Aristotle's Politics is widely recognized as one of the classics of the history of political philosophy, and like every other such masterpiece, it is a work about which there is deep division.

A judgement analysis of people's social inferences of attitudes and ability was conducted. University students were asked to infer the liberalness ( N = 60; Study 1) or intelligence ( N = 40; Study 2) of targets seen in pictures. Multiple regression analyses revealed that attractiveness was the most important cue for predicting inferences of liberalness, while an ethnic cue (i.e., being Asian) was the most important cue for judgements about intelligence. Results also showed that a single-cue model was less (...) susceptible to overfitting, but significantly less accurate than a multiple-cue model in predicting participant's intelligence judgements. Although the multiple regression models suffered a degree of overfitting, cross validation showed that they continued to have significant predictive value when applied to new data. Furthermore, a “random partner” method (comparing each participant's own regression equation with that of another, randomly selected, participant) provided evidence of significant idiosyncratic variation in the way intelligence judgements were made. (shrink)

Confucian ethics play a pivotal role in guiding Chinese thinking and behaviour. Aesthetic leadership is emerging as a promising paradigm in leadership studies. This study investigates the practice of aesthetic leadership in Chinese organizations on the basis of Chinese philosophical foundations. We adopt a process perspective to access the aesthetic constellation of meanings present in the Chinese understanding of leadership, linking normative Confucian values to a pragmatic value rational world view, that rests on an ontology of vaguely defined norms that (...) are malleable to different cultural contexts. Value rational pragmatism is explored in order to develop a deeper understanding of normative aesthetic leadership in China and to contrast it to instrumental aesthetic leadership. We empirically demonstrate the contextual specificity of aesthetic leadership in eight Chinese private- and state-owned enterprises (POEs and SOEs) through qualitative case studies. The findings provide a deeper insight into Chinese aesthetic leadership by proposing a dynamic leadership approach, from both ethical and instrumental perspectives, in the Chinese context. (shrink)

The phenomenological effects of deep brain stimulation (DBS) on the self of the patient remains poorly understood and under described in the literature, despite growing evidence that a significant number of patients experience postoperative neuropsychiatric changes. To address this lack of phenomenological evidence, we conducted in-depth, semistructured interviews with 17 patients with Parkinson's disease who had undergone DBS. Exploring the subjective character specific to patients' experience of being implanted gives empirical and conceptual understanding of the potential phenomenon of DBS-induced self-estrangement. (...) Our study concluded that (1) the more patients preoperatively felt alienated by their illness, the more they experienced postoperative self-estrangement, and (2) the notion of self-estrangement seems to exist in association with certain common qualitative characters, namely, loss of control, which reflects a deteriorative estrangement, and distorted perception of capacities, which reveals a restorative estrangement. These findings indicate that subjective self-reports help us to understand some aspects of the potential phenomenon of DBS-induced self-estrangement. (shrink)

Academic dishonesty, including cheating and plagiarism, is on the rise in colleges, particularly among engineering students. While students decide to engage in these behaviors for many different reasons, academic integrity training can help improve their understanding of ethical decision making. The two studies outlined in this paper assess the effectiveness of an online module in increasing academic integrity among first semester engineering students. Study 1 tested the effectiveness of an academic honesty tutorial by using a between groups design with a (...) Time 1- and Time 2-test. An academic honesty quiz assessed participants’ knowledge at both time points. Study 2, which incorporated an improved version of the module and quiz, utilized a between groups design with three assessment time points. The additional Time 3-test allowed researchers to test for retention of information. Results were analyzed using ANCOVA and t tests. In Study 1, the experimental group exhibited significant improvement on the plagiarism items, but not the total score. However, at Time 2 there was no significant difference between groups after controlling for Time 1 scores. In Study 2, between- and within-group analyses suggest there was a significant improvement in total scores, but not plagiarism scores, after exposure to the tutorial. Overall, the academic integrity module impacted participants as evidenced by changes in total score and on specific plagiarism items. Although future implementation of the tutorial and quiz would benefit from modifications to reduce ceiling effects and improve assessment of knowledge, the results suggest such tutorial may be one valuable element in a systems approach to improving the academic integrity of engineering students. (shrink)

Scientific discovery is often regarded as romantic and creative - and hence unanalyzable - whereas the everyday process of verifying discoveries is sober and more suited to analysis. Yet this fascinating exploration of how scientific work proceeds argues that however sudden the moment of discovery may seem, the discovery process can be described and modeled. Using the methods and concepts of contemporary information-processing psychology (or cognitive science) the authors develop a series of artificial-intelligence programs that can simulate the human thought (...) processes used to discover scientific laws. The programs - BACON, DALTON, GLAUBER, and STAHL - are all largely data-driven, that is, when presented with series of chemical or physical measurements they search for uniformities and linking elements, generating and checking hypotheses and creating new concepts as they go along. "Scientific Discovery examines the nature of scientific research and reviews the arguments for and against a normative theory of discovery; describes the evolution of the BACON programs, which discover quantitative empirical laws and invent new concepts; presents programs that discover laws in qualitative and quantitative data; and ties the results together, suggesting how a combined and extended program might find research problems, invent new instruments, and invent appropriate problem representations. Numerous prominent historical examples of discoveries from physics and chemistry are used as tests for the programs and anchor the discussion concretely in the history of science. Pat Langley is an Associate Professor in the Department of Information and Computer Science at the University of California, Irvine.Herbert Simon is a Professor in the Departments of Psychology, Computer Science, and Philosophy at Carnegie-Mellon University. Gary L. Bradshaw is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology and Institute of Cognitive Science at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Jan M. Zytkow is an Associate Professor in the Computer Science Department at Wichita State University. (shrink)

Traditional analyses of the curve fitting problem maintain that the data do not indicate what form the fitted curve should take. Rather, this issue is said to be settled by prior probabilities, by simplicity, or by a background theory. In this paper, we describe a result due to Akaike [1973], which shows how the data can underwrite an inference concerning the curve's form based on an estimate of how predictively accurate it will be. We argue that this approach throws light (...) on the theoretical virtues of parsimoniousness, unification, and non ad hocness, on the dispute about Bayesianism, and on empiricism and scientific realism. * Both of us gratefully acknowledge support from the Graduate School at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and NSF grant DIR-8822278 (M.F.) and NSF grant SBE-9212294 (E.S.). Special thanks go to A. W. F. Edwards.William Harper. Martin Leckey. Brian Skyrms, and especially Peter Turney for helpful comments on an earlier draft. (shrink)

BackgroundThe ARRIVE (Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments) guidelines are widely endorsed but compliance is limited. We sought to determine whether journal-requested completion of an ARRIVE checklist improves full compliance with the guidelines.MethodsIn a randomised controlled trial, manuscripts reporting in vivo animal research submitted to PLOS ONE (March–June 2015) were randomly allocated to either requested completion of an ARRIVE checklist or current standard practice. Authors, academic editors, and peer reviewers were blinded to group allocation. Trained reviewers performed outcome adjudication (...) in duplicate by assessing manuscripts against an operationalised version of the ARRIVE guidelines that consists 108 items. Our primary outcome was the between-group differences in the proportion of manuscripts meeting all ARRIVE guideline checklist subitems.ResultsWe randomised 1689 manuscripts (control: n = 844, intervention: n = 845), of which 1269 were sent for peer review and 762 (control: n = 340; intervention: n = 332) accepted for publication. No manuscript in either group achieved full compliance with the ARRIVE checklist. Details of animal husbandry (ARRIVE subitem 9b) was the only subitem to show improvements in reporting, with the proportion of compliant manuscripts rising from 52.1 to 74.1% (X2 = 34.0, df = 1, p = 2.1 × 10−7) in the control and intervention groups, respectively.ConclusionsThese results suggest that altering the editorial process to include requests for a completed ARRIVE checklist is not enough to improve compliance with the ARRIVE guidelines. Other approaches, such as more stringent editorial policies or a targeted approach on key quality items, may promote improvements in reporting. (shrink)

As part of his recent study of ‘Narration and allusion in Archaic Greek Art’, Professor A. M. Snodgrass has cause to treat of the famous Attic black-figure vase which depicts Circe handing a cup containing her sinister brew to one of Odysseus’ sailors. She is stirring it with her wand the while, and yet this sailor, and three companions besides, have already been transformed into various animals. Professor Snodgrass has no difficulty in explaining the apparent simultaneity of separate events here (...) and elsewhere on this vase-painting as relating to what he calls the ‘synoptic’ technique of early Greek Art, that familiar device whereby several successive episodes in a narrative are presented together within the same picture. And he is inclined towards a similar line of explanation as regards the partial transformation of Odysseus’ ἑταῖροι: the artist ‘wished to express the passage of time by indicating a half-way stage in the transformation’. (shrink)

Malcolm-Smith, Solms, Turnbull and Tredoux [Malcolm-Smith, S., Solms, M., Turnbull, O., & Tredoux, C. . Threat in dreams: An adaptation? Consciousness and Cognition, 17, 1281–1291.] conducted a rigorous study that sampled two populations differentially exposed to threat in real life, and found that critical predictions from the Threat Simulation Theory of dreams [Revonsuo, A. . The reinterpretation of dreams: An evolutionary hypothesis of the function of dreaming. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 23, 877-901.; Revonsuo, A. . Did ancestral humans (...) dream for their lives? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 23, 1063–1082.] were not supported. Specifically, we found no evidence of increased realistic threats to physical survival or enhanced threat avoidance in the dreams of those from the exposed population. Revonsuo and Valli’s [Revonsuo, A., & Valli, K. . How to test the threat simulation theory. Consciousness and Cognition, 17, 1292-1296.] commentary on our study argues that the methods we used are so flawed as to render the results meaningless. In this response article, we address the criticisms raised in their commentary. (shrink)

I found a manin a roomsprawl awkwardat a dying angletickingat his bed’s endat his life’s endpast the end of his witsand his wife’sin a roomround the end of their lives.He trembled his vows againheld his cachectic bellepast her life’s endtheir last toast the mercy kill.I found himticking slowlyshe colddeliveredwaiting on his life.His survivalobliging inquiryof motiveof methodI hurriedhim off to hergentlest of homicides.Two mounds in a room, coolingpast fear, post suicide.

The distinction itself is best explained as follows. At the empirical level (at the bottom), there are curves, or functions, or laws, such as PV = constant the Boyle’s example, or a = M/r 2 in Newton’s example. The first point is that such formulae are actually ambiguous as to the hypotheses they represent. They can be understood in two ways. In order to make this point clear, let me first introduce a terminological distinction between variables and parameters. Acceleration and (...) distance (a and r) are variables in Newton’s formula because they represent quantities that are more or less directly measured. The distinction between what is directly measured and what it is not is to be understood relative the context. All I mean is that values of acceleration and distance are determined independently of the hypothesis, or theory, under consideration. I do not mean that their determination involves no kind of inference at all. For instance, acceleration is the instantaneous change in velocity per unit time, and this is not something that is directly determined from raw data that records the position of the moon at consecutive points in time. It is consistent with that raw data that the motion of the moon is actually discontinuous, so that the moon has no acceleration. So, there are definitely theoretical assumptions make about the moon’s motion that are used to estimate the moon’s acceleration at a particular time. But these assumptions are not unique to Newton’s theory. The same assumptions are also made by the rival hypotheses under consideration. In fact, the existence of quantities such as instantaneous acceleration is only called into question by the far more recent theory of quantum mechanics. Likewise, in the case of Boyle’s law, there is no controversy in viewing the volume of the trapped air as being determined in a way that does not make use of the theory that Boyle is introducing. (shrink)

Puzzle solving in normal science involves a process of accommodation—auxiliary assumptions are changed, and parameter values are adjusted so as to eliminate the known discrepancies with the data. Accommodation is often contrasted with prediction. Predictions happen when one achieves a good fit with novel data without accommodation. So, what exactly is the distinction, and why is it important? The distinction, as I understand it, is relative to a model M and a data set D, where M is a set of (...) equations with adjustable parameters (i. e., M is a family of equations with no free parameters). Definition: Model M predicts data D if and only if either (a) all members of M fit D well, or (b) a particular predictive hypothesis is selected from M by fitting M to other data, and the fitted model fits D well. M merely accommodates D if and only if (i) M does not predict D, and (ii) the predictive hypothesis selected from M using other data does not fit D well. There will be cases in which a model M neither predicts nor accommodates D. These are the cases in which we are willing to say that data falsifies the model. So, the distinction between prediction and accommodation applies only when there is no falsification. (shrink)

Whewell, William (b Lancaster, England, 24 May 1794; d Cambridge, England, 6 March 1866) Born the eldest son of a carpenter, William Whewell rose to become Master of Trinity College, Cambridge and a central figure in Victorian science. After attending the grammar school at Heversham in Westmorland, Whewell entered Trinity College, Cambridge and graduated Second Wrangler. He became a Fellow of the College in 1817, took his M.A. degree in 1819, and his D.D. degree in 1844.