Folding Nature Back Upon Itself: Aristotle and the Rebirth of Physis

“Folding Nature Back Upon Itself: Aristotle and the Rebirth of Physis,” confronts us with nature’s receding presence and proposes to think through a rebirth of physis. Following Aristotle’s concept of physis, this paper locates two axes along which such a rethinking of physis can take place. The first axis is vertical, and turns around the fundamental tension that each natural being faces in seeking to overcome its own matter in order to reach transcendence. The second axis is horizontal, and follows Aristotle’s ideas that physis cannot unfold unless aided, stimulated, nurtured and enforced by external factors such as one’s environment, food, art, technology, and politics. This paper argues that vertical transcendence needs to be rethought to accommodate earthy, individual natural flourishing. Horizontal transcendence (e.g. rethinking the collaboration between different species and the collaboration between art and nature) may allow physis the kind of vertical transcendence that leads to its rebirth. This has important implications for both restoration projects and de-extinction projects: we need to acknowledge the role of human design for restoration and conservation projects, and envision humans no longer as external and superior to eco-systems, but as part of them. Only within newly conceptualized social-ecological systems can such a new vision of physis take flight

Scheduling science on television: A comparative analysis of the representations of science in 11 European countries

While science-in-the-media is a useful vehicle for understanding the media, few scholars have used it that way: instead, they look at science-in-the-media as a way of understanding science-in-the-media and often end up attributing characteristics to science-in-the-media that are simply characteristics of the media, rather than of the science they see there. This point of view was argued by Jane Gregory and Steve Miller in 1998 in Science in Public. Science, they concluded, is not a special case in the mass media, understanding science-in-the-media is mostly about understanding the media (Gregory and Miller, 1998: 105). More than a decade later, research that looks for patterns or even determinants of science-in-the-media, be it in press or electronic media, is still very rare. There is interest in explaining the media’s selection of science content from a media perspective. Instead, the search for, and analysis of, several kinds of distortions in media representations of science have been leading topics of science-in-the-media research since its beginning in the USA at the end of the 1960s and remain influential today (see Lewenstein, 1994; Weigold, 2001; Kohring, 2005 for summaries). Only a relatively small amount of research has been conducted seeking to identify factors relevant to understanding how science is treated by the mass media in general and by television in particular. The current study addresses the lack of research in this area. Our research seeks to explore which constraints national media systems place on the volume and structure of science programming in television. In simpler terms, the main question this study is trying to address is why science-in-TV in Europe appears as it does. We seek to link research focussing on the detailed analysis of science representations on television (Silverstone, 1984; Collins, 1987; Hornig, 1990; Leon, 2008), and media research focussing on the historical genesis and current political regulation of national media systems (see for instance Hallin and Mancini, 2004; Napoli, 2004; Open Society Institute, 2005, 2008). The former studies provide deeper insights into the selection and reconstruction of scientific subject matters, which reflect and – at the same time – reinforce popular images of science. But their studies do not give much attention to production constraints or other relevant factors which could provide an insight into why media treat science as they do. The latter scholars inter alia shed light on distinct media policies in Europe which significantly influence national channel patterns. However, they do not refer to clearly defined content categories but to fairly rough distinctions such as information versus entertainment or fictional versus factual. Accordingly, we know more about historical roots and current practices of media regulation across Europe than we do about the effects of these different regimes on the provision of specific content in European societies

Inter-annual decrease in pulse rate and peak frequency of Southeast Pacific blue whale song types

The decrease in the frequency of two southeast Pacific blue whale song types was examined over decades, usingacoustic data from several different sources ranging between the Equator and Chilean Patagonia. The pulse rate ofthe song units as well as their peak frequency were measured using two different methods (summed auto-correlationand Fourier transform). The sources of error associated with each measurement were assessed. There was a lineardecline in both parameters for the more common song type (southeast Pacific song type n ◦ 2). An abbreviated analysisalso showed a frequency decline in the scarcer southeast Pacific song type n ◦ 1 between 1970 to 2014, revealing thatboth song types are declining at similar rates. We discussed the use of measuring both pulse rate and peak frequencyto examine the frequency decline. Finally, a comparison of the rates of frequency decline with other song typesreported in the literature is presented.La décroissance en fréquence des deux chants de baleine bleue de l'océan pacifique sud est est examiné sur plusieurs décennies en utilisant comme source des données acoustiques de l'Equateur à la Patagonie chilienne. La fréquence de pulsation et la fréquence pic des signaux sont mesurés en utilisant deux méthodes distinctes (auto-corrélation sommée et transformée de Fourier rapide). Les sources d'erreur associées à chaque mesure sont estimées. Il y a un déclin linéaire de ces deux fréquences pour le chant le plus commun de cette zone (chant du Pacifique Sud Est n°2, SEP2). Un analyse plus rapide montre aussi une baisse linéaire, entre 1970 et 2014, de la fréquence du chant SEP1, plus rarement enregistré dans cette zone. Ces deux baisses ont des amplitudes similaires. L'intérêt de mesurer la fréquence de pulsation et la fréquence pic de façon concomitante est estimé. Enfin, une comparaison globale des déclins en fréquence de tous les types de chants de baleines bleues est fournie

The Value of Success: Acquiring Gains, Avoiding Losses, and Simply Being Successful

A large network of spatially contiguous, yet anatomically distinct regions in medial frontal cortex is involved in reward processing. Although it is clear these regions play a role in critical aspects of reward-related learning and decision-making, the individual contributions of each component remains unclear. We explored dissociations in reward processing throughout several key regions in the reward system and aimed to clarify the nature of previously observed outcome-related activity in a portion of anterior medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC). Specifically, we tested whether activity in anterior mOFC was related to processing successful actions, such that this region would respond similarly to rewards with and without tangible benefits, or whether this region instead encoded only quantifiable outcome values (e.g., money). Participants performed a task where they encountered monetary gains and losses (and non-gains and non-losses) during fMRI scanning. Critically, in addition to the outcomes with monetary consequences, the task included trials that provided outcomes without tangible benefits (participants were simply told that they were correct or incorrect). We found that anterior mOFC responded to all successful outcomes regardless of whether they carried tangible benefits (monetary gains and non-losses) or not (controls). These results support the hypothesis that anterior mOFC processes rewards in terms of a common currency and is capable of providing reward-based signals for everything we value, whether it be primary or secondary rewards or simply a successful experience without objectively quantifiable benefits

Collective Animal Behavior from Bayesian Estimation and Probability Matching

Animals living in groups make movement decisions that depend, among other factors, on social interactions with other group members. Our present understanding of social rules in animal collectives is based on empirical fits to observations and we lack first-principles approaches that allow their derivation. Here we show that patterns of collective decisions can be derived from the basic ability of animals to make probabilistic estimations in the presence of uncertainty. We build a decision-making model with two stages: Bayesian estimation and probabilistic matching.
In the first stage, each animal makes a Bayesian estimation of which behavior is best to perform taking into account personal information about the environment and social information collected by observing the behaviors of other animals. In the probability matching stage, each animal chooses a behavior with a probability given by the Bayesian estimation that this behavior is the most appropriate one. This model derives very simple rules of interaction in animal collectives that depend only on two types of reliability parameters, one that each animal assigns to the other animals and another given by the quality of the non-social information. We test our model by obtaining theoretically a rich set of observed collective patterns of decisions in three-spined sticklebacks, Gasterosteus aculeatus, a shoaling fish species. The quantitative link shown between probabilistic estimation and collective rules of behavior allows a better contact with other fields such as foraging, mate selection, neurobiology and psychology, and gives predictions for experiments directly testing the relationship between estimation and collective behavior

An objective measure for the assessment and management of fluid shifts in acute major burns

Background: Major burns are life threatening. Fluid resuscitation is required for survival to maintain intravascular volumes and prevent hypovolemic shock. Bioimpedance spectroscopy (BIS) has been recognised as a potential method of monitoring fluid shifts after burn and in other disease states. The aims of this study were to examine the reliability of BIS across different dressing conditions and electrode positions, establish the influence of Acticoat™ on BIS variable measures and determine the validity of whole-body BIS to assess net fluid shift in the presence of moderate to major burns. Methods: An observational longitudinal cohort study was conducted from December 2014 to February 2016. Patients with over 15% total body surface area (TBSA) burns and injury less than 48 h were enrolled in the study. BIS triplicate measures were collected in an open wound and with an ActicoatTM dressing (at 5 half hour intervals). Standard and alternate electrode placements were utilised for the reliability analysis and standard placement only for determining the validity of BIS in moderate to major burns. The ImpediMde SFB7 was used to collect wholebody and segmental BIS measures. Stata statistical software, release 14 was utilised to analyse all results. Descriptive analyses were performed and were reported using the means and standard deviations (SD). Results: BIS-repeated measures established BIS raw resistance (R), and predicted volume variables were reliable in any condition (intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) 0.996–0.999, 95% confidence intervals (CI) 0.996–0.999) without a systematic difference. Acticoat™ dressings significantly influenced all BIS-predicted volumes (p ≤ 0.01) as determined by multilevel mixed effects (MLME) linear regression analysis. Validity of BIS was demonstrated by resistance variables significantly decreasing with increasing net ionic fluid shift and increased TBSA (severity of injury) and calculated fluid volumes increasing with increasing net fluid shift and TBSA. BIS resistance also decreased with time as oedema reduced. For clinical use, a calculator was developed to adjust BIS variables when an Acticoat™ dressing is in situ, thus facilitating BIS variable change estimates in real time, with dressings intact. Conclusion: BIS may be used clinically to monitor fluid volume change in major acute burns

Increasing condom use in heterosexual men: development of a theory-based interactive digital intervention

Increasing condom use to prevent sexually transmitted infections is a key public health goal. Interventions are more likely to be effective if they are theory- and evidence-based. The Behaviour Change Wheel (BCW) provides a framework for intervention development. To provide an example of how the BCW was used to develop an intervention to increase condom use in heterosexual men (the MenSS website), the steps of the BCW intervention development process were followed, incorporating evidence from the research literature and views of experts and the target population. Capability (e.g. knowledge) and motivation (e.g. beliefs about pleasure) were identified as important targets of the intervention. We devised ways to address each intervention target, including selecting interactive features and behaviour change techniques. The BCW provides a useful framework for integrating sources of evidence to inform intervention content and deciding which influences on behaviour to target

Contrasting inducible knockdown of the auxiliary PTEX component PTEX88 in P. falciparum and P. berghei unmasks a role in parasite virulence

Pathogenesis of malaria infections is linked to remodeling of erythrocytes, a process dependent on the trafficking of hundreds of parasite-derived proteins into the host erythrocyte. Recent studies have demonstrated that the Plasmodium translocon of exported proteins (PTEX) serves as the central gateway for trafficking of these proteins, as inducible knockdown of the core PTEX constituents blocked the trafficking of all classes of cargo into the erythrocyte. However, the role of the auxiliary component PTEX88 in protein export remains less clear. Here we have used inducible knockdown technologies in P. falciparum and P. berghei to assess the role of PTEX88 in parasite development and protein export, which reveal that the in vivo growth of PTEX88-deficient parasites is hindered. Interestingly, we were unable to link this observation to a general defect in export of a variety of known parasite proteins, suggesting that PTEX88 functions in a different fashion to the core PTEX components. Strikingly, PTEX88-deficient P. berghei were incapable of causing cerebral malaria despite a robust pro-inflammatory response from the host. These parasites also exhibited a reduced ability to sequester in peripheral tissues and were removed more readily from the circulation by the spleen. In keeping with these findings, PTEX88-deficient P. falciparum-infected erythrocytes displayed reduced binding to the endothelial cell receptor, CD36. This suggests that PTEX88 likely plays a specific direct or indirect role in mediating parasite sequestration rather than making a universal contribution to the trafficking of all exported proteins

Pulmonary fibrosis induced by H5N1 viral infection in mice

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Inflammatory process results in lung injury that may lead to pulmonary fibrosis (PF). Here, we described PF in mice infected with H5N1 virus.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Eight-week-old BALB/c mice were inoculated intranasally with 1 × 10¹MID₅₀of A/Chicken/Hebei/108/2002(H5N1) viruses. Lung injury/fibrosis was evaluated by observation of hydroxyproline concentrations, lung indexes, and histopathology on days 7, 14, and 30 postinoculation.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>H5N1-inoculated mice presented two stages of pulmonary disease over a 30-d period after infection. At acute stage, infected-mice showed typical diffuse pneumonia with inflammatory cellular infiltration, alveolar and interstitial edema and hemorrhage on day 7 postinoculation. At restoration stage, most infected-mice developed PF of different severities on day 30 postinoculation, and 18% of the survived mice underwent severe interstitial and intra-alveolar fibrosis with thickened alveolar walls, collapsed alveoli and large fibrotic areas. The dramatically elevated hydroxyproline levels in H5N1-infected mice showed deposition of collagen in lungs, and confirmed fibrosis of lungs. The dry lung-to-body weight ratio was significantly increased in infected group, which might be associated with the formation of PF in H5N1-infected mice.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our findings show that H5N1-infected mice develop the typical PF during restoration period, which will contribute to the investigation of fibrogenesis and potential therapeutic intervention in human H5N1 disease.</p