Background: Although convolutional neural networks (CNNs) achieve high diagnostic accuracy for detecting Alzheimer’s disease (AD) dementia based on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans, they are not yet applied in clinical routine. One important reason for this is a lack of model comprehensibility. Recently developed visualization methods for deriving CNN relevance maps may help to fill this gap as they allow the visualization of key input image features that drive the decision of the model. We investigated whether models with higher accuracy (...) also rely more on discriminative brain regions predefined by prior knowledge. Methods: We trained a CNN for the detection of AD in N = 663 T1-weighted MRI scans of patients with dementia and amnestic mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and verified the accuracy of the models via cross-validation and in three independent samples including in total N = 1655 cases. We evaluated the association of relevance scores and hippocampus volume to validate the clinical utility of this approach. To improve model comprehensibility, we implemented an interactive visualization of 3D CNN relevance maps, thereby allowing intuitive model inspection. Results: Across the three independent datasets, group separation showed high accuracy for AD dementia versus controls (AUC ≥ 0.91) and moderate accuracy for amnestic MCI versus controls (AUC ≈ 0.74). Relevance maps indicated that hippocampal atrophy was considered the most informative factor for AD detection, with additional contributions from atrophy in other cortical and subcortical regions. Relevance scores within the hippocampus were highly correlated with hippocampal volumes (Pearson’s r ≈ −0.86, p < 0.001). Conclusion: The relevance maps highlighted atrophy in regions that we had hypothesized a priori. This strengthens the comprehensibility of the CNN models, which were trained in a purely data-driven manner based on the scans and diagnosis labels. The high hippocampus relevance scores as well as the high performance achieved in independent samples support the validity of the CNN models in the detection of AD-related MRI abnormalities. The presented data-driven and hypothesis-free CNN modeling approach might provide a useful tool to automatically derive discriminative features for complex diagnostic tasks where clear clinical criteria are still missing, for instance for the differential diagnosis between various types of dementia. (shrink)

Background Physician-assisted suicide (PAS) and voluntary euthanasia remain highly debated topics in society, drawing attention due to their ethical, legal, and emotional complexities. Within this debate, the loss of a loved one through suicide may shape the attitudes of survivors, resulting in more or less favorable attitudes towards this topic. Aims This study aims to explore and compare the attitudes towards PAS and voluntary euthanasia in a population of suicide loss survivors and the general population, while also considering socio-demographic factors. (...) Methods A total of 529 participants, 168 of whom were survivors of suicide loss, completed an online questionnaire on their attitudes (NOBAS) and opinions (open response format) towards PAS and voluntary euthanasia, as well as regarding their legalization in Germany. The analysis consisted of both quantitative and qualitative components. Results The entire sample showed positive attitudes towards PAS and voluntary euthanasia in terminally ill persons. Participants were more divided in their attitudes towards PAS in the case of a mental health disorder. Individuals without experienced suicide loss were more liberal regarding legalization in Germany and were more likely to understand the wish for PAS. Survivors of suicide loss were mainly concerned about the consequences for relatives. However, differences between both groups are small. Discussion The experience of a loss by suicide influences attitudes towards PAS and voluntary euthanasia. Both groups showed an accepting attitude towards PAS and voluntary euthanasia, but also expressed concerns and fears regarding easy accessibility and consequences for grieving relatives. (shrink)

This volume addresses the interdependencies between visual technologies and epistemology with regard to our perception of the medical body. It explores the relationships between the imagination, the body, and concrete forms of visual representations: Ranging from the Renaissance paradigm of anatomy, to Foucault's "birth of the clinic" and the institutionalised construction of a "medical gaze"; from "visual" archives of madness, psychiatric art collections, the politicisation and economisation of the body, to the post-human in mass media representations. Contributions to this volume (...) investigate medical bodies as historical, technological, and political constructs, constituted where knowledge formation and visual cultures intersect. Contributors are: Axel Fliethmann, Michael Hau, Birgit Lang, Carolyn Lau, Heikki Lempa, Stefanie Lenk, Joanna Madloch, Barry Murnane, Jill Redner, Claudia Stein, Elizabeth Stephens, Corinna Wagner, and Christiane Weller. (shrink)

Tendo como pano de fundo a concepção de filosofia, explora-se os diferentes tratamentos do tema da subjetividade conferidos pelo Tractatus e pela obra do que se convencionou chamar de “II Wittgenstein”. A concepção prática do significado inaugurada por esta, a despeito de significar uma drástica ruptura com o espírito do Tractatus, funda-se na preservação do antipsicologismo. Tem-se, portanto, a conciliação entre a concepção prática de significado e o antipsicologismo característico da lógica sublime do Tractatus, da qual o II Wittgenstein se (...) desfaz.AbstractHaving a conception of philosophy in the backgound, I investigate different approaches concerning the topic of subjectivism in the Tractatus and thoughout the writings of what is commonly called as “II Wittgenstein”. The practical conception of meaning that steam from those writings, in spite of being a shift with regards to that of the Tractatus, is based on the preservation of the anti-psychologism. Therefore, there is a conciliation between the practical conception of meaning and the anti-psychologism, by means of which, in the Tractatus, logic is something sublime, which is discarded by the II Wittgenstein. (shrink)

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges that human societies have ever faced. After a late start, it is by now rather intensely debated and analysed also in the social sciences and humanities, though mostly through overly generic explanations in terms of an instrumental relation to nature, of capitalist expansion drives or of the human longing for comfort. In contrast, this article concentrates on the socio-political transformations since the middle of the 20th century, which have been referred to as (...) the ‘Great Acceleration’ in the use of biophysical resources and in environmental degradation. It provides an analysis of the socio-political mechanisms that brought the resource-intensive path of social development about, showing how Western democratic societies tended to ‘solve’ difficult social problems by means of a triple displacement: onto other societies; onto nature and the planet; and into the future. As an unintended consequence, this displacement politics led to the globalization of resource-intensive development and to a planetary situation in which, at least as it appears in much of current debate, no further displacement is possible. The article concludes with insights for a more adequate approach to social phenomena of large scale and long duration in social theory. (shrink)

Contributors to this volume present methodological foundations for deductive modeling in policy analysis, applications to particular areas of public policy, and applications to the institutional framework within which particular policies are chosen.

In this paper, we compare the two Global Reporting Initiative reporting standards, G3.1, and the most current version G4.0. We do this through the lens of political corporate social responsibility theory, which describes the broadened understanding of corporate responsibility in a globalized world building on Habermas’ notion of deliberative democracy and ethical discourse. As the regulatory power of nation states is fading, regulatory gaps occur as side effects of transnational business. As a result, corporations are also understood to play a (...) “political role” to fill regulatory gaps and contribute to a global governance system by voluntarily engaging in self-regulation. Such corporate political action, however, is not always legitimate as it suffers from a democratic deficit. Consistent with scholars in the field of political CSR, this paper argues that only by means of communication and discourse can this drawback be avoided. That is why CSR reporting and guidelines for standardizing the disclosed CSR information is key for political CSR. By comparing the GRI standards from a political CSR perspective, one can see whether these often-used reporting guidelines fulfill the communicative requirements and whether they are adequate tools to face the challenges of the twenty-first century. We present results from a theory-derived and criteria-driven comparison of the two guidelines. Indication of the effectiveness of voluntary self-regulation is, for example, important considering the 2014 directive of the European Union to make CSR reporting mandatory. We offer a guideline-based view on current CSR theory as well as CSR reporting practice. We discuss implications for CSR theory, particularly the appropriateness of deliberation in the Habermasian sense, which is the basis of political CSR theory. We do so by introducing the notion of “uncommitted deliberation” with regard to the refined concept of materiality in GRI 4.0, which induces subjectivity and reduces data-driven comparability. Finally, we address the limitations of this research as well as research questions for future studies. (shrink)

ArgumentThis paper reconstructs Wronski's philosophical foundations of mathematics. It uses his critique of Lagrange's algebraic analysis as a vignette to introduce the problems that he raised, and argues that these problems have not been properly appreciated by his contemporaries and subsequent commentators. The paper goes on to reconstruct Wronski's mathematical law of creation and his notions of theory and techne, in order to put his objections to Lagrange in their philosophical context. Finally, Wronski's proof of his universal law is reviewed (...) in terms of the above reconstruction. I argue that Wronski's philosophical approach poses an alternative to the views of his contemporary mainstream mathematicians, which brings up the contingency of their choices, and bridges the foundational concerns of early modernity with those of the twentieth-century foundations crisis. I also argue that Wronski's views may be useful to contemporary philosophy of mathematical practice, if they are read against their metaphysical grain. (shrink)

The Löwenheim-Hilbert-Bernays theorem states that, for an arithmetical first-order language L, if S is a satisfiable schema, then substitution of open sentences of L for the predicate letters of S...

ABSTRACT This paper proposes a vision of rhetoric as metaphysical enactment. This position contrasts with traditionally accepted views of rhetoric as phenomenological practice, evidenced prominently in contemporary rhetorical theory. I advance a framework that employs metaphorical accommodation and indicates a way that rhetoric can be situated as a perpetually productive force. The analytic tradition affords a method and vocabulary that when placed in conversation with rhetorical studies offers an alternative for viewing rhetoric as metaphysical enactment. I determine that rhetorical theory (...) should engage with rhetoric as a measure of action, activity, and vitality that raises our awareness and connects us. (shrink)

Bioethics, Volume 36, Issue 2, Page 111-112, February 2022.

This paper compares Plotinus’s neoplatonic conception and account of time with Bergson’s and Husserl’s phenomenologic conceptions and accounts of it. I argue that despite fundamental differences owing to their respective approaches, their conceptions and accounts are remarkably comparable, especially in considering time to play a fundamental role in the organic unity of our physical environment—in what I characterize also as the continuously and intrinsically connected sequentiality of its events, processes, and constituents—in Plotinus’s case, of our physical environment as such; in (...) Bergson’s and Husserl’s case, as it manifests itself to us in experience and our reflective awareness of that experience. (shrink)

Members of the serine/arginine (SR)‐rich protein family of splicing factors play versatile roles in RNA processing steps and are often essential for normal development. Dynamic changes in RNA processing and turnover allow fast cellular adaptions to a changing microenvironment and thereby closely cooperate with transcription factor networks that establish cell identity within tissues. SR proteins play fundamental roles in the processing of pre‐mRNAs by regulating constitutive and alternative splicing. More recently, SR proteins have also been implicated in other aspects of (...) RNA metabolism such as mRNA stability, transport and translation. The‐ emerging noncanonical functions highlight the multifaceted functions of these SR proteins and identify them as important coordinators of gene expression programmes. Accordingly, most SR proteins are essential for normal cell function and their misregulation contributes to human diseases such as cancer. (shrink)

We define a reasonably well-behaved class of ultraimaginaries, i.e. classes modulo [Formula: see text]-invariant equivalence relations, called tame, and establish some basic simplicity-theoretic facts. We also show feeble elimination of supersimple ultraimaginaries: If [Formula: see text] is an ultraimaginary definable over a tuple [Formula: see text] with [Formula: see text], then [Formula: see text] is eliminable up to rank [Formula: see text]. Finally, we prove some uniform versions of the weak canonical base property.

Making mathematical statements and justifying them depend on a choice of mathematical framework(s). Such choice, this paper argues, depends on social circumstances and has social implications, rendering mathematical production ethically charged. The ethical charge of mathematics can therefore not be restricted to the impact of specific applications, research institutions, and teaching, as these may already be at least partly enabled or suppressed by the choice of mathematical frameworks.

European integration needs to be analyzed in terms that address the normative self-understanding of the emerging polity or, in other words, the self-understanding of European modernity. While it is often argued that such European self-understanding is either entirely indistinct from the general self-understanding of the West, i.e. a commitment to human rights and liberal democracy, or highly problematic, because it makes overly ‘thick’ presuppositions, which are untenable against the background of European cultural diversity and risk to revive non-liberal European political (...) traditions, the attempt here to reconstruct European political modernity suggests that the general, universalist commitment to liberal democracy is insufficient to understand Western polities, and it aims to propose this argument by elaborating a more complex concept of political modernity than can usually be found in political theory. The struggles about European political modernity across history are interpreted with a view to understanding how the self-understanding of a modern polity evolved and changed. (shrink)

Johannes von Kries (1853-1928) left a fascinating work: As a physiologist, he had a lasting influence on research into colour perception. As a philosopher, he formulated a theory of probability which was received not only in philosophy (Hans Reichenbach, Ludwig Wittgenstein), but also in physics (Ludwig Boltzmann, Max Planck), jurisprudence (Gustav Radbruch), sociology (Alfred Schütz, Max Weber), economics (John Maynard Keynes), and belles-lettres (Robert Musil). This anthology reconstructs some central lines of reception. It contexts Kries' work in the history of (...) ideas and examines its topicality. --Page 4 cover. (shrink)

Kostas Axelos and Cornelius Castoriadis are among the most inspiring thinkers of the second half of the 20th century. They each combine comprehensive philosophy with social and political theory, and a broad view on human history with a critical diagnosis of the present, with nuanced observations on our current condition—characteristics, rare during this period, that this article describes as polyscopic thought. Castoriadis is widely known as the philosopher of ‘autonomy’, of the human capacity to give oneself one’s own law; his (...) diagnosis of the present focused on the weakening of this capacity in contemporary capitalism and democracy. Axelos, in turn, is a thinker of the ‘planetary age’ in which the human pretence to master the world and one’s own fate withers away in the face of the predominance of ‘technique’. This essay connects and contrasts the work of the two thinkers trying to understand the differences and to uncover underlying commonalities. Significantly, it suggests that both scholars saw a need to rethink key concerns in philosophy and the social sciences with a view to better grasp what awaits human beings in the current world and what can be done about it. (shrink)