Compared the use of unit regression weights with least squared error multiple regression weights. 100 sample correlation matrices computed from randomly drawn samples from a multivariate normal distribution were employed, with the sample size varying from 25-1,000 and number of variables from 2-10. In addition, correlation matrices were also sampled from published data. The results of comparing the efficiency of the 2 methods of weighting are presented for correlation matrices with and without the effect of suppressor variables. Use of these (...) findings is discussed. (shrink)

La théorie générale du contrôle et de la communication, mieux connue sous le nom de ‘cybernétique’, est habituellement considérée comme le fruit des recherches liées à la deuxième guerre mondiale aux Etats-Unis, menées principalement par le mathématicien américain Norbert Wiener . Dans le cadre de son travail pour l'armée, Wiener a développé une théorie générale des régulations. Nous nous intéressons aux origines de la théorie générale des régulations en Allemagne , montrant qu'elle prend naissance dans un contexte bien différent.Hermann (...) class='Hi'>Schmidt , le principal acteur dans ce domaine en Allemagne, bien que physicien de formation, formula sa version de la théorie du contrôle à la fin des années 30, grâce aux différents systèmes de régulation qu'il était amené à étudier au bureau des brevets du Reich . A partir de l'analyse d'une combinaison de facteurs contextuels, nationaux, politiques et contingents, nous proposons une explication de la moindre influence de la théorie de Schmidt.The general theory of control and communication, better known as ‘cybernetics’, is usually considered to be the result of research done during the Second World War in the United States, principally by the American mathematician, Norbert Wiener . Based on his military work, Wiener developed a general mathematical theory of control and feedback system. We discuss the origins of control and feedback theory in Germany , showing that it arose in a very different context.Hermann Schmidt , the principal actor in Germany, though trained as a physicist, formulated his version of control theory based on his extensive hands-on experience with control mechanisms gained during his work as a patent officer in the late 1930s at the German State Patent Office. We also offer an explanation for why Schmidt's general theory of control did not have a great influence based on a combination of national, political, and contingent contextual factors. (shrink)

Using state-of-the-art observational datasets and results from a large archive of computer model simulations, a consortium of scientists from 12 different institutions has resolved a long-standing conundrum in climate science—the apparent discrepancy between simulated and observed temperature trends in the tropics. Research published by this group indicates that there is no fundamental discrepancy between modeled and observed tropical temperature trends when one accounts for: the uncertainties in observations; and the statistical uncertainties in estimating trends from observations. These results refute a (...) recent claim that model and observed tropical temperature trends “disagree to a statistically significant extent”. This claim was based on the application of a flawed statistical test and the use of older observational datasets. (shrink)

Comparing knowledge with belief can go wrong in two dimensions: If the authors employ a wider notion of knowledge, then they do not compare like with like because they assume a narrow notion of belief. If they employ only a narrow notion of knowledge, then their claim is not supported by the evidence. Finally, we sketch a superior teleological view.

Jason A. Frank, Constituent Moments: Enacting the People in Postrevolutionary America, Duke University Press, ISBN - 9780822346630Vicki Hsueh, Hybrid Constitutions: Challenging Legacies of Law, Privilege and Culture in Colonial America, Duke University Press, ISBN - 9780822346180.

Within the rather large Wittgenstein-collection at the Austrian National Library are 14 letters to Ludwig Wittgenstein from his uncle Paul (1848-1928), written between 1914 and 1923. The last of these letters, written on 1st March 1923, contains a little surprise. On the backside of this letter, the logical remarks and draft graphics which are recorded are obviously penned by the hand of Ludwig Wittgenstein.

The first few chapters of Caesar's Bellum Civile are notoriously untrustworthy. Much has been done by Nissen, Schmidt and others towards re-telling the story more truthfully, but our accounts are not yet fully satisfactory. Caesar's statement that he met the tribunes only after crossing the Rubicon is at first sight startling and does not accord with the story as told by Plutarch and Appian; for both of these historians make much of the fact that Caesar exhibited the tribunes upon (...) their arrival to his army, thus stirring the soldiers to action. Plutarch and Appian are evidently following Pollio, who was with Caesar on the day of crossing: they ought therefore to furnish testimony of some weight. Suetonius makes no direct statement about the matter, but the order of events as given by him seems to place him in agreement with the statement of the Bellum Civile. We have therefore Pollio, Plutarch , and Appian against the words of the Bellum Civile and Suetonius; or, more simply, Pollio against Caesar, both of whom were eye-witnesses of what occurred that day. Pollio, moreover, is the critic who questions the veracity of these very commentaries. Our acceptance of one side or the other can, therefore, hardly depend upon preponderance of authority. It will be a question of probability and probability I think we shall find resting with Plutarch and Appian. The only objection against adopting this conclusion at once, is that it seems to assume that Caesar has falsified to his own disadvantage. (shrink)

(2005). Freedom in Responsibility: On the Relevance of “Sin” As a Hermeneutic Guiding Principle in Bioethical Decision Making. Christian Bioethics: Vol. 11, No. 2, pp. 147-165.

We investigate the problem of how nonnatural entities are represented by examining university students’ concepts of God, both professed theological beliefs and concepts used in comprehension of narratives. In three story processing tasks, subjects often used an anthropomorphic God concept that is inconsistent with stated theological beliefs; and drastically distorted the narratives without any awareness of doing so. By heightening subjects’ awareness of their theological beliefs, we were able to manipulate the degree of anthropomorphization. This tendency to anthropomorphize may be (...) generalizable to other agents. God (and possibly other agents) is unintentionally anthropomorphized in some contexts, perhaps as a means of representing poorly understood.. (shrink)

Argumentation as the public exchange of reasons is widely thought to enhance deliberative interactions that generate and justify reasonable public policies. Adopting an argumentation-theoretic perspective, we survey the norms that should govern public argumentation and address some of the complexities that scholarly treatments have identified. Our focus is on norms associated with the ideals of correctness and participation as sources of a politically legitimate deliberative outcome. In principle, both ideals are mutually coherent. If the information needed for a correct deliberative (...) outcome is distributed among agents, then maximising participation increases information diversity. But both ideals can also be in tension. If participants lack competence or are prone to biases, a correct deliberative outcome requires limiting participation. The central question for public argumentation, therefore, is how to strike a balance between both ideals. Rather than advocating a preferred normative framework, our main purpose is to illustrate the complexity of this theme. (shrink)

In this paper we present some concepts and their relations that are necessary for modeling autonomous agents in an environment that is governed by some (social) norms. We divide the norms over three levels: the private level the contract level and the convention level. We show how deontic logic can be used to model the concepts and how the theory of speech acts can be used to model the generation of (some of) the norms. Finally we give some idea about (...) an agent architecture incorporating the social norms based on a BDI framework. (shrink)

Richard Feynman has claimed that anti-particles are nothing but particles `propagating backwards in time'; that time reversing a particle state always turns it into the corresponding anti-particle state. According to standard quantum field theory textbooks this is not so: time reversal does not turn particles into anti-particles. Feynman's view is interesting because, in particular, it suggests a nonstandard, and possibly illuminating, interpretation of the CPT theorem. In this paper, we explore a classical analog of Feynman's view, in the context of (...) the recent debate between David Albert and David Malament over time reversal in classical electromagnetism. (shrink)

Moral puzzles about actions which bring about very small or what are said to be imperceptible harms or benefits for each of a large number of people are well known. Less well known is an argument by Warren Quinn that standard theories of rationality can lead an agent to end up torturing himself or herself in a completely foreseeable way, and that this shows that standard theories of rationality need to be revised. We show where Quinn's argument goes wrong, and (...) apply this to the moral puzzles. (shrink)

A theory is usually said to be time reversible if whenever a sequence of states S 1, S 2, S 3 is possible according to that theory, then the reverse sequence of time reversed states S 3 T, S 2 T, S 1 T is also possible according to that theory; i.e., one normally not only inverts the sequence of states, but also operates on the states with a time reversal operator T. David Albert and Paul Horwich have suggested that (...) one should not allow such time reversal operations T on states. I will argue that time reversal operations on fundamental states should be allowed. I will furthermore argue that the form that time reversal operations take is determined by the type of fundamental geometric quantities that occur in nature and that we have good reason to believe that the fundamental geometric quantities that occur in nature correspond to irreducible representations of the Lorentz transformations. Finally, I will argue that we have good reason to believe that space-time has a temporal orientation. (shrink)

Historicism -- Time -- Interpretation -- Representation -- Reference -- Truth -- Meaning -- Presence -- Experience (I) -- Experience (II) -- Subjectivity -- Politics.

Die {raquo}Revolution der Denkart{laquo} hat nicht nur den Anlauf genommen, welchem sie ihren Namen verdankt.! Gezahlt werden noch weitere Umstellungen der Theorie bildung als bloG die kopernikanische Kants. Hier interessieren gleich zwei. Die eine liefert den Gegenstand, die entsprechende, RevolutionPhanomenologie.

We define the notion of generic for an arbitrary subgroup H of a stable group, and show that H has a definable hull with the same generic properties. We then apply this to the theory of stable fields.

The common cause principle states that common causes produce correlations amongst their effects, but that common effects do not produce correlations amongst their causes. I claim that this principle, as explicated in terms of probabilistic relations, is false in classical statistical mechanics. Indeterminism in the form of stationary Markov processes rather than quantum mechanics is found to be a possible saviour of the principle. In addition I argue that if causation is to be explicated in terms of probabilities, then it (...) should be done in terms of probabilistic relations which are invariant under changes of initial distributions. Such relations can also give rise to an asymmetric cause-effect relationship which always runs forwards in time. (shrink)

The term “judicial restraint,” applied to courts engaged in judicial constitutional review, may refer to any one or more of three possible postures of such courts, which we here will distinguish as “quiescent,” “tolerant,” and “weak-form.” A quiescent court deploys its powers sparingly, strictly limiting the agenda of social disputes on which it will pronounce in the constitution’s name. A tolerant court confirms as valid laws whose constitutional compatibility it finds to be reasonable sustainable, even though it independently would conclude (...) to the contrary. A weak-form court acts on the understanding that its pronouncements on matters constitutional will be duly open to considered rejection by other political agencies. Theory commonly tends to treat the question of judicial restraint as turning on a bedrock political value of democracy. We may also, however, understand debates over judicial restraint in the light of a different bedrock value, that of political legitimacy. Where democracy is the focal concern, debaters may tend toward conflating into one measure the three dimensions of judicial restraint. A focus on legitimacy rather tends toward a dis-bundling of the three dimensions, thus complicating the choices while also clarifying the stakes. The political philosophy of John Rawls helps us to see how and why this occurs. (shrink)

Summary Structured interviews were carried out with 176 secondary school teachers to elicit their views/opinions about their initial professional training and their later practical experience, with particular reference to classroom behaviour management. The results showed that the vast majority of teachers believe classroom management skills to be of major importance to them professionally. Nearly three?quarters of them were dissatisfied with the preparation in this area of professional skills provided by their initial training courses. Many thought that their colleagues spent too (...) much time on matters of order and control and 38% thought that they, themselves, did also. Generally, they showed an interest in attending training courses in classroom behaviour management. Many felt that such training could reduce stress among teachers and might help to reduce troublesome behaviour among their pupils. Nearly all of them thought that it would be of benefit to their younger colleagues who were just beginning their careers. (shrink)

In this essay, I will outline the adjustments in Heidegger’s account of technicity that are necessary to address the danger ( Gefahr ) that revolves around recent advances, including cybernetics. These adjustments that Parvis Emad was among the first to pioneer, are hermeneutic guidelines that delineate the wholesale appearance of beings through the prism of a “mathematical project”. The mathematical project of ‘nature’ creates a platform on which cybernetics can arise in two ways: 1). by converting the linear sequencing of (...) ‘time’ (as “making present”) into a universal form of calculation and 2). by subdividing ‘space’ into infinite points. The danger, then, does not lie in the ominous effects of technicity, but as a throwback to the metaphysical distortion of the reciprocity between being and time in which the former is confined to the presencing of beings through a model of calculability and the latter is reduced to the “digitizing” of a linear sequence of units. The hermeneutic guidelines allow for the “retrograsping” ( zürckgenommen [Emad’s translation] of the danger of technicity (including its transmutation into cybernetics) as a “throwback” to the abandonment of and by being ( Seinsverlassenheit ). (shrink)

Die Frage nach der Seele der Tiere ist so alt wie die Frage nach der Seele des Menschen und die nach der Welt. Die 18 Beitrage des Bandes geben einen Uberblick von der Antike bis in das 20. Jahrhundert, beschreiben den Stand der Forschung zu philosophischen sowie rechtsphilosophischen Fragen nachder Seele der Tiere und werfen zugleich die Frage nach dem Recht der Tiere auf.Aus dem InhaltJ.-C. Wolf, Haben Tiere Rechte?J.-H. Michel, Le droit romain et les animauxH. Schmidt-Glintzer, "Seid freundlich (...) zu den Tieren!". Tier, Mensch und Individualitat in ChinaE. Hornung, Die Vieldeutigkeit der Tiere im alten AgyptenE. Nicolay, Homere et l'ame des betesC. Frenzel, Tier, Mensch und Seele bei den VorsokratikernU. Perez-Paoli, Porphyrios' Gedanken zur Gerechtigkeit gegenuber TierenA. Giese, "Vier Tieren auch verheissen war, ins Paradies zu kommen" - Betrachtungen zur Seele der Tiere im islamischen MittelalterWeitere Beitrage von: D. Arendt, H. Breger, G. Boros, J.-L. Seban, G. Frank, M. Kowalewicz, H.W. Ingensiep, H. Baranzke, M. Linnemann, R. D. Precht. (shrink)

Valuemetrics is an elaboration of Robert S. Hartman's innovative development in the application of an abstract system to the study of ethical problems. The system used for this purpose is a branch of logic called set theory. Set theory fulfills this role because goodness, the fundamental phenomenon of ethics, is defined axiomatically in terms of sets. The similarity of structure between certain elements of set theory and the various types and degrees of goodness makes mathematical accounting of goodness phenomena possible. (...) In the valuemetrics context, value judgments are considered as an assessment of the goodness of something. Therefore, the mathematical system for the accounting of goodness serves as a tool for objectively making many kinds of value judgments and possible attendant ethical decisions. One of the results of this conception, attributable to Hartman, is the birth of the science of ethics. The first half of the book elucidates the theory, terminology, and mathematical system used in valuemetrics, known as Hartmanean algebra. The second half is devoted to the application of this system to the measurement and development of a person's value vision, and the solution of various problems in ethics using the case study technique. Hartmanean algebra will resolve several types of problems such as the determination of right and wrong, good and bad; determining how to redress and amend instances of wrongs and badness; and how to determine when, if ever, wrongs and badness are justified. (shrink)

We construct a normal extension of K4 with the finite model property whose minimal tense extension is not complete with respect to Kripke semantics.