INTRODUCTION

The small mammal fauna in this study was collected from southern Lancaster and northeastern Saline Counties, Nebraska. Most of the information was from a seven-acre tract on the Reller Natural History Research Area 2 mi. S. of Martell, Nebraska that was studied intensively from June 1971 through August 1972.

Mammal names agree with Jones (1964) and plant names follow Fernald (1950) and Hitchcock and Chase (1950).

Mammal specimens are at the Natural Science Division at Doane College, Crete, Nebraska and at the State Museum, University of Nebraska, Lincoln.

HABITATS AND SMALL MAMMALS OF THE RELLER AREA

Habitats of the seven-acre tract were divided into (1) an abandoned field cropped last in the summer of 1970 and dominated by Japanese brome (Bromus japonicus), red clover (Trifolium pratense), and numerous annual forbs, (2) a fence row supporting tree and shrub growth and ground cover varying from sparse to dense stands of smooth brome (Bromus inermis), and (3) a pasture with little bluestem (Andropogon scoparius), Kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratensis), smooth brome, with moderate numbers of forbs in contrast to the abandoned field, and shrubs with snowberry (Symphoricarpos spp.) and Arkansas rose (Rosa Arkallsana) most abundant.

Small mammals captured with Museum Special traps on the Reller Area in order of abundance were the western harvest mouse (Reithrodontomys megalotis), meadow vole (Microtus pennsylvanicus), white-footed mouse (Peromyscus leucopus), deer mouse (Peromyscus manieulalus), short-tailed shrew (Blarina brevicauda), masked shrew (Sorex cinereus), prairie vole (Microrus uchrogaster), jumping mouse (Zapus hudsunius), hispid pocket mouse (Perognathus hispidus), house mouse (Mus musculus), and the thirteen-lined ground squirrel (Spermophilus tridecemlineatus). Table 1 shows seasonal captures of each species and total trap nights. From the table one can interpret the relative abundance of each species and the time of year certain species were likely to be captured.

SPECIES ACCOUNTS

Masked Shrew (Surex cinereus)

Twenty-three specimens of the masked shrew were collected from three localities in Saline and Lancaster Counties. Fifteen specimens were captured on the Reller Area occurring in upland little bluestem and Kentucky bluegrass habitats. One specimen was caught 1 mi. N. of Martell in upland native grass planted habitat composed primarily of little bluestem and Indian grass (Sorghaslnlm nutans) on land surrounding the Salt Valley Watershed District Dam 17 A. Seven masked shrews have been taken on the Doane College campus, Crete, Nebraska. Six were captured in a riparian community of deciduous trees and one was taken in a pine plantation with trees standing approximately 35 feet.

Jones (1964) gave the range and habitat of the masked shrew as northern Nebraska south to the Platte River in marshy areas and lush riparian associations. Choate and Genoways (1966) were the first to report the masked shrew in Saline County. Jones (1964) suggested that the least Shrew (Cryptotis parva) was an upland species and documented its occurrence in southeastern Nebraska. In this study the masked shrew instead of the least shrew inhibited riparian and upland habitats. The masked shrew captures in Lancaster and Saline Counties revealed that the masked shrew was well established in a variety of habitats in southeastern Nebraska.

Individuals of two other species of pronghorns have previously been aged on the basis of characters of the lower dentition. Dow and Wright (1962) studied various stages of tooth replacement and wear presented by individuals of the modern pronghorn species, Antilocapra americana, whose ages were known. Voorhies (1969) studied a sample of the early Pliocene pronghorn, Merycodus furcatus, from Verdigre, Nebraska and was able to demonstrate the presence of discrete yearly age classes. Voorhies was able to suggest absolute ages for these classes by comparing wear stages with those exhibited by the living African duiker, Sylvicapra grimmia, which had been studied by Riney and Child (1960). The duiker was used in this comparison because it is similar in size to Merycodus.

Texoceros is intermediate between Antilocapra and Mervcodus in geologic age and size. Because of its size, Texoceros would be expected to have matured more slowly than the smaller Merycodus and more rapidly than Antilocapra, a larger animal. Individuals of each genus which show the same stage of tooth replacement or wear would have three different ages with Merycodus being the oldest and Antilocapra, the youngest.

Texoceros was aged on the basis of the mandibular dentitions. The criteria used were the degree of replacement of the deciduous cheek teeth and eruption of the permanent cheek teeth and the wear patterns on the occlusal surfaces of these teeth. Fossettes on the molars and premolars of Antilocapra disappear with age in a fairly rigid sequence (Dow and Wright, 1962). The same appears to be true for the fossettes on the molars of Texoceros. Crown height, which Voorhies (1969) used as a criteria for aging Merycodus, was not a realistic tool to use in this study for several reasons: the inadvisability of cutting into a large number of rami to expose the base of the crown, the difficulty of establishing a precise point from which to measure crown height and the presence of secondary cement which obscures the base of the crown.

A study of the mandibular dentitions of the immature individuals in the sample of Texoceros showed that distinct age groups were present. The entire sample, therefore, was divided into groups based on the criteria mentioned previously and the minimum number of individuals in each group was determined using the method described by Voorhies (1969). Approximate absolute ages were assigned to each group by comparing the replacement and wear patterns with similar patterns exhibited by known-age individuals of Antilocapra and estimated-age individuals of Merycodus.

INTRODUCTION

The objective of this investigation was to determine if fish mortality would result directly from an application of 561 fluid grams, technical grade malathion, per hectare. The area treated measured 9.94 km².

In recent years a trend has developed towards greater use of nonpersistent insecticides with relatively low mammalian toxicity and a narrower spectrum of activity. These chemicals, the primary group of which are the organo-phosphates, have mitigated the problems of persistent pesticide residues being incorporated into food chains. However, the control of injurious insects has become more complex. With individual farmers applying insecticides at different times during the growing season, repeated applications may often be necessary to combat reinvasion by insects from adjacent untreated fields. To eliminate the necessity of repeated applications, research entomologists are studying the feasibility of treating large areas with the relatively nonpersistent organo-phosphates. However, the effect of such a wide-area treatment on the total environment is unknown.

Malathion, O, O-dimethyl dithiophosphate of diethyl mercato-succinate, has been one of the most widely used insecticides (6 to 12 million pounds a year) in the United States (Kennedy and Walsh, 1970, p. 3).

INTRODUCTION

Ethyienediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) is commonly associated with a general group of chemicals called chelating agents, ligands or coordination compounds. These chelating agents can react with a metallic ion to form a stable complex. The stability of the complex formed is of course a function of the particular metallic ion chelated. The relative standard heats of formation are indicative of the stability constants of the various ligand-ion complexes. EDTA was first synthesized in 1948 by F.C. Bersworth and was first used the therapeutically in the treatment of acute Pb poisoning (Rubin, 1961). The fact that the heat of formation for the PbEDTA complex is very great offers an explanation as to why EDTA is so effective in this treatment. EDTA has since been used in the treatment of Ba, Ca, Co, Cr, Fe, Hg, Mn, Ni and T1 poisoning and also cases of ingestion of radioactive elements such as Th and U (Foreman, 1961).

EDTA is also used commercially as an additive in some foods and beverages. Because metallic ions such as Cu⁺⁺ and Fe⁺⁺ can catalyze reactions leading to deterioration in flavor, coloration, turbidity and vitamin content. EDTA is used as a sequestrant to trap these ions in a nonionic form. Foods which contain oils such as salad dressings are a common source of both CaNa₂LDTA and Na₂EDTA.

Introduction

The Hudson-Meng Site (25-SX-115), located twenty-five miles northwest of Crawford, Nebraska, is the butchering area of a bison kill. For the past two seasons Dr. Larry Agenbroad and crews of students and volunteers have excavated the site. Approximately one-third of the original area has been uncovered. A relative date of 9,000 BP has been tentatively assigned to the kill.

A study of the collection of jaws and teeth from the site has revealed a herd of at least ninety-two animals, ranging in age from .5 years to 10.5 years and older.

This herd has not been identified as any particular species, but much evidence implies that these animals may represent a transition group between Pleistocene and Recent Bison species.

INTRODUCTION

In 1971 the Nebraska Natural Resources Commission received a grant from the United States Environmental Protection Agency to prepare a water quality management plan for the Salt Creek Basin. The Commission was subsequently joined in this effort by the Lower Platte South Natural Resources District and the city of Lincoln, Nebraska. Together they developed a detailed plan for controlling water pollution through the management of wastes from various sources in the Salt Creek Basin. One segment of the plan was concerned with present water quality in Salt Creek and its effect upon the bottom-dwelling organisms there. The Natural Resources Commission contracted with the University of Nebraska to do a study whose objectives were:

1) To determine the presence and abundance of bottom-dwelling organisms living in polluted and non-polluted parts of Salt Creek.
2) To help define the suitability of the water for the various uses outlined in the Nebraska Water Quality Standards, such as the growth and propagation of fish and wildlife.
3) To establish baseline data to be used in evaluating the effectiveness of the management plan as it is implemented.

Fodor's criticism of the "standard view" of functional analysis is blunted, however, in two ways. (a) The parallel between the standard treatment and Fodor's variant breaks down in a crucial manner. Consequently, even if he establishes that functional statements as he construes them cannot be eliminated in favor of causal statements, he has not yet shown that functional statements as construed by the standard view are ineliminable. (b) Many of the virtues of Fodor's account, particularly as it avoids reductionist solutions to the mind-body problem, can be obtained without recourse to the troublesome concept of a function.

2. Fodor's Account. According to Fodor, a complete explanation in psychology consists of two parts: a functional analysis and a mechanistic or casual analysis.³ A phase one theory provides a functional characterization of "internal states" of an organism such as memories, motives, needs, drives, desires, strategies, beliefs, etc. solely in terms of the way in which they function in producing behavior. Such theories attribute only those properties and degree of complexity to internal states of an organism necessary to account for some part of its behavior and make no reference to neurophysiological conditions or structures.⁴ An example of such a phase one theory is the use of concepts like memory trace, long-term memory and short-term memory in order to account for human memory evincing behavior.⁵ Such a theory does not provide a causal explanation, it is asserted, although it may provide the basis for predicting human behavior given sufficient knowledge about stimulus conditions.⁶

Archaeologists are being confronted with the problem of identifying source areas of lithic material encountered during excavation. It is now recognized that lithic materials from some archaeological sites have been altered by heat treatment (Crabtree, 1972, p.5). This may require a revision, of current ideas regarding importation and wide scale lithic trade networks. The possibility of heat treatment also requires that the archaeologists keep in mind not only what the material is like at the source area but also the possible alterations caused by heat.

This study was carried out on quartzite from Spanish Diggings, a large quarry site in Platte Co., Wyoming (NE¼; Sec. 1: T. 30N; R. 67W). The purpose was to determine what changes, if any, occurred when these quartzites were subject to heat treatment.

A random sample of quartzite was taken from the quarry area. Fifty samples were then sorted by color (with the aid of the Munsul color chart), grain size, and banding characteristics. The colors ranged from light-to-dark yellow-browns, light-to-dark grays, purples of various shades, blacks and olive; greens.

Conditions under which heating experiments were conducted are as follows:

Heating
1. Rapid temperature increase: temperature was raised by 5O°C increments and held approximately 1 hour, at each succeeding increment up to 600°C. (no measurement for weight loss was taken)
2. Gradual temperature increase: temperature was raised by 5O°C increments and held approximately 24 hours at each succeeding increment up to 600°C. Specimens were weighed before and after heating to check weight loss.

Cooling
1. Rapid cooling: specimens were subjected to room temperature at the end of the testing period.
2. Gradual cooling: specimens were left in the oven at the end of the testing period.

Some of the central principles of logical positivism, such as the doctrine of the unity of science, are easy to extract from Mach's written works. But Mach was a little more cautious about stating anything quite as bold as the principle with which we will now be primarily concerned, namely, the Principle of Verification. In its fullest generality, the Principle of Verification is the principle that a statement or proposition is meaningful if, and only if, it is either analytically true or empirically verifiable. (The analytically true ones, thought of as true come what may, are thus verified by any evidence whatsoever.) While Mach is certainly responsible for less extreme statements about the merits of empirical verification, he primarily regarded himself as a scientist trying to cleanse science of metaphysical muddles, and not as a philosopher trying to demarcate the whole realm of meaningful statements or propositions. It is one thing to say that metaphysical statements are physically meaningless, and quite another thing to say that they are meaningless simpliciter. As the rising philosopher Corbin Fowler has pointed out, 'Physical propositions are meaningless from a metaphysical point of view.'

Throughout Mach's works, one gets the impression that Mach had intended only to keep metaphysical considerations out of science. Apparently he didn't care very much whether or not metaphysical considerations had a meaningful place outside of science. Rather, he had declared 'I do not share the Kantian point of view, in fact, occupy no metaphysical point of view, not even that of Berkeley.' If we respect this declaration, we must regard Mach's hostile attitude toward metaphysics as a scientist's attitude, and not as a philosopher's doctrine about what is wrong with metaphysics per se. Mach never attacked metaphysics on the presumption that whatever is unempirical or unscientific must be meaningless in all contexts, but only on the presumption that metaphysical considerations are alien to the central character of empirical science. The tenet that dominates Mach's discussions of this character is that 'Economy of communication and of apprehension is of the very essence of science.' Thus, scientific laws are merely highly economical means of describing and communicating our sensory experiences. (Since sensory experiences can be sorted out in any of various ways, Mach argued that the compartmentalization of sciences into various special sciences is arbitrary. Hence his doctrine of the unity of science.)

For theoretical reasons we will in general exclude euphemistic words and expressions shorter than a sentence, and also religious euphemisms (Leinfellner, 1971). Only when we will explain the change of meaning we will return to the concept of euphemism as a single word.

We will modify here the standard method of allotting probabilities to sentences, where a sentence is probable with respect to another one, P(S₁, S₂) = r, by using a relation of euphemistic difference, e, which is to be founded pragmatically. The difference between the cases (i)-(iii) and (iv) thus lies also in the pragmatic foundation or nature of e: i.e. in order to explain case (iv) we have to take into consideration the personal attitude of the speaker, the language user in general. In the following model of euphemism we have to assume that there exists always an empirically true sentence B - for practical reasons we exclude here empirically false sentences --- which is empirically true with respect to the same empirical situation to which the euphemistic sentence E refers euphemistically: e(E, B) = r. e has two limit cases: a euphemism ceases to be one when r = 1; and it turns into a total lie when r = 0. In the case that r lies between 0 and 1, 0r, we could compute the absolute euphemistic shift, either of the sentence E, or, as we will see later, of the euphemistic meaning compared to the basic or empirical one. It is also clear that we can insert between 0 and 1 various degrees of euphemistic "efficiency;" they are topological values of variously "shaded" euphemisms.

ESl: Macro- and microeconomic hypotheses and theories are preoccupied or may be reduced to the investigation of evaluative processes and/or to decision making dealing with creation of values by labor (production) comparison, exchange, distribution and possession of creative (produced) values.

A. Smith, K. Marx, L.v. Mises, Rodbard and the Austrian school of economics saw in value creation, not in production of goods, the crucial problem of economics. This seems to be a withdrawal to the onetime occasional title of economics as "the science of values" without being concerned with the factual demand of economic decisions. This definition would certainly be too wide for our purpose, since we have restricted the basis of economics to "value creating actions" which is equivalent according to A. Smith and K. Marx to "productive labor." The following explication by ES2 may be regarded as a protomodel or paradigm in the sense of Kuhn, in the light of which we have to understand economics. We will call this paradigm the protomodel of value creative actions and describe it epitheoretically by reformulating Rodbard's praxeological foundation of economics.

ES2: The protomodel of value creation consists of the following presuppositions: All economic actions are defined as purposeful individual evaluative behavior which may serve for decision making under risk and uncertainty and are based on production, exchange and distribution of values if the following conditions are fulfilled:

2.1 Actions require an image of a desired state (end), a technological plan and/or procedure to arrive at this end.
2.2 Desired ends presuppose that the future state is more satisfactory for the individual as well as for his society.
2.3 More satisfactory states can only be achieved by value creating means. Means are the created manufactured goods or factors of production (artificially produced by man's labor or available from nature).
2.4 The means to achieve the desired ends are always scarce.
2.5 The ranking of final ends as well as the means to achieve desired ends change according to the changing efforts, time and technical (technological) procedures constantly developed.

The whole paradigm 2 boils down to the primitive model that things which are momentarily scarce have to be created, realized. The realization, creation of an end product or good gives the final end product a value, i.e. creates values.

It seems that man in and within his society is not primarily striving for maximization of his utility or satisfaction, but tends to produce, create new goods which are scarce. 2.3 and 2.4 replace therefore the utilitarian maximization of utility. 2.4 introduces at the same time a minimal Pareto condition.

In a nutshell, Frege's principle goal was to reduce mathematics to logic. His greatest obstacle lay in the weakness of the logical systems prevalent in his day, consisting as they did mainly of syllogistics and smatterings of propositional and modal logics. Clearly, logic as conceived in his day was inadequate for treating mathematics, as it did not even include an adequate theory of relations and quantification. So Frege built up a modern and precise logic which to this day serves as a standard of thoroughness and precision. How this logic may be described relative to mathematics is a problem I will discuss after I describe how Frege reduced natural numbers and real numbers to the concepts of his logical system.

Frege's approach to understanding the concept of number differed from that of Cantor and Weierstrass mainly because he defined numbers explicitly in terms of their roles in measurement. A natural number was defined explicitly as that which all things of the same cardinal measure have in common; a real number was defined explicitly as that which all magnitudes have in common which have the same measure relative to their respective units of measurement.

The Shannon-Wiener information function and some abiotic parameters (Rock color and lime content) have been used to interpret the paleoenvironment represented by each of these assemblages. Moderate diversity index values are present in the Crurithyris -(Neochonetes) Assemblages for the Lower Stull, a diversity consistent with the predominance of light-weight brachiopods and bivalves in relatively lime-poor sediment High index values are revealed by the Crurithyris-(Productoidea) Assemblages for the Middle Stull; such diversity is indicative of optimum biotic conditions as evidenced by the prominence of heavy shelled brachiopods, particularly the so-called "quasi-infaunal" productoids (Rudwick, 1970), and bivalves in relatively limy sediments. Moderate values are again present in the lowest part and highest part of the Upper Stull by the Crurithyris-(Neochonetes) Assemblages and are consistent with the predominance of light-weight forms; these assemblages are interrupted by the Crurithyris- Low Diversity Low Biomass Assemblage containing low index values characteristic of the black-colored rocks indicative of stagnant bottom conditions

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Instructions to contributors ................................. iv

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Introduction

The species composition of limnetic zooplankton communities is one parameter of limnological importance that has received little study in Midwestern reservoirs. Pearse (1905) and Fordyce (1901) surveyed crustacean fauna in natural lakes of Nebraska but nothing is reported on the structure of zooplankton communities. It has been shown that open water plankton communities are quite simple in terms of the number of species found on any given sampling date (Anderson, 1971; Armitage, 1961; Pennak, 1957; Timms, 1968). This paper considers species composition in some reservoirs in a Midwestern agricultural area where surface runoff provides an abundance of chemical factors necessary to sustain high levels of organic production.

The Study of Reservoirs

Branched Oak, Holmes, Pawnee, Stagecoach and Wagontrain reservoirs, built as flood control and soil conservation projects in the Salt Valley Watershed of eastern Nebraska, were studied from June 1968-December 1970. Drainage areas consist primarily of agricultural and pasture lands. About three-quarters of the 28 inches of annual precipitation occurs in spring and summer. The reservoirs are all shallow with mean depths varying between 2.0 and 4.5 m and ranging in area from 112 to 1800 acres. Quite strong southerly winds that prevail in summer coupled with the shallowness of the reservoirs prevents stable thermal stratification. Holmes and Wagon train are turbid, light-limited reservoirs that have low organic production. Pawnee, Stagecoach and Branched Oak reservoirs are clearer with abundant growths of rooted aquatics and algae in midsummer and showing rapid eutrophication (Hergenrader and Hammer, 1973).

The participants of the Tuxtla Gutierrez Roundtable, sponsored by the Sociedad Mexicana de Antropoligia in 1942 and precipitated by a series of spectacular archaeological discoveries by Stirling (Stirling, 1938) at Tres Zapotes and La Venta in the Olmec heartland of southern Veracruz-Tabasco, Mexico, were implacably divided on two issues crucial to the interpretation of Mesoamerican archaeology; the relative place of Olmec in the Mesoamerican chronological sequence, and the extent of the generative role played by Olmec in the development of early high culture in Mesoamerica. The cleavage over these issues followed national lines, as most of the Mexican archaeologists in attendance, led by Caso and Covarrubias, vigorously proposed that Olmec antedated Maya and was in essence the "cultura madre", or progenitor of Mesoamerican civilization, while the non-Mexican contigent trenchently defended the view that Olmec and Classic Maya were temporally coequal and that Mayan civilization developed in isolation, essentially unaffected by extraneous forces.

The polemic over the temporal issue was definitively resolved by the 1955 University of California-National Geographic excavation of the site of La Venta, Tabasco (Drucker, et al, 1959), which on the basis of 9 radiocarbon dates, established the Olmec presence at La Venta by the beginning of the first millenium B.C. (Drucker, et al, 1957), or approximately a thousand years prior to the f1uorescence of the Classic Maya. The subsequent Yale University-National Science Foundation large scale, multiseason excavation of San Lorenzo, Veracruz, 1966-1968, corroborated the Preclasic assignment of Olmec, and resulted in the establishment of the San Lorenzo Phase, 1150-900 B.C. (Coe, et al, 1967), which presently circumscribes the earliest known Olmec period in the Gulf Coast heartland, and has become synonymous with the first perceptible emergence of civilization in Mesoamerica.

My strategy will be to put forward and discuss an analysis which attempts to formulate, in some sense, the syntactical and semantical aspects of scientific laws, and then to use this analysis (with a slight modification) to put forward an analysis of the phrase "X is reasonably classified as a scientific law at time t". But before considering this first analysis, a few preliminary remarks must be made.

First of all, I do not want to concern myself with the question whether scientific laws are sentences or whether they are propositions (i.e., what can be expressed by a declarative sentence). But for the sake of this paper, I am going to construe scientific laws as sentences. Now if one is convinced that scientific laws are propositions, he must at least admit that if we could determine what conditions must be satisfied for a sentence to express a scientific law, then we have come a long way in determining the nature of scientific laws; hence we can justify an investigation of sentences as relevant to the nature of scientific laws, even if scientific laws are propositions. Also, treating scientific laws as sentences will require the relativizing of our discussion to particular languages. For example, if we claim that sentence X is confirmed with respect to sentence Y, then the truth value of this claim will depend upon the language which X and Y are members. Now this relativizing to particular languages will not be explicitly stated in the following account, hence one must keep this implicitly in mind.