Investigating SSH Research and Publication Practices in Disciplinary and Institutional Contexts. A Survey-Based Comparative Approach in Two Universities

In this paper, we comparatively analyze, present and discuss the results from a survey on increasing the visibility of research achievements in the social sciences and humanities (SSH) that was carried out at the University of Vienna (Austria) and the University of Navarra (Spain) in 2016 and 2017. Covering four major topics—searching and finding literature, publishing, the visibility of research, and the assessment of research outputs—we ask the following questions: are there disciplinary differences to be identified, and how do they present themselves in the two institutional contexts? Discussing the results, we showcase how disciplinary and institutional traditions and contexts are important factors that influence research and publication practices in the SSH. Our results indicate that the practices of searching and finding literature as well as publication practices and behavior are shaped by disciplinary traditions and epistemic cultures. On the contrary, assessment and valuation of research outputs are influenced by institutional and national contexts in which SSH research is organized and carried out

Company Law and Autonomous Systems: A Blueprint for Lawyers, Entrepreneurs, and Regulators

In discussions of the regulation of autonomous systems, private law — specifically, company law — has been neglected as a potential legal and regulatory interface. As one of us has suggested previously,1 there are several possibilities for the creation of company structures that might provide functional and adaptive legal “housing” for advanced software, various types of artificial intelligence, and other programmatic systems and organizations — phenomena that we refer to here collectively as autonomous systems, for ease of reference. In particular, this prior work introduces the notion that an operating agreement or private entity constitution (such as a corporation’s charter or a partnership’s operating agreement) can adopt, as the acts of a legal entity, the state or actions of arbitrary physical systems. We call this the algorithm-agreement equivalence principle. Given this principle and the present capacities existing forms of legal entities, companies of various kinds can serve as a mechanism through which autonomous systems might engage with the legal system. This paper considers the implications of this possibility from a comparative and international perspective. Our goal is to suggest how, under U.S., German, Swiss and U.K. law, company law might furnish the functional and adaptive legal “housing” for an autonomous system — and, in turn, we aim to inform systems designers, regulators, and others who are interested in, encouraged by, or alarmed at the possibility that an autonomous system may “inhabit” a company and thereby gain some of the incidents of legal personality. We do not aim here to be normative. Instead, the paper lays out a template suggesting how existing laws might provide a potentially unexpected regulatory framework for autonomous systems, and to explore some legal consequences of this possibility. We do suggest that these considerations might spur others to consider the relevant provisions of their own national laws with a view to locating similar legal “spaces” that autonomous systems could “inhabit.

Did tool-use evolve with enhanced physical cognitive abilities?

The use and manufacture of tools have been considered to be cognitively demanding and thus a possible driving factor in the evolution of intelligence. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that enhanced physical cognitive abilities evolved in conjunction with the use of tools, by comparing the performance of naturally tool-using and non-tool-using species in a suite of physical and general learning tasks. We predicted that the habitually tool-using species, New Caledonian crows and Galápagos woodpecker finches, should outperform their non-tool-using relatives, the small tree finches and the carrion crows in a physical problem but not in general learning tasks. We only found a divergence in the predicted direction for corvids. That only one of our comparisons supports the predictions under this hypothesis might be attributable to different complexities of tool-use in the two tool-using species. A critical evaluation is offered of the conceptual and methodological problems inherent in comparative studies on tool-related cognitive abilities

Inhibitory control, but not prolonged object-related experience appears to affect physical problem-solving performance of pet dogs

Human infants develop an understanding of their physical environment through playful interactions with objects. Similar processes may influence also the performance of non-human animals in physical problem-solving tasks, but to date there is little empirical data to evaluate this hypothesis. In addition or alternatively to prior experiences, inhibitory control has been suggested as a factor underlying the considerable individual differences in performance reported for many species. Here we report a study in which we manipulated the extent of object-related experience for a cohort of dogs (Canis familiaris) of the breed Border Collie over a period of 18 months, and assessed their level of inhibitory control, prior to testing them in a series of four physical problem-solving tasks. We found no evidence that differences in object-related experience explain variability in performance in these tasks. It thus appears that dogs do not transfer knowledge about physical rules from one physical problem-solving task to another, but rather approach each task as a novel problem. Our results, however, suggest that individual performance in these tasks is influenced in a complex way by the subject’s level of inhibitory control. Depending on the task, inhibitory control had a positive or a negative effect on performance and different aspects of inhibitory control turned out to be the best predictors of individual performance in the different tasks. Therefore, studying the interplay between inhibitory control and problem-solving performance will make an important contribution to our understanding of individual and species differences in physical problem-solving performance

The importance of the altricial – precocial spectrum for social complexity in mammals and birds:A review

Various types of long-term stable relationships that individuals uphold, including cooperation and competition between group members, define social complexity in vertebrates. Numerous life history, physiological and cognitive traits have been shown to affect, or to be affected by, such social relationships. As such, differences in developmental modes, i.e. the ‘altricial-precocial’ spectrum, may play an important role in understanding the interspecific variation in occurrence of social interactions, but to what extent this is the case is unclear because the role of the developmental mode has not been studied directly in across-species studies of sociality. In other words, although there are studies on the effects of developmental mode on brain size, on the effects of brain size on cognition, and on the effects of cognition on social complexity, there are no studies directly investigating the link between developmental mode and social complexity. This is surprising because developmental differences play a significant role in the evolution of, for example, brain size, which is in turn considered an essential building block with respect to social complexity. Here, we compiled an overview of studies on various aspects of the complexity of social systems in altricial and precocial mammals and birds. Although systematic studies are scarce and do not allow for a quantitative comparison, we show that several forms of social relationships and cognitive abilities occur in species along the entire developmental spectrum. Based on the existing evidence it seems that differences in developmental modes play a minor role in whether or not individuals or species are able to meet the cognitive capabilities and requirements for maintaining complex social relationships. Given the scarcity of comparative studies and potential subtle differences, however, we suggest that future studies should consider developmental differences to determine whether our finding is general or whether some of the vast variation in social complexity across species can be explained by developmental mode. This would allow a more detailed assessment of the relative importance of developmental mode in the evolution of vertebrate social systems

Great white pelicans (Pelecanus onocrotalus) fail to use tools flexibly in problem-solving tasks

International audienceAlthough reports of animal tool-use are phylogenetically widespread, it remains rare in the wild. From the perspective of human evolution, this rarity was first explained by the cognitive demands associated with tool use. Recently, an alternative assumption, “the tools are not often useful” hypothesis, proposes that tool use is rare, because it is seldom more useful than the species’ anatomical adaptations. At the same time, several species that do not use tools in the wild have shown the capacity for tool use in experimental problem-solving settings, which suggests a certain level of cognitive flexibility. Investigating whether habitually non-tool-using species are able to use tools flexibly is crucial to evaluate the predictions of existing theories on the evolution of cognition. In this study, we tested whether great white pelicans (Pelecanus onocrotalus), morphologically specialized fishers, for whose natural foraging tools are unlikely to be of use, were able to use tools in two problem-solving situations. In two tasks, the subjects were required to drop tools into an apparatus to gain access to a food reward. In Tool-use task 1, we tested the capacity of pelicans to show spontaneous tool-use behaviour. In Tool-use task 2, we assessed the birds’ tool-using performance, before and after providing them with different kinds of information about the task's solution, that is experience with the functional features of the apparatus (“platform-pushing group”) and trial-and-error learning of tool-dropping behaviour (“stone-nudging group”). All subjects failed in using tools in Tool-use task 1 and only one individual in the stone-nudging group learnt to use a tool in the training phase of Tool-use task 2. Despite previous experience with the functional properties of the task, birds from the platform-pushing group did not exhibit tool-use behaviour or increased motivation towards the apparatus and the tools during the test phase. Although pelicans were not inhibited by morphological constraints to carry out the required tool behaviours, whether they lack the cognitive prerequisites for flexible tool-use remains to be further tested

From the age of 5 humans decide economically, whereas crows exhibit individual preferences

Abstract Human societies greatly depend on tools, which spare us considerable time and effort. Humans might have evolved a bias to employ tools, using them even when they are unnecessary. This study aimed to investigate whether adult humans and a distantly related habitually tool-using vertebrate species, the New Caledonian crow (Corvus moneduloides), use tools depending on their necessity. In addition, children aged 3 to 5 years were examined to investigate the developmental pattern. The task involved choosing between using a body part (i.e. crows: beak; humans: hand) or a tool for retrieving a reward from a box. All subjects were tested in two conditions. In the Body+/Tool− condition, using the body was more efficient than using the tool, and conversely in the Body−/Tool+ condition. Our results suggest that the capacity to employ tools economically develops late in humans. Crows, however, failed to choose economically. At the individual level, some subjects exhibited striking individual preferences for either using a tool or their beak throughout the task. Whether such biases depend on individual experience or whether they are genetically determined remains to be investigated. Our findings provide new insights about tool use and its cognitive implementation in two outstanding tool-using taxa

A novel tool-use mode in animals : New Caledonian crows insert tools to transport objects

New Caledonian crows (Corvus moneduloides) rely heavily on a range of tools to extract prey. They manufacture novel tools, save tools for later use, and have morphological features that facilitate tool use. We report six observations, in two individuals, of a novel tool-use mode not previously reported in non-human animals. Insert-and-transport tool use involves inserting a stick into an object and then moving away, thereby transporting both object and tool. All transported objects were non-food objects. One subject used a stick to transport an object that was too large to be handled by beak, which suggests the tool facilitated object control. The function in the other cases is unclear but seems to be an expression of play or exploration. Further studies should investigate whether it is adaptive in the wild and to what extent crows can flexibly apply the behaviour in experimental settings when purposive transportation of objects is advantageous

Geomechanische Eigenschaften der Verwitterungszonen der diagenetisch verfestigten Tone des Dogger Alpha

SIGLETIB: RN 2619 (41)+a / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekDEGerman