The acquisition and evolution of speech production, discourse and communication can be negatively impacted by brain malformations. We describe, for the first time, a case of developmental dynamic dysphasia (DDD) in a right-handed adolescent boy (subject D) with cortical malformations involving language-eloquent regions (inferior frontal gyrus) in both the left and the right hemispheres. Language evaluation revealed a markedly reduced verbal output affecting phonemic and semantic fluency, phrase and sentence generation and verbal communication in everyday life. Auditory comprehension, repetition, naming, (...) reading and spelling were relatively preserved, but executive function was impaired. Multimodal neuroimaging showed a malformed cerebral cortex with atypical configuration and placement of white matter tracts bilaterally and abnormal callosal fibers. Dichotic listening showed right hemisphere dominance for language and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) additionally revealed dissociated hemispheric language representation with right frontal activation for phonology and bilateral dominance for semantic processing. Moreover, subject D also had congenital mirror movements (CMM), defined as involuntary movements of one side of the body that mirror intentional movements of the other side. Transcranial magnetic stimulation and fMRI during voluntary unimanual (left and right) hand movements showed bilateral motor cortex recruitment and tractography revealed a lack of decussation of bilateral corticospinal tracts. Genetic testing aimed to detect mutations that disrupt the development of commissural tracts correlating with CMM (e.g., Germline DCC mutations) was negative. Overall, our findings suggest that DDD in subject D resulted from the underdevelopment of the left inferior frontal gyrus with limited capacity for plastic reorganization by its homologous counterpart in the right hemisphere. Corpus callosum anomalies probably contributed to hinder interhemispheric connectivity necessary to compensate language and communication deficits after left frontal involvement. (shrink)

The traditional verbal/nonverbal dichotomy is inadequate for completely describing cerebral lateralization. Musical functions are not necessarily mediated by the right hemisphere; evidence for a specialist left-hemisphere mechanism dedicated to the encoded speech signal is weakening, and the right hemisphere possesses considerable comprehensional powers. Right-hemisphere processing is often said to be characterized by holistic or gestalt apprehension, and face recognition may be mediated by this hemisphere partly because of these powers, partly because of the right hemisphere's involvement in emotional affect, and (...) possibly through the hypothesized existence of a specialist face processor or processors in the right. The latter hypothesis may, however, suffer the same fate as the one relating to a specialist encodedness processor for speech in the left. Verbal processing is largely the province of the left because of this hemisphere's possession of sequential, analytic, time-dependent mechanisms. Other distinctions are special cases of an analytic/holistic dichotomy. More fundamentally, however, the left hemisphere is characterized by its mediation of discriminations involving duration, temporal order, sequencing, and rhythm, at thesensory level, and especially at themotorlevel. Spatial aspects characterize the right, the mapping of exteroceptive body space, and the positions of fingers, limbs, and perhaps articulators, with respect to actual and target positions. Thus there is a continuum of function between the hemispheres, rather than a rigid dichotomy, the differences being quantitative rather than qualitative, of degree rather than of kind. (shrink)

Several recent findings support the notion that changes in the environment can be implicitly represented by the visual system. S. R. Mitroff, D. J. Simons, and S. L. Franconeri (2002) challenged this view and proposed alternative interpretations based on explicit strategies. Across 4 experiments, the current study finds no empirical support for such alternative proposals. Experiment 1 shows that subjects do not rely on unchanged items when locating an unaware change. Experiments 2 and 3 show that unaware changes affect performance (...) even when they occur at an unpredictable location. Experiment 4 shows that the unaware congruency effect does not depend simply on the pattern of the final display. The authors point to converging evidence from other methodologies and highlight several weaknesses in Mitroff et al.’s theoretical arguments. It is concluded here that implicit representation of change provides the most parsimonious explanation for both past and present findings. (shrink)

Desde la separación estricta de ética y derecho, la Rechtslehre kantiana sostiene que es la ética la que exige al sujeto que haga suya la máxima de actuar conforme al derecho. En la misma línea defiende J. F. Kervégan que los sujetos habríamos de reconocer como un deber ético el respeto a las normas jurídicas, sin que esto quiera decir que el derecho dependa de la ética, pues en estricto derecho no podría tenerse a la intención de conciencia como móvil (...) de la acción justa. Lo que el derecho regula y juzga son las acciones exteriores, y también el móvil tiene que es el poder coercitivo, que el derecho, a diferencia de la ética, tiene la facultad de imponer a la sociedad a fin de que cada miembro de ella en su acción externa evite por su propio interés perjudicar la libertad de cualquier otro. Por esta unicidad del móvil sostiene Kant que derecho y facultad de coaccionar significan una y la misma cosa. El formalismo de su planteamiento impide a Kant entrar en la complejidad del entramado de derechos y deberes, de bienes y cargas, que hace de la justicia distributiva el verdadero objeto del arte jurídico. Y por su externalización estricta del derecho reduce al jurista a la observancia de los textos, ignora el procedimiento de la controversia judicial, excluye la equidad como ajena al derecho, y convierte al derecho en el gendarme de la moral . En cuanto a la intención interior, una cosa es que las leyes no puedan motivar el albedrío por la conciencia de la obligación, y otra que si derecho y coacción significaran lo mismo no habría diferencia entre cumplir la ley para evitar el castigo o eludir el castigo burlando la ley -opción ésta que a muchos resultaría más provechosa, dado que el poder del Estado es incapaz de vigilar en cada momento a cada sujeto, y que los vigilantes mismos necesitan ser vigilados, ad infinitum. Tras una breve alusión a los conocidos argumentos de Platón, Hobbes y Montesquieu sobre la obediencia voluntaria como el otro móvil del derecho, no menos necesario que la coerción, se recuerda que también el profesor Kervégan ha defendido en otro contexto que un orden jurídico cualquiera tiene dos componentes irreductibles entre sí: el sistema de normas que define lo que debe ser y la decisión que conforma el ser al deber-ser. Finalmente, en el derecho interestatal no puede Kant invocar la facultad de coaccionar, que deja de significar lo mismo que "derecho" porque, al no haber ninguna fuerza superior a la soberanía de los Estados, el pacto durará hasta que alguno de ellos lo incumpla por su libre y soberana decisión. From a firm distinction between ethics and right, the Kantian Rechtslehre holds that the demand to adopt the maxim to act according to the right is an ethical demand. Also J.F. Kervégan defends that individuals should recognize the ethical obligation to respect juridical rules, but this does not mean that right depends on ethics, because, in strict right, internal disposition or intention could not be considered as motive for the rightful action. Law regulates and judges the external actions and also the motive has to be external as it is external the coercion that right -but not ethics- can impose on society so that each member of it, for his own interest, does not damage in his external agency any other member's freedom. Because of this only one motive, Kant declares that right and coercion's capacity signify the same thing. His formalist position stops him to go into the complex network of rights and duties, of advantages and burdens, which makes distributive justice the true subject of juridical art. Moreover, because of the strict externals of the law Kant is unaware of the juridical controversy, reduces the jurist to the observance of texts, ejects the equity as not right's own, and risks to transform the right in the gendarme of morals . With regard to intention, one thing is that in strict law the internal disposition can not be deemed as the motive, and other thing is that if law and coercion's capacity signify the same thing, there is no difference between obeing the law to avoide the punishment, or avoiding the punishment in breaking the law; then, the last option would be profitable for too many people, since the coercion power is not able to survey in every moment each individual, and the watchmen themselves need to be watched over and so on. After a short mention of the well known Plato, Hobbes and Montesquieu's arguments about the voluntary obedience as the other motive of the strict right, not less necessary than coercion, we remember that J. F. Kervégan also defended in another context that any juridical order has two irreducible le système des normes générales qui définissent ce qui doit être, et la décision qui conforme l'être au devoir-être. Finally, in the interstates right, Kant can not maintain that right and capacity of coercion mean the same thing, because there is not any force over the sovereignty of the States, and therefore the contract will last till one of them breaks it by its free and sovereign decision. (shrink)

A. Either God can create a stone which He cannot lift, or He cannot create a stone which He cannot lift. If God can create a stone which He cannot lift, then He is not omnipotent. If God cannot create a stone which He cannot lift, then He is not omnipotent. Therefore, God is not omnipotent.In a paper published in Analysis I tried to show that any attempt to find something wrong with all arguments of the general form of A (...) above, any attempt to resolve the “paradox,” must fail, that the reason these attempts must fail is that at least some arguments of this form are essentially sound, and that the only thing which makes these arguments seem paradoxical, their conclusion to the effect that God is not omnipotent, is, like at least some versions of the arguments to this conclusion, quite correct. (shrink)

This study empirically examines the association between certain director characteristics and the extent of voluntary audit committee disclosure in annual reports. Results suggest that Singapore's publicly traded firms are more likely to voluntarily disclose audit committee related information as: the number of board members increases; different individuals occupy the roles of CEO and board chairperson; and the proportion of independent directors serving on the board increases. Findings, however, fail to show any association between the amount of voluntary audit committee disclosure (...) and the percentage of executive directors' ownership. Documented findings are of interest and benefit to various parties including regulators, corporate governance reformists, and corporate management. For instance, findings imply that a positive by-product of implementing major corporate governance reforms currently championed by corporate governance reformists will be an increase in audit committee disclosures. As a result, there will be less pressure on regulators to develop, introduce, and enforce mandatory audit committee disclosures that may be potentially intrusive to a firm's management. (shrink)

We are witnessing at present a substantial efflorescence of the view that there are and must necessarily be fundamental differences between the methods—and especially the types of explanation—appropriate to the social sciences on the one hand and those appropriate to the natural sciences on the other. New and ever more subtle arguments seeking to re-establish a Geisteswissenschaften vs. Naturwissenschaften distinction are flowing from scholarly presses in ever greater volume. The works cited in footnote one are a mere sample just of (...) recent books which, while diverse to the point of contradiction in some respects, have as their common underlying theme the defense of such a methodological duality. (shrink)

Wykstra’s paper defends two objections to my reasoning in The Wisdom to Doubt. One says that we in fact do take evidence to be representative of all the relevant evidence that exists when forming the judgment that it makes some proposition probable, the other that our judgments as to the representativeness of evidence are often justified, and can be justified even in matters of religion. Both objections are instructive but ultimately unsuccessful, as I show here.

The question discussed in this paper is the relation of the Topics to the two Analytics. The smaller works are here ignored.

Si le christianisme a survécu en Grande Syrie, c'est en raison de facteurs spécifiques: l'intégrité de la communauté chrétienne arabe indigène dans la région; l'intégration sociale des chrétiens arabes syriens dans la société musulmane; l'échec des musulmans dans le prosélytisme agressif auprès des chrétiens; l'identification ethnique de la population indigène avec les nouvelles arrivées du VIIe siècle. L'arabisation ne signifiait pas systématiquement l'islamisation. Elle encourageait même le contraire dans certaines régions comme la Palestine, coeur d'une Eglise chrétienne arabophone viable.

First published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.