The proposed article is devoted to the description of an intelligent urban passenger transport system based on unmanned electric vehicles, sequentially moving along a separate line. This system is a passenger transport system of a new urban mobility, formed under the influence of social conditions generated by high population density in cities, that suppose the development of pedestrian zones and ecological modes of transport, "transport as a service", etc. In this historical context, public transport systems acquire special relevance. The described (...) transport system belongs to intelligent systems, since it is capable of functioning in autonomous mode without human intervention, adaptively responding to changes in the dynamics of the flow of passengers during the day. Passengers are transported by electric cars, which can be combined into cassettes according to the principle of road trains based on the transportation plan drawn up by the intelligent center of the transport system according to the matrix of correspondences, filled in taking into account the incoming requests for service from passengers. When drawing up a transportation plan, the algorithms of the transport system give preference to transportation according to the "source-destination" principle, that is, when the passenger goes to the destination with a minimum number of intermediate stops, and ideally without them. The paper formulates also a criterion of arising of a conflict in the movement of vehicles, which allows to identify situations when an electric vehicle driving in front can detain vehicles following after. The work has relevance because the criterion will allow to make adjustments in the schedule of movement of vehicles and exclude the loss of time and energy that carries the transport system during braking and acceleration of electric cars, as well as to reduce waiting time and travel of passengers. (shrink)

The paper argues that no criterion-referenced assessment system can achieve both reliability and validity at one and the same time. It shows that the reasons for this are conceptual, and hence that empirical research into the‘problem’ is a waste of money and effort. Considerable discussion is devoted to ideas of knowledge and understanding, and to proper educational objectives pertaining to these. Much reference is made to the current National Curriculum context in the United Kingdom, and conclusions are drawn for (...) appropriate educational policy in this area. (shrink)

In this article the paradoxical role of legal science in legal practice is discussed. On the one hand, legal scientists do not agree on the criterions of the scientific character of legal science. On the other hand, even in the legal cases that are especially complicated it is possible to arrive at theoretically unquestionable decisions. The author of the article concludes that legal practice is based on fundamental theoretical insights; however, in legal practice these insights are used more intuitively than (...) reflectively. Therefore, the aim of the article is to rationally reconstruct these theoretical insights with reference to the ideas of modern schools of legal philosophy. For this purpose the ideas of the theory of natural law are discussed. It is concluded that in legal practice two provisions of natural law are applied: legal decisions ought to be reasonable and must include existential ends (basic values). The evolution of the legal positivism is discussed in the article and it is concluded that legal positivism offers the criterions of the scientific character of legal science by framing the procedural rules of the democratic process of lawmaking. These rules anticipate such conditions: consensus concerning decision making; equal participation of all members of legal discourse confirming normative decisions; the acceptability of consequences after the realisation of normative decisions; the possibility to reaffirm normative decisions, if necessary. The ideas of virtue jurisprudence are discussed and it is claimed that virtue jurisprudence as a criterion of the scientific character of law proposes such theoretical position: the decisions concerning human rights must supply the value system (hierarchy) and the virtues which are formed and justified in the long legal tradition. The article represents the use of these criterions of the scientific character of legal science by Jurgen Habermas to debate about legal prohibition of the improvement of the human genome by using modern technologies of genome engineering in the Convention of Human Rights and Biomedicine (Oviedo, 1997). (shrink)

We present a module based criterion, i.e. a sufficient condition based on the absolute value of the matrix coefficients, for the convergence of Gauss–Seidel method (GSM) for a square system of linear algebraic equations, the Generalized Line Criterion (GLC). We prove GLC to be the “most general” module based criterion and derive, as GLC corollaries, some previously know and also some new criteria for GSM convergence. Although far more general than the previously known results, the proof of (...) GLC is simpler. The results used here are related to recent research in stability of dynamical systems and control of manufacturing systems. (shrink)

In the article the issue of singling out some systemic criteria of differentiation between the fundamental and applied terminologies is considered. The authors point at the fact that each terminology has its own individual peculiarities, which mark it out against a general background of the terminological fund of a certain language. It is asserted that one of the most important and effective criteria that can be the basis of the approach to the study of sublanguages for special purposes is (...) a fundamental or applied character of the sphere of professional or scientific knowledge verbalized by a certain terminology. Such terms, as ‘fundamental terminology‘, ‘applied terminology‘ and ‘terminology of transition type‘, are introduced for scientific use. The fundamental terminology is understood as a sublanguage for special purposes that verbalizes the notions, forming the totality of fundamental knowledge, serving for the description of phenomena and processes in reality and in science, in the framework of which the fundamental research is carried out. The applied terminology is the name for the sublanguage for special purposes representing the notions, in which the results of human being’s practical scientific-industrial activity for changing the reality, forming the artificial habitat, are conceptualized. The terminology of transition type is the terminology that verbalizes the fragments of the field of scientific knowledge in which the research can have both a fundamental and applied character. The authors come to the conclusion that pure applied or fundamental terminologies are quite rare, that it is rational to speak about the degree of manifestation of the applied or fundamental character within the limits of this or that terminological system. (shrink)

The debate about the criterion of truth has always been closely linked with the battle lines of philosophy. Philosophers of different philosophical lines use different criteria of truth, each of which is consistent with the criterion of truth common to its philosophical line. Idealist philosophies advocate the primacy of thinking [, implying more the structure or process of thought, as compared to "thought" , implying a more or less coherent idea, viewpoint, or system, the result of thinking - (...) Tr.] and regard the material world as secondary, believing that human thought and truth are dropped from heaven, or are generated by the subjective consciousness itself. The idealist criterion of truth is sought in thought itself. Idealist philosophers cannot use the criterion of practice because the entire theory of idealism, including its view of truth, is made up wholly of subjective and empty constructs which would not pass the test of practice. If idealist philosophy used the criterion of practice it would undoubtedly refute itself. Only the materialist philosophical line is linked by its very nature with the criterion of practice. Materialism affirms the primacy of the material world, and the secondary nature of thinking as a reflection of the material world, regarding truth as a correct or accurate reflection of objective things. To test whether or not such a reflection is correct, it is not permissible to appeal to thought itself; we must rely on social practice. To discuss the truth of thinking, separate from social practice, would be to abandon materialism and fall into idealism. Therefore we say that the materialist philosophical line, as part of its basic fundamental nature, embraces the acceptance of the criterion of practice, or we say that it is fundamentally linked to the criterion of practice. Of course, to say that the materialist philosophical line is fundamentally linked to the criterion of practice is not to say that every materialist is able to consciously adopt the criterion of practice, rather that materialism ought to use social practice as the criterion of truth. Only in this way can one maintain a thoroughgoing materialism. However, ought to is one thing, while reality is quite another. In reality, the materialists coming before Marx did not self-consciously adopt the criterion of practice, but for the most part used subjective criteria. For example, the well-known materialist [Ludwig] Feuerbach [1804-18721 thought that "agreement of the majority" or "common opinion" was a criterion of truth. "Agreement" and "opinion" are subjective, and such a theory of the criterion of truth stands in contradiction to the materialist line that Feuerbach advocated. With a criterion of that sort, not only would it be impossible to validate the objective truth that Feuerbach sought; on the contrary, one could refute objective truth totally, refute the materialist line. Since subjective criteria of truth solve the problem of truth within the subjective realm and must refute the objective nature of truth, subjective criteria of truth are therefore fundamentally incompatible with the materialist line of thought. Only the criterion of practice accepts objective truth, and is compatible with the materialist line of thought. That materialists before Marx were unable to self-consciously employ the criterion of practice and used subjective criteria of truth reveals the limited and partial nature of materialism. By introducing social practice into the theory of knowledge and by determining that practice is the criterion of truth, thereby overcoming the limitations and incompleteness of the old materialism, Marxism developed the materialist theory of knowledge into a completely scientific theory. This was an enormous contribution to the history of philosophy. However, the acceptance or rejection of the criterion of practice is not a minor problem, but rather a major problem that affects all philosophical lines of thought. To uphold the criterion of practice is to stand on the side of materialism. On the other hand, to use the criterion of thought to refute the criterion of practice is to fall into idealism. (shrink)

Ian Shapiro proposes a representative government that bases its understanding of truth on mature enlightenment philosophy. He examines various enlightenment and anti-enlightenment theories to substantiate his arguments in favour of verifiability as the criterion for defining truth. Contending such a concept of truth he specifies that it is possible only within a representative democracy as it can systematically undermine socially built readymade systems. To examine Shapiro’s fallibilist approach to truth, this paper critically analyses his concept of truth-telling for legitimizing (...) a government and contrasts it with Plato’s explanation of truth-telling. It argues that Shapiro’s procedural mechanisms that override social background presuppose uniform rationality backed by power systems. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to offer a formal criterion for physical computation that allows us to objectively distinguish between competing computational interpretations of a physical system. The criterion construes a computational interpretation as an ordered pair of functions mapping (1) states of a physical system to states of an abstract machine, and (2) inputs to this machine to interventions in this physical system. This interpretation must ensure that counterfactuals true of the abstract machine have appropriate counterparts (...) which are true of the physical system. The criterion proposes that rival interpretations be assessed on the basis of simplicity. Simplicity is construed as the Kolmogorov complexity of the interpretation. This approach is closely related to the notion of algorithmic information distance and draws on earlier work on real patterns. (shrink)

We investigate the Peres–Horodecki positive partial transpose criterion in the context of conserved quantities and derive a condition of inseparability for a composite bipartite system depending only on the dimensions of its subsystems, which leads to a bi-linear entanglement witness for the two qubit system. A separability inequality using generalized Schrodinger–Robertson uncertainty relation taking suitable operators, has been derived, which proves to be stronger than the bi-linear entanglement witness operator. In the case of mixed density matrices, it identically distinguishes (...) the separable and non separable Werner states. (shrink)

Effort is then well-nigh indescribable. Not wholly so, else it would be meaningless. Description is a matter of degree: who can fully describe red or wet? To be sure, description comes down in the end to the pointing to certain given qualities or relations or events which are just there. All connotation rests on denotation, though it may be something more. But the unique positive thing about effort is its originality; to which indeed we can point, since every one experiences (...) it in himself. Yet common to all men though it is, it is so intangible! more spirit than body, more force than substance. We should perhaps best call it not a datum but a factum, or better still, a fiat, a doing rather than a deed, yet not merely a becoming, for we see things coming to be, we hear a melody progressing and touch a moving object. Effort, dynamic as it is, is not just the process, rather it is--we must re-iterate--the start, the initiative of the process. Nor is the experience of it properly called mystical. Even if mystical experience were indescribable, as has been wrongly alleged, these would be two quite different indescribables, the one receptive, the other originative. All we can say perhaps is that effort is analogous to the push that starts the ball rolling, not the motion of the ball, not the acceleration, but the enforcement of these. Its witness does not lie in its value as explanation of the motion; the witness is direct, the immediate experience which every man has. It seems to be no object of scientific investigation in the technical sense. It cannot be measured by itself, as acceleration and motion are measured. That is why physics has abandoned the old notion of force, the physical analogue of effort, replacing it by mass-acceleration. That is why the rationalists in modern philosophy look askance at this direct experience of man, so intangible that we can draw from it no logical implications. For it has no structure. Its characteristic is not clearness nor distinctness. We might be tempted to say it is like a point in space, too small to be envisaged, yet not a zero; but it is more like a dot or spark, so small as to be just seen, so small as to have no visible spread, no content that we can analyze to draw out rational consequences connecting it with other things. Here too we see why the contemplative thinker seldom believes in free choice, which the natural man naturally accepts. Free choice is the kind of thing that might well belong to this experience; free choice is origination. Not necessarily that all effort is freely made. The baby exercises no free choice when he sucks hard at the nipple, nor the adult when he wrestles for his life with an enemy. But they want, need, desire; that is the point. Desire--that is the essence of effort. Desire has the originative quality; it comes as it were out of one's self and from no other source, it is what we want, our self insisting on its own. But the business is so deep within that it is easily overlooked, or deliberately excluded from the gaze, and without a qualm. We might say it is too near to be noticed, or too deep down to obtrude itself, as the water in the well is easy to see, but not the spring at the bottom of the well. Effort disappears from the scene when the thinker is calmly gazing; but when he acts it is felt, and strongly felt. It is in fact the very essence of the self, the well-spring of its worth and its growth. A man is what he does. His worth lies in what he makes. All that he is responsible for, all that he earns, is credited with, or guilty of, comes from this innermost source. So thinks the practical man, so we all believe when we are conducting our lives in intercourse with one another and with nature. But for the contemplative attitude there is here too little of clear articulation, of object-matter for analysis; no use can be made of it in a deductive system. So the system-builders discard it. (shrink)

The recent drastic development of agriculture, together with the growing societal interest in agricultural practices and their consequences, pose a challenge to agricultural science. There is a need for rethinking the general methodology of agricultural research. This paper takes some steps towards developing a systemic research methodology that can meet this challenge – a general self-reflexive methodology that forms a basis for doing holistic or (with a better term) wholeness-oriented research and provides appropriate criteria of scientific quality.From a philosophy (...) of research perspective,science is seen as an interactive learning process with both a cognitive and a social communicative aspect. This means, first of all,that science plays a role in the world that it studies. A science that influences its own subject area, such as agricultural science, is named a systemic science. From this perspective, there is a need to reconsider the role of values in science. Science is not objective in the sense of being value-free.Values play, and ought to play, an important role in science – not only in form of constitutive values such as the norms of good science, but also in the form of contextual values that enter into the very process of science. This goes against the traditional criterion of objectivity. Therefore, reflexive objectivity is suggested as a new criterion for doing good science, along with the criterion of relevance. Reflexive objectivity implies that the communication of science must include the cognitive context, which comprises the societal,intentional, and observational context. Ina ccordance with this, the learning process of systemic research is shown as a self-reflexive cycle that incorporates both an involved actor stance and a detached observer stance. The observer stance forms the basis for scientific communication.To this point, a unitary view of science as a learning process is employed. A second important perspective for a systemic research methodology is the relation between the actual,different, and often quite separate kinds of science. Cross-disciplinary research is hampered by the idea that reductive science is more objective, and hence more scientific, than the less reductive sciences of complex subject areas – and by the opposite idea that reductive science is necessarily reductionistic. Taking reflexive objectivity as a demarcator of good science, an inclusive framework of science can be established. The framework does not take the established division between natural, social, and human science as a primary distinction of science.The major distinction is made between the empirical and normative aspects of science,corresponding to two key cognitive interests.Two general methodological dimensions, the degree of reduction of the research world and the degree of involvement in the research world, are shown to span this framework. The framework can form a basis for transdisciplinary work by way of showing the relation between more and less reductive kinds of science and between more detached and more involved kinds of science and exposing the abilities and limitations attendant on these methodological differences. (shrink)

This paper discusses awareness systems for supporting informal social relationships, focusing on some of they key concerns for designers and researchers. The discussion is general, but examples highlight the design issues discussed and summarize related empirical results. The paper argues in favor of automated capture of awareness information and suggests that social intelligence is relevant (a) as a design and evaluation criterion for such systems and (b) as a mechanism for supporting users in managing the information sharing by means (...) of awareness systems. (shrink)

The time of „philosophical systems“ seems to be definitively over since Kant and Hegel. On this background, the publication of the work „Neues System der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundriss“ (New System of Philosophical Sciences in Ground Plan) is a truly spectacular philosophical event: Dirk Hartmann deliberately follows Hegel‘s „Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse“ of 1817 in the title of his work, in order to make clear the intention and claim of his opus magnum: In contrast to the increased fragmentation (...) and specialization of philosophy in the 20th century, Hartmann focuses on the philosophical treatment of the whole: In seven volumes, he discusses the classical philosophical problems in their interdependent context, not cataloguing them one after the other, but by consistently developing them from one another. Volume I deals with central epistemological problems: „What is knowledge?“, „Is knowledge even possible?“, „Are there forms of substantial non-empirical truth?“, „Is there an ideal language?“, „Can logic be reasoned?“ and „What is science?”. Since this is the first volume of the entire system, the question „What is philosophy?“ is raised at the very beginning too, and the reasons why philosophy should begin with epistemology are expounded. Finally, the criterion of meaning guiding the entire work, the principle of knowability, is justified and defended against pertinent objections. (shrink)

According to a common view, sentience is necessary and sufficient for moral status. In other words, whether a being has intrinsic moral relevance is determined by its capacity for conscious experience. The _epistemic objection_ derives from our profound uncertainty about sentience. According to this objection, we cannot use sentience as a _criterion_ to ascribe moral status in practice because we won’t know in the foreseeable future which animals and AI systems are sentient while ethical questions regarding the possession of moral (...) status are urgent. Therefore, we need to formulate an alternative criterion. I argue that the epistemic objection is dissolved once one clearly distinguishes between the question what determines moral status and what criterion should be employed in practice to ascribe moral status. Epistemic concerns are irrelevant to the former question and—I will argue—criteria of moral status have inescapably to be based on sentience, if one concedes that sentience determines moral status. It follows that doubts about our epistemic access to sentience cannot be used to motivate an alternative criterion of moral status. If sentience turns out to be unknowable, then moral status is unknowable. However, I briefly advocate against such strong pessimism. (shrink)

There is a disparity between the multitude of apparently successful expert system prototypes and the scarcity of expert systems in real everyday use. Modern tools make it deceptively easy to make reasonable prototypes, but these prototypes are seldom made subject to serious evaluation. Instead the development team confronts their product with a set of cases, and the primary evaluation criterion is the percentage of correct answers: we are faced with a “95% syndrome”. Other aspects related to the use of (...) the system are almost ignored. There is still a long way to go from a promising prototype to a final system.It is maintained in the article that a useful test must be performed by future users in a situation that is as realistic as possible. If this is not done claims of usefulness cannot be justified. It is also stated that prototyping does not make “traditional” analysis and design obsolete, although the contents of these activities will change.In order to discuss the effects of using the systems a distinction between expert systems as media, tools and experts is proposed. (shrink)

Describing resources and their relationships with organisms seems to be a useful approach to a ‘unified ecology’, contributing to fill the gap between natural and human oriented processes, and opening new perspectives in dealing with biological complexity. This Resource Criterion defines the main properties of resources, describes the mechanisms that link them to individual species, and gives a particular emphasis to the biosemiotic approach that allows resources to be identified inside a heterogeneous ecological medium adopting the eco-field model. In (...) particular, this Criterion allows to couple matter, structured energy and information composing the ecological systems to the biosemiotic and cognitive mechanisms adopted by individual species to track resources, transforming neutral surroundings into meaningful species-specific Umwelten. The expansion of the human semiotic niche that is a relevant evolutionary process of the present time, assigns the role of powerful and efficient agency to the Resources Criterion to evaluate the effect of human intrusion into the natural systems with habits of key stone species, under the challenge of a growing use of alloctonous, immaterial and symbolic resources of the actual globalized societal models. The Resource Criterion interprets the ecological dynamics contributing to complete the epistemology of the ecology, to open a bridge toward economy and other societal sciences, and to contribute to formulate a General Theory of Resources. (shrink)

Equivalent deductive systems were introduced in [4] with the goal of treating 1-deductive systems and algebraic 2-deductive systems in a uniform way. Results of [3], appropriately translated and strengthened, show that two deductive systems over the same language type are equivalent if and only if their lattices of theories are isomorphic via an isomorphism that commutes with substitutions. Deductive equivalence of π-institutions [14, 15] generalizes the notion of equivalence of deductive systems. In [15, Theorem 10.26] this criterion for the (...) equivalence of deductive systems was generalized to a criterion for the deductive equivalence of term π-institutions, forming a subclass of all π-institutions that contains those π-institutions directly corresponding to deductive systems. This criterion is generalized here to cover the case of arbitrary π-institutions. (shrink)

A canonical Gentzen-type system is a system in which every rule has the subformula property, it introduces exactly one occurrence of a connective, and it imposes no restrictions on the contexts of its applications. A larger class of Gentzen-type systems which is also extensively in use is that of quasi-canonical systems. In such systems a special role is given to a unary connective \ of the language. Accordingly, each application of a logical rule in such systems introduces either a formula (...) of the form \\), or of the form \\), and all the active formulas of its premises belong to the set \. In this paper we investigate the whole class of quasi-canonical systems. We provide a constructive coherence criterion for such systems, and show that a quasi-canonical system is coherent iff it is analytic iff it has a characteristic non-deterministic matrix which is based on some subset of the set of the four truth-values which are used in the famous Dunn–Belnap four-valued matrix for information processing. In addition, we determine when a quasi-canonical system admits cut-elimination. (shrink)

The article considers the method of factor cluster analysis which allows automatically retrain the onboard recognition system of an unmanned aerial system. The task of informational synthesis of an on-board system for identifying frames is solved within the information-extreme intellectual technology of data analysis, based on maxi- mizing the informational ability of the system during machine learning. Based on the functional approach to modeling cognitive processes inherent to humans during forming and making classification decisions, it was proposed a categorical model (...) in the form of a direct graph. According to this model, the algorithmic support of the information extreme factor cluster analysis is developed. It allows automatically retrain the system when expanding the alphabet of recognition classes. According to this algorithm, the on-board recognition system preliminarily carries out the information-extremal machine learning of recognition classes of relatively low power. When new classes appear, their unclassified structured recognition attribute vectors form additional learning matrixes. After reaching a representational volume, additional learning matrix joins the input learning matrix and the on-board recognition system is retrained. Forming additional learning matrixes of new recognition classes is carried out by the agglomerative algorithm of cluster analysis of unclassified vectors by k-means clustering. As a criterion of optimizing machine-learning parameters, we used the modified Kullback criterion which is a functional of the exact characteristics of classification solutions. To increase the functional efficiency of factor cluster analysis, it is proposed to increase the depth of machine learning by optimizing the parameters of image processing frames. (shrink)

Se realizó una investigación en sistemas y servicios de salud de tipo descriptiva transversal, con el objetivo de elaborar un sistema de acciones de capacitación para el profesional de la enfermería comunitaria en la prevención del embarazo en la adolescencia. Se aplicaron métodos teóricos y empíricos propios de la investigación científica. El universo lo constituyeron 20 profesionales de enfermería que laboran en consultorios del Área Salud "Tula Aguilera". La muestra quedó conformada por los 12 profesionales que aceptaron participar en el (...) estudio. El criterio de exclusión fue la libre decisión de cada individuo para participar o retirarse de la investigación. Se aplicó una encuesta estandarizada, previo consentimiento informado, para determinar el nivel de conocimientos sobre salud reproductiva en la adolescencia. Los resultados constatados reflejaron que la mayoría de los encuestados tenían criterios estrechos, no fundamentados científicamente ni actualizados sobre el tema, por lo que se diseñó un sistema de acciones de capacitación basado en conocimientos científicos actualizados, pertinentes y contextualizados. Cada actividad se propuso demostrar la factibilidad e importancia de utilizar técnicas participativas y la fundamentación de las ventajas de su uso en diferentes actividades comunitarias, encaminadas a enfatizar en la organización, movilización, concientización y capacitación a los diferentes sujetos sociales involucrados en la prevención del embarazo en la adolescencia, para que estos se conviertan en transformadores de su propia realidad, en correspondencia con sus necesidades y demandas sociales. A descriptive transversal study was carried out on health systems and services aiming at designing a system of training actions for the community professional nurses in order to prevent pregnancy in adolescence. Theorical and empirical methods were applied. The universe was made up of twenty professionals who consented to participate in the study. The inclusion criterion was the free decision of each individual on either participating or not in the investigation. A standard survey was applied -with a previous informed consent , to determine the knowledge about reproductive health in adolescence. The results revealed that most of the surveyed people had narrow criteria with no updated scientific grounds on the issue, thus a system of training actions based on updated scientific pertinent contextualized information was designed Each activity aimed at demonstrating the feasibility study of using participative techniques as well as the reasons for the advantages of their use in a variety of community activities to emphasize the organization and understanding of the different social subjects involved in the prevention of pregnancy in adolescence. (shrink)

Teleological variations of non-deterministic processes are defined. The immediate past of a system defines the state from which the ordinary (non-teleological) dynamical law governing the system derives different possible present states. For every possible present state, again a number of possible states for the next time step can be defined, and so on. After k time steps, a selection criterion is applied. The present state leading to the selected state after k time steps is taken to be the effective (...) present state. Hence, the present state of a system is defined by its past in the sense that the past determines the possible states that are to be considered, and by its future in the sense that the selection of a possible future state determines the effective present state. A system that obeys this type of teleological dynamics may have significantly better performance than its non-teleological counterpart. The basic reason is that evolutions that are less optimal for the present time step, but which lead to a higher optimality after k time steps, may be preferred. This abstract concept of teleology is implemented for two concrete systems. First, it is applied to a general method for function approximation and classification problems. The method at issue treats all problems handled by conventional connectionism, and is suited for information with inner structure also. Second, it is applied to a dynamics in which forms of maximal homogeneity have to be produced. The relevance of the latter dynamics for generative art is illustrated. The teleology is `deep' in the sense that it is situated at the cellular level, in contradistinction with the teleology that is usually met in cognitive contexts, and which refers to macroscopic processes such as making plans. It is conjectured that deep level teleology is useful for machines, even though the issue if natural systems use this teleology is left open. (shrink)

Whether it is fair to use personal responsibility of patients for their own health as a rationing criterion in healthcare is a controversial matter. A host of difficulties are associated with the concept of personal responsibility in the field of medicine. These include, in particular, theoretical considerations of justice and such practical issues as multiple causal factors in medicine and freedom of health behaviour. In the article, personal responsibility is evaluated from the perspective of several theories of justice. It (...) is argued that in a healthcare system based on both equality of opportunity and solidarity, responsible health behaviour can—in principle—be justifiably expected. While the practical problems associated with personal responsibility are important, they do not warrant the common knee-jerk refusal to think more deeply about responsibility for health as a means of allocating healthcare resources. In conclusion, the possibility of introducing personal responsibility as a fair rationing criterion is briefly sketched. (shrink)

Death concept, death definition, death criterion and death test pluralism has been described by some as a problematic approach. Others have claimed it to be a promising way forward within modern pluralistic societies. This article describes the New Jersey Death Definition Law and the Japanese Transplantation Law. Both of these laws allow for more than one death concept within a single legal system. The article discusses a philosophical basis for these laws starting from John Rawls' understanding of comprehensive doctrines, (...) reasonable pluralism and overlapping consensus. It argues for the view that a certain legal pluralism in areas of disputed metaphysical, philosophical and/or religious questions should be allowed, as long as the disputed questions concern the individual and the resulting policy, law or acts based on the policy/law, do not harm the lives of other individuals to an intolerable extent. However, while this death concept, death definition, death criterion and death test pluralism solves some problems, it creates others. (shrink)

During the Renaissance period, Jewish mysticism was considered as one of the most important form of religious literature. In the twentieth century however, two major developments can be singled out: the Hegelian one envi- sions the future as open to progress, for the emergence of an even more spiritual version of the religion as mani- fested in the past, the archaic one sees the forms of reli- gion as more genuine religious modalities. Problematically in these phenomenologies is the generic attitude (...) to com- plex types of religious literature which are conceived as embodying one central type of spirituality. In our case, the centrality of the notion of devequt in Jewish mysti- cism is more important than the attempt to define it in a certain way, namely that it stands for union or commun- ion. Or the kind of interactions between devequt, theoso- phy and theurgy, will define better the essence of Kabba- listic mysticism than the analysis of devequt in abstracto. The difference between the theological versus the techni- cal approach implies more than methods to deal with the role of an imponderable experience as part of the more general understanding of a certain form of mysticism. When studying the religious writings we do not witness fixed systems, clear-cut theologies or frozen techniques, whose essence can be easily determined, but living struc- tures and proclivities for moving in a certain direction, or directions, rather than crystallized static entities. (shrink)

In recent work, Joseph Fishkin has helpfully enriched understandings of equality of opportunity as a feature of distributive justice schemes. One branch of his argument focuses upon the degree to which ‘merit’, as a function of talent and effort, is conceptually and practically vexing for these goals. While Thompson is in general agreement with the direction of Fishkin’s critiques and new offerings, in this article he extends and strengthens Fishkin’s analysis of talent, specifically focusing upon its role as a defensible (...) criterion for access to developmentally useful educational opportunities.Developing an account sympathetic to Fishkin’s contributions, Thompson provides a limited defense of talent as a morally relevant criterion for access to some educational opportunities. Of course, Thompson acknowledges that this relevance is not absolute and, therefore, points towards reasons why talent enjoys only this occasionally relevant status in relation to educational opportunities and what systemic issues ought to be avoided as a result. (shrink)

Frailty is a state of increased vulnerability to poor resolution of homeostasis after a stressor event. Frailty is most frequently assessed in the old using the Clinical Frailty Scale (CSF) which ranks frailty from 1 to 9. This assessment typically takes less than one minute and is not validated in patients with learning difficulties or those under 65 years old. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) developed guidelines that use “frailty” as one of the priority-setting criteria for (...) how scarce, but potentially lifesaving, health care resources should be allocated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Similar guidelines have been developed elsewhere. This paper discusses the ethical implications of such rationing and argues that this is an unproven and ethically problematic form of health care rationing. It specifically discusses: (1) how the frailty ascription becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, (2) the problematic use of “frailty” in COVID-19 “triage,” (3) the circularity of the link between age and frailty, (4) indirect discrimination because of the use of a seemingly neutral criterion in health care rationing, and (5) the difficult link between comorbidities and frailty. It is found that there was no research into the use of global frailty scores as a criterion for access to acute treatment before January 2020 and so it is concerning how readily frailty scoring has been adopted to ration access to potentially lifesaving treatments. Existing gerontological frailty scoring systems have not been developed for this purpose, and repurposing them creates significant ethical issues. (shrink)

Building on the original formulation of the autopoietic theory (AT), extended enactivism argues that living beings are autopoietic systems that extend beyond the spatial boundaries of the organism. In this article, we argue that extended enactivism, despite having some basis in AT’s original formulation, mistakes AT’s definition of living beings as autopoietic entities. We offer, as a reply to this interpretation, a more embodied reformulation of autopoiesis, which we think is necessary to counterbalance the (excessively) disembodied spirit of AT’s original (...) formulation. The article aims to clarify and correct what we take to be a misinterpretation of AT as a research program. AT, contrary to what some enactivists seem to believe, did not (and does not) intend to motivate an extended conception of living beings. AT’s primary purpose, we argue, was (and is) to provide a universal individuation criterion for living beings, these understood as discrete bodies that are embedded in, but not constituted by, the environment that surrounds them. However, by giving a more explicitly embodied definition of living beings, AT can rectify and accommodate, so we argue, the enactive extended interpretation of autopoiesis, showing that although living beings do not extend beyond their boundaries as autopoietic unities, they do form part, in normal conditions, of broader autopoietic systems that include the environment. (shrink)

Equivalent deductive systems were introduced in [4] with the goal of treating 1‐deductive systems and algebraic 2‐deductive systems in a uniform way. Results of [3], appropriately translated and strengthened, show that two deductive systems over the same language type are equivalent if and only if their lattices of theories are isomorphic via an isomorphism that commutes with substitutions. Deductive equivalence of π‐institutions [14, 15] generalizes the notion of equivalence of deductive systems. In [15, Theorem 10.26] this criterion for the (...) equivalence of deductive systems was generalized to a criterion for the deductive equivalence of term π‐institutions, forming a subclass of all π‐institutions that contains those π‐institutions directly corresponding to deductive systems. This criterion is generalized here to cover the case of arbitrary π‐institutions. (shrink)

In this paper a Knowledge-Based System (KBS) for determining the appropriate students major according to his/her preferences for sophomore student enrolled in the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology in Al-Azhar University of Gaza was developed and tested. A set of predefined criterions that is taken into consideration before a sophomore student can select a major is outlined. Such criterion as high school score, score of subject such as Math I, Math II, Electrical Circuit I, and Electronics I taken (...) during the student freshman year, number of credits passed, student cumulative grade point average of freshman year, among others, were then used as input data to KBS. KBS was designed and developed using Simpler Level Five (SL5) Object expert system language. KBS was tested on three generation of sophomore students from the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology of the Al-Azhar University, Gaza. The results of the evaluation show that the KBS is able to correctly determine the appropriate students major without errors. (shrink)

Frank Jackson and Robert Pargetter propose a method for synchronizing clocks at rest at distant points of an inertial system in Euclidean space, which, they claim, does not depend on Einstein's signalling method and provides a basis for denying the conventionality of distant simultaneity. I am afraid, however, that the new method presupposes that the simultaneity of distant events relatively to the chosen inertial system has been already determined by Einstein's or some other method. Jackson and Pargetter describe their method (...) as follows: Let UA, UB be clocks at A, B, respectively. Let XY be an axis perpendicular to AB, passing through C, the midpoint of AB. Take a rigid straight rod A′B′ with midpoint C′ and length equal to the length AB. Move A′B′ with uniform velocity such that C′ travels along XY towards C, and A′B′ is perpendicular to XY ; then if the reading … on UA just when A′ coincides with A is the same as the reading … on UB just when B′ coincides with B, clocks UA and UB will be synchronous.. (shrink)

This paper opens by distinguishing between the multiple concepts of system and the philosophical idea of system. It then goes on to discuss the differences between systems and other proximate ideas, such as whole, set, aggregate and structure. Subsequently, it proposes a definition of system, and then lays out three classifications of systems. When elaborating a general definition of system, the main challenge is finding a general criterion with which to characterize both technical systems built by men, and scientific (...) systems independent of human subjects. The criterion proposed in the text solves this difficulty. Lastly, from the tenets of Gustavo Bueno’s hyperrealist philosophy of categorial closure, I put forward the consideration of the sciences as systems. (shrink)

Canonical Propositional Gentzen-type systems are systems which in addition to the standard axioms and structural rules have only pure logical rules with the sub-formula property, in which exactly one occurrence of a connective is introduced in the conclusion, and no other occurrence of any connective is mentioned anywhere else. In this paper we considerably generalize the notion of a “canonical system” to first-order languages and beyond. We extend the Propositional coherence criterion for the non-triviality of such systems to rules (...) with unary quantifiers and show that it remains constructive. Then we provide semantics for such canonical systems using 2-valued non-deterministic matrices extended to languages with quantifiers, and prove that the following properties are equivalent for a canonical system G: (1) G admits Cut-Elimination, (2) G is coherent, and (3) G has a characteristic 2-valued non-deterministic matrix. (shrink)

The best developed formulation of closed system quantum theory that handles multiple-time statements, is the consistent (or decoherent) histories approach. The most important weaknesses of the approach is that it gives rise to many different consistent sets, and it has been argued that a complete interpretation should be accompanied with a natural mechanism leading to a (possibly) unique preferred consistent set. The existence of multiple consistent sets becomes more problematic because it allows the existence of contrary inferences [1]. We analyse (...) the conceptual difficulties that arise from the existence of multiple consistent sets and provide a suggestion for a natural set selection criterion. This criterion does not lead to a unique physical consistent set, however it evades the existence of consistent sets with contrary inferences. The criterion is based on the concept of preclusion and the requirement that probability one propositions and their inferences should be non-contextual. The allowed consistent sets turn-out to be compatible with coevents which are the ontology of an alternative, histories based, formulation [2–4]. (shrink)

Application of the reliability of repairable systems on solving problems from constructing production systems takes an important place in the process of finding the optimal solution among the suggested system choices. The basic hypothesis when using the reliability of the repairable systems is that every machine is representing a component, a fact that is debatable when talking about technical sciences. However, considering the second assumption of the stationary process, the function of the availability is introduced. It represents the measure between (...) the reliability and the benefit of maintaining the components and the system as a whole one. An additional and the last reason for analyzing constructing machine as a whole one has an economic reason. From the aspect of the total cost and the capacity of the system, the function of the availability is catching more and more impact in the process of determinating the total cost in bill of quantities as the most important part of tender documents. Until former works, techno-economic optimisation usually ran over when choosing the system of the construction machines. In the work, there are shown the methodologies for gathering and analyzing the indicators of availabilities per unit of a company's machine park. The time of demission and reparation have been investigated among 34 components in the period of 6 years. Based on the obtained result for different conditions of machine exploitation and facilities, it is suggested the methodology of the future behaviour of the corresponding within the model optimization availability of constructing production system with the aim of eliminating extra criterion. The suggested model takes in consideration the total cost of the components when they are functional, and when they are not. This kind of approach enables the one who take choices decision of the height of profits, in the lenght of work in function of the projection of cash flow and managing with real indicators of functioning the system at the project level. Given the fact that the maintanance policy of machines is based on availability, and not on reliability of components, with the aim of maximizing the availability of different budget scenarios, a logical approach to the selection of the objective function in the terms of management of construction production systems is to minimize costs for a given availability of system constructing machinery is based on the use of historical data base with the values of the operational availability of components, conditions in which they function, in the process of forecasting the project availability for projects that follow. Ranking variant solutions is the result of the adopted function of the aim as a consequence due to enlargement methods of availability for serial parallel systems with the associated restrictions. For optimal system availability is taken a value that belongs to minimal total cost. However, it is predicted that after the end of the financial year, the real and projected indicators of system functions get compared to each other. Informational support to the proposed model is informational company system, which was built in the PHP programming language on the Linux software platform, and with data based in My SQL. The suggested model is tested on the system for the production and embedding bitumen bound materials on the specific project. Obtained results confirm the assumptions used in work. (shrink)

EU regulations explicitly preclude recirculation aquaculture systems (RAS) for aquaculture grow-out from organic certification because they are not close enough to nature (Regulation (EEC) No. 710/2009). Meanwhile, according to another EU regulation, one criterion for organic food production is its contribution to sustainable development (Regulation (EEC) No. 834/2007). Against this background, one might argue that in spite of their distance to nature RAS are innovative solutions to sustainability issues in food production. The paper will deal with the claim that (...) RAS for aquaculture could be one innovative solution to sustainability issues. In this respect, the picture is ambivalent. In the past, the organic movement (OM) has searched for innovative alternatives to industrial forms of agriculture and food production that are non-sustainable. Hence, the majority of the OM does not feel fit to support industrial RAS, even though one might argue that these systems comply with many of the European OM’s founding principles. While there are potential positive effects for a sustainable development, we might still regard these systems as techno-scientific solutions to social problems. This paper discusses innovation narratives related to RAS from the perspective of post-normal innovation critique. It first presents potential contribution to a more sustainable food sector. It then contrasts these arguments within critical assessments of innovation narratives for sustainable development. Finally, the paper concludes by discussing moral challenges of RAS for the OM’s self-conception. (shrink)

A quasi-canonical Gentzen-type system is a Gentzen-type system in which each logical rule introduces either a formula of the form , or of the form , and all the active formulas of its premises belong to the set . In this paper we investigate quasi-canonical systems in which exactly one of the two classical rules for negation is included, turning the induced logic into either a paraconsistent logic or a paracomplete logic, but not both. We provide a constructive coherence (...) class='Hi'>criterion for such systems, and show that a quasi-canonical system of the type we investigate is coherent iff it is strongly paraconsistent or strongly paracomplete (in a sense defined in the paper), iff it has a trivalent, non-deterministic semantics of a special type (also defined in the paper) for which it is sound and complete. Finally, we determine when a system of this sort admits cut-elimination, and provide a simple procedure for transforming one which does not into one which does. (shrink)

In philosophy of action, we typically aim to explain action by appealing to conative attitudes whose contents are either logically consistent propositions or can be rendered as such. Call this “the logical criterion.” This is especially difficult to do with clear-minded, intentional incontinence since we have to explain how two judgments can have non-contradicting contents yet still aim at contradictory outcomes. Davidson devises an innovative way of doing this but compromises his ability to explain how our better judgments can (...) cause our continent behaviors. In this essay, I preserve Davidson’s approach to the logical criterion but deviate from his broader theory of action by developing a default-interventionist dual systems theory of action. To do this, I focus on the dynamical relationship between System 1 and System 2: the logical construction of value judgments in System 2 from System 1 and the imaginative construction of non-propositional conative attitudes in System 1 from System 2. I draw on Street’s Humean constructivism and Peacocke’s theory of imagination for logical and imaginative construction, respectively. Within this framework, I provide a new definition of continence and incontinence that satisfies the logical criterion and explains how our better judgments can cause our continent behaviors. (shrink)

In general, the development of the theory of the legal system has focused on the contributions of legal positivism authors, leaving to one side the contributions of natural law theory. This study seeks to rebuild the theory of the legal system developed by the School of Salamanca’s founder, Francisco de Vitoria, showing its explanatory advantages in comparison with the first analytical legal theory of legal system formulated by John Austin. This study shows that, just as in Austin, it is possible (...) in Francisco de Vitoria to reconstruct the existence and identity criteria of legal systems from the notions of command and sovereignty. These findings allow us to maintain that 300 years before Austin, and in a non-analytical environment, Francisco de Vitoria developed a theory of legal system. (shrink)

A universal, unified theory of transformations of physical systems based on the propositions of probabilistic physics is developed. This is applied to the treatment of decay processes and intramolecular rearrangements. Some general features of decay processes are elucidated. A critical analysis of the conventional quantum theories of decay and of Slater's quantum theory of intramolecular rearrangements is given. It is explained why, despite the incorrectness of the decay theories in principle, they can give correct estimations of decay rate constants. The (...) reasons for the validity of the Arrhenius formula for the temperature dependence of an intramolecular rearrangement rate constant are discussed. A criterion for the possibility of a proper intramolecular rearrangement is given. The issue of causality in quantum physics is settled. (shrink)

Lockean views of personal identity maintain that we are essentially persons who persist diachronically by virtue of being psychologically continuous with our former selves. In this article, I present a novel objection to this variant of psychological accounts, which is based on neurophysiological characteristics of the brain. While the mental states that constitute said psychological continuity reside in the cerebral hemispheres, so that for the former to persist only the upper brain must remain intact, being conscious additionally requires that a (...) structure originating in the brainstem—the ascending reticular activating system—be functional. Hence, there can be situations in which even small brainstem lesions render individuals irreversibly comatose and thus forever preclude access to their mental states, while the neural correlates of the states themselves are retained. In these situations, Lockeans are forced to regard as fulfilled their criterion of diachronic persistence since psychological continuity, as they construe it, is not disrupted. Deeming an entity that is never again going to have any mental experiences to be a person, however, is an untenable position for a psychological account to adopt. In their current form, Lockean views of personal identity are therefore incompatible with human neurophysiology. (shrink)

[First paragraphs: This essay takes its practical orientation from my experiences as a member of a philosophy reading group on death row at Riverbend Maximum Security Penitentiary in Nashville, Tennessee. Its theoretical orientation comes from W. E. B. Du Bois’ lecture-turned-essay, “Criteria of Negro Art,” which argues that the realm of aesthetics is vitally important in the war against racial discrimination in the United States. And since, according to Michele Alexander’s critically-acclaimed The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age (...) of Colorblindness, the prison system should be the primary front today in this war, my essay’s ultimate aim is t/o articulate a new criterion of the present-day “Negro” art being created by a prison population that is still overwhelmingly constituted by persons of color. In my first section, I will show how Du Bois’ insights in “Criteria of Negro Art” remain relevant today, especially in the prison context, and argue that it is thus appropriate for my new criterion to be shaped by his distinctive conception of “propaganda.” In my second section, through a close reading of two texts by Michel Foucault (the pivotal thinker of modern imprisonment), I will flesh out this new criterion, “self-torsion,” defined as the effect of prisoners’ attempts at self-care within a prison system that distorts those attempts into further exploitation of both prisoners and the outside world that imprisons them. And my final section, in an attempt to illustrate this new criterion’s efficacy as a form of propagandistic resistance to contemporary racism, will deploy self-torsion as a critique of two artworks created by imprisoned members of my reading group at Riverbend penitentiary. (shrink)

This paper presents the problem of robust and nonfragile stabilization of nonlinear systems described by multivariable Hammerstein models. The objective is focused on the design of a nonfragile feedback controller such that the resulting closed-loop system is globally asymptotically stable with robust H ∞ disturbance attenuation in spite of controller gain variations. First, the parameters of linear and nonlinear blocks characterizing the multivariable Hammerstein model structure are separately estimated by using a subspace identification algorithm. Second, approximate inverse nonlinear functions of (...) polynomial form are proposed to deal with nonbijective invertible nonlinearities. Thereafter, the Takagi–Sugeno model representation is used to decompose the composition of the static nonlinearities and their approximate inverses in series with the linear subspace dynamic submodel into linear fuzzy parts. Besides, sufficient stability conditions for the robust and nonfragile controller synthesis based on quadratic Lyapunov function, H ∞ criterion, and linear matrix inequality approach are provided. Finally, a numerical example based on twin rotor multi-input multi-output system is considered to demonstrate the effectiveness. (shrink)