Pragmatic Interest Research Articles

Strategies to protect crop plants against viruses: pathogen-derived resistance blossoms.

Since 1986, the ability to confer resistance against an otherwise devastating virus by introducing a single pathogen-derived or virus-targeted sequence into the DNA of a potential host plant has had a marked influence on much of the research effort, focus, and short-term objectives of plant virologists throughout the world. The vast literature on coat protein-mediated protection, for example, attests to our fascination for unraveling fundamental molecular mechanism(s), our (vain) search for a unifying hypothesis, our pragmatic interest in commercially exploitable opportunities for crop protection, and our ingenuity in manipulating transgene constructions to broaden their utility and reduce real or perceived environmental risk issues. Other single dominant, pathogen-derived plant resistance genes have recently been discovered from a wide variety of viruses and are operative in an ever-increasing range of plant species. Additional candidates seem limited only by the effort invested in experimentation and by our ingenuity and imagination. This review attempts to consider, in a critical way, the current state of the art, some exceptions, and some proposed rules. The final impression, from all the case evidence considered, is that normal virus replication requires a subtle blend of host- and virus-coded proteins, present in critical relative concentrations and at specific times and places. Any unregulated superimposition of interfering protein or nucleic acid species can, therefore, result in an apparently virus-resistant plant phenotype.

<p><strong>MEMOIR OF THE III SIMPOSIO LATINOAMERICANO DE BRIOLOGIA</strong></p>

Botanical history has recorded significant contributions of bryology to its conceptual development and to man’s scientific knowledge. The discovery of sexual chromosomes in plants by Allen and the production of the first polyploids by Wettstein are but two scientific achievments in which bryophytes had an outstanding role. Currently, their use in environmental monitoring and the identification of active principles, make bryophytes objects of great pragmatic interest.

Analysis of technical spin-off effects of space-related R&D by means of patent indicators

In view of increasing European activity in the field of manned space travel, intense discussion has arisen on the significance of associated spin-off effects. Alongside this predominantly political debate, however, there is also a purely pragmatic interest in transferring wherever possible the successful results from space research to other branches of industry, in order to achieve optimum exploitation of all the resources available. Until now, spin-offs from space technology have been analyzed by means of interviews conducted in the firms involved, a process harbouring a whole series of uncertainty factors. Potential spin-off fields are frequently ignored, and alleged transfers from space research often in reality stem from other sources. This survey develops an objective method of describing technology transfer based on patent indicators. The first step was to establish on line a total of some 3000 space patents filed since 1975 with destination to the European and American markets. This record is sufficient to permit an analysis of the R&D activities undertaken by the leading industrial nations in the space sector. With further assistance provided by the method of analyzing patent citations, however, it is then possible to discover spin-off effects in areas outside space technology, which are nevertheless closely related in technical terms to the basic space patents with which they are associated. In this way, it is possible to define areas which are particularly suited to adopt space technologies in earthbound applications. This method of analyzing citations, which in principle is familiar for describing technology transfer within any one technical field, has thus been successfully employed for the first time for analyzing spin-offs.

Ways of Knowing: Implications for Comparative Education

Two topics that were emphasized in the 1990 Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) annual meeting were educational reform in international perspective and global and international Members of CIES conceive of their mandate in a dualistic manner; the first topic is one of scholarly or theoretical interest, and the second is one of practical or pragmatic interest. Two forms of producers and consumers of these topics are also identified: researchers and academics on the one hand and practitioners or school-based personnel on the other. In this essay, I examine a subject that is relevant to the interests of both sides. Perhaps the discussion will demonstrate that the division between the two is a false one, or at least one that has been created by our conception of knowledge itself, by our culturally created conception of ways of knowing, or epistemology. subject of this essay is how our conceptions of ways of knowing have limited and restricted the very definition of comparative education that we have taught students and used in our own research and, indeed, have promulgated to practitioners. Additionally our conceptions have created a false dichotomy between theory and practice and a communication gap between academics and practitioners. Moreover, they have led to willful ignoring or bypassing of large areas of teaching and learning that are not considered in the domain of valid knowledge, such as indigenous systems of religious or medical knowledge, or new forms of self-education in areas considered to be fringe forms of knowledge.' My first awareness of this subject arose 15 years ago when I assigned Harry Wolcott's ethnography The Man in the Principal's Office to a third-year undergraduate class in anthropology and education. In this work, he discusses the relationship of school practice to academic research, from the teachers' or principals' perspective. He says they did not read

Valentie en interferentie in morfologie en discourse: Een pragmatische studie

The question what role should be assigned to pragmatics in morphology belongs to one of the least explored and most poorly understood areas in linguistics. There are mainly two kinds of problems that deserve our attention here: • - first, those having to do with the language system: What is available, in the morphological component of a grammar, if we want to explore phenomena of pragmatic interest? • - second, problems having to do with language use: How do different uses of morphological items affect language users? In Schultink's (1962) dissertation, the focus is on analyzing a particular category: the adjective, in one particular language: Dutch, from the viewpoint of morphological valency. My suggestion is that some of his ideas can be used in a fruitful way when considering both system and use as to their pragmatic aspects, especially in cross-language transfer of thought, a.k.a. translation. System-wise, one would investigate, e.g., how to deal with the problem of mapping a rich morphology into a poor one, or vice versa (to name just one possible range of applications); use-wise, an example to consider would be the various ways of using politeness formulas in different language communities.

Measuring ESL readers’ ability to apply reasoning in reading: a validity study of the TOEFL reading comprehension subtest

ABSTRACTThis paper reports the results of an attempt to measure English as a Second Language (ESL) students’ability to apply reasoning in reading. The elicitation instrument was an experimental test which was developed from a model of reading comprehension based upon cognitive activities which Piaget referred to as concrete operations. The experimental test delineated Piaget's concrete operations in prose text and set them against difficulty criteria. The experimental test which measured the ability to apply reasoning in reading and the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) were administered to a pool of adult ESL subjects. The results indicated that the TOEFL reading comprehension subtest does not measure the ability to apply reasoning in reading; thus, its validity as a measure of reading is in doubt. Significant effects were also shown for the paragraph types and the item types in the experimental test. The items based on the classification paragraphs were significantly more difficult than the items based on the serial paragraphs. In like manner, the items based on the multiplication paragraphs were significantly more difficult than the items based on the addition paragraphs. And finally, the intension questions which concerned the properties of a class were significantly more difficult than the extension questions which dealt with the members of classes.The results of this study indicate a need for further, increased attention to the measurement of reading to solve problems in ESL reading assessment and to the effects of the different structural organizations of ideas (e.g., addition, classification, multiplication, and series) and the interrelations of ideas on the comprehension process. The motivation for this line of research derives from the pragmatic interest of those researchers concerned with the communicative aspects of a text and the manner in which authors organize their ideas. Current research is beginning to explain the complex interaction between text structure and the reader's processing of such structure which further explicates the comprehension process.

Life, the universe and ethics

Biophilia is a personal book. It begins with Wilson's description of the sense of wonder he felt when, twenty-five years ago, he stood on a patch of alien ground in Surinam and marvelled at all the forms of life within a few centimeters around him: the mosquitoes, cockroaches, carpenter ants and all the unseen microscopic organisms living and dying each second in the patch of earth at his feet. Then his imagination drifted along the footpath leading through the trees towards the Saramacca River and, eventually, the Orinoco and Amazon basins. From this richly desciptive opening Wilson is led to reflect on our fascination with all life, which he sees as an innate tendency in human beings. He presents the reader with a smorgasbord of National Geographic style descriptions of his own travels and observations, including the leaf-cutting ants of the South American jungles, the New Guinea Birds of Paradise, and the snakes of Northern Florida, which Wilson spent much of his spare time catching when a schoolboy. The book then returns to Surinam for an appropriate epilogue. So Biophilia is neither biology nor philosophy in any strict sense of these terms. It would be wrong to review it as if it were defending, by the usual standards of scholarly argument, some thesis in either of these fields. Nevertheless, the book does contain observations and reflections which bear on the relationship between biology and philosophy, particularly ethics. Coming as they do from the author of Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (1975) and On Human Nature (1978), these remarks are bound to attract attention, and they do, in any case, provide an opportunity for discussion of an important topic. That we should have an innate tendency to focus on life is hardly a startling thesis. For an explanation, we should only have to look at our diet, and more generally at what we need to survive, and at what threatens our survival. But Wilson's idea of biophilia goes well beyond such a pragmatic interest in life. It extends to a deep desire to investigate and understand other life forms, a point at which the book may be more

The pragmatic dimension of semiotics

Poland has a long and well-known tradition in semiotics. The contribution of the Warsaw School of Logic to semiotics is the logical analysis of language, especially the research in the semantic functions of expression. The First Semiotic Symposium at Warsaw (1965) was followed by the famous International Colloquium on Semiotics at Kazimierz (1966), where the possibilities of establishing an International Association for Semiotic Studies were discussed. The International Semiotic Symposium at Warsaw (1968) resulted in the foundation of the Polish Semiotic Society within the Polish Academy of Sciences. From 1968 to 1980, about 170 seminars, lectures and discussions were held by the Society, most of them together with the Department of Logical Semiotics (DLS) at Warsaw University (since the foundation of DLS in 1972). DLS officially cooperates with Indiana University, Yale University, and Brown University. These three American universities are represented by the editors of the book under review: Thomas A. Sebeok (Indiana), Edward Stankiewicz (Yale) and Thomas G. Winner (Brown). Students of the Warsaw School of Logic (Tarski, Hii) became well-known by their publications and as professors at American universities. Some of the Polish semioticians have done essential work for the Peirce Foundation. The book under review, Sign, system andfunction represents two meetings of Polish semioticians with representatives of foreign countries: the Semiotic Symposium at Radziejowice, Poland, in May 1978, where 32 papers were read and discussed, and’the U.S./Polish Bilateral Conference ‘Semiotic Systems and their Functions’, held at Indiana University, Bloomington, in October 1979. From the 38 papers published in ‘Sign, system and function’, I have selected 14 of pragmatic interest for my review. In his preface (pp. v-x), Jerzy Pelt outlines the program of the book: the first part is devoted to theoretical semiotics, especially to logical, philosophical, and general linguistic problems; the second part deals with the application of

The human factor in cellular manufacturing

AbstractRecently, Group Technology (GT) as a batch manufacturing innovation has commanded much research attention and pragmatic interest. This approach to small lot production is based on identifying and exploiting similarities. By grouping items which share common traits, GT facilitates the rationalization of activities in a wide variety of functional areas including purchasing, design, and manufacturing. When GT is used in manufacturing one potential application involves the creation and operation of production cells. A production or manufacturing cell is a group of functionally dissimilar machines that are placed together and dedicated to the manufacture of a specific range of component parts. The usefulness of cellular manufacturing is demonstrated by the impressive catalog of benefits reported by its users both in the US and abroad. Reductions in work‐in‐process and finished goods inventories, decreases in production lead time, better delivery performance, improved product quality, and an overall increase in productivity are but a few of the benefits reportedly accruing to the use of cells.While it appears that cellular manufacturing can significantly improve the operation of batch production, an important component of the GT cellular production system has, unfortunately, been overlooked. Little study has been devoted to the human aspects of the use of production cells. The research reported in this paper attempts to fill this void by systematically examining the effect of cellular production on batch manufacturing employees. The research site was a medium size plant in which a portion of the functionally arranged facilities had recently been converted to a cellular layout. Both functional and cellular workers responded to a questionnaire designed to assess employee perceptions of their jobs, their job satisfaction, and their performance. In contrast to the findings of earlier (ethnographic) studies, cellular manufacturing employees did not perceive greater autonomy, significance, identity, or cohesiveness in their jobs than workers in traditional functional jobs. Cell workers also were as satisfied with their jobs, supervision, and advancement opportunities as non‐cell workers, but were more satisfied with their pay. Supervisory ratings of performance did not vary between groups.The major contributions of this article are threefold. First, this research represents the first attempt to scientifically evaluate the human impact of cellular manufacturing. Second, in contradicting the findings of earlier descriptive studies, all of which emphasize the very positive human consequences of cellular production, the need for additional research which challenges initial intuitive presumptions is clearly indicated. Third, and perhaps most importantly, the findings of this exploratory study suggest that cellular manufacturing does not have a negative impact on worker performance, attitudes, or satisfaction. A ramification of this is that reductions in work‐in‐process and finished goods inventories, decreases in production lead time, and improved overall productivity which reportedly accompany the implementation of cellular manufacturing may be achieved without any human fallout.

Prevention of admission and continuity of care

An in-depth analysis of the recent reform in Italian psychiatry reveals that the relevance of these changes transcends national borders. However, these changes are, from the scientific point of view, worth much more than mere biased pragmatic interest. The reshaping of theory made possible by the transformation of Italian psychiatry in fact opens up new prospects for a scientifically founded form of psychiatric care. Thanks to the new Mental Health Act (No. 180 of 1978),2 it has been possible to set up a type of administrative and institutional organization in which the psychiatric hospital no longer constitutes a functional part of the structures of psychiatric care. This reform thus provides the launching path for a real alternative where current psychiatric ideas and working methods can no longer be accepted as the gospel truth. This paper discusses how a correct problem-definition of psychiatric admission can provide a basis for a correct approach to psychopathological behaviour in a setting where the psychiatric hospital has no role to play and for the consolidation of this new practice.

Science in Context: Readings in the Sociology of Science

This collection of eighteen readings provides a basic text for undergraduates taking sociology of science courses. A general survey of articles published between 1961 and 1981, book is also a useful overview for students taking courses in and political studies of science; science, technology, and society; and social components of courses in environmental sciences, geography, philosophy, and history of science.The editors have organized book around the relationship between subculture of science and wider culture which surrounds it. Looked at from this perpective, science is primarily a source of knowledge and competence.... Thus to stress its interaction with its context not only highlights these aspects of science which most people find of overriding pragmatic interest, but also raises important basic issues concerning credibility, distribution of authority in society, and nature of interaction between different forms of culture.Essays are grouped in five sections: Organization of Academic Science: Communication and Control; Culture of Science; Interaction of Science and Technology; Interaction of Science and Society; Science as Expertise. editors have added a general introduction, part introductions, bibliographical notes, and a lengthy bibliography.Barry Barnes is Lecturer at Science Studies Unit, University of Edinburgh, and editor of an earlier version of this book, The Sociology of Science, published in Penguin Sociology Readings series and now out of print. David Edge is Director of Science Studies Unit at University of Edinburgh and a joint editor of journal, Social Studies of Science.

An artificial intelligence approach to the study of the humanist literary movement in XIVth and XVth century France

The RESEDA project was formed to provide specialists of the XIVth and XVth centuries with an interactive method of processing biographical data. At present, thanks to the joint financing of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and the D616gation G6nbrale A la Recherche Scientifique et Technique (contract 75.7.0456), a test model is being worked out with the leading characters of the humanist literary movement in France. The methodological interest of the project seems to lie essentially in the attempt to enrich the techniques of information retrieval by instruments endowed with a certain deductive power (Cros et al. 1968; Fossier, Cr6hange 1970) in order to assess, by working with a concrete example, the tools necessary for simulation of quite complex intellectual processes. Moreover, owing to the extremely complex and very often implicit nature of the relations between the characters who interest us, it is almost essential to have recourse to very sophisticated methods. The target is, in fact, the creation of a system which would have not only a static function of recuperating a stored item of information but also a dynamic function of establishing new links between the data and increasing, as it were, the initial knowledge. Therefore RESEDA must to a certain extent enter the sphere of artificial intelligence. I ought to put aside right away any ambiguity about the way we intend to use this new discipline. Our approach is quite different from that of Schank, for example (Schank 1973; Schank et al. 1975) or of Minsky (Minsky 1974) to mention but two of the most famous names. Schank wanted to set up a theory of the conceptualization phenomena which underlie the surface structures of natural language in order to be able to understand it fully by automatic means. As for Minsky, his frames system was created to adapt itself to any given situation, in its perception as well as in its linguistic formulation, and it remains at a level of generality which allows it to take into account all the aspects of a certain reality. RESEDA does not concern itself at all with such problematic and very carefully avoids general systems; unlike the above-mentioned systems, formulating hypotheses about the workings of human thought. So all our references to any theory based on a certain analysis of mental processes (see for example the correlators theory of Ceccato, Ceccato 1962) spring only from a pragmatic interest in a useful tool, and never from adherence or adoption of a definite position about theoretical foundations. RESEDA, well placed in its humanist context, does not set itself any problem of "weltanschauung." In order to reach our goal, our borrowings from artificial intelligence are, for the description of basic data, methods of the case systems type which are very rich in deductive possibilities and free from formal faithfulness to expressions in natural language (Schank 1973, 1975; Bruce 1975); to use this descriptive richness, we must develop an inference system based either on principles like the notion of analogy, transitivity etc. (Schwarcz et al. 1970; Carbonnel, Collins 1974), or more ambitiously, on taking into account all the constituent properties of certain given situations (Charniak 1972, 1975, 1976; Minsky 1974; Schank et al. 1975).

Abortion: Changing Views and Practice

Twenty-five investigators, in 16 contributions (in part reprinted) focus on the psychological and sociological aspects of abortion. This collection has pragmatic interest, for it reviews the experiences of patients and physicians in the light of changing laws. An introduction by the editor gives an overview of the problem and puts the papers in a wider perspective. Indeed, among the great values of this collection are the extensive bibliographies. In the first section, on attitudes, Pohlman examines abortion dogmas. Stone et al ask the intriguing question, to whom does the child belong? Polsky reviews other legal aspects. Ayd succinctly states the Catholic viewpoint. Beck looks at abortion from the little-studied perspective of the mental health consequences of unwantedness, while Alvarez and Wingate present the seldom-solicited attitude of the gynecologist. The second section presents reviews and studies, many of which shatter the prejudices and dogmas cited by Pohlman. Simon's paper should silence

Rheology of Two-Phase Systems

Though much has been written on the dynamics of one, or a few, par­ ticles moving in a viscous fluid (11, 15, 43, 46) , the pragmatic interest in such studies lies more in the realm of polyparticle systems (38, 81) of the type commonly encountered in suspension rheology, sedimentation, flow in porous media, fluidized beds, and the like. Zuber's (86) analysis provides insight into the diversity of engineering applications likely to be encompassed by a satisfactory fundamental theory of such two-phase flows. Under moder­ ately well-defined circumstances these systems may be regarded from a gross view as heterogeneous continua, characterizable by a small set of hetero­ continuum (macrocontinuum) fields. Despite the longevity of this view, dating at least from the work of Darcy [1856] on flow through porous media and of Einstein [1906, 1911] on suspension viscosity, little has been done to formulate a rigorous general theory of the behavior of such systems. That no satisfactory fundamental basis exists is evidenced, for example, by con­ flicting claims as to the legitimacy of various derivations of Darcy's law from first principles, 1 by the innumerable relations (71 , 72) proposed for the higher-order concentration terms in Einstein's (35) viscosity formula, and by the multiplicity of theoretically-derived equations advanced to describe even the first-order concentration corrections to Stokes's law arising in the sedimentation of dilute systems (37) . That divergent views of these elementary problems should exist is symptomatic of a lack of perspective sufficiently general to embrace all such phenomena. The present status of the subject may be likened to that of nonequilibrium molecular statistical mechanics prior to the advent of the work of Kirkwood (53) . What is sorely needed is a comparable statistical mechanics of fluid-particle systems. This promising point of view is currently being pursued by at least several investigators. Clearly, however, an ambi­ tious program of this magnitude must be supplemented by less fundamental, but more tractable, schemes. It is with one such ad hoc scheme that the

Regular expressions and the equivalence of programs

If we assume that the study and detection of equivalence for ALGOLl ike programs holds certain pragmatic interest, then it seems reasonable to pursue these matters despite the well-known undecidability of this property. Various efforts have been made to isolate decidable sub-cases of this equivalence problem (e.g., by Paterson [12] and this author [6]). Other efforts have been made to define weaker, and therefore decidable, sorts of equivalence (e.g., by Ianov [4] and Rutledge [14]). Our interest here is to develop equivalence detecting procedures applicable to programs for which equivalence is undecidable. These procedures always produce an answer when questioned as to the equivalence of two programs: either YES or MAYBE. We consider a sequence of these procedures, each more powerful than the preceding ones. Thus, if one procedure returns MAYBE, then perhaps a subsequent more powerful one will return YEs.

THE VALUE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS AS A THERAPEUTIC PROCEDURE

For the past twelve years we have referred various of our patients to accredited psychoanalysts. Our experiences form the basis of this report. The psychoanalytic movement has had a widespread influence on human thought and conduct. Not only have Freud's monumental contributions influenced modern medicine and related sciences such as psychology, sociology and criminology but they have also been reflected in the seven arts. The internist has a pragmatic interest in psychoanalysis apart from the point of view of general culture. He seeks to define the indications for and the limitations and results of this new therapeutic procedure. Before detailing our data, terms must be defined. One must state (<i>a</i>) the qualifications for a psychoanalyst; (<i>b</i>) a conception of what constitutes an analysis, and (<i>c</i>) a description of the type of clinical material referable to the psychoanalyst for the analysis. <h3>THE PSYCHOANALYST—HIS TRAINING AND QUALIFICATIONS</h3> It is our opinion that

Men and Tendencies in German Religious Thought

The student of present-day German religious thought cannot fail to be impressed by the diversity of the attitudes which it expresses. German religious belief runs the entire gamut of possibilities. Side by side one finds authoritarianism, rationalism, mysticism, a devotion to the past and a dominant interest in the future, a religion based on scholarly research and another grounded in romantic experience, a cloistered individualism and a pragmatic interest in human welfare. Students of Aquinas, of Kant, and of Schleiermacher, disciples of Keyserling and of Steiner, ecclesiastics, nature-lovers, and workers for a new social order, all are active today, and through their efforts a new series of general philosophical conceptions is rising from the ruins of the war.