bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
On The Intertheoretic Competition Hypothesis
Authors: Kline A. David
Published: January 2016

A commonplace thesis of the “new philosophy of science” is the view that the testing of a given theory is not a simple comparison of the theory with nature but also requires the comparison of the theory with competing theories. More specifically the version of the intertheoretic competition thesis that shall be examined is as follows:

(ITC) In addition to comparing a theory with nature, a necessary condition for the rejection of a theory is the acceptance of an alternative theory.

It is Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions that is responsible for the widespread popularity of (ITC).1,2

…a scientific theory is declared invalid only if an alternative candidate is available to take its place. No process yet disclosed by the historical study of scientific development at all resembles the methodological stereotype of falsification by direct comparison with nature. …the act of judgment that leads scientists to reject a previously accepted theory is always based upon more than a comparison of that theory with the world.
Is Our Universe a Mere Fluke? The Cosmological Argument and Spinning the Universes
Authors: van Brakel J.
Published: January 2016

Recent discussions about the argument from design have taken into account developments in cosmological theories, most especially the so-called anthropic principle associated with the “Wheeler”- and “Carter”-universes. Part of these discussions can perhaps be summarized as briefly as can be in the following opposition:

1.

The world is very unusual, so it must have been made by an intelligent creator.

2.

The world is very unusual, but unusual things do occur by chance.

The phrase “the world is very unusual” is short-hand for something like:

3.

It is extremely improbable that a random concatenation of the forces, energies, particles, fields of the universe (or whatever we think the building blocks are) should, in a single trial, form into anything orderly, let alone anything that supports our form of intelligent life.
Constructive Empiricism and Anti-Realism
Authors: Mitchell Sam
Published: January 2016

Van Fraassen stresses two distinct but interrelated themes in The Scientific Image: the semantic view of theories and the epistemic status of unobservables. The first of these could easily be accepted by a scientific realist, and indeed realists like Giere have already adapted it to their purposes. So the specifically empiricist thread in van Fraassen’s philosophy stems from the second.

Van Fraassen breaks from tradition in founding his empiricism not on the ontological status of unobservable entities but on the epistemic attitude we take to them. The main points of his position are these:

1)

The claims of scientific theories, including claims about unobservable entities, are to be taken literally. Theories are not reconstructed so as to remove claims of the existence of unobservable objects.

2)

Observation is a matter of direct observation by accepted participants in the human scientific community.
Fitness and Explanation
Authors: Cooper Gregory
Published: January 2016

Sustained controversy over a philosophical issue is often times symptomatic of differing commitments at a more fundamental philosophical level. I will argue that two current debates over the foundations of the theory of natural selection are cases in point. Alexander Rosenberg, at times together with Mary Williams, challenges what is becoming received orthodoxy about the foundations of this theory. He argues that the currently popular propensity interpretation of fitness does not legitimize explanations in terms of natural selection, and that furthermore, the biological fields which typically study the ways in which selection pressures originate in the organism/environment complex are not in fact part of the theory of natural selection at all. His foils in the first case are Robert Brandon, John Beatty and Susan Mills;2 on the second issue he is engaged in debate with Elliott Sober.3 We will see that, although the controversies are ostensibly about the interpretation of fitness, the issues, at bottom, involve the nature of scientific explanation.
The Problem of Protocol Statements and Schlick’s Concept of “Konstatierungen”
Authors: Zhai Zhenming
Published: January 2016

Traditionally, the proponents of empiricism sought for the starting point of knowledge in sensations that happen to us when we open our sense organs to the world. They analyzed the functioning of human faculties of sensation and cognition and the way these faculties are activated so as to discover the origin of ideas. Thus, they insisted on the priority of particulars to universals in the body of synthetic knowledge, and granted empirical facts the authority of truth. For that reason, they are opposed to the rationalists, who maintained that the most important part of synthetic knowledge is derived solely from first principles or ideas, and that these principles or ideas are “innate”—that reason can ascertain their truth intuitively without the use of the senses.

Logical positivism belongs to the empiricist tradition. However, it distinguishes itself from its empiricist predecessors in a very important way, so that its proponents thought they could overcome the difficulties raised against the older empiricists.
Getting to the Truth Through Conceptual Revolutions
Authors: Kelly Kevin T. , Glymour Clark
Published: January 2016

[I]t would be absurd for us to hope that we can know more of any object than belongs to the possible experience of it or lay claim to the least knowledge of how anything not assumed to be an object of possible experience is determined according to the constitution that it has in itself.

* * *

It would be… a still greater absurdity if we conceded no things in themselves or declared our experience to be the only possible mode of knowing things….

[Kant, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics]

A certain line of skepticism about normative epistemology has become more or less standard in contemporary philosophy of science. It runs like this.

Scientific method is a matter of choosing among theories on the basis of evidence.

But in “conceptual revolutions”, meaning, truth, and even what counts as observable can all be theory-relative.
Why the Anti-reductionist Consensus Won’t Survive the Case of Classical Mendelian Genetics
Authors: Waters C. Kenneth
Published: January 2016

Philosophers now treat the relationship between Classical Mendelian Genetics and molecular biology as a paradigm of nonreduction and this example is playing an increasingly prominent role in debates about the reducibility of theories ranging from macrosocial science to folk psychology. Patricia Churchland (1986), for example, draws an analogy between the alleged elimination of the “causal mainstay” of classical genetics and her view that today’s psychological theory will be eliminated by neuroscience. Patricia Kitcher takes an autonomous rather than eliminativist view of the reported nonreduction in genetics and reasons that psychology will retain a similar autonomy from lower level sciences (1980 and 1982). Although Churchland and Kitcher offer different interpretations of the apparent failure of molecular biology to reduce classical genetics, they agree that this failure will help illuminate theoretical relations between psychology and lower level sciences. The appearance of the Mendelian example along side the usual ones from physics and chemistry marks a turning point in philosophy of science.
Stich, Content, Prediction, and Explanation in Cognitive Science
Authors: Wallis Charles S.
Published: January 2016

Cognitive science, at least as done by many philosophers, seeks to develop what one might call a content-based theory of cognition. These theorists generally seek to predict/explain cognition by employing generalizations between contentful states like beliefs and desires. In his book, From Folk Psychology To Cognitive Science, Stephen Stich argues that cognitive science should not attempt to employ content-based theories in its explanations of human (and other) behavior. For the most part Stich directs his arguments towards belief/desire psychology. Some of his arguments, however, are directed at content-based theories in general. In this paper, I will be concerned with one of these more general arguments—the principle of autonomy argument.

The conclusion of the principle of autonomy argument is that the predictions and explanations generated by content-based theories, in so far as they are possible, do not fall within the domain of prediction and explanation in cognitive science.
Measuring the Success of Science
Authors: Niiniluoto Ilkka
Published: January 2016

While most philosophers of science agree that science is, perhaps in many ways, a highly successful enterprise, there is no consensus about the best way of defining and measuring this success. Philosophers are also divided in their views about two further issues: What does the success of a scientific theory indicate? What is the best way of explaining this success?

After some remarks about institutional and pragmatic measures of success, this paper concentrates on rival ways of defining cognitive success. Four realist measures of epistemic credit are discussed: probability, confirmation (corroboration), expected verisimilitude, and probable verisimilitude. Laudan’s non-realist concept of the problem-solving effectiveness of a theory is compared to Hempel’s notion of systematic power. I argue that such truth-independent concepts alone are insufficient to characterize scientific advance. But if they are used as truth-dependent epistemic utilities, they serve as fallible indicators of the truth or truthlikeness of a theory.
Assessing Inductive Logics Empirically
Authors: Smokler Howard
Published: January 2016

Philosophers of science have recently been urged by Arthur Fine to collaborate with physicists and with other scientists in constructing scientific theories.2 What I am proposing is a collaboration at the other pole of scientific activity; the pole of experiment.

I consider this effort to be part of a tendency within philosophy to naturalize epistemology. The banner of naturalistic epistemology has attracted such men as Quine and Goldman. I consider the effort as one small part of that program which involves not only theoretical integration of at least portions of the two corpuses of knowledge, but the employment of methodologies which are common to them both.

The theory of inductive logic today is in stasis. A number of highly ingenious and very sophisticated theories of inference vie for primacy. As in the case of many philosophical theses, no closure seems in sight.
Singular Causation and Law
Authors: Irzik Gürol
Published: January 2016

Humean accounts of law are at the same time accounts of causation. Accordingly, since laws of nature are nothing but contingent cosmic regularities, to be a cause is just to be an instance of such a law. It follows from this view that it is logically impossible that there be causally related events which are not law-governed. Any particular cause-effect pair instantiates some law of nature, where the law is understood as a regularity. The regularity itself may be understood phenomenalistically, that is, as holding between sense impressions, or realistically, that is, as holding between objective events or event-types. These days even empiricists are realists to some extent, so I will eschew the radically empiricist version and assume that when a Humean talks about regularities, he is referring to objective events, states or processes in nature, not to his subjective experiences.
Scientific Evidence: Creating and Evaluating Experimental Instruments and Research Techniques
Authors: Bechtel William
Published: January 2016

The question of how scientific hypotheses and theories should be evaluated in light of evidence has been a central question in philosophy of science. Far less attention has been given to the questions of how evidence is developed and is itself evaluated. From this neglect, one might assume that the processes by which scientists develop and evaluate evidence are unproblematic. An examination of the actual practice of experimental scientists, however, reveals that they are far from unproblematic. Much of the evidence used to assess scientific theories is gathered with elaborate instruments. At a given time many instruments used in a particular science are noncontroversial. The techniques for using them are agreed upon so that, in a fairly routine way, scientists are able to generate evidence to settle empirical or theoretical disputes. To capture the fact that such instruments and techniques are not questioned, Latour (1987) refers to them as black boxes.
Desiderata for a Modified Quantum Dynamics
Authors: Shimony Abner
Published: January 2016

A cluster of problems — the “quantum mechanical measurement problem”, the “problem of the reduction of the wave packet”, the “problem of the actualization of potentialities,” and the “Schrödinger Cat problem” — are raised by standard quantum dynamics when certain assumptions are made about the interpretation of the quantum mechanical formalism. Investigators who are unwilling to abandon these assumptions will be motivated to propose modifications of the quantum formalism. Among these, many (including Professor Ghirardi and Professor Pearle) have felt that the most promising locus of modification is quantum dynamics, and in their presentations (this Volume) they have suggested stochastic modifications of the standard deterministic and linear evolution of the quantum state.
The Sciences of Complexity and “Origins of Order”
Authors: Kauffman Stuart A.
Published: January 2016

A new science, the science of complexity, is birthing. This science boldly promises to transform the biological and social sciences in the forthcoming century. My own book, Origins of Order: Self Organization and Selection in Evolution, (Kauffman, 1992), is at most one strand in this transformation. I feel deeply honored that Marjorie Grene undertook organizing a session at the Philosophy of Science meeting discussing Origins, and equally glad that Dick Burian, Bob Richardson and Rob Page have undertaken their reading of the manuscript and careful thoughts. In this article I shall characterize the book, but more importantly, set it in the broader context of the emerging sciences of complexity. Although the book is not yet out of Oxford press’s quiet womb, my own thinking has moved beyond that which I had formulated even a half year ago. Meanwhile, in the broader scientific community, the interest in “complexity” is exploding.
Some Twists in the Cognitive Turn
Authors: Fuller Steve
Published: January 2016

Contrary to what the name suggests, the recent work of Howard Margolis (1987) and Ronald Giere (1988) demonstrates that the “cognitive turn” in the philosophy of science is not simply the application of cognitive science to the study of science. For one thing, neither one is what Jerry Fodor (1981) has called a “methodological solipsist,” that is, someone who wants to account for thought processes without presupposing an account of the world of which those thoughts are about. Margolis, in fact, comes perilously close to Fodor’s anti-cognitivist foe, J. J. Gibson (1979), whose “ecological” perspective requires that an organism’s thought processes be specified in terms of structures in the environment, “affordances,” capable of satisfying the organism’s desire to know. The Margolian focus on overcoming “barriers” to alternative “habits of mind,” as the psychic basis of Kuhn’s paradigm shifts, only serves to highlight this broadly “functional” side of thinking that typically has no place in cognitive science.
Do Mutants Have to be Slain, or Do They Die of Natural Causes?: The Case of Atomic Parity Violation Experiments
Authors: Franklin Allan
Published: January 2016

In Constructing Quarks (1984) Andrew Pickering discussed the early experiments on atomic parity violation performed at Oxford University and at the University of Washington and published in 1976 and 1977. The results disagreed with the predictions of the Weinberg-Salam (W-S) theory of unified electroweak interactions. Another experiment, performed at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in 1978, on the scattering of polarized electrons from deuterons confirmed the theory. Pickering regards the Oxford and Washington experiments as mutants, slain by the SLAC experiment.

By 1979 the W-S theory was regarded by the high-energy physics community as established, despite the fact that as Pickering recounts, “there had been no intrinsic change [emphasis in original] in the status of the Washington-Oxford experiments.” (Pickering 1984, p. 301).
Community Ecology, Scale, and the Instability of the Stability Concept
Authors: McCoy E.D. , Shrader-Frechette Kristin
Published: January 2016

In the Preface to his recent philosophy of biology (1988) and in his earlierGrowth of Biological Thought(1982), Ernst Mayr emphasized that recent progress in evolutionary biology is a result of conceptual clarification, not a consequence of improved measurements or better scientific laws. Although complete agreement on the meaning of key concepts is not essential for all communication in science (see Hull 1988, pp. 6-7,513), we likewise believe that conceptual clarification is perhaps the most important key to progress in community ecology. In order to investigate some of the reasons that might explain why community ecology has been unable to arrive at a widely accepted general theory, in this essay we analyze “stability,” one of its most important foundational concepts. After reviewing the stability concept and sketching its associated problems, we assess the epistemological status of four difficulties with the concept.
The Structure Thirty Years Later: Refashioning a Constructivist Metaphysical Program
Authors: Sismondo Sergio
Published: January 2016

I argue here that for the past thirty years there has been a persistent misreading of Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Not everybody has participated in this misreading, but its persistence is remarkable. So one of my tasks is to diagnose the reasons for its continuance. It is also an important misreading, because it attributes to Kuhn a view that is from most people’s perspective highly untenable, that scientists in some strong sense construct the world by choosing a paradigm.

To avoid repeating work done by Gutting and many others (see Gutting 1980) I will focus on Kuhn’s constructivist metaphysical program, as seen by commentators.
Locality, Complex Numbers, and Relativistic Quantum Theory
Authors: Saunders Simon W.
Published: January 2016

What is relativistic quantum theory? How does it differ from non-relativistic quantum mechanics? Is there something more involved than the transition from the Galilean group to the Lorentz group?

These questions are evidently of great importance to the understanding of relativistic quantum theory (RQT), in particular to the distinction between the basic principles of quantum theory, and the characterization of a particular class of dynamical evolutions. Within non-relativistic quantum mechanics (NRQM) a reasonably precise response is possible (differences concern the number of degrees of freedom, the existence of internal symmetries, and the form of the Hamiltonian as a function of the canonical variables); what appears characteristic of RQT is the appearance of a dynamics of a qualitatively different character (involving the creation and annihilation of particles), involving new kinds of constraints (renormalization theory: anomalies). Nevertheless, it seems we must know how to pass from the inhomogeneous Galilean group (IHGG) to the Lorentz group (IHLG), if only because we have successfully constructed a RQT, surely, then, we know what it is that we hold invariant in this transition.
Defending Robustness: The Bacterial Mesosome as a Test Case
Authors: Culp Sylvia
Published: January 2016

In “Facts, Artifacts, and Mesosomes: Practicing Epistemology with the
Electron Microscope” (1993), Nicolas Rasmussen presents an account of the
mesosome, a bag-shaped membranous structure first observed by electron
microscopists in grampositive bacteria, as a test case for robustness.
Rasmussen argues that robustness as a criterion for the reality or
artifactuality of experimental results fails this test; for, after 15 years
of interpreting electron micrographs of specimens prepared by a variety of
techniques as supporting evidence for the existence of mesosomes, electron
microscopists ultimately concluded that mesosomes were an artifact produced
by these preparation techniques. According to Rasmussen, electron
microscopists did not use robustness to “decide reliably between conflicting
observations” (ibid., 231). Moreover, Rasmussen also claims that research on
mesosomes “resembles that of high flux gravity waves as described by Harry
Collins, especially in the obviousness of ‘experimenter's regress’ or
logical circularity entailed in the evaluation of experiments according to
their results…“(ibid., 256).
Spectrometers as Analogues of Nature
Authors: Rothbart Daniel
Published: January 2016

Traditional empiricist epistemologies have raised major philosophical
obstacles to a clear understanding of instruments. Empiricist philosophers
have given scant attention to instruments as a separate topic of inquiry
because the reliability of instruments is presumably reducible to the
epistemology of common sense experience. Instruments function presumably to
magnify our physiologically limited sensory capacities by linking the
specimen's sensory properties to accessible empirical data; such data are
then validated by the same empiricist standards used to access ordinary
(middle-sized) phenomena. Thus, no epistemic insight is revealed by studying
instrumentation per se, according to
empiricists.

Critics of empiricism have championed the cause that all sensory data
are theoryladen. Yet even this dictum has the effect of minimizing the
philosophical significance of instruments. This is because many critics of
empiricism are working within the empiricist's distinction between the
subjectivity of theory and the apparent objectivity of data.
How to Remain (Reasonably) Optimistic: Scientific Realism and the
“Luminiferous Ether”
Authors: Worrall John
Published: January 2016

In the course of his forceful (1981) attack on “convergent realism”,
Larry Laudan attempted to turn an influential pro-realist consideration on
its head. Scientific realists have wondered how a theory could enjoy the
sort of empirical predictive success exhibited by presently accepted
theories in the “mature” sciences, and yet be radically wrong in what it
claims is going on “behind” the empirical phenomena. If nothing like the
electrons and other particles postulated by current physics exists, how can
the theories that there are such things have made the great range of
successful predictions that they do about phenomena observed in particle
accelerators and the like? Laudan directs such realists to the history of
science and to a list of “once successful” theories which are “(by present
lights) non-referring”—a list of successful theories which gave a “central”
role to notions that, according to theories we accept
now, do not exist (1981, 26).
Methodological Issues in the Construction of Gender as a Meaningful Variable in Scientific Studies of Cognition
Authors: Rooney Phyllis
Published: January 2016

There are many reasons why my “special science,” psychology—and more specifically cognitive psychology—lends itself to particularly fruitful feminist philosophical analysis. Many central questions in feminist philosophy of science and feminist science studies are well illuminated there, especially those that are reflected in specific methodological issues. For example, in feminist science critiques tensions have arisen about the role of empiricism: many stress the importance of paying careful attention to certain strictures of empiricist methodology (close attention to accuracy in data collection, hypothesis formation, replication of “findings” about sex differences, and so on), yet concerns have also been raised about empiricism as an overall feminist epistemological framework—specifically, concerns about whether such a framework can adequately entertain the most transformative feminist political projects. I think such tensions in feminist science criticism are best addressed by paying close attention to their deployment in particular working contexts of feminist science.
Against Scientific Imperialism
Authors: Dupré John
Published: January 2016

Most discussion of the unity of science has concerned what might be called vertical relations between theories: the reducibility of biology to chemistry, or chemistry to physics, and so on. In this paper I shall be concerned rather with horizontal relations, that is to say, with theories of different kinds that deal with objects at the same structural level. Whereas the former, vertical, conception of unity through reduction has come under a good deal of criticism recently (see, e.g., Dupré 1993), horizontal unity has generally been conceded to be an important goal. The most pressing questions about horizontal unification arise in the study of human behavior. Numerous sciences including psychology, economics, anthropology, sociology, and parts of biology, attempt to provide explanations of human behavior. It is possible that some of these sciences may be able to coexist peacefully or even cooperatively.
Hispanic Literature
Authors: Green Otis H.
Published: January 2016

It was with something like a shock of revelation that I became aware many years ago that the issue in Don Quixote is not a willed opposition between idealism and realism as these were then understood, but rather between Aristotelian historic truth on the one hand and Aristotelian poetic truth on the other. Perhaps the first person to show this was Giuseppe Toffanin in La fine del umanesimo (1920). Five years later it was brilliantly demonstrated by Américo Castro in El pensamiento de Cervantes. Leo Spitzer, in the second essay of his book Linguistics and Literary History (1948), gave to the idea a new dimension by putting these words in Cervantes' mouth: ‘See, reader, this is not life, but a stage, a book: art; recognize the life-giving power of the artist’ (p. 70).
Conditional Tissue-Specific Foxa2 Ablation in Mouse Pancreas Causes Hyperinsulinemic Hypoglycemia: (RETRACTED)
Authors: Wu Zengbin , Fei Aihua , Liu Yingbin , Pan Shuming
Published: January 2016

The forkhead/winged helix transcription factor Foxa2 is a major upstream regulator of Pdx1, a transcription factor necessary for pancreatic development. In the present study, we conditionally knocked out Foxa2 in Pdx1-expressing domain and further analyzed the contribution of Foxa2 to α- and β-cell development and the effect of Foxa2 deletion on plasma insulin, glucagon, and glucose levels. Homozygous pdx1

cre/+

Foxa2

FL/FL
mice and heterozygous pdx1

cre/+

Foxa2

FL/+
mice were generated by homologous recombination using a Foxa2 gene-targeting vector. α- and β-cell mass was examined by immunofluorescence microscopy. Plasma glucose, insulin, and plasma were measured at postnatal day 10. For pdx1 lineage tracing studies, heterozygous pdx1

cre/+

Foxa2

FL/+

EYFP

±
and homozygous pdx1

cre/+

Foxa2

FL/FL

EYFP

±
mice were used. Our immunofluorescence analysis revealed that in the pancreas sections of the homozygous mutant mice, Foxa2 was virtually absent from non-β cells and its expression almost exclusively coincided with remnant β cells. The density of both α and β cells apparently decreased in the pancreas of the heterozygous mutant mice and in the pancreas of the homozygous mutant mice, α cells lost its predominance and β cells increased proportionally. Direct Pdx1 cell lineage tracing revealed that, on embryonic day 18.5, in the homozygous mutant mice, Pdx1 expression coincided almost exclusively with that of insulin-secreting β cells. Chemiluminescence assays revealed that heterozygous pdx1

cre/+

Foxa2

FL/+
mice had significantly lower insulin levels than control mice (P < 0.01). However, no apparent difference was observed between homozygous pdx1

cre/+

Foxa2

FL/FL
mice and control mice (P > 0.05). Chemiluminescence assays also showed that Foxa2 deletion significantly depressed plasma glucagon levels in both homozygous pdx1

cre/+

Foxa2

FL/FL
mice and heterozygous pdx1

cre/+

Foxa2

FL/+
mice (P < 0.01 vs. controls). Plasma glucose on postnatal day 10 was significantly lower in homozygous pdx1

cre/+

Foxa2

FL/FL
mice compared with control mice (P < 0.01). Our study demonstrates that homozygous Foxa2 ablation leads to an imbalance in β/α ratio, profound hypoglucagonemia, inappropriate hyperinsulinemia, and hypoglycemia in mice. Our conditional tissue-specific Foxa2 ablation mouse model will be useful in elucidating regulation of normal and abnormal α- and β-cell differentiation and pinpointing novel targets for diabetes control.
Photoautotrophic microorganisms as a carbon source for temperate soil invertebrates
Authors: Schmidt Olaf , Dyckmans Jens , Schrader Stefan
Published: January 2016

We tested experimentally if photoautotrophic microorganisms are a carbon source for invertebrates in temperate soils. We exposed forest or arable soils to a
13
CO
2
-enriched atmosphere and quantified
13
C assimilation by three common animal groups: earthworms (Oligochaeta), springtails (Hexapoda) and slugs (Gastropoda). Endogeic earthworms (
Allolobophora chlorotica
) and hemiedaphic springtails (
Ceratophysella denticulata
) were highly
13
C enriched when incubated under light, deriving up to 3.0 and 17.0%, respectively, of their body carbon from the microbial source in 7 days. Earthworms assimilated more
13
C in undisturbed soil than when the microbial material was mixed into the soil, presumably reflecting selective surface grazing. By contrast, neither adult nor newly hatched terrestrial slugs (
Deroceras reticulatum
) grazed on algal mats. Non-photosynthetic
13
CO
2
fixation in the dark was negligible. We conclude from these preliminary laboratory experiments that, in addition to litter and root-derived carbon from vascular plants, photoautotrophic soil surface microorganisms (cyanobacteria, algae) may be an ecologically important carbon input route for temperate soil animals that are traditionally assigned to the decomposer channel in soil food web models and carbon cycling studies.
Ecological immunization:
in situ
training of free-ranging predatory lizards reduces their vulnerability to invasive toxic prey
Authors: Ward-Fear G. , Pearson D. J. , Brown G. P. , Rangers Balanggarra , Shine R.
Published: January 2016

In Australia, large native predators are fatally poisoned when they ingest invasive cane toads (
Rhinella marina
). As a result, the spread of cane toads has caused catastrophic population declines in these predators. Immediately prior to the arrival of toads at a floodplain in the Kimberley region, we induced conditioned taste aversion in free-ranging varanid lizards (
Varanus panoptes
), by offering them small cane toads. By the end of the 18-month study, only one of 31 untrained lizards had survived longer than 110 days, compared to more than half (nine of 16) of trained lizards; the maximum known survival of a trained lizard in the presence of toads was 482 days.
In situ
aversion training (releasing small toads in advance of the main invasion front) offers a logistically simple and feasible way to buffer the impact of invasive toads on apex predators.
Energetics of stress: linking plasma cortisol levels to metabolic rate in mammals
Authors: Haase Catherine G. , Long Andrea K. , Gillooly James F.
Published: January 2016

Physiological stress may result in short-term benefits to organismal performance, but also long-term costs to health or longevity. Yet, we lack an understanding of the variation in stress hormone levels (i.e. glucocorticoids) that exist within and across species. Here, we present comparative analyses that link the primary stress hormone in most mammals (i.e. cortisol) to metabolic rate. We show that baseline concentrations of plasma cortisol vary with mass-specific metabolic rate among cortisol-dominant mammals, and both baseline and elevated concentrations scale predictably with body mass. The results quantitatively link a classical measure of physiological stress to whole-organism energetics, providing a point of departure for cross-species comparisons of stress levels among mammals.
The DyP-type peroxidase DtpA is a Tat-substrate required for GlxA maturation and morphogenesis in
Streptomyces
Authors: Petrus Marloes L. C. , Vijgenboom Erik , Chaplin Amanda K. , Worrall Jonathan A. R. , van Wezel Gilles P. , Claessen Dennis
Published: January 2016

The filamentous bacterium
Streptomyces lividans
depends on the radical copper oxidase GlxA for the formation of reproductive aerial structures and, in liquid environments, for the formation of pellets. Incorporation of copper into the active site is essential for the formation of a cross-linked tyrosyl-cysteine cofactor, which is needed for enzymatic activity. In this study, we show a crucial link between GlxA maturation and a group of copper-related proteins including the chaperone Sco and a novel DyP-type peroxidase hereinafter called DtpA. Under copper-limiting conditions, the
sco
and
dtpA
deletion mutants are blocked in aerial growth and pellet formation, similarly to a
glxA
mutant. Western blot analysis showed that GlxA maturation is perturbed in the
sco
and
dtpA
mutants, but both maturation and morphology can by rescued by increasing the bioavailability of copper. DtpA acts as a peroxidase in the presence of GlxA and is a substrate for the twin-arginine translocation (Tat) translocation pathway. In agreement, the maturation status of GlxA is also perturbed in
tat
mutants, which can be compensated for by the addition of copper, thereby partially restoring their morphological defects. Our data support a model wherein a copper-trafficking pathway and Tat-dependent secretion of DtpA link to the GlxA-dependent morphogenesis pathway.
Overseas seed dispersal by migratory birds
Authors: Viana Duarte S. , Gangoso Laura , Bouten Willem , Figuerola Jordi
Published: January 2016

Long-distance dispersal (LDD) promotes the colonization of isolated and remote habitats, and thus it has been proposed as a mechanism for explaining the distributions of many species. Birds are key LDD vectors for many sessile organisms such as plants, yet LDD beyond local and regional scales has never been directly observed nor quantified. By sampling birds caught while in migratory flight by GPS-tracked wild falcons, we show that migratory birds transport seeds over hundreds of kilometres and mediate dispersal from mainland to oceanic islands. Up to 1.2% of birds that reached a small island of the Canary Archipelago (Alegranza) during their migration from Europe to Sub-Saharan Africa carried seeds in their guts. The billions of birds making seasonal migrations each year may then transport millions of seeds. None of the plant species transported by the birds occurs in Alegranza and most do not occur on nearby Canary Islands, providing a direct example of the importance of environmental filters in hampering successful colonization by immigrant species. The constant propagule pressure generated by these LDD events might, nevertheless, explain the colonization of some islands. Hence, migratory birds can mediate rapid range expansion or shifts of many plant taxa and determine their distribution.
Host discrimination in modular mutualisms: a theoretical framework for meta-populations of mutualists and exploiters
Authors: Steidinger Brian S. , Bever James D.
Published: January 2016

Plants in multiple symbioses are exploited by symbionts that consume their resources without providing services. Discriminating hosts are thought to stabilize mutualism by preferentially allocating resources into anatomical structures (modules) where services are generated, with examples of modules including the entire inflorescences of figs and the root nodules of legumes. Modules are often colonized by multiple symbiotic partners, such that exploiters that co-occur with mutualists within mixed modules can share rewards generated by their mutualist competitors. We developed a meta-population model to answer how the population dynamics of mutualists and exploiters change when they interact with hosts with different module occupancies (number of colonists per module) and functionally different patterns of allocation into mixed modules. We find that as module occupancy increases, hosts must increase the magnitude of preferentially allocated resources in order to sustain comparable populations of mutualists. Further, we find that mixed colonization can result in the coexistence of mutualist and exploiter partners, but only when preferential allocation follows a saturating function of the number of mutualists in a module. Finally, using published data from the fig–wasp mutualism as an illustrative example, we derive model predictions that approximate the proportion of exploiter, non-pollinating wasps observed in the field.
Fatness and fitness: exposing the logic of evolutionary explanations for obesity
Authors: Higginson Andrew D. , McNamara John M. , Houston Alasdair I.
Published: January 2016

To explore the logic of evolutionary explanations of obesity we modelled food consumption in an animal that minimizes mortality (starvation plus predation) by switching between activities that differ in energy gain and predation. We show that if switching does not incur extra predation risk, the animal should have a single threshold level of reserves above which it performs the safe activity and below which it performs the dangerous activity. The value of the threshold is determined by the environmental conditions, implying that animals should have variable ‘set points’. Selection pressure to prevent energy stores exceeding the optimal level is usually weak, suggesting that immediate rewards might easily overcome the controls against becoming overweight. The risk of starvation can have a strong influence on the strategy even when starvation is extremely uncommon, so the incidence of mortality during famine in human history may be unimportant for explanations for obesity. If there is an extra risk of switching between activities, the animal should have two distinct thresholds: one to initiate weight gain and one to initiate weight loss. Contrary to the dual intervention point model, these thresholds will be inter-dependent, such that altering the predation risk alters the location of both thresholds; a result that undermines the evolutionary basis of the drifty genes hypothesis. Our work implies that understanding the causes of obesity can benefit from a better understanding of how evolution shapes the mechanisms that control body weight.
Business model analysis of mobile traffic safety services
Authors: Luukkainen Sakari , Karjalainen Mikko , Winter Juha , Bagheri Majdabadi Mehrdad
Published: January 2016

Purpose

The aim of this paper is to identify promoting and restraining factors of a novel mobile service in the pedestrian safety area.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper uses the case study methodology that focus on analyzing a specific case of mobile safety services in depth. A case study is especially suitable for an emerging case, such as pedestrian safety, where the aim is to identify relevant influencing factors of the particular case and not to generalize the findings. To gather data for case study analysis, several expert interviews were performed. Because they provided a large volume of data, the Service, Technology, Organization, and Finance business model framework was used as a way of structuring the analysis.

Findings

The main restraining factors are end-user value proposition, battery life, accuracy of GPS positioning and the revenue model. However, the service could improve traffic safety considerably and it should be introduced first locally in places, where many accidents take place. There is a great interest on driver data, which could be the main advantage for this service in the future. Integration to navigation products would complement the service significantly.

Originality/value

Current traffic safety-related literature covers mainly technical issues, and there are only few papers related to business model issues on that particular service. Observations of the various factors affecting the related evolution at an early phase of the life-cycle support further service design process.
Tension pneumothorax during flexible bronchoscopy in a nonintubated infant
Authors: Chan Ian A. , Gamble Jonathan J.
Published: January 2016

We describe the case of a tension pneumothorax occurring during flexible bronchoscopy in a nonintubated infant. The pneumothorax likely occurred secondary to wall source oxygen insufflation via the bronchoscope without sufficient gas egress. The use of wall source oxygen via the bronchoscope working channel is inherently dangerous and should be avoided.
Genomics to assist mine reclamation: a review
Authors: Garris Heath W. , Baldwin Susan A. , Van Hamme Jonathan D. , Gardner Wendy C. , Fraser Lauchlan H.
Published: January 2016

Mine reclamation succeeds when healthy, self‐sustaining ecosystems develop on previously mined lands. Regulations require reclamation of ecosystem services; however, there are few specified targets, and those that are presented are vague. Sequencing genomic DNA and transcribed RNA from environmental samples may provide critical supportive information for attempts to recreate ecosystem functions from the ground up on disturbed lands. In this review, we highlight the use of genomics to meet mine closure goals, to enhance ecosystem development, and to optimize ecosystem services inherent in self‐sustaining reclaimed ecosystems. We address the development of environmental genomics—sequencing and analysis of environmentally derived DNA—to characterize microbial communities on mine sites. We then provide four areas where genomics has proven instrumental for informing management and assisting in reclamation of mine sites in the form of bioreactors, passive treatment systems, novel gene discovery, and DNA barcoding. Finally, we describe how recently developed techniques have transferable value to mine reclamation and provide evidence for future applications of genomics and the necessary steps to integrate these data into comprehensive management of mined sites.
Prognostic factors for disability and sick leave in patients with subacute non-malignant pain: a systematic review of cohort studies
Authors: Valentin Gitte H , Pilegaard Marc S , Vaegter Henrik B , Rosendal Marianne , Ørtenblad Lisbeth , Væggemose Ulla , Christensen Robin
Published: January 2016

Objective

This systematic review aims to identify generic prognostic factors for disability and sick leave in subacute pain patients.

Setting

General practice and other primary care facilities.

Participants

Adults (>18 years) with a subacute (≤3-month) non-malignant pain condition. Eligibility criteria were cohort studies investigating the prediction of disability or long-term sick leave in adults with a subacute pain condition in a primary care setting. 19 studies were included, referring to a total of 6266 patients suffering from pain in the head, neck, back and shoulders.

Primary and secondary outcome measures

The primary outcome was long-term disability (>3 months) due to a pain condition. The secondary outcome was sick leave, defined as ‘absence from work’ or ‘return-to-work’.

Results

PubMed, EMBASE, CINAHL and PEDro databases were searched from 16 January 2003 to 16 January 2014. The quality of evidence was presented according to the GRADE WG recommendations. Several factors were found to be associated with disability at follow-up for at least two different pain symptoms. However, owing to insufficient studies, no generic risk factors for sick leave were identified.

Conclusions

Multiple site pain, high pain severity, older age, baseline disability and longer pain duration were identified as potential prognostic factors for disability across pain sites. There was limited evidence that anxiety and depression were associated with disability in patients with subacute pain, indicating that these factors may not play as large a role as expected in developing disability due to a pain condition. Quality of evidence was moderate, low or very low, implying that confidence in the results is limited. Large prospective prognostic factor studies are needed with sufficient study populations and transparent reporting of all factors examined.

Trial registration number

CRD42014008914.
Efficacy and safety of nesiritide in patients with decompensated heart failure: a meta-analysis of randomised trials
Authors: Gong Bojun , Wu Zhineng , Li Zicheng
Published: January 2016

Objectives

Current evidence suggests that nesiritide may have effects on renal function and decrease the incidence of mortality. However, a clear superiority using nesiritide in terms of renal toxicity and mortality in patients with heart failure was not consistently proven by previous studies. We performed a meta-analysis of all randomised trials to obtain the best estimates of efficacy and safety of nesiritide for the initial treatment of decompensated heart failure.

Method

We performed a meta-analysis of randomised trials of nesiritide in patients with decompensated heart failure (n=38 064 patients, in 22 trials). Two reviewers independently extracted data. Data on efficacy and safety outcomes were collected. We calculated pooled relatives risk (RRs), weighted mean difference and associated 95% CIs.

Results

Compared with placebo, dobutamine and nitroglycerin, nesiritide indicated no increasing risk of total mortality. Compared with the combined control therapy, nesiritide was associated with non-significant differences in short-term mortality (RR 1.24; 95% CI 0.85 to 1.80; p=0.27), mid-term mortality (RR 0.86; 95% CI 0.60 to 1.24; p=0.42) and long-term mortality (RR 0.94; 95% CI 0.75 to 1.18; p=0.61). Nesiritide therapy increased the risk of hypotension (p<0.00 001) and bradycardia (p=0.02) when compared with control therapy. Compared with dobutamine or placebo therapy, no differences in serum creatinine, blood urea nitrogen and creatinine clearance, and no risk of the need for dialysis was observed in nesiritide therapy.

Conclusions

Our findings indicated that, in patients with heart failure, nesiritide was not associated with the risk of mortality. However, it increased the risk of cardiovascular adverse events. The change of serum creatinine and creatinine clearance had no significant difference, and no risk of the need for dialysis was observed after low-dose nesiritide treatment.