Habits and habitudes are peculiar in that they are both a condition of human agency, as well as one of its most significant hurdles. They open up the world by providing us with ways of being within it (e.g., how we perceive, move about, and generally orient ourselves in space). However, they also confine our worldly behavior given their repetitive and often predictable nature. This tension between spontaneity and repetition arises out of the two-fold temporal structure of habits—i.e., the habitual (...) body simultaneously directs us toward the future and the past. An understanding of this tension is generally important for thinking about how individuals can do things differently. More urgently, this work has applications in the treatment of addictions and other compulsive behaviors where the difficulties of disrupting habitual repetition are much more pronounced. (shrink)

Habits and habitudes are peculiar in that they are both a condition of human agency, as well as one of its most significant hurdles. They open up the world by providing us with ways of being within it (e.g., how we perceive, move about, and generally orient ourselves in space). However, they also confine our worldly behavior given their repetitive and often predictable nature. This tension between spontaneity and repetition arises out of the two-fold temporal structure of habits – i.e., (...) the habitual body simultaneously directs us toward the future and the past. An understanding of this tension is generally important for thinking about how individuals can do things differently. More urgently, this work has applications in the treatment of addictions and other compulsive behaviors where the difficulties of disrupting habitual repetition are much more pronounced. (shrink)

As hunters, Sam and Dean kill monsters because such creatures pose a threat to the lives of innocent people. Sam and Dean are confronted with a complex array of moral issues in killing.Supernatural depicts hunters as ordinary people who know of the hidden supernatural evil that exists in the world and choose to spend their lives fighting it. Hunting, as the name suggests, involves tracking down these creatures and figuring out a way to destroy them. There are three fundamentally important (...) types of creatures in Supernatural: monsters, spirits, and demons. As hunters, Sam and Dean are motivated to kill monsters to defend innocent people from being victims of those monsters. As hunters, Sam and Dean follow typical rules of morality when dealing with people, but if they're warriors, those rules might change significantly. Warriors are bound by “Just War Theory,” which gives combatants special permissions for killing enemy combatants. (shrink)

An underlying assumption of default-interventionist dual-process theory (DI-DPT) of reasoning is that humans tend to act as cognitive misers. Although miserly cognitive processing occurs when indiv...

This study demonstrates the importance of social context to the study of networks vital to business success. Results from analyses of the personal and business characteristics associated with different types of networks, a topic that has been neglected in past research, show the importance of structural perspectives emphasizing that women and men in the same situations have similar networks. Yet there are some network differences even among these women and men who operate the same kinds of businesses. This suggests that (...) insights from gender construction perspectives should be integrated into network and other gender inequality studies. (shrink)

Firearm violence is a major public health problem in the United States. In 2000, firearms were used in 10,801 homicides – two-thirds of all homicides in the U.S. – and 533,470 non-fatal criminal victimizations including rapes, robberies, and assaults. The social costs of gun violence in the United States are also staggering, and have been estimated to be on the order of $100 billion per year.Illegal gun carrying, usually concealed, in public places is an important risk factor for firearm-related crime. (...) In the 1980s and 1990s, police departments across the country began to develop and implement strategies to address illegal weapons carrying. Often these strategies have involved aggressive efforts to identify and physically search individuals suspected of illegally carrying a firearm. (shrink)

Firearm violence is a major public health problem in the United States. In 2000, firearms were used in 10,801 homicides – two-thirds of all homicides in the U.S. – and 533,470 non-fatal criminal victimizations including rapes, robberies, and assaults. The social costs of gun violence in the United States are also staggering, and have been estimated to be on the order of $100 billion per year.Illegal gun carrying, usually concealed, in public places is an important risk factor for firearm-related crime. (...) In the 1980s and 1990s, police departments across the country began to develop and implement strategies to address illegal weapons carrying. Often these strategies have involved aggressive efforts to identify and physically search individuals suspected of illegally carrying a firearm. (shrink)

RationaleSurrogates of critically ill patients often have inaccurate expectations about prognosis. Yet there is little research on how intensive care unit clinicians should discuss prognosis, and existing expert opinion-based recommendations give only general guidance that has not been validated with surrogate decision makers.ObjectiveTo determine the perspectives of key stakeholders regarding how prognostic information should be conveyed in critical illness.MethodsThis was a multicenter study at three academic medical centers in California, Pennsylvania, and Washington. One hundred eighteen key stakeholders completed in-depth semistructured (...) interviews. Participants included 47 surrogates of adult patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome; 45 clinicians working in study ICUs, including physicians, nurses, social workers, and spiritual care providers; and 26 experts in health communication, decision science, ethics, family-centered care, geriatrics, healthcare disparities, palliative care, psychology, psychiatry, and critical care.Measurements and main resultsThere was broad support among surrogates for existing expert recommendations, including truthful prognostic disclosure, emotional support, tailoring the disclosure strategy to each family's needs, and checking for understanding. In addition, stakeholders offered suggestions that add specificity to existing recommendations, including: In addition to conveying prognostic estimates, clinicians should help families "see the prognosis for themselves" by showing families radiographic images and explaining the clinical significance of physical manifestations of severe disease at the bedside. Many physicians did not support using numeric estimates to convey prognosis to families, whereas many surrogates, clinicians from other disciplines, and experts believed numbers could be helpful. Clinicians should conceptualize prognostic communication as an iterative process that begins with a preliminary mention of the possibility of death early in the ICU stay and becomes more detailed as the clinical situation develops. Although prognostic information should be initially disclosed by physicians, other members of the multidisciplinary team-nurses, social workers, and spiritual care providers-should be given explicit role responsibilities to reinforce physicians' prognostications and help families process a poor prognosis emotionally.ConclusionsFamily members, clinicians, and experts identified specific communication behaviors that clinicians should use to discuss prognosis in the critical care setting. These findings extend existing opinion-based recommendations and should guide interventions to improve communication about prognosis in ICUs. (shrink)

BackgroundPeople with upper extremity amputations report receiving insufficient information about treatment options. Furthermore, patients commonly report not knowing what questions to ask providers. A question prompt sheet, or list of questions, can support patient-centered care by empowering patients to ask questions important to them, promoting patient-provider communication, and increasing patient knowledge. This study assessed information needs among people with UE amputations about UE vascularized composite allotransplantation and developed a UE VCA-QPS.MethodsThis multi-site, cross-sectional, mixed-methods study involved in-depth and semi-structured interviews with (...) people with UE amputations to assess information needs and develop a UE VCA-QPS. Qualitative data were analyzed by thematic analysis; quantitative data were analyzed by descriptive statistics. The initial UE VCA-QPS included 130 items across 18 topics.ResultsEighty-nine people with UE amputations participated. Most were male, had a mean age of 46 years, and had a unilateral and below-elbow amputation. Participants desired information about UE VCA eligibility, evaluation process, surgery, risks, rehabilitation, and functional outcomes. After refinement, the final UE VCA-QPS included 35 items, across 9 topics. All items were written at a ≤ 6th grade reading level. Most semi-structured interview participants reported being ‘completely’ or ‘very’ likely to use a UE VCA-QPS.ConclusionPeople with UE amputations have extensive information needs about UE VCA. The UE VCA-QPS aims to address patients’ information needs and foster patient-centered care. Future research should assess whether the UE VCA-QPS facilitates patient-provider discussion and informed decision-making for UE VCA. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Dual Vision of Black People The Status of Race and the Contributions of Black People “The Negro Problem”.

High-hope and low-hope research participants (males and females), as preselected on the basis of a dispositional self-report scale, choose freely between brief audiotaped messages that varied in depressive content. In the first experiment, the messages were of either positive or negative content. Highhope as compared to low-hope persons preferred listening to the positive tapes (no differences related to Gender), and this Hope main effect remained after the shared variance related to depression and positive and negative affectivity were removed. In a (...) modified replication, the contents of the tapes were comprised of successful or unsuccessful goal-attainment statements related to hopeful thinking. High-hope as compared to low-hope persons again preferred to listen to the successful goal pursuit messages (no differences related to Gender), and this Hope main effect on listening choices remained after the shared variances related to depression, positive and negative affectivity, and self-esteem were removed. Implications are discussed. (shrink)

Both Ralph Waldo Emerson's and W. E. B. Du Bois' firstborn sons tragically died at very young ages. Drawing from the essays where they write about their grief, I explore Du Bois' "subversion" and "revision" of Emerson's thought by contrasting their visual metaphors: Emerson's "focal distancing" and Du Bois' practice of "second sight" and seeing through "the Veil." I show how the disruptive particular event of the deaths of their sons causes both to challenge the idealist elements of their respective (...) gazes. I draw upon Theodor Adorno to explore the larger lessons of these reconsiderations. In recognizing the seductive dangers of the idealist gaze and the value of the disruptive particular, Adorno explicitly theorizes what Emerson and Du Bois also come to appreciate, in a less overt way, in their moments of loss. (shrink)

I admit that when I think of pragmatism’s contributions to political philosophy, I primarily think of Jane Addams and John Dewey. Their contributions to democratic theory and practice have been extremely important in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere, so much so that “pragmatist politics” and “Deweyan democracy” are virtually synonymous. I also think of W.E.B. Du Bois’s criticisms of anti-Black racism and white supremacy in the United States and across the globe. In any case, my first instincts have never (...) been to turn to William James for political inspiration or insight. I’m not alone in thinking and... (shrink)

This paper considers three modern objections to Anselm’s argument on atonement in book I of ’Cur Deus Homo’. The objections are from Friedrich Nietzsche, R. C. Moberly, and Hastings Rashdall; each one makes the case that Anselm’s argument is fallacious. Each one interprets Anselm’s position as requiring that someone innocent suffer punishment in order to acquit guilt. I contend that these objectors do not offer a strong case against Anselm’s argument, principally because they have not examined it completely and have (...) misunderstood his reasoning. In fine, Anselm’s case is (a) the Son’s obedience to the Father suffices for atonement, (b) the Son is an advocate for Adam and his heirs and stands in for them because of his blood ties to humanity, and (c) the Son is the advocate for the Father in the latter’s attempt to end human estrangement from justice. Being both an advocate of the Father and an heir to Adam, the Son’s Incarnation itself prepares the way of reconciliation and the life of. (shrink)

Women’s health activists laid the groundwork for passage of the law that created the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1906. The pharmaceutical and food industries fought regulatory reforms then and continue to do so now. We examine public health activism in the Progressive Era, the postwar era and the present day. The women’s health movement began in the 1960s, and criticized both the pharmaceutical industry and the medical establishment. In the 1990s, patient advocacy groups began accepting industry funds; thousands (...) of commercially-funded groups now dominate the advocacy landscape. As pharma funding became normalized, concerns arose regarding a) the lack of transparency and public accountability regarding funding, b) the distortion of groups’ agendas, and c) the ability of pharma-funded groups to dominate the discourse and override less well-resourced patient and health advocacy groups. Although industry-funded groups argue that funding allows them to provide useful services, the trade-off in health risks, exorbitant prices and distorted information is far too high. Sincerity is beside the point; patients and the industry have differing interests when it comes to drug safety and efficacy, drug information and drug prices. A growing resistance movement is asserting the values of its activist predecessors and opposing the prevailing culture of pharma-funded advocacy. (shrink)

© 2015, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.Genetic studies have identified single nucleotide polymorphisms associated with the risk of prostate cancer. It remains unclear whether such genetic variants are associated with disease aggressiveness. The NCI-SPORE Genetics Working Group retrospectively collected clinicopathologic information and genotype data for 36 SNPs which at the time had been validated to be associated with PC risk from 25,674 cases with PC. Cases were grouped according to race, Gleason score and aggressiveness. Statistical analyses were used to compare the frequency (...) of the SNPs between different disease cohorts. After adjusting for multiple testing, only PC-risk SNP rs2735839 was significantly and inversely associated with aggressive and high-grade disease in European men. Similar associations with aggressive and high-grade disease were documented in African-American subjects. The G allele of rs2735839 was associated with disease aggressiveness even at low PSA levels in both European and African-American men. Our results provide further support that a PC-risk SNP rs2735839 near the KLK3 gene on chromosome 19q13 may be associated with aggressive and high-grade PC. Future prospectively designed, case-case GWAS are needed to identify additional SNPs associated with PC aggressiveness. (shrink)

A new information matrix [F] with elements F mn = 〈 (y m - a m )(y n - a n) (∂ ln p(y | a)/∂a m ) (∂ ln p(y | a)/∂a n ) 〉 is analyzed. The PDF p(y | a) is the usual likelihood law. [F] differs from the Fisher information matrix by the presence of the first two factors in the given expectation. These factors make F mn unitless, in contrast with the Fisher information. This lack (...) of units allows F mn values from entirely different phenomena to be compared as, for example, Shannon information values can be compared. Each element F mn defines an error inequality analogous to the Cramer-Rao inequality. In the scalar case F mn ≡ F, for a normal p(y|a) law F = 3, while for an exponential law F = 9. A variational principle F = min (called FMIN) allows an unknown PDF p(x) to be estimated in the presence of weak information. Under certain conditions F obeys a “Boltzmann F-theorem” ∂F/∂t ⩽ 0, indicating that F is a physical entropy. Finally, the trace ℱ of [F] may be used as the scalar information quantity in an information-based principle for deriving distribution laws p of physics. (shrink)

Motivation: Classical definitions of information, such as the Shannon information, are designed for open loop systems because they define information on a channel which has an input and an output. The main motivation of this paper is to present a closed loop information measure which is compatible with constructivist thinking. Design: Our information measure for a closed loop system reflects how additional sensor inputs are utilised to establish additional sensor-motor loops during learning. Our information measure is based on the (...) assumption that it is not optimal to stay reactive and that it is beneficial to become proactive through increased learning about the environment. Consequently our information measure gauges the utilisation of new sensor inputs to generate anticipatory actions. We call this information measure "predictive information" (PI). Findings: Our PI is zero if the organism uses only its reflex reactions. It grows when the organism is able to use other sensor inputs to preempt reflex reactions and is able to replace reflexes by anticipatory reactions. This has been demonstrated with a real robot that had to learn to avoid obstacles. Conclusion: PI is a new measure which is able to quantify anticipatory learning and, in contrast to the Shannon information, is calculated only at the inputs of an agent. This information measure has been successfully applied to a simple robot task but its application is neither limited to a certain task nor to a certain learning rule. (shrink)

M. Oaksford and N. Chater presented a Bayesian analysis of the Wason selection task in which they proposed that people choose cards in order to maximize expected information gain as measured by reduction in uncertainty in the Shannon-Weaver information theory sense. It is argued that the EIG measure is both psychologically implausible and normatively inadequate as a measure of epistemic utility. The article is also concerned with the descriptive account of findings in the selection task literature offered by Oaksford (...) and Chater. First, it is shown that their analysis data reported in the recent article of K. N. Kirby is unsound; second, an EIG analysis is presented of the experiments of P. Pollard and J. St. B. T. Evans that provides a strong empirical disconfirmation of the theory. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:LaudatioTimothy B. Noone (bio)On Sunday, July 26, 2009, the Franciscan Institute was pleased to award to Dr. Girard J. Etzkorn its 22nd Franciscan Institute Medal in recognition of a lifetime of scholarship, editing and publication of texts on medieval philosophy and theology, with a special emphasis on the Franciscan intellectual tradition. The ceremony was held in the Trustees Room of Doyle Hall on the campus of St. Bonaventure University (...) and attended by over 100 scholars, students, friends and members of Dr. Etzkorn's extended families. The award ceremony began with a personal appreciation by Dr. Thomas Shannon, Ph.D., emeritus of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (Worcester, MA), former member during the 1960s with Dr. Etzkorn of the Sacred Heart Province of Friars Minor (St. Louis, MO). It was followed by the formal laudatio of the honorée presented by former colleague and friend, Dr. Timothy B. Noone, Ph.D., of the Catholic University of America, the text of which is printed here. The event concluded with personal remarks by Dr. Etzkorn on his life as a scholar of the Franciscan tradition."Let us praise men of renown and our fathers in their generation." Sirach 44:1The wisdom of Sirach, the last of the Solomonic books of the Old Testament, would seem an appropriate place to begin this evening's festivities. No doubt, Gerry is squirming a bit in his chair, thinking in his customary humility that the words of Sirach are a bit too high for him. But we must learn to acknowledge what is true and great wherever it is, even when (or to put the matter correctly, especially when) the truth and greatness are found in ourselves. So there will be [End Page 259] no holding back on the present occasion, since the text from Sirach points out our path.We should start with a brief sketch of Gerry's life. Born in Kirkwood, Missouri in 1927, Gerry received his primary and secondary education in Missouri before attending the University of Dayton in the fall of 1944. After three semesters studying chemical engineering, he was drafted into the military, serving in the U.S. Army as part of the occupation forces of Japan after the surrender of August, 1945. This seeming irrelevancy actually became quite important in Gerry's life, for it was during his service in Japan that he encountered the Franciscans and decided to enter the Order after returning to the U.S. Once he had completed his degrees in philosophy and theology and been ordained, Gerry was sent to the University of Louvain, where he took his doctorate, producing a thesis that contained a partial edition of Roger Marston's hitherto unpublished Quodlibetal questions.This work at Louvain presaged in many ways the bulk of Gerry's work: he edited and studied a Franciscan medieval text from Latin manuscripts and studied its philosophical and theological doctrines. After returning from Louvain, Gerry taught for ten years at Quincy College and Seminary before leaving the Franciscans in 1971. But the Franciscans and he were far from being through with each other. Within two years Gerry arrived here to work with Fr. Gedeon Gàl on the Ockham Edition, then in the throes of its labors. Initially working as an Associate Editor on the Ockham Edition, Gerry eventually became Chief Editor of the Scotus Project, the successor project at the Institute to the Ockham Edition.During his twenty-two years at the Institute, Gerry kept up a steady pace of editions, some connected with the Institute's research projects and others springing from his own interests. Among the former, we must note three volumes of the Opera theologica of Ockham and four volumes of the Opera philosophica of Scotus; among the latter, we find the complete edition of Roger Marston's Quodlibetal questions, the edition of John Peckham's Quodlibetal questions, numerous articles containing briefer editions of lesser figures, and a volume of manuscript descriptions, analyzing manuscripts never before described in the Vatican Library. [End Page 260]What I have mentioned so far would be enough for any one human being within the scope of one lifetime. But God had more in store for Gerry... (shrink)

Edited by Thomas A. Shannon, this series provides anthologies of critical essays and reflections by leading ethicists in four pivotal areas: reproductive technologies, genetic technologies, death and dying, and health care policy. The goal of this series is twofold: first, to provide a set of readers on thematic topics for introductory or survey courses in bioethics or for courses with a particular theme or time limitation. Second, each of the readers in this series is designed to help students focus (...) more thoroughly and effectively on specific topics that flesh out the ethical issues at the core of bioethics. The series is also highly accessible to general readers interested in bioethics. (shrink)

We compare the elementary theories of Shannon information and Kolmogorov complexity, the extent to which they have a common purpose, and wherethey are fundamentally different. We discuss and relate the basicnotions of both theories: Shannon entropy, Kolmogorov complexity, Shannon mutual informationand Kolmogorov (``algorithmic'') mutual information. We explainhow universal coding may be viewed as a middle ground betweenthe two theories. We consider Shannon's rate distortion theory, whichquantifies useful (in a certain sense) information.We use the communication of information (...) as our guiding motif, and we explain howit relates to sequential question-answer sessions. (shrink)

Theoretical methods for empirical state determination of entangled two-level systems are analyzed in relation to information theory. We show that hidden variable theories would lead to a Shannon index of correlation between the entangled subsystems which is larger than that predicted by quantum mechanics. Canonical representations which have maximal correlations are treated by the use of Schmidt and Hilbert-Schmidt decomposition of the entangled states, including especially the Bohm singlet state and the GHZ entangled states. We show that quantum mechanics (...) does not violate locality, but does violate realism. (shrink)

Recently, Brukner and Zeilinger 3354) have claimed that the Shannon information is not well defined as a measure of information in quantum mechanics, adducing arguments that seek to show that it is inextricably tied to classical notions of measurement. It is shown here that these arguments do not succeed: the Shannon information does not have problematic ties to classical concepts. In a further argument, Brukner and Zeilinger compare the Shannon information unfavourably to their preferred information measure, I (...) , with regard to the definition of a notion of “total information content.” This argument is found unconvincing and the relationship between individual measures of information and notions of “total information content” investigated. We close by considering the prospects of Zeilinger's Foundational Principle as a foundational principle for quantum mechanics. (shrink)

Recently, Brukner and Zeilinger (Phys. Rev. Lett. 83(17) (2001) 3354) have claimed that the Shannon information is not well defined as a measure of information in quantum mechanics, adducing arguments that seek to show that it is inextricably tied to classical notions of measurement. It is shown here that these arguments do not succeed: the Shannon information does not have problematic ties to classical concepts. In a further argument, Brukner and Zeilinger compare the Shannon information unfavourably to (...) their preferred information measure, I(p), with regard to the definition of a notion of ''total information content.'' This argument is found unconvincing and the relationship between individual measures of information and notions of ''total information content'' investigated. We close by considering the prospects of Zeilinger's Foundational Principle as a foundational principle for quantum mechanics. (shrink)

Lucius Outlaw and Shannon Sullivan have argued for the preservation of racial distinctiveness and the necessity of racial separatism. This paper articulates and challenges this push for racial separatism and the particular conception of race evoked therein. The author points out that the multiplicity, the multiculturalism, the intersectionality within these communities of resistance is typically belittled, fragmented, or erased. Recognizing the practical use of racial coalitions to combat racism, the author articulates an alternative conception of coalitional agency, one that (...) allows for multiplicitous identities, opening avenues to intercultural communication and impure coalitions of resistance. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Josiah Royce on RaceIssues in ContextJacquelyn Ann K. KegleyAll philosophy, whether or not we want to admit it, is done in a context, filtered through lenses that are personal, intellectual, historical, cultural, social, and political. Thus to fairly treat and fully understand Royce's views on race, we must set a situational framework. First, Royce's 1906 article entitled "Race Questions and Prejudices" is the lead piece in a collection that (...) implements his philosophy of loyalty. It applies his principle of loyalty to what he considers one of the most significant social/political issues of his time—the race question. As we discuss Royce and race issues, the philosophy of loyalty must be in the background as a point of reference. Indeed, Royce tells us that he will address the various questions in his article "Race Questions and Prejudices" by calling attention to "a few principles which seem to me to be serviceable to any one who wants to look at race questions fairly and humanely" (6).Secondly, except for W. E. B. DuBois and Jane Addams, no other major figure associated with pragmatic philosophy substantially addressed issues of race and racism in their written work, nor did anyone so early in the twentieth century as did Royce. DuBois's The Souls of Black Folk, which came out in 1903, immediately preceded Royce's article. Jane Addams briefly touched on race issues in her 1915 Democracy and Social Ethics. Alain Locke, who sought to study with Royce at Harvard but could not because of Royce's premature death, gave his "Lectures on the Theory and Practice of Race" in 1915, but they were published posthumously. John Dewey's "Race Prejudice and Friction" appeared in 1922. There is an absence of treatment of race issues in George Herbert Mead, Charles Sanders Peirce, and Alfred North Whitehead. Thus Shannon Sullivan and I agree that Royce stands out in the history of classical American philosophy in taking an antiracist focus on race questions when very few philosophers—especially white male philosophers—took scholarly time to think about these issues.1 [End Page 1]Another important context for Royce's article is the political climate of the time. Royce identifies the era as one in which there were "more ways and places in which men find themselves in the presence of alien races with whom they have to live in the same social order" (4). It was a time of "white anxiety." In 1905, Theodore Roosevelt gave his famous "On American Motherhood" speech in which he warned of white "race suicide" if white families continued to reproduce at a slower rate than other races. Thus, Royce was speaking and writing against racism in a time of anti-immigration and proimperialism sentiment due to white anxiety in the United States about the possible decline of global white supremacy. It is in this setting that Royce highlights the color line as a significant problem.Royce states the problem as follows:This is the problem of dealing with the men who seem to us somehow very widely different from ourselves in physical constitution, in temperament, in all their deeper nature, so that we are temped to think of them as natural strangers to our souls, while nevertheless we find that they are stubbornly there in our world and that they are men as much determined to live as we are, and are men who, in turn, find us as incomprehensible as we find them.(5)With increased contact among different populations, the age-old problem of how to deal with people who seem different from one's own group intensifies. There will be, says Royce, numerous questions including those of superiority-inferiority, power and sovereignty, and a new assessment of the ways in which these "different" people might be helpful or perilous to one's own group interests. Royce notes that one cannot assume an automatic answer. He asks, "Is it a ‘yellow peril,' or a ‘black peril,' or perhaps after all, is it not rather some form of ‘white peril' which threatens the future of humanity in this day of great struggles and of complex issues?" (6). With the question posed in this... (shrink)

The quantification of phase synchrony between neuronal signals is of crucial importance for the study of large-scale interactions in the brain. Two methods have been used to date in neuroscience, based on two distinct approaches which permit a direct estimation of the instantaneous phase of a signal [Phys. Rev. Lett. 81 (1998) 3291; Human Brain Mapping 8 (1999) 194]. The phase is either estimated by using the analytic concept of Hilbert transform or, alternatively, by convolution with a complex wavelet. In (...) both methods the stability of the instantaneous phase over a window of time requires quantification by means of various statistical dependence parameters (standard deviation, Shannon entropy or mutual information). The purpose of this paper is to conduct a direct comparison between these two methods on three signal sets: (1) neural models; (2) intracranial signals from epileptic patients; and (3) scalp EEG recordings. Levels of synchrony that can be considered as reliable are estimated by using the technique of surrogate data. Our results demonstrate that the differences between the methods are minor, and we conclude that they are fundamentally equivalent for the study of neuroelectrical signals. This offers a common language and framework that can be used for future research in the area of synchronization. © 2001 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. (shrink)

The article focuses on the status of the transmission approach to communication. The approach is derived from Claude Shannon’s and Warren Weaver’s mathematical theory of communication, and is primarily used for the analysis of telecommunications processes. Within the model a metaphorical conceptualisation of communication is adopted, as conveying (transmission) of information (thoughts, emotions) from the mind of a subject A to the mind of a subject B. Despite the great popularity of the transmission approach, it is subjected to multilateral (...) criticism. Alternative approaches were formulated in which the transmission metaphor is exceeded, extended or even overcome (e.g., the constitutive, transactional, or the ritual approaches). This paper discusses such criticism. The doubts are raised primarily by the characteristic reductionism and the postulated exclusivity of the transmission approach. A question ariseswhether all the possible types of communication activities can be represented within the transmission approach as a transfer of information. In this context, the dispute between the supporters of the universalistic and the relativistic attitudes to the transmission metaphor is discussed. The polemic also concerns the psychologism elements which are present in the transmission models. Wittgenstein's criticism of psychologism conducted within the framework of his everyday language philosophy is of particular importance. The philosophy may applied to the problem of interpersonal communication. In conclusion it is assumed that the transmission metaphor is important as a tool for the study of many, but not all the aspects of communication. Its importance also lies in the fact that it is the first scientific approach to communication. The exclusivity claims of the transmission model, however, have several limitations, inter alia, it hinders research on the history of communication practices, although the model itself is embedded in a specific historical context. (shrink)

Proposed educational outcomes for the health humanities in medical education range from empathy to visual thinking skills to social accountability. This lack of widely agreed-upon high-level curricular goals limits humanities educators’ ability to design purposeful curricula toward clear, common ends and threatens justifications for scarce curricular time. We propose a novel approach to the hoped-for outcomes of health humanities training in medical schools, which has the potential to encompass traditional health humanities knowledge, skills, and behaviors while also being concrete and (...) measurable: humanistic practice. Humanistic practice, adapted from the concept of ethical sensitivity, is an intentional process of applying humanities knowledge and skills to a clinical scenario by 1) noticing that the scenario requires humanities knowledge or skills, 2) informing one’s clinical and interpersonal strategy and behavior with humanities knowledge or skills, 3) reflecting on the effectiveness of the strategy and behavior, and 4) reorienting to develop new approaches for future practice. The construct of humanistic practice may help address some of the foundational problems in health humanities outcomes research since it transcends the traditional diverse content domains in the health humanities, can link patient and provider experiences, and may bridge the divide among the additive, curative, and intrinsic epistemic positions of humanities to medical education. (shrink)

Set theory faces two difficulties: formal definitions of sets/subsets are incapable of assessing biophysical issues; formal axiomatic systems are complete/inconsistent or incomplete/consistent. To overtake these problems reminiscent of the old-fashioned principle of individuation, we provide formal treatment/validation/operationalization of a methodological weapon termed “outer approach” (OA). The observer’s attention shifts from the system under evaluation to its surroundings, so that objects are investigated from outside. Subsets become just “holes” devoid of information inside larger sets. Sets are no longer passive containers, rather (...) active structures enabling their content’s examination. Consequences/applications of OA include: a) operationalization of paraconsistent logics, anticipated by unexpected forerunners, in terms of advanced truth theories of natural language; b) assessment of embryonic craniocaudal migration in terms of Turing’s spots; c) evaluation of hominids’ social behaviors in terms of evolutionary modifications of facial expression’s musculature; d) treatment of cortical action potentials in terms of collective movements of extracellular currents, leaving apart what happens inside the neurons; e) a critique of Shannon’s information in terms of the Arabic thinkers’ active/potential intellects. Also, OA provides an outer view of a) humanistic issues such as the enigmatic Celestino of Verona’s letter, Dante Alighieri’s “Hell” and the puzzling Voynich manuscript; b) historical issues such as Aldo Moro’s death. Summarizing, we suggest that the safest methodology to quantify phenomena is to remove them from our observation and tackle an outer view, since mathematical/logical issues such as selective information deletion and set complement rescue incompleteness/inconsistency of biophysical systems. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:is There a White Gift?: A Pragmatist Response to the Problem of Whiteness Terrance A. MacMullan Introduction Lucius Outlaw and Shannon SuUivan are prominent contemporary philosophers of race who follow in the footsteps of W.E.B. Du Bois as they search for a theoretical understanding of race and a political solution to the problem of racism. They agree that the solution to racism is not found in the elimination (...) of the idea of race from our discourses as suggested by Naomi Zack and Anthony Appiah, but in a critical conservation of race that is nonhierarchical and committed to addressing the suffering of non-white racial groups.1 This moral and critical conservation of race makes Sullivan and Outlaw standard bearers for Du Bois's idea of the racial gift, which John Shuford writes is rooted in the conviction that, "'race' and race-consciousness are not the causes of racism and racial injustice, [and] that 'race' may be employed toward collective and mutual liberation."2 However, despite their inteUectual kinship regarding their broad approach to race, Outlaw and SuUivan come to a significant and iUuminating disagreement over the issue of whiteness. In Du Boisian terms, they disagree about whether white people, qua white, have a racial gift worth conserving. Outlaw recognizes the illegitimacy of the hierarchical racial taxonomies established during the Enlightenment era but accepts race as a real and meaningful feature of our social landscape. Revealing a strong affinity for Du Bois' approach to race, Outlaw imagines his work as, an inquiry into raciality and ethnicity via a treacherous "third path" between racism and invidious ethnocentrism, on the one side, and anti-racism and antiinvidious ethnocentrism, on the other. What I propose can help us to recognize and nurture races and ethnies as we reconsider raciation and ethnicization as processes by which we humans produce TRANSACTIONS OFTHE CHARLES S. PEIRCE SOCIETY Vol. 41, No. 4 ©2005 Hi and reproduce ourselves as crucial aspects of our "social construction of ET1 realities."3 H tr* Q η He further argues for "the need to conserve 'race' and 'ethnie' (and 'ethnic- ¡» ity') as vital components of a philosophical anthropology."4 Outlaw there- 5j fore contends that the challenge facing liberatory race theorists is not the «' elimination of race, but instead, "the challenge is to find ways to conserve a Ç) sense of raciality that is both socially useful and consistent with democratic justice." Outlaw clearly wants to avoid invidious ethnocentrism, but what is more significant is that he also rejects the idea that we should purge racial ^j ideas and practices as a means to achieve democratic justice. He, like Du τ> Bois, is fully aware of the evils of racism, but is nonetheless committed to > the belief that human existence is inevitably colored by race as a salient fea- g ture of our social reality. Outlaw's commitment to the conservation of race ;> is so deep that he would preserve race-based communities of meaning, "even ^ if, in the very next instant, racism and perverted, invidious ethnocentrism in every form or > manifestation would disappearforever'. '6 ^ The key to this balancing act is to look at race and ethnicity through the r lens of "philosophical anthropology" instead of through the materialism of > biology. Outlaw argues that when we look at race this way we glean, an understanding and appreciation of senses of belonging and of shared destiny by which individuals are intimately connected to other individuals in ways that make for the constitution of particular kinds of social collectivities, what I term social-natural kinds. Races and ethnies are such "kinds."8 Outlaw thus uses an idea of race that is fully transactional, to use a term coined by Dewey and rewardingly reclaimed by Sullivan. Race is created in the confluence of culture and biology, to the extent that certain biologicaUy determined traits, primarily morphological features, are the tags that play important symbolic roles in terms of how social groups are formed. The goal, therefore, is not to eliminate race, because people long have and likely always will use appearance as one of the many determinants of how they form groups. The goal is, instead, to form groups in ways that encourage human flourishing "consistent... (shrink)

Successful athletic performance requires precision in many respects. A batter stands behind home plate awaiting the arrival of a ball that is less than three inches in diameter and moving close to 100 mph. His goal is to hit it with a ba­­t that is also less than three inches in diameter. This impressive feat requires extraordinary temporal and spatial coordination. The sweet spot of the bat must be at the same place, at the same time, as the ball. A (...) basketball player must keep a ball bouncing as she speeds from one end of the court to another, evading defensive players. She may never break pace as she lifts from the ground, throwing the ball fifteen feet toward a hoop that is eighteen inches in diameter. One task facing a psychologist involves explaining how the body does such things within the sometimes very demanding spatial and temporal constraints that a given task imposes. Part of the goal of this chapter is to sketch the commitments of an embodied approach to such an explanation. We shall see that an embodied account of motor skills draws concepts that depart radically from more traditional cognitivist theories of motor activity. Similarly, because an embodied approach to cognition introduces new ways to understand the human capacity for social interaction, it also promises to shed new light on how athletes coordinate their actions with each other. (shrink)