Smiles play an important role in social perception. However, it is unclear whether a similar role is played by static facial features associated with smiles. In dental science, maxillary dental protrusions increase the baring of the teeth and thus produce partial facial features of a smile even when the individual is not choosing to smile, whereas mandibular dental protrusions do not. We conducted three experiments to assess whether individuals ascribe positive evaluations to these facial features, which are not genuine emotional (...) expressions. In Experiment 1, participants viewed facial photographs of maxillary and mandibular protrusions and indicated the smiling and emotional status of the faces. The results showed that, while no difference was observed in participants’ perception of the presence of a smile across both types of dental protrusion, participants felt more positive to faces with maxillary than mandibular protrusions. In Experiment 2, participants completed an Implicit Association Test test measuring implicit attitudes toward faces with maxillary vs. mandibular protrusions. The results showed that participants had more positive attitude toward faces with maxillary than mandibular protrusions. In Experiment 3, individuals with either maxillary or mandibular protrusions completed the same IAT test to assess whether any preference would be affected by in-group/out-group preferences. The results showed both groups had more positive attitudes toward faces with maxillary protrusion, indicating that this preference is independent of the group effect. These findings suggest that facial features associated with smiles are viewed positively in social situations. We discuss this in terms of the social-function account. (shrink)

Festschrift volume to K. Ramakrishna Rao, Indian psychologist, philosopher and educationist; contributed articles.

On the Dvaita philosophy of Madhva, 13th century Hindu philosopher.

Rwanda is recovering from the trauma of the 1994 war and genocide but continues to have a weak corporate and industrial infrastructure. Against this background, the present study was undertaken with the aim of tracing to what extent Rwandan enterprises are geared for the fulfillment of social responsibility within a strained socioeconomic milieu. The objectives of the study are to review the concept of corporate governance and its relation to corporate social responsibility , to describe the current state of corporate (...) governance in Rwanda, to establish the relationship between corporate governance and CSR and standard ethical practice, and to suggest solutions for problems encountered in the system. (shrink)

v. 1. God, religion, and philosophy; a historical retrospect. 2d ed. 1971.--v. 2. Purushka and prakrita (God and nature). 1st ed. 1968.--v. 3. God and man (nara and Narayan). 1st ed. 1974.--v. 4. Thought; gems in verse: sayings of great saints and thinkers of India. 1st ed. 1975.--v. 5. Truths stranger than fiction. 1st ed.

Starting from the early decades of the twentieth century, evolutionary biology began to acquire mathematical overtones. This took place via the development of a set of models in which the Darwinian picture of evolution was shown to be consistent with the laws of heredity discovered by Mendel. The models, which came to be elaborated over the years, define a field of study known as population genetics. Population genetics is generally looked upon as an essential component of modern evolutionary theory. This (...) article deals with a famous dispute between J. B. S. Haldane, one of the founders of population genetics, and Ernst Mayr, a major contributor to the way we understand evolution. The philosophical undercurrents of the dispute remain relevant today. Mayr and Haldane agreed that genetics provided a broad explanatory framework for explaining how evolution took place but differed over the relevance of the mathematical models that sought to underpin that framework. The dispute began with a fundamental issue raised by Mayr in 1959: in terms of understanding evolution, did population genetics contribute anything beyond the obvious? Haldane's response came just before his death in 1964. It contained a spirited defense, not just of population genetics, but also of the motivations that lie behind mathematical modelling in biology. While the difference of opinion persisted and was not glossed over, the two continued to maintain cordial personal relations. (shrink)

A high percent of oxidative energy metabolism is needed to support brain growth during infancy. Unhealthy diets and limited nutrition, as well as other environmental insults, can compromise these essential developmental processes. In particular, iron deficiency anemia has been found to undermine both normal brain growth and neurobehavioral development. Even moderate ID may affect neural maturation because when iron is limited, it is prioritized first to red blood cells over the brain. A primate model was used to investigate the neural (...) effects of a transient ID and if deficits would persist after iron treatment. The large size and postnatal growth of the monkey brain makes the findings relevant to the metabolic and iron needs of human infants, and initiating treatment upon diagnosis of anemia reflects clinical practice. Specifically, this analysis determined whether brain maturation would still be compromised at 1 year of age if an anemic infant was treated promptly once diagnosed. The hematology and iron status of 41 infant rhesus monkeys was screened at 2-month intervals. Fifteen became ID; 12 met clinical criteria for anemia and were administered iron dextran and B vitamins for 1–2 months. MRI scans were acquired at 1 year. The volumetric and diffusion tensor imaging measures from the ID infants were compared with monkeys who remained continuously iron sufficient. A prior history of ID was associated with smaller total brain volumes, driven primarily by significantly less total gray matter and smaller GM volumes in several cortical regions. At the macrostructual level, the effect on white matter volumes was not as overt. However, DTI analyses of WM microstructure indicated two later-maturating anterior tracts were negatively affected. The findings reaffirm the importance of iron for normal brain development. Given that brain differences were still evident even after iron treatment and following recovery of iron-dependent hematological indices, the results highlight the importance of early detection and preemptive supplementation to limit the neural consequences of ID. (shrink)

Plagiarism is increasingly evident in business and academia. Though links between demographic, personality, and situational factors have been found, previous research has not used actual plagiarism behavior as a criterion variable. Previous research on academic dishonesty has consistently used self-report measures to establish prevalence of dishonest behavior. In this study we use actual plagiarism behavior to establish its prevalence, as well as relationships between integrity-related personal selection and workplace deviance measures. This research covers new ground in two respects: (a) That (...) the academic dishonesty literature is subject to revision using criterion variables to avoid self bias and social desirability issues and (b) we establish the relationship between actual academic dishonesty and potential workplace deviance/white-collar crime. (shrink)

There is a growing literature demonstrating a link between lower socioeconomic status (SES) and poorer neuroanatomical health, such as smaller total and regional gray and white matter volumes, as well as greater white matter lesion volumes. Little is known, however, about the relation between SES and white matter integrity. Here we examined the relation between SES and white matter integrity of the brain’s primary cortical regions, and evaluated potential moderating influences of age and self-identified race. Participants were 192 neurologically intact, (...) community-dwelling African American and White adults (mean age = 52 years; 44% male, 60% White, low SES = 52%) from the Healthy Aging in Neighborhoods of Diversity across the Life Span (HANDLS) SCAN study. Participants underwent 3.0-T cranial magnetic resonance imaging. Diffusion tensor imaging was used to estimate regional fractional anisotropy (FA) to quantify the brain’s white matter integrity and trace to capture diffusivity. Multiple regression analyses examined independent and interactive associations of SES, age, and race with FA of the frontal, temporal, parietal, and occipital lobes bilaterally. Sensitivity analyses assessed the influence of several biopsychosocial risk factors on these associations. Exploratory analyses examined these relations with trace and using additional SES indicators. Results indicated there were no significant interactions of SES, age, and race for any region. Individuals with low SES had lower FA in all regions, and higher trace in the right and left frontal, right and left temporal, and left occipital lobes. Findings remained largely unchanged after inclusion of sensitivity variables. Older age was associated with lower FA and greater trace for all regions, except for the right temporal lobe with FA. No main effects were found for race in FA, and Whites had higher trace values in the parietal lobes. Novel findings of this study indicate that relative to the high SES group, low SES was associated with poorer white matter integrity and greater diffusivity. These results may, in part, reflect exposures to various biopsychosocial risk factors experienced by those of lower SES across the lifespan, and may help explain the preponderance of cognitive and functional disparities between socioeconomic groups. (shrink)

The essay reflects in an elegiac mode on a now largely forgotten (or effaced) body of literature from precolonial India regarding the art and business of politics. This body, known as nīti, has classical roots in Sanskrit but came in particular to be popular in peninsular India between the thirteenth and the eighteenth centuries in vernacular languages such as Telugu, Kannada, and Marathi. Secular and this-worldly in orientation, it can be broadly contrasted to the far better known body of texts (...) on dharma, which are concerned to preserve a normative, ritually and religiously sanctioned, order based on strict adherence to caste and gender roles. We first trace the classical roots of the tension between dharma and nīti and then set out how these two bodies of texts came to play distinct and evolving roles in medieval and early modern south India. We argue further that under the early phase of colonial rule, East India Company officials misunderstood the nature of nīti texts and that this has led to a persistently erroneous view of their role and content. We conclude by noting, however, that some astute modern observers of and participants in Indian politics, such as B. R. Ambedkar, have understood the part that nīti might play for the development of a secular language of politics in modern India. (shrink)

Plagiarism is increasingly evident in business and academia. Though links between demographic, personality, and situational factors have been found, previous research has not used actual plagiarism behavior as a criterion variable. Previous research on academic dishonesty has consistently used self-report measures to establish prevalence of dishonest behavior. In this study we use actual plagiarism behavior to establish its prevalence, as well as relationships between integrity-related personal selection and workplace deviance measures. This research covers new ground in two respects: (a) That (...) the academic dishonesty literature is subject to revision using criterion variables to avoid self bias and social desirability issues and (b) we establish the relationship between actual academic dishonesty and potential workplace deviance/white-collar crime. (shrink)

In this paper we present the results of two experiments. The first is on the categorization of texture words in the English language. The goal was to determine whether there is a common basis for subjects' groupings of words related to visual texture, and if so, to identify the underlying dimensions used to categorize those words.Eleven major clusters were identified through hierarchical cluster analysis, ranging from “random” to “repetitive”. These clusters remained intact in a multidimensional scaling solution. The stress for (...) a three‐dimensional solution obtained through multidimensional scaling was 0.18, meaning that 82% of the variance in the data is explained through the use of three dimensions. It appears that the major dimensions of texture descriptors are repetitive versus nonrepetitive; linearly oriented versus circularly oriented; and simple versus complex.In the second experiment we measured the strength of association between texture words and texture images. The goal was to determine whether there is any systematic correspondence between the domains of texture words and texture images. Pearson's coefficient of contingency, a measure of the strength of association, was found to be 0.63 for words corresponding to given images and 0.56 for images corresponding to given words. Thus the texture categories in the verbal space and those in the visual space are strongly tied.In sum, our two experiments show (a) that despite the tremendous variety in the words we have to describe textures, there is an underlying structure to the lexical space which can be derived from the experimental data; and (b) that the association between a category of words and a category of images was strongest when both categories represent the same underlying property. This suggests that subjects' organizations of texture terms are systematically tied to their organization of texture images. (shrink)

The crystallization behaviour of Fe 70.8 Nb 3.7 Cu 1 Al 2.7 Mn 0.7 Si 13.5 B 7.6 alloy prepared in the form of amorphous ribbons by melt-spinning technique was studied using differential scanning calorimetry and the temperature variation in resistivity. An X-ray diffaction and transmission electron microscopy study showed the formation of f -Fe and/or Fe 3 nanoparticles after the first stage of crystallization. The activation energy for this nanophase formation was 68 kcal mol m 1 . The brittleness (...) of the alloy increased with the formation of nanoparticles after heat treatment. Superior soft magnetic properties were achieved when the material was heat treated at 790 K for 15 min. The particle size at the optimum heat treatment condition for superior soft magnetic properties was found to be 6.0 - 0.5 nm which was less compared than for the Fe-Nb-Cu-Si-B system. The observed coercivity value at the optimum heat treatment condition was found to be 0.32 A m m 1 . The presence of Al in the alloy reduced the particle size and the magnetic anisotropy energy of the system, which resulted in superior soft magnetic properties of the heat-treated materials. (shrink)

A new information matrix [F] with elements F mn = 〈 (y m - a m )(y n - a n) (∂ ln p(y | a)/∂a m ) (∂ ln p(y | a)/∂a n ) 〉 is analyzed. The PDF p(y | a) is the usual likelihood law. [F] differs from the Fisher information matrix by the presence of the first two factors in the given expectation. These factors make F mn unitless, in contrast with the Fisher information. This lack (...) of units allows F mn values from entirely different phenomena to be compared as, for example, Shannon information values can be compared. Each element F mn defines an error inequality analogous to the Cramer-Rao inequality. In the scalar case F mn ≡ F, for a normal p(y|a) law F = 3, while for an exponential law F = 9. A variational principle F = min (called FMIN) allows an unknown PDF p(x) to be estimated in the presence of weak information. Under certain conditions F obeys a “Boltzmann F-theorem” ∂F/∂t ⩽ 0, indicating that F is a physical entropy. Finally, the trace ℱ of [F] may be used as the scalar information quantity in an information-based principle for deriving distribution laws p of physics. (shrink)

This collection of essays focuses on East-West dialogue. Scholars of Western, Indian & Chinese thought such as Ninian Smart, Fred Dallmayr, Chad Hansen, Barbara Holdrege, Robert Ellwood, Srinivasa Rao, & others, including Akin Makinde of Nigeria share their insights on: Person East-West, Religion & Culture, Comparative Ethics, Indian, Chinese, & Western thought. To order write: Long Beach Publications, P.O. Box 14807, Long Beach, CA 90803. Telephone: (310) 439-7347.

Buddhist Inscriptions of Andhradesa. B.S.L. Hanumantha Rao, N. S. Ramachandra Murthy, B. Subrahmanyam, E. Sivanagi Reddy. Ananda Buddha Vihara Trust, Secunderabad 1998. xi, 278 pp. Rs 500.

The discussion with Rao and Nanjundiah about the history of interactions between J. B. S. Haldane and Ernst Mayr is further extended in this note. The nature of the dispute about beanbag genetics is explicated as consisting of two separate issues, one about the role of mathematical analysis in evolutionary biology, and the other about the value of single-locus genic models.

T. R. V. Murti is a Tamil Brahmin. He was born at Madras in 1902, and educated at Trichinopoly Christian College, which he left before graduating to commence five years of Congress Party work. He was in jail five months. In 1925 he came to Benares, where he studied the Sanskrit classics with pandits and gurus. He then completed his undergraduate course at Benares Hindu University, receiving his A.B. and M.A. together in 1929. From 1929 to 1936 he was a (...) fellow at the Indian Institute of Philosophy at Amalner. Here he came under the influence of Professor K. C. Bhattacharya, and was considered to be, among the philosophers at Amalner, the one who best understood the Professor's teaching. In 1936 he returned to Benares Hindu University for advanced study, and later was appointed Sayaji Rao Gaekwad Professor of Indian Civilization and Culture. He has been there since, except for three years on leave as professor of philosophy at Colombo and one year as Spalding Professor of Oriental Religions at Oxford. (shrink)

Network ranging and clock synchronization based on two-way timing stamps exchange mechanism in complex GPS-denied environments is addressed in this paper. An estimator based on the Extended Kalman filter is derived, according to which, the clock skew, clock offset, and ranging information can be jointly estimated. The proposed estimator provides off-line computation by storing the transmitting timing stamps in advance and could be implemented in asymmetrical and asynchronous scenarios. The simulation results show that the proposed estimator achieves a relative good (...) performance than the existed estimators. In addition, a new Bayesian Cramér–Rao Lower Bound is derived. Numerous simulation results show that the proposed estimator meets the B-CRLB. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Otto Rudolph Ortmann, Music Philosophy, and Music EducationDavid J. GonzolWhat is music? What should we teach when we teach music? How should we? In the early twentieth century, these most foundational questions relating to music education were addressed by the highly regarded, though less well known, educator and researcher, Otto Rudolph Ortmann. In 1922, he published an article in which he outlined a theory of musical experience, developing aspects (...) of the physics of sound, qualitative theory, and Gestalt psychology, prefiguring important ideas in music philosophy. Ortmann highly valued his theory, utilized it in other research throughout his career, and influenced others such as Carl Seashore. Few, however, seem to be aware of his work or its implications for music education.1The seminal 1922 article, "The Sensorial Basis of Music Appreciation," was written while Ortmann was teaching at the Peabody Conservatory of Music and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.2 While this article has received little attention, much of his other research has been widely and well received.3 "Papa Ortmann," well beloved of family and students, had a career Gerig characterized as "a wedding between Materia Medica and Frau Musica."4 A prolific [End Page 160] researcher, superb musician, and excellent teacher, he published articles on music theory (one of which was reprinted and extended in 1983), musicology, music reading, ear training, synesthesia, and jazz.5 His research on piano performance, particularly his two books,6 is regarded as definitive; it has been discussed in a thesis and four dissertations; some of it has been replicated. In Famous Pianists and Their Technique, Gerig devoted a chapter to Ortmann.7 Ortmann's theory of listening types, in effect a theory of music cognition,8 was accepted by Robert Neidlinger, Doreen Rao, and Bennett Reimer.9 In the 1992 Handbook of Research on Music Teaching and Learning, F. R. Wilson and F. L. Roehmann praised the significance of Ortmann's body of research as undiminished in importance in music education.10It may be that Ortmann's "Sensorial Basis"theory received little attention at the time because too few were interested in such theories or in the synthesizing of science and psychology or the touching on philosophy that he employed. Although he influenced Seashore, the philosophical issues he began to explore would be developed more strongly only decades later, by philosophers such as Monroe Beardsley, Peter Kivy, and Jerrold Levinson. It seems that Ortmann's theory not only prefigures some ideas in recent music philosophy, but supports them as well. If it does, then our increased understanding of music can provide a firmer basis for developing better music education-one of Ortmann's aims. In this article I will describe his theory, sketch how it aligns with subsequent research, and consider its value today. Ortmann attempted a comprehensive explanation of music's nature; as far as his explanation is accurate, that far it can help us understand music and in turn music education.Three "Attributes"At the turn of the 1900s, it was popular to refer to "attributes" of sound. Ortmann posited that all sensation, including sound, has three types of attributes. The primary attribute he termed extensity, by which he meant the breadth of the sensation that is perceived. Extensity has three forms, transtensity (frequency), intensity (strength), and protensity (duration). These can be perceived individually but also as sound's secondary attributes, chief of which is quality. Tertiary attributes of sound are made through association, either by (a) contiguity, linking a sound's quality with things experienced near in time to the sound, or by (b) similarity, associating the quality with sensations of like extensity (for example, the expressive brightness of a sound and a light). Ortmann believed that tertiary attributes form "the threshold of musical imagination, and imagination in turn, of musical enjoyment."11 Accordingly, he concluded that music could express many things, and that this is dependent on listeners, their individual histories, and their entire field of sensations. [End Page 161]The Primary Attribute of ExtensityIn the Renaissance, Benedetti and Galileo found that pitch was related to frequency, and in 1702, Sauveur was the first to state that overtones affect timbre. In 1863, Helmholtz... (shrink)

ABSTRACT I argue that this examination and appreciation for the shift to abductive reasoning should be extended to the intersection of neuroscience and novel brain-computer interfaces too. This paper highlights the implications of applying abductive reasoning to personalized implantable neurotechnologies. Then, it explores whether abductive reasoning is sufficient to justify insurance coverage for devices absent widespread clinical trials, which are better applied to one-size-fits-all treatments. INTRODUCTION In contrast to the classic model of randomized-control trials, often with a large number of (...) subjects enrolled, precision medicine attempts to optimize therapeutic outcomes by focusing on the individual.[i] A recent publication highlights the strengths and weakness of both traditional evidence-based medicine and precision medicine.[ii] Plus, it outlines a tension in the shift from evidence-based medicine’s inductive reasoning style (the collection of data to postulate general theories) to precision medicine’s abductive reasoning style (the generation of an idea from the limited data available).[iii] The paper’s main example is the application of precision medicine for the treatment of cancer.[iv] I argue that this examination and appreciation for the shift to abductive reasoning should be extended to the intersection of neuroscience and novel brain-computer interfaces too. As the name suggests, brain-computer interfaces are a significant advancement in neurotechnology that directly connects someone’s brain to external or implanted devices.[v] Among the various kinds of brain-computer interfaces, adaptive deep brain stimulation devices require numerous personalized adjustments to their settings during the implantation and computation stages in order to provide adequate relief to patients with treatment-resistant disorders. What makes these devices unique is how adaptive deep brain stimulation integrates a sensory component to initiate the stimulation. While not commonly at the level of sophistication as self-supervising or generative large language models,[vi] they currently allow for a semi-autonomous form of neuromodulation. This paper highlights the implications of applying abductive reasoning to personalized implantable neurotechnologies. Then, it explores whether abductive reasoning is sufficient to justify insurance coverage for devices absent widespread clinical trials, which are better applied to one-size-fits-all treatments.[vii] ANALYSIS I. The State of Precision Medicine in Oncology and the Epistemological Shift While a thorough overview of precision medicine for the treatment of cancer is beyond the scope of this article, its practice can be roughly summarized as identifying clinically significant characteristics a patient possesses (e.g., genetic traits) to land on a specialized treatment option that, theoretically, should benefit the patient the most.[viii] However, in such a practice of stratification patients fall into smaller and smaller populations and the quality of evidence that can be applied to anyone outside these decreases in turn.[ix] As inductive logic helps to articulate, the greater the number of patients that respond to a particular therapy the higher the probability of its efficacy. By straying from this logical framework, precision medicine opens the treatment of cancer to more uncertainty about the validity of these approaches to the resulting disease subcategories.[x] Thus, while contemporary medical practices explicitly describe some treatments as “personalized”, they ought not be viewed as inherently better founded than other therapies.[xi] A relevant contemporary case of precision medicine out of Norway focuses on the care of a patient with cancer between the ventricles of the heart and esophagus, which had failed to respond to the standard regimen of therapies over four years.[xii] In a last-ditch effort, the patient elected to pay out-of-pocket for an experimental immunotherapy (nivolumab) at a private hospital. He experienced marked improvements and a reduction in the size of the tumor. Understandably, the patient tried to pursue further rounds of nivolumab at a public hospital. However, the hospital initially declined to pay for it given the “lack of evidence from randomised clinical trials for this drug relating to this [patient’s] condition.”[xiii] In rebuttal to this claim, the patient countered that he was actually similar to a subpopulation of patients who responded in “open‐label, single arm, phase 2 studies on another immune therapy drug” (pembrolizumab).[xiv] Given this interpretation of the prior studies and the patient’s response, further rounds of nivolumab were approved. Had the patient not had improvements in the tumor’s size following a round of nivolumab, then pembrolizumab’s prior empirical evidence in isolation would have been insufficient, inductively speaking, to justify his continued use of nivolumab.[xv] The case demonstrates a shift in reasoning from the traditional induction to abduction. The phenomenon of ‘cancer improvement’ is considered causally linked to nivolumab and its underlying physiological mechanisms.[xvi] However, “the weakness of abductions is that there may always be some other better, unknown explanation for an effect. The patient may for example belong to a special subgroup that spontaneously improves, or the change may be a placebo effect. This does not mean, however, that abductive inferences cannot be strong or reasonable, in the sense that they can make a conclusion probable.”[xvii] To demonstrate the limitations of relying on the abductive standard in isolation, commentators have pointed out that side effects in precision medicine are hard to rule out as being related to the initial intervention itself unless trends from a group of patients are taken into consideration.[xviii] As artificial intelligence (AI) assists the development of precision medicine for oncology, this uncertainty ought to be taken into consideration. The implementation of AI has been crucial to the development of precision medicine by providing a way to combine large patient datasets or a single patient with a large number of unique variables with machine learning to recommend matches based on statistics and probability of success upon which practitioners can base medical recommendations.[xix] The AI is usually not establishing a causal relationship[xx] – it is predicting. So, as AI bleeds into medical devices, like brain-computer interfaces, the same cautions about using abductive reasoning alone should be carried over. II. Responsive Neurostimulation, AI, and Personalized Medicine Like precision medicine in cancer treatment, computer-brain interface technology similarly focuses on the individual patient through personalized settings. In order to properly expose the intersection of AI, precision medicine, abductive reasoning, and implantable neurotechnologies, the descriptions of adaptive deep brain stimulation systems need to deepen.[xxi] As a broad summary of adaptive deep brain stimulation, to provide a patient with the therapeutic stimulation, a neural signal, typically referred to as a local field potential,[xxii] must first be detected and then interpreted by the device. The main adaptive deep brain stimulation device with premarket approval, the NeuroPace Responsive Neurostimulation system, is used to treat epilepsy by detecting and storing “programmer-defined phenomena.”[xxiii] Providers can optimize the detection settings of the device to align with the patient’s unique electrographic seizures as well as personalize the reacting stimulation’s parameters.[xxiv] The provider adjusts the technology based on trial and error. One day machine learning algorithms will be able to regularly aid this process in myriad ways, such as by identifying the specific stimulation settings a patient may respond to ahead of time based on their electrophysiological signatures.[xxv] Either way, with AI or programmers, adaptive neurostimulation technologies are individualized and therefore operate in line with precision medicine rather than standard treatments based on large clinical trials. Contemporary neurostimulation devices are not usually sophisticated enough to be prominent in AI discussions where the topics of neural networks, deep learning, generative models, and self-attention dominate the conversation. However, implantable high-density electrocorticography arrays (a much more sensitive version than adaptive deep brain stimulation systems use) have been used in combination with neural networks to help patients with neurologic deficits from a prior stroke “speak” through a virtual avatar.[xxvi] In some experimental situations, algorithms are optimizing stimulation parameters with increasing levels of independence.[xxvii] An example of neurostimulation that is analogous to the use of nivolumab in Norway surrounds a patient in the United States who was experiencing both treatment-resistant OCD and temporal lobe epilepsy.[xxviii]Given the refractory nature of her epilepsy, implantation of an adaptive deep brain stimulation system was indicated. As a form of experimental therapy, her treatment-resistant OCD was also indicated for the off-label use of an adaptive deep brain stimulation set-up. Another deep brain stimulation lead, other than the one implanted for epilepsy, was placed in the patient’s right nucleus accumbens and ventral pallidum region given the correlation these nuclei had with OCD symptoms in prior research. Following this, the patient underwent “1) ambulatory, patient-initiated magnet-swipe storage of data during moments of obsessive thoughts; (2) lab-based, naturalistic provocation of OCD-related distress (naturalistic provocation task); and (3) lab-based, VR [virtual reality] provocation of OCD-related distress (VR provocation task).”[xxix] Such signals were used to identify when to deliver the therapeutic stimulation in order to counter the OCD symptoms. Thankfully, following the procedure and calibration the patient exhibited marked improvements in their OCD symptoms and recently shared her results publicly.[xxx] In both cases, there is a similar level of abductive justification for the efficacy of the delivered therapy. In the case study in which the patient was treated with adaptive deep brain stimulation, they at least had their neural activity tested in various settings to determine the optimum parameters for treatment to avoid them being based on guesswork. Additionally, the adaptive deep brain stimulation lead was already placed before the calibration trials were conducted, meaning that the patient had already taken on the bulk of the procedural risk before the efficacy could be determined. Such an efficacy test could have been replicated in the first patient’s cancer treatment, had it been biopsied and tested against the remaining immunotherapies in vitro. Yet, in the case of cancer with few options, one previous dose of a drug that appeared to work on the patient may justify further doses. However, as the Norwegian case presents, corroboration with known responses to a similar drug (from a clinical trial) could be helpful to validate the treatment strategy. (It should be noted that both patients were resigned to these last resort options regardless of the efficacy of treatment.) There are some elements of inductive logic seen with adaptive deep brain stimulation research in general. For example, abductively the focus could be that patient X’s stimulation parameters are different from patient Y’s and patient Z’s. In contrast, when grouped as subjects who obtained personalized stimulation, patients X, Y, and Z demonstrate an inductive aspect to this approach’s safety and/or efficacy. The OCD case holds plenty of abductive characteristics in line with precision medicine’s approach to treating cancer and as more individuals try the method, there will be additional data. With the gradual integration of AI into brain-computer interfaces in the name of efficacy, this reliance on abduction will continue, if not grow, over time. Moving forward, if a responsive deep brain stimulation treatment is novel and individualized (like the dose of nivolumab) and there is some other suggestion of efficacy (like clinical similarities to other patients in the literature), then it may justify insurance coverage for the investigative intervention, absent other unrelated reasons to deny it. III. Ethical Implications and Next Steps While AI’s use in oncology and neurology is not yet as prominent as its use in other fields (e.g., radiology), it appears to be on the horizon for both.[xxxi] AI can be found in both the functioning of the neurotechnologies as well as the implementation of precision medicine. The increasing use of AI may serve to further individualize both oncologic and neurological therapies. Given these implications and the handful of publications cited in this article, it is important to have a nuanced evaluation of how these treatments, which heavily rely on abductive justification, ought to be managed. The just use an abductive approach may be difficult as AI infused precision medicine is further pursued. At baseline, such technology relies on a level of advanced technology literacy among the general public and could exclude populations who lack access to basic technological infrastructure or know-how from participation.[xxxii] Even among nations with adequate infrastructure, as more patients seek out implantable neurotechnologies, which require robust healthcare resources, the market will favor patient populations that can afford this complex care.[xxxiii] If patients already have the means to pay for an initial dose/use of a precision medicine product out of pocket, should insurance providers be required to cover subsequent treatments?[xxxiv] That is, if a first dose of a cancer drug or a deep brain stimulator over its initial battery life is successful, patients may feel justified in having the costs of further treatments covered. The Norwegian patient’s experience implies there is a precedent for the idea that some public insurance companies ought to cover successful cancer therapies, however, insurance companies may not all see themselves as obligated to cover neurotechnologies that rely on personalized settings or that are based on precision/abductive research more than on clinical trials. CONCLUSION The fact that the cases outlined above rely on abductive style of reasoning implies that there may not be as strong a justification for coverage by insurance, as they are both experimental and individualized, when compared to the more traditional large clinical trials in which groups have the same or a standardized protocol (settings/doses). If a study is examining the efficacy of a treatment with a large cohort of patients or with different experimental groups/phases, insurance companies may conclude that the resulting symptom improvements are more likely to be coming from the devices themselves. A preference for inductive justification may take priority when ruling in favor of funding someone’s continued use of an implantable neurostimulator. There are further nuances to this discussion surrounding the classifications of these interventions as research versus clinical care that warrant future exploration, since such a distinction is more of a scale[xxxv] than binary and could have significant impacts on the “right-to-try” approach to experimental therapies in the United States.[xxxvi] Namely, given the inherent limitations of conducting large cohort trials for deep brain stimulation interventions on patients with neuropsychiatric disorders, surgically innovative frameworks that blend abductive and inductive methodologies, like with sham stimulation phases, have traditionally been used.[xxxvii] Similarly, for adaptive brain-computer interface systems, if there are no large clinical trials and instead only publications that demonstrate that something similar worked for someone else, then, in addition to the evidence that the first treatment/dose worked for the patient in question, the balance of reasoning would be valid and arguably justify insurance coverage. As precision approaches to neurotechnology become more common, frameworks for evaluating efficacy will be crucial both for insurance coverage and for clinical decision making. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This article was originally written as an assignment for Dr. Francis Shen’s “Bioethics & AI” course at Harvard’s Center for Bioethics. I would like to thank Dr. Shen for his comments as well as my colleagues in the Lázaro-Muñoz Lab for their feedback. - [i] Jonathan Kimmelman and Ian Tannock, “The Paradox of Precision Medicine,” Nature Reviews. Clinical Oncology 15, no. 6 (June 2018): 341–42, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41571-018-0016-0. [ii] Henrik Vogt and Bjørn Hofmann, “How Precision Medicine Changes Medical Epistemology: A Formative Case from Norway,” Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice 28, no. 6 (December 2022): 1205–12, https://doi.org/10.1111/jep.13649. [iii] David Barrett and Ahtisham Younas, “Induction, Deduction and Abduction,” Evidence-Based Nursing 27, no. 1 (January 1, 2024): 6–7, https://doi.org/10.1136/ebnurs-2023-103873. [iv] Vogt and Hofmann, “How Precision Medicine Changes Medical Epistemology,” 1208. [v] Wireko Andrew Awuah et al., “Bridging Minds and Machines: The Recent Advances of Brain-Computer Interfaces in Neurological and Neurosurgical Applications,” World Neurosurgery, May 22, 2024, S1878-8750(24)00867-2, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wneu.2024.05.104. [vi] Mark Riedl, “A Very Gentle Introduction to Large Language Models without the Hype,” Medium (blog), May 25, 2023, https://mark-riedl.medium.com/a-very-gentle-introduction-to-large-language-models-without-the-hype-5 f67941fa59e. [vii] David E. Burdette and Barbara E. Swartz, “Chapter 4 - Responsive Neurostimulation,” in Neurostimulation for Epilepsy, ed. Vikram R. Rao (Academic Press, 2023), 97–132, https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-323-91702-5.00002-5. [viii] Kimmelman and Tannock, 2018. [ix] Kimmelman and Tannock, 2018. [x] Simon Lohse, “Mapping Uncertainty in Precision Medicine: A Systematic Scoping Review,” Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice 29, no. 3 (April 2023): 554–64, https://doi.org/10.1111/jep.13789. [xi] Kimmelman and Tannock, “The Paradox of Precision Medicine.” [xii] Vogt and Hofmann, 1206. [xiii] Vogt and Hofmann, 1206. [xiv] Vogt and Hofmann, 1206. [xv] Vogt and Hofmann, 1207. [xvi] Vogt and Hofmann, 1207. [xvii] Vogt and Hofmann, 1207. [xviii] Vogt and Hofmann, 1210. [xix] Mehar Sahu et al., “Chapter Three - Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Precision Medicine: A Paradigm Shift in Big Data Analysis,” in Progress in Molecular Biology and Translational Science, ed. David B. Teplow, vol. 190, 1 vols., Precision Medicine (Academic Press, 2022), 57–100, https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.pmbts.2022.03.002. [xx] Stefan Feuerriegel et al., “Causal Machine Learning for Predicting Treatment Outcomes,” Nature Medicine 30, no. 4 (April 2024): 958–68, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-024-02902-1. [xxi] Sunderland Baker et al., “Ethical Considerations in Closed Loop Deep Brain Stimulation,” Deep Brain Stimulation 3 (October 1, 2023): 8–15, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdbs.2023.11.001. [xxii] David Haslacher et al., “AI for Brain-Computer Interfaces,” 2024, 7, https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.dnb.2024.02.003. [xxiii] Burdette and Swartz, “Chapter 4 - Responsive Neurostimulation,” 103–4; “Premarket Approval (PMA),” https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfpma/pma.cfm?id=P100026. [xxiv] Burdette and Swartz, “Chapter 4 - Responsive Neurostimulation,” 104. [xxv] Burdette and Swartz, 126. [xxvi] Sean L. Metzger et al., “A High-Performance Neuroprosthesis for Speech Decoding and Avatar Control,” Nature 620, no. 7976 (August 2023): 1037–46, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06443-4. [xxvii] Hao Fang and Yuxiao Yang, “Predictive Neuromodulation of Cingulo-Frontal Neural Dynamics in Major Depressive Disorder Using a Brain-Computer Interface System: A Simulation Study,” Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience 17 (March 6, 2023), https://doi.org/10.3389/fncom.2023.1119685; Mahsa Malekmohammadi et al., “Kinematic Adaptive Deep Brain Stimulation for Resting Tremor in Parkinson’s Disease,” Movement Disorders 31, no. 3 (2016): 426–28, https://doi.org/10.1002/mds.26482. [xxviii] Young-Hoon Nho et al., “Responsive Deep Brain Stimulation Guided by Ventral Striatal Electrophysiology of Obsession Durably Ameliorates Compulsion,” Neuron 0, no. 0 (October 20, 2023), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2023.09.034. [xxix] Nho et al. [xxx] Nho et al.; Erik Robinson, “Brain Implant at OHSU Successfully Controls Both Seizures and OCD,” OHSU News, accessed March 3, 2024, https://news.ohsu.edu/2023/10/25/brain-implant-at-ohsu-successfully-controls-both-seizures-and-ocd. [xxxi] Awuah et al., “Bridging Minds and Machines”; Haslacher et al., “AI for Brain-Computer Interfaces.” [xxxii] Awuah et al., “Bridging Minds and Machines.” [xxxiii] Sara Green, Barbara Prainsack, and Maya Sabatello, “The Roots of (in)Equity in Precision Medicine: Gaps in the Discourse,” Personalized Medicine 21, no. 1 (January 2024): 5–9, https://doi.org/10.2217/pme-2023-0097. [xxxiv] Green, Prainsack, and Sabatello, 7. [xxxv] Robyn Bluhm and Kirstin Borgerson, “An Epistemic Argument for Research-Practice Integration in Medicine,” The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy: A Forum for Bioethics and Philosophy of Medicine 43, no. 4 (July 9, 2018): 469–84, https://doi.org/10.1093/jmp/jhy009. [xxxvi] Vijay Mahant, “‘Right-to-Try’ Experimental Drugs: An Overview,” Journal of Translational Medicine 18 (June 23, 2020): 253, https://doi.org/10.1186/s12967-020-02427-4. [xxxvii] Michael S. Okun et al., “Deep Brain Stimulation in the Internal Capsule and Nucleus Accumbens Region: Responses Observed during Active and Sham Programming,” Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry 78, no. 3 (March 1, 2007): 310–14, https://doi.org/10.1136/jnnp.2006.095315. (shrink)

Venkataramanaiah, V. Introduction.--Narla, V. R. Russell and his rejection of religion.--Mehta, G. L. The sceptical crusader.--Dalvi, G. R. Russell, the man.--Venkatarao, V. The nuclear war and the future of man.--Innaiah, N. Bertrand Russell's philosophy.--Subbarayudu, P. Rationality vis-a-vis faith.--Nageswar Rao, B. Russell and nuclear warfare.--Rajagopala Rao, M. Rebel in Russell.--Shankar, G. N. J. The man who revolutionised modern thought.--Maharajasri. Russell, the social scientist in the four-dimensional universe.--The life of Bertrand Russell.--Acknowledgements.--A list of principal works of Bertrand Russell.--Russell's conception of good society (...) in a democratic socialist order.--Objects. (shrink)

Susan Schneider argues that physicalism must be false if abstracta are part of the physicalist's dependence base. In opposition to her view, here I set out some reasons to think that abstracta in general, including abstracta that are woven into the dependence base, are something physicalists can countenance with consistency.