Intrinsic Meaning Research Articles

The Inverse Problem of the Calculus of Variations: Separable Systems

This paper deals with the inverse problem of the calculus of variations for systems of second-order ordinary differential equations. The case of the problem which Douglas, in his classification of pairs of such equations, called the ‘separated case’ is generalized to arbitrary dimension. After identifying the conditions which should specify such a case for n equations in a coordinate-free way, two proofs of its variationality are presented. The first one follows the line of approach introduced by some of the authors in previous work, and is close in spirit, though being coordinate independent, to the Riquier analysis applied by Douglas for n = 2. The second proof is more direct and leads to the discovery that belonging to the ‘separated case’ has an intrinsic meaning for the given second-order differential equations: the system is separable in the sense that it can be decoupled into n pairs of first-order equations.

Regular Plurals in Dutch Compounds: Linking Graphemes or Morphemes?

In this paper, we address the functional role of the orthographic realisation of the linking schwa in Dutch nominal compounds. From a diachronic perspective, the linking schwa is a historical relic of the now obsolete morphological system of medieval Dutch. Synchronically, however, it appears in two orthographic forms, -e and -en, both of which are homographs of high-frequency inflectional affixes. The suffix -e primarily functions as an agreement marker without intrinsic meaning. The suffix -en primarily realises plural number on nouns and verbs. Are plural semantics activated in the mental lexicon when the linking schwa is written as the plural suffix? This question has become relevant for Dutch in the light of a recent change in the spelling rules which now prescribe the -en spelling for compounds with no meaning of plurality. We addressed this question by means of four experiments, which revealed that writing the linking schwa in the orthographic form of the plural suffix does indeed lead to the activation of the plural semantics, even when plural semantics are not intended. We interpret our results within the framework of a parallel dual-route model of morphological processing.

Women's health care work in comparative perspective: Canada, Sweden and Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic as case examples

This paper contends that there is no single definition of caring work, that it holds no intrinsic meaning in and of itself. While in every human society there are work tasks that involve caring for others unable to adequately care for themselves, such caring work is almost always assigned in accordance with the overriding gender systems. However, different economic structures and gender ideologies, supported by different types of state formations, tend to organize caring work in a multiplicity of ways. Drawing on data from primary and secondary research on the related health care occupations of midwifery, obstetrical nursing, and general nursing in three societal locations — Canada, Sweden and Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic — the authors suggest that the social organization of women's health caring work is the product of a complex interweaving of factors. The formation of the state, and the specific social construction of the “public” and “private” spheres of society, play consequential roles in this process.

Redéfinir les traits

Résumé Dans cette revue critique, la définition classique des traits en tant qu'adjectifs décrivant la personnalité est relativisée par rapport aux présupposés qu'elle recèle. Nous proposons une nouvelle conception mettant l'accent sur l'aspect polysémique des traits. Il s'avère en effet que les traits peuvent aussi bien catégoriser des événements non diagnostiques de la personnalité, tels que les états internes. Cette conception est principalement basée sur l'idée de Allen et Potkay (1981) relative à l'impossibilité de distinguer les traits et les états dans le langage. Nous avançons alors des arguments mettant en évidence que les traits sont considérés comme des adjectifs décrivant la personnalité du fait de leur usage dominant, et non du fait de leur signification référentielle intrinsèque. Enfin, nous suggérons que l'étude des facteurs à l'origine d'un type d'usage des traits au détriment d'un autre constitue un champ d'étude privilégié pour la psychologie sociale. Mots-clés : traits, polysémie, causalité implicite du langage.

On the naming of clinical disorders, with particular reference to eponyms.

1Cratylus is, in the words of the Encyclopedia Britannica, “a treatise by Plato on the intrinsic and conventional meaning of words and of their ability to convey thought accurately.”

Classical electrodynamics and the quantum nature of light

A review of old inconsistencies of classical electrodynamics (CED) and some new ideas that solve them is presented. Problems with causality violating solutions of the wave equation, the electron equation of motion, and problems with the non-integrable singularity of its self-field energy tensor are well known. The correct interpretation of the two (advanced and retarded) Lienard - Wiechert solutions are in terms of the creation and annihilation of particles in classical physics. They are both retarded solutions. Previous work on the short-distance limit of CED of a spinless point electron are based on a faulty assumption which causes the well known inconsistencies of the theory: a diverging self-energy (the non-integrable singularity of its self-field energy tensor) and a causality-violating third-order equation of motion (the Lorentz - Dirac equation). The correct assumption fixes these problems without any change in the Maxwell's equations and let exposed, in the zero-distance limit, the discrete nature of light: the flux of energy from a point charge is discrete in time. CED cannot have a true equation of motion, only an effective one, as a consequence of the intrinsic meaning of the Faraday - Maxwell concept of field that does not correspond to the classical description of photon exchange, but only to the smearing of its effects in the space around the charge. This, in varied degrees, is transferred to QED and other field theories that are based on the same concept of fields as space-smeared interactions.

Modernization and Intellectual history: An interpretive model for the history of unified Italy

Abstract The starting-point for my research on modernization is Fascist ruralism. Italian historiography divides itself between those who consider ruralism merely as an aspect of Fascist propaganda, and those for whom it has a more substantial importance. I tend to side with the latter position, and find the intrinsic meaning of the myth of rural Italy in Fascist ruralism. As such, and because of this virtue, that is by being devoted to the cult of the earth, the Italian nation could regain strength, vigour and purity. In the history of the Fascist regime, the rural myth partly fulfilled the role of the blood myth in N ational Socialist Germany. The myth that the fertility of the Italian earth was ultimately capable of sustaining the entire population living on Italian soil was the ideological basis of some of the economic and cultural campaigns of Fascism. If the battaglia del grano [grain battle] - aiming at self-sufficiency in food production for the nation — was the first strong expression of Fascist ruralism, the campaign for population growth was its by-product. The values supporting these programmes were quite coherent: fertility of the earth = purity = growth = strength = virility. Even femininity became a value, albeit one linked to population growth and to traditional values (the guardian of the domestic hearth as mother and wife).

The Archetypal Actions of Ritual: A Theory of Ritual Illustrated by the Jain Rite of Worship.

Religious rituals can provoke a deeply ambigious reaction in those who practise them. What happens in religious traditions when the nature of the ritual is questioned, but the practice of performing rituals is not itself abandoned? This book draws on the authors' observations of such reactions among Jains in western India, and asks why they can tell us about ritual as a universal mode of human action. Most anthropologists have assumed that ritual is a special kind of happening, which requires a special kind of interpretation. The authors argue that 'ritual' is a quality which can in principle apply to any kind of action. The question they try to answer is: what is distinctive about actions which are ritualized? They reject the common view that ritual carries intrinsic meaning, and explore the apparent paradox that ritualization, which makes action in an important sense non-intentional, is itself the result of an intentional act - the adoption by the actor of what the authors call the 'ritual commitment'.

Music as language: An analogy to be pursued with caution

The Conference themes all suggest that music may be considered as a language. However, I argue that this is a misleading analogy. I shall point out some crucial differences between language and music by examining the concept of meaning. Two types of meaning will be distinguished and explained: extrinsic and intrinsic meaning. Whereas the former kind of meaning is typical of language, the latter kind is characteristic of the arts in general and of music in particular. Conceiving music as a language may easily lead us to concentrate on the extrinsic aspects of music rather than on its intrinsic meaning. The distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic meaning is also relevant to understanding music of other cultures. I argue that properties related to intrinsic meaning can generally be apprehended by outsiders more easily than properties related to extrinsic meaning. Since we cannot initiate children fully into all musical traditions and styles in music education, I recommend that we pay special attention to furthering children's sensitivity to intrinsic aspects of music. Thus we can best assure that they gain a passport to musics of all cultures.

The Archetypal Actions of Ritual: A Theory of Ritual Illustrated by the Jain Rite of Worship

Religious rituals can provoke a deeply ambigious reaction in those who practise them. What happens in religious traditions when the nature of the ritual is questioned, but the practice of performing rituals is not itself abandoned? This book draws on the authors' observations of such reactions among Jains in western India, and asks why they can tell us about ritual as a universal mode of human action. Most anthropologists have assumed that ritual is a special kind of happening, which requires a special kind of interpretation. The authors argue that 'ritual' is a quality which can in principle apply to any kind of action. The question they try to answer is: what is distinctive about actions which are ritualized? They reject the common view that ritual carries intrinsic meaning, and explore the apparent paradox that ritualization, which makes action in an important sense non-intentional, is itself the result of an intentional act - the adoption by the actor of what the authors call the 'ritual commitment'.

GEOGRAFÍA, ANSIEDAD E "IMITATIO" EN LA PENITENCIA DE LA SIERRA MORENA

The geography as a fictional and literary space in Don Quijote has been ignored by most of the critics. My work offers an analisis on the fictional aspect of the scenic frame for the creation of the penitencial adventure of Don Quijote in the Sierra Morena. The adventure is explained by the concept of imitatio, which manifests the anxiety of influence in Don Quijote. To analize this adventure I use the theories of imitation that Harold Bloom presents in his book The Anxiety of Influence. The thesis is that geography, anxiety, and imitatio form an interweaving fabric that is necessary and justifiable to understand the intrinsic meaning of the adventure in the Sierra Morena.

Assessing Reproducibility by the Within-Subject Coefficient of Variation with Random Effects Models

In this paper we consider the use of within-subject coefficient of variation (WCV) for assessing the reproducibility or reliability of a measurement. Application to assessing reproducibility of biochemical markers for measuring bone turnover is described and the comparison with intraclass correlation is discussed. Both maximum likelihood and moment confidence intervals of WCV are obtained through their corresponding asymptotic distributions. Normal and log-normal cases are considered. In general, WCV is preferred when the measurement scale bears intrinsic meaning and is not subject to arbitrary shifting. The intraclass correlation may be preferred when a fixed population of subjects can be well identified.

Identification of the Structural Gene for Glyoxalase I from Saccharomyces cerevisiae

The structural gene for glyoxalase I (GLO1) of Saccharomyces cerevisiae was identified. The GLO1 gene contained an open reading frame with 326 amino acids, and the molecular weight of the gene product (Glo1p) deduced from the DNA sequence was calculated to be 37,207.06. Glyoxalase I activity increased approximately 95-fold when the GLO1 gene was introduced into the yeast cell with a multicopy plasmid, and the resultant transformant showed the increased resistance against methylglyoxal. Since the knockout mutant of the GLO1 gene of haploid strain of S. cerevisiae was still viable, the GLO1 gene was thought to be unnecessary for growth of the yeast. The GLO1 gene was overexpressed in two kinds of glutathione-deficient mutants, gamma-glutamylcysteine synthetase-deficient (gsh1(-)) and glutathione synthetase-deficient (gsh2(-)), respectively, and the sensitivites to methylglyoxal were compared. The gsh1-deficient mutant, which could not produce glutathione at all, was hypersensitive to methylglyoxal, and overproduction of the Glo1p did not restore the growth arrest caused by exogenously added methylglyoxal. The gsh2-deficient mutant, which accumulates gamma-glutamylcysteine (an intermediate of glutathione biosynthesis), was also sensitive to methylglyoxal compared with the isogenic wild type strain, although the growth arrest caused by methylglyoxal was partially restored by overexpression of the GLO1 gene. Purified glyoxalase I from yeast could use gamma-glutamylcysteine as a substrate (kcat/Km = 1.89 x 10(7) M-1 s-1, glutathione; 3.47 x 10(4) M-1 s-1, gamma-glutamylcysteine).

Quarks, gluons, colour: facts or fiction?

A general method is presented that allows one to determine from the local gauge invariant observables of a quantum field theory the underlying particle and symmetry structures appearing at the lower (ultraviolet) end of the spatio-temporal scale. Particles that are confined to small scales, i.e. do not appear in the physical spectrum, can be uncovered in this way without taking recourse to gauge fields or indefinite metric spaces. In this way notions such as quark, gluon, colour symmetry and confinement acquire a new and intrinsic meaning which is stable under gauge or duality transformations. The method is illustrated by the example of the Schwinger model.

FIRST-ORDER ROUGH LOGIC I: APPROXIMATE REASONING VIA ROUGH SETS

Earlier the authors have shown that rough sets can be characterized by six topological properties. In this paper, a new formal logic system based on such axioms is proposed. It will be called First-Order Logic for Rough Approximation or simply Rough Logic. The axiom schemas of rough logic turn out to be the same as those of the modal logic S 5. In other words, topological and modal logic considerations led to the same conclusion. So rough logic must have captured the intrinsic meaning of approximate reasoning However, their interpretations are different. To reflect the differences in semantics, possible worlds are renamed as observable worlds. Each observable world represents a different rough observation of the actual world. Rough logic also provides a frame work for approximation. It integrates imperfect observations (observable worlds) into an approximation of actual world. Any good approximation theory should have a convergence theorem-its details are deferred to next paper. A sample theorem is as follows: If there is a convergent sequence of rough observations (namely, equivalence relations), then the corresponding rough models converge to the Tarskian model of first-order classical logic.

Constructing the Canon: Problems in Bengali Literary Historiography

Let me begin by stating very clearly that this paper does not claim to be exhaustive in any respect; it is rather a tentative articulation of some issues and problems tnat have interested me as a student of literary history. I should also mention that I consider literature or literary very much an aspect of the larger cultural of the people at a particular time and place. In this short paper, I would like to look into the problem of constructing a canon of texts while writing a history of literature with particular reference to the of Bengali literature. Peoples or nations construct of their past for various reasons. These narratives help in formulating a desired sense of identity among societies, and post-structuralist theorizing has commented profusely on the very constitutive nature of any discourse or narrative. Events of the past do not possess any intrinsic meaning by themselves, they acquire meaning in the light of what comes after them and the way these discrete happenings are arranged in a narrative by a historian or a story-teller. In this sense, all historywriting involves mediation and explicit or implicit conscious manipulation to cater to contemporary demands. Histories of literatures are narratives of the same kind; they are attempts at retrieving and representing a canon which would meet the requirements of changing historical periods. That is why each age interprets facts and texts in a different manner, and there is no dearth of histories written at different points of time according to the needs of a particular constituency occupying a certain geographical space. A literary canon takes shape in the form of a narrative that constructs a coherent account of the growth of the literary culture of a people, and necessarily reflects the demands as well as the constraints that remain implicit in the agenda. In any such construction, narratives seek to preserve or emphasize only those texts that perpetuate

Job Satisfaction among Newsworkers: The Influence of Professionalism, Perceptions of Organizational Structure, and Social Attributes

Organizations stress routinized activities that contribute to profitability. Professionalism stresses ethical performance that contributes to social responsibility. When the organization prevails, autonomy, authority, and control, the hallmarks of professionalism, weaken. This leads to a decrease in the intrinsic meaning of work and, ultimately, less job satisfaction. Using a stratified random national sample, these assumptions were explored among Canadian newsworkers. More professionalism, a less formal and smaller organization, media sector, and several social attributes lead to more job satisfaction. Newspaper workers were most satisfied due to a combination of intrinsic factors, such as autonomy, authority, and control of work, and extrinsic factors, such as job security and income.

Intellectuals and the Persisting Significance of Race

REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE The Ideal of Intellectual Community The subsociety hypothesis formulated by Gordon (1964) maintains that American intellectuals such patterned ways as to form at least elementary structure of a subsociety of their (p. 224). As Gordon further claims, this subsociety only one American life which of different ethnic backgrounds interact primary group relations with considerable frequency and with relative comfort and ease (p. 224). This simple but elegant concept has shaped much of subsequent discourse about and group membership. The term intellectual has few competitors for number of definitions supplied by scholarly literature. Therefore, present study, rather than make a heroic (but likely futile) effort to reconcile many and varied definitions of term offered by scholars, artists, and lay persons, adopts Gordon's (1954-55) definition as an operational anchor. Gordon identifies as intellectuals people for whom ideas, concepts, literature, music, painting, dance have intrinsic meaning (p. 518). In his model, particulars of ethnicity, gender, class, or national origin have no legitimate bearing on an individuals' standing as an intellectual. Gordon acknowledges pull of ethnic concerns on some thinkers whom he describes as actively or passively committed ethnic intellectuals who blend ethnic concerns to varying degrees with their passion for intellectualism. However, he surmises that such individuals are a distinct minority within ethnic population, and claims that large majority of ethnic intellectuals operate as marginally ethnic These persons, Gordon's view, finding ethnic communality unsatisfactory, wear their ethnicity lightly (p. 228).(1) Accordingly, what binds this subsociety or community of intellectuals together is not or other sentimental features, but a commitment to ideas, universals, and place of reason affairs of humans. Shils (1967) affirms idea of an community, concluding that in its territorial scope and its criteria of it is the most of communities (p. 2). While his views parallel those of Gordon, Shils rejects place of what he calls properties--that is, kinship, locality, tribe or territory--as qualifications or disqualifications for standing, and tactfully concedes that ideal of universal community is but myth. As Shils notes, Of course practice, primordial membership and properties are sometimes operative governing admission to membership particular corporate institutions, but those who apply them know they are contravening rules of community. (p. 2) Institutions that recruit and train American intellectuals--namely, colleges, universities, and other training centers-tend to be committed to universalistic ideal advanced by Shils and Gordon. Consequently, aspiring intellectuals matriculating at these institutions frequently find their attachments to ethnicity, region, and religion challenged and undermined by universalistic ethos. Shils approvingly notes process, and reasons that emphasis on universalistic values higher education produces a group or class that is separated from bonds and sentiments of their precollegiate experience. He further hypothesizes that as intellectuals complete their training and go on to work academic settings, they find themselves contact predominantly with persons who have undergone same process, and such peers become their new community or reference group. The premise that intellectuals should be detached from group affiliations was challenged by Gramsci (1977), who maintains that social groups could and should generate their own distinct intellectuals. Unimpressed with abstract quality of much that passed for intellectualism modern Europe, Gramsci claims that groundedness is necessary for some groups to ensure relevance of their work (p. …

The evolution of understanding: A genetic algorithm model of the evolution of communication

Much animal communication takes place via symbolic codes, where each symbol's meaning is fixed by convention only and not by intrinsic meaning. It is unclear how understanding can arise among individuals utilizing such arbitrary codes, and specifically, whether evolution unaided by individual learning is sufficient to produce such understanding. Using a genetic algorithm implemented on a computer, I demonstrate that a significant though imperfect level of understanding can be achieved by organisms through evolution alone. The population as a whole settles on one particular scheme of coding/decoding information (there are no separate dialects). Several features of such evolving systems are explored and it is shown that the system as a whole is stable against perturbation along many different kinds of ecological parameters.

The evolution of hormonal sex pheromones in teleost fish: poor correlation between the pattern of steroid release by goldfish and olfactory sensitivity suggests that these cues evolved as a result of chemical spying rather than signal specialization

It is becoming increasingly evident that many teleost fish use hormones and their metabolites as sex pheromones. Although hormonal pheromone systems of several species of fish have now been characterized, that of the goldfish is the best understood. Reproductively-active female goldfish sequentially release derivatives of three steroidal hormones and two prostaglandins which have specific and potent actions on the goldfish olfactory sense and subsequently conspecific reproductive behaviour and physiology. Three goldfish hormonal pheromones are unmodified sex hormones which are also found in the blood of many other species of fish and are therefore unlikely to be species-specific. This scenario evokes two related questions. First, how did these systems evolve? Second, do hormonal pheromones represent specialized signals used for communication or rather simple metabolites which fish have evolved the ability to detect because of their intrinsic meaning ('spying')? Here we review hormonal pheromone function in fish and then describe a study of the goldfish which tests whether hormonal pheromones are specialized communicatory signals by comparing the profile of steroids released by goldfish with their olfactory responsiveness to these compounds. Little correlation between signal production and detection was found and we conclude that the goldfish hormonal pheromone system most likely exemplifies spying.