Transmutation Theory Research Articles

Transmuted cosine Topp-Leone G family of distributions: properties and applications

In contemporary data analysis, the need for flexible and adaptable probabilistic models capable of capturing complex dependencies and tail behaviors in real-life datasets has become increasingly apparent. In light of this demand, A new trigonometric generalized family of distribution, the "Transmuted Cosine Topp-Leone G Family" is proposed in this study. Established on the foundations of, this family combines the adaptability of the Topp-Leone distribution with the periodicity of the cosine function and transmutation theory to produce a flexible framework that may be used to represent a wide range of real-life phenomena. We derive some of the statistical properties of the introduced family such as; survival and hazard functions, and moment and moment-generating functions. Moreover, the model parameters are estimated using the Maximum Likelihood method, and a Monte Carlo simulation was performed to ascertain the behavior and the consistency of the estimates. We investigate the shape of the distribution parameters which results in distributions with left-skew, right-skew, increasing, and decreasing shapes. Lastly, through empirical demonstrations, we showcase the efficacy of the family TrCTLG models in fitting lifetime datasets.

Leaven of Dough, Ferment of Gold: The Breadmaking Analogy in Medieval Metallic Transmutation

This paper traces the analogy between the making of bread with ferment (leaven or yeast) and theories of metallic transmutation throughout the Middle Ages. For this purpose it surveys several medieval alchemical writings, including Hortulanus’s influential Commentary on the Emerald Tablet. In this work, the ferment, an essential ingredient of the philosophers’ stone, is portrayed less as an active agent and more as the passive, nutritive earth (terra nutrix) which combines with the soul (anima) in order to yield the stone (lapis). I argue that the background of these theories has both a practical and a medical-theoretical dimension. The practical aspect derives from historical everyday practices of making bread from sourdough, and using old yeast “starter” as a kind of inoculum to speed up the fermentation of a new batch of fresh dough. The medical-theoretical framework for the understanding of ferment action was likely provided by the widely influential Galenic idea of whole substance action (Gr. καθ᾽ὅλην τὴν οὐσίαν, Lat. tota substantia), initially developed by Galen in pharmacology and later imported into alchemy via Arabic medicine. Together, these aspects converge into a successful model of “inoculation-emergence,” which underlies many medieval and early modern theories of fermentation, both medical and alchemical.

Creatures of Empire in Le Fanu's Uncle Silas

Abstract The interim between Darwin's first publication of the theory of natural selection (The Origin of Species, 1859) and his extended application of it to human development (The Descent of Man, 1871) corresponds with the reign of sensation fiction, a genre built upon older gothic tropes but imbricated with cultural and scientific modernization. Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's Uncle Silas, a novel that straddles generic and national literature categories, typifies the sensation era's uneasy awareness of not only similarity but interdependence across boundaries. While eschewing typical sensation engagement with technology such as trains and telegrams, Uncle Silas reflects theories of species transmutation and particularly Darwin's Origin, which posited a malleability of seemingly distinct categories through species interaction and environmental influence. The plot of Uncle Silas centers on dislocation and efforts to fortify self-identity and reestablish security. Le Fanu's narrator-protagonist, the orphaned English or Anglo-Irish heiress Maud Ruthyn, practices bodily self-regulation and careful discernment to shore up boundaries of nationality and class that sustain her hereditary privilege. She stabilizes her class, national, and gender identity through rational revulsion from her French governess and implicitly Irish cousin. Narrator-protagonist Maud resolutely positions Englishness against foreignness and humanity against animality, but these categorical divisions, which she enforces as a character in the novel's imagined world, are exposed as false by her narration. Uncle Silas presents unregulated animal appetites as threatening to rational community governance, but it also implies that our bestial shared capacity for pain, which crosses boundaries of nationality, class, and even species, enables ethical response.

On an Integral Equation with the Riemann Function Kernel

This paper is concerned with a study of a special integral equation. This integral equation arises in many applied problems, including transmutation theory, inverse scattering problems, the solution of singular Sturm–Liouville and Shrödinger equations, and the representation of solutions of singular Sturm–Liouville and Shrödinger equations. A special integral equation is derived and formulated using the Riemann function of a singular hyperbolic equation. In the paper, the existence of a unique solution to this equation is proven by the method of successive approximations. The results can be applied, for example, to representations of solutions to Sturm–Liouville equations with singular potentials, such as Bargmann and Miura potentials, and similiar. The treatment of problems with such potentials are very important in mathematical physics, and inverse, scattering and related problems. The estimates received do not contain any undefined constants, and for transmutation kernels all estimates are explicitly written.

Subtle racism in English language: A socio-semiotic analysis of black-prefixed English lexicons

The English language has become a global language and as such, it is expected to be devoid of racial discrimination and prejudice. The English language has both verbal and non-verbal systems of communication which often requires semantic and semiotic analyses for the purpose of generating meaning. Most English words with the prefix 'black' have meanings that are either connotative or derogative. Using Jakobson’s transmutation theory, the study establishes the relationship between colour, culture, and racial prejudice in English language black-prefixed lexicons. This is a subtle form of racism when such words are taught in schools. The design adopted for this research was a qualitative, and no variables were manipulated because it was a library research. The study examined the socio-semiotic elements of black-prefixed words in the English language to establish that there is subtle racism in English expressions used and taught in schools. It was concluded that instruction in the language should be revitalized to eradicate racism of any form, especially in the second language classroom.

A New Approach to Bivariate Transmutation: Construction of Continuous Bivariate Distribution Under Negative Dependency

In this study, a new approach to transmutation theory is developed by using negative dependency basement. Once choosing a distribution that has negative dependency with the same marginal, a new bivariate distribution is derived. In this study, we examined a new transmutation technique in which a negative dependency offers a big success in modeling rather than most known and used statistical distributions. This approach clash with classical transmutation methods. In this study at the beginning, the classical transmutation is defined. Later, we introduce the new technique and obtain lower and upper bounds of distribution to show that this approach gives us a distribution. Gaining new bivariate continuous distributions with this technique may be more appropriate in theory, and modeling of some data sets in terms of this approach may be more efficient.

Alchemy and Creation in the Work of Albertus Magnus

Albertus Magnus’ alchemy is a subject that has attracted the attention of the scholars since the early decades of the 20th century. Yet, the research that has been conducted this far is characterised by its non philosophical character. As a matter of fact, the previous studies approached Albertus’ alchemy either in terms of history of science or of intellectual history. In this paper, I focus on Albertus’ definition of alchemical transmutation that is found in his De mineralibus and I analyze it in terms of his theory of creation and of his theory of matter. Therefore, I show whether a re-creation of a metal is in accordance with Albertus’ philosophy and congruently I bring forth the Aristotle Graecus and the Aristotle Latinus that are found as background in his alchemical theory of transmutation. Ultimately this paper aims to show that the aforementioned theory is not an arbitrary statement from Albertus’ part, but the result of a serious philosophical endeavour

Opsin-based photopigments expressed in the retina of a South American pit viper,Bothrops atrox(Viperidae)

AbstractAlthough much is known about the visual system of vertebrates in general, studies regarding vision in reptiles, and snakes in particular, are scarce. Reptiles display diverse ocular structures, including different types of retinae such as pure cone, mostly rod, or duplex retinas (containing both rods and cones); however, the same five opsin-based photopigments are found in many of these animals. It is thought that ancestral snakes were nocturnal and/or fossorial, and, as such, they have lost two pigments, but retained three visual opsin classes. These are theRH1gene (rod opsin or rhodopsin-like-1) expressed in rods and two cone opsins, namelyLWS(long-wavelength-sensitive) andSWS1(short-wavelength-sensitive-1) genes. Until recently, the study of snake photopigments has been largely ignored. However, its importance has become clear within the past few years as studies reconsider Walls’ transmutation theory, which was first proposed in the 1930s. In this study, the visual pigments ofBothrops atrox(the common lancehead), a South American pit viper, were examined. Specifically, full-lengthRH1andLWSopsin gene sequences were cloned, as well as most of theSWS1opsin gene. These sequences were subsequently used for phylogenetic analysis and to predict the wavelength of maximum absorbance (λmax) for each photopigment. This is the first report to support the potential for rudimentary color vision in a South American viper, specifically a species that is regarded as being nocturnal.

Stoicism and Alchemy in Late Antiquity: Zosimus and the Concept of Pneuma

At the beginning of the twentieth century, historians associated the alchemy of the third-century alchemist Zosimus of Panopolis with Platonism and Aristotelianism, explicating his theory of alchemical transmutation under the intellectual umbrella of these philosophical traditions. More recently, scholars of alchemy such as Christina Viano and William Newman have suggested a connection between Zosimean alchemy and Stoicism. Through a close reading of texts in Zosimus’s corpus, this paper posits a Stoic interpretation of several aspects of Zosimean alchemy, focusing on the concepts of pneuma and tension. For Zosimus, I argue, pneuma played a vital role in colouring metals, while tension conferred stability and cohesion upon metallic compounds. This interpretation suggests that Zosimus applied Stoic concepts to describe the alchemical process of tincturing metals.

Cone-like rhodopsin expressed in the all-cone retina of the colubrid pine snake as a potential adaptation to diurnality.

Colubridae is the largest and most diverse family of snakes, with visual systems that reflect this diversity, encompassing a variety of retinal photoreceptor organizations. The transmutation theory proposed by Walls postulates that photoreceptors could evolutionarily transition between cell types in squamates, but few studies have tested this theory. Recently, evidence for transmutation and rod-like machinery in an all-cone retina has been identified in a diurnal garter snake (Thamnophis), and it appears that the rhodopsin gene at least may be widespread among colubrid snakes. However, functional evidence supporting transmutation beyond the existence of the rhodopsin gene remains rare. We examined the all-cone retina of another colubrid, Pituophis melanoleucus, thought to be more secretive/burrowing than Thamnophis We found that P. melanoleucus expresses two cone opsins (SWS1, LWS) and rhodopsin (RH1) within the eye. Immunohistochemistry localized rhodopsin to the outer segment of photoreceptors in the all-cone retina of the snake and all opsin genes produced functional visual pigments when expressed in vitro Consistent with other studies, we found that P. melanoleucus rhodopsin is extremely blue-shifted. Surprisingly, P. melanoleucus rhodopsin reacted with hydroxylamine, a typical cone opsin characteristic. These results support the idea that the rhodopsin-containing photoreceptors of P. melanoleucus are the products of evolutionary transmutation from rod ancestors, and suggest that this phenomenon may be widespread in colubrid snakes. We hypothesize that transmutation may be an adaptation for diurnal, brighter-light vision, which could result in increased spectral sensitivity and chromatic discrimination with the potential for colour vision.

The Impact of Lamarck's Theory of Evolution Before Darwin's Theory.

This paper analyzes the impact that Lamarckian evolutionary theory had in the scientific community during the period between the advent of Zoological Philosophy and the publication Origin of Species. During these 50years Lamarck's model was a well known theory and it was discussed by the scientific community as a hypothesis to explain the changing nature of the fossil record throughout the history of Earth. Lamarck's transmutation theory established the foundation of an evolutionary model introducing a new way to research in nature. Darwin's selectionist theory was proposed in 1859 to explain the origin of species within this epistemological process. In this context, Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology and Auguste Comte's Cours de Philosophie Positive appear as two major works for the dissemination of Lamarck's evolutionary ideology after the death of the French naturalist in 1829.

Transmutation Theory in the Greek Alchemical Corpus

This paper studies transmutation theory as found in the texts attributed to Zosimus of Panopolis, “the philosopher Synesius,” and “the philosopher Olympiodorus of Alexandria.” It shows that transmutation theory (i.e. a theory explaining the complete transformation of substances) is mostly absent from the work attributed to these three authors. The text attributed to Synesius describes a gilding process, which is similar to those described by Pliny and Vitruvius. The commentary attributed to Olympiodorus is the only text studied here that describes something similar to a transmutation theory. It is unclear, however, if this was a theory of transmutation or if the writer meant something more like the literal meaning of the word “ekstrophē,” a term used to describe the transformation of metals, as the “turning inside-out” of what is hidden in a substance. A similar conception of ekstrophē can be found in the works of Zosimus, who discussed transmutation to make an analogy with self-purification processes, which, from the perspective of his own anthropogony, consisted in the “turning inside-out” of the “inner human” (esō anthrōpos).

Emerson, Embryology, and Culture

Emerson, Embryology, and Culture Jennifer J. Baker (bio) One of the most striking recent developments in the historiography of nineteenth-century science has been the increased recognition that European romanticism contributed to the rise of evolutionary theory. Although Thomas Henry Huxley and other Victorian biologists worked hard to distance themselves from more transcendentalist romantic thinkers and were convinced that romanticism had to be overturned in order for rigorous, empirical science to take hold, scholars of the last three decades have argued that a romantic understanding of the natural world helped lay the groundwork for Charles Darwin’s reconceptualization of speciation.1 In fact, before “evolution” took on its specifically Darwinian and transmutationist sense, the biological application of the term, which had originated in embryo studies, meant simply organic development or unfolding. As such, this earlier concept of evolution was central to the romantic notion of a universe that was always in a state of gestation. In hindsight, it is easy to see how a romantic vision of a dynamic natural world—a vision that A.O. Lovejoy famously contrasted with the neoclassical understanding of the universe as static and mechanical—might have shaped new thinking about organic development and biodiversity.2 Especially crucial to this view of organic development was the romantic tradition in embryology, which held up the gestating embryo as proof of nature’s essential tendency to flux. What made the embryo particularly compelling was that it simultaneously kept intact the notion of nature’s underlying metaphysical order. For transcendentalist embryologists, such as Lorenz Oken, Étienne Geoffroy St.–Hilaire, and Louis Agassiz, the dramatic transformations of animal embryos “recapitulated” [End Page 15] a preordained progression of species from lower to higher orders: the expression of gills and a tail in early stages of human embryonic development, for example, were taken as indication that humans were the culmination of a purposeful ascent in the animal kingdom. Although romantic embryology posited this chain of ascent in metaphysical terms, it was only a matter of time before it suggested to Darwin, Huxley, Ernst Haeckel, and others a genealogical relation between an organism and the less complex forms from which it had descended. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s encounter with the embryology of Oken, Geoffroy, and Agassiz reveals in vivid detail how biological theories steeped in romantic notions of dynamism, on the one hand, and teleology, on the other, facilitated the acceptance of transmutation theories among Victorian American readers. Emerson scholars have been intrigued with the extent to which a thinker so moved by the notion of a spiritually imbued natural world came to embrace Darwin’s materialist theory of species transmutation. Some readers might conclude that Emerson read Darwin selectively or simply endorsed new ideas without bothering to square them with the old.3 Other readers, taking up Branka Arsić’s recent argument for Emerson’s coherence as a thinker, might understand this seeming eclecticism as, in fact, a literary practice of systematically transplanting terms from one discourse to another.4 Still others might see his approval of Darwin as a consequence of his growing sense, beginning in the mid-1840s, that the natural world was alien to humans. In this essay, however, I would like to shift attention away from Emerson’s idiosyncrasies and consider the possibility that the eagerness with which he absorbed transmutationist theories without fully discarding romantic metaphysics was both typical for his time and also a direct result of the way transmutation was understood as an embryological phenomenon. Essential to Emerson’s reconciliation of the concepts of material transmutation and metaphysical order, as Philip Nicoloff, Laura Dassow Walls, and William Rossi have shown, was his reading of Robert Chambers’s controversial and anonymous Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844). Chambers envisioned transmutation as originating in the embryo and proceeding teleologically along preordained lines of ascent that culminated with humans. He posited that all life-forms start out as the same embryonic structure, the mature form determined only by the point at which development is “arrested.” Higher orders of animals result from longer gestations, he reasoned, while those of the lower orders are less complex precisely because their development has somehow [End Page 16] been held...

Induction of Nuclear Reactions through Piezoelectrics and other Means

In this paper we shall rst describe low energy nuclear transmutation theory [LENT]and then apply it to describe how a \smart" material such as a piezoelectric rock when crushedcan induce nuclear reactions with production of neutrons which have been observed. An experimentalprogram being set up at Perugia for realizing LENT is also briey noted.

Finite Element Microcosmic Contact Analysis of True Rough Surfaces Based on ANSYS

According to the significance of the contact between mechanical surfaces and the deficiency of the study at present, the finite element analysis software—ANSYS and APDL tool are used to set up a microcosmic contact model due to the micron scale surface topography data of the parts measured by the laser measurement equipment named OLYMPUS, and simulate the complete contact process of rough surfaces based on the theory of elastic-plastic transmutation. A solving algorithm of gird meshing based on multi load steps for the problems of grid precision and grid distortion is presented during microcosmic contact process. Through the disposal module /POST1, the relations between the real contact area, the load and stress are given, which offers the foundation for the analysis of contact mechanism and connect capability between mechanical joint surfaces.

Transmutation theory of a coquasitriangular weak Hopf algebra

Let H be a coquasitriangular quantum groupoid. In this paper, using a suitable idempotent element e in H, we prove that eH is a braided group (or a braided Hopf algebra in the category of right H-comodules), which generalizes Majid’s transmutation theory from a coquasitriangular Hopf algebra to a coquasitriangular weak Hopf algebra.

Darwin teleologist? Design in the Orchids

Focusing on the Orchids, this article aims at disentangling the concepts of teleology, design and natural theology. It refers to several contemporary critics of Darwin (Kölliker, Argyll, Royer, Candolle, Delpino) to challenge Huxley's interpretation that Darwin's system was “a deathblow” to teleology. The Orchids seem rather to be a “flank-movement” (Gray): it departs from the Romantic theories of transmutation and the “imaginary examples” of the Origin; it focuses on empirical data and on teleological structures. Although Darwin refers to natural selection, his readers mock him for his fascination for delicate morphological contrivances and co-adaptations – a sign that he was inescapably lured to finality. Some even suggested that his system was a “theodicy”. In the history of Darwinism, the Orchids reveal “another” quite unexpected and heterodox Darwin: freed from the hypothetical fancies of the Origin, and even suggesting a new kind of physico-theology.

Shedding Light on Serpent Sight: The Visual Pigments of Henophidian Snakes

The biologist Gordon Walls proposed his "transmutation" theory through the 1930s and the 1940s to explain cone-like morphology of rods (and vice versa) in the duplex retinas of modern-day reptiles, with snakes regarded as the epitome of his hypothesis. Despite Walls' interest, the visual system of reptiles, and in particular snakes, has been widely neglected in favor of studies of fishes and mammals. By analyzing the visual pigments of two henophidian snakes, Xenopeltis unicolor and Python regius, we show that both species express two cone opsins, an ultraviolet-sensitive short-wavelength-sensitive 1 (SWS1) (lambda(max) = 361 nm) pigment and a long-wavelength-sensitive (LWS) (lambda(max) = 550 nm) pigment, providing the potential for dichromatic color vision. They also possess rod photoreceptors which express the usual rod opsin (Rh1) pigment with a lambda(max) at 497 nm. This is the first molecular study of the visual pigments expressed in the photoreceptors of any snake species. The presence of a duplex retina and the characterization of LWS, SWS1, and Rh1 visual pigments in henophidian snakes implies that "lower" snakes do not provide support for Walls' transmutation theory, unlike some "higher" (caenophidian) snakes and other reptiles, such as geckos. More data from other snake lineages will be required to test this hypothesis further.

A transmutation theory of inter-organizational exchange relations and networks: Applying critical realism to analysis of collective agency

This article outlines a critical realist approach to inter-organizational relations and networks. It reviews existing criticisms of the main theoretical contributions within this substantive topic area and argues that most have explained outcomes by referring to the structural antecedents that condition the different contexts which actors behave within. This downplays the impact of social processes and how these are shaped by the behavioural orientations of actors within these structures. Critical realism can be used to address this limitation. It provides a perspective on agency and social process that facilitates sophisticated analyses of the behavioural orientations of actors and how these combine to condition processes and outcomes. A three-step approach to analysing inter-organizational relations and networks is outlined and case study data are used in the effort to demonstrate that this approach is less susceptible to the existing criticisms of the field.

Homeotic Sexual Translocations and the Origin of Maize (Zea Mays, Poaceae): A New look at an old problem

In the Origin of Maize Controversy, the Orthodox Teosinte Hypothesis (OTH; Beadle 1939, 1972; Iltis 1971), five key mutations change 2-ranked (distichous) ears of teosinte (wild Zea) with a single row of grains per rank to 4- to many-ranked (polystichous) maize ears with a double row of grains per rank. BUT teosinte ears are lateral to the 1° branch axes, maize ears, like their male homologues, the teosinte I° branch tassel spikes, terminal, an enigma long unrecognized, hence ignored. In the Catastrophic Sexual Transmutation Theory (CSTT; Iltis 1983b, 1987), now abandoned, the I° branch tassel (male) of teosinte (spikelets soft-glumed, paired, i.e., double-rowed per rank, as in maize ears), when brought under female hormonal control by branch condensation, becomes feminized into a maize proto-ear. BUT lateral ears should then have remained teosintoid (2-ranked, each rank with a single row of grains), yet are in fact double-rowed. Combining OTH and CSTT, the new Sexual Translocation Theory (STLT) is based on: first, the branching pattern of teosinte ear clusters (Camara-H. & Gambino 1990), sequentially maturing, sympodially branching, typically Andropogonoid systems, called rhipidia (sing, rhipidium), where each higher order (younger) ear originates as a lateral branch of its lower order, earlier maturing predecessor; and second, on 3 or 4 key mutations [cupule reduction, softening of glumes, doubling of female spikelets], which, by projecting outward the grains, invited human domestication by making them accessible. Within each ear cluster, the earliest maturing, hence nutrient-monopolizing and largest ear would be selected, all younger ears, already nutrientinhibited, suppressed. As fewer, larger ears evolved, and branch internode condensation moved male tassels into female hormonal zones, homeotic conversions translocated female morphology to terminal male positions: first replacing each of the II° branch tassels, and ultimately the 1° branch tassel (male), with an ear (female). With this, now female structure in the apically dominant, hence most nutrient-demanding terminal position gradually suppressing all subsidiary ears on the 1° branch beneath it, mutations for polystichy (contingent on nutrient overload) were finally allowed to become expressed, and the multi-rowed maize ear (at first with an atavistic male tail) evolved. Favored by human selection, these increases in apical dominance by stepwise homeotic sexual conversions explain both archeological and morphological realities, but need to be harmonized with recent results of developmental genetics. Current evidence suggests that teosinte was first tended for its green ears and sugary pith by hunter-gatherers as an occasional rainy-season food in small “garden” populations away from its homeland, and not for its abundant grain-containing, hard fruitcases, which easily mass-collected but useless as food, are as yet unknown from the archeological record. A rare grain-liberating teosinte mutation (probably expressed in only one “founder” plant, a mazoid “Eve”), which exposed the encased grain for easy harvest, was soon recognized as useful, collected and planted (or self-planted). Thus maize was started on its way to a unique horticultural domestication that is not comparable to that of the temperate Old World mass-selected agricultural grains.