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\"Named for a goddess, epicenter of the first democracy, birthplace of tragic and comic theatre, locus of the major philosophical schools, artistically in the vanguard for centuries, ancient Athens looms large in contemporary study of the ancient world. This Companion is a comprehensive introduction the city, its topography and monuments, inhabitants and cultural institutions, religious rituals and politics. Chapters link the religious, cultural, and political institutions of Athens to the physical locales in which they took place. Discussion of the urban plan, with its streets, gates, walls, and public and private buildings, provide readers with a thorough understanding of how the city operated and what people saw, heard, smelled, and tasted as they flowed through it. Drawing on the latest scholarship, as well as excavation discoveries at the Agora, sanctuaries, and cemeteries, the Companion explores how the city was planned, how it functioned, and how it was transformed from a democratic polis into a Roman city.\" -- Provided by publisher.

Roman painting is full of items associated with religious practice. Garlands, in particular, are found represented in Roman frescoes, often draped over different panels to enliven the painted surface with the semblance of abundant fresh flowers. There are indications, however, that in Roman domestic spaces, latrines, and streets, physical garlands were actually attached to the frescoes as votive offerings that mimic the painted garlands behind them. This paper considers how Roman paintings worked in tandem with garlands and other physical objects, and how Pompeiians engaged in mimetic acts. The two-dimensional painted surface depicting “mimetic votives” should be viewed within a three-dimensional space inhabited by people and objects. The mimetic act of hanging a garland was part of ancient lived religion, and, as such, enables us to examine past religious experiences, focusing on the individual and communication with the divine. The relationship between these various visual media would have created unique experiences in the daily lives of ancient Romans that are rarely considered today.

Phase-averaged and cycle-to-cycle analysis of key contributors to sound production in phonation is examined in a scaled-up vocal-fold model. Simultaneous temporally and spatially resolved pressure and velocity measurements permitted examination of each term in the streamwise integral momentum equation. The relative sizes of these terms were used to address the issue of whether transglottal pressure is a surrogate for vocal-fold drag, a quantity directly related to sound production. Further, time traces of transglottal pressure and volume flow rate provided insight into the role of cycle-to-cycle variations in voiced sound production which affect voice quality. Experiments were conducted using a 10× scaled-up model in a free-surface water tunnel. Two-dimensional vocal-fold models with semi-circular ends inside a square duct were driven with constant opening and closing speeds. The time from opening to closed, To, was half the oscillation period. Time-resolved digital particle image velocimetry (DPIV) and pressure measurements along the duct centreline were made for 3650 ≤ Re ≤ 8100 and equivalent life frequencies from 52.5 to 97.5 Hz. Results showed that transglottal pressure does serve as a surrogate for the vocal-fold drag. However, smaller but non-negligible momentum flux and inertia terms, caused by the jet and vocal-fold motions, may also contribute to vocal-fold drag. Further, cycle-to-cycle variations including jet switching and modulation are inherent in flows of this type despite their high degrees of symmetry and repeatability. The origins of these variations and their potential role in sound production and voice quality are discussed.

Nature has developed enzymes over millennia that perform difficult chemical transformations in mild conditions, using structural controls to aid in the generation of powerful reactive intermediates. Metalloenzymes such as cysteine dioxygenase (CDO) and isopenicillin N synthase (IPNS) use thiolate ligands coordinated to their metal centers to bind dioxygen and produce strong oxidants in the form of FeIII -superoxo and and high-valent Fe-oxo species. The similar active sites of CDO and IPNS afford different chemistry due to small variations in their ligands stabilizing different intermediates. Similarly, nitrile hydratase (NHase) uses dioxygen to modify the thiolates in its coordination sphere to allow for the binding of nitriles and their transformations to amides. Dioxygen is produced by the oxygen-evolving complex (OEC) via the process of water splitting, a thermodynamically difficult process that Nature accomplishes via a cubane cluster of manganese and calcium atoms. This cluster separates that process into thermodynamically simpler steps which allow for the generation of dioxygen using the energy from light.To examine the factors that allow for the broadly different reactivity performed by CDO, IPNS, and NHase, a structurally constrained iron complex [FeIII (S2Me2N3(Et,Pr)]+ is produced and its interactions with oxo-atom donors to produce a sulfenate species is characterized and compared to the less constrained complex [FeIII(S2Me2N3(Pr,Pr)]+ . At low temperatures, an oxo-atom donor adduct species is observed before formation of that sulfenate, and inhibition studies imply the existence of an intermediate FeV -oxo. This species is investigated via computational methods, and it is found that the constrained ligand produces a less stable oxo species.The reduced complex FeII(S2Me2N3(Et,Pr) and its reactivity with dioxygen are also characterized kinetically and thermodynamically by stopped-flow UV/visible spectroscopy, finding evidence that an FeIII -superoxo is formed. Compared to FeII(S2Me2N3(Pr,Pr), the superoxo is formed much more quickly and much more favorably. This superoxo species is transient and further reacts with either the solvent or itself, although the product species could not be characterized. Reactivity with oxygen in the presence of an excess of weak C–H bonds or with deuterated solvent was not found to change the rate of this species’ decay, indicating that the process occurring could be an intramolecular process. Computational studies support the possibility of a intramolecular process.The influence of a cis or trans thiolate is examined via the generation of the asymmetric mixed alkoxide/thiolate complexes FeII(SMe2OMe2N3(Pr,Pr)) and [FeIII(SMe2OMe2N3(Pr,Pr))]+ were synthesized, and their reactivity with oxo-atom donors and dioxygen was examined. Similar to the bis-thiolate complexes, intermediates were observed with oxo-atom donor and oxygen reactivity, but products could not be isolated. The preference for binding a substrate cis or trans to a thiolate was studied through computational methods, finding structural evidence that trans binding is preferred and predicted spectral evidence that cis binding is preferred.Factors influencing the structural flexibility of the OEC were examined using a series of model cubane complexes with varying ligand environments. By modifying the exogenous ligands of the cubane in small ways, dramatic changes are observed in the structural parameters of the cubane as a whole, demonstrating a potential way the OEC controls its structural arrangement during the process of water oxidation.

Two legal publications that Carl Schmitt produced during the First World War contain the first expressions of his maximally authoritarian interpretation of the state of emergency. Yet, when read in conjunction with his wartime journals, we find that his production of these texts is contextualized by a profound, private struggle over whether to accept or reject the political values they articulate. What is most surprising about Schmitt's self-presentation in these journals is the degree to which, during the early war period, he expresses a visceral anti-authoritarianism and concern for decidedly liberal ideals such as the rights of the individual and the separation of powers. But it is also in these journals that we observe the process—culminating in a moment of existential decision during the winter of 1915–16—through which he came to see such liberal commitments as untenable on both personal and political-theoretical levels simultaneously.

For altricial mammalian species, early life social bonds are essential for survival and successful biobehavioral development. In the majority of mammalian species, these earliest social bonds are formed primarily between offspring and their mothers, and the mother-offspring relationship sets the trajectory for offspring biobehavioral development. However, in the rare subset of mammals that demonstrate biparental care and/or alloparental care, other adult and sub-adult caregivers join mothers to shape the early life social environment of developing offspring. One finds such a case with the prairie vole (Microtus ochrogaster), for whom paternal care is not only common, but perhaps requisite for normative biobehavioral development. Previous study of the socially monogamous, biparental, and cooperatively breeding prairie vole has given insight into the role that mothers and fathers play in shaping behavioral phenotypes of offspring. Here, we first discuss the ultimate and proximate mechanisms of maternal, paternal, and alloparental care, with emphasis on recent trends in research. Subsequently, we present three studies exploring the role of fathers and alloparents in prairie vole biobehavioral development. In the first study, we present evidence that prairie vole fathers increase their parental effort from litter to subsequent litter in order to compensate for declines in maternal care; thus, prairie vole fathers may play an important role in maintaining stability in the parenting environment across offspring cohorts. In the second study, we revisit previous findings that, in prairie voles, paternal absence (also known as ‘paternal deprivation’) in the pre-weaning development of offspring alters biobehavioral development, perhaps most notably through the inhibition of normative pairbond development. By leveraging alloparental care, we sought to determine whether this altered development is due to the absence of specific paternal qualities or a general reduction in pup-directed care. Through a series of early-life observations of parental care and major developmental milestones, as well as through behavioral tests in adulthood, we demonstrate that female sub-adult alloparents (i.e., big sisters), by and large, successfully replace fathers, perhaps indicating that the primary mechanism that drives the developmental consequences of paternal absence is a reduction in the quantity of parental care received. In one notable exception, we demonstrate that male offspring reared with a mother and an alloparent are, despite this quantitative replacement of care, unable to form a typical pair bond, whereas their female siblings do form typical pair bonds. This finding suggests that for male prairie vole offspring, fathers may contribute a particular quality or set of qualities important for normative development of species-typical mating behavior. In a third and final study, we expand upon our second study with an investigation of potential neuroendocrine substrates of these behavioral differences. We present evidence that paternal absence (with and without alloparental substitution) may alter the development of oxytocin receptor (OXTR) and/or vasopressin 1a receptor (AVPR1a) distribution in male and female prairie voles. We also demonstrate with baseline corticosterone concentrations that offspring reared by mothers alone and offspring reared by a mother and an alloparent are neither more or less susceptible to social isolation than biparentally-reared controls. Taken together, our findings clarify the scope and nature of paternal and alloparental influence on offspring biobehavioral development in the prairie vole.

Male investment in offspring rearing through paternal care is rare among mammals and the neural mechanisms governing its emergence are poorly understood. We leveraged the natural paternal behavior of African striped mice ( ) in combination with brain-wide cFos quantification, single-nucleus RNA-sequencing, viral-mediated gene manipulation, and environmental manipulation to dissect the neural basis of natural variation in male parenting. We find that socio-environmental conditions drive individual variation in male alloparenting such that post-weaning social isolation increases paternal care while social living in higher density groups increases infanticide. This natural variation in care corresponds to neural activity in the medial preoptic area and changes in correlated activity across brain regions. Within the medial preoptic area, expression of agouti signaling protein ( ) in neurons is increased by group housing and is negatively associated with care, and overexpression of Agouti reduces care and enhances infanticide in previously tolerant animals. Naturalistic manipulations further reveal that integrates long-term housing conditions rather than food availability/hunger. Together, our results demonstrate that acts as a molecular integrator of socio-environmental information to drive variation in paternal care.

The hotel has eight floors, comprising e rooms, made up of 140 double-bedded rooms and 95 twin-bedded rooms. 110 of the rooms have inter-leading access. As it says on the tin, it's all about clean, simple accommodation, and that's what my room was like, with a comfortable bed (twin), enough space to work in and move around, and a bathroom that ticked an important box for me, in terms of a power shower. The bathroom also had two basins, but no bath, which may not be some guests' liking, but I didn't mind. My balcony had a lovely view of the sea and enough space to be comfortable, while the work space was well-designed, with a comfortable chair, enough plug points, and flat-screen TV (with selected satellite channels - movies, CNN, SuperSport etc) located just above. The hanging space was quite unique - not a cupboard, but rather an open hanging space with hangers, next to the mirror. Thereafter, some standard hotel room features, in the form of centralised lighting, tea/coffee making facilities, air-conditioning, in-room telephone, hairdryer and laptop-size safe. Most importantly, Holiday Inn Express offers free high-speed Wi-Fi internet access in their rooms.