Mini-Review; Stress Genes: An Introductory Overview

Molecular sequence data, made available in the last 15 years or so, have led to the classification of living cells into three phylogenetic domains: Bacteria, Archaea, and Eucarya. All the organisms that have been tested belonging to either domain were capable of mounting a stress response with essentially the same characteristics, regardless of the stressor. The protagonists in the cell's stress response are the stress genes and their protein products. Some of the latter are molecular chaperones. Under physiological conditions, these chaperones aid other cellular proteins to fold properly and achieve a native -functional- configuration, and to translocate from the place of synthesis to the cell's locale in which they will operate. In a stressed cell, the stress proteins that are chaperones protect other molecules from denaturation and help those partially damaged to regain a functional configuration. Thus, cell death is avoided and recovery is enhanced. The study of stress genes and proteins has progressed considerably in organisms belonging to the domains Bacteria and Eucarya. Less is known about the archaeal stress genes. Here, research with an organism from the Archaea is discussed, focusing on the stress genes of the hsp70 (dnaK) locus. Future perspectives for basic and applied research within the health sciences and biotechnology industries are presented.     

Resource-Allocation Behavior in Complex but Commonplace Tasks

We all face resource-allocation tasks, yet little is known about how people make resource-allocation decisions. Three earlier papers (Langholtz, Gettys, & Foote, 1993, 1994, 1995) established that people can intuitively solve technical two-dimensional resource-allocation problems, where allocations are made on a continuous scale, reaching solutions that approach the optimum solution determined with Linear Programming (LP). In this research we expand our understanding of how people make resource-allocation decisions by examining how people perform complex but commonplace problems using a discrete scale where optimal solutions are determined with Integer Programming. We also contrast performance under conditions where progressively unequal scheduling is required to reach the optimum solution. The data show people can achieve solutions that provide most of the payoffs found with LP, even when they are faced with a complicated three-dimensional problem, but there is a tendency toward equal scheduling under all conditions.     

Referenzsemantik in der Partnermodellierung

How can we explain that an assertion on something perceived can be understood in the same manner by somebody who cannot perceive that scene? This problem bases the interest in computational linguistics in how listener modeling could possibly be harmonized with reference semantics. Mental images substituting real perception appear as a way out. The architecture of the listener model has to be adapted to the creation and use of such pictorial data structures. Furthermore, the relation between the latter and a verbal (i. e., propositional) representation must be understood. The resulting architecture of a listener model with reference semantics can be employed to solve communicational problems from three general classes in a better way, as is demonstrated by an example implementation.     

Measurement and the interpretation of quantum mechanics and relativity theory

The axiomatic approaches of quantum mechanics and relativity theory are compared with approaches in which the theories are thought to describe readings of certain measurement operations. The usual axioms are shown to correspond with classes of ideal measurements. The necessity is discussed of generalizing the formalisms of both quantum mechanics and relativity theory so as to encompass more realistic nonideal measurements. It is argued that this generalization favours an empiricist interpretation of the mathematical formalisms over a realist one.     

Signifying harassment: Communication,ambiguity and power

This essay reports on phenomenological research conducted with people who describe having been harassed, having been accused of harassment, and/or having mediated or adjudicated harassment disputes. The authors review recent legal conceptions of sexual harassment and articulate a methodology for analyzing individual narrative accounts. The analysis of six selected interviews (three alleged harassers and three declared harassees) depicts how, through discourse with others, persons in ambiguous cases of harassment come to perceive themselves as harassers or harasseesgradually, how intention is inferred from conductcontingently, and how perceptions and expressions are often reified as certainties in the effort to secure some sense of justiceinstitutionally.Many people have been involved with this project since its inception, and most wish to remain anonymous. We would like to thank all participants, colleagues, students, and critics for their contributions and expressions of interest. We would especially like to acknowledge Thomas Pace and Richard Lanigan for their teaching, friendship and support, and Frances Chaput Waksler for her helpful comments. An earlier version of this paper was presented to The Society for Phenomenology and the Human Sciences, Boston MA, USA, October 1992.     

A simple method using a single video camera to determine the three-dimensional position of a fish

In the present paper, we describe a method for recording the coordinates of a fish in an aquarium in a three-dimensional space, using a single video camera and a mirror. We use photogrammetic equations for this, considering the image obtained in the mirror as a virtual image obtained by a second camera. A transformation of the coordinate system is required to express the obtained coordinates in anx,y,z system defined by the edges of the aquarium. The accuracy of the proposed method was estimated, and errors in extreme conditions were found to be 0.8% to 1.2 %, compared with the dimensions of the aquarium used in the test.