Automatic text summarization extracts information from a source text and presents it to the user in a condensed form while preserving its primary content. Many text summarization approaches have been investigated in the literature for highly resourced languages. At the same time, ATS is a complicated and challenging task for under-resourced languages like Malayalam. The lack of a standard corpus and enough processing tools are challenges when it comes to language processing. In the absence of a standard corpus, we have (...) developed a dataset consisting of Malayalam news articles. This article proposes an extractive topic modeling-based multi-document text summarization approach for Malayalam news documents. We first cluster the contents based on latent topics identified using the latent Dirichlet allocation topic modeling technique. Then by adopting vector space model, the topic vector and sentence vector of the given document are generated. According to the relevant status value, sentences are ranked between the document’s topic and sentence vectors. The summary obtained is optimized for non-redundancy. Evaluation results on Malayalam news articles show that the summary generated by the proposed method is closer to the human-generated summaries than the existing text summarization methods. (shrink)

Volume 52, Issue 5, May 2020, Page 475-484.

Bargaining games have played a prominent role in modeling the evolution of social conventions. Previous models assumed that agents must choose from a predetermined set of strategies. I present a new model of two agents learning in bargaining games in which new strategies must be invented and reinforced. I study the efficiency and fairness of the model outcomes. The outcomes are somewhat efficient, but a significant part of the resource is wasted nonetheless. I implement two forms of forgetting, and restrictions (...) to the set of strategies that can be invented. (shrink)

General epistemic polarization arises when the beliefs of a population grow further apart, in particular when all agents update on the same evidence. Epistemic factionalization arises when the beliefs grow further apart, but different beliefs also become correlated across the population. I present a model of how factionalization can emerge in a population of ideally rational agents. This kind of factionalization is driven by probabilistic relations between beliefs, with background beliefs shaping how the agents’ beliefs evolve in the light of (...) new evidence. Moreover, I show that in such a model, the only possible outcomes from updating on identical evidence are general convergence or factionalization. Beliefs cannot spread out in all directions: if the beliefs overall polarize, then it must result in factionalization. (shrink)

The original article has been corrected. The Introduction to the special issue Anticolonialism and Solidarity with Others was based upon an incorrect table of contents. This has been corrected.

Manifold learning and effective model building are generally viewed as fundamentally different types of procedure. After all, in one we build a simplified model of the data, in the other, we construct a simplified model of the another model. Nonetheless, I argue that certain kinds of high-dimensional effective model building, and effective field theory construction in quantum field theory, can be viewed as special cases of manifold learning. I argue that this helps to shed light on all of these techniques. (...) First, it suggests that the effective model building procedure depends upon a certain kind of algorithmic compressibility requirement. All three approaches assume that real-world systems exhibit certain redundancies, due to regularities. The use of these regularities to build simplified models is essential for scientific progress in many different domains. (shrink)

Our paper builds on earlier research to show how Bimal Krishna Matilal and Henry Odera Oruka challenge dominant narratives of the West-centered progress of philosophical and other forms of critical rationality. On the basis of persisting “enlightenment” and colonialist prejudices, a majority of Western philosophers have ignored philosophical inquiry in non-Western cultures. Both philosophical decolonizers had much of their upbringing and education while their countries were British colonies, earned their Ph.D.s in the West, and became renowned philosophers at Oxford and (...) the University of Nairobi. Oruka advocated mainly oral but increasingly written philosophical reflections in various ethnic traditions of Kenya and East Africa, though his ideas have also been applied to other cultures of the continent. Matilal focused on South Asian, Sanskrit philosophical traditions, which though comprising a large written literature are also often oral in their origins and ongoing pedagogical and hermeneutic culture. Beyond just demonstrating that Africans, Indians, and others can think for themselves, the two thinkers have laid the groundwork for, and initiated a number of more substantive philosophical engagements. The perhaps initially slow but exponentially increasing exchanges among non-Western peoples are well exemplified by the dialogs being organized in the present issue, as well as other efforts throughout the global academy. (shrink)

Utpaladeva (c. 900–950 C.E.) was the chief originator of the Pratyabhijñā philosophical theology of monistic Kashmiri Śaivism, which was further developed by Abhinavagupta (c. 950–1020 C.E.) and other successors. The Ajaḍapramātṛsiddhi, “Proof of a Sentient Knower,” is one component of Utpaladeva’s trio of specialized studies called the Siddhitrayī, “Three Proofs.” This article provides an introduction to and translation of the Ajaḍapramātṛsiddhi along with the Vṛtti commentary on it by the nineteenth–twentieth century paṇḍit, Harabhatta Shastri. Utpaladeva in this work presents “transcendental” (...) arguments that a universal knower (pramātṛ), the God Śiva, necessarily exists and that this knower is sentient (ajaḍa). He defends the Pratyabhijñā understanding of sentience against alternative views of both Hindu and Buddhist schools. As elsewhere in his corpus, Utpaladeva also endeavors through his arguments to lead students to the recognition (pratyabhijñā) of identity with Śiva, properly understood as the sentient knower. (shrink)

Situation theory is the result of an interdisciplinary effort to create a full-fledged theory of information. Created by scholars and scientists from cognitive science, computer science and AI, linguistics, logic, philosophy, and mathematics, it aims to provide a common set of tools for the analysis of phenomena from all these fields. Unlike Shannon-Weaver type theories of information, which are purely quantitative theories, situation theory aims at providing tools for the analysis of the specific content of a situation. The question addressed (...) is not how much information is carried, but what information is carried. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION Linguists who work within the tradition of transformational generative grammar tend to regard semantics as an intractable, perhaps ultimately ...

[Open access] In this book symposium the author takes up questions from phenomenology, hermeneutics, ethical theory, and intellectual history raised by a group of scholarly interlocutors from a range of backgrounds. In the course of engaging with these issues, he discusses, inter alia, McDowell’s realism, Jonathon Lear’s work on the end of a world, Michael Oakeshott’s view of selfhood, Heidegger’s conception of Jemeinigkeit, Uexküll’s notion of Umwelt, and Gadamer’s hermeneutic conception of truth.

Theological schools are well situated to create intentional cultures for the purpose of spiritual formation. Indeed, most schools of theology have this goal as an essential part of their mission as well as a requirement for continued accreditation. And yet, the measurement of spiritual formation over time is fraught with challenges. This article seeks to address some of these challenges by means of developing a meta-theory of positive change/growth which would eventually serve as a theoretical basis for the development of (...) a generalizable and reliable measurement tool. (shrink)

Examines the link between nonmonotonic inference relations and theory revision operations, focusing on the correspondence between abstract properties which each may satisfy.

We examined Confucian moral philosophy, primarily the Analects, to determine how Confucian ethics could help managers regulate their own behavior (self-regulation) to maintain an ethical standard of practice. We found that some Confucian virtues relevant to self-regulation are common to Western concepts of management ethics such as benevolence, righteousness, wisdom, and trustworthiness. Some are relatively unique, such as ritual propriety and filial piety. We identify seven Confucian principles and discuss how they apply to achieving ethical self-regulation in management. In addition, (...) we examined some of the unique Confucian practices to achieve self-regulation including ritual and music. We balanced the framework by exploring the potential problems in applying Confucian principles to develop ethical self-regulation including whistle blowing. Confucian moral philosophy offers an indigenous Chinese theoretical framework for developing ethical self-regulation in managers. This is relevant for managers and those who relate to managers in Confucian-oriented societies, such as China, Korea, Japan, and Singapore. We recommend further research to examine if the application of the Confucian practices outlined here actually work in regulating the ethical behavior of managers in modern organizations. (shrink)

The valencies of the lanthanides vary more than was once thought. In addition to valencies associated with a half-full shell, there are valencies associated with a quarter- and three-quarter-full shell. This can be explained on the basis of Slater’s theory of many-electron atoms. The same theory explains the variation in complexing constants in the trivalent state. Valency in metallic and organometallic compounds is also discussed.

Western Marxism, since its Western deviation and theoretical development in the 1920s, developed in diverse ways that has reflected the broader philosophical environment. First, a theory of conscio...

"Wisdom in the Open Air" traces the Norwegian roots of the strain of thinking called "deep ecology" - the search for the solutions to environmental problems by examining the fundamental tenets of our culture. Although Arne Naess coined the term in the 1970s, the insights of deep ecology actually reflect a whole tradition of thought that can be seen in the history of Norwegian culture, from ancient mountain myths to the radical ecoactivism of today. Beginning with an introduction to Norway's (...) emphasis on nature and the wild, Reed and Rothenberg explore the birth of the environmental movement in the 1960s and 1970s. What follows is a collection of writings by prominent Norwegian thinkers on humanity and nature, most never before published in English. From Peter Wessel Zapffe, a twentieth-century Kierkegaardian figure, the list goes on to include Arne Naess, activist/critic/artist Sigmund Kvaloy, wilderness educator Nils Faarlund, novelist Finn Alnaes, sociologist Johan Galtung, and social reformer Erik Dammann. Their points of view offer thoughts on the significance of modern life and what it means to be human in the face of deteriorating environmental global trends of the 20th century. "Wisdom in the Open Air" asks and answers a fundamental question concerning the ecomovement: what is the role of deep, often abstract, thinking in the attempt to avert a very real ecological crisis? (shrink)

Social movements are using education to generate critical consciousness regarding the social and environmental unsustainability of the current food system, and advocate for agroecological production. In this article, we explore results from a cross-case analysis of six social movements that are using education as a strategy to advance food sovereignty. We conducted participatory research with diverse rural and urban social movements in the United States, Brazil, Cuba, Bolivia, and Mexico, which are each educating for food sovereignty. We synthesize insights from (...) critical food systems education and the political ecology of education in analyzing these cases. We compare the thematic similarities and difference between these movements’ education initiatives in terms of their emergence, initial goals, expansion and institutionalization, relationship to the state, theoretical inspirations, pedagogical approach, educational topics, approach to student research, and outcomes. Among these thematic areas, we find that student-centered research on competing forms of production is an integral way to advance critical consciousness about the food system and the political potential of agroecological alternatives. However, what counts, as success in these programs, is highly case-dependent. For engaged scholars committed to advancing education for food sovereignty, it is essential to reflect upon the lessons learned and challenges faced by these movements. (shrink)

The terms modernity and capitalism remain in widespread use to characterize contemporary societies, but the distinction between them is much less antagonistic in current social theory than it used to be when a theory of ‘modern society’ was opposed to the theory of ‘late capitalism’. Rather than seeing societies either on an evolutionary trajectory realizing the functionally efficient institutionalization of freedom or as determined by increasing contradictions due to the logics of capital and to class struggle, a key task of (...) social theory today is to reconceptualize modernity and capitalism in such a way that the dynamics of historical transformations and the varieties of current socio-political constellations can be more adequately understood. This article contributes to addressing this task, introducing a special issue of the European Journal of Social Theory devoted to ‘modernity and capitalism’. This introduction elaborates a concept of modernity focused on the interpretative self-understanding of societies and a concept of capitalism as a historically specific response to the question of satisfying human material needs. On this conceptual basis, a historical-comparative perspective is taken to analyze transformations in the self-understandings of societies and the institutional changes in organizing the economy related to the former, placing the comparative analysis of societies in the global context of transformations of modernity and capitalism. (shrink)

David E. Cooper Early in, while I was teaching in the United States, I received news of my appointment as a lecturer in the philosophy of education at the ...

_Purpose:_ In order to develop an evidence-based, sport-specific minimum impairment criteria (MIC) for the sport of vision-impaired (VI) shooting, this study aimed to determine the relative influence of losses in visual acuity (VA) and contrast sensitivity (CS) on shooting performance. Presently, VA but not CS is used to determine eligibility to compete in VI shooting. _Methods:_ Elite able-sighted athletes ( n = 27) shot under standard conditions with their habitual vision, and with their vision impaired by the use of simulation (...) spectacles (filters which reduce both VA and CS) and refractive blur (lenses which reduce VA with less effect on CS). Habitual shooting scores were used to establish a cut-off in order to determine when shooting performance was ‘below expected’ in the presence of vision impairment. Logistic regression and decision tree analyses were then used to assess the relationship between visual function and shooting performance. _Results:_ Mild reductions in VA and/or CS did not alter shooting performance, with greater reductions required for shooting performance to fall below habitual levels (below 87% of normalized performance). Stepwise logistic regression selected CS as the most significant predictor of shooting performance, with VA subsequently improving the validity of the model. In an unconstrained decision tree analysis, CS was selected as the sole criterion (80%) for predicting ‘below expected’ shooting score. _Conclusion:_ Shooting performance is better predicted by losses in CS than by VA. Given that it is not presently tested during classification, the results suggest that CS is an important measure to include in testing for the classification of vision impairment for athletes competing in VI shooting. (shrink)

We take up the challenge of developing an international network with capacity to survey the world’s scientists on an ongoing basis, providing rich datasets regarding the opinions of scientists and scientific sub-communities, both at a time and also over time. The novel methodology employed sees local coordinators, at each institution in the network, sending survey invitation emails internally to scientists at their home institution. The emails link to a ‘10 second survey’, where the participant is presented with a single statement (...) to consider, and a standard five-point Likert scale. In June 2023, a group of 30 philosophers and social scientists invited 20,085 scientists across 30 institutions in 12 countries to participate, gathering 6,807 responses to the statement Science has put it beyond reasonable doubt that COVID-19 is caused by a virus. The study demonstrates that it is possible to establish a global network to quickly ascertain scientific opinion on a large international scale, with high response rate, low opt-out rate, and in a way that allows for significant (perhaps indefinite) repeatability. Measuring scientific opinion in this new way would be a valuable complement to currently available approaches, potentially informing policy decisions and public understanding across diverse fields. (shrink)

Despite the compelling subjective experience of executive self-control, we argue that ‘consciousness’ contains no top-down control processes. We propose that ‘consciousness’ involves no executive, causal or controlling relationship with any of the familiar psychological processes conventionally attributed to it. In our view all psychological processing and psychological products are non-conscious. In particular, we argue that all ‘contents of consciousness’ are generated by and within non-conscious brain systems in the form of a continuous self-referential personal narrative that is not directed or (...) influenced in any way by the ‘experience of consciousness’. This continuously updated personal narrative arises from selective ‘internal broadcasting’ of outputs from non-conscious executive systems that have access to all forms of cognitive processing, sensory information and motor control. The personal narrative provides information for storage in autobiographical memory and is underpinned by constructs of self and agency, also created in non-conscious systems. The experience of consciousness, is seen as a passive accompaniment to the non-conscious processes of internal broadcasting and the creation of the personal narrative. In this sense personal awareness is analogous to the rainbow which accompanies physical processes in the atmosphere but exerts no influence over them. Though at an individual level it is an end-product created by non-conscious executive systems, the personal narrative serves the powerful evolutionary function of enabling individuals to communicate (externally broadcast) the contents of internal broadcasting. This in turn allows the recipients to generate potentially adaptive strategies, such as predicting the behavior of others and underlies the development of social and cultural structures, that promote species survival. Consequently, it is the capacity to communicate to others the contents of the personal narrative that confers an evolutionary advantage – not the experience of consciousness (personal awareness) itself. (shrink)

This book reassesses the contribution to international thought of some of the most important thinkers of the inter-war period. It takes as its starting point E.H. Carr's famous critique which, more than any other work, established the reputation of the period as the "utopian" or "idealist" phase of international relations theorizing. This characterization of inter-war thought is scrutinized through ten detailed studies of such writers as Norman Angell, J.A. Hobson, J.M. Keynes, David Mitrany, and Alfred Zimmern. The studies demonstrate (...) the diversity of perspectives within so-called "idealism" and call into question the descriptive and analytical value of the entire notion. It is concluded that "idealism" is an overly general term, useful for scoring debating points rather than providing a helpful category for analysis. (shrink)

This title is written to match GCSE Religious Studies AQA B, option 2 and can be used as part of a full course or short course. It contains summaries and practise exam questions at the end of each section to help prepare for exams.

In "Epistemic Norms and the 'Epistemic Game' They Regulate", we advance a general case for the idea that epistemic norms regulating the production of beliefs might usefully be understood as social norms. There, we drew on the influential account of social norms developed by Cristina Bicchieri, and we managed to give a crude recognizable picture of important elements of what are recognizable as central epistemic norms. Here, we consider much needed elaboration, suggesting models that help one think about epistemic communities (...) and, ultimately, the temptations confronted in one's epistemic life. We suggest that once "the epistemic game" is embedded into a wider set of gains and losses, one can understand the epistemic choice situation as a form of mixed-motive game. This allows one to understand epistemic games more straightforwardly using Bicchieri's framework for thinking about social norms. That is, once the choice situation denominated only in terms of classical epistemic gains and losses is embedded in a wider accounting of goods that may compete with the production of true beliefs, one can see how an agent's individual and community epistemic project can be furthered by social norms regulating epistemic practices. We recommend thinking of epistemic norms as analogous to social norms for hygiene. (shrink)

After encountering this book, you will never look at the tiniest sliver of your own backyard or neighborhood park the same way; instead, you will be stunned by the unexpected variety of species found in an area so small.