On our best behavior: optimality models in human behavioral ecology

This paper discusses problems associated with the use of optimality models in human behavioral ecology. Optimality models are used in both human and non-human animal behavioral ecology to test hypotheses about the conditions generating and maintaining behavioral strategies in populations via natural selection. The way optimality models are currently used in behavioral ecology faces significant problems, which are exacerbated by employing the so-called ‘phenotypic gambit’: that is, the bet that the psychological and inheritance mechanisms responsible for behavioral strategies will be straightforward. I argue that each of several different possible ways we might interpret how optimality models are being used for humans face similar and additional problems. I suggest some ways in which human behavioral ecologists might adjust how they employ optimality models; in particular, I urge the abandonment of the phenotypic gambit in the human case.     

How Do Real Indians Fish? Neoliberal Multiculturalism and Contested Indigeneities in the Colorado Delta

ABSTRACT   There has been a growing interest in anthropology regarding how certain political conditions set the stage for "articulations" between indigenous movements and environmental actors and discourses. However, relatively little attention has been paid to how these same conditions can suppress demands for indigenous rights. In this article, I argue that the pairing of neoliberalism and multiculturalism in contemporary Mexico has created political fields in which ethnic difference has been foregrounded as a way of denying certain rights to marginalized groups. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in northern Mexico, I analyze how the arguments of a group of Cucapá for fishing rights in the Colorado Delta have been constrained within these political circumstances. I argue that cultural difference has been leveraged by the Mexican federal government and local NGOs to prevent the redistribution of environmental resources among vulnerable groups such as the Cucapá.     

Teaching professionalism: a tale of three schools

This article compares professionalism education from the vantage points of three different disciplines: medicine, law, and business. In particular, it asks how each of these professions conceives of "professionalism," and how these different conceptions affect what is taught to graduate students. The object of professionalism education differs among these three disciplines, as do the specific challenges to professionalism and professionalism education. The article offers examples of how professionalism is taught in medicine, law, and business, and what each profession might learn from the others in developing their professionalism education and pedagogy.     

Ethical Know-how and Traditional Ecological Knowledge in Small Scale Fisheries on the Eastern Black Sea Coast of Turkey

In the context of development and changes in two small-boat fisheries on the eastern Black Sea coast of Turkey, this article discusses how institutions are embedded in tradition, and what is “traditional” in “traditional knowledge”. Taking new institutional economics’ focus on institutions and approaches to traditional ecological knowledge as vantage points for discussion I compare systems of informal management in one discontinued and one new fishery to address questions such as: What kinds of knowledges and rules are involved in these kinds of fishing? What constitutes a tradition of knowledge? What is the role of tradition in working out new rules? I couple theories of situated knowledge (Ingold) and embeddedness of rules (Varela), both of which are inspired by Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological approach, to show how institutions and traditional ecological knowledge are embedded and come together in practice.     

Chemical machines, Maxwell's demon and living organisms

The problem considered in this paper is whether conventional chemical machines can be used in living organisms. I first point out that, due to their molecular nature, living systems pose unique thermodynamic problems, particularly in relation to Maxwell's demon. I then show that these problems may be solved by introducing time into the fundamental statement of the second law so that it becomes valid at the molecular level. This proposal, while clarifying certain logical anomalies in classical thermodynamics, makes no difference to that science in practice. However, I deduce from this statement that there are only two general ways of obtaining useful work from a chemical reaction: the first, a “constrained equilibrium” mechanism, is that employed by conventional chemical engines, but the second, a “molecular energy” mechanism, which depends upon the rapidity of resonant energy-transfer, may not have been suggested before. I then argue that because the former mechanism is essentially macroscopic in character it cannot, in fact, be used in those biological processes, like muscular contraction or active transport, in which useful molecular work is done and that only the latter may be so used. I also suggest reasons why this conclusion has been overlooked. Muscular contraction is used to illustrate these arguments and it is shown that all models of this process so far proposed fall into the first category. Although it is possible to eliminate such models a priori, several examples are finally criticized in detail to clarify the points raised. It is shown that in fact each of these models would have to be a Maxwell's demon machine.     

Locations of Hegemony: The Making of Places in the Toba's Struggle for La Comuna, 1989-99

In this article, I examine how hegemonic fields and the forms of contention they generate are active forces in the production of places. I focus my analysis on an indigenousgroupof the Argentinean Chaco, theTobaof the Pilcomayo River, and their recent struggles to gain control over the municipality of the region, locally known as la comuna. I examine how these struggles reproduce and simultaneously contest forms of state hegemony and, in so doing, define the contours of la comuna in tension with another place: the surrounding bush where the Toba focus their hunting and gathering practices. Because of the hegemonic values that inform these struggles, I argue that in this process the bush is being reconfigured in a contradictory way: on the one hand, as a locality gradually undermined by the influence of productivist discourses and, on the other hand, as a place of autonomy from "the government" This tense spatial configuration, in turn, informs Toba political discourses and practices. A central point of this article is that hegemony has spatial dimensions that are crucial in the unfolding of processes of ideological domination, accommodation, and resistance. {Key words: hegemony, place, ethnic politics, Argentina. Gran Chaco, Toba]     

The Work of Indebtedness: The Traumatic Present of Late Capitalist Chile

In political and biomedical discourses, "posttraumatic stress disorder" has become a set of organizing concepts for trauma and traumatic memory. These concepts, however, are predicated on an understanding of traumatic memory as a discrete etiological event that, when reexperienced, is productive of symptoms. In this essay, I explore alternative framings of trauma that arise out of historical changes in political economic language and from experiences of monetary, historical, and affective indebtedness in Santiago, Chile. This ethnographic research is based in an historically leftist población (poor urban sector) and follows the interwoven narratives of a formerly exiled communist militant and her adopted daughter. Throughout this essay, I describe the mother's attempts to inhabit an untimely language of socialist politics and the daughter's rejection of both this language and her mother's pain. I elaborate on how these attempts are products of and productive of monetary and intersubjective indebtedness in a neoliberal present. By describing the differing historical languages inhabited by these subjects, I attempt to evoke an understanding of trauma not as an individual possession or etiological event, but rather as a referential dissonance in the neoliberal context. This referential dissonance emerges from the gap between the historical languages that inform subjectivities. I explore how such a gap can create contexts in which the everyday itself both threatens the disarticulation of the subject and produces injurious affective relationships. In this way, I interrogate relationships between trauma, recovery, and the everyday.     

Bioethics: an African perspective

In this paper I have attempted to open a window on an African approach to Bioethics — that of the Nso' of the Bamenda Highlands of Kamerun — from the vantage position of someone who has familiarity with both African and Western cultures. Because of its scientific-cum-technological sophistication and its proselytising character, Western culture, as well as Western systems of thought and practice, have greatly affected and influenced other cultures, particularly African culture. But Western culture, systems of thought and practice, have been highly impervious and immune to influences from other cultures, philosophies, systems of thought and practice, even where these might have been salutary and enriching to Western culture and systems. What I have here termed Nso' eco-bio-cummunitarianism clearly indicates a viable alternative world-view within which some of the bioethical perplexities and controversies of today might be more satisfactorily resolved than within a Western framework. I have further attempted to show, by way of example, how within such a world-view, abortion and suicide, for instance, would be disapproved of while euthanasia, in its etymological purity, is approved of.     

Struggling Along: The Possibilities for Experience among the Homeless Mentally Ill 886

An ethnographic study of a shelter in downtown Boston for people considered homeless and mentally ill documents the way in which the category of "experience," which many have taken to be universal and natural, is culturally and historically constituted. The residents of the shelter tend not to experience—defined here as an inwardly reflexive process that proceeds, coheres, and transforms through temporally integrative forms—but rather "struggle along" by way of an acutely tactile mode of perception that attends to episodic, temporally finite encounters. The fact that experience in the shelter is only a possibility, not a given, points to the need for a critical phenomenology that would help us to consider how this and other ways of being come about through specific social, cultural, political, and material forces.     

Adenoviral gene therapy, radiation, and prostate cancer

Viral gene therapy has exceptional potential as a specifically tailored cancer treatment. However, enthusiasm for cancer gene therapy has varied over the years, partly owing to safety concerns after the death of a young volunteer in a clinical trial for a genetic disease. Since this singular tragedy, results from numerous clinical trials over the past 10 years have restored the excellent safety profile of adenoviral vectors. These vectors have been extensively studied in phase I and II trials as intraprostatically administered agents for patients with locally recurrent and high-risk local prostate cancer. Promising therapeutic responses have been reported in several studies with both oncolytic and suicide gene therapy strategies. The additional benefit of combining gene therapy with radiation therapy has also been realized; replicating adenoviruses inhibit DNA repair pathways, resulting in a synergistic sensitization to radiation. Other, nonreplicating suicide gene therapy strategies are also significantly enhanced with radiation. Combined radiation/gene therapy is currently being studied in phase I and II clinical trials and will likely be the first adenoviral gene therapy mechanism to become available to urologists in the clinic. Systemic gene therapy for metastatic disease is also a major goal of the field, and clinical trials are currently under way for hormone-resistant metastatic prostate cancer. Second- and third-generation "re-targeted" viral vectors, currently being developed in the laboratory, are likely to further improve these systemic trials.     

Science and Restoration Under a Big, Demon Haunted Tent: Reply to Giardina et al. (2007)

In a recent editorial, I discussed how the culture of science, heterogeneity of nature, and real‐world human complexities can limit the practical relevance of formal scientific research and argued that less formal approaches might often be more efficient and effective. Giardina et al. criticized this editorial and argued that formal science has and increasingly will play a central role in ecological restoration in particular and human progress in general. Here, I respond to these arguments and expand upon the ideas presented in my previous editorial. I further illustrate how despite superficial appearances the utilitarian value of formal science may often be largely indirect. I also argue that the complexities of ecological and human systems combined with the subjective values and political beliefs underlying restoration make transforming this discipline into a unified “hard science” virtually impossible. Because values and politics also underlie most environmental conflicts, and scientific inquiry is inherently unsuitable for resolving these kinds of disputes, the future success of restoration may depend more on political support than scientific progress. Dogmatic, nonfalsifiable faith in the universal superiority of “rigorous” scientific knowledge and methodologies can foster arrogance and intolerance and blind us to the ephemeral nature of scientific “truths” and the double‐edged sword of scientific “progress.” My hope is that Society for Ecological Restoration International (SERI) will remain a big inclusive tent that embraces a healthy diversity of foci and approaches that emulate the extraordinary diversity we find within the natural ecosystems and human cultures we strive to preserve, restore, and reconnect.     

PROSPECTS FOR “GENETIC THERAPY” - CAN A PERSON BENEFIT FROM BEING ALTERED?

Mapping the human genome is an immense project with numerous objectives. Indeed, it is likely that some of its most important ramifications and applications remain as yet unglimpsed. All we can presently attempt is to focus on some of the more obvious possibilities and prepare for the problems already looming on our horizon. One such possibility is that of Prenatal Genetic Intervention (PGI), which might be said to be a therapeutic intervention on behalf of the embryonic child. In this paper, I argue that "genetic therapy" is likely to be a misnomer, and that if PGI becomes possible, we should generally resist its inclusion under the special moral duty of providing health care. "Therapy" necessarily means helping a person, while PGI -- though effecting improvements from an impersonal perspective -- will frequently not consist in directly helping any person. This is due not to the embryo not being a person, but rather to the basic philosophical problem of personal identity persisting through significant alterations -- especially the alteration of genotype. The decisive moral question then hinges on the definition of "significant" alteration. I shall examine the feasibility of drawing analogies from criteria for personal identity proposed in discussions of how persons maintain their identity across time and through physical and psychological change. Certain metaphysical aspects of human identity and individuality will be also touched upon, partly in terms derived from classical Judaism. In conclusion I argue that, regarding embryos in particular, persistence of genotype must generally be deemed a necessary condition for maintaining personal identity. Therefore, many proposals for PGI should be excluded from the notion of therapeutic intervention and thus denied the special moral status of requests for therapy.     

MicroRNA-142-3p, a new regulator of RAC1, suppresses the migration and invasion of hepatocellular carcinoma cells

RAC1 regulates a diverse array of cellular events including migration and invasion. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have a key role in the regulation of gene expression. In this study, we demonstrated that microRNA-142-3p (miR-142-3p) acted as a negative regulator of human RAC1. Overexpression of miR-142-3p decreased RAC1 mRNA and protein levels. Moreover, the overexpression of miR-142-3p suppressed, while blocking of miR-142-3p increased colony formation, migration and invasion in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cell lines (QGY-7703 and SMMC-7721). RAC1 overexpression without the 3'untranslated region abolished the effect of miR-142-3p in the QGY-7703 and SMMC-7721 cells. These results demonstrated that miR-142-3p directly and negatively regulates RAC1 in HCC cells, which highlights the importance of miRNAs in tumorigenesis.     

Inhibition of RAC1-GEF DOCK3 by miR-512-3p contributes to suppression of metastasis in non-small cell lung cancer

MicroRNAs are a class of small non-coding RNAs regulating gene expression. In this study, we demonstrated that retinoic acid (RA) treatment increases the expression of miR-512-3p. Overexpression of miR-512-3p inhibited cell adhesion, migration, and invasion in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cell lines A549 and H1299. miR-512-3p inhibitor partially reversed these effects in H1299 cells stably expressing miR-512. We identified DOCK3, a RAC1-GEF (guanine nucleotide exchange factor), as a target gene of miR-512-3p. Overexpression of miR-512-3p led to the decrease of DOCK3 protein but not its mRNA. Knockdown of DOCK3 resulted in similar effects on adhesion, migration, and invasion as observed of miR-512-3p overexpression. Active RAC1 pull-down assay indicated that overexpression of miR-512-3p could decrease the activity of RAC1 with a higher efficiency than that of DOCK3 knockdown. Furthermore, expression of miR-512-3p was suppressed in most NSCLC patient tumor samples compared to its paired normal controls, suggesting that miR-512-3p might play a crucial role in lung cancer development. In conclusion, our results supported that miR-512-3p could inhibit tumor cell adhesion, migration, and invasion by regulating the RAC1 activity via DOCK3 in NSCLC A549 and H1299 cell lines.     

Reasons to be fussy about cultural evolution

This discussion paper responds to two recent articles in Biology and Philosophy that raise similar objections to cultural attraction theory, a research trend in cultural evolution putting special emphasis on the fact that human minds create and transform their culture. Both papers are sympathetic to this idea, yet both also regret a lack of consilience with Boyd, Richerson and Henrich’s models of cultural evolution. I explain why cultural attraction theorists propose a different view on three points of concern for our critics. I start by detailing the claim that cultural transmission relies not chiefly on imitation or teaching, but on cognitive mechanisms like argumentation, ostensive communication, or selective trust, whose evolved or habitual function may not be the faithful reproduction of ideas or behaviours. Second, I explain why the distinction between context biases and content biases might not always be the best way to capture the interactions between culture and cognition. Lastly, I show that cultural attraction models cannot be reduced to a model of guided variation, which posits a clear separation between individual and social learning processes. With cultural attraction, the same cognitive mechanisms underlie both innovation and the preservation of traditions.     

RAC3 down-regulation sensitizes human chronic myeloid leukemia cells to TRAIL-induced apoptosis

The nuclear receptor coactivator RAC3 plays important roles in many biological processes and tumorigenesis. We found that RAC3 is over-expressed in human chronic myeloid leukemia cells K562, which are normally resistant to TRAIL-induced apoptosis. RAC3 down-regulation by siRNA rendered these cells sensitive to TRAIL-induced cell death. In addition to the up-regulation of TRAIL receptors, the process involves Bid, caspases and PARP activation, loss of mitochondrial membrane potential, and release of AIF, cytochrome c and Smac/DIABLO to the cytoplasm. We conclude that RAC3 is required for TRAIL resistance and that this anti-apoptotic function is independent of its role in hormone receptor signaling.     

Ranking analysis of correlation coefficients in gene expressions

Development of statistical methods has become very necessary for large-scale correlation analysis in the current "omic" data. We propose ranking analysis of correlation coefficients (RAC) based on transforming correlation matrix into correlation vector and conducting a "locally ranking" strategy that significantly reduces computational complexity and load. RAC gives estimation of null correlation distribution and an estimator of false discovery rate (FDR) for finding gene pairs of being correlated in expressions obtained by comparison between the ranked observed correlation coefficients and the ranked estimated ones at a given threshold level. The simulated and real data show that the estimated null correlation distribution is exactly the same with the true one and the FDR estimator works well in various scenarios. By applying our RAC, in the null dataset, no gene pairs were found but, in the human cancer dataset, 837 gene pairs were found to have positively correlated expression variations at FDR≤5%. RAC performs well in multiple conditions (classes), each with 3 or more replicate observations.