BACKGROUND The evolution of altruism has been explained mainly from ultimate perspectives. However, it remains to be investigated from a proximate point of view how and in which situations such social propensity is achieved. We investigated chimpanzees' targeted helping in a tool transfer paradigm, and discuss the similarities and differences in altruism between humans and chimpanzees. Previous...

In an effort to activate the globin genes of non-erythroid cells, tetraploid murine erythroleukaemia cells (Friend cells) were fused with diploid human amniotic fibroblasts. When the Friend cells were pretreated with dimethylsulphoxide, an average of 27% heterokaryons was observed. These cells stained with benzidine, an indication that they contained haemoglobin. The cells incorporated radioact...

Argumentation-based negotiation has emerged as an important topic in multi-agent systems over the last years. Although there are many studies of frameworks that enable agents to negotiate through the exchange of arguments, there is a lack of reasoning methods that employ the (usually incomplete) knowledge an agent may have about his opponent. This work addresses this issue by providing a reason...

The orthodox view in statistics has it that frequentism and Bayesianism are diametrically opposed—two totally incompatible takes on the problem of statistical inference. This paper argues to the contrary that the two approaches are complementary and need to mesh if probabilistic reasoning is to be carried out correctly.

We study rank aggregation algorithms that take as input the opinions of players over their peers, represented as rankings, and output a social ordering of the players (which reflects, e.g., relative contribution to a project or fit for a job). To prevent strategic behavior, these algorithms must be impartial, i.e., players should not be able to influence their own position in the output ranking...

We report that gene dosage, or the ratio of nuclei from two cell types fused to form a heterokaryon, affects the time course of differentiation-specific gene expression. The rate of appearance of the human muscle antigen, 5.1H11, is significantly faster in heterokaryons with equal or near-equal numbers of mouse muscle and human fibroblast nuclei than in heterokaryons with increased numbers of n...

A brief summary is given of the outstanding issues in experimental work on the strong interaction at collider experiments. I focus particularly on those areas where more than one collider can address the same issue. (Some figures in this article are in colour only in the electronic version; see www.iop.org)