Based on electrophysiological and anatomical studies, a prevalent conception is that the visual system recovers features of the world from retinal images to generate perceptions and guide behavior. This paradigm, however, is unable to explain why visual perceptions differ from physical measurements, or how behavior could routinely succeed on this basis. An alternative is that vision does not recover features of the world, but assigns perceptual qualities empirically by associating frequently occurring stimulus patterns with useful responses on the basis of (...) survival and reproductive success. The purpose of the present article is to briefly describe this strategy of vision and the evidence for it. (shrink)

This book offers a systematic account of Wittgenstein's unique ethical thought, both in his early and in his later writings.

Systematisch aufgebaute und am Alltagsleben orientierte Einführung in die philosophischen Einzeldisziplinen. Im Anhang ein Abriss der Philosophiegeschichte und ein Lexikon philosophischer Begriffe und Personen.

Das Anliegen der Metaphysik, die Welt aus wenigen Grundprinzipien zu begreifen, ist seit Hume und Kant häufig als illusionär kritisiert worden. Dennoch hat die 'totgesagte' Metaphysik immer wieder 'Auferstehungen' erlebt. Auch in der Moderne werden die alten Fragen nach Welt, Mensch und Gott gestellt, doch geschieht dies vor einem veränderten wissenschaftlichen Hintergrund und auch häufig mit anderen Methoden. Insgesamt zeigt sich in der Moderne ein allmählicher Übergang von einer apriorischen zu einer hypothetischen, wissenschaftsorientierten Metaphysik. Die vorliegende Abhandlung thematisiert acht zentrale (...) Strömungen der Metaphysik seit der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts. Im Zentrum stehen dabei die philosophischen Weltbilder ihrer Hauptvertreter sowie ihre Standpunkte zum Leib-Seele-Problem und zum Problem der Willensfreiheit, aber auch ihre Stellungnahmen zu den Fragen nach Gott, Unsterblichkeit und dem Sinn des Lebens. (shrink)

Shaul Magid's Meir Kahane: The Public Life and Political Thought of an American Jewish Radical (2021) stresses the American character of Kahane's thought. This review analyzes this claim in two ways. First, it offers a transnational perspective on Kahane's philosophy. Second, it examines Magid's concept of neo‐Kahanism in light of Kahane's legacy in Israel.

This article argues that constitutional mixture should be regarded as an inherent, inevitable feature of constitutions, and to some degree all constitutions are mixed. Thus, “mixed constitutions” should not be regarded as a distinct category of constitutions. Instead of asking whether a constitution is mixed, it might therefore be more useful to ask in which characteristics and to what extent a constitution is mixed. To demonstrate this, the article provides a preliminary typology of constitutional mixture considering the form or system (...) of government; the nature or character of government; the religious or secular identity; the flexibility or rigidity of the constitution; and its model of judicial enforcement—judicial or parliamentary supremacy. Examining these constitutional features, allows to shed light on the three different dimensions of “constitutional mixture”: First, the various features of the constitutional order do not function in a binary yes-or-no manner but appear and move along a spectrum. Second, the various features of the constitution change with time. Third, the various features of the constitutional text may be in tension with the features of the society. (shrink)

This article analyses the evolution of penalties from Michel Foucault’s philosophy, verifying the departure of torture and giving rise to a disciplinary model. The aim is to find out the forms of power that society has exerted over the 19th century and the transition to ‘biopower’, where the purpose is to control all of society. In Brazil, the shift towards a punitive model becomes evident with the redemocratization that followed the National Constitution of 1988, which recognized the dignity of the (...) human person as the right to be upheld. In this context, the following question arises: Does the common Brazilian penitentiary system serve its corrective purpose? Is there a more effective way to deal with convicts, in terms of reducing recidivism rates? Mario Ottoboni founded the Association for the Protection and Assistance of Convicts (APAC). The present study proposes a study by APAC to answer these questions. APAC is an innovative institution that aims to fulfill the resocializing function of a sentence. This is a possible path for social reintegration. This study employed a deductive approach and was conducted using bibliographical research. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Dylan Evans proposed that emotions could help solve what has been known as ‘the frame problem’. In the process, he first questioned the utility of using the frame problem as a framework. After tackling this issue, he provided an alternative terminology to the frame problem—termed ‘the search hypothesis of emotion’—in order to re-examine how emotions aid rational agents. His new terminology, however, opens itself to other critiques. While accepting the basic tenets of his analysis, I question (...) (i) whether a single search theory of emotion is adequate, and (ii) whether his theory would have been better termed ‘the search hypothesis of feeling’. Finally, I extend some of the ideas developed in Evans' paper. 1. Introduction 2. Emotion, reason and ends 3. The search hypothesis of emotion revisited 4. Conclusion. (shrink)

Ten years after the enactment of the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act, competition in biologics markets remains scant and far from sufficient for lowering prices of biologics to the level of 80-90% price drops seen in generic drug markets. This reality is not a result of one or two cardinal reasons, but many. If lowering the price of biologics is the goal and competition is the means by which we seek to achieve that goal, then there does not seem (...) to be a quick fix to address all of the many impediments to competition that plague biologics markets. Yet, certain changes to how the Food and Drug Administration evaluates and approves biologics may go a long way toward the creation of meaningful competition in biologics markets. One such change would be making original biologics' manufacturing information available to follow-on manufacturers.As recognized by several commentators, access to biologics manufacturing information is key to increasing competition in biologics markets. Without access to such information, making follow-on biologics is difficult and expensive, if not outright impossible. This is expected to be especially true for the highly anticipated class of interchangeable biologics, none of which has been approved by the FDA to date. Yet, it has long been the position of the brand-name pharmaceutical industry that biologics manufacturing information is proprietary and, thus, may not be shared. Congress has subscribed to the Industry's position, prohibiting the FDA from disclosing regulatory filings submitted by developers of original biologics, including manufacturing information, to third parties. That prohibition not only undermines competition in biologics markets, but is also wasteful, potentially unethical, and poses unnecessary risks to the health and safety of patients.This article makes the case for FDA sharing of original biologics manufacturing information with follow-on biologics developers. It is informed by the similar legal and commercial circumstances in the area of pesticides and the regulatory regime established by Congress in the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act, which is administered by the Environmental Protection Agency. The article reviews the FIFRA regime, including its upholding as constitutional by the United States Supreme Court, and then examines its applicability to the area of biologics. The article concludes with a proposal for a similar regime to be incorporated into the pathway for approval of follow-on biologics as a means of increasing competition in biologics markets. (shrink)

This is the classic work upon which modern-day game theory is based. What began as a modest proposal that a mathematician and an economist write a short paper together blossomed, when Princeton University Press published Theory of Games and Economic Behavior. In it, John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern conceived a groundbreaking mathematical theory of economic and social organization, based on a theory of games of strategy. Not only would this revolutionize economics, but the entirely new field of scientific (...) inquiry it yielded--game theory--has since been widely used to analyze a host of real-world phenomena from arms races to optimal policy choices of presidential candidates, from vaccination policy to major league baseball salary negotiations. And it is today established throughout both the social sciences and a wide range of other sciences. (shrink)

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is an imaging technique with a rapidly expanding application range. This methodology, which relies on quantum physics and substance magnetic properties, is now being routinely used in the clinics and medical research. With the advent of measuring functional brain activity with MRI (functional MRI), this methodology has reached a larger section of the neuroscience community (e.g. psychologists, neurobiologists). In the past, the use of MRI as a biomarker or as an assay to probe tissue pathophysiological condition (...) was limited. However, with the new applications of MRI: molecular imaging, contrast‐enhanced imaging and diffusion imaging, MRI is turning into a powerful tool for in vivo characterization of tissue pathophysiology. This review focuses on the diffusion MRI. Although it only measures the averaged Brownian translational motion of water molecules, using different analysis schemes, one can extract a wide range of quantitative indices that represent tissue morphology and compartmentalization. Statistical and visualization routines help to relate these indices to biologically relevant measures such as cell density, water content and size distribution. The aim of this review is to shed light on the potential of this methodology to be used in biological research. To that end, this review is intended for the non‐MRI specialists who wish to pursue biological research with this methodology. We will overview the current applications of diffusion MRI and its relation to cellular biology of brain tissue. BioEssays 30:1235–1245, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

ABSTRACT A common conclusion of lab dishonesty studies is that subjects cheat to a very modest extent even when they cannot get caught. The modest level of cheating is attributed to subjects’ moral feelings which restrict their cheating to a level that enables them to retain their self-image as honest individuals. The present paper questions this claim, reporting the results of two experiments which uncover a discrepancy between self-portrayed honesty and actual dishonest behavior. The experiments reveal, first, that self-portrayed honesty (...) is stricter than practical honesty, suggesting that when facing an opportunity to benefit from dishonest behavior, subjects trade off some of their self-image as honest persons for dishonestly-generated payoffs. Secondly, dishonesty out of lab, in subjects’ self-chosen environment, is greater than in the lab, with a considerable fraction of subjects cheating to the maximum extent possible. We suggest that it is not a concern about their self-image that holds subjects back from cheating maximally, but rather a concern about their social image. The modest level of dishonesty observed in the lab presumably reflects caution subjects exercise in an unsafe setup. Given an environment where they feel safe to reap the fruits of dishonesty without compromising their image as honest persons in the eyes of others, the image they have of themselves hardly plays a role in curbing their unethical behavior. (shrink)

Este artigo tem por objetiva geral descrever a linguagem musical sob a perspectiva da teoria histórico-cultural, conforme Vygotsky, seu principal representante. Neste sentido, procura-se também entender o conceito de mediação, como elemento articulador entre linguagem musical e o fenômeno pedagógico, produzido nos enredos intersubjetivos de professores e alunos. Nessa perspectiva, e com as contribuições da Base Nacional Comum Curricular (BNCC), que integra a música no ensino de Arte, identifica-se a relevância da linguagem musical na formação cidadã de estudantes da Educação (...) Básica. O presente estudo se caracteriza como uma pesquisa bibliográfica, amparada em obras originais de Vygotsky e de outros autores que escrevem a respeito da temática em questão, para embasamento aprofundado. Constatou-se que a música, enquanto linguagem, é dinâmica cujas habilidades e ações, construídas socialmente, são mediadas na interação professor-aluno. Portanto, a leitura que se faz da música, enquanto linguagem, não pode prescindir do caráter histórico-cultural, subjacente a toda e qualquer manifestação cultural. (shrink)

As the COVID-19 pandemic was unfolding, a surge in scams was registered across the globe. While COVID-19 poses higher health risks for older adults, it is unknown whether older adults are also facing higher financial risks as a result of COVID-19 scams. Here, we examined age differences in vulnerability to COVID-19 scams and individual difference measures that might help explain them. A lifespan sample of sixty-eight younger, 79 middle-aged, and 63 older adults recruited through Prolific completed questions and questionnaires online. (...) In a within-subjects design, each participant responded to five COVID-19 solicitations, psychological measures, and demographic questions. Age group comparisons revealed that older adults were marginally less likely to perceive COVID-19 solicitations as genuine than middle-aged adults were. In addition, older adults perceived significantly fewer benefits than both younger and middle-aged adults did and perceived marginally higher risks than younger adults did. Hence, older adults did not exhibit greater vulnerability to COVID-19 scams. Regardless of age, intentions to respond to COVID-19 solicitations were positively predicted by higher levels of educational attainment, being married, past fraud victimization, and higher levels of positive urgency. As expected, stronger genuineness and benefit perceptions positively predicted action intentions, whereas stronger risk perceptions negatively predicted action intentions As such, COVID-19 scam susceptibility appears to be the result of a impulse control issue that is not easily inhibited, not even by past experiences of scam victimization. (shrink)

This article presents a first edition of three Mandaic lamellae from the Schøyen Collection, MS 2087/10, 2087/11, and 2087/18, which are the product of the same scribe and probably constituted a single amulet. The language of the amulet differs from that of other Mandaic texts, and demonstrates unknown or rare phonetic and morphological features. In addition, several lexemes that were hitherto unattested in Mandaic have been identified. Some of the amulet’s formulae are familiar from previously published texts, but in several (...) cases the new textual evidence allows us to improve upon their readings. (shrink)

Numerous liver specific genes are transcriptionally activated by the binding to their promoter or enhancer of Hepatic Nuclear Factor 1 (HNF1). HNF1 contains a variant homeo‐domain and binds to DNA as either a homod‐imer or a heterodimer with the vHNF1 protein. Surprisingly, HNF1 is not restricted to hepatocytes but is expressed in epithelial cells of several endoderm derived organs and in mesoderm derived kidney tubules. Hence, HNF1 alone can not account for the differentiated state of the hepatic cells. In fact, (...) several other liver‐enriched transcription factors have been cloned. The hepatic phenotype could result from the combinatorial. expression of these regulators. Possible involvement of these trans‐acting factors in liver organogenesis and hepatic differentiation is discussed. (shrink)

in Handbook of Knowledge representation, Elsevier, 2008.

ObjectivesTo examine implicit and explicit attitudes toward gay men and lesbian women among heterosexual undergraduate and graduate psychology and nursing students.MethodsImplicit attitudes were measured via the Implicit Association Test and explicit attitudes via the Attitudes Toward Lesbian Women and Gay questionnaire.Main resultsAll groups held negative implicit attitudes toward gay men and lesbian women. Among undergraduates, nursing students reported holding more negative explicit attitudes toward gay men and lesbian women than psychology students.ConclusionThe curricula in both nursing and psychology studies need to (...) address the medical and paramedical needs and issues of sexual minorities. (shrink)

Der Band wagt eine Deutung von Arendts Gesamtwerk: Im Zentrum stehen dabei die Kategorien Raum und Zeit für eine Neuinterpretation des Politischen. Erst so gewinnt Arendts Rehabilitierung des politischen Denkens ihre produktive Dynamik und geschichtseröffnende Perspektive. Herausgelöst aus den Vereinnahmungen durch Neoaristotelismus und Republikanismus erscheint Arendt als kritische und postmoderne Denkerin.

The world is experiencing a crisis of constitutional democracies. Populist leaders are abusing constitutional mechanisms, such as formal procedures of constitutional change, in order to erode the democratic order. The changes are, very often, gradual, incremental, and subtle. Each constitutional change, on its own, may not necessarily amount to a serious violation of essential democratic values. Yet, when examined in the context of an ongoing process, such constitutional changes may prove to be part of the incremental, gradual process of democratic (...) erosion in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This Article explores how courts can respond to such constitutional changes. We argue the Unconstitutional Constitutional Amendment Doctrine should be adapted to respond to existing constitutional practices that utilize incremental and subtle amendments to dismantle the democratic order. We suggest that an aggregated judicial review should be developed. We must also rethink the automatic immunity – the result of two hundred years of revolutionary constitutional theory – provided to complete constitutional replacement from constitutional restrictions and scrutiny. Finally, as opposed to the instinct to require judicial self-restraint with respect to constitutional changes that concern the judiciary itself, we suggest that this is perhaps the type of changes that require strictest scrutiny. (shrink)

We present an axiomatization of a problem in commonsense reasoning, characterizing the proper procedure for cracking an egg and transferring its contents to a bowl. The axiomatization is mid-sized, larger than toy problems such as the Yale Shooting Problem or the Suitcase Problem, but much smaller than the comprehensive axiomatizations associated with CYC and HPKB. This size of axiomatization permits the development of non-trivial, reusable core theories of commonsense reasoning, acts as a testbed for existing theories of commonsense reasoning, and (...) encourages the discovery of new problems in commonsense reasoning.We present portions of core theories of containment, falling, and pouring, integrated into Shanahan's circumscriptive event calculus, and show how these can serve as the basis of an axiomatization that partly characterizes egg cracking. We discuss several commonsense reasoning problems encountered during this research, such as the Initial Specification Problem (a relative of the frame problem that occurs in theories in which fluents can trigger actions), and the Unobtainable State Problem (the problem of determining whether or not a theorem stating that one cannot get from one state to another is meaningful). (shrink)

La transcription de corpus de langage oral est un art difficile car c’est une activité langagière. En particulier, elle inclut le processus d’interprétation des propos d’autrui que l’on trouve dans toute interaction langagière. Or ce qu’attend le scientifique est une description des données de langage qui s’affranchirait de cette interprétation, ce qui est impossible. On doit donc chercher à générer un processus d’interprétation simple, consensuel, qui puisse être compris par tout utilisateur d’un corpus. Pour cela, on utilise des normes de (...) codage précises, claires, aussi peu ambiguës que possible, ainsi qu’un alignement sur du matériel sonore ou audiovisuel. On peut aussi accompagner les transcriptions d’un contexte très riche, soit langagier (phonologique, syntaxique, sémantique, pragmatique), soit extra-langagier (situation, actions, description de scène). Ces difficultés techniques sont présentées dans le cas de corpus de jeunes enfants (projet Léonard) qui exemplifie les problèmes de transcription de langage oral. Les outils et formats utilisés sont ceux du projet CHILDES avec des évolutions spécifiques qui reflètent les difficultés que nous avons relevées dans notre travail de corpus et les solutions adoptées. (shrink)