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The FEW is a huge dictionary when we consider the sheer mass of data (25 volumes, 16000 pages) and its exhaustive aims. It has indeed the purpose of registering and etymologizing the whole lexicon, not only of French, but also of earlier stages of the language and of Occitan; of every Gallo-romance dialect; of every technical or professional genre; of every language register, including slang. Summing up, the FEW aims to include and describe every single lexical unit which exists or has existed in the territory of ancient Gaul. The sheer size of this undertaking means two things, which directly influence the digitalisation of the dictionary: Firstly, there is a a huge amount of data; secondly, the presentation and organization of the data is exceedingly complex. The reasons for digitalising the FEW are the easy searches for units, and the carrying out of searches using criteria that are not possible to use with the printed version. However, the fulfillment of these purposes includes some risks, and potentially the cutting of some corners, especially the temptation of renouncing reading.
Among mass digitization methods, double-keying is considered to be the one with the lowest error rate. This method requires two independent transcriptions of a text by two different operators. It is particularly well suited to historical texts, which often exhibit deficiencies like poor master copies or other difficulties such as spelling variation or complex text structures. Providers of data entry services using the double-keying method generally advertise very high accuracy rates (around 99.95% to 99.98%). These advertised percentages are generally estimated on the basis of small samples, and little if anything is said about either the actual amount of text or the text genres which have been proofread, about error types, proofreaders, etc. In order to obtain significant data on this problem it is necessary to analyze a large amount of text representing a balanced sample of different text types, to distinguish the structural XML/TEI level from the typographical level, and to differentiate between various types of errors which may originate from different sources and may not be equally severe. This paper presents an extensive and complex approach to the analysis and correction of double-keying errors which has been applied by the DFG-funded project “Deutsches Textarchiv” (German Text Archive, hereafter DTA) in order to evaluate and preferably to increase the transcription and annotation accuracy of double-keyed DTA texts. Statistical analyses of the results gained from proofreading a large quantity of text are presented, which verify the common accuracy rates for the double-keying method.
The current debates on the demographic transformation have been characterised on the one hand by declining birth rates and on the other by increasing life expectancy. Such debates usually focus on the consequences for society, which are frequently described in dark terms. In this booklet, by contrast, you will find analyses and suggestions on how to improve the situation of children and parents to make it easier to realise the desire to have children.
Numerous high-quality primary text sources—in the context of the curation project described here, this means full-text transcriptions (and corresponding image scans) of German works originating from the 15th to the 19th centuries—are scattered among the web or stored remotely. E.g., transcriptions of historical sources are stored locally on degrading recording media and cannot be found, let alone accessed by third parties. Additionally, idiosyncratic, project-specific markup conventions and uncommon, out-of-date or inflexible storage formats often hinder further usage and analysis of the data. Often, textual resources are accompanied by scarce, insufficient or inaccurate bibliographic information, which is only one further reason why valuable resources, even if available on the web, remain undiscovered by and are of little use to the wider research community. The integration of these dispersed primary text sources into the sustainable, web and centres-based research infrastructure of CLARIN-D will be an important step to solve this problem. The Full Paper illustrates an exemplary approach taken by the »Deutsches Textarchiv« (DTA; www.deutschestextarchiv.de) at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BBAW) to integrate dispersed textual resources and corresponding image scans from various sources into a large historical text corpus of its own and to insert these into the infrastructure of CLARIN-D.
In Lower Lusatia, eastern Germany, the changing impacts of lignite coal mining and potential climate change have put the naturally low water yield conditions under pressure. Water resources balances describe the hydrological situation in the region and the need for action due to changing boundary conditions. Extended transfer of flood water from neighbouring catchments is considered inevitable for sustainable regional development and the establishment of a quantitatively and qualitatively selfregulated water system. Using the river basin management system WBalMo®, potential water transfer scenarios to compensate for water deficits resulting from regional and global change are analysed.
The present study explores whether regional water resources can be used more efficiently by Brandenburg’s farming systems. A description of agriculture in Brandenburg today is followed by a systematic analysis of measures to raise the water efficiency. Brandenburg’s agricultural systems are divided into three sections: soil, plant production and livestock farming. Within these sections measures to increase water efficiency are listed and analysed with reference to five objective criteria for raising water use efficiency. In view of the complexity of farming systems in Brandenburg, general measures to raise water use efficiency could not be derived. Site-specific tillage practices and crop patterns adjusted to recent weather conditions may reflect the specific diversity of Brandenburg more efficiently.
Global climate change and aspects of regional climate change in the Berlin-Brandenburg region
(2011)
To obtain an estimate of the average temperature of the northern hemisphere during the last 1200 years, proxy data have been merged with instrumental recordings. These instrumental measurements are, with a few exceptions, only available for the recent 150 years. In the city of Berlin the temperature has been recorded since as early as 1701. However, during the first 150 years the measurements were problematic as location, measurement procedure and instruments changed frequently and without proper documentation. From 1847 onwards observations became more reliable once the Royal Prussian Meteorological Institute had been established. For the last 100 years temperature and precipitation measurements have been performed in parallel at Berlin-Dahlem and Potsdam. The datasets recorded in the city of Berlin and in Berlin-Dahlem have been merged to obtain a record of more than 300 years. It indicates that the temperature of Berlin has risen by 1.04°C during the last 100 years after correcting for the urbanisation effect. In the same period, the total number of frost days has significantly decreased by almost 17 days, and the number of summer days has significantly increased by about 12 days. Annual mean precipitation has hardly changed (decrease less than 0.2 %) during the last century. However, rainfall has decreased by about 4 % in summer and increased by 3 % in winter. All precipitation changes are below the 95 % ignificance level. Model projections indicate that warming will continue which means that Berlin-Brandenburg will experience a temperature rise of about 3-3.5°C by the end of this century for the IPCC scenario A1B. For the same scenario precipitation is expected to increase by 10-20 % in winter and to decrease by 10-30 % in summer: The seasonal precipitation changes compensate each other resulting in an almost unchanged annual mean.
This special issue of DIE ERDE presents selected key topics discussed within the BBAW working group, including work by group members and invited external researchers, containing nine articles highlighting “Regional Water Challenges” resulting from different kinds of environmental and social changes. We aim to present the complexity of interaction between changes and responses. While the first four articles focus on describing climatic and hydrological changes and their causes, the following five articles focus more on possible mitigation and adaptation measures.
Climate change is expected to increase water scarcity in northeast Germany. Land-use change is one of the options of mitigation that is intensely discussed in this region. This review aims at giving a compilation of existing data and modelling studies in order to investigate the potential and the limits of the land-use change approach.
The climate change debate has increased the need for knowledge on both long- and short-term regional environmental changes. In general, these changes may often be a product of multiple causes, which complicates the separation of single driving forces. In this review we focus on current water budget changes in Germany’s capital region, Berlin-Brandenburg, over the last 30 years. Available studies from a variety of disciplines (e.g. hydrology, water engineering, landscape ecology, nature conservation) were analysed in order to (1) identify both local and regional hydrological changes, (2) reveal their potential causes, and (3) discuss responses of ecosystems and society. These studies show that the Berlin-Brandenburg region is widely characterised by decreasing groundwater recharge, leading to decreasing groundwater and lake levels as well as decreasing fluvial discharge. These trends result both from complex, regional human impacts (e.g. long-term effects of hydro-melioration and changes in forest composition) and more general climate warming. The observed and assumed (future) changes of the regional water balance have been creating, and will continue to create, multifaceted impacts on existing ecosystems and society (e.g. wetland drying, decrease of biodiversity, decrease of productivity of grasslands and forests, increasing conflicts of interests). Several efforts to respond to the regional water deficit problem have already been undertaken, comprising for instance land-use optimisation, wetland restoration measures and the reestablishment of mixed deciduous forests. In general, however, the reviewed regional material on this topic reveals that the number and complexity of empirical studies are still poor. Thus, for both the identification and the explanation of current water balance changes and their effects, as well as for development and implementation of adaptive strategies, further multidisciplinary research efforts at different scales, including interregional comparisons, are required. Furthermore, both the observation of hydrological changes and the evaluation of adaptive and mitigative responses require at least continuous or, even better, extended monitoring efforts.
For decades, water resources have been used intensively for drinking water, industry, agriculture and energy production. This paper summarises the main anthropogenic influences on the water cycle in a Pleistocene landscape and associated geochemical reactions. The results allow the identification and description of the main hydraulic and geochemical processes that control water and solute fluxes in different hydrological compartments, in particular recharge and discharge regions. Under progressive climate change, this process-based knowledge should be used to adapt land and water management to minimise negative impacts on hydrological resources and stabilise the regional water balance in theBerlin-Brandenburg Pleistocene landscape. Based on these results, a risk assessment approach for validation of future management strategies under changing climate conditions is presented.
Since humans are preferentially settling in flood plains they often influence freshwater systems intensely. The first signs of anthropogenic impacts on surface waters in the Berlin-Brandenburg region are approximately 3000 years old. Considering the multiple and intense human uses of surface waters in this region, we analysed when, how and to which extent regional rivers and streams became impacted by dams, water mills and fish weirs resulting in changes in morphology, hydrology and ecological functioning. We hypothesise that the development and growth of cities in this region necessitated (1) efficient navigability of rivers linking them, (2) efficient use of hydropower resources for mills, and (3) significant pollution of surface waters especially with the beginning of industrial development. We analyse these hypotheses by means of three regional examples and delineate the effects of human uses on selected surface water bodies. Understanding the effects of these historic modifications of surface water supports the identification of options for a sustainable use of surface waters that are currently still subjected to multiple uses but face a significant decrease in discharge due to climate change.
Global change is posing a major challenge to existing forms of natural resource use, socio-economic development and institutional regulation. Although trends such as climate change, socio-economic transformation and institutional change are global in their scope, they have very specific regional outcomes. Regionally distinct coping strategies are required which take into account both the diversity of regional impacts of global change and the local contexts of appropriate responses. This paper explores the impacts of global change on the management of water infrastructure systems in the Berlin-Brandenburg region in terms of three concurrent and overlapping challenges: climate change, socio-economic change and institutional change. It subsequently examines how regional actors in the water sector are addressing these three dimensions of global change.
The article informs about historical developments and recent problems in the former wetlands of the Oderbruch, which has been cultivated for agricultural use for 300 years, and in the fen region of the Rhin-Havel-Luch. The periodically inundated floodplains of Oderbruch are characterised by rich-in-clay sedimentation soils, while Rhin-Havel-Luch is a year-round wet fen region with peat soils. In both areas land use necessarily requires an adequate regional water management, employing measures and system solutions for river training, dike construction, drainage and soil cultivation. Options for action and adaptation strategies for the next 20 to 40 years, based on many years of own analyses and case studies, are presented and discussed. The article also considers an aggravation of the problems to be expected from climate change.
This special issue of DIE ERDE presents selected key topics discussed within the BBAW working group, including work by group members and invited external researchers, containing nine articles highlighting “Regional Water Challenges” resulting from different kinds of environmental and social changes. We aim to present the complexity of interaction between changes and responses. While the first four articles focus on describing climatic and hydrological changes and their causes, the following five articles focus more on possible mitigation and adaptation measures.
This special issue of DIE ERDE presents selected key topics discussed within the BBAW working group, including work by group members and invited external researchers, containing nine articles highlighting “Regional Water Challenges” resulting from different kinds of environmental and social changes. We aim to present the complexity of interaction between changes and responses. While the first four articles focus on describing climatic and hydrological changes and their causes, the following five articles focus more on possible mitigation and adaptation measures.
Gedanken über die weitere Arbeit am Wörterbuch der Ägyptischen Sprache
An der Sprache des Rechts wird Kritik geübt, seit die Aufklärung die Verständlichkeit der Gesetze zu ihrem Anliegen gemacht hat. Mit den großen Kodifikationen des Rechts im ausgehenden 19. Jahrhundert hat die Kritik am angeblich schlechten, unverständlichen Juristendeutsch eine besondere demokratietheoretische Legitimation bekommen. Diese Sprachkritik sucht seit den siebziger Jahren vermehrt bei der Linguistik Rat, wie denn eine bessere Allgemeinverständlichkeit von Rechtstexten verwirklicht werden könnte. Der Band versammelt systematisch aufeinander bezogene Beiträge ausgewiesener Linguisten, Juristen und Schriftsteller zur Problematik des Verständnisses juristischer Sprache, zur Methodik empirischer Verständlichkeitsmessung und zu den Möglichkeiten transdisziplinärer Kooperation zwischen Rechts- und Sprachwissenschaftlern.
Responding to the Antique : a rediscovered Roman Circus Sarcophagus and its Renaissance Afterlife
(2005)
The example of Spain illustrates how the production of socio-ecological scales is centred on the social transformation of nature and the construction of socio-ecological and political-ecological scalar gestalts. Concrete geographies, with choreographies of uneven and shifting social power relations, are etched into these ecological, social, political or institutional scalar configurations. These processes are infused with contested and contestable strategies of individuals and social groups, who mobilise spatial scales as part of struggles for control and empowerment, and contest the power geometries of extant scalar gestalts. Needless to say, the mobilisation of scale, the occupation of geographical scale, and the production of scale are central moments in such processes of socio-spatial change. Struggling for the command of scale, or strategizing around excluding particular groups from the performative capabilities of certain scales, shapes social processes, defines relative empowerment and disempowerment and gives rise to very specific socio-spatial relations.
The principal objective of this article is to reflect (in a philosophical manner) on recent developments in moral legislation in The Netherlands. The term ›moral legislation‹ refers to all forms of legislation on issues which can be regarded as ›moral‹ – such as euthanasia and animal experimentation. The reason for focussing on The Netherlands is that, on an international level, it is a country which has gained a reputation for being ›liberal‹, and is therefore admired by some and held in abhorrence by others.
Modern brain research related to consciousness has resulted in many interesting in- sights, for example into the neurobiological basis of attention and of language. In biological terms, human consciousness appears as a system’s feature of our brain, with neural processes strictly following the laws of physics. This does not necessarily imply, however, that there can be a general and comprehensive scientific theory of consciousness. Predictions of the extent to which such a theory may become possi- ble vary widely in the scientific community. There are reasons - not only practical but also epistemological - why the brain-mind relation may not be fully decodable by finite procedures. In particular, analogies with mathematical theorems of un- decidability suggest that self-referential features of consciousness, such as multiple self-representations like those involved in strategic thought, may not be fully resolv- able by brain analysis. Assuming such limitations exist, this implies that ob jective analysis cannot exhaust sub jective experience in principle. A person’s consciousness and will are accessible to external observation only within limits. In some respects, we do not even learn to know ourselves except by our actions. It thus appears that a scientific look at consciousness and the human mind, combining universal physi- calism with epistemological scepticism, is not inconsistent with certain concepts of sub jectivity that are current in the humanities, despite all the differences in the style and terminology of discourse.
Emergence, analysis and optimization of structures - Concepts and strategies across disciplines
(2007)
Some drawings from the >Paper Museum< of Cassiano dal Pozzo and the Berlin Codex Destailleur >D<
(2004)
The future of biological diversity in a crowded world (Ernst Mayr Lecture on 29th October 2002)
(2006)
Introduction : The Grants, Dreaming Darwin's Dream ; (Ernst Mayr Lecture am 4. November 2004)
(2006)
Mind, Matter and Mathematics
(2008)
A reaction to the article „The Lost Archive“, The Wall Street Journal 12.1.2008, page 1 (US edition) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120008793352784631.html The belief in the myth that old manuscripts should be mysterious and powerful is part and parcel of the age of Modernity. That such expectations were operative in the discussion on the Qumran fragments is still remembered, and more recently the Da Vinci Code, in itself a quite shallow story, sold extremely well. The fact that the Wall Street Journal placed an article on the “lost Bergsträsser-film archive” of Qur’anic manuscripts on its front page on 12th of January seems to be due to the myth of “textual wars” taking place in the world.
Psychology's territories - historical and contemporary perspective from different disciplines
(2007)
What determines the territories of psychology? How have the boundaries of psychological research and practice been developed in history, and how might or should they be changed nowadays? This volume presents new approaches to these questions, resulting from a three-year collaboration among internationally known psychologists, neuroscientists, social scientists and historians and philosophers of science from Germany and the United States under the auspices of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. The authors reflect critically on traditional and current views of psychology on the basis of focused historical and contemporary case studies of three broad topic areas: How have psychological concepts been used in disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, or neuroscience, as well as in daily life? Has the use of instruments in psychological research expanded or restricted the discipline’s reach? And how have applications of psychological thinking and research worked in practical contexts? The volume thus presents essays that investigate the separations as well as the interactions between psychology and its neighboring disciplines and, moreover, essays that try to overcome disciplinary distinctions in exemplary ways. The contributions aim to make historical and philosophical studies of psychology relevant to contemporary concerns, and to show how psychology can profit from better interdisciplinary cooperation, thus improving mutual understanding between different scientific cultures.
Full applicability of physics to human biology does not necessarily imply that one can uncover a comprehensive, algorithmic correlation between physical brain states and corresponding mental states. The argument takes into account that information processing is finite in principle in a finite world. Presumbly the brain-mind-relation cannot be resolved in all essential aspects, particularly when high degrees of abstraction or self-analytical processes are involved. Our conjecture plausibly unifies the universal validity of physics and a logical limitation of human thought, and it does not regard consciousness -the most basic human experience - as a marginal phenomenon. ++++ RATIO appeared up to 1987 in both a German and an English version. The German title of this article: Alfred Gierer, Der physikalische Grundlegungsversuch in der Biologie und das psychophysische Problem. RATIO XII, Heft 1, 1970, S. 40-54.
Understanding cooperative human behaviour depends on insights into the biological basis of human altruism, as well as into socio-cultural development. In terms of evolutionary theory, kinship and reciprocity are well established as underlying cooperativeness. Reasons will be given suggesting an additional source, the capability of a cognition-based empathy that may have evolved as a by-product of strategic thought. An assessment of the range, the intrinsic limitations, and the conditions for activation of human cooperativeness would profit from a systems approach combining biological and socio-cultural aspects. However, this is not yet the prevailing attitude among contemporary social and biological scientists who often hold prejudiced views of each other's notions. It is therefore worth noticing that the desirable integration of aspects has already been attempted, in remarkable and encouraging ways, in the history of thought on human nature. I will exemplify this with the ideas of the fourteenth century Arab-Muslim historian Ibn Khaldun. He set out to explicate human cooperativeness - "asabiyah" - as having a biological basis in common descent, but being extendable far beyond within social systems, though in a relatively unstable and attenuated fashion. He combined psychological and material factors in a dynamical theory of the rise and decline of political rulership, and related general social phenomena to basic features of human behaviour influenced by kinship, expectation of reciprocity, and empathic emotions.
The study of structures is a common concern of all scientific disciplines. The motivation as well as the methods of analysis, however, differ considerably. In engineering, the generation of artifacts, of infrastructures or technological processes are of primary interest. Frequently, the analysis aims at an optimization of the structures and the structure generating processes. Quite different is the study and explanation of existing structures in biology and the social sciences. Here the question of optimality does not present itself in an unambiguous manner. Generally, it must be questioned whether biological and social structures, although developing in an evolutionary way, can be considered as leading towards an a-priori defineable goal of optimality. The complex scenario of qualitative and quantitative modeling, and the goal-oriented and statistical approaches to understanding the meliorisation efforts in the various fields of the sciences and humanities define the scope of this book. Its intention is to create trans-disciplinary insights into methods to fecundate the custom disciplinary approaches.
The concept of ecosystem services was developed capitalizing on ecological knowledge that ecosystems perform various functions like increasing or retarding water fluxes, cleansing or polluting water, modifying microclimatic conditions, sustaining or impoverishing biological diversity and so on. There is growing body of ecological knowledge that management of agricultural landscape for its structural diversity is becoming the important pillar of the sustainability of rural areas. Programmes of environmental protection in rural areas should aim not only at introduction environmental friendly technologies of cultivation within farm. They should also be concerned with challenge of how to increase the resistance or resilience of the whole landscape against threats. Recognition of non -commodity effects of diversified agricultural landscape formed by introduction into cultivated fields shelterbelts, stretches of meadows, small mid -field water reservoirs and other biogeochemical barriers provide new options to combine societal demands with environment production. Co -adaptation of human activities with landscape services relies on policy that economic processes should be conformed with ecological processes operating in the region which are enhancing landscape capacities for naturalization of pollution, regeneration of wastes, recycling of water recourses as well as increasing resistance or resilience of the whole system to stresses caused by production of goals required by society. Recognition of system multifunctionality helps to achieve that goal. The knowledge on processes underpinning ecosystem services opened new frontiers for management of landscapes' structures towards enhancing their capacities to deliver requested services. Forests and shelterbelts show similar functions in the landscape but network of shelterbelts perform many similar services like forests growing on smaller part of landscape area. According to studies carried out by Research Centre for Agricultural and Forest Environment in Poland the following functions of shelterbelts are similar to those shown by forests when 4 -5% of the landscape area is under the network of shelterbelts: - modify the microclimatic conditions and heat and water balances; - control the water chemistry composition (control of diffuse pollution); - limit water and wind erosion; - protect the biodiversity; - increase the survival of the game animals; - enhance recreational value of the region; - provide wood and other products; - promote aesthetic values of the countryside. In this review the first four functions of agricultural landscape within Turew neighborhood will be presented.
With the present report the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities wants to draw attention to the results of one of its interdisciplinary projects, which are published elsewhere in more detail. The authors believe that their particular approach to the subject of "waste energy recovery", in combination with an interdisciplinary perspective, suggests a new way of discussing energy problems that has the potential to lead to qualified statements...
This is the invited evening lecture of the biannual workshop on hydroid development of 1999. Its topic is the role of hydra as a rather puristic model for the de-novo generation of spatial patterns in development, and our work in this field. Emphasis is placed not only on experimental studies, but also on theoretical analysis, because the understanding of spatial order requires a systems approach involving the combination of knowledge on molecules, cells and tissues with mathematical analysis, laws and facts.
The birth of rules
(2001)
Physical principles underlying biological pattern formation are discussed. In particular, the combination of local self-enhancement and long-range (“lateral”) inhibition (Gierer and Meinhardt, 1972) accounts for de-novo pattern formation, and for striking features of developmental regulation such as induction, spacing and proportion regulation of centers of activation in tissues and cells. Part I explains physical principles of spatial organisation in biological development. Part II demonstrates in mathematical terms that and how short-range activation and long-range inhibition are conditions for the generation of spatial concentration patterns. The conditions can be expressed in terms of ranges, rates and orders of reactions. These conditions, in turn, can also be derived by analysis of dynamic instabilities by means of Fourier waves, showing the neither obvious nor trivial relation between the latter approach and the theory based primarily on autocatalysis and lateral inhibition.
Ancient Greek philosophers were the first to postulate the possibility of explaining nature in theoretical terms and to initiate attempts at this. With the rise of monotheistic religions of revelation claiming supremacy over human reason and envisaging a new world to come, studies of the natural order of the transient world were widely considered undesirable. Later, in the Middle Ages, the desire for human understanding of nature in terms of reason was revived. This article is concerned with the fundamental reversal of attitudes, from “undesirable” to “desirable”, that eventually led into the foundations of modern science. One of the earliest, most ingenious and most interesting personalities involved was Eriugena, a theologian at the Court of Charles the Bald in the 9th century. Though understanding what we call nature is only one of the several aspects of his theological work, his line of thought implies a turn into a pro-scientific direction: the natural order is to be understood in abstract terms of ‘primordial causes’; understanding nature is considered to be the will of God; man encompasses the whole of creation in a physical as well as a mental sense. Basically similar ideas on the reconciliation of scientific rationality and monotheistic religions of revelation were conceived, independently and nearly simultaneously, by the Arab philosopher al-Kindi in Bagdad. Eriugena was more outspoken in his claim that reason is superior to authority. This claim is implicit in the thought of Nicholas of Cusa with his emphasis on human mental creativity as the image of God’s creativity; and it is the keynote of Galileo’s ‘Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina’ some 800 years later, the manifesto expressing basic attitudes of modern science. This article in English is based on the monography (in German): A. Gierer “Eriugena, al-Kindi, Nikolaus von Kues - Protagonisten einer wissenschaftsfreundlichen Wende im philosophischen und theologischen Denken”, Acta Historica Leopoldina 29 (1999), Barth Verlag in MVH Verlage Heidelberg, ISBN: 3-335-00652-6
Aggregates of previously isolated cells of Hydra are capable, under suitable solvant conditions, of regeneration forming complete animals. In a first stage, ecto- and endodermal cells sort out, producing the bilayered hollow structure characteristic of Hydra tissue; thereafter, heads are formed (even if the original cell preparation contained no head cells), eventually leading to the separation of normal animals with head, body column and foot. Hydra appears to be the highest type of organism that allows for regeneration of the entire structure from random cell aggregates. The system is particularly useful for studying cell interactions, tissue polarity, pattern formation, and cell differentiation.
The generation of viral mutants in vitro was demonstrated by treatment of the isolated RNA of Tobacco Mosaic Virus by nitrous acid. This agent causes deaminations converting cytosine into uracil, and adenine into hypoxanthine. Our assay for mutagenesis was the production of local lesions on a tobacco variety on which the untreated strain produces systemic infections only. A variety of different mutants are generated in this way. Quantitative analysis of the kinetics of mutagenesis leads to the conclusion that alteration of a single out of the 6000 nucleotides of the viral RNA is sufficient for causing a mutation.
Within the sedimentation diagram of infective RNA preparations isolated from Tobacco Mosaic Virus, undegraded molecules form a sharp peak with a molecular weight corresponding to the total RNA content of the virus particle. Degradation kinetics by ribonuclease is of the linear, single-target type, indicating that the RNA is single-stranded. The intact RNA of a virus particle thus forms one big single-stranded molecule. Quantitative evaluation of the effect degradation by RNA-ase on the infectivity of the RNA shows that the integrity of the entire molecule is required for its biological activity.
Biological evolution and technological innovation, while differing in many respects, also share common features. In particular, the implementation of a new technology in the market is analogous to the spreading of a new genetic trait in a population. Technological innovation may occur either through the accumulation of quantitative changes, as in the development of the ocean clipper, or it may be initiated by a new combination of features or subsystems, as in the case of steamships. Other examples of the latter type are electric networks that combine the generation, distribution, and use of electricity, and containerized transportation that combines standardized containers, logistics, and ships. Biological evolution proceeds, phenotypically, in many small steps, but at the genetic level novel features may arise not only through the accumulation of many small, common mutational changes, but also when distinct, relatively rare genetic changes are followed by many further mutations. New evolutionary directions may be initiated by, in particular, some rare combinations of regulatory sections within the genome. The combinatorial type of mechanism may not be a logical prerequisite for biological innovation, but it can be efficient, especially when novel features arise out of already highly developed systems. Such is the case with the evolution of general, widely applicable capabilities of the human brain. Hypothetical examples include the evolution of strategic thought, which encompasses multiple self-representations, cognition-based empathy, meta-levels of abstraction, and symbolic language. These capabilities of biologically modern man may have been initiated, perhaps some 150 000 years ago, by one or few accidental but distinct combinations of modules and subroutines of gene regulation which are involved in the generation of the neural network in the cerebral cortex. This hypothesis concurs with current insights into the molecular biology of the combinatorial and hierarchical facets of gene regulation that underlie brain development. A theory of innovation encompassing technological as well as biological development cannot per se dictate alternative explanations of biological evolution, but it may help in adding weight and directing attention to notions outside the mainstream, such as the hypothesis that few distinct genetic changes were crucial for the evolution of modern man.
The topic of this article is the relation between bottom-up and top-down, reductionist and “holistic” approaches to the solution of basic biological problems. While there is no doubt that the laws of physics apply to all events in space and time, including the domains of life, understanding biology depends not only on elucidating the role of the molecules involved, but, to an increasing extent, on systems theoretical approaches in diverse fields of the life sciences. Examples discussed in this article are the generation of spatial patterns in development by the interplay of autocatalysis and lateral inhibition; the evolution of integrating capabilities of the human brain, such as cognition-based empathy; and both neurobiological and epistemological aspects of scientific theories of consciousness and the mind.
The development of modern science has depended strongly on specific features of the cultures involved; however, its results are widely and transculturally accepted and applied. The science and technology of electricity, for example, emerged as a specific product of post-Renaissance Europe, rooted in the Greek philosophical tradition that encourages explanations of nature in theoretical terms. It did not evolve in China presumably because such encouragement was missing. The transcultural acceptance of modern science and technology is postulated to be due, in part, to the common biological dispositions underlying human cognition, with generalizable capabilities of abstract, symbolic and strategic thought. These faculties of the human mind are main prerequisites for dynamic cultural development and differentiation. They appear to have evolved up to a stage of hunters and gatherers perhaps some 100 000 years ago. However, the extent of the correspondence between some constructions of the human mind and the order of nature, as revealed by science, is a late insight of the last two centuries. Unless we subscribe to extreme forms of constructivism or historical relativism, we may take the success and the formal structure of science as indications of a close, intrinsic relation between the physical and the mental, between the order of nature and the structure of human cognition. At the metatheoretical level, however, modern science is consistent with philosophical and cultural diversity.
Modern science, based on the laws of physics, claims validity for all events in space and time. However, it also reveals its own limitations, such as the indeterminacy of quantum physics, the limits of decidability, and, presumably, limits of decodability of the mind-brain relationship. At the philosophical level, these intrinsic limitations allow for different interpretations of the relation between human cognition and the natural order. In particular, modern science may be logically consistent with religious as well as agnostic views of humans and the universe. These points are exemplified through the transcript of a discussion between Kurt Gödel and Rudolf Carnap that took place in 1940. Gödel, discoverer of mathematical undecidability, took a proreligious view; Carnap, one of the founders of analytical philosophy, an antireligious view. By the time of the discussion, Carnap had liberalized his ideas on theoretical concepts of science: he believed that observational terms do not suffice for an exhaustive definition of theoretical concepts. Then, responded Gödel, one should formulate a theory or metatheory that is consistent with scientific rationality, yet also encompasses theology. Carnap considered such theories unproductive. The controversy remained unresolved, but its emphasis shifted from rationality to wisdom, not only in the Gödel-Carnap discussion but also in our time.
Aside from the increasing, impressive evidence on chemical identification of graded molecules involved, it is the capability of axons for approaching the target position from different aspects in a two-dimensional field which is per se a strong indication for the involvement of gradients. Targeting requires, in the target field, counter-graded effects, either by antagonistic gradients, or by a single gradient in each dimension exerting attractive effects at low, reverting to inhibitory (repulsive) effects at high concentrations. A further requirement for mapping is the modulation of the counter-graded effects by components of the growth cone itself which depends on the origin of the corresponding axon.Transduction and processing of graded signals in the navigating growth cones are proposed to be strongly enhanced by intra-growth-cone pattern formation. The concept also encompasses regulatory and branching processes including the formation of the terminal arbors.
Validity of physical laws for any aspect of brain activity and strict correlation of mental to physical states of the brain do not imply, with logical necessity, that a complete algorithmic theory of the mind-body relation is possible. A limit of decodability may be imposed by the finite number of possible analytical operations which is rooted in the finiteness of the world. It is considered as a fundamental intrinsic limitation of the scientific approach comparable to quantum indeterminacy and the theorems of logical undecidability. An analysis of these limits, applied to dispositions of future behaviour, suggests that limits of decodability of the psycho-physic relation may actually exist with respect to brain states with self-referential aspects, as they are involved in mental processes. Limits for an algorithmic theory of the mind-body problem suggested by this study are formally similar to other intrinsic limits of the scientific method such as quantum indeterminacy and mathematical undecidability which are also related to self-referential operations. At the metatheoretical level, hard sciences, despite their reliability, universality and objectivity, depend on metatheoretical presuppositions which allow for multiple philosophical interpretations.
The paper addresses the formation of striking patterns within originally near-homogenous tissue, the process prototypical for embryology, and represented in particularly puristic form by cut sections of hydra regenerating a complete animal with head and foot. Essential requirements are autocatalytic, self-enhancing activation, combined with inhibitory or depletion effects of wider range - “lateral inhibition”. Not only de-novo-pattern formation, but also well known, striking features of developmental regulation such as induction, inhibition, and proportion regulation can be explained on this basis. The theory provides a mathematical recipe for the construction of molecular models with criteria for the necessary non-linear interactions. It has since been widely applied to different developmental processes.
Applying mild methods of preparation, part of the ribosomes of rabbit reticulocytes are found in aggregates (later called polyribosomes) of up to six ribosomal units. Upon treatment with RNA-ase, they desintegrate into single ribosomes. The fast-sedimenting aggregates are found to be more active in protein synthesis in terms of incorporation of radioactive amino acids, whereas the single ribosomes are more receptive to stimulation by the artificial messenger RNA poly-U. The findings indicate that the linkage of ribosomes into aggregates is due to the messenger RNA. They support a tape-reading mechanism of protein synthesis whereby growth of the peptide chain is accompanied by shifting the active site of the ribosome from one coding group of nucleotides of the messenger RNA to the next.
Upon separation of the protein from the nucleic acid component of tobacco mosaic virus by phenol, using a fast and gentle procedure, the nucleic acid is infective in assays on tobacco leaves. A series of qualitative and quantitative control experiments demonstrates that the biological activity cannot depend on residual proteins in the preparation, but is a property of isolated nucleic acid which is thus the genetic material of the virus.
The author’s recently published monograph on Alexander von Humboldt' describes the multiple images of this great cultural icon. The book is a metabiographical study that shows how from the middle of the nineteenth century to the present day Humboldt has served as a nucleus of crystallisation for a variety of successive socio-political ideologies, each producing its own distinctive representation of him. The historiographical implications of this biographical diversity are profound and support current attempts to understand historical scholarship in terms of memory cultures.
The article provides historical background for Alexander von Humboldt’s expedition into Russia in 1829. It includes information on Humboldt’s works and publications in Russia over the course of his lifetime, as well as an explanation of the Russian scientific community’s response to those works. Humboldt’s ideas on the existence of an active volcano in Central Asia attracted the attention of two prominent Russian geographers, P.Semenov and P.Kropotkin, whose views on the nature of volcanism were quite different. P.Semenov personally met Humboldt in Berlin. P. Kropotkin made one of the most important geological discoveries of the 19th Century: he found the fresh volcanic cones near Lake Baikal. Soon after Humboldt’s Russian expedition, and partly as a result of it, an important mineral was found in the Ilmen mountains - samarskite, which later gave its name to the chemical element Samarium, developed in 1879. At the beginning of the 20th Century, the Russian scientist V.Vernadskiy pointed out that samarskite was the first uranium-rich mineral found in Russia.
We expose analogies between turbulence in a fluid heated from below (Rayleigh-Bénard (RB) flow) and shear flows: The unifying theory for RB flow (S.Grossmann and D.Lohse, J.Fluid Mech. 407, 27-56 (2000) and subsequent refinements) can be extended to the flow between rotating cylinders (Taylor-Couette flow) and pipe flow. We identify wind dissipation rates and momentum fluxes that are analogous to the dissipation rate and heat flux in RB flow. The proposed unifying description for the three cases is consistent with the experimental data.
Non-Oberbeck-Boussinesq (NOB) effects on the Nusselt number Nu and Reynolds number Re in strongly turbulent Rayleigh-Benard convection in liquids were investigated both experimentally and theoretically. In the experiment, the heat current, the temperature difference, and the temperature at the horizontal mid-plane were measured. Three cells of different heights L, all filled with water and all with aspect ratio T close to 1 were used. For each L, about 1.5 decades in Ra were covered, together spanning the ränge 108 < Ra < 1011. For the largest temperature difference between the bottom and top plates of ? = 40K the kinematic viscosity and the thermal expansion coefficient, due to their temperature dependence, varied by more than a factor of two. The Oberbeck-Boussinesq (OB) approximation of temperature independent material parameters thus was no longer valid. The ratio Ï? of the temperature drops across the bottom and top thermal boundary layers became as small as Ï? = 0.83, as compared to the ratio Ï? = 1 in the OB case. Nevertheless, the Nusselt number Nu was found to be only slightly smaller (at most 1.4%) than in the next larger cell with the same Rayleigh number, where the material parameters were still nearly height-independent. The Reynolds numbers in the OB and NOB case agreed with each other within the experimental resolution of about 2%, showing that NOB effects for this parameter were small as well. Thus Nu and Re are rather insensitive against even significant deviations from OB conditions. Theoretically, we first account for the robustness of Nu with respect to NOB corrections: the NOB effects in the top boundary layer cancel those which arise in the bottom boundary layer as long as they are linear in the temperature difference ?. The net effects on Nu are proportional to ?2 and thus increase only slowly and still remain minor despite drastic material parameter changes. We then extend the Prandtl-Blasius boundary-layer theory to NOB Rayleigh-Benard flow with temperature dependent viscosity and thermal diffusivity. This allows the calculation of the shift of the bulk temperature, the temperature drops across the boundary layers, and the ratio Ï? without introducing any fitting parameter. The calculated quantities are in very good agreement with experiment. When in addition we use the experimental finding that for water the sum of the top and bottom thermal boundary-layer widths (based on the slopes of the temperature profiles at the plates) remains unchanged under NOB effects within experimental resolution, the theory also gives the measured small Nusseltnumber reduction for the NOB case. In addition, it predicts an increase by about 0.5% of the Reynolds number, which is also consistent with the experimental data. By theoretically studying hypothetical liquids with only one of the material parameters being temperature dependent, we shed further light on the origin of NOB corrections in water: While the NOB deviation of x from its OB value Ï? = 1 mainly originates from the temperature dependence of the viscosity, the NOB correction of the Nusselt number primarily originates from the temperature dependence of the thermal diffusivity. Finally, we give the predictions from our theory for the NOB corrections if glycerol is used as operating liquid.
Alexander von Humboldt’s maps, graphs and illustrations contain a great deal of detail, but in the available rare editions they are hardly visible to the naked eye. In many editions they have been reduced. In a digital library, they will become accessible in their entirety, and Internet technology will reproduce them in a form that overcomes the limitations of the original printing. The user will be able to enlarge the images and see details that might have been overlooked in the past. The Humboldt’s digital library will adhere to the standards for digital libraries established by the Open Archives Initiative (OAI) and the tools EPRINTS and DSPACE to provide the Web services and determine the most effective way to establish dynamic linking and knowledge based searching of information within the archive.
Alexander von Humboldt’s descriptions of volcanic mountains in his travel journals (Reise auf dem Río Magdalena, durch die Anden und Mexico) show both his reliance on and impatience with literary conventions and travel narratives. Using Goethe’s Italienische Reise and Bürger’s Münchhausen as points of comparison for literary treatments of the volcano ascent, Humboldt’s process of writing is examined. Humboldt shows the failure of the existing discourse and begins to experiment with narratives which fragment and recombine personal and historical modes of writing with, in this case, images from new technical inventions which visualize landscape according to fundamental scientific principles. While the inclusion of scientific prose is relevant, Humboldt’s link to modernity is based on experimental narrative techniques which draw upon changing sets of discourse practices to describe complex realities.
Stephen Jay Gould wrote recently that “when Church began to paint his great canvases, Alexander von Humboldt may well have been the world’s most famous and influential intellectual.” Humboldt’s influence in the case of the landscape artist Church is especially interesting. If we examine the precise relationship between the German explorer and his American admirer, we gain an insight into how Humboldt transformed Church’s life and signaled a new phase in the career of the artist. Church retraced Humboldt’s travels in Ecuador and in Mexico. If we compare the texts available to Church and the comparison of Church’s paintings and the texts and images of Humboldt’s works we can arrive at new perspectives on Humboldt’s extraordinary influence on American landscape painting in the nineteenth century.
My essay attends to a number of passages in Alexander von Humboldt’s "Personal Narrative" in which the Prussian explorer expresses anxiety about the apparent dangers posed by the overwhelmingly productive tropical landscapes he observes. In these passages, the excesses of an “exotic nature” threaten European identity and modes of civilization—and they trouble the accuracy of Humboldt’s own observational project. I also explore Humboldt’s related worry that South American vegetable (and visual) overload will exert a destabilizing effect on his aesthetic sensibility, disrupting his ability to represent the “New Continent” accurately in writing. Finally, I sketch the influence of Humboldt’s representations of tropical excess on nineteenth-century British cultural thought and literary practice. Studying the instabilities experienced by "Personal Narrative’s" expatriates and colonists promises to draw out important tensions latent in Humboldt’s treatment of tropical landscape and to illuminate broader epistemological and aesthetic shifts being worked out during the period.
Together with their wives Otto and Richard Schomburgk arrived in Port Adelaide (South Australia) on August 16th 1849. The essay looks at how these two brothers, who had received their scientific training and promotion in the circle surrounding Alexander von Humboldt, reacted to the unfamiliar conditions in the young British colony. Some indication will be given as to the differences between the Schomburgk brothers treatment of the natural resources of the new colony and that of the English colonists of the time.