We consider the problem of whether there are deterministic theories describing the evolution of an individual physical system in terms of the definite trajectories of its constituent particles and which stay in the same relation to quantum mechanics as Bohmian mechanics but which differ from the latter for what concerns the trajectories followed by the particles. Obviously, one has to impose on the hypothetical alternative theory precise physical requirements. We analyze various such constraints and we show step by step how (...) to meet them. This way of attacking the problem turns out to be useful also from a pedagogical point of view since it allows one to recall and focus on some relevant features of Bohm's theory. One of the central requirements we impose on the models we are going to analyze has to do with their transformation properties under the transformation of the extended Galilei group. In a context like the one we are interested in, one can put forward various requests that we refer to as physical and genuine covariance and invariance. Other fundamental requests are that the theory allows the description of isolated physical systems as well as that it leads to a solution (in the same sense as Bohmian mechanics) of the measurement problem. We show that, even when all the above conditions are taken into account, there are infinitely many inequivalent (from the point of view of the trajectories) bohmian-like theories reproducing the predictions of quantum mechanics. This raises some interesting questions about the meaning of Bohmian mechanics. (shrink)

Patrizia Pedrini | : In this paper, I argue that paradigmatic-state accounts of self-deception suffer from a problem of restrictedness that does not do justice to the complexities of the phenomenon. In particular, I argue that the very search for a paradigmatic state of self-deception greatly overlooks the dynamic dimension of the self-deceptive process, which allows the inclusion of more mental states than paradigmatic-state accounts consider. I will discuss the inadequacy of any such accounts, and I will argue that (...) we should replace them with a dynamic view of self-deception that is more liberal regarding the mental states in which self-deceivers may find themselves. | : Dans cet article, je soutiens que les explications de l’auto-illusion en termes d’un état « paradigmatique » souffrent d’un problème de limitation qui ne rend pas justice à la complexité du phénomène. Plus précisément, j’avance que la recherche même d’un état paradigmatique néglige tout à fait la dimension dynamique du processus d’auto-illusion, de sorte à inclure davantage d’états mentaux que ne le font les explications en termes d’un état paradigmatique. Après avoir démontré l’insuffisance de ces dernières, je proposerai que nous devrions les remplacer par une conception dynamique de l’auto-illusion qui serait plus flexible quant aux états mentaux potentiellement vécus par des personnes sous l’emprise de l’auto-illusion. (shrink)

Key n-grams are useful in the analysis of legal discourse as they help bring recurrent key expressions to the fore and understand the patterning of legal language. This paper aims to generate, analyse and compare the key n-grams of two legal corpora: a corpus of European directives on distance consumer contracts and a UK national legislation corpus on the same subject-matter. The corpora are considered, alternatively, as both focus and reference corpora. In this way, keyness, i.e., the terminology that makes (...) each corpus unique, is revealed from both corpora. The paper findings mostly bring to the fore five different patterns: differences in the key n-grams due to institutional or country-related factors; legalese influences; typical n-grams of Eurolect; dichotomy in the terminology used (albeit applying the same legal principles), and polysemy (i.e., similar words with different applications in various genres). This analysis confirms the usefulness and insightfulness of key n-grams in understanding the impact of disciplinary conventions in legal language. (shrink)

The overall trend toward globalization in design, greatly enhanced by digital technologies, has raised issues and challenges on how to preserve the cultural differences and values of different societies. There is a tendency to lose touch with local cultural values when designing artefacts for global use, and social nuances and traditions risk to be flattened or stereotyped in the pursuit of developing new technologies and products for the global society. Attempts to reduce the tension between the global and the local (...) in design can be seen in the development of standards and guidelines for cross-cultural design, that are mostly focused on user interface design. However, when moving from preferences, metaphors, appearance, and navigation toward cultural models of interaction and physical design, new methodologies and tools for cross-cultural design are needed. This paper describes a poetry-inspired design method for cross-cultural sharing within the design process. The approach uses poetry to sensitize the designer to the subtleties and diversity of a culture so that the design can be given new aesthetic and cultural significance. The methodology is exemplified by actual design cases developed within the course “Cultural Sensitivity” of the Master’s Degree Program in Industrial Design at Eindhoven University of Technology, where poetry was used for uncovering underlying or implicit assumptions, intercultural differences and similarities, as well as for general sensitization of young designers. (shrink)

This paper has its roots in qualitative analysis of accounts produced by an Italian serial killer. Theoretical references are related to symbolic interactionism and its developments in the field of psychology and criminology. The whole contribution is aimed to twofold purposes: A) to provide a set of criteria specifically addressed to study deviant action as system of meanings into two related contexts: the single action itself and the whole life history. According this point, paper introduces the concept of “deviant career” (...) and it explains its development and steps; it also provides some psychological social points of views and contributions that scientific works offers. B) to think about potentialities of accounting interviews as powerful tools in clinical practice and empirical research too.Specifically, we discuss narrative about behaviour and life story as a resource in order to take suggestions about meanings, goals and rules of action. It also suggests something about functions that crime discharges in the whole pathway of one's life. Juridical case analysis, run by means of the software ATLAS.ti, is aimed to demonstrate theoretical reasoning proposed. (shrink)

Music-Dance explores the identity of choreomusical work, its complex authorship and its modes of reception as well as the cognitive processes involved in the reception of dance performance. Scholars of dance and music analyse the ways in which a musical score changes its prescriptive status when it becomes part of a choreographic project, the encounter between sound and motion on stage, and the intersection of listening and seeing. As well as being of interest to musicologists and choreologists considering issues such (...) as notation, multimedia and the analysis of performance, this volume will appeal to scholars interested in applied research in the fields of cognition and neuroscience. The line-up of authors comprises representative figures of today's choreomusicology, dance historians, scholars of twentieth-century composition and specialists in cognitive science and performance studies. Among the topics covered are multimedia and the analysis of performance; the notational practice of choreographers and the parallel attempts of composers to find a graphic representation for musical gestures; and the experience of dance as a paradigm for a multimodal perception, which is investigated in terms of how the association of sound and movement triggers emotions and specific forms of cognition. (shrink)

Artificial Intelligence (AI) applied to the legal domain is gaining ground. AI is argued to be particularly helpful with labour-intensive activities and repetitive tasks. Amongst the various AI solutions, ChatGPT has gathered momentum and its acclaimed advantages are, amongst others, document generation and contract review. This paper wishes to assess the effectiveness of two chatbots in contract drafting. To this aim, ChatGPT (by OpenAI) and Gemini (by Google) are prompted to write two supply contracts each, the first one written in (...) English according to the laws of England and Wales, and the other one still written in English, but according to the laws of the Republic of Italy. The paper finds that each contract pair generated by the AI solutions is identical, thus disregarding legal-system specificities and language conventions. Therefore, the drafts present a number of fallacies, either because they are incomplete, or because they include clauses that are redundant or inapplicable in a given legal system. The paper claims that human intervention and supervision are necessary to tackle the shortcomings generated by AI, at least as far as contract generation is concerned and with regard to the two chatbots addressed. (shrink)

The new discoveries of QM led to re-assessing, broadening the meanings of many physical concepts, and formulating a new logic that was no longer based on the classical principles of non-contradiction, identity, and causality. Heisenberg considered the classical logic and the conception of language expressed in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus inadequate for the understanding of the problems of language with which the physicists of the Copenhagen school had had to deal in order to define the foundations of Quantum Mechanics. On the (...) contrary, he saw in Wittgenstein’s posthumous Philosophical Investigations the key to solving those problems. One may formulate a proportion and state that the use of language described in the Tractatus fits the use of language in Classical Mechanics, as the use of language described in PI fits the use of language in QM. I interpret the reflections of the physicists of the Copenhagen school on the limits of language relative to QM by highlighting how the epistemological revolution of quantum physics shares a conception of language similar to that expressed by late Wittgenstein in PI. I also aim to explain why Heisenberg considered it inappropriate to subsume the propositions and concepts of QM under the rules of the propositional logic of Tractatus. I explain why the philosophy of language expounded in PI, which is based on language games and resemblance families, sheds a light on how and why QM has contributed to renewing existing concepts (such as space, trajectory, observer, etc.) and to formulate a new logic (quantum logic). (shrink)

This article addresses the questions “why do we still have to read Kant today?”, “what kind of responses can he give us in the era of global terrorism?”. In other terms, today, “What does it mean to orient oneself in thinking?”. Because his concept of renewed religious laity, distant from both fanatic fundamentalism and indifferent secularism, becomes the compass we can only rely on and authentically trust in the relationship with the other. Issues identified on reading the interesting kantian work, (...) studied during the last academic year and discussed in the meeting of the 17th March 2017 between Liceo Classico “La Farina” and DICAM of the University in Messina, in the context of the project Tradition and Contemporaneity, set by the Italian Philosophical Society (SFI). (shrink)

È la morte la cartina al tornasole che rivela l’atteggiamento esistenziale che si concretizza nel rapporto con l’altro. Dal modo in cui la si valuta, e, conseguentemente, dal modo in cui si vive, dipende il grado di autenticità della propria esistenza. Per argomentare la suddetta tesi ricorreremo al racconto di Tolstòj La morte di Ivàn Il’íc.

Effective recommendations on healthy food choice need to be personalized and sent out on a large scale. In this paper, we present a model of automatic message selection tailored on the characteristics of the recipient and focused on the reduction of red meat consumption. This model is obtained through the collaboration between social psychologists and artificial intelligence experts. Starting from selected psychosocial models on food choices and the framing effects of recommendation messages, we involved a sample of Italian participants in (...) an experiment in which they: filled out a first questionnaire, which was aimed at detecting the psychosocial antecedents of the intention to eat red/processed meat; read messages differing as to the framing of the hypothetical consequences of reducing versus not reducing red/processed meat consumption; filled out a second questionnaire, which was aimed at detecting participants’ reaction to the messages, as well as any changes in their intention to consume red/processed meat. Data collected were then employed to learn both the structure and the parameters of a Graphical Causal Model based on a Dynamic Bayesian Network, aimed to predicting the potential effects of message delivery from the observation of the psychosocial antecedents. Such probabilistic predictor is intended as the basis for developing automated interactions strategies using Deep Reinforcement Learning techniques. Discussion focuses on how to develop automatic interaction strategies able to foster mindful eating, thanks to considering the psychosocial characteristics of the people involved; sending messages tailored on these characteristics; adapting interaction strategies according to people’s reactions. (shrink)

According to a recent theory of the motivational content of self-deception, the self-deceiver wants to be in a state of mind of belief that p, upon which her want that p be true would be merely contingent. While I agree with Funkhouser that the self-deceiver is considerably moved by an interest in believing that p, which makes it possible for her to relate to reality in a highly prejudiced way, I will argue that it is unlikely that the self-deceiver’s primary (...) want to believe, or interest in believing that p occurs as the result of a merely contingent interest in p being true. I will finally assess various consequences of the view I favor, regarding the self-deceiver’s avoidance behaviour, “twisted” self-deception, and whether we should provide a unifying account of “straight” and “twisted” self-deception. (shrink)

In Europe the elderly population is projected to increase from 18.5% (93.9 million) in 2014 to 28.7% (149.1 million) by 2080. In the USA it is estimated that by the year 2030 more than 20% of the population will be aged 65 years or over. This specific population is at high risk of unrecognised or untreated psychiatric illnesses and suicide. It is well known that completed suicide rate increases with age in both men and women. Although elderly people attempt suicide (...) less often than other age groups, they show a higher completion rate. Generally the methods chosen by elderly are more lethal, the intent is more serious, they are more determined and they show fewer warning sign than the younger population. A recent systematic review and meta-analysis of psychosocial intervention following self-harm in adults found that cognitive behavioural therapy was the most effective in these patients. Unfortunately there have been few reported trials of other potentially effective interventions. Because the scientific literature on psychosocial suicide prevention interventions in the elderly is still scant we decided to conduct a mini-review in order to take stock of the situation. Studies were identified through electronic searches of the Cochrane library, MEDLINE, Scopus and Web of Science databases. PRISMA guidelines were followed and only 7 articles met the inclusion criteria. No firm conclusions can be drawn about this topic because there is still little data and studies used inconsistent outcome measures and designs. Nonetheless, the existing data suggests that psychosocial interventions are promising. (shrink)

Issues relating to the migration of entire populations and to religious and political integralism have thrown the paradigm of ‘inclusion’ into crisis by challenging the already fragile equilibrium. This necessitates a push for deeper answers, not merely those imposed by a passing need. Balbo’s current reflections allow us to re-think the dilemma of our relationship with the ‘other’ through the paradigm of the ‘dialectic integration’, which by referring to the ‘sublation’ or experiential ‘going through’ seems to promote integral human development (...) in a more efficient way. Thanks to this, ‘differences are unified without destroying each other’, and thus, are mutually enriched in being: each one can improve creatively, not against, but with, for, through, and thanks to the ‘other’. (shrink)

In this study, we investigate the processing of object-denoting emoji in sentences using eye tracking. We hypothesize that (a) such emoji are more difficult to process when used as word replacement; and (b) their processing is subject to ambiguity constraints similarly to what happens with words. We conduct two experiments in which participants have to read sentences in which an emoji either follows or replaces a word. Control stimuli not containing emoji are also tested. In the second experiment, the emoji (...) are presented in two different disambiguating contexts. First fixation duration, total visit duration, and total revisit duration are modeled in the various conditions using linear mixed models. Both our hypotheses are supported. We observe longer total visit time for non-redundant emoji, and higher values for all three measures for ambiguous emoji. We conclude that lexical access may be more difficult for emoji especially when they are used as word replacements and their meaning is not immediately clear. Furthermore, we also conclude that non-redundant emoji are more difficult to integrate in the processing of the sentence than the equivalent words, or emoji used in a redundant way. In turn, our results indicate that emoji may not always be as immediate and easy to process for readers in spite of their popularity. (shrink)

Exploring Textual Action questions how we analyse works of art after the performative turn and shows how the interplay of performativity (textual action), space and topography, and the converging of genres and art forms is essential in modern drama, theatre, prose fiction, poetry and film. The volume also fosters a keen concern for the development of congenial theory. Its 14 detailed essays analyse works of art ranging from Balzac, Melville and George Eliot, to Breton, Kafka, Benjamin, Blixen and Woolf; and (...) from W.C. Williams, Bresson and Scorsese, to Sarraute, Duras, Reygadas, Dumont and Waltz. The approach of these studies discloses the art works as creative and dynamic utterances with active and shaping forces so powerful, and consequential, that they have the potential to transform human perception and blur clear distinctions between art and "real" life. Using an alternative and dynamic method and suggesting a direction towards the detailed analysis of literature, art, media and culture, Exploring Textual Action addresses current debates within the humanities. (shrink)