Molecular genetic testing has increasingly been incorporated into clinical medicine, and this trend is likely to accelerate in the future. The introduction of genetic testing into medical practice is beginning to collide head on with patents that claim ownership of correlations between human genetic variants and predisposition to disease, response to therapeutic drugs, and susceptibility to pharmacologic side effects. Patent holders or licensees of genes, genetic variants, and their genotype-phenotype correlations are already using the threat of litigation to monopolize genetic (...) tests for important well-known syndromes like Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and inherited breast and ovarian cancer, in addition to a host of less commonly discussed conditions. (shrink)

These essays apply influential, pathbreaking psychological studies about women's lives to literature. In their analyses of fictional portraits, contributors both challenge and confirm psychological theories about female identity, about 'connection/separation' as developmental catalysts, and about the impact of gender on 'voice,' moral decision-making, and epistemology in relation to classical and contemporary literary texts, written by both women and men.

This is a supplement to the paper “Finitary Algebraic Logic” [1]. It includes corrections for several errors and some additional results. MSC: 03G15, 03G25.

Most people are familiar with the traditional view of the role of ethics in the auditing profession - the need for auditors with integrity and objectivity. This essay addresses a second dimension of ethics in the auditing profession - the demand for auditors to assess the integrity and ethical values of clients. This second dimension is a difficult task for auditors in practice and demands a deep and robust understanding of ethics, ethical infrastructures, and the products of those infrastructures. The (...) essay proposes how educators and researchers might facilitate that understanding. (shrink)

This book grew out of previously published papers of mine composed over a period of years; they have been reworked (sometimes beyond recognition) so as to form a reasonably coherent whole. Part One treats of informative inference. I argue (Chapter 2) that the traditional principle of induction in its clearest formulation (that laws are confirmed by their positive cases) is clearly false. Other formulations in terms of the 'uniformity of nature' or the 'resemblance of the future to the past' seem (...) to me hopelessly unclear. From a Bayesian point of view, 'learning from experience' goes by conditionalization (Bayes' rule). The traditional stum bling block for Bayesians has been to fmd objective probability inputs to conditionalize upon. Subjective Bayesians allow any probability inputs that do not violate the usual axioms of probability. Many subjectivists grant that this liberality seems prodigal but own themselves unable to think of additional constraints that might plausibly be imposed. To be sure, if we could agree on the correct probabilistic representation of 'ignorance' (or absence of pertinent data), then all probabilities obtained by applying Bayes' rule to an 'informationless' prior would be objective. But familiar contra dictions, like the Bertrand paradox, are thought to vitiate all attempts to objectify 'ignorance'. BuUding on the earlier work of Sir Harold Jeffreys, E. T. Jaynes, and the more recent work ofG. E. P. Box and G. E. Tiao, I have elected to bite this bullet. In Chapter 3, I develop and defend an objectivist Bayesian approach. (shrink)

The value of Abraham Kuyper’s thought is presently being discovered by a growing body of readers. Herman Dooyeweerd’s thought is appreciated by a smaller number. Yet he was trained in the Kuyperian tradition and conceived many of his most characteristic insights by building on Kuyper’s. What did he learn from Abraham and what can be learned by reflecting on their shared ideas? A view of the coherence, the gum and wire holding society and the cosmos together is the first of (...) their common themes, considered in this essay. The second is religion and its root, namely, the human heart in its encounter with the Eternal. This involves a discussion of time and whether human existence can be said to extend beyond time in some respect. Observations are made and questions are raised about the contrasting and comparative accessibility of the two authors’ thoughts and writings. The second half of the essay focuses on the earliest statements of Dooyeweerd’s germinating philosophy — in relationship to Kuyper’s thought. At the most fundamental level these two thinkers share basic principles, and in light of these they developed their most distinctive ideas. An implicit reassessment of this intellectual tradition is offered here with the hope of finding hints and motivation to open new vistas on some key insights and principles. (shrink)

This book explains why contemporary liberal democracies are based on historical templates rather than revolutionary reforms; why the transition in Europe occurred during a relatively short period in the nineteenth century; why politically and economically powerful men and women voluntarily supported such reforms; how interests, ideas, and pre-existing institutions affected the reforms adopted; and why the countries that liberalized their political systems also produced the Industrial Revolution. The analysis is organized in three parts. The first part develops new rational choice (...) models of governance, the balance of authority between parliaments and kings, constitutional exchange, and suffrage reform. The second part provides historical overviews and detailed constitutional histories of six important countries. The third part provides additional evidence in support of the theory, summarizes the results, contrasts the approach taken in this book with that of other scholars, and discusses methodological issues. (shrink)

Relation algebras were invented by Tarski and his collaborators in the middle of the 20th century. The concept of integrality arose naturally early in the history of the subject, as did various constructions of finite integral relation algebras. Later the concept of finite-dimensionality was introduced for classifying nonrepresentable relation algebras. This concept is closely connected to the number of variables used in proofs in first-order logic. Some results on these topics are presented in chronological order.

If K is a class of semiassociative relation algebras and K contains the relation algebra of all binary relations on a denumerable set, then the word problem for the free algebra over K on one generator is unsolvable. This result implies that the set of sentences which are provable in the formalism Lwx is an undecidable theory. A stronger algebraic result shows that the set of logically valid sentences in Lwx forms a hereditarily undecidable theory in Lwx. These results generalize (...) similar theorems, due to Tarski, concerning relation algebras and the formalism Lx. (shrink)

Les chercheurs disputent depuis longtemps pour savoir si Machiavel est le "premier moderne", le chef de file du "républicanisme classique" ou un penseur laïc dans une perspective médiévale ou pré-moderne. Les rapports personnels entre Léonard de Vinci et Machiavel, dont les théoriciens politiques sont généralement inconscients, permettent de mieux comprendre le rôle de Machiavel dans la transition vers la modernité. La conception vincinienne d'une science de la nature et les possibilités qu'elle ouvrait aux innovations technologiques ont représenté un grand pas (...) dans le passage de la philosophie antique ou médiévale à la science naturelle moderne. Après avoir été l'ingénieur militaire de Ludovic Sforza puis de César Borgia, Vinci est rentré à Florence en 1503. Machiavel, qui l'avait apparemment rencontré en 1502, s'est assuré son aide technique pour diriger le cours de l'Arno afin de vaincre Pise, l'auteur du Prince semble aussi être lié à la commande du tableau de la Bataille d'Anghiari et il s'est arrangé pour que Vinci dirige une mission technique à Piombino en 1504. Les textes prouvent que Machiavel a été nettement influencé par ces expériences, ce qui suggère une réponse plausible aux controverses sur la "modernité" de Machiavel. La différence entre les approches des mathématiques et de la physique par Vinci puis par Galilée ou Newton illustre particulièrement bien les étapes ultérieurement nécessaires pour le développement complet d'une approche moderne de la politique comme celle de Hobbes ou Locke dans la tradition anglo-saxonne, ou de Descartes et des "philosophes" sur le continent. (shrink)

Conjecture (1) of [Ma83] is confirmed here by the following result: if $3 \leq \alpha < \omega$, then there is a finite relation algebra of dimension α, which is not a relation algebra of dimension α + 1. A logical consequence of this theorem is that for every finite α ≥ 3 there is a formula of the form $S \subseteq T$ (asserting that one binary relation is included in another), which is provable with α + 1 variables, but not (...) provable with only α variables (using a special sequent calculus designed for deducing properties of binary relations). (shrink)

Sound and complete semantics for classical propositional logic can be obtained by interpreting sentences as sets. Replacing sets with commuting dense binary relations produces an interpretation that turns out to be sound but not complete for R. Adding transitivity yields sound and complete semantics for RM, because all normal Sugihara matrices are representable as algebras of binary relations.

It is undeniable that health care costs have been increasing at an alarming rate. During the ten-year period between 1983 and 1993, the medical care component of the Consumer Price Index rose at an average annual rate of 10 percent while the overall CPI increased by only 4.5 percent per year. These dramatic increases have obvious societal implications. For those without health insurance, a serious illness may mean personal bankruptcy. For those with health insurance coverage, premiums are rising while coverage (...) is shrinking. Employers are struggling to continue providing health insurance to their employees. Irrespective of whose fault it really is, much of the blame has been directed at health care providers.Faced with mounting criticism regarding the costs of delivering health care, the industry struck back. It claimed that collaboration—not competition—was necessary to reduce health care costs and improve efficiency, but that antitrust uncertainty deterred such collaborative efforts. (shrink)

This monograph introduces the functional characteristics and conceptual significance of a simulation software system called CyberRat (Ray, 1996a, 2003a, 2012a, 2012b). CyberRat expands upon prior illustrations (Ray & Delprato, 1989; Ray, 1992) of how such computer-based simulations can serve to formatively enhance, and eventually validate, the descriptive research methodology upon which their development relies. To illustrate this process I also review highlights of previous publications (cf. Ray & Brown, 1975, 1976; Ray & Delprato, 1989), detailing the unique research methodology used (...) to collect data that guided CyberRat’s development. This methodology integrates interbehavioral psychology (Kantor, 1959) and general systems analysis (von Bertalanffy, 1968), and thus is referred to as interbehavioral systems analysis (IBSA). CyberRat’s validation of IBSA methods involves a process analogous to Turing’s (1950) famous test for simulation authenticity, in that it relies upon “phenomenological equivalence” criteria for observers to compare experiences of real vs. simulated events. And because IBSA stresses three convergent strategies for research, including structural analysis, functional analysis, and operations analysis, my organizing theme addresses how closely CyberRat comes to passing a trilogy of hypothetical Turing tests—one for each of these three analytic strategies. (shrink)