The idea of liquid democracy is increasingly being discussed in the academic literature as an innovation that could complement or even replace certain existing democratic practices. A liquid assembly is an innovative legislature through which liquid democracy could be implemented. The present article asks why it would be desirable to inject liquid-democratic principles into existing democratic systems in the form of a liquid assembly. All other things being equal, which normative problems can a liquid (...) assembly help us solve in place of a traditional, election-based legislature? Building on the thought experiment of LiquidDemocrita, this article argues that a liquid assembly may provide benefits in at least six areas: (1) positive political freedom, (2) participatory equality, (3) selective participation, (4) selection-oriented, proportional representation, (5) deliberative accountability and area-specific deliberation, and (6) expertise and collective intelligence. For the sake of developing a comprehensive theory of liquid democracy, future studies could test the external validity of these normative claims and flesh out more negative arguments as well. (shrink)

The intracellular multiprotein complex β‐catenin destruction complex plays a key role in Wnt/β‐catenin signaling. Wnt stimulation induces the assembly of the receptor‐associated signalosome and the inactivation of the destruction complex, leading to β‐catenin accumulation and transcriptional activation of the target genes. The core components of the destruction complex include Axin, APC, GSK3β, CK1α and other proteins. Recent studies demonstrated that Axin and APC undergo liquid–liquid phase separation (LLPS), which is critical for their function to regulate Wnt/β‐catenin signaling. Here, (...) we discuss the possible roles of LLPS in Wnt/β‐catenin signaling and regulation of Axin LLPS by post‐translational modifications. (shrink)

Cells contain a myriad of membraneless ribonucleoprotein (RNP) condensates with distinct compositions of proteins and RNAs. RNP condensates participate in different cellular activities, including RNA storage, mRNA translation or decay, stress response, etc. RNP condensates are assembled via liquid‐liquid phase separation (LLPS) driven by multivalent interactions. Transition of RNP condensates into bodies with abnormal material properties, such as solid‐like amyloid structures, is associated with the pathogenesis of various diseases. In this review, we focus on how RNAs regulate multiple (...) aspects of RNP condensates, such as dynamic assembly and/or disassembly and biophysical properties. RNA properties – including concentration, sequence, length and structure – also determine the phase behaviors of RNP condensates. RNA is also involved in specifying autophagic degradation of RNP condensates. Unraveling the role of RNA in RNPs provides novel insights into pathological accumulation of RNPs in various diseases. This new understanding can potentially be harnessed to develop therapeutic strategies. (shrink)

Liquid‐liquid phase separation (LLPS) has recently emerged as a possible mechanism that enables ubiquitin‐binding shuttle proteins to facilitate the degradation of ubiquitinated substrates via distinct protein quality control (PQC) pathways. Shuttle protein LLPS is modulated by multivalent interactions among their various domains as well as heterotypic interactions with polyubiquitin chains. Here, the properties of three different shuttle proteins (hHR23B, p62, and UBQLN2) are closely examined, unifying principles for the molecular determinants of their LLPS are identified, and how LLPS (...) is connected to their functions is discussed. Evidence supporting LLPS of other shuttle proteins is also found. In this review, it is proposed that shuttle protein LLPS leads to spatiotemporal regulation of PQC activities by mediating the recruitment of PQC machinery (including proteasomes or autophagic components) to biomolecular condensates, assembly/disassembly of condensates, selective enrichment of client proteins, and extraction of ubiquitinated proteins from condensates in cells. (shrink)

Changes in the abundance of protein and RNA molecules can impair the formation of complexes in the cell leading to toxicity and death. Here we exploit the information contained in protein, RNA and DNA interaction networks to provide a comprehensive view of the regulation layers controlling the concentration‐dependent formation of assemblies in the cell. We present the emerging concept that RNAs can act as scaffolds to promote the formation ribonucleoprotein complexes and coordinate the post‐transcriptional layer of gene regulation. We (...) describe the structural and interaction network properties that characterize the ability of protein and RNA molecules to interact and phase separate in liquid‐like compartments. Finally, we show that presence of structurally disordered regions in proteins correlate with the propensity to undergo liquid‐to‐solid phase transitions and cause human diseases. Also see the video abstract here https://youtu.be/kfpqibsNfS0. (shrink)

Membranous organelles allow sub‐compartmentalization of biological processes. However, additional subcellular structures create dynamic reaction spaces without the need for membranes. Such membrane‐less organelles (MLOs) are physiologically relevant and impact development, gene expression regulation, and cellular stress responses. The phenomenon resulting in the formation of MLOs is called liquid–liquid phase separation (LLPS), and is primarily governed by the interactions of multi‐domain proteins or proteins harboring intrinsically disordered regions as well as RNA‐binding domains. Although the presence of RNAs affects the (...) formation and dissolution of MLOs, it remains unclear how the properties of RNAs exactly contribute to these effects. Here, the authors review this emerging field, and explore how particular RNA properties can affect LLPS and the behavior of MLOs. It is suggested that post‐transcriptional RNA modification systems could be contributors for dynamically modulating the assembly and dissolution of MLOs. (shrink)

Synthetic biology is a field of research that concentrates on the design, construction, and modification of new biomolecular parts and metabolic pathways using engineering techniques and computational models. By employing knowledge of operational pathways from engineering and mathematics such as circuits, oscillators, and digital logic gates, it uses these to understand, model, rewire, and reprogram biological networks and modules. Standard biological parts with known functions are catalogued in a number of registries (e.g. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Registry of Standard Biological (...) Parts). Biological parts can then be selected from the catalogue and assembled in a variety of combinations to construct a system or pathway in a microbe. Through the innovative re-engineering of biological circuits and the optimization of certain metabolic pathways, biological modules can be designed to reprogram organisms to produce products or behaviors. Synthetic biology is what is known as a “platform technology”. That is, it generates highly transferrable theoretical models, engineering principles, and know-how that can be applied to create potential products in a wide variety of industries. Proponents suggest that applications of synthetic biology may be able to provide scientific and engineered solutions to a multitude of worldwide problems from health to energy. Synthetic biology research has already been successful in constructing microbial products which promise to offer cheaper pharmaceuticals such as the antimalarial synthetic drug artemisinin, engineered microbes capable of cleaning up oil spills, and the engineering of biosensors that can detect the presence of high concentrations of arsenic in drinking water. One of the potential benefits of synthetic biology research is in its application to biofuel production. It is this application which is the focus of this entry. The term “biofuel” has referred generally to all liquid fuels that are sourced from plant or plant byproducts and are used for energy necessary for transportation vehicles (Thompson 2012). Biofuels that are produced using synthetic biological techniques re-engineer microbes into biofuel factories are a subset of these. (shrink)

The view is presented that extracellular architecture in plant cell walls results from an interplay between molecular self‐assembly and mechanical reorientation due to growth forces. A key initial self‐assembly step may involve hemicelluloses. It is suggested that hemicelluloses may self‐assemble into a helicoid via a cholesteric liquid crystalline phase; the detailed molecular structure of hemicelluloses (stiff backbone, bulky side chains, and the presence of asymmetric carbon atoms) is shown to be consistent with cholesteric requirements for such self‐assembly. Since hemicelluloses (...) are hydrogen‐bonded to the periphery of cellulose microfibrils, the cellulose could then itself become helicoidally arranged. Such ‘universal plywood’ structure is found in the walls of a wide variety of plants, and in several types of cell (including wood). The permanent effects of growth stresses on patterns seen in sections of helicoids are displayed by computer graphics plots, and the expected changes in stiffness are calculated. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to re-read Marx’sEighteenth Brumaireby highlighting the political meaning of a materialist historiography. In the first part, I consider Marx’s historiographical and political intention to represent the history of the aftermath of the revolution of ’48 as a farce in order to liquidate ‘any faith in the superstitious past’. In the second part I analyse the theatrical register chosen by Marx in order to represent the Second Empire as a society without a body, a phantasmagoria (...) in which the Constitution, the National Assembly and law – in short, everything that the middle class had put up as essential principles of modern democracy – disappear. In the third part I argue that Marx does not elaborate a theory of revolution that is good for every occasion. What interests him is a historiography capable of grasping, in the various temporalities of the revolution, the chance for a true liberation. (shrink)

We consider how an epistemic network might self-assemble from the ritualization of the individual decisions of simple heterogeneous agents. In such evolved social networks, inquirers may be significantly more successful than they could be investigating nature on their own. The evolved network may also dramatically lower the epistemic risk faced by even the most talented inquirers. We consider networks that self-assemble in the context of both perfect and imperfect communication and compare the behaviour of inquirers in each. This provides a (...) step in bringing together two new and developing research programs, the theory of self-assembling games and the theory of network epistemology. (shrink)

Although Hurricane Katrina precipitated considerable reflection across various media, a practice crucial to our capacities to apprehend and interpret the disaster has not yet been analyzed as such. I call this practice generative assembly. I don’t mean the events of emergency and political gathering that took place in response to the massive storm and fatal, preventable levee failures—although I will propose connections between different forms of assembly. Instead I mean a kind of documentary practice. That practice, which can be undertaken (...) individually or in collaboration, and sometimes at anonymous remove, involves the work of assembling records and signifiers related to the disaster into particular kinds of media artifacts. Those artifacts— which take shape in formats as varied as comics, photobooks, paintings, films, exhibitions, and multithousand-item online archives—characteristically maintain the active appearance and interactive potential of selection and arrangement. In exhibiting such qualities, or so I will argue, these assembly-based artifacts support various articulable and often highly effective kinds of generativity. And thus, I will further suggest, these artifacts can constitute especially powerful means of intervening in prevailing conditions of representation and remembrance around events of environmental and social violence. Crucially, those material legacies of generative assembly can also fall short, fail, and deceive, and this is especially true of those assemblies that take digital forms. It is my contention, however, that we would be misguided if we thus entirely dismissed such assemblies or if we refused their potential for dissident reuse or generative reassembly. (shrink)

One purpose of cognitive diagnostic model is designed to make inferences about unobserved latent classes based on observed item responses. A heuristic for test construction based on the CDM information index proposed by Henson and Douglas has a far-reaching impact, but there are still many shortcomings. He and other researchers had also proposed new methods to improve or overcome the inherent shortcomings of the CDI test assembly method. In this study, one test assembly method of maximizing the minimum inter-class distance (...) is proposed by using mixed-integer linear programming, which aims to overcome the shortcomings that the CDI method is limited to summarize the discriminating power of each item into a single CDI index while neglecting the discriminating power for each pair of latent classes. The simulation results show that compared with the CDI test assembly and random test assembly, the new test assembly method performs well and has the highest accuracy rate in terms of pattern and attributes correct classification rates. Although the accuracy rate of the new method is not very high under item constraints, it is still higher than the CDI test assembly with the same constraints. (shrink)

The Tshwane Conference on African Information Ethics of 5-7 February 2007 forces the question, What is an African information ethics? This question is addressed with reference to the complexities of a distinctly African information ethics, taking into account the distinction between ethics and morality, and the assumptions of the language of the Tshwane Declaration on Information Ethics in Africa. Gilles Deleuze‘s concept of assem-blage, analyzed from the perspectives of Bruno Latour‘s concept of ―reassembling the social‖ and recent anthropological approaches to (...) global assemblages are put to work to investigate possibilities of an African information ethics, with special attention to the concepts of universality and African identity. The task of assembling an African information ethics is then analyzed in terms of Latour‘s call for building "livable collectives". (shrink)

In this paper, I focus on a recent debate in extended cognition known as “cognitive assembly” and how cognitive assembly shares a certain kinship with the special composition question advanced in analytical metaphysics. Both the debate about cognitive assembly and the special composition question ask about the circumstances under which entities (broadly construed) compose or assemble another entity. The paper argues for two points. The first point is that insofar as the metaphysics of composition presupposes that composition is a synchronic (...) relation of dependence, then that presupposition is inconsistent with the temporal dynamics inherent in the process of cognitive assembly. The second point is that by developing a diachronic or temporally dynamic ontology for understanding the phenomenon of cognitive assembly, this lends support for a third wave of extended cognition. (shrink)

The Bell-Wigner locality argument is shown to be a special case of the nonexistence of certain state assembles with preassigned densities when there are restrictions on the allowable states.

Nurses working in outreach capacities frequently encounter disaffiliated or ‘hard to reach’ populations, such as those experiencing homelessness, those who use substances, and those with mental health concerns. Despite best efforts, nurses regularly fail to find meaningful engagement with these populations. Mobilizing the work of Deleuze and Guattari, this paper will critically examine conventional outreach nursing practices as rooted in the royal science of psychiatry, which many ‘survivors’ of psychiatric interventions reject. The field of Mad Studies offers an understanding of (...) patient resistance to outreach nursing interventions. Delueze and Guattari's concepts of packs and sorcerers provide a framework to envision alternative nursing practices as a form of resistance and creativity, where new alliances may be formed outside the coercive confines of traditional practices. In response to patient resistance, outreach nurses themselves must assemble packs and engage in acts of sorcery. (shrink)

This article considers how a generalized signalling game may self-assemble as the saliences of the agents evolve by reinforcement on those sources of information that in fact lead to successful action. On the present account, generalized signalling games self-assemble even as the agents co-evolve meaningful representations and successful dispositions for using those representations. We will see how reinforcement on successful information sources also provides a mechanism whereby simpler games might compose to form more complex games. Along the way, I consider (...) how an old game might be appropriated to a new context by reinforcement on successful associations between old and new saliences. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Clearing Some Definitional Ground: Standards as Epistemic Objects What Counts as a Standard?: Orthodoxies and other Stories Travelling with Actor‐Network Theory: ‘It's Practice All theWay Down’6 The Project in Question: Data and Method Assemblage7 Teaching and Standards of Teaching: Performative Tales from the Field Assembling the Accomplished Teacher: Whose Assemblage Counts? The Critical Contribution of Actor‐Network Theory: Performative Politics Notes References.

The assembly of intermediate filaments is a fundamental property of the central rod domain of the individual subunit proteins. This rod domain, with its high propensity for α‐helix formation, is the common and identifying feature of this family of proteins. Assembly occurs in vitro in the absence of other proteins or exogenous sources of energy; in vivo, it appears as if other factors, as yet poorly understood, modulate the assembly of intermediate filaments. Parallel, in‐register dimers form via coiled‐coil interactions of (...) the rod domain. Tetramers may form from staggered arrays of parallel or antiparallel arrangements of dimers. Higher‐order polymerization, which occurs spontaneously if the ionic strength of a mixture of dimers and tetramers is raised, proceeds rapidly through poorly described intermediates to the final 10 nm filament. This process is dependent on and modulated by the non‐α‐helical end domains, as well as those amino acids present at the very beginning and end of the rod domain. The interactions governing tetramer formation are most probably the same ones that are responsible for the lateral and longitudinal associations within intermediate filaments. (shrink)

Despite its biological importance, the mechanism of formation of cutin, the polymeric matrix of plant cuticles, has not yet been fully clarified. Here, for the first time, we show the participation in the process of lipid vesicles formed by the self‐assembly of endogenous polyhydroxy fatty acids. The accumulation and fusion of these vesicles (cutinsomes) at the outer part of epidermal cell wall is proposed as the mechanism for early cuticle formation. BioEssays 30:273–277, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

ABSTRACTThe aim of this paper is to draw attention to an issue which has been largely overlooked in contemporary just war theory – namely the impact that the conditions under which an army is assembled are liable to have on the judgments that are made with respect to traditional principles of jus ad bellum and jus in bello. I argue that the way in which an army is assembled can significantly alter judgments regarding the justice of a war. In doing (...) so, I present and defend a principle of ‘just assembly’ and argue that satisfying this principle is an essential part of any deliberation regarding the justice of a particular conflict. (shrink)

Citizen assemblies hold out the promise of reviving democracy. However, the ways that they are currently conceptualised and organised limits their egalitarian appeal.

This chapter begins with a narration of a slave ship's arrival from the Dutch Gold Coast, today's Ghana, to a South American seaport, Suriname, with about 40 blacks. The uprooted Africans used what was at hand, both culturally and materially, to cobble together the beginnings of an African American culture. It appears that these cultures are not so much born as assembled. This introductory chapter attempts to answer four preliminary questions: to paraphrase cultural theorist and sociologist Stuart Hall: what is (...) the black in black aesthetics; in the same spirit: what is the aesthetic in black aesthetics; what good is a philosophy of black aesthetics; and why discuss any of this in terms of assembly. The idea of assembling black aesthetics presupposes that there is a responsible way of appealing to racial blackness. The chapter also indicates the content available in other chapters of the book. (shrink)

The assembly of nucleosomes and higher‐order chromatin structures has been extensively studied in vitro. Provided that non‐specific charge interactions are controlled, all the information for correct assembly is found to be inherent in the macromolecular components. Cellular extracts which can assemble chromatin in vitro with nucleosomes correctly spaced on the DNA have been studied in detail and also used to investigate the role of chromatin structure in transcription. However, the mechanisms of chromatin assembly in vivo are still controversial.

The assembly of the major small nuclear ribonucleoprotein (snRNP)d̊ particles begins in the cytoplasm where large pools of common core proteins are preassembled in several RNA‐free intermediate particles. Newly synthesized snRNAs transiently enter the cytoplasm and complex with core particles to form pre‐snRNP particles. Subsequently, the cap structure at the 5/end of the snRNA is hypermethylated. The Resulting trimethylguanosine (TMG) cap is an integral part of the nuclear localization signal for snRNP particles and the pre‐snRNP particles are rapidly transported into (...) the nucleus. SnRNP particles mature when snRNA‐specific proteins complex with the particles, in some cases, just before or during nuclear transport, but in most instances after the particles are in the nucleus. In addition, U6 snRNA hybridizes with U4 snRNA to form a U4/U6 snRNP in the nucleus. The transport signals are retained on the snRNP particles and proteins since existing particles and proteins enter the reformed nucleus after mitosis. (shrink)

Newton Garver - Assembling Reminders: Studies in the Genesis of Wittgenstein's Concept of Philosophy - Journal of the History of Philosophy 45:4 Journal of the History of Philosophy 45.4 671-672 Muse Search Journals This Journal Contents Reviewed by Newton Garver University at Buffalo Alan Janik. Assembling Reminders: Studies in the Genesis of Wittgenstein's Concept of Philosophy. Stockholm: Santérus Academic Press, 2006. Pp. 246. Paper, $40.00. Janik's book is a wonderful achievement, filling an obvious and long-neglected gap in Wittgenstein scholarship. The (...) plan of the book is simple and straightforward. Citing the well-known passage in Culture and Value where Wittgenstein identifies ten persons from whom he has taken seminal ideas for his work of clarification, Janik clarifies how each contributed to the development of.. (shrink)

The term ‘food security’ has been used in multiple ways and addresses not only issues around availability and accessibility of foods, but also, among others, the sustainability of livelihoods at the local community level—an issue often seen as a basis for the proliferation of local and alternative food networks. Accordingly, in this paper we attempt to develop a theoretical re-framing that is able to link food security with AFNs in arguing that the understanding of the two notions is dynamics and (...) contingent upon the elements that construct them. We use an assemblage approach to analyze a case of Dunedin, a small-size city in New Zealand, in which the community aims to achieve food security through a local food strategy. Through a series of interviews with a group of food activists and academics, public discussions, and two local food forums, we found that food security was understood and performed in its local context through assembling diverse actors and objectives within the AFN. In conclusion, we offer assemblage thinking as an analytical tool to understand how seemingly precarious local food relations are stabilized and assembled so as to open possibilities of achieving food security. (shrink)

We study a new variant of the dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) model that includes the possibility of dynamically forming and breaking strong bonds. The emergent reaction kinetics may then interact with self-assembly processes. We observe that self-assembled amphiphilic aggregations such as micelles have a catalytic effect on chemical reaction networks, changing both equilibrium concentrations and reaction frequencies. These simulation results are in accordance with experimental results on the so-called “concentration effect”.

The eyespot organelle of the green alga Chlamydomonas allows the cell to phototax toward (or away) from light to maximize the light intensity for photosynthesis and minimize photo‐damage. At cytokinesis, the eyespot is resorbed at the cleavage furrow and two new eyespots form in the daughter cells 180° from each other. The eyespots are positioned asymmetrically with respect to the microtubule cytoskeleton. Eyespots are assembled from all three chloroplast membranes and carotenoid‐filled granules, which form a sandwich structure overlaid by the (...) tightly apposed plasma membrane. This review describes (1) my interest in cellular asymmetry and organelle biology, (2) isolation of mutations that describe four genes governing eyespot placement and assembly, (3) the characterization of the EYE2 gene, which encodes a thioredoxin superfamily member, and (4) the characterization of the MIN1 gene, which is required for the layered organization of granules and membranes in the eyespot. BioEssays 25:410–416, 2003. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

What makes any investigative field a scientific discipline? This article argues that disciplines are ever-changing frameworks within which scientific activity is organised. Moreover, disciplinarity is not a yes or no proposition: scientific activities may achieve degrees of identity development. Degree of consensus is the key, and consensus on many questions (conceptual, methodological, institutional, and social) varies among sciences. Lastly, disciplinary development is non-teleological. Disciplines pass through no regular stages on their way from immature to mature status, designations articulated within the (...) rhetoric of discipline formation. Scientists assemble disciplines using many elements: phenomena, methods, instruments, theories, analytical techniques, and institutional tools such as journals, government bureaus, and university positions. Scientists created geophysics during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries through such a combination. Whether geophysics became a discipline depends on how discipline is defined. (shrink)

This contribution to the Common Knowledge symposium “Fuzzy Studies” reports on the rise of the “popular assemblies” movement that swept the streets of Madrid in the wake of the May 15, 2011, occupation of Puerta del Sol. Assemblies have since taken installation in public spaces as infrastructural with significant methodological implications. Their incorporation into the cityscape has demanded of participants an inventive deployment of techniques and tactics drawn from archival practices and practices of hospitality, as well as the (...) development of varieties of urban hardware. The “fuzz” or mess of the assembly — the difficulties that participants have at putting together, let alone understanding, the assembly as an urban form — offers a valuable perspective on present-day discussions concerning the city as an object of political claims and rights. (shrink)

Cell proliferation in response to growth factors is mediated by specific high affinity receptors. Ligand‐binding by receptors of the protein tyrosine kinase family results in the stimulation of several intracellular signal transduction pathways. Key signalling enzymes are recruited to the plasma membrane through the formation of stable complexes with activated receptors. These interactions are mediated by the conserved, non‐catalytic SH2 domains present in the signalling molecules, which bind with high affinity and specificity to tyrosine‐phosphorylated sequences on the receptors. The assembly (...) of enzyme complexes is emerging as a major mechanism of signal transduction and may regulate the pleiotropic effects of growth factors. (shrink)

The assembly of Cullin3‐based RING E3 ubiquitin ligase (CRL3) complexes is orchestrated in two consecutive steps: the formation of the dimeric BTB domain core and the recruitment of CUL3‐RBX1 subunits. Each step is tightly regulated to ensure the formation of complete and functional dimeric CRL3s. The first assembly step is regulated by two mechanisms: “co‐co assembly” and proteasome‐dependent degradation of aberrant heterodimers. The second step is facilitated by a conserved CUL3 N‐terminal assembly (NA) motif. The CUL3 NA motif contributes to (...) the assembly of CRL3s in two aspects: interacting with both BTB domain‐containing protein protomers to facilitate complete dimeric assembly, and enhancing the stability of CRL3s by overcoming the tensions generated by conformational entropy during ubiquitin transfer. Given that all Cullin proteins contain N‐terminal extensions, we postulate that these extensions, similar to the CUL3 NA motif‐contributed assembly, play an important role in the functional regulation of CRLs and thus warrant further investigation. (shrink)

On November 7, 1594, an Assembly was held in the Monastery of St. Mary in Mat, and was attended by “Governors and General Guardians of the Macedonian and Albanian Kingdoms”. The Assembly was attended by leaders representing the Albanian provinces, such as: Gjergj Skura from Rodoni, Gjek Lalësi from Dukagjini, Vlash Koreshi from Kruja, Domenik Jonima from Mati, Jeronim Mamëli from Elbasan, and bishops of Stefaniakë and Sapas etc. A detailed project was drafted for the liberation of the country from (...) the Ottoman invaders, addressed to the Western nations, to the Pope, the Kingdom of Naples etc. in order to seek material and military support. The action plan and the demands examined during the assembly meeting were entrusted to Tomë Plezha as the almighty delegate of the Pope to the king of Spain and other European princes. It was thought that he had authority over the peoples of these parts. (shrink)

Mohan Matthen holds that visual perceptual content is divided into descriptive and referential elements. Descriptive content is our awareness of sensory features belonging to objects located in the visual field. Matthen conceives of this in terms of an image. The referential element is a demonstrative form of content, by which we pick out those objects as particulars and assert their physical presence. Matthen terms this ‘the feeling of presence’. Together, they make up the ‘assembled message’ that visual states present to (...) the perceiver in perceptual experience. I argue that the two elements cannot play together as Matthen envisages. Beginning with the referential element, I show that the feeling of presence is unable to both provide demonstrative reference and assert that the visual state reflects how things are. Turning to the descriptive element, I argue that Matthen is committed to a view on which descriptive (or image) content is a mental entity, a reified image. This is a common element across perceptual experience, episodic memory and visual imagination. The mental entity proves a defective ingredient in assembling perceptual content that purports to present reality. There are problems integrating the depicted viewpoint with the subject’s actual viewpoint, and problems maintaining a coherent notion of assertion. I argue that the project of assembling perceptual experience from descriptive and referential elements is unworkable. (shrink)

The universal attempt to link computers by means of business process reengineering, enterprise integration, and the management of technology is creating large systems that structure and control the flows of information within institutions. Human work associated with these systems must be reorganized in the image of these technologies. The transformation of office work now parallels that of factory work as a result of the intellectual assembly line: Each so-called knowledge worker adds and transforms information in a manner almost entirely prescribed (...) by the system, which, in turn, takes this information to the next work station and so on. The result is a loss of control coupled with growing demands and a new kind of organizational structure. It would appear that the implications for human health are possibly even greater than those associated with traditional assembly-line work. (shrink)

In this paper we make the case for the emergence of novel kind of bias with the use of algorithmic decision-making systems. We argue that the distinctive generative process of feature creation, characteristic of machine learning (ML), contorts feature parameters in ways that can lead to emerging feature spaces that encode novel algorithmic bias involving already marginalized groups. We term this bias _assembled bias._ Moreover, assembled biases are distinct from the much-discussed algorithmic bias, both in source (training data versus feature (...) creation) and in content (mimics of extant societal bias versus reconfigured categories). As such, this problem is distinct from issues arising from bias-encoding training feature sets or proxy features. Assembled bias is not epistemically transparent in source or content. Hence, when these ML models are used as a basis for decision-making in social contexts, algorithmic fairness concerns are compounded. (shrink)

Pulvermüller's work in extending Hebb's theory into the realm of language is exciting. However, we feel that what he characterizes as a single cell assembly is actually a set of cooperating cell assemblies that form parts of larger cognitive structures. These larger structures account more easily for a variety of phenomena, including the psycholinguistic.

Myosin self‐assembly is generally considered to be the major process in thick filament formation within striated muscles. The biological assembly of myosin into thick filaments is being analysed by genetic dissection as well as biochemical and morphological experiments in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. This work shows that the assembly of myosin is modulated by its biosynthesis and interaction with non‐myosin proteins. Assemblages which generate multiple nascent thick filaments may play a central role in a catalytic cycle of myosin assembly.

Research on medical interactions shows how the discursive construction of the clinical case impacts diagnostic reasoning and treatment recommendations. Drawing on an ethnographic study in an intensive care unit, we illustrate how this process is at play in a ward that adopts an extreme, guideline-divergent policy as to the use of antibiotics. The article focuses on how physicians assemble the case as ‘treatable’ or ‘not yet treatable’, and how in doing so they ‘talk into being’ two contrastive policies on antibiotics (...) and position themselves toward the one adopted in the ward. The analysis identifies the discursive resources displayed by physicians to both project an infectious disease diagnosis and resist this treatment-implicative trajectory. We argue that the physicians’ contentious discursive construction of the case has crucial consequences in the way the ward’s extreme policy is jointly accomplished as a highly reflexive process sensitive to the contingencies of any particular case. (shrink)

The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) uses various mechanisms to ensure that only properly folded proteins enter the secretory pathway. For proteins that oligomerize in the ER, the proper tertiary and quaternary structures must be achieved before their release. Although some proteins fold before oligomerization, others initiate oligomerization cotranslationally. Here, we discuss these different strategies and some of the unique problems they present for the ER quality control system. One mechanism used by the ER is thiol retention. Thiol retention operates by monitoring (...) the redox state of specific cysteine residue(s) and was discovered in studies on the assembly of IgM, a complex oligomeric glycoprotein. This system is also involved in retaining other unassembled proteins in the ER. Mutations that result in uneven numbers of cysteine residues can subject yet other proteins to thiol retention, altering their oligomerization status and function. The implications of these results on the effects of thiol retention on protein function and cell fate are discussed. BioEssays 20:546–554, 1998. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons Inc. (shrink)