We present a theoretical view of the cellular foundations for network-level processes involved in producing our conscious experience. Inputs to apical synapses in layer 1 of a large subset of neocortical cells are summed at an integration zone near the top of their apical trunk. These inputs come from diverse sources and provide a context within which the transmission of information abstracted from sensory input to their basal and perisomatic synapses can be amplified when relevant. We argue that (...) apical amplification enables conscious perceptual experience and makes it more flexible, and thus more adaptive, by being sensitive to context. Apical amplification provides a possible mechanism for recurrent processing theory that avoids strong loops. It makes the broadcasting hypothesized by global neuronal workspace theories feasible while preserving the distinct contributions of the individual cells receiving the broadcast. It also provides mechanisms that contribute to the holistic aspects of integrated information theory. As apical amplification is highly dependent on cholinergic, aminergic, and other neuromodulators, it relates the specific contents of conscious experience to global mental states and to fluctuations in arousal when awake. We conclude that apical dendrites provide a cellular mechanism for the context-sensitive selective amplification that is a cardinal prerequisite of conscious perception. (shrink)

Apical cells are universally present in lower plants and their description has been mostly viewed morphologically as single-celled meristems. This study attempts to demonstrate that the roles of apical cells and more generally of meristems collectively are (a) often the proliferative source of all cells in a plant, (b) sometimes a formative centre in histogenesis and organogenesis and (c) always a regulatory site. As a proliferative centre it occurs as a series of apical cells through a mitotic (...) lineage by unequal divisions which includes a rotational pattern to form cells distributed according to the symmetry of its organ. As a formative centre it determines leaf arrangement in mosses and leafy liverworts as well as the root cap and gametophyte cushion in ferns. It appears initially to determine the type of organ and later the organ determines the type of apical cells within. As a regulatory centre it activates distal secondary cells to proliferate as well as inhibiting neighbouring cells from becoming apical cells to preserve the identity of an organ during its development.Based on these three roles by which apical cells can be recognized an argument can be drafted that seed plants may have apical cells, although morphologically indistinguishable from other cells, singularly or in batteries instead of possessing the traditionally described multicellular meristems. (shrink)

Merton envisioned his norms of science at a time when peer-reviewed journals controlled scientific communication. Technologies for sharing and finding content have since divorced the certification and amplification of science, generating systemic vulnerabilities. Certified amplification—a new Mertonian-styled norm—enjoins their recoupling and introduces a taxonomy of strategies adopted by institutions to close the certification-amplification gap, including the proportioning of the one to the other. Examples illustrating each taxonomic type collectively paint a picture of an ethos employing a rich (...) range of certification and amplification techniques and emerging in a decentralized fashion across heterogeneous objects, communication modalities, and institutions. (shrink)

During postembryonic development, all organs of a plant are ultimately derived from a few pluripotent stem cells found in specialized structures called apical meristems. Here we discuss our current knowledge about the regulation of plant stem cells and their environments with main emphasis on the shoot apical meristem of Arabidopsis thaliana. Recent studies suggest that stem cells are localized in specialized niches where signals from surrounding cells maintain their undifferentiated state. In the shoot meristem, initiation of stem cells (...) during embryogenesis, regulation of stem‐cell homeostasis and termination of stem‐cell maintenance during flower development appear to primarily involve regulation of the stem‐cell niche. BioEssays 25:961–970, 2003. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

The ongoing steady nature of consciousness in everyday life implies that the underlying neural activity possesses a high level of stability. The prolonged cognitive events of sustained attention, imagery, and working memory also imply high stability of underlying neural activity. This paper proposes that stabilization of neural activity is produced by apical dendrite activity in pyramidal neurons within recurrent corticothalamic circuits, and proposes that the wave activities of apical dendrites that stabilize ongoing activity constitute the subjective impressions of (...) an attended object and the entire sensory background. The cortical minicolumn, as the functional unit of the cortex, is separated into an axis consisting of layer 5 pyramidal neurons and a surrounding shell consisting of layer 2/3 pyramidal neurons. It is proposed that apical dendrites of the axis generate sensory impressions, and basal dendrites of the shell process the brief-lasting input–output identifications of objects that give rise to ideas. (shrink)

We argue that recent empirical findings and theoretical models shed new light on the nature of attention. According to the resulting amplification view, attentional phenomena can be unified at the neural level as the consequence of the amplification of certain input signals of attention-independent perceptual computations. This way of identifying the core realizer of attention evades standard criticisms often raised against sub-personal accounts of attention. Moreover, this approach also reframes our thinking about the function of attention by shifting (...) the focus from the function of selection to the function of amplification. (shrink)

A corollary of Gleason's theorem asserts that if the lattice of propositions of a physical system is isomorphic to the lattice of subspaces of a Hilbert space of dimension greater than two, then there is no probability measure that assigns only the values 1 and 0 (truth and falsity, respectively) to each of the propositions. Belinfante outlined an elegant geometrical proof of this corollary but relied upon an unrigorous measure-theoretical statement. An amplified geometrical proof is given along Belinfante's lines, but (...) dispensing with measure theory. (shrink)

Multidrug resistance (MDR) is developed in a population of somatic mammalian cells in vivo or in vitro when they are selected for resistance to each of a large group of drugs (colchicine, adriamycin, actinomycin D, etc.). It is produced by the amplification of some unknown gene(s) whose product(s) evidently change(s) the plasma membrane permeability of a cell to a selective agent and to other unrelated compounds. A large specific genomic region (150–250 kbp) undergoes amplification in MDR cells selected (...) for the resistance to different drugs. Amplified DNA is located in homogeneously staining regions of chromosomes, double minute chromosomes and small chromatin bodies – episome‐like structures that replicate out of the S‐phase of a cell cycle. The selection of MDR cell variants is accompanied by regular karyotypic evolution specific for this type of drug resistance. (shrink)

O presente texto procura evidenciar o cunho filosófico da escolha, do modo de vida e das ideias e atitudes corajosas de Hipárquia de Maroneia em abandonar sua família e sua cidade de origem, assim como a classe social aristocrática e o papel de esposa-mãe-governanta da casa, para poder viver a filosofia canina. Tais atitudes fazem desta filósofa uma questionadora não somente dos costumes sociais juntamente com os cínicos, mas do papel da mulher, levando a filosofia cínica à prova máxima de (...) sua radicalidade. (shrink)

A quick mental survey of one's friends or acquaintances reveals an important difference between them. On the one hand, there are seemingly stoic people for whom emotional events (e.g., having a pap...

I offer a novel view of the mechanisms underlying the spontaneous facial expression of emotion. According to my Social Amplification View, facial expressions result from the interplay of two processes: an emotional process that activates specific facial muscles, though not always to the point of visible contraction, followed by a social cognitive process that amplifies these activations so that they may function more effectively as social signals. I argue that SAV outperforms both the Neurocultural View and the Behavioral Ecology (...) View, as well as previously proposed syntheses of these views, in accounting for various empirical findings. (shrink)

In the information era, the instant and diversified broadcasting of the COVID-19 pandemic has played an important role in stabilizing the societal mental state and avoiding inter-group conflicts. The presentation of visual graphics was considered as an innovative information form and broadly utilized in news reports. However, its effects on the audiences' cognition and behaviors have received little empirical attention. The current study applied real-time and retrospective priming paradigms to examine the impacts of information framing (positive vs. negative) and form (...) (plain text vs. pie chart) on individuals' risk perception (cognition), positive emotion (emotion), and willingness to help others (behavioral intention) during the outbreak and post-pandemic period in China. The results indicated the “amplification effect” of the innovative form of information in the real-time priming condition, which increased the effect of the information framing on cognition, emotion, and behavioral intention. However, in the retrospective priming condition, the amplification effect on cognition and emotion were weakened, while its effect on behavioral intention disappeared. In conclusion, the study found the “amplification effect” of innovative information forms. Further, the difference in the results in the real-time and retrospective priming paradigms suggested the constraint of the context of the “amplification effect,” and indicated the possible deviation of the retrospective paradigm in studies about disaster-related news. This study provides empirical support for how subtle changes in information presentation influence public mental and behavioral responses during a pandemic and has important implications for media psychology and social governance. (shrink)

This article explores the rhythmic body with the example of the embodiment of the ‘bashment gal’ and the role she plays in the dancehall sound system session. It considers rhythm as an energetic patterning process operating both within and between media. Rhythm provides a means of communication and making sense that does not rely on representation or code. There are three elements to performance techniques of the rhythmic body – amplification, inflection and transduction. Amplification for the bashment gal’s (...) performance techniques involves increasing the size or effort of her dance movements, dancing in a chorus line accelerating her tempo. In what is considered as a hyper-sexualized arena of the dancehall session, it is argued that the bashment gal has to be understood in terms of African traditions where sexual pleasure and fertility are not separate. With rhythmic inflection the bashment gal gives distinctiveness to her performance, as is much prized in the style and fashion of the dancehall scene. The transduction of patterning from one medium to another, via tympanic surfaces, helps to forge the sound system session and the bashment gal as a rhythmic whole and fosters her sense of identity as a rhythmic body. (shrink)

The constancy of the genome structure of an organism has been accepted dogma for a number of decades. The genetic variegation of maize as described by McClintock in the 1940s and subsequently shown to be mediated by transposable elements indicated a degree of genomic fluidity not appreciated previously. The discovery of gene amplification in somatic mammalian cells in 1977 has added a new component to the phenomenon of genomic fluidity, which has implications for various subdisciplines of biology.

Due to the importance of the theory of values, elaborated by Max Scheler, this article aims to describe the essence and originality of the moral foundation, showing the absolute nature inherent to it, to erect an ethics of absolute moral values. This done, we will find, in fact, axiological foundations capable of showing the principles that permeate and make the basis of people's ethical and moral life full of value and meaning, within the responsive and responsible causality of their actions (...) and decisions that emanate from this human capacity and, that is latent in its essence. (shrink)

The detection of a human’s intended behavior is one of the most important skills that a social robot should have in order to become acceptable as a part of human society, because humans are used to understand the actions of other humans in a goal-directed manner and they will expect the social robot to behave similarly. A breakthrough in this area can advance several research branches related to social intelligence such as learning by imitation and mutual adaptation. To achieve this (...) goal the robot needs to integrate all possible evidence of intention and neglect the unintended behavior, and a complete solution should use low-level signal processing and high-level reasoning. This work explores the low-level signal processing part of the solution by proposing an interactive adaptive perception scheme that uses four important features of human behavior to amplify the signals originating from intended behavior with respect to signals originating from unintended behavior and other noise sources such as instrumental noise. This work follows the vision that intelligence is not only a function of a centralized sophisticated artificial brain, but can be presented in different forms in the entire robot including its perception and motion systems (the mind is not contained in the brain, but distributed in every cell in the body). A simple example of using the proposed scheme was implemented and the results of two experiments with it are also presented. (shrink)

This article examines the industrial art of videogame design and production as an exemplar of what could be termed affective design. In doing so, the article theorizes the relationship between affect and attention as part of what Bernard Stiegler calls a ‘retentional economy’ of human and technical memory. Through the examination of a range of different videogames, the article argues that videogame designers utilize techniques of what I term ‘affective amplification’ that seek to modulate affect, which is central to (...) the commercial success of these games. The article considers how the concepts of amplification, modulation and bandwidth, developed through this example, inform and expand understandings of this retentional economy by analysing the ways in which affective design attempts to transmit and translate the potential for affect through a range of technical systems and environments. (shrink)

In seiner Spätschrift De apice theoriae von 1464 entwickelt Nikolaus von Kues einen Wahrheitsbegriff, der sich fundamental von dem scholastischen Denken des Mittelalters unterscheidet. Indem sich die philosophische Suche der dogmatischen Methoden der Metaphysik entledigt, kann sie aus einer Besinnung auf ihre Möglichkeit neu verstanden werden und markiert den Beginn des neuzeitlichen Denkens.Die originale Leistung des Nikolaus von Kues besteht darin, den theoretischen Anspruch der Vernunft auf Erkenntnis des Übersinnlich-Unbedingten zurückzuweisen, um einen Zugang zu Gott zu finden, der sich im (...) Wissen als Schau ereignet. Er legt dar, daß die an das Begreifen gebundene Suche nach Wahrheit aporetisch ist und durch eine transzendentale Reflexion, die Gott selbst ist und im menschlichen Intellekt zur Selbsterkenntnis gelangt, zu ersetzen ist. (shrink)

I use a number of McGinn’s ideas to identify likely confounds in the induction of incidental disgust as the basis of the moral amplification effect.

Ever since the outbreak of the coronavirus disease, people have been flooded with vast amounts of information related to the virus and its social consequences. This paper draws on social amplification theory and the extended parallel process model and assesses the following: how two amplification stations—news media and peoples’ personal networks—influence the risk-related perceptions of people and how these risk-related perceptions impact people’s health-protective behaviors. This study surveyed 1,946 participants. The results indicate that peoples’ exposure to news media (...) significantly and positively predicted both perceived efficacy and perceived threat. It also shows that peoples’ exposure to risk-related information through their personal networks negatively predicted their perceived efficacy, but it positively predicted their perceived threat. The mediating effect of fear was examined, and the result was contradictory to the EPPM. In short, this study reveals the underlying mechanism of individuals’ exposure to risk information, processing, and precautionary measures. (shrink)

A unique feature of flowering plants is their ability to produce organs continuously, for hundreds of years in some species, from actively growing tips called apical meristems. All plants possess at least one form of apical meristem, whose cells are functionally analogous to animal stem cells because they can generate specialized organs and tissues. The shoot apical meristem of angiosperm plants acts as a continuous source of pluripotent stem cells, whose descendents become incorporated into organ primordia and (...) acquire different fates. Recent studies are unveiling some of the molecular pathways that specify stem cell fate in the center of the shoot apical meristem, that confer organ founder cell fate on the periphery, and that connect meristem patterning elements with events at the cellular level. The results are providing important insights into the mechanisms through which shoot apical meristems integrate cell fate decisions with cellular proliferation and global regulation of growth and development. BioEssays 24:27–37, 2002. Published 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

For quantum mechanics to form the crux of a robust model of divine action, random quantum fluctuations must be amplified into the macroscopic realm. What has not been recognized in the divine action literature to date is the degree to which differential dynamics, continuum mechanics, and condensed matter physics prevent such fluctuations from infecting meso- and macroscopic systems. Once all of the relevant physics is considered, models of divine action based on quantum randomness are shown to be far more limited (...) than is generally assumed. Unless some sort of new physical mechanism is discovered, the amplification problem cannot be solved. (shrink)

We propose that the six mechanisms identified by Juslin & Vll (J&V) fall into two categories: signal detection and amplification. Signal detection mechanisms are unmediated and induce emotion by directly detecting emotive signals in music. Amplifiers act in conjunction with signal detection mechanisms. We also draw attention to theoretical and empirical challenges associated with the proposed mechanisms.

In a recent paper, Zukowski and Markiewicz showed that Wigner’s Friend (and, by extension, Schrodinger’s Cat) can be eliminated as physical possibilities on purely logical grounds. I validate this result and demonstrate the source of the contradiction in a simple experiment in which a scientist S attempts to measure the position of object |O⟩ = |A⟩S +|B⟩S by using measuring device M chosen so that |A⟩M ≈ |A⟩S and |B⟩M ≈ |B⟩S. I assume that the measurement occurs by quantum (...) class='Hi'>amplification without collapse, in which M can entangle with O in a way that remains reversible by S for some nonzero time period. This assumption implies that during this “reversible” time period, |A⟩M ̸= |A⟩S and |B⟩M ̸= |B⟩S – i.e., the macroscopic pointer state to which M evolves is uncorrelated to the position of O relative to S. When the scientist finally observes the measuring device, its macroscopic pointer state is uncorrelated to the object in position |A⟩S or |B⟩S, rendering the notion of “reversible measurement” a logical contradiction. (shrink)

This book chapter is a short response to a paper by the psychiatrist Nicholas Kontos, on the phenomenon of psychological symptom amplification (PSA). PSA takes place when patients present symptoms to clinicians that they do not actually have, or, perhaps more commonly, they exaggerate symptoms they do have. Kontos argues that, because of modern medical training, it is very difficult for clinicians to recognize that the patient's presented symptoms are exaggerated or nonexistent. I argue that the hiddenness of PSA (...) is a result of far-reaching instutitional changes that took place in American psychiatry in the 1970s. In short, many psychiatrists went from seeing mental disorders as (unconscious) strategies to seeing them as dysfunctions, nothing more. Recognizing PSA involves adopting a perspective that has been effectively abolished in contemporary American psychiatry. (shrink)

Recent data show that catastrophic events during one cell cycle can cause massive genome damage producing viable clones with unstable genomes. This is in contrast with the traditional view that tumorigenesis requires a long‐term process in which mutations gradually accumulate over decades. These sudden events are likely to result in a large increase in genomic diversity within a relatively short time, providing the opportunity for selective advantages to be gained by a subset of cells within a population. This genetic diversity (...) amplification, arising from a single aberrant cell cycle, may drive a population conversion from benign to malignant. However, there is likely a period of relative genome stability during the clonal expansion of tumors – this may provide an opportunity for therapeutic intervention, especially if mechanisms that limit tolerance of aneuploidy are exploited. (shrink)