Foraging‐ and feeding‐related behaviors across eumetazoans share similar molecular mechanisms, suggesting the early evolution of an optimal foraging behavior called area‐restricted search (ARS), involving mechanisms of dopamine and glutamate in the modulation of behavioral focus. Similar mechanisms in the vertebrate basal ganglia control motor behavior and cognition and reveal an evolutionary progression toward increasing internal connections between prefrontal cortex and striatum in moving from amphibian to primate. The basal ganglia in higher vertebrates show the ability to transfer dopaminergic (...) activity from unconditioned stimuli to conditioned stimuli. The evolutionary role of dopamine in the modulation of goal‐directed behavior and cognition is further supported by pathologies of human goal‐directed cognition, which have motor and cognitive dysfunction and organize themselves, with respect to dopaminergic activity, along the gradient described by ARS, from perseverative to unfocused. The evidence strongly supports the evolution of goal‐directed cognition out of mechanisms initially in control of spatial foraging but, through increasing cortical connections, eventually used to forage for information. (shrink)

Recent studies of semantic memory have investigated two theories of optimal search adopted from the animal foraging literature: Lévy flights and marginal value theorem. Each theory makes different simplifying assumptions and addresses different findings in search behaviors. In this study, an experiment is conducted to test whether clustering in semantic memory may play a role in evidence for both theories. Labeled magnets and a whiteboard were used to elicit spatial representations of semantic knowledge about animals. Category recall sequences (...) from a separate experiment were used to trace search paths over the spatial representations of animal knowledge. Results showed that spatial distances between animal names arranged on the whiteboard were correlated with inter-response intervals during category recall, and distributions of both dependent measures approximated inverse power laws associated with Lévy flights. In addition, IRIs were relatively shorter when paths first entered animal clusters, and longer when they exited clusters, which is consistent with marginal value theorem. In conclusion, area-restricted searches over clustered semantic spaces may account for two different patterns of results interpreted as supporting two different theories of optimal memory foraging. (shrink)

BackgroundThe areas of Research Ethics (RE) and Research Integrity (RI) are rapidly evolving. Cases of research misconduct, other transgressions related to RE and RI, and forms of ethically questionable behaviors have been frequently published. The objective of this scoping review was to collect RE and RI cases, analyze their main characteristics, and discuss how these cases are represented in the scientific literature.MethodsThe search included cases involving a violation of, or misbehavior, poor judgment, or detrimental research practice in relation to (...) a normative framework. A search was conducted in PubMed, Web of Science, SCOPUS, JSTOR, Ovid, and Science Direct in March 2018, without language or date restriction. Data relating to the articles and the cases were extracted from case descriptions.ResultsA total of 14,719 records were identified, and 388 items were included in the qualitative synthesis. The papers contained 500 case descriptions. After applying the eligibility criteria, 238 cases were included in the analysis. In the case analysis, fabrication and falsification were the most frequently tagged violations (44.9%). The non-adherence to pertinent laws and regulations, such as lack of informed consent and REC approval, was the second most frequently tagged violation (15.7%), followed by patient safety issues (11.1%) and plagiarism (6.9%). 80.8% of cases were from the Medical and Health Sciences, 11.5% from the Natural Sciences, 4.3% from Social Sciences, 2.1% from Engineering and Technology, and 1.3% from Humanities. Paper retraction was the most prevalent sanction (45.4%), followed by exclusion from funding applications (35.5%).ConclusionsCase descriptions found in academic journals are dominated by discussions regarding prominent cases and are mainly published in the news section of journals. Our results show that there is an overrepresentation of biomedical research cases over other scientific fields compared to its proportion in scientific publications. The cases mostly involve fabrication, falsification, and patient safety issues. This finding could have a significant impact on the academic representation of misbehaviors. The predominance of fabrication and falsification cases might diverge the attention of the academic community from relevant but less visible violations, and from recently emerging forms of misbehaviors. (shrink)

Compensation for research related injuries is a subject that is increasingly gaining traction in developing countries which are burgeoning destinations of multi center research. However, the existence of disparate compensation rules violates the ethical principle of fairness. The current paper presents a comparison of the policies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. A systematic search of good clinical practice guidelines was conducted employing search strategies modeled in line with the recommendations of ADPTE Collaboration. The search (...) focused on three main areas namely bibliographic data bases, clinical practice guidelines data bases and a restricted internet search. A manual search of references cited in relevant guideline documents was also conducted. The search terms, Medical Subject Headings and key words were developed for a PubMed platform and then adapted for all other data bases. The search terms were kept constant for each country with the only difference being the country name. The documents so obtained were subjected to systematic content analysis. The study revealed that there is vast panoply of regulations which exist on a continuum. On one extreme is India with comprehensive regulations that are codified into law, and on the other end there is China which does not have specific laws regulating research related injuries. There are a number of differences and similarities such as mandatory insurance requirements, existence of no fault compensation, compensable injuries and the role of research ethics committees. It is imperative to enact legislations that protect participants without stifling the research enterprise. There is need for consistency and ideally harmonization of such regulations at a global level. A model policy on compensation for research related injuries should borrow from the best aspects of the different country policies and should be informed by the cardinal ethics principles of autonomy, justice and beneficence. (shrink)

I have been working on meta-philosophy for quite some time and was pleasantly surprised to encounter, mid-May 2017, someone who shares this commitment (apart from his many other interests and specializations) for very similar reasons as my own. He is Dr Desh Ray Sirswal from India and one of his numerous websites, blogs, journals, etc is - http://drsirswal.webs.com/ I let him speak for himself. “My objective is to achieve an intellectual detachment from all philosophical systems, and not to solve specific (...) philosophical problems but to become sensitively aware of what it is when we philosophize.” Copyright© Desh Raj Sirswal . I commence by dealing with the teaching of philosophy, because the contents of what is being taught at under-graduate level is for most people who are slightly informed about the subject what philosophy is about. This usually consists of the history of Ideas of Western Philosophy. Although an increasing number of faculties now broaden the scope to the ‘philosophies’ of Asia, the Far East and the Middle East. This international broadening of what is being included in curricula of or as philosophy is another index that Western Philosophy is in need of subject-matter as its traditional subject-matter have all but died out. Apart from the History of Philosophical ideas, the subject often is presented in terms of so-called branches, for example metaphysics, ontology, epistemology, ethics, logic, and so on. A number of authors suggest that both ways of teaching the discipline is very selective because of the departments adherence to some form of either ‘analytical’ or ‘continental’ philosophy. Apart from the traditional lecture-style the teaching of philosophy is dealt with by means of some variation on the Oxbridge ‘tutorial’-style. Tutorials are often acclaimed as being an amazing, to be highly regarded innovation. Some studies and research of it however revealed that is not at all very comprehensive but is restricted to a number of items concerning reasoning, argumentation and critical re-viewing and thinking. This approach forms part of the attempt by contemporary research universities to teach aspects of ‘research’. This brings us to my next section on methods of doing philosophy. I suggest that the doing of philosophy resembles certain aspects and contexts of some of the steps and stages of doing theorizing. This is the rationale for including the next section on theorizing, its steps, stages and other aspects such as the use of metaphors, imaginary experiments, heuristic devices, etc. The next section deals with the changing nature of traditional philosophy as it lost most of its subject-matter to other disciplines that have been socio-culturally differentiated. And the search for new philosophical subject-matter such as Experimental Philosophy or XPhi, the involvement of philosophers in inter-disciplinary studies, especially the latest fad of cognitive studies or sciences and of course the fabrication of philosophies of all areas of human behaviour and kinds of socio-cultural activities for example sport, the arts, sciences, cognition, sex, violence, gender, race, religion, etc etc. I then turn to the question about how, where and why one could perhaps do philosophy against the background of the above. In this investigation I make explicit some of the self-imposed limits of the discourse. Some of these restrictions have been created because of the absolute institutionalization of the discipline as just another subject of universities. This institutionalization of course requires that those involved in the discipline of institutionalized philosophy must be professionals. This absolute requirement lays down the condition that to be a philosopher one must be a professional and an academic. The conditions of institutionalization and professionalization have far reaching consequences for the philosophical discourse, its subject-matter, methods, principles, values, aims, purposes and norms. One of these is the need to publish and to publish often especially in peer-reviewed journals and in their required, institutionalized format. Because of these institutionalized restrictions of what philosophy is, what it must be like, what it may be like and what it may not be like I explore the lack of self-cognition of academically institutionalized philosophy and the associated absence of critical, meta-cognition and self-awareness of professional philosophers. I question the values of doing that type of philosophy, philosophy-on-demand and because of demand and suggest that it is preferable to engage with the more original, creative-thinking philosophers’ work. All of the above are of course intersubjectively determined and this is why I finally explore the nature and operation of different forms of intersubjectivity, for example of common sense, everyday existence, that of the different sciences, the arts, etc and the roles or functions of these things in the creation or constitution of alternative discourses, their realities, life-worlds or perspectives on ‘the world, reality, and existence’. This is the phantom, the ghost of the deceased discourse of philosophy that I chased, encountered and describe. -/- . (shrink)

The Area Activation Model (Pomplun, Reingold, Shen, & Williams, 2000) is a computational model predicting the statistical distribution of saccadic endpoints in visual search tasks. Its basic assumption is that saccades in visual search tend to foveate display areas that provide a maximum amount of task‐relevant information for processing during the subsequent fixation. In the present study, a counterintuitive prediction by the model is empirically tested, namely that saccadic selectivity towards stimulus features depends on the spatial arrangement of (...) search items. We find good correspondence between simulated and empirically observed selectivity patterns, providing strong support for the Area Activation Model. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:My Ability to FlourishPaulette KoehlerIn twenty years of convulsions, I’ve never heard a neurologist mention the word “epilepsy.” Over this time, the intensity of my original simple partial seizures, “simple” signifying retained consciousness and “partial” indicating disturbances restricted to a specific area of my brain, grew to the complex level on my left temporal lobe. I believe this development was influenced by my use of prescribed medications. Several neurologists (...) from Los Angeles to San Francisco directed various electroencephalograms (EEGs), including a week–long, prescription–free EEG in the hospital; magnetic resonance imaging tests (MRIs); computed tomography (CT) scans anywhere from forty–five minutes to four hours each; and blood profiles to help determine my situation. For legal reasons, one neurologist even had me sign a release stating that he was not able to diagnose my situation.Test results present limited information about my brain and without ever saying, “I don’t know,” these neurologists communicated my test results by utilizing technical terms and thus not always answering my questions. After explaining that my head turns to the left while my right hand shakes, symptoms that have been recognized and reported by several friends and family members, my doctor replied that a seizure on the left side of my brain should cause my head to turn to the right and then changed the subject. I felt like asking, “Am I doing it wrong?”The brain is different from other parts of our anatomy in that it can’t be replaced like a kidney, heart or other organ. It cannot be removed like tonsils, an appendix or even a limb. It can be physically studied or repaired while functioning but the resulting percentage of survival or proper operation of the body after surgery is minimal and the number of people requiring such attention is so low that the amount is scanty. A dead brain limits the analysis of its functions.My “disabilities” involve spontaneous uncontrolled loss of consciousness, exhaustion, mood swings, and the suspension of driving privileges. Activity interference, extra naps, losing friends and not being able to get around are definite disadvantages. However, everyone needs to manage personal problems. No one is perfect.Public transit schedules and directions don’t always offer me the transportation I need. Fortunately, the combination of a bus ride with walking or running can serve my needs while also helping me to keep physically healthy.Limited benefits include discounted transit and the option to ride instead of walking or running. A trip to Nana’s on the train is always a treat.I’d rather not be branded “disabled” even though those who understand my situation address me with compassionate, sympathetic attention, [End Page E4] always asking how I physically feel. I feel fine. A seizure is only a quick, conscious loss of time and an occasional scrape on the knee. I’m more annoyed when I notice strangers looking suspiciously at my public transport discount card as if I don’t really deserve it.Like the “disability” brand, the medications I’ve taken, Dilantin, Neurontin, Depakote, Keppra and Lamictal, among others, all of which produced serious side effects without reducing the frequency of my seizures have only been a cover–up, preventing a search for the true cause and effective treatment of my seizures. Being identified as disabled has only limited my daily schedule. I am not disabled, as society has unfortunately characterized me.My seizures began in 1993, the year our FDA started approving rBGH, recombinant bovine growth hormone, man–made for the use on dairy cows to enhance their milk production. As a result, milk on the market increased while keeping the price from rising, as demonstrated in Economics I. Can the use of rBGH act on my brain in any way?One neurologist, in order to avoid the responsibility of inappropriate recommendations, presented his thoughts in the form of questions, encouraging me to consider options.“You’ve tried all of these medications?”“Has your diet alteration made any difference in your seizures?”“Have you tried organic foods?”His inquiries persuaded me to contemplate whether drugs are an answer to my problem, pay attention to differences in my life and... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:172 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY us," Saint-Simon wrote in 1814. Matching the development of mind of their eighteenthcentury rationalist compatriots with the development of love and action, the Saint-Simonians, Fourier and Comte saw hardly any stop to the inevitability and infinitude of progress and perfectibility. The prospect of the twentieth century, however, shows an "uneasy consensus." Manuel is not concerned to swell the flood of philosophical history but to bear (...) witness to it, and it is as a witness that he reports that man's "urge to place himself in a total time sequence" is undiminished, if anything it continues to grow and magnify. The search for a total meaning of historical existence is an apparently irrepressible drive. In this concluding chapter Manuel shows how the threads of the previously expressed ideas, particularly from French and German sources, are tied and knotted in the more familiar figures, Spengler, Sorokin, Toynbee, and a group of Christian writers and philosophers of history (de Chardin, Niebuhr, Dawson, Tillich, Pope Plus XII, and Pope John XXIII) illustrating and instantiating the vitality and longevity of the archetypal conceptions he began with. The great divide between theorists persists pretty much in the present as it did in older times. There are the progressists among whom are distinguished those still loyal to the French concept of perfectibility, a new school of philosophical life scientists writing cosmic history, and contemporary Marxists. Manuel classes the Christian theologians of history in a special category, which, although progressist in a sense, like Augustine denigrate earthly progress and restrict themselves to spiritual advance. Then there are the non- or anti-progressists, circular theorists, among whom Spengler, Sorokin, and "Toynbee I" are to be found. Having done duty for the Greeks and Romans, the Italians, French and Germans (surprisingly omitting the figure of Schopenhauer in his account) it would be a further service to have Professor Manuel's reading of English and Scottish involvement in philosophies of history of the sort he defines as "pictures of the total meaning of historical existence... (which have) included predictions of things to come as well as a reduction of the whole of the past to an order," for despite their professed empiricism it will not be denied that in figures like Hobbes, Locke, and Hume, as in some of the lesser figures of the English and Scottish Enlightenment (he mentions the "imitative works" of Price, Priestly, Spencer and Buckle), philosophies of history of the sort defined are implicit where they are not explicit and outspoken. Perhaps one day Professor Manuel will turn his illuminating searchlight to this area. While conceding Manuel's point that philosophies of history of the more distinctly speculative type have grown and even multiplied over the recent past, it should be added (what is common knowledge) that many equally responsible philosophers have tried both to discourage this growth and at the same time to make a contribution to the discipline through a more analytic approach. So far has this movement gone, indeed, that it would appear that the tide of speculative philosophies of history has ebbed greatly, and that "theories" of history are now pretty much restricted to poets, novelists, dramatists and their brethren in some of the social sciences, particularly psychology and sociology, especially in the Englishspeaking world. Whether the "analysts" are making a substantial contribution to our knowledge of historical processes (as distinguished from the language and logic of historical discourse) is still somewhat moot, but there is little doubt that the analysts are rapidly displacing the synthesists in philosophy of history. STANLEYM. DAUGERT Western Washington State College Universals: A New Look at an Old Problem. By Farhang Zabeeh. (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1966. Pp. vi -t- 68. $3.15.) In this short analysis of a perennial philosophical problem, Professor Zabeeh has taken upon himself the rather ambitious task of attempting to trace the development of the various attempts to explain the function, meaning, and ontological status of universals from Socrates BOOK REVIEWS 173 (or Plato) to Wittgenstein and Austin. In doing so, he has neglected (pace a few random references) the most fertile field for the analysis of universals, the medieval writers. To some extent, Professor Zabeeh does... (shrink)

The spontaneity of natural life is the only property which differs this type of life from artificial life. However, it may be the main basis to understand life. Artificial life is constructed by living beings; it is a part of the natural life process, and its properties are not an effect of its own restrictions but of external assumptions. Therefore the investigation of artificial life is not a safe way of searching for basic properties of natural life. The purposefulness appears (...) only in the area of a life process. We generalize the notion of information and encoding to apply them to the physical phenomena description. We use them to define the purposeful information—its example is a biological information, its quantity is an Eigen’s information value. Next we investigate properties of the spontaneous process of purposeful information collecting. In effect we get such properties of this process as: a goal “to exist”, reproduction and the Darwinian mechanism of randomchangeability and elimination. In this process a natural identity criterion of the evolving object connected with the “small change tendency” appears. (shrink)

Samizdat, the underground circulation of unofficial and forbidden literature in the Soviet Union, is an example of how censorship can backfire. Ideological restrictions produced walls of monotony in libraries and bookstores, propelling readers to search for more interesting fare. Sensitive texts on religion, philosophy, human rights, and current events, as well as literary works, passed from hand to hand clandestinely from around 1960 until censorship was abolished in the late 1980s. Von Zitzewitz's study is itself interesting fare, uncovering the (...) workings of samizdat as both a distribution network, comparable to that of print culture, and a social network that developed bonds between people who shared a defined purpose outside the public space. By no means did they all think of themselves as dissenters. For many people who lived ordinary Soviet lives, it was simply that “reading samizdat increased [their] individual feeling of freedom and represented a personal act of resistance.”One merit of this book is its point-by-point comparison of the samizdat distribution network to the print-culture production chain of author-publisher-printer-shipper-bookseller-reader. Samizdat had an analogous chain, in which a text made its way from author to reader through a network of people, each performing a specific function—procuring manuscripts, housing them, typing (or photographing) multiple copies, and delivering copies to readers. There were others who served as compilers, translators, collectors, and even editors and “librarians” (although accepting this designation requires abandoning the notion of a library as a stationary physical repository).Since all participants in the network strove to hide their traces from the prying eyes of the security police, samizdat researchers are hampered by a lack of records and evidence. To help fill the information gap, von Zitzewitz (in collaboration with Memorial's Gennadii Kuzovkin) designed a sixty-three-question survey targeting former samizdat participants and posted online in 2017. Tables display statistics (from the first 122 respondents) on demographics (respondents’ gender, place and decade of birth, and education level) as well as information on which authors, genres, and subject matter were most read. Other survey questions were designed to elicit recollections that help us understand what it felt like to participate in samizdat culture, whether as an author or reader, or in some aspect of acquisition or distribution. The many quotations from the survey responses bring to life the intensity of this activity. Receiving a sought-after text with an injunction to return it (or pass it on) the next day might mean reading all through the night to get through hundreds of pages. And while it is intuitive to think of samizdat as walled off from official culture, this study argues persuasively that they were intertwined. There were plenty of gray areas and fuzzy boundaries, too. One owner of samizdat books had several of them confiscated during a KGB search of his apartment, only to find them later for sale in a bookshop.Having begun as a clandestine, makeshift response to the institution of censorship, samizdat became more sophisticated over time, evolving into an institution itself. It arguably contributed to the perestroika reforms and became unnecessary when censorship was given the heave-ho. Subsequently, samizdat activists who had managed the covert production and circulation of entire journals published full accounts of their activity and the operation of their networks. Von Zitzewitz makes good use of these sources and shows admiration for the role these men played. She notes, though, that their detailed descriptions omit names of any of the typists who gave up their leisure hours and nightly sleep for the pleasure of hammering out multiple carbon copies of forbidden literature, usually for no pay. The word typist, given its lowly connotation in both Russian and English, is unfortunate. Typists were samizdat's printing press, and without their commitment and sacrifice the whole enterprise would have collapsed. Von Zitzewitz suggests that it may never have occurred to the samizdat heavyweights to acknowledge them by name. They were just... women. On the other hand, the menial typist designation had its upside. It seems to have resulted in a shorter prison sentence for at least one of them.Von Zitzewitz argues strenuously that samizdat was first and foremost a social network. If you wanted to get hold of, say, The Gulag Archipelago, you needed to know someone with the connections to help you get it. To call samizdat a social network is, of course, to wade into comparisons with today's online social media networks. Von Zitzewitz notes parallels, but she finds that the differences overwhelm the similarities. Samizdat was a social network, but one that depended on mutual trust. (shrink)

Introduction. The article deals with the problem of institutionalism of economic federalism relations. The institutional approach to studying economic federalism makes it possible to study economic federalism as a complex structured institution based on describing the interaction of the existing institutions of federalism, its structures and mechanisms. The purpose of the article is to consider economic federalism from the standpoint of the institutional approach. Methods. In the article, the author uses general scientific methods of analysis and synthesis, deduction and induction (...) in the context of applying the institutional approach when studying the economic federalism relations. Scientific novelty. In the article, for the first time, the author highlights the elements of institutional regulation of the economic federalism system; has introduced the criterion for dividing the economic federalism institutions into formalized and non-formalized ones. Results. The author justifies the possibility of using the institutional approach when studying economic federalism, formulates the concept of “institution of federalism”, discloses the content of the institutional regulation of federal relations, presents for the first time the institutional design of the economic federalism system in terms of identifying subject areas and functions of economic federalism institutions, the spheres of institutionalization of economic federalism and economic consequences of institutional regulation. The author introduces the criterion of universality, which makes it possible to divide the institutions of economic federalism into formalized and non-formalized ones. Conclusions. The system of economic federalism presupposes the presence of institutions as stable norms, rules, procedures, organizational mechanisms governing the interaction of federalism participants, which gives the relations of economic federalism an institutional setting. Institutions of federalism both restrict and stimulate the dayto-day action of its participants. For the effective functioning of the economic federalism system, it is necessary to search for the optimal ratio of formalized (universal) and non-formalized (electoral) federalism institutions. (shrink)

Unlike Hanafī jurists, most of the jurists maintain that qiyās is permissible (jāʿiz) for the origins (aṣl) in which the qiyās rule is invalid, including ruhsat (permission); kaffarah (expiation) and ḥadd (penalties). Shāfiʿī jurists, Imam al-Shāfiʿī and his followers like al-Juwaynī, argue that Hanafī jurists are contradictory since they apply qiyās in many cases despite their judgment that qiyās is invalid, and on the contrary they defend that these are derived from the literal interpretation techniques out of qiyās format. Nevertheless, (...) Shāfiʿī jurists persist that they rule on the qiyās applications through Islamic jurisprudence inference methods (istinbāt) such as Islamic juristic preference (istiḥsān), even beyond qiyās. In his sense of search effective cause: ʿilla (taʿlil), al-Juwaynī focuses on the proper meaning/suitability (munāsaba). He runs the mechanism of taʿlil even in the presence of the deepest proper meaning. He customizes the formulation of the suitability (munāsaba)/proper meaning for the origins in which the qiyās’ rule is invalid. Kaffarah and ḥadd consequently expand the validity area and minimize the restricted area for qiyās. Al-Juwaynī’s approach agrees to his rational personality as well as the value that he appreciates for qiyās. In this paper, the aim of study is to identify the borders and limitations of qiyās in al-Juwaynī’s thought with discussions about the disagreements between the jurists in the specified areas.Summary: As a general principle, devoting (taʿabbud) is the foundation for jurisprudence for al-Imām al-Shāfiʿī and reasoning (taʿaqqul/taʿlīl) for Abu Hanīfa. Despite this, Abu Hanīfa and Hanafī jurists consider non-qiyās foundations (ma’dul bih ‘anil-qiyās) including the quantified ordinances (muqaddarāt/taqdīrat) and ruhsat (permission) as well as kaffarah (expiation) and ḥadd (penalty) as the banned areas for the analogy (qiyās) and profess that qiyās cannot be applied in these areas. It may be contradictory that they state in one hand that the foundation of rulings is taʿaqqul, and on the other hand, bars the above-mentioned areas for qiyās. On the contrary to their general approach, Shāfiʿī jurists, in particular, argue that it is untrue to absolutely exclude use of analogy in those areas, which are rather open to qiyās. Al-Imām al-Shāfiʿī and one of his followers, al-Juwaynī, describe that Hanafī jurists’ applications do not jibe with their principles so that they do refer the inference methods (istinbāt) (e.g. juristic preference: istiḥsān), furthering qiyās although they take qiyās as illicit in kaffarah and ḥadd. However, Hanafī jurists defend that they are not in a contradiction, and indeed they do not apply qiyās in kaffarah and ḥadd and derive their illations mostly from textual implications (dalālah) that are mostly out of qiyās format such as tanqīh al-maʿnā (isolating ʿilla), istidlāl, and dalālah al-naṣṣ (inferred meaning). As understood from the relevant arguments, applying qiyās in these areas is directly associated with the issue of potentiality for “the analogy in reason.” The type of qiyās that Hanafī jurists consider illicit in kaffarah and ḥadd is the analogical actions made for the reasons. One of the most rationalist representatives of Shāfiʿī uṣūl, al-Juwaynī pronounces that the method to determine ʿilla (cause) is fundamentally the suitability (munāsaba) that can be defined as “rational compatibility.” In his opinion, the ratiocination (taʿlīl) is based on this suitability. According to him, the indications of qiyās will be clear or it becomes practicable even in the presence of low-level, implicit suitability. Al-Juwaynī considers that it is licit to apply the analogy for the kaffarah and ḥadd as well as the non-qiyās foundations, including ruhsat and muqaddarāt or taqdīrat, whether direct or explicit (i.e. the meaning of analogy: qiyās al-maʿnā) or indirect or implicit (i.e. the commonality of analogy: qiyās al-shabah). In this context, one of Juwayni’s concern is “the matter of inherence in textual sources such as naṣṣ or the Qur’ān and the Sunna),” corresponding to the area where the judgment is based on a specific reason by naṣṣ. For him, a number of reasonable meanings can be inferred in these areas when it is critiqued independent of the uttered words. But the inherence mentioned in the texts of naṣṣ, indicates to avoid the use of analogy for making a judgment. Al-Juwaynī asserts that some fractional elaborate or detailed meanings cannot be obtained for physical prayers and only a set of universal meanings can be imagined. He defines that it is permissible to compare the reasons of physical worshipping with each other when any suitable meaning is present. He considers that for the permissibility of qiyās in ruhsat, it is adequate to find a meaning suitable for the judgment, and besides, the commonality of analogy (qiyās al-shabah) is applicable in the area of muqaddarāt or taqdīrat. Nevertheless, a patient’s condition is similar to that of a traveller in terms of ruhsat for not fasting (ṣavm). In al-Juwaynī’s way of thinking, patients should act like travellers for ruhsat to shorten (qaṣr) the prayers (ṣalāh) due to “requiring” as a proper meaning. However, as mentioned by al-Juwaynī, there is a consensus (ʿijmā or ittifāq) on the fact that a patient cannot shorten his or her prayers. Due to this impediment, it is understood that the rule of shortening their prayers (ṣalāh) is permissible for travellers but not for patients (manʿ al-ʿijmā’).In criminal cases, the right of oath before the court is belonging to the defendant, whereas to the claimant in kasāme, an oath method in unidentified murders. Taking an oath from the claimant is merely inherent to the kasāme application. Al-Juwaynī states that this inherence is known by the principle of being inherent to each circumstance (iḥtisās bi-l hāl), and with this aspect, kasāme is a closed area for qiyās. According to al-Juwaynī, contracts are suitable for qiyās because they have conditions such as offers and agreements explicitly stating the quality and quantity, and mutual assent. He describes that these are the reasons unavailable for qiyās with respect to their characteristics. With this, the contracts are among the reasonable sources in one respect and the unreasonable in another respect. Consequently, al-Juwaynī suggests that the analogy loses its functionality or validity in a limited number of the closed areas for qiyās, which are the static devotional judgments (taʿabbud) having no proper meaning, direct or indirect, or explicit or implicit; the areas where the judgment is made inherent to a specific reason by the naṣṣ (ihtisās bi-l-nass) (as in the example that sacrificing a female goat at the age of less than one year is a specific judgment for Burde b. Niyār). The point leads to the judgment is made inherent to a specific reason by the principle of ihtisās bi-hāl; and banned ʿijmā issues (as in the example of ʿijmā that it is agreed on the fact that patients cannot shorten (qaṣr) their prayers (ṣalāh), unlike travellers. Al-Juwaynī sees the application of qiyās as licit based on the availability of suitable meaning in all areas except for the above-mentioned issues. That he minimizes the closed areas for qiyās and widely expands the functionality of analogy is the reflections of the value that he gives to qiyās. (shrink)

Fifteen years after the first edition of this comprehensive work, German historicism remains largely and conspicuously in the shadows. The great historico-philological and historico-sociological work produced by, and on the fringes of, this school has given way to specialization. Great polygraphs of the caliber of a Meinecke, a Vossler, a Curtius, a Cassirer, a Croce, or an Auerbach seem to have completely disappeared from the scene. But is the necessity for cultural synthesis that these men stressed any less urgent today (...) than before? One of the major tasks envisioned by thinkers of the early twentieth century was the development of a philosophical anthropology which would consolidate all the preceding work of cultural synthesis. Today this task remains in the far horizon after a series of distinguished but discontinuous achievements. Thus the reappearance of the ambitious work of Professor Rossi is a welcome event. There are now indications that sociology is moving away from the neutral functionalism of the consensus years and is beginning to show some interest in the subconscious and in concrete constellations of values representative of communal forms of consciousness in a situation. Post-industrial society can no longer be examined with the rough tools of micro- or even macro-analysis. Because of their refinements in quantification and their awareness of the most specific features of every particular form of group consciousness, the new middle range methods are akin to the synthetic spirit of the historical school. As middle range research progresses, its results can provide the ontic ground for an ontology of the human condition in its adjustment to the world, and in its communicative-transcendent goals. For this reason, Rossi’s work, though excellent in its expository aspects should be read with care to avoid overemphasizing, as he does, the distance between rationalism and irrationalism that was apparent in the main tendencies of the historical school. Surely it is a worthwhile thing to show the tensions between the relativists such as Simmel and Spengler, the intuitionists such as Windelband and Rickert, and finally the neo-idealists such as Troeltsch and Meinecke. The tension that pulled apart these intellectual currents shows by contrast the great synthetic force operative in the systems of Dilthey and Weber, which provided the dominant inspiration for the whole school. But the fundamental perspective in today’s reconsideration of historicism need not be the tempering of any search for ideals through the insistence on sober methodological limits. A more fruitful emphasis can be placed today on action as a mediator between thought and adjustment, on community as a mediator between society and individuals, and most of all on expression and adventure as mediators between survival and moral absolutes. With his neo-Kantian insistence on the historical method, on the discovery of the historical horizon of the human condition, and on the establishment of the institutional connections within historical periods, Professor Rossi: a) misses the point of the anti-mechanistic efforts of modern philosophy, i.e., the constitution of synthetic a priori judgments in their true home grounds, the field of spontaneous human communication and action; b) restricts the ability on the part of the historical method to penetrate and elucidate the areas of the unconscious and of passive syntheses ; c) both presupposes and trivializes the definition of freedom. Freedom in Rossi’s interpretation of historicism, seems to result from the objective displacement of values, rather than from the dramatic insufficiency of every finite person as it transpires in the highest forms of symbolic communication and interaction.—A. M. (shrink)

Amanda Kelly À la recherche d'un bain romain dans la région de Malia p. 607-627 On aborde ici l'importance de l'activité romaine dans la région de Malia et on examine l'éventualité de la présence d'un bain romain (public ou privé, mais plus vraisemblablement privé) dans la zone du marais. L'identification de trois clous d'espacement en terre cuite et de plusieurs fragments de pilae recueillis lors de la prospection de Malia, près de la basilique, suggère l'existence d'un bain romain dans les (...) environs, quelque part dans le marais (probablement dans la région de la basilique). La présence de clous d'espacement en terre cuite dans l'arrière-pays maliote est révélatrice, puisque leur usage est presque exclusivement associé à des bains romains, ailleurs dans l'Orient romain (généralement datés des IIe et IIIe siècles apr. J.-C.). (shrink)

In Search Of An Integrative Vision For Technology will stimulate its readers to consider the 'whole story that is information systems' within the context of an integrative vision of technology. It integrates disparate areas of debate and research while appreciating the contribution that philosophy can make to such thinking. It is deliberately broad in coverage, and designed to provide useful pointers so that researchers, students, practitioners, and developers can easily apply each point as needed. "Human issues of technology and (...) their normative aspects" is a theme that runs throughout the entire book. The integrative vision is centered on an understanding of human practice — the twin notions of structure and direction, and the leading and the founding functions of such practice. While this understanding applies to all technologies, it is worked out in more detail for information technology. From this philosophical understanding, many interdisciplinary areas of interest are identified. (shrink)

In Search of a Political Philosophy is an analysis of the three democratic `isms'--conservatism, liberalism, and socialism--and of the distinct nature of the all-consuming ideology of Marxist communism. W. J. Stankiewicz is concerned with the conscious and unconscious assumptions of the proponents and followers of each ideology, and those of their theoreticians and critics. Stankiewicz examines the norms by which political ideologies are characterized, and discusses which of these are given precedence. He provides an analysis of how each ideology (...) views such issues as freedom and restraint, responsibility, equality, justice, power, authority, property, human nature and happiness. He also examines the areas of ideological contiguity and mutual influences, the sources of ideological incomprehension in our society, and the forces that split Western societies. In Search of a Political Philosophy takes issue with the positions of some of our leading political theorists and represents an original contribution to political philosophy in its own right. It makes a stimulating and challenging contribution to the areas of politics, political philosophy, ethics, political and social theory, the history of political thought, and the history of ideas. (shrink)

Using a Web search engine is one of today’s most frequent activities. Exploratory search activities which are carried out in order to gain knowledge are conceptualized and denoted as Search as Learning. In this paper, we introduce a novel framework model which incorporates the perspective of both psychology and computer science to describe the search as learning process by reviewing recent literature. The main entities of the model are the learner who is surrounded by a specific (...) learning context, the interface that mediates between the learner and the information environment, the information retrieval backend which manages the processes between the interface and the set of Web resources, that is, the collective Web knowledge represented in resources of different modalities. At first, we provide an overview of the current state of the art with regard to the five main entities of our model, before we outline areas of future research to improve our understanding of search as learning processes. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this paper, I support the claim that placing certain restrictions on public access to possible new treatments is morally problematic under some exceptional circumstances. Very ill patients may find that all available standard treatments are unacceptable, either because they are ineffective or have serious adverse effects, and these patients may understandably be desperate to try something new even if this means stepping into the unknown. Faced with certain death, it is rational to want to try something new and (...) to chance a dire outcome. Restricting possible new treatments to research trials may put these treatments scientifically, geographically or economically out of reach of these patients. For those who can get access, research restrictions could weaken, though not necessarily eliminate, the value of consent participants of such trials are able to give. Some participants may therefore be exploited for scientific purposes in the name of public interest. There are nonetheless compelling reasons for keeping some restrictive regulation in this area. (shrink)

We provide complete classifications of algebras of partial maps for a significant swathe of combinations of operations not previously classified. Our focus is the many subsidiary operations that arise in recent considerations of the ‘override’ and ‘update’ operations arising in specification languages. These other operations turn out to have an older pedigree: domain restriction, set subtraction and intersection. All signatures considered include domain restriction, at least as a term. Combinations of the operations are classified and given complete axiomatizations with and (...) without the presence of functional composition. Each classification is achieved by way of providing a concrete representation of the corresponding abstract algebras as partial maps acting on special kinds of filters determined with respect to various induced orders. In contrast to many negative results in the broader area, all of the considered combinations lead to finite axiomatizations. (shrink)

In Search Of Mechanisms is a book about the methodology of biology. It is a work by Carl Craver and Lindley Darden, both of whom are well-known individually for their advocacy of mechanistic explanation—in the neurosciences and in the fields of genetics, cytology and molecular biology . Here, the two join forces to give a unified model of biological explanation, not limited to a particular area of biological enquiry, as rooted in the search for mechanisms.The objectives of the (...) book are threefold. First, it sets out to describe what biologists do. This first objective can be described as the goal of making biology more comprehensible. If biology involves the search for mechanisms, then one cannot understand the history of biology and its current practice without understanding mechanisms. Secondly, the book seeks to give a proscriptive account of explanation and the process of explaining some phenomena. This second objective relates to an interest in contributing to the .. (shrink)

This volume is about searching for fundamental theory in physics which has become somewhat elusive in recent decades. Like a group of blind men investigating an elephant, one physicist postulates the trunk as a hose, another a leg as a tree, the body a wall or barrier, the tail a rope and the ears as a fan. The organizers of the Vigier series symposia strongly believe cross polination by exploring many avenues of seemingly disparate research is key to breakthrough discovery (...) and solicited papers on all areas of physics deemed pertinent in Astrophysics, Cosmology, nuclear physics, quantum theory, electromagnetism, thermodynamics, vacuum field theory and topology. (shrink)

The ethical issues concerning the use of PGD to select embryos of a particular HLA type are numerous. They arise from the potentially conflicting interests between those of the pre-existing child, the subject of a treatment which may be curative, and those of the sibling to be created, who cannot give consent to the donation, together with the problem of the destruction of potentially healthy embryos. This essay focuses on the web of vulnerabilities affecting the parents, the sick child and (...) the “saviour sibling,” while addressing three areas: science, bioethics and literature. The novel My Sister’s Keeper, by Jodi Picoult, provides the reader with an in-depth view of the conflicting interests and emotional problems that affect the Fitzgeralds, a family experiencing the pain of seeing one of their children dying while facing the tragic consequences of trying to save this child by having another offspring. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence has found its way into many areas of human life, serving a range of purposes. Sometimes AI tools are designed to help humans eliminate high-volume, tedious, routine tas...

Although developmental dyslexia is frequently diagnosed in Poland, little knowledge of effective treatment for this disorder is available in Polish society. Remedial teachers for many years have applied traditional methods aimed at correction and compensation for affected cognitive functions and academic skills. Otherwise, although western therapies are regularly advertised in the media, their effectiveness has rarely been subject to scientific investigation. Since the assumptions underlying some approaches are not consistent with current understanding of cognitive function, they may attract negative expert (...) appraisal. Unfortunately, it seems that fashion in dyslexia therapy is resistant to rare expressions of criticism from the scientific community. The purpose of this article is to promote awareness about effective treatment for specific reading disorders. Teachers’ greater understanding in this area should help Polish dyslexic children and their parents, who may be confused by offers of misguided therapy and sharp business practise. It is hoped that this article will clarify the situation. In this review of modern English journal articles, focus is on remedial teaching of reading, and more specifically, support for dyslexic students experiencing difficulties in decoding. Here we are concerned only with therapy in alphabetic languages in which individual speech sounds correspond to letters. Analysis of articles from the last six years leads to the conclusion that the most effective therapy for the reading disorder is training in phonological awareness and consolidation of letter-sound knowledge. However, these skills should be practised in the context of reading. (shrink)

Heuristic programming was the first area in which AI methods were tested. The favourite case-studies were fairly simple toy- problems, such as cryptarithmetic, games, such as checker or chess, and formal problems, such as logic or geometry theorem-proving. These problems are well-defined, roughly speaking, at least in comparison to real-life problems, and as such have played the role of Drosophila in early AI. In this chapter I will investigate the origins of heuristic programming and the shift to more knowledge-based and (...) real-life problem solving. (shrink)

We define a new NP search problem, the “local improvement” principle, about labellings of an acyclic, bounded-degree graph. We show that, provably in , it characterizes the consequences of and that natural restrictions of it characterize the consequences of and of the bounded arithmetic hierarchy. We also show that over V0 it characterizes the consequences of V1 and hence that, in some sense, a miniaturized version of the principle gives a new characterization of the consequences of . Throughout our (...) search problems are “type-2” NP search problems, which take second-order objects as parameters. (shrink)

Many areas of frontier physics are confronted with the crisis of a lack of accessible, direct evidence. As a result, direct model building has failed to lead to any new empirical discoveries. In this paper I argue that these areas of frontier physics have developed common methods for turning precision measurements of known quantities into potential evidence for anomalies hinting at new physics. This method of framework generalization has arisen as a sort of model-independent method for generalizing beyond known physics (...) and organizing experimental searches. I argue that this method is well-justified given the current epistemic landscape, and that theory construction in general is much broader than simply building new dynamical models. (shrink)

Searching for information is critical in many situations. In medicine, for instance, careful choice of a diagnostic test can help narrow down the range of plausible diseases that the patient might have. In a probabilistic framework, test selection is often modeled by assuming that people's goal is to reduce uncertainty about possible states of the world. In cognitive science, psychology, and medical decision making, Shannon entropy is the most prominent and most widely used model to formalize probabilistic uncertainty and the (...) reduction thereof. However, a variety of alternative entropy metrics (Hartley, Quadratic, Tsallis, Rényi, and more) are popular in the social and the natural sciences, computer science, and philosophy of science. Particular entropy measures have been predominant in particular research areas, and it is often an open issue whether these divergences emerge from different theoretical and practical goals or are merely due to historical accident. Cutting across disciplinary boundaries, we show that several entropy and entropy reduction measures arise as special cases in a unified formalism, the Sharma–Mittal framework. Using mathematical results, computer simulations, and analyses of published behavioral data, we discuss four key questions: How do various entropy models relate to each other? What insights can be obtained by considering diverse entropy models within a unified framework? What is the psychological plausibility of different entropy models? What new questions and insights for research on human information acquisition follow? Our work provides several new pathways for theoretical and empirical research, reconciling apparently conflicting approaches and empirical findings within a comprehensive and unified information‐theoretic formalism. (shrink)

This paper examines three popular and important books on spirituality in business: Mitroff and Denton's A Spiritual Audit of Corporte America, Nash and McLennan's Church on Sunday, Work on Monday, and Lerner's Spirit Matters. Interestingly, none of these books can find satisfactory examples of legitimate spirituality in business. This paper suggests that one reason these authors can not find acceptable models of spirituality in business is that they are all employing an unnecessarily restrictive definition of spirituality. The paper concludes by (...) suggesting that a definition of spirituality based on John Dewey's pragmatist philosophy is more appropriate for today's businesses. (shrink)

This critical analytical review examines the ways in which realism can be justified in epistemology and philosophy of science and which are presented in the collection of papers “Perspectives of Realism in Modern Philosophy” (M., 2017). The exposition of areas in which the authors of this book study the problems of realism, as well as those arguments in its defense that they offer, is given. A criticism of these arguments is presented, according to which all of them are not able (...) to convince an antirealist to abandon their views in favor of realism. The question of whether realists and anti-realists have the same object of discussion and what could become a common ground for them is explored. The author suggests that an appeal to language can become such a common ground and reproduces Frege’s argument against skeptics and idealists as a possible methodological justification for realism. (shrink)

The graph edit distance (GED) measures the dissimilarity between two graphs as the minimal cost of a sequence of elementary operations transforming one graph into another. This measure is fundamental in many areas such as structural pattern recognition or classification. However, exactly computing GED is NP-hard. Among different classes of heuristic algorithms that were proposed to compute approximate solutions, local search based algorithms provide the tightest upper bounds for GED. In this paper, we present K-REFINE and RANDPOST. K-REFINE generalizes (...) and improves an existing local search algorithm and performs particularly well on small graphs. RANDPOST is a general warm start framework that stochastically generates promising initial solutions to be used by any local search based GED algorithm. It is particularly efficient on large graphs. An extensive empirical evaluation demonstrates that both K-REFINE and RANDPOST perform excellently in practice. (shrink)

How our beliefs about the soul have developed through the ages, and why an understanding of it still matters today The concept of the soul has been a recurring area of exploration since ancient times. What do we mean when we talk about finding our soul, how do we know we have one, and does it hold any relevance in today’s scientifically and technologically dominated society? From Socrates and Augustine to Darwin and Freud, In Search of the Soul takes (...) readers on a concise, accessible journey into the origins of the soul in Western philosophy and culture, and examines how the idea has developed throughout history to the present. Touching on literature, music, art, and theology, John Cottingham illustrates how, far from being redundant in contemporary times, the soul attunes us to the importance of meaning and value, and experience and growth. A better understanding of the soul might help all of us better understand what it is to be human. Cottingham delves into the evolution of our thoughts about the soul through landmark works—including those of Aristotle, Plato, and Descartes. He considers the nature of consciousness and subjective experience, and discusses the psychoanalytic view that large parts of the human psyche are hidden from direct conscious awareness. He also reflects on the mysterious and universal longing for transcendence that is an indelible part of our human makeup. Looking at the soul’s many dimensions—historical, moral, psychological, and spiritual—Cottingham makes a case for how it exerts a powerful pull on all of us. In Search of the Soul is a testimony to how the soul remains a profoundly significant aspect of human flourishing. (shrink)

Research Ethics, Volume 18, Issue 1, Page 24-38, January 2022. Are social science, cross-border research projects, where recruitment and data collection are carried out remotely, required to follow similar ethical and data-sharing procedures as ‘on-the-ground’ studies that use traditional means of recruitment and participant engagement? This article reflects on our experience of dealing with this question when we had to switch to online data collection due to the restrictions posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, such as the inability to travel or (...) work in person with local communities and collaborators. Using social media platforms and online data collection when conducting research brings many advantages, such as being able to communicate remotely but directly with gatekeepers and collaborators, and in reaching potential participants on a global scale. However, neither the guidelines and advice for conducting ethically sound internet-based research, nor the academic literature focussed on building equitable research partnerships between the Global North and the Global South, offer much information regarding the ethical concerns, or address the grey areas, posed by this type of digital and distanced transnational research. In our experience, conducting research remotely made negotiations of access very challenging due to the politics of positionality between Global North and South researchers, lack of clarity on ethical processes and perceptions of gatekeepers who we could not meet in person. We hope the reflections on, and discussion of, our experience encourage deliberation on the present ethical challenges posed by online and social-media-disseminated data collection, particularly in cross-border circumstances. (shrink)

This book is a specialized monograph on the development of the mathematical and computational metatheory of reductive logic and proof-search, areas of logic that are becoming important in computer science. A systematic foundational text on these emerging topics, it includes proof-theoretic, semantic/model-theoretic and algorithmic aspects. The scope ranges from the conceptual background to reductive logic, through its mathematical metatheory, to its modern applications in the computational sciences. Suitable for researchers and graduate students in mathematical, computational and philosophical logic, and (...) in theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence, this is the latest in the prestigous world-renowned Oxford Logic Guides, which contains Michael Dummet's Elements of intuitionism, Dov M. Gabbay, Mark A. Reynolds, and Marcelo Finger's Temporal Logic Mathematical Foundations and Computational Aspects, J. M. Dunn and G. Hardegree's Algebraic Methods in Philosophical Logic, H. Rott's Change, Choice and Inference: A Study of Belief Revision and Nonmonotonic Reasoning, and P. T. Johnstone's Sketches of an Elephant: A Topos Theory Compendium: Volumes 1 and 2. (shrink)

The constraint-handling methods using multiobjective techniques in evolutionary algorithms have drawn increasing attention from researchers. This paper proposes an efficient conical area differential evolution algorithm, which employs biased decomposition and dual populations for constrained optimization by borrowing the idea of cone decomposition for multiobjective optimization. In this approach, a conical subpopulation and a feasible subpopulation are designed to search for the global feasible optimum, along the Pareto front and the feasible segment, respectively, in a cooperative way. In particular, the (...) conical subpopulation aims to efficiently construct and utilize the Pareto front through a biased cone decomposition strategy and conical area indicator. Neighbors in the conical subpopulation are fully exploited to assist each other to find the global feasible optimum. Afterwards, the feasible subpopulation is ranked and updated according to a tolerance-based rule to heighten its diversity in the early stage of evolution. Experimental results on 24 benchmark test cases reveal that CADE is capable of resolving the constrained optimization problems more efficiently as well as producing solutions that are significantly competitive with other popular approaches. (shrink)

If the discovery of life elsewhere in the universe is just around the corner, what would be the consequences for religion? Would it represent another major conflict between science and religion, even leading to the death of faith? Some would suggest that the discovery of any suggestion of extraterrestrial life would have a greater impact than even the Copernican and Darwinian revolutions. It is now over 50 years since the first modern scientific papers were published on the search for (...) extraterrestrial intelligence. Yet the religious implications of this search and possible discovery have never been systematically addressed in the scientific or theological arena. SETI is now entering its most important era of scientific development. New observation techniques are leading to the discovery of extra-solar planets daily, and the Kepler mission has already collected over 1000 planetary candidates. This deluge of data is transforming the scientific and popular view of the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence. Earth-like planets outside of our solar system can now be identified and searched for signs of life. Now is a crucial time to assess the scientific and theological questions behind this search. This book sets out the scientific arguments undergirding SETI, with particular attention to the uncertainties in arguments and the strength of the data already assembled. It assesses not only the discovery of planets but other areas such as the Fermi paradox, the origin and evolution of intelligent life, and current SETI strategies. In all of this it reflects on how these questions are shaped by history and pop culture and their relationship with religion, especially Christian theology. It is argued that theologians need to take seriously SETI and to examine some central doctrines such as creation, incarnation, revelation, and salvation in the light of the possibility of extraterrestrial life. (shrink)

Boxers and healthcare workers alike should be able to exercise their rightsAlthough there are calls elsewhere to ban boxing, the Australian Medical Association advocates a less restrictive rule. Professional boxers would submit to brain scans and MRIs—but what to do with the results of such tests? Critics say that boxers should decide which risks they take, but boxers are not the only ones in the debate. Healthcare workers understandably want some say in which risks people take, because the hospital is (...) where boxers go when injuries occur . These issues of ethics and obligation are not made easier to resolve by the many disputed comparisons in this debate. Is boxing like other risk taking behaviour? Are physicians like other public employees? Until such questions are answered, a compromise would have check ups made mandatory, without forcing boxers to act on any knowledge gained.There is no shortage of comparisons in the debate over boxing. Boxing, we hear, is like fast food: dangerous yes, but it does offer some benefits. No, the opposing side contends, boxing is like a pistol duel: once considered sophisticated, it is now just a ritualistic violence. Perhaps boxing is like smoking: inform boxers of the risks and let them at it. Then again, if boxing is like smoking, people who do not realise how dangerous it is need protection from it. Depending on who you listen to, boxing is an expression of individualism and personal sacrifice—the next best thing to running your own country—or it illustrates the danger in letting concern for autonomy overstretch the social fabric. And so the comparisons continue, without really convincing anyone. Not surprisingly, reformist proposals that could include mandatory brain scans for boxers are viewed as intrusive …. (shrink)

Amidst the surge in AI-oriented commercial ventures, music is a site of intensive efforts to innovate. A number of companies are seeking to apply AI to music production and consumption, and amongst them several are seeking to reinvent the music listening experience as adaptive, interactive, functional and infinitely generative. These are bold objectives, having no clear roadmap for what designs, technologies and use cases, if any, will be successful. Thus each company relies on speculative product visions. Through four case studies (...) of such companies, I consider how product visions must carefully provide a clear plan for developers and investors, whilst also remaining open to agile user-centred product development strategies, which I discuss in terms of the ‘blind search’ nature of innovation. I suggest that innovation in this area needs to be understood in terms of technological emergence, which is neither technologically determinist nor driven entirely by the visions of founders, but through a complex of interacting forces. I also consider, through these cases, how, through the accumulation of residual value, all such start-up work risks being exapted for more familiar extractive capitalist agendas under the general process that Doctorow calls “enshittification”. Lastly, I consider a number of other more specific ways in which these projects, if their growth is achieved, could influence music culture more broadly. (shrink)

Search can be found in almost every cognitive activity, ranging across vision, memory retrieval, problem solving, decision making, foraging, and social interaction. Because of its ubiquity, research on search has a tendency to fragment into multiple areas of cognitive science. The proposed topic aims at providing integrative discussion of the central role of search from multiple perspectives. We focus on controlled search processes, which require a goal, uncertainty about the nature, location, or acquisition method of the (...) objects to be searched for, and a method for sampling through the search environment. While this definition of search is general and applicable to different domains, the specific mechanisms in the search process will likely differ. The goal of this issue is to compare and contrast how these search processes are similar and differ in different cognitive activities, with the goal of understanding the general nature of search in terms of the three characteristics stated above. We expect that given its cross-domain nature, the topic on search will be of broad interest to cognitive scientists, including psychologists, behavioral ecologists, computer scientists, neuroscientists, linguists, and sociologists. (shrink)

It is difficult to see how one can support the continuum between rules and similarity, as Pothos proposes. A similarity theory could dispense with the rules end of the continuum. The only thing that we need is one (or more than one) theory of similarity that goes beyond the stimulus-carrying information and behavioristic restrictions that have usually been attributed to similarity theories.

Despite his place as one of the most original thinkers of the Middle Ages, the legacy of Joachim of Fiore has eluded clear comprehension in at least two areas, those of texts and transmission. That is, Joachim studies have, until most recently, been limited by a lack of modern editions for Joachim’s works, and by an incomplete understanding of how the revolutionary ideology inspired by a twelfth-century abbot from Calabria ultimately came to be appropriated by disparate groups such as the (...) Spiritual Franciscans, the Münster Anabaptists, and Spanish missionaries in colonial Latin America. Yet there has been much scholarship, of exacting standards and of immense value, which has pushed forward our knowledge of... (shrink)

The current study investigated the adaptations which occur in visual search behaviour as a function of expertise in rugby union players when completing attacking scenarios. Ten experienced players and ten novice players completed 2 vs. 1 attacking game scenarios. Starting with the ball in hand and wearing a mobile eye tracker throughout, participants were required to score a try against a defender. The scenarios allowed for a pass to their supporting player or trying to run past the defender. No (...) between group differences were found in fixating on the supporting attacking player. However, EP increased the length and frequency looking at the area immediately ahead of the supporting player, particularly when executing a spin pass. NP fixated longer and more frequently at the defender, whilst EP fixated more frequently in the space the supporting player would run into in Switch and Dummy Switch scenarios. More successful passes were completed and tries scored by EP compared to NP. Differences in visual search behaviour between experienced and NP suggest that the experts extract information from areas directly related to guiding the motor action; the space immediately ahead of the support player to pass the ball in. Contrastingly, novices use a more allocentric perspective where the actions from the defender are used to guide their motor actions. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Although a research focus on the increasing involvement of corporations in shaping and maintaining the global rules of the game points out promising avenues for future research, it simultaneously makes clear how little currently established, mostly managerial conceptual frameworks have to offer in making sense of these developments. It is argued that we need to expand the rather restricted perspectives that these frameworks provide, in order to explore new conceptual foundations that will not only enable us to travel the confines (...) of the different disciplines involved with the study of the changing role of business in shaping the global rules of the game, but that can also systematically connect normative and positive research questions at the conceptual level. Three directions for this search for new foundations are briefly explored. (shrink)

Are indices a purely linguistic, textual phenomenon or are linguistic indices a special case of a more general type of indexical signs? In comparing Carlo Ginzburg's restrictive view of indices and traces in particular with Peirce's general approach to indexical signs, this paper argues that Peirce's account of indexicality makes it possible to connect the sciences and the humanities by a flexible relational concept of the epistemic function of an identification that indexical experiences allows for. In this way Peirce's flexible (...) concept of indexicality allows us to connect e.g. the experience of a condensation trace of an electron in a cloud chamber with that of the trace of a deer in the snow. (shrink)

Ethical questions rarely present themselves in an abstract manner. Situations we encounter in our daily personal and professional lives sometimes cause us to hesitate, to reflect, even for a moment, about the ethical quality of possible modes of acting or withholding action . These situations can be relatively trivial, encountered with such frequency that we do not give them much thought . However, they can also be the origin of major questions that propose clear ethical issues, but that do not (...) immediately include any indication of how we should deal with them .In some cases we can consult existing guidelines, either those which are specifically enumerated, for example by an ethics committee or an existing statement of policy, or those guidelines which are ‘commonly known’, often referred to as ‘common sense’, ‘rules of behavior’, or simply, ‘the way things are done’. Where we get the tools to evaluate ethical issues is only infrequently discussed or raised to the conscious level. And yet it is the tools that we use, the manner of approaching an ethical question, that will most likely influence the kind of response we will tend to give for an ethical dilemma.As already stated, most ethical questions arise in a context, in a situation. As a result, one can easily get the impression that the issue at hand is unique, that this ethical question is one that belongs to a particular area of life, and therefore that only an understanding that is firmly based in this specialized area is capable of responding adequately to the problem. Thus we see the growth of a number of specialized ‘ethics’ — medical ethics, business ethics, political ethics, the ethics of journalism, etc. — frequently accompanied by a specific ‘ethical code’.To the extent that the analysis of any issue, question or ethical dilemma demands that one have control of the facts of the case presenting itself, it is true that specific questions need to be approached with an adequate amount of specific competence . However, the common ground of these types of issues is their ethical nature. The question might realistically be put whether there is ‘one’ ethics which can guide us to an adequate response to most any question, or whether there are ‘many’ ethics, each specific to the area in which it is being called forth.The professional, or competent person, in any given field will tend to suggest that the ethical concerns s/he deals with can only be comprehended by someone who is thoroughly versed in that particular field. As far as comprehension of the facts is concerned, there appears to be little ground for arguing the point. Nevertheless, one could still ask about the basis upon which even the professional ethicist will make his/her judgments. Are the rules and structures of ethical codes still so specific that they apply only to one area of human behavior? (shrink)