Learning From Early Attempts to Generalize Darwinian Principles to Social Evolution

Copyright University of Hertfordshire & author.Evolutionary psychology places the human psyche in the context of evolution, and addresses the Darwinian processes involved, particularly at the level of genetic evolution. A logically separate and potentially complementary argument is to consider the application of Darwinian principles not only to genes but also to social entities and processes. This idea of extending Darwinian principles was suggested by Darwin himself. Attempts to do this appeared as early as the 1870s and proliferated until the early twentieth century. But such ideas remained dormant in the social sciences from the 1920s until after the Second World War. Some lessons can be learned from this earlier period, particularly concerning the problem of specifying the social units of selection or replication

The Onset of Nuclear Structure Effects in Near-Barrier Elastic Scattering of Weakly-Bound Nuclei: 6^6He and 6^6Li Compared

The elastic scattering of the halo nucleus $^6$He from heavy targets at incident energies near the Coulomb barrier displays a marked deviation from the standard Fresnel-type diffraction behavior. This deviation is due to the strong Coulomb dipole breakup coupling produced by the Coulomb field of the heavy target, a specific feature of the nuclear structure of $^6$He. We have performed Continuum Discretized Coupled Channels calculations for the elastic scattering of $^{6}$He and $^6$Li from $^{58}$Ni, $^{120}$Sn, $^{144}$Sm, $^{181}$Ta and $^{208}$Pb targets in order to determine the range of $Z_{\mathrm T}$ where this nuclear-structure specific coupling effect becomes manifest. We find that the strong Coulomb dipole breakup coupling effect is only clearly experimentally distinguishable for targets of $Z_{\mathrm T} \approx 80$.Comment: 10 pages with 3 figure

Predictive learning, prediction errors, and attention: evidence from event-related potentials and eye tracking

Prediction error (‘‘surprise’’) affects the rate of learning: We learn more rapidly about cues for which we initially make incorrect predictions than cues for which our initial predictions are correct. The current studies employ electrophysiological measures to reveal early attentional differentiation of events that differ in their previous involvement in errors of predictive judgment. Error-related events attract more attention, as evidenced by features of event-related scalp potentials previously implicated in selective visual attention (selection negativity, augmented anterior N1). The earliest differences detected occurred around 120 msec after stimulus onset, and distributed source localization (LORETA) indicated that the inferior temporal regions were one source of the earliest differences. In addition, stimuli associated with the production of prediction errors show higher dwell times in an eyetracking procedure. Our data support the view that early attentional processes play a role in human associative learning

Change in Grassland Science: Implications for Training, Research and Grassland Societies

In most of the world the priority for production-oriented research has been succeeded by the need for grassland research to focus on systems which satisfy requirements relating to the stability and protection of land, water and atmospheric resources and to biodiversity, in addition to production efficiency. This dictates not only a new approach to research, but also new approaches for the organisation of research, the training and development of research scientists and the activities of Grassland Societies and associated organisations

On the Explanatory Power of Generalized Darwinism: Missing Items on the Research Agenda

In a recent article in this journal, Geoffrey Hodgson points out that the notion of 'evolution' is widely used in organization science without authors being sufficiently clear on what exactly they mean by this term. In his article, Hodgson cleans up the terminological and conceptual confusion on evolution in organization science and positions so-called 'generalized Darwinism' as the only well-elaborated evolutionary framework available in social science. We doubt, however, whether in its present form generalized Darwinism itself constitutes a viable approach. In this article we argue that Hodgson and collaborators so far have failed to show that generalized Darwinism is actually capable of serving as a basis for the construction of evolutionary explanations of social and organizational phenomena. We suggest a few items that should be put on generalized Darwinism's research agenda in order to develop it towards a viable option. © The Author(s) 2013

Global optical potential for nucleus-nucleus systems from 50 MeV/u to 400 MeV/u

We present a new global optical potential (GOP) for nucleus-nucleus systems, including neutron-rich and proton-rich isotopes, in the energy range of $50 \sim 400$ MeV/u. The GOP is derived from the microscopic folding model with the complex $G$-matrix interaction CEG07 and the global density presented by S{\~ a}o Paulo group. The folding model well accounts for realistic complex optical potentials of nucleus-nucleus systems and reproduces the existing elastic scattering data for stable heavy-ion projectiles at incident energies above 50 MeV/u. We then calculate the folding-model potentials (FMPs) for projectiles of even-even isotopes, $^{8-22}$C, $^{12-24}$O, $^{16-38}$Ne, $^{20-40}$Mg, $^{22-48}$Si, $^{26-52}$S, $^{30-62}$Ar, and $^{34-70}$Ca, scattered by stable target nuclei of $^{12}$C, $^{16}$O, $^{28}$Si, $^{40}$Ca $^{58}$Ni, $^{90}$Zr, $^{120}$Sn, and $^{208}$Pb at the incident energy of 50, 60, 70, 80, 100, 120, 140, 160, 180, 200, 250, 300, 350, and 400 MeV/u. The calculated FMP is represented, with a sufficient accuracy, by a linear combination of 10-range Gaussian functions. The expansion coefficients depend on the incident energy, the projectile and target mass numbers and the projectile atomic number, while the range parameters are taken to depend only on the projectile and target mass numbers. The adequate mass region of the present GOP by the global density is inspected in comparison with FMP by realistic density. The full set of the range parameters and the coefficients for all the projectile-target combinations at each incident energy are provided on a permanent open-access website together with a Fortran program for calculating the microscopic-basis GOP (MGOP) for a desired projectile nucleus by the spline interpolation over the incident energy and the target mass number.Comment: 25 pages, 13 figure

Isospin splitting of the nucleon mean field

The isospin splitting of the nucleon mean field is derived from the Brueckner theory extended to asymmetric nuclear matter. The Argonne V18 has been adopted as bare interaction in combination with a microscopic three body force. The isospin splitting of the effective mass is determined from the Brueckner-Hartree-Fock self-energy: It is linear acording to the Lane ansatz and such that $m^*_n > m^*_p$ for neutron-rich matter. The symmetry potential is also determined and a comparison is made with the predictions of the Dirac-Brueckner approach and the phenomenological interactions. The theoretical predictions are also compared with the empirical parametrizations of neutron and proton optical-model potentials based on the experimental nucleon-nucleus scattering and the phenomenological ones adopted in transport-model simulations of heavy-ion collisions. The direct contribution of the rearrangement term due to three-body forces to the single particle potential and symmetry potential is discussed.Comment: 8 pages, 10 figure

Nucleon-nucleon cross sections in neutron-rich matter and isospin transport in heavy-ion reactions at intermediate energies

Nucleon-nucleon (NN) cross sections are evaluated in neutron-rich matter using a scaling model according to nucleon effective masses. It is found that the in-medium NN cross sections are not only reduced but also have a different isospin dependence compared with the free-space ones. Because of the neutron-proton effective mass splitting the difference between nn and pp scattering cross sections increases with the increasing isospin asymmetry of the medium. Within the transport model IBUU04, the in-medium NN cross sections are found to influence significantly the isospin transport in heavy-ion reactions. With the in-medium NN cross sections, a symmetry energy of $E_{sym}(\rho)\approx 31.6(\rho /\rho_{0})^{0.69}$ was found most acceptable compared with both the MSU isospin diffusion data and the presently acceptable neutron-skin thickness in $^{208}$Pb. The isospin dependent part $K_{asy}(\rho _{0})$ of isobaric nuclear incompressibility was further narrowed down to $-500\pm 50$ MeV. The possibility of determining simultaneously the in-medium NN cross sections and the symmetry energy was also studied. The proton transverse flow, or even better the combined transverse flow of neutrons and protons, can be used as a probe of the in-medium NN cross sections without much hindrance from the uncertainties of the symmetry energy.Comment: 32 pages including 14 figures. Submitted to Phys. Rev.

Fast nucleon emission as a probe of the isospin momentum dependence

In this article we investigate the structure of the non-local part of the symmetry term, that leads to a splitting of the effective masses of protons and neutrons in asymmetric matter. Based on microscopic transport simulations we suggest some rather sensitive observables in collisions of neutron-rich (unstable) ions at intermediate ($RIA$) energies. In particular we focus the attention on pre-equilibrium nucleon emissions. We discuss interesting correlations between the N/Z content of the fast emitted particles and their rapidity or transverse momentum, that show a nice dependence on the prescription used for the effective mass splitting.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figures, revtex