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I Mean (i + mean)
Selected AbstractsA guide to practical babooning: Historical, social, and cognitive contingencyEVOLUTIONARY ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 3 2009Louise Barrett Professor of Psychology at the University of Lethbridge Abstract As ecologically adaptable animals, baboons are distributed widely across Africa, and display a variety of morphological and behavioral differences that reflect both local ecology and a complex evolutionary history. As long-lived, slowly reproducing animals, baboons face numerous ecological challenges to survival and successful reproduction. As group-living animals, the social world presents an equally diverse array of challenges that require the negotiation of individual needs within the constraints imposed by others. Understanding how all these facets of baboon evolutionary history, life history, ecology, sociality, and cognition fit together is an enormous but engaging challenge, and despite one hundred years of study, it is clear there is a still much to learn about the various natural histories of baboons. What also is clear, however, is that an appreciation of contingency holds the key to understanding all these facets of baboon evolution and behavior. In what follows, I hope to illustrate exactly what I mean by this, highlighting along the way that history is not to be ignored, variability is information and not merely "noise", and that behavioral and cognitive complexity can be two very different things. [source] Transnational migration: taking stock and future directionsGLOBAL NETWORKS, Issue 3 2001Peggy Levitt Increasing numbers of sending states are systematically offering social and political membership to migrants residing outside their territories. The proliferation of these dual memberships contradicts conventional notions about immigrant incorporation, their impact on sending countries, and the relationship between migration and development in both contexts. But how do ordinary individuals actually live their lives across borders? Is assimilation incompatible with transnational membership? How does economic and social development change when it takes place across borders? This article takes stock of what is known about everyday transnational practices and the institutional actors that facilitate or impede them and outlines questions for future research. In it, I define what I mean by transnational practices and describe the institutions that create and are created by these activities. I discuss the ways in which they distribute migrants' resources and energies across borders, based primarily on studies of migration to the United States. [source] A gene's eye view of epistasis, selection and speciationJOURNAL OF EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY, Issue 3 2002M. J. Wade In this mini-review, I discuss the effects of gene interaction or epistasis from a `gene's eye view.' By a `gene's eye view' of epistasis, I mean that I will consider a single, bi-allelic locus, A, whose effects on fitness result only from its interactions with alleles of another, unknown locus, X. I will show how changes in the frequencies of alleles at the background locus affect the relationship of alleles at the A -locus to fitness. Changing the genetic background changes the fundamental characteristics of the A -locus, such as the magnitude and sign of allelic effects on fitness, and, consequently, it changes the strength and pattern of selection. I consider each of the four kinds of pair,wise interactions between two loci and show that some kinds of epistasis are more sensitive than others to population genetic subdivision. Lastly, I show that some kinds of epistasis are more likely than others to affect the process of speciation and contribute to or be responsible for general genetic features of interspecific hybrids, such as Haldane's rule. [source] THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY AND THE RHETORIC OF EXCESSJOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS ETHICS, Issue 1 2007Jeffrey Stout ABSTRACT If militarism violates the ideals of liberty and justice in one way, and rapidly increasing social stratification violates them in another, then American democracy is in crisis. A culture of democratic accountability will survive only if citizens revive the concerns that animated the great reform movements of the past, from abolitionism to civil rights. It is crucial, when reasoning about practical matters, not only to admit how grave one's situation is, but also to resist despair. Therefore, the fate of democracy depends, to some significant degree, on how we choose to describe the crisis. Saying that we have already entered the new dark ages or a post-democratic era may prove to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, because anyone who accepts this message is apt to give up on the hard work of organizing and contestation that is needed to hold political representatives accountable to the people. This paper asks how one might strike the right balance between accuracy and hope in describing the democracy's current troubles. After saying what I mean by democracy and what I think the current threats to it are, I respond to Romand Coles's criticisms of reservations I have expressed before about rhetorical excess in the works of Stanley Hauerwas, Alasdair MacIntyre, and Richard Rorty. This leads to a discussion of several points raised against me by Hauerwas. A digression offers some of my reasons for doubting that John Howard Yoder's biblical scholarship vindicates Hauerwas's version of pacifism. The paper concludes by arguing that Sheldon Wolin's work on the evisceration of democracy, though admirably accurate in its treatment of the dangers posed by empire and capital, abandons the project of democratic accountability too quickly in favor of the romance of the fugitive. [source] Femtonik , aus dem Labor in die IndustrieLASER TECHNIK JOURNAL, Issue 4 2005Holger Kock Liebe Leserin, lieber Leser, sicher haben Sie es schon gelesen: der Nobelpreis für Physik wird in diesem Jahr an Roy Glauber, John Hall und Theodor Hänsch verliehen. Redaktion und Verlag gratulieren allen dreien, besonders herzlich natürlich Professor Hänsch aus München. Ich möchte hier nur ein paar Worte aus einem seiner ersten Interviews zitieren*: , What does it mean to you, to get the Prize? , Well, I mean, it's the ultimate recognition that scientists can hope to receive. It's recognition not just for my person, but, I think, for our entire team, for the organisations that have supported our work. And I think for Germany it is certainly a sign that, hopefully, will attract more young people into science, because for a while it looked like we were out of luck with modern Nobel Prizes. Of course, in the early days, Germany did pretty well. Nach den Preisen 1997, 1999 (Chemie) und 2001 ist das der vierte Nobelpreis in nur einer Dekade für ein Thema aus der Photonik , ein klarer Beleg für die Bedeutung des Themas. Als dieses Sonderheft geplant wurde, war von dieser Nobelpreisverleihung nichts zu ahnen, jetzt erscheint die Thematik Femtonik natürlich in einem ganz anderen Licht. Die Preisverleihung bestätigt, wie wichtig und grundlegend die Forschungen auf diesem Gebiet sind. Nicht zuletzt durch die Preisträger wurden Forschung und Entwicklung in den letzten Jahren massiv vorangetrieben und führten sowohl zu bahnbrechenden Erkenntnissen in der Grundlagenforschung als auch zu ersten neuen Verfahren und Produkten. Das Anliegen dieses Heftes ist es nun, dem Nicht-Experten die Grundlagen der Femtonik zu erklären und anhand von einigen Beispielen Anwendungen vorzustellen, die das Labor inzwischen verlassen haben. Darunter ist übrigens auch ein Beitrag (S. 48), der die Umsetzung genau jener Idee beschreibt, für die John Hall und Theodor Hänsch Ihren Preis erhielten. Ein entscheidender Hintergrund bei diesem Thema war und ist die gezielte Förderung durch das Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung. Ein Bekenntnis dazu finden Sie auch im Beitrag des Referatsleiters "Optische Technologien" auf Seite 25. Zum Zeitpunkt der Druckfreigabe stand die neue Regierungsmannschaft noch nicht fest. Wir können uns nur wünschen, dass die neue Regierung ernst macht mit Ihrem Ziel, Exzellenz in der Forschung und Entwicklung stärker zu fördern. Denn gerade der aktuelle Nobelpreis zeigt es: Spitzenforschung geht auch in Deutschland. Vor ein paar Jahren war Femtonik einfach "nur" Grundlagenforschung. Heute gibt es auf diesem Gebiet einerseits Nobelpreise, andererseits werden die ersten Kurzpulslaser in der Automobilindustrie eingeführt. Hoffen wir, dass dieses Beispiel Schule macht. * Interview von Joanna Rose, © Nobel Web AB [source] Inscrutability and its DiscontentsNOUS, Issue 3 2005Vann McGee That reference is inscrutable is demonstrated, it is argued, not only by W. V. Quine's arguments but by Peter Unger's "Problem of the Many." Applied to our own language, this is a paradoxical result, since nothing could be more obvious to speakers of English than that, when they use the word "rabbit," they are talking about rabbits. The solution to this paradox is to take a disquotational view of reference for one's own language, so that "When I use ,rabbit,' I refer to rabbits" is made true by the meaning of the word "refer." The reference relation is extended to other languages by translation. The explanation for this peculiarly egocentric conception of semantics,questions of others' meanings are settled by asking what I mean by words of my language,is to be found in our practice of predicting and explaining other people's behavior by empathetic identification. I understand other people's behavior by asking what I would do in their place. [source] Justification as a Process of DiscoveryRATIO JURIS, Issue 4 2000Rauno Halttunen Legal decision-making interests theoreticians in our discipline largely in terms of how a legal decision is justified. In his book, Bruce Anderson (1996) has posited a distinction between how a decision is arrived at, on one hand, and how it is justified, on the other. Anderson seems to be suggesting that legal theory should set out to continue the work of the American realists, that is, to develop legal decision-making as a process of discovery towards a solution. In my presentation, I will be looking at legal decision-making as a process of finding or discovering knowledge. What I mean by "discovery," however, is the discovery of new scientific knowledge. (The theory of science draws a distinction between proving and discovering knowledge.) I submit that for a justification to be valid the arguments comprising it ought to fulfill the logical conditions stipulated for the discovery of knowledge. In the present paper, I also hope to share with you the main ideas of a book I am currently writing on the subject. [source] | |||||||||||||