Infants’ ability to monitor “sensorimotor contingencies,” i.e., the sensory effects of their own actions, is an important mechanism underlying learning. One method that has been used to investigate this is the “mobile paradigm,” in which a mobile above an infant’s crib is activated by motion of one of the infant’s limbs. Although successfully used in numerous experiments performed in infants’ homes to investigate memory and other types of learning, the paradigm seems less robust for demonstrating sensitivity to sensorimotor contingencies when (...) used in the laboratory. One purpose of the present work was to show that certain changes to the mobile paradigm would make it easier for infants to show their sensitivity to the contingency in the lab. In particular, we used proximal stimulation on infants’ wrists instead of the usual mobile, and our stimulation was coincident with the limbs that caused it. Our stimulation was either on or off, i.e., not modulated by the amount the infant moved. Finally, we used a “shaping” procedure to help the infant discover the contingency. In addition to these changes in the paradigm, by analyzing infants’ limb activity at 10-s resolution instead of the usual 1-min resolution, we were able to show that infants’ sensitivity to the contingency became apparent already within the first minute of establishment of the contingency. Finally, we showed how two alternate measures of sensitivity to contingency based on probability of repeated movements and on “stop and go” motion strategies may be of interest for future work. (shrink)

In the conventional approach to quantum mechanics, indeterminism is an axiom and nonlocality is a theorem. We consider inverting the logical order, making nonlocality an axiom and indeterminism a theorem. Nonlocal “superquantum” correlations, preserving relativistic causality, can violate the CHSH inequality more strongly than any quantum correlations.

Using Finsler brane solutions [see details and methods in: S. Vacaru, Class. Quant. Grav. 28:215001, 2011], we show that neutrinos may surpass the speed of light in vacuum which can be explained by trapping effects from gravity theories on eight dimensional (co) tangent bundles on Lorentzian manifolds to spacetimes in general and special relativity. In nonholonomic variables, the bulk gravity is described by Finsler modifications depending on velocity/momentum coordinates. Possible super-luminal phenomena are determined by the width of locally anisotropic brane (...) (spacetime) and induced by generating functions and integration functions and constants in coefficients of metrics and nonlinear connections. We conclude that Finsler brane gravity trapping mechanism may explain neutrino super-luminal effects and almost preserve the paradigm of Einstein relativity as the standard one for particle physics and gravity. (shrink)

The paper examines the meaning of a Hegelian expression: “the ascension of the human spirit to God”, which was formulated in the philosopher’s 1829 summer course dedicated to the proofs of God’s existence. We argue that the Hegelian formula describes a double movement: the first one refers to the departure of thinking from the Phenomenon and its arrival to the Ideal, and the second one describes the opposite movement, in which thinking crosses the barrier between the Ideal and the Phenomenon.

Society is the ensemble/the whole of the relations with the others, it is their form based on the natural needs : the perpetuation of the species, the playful expression, the language, the thinking, the communication, the inter-subjectivity report. In the evolution of psychology of human development, sport contributes to the improvement of the body in relation to the environment; of the cognitive, moral development of language, that of complex skills, sensory integrations, games with body schematics, which mobilize self-awareness and structure (...) through learning and experience. Thus, social and communication behaviours generate a mutually advantageous social repertoire. (shrink)

Three values for non-transferable utility games -- the Harsanyi NTU-value, the Shapley NTU-value, and the Maschler--Owen consistent NTU-value -- are compared in a simple example.

The main objective of this essay is to offer an answer to the following question: Is there a scientific ground for the theory of the historical opposition between liberalism and the nation? In order to answer this question, this essay is organised in three parts. The first part identifies the position of the nation within the classical liberal discourse; the second identifies the crucial moment of the 1950’s as the precise period in which a major change in the relation between (...) liberalism and the nation took place; the third one identifies the moment of the nation’s restoration within the contemporary liberal discourse. The main conclusion of this essay is that, except for a brief though noteworthy period (which explains the actual apparent consensus concerning the opposition between the liberal and the national theories), the nation was a fundamental component of the liberal discourse and of the liberal political practices rather than a result of an opposing political vision. (shrink)

Marius Jucan, Mastile libertatii. America in scrisorile lui Thomas Jefferson (Cluj: Casa Cartii de Stiinta, 2007)/ Freedom's Masks: America Seen Through the Letters of Thomas Jefferson.

The living world is an exciting and inexhaustible source of high performance solutions to the multitude of biological problems, which were attained as a result of a natural selection, during the millions and millions years evolution of life on Earth. This work presents and comments some examples of high performances of living beings, in the light of the universal principle governing the realm of living matter: Optimal Design Principle. At the same time, the transfer of these optimal solutions, from living (...) matter to the technologies, is also discussed. This transfer is offering new and fertile perspectives to future technologies, which must be more efficient, cheaper and in perfect harmony with the biosphere. (shrink)

Hierarchical structures are rapidly and flexibly built up in the domains of human language and music. These domains require a tree-building capacity – “dendrophilia” – to dynamically infer hierarchical structures from sensory input, based on subunits stored in a lexicon. This dynamic process involves a crucial class of abstracta overlooked in the target article.

Trends of musical notation -- Mehter as act of power and performance -- Intertextuality in Turkish musical writings.

COVID-19 pandemic-related perceived risk of infection, illness fears, acute stress, emotional anxiety, exhaustion, and fatigue, psychological trauma and depressive symptoms, and sustained psychological distress can cause smartphone addiction risk and lead to technology-related cognitive, emotional, and behavioral disorders, thus impacting psychological well-being. Behavioral addiction of smartphone users can result in anxiety symptom severity, psychiatric symptoms, and depressive stress. We carried out a quantitative literature review of the Web of Science, Scopus, and ProQuest throughout June 2022, with search terms including “smartphone (...) addiction + COVID-19” + “stress,” “anxiety,” “depression,” “psychological distress,” “screen time,” and “fear.” As we analyzed only articles published between 2020 and 2022, 288 papers met the eligibility criteria. By excluding sources with similar titles, having unclear findings or unsupported by replication, or displaying inconsistent content, we selected 64, mainly empirical, sources. We used layout algorithms and bibliometric mapping as data visualization tools. Assessing the Methodological Quality of Systematic Reviews, a systematic review and literature review software, Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool, and Systematic Review Data Repository were employed as methodological quality assessment tools. As limitations, we analyzed only articles published between 2020 and 2022 in scholarly outlets indexed in the Web of Science, Scopus, and ProQuest databases. The scope of our study also does not advance the inspection of sources covering vulnerable individuals suffering from certain diseases or specific generations. Subsequent analyses should develop on smartphone use and addiction among children and adolescents. Future research should thus investigate problematic smartphone use and addiction across generations Z and Alpha. Attention should be directed to their personality traits and psychopathological symptoms. (shrink)

An Internet-based competitive marketing game, FIFA 20, served to investigate the effectiveness of two opposite strategies in soccer-player auctions under semi-naturalistic conditions. Granting the validity of both causal principles, the anchoring principle giving an advantage to starting with a high price (Ritov, 1996) and the traffic principle underlying the starting-low advantage (Ku, Galinsky, & Murnighan, 2006), we nevertheless expected starting low strategies to produce higher end-prices under FIFA 20 conditions. Two experiments, each using multiple copies of two players from the (...) lowest price segment (Kramaric, Pizzi) and from an elevated price segment (Laporte, Martial), corroborated these expectations. A starting-low advantage was evident in two utility aspects, enhanced average (profit) and reduced variance (uncertainty aversion) of end prices obtained for player copies offered at lower starting prices. However, when the causal impact of the manipulated starting value was overshadowed by extraneous media influences, these findings were reduced or disappeared but never reversed. (shrink)

The integrated model of mental health recommends nowadays the collaboration between psychiatrists, psychotherapists and clinical psychologists. It is currently the agreed model in the managed health care system in the West and research has shown that mixing the medical model with the psychological model both in theory and practice elicits the best outcomes and guides the client towards recovery. In this paper I will challenge this view on a particular area of psychopathology, mild and moderate depression and anxiety, showing that (...) in these particular situations, 15-20 sessions of psychotherapy are sufficient and efficient for recovery and there is no further need for medicating the client, unless the client himself desires this particular type of psychiatric approach. I will also focus on a target group, pregnant women who fear toxic reactions for the fetus and don’t consider taking antidepressant and anxiolytic medication out of fear of adverse reactions. I will also explore the ethical implications of prescribing these target groups medication against their will. CBT, REBT and Existential Psychotherapy are effective options to treat both the symptoms and causes of mild and moderate anxiety and depression, whilst exercise, nutrition and mindfulness meditation can also be effective treatments. Since medications such as antidepressants have recently become the treatment of choice in United States with a 147.5% increase in antidepressant prescription rates between 1990 and 1998 and with a 10.9% decrease in the utilization of psychotherapy, my paper aims to balance this approach in the favour of psychotherapy as a first choice option. (shrink)

Savage et al. make a compelling case, Mehr et al. less so, for social bonding and credible signalling, respectively, as the main adaptive function of human musicality. We express general advocacy for the former thesis, highlighting: overlap between the two; direct versus derived biological functions, and aspects of music embedded in cultural evolution, for example, departures from tonality.

In Part I of this paper, an abstract analogue of the minimization problem for Boolean functions and of the notion of prime implicant is defined, so that this general problem can be solved in the same steps as in the classical case: 1) determination of the prime implicants; 2) determination of all the solutions made up of prime implicants. In Part II it is shown that the classical minimization problem, as well as certain set-theoretical and graphtheoretical problems are particular cases (...) of the general problem defined in Part I. (shrink)

We study ranges of algebraic functions in lattices and in algebras, such as Łukasiewicz-Moisil algebras which are obtained by extending standard lattice signatures with unary operations.We characterize algebraic functions in such lattices having intervals as their ranges and we show that in Artinian or Noetherian lattices the requirement that every algebraic function has an interval as its range implies the distributivity of the lattice.

The set (X, J) of fuzzy subsetsf:XJ of a setX can be equipped with a structure of -valued ukasiewicz-Moisil algebra, where is the order type of the totally ordered setJ. Conversely, every ukasiewicz-Moisil algebra — and in particular every Post algebra — is isomorphic to a subalgebra of an algebra of the form (X, J), whereJ has an order type . The first result of this paper is a characterization of those -valued ukasiewicz-Moisil algebras which are isomorphic to an algebra (...) of the form (X, J) (Theorem 1). Then we prove that (X, J) is a Post algebra if and only if the setJ is dually well-ordered (Theorem 2) and we give a characterization of those -valued Post algebras with are isomorphic to an algebra of the form (X, J) (Theorem 3 and Proposition 2). (shrink)

This article is a study of three major metaphors organizing nationalistic discourse about Cyprus in two online forums for Turkish university students. The analysis suggests that discussants symbolically warranted their constructions of the future of Cyprus and Turkish Cypriots with metaphors of blood and heroism that emphasized their personal and collective memory of sacrifice. Sports metaphors were used predominantly to convey a sense of the strategic importance of Cyprus. In addition, discussants employed gender and sexual metaphors to structure the tension (...) between nationalist feelings associated with motherland Turkey as a pure, virgin female, and the geopolitical demands of the nation-state, portrayed as a father faced with uneasy choices. (shrink)

The paper proposes a flexible way to build concepts within fuzzy logic and set theory. The framework is general enough to capture some important particular cases, with their own independent interpretations, like “antitone” or “isotone” concepts constructed from fuzzy binary relations, but also to allow the two universes to be equipped each with its own truth structure. Perhaps the most important feature of our approach is that we do not commit ourselves to any kind of logical connector, covering thus the (...) case of a possibly non-commutative conjunction too. (shrink)

In their paper exploring patient ambivalence in the context of medical decision-making Bryanna Moore, et al. state, “While bioethicists have not paid much attention to ambivalence and related menta...

We study ranges of algebraic functions in lattices and in algebras, such as Łukasiewicz-Moisil algebras which are obtained by extending standard lattice signatures with unary operations.We characterize algebraic functions in such lattices having intervals as their ranges and we show that in Artinian or Noetherian lattices the requirement that every algebraic function has an interval as its range implies the distributivity of the lattice.

Starting from the four principles of Pólya's problem-solving method, by analogy, in this paper we propose a new method of philosophical counseling. Thus, the objectives of this study are as follows: the review of several methods of philosophical counseling; justifying the need for a new method, which we called the IPAA method; developing the four principles – the principle of identification (I), the principle of planification (P), the principle of application (A) and the principle of assumption (A). In order to (...) achieve these, we took into account the fact that the nature of the philosophical problems faced by the clients of the philosophical counselors, whether they are existential, moral or metaphysical, can be solved on their own. Therefore, we argued that if in the first instance, clients really need the input of the philosophical counselors, as long as the latter uses the IPAA method – a problem-solving method – they can offer clients the opportunity to self-counsel. The novelty of the IPAA method consists in the fact that it offers the client, assisted and guided at the beginning by the counselor, the possibility to carry out the act of counseling outside the office, being empowered to apply the four methodical principles mentioned above. The present study is relevant in that the new IPAA method, a method focused on solving everyday problems, is a useful method for both philosophical counselors, as its application in the office helps them to train the clients in researching, understanding and assuming their own lives, as well as for the clients, because if they are assisted in the first instance by the counselor's expertise, they can independently clarify and solve their daily difficulties. (shrink)

The purpose of this article was to gain a deeper understanding of Arendt’s educational philosophy, her perspective of political involvement as a kind of political education, and natality as the fundamental nature of education. The current study has extended past research by elucidating Arendt’s view of participatory democratic politics, her analysis of citizenship education programs, and her assessment of the crisis of education. The findings of this study have implications for Arendt’s idea of pedagogical authority, the specific character of Arendt’s (...) contribution to political theory, and her grasp on the link between citizenship and education. (shrink)