William James and John Dewey on Embodied Action-Oriented Emotions

In this paper I present William James’s theory of emotions and the central role it ascribes to the bodily reactions in emotions. I call the claim that there is a distinct pattern of bodily reactions that is constitutive for an emotion type the essential-ingredient view. I discuss some of the famous objections that cognitivists have raised against the feeling theory and characterize the position that cognitivist accounts take with regard to bodily reactions in emotions as the coincidental-byproduct view. With regard to current empirical research from psychophysiology I argue that the coincidental-byproduct view and the essential-ingredient view are both untenable. Yet the Jamesian view can be understood in a broader context as not aiming to find essential ingredients of emotions but rather taking the bodily arousal to be part of an organisms preparing for action. A reinterpretation of James in this manner has already been presented by John Dewey, who also provides a broader framework to think of emotion and perception as being co-constituted by action-tendencies

Beyond Essentialist Fallacies: Fine-Tuning Ideology Critique of appeals to Biological Sex-Differences

A recurring claim made by evolutionary psychologists is that their opponents neglect biological explanations assuch for ideological reasons. I argue in this paper that this is a self-immunizing strategy that avoids seriousengagement with existing critique by exploiting the long history of essentialist fallacies and anti-essentialistdebunking arguments. To argue for this claim, I reconstruct the general form of the essentialist fallacy as well asthe history of anti-essentialist debunking arguments and suggest that they play a central role in the persistence ofthe ideological dimension of the nature-nurture debate. Discussing recent work from evolutionary psychology onhow hormones influence female behavior, I show how self-immunizing strategies are used to avoid engagementwith existing critique, while reproducing sexist stereotypes at the same time

Enzyme-inhibitory secondary metabolites and their exudation in the marine-derived fungus <em>Epicoccum nigrum</em> link

The kingdom of fungi harbors a huge diversity of life forms. The Ascomycota in particular are a prolific source of medicinal drugs and new lead structures with potent bioactivities. During this work, two marine-derived strains of Epicoccum nigrum – strains 749 and 800 – were assessed for their production of bioactive secondary metabolites, which could serve as lead structures for medicinal use. In this way, 12 compounds with different scaffolds were discovered and identified. Three of these structures are new chemical entities, 5´-6´-dihydroxyacetosellin, 1F4-1-6 and epicaronic acid. Pronounced inhibitory activities against human serine- and cysteine-proteases were revealed for epipyrones. Furthermore, epipyrones were shown to be the first inhibitors of human cerebroside sulfotransferase (hCST). Through the use of trace metals, the biosynthesis of the two main secondary metabolites – epipyrones and acetosellin – could be controlled. The optimized production of acetosellin enabled studies on its unusual biosynthetic origin. Thus, the assembly from two separate polyketide-derived chains was shown using 13C-labeled sodium acetate. Furthermore, the excretion of epipyrones and acetosellin into guttation droplets was studied in dependence of the trace metal content in the medium. Thereby, the eligibility of guttation droplets for the study of the secondary metabolism in fungi was to be studied. Surprisingly, the concentration of epipyrones was strongly elevated in the guttation fluid under optimal production conditions (in comparison to the culture extracts). In contrary, acetosellin was mainly found in the culture extracts. The underlying mechanisms of this observation could be elucidated in future studies

Faculties and Modularity

While theorizing about mental faculties had been in decline throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth century, cognitivism and classical science brought back questions about the architecture of mind. Within this framework, Jerry Fodor developed a functionalist approach to what he called the “modularity of the mind.” While he believes that cognitive science can only explain the lower faculties of the mind, evolutionary psychology seizes on the notion of modularity and transforms it into the radical claim that the mind is modular all the way up. By comparison, recent approaches that take cognition to be embodied and situated have renewed the radical criticism of faculties or modules that was dominant from the nineteenth century onward. The concept of module is a naturalized successor of the traditional concept of faculty, as this chapter shows, and the debate about modules is centrally a debate about the possibility of naturalizing the mind

Faculties and Phrenology

This Reflection considers how the science of phrenology relates to the notion of faculty. It asks: why is phrenology so appealing? It illustrates this with reference to modern culture. Firstly, the Reflection argues, phrenology relies on an easy line of reasoning: moral and mental faculties are found in specific areas of the brain. The more persistently such faculties prevail, the bigger the respective part of the brain. Secondly, phrenology produces easy visible evidence. You can read the mental makeup of someone by looking and feeling the lumps in their head. The Reflection goes on to look at the history of phrenology and relate it to issues of race

Einsatz künstlicher neuronaler Netze bei der kurzfristigen Lastprognose

Um die erweiterten Möglichkeiten des Stromhandels, die sich durch die geplante Liberalisierung des Strommarktes ergeben, optimal nutzen zu können, muß die Planung zur Deckung der Stromnachfrage in Energieversorgungs- und anderen Unternehmen auf einer verläßlichen Lastprognose beruhen. Künstliche neuronale Netze, über deren Möglichkeiten bei der Lastprognose ein kurzer Überblick gegeben wird, weisen in diesem Zusammenhang, u. a. gegenüber der klassischen multiplen Regression, Vorteile auf. Anhand typischer Merkmale werden die Lastprognosesysteme mit künstlichen neuronalen Netzen, die teilweise bereits mit Erfolg eingesetzt werden, kurz charakterisiert. Darüber hinaus werden noch vorhandene Probleme im Umgang mit dieser Methode aufgezeigt, die vor allem darin bestehen, daß die Entwicklung solcher Systeme bisher weitgehend auf Versuch und Irrtum basiert. Daher wird abschließend eine entsprechende Entwicklungsmethodik vorgestellt und diskutiert, die zwar im Detail noch auszugestalten ist, auf die aber für eine breite wirtschaftliche Anwendung individuell angepaßter Systeme nicht verzichtet werden kann

Primary skeletal muscle cells cultured on gelatin bead microcarriers develop structural and biochemical features characteristic of adult skeletal muscle

A primary skeletal muscle cell culture, in which myoblasts derived from newborn rabbit hindlimb muscles grow on gelatin bead microcarriers in suspension and differentiate into myotubes, has been established previously. In the course of differentiation and beginning spontaneous contractions, these multinucleated myotubes do not detach from their support. Here, we describe the development of the primary myotubes with respect to their ultrastructural differentiation. Scanning electron microscopy reveals that myotubes not only grow around the surface of one carrier bead but also attach themselves to neighbouring carriers, forming bridges between carriers. Transmission electron microscopy demonstrates highly ordered myofibrils, T-tubules and sarcoplasmic reticulum. The functionality of the contractile apparatus is evidenced by contractile activity that occurs spontaneously or can be elicited by electrostimulation. Creatine kinase activity increases steadily until day 20 of culture. Regarding the expression of isoforms of myosin heavy chains (MHC), we could demonstrate that from day 16 on, no non-adult MHC isoform mRNAs are present. Instead, on day 28 the myotubes express predominantly adult fast MHCIId/x mRNA and protein. This MHC pattern resembles that of fast muscles of adult rabbits. In contrast, primary myotubes grown on matrigel-covered culture dishes express substantial amounts of non-adult MHC protein even on day 21. To conclude, primary myotubes grown on microcarriers in their later stages exhibit many features of adult skeletal muscle and characteristics of fast type II fibers. Thus, the culture represents an excellent model of adult fast skeletal muscle, for example when investigating molecular mechanisms of fast-to-slow fiber type transformatio

Ein Rollenmodell zur Einbindung der Endkunden in eine smarte Energiewelt

The successful expansion of renewable energies requires a phase of change in the energy supply system. On the one hand solutions have to be found to ensure the system dependability in spite of the high volatility of the feeding-in from renewable sources. On the other hand the differences between feeding-in and demand, which also occurs on the regional level evermore, have to be equalized on the regional level, too. For this purpose, it is necessary to develop new control and modified market mechanisms. The role definition of the involved actors gets an increasing relevance because of the politically predetermined unbundling. However, only a slight attention was paid to the role of the final consumers in the past. For a successful rebuilding of the energy supply system it is nevertheless important to involve the consumers in this process. It could be demonstrated within the research project “MeRegio”, that the integration of the consumers into an incentive based demand side management can tap significant potentials to equalize differences between feeding-in and demand. Therefore, the focusing on the final consumers can have an important contribution to rebuild the energy supply system