Includes established theories and cutting-edge developments. Presents the work of an international group of experts. Presents the nature, origin, implications, and future course of major unresolved issues in the area.

Three experiments explored the effects of word problem cueing on debiasing versions of the bat-and-ball problem. In the experimental condition order, participants solved a simpler isomorphic version of the problem prior to solving a standard version that, critically, had the same item-and-dollar amounts. Conversely, in the control condition order, participants solved the standard version prior to solving the isomorph. Across the first 2 experiments, participants cued with the isomorph were more likely to correctly solve the standard version of the problem. (...) In the third experiment, this cueing effect was not replicated, but importantly cued participants were more likely to correctly solve the standard version of the problem with other item-and-dollar amounts, indicating near transfer. Far transfer was evident in faster response times to other problems in the Cognitive Reflection Test following practice. Along with providing converging evidence for the cueing account, these results are consistent with recent attentional debiasing findings. (shrink)

In the recent past, several papers have pointed to the possibility that tumour removal generates a permissive environment in which tumour growth is potentiated. This phenomenon has been coined “perioperative tumour growth” and whilst it represents a departure in terms of our attitude to the surgical process, this concept was first hinted at by Paget1Sir James Paget (1814–1899) was a surgeon and physiologist who is widely held (along with Rudolph Virchow) to be the father of the science of pathology. Paget (...) described Paget's disease of the nipple as well as Paget's disease of bone. himself. Despite this, the time interval immediately before and after cancer surgery (i.e. the perioperative period) remains an underutilised interval during which chemotherapeutic regimens are rarely implemented. Herein, we present a summarised review of the literature that supports the concept that tumour removal may potentiate the growth of residual neoplastic disease. We also outline current knowledge regarding underlying mechanisms and in this manner highlight potential therapeutic entry points. Finally, we emphasise the urgent need for trials of agents that could protect patients against the harmful host–tumour interactions that may occur during the perioperative period. BioEssays 28: 433–437, 2006. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Objective: To examine i) how ethical frameworks can be used in concrete cases of parent–doctors’ disagreements for extremely preterm infants born in the grey zone to guide such difficult decision-making; and ii) what challenges stakeholders may encounter in using these frameworks. Design: We did a case analysis of a concrete case of parent–doctor disagreement in the grey zone using two ethical frameworks: the best interest standard and the zone of parental discretion. Results: Both ethical frameworks entailed similar advantages and challenges. (...) They have the potential 1) to facilitate decision-making because they follow a structured method; 2) to clarify the situation because all relevant ethical issues are explored; and 3) to facilitate reaching an agreement because all parties can explain their views. We identified three main challenges. First, how to objectively evaluate the risk of severe disability. Second, parents’ interests should be considered but it is not clear to what extent. Third, this is a value-laden situation and different people have different values, meaning that the frameworks are at least partially subjective. Conclusions: These challenges do not mean that the ethical frameworks are faulty; rather, they reflect the complexity and the sensitivity of cases in the grey zone. (shrink)

Memory exhibits episodic superposition, an analog of the quantum superposition of physical states: Before a cue for a presented or unpresented item is administered on a memory test, the item has the simultaneous potential to occupy all members of a mutually exclusive set of episodic states, though it occupies only one of those states after the cue is administered. This phenomenon can be modeled with a nonadditive probability model called overdistribution (OD), which implements fuzzy-trace theory's distinction between verbatim and gist (...) representations. We show that it can also be modeled based on quantum probability theory. A quantum episodic memory (QEM) model is developed, which is derived from quantum probability theory but also implements the process conceptions of global matching memory models. OD and QEM have different strengths, and the current challenge is to identify contrasting empirical predictions that can be used to pit them against each other. (shrink)

As we approach the third millenium we ask what we want to bring forward from the past and what we wish to develop anew. Like planning to begin human life on ...

Infants are sensitive to statistical regularities (i.e., transitional probabilities, or TPs) relevant to segmenting words in fluent speech. However, there is debate about whether tracking TPs results in representations of possible words. Infants show preferential learning of sequences with high TPs (HTPs) as object labels relative to those with low TPs (LTPs). Such findings could mean that only the HTP sequences have a word‐like status, and they are more readily mapped to a referent for that reason. But these findings could (...) also suggest that HTP sequences are easier to encode, just like any other predictable sequence. Here we aimed to distinguish between these explanations. To do so, we built on findings that infants become resistant to learning labels that are not typical of their native language as they approach 2 years of age and add words to their lexicons. If tracking TPs in speech results in identifying candidate words, at this age TPs may have reduced power to confer lexical status when they yield a unit that is very dissimilar to word forms that are typical of infants’ native language. Indeed, we found that at 20 months, English‐learning infants with relatively small vocabularies learned HTP Italian words (but not LTP words) as object labels, while infants with larger vocabularies resisted learning HTP Italian words. These findings suggest that the HTP sequences may be represented as candidate words, and more broadly, that TP statistics are relevant to word learning. (shrink)

The phase space formulation of quantum mechanics is based on the use of quasidistribution functions. This technique was pioneered by Wigner, whose distribution function is perhaps the most commonly used of the large variety that we find discussed in the literature. Here we address the question of how one can obtain distribution functions and hence do quantum mechanics without the use of wave functions.

A large number of cross-references to various bodies of text are used in legal texts, each serving a different purpose. It is often necessary for authorities and companies to look into certain types of these citations. Yet, there is a lack of automatic tools to aid in this process. Recently, citation graphs have been used to improve the intelligibility of complex rule frameworks. We propose an algorithm that builds the citation graph from a document and automatically labels each edge according (...) to its purpose. Our method uses the citing text only and thus works only on citations who’s purpose can be uniquely identified by their surrounding text. This framework is then applied to the US code. This paper includes defining and evaluating a standard gold set of labels that cover a vast majority of citation types which appear in the “US Code” but are still short enough for practical use. We also proposed a novel linear-chain conditional random field model that extracts the features required for labeling the citations from the surrounding text. We then analyzed the effectiveness of different clustering methods such as K-means and support vector machine to automatically label each citation with the corresponding label. Besides this, we talk about the practical difficulties of this task and give a comparison of human accuracy compared to our end-to-end algorithm. (shrink)

This Handbook documents the main trends in current research between logic and language, including its broader influence in computer science, linguistic theory and cognitive science. The history of the combined study of Logic and Linguistics goes back a long way, at least to the work of the scholastic philosophers in the Middle Ages. At the beginning of this century, the subject was revitalized through the pioneering efforts of Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, and Polish philosophical logicians such as Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz. Around (...) 1970, the landmark achievements of Richard Montague established a junction between state-of-the-art mathematical logic and generative linguistic theory. Over the subsequent decades, this enterprise of Montague Grammar has flourished and diversified into a number of research programs with empirical and theoretical substance. This appears to be the first Handbook to bring logic-language interface to the fore. Both aspects of the interaction between logic and language are demonstrated in the book i.e. firstly, how logical systems are designed and modified in response to linguistic needs and secondly, how mathematical theory arises in this process and how it affects subsequent linguistic theory. The Handbook presents concise, impartial accounts of the topics covered. Where possible, an author and a commentator have cooperated to ensure the proper breadth and technical content of the papers. The Handbook is self-contained, and individual articles are of the highest quality. (shrink)

To cope with the water deficit resulting from saline environment, plant cells accumulate three kinds of osmotica: salts, small organic solutes and hydrophillic, glycine-rich proteins. Salts such as NaCl are cheap and available but has ion toxicity in high concentrations. Small organic solutes are assistant osmotica, their main function is to protect cytoplasmic enzymes from ionic toxicity and maintain the integrity of cellular membranes. Hydrophillic, glycine-rich proteins are the most effective osmotica, they have some characteristics to avoid crystallization even in (...) high concentration, but because they are expensive they are not as commonly used as salts or organic solutes. In addition there is the question of whether the genetic information for growth in saline environment is present in all kinds of plants, both halophytes and nonhalophytes. (shrink)