A Phylogenetic Comparative Study of Bantu Kinship Terminology Finds Limited Support for Its Co-Evolution with Social Organisation

The classification of kin into structured groups is a diverse phenomenon which is ubiquitous in human culture. For populations which are organized into large agropastoral groupings of sedentary residence but not governed within the context of a centralised state, such as our study sample of 83 historical Bantu-speaking groups of sub-Saharan Africa, cultural kinship norms guide all aspects of everyday life and social organization. Such rules operate in part through the use of differing terminological referential systems of familial organization. Although the cross-cultural study of kinship terminology was foundational in Anthropology, few modern studies have made use of statistical advances to further our sparse understanding of the structuring and diversification of terminological systems of kinship over time. In this study we use Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods of phylogenetic comparison to investigate the evolution of Bantu kinship terminology and reconstruct the ancestral state and diversification of cousin terminology in this family of sub-Saharan ethnolinguistic groups. Using a phylogenetic tree of Bantu languages, we then test the prominent hypothesis that structured variation in systems of cousin terminology has co-evolved alongside adaptive change in patterns of descent organization, as well as rules of residence. We find limited support for this hypothesis, and argue that the shaping of systems of kinship terminology is a multifactorial process, concluding with possible avenues of future research.     

Terms for Kith and Kin

Scheffler and Needham give alternative interpretations of Karo Batak terminology, the former describing it as a kinship terminology, the latter as a terminology of social/symbolic classification. Both these points of view prove useful in understanding the way Karo use kinship terms and behave as kin. The organization of ritual, the etiquette of reference and address, and the way Karo forge kinlike ties illustrate how both genealogy and alliance categories operate in Karo kinship.     

Gene and QTL detection in a three-way barley cross under selection by a mixed model with kinship information using SNPs

Quantitative trait locus (QTL) detection is commonly performed by analysis of designed segregating populations derived from two inbred parental lines, where absence of selection, mutation and genetic drift is assumed. Even for designed populations, selection cannot always be avoided, with as consequence varying correlation between genotypes instead of uniform correlation. Akin to linkage disequilibrium mapping, ignoring this type of genetic relatedness will increase the rate of false-positives. In this paper, we advocate using mixed models including genetic relatedness, or ‘kinship’ information for QTL detection in populations where selection forces operated. We demonstrate our case with a three-way barley cross, designed to segregate for dwarfing, vernalization and spike morphology genes, in which selection occurred. The population of 161 inbred lines was screened with 1,536 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), and used for gene and QTL detection. The coefficient of coancestry matrix was estimated based on the SNPs and imposed to structure the distribution of random genotypic effects. The model incorporating kinship, coancestry, information was consistently superior to the one without kinship (according to the Akaike information criterion). We show, for three traits, that ignoring the coancestry information results in an unrealistically high number of marker–trait associations, without providing clear conclusions about QTL locations. We used a number of widely recognized dwarfing and vernalization genes known to segregate in the studied population as landmarks or references to assess the agreement of the mapping results with a priori candidate gene expectations. Additional QTLs to the major genes were detected for all traits as well.     

A Relational Analysis of American Kinship Terminology

As an alternative to traditional semantic analysis using class-product logic ("Componential analysis"), it is proposed that the possibilities of analysis in terms of relative products be explored in appropriate lexical-taxonomic domains, particularly kinship. In such analyses the order of components is intrinsic to meaning. The process is illustrated by an analysis of American kinship terminology.     

THE MEANINGS OF KINSHIP AMONG THE ESE EJJA OF NORTHERN BOLIVIA

This article focuses on the construction of relatedness among an Amazonian people of northern Bolivia. In analysing the Ese Ejja's kinship terminology and practices, it engages with the widespread stress on the processual nature of relatedness encountered in Amazonian studies. The article shows that, for the Ese Ejja, kinship relations are made through shared practices, although in some important respects kinship is considered to be given at birth. Given kinship is considered fixed, whereas processual kinship is open to contestation. The article argues that processual and given aspects of kinship must be considered together in order to account for local understandings of relatedness. The data presented invite further investigation into Amazonian ideas about the sharing of substance through filiation. This has important implications for the understanding of the conceptualization of cross- and parallel cousins. The article also suggests that in Amazonia otherness is not always given, as has been extensively argued, and that, in the context of Ese Ejja kinship relations, it is created through marriage and it is constantly made and undone.     

The Comanche Kinship System in Historical Perspective1

Abstract

An historical study of the Comanche kinship system throws new light on processes of kinship change. The Comanche are an unique group which underwent a long neriod of acculturation with little or no change in its system of kinship termirnology. Before the turn of the 18th century the Conanche were closely associated with the Northern Shoshoni of the Great Basin. In earlier times the Comanche, like the Northern Shoshoni, had a culture similar to the Westerr; Shoshoni groups of later periods, Toward the end of the 18th century both the Comanche and the Northern Shoshoni acquired the horse; this event produced numerous changes in Comanche culture, Later, when the Comanche migrated to the Southern Plains, further changes took place in their social organization.

In spite of these changes, the Comanche system of kinship terminology rermained remarkably stable. Both in pre-Plains and pre-horse times the Comanche had a balanced division of labor, bilocal residence, bilateral groups of kin, bilateral descent, and Hawaiian nomenclature. After their acquisition of the horse and their migration to the Plains, the bicentered division of labor became natricentered; and bilocal residence changed to natrilocal, But Comanche descent remained bilateral and ownership, private and individualized. This suggests that the stability of the descent and ownershin systems made for stability in kinshio terminology.     

Hocus Pocus and Extensionism in Central Malaya: Notes on Semai Kinship Terminology

This paper presents componential definitions of two sets of Semai kinship terminology gathered in two Semai settlements. A comparison of these definitions with each other and with Semai rules about proper terminology usage brings several inconsistencies to light. These inconsistencies seem to suggest that a modified componential analysis conforms to the cognitive categories of the Semai if the extensionist hypothesis that terms have both primary and derived meanings is taken into account. [Semai, componential analysis, extensionist hypothesis, Malayan aborigines, Austroasiatic].     

KIN RECOGNITION: FUNCTIONS AND MECHANISMS A REVIEW

1. The aim of this paper has been to review the theory behind kin recognition to examine the benefits individuals obtain by recognizing their kin and to review the mechanisms used by individuals in their recognition of kin. 2. The ability to discriminate between kin and non-kin, and between different classes of kin gives individuals advantages in fitness greater than individuals unable to recognize their kin. Four specific areas of benefit were considered: altruistic behaviour, co-operative behaviour, parental care and mate choice. Finally the possibility that kin recognition has arisen as a byproduct from some other ability was discussed. 3. Mechanisms of kin recognition were considered with respect to three essential components of kin recognition. The cue used to discriminate kin, how individuals classify conspecifics as kin, etc. and how the ability to recognize kin develops. 4. Individuals can use a number of cues to discriminate kin from non-kin. These were divided into cues presented by conspecifics (conspecific cues), of which three types were considered: individual, genetic and group/colony cues, and non-conspecific cues, environmental, state and no cues. Kin recognition could be achieved by use of all these cues. 5. How individuals classify their conspecifics as kin, etc. can be achieved in a number of ways; dishabituation or self-matching, which require no learning of kinship cues, or by phenotype matching or familiarity, both of which require the learning of kinship information. 6. It may be necessary for individuals to acquire information concerning kinship. This may be learned, and can be achieved in a number of ways; physiological imprinting, exposure learning or associative learning. Acquisition by these means is non-selective, in that the cues which are most salient in the individual's environment will be learned. Selectivity can be introduced into this process to increase the probability of acquiring kinship information by a number of means; learning from parents, sensitive periods for learning and prenatal learning. Finally, kinship information could be supplied by recognition genes. 7. A distinction is drawn between cues which are used by an individual in the discrimination of kin, discriminators, and cues which are used by individuals in the acquisition of information about kinship, acquisitors. 8. Experiments used to support previous categories of mechanisms of kin recognition were examined in the light of this discussion and it was found that the results were open to a number of different interpretations and yielded little specific information about the mechanisms of kin recognition. 9. It was concluded that there was much evidence, both theoretical and experimental to support the proposed benefits individuals gain from recognizing kin, but much more research is required before the mechanisms of kin recognition are fully understood.     

Kinship Between Judith Butler and Anthropology? A Review Essay

This essay critically evaluates Judith Butler's recent writings on kinship. In this work, Butler challenges the universalist assumptions of psychoanalysis, hoping to lay the analytical groundwork for imagining new forms of familial relationship. Butler examines the way that anthropology and psychoanalysis have constructed the incest taboo as necessitating heteronormative forms of kinship. Butler's critique of kinship, which draws on her theories of subjection, belies her own attachment to a vision of social life occupied primarily by normative institutions, in particular the state. I suggest that new forms of kinship must be understood on their own terms, whether or not they are accorded legitimacy in law or accepted by psychoanalysis. Anthropology's ethnographic practice can emendate an account of subjection and recognition that obsessively looks to institutions and norms even as it criticizes them.     

亲缘关系与啮齿类动物的社会行为

在漫长的进化过程中 ,动物除了在形态结构、生理生化以及遗传等方面适应周围环境之外 ,也产生了与环境相适应的行为 ,其中种内个体社会联系的行为称为社会行为。由于自然选择提高了个体的生存价值和广义适合度 (ｉｎｃｌｕｓｉｖｅｆｉｔｎｅｓｓ) ,所以如果个体间亲缘程度不同 ,在自然选择的作用下必然会产生不同的结果。亲缘关系与社会行为的研究源于行为生态学 ,其中以Ｈａｍｉｌｔｏｎ[32 ] 提出的亲缘选择和广义适合度理论为代表 ,将亲缘关系和自然选择联系起来 ,扩展了达尔文自然选择理论的范围 ,较好地解释了利他行为 (ａｌｔｒｕｓ…     

Terminology for plant polarity: Progress and difficulties

The recent attempts to establish a “natural” terminology for plant polarity^1–3 are significant as they have identified various problems in the classic terminology of polarity,⁴ and arrived at a logical and simple terminology (shootward and rootward).³ The related issue of polarity changes was also addressed while assuming that cell polarity is conserved throughout the development.²Key words: auxin, axiality, development, differentiation, epiphylly, plant architectureWhile the shootward and rootward terminology is very appealing and seems to describe “normal” plant development precisely, like in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, there are many instances in vascular plants that only partly fit the suggested terminology. I demonstrate it by describing three types of common rootward-shootward polarity changes in mature Angiosperm plants (out of a longer list), which are not solved by the new terminology.

1. Epiphylly of plantlets with roots formed on the margins of young leaves in Bryophyllum and other taxa.⁵ These roots result in a mixed polarity. For instance, the lower stem parts that had for a while only one rootward polarity acquire two contrasting directions of rootward polarity following the formation of many plantlet roots on leaf margins. Similarly, for the original roots, the young shoot was initially purely shootward but become at least partly of rootward polarity because of the formation of new plantlet roots on the leaves. Thus, in such plants a situation of rootward and shootward polarities originating from the same direction is found.
2. Aerial roots of many trees, e.g., of many Ficus species.⁵ These roots, which sometimes become larger than the original root system, must influence polarity to a large extent as discussed in the above example of much smaller roots.
3. Shoots emerging from roots of Populus, Rubus and many other taxa.⁵ Such shoots, formed at the rootward position relative to the root parts positioned closer to the original shoot, greatly alter the polarity status of the plants. They result in shootward and rootward polarities arriving from the same direction. Since many such shoots may develop along the root system, they result in an increasing complication of a mosaic of rootward and shootward polarities.

For all three above cases there is no data about where these opposite polarities meet, how they interact, and if there are physiological or developmental consequences to their signal cross-talk.I conclude that while the new shootward and rootward terminology³ is perfect in many cases throughout a plant''s life cycle and for practically all young vascular plants. However, this terminology needs some modifications or additions to fit other developmental situation found in many thousands of species that naturally or even artificially form ectopic roots or shoots. I therefore propose to distinguish between primary, secondary, tertiary and so on, ranks of shootward and rootward polarities.     

Interpretive conundrum on the exclusion criterion of “transplantation with xenografts” for tissue and cell donation

In the context of the EU Directives for human tissues and cells (2004/23/EC, 2006/17/EC and 2006/86/EC) further interest has arisen on the practical application of a few clauses. One such aspect, for the evaluation phase of a potential donor, is the interpretation of the exclusion criterion "transplantation with xenografts." This article outlines the consensus viewpoints regarding the earlier evaluation of the risks related to xenotransplantation and describes the current status of the terminology and recommendations/laws in several healthcare sectors. The application of uniform terminology is encouraged within the healthcare sectors at the international level.     

Terminology-driven mining of biomedical literature

MOTIVATION: With an overwhelming amount of textual information in molecular biology and biomedicine, there is a need for effective literature mining techniques that can help biologists to gather and make use of the knowledge encoded in text documents. Although the knowledge is organized around sets of domain-specific terms, few literature mining systems incorporate deep and dynamic terminology processing. RESULTS: In this paper, we present an overview of an integrated framework for terminology-driven mining from biomedical literature. The framework integrates the following components: automatic term recognition, term variation handling, acronym acquisition, automatic discovery of term similarities and term clustering. The term variant recognition is incorporated into terminology recognition process by taking into account orthographical, morphological, syntactic, lexico-semantic and pragmatic term variations. In particular, we address acronyms as a common way of introducing term variants in biomedical papers. Term clustering is based on the automatic discovery of term similarities. We use a hybrid similarity measure, where terms are compared by using both internal and external evidence. The measure combines lexical, syntactical and contextual similarity. Experiments on terminology recognition and clustering performed on a corpus of MEDLINE abstracts recorded the precision of 98 and 71% respectively. AVAILABILITY: software for the terminology management is available upon request.     

Juvenile greylag geese (Anser anser) discriminate between individual siblings

Social species that maintain individualised relationships with certain others despite continuous changes in age, reproductive status and dominance rank between group members ought to be capable of individual recognition. Tests of "true" individual recognition, where an individual recognises unique features of another, are rare, however. Often kinship and/or familiarity suffice to explain dyadic interactions. The complex relationships within a greylag goose flock suggest that they should be able to recognise individuals irrespective of familiarity or kinship. We tested whether six-week-old hand-raised greylags can discriminate between two of their siblings. We developed a new experimental protocol, in which geese were trained to associate social siblings with geometrical symbols. Subsequently, focals were presented with two geometrical symbols in the presence of a sibling associated with one of the symbols. Significant choice of the geometrical symbol associated with the target present indicated that focals were able to distinguish between individual targets. Greylag goslings successfully learned this association-discrimination task, regardless of genetic relatedness or sex of the sibling targets. Social relationships within a goose flock thus may indeed be based on recognition of unique features of individual conspecifics.     

ONTOGENY,HOMOLOGY, AND TERMINOLOGY—WALL MORPHOGENESIS AS AN AID TO CHARACTER RECOGNITION AND CHARACTER STATE DEFINITION FOR PENNATE DIATOM SYSTEMATICS1

This article reviews current knowledge of wall morphogenesis in pennate diatoms in relation to the way characters are defined and described for taxonomic and systematic analyses. It argues that an understanding of ontogeny is essential for the accurate identification of character homologies, which in turn must underpin all phylogenetic and systematic analyses. Terminology should reflect character homology, but most diatom terminology fails to do this, with concomitant confusion and potential taxonomic mistakes. Identifying where information is lacking or misinterpreted are first steps toward improving our understanding of diatom structure and relationships. After reviewing the current knowledge on pennate diatom structure and its development, this article briefly discusses the significance of morphological variation, character polarity, and the vital importance of applying diatom terminology correctly.     

The kinship system of the Aghriā: a case study of peasants in Middle India

The kinship system of the Aghriā offers new data on Middle Indian kinship and in particular on a dominant peasant caste, immigrated into 'tribal' northwestern Orissa. Their kinship system shows an elaborate terminology as well as an impressive autonomy of the different levels of kinship. The categories, for example, do not correspond to the ideal and practice of cross-cousin marriage, which itself seems to be in the process of change.  

Résumé

Le système de parenté des Aghriā fournit de nouvelles données sur la notion de parenté en Inde centrale, et en particulier chez une caste de paysans dominants qui ont immigré dans le Nord-ouest « tribal >> de l'Orissa. Le système de parenté s'accompagne d'une terminologie élaborée ainsi que d'une autonomie impressionnante des différents niveaux de parenté. Les catégories ne correspondent pas, par exemple, à l'idéal ni à la pratique des mariages entre cousins, qui semblent eux-mêmes en train d'évoluer.     

Kin recognition and the evolution of altruism

In 1964, Hamilton formalized the idea of kin selection to explain the evolution of altruistic behaviours. Since then, numerous examples from a diverse array of taxa have shown that seemingly altruistic actions towards close relatives are a common phenomenon. Although many species use kin recognition to direct altruistic behaviours preferentially towards relatives, this important aspect of social biology is less well understood theoretically. I extend Hamilton's classic work by defining the conditions for the evolution of kin-directed altruism when recognizers are permitted to make acceptance (type I) and rejection (type II) errors in the identification of social partners with respect to kinship. The effect of errors in recognition on the evolution of kin-directed altruism depends on whether the population initially consists of unconditional altruists or non-altruists (i.e. alternative forms of non-recognizers). Factors affecting the level of these error rates themselves, their evolution and their long-term stability are discussed.     

The Foundation of Kinship

Men's hunting has dominated the discourse on energy capture and flow in the past decade or so. We turn to women's roles as critical to household formation, pair-bonding, and intergenerational bonds. Their pivotal contributions in food processing and distribution likely promoted kinship, both genetic and affinal, and appear to be the foundation from which households evolved. With conscious recognition of household social units, variable cultural constructions of human kinship systems that were sensitive to environmental and technological conditions could emerge. Kinship dramatically altered the organization of resource access for our species, creating what we term "kinship ecologies." We present simple mathematical models to show how hunting leads to dependence on women's contributions, bonds men to women, and bonds generations together. Kinship, as it organized transfers of food and labor energy centered on women, also became integrated with the biological evolution of human reproduction and life history.