A Life Cycle for Modeling Biology at Different Scales

Modeling has become a popular tool for inquiry and discovery across biological disciplines. Models allow biologists to probe complex questions and to guide experimentation. Modeling literacy among biologists, however, has not always kept pace with the rise in popularity of these techniques and the relevant advances in modeling theory. The result is a lack of understanding that inhibits communication and ultimately, progress in data gathering and analysis. In an effort to help bridge this gap, we present a blueprint that will empower biologists to interrogate and apply models in their field. We demonstrate the applicability of this blueprint in two case studies from distinct subdisciplines of biology; developmental-biomechanics and evolutionary biology. The models used in these fields vary from summarizing dynamical mechanisms to making statistical inferences, demonstrating the breadth of the utility of models to explore biological phenomena.

The Coping Behavior in Booth Tarkington’s The Magnificent Ambersons: An Individual Psychological Approach

The object of this paper is the novel Ambersons by Newton Booth Tarkington. This study focuses on the major question of how George Amberson Minafer, the major character, copes with his problem. The researcher employs a qualitative method in analyzing the novel. Following the data gathering and analysis, the writer draws two conclusions: first, George Amberson Minafer copes with his problem through changing his behavior, from negative behavior to positive one. He becomes more optimistic, independent and caring for his family. Second, George Amberson Minafer copes his problem through his action. He has the courage to admit his mistake. He asks forgiveness to the man that he hurt most.

Toward a Phenomenology of the Material

Can phenomenological approaches to experience allow me to attend to not just the human experience but also the material discursive forces that are a part of the shifting, moving network of agents at work in a phenomenon? Focusing on the material structures of experience means not asking what materiality is, but rather asking what it is doing in the context of an intra-active phenomena. In this article, I consider what possibilities for data gathering and analysis are opened if I think the Husserlian concept of encounters with the world within a feminist new materialist framework, and find the tensions provocative.