In this paper, we introduce a new approach to independent quantifiers, as originally introduced in Informational independence as a semantic phenomenon by Hintikka and Sandu [9] under the header of independence-friendly languages. Unlike other approaches, which rely heavily on compositional methods, we shall analyze independent quantifiers via equilibriums in strategic games. In this approach, coined equilibrium semantics, the value of an IF sentence on a particular structure is determined by the expected utility of the existential player in any of the (...) game’s equilibriums. This approach was suggested in Henkin quantifiers and complete problems by Blass and Gurevich [2] but has not been taken up before. We prove that each rational number can be realized by an IF sentence. We also give a lower and upper bound on the expressive power of IF logic under equilibrium semantics. (shrink)

We study the expressive power of independence-friendly quantifier prefixes composed of universal$\left$, existential$\left$, and majority quantifiers$\left$. We provide four quantifier prefixes that can express NP hard properties and show that all quantifier prefixes capable of expressing NP-hard properties embed at least one of these four quantifier prefixes. As for the quantifier prefixes that do not embed any of these four quantifier prefixes, we show that they are equivalent to a first-order quantifier prefix composed of$\forall x$,$\exists x$, and Mx. In unison, (...) our results imply a dichotomy result: every independence-friendly quantifier prefix is either decidable in LOGSPACE or NP hard. (shrink)

Sandu and Pietarinen [Partiality and Games: Propositional Logic. Logic J. IGPL 9 (2001) 101] study independence friendly propositional logics. That is, traditional propositional logic extended by means of syntax that allow connectives to be independent of each other, although the one may be subordinate to the other. Sandu and Pietarinen observe that the IF propositional logics have exotic properties, like functional completeness for three-valued functions. In this paper we focus on one of their IF propositional logics and study its properties, (...) by means of notions from computational complexity. This approach enables us to compare propositional logic before and after the IF make-over. We observe that all but one of the best-known decision problems experience a complexity jump, provided that the complexity classes at hand are not equal. Our results concern every discipline that incorporates some notion of independence such as computer science, natural language semantics, and game theory. A corollary of one of our theorems illustrates this claim with respect to the latter discipline. (shrink)

In this paper we consider an independence-friendly modal logic, IFML. It follows from results in the literature that qua expressive power, IFML is a fragment of second-order existential logic, , that cannot be translated into first-order logic. It is also known that IFML lacks the tree structure property. We show that IFML has the , a weaker version of the tree structure property, and that its satisfiability problem is solvable in 2NEXP. This implies that this paper reveals a new decidable (...) fragment of . We also show that IFML becomes undecidable if we add the identity symbol to its vocabulary by means of a reduction from the tiling problem. (shrink)

In recent work, semantic games of independence-friendly logic were studied in strategic form in terms of Nash equilibria. The class of strategic games of independence-friendly logic is contained in the class of win-loss, zero-sum two-player games. In this note we draw on the theory of linear programming to develop tools to analyze the value of such games. We give two applications of these tools to independence-friendly logic under the so-called equilibrium semantics.

Motivated by constraint satisfaction problems, Feder and Vardi (SIAM Journal of Computing, 28, 57–104, 1998) set out to search for fragments of satisfying the dichotomy property: every problem definable in is either in P or else NP-complete. Feder and Vardi considered in this connection two logics, strict NP (or SNP) and monadic, monotone, strict NP without inequalities (or MMSNP). The former consists of formulas of the form , where is a quantifier-free formula in a relational vocabulary; and the latter is (...) the fragment of SNP whose formulas involve only negative occurrences of relation symbols, only monadic second-order quantifiers, and no occurrences of the equality symbol. It remains an open problem whether MMSNP enjoys the dichotomy property. In the present paper, SNP and MMSNP are characterized in terms of partially ordered connectives. More specifically, SNP is characterized using the logic D of partially ordered connectives introduced in Blass and Gurevich (Annals of Pure and Applied Logic, 32, 1–16, 1986), Sandu and Väänänen (Zeitschrift für Mathematische Logik und Grundlagen der Mathematik, 38, 361–372 1992), and MMSNP employing a generalization C of D introduced in the present paper. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence (AI)-based virtual influencers are now frequently used by brands in various categories to engage customers. However, little is known about who the followers of these AI-based virtual influencers are and more importantly, what drives the followers to use AI-based virtual influencers. The results from a survey support the notion that compensatory mechanisms and the need to belong play important roles in affecting usage intentions of AI-based virtual influencers. Specifically, the study finds that usage intentions are mediated and moderated (...) by compensatory mechanisms that arise from the perception of AI-based virtual influencers’ functional benefits and existential threats to human identity. Furthermore, the need for belonging moderates the effects of the following status (following versus non-following) on perceived personalization benefits of AI-based virtual influencers and behavioral intentions to use AI-based virtual influencers. This study provides important implications for academia delving into the social, cultural, and philosophical implications of AI-based virtual influencers for human societies as well as for brands that plan to use AI-based virtual influencers and gain a better understanding of their customers in AI-driven digital marketing. (shrink)

Background Genuine uncertainty on superiority of one intervention over the other is called equipoise. Physician-investigators in randomized controlled trials need equipoise at least in studies with more than minimal risks. Ideally, this equipoise is also present in patient-participants. In pediatrics, data on equipoise are lacking. We hypothesize that 1) lack of equipoise at enrolment among parents may reduce recruitment; 2) lack of equipoise during participation may reduce retention in patients assigned to a less favoured treatment-strategy. Methods We compared preferences of (...) parents/patients at enrolment, documented by a questionnaire, with preferences developed during follow-up by an interview-study to investigate equipoise of child-participants and parents in the BeSt-for-Kids-study. This trial in new-onset Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis-patients consists of three strategies. One strategy comprises initial treatment with a biological disease-modifying-antirheumatic-drug, currently not standard-of-care. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 23 parents and 7 patients, median 11 months after enrolment. Results Initially most parents and children were not in equipoise. Parents/patients who refused participation, regularly declined due to specific preferences. Many participating families preferred the biological-first-strategy. They participated to have a chance for this initial treatment, and would even consider stopping trial-participation when not randomized for it. Their conviction of superiority of the biological-first strategy was based on knowledge from internet and close relations. According to four parents, the physician-investigator preferred the biological-first-strategy, but the majority stated that she had no preferred strategy. In phase 2, preferences tended to change to the treatment actually received. Conclusions Lack of equipoise during enrolment did not reduce study recruitment, mainly due to the fact that preferred treatment was only available within the study. Still, when developing a trial it is important to evaluate whether the physicians’ research question is in line with preferences of the patient-group. By exploring so-called ‘informed patient-group’-equipoise, successful recruitment may be enhanced and bias avoided. In our study, lack of equipoise during trial-participation did not reduce retention in those assigned to a less favoured option. We observed a change for preference towards treatment actually received, possibly explained by comparable outcomes in all three arms. (shrink)

For as long as there has been anything worthy of the name of science, there have been those who have criticized its claim to superior knowledge. With the birth and prodigious growth of modern science, the corresponding growthof critical opinion led, in the eighteenth century, to a divorce of the sciences from the humanities around which our educational institutions, and our universities in particular, have been built. It is this divorce which renders problematic the status of the social or human (...) sciences. For the extent to which Man can be an object of scientific knowledge will be questioned by those insisting on an opposition between human knowledge and values as embodied in the humanities, and the dehumanized objective knowledge proclaimed within the natural sciences. (shrink)

Resumen Este artículo busca demostrar que los argumentos generales acerca de la exploración científica valen también para las ciencias espaciales. El trabajo se basa en el ejemplo de la exploración de Venus y lo que esta nos dice acerca de nuestro propio planeta. Argumenta que el concepto de la probabilidad de Leslie es incorrecto, como también lo son las dudas sobre la evidencia Venusiana. Así mismo, concluye que no se puede rechazar la importancia que tienen los descubrimientos inesperados que (...) han resultado de la exploración de Venus para ayudarnos a comprender nuestro propio planeta. Y que si van a ser rechazados estos descubrimientos debe ser por razones científicas, no por intuiciones acerca de la probabilidad.This article seeks to demonstrate that the general arguments about scientific exploration are also suitable for space sciences. The work is based on the example of the exploration of Venus and what it tells us about our own planet. It argues that Leslie’s concept of probability is incorrect, as are also the doubts on Venusian evidence. Likewise, it concludes that we cannot deny that the unexpected discoveries that have resulted from the exploration of Venus are important to help us understand our own planet. And if these discoveries are going to be rejected, it must be for scientific reasons and not for intuitions about probability. Este artículo busca demostrar que los argumentos generales acerca de la exploración científica valen también para las ciencias espaciales. El trabajo se basa en el ejemplo de la exploración de Venus y lo que esta nos dice acerca de nuestro propio planeta. Argumenta que el concepto de la probabilidad de Leslie es incorrecto, como también lo son las dudas sobre la evidencia Venusiana. Así mismo, concluye que no se puede rechazar la importancia que tienen los descubrimientos inesperados que han resultado de la exploración de Venus para ayudarnos a comprender nuestro propio planeta. Y que si van a ser rechazados estos descubrimientos debe ser por razones científicas, no por intuiciones acerca de la probabilidad. (shrink)

A 2020 scientific report indicated the presence of phosphine, a potential biosignature chemical, in the atmosphere of Venus. As a result, Venus instantly became a global cultural celebrity. How did Venus become so fashionable, so cool in colloquial language, so quickly? I contend that Venus became the center of attention at least temporarily because Venus became moral. Since life at present is a concept that is as much moral as it is scientific, I explain this (...) point by offering a geographically broad sampling of world philosophies that show that secular and religious Western forms of thought strongly value life over nonlife as do many Asian traditions. These cultural valuations of life over nonlife become infused in human psychologies globally and astonish us at the discovery of extraterrestrial life. This essay's substantial culture sample thereby demonstrates that Venus became revered because of deep‐seated but also widespread attitudes of special moral attendance to the presence of life especially in extraterrestrial settings. (shrink)

Chela Reyes, es una escritora chilena nacida en Santiago el mismo año que Pablo Neruda. Ella tiene una relevante producción poética, casi desconocida, que puede y debería considerarse como parte de la tradición de la vanguardia histórica chilena. Este trabajo pretende evidenciar cómo en Ola nocturna, su tercer poemario publicado en 1945, la autora utiliza personajes y referencias de la mitología griega para dar forma a su imaginario. Su universo figurativo está constituido por poderosas evocaciones de un espacio marítimo en (...) el cual se confunde Eros y Tanatos. Personajes como Eolo, Hipocampos, Sirenas, Neptuno, Eco, Venus, forman parte de su galería mitológica-poética. A través de estas figuras la poeta construye un mundo sorprendente y fascinante en el cual el erotismo es tanto creación como destrucción. (shrink)

In this article, the working of certain bodily processes is presented as the basis for the apotropaic meaning and function of the genitals of the Upper Palaeolithic Venus Figurines. The working of the sympathetic nervous system is identified as the cause of genital arousal due to anxiety. The simultaneous experience of anxiety and the engorgement of the labia and clitoris led to an apotropaic meaning, in addition to a sexual meaning, being assigned to the genitals during the Palaeolithic Era. (...) The ability to think in symbols, which was developing greatly at this time, led to that which could be experienced in bodies being transferred to Venus Figurines. (shrink)

We are all, it is said, looking for love. But what does love look like? Does it look the way it feels? The visual vocabulary of romance-its attendant comforts and vulnerabilities, ambivalences and unclarities-is the subject of Venus Inferred. This collection of 46 richly reproduced color photographs is Laura Letinsky's study of contemporary lovers as they are seen, as they show, and as they see themselves making love and inhabiting domestic space. Entering what might be called the intimate sphere, (...) Letinsky's camera explores a space too personal to be termed public and yet whose cultural and emotional shape is uncannily recognizable. Over a seven-year period, Letinsky visited lovers in their homes, hotel rooms, bedrooms, bathrooms, and kitchens and recorded in detail the promises, disharmonies, and disappointments that inhere in modern coupling. Accompanying the photographs is an essay by critic Lauren Berlant, which presents an aesthetic and cultural analysis of the contemporary images of romance and intimacy. Berlant contemplates the burden of clarity that sexuality bears, implicit both in conventional romantic ideals and in the "counterpolitics of the flesh" that desires to escape them. Thus arises the sublime ordinariness of Letinsky's couples, Berlant argues: "As 'normal' pleasures themselves become deemed modes of domination, the already destabilizing aspects of sexuality can feel even more unsettling." An interview between Letinsky and Berlant unfolds the artist's intellectual formation while exploring the unsettling and pleasurable power of her images as they circulate through the domains of romance, sexuality, and contemporary culture. (shrink)

RésuméNous avons tenté de restituer ici les mathématiques qui président aux théories planétaires exposées par l'astronome syrien Ibn al-Šāṭir dans son ouvrage Nihāyat al-Sūl. Dans la lignée des astronomes de l’école de Marāgha, en composant des mouvements de rotation à vitesse angulaire constante, Ibn al-Šāṭir atteint deux objectifs. Non seulement il élimine tout recours aux excentriques et aux points équants; mais il décrit aussi longitudes et latitudes planétaires par une méthode unique, sans adjoindre aucun orbe en sus des orbes nécessaires (...) à la description des seuls mouvements en longitude. Une meilleure compréhension des rotations comme transformations spatiales lui permet cette grande économie de moyens. Dans notre commentaire, nous prenons pour exemple la planète Vénus dont les latitudes posent un problème intéressant. C'est aussi l'occasion d'offrir l’édition critique d'un chapitre de la Nihāyat al-Sūl consacré aux mouvements en latitude de Mercure et Vénus. (shrink)

This paper is a comparative study of the accounts of the goddess Venus in the Genealogia of Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375) and the Mythologiae of Natale Conti (1520?-1382?). Conti's superior knowledge of Greek, access to Greek sources unknown or incomprehensible to Boccaccio, easily accessible Latin prose style, and exceptional organizational skills, enabled him to create a richer, more extensive, and more accurate account of the goddess than Boccaccio could provide. Both Boccaccio and Conti escape from the binary, antithetical understanding of (...) Venus that dominated medieval commentary. Conti focuses on the paradox of a beautiful goddess representing ugly things; Boccaccio's organizational scheme (based on a flawed genealogical chart originating with the supposed god Demogorgon) makes for a more disparate approach to symbolic interpretation, interesting in parts but thematically unfocused. (shrink)

uirginibus Tyriis mos est gestare pharetram,purpureoque alte suras uincire cothurno.It is customary for us Tyrian girls to carry a quiverand to lace our calves up high in red boots. With these words a disguised Venus explains the accessories of her costume to Aeneas and Achates shortly after the Trojan landing in North Africa. Even detailed commentaries on this passage overlook an important feature: the lines contain a reference to Julius Caesar, who claimed descent from Venus and made a (...) political point of wearing red boots during his dictatorship. This allusion to Caesar connects in significant ways to adjoining passages of the first book of the Aeneid. (shrink)

In 2.14 Propertius promises rich donations to Venus, to be attached to a „columna“ (v. 25). This column is often thought to be part of a temple, but such an interpretation raises problems. One reading is that columna means a single votive column, well-known in Roman (and Greek) religious praxis and in visual arts. With such a reading „columna“ gains in sacral importance. Then again, single columns have been used as Roman victory monuments: With that in mind the „columna“ (...) can equally be understood in the semantics of a military success, which is essential for the whole elegy. Propertius’ „columna“ is much more than only a place to attach „magna dona“ (v. 25). (shrink)

What did early national Americans mean when they articulated fears of those twin sins of a republic that idolized the classical virtues of manly self-restraint? This essay argues that the fear of luxury and effeminacy circulated not just as airy metaphor but as palpable reality, specifically in the figure of the female recumbent on the sofa. The article traces separately the careers of Enlightenment Venus, who especially in her recumbent form embodied fears of passion in a republic built on (...) reasoned consent, and the sofa, a piece of neoclassical furniture that rose to great popularity at this time and was envisioned as both effeminate and luxurious in fictional and nonfiction writing. The essay then joins the two figures of recumbent Venus and the sofa, showing how they were mutually enabling, and how they entered into early national conversations about labor and race. It concludes by examining how two educated American women, the self-described Roman matrons Mercy Otis Warren and Martha Bayard Smith, incorporated the image of the supine woman and her implied sofa into fictional writings about classical polities in danger. By knitting political ideologies, imaginative worlds, and neoclassical objects, the essay suggests a way for historians to flesh out the intellectual history of early national women, showing how they could participate in a conversation about modern politics and classical antiquity from which we have assumed they were largely disbarred. (shrink)

During the late nineteenth century, scientists around the world disagreed as to the types of instruments and methods that should be used for determining the most important constant of celestial mechanics: the solar parallax. Venus’s 1874 transit across the sun was seen as the best opportunity for ending decades of debate. However, a mysterious “black drop” that appeared between Venus and the sun and individual differences in observations of the phenomenon brought traditional methods into disrepute. To combat these (...) difficulties, the astronomer Jules Janssen devised a controversial new instrument, the “photographic revolver,” that photographed Venus at regular intervals. Another solution came from physicists, who rivaled the astronomers’ dominance in precision measurements by deducing the solar parallax from physical measurements of the speed of light. Yet other astronomers relied on drawings and well‐trained observers. The new space emerging from this debate was characterized by a decline in faith in photography and in geometry and by the growing realization of the importance of alternative elements needed for establishing scientific truths: power and authority, skill and discipline, standardization, mechanical reproducibility, and theatricality. By examining the “cinematographic turn” in science and its alternatives, this essay brings to light unexplored multidisciplinary connections that contribute to the histories of psychology, philosophy, physics, and film studies. (shrink)

Pompey does not accept defeat at Pharsalus. Rather, in an effort to gain support from powers beyond Rome, he makes for Egypt and, unbeknownst to him, his decapitation. As narrated in Lucan'sBellum ciuile, after deliberating in Cilicia with his senatorial advisers (8.259–455), Pompey stops at the island of Cyprus (8.456–9):tum Cilicum liquere solum Cyproque citatasimmisere rates, nullas cui praetulit arasundae diua memor Paphiae, si numina nascicredimus aut quemquam fas est coepisse deorum.Then they left the Cilician soil and steered their vessels (...) in haste for Cyprus—Cyprus which the goddess, mindful of Paphian waves, prefers to any of her shrines (if we believe that deities have birth, or if it is lawful to hold that any of the gods had a beginning).In Lucan, Pompey's trip to Cyprus is brief and includes a somewhat curious reference to Venus (diua), her origins (undae … Paphiae) and the birth of the gods. Other authors also record Pompey's visit to Cyprus, although the details vary. Some, including Julius Caesar, set his deliberations not in Cilicia but on Cyprus itself (Caes.BCiu.3.102.3.1–8.1; cf. Plut.Vit. Pomp. 77.1.1–2.1). Others, it seems, provide few if any details of Pompey at the island, for example the scanty evidence from Livy,Per. 112.1–10. (shrink)

In this research I propose to bring to light the meaning of "Venus" in the invocation of Lucretius´s De rerum natura. This paper is divided into six parts. In the first, I give an account of the various interpretations of the invocation and I systematize them. In the second I analyze and discuss three incategorizable investigations. In the third and fourth parts I expose the epicurean concepts of pleasure and divinity respectively. In the fifth I look for the terms, (...) by way of epithets, that the poet uses to refer to the goddess, bringing to light the nuances that light up them alternately in various instances of the invocation. In the sixth, finally, I give mine interpretation of vv 44-49 explaining why they should be included in the invocation. (shrink)

The common root of the humanist and mythological traditions is the projection of a cosmological and spiritual desire, reflected in mythic archetypes such as Venus or the Statue of Liberty in the harbor of New York City. The philosophical companion of Renaissance Venus is Eros as the all-compassing force in nature, and the philosophical correlate of the Statue of Liberty is Immanuel Kant's das Ding an sich. I focus on the intimate reladonship between the domain of artistic imagination (...) and philosophical discourse: the apparent difference is due to the separation between philosophy, science, and the arts since the Enlightenment. Closer scrutiny reveals that the same content is hidden in the various vessels of our modern and postmodern time. Reason and imagination seem to have gone different roads, but I will try to show that they are inseparably interconnected. (shrink)

One of the main features of Italian feminism of "difference," as seen from an international perspective, is its distinctly political vocation. This vocation is not only, nor especially, limited to the perimeter of a gender politics, but is to be found in the radical critique or in the rethinking of traditional political categories, in the invention of new practices, in the redefinition of the very sphere of politics and in the modes of its transformation. The Italian case, as far as (...) feminism is concerned, is also characterised by the fact that this feminist political critique has been carried on for more than three decades alongside a crisis of traditional politics. The aim of this essay is twofold: one the one hand I analyse the relationship between political crisis and a critique of politics as seen in the larger framework of the relationship between the demise of patriarchy and the end of modern politics; on the other, I examine the resources which may derive from a feminist thought and practice in the present season, which, in Italy, seems marked not only by a crisis but by the collapse of democratic politics. (shrink)

"Central to Schroeder's case is the conviction that reason and passion are two sides of the same coin. Rationality represents the human potential actualized only through desire, she argues; and passion functions only insofar as it preserves the rationality that makes desire possible. Far from being anti-erotic, market relations are, in this analysis, the most basic form of eroticism. Disclosing a fundamental similarity between erotic and economic behavior, The Triumph of Venus reveals that, while the former cannot be reduced (...) to the latter, the latter can only be explained in terms of the former. Venus triumphs over the market."--BOOK JACKET. (shrink)

Dans les cours italiennes du xve siècle, la danse et le combat, essentiels dans l’éducation du noble, participent à la définition de la place et du comportement des femmes et des hommes. Les maîtres à danser du Quattrocento, construisent et définissent la théorie et la pratique d’une danse savante et produisent un discours conforme à des normes politiques, sociales et genrées. Guillaume le Juif, définit précisément le rôle et la place de la femme qui danse. Antonio Corazzino, également homme d’armes, (...) poète et humaniste, exprime une vision de la bienséance, qui participe d'une conception plus générale des rôles attribués au genre. Les valeurs viriles assument une prééminence évidente dans l’évolution de la vie des cours. Les techniques du corps incarnent une réalité et un discours politique. Dans l'ensemble de son œuvre, le masculin et le féminin s’incarnent notamment dans les modèles de Mars et de Vénus, les deux faces de la Concordia discors, dans la femme qui danse et l’homme qui combat. (shrink)