An important challenge in bilingualism research is to understand the mechanisms underlying sentence processing in a second language and whether they are comparable to those underlying native processing. Here, we focus on verb-particle constructions (VPCs) that are among the most difficult elements to acquire in L2 English. The verb and the particle form a unit, which often has a non-compositional meaning (e.g., look up or chew out), making the combined structure semantically opaque. However, bilinguals with higher levels of English proficiency (...) can develop a good knowledge of the semantic properties of verb-particle constructions (Blais and Gonnerman, 2013). A second difficulty is that in a sentence context, the particle can be shifted after the direct object of the verb, (e.g., The professor looked it up). The processing is more challenging when the object is long (e.g. The professor looked the student’s last name up.). This shifted structure favors syntactic processing at the expense of VPC semantic processing. We sought to determine whether or not bilinguals’ reading time (RT) patterns would be similar to those observed for native monolinguals (Gonnerman and Hayes, 2005) when reading VPCs in sentential contexts. French-English bilinguals were tested for English language proficiency, working memory and explicit VPC semantic knowledge. During a self-paced reading task, participants read 78 sentences with verb-particle constructions that varied according to parameters that influence native speakers’ reading dynamics: verb-particle transparency, particle adjacency and length of the object noun phrase (NP; 2, 3, or 5 words). RTs in a critical region that included verbs, NPs and particles were measured. Results revealed that RTs were modulated by participants’ English proficiency, with higher proficiency associated with shorter RTs. Examining participants’ explicit semantic knowledge of VPCs and working memory, only readers with more native-like knowledge of VPCs and a high working memory presented RT patterns that were similar to those of monolinguals. Therefore, given the necessary lexical and computational resources, bilingual processing of novel structures at the syntax-semantics interface follows the principles influencing native processing. The findings are in keeping with theories that postulate similar representations and processing in L1 and L2 modulated by processing difficulty. (shrink)

Research on bilingualism has grown exponentially in recent years. However, the comprehension of speech in noise, given the ubiquity of both bilingualism and noisy environments, has seen only limited focus. Electroencephalogram studies in monolinguals show an increase in alpha power when listening to speech in noise, which, in the theoretical context where alpha power indexes attentional control, is thought to reflect an increase in attentional demands. In the current study, English/French bilinguals with similar second language proficiency and who varied in (...) terms of age of L2 acquisition from 0 to 15 years completed a speech perception in noise task. Participants were required to identify the final word of high and low semantically constrained auditory sentences such as “Stir your coffee with a spoon” vs. “Bob could have known about the spoon” in both of their languages and in both noise and quiet during electrophysiological recording. We examined the effects of language, AoA, semantic constraint, and listening condition on participants’ induced alpha power during speech comprehension. Our results show an increase in alpha power when participants were listening in their L2, suggesting that listening in an L2 requires additional attentional control compared to the first language, particularly early in processing during word identification. Additionally, despite similar proficiency across participants, our results suggest that under difficult processing demands, AoA modulates the amount of attention required to process the second language. (shrink)

This study examines the communication strategies employed by MeritCare's public relations staff during the fen-phen case. The ethic of significant choice was the primary lens for the study. The study revealed that MeritCare's public relations staff members believed they did, in fact, follow the ethic of significant choice. Specifically, they perceived that the biases held by staff helped maintain the public's safety as the primary issue during the fen-phen events. They also believed that their communication strategies allowed them to avoid (...) ambiguity and emotionalized language. Finally, the staff members felt that teaming with Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota enabled them to influence the marketplace of ideas by capitalizing on the credible standing of Mayo Clinic. (shrink)

This study examines the communication strategies employed by MeritCare’s public relations staff during the fen–phen case. The ethic of significant choice was the primary lens for the study. The study revealed that MeritCare’s public relations staff members believed they did, in fact, follow the ethic of significant choice. Specifically, they perceived that the biases held by staff helped maintain the public’s safety as the primary issue during the fen–phen events. They also believed that their communication strategies allowed them to avoid (...) ambiguity and emotionalized language. Finally, the staff members felt that teaming with Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota enabled them to influence the marketplace of ideas by capitalizing on the credible standing of Mayo Clinic. (shrink)

Prior studies have shown a general preference among citizens for juries over judges. Researchers, however, have not considered whether race and ethnicity modify this preference. We hypothesized that minorities (African-Americans, Hispanics), who generally express less trust in the legal system, may also express less trust in juries than non-Hispanic whites. We asked a representative sample of 1,465 residents of Texas to state whether they would prefer a jury or a judge to be the decision maker in four hypothetical circumstances. Consistent (...) with expectations, non-Hispanic whites favored juries over judges, particularly if they imagined themselves as a defendant in a criminal trial. By comparison, although African-Americans and some Hispanics generally favored juries, they showed a much weaker set of jury preferences. African Americans had markedly lower support for the civil jury, but support was higher among minorities with prior jury service. Among Hispanics, respondents who took the survey in Spanish typically preferred a judge to make legal decisions. We consider the implications of our findings for trust in the jury system and trust in community members as decision makers. (shrink)

Streszczenie Klauzula sumienia została wprowadzona do obszaru prawnych regulacji międzynarodowych w związku z uchwałą Rady Europy o nr 1763 z dnia 7 października 2010 r. Zgodnie z treścią dokumentu istnieje przyzwolenie odstąpienia od wykonania określonego świadczenia medycznego ze względu na zastrzeżenia moralne (religijne lub światopoglądowe) zgłaszane przez przedstawicieli opieki zdrowotnej. W przepisach polskiego prawa medycznego powołanie się na zasadę klauzuli sumienia jest dozwolone, ale wyłącznie dla lekarzy, pielęgniarek i położnych. Farmaceuci są pozbawieni tej możliwości. Jednak wykonywanie niektórych czynności zawodowych budzi (...) zastrzeżenia etyczne wśród farmaceutów. Autorzy artykułu postanowili zbadać opinię farmaceutów zarówno na temat klauzuli sumienia oraz określonych regulacji prawnych, które zdaniem respondentów powinny podlegać zmianom legislacyjnym. Celem pracy jest zaprezentowanie wyników z przeprowadzonych badań, które zostały zrealizowane w 2020 r. na terenie Wielkopolskiej Okręgowej Izby Farmaceutycznej w Poznaniu. Słowa kluczowe: wolność sumienia i wyznania, klauzula sumienia, farmacja, antykoncepcja, Polska. (shrink)

Atomically precise manufacturing (APM) is the assembly of materials with atomic precision. APM does not currently exist, and may not be feasible, but if it is feasible, then the societal impacts could be dramatic. This paper assesses the net societal impacts of APM across the full range of important APM sectors: general material wealth, environmental issues, military affairs, surveillance, artificial intelligence, and space travel. Positive effects were found for material wealth, the environment, military affairs (specifically nuclear disarmament), and space travel. (...) Negative effects were found for military affairs (specifically rogue actor violence and AI. The net effect for surveillance was ambiguous. The effects for the environment, military affairs, and AI appear to be the largest, with the environment perhaps being the largest of these, suggesting that APM would be net beneficial to society. However, these factors are not well quantified and no definitive conclusion can be made. One conclusion that can be reached is that if APM R&D is pursued, it should go hand-in-hand with effective governance strategies to increase the benefits and reduce the harms. (shrink)

The Mnemonic Similarity Task measures mnemonic discrimination, or the ability to correctly identify new stimuli from highly similar, old stimuli. Poor mnemonic discrimination is a potential r...

R. A. Duff, Criminal Attempts Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996, xxvii + 420 pp.

Ẓuhūr al-amān (The advent of security) is a book on civics published during the reign of Ammanullah Khan (1919-29) as amir of Afghanistan. The book's title pays homage to the name of Ammanullah Khan himself. In its treatment of the duties of the members of Afghan society to the ruler and to each other, Ẓuhūr al-amān appears to highlight the challenges faced by Ammanullah Khan in his efforts to modernize Afghanistan. The book is divided into more than 30 short chapters (...) describing the rights and responsibilities of the ruler, of persons living within a family unit, and of members of Afghan society as a whole. Some sections, such as one on the rights that are to be afforded to the king (ḥuquq-i lazima bar padishah), are further divided into subsections. The book begins with several chapters on religious matters, including those on tauhid (the unity of God), on ʻibada (worship), and on fahm-i sharīʻat-i rasūl ʻalayhi al-salām (the sharia). Ẓuhūr al-amān was published on October 11, 1923, by the then newly established Ministry of Education. The author of the work, a religious scholar by the name of ʻAbd al-Haqq, lists his father as ʻAbd al-ʻAziz from the village of Lower Arghanda in the township of Paghman, near Kabul. He highlights, as well, his tribal affiliation with the well-known Pushtun tribe of Suleimankhel. (shrink)

Critical and comparative analysis on the philosophical thoughts of ʻAlī Sharīʻatī and Sir Muhammad Iqbal, 19th and 20th centuries Muslim philosophers.

Commentary on Quwaysinī's commentary on Akhḍarī's work titled the Sullam al-muawraq on logic.

On Islamic religious life and Islamic ethics in view of various Islamic stories.

We argue that explainable artificial intelligence (XAI), specifically reason-giving XAI, often constitutes the most suitable way of ensuring that someone can properly be held responsible for decisions that are based on the outputs of artificial intelligent (AI) systems. We first show that, to close moral responsibility gaps (Matthias 2004), often a human in the loop is needed who is directly responsible for particular AI-supported decisions. Second, we appeal to the epistemic condition on moral responsibility to argue that, in order to (...) be responsible for her decision, the human in the loop has to have an explanation available of the system’s recommendation. Reason explanations are especially well-suited to this end and we examine whether – and how – it might be possible to make such explanations fit with AI systems. We support our claims by focusing on a case of disagreement between human in the loop and AI system. (shrink)

For more than twenty years, introductory logic students have relied on this text to provide clear lessons as well as practical applications of the discipline. Robert Baum emphasizes formal logic and utilizes such elements of popular culture as cartoons and advertisements to illustrate technical concepts. Logic, 4/e addresses all the basic concepts, including informal analysis of statements, arguments, Aristotelian logic, propositional logic, quantificational logic, enumerative induction, the scientific method, probability, informal fallacies, definitions, and applied logic. As with previous editions, (...) Logic, 4/e is extremely flexible--most of the chapters can be included or excluded from a particular course depending on the goals of the course and the time available. This fourth edition features hundreds of additional exercises throughout. (shrink)

Reason and Value collects 15 new papers by leading contemporary philosophers on themes from the work of Joseph Raz. Raz has made major contributions in a wide range of areas, including jurisprudence, political philosophy, and the theory of practical reason; but all of his work displays a deep engagement with central themes in moral philosophy. The subtlety and power of Raz's reflections on ethical topics make his writings a fertile source for anyone working in this area. Especially significant are his (...) explorations of the connections between practical reason and the theory of value, which constitute a sustained and penetrating treatment of a set of issues at the very center of moral philosophy as it is practiced today. The contributors to the volume acknowledge the importance of Raz's contributions by engaging critically with his positions and offering independent perspectives on the topics that he has addressed. The volume aims both to honour Raz's accomplishments in the area of ethical theorizing, and to contribute to an enhanced appreciation of the significance of his work for the subject. (shrink)

The Nature of God explores a perennial problem in the philosophy of religion.

In this essay we develop and argue for the adoption of a more comprehensive model of research ethics than is included within current conceptions of responsible conduct of research (RCR). We argue that our model, which we label the ethical dimensions of scientific research (EDSR), is a more comprehensive approach to encouraging ethically responsible scientific research compared to the currently typically adopted approach in RCR training. This essay focuses on developing a pedagogical approach that enables scientists to better understand and (...) appreciate one important component of this model, what we call intrinsic ethics . Intrinsic ethical issues arise when values and ethical assumptions are embedded within scientific findings and analytical methods. Through a close examination of a case study and its application in teaching, namely, evaluation of climate change integrated assessment models, this paper develops a method and case for including intrinsic ethics within research ethics training to provide scientists with a comprehensive understanding and appreciation of the critical role of values and ethical choices in the production of research outcomes. (shrink)