Klagetraditionen: Form und Funktion der Klage in den Kulturen der Antike. Edited by Margaret Jaques. Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis, vol. 251. Fribourg, Switzerland: Academic Press, 2011. Pp. vii + 110, illus. SF35.

The occurrence of hiccoughs (hiccups) is very widespread and yet their neuronal origin and physiological significance are still unresolved. Several hypotheses have been proposed. Here we consider a phylogenetic perspective, starting from the concept that the ventilatory central pattern generator of lower vertebrates provides the base upon which central pattern generators of higher vertebrates develop. Hiccoughs are characterized by glottal closure during inspiration and by early development in relation to lung ventilation. They are inhibited when the concentration of inhaled CO2 (...) is increased and they can be abolished by the drug baclofen (an agonist of the GABAB receptor). These properties are shared by ventilatory motor patterns of lower vertebrates, leading to the hypothesis that hiccough is the expression of archaic motor patterns and particularly the motor pattern of gill ventilation in bimodal breathers such as most frogs. A circuit that can generate hiccoughs may persist in mammals because it has permitted the development of pattern generators for other useful functions of the pharynx and chest wall muscles, such as suckling or eupneic breathing. BioEssays 25:182–188, 2003. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Meetings are complex institutional events at which participants recurrently negotiate institutional roles, which are oriented to, renegotiated, and sometimes challenged. With a view to gaining further understanding of the ongoing negotiation of roles at meetings, this article examines one specific recurring feature of meetings: the act of proposing future action. Based on microanalysis of video recordings of two-party strategy meetings, the study shows that participants orient to at least two aspects when making proposals: 1) the acceptance or rejection of the (...) proposal; and 2) questions of entitlement: who is entitled to launch a proposal, and who is entitled to accept or reject it? The study argues that there is a close interrelation between questions of entitlement, aligning and affiliating moves, and the negotiation of institutional roles. The multimodal analysis also reveals the use of various embodied practices by participants for the local negotiation of entitlement and institutional roles. (shrink)

This paper investigates how talk and practical action are coordinated during one type of activity involving professional communication: the service-­assessment sequence in hair salons. During this activity, a practical inspection of the haircut must be coupled with sequentially produced verbal acts. Our analysis of four examples reveals that there is no fixed relationship between the organization of talk and practical action. Instead, people manipulate this relationship on a moment-by-moment basis, often coordinating the two into a single, integral package, or relying (...) on one stream of action to achieve progress in the other. These findings imply that some multimodal activities that are brought into alignment may have their own, separate and independent procedural logic and sequencing patterns and that these can be brought into play to create or deal with constraints in each other. (shrink)

Humans have great locomotor adaptability to environmental demands, which has been investigated using a split-belt treadmill with belts on both the left and right sides. Thus far, neuromuscular control in split-belt locomotor adaptation has been evaluated by analyzing muscle activities at the individual muscle level. Meanwhile, in the motor control field, the muscle synergy concept has been proposed. Muscle synergies are considered the fundamental building blocks of movement and are groups of coactive muscles and time-varying activation patterns, thereby, reflecting the (...) neurophysiological characteristics of movement. To date, it remains unclear how such muscle synergies change during the adaptation and de-adaptation processes on the split-belt treadmill. Hence, we chronologically extracted muscle synergies while walking on the split-belt treadmill and examined changes in the number, muscle weightings, and temporal activation patterns of muscle synergies. Twelve healthy young males participated, and surface electromyography signals were recorded bilaterally from 13 lower-limb muscles. Muscle synergies were extracted by applying non-negative matrix factorization to the EMG data of each leg. We found that during split-belt walking, the number of synergies in the slow leg increased while an extra synergy appeared and disappeared in the fast leg. Additionally, the areas under the temporal activation patterns in several synergies in both legs decreased. When both belts returned to the same speed, a decrease in the number of synergies and an increase in the areas under the temporal activation patterns of several synergies were temporally shown in each leg. Subsequently, the number of synergies and the areas under the temporal activation patterns returned to those of normal walking before split-belt walking. Thus, changes in the number, muscle weightings, and temporal activation patterns of synergies were noted in the split-belt locomotor adaptation, suggesting that the adaptation and de-adaptation occurred at the muscle synergy level. (shrink)

A Greek English Lexicon of the New Testament, being Grimm's Wilke's Clavis Novi Testamenti. Translated, Revised and Enlarged by Joseph Henry Thayer, D.D., Bussey Professor of New Testament Criticism and Interpretation in the Divinity School of Harvard University. Edinburgh, T. and T. Clark. 1886. 4to. pp. 726. 36s.Biblico Theological Lexicon to New Testament Greek. by Hermann Cremer, D.D., Professor of Theology in the University of Greifswald. Third English Edition. With Supplement. Translated from the latest German Edition by William Uewick, M.A. (...) Edinburgh, T. and T. Clark. 1886. 4to. pp. 943. 38s. (shrink)

David Chalmers' dancing qualia argument is intended to show that phenomenal experiences, or qualia, are organizational invariants. The dancing qualia argument is a reductio ad absurdum, attempting to demonstrate that holding an alternative position, such as the famous inverted spectrum argument, leads one to an implausible position about the relation between consciousness and cognition. In this paper, we argue that Chalmers' dancing qualia argument fails to establish the plausibility of qualia being organizational invariants. Even stronger, we will argue that the (...) gap in the argument cannot be closed. (shrink)

This essay argues that normative judgments, in general, and moral judgments, in particular, are "truth apt" and can be objects of belief. Other main claims are: judgments about reasons, if interpreted as true, do not have metaphysical implications that are incompatible with a scientific view of the world. Two kinds of normative claims should be distinguished: substantive claims about what reasons people have and structural claims about what attitudes people must have insofar as they are rational. Employing this distinction, the (...) practical significance of substantive normative judgments is explained, and critical analysis of expressivist and Kantian views on this question is offered. (shrink)

Social aspects of science and technology; collection of articles.

Abstract I argue that the two primary motivations in the literature for positing seemings as sui generis mental states are insufficient to motivate this view. Because of this, epistemological views which attempt to put seemings to work don’t go far enough. It would be better to do the same work by appealing to what makes seeming talk true rather than simply appealing to seeming talk. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-12 DOI 10.1007/s11406-012-9363-8 Authors T. Ryan Byerly, Department of Philosophy, Baylor (...) University, Waco, TX, USA Journal Philosophia Online ISSN 1574-9274 Print ISSN 0048-3893. (shrink)

Sanskrit text with Hindi verse translation of Aṣṭāvakragītā, work on Vedanta philosophy.

T. A. Cavanaugh defends double-effect reasoning (DER), also known as the principle of double effect. DER plays a role in anti-consequentialist ethics (such as deontology), in hard cases in which one cannot realize a good without also causing a foreseen, but not intended, bad effect (for example, killing non-combatants when bombing a military target). This study is the first book-length account of the history and issues surrounding this controversial approach to hard cases. It will be indispensable in theoretical ethics, applied (...) ethics (especially medical and military), and moral theology. It will also interest legal and public policy scholars. (shrink)

In this new explanationist account of epistemic justification, Poston argues that the explanatory virtues provide all the materials necessary for a plausible account of justified belief. There are no purely autonomous reasons. Rather reasons occur only within an explanatory coherent set of beliefs.

What role does the imagination play in scientific progress? After examining several studies in cognitive science, I argue that one thing the imagination does is help to increase scientific understanding, which is itself indispensable for scientific progress. Then, I sketch a transcendental justification of the role of imagination in this process.

Discourses on the Bhagavadgītā, Bhakti, and Hindu ethics.