An evolutionary approach to behavior is wonderful because is poses fundamentally new questions. It is also difficult, however, precisely because these questions are new and therefore hard to formulate clearly and even harder to answer. The papers in this special issue (Dudley 2002; Gerald & Higley 2002; Hill & Chow 2002; Lende & Smith 2002; Newlin 2002; Panksepp et al. 2002; Sullivan & Hagen 20...

In the future world of ubiquitous computing, interactive devices ranging in size from pocket to wall will be strewn about the user’s environment. Display and digitizer surfaces will be merged so that users appear to interact directly on display surfaces using an electronic pen or touchscreen. Within some size range of these devices, and for some tasks, traditional “widget” style interfaces may ...

A complete understanding of animal signal evolution necessitates analyses of both the proximate (e.g. anatomical and physiological) mechanisms of signal generation and reception, and the ultimate (i.e. evolutionary) mechanisms underlying adaptation and diversification. Here we summarize the results of a synthetic study of electric diversity in the species-rich neotropical electric fish genus Gy...

Social plasticity is a ubiquitous feature of animal behaviour. Animals must adjust the expression of their social behaviour to the nuances of daily social life and to the transitions between life-history stages, and the ability to do so affects their Darwinian fitness. Here, an integrative framework is proposed for understanding the proximate mechanisms and ultimate consequences of social plast...

Biological functions - studied by molecular, systems and behavioral biology - are referred to as proximate mechanisms. Why and how they have emerged from the course of evolution are referred to as ultimate mechanisms. Despite the conceptual and technical schism between the disciplines that focus on each, studies from one side can benefit the other. Experimental evolution is an emerging field at...

MAPL is a journaling file system providing advanced data management features like snapshots and clones. It is also designed to show read/write performance near that of raw disk access for both random and sequential access patterns. Further, the system is designed to show stable I/O performance over time, regardless of the workload placed on it. Important goals of the design are that MAPL seeks ...

Because there is not definite scientific knowledge about posttraumatic neurosis, a psychiatrist involved in evaluating allegations of psychiatric impairment in negligence law cases can make only a circumscribed contribution. Nevertheless, the contribution can be an important one.

Consider a set P of points in the plane sorted by x-coordinate. A point p in P is said to be a proximate point if there exists a point q on the x-axis such that p is the closest point to q over all points in P. The proximate point problem is to determine all the proximate points in P. Our main contribution is to propose optimal parallel algorithms for solving instances of size n of the proximat...

Strong reciprocity (SR) has recently been subject to heated debate. In this debate, the "West camp" (West et al. in Evol Hum Behav 32(4):231-262, 2011), which is critical of the case for SR, and the "Laland camp" (Laland et al. in Science, 334(6062):1512-1516, 2011, Biol Philos 28(5):719-745, 2013), which is sympathetic to the case of SR, seem to take diametrically opposed positions. The West c...

This research was aims to determine the effect of coconut shell liquid smoke application on smoking process physicochemical quality smoked catfish stored at freezing temperature for 14 days. The test parameters used were proximate analysis (protein, fat, and water content), salt-soluble protein, pH, texture (adhesion, springness, cohesiveness, hardness). Analysis data in this experiment using a...