Social Vigilance of Friends and Foes in Western Lowland Gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla)

In social species, such as many primate species, conspecifics can pose a threat and individuals that are socially vigilant can prevent harassment. Many previous studies have focused on the role of agonistic interactions on social vigilance. In a variety of primate species, individuals are more vigilant for aggressive or dominant group members. In contrast, only few studies have investigated whether affiliative relationships also affect social vigilance. These studies revealed that individuals with an affiliative relationship showed lower levels of vigilance towards each other. Here, we tested the differential effects of both dyadic agonism and affiliation on the level of social vigilance of group-living western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) at Apenheul Primate Park, The Netherlands. We made continuous focal observations of agonistic and affiliative interactions and we scored level of vigilance during neutral approaches of conspecifics. We found that dyads with many affiliative interactions showed lower levels of vigilance towards each other. The opposite pattern was found for agonistic experiences, but this effect was not statistically robust. In addition, the adult male and adolescent males received higher levels of social vigilance than individuals from other age-sex classes. Our results indicate that level of social vigilance was linked to affiliative and, to a lesser extent, agonistic relationships in western lowland gorillas. We suggest that future studies in both egalitarian and despotic species should investigate whether, next to aggression, affiliation also influences social vigilance.

Triple Self-Sorting in Constitutional Dynamic Networks: Parallel Generation of Cu(I), Fe(II) and Zn(II) Imine-Based Metal Complexes

<div>Three imine-based metal complexes, having no overlap in terms of their compositions, have been simultaneously generated from the self-sorting of a constitutional dynamic library (CDL) containing three amines, three aldehydes and three metal salts. The hierarchical ordering of the stability of three metal complexes assembled and the leveraging of the antagonistic and agonistic relationships existing between the constituents within the constitutional dynamic network corresponding to the CDL were pivotal in achieving the desired sorting. The mechanism and the driving forces underlying the self-sorting process have been studied by NMR. The self-sorting of the Fe(II) and Zn(II) complexes was found to depend on an interplay between the thermodynamic driving forces and a kinetic trap involved in their assembling. These results also exemplify the concept of “simplexity” –the fact that the output of a self-assembling system may be simplified by increasing its initial compositional complexity—as the two complexes could self-sort only in the presence of the third pair of organic components, those of the Cu(I) complex.</div><br>

Triple Self-Sorting in Constitutional Dynamic Networks: Parallel Generation of Cu(I), Fe(II) and Zn(II) Imine-Based Metal Complexes

<div>Three imine-based metal complexes, having no overlap in terms of their compositions, have been simultaneously generated from the self-sorting of a constitutional dynamic library (CDL) containing three amines, three aldehydes and three metal salts. The hierarchical ordering of the stability of three metal complexes assembled and the leveraging of the antagonistic and agonistic relationships existing between the constituents within the constitutional dynamic network corresponding to the CDL were pivotal in achieving the desired sorting. The mechanism and the driving forces underlying the self-sorting process have been studied by NMR. The self-sorting of the Fe(II) and Zn(II) complexes was found to depend on an interplay between the thermodynamic driving forces and a kinetic trap involved in their assembling. These results also exemplify the concept of “simplexity” –the fact that the output of a self-assembling system may be simplified by increasing its initial compositional complexity—as the two complexes could self-sort only in the presence of the third pair of organic components, those of the Cu(I) complex.</div><br>

Nietzsche on the Soul as a Political Structure

A critic of metaphysically robust accounts of the human self, Nietzsche means not to do away with the self entirely, but to reimagine it. He pursues an account according to which the unity of the self is born out of a coherent organization of drives and yet is not something other than that organization. Readers of Nietzsche have pointed to a so-called “lack of fit” between this theoretical account of the self, according to which the self is nothing apart from the organization of drives, and Nietzsche’s practical account of human agency, which often seems to require that the self be something more than mere drives. I suggest Nietzsche’s interest in Greek agonistic norms of contest sheds light on this apparent incongruity. Agonistic relationships, insofar as they cultivate contest among diverse forces, are for Nietzsche one appropriate model for the subjectivity of beings whose psychology is similarly characterized by contest among diverse forces—that is, beings like us.Nietzsche est un critique des théories métaphysiques de l’ego. Cependant, il a l'intention de ne pas entièrement éliminer l’ego, mais de le réinventer. Selon Nietzsche, l’ego est le produit d'une organisation cohérente des pulsions et pourtant il n'est pas autre chose que cette organisation. Certains ont souligné une contradiction entre ce récit de soi et le récit de l'action humaine de Nietzsche, qui semble souvent exiger que le soi soit autre chose que de simples pulsions. Je suggère que l'intérêt de Nietzsche pour le concours grec soit important pour cette discussion. Selon Nietzsche, la contestation, parce qu'elle organise diverses forces, est un modèle approprié pour la subjectivité des personnes, dont la psychologie est caractérisée de la même manière par la lutte entre diverses forces.

Practices and politics of collaborative urban infrastructuring: Traffic Light Box Artworks in Dublin Streets

Cities are transformed into sites of experimentation through large-scale smart city initiatives, but the visions and practices of establishing public, private and civic partnerships are often overshadowed by corporate interests, governance convenience and efficiency, with an overemphasis on technological innovations. Instead of relying on these partnerships, civic hacking initiatives seek to develop collaboration between programmers and community members, on the one hand, and government officials and organisations, on the other, for experimenting prototyping processes that foreground community needs. These initiatives are considered as pursuing open, inclusive and collaborative governance and is analysed through the lens of collaborative urban infrastructuring to attend to the dynamics, consequences and implications emerging from the prototyping processes. The analysis of the collaboration between Code for Ireland and Dublin City Council Beta suggests that the spatio-temporal scaling of prototypes lead to the continual and contested scaling of skills, knowledges, capabilities, organisational procedures and socio-technical arrangements. These heterogeneous scaling engenders desirable futures and future problems. The articulation and enactment of the values that attract diverse visions, viewpoints and practices into collaborative experimentation can be challenged by agonistic relationships arising from exploring practical arrangements for the mutual shaping of desirable governance procedures and the organisational expectations, obligations and constraints that are already in place. Furthermore, in the processes of scaling, there are constant dangers of enacting patriarchal stewardships and taking an all-knowing position for caring and evaluating impacts, which makes it critical to also experiment with ways of disclosing urban techno-politics that emerges continuously and in unanticipated ways.

The effect of social context and social scale on the perception of relationships in monk parakeets

Social relationships formed within a network of interacting group members can have a profound impact on an individual’s behavior and fitness. However, we have little understanding of how individuals perceive their relationships and how this perception relates to our external measures of interactions. We investigated the perception of affiliative and agonistic relationships at both the dyadic and emergent social levels in two captive groups of monk parakeets (Myiopsitta monachus, n = 21 and 19) using social network analysis and playback experiments. At the dyadic social scale, individuals directed less aggression towards their strong affiliative partners and more aggression towards non-partner neighbors.At the emergent social scale, there was no association between relationships in different social contexts and an individual’s dominance rank did not correlate with its popularity rank. Playback response patterns were mainly driven by relationships in affiliative social contexts at the dyadic scale. In both groups, individual responses to playback experiments were significantly affected by strong affiliative relationships at the dyadic social scale, albeit in different directions in the two groups. Response patterns were also affected by affiliative relationships at the emergent social scale, but only in one of the two groups. Within affiliative relationships, those at the dyadic social scale were perceived by individuals in both groups, but those at the emergent social scale only affected responses in one group. These results provide preliminary evidence that relationships in affiliative social contexts may be perceived as more important than agonistic relationships in captive monk parakeet groups. Our approach could be used in a wide range of social species and comparative analyses could provide important insight into how individuals perceive relationships across social contexts and social scales.