Workplace bullying is a phenomenon that can have serious detrimental effects on health, work-related attitudes, and the behavior of the target. Particularly, workplace bullying exposure has been linked to lower level of general well-being, job satisfaction, vigor, and performance and higher level of burnout, workplace deviance, and turnover intentions. However, the psychological mechanisms behind these relations are still not well-understood. Drawing on psychological contract and self-determination theory (SDT), we hypothesized that perceptions of contract violation and the frustration of basic needs (...) mediate the relationship between workplace bullying exposure and well-being, attitudinal, and behavioral outcomes. Self-reported data were collected among employees with different working backgrounds (N= 1,257)viaAmazon's Mechanical Turk in an online survey. Results showed that feelings of contract violation and frustration of basic needs accounted for unique variation in well-being, work satisfaction, burnout, vigor, and turnover intentions, pointing to individual contributions of both psychological mechanisms. However, when controlled for frustration of basic needs, feelings of psychological contract violation were no longer a mediator between workplace bullying exposure and work performance. Helping employees to deal effectively with workplace bullying exposure might buffer its negative effects and reduce their experienced frustration of basic needs, preserving their well-being, vigor, and work performance and, eventually, prevent burnout. The present study is the first to concurrently elucidate the proposed psychological mechanisms and unique contributions of psychological contract violation and frustration of basic needs in the context of workplace bullying. (shrink)

The Monty Hall game is one of the most discussed decision problems, but where a convincing behavioral explanation of the systematic deviations from probability theory is still lacking. Most people not changing their initial choice, when this is beneficial under information updating, demands further explanation. Not only trust and the incentive of interestingly prolonging the game for the audience can explain this kind of behavior, but the strategic setting can be modeled more sophisticatedly. When aiming to increase the odds of (...) winning, while Monty’s incentives are unknown, then not to switch doors can be considered as the most secure strategy and avoids a sure loss when Monty’s guiding aim is not to give away the prize. Understanding and modeling the Monty Hall game can be regarded as an ideal teaching example for fundamental statistic understandings. (shrink)

A characteristic hallmark of medieval astronomy is the replacement of Ptolemy’s linear precession with so-called models of trepidation, which were deemed necessary to account for divergences between parameters and data transmitted by Ptolemy and those found by later astronomers. Trepidation is commonly thought to have dominated European astronomy from the twelfth century to the Copernican Revolution, meeting its demise only in the last quarter of the sixteenth century thanks to the observational work of Tycho Brahe. The present article seeks to (...) challenge this picture by surveying the extent to which Latin astronomers of the late Middle Ages expressed criticisms of trepidation models or rejected their validity in favour of linear precession. It argues that a readiness to abandon trepidation was more widespread prior to Brahe than hitherto realized and that it frequently came as the result of empirical considerations. This critical attitude towards trepidation reached an early culmination point with the work of Agostino Ricci, who demonstrated the theory’s redundancy with a penetrating analysis of the role of observational error in Ptolemy’s Almagest. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe known works of the medieval astronomer/astrologer Henry Bate include a set of planetary mean motion tables for the meridian of his Flemish hometown Mechelen. These tables survive in three manuscripts representing two significantly different recensions, but have never been examined for their principles of construction or underlying parameters. Such analysis reveals that Bate employed an unusual value for the length of the tropical year, which was probably derived by comparing ancient and contemporary observations of the vernal equinox. In addition, (...) there are clear signs that Bate kept revising his parameters for the mean motions of Venus and the three superior planets, none of which can be traced back to earlier sources. Together with some of Bate’s preserved statements, these findings support the conclusion that the Tabule Machlinenses were unique among the astronomical tables produced in medieval Latin Christendom for using independently derived parameters that were the result of new observations. Bate’s achievement connects him to a wider milieu of astronomers operating in late-thirteenth-century Paris, who put an increased emphasis on observation and the critical examination of received data. (shrink)

This article examines an unstudied set of astronomical tables for the meridian of Cambridge, also known as the Opus secundum, which the English theologian and astronomer John Holbroke, Master of Peterhouse, composed in 1433. These tables stand out from other late medieval adaptations of the Alfonsine Tables in using a different set of parameters for planetary mean motions, which Holbroke can be shown to have derived from a tropical year of $$365\frac{1}{4} - \frac{1}{132}$$ 36514-1132 or $$365.\overline{24}$$ 365.24¯ days. Implicit in (...) this year length was a 33-year cycle of repeating solar longitudes and equinox times, which has left traces in other astronomical tables from fifteenth-century England. An analysis of the manuscript evidence suggests that Holbroke owed his value for the “true length of the year” to a certain Richard Monke, capellanus de Anglia, who employed this parameter and the corresponding 33-year cycle in an attempt to construct a perfect and perpetual solar calendar, leading to his Kalendarium verum anni mundi of 1434. (shrink)

This article surveys surviving evidence for the determination of geographic longitude in Latin Europe in the period between 1100 and 1300. Special consideration is given to the different types of sources that preserve longitude estimates as well as to the techniques that were used in establishing them. While the method of inferring longitude differences from eclipse times was evidently in use as early as the mid-twelfth century, it remains doubtful that it can account for most of the preserved longitudes. An (...) analysis of 89 different estimates for 30 European cities indicates a high degree of accuracy among the longitudes of English cities and a conspicuous displacement eastward (by 5°–7;30°) shared by most longitudes of cities in Italy and France. In both cases, the data suggest a high level of interdependence between estimates for different cities in the same geographic region, although the means by which these estimates were arrived at remain insufficiently known. (shrink)

This article examines and edits an anonymous text from the late 1330s, which was written to refute the arguments presented in a lost quaestio disputata by an unknown Parisian philosopher. At the heart of this scholastic dispute was the question whether the astrological branch known as interrogations was an effective and legitimate means of predicting the future. The philosopher’s negative answers to this question as well as the rebuttals preserved in our anonymous text offer valuable new insights into the debate (...) over astrology that raged at the University of Paris during the fourteenth century. Besides arguing at length for the internal coherence and philosophical soundness of interrogations, the text contains a bold defence against the Augustinian view that astrologers consort with demons. This defence was later rebutted as part of an anti-astrological polemic by the astronomer Heinrich Selder, who is known to have studied in Paris during the 1370s. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article is devoted to a thirteenth-century Latin text on how to construct, set up, and use a version of the so-called armillary instrument (instrumentum armillarum), which was first described in Ptolemy’s Almagest as a tool for measuring ecliptic coordinates. Written in 1264 by Guillaume des Moustiers, bishop of Laon, this hitherto unstudied Tractatus super armillas survives in a single manuscript, where it is accompanied by a copious set of glosses. The text and its glosses jointly offer an unusually (...) detailed account of the instrument’s material aspects and methods of assembly. In addition, they reflect a keen awareness of the potential sources of error that may arise in the context of astronomical observation, while making suggestions on how these errors may be minimized or avoided. The Tractatus super armillas accordingly is a valuable source on the observational side of medieval European astronomy, which has often been minimized in modern historical accounts. (shrink)

This article edits and examines a little-known epistolary treatise datable to 1322, which survives in a fifteenth-century manuscript in the Herzog-August-Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel. The author of this work was engaged in a heated argument with the Parisian philosopher Jean de Jandun over the status and rationality of astrology. Jean’s pro-astrological stance is documented in a letter dated 28 October 1321, which survives for having been appended to the main treatise. In responding to Jean de Jandun’s letter, the author delivered a trenchant (...) critique of astrology grounded almost entirely in philosophical, as opposed to theological, ideas, addressing issues such as empirical evidence, causality, and contingency. The author’s way of pointing out ruptures between astrology and Aristotelian natural philosophy marks him out as an intellectual precursor to the much better-known anti-astrological polemics written later in the same century by Parisian thinkers such as Nicole Oresme and Heinrich von Langenstein. (shrink)

This article surveys measurements of celestial (chiefly solar) altitudes documented from twelfth- and thirteenth-century Latin Europe. It consists of four main parts providing (i) an overview of the instruments available for altitude measurements and described in contemporary sources, viz. astrolabes, quadrants, shadow sticks, and the torquetum; (ii) a survey of the role played by altitude measurements in the determination of geographic latitude, which takes into account more than 70 preserved estimates; (iii) case studies of four sets of measured solar altitudes (...) in twelfth-century Latin sources; (iv) an in-depth discussion of the evidence relating to altitude measurements performed in Paris in the period 1281–1290. The findings from the last part indicate that by the end of the thirteenth century Parisian astronomer had developed rigorous standards of observational practice in which altitudes were typically measured to a precision of minutes of arc and with a level of accuracy higher than ± 0;5°, and sometimes exceeding ± 0;1°. (shrink)

This is a response to James J. Allegro’s article “The Bottom of the Universe: Flat Earth Science in the Age of Encounter,” published in Volume 55, Number 1, of this journal. Against the solid consensus of modern scholars, Allegro contends that the decades around 1500 saw a resurgence of popular and learned doubts about the existence of a southern hemisphere and the concept of a spherical earth more generally. It can be shown that a substantial part of Allegro’s argument rests (...) on an erroneous reading of his main textual witness, Zaccaria Lilio’s Contra Antipodes, and on a failure adequately to place this source in the context of the cosmographical debate of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Once this context is taken into account, the notion that Lilio was a flat-earther falls flat. (shrink)

Much recent research has sought to uncover the neural basis of moral judgment. However, it has remained unclear whether "moral judgments" are sufficiently homogenous to be studied scientifically as a unified category. We tested this assumption by using fMRI to examine the neural correlates of moral judgments within three moral areas: (physical) harm, dishonesty, and (sexual) disgust. We found that the judgment ofmoral wrongness was subserved by distinct neural systems for each of the different moral areas and that these differences (...) were much more robust than differences in wrongness judgments within a moral area. Dishonest, disgusting, and harmful moral transgression recruited networks of brain regions associated with mentalizing, affective processing, and action understanding, respectively. Dorsal medial pFC was the only region activated by all scenarios judged to be morally wrong in comparison with neutral scenarios. However, this region was also activated by dishonest and harmful scenarios judged not to be morally wrong, suggestive of a domain-general role that is neither peculiar to nor predictive of moral decisions. These results suggest that moral judgment is not a wholly unified faculty in the human brain, but rather, instantiated in dissociable neural systems that are engaged differentially depending on the type of transgression being judged. (shrink)

Emerging data connects the aging process in dermal fibroblasts with metabolic reprogramming, provided by enhanced fatty acid oxidation and reduced glycolysis. This switch may be caused by a significant expansion of the dermal white adipose tissue (dWAT) layer in aged, hair‐covered skin. Dermal adipocytes cycle through de‐differentiation and re‐differentiation. As a result, there is a strongly enhanced release of free fatty acids into the extracellular space during the de‐differentiation of dermal adipocytes in the catagen phase of the hair follicle cycle. (...) Both caveolin‐1 and adiponectin are critical factors influencing these processes. Controlling the expression levels of these two factors also offers the ability to manipulate the metabolic preferences of the different cell types within the microenvironment of the skin, including dermal fibroblasts. Differential expression of adiponectin and caveolin‐1 in the various cell types may also be responsible for the cellular metabolic heterogeneity within the cells of the skin. (shrink)

The present article is devoted to two issues. The first is the identification of lead and tin in medieval Arabic alchemy. The second is the investigation of whether Arabic alchemists differentiate between these problematic substances or not. These two issues are investigated in the light of a comparison which is made between the facts that are stated about the two problematic substances in the original Arabic alchemical works and those stated in modern chemical literature. It is proved that Arabic alchemists (...) made a sharp distinction between lead and tin. Also, it becomes clear that these two metals were used in a satisfactory purity in the era of medieval Arabic alchemy. As a consequence of the present study, some conclusions are drawn about the existence of some categories of ‘derivatives’ of fusible bodies in Arabic alchemy which are degenerate to modern categories of oxides, carbonates, etc. (shrink)

Recent research has shown that the use of astronomy as a chronological problem-solving tool has deep roots in the scholarly practices of the Latin Middle Ages, as is manifest from the writings of Marianus Scotus, Gerland, and other “critical computists” of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. This essay enlarges the existing picture by introducing a hitherto unknown epistolary treatise of the mid-twelfth century. Written in Lotharingia in 1144, this poorly preserved work documents an attempt to reconstruct the timeline of world (...) history via techniques that had emerged within the Latin computus tradition prior to the advent of Greco-Arabic astronomy. Drawing on the so-called computus naturalis, the author performed lunar computations on the basis of observed eclipses and used them to propose new dates for the Creation and the Last Supper. He also relied on a revised estimate of the time and date of the vernal equinox, placing it on 16 March, and gave a detailed account of how this result can be derived from solar observations with a meridian line. By virtue of these methodological features, the Chronology of 1144 represents an important transitional stage between the “critical computists” and the use of eclipse-based dating methods by later scholars such as Giles of Lessines (fl. 1260). (shrink)

While studies on the characteristics of flow states and their relation to peak performance exist, little is known about the dynamics by which flow states emerge and develop over time. The current paper qualitatively explores the necessary pre-conditions to enter flow, and the development of flow over time until its termination. Using an elicitation interview, participants were asked to recall their flow experiences in sports or music performances. The analysis resulted in the identification of the following three phases that athletes (...) and musicians experience during flow: Preparation to enter flow; Entry into the flow state and; Exit from the flow state. These three phases are characterized by several sub-themes contributing to the experience of flow. The function of emotions is crucial, as they play a core role across all three phases and regulate flow over time. The findings provide insights into the phenomenological characteristics of the transition and maintenance of the three proposed phases and the temporal dynamics of flow. (shrink)

Evolution has shaped all living organisms on Earth, although many details of this process are shrouded in time. However, it is possible to see, with one's own eyes, evolution as it happens by performing experiments in defined laboratory conditions with microbes that have suitably fast generations. The longest‐running microbial evolution experiment was started in 1988, at which time twelve populations were founded by the same strain ofEscherichia coli. Since then, the populations have been serially propagated and have evolved for tens (...) of thousands of generations in the same environment. The populations show numerous parallel phenotypic changes, and such parallelism is a hallmark of adaptive evolution. Many genetic targets of natural selection have been identified, revealing a high level of genetic parallelism as well. Beneficial mutations affect all levels of gene regulation in the cells including individual genes and operons all the way to global regulatory networks. Of particular interest, two highly interconnected networks—governing DNA superhelicity and the stringent response—have been demonstrated to be deeply involved in the phenotypic and genetic adaptation of these experimental populations. BioEssays 29:846–860, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

In the past decade, research on the dark triad of personality (Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy) has demonstrated a strong relationship to a number of socially aversive moral judgments such as sacrificial utilitarian decisions in moral dilemmas. This study widens the scope of this research program and investigates the association between dark triad personality traits and anti-natalist views, i.e., views holding that procreation is morally wrong. The results of this study indicate that the dark triad personality traits of Machiavellianism and psychopathy (...) are strongly associated with anti-natalist views. Further, depression is found to be both standing independently in a relationship with anti-natalist views as well as functioning as a mediator in the relationships between Machiavellianism/psychopathy and anti-natalist views. This pattern was replicated in a follow-up study. These findings add to the literature on dark triad personality traits and their relationship to moral judgments, suggesting that personality and mood play a substantive part in variation in anti-natalist views in a lay population. (shrink)

1. Signification de la métaphysique.--2. Significations de l'être.

Advancements in novel neurotechnologies, such as brain computer interfaces and neuromodulatory devices such as deep brain stimulators, will have profound implications for society and human rights. While these technologies are improving the diagnosis and treatment of mental and neurological diseases, they can also alter individual agency and estrange those using neurotechnologies from their sense of self, challenging basic notions of what it means to be human. As an international coalition of interdisciplinary scholars and practitioners, we examine these challenges and make (...) recommendations to mitigate negative consequences that could arise from the unregulated development or application of novel neurotechnologies. We explore potential ethical challenges in four key areas: identity and agency, privacy, bias, and enhancement. To address them, we propose democratic and inclusive summits to establish globally-coordinated ethical and societal guidelines for neurotechnology development and application, new measures, including “Neurorights,” for data privacy, security, and consent to empower neurotechnology users’ control over their data, new methods of identifying and preventing bias, and the adoption of public guidelines for safe and equitable distribution of neurotechnological devices. (shrink)

We establish the choice property, a weak analogue of definable choice, for certain tame expansions of o‐minimal structures. Most noteworthily, this property holds for dense pairs of real closed fields, as well as for expansions of o‐minimal structures by a dense independent set.

Throughout the biological and biomedical sciences there is a growing need for, prescriptive ‘minimum information’ (MI) checklists specifying the key information to include when reporting experimental results are beginning to find favor with experimentalists, analysts, publishers and funders alike. Such checklists aim to ensure that methods, data, analyses and results are described to a level sufficient to support the unambiguous interpretation, sophisticated search, reanalysis and experimental corroboration and reuse of data sets, facilitating the extraction of maximum value from data sets (...) them. However, such ‘minimum information’ MI checklists are usually developed independently by groups working within representatives of particular biologically- or technologically-delineated domains. Consequently, an overview of the full range of checklists can be difficult to establish without intensive searching, and even tracking thetheir individual evolution of single checklists may be a non-trivial exercise. Checklists are also inevitably partially redundant when measured one against another, and where they overlap is far from straightforward. Furthermore, conflicts in scope and arbitrary decisions on wording and sub-structuring make integration difficult. This presents inhibit their use in combination. Overall, these issues present significant difficulties for the users of checklists, especially those in areas such as systems biology, who routinely combine information from multiple biological domains and technology platforms. To address all of the above, we present MIBBI (Minimum Information for Biological and Biomedical Investigations); a web-based communal resource for such checklists, designed to act as a ‘one-stop shop’ for those exploring the range of extant checklist projects, and to foster collaborative, integrative development and ultimately promote gradual integration of checklists. (shrink)

Over recent years, the research community has been increasingly using preprint servers to share manuscripts that are not yet peer-reviewed. Even if it enables quick dissemination of research findings, this practice raises several challenges in publication ethics and integrity. In particular, preprints have become an important source of information for stakeholders interested in COVID19 research developments, including traditional media, social media, and policy makers. Despite caveats about their nature, many users can still confuse pre-prints with peer-reviewed manuscripts. If unconfirmed but (...) already widely shared first-draft results later prove wrong or misinterpreted, it can be very difficult to “unlearn” what we thought was true. Complexity further increases if unconfirmed findings have been used to inform guidelines. To help achieve a balance between early access to research findings and its negative consequences, we formulated five recommendations: (a) consensus should be sought on a term clearer than ‘pre-print’, such as ‘Unrefereed manuscript’, “Manuscript awaiting peer review” or ‘’Non-reviewed manuscript”; (b) Caveats about unrefereed manuscripts should be prominent on their first page, and each page should include a red watermark stating ‘Caution—Not Peer Reviewed’; (c) pre-print authors should certify that their manuscript will be submitted to a peer-review journal, and should regularly update the manuscript status; (d) high level consultations should be convened, to formulate clear principles and policies for the publication and dissemination of non-peer reviewed research results; (e) in the longer term, an international initiative to certify servers that comply with good practices could be envisaged. (shrink)

This volume handles in various perspectives the concept of function and the nature of functional explanations, topics much discussed since two major and conflicting accounts have been raised by Larry Wright and Robert Cummins’s papers in the 1970s. Here, both Wright’s ”etiological theory of functions’ and Cummins’s ”systemic’ conception of functions are refined and elaborated in the light of current scientific practice, with papers showing how the ”etiological’ theory faces several objections and may in reply be revisited, while its counterpart (...) became ever more sophisticated, as researchers discovered fresh applications for it. Relying on a firm knowledge of the original positions and debates, this volume presents cutting-edge research evincing the complexities that today pertain in function theory in various sciences. Alongside original papers from authors central to the controversy, work by emerging researchers taking novel perspectives will add to the potential avenues to be followed in the future. Not only does the book adopt no a priori assumptions about the scope of functional explanations, it also incorporates material from several very different scientific domains, e.g. neurosciences, ecology, or technology. In general, functions are implemented in mechanisms; and functional explanations in biology have often an essential relation with natural selection. These two basic claims set the stage for this book’s coverage of investigations concerning both ”functional’ explanations, and the ”metaphysics’ of functions. It casts new light on these claims, by testing them through their confrontation with scientific developments in biology, psychology, and recent developments concerning the metaphysics of realization. Rather than debating a single theory of functions, this book presents the richness of philosophical issues raised by functional discourse throughout the various sciences.​ Content Level » Research Keywords » Causal role theory of functions - Determination of content - Ecosystem selection - Etiological theory of function - Evolutionary biology - Functional explanations - Historical concepts in biology - Larry Wright - Neurosciences - New mechanism - Selected effects functions - Systemic theory of functions - William Wimsatt Related subjects » Anthropology & Archaeology - Epistemology & Philosophy of Science - Evolutionary & Developmental Biology - Neuroscience - Philosophy TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction.- Section I. Biological functions and functional explanations: genes, cells, organisms and ecosystems.- Part 1.A. Functions, organization and development in life sciences.- Chapter 1. William C. Wimsatt. Evolution and the Stability of Functional Architectures.- Chapter 2. Denis M. Walsh. Teleological Emergence: The Autonomy of Evo-Devo.- Chapter 3. Jean Gayon. Does oxygen have a function, or: where should the regress of biological functions stop?.- Part 1.B. Functional pluralism for biologists? Chapter 4. Frédéric Bouchard. How ecosystem evolution strengthens the case for functional pluralism.- Chapter 5. Robert N. Brandon. A general case for functional pluralism.- Chapter 6. Philippe Huneman. Weak realism in the etiological theory of functions.- Section 2. Section II. Psychology, philosophy of mind and technology: Functions in a man’s world.- Part 2.A. 2A. Metaphysics, function and philosophy of mind.- Chapter 7. Carl Craver. Functions and Mechanisms in Contemporary Neuroscience.- Chapter 8. Carl Gillett. Understanding the sciences through the fog of ”functionalism.’.- 2.B. Philosophy of technology, design and functions.- Chapter 9. Fran¸ coise Longy. Artifacts and Organisms: A Case for a New Etiological Theory of Functions.- Chapter 10. Pieter Vermaas and Wybo Houkes. Functions as Epistemic Highlighters: An Engineering Account of Technical, Biological and Other Functions.- Epilogue.- Larry Wright. Revising teleological explanations: reflections three decades on. (shrink)

In contemporary human brain mapping, it is commonly assumed that the “mind is what the brain does”. Based on that assumption, task-based imaging studies of the last three decades measured differences in brain activity that are thought to reflect the exercise of human mental capacities (e.g., perception, attention, memory). With the advancement of resting state studies, tractography and graph theory in the last decade, however, it became possible to study human brain connectivity without relying on cognitive tasks or constructs. It (...) therefore is currently an open question whether the assumption that “the mind is what the brain does” is an indispensable working hypothesis in human brain mapping. This paper argues that the hypothesis is, in fact, dispensable. If it is dropped, researchers can “meet the brain on its own terms” by searching for new, more adequate concepts to describe human brain organization. Neuroscientists can establish such concepts by conducting exploratory experiments that do not test particular cognitive hypotheses. The paper provides a systematic account of exploratory neuroscientific research that would allow researchers to form new concepts and formulate general principles of brain connectivity, and to combine connectivity studies with manipulation methods to identify neural entities in the brain. These research strategies would be most fruitful if applied to the mesoscopic scale of neuronal assemblies, since the organizational principles at this scale are currently largely unknown. This could help researchers to link microscopic and macroscopic evidence to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the human brain. The paper concludes by comparing this account of exploratory neuroscientific experiments to recent proposals for large-scale, discovery-based studies of human brain connectivity. (shrink)

A wide variety of ontologies relevant to the biological and medical domains are available through the OBO Foundry portal, and their number is growing rapidly. Integration of these ontologies, while requiring considerable effort, is extremely desirable. However, heterogeneities in format and style pose serious obstacles to such integration. In particular, inconsistencies in naming conventions can impair the readability and navigability of ontology class hierarchies, and hinder their alignment and integration. While other sources of diversity are tremendously complex and challenging, agreeing (...) a set of common naming conventions is an achievable goal, particularly if those conventions are based on lessons drawn from pooled practical experience and surveys of community opinion. We summarize a review of existing naming conventions and highlight certain disadvantages with respect to general applicability in the biological domain. We also present the results of a survey carried out to establish which naming conventions are currently employed by OBO Foundry ontologies and to determine what their special requirements regarding the naming of entities might be. Lastly, we propose an initial set of typographic, syntactic and semantic conventions for labelling classes in OBO Foundry ontologies. Adherence to common naming conventions is more than just a matter of aesthetics. Such conventions provide guidance to ontology creators, help developers avoid flaws and inaccuracies when editing, and especially when interlinking, ontologies. Common naming conventions will also assist consumers of ontologies to more readily understand what meanings were intended by the authors of ontologies used in annotating bodies of data. (shrink)

Recent semantic research has made increasing use of a principle, Maximize Presupposition, which requires that under certain circumstances the strongest possible presupposition be marked. This principle is generally taken to be irreducible to standard Gricean reasoning because the forms that are in competition have the same assertive content. We suggest, however, that Maximize Presupposition might be reducible to the theory of scalar implicatures. (i)First, we consider a special case: the speaker utters a sentence with a presupposition p which is not (...) initially taken for granted by the addressee, but the latter takes the speaker to be an authority on the matter. Signaling the presupposition provides new information to the addressee; but it also follows from the logic of presupposition qua common belief that the presupposition is thereby satisfied (Stalnaker, Ling Philos 25(5–6):701–721, 2002). (ii) Second, we generalize this solution to other cases. We assume that even when p is common belief, there is a very small chance that the addressee might forget it (‘Fallibility’); in such cases, marking a presupposition will turn out to generate new information by re-establishing part of the original context. We also adopt from Raj Singh (Nat Lang Semantics 19(2):149–168, 2011) the hypothesis that presupposition maximization is computed relative to local contexts—and we assume that these too are subject to Fallibility; this accounts for cases in which the information that justifies the presupposition is linguistically provided. (iii) Finally, we suggest that our assumptions have benefits in the domain of implicatures: they make it possible to reinterpret Magri’s ‘blind’ (i.e. context-insensitive) implicatures as context-sensitive implicatures which just happen to be misleading. (shrink)

We argue that a formal semantics for music can be developed, although it will be based on very different principles from linguistic semantics and will yield less precise inferences. Our framework has the following tenets: Music cognition is continuous with normal auditory cognition. In both cases, the semantic content derived from an auditory percept can be identified with the set of inferences it licenses on its causal sources, analyzed in appropriately abstract ways. What is special about music semantics is that (...) it aggregates inferences based on normal auditory cognition with further inferences drawn on the basis of the behavior of voices in tonal pitch space. This makes it possible to define an inferential semantics but also a truth-conditional semantics for music. In particular, a voice undergoing a musical movement m is true of an object undergoing a series of events e just in case there is a certain structure-preserving map between m and e. Aspects of musical syntax might be derivable on semantic grounds from an event mereology, which also explains some cases in which tree structures are inadequate for music. Intentions and emotions may be attributed at several levels, and we speculate on possible explanations of the special relation between music and emotions. (shrink)

Multiscale modeling techniques have attracted increasing attention by philosophers of science, but the resulting discussions have almost exclusively focused on issues surrounding explanation (e.g., reduction and emergence). In this paper, I argue that besides explanation, multiscale techniques can serve important exploratory functions when scientists model systems whose organization at different scales is ill-understood. My account distinguishes explanatory and descriptive multiscale modeling based on which epistemic goal scientists aim to achieve when using multiscale techniques. In explanatory multiscale modeling, scientists use multiscale (...) techniques to select information that is relevant to explain a particular type of behavior of the target system. In descriptive multiscale modeling scientists use multiscale techniques to explore lower-scale features which could be explanatorily relevant to many different types of behavior, and to determine which features of a target system an upper-scale data pattern could refer to. Using multiscale models from data-driven neuroscience as a case study, I argue that descriptive multiscale models have an exploratory function because they are a sources of potential explanations and serve as tools to reassess our conception of the target system. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that looking at the concept of neural function through the lens of cognition alone risks cognitive myopia: it leads neuroscientists to focus only on mechanisms with cognitive functions that process behaviorally relevant information when conceptualizing “neural function”. Cognitive myopia tempts researchers to neglect neural mechanisms with noncognitive functions which do not process behaviorally relevant information but maintain and repair neural and other systems of the body. Cognitive myopia similarly affects philosophy of neuroscience because scholars overlook (...) noncognitive functions when analyzing issues surrounding e.g., functional decomposition or the multifunctionality of neural structures. I argue that we can overcome cognitive myopia by adopting a patchwork approach that articulates cognitive and noncognitive “patches” of the concept of neural function. Cognitive patches describe mechanisms with causally specific effects on cognition and behavior which are likely operative in transforming sensory or other inputs into motor outputs. Noncognitive patches describe mechanisms that lack such specific effects; these mechanisms are enabling conditions for cognitive functions to occur. I use these distinctions to characterize two noncognitive functions at the mesoscale of neural circuits: subsistence functions like breathing are implemented by central pattern generators and are necessary to maintain the life of the organism. Infrastructural functions like gain control are implemented by canonical microcircuits and prevent neural system damage while cognitive processing occurs. By adding conceptual patches that describe these functions, a patchwork approach can overcome cognitive myopia and help us explain how the brain’s capacities as an information processing device are constrained by its ability to maintain and repair itself as a physiological apparatus. (shrink)

Solar radiation management (SRM) may help to reduce the negative outcomes of climate change by minimising or reversing global warming. However, many express the worry that SRM may pose a moral hazard, i.e., that information about SRM may lead to a reduction in climate change mitigation efforts. In this paper, we report a large-scale preregistered, money-incentivised, online experiment with a representative US sample (N = 2284). We compare actual behaviour (donations to climate change charities and clicks on climate change petition (...) links) as well as stated preferences (support for a carbon tax and self-reported intentions to reduce emissions) between participants who receive information about SRM with two control groups (a salience control that includes information about climate change generally and a content control that includes information about a different topic). Behavioural choices are made with an earned real-money endowment, and stated preference responses are incentivised via the Bayesian Truth Serum. We fail to find a significant impact of receiving information about SRM and, based on equivalence tests, we provide evidence in favour of the absence of a meaningfully large effect. Our results thus provide evidence for the claim that there is no detectable moral hazard with respect to SRM. [Open access]. (shrink)

This thought-provoking book discusses the concept of progress in economics and investigates whether any advance has been made in its different spheres of research. The authors look back at the history, successes and failures of their respective fields and thoroughly examine the notion of progress from an epistemological and methodological perspective. The idea of progress is particularly significant as the authors regard it as an essentially contested concept which can be defined in many ways – theoretically or empirically; locally or (...) globally; or as encouraging or impeding the existence of other research traditions. The authors discuss the idea that for progress to make any sense there must be an accumulation of knowledge built up over time rather than the replacement of ideas by each successive generation. Accordingly, they are not concerned with estimating the price of progress, reminiscing in the past, or assessing what has been lost. Instead they apply the complex mechanisms and machinery of the discipline to sub-fields such as normative economics, monetary economics, trade and location theory, Austrian economics and classical economics to critically assess whether progress has been made in these areas of research. -/- Bringing together authoritative and wide-ranging contributions by leading scholars, this book will challenge and engage those interested in philosophy, economic methodology and the history of economic thought. It will also appeal to economists in general who are interested in the advancement of their profession. (shrink)

La 4e de couv. indique : "La guerre peut-elle être juste? Peut-elle s'affubler d'un qualificatif juste sans injustice? Les récits cosmogoniques sont la merveilleuse monstration que les hommes se sont toujours fait la guerre. L'attitude belliqueuse de certains souverains et les atrocités des champs de bataille ont amené des analystes à définir des critères stricts pour limiter la souffrance humaine. Désormais, tout Etat qui n'observerait pas scrupuleusement les linéaments de cet édit risque d'être déclaré Hostis humani generis. Dans sa conception (...) traditionnelle in stricto sensu, la théorie de la guerre dite juste comporte, d'une part, le jus ad bellum (droit à la guerre) ou droit de faire la guerre et, d'autre part, le jus in bello qui règlemente la conduite de la guerre. Qu'en est-il de l'après-guerre et du jus post bellum? Cet ouvrage, importante contribution au débat sur la théorie de la guerre juste, répond justement à ce questionnement.". (shrink)

We argue that some sign language loci (i.e. positions in signing space that realize discourse referents) are both formal variables and simplified representations of what they denote; in other words, they are simultaneously logical symbols and pictorial representations. We develop a 'formal semantics with iconicity' that accounts for their dual life; the key idea ('formal iconicity') is that some geometric properties of signs must be preserved by the interpretation function. We analyze in these terms three kinds of iconic effects in (...) American and French Sign Language (ASL and LSF): (i) structural iconicity, where relations of inclusion and complementation among loci are directly reflected in their denotations; (ii) locus-external iconicity, where the high or low position of a locus in signing space has a direct semantic reflex, akin to the semantic contribution of gender features of pronouns; and (iii) locus-internal iconicity, where different parts of a structured locus are targeted by different directional verbs, as was argued by Liddell and Kegl. The resulting semantics combines insights of two traditions that have been sharply divided by recent debates. In line with the 'formalist camp' (e.g. Lillo-Martin and Klima, Neidle, and Sandler and Lillo-Martin), our theory treats loci as variables, and develops an explicit formal analysis of their behavior. But we also incorporate insights of the 'iconic camp', which emphasized the role of iconic constraints in sign language in general and in pronominals in particular (e.g. Cuxac, Taub, Liddell). However, this synthesis is only possible if formal semantics makes provisions for iconic requirements at the very core of its interpretive procedure. (An Appendix discusses relevant data from Italian Sign Language [LIS].). (shrink)

Aujourd'hui, des malades atteints de pathologies graves pour lesquelles les alternatives therapeutiques sont limitees ou inexistantes reclament, non plus tant une protection contre les essais cliniques, qu'un droit d'y participer. Cette nouvelle revendication est le point de depart de la presente enquete, a la fois historique, juridique et sociologique, qui montre comment s'est formee, dans les normes et dans les pratiques, du XVIIIe au XXe siecle, la distinction entre l'animal de laboratoire et le sujet humain. Entre les cobayes et les (...) hommes. La premiere partie de l'ouvrage decrit la formation, de part et d'autre du proces des medecins de Nuremberg, d'un consensus normatif international en reponse aux crises sanitaires, accidents et scandales qui emaillent l'histoire des essais medicaux sur l'etre humain. La seconde partie detaille la situation en France, l'emergence d'une legislation sur les recherches biomedicales, les paradoxes qui persistent dans la loi et les realites nouvelles, sociologiques et scientifiques, qu'elle doit affronter. L'ouvrage montre l'urgence d'un nouveau contrat social en matiere de recherche biomedicale, articulant respect de l'autonomie, equite d'acces et protection des personnes. Et il propose des solutions. (shrink)