Signature-based model-independent searches for new physics form an explorative component of High Energy Physics experiments that aims at avoiding biases toward beyond-the-standard-model theo...

What is the adequate terminology to talk about animal behaviour? Is terminology referring to mental or emotional states anthropomorphic and should therefore be prohibited or is it a necessary means to provide for an adequate description and should be encouraged? This question was vehemently discussed in the founding phase of Ethology as a scientific discipline and still is. This multi-layered problem can be grasped by using the concept of methodological signatures, developed by Köchy et al.. It is designed to analyse (...) and systematically compare animal research approaches by examining their common parameters. By examining the works of Konrad Lorenz and Nikolaas Tinbergen, this paper offers new insights both on a methodological and theoretical level. Methodologically, the application of the concept of methodological signatures is illustrated; theoretically, the principles of Classic Ethology are analysed. My aim is to illustrate how the problem of scientific access to animal subjectivity was addressed in the history of Ethology by analysing statements about animal sentience. For this purpose, I will first outline the general discussion about animal subjectivity and the tension between anthropomorphism and empirical adequacy. I introduce my own theoretical and methodological framework before presenting an analysis of Lorenz’ and Tinbergen’s methodological signatures. Thereby, I show how the question of terminology is deeply embedded in a network of epistemological, methodological and ontological concepts and establish key characteristics in regard to ethological approaches to animal subjectivity. Finally, I shed light on the possibility of using this typology to examine current frameworks of animal welfare research. (shrink)

The Signature of All Things is Giorgio Agamben's sustained reflection on method. To reflect on method implies for Agamben an archaeological vigilance: a persistent form of thinking in order to expose, examine, and elaborate what is obscure, unanalyzed, even unsaid, in an author's thought. To be archaeologically vigilant, then, is to return to, even invent, a method attuned to a "world supported by a thick weave of resemblances and sympathies, analogies and correspondences." Collecting a wide range of authors and (...) topics in a slim but richly argued volume, Agamben enacts the search to create a science of signatures that exceeds the attempts of semiology and hermeneutics to determine the pure and unmarked signs that signify univocally, neutrally, and eternally. Three conceptual figures organize Agamben's argument and the advent of his new method: the paradigm, the signature, and archaeology. Each chapter is devoted to an investigation of one of these concepts and Agamben carefully constructs its genealogy transhistorically and from an interdisciplinary perspective. And at each moment of the text, Agamben pays tribute to Michel Foucault, whose methods he rethinks and effectively uses to reformulate the logic of the concepts he isolates. The Signature of All Things reveals once again why Agamben is one of the most innovative thinkers writing today. (shrink)

Do trees of life have roots? What do these roots look like? In this contribution, I argue that research on the origins of life might offer glimpses on the topology of these very roots. More specifically, I argue (1) that the roots of the tree of life go well below the level of the commonly mentioned ‘ancestral organisms’ down into the level of much simpler, minimally living entities that might be referred to as ‘protoliving systems’, and (2) that further below, (...) a system of roots gradually dissolves into non-living matter along several functional dimensions. In between non-living and living matter, one finds physico-chemical systems that I propose to characterize by a ‘lifeness signature’. In turn, this ‘lifeness signature’ might also account for a diverse range of biochemical entities that are found to be ‘less-than-living’ yet ‘more-than-non-living’. (shrink)

What is a paradigm? -- Theory of signatures -- Philosophical archeology.

Recent evidence that young children seem to both understand false belief in one sense, but not in another, has led to two-systems theorizing about mindreading. By analyzing the most detailed two-systems approach in studying social cognition—the theory of mindreading defended by Ian Apperly and Stephen Butterfill—I argue that that even when dutifully constructed, two-systems approaches in social cognition struggle to adequately define the mindreading systems in terms of signature processing limits, an issue that becomes most apparent when investigating mindreading (...) in infancy. I end the article by developing several challenges that face any two-systems account of mindreading. (shrink)

Les deux fragments d'inscriptions publiés par Graindor et repris dans IG II2, 4308 avec la signature du sculpteur Agathon d'Anagyre recollent, à condition de mettre le fragment a à droite du fragment b. Cette base vraisemblablement en l'honneur d'un citoyen du dème de Mélité, se dressait sur l'Acropole.

_ Source: _Page Count 25 This article concerns a moment in French intellectual history when the self-evidences of structuralism become doubtful under the pressure exerted by _discourse_; it thus treats a _second turn_ within the linguistic turn as it occurred in France. The work of Emile Benveniste, and texts by Jean-Francois Lyotard and Paul Ricoeur, flesh out this development. I use them, as well as John Searle’s response, to approach anew Derrida’s essay “Signature Event Context.” Derrida’s distance from this (...) second linguistic turn thereby becomes visible, and the distinct status of _discourse_ in Derrida’s own thought emerges. Finally, critiquing Derrida’s folding of discourse into a notion of “signifying form” in SEC, while drawing on his account there of “citationality,” I sketch new directions for conceiving of context and discourse themselves, ones arguably able to withstand Derrida’s express concerns. (shrink)

It is shown how to identify potential signatures of noncommutative geometry within the decay spectrum of a muon in orbit near the event horizon of a microscopic Schwarzschild black hole. This possibility follows from a re-interpretation of Moffat’s nonsymmetric theory of gravity, first published in Phys. Rev. D 19:3554, 1979, where the antisymmetric part of the metric tensor manifests the hypothesized noncommutative geometric structure throughout the manifold. It is further shown that for a given sign convention, the predicted signatures counteract (...) the effects of curvature-induced muon stabilization predicted by Singh and Mobed in Phys. Rev. D 79:024026, 2009. While it is unclear whether evidence for noncommutative geometry may become observable anytime soon, this approach at least provides a useful direction for future quantum gravity research based on the ideas presented here. (shrink)

Every person has his/her own unique signature that is used mainly for the purposes of personal identification and verification of important documents or legal transactions. There are two kinds of signature verification: static and dynamic. Static(off-line) verification is the process of verifying an electronic or document signature after it has been made, while dynamic(on-line) verification takes place as a person creates his/her signature on a digital tablet or a similar device. Offline signature verification is not (...) efficient and slow for a large number of documents. To overcome the drawbacks of offline signature verification, we have seen a growth in online biometric personal verification such as fingerprints, eye scan etc. In this paper we created CNN model using python for offline signature and after training and validating, the accuracy of testing was 99.70%. (shrink)

Research on cognitive control has sparked increasing interest in recent years, as it is an important prerequisite for goal oriented human behavior. The paced auditory serial addition task has been used to test and train cognitive control functions. This adaptive, challenging task includes continuous performance feedback. Therefore, additional cognitive control capacities are required to process this information along with the already high task-load. The underlying neural mechanisms, however, are still unclear. To explore the neural signatures of the PASAT and particularly (...) the processing of distractive feedback information, feedback locked event-related potentials were derived from 24 healthy participants during an adaptive 2-back version of the PASAT. Larger neural activation after negative feedback was found for feedback related negativity, P300, and late positive potential. In early stages of feedback processing, a larger difference between positive and negative feedback responses was associated with poorer overall performance. This association was inverted in later stages. Together, our findings indicate stage-dependent associations between neural activation after negative information and cognitive functioning. Conceivably, increased early responses to negative feedback signify distraction, whereas higher activity at later stages reflects cognitive control processes to preserve ongoing performance. (shrink)

This article explores the process of female self-fashioning in two previously neglected petitions dated 1786-87 by using signatures to analyse their texts and construct their contexts. In them, Helen Timberlake revises the account of frontier and Cherokee life her husband, Henry Timberlake, had published in his Memoirs. Her intense maternal voice, focused on loss, entangles her history with that of the Cherokee chief Ostenaco, providing a grounded but often untrue narrative of shared family life and a persona tailored to evoke (...) a history intertwined with that of George III. This article explores the mystery of Helen Timberlakes origins, while connecting the rhetoric of her petitions to the gendered emergence of sentimentalism, narratives of Indian captivity, and the historiography of ‘the Atlantic’. (shrink)

The conflicts arising between the pedagogical preferences of the fields of instructional design and technology (IDT) and social foundations of education are substantial. This conflict is primarily one of pedagogical values separating the Social Foundations with its emphasis on critical and creative thinking and the presumption of value and theory neutrality inherent in IDT. This is a serious issue because, increasingly, educators use IDT models to translate Social Foundations courses with social justice and equity outcomes into online formats. Much is (...) lost. This article offers a discussion of the theoretical grounding of IDT (task-analysis) versus social foundations in regards to implications for the instructional social organization of online social foundations classrooms. This article uses the notion of signature pedagogy to describe sociocultural literacies as a basic tenet in social foundations of education. By doing so, it is demonstrated how these important theoretical positions are currently playing out in online instruction and space, to extend their relevance by introducing newer concepts such as Digital Cartesianism and copresence, and to provide a concrete example of what these concerns look like in the current push towards digital formats. In the current context of the use of electronic, social, communication, and mobile technologies in education, we find a new site to continue challenging the assumed neutrality of the technological model for education. (shrink)

Legal information certification and secured storage combined with documents electronic signature are of great interest when digital documents security and conservation are in concern. Therefore, these new and evolving technologies offer powerful abilities, such as identification, authentication and certification. The latter contribute to increase the global security of legal digital archives conservation and access. However, currently used cryptographic and hash coding concepts cannot intrinsically enclose cognitive information about both the signer and the signed content. Indeed, an evolution of these (...) technologies may be necessary to achieve full text researches within hundreds or thousands of electronically signed documents. This article aims at describing a possible model along with associated processes to create and make use of these new electronic signatures called “meaningful electronic signatures” as opposed to traditional electronic signatures based on bit per bit computation. (shrink)

Legitimacy is a concept that has been largely forgotten by the deconstructive discourse on law and politics. This article seeks, on the one hand, to reassess the role of legitimacy in deconstruction and, on the other hand, to bring deconstructive thinking to bear on the concept of legitimacy. By re-reading Derrida’s “Declarations of Independence” through the lenses of his later texts on sovereignty and (counter)signature, it is argued that, rather than being deconstructible, legitimacy is deconstructing any self-founding of law (...) and power. As such, legitimacy functions not as an evaluative concept of law and order but as a constantly insisting demand that facilitates the principles of responsibility and responsiveness. (shrink)

Schools are interesting as complex organizations in and of themselves but even more so for how they refract the societal dynamics by which inequality is reproduced, an enduringly vexing question (Fligstein & McAdam, 2012:3). Educational attainment is core to socioeconomic status and connected to outcomes in housing, health, and employment. Unequal schools in fields characterized by stratification are often the subject of reform attempts (Tyack, 1974). We examine how a wealthier and a poorer school responded to a state-level regulatory mandate (...) for change, in the U.S. context of schools as putative engines of opportunity. Bourdieu’s “master concepts” of field, habitus, and cultural capital (Swartz, 2008) are often applied, and we used them to answer frequent but still relatively unanswered calls in the literature: first, to use the master concepts together rather than singularly, and second, to attend specifically to the organization level and what it refracts (Dobbin, 2008; Emirbayer & Johnson, 2008; Hallett & Gougherty, 2018; Lounsbury & Ventresca, 2003; Mohr, 2013). For this integrative and organizational level approach, we derived the concept of “class signature,” which enabled us to focus on practices in organizations. This lens revealed “resistant compliance” in the wealthier school and “compliant resistance” in the poorer school, both of which reshaped the stratified field, even if stratification was not rectified. These responses appeared to reproduce inequality, not simplistically, we argue, but along a winding path fraught with practical experiments, protection against penalties, redefinition of the reform’s terms, and some small gains to remedy intra-organizational inequalities. (shrink)

This article discusses Glas in the light of Derrida's notion of the countersignature as both affirmation and betrayal of the countersigned. It explores how the two columns of Glas confirm as well as oppose each other, notably in relation to sexual difference, and examines how Derrida in turn is both faithful and unfaithful towards Hegel and Genet. Tracing the complexity of Derrida's signature, it reflects on its broader implications for his deconstructive project.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Jacques Derrida INTERPRETING SIGNATURES (NIETZSCHE/HEIDEGGER): TWO QUESTIONS T1HE first question concerns die name Nietzsche, die second has to do with the concept of totality. Let us begin widi chapters 2 and 3 of Heidegger's Nietzsche — dealing with "The Eternal Recurrence of the Same" and "The Will to Power as Knowledge," respectively. We will be turning especially to the subsection on chaos ["The Concept of Chaos," I, pp. 562-70] (...) and to "The Alleged Biologism of Nietzsche" ["Nietzsches angeblicher Biologismus"]. In view ofme fact mat the same interpretation is regularly at work throughout, the risks involved in choosing diis strategy are, I hope, quite limited. In each instance, a single system of reading is powerfully concentrated and gadiered together. It is directed at gadiering togedier the unity and the uniqueness of Nietzsche's diinking, which, as a fulfilled unity, is itself in a fair way to being the culmination of occidental metaphysics. Nietzsche would be precisely at the crest, or ridge, atop the peak of diis fulfillment. And thus he would be looking at both sides, down both slopes. What about diis unity — diis doubled unity? What is its connection to the name — or rather, the signature — of Nietzsche? Does Heidegger take any account of this question — which others might call biographical, autobiographical, or autographical — of the singularity of a signature ostensibly the proper name of Nietzsche? To put the matter anodier way, if one can glimpse behind Heidegger's reading of Nietzsche the foundations of a general reading of Western metaphysics, men die question Translated by Diane Michelfelder and Richard E. Palmer. 246 Jacques Derrida247 arises: To what extent does this interpretation of metaphysics in its totality and as a whole contain an interpretive decision about die unity or singularity of thinking? And to what extent does this interpretive decision also presuppose a decision about die "biographical," about the proper name, the autobiographical, and about signature — about the politics of signature? ' Heidegger's position on this subject I will indicate first ofall widi a summarizing and simplifying statement, which one could, I hope, demonstrate is not wrong: there is a unity in Nietzschean thought even if it is not that of a system in the classical sense. This unity is also its uniqueness, its singularity. A thesis explicidy advanced by Heidegger is that every great thinker has only one thought. This uniqueness was neither constituted nor threatened, neither gadiered together nor brought about, through a name or proper name — nor by the life of Nietzsche, either normal or insane. This unique unity is something it draws from the unity of Western metaphysics which is gathered together mere at its crest, which one could also compare to the simple unity of a line created by a fold. The result of all this is that biography, autobiography, the scene or the powers of the proper name, of proper names, signatures, and so on, are again accorded minority status, are again given the inessential place diey have always occupied in the history ofmetaphysics. This points to the necessity and place of a questioning which I can only sketch here. Such would be a simplified version of the question. Now let us read Heidegger a little more closely and seek to confirm the strongest coherence of his interpretation or, beyond its coherence, his deepest thought. As a provisional concession to die classical norms of reading, let us take this book at its beginning, or even before its beginning at the beginning ofthe preface. Naturally, diis preface was, like so many odiers, written later. As we know, the book goes back to a series of lectures given between 1936 and 1940, and to some treatises written between 1940 and 1946. One should take most careful note of these dates if one is to bring this interpretation, as a whole and in detail, into connection with the historicopolitical and institutional field of its presentation. The preface, however, dates from 1961. The intention of the two pages in mis case, as almost always, is to justify the publication of this collection by reference to the essential unity ofits totality: "This publication, rethought (nachgedacht) as a whole (als Ganzes) should provide a glimpse ofthe path ofthought... (shrink)

Dishonesty is prevalent and causes great damage to society. On an individual level, besides reaping rewards, it also carries a psychological cost for those who engage in it. This principle is used to make people more honest with behavioral interventions, one of them being the well-known ‘signature nudge’. Digital transition in society has however led to changes in the way people sign, which may affect the effectiveness of this nudge. In two experiments, the current study investigates the relationship between (...) digital signatures and honesty, building on previous research by examining novel signature types, the moderating role of personal characteristics, effect decay, and the predicting value of digital signature characteristics. Results show no effect of any signature intervention and no unilateral relation between digital signature characteristics and subsequent behavior. These findings contrast with earlier research and cast doubt on the use of signature interventions as a tool to prevent or predict dishonest behavior. (shrink)

Finding suitable analysis techniques for networks generated from social processes is a difficult task when the population changes over time. Traditional social network analysis measures may not work in such circumstances. It is argued that agent-based social networks should not be constrained by a priori assumptions about the evolved network and/or the analysis techniques. In most agent-based social simulation models, the number of agents remains fixed throughout the simulation; this paper considers the case when this does not hold. Thus the (...) aim of this paper is to demonstrate how the network signatures change when the agents’ population depends upon endogenous social processes. We argue for a much wider attention from the social simulation community in addressing this open research problem. (shrink)

Astrobiologists are aware that extraterrestrial life might differ from known life, and considerable thought has been given to possible signatures associated with weird forms of life on other planets. So far, however, very little attention has been paid to the possibility that our own planet might also host communities of weird life. If life arises readily in Earth-like conditions, as many astrobiologists contend, then it may well have formed many times on Earth itself, which raises the question whether one or (...) more shadow biospheres have existed in the past or still exist today. In this paper, we discuss possible signatures of weird life and outline some simple strategies for seeking evidence of a shadow biosphere. Key Words: Weird life—Multiple origins of life—Biogenesis—Biomarkers—Extremophiles—Alternative biochemistry. Astrobiology 9, 241–249. (shrink)

Current theory-of-mind research faces the challenge of reconciling two sets of seemingly incompatible findings: Whereas children come to solve explicit verbal false belief tasks from around 4years of age, recent studies with various less explicit measures such as looking time, anticipatory looking, and spontaneous behavior suggest that even infants can succeed on some FB tasks. In response to this tension, two-systems theories propose to distinguish between an early-developing system, tracking simple forms of mental states, and a later-developing system, based on (...) fully developed concepts of belief and other propositional attitudes. One prediction of such theories is that the early-developing system has signature limits concerning aspectuality. We tested this prediction in two experiments. The first experiment showed that 2- and 3-year-olds take into account a protagonist's true or false belief about the location of an object in their active helping behavior. In contrast, toddlers' helping behavior did not differentiate between true and false belief conditions when the protagonist's belief essentially involved aspectuality. Experiment 2 replicated these findings with a more stringent method designed to rule out more parsimonious explanations. Taken together, the current findings are compatible with the possibility that early theory-of-mind reasoning is subject to signature limits as predicted by the two-systems account. (shrink)

The neural underpinnings of decision-making are critical to understanding and predicting human behavior. However, findings from decision neuroscience are limited in their practical applicability due to the gap between experimental decision-making paradigms and real-world choices. The present manuscript investigates the neural markers of buying decisions in a fully natural purchase setting: participants are asked to use their favorite online shopping applications to buy common goods they are currently in need of. Their electroencephalography is recorded while they view the product page (...) for each item. EEG responses to pages for products that are eventually bought are compared to those that are discarded. Study 1 repeats this procedure in three batches with different participants, product types, and time periods. In an explorative analysis, two neural markers for buying compared to no-buying decisions are discovered over all three batches: frontal alpha asymmetry peak and frontal theta power peak. Occipital alpha power at alpha asymmetry peaks differs in only one of the three batches. No further significant markers are found. Study 2 compares the natural product search to a design in which subjects are told which product pages to view. In both settings, the frontal alpha asymmetry peak is increased for buying decisions. Frontal theta peak increase is replicated only when subjects search through product pages by themselves. The present study series represents an attempt to find neural markers of real-world decisions in a fully natural environment and explore how those markers can change due to small adjustments for the sake of experimental control. Limitations and practical applicability of the real-world approach to studying decision-making are discussed. (shrink)

This chapter discusses the versatile LEGO minifigure to introduce some major themes, questions, and problems tackled in the "philosophy of the human person". It begins with the question of just what parts are involved in making a human person. After that, the chapter considers the problems surrounding any individual's continued existence over time, and also discusses the philosophical view according to which the acts of decision‐making and imaginative creation are the very things. The cheerful yellow LEGO minifig presents a wonderful (...) tool for exploring the human person, who similarly appears unique within the complicated systems of reality. The issue of personal identity is as problematic as it is important for understanding our nature as human individuals in an ever‐changing world. The chapter further provides examples that focus on the problem of personal identity, particularly identity over time. (shrink)

This research examines the descriptive and textual contexts of the Rashidun caliphs Hazrat Abu Bakr (d. 13/634), Hazrat Omar (d. 23/644), Hazrat Othman (35/656) and Hazrat Ali (d. 40/661) in the examples of signatures. However, it examines the general contexts of these signatures and aims to relate these detachment examples with their senders who have the qualifications of authority, eloquence and justice. These signature texts must be handled with full grace, awareness, forethought and responsibility, without any additions or reductions (...) to the text by the recipient. The research deals with the production area of signature and examines the forms of expression in terms of the interpretation and testify (istishad) included in these texts. In addition to these features, the research has applied to the texts of signature, which express a certain treatise, in order to express their expressions and to reveal the rhetorical aspects and textual differences they contain. As a result of the research, it has been seen that the Rashidun caliphs wrote the texts of signature with such qualities as wisdom, persuasion, lacotical (îcâz), suggestion, concentration, open-mindedness and avoidance of closedness, and in accordance with a goal. As a result of the research, it was seen that the signatures revolved around a pattern of focusing and concentrating on the meaning, combining the filtered beautiful words and the clarity of the wording and the literary aspect of the meaning. Finally, the caliphs used these signatures in line with a certain goal to solve many political and social issues. (shrink)

The number of elements in a small set of items is appraised in a fast and exact manner, a phenomenon called subitizing. In contrast, humans provide imprecise responses when comparing larger numerosities, with decreasing precision as the number of elements increases. Estimation is thought to rely on a dedicated system for the approximate representation of numerosity. While previous behavioral and neuroimaging studies associate subitizing to a domain-general system related to object tracking and identification, the nature of small numerosity processing is (...) still debated. We investigated the neural processing of numerosity across subitizing and estimation ranges by examining electrophysiological activity during the memory retention period in a delayed numerical match-to-sample task. We also assessed potential differences in the neural signature of numerical magnitude in a fully non-symbolic or cross-format comparison. In line with behavioral performance, we observed modulation of parietal-occipital neural activity as a function of numerosity that differed in two ranges, with distinctive neural signatures of small numerosities showing clear similarities with those observed in visuospatial working memory tasks. We also found differences in neural activity related to numerical information in anticipation of single vs. cross-format comparison, suggesting a top-down modulation of numerical processing. Finally, behavioral results revealed enhanced performance in the mixed-format conditions and a significant correlation between task performance and symbolic mathematical skills. Overall, we provide evidence for distinct mechanisms related to small and large numerosity and differences in numerical encoding based on task demands. (shrink)

First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Proxy signature and group signature are two basic cryptographic primitives. Due to their valuable characteristics, many schemes have been put forward independently and they have been applied in many practical scenarios up to the present. However, with the development of electronic commerce, many special requirements come into being. In this article, we put forward the concept of group–proxy signature, which integrates the merits of proxy signature and group signature for the first time. We also demonstrate (...) how to apply our scheme to construct an electronic cash system. The space, time, and communication complexities of the relevant parameters and processing procedures are independent of group size. Our demonstration of the concrete group–proxy signature scheme shows that the concepts brought forward by us are sure to elicit much consideration in the future. (shrink)

In several areas of Mathematical Logic and Computer Science one would ideally like to use the set F orm(L) of all formulas of some first-order language L for some goal, but this cannot be done safely. In such a case it is necessary to select a subset of F orm(L) that can safely be used. Three main examples of this phenomenon are: • The main principle of naive set theory is the comprehension schema: ∃Z(∀x.x ∈ Z ⇔ A).