The multifunctional zinc‐finger protein CCCTC‐binding factor (CTCF) is a very strong candidate for the role of coordinating the expression level of coding sequences with their three‐dimensional position in the nucleus, apparently responding to a “code” in the DNA itself. Dynamic interactions between chromatin fibers in the context of nuclear architecture have been implicated in various aspects of genome functions. However, the molecular basis of these interactions still remains elusive and is a subject of intense debate. Here we discuss the nature (...) of CTCF‐DNA interactions, the CTCF‐binding specificity to its binding sites and the relationship between CTCF and chromatin, and we examine data linking CTCF with gene regulation in the three‐dimensional nuclear space. We discuss why these features render CTCF a very strong candidate for the role and propose a unifying model, the “CTCF code,” explaining the mechanistic basis of how the information encrypted in DNA may be interpreted by CTCF into diverse nuclear functions. (shrink)

Research seeking a scientific foundation for the theory of art appreciation has raised controversies at the intersection of the social and cognitive sciences. Though equally relevant to a scientific inquiry into art appreciation, psychological and historical approaches to art developed independently and lack a common core of theoretical principles. Historicists argue that psychological and brain sciences ignore the fact that artworks are artifacts produced and appreciated in the context of unique historical situations and artistic intentions. After revealing flaws in the (...) psychological approach, we introduce a psycho-historical framework for the science of art appreciation. This framework demonstrates that a science of art appreciation must investigate how appreciators process causal and historical information to classify and explain their psychological responses to art. Expanding on research about the cognition of artifacts, we identify three modes of appreciation: basic exposure to an artwork, the artistic design stance, and artistic understanding. The artistic design stance, a requisite for artistic understanding, is an attitude whereby appreciators develop their sensitivity to art-historical contexts by means of inquiries into the making, authorship, and functions of artworks. We defend and illustrate the psycho-historical framework with an analysis of existing studies on art appreciation in empirical aesthetics. Finally, we argue that the fluency theory of aesthetic pleasure can be amended to meet the requirements of the framework. We conclude that scientists can tackle fundamental questions about the nature and appreciation of art within the psycho-historical framework. (shrink)

The degree to which physiology and culture have affected the formation of primitive color categories continues to be a matter of discussion. In this paper the degree of agreement between the ranges of individual color term foci for the four hue-based color categories yellow, green, blue, and red and individual choices of Munsell samples representing for the observers Hering's four unique hues is investigated. The color term focus range data are extracted from the survey results of the 110 unwritten languages (...) of the World Color Survey, also in terms of the Munsell color order system. Agreement of approximately 90% between the two has been found, indicating the likelihood of a strong color vision system related physiological component in the formation of these four primitive hue categories. (shrink)

This chapter discusses the ordering of color percepts, and starts by presenting an overview of the critical issues surrounding the topic and by examining the relationship between stimuli and percepts. Certain types of variability were found by experimental psychology in the relationship between stimulus and response as a result of observation conditions. In the twentieth century, the view that the normal human color-vision system has a standard implementation and that all perceptual data are appropriately treated with normal statistical distribution methodology (...) became the standard paradigm. However, the idea that the large number of color percepts humans can experience must fit into some kind of ordering system is an old one, going as far back to Aristotle and his proposed color categories based on a scale of chromatic colors between white and black. The strengths and limitations of the more recently developed kinds of color order systems are also touched upon here. (shrink)

Berlin & Kay hue-related basic color categories are compared with the ISCC-NBS system of object color categorization. Though independently derived, categories of the former form a small subset of the latter. A conjecture is proposed that explains the absence of yellow-green and blue-green basic hue categories and the potential for a violet category as the result of constraints on primitive hue category formation due to considerable variation in stimuli selected by color-normal observers as representing for them unique hues.

This commentary raises the possibility of recent discussion on the issue of basic color terms suffering from the "stimulus error," first described by the English psychologist E. B. Titchener. It refers to confusion of the psychological experience with the physical description of the stimulus. Such confusion is routine in everyday language in situations where private sensory experiences are involved that cannot be objectively described, but is harmful in fundamental discussions about experiences.

Critics of the target article objected to our account of art appreciators' sensitivity to art-historical contexts and functions, the relations among the modes of artistic appreciation, and the weaknesses of aesthetic science. To rebut these objections and justify our program, we argue that the current neglect of sensitivity to art-historical contexts persists as a result of a pervasive aesthetic–artistic confound; we further specify our claim that basic exposure and the design stance are necessary conditions of artistic understanding; and we explain (...) why many experimental studies do not belong to a psycho-historical science of art. (shrink)

Research shows that after layoffs, employees often report decreased commitment and performance which has been coined the survivor syndrome. However, the mechanisms underlying this effect remain underexplored. The purpose of the paper is to show that reduced organizational identification can serve as an explanation for the survivor syndrome. We conducted a laboratory experiment, in which participants work as a group of employees for another participant who acts as employer. In the course of the experiment, the employer decides whether one of (...) his or her employees should be laid off or not. Mediation analysis supports a social identity-based explanation for the emergence of the survivor syndrome: downsizing causes lower identification with the employer which in turn relates to lower performance of employees. (shrink)

The data from the World Color Survey of 110 un-written languages have been analyzed in regard to individual focal choices. A total of 46 major color terms have been identified. Of these 24 can be defined in terms of English color terms, while 22 cannot. The most important color term in terms of usage is red, followed by white and black. In the 110 languages, 73 different arrangements of major color terms have been found. The six Hering fundamental colors, presumably (...) closely related to the workings of the color vision system, occur preferentially but not consistently in languages with 6 or more major terms. They represent the top six categories in terms of major usage. WCS indicates usage of major color terms to be complex and clearly also influenced by cultural choices. (shrink)

Idea for a universal history with cosmopolitan intent / Immanuel Kant -- Philosophy of history / Johann Gottfried von Herder -- What is universal history and to what end does one study it? / Friedrich Schiller -- On the task of the historian / Wilhelm von Humboldt -- Idea of universal history / Johann Gottlieb Fichte -- World history / Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel -- The ages of the world / Friedrich Wilhelm Josef Schelling -- On the epochos of modern (...) history / Leopold von Ranke -- Preface to first edition of histories on the Latin and Germanic nations / Leopold von Ranke -- Introduction to the history of the nineteenth century / Georg Gottfried Gervinus -- Outline of the principles of history / Johann Gustav Droysen -- The German ideology / Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels -- Speeches and essays / Theodor Mommsen -- Answer to the inaugural addresses / Theodor Mommsen -- On fortume and misfortune in history / Jakob Burckhardt -- Patterns and meaning in history / Wilhelm Dilthey -- The task of the historian / Heinrich von Treitschke -- The use and abuse of history / Friedrich Nietzsche -- Historism: the rise of the new historical outlook / Friedrich Meinecke -- The meaning of history / Karl Jaspers -- The problem of world history / Oswald Spengler. (shrink)

In many systems, the tensors used to describe physical properties must acquire their structure from one vector. Knowledge of that fact alone leads to an interesting line of analysis for such systems. The analysis begins with a discussion of the types of dyadics that can be constructed from one vector. Attention is focused on certain exemplary dyadic operators, which, because of their geometrical properties, would appear particularly basic; the algebra of these dyadics is developed in detail. The algebra is then (...) used in a derivation of the expansion of general functions of these dyadics. Several applications of the general expansion are presented: the inverse of a general dyadic operator (when it exists), a general rotation operator that includes strains and reflections, the determinant of a general dyadic operator, and operators, including some new ones, used in constructing Lorentz boosts. Finally, a coordinate-free representation of the Levi-Civita tensor is provided. (shrink)

The coordinate-free methods of the preceding paper are illustrated in three problems. First, the electrodynamics of a homogeneous, isotropic, and gyrotropic medium is investigated; it is shown that such a medium can exhibit optical activity, and the propagation of a plane electromagnetic wave in such a medium is discussed. Then, the electrodynamics of a homogeneous system made anisotropic by a uniform external magnetic field is considered; a description of Faraday rotation is provided, the ionosphere being used in an example. Finally, (...) the reflection and refraction of a plane electromagnetic wave at the interface of two media are described by coordinate-free operators. (shrink)

Pathological morphogenesis on leaves of Fraxinus ornus (ash) and Solanum lycopersicum (tomato) under the influence of mites (Aceria fraxinivora and Eriophyes cladophthirus respectively) leads to a range of structures whose morphology and development cannot be reduced to the classical categories of plant morphology, but present a heterogeneous continuum which links fundamental structural categories. These findings support the pyramid model of plant construction.

Name der Zeitschrift: Nietzscheforschung Jahrgang: 21 Heft: 1 Seiten: 257-274.

Ever since antiquity, philosophy has continuously striven to grasp the phenomenon of humor and laughter, while, in modern times, Bergson certainly holds a special place,\ with his interpretation of laughter, and particularly “humor”, as a form of social sanction. However, such an analysis neglects the fact that the ability to laugh is actually grounded in a primordial sphere of life-affection as such, so that, starting from here, we could understand laughter, in connection with the radical-phenomenological essence of life itself, as (...) being essentially joy. (shrink)

Maine de Biran (1766-1824) has rarely been thought of as a forerunner of phenomenology in German speaking countries, although mere self-apperception, which follows the primacy of practical transcendentality, surfaces in his analysis. Examining the differential lecture of the sense of touch, as well as the ‚Metaphysics of the Hand‘ by J. Derrida, the author questions his monistic premises to perceive the immediacy of any initial endeavour as a motion, which originates in the possibility of life itself. This result in combination (...) with the sensitivity of the skin leads to a radical phenomenological description of immanent self-manifestation in the flesh, bodily subjectivity and the visibility of flesh as body. (shrink)

The paper attempts to propound a new understanding of the experience of the world and others on the basis of a radical phenomenology of the body, as it is revealed in the originary impressibility as affect and desire. This impressibility shapes every relation to beings and others due to the unity of an originary life that founds individuation before any temporal difference, having ethical consequences for a plural communality, which can no longer be characterized by means of mere abstract processes (...) of objectivation. (shrink)

Auch in der gegenwärtigen Naturphilosophie wird erkannt, dass die klassische Verstehensweise unserer näheren und ferneren „Umwelt“ über ein mechanistisches Weltbild, wie es den Naturwissenschaften lange zugrunde lag, nicht mehr allein angemessen sein kann. Diese notwendige Korrektur,die gerade im Zusammenhang mit dem Teleologiegedanken des Lebendigen besonders diskutiert wird, muss jedoch in phänomenologischer Sicht noch weiter geführt werden, denn es ist die deskriptive Erscheinensvoraussetzung von Differenz oder Transzendenz im modernen Denken selbst, die in Frage zu stellen ist, um „Natur“ aus einem immanenten (...) Einheitsbegriff heraus aufzuweisen. Die philosophie‐ wie geistesgeschichtlichen Sondierungen zu Antike und Mittelalter sollen dabei bewusst machen, dass diese Zweideutigkeit von Immanenz/Transzendenz vom griechischen Physis‐Begriff über den christlichen Schöpfungsgedanken bis zur Moderne weiter vererbt wurde unddaher heute mit einer radikalisierten Phänomenologie zu konfrontieren ist, welche sich zugleich der Verantwortung für eine Einheit von Natur/Kultur in Zukunft bewusst ist.Contemporary philosophy recognizes that the “environment” cannot be understood any longer with a mechanistic conception of the world alone. This is discussed in context with the teleology of the living and descriptive presupposition of appearance of difference/transcendence in modern thinking,in order to exhibit “nature” from an immanent unit term. The ancient philosophy and the middle ages philosophy make conscious that this duality of Immanence/transcendence is a heritage from the Greek term of physisthat passed through the Christian view of Creation to reach the modernity.Today this heritage is confronted to the radicalized phenomenology, in orderto take the responsibility of unifying in the future nature and culture. (shrink)