The Hospital of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York City was founded on the hypothesis that direct contact with illness is a strong force in igniting the curiosity and energy that can, from time to time, lead to great leaps in our understanding of human biology and disease. This was repeatedly proven at the Hospital, a special locale where the “prepared minds” of physicians uncovered new facts that often led to effective treatments. It is neither a hospital (...) nor a laboratory, but a hospital-laboratory, which celebrated its 100th birthday in 2010. Although this was a first for America, the idea had been in the minds of European and British physician-investigators from the late 19th .. (shrink)

The Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg remains largely unexplored as far as social science is concerned. An excellent study in electoral sociology by Jules Gérard-Libois gives interesting insights and points out rather convincingly that Luxembourg is endowed with a political system that has a marked degree of specificity, be it from the point of view of the electoral system, electoral habits or the social structure in general. It shows in particular that owing to the rather peculiar electoral system, a large party (...) diversity and a dynamic regionalism is fostered.Consequently, the systematic study of small political entities such as Luxembourg enables a considerable and genuine refinement of political analysis. (shrink)

Model evaluation for long-term climate predictions must be done on quantities other than the actual prediction, and a comprehensive uncertainty quantificationUncertainty quantification is impossible. An ad hoc alternative is provided by coordinated model intercomparisonsModel intercomparisons which typically use a “one model one vote” approach. The problem with such an approach is that it treats all models as independent and equally plausible. Reweighting all models of the ensemble for performance and dependence seems like an obvious way to improve on model democracy, (...) yet there are open questions on what constitutes a “good” model, how to define dependency, how to interpret robustnessRobustness, and how to incorporate background knowledgeBackground knowledge. UnderstandingUnderstanding those issues have the potential to increase confidence in model predictions in modeling efforts outside of climate scienceClimate science where similar challenges exist. (shrink)

Primero repasaremos algunos de los múltiples interrogantes interpretativos que dejó abiertos la Crítica del Juicio de Kant, sobre todo en lo que se refiere a una eventual configuración definitiva del sistema de las facultades y el estatuto de la propia filosofía crítica. A continuación, nos centraremos en la filosofía estética de Schelling, tal como esta se desarrolla en su Sistema del Idealismo trascendental, donde el arte ofrece a la filosofía un producto que esta puede considerar como representación del conflicto dialéctico (...) entre las facultades kantianas. Las implicaciones de ello serán 1) un peculiar estatuto de lo bello, que aparece como representación de una imposibilidad esencial al discurso, 2) una reformulación del Yo como devenir, y 3) sustituir la filosofía por el arte. El progreso de este devenir no es lineal, de modo que la dialéctica representada en la obra de arte oscilará también entre el inicio y el final de la autoconciencia. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question of how the ups and downs in the development of artificial intelligence (AI) since its inception can be explained. It focuses on the development of artificial intelligence in Germany since the 1970s, and particularly on its current dynamics. An assumption is made that a mere reference to rapid advances in information technologies and the various methods and concepts of artificial intelligence in recent decades cannot adequately explain these dynamics, because from a social science perspective, this (...) is an oversimplified, technology-centred explanation. Drawing on ideas from social scientific innovation research, the hypothesis is rather that artificial intelligence should be understood as a “promising technology”. Its various stages of development have always been driven by technological promises about its special powers and capabilities when applied to solving economic and societal challenges. (shrink)

First Published in 1991. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Gadamer's book extends and codifies the main hermeneutical concepts of Bultmann, Heidegger, and their adherents, and can be considered a summa of what Robinson calls "The New Hermeneutic." By Robinson and other theologians, and by Continental literary critics, Wahrheit und Methode has been welcomed as a philosophical justification for "vital and relevant" interpretations that are unencumbered by a concern for the author's original intention. On this point "The New Hermeneutic" reveals its affinities with "The New Criticism" and the newer "Myth (...) Criticism." All three have impugned the author's prerogative to be the determiner of textual meaning. Gadamer, however, grounds his anti-intentionalism only partially in aesthetics and not at all in the collective unconscious but primarily in the radical historicism of Martin Heidegger. (shrink)

The article asks why and how Hannah Arendt framed The Human Condition as a history of modern science. It answers that, in telling the history of instrumental rationality and the work of the experim...

We outline a simple approach to axiomatising the class of representable relation algebras, using games. We discuss generalisations of the method to cylindric algebras, homogeneous and complete representations, and atom structures of relation algebras.

We define a finite relation algebra and show that the network satisfaction problem is undecidable for this algebra.

This contribution is an attempt to integrate the notion of conceptual blending (Fauconnier and Turner 1998; Fauconnier and Turner 2002; and Fauconnier and Turner 2003) and Linda Hutcheon’s (1985) view of parody as a form of repetition maintaining a critical distance, through the analysis of a multimodal Internet meme. The case study chosen is a parodic music video of the Knack’s classic hit My Sharona, showing the absurdity in everyday life during the times of the Covid-19 pandemic. The study is (...) thus based on two conceptual paradigms: Blending Theory and Pragmatic Studies of Parody. (shrink)

Demonic composition, demonic refinement and demonic union are alternatives to the usual ‘angelic’ composition, angelic refinement (inclusion) and angelic (usual) union defined on binary relations. We first motivate both the angelic and the demonic via an analysis of the behaviour of non-deterministic programs, with the angelic associated with partial correctness and demonic with total correctness, both cases emerging from a richer algebraic model of non-deterministic programs incorporating both aspects. Zareckiĭ has shown that the isomorphism class of algebras of binary relations (...) under angelic composition and inclusion is finitely axiomatized as the class of ordered semigroups. The proof can be used to establish that the same axiomatization applies to binary relations under demonic composition and refinement, and a further modification of the proof can be used to incorporate a zero element representing the empty relation in the angelic case and the full relation in the demonic case. For the signature of angelic composition and union, it is known that no finite axiomatization exists, and we show the analogous result for demonic composition and demonic union by showing that the same axiomatization holds for both. We show that the isomorphism class of algebras of binary relations with the ‘mixed’ signature of demonic composition and angelic inclusion has no finite axiomatization. As a contrast, we show that the isomorphism class of partial algebras of binary relations with the partial operation of constellation product and inclusion (also a ‘mixed’ signature) is finitely axiomatizable. (shrink)

How can we find any satisfying assignment for a Boolean formula that has many satisfying assignments? There exists an obvious randomized algorithm for solving this problem: one can just pick an assignment at random and check the truth value of the formula for this assignment, this is iterated until a satisfying assignment occurs. Does there exist a polynomial-time deterministic algorithm that solves the same problem? This paper presents such an algorithm and shows that its worst-case running time is linear when (...) input formulas are in k-CNF and a fraction of satisfying assignments is greater than a constant. This algorithm is almost the same as the algorithm proposed by Monien and Speckenmeyer in the early 1980s for less than 2n steps 3-SAT decision.Another result of this paper is that if a formula in k-CNF has many satisfying assignments, then there exists a short satisfying assignment, i.e. an assignment of truth values to a small number of variables. The proposed algorithm yields just such a short satisfying assignment. We also show that there exist formulas in general CNF having many satisfying assignments, that have no short satisfying assignments. (shrink)

Timothy Williamson has argued that the safety condition on knowledge places certain limits on iterations of knowledge. But at the same time, Williamson claims that interpersonal iterations of knowledge aren’t so restricted as to rule out ordinary cases. The present authors show that Williamson’s discussion misconstrues the challenge to iterated interpersonal knowledge. The proper argument against interpersonal iterations is rather what the authors call a third-person argument that does not share the major weaknesses of the argument Williamson considers. The challenge (...) that the safety condition poses to interpersonal iterations of knowledge therefore seems robust, even in ordinary cases. But the authors also identify an underlying assumption that their argument relies on, and they show that Williamson’s original argument as well as his argument against intrapersonal iterations of knowledge rely on analogous assumptions. In assessing the extent of the clash between safety and iterated knowledge, the focus must be on the viability of these assumptions. (shrink)

A successful writer and committed feminist's search for spiritual wholeness after a career crisis, the sudden death of her brother, and the birth of her son moves her to seek out a range of remarkable women who are consciously tryng to live in balance.

This open access book explains how leading business organizations attempt to achieve the responsible and ethical use of artificial intelligence (AI) and other advanced information technologies. These technologies can produce tremendous insights and benefits. But they can also invade privacy, perpetuate bias, and otherwise injure people and society. To use these technologies successfully, organizations need to implement them responsibly and ethically. The question is: how to do this? Data ethics management, and this book, provide some answers. -/- The authors interviewed (...) and surveyed data ethics managers at leading companies. They asked why these experts see data ethics as important and how they seek to achieve it. This book conveys the results of that research on a concise, accessible way. -/- Much of the existing writing on data and AI ethics focuses either on macro-level ethical principles, or on micro-level product design and tooling. The interviews showed that companies need a third component: data ethics management. This third element consists of the management structures, processes, training and substantive benchmarks that companies use to operationalize their high-level ethical principles and to guide and hold accountable their developers. Data ethics management is the connective tissue makes ethical principles real. It is the focus of this book. -/- This book should be of use to organizations that wish to improve their own data ethics management efforts, legislators and policymakers who hope to build on existing management practices, scholars who study beyond compliance business behavior, and members of the public who want to understand better the threats that AI poses and how to reduce them. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to propose a model that distinguishes between irony and humor in the context of literary texts. The comparative model was constructed based on existing models, and elaborated on them, substantiating the model through textual analysis focusing on cues for irony and cues for humor . The research was based on four conceptual paradigms: pragmatic studies of irony, pragmatic studies of humor, a pragmatic approach to the study of literary texts, and theories of text interpretation. (...) The textual analysis was based on an existing model for the interpretation of indirect speaker's meanings , and on the concepts “cues“ and “clues“ as employed in that model. (shrink)