Using data from the National Hospital Discharge Survey, this paper analyzes the effect of Medicaid eligibility expansions from 1985 to 1996 on the health insurance coverage of women giving birth. We find that the eligibility expansions reduced the proportion of pregnant women who were uninsured by approximately 10%, although the magnitude of this decrease is sensitive to specification. The decrease in the proportion of uninsured pregnant women came at the expense of a substantial reduction in private insurance coverage (crowd-out) of (...) at least 55%. Substantial crowd-out and the relatively small change in the proportion uninsured suggest that Medicaid eligibility expansions may have had small effects on infant and maternal health. (shrink)

A stable democracy requires a shared identity and political culture. Its citizens need to identify as one common demos lest it fracture and balkanise into separate political communities. This in turn necessitates some common communication network for political messages to be transmitted, understood and evaluated by citizens. Hence, what demarcates one demos from another are the means of communication connecting the citizens of those demoi, allowing them to debate and persuade each other on the proper conduct of government and on (...) issues of common interest. For the ancient Athenians, their public sphere was the agora (marketplace); for the Federalists in the American colonies, the newspaper; for us today, it is the Internet. Until now, the physical nature of these communication networks has resulted in a trade-off between the reach of political messages (the numeric and geographic composition of the demos who receive political messages and may participate in the public sphere) and the ability to target the content of a message on that network towards individual citizens. One-to-one interpersonal conversation in the agora was highly targeted but could reach only as far as a voice could carry. The speakers and audience were well known to each other through personal interaction. As the printing press and later television allowed for greater and greater reach, the content of these messages became more generic as the speakers became more distant from their audience. The wider the audience grew, the less a message could be targeted at a particular audience segment without alienating others. (shrink)

& The present study investigated saccadic inhibition in both voluntary and stimulus-elicited saccades. Two experiments examined saccadic inhibition caused by an irrelevant flash occurring subsequent to target onset. In each trial, participants were required to perform a single saccade following the presentation of a black target on a gray background, 48 to the left or to the right of screen center. In some trials (flash trials), after a variable delay, a 33-msec flash was displayed at the top and bottom third (...) of the monitor (these regions turned white). In all experimental conditions, histograms of flash-to-saccade latencies documented a decrease in saccadic frequency, forming a dip, time-locked to the flash and occurring as early as 60–70 msec following its onset. The fast latency of this effect strongly suggests a low-level, reflex-like, oculomotor effect, which was referred to as saccadic inhibition. A novel procedure was developed to allow comparisons of saccadic inhibition even across conditions, which in the absence of a flash (no-. (shrink)

This article outlines the struggle between the power of the health care professional and the rights of the individual to choose freely a modality of treatment. Nurses are instrumental in assisting patients in making the best decision for a therapy they will have to assume for the rest of their lives. In guiding patients' decision, nurses must take into account these unavoidable contingencies: changes in lifestyle, nutritional restrictions, level of acceptance, compliance issues, ease of training and availability of support/facilities. Ensuring (...) that the patient makes an informed decision is therefore an ongoing challenge for nurses as they are taking part in a delicate balancing act between not directly influencing the patient's decision while making sure the patient is accurately informed. (shrink)

In 5 experiments, participants read text that was briefly replaced by a transient image for 33 ms at random intervals. A decrease in saccadic frequency, referred to as saccadic inhibition, occurred as early as 60 –70 ms following the onset of abrupt changes in visual input. It was demonstrated that the saccadic inhibition was influenced by the saliency of the visual event (Experiment 3) and was not produced in response to abrupt but irrelevant auditory stimuli (Experiment 1). Display changes restricted (...) to an area either inside or outside the perceptual span required for normal reading produced strong saccadic inhibition (Experiment 2). Finally, Experiments 4 and 5 demonstrated higher level cognitive or attentional modulation of the saccadic inhibition effect. (shrink)

Several gaze contingent studies that used a fixed delay between physical eye movements and a display change documented a dip in the fixation duration distributions (e.g., Blanchard et al. 1984; McConkie et al. 1985; van Diepen et al. 1995). In a study by van Diepen et al. (1995), a moving mask paradigm was employed in which subjects searched line drawings of everyday scenes for non-objects. The appearance of the mask was delayed relative to the end of a saccade (beginning of (...) fixation) by 17, 46, 76 or 121 msec. All fixation duration distributions in the masking conditions exhibited a dip with longer masking delays resulting in the dip occurring at longer fixation durations. In contrast, a no-mask condition did not produce a dip. Similar effects in reading were reported by Blanchard et al. (1984), and McConkie et al. (1985). In both these studies the text was.. (shrink)

The body of the one deemed mad often remains a sexual body with sexual needs. Mental health services respond to these demands of the body in various ways, including constructing rules around physical movement. In this context, we were interested in how mental health clinicians problematized the sexual needs and practices of residents of a long‐stay mental health rehabilitation facility and how solutions were constructed in relation to the residents’ sexual desires. This paper reports findings from mental health clinicians, as (...) part of a case study where we addressed this question. Mental health clinicians responded to residents’ sexuality from a discourse of risk. The notion of the engagement with each resident as a sexual subject was subordinated to the paternalistic notion of protecting the patient from risk. The resident became an object to be monitored and protected rather than a subject with sexual desire and agency. This paternalism also showed itself in relation to a ‘no‐sex on‐site’ rule that allowed for a shift of risk from the organization to the resident. Residents, rather than having a relatively safe place to have sexual relations, were required to find a place elsewhere, potentially unsafe, outside the facility. (shrink)

Several strands of contemporary cognitive science and its philosophy have emerged in recent decades that emphasize the role of action in cognition, resting their explanations on the embodiment of cognitive agents, and their embedding in richly structured environments. Despite their growing influence, many foundational questions remain unresolved or underexplored for this cluster of proposals, especially questions of how they can be extended beyond straightforwardly visuomotor cognitive capacities, and what constraints the commitment of embodiment places on the ontology of explanations. This (...) special issue aims to contribute to these foundational debates by drawing on important precursors to embodied cognition in mid-twentieth century gestalt psychology, its immediate successor ecological psychology, and their dialectical counterpart, phenomenology. Gestalt psychologists and phenomenologists wrestled with many of the same foundational questions that still haunt us today, in a manner that seems refreshing in hindsight, and poised to contribute constructively to contemporary debate. Looking back on this history reveals deep commonalities across competing embodied approaches, exposing fundamental tensions that remain unresolved, but also paving the way to a more ecumenical and conciliatory embodied cognitive science. (shrink)

An eye-opening tour of the political tricks that subvert scientific progress. The Butter-Up and Undercut. The Certain Uncertainty. The Straight-Up Fabrication. Dave Levitan dismantles all of these deceptive arguments, and many more, in this probing and hilarious examination of the ways our elected officials attack scientific findings that conflict with their political agendas. The next time you hear a politician say, "Well, I’m not a scientist, but…," you’ll be ready.

Particular visions of urban development are often codified in multi-year resource management policies. These policies, and the negotiations leading to them, are based in specific problem frames and narratives with long legacies. As conditions change and knowledge improves, there is often a need to revisit how problems, opportunities, and development pathways were defined historically, and to consider the viability of alternative pathways for development. In this article, we examine the case of agriculture near Metropolitan Phoenix, in the Central Arizona region, (...) to highlight how frames and narratives embedded in policy can reinforce particular development pathways, even as information, conditions, and values evolve. Using expert interviews and secondary data, we document alternative frames and narratives that may offer different pathways for development and sustainability in the region. By highlighting alternative narratives, we demonstrate the uncertainties and limitations associated with all narratives about development pathways, and explore the possibilities that narrative shifts can alter future outcomes. (shrink)

This paper concludes a special feature of Sustainability Science that explores a broad range of social value theoretical traditions, such as religious studies, social psychology, indigenous knowledge, economics, sociology, and philosophy. We introduce a novel transdisciplinary conceptual framework that revolves around concepts of 'lenses' and 'tensions' to help navigate value diversity. First, we consider the notion of lenses: perspectives on value and valuation along diverse dimensions that describe what values focus on, how their sociality is envisioned, and what epistemic and (...) procedural assumptions are made. We characterise fourteen of such dimensions. This provides a foundation for exploration of seven areas of tension, between: (1) the values of individuals vs collectives; (2) values as discrete and held vs embedded and constructed; (3) value as static or changeable; (4) valuation as descriptive vs normative and transformative; (5) social vs relational values; (6) different rationalities and their relation to value integration; (7) degrees of acknowledgment of the role of power in navigating value conflicts. In doing so, we embrace the 'mess' of diversity, yet also provide a framework to organise this mess and support and encourage active transdisciplinary collaboration. We identify key research areas where such collaborations can be harnessed for sustainability transformation. Here it is crucial to understand how certain social value lenses are privileged over others and build capacity in decision-making for understanding and drawing on multiple value, epistemic and procedural lenses. (shrink)

This paper concludes a special feature of Sustainability Science that explores a broad range of social value theoretical traditions, such as religious studies, social psychology, indigenous knowledge, economics, sociology, and philosophy. We introduce a novel transdisciplinary conceptual framework that revolves around concepts of ‘lenses’ and ‘tensions’ to help navigate value diversity. First, we consider the notion of lenses: perspectives on value and valuation along diverse dimensions that describe what values focus on, how their sociality is envisioned, and what epistemic and (...) procedural assumptions are made. We characterise fourteen of such dimensions. This provides a foundation for exploration of seven areas of tension, between: (1) the values of individuals vs collectives; (2) values as discrete and held vs embedded and constructed; (3) value as static or changeable; (4) valuation as descriptive vs normative and transformative; (5) social vs relational values; (6) different rationalities and their relation to value integration; (7) degrees of acknowledgment of the role of power in navigating value conflicts. In doing so, we embrace the ‘mess’ of diversity, yet also provide a framework to organise this mess and support and encourage active transdisciplinary collaboration. We identify key research areas where such collaborations can be harnessed for sustainability transformation. Here it is crucial to understand how certain social value lenses are privileged over others and build capacity in decision-making for understanding and drawing on multiple value, epistemic and procedural lenses. (shrink)

This chapter presents two models of priming. The primary task under consideration is the identification of words presented visually at threshold. The first model, REMI, is a model for long-term priming in implicit memory. It explains repetition priming effects by assuming that during study of a word some contextual information is added to the corresponding lexical trace. This contextual information stored during the study task will tend to match the contextual information present during the test task, leading subjects to prefer (...) studied words over non-studied words. The second model, ROUSE, is a model of short-term priming. ROUSE stands for Responding Optimally with Unknown Sources of Evidence, and it is able to explain an intricate pattern of results. (shrink)

Cancers often express hundreds of genes otherwise specific to germ cells, the germline/cancer (GC) genes. Here, we present and discuss the hypothesis that activation of a “germline program” promotes cancer cell malignancy. We do so by proposing four hallmark processes of the germline: meiosis, epigenetic plasticity, migration, and metabolic plasticity. Together, these hallmarks enable replicative immortality of germ cells as well as cancer cells. Especially meiotic genes are frequently expressed in cancer, implying that genes unique to meiosis may play a (...) role in oncogenesis. Because GC genes are not expressed in healthy somatic tissues, they form an appealing source of specific treatment targets with limited side effects besides infertility. Although it is still unclear why germ cell specific genes are so abundantly expressed in cancer, from our hypothesis it follows that the germline's reproductive program is intrinsic to cancer development. (shrink)

What is it to be an agent? One influential line of thought, endorsed by G. E. M. Anscombe and David Velleman, among others, holds that agency depends on practical rationality—the ability to act for reasons, rather than being merely moved by causes. Over the past 25 years, Velleman has argued compellingly for a distinctive view of agency and the practical rationality with which he associates it. On Velleman’s conception, being an agent consists in having the capacity to be motivated by (...) a drive to act for reasons. Your bodily movements qualify as genuine actions insofar as they are motivated in part by your desire to behave in a way that makes sense to yourself. However, there are at least two distinct ways of spelling out what this drive towards self-intelligibility consists in, both present in Velleman’s work. It might consist in a drive towards intelligibility in causal-psychological terms: roughly, a drive to maximize the rational coherence of your psychological states. Alternatively, it might consist in a drive towards narrative intelligibility: a drive to make your ongoing activity conform to a recognizable narrative structure, where that structure is understood emotionally. Velleman originally saw these options as basically equivalent, but later came to prioritize the drive towards causal-psychological intelligibility over that towards narrative intelligibility. I argue that this gets things the wrong way round—we should instead understand our capacities to render ourselves intelligible in causal-psychological terms as built upon a bedrock of emotionally suffused narrative understanding. In doing so, we resolve several problems for Velleman’s view, and pave the way for an embodied, embedded and affective account of practical rationality and agency. According to the picture that emerges, practical rationality is essential to agency, narrative understanding is essential to practical rationality, and the rhythms and structures patterning the ebb and flow of our emotional lives are essential to narrative understanding. (shrink)

Processing and recognizing facial expressions are key factors in human social interaction. Past research suggests that individuals with autism spectrum disorder present difficulties to decode facial expressions. Those difficulties are notably attributed to altered strategies in the visual scanning of expressive faces. Numerous studies have demonstrated the multiple benefits of exposure to pet dogs and service dogs on the interaction skills and psychosocial development of children with ASD. However, no study has investigated if those benefits also extend to the processing (...) of facial expressions. The aim of this study was to investigate if having a service dog had an influence on facial expression processing skills of children with ASD. Two groups of 15 children with ASD, with and without a service dog, were compared using a facial expression recognition computer task while their ocular movements were measured using an eye-tracker. While the two groups did not differ in their accuracy and reaction time, results highlighted that children with ASD owning a service dog directed less attention toward areas that were not relevant to facial expression processing. They also displayed a more differentiated scanning of relevant facial features according to the displayed emotion. Results from the present study suggest that having a service dog and interacting with it on a daily basis may promote the development of specific visual exploration strategies for the processing of human faces. (shrink)

Traditionally, cognitive, motivational, and volitional determinants have been used to explain and predict health behaviors such as physical activity. Recently, the role of affect in influencing and regulating health behaviors received more attention. Affects as internal cues may automatically activate unconscious processes of behavior regulation. The aim of our study was to examine the association between affect and physical activity in daily life. In addition, we studied the influence of the habit of being physically active on this relationship. An ambulatory (...) assessment study in 89 persons (33.7% male, 25 to 65 years, M = 45.2, SD = 8.1) was conducted. Affect was assessed in the afternoon on 5 weekdays using smartphones. Physical activity was measured continuously objectively using accelerometers and subjectively using smartphones in the evening. Habit strength was assessed at the beginning of the diary period. The outcomes were objectively and subjectively measured moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) performed after work. Multilevel regression models were used to analyze the association between affect and after work MVPA. In addition, the cross-level interaction of habit strength and affect on after work MVPA was tested. Positive affect was positively related to objectively measured and self-reported after work MVPA: the greater the positive affect the more time persons subsequently spent on MVPA. An inverse relationship was found for negative affect: the greater the negative affect the less time persons spent on MVPA. The cross-level interaction effect was significant only for objectively measured MVPA. A strong habit seems to strengthen both the positive influence of positive affect and the negative influence of negative affect. The results of this study confirm previous results and indicate that affect plays an important role for the regulation of physical activity behavior in daily life. The results for positive affect were consistent. However, in contrast to previous reports of no or an inverse association, negative affect decreased subsequent MVPA. These inconsistencies may be—in part—explained by the different measurements of affect in our and other studies. Therefore, further research is warranted to gain more insight into the association between affect and physical activity. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Lived Experience and Cognitive Science Reappraising Enactivism’s Jonasian Turn” by Mario Villalobos & Dave Ward. Upshot: We argue that Villalobos and Ward’s criticism misses two crucial aspects of Varelian enactivism. These are, first, that enactivism attempts to offer a rigorous scientific justification for its teleological claims, and second, that enactivism in fact pays too little attention to the nature of human phenomenology and intentionality, rather than anthropomorphically over-valuing it.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Remembering Lewis E. HahnGeorge C. H. Sun, President, John Howie, Professor Emeritus, Thomas Alexander, Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, Kenneth W. Stikkers, Professor and Chair, Randall Auxier, Professor, Robert Hahn, Professor, Joseph Wu, Professor Emeritus, Elizabeth R. Eames, Professor Emeritus, Martin Lu, Professor of Philosophy, George Kimball Plochmann, Professor Emeritus, Matt Sronkoski, Philosophy Graduate and Academic Adviser, Dave Clarke, Professor Emeritus, Eugenie Gatens-Robinson, Professor Emerita, Hans H. (...) Rudnick, Professor Emeritus, Stephen Bickham, Professor EmeritusPresident, and Don Mikula (bio)The following testimonials were offered on the occasion of a memorial gathering for Dr. Lewis E. Hahn held on February 19, 2005, and were compiled for presentation here by Sharon (Hahn) Crowell.A Tribute to Dr. Lewis E. Hahn (1908-2004) from a Global PerspectiveGeorge C. H. Sun President, Thomé H. Fang Institute, Inc., Mobile, AlabamaAmong the philosophical community in both the East and the West, no word of introduction is needed for our beloved Master, who was the recipient of numerous distinctions and honors, with titles that included "Man of the Year in Philosophy" and "Award of Lifetime Achievement." The very name "Lewis E. Hahn" itself already stands now for genuineness, dedication, and fulfillment.A great work is a dialogue with eternity; a great person is such a work. In less than thirty years he succeeded in developing Carbondale from what had been a small college town in the Midwest into the Mecca of American philosophy. His most important achievements were the Dewey Center and the Pepper Archives that he helped install at SIUC These, among other such institutions, will remain a unique contribution, a glory of American philosophy, and a monument in the history of human thought.For posterity Lewis E. Hahn will remain an object of wonder and amazement. How is it possible for one human being to have accomplished so much, so well, and in so short a span of time—less than one century—in breadth, depth, and diversity? Some one hundred years ago, by bridging the gap between the New World and the Old, William James was hailed as the great genius of international friendship among philosophical thinkers, but we now find a greater genius in Lewis E. Hahn, who succeeded in bringing together the peoples of East and West from at least four continents: Europe, Australia, America (both North and Latin America), and Asia. To my knowledge, few of his predecessors and contemporaries have been half so widely read and liberal-minded as he was, in view of the range and scope of the Library of Living Philosophers that he helped continue after the passing of its founder, Dr. Paul A. Schilpp.What type of man was Hahn, our younger generation will wonder? Only a pluralist approach can help us understand the true character of such a legendary pluralist-contextualist. In short, he was "a full personality." As I recall, while working on my dissertation with him in the 1970s, we had a brief discussion on Confucius, the sage of ancient China. "A full personality!" was his laconic assessment. Suddenly I realized, to quote the Analects: "The Master is talking about himself!" For, as the Buddhists put it, only a Buddha can understand a Buddha. Or, as William James put it, only one who has philosophy can appreciate philosophy. Many friends [End Page 1] of my generation admire him so much; Te Chen of Hong Kong calls him "a great Confucian in America." Those who regret the loss of many precious Confucian virtues in China today have now rediscovered them in the person of Lewis E. Hahn! If Nietzsche called Kant "a great Chinese in Königsberg," it is simply because he had not encountered our own Master.A paradigm of academic leadership, Dr. Hahn is simply irreplaceable—this is a tribute I personally heard in Carbondale in the late 1960s. It is not an exaggeration to say that he was a superb administrator, and he could have been the best Secretary of the State we ever had, for he possessed more in the way of philosophical wisdom than all his predecessors put together! As a great teacher, he was no less "serene, good, learned, wise, and ardent" than... (shrink)

Many contemporary logicians acknowledge a plurality of logical theories and accept that theory choice is in part motivated by logical evidence. However, just as there is no agreement on logical theories, there is also no consensus on what constitutes logical evidence. In this paper, I outline Jean Piaget’s psychological theory of reasoning and show how he used it to diagnose and solve one of the paradoxes of material implication. I assess Piaget’s use of psychology as a source of evidence for (...) logical theory in light of reservations raised by psychologism, and I highlight some ramifications for exceptionalism and anti-exceptionalism about logic by considering his use of psychology as logical evidence in the framework of genetic epistemology, Piaget’s research programme. I conclude that Piaget’s psychological theory of reasoning not only plausibly serves as a source of evidence for logical theory but also makes a strong case for anti-exceptionalism about logic. (shrink)

More than one third of the human brain is devoted to the processes of seeing - vision is after all the main way in which we gather information about the world. But human vision is a dynamic process during which the eyes continually sample the environment. Where most books on vision consider it as a passive activity, this book is unique in focusing on vision as an 'active' process. It goes beyond most accounts of vision where the focus is on (...) seeing, to provide an integrated account of seeing AND looking. The book starts by pointing out the weaknesses in our traditional approaches to vision and the reason we need this new approach. It then gives a thorough description of basic details of the visual and oculomotor systems necessary to understand active vision. The book goes on to show how this approach can give a new perspective on visual attention, and how the approach has progressed in the areas of visual orienting, reading, visual search, scene perception and neuropsychology. Finally, the book summarises progress by showing how this approach sheds new light on the old problem of how we maintain perception of a stable visual world. Written by two leading vision scientists, this book will be valuable for vision researchers and psychology students, from undergraduate level upwards. (shrink)

The paper intends to objectively review the ecological understanding of Upaniṣhadic ṛṣis. Since ecology is a modern notion, it is required to precisely place it within the Upaniṣhadic thought. For that purpose, a possible ontological structure of Upaniṣhadic philosophy is sorted in which the discussion of ecology becomes meaningful. Upaniṣhadic ṛṣis conceived ecology as a part of their metaphysics, that is, one which is assisted by the devatas. There is a dependent coexistence between Devatas, Humans and the world. This feature (...) of Upaniṣhadic philosophy should not be treated as a declaration for environmental conservation. It is rather seen as a theory of consumption and calibration from both sides. Although ecology is integrated into the Upaniṣhadic metaphysics, it is not one of the subject matters of Upaniṣhads. An understanding of ecology traceable from Upaniṣhads is supplementary to Upaniṣhadic theory of Devatas. Thus, the author concludes that the Upaniṣhadic ecology is metaphysical rather than natural. (shrink)

Recent advances in wireless technologies have led to the development of intelligent, in-vehicle safety applications designed to share information about the actions of nearby vehicles, potential road hazards, and ultimately predict dangerous scenarios or imminent collisions. These vehicle safety communication (VSC) technologies rely on the creation of autonomous, self-organizing, wireless communication networks connecting vehicles with roadside infrastructure and with each other. As the technical standards and communication protocols for VSC technologies are still being developed, certain ethical implications of these new (...) information technologies emerge: Coupled with the predicted safety benefits of VSC applications is a potential rise in the ability to surveil a driver engaging in her everyday activities on the public roads. This paper will explore how the introduction of VSC technologies might disrupt the “contextual integrity” of personal information flows in the context of highway travel and threaten one’s “privacy in public.” Since VSC technologies and their related protocols and standards are still in the developmental stage, the paper will conclude by revealing how close attention to the ethical implications of the remaining design decisions can inform and guide designers of VSC technologies to create innovate safety applications that increase public safety, but without compromising the value of one’s privacy in public. (shrink)