History.

The modern origins of the party date from the mid 1980s. The decision to form, reorganise or reconstitute, as its supporters see it, the organisation was taken in response to Gerry Adams-led Sinn Féin's decision at its 1986 "ard fheis" to end its policy of abstentionism and to allow elected Sinn Féin Teachtaí Dála (TDs) to take their seats in Leinster House's Dáil Éireann. Those who went on to form RSF opposed this move as it signalled a departure from the traditional republican analysis, which viewed the Dáil as an illegal assembly set up by an act of Westminster. They argued that republicans owed their allegiance to the Irish Republic, maintaining that this state existed "de jure" and that its authority rested with the IRA Army Council. (See: Irish republican legitimatism)  Although it was passed by a two-thirds majority, those who went on to re-organise RSF claimed that the decision to end abstention was invalid under the Sinn Féin constitution, Section 1b of which stated: "No person... who approves of or supports the candidature of persons who sign any form or give any kind of written or verbal undertaking of intention to take their seats in these institutions, shall be admitted to membership or allowed to retain membership." They pointed out that in their opinion the correct procedure was to drop or amend Section 1b of the constitution in one year, then come back the next year and propose entering Leinster House, when Section 1b was no longer in operation. In protest, they staged a walkout from the ardfheis and reconvened the ardfheis at another venue. RSF subsequently claimed that the delegates who had voted to drop abstentionism had in effect expelled themselves from the party. It is on this basis that RSF views itself as the only party entitled to the name of Sinn Féin and the sole legitimate successor to the original Sinn Féin established in 1905. Supporters of abstentionism also claimed that the vote at the ardfheis was gerrymandered. Journalist Ed Moloney, for example, points out that in 1986 the number of votes at the ardfheis, which reflects the size of Sinn Féin, almost doubled from 1985 to 1986, and then reverted to the 1985 level in 1987.  Adams-led Provisional Sinn Féin argued that a previous "ardfheis" in 1983 amended the constitution so that "no aspect of the constitution and rules be closed to discussion". This was done to enable the ardfheis to debate a motion to allow Sinn Féin candidates to stand in elections to the European Parliament and to take their seats if successful. Some argue that this argument is weakened, by the fact that candidature to the European Parliament had already been debated at the 1978 ardfheis, when a motion to stand candidates in the 1979 European elections was defeated at the Sinn Féin ardfheis. A vote to change abstentionism from a principle to a tactic failed to achieve a two-thirds majority vote in 1985. The results were 181 opposed and 161 in favour.  There is disagreement on the number of people who walked out. Brian Feeney claims that after the vote was passed about 20 members, led by Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, walked out. J. Bowyer Bell, in "The Irish Troubles", states that Ó Brádaigh and Dáithí Ó Conaill "and about one hundred others walked out to form Republican Sinn Féin (RSF) at a previously hired hall in a hotel outside Dublin". Whatever the number, that evening, approximately 130 people, including some of the delegates who voted against the motion, reconvened at Dublin's West County Hotel and established RSF. By itself, the RSF Officer Board formed that evening had 6 members, also formed was an organising committee of 15 members. Bell also notes that in response to the split, there was a "flurry of military operations in and around Belfast" by the Provisional IRA during the remainder of the year to show "country militants that the city was not a centre of politics".  At the centre of those who helped to re-organise as Republican Sinn Féin were key people who formed the Provisional IRA and Sinn Féin, including Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, Des Long, Joe O'Neill, Frank Glynn, and Dáithí Ó Conaill. Among those in attendance at the first Bodenstown commemoration, staged by the version of the Continuity Republican Movement which RSF sees itself as forming part of, were four members of the first Provisional IRA Army Council: Ruairí Ó Brádaigh (Longford), Dáithí Ó Conaill (Cork/Dublin), Leo Martin (Belfast), and Paddy Mulcahy (Limerick). Among those present at the West County Hotel when RSF was formed was Billy McKee, an early member of the Provisional IRA Army Council, and the former O/C Belfast Brigade of the Provisional IRA. Another early supporter of RSF was Sean Tracey, a member of the first Provisional IRA Army Council, who later "drifted away" from RSF.  The influence of those who founded Provisional Sinn Féin should not be understated. Of the 20 people on the Sinn Féin Caretaker Executive formed in January 1970, ten were still involved in PSF in 1986. Nine of the ten joined Republican Sinn Féin.  The origins of the party are also described in the documentary "Unfinished Business: The Politics of 'Dissident' Irish Republicans".

Positions.

Irish sovereignty.

Republican Sinn Féin believes that the Irish Republic proclaimed in 1916 during the Irish Republican Brotherhood organised Easter Rising, founded an all-Ireland sovereign state and that the first and second meetings of the Dáil Éireann were the last legitimate sitting governments of Ireland. RSF rejects the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 which led to the creation of the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland as an act of treason and refer to it as the "Treaty of Surrender." The regime sitting in Leinster House is regarded by RSF as being founded as an illegitimate British-puppet state (and latterly a fiefdom of Brussels) analogous to Vichy France during World War II and the assembly at Stormont House as a more overt manifestation of "occupation." It quotes Wolfe Tone who said of an urgent need to "break the connection with England, the never-failing source of all our political evils" in calling for the "complete overthrow of British rule in Ireland".  It also refuses to recognise the validity of the Good Friday Agreement as it argues that the referendum on the agreement did not offer the people of Ireland the choice of living in a united Ireland, and that the referendum was invalid since separate polls were held in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. It also opposes the Northern Ireland Assembly as it believes that this further entrenches British presence in Ireland, and that "those nationalists who took their seats in the new Stormont" were "guilty of treachery to the Irish Republic".  Republican Sinn Féin does not consider the Defence Forces (descended from the pro-Treaty National Army of the Irish Civil War) to be the armed forces of the Irish Republic, rather it claims that the Irish Republican Army is the only organisation that has the right to the title of the "Óglaigh na hÉireann". This includes in succession; the Irish Republican Army (1917–22), the Irish Republican Army (1922–69), the Provisional Irish Republican Army (1969–86) and since then the Continuity Irish Republican Army. These organisations are all considered by it to simply be the one Irish Republican Army founded by the merger of the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army.

Foreign affairs.

Republican Sinn Féin maintains that Ireland should remain independent of large power blocks and thus is a Eurosceptic party. The people who would go on to found RSF, while they were still members of Provisional Sinn Féin in 1972 opposed Ireland being brought into the European Economic Community, which later became the European Union. RSF in any case does not recognise the Single European Act, Maastricht Treaty, Amsterdam Treaty, Treaty of Nice and Treaty of Lisbon as it applies to Ireland, because these agreements were ratified by what it sees as completely "illegitimate" regimes at Leinster House in Dublin and (for the north) Westminster Palace in London.  In a more general sense, it says there is a "danger of the growing European Union becoming a world superpower in its own right" and that it could be a participant in potential "resource wars" of the 21st century, something it says Ireland cannot support as it would end up "swapping British domination for European domination". It further criticised the EU as taking a "highly centralised political and economic power-bloc" whose decision making is made in what they termed "completely undemocratic institutions"; and that EU bureaucrats work against the interest of small farmers and restructure industry so that the EU centre can prosper at Ireland's expense. Amongst all these issues it said that Ireland's neutrality is under threat.  RSF says that because of Ireland's history as a "colonial possession" it supports other national liberation struggles around the world and "feel[s] a sense of solidarity with all peoples who are struggling for freedom and justice". The party calls itself "internationalist" as it says it recognises that "we all have a common identity as human beings, as members of the great family of peoples [and] we wish to play our role in this wider world community on the basis of equality and respect for the rights of others". In that vein, it supports debt relief for developing countries. It also advocates Ireland's neutrality in avoiding military alliances and power blocs.

Cultural policy.

Other policies of the RSF include the separation of church and state and the importance of the Irish language "to the Irish identity". It is also abstentionist as both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland were created by acts of the British Parliament against what it called the "wishes of the Irish people".

Social policy.

It stands on a platform of the establishment of social justice based on what it describes as the principles of Irish Republican Socialism, based on the 1916 proclamation of an Irish Republic. This is outlined in the party's social and economic policy document Saol Nua. It also has a policy named "Éire Nua" ("New Ireland"), which would see the establishment of a 32 county Ireland completely independent of the United Kingdom and set up as a federation of the four Irish provinces.

Leadership.

At their reorganisation, the Chairman of Republican Sinn Féin was Dáithí Ó Conaill. At the party's first Ard-Fheis, they elected their first President, Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, who had been President of Sinn Féin from 1970 to 1983. He was joined by Dáithí Ó Conaill, another prominent figure in Sinn Féin and the IRA in the 1970s. On 28 September 2009 Ó Brádaigh announced that he was to step down as RSF leader, citing age and health grounds for his decision. On 15 November 2009, he was succeeded by Des Dalton.  On 10 November 2018, Dalton's tenure as President ended after nine years, and Seosamh Ó Maoileoin was announced as the new President of Republican Sinn Féin along with Acting Vice-Presidents Pádraig Garvey and Daire MacCionnaith. Líta Ní Chathmhaoil and Dónall Ó Ceallaigh are the General Secretaries, and Diarmuid MacDubhghlais and Anthony Donohue are the Treasurers. Gearóid Ó Bruachain is the Publicity Officer.

Splits.

In September 2005, a number of cumainn (or branches) and individual members of RSF left the party in protest over the party's treatment of Continuity IRA prisoners held in Portlaoise Prison. As a consequence of this dispute, a number of people resigned from RSF and formed the Concerned Group for Republican Prisoners to raise funds and provide moral support for the former Continuity IRA-aligned prisoners they supported. However a majority of the prisoners chose to return and the organisation as of 2011 is defunct.  In August 2010 it was reported that members of the Limerick cumann were expelled, and had first adopted the name Limerick Independent Republican Organisation, before changing it to Real Sinn Féin, then simply Republican Sinn Féin, and finally Continuity Sinn Féin. In the following years two opposing groups in Limerick, one loyal to local man Joe Lynch, the other loyal to the leadership in Dublin under Des Dalton, claimed to be the "real" Republican Sinn Féin.

Relationship to other republican organisations.

RSF sees itself as forming part of a wider Republican Movement with a number of organisations which share a similar or identical ideological and political perspective. These include (but are not limited to) the Continuity IRA, Cumann na mBan, Fianna Éireann, Cabhair and the National Commemoration Committee and the Republican Prisoners Action Group. Across these organisations there is believed to be some level of dual membership with RSF. RSF strenuously rejects the allegation that it is the "political wing" of the Continuity IRA, as it denies any assertion that the latter is its "military wing".

Position of foreign governments.

Some foreign governments in the Anglosphere have taken a public position against Republican Sinn Féin; the United States State Department lists the party as a "terrorist organisation" along with the Continuity IRA. The State Department states that the CIRA "is a terrorist splinter group formed in 1994 as the clandestine armed wing of Republican Sinn Féin, which split from Sinn Féin in 1986. 'Continuity' refers to the group's belief that it is carrying on the original Irish Republican Army's (IRA) policy of being the army of the Irish Republic. CIRA's alleged aliases, Continuity Army Council and Republican Sinn Féin, were also designated as FTOs." The British government currently lists the Continuity Army Council and the Irish Republican Army as a "terrorist group" under the "Terrorism Act 2000," but does not mention Republican Sinn Féin.

Electoral participation.

Though the RSF's policy of abstentionism means that it would not take seats in Dáil Éireann, the Northern Ireland Assembly or the British House of Commons, if elected, it has contested local elections in the Republic and Assembly elections in Northern Ireland in 2007.

First elections.

It initially planned to field 23 candidates, including three sitting councillors elected for Sinn Féin in 1985, in the 1989 local government elections in Northern Ireland. However, shortly before the elections, the British Parliament introduced the 'Elected Authorities (Northern Ireland) Act' which required that all prospective candidates sign the following declaration renouncing:  RSF refused to do so on the grounds that such an oath "calls for the public disowning of the Irish Republican Army, Cumann na mBan, Fianna Éireann and a repudiation of the right of the Irish people to use force of arms to end British occupation". Consequently, its candidates did not stand. It is not registered with the Electoral Commission as a political party in Northern Ireland meaning that in elections in Northern Ireland, the party name cannot appear on the ballot paper, and the party cannot make party political broadcasts.

1991 local elections.

The results for 1991 are only partially available. A number of other people stood for RSF, including Tomás Ó Curraoin, David Joyce and Frank Glynn in Galway, and Jimmy Kavanagh in Wexford. Two sitting councillors, Joe O'Neill (Bundoran UDC) and Seán Lynch (Longford County Council) were re-elected. Sitting county councillor Frank Glynn lost his seat on Galway County Council which he had held for 24 years.  Among the unsuccessful were Peter Cunningham South Dublin County Council and Joe O'Neill Donegal County Council.

1999 local elections.

In the 1999 local elections in the Republic of Ireland, RSF candidates received 1,390 votes in county/city council elections, and 149 votes urban district council level.  Seán Lynch Longford County Council was reelected. The following were unsuccessful: Joe O'Neill Donegal County Council who also lost his seat on the Bundoran Urban District Council, John MacElhinney Letterkenny Urban District Council, Des Long Limerick City Council, Tomás Ó Curraoin Galway County Council and Geraldine McNamara Tipperary Urban District Council.

2004 local elections.

RSF ran seven candidates in the local elections in the Republic of Ireland. The party's only elected representative lost his seat in the elections. Netting a total of 2,403 first preference votes, the RSF share of the total valid poll (1,819,761) was 0.13 per cent. Unsuccessful candidates were Seán Lynch who lost his seat on Longford County Council, Tomás Ó Curraoin Galway County Council, Seán O'Neill Limerick City Council, Mick Ryan Limerick City Council, Des Dalton Kildare County Council, Terence Varian Midleton Town Council and Donal Varian Cobh Town Council.

It ran six candidates in the 2007 Northern Ireland Assembly election. As the party did not register with the Electoral Commission, the candidates ran as Independents. They were Michael McGonigle East Londonderry, Geraldine Taylor West Belfast, Michael McManus Fermanagh and South Tyrone, Joe O'Neill West Tyrone, Brendan McLaughlin Mid Ulster and Barry Toman Upper Bann.  The six candidates netted a total of 2,522 first preference votes, and their share of the total valid poll (690,313) was 0.37 per cent.

2009 local elections results.

Republican Sinn Féin fielded nine candidates in the 2009 Irish local elections. As the party is not registered, the party's candidates were labelled non-party or independents.  One of the candidates was successful—Tomás Ó Curraoin in the Connemara electoral area for Galway County Council, receiving 1,387 votes or 8.4% of the valid poll. The quota was 2,059. The unsuccessful candidates were Seán Lynch Longford County Council, Mick Ryan and Sean O'Neill Limerick City Council, Des Dalton Athy Town Council, Paddy Kenneally Clare County Council, Peter Fitzsimons Kells Town Council, Séamus Ó Suilleabháin Limerick County Council and Pat Barry Bundoran Town Council.

2014 local elections results.

Republican Sinn Féin Councillor Tomás Ó Curraoin retained his seat in the Connemara electoral area for Galway County Council receiving 1,072 votes. Pádraig Garvey unsuccessfully ran for election to Kerry County Council receiving 489 votes or 3.2% of the valid poll.

2019 local elections results.

Republican Sinn Féin Councillor Tomás Ó Curraoin once again retained his seat in the Connemara South electoral area for Galway County Council receiving 971 votes.

Republican Sinn Féin or RSF () is an Irish republican political party in Ireland. RSF claims to be heirs of the Sinn Féin party founded in 1905 and took its present form in 1986 following a split in Sinn Féin. RSF members take seats when elected to local government in the Republic of Ireland, but do not recognise the validity of the Partition of Ireland. It subsequently does not recognise the legitimacy of the parliaments of Northern Ireland (Stormont) or the Republic of Ireland (Leinster House), so the party does not register itself with them.

共和新芬党(;英语:Republican Sinn Féin,缩写为RSF)是一个未向爱尔兰政府登记的左翼小党,1986年分裂自新芬党。该党视自己为真正的或传统的爱尔兰共和主义者,但主流媒体均视其为异议共和主义(亦即不支持近来的和平协议)。共和新芬党拒绝停止对英国军警暴力行动,并与传承爱尔兰共和军(Continuity RIA)有所关连。该党认为1916年复活节起义中宣布成立的爱尔兰共和国持续存在且传承爱尔兰共和军议会才是合法的政府,因此就算当选,其成员也会拒绝在北爱尔兰议会和爱尔兰议会就任。


Introduction.

The KEGG database project was initiated in 1995 by Minoru Kanehisa, Professor at the Institute for Chemical Research, Kyoto University, under the then ongoing Japanese Human Genome Program. Foreseeing the need for a computerized resource that can be used for biological interpretation of genome sequence data, he started developing the KEGG PATHWAY database. It is a collection of manually drawn KEGG pathway maps representing experimental knowledge on metabolism and various other functions of the cell and the organism. Each pathway map contains a network of molecular interactions and reactions and is designed to link genes in the genome to gene products (mostly proteins) in the pathway. This has enabled the analysis called KEGG pathway mapping, whereby the gene content in the genome is compared with the KEGG PATHWAY database to examine which pathways and associated functions are likely to be encoded in the genome.  According to the developers, KEGG is a "computer representation" of the biological system. It integrates building blocks and wiring diagrams of the system — more specifically, genetic building blocks of genes and proteins, chemical building blocks of small molecules and reactions, and wiring diagrams of molecular interaction and reaction networks. This concept is realized in the following databases of KEGG, which are categorized into systems, genomic, chemical, and health information.

Databases.

Systems information.

The KEGG PATHWAY database, the wiring diagram database, is the core of the KEGG resource. It is a collection of pathway maps integrating many entities including genes, proteins, RNAs, chemical compounds, glycans, and chemical reactions, as well as disease genes and drug targets, which are stored as individual entries in the other databases of KEGG. The pathway maps are classified into the following sections:  The metabolism section contains aesthetically drawn global maps showing an overall picture of metabolism, in addition to regular metabolic pathway maps. The low-resolution global maps can be used, for example, to compare metabolic capacities of different organisms in genomics studies and different environmental samples in metagenomics studies. In contrast, KEGG modules in the KEGG MODULE database are higher-resolution, localized wiring diagrams, representing tighter functional units within a pathway map, such as subpathways conserved among specific organism groups and molecular complexes. KEGG modules are defined as characteristic gene sets that can be linked to specific metabolic capacities and other phenotypic features, so that they can be used for automatic interpretation of genome and metagenome data.  Another database that supplements KEGG PATHWAY is the KEGG BRITE database. It is an ontology database containing hierarchical classifications of various entities including genes, proteins, organisms, diseases, drugs, and chemical compounds. While KEGG PATHWAY is limited to molecular interactions and reactions of these entities, KEGG BRITE incorporates many different types of relationships.

Genomic information.

Several months after the KEGG project was initiated in 1995, the first report of the completely sequenced bacterial genome was published. Since then all published complete genomes are accumulated in KEGG for both eukaryotes and prokaryotes. The KEGG GENES database contains gene/protein-level information and the KEGG GENOME database contains organism-level information for these genomes. The KEGG GENES database consists of gene sets for the complete genomes, and genes in each set are given annotations in the form of establishing correspondences to the wiring diagrams of KEGG pathway maps, KEGG modules, and BRITE hierarchies.  These correspondences are made using the concept of orthologs. The KEGG pathway maps are drawn based on experimental evidence in specific organisms but they are designed to be applicable to other organisms as well, because different organisms, such as human and mouse, often share identical pathways consisting of functionally identical genes, called orthologous genes or orthologs. All the genes in the KEGG GENES database are being grouped into such orthologs in the KEGG ORTHOLOGY (KO) database. Because the nodes (gene products) of KEGG pathway maps, as well as KEGG modules and BRITE hierarchies, are given KO identifiers, the correspondences are established once genes in the genome are annotated with KO identifiers by the genome annotation procedure in KEGG.

Chemical information.

The KEGG metabolic pathway maps are drawn to represent the dual aspects of the metabolic network: the genomic network of how genome-encoded enzymes are connected to catalyze consecutive reactions and the chemical network of how chemical structures of substrates and products are transformed by these reactions. A set of enzyme genes in the genome will identify enzyme relation networks when superimposed on the KEGG pathway maps, which in turn characterize chemical structure transformation networks allowing interpretation of biosynthetic and biodegradation potentials of the organism. Alternatively, a set of metabolites identified in the metabolome will lead to the understanding of enzymatic pathways and enzyme genes involved.  The databases in the chemical information category, which are collectively called KEGG LIGAND, are organized by capturing knowledge of the chemical network. In the beginning of the KEGG project, KEGG LIGAND consisted of three databases: KEGG COMPOUND for chemical compounds, KEGG REACTION for chemical reactions, and KEGG ENZYME for reactions in the enzyme nomenclature. Currently, there are additional databases: KEGG GLYCAN for glycans and two auxiliary reaction databases called RPAIR (reactant pair alignments) and RCLASS (reaction class). KEGG COMPOUND has also been expanded to contain various compounds such as xenobiotics, in addition to metabolites.

Health information.

In KEGG, diseases are viewed as perturbed states of the biological system caused by perturbants of genetic factors and environmental factors, and drugs are viewed as different types of perturbants. The KEGG PATHWAY database includes not only the normal states but also the perturbed states of the biological systems. However, disease pathway maps cannot be drawn for most diseases because molecular mechanisms are not well understood. An alternative approach is taken in the KEGG DISEASE database, which simply catalogs known genetic factors and environmental factors of diseases. These catalogs may eventually lead to more complete wiring diagrams of diseases.  The KEGG DRUG database contains active ingredients of approved drugs in Japan, the US, and Europe. They are distinguished by chemical structures and/or chemical components and associated with target molecules, metabolizing enzymes, and other molecular interaction network information in the KEGG pathway maps and the BRITE hierarchies. This enables an integrated analysis of drug interactions with genomic information. Crude drugs and other health-related substances, which are outside the category of approved drugs, are stored in the KEGG ENVIRON database. The databases in the health information category are collectively called KEGG MEDICUS, which also includes package inserts of all marketed drugs in Japan.

Subscription model.

In July 2011 KEGG introduced a subscription model for FTP download due to a significant cutback of government funding. KEGG continues to be freely available through its website, but the subscription model has raised discussions about sustainability of bioinformatics databases.

KEGG (Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes) is a collection of databases dealing with genomes, biological pathways, diseases, drugs, and chemical substances. KEGG is utilized for bioinformatics research and education, including data analysis in genomics, metagenomics, metabolomics and other omics studies, modeling and simulation in systems biology, and translational research in drug development.

KEGG(英语:Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes,京都基因与基因组百科全书,)是一套日本于1995年制定的人类基因组计划,此为关于基因组、酶促途径以及生物化学物质的在线数据库。其途径数据库英语:PATHWAY之中记录的是细胞之中的分子相互作用网络以及具体生物所特有的变化形式。 但是它有一个缺点『无法由网页接口作进一步的计算,例如建立复杂的调控网,或是找出反应之间可能的交互作用』。


History.

The study of pseudo-differential operators began in the mid 1960s with the work of Kohn, Nirenberg, Hörmander, Unterberger and Bokobza.  They played an influential role in the second proof of the Atiyah–Singer index theorem via K-theory. Atiyah and Singer thanked Hörmander for assistance with understanding the theory of Pseudo-differential operators.

Motivation.

Linear differential operators with constant coefficients.

Consider a linear differential operator with constant coefficients,  which acts on smooth functions formula_2 with compact support in R. This operator can be written as a composition of a Fourier transform, a simple "multiplication" by the polynomial function (called the symbol)  and an inverse Fourier transform, in the form:  Here, formula_4 is a multi-index, formula_5 are complex numbers, and  is an iterated partial derivative, where ∂ means differentiation with respect to the "j"-th variable. We introduce the constants formula_7 to facilitate the calculation of Fourier transforms.  The Fourier transform of a smooth function "u", compactly supported in R, is  and Fourier's inversion formula gives  By applying "P"("D") to this representation of "u" and using  one obtains formula ().

Representation of solutions to partial differential equations.

To solve the partial differential equation  we (formally) apply the Fourier transform on both sides and obtain the "algebraic" equation  If the symbol "P"(ξ) is never zero when ξ ∈ R, then it is possible to divide by "P"(ξ):  By Fourier's inversion formula, a solution is  Here it is assumed that: The last assumption can be weakened by using the theory of distributions. The first two assumptions can be weakened as follows.  In the last formula, write out the Fourier transform of ƒ to obtain  This is similar to formula (), except that 1/"P"(ξ) is not a polynomial function, but a function of a more general kind.

Definition of pseudo-differential operators.

Here we view pseudo-differential operators as a generalization of differential operators. We extend formula (1) as follows. A pseudo-differential operator "P"("x","D") on R is an operator whose value on the function "u(x)" is the function of "x":  where formula_16 is the Fourier transform of "u" and the symbol "P"("x",ξ) in the integrand belongs to a certain "symbol class". For instance, if "P"("x",ξ) is an infinitely differentiable function on R × R with the property  for all "x",ξ ∈R, all multiindices α,β, some constants "C" and some real number "m", then "P" belongs to the symbol class formula_18 of Hörmander. The corresponding operator "P"("x","D") is called a pseudo-differential operator of order m and belongs to the class formula_19

Properties.

Linear differential operators of order m with smooth bounded coefficients are pseudo-differential operators of order "m". The composition "PQ" of two pseudo-differential operators "P", "Q" is again a pseudo-differential operator and the symbol of "PQ" can be calculated by using the symbols of "P" and "Q". The adjoint and transpose of a pseudo-differential operator is a pseudo-differential operator.  If a differential operator of order "m" is (uniformly) elliptic (of order "m") and invertible, then its inverse is a pseudo-differential operator of order −"m", and its symbol can be calculated. This means that one can solve linear elliptic differential equations more or less explicitly by using the theory of pseudo-differential operators.  Differential operators are "local" in the sense that one only needs the value of a function in a neighbourhood of a point to determine the effect of the operator. Pseudo-differential operators are "pseudo-local", which means informally that when applied to a distribution they do not create a singularity at points where the distribution was already smooth.  Just as a differential operator can be expressed in terms of "D" = −id/d"x" in the form  for a polynomial "p" in "D" (which is called the "symbol"), a pseudo-differential operator has a symbol in a more general class of functions. Often one can reduce a problem in analysis of pseudo-differential operators to a sequence of algebraic problems involving their symbols, and this is the essence of microlocal analysis.

Kernel of pseudo-differential operator.

Pseudo-differential operators can be represented by kernels. The singularity of the kernel on the diagonal depends on the degree of the corresponding operator. In fact, if the symbol satisfies the above differential inequalities with m ≤ 0, it can be shown that the kernel is a singular integral kernel.

In mathematical analysis a pseudo-differential operator is an extension of the concept of differential operator. Pseudo-differential operators are used extensively in the theory of partial differential equations and quantum field theory.

数学分析中,伪微分算子是微分算子的推广。伪微分算子在偏微分方程和量子场论等领域有广泛的应用。


Geography.

Ōmuta is located in the southernmost end of Fukuoka Prefecture, is bordered by the Ariake Sea in the west, and meets Kumamoto prefecture to the south and east.  It contains Yamagi and Miike mountains, and the rivers Omuta, Suwa, Doumen and Kumagawa.  Ōmuta's zoo is home to lesser pandas.

History.

The oldest reference to Ōmuta, precisely Kunugi, one of the neighborhoods in the current Ōmuta city, is found in "Nihonshoki" (720), the chapter of Emperor Keikō, whose historical existence is doubtful.  In the late 12th century, three ponds were formed, supposedly as a result of volcanic activity. Miike, a neighborhood in Ōmuta, is named after those three ponds (jp: "三池 mi-ike").  In 1469, a farmer named Denzaemon eventually found coal in the mountains when he made a bonfire. Coal mining would become the main industry in this area.  During the Edo period, Ōmuta was a part of the Miike han (Miike Domain), ruled by the Tachibana clan who also ruled Yanagawa. In 1721, Ono Harunobu, karō (steward) of Yanagawa han (Yanagawa Domain) was granted Hirano Takatori yama, and started to mine coal. During the 1850s another two coal mines were opened.  In 1871, in a course of the Meiji restoration, the Han system was abolished and prefectures were founded. Ōmuta belonged to the Miike (1871), Mizuma (1871–1876) and finally Fukuoka prefectures (1876–present) respectively.  The Ōmuta and Miike townships, which would form the core of the current city, were founded on April 1, 1889, a consequence of the town and village administrative system, in Miike county, Fukuoka. The Meiji government ran coal mining in Miike at first themselves, but soon sold it to a private company for a very low price, compared to its value, which caused a scandal.  On March 1, 1917, Ōmuta received city status. Ōmuta had developed as an industrial city, centered on the Miike coal mine, which existed from the 1860s until 1997. In 1891, a railway began to operate, connecting Ōmuta with Fukuoka. It is still operated today as the Kagoshima Main Line. In 1902, Miike Port opened on Ariake Bay. New coal mines were opened, and Ōmuta became an industrial center in this region. 1908 Miike Port was opened to foreigners and in the next year the Trade Taxation Office was established along the port, as a branch of the Nagasaki Trade Taxation Office.  While miners enjoyed good wages, their working conditions were not very good, like many other Japanese laborers. In 1918 and 1924, big strikes and other protests arose. Through many protests and other activities, in the 1930s we found many of the strikers' wishes granted: women, prisoners, and horses were no longer found in mines, and miners were hired directly by the company.  In 1921 and 1941, mergers with neighboring towns and villages, including Ōmuta, occurred, and in 1941 the city became as large as it is now. The 1941 merger was a side effect of World War II: the government led mergers in many places, thinking it would make municipal administration more efficient. During the war, Ōmuta was bombed in 1944 and 1945, not only in industrial areas, but also downtown. The prisoner-of-war camp "Fukuoka 17", where allied prisoners were forced to work in the mines, was located in the outskirts of the city.  In 1959, Ōmuta recorded its largest population: 208,877. But Japanese industries began to switch from coal to oil. Coal mining became less profitable, and many mines were closed, but Miike remained one of the biggest coal mines in Japan until its closure in 1997. Many people left the city, since they couldn't find work. This had a major effect on the local economy: many downtown shops closed.  In 1960, the Japanese media observed the Miike dispute which was linked with the reform of the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between Japan and the United States of America.

Industry.

For the majority of its past in the modern age, Omuta was a coal mining town. However, with the recent closure of the Miike mine, industry has focused elsewhere.  Thanks to coal mining, chemical industry was developed. Currently, there is movement in the environmental recycling industry, centered on the generation of electricity from waste products.  Another main industry is aluminium refining.  Commercial fishing continues out of the port, Kurosaki.

Crime and safety.

The Kyushu Seido-kai designated yakuza syndicate is headquartered in Omuta.

Transport.

Airport.

Saga and Kumamoto Airports are close, but a great many more passengers transit to or from Omuta through Fukuoka Airport due to its greater number of connecting flights and additional services.

Rail.

The city is serviced by JR Kyushu's Kagoshima Main Line for national intercity rail services which connects the city with Fukuoka, Kurume, Kumamoto or Kagoshima directly. Nishi-Nippon Railroad runs the Tenjin Omuta Line connecting Omuta to Fukuoka, in addition to industrial freight services. Both the Kagoshima Mail Line and the Tenjin Omuta Line stop in Ōmuta at Ōmuta Station. The new Kyūshū Shinkansen line stop at the Shin-Ōmuta Station.

Bus.

General Shuttle and High-Speed buses are provided to nearby cities and airports by Nishi-Nippon Railroad.

Road.

Ōmuta is serviced by two Japanese national highways (208 & 389).

Shipping.

Docks at Port Miike are the main way to approach the city by sea.

, the city has an estimated population of 112,052 and a population density of 1,376 persons per km2. The total area is 81.45 km2.

大牟田市()是位于福冈县最南端的一个城市,为福冈县内人口第五多的城市,与相邻的三山市、熊本县荒尾市、南关町、长洲町同属共同的生活圈,特别是与南侧属熊本县的荒尾市往来密切,两市的市区也是直接接邻,因此过去也曾出现了跨县市合并的意见。


Early development.

The first known debate about human antiquity took place in 170 AD between a Christian, Theophilus of Antioch, and an Egyptian pagan, Apollonius the Egyptian (probably Apollonius Dyscolus), who argued that the world was 153,075 years old.  An early challenge to biblical Adamism came from the Roman Emperor Julian the Apostate, who, upon his rejection of Christianity and his return to paganism, accepted the idea that many pairs of original people had been created, a belief termed co-Adamism or multiple Adamism.  St. Augustine's "The City of God" contains two chapters indicating a debate between Christians and pagans over human origins: Book XII, chapter 10 is titled "Of the falseness of the history that the world hath continued many thousand years" and the title of book XVIII, chapter 40 is "The Egyptians' abominable lyings, to claim their wisdom the age of 100,000 years." These titles tend to indicate that Augustine saw pagan ideas concerning both the history of the world and the chronology of the human race as incompatible with the Genesis creation narrative. Augustine's explanation aligned with most rabbis and with the church fathers, who generally dismissed views on the antiquity of the world as myths and fables, whereas Jewish and Christian claims were based on revealed truth.  Augustine did take a critical view of the young earth narrative in some aspects, arguing that everything in the universe had been created simultaneously by God, and not seven literal days. He was primarily concerned with arguing against the idea of humanity having existed eternally rather than a Bible-based chronology of human history.

900 – 1700.

In early Islam, a common belief held that mankind is actually the successor of other intelligent creatures such as Jinn and Hinn. Medieval Muslim traditions referred to the Jinn as "pre-Adamites", depicted as human-like in various ways. Although the notion of Jinn as pre-Adamites was generally accepted, the idea that other humans lived before the known Adam was controversial. From the mid-ninth century onward the idea appeared that God created several Adams, each of whom presides over an era lasting around 50,000 years. This concept was regarded as heretical, but was widely accepted by Ismailis and Sufis.  A book titled "Nabatean Agriculture", written or translated by Ibn Wahshiyya in 904, collated texts about the activities and beliefs of Arabic groups such as the Nabataeans, in defense of Babylonian culture against Islam. The book discussed the ideas that people lived before Adam, that he had parents, and that he came from India. It proposed that Adam was the father of an agricultural civilization, rather than the father of the entire human race.  The Jewish poet Yehuda Halevi wrote his Kitab al Khazari between 1130 and 1140, featuring a discussion where the King of the Khazars questioned three theologians (a Jewish rabbi, a Christian, and a Muslim) which was the true religion, and raised the challenge that people in India said they had buildings and antiquities which were millions of years old. The rabbi responded that his faith was unshaken, as the Indians lacked "a fixed form of religion, or a book concerning which a multitude of people held the same opinion, and in which no historical discrepancy could be found." The rabbi dismissed Indians as dissolute, unreliable people, whose claims could be ignored. Later in the book, Halevi rejected the "Nabatean" claims as these people did not know of the revelation in Scripture, and he dismissed Greek theories of an eternal world. In his conclusion, Halevi maintained that Adam was the first human in this world but left open other possibilities: "If, after all, a believer in the Law finds himself compelled to admit an eternal matter and the existence of many worlds prior to this one, this would not impair his belief that this world was created at a certain epoch, and that Adam and Noah were the first human beings."  The claims in "Nabatean Agriculture" were also disputed by Maimonides (1135–1204) in "The Guide for the Perplexed". He attributed the concepts to the Sabians and said they were just legends and mythology which deviated from monotheism though drawing on Jewish sources, but in refuting the speculations, he circulated an outline of the ideas among other scholars: "They deem "Adam" to have been an individual born of male and female like any other human individuals, but they glorify him and say that he was a prophet, the envoy of the moon, who called people to worship the moon. and there are compilations of his on how to cultivate the soil." He noted the claim that Adam came from India, and went on to Babylon.  The presence of a belief in the existence of men before Adam among the Familists, a religious community in Friesland, was noted by John Rogers in 1578.  In 1591, Giordano Bruno argued that, because no one could imagine that the Jews and the Ethiopians had the same ancestry, God must have either created separate Adams or that Africans were the descendants of pre-Adamic races.  Sultan Bahu, a 17th-century mystic of the Qadiriyya, a Sufi order, advocated a pre-Adamite theory. He wrote, "Once God said to the Prophet 'O Muhammad I created an Adam before I created your father Adam, whom I gave a life of thousand years. Then I created fifteen thousand Adams all of whom I gave a life of ten thousand years. After that I created your Adam.'" In this view, the pre-Adamic era lasted for 150,001,000 years.  The 17th-century French millenarian Isaac La Peyrère is usually credited with formulating the pre-Adamite theory because of his influence on subsequent thinkers and movements. In his "Prae-Adamitae", published in Latin in 1655, La Peyrère argued that Paul's words in should be interpreted to mean that "if Adam sinned in a morally meaningful sense there must have been an Adamic law according to which he sinned. If law began with Adam, there must have been a lawless world before Adam, containing people." Thus, according to La Peyrère, there must have been two creations; first the creation of the Gentiles and then the creation of Adam, who was the father of the Hebrews. The existence of pre-Adamites, La Peyrère argued, explained Cain's taking of a wife and the building of a city after Abel's murder in the Book of Genesis.  Lazslo Toth writing in "Politica Hermetica" states that "racial theory has as its official birthdate 24 April 1684," when François Bernier distinguished four or five races in an article titled "A new division of the Earth, according to the different species or races of men who inhabit it" published in the "Journal des sçavans". Because of widespread theological opposition to the pre-Adamite theories of his friend La Peyrère, Bernier published his paper anonymously.

Age of Enlightenment.

During the Age of Enlightenment, pre-Adamism was adopted widely as a challenge to the biblical account of human origins. In the 19th century, the idea was welcomed by advocates of white superiority. A number of racist interpretive frameworks involving the early chapters of Genesis arose from pre-Adamism. Some pre-Adamite theorists held the view that Cain left his family for an inferior tribe described variously as "nonwhite Mongols" or that Cain took a wife from one of the inferior pre-Adamic peoples.

1800 – present.

Racist pre-Adamism.

In 19th-century Europe, pre-Adamism was attractive to those intent on demonstrating the inferiority of non-Western peoples, and in the United States, it appealed to those attuned to racial theories who found it unattractive to contemplate a common history with non-whites.  Scientists such as Charles Caldwell, Josiah C. Nott and Samuel G. Morton rejected the view that non-whites were the descendants of Adam. Morton combined pre-Adamism with cranial measurements. As Michael Barkun explains: In 1860, Isabella Duncan wrote "Pre-Adamite Man, Or, The Story of Our Old Planet and Its Inhabitants, Told by Scripture & Science", a mixture of geology and scriptural interpretation. The book was popular among a number of geologists because it mixed biblical events with science. She suggested that the pre-Adamites are today's angels. Since they were without sin, for sin did not enter the world until Adam disobeyed God, there was no reason for them not to have been at least raptured into heaven, anticipating what would again occur with the second coming of Jesus Christ. Duncan also believed that some angels had sinned and fallen from Heaven, which caused them to become demons. Duncan supposed that such an upheaval would leave geological scars on the earth. The concept of ice ages, pioneered by Louis Agassiz, seemed to provide evidence of such events, drawing the line between the pre-Adamic era and the modern one, which she posited began about 6,000 years ago.  Buckner H. Payne, writing under the pen name Ariel, published a pamphlet in 1867 entitled "The Negro: What is His Ethnological Status?" He insisted that all the sons of Noah had been white. This created a problem then regarding non-white races if the Flood had been universal and the only survivors were white. Payne's solution was to suggest that the Negro is a pre-Adamic beast of the field (specifically, a higher order of monkey), which was preserved on Noah's Ark. According to Payne, they were a separate species without immortal souls.  The Irish lawyer Dominick McCausland, a Biblical literalist and anti-Darwinian polemicist, maintained the theory to uphold the Mosaic timescale. He held that the Chinese were descended from Cain and that the "Caucasian" race would eventually exterminate all others. He maintained that only the "Caucasian" descendants of Adam were capable of creating civilisation, and he tried to explain away the numerous non-"Caucasian" civilisations by attributing them all to a vanished "Caucasian" race, the Hamites.  A. Lester Hoyle wrote a book in 1875, "The Pre-Adamite, or who tempted Eve?" He claimed that there had been five distinct creations of races, and only the fifth, the white race, of which Adam was the father, had been made in God’s own image and likeness. Hoyle further suggested that Cain was the "mongrel offspring" of Eve's being seduced by "an enticing Mongolian" with whom she had repeated trysts, thus laying the foundation for the white supremacist bio-theology that miscegenation was "an abomination."  In an unusual blend of contemporary evolutionary thinking and pre-Adamism, the Vanderbilt University theistic evolutionist and geologist Alexander Winchell argued in his 1878 tract, "Adamites and Preadamites", for the pre-Adamic origins of the human race, on the basis that the Negroes were too racially inferior to have developed from the Biblical Adam. Winchell also believed that the laws of evolution operated according to the will of God.  In 1891, William Campbell, under the pen name "Caucasian", wrote in "Anthropology for the People: A Refutation of the Theory of the Adamic Origin of All Races" that the non-white peoples were not descendants of Adam and therefore "not brothers in any proper sense of the term, but inferior creations" and that polygenism was the "only theory reconcilable with scripture." Like Payne before him, Campbell viewed the Great Flood as a consequence of intermarriage between the white (Adamic) and nonwhite (pre-Adamic) peoples "the only union we can think of that is reasonable and sufficient to account for the corruption of the world and the consequent judgement."  In 1900, Charles Carroll wrote the first of his two books on pre-Adamism, "The Negro a Beast; or, In the Image of God" in which he sought to revive the ideas previously presented by Buckner H. Payne, describing the Negro as a literal ape rather than human. In a second book published in 1902, "The Tempter of Eve", he put forth the idea that the serpent was actually a black female, and that miscegenation was the greatest of all sins. Carroll claimed that the pre-Adamite races, such as blacks, did not have souls. He believed that race mixing was an insult to God and spoiled God's racial plan of creation, and that the mixing of races had led to the errors of atheism and evolution.  The Scottish millennialist George Dickison wrote "The Mosaic Account of Creation, As Unfolded in Genesis, Verified by Science" in 1902. The book mixed science with a scientifically enhanced reading of Genesis and lists geological discoveries that showed that men existed before Adam had been created and that Earth was much older than the 6000-year-old span of the Adamic race. Dickison welcomed scientific discoveries from fossil evidence and the palaontological record and used them as evidence for pre-Adamism.  The doctrine known as British Israelism, which developed in England in the 19th century, also sometimes included a pre-Adamic worldview but that was a minority position. The model viewed pre-Adamites as a race of inferior bestial creatures apart from Adam, who was the first white man and consequently the first son of God. In the narrative, Satan seduces Eve, and the resulting offspring is a hybrid creature, Cain. Later, Cain flees to East Turkestan to establish a colony of followers intent on realizing the Devil’s plan for domination of the earth. A further elaboration of this myth involved the identification of the Jews with the Canaanites, the putative descendants of Cain, but the eponymous ancestor of the Canaanites is not Cain but Canaan. It followed that if the tribes of Judah were supposed to have intermarried with Cain’s descendants, the Jews were both the offspring of Satan and the descendants of sundry nonwhite pre-Adamic races.  In the United States, philo-Semitic British Israelism developed into the anti-Semitic Christian Identity movement and the serpent seed doctrine. Identity preacher Conrad Gaard wrote that the serpent was a "beast of the field," was the father of Cain, and since Cain married a pre-Adamite, his descendants were a "mongrel, hybrid race."

Non-racist pre-Adamism.

The occultist Paschal Beverly Randolph published "Pre-Adamite Man: Demonstrating The Existence of the Human Race Upon the Earth 100,000 Thousand Years Ago!" under the name Griffin Lee in 1863. The book took a primarily scientific view of pre-Adamism, relying on evidence from linguistics, anthropology, archaeology, paleontology, and ancient history. Being a polygenist, Randolph argued that the color of races, particularly black, was not the result of climate and was proof of separate, pre-Adamite origins.  Pre-Adamite theories have also been held by a number of mainstream Christians such as the Congregational evangelist R. A. Torrey (1856–1928), who believed in the Gap Theory. Torrey believed it was possible to accept both evolution and biblical infallibility, with the pre-Adamite as the bridge between religion and science.  Gleason Archer, Jr. was a believer in pre-Adamism. In his 1985 book "A Survey of Old Testament Introduction" he wrote,  Archer asserted that only Adam and his descendants were infused with the breath of God and a spiritual nature corresponding to God himself, and that all mankind subsequent to Adam’s time must have been literally descended from him. Regarding the concept of pre-Adamic races (such as the Cro-Magnon man), he says: "They may have been exterminated by God for unknown reasons prior to the creation of the original parent of the present human race."  More recently, such ideas have been promoted by Kathryn Kuhlman and Derek Prince among Pentecostals, John Stott among Anglicans, and Old Earth creationist Hugh Ross.

The pre-Adamite hypothesis or pre-adamism is the theological belief that humans (or intelligent yet non-human creatures) existed before the biblical character Adam. Pre-adamism is therefore distinct from the conventional Abrahamic belief that Adam was the first human. Advocates of this hypothesis are known as "pre-Adamites", along with the humans who they believe existed before Adam.

前亚当假说(英语:Pre-Adamite hypothesis),或作前亚当主义(英语:Pre-adamism)是神学或宗教学上的一个信仰,认为早在《圣经》人物亚当出现以前,人类就已存在,有一个「前亚当世界」存在过。这个假设与《圣经》声称亚当是世上第一个人类相违背,所以也有一些基督教会(例如:香港的锡安教会)的信众认为这些「类人生物」的智慧未足以被称为「人类」。前亚当主义因此跟传统的犹太教、基督宗教及伊斯兰教相异之处,在于他们不认为亚当是这世上的第一个人。(参看:宗教及神秘学的世上第一个人类)


Education.

David Matas was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba; his grandparents were immigrants from the Ukraine and Romania. He obtained a B.A. from the University of Manitoba in 1964, and a Masters of Arts from Princeton University in 1965. In 1967, he obtained a Bachelor of Arts (Jurisprudence) from the University of Oxford, England, and in 1968 he obtained a Bachelor of Civil Law. In 1969, he became a Middle Temple United Kingdom Barrister, and he joined the Bar of Manitoba in 1971.

Government work.

Matas served as a Law Clerk to the Chief Justice of Canada in 1968-69, and was a member of the Foreign Ownership Working Group, Government of Canada, and was special assistant to the Solicitor General of Canada in 1971-72.  He served as a member of the Canadian delegation to the United Nations General Assembly, the Task Force on Immigration Practices & Procedures, the Canadian delegation to the United Nations Conference on an International Criminal Court 1998, the Canadian Delegation to the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust, and from 1997 until 2003, the Director of the International Centre for Human Rights & Democratic Development. On Nov. 13, 2009, Mr. Matas was appointed to the board of this Centre, also known as Rights and Democracy (R&D), which was headed by Professor Aural Braun. Shortly afterwards, a number of illicit actions by the staff of R &D and secret grants to radical organizations were exposed, and Matas joined Braun in initiating a major investigation. As a result of the investigations, funding was cut and in 2012, the government closed the Rights and Democracy framework.

Teaching work.

Matas has also taught constitutional law at McGill University, Introductory Economics, Canadian Economic Problems, International Law, Civil Liberties, and Immigration & Refugee Law, at the University of Manitoba.

Politics.

He ran for the House of Commons of Canada in the 1979 and 1980 federal elections as a Liberal candidate in Winnipeg—Assiniboine district and came in second place both times.  In 2009 David Matas was a signatory to a letter opposing the appointment of Professor Christine Chinkin to a UN Human Rights Council fact finding mission on the 2008-2009 Gaza War (also known as the Goldstone Commission), alleging that Chinkin signed a prejudicial letter that indicated that, without examining the evidence, she "concluded that Israel was acting contrary to international law." Chinkin did not resign, and endorsed the UN report, which was later denounced as biased and ill-informed by one of its authors, Judge Goldstone. The report’s other authors stand by its content and criticized Goldstone’s reversal of position on it.  In his book "Aftershock: Anti-Zionism and Anti-Semitism", Matas accused critics of Israel's post-1967 war policies regarding the West Bank of having double standards in not also criticizing China's occupation of Tibet.

Human rights work.

He has been actively involved as Director of the International Defence & Aid Fund for South Africa in Canada, Director of Canada-South Africa Cooperation, Co-chair Canadian Helsinki Watch Group, Director Manitoba Association of Rights & Liberties, Amnesty International, B'nai Brith Canada, the Canadian Bar Association, the International Commission of Jurists, Canadian Jewish Congress, and Canadian Council for Refugees.  He represented Lai Changxing in his extradition proceedings.  He is also counsel for "Justice for Jews from Arab Countries" and is co-author of "Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries: The Case for Rights and Redress".  He presented various papers on the legal issue of prosecuting war criminals in Bangladesh.

Organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners in China.

In 2006, with David Kilgour he released the Kilgour-Matas report, which stated "the source of 41,500 transplants for the six year period 2000 to 2005 is unexplained" and "we believe that there has been and continues today to be large scale organ seizures from unwilling Falun Gong practitioners". In 2009, they published an updated version of the report as a book. They traveled to about 50 countries to raise awareness of the situation. Later Matas stated, "We estimate in the period between 2000 and 2005, there were 41,500 transplants which have no other explained source".  In 2012, "State Organs: Transplant Abuse in China", edited by Matas and Dr. Torsten Trey, was published with essays from Dr. Gabriel Danovitch, Professor of Medicine, Arthur Caplan, Professor of Bioethics, Dr. Jacob Lavee, cardiothoracic surgeon, Dr. Ghazali Ahmad, Professor Maria Fiatarone Singh, Dr. Torsten Trey, Ethan Gutmann and Matas.  Ethan Gutmann interviewed over 100 witnesses and estimated that 65,000 Falun Gong practitioners were killed for their organs from 2000 to 2008.

CBA Committee on the Constitution.

Matas is a member of the Canadian Bar Association. In 1977, following the election of the separatist Parti Québécois government the previous year, he was asked to sit on the CBA Committee on the Constitution. The Committee's mandate was to study and make recommendations on the Constitution of Canada. The members of the Committee were drawn from each province of Canada, and included two future provincial premiers, a future Supreme Court of Canada justice, two future provincial chief justices, and a future Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations. The Committee presented its report to the CBA at the next annual meeting, in 1978. The Committee made wide-ranging recommendations for constitutional change, including a completely new constitution, abolishing the monarchy, changing the Senate, entrenching language rights and a bill of rights, and changing the balance of powers between the federal government and the provinces.

Awards.

He is the recipient of numerous honours and awards including:

Documentaries.

He appeared in "Red Reign: The Bloody Harvest of China's Prisoners" (2013) and "Human Harvest" (2014).

David Matas (born 29 August 1943) is the senior legal counsel of B'nai Brith Canada. He has maintained a private practice in refugee, immigration and human rights law since 1979. He has published various books and manuscripts and currently resides in Winnipeg.

大卫·麦塔斯(David Matas,1943年-8月29日),犹太裔加拿大人权律师,毕业于牛津大学,人权、难民及移民领域的法律专家。


Aphasia and dysphasia.

Some authorities regard dysphasia as a more moderate form of aphasia, but with similar causes. Others use the two terms interchangeably. It would appear that the term "aphasia" is more commonly encountered in North America, while "dysphasia" is more frequently found in British literature.

Signs and symptoms.

People with aphasia may experience any of the following behaviors due to an acquired brain injury, although some of these symptoms may be due to related or concomitant problems, such as dysarthria or apraxia, and not primarily due to aphasia. Aphasia symptoms can vary based on the location of damage in the brain. Signs and symptoms may or may not be present in individuals with aphasia and may vary in severity and level of disruption to communication. Often those with aphasia will try to hide their inability to name objects by using words like "thing". So when asked to name a pencil they may say it is a thing used to write.

Related behaviors.

Given the previously stated signs and symptoms the following behaviors are often seen in people with aphasia as a result of attempted compensation for incurred speech and language deficits:

Causes.

Aphasia is most often caused by stroke, but any disease or damage to the parts of the brain that control language can cause aphasia. Some of these can include brain tumors, traumatic brain injury, and progressive neurological disorders. In rare cases, aphasia may also result from herpesviral encephalitis. The herpes simplex virus affects the frontal and temporal lobes, subcortical structures, and the hippocampal tissue, which can trigger aphasia. In acute disorders, such as head injury or stroke, aphasia usually develops quickly. When caused by brain tumor, infection, or dementia, it develops more slowly.  Substantial damage to tissue anywhere within the region shown in blue on the figure which is shown at the right can potentially result in aphasia. Aphasia can also sometimes be caused by damage to subcortical structures deep within the left hemisphere, including the thalamus, the internal and external capsules, and the caudate nucleus of the basal ganglia. The area and extent of brain damage or atrophy will determine the type of aphasia and its symptoms. A very small number of people can experience aphasia after damage to the right hemisphere only. It has been suggested that these individuals may have had an unusual brain organization prior to their illness or injury, with perhaps greater overall reliance on the right hemisphere for language skills than in the general population.  Primary progressive aphasia (PPA), while its name can be misleading, is actually a form of dementia that has some symptoms closely related to several forms of aphasia. It is characterized by a gradual loss in language functioning while other cognitive domains are mostly preserved, such as memory and personality. PPA usually initiates with sudden word-finding difficulties in an individual and progresses to a reduced ability to formulate grammatically correct sentences (syntax) and impaired comprehension. The etiology of PPA is not due to a stroke, traumatic brain injury (TBI), or infectious disease; it is still uncertain what initiates the onset of PPA in those affected by it.  Epilepsy can also include transient aphasia as a prodromal or episodic symptom. Aphasia is also listed as a rare side-effect of the fentanyl patch, an opioid used to control chronic pain.

Classification.

Aphasia is best thought of as a collection of different disorders, rather than a single problem. Each individual with aphasia will present with their own particular combination of language strengths and weaknesses. Consequently, it is a major challenge just to document the various difficulties that can occur in different people, let alone decide how they might best be treated. Most classifications of the aphasias tend to divide the various symptoms into broad classes. A common approach is to distinguish between the fluent aphasias (where speech remains fluent, but content may be lacking, and the person may have difficulties understanding others), and the nonfluent aphasias (where speech is very halting and effortful, and may consist of just one or two words at a time).  However, no such broad-based grouping has proven fully adequate. There is wide variation among people even within the same broad grouping, and aphasias can be highly selective. For instance, people with naming deficits (anomic aphasia) might show an inability only for naming buildings, or people, or colors.  It is important to note that there are typical difficulties with speech and language that come with normal aging as well. As we age language can become more difficult to process resulting in a slowing of verbal comprehension, reading abilities and more likely word finding difficulties. With each of these though, unlike some aphasias, functionality within daily life remains intact.

Classical-localizationist approaches.

Localizationist approaches aim to classify the aphasias according to their major presenting characteristics and the regions of the brain that most probably gave rise to them. Inspired by the early work of nineteenth-century neurologists Paul Broca and Carl Wernicke, these approaches identify two major subtypes of aphasia and several more minor subtypes:  Recent classification schemes adopting this approach, such as the "Boston-Neoclassical Model", also group these classical aphasia subtypes into two larger classes: the nonfluent aphasias (which encompasses Broca's aphasia and transcortical motor aphasia) and the fluent aphasias (which encompasses Wernicke's aphasia, conduction aphasia and transcortical sensory aphasia). These schemes also identify several further aphasia subtypes, including: anomic aphasia, which is characterized by a selective difficulty finding the names for things; and global aphasia, where both expression and comprehension of speech are severely compromised.  Many localizationist approaches also recognize the existence of additional, more "pure" forms of language disorder that may affect only a single language skill. For example, in pure alexia, a person may be able to write but not read, and in pure word deafness, they may be able to produce speech and to read, but not understand speech when it is spoken to them.

Cognitive neuropsychological approaches.

Although localizationist approaches provide a useful way of classifying the different patterns of language difficulty into broad groups, one problem is that a sizeable number of individuals do not fit neatly into one category or another. Another problem is that the categories, particularly the major ones such as Broca's and Wernicke's aphasia, still remain quite broad. Consequently, even amongst individuals who meet the criteria for classification into a subtype, there can be enormous variability in the types of difficulties they experience.  Instead of categorizing every individual into a specific subtype, cognitive neuropsychological approaches aim to identify the key language skills or "modules" that are not functioning properly in each individual. A person could potentially have difficulty with just one module, or with a number of modules. This type of approach requires a framework or theory as to what skills/modules are needed to perform different kinds of language tasks. For example, the model of Max Coltheart identifies a module that recognizes phonemes as they are spoken, which is essential for any task involving recognition of words. Similarly, there is a module that stores phonemes that the person is planning to produce in speech, and this module is critical for any task involving the production of long words or long strings of speech. Once a theoretical framework has been established, the functioning of each module can then be assessed using a specific test or set of tests. In the clinical setting, use of this model usually involves conducting a battery of assessments, each of which tests one or a number of these modules. Once a diagnosis is reached as to the skills/modules where the most significant impairment lies, therapy can proceed to treat these skills.

Progressive aphasias.

Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is a neurodegenerative focal dementia that can be associated with progressive illnesses or dementia, such as frontotemporal dementia / Pick Complex Motor neuron disease, Progressive supranuclear palsy, and Alzheimer's disease, which is the gradual process of progressively losing the ability to think. Gradual loss of language function occurs in the context of relatively well-preserved memory, visual processing, and personality until the advanced stages. Symptoms usually begin with word-finding problems (naming) and progress to impaired grammar (syntax) and comprehension (sentence processing and semantics).<American Speech-Language-Hearing Association> The loss of language before the loss of memory differentiates PPA from typical dementias. People suffering from PPA may have difficulties comprehending what others are saying. They can also have difficulty trying to find the right words to make a sentence. There are three classifications of Primary Progressive Aphasia : Progressive nonfluent aphasia (PNFA), Semantic Dementia (SD), and Logopenic progressive aphasia (LPA)  Progressive Jargon Aphasia is a fluent or receptive aphasia in which the person's speech is incomprehensible, but appears to make sense to them. Speech is fluent and effortless with intact syntax and grammar, but the person has problems with the selection of nouns. Either they will replace the desired word with another that sounds or looks like the original one or has some other connection or they will replace it with sounds. As such, people with jargon aphasia often use neologisms, and may perseverate if they try to replace the words they cannot find with sounds. Substitutions commonly involve picking another (actual) word starting with the same sound (e.g., clocktower - colander), picking another semantically related to the first (e.g., letter - scroll), or picking one phonetically similar to the intended one (e.g., lane - late).

Deaf aphasia.

There have been many instances showing that there is a form of aphasia among deaf individuals. Sign languages are, after all, forms of language that have been shown to use the same areas of the brain as verbal forms of language. Mirror neurons become activated when an animal is acting in a particular way or watching another individual act in the same manner. These mirror neurons are important in giving an individual the ability to mimic movements of hands. Broca's area of speech production has been shown to contain several of these mirror neurons resulting in significant similarities of brain activity between sign language and vocal speech communication. Facial communication is a significant portion of how animals interact with each other. Humans use facial movements to create, what other humans perceive, to be faces of emotions. While combining these facial movements with speech, a more full form of language is created which enables the species to interact with a much more complex and detailed form of communication. Sign language also uses these facial movements and emotions along with the primary hand movement way of communicating. These facial movement forms of communication come from the same areas of the brain. When dealing with damages to certain areas of the brain, vocal forms of communication are in jeopardy of severe forms of aphasia. Since these same areas of the brain are being used for sign language, these same, at least very similar, forms of aphasia can show in the Deaf community. Individuals can show a form of Wernicke's aphasia with sign language and they show deficits in their abilities in being able to produce any form of expressions. Broca's aphasia shows up in some people, as well. These individuals find tremendous difficulty in being able to actually sign the linguistic concepts they are trying to express.

Severity.

The severity of the type of aphasia varies depending on the size of the stroke. However, there is much variance between how often one type of severity occurs in certain types of aphasia. For instance, any type of aphasia can range from mild to profound. Regardless of the severity of aphasia, people can make improvements due to spontaneous recovery and treatment in the acute stages of recovery. Additionally, while most studies propose that the greatest outcomes occur in people with severe aphasia when treatment is provided in the acute stages of recovery, Robey (1998) also found that those with severe aphasia are capable of making strong language gains in the chronic stage of recovery as well. This finding implies that persons with aphasia have the potential to have functional outcomes regardless of how severe their aphasia may be. While there is no distinct pattern of the outcomes of aphasia based on severity alone, global aphasia typically makes functional language gains, but may be gradual since global aphasia affects many language areas.

Cognitive Deficits in Aphasia.

While aphasia has traditionally been described in terms of language deficits, there is increasing evidence that many people with aphasia commonly experience co-occurring non-linguistic cognitive deficits. By some accounts, cognitive deficits, such as attention and working memory constitute the underlying cause of language impairment in people with aphasia. Others suggest that cognitive deficits often co-occur but are comparable to cognitive deficits in stroke patients without aphasia and reflect general brain dysfunction following injury. The degree to which deficits in attention and other cognitive domains underlie language deficits in aphasia is still unclear.  In particular, people with aphasia often demonstrate short-term and working memory deficits. These deficits can occur in both the verbal domain as well as the visuospatial domain. Furthermore, these deficits are often associated with performance on language specific tasks such as naming, lexical processing, and sentence comprehension, and discourse production. Other studies have found that most, but not all people with aphasia demonstrate performance deficits on tasks of attention, and their performance on these tasks correlate with language performance and cognitive ability in other domains. Even patients with mild aphasia, who score near the ceiling on tests of language often demonstrate slower response times and interference effects in non-verbal attention abilities.  In addition to deficits in short-term memory, working memory, and attention, people with aphasia can also demonstrate deficits in executive function. For instance, people with aphasia may demonstrate deficits in initiation, planning, self-monitoring, and cognitive flexibility. Other studies have found that people with aphasia demonstrate reduced speed and efficiency during completion executive function assessments.  Regardless of their role in the underlying nature of aphasia, cognitive deficits have a clear role in the study and rehabilitation of aphasia. For instance, the severity of cognitive deficits in people with aphasia has been associated with lower quality of life, even more so than the severity of language deficits. Furthermore, cognitive deficits may influence language treatment outcomes in aphasia. Non-linguistic cognitive deficits have also been the target of interventions directed at improving language ability, though outcomes are not definitive. While some studies have demonstrated language improvement secondary to cognitively-focused treatment, others have found little evidence that the treatment of cognitive deficits in people with aphasia has an influence on language outcomes.  One important caveat in the measurement and treatment of cognitive deficits in people with aphasia is the degree to which assessments of cognition rely on language abilities for successful performance. Most studies have attempted to circumvent this challenge by utilizing non-verbal cognitive assessments to evaluate cognitive ability in people with aphasia. However, the degree to which these tasks are truly ‘non-verbal’ and not mediated by language in unclear. For instance, Wall et al. found that language and non-linguistic performance was related, except when non-linguistic performance was measured by ‘real life’ cognitive tasks.

Prevention of Aphasia.

Aphasia is largely caused by unavoidable instances. However, some precautions can be taken to decrease risk for experiencing one of the two major causes of aphasia: stroke and traumatic brain injury (TBI). To decrease the probability of having an ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke, one should take the following precautions:  To prevent aphasia due to traumatic injury, one sure take precautionary measures when engaging in dangerous activities such as: Additionally, one should always seek medical attention after sustaining head trauma due to a fall or accident. The sooner that one receives medical attention for a traumatic brain injury, the less likely one is to experience long-term or severe effects.

Management.

When addressing Wernicke's aphasia, according to Bakheit et al. (2007), the lack of awareness of the language impairments, a common characteristic of Wernicke's aphasia, may affect the rate and extent of therapy outcomes. Robey (1998) determined that at least 2 hours of treatment per week is recommended for making significant language gains. Spontaneous recovery may cause some language gains, but without speech-language therapy, the outcomes can be half as strong as those with therapy.  When addressing Broca's aphasia, better outcomes occur when the person participates in therapy, and treatment is more effective than no treatment for people in the acute period. Two or more hours of therapy per week in acute and post-acute stages produced the greatest results. High-intensity therapy was most effective, and low-intensity therapy was almost equivalent to no therapy.  People with global aphasia are sometimes referred to as having irreversible aphasic syndrome, often making limited gains in auditory comprehension, and recovering no functional language modality with therapy. With this said, people with global aphasia may retain gestural communication skills that may enable success when communicating with conversational partners within familiar conditions. Process-oriented treatment options are limited, and people may not become competent language users as readers, listeners, writers, or speakers no matter how extensive therapy is. However, people's daily routines and quality of life can be enhanced with reasonable and modest goals. After the first month, there is limited to no healing to language abilities of most people. There is a grim prognosis leaving 83% who were globally aphasic after the first month they will remain globally aphasic at the first year. Some people are so severely impaired that their existing process-oriented treatment approaches offer signs of progress, and therefore cannot justify the cost of therapy.  Perhaps due to the relative rareness of conduction aphasia, few studies have specifically studied the effectiveness of therapy for people with this type of aphasia. From the studies performed, results showed that therapy can help to improve specific language outcomes. One intervention that has had positive results is auditory repetition training. Kohn et al. (1990) reported that drilled auditory repetition training related to improvements in spontaneous speech, Francis et al. (2003) reported improvements in sentence comprehension, and Kalinyak-Fliszar et al. (2011) reported improvements in auditory-visual short-term memory.  Most acute cases of aphasia recover some or most skills by working with a speech-language pathologist. Recovery and improvement can continue for years after the stroke. After the onset of Aphasia, there is approximately a six-month period of spontaneous recovery; during this time, the brain is attempting to recover and repair the damaged neurons. Improvement varies widely, depending on the aphasia's cause, type, and severity. Recovery also depends on the person's age, health, motivation, handedness, and educational level.  There is no one treatment proven to be effective for all types of aphasias. The reason that there is no universal treatment for aphasia is because of the nature of the disorder and the various ways it is presented, as explained in the above sections. Aphasia is rarely exhibited identically, implying that treatment needs to be catered specifically to the individual. Studies have shown that, although there is no consistency on treatment methodology in literature, there is a strong indication that treatment, in general, has positive outcomes. Therapy for aphasia ranges from increasing functional communication to improving speech accuracy, depending on the person's severity, needs and support of family and friends. Group therapy allows individuals to work on their pragmatic and communication skills with other individuals with aphasia, which are skills that may not often be addressed in individual one-on-one therapy sessions. It can also help increase confidence and social skills in a comfortable setting.  Evidence does not support the use of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) for improving aphasia after stroke. Moderate quality evidence does indicate naming performance improvements for nouns but not verbs using tDCS  Specific treatment techniques include the following:  Semantic feature analysis (SFA) -a type of aphasia treatment that targets word-finding deficits. It is based on the theory that neural connections can be strengthened by using related words and phrases that are similar to the target word, to eventually activate the target word in the brain. SFA can be implemented in multiple forms such as verbally, written, using picture cards, etc. The SLP provides prompting questions to the individual with aphasia in order for the person to name the picture provided. Studies show that SFA is an effective intervention for improving confrontational naming.  Melodic intonation therapy is used to treat non-fluent aphasia and has proved to be effective in some cases. However, there is still no evidence from randomized controlled trials confirming the efficacy of MIT in chronic aphasia. MIT is used to help people with aphasia vocalize themselves through speech song, which is then transferred as a spoken word. Good candidates for this therapy include people who have had left hemisphere strokes, non-fluent aphasias such as Broca's, good auditory comprehension, poor repetition and articulation, and good emotional stability and memory. An alternative explanation is that the efficacy of MIT depends on neural circuits involved in the processing of rhythmicity and formulaic expressions (examples taken from the MIT manual: “I am fine,” “how are you?” or “thank you”); while rhythmic features associated with melodic intonation may engage primarily left-hemisphere subcortical areas of the brain, the use of formulaic expressions is known to be supported by right-hemisphere cortical and bilateral subcortical neural networks.  Systematic reviews support the effectiveness and importance of partner training. According to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), involving family with the treatment of an aphasic loved one is ideal for all involved, because while it will no doubt assist in their recovery, it will also make it easier for members of the family to learn how best to communicate with them.  When a person's speech is insufficient, different kinds of augmentative and alternative communication could be considered such as alphabet boards, pictorial communication books, specialized software for computers or apps for tablets or smartphones.

Intensity of treatment.

The intensity of aphasia therapy is determined by the length of each session, total hours of therapy per week, and total weeks of therapy provided. There is no consensus about what "intense" aphasia therapy entails, or how intense therapy should be to yield the best outcomes. A 2016 Cochrane review of speech and language therapy for people with aphasia found that treatments that are higher intensity, higher dose or over a long duration of time led to significantly better functional communication but people were more likely to drop out of high intensity treatment (up to 15 hours per week).  Intensity of therapy is also dependent on the recency of stroke. People with aphasia react differently to intense treatment in the acute phase (0–3 months post stroke), sub-acute phase (3–6 months post stroke), or chronic phase (6+ months post stroke). Intensive therapy has been found to be effective for people with nonfluent and fluent chronic aphasia, but less effective for people with acute aphasia.> People with sub-acute aphasia also respond well to intensive therapy of 100 hours over 62 weeks. This suggests people in the sub-acute phase can improve greatly in language and functional communication measures with intensive therapy compared to regular therapy.

Individualized service delivery.

Intensity of treatment should be individualized based on the recency of stroke, therapy goals, and other specific characteristics such as age, size of lesion, overall health status, and motivation. Each individual reacts differently to treatment intensity and is able to tolerate treatment at different times post-stroke. Intensity of treatment after a stroke should be dependent on the person's motivation, stamina, and tolerance for therapy.

Outcomes.

If the symptoms of aphasia last longer than two or three months after a stroke, a complete recovery is unlikely. However, it is important to note that some people continue to improve over a period of years and even decades. Improvement is a slow process that usually involves both helping the individual and family understand the nature of aphasia and learning compensatory strategies for communicating.  After a traumatic brain injury (TBI) or cerebrovascular accident (CVA), the brain undergoes several healing and re-organization processes, which may result in improved language function. This is referred to as spontaneous recovery. Spontaneous recovery is the natural recovery the brain makes without treatment, and the brain begins to reorganize and change in order to recover. There are several factors that contribute to a person's chance of recovery caused by stroke, including stroke size and location. Age, sex, and education have not been found to be very predictive.  Specific to aphasia, spontaneous recovery varies among affected people and may not look the same in everyone, making it difficult to predict recovery.  Though some cases of Wernicke's aphasia have shown greater improvements than more mild forms of aphasia, people with Wernicke's aphasia may not reach as high a level of speech abilities as those with mild forms of aphasia.

History.

The first recorded case of aphasia is from an Egyptian papyrus, the Edwin Smith Papyrus, which details speech problems in a person with a traumatic brain injury to the temporal lobe.  During the second half of the 19th century, aphasia was a major focus for scientists and philosophers who were working in the beginning stages of the field of psychology. In medical research, speechlessness was described as an incorrect prognosis, and there was no assumption that underlying language complications existed. Broca and his colleagues were some of the first to write about aphasia, but Wernicke was the first credited to have written extensively about aphasia being a disorder that contained comprehension difficulties. Despite claims of who reported on aphasia first, it was F.J. Gall that gave the first full description of aphasia after studying wounds to the brain, as well as his observation of speech difficulties resulting from vascular lesions. A recent book on the entire history of aphasia is available (Reference: Tesak, J. & Code, C. (2008) Milestones in the History of Aphasia: Theories and Protagonists. Hove, East Sussex: Psychology Press.)

Etymology.

"Aphasia" is from Greek "a-" ("without") + "phásis" ("φάσις", "speech").  The word "aphasia" comes from the word ἀφασία "aphasia", in Ancient Greek, which means "speechlessness", derived from ἄφατος "aphatos", "speechless" from ἀ- "a-", "not, un" and φημί "phemi", "I speak".

Further research.

Research is currently being done using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to witness the difference in how language is processed in normal brains vs aphasic brains. This will help researchers to understand exactly what the brain must go through in order to recover from Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and how different areas of the brain respond after such an injury.  Another intriguing approach being tested is that of drug therapy. Research is in progress that will hopefully uncover whether or not certain drugs might be used in addition to speech-language therapy in order to facilitate recovery of proper language function. It's possible that the best treatment for Aphasia might involve combining drug treatment with therapy, instead of relying on one over the other.  One other method being researched as a potential therapeutic combination with speech-language therapy is brain stimulation. One particular method, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), alters brain activity in whatever area it happens to stimulate, which has recently led scientists to wonder if this shift in brain function caused by TMS might help people re-learn languages.  The research being put into Aphasia has only just begun. Researchers appear to have multiple ideas on how Aphasia could be more effectively treated in the future.

Aphasia is an inability to comprehend or formulate language because of damage to specific brain regions. The major causes are a cerebral vascular accident (stroke), or head trauma, but aphasia can also be the result of brain tumors, brain infections, or neurodegenerative diseases such as dementia. However, the latter are far less common and so not as often mentioned when discussing aphasia. To be diagnosed with aphasia, a person's speech or language must be significantly impaired in one (or more) of the four aspects of communication following acquired brain injury, or have significant decline over a short time period (progressive aphasia). The four aspects of communication are auditory comprehension, verbal expression, reading and writing, and functional communication.

失语症(aphasia)是一种言语和语言障碍所综合而成的症状受损而引发的,目前美国境内大约一百万人中,就有一位失语症的患者。最常见的病因是由中风(CVA)所引起的。若一个人的言语或语言在四个主要沟通的语言机制中,伴随着语言习得脑区的损伤,或在短时间内有显著的语言衰退现象(progressive aphasia),出现一个或多个语言机制的损伤,将被诊断为失语症患者。这四个沟通的语言机制分别为听觉理解、言语表达、阅读和写作,以及功能性的沟通。