Browsing by Author "Oxford University Press, publisher"

Now showing 1 - 16 of 16

Open Access
A philosopher gone wild (Karnos)
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 1993) Rolston, Holmes, 1932-2025, author; Oxford University Press, publisher
Rolston found that, loving wisdom, he had to quarrel with Socrates, taking a natural turn. Indeed he found that he had to quarrel with the three disciplines he most loved: science, philosophy, and theology. None of them appropriately valued nature, which he had learned to love from the cradle in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and continuing as he became in his early adult years a naturalist in the Southern Appalachians. He became increasingly convinced of the intrinsic values in nature and equally dismayed by environmental degradation there. That led him to become a founder of environmental ethics. No one can really become a philosopher, loving wisdom, without caring for these sources in which we live, move, and have our being, the community of life on Earth.
Open Access
An algorithm for generating a dictionary of Japanese scientific terms
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 1996) Maciejewski, Anthony A., author; Kang, Yun-Sun, author; Oxford University Press, publisher
This article describes the implementation of algorithms for generating a dictionary of Japanese scientific terms originating from the English language. Such words are typically transliterated into katakana, one of the four distinct orthographies that commonly occur in Japanese texts. The effort required to learn katakana yields significant returns to readers of technical Japanese due to the high incidence of terms derived from English. The algorithms described here are able to automatically generate a katakana to English dictionary from raw Japanese text and its English translation, which in many cases is available in electronic form, with a reasonable degree of accuracy. The algorithm thus allows an instructor to generate specialized Japanese vocabularies from selected articles, so that he/she can individualize lessons for a particular student's technical interest and competence at reading katakana. The algorithm has been shown to be very effective in technical Japanese instruction and is currently used in a course on Japanese information processing for electrical engineering students at Purdue University.
Open Access
Biology without conservation: an environmental misfit and contradiction in terms
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 1989) Rolston, Holmes, 1932-2025, author; Oxford University Press, publisher
Every biological organism is per se a conservationist, defending its life. Nonconservation is death. Although not moral agents, organisms are normative systems that value life intrinsically, for what each individual life is in itself, without further contributory reference beyond conserving that kind. An ecosystem is thus a systemic web of intrinsic values defended and instrumental values captured. Humans can and ought to use their environment resourcefully, conserving their own kind of life. But, as the sole moral agents among Earth's millions of species, humans ought also to conserve Earth's biological processes of value, processes that precede and exceed the human presence. Conservation goals, although cultural attitudes, ought not to be merely cultural attitudes, but ought to conserve nonanthropocentric biological values present. Biology without conservation is a contradiction in terms, as well as misfit in its environment.
Open Access
Does aesthetic appreciation of landscapes need to be science based?
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 1995) Rolston, Holmes, 1932-2025, author; Oxford University Press, publisher
Forests are aesthetically challenging because of a perennial, dynamic sense of deep time, experiencing an archetype of creation. Scientific appreciation of natural history is necessary though not sufficient for an intense, multisensory, participatory engagement when persons, immersed in forests, constitute their lived aesthetic experiences. Forests are sublime, evoking the sense of the sacred. Aesthetic appreciation in forests radically differs from that appropriate for artworks.
Open Access
Environmental bioethics
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 1995) Rolston, Holmes, 1932-2025, author; Oxford University Press, publisher
Environmental bioethics, or environmental ethics, is the theory and practice concerning values in and duties to, or concerning, the natural world. An anthropocentric ethic holds that humans are the focus of ethics and nature is instrumental to their concerns. A naturalistic ethic is more radical, and holds that animals, plants, ecosystems, and even Earth as a whole ought to be the direct objects of moral concern, at times at least. If so, environmental bioethics differs from bioethics more generally, which has previously been largely medical, with human health and welfare its concern. A comprehensive environmental bioethics locates humans in both human and biotic communities, with values and duties at multiple levels and scales. These ethics may join, however, as all humans see themselves as Earthlings, with their home planet as a responsibility.
Open Access
Environmental ethics and religion/science
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2009) Rolston, Holmes, 1932-2025, author; Oxford University Press, publisher
What to make of who we are, where we are, what we ought to do? These perennial questions are familiar enough; what is recently extraordinary is how the science-religion dialogue re-frames these old questions with an on Earth dimension. What to make of Earth, the home planet? Earth is proving to be a remarkable planet and humans have deep roots in and entwined destinies with this wonderland Earth. Simultaneously, however, humans are remarkable on this remarkable planet, a wonder on wonderland Earth. The foreboding challenge is that these spectacular humans, the sole moral agents on Earth, now jeopardize both themselves and their planet. Science and religion are equally needed, and strained, to bring salvation (to use a religious term), to keep life on Earth sustainable (to use a more secular, scientific term).
Open Access
Ethics on the home planet
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 1999) Rolston, Holmes, 1932-2025, author; Oxford University Press, publisher
Views of Earth from space bring us home again. Earth is to be treasured, something precious that must endure. Human desires for maximum development drive population increases, escalate exploitation of the environment, and fuel the forces of war. So we are searching for an ethics adequate to respect life on Earth. The valuing of nature is not over until we have risen to the planetary level, and valued this system we inhabit. Earth is really the relevant survival unit. This environmental ethics for the new millennium.
Open Access
History of plastid DNA insertions reveals weak deletion and AT mutation biases in angiosperm mitochondrial genomes
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2014-12) Sloan, Daniel B., author; Wu, Zhiqiang, author; Oxford University Press, publisher
Angiosperm mitochondrial genomes exhibit many unusual properties, including heterogeneous nucleotide composition and exceptionally large and variable genome sizes. Determining the role of nonadaptive mechanisms such as mutation bias in shaping the molecular evolution of these unique genomes has proven challenging because their dynamic structures generally prevent identification of homologous intergenic sequences for comparative analyses. Here, we report an analysis of angiosperm mitochondrial DNA sequences that are derived from inserted plastid DNA (mtpts). The availability of numerous completely sequenced plastid genomes allows us to infer the evolutionary history of these insertions, including the specific nucleotide substitutions and indels that have occurred because their incorporation into the mitochondrial genome. Our analysis confirmed that many mtpts have a complex history, including frequent gene conversion and multiple examples of horizontal transfer between divergent angiosperm lineages. Nevertheless, it is clear that the majority of extant mtpt sequence in angiosperms is the product of recent transfer (or gene conversion) and is subject to rapid loss/deterioration, suggesting that most mtpts are evolving relatively free from functional constraint. The evolution of mtpt sequences reveals a pattern of biased mutational input in angiosperm mitochondrial genomes, including an excess of small deletions over insertions and a skew toward nucleotide substitutions that increase AT content. However, these mutation biases are far weaker than have been observed in many other cellular genomes, providing insight into some of the notable features of angiosperm mitochondrial architecture, including the retention of large intergenic regions and the relatively neutral GC content found in these regions.
Open Access
Landscape from the eighteenth century to the present (1998)
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 1998) Rolston, Holmes, 1932-2025, author; Oxford University Press, publisher
The term "landscape" refers to a territory that the eye can comprehend in a single view, also to a work of art that, usually, depicts a real-world landscape. Landscape blends nature and human response. A landscape requires selective viewing and a frame. Landscape art was much esteemed in the eighteenth century and later became less common. Since the rise of environmental concerns, interest in landscape aesthetics has vigorously returned, although not especially in landscape painting. Ronald Hepburn complained that twentieth century aesthetics had neglected natural beauty. Experience on landscapes is multi-sensory. Certain landscapes have an archetypal appeal. A provocative claim is that natural landscapes in and of themselves are always beautiful.
Open Access
Landscape from the eighteenth century to the present (2014)
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2014) Rolston, Holmes, 1932-2025, author; Oxford University Press, publisher
The term "landscape" refers to a territory that the eye can comprehend in a single view, also to a work of art that, usually, depicts a real-world landscape. Landscape blends nature and human response. A landscape requires selective viewing and a frame. Landscape art was much esteemed in the eighteenth century and later became less common. Since the rise of environmental concerns, interest in landscape aesthetics has vigorously returned, although not especially in landscape painting. Ronald Hepburn complained that twentieth century aesthetics had neglected natural beauty. Experience on landscapes is multi-sensory. Certain landscapes have an archetypal appeal. A provocative claim is that natural landscapes in and of themselves are always beautiful.
Open Access
Linear plasmids and the rate of sequence evolution in plant mitochondrial genomes
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2016) Warren, Jessica M., author; Simmons, Mark P., author; Wu, Zhiqiang, author; Sloan, Daniel B., author; Oxford University Press, publisher
The mitochondrial genomes of flowering plants experience frequent insertions of foreign sequences, including linear plasmids that also exist in standalone forms within mitochondria, but the history and phylogenetic distribution of plasmid insertions is not well known. Taking advantage of the increased availability of plant mitochondrial genome sequences, we performed phylogenetic analyses to reconstruct the evolutionary history of these plasmids and plasmid-derived insertions. Mitochondrial genomes from multiple land plant lineages (including liverworts, lycophytes, ferns, and gymnosperms) include fragmented remnants from ancient plasmid insertions. Such insertions are much more recent and widespread in angiosperms, in which approximately 75% of sequenced mitochondrial genomes contain identifiable plasmid insertions. Although conflicts between plasmid and angiosperm phylogenies provide clear evidence of repeated horizontal transfers, we were still able to detect significant phylogenetic concordance, indicating that mitochondrial plasmids have also experienced sustained periods of (effectively) vertical transmission in angiosperms. The observed levels of sequence divergence in plasmid-derived genes suggest that nucleotide substitution rates in these plasmids, which often encode their own viral-like DNA polymerases, are orders of magnitude higher than in mitochondrial chromosomes. Based on these results, we hypothesize that the periodic incorporation of mitochondrial genes into plasmids contributes to the remarkable heterogeneity in substitution rates among genes that has recently been discovered in some angiosperm mitochondrial genomes. In support of this hypothesis, we show that the recently acquired ψtrnP-trnW gene region in a maize linear plasmid is evolving significantly faster than homologous sequences that have been retained in the mitochondrial chromosome in closely related grasses.
Open Access
Modification of orthogonal tRNAs: unexpected consequences for sense codon reassignment
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2016-10-23) Biddle, Wil, author; Schmitt, Margaret A., author; Fisk, John D., author; Oxford University Press, publisher
Breaking the degeneracy of the genetic code via sense codon reassignment has emerged as a way to incorporate multiple copies of multiple non-canonical amino acids into a protein of interest. Here, we report the modification of a normally orthogonal tRNA by a host enzyme and show that this adventitious modification has a direct impact on the activity of the orthogonal tRNA in translation. We observed nearly equal decoding of both histidine codons, CAU and CAC, by an engineered orthogonal M. jannaschii tRNA with an AUG anticodon: tRNAOpt. We suspected a modification of the tRNAOptAUG anticodon was responsible for the anomalous lack of codon discrimination and demonstrate that adenosine 34 of tRNAOptAUG is converted to inosine. We identified tRNAOptAUG anticodon loop variants that increase reassignment of the histidine CAU codon, decrease incorporation in response to the histidine CAC codon, and improve cell health and growth profiles. Recognizing tRNA modification as both a potential pitfall and avenue of directed alteration will be important as the field of genetic code engineering continues to infiltrate the genetic codes of diverse organisms.
Open Access
Science and religion in the face of the environmental crisis
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2006) Rolston, Holmes, 1932-2025, author; Oxford University Press, publisher
Both science and religion are challenged by the environmental crisis; both to re-evaluate the natural world, and each to re-evaluate its dialogue with the other. Both are thrown into researching theory and practice in the face of an upheaval unprecedented in planetary history. Life on Earth is in jeopardy owing to the behavior of the only species that is either scientific or religious, the only species claiming privilege as the "wise species," Homo sapiens.
Open Access
Slow DNA loss in the gigantic genomes of salamanders
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2012) Sun, Cheng, author; Arriaza, José R. López, author; Mueller, Rachel Lockridge, author; Oxford University Press, publisher
Evolutionary changes in genome size result from the combined effects of mutation, natural selection, and genetic drift. Insertion and deletion mutations (indels) directly impact genome size by adding or removing sequences. Most species lose more DNA through small indels (i.e., ~1-30 bp) than they gain, which can result in genome reduction over time. Because this rate of DNA loss varies across species, small indel dynamics have been suggested to contribute to genome size evolution. Species with extremely large genomes provide interesting test cases for exploring the link between small indels and genome size; however, most large genomes remain relatively unexplored. Here, we examine rates of DNA loss in the tetrapods with the largest genomes - the salamanders. We used low-coverage genomic shotgun sequence data from four salamander species to examine patterns of insertion, deletion, and substitution in neutrally evolving non-long terminal repeat (LTR) retrotransposon sequences. For comparison, we estimated genome-wide DNA loss rates in non-LTR retrotransposon sequences from five other vertebrate genomes: Anolis carolinensis, Danio rerio, Gallus gallus, Homo sapiens, and Xenopus tropicalis. Our results show that salamanders have significantly lower rates of DNA loss than do other vertebrates. More specifically, salamanders experience lower numbers of deletions relative to insertions, and both deletions and insertions are skewed toward smaller sizes. On the basis of these patterns, we conclude that slow DNA loss contributes to genomic gigantism in salamanders. We also identify candidate molecular mechanisms underlying these differences and suggest that natural variation in indel dynamics provides a unique opportunity to study the basis of genome stability.
Open Access
The Anthropocene! Beyond the natural? - Oxford Handbook
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017) Rolston, Holmes, 1932-2025, author; Oxford University Press, publisher
We are now entering the Anthropocene Epoch - so runs a recent enthusiastic claim. Humans can and ought to go beyond the natural and powerfully engineer a better planet, managing for climate change, building new ecosystems for a more prosperous future. Perhaps the Anthropocene is inevitable. But: Rejoice? Accommodate? Accept it, alas? Perhaps the wiser, more ethical course is not so much "beyond" as "keeping the natural in "symbiosis" with humans. Enter the Semi-Anthropocene! Basically Natural! Carefully!
Open Access
Trees for a 3-valued logic
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 1984) Johnson, Fred (Frederick A.), author; Oxford University Press, publisher
Johnson claims that Slater is mistaken in identifying his system, presented by using tree rules, with a natural deduction system that results from modifying a system used by Copi. He then modifies Slater's tree rules and shows that these tree rules can be used to pick out precisely those arguments that are valid in a three-valued logic described by Bochvar.