“Kama muta” or ‘being moved by love’: a bootstrapping approach to the ontology and epistemology of an emotion

The emotion that people may label being moved, touched, having a heart-warming experience, rapture, or tender feelings evoked by cuteness has rarely been studied and is incompletely conceptualized. Yet it is pervasive across history, cultures, and contexts, shaping the most fundamental relationships that make up society. It is positive and can be a peak or ecstatic experience. Because no vernacular words consistently or accurately delineate this emotion, we call it kama muta. We posit that it is evoked when communal sharing relationships suddenly intensify. Using ethnological, historical, linguistic, interview, participant observation, survey, diary, and experimental methods, we have confirmed that when people report feeling this emotion they perceive that a relationship has become closer, and they tend to have a warm feeling in the chest, shed tears, and/or get goosebumps. We posit that the disposition to kama muta is an evolved universal, but that it is always culturally shaped and oriented; it must be culturally informed in order to adaptively motivate people to devote and commit themselves to new opportunities for locally propitious communal sharing relationships. Moreover, a great many cultural practices, institutions, roles, narratives, arts and artifacts are specifically adapted to evoke kama muta: that is their function.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

The sudden devotion emotion: kama muta and the cultural practices whose function is to evoke it

When communal sharing relationships (CSRs) suddenly intensify, people experience an emotion that English speakers may label, depending on context, “moved,” “touched,” “heart-warming,” “nostalgia,” “patriotism,” or “rapture” (although sometimes people use each of these terms for other emotions). We call the emotion kama muta (Sanskrit, “moved by love”). Kama muta evokes adaptive motives to devote and commit to the CSRs that are fundamental to social life. It occurs in diverse contexts and appears to be pervasive across cultures and throughout history, while people experience it with reference to its cultural and contextual meanings. Cultures have evolved diverse practices, institutions, roles, narratives, arts, and artifacts whose core function is to evoke kama muta. Kama muta mediates much of human sociality.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

The best loved story of all time: overcoming all obstacles to be reunited, evoking kama muta

info:eu-repo/semantics/submittedVersio

Canopy uptake dominates nighttime carbonyl sulfide fluxes in a boreal forest

Nighttime vegetative uptake of carbonyl sulfide (COS) can exist due to the incomplete closure of stomata and the light independence of the enzyme carbonic anhydrase, which complicates the use of COS as a tracer for gross primary productivity (GPP). In this study we derived nighttime COS fluxes in a boreal forest (the SMEAR II station in Hyytiälä, Finland; 61°51′ N, 24°17′ E; 181 m a.s.l.) from June to November 2015 using two different methods: eddy-covariance (EC) measurements (FCOS-EC) and the radon-tracer method (FCOS-Rn). The total nighttime COS fluxes averaged over the whole measurement period were −6.8 ± 2.2 and −7.9 ± 3.8 pmol m−2 s−1 for FCOS-Rn and FCOS-EC, respectively, which is 33–38 % of the average daytime fluxes and 21 % of the total daily COS uptake. The correlation of 222Rn (of which the source is the soil) with COS (average R2  =  0.58) was lower than with CO2 (0.70), suggesting that the main sink of COS is not located at the ground. These observations are supported by soil chamber measurements that show that soil contributes to only 34–40 % of the total nighttime COS uptake. We found a decrease in COS uptake with decreasing nighttime stomatal conductance and increasing vapor-pressure deficit and air temperature, driven by stomatal closure in response to a warm and dry period in August. We also discuss the effect that canopy layer mixing can have on the radon-tracer method and the sensitivity of (FCOS-EC) to atmospheric turbulence. Our results suggest that the nighttime uptake of COS is mainly driven by the tree foliage and is significant in a boreal forest, such that it needs to be taken into account when using COS as a tracer for GPP

Analogies, metaphors, and wondering about the future: Lay sense-making around synthetic meat

Drawing on social representations theory, we explore how the public make sense of the unfamiliar, taking as the example a novel technology: synthetic meat. Data from an online deliberation study and eighteen focus groups in Belgium, Portugal and the UK indicated that the various strategies of sense-making afforded different levels of critical thinking about synthetic meat. Anchoring to genetic modification, metaphors like ‘Frankenfoods’ and commonplaces like ‘playing God’ closed off debates around potential applications of synthetic meat, whereas asking factual and rhetorical questions about it, weighing up pragmatically its risks and benefits, and envisaging changing current mentalities or behaviours in order to adapt to scientific developments enabled a consideration of synthetic meat’s possible implications for agriculture, environment, and society. We suggest that research on public understanding of technology should cultivate a climate of active thinking and should encourage questioning during the process of sense-making to try to reduce unhelpful anchoring

The J- and H-bands of dye aggregate spectra: Analysis of the coherent exciton scattering (CES) approximation

The validity of the CES approximation is investigated by comparison with direct diagonalisation of a model vibronic Hamiltonian of $N$ identical monomers interacting electronically. Even for quite short aggregates (N\gtrsim 6) the CES approximation is shown to give results in agreement with direct diagonalisation, for all coupling strengths, except that of intermediate positive coupling (the H-band region). However, previously excellent agreement of CES calculations and measured spectra in the H-band region was obtained [A. Eisfeld, J. S. Briggs, Chem. Phys. 324, 376]. This is shown to arise from use of the measured monomer spectrum which includes implicitly dissipative effects not present in the model calculation

Population genetic evidence for sex-specific dispersal in an inbred social spider

A grant from the One-University Open Access Fund at the University of Kansas was used to defray the author's publication fees in this Open Access journal. The Open Access Fund, administered by librarians from the KU, KU Law, and KUMC libraries, is made possible by contributions from the offices of KU Provost, KU Vice Chancellor for Research & Graduate Studies, and KUMC Vice Chancellor for Research. For more information about the Open Access Fund, please see http://library.kumc.edu/authors-fund.xml.Dispersal in most group-living species ensures gene flow among groups, but in cooperative social spiders, juvenile dispersal is suppressed and colonies are highly inbred. It has been suggested that such inbred sociality is advantageous in the short term, but likely to lead to extinction or reduced speciation rates in the long run. In this situation, very low levels of dispersal and gene flow among colonies may have unusually important impacts on fitness and persistence of social spiders. We investigated sex-specific differences in dispersal and gene flow among colonies, as reflected in the genetic structure within colonies and populations of the African social spider Stegodyphus dumicola Pocock, 1898 (Eresidae). We used DNA fingerprinting and mtDNA sequence data along with spatial mapping of colonies to compare male and female patterns of relatedness within and among colonies at three study sites. Samples were collected during and shortly after the mating season to detect sex-specific dispersal. Distribution of mtDNA haplotypes was consistent with proliferation of social nests by budding and medium- to long-distance dispersal by ballooning females. Analysis of molecular variance and spatial autocorrelation analyses of AFLPs showed high levels of genetic similarity within colonies, and STRUCTURE analyses revealed that the number of source populations contributing to colonies ranged from one to three. We also showed significant evidence of male dispersal among colonies at one site. These results support the hypothesis that in social spiders, genetic cohesion among populations is maintained by long-distance dispersal of female colony founders. Genetic diversity within colonies is maintained by colony initiation by multiple dispersing females, and adult male dispersal over short distances. Male dispersal may be particularly important in maintaining gene flow among colonies in local populations

Exploring pressure effects on metallic nanoparticles and surrounding media through plasmonic sensing

The sensing capabilities of gold nanorods under high-pressure conditions were investigated in methanol-ethanol mixtures (up to 13 GPa) and in water (up to 9 GPa) through their optical extinction. The longitudinal SPR band of AuNR exhibits a redshift with pressure which is the result of two main competing effects: compression of the conduction electrons which increases the bulk plasma frequency (blueshift) and increase in the solvent density (redshift). The variation in de SPR peak wavelength allows us to estimate the bulk modulus of the gold nanoparticles with a precision of 10 % and to obtain analytical functions providing the pressure dependence of the refractive index of water in three phases: liquid, ice VI and ice VII. Furthermore, the SPR band shows abrupt jumps at the liquid to ice phase VI and ice phase VII transitions, which are in accordance with the first-order character of these transitions.Financial support from Project PGC2018-101464-B-I00 (FEDER) and MALTA-Consolider Team (RED2018-102612-T) of the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades is acknowledged

Optimization of nanopores generated by chemical etching of swift-ion irradiated LiNbO3.

The morphology of the nanopores obtained by chemical etching on ion-beam irradiated LiNbO3 has been investigated for a variety of ions (F, Br, Kr, Cu, Pb), energies (up to 2300 MeV), and stopping powers (up to 35 keV/nm) in the electronic energy loss regime. The role of etching time and etching agent on the pore morphology, diameter, depth, and shape has also been studied. The transversal and depth profiles of the pore have been found to be quite sensitive to both, irradiation and etching parameters. Moreover, two etching regimes with different morphologies and etching rates have been identified