Sacred Technologies: the Evolution of Religious Cognitive Niche

<p>Most cognitive studies of religion adopt a modular theory of cognition. The 'space'that is studied is often the 'space between the ears'. Culture and religion are viewed as by-products of more entrenched features of our brains. Although this 'Standard Model' explains many intuitive expressions of religious belief, it has trouble explaining (a) the variability of religious systems crossculturally (b) the uses of material culture (i.e. symbolic structures etc) in transmitting religious concepts. The following thesis presents a 'wideware mind' hypothesis for religious cognition. I urge that while our internal cognitive architecture is causally relevant to religious cognition, the material artefacts of culture must be viewed as cognitive properties in their own right. Hence any causal account of religious cognition must acknowledge the external features of minds and how our neurological resources interact with the artefacts of our world.</p>

Sacred Technologies: the Evolution of Religious Cognitive Niche

<p>Most cognitive studies of religion adopt a modular theory of cognition. The 'space'that is studied is often the 'space between the ears'. Culture and religion are viewed as by-products of more entrenched features of our brains. Although this 'Standard Model' explains many intuitive expressions of religious belief, it has trouble explaining (a) the variability of religious systems crossculturally (b) the uses of material culture (i.e. symbolic structures etc) in transmitting religious concepts. The following thesis presents a 'wideware mind' hypothesis for religious cognition. I urge that while our internal cognitive architecture is causally relevant to religious cognition, the material artefacts of culture must be viewed as cognitive properties in their own right. Hence any causal account of religious cognition must acknowledge the external features of minds and how our neurological resources interact with the artefacts of our world.</p>

Module partitioning study of specialized engineering services based on modular theory ——case on coal production firms

Outsourcing of specialized engineering services has become one of the routes to the innovation and high-quality development of the commercial model of coal production enterprises in China. Currently, although there is practice, no scale-up development has been achieved.In this paper, based on modular theory, under the condition of unknown expert weights, triangular fuzzy number method is used to construct a service unit association relationship evaluation model, and the correlation matrix is calculated. Then, a genetic algorithm is used to cluster the association matrix and obtain the results of the division of the outsourced module of engineering services. Finally, the proposed method is validated using the coal mine development process of coal producers as an example.

The synergistic effects of interaction strength and lags on ecological stability

Uncovering the fundamental properties of ecological stability is a central question in theoretical biology since its inception at the turn of the century. Here, motivated by simple modular theory (e.g., population models to few species models), we review the role of interactions strength and lags on dynamics and stability. Specifically, we argue that modular theory consistently finds that lags combined with high growth rates or strong interaction strengths underly all forms of instability in ecological models. To fully explore this relationship, we first need to understand the role of both explicit lags—using lagged versions of classical models, such as the lagged logistic population model, as well as the more subtle role of implicit lags that arise in all biological models of growth. Given this, and the realization that nature is replete with lags (e.g., age structure, stage structure, predator-prey, reproductive lags, recycling lags), it becomes important to understand how lags, both implicit and explicit, interact. With an eye towards correcting the frequently overlooked role of lags on stability we review existing mathematical examples that argue lags can combine to drive instability (lag excitation) or inhibit the expression of instability by cancelling each other out effectively (lag cancellation). We suggest that further understanding the role of lags and how they interact within whole webs and ecosystems remains an important research area for the future.

Modular structure of inflorescences Hydrangea L.: flowering and pollen quality

Представлены результаты исследований структуры соцветий гортензии (Hydrangea) с точки зрения модульной теории организации растений, являющейся современным этапом развития гётевской морфологии. Выделено три типа модулей, которые демонстрируют сходство двух физиономически различных соцветий. Установлено, что распускание цветков происходит параллельно во всех модулях в базипетальном порядке, что подтверждает цимозную природу соцветия, характерную для тирса. Анализ качества пыльцы в зависимости от положения цветков в структуре соцветия подтвердил порядок формирования и модульность структуры соцветия. Доказано, что качество пыльцы в цветках, распускающихся первыми и являющихся терминальными для основных модулей, выше, чем в цветках последующих порядков ветвления. Research results of inflorescences structure of Hydrangea from the point of view of the modular theory of plant organization, which is a modern stage in the development of Goethes morphology, are presented. There are three types of modules that demonstrate the similarity of two physiognomically different inflorescences. It has been found that the blooming of flowers occurs in parallel in all the modules in a basipetal order, which confirms the cymose nature of the inflorescence characteristic of thyrse. Analysis of pollen quality depending on the position of flowers in the inflorescence structure confirmed the order of formation and modularity of the inflorescence structure. It is proved that the quality of pollen in flowers that bloom first and are terminal for the main modules is higher than in flowers of subsequent branching orders.

Features of compressed rods calculations with account of initial imperfections and creep effects

The article presents solutions to the problem of rod buckling, taking into account creep effects. Trigonometric series, the finite difference method in combination with the programming language MATLAB, as well as the finite element method in the ANSYS software package were used in the solutions. The behavior of the rods is researched for two types of relations between strain and stress during creep, with strains in an explicit and implicit form. When solving, the criterion of initial imperfections with their different values is used, as well as the tangential-modular theory. The results obtained for the two creep models are compared. The conclusion is made about the accuracy of the results of calculations in ANSYS with the presence of a combination of geometric and physical nonlinearity for various creep models.