The Protein Ontology (PRO; http://proconsortium.org) formally defines protein entities and explicitly represents their major forms and interrelations. Protein entities represented in PRO corresponding to single amino acid chains are categorized by level of specificity into family, gene, sequence and modification metaclasses, and there is a separate metaclass for protein complexes. All metaclasses also have organism-specific derivatives. PRO complements established sequence databases such as UniProtKB, and interoperates with other biomedical and biological ontologies such as the Gene Ontology (GO). PRO relates to (...) UniProtKB in that PRO’s organism-specific classes of proteins encoded by a specific gene correspond to entities documented in UniProtKB entries. PRO relates to the GO in that PRO’s representations of organism-specific protein complexes are subclasses of the organism-agnostic protein complex terms in the GO Cellular Component Ontology. The past few years have seen growth and changes to the PRO, as well as new points of access to the data and new applications of PRO in immunology and proteomics. Here we describe some of these developments. (shrink)

This essay engages with Oliver D. Crisp’s parsimonious model of divine simplicity while offering a defense of a maximal account of simplicity. Specifically, I clarify the way in with Reformed orthodox theologians, like Gisbertus Voetius, anticipate something like Crisp’s model, that pure actuality is an explication, rather than an entailment, of the doctrine of simplicity, and that the doctrine of simplicity remains consistent with epistemic modesty in relation to theological matters.

Study with text and commentary on Mīmāṃsānyāyaprakāśa, a classical digest on Mimamsa philosophy by Āpadeva.

Study of concept of Brahman in Upanishads with special reference to the philosophy of Śāṇḍilya.

I address a family of objections I label the _So What?_ objection to robust non-naturalist realism (or, just non-naturalism). This objection concludes that non-naturalism fails to identify the _moral properties_ in virtue of failing to explain why non-natural properties would have all the features we expect _moral properties_ to have and can be extended to provide the conclusion that the non-naturalist is therefore immoral. I argue that _So What?_ is question-begging because it disallows non-naturalists their central theoretical claim: there are (...) ethical properties iff they are fundamental properties (and, in virtue of that, non-natural). I then diagnose the error anti-non-naturalists make explicitly: those who object to non-naturalism along the lines of _So What?_ either fail to understand precisely what the theory claims or fail to understand non-naturalist motivations for going in for that theory. (shrink)

In this paper, I criticize the pairing of irreducible thickness with the traditional view of evaluation which says evaluation is a matter of encoding good or bad in some way. To do this, I first explicate the determination view, which holds that irreducibly thick concepts are to thin concepts as determinates are to determinables. I then show that, even if the determination view did establish irreducible thickness, it would not have proven that the evaluative is well understood as being an (...) instance of the determination relation; in order to do that, the determination view needs to show how the evaluative fit a general analysis of the determination relation. However, when the determination view attempts to fill in the analysis, we get implausible results—so implausible, I claim, that we should see the results as a reductio to the view. To generalize the criticism to any view like the determination view, I show that the same results ensue when we model the evaluative on mereology. Finally, I diagnose the general failure by claiming that the evaluative domain, as conceived by the defender of irreducible thickness, just does not have the structure to secure the tight connection between thick and thin concepts while also carving up our conceptual economy in a plausible way. (shrink)

Respecting privacy and patients’ satisfaction are amongst the main indicators of quality of care and one of the basic goals of health services. This study, carried out in 2007, aimed to investigate the extent to which patient privacy is observed and its correlation with patient satisfaction in three emergency departments of Tehran University of Medical Science, Iran. Questionnaire data were collected from a convenience sample of 360 patients admitted to emergency departments and analysed using SPSS software. The results indicated that, (...) according to 50.6% of the patients, the extent to which their privacy was respected was described as either ‘weak’ or ‘average’. Spearman’s coefficient indicated a significant correlation between respecting privacy and the patients’ satisfaction about the various aspects of privacy studied. Considering the levels of privacy observed together with the patients’ degree of satisfaction, it is imperative that clinical professionals address both aspects from conceptual and practical viewpoints. (shrink)

For generations following the first American Medical Association Code of Ethics in 1847, the relationship between doctors and advertising remained unambiguous—advertising was forbidden. In 1975, however, the Federal Trade Commission accused the profession of “restraint of trade” and legally persuaded doctors to permit advertising amongst their clan. As the 1970s witnessed the relentless burgeoning of healthcare expenditure, physicians accepted the blame for immuring themselves from the natural forces of economics. American physicians were bullied to embrace advertising under the delusion that (...) doctoring—like any trade—would become better and cheaper if incited by competition. Today most American physicians engage in some form of paid advertising, yet it is doubtful that physician advertising has either augmented the quality or diminished the cost of health care. Advertisement has eroded medical professionalism by denying doctors the right to enforce ethical boundaries between themselves and the “let the buyer beware” world of business. And more is at stake than professional status, for the doctor/patient relationship, the cornerstone of medicine, is endangered as physicians continue to cast forth the self interested lure of advertisement.To assume that for over 130 years physicians anathematised advertising for purely ethical reasons would be naive. Sociologist Paul Starr explains that in the early 19th century, no group “embraced the ways of the market as actively as did popularisers, alternative healers, and quacks”.1 Advertisement was perhaps the most successful implement of empirical medicine. So it is no surprise that professional licensed doctors in America grew up with a “distaste and discomfort for advertising”.2 Medical advertisements were especially potent in the self reliant Jacksonian era, which touted health as a do it yourself venture commodified into tonics and one time procedures. To distinguish themselves from the circus of healthcare providers, physicians not only instituted higher educational standards and licensure …. (shrink)

A method is given to determine whether or not the distribution functions describing the two spin measurements in the spin-s Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen experiment are compatible with the existence of distributions describing three spin measurements (not all of which can actually be performed). When applied to the spin-1/2 case the method gives the results of Wigner, or of Clauser, Holt, Horne, and Shimony, depending on whether or not the two-spin distributions are assumed to have the forms given by the quantum theory. Generalizations (...) of the conditions of Wigner or of Clauser et al. to the spin-1 case are explicitly calculated. The spin-3/2 case is examined in some simple geometries to show that an apparently monotonic trend toward local realism as s increases from1/2 to1 is, in fact, violated when s increases from1 to3/2. The analysis is based on a novel representation of the modulus squared of a rotation matrix element. The structure of that matrix element responsible for the restoration of local realism in the classical (large s) limit is identified, but a rigorous treatment of the classical limit is not attempted. The higher-spin results are significantly stronger than those given by Mermin's spin-s Bell inequality. (shrink)

In this rigorous investigation into the logic of truth Anil Gupta and Nuel Belnap explain how the concept of truth works in both ordinary and pathological..

In this essay I respond to my interlocutors in the symposium on my monograph, Analyzing Doctrine. Addressing each of them in the order in which their essays are printed, I consider and reply to comments by William Lane Craig, Steven Nemes, N. Gray Sutanto, Jordan Wessling and Joanna Leidenhag.

Commentary on the Sāṅkhyakārikā of Īśvarakr̥ṣṇa, compendium of the Sāṅkhya school in Hindu philosophy.

Some statistical questions that arise in studies of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen correlations are given precise and complete answers for a very simple but artificial set of pair distributions. Some recent results and conjectures about hidden variable representations of the more complex distributions that describe the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen experiment are examined in the light of the behavior of the simple model.

Comprehensive work with Hindi and Sanskrit commentaries on fundamentals of Sankhya philosophy.

On the life, philosopy, and mythological interpretations of Śukadeva as portrayed in Puranas; a study.

Mesodermal cell differentiation begins in response to an inductive interaction early in frog development. In parallel with the recent finding that certain peptide growth factors can induce mesoderm, early cellular and genetic responses to the induction have been discovered. I review here recent work on these responses, work that aims to understand how cells respond to inducers to form the complex pattern of the vertebrate mesoderm.

tic sequenzen-kalkul of Gentzen, into rules for PCc, the classical sequenzenkalkul. We shall limit ourselves here to sequenzen or turnstile statements of the form A„A„..., A„ I- B, where A„A„..., A„(n ~ 0), and B are wffs consisting of propositional variables, zero or more of the connectives '5', "v', ' ', ')', and '=', and zero or more parentheses. One can pass from PCi to PCc by amending the intelim rules for ' a result of long standing, or by amending (...) the intelim rules for either one of.. (shrink)

Contribution of Rāhula Sāṅkr̥tyāyana, 1893-1963, Hindi to Buddhist philosophy and literature; includes description of his travel to various places.