Indigenous modernism: dehabituating reading practices

This paper experiments with formal style as a way of working through the literary discipline’s lacunae regarding aesthetic value, race, and coloniality. Using a “counter taxonomy” as an example of academic dissent, this paper considers the limits of this form of dissenting speech within “public discourse” (Fraser; Habermas) by demonstrating a persistent occlusion in the literary discipline related to this mode of speech, which concerns the “primitive” subject. I define a term to unsettle a series of categorical terms long-held as guiding frameworks in our discipline: modernism, Native and Harlem renaissances, etc. This term is “Indigenous modernism,” a category that is a contradiction in terms because it announces its inclusion of the original term’s constitutive exclusion, ie. the primitive within the modern, through the language producing its erasure. Through this experiment, I argue for the necessity of a different kind of dissent, specifically a more capacious form of literary critique that interrogates the problems of holding a discourse in common and the specific needs of anti-colonial work. As a pedagogical exercise that models the benefits of failure, I suggest that this intervention requires us to think about how we represent truth through critiqueDecolonial methodologiesIndigenous studiesCultural studiesGlobal avantgardesEste artículo experimenta con el estilo formal, como forma de trabajar a través de la disciplina literaria de la laguna, en cuanto a su valor estético, raza y colonialidad. Este artículo usa una ‘contra-taxonomía’ como ejemplo de disconformidad académica, para considerar así los límites de esta misma disconformidad en el diálogo en el ‘diálogo público’ (Fraser; Habermas); demostrando una oclusión persistente en la disciplina literaria, asociada con este modo de diálogo, cuya preocupación es el tema “primitivo”. En este artículo, defino un término para perturbar a una serie de términos categóricos antiguos como marco de orientación en nuestra disciplina: modernismo, renacimientos del Harlem y de los Nativos Americanos, etc. Este término es “modernismo indígena”, una categoría que se ve en contradicción, ya que anuncia su inclusión de la exclusión constitutiva del término original, es decir, lo primitivo dentro de lo moderno, a través del lenguaje que produce su corrección. Mediante este experimento, peleó por la necesidad de un diferente tipo de disconformidad, especialmente una forma de crítica literaria más amplia, que interrogue los problemas de tener un diálogo común, y las necesidades específicas del trabajo anticolonial. Como un ejercicio pedagógico que exponga los beneficios del fracaso, sugiero que esta intervención nos obligue a pensar sobre cómo representamos la verdad a través de la crítica. Palabras claves: Métodos decoloniales; estudios Nativos Americanos; estudios culturales; ventajas globales

The Number Of Principal Components Problem: A Monte Carlo Study

The purpose of this research was to study the number of principal components problem. In order to accomplish this objective the problems associated with principal components analysis were presented, an exposition of principal components analysis was given, the literature on the number of factors problem was reviewed, and three new distribution free sphericity tests proposed by Harshman and Reddon (1983) were presented. The empirical research focused on the evaluation of these new tests and the comparison of these new tests with four other commonly used test procedures.;The evaluation of the three distribution free sphericity tests focused on the evaluation of the equivalence of the marginal distributions with the marginal distributions under the null hypothesis. Of the three tests only the residual observation permutation test was found to be sufficiently distribution free. In the next stage of the research a series of matrices, with correlational scaling, were constructed and the power and type one error rates in determining the dimensionality of a principal components solution was assessed. The power and type one error rates for the three distribution free sphericity tests were compared with Bartlett\u27s test, two of Guttman\u27s lower bounds, and Velicer\u27s test. All these tests were also applied to eight representative research applications. The results suggested that the residual observation permutation test is superior to the other test procedures considered

Developmental plasticity of the stress response in female but not in male guppies

To survive, animals must respond appropriately to stress. Stress responses are costly, so early-life experiences with potential stressors could adaptively tailor adult stress responses to local conditions. However, how multiple stressors influence the development of the stress response remains unclear, as is the role of sex. Trinidadian guppies (Poecilia reticulata) are small fish with extensive life-history differences between the sexes and population variation in predation pressure and social density. We investigated how sex and early-life experience influence hormonal stress responses by manipulating conspecific density and perceived predation risk during development. In adults, we sampled cortisol twice to measure initial release and change over time in response to a recurring stressor. The sexes differed considerably in their physiological stress response. Males released more cortisol for their body mass than females and did not reduce cortisol release over time. By contrast, all females, except those reared at high density together with predation cues, reduced cortisol release over time. Cortisol responses of males were thus less dynamic in response to current circumstances and early-life experiences than females, consistent with life-history differences between the sexes. Our study underscores the importance of early-life experiences, interacting ecological factors and sex differences in the organization of the stress response

Social motivation and conflict resolution tactics as potential building blocks of sociality in cichlid fishes

Even closely related and ecologically similar cichlid species of Lake Tanganyika exhibit an impressive diversity of social systems, and therefore these fishes offer an excellent opportunity to examine the evolution of social behaviour. Sophisticated social relationships are thought to have evolved via a building block design where more fundamental social behaviours and cognitive processes have been combined, incrementally modified, and elaborated over time. Here, we studied two of these putative social building blocks in two closely related species of cichlids: Neolamprologus pulcher, a group-living species, and Telmatochromis temporalis, a non-grouping species. Otherwise well matched in ecology, this pair of species provide an excellent comparison point to understand how behavioural processes may have been modified in relation to the evolution of sociality. Using social assays in both the laboratory and in the field, we explored each species’ motivation to interact with conspecifics, and each species’ conflict resolution tactics. We found that individuals of the group living species, N. pulcher, displayed higher social motivation and were more likely to produce submission displays than were individuals of the non-grouping species, T. temporalis. We argue that the motivation to interact with conspecifics is a necessary prerequisite for the emergence of group living, and that the use of submission reduces the costs of conflict and facilitates the maintenance of close social proximity. These results suggest that social motivation and conflict resolution tactics are associated with social complexity, and that these behavioural traits may be functionally significant in the evolution and maintenance of sociality

Cannabis use to manage opioid cravings among people who use unregulated opioids during a drug toxicity crisis.

BACKGROUND: Accumulating evidence has indicated that cannabis substitution is often used as a harm reduction strategy among people who use unregulated opioids (PWUO) and people living with chronic pain. We sought to investigate the association between cannabis use to manage opioid cravings and self-reported changes in opioid use among structurally marginalized PWUO. METHODS: The data were collected from a cross-sectional questionnaire administered to PWUO in Vancouver, Canada. Binary logistic regression was used to analyze the association between cannabis use to manage opioid cravings and self-reported changes in unregulated opioid use. RESULTS: A total of 205 people who use cannabis and opioids were enrolled in the present study from December 2019 to November 2021. Cannabis use to manage opioid cravings was reported by 118 (57.6%) participants. In the multivariable analysis, cannabis use to manage opioid cravings (adjusted Odds Ratio [aOR] = 2.13, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.07, 4.27) was significantly associated with self-reported reductions in opioid use. In the sub-analyses of pain, cannabis use to manage opioid cravings was only associated with self-assessed reductions in opioid use among people living with moderate to severe pain (aOR = 4.44, 95% CI: 1.52, 12.97). In the sub-analyses of males and females, cannabis use to manage opioid cravings was only associated with self-assessed reductions in opioid use among females (aOR = 8.19, 95% CI: 1.20, 55.81). CONCLUSIONS: These findings indicate that cannabis use to manage opioid cravings is a prevalent motivation for cannabis use among PWUO and is associated with self-assessed reductions in opioid use during periods of cannabis use. Increasing the accessibility of cannabis products for therapeutic use may be a useful supplementary strategy to mitigate exposure to unregulated opioids and associated harm during the ongoing drug toxicity crisis

Head up displays are a submission signal in the group-living daffodil cichlid.

Dominance hierarchies can reduce conflict within social groups and agonistic signals can help to establish and maintain these hierarchies. Behaviours produced by subordinates in response to aggression are often assumed to function as signals of submission, however, these behaviours may serve other purposes, for example, defence or escape. For a behaviour to act as a submission signal, the receiver must respond by reducing their likelihood of further aggression towards the signaller. In the current study, we examine the receiver response to a putative signal of submission, the head up display, within established social groups of the cooperatively breeding fish, the daffodil cichlid (Neolamprologus pulcher). We found that when subordinate signallers produce the head up display in response to aggression from the breeder male, he exhibited a longer latency to behave aggressively towards that individual again. We also report that head up displays are rarely produced without being elicited by aggression, and the number of head up displays correlates with the amount of aggression received. Our results demonstrate that the head up display is used as a signal of submission in the daffodil cichlid and provide insight into intragroup communication in an emerging model system for the study of social behaviour

Submissive behaviour is mediated by sex, social status, relative body size and shelter availability in a social fish

Acting submissively may inhibit aggression and facilitate the termination of contests without further escalation. The need to minimize conflict is vital in highly social species where within 23 group interactions are frequent, and aggression can dampen group productivity. Within social groups, individual group members may modulate their use of submissive signals depending on their phenotype, the value of the contested resource, their relationship to the receiver of the signal and the characteristics of the local environment. We predicted that submissive behaviour would be more common when signallers had limited ability to flee from conflict, when signallers were of a low rank within the group, when signallers and receivers differed substantially in body size (and thus in fighting ability), and when signallers and receivers were of opposite sex and therefore not directly in competition over reproductive opportunities. We tested these predictions using social network analyses on detailed behavioural observations from 27 social groups of the cooperatively breeding cichlid fish Neolamprologus pulcher. Congruent with our prediction, submissive behaviour was more common when there were fewer shelters available, suggesting that constraints on fleeing behaviour may increase the use of submission. Also fitting with predictions, submissive behaviour was more common with increasing body size asymmetry between the competitors, among lower ranked fish and in interactions between opposite-sex dyads, which supports the idea that signalling submission is adaptive in contests over low-value resources. Our findings suggest that subordinate N.pulcher are primarily concerned with being tolerated within the social group and may use submissive behaviour to avoid escalated conflict. They offer a window into the factors that influence signals of submission in a highly social vertebrate