"Endless Forms" of Evolution? Heuristics in Darwin and Taine.

Morse Peckham wrote in 1959 that rejection and misinterpretation had characterised the first one hundred years of Darwinism. After reviewing René Wellek's 1956 survey of evolutionary ideas in literary history and Joseph Carroll's 1995 discussion of Darwinism in Hippolyte Taine, I argue that Wellek and Carroll have failed to provide accurate accounts of Darwin's influence. I suggest that methodological parallels must be found to make a claim for a theoretical approach being "Darwinian." I consider why The Origin of Species might have appealed methodologically to Taine by examining Darwin's argument, and then suggest that there is a better evaluative criterion of influence—that of "heuristic support"—than those provided by Wellek or Carroll. I test the hypothesis that the "shape" of Taine's theory in History of English Literature is the same as that of Darwin's theory in the Origin. I summarise Taine's theory in brief outline, counter Carroll's claim that Taine was a "biological determinist," and show that Taine's theory was congruent at the explanatory, methodological level with Darwin's, finding that Taine used the same kind of heuristic support to overcome procedural problems similar to Darwin's. I conclude that literary scholars must make better use of specialist scholarship in history and philosophy of science to answer Peckham's charge

Strong Evolution in the Luminosity-Velocity Relation at z>1?

We present a method for constraining the evolution of the galaxy luminosity-velocity (LV) relation in hierarchical scenarios of structure formation. The comoving number density of dark-matter halos with circular velocity of 200 km/s is predicted in favored CDM cosmologies to be nearly constant over the redshift range 0<z<5. Any observed evolution in the density of bright galaxies implies in turn a corresponding evolution in the LV relation. We consider several possible forms of evolution for the zero-point of the LV relation and predict the corresponding evolution in galaxy number density. The Hubble Deep Field suggests a large deficit of bright (M_V < -19) galaxies at 1.4 < z < 2. If taken at face value, this implies a dimming of the LV zero-point by roughly 2 magnitudes. Deep, wide-field, near-IR selected surveys will provide more secure measurements to compare with our predictions.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures. Submitted to ApJ Letter

"Endless Forms" of Evolution? Heuristics in Darwin and Taine.

Morse Peckham wrote in 1959 that rejection and misinterpretation had characterised the first one hundred years of Darwinism. After reviewing René Wellek's 1956 survey of evolutionary ideas in literary history and Joseph Carroll's 1995 discussion of Darwinism in Hippolyte Taine, I argue that Wellek and Carroll have failed to provide accurate accounts of Darwin's influence. I suggest that methodological parallels must be found to make a claim for a theoretical approach being "Darwinian." I consider why The Origin of Species might have appealed methodologically to Taine by examining Darwin's argument, and then suggest that there is a better evaluative criterion of influence—that of "heuristic support"—than those provided by Wellek or Carroll. I test the hypothesis that the "shape" of Taine's theory in History of English Literature is the same as that of Darwin's theory in the Origin. I summarise Taine's theory in brief outline, counter Carroll's claim that Taine was a "biological determinist," and show that Taine's theory was congruent at the explanatory, methodological level with Darwin's, finding that Taine used the same kind of heuristic support to overcome procedural problems similar to Darwin's. I conclude that literary scholars must make better use of specialist scholarship in history and philosophy of science to answer Peckham's charge

Forms and processes of information systems evolution

The way in which software evolves over time has been much studied and is now fairly well-understood. What has been less thoroughly studied are the processes by which information systems – containing software as one component, but also with significant human and organisational aspects – evolve. In many organisations, few information systems are built at all from scratch, but rather are modified from or built on top of existing ones or bolted together from third-party components. In practice, the old division between design, implementation and maintenance has largely disappeared. In this paper, I discuss the nature of IS evolution. I make a distinction between planned (intentional and strategic) evolution, for which we can formulate a clear process; and unplanned (emergent and externally-driven) evolution, where we can simply study the dynamics of the process and be ready for events

Intracluster gas pressure, entropy injection and redshift evolution

We study the effect of entropy injection in the intracluster medium (ICM) in light of the recent observationally determined universal pressure profile of the ICM. Beginning with a power-law entropy profile that is expected in the absence of any feedback, we show that a simple universal prescription of entropy injection results in the final, observed universal pressure profile. This simple prescription has two components, one associated with an overall increase in entropy and another associated with injection in the central parts of the cluster. Importantly, both the components of entropy injection are needed to produce the final universal pressure profile. This is indicative of a need of both preheating the ICM as well {\it in situ} AGN/SNe heating. We demonstrate the usefulness of the method by extending the calculations to clusters at high redshift, and predict redshift evolution of cluster scaling relations that can be tested against data. We show that the self-similar evolution of the universal pressure profile is equivalent to a negative evolution of entropy injection with redshift, with a scaling $S_{inj} \propto (1+z)^{-0.8} S_{inj}(z=0)$. We also show the current observational data are indicative of the entropy injection decreasing with redshift.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS, Comments welcom

A comparison of the Euro-Mediterránean and the Australian press models

The aim of this article is to analyze the evolution, development and consolidation of the Australian pressmodel from its beginning to the present day and compare it to the Euro-Mediterranean model (Spain, France,Italy and Portugal). To do so, the consequences of these countries' participation in World Wars I and II, thelegislative, cultural and business changes produced and the internal events that meant consolidation of aspecific press system within the Anglo-Saxon model, are studied.Whereas in the Euro-Mediterranean countries between 1926 and 1976 the different dictatorships modified therole of the press and also what the state's relationship with it should be, Australia's perfectly consolidatedand stable democracy led to concerns with and the development of other forms of evolution between thepress and the State as well as between the press and the other economic and social actors

Quantum information transfer and models for black hole mechanics

General features of information transfer between quantum subsystems, via unitary evolution, are investigated, with applications to the problem of information transfer from a black hole to its surroundings. A particularly direct form of quantum information transfer is "subspace transfer," which can be characterized by saturation of a subadditivity inequality. We also describe more general unitary quantum information transfer, and categorize different models for black hole evolution. Evolution that only creates paired excitations inside/outside the black hole is shown not to extract information, but information-transferring models exist both in the "saturating" and "non-saturating" category. The former more closely capture thermodynamic behavior; the latter generically have enhanced energy flux, beyond that of Hawking.Comment: 31 pages, harvmac. v2: nomenclature change, minor added explanation. v3: small corrections/rewordings; improved figure; version to match publication in PR

Upper gastrointestinal bleeding during the COVID-19 pandemic; particularities of diagnosis and therapy

SARS-COV 2 recently caused a global pandemic, with the first case being reported in Romania in February 2020. Important restrictive measures were imposed, so that the addressability of patients to medical services decreased. Upper gastrointestinal bleeding had more severe forms of evolution at the time of presentation, which required additional methods of diagnosis and treatment. This is a retrospective study performed on 268 patients, which aims to evaluate the type and effectiveness of different treatment methods for upper gastrointestinal bleeding during the COVID 19 pandemic. Severity assessment was performed by measuring the Rockall score and additional methods of diagnosis. The association of COVID-19 with upper gastrointestinal bleeding can lead to much more severe outcomes for the patient, so treatment must be sustained and fast established. If the initial therapeutic methods fail, the other available therapeutic measures should be introduced progressively and without delay to achieve the best possible outcomes