Synthesizing foundations in evolutionary morphology and a plea for conceptual explicitness regarding homology concepts

Morphology, the scientific discipline dealing with description and comparison of organismal form, is one of the oldest disciplines in biology and traditionally strongly linked to the concept of homology. With morphological data being used and morphological knowledge being applied in other (younger) biological disciplines, morphology has often been degraded to an only auxiliary discipline or a mere set of methods serving those other disciplines. While this notion has been wrong all along, the last decades have seen a renaissance of morphology mostly due to significant leaps in imaging techniques and the advent of 3D digital data. Modern large-scale morphological endeavors in what is called phenomics and new means of functional analyses underline the fruitfulness of morphological research. Furthermore, morphology has been revisited on a conceptual level leading to a “re-philosophication” of morphology acknowledging its nature as explanatory science. Based on Richter and Wirkner’s research program of Evolutionary Morphology, this essay expands the conceptual framework to identify entities and processes vital for morphology as independent scientific discipline. With no unified homology concept in sight (and maybe not even desired), following the emergence of bio-ontologies in morphology, a plea is made for conceptual explicitness which acknowledges the plurality of homology concepts but enables intersubjective transfer

Electronic properties of ion-implanted yttria-stabilized zirconia

Ion implantation of iron and titanium has been applied to modify the surface properties of polycrystalline yttria-stabilized zirconia ((ZrO2)0.87(YO1.5)0.13 (YSZ)) discs in an attempt to prepare surfaces with a mixed conductivity and by this an enhanced surface oxygen exchange kinetics. Surface-sensitive spectroscopic techniques were applied to investigate the implanted layers as a function of different pretreatments such as oxidation, reduction and annealing. Depth profiles were recorded by Rutherford Backscattering Spectroscopy (RBS) and X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) in combination with sputtering. Ion Scattering Spectroscopy (ISS) and XPS were used to investigate the surface composition and valency of implanted ions. Electronic properties like the band gap, the work function and the energy difference between the Fermi level and valence band edge (EF-EV) were obtained from Ultraviolet Photoelectron Spectroscopy (UPS) and Electron Energy Loss Spectroscopy (EELS). Overlayers of Fe2O3 or TiO2 are formed during oxidation of as-implanted samples. The Fe- and Ti-oxides could be reduced in hydrogen to the oxidation states Fe2+, Fe0 or Ti3+. Annealing of the samples leads to decreased surface concentrations of the implanted ions due to in-diffusion. At the surface of the annealed iron-implanted samples, Fe2+ and metallic Fe could be generated after further reduction whereas at the surface of the annealed Ti-implanted samples only Ti4+ was detectable.\u

How to Protect Future Generations' Rights in European Governance

Given that future generations are right-bearing citizens of tomorrow, legislative systems should secure these rights through appropriate institutions. In the case of the European Union, reference to intergenerational justice can be found in various fundamental legal texts, but, paradoxically, no institutions exist to defend it. The structural short-termism inscribed into representative democracies means that present interests easily trump future concerns. We argue that the best way to overcome this problem is a system of temporal checks and balances. By comparing a selection of existing instruments with regards to their impact on the legislative process, we propose the creation of a European Guardian for Future Generations as the most effective measure to protect the rights of future generations and provide an overview of recent developments in this direction

Scanning Electron Microscope Studies on the Breakdown of Passivity of a Nickel-Chromium-Molybdenum Dental Alloy

The breakdown of passivity and localized corrosion of a Ni-20Cr-10Mo alloy was investigated. The methods employed were potentiodynamic polarization and SEM, and AES and EDX after potentiostatic polarization over a period of 20 hours in the passive and transpassive regions. The 1 μm finished as-cast specimens were polarized in aerated 0.1 M NaCl. The cyclic polarization curves revealed a critical pitting potential of 470 mv (SCE), while the protection potential was 300 mV (SCE). Using the potentiostatic polarization technique, nearly constant corrosion currents appeared, indicating that the whole surface was corroded uniformly. SEM pictures of samples, corroded at 650 mv, showed little pits under the oxide layer and a thinning down of the outer oxide layer. This lead to the opinion that the penetration as well as the adsorption mechanism determine the breakdown of passivity. EDX analysis and AES depth profiles showed an enrichment of Cr and Mo in the oxide. In contrast to oxidized samples, no second layer of Ni was found in the outer oxide region. In the transpassive region the relative amount of Cr and Mo in the oxide layer was higher than the one found in corresponding samples polarized in the passive region. The oxide thickness found was about 5 nm in the passive region (300 mV SCE) and about 250 nm in the transpassive region (650 mV SCE)

Bovine polledness

The persistent horns are an important trait of speciation for the family Bovidae with complex morphogenesis taking place briefly after birth. The polledness is highly favourable in modern cattle breeding systems but serious animal welfare issues urge for a solution in the production of hornless cattle other than dehorning. Although the dominant inhibition of horn morphogenesis was discovered more than 70 years ago, and the causative mutation was mapped almost 20 years ago, its molecular nature remained unknown. Here, we report allelic heterogeneity of the POLLED locus. First, we mapped the POLLED locus to a ∼381-kb interval in a multi-breed case-control design. Targeted re-sequencing of an enlarged candidate interval (547 kb) in 16 sires with known POLLED genotype did not detect a common allele associated with polled status. In eight sires of Alpine and Scottish origin (four polled versus four horned), we identified a single candidate mutation, a complex 202 bp insertion-deletion event that showed perfect association to the polled phenotype in various European cattle breeds, except Holstein-Friesian. The analysis of the same candidate interval in eight Holsteins identified five candidate variants which segregate as a 260 kb haplotype also perfectly associated with the POLLED gene without recombination or interference with the 202 bp insertion-deletion. We further identified bulls which are progeny tested as homozygous polled but bearing both, 202 bp insertion-deletion and Friesian haplotype. The distribution of genotypes of the two putative POLLED alleles in large semi-random sample (1,261 animals) supports the hypothesis of two independent mutations

Nonlinear Advantage: Trained Networks Might Not Be As Complex as You Think

We perform an empirical study of the behaviour of deep networks when fully linearizing some of its feature channels through a sparsity prior on the overall number of nonlinear units in the network. In experiments on image classification and machine translation tasks, we investigate how much we can simplify the network function towards linearity before performance collapses. First, we observe a significant performance gap when reducing nonlinearity in the network function early on as opposed to late in training, in-line with recent observations on the time-evolution of the data-dependent NTK. Second, we find that after training, we are able to linearize a significant number of nonlinear units while maintaining a high performance, indicating that much of a network's expressivity remains unused but helps gradient descent in early stages of training. To characterize the depth of the resulting partially linearized network, we introduce a measure called average path length, representing the average number of active nonlinearities encountered along a path in the network graph. Under sparsity pressure, we find that the remaining nonlinear units organize into distinct structures, forming core-networks of near constant effective depth and width, which in turn depend on task difficulty

Spreads in Effective Learning Rates: The Perils of Batch Normalization During Early Training

Excursions in gradient magnitude pose a persistent challenge when training deep networks. In this paper, we study the early training phases of deep normalized ReLU networks, accounting for the induced scale invariance by examining effective learning rates (LRs). Starting with the well-known fact that batch normalization (BN) leads to exponentially exploding gradients at initialization, we develop an ODE-based model to describe early training dynamics. Our model predicts that in the gradient flow, effective LRs will eventually equalize, aligning with empirical findings on warm-up training. Using large LRs is analogous to applying an explicit solver to a stiff non-linear ODE, causing overshooting and vanishing gradients in lower layers after the first step. Achieving overall balance demands careful tuning of LRs, depth, and (optionally) momentum. Our model predicts the formation of spreads in effective LRs, consistent with empirical measurements. Moreover, we observe that large spreads in effective LRs result in training issues concerning accuracy, indicating the importance of controlling these dynamics. To further support a causal relationship, we implement a simple scheduling scheme prescribing uniform effective LRs across layers and confirm accuracy benefits

Inter- and transdisciplinary scenario construction to explore future land-use options in southern Amazonia

Our aim with this paper is to present a novel approach for developing story lines and scenarios by combining qualitative knowledge and quantitative data from different disciplines and discussing the results with relevant decision makers. This research strategy offers a solid foundation for perspectives into the future. The “laboratory” is the Brazilian Amazon, one of the hotspots of land-use change where local and global interests both collide and converge: local livelihoods are affected by regional and global climate change and by the loss of biodiversity caused by local and global economic interests in agro-industrial land use; such use contributes, in turn, to climate change. After decades of diverse policy interventions the question arises: What can we learn from past trajectories for a more sustainable development in the future? To answer this question, we combined qualitative story lines for the region, reviewed by local experts, with quantitative land-use scenarios, to study their regional and local manifestations in space. These results were then discussed again with local and national experts. Our findings suggest that in- depth knowledge of the diverging perspectives at a very local level is a fundamental prerequisite for downscaling global scenarios and upscaling local approaches to sustainable land-use management and thus, to producing communicable and applicable results

Der Einfluss des C2-Monitorings von CyclosporinA auf den Langzeitverlauf nach orthotoper Herztransplantation

Hintergrund. Das enge therapeutische Fenster von CyclosporinA (CsA) verlangt bei der Therapie ein genaues Medikamentenmonitoring. Während die Methode des C2-Monitorings bereits in der Nieren- und Lebertransplantation gut untersucht wurde, sind die Erfahrungen nach Herztransplantation (HTX) limitiert. Patienten und Methoden. In einer retrospektiven Studie wurden 156 Patienten nach HTX eingeschlossen, die postoperativ eine Immunsuppression mit CsA erhielten, und über einen Zeitraum von 3 Jahren untersucht wurden. Sie wurden in 5 verschiedene Gruppen je nach therapeutischem Monitoring von CsA unterteilt. Ergebnisse/Zusammenfassung. Unter C2-Monitoring des Cyclosporinspiegels konnte eine suffiziente Immunsuppression bei de-novo Herztransplantierten mit deutlich niedrigeren CsA-Dosierungen, als unter C0-Monitoring möglich ist erreicht werden, wodurch das Risiko von CsA-bedingten Organschäden insbesondere der Niere deutlich reduziert werden kann