Trade cards were a means of advertising products or services and thereby attracting customers to the owner's shop. They often included a variety of details about the proprietor and his business, and illustrated his wares. Cards for the scientific instrument industry depicted all classes of instrument and the products from which they were made. A careful study of the cards can reveal much supplementary information about the way the industry worked, so their use, and limitations, as a (...) source of historical evidence is discussed in detail. Over sixty English trade cards from London and the provinces, covering the period 1670 to 1900, are illustrated . By careful analysis, it is shown that aesthetic style and type-face design, combined with written and pictorial content, may be used to deduce dates and business practices. Many small pieces of information gradually build a complex picture of an important and fascinating industry. (shrink)

Historian Dmitry Peretolchin quotes several of my publications on the creation and application of political technologies in the United States in his program about Saul Alinsky on the House of Cards podcast on the Den TV channel. An advertisement for the conference "Russian World Against the Global Reich" was inserted into this broadcast. This article: analyzes the statements of the podcast about Alinsky and his main ideas; showes that the main source of Alinsky's political technologies is the experience of (...) professional revolutionaries in Russia and that they in no way confirm the idea of a global Reich; describes the political technology that Alexander Prokhanov and his media complex uses to implement the Fifth Empire project, which is currently merged with the ideology of the Russian World; analyzes the ideological orientation of the House of Cards podcast and the Picture of the World club on the Den channel. The articles illustrates how the authors of the podcast are working to substantiate the propaganda direction of the media complex. The article also aims to show that political technologies, in particular, technologies of co-organization continue to develop and be implemented in countries with different political systems and can be applied to various types of social movements. (shrink)

Researchers' interest in the learning of vocabulary from word cards has grown alongside the increasing number of studies published on this topic. While meta-analyses or systematic reviews have been previously performed, the types of word cards investigated, and the number of word card studies analyzed were limited. To address these issues, a research synthesis was conducted to provide an inclusive and comprehensive picture of how the use of word cards by learners results in vocabulary learning. A search (...) of the Web of Science and Scopus databases resulted in 803 potential studies, of which 32 aligned with the inclusion criteria. Coding of these studies based on an extensive coding scheme found most studies assessed receptive vocabulary knowledge more often than productive vocabulary knowledge, and knowledge of vocabulary form and meaning were assessed more often than knowledge of vocabulary use. Results of effect size plots showed that more of the reviewed studies showed larger effects for the use of paper word cards than digital word cards, and for the use of ready-made word cards than self-constructed word cards. Results also indicated more studies showed larger effects for using word cards in an intentional learning condition compared with an incidental learning condition, and for using word cards in a massed learning condition compared with a spaced learning condition. Although a correlation was found between time spent using word cards and vocabulary learning outcomes, this correlation was not statistically significant. Learners that were more proficient in English learned more words from using word cards than those less proficient. These results suggest that future researchers should report learner proficiency, adopt reliable tests to assess vocabulary learning outcomes, compare the effectiveness of ready-made word cards and self-constructed word cards, and investigate the learning of different aspects of word knowledge. Teachers should provide learners guidance in how to use word cards and target word selection for self-construction of word cards. In addition, teachers should encourage learners to create word cards for incidentally encountered unknown words and use massed learning when initially working with these new words before using spaced learning for later retrieval practice. (shrink)

The two books on which this study is based represent the two branches of linguistic philosophy. One an anthology, the other an original work, they differ also in kind. In Logic and Language A.G.N. Flew has collected and ably prefaced nine essays by British analysts, the earliest of which, Ryle's "Systematically Misleading Expressions," appeared exactly twenty years ago. Nelson Goodman's The Structure of Appearance is a new reconstruction; not to recognize its vigor and impressiveness would be most ungracious even if (...) one rejects as radically as I do this particular Aufbau. Naturally, I shall say more about Goodman's book than about the essays. Yet I shall begin with the latter and say about Ryle's as much as about all the rest together. To justify this strategy I must put my own cards on the table, indicating where I stand on this controversy or near controversy between formalists and antiformalists. To my mind, then, it is gray against gray, not white against black. Both sides agree, and I agree with them, that there is no experience or, if you please, no experiment that decides what is presumably at issue between phenomenalists and realists. In this important sense, both sides agree, and I agree with them, that all philosophical problems are verbal. But in another equally important sense they are not verbal. This sense both formalists and antiformalists have lost or stand in danger of losing if what they do is no better than what they say they do. Now for my reasons for singling out and starting off with the essay that marks Ryle's sober-eyed and reluctant conversion to the linguistic philosophy. It so happens that he there states very aptly a body of doctrine on which both sides could still agree and from which they in fact branched off at about the time the paper was first published. Also, the doubts and dissatisfactions to which he there confessed contain the starting points of the peculiar dialectics by which both formalists and antiformalists may be driven to extremes. Even better than that, I believe I can make use of these hesitancies to lend color to my own argument for a middle position which, as one is tempted to say on such occasions, does justice to both sides. That Ryle himself has in the meantime become a hero of the antiformalists is merely a piquant detail and does not deter me. (shrink)

Salmon and Soames argue against nominalism about numbers and sentence types. They employ (respectively) higher-order and first-order logic to model certain natural language inferences and claim that the natural language conclusions carry commitment to abstract objects, partially because their renderings in those formal systems seem to do that. I argue that this strategy fails because the nominalist can accept those natural language consequences, provide them with plausible and non-committing truth conditions and account for the inferences made without committing themselves to (...) abstract objects. I sketch a modal account of higher-order quantification, on which instead of ranging over sets, higher order quantifiers are used to make (logical) possibility claims about which predicate tokens can be introduced. This approach provides an alternative account of truth conditions for natural language sentences which seem to employ higher-order quantification, thus allowing the nominalist to evade Salmon’s argument. I also show how the nominalist can account for the occurrence of apparently singular abstract terms in certain true statements. I argue that the nominalist can achieve this by, first, dividing singular terms into real singular terms (referring to concrete objects) and only apparent singular terms (called onomatoids), introduced for the sake of brevity and simplicity, and then providing an account of nominalistically acceptable truth conditions of sentences containing onomatoids. I develop such an account in terms of modally interpreted abstraction principles and argue that applying this strategy to Soames’s argument allows the nominalists to defend themselves. (shrink)

The Center of Interdisciplinary Studies in Cracow has a very rich tradition that has been studied by many and recently by Kamil Trombik. The very difficult period for the Church and for philosophy during the materialistic Marxist ideology was an opportunity for card. K. Wojtyła to outline a new mode of dialog between science and religion. The future Center, organized by Michał Heller and Józef Życiński not only captured this idea but transformed it into an academic institution centered on the (...) idea of philosophy in science, which was also developed at the Vatican Observatory by W.G. Stoeger et al. Trombik’s book is an excellent study of the historical context and initial years of activity of the Center and its development. (shrink)

This essay explores Derrida's work on repetition in psychoanalysis and what Freud, in Beyond the Pleasure Principle, called the ‘compulsion to repeat’. Revising the model of the psyche that had to that point dominated his theory, Freud began in 1920 to ascribe greater significance to experiences of trauma and unpleasure, and to their recurrence in the analytic treatment. This type of repeated repetition ultimately suggested to Freud the existence of a ‘death drive’ antithetical to life. I examine here how (...) Derrida re-reads Beyond in The Post Card, analysing the way uncontrollable effects of repetition repeatedly undo Freud's efforts to make any progress on what lies beyond the pleasure principle. Another ‘logic’ of repetition, other than the one Freud invokes, inhabits Freud's text, threatening the fundamental opposition between the life drives and the death drive. But in reading Freud in this way, Derrida himself cannot quite ‘do justice to’ Freud, to the ambivalence at work in Freud's text. At certain key moments in his reading of Beyond the Pleasure Principle, I show, Derrida seems to restrict an ambiguity in Freud's thinking around the relation between life and death. What Derrida's reading makes legible in part, then, is Derrida's resistance to psychoanalysis, the tension inhabiting Derrida's dealings with Freud in The Post Card and beyond. (shrink)

Driving licenses, identity cards, passports, boarding passes, credit cards, ATM cards – all of these are examples of credentials. Credentials are documents that play a fundamental role in all modern societies. However, philosophers and social ontologists have not yet addressed the analysis of their nature and function. This paper aims to fill this gap through a review of the essential characteristics of credentials, as documents whose primary purpose is to certify the identity and institutional status of the (...) bearer, for example as being the bearer of specific rights. However, credentials also allow their holders the concrete exercise of their rights, as when exercising a right concretely (e.g., crossing a border) requires the possession of a particular credential. The authors distinguish the different types of credentials and describe their functions and the various kinds of acts that are performable with their aid. (shrink)

The prefrontal cortex is widely believed to play an important role in facilitating people's ability to switch performance between different tasks. We present a biologically‐based computational model of prefrontal cortex (PFC) that explains its role in task switching in terms of the greater flexibility conferred by activation‐based working memory representations in PFC, as compared with more slowly adapting weight‐based memory mechanisms. Specifically we show that PFC representations can be rapidly updated when a task switches via a dynamic gating mechanism based (...) on a temporal‐differences reward‐prediction learning mechanism. Unlike prior models of this type, the present model develops all of its internal representations via learning mechanisms as shaped by the demands of continuous periodic task switching. This advance opens up a new domain of research into the interactions between working memory task demands and the representations that develop to meet them. Results on a version of the Wisconsin card sorting task are presented for the full model and a number of comparison networks that test the importance of various model features. Furthermore, we show that a lesioned model produces perseverative errors like those seen in frontal patients. (shrink)

K L Kahlbaum published in 1874 the first recorded description of catatonia. Akinetic catatonia is now defined as a neuropsychiatric syndrome principally characterised by akinesia, mutism, stupor, and catalepsy. 1 Even if some advances have been made in the recognition of catatonia, in particular by the development of different rating scales, 1 the pathophysiology of this syndrome is not clearly established. A right handed 14 year old girl presented with akinetic catatonia during an episode of depression in the context of (...) a bipolar type I disorder. Her catatonic status was characterised by akinesia with brief episodic spontaneous stereotyped movements, mutism, no spontaneous oral intake, catalepsy, waxy flexibility, and stupor with brief occasional eye contacts. This corresponded to a total score of 19 on the Northoff Catatonia Scale.1 Electroencephalogram performed one day after onset of symptoms showed diffuse theta activity with sporadic diffuse delta activity. Cerebral magnetic resonance imaging was normal. Brain positron emission tomographies (PET) were obtained on a CTI-Siemens HR+ tomograph. A first PET (PET1) using (18F(- fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) was performed on day 2 in a drug free state. Thereafter, intramuscular injection of 2 mg of lorazepam induced rapid clinical remission of the akinetic phase. Oral lorazepam was then given (3.75 mg/day) during five days. On day 8, a second PET with FDG was performed while the patient was treated by olanzapine (15 mg/day) and presented hyperactivity, logorrhoea, and disinhibition characterised by uncontrolled social interactions and physical contacts. Neuropsychological testing performed some days after remission revealed no apraxia or language disturbances but dysfunction of executive tasks manifested in the revised Wisconsin card sorting, the Tower of London, Stroop, and Trailmaking tests. Voxel based analyses comparing patient’s cerebral glucose metabolism with that of 29 right handed healthy controls (16 women and 13 men, mean age 32) were performed using Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM99) (Wellcome Department of Cognitive Neurology, London, UK).. (shrink)

Background and Objectives: Stress is a ubiquitous aspect of modern life that affects both mental and physical health. Clinical care settings can be particularly stressful for both patients and providers. Kindness and compassion are buffers for the negative effects of stress, likely through strengthening positive interpersonal connection. In previous laboratory-based studies, simply watching kindness media uplifts viewers, increases altruism, and promotes connection to others. The objective of the present study is to examine whether kindness media can affect viewers in a (...) real-world, pediatric healthcare setting.Methods: Parents and staff in a pediatric dental clinic were studied. Study days were randomized for viewers to watch either original kindness media or the standard televised children’s programming that the clinic shows. Participants scored self-rated pre-media emotions in a survey, watched either media type for 8 min, and then completed the survey. All participants were informed that they would receive a gift card for their participation. After completion of the survey, participants were asked if they wanted to keep the card or donate it to a family in need.Results: Fifty participants completed the study; 28 were parents and 22 were staff. In comparison to viewers of children’s programming, participants who watched kindness media had significant increases in feeling happy, calmer, more grateful, and less irritated, with trends observed in feeling more optimistic and less anxious. Kindness media caused marked increases in viewers’ reports of feeling inspired, moved, or touched. No change was observed in self-reported compassion, although baseline levels were self-rated as very high. People who watched kindness media were also more generous, with 85% donating their honoraria compared to 54% of Standard viewers.Conclusions: Kindness media can increase positive emotions and promote generosity in a healthcare setting. (shrink)

This paper deals with the interpretation and distribution of universal Free Choice (FC) items, such as English FC any or Spanish cualquiera. Crosslinguistically, universal FC items can be characterized as follows. First, they have a restricted distribution. Second, they express freedom of choice: the sentence You can take any card conveys the information that the addressee is free to pick whichever card she chooses. Under standard assumptions, the truth conditions of sentences like You can take any card are taken to (...) be captured by formalizations in which a universal quantifier ranging over individuals has wide scope over the possibility modal. The crucial observation that informs the account in this paper is that this type of formalization cannot capture the freedom of choice component. I will argue that in order to derive the right interaction between possibility modals and FC items, we need to add an exclusiveness condition to the standard wide scope paraphrases. The same proposal that guarantees freedom of choice will automatically account for the distribution restrictions of FC items. The formal implementation of this proposal is cast in the Hamblin semantics proposed in Kratzer and Shimoyama (Indeterminate phrases: The view from Japanese, 2002). (shrink)

We tested the hypothesis that choices determined by Type 1 processes are compelling because they are fluent, and for this reason they are less subject to analytic thinking than other answers. A total of 104 participants completed a modified version of Wason's selection task wherein they made decisions about one card at a time using a two-response paradigm. In this paradigm participants gave a fast, intuitive response, rated their feeling of rightness for that response, and were then allowed free (...) time to reconsider their answers. As we predicted, answers consistent with a matching heuristic were made more quickly than other answers, were given higher FOR ratings, and received less subsequent analysis as measured by rethinking time and the probability of changing answers. These data suggest that reasoning biases may be compelling because they are fluently generated; this is turn creates a strong FOR, which acts as a signal that further analysis is not necessary. (shrink)

In the West, the Estate Rights originated in the eleventh century, whereas in Lithuania they started to evolve only after the Wallachian Land Reform in 1557. The then state conventional rules and manners were gradually transformed into registered Country – seat rights. In the present rather concise paper an attempt has been made to present a picture of the development of Country – seat rights as a relatively independent law system and define its concept. The author has attempted to prove (...) that the rules of behaviour, introduced and observed in estates should be recognised as legal regulations for the following three reasons: (1) the publicly recognised exclusive Land property right and the right of the ownership of the people living on this land; (2) the rights were publicly registered in the Land, Castle (City) Law or Court books or in the books of the Tribunal. Thus they acquired official status; (3) the above-mentioned established estate rules were to be legally and obligatorily executed. Their realisation was guaranteed either with the help of the local power apparatus or, if needed, state compulsory measures could be applied. The Estate Rights in Lithuania in the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries comprised the following legal acts: (1) the act of inventory; (2) urban regulations and directions; (3) privileges granted to the owners by the rulers and special ordinances for the realisation of the given privileges; (4) the so-called “release papers/cards” (horty wolnosci) ; (5) the verdicts of the local Courts of Law; (6) the ownership of different objects on the estate ( the estate lands, mills, pubs, tar boiling pits, etc., including the people who could not act freely, rent treaties, foundations, wills with foundation forms legally included, by applying which the estates realised their constitutive cultural initiatives. The Estate Rights were defined as a system embracing the relations of obligatory conduct designed by the estate owner or his authorised institutions or officials. They were meant to maintain the order within the estate, to guarantee and realise the norms of different cultural initiatives as well. Being mostly ad hoc in their form, the Estate Regulations served both the private and public interest. The Estate Rights in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries in Lithuania were practiced alongside with other existing legal systems, i.e. the Statute Law, Towns and Canon laws, etc. They all reflected the autonomous state of different law subjects and regulated their relations emerging within. At the same time, the estate rules emphasised their relationship with the Statute Law and importance of legality when formulating their own local regulations. The author presumes that the historical mission of the Estate Rules was more important than the Statute Law for the following two reasons: (1) the estate rules regulated the conduct of the majority of the population (in 1971, 64% of the population lived on estates) and (2) estate rules were carried into effect more consistently and accurately. It was guaranteed by a huge number of estate administration personnel who had the right to immediately apply the local force apparatus measures in respect of the violator. The Statute Law was applied to a rather limited layer of the population (the nobility amounted to only 5 or 6% of the country’s population) . Due to the widespread lawlessness of the nobility and the weak administrative power the State Law was seldom applied. Thanks to its daily labor and obedience, the majority of the population absorbed the destructive effect of the nobility on the state. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to establish which the features of egotistic literature are. In order to achieve such a purpose, the article presents a typology of the genre and describes its main types of works: a) autobiography and memorialistic prose; b) journals, personal diaries, cards and cahiers ; c) biography; and d) life stories. Bearing this in mind, the article suggests a theoretical basis for this particular kind of narratives. At the end, the article presents five conclusions: (...) 1) alterity is always present in biographical narratives; 2) biographical narratives are expressions of experiences; 3) biographical narratives provide some unity to plurality; 4) egotistic literature configures itself in an imaginative and fictional form; and 5) biographical narratives configure themselves in a temporal form. (shrink)

The paper analyses how some types of postmodern art have been used as a means of copying by the aid of humour with the unpleasant restrictions and changes of the way of life during the emergency and alert states in Romania. Artă Reinterpretată is a Facebook page that offers posts on various aspects of life during the pandemics quarantine and lockdown, including isolation or exploiting love, couple and family difficulties; during the relaxation measurement and, finally, during rights restriction for those (...) whom do not have The Green Covid Card. It does so by reinterpreting classical paintings, by adding to them a text or an image or both and thus creating a humourist situation meant to ease upon the hardships of a situation we cannot change. (shrink)

This book provides the first systematic study on three types of incentives for organ donation. It covers extensive research conducted in four culturally different societies: Hong Kong, mainland China, Iran and the United States, and shows on the basis of the research that a new model of incentives can be constructed to enhance organ donation in contemporary societies. The book focuses on three types of incentives: honorary incentives, commonly adopted in the United States and other Western countries by offering things (...) such as a thank-you card and a memorial park for donors to encourage donations motivated by pure altruism; compensationalist incentives, adopted in the Islamic Republic of Iran to encourage donation by providing monetary compensation to unrelated living donors for appreciating their altruistic contribution of donation; and familist incentives, implemented in Israel and mainland China to provide priority to organ transplantation to donors and/or their family members. The book demonstrates that a new model of incentives must go beyond offering only one type of incentives and should rather include different types of incentives that are practically effective, politically legitimate and ethically justifiable for particular societies. This implies that suitable incentive measures may vary from society to society to optimize organ donation. This book provides a clear reference for both the scholars and practitioners in the field of organ transplantation, as well as for general readers interested in bioethics and health care policy. (shrink)

Adults identified as believers and sceptics based on self-reports from a supernatural beliefs scale were assessed on two measures of inhibition; the Stroop Color‐Word Task and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test. Both groups were of equal educational status and background. However, believers made significantly more errors than sceptics on all subscales of the WCST but were equivalent in performance on the Stroop measure. This finding is consistent with the idea that supernatural beliefs in adults are related to some types of (...) inhibitory control. (shrink)

Although transplantation surgeries are relatively successful and save the lives of many, only few are willing to donate organs. In order to better understand the reasons for donation or refusing donation and their implications on and influence by public policy, we conducted a survey examining public views on this issue in Israel. Between January and June 2010, an anonymous questionnaire based on published literature was distributed among random and selected parts of Israeli society and included organ recipients, organ donors, soldiers, (...) university and high school students, and the general population. The analysis of 799 questionnaires revealed that, although 74.7 percent have not signed a donor card, 60.8 percent of participants consider doing so. Additionally, 54.3 percent of respondents objected to giving or receiving compensation for donation, and, if at all, priority in transplantation care is the most desired form of such compensation. The health status of the donor and knowing that donation saves lives or that there exists a shortage of organs for transplantation are the two factors most affecting motivation to donate. Lack of information, relatives’ views on donation, and type of organ involved in donation are factors most inhibiting donation. Willingness to donate is significantly affected by the proximity of the recipient to the donor. With regard to most organs, their contribution to one’s sense of “self” and its symbolic role strongly affects motivation to donate, except for donation to relatives. Compensation for organ donation has little effect on motivation to donate during life and after death. Our findings suggest new ways to construct a more effective public policy on this issue. (shrink)

The first book for which I had title-envy was Peter Laslett's The World We Have Lost (1965). At once mysterious and memorable, the phrase on the cover promised (at least to my undergraduate eyes) a kind of history that was shadowy and unfamiliar. Thanks to the success of the social history it launched, the work now looks surprisingly straightforward: its facts and figures documenting premodern English society—its class structures, marriage practices, literacy rates, and so on—make the past feel found. So (...) much so that the very existence of so much data threatens to belie the claim of the title.But loss, for Laslett, is not absence; it is, rather, the condition of change through time, and his book was written to show precisely how much England had been transformed during the long course of the Industrial Revolution. In this sense, his title might serve for almost any account of people, places, or things that are no longer as they were.Worlds do nonetheless get lost, and we do not have to travel very far back into the past to become aware of the gaps in the record. Martin Mulsow has written a book that, finally, does justice to the precarious nature of what becomes history, and this new translation (sensitively rendered and beautifully produced) will prevent this magisterial work of German intellectual history from being lost on Anglophone readers. As a title, Knowledge Lost is not, to be sure, as catchy as Laslett's formulation. Nor does it capture the nuance of the name given to the original German publication (issued by Suhrkamp in 2012): Prekäres Wissen. What Mulsow recovers with a combination of historical narrative, historiographical analysis, and good old-fashioned sleuthing is the fragility of knowledge (and of those who traded in it) in early modern Europe.In a nice neologism, Mulsow names this group the Wissenprekariat (or “intellectual precariat”): his “knowledge underclass” includes radicals, obsessives, and cranks, but also mainstream scholars who simply became what Michel Foucault liked to call “infamous”—both scandalous, that is, and obscure. What makes the book essential reading even for those with little interest in the fringes of the Renaissance or Enlightenment is the anatomy of precarity itself, a state that shadows knowledge in many times and places. With a nod toward the “material turn” in historical writing, Mulsow pays particular attention to the risks involved in certain media or types of transmission. But he also looks at the social, disciplinary, and ideological forces that drive certain forms of knowing—and the figures with whom they are associated—underground.Thus his book amounts to nothing less than an alternative intellectual history of the early modern period, one that offers countless correctives to the received narratives that continue to favor the successful publications of major thinkers. But it is also a book for our own time. Mulsow's “Concluding Word” attempts to be optimistic, and he ends with a tantalizing list of the other unwritten histories that this one calls for—including “a history of maskings,” “a history of the ways knowledge could be appropriated on note cards that could easily be lost,” and “a history of the generational transfer of embarrassing knowledge.” His final paragraph acknowledges that “many kinds of precarity have declined” since the seventeenth century: now “we can insure ourselves against many risks, and... packages are reliably delivered.” Written only ten years ago, these words seem to come from another world we have lost, one before disrupted supply chains and the resurgence of populist politicians bringing back forms of precarity we thought we had left behind. If ever a book needed a new afterword, it is this one. (shrink)

Smart homes create a beneficial environment for the lives of elderly people and enhance the quality of their home lives. This study aims to explore the design of age-friendly interfaces that can meet the emotional needs of self-care elderly people from the perspective of functional realization of the operating interface. Sixteen elderly users aged fifty-five and above were selected as subjects with healthy eyes and no excessive drooping eyelids to obscure them. Four representative age-friendly applications with different interface designs were (...) selected from the Android application market as the stimulus material for the experiment, and a total of fifteen pages were browsed independently. During the experiment, the ErgoLAB human-computer environment synchronization cloud platform was used to monitor and record the subjects' multidimensional physiological indicators of eye movements, skin electricity, and heart rate variability when using different styles of mobile application interfaces. Combined with the post-experimental PAD emotion scale data, the preferences of emotional interface design elements of the self-care elderly were analyzed to guide the subsequent design practice. The results show that: on the layout characteristics of the home page, a simple and intuitive multi-column layout or card layout combined with a bottom navigation bar type main navigation is used; on the choice of the main color, a single color with low saturation is used as the main color, with high saturation color accents to play a role in highlighting key information; on the information density of the home page, a moderate proportion of graphics and text is adopted, with low information density; on the arrangement of the page content, they try to give priority to information content with high user relevance. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Truth in WritingAmandaAn excerpt from my journal during a dark period in my life reads:I am a survivor of sexual mutilation, of coerced gender roles, and of perpetual lies all in the name of normalization. Sometimes I have a hard time even thinking about the true extent of what all happened. It’s like my mind doesn’t have that type of scope, like when I think about the (...) word “eternity.”I wrote this after combing through old medical records, reading comments like “her introitus has healed nicely and looks normal, but my exam suggests that her vagina is shortened,” and “reduction clitoroplasty... removal of testes.” The records go on to say that my “external genitalia is quite satisfactory,” and “on perineal exam, her neovaginal orifice is quite compliant and easily accepts my second and third digits.”My journal continues:I chose this fake hole when I was a teenager because I didn’t know there was another option. I was told from day one to be a female, to be heteronormative, to act like all the other girls, and the only way I could fully accomplish this is by looking the part. A fake hole would be necessary, I thought, to go along with the rest of the lies. Sometimes I think about how the doctors told me to lie about my surgeries and my scars. Sometimes I wonder what my parents would have told the world if I had died during one of surgeries. Maybe they would have said “we were just trying to make her fuckable.”My strength is growing from the stories and experiences I write and share. My journal started about four years ago, when I was in my early 20s, near the beginning of medical school. My initial purpose in writing the journal was to help sort through my feelings and experiences related to a newly discovered sexuality and a changing gender identity. Medical school was thousands of miles away from my previous life, my family, and my friends. Away from my old social network, I was free to self–discover on my own terms. In the first journal entry, I lay out reasons why I decided to get in contact with a therapist, something I had not done previously. Some of the reasons were fairly standard reasons one seeks out a therapist, such as moving away from home. But the fundamental reasons I sought out a therapist, and why I chose to journal, had to do with exploring feelings after my first sexual encounter with a woman, and then [End Page 98] accepting my intersexuality. My relationship with that therapist did not last, but the journaling did.In the beginning of the journal, I write:I am from a small, religious, white, non–diverse, family oriented suburb of Milwaukee. I was raised to be the picture–perfect daughter in a household that did not talk about feelings, sex, cultural or religious differences, etc. My brother and I also never talked about personal issues (and still don’t), which is quite remarkable since we are twins, and have grown up doing most everything together, from sharing birthday parties, to being locker buddies... [When my mother told me about having Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS)] knowing this little fact about my body kept me wanting to become as perfectly female in all ways possible.Growing up without being able to talk about having AIS was stifling to say the least. Closing communication implied great shame, and with the shame came even greater repression. My skate-boarding, baseball card collecting, and model car building interests disappeared after learning about my AIS, which I believe was when I was 12 years old, but I cannot remember exactly. Granted, it’s tough to say whether my interests just changed as I grew older, but I do remember having a fear of portraying any masculine tendencies that other girls in my town weren’t displaying (for example, playing soccer was okay, but I had to shave my legs). I also had crafted some pretty good covers for my AIS, including stories about when I first had my (fake) period, or how I acted fearful about a... (shrink)

In a cluster of books published originally in 1977, the two editions of La Révolution moléculaire, and L’Inconscient machinique, Guattari elaborated a typology of semiotic systems framed in a Peirce-Hjelmslev hybrid conceptual vocabulary. Reading across these three books I want to flesh-out a-signifying semiotics in relation to an infotech strand on the machinic phylum inspired by one of Guattari’s favourite examples of the kind of semiosis put into play by a-signifying signs : credit and/or bank cards. Guattari’s innovation was (...) to develop a-signifying signs in a typology of sign types but with respect to the problem of the relationship between material and semiotic dimensions in the age of planetary computerization and globalization. (shrink)

In this article, after some thoughts on medieval logic and teaching, we present Thomas Murner’s text, Logica memorativa, showing some of his mnemonic strategies for the student to learn logic quickly. Murner offers a type of “flash cards” that illustrate much of the teaching of logic at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The first impression is visual, because the cards do not contain words that illustrate their content. Murner’s exposition rests on analogies between logic themes that (...) are explained and the visual images presented. (shrink)

In order to explore one aspect of the engaging nature of computer games, this study will propose a method that aims at classifying the experience of engagement in video games. Inspired by a literature review, we will focus on the fundamental causes of engagement that motivate a player so much that he or she wants to continue playing. By organizing this willingness to continue playing into six broad types of causes of engagement—intellectual, physical, sensory, social, narrative, and emotional—we describe a (...) typology of player engagement and a method that is intended to map players’ experience of engagement while playing video games. The engagement mapping method is inspired by card sorting found from a perspective of usability testing, and in order to exemplify the use of the method, occurrences of the six types of engagement were investigated during gameplay in Angry Birds and Wii Sports. (shrink)

Traditionally, in media studies research, the direct address or aside, i.e., a construction in which a speaker communicates a message directly to the audience breaking the continuity of the narrative flow, has been investigated mainly for its dramaturgical function. The present study aims to consider the direct address as a research object of the social psychology of communication to increase our understanding of this technique by going beyond the analysis of its dramaturgical function. In particular, the direct address will be (...) examined through an integrated approach based on argumentative and conversational tools to highlight its less known polydimensional structure, i.e., diegetic and extra-diegetic dimensions and their interactions, and psychosocial functions, i.e., connecting the characters among each other within the show as well as with the audience. This objective will be achieved by analyzing two different direct addresses from the American TV series House of Cards. The analysis showed that the direct address performs its dramaturgical function by impacting both diegetic and extradiegetic levels. In the first case, as considered in previous studies, these plans are activated in parallel, aiming to build what we have defined as the “strategic subjectivity” of the character who employs this technique. Instead, in the second case—which comprises two direct addresses produced by two different characters—this technique involves the creation of what we will call “platforms of intersubjectivity.” In this occurrence, the dramaturgical action establishes a “bridge” between the diegetic and extradiegetic plans that act synergistically. In conclusion, the present study shows how an integrated approach based on argumentative and conversational tools of analysis permits to enlarge the traditional media studies perspective, highlighting the less investigated polydimensional structure and analyzing the psychosocial functions of the direct address, here considered as a research object of the social psychology of communication examined in its diegetic and extra-diegetic dimensions. The integration of the pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation with the interlocutory logic theory has brought to light a new modality of use of the direct address that can be termed “intersubjective aside,” a type of aside that can be added to the three already known, i.e., aside ad spectatores, monological aside, and dialogical aside. (shrink)

Suppose λ is a singular cardinal of uncountable cofinality κ. For a model M of cardinality λ, let No (M) denote the number of isomorphism types of models N of cardinality λ which are L ∞λ - equivalent to M. In [7] Shelah considered inverse κ- systems A of abelian groups and their certain kind of quotient limits Gr(A)/ Fact(A). In particular Shelah proved in [7, Fact 3.10] that for every cardinal μ there exists an inverse κ-system A such that (...) A consists of abelian groups having cardinality at most μ κ and card(Gr(A)/Fact(A)) = μ. Later in [8, Theorem 3.3] Shelah showed a strict connection between inverse κ-systems and possible values of No (under the assumption that $\theta^\kappa for every $\theta ): if A is an inverse κ- system of abelian groups having cardinality $\theta^\kappa for every $\theta ): for every nonzero $\mu or μ = λ κ there is a model M μ of cardinality λ with No(M μ ) = μ. In this paper we show: for every nonzero μ ≤ λ κ there is an inverse κ-system A of abelian groups having cardinality $2^\kappa and $\theta^{ for all $\theta when $\mu > \lambda$ ), with the obvious new consequence concerning the possible value of No. Specifically, the case No(M) = λ is possible when $\theta^\kappa for every $\theta. (shrink)

The near-miss has been considered an important factor of reinforcement in gambling behavior, and previous research has focused more on its industry-related causes and effects and less on the gaming phenomenon itself. The near-miss has usually been associated with the games of slots and scratch cards, due to the special characteristics of these games, which include the possibility of pre-manipulation of award symbols in order to increase the frequency of these “engineered” near-misses. In this paper, we argue that starting (...) from an elementary mathematical description of the classical (by pure chance) near-miss, generalizable to any game, and focusing equally on the epistemology of its constitutive concepts and their mathematical description, we can identify more precisely the fallacious elements of the near-miss cognitive effects and the inadequate perception and representation of the observational-intentional “I was that close.” This approach further suggests a strategy of using non-standard mathematical knowledge of an epistemological type in problem-gambling prevention and cognitive therapies. (shrink)

Systematic errors In performance are an important aspect of human behavior that have not received adequate explanation. One such systematic error is termed postcompletion error; a typical example is leaving one's card In the automatic teller after withdrawing cash. This type of error seems to occur when people have an extra step to perform in a procedure after the main goal has been satisfied. The fact that people frequently make this type of error, but do not make this (...) error every time, may best be explained by considering the working memory load at the time the step is to be performed: The error is made when the load on working memory is high, but will not be made when the load is low. A model of performance In the task was constructed using Just and Carpenter's (1992) CAPS that predicted that high working memory load should be associated with postcompletion errors. Two experiments confirmed that such errors can be produced in a laboratory as well as a naturalistic setting, and that the conditions under which the CAPS model makes the error are consistent with the conditions under which the errors occur in the laboratory. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:My Father Dies AloneAnonymous OneThis is a story about my dying father, me, and our experiences with clinical ethics consultation (CEC). Some details have been changed to protect anonymity. I am a professional bioethicist who has served for decades on hospital ethics committees, so I have a twofold point of view—that of a son with a dying parent, but also that of a trained bioethicist.At the time of these (...) events, my father was over eighty. He had numerous medical problems, all well-managed, and he was not actively dying. My father’s life was enjoyable. He liked going to the movies, visiting with friends, and taking short trips around the city. He loved to eat out and to have my wife and me over to his house to play cards. His biggest barrier to greater enjoyment was reduced mobility, which made his life somewhat confined and narrow.About a year into the pandemic, my father developed COVID. He was hospitalized at a major, well-funded medical center, which I will call Metro. Metro’s hospital had about 450 beds and was not triaging patients. The doctors treating my father judged that, because of COVID and his comorbidities, he was inevitably dying. Nothing that happened subsequently ever led me to think they were incorrect.I could arrange calls with my father while he was in the ER, but Metro prohibited family visits unless the patient was dying. On a call with the attending, I requested to visit my father. Metro was a long distance from me, but with notice, I could drive and make the visit. The doctor refused. The doctor—who I will call Dr. Stewart—said that he was certain my father would recover well enough to be discharged, then live “for weeks” before dying at home. I could visit my father after discharge, Dr. Stewart said. I explained that I was worried that Dr. Stewart’s prediction could turn out to be incorrect and that I would miss my last chance to see my father. Dr. Stewart again refused to authorize a visit.Most patients would have been largely helpless at that point. Metro did nothing to advertise whether they offered ethics consultation, patient advocacy, or any similar service. Because of my professional background, I asked Metro’s operator to page the head of the ethics committee. He did not call me back. I went through this same process several times but never received a return call. Nothing on Metro’s website said anything else about [End Page 16] an ethics committee or ethics consultation. Typing “ethics consultation,” “ethics committee,” and related terms into Metro’s website search engine to this day produces zero results.I spoke with Dr. Stewart again. I revealed that I was a bioethicist and offered to send him the extensive literature on how bad doctors are at prognostication, despite their confidence that they are good at it. (I put the point far more diplomatically when speaking to Dr. Stewart.) There was no uptake—it was like speaking to a customer service representative who repeats the script over and over. I asked for an ethics consultation. Dr. Stewart said he would not request one because there was “no ethical issue”: this was simply a medical question about whether my father would survive to discharge. I pointed out the obvious ethical issues, but Dr. Stewart still refused.Technically, my father survived to discharge, in the sense that Metro was able to load him into an ambulance and drive him to his house. He died almost immediately after arriving, and well before any family could make the lengthy drive to see him. After he died, I remember my last phone conversation with him. His final words were, “I wish I could be with you to hold your hand.” He wanted me to be there to comfort him, and to this day I live with the overwhelming guilt that I let him die alone, frightened, and in pain.Looking back, I’m not sure why I gave in after Dr. Stewart refused an ethics consultation, but my best guess is that, like all children facing the death of a parent, the stress... (shrink)

This paper examines social network size in contemporary Western society based on the exchange of Christmas cards. Maximum network size averaged 153.5 individuals, with a mean network size of 124.9 for those individuals explicitly contacted; these values are remarkably close to the group size of 150 predicted for humans on the basis of the size of their neocortex. Age, household type, and the relationship to the individual influence network structure, although the proportion of kin remained relatively constant at (...) around 21%. Frequency of contact between network members was primarily determined by two classes of variable: passive factors (distance, work colleague, overseas) and active factors (emotional closeness, genetic relatedness). Controlling for the influence of passive factors on contact rates allowed the hierarchical structure of human social groups to be delimited. These findings suggest that there may be cognitive constraints on network size. (shrink)

Don't enter the world of Digital SLR without this book! If you want to use your Digital SLR camera like a pro, let a pro show you how! Sally Wiener Grotta and Daniel Grotta have been covering the world of digital photography since 1991, and this book is like a private course in DSLR mastery. From understanding the parts of your camera to using the controls effectively to shooting stunning, beautiful, and meaningful photographs to editing your images, here's everything you (...) want to know tomake your investment in a Digital SLRpay off big in gorgeous pictures. Let the experts tell you how Here's advice from the undisputed digital camera experts for less than the cost of a memory card! The Grottas help you choose the right model, get the best shots, edit like a pro, and produce showstopping prints from your DSLR. Get professional guidance on * Choosing a Digital SLR camera that fits your needs and your budget * Understanding different types of image sensors * Selecting and working with lenses * Determining the right resolution for various photo types * Using the camera's controls to fine-tune your pictures * Working with RAW format * Learning the aesthetics of what makes a great photograph * Getting great shots of action, nature, and events * Seeing how light, shadow, contrast, and color affect the mood and intention of everything you shoot * Managing your image files efficiently * Editing your images for professional results. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:RECENT ACQUISITIONS: CORRESPONDENCE Recent Acquisitions: Correspondence 93 SHEILA TURCON The Bertrand Russell Archives McMaster University Libraty A.d •• PORTMItIRION HOTEL DEUDRAETU" CASTLE HOTEL PORTMEIRION PENINSULA : PENRHYNDEUDRAETH-·NORTHWALES -Telegrams & Telephone 39 - Passe"gers & G~ods Sialio", G,w'R. A.y Tile M)'Uoa a: M....W. Atehem. 8brewlbDry. T he last update of correspondence, completed in spring 1990 / listed a huge backlog. Since then, I have devised a new method of preparing (...) this listing for Russell As new items arrive, typed catalogue cards are still prepared and interfiled with our existing cards for researchers who can visit the Archives. At the same time, however, entries are put into the computer of the correspondence which will be reported in Russell, i.e., letters either to or from Russell. The listing can be printed out, proofread, and be ready for perusal and insertion in Russell at any time.. The Correspondence and the Manuscript listings are to become a regular feature of Russell With the help of the new methodology, readers will thus be kept informed of the arrival of most acquisitions within a reasonable amount of time. We do not report acquisitions of letters about Russell (of which there are many), photographs, drawings and canoons, audio and video cassettes, minutes of meetings, memorials or petitions on BR's behalf, and newsdippings. Readers interested in such holdings may contact the Russell Archives individually. There are 44 entries in this listing, covering approximately 167 letters and telegrams. Some of the items have been received from a total of ten other instirutions, to whom we are very grateful. The latest acquisition reponed is number 1,133, which arrived on 8 August 1991. The following abbreviations should be noted: L(s). or l(s). = letter (s); P(s). or p(s). = photocopy(ies); p.c(s). = post card(s). I Russel~ n.s. IO (1990); 30-67. The present listing is the last one to report not-sorecent acquisitions which had been overlooked. 1......- (6., (r>JI ~ ()~. ~-Jl.r~ ~-.~ f.o -t.--...f..tJ~ (i.~ S'o ~ " • •."-..A ~ ~ ~~ fP"'-.... Ca.H-. no ~C-.....:i. He.."; GIl-.... k ~... of- ~-~(y- ~·~~L ~ e:e.---..··fcL........., V'- ~'S- ~. (shrink)

The selection strategies of individuals and 2-person cooperative groups were investigated in 5 concept-attainment problems. 2 types of stimulus displays were used: (a) form displays, consisting of geometric forms varying in 6 attributes with 2 levels of each, (b) sequence displays, consisting of 6 plus and/or minus signs in a row. The arrangement of cards in the stimulus displays was ordered or random. The principal results were: (a) 2-person groups used the focusing strategy more, required fewer card choices to (...) solution, and required more time than individuals; (b) form displays resulted in more use of the focusing strategy than sequence displays, with no difference in number of card choices; (c) no difference between ordered and random arrays in use of the focusing strategy or number of card choices. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

Hanks develops a theory of propositions as speech-act types. Because speech acts play a role in the contents themselves, the view overturns Frege’s force/content distinction, and as such, faces the challenge of explaining how propositions embed under logical operators like negation. The attempt to solve this problem has lead Hanks and his recent commentators to adopt theoretically exotic resources, none of which, we argue, is ultimately successful. The problem is that although there are three different ways of negating the sentence (...) “Mary’s card is an ace”, current speech-act theories of propositions can only accommodate two of them. We distinguish between “It is false that Mary’s card is an ace”, “Mary’s card is a non-ace”, and “Mary’s card is not an ace” and show that Hanks and his commentators cannot explain content negation. We call this Hanks’ Negation Problem. The problem is significant because content negation is the negation required for logic. Fortunately, we think there is a natural way for Hanks to accommodate content negation as successive acts of predication. The view solves Hanks’ Negation Problem with only resources internal to Hanks’ own view. (shrink)

The world is in crisis. We, the people of the world, are all connected. We rely on each other to make ethical decisions and to solve thorny civic problems, together. Ethics and civics have always mattered, but perhaps now more than ever, we are starting to realize how much they matter. Teaching ethics and civics is essential to our future. This book argues that games can encourage the practice of ethics and civics. They help us to connect, deliberate, and reflect. (...) They help us to flourish. They help us to reimagine our world. Games are communities and public spheres. Like all communities, they may support care, understanding, and problem solving. And, they may also incite hate, disinformation, and toxicity. Games reveal humanity's compassion as well as its cruelty. Games reveal our complexity. We the Gamers provides research-based perspectives related to why and how we should play, make, and use games in ethics, civics, character, and social studies education. This book systematically evaluates how to use games in classrooms, remote learning environments, and other educational settings, with consideration to different audiences and standards. This book also provides tips and guidelines, as well as timely resources, examples, and case studies. It includes examples of all different types of games-virtual reality, mobile, card games, and computer games, big budget commercial games, indie games, and more. (shrink)

IntroductionIndividuals with high scores of perceived stress are more likely to develop arterial hypertension than those with low levels of stress. In addition to this, AH and stress are both independent risk factors for executive function impairment and worse quality of life. Therefore, strategies to control and cope with emotional stress are of paramount importance. However, less is known about the association of PS with EF, QoL, and coping in individuals with hypertension. This study aimed to evaluate the association of (...) PS with EF performance, coping strategies use, and QoL in a sample of hypertensive patients.MethodsWe assessed a group of 45 hypertensive individuals. The EF evaluation was: Frontal Assessment Battery; Controlled Oral Word Association Test—FAS; Letter-Number Sequencing subtest from the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale—Third Edition ; Digit Span subtest from the Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised and Wisconsin Card Sorting Test. The type and frequency of coping strategies used were measured by the Brief Coping with Experienced Problems Scale. The World Health Organization Quality of Life Questionnaire Bref was applied to measure QoL. The associations of the PS with EF performance, coping strategies, and QoL were investigated using univariate and multiple linear regression models adjusted for age, sex, education, systolic pressure, and depression symptoms.ResultsIn the multivariate analyses, higher PS was an independent predictor for a lower frequency of emotion-focused strategy use. However, PS was not significantly related to EF and Qol in this sample. The lower the PS, the greater the use of emotion-focused coping.ConclusionHypertensive individuals with high PS use less frequently positive emotion-focused coping strategies. (shrink)

In the verse of Sūrah al-An'ām 6/38, "Nothing has we omitted from the Book" as it is stated in the 59th verse of the same sūrah, “Anything fresh or dry (green or withered) but is (inscribed) in a record clear (to those who can read)." has been commanded. In the verses of the an-Naḥl 16/44 and 89, it is stated that it was revealed to the Prophet to explain to people everything that was revealed to them. In this meaning, there (...) are other verses in the Qur'ān. Based on these and similar verses, according to some, the Qur'ān; it is a general source of information that anyone who has lost his camel's bridle as an allusion to all knowledge, all knowledge of those before him and those who will come until the Day of Judgment, can find it in the Qur'ān. On the contrary, according to some, it is useless to look for everything in the Qur'ān, which was sent for the guidance of man, happiness in this world and the hereafter, and it is necessary to look for things in line with his goals. From this point of view, the article focuses on the content of the thesis that there is knowledge of everything in the Qur'ān, in Turkish and Arabic websites, and it is tried to understand how the Qur'ān is portrayed as a source of information on these platforms. While doing this, a search was made on Google, one of today's popular and easy access to information platforms, by typing ‘Is there everything in the Qur'ān’. And the content in the first five rows, written and visual, was transferred to the study without falling into repetition. Among these, an evaluation was made based on the most read internet sites and it was seen that the general opinion was that there is everything in the Qur'ān. Content creators have often answered the question of how such a thing is possible, by analogy, in which all the information of a tree is stored in a kernel, a large bale of cotton takes up very little space when compressed, or -in an easy-to-understand analogy for today's people- huge amounts of memory cards are stored in tiny memory cards explained by compressing information. As proof of this, History in the Qur'ān, Technology in the Qur'ān, Astronomy in the Qur'ān and Mathematics in the Qur'ān, are just a few of the titles in this content. Again, according to those who think this way, it is another way of explaining the subject that the Qur'ān is secret and only those who have deepened in science and have certain competence can discover that secret when the time comes. On the other hand, there are also some who say that there is no knowledge of everything in the Qur'ān, even if it is a little. Despite the verses stating that nothing is missing in the book and that everything wet and dry is in the book, it is important how those who hold this view explain the subject. For example, the concept of kitāb is one of the words that have a wujūhāt (different meanings) when the whole of the Qur'ān is taken into account. Because, in various places in the Qur'ān, this word is used in the meaning of the Qur'ān, the lawh-i mahfūẓ, the written/obligatory and the book of deeds. In addition, even if the Qur'ān is meant, it has been stated that the wording here is common, not in the meaning that the knowledge of everything is in the Qur'ān, but in the sense that the things about guidance or in line with the goals of the Qur'ān can be found in it. As a matter of fact, there are other examples of this in the Qur'ān. Considering the context, there is no explicit or implicit presumption in the relevant verses that the Qur'ān is meant by the kitāb-ı mubīn (a revealed book). Therefore, the first period commentators and later commentators understood this expression not as the Qur'ān, but as the lawh-i mahfūẓ. Interestingly, some of the content producers of the website were able to claim that although the commentators expressed their views in writing or orally, the Qur'ān was meant by the kitāb-ı mubīn, and the preference for the lawh-i mahfūẓ needed explanation. As a result, it is understood that those who claim to have all the information in the Qur'ān actually understand the verses in question literally. If the Qur'ān has everything, it is the necessary consequence of this proposition that the Qur'ān will suffice for us without the need for anything else. In our opinion, it is an important contradiction that among those whose views are given, that they leave the method aside on this issue, even though they emphasize reason and method. This makes it very difficult to obtain healthy information about the epistemic value of the Qur'ān from the internet, which is a popular source of information, and to clarify the mind of ordinary people on this subject. (shrink)

Artificial Intelligence is becoming widespread and as we continue ask ‘can we implement this’ we neglect to ask ‘should we implement this’. There are various frameworks and conceptual journeys one should take to ensure a robust AI product; context is one of the vital parts of this. AI is now expected to make decisions, from deciding who gets a credit card to cancer diagnosis. These decisions affect most, if not all, of society. As developers if we do not understand or (...) use fundamental modelling principles then we can cause real harm to society. Recently more serious effects of AI have been observed. Dehumanisation is the human reaction to overused anthropomorphism and lack of social contact caused by excessive interaction with, or addiction to, technology. This can cause humans to devalue technology and to devalue other humans. This is a contradiction of the use of ‘social robots’ and ‘chatbots’, indicating that the negative effects of this technology would outweigh any perceived positive effects. Also, within cyberspace, anthropomorphism and similar techniques based on deep philosophical principles can, and are, being used to alter the behaviour of humans. These techniques are used to manipulate human behaviours at a basic level in the human mind. As these types of techniques are becoming more widespread, it is clear that we are entering unchartered territory that holds a vast array of consequences for society. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Feminist Studies 45, no. 1. © 2019 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 13 Stephanie Yingyi Wang When Tongzhi Marry: Experiments of Cooperative Marriage between Lalas and Gay Men in Urban China Ang Lee’s film The Wedding Banquet could be classic introductory material for tongzhi studies and, particularly, for research on cooperative marriage.1 In the film, Wai-Tung, a Taiwanese landlord who lives happily with his American boyfriend Simon in New York, (...) is troubled by his parents’ constant efforts to try and find him a bride. His partner Simon suggests he could arrange a marriage of convenience with WaiTung ’s tenant Wei Wei who is from mainland China and is also in need of a green card to stay in the United States. However, their plan backfires when Wai-Tung’s enthusiastic parents arrive in the United States and plan a big wedding banquet. As the film critic and scholar Chris 1. Tongzhi, literally “same purpose,” is the Chinese term for “comrade.” Since the 1990s, it has been appropriated to replace the more formal tóngxìnglìan (same-sex love) to refer to gay men and lalas (same-sex desiring women) in the Chinese-speaking world. The translation of xinghun as “cooperative marriage” is debatable, as xinghun literally means “pro-forma marriage.” In other works, “contract marriage,” “fake marriage,” or “pro-forma marriage” are used to refer to gay-lala marriage. Informed by Lucetta Kam’s work, I use “cooperative marriage ” to highlight that such marriage is not merely functional without sustenance, but is contingent on the cooperation and negotiation between multiple parties in the relationship, as my findings suggest. See Lucetta Yip Lo Kam, Shanghai Lalas: Female Tongzhi Communities and Politics in Urban China (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2013), 85. winner of the 2018 Feminist Studies Graduate Student award 14 Stephanie Yingyi Wang Berry points out, analysis of the film rests not on any individual, but on the Confucian family as “it negotiates the interface with globally hegemonic American culture,” suggesting that there exists an understanding of gayness in the context of the family that is distinct in Chinese culture.2 Berry continues to argue that the moral ambivalence produced by the film is structured by different sets of values: the gay person is not merely concerned about individual identity fulfillment, but he also adjusts his actions to satisfy the family expectation; the parents, especially the father figure, is not merely a patriarch with strict moral provisions and standards, but someone who can allow for implicit negotiation to keep the surface harmony as long as he gets a grandson; the woman is not merely an independent agent freed from social constraints, but a bride who is also attached to emotional comfort and conjugal ideals. Just as The Wedding Banquet tactfully reveals one type of cooperative marriage with its mutual benefits and examines the multilayered complexity of each individual player in the marriage game, this research takes as its subject cooperative marriage between gay men and lalas as an exciting departure to understand queer subjectivities and queer kinship intersected with gender, sexuality, class, and tongzhi politics in urban China.3 Though seemingly monolithic, marriage and family have become contested terrains for tongzhi to negotiate their gender performance, queer desires, and aspirations for better lives. The transnational makings of gayness and rights-based identity politics have contributed to the increasing awareness of a cosmopolitan gay identity and the desiring of alternative life choices of Chinese tongzhi, which lays the very foundation of their motivation to seek ways to cope with the heteronormative family model. Coming out and gay marriage are upheld as primary tropes of identity politics, facilitated by the self-identified tongzhi grassroots groups that emerged during the initiation of AIDS work in 1994 for gay men and at the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women, which gathered hundreds of lesbians from around the world in Beijing.4 How2. Chris Berry, “Wedding Banquet: A Family (Melodrama) Affair,” in his Chinese Films in Focus: 25 New Takes (London: British Film Institute, 2003), 183. 3. Lala is a slang term in China for same-sex desiring women and includes lesbian, bisexual, and trans women. 4. Katie King, “‘There Are No... (shrink)

This paper deals primarily with countable, simple, connected graphs and the following two conditions which are trivially satisfied if the graphs are finite: (a) there is an edge-recognition algorithm, i.e., an effective procedure which enables us, given two distinct vertices, to decide whether they are adjacent, (b) there is a shortest path algorithm, i.e., an effective procedure which enables us, given two distinct vertices, to find a minimal path joining them. A graph $G = \langle\eta, \eta\rangle$ with η as set (...) of vertices and η as set of edges is an α-graph if it satisfies (a); it is an ω-graph if it satisfies (b). G is called r.e. (isolic) if the sets ν and η are r.e. (isolated). While every ω-graph is an α-graph, the converse is false, even if G is r.e. or isolic. Several basic properties of finite graphs do not generalize to ω-graphs. For example, an ω-tree with more than one vertex need not have two pendant vertices, but may have only one or none, since it may be a 1-way or 2-way infinite path. Nevertheless, some elementary propositions for finite graphs $G = \langle\nu, \eta\rangle$ with $n = \operatorname{card}(\nu), e = \operatorname{card}(\eta)$ , do generalize to isolic ω-graphs, e.g., n - 1 ≤ e ≤ n(n - 1)/2. Let N and E be the recursive equivalence types of ν and η respectively. Then we have for an isolic α-tree $G = \langle\nu, \eta\rangle: N = E + 1$ iff G is an ω-tree. The theorem that every finite graph has a spanning tree has a natural, effective analogue for ω-graphs. The structural difference between isolic α-graphs and isolic ω-graphs will be illustrated by: (i) every infinite graph is isomorphic to some isolic α-graph; (ii) there is an infinite graph which is not isomorphic to any isolic ω-graph. An isolic α-graph is also called a twilight graph. There are c such graphs, c denoting the cardinality of the continuum. (shrink)

Alice encounters at least three distinct problems in her struggles to understand and navigate Wonderland. The first arises when she attempts to predict what will happen in Wonderland based on what she has experienced outside of Wonderland. In many cases, this proves difficult -- she fails to predict that babies might turn into pigs, that a grin could survive without a cat or that playing cards could hold criminal trials. Alice's second problem involves her efforts to figure out the (...) basic nature of Wonderland. So, for example, there is nothing Alice could observe that would allow her to prove whether Wonderland is simply a dream. The final problem is manifested by Alice's attempts to understand what the various residents of Wonderland mean when they speak to her. In Wonderland, "mock turtles" are real creatures and people go places with a "porpoise" (and not a purpose). All three of these problems concern Alice's attempts to infer information about unobserved events or objects from those she has observed. In philosophical terms, they all involve *induction*. -/- In this essay, I will show how Alice's experiences can be used to clarify the relation between three more general problems related to induction. The first problem, which concerns our justification for beliefs about the future, is an instance of David Hume's classic *problem of induction*. Most of us believe that rabbits will not start talking tomorrow -- the problem of induction challenges us to justify this belief. Even if we manage to solve Hume's puzzle, however, we are left with what W.V.O. Quine calls the problems of *underdetermination *and *indeterminacy.* The former problem asks us to explain how we can determine *what the world is really like *based on *everything that could be observed about the world. *So, for example, it seems plausible that nothing that Alice could observe would allow her to determine whether eating mushrooms causes her to grow or the rest of the world to shrink. The latter problem, which might remain even if resolve the first two, casts doubt on our capacity to determine *what a certain person means *based on *which words that person uses.* This problem is epitomized in the Queen's interpretation of the Knave's letter. The obstacles that Alice faces in getting around Wonderland are thus, in an important sense, the same types of obstacles we face in our own attempts to understand the world. Her successes and failures should therefore be of real interest. (shrink)