What mechanisms led to the intractable legal situation of “enemy combatants” detained by the U.S. government in Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere? And what does the role of the judiciary in the enemy combatants cases suggest about politically contentious court cases in general? This article develops a two-stage theory of political justice that is based on the U.S. post-9/11 terrorism cases. It demonstrates mechanisms by which politically contentious cases turn into political justice. Political justice in these cases is mainly the result (...) of violations of the separation of powers that are legitimized by portraying the defendants/detainees as enemies beyond the law. (shrink)

Drinking water is an important health behavior to support overall child health. Research indicates that children are consuming too little water and too many sugary drinks. Overconsumption of sugary drinks increases child risk for the epidemics of obesity and diet-related chronic diseases like type-II diabetes, stroke, and heart disease. Increasing access to appealing, low-cost drinking water in schools and childcare where children spend much of their time supports efforts to reduce sugary drink consumption. Drinking water infrastructure is key to water (...) access in childcare and schools. In 2012-2013, almost one-third of permanent U.S. school buildings had plumbing systems in fair or poor condition, and almost 40 percent had major renovations or repairs planned.3 Basic plumbing standards for new construction and major renovations or repairs are contained in state and local plumbing codes, and many of these codes are derived from model codes established by private organizations. This article describes the model code process and intervention points where the public health community can work to improve plumbing standards in school buildings and childcare centers. (shrink)

A general hypothesis of atom size effects for G.P. zone formation is discussed in this paper and results are presented of precipitation in the systems Fe-Au and Fe-Mo. Techniques used are resistivity measurements and electron microscopy. In the Fe-Mo system it is shown that after initial cluster formation during the early stages of ageing after the quench, further growth ceases and vacancies anneal out into dislocation loops. The activation energy for the initial clustering was 1·3 ev whilst the excess vacancy (...) concentration estimated from the loop area gave a vacancy formation energy of ∼1·5 ev. These results confirm recent quenching results on pure iron. The refusal of Mo zones to grow confirms the general hypothesis of size effects.In the Fe-Au system precipitation of gold platelets after quenching is shown to be associated with the high density of dislocations formed during quenching through the phase transformation of the iron matrix. The effect of the dislocations is shown by the low value of ∼0·5 for the Johnson—Mehl kinetic parameter and by the activation energy for growth which is ∼0·8 of the equilibrium diffusion energy for Au in Fe. As the size-effect hypothesis does not apply to precipitation on dislocations the growth of zones in Fe—Au does not affect its validity. (shrink)

As philosophers of mind we seem to hold in common no very clear view about the relevance that work in psychology or the neurosciences may or may not have to our own favourite questions—even if we call the subject ‘philosophical psychology’. For example, in the literature we find articles on pain some of which do, some of which don't, rely more or less heavily on, for example, the work of Melzack and Wall; the puzzle cases used so extensively in discussions (...) of personal identity are drawn sometimes from the pleasant exercise of scientific fantasy, at times from surprising reports of scientific fact; and there are those who deny, as well as those who affirm, the importance of the discovery of rapid-eye-movement sleep to the philosophical treatment of dreaming. A general account of the relation between scientific, and philosophical, psychology is long overdue and of the first importance. Here I shall limit myself to just one area where the two seem to connect, discussing one type of neuropsychological research and its relevance to questions in the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of psychology. (shrink)

Employee misconduct is prevalent in organizations and may be counterproductive in social and material terms. It is thus important to better understand how misconduct is construed by employees and the factors that determine its ethical acceptability in specific cases. This study explores attitudes towards unethical and minor deviant behaviours by examining the degree of acquiescence towards them in a sample of employees. Based on previous studies it was hypothesized that both organizational commitment and job satisfaction would be negatively related to (...) the acceptance of such behaviours in organizational settings. Results show that there is a relationship between the degree of acquiescence and organizational commitment and a more modest relationship with job satisfaction. They further indicate that organizational tenure impacts very significantly on the degree of acceptance. Although differences were found for age, neither gender nor organizational variables were found to be significant. (shrink)

Vivemos nos desdobramentos daquilo que Manuel Castells (2005) nomeou de Sociedade em Rede, em cujo cerne estão as Tecnologias de Informação (TIs). Ele indicou as características-chave do novo cenário que diagnosticou, a saber, são tecnologias que agem sobre a própria informação e que também introduziram a lógica das redes; que promovem a convergência tecnológica e, por conseguinte, um sistema altamente integrado de aparatos técnicos; e que acentuadamente penetram pelos diferentes processos e âmbitos sociais. De lá para cá testemunhamos grandes e (...) rápidos saltos tecnológicos bem como o adensamento das transformações na dinâmica econômico-política organizacional e institucional e na construção das vidas humanas e não-humanas no planeta. Essas mudanças alcançaram não apenas modos informais de aprendizagem, mas também a educação formal. O objetivo desse artigo é discutir aspectos atuais da plataformização educacional presentes na educação básica brasileira, tendo como referência o ensino de Filosofia no Ensino Médio. Para tanto será desenvolvida reflexão sobre a plataformização educacional, fenômeno que diz respeito ao modelo de negócios presente na atual fase do capitalismo e que utiliza as plataformas sustentadas pela IA e também a constante extração de dados de quem transita pelas infovias do ciberespaço; sobre o que nomeamos como Escola do Cansaço, em diálogo com o conceito de Sociedade do Cansaço desenvolvido por Byung Chul Han; e sobre algumas implicações decorrentes que já se fazem presentes na administração do trabalho docente, na realização do trabalho docente e nas relações de ensino-aprendizagem. (shrink)

Linguistics. Artificial intelligence. Related fields. Computation.

Through analysis of film sequences focusing on DNA in two British Broadcasting Corporation nonfiction science television programs, Wonders of Life and Bang! Goes the Theory, first broadcast in 2013, contrasting “religious” and “secular” representations of science are identified. In the “religious” portrayal, immutable scientific knowledge is revealed to humanity by nature with minimal human intervention. Science provides a creation story, “explanatory omnicompetence,” and makes life existentially meaningful. In the “secular” portrayal, scientific knowledge is changeable; is produced through technical skill in (...) expert communities; and is ambiguous, potentially positive and negative for society. Television representations of science affect audience understandings, and this is particularly the case for nonfiction representations of science, as they are likely to be “taken more seriously” than fictional representations. The consequences of the “religious” representation of science are discussed, and it is argued that a widespread understanding of science as presented in the religious portrayal would negatively impact democracy. (shrink)

This work tells the story of the rise of the modern German environmental imagination, with particular emphasis on its narrative and visual components.

By formalizing recent syntactic theories for natural languages Stabler shows how their complexity can be handled without guesswork or oversimplification. By formalizing recent syntactic theories for natural languages in the tradition of Chomsky's Barriers, Stabler shows how their complexity can be handled without guesswork or oversimplification. He introduces logical representations of these theories together with special deductive techniques for exploring their consequences that will provide linguists with a valuable tool for deriving and testing theoretical predictions and for experimenting with alternative (...) formulations of grammatical principles. Stabler's novel approach allows results to be deduced with straightforward calculations and provides a systematic framework for tackling the problem of how speakers can infer the properties of an utterance from principles of the grammar. The special treatment of equality, induction principles, and inclusion of a general method for collecting structures from proofs means that sophisticated linguistic arguments can be carried out in detail, giving a rich perspective to issues in linguistic theory and parsing. (shrink)

Correspondence should be addressed to David A. Leopold [email protected] the viewing of certain patterns, widely known as ambiguous or puzzle figures, perception lapses into a sequence of spontaneous alternations, switching every few seconds between two or more visual interpretations of the stimulus. Although their nature and origin remain topics of debate, these stochastic switches are generally thought to be the automatic and inevitable consequence of viewing a pattern without a unique solution. We report here that in humans such perceptual alternations (...) can be slowed, and even brought to a standstill, if the visual stimulus is periodically removed from view. We also show, with a visual illusion, that this stabilizing effect hinges on perceptual disappearance rather than on actual removal of the stimulus. These findings indicate that uninterrupted subjective perception of an ambiguous pattern is required for the initiation of the brain-state changes underlying multistable vision.Visual perception involves coordination between sensory sampling of the world and active interpretation of the sensory data. Human perception of objects and scenes is normally stable and robust, but it falters when one is presented with patterns that are inherently ambiguous or contradictory. Under such conditions, vision lapses into a chain of continually alternating percepts, whereby a viable visual interpretation dominates for a few seconds and is then replaced by a rival interpretation. This multistable vision, or 'multistability', is thought to result from destabilization of fundamental visual mechanisms, and has offered valuable insights into how sensory patterns are actively organized and interpreted in the brain1, 2. Despite a great deal of recent research and interest in multistable perception, however, its neurophysiological underpinnings remain poorly understood. Physiological studies have suggested that disambiguation of ambiguous patterns. (shrink)

This article discusses the extension of ViewGen, an algorithm derived for belief ascription, to the areas of intensional object identification and metaphor. ViewGen represents the beliefs of agents as explicit, partitioned proposition sets known as environments. Environments are convenient, even essential, for addressing important pragmatic issues of reasoning. The article concentrates on showing that the transformation of information in metaphors, intensional object identification, and ordinary, nonmetaphorical belief ascription can all be seen as different manifestations of a single environment-amalgamation process. The (...) article also briefly discusses the extension of ViewGen to speech-act processing and the addition of a heuristic-based relevance-determination procedure, and justifies the partitioning approach to belief ascription. (shrink)

This outstanding collection is designed to address the fundamental issues and principles underlying the task of Artificial Intelligence.

The largest source of new information about Graeco-Roman antiquity is from newly discovered inscriptions. Epigraphic information gained through use of new techniques and technologies is helping to reshape and extend our knowledge of the religious life, languages, populations, governmental systems, and economies of the Greek and Roman world.

One way of dealing with the proliferation of conjectures that accompany the diverse study of the evolution of language is to develop precise and testable models which reveal otherwise latent implications. We suggest how verbal theories of the role of individual development in language evolution can benefit from formal modeling, and vice versa.

O fenômeno da desinformação tem tomado centralidade no debate público nos últimos tempos. As discussões e ações de combate a conteúdos desinformativos têm sido impulsionadas pelos mais diversos setores da sociedade, motivadas, sobretudo, pela massificação da produção, circulação e consumo de fake news. Entretanto, a desinformação não se restringe apenas ao ambiente da circulação de notícias falsas por pseudo mídias jornalísticas, nem tampouco se caracteriza como um fenômeno novo. É possível remontar outros contextos históricos onde o viés desinformativo tem sido (...) utilizado como política de Estado, estratégia de guerra e produção de consenso em torno de verdades anunciadas. Nesse sentido, o que torna a desinformação um problema tão urgente e atual? Buscando responder essa questão nossa proposta parte de uma discussão teórico-analítica ancorada em uma perspectiva marxiana de economia política. Para tanto, iremos operar com duas noções que consideramos essenciais para elucidar essa questão, sendo elas: a lógica do Capital Informação e a noção de valor no ambiente de uma economia política das plataformas sócio-digitais. (shrink)

A relação informação e capital tem sido vital para a produção do habitus informacional no século XXI, seja pelo cada vez maior trânsito de usuários interconectados à grande rede, seja pela massificação da produção de artefatos infocomunicacionais que possibilitam a manutenção desse fluxo. Sob o ponto de vista econômico, a informação é a matéria que passa a estruturar a lógica de organização do capital, e, por conseguinte, também a ordem social, política e cultural das sociedades contemporâneas. Desse modo, é na (...) atual vigência do capital, entendido aqui como capital-informação, que vimos emergir o modelo de negócios da economia das plataformas sócio-digitais amparado na cultura algorítmica, no paradigma comunicacional todos-todos e na mineração constante de dados de usuários. Esse modelo altamente lucrativo tem sido apontado como um dos principais responsáveis pela disseminação massiva de conteúdo desinformativo através do fenômeno das fake news, regime de pós-verdade, propensão a formação de filtros-bolha, câmaras de eco, cultura do cancelamento e disseminação de ódio nas infovias. Com isso, neste trabalho buscamos problematizar a noção de informação tóxica como reflexo de um ambiente informacional pautado pela toxicidade, virulência, sectarismo, polarização e predisponência a violência digital como dispositivos que tem perfilado o comportamento dos indivíduos nas redes e fora delas, evocando velhos estigmas, preconceitos, perseguições e falsas crenças direcionadas a grupos e indivíduos considerados material e simbolicamente como ameaças. Conclui-se assim, que a informação tóxica é um desafio a ordem democrática e civilizatória, constituindo-se como um sintoma de uma sociedade adoecida, bem como uma mercadoria de altos rendimentos na sociedade do capital-informação. (shrink)

This book explores the scope and limits of the concept of personDS a vexed question in contemporary philosophy. The author begins by questioning the methodology of thought-experimentation, arguing that it engenders inconclusive and unconvincing results, and that truth is stranger than fiction. She then examines an assortment of real-life conditions, including infancy, insanity andx dementia, dissociated states, and split brains. The popular faith in continuity of consciousness, and the unity of the person is subjected to sustained criticism. The author concludes (...) with a look at different views of the person found in Homer, Aristotle, the post-Cartesians, and contemporary cognitive science. (shrink)

Danny Boyle's film Yesterday is a contemporary morality play in which the main character, Jack Malik, a failing singer-songwriter, is magically sent to a different possible world in which the Beatles never existed. Possessing his memory of the Beatles’ catalogue in the new possible world, he is now in sole possession of an extremely valuable artifact. Recording and performing the songs of the Beatles and passing them off as his own, he becomes rich, famous, and deeply unhappy. Once he confesses (...) his wrong-doing, however, he is redeemed and his life becomes wonderful. The presupposition that underlays the plot is that in claiming authorship of the songs of the Beatles in a world in which the Beatles never existed, he is acting immorally. But on what theoretical grounds can this intuitive judgment be justified? Can one plagiarize work for which there is no author in one's world? Saul Kripke, in Naming and Necessity, dubs terms that refer in all possible worlds to be “rigid designators” and considers the metaphysics necessary to support them. In this case, it is not reference but moral responsibility that is invariant under changes of possible world and so we must ask a similar question for “rigid obligators.” We argue that a virtue ethics approach is the only way to support the foundational moral intuition. (shrink)