We investigate how nonstandard reals can be established constructively as arbitrary infinite sequences of rationals, following the classical approach due to Schmieden and Laugwitz. In particular, a total standard part map into Richman's generalised Dedekind reals is constructed without countable choice.

Objective: Even when critically ill patients are almost certain to die from their illnesses, there is generally an element of prognostic uncertainty. Little is known about how physicians handle this uncertainty in conversations with surrogate decision makers. We sought to evaluate whether and how physicians discuss prognostic uncertainty with surrogate decision makers of patients who are highly likely, but not certain, to die. Design: We audiotaped and transcribed discussions between clinicians and surrogate decision makers at two major California teaching hospitals (...) from 2006 through 2008. Physicians completed a questionnaire addressing their prognostic estimates for patients' survival to hospital discharge. Participants: We included physicians and surrogates of 12 incapacitated, critically ill patients. Measurements: We analyzed transcripts of discussions in which physicians' estimates of patients' chances of hospital survival were 1% to 5%; we coded whether physicians disclosed the prognostic uncertainty and, if so, how they conveyed that death was highly likely but not certain. Results: Physicians' estimates of short-term survival were 1% to 5% for 12 of the 70 patients enrolled in the original study. In 8 of 12 cases, physicians conveyed prognostic uncertainty by using probabilistic language or by an explicit mention of uncertainty. In four cases, physicians made at least one statement that either implied or was ambiguous about whether death was certain. Conclusion: We observed variability in how physicians handle prognostic uncertainty in their discussions with surrogates of patients who are highly likely, but not certain, to die, including some circumstances in which physicians stated or implied that death was certain. (shrink)

LET ME BEGIN this inquiry with the simple but fundamental fact that the flow of time, or passage, as it is also known, is given in experience, that it is as indubitable an aspect of our perception of the world as the sights and sounds that come in upon us, even though it is not the peculiar property of a special sense. Consider, by way of illustration, that I am now sitting at the desk in my study. This particular event (...) was not present at any earlier time, nor will it be present shortly as I become involved in other activities. The present, as I experience it, is regularly associated with later and later events. It does not hop about capriciously from here to a later time, to a previous time, and then to a much later time, or trace out some other such indiscriminate pattern; instead I find it always in association with the next moment, and as I look backward and inward, so to speak, I find that the prior moment was present and that this next-later moment is present. Quite often this condition is expressed by means of imagery. We are asked to envision either a moving present racing along a fixed track of moments or events from earlier to later, or alternatively a fixed present through which stream a series of moments or events, first the earlier and then the later ones. One is in truth hard-pressed to find references to passage which do not employ quasi-poetical tropes and metaphors, and while these do help in some sense to say what we mean, great caution is required when handling them because of their ready tendency to draw us away from the actual phenomenon requiring explanation. (shrink)

Should weak forms of the axiom of choice really be accepted within constructive mathematics? A critical view of the Brouwer-Heyting-Kolmogorov interpretation, accompanied by the intention to include nondeterministic algorithms, leads us to subscribe to Richman's appeal for dropping countable choice. As an alternative interpretation of intuitionistic logic, we propose to renew dialogue semantics.

This book bridges the gaps between logic, mathematics and computer science by delving into the theory of well-quasi orders, also known as wqos. This highly active branch of combinatorics is deeply rooted in and between many fields of mathematics and logic, including proof theory, commutative algebra, braid groups, graph theory, analytic combinatorics, theory of relations, reverse mathematics and subrecursive hierarchies. As a unifying concept for slick finiteness or termination proofs, wqos have been rediscovered in diverse contexts, and proven to be (...) extremely useful in computer science. The book introduces readers to the many facets of, and recent developments in, wqos through chapters contributed by scholars from various fields. As such, it offers a valuable asset for logicians, mathematicians and computer scientists, as well as scholars and students. (shrink)

In this paper I shall examine creation and annihilation in time rather than solipsism of the moment. The argument will focus upon a difficulty raised by the creationist's qualification of the solipsist's denial of past and future. The solipsist maintains that the words "past" and "future" have no object of reference; hence, statements denying their existence, like such statements as "Fairies do not exist" and "Santa Claus does not exist," convey the idea that there simply are no existents to which (...) the subject terms refer. At no point can we accuse the solipsist of making the absurd claim that some existents do not exist, and yet that is precisely the claim which the creationist makes; for his subject term refers to some existent—something which does exist or did exist—and then he denies the existence of that existent. Indeed, he cannot express himself without granting existence, on the one hand, and denying it, on the other, so that he appears at the very outset to be involved in a contradiction. If the following argument is correct, it will prove that the contradiction is not merely apparent but real, and that the creationist is confronted by it as soon as he says what he wants to say in whatever idiom he chooses to say it. (shrink)

The long-standing conflict between the two theories centers about the question whether time can exist independently of that which is in it. Those who advocate absolute time answer in the affirmative while the relationists take the opposite position claiming that temporal relations, and thus time, have no reality apart from the things and events which they order. In the terminology of Paul Weiss, relational time is "concrete." The considerable emphasis placed upon this issue of the concreteness of time has adversely (...) affected the absolute theory, leading to presentations of the absolutist position that are confusing, if not erroneous. Absolute time, as interpreted by philosophers such as Broad, Gunn, and Whitehead, posits the existence of abstract moments which are arranged in serial order one before the other by virtue of relations of precedence between them. Things and events participate in time only vicariously, so to speak, being joined to their respective moments by another kind of relation which Whitehead calls "occupation." The overall structure presented by the absolute theory is therefore thought to be as follows: one event is before another if both are respectively bound by relations of occupation to moments which are in turn so related as to be one before the other. Relational time mercifully simplifies this picture by a neat bit of surgery, cutting away the abstract moments and tying the relations of precedence directly to things and events themselves. As a consequence, the parasitic relations of occupation wither away. (shrink)

First it will be necessary to examine the argument, and the meaning of the argument, by which Mr. Ingram-Pearson is led to uphold such an unusual position. Using the statement, "fairies do not exist," as his example, he observes: "In order to achieve its obvious status as a denial this statement must have some object of reference for its subject term; for denials which are denials of nothing are not denials in any sense at all." What, then, is the designate (...) of the term "fairies"? It is, we are told, "an existent [italics mine] which at least one person believes to be present in the world and which another person at the same time and in the same context believes is not there." To say that "fairies do not exist" is therefore to say that "certain entities, designated by the term 'fairies,' are not present in the world," or "specific entities, designated by the term 'fairies,' are really absent from the world." The latter statement is positive, and Mr. Ingram-Pearson tells us explicitly that positive statements cannot "succeed in making intelligible" something made intelligible by negative statements about non-existents; but he has in mind such "ordinary" positive statements as "fairies are imagined beings." In other words, it is not that negative statements about. (shrink)

Given its non-invasive nature, there is increasing interest in the use of transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation across basic, translational and clinical research. Contemporaneously, tVNS can be achieved by stimulating either the auricular branch or the cervical bundle of the vagus nerve, referred to as transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation and transcutaneous cervical VNS, respectively. In order to advance the field in a systematic manner, studies using these technologies need to adequately report sufficient methodological detail to enable comparison of results between (...) studies, replication of studies, as well as enhancing study participant safety. We systematically reviewed the existing tVNS literature to evaluate current reporting practices. Based on this review, and consensus among participating authors, we propose a set of minimal reporting items to guide future tVNS studies. The suggested items address specific technical aspects of the device and stimulation parameters. We also cover general recommendations including inclusion and exclusion criteria for participants, outcome parameters and the detailed reporting of side effects. Furthermore, we review strategies used to identify the optimal stimulation parameters for a given research setting and summarize ongoing developments in animal research with potential implications for the application of tVNS in humans. Finally, we discuss the potential of tVNS in future research as well as the associated challenges across several disciplines in research and clinical practice. (shrink)

Objective: The establishment of patient-centered measures capable of empirically determining meaningful cognitive change after surgery can significantly improve the medical care of epilepsy patients. Thus, this study aimed to develop reliable change indices (RCIs) and standardized regression-based (SRB) change norms for a comprehensive neuropsychological test battery in the German language. Methods: Forty-seven consecutive patients with temporal lobe epilepsy underwent neuropsychological assessments, both before and 12 months after surgery. Practice-effect-adjusted RCIs and SRB change norms for each test score were computed. To (...) assess their usefulness, the presented methods were applied to a clinical sample, and binary logistic regression analyses were conducted to model the odds of achieving improvement in quality of life (QOL) after surgery. Results: The determined RCIs at 90% confidence intervals, and the SRB equations for each test score included in the test battery are provided. Cohen’s kappa analyses revealed a moderate mean agreement between the two measures, varying from slight to almost perfect agreement across test scores. Using these measures, a negative association between improvement in QOL and decline in verbal memory functions after surgery was detected. Significance: To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to provide RCIs and SRB change norms necessary for the objective determination of neuropsychological change in a comprehensive test battery in the German language, facilitating the individual monitoring of improvement and decline in each patients’ cognitive functioning and psychosocial situations after epilepsy surgery. The application of the described measures revealed a strong negative association between improvement in QOL and decline in verbal memory functions after surgery. (shrink)

Given its non-invasive nature, there is increasing interest in the use of transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation across basic, translational and clinical research. Contemporaneously, tVNS can be achieved by stimulating either the auricular branch or the cervical bundle of the vagus nerve, referred to as transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation and transcutaneous cervical VNS, respectively. In order to advance the field in a systematic manner, studies using these technologies need to adequately report sufficient methodological detail to enable comparison of results between (...) studies, replication of studies, as well as enhancing study participant safety. We systematically reviewed the existing tVNS literature to evaluate current reporting practices. Based on this review, and consensus among participating authors, we propose a set of minimal reporting items to guide future tVNS studies. The suggested items address specific technical aspects of the device and stimulation parameters. We also cover general recommendations including inclusion and exclusion criteria for participants, outcome parameters and the detailed reporting of side effects. Furthermore, we review strategies used to identify the optimal stimulation parameters for a given research setting and summarize ongoing developments in animal research with potential implications for the application of tVNS in humans. Finally, we discuss the potential of tVNS in future research as well as the associated challenges across several disciplines in research and clinical practice. (shrink)

In a fragment entitled Elementa Nova Matheseos Universalis Leibniz writes “the mathesis [...] shall deliver the method through which things that are conceivable can be exactly determined”; in another fragment he takes the mathesis to be “the science of all things that are conceivable.” Leibniz considers all mathematical disciplines as branches of the mathesis and conceives the mathesis as a general science of forms applicable not only to magnitudes but to every object that exists in our imagination, i.e. that is (...) possible at least in principle. As a general science of forms the mathesis investigates possible relations between “arbitrary objects”. It is an abstract theory of combinations and relations among objects whatsoever. In 1810 the mathematician and philosopher Bernard Bolzano published a booklet entitled Contributions to a Better-Grounded Presentation of Mathematics. There is, according to him, a certain objective connection among the truths that are germane to a certain homogeneous field of objects: some truths are the “reasons” of others, and the latter are “consequences” of the former. The reason-consequence relation seems to be the counterpart of causality at the level of a relation between true propositions. Arigorous proof is characterized in this context as a proof that shows the reason of the proposition that is to be proven. Requirements imposed on rigorous proofs seem to anticipate normalization results in current proof theory. The contributors of Mathesis Universalis, Computability and Proof, leading experts in the fields of computer science, mathematics, logic and philosophy, show the evolution of these and related ideas exploring topics in proof theory, computability theory, intuitionistic logic, constructivism and reverse mathematics, delving deeply into a contextual examination of the relationship between mathematical rigor and demands for simplification. (shrink)

In Computer Science stepwise refinement of algebraic specifications is a well-known formal methodology for rigorous program development. This paper illustrates how techniques from Algebraic Logic, in particular that of interpretation, understood as a multifunction that preserves and reflects logical consequence, capture a number of relevant transformations in the context of software design, reuse, and adaptation, difficult to deal with in classical approaches. Examples include data encapsulation and the decomposition of operations into atomic transactions. But if interpretations open such a new (...) research avenue in program refinement, (conceptual) tools are needed to reason about them. In this line, the paper’s main contribution is a study of the correspondence between logical interpretations and morphisms of a particular kind of coalgebras. This opens way to the use of coalgebraic constructions, such as simulation and bisimulation, in the study of interpretations between (abstract) logics. (shrink)

The study aimed at measuring the dominant pattern of leadership and its relation to the performance of the administrative staff in the Palestinian universities. The study community consists of all the administrative staff from Al-Azhar University and the Islamic University, and through the census of the study society it was found to consist of (655) administrative staff. In order to achieve the objectives of the study, the researchers used the method of random sample in the study, and the study was (...) conducted on a sample of (221) administrative staff of the surveyed universities and the response rate was (82.35%). The study found that there is a high degree of satisfaction with the Dominant Pattern of Leadership in the Palestinian universities in Gaza Strip from the point of view of the administrative staff, which reached (71.67%). There is a high level of performance from the point of view of administrative staff, with a percentage of (82.53%). There is a direct correlation between the dominant pattern of leadership and the functional Performance of Administrative Staff, the absence of differences between the sample according to the gender variable in their perception of the dominant pattern of leadership and the functional Performance of Administrative Staff, the absence of differences in the perception of employees of the dominant pattern of leadership and the functional Performance of Administrative Staff depending on the age variable. There are differences of statistical significance according to the variable of scientific qualification in the Dominant Pattern of Leadership, while there were no differences in performance, the differences in the dominant pattern of leadership according to the scientific qualification were in favor of those who obtained the diploma degree compared to other practical qualifications, the absence of differences in the perception of employees of the dominant pattern of leadership and the functional Performance of Administrative Staff depending on the variable years of service, the absence of differences in the perception of employees of the dominant pattern of leadership and the functional Performance of Administrative Staff depending on the variable level of career (Director, Head of Department, and Administrative Officer). There were differences in the perception of workers to the dominant pattern of leadership depending on the variable of the workplace, where there were differences in favor of workers in deanships and colleges compared with the workers in the technical departments. While there were no differences in job performance according to the workplace variable, the existence of differences in the perception of workers to the dominant pattern of leadership depending on the university in which they work in favor of the Islamic University and the absence of differences in performance between the Islamic University and Al-Azhar University. The study reached a number of recommendations, the most important of which is that the interest of the managements of the Palestinian universities in improving the dominant pattern of leadership, to give universities the opportunity to participate in decision-making, the continued administration of universities interest and continuous improvement of the performance of its employees, enhance the periodic evaluation of job performance and to inform employees and express their opinion, solving workers' problems and giving them the opportunity to contribute to solving their own problems, the use of the staff rotation method periodically and strengthening the democratic the dominant pattern of leadership and empowering university staff. -/- . (shrink)

In this paper, I plan to show that the use of a specific population concept—Millstein’s Causal Interactionist Population Concept (CIPC)—has interesting and counter-intuitive ramifications for discussions of the reality of biological race in human beings. These peculiar ramifications apply to human beings writ large and to individuals. While this in and of itself may not be problematic, I plan to show that the ramifications that follow from applying Millstein’s CIPC to human beings complicates specific biological racial realist accounts—naïve or otherwise. (...) I conclude with the notion that even if biological races do exist—by fulfilling all of the criteria needed for Millstein’s population concept (which, given particular worries raised by Gannett (Synthese 177:363–385, 2010), and Winther and Kaplan (Theoria 60:54–80, 2013) may not)—the lower-bound limit for the scope of biological racial realism is at the level of populations, and as such they cannot say anything about whether or not individual organisms themselves have races. (shrink)

Deception is part of the natural repertoire of adaptive behaviours in many organisms. In humans we see it in all domains of human activity including health care. Within health care, deception can be a matter of concern, but it is also used to protect patients, for instance against overwhelming and negative diagnostics. This paper demonstrates that deception and self‐deception are closely interlinked and that self‐deception facilitates deception. Furthermore, self‐deception tends to be used to reduce the discomfort we feel when we (...) are dishonest (cognitive dissonance). The paper includes references to core psychological mechanisms and ethical aspects. (shrink)

This chapter aims to bring to the fore some of the ontological presuppositions that undergird the concepts of race and racism as they are used in public health. Included are discussions of differing accounts for race in public health, the ways in which racism is understood to be a public health issue, and where future research in public health, as it relates to the concepts of race and racism, is headed.

First published in 1995. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

First published in 1995. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

A new characterization of tabularity in tense logic is established, namely, a tense logic L is tabular if and only if $\mathsf {tab}_n^T\in L$ for some $n\geq 1$. Two characterization theorems for the Post-completeness in tabular tense logics are given. Furthermore, a characterization of the Post-completeness in the lattice of all tense logics is established. Post numbers of some tense logics are shown.

Jan Narveson has articulated a deeply held, widely shared intuition regarding what moral law has to say about bringing additional people into existence: while we are “in favour of making people happy,” we are “neutral about making happy people.” Various formulations of the Narvesonian intuition (closely related to the _person-affecting intuition_ or _restriction_) have been widely criticized. This present paper outlines an off-the-beaten-path alternate construction of the intuition—the _existence condition_—and argues that that particular construction has the resources to avoid some (...) of those criticisms. But still other considerably more widely recognized alternate constructions have been offered as well. Thus John Broome outlines what he calls the _neutrality intuition_. While Broome finds the underlying intuition “strongly attractive,” he nonetheless argues that the neutrality intuition itself leads us quickly into inconsistency. Wlodek Rabinowicz disagrees. On his view, Broome’s inconsistency argument shows, not that the neutrality intuition is false, but rather that it doesn’t follow, from the fact that the outcome, or possible future or _world_, that includes the additional person is neither better nor worse than the (otherwise similar) world that excludes that person, that the one world is exactly as good as the other. The better view, according to Rabinowicz, is that, on occasion, and specifically when the coming into existence of additional people is at stake, the one world is _incommensurate_ with the other. What is called the _principle of trichotomy_ is, in other words, false. Difficulties arise, however, when we try to reject that seemingly compelling conceptual principle. This present paper concludes with the argument that the availability of the existence condition—which, together with certain other uncontroversial moral principles and a handful of conceptual principles, forms the _existential approach_—shows that we can maintain the most intuitive parts of neutrality intuition while avoiding both Broome’s inconsistency worry and Rabinowicz’s commitment to incommensurability. Incommensurability may be correct on other grounds—but not, this present paper argues, on the grounds provided by Broome’s inconsistency argument. (shrink)

The vast majority of contributions to the literature on spirituality in nursing make extravagant claims about transcendence, eternity, the numinous, higher powers, higher levels of existence, invisible forces, cosmic unity, the essence of humanity, or other supernatural concepts. Typically, these assertions are made without the support of argument or evidence; and, as a consequence, alternative ways of theorizing ‘spirituality’ have been closed off, while the lack of consistent scholarship has turned the topic into a metaphysical backwater. In this paper, I (...) adopt a different premise, rejecting unsupported claims, and surveying the ‘spirituality’ terrain from a naturalistic and reductionist perspective. I argue that, if we rid ourselves of non‐naturalistic assumptions, we will discover theoretical and clinical resources in health psychology, social psychology, neuropsychology, and pharmacopsychology – resources which confirm that it is possible to conceptualize the study of existential concerns, and how health professionals might respond to them, in a properly scientific manner. In order to illustrate the potential usefulness of these resources, I will take palliative care as an example. (shrink)

When people engage in conversation, they tailor their utterances to their conversational partners, whether these partners are other humans or computational systems. This tailoring, or adaptation to the partner takes place in all facets of human language use, and is based on a mental model or a user model of the conversational partner. Such adaptation has been shown to improve listeners' comprehension, their satisfaction with an interactive system, the efficiency with which they execute conversational tasks, and the likelihood of achieving (...) higher level goals such as changing the listener's beliefs and attitudes. We focus on one aspect of adaptation, namely the tailoring of the content of dialogue system utterances for the higher level processes of persuasion, argumentation and advice-giving. Our hypothesis is that algorithms that adapt content for these processes, according to a user model, will improve the usability, efficiency, and effectiveness of dialogue systems. We describe a multimodal dialogue system and algorithms for adaptive content selection based on multi-attribute decision theory. We demonstrate experimentally the improved efficacy of system responses through the use of user models to both tailor the content of system utterances and to manipulate their conciseness. (shrink)

Positive changes or transformations have been the subject of study within spiritual traditions as well as humanistic and transpersonal psychology. The aim of the current study is to understand the process of transformation among Moslems in Indonesia, who follow spiritual practices, to achieve the nafs al-muṭma ínnah [tranquil self]. Ten participants in Yogyakarta province were involved in this study. They were recruited using nafs al-muṭmaʾinnah scale developed by the authors. In-depth interviews of both the participants and their significant others were (...) conducted. To analyse the data, an interpretative phenomenological analysis was employed. Five themes emerged from the data, including deviation from the basis of religious environment, spiritual discipline, transformative experiences, new characters and a continuous process. We conclude that participants experience spiritual-religious transformation and achieve the state of nafs al-muṭma ínnah [tranquil self]. The process of transformation occurs gradually after a sudden experience, and it continuously happens throughout the course of life. Three factors contribute to the transformation, including the role of predisposition, the role of a spiritual guide and the role of spiritual experiences.Contribution: As the study of spiritual-religious transformation is mainly conducted within a Judea-Christian tradition, this study significantly contributes to the literature by providing spiritual-religious transformation from an Islamic-Sufi perspective. (shrink)

Code-based cryptography is currently the second most promising post-quantum mathematical tool for quantum-resistant algorithms. Since in 2022 the first post-quantum standard Key Encapsulation Mechanism, Kyber (a latticed-based algorithm), was selected to be established as standard, and after that the National Institute of Standards and Technology post-quantum standardization call focused in code-based cryptosystems. Three of the four candidates that remain in the fourth round are code-based algorithms. In fact, the only non-code-based algorithm (SIKE) is now considered vulnerable. Due to this landscape, (...) it is crucial to update previous results about these algorithms and their functioning. The Fujisaki-Okamoto transformation is a key part of the study of post-quantum algorithms and in this work we focus our analysis on Classic McEliece, BIKE and HQC proposals, and how they apply this transformation to obtain IND-CCA semantic security. Since after security the most important parameter in the evaluation of the algorithms is performance, we have compared the performance of the code-based algorithms of the NIST call considering the same architecture for all of them. (shrink)

This text explores how human beings construe experience: experience as a resource, as a potential for understanding, representing and acting on reality.