Background Much like academic-industry partnerships, industry financial support of patient advocacy organizations has become very common in recent years. While financial conflicts of interest between PAOs and industry have received more attention in recent years, robust efforts to mitigate these conflicts are still limited. Main body The authors outline the possible benefits and ethical concerns that can result from financial interactions between biomedical companies and PAOs. They argue that the use of novel strategies, such as the creation of a standing (...) ethics committee, could be helpful in managing FCOIs and ensuring the warranted trust of PAO’s constituents. Although ethics committees to address FCOIs are common in the academic context, its use by PAOs is still limited. The authors conclude by describing the process of development and implementation of such an ethics committee at the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation. Conclusions While collaborations with industry can result in conflicts of interest, PAOs can develop strategies to address those conflicts. One such strategy is the creation of a standing independent ethics committee to guide PAOs on new and/or existing programs and protocols as they pertain to their industry relationships. (shrink)

Selected papers, presented at the conference titled "Birds as Ornithologists: Scholarship Between Faith and Reason", held at Theg-mchog rnam-grol bshad-sgrub dar-rgyas-gling, Monastery, Bylakuppe, India, July 23-25, 2017.

In program synthesis, we transform a specification into a system that is guaranteed to satisfy the specification. When the system is open, then at each moment it reads input signals and writes output signals, which depend on the input signals and the history of the computation so far. The specification considers all possible input sequences. Thus, if the specification is linear, it should hold in every computation generated by the interaction, and if the specification is branching, it should hold in (...) the tree that embodies all possible input sequences. Often, the system cannot read all the input signals generated by its environment. For example, in a distributed setting, it might be that each process can read input signals of only part of the underlying processes. Then, we should transform a specification into a system whose output depends only on the readable parts of the input signals and the history of the computation. This is called synthesis with incomplete information. In this work we solve the problem of synthesis with incomplete information in its full generality. We consider linear and branching settings with complete and incomplete information. We claim that alternation is a suitable and helpful mechanism for coping with incomplete information. Using alternating tree automata, we show that incomplete information does not make the synthesis problem more complex, in both the linear and the branching paradigm. In particular, we prove that independently of the presence of incomplete information, the synthesis problems for CTL and CTL * are complete for EXPTIME and 2EXPTIME, respectively. (shrink)

This study focuses on women who define themselves as being undecided about becoming mothers. It addresses the question of how these women navigate their lives between two main conflicting cultural directives and perceptions: pronatalism and familism entwined in perception of linear time on one hand; and individualism and its counterpart, the notion of flexible liquid society, on the other. The research is based on group meetings designated for these women, which were facilitated by the first author. Ten women participated in (...) the study—of whom, most were heterosexual, half were single, and half were partnered. Data were collected using questionnaires completed during individual interviews that preceded the group encounter; transcripts of the discussions held during the ten group sessions; and questions regarding the status of the women’s doubts about motherhood asked 4 years after participating in the group. Our findings expand the existing typology of women’s reproductive decision-making, and demonstrate how categories that are commonly perceived as binary intersect when one challenges the rigid classifications of “active decisions” and “passive decisions”; “motherhood” and “non-motherhood,” and “want to be a mother” and “do not want to be a mother.” The findings also suggest that after becoming mothers, women can change their maternal status from “non-mother” to “mother,” yet still continue to view themselves as indecisive regarding motherhood. Based on our findings, we will argue that while indecisiveness about motherhood derives from individualized neoliberal rhetoric, it simultaneously undermines that same rhetoric and contradicts the injunction to “know, to decide, to strive.” It opposes the expectation in post-feminist discourse, that women will make choices about their bodies and exert them, while also opposing the pronatalist rhetoric, and the temporal linear discourse positing that women should “move forward” toward motherhood along with the ticking of the “biological clock.” Whereas some women sought to resolve their indecisiveness, other women found that the indecisiveness leaves all options open in a manner that expands their boundaries of autonomy in a society that seeks to limit it. (shrink)

Die Entwicklung eines philosophischen Systems ist für den Autor Folge der persönlichen Auseinandersetzung mit der Frage nach dem Lebenssinn und der Stellung des Menschen in der Welt. Die Frage nach dem Sinn des menschlichen Lebens ist die zentrale Frage des Menschen. Die zentrale Stellung bekommt diese Frage dadurch, dass der Mensch selbst - mehr unbewusst als bewusst - sie in seinem Verhalten, seinen Absichten und in seiner Lebensweise, in dem, was er vom Leben im Allgemeinen und von seinem persönlichen Leben (...) im Besonderen fordert und in ihm erreichen will, beantwortet. Diese Frage wird durch die Möglichkeit eines konkret bestimmten individuellen Lebensvollzugs gestellt und durch den Vollzug dieses individuellen, persönlichen Lebens beantwortet. Das eigentliche Problem eines jeden einzelnen Menschen ist seine Orientierung in der Welt. Den «Kompass» für die Orientierung in der Welt kann er nur in der Erkenntnis der Wirklichkeit finden. (shrink)

In the automata-theoretic approach to verification, we translate specifications to automata. Complexity considerations motivate the distinction between different types of automata. Already in the 60s, it was known that deterministic Büchi word automata are less expressive than nondeterministic Büchi word automata. The proof is easy and can be stated in a few lines. In the late 60s, Rabin proved that Büchi tree automata are less expressive than Rabin tree automata. This proof is much harder. In this work we relate the (...) expressiveness gap between deterministic and nondeterministic Büchi word automata and the expressiveness gap between Büchi and Rabin tree automata. We consider tree automata that recognize derived languages. For a word language L, the derived language of L, denoted L, is the set of all trees all of whose paths are in L. Since often we want to specify that all the computations of the program satisfy some property, the interest in derived languages is clear. Our main result shows that L is recognizable by a nondeterministic Büchi word automaton but not by a deterministic Büchi word automaton iff L is recognizable by a Rabin tree automaton and not by a Büchi tree automaton. Our result provides a simple explanation for the expressiveness gap between Büchi and Rabin tree automata. Since the gap between deterministic and nondeterministic Büchi word automata is well understood, our result also provides a characterization of derived languages that can be recognized by Büchi tree automata. Finally, it also provides an exponential determinization of Büchi tree automata that recognize derived languages. (shrink)

Placebo cures. Global warming. Extraterrestrial life. Psychokinesis. In a time when scientific claims can sound as strange as science fiction--and can have a profound effect on individual life or public policy--assessing the merits of a far-out, supposedly scientific idea can be as difficult as it is urgent. Into the breach between helpless gullibility and unyielding skepticism steps physicist Robert Ehrlich, with an indispensable guide to making sense of "scientific" claims. A series of case studies of some of the most (...) controversial (and for the judging public, deeply vexing) topics in the natural and social sciences, Ehrlich's book serves as a primer for evaluating the evidence for the sort of strange-sounding ideas that can shape our lives. A much-anticipated follow-up to his popular Nine Crazy Ideas in Science, this book takes up issues close to readers' everyday reality--issues such as global warming, the dangers of cholesterol, and the effectiveness of placebos--as well as questions that resonate through (and beyond) civic life: Is intelligent design a scientific alternative to evolution? Is homosexuality primarily innate? Are people getting smarter or dumber? In each case, Ehrlich shows readers how to use the tools of science to judge the accuracy of strange ideas and the trustworthiness of ubiquitous "experts." As entertaining as it is instructive, his book will make the work of living wisely a bit easier and more reliable for scientists and nonscientists alike. (shrink)

This paper offers a way to think philosophically about Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests and in particular their ethical implications. I focus on how the faces of the Screen Tests’ participants appear on the screen, making a link to the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas. For Levinas, the human face signifies the possibility of transcending day-to-day structures of perception based on understanding, knowledge and visual representation, and can therefore invite an encounter with radical alterity. I make a connection between Levinas’s reading of (...) the face and the observations of a number of film theorists who see the cinematic close-up as a unique image, transcending the status of an ordinary perceptual phenomenon. I examine two Screen Tests, those of Bob Dylan and Ann Buchanan, using them as concrete examples of how film close-ups can open viewers to the face, in a Levinasian sense: the epiphany of radical alterity. This allows me to claim that despite Levinas’s declared hostility towards the visual, his philosophical articulation of the notion of the face helps to show the ethical implications of the appearance of the human face in cinema in general, and in Warhol’s Screen Tests in particular. (shrink)

Volume 25, Issue 5, October 2020, Page 171-174.

Previously unpublished fragments of Merleau-Ponty’s insights about cinema have added an important layer to our understanding of the medium. In this paper I examine these fragments along with some of Merleau-Ponty’s other observations about cinema, in the context of his work on perception and temporality. My aim is to show how his thought is relevant for understanding an important topic in film theory: cinematic point of view. With Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological articulation of what it is to see, the possibility opens up (...) of conceptualizing the structure of cinematic point of view as a “whole” that is concomitantly dynamic and always plural. (shrink)

This article examines the implications of mandatory conscription for women by studying the experience of women soldiers who serve as secretaries in the Israeli military. The author argues that the military service of the secretaries is shaped by three organizing principles: an employment principle of cheap labor, a matrimonial principle of the office wife, and a hierarchy principle that shapes the secretaries as status symbols. Employing the theory of gendered organizations, the author maintains that each one of these organizing principles (...) operates as a gendering and a power mechanism. The convergence of these three gender/power principles results in overgendering of these women and their military experience. This overgendering reflects gender discrimination and creates feelings of alienation and frustration. For them, military service is not an experience that articulates their citizenship or enhances feelings of national belonging but rather stands in opposition to the values and goals of the mandatory people's army by estranging them from the state and its major institution. (shrink)

I examine the question why in Proclus' view genetic processes provide demonstrative explanations, in light of the interpretation of Aristotle's theory of demonstration in late antiquity. I show that in this interpretation mathematics is not an explanatory science in the strict sense because its objects, being immaterial, do not admit causal explanation. Placing Proclus' account of demonstrative explanation in this context, I argue that this account is aimed at answering the question whether mathematical proofs provide causal explanation as opposed to (...) grounds. I show further that Proclus can answer this question in the affirmative due to his realist view of mathematical objects and the priority he ascribes to causal relations over logical relations. (shrink)

In this article I explain three puzzling features of Simplicius’ use of syllogistic reconstructions in his commentary on Aristotle’s Physics: (1) Why does he reconstruct Aristotle’s non-argumentative remarks? (2) Why does he identify the syllogistic figure of an argument but does not explicitly present its reconstruction? (3) Why in certain lemmata does he present several reconstructions of the same argument? Addressing these questions, I argue that these puzzling features are an expression of Simplicius’ assumption that formal reasoning underlies Aristotle’s prose, (...) hence they reflect his attempt to capture as faithfully as possible Aristotle’s actual mode of reasoning. I show further that, as a consequence of this seemingly descriptive use of syllogistic reconstructions, logic serves Simplicius not only as an expository and clarificatory tool of certain interpretations or philosophical views, but also motivates and shapes his exegetical stances and approach. (shrink)

Older adults in the United States have been the age group hardest hit by the Covid pandemic. They have suffered a disproportionate number of deaths; Covid patients eighty years or older on ventilators had fatality rates higher than 90 percent. How could we have better protected older adults? Both the popular press and government entities blamed nursing homes, labeling them “snake pits” and imposing harsh fines and arduous new regulations. We argue that this approach is unlikely to improve protections for (...) older adults. Rather than focusing exclusively on acute and critical resources, including ventilators, a plan that respected the best interests of older adults would have also supported nursing homes, a critical part of the health care system. Better access to protective equipment for staff members, early testing of staff members and patients, and enhanced means of communication with families were what was needed. These preventive measures would have offered greater benefit to the oldest members of our population than the exclusive focus on acute care. (shrink)

This paper examines the widely accepted contention that geometrical constructions serve in Greek mathematics as proofs of the existence of the constructed figures. In particular, I consider the following two questions: first, whether the evidence taken from Aristotle's philosophy does support the modern existential interpretation of geometrical constructions; and second, whether Euclid's Elements presupposes Aristotle's concept of being. With regard to the first question, I argue that Aristotle's ontology cannot serve as evidence to support the existential interpretation, since Aristotle's ontological (...) discussions address the question of the relation between the whole and its parts, while the modern discussions of mathematical existence consider the question of the validity of a concept. In considering the second question, I analyze two syllogistic reformulations of Euclidean proofs. This analysis leads to two conclusions: first, it discloses the discrepancy between Aristotle's view of mathematical objects and Euclid's practice, whereby it will cast doubt on the historical and theoretical adequacy of the existential interpretation. Second, it sets the conceptual background for an alternative interpretation of geometrical constructions. I argue, on the basis of this analysis that geometrical constructions do not serve in the Elements as a means of ascertaining the existence of geometrical objects, but rather as a means of exhibiting spatial relations between geometrical figures. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to explore the coping resources of hope and sense of coherence, which are rooted in positive-psychology theory, as potential resilience factors that might reduce the emotional distress experienced by adults from three cultural groups in Israel during the chronic-stress situation of a pandemic. The three cultural groups examined were secular Jews, Ultra-Orthodox Jews, and Arabs. We compared these cultural groups during the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, just before the Jewish New Year (mid-September (...) 2020) as a second lockdown was announced. Data were gathered from 248 secular Jews, 243 Ultra-Orthodox Jews, and 203 Arabs, who were 18–70 years old (M= 37.14,SD= 12.62). The participants filled out self-reported questionnaires including the Brief Symptom Inventory as a measure of emotional/psychological distress (i.e., somatization, depression, and anxiety) and questionnaires about sense of coherence and different types of hope (i.e., intrapersonal, interpersonal, and transpersonal) as measures of coping resources and resiliency. Differences were found between the three groups in terms of several variables. The Arab participants reported the highest levels of emotional distress and the lowest levels of interpersonal and transpersonal hope; whereas the Ultra-Orthodox participants revealed the highest levels of sense of coherence and other resilience factors. A structural equation model revealed that, in addition to the sociodemographic factors, only sense of coherence and intrapersonal hope played significant roles in explaining emotional distress, explaining 60% of the reported distress among secular Jews, 41% among Ultra-Orthodox Jews, and 48% among Arabs. We discuss our findings in light of the salutogenic and hope theories. We will also discuss their relevancy to meaning-seeking and self-transcendence theory in the three cultural groups. (shrink)

I examine Alexander of Aphrodisias’ theory of action, addressing the question how his view that human actions are determined by reason accounts for the capacity of doing otherwise. Calling into question the standard view that Alexander frees agents from internal determination, I argue that (1) the capacity of doing otherwise is a consequence of determination by reason, since it enables agents to do something different from what they would have done had they followed external circumstances; and (2) this capacity is (...) compatible with causal determination by reason because as a case of potentiality for opposites, it grants agents the qualified possibility of doing otherwise insofar as their nature as human beings is concerned – a possibility which remains also when their actions are causally determined by reason and by their internal disposition. I show further that these elements of Alexander’s theory of action are ultimately based on his conception of the soul, specifically on his commitment to Aristotle’s view that the human soul is not purely rational, as the Stoics hold, but has nonrational and rational parts. (shrink)

I argue that Aristotle’s late-antique commentators read into his theory of demonstration the notion of tekmeriodic proofs in attempt to integrate into the theory of demonstration the assumption that the principles of demonstration should be evident. In so doing, I trace the late antique commentators’ view to Alexander of Aphrodisias’ discussion of the principles of demonstration, showing how his assumption that the principles of demonstration should be evident underlies their notions of tekmeriodic proofs.

Innovative teaching is sometimes perceived as opposite of traditional teaching, since it is regarded as student-centred and takes on the form of guided construction. This distinguishing feature led to an expectation that traditional teaching practices will be replaced with innovative ones for the purpose of fostering learning. The goal of the present research is to examine this issue by taking a closer look at teaching practices within an innovative learning environment, and their implications for teachers and teacher educators. Our qualitative (...) research was conducted in a secondary school which has implemented such a learning environment. The data analysis is based on sociolinguistic discourse analysis. The findings reveal a variety of teaching practices, which allows teachers to choose the most suitable one for a particular learning requirement. We conclude in proposing to adopt a more complex approach to teaching, and to relinquish the dichotomy between traditional and innovative teaching practi... (shrink)