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Nature
Kinds of Nature Terms modified by Nature Selected AbstractsEXAMINING THE CONDITIONAL NATURE OF THE ILLICIT DRUG MARKET-HOMICIDE RELATIONSHIP: A PARTIAL TEST OF THE THEORY OF CONTINGENT CAUSATIONCRIMINOLOGY, Issue 1 2002GRAHAM C. OUSEY Recently, Zimring and Hawkins (1997) have suggested that drug markets are a "contingent cause" of the increase in homicide rates. That is, where structural conditions known to produce violence are already in place, the drug distribution-homicide link may be exacerbated. This analysis uses hierarchical linear modeling to investigate two key research questions: (1) Is within-city variation in illicit drug market activity positively associated with within-city variation in homicide rates during the 1984,1997 period? (2) Is the illicit drug market-homicide association contingent on preexisting violence conducive socioeconomic conditions? Using three measures of drug market activity, analyses provide affirmative evidence on both questions. Theoretical and research implications of these findings are discussed. [source] THE CHANGING NATURE OF MUSEUMSCURATOR THE MUSEUM JOURNAL, Issue 4 2000Gordon Freedman The historical circumstances,scientific, social, and economic,that brought forth the great museums of the world no longer exist. In their place is a new public context that shifts attention from museums whose business is objects to organizations whose business is information. At the same time, the economic-survival mechanism of museums is shifting from grand philanthropy to innovative development programs and market-sensitive commercial endeavors. Meeting the needs of the next generations of visitors and cultivating the next generation of funders will not be simple. Massive changes in the social fabric of the nation will soon demand new kinds of institutions that play new roles in society. Museums that meet this challenge will not simply be competing with other sectors of society for public attention and funds. Future success will require the fundamental reinvention of museums so that their purpose is obvious and their mission is clearly aligned with the needs of future generations. [source] THE NATURE OF MEDITERRANEAN EUROPE: AN ECOLOGICAL HISTORY edited by A. T. Grove and Oliver Rackham, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2001.EARTH SURFACE PROCESSES AND LANDFORMS, Issue 8 2001No. of pages: 384. No abstract is available for this article. [source] RAPID EVOLUTIONARY ESCAPE BY LARGE POPULATIONS FROM LOCAL FITNESS PEAKS IS LIKELY IN NATUREEVOLUTION, Issue 6 2005Daniel M. Weinreich Abstract Fitness interactions between loci in the genome, or epistasis, can result in mutations that are individually deleterious but jointly beneficial. Such epistasis gives rise to multiple peaks on the genotypic fitness landscape. The problem of evolutionary escape from such local peaks has been a central problem of evolutionary genetics for at least 75 years. Much attention has focused on models of small populations, in which the sequential fixation of valley genotypes carrying individually deleterious mutations operates most quickly owing to genetic drift. However, valley genotypes can also be subject to mutation while transiently segregating, giving rise to copies of the high fitness escape genotype carrying the jointly beneficial mutations. In the absence of genetic recombination, these mutations may then fix simultaneously. The time for this process declines sharply with increasing population size, and it eventually comes to dominate evolutionary behavior. Here we develop an analytic expression for Ncrit, the critical population size that defines the boundary between these regimes, which shows that both are likely to operate in nature. Frequent recombination may disrupt high-fitness escape genotypes produced in populations larger than Ncrit before they reach fixation, defining a third regime whose rate again slows with increasing population size. We develop a novel expression for this critical recombination rate, which shows that in large populations the simultaneous fixation of mutations that are beneficial only jointly is unlikely to be disrupted by genetic recombination if their map distance is on the order of the size of single genes. Thus, counterintuitively, mass selection alone offers a biologically realistic resolution to the problem of evolutionary escape from local fitness peaks in natural populations. [source] OUTBREEDING DEPRESSION VARIES AMONG COHORTS OF IPOMOPSIS AGGREGATA PLANTED IN NATUREEVOLUTION, Issue 2 2000Nickolas M. Waser Abstract., Outbreeding depression in progeny fitness may arise from disruption of local adaptation, disruption of allelic coadaptation, or a combination of these "environmental" and "physiological" mechanisms. Thus the minimum spatial scale over which outbreeding depression arises should depend on the spatial scale of gene dispersal and (with an environmental mechanism) of change in selection regimes. We previously reported substantial outbreeding depression in lifetime fitness of progeny resulting from crosses among parents separated by 100 m in natural populations of the herbaceous plant Ipomopsis aggregata. In this paper we explore the effect of crossing distance on fitness in two additional experiments begun in 1987 and 1990. We planted seed progeny derived from partial diallel crossing designs in randomized blocks in maternal environments and scored emergence of seedlings, survival, and eventual flowering of individuals over the subsequent six to eight years. Nested within each diallel design were crossing distances of 1 m, 10 m, and 100 m. Compared to 1-m and 10-m progeny, 100-m progeny of the 1987 diallel suffered a significant reduction in seedling emergence, and both 1-m and 100-m progeny that survived to flower achieved lower ,-values on average than 10-m progeny. Total outbreeding depression suffered by 100-m relative to 10-m progeny was approximately 10%, compared to approximately 30% in our earlier study of I. aggregata. Progeny of 10-m crosses also outperformed 1-m and 100-m progeny of the 1990 diallel by approximately 5%, but no difference among crossing distance treatments was significant. Thus, the magnitude of outbreeding depression in 100-m crosses varied among experiments. This is not surprising given likely spatial and temporal variation in gene flow and selection regimes, different population histories, and different parental and progeny environments. Characterizing outbreeding depression on the shortest spatial scales over which it is expressed, as well as its variation and causes, is worthwhile because it promises to shed light on the earliest stages of angiosperm speciation. [source] COLORADO FOURTEENERS AND THE NATURE OF PLACE IDENTITY,GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW, Issue 2 2002KEVIN S. BLAKE ABSTRACT. The fifty-four Colorado Fourteeners,mountains more than 14,000 feet in elevation,were early symbols of westward expansion, mineral wealth, and wondrous scenery, and they are increasingly popular as environmental icons in place attachment at national, regional, state, and local scales. The symbolism of this contrived yet iconic collection of peaks is examined through the evolution of the Fourteener concept, the popularity of peakbagging, and the role of the Sawatch Range Fourteeners in creating a larger community identity. Elevation is the gatekeeper into the Fourteener club, in which a distinctive landscape iconography of shape, accessibility, and aesthetics reflects the role of idealized nature and mountains in place identity. [source] THE CHURCH: GOD'S GIFT TO THE WORLD -ON THE NATURE AND PURPOSE OF THE CHURCH,INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF MISSION, Issue 359 2001Alan D. Falconer [source] THE NATURE AND PURPOSE OF THE CHURCH: SOME REFLECTIONS,INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF MISSION, Issue 358 2001William G. Rusch First page of article [source] THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH IN THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES, TEXT ON THE NATURE AND PURPOSE OF THE CHURCHINTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF MISSION, Issue 358 2001Neville Callam First page of article [source] XUNZI AS A SYSTEMATIC PHILOSOPHER: TOWARD AN ORGANIC UNITY OF NATURE, MIND, AND REASONJOURNAL OF CHINESE PHILOSOPHY, Issue 1 2008CHUNG-YING CHENG [source] THE NATURE AND ORIGIN OF PETROLEUM IN THE CHAIWOPU SUB-BASIN (JUNGGAR BASIN), NW CHINAJOURNAL OF PETROLEUM GEOLOGY, Issue 2 2000H. P. Huang The Chaiwopu Sub-basin is a minor extension of the Junggar Basin, hW China, and covers an area of about 2,500 sq. km. It is bounded to the east and north by the Bogda Shan and to the south by the Tian Shan ("Shan" meaning "mountains" in Chinese). Four wells have been drilled in the sub-basin; condensate and gas have been produced in noncommercial quantities at one of the wells (Well C), but the other three wells were dry. In this paper, I investigate the nature and origin of the petroleum at Well C. Three of the four wells in the Chaiwopu Sub-basin penetrated the Upper Permian Lucaogou Formation. Previous studies in the Junggar Basin have established that laminated lacustrine mudstones assigned to this formation comprise a very thick high quality source rock. However, the analysis of cores from wells in the sub-basin shows that the Lucaogou Formation is composed here of shallow lacustrine, fluvial and alluvial deposits which have very low petroleum generation potential. Overlying sediments (Upper Permian, Triassic and younger strata) likewise have little source potential. Around 1,000 m of Upper Permian laminated oil shales crop out at Dalongkou and Tianchi on the northern side of the Bogda Shan. On the southern side of the Bogda Shan, however, only 30 m of Upper Permian oil shales occur at Guodikong. Shales and oil seeps from these locations were analysed using standard organic-geochemical techniques. The physical properties of the petroleum present at Well C, and its carbon isotope and biomarker characteristics, suggest that it has migrated over long distances from its source rock, although an alternative explanation for its origin is not precluded. Burial history modelling indicates that hydrocarbon generation and migration may have occurred before the uplift of the Bogda Shan in the Late Jurassic,Early Cretaceous, the orogenic episode which resulted in the diflerentiation of the Chaiwopu Sub-basinfrom the Junggar Basin. [source] MARGOLIS ON HISTORY AND NATUREMETAPHILOSOPHY, Issue 5 2005Dale Jacquette Abstract: In his philosophy of culture, Joseph Margolis maintains that, although human beings and human societies have a history, there is no human nature in the sense of a fixed essence. I consider objections to Margolis's thesis, beginning with the possibility that nonhuman intelligent species might be in a position to study human behavior from its origins to its demise with the proper distance from our own situation in order to arrive at an understanding of what is essential to human nature, perhaps as a Kantian regulative rather than constitutive principle, and involving abstractions from particular cases and idealizations, as in other branches of science. Finally, I examine the historical-past orientation of Margolis's concept of humanity's self-understanding and its dependence on the intentionality of human thought, and I conclude that it provides an inadequate reason for denying that there can be such a thing as human nature. [source] DIVINE CAUSALITY AND THE NATURE OF THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONINGMODERN THEOLOGY, Issue 3 2007PAUL D. JANZ To be alive as embodied human beings in the world means to be both conceptually or ratiocinatively aware, and sensibly or causally aware. However, under a still powerful influence of idealism, theology over the past two centuries has virtually abandoned the causal and sensibly-embodied attentiveness to its subject-matter (revelation) as demanded by the incarnation. It has instead often come to comport itself one-sidedly, in essentially analytical or linguistically self-guaranteeing ways, and has thereby lost its contingent and genuinely vulnerable incarnational "edge" at the center of life. This essay tries to restore a properly twofold attentiveness through a reinvigoration of the traditional view of revelation as the divinely causal reality of God in the world. [source] ADAM SMITH AND THE POSSIBILITY OF SYMPATHY WITH NATUREPACIFIC PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY, Issue 4 2006PATRICK R. FRIERSON However, Smith's "all important emotion of sympathy" (Callicott, 2001, p. 209) seems incapable of extension to entities that lack emotions with which one can sympathize. Drawing on the distinctive account of sympathy developed in Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, as well as his account of anthropomorphizing nature in "History of Astronomy and Physics," I show that sympathy with non-sentient nature is possible within a Smithian ethics. This provides the possibility of extending sympathy, and thereby benevolence and justice, to nature. [source] THE LOCAL NATURE OF MODERN MORAL SKEPTICISMPACIFIC PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY, Issue 3 2006DIEGO E. MACHUCA Richard Bett, on the other hand, has argued that the existence of such a contrast is not a necessary condition for espousing that kind of moral skepticism. My purpose in this paper is to show that Bett fails to make a good case against Annas' thesis. To accomplish this, it will be helpful to consider the Pyrrhonean attitude towards morality as expounded in Sextus Empiricus' work. [source] THE NATURE OF TESTIMONYPACIFIC PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY, Issue 2 2006JENNIFER LACKEY I then offer a diagnosis of the widespread disagreement regarding this topic; specifically, I argue that our concept of testimony has two different aspects to it. Inadequate views of testimony, I claim, result either from collapsing these two aspects into a single account or from a failure to recognize one of them. Finally, I develop an alternative view of testimony that captures both aspects of the nature of testimony and thereby provides the basis for an illuminating theory of testimony's epistemological significance. [source] DIVINE AGENCY, CONTEMPORARY PHYSICS, AND THE AUTONOMY OF NATURETHE HEYTHROP JOURNAL, Issue 4 2008WILLIAM E. CARROLL First page of article [source] HUMAN NATURE AND ITS MATERIAL SETTING IN BASIL OF CAESAREA'S SERMONS ON THE CREATION1THE HEYTHROP JOURNAL, Issue 2 2008PHILIP ROUSSEAU First page of article [source] EMBRYONIC PERSONHOOD, HUMAN NATURE, AND RATIONAL ENSOULMENTTHE HEYTHROP JOURNAL, Issue 2 2006JOHN R. MEYER This essay briefly describes a few of the problems associated with using personhood language to defend the right to life of the pre-implantation embryo. Arguing that an immaterial soul explains the personal identity of an embryo is problematic for many people because there is no apparent spiritual activity in the unborn. While some scholars argue that the embryo has the potential to act as an adult person and thus should be protected from harm, others contend that potentiality alone is insufficient reason to ascribe special moral worth to the embryo in utero. For Thomas Aquinas, the soul is not only the life-principle that organizes the human body, but it is also that by which the human being thinks and wills. By making suitable corrections to Aristotle's hylomorphic depiction of the soul,body relation, I suggest that a rational soul must be present from the moment of conception and that it is at the service of the (embryonic) person. What is of critical importance here is to accept that a human being is present from the moment of conception, something the vast majority of embryologists maintain, notwithstanding the inveiglement of those who state that the pre-implantation blastocyst is simply a disorganized clump of cells. [source] THE NATURE OF THE HYPOSTATIC UNIONTHE HEYTHROP JOURNAL, Issue 1 2006JOHN LAMONT First page of article [source] THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOANALYSIS WITH SO-CALLED ,DIFFICULT' PATIENTSTHE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PSYCHOANALYSIS, Issue 3 2002Rudi Vermote First page of article [source] KANT, SCIENCE, AND HUMAN NATUREANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY, Issue 1 2009PAUL GUYER First page of article [source] THE NATURE AND STRUCTURE OF CONTENTANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY, Issue 1 2009JAMES HIGGINBOTHAM First page of article [source] HUMAN NATURE, COMMUNICATION AND TRUSTANNALS OF PUBLIC AND COOPERATIVE ECONOMICS, Issue 1 2009Louis Putterman ABSTRACT,:,The facts that people can sometimes commit to fulfill promises even when there are no binding penalties and that kind and trusting acts are often reciprocated by trustworthy ones make possible forms of group action that might be ruled out in a hypothetical world of perfectly opportunistic individuals. I discuss some new experiments with a modified Berg,Dickhaut and McCabe (1995),trust game' that provide evidence that most subjects adhere to non-binding agreements, that many are prepared to rely on trust rather than use binding but moderately costly contracts, that the possibility of exchanging words rather than mere numerical proposals enhances trusting and trustworthiness, and that subjects are drawn to fair and efficient exchanges despite the self-interest model's prediction of outcomes more favorable to first-movers. [source] NATURE AND MICROSTRUCTURE OF GALLIC IMITATIONS OF SIGILLATA SLIPS FROM THE LA GRAUFESENQUE WORKSHOP*ARCHAEOMETRY, Issue 5 2009C. MIRGUET The red glaze (slip) that characterizes the Terra Sigillata potteries greatly contributed to their success during the Roman period. The colour of the slip can in fact be partially explained by the microstructure (crystalline phases, grain sizes) and the physico-chemistry (composition) of the ceramics. However, the precise process and the diffusion of this technique are still not fully known. In particular, we do not know yet how the production of sigillata took place in the south of Gaul, and the role that was played by the production under Italian influence (pre-sigillata) preceding the first local sigillata. In this work, a combination of transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray synchrotron diffraction techniques was used to study the microstructure of pre-sigillata slips from the main southern Gaul workshop (La Graufesenque), in order to compare their characteristics with those of high-quality sigillata. These first results seem to indicate that the antique potters chose clays adapted to their firing conditions and to the type of coating that they wanted to make. These productions cannot be described as an initial phase for the later sigillata production and, rather, seem to correspond to the intention of developing a specific type of pottery only inspired by the famous Italian sigillata forms. [source] NATURE, MARKETS AND STATE RESPONSE: THE DROUGHT OF 1939 IN JAPAN AND KOREAAUSTRALIAN ECONOMIC HISTORY REVIEW, Issue 1 2010Janet Hunter drought; hydroelectricity; Japan; Korea; rice production Large areas of Northeast Asia experienced drought in 1939. Agricultural production in Korea decreased significantly, but the drought did not cause famine in Japan despite its dependence on rice imports from Korea. The paper analyses the impact of the 1939 drought on the markets for rice and electricity in Japan. The authorities were ill-prepared for such a disaster but willing to use it for the purpose of covering for other problems. The drought thus accelerated the move of Japan's economic system towards a managed economy. A lower total rainfall in Japan in 1940 did not generate similar problems, suggesting that the broader political, economic, and social context is crucial to the identification of short-term climatic fluctuations as crises. [source] HUMAN NATURE AND ENHANCEMENTBIOETHICS, Issue 3 2009ALLEN BUCHANAN ABSTRACT Appeals to the idea of human nature are frequent in the voluminous literature on the ethics of enhancing human beings through biotechnology. Two chief concerns about the impact of enhancements on human nature have been voiced. The first is that enhancement may alter or destroy human nature. The second is that if enhancement alters or destroys human nature, this will undercut our ability to ascertain the good because, for us, the good is determined by our nature. The first concern assumes that altering or destroying human nature is in itself a bad thing. The second concern assumes that human nature provides a standard without which we cannot make coherent, defensible judgments about what is good. I will argue (1) that there is nothing wrong, per se, with altering or destroying human nature, because, on a plausible understanding of what human nature is, it contains bad as well as good characteristics and there is no reason to believe that eliminating some of the bad would so imperil the good as to make the elimination of the bad impermissible, and (2) that altering or destroying human nature need not result in the loss of our ability to make judgments about the good, because we possess a conception of the good by which we can and do evaluate human nature. I will argue that appeals to human nature tend to obscure rather than illuminate the debate over the ethics of enhancement and can be eliminated in favor of more cogent considerations. [source] THE NATURE OF FIRE AND ITS COMPLICATIONS: THEOPHRASTUS' DE IGNE 1,10BULLETIN OF THE INSTITUTE OF CLASSICAL STUDIES, Issue 1 2010MARLEIN VAN RAALTE This article offers a running commentary on De igne 1,10 (with text and translation). The way in which Theophrastus sets out to ascribe to the simple body of fire characteristics of terrestrial, burning fire, and only gradually dismisses his focus on fire (and its alter ego of heat) as a principle seems to indicate an early stage of his thought. On the other hand, a formal analysis of the text shows that the argument bears an unmistakably Theophrastean stamp. Finally it is argued that it cannot be inferred from De igne that Theophrastus adhered to the Aristotelian concept of aithêr, and that it is also very unlikely that he did so. The relevant passages from Theophrastus' botanical treatises and Metaphysics confirm this picture. Even the quite explicit testimonies from Philoponus and Julian seem to allow of an interpretation that does not involve Theophrastus having adopted this Aristotelian concept. [source] Systemic lupus erythematosus in a multiethnic US cohort: XXXIV.ARTHRITIS & RHEUMATISM, Issue 6 2006Deficient mannose-binding lectin exon 1 polymorphisms are associated with cerebrovascular but not with other arterial thrombotic events Objective To study the association between deficient mannose-binding lectin (MBL) genotypes and arterial thrombotic events in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Methods Patients with SLE of Hispanic, African American, and Caucasian ethnicity from LUMINA (LUpus in MInorities, NAture versus nurture), a multiethnic, longitudinal study of outcome, were studied. Arterial thrombotic events (myocardial infarction, angina, coronary artery bypass graft surgery, stroke, claudication, gangrene, or tissue loss and/or peripheral arterial thrombosis) that occurred after diagnosis were recorded. Genotyping for MBL gene polymorphisms was performed and their distribution was compared between patients who did and did not have thrombotic events. Results There were 58 events (21 cardiovascular, 27 cerebrovascular, and 10 peripheral vascular) in 48 patients. Patients who had thrombotic events were older and were more likely to be smokers, to have more severe disease, and to have accrued more damage overall. Also, a larger proportion of these patients had C-reactive protein values in the highest quintile of distribution. No significant difference in arterial thrombotic events was found in patients homozygous for MBL-deficient alleles compared with others. Similar results were seen within ethnic groups. Caucasians who developed potential thrombotic events exhibited a higher frequency of MBL-deficient alleles, but the difference was not statistically significant for all events together or for cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events combined. However, when only the cerebrovascular events were considered, the difference became statistically significant. Conclusion Age, smoking, and measures of activity and damage were associated with arterial thrombotic events in patients with SLE, but MBL-deficient genotypes were not, with cerebrovascular events in Caucasians being the exception. The relationship between MBL-variant alleles and arterial thrombotic events may exist only within select ethnic groups and event types. [source] Systemic lupus erythematosus in a multiethnic US cohort: Clinical features, course, and outcome in patients with late-onset diseaseARTHRITIS & RHEUMATISM, Issue 5 2006Ana M. Bertoli Objective To examine the clinical differences and the type and extent of organ damage in late- versus early-onset systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Methods A nested case,control study was performed in the context of LUMINA (LUpus in MInorities, NAture versus nurture), a large, longitudinal, multiethnic cohort. Patients who developed SLE at or after the age of 50 years were considered cases. Two controls (patients who developed SLE at age ,49 years) per case, matched for sex and disease duration, were randomly chosen. Selected baseline socioeconomic/demographic, behavioral, and psychological features, self-reported quality of life, and cumulative clinical data (clinical manifestations, laboratory data, disease activity, damage, and mortality) were compared between cases and controls. Multivariable analyses with late-onset lupus, damage accrual, and mortality as dependent variables were then performed. Results Two hundred seventeen patients were studied. Of them, 73 were cases. Cases were more likely to have neurologic involvement, arterial thrombotic events, osteoporosis, and hypertriglyceridemia, while renal involvement and anti-Sm antibodies were less frequent. Disease activity at baseline was lower among cases. Cases also exhibited more cardiovascular and ocular damage. Late-onset lupus was an independent predictor of damage accrual (t -test = 2.23, P = 0.028), any damage at last visit (odds ratio [OR] 23.32, 95% confidence interval [95% CI] 3.98,141.56) (P < 0.001), and mortality (OR 10.74, 95% CI 3.07,37.56) (P < 0.001). Conclusion Patients with late-onset lupus exhibit distinct clinical features. Although disease activity tends to be lower in these patients, they tend to accrue more damage and experience higher mortality than patients with early-onset lupus. These findings probably reflect the contribution exerted by other comorbid conditions in the overall impact of lupus in these patients. 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