Some proponents of the evolutionary debunking argument against moral realism believe that replies that assume substantive moral claims beg the question. In this paper, I give a new account of what's ...wrong with such replies. On this account, many realists beg the question when they rely on substantive moral claims in their replies to the argument, but naturalists do not. While this account generalizes to some other domains, it allows perceptual and inductive realism to remain undebunked.
Premise of research. The recognition of diverse and abundant chlamydospermous seeds from the Early Cretaceous of Denmark, Portugal, and eastern North America has been an unexpected outcome of studies ...of mesofloras that were initially focused on early angiosperms. These seeds provide structural information critical for understanding morphological and structural diversity in an important Mesozoic group of extinct gnetalean relatives.
Methodology. The fossil seeds were picked from Early Cretaceous mesofossil floras from localities in western Portugal and Virginia using a stereomicroscope. Selected seeds were studied in more detail for morphological and anatomical traits using SEM and synchrotron radiation X-ray tomographic microscopy.
Pivotal results. Six new species of chlamydospermous seeds are described that add substantially to the known diversity of Early Cretaceous chlamydosperms. In general seed organization, the fossils are similar to seeds of extant Gnetales, but none of the fossils can be assigned to any of the three living genera of Gnetales (Ephedra, Gnetum, and Welwitschia). All six species have similar closure of the micropylar canal but show considerable variation in the anatomy of the seed envelope. In micropylar closure, the fossils are most similar to extant Gnetum, but they differ in other respects from seeds of extant Gnetum, and one of the new seed taxa has polyplicate, ephedroid pollen in the micropyle. A well-preserved embryo with two cotyledons is preserved in seeds of Rothwellia foveata and provides the first information on the embryo in this Early Cretaceous chlamydospermous complex.
Conclusions. The chlamydospermous seeds described here show similarities to seeds of extant Gnetales. However, most of the fossils exhibit combinations of features that are unknown among extant species of Gnetales and clearly represent an extinct complex of plants that were important in Early Cretaceous vegetation, along with other extinct plant groups, including Bennettitales and Erdtmanithecales.
The random bond-dilution effects of bilinear interaction parameter
J
i
j
between the nearest-neighbor (NN) sites are taken into consideration for the spin-1 Blume-Emery-Griffiths (BEG) model on the ...Bethe lattice (BL) comprised of two interpenetrating equivalent sublattices A and B for given coordination number
z
in terms of exact recursion relations (ERR). A bimodal distribution for
J
i
j
is assumed which is either introduced with probability
p
or closed with 1 −
p
. It is assumed that the biquadratic exchange interaction parameter (
K
) is constant between the NN spins and the single-ion anisotropy parameter (
D
) is taken to be equivalent on the sublattices A and B. After the study of thermal changes of the order-parameters, the phase diagrams are calculated on possible planes spanned by our system parameters. It is found that the model presents both first- and second-order phase transitions. In addition to the well-known ferromagnetic (F), paramagnetic (P) and ferrimagnetic (FI) phases, the staggered quadrupolar (SQ) phase is also observed. The bicritical point (BCP) for all
z
and double BCP with
z
≥ 4 are observed. The tetracritical point was also found for lower values of
p
with
z
≥ 5.
Mussels within the Baltic Mytilus edulis × M. trossulus hybrid zone have adapted to the low salinities in the Baltic Sea which, however, results in slow-growing dwarfed mussels. To get a better ...understanding of the nature of dwarfism, we studied the ability of M. trossulus to feed and grow at low salinity (7 psu) compared with its performance at relatively high-salinity (20 psu) in controlled laboratory experiments, supplemented with field (Great Belt) growth experiments with M. trossulus and M. edulis in net-bags. Subsequently, the growth of M. trossulus transplanted in cages to various localities in the northern Baltic Sea was used to evaluate the effect of very low salinities, down to 3.4 psu. The laboratory feeding experiments with M. trossulus at 7 psu showed that the growth in shell length was negligible, whereas the body dry weight nearly doubled during the 15 d experiment, with a weight-specific growth rate of 3.7% d−1. The same parameters measured at 20 psu showed a pronounced growth in both shell length and body dry weight, with a weight-specific growth rate of 2.2% d−1. The growth rates of M. trossulus and M. edulis in suspended net-bags in the Great Belt (22 psu) were similar: 5.6 and 6.8% d−1, respectively. M. trossulus in cage experiments had positive growth rates at locations with salinities above 4.5 psu, up to 2.60% d−1, but negligible increase in the shell length, and at sites with salinities below about 4.5 psu, the somatic growth was negative, around –0.3% d−1, which indicates valve closure and respiratory weight loss. A trend line in a plot of all available growth data for both mussel species as a function of salinity indicates that the growth of mussels is steadily hampered by reduced salinities from 30 psu down to about 10 psu, below which the growth is rapidly reduced to become negative below 4.5 psu. We suggest that reduced ability to produce shell material at extremely low salinity may explain dwarfism of mussels in the Baltic Sea. Reduced bio-calcification at low salinity, however, may impede shell growth, but not somatic growth, and this may at first result in an increased condition index, as seen in the benthic Baltic Sea mussels transferred to cages suspended in the water column.
The coastal site of Beg-er-Vil (Brittany, France) has yielded remains of a dwelling site from the Mesolithic period, dating back to ca. 8000 years ago. These archaeological remains were covered by a ...marine sand dune. Among the research questions raised by recent excavations, the timing of the dune formation with respect to the human occupations is of particular interest: how much time elapsed between these two events? To resolve this question, we employed radiocarbon dating to infer the timing of human occupations and OSL dating to date the dune aggradation. We combined radiocarbon and OSL data in a Bayesian framework, including stratigraphic constraints and measurement errors shared across OSL samples, to build a robust and precise chronological model of the site. We then built an age-depth model for the dune to determine the onset of dune formation. We conclude that we cannot detect a time gap between the latest human occupations and dune aggradation. Finally, we demonstrate how stratigraphic constraints and shared errors affect – and improve – the precision of the chronology inferred from our measurements.
We analyse the
d
-dimensional BEG model with
d
≥
2
and parameters in the disordered region and at the antiquadrupolar-disordered line. We obtain a subset of these regions for which the odd ...correlation functions are zero and the even ones decay exponentially fast, at all non-zero temperatures, for a wide class of boundary conditions.
The paper discusses the probate and the procedure of liquidation of debts, and the usurpation of peasant settlements of deceased Bakir-beg Tuzlic. The process of liquidation of debts was conducted ...before the District Sharia Court in Tuzla. Bakir-beg Tuzlic was the last descendant of the captain and bey family Tuzlic, who as a landowner played a significant role in the economic and political life of Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Austro-Hungarian rule. This is a time with many temptations for the entire population of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and especially for Bosniaks, who did not accept the fact that they fell under the rule of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. For this reason, a number of other problems arose. Bosniak landowners were particularly dissatisfied with their status, although they were politically privileged to some extent by the Austro-Hungarian authorities. The biggest problem, however, was the constant attack on their estates by the peasants, who sought the opportunity to occupy peasants and bay’s lands, to which the bey's landowners opposed. Nevertheless, the process of buying and usurping the lands took place throughout the Austro-Hungarian administration, which greatly weakened the bey's class economically. The attempt to economically stabilize the beys required taking loans that were unfavorable from the aspect of high interest rates, which additionally brought this class into an unenviable economic and political position. Such was the case with Bakir-beg Tuzlic, one of the largest landowners in Bosnia and Herzegovina and a representative of Bosniaks in political life during that period. Such a situation was especially visible, after his death in 1910, and the conduct of the procedure of liquidation of debts and redemption of the cift (land) of the deceased Bakir-beg Tuzlic. The stated debts and the decline of the property of Bakir-beg Tuzlic are a confirmation of the economic weakening and unsustainability of the landowner, bey class in the Austro-Hungarian period. After the death of Bakir-beg Tuzlic, his property and lands were decimated, which brought his heirs to an unenviable economic position and status.
Among contemporary philosophers, there is widespread (but not universal) consensus that begging the question is a grave argumentative flaw. However, there is presently no satisfactory analysis of ...what this flaw consists of. Here, I defend a notion of question-begging in terms of analyticity. In particular, I argue that an argument begs the question just in case its conclusion is an analytic part of the conjunction of its premises.
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