involvement of neurotransmitter function and abnormalities in brain structure and function in aggressive behavior. This research has centered around the “serotonin hypothesis” and on dysfunction in prefrontal brain regions. As this literature continues to grow, guided by preclinical research and aided by the application of increasingly sophisticated neuroimaging methodology, a more complex picture has emerged, implicating diverse neurotransmitter and neuropeptide systems (e.g., glutamate, vasopressin, and oxytocin) and neural circuits. As the current pharmacological and therapeutic interventions are effective but imperfect, it is hoped that new insights into the neurobiology of aggression will reveal novel avenues for treatment of this destructive and costly behavior.
16
Rushton, John Alan. Structural implication of modifying the existing steel test building at the Building Research Establishment's Cardington Facility into a utility test frame for horizontal loading of future buildings. 1996.
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17
McCurdy-McKinnon, Danyale, and Jamie D. Feusner. Neurobiology of Body Dysmorphic Disorder : Heritability/Genetics, Brain Circuitry, and Visual Processing. Edited by Katharine A. Phillips. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/med/9780190254131.003.0020.
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This chapter covers studies addressing neurobiologic factors that may contribute to body dysmorphic disorder (BDD). There are indications that neurobiologic abnormalities are associated with symptoms in BDD. This includes evidence that the susceptibility for BDD may be partly heritable and that there may be shared genetic factors among the obsessive-compulsive and related disorders (of which BDD is a member) as a group. In addition, studies of brain circuitry in BDD implicate white matter and structural connectivity abnormalities as playing possible roles in the pathophysiology of BDD. Furthermore, studies of visual processing suggest that disturbances in visual perception and visuospatial information processing, characterized by heightened attention to detail and impairment in holistic and global assessment, are also contributory.
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Meiton, Fredrik. Electrical Palestine. University of California Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/california/9780520295889.001.0001.
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Like electricity, political power travels through physical materials whose properties govern its flow. Electrical Palestine charts the construction of Palestine’s electric grid in the interwar period and its implication in the area’s rapid and uneven development. It does so in an effort to rethink both the origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict and the interplay of politics, capital, and technology more broadly. The study follows the coevolution of the power system and Zionist state building efforts in Palestine on the conceptual and material level. Conceptually, the design and construction of the system shaped Palestine as a precisely bounded entity with a distinct political, social, and economic character. Materially, the borders of the mandate were mapped onto the power system and structured an ethno-national division of capital, land, and labor. In 1948, these coevolving forces ultimately carried over into Jewish statehood and Palestinian statelessness.
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Bruce, Steve. Differentiation. Edited by Michael Stausberg and Steven Engler. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198729570.013.45.
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This chapter looks at the relevance of the concept of ‘differentiation’ for the study of religion. Differentiation plays a major part in most explanations of secularization, but it is important to distinguish two different senses of the term. Social differentiation—social division resulting primarily from the division of labor in modernizing nations—is normally secularizing due to the fragmentation of overarching religious institutions into competing sects and denominations. This is correlated with increased religious pluralism, which is generally secularizing, due to decreasing dogmatism. Functional (or structural) differentiation has important implication for religion: as religion becomes separated off as a discrete subsystem, it loses power and influence. The creation of secular alternatives leads to a decline in the popularity of religious services. The chapter argues that claims that modernization is characterized by de-differentiation—as advanced by rational choice theory/supply-side approaches—are unconvincing.
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Feusner, Jamie D., and Danyale McCurdy-McKinnon. Body Dysmorphic Disorder. Edited by Christopher Pittenger. Oxford University Press, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/med/9780190228163.003.0050.
Повний текст джерелаАнотація:
This chapter covers the latest studies addressing neurobiological and genetic/heritable factors that may contribute to body dysmorphic disorder (BDD). BDD affects approximately 2% of the population and involves perceived defects of appearance along with obsessive preoccupation and repetitive, compulsive-like behaviors. Studies of visual processing suggest that disturbances in visual perception and visuospatial information processing, characterized by heightened attention to detail and impairment in holistic and global assessment, contribute to the condition. Also reviewed are studies of brain circuitry in BDD, which implicate white matter and structural connectivity abnormalities as playing possible roles in the pathophysiology of BDD. Finally, this chapter reviews the evidence that the susceptibility for BDD may be partly heritable and that there may be shared genetic factors among the obsessive-compulsive and related disorders (of which BDD is a member) as a group.
21
Bleck, Thomas P. Pathophysiology and causes of seizures. Oxford University Press, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/med/9780199600830.003.0231.
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Seizures result from imbalances between excitation and inhibition, and between neuronal synchrony and dyssynchrony. Current models implicate the cerebral cortex in the genesis of seizures, although thalamic mechanisms (particularly the thalamic reticular formation) are involved in the synchronization of cortical neurons. Often, the precipitants of a seizure in the critical care setting are pharmacological. Several mechanisms linked to critical illness can lead to seizures. Failure to remove glutamate and potassium from the extracellular space, functions performed predominantly by astrocytes, occurs in trauma, hypoxia, ischaemia, and hypoglycaemia. Loss of normal inhibition occurs during withdrawal from alcohol and other hypnosedative agents, or in the presence of GABA. Conditions such as cerebral trauma, haemorrhages, abscesses, and neoplasms all produce physical distortions of the adjacent neurons, astrocytes, and the extracellular space. Deposition of iron in the cortex from the breakdown of haemoglobin appears particularly epileptogenic. Although acute metabolic disturbances can commonly produce seizures in critically-ill patients, an underlying and potentially treatable structural lesion must always be considered and excluded.
22
Mittelman, James H. The Development Paradigm and Its Critics. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.013.421.
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Development cannot be separated from global political economy, but it is an inherent component of the latter. The concept of development was popularized through expansion of colonization, and underwent various transformations as the socio-political structure of the world changed over time. Thus, the central task of development theory is to determine and explain why some countries are underdeveloped and how these countries can develop. Such theories draw on a variety of social science disciplines and approaches. Accordingly, different development paradigms have emerged upon which different scholars have shown profound interests and to which they gave extensive criticisms—modernization, dependency, Marxism, postcolonialism, and globalization. With the recent emergence of the post-modern critique of development, power has become an important subject in the discourse of development. Nevertheless, a full theoretical understanding of the relations between power and development is still in its fledgling stage. Though highly apparent in human societies, social power per se is a polylithic discourse with no unified definition and implication, which has led different proponents of development paradigms to understand power differently. Although there is a dialectic contradiction between the different dialogic paradigms, the reality of development theory is that there is a large choice of theories and models from which field practicioners will draw pragmatically the most appropriate elements, or they will create their own model adapted to the situation.
23
Huang, Yan, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Pragmatics. Oxford University Press, 2013. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199697960.001.0001.
Повний текст джерелаАнотація:
The best one-volume overview of the field ever published, The Oxford Handbook of Pragmatics brings together the world’s most distinguished scholars to present an authoritative, comprehensive, thorough, and yet accessible state-of-the-art survey of current original research in pragmatics—the study of language use in context, one of the most vibrant and rapidly growing fields in linguistics and the philosophy of language. Covering a wider range of subjects than any other one-volume pragmatics handbook on the market, this one is divided into five thematic parts. Part I is concerned with schools of thought, foundations, and theories. Part II deals with central topics, with chapters discussing implicature, presupposition, speech acts, deixis, reference, and context. Cognitively oriented (macro-)pragmatics, such as computational, experimental, and neuropragmatics, is the topic of Part III. Part IV takes a look at socially and/or culturally oriented (macro-)pragmatics, such as politeness/impoliteness studies, cross- and intercultural, and interlanguage pragmatics. Finally, the chapters in Part V explore the interfaces of pragmatics with semantics, grammar, morphology (morphopragmatics), the lexicon (lexical pragmatics), prosody, language change (historical pragmatics), and information structure. The handbook will be an indispensable reference for scholars and students of linguistics and the philosophy of language, and a valuable resource for researchers and students of language working in cognitive science, artificial intelligence, computer science, anthropology, and sociology.
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Brown, David. Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Migration in Southeast Asia. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.013.388.
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In southeast Asia, ethnic tensions and conflicts stem in large part from economic or power rivalries rather than cultural differences. The political relationships between ethnic identities and nation-state identities in southeast Asia can be analyzed based on three different frameworks, each offering important insights into the region’s complexities and variations. The first is the plural society approach, which points to cultural pluralism as the source of political tensions in southeast Asia. The implication of this view is that ethnic violence will tend to take the form of rioting between people of different cultures as they compete for state resources or power. The second framework is a state legitimacy approach, which argues that the national identity strategies adopted by the state elites are the key factor influencing the structure of ethnic politics. In this context, the strategy of state legitimation is employed to promote the migration of highland ethnic minorities out of their ancestral homeland areas so as to facilitate their economic development, but also their assimilation into the ethnic core. The third framework is a globalized disruption approach, which suggests that globalization has three negative impacts relating to economic disparities, the problematical politics of democratization, and fears of international or domestic terrorism. It can be said that the politics of ethnicity and nationalism in southeast Asia arises from the enhanced appeal of ethnic and national stereotypes for people experiencing diverse insecurities, giving rise to inter-ethnic distrust as well as intra-ethnic factionalism.
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Sonuga-Barke, Edmund J. S. Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. Edited by Philip David Zelazo. Oxford University Press, 2013. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199958474.013.0022.
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In this chapter I review the literature on attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) with the aim of providing a developmental synthesis. In the first section I ask: What is ADHD? I conclude that it is a relatively broad construct that, although having validity as a mental disorder dimension and utility as diagnostic category, is frequently comorbid with, but can be distinguished from, other disorders, and is highly heterogeneous. In the second section I ask: What causes ADHD? I conclude that ADHD has a complex set of causes implicating multiple genetic and environmental risks (and their interaction) reflected in alterations in diverse brain systems. The causal structure of ADHD is heterogeneous, with different children displaying different etiological and pathophysiological profiles. In the third section I reflect on developmental considerations. I conclude that ADHD-type problems present in different forms throughout the lifespan from the preschool period to adulthood and that existing data suggest patterns of continuity and discontinuity that support a lifespan perspective both at the level of clinical phenotype and underlying pathophysiology. In the light of this I argue for a developmental reconceptualization of the disorder, grounded in a biopsychosocial framework that would allow the complexity and heterogeneity of the condition to be understood in terms of risk, resilience, and protective factors, as well as mediating and moderating processes. I review the implications of the developmental perspective for nosological and diagnostic formulations of the condition. In the last section I set out priorities for future research in the genetics, imaging, neuropsychology, and treatment of the condition.
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Somin, Ilya. Free to Move. Oxford University Press, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190054588.001.0001.
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Ballot box voting is often considered the essence of political freedom. But it has two major shortcomings: individual voters have only a tiny chance of making a difference, and they also have strong incentives to remain ignorant about the issues at stake. “Voting with your feet” is far superior on both counts. In Free to Move, Ilya Somin explains how expanding foot-voting opportunities can greatly enhance political freedom for millions of people around the world. That applies to foot voting in federal systems, foot voting in the private sector, and especially foot voting through international migration. These three types of foot voting are rarely considered together. But Somin explains how they have major common virtues, and can be mutually reinforcing. Free to Move addresses a variety of objections to expanded migration rights, including claims that the “self-determination” of natives requires giving them power to exclude migrants, and arguments that migration is likely to have harmful side effects, such as undermining political institutions, overburdening the welfare state, increasing crime and terrorism, and spreading undesirable cultural values. While these objections are usually directed at international migration, Somin shows how a consistent commitment to such theories would also justify severe restrictions on internal freedom of movement. That implication is yet another reason to be skeptical of such arguments. The book also shows how both domestic constitutional systems and international law can be structured to increase opportunities for foot voting while mitigating potential downsides of freedom of movement.
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Wang, Aihe. Moral Rulership and World Order in Ancient Chinese Cosmology. Oxford University Press, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199670055.003.0012.
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This chapter primarily focuses on the contrast between the ‘blue-sky’ serene world of classical Confucian ethics and the vulnerability of the Confucian scholar in a power structure rooted in a conquering warrior absolute monarchy. It further provides an exhaustive and authoritative history of Confucianism within the history of China and thoroughly reinforces criticisms of Confucianism in contrast to the Dao. The chapter portrays how the concept of the Mandate of Heaven was always used by military conquerors to provide legitimacy for their use of force. As Confucianism became the official ideology of the State during the time of Emperor Wu (141–87 BC), a very sharp contrast arose between the Confucian ideology represented by Dong Zhonshu (the time of Emperor Wu) and the Dao-oriented thinking of the King of Huainan. The former represented an authoritarian institution of centralization and hierarchy, with the Confucian scholar class claiming to interpret a moral cosmology to strengthen the authority of the emperor, and, by implication, that of his scholar advisers. Their task was to interpret the will of ‘an anthropomorphic deity from Zhou theology, attributing to it a heart, intention and love. Heaven manifests his will in omens … as Heaven’s speech’. Only the sage Confucius could understand and interpret the moral consciousness of Heaven. Their recommendation was for wholesale centralization of culture, political, military, and economic. At the same time, the Chinese Empire was in constant military expansion in all directions. It concluded with a recommendation for the conquest and execution of the Huainan kings, among others, as representatives of the anti-hierarchical Daoism. As Wang puts it, ‘the ideological unification was essential for building an authoritarian and centralized imperial order. By suppressing different cultural and philosophical traditions, it established universal rules and standards that were themselves the web of the centralized empire.
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Compston, Alastair. Multiple sclerosis and other demyelinating diseases. Oxford University Press, 2011. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/med/9780198569381.003.0871.
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The oligodendrocyte–myelin unit subserves saltatory conduction of the nerve impulse in the healthy central nervous system. At one time, many disease processes were thought exclusively to target the structure and function of myelin. Therefore, they were designated ‘demyelinating diseases’. But recent analyses, based mainly on pathological and imaging studies, (re)emphasize that axons are also directly involved in these disorders during both the acute and chronic phases. Another ambiguity is the extent to which these are inflammatory conditions. Here, distinctions should be made between inflammation, as a generic process, and autoimmunity in which rather a specific set of aetiological and mechanistic conditions pertain. And there are differences between disorders that are driven primarily by immune processes and those in which inflammation occurs in response to pre-existing tissue damage.With these provisos, the pathological processes of demyelination and associated axonal dysfunction often account for episodic neurological symptoms and signs referable to white matter tracts of the brain, optic nerves, or spinal cord when these occur in young people. This is the clinical context in which the possibility of ‘demyelinating disease’ is usually considered by physicians and, increasingly, the informed patient. Neurologists will, with appropriate cautions, also be prepared to diagnose demyelinating disease in older patients presenting with progressive symptoms implicating these same pathways even when there is no suggestive past history. Both in its typical and atypical forms multiple sclerosis remains by far the commonest demyelinating disease. But acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, the leucodystrophies, and central pontine myelinolysis also need to be considered in particular circumstances; and multiple sclerosis itself has a differential diagnosis in which the relapsing-remitting course is mimicked by conditions not associated with direct injury to the axon–glial unit. Since our understanding of the cause, pathogenesis and features of demyelinating disease remains incomplete, classification combines aspects of the aetiology, clinical features, pathology, and laboratory components. Whether the designation ‘multiple sclerosis’ encapsulates one or more conditions is now much debated. We anticipate that a major part of future studies in demyelinating disease will be further to resolve this question of disease heterogeneity leading to a new taxonomy based on mechanisms rather than clinical empiricism. But, for now, the variable ages of onset, unpredictable clinical course, protean clinical manifestations, and non-specific laboratory investigations continue to make demyelinating disease one of the more challenging diagnostic areas in clinical neurology.