This book provides a fresh perspective on what it takes to be a successful and effective leader in higher education.

How do minds emerge from developing brains? According to the representational features of cortex are built from the dynamic interaction between neural growth mechanisms and environmentally derived neural activity. Contrary to popular selectionist models that emphasize regressive mechanisms, the neurobiological evidence suggests that this growth is a progressive increase in the representational properties of cortex. The interaction between the environment and neural growth results in a flexible type of learning: minimizes the need for prespecification in accordance with recent neurobiological evidence (...) that the developing cerebral cortex is largely free of domain-specific structure. Instead, the representational properties of cortex are built by the nature of the problem domain confronting it. This uniquely powerful and general learning strategy undermines the central assumption of classical learnability theory, that the learning properties of a system can be deduced from a fixed computational architecture. Neural constructivism suggests that the evolutionary emergence of neocortex in mammals is a progression toward more flexible representational structures, in contrast to the popular view of cortical evolution as an increase in innate, specialized circuits. Human cortical postnatal development is also more extensive and protracted than generally supposed, suggesting that cortex has evolved so as to maximize the capacity of environmental structure to shape its structure and function through constructive learning. (shrink)

Learning procedural skills involves improvement in speed and accuracy. Walker proposes two stages of memory consolidation: enhancement, which requires sleep, and stabilization, which does not require sleep. Speed improvement for a motor learning task but not accuracy occurs after sleep-dependent enhancement. We discuss this finding in the context of computational models and underlying sleep mechanisms.

Long‐term potentiation and long‐term depression are thought to be cellular mechanisms contributing to learning and memory. Although the physiological phenomena have been well characterized, little consensus of their underlying molecular mechanisms has emerged. One reason for this may be the under‐appreciated complexity of the signaling pathways that can arise if key signaling molecules are discretely localized within the synapse. Recent findings suggest an unanticipated degree of structural organization at the synapse, and improved methods in cellular imaging of living tissue have (...) provided much‐needed information about the intracellular dynamics of Ca2+, thought to be critical for both LTP and LTD. In this review, we briefly summarize some of these developments, and show that a more complete understanding of cellular signaling depends on the successful integration of traditional biochemistry and molecular biology with the spatial and temporal details of synaptic ultrastructure. Biophysically realistic computer simulations can have an important role in bridging these disciplines. BioEssays 24:1130–1144, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Although working memory capacity and executive function contribute to human intelligence, we question whether there is an equivalence between them and fluid intelligence. We contend that any satisfactory neurobiological explanation of fluid intelligence needs to include abstraction as an important computational component of brain processing. (Published Online April 5 2006).

Anydomainofscientificresearchhasitssustainingorthodoxy. Thatis, research on a problem, whether in astronomy, physics, or biology, is con- ducted against a backdrop of broadly shared assumptions. It is these as- sumptionsthatguideinquiryandprovidethecanonofwhatisreasonable-- of what "makes sense." And it is these shared assumptions that constitute a framework for the interpretation of research results. Research on the problem of how we see is likewise sustained by broadly shared assump- tions, where the current orthodoxy embraces the very general idea that the business of the visual system is to (...) create a detailed replica of the visual world, and that it accomplishes its business via hierarchical organization and by operatingessentiallyindependently of other sensorymodalitiesas well as independently of previous learning, goals, motor planning, and motor execution. (shrink)

These four volumes are part of the forty-one volume set _New Accents_. First launched in 1977, the New Accents series rapidly changed the face of literary studies. Its clear and concise volumes brought the latest in literary theory to students and academics and paved the way for undergraduate teaching on essential new topics and approaches.

This paper investigates board judgment in response to management led buyouts (MLBs). Board response is suggested to be guided by the business judgment rule and its dual duties of care and loyalty. The duty of loyalty is seen to be evolving into a specification of fair dealing. With this trend, the current interpretation of the business judgment rule emphasizes the role of care and relies on the market to insure fairness. Possible failures in the MLB market which limit its effectiveness (...) in assuring fairness are discussed. Recommendations to counteract these failures are suggested. (shrink)

Building Better Health Care Leadership for Canada explains the development and implementation of the Executive Training in Research Application program. Managed and funded by the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation in partnership with the Canadian Medical Association, the Canadian Nursing Association, and the Canadian College of Health Care executives, EXTRA is a two-year national fellowship program that uses the principles of adult learning theory as well as practical projects to educate senior health care leaders in making more consistent use of (...) research evidence in their management roles. Fellows apply the theory learned in residency sessions and educational activities to projects within their home organizations. The authors identify the imperative for better use of evidence, outline the core elements of the curriculum, and capture the real-world experience of regional leaders and fellows involved in making specific changes informed by research-based evidence within their organization. Contributors include Jean-Louis Denis, Terrence Sullivan, Owen Adams, Malcolm Anderson, Lynda Atack, Robert Bell, Sam G Campbell, Sylvie Cantin, Ward Flemons, Dorothy Forbes, J. Sonja Glass, Paula Goering, Karen Golden-Biddle, Jeffrey S. Hoch, Paul Lamarche, Ann Langley, John N. Lavis, Jonathan Lomas, Margo Orchard, Raynald Pineault, Brian D. Postl, Christine Power, Trish Reay, Jean Rochon, Denis A. Roy, Andrea Seymour, Samuel B. Sheps, Micheline Ste-Marie, Nina Stipich, David Streiner, Carl Taillon, and Muriah Umoquit. (shrink)

Biomedical research on advanced cryopreservation has spillover effects on innovation in the food and agricultural sector. Advanced biopreservation technology has three key domains of impact in the food system: (1) improving efficiencies in storage and utilization of gametes and organoids for plant and animal breeding; (2) isochoric methods for preservation of fresh food products; and (3) in biorepositories for storage of genetic resources for agriculturally significant plants and livestock species.

Tilley argues that since religions are not summaries of bloodless beliefs but embodied communal practices, the heuristic for the justification of beliefs must shift. Although some of the lines of this shift to practical wisdom remain vague, Tilley has taken philosophy of religion in an excellent direction. Attention to these questions would sharpen his sketch: Why abandon linguistic philosophy with no attention to the help one might receive from the embodied linguistic practice of the later Wittgenstein? What grounds the wisdom (...) we seek to practice? Can community outsiders argue with insiders? Do these embodied philosophical arguments differ from theological arguments? (shrink)

Jonathan A. Oler,1,4 Andrew S. Fox,2,5 Steven E. Shelton,1,4 Bradley T. Christian, 1,3,5 Dhanabalan Murali,3,5 Terrence R. Oakes,5 Richard J. Davidson,1,2,4,5 and Ned H. Kalin1,2,4,5..

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Report on the Tenth European Network of Buddhist-Christian Studies Conference:History as a Challenge to Buddhism and ChristianityJohn O’Grady, Elizabeth J. Harris, and Jonathan A. SeitzThe Tenth Conference of the European Network of Buddhist-Christian Studies (ENBCS) brought together between sixty and seventy people at the Oude Abdij, Drongen, Belgium, between 27 June and 1 July 2013, to examine the theme “History as a Challenge to Buddhism and Christianity.” It was (...) a collaborative effort between the ENBCS and the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. The 2011 ENBCS conference had focused on whether hope was a relevant concept for Buddhists and Christians. The choice of history as a theme complemented this. It also resonated with a research concern of both KU Leuven and the Network.Five key themes were chosen for examination: the traditional Christian and Buddhist conceptions of history; Jesus and the Buddha: fact and fiction; Buddhist and Christian historiography; dangerous memory in Christianity and Buddhism; and permitting historical consciousness in Buddhism and Christianity. Each was approached from a Buddhist and a Christian perspective. An opening lecture addressed the theme “Modern Historical Consciousness and the Challenge to Religion.” In addition, eighteen research papers on Buddhist-Christian relations were given in parallel sessions on Friday evening and Saturday morning. These covered topics as various as the writings of Edmund Pezet (Pierre Gillet), Paul Knitter’s understanding of Buddhist-Christian double belonging (Achim Riggert), Keiji Nishitani and the death of God (Jonatan Navarro Estrada), the encounter of Zen Buddhism and Christianity in the works of D. T. Suzuki (Mariusz Rucki), Buddhist-Christian encounters by Han Yong Woon (Seung Chul Kim), and “Liberating the Conflict from ‘History’ in Sri Lanka” (Jude Lal Fernando).Perry Schmidt-Leukel (Münster, Germany), in the opening lecture, discussed [End Page 189] seven challenges that modern historical consciousness was posing to religion: the challenge of falsification (when historical evidence, for example, showed some doctrines cherished by believers were not taught by the founder), the challenge of uncertainty or methodological doubt, the challenge of methodological naturalism (should a natural explanation be considered more probable than a supernatural one?), the challenge of the distance between past and present, the challenge of change (religions are not static), the challenge of demystification, and the challenge of relativity (the writing of history is perspectival, conditioned by context). He stressed that it would be a blessing to religion if these challenges were faced and, throughout the conference, encouraged other speakers to face them.The first theme was tackled by Mark Blum (Berkeley, USA) from a Buddhist perspective and Jan-Olav Henriksen (Norwegian School of Theology) from a Christian perspective. In a magisterial historical and geographical survey of the Buddhist tradition, Blum first noted that no one had unearthed a traditional notion of Buddhist history in the early texts. The theme of decline and reformation had been taken from Indian cosmology, but with a Buddhist twist and the conviction that it was pointless to talk about beginnings. And in the growth of the Mahāyāna tradition, a dehistoricization of the Buddha had occurred in the belief that the Buddha’s dharma-body was his only “real” body.Henriksen argued that Christian salvation history had its origin in the narrative of the Fall, an event for which there was no historical evidence, and developed into a history of God’s call (election) to all people that they should be brought together in community. It was a history that was linked with the divine logos, a force that Christian theology has seen as deeply interwoven into creation from the beginning of time and that was made human in Jesus.Terrence Merrigan (KU Leuven, Belgium), giving a Christian perspective on the second theme, distinguished three quests or attempts to reach the historical Jesus. The first, from 1774 to 1906, sought to uncover the Jesus that had been obscured by dogma. It imploded with the realization that separating “core” from “myth” was impossible, and conditioned a reactive “no-quest” in the first half of the twentieth century. A “new quest” arose in the 1950s, initiated by Käsemann’s reaction to the theologies of Barth and Bultmann. A further quest that appealed to archaeology and the... (shrink)

人工智慧 (AI) 對醫學－生命倫理學的影響是當今不可忽視的話題，亦是頗有爭議的話題。自2007年以來，美國IBM的華生醫生(Dr. Watson) 通過認知運算 (Cognitive Computing)，從事疾病 的早期發現、治療方法及新藥研發等工作。近幾年，AI科技得到突飛猛進的發展，其機器學習演算法 (machine learning algorisms) 持續對人類社會帶來前所未有的改變。AI工具如OpenAI公司的ChatGPT、Sora，微軟的“必應”(Bing)，穀歌的“巴德”(Bard) 以及醫療大模型 (PaLM2)。高級自然語言處理模型的出現，掀起 了通過人工智慧聊天機器人收集資訊、回答醫療問題的新浪潮。美國加州大學聖地亞哥分校神經生物學教授泰倫斯．塞諾夫斯基 (Terrence J. Sejnowski) 在一次有關人工智慧未來展望的會議上明確指出，“人工智慧的最新進展似乎是革命性的，但我們才剛剛起步——未來超出了我們有限的想像範圍。”(Sejnowski,“GPT: From Brains to the Talking Dog”)。目前人工智慧在中國的發展亦是與日俱增，其未來的發展問題以及其背後的倫理思考愈來愈受到學者的關注，是否運用AI技術建構的人工智慧系統的問題已經轉向如何運用AI技術建構的人工智慧系統的問題。( 撮要取自內文首段).

Part I: The Life of Cognitive Science:. William Bechtel, Adele Abrahamsen, and George Graham. Part II: Areas of Study in Cognitive Science:. 1. Analogy: Dedre Gentner. 2. Animal Cognition: Herbert L. Roitblat. 3. Attention: A.H.C. Van Der Heijden. 4. Brain Mapping: Jennifer Mundale. 5. Cognitive Anthropology: Charles W. Nuckolls. 6. Cognitive and Linguistic Development: Adele Abrahamsen. 7. Conceptual Change: Nancy J. Nersessian. 8. Conceptual Organization: Douglas Medin and Sandra R. Waxman. 9. Consciousness: Owen Flanagan. 10. Decision Making: J. Frank Yates (...) and Paul A. Estin. 11. Emotions: Paul E. Griffiths. 12. Imagery and Spatial Representation: Rita E. Anderson. 13. Language Evolution and Neuromechanisms: Terrence W. Deacon. 14. Language Processing: Kathryn Bock and Susan M. Garnsey. 15. Linguistics Theory: D. Terence Langendoen. 16. Machine Learning: Paul Thagard. 17. Memory: Henry L. Roediger III and Lyn M. Goff. 18. Perception: Cees Van Leeuwen. 19. Perception: Color: Austen Clark. 20. Problem Solving: Kevin Dunbar. 21. Reasoning: Lance J. Rips. 22. Social Cognition: Alan J. Lambert and Alison L. Chasteen. 23. Unconscious Intelligence: Rhianon Allen and Arthur S. Reber. 24. Understanding Texts: Art Graesser and Pam Tipping. 25. Word Meaning: Barbara C. Malt. Part III: Methodologies of Cognitive Science:. 26. Artificial Intelligence: Ron Sun. 27. Behavioral Experimentation: Alexander Pollatsek and Keith Rayner. 28. Cognitive Ethology: Marc Bekoff. 29. Deficits and Pathologies: Christopher D. Frith. 30. Ethnomethodology: Barry Saferstein. 31. Functional Analysis: Brian Macwhinney. 32. Neuroimaging: Randy L. Buckner and Steven E. Petersen. 33. Protocal Analysis: K. Anders Ericsson. 34. Single Neuron Electrophysiology: B. E. Stein, M.T. Wallace, and T.R. Stanford. 35. Structural Analysis: Robert Frank. Part IV: Stances in Cognitive Science:. 36. Case-based Reasoning: David B. Leake. 37. Cognitive Linguistics: Michael Tomasello. 38. Connectionism, Artificial Life, and Dynamical Systems: Jeffrey L. Elman. 39. Embodied, Situated, and Distributed Cognition: Andy Clark. 40. Mediated Action: James V. Wertsch. 41. Neurobiological Modeling: P. Read Montague and Peter Dayan. 42. Production Systems: Christian D. Schunn and David Klahr. Part V: Controversies in Cognitive Science:. 43. The Binding Problem: Valerie Gray Hardcastle. 44. Heuristics and Satisficing: Robert C. Richardson. 45. Innate Knowledge: Barbara Landau. 46. Innateness and Emergentism: Elizabeth Bates, Jeffrey L. Elman, Mark H. Johnson, Annette Karmiloff-Smith, Domenico Parisi, and Kim Plunkett. 47. Intentionality: Gilbert Harman. 48. Levels of Explanation and Cognition Architectures: Robert N. McCauley. 49. Modularity: Irene Appelbaum. 50. Representation and Computation: Robert S. Stufflebeam. 51. Representations: Dorrit Billman. 52. Rules: Terence Horgan and John Tienson. 53. Stage Theories Refuted: Donald G. Mackay. Part VI: Cognitive Science in the Real World:. 54. Education: John T. Bruer. 55. Ethics: Mark L. Johnson. 56. Everyday Life Environments: Alex Kirlik. 57. Institutions and Economics: Douglass C. North. 58. Legal Reasoning: Edwina L. Rissland. 59. Mental Retardation: Norman W. Bray, Kevin D. Reilly, Lisa F. Huffman, Lisa A. Grupe, Mark F. Villa, Kathryn L. Fletcher, and Vivek Anumolu. 60. Science: William F. Brewer and Punyashloke Mishra. Selective Biographies of Major Contributors to Cognitive Science: William Bechtel and Tadeusz Zawidzki. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to present a possible theoretical articulation between Terrence Deacon’s concept of ententionality and the concept of pertinence as posed by semio-linguist Luis J. Prieto. The advantage of such articulation is that it brings together two seemingly incompatible approaches within semiotics, namely the Peircean and the Saussurean ones. We start by subscribing to the definition of semiotics as the study of forms of knowledge in order to highlight the importance of analyzing intentional phenomena as (...) semiosic phenomena. Afterwards, we present the concept of ententionality and the levels of organization that ultimately set the conditions for entention to emerge. Then, we present an analysis of this concept aided by Prieto’s notion of pertinence. Our main conclusion is that ententionality and teleodynamic organization presupposes the existence of a pertinence principle that enables the recognition of differences in the extrinsic conditions of a system, and that such recognition of differences is at the basis of proper intentional phenomena. (shrink)

Large Language Models (LLMs) have been transformative. They are pre-trained foundational models that are self-supervised and can be adapted with fine tuning to a wide range of natural language tasks, each of which previously would have required a separate network model. This is one step closer to the extraordinary versatility of human language. GPT-3 and more recently LaMDA can carry on dialogs with humans on many topics after minimal priming with a few examples. However, there has been a wide range (...) of reactions and debate on whether these LLMs understand what they are saying or exhibit signs of intelligence. This high variance is exhibited in three interviews with LLMs reaching wildly different conclusions. A new possibility was uncovered that could explain this divergence. What appears to be intelligence in LLMs may in fact be a mirror that reflects the intelligence of the interviewer, a remarkable twist that could be considered a Reverse Turing Test. If so, then by studying interviews we may be learning more about the intelligence and beliefs of the interviewer than the intelligence of the LLMs. As LLMs become more capable they may transform the way we interact with machines and how they interact with each other. Increasingly, LLMs are being coupled with sensorimotor devices. LLMs can talk the talk, but can they walk the walk? A road map for achieving artificial general autonomy is outlined with seven major improvements inspired by brain systems. LLMs could be used to uncover new insights into brain function by downloading brain data during natural behaviors. (shrink)