Byzantine Empire; economic and social conditions; history.

Properties sometimes attributed to the “particle” aspect of a neutron, e.g., mass and magnetic moment, cannot straightforwardly be regarded in the Bohm interpretation of quantum mechanics as localized at the hypothetical position of the particle. This is shown by examining a series of effects in neutron interferometry. A related thought-experiment also provides a variation of a recent demonstration that which-way detectors can appear to behave anomolously in the Bohm theory.

J. S. Bell's classic 1966 review paper on the foundations of quantum mechanics led directly to the Bell nonlocality theorem. It is not widely appreciated that the review paper contained the basic ingredients needed for a nonlocality result which holds in certain situations where the Bell inequality is not violated. We present in this paper a systematic formulation and evaluation of an argument due to Stairs in 1983, which establishes a nonlocality result based on the Bell-Kochen-Specker “paradox” in quantum mechanics.

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)

I argue that the current view (as held by, eg., Warnock, Anscombe and Stenius) of Wittgenstein's theory of language in the Tractates is mistaken. This view maintains that Wittgenstein's theory is one of 'isomorphism'; that, roughly, a sentence has meaning in virtue of its being a facsimile of a fact or possible fact. But a detailed study of significant passages in the Tractattis shows that Wittgenstein held no such view. His use of important terms, such as Salz, Bild, Sachverhalt, Tatsache (...) , etc., has been crucially misunderstood. There is no isomorphism. The theory is not about sentences at all, but about talking sense. (shrink)

Philosophical study of knowledge and self esteem.

Collected articles of a renowned Pushto poet about human life.

Bernard Nieuwentijt ist in der Mathematikgeschichte bekannt als Kritiker der Leibnizschen Differentialrechnung. Im Gegensatz zu dem, was häufig angenommen wird, war die Kritik an Leibniz' Methode kein Hauptanliegen Nieuwentijts. Das Ziel seines bedeutendsten mathematischen Werks, Analysis infinitorum , war die Systematisierung und logische Deduzierung der ihm bekannten Infinitesimalmethoden, besonders derer von den Engländern wie Barrow, Wallis u. a. Das Werk Leibnizens war ihm anfangs völlig unbekannt. In dem System, das Nieuwentijt selbständig entwarf, rechnete er nicht mit Infinitesimalen höheren Grades: ihre (...) Existenz hielt er für unmöglich. Dies brachte ihn zur Kritik der Leibnizschen Methode, als er später auf dessen Werk stieß. Später aber erkannte er die Unhaltbarkeit seiner Kritik, wie klar wird aus seinem posthumen Werk Gronden van zekerheid . Der Aufsatz gibt überdies zur Fundierung dieser Thesen einen sehr kurzen Überblick über Nieuwentijts mathematische Arbeiten und eine Besprechung neuerer Interpretationen. (shrink)

Neurofeedback has been suggested as a potential complementary therapy to different psychiatric disorders. Of interest for this approach is the prediction of individual performance and outcomes. In this study, we applied functional connectivity-based modeling using electroencephalography (EEG) and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) modalities to (i) investigate whether resting-state connectivity predicts performance during an affective neurofeedback task and (ii) evaluate the extent to which predictive connectivity profiles are correlated across EEG and fNIRS techniques. The fNIRS oxyhemoglobin and deoxyhemoglobin concentrations and the (...) EEG beta and gamma bands modulated by the alpha frequency band (beta-m-alpha and gamma-m-alpha, respectively) recorded over the frontal cortex of healthy subjects were used to estimate functional connectivity from each neuroimaging modality. For each connectivity matrix, relevant edges were selected in a leave-one-subject-out procedure, summed into “connectivity summary scores” (CSS), and submitted as inputs to a support vector regressor (SVR). Then, the performance of the left-out-subject was predicted using the trained SVR model. Linear relationships between the CSS across both modalities were evaluated using Pearson’s correlation. The predictive model showed a mean absolute error smaller than 20%, and the fNIRS oxyhemoglobin CSS was significantly correlated with the EEG gamma-m-alpha CSS (r = −0.456, p = 0.030). These results support that pre-task electrophysiological and hemodynamic resting-state connectivity are potential predictors of neurofeedback performance and are meaningfully coupled. This investigation motivates the use of joint EEG-fNIRS connectivity as outcome predictors, as well as a tool for functional connectivity coupling investigation. (shrink)

We start this issue of Journal of Military Ethics with a recent address on military ethics given by one of the US ARMY's leading officers.Brigadier General H. R. McMaster graduated from the United...

Despite decades of concerted efforts to communicate to the public on important scientific issues pertaining to the environment and public health, gaps between public acceptance and the scientific consensus on these issues remain stubborn. One strategy for dealing with this shortcoming has been to focus on the existence of scientific consensus on the relevant matters. Recent science communication research has added support to this general idea, though the interpretation of these studies and their generalizability remains a matter of contention. In (...) this paper, we describe results of a qualitative interview study on different models of scientific consensus and the relationship between such models and trust of science, finding that familiarity with scientific consensus is rarer than might be expected. These results suggest that consensus messaging strategies may not be effective. (shrink)