(Report assembled for the Workshop of the AMIA Working Group on Formal Biomedical Knowledge Representation in connection with AMIA Symposium, Washington DC, 2005.) Best practices in ontology building for biomedicine have been frequently discussed in recent years. However there is a range of seemingly disparate views represented by experts in the field. These views not only reflect the different uses to which ontologies are put, but also the experiences and disciplinary background of these experts themselves. We asked six questions related (...) to biomedical ontologies to what we believe is a representative sample of ontologists in the biomedical field and came to a number conclusions which we believe can help provide an insight into the practical problems which ontology builders face today. (shrink)

This article is part of a For-Discussion-Section of Methods of Information in Medicine about the paper "Biomedical Informatics: We Are What We Publish", written by Peter L. Elkin, Steven H. Brown, and Graham Wright. It is introduced by an editorial. This article contains the combined commentaries invited to independently comment on the Elkin et al. paper. In subsequent issues the discussion can continue through letters to the editor.

What does it mean to be visually literate? Does it mean different things in the arts and the sciences? In the West, in Asia, or in developing nations? If we all need to become "visually literate," what does that mean in practical terms? The essays gathered here examine a host of issues surrounding "the visual," exploring national and regional ideas of visuality and charting out new territories of visual literacy that lie far beyond art history, such as law and chemistry. (...) With an afterword by Christopher Crouch, this groundbreaking collection brings together the work of major art and visual studies scholars and critics to explore what impact the new concept of "visual literacy" will have on the traditional field of art history. Contributors: Matthias Bruhn, Vera Dünkel, Jonathan Crary, Christopher Crouch, Peter Dallow, James Elkins, Henrik Enquist, W.J.T. Mitchell, Richard K. Sherwin, Susan Shifrin, Jon Simons, Barbara Maria Stafford, William Washabaugh. (shrink)

I wish to thank Klaus Kühnle who streamlined in [8] several of my definitions and proofs concerning the subject matter of this paper. Some ideas and results arose from discussions with Klaus Leeb. Jan Johannsen discovered some mistakes in an earlier version.

My reason for bringing up the familiar matter of phenomenalism is both critical and historical. Almost to a man those who have been interested in arguing for or against phenomenalism have assumed that Berkeley was a phenomenalist. Now if Berkeley's doctrine is appropriately named “phenomenalism,” then it is a phenomenalism of a quite different stripe from the twentieth century variety, though many who have described his doctrine as phenomenalism have not sufficiently stressed the difference.

Although the theory of definability had many important antecedents—such as the descriptive set theory initiated by the French semi-intuitionists in the early 1900s—the main ideas were first laid out in precise mathematical terms by Alfred Tarski beginning in 1929. We review here the basic notions of languages, explicit definability, and grammatical complexity, and emphasize common themes in the theories of definability for four important languages underlying, respectively, descriptive set theory, recursive function theory, classical pure logic, and finite-universe logic. We review (...) the history of previous studies of the similarities and differences in the theories of definability of the first three of these four languages. A seminal role leading toward unification of the theories has been played by the separation principles introduced by Nikolai Luzin in 1927. Emphasizing analogies and driving toward further unification embracing finite-universe logic we concentrate on a simple example—the first and second separation principles for existential-universal first-order sentences . Using this as a test case for the fundamental problem of how to “finitize” arguments in classical pure logic to the finite-universe case, we are led to the analogous negative solution by using the theory of certain special graphs: a graph is - special for any positive integers m , n , p , q iff it is bipartite with m red points and n blue points and for every p -tuple of red points there is a blue point to which they are all connected . As an aside we introduce for further study a natural “Ramseyesque” increasing sequence A of positive integers, where A is the least positive integer n for which an -special graph exists. (shrink)

Recently a growing number of biologists have begun to consider the causal role that processes of embryonic development may play in evolution. This constitutes a reunion of these phenomena which had been linked in the nineteenth century through Haeckel's biogenetic law. This reunion may result in a new subdiscipline of biology, if there is a set of unique concepts and methods which tie the various research approaches together. Such concepts as bauplan, canalization, and developmental constraint, may serve in such a (...) capacity. The methods employed must combine comparative and experimental analyses, with special attention paid to the range of variation in developmental events within each taxon. These concepts and methods are also applicable to the problem of how development evolved, thus the evolution of development may also be considered part of the reunion. The reunion is discussed in terms of the potential participation of various schools of thought found in the current literature. (shrink)

The purpose of this brief introduction is to describe the origin of the papers here presented and to acknowledge the help of some of the many individuals who were involved in the preparation of this volume. Of the eighteen papers, nine stem from the annual fall colloquium of the Depart ment of Philosophy at the University of Western Ontario held in London, Ontario from November 10 to November 12, 1967. The colloquium was entitled 'Philosophical Logic'. After some discussion, the editors (...) decided to retain that title for this volume. Von Wright's paper 'On the Logic and Ontology of Norms' is printed here after some revision. A. R. Anderson commented on the paper at the colloquium, but his comments here are based upon the revised version of the von Wright paper. The chairman of the session at which von Wright's paper was read and discussed was T. A. Goudge. Aqvist's paper 'Scattered Topics in Interrogative Logic', and Belnap's comments, 'Aqvist's Cor rections-Accumulating Question-Sequences', are printed as delivered. The chairman of the Aqvist-Belnap session was R. E. Butts. Wilfrid Sellars' paper 'Some Problems about Belief' is printed as delivered at the col loquium, but 'Quantifiers, Beliefs, and Sellars' by Ernest Sosa is a revision of his comments at the colloquium. That session was chaired by G. D. W. Berry. Ackermann's paper 'Some Problems oflnductive Logic', as well as Skyrms' comments, are printed as delivered. (shrink)

For each regular cardinal κ, we set up three systems of infinitary type logic, in which the length of the types and the length of the typed syntactical constructs are $\Sigma _{}$, the global system $\text{g}\Sigma _{}$ and the τ-system $\tau \Sigma _{}$. A full cut elimination theorem is proved for the local systems, and about the τ-systems we prove that they admit cut-free proofs for sequents in the τ-free language common to the local and global systems. These two results (...) follow from semantic completeness proofs. Thus every sequent provable in a global system has a cut-free proof in the corresponding τ-systems. It is, however, an open question whether the global systems in themselves admit cut elimination. (shrink)

We propose the beginnings of an intuitionistic propopsitional dynamic logic, and describe several serious open problems.

This presentation of the main phases and features of political thought in the sixteenth century is based on an exhaustive study of contemporary writings in Latin, English, French, German and Italian. The book is divided into four parts. The first part deals with the new thought of Protestantism. The rest describes special ideas that emerged in England, France and Italy.

Summary: This is a provocative book for those who have closely aligned themselves with a specific research or pedagogical paradigm. The underlying theme of the book is to encourage multiple approaches to educational research that will inform practice... Although the book is more about eclecticism than constructivism, it can serve as a basis for many discussions on educational research as it is and where it should go.

Definitions are traditionally seen as abbreviations, as tools for notational convenience that do not increase inferential power. From a Philosophy of Mathematical Practice point of view, however, there is much more to definitions. For example, definitions can play a role in problem solving, definitions can contribute to understanding, sometimes equivalent definitions are appreciated differently, and so on. This chapter reviews the literature on definitions and (to a certain extent) concepts in mathematical practice. It is structured according to four themes through (...) which definitions (and concepts) in mathematical practice have been studied. These themes concern (1) the nature of definitions, (2) whether and how concepts evolve, (3) definitions and concepts from a communal perspective, and (4) different values relating to definitions and concepts. (shrink)