Teleological Essentialism: Generalized

Natural/social kind essentialism is the view that natural kind categories, both living and non-living natural kinds, as well as social kinds (e.g., race, gender), are essentialized. On this view, artifactual kinds are not essentialized. Our view—teleological essentialism—is that a broad range of categories are essentialized in terms of teleology, including artifacts. Utilizing the same kinds of experiments typically used to provide evidence of essentialist thinking—involving superficial change (study 1), transformation of insides (study 2) and inferences about offspring (study 3)—we find support for the view that a broad range of categories—living natural kinds, non-living natural kinds and artifactual kinds—are essentialized in terms of teleology. Study 4 tests a unique prediction of teleological essentialism and also provides evidence that people make inferences about purposes which in turn guide categorization judgments

Does Competition Reduce Costs? Assessing the Impact of Regulatory Restructuring on U.S. Electric Generation Efficiency

This paper explores the empirical effects of competition on technical efficiency in the context of electricity industry restructuring. Restructuring programs adopted by many U.S. states made utilities residual claimants to cost savings and increased their exposure to competitive markets. We estimate the impact of these changes on annual generating plant-level input demand for non-fuel operating expenses, the number of employees and fuel use. We find that municipally-owned plants, whose owners were for the most part unaffected by restructuring, experienced the smallest efficiency gains over the past decade. Investor-owned utility plants in states that restructured their wholesale electricity markets had the largest reductions in nonfuel operating expenses and employment, while investor-owned plants in nonrestructuring states fell between these extremes. The analysis also highlights the substantive importance of treating the simultaneity of input and output decisions, which we do through an instrumental variables approach.Efficiency, Production, Competition, Electricity restructuring, Electric Generation, Regulation

You never surf alone. Ubiquitous tracking of users' browsing habits

In the early age of the internet users enjoyed a large level of anonymity. At the time web pages were just hypertext documents; almost no personalisation of the user experience was o ered. The Web today has evolved as a world wide distributed system following specific architectural paradigms. On the web now, an enormous quantity of user generated data is shared and consumed by a network of applications and services, reasoning upon users expressed preferences and their social and physical connections. Advertising networks follow users' browsing habits while they surf the web, continuously collecting their traces and surfing patterns. We analyse how users tracking happens on the web by measuring their online footprint and estimating how quickly advertising networks are able to pro le users by their browsing habits

Teleological Essentialism

Placeholder essentialism is the view that there is a causal essence that holds category members together, though we may not know what the essence is. Sometimes the placeholder can be filled in by scientific essences, such as when we acquire scientific knowledge that the atomic weight of gold is 79. We challenge the view that placeholders are elaborated by scientific essences. On our view, if placeholders are elaborated, they are elaborated Aristotelian essences, a telos. Utilizing the same kinds of experiments used by traditional essentialists—involving superficial change (study 1), transformation of insides (study 2), acquired traits (study 3) and inferences about offspring (study 4)—we find support for the view that essences are elaborated by a telos. And we find evidence (study 5) that teleological essences may generate category judgments

Comparative Analysis of the Effects of Visual and Auditory Stimuli on Avian Mobbing Behavior

Both visual and auditory stimuli elicit avian mobbing behavior, but there is little comparative information on their isolated and additive effects. Using three combinations of two experimental stimuli (mount and tape of an Eastern Screech-Owl, Otus asio) we tested the effects of stimuli on the frequency, intensity, and duration of avian mobbing behavior. Of 169 mount-only trials, only 11 (6.5%) were successful in attracting birds. Tape-only (n = 169) and mount-and-tape (n = 170) were equally successful in attracting birds (approximately 85% of all trials), but mount-and-tape trials were more likely to initiate mobbing behavior. Birds responding to mount-and-tape trials mobbed more intensely and for longer periods of time than those responding to tape-only trials. All stimuli showed similar increases in effectiveness during the summer months. These results suggest that the presence of an auditory stimulus dramatically increases the probability of an owl being detected by potential mobbers. A visual stimulus, however, provides a focus for antipredator response and results in maximal mobbing behavior. Mobbing may be a more important force is selecting for cryptic diurnal behavior in owls than previously thought

Community Ecology

COMMUNITIES with Microtus tend to be structurally simple, usually grasslands or tundra, and to have no more than two species of Microtus and rarely more than six species of small mammals. Microtus often dominates both numerically and in total small mammal biomass, especially at higher latitudes. The small mammal community is most influenced by Microtus through its fluctuations in density, and thus also in biomass, by its relatively high level of diurnal activity, and by its year-round activity. Other species of small mammals may be adversely affected because Microtus usually is larger and behaviorally dominant and also because the mere presence of Microtus may focus predators on the area, especially during periods of high density. As generalized herbivores, primarily on grasses and herbs, Microtus has the potential to alter plant communities, either by selectively harvesting some species or through stimulating growth by grazing. Scarcely anything is known about the role Microtus plays in plant and small mammal communities, so both descriptive and experimental studies can make significant contributions to an understanding of the role and impact Microtus has on its communities

Deterministic annealing, constrained clustering, and optimization

In previous work the authors (Phys. Rev. Let., vol.65, p.945-8, 1990) proposed the concept of deterministic annealing for the problem of clustering and vector quantization. This approach is summarized. The authors extend the clustering method to the constraint clustering method. Adding constraints to the deterministic annealing mechanism expands the variety of optimization problems which can be solved by this method. A brief presentation of the clustering approach is given. Two examples to which the constraint clustering approach can be applied are included

Angular Correlations in Internal Pair Conversion of Aligned Heavy Nuclei

We calculate the spatial correlation of electrons and positrons emitted by internal pair conversion of Coulomb excited nuclei in heavy ion collisions. The alignment or polarization of the nucleus results in an anisotropic emission of the electron-positron pairs which is closely related to the anisotropic emission of $\gamma$-rays. However, the angular correlation in the case of internal pair conversion exhibits diverse patterns. This might be relevant when investigating atomic processes in heavy-ion collisions performed at the Coulomb barrier.Comment: 27 pages + 6 eps figures, uses revtex.sty and epsf.sty, tar-compressed and uuencoded with uufile

Pasture species evaluation in the medium rainfall zone

The effect of mechanical defoliation on the production of legume species in the Katanning region - 84KA26. The effect of grazing on the seed production of legume species - 84KA27. The effect of gypsum and establishment techniques on Circle Valley medic - 84KA29. The effect of gypsum, tillage and nitrogen on cereal yields in a continous crop system - 84KA28. The effect of gypsum on cereal crop yield - Katanning, E. Garlick Kwobrup, D. Webse. Pasture probe evaluation. Aim: To determine the suitability of the Vickery single probe earth plate capacitance meter for determining pasture production