Temporal Cohesion Research Articles

Semiosis as a Source of Providing Empirical Phenomena with a New Type of Cohesion.

Embodying the indexical signs is vital to semiosis as a cohesive material agency mediating between consequents and antecedents. One unique factor of biology compared with standard physics and chemistry is the cohesion enabling the biological components, codes and organizations to accommodate themselves with a specific material embodiment. Every individual body is uniquely biological and requires a specific cohesion of material origin for its own sake that could not be found in the non-living material world. The relevant cohesion comes from the exchange interaction of the atomic quantum particles, such as the carbon atoms, which is far greater than the electrons as a common exchange mediator adopted for the spatial cohesion ubiquitous in physics and chemistry. What is specific to the temporal cohesion latent in the atomic exchange is the immutable identity of the individual quantum particle surviving only over a limited time, while being constantly alternated with the new ones of the same kinds in a successive manner. Semiosis is supported by the underlying teleonomic cohesion, such that the preceding temporal cohesion may constantly induce the succeeding similar one ad infinitum.

Temporal cohesion as a candidate for negentropy in biological thermodynamics

Negentropy explored by Schrödinger for saving biology within thermodynamics stands firm on the perpetual temporal cohesion of material origin. The temporal cohesion refers to the cohesion acting between what has been produced and what is going to produce, thus keeping the negentropy as a measure of organization constantly positive in time. Such cohesion is ubiquitous in measurement internal to the material world. Internal measurement in the quantum realm really lets the current “detecting” constantly feed upon some quantum resources available from the preceding “detected” a moment ago. The quantum resources transferred during the cohesive process serve as a physical factor for bridging between the two different temporalities; the present perfect and progressive tenses. What has been detected comes to participate in an attribute of what is going to detect next as constantly following suit. Temporal cohesion is an agential mediator connecting the adjacent temporalities in a manner different from the spatial cohesion observing only the single temporality restricted to the present tense. The activity of enhancing the magnitude of negentropy may have preceded the emergence of something called life phenomenon. Biology feeds upon temporal cohesion.

Statistical assessment of the temporal and cultural relationship between the Lomekwian and Oldowan

The temporal relationship between the Lomekwi 3 archaeological site and the Oldowan stone tool industry is not well explored. Lomekwi 3 dates to 3.3 million years ago (Ma), meaning the ‘Lomekwian’ as we currently understand it is 719 thousand years (Ka) older than the current oldest known Oldowan site, Ledi-Gararu. Here, we investigate the temporal relationship between Lomekwi 3 and early Oldowan occurrences using the ‘surprise test’, a statistical technique able to assess the temporal cohesion of cultural occurrences. It evaluates the null hypothesis that Lomekwi 3 was produced by the same cultural process responsible for the Oldowan, and does so by determining the temporal exceptionality of an outlying occurrence (i.e., Lomekwi 3) relative to a larger sample of earlier or later occurrences (in this case early Oldowan sites). Results indicate the null hypothesis cannot be rejected, suggesting Lomekwi 3 to potentially be from the same cultural process responsible for the Oldowan. This lack of temporal distinction means the former cannot reliably be inferred to be outside of the temporal range of the latter, increasing the feasibility of a cultural evolutionary relationship between Lomekwi 3 and the Oldowan and emphasising the need for a more widely evidenced technological distinction between the two. Additionally, we examine the impact of a less porous Oldowan record on these results by simulating the discovery of additional early Oldowan sites. The addition of five or more sites was required to guarantee a significant result. Thus, temporal evidence suggests Lomekwi 3 and the Oldowan should currently be considered part of the same cultural process (i.e., not to result from technological convergence), but this scenario could change through additional site discoveries.

Spatial and temporal cohesion of parents and offspring in a social large carnivore

Spatial and temporal cohesion of parents and offspring in a social large carnivore

Unpacking the contribution of linguistic features to graph writing quality: An analytic scoring approach

Previous research on L2 writing quality has mostly focused on independent writing, and there is little empirical work on integrated writing quality. Furthermore, the majority of studies on L2 writing quality have adopted holistic scoring for writing assessment. Therefore, the purpose of this exploratory research was to investigate the contribution of linguistic features, i.e. measures of syntactic complexity, lexical complexity, cohesion, and linguistic accuracy, to scores of content, organization, and language use in graph writing, which is far less researched. Two hundred and forty-three undergraduate Iranian students described a graph with few visual chunks and a familiar topic. The findings of stepwise regression revealed that content nominals per clause and lexical diversity contributed to content and language use scores, linguistic accuracy could predict the scores of organization and language use, and contrastive and temporal connectives and temporal cohesion were predictive of the scores in all the three subscales. Moreover, some important discrepancies were observed between the raters’ scores to a subscale and its linguistic predictors. Implications for writing research, pedagogy, and assessment are offered. • Linguistic features contribute to the subscales of graph writing in different ways. • Complex nominals per clause predicted content and language use scores. • Lexical diversity was the strongest predictor of content scores. • Cohesion contributed to all the three subscales. • Linguistic accuracy was the best predictor of language use scores.

The Acheulean is a temporally cohesive tradition

ABSTRACT The Acheulean has long been considered a single, unified tradition. Decades of morphometric and technological evidence supports such an understanding by demonstrating that a single fundamental Bauplan was followed for more than 1.6 million years. What remains unknown is whether sites assigned to the Acheulean represent multiple socially-independent iterations of the same technological solution to shared ecological (functional) and ergonomic demands. Here, using the ‘surprise test’, the temporal cohesion of the Acheulean record is statistically assessed for the first time. Chronological data from 81 early and late Acheulean sites are investigated to see if breaks in this record warrant the designation of separate, culturally distinct groupings of sites. No significant results were returned, suggesting the Acheulean to be temporally cohesive and there to be no evidence of cultural convergence from a temporal perspective. When combined with previous morphometric, technological and spatial evidence, the best-fit scenario for the Acheulean continues to be that it represents a single, but variable, tradition.

Comprehensive quantitative method for neurotransmitters to study the activity of a sedative-hypnotic candidate using microdialysis and LC×LC-MS/MS

Neurotransmitters (NTs) and their metabolites play crucial roles in the regulation of the sleep-wake cycle. Thus, a comprehensive quantitative analysis of NTs would be useful in elucidating the potential mechanisms involved in sedative-hypnotic activities. In this study, we developed a high-throughput quantitative method based on a two-dimensional chromatography-mass spectrometry technique to simultaneously analyze 63 NTs and their metabolites in rat plasma, brain homogenate, and microdialysis samples from five different sleep-associated regions of the brain. Moreover, this method was used to study the neurochemical mechanism of an adenosine analog sedative-hypnotic candidate YZG-331. Most of the correlations between NTs were lost after the administration of the sedative, particularly in the caudate putamen (CPu) and dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN), indicating that the sleep-wake balance was affected. Administration of the adenosine analog YZG-331 could act similar as accumulation of adenosine, inducing adenosine and its metabolite adenine were decreased significantly in the CPu, accompanying with GABA, aspartate, and glutamate changed slightly by the communications between different neurons to further promote sleep. In addition, YZG-331 affected the metabolism of tryptophan and serotonin (5-HT) in the DRN and orbital frontal cortex (OFC). Melatonin and 5-hydroxyindole-3-acetic acid (a metabolite of 5-HT) were significantly increased in the OFC, and the levels of glutamate/glutamine, asparagine, and adrenaline were altered. Sleep homeostasis is a balance between the duration of sleep and wakefulness and is coordinated by all NTs. The high-throughput quantitative method introduced in this study may aid in revealing the temporal cohesion among NTs, evaluating sleep homeostasis, and determining the effects of sedative-hypnotic drugs.

Narrative Abilities and Episodic Memory in School-Aged Children Followed by Child Protective Services.

The ability to narrate routine familiar events develops gradually during middle childhood, in increasingly higher levels of coherence and temporal cohesion. Improvements in episodic memory are also observed, reflecting children’s increasing ability to recall specific circumstances of past events and personal experiences. Even though several studies have evaluated children’s narrative abilities and episodic memory, little information is available regarding the children exposed to risks that justify their referral to Child Protective Services (CPS). The current study analysed children’s narrative abilities and episodic memory performance, according to the circumstances related to the referral to CPS. Event schema representation, narrative coherence, narrative temporal cohesion, and episodic memory concerning routine and specific personal events in family context were analysed in a sample of 56 school-aged children followed by the CPS in Portugal. Children referred to CPS due to disruptive behaviour presented higher episodic memory performance, compared to those exposed to domestic violence, neglect, and abuse. No significant differences were found between groups regarding narrative abilities related to familiar routine events. Results highlight the relevance of evaluating the adverse circumstances that lead to CPS referral, considering the levels of risk and danger involved, given its differential effects on children’s episodic memory development.

Cohesion in the Narrative Writing of Young EFL Learners: Correct and Incorrect Use of Local Cohesive Ties

This study examines the correct and incorrect use of local cohesive ties and local cohesion errors in the written narratives of eleven- to twelve-year-old Spanish learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) at different proficiency levels. The study was carried out with pairs who collaboratively wrote a narrative text in response to a picture prompt. The young learners’ written texts were examined to identify their correct and incorrect use of four categories: lexical, referential, conjunctive and temporal cohesion. The results show that higher and lower proficiency learners are significantly different in their use of the causal conjunction because, personal pronouns and noun phrases containing possessive, definite, indefinite and zero determiners. The two groups also differ in their incorrect use of pronouns, simple verb forms and noun phrases containing definite, indefinite and zero determiners. Attention is drawn to the need to explore the diversity in young learners’ use of cohesion and some pedagogical implications are drawn.

The smell of time in Ana Margarida de Carvalho’s Não se pode morar nos olhos de um gato: an outline of the human condition

This article analyses the olfactory landscapes represented in the novel Não se pode morar nos olhos de um gato (You can’t live in a cat’s eyes) by Ana Margarida de Carvalho (2016) reflecting upon the way in which the various smells described ‘presentify’ the multiple memories of the characters, emphasising their human dimension in a confinement scenario predisposed to completely dehumanising them. Using the theoretical contributions of Drobnick (2006a, 2006b), Reinarz (2014) and Byung-Chul Han (2015) among others, we examine how the smellscapes contribute to the construction of the characters’ identitary memory giving the narrative temporal cohesion.

Accommodating Probability to Durability as Facing the Onset of Biological Phenomena from Within

Life distinguishes itself from non-life in taking advantage of the cohesion of temporal origin which non-life cannot afford. The temporal cohesion letting the local participants adhere to each other in a contemporaneous manner refers to an instance of the precedent product being pulled into the subsequent production. Setting the precedent is equivalent to preparing the conditions for the subsequent to follow. A concrete implementation of the cohesion of temporal origin, compared with the spatial cohesion common in physics, is found in the natural construction of a reaction cycle with use of the temporal affinity exerted from the immediate local environment. That construction is a temporally local phenomenon in the experiential domain, rather than in the theoretical. The cohesion originating in the local environment is due to the local act of measurement by the environment. A major component of the local environment to each reactant in the reaction cycle is the cycle itself. The cohesion specific to the reaction cycle rests upon the fact that every reaction product from the upstream production in the cycle comes to be fed upon by the immediate downstream production. Every production constituting the reaction cycle is temporally adjacent to and contemporaneous with the similar others residing in the whole cycle, in sharp contrast to the case of the open-ended linear chain of reaction. One externalist scheme of appreciating the internalist enterprise of constructing a durable reaction cycle in a contemporaneous manner may become possible as referring to the Bayesian probability. The durable reaction cycle may be made actual with probability unity under the condition that the products from the preceding production come with the protocol for the similar production to come subsequently.

Predictability and variability of association patterns in sooty mangabeys

In many group-living animal species, interactions take place in changing social environments, increasing the information processing necessary to optimize social decision-making. Communities with different levels of spatial and temporal cohesion should differ in the predictability of association patterns. While the focus in this context has been on primate species with high fission-fusion dynamics, little is known about the variability of association patterns in species with large groups and high temporal cohesion, where group size and the environment create unstable subgroups. Here, we use sooty mangabeys as a model species to test predictability on two levels: on the subgroup level and on the dyadic level. Our results show that the entirety of group members surrounding an individual is close to random in sooty mangabeys; making it unlikely that individuals can predict the exact composition of bystanders for any interaction. At the same time, we found predictable dyadic associations based on assortative mixing by age, kinship, reproductive state in females, and dominance rank; potentially providing individuals with the ability to partially predict which dyads can be usually found together. These results indicate that animals living in large cohesive groups face different challenges from those with high fission-fusion dynamics, by having to adapt to fast-changing social contexts, while unable to predict who will be close-by in future interactions. At the same time, entropy measures on their own are unable to capture the predictability of association patterns in these groups.Significance statementWhile the challenges created by high fission-fusion dynamics in animal social systems and their impact on the evolution of cognitive abilities are relatively well understood, many species live in large groups without clear spatio-temporal subgrouping. Nonetheless, they show remarkable abilities in considering their immediate social environment when making social decisions. Measures of entropy of association patterns have recently been proposed to measure social complexity across species. Here, we evaluate suggested entropy measures in sooty mangabeys. The high entropy of their association patterns would indicate that subgroup composition is largely random, not allowing individuals to prepare for future social environments. However, the existence of strong assortativity on the dyadic level indicates that individuals can still partially predict who will be around whom, even if the overall audience composition might be unclear. Entropy alone, therefore, captures social complexity incompletely, especially in species facing fast-changing social environments.

Foraging intention affects whether willow tits call to attract members of mixed-species flocks.

Understanding how individual behaviour influences the spatial and temporal distribution of other species is necessary to resolve the complex structure of species assemblages. Mixed-species bird flocks provide an ideal opportunity to investigate this issue, because members of the flocks are involved in a variety of behavioural interactions between species. Willow tits (Poecile montanus) often produce loud calls when visiting a new foraging patch to recruit other members of mixed-species flocks. The costs and benefits of flocking would differ with individual foraging behaviours (i.e. immediate consumption or caching); thus, willow tits may adjust the production of loud calls according to their foraging intention. In this study, we investigated the link between foraging decisions and calling behaviour in willow tits and tested its influence on the temporal cohesion with members of mixed-species flocks. Observations at experimental foraging patches showed that willow tits produced more calls when they consumed food items compared with when they cached them. Playback experiments revealed that these calls attracted flock members and helped to maintain their presence at foraging patches. Thus, willow tits adjusted calling behaviour according to their foraging intention, thereby coordinating the associations with members of mixed-species flocks. Our findings demonstrate the influence of individual decision-making on temporal cohesion with other species and highlight the importance of interspecific communication in mixed-species flocking dynamics.

Nyström Approximated Temporally Constrained Multisimilarity Spectral Clustering Approach for Movie Scene Detection.

Movie scene detection has emerged as an important problem in present day multimedia applications. Since a movie typically consists of huge amount of video data with widespread content variations, detecting a movie scene has become extremely challenging. In this paper, we propose a fast yet accurate solution for movie scene detection using Nyström approximated multisimilarity spectral clustering with a temporal integrity constraint. We use multiple similarity matrices to model the wide content variations typically present in any movie dataset. Nyström approximation is employed to reduce the high computational cost of constructing multiple similarity measures. The temporal integrity constraint captures the inherent temporal cohesion of the movie shots. Experiments on five movie datasets from different genres clearly demonstrate the superiority of the proposed solution over the state-of-the-art methods.

Guided optimisation through classification and regression for hand pose estimation

This paper presents an approach to hand pose estimation that combines discriminative and model-based methods to leverage the advantages of both. Randomised Decision Forests are trained using real data to provide fast coarse segmentation of the hand. The segmentation then forms the basis of constraints applied in model fitting, using an efficient projected Gauss–Seidel solver, which enforces temporal continuity and kinematic limitations. However, when fitting a generic model to multiple users with varying hand shape, there is likely to be residual errors between the model and their hand. Also, local minima can lead to failures in tracking that are difficult to recover from. Therefore, we introduce an error regression stage that learns to correct these instances of optimisation failure. The approach provides improved accuracy over the current state of the art methods, through the inclusion of temporal cohesion and by learning to correct from failure cases. Using discriminative learning, our approach performs guided optimisation, greatly reducing model fitting complexity and radically improves efficiency. This allows tracking to be performed at over 40 frames per second using a single CPU thread.

Korean College EFL Learners’ Task Motivation in Written Language Production

<p>The aims of the present study were to explore the effects of two different types of task conditions (topic choice vs. no choice) on the quality of written production in a second language (lexical complexity, syntactic complexity, and cohesion) and to investigate the effects of these two different task conditions on task motivation. This research was conducted by means of a task motivation questionnaire and a collation of the writings of 31 Korean college students learning English as a foreign language. The data was analyzed using Coh-Metrix 3.0. The major findings were as follows: 1) The writings of participants in the topic choice condition were better than those in the no-choice condition in terms of lexical sophistication and temporal cohesion. However, participants’ written production in the no-choice condition was better than that in the topic choice condition in terms of syntactic complexity. 2) The participants’ task motivation levels were higher for the perceived choice domain in the topic choice condition than in the no-choice condition. These findings should help L2 writing instructors, materials developers, and researchers to design L2 writing instruction with a focus on written production specifically for Korean college-level learners.</p>

The long journey toward a higher level of automation in ATM as safety critical, sociotechnical and multi-Agent system

The main objective of this paper is to present our vision of the role of automation in future air traffic management (ATM) system. It also includes an analysis and state of the art on ATM and automation. The content is based on HALA! position paper, that looks beyond the framework defined by SESAR and NextGen for the near future, and analyses the feasibility of higher levels of automation in ATM in the far future, taking into account the relationship between humans, organizations, and machines and scoping the allocation of functions, roles, and tasks between them. Taking into consideration the proposed SESAR&NextGen paradigm shift (trajectory-based operations; proactive, more distributed and autonomous system) and studies developed in ATM automation in the past years, the vision goes toward a more ATM automation system operation questioning even the possibility of fully automated ATM system. The understanding of higher levels of automation in ATM considers the “overall system performance” as main driver for the resulting “optimal” ATM level of automation. Implementation of above programs will change the human role in the future ATM system. In this regard, the vision considers ATM as sociotechnical system and orchestrated organization, overcoming the former consequences of automation, where some “human errors” caused from automation were found, to this new vision where human motivation for their engagement in the ATM activities, will be promoted. New roles between humans, organizations, and between them and machines will be derived by considering ATM as a complex sociotechnical multi-agent system. Under this assumption, it will be essential: to maintain a high degree of autonomy among different ATM agents and, simultaneously, an optimized level of orchestration among them. Three interdependent criteria to support the always controversial decision about where to dynamically allocate the ATM essential functions/tasks are proposed; when is the “best time” to take an operational action, where is the “best place” having the best picture to take it and, finally, who will be the “best player” to implement the associated tasks. As a result, the paper advocates for a different role of automation devoted to support a temporal, institutional, and physical distributed ATM system. It is also pointed out that research in ATM automation should always take under consideration the adequate level of automation in the far future ATM system and should always ensure the safety and reliability of a highly automated ATM system. Finally considers the need to align the research efforts into two different main activities of improvement, devoted to: aircraft trajectory hierarchal, spatial, and temporal cohesion and trajectory management.

Isotopic Evidence for Diet Among Historic Bedouin of Khirbat al‐Mudayna, Jordan

AbstractInterpreting the behaviours of nomadic groups from the archaeological record is particularly challenging owing to the ephemeral remains produced by their lifestyle. As such, human burials – even from isolated contexts – provide a wealth of information about these transient groups. Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis of a series of human skeletal remains (n = 22) from isolated burials were utilized to reconstruct the diet of historic (ca. 13th–19th century CE) Bedouin from the Khirbat al‐Mudayna vicinity in modern‐day Jordan. Carbon isotope values ranging from −17.7 to −12.5‰ point to variable dietary contributions from both C3‐ and C4‐based foods, while corresponding faunal δ13C ratios ( = −19.0 ± 1.7‰, 1σ) exhibit depletion in 13C characteristic of a predominantly C3 diet. While mean human δ15N values ( = 12.7 ± 1.9‰, 1σ) may suggest that the majority of protein consumed by these nomads came from animal and not plant sources, elevated δ15N ratios in some fauna may be indicative of 15N‐enriched soils as reported in some arid desert environments. Considerable variability in both δ13C and δ15N values also points to differences in individual life histories and subsistence economies over time. Despite a lack of temporal cohesion, these data illustrate the information that can be gleaned from the isolated interments of nomadic or semi‐nomadic individuals. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Temporal cohesion of the structural, functional and molecular characteristics of the developing zebrafish heart

Heart formation is a complex, dynamic and highly coordinated process of molecular, morphogenetic and functional factors with each interacting and contributing to formation of the mature organ. Cardiac abnormalities in early life can be lethal in mammals but not in the zebrafish embryo which has been widely used to study the developing heart. While early cardiac development in the zebrafish has been well characterized, functional changes during development and how these relate to architectural, cellular and molecular aspects of development have not been well described previously. To address this we have carefully characterised cardiac structure, function, cardiomyocyte proliferation and cardiac-specific gene expression between 48 and 120hpf in the zebrafish. We show that the zebrafish heart increases in volume and changes shape significantly between 48 and 72hpf accompanied by a 40% increase in cardiomyocyte number. Between 96 and 120hpf, while external heart expansion slows, there is rapid formation of a mature and extensive trabecular network within the ventricle chamber. While ejection fraction does not change during the course of development other determinants of contractile function increase significantly particularly between 72 and 96hpf leading to an increase in cardinal vein blood flow. This study has revealed a number of novel aspects of cardiac developmental dynamics with striking temporal orchestration of structure and function within the first few days of development. These changes are associated with changes in expression of developmental and maturational genes. This study provides important insights into the complex temporal relationship between structure and function of the developing zebrafish heart.

How to Use Temporal-Driven Constrained Clustering to Detect Typical Evolutions

In this paper, we propose a new time-aware dissimilarity measure that takes into account the temporal dimension. Observations that are close in the description space, but distant in time are considered as dissimilar. We also propose a method to enforce the segmentation contiguity, by introducing, in the objective function, a penalty term inspired from the Normal Distribution Function. We combine the two propositions into a novel time-driven constrained clustering algorithm, called TDCK-Means, which creates a partition of coherent clusters, both in the multidimensional space and in the temporal space. This algorithm uses soft semi-supervised constraints, to encourage adjacent observations belonging to the same entity to be assigned to the same cluster. We apply our algorithm to a Political Studies dataset in order to detect typical evolution phases. We adapt the Shannon entropy in order to measure the entity contiguity, and we show that our proposition consistently improves temporal cohesion of clusters, without any significant loss in the multidimensional variance.