The rise, fall and resurrection of group selection

The changing fate of group selection theory illustrates nicely the importance of studying the history of science. It was Charles Darwin that first used something like group selection to explain how natural selection could give rise to altruistic behavior and moral instinct. These instincts could be accommodated by his theory of evolution, he argued, if they had evolved 'for the good of the community'. By the 1960s, group selection had a new and vocal advocate in V.C. Wynne-Edwards. But this gave critics of the theory that selection might act on groups, rather than at the level of individuals or genes, a definable target, and from the mid-1960s to the 1980s group selection was considered the archetypal example of flawed evolutionary thinking. However, at the end of the 20th century ideas of group selection re-emerged as an important component of a multilevel theory of evolution.     

Studying birth,life and death of catalytic solids with operando spectroscopy

<正>Catalytic solids are arguably the most important catalysts used in pharmaceutical,(petro)chemical and environmental industries:most transportation fuels,materials as well as ine and bulk chemicals are produced by heterogeneous catalysts[1,2].Despite their widespread use,the intricate details how they are composed,function,change and ultimately deactivate are still not well understood.     

Technology and ethical dilemmas in a medical setting: Privacy, professional autonomy, life and death

A growing literature addresses the ethicalimplications of electronic surveillance atwork, frequently assigning ethical priority tovalues such as the right to privacy. Thispaper suggests that, in practice, the issuesare sociologically more complex than someaccounts suggest. This is because manyworkplace electronic technologies not designedor deployed for surveillance purposesnevertheless embody surveillance capacity. Thiscapacity may not be immediately obvious toparticipants or lend itself to simpledeployment. Moreover, because of their primaryfunctions, such systems embody a range of otherfeatures which are potentially beneficial forthose utilising them. As a result, more complexethical dilemmas emerge as different desired goods compete for priority in thedecision-making of individuals and groups. From a sociological point of view this raisesinteresting questions about the way ethicaldilemmas arise in the context of the ongoingsocial relationships of work. The paperexplores these issues using data from a studyof the development and implementation of acomputerised instructional package in amaternity setting. This medical settingillustrates clearly how seeking to assignethical priority to a particular concern, suchas the right to privacy, cannot butoversimplify the real day to day dilemmasencountered by participants. At the same time,the example of the instructional packagedemonstrates that it is difficult to predict inadvance what ethical issues will be raised bytechnologies that almost always turn out tohave a range of capabilities beyond thoseenvisaged in their original designspecification.     

信任对持续性团队绩效的作用机理研究

在已有文献基础上,依据团队循环阶段模型,把团队发展过程分为三个阶段:过渡阶段、行动阶段和人际阶段,对每个阶段选择了具有代表性的团队过程变量,提出信任对团队绩效影响机制的概念模型,并基于持续性团队进行了实证分析。研究发现,对于持续性团队,信任对团队绩效有显著的影响,且团队自省、团队监督和团队努力三个变量在二者关系中起完全中介作用,研究结果对于持续性团队的管理具有重要的启示意义。     

The life and work of William Harvey

This year marks the four hundredth anniversary of the birth of William Harvey, discoverer of the circulation of the blood. His enunciation of this in his elegant De Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus (1628) is of interest because it appeals not merely to anatomical and clinical observation but to quantitative methods. Although this is the work for which Harvey is best remembered he also did important work on the formation of the embryo and expounded the theory of epigenesis.     

从生命动力源理论看人类基因调控与治病健康长寿之间因果关系

人类进入21世纪面临着生命、信息、新材料、新型能源、宇航、生态环境、安全、机电控制等八大领域科学技术发展的重大挑战,其中生命科学占据头等重要的地位。而在生命科学中,如何调控人类基因,使人类更加健康长寿,是人类梦寐以求的最大宿愿。在这里首先弄清什么样的实体起着调