47,855 research outputs found
Instability of human societies as a result of conformity
We introduce a new model that mimics the strong and sudden effects induced by
conformity in tightly interacting human societies. Such effects range from mere
crowd phenomena to dramatic political turmoil. The model is a modified version
of the Ising Hamiltonian. We have studied the properties of this Hamiltonian
using both a Metropolis simulation and analytical derivations. Our study shows
that increasing the value of the conformity parameter, results in a first order
phase transition. As a result a majority of people begin honestly to support
the idea that may contradict the moral principles of a normal human beings
though each individual would support the moral principle without tight
interaction with the society. Thus, above some critical level of conformity our
society occurs to be instable with respect to ideas that might be doubtful. Our
model includes, in a simplified way, human diversity with respect to loyalty to
the moral principles.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, accepted in Int. journ of modern physics section
Doing it differently: Engaging interview participants with imaginative variation
Imaginative variation was identified by Husserl (1936/1970) as a phenomenological technique for the purpose of elucidating the manner in which phenomena appear to consciousness. Briefly, by engaging in the phenomenological reduction and using imaginative variation, phenomenologists are able to describe the experience of consciousness, having stepped outside of the natural attitude through the epochÄ. Imaginative variation is a stage aimed at explicating the structures of experience, and is best described as a mental experiment. Features of the experience are imaginatively altered in order to view the phenomenon under investigation from varying perspectives. Husserl argued that this process will reveal the essences of an experience, as only those aspects that are invariant to the experience of the phenomenon will not be able to change through the variation.
Often in qualitative research interviews, participants struggle to articulate or verbalise their experiences. The purpose of this article is to detail a radical and novel way of using imaginative variation with interview participants, by asking the participants to engage with imaginative variation, in order to produce a rich and insightful experiential account of a phenomenon. We will discuss how the first author successfully used imaginative variation in this way in her study of the erotic experience of bondage, discipline, dominance & submission, and sadism & masochism (BDSM), before considering the usefulness of this technique when applied to areas of study beyond sexuality
Reflections On Contributing To âBig Discoveriesâ About The Fly Clock: Our Fortunate Paths As Post-Docs With 2017 Nobel Laureates Jeff Hall, Michael Rosbash, And Mike Young
In the early 1980s Jeff Hall and Michael Rosbash at Brandeis University and Mike Young at Rockefeller University set out to isolate the period (per) gene, which was recovered in a revolutionary genetic screen by Ron Konopka and Seymour Benzer for mutants that altered circadian behavioral rhythms. Over the next 15 years the Hall, Rosbash and Young labs made a series of groundbreaking discoveries that defined the molecular timekeeping mechanism and formed the basis for them being awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Here the authors recount their experiences as post-docs in the Hall, Rosbash and Young labs from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, and provide a perspective of how basic research conducted on a simple model system during that era profoundly influenced the direction of the clocks field and established novel approaches that are now standard operating procedure for studying complex behavior
Interactions between light and carbon dioxide availabilities as a control of algal species succession
In attempting to gain knowledge of or insight into the requirements of algal production and the rate of algal production investigators turned to both field studies of natural water and laboratory studies. From these studies there has been an extensive effort to derive mathematical models to predict the rate and degree which aquatic production will be increased upon the addition of various nutrients. This study was conducted using methods similar to those used by Klemovich (1). The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of various light intensities on the relative ability of different algae to extract carbon from the carbonate-bicarbonate alkalinity, when only the carbon available was that from the carbonate-bicarbonate alkalinity. To accomplish this aim, two separate investigations were conducted. The first investigation allowed evaluation of differences in the ability of algae to extract carbon from a single concentration of carbonate-bicarbonate alkalinity under different light intensities. The second investigation allowed evaluation of the ability of algae to extract carbon from different carbonate-bicarbonate alkalinities at a single constant light intensity. The primary objective of this study was to determine the degree of interaction between simultaneous limiting carbon dioxide concentration and light intensities on the rate and extent of algal production.Project # A-071-MO Agreement # 14-31-0001-402
Tropical mid-tropospheric CO_2 variability driven by the MaddenâJulian oscillation
Carbon dioxide (CO_2) is the most important anthropogenic greenhouse gas in the present-day climate. Most of the community focuses on its long-term (decadal to centennial) behaviors that are relevant to climate change, but there are relatively few discussions of its higher-frequency forms of variability, and none regarding its subseasonal distribution. In this work, we report a large-scale intraseasonal variation in the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder CO_2 data in the global tropical region associated with the MaddenâJulian oscillation (MJO). The peak-to-peak amplitude of the composite MJO modulation is ~1 ppmv, with a standard error of the composite mean < 0.1 ppmv. The correlation structure between CO2 and rainfall and vertical velocity indicate positive (negative) anomalies in CO_2 arise due to upward (downward) large-scale vertical motions in the lower troposphere associated with the MJO. These findings can help elucidate how faster processes can organize, transport, and mix CO_2 and provide a robustness test for coupled carbonâclimate models
Minimal effect of honey beehive fences on native bee diversity and abundance at the farm scale during the dry season in southern Kenya
International audienceAbstractBeehive fences are an effective solution to resolve conflicts between humans and crop-raiding elephants in Kenya. They produce win-win scenarios; elephants are protected from aggression from humans as they are deterred from crop raiding, while farmers benefit from crop protection, pollination, and valuable products from maintaining honeybee hives. However, artificially increasing the density of these super-generalist pollinators in the landscape may impact wild bee species as honeybees may out-compete them for floral resources. We studied bee communities in Sagalla, Kenya, where beehive fences have been implemented for crop protection for many years. Despite the long-term presence of the beehive fences, honeybee densities were low when the study was conducted because of a severe drought and did not differ between beehive and control fences in our collections. When we compared farms with and without beehive fences, we found little difference in the abundance, species richness, and community composition of the resident wild bee communities. This suggests either (a) beehive fences have little permanent impact on wild bee communities, or (b) wild bee communities recover quickly when honeybee densities are low
Recurrence Formulas for Fully Exponentially Correlated Four-Body Wavefunctions
Formulas are presented for the recursive generation of four-body integrals in
which the integrand consists of arbitrary integer powers (>= -1) of all the
interparticle distances r_ij, multiplied by an exponential containing an
arbitrary linear combination of all the r_ij. These integrals are
generalizations of those encountered using Hylleraas basis functions, and
include all that are needed to make energy computations on the Li atom and
other four-body systems with a fully exponentially correlated Slater-type basis
of arbitrary quantum numbers. The only quantities needed to start the recursion
are the basic four-body integral first evaluated by Fromm and Hill, plus some
easily evaluated three-body "boundary" integrals. The computational labor in
constructing integral sets for practical computations is less than when the
integrals are generated using explicit formulas obtained by differentiating the
basic integral with respect to its parameters. Computations are facilitated by
using a symbolic algebra program (MAPLE) to compute array index pointers and
present syntactically correct FORTRAN source code as output; in this way it is
possible to obtain error-free high-speed evaluations with minimal effort. The
work can be checked by verifying sum rules the integrals must satisfy.Comment: 10 pages, no figures, accepted by Phys. Rev. A (January 2009
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