There is little empirical evidence showing a direct link between a capacity for statistical learning (SL) and proficiency with natural language. Moreover, discussion of the role of SL in language acquisition has seldom focused on literacy development. Our study addressed these issues by investigating the relationship between SL and reading ability in typically developing children and healthy adults. We tested SL using visually presented stimuli within a triplet learning paradigm and examined reading ability by administering the Wide Range Achievement Test (...) (WRAT-4; Wilkinson & Robertson, 2006). A total of 38 typically developing children (mean age of 9;5 years, range 6;4–12;5) and 37 healthy adults (mean age of 21 years, range 18–34) were assessed. In children, SL was significantly related to reading ability. Importantly, this relationship was independent of grade and also age. The adult data, too, revealed that SL was significantly related to reading ability. A regression analysis of the combined child and adult data revealed that SL accounted for a unique amount of variance in reading ability, after age and attention had been taken into consideration. For the first time, this study provides empirical evidence that a capacity for more effective SL is related to higher reading ability in the general population. (shrink)

Adam Smith is perceived, through his best-known book, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, as the founder of economics as a science. His thought has shaped modern ideas about the market economy and the role of the state in relation to it. Yet Smith needs to be recognized as more than this, as a man of letters, moralist, historian, and critic, as well as an economist, if we are to get full value for his (...) ideas and perspectives in contemporary applications. Ian Simpson Ross is the biographer of Lord Kames, Smith's patron, and of the Scottish poet William Dunbar, and has edited, with E C Mossner, Smith's correspondence for the Glasgow edition of his works. In this, the first full-scale biography of Adam Smith for a hundred years, Ross brings his subject in to historical light as a thinker and author by examining his family circumstance, education, career, and social and intellectual circle, including David Hume and Francois Quesnay, revealed through his correspondence, archival documents, the reports of contemporaries, and the record of his publications. Readers will meet Smith as a student at a lively Glasgow and sleepy Oxford; freelance lecturer in rhetoric; innovative university teacher; tutor travelling abroad with a Duke; acclaimed political economist; policy advisor to governments during and after the American crisis; and finally, if paradoxically in view of his tenets, a Commissioner of Customs coping with the free traders in the smuggling business. This is the life of a Scottish moral philosopher whose legacy of thought concerns and affects us all. Its lively and informed account will appeal to those interested in the social and intellectual milieu of the eighteenth century, and in scottish history. Economists and philosophers will find much to read about the history of their disciplines, supported by full documentation. (shrink)

In this exciting Handbook, Ian Jarvie and Jesús Zamora-Bonilla have put together a wide-ranging and authoritative overview of the main philosophical currents and traditions at work in the social sciences today. Starting with the history of social scientific thought, this Handbook sets out to explore that core fundamentals of social science practice, from issues of ontology and epistemology to issues of practical method. Along the way it investigates such notions as paradigm, empiricism, postmodernism, naturalism, language, agency, power, culture, and causality.

In this excting Handbook, Jarvie and Bonilla provide a broad and democratic coverage of the many currents in social science.

In his article on the early career of Aristophanes, in particular on the relevance of the thiasotai on IG ii2.2343 and the importance of Herakles in the plays of Aristophanes, David Welsh has supported the thesis of Dow, that several of the thiasotai are mentioned by Aristophanes in his plays . He suggests that another of these thiasotai, Lysanias, may be alluded to at Clouds 1162. Here the unusual word λυσανας in the text means ostensibly ‘deliverer’, but Welsh argues that (...) in view of the rarity of the word ‘the spectators would have been put in mind of a contemporary individual…a Lysanias who was known for his filial piety or forensic ability .’. (shrink)

Death from cancer is usually due to metastasis. Fortunately, most cells that escape from a primary tumor fail to form metastases. Identifying reasons for this failure will help development of anti‐metastatic therapies. Intravital videomicroscopy (IVVM) can be used to observe cancer cells injected into live animals. Co‐injected microspheres can be used to assess cell survival. These techniques have been used to show that circulating tumor cells generally arrest in the microcirculation and may extravasate with high efficiency. While many tumor cells (...) may survive in a secondary site, only a small subset form micrometastases and only a subset of these micrometastases persist to form vascularized macrometastases. Furthermore, solitary tumor cells may remain dormant for long periods of time in secondary sites. These findings suggest that metastatic growth and angiogenesis are prime targets for anti‐metastatic therapy. BioEssays 24:885–893, 2002. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

An exploration of the governmental policy, prison works, and its attendant recidivism provides the general opening. The 1944 Education Act is then taken as furnishing the medical model of personal handicap and deficiency which informed special education at an early stage. The Warnock Report's attempt to shift considerations to educational grounds is examined with a particular focus upon the ensuing definition of special needs and its legacy in legislation following the 1981 Act to the present. Foucault's concept of normalisation is (...) the basis for analysis of the normative elements in the main features of the national curriculum and testing. This latter together with aspects of the 1988 Education Reform Act are examined with regard to their impact upon special educational needs. The conclusions are that 'education works' and the rediscovery of the medical model of personal deficiency. (shrink)

The phrase γρòν δωρ in Anacreontic 33.22 requires more explanation than has until now been offered: the parallel passages cited by M. L. West in his edition , namely Ovid, Ars Am. 3.224, ‘nuda Venus madidas exprimit imbre comas’ and Her. 18.104, ‘madidam…imbre comam’, present the same image, but with quite a different vocabulary, whilst Patricia A. Rosenmeyer regards it only as an example of tautology characteristic of the Anacreontic corpus. But it is by no means unique, and, both for (...) this reason and in the context of the nature of the whole poem, it is capable of further elucidation. (shrink)

With the rise of the knowledge economy, the knowledge content of goods and services is going up just as their material content is declining. Economic value is increasingly seen to reside in intangible assets, rather than material. This book explores the framework of 'I-Space' - a theoretical approach to the production and distribution of knowledge.

This is the short version, in French translation by Anne Querrien, of the originally jointly authored paper: Müller, Vincent C., ‘Autonomous killer robots are probably good news’, in Ezio Di Nucci and Filippo Santoni de Sio, Drones and responsibility: Legal, philosophical and socio-technical perspectives on the use of remotely controlled weapons. - - - L’article qui suit présente un nouveau système d’armes fondé sur des robots qui risque d’être prochainement utilisé. À la différence des drones qui sont manoeuvrés à distance (...) mais comportent une part importante de discernement humain, il s’agit de machines programmées pour défendre, attaquer, ou tuer de manière autonome. Les auteurs, philosophes, préfèrent prévenir de leur prochaine diffusion et obtenir des Nations Unies leur régulation. Une campagne internationale propose plutôt leur interdiction. (shrink)

Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems are here. Technological development will see them become widespread in the near future. This is in a matter of years rather than decades. When the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons meets on 10-14th November 2014, well-considered guidance for a decision on the general policy direction for LAWS is clearly needed. While there is widespread opposition to LAWS—or ‘killer robots’, as they are popularly called—and a growing campaign advocates banning them outright, we argue the opposite. LAWS (...) may very well reduce suffering and death in war. Rather than banning them, they should be regulated, to ensure both compliance with international humanitarian law, and that this positive outcome occurs. This policy memo sets out the basic structure and content of the regulation required. (shrink)

This paper articulates and defends a novel view of the strict distinction that Aristotle makes between human and non-human mental life. We examine two crucially relevant but overlooked arguments that turn on the human capacity for reasoning and inference (syl/logismos) to reconstruct his view of what makes some cognitive processes rational and how they differ from non-rational counterparts. A creature is rational just in case its occurrent cognitive states exhibit a sequential coherence wherein prior cognitive activity constrains subsequent activity for (...) the sake of attaining truth. Processes are rational, then, in virtue of how constituent states relate to each other, not whether any given state involves some peculiar content or grasps some distinct object. This study aids, but does not exhaust, a systematic examination of the rational soul in Aristotle’s writing, based on (a) the human/animal comparisons through which he often elucidates rational cognitive capacities and (b) the distinctions that he draws between elements of rational cognition and non-rational counterparts in terms of what minimally suffices to distinguish between them. (shrink)

The concept of social reproduction of sets of advantages and disadvantages together with that of status group, is used to explore the evidence and thinking presented in the Royal Commission on the Blind, the Deaf and Dumb, etc. regarding the education of children with disabilities in 1889. Even though the evidence was ambiguous, models for the education of children with disabilities were laid down. Integration into mainstream elementary schools was recommended for the blind. Recommendations for deaf children were divided in (...) allegiance with belief in the principles of either oralism or signing. The largest group numerically received the least attention in the Commission. The idea of feeble-minded children as a product of social, economic and educational circumstances had its champion but was overwhelmed by the acceptance of the doctrine of the innate characteristics of the child's mind identifiable by medical science. (shrink)

Tigard suggests that the medical community would benefit from continuing to promote notions of individual responsibility and blame in healthcare settings. In particular, he contends that blame will promote systematic improvement, both on the individual and institutional levels, by increasing the likelihood that the blameworthy party will ‘own up’ to his or her mistake and apologise. While we agree that communicating regret and offering a genuine apology are critical steps to take when addressing patient harm, the idea that medical professionals (...) should continue to ‘take the blame’ for medical errors flies in the face of existing science and threatens to do more harm than good. We contrast Dr Tigard’s approach with the current literature on blame to promote an alternative strategy that may help to create lasting change in the face of unfortunate error. (shrink)

In this response to Emily Katz’s “Aristotle’s Rejection of Mathematized Metaphysics,” I raise questions about her central interpretive claim that mathematical forms cannot, for Aristotle, appear among first principles of nature. Topics addressed include the notion of priority, especially in the sciences; the relationship between natural change and material realization; and the general nature and scope of mathematical explanations for physical phenomena.

Dainton and Robinson’s Companion traces lines of descent of analytic philosophy from ancestors. They characterize analytic philosophy as a movement, a tradition, a style, and a commitment to the va...

May lethal autonomous weapons systems—‘killer robots ’—be used in war? The majority of writers argue against their use, and those who have argued in favour have done so on a consequentialist basis. We defend the moral permissibility of killer robots, but on the basis of the non-aggregative structure of right assumed by Just War theory. This is necessary because the most important argument against killer robots, the responsibility trilemma proposed by Rob Sparrow, makes the same assumptions. We show that the (...) crucial moral question is not one of responsibility. Rather, it is whether the technology can satisfy the requirements of fairness in the re-distribution of risk. Not only is this possible in principle, but some killer robots will actually satisfy these requirements. An implication of our argument is that there is a public responsibility to regulate killer robots ’ design and manufacture. (shrink)

The Eighty-Seventh Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, Part II.