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Stefan Artmann 《Biosemiotics》2009,2(1):31-38
Though the formal coherence and empirical utility of Marcello Barbieri’s concept of organic code have been starting to become
established, a general conception of how the semantics of organic codes is related to the pragmatics of their use is still
missing. Barbieri took a first step towards such a conception by distinguishing three types of semiosis in living systems:
manufacturing, signalling, and interpretive semiosis. This paper integrates Barbieri’s distinction into Roman Jakobson’s systematization
of possible functions of messages in order to propose a general conception of possible types of semiosis in living systems.
As a result, Barbieri’s thesis that manufacturing and signalling semiosis are basic types of semiosis, can be confirmed and
completed communication-theoretically.
相似文献
Stefan ArtmannEmail: |
3.
Conservation with a Gun: Understanding Landowner Attitudes to Deer Hunting in the Scottish Highlands
Conservation conflicts are often difficult to resolve due to a combination of poorly defined property rights, inadequate funding,
high transaction costs, and contrasting value systems among stakeholders. This paper explores these barriers to collaboration
in the context of the emerging deer crisis in the Scottish Highlands, where deer numbers are now higher than at any time in
recorded history. In particular we explore the potential role of recreational hunting in the government’s strategy to contain
rising deer numbers from the landowners’ perspective. Using both qualitative and quantitative analysis we find that hunting
traditions and personal preferences, reinforced by antipathy to conservationists and their perceptions of land stewardship,
are the major barriers to shooting more deer for conservation objectives. We conclude that an expansion of commercial hunting
opportunities is the best practical approach to resolving the current conflict over deer, but conservationists and landowners
must work together to create a more positive context for hunter-conservation initiatives and activities.
相似文献
Douglas C. MacMillanEmail: |
4.
Peter Godfrey-Smith 《Biology & philosophy》2007,22(3):429-437
Jablonka and Lamb's claim that evolutionary biology is undergoing a ‘revolution’ is queried. But the very concept of revolutionary
change has uncertain application to a field organized in the manner of contemporary biology. The explanatory primacy of sequence
properties is also discussed.
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Peter Godfrey-SmithEmail: |
5.
Jane E. Schultz 《Journal of bioethical inquiry》2007,4(2):93-102
In researching the biomedically-engineered drug Neulasta (filgrastim), a breast cancer patient becomes aware of the extent
to which knowledge about the development and marketing of drugs influences her decisions with regard to treatment. Time spent
on understanding the commercial interests of insurers and pharmaceutical companies initially thwarts but ultimately aids the
healing process. This first-person narrative calls for physicians to recognize that the alignment of commercial interests
transgresses the patient’s humanity.
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Jane E. SchultzEmail: |
6.
Timothy D. Baird Paul W. Leslie J. Terrence McCabe 《Human ecology: an interdisciplinary journal》2009,37(4):463-474
In this study, we examine the effect of Tarangire National Park (TNP) on local perceptions of risk and how these perceptions
may influence behavioral responses. Data were collected during 2004–2005 through household surveys and participatory risk
mapping (PRM) in eight villages east of TNP. By identifying and rank-ordering respondents’ perceived risks, PRM enhances understanding
of the nature and variation of risks faced within a population by distinguishing between the incidence and severity of subjective
risk perceptions. Results indicate that proximity to the park has a strong effect on the type and severity of perceived risks.
Within villages close to the park, however, behavioral response to perceived risks varies considerably. This study contributes
to an appreciation of how behavioral response to environmental and socioeconomic factors is mediated by human perception.
相似文献
Timothy D. BairdEmail: |
7.
Debates over adaptationism can be clarified and partially resolved by careful consideration of the ‘grain’ at which evolutionary
processes are described. The framework of ‘adaptive landscapes’ can be used to illustrate and facilitate this investigation.
We argue that natural selection may have special status at an intermediate grain of analysis of evolutionary processes. The
cases of sickle-cell disease and genomic imprinting are used as case studies.
相似文献
Peter Godfrey-SmithEmail: |
8.
Does Investment in the Sexes Differ When Fathers Are Absent? 总被引:1,自引:1,他引:0
Mhairi A. Gibson 《Human nature (Hawthorne, N.Y.)》2008,19(3):263-276
This study examines child survival and growth in a patrilineal Ethiopian community as a function of father absence and sex.
In line with evolutionary predictions for sex-biased parental investment, the absence of a father and associated constraints
on household resources is more detrimental for sons’ than daughters’ survival in infancy. Father absence doubles a son’s risk
of dying in infancy but has a positive influence on the well-being of female members of the household, improving daughter
survival, growth, and maternal nutritional status. Lack of paternal investment may be compensated for by other matrilateral
kin through increased reciprocity between mother, daughter, and sister.
相似文献
Mhairi A. GibsonEmail: |
9.
Koen Kusters Hubert de Foresta Andree Ekadinata Meine van Noordwijk 《Human ecology: an interdisciplinary journal》2007,35(4):427-438
In 1998, a decree issued by the Indonesian government enabled communities in Krui, Indonesia, to register for concession rights
over the area of state forest land planted with their agroforests. Registration would provide farmers with the legal right
to manage and benefit from these agroforests. In 2005, we found that even though none of the Krui communities has ever formally
applied for their concession rights, the decree has been instrumental in stopping outsiders’ attempts to appropriate these
agroforests. Farmers within the state forest zone felt secure enough to continue investing in their complex agroforestry systems,
while planting trees reinforced their feeling of security. We conclude that it is not the legal status of tenure, but the
perception of tenure security that is of significance in people’s land-use decisions. These results are considered in the
wider context of state–community conflicts over forest land in the tropics.
相似文献
Koen KustersEmail: |
10.
Peter Harries-Jones 《Biosemiotics》2009,2(2):193-204
The paper examines the sudden disappearance in the United States of millions of honeybees in managed bee colonies. The major
research undertaken in the U.S. concentrates on finding the pathogens responsible. This paper suggests an alternative avenue
of research a) that as a result of global warming there is a disjunction between bees pollinating cycles and the life cycle
of plants b) that understanding changes in “timing cycles” as a result of global warming is the key to understanding the disappearance
of the bees. It notes that Gregory Bateson argued that any condition of ecosystem collapse would be characterized first by
a collapse in its communicative order rather, than from changed physical states. The collapse of bee colonies and demise of
other pollinators is a seeming confirmation of Gregory Bateson argument. Honeybees are ‘go betweens’ in ecosystemic order.
It also argues that an appropriate topology of timing cycles and their recursions would enable better visual comprehension
of the heterarchical ‘pattern which connects’, in Bateson’s phrase, and prompt awareness of possible catastrophe in human
food supplies.
相似文献
Peter Harries-JonesEmail: |
11.
Ewa Puchalska Barbara Czajkowska Magorzata Kiekiewicz 《Acta Physiologiae Plantarum》2008,30(2):225-232
Our investigations suggest that the usually observed avoidance by O. ununguis of current year’s twigs of P. glauca ‘Conica’ as a place for feeding and development may be connected with their morphological and anatomical structure as well
their biochemical composition. Needles of the current year’s twigs were covered with a thicker layer of wax and formed more
extensive epidermis cell walls, in comparison with needles of 1-year-old twigs. Young needles also showed lower concentration
of reducing sugars and soluble proteins, which might additionally reduce their nutritional suitability for mite development.
Differences were also found between the 1-year-old growth and current growth in contribution of essential oils and a range
of other compounds. Further analyses of the effect of these compounds on mite behavior may provide additional explanation
of the feeding preferences of the mite.
相似文献
Barbara CzajkowskaEmail: |
12.
Overintensification and subsidies have long made American commodity farmers the enemy of conservationists. Yet, environmental
conditions are improving in the Mississippi Delta where farmer-based groups, water management districts and conservation organizations
have improved environmental quality and redefined the role of agriculture in environmental preservation. This work is all
the more remarkable given the region’s deeply conservative politics that discourage regulation. This paper examines this mainstreaming
of environmental values in light of debates on the role of the state in fostering environmental subjectivities. Following
cultural examinations of the state, we caution that the presence or retreat of the state is insufficient to understanding
environmental subjectivities. Instead, an ethnographic focus is necessary to identify connections between the state and particular
human-environment relations. In the Delta, this focus shows that local environmentalism is consonant with a politics of unsustainability,
one that simultaneously advances radical ecological change and defense of the region’s social hierarchies.
相似文献
Eleanor E. ShoremanEmail: |
13.
Tim Lewens 《Biology & philosophy》2009,24(2):161-182
Godfrey-Smith (2001) has distinguished three types of adaptationism. This article builds on his analysis, and revises it in places, by distinguishing
seven varieties of adaptationism. This taxonomy allows us to clarify what is at stake in debates over adaptationism, and it
also helps to cement the importance of Gould and Lewontin’s ‘Spandrels’ essay. Some adaptationists have suggested that their
essay does not offer any coherent alternative to the adaptationist programme: it consists only in an exhortation to test adaptationist
hypotheses more thoroughly than was usual in the 1970s. Here it is argued that the ‘Spandrels’ paper points towards a genuinely
non-adaptationist methodology implicit in much evolutionary developmental biology. This conclusion helps to expose the links
between older debates over adaptationism and more recent questions about the property of evolvability.
相似文献
Tim LewensEmail: Email: |
14.
Michael Weisberg 《Biology & philosophy》2006,21(5):623-645
This paper is an interpretation and defense of Richard Levins’ “The Strategy of Model Building in Population Biology,” which
has been extremely influential among biologists since its publication 40 years ago. In this article, Levins confronted some
of the deepest philosophical issues surrounding modeling and theory construction. By way of interpretation, I discuss each
of Levins’ major philosophical themes: the problem of complexity, the brute-force approach, the existence and consequence
of tradeoffs, and robustness analysis. I argue that Levins’ article is concerned, at its core, with justifying the use of
multiple, idealized models in population biology.
相似文献
Michael WeisbergEmail: |
15.
Skunkworks in the Embers of the Cedar Fire: Enhancing Resilience in the Aftermath of Disaster 总被引:2,自引:0,他引:2
Bruce Evan Goldstein 《Human ecology: an interdisciplinary journal》2008,36(1):15-28
A coalition of environmental activists and professionals created the San Diego Fire Recovery Network (SDFRN) while the largest
wildfire in California history was still burning at the city’s edge in October 2003. Acting quickly while the citizenry questioned
governmental ability to protect their rapidly growing region, SDFRN proposed to reduce fire risk in a way that altered residential
knowledge practices and identity while reshaping governance relationships. While this effort stalled after governmental agencies
restored public confidence through massive fire prevention initiatives, SDFRN’s efforts may not have been in vain. Retained
within collective memory, SDFRN contributed to community resilience by diversifying possible responses to environmental change
and uncertainty. In this way, flexible, informal learning organizations such as SDFRN may serve as “skunkworks,” seizing on
disaster in order to incubate social–ecological relationships that might avert greater tragedies to come.
相似文献
Bruce Evan GoldsteinEmail: |
16.
Event-related brain potentials (ERP) are important neural correlates of cognitive processes. In the domain of language processing,
the N400 and P600 reflect lexical-semantic integration and syntactic processing problems, respectively. We suggest an interpretation
of these markers in terms of dynamical system theory and present two nonlinear dynamical models for syntactic computations
where different processing strategies correspond to functionally different regions in the system’s phase space.
相似文献
Peter beim GrabenEmail: |
17.
Peter beim Graben Dimitris Pinotsis Douglas Saddy Roland Potthast 《Cognitive neurodynamics》2008,2(2):79-88
We construct a mapping from complex recursive linguistic data structures to spherical wave functions using Smolensky’s filler/role
bindings and tensor product representations. Syntactic language processing is then described by the transient evolution of
these spherical patterns whose amplitudes are governed by nonlinear order parameter equations. Implications of the model in
terms of brain wave dynamics are indicated.
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi: ) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
相似文献
Peter beim GrabenEmail: |
18.
This study focuses on community-based knowledge to analyze the impacts of range enclosures, crop farming, fire suppression
and bush encroachment on the communal rangelands of Borana, southern Ethiopia. The knowledge of local herders is the basis
for decision making in the utilization and management of grazing lands. We used Borana oral history associated with the period
of the gada system to reconstruct environmental change that spans a period of 48 years. Our results show that the use of communities’
perceptions as a basis for evaluating the impacts of land use change on the environment makes an important methodological
contribution. Communities’ responses to changing land use resulted in the development of range enclosures, the expansion of
crop farming and the fragmentation of the communal rangelands, while the suppression of fire contributed to the expansion
of bush encroachment. The overall impact was forage scarcity and greater vulnerability of stock during drought years. We conclude
that policymakers could use communities’ knowledge of environmental change to improve the use of the rangelands. We propose
that sustainable use of the southern rangelands in the future will require a greater focus on regulating the expansion of
enclosures, crop farming and ranching, as well as reintroducing fire where necessary, to control the expansion of bush cover.
相似文献
Gufu ObaEmail: |
19.
Sub-Antarctic Marion Island has had a permanent research station for 50 years and the islands Wandering Albatrosses have been intensively studied for 20 years. The reactions of breeding birds to approaches by a human on foot were recorded. Three response variables were calculated: intensity of vocal reaction (IVR), intensity of non-vocal reaction (INR) and overall response index (ORI). At 5 m from the nest, twice as many birds stood and/or vocalised as at 15 m. Nearest neighbour distance, age and gender did not explain individual variability of responses. Study colony birds had higher IVR scores than non-study colony birds; birds at colonies closest to the station had the highest ORI scores. A better breeding record was associated with lower IVR and ORI scores, but a causative relationship remains to be demonstrated. A minimum viewing distance of 25 m is recommended for breeding Wandering Albatrosses.
相似文献
Marienne S. de VilliersEmail: Fax: +27-21-6503434 |
John CooperEmail: |
Peter G. RyanEmail: |
20.
Marshall Abrams 《Biology & philosophy》2009,24(4):487-504
It’s recently been argued that biological fitness can’t change over the course of an organism’s life as a result of organisms’
behaviors. However, some characterizations of biological function and biological altruism tacitly or explicitly assume that
an effect of a trait can change an organism’s fitness. In the first part of the paper, I explain that the core idea of changing
fitness can be understood in terms of conditional probabilities defined over sequences of events in an organism’s life. The
result is a notion of “conditional fitness” which is static but which captures intuitions about apparent behavioral effects
on fitness. The second part of the paper investigates the possibility of providing a systematic foundation for conditional
fitness in terms of spaces of sequences of states of an organism and its environment. I argue that the resulting “organism–environment
history conception” helps unify diverse biological perspectives, and may provide part of a metaphysics of natural selection.
相似文献
Marshall AbramsEmail: |