Romanticism, Alexander von Humboldt and the distinction of “Natur” and “Geist”

Texto de la conferencia impartida en el congreso Philosophy of Science in a Forest del 23 al 25 de mayo de 2013 en Amersfoort (The Netherlands)Alexander von Humboldt is often considered a decisive figure in establishing clear methodological standards in modern natural sciences. But many people forget that he was a true Romanticist in his descriptions of nature as given in his Ansichten der Natur (1849) and Cosmos (1866). He contributed to the distinction between ‘Geist’ (spirit) and ‘Natur’ (nature) in contemporary academia as it is understood today in the distinction between “Humanities” and “(Natural) sciences”. Nevertheless, he called for a close and equal collaboration of these two domains to explain the world– something many experts miss when they think about contemporary academia. Romanticism is known to be indefinable (Toreinx 1829) as it shares some characteristics with other historical movements. And following Arthur O. Lovejoy’s ideas (1948), there has not been a single movement called “Romanticism” but several “Romanticisms”, not only among the different European countries, but also within those countries. However, there are some features that can be considered as genuinely romantic. Many of them are related to the observation of landscape and, simultaneously, the reference to transcendental entities. Scientific observation follows the strict path of objective observation, and this seems to be the way Humboldt chose for analyzing nature. Ansichten der Natur is well considered as a scientific work that provides the reader with detailed natural descriptions as well as an attempt to explain nature’s phenomena as a whole. There are, nonetheless, some easily recognizable features in the text that can remind the reader of the way romantic poets used to describe their feelings when observing some kind of landscapes or natural phenomena. Humboldt could be, therefore, considered as the bridge that links Romanticism and Naturalism as he, on the one hand, analyzes nature with a scientific eye but on the other hand describes the effect that these elements of nature or landscape cause in him. This kind of gentle gesture to the importance of metaphysics is what makes it possible to consider Humboldt as a “hybrid” author. The romantic defense of human feelings and the pursuit of measuring the world from a scientific point of view show the existence of one great historical dichotomy between science and literature. This dichotomy remains in the distinction of (natural) sciences and humanities in contemporary academia. Today, there seems to be an outright conflict between natural scientists and those academics who are engaged in history, art, literature or even philosophy– with a high degree of willful ignorance on both sides. In many cases, a dialogue becomes almost impossible. Even though Humboldt’s ideas were partly responsible for this dichotomy, the clash was not at all what Humboldt intended 200 years ago. On the contrary, his idea was to describe nature as a whole

Motivation and cognitive control in depression

Depression is linked to deficits in cognitive control and a host of other cognitive impairments arise as a consequence of these deficits. Despite of their important role in depression, there are no mechanistic models of cognitive control deficits in depression. In this paper we propose how these deficits can emerge from the interaction between motivational and cognitive processes. We review depression-related impairments in key components of motivation along with new cognitive neuroscience models that focus on the role of motivation in the decision-making about cognitive control allocation. Based on this review we propose a unifying framework which connects motivational and cognitive control deficits in depression. This framework is rooted in computational models of cognitive control and offers a mechanistic understanding of cognitive control deficits in depression

The sensitivity of Northern Hemisphere ice sheets to atmospheric forcing during the last glacial cycle using PMIP3 models

The evolution of Northern Hemisphere ice sheets through the last glacial cycle is simulated with the glacial index method by using the climate forcing from one General Circulation Model, COSMOS. By comparing the simulated results to geological reconstructions, we first show that the modelled climate is capable of capturing the main features of the ice-sheet evolution. However, large deviations exist, likely due to the absence of nonlinear interactions between ice sheet and other climate components. The model uncertainties of the climate forcing are examined using the output from nine climate models from the Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project Phase III. The results show a large variability in simulated ice sheets between the different models. We find that the ice-sheet extent pattern resembles summer surface air temperature pattern at the Last Glacial Maximum, confirming the dominant role of surface ablation process for high-latitude Northern Hemisphere ice sheets. This study shows the importance of the upper boundary condition for ice-sheet modelling, and implies that careful constraints on climate output is essential for simulating realistic glacial Northern Hemisphere ice sheets

Organizational culture, leadership style and effectiveness: A case study of middle eastern construction clients

During the last few decades, organizational effectiveness has received a great deal of attention in many industrial sectors. As a result, a variety of models have been formulated which measure organizational performance. In the construction industry, two factors have subsequently captured the imagination and interest of researchers and practitioners alike: the culture of the organization and the leadership style of project managers. This focus places a requirement upon construction organizations to recognize and understand their organizational culture, and equally, to clearly communicate it to their employees as part of their capitalist drive of constantly improving performance, productivity and profit. Traditional ways of conducting construction business require a sound understanding of the technical and managerial demands of executing projects, which in turn, places an increased emphasis upon the management and leadership competencies of individual project managers. The purpose of the research is to explore the relationship between organizational culture, authentic leadership style and effectiveness within the context of a case study investigation centred on Middle Eastern construction clients and their project managers. The outcomes of the investigation, which include the presentation of an explanatory model, indicate that organizational culture is directly and positively related to performance and effectiveness, while project managers' leadership style has an indirect relationship to effectiveness. A strong organizational culture is therefore deemed critical to organizational performance

A Cooperative and Competitive Workshop in Mechatronics Engineering

This paper presents a new mechatronics laboratory for students in the 5th semester of the mechatronics degree course at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. It is the aim of this teaching event to sharpen the appreciation of synergy effects in the development of mechatronic systems among the students. Despite of the great freedom in the development process, a concept has been evolved, which causes low running costs due to the combination of a model kit with rapid prototyping methods. A first pilot study of the laboratory starting in the winter term 2014 has shown that the students approach the task despite of the high level of difficulty with fun and dedication, especially because of the wide solution space which was unknown for them from previous lectures

MinActionPath: maximum likelihood trajectory for large-scale structural transitions in a coarse-grained locally harmonic energy landscape

The non-linear problem of simulating the structural transition between two known forms of a macromolecule still remains a challenge in structural biology. The problem is usually addressed in an approximate way using ‘morphing’ techniques, which are linear interpolations of either the Cartesian or the internal coordinates between the initial and end states, followed by energy minimization. Here we describe a web tool that implements a new method to calculate the most probable trajectory that is exact for harmonic potentials; as an illustration of the method, the classical Calpha-based Elastic Network Model (ENM) is used both for the initial and the final states but other variants of the ENM are also possible. The Langevin equation under this potential is solved analytically using the Onsager and Machlup action minimization formalism on each side of the transition, thus replacing the original non-linear problem by a pair of linear differential equations joined by a non-linear boundary matching condition. The crossover between the two multidimensional energy curves around each state is found numerically using an iterative approach, producing the most probable trajectory and fully characterizing the transition state and its energy. Jobs calculating such trajectories can be submitted on-line at: http://lorentz.dynstr.pasteur.fr/joel/index.php