Information management systems improve the retention of information in large collections. As such they act as memory prostheses, implying an ideal basis in human memory models. Since humans process information by association, and situate it in the context of space and time, systems should maximize their effectiveness by mimicking these functions. Since human attentional capacity is limited, systems should scaffold cognitive efforts in a comprehensible manner. We propose the Principles of Mnemonic Associative Knowledge (P-MAK), which describes a framework for (...) semantically identifying, organizing, and retrieving information, and for encoding episodic events by time and stimuli. Inspired by prominent human memory models, we propose associative networks as a preferred representation. Networks are ideal for their parsimony, flexibility, and ease of inspection. Networks also possess topological properties—such as clusters, hubs, and the small world—that aid analysis and navigation in an information space. Our cognitive perspective addresses fundamental problems faced by information management systems, in particular the retrieval of related items and the representation of context. We present evidence from neuroscience and memory research in support of this approach, and discuss the implications of systems design within the constraints of P-MAK’s principles, using text documents as an illustrative semantic domain. (shrink)

A defining characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease is difficulty in retrieving semantic memories, or memories encoding facts and knowledge. While it has been suggested that this impairment is caused by a degradation of the semantic store, the precise ways in which the semantic store is degraded are not well understood. Using a longitudinal corpus of semantic fluency data, we derive semantic network representations of patients with Alzheimer’s disease and of healthy controls. We contrast our network-based approach with analyzing fluency data (...) with the standard method of counting the total number of items and perseverations in fluency data. We find that the networks of Alzheimer’s patients are more connected and that those connections are more randomly distributed than the connections in networks of healthy individuals. These results suggest that the semantic memory impairment of Alzheimer’s patients can be modeled through the inclusion of spurious associations between unrelated concepts in the semantic store. We also find that information from our network analysis of fluency data improves prediction of patient diagnosis compared to traditional measures of the semantic fluency task. (shrink)

SummaryThis paper examines the role of health knowledge in the association between mothers' education and use of maternal and child health services in Ghana. The study uses data from a nationally representative sample of female respondents to the 2008 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey. Ordered probit regression models evaluate whether women's health knowledge helps to explain use of three specific maternal and child health services: antenatal care, giving birth with the supervision of a trained professional and complete child (...) vaccination. The analyses reveal that mothers' years of formal education are strongly associated with health knowledge; health knowledge helps explain the association between maternal education and use of health services; and, net of a set of stringent demographic and socioeconomic controls, mothers' health knowledge is a key factor associated with use of health services. (shrink)

The First International Workshop brings together researchers from the theoretical ends of the logic programming and artificial intelligence communities to discuss their mutual interests. Logic programming deals with the use of models of mathematical logic as a way of programming computers, where theoretical AI deals with abstract issues in modeling and representing human knowledge and beliefs. One common ground is nonmonotonic reasoning, a family of logics that includes room for the kinds of variations that can be found in human (...) reasoning. Topics covered: Stable Semantics. Default Logic. AutoEpistemic Logic. Truth Maintenance Systems. Implementation Issues. Diagnosis. Applications. Inheritance Reasoning. Logics of Belief. Inconsistency and Non-Monotonicity. (shrink)

Academic misconduct runs rampant across higher education institutions in the US and internationally. Ample empirical research has identified myriad student variables that predict AM. However, two variables have been unexamined: the quality of conceptual knowledge university students have on AM and the relation between goals for going to university and reception to intervention on AM. Quantitative content analysis on written responses by 356 first-year university students reported surface-level knowledge of AM, frequent citation of extrinsic goals, and a lack (...) of association between goals and receptiveness to intervention. Results corroborate prior research on university students’ limited understanding of AM. Results suggest that efforts to address AM do not need to tailor intervention components to match students’ goals for attending university. (shrink)

BackgroundImplementing the routine consultation of patient advance directives in hospital emergency departments and emergency medical services has become essential, given that advance directives constitute the frame of reference for care personalisation and respect for patients’ values and preferences related to healthcare. The aim of this study was to assess the levels and relationship of knowledge and attitudes of nursing and medical professionals towards advance directives in hospital emergency departments and emergency medical services, and to determine the correlated and predictor (...) variables of favourable attitudes towards advance directives.MethodsObservational, descriptive, and cross-sectional study. The study was conducted in the emergency department of a second-level hospital and in the emergency medical service. Data collection was performed from January 2019 to February 2020. The STROBE guidelines were followed for the preparation of the study.ResultsA total of 173 healthcare professionals responded to the questionnaire. Among them, 91.3% considered that they were not sufficiently informed about advance directives, and 74% acknowledged not having incorporated them into their usual practice. Multinomial analysis indicated a statistically significant relationship between the variable emergency medical service and having more favourable attitudes towards consulting the advance directives in their practical application (OR 2.49 [95% CI 1.06–5.88]; p = 0.037) and compliance in complex scenarios (OR 3.65 [95% CI 1.58 − 8.41]; p = 0.002). Working the afternoon and night shift was a predictor variable for obtaining a higher score with respect to attitudes in complex scenarios.ConclusionThere is an association between the level of knowledge that nursing and medical professionals have about advance directives and the scores obtained on the attitude scales at the time of practical implementation and in complex scenarios. This shows that the more knowledge professionals have, the more likely they are to consult patients' advance directives and to respect their wishes and preferences for care and/or treatment. (shrink)

Emotion Review, Volume 14, Issue 1, Page 66-83, January 2022. To better define the boundaries of conceptually overlapping constructs of intrapersonal emotion knowledge, we examined meta-analytic correlations among five intrapersonal EK-related constructs and attention to emotion. Affect labelling, alexithymia, and emotional clarity were strongly associated, and they were moderately associated with attention to emotion. Alexithymia and emotional awareness were weakly associated, and emotion differentiation was unrelated with emotional clarity. Sample characteristics and measures moderated some of the (...) associations. Publication bias was not found, except for the alexithymia-emotional awareness association. This study helped to clarify the extent to which similarly defined constructs overlap or are distinct, which can inform our decision to adequately label important constructs and employ corresponding measures. (shrink)

Being able to measure informed choice represents a mechanism for service evaluation to monitor whether informed choice is achieved in practice. Approaches to measuring informed choice to date have been based in the biomedical hegemony. Overlooked is the effect of epistemic positioning, that is, how people are positioned as credible knowers in relation to knowledge tested as being relevant for informed choice. To identify and describe studies that have measured informed choice in the context of prenatal screening and to (...) describe epistemic positioning of pregnant people in these studies. Online databases to identify papers published from 2005 to 2021. The PRISMA-ScR checklist guided data collection, analysis and reporting. Secondary analysis that considered hermeneutics (e.g., knowledge that was tested, study design) and testimony (e.g., population descriptors) developed a priori. Twenty-nine studies explored the measurement of informed choice. None reported that pregnant people were involved in the design of the study. Two studies reported pregnant people had some involvement in the design of the measurement. Knowledge tested for informed choice included technical aspects of screening, conditions screened and mathematical concepts. Twenty-seven studies attributed informed choice to population descriptors (e.g., race/ethnicity, age, education). Population descriptors were reified as characteristics of epistemic credibility for informed choice obtained. For example, when compared to a high school qualification, a tertiary qualification was a statistically significant characteristic of informed choice. When compared by race, white people were found to be significantly more likely to make an informed choice. Additional demographic descriptors such as age, language spoken, faith and previous pregnancies were used to further explain differences for informed choice obtained. Explanations about underlying assumptions of population descriptors were infrequent. Using population descriptors in the biomedical hegemony as explanatory variables for informed choice can position (groups of) people as more, or less, epistemically credible. Such positioning could perpetuate epistemic injustices in practice leading to inequitable access to healthcare. To better uphold (pregnant) people as credible knowers population descriptors should instead be contextual (and contextualising) variables. For example, as indicators of social privilege. Further, making room for ways of knowing that go beyond the biomedical hegemony requires the development of epistemically just ‘measures’ through intentional, inclusive design. (shrink)

Using an Item response theory (IRT) analysis, this study examined ethnic and gender groups differences in exposure to content material (i.e. access to curriculum) assessed on the 12th grade NAEP US History 2010 exam. Employing multi-step data analysis procedures, authors examined race and gender using the NAEP Item Mapping Tool available through NCES. Results revealed item-level patterns, which suggest that females and Black students are more likely to answer questions, related to social history, particularly the Civil Rights, when accounting for (...) student achievement. While instructional exposure matters, how students of similar performance differentiate themselves on item response is related to demographics. These findings have substantial implications for social studies, which include the need to develop a more democratic curriculum that reflects the cultural identities of students in order to make history and history knowledge meaningful. Additionally, results have implications for tests. Assessments should be mindful of cultural validity of items and become more inclusive; perhaps aligning with a more culturally relevant curriculum. (shrink)

We live in a world that is increasingly shaped by and bathed in science, with most scientific progress occurring in the past century, and much of it in the past few decades. Yet, several authors have puz- zled over the observation that modern societies are also characterized by a high degree of belief in a variety of pseudoscientific claims that have been thoroughly debunked or otherwise discarded by scientists (Anonymous, 2001; Ede, 2000).

BackgroundRespecting patients’ confidentiality is an ethical and legal responsibility for health professionals and the cornerstone of care excellence. This study aims to assess health professionals’ knowledge, attitudes, and associated factors towards patients’ confidentiality in a resource-limited setting.MethodsInstitutional based cross-sectional study was conducted among 423 health professionals. Stratified sampling methods were used to select the participants, and a structured self-administer questionnaire was used for data collection. The data was entered using Epi-data version 4.6 and analyzed using SPSS, version 25. (...) Bi-variable and multivariable binary logistic regression analyses were used to measure the association between the dependent and independent variables. Odds ratio with 95% confidence intervals and P value was calculated to determine the strength of association and to evaluate statistical significance.ResultOut of 410 participants, about 59.8% with [95% CI (54.8–68.8%)] and 49.5% with [95% CI (44.5–54.5%)] had good knowledge and favorable attitude towards patents confidentiality respectively. Being male (AOR = 1.63, 95% CI [1.03–2.59]), taking training on medical ethics (AOR = 1.73, 95% CI = [1.11–2.70]), facing ethical dilemmas (AOR = 3.07, 95% CI [1.07–8.79]) were significantly associated factors for health professional knowledge towards patients’ confidentiality. Likewise, taking training on medical ethics (AOR = 2.30, 95% CI [1.42–3.72]), having direct contact with the patients (AOR = 3.06, 95% CI [1.12–8.34]), visiting more patient (AOR = 4.38, 95% CI [2.46–7.80]), and facing ethical dilemma (AOR = 3.56, 95% CI [1.23–10.26]) were significant factors associated with attitude of health professionals towards patient confidentiality.ConclusionThe findings of this study revealed that health professionals have a limited attitude towards patient confidentiality but have relatively good knowledge. Providing a continuing medical ethics training package for health workers before joining the hospital and in between the working time could be recommended to enhance health professionals’ knowledge and attitude towards patient confidentiality. (shrink)

This paper first conducts knowledge point association analysis on a large amount of data collected in practical applications. Data mining includes data collection, data preprocessing, actual mining, and result analysis, establishes knowledge point association rules table, and develops college English diagnostic practice system. Then, starting from the existing paper composition mode of the system, the knowledge point association rule table is introduced, and the knowledge point association relationship mining model is constructed using the association rule algorithm (...) to explore the potential influence relationship between different knowledge points that affect the improvement of learning quality. Finally, the data collected when the system is used is preprocessed, and the three dimensions of learning status evaluation, question-type association analysis, and college English score prediction are, respectively, modeled. Finally, after combining these submodels, a relatively complete and reliable diagnosis is obtained by evaluation model and related verification. (shrink)

Núñez and Fias raised concerns on whether our results demonstrate a linear number-space mapping. Patro and Nuerk urge caution on the use of animal models to understand the origin of the orientation of spatial–numerical association. Here, we discuss why both objections are unfounded.

Theory of mind competence and knowledge of emotions were studied longitudinally in a sample of preschoolers aged 3 (n=263) and 4 (n=244) years. Children were assessed using standard measures of theory of mind and emotion knowledge. Three competing hypotheses were tested regarding the developmental associations between children's theory of mind abilities and their knowledge of emotions. First, that an understanding of emotion develops early and informs children's understanding of others’ thinking. Alternatively, having a basic theory of mind (...) may help children learn about emotions. Third, that the two domains are separate aspects of children's social cognitive skills such that each area develops independently. Results of hierarchical regressions supported the first hypothesis that early emotion understanding predicts later theory-of-mind performance, and not the reverse. (shrink)

Available from UMI in association with The British Library. Requires signed TDF. ;This thesis undertakes two interrelated projects. The first is to give an account of the epistemology of testimony. However, as is argued, this cannot be done properly except as an application of a general philosophical account of knowledge. For this reason a partial sketch of such a general account is offered, as a necessary part of the completion of the first project. A complementary second project is also (...) adopted. This is the development of a distinctive account of knowledge as justified belief which provides a philosophical defence for the justification requirements on belief of common sense. ;The main distinctive feature of the account of knowledge proposed is the general type of justifications for belief which are argued to be adequate. These are the types of justifications which are commonly given in everyday life. Thus it is a 'common sense' justification theory, in this sense. ;It is so also in a second sense: the process of certifying these everyday justifications as adequate is made using the postulates of the 'commonsense' background metaphysic or conception of the world which all human subjects share. The central epistemological theses a partial defence of which is offered are that firstly, justifications for belief which are 'commonsense' in the first sense are so also in the second sense; secondly, that such justifications for a subject's beliefs are both adequate, and typically available to him. Thus the thesis argues for the view that knowledge, conceived as justified belief, is Attainable and indeed Abundant. ;Specific accounts are offered of the justifications of this general type which are associated with seeing and testimony. These two ways of acquiring beliefs are compared, and disanalogies are found between them which are argued to show a disanalogy in their epistemology. (shrink)

Knowledge and Postmodernism in Historical Perspective offers answers to the questions, what is postmodernism? and what exactly are the characteristics of the modernism that postmodernism supercedes? This comprehensive reader chronicles the western engagement with the nature of knowledge during the past four centuries while providing the historical context for the postmodernist thought of Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Richard Rorty and Hayden White, and the challenges their ideas have posed to our conventional ways of thinking, writing and knowing. From (...) the science of things to the science of human beings to the grand social theorizing associated with Adam Smith, Alexis de Tocqueville, Karl Marx and Max Weber, Knowledge and Postmodernism in Historical Perspective presents readings from the succession of thinkers whose writings helped define modern sensibilities by analyzing the human capacity for generating knowledge. The volume follows the knowledge-generating project of the modern age as it blossoms in the Enlightenment and bears fruit in the nineteenth century. The writings included reveal the linkages between science, the history of science, hermeneutics, anthropology, sociology, linguistics and philosophy from Francis Bacon's call for experimental engagement with nature in the seventeenth century to Jurgen Habermas' recent analysis of the civil society spawned by the Enlightenment. (shrink)

Expert knowledge - a concept associated with Ryle’s distinction of knowledgethat and knowledge-how - functions in distinct areas of knowledge and social expertise. Consisting of both propositional and procedural knowledge, expertise is performative in its essence. It depends not only on expert’s experience and cognitive competences, but also on his or her social and institutional position. The paper considers the role of heuristic and intuitional abilities, including particular experts’ cognitive biases, as the vital and indispensable (...) part of expertise. On the basis of selected managerial and juridical examples it analyzes the epistemological issues: the autonomy versus dependence of expert knowledge as well as the influence of social-cognitive circumstances on expertise. (shrink)

Background of the study: Physiotherapists in Nigeria renewed their practicing license annually through the regulatory body and are provided with the professional code of ethics which stipulate the appropriate conduct, behaviour to guild and regulate the practice of their profession however, the level of knowledge, attitude and application of the ethical guidelines by Nigerian physiotherapists need to be investigated. Aim of Study: This study assessed the knowledge, attitude and perception of Nigerian physiotherapists in relation to the ethics of (...) their professional practice. Methodology: The cross-sectional study recruited 117 licenced Physiotherapists working in various health institutions in Nigeria. They were recruited for the study during the 2018 annual scientific conference of clinical and academic physiotherapists in Nigeria. Data on demographic, work experience, knowledge, attitude and perception of ethics of professional practise were obtained using a self-administered questionnaire. Data were summarized using a descriptive statistics of percentage and frequency distribution. Results: All the participants 117 (100%) had copies of code of ethics and oath of professional practise. 74.6% of participants had good knowledge of code of professional ethics while 25.39% had poor knowledge. Only 40.8% (48) of the respondents demonstrated good attitudes toward code of professional ethics. Similarly, only 43.4% (51) of the respondents demonstrated good attitude towards oath of professional practise. 57.0 % of the respondents have heard about ethical misconduct among colleagues while only 13.60% have been involved in ethical misconduct with respect to colleagues or patients. Greater proportion of the respondents (78.2%) considered ethics in physiotherapy as very important while 43.4% supported the introduction of physiotherapy ethics as a course to physiotherapy students in year three of their undergraduate training. Conclusion: Majority of Nigerian physiotherapists have good knowledge of professional code of ethics and oath of professional practise, however, their attitudes towards periodic updating their knowledge on code of ethics and professional oath remain poor. Clinical implication and recommendation: Ethical matter are very important to the practise of physiotherapy, however the poor attitudes of physiotherapy toward updating their knowledge on ethical matters calls for the need for the regulatory body and the professional association to organise seminars and workshops on ethics in physiotherapy and introduce pre-renewal test on ethics before annual licence renewal. (shrink)

When, how, and why students use conceptual knowledge during math problem solving is not well understood. We propose that when solving routine problems, students are more likely to recruit conceptual knowledge if their procedural knowledge is weak than if it is strong, and that in this context, metacognitive processes, specifically feelings of doubt, mediate interactions between procedural and conceptual knowledge. To test these hypotheses, in two studies (Ns = 64 and 138), university students solved fraction and (...) decimal arithmetic problems while thinking aloud; verbal protocols and written work were coded for overt uses of conceptual knowledge and displays of doubt. Consistent with the hypotheses, use of conceptual knowledge during calculation was not significantly positively associated with accuracy, but was positively associated with displays of doubt, which were negatively associated with accuracy. In Study 1, participants also explained solutions to rational arithmetic problems; using conceptual knowledge in this context was positively correlated with calculation accuracy, but only among participants who did not use conceptual knowledge during calculation, suggesting that the correlation did not reflect “online” effects of using conceptual knowledge. In Study 2, participants also completed a nonroutine problem‐solving task; displays of doubt on this task were positively associated with accuracy, suggesting that metacognitive processes play different roles when solving routine and nonroutine problems. We discuss implications of the results regarding interactions between procedural knowledge, conceptual knowledge, and metacognitive processes in math problem solving. (shrink)

I am very grateful to Kluwer Academic Publishers for the opportunity to republish these articles about knowledge and language. The Introduction to the volume has been written by James Logue, and I need to pay a very sincerely intended tribute to the care and professionalism which he has devoted to every feature of its production. My thanks are also due to Matthew MeG rattan for his technical as sistance in scanning the articles onto disk and formatting them. 1. Jonathan (...) Cohen vii Publisher's Note Thanks are due to the following publishers for permission to reproduce the articles in this volume. On the project of a universal character. Oxford University Press. Paper 1 On a concept of a degree of grammaticalness. Logique et Analyse. Paper 2 Paper 3 The semantics of metaphor. Cambridge University Press. Paper 4 Can the logic of indirect discourse be formalised? The Association for Symbolic Logic. Paper 5 Some remarks on Grice's views about the logical particles of natural language. Kluwer Academic Publishers. Paper 6 Can the conversationalist hypothesis be defended? Kluwer Academic Publishers. Paper 7 How is conceptual innovation possible? Kluwer Academic Publishers. Should natural language definitions be insulated from, or interactive Paper 8 with, one another in sentence composition? Kluwer Academic Publish ers. Paper 9 A problem about truth-functional semantics. Basil Blackwell Publisher Ltd. Paper 10 The individuation of proper names. Oxford University Press. Paper 11 Some comments on third world epistemology. Oxford University Press. Paper 12 Guessing. The Aristotelian Society. (shrink)

We investigated associations between moral reasoning and epistemological beliefs in an accounting context using the sample of 140 senior accounting students from a public university in Midwestern U. S. We found no significant correlations between accounting students' principled reasoning about Thome's ethical dilemmas and their beliefs about knowledge measured by administering Schommer epistemological questionnaire. We conducted post-hoc power analysis and present the evidence that the lack of associations should not be attributed to the lack of power. Overall, our results (...) suggest that reflective thinking and moral reasoning represent separate dimensions of cognitive process which develop at a different pace. Thus, a stand-alone course of ethics in accounting education is warranted since higher moral reasoning does not automatically follow from extended technical education and improved critical thinking skills. (shrink)

Background:Admission to a nursing home does not necessarily diminish an older person’s desire for sexual expression and fulfillment. Given that nursing staff directly and indirectly influence the range of acceptable sexual expressions of nursing home residents, their knowledge and attitudes toward aged sexuality can have far-reaching effects on both the quality of care they provide to residents and the self-image and well-being of these residents.Research objectives:To investigate nursing staff’s knowledge and attitudes toward aged sexuality, to determine whether certain (...) sociodemographic factors of the nursing staff relate to their knowledge and attitudes toward later-life sexuality, and to examine the relationship between knowledge and attitudes.Research design:Descriptive cross-sectional survey study.Research participants and research context:The administered questionnaire collected sociodemographic data and data from an adapted, Dutch version of the Aging Sexual Knowledge and Attitudes Scale. Data were collected from November 2011 through April 2012. A total of 43 geographically dispersed nursing homes in Flanders, Belgium, participated. Out of a potential research sample of 2228 nursing staff respondents, 1166 participated.Ethical considerations:The study protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Medicine of the KU Leuven.Findings:Nursing staff appeared to be moderately knowledgeable about aged sexuality and displayed a rather positive attitude toward sexuality in older people. Significant relationships between various variables were found both at univariable and multivariable levels. Knowledge and attitudes proved to be positively related, indicating that a higher level of knowledge of aged sexuality is associated with a more positive attitude toward sexuality in later life.Discussion:Research findings are discussed within a broader international context.Conclusion:There is room for improvement for both nursing staff’s knowledge and attitudes toward aged sexuality. This might be aided by appropriate educational interventions. Our results identified different target groups of nursing home staff for these interventions. (shrink)

Knowledge of pedagogy and social studies content influences a teacher's decision making and helps teachers conduct sound instructional practices despite the influence of high-stakes testing policies. Using national data from the Survey of the Status of Social Studies (S4), this study examined the associations of teachers’ professional characteristics, school environmental factors, and state testing policy on self-reported levels of authority that secondary level social studies teachers (grades 6–12) hold over key classroom tasks. Through hierarchical multiple regression analysis, key findings (...) from this study indicated that greater minority enrollments are associated with lower levels of instructional authority. Teachers who worked in states where a state-mandated social studies test was administered reported less freedom to choose what to teach and how to teach than those in non-testing states. Also, this study showed that in-field status, the type of licensure, and years of teaching experience are important factors in exercising social studies teachers’ instructional authority (e.g., their ability to balance effectively the demands of state-mandated reforms with teaching for meaningful student learning). This study recommends that schools with high minority enrollments, especially if these districts exist in a high stakes testing environment, should invest in teachers with high-quality social studies preparation. (shrink)

Kleinberg describes a novel procedure for efficient search in a dense hyper-linked environment, such as the world wide web. The procedure exploits information implicit in the links between pages so as to identify patterns of connectivity indicative of “authorative sources”. At a more general level, the trick is to use this second-order link-structure information to rapidly and cheaply identify the knowledge-structures most likely to be relevant given a specific input. I shall argue that Kleinberg’s procedure is suggestive of a (...) new, viable, and neuroscientifically plausible solution to at least the so-called “Frame Problem” in cognitive science viz the problem of explaining global abductive inference. More accurately, I shall argue that Kleinberg’s procedure suggests a new variety of “fast and frugal heuristic” ) capable of pressing maximum utility from the vast bodies of information and associations commanded by the biological brain. The paper thus takes up the challenge laid down by Fodor ). Fodor depicts the problem of global knowledge-based reason as the point source of many paradigmatic failings of contemporary computational theories of mind. These failings, Fodor goes on to argue, cannot be remedied by any simple appeal to alternative modes of encoding and processing. I shall show, however, that connectionist models can provide for one neurologically plausible incarnation of Kleinberg’s procedure. The paper ends by noting that current commercial applications increasingly confront the kinds of challenge initially posed to biological thought and reason. (shrink)

Since taking office, the President of the United States has consistently refused to make his tax returns available for public scrutiny. In so doing, he has broken with presidential tradition and kept people guessing about what his tax returns would show if they were disclosed. Interestingly enough, in the absence of concrete knowledge about the President’s tax circumstances, some taxpayers perceive that he did not pay his fair share and others perceive that he did. This situation presents an opportunity (...) for us to consider how vertical equity perceptions about the President’s fair share of taxes, and identification with the President via voting behavior, are jointly associated with taxpayers’ compliance. Using insights from equity theory as reported in Adams Advances in experimental social psychology, Academic Press, New York, 1965) and social learning theory as reported in Bandura, we anticipate and find that those taxpayers who perceive that the President did not pay his fair share of taxes and who most closely socially identify with him have the lowest tax compliance. We use a survey of 600 American taxpayers to capture their perceptions of vertical equity, voting behavior, and tax compliance intentions. Our results may reflect that taxpayers who identify with the President will tend to model his tax-related actions, or may also indicate that some taxpayers vote for a president whose actions are similar to their own. Insights and implications for ethics and tax researchers and tax policy makers are discussed. (shrink)

This work contributes to the development of a theoretical context of the politics of truth about animals. By applying and extending Foucault's theory of power, this work uncovers dominant and subjugated discourses about animals and describes power-knowledge associated with statements about animals that are understood to convey true things.

David Miller propounds a theory of objective knowledge from which he mistakenly derives some consequences about question-begging and persuasion that appear to be false. He makes a further claim about persuasion that also seems false. I argue that Miller’s account of objective knowledge is explanatorily weak unless supplemented with an account of subjective knowledge and that the latter enables us to extricate Miller’s theory from the falsehoods he associates with it.

The contemporary consensus in analytic philosophy concerning cultural relativism is: it is impossible to formulate relativism coherently, diversity does not provide good reason for accepting relativist conclusions anyway, and if relativism is false, or incoherent, then cross-cultural disagreement, however intractable, raises no important epistemological challenge. I challenge every aspect of this consensus in the light of contemporary theories of reference and knowledge, focussing on various traditional cultures' supernatural explanations of illness. ;I defend the coherence of relativism against standard objections, (...) arguing that: it is possible to make sense of the claim that a sentence has different truth-conditions in different frameworks, while, in significant respects, retaining the same meaning; cultural relativism does not rule out the possibility of rational discussion between distinct cultural traditions; even self-referential relativist theses are neither self-refuting nor self-undermining. I suggest a distinctive way of arguing from cross-cultural differences to relativism, which is plausible, though inconclusive. ;I then argue that the alternative to relativism about rationally irresolvable cross-cultural disagreement is skepticism. Far from undermining the anthropological challenge to the objective justification of our beliefs--as might be thought--naturalistic epistemology and semantics themselves provide reasons to appreciate the force of this challenge, though they require us to rethink its nature. Reliability of belief production or regulation is not sufficient to provide knowledge, or even justification, in cases in which rival methods of belief assessment pose salient alternatives and there is no "neutral" reason for supposing one method to be more reliable. If, as I argue, neutral reasons for rejecting traditional methods of witchcraft detection are not available, then we do not know that witches do not exist. The resulting skepticism, however, would be a fairly circumscribed one. Most scientific beliefs we ordinarily take to be well confirmed--including beliefs about unobservable entities--remain so on the standards I defend. What proves less epistemically secure are the deeper metaphysical commitment to materialism and naturalism associated with Western science, commitments underlying our rejection of supernatural explanations of illness. (shrink)

Alcohol addiction can lead to health and social problems. It can also affect people's emotions. Emotion plays a key role in human communications. It is important to recognize the people's emotions at the court and infer the association between the people's emotions and the alcohol addiction. However, it is challenging to recognize people's emotions efficiently in the courtroom. Furthermore, to the best of our knowledge, no existing work is about the association between alcohol addiction and people's emotions at court. (...) In this paper, we propose a deep learning framework for predicting people's emotions based on sound perception, named ResCNN-SER. The proposed model combines several neural network-based components to extract the features of the speech signals and predict the emotions. The evaluation shows that the proposed model performs better than existing methods. By applying ResCNN-SER for emotion recognition based on people's voices at court, we infer the association between alcohol addiction and the defendant's emotion at court. Based on the sound source data from 54 trial records, we found that the defendants with alcohol addiction tend to get angry or fearful more easily at court comparing with defendants without alcohol addiction. (shrink)

For more than a decade, scholars and practitioners have noted the disconnection between E&C and CSR practices in US corporations and called for their alignment. There is scant literature on why this lack of alignment persists. This article applies communities of practice theory to illuminate the separate learning trajectories that the E&C and CSR fields in the US have taken over the past twenty five years, anchored by their respective professional associations. This article provides an important perspective on the role (...) that n, boundaries, ethics and compliance, corporate social responsibility communities of practice play in reifying the knowledge and competencies within E&C and CSR, and the boundaries to collaboration that exist between their managers and practices. It also calls attention to the fact that alignment is not the only alternate trajectory that these practices and their communities may take in the future, and five distinct evolutionary paths are explored. (shrink)

The concept of knowledge is a concept formed and operated by active beings who need to direct their activity. This, according to Craig, explains two features associated with the concept of knowledge: the fact that we want true beliefs, and the fact that we actively seek the truth and therefore try to ‘track’ it, rather than merely hoping to hit it.

In “Elusive Knowledge” (1996), David Lewis deduces contextualism about 'knowledge' from an analysis of the nature of knowledge. For Lewis, the context relativity of 'knowledge' depends upon the fact that knowledge that p implies the elimination of all the possibilities in which ~p. But since 'all' is context relative, 'knowledge' is also context relative. In contrast to Lewis, in Knowledge and Practical Interests (2005), Jason Stanley argues that since all context sensitive expressions can (...) have different interpretations within the same discourse, contextualists cannot consistently embrace the following two claims: (i) 'knowledge' functions like a quantifier and (ii) distinct occurrences of 'knowledge' within the same discourse must be associated with the same standard. In response to Stanley, in my paper, I argue that (i) and (ii) are both true. More specifically, I argue that with the help of global domains, we can overcome Stanley’s objections to Lewis and, accordingly, provide the linguistic basis that epistemic contextualism needs. (shrink)

This study explored tacit knowledge based on an expert nurse's practice who cares for stroke patients by using the hermeneutic phenomenological approach. The participant (‘Ms. A’) was a nursing researcher and college faculty member involved in the education of advanced practice nurses; her specialty was stroke rehabilitation nursing. She was asked to describe the meaning and value she gained from her memorable nursing experiences. Four interviews—approximately 1 h each—were conducted, and the associated data were interpreted together with the (...) participant based on the method of interpretive circulation. Notably, the analysis was ended when a fusion of horizons was recognized. The participant recalled her nursing experiences based on six model cases. During the analysis, the following five elements were extracted: [belief in the ability of vulnerable people to survive]; [being together]; [respect for human dignity]; [preparedness to respond to and bear suffering together]; and [theoretical knowledge base approaches true understanding of patient experience]. Further, the nursing model—the Roy Adaptation Model—utilized by Ms. A in the process of recognizing humans as whole beings was deeply interpreted and implemented as a guideline for her implicit advanced practice. Moreover, her deep understanding and utilization of theoretical knowledge base also built the foundation for her implicit advanced practice. In conclusion, Ms. A's tacit knowledge and the elements support the process of tacit knowledge acquisition. Her narratives, hermeneutic attitude as an interpreter, and learning attitude throughout interaction with others will strongly help her knowledge development. We intend to continue the study with multiple participants and explore the structure of tacit knowledge possessed by advanced practitioners. Future endeavours will include the development of a tacit knowledge learning strategy. (shrink)

Methodical doubt is usually associated with Descartes. However, it is with Francis Bacon that its function and scope are first recognized – as a preliminary stage in the attainment of knowledge, and as an epistemological tool (a rule) for achieving true knowledge. In this paper, I follow the various steps of construction and use of Baconian doubt as it appears in the first book of the New Organon. I will argue that Bacon - in distancing himself from (...) traditional scepticism – will come to conceive methodical doubt not only as a procedure for renovating knowledge, but more specifically as a prescriptive condition for identifying what 'mind' is required to pursue the aim of renovating knowledge. (shrink)

SummaryIn this paper I will strive towards three main objectives. First of all, I will try to show that a very commonplace property of knowledge, that of yielding truth, can be used to characterize an ideal and radical notion of knowledge. It will be argued that this property generates a basic and autonomous concept of knowledge, i.e., a purely logical concept of knowledge that can be clearly separated from the psychological, intentional or epistemological aspects of (...) class='Hi'>knowledge. What results can thus be regarded as a kind of reduction of the concept of knowledge to that of truth. This reduction will be expressed by means of a criterion which a relation between an agent and a sentence must satisfy in order to be interpreted as exemplifying the relation of knowing.Secondly, 1 will offer an analysis of presuppositional knowledge which shows how the very strong and ideal notion of knowledge previously developed can be useful in interpreting the ordinary use of “knowing”.My third and last objective will be to use this criterion to characterize formally the semantic interpretation associated to a rational and competent agent, i.e. the space of his knowledge. (shrink)

ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to investigate possible associations between obstructive sleep apnea and fatigue. This naturally led to considering the association between OSA and excessive sleepiness, depression, and anxiety.BackgroundOSA is a highly prevalent sleep disorder, associated with a risk of hypertension, cardiovascular events, daytime sleepiness, poor cognitive function, and sudden death during sleep. Both excessive sleepiness, fatigue, and symptoms of depression are frequently reported.Method5,464 patients referred to a university hospital for obstructive sleep apnea underwent standard respiratory polygraphy. (...) The severity of OSA was defined as either mild, moderate, or severe, using the apnea–hypopnea index. Validated questionnaires were used to assess excessive sleepiness, pathological fatigue, depression, and anxiety.ResultsNearly 70% of the patients were men, and median age was 50 years. One in three had moderate-to-severe OSA. Excessive sleepiness and pathological fatigue were present in 43 and 39%, respectively. The prevalence of possible depression and anxiety was 19 and 28%, respectively. The proportion of patients with male sex, obesity, and excessive sleepiness increased with the severity of OSA. In contrast, the proportion of patients with pathological fatigue did not increase with OSA severity, and there was a decrease in depression and anxiety with increasing OSA severity.ConclusionOur study reports that pathological fatigue, as well as anxiety and depression, did not increase with OSA severity, whereas excessive sleepiness did. Knowledge concerning conditions related to OSA severity may be indicative of pretest probability of OSA and thus change the priority for polygraphy. Furthermore, the high prevalence rates of fatigue, anxiety, and depression among these patients warrant further investigations. (shrink)

Event sequences or scripts are the conceptual representations of activities in memory. Traditional views hold that events are represented in amodal networks and are retrieved by associative strategies. The embodied cognition approach holds that knowledge is grounded in perception and retrieved by mental simulation. We used a script generation task where event sequences of activities had to be produced. Activities varied in their degree of familiarity. In a regressional design we investigated whether amodal or perceptual variables best predicted (...) class='Hi'>knowledge retrieval to gain insight into the underlying representation. Retrieval depended on the familiarity of the activity. While novel activities mainly relied on perception‐based simulation and to a lesser extent on associative strategies, moderately familiar activities showed the opposite pattern, and events of familiar activities were retrieved by association alone. We conclude that amodal structures exist in all representations that become stronger with increasing frequency and finally prevail over perceptual structures. (shrink)

Does greater knowledge help or hinder one’s ability to coordinate with others? While individual expertise can reveal a suitable focal point to converge on, ‘blissful’ ignorance may systematically bias decisions towards it through mere recognition. Our experiment finds in favour of the former possibility. Both specific and general knowledge are significantly associated with success in four of five coordination problems as well as over all. Our analysis suggests that more knowledgeable participants are better able to identify focal (...) decision alternatives because they are aware of more such alternatives and possess more relevant information about each. (shrink)

How can we identify and estimate workers’ tacit knowledge? How can we design a personnel mix aimed at improving and speeding up its transfer and development? How is it possible to implement tacit knowledge sustainable projects in remote areas? In order to answer these questions, it is necessary to distinguish between types of tacit knowledge, to establish what they allow for and to consider their sources. It is also essential to find a way of managing the tacit (...) knowledge ‘stock’ and distribution within the workforce. In short, a conceptual framework is needed to manage tacit knowledge. Based on previous works and 2 years of action research, this paper introduces such a framework and describes its partial application to support the pre-operational training and hiring in a large industrial plant in Brazil. Two contributions emerge from the research. First, the concept of ‘levels of similarity’ is introduced as a means to qualify the experience of workers and estimate the associated tacit knowledge. Second, the capability of carrying out three types of judgement properly and speedily is put forward as being a core ability of those who possess what has been called ‘collective tacit knowledge’ (Collins in Organ Stud 28(2):257–262, 2007). In practical terms, the results indicate the opportunity for companies to capitalize on the experience and tacit knowledge of their workers in a systematic way and with due recognition. Ultimately, positive impacts are expected in their absorptive capacity as well as in their management and human resources systems, accident prevention, productivity and the development of sustainable projects in remote areas. (shrink)