The present review highlights an association between autism, Alzheimer disease , and fragile X syndrome . We propose a conceptual framework involving the amyloid-beta peptide , Abeta precursor protein , and fragile X mental retardation protein based on experimental evidence. The anabolic effect of the secreted alpha form of the amyloid-beta precursor protein may contribute to the state of brain overgrowth implicated in autism and FXS. Our previous report demonstrated that higher plasma sAPPalpha levels associate with more severe symptoms of (...) autism, including aggression. This molecular effect could contribute to intellectual disability due to repression of cell-cell adhesion, promotion of dense, long, thin dendritic spines, and the potential for disorganized brain structure as a result of disrupted neurogenesis and migration. At the molecular level, APP and FMRP are linked via the metabotropic glutamate receptor 5 . Specifically, mGluR5 activation releases FMRP repression of APP mRNA translation and stimulates sAPP secretion. The relatively lower sAPPalpha level in AD may contribute to AD symptoms that significantly contrast with those of FXS and autism. Low sAPPalpha and production of insoluble Abeta would favor a degenerative process, with the brain atrophy seen in AD. Treatment with mGluR antagonists may help repress APP mRNA translation and reduce secretion of sAPP in FXS and perhaps autism. (shrink)

This short paper will discuss the background to the special issue through a consideration of the basic knowledge representation issues in AI. We will briefly introduce the symbolic and sub-symbolic representations which are traditionally associated with AI, before noting the socially constructed views of knowledge with which they are at odds and the techniques for knowledge elicitation which they use. This forms the context against which this special issues sits, highlighting the broad view of knowledge elicitation and representation and the (...) issues that they raise which we feel are important to debate in the discipline. By gathering this set of papers together, we hope to encourage researchers to see the value in differing approaches and to encourage a more synthetic view of the discipline, where contributions and insights from different perspectives may be of use. (shrink)

This case is about a study of burn patients that included a request to the IRB for a waiver of consent for perianal specimen collection–a request which ultimately was not approved by a reviewing IR...

This monograph introduces the functional characteristics and conceptual significance of a simulation software system called CyberRat (Ray, 1996a, 2003a, 2012a, 2012b). CyberRat expands upon prior illustrations (Ray & Delprato, 1989; Ray, 1992) of how such computer-based simulations can serve to formatively enhance, and eventually validate, the descriptive research methodology upon which their development relies. To illustrate this process I also review highlights of previous publications (cf. Ray & Brown, 1975, 1976; Ray & Delprato, 1989), detailing the unique research methodology used (...) to collect data that guided CyberRat’s development. This methodology integrates interbehavioral psychology (Kantor, 1959) and general systems analysis (von Bertalanffy, 1968), and thus is referred to as interbehavioral systems analysis (IBSA). CyberRat’s validation of IBSA methods involves a process analogous to Turing’s (1950) famous test for simulation authenticity, in that it relies upon “phenomenological equivalence” criteria for observers to compare experiences of real vs. simulated events. And because IBSA stresses three convergent strategies for research, including structural analysis, functional analysis, and operations analysis, my organizing theme addresses how closely CyberRat comes to passing a trilogy of hypothetical Turing tests—one for each of these three analytic strategies. (shrink)

This book is about the eminent behavioral scientist B. F. Skinner, the American culture in which he lived and worked, and the behaviorist movement that played a leading role in American psychological and social thought during the twentieth century. From a base of research on laboratory animals in the 1930s, Skinner built a committed and influential following as well as a utopian movement for social reform. His radical ideas attracted much public attention and generated heated controversy. By the mid-1970s, he (...) had become the most widely recognized scientist in America, surpassing even Margaret Mead and Linus Pauling. Yet Skinner himself was an unassuming family man from a modest middle-class background, a machine-shop tinkerer whose tastes ran to English and French literature. Drawing on archival research, interviews, and historical styles appropriate to the evidence, the authors assembled in this volume examine Skinner's remarkable rise to prominence in the wider context of America's intellectual, cultural, and social history. (shrink)

Abduction is or subsumes a process of inference. It entertains possible hypotheses and it chooses hypotheses for further scrutiny. There is a large literature on various aspects of non-symbolic, subconscious abduction. There is also a very active research community working on the symbolic (logical) characterisation of abduction, which typically treats it as a form of hypothetico-deductive reasoning. In this paper we start to bridge the gap between the symbolic and sub-symbolic approaches to abduction. We are interested in benefiting from developments (...) made by each community. In particular, we are interested in the ability of non-symbolic systems (neural networks) to learn from experience using efficient algorithms and to perform massively parallel computations of alternative abductive explanations. At the same time, we would like to benefit from the rigour and semantic clarity of symbolic logic. We present two approaches to dealing with abduction in neural networks. One of them uses Connectionist Modal Logic and a translation of Horn clauses into modal clauses to come up with a neural network ensemble that computes abductive explanations in a top-down fashion. The other combines neural-symbolic systems and abductive logic programming and proposes a neural architecture which performs a more systematic, bottom-up computation of alternative abductive explanations. Both approaches employ standard neural network architectures which are already known to be highly effective in practical learning applications. Differently from previous work in the area, our aim is to promote the integration of reasoning and learning in a way that the neural network provides the machinery for cognitive computation, inductive learning and hypothetical reasoning, while logic provides the rigour and explanation capability to the systems, facilitating the interaction with the outside world. Although it is left as future work to determine whether the structure of one of the proposed approaches is more amenable to learning than the other, we hope to have contributed to the development of the area by approaching it from the perspective of symbolic and sub-symbolic integration. (shrink)

Neural substrates of fatigue in traumatic brain injury are not well understood despite the considerable burden of fatigue on return to productivity. Fatigue is associated with diminishing performance under conditions of high cognitive demand, sense of effort, or need for motivation, all of which are associated with cognitive control brain network integrity. We hypothesize that the pathophysiology of TBI results in damage to diffuse cognitive control networks, disrupting coordination of moment-to-moment monitoring, prediction, and regulation of behavior. We investigate the cingulo-opercular (...) and frontoparietal networks, which are engaged to sustain attention for task and maintain performance. A total of 61 individuals with mild TBI and 42 orthopedic control subjects participated in functional MRI during performance of a constant effort task requiring altering the amount of effort utilized to manually squeeze a pneumostatic bulb across six 30-s trials. Network-based statistics assessed within-network organization and fluctuation with task manipulations by group. Results demonstrate small group differences in network organization, but considerable group differences in the evolution of task-related modulation of connectivity. The mild TBI group demonstrated elevated CO connectivity throughout the task with little variation in effort level or time on task, while CO connectivity diminished over time in controls. Several interregional CO connections were predictive of fatigue in the TBI group. In contrast, FP connectivity fluctuated with task manipulations and predicted fatigue in the controls, but connectivity fluctuations were delayed in the mild traumatic brain injury group and did not relate to fatigue. Thus, the mTBI group’s hyper-connectivity of the CO irrespective of task demands, along with hypo-connectivity and delayed peak connectivity of the FP, may allow for attainment of task goals, but also contributes to fatigue. Findings are discussed in relation to performance monitoring of prediction error that relies on internal cues from sensorimotor feedback during task performance. Delay or inability to detect and respond to prediction errors in TBI, particularly evident in bilateral insula-temporal CO connectivity, corresponds to day-to-day fatigue and fatigue during task performance. (shrink)

Abduction is or subsumes a process of inference. It entertains possible hypotheses and it chooses hypotheses for further scrutiny. There is a large literature on various aspects of non-symbolic, subconscious abduction. There is also a very active research community working on the symbolic (logical) characterisation of abduction, which typically treats it as a form of hypothetico-deductive reasoning. In this paper we start to bridge the gap between the symbolic and sub-symbolic approaches to abduction. We are interested in benefiting from developments (...) made by each community. In particular, we are interested in the ability of non-symbolic systems (neural networks) to learn from experience using efficient algorithms and to perform massively parallel computations of alternative abductive explanations. At the same time, we would like to benefit from the rigour and semantic clarity of symbolic logic. We present two approaches to dealing with abduction in neural networks. One of them uses Connectionist Modal Logic and a translation of Horn clauses into modal clauses to come up with a neural network ensemble that computes abductive explanations in a top-down fashion. The other combines neural-symbolic systems and abductive logic programming and proposes a neural architecture which performs a more systematic, bottom-up computation of alternative abductive explanations. Both approaches employ standard neural network architectures which are already known to be highly effective in practical learning applications. Differently from previous work in the area, our aim is to promote the integration of reasoning and learning in a way that the neural network provides the machinery for cognitive computation, inductive learning and hypothetical reasoning, while logic provides the rigour and explanation capability to the systems, facilitating the interaction with the outside world. Although it is left as future work to determine whether the structure of one of the proposed approaches is more amenable to learning than the other, we hope to have contributed to the development of the area by approaching it from the perspective of symbolic and sub-symbolic integration. (shrink)

We are developing the Neurological Disease Ontology (ND) to provide a framework to enable representation of aspects of neurological diseases that are relevant to their treatment and study. ND is a representational tool that addresses the need for unambiguous annotation, storage, and retrieval of data associated with the treatment and study of neurological diseases. ND is being developed in compliance with the Open Biomedical Ontology Foundry principles and builds upon the paradigm established by the Ontology for General Medical Science (OGMS) (...) for the representation of entities in the domain of disease and medical practice. Initial applications of ND will include the annotation and analysis of large data sets and patient records for Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and stroke. (shrink)

Human-Computer Interaction and games set a new domain in understanding people’s motivations in gaming, behavioral implications of game play, game adaptation to player preferences and needs for increased engaging experiences in the context of HCI serious games. When the latter relate with people’s health status, they can become a part of their daily life as assistive health status monitoring/enhancement systems. Co-designing HCI-SGs can be seen as a combination of art and science that involves a meticulous collaborative process. The design elements (...) in assistive HCI-SGs for Parkinson’s Disease patients, in particular, are explored in the present work. Within this context, the Game-Based Learning design framework is adopted here and its main game-design parameters are explored for the Exergames, Dietarygames, Emotional games, Handwriting games, and Voice games design, drawn from the PD-related i-PROGNOSIS Personalized Game Suite holistic approach. Two main data sources were involved in the study. In particular, the first one includes qualitative data from semi-structured interviews, involving 10 PD patients and four clinicians in the co-creation process of the game design, whereas the second one relates with data from an online questionnaire addressed by 104 participants spanning the whole related spectrum, i.e., PD patients, physicians, software/game developers. Linear regression analysis was employed to identify an adapted GBL framework with the most significant game-design parameters, which efficiently predict the transferability of the PGS beneficial effect to real-life, addressing functional PD symptoms. The findings of this work can assist HCI-SG designers for designing PD-related HCI-SGs, as the most significant game-design factors were identified, in terms of adding value to the role of HCI-SGs in increasing PD patients’ quality of life, optimizing the interaction with personalized HCI-SGs and, hence, fostering a collaborative human-computer symbiosis. (shrink)

"Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love."Satyajit Ray Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia 2015 .

This book assesses how Vatican II opened up the Catholic Church to encounter, dialogue, and engagement with other world religions. Opening with a contribution from the President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, it next explores the impact, relevance, and promise of the Declaration Nostra Aetate before turning to consider how Vatican II in general has influenced interfaith dialogue and the intellectual and comparative study of world religions in the postconciliar decades, as well as the contribution (...) of particular past and present thinkers to the formation of current interreligious and comparative theological methods. Additionally, chapters consider interreligious dialogue vis-à-vis theological anthropology in conciliar documents; openness to the spiritual practices of other faith traditions as a way of encouraging positive interreligious encounter; the role of lay and new ecclesial movements in interreligious dialogue; and the development of Monastic Interreligious Dialogue. Finally, it includes a range of perspectives on the fruits and future of Vatican’s II’s opening to particular faiths such as Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. (shrink)

Formal theories of mental representation have receded from the importance they had in the early days of cognitive science. I argue that such theories are crucial in any mental domain, not just for their own sake, but to guide experimental inquiry, as well as to integrate the domain into the mind as a whole. To illustrate the criteria of adequacy for theories of mental representation, I compare two theoretical approaches to language: classical generative grammar (Chomsky, 1965, 1981, 1995) and the (...) parallel architecture (Jackendoff, 1997, 2002). The grounds for comparison include (a) the internal coherence of the theory across phonology, syntax, and semantics; (b) the relation of language to other mental faculties; (c) the relationship between grammar and lexicon; (d) relevance to theories of language processing; and (e) the possibility of languages with little or no syntax. (shrink)

This article contains a detailed discussion of the friendship and the intellectual collaboration between D. H. Lawrence and Bertrand Russell during the spring and summer of 1915. The questions it seeks to answer are why Russell initially was inclined to treat Lawrence's philosophical thought with respect, even to the extent of becoming an evangelist on its behalf; why he subsequently rejected Lawrence's outlook and distanced himself from Lawrence's political program; and what similarities and dissimilarities exist in Russell's thought and Lawrence's (...) as represented by Russell's Principles of Social Reconstruction and Lawrence's essays "Study of Thomas Hardy" and "The Crown." Both writers, it is suggested, were centrally concerned with the possibility of transcending the "prison" of the self, but the ideas each developed as to how this should be done were radically divergent, so much so that each could, in the end, regard the other as the very personification of the kind of egoism they sought to transcend. (shrink)

RésuméDepuis la redécouverte de la Muqaddima d'Ibn Khaldūn à l’époque moderne, l'identité intellectuelle de cet auteur fait débat: était-il un penseur révolutionnaire dans le sens moderne du terme, rompant avec les manières de penser classiques et médiévales, ou plutôt un intellectuel musulman conservateur ne s’étant pas aventuré au-delà des horizons musulmans traditionnels? Par un examen attentif de la préface à la Muqaddima, cet article montre comment l'auteur se représentait son propre projet et pourquoi il jugeait celui-ci nécessaire. Le portrait d'Ibn (...) Khaldūn qui s'en dégage alors est celui d'un révolutionnaire – mais non pas au sens moderne du terme – qui n'a pas craint de remettre en question la tradition afin de réformer l'horizon moral et politique de la société. Cet examen de la seule préface n'apporte certes pas une réponse définitive à la question du statut radical ou conservateur de la pensée d'Ibn Khaldūn, mais il permet de mettre en contexte son conservatisme – apparent et réel. (shrink)

This paper is more about the questions for a theory of language evolution than about the answers. I’d like to ask what there is for a theory of the evolution of language to explain, and I want to show how this depends on what you think language is.

Migration and Islamic Ethics, Issues of Residence, Naturalization and Citizenship addresses how Islamic ethical and legal traditions can contribute to current global debates on migration and displacement; how Islamic ethics of muʼakha, ḍiyāfa, ijāra, amān, jiwār, sutra, kafāla, among others, may provide common ethical grounds for a new paradigm of social and political virtues applicable to all humanity, not only Muslims. The present volume more broadly defines the Islamic tradition to cover not only theology but also to encompass ethics, customs (...) and social norms, as well as modern political, humanitarian and rights discourses. The first section addresses theorizations and conceptualizations using contemporary Islamic examples, mainly in the treatment of asylum-seekers and refugees; the second, contains empirical analyses of contemporary case studies; the third provides historical accounts of Muslim migratory experiences. (shrink)

In a recent number of Philosophy of Science, Mr. C. D. Hardie offers some interesting suggestions concerning the problem of other minds. In his view the fact that we feel certain of their existence constitutes a problem; and he wishes to find a rational justification for this certainty. “What grounds have I for believing in the existence of other minds?” he asks. He is attracted by the traditional argument from analogy, but finds it incomplete; for “any conclusion arrived at by (...) analogy and induction is at best only probable,” and “I am certain that other minds exist.” Again we find him remarking that “there is room for an account which makes our knowledge of them depend in some way on analogy... but which is such that we can be certain that other minds exist....”. (shrink)

"Then to this earthen Bowl did I adjourn My Lip the secret Well of Life to learn: And Lip to Lip it murmur'd-"While you live Drink!-for once dead you never shall return." " [http://philpapers.org/profile/112741] .

THE MIND-BODY PROBLEM: A GUIDE TO THE CURRENT DEBATE (EDITED BY RICHARD WARNER AND TA D E U S Z SZUBKA) contains recent essays by the key players in the the field of the Mind-Body problem: Searle, Fodor, Problem Honderich, Nagel, McGinn, Stich, Rorty and others. But there are a few interesting exceptions, for example Edelman, Popper, Putnam and Dennett. Nevertheless, these thinkers do get a mention here and there, and nearly all the exciting topical issues are dealt with, including (...) externalism, functionalism, intentionality, Turing computational models, and the relationship between these philosophical problems and psychology. I am particularly struck by the tendency to engage in an evasive stratagem when it comes to stating the physicalist thesis. Instead of a clear definitive position about what kind of physical science would achieve the hoped-for reduction, what I found was variations on Lewis's claim that the reduction would be effected by a "unified body of scientific theories of the sort we now accept". Materialism used to be a clear doctrine: a clockwork Universe of impenetrable particles. But materialism transcended itself. First through Hobbes' and Leibniz's criticisms of Descartes, then Newton's demolition of the Cartesian idea that matter was essentially extension by introducing gravity (action at a distance) and then through the field theories of Faraday and Maxwell, and more recently through Einstein's work, which undermined the "substance" view of matter, something that remained permanent while other changes occurred. I contrast the perspectives of the Churchlands with those of Donald T. Campbell, Karl Popper and other evolutionary and emergentist views. -/- . (shrink)

«De la Dénotation» est l’un des articles les plus importants de la tradition analytique, pourtant il n’existe pas d’interprétation canonique pour l’un de ses argument-clés. Certains croient que le passage en question démontre que les concepts dénotants en eux-mêmes sont contradictoires; d’autres que la théorie qui les sous-tend est incohérente. Les deux interprétations sont trop fortes et sont contredites par le texte du passage. Nous l’interprétons plutôt comme un ensemble de considérations qui conservent à l’ancienne théorie, bien qu’elle soit encombrante (...) et prolixe, la possibilité de concurrencer la nouvelle presentation sémantique de Russell. (shrink)

The composition of nitrogen-doped hydrogenated amorphous carbon films grown in a magnetically confined rf plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition system has been determined by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and compared with that determined using a combination of elastic recoil detection analysis, Rutherford back-scattering and nuclear reaction analysis. The importance of nitrogen doping or 'incorporation' in hydrogenated amorphous carbon films is discussed in relation to the significant variation in the sp 2 -to-sp 3 ratio that takes place. At 7 at.% N in the (...) a-C : H matrix, a critical change in the microstructure is observed, which governs the resulting mechanical, optical and electronic properties. Finally, the correlation between the sp 2 and sp 3 fractions determined by a non-destructive method of obtaining the bond fractions and by electron-energy-loss spectroscopy is discussed, with a view to evaluating accurately the sp 2 fraction in a-C : H : N films. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:358 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY und k6nnen es nur sein. Das Gleiche ist der Fall mit den Erfahrungstatsachen des wissenschaftlichen Versuches und im Grunde aller Wissenschaft gibt es nichts anderes und kann es nichts anderes geben. Mag ein gewandter Dialektiker die Voraussetzungen, yon denen er ausgeht, noch so sehr durcheinanderwirbeln, sie verbinden und zu Schliissen aufeinandertiirmen: Was er erhiilt, wird stets wieder eine Aussage sein. Niemals wird er zu einem (...) Gesetze gelangen, das lauten wiirde: Tue dies! oder Tue dies nicht! also zu einem Satze, der dem sittlichen Gesetze entsprechen oder ibm entgegenstehen kSnnte,r Kann Morscher dann noch immer behaupten, dass Poincar6 nur kategorische Syllogismen oder nur Schhssfolgerungen mit gerade Priimissen im Sinne hatte? Wir sind dem t3bersetzer eine Ehrenrettung schuldig: wenn er hier "syllogisme" mit "logischer Schluss" iibersetzt hat, hat er keinen Fehler begangen, es trifft ihn nicht der Tadel, durch eine scblechte Ubersetzung eine Legende hervorgerufen zu haben. Morscher soUte jedoch nicht, wenn er "syllogisme" liest, "kategorischer Syllogismus" verstehen, lind bei geistesgeschichtlichen Diskussionen immer den hermeneutisch relevanten Kontext beachten, d.h. wnigstens den Absatz, den er gerade analysiert, zu Ende lesen. Es liisst sich rticht daran zweifeln, dass Hare mit Recht [PR] Poincar6 zuschreibt. Nicht ganz sicher bin ich, ob Poincar6, wenn er sah und es ausdriicklich sagte, dass die iiblichen logischen Regeln fiir Imperativfolgerung nicht anwendbar sind, damit auch gleichzeitig die Entwicklung einer Imperativlogik (Normenlogik) forderte, oder ob er sich dieser programmatischen Konsequenz nicht ganz bewusst war. OTAWEINBERGER Universitiit Graz RUSSELL'S REALIST THEORY OF REMOTE MEMORY In a paper on Bertrand Russell's theory of memory1 David Pears undertakes to amend certain aspects of his version of Russell's theory of memory which he had presented in his Bertrand Russell and the British Tradition in Philosophy. ~ In that work Pears had attributed to Russell an extreme realist theory of memory from 1905 through 1918, i.e., a general theory of memory according to which the mind maintains direct contact by the dual relation of acquaintance with past sense-data. 3 This, he now believes, is historically incorrect in view of two of Russell's lesser known papers which have since come to his attention and which make it clear that in 1915 Russell held the extreme realist account only in connection with immediate memory--i.e., with memory within what is often called the specious present--and that as regards remote memory--i.e., memory of things not very recent and, so, outside the specious present--past sense-data 7 Poincare, Letzte Gedanken, aus dem FranzSsischen iibersetzt yon Karl Lichteneeker (Leipzig : Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft, 1913),pp. 226 f. 1 D. F. Pears, "Russell's Theories of Memory 1912-1921," in Bertrand Russell's Philosophy, ed. George Nakhnikian (New York: Harper and Row, 1974), pp. 117-137. The papers are from the Indiana University Russell centenary conference, 1972. 2 (London: Collins~I967), pp. 7I, 181-182. 3 Ibid. NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS 359 were knowable only by description and not by acquaintance.4 But Pears still argues, as against J. O. Urmson,5 that Russell did hold the realist theory of remote memory before 1915, although he was "changing his mind" in that year and, by 1917 ("The Philosophy of Logical Atomism"), had definitely abandoned the theory,e I believe that Pears is partly right about this matter: Russell almost certainly did hold a realist theory of remote memory before 1915. However, it can be shown, I think, that the theory was abandoned, not in 1915 or later, but in 1914. Pears shows beyond any reasonable doubt that Russell held a realist theory of remote memory in 1912. The strongest evidence may be found in a passage in Problems of Philosophy: There is some danger of confusion as to the nature of memory, owing to the fact that memory of an object is apt to be accompanied by an image of the object, and yet the image cannot be what constitutes memory. This is easily seen by merely noticing that the image is in the present, whereas what is remembered is known to be in the past. Moreover, we are certainly able to some extent to compare our image with the object remembered, so that we often know, within... (shrink)