Research into the potential associations between tinnitus and cognition has investigated specific cognitive domains in laboratory settings despite adults with tinnitus reporting broad cognitive difficulties in every-day life. To address this limitation, the present study compared performance and perceived exertion on a visual office-like task in 38 adults with tinnitus and 38 adults without tinnitus matched for age, sex and educational background. All participants were also assessed for hearing, anxiety and depression, and participants with tinnitus were also assessed for tinnitus (...) handicap. No associations were found between presence of tinnitus and cognitive performance and perceived exertion on the visual office-like task when corrected for standard and extended high frequency hearing thresholds, anxiety, and depression. The correction for extended high frequency average hearing threshold was significant for performance but not perceived exertion on the visual office-like task. Overall, the results showed extended high frequency hearing, but not tinnitus, was associated with every-day cognitive performance. This indicates clinical testing of hearing thresholds above 8 kHz could support clinicians’ identification and management of cognitive difficulties. One management method suggested by the current findings would include provision of auditory stimulation at frequencies exceeding the frequency response of many current hearing aids. (shrink)

Alternatives to convenience sampling (CS) are needed for HIV/STI surveillance of most-at-risk populations in Latin America. We compared CS, time space sampling (TSS), and respondent driven sampling (RDS) for recruitment of men who have sex with men (MSM) and transgender women (TW) in Lima, Peru. During concurrent 60-day periods from June-August, 2011, we recruited MSM/TW for epidemiologic surveillance using CS, TSS, and RDS. A total of 748 participants were recruited through CS, 233 through TSS, and 127 through RDS. The TSS (...) sample included the largest proportion of TW (30.7 %) and the lowest percentage of subjects who had previously participated in HIV/STI research (14.9 %). The prevalence of newly diagnosed HIV infection, according to participants' self-reported previous HIV diagnosis, was highest among TSS recruits (17.9 %) compared with RDS (12.6 %) and CS (10.2 %). TSS identified diverse populations of MSM/TW with higher prevalences of HIV/STIs not accessed by other methods. (shrink)

Volume 24, Issue 7, July 2024, Page 6-12.

BackgroundBiobanking biospecimens and consent are common practice in paediatric research. We need to explore children and young people’s (CYP) knowledge and perspectives around the use of and consent to biobanking. This will ensure meaningful informed consent can be obtained and improve current consent procedures.MethodsWe designed a survey, in co-production with CYP, collecting demographic data, views on biobanking, and consent using three scenarios: 1) prospective consent, 2) deferred consent, and 3) reconsent and assent at age of capacity. The survey was disseminated (...) via the Young Person’s Advisory Group North England (YPAGne) and participating CYP’s secondary schools. Data were analysed using a qualitative thematic approach by three independent reviewers (including CYP) to identify common themes. Data triangulation occurred independently by a fourth reviewer.ResultsOne hundred two CYP completed the survey. Most were between 16–18 years (63.7%, N = 65) and female (66.7%, N = 68). 72.3% had no prior knowledge of biobanking (N = 73).Acceptability of prospective consent for biobanking was high (91.2%, N = 93) with common themes: ‘altruism’, ‘potential benefits outweigh individual risk’, 'frugality', and ‘(in)convenience’.Deferred consent was also deemed acceptable in the large majority (84.3%, N = 86), with common themes: ‘altruism’, ‘body integrity’ and ‘sample frugality’. 76.5% preferred to reconsent when cognitively mature enough to give assent (N = 78), even if parental consent was previously in place. 79.2% wanted to be informed if their biobanked biospecimen is reused (N = 80).ConclusionProspective and deferred consent acceptability for biobanking is high among CYP in the UK. Altruism, frugality, body integrity, and privacy are the most important themes. Clear communication and justification are paramount to obtain consent. Any CYP with capacity should be part of the consenting procedure, if possible. (shrink)

Psychobiological responses to music have been examined previously in various naturalistic settings in adults. Choir singing seems to be associated with positive psychobiological outcomes in adults. However, evidence on the effectiveness of singing in children and adolescents is sparse. The COVID-19 outbreak is significantly affecting society now and in the future, including how individuals engage with music. The COVID-19 pandemic is occurring at a time when virtual participation in musical experiences such as singing in a virtual choir has become more (...) prevalent. However, it remains unclear whether virtual singing leads to different responses in comparison with in-person singing. We evaluated the psychobiological effects of in-person choral singing in comparison with the effects of virtual choral singing in a naturalistic pilot within-subject study. A group of children and young adolescents from a school in Salzburg, Austria were recruited to take part in the study. Subjective measures were taken pre- and post-singing sessions once a week. Additionally, salivary biomarkers and quantity of social contacts were assessed pre- and post-singing sessions every second week. Psychological stability, self-esteem, emotional competences, and chronic stress levels were measured at the beginning of in-person singing as well as at the beginning and the end of the virtual singing. We observed a positive impact on mood after both in-person and virtual singing. Over time, in-person singing showed a pre-post decrease in salivary cortisol, while virtual singing showed a moderate increase. Moreover, a greater reduction in stress, positive change in calmness, and higher values of social contacts could be observed for the in-person setting compared to the virtual one. In addition, we observed positive changes in psychological stability, maladaptive emotional competences, chronic stress levels, hair cortisol, self-contingency and quality of life. Our preliminary findings suggest that group singing may provide benefits for children and adolescents. In-person singing in particular seems to have a stronger psychobiological effect. (shrink)

The author defends the claim that there are cases in which we should promote irrationality by arguing (1) that it is sometimes better to be in an irrational state of mind, and (2) that we can often influence our state of mind via our actions. The first claim is supported by presenting cases of irrational _belief_ and by countering a common line of argument associated with William K. Clifford, who defended the idea that having an irrational belief is always worse (...) than having a rational one. In support of the second claim, the author then explains how the control we have over our beliefs could look like. In conclusion, the author suggests that the argument of this essay is not restricted to the irrationality of beliefs, but can be applied to irrational states of mind in general. In an outlook on the “ethics of belief” debate, the author points out that the argument of this essay need not conflict with evidentialism, but does so when combined with another plausible claim about the meaning of doxastic ought-statements. (shrink)

The well known AGM framework for belief revision has recently been extended to include a model of the research agenda of the agent, i.e. a set of questions to which the agent wishes to find answers (Olsson & Westlund in Erkenntnis , 65 , 165–183, 2006 ). The resulting model has later come to be called interrogative belief revision . While belief revision has been studied extensively from the point of view of modal logic, so far interrogative belief revision has (...) only been dealt with in the metalanguage approach in which AGM was originally presented. In this paper, I show how to model interrogative belief revision in a modal object language using a class of operators for questions. In particular, the solution I propose will be shown to capture the notion of K-truncation , a method for agenda update in the case of expansion constructed by Olsson & Westlund. Two case studies are conducted: first, an interrogative extension of Krister Segerberg’s system DDL, and then a similar extension of Giacomo Bonanno’s modal logic for belief revision. Sound and complete axioms will be provided for both of the resulting logics. (shrink)

We present a one per cent measurement of the cosmic distance scale from the detections of the baryon acoustic oscillations in the clustering of galaxies from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, which is part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III. Our results come from the Data Release 11 sample, containing nearly one million galaxies and covering approximately 8500 square degrees and the redshift range 0.2 < z < 0.7. We also compare these results with those from the publicly released (...) DR9 and DR10 samples. Assuming a concordance Λ cold dark matter cosmological model, the DR11 sample covers a volume of 13 Gpc3 and is the largest region of the Universe ever surveyed at this density. We measure the correlation function and power spectrum, including density-field reconstruction of the BAO feature. The acoustic features are detected at a significance of over 7σ in both the correlation function and power spectrum. Fitting for the position of the acoustic features measures the distance relative to the sound horizon at the drag epoch, rd, which has a value of rd,fid = 149.28 Mpc in our fiducial cosmology. We find DV = at z = 0.32 and DV = at z = 0.57. At 1.0 per cent, this latter measure is the most precise distance constraint ever obtained from a galaxy survey. Separating the clustering along and transverse to the line of sight yields measurements at z = 0.57 of DA = and H =. Our measurements of the distance scale are in good agreement with previous BAO measurements and with the predictions from cosmic microwave background data for a spatially flat CDM model with a cosmological constant. © 2014 The Author Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. (shrink)

This paper examines the realist interpretation of Vedānta that Rasvihari Das explicated in two of his celebrated treatises, namely, “The Theory of Ignorance in Advaitism” and “The Falsity of the World.” Rasvihari Das, unlike many of his contemporary thinkers of India, took a contrary position against the uninformed generalization about Indian thought that the philosophical tradition of India was one of an unbroken idealism and spiritualism. Though Rasviahari Das was influenced by his senior peer-thinkers of India like Hiralal Haldar, B. (...) N. Seal, and K. C. Bhattacharyya, Rasvihari Das had his own independent view on and interpretation of Vedānta. The paper argues that in the Vedāntic realism of Rasvihari Das there is no rejection of the world or the individuals. In the first part of the paper, I suggests the possible influence of Indian realism on Rasvihari Das. In the second part, I make an attempt to unearth and examine the interpretation of Rasvihari Das that unravels his Vedāntic realism. The third part is the concluding appraisal of Rasvihari Das who could take Vedānta forward from its religious moorings and place it resolutely on a philosophical candour. (shrink)

K-axiom-based epistemic closure for explicit knowledge is rejected for even the most trivial cases of deductive inferential reasoning on account of the fact that the closure axiom does not extend beyond a raw consequence relation. The recognition that deductive inference concerns interaction as much as it concerns consequence allows for perspectives from logics of multi-agent information flow to be refocused onto mono-agent deductive reasoning. Instead of modeling the information flow between different agents in a communicative or announcement setting, we model (...) the information flow between different states of a single agent as that agent reasons deductively. The resource management of the database of agent states for the deductive reasoning fragment in question is covered by the residuated structure that encodes the nonassociative Lambek Calculus with permutation, bottom, and identity: NLP01. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Gendered Geographies across Time IBeatriz Hermida Ramos and Miguel Sebastián-MartínEarly Researchers' Seminar for Science and Speculative Fiction, University of Salamanca, Spain, 03 06 2023The first Early Researchers' Seminar for Science and Speculative Fiction: Gendered Geographies across Time showcased the many and diverse approaches to speculative fiction (SF) currently being pursued within the University of Salamanca's English Department, which in a matter of years has become an unexpected hotbed of (...) aspiring SF scholars. A graduate student–led initiative organized by Paula Barba Guerrero (University of Salamanca), the seminar comprised six sessions that took place in spring 2023. The series opened with a keynote by Miriam Borham Puyal (University of Salamanca), followed by five more panels throughout the semester. Open to the public and organized in a hybrid format, the event positioned itself as a welcoming, non-commodified space for the exchange of ideas. To that end, the shared philosophy of the speakers was usually to deliver accessible talks, written not exclusively for established researchers and early career researchers (ECRs), but also catering to graduate and undergraduate populations. Questions ranged, therefore, from the most specialized to the most general—though questions such as "What is SF?" or "What is Utopia?" that might sound "basic" are not taken as such, and these led to the most intensive conversations among the diverse audience. [End Page 299]In the keynote lecture, titled "From Shelley to Braidotti: Posthuman Maternity in Netflix's I Am Mother," Borham Puyal traced a feminist genealogy of the streaming platform's latest speculative thriller by connecting it to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818). Puyal's talk occurred on International Women's Day and, in keeping with the overall seminar subtitle, "Gendered Geographies across Time," the speaker explored such topics as gendered corporealities, vulnerable bodies, and reproductive justice in a technological world. Through the lens of Rosi Braidotti's notion of posthumanism, Puyal investigated I Am Mother's (2019) alternative modes of maternity, belonging, and relationality; the speaker also reflected on the potential of speculative fiction and media to question and to imagine alternatives futures in response to our less-than-perfect present. Puyal's talk sparked a vibrant debate regarding precarity, surrogacy, and the fight for legal control over women and trans* people's bodies. Established professors, ECRs and undergraduate students alike debated the meanings of feminist speculation and posthumanism, particularly the nature of posthuman bodies. The audience responded enthusiastically to the nonhierarchical format of the discussion, which established the seminar—with five events yet to come—as a venue welcoming to everyone, regardless of their academic status or their familiarity with science and speculative fiction.The themes of posthuman perspectives and corporealities reappeared in "Beyond the Human: Posthuman and Ecocritical Perspectives," a panel taking place the following week. Lidia María Cuadrado Payeras (University of Salamanca), and Ana Tejero Marín (University of Salamanca) discussed a set of North American speculative novels that bring together the environmental humanities and posthumanist philosophy, transitioning from the topics of the opening keynote into those of the first thematic cluster. Cuadrado Payeras opened with a methodological discussion on genre and form, drawing from the works of both Braidotti and Margaret Atwood to argue for a queer approach to science fiction, fantasy, and speculative fiction, positioning these categories as porous rather than rigid and separate. Then, Cuadrado Payeras turned to contemporary Canadian authors to explore the nature/technology dyad and its relation to posthumanism. Moving the conversation toward the environmental humanities and the role of capitalism in the current climate crisis, Tejero Marín's talk addressed themes of worldbuilding, ecofeminism, and the Anthropocene in US-American science fiction. Afterward, she analyzed gendered conceptions of the earth and the nonhuman in N. K. Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy (2015–17), focusing on how the vengeful [End Page 300] Father Earth of Jemisin's work subverts traditional associations between femininity and nature. The first panel ended with a lively discussion, during which both speakers had the opportunity to discuss the necessity of understanding the environmental humanities and posthumanism in dialogue with one another, and the necessity of emphasizing the potential of contemporary stories to help us rethink our relationship... (shrink)

El propósito de este texto es abordar la problemática de las inteligencias artificiales y su incidencia en la sociedad contemporánea. Para ello, se realizan lecturas paralelas de las sociedades distópicas creadas por Isaac Asimov y Philip K. Dick. A partir de estas, se identifican algunos rasgos existentes en nuestro contexto inmediato, enfocándonos en tres ejes principales: la sociedad de vigilancia y control tecnológico, el problema de lo natural en los ciber-seres, y la visión del siglo XXI en la ciencia ficción (...) para analizar si esta es ilusoria o, por el contrario, forma parte de nuestra realidad inmediata. Todo esto con el fin de definir al género como un espejo de nuestro futuro, basándonos en la lectura de nuestro presente para interpretar los mundos posibles y el futuro como fuente de reflexión filosófica y tecnológica. En este artículo, analizaremos a grandes rasgos los elementos de la ciencia ficción de Isaac Asimov y Philip K. Dick, enfocándonos en aspectos como la naturalidad de los individuos, las sociedades de control y las líneas que separan lo humano de lo artificial como bases para la reflexión filosófica. A través de este ejercicio, examinaremos diversas obras de ambos autores, tales como El hombre bicentenario (Asimov 2019b), Satisfacción Garantizada (Asimov 2019a), La última pregunta (Asimov 2019a), ¿Sueñan los androides con ovejas eléctricas? (Dick 2017) y El hombre en el castillo (Dick 2021). El objetivo es identificar elementos que nos permitan interpretar el siglo XXI como una obra de ciencia ficción en constante desarrollo. (shrink)

The 1996 European Summer Meeting of the Association of Symbolic Logic was held held the University of the Basque Country, at Donostia (San Se bastian) Spain, on July 9-15, 1996. It was organised by the Institute for Logic, Cognition, Language and Information (ILCLI) and the Department of Logic and Philosophy of Sciences of the University of the Basque Coun try. It was supported by: the University of Pais Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unib ertsitatea, the Ministerio de Education y Ciencia (DGCYT), Hezkuntza Saila (...) (Eusko Jaurlaritza), Gipuzkoako Foru Aldundia, and Kuxta Fun dazioa. The main topics of the meeting were Model Theory, Proof Theory, Re cursion and Complexity Theory, Models of Arithmetic, Logic for Artifi cial Intelligence, Formal Semantics of Natural Language and Philosophy of Contemporary Logic. The Program Committee consisted of K. Ambos Spies (Heidelberg), J.L. Balcazar (Barcelona), J.E. Fenstad (Oslo), D. Israel (Stanford), H. Kamp (Stuttgart), R. Kaye (Birmingham), J.M. Larrazabal (San Sebastian), D. Lascar (Paris, chairman), A. Marcja (Firenze), G. Mints (Stanford), M. Otero (Madrid), S. Ronchi della Rocca (Torino), K. Segerberg (Uppsala) and L. Vega (Madrid). The organizing Committee consisted of X. Arrazola (San Sebastian), A. Arrieta (San Sebastian), R. Beneyeto (Valencia), B. Carrascal (San Se bastian), K. Korta (San Sebastian), J.M. Larrazabal (San Sebastian, chair man), J.C. Martinez (Barcelona), J.M. Mendez (Salamanca), F. Migura (Victoria) and J. Perez (Victoria). (shrink)

Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science are devoted to symposia, con gresses, colloquia, monographs and collected papers on the philosophical foundations of the sciences. It is now our pleasure to include A. A. Zi nov'ev's treatise on complex logic among these volumes. Zinov'ev is one of the most creative of modern Soviet logicians, and at the same time an innovative worker on the methodological foundations of science. More over, Zinov'ev, although still a developing scholar, has exerted a sub stantial (...) and stimulating influence upon his colleagues and students in Moscow and within other philosophical and logical circles of the Soviet Union. Hence it may be helpful, in bringing this present work to an English-reading audience, to review briefly some contemporary Soviet investigations into scientific methodology. During the 1950's, a vigorous new research program in logic was under taken, and the initial published work -characteristic of most Soviet pub lications in the logic and methodology of the sciences - was a collection of essays, Logical Investigations (Moscow, 1959). Among the authors, in addition to Zinov'ev himself, were the philosophers A. Kol'man and P. V. Tavanec, and the mathematicians and linguists, S. A. Janovskaja, A. S. Esenin-Vol'pin, S. K. Saumjan, G. N. Povarov. (shrink)

In Sebastian Thrun, Lawrence K. Saul, and Bernhard Schölkopf (eds), Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 16 (NIPS 2003). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 497-504.

Why do we seek out and enjoy uncertain success in playing games? Game designers and researchers suggest that games whose challenges match player skills afford engaging experiences of achievement, competence, or effectance—ofdoing well. Yet, current models struggle to explain why such balanced challenges best afford these experiences and do not straightforwardly account for the appeal of high- and low-challenge game genres like Idle and Soulslike games. In this article, we show that Predictive Processing (PP) provides a coherent formal cognitive framework (...) which can explain the fun in tackling game challenges with uncertain success as the dynamic process of reducing uncertainty surprisingly efficiently. In gameplay as elsewhere, people enjoydoing better than expected, which can track learning progress. In different forms, balanced, Idle, and Soulslike games alike afford regular accelerations of uncertainty reduction. We argue that this model also aligns with a popular practitioner model, Raph Koster’sTheory of Fun for Game Design, and can unify currently differentially modelled gameplay motives around competence and curiosity. (shrink)

In his book The Formation of Reason (2011), David Bakhurst asserts that the end of education is autonomy, which he explains is the power to determine what to do.

Vitalism is understood as impacting the history of the life sciences, medicine and philosophy, representing an epistemological challenge to the dominance of mechanism over the last 200 years, and partly revived with organicism in early theoretical biology. The contributions in this volume portray the history of vitalism from the end of the Enlightenment to the modern day, suggesting some reassessment of what it means both historically and conceptually. As such it includes a wide range of material, employing both historical and (...) philosophical methodologies, and it is divided fairly evenly between 19th and 20th century historical treatments and more contemporary analysis. This volume presents a significant contribution to the current literature in the history and philosophy of science and the history of medicine. (shrink)

One way to seek to reduce the risk of potential offenders engaging in certain types of crime in a public or semi-public area is to make it much more difficult, or even impossible, for them to gain access to the area in question and subject them to a sanction if they do enter the area. This paper considers whether preventive exclusion of this kind should be considered a pro tanto morally impermissible means of crime prevention because it violates the agency (...) of those excluded. Several variants of this agency objection to preventive exclusion are identified and critically assessed. It is argued that none persuasively show preventive exclusion to be pro tanto morally wrong. (shrink)

All forms of cognition, whether natural or artificial, are subject to constraints of their computing architecture. This assumption forms the tenet of virtually all general theories of cognition, including those deriving from bounded optimality and bounded rationality. In this letter, we highlight an unresolved puzzle related to this premise: what are these constraints, and why are cognitive architectures subject to cognitive constraints in the first place? First, we lay out some pieces along the puzzle edge, such as computational tradeoffs inherent (...) to neural architectures that give rise to rational bounds of cognition. We then outline critical next steps for characterizing cognitive bounds, proposing that some of these bounds can be subject to modification by cognition and, as such, are part of what is being optimized when cognitive agents decide how to allocate cognitive resources. We conclude that these emerging views may contribute to a more holistic perspective on the nature of cognitive bounds, as well as their alteration subject to cognition. (shrink)

The essay develops a disjunctive account of perception, showing that it needs to be renamed 'self-conscious power account'. For it is by reference to a self-conscious power of sensory knowledge that, on the one hand, the unity of perception and illusion and, on the other hand, the priority of perception over illusion, specifically, its priority in knowledge, is understood. The concept of a self-conscious power thus transpires as lying at the basis of a sound epistemology and response to sceptical arguments (...) such as the argument from illusion. (shrink)

We would like to thank an anonymous referee for his helpful comments on a previous version of this paper.

On corrupt practices in field of medicines in Thailand.