Journal of Mathematical Logic, Volume 22, Issue 03, December 2022. We study a new class of NP search problems, those which can be proved total using standard combinatorial reasoning based on approximate counting. Our model for this kind of reasoning is the bounded arithmetic theory [math] of [E. Jeřábek, Approximate counting by hashing in bounded arithmetic, J. Symb. Log. 74(3) (2009) 829–860]. In particular, the Ramsey and weak pigeonhole search problems lie in the new class. We (...) give a purely computational characterization of this class and show that, relative to an oracle, it does not contain the problem CPLS, a strengthening of PLS. As CPLS is provably total in the theory [math], this shows that [math] does not prove every [math] sentence which is provable in bounded arithmetic. This answers the question posed in [S. Buss, L. A. Kołodziejczyk and N. Thapen, Fragments of approximate counting, J. Symb. Log. 79(2) (2014) 496–525] and represents some progress in the program of separating the levels of the bounded arithmetic hierarchy by low-complexity sentences. Our main technical tool is an extension of the “fixing lemma” from [P. Pudlák and N. Thapen, Random resolution refutations, Comput. Complexity, 28(2) (2019) 185–239], a form of switching lemma, which we use to show that a random partial oracle from a certain distribution will, with high probability, determine an entire computation of a [math] oracle machine. The introduction to the paper is intended to make the statements and context of the results accessible to someone unfamiliar with NP search problems or with bounded arithmetic. (shrink)

Algorithms for approximate Bayesian inference, such as those based on sampling (i.e., Monte Carlo methods), provide a natural source of models of how people may deal with uncertainty with limited cognitive resources. Here, we consider the idea that individual differences in working memory capacity (WMC) may be usefully modeled in terms of the number of samples, or “particles,” available to perform inference. To test this idea, we focus on two recent experiments that report positive associations between WMC and two (...) distinct aspects of categorization performance: the ability to learn novel categories, and the ability to switch between different categorization strategies (“knowledge restructuring”). In favor of the idea of modeling WMC as a number of particles, we show that a single model can reproduce both experimental results by varying the number of particles—increasing the number of particles leads to both faster category learning and improved strategy‐switching. Furthermore, when we fit the model to individual participants, we found a positive association between WMC and best‐fit number of particles for strategy switching. However, no association between WMC and best‐fit number of particles was found for category learning. These results are discussed in the context of the general challenge of disentangling the contributions of different potential sources of behavioral variability. (shrink)

An open question regarding how people develop their models of the world is how new candidates are generated for consideration out of infinitely many possibilities. We discuss the role that evolutionary mechanisms play in this process. Specifically, we argue that when it comes to developing a global world model, innovation is necessarily incremental, involving the generation and selection among random local mutations and recombinations of (parts of) one's current model. We argue that, by narrowing and guiding exploration, this feature of (...) cognitive search is what allows human learners to discover better theories, without ever grappling directly with the problem of finding a “global optimum,” or best possible world model. We suggest this aspect of cognitive processing works analogously to how blind variation and selection mechanisms drive biological evolution. We propose algorithms developed for program synthesis provide candidate mechanisms for how human minds might achieve this. We discuss objections and implications of this perspective, finally suggesting that a better process-level understanding of how humans incrementally explore compositional theory spaces can shed light on how we think, and provide explanatory traction on fundamental cognitive biases, including anchoring, probability matching, and confirmation bias. (shrink)

The paper discusses the problem of assignment production resources in executing a production order on the example of the car rims manufacturing process. The more resources are involved in implementing the manufacturing process and the more they can be used interchangeably, the more complex and problematic the scheduling process becomes. Special attention is paid to the effective scheduling and assignment of rim machining operations to production stations in the considered manufacturing process. In this case, the use of traditional scheduling methods (...) based on simple calculations, or the know-how of process engineers often turns out to be insufficient to achieve the intended results. Due to the scale of the problems faced in practice, the methods based on approximate approaches (Genetic and Tabu Search) were used to solve them. In this perspective, the problem under consideration involves the extension of the classic assignment problem with the possibility of taking into account: the times of operations, potential changeovers and the capacity of production resources. (shrink)

This paper addresses a common challenge with computational cognitive models: identifying parameter values that are both theoretically plausible and generate predictions that match well with empirical data. While computational models can offer deep explanations of cognition, they are computationally complex and often out of reach of traditional parameter fitting methods. Weak methodology may lead to premature rejection of valid models or to acceptance of models that might otherwise be falsified. Mathematically robust fitting methods are, therefore, essential to the progress of (...) computational modeling in cognitive science. In this article, we investigate the capability and role of modern fitting methods—including Bayesian optimization and approximate Bayesian computation—and contrast them to some more commonly used methods: grid search and Nelder–Mead optimization. Our investigation consists of a reanalysis of the fitting of two previous computational models: an Adaptive Control of Thought—Rational model of skill acquisition and a computational rationality model of visual search. The results contrast the efficiency and informativeness of the methods. A key advantage of the Bayesian methods is the ability to estimate the uncertainty of fitted parameter values. We conclude that approximate Bayesian computation is (a) efficient, (b) informative, and (c) offers a path to reproducible results. (shrink)

The debate between substantivalists and relationists about spacetime was given a new lease of life approximately twenty years ago, when John Earman and John Norton published an argument for the conclusion that, in the light of general relativity, substantivalism is untenable. Responses to Earman and Norton’s argument generated a proliferation of ‘substantivalisms’, and a debate between them that was, to the ears of at least some, distinctively metaphysical in character.

The graph edit distance (GED) measures the dissimilarity between two graphs as the minimal cost of a sequence of elementary operations transforming one graph into another. This measure is fundamental in many areas such as structural pattern recognition or classification. However, exactly computing GED is NP-hard. Among different classes of heuristic algorithms that were proposed to compute approximate solutions, local search based algorithms provide the tightest upper bounds for GED. In this paper, we present K-REFINE and RANDPOST. K-REFINE (...) generalizes and improves an existing local search algorithm and performs particularly well on small graphs. RANDPOST is a general warm start framework that stochastically generates promising initial solutions to be used by any local search based GED algorithm. It is particularly efficient on large graphs. An extensive empirical evaluation demonstrates that both K-REFINE and RANDPOST perform excellently in practice. (shrink)

The depth-bounded approach seeks to provide realistic models of reasoners. Recognizing that most useful logics are idealizations in that they are either undecidable or likely to be intractable, the approach accounts for how they can be approximated in practice by resource-bounded agents. The approach has been applied to Classical Propositional Logic (CPL), yielding a hierarchy of tractable depth-bounded approximations to that logic, which in turn has been based on a KE/KI system. -/- This Thesis shows that the approach can be (...) naturally extended to useful nonclassical logics such as First-Degree Entailment (FDE), the Logic of Paradox (LP), Strong Kleene Logic (K3 ) and Intuitionistic Propositional Logic (IPL). To do this, we introduce a KE/KI-style system for each of those logics such that: is formulated via signed formulae, consist of linear operational rules and branching structural rule(s), can be used as a direct-proof and a refutation method, and is interesting independently of the approach in that it has an exponential speed-up on its tableau system counterpart. The latter given that we introduce a new class of examples which we prove to be hard for all tableau systems sharing the V/& rules with the classical one, but easy for their analogous KE-style systems. Then we focus on showing that each of our KE/KI-style systems naturally yields a hierarchy of tractable depth-bounded approximations to the respective logic, in terms of the maximum number of allowed nested applications of the branching rule(s). The rule(s) express(es) a generalized rule of bivalence, is (are) essentially cut rule(s) and govern(s) the manipulation of virtual information, which is information that an agent does not hold but she temporarily assumes as if she held it. Intuitively, the more virtual information needs to be invoked via the branching rule(s), the harder the inference is for the agent. So, the nested application the branching rule(s) provides a sensible measure of inferential depth. We also show that each hierarchy approximating FDE, LP, and K3 , admits of a 5-valued non-deterministic semantics; whereas, paving the way for a semantical characterization of the hierarchy approximating IPL, we provide a 3-valued non-deterministic semantics for the full logic that fixes the meaning of the connectives without appealing to “structural” conditions. -/- Moreover, we show a super-polynomial lower bound for the strongest possible version of clausal tableaux on the well-known class of “truly fat” expressions (which are easy for KE), settling a problem left open in the literature. Further, we investigate a hierarchy of tractable depth-bounded approximations to CPL based only on KE. Finally, we propose a refinement of the p-simulation relation which is adequate to establish positive results about the superiority of a system over another with respect to proof-search. (shrink)

Purpose Google commands approximately 70 per cent of search market share worldwide, resulting in businesses investing heavily in search engine advertising on Google to target potential customers. Recently, Google changed the way in which content and ads were displayed on the search engine results page. This reshuffling of content and ads is expected to affect the advertisers who advertise on Google and/or use it to drive traffic to their websites. The purpose of this study is to analyze (...) the impact of these changes on various stakeholders. Design/methodology/approach Data have been collected from various sources on the internet including blogs and discussion forums. Netnography has been used as it allows a detailed evaluation of the consumers’ needs, wants and choices in a virtual space. Findings The average cost-per-click for ads on the top positions is expected to increase. Advertisers whose ads usually occupy the lower positions would be adversely affected. To counter this, more emphasis should be placed on ad extensions and on product listing ads. In addition, organizations would benefit from increased efforts on search engine optimization. Practical implications A variety of coping strategies have been developed that can help marketers to successfully navigate through the change, including the use of ad extensions and the use of product listing ads. Originality/value This practice-focused paper offers guidelines for digital marketers to use sponsored search more effectively as part of their arsenal in light of some important changes recently made by Google. The potential of netnography as a research methodology has also been expanded by using it in a novel setting and in drawing up actionable insights. (shrink)

Software testing is a very important technique to design the faultless software and takes approximately 60% of resources for the software development. It is the process of executing a program or application to detect the software bugs. In software development life cycle, the testing phase takes around 60% of cost and time. Test case generation is a method to identify the test data and satisfy the software testing criteria. Test case generation is a vital concept used in software testing, that (...) can be derived from the user requirements specification. An automatic test case technique determines automatically where the test cases or test data generates utilizing search based optimization method. In this paper, Cuckoo Search and Bee Colony Algorithm (CSBCA) method is used for optimization of test cases and generation of path convergence within minimal execution time. The performance of the proposed CSBCA was compared with the performance of existing methods such as Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), Cuckoo Search (CS), Bee Colony Algorithm (BCA), and Firefly Algorithm (FA). (shrink)

We study the performance of heuristics relative to the performance of optimal solutions in the rich domain of sequential search, where the decision to stop the search depends only on the applicant’s relative rank. Considering multiple variants of the secretary problem, that vary from one another in their formulation and method of solution, we find that descriptive heuristics perform well only when the optimal solution prescribes a single threshold value. We show that a computational heuristic originally proposed as (...) an approximate solution to a single variant of the secretary problem performs equally well in many other variants where the optimal solution prescribes multiple threshold values that gradually relax the criterion for stopping the search. Finally, we propose a new heuristic with near optimal performance in a competitive or strategic variant of the secretary problem with multiple employers competing with one another to hire job applicants. Both heuristics share a simple computational component: the ratio of the number of interviewed applicants to the number of those remaining to be searched. We present the subgame-perfect Nash equilibrium for this competitive variant and an algorithm for its computation. (shrink)

What lies at the heart of physical inquiry? What are the foundational ideas and working assumptions that inform the enterprise of natural science? What principles guide research? How do scientists decide whether they are building theories in the right direction? Is there a right direction? Do physical theories actually approximate an objective reality, or are they simply useful summaries, mnemonics for experimental results? This book is Nobel Prize winner Jim Peebles's contribution to such big, classic debates in the philosophy (...) of science, drawing on a lifetime of experience as a leading physicist and taking the development of physical cosmology as a "worked example." He begins with a consideration of the history of thought about the nature of the physical sciences since Einstein, culminating in a succinct statement of what he sees as the fundamental working assumptions of physics. Then, through a careful examination of the development of the general theory of relativity, Einstein's cosmological principle, the big bang theory, and our current model of the universe, he makes the argument that physical theories ultimately are useful approximations to an objective reality whose nature science is discovering. An essential reflection on and interrogation of the nature and practice of science by a giant in the field, The Whole Truth will be illuminating reading for cosmologists, physicists, and historians, philosophers, and sociologists of science alike. (shrink)

In this paper I shall describe the symbolic search space paradigm which is the dominant model for most of AI. Coupled with the mechanisms of logic it yields the predominant methodology underlying expert systems which are the most successful application of AI technology to date. Human decision making, more precisely, expert human decision making is the function that expert systems aspire to emulate, if not surpass.Expert systems technology has not yet proved to be a decisive success — it appears (...) to fare better in some areas of human expertise than others. As a result subdomains of human expertise are variously categorised and we shall examine a few of the suggested classification schemes. A particular line of argument explored is one which maintains that certain types of human decision making, at least, are not adequately approximated by the symbolic search space paradigm of AI. Furthermore, attempts to project this inadequate model of human decision making via implementations of expert systems will be detrimental to both our image of ourselves and the future possibilities for AI software.Finally, we examine one possible route to the realization of AI, perhaps even practical applications of AI, that is a significant alternative to the model offered by the symbolic search space paradigm. (shrink)

The term “Presocratics” refers to a group of Greek thinkers who lived not later than Socrates and who were not decisively influenced by him. They are often referred to as the first philosophers as they represent the dawn of human speculation in the West. The essay examines the fragments of major Presocratics - Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Parmenides, Empidocles and Anaxagoras, which contain their views and arguments as reported by subsequent authors. Although these fragments are incomplete and are based (...) on secondary quotations, it is possible to sift through them and develop coherent and logical interpretations that approximate the original idea and intentions of these philosophers. The aim of this essay is to shed light on the philosophical meaning and significance of the concept of Arche (ἀρχή) – an untranslatable Greek word that connotes origin, principle, first in the series, or source, which constitutes the central thread of speculation among the Presocratics and their most influential contribution to the history of Western thought. (shrink)

ExcerptIntroduction One of the major British political anomalies vis-à-vis Europe is the lack of a Christian Democratic political party. In most European countries, these parties are part of the political fabric of the nation, but in Britain Christian Democracy never developed into a party. Research has shown that during the twentieth century there were British groups, inspired by Catholic social thought, that were a close approximation to Christian Democracy.1 These groups not only sought to influence the existing parties, but they (...) also introduced typical Christian Democratic concerns into domestic politics. This article seeks to address the…. (shrink)

O texto tem como proposta investigar o posicionamento de alguns intelectuais da umbanda na primeira metade do século XX, evidenciando suas tentativas de conciliação entre religião e magia. Partindo do reconhecimento da oposição estatal entre religião e magia, o texto evidencia as operações conciliatórias dos intelectuais da umbanda, no sentido de, ao mesmo tempo trazer a magia para o âmbito da nova religião, dotá-la de uma base ética e separá-la de manifestações rituais não toleradas pelo estado e por ele criminalizadas. (...) Neste sentido, os intelectuais da umbanda desenvolveram um difícil trabalho, tentando, ao mesmo tempo, reconhecer o papel da magia na religião e superar os interditos que opunham as mesmas no senso comum e na legislação. As fontes trabalhadas dizem respeito, sobretudo, às publicações doutrinárias surgidas na primeira metade do século XX e que se propunham a normatizar e codificar a umbanda. O texto também discute o papel e a importância da palavra escrita na umbanda, relativizando o seu papel como constituinte da religião. Palavras-chave : Umbanda. Magia. Palavra Escrita. Religiões Afro-Brasileiras.This article aims to investigate the positioning of Umbanda intellectuals in the first half of the twentieth century, showing their attempts to reconcile magic and religion. Taking into account opposition of the state between religion and magic this text highlights the operations of Umbanda intellectuals to approximate magic from the new religion, and give to magic an ethical basis that helped to separate magic from those rituals not tolerated by the state. The text emphasizes that Umbanda Intellectuals did a good job when tried to recognize the role of magic within religion and to overcome the injunctions that led the common sense to reinforce such opposition. Bibliographic sources relate, especially, to doctrinal publications from the first half of twentieth century that intended, overall, to normalize and code Umbanda. The article finally discusses the relevance of the written texts in Umbanda showing their role for such religion. Keywords : Umbanda. Magic. Written Word. Afro-Brazilian religions. (shrink)

This paper presents Multi-State Real-Time Bidirectional Search, a method that improves the efficiency of the heuristic search algorithm for finding approximate solutions. Real-Time A* is a representative heuristic search algorithm for finding approximate solutions. The Multi-State Commitment method was introduced into RTA* and dramatically improved the performance in problems such as the N-puzzle. As well, Real-Time Bidirectional Search also improved RTA* by changing a unidirectional search into a bidirectional one. This paper proposed a (...) method that introduces MSC into RTBS. The experimental results showed that compared with RTBS and MSC our proposed method, MSRTBS, improved executed time and solution quality in the N-Puzzle. (shrink)

Approximately three decades ago the question was first answered whether parasitoids are able to assess the number or origin of eggs in a host for a solitary parasitoid, Leptopilina heterotoma, by fitting theoretically derived distributions to empirical ones. We extend the set of different theoretically postulated distributions of eggs among hosts by combining searching modes and abilities in assessing host quality. In the models, parasitoids search either randomly (Poisson) (1) or by vibrotaxis (Negative Binomial) (2). Parasitoids are: (a) assumed (...) to treat all hosts equally, (b) able to distinguish them in unparasitised and parasitised hosts only, (c) able to distinguish them by the number of eggs they contained, or (d) able to recognise their own eggs. Mathematically tractable combinations of searching mode (1 and 2) and abilities (a,b,c,d) result in seven different models (M1a, M1b, M1c, M1d, M2a, M2b and M2c). These models have been simulated for a varying number of searching parasitoids and various mean numbers of eggs per host. Each resulting distribution is fitted to all theoretical models. The model with the minimum Akaike's information criterion (AIC) is chosen as the best fitting for each simulated distribution. We thus investigate the power of the AIC and for each distribution with a specified mean number of eggs per host we derive a frequency distribution for classification.Firstly, we discuss the simulations of models including random search (M1a, M1b, M1c and M1d). For M1a, M1c and M1d the simulated distributions are correctly classified in at least 70% of all cases. However, in a few cases model M1b is only properly classified for intermediate mean values of eggs per host. The models including vibrotaxis as searching behaviour (M2a, M2b and M2c) cannot be distinguished from those with random search if the mean number of eggs per host is low. Among the models incorporating vibrotaxis the three abilities are detected analogously as in models with random search. (shrink)

The general problem of visual search can be shown to be computationally intractable in a formal, complexity-theoretic sense, yet visual search is extensively involved in everyday perception, and biological systems manage to perform it remarkably well. Complexity level analysis may resolve this contradiction. Visual search can be reshaped into tractability through approximations and by optimizing the resources devoted to visual processing. Architectural constraints can be derived using the minimum cost principle to rule out a large class of (...) potential solutions. The evidence speaks strongly against bottom-up approaches to vision. In particular, the constraints suggest an attentional mechanism that exploits knowledge of the specific problem being solved. This analysis of visual search performance in terms of attentional influences on visual information processing and complexity satisfaction allows a large body of neurophysiological and psychological evidence to be tied together. (shrink)

Ryan, Jennie A current search of reliable internet sources gives the present number of recognised major world religions as somewhere between twenty two and twenty five. These religions have approximately 6.9 billion adherents. Recent meta-analysis of a range of surveys into non-belief in 'God' has reported that between 7% and 10% of the world's population identifies as non-theistic . Out of the top fifty countries with the largest percentage of self-professed atheists, , close to 80% are developed, democratic, mostly (...) European countries, with high standards of public healthcare and accessible food, water and housing. (shrink)

From approximately 900 to 1300 a.d., a period known to climatologists and historians of science as the Little Climatic Optimum, temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere averaged one or two degrees Fahrenheit above normal—this according to ice‐core samples, tree ring analysis, the calculation of sea levels, and other standards of measurement. In what would become known as the Four Corners region of the United States, the culture of the Anasazi flourished as never before in the now‐famous ruins of such magnificent cliff (...) dwellings as Chaco Canyon. Meanwhile, far to the north, the Viking raider and convicted killer Eric the Red brought European civilization by open boat to Greenland, so named to attract wary settlers whose common sense dictated that these harsh surroundings might spell their doom. Yet both cultures would flourish for upward of three hundred years.Things began to change for the worse in the latter half of the thirteenth century, as shifts in wind and weather ushered in the so‐called Little Ice Age, which lasted from about 1300 to 1850. Brian Fagan, a professor of archaeology at the University of California at Santa Barbara and the author of more than a dozen books, most of which are directed at the general reader, observes this period through the lens of climate change, with particular emphasis on what transpired in an anxious and often turbulent Europe.From 1300 onward the climate grew cooler, more stormy, and subject to sporadic extremes—in a word, unpredictable. Glaciers and pack ice advanced; rivers never known to freeze over became natural skating rinks; blizzards enveloped and erased the frozen landscape; and people starved and froze to death in the seemingly endless winters depicted by the Flemish master Peter Brueghel. At other times the climatic seesaw drove temperatures up, replacing bitter cold with blazing summers, drought, or torrential rains, changes that could take place in a single season or across decades. In between there were long periods of mild winters and warm summers that saw the harvesting of bountiful crops. But overall temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere declined, boosting the misery index of Europeans left to wonder what they had done to so offend an angry God.Unlike the current greenhouse warming ushered in by the Industrial Revolution, the climatic variability of the Little Ice Age remains, in Fagan's words, “a conundrum.” He speculates that it may have had much to do with a shift in the great ocean conveyor belt that rushes, like a thousand Amazons, from Southern Hemisphere to Northern and back again. Or it may be associated with the virtual disappearance of sunspots during much of the period under scrutiny, or with some other phenomenon that we know much too little about.The scientific causes aside, the author takes great pains to disassociate himself from what he calls “environmental determinism,” the notion that climate change has been a primary trigger for major historical events or that it has been the single most important cause of any civilization's decline and fall. Rather, he sees it as one of many factors, including politics, war, religion, and population shifts, that scholars must fold into their teaching of history and related subjects. This may be so in many instances, but how else to explain the literal overnight disappearance of the Anasazi from the Chaco, where the ashes from their fires of six hundred years ago lie scattered on the floor? Then there are the haunting words of Ivar Bardarson, a seafaring Norwegian priest who, in 1361, sailed up Greenland's west coast, hoping to make contact with his fellow Christians, from whom nothing had been heard for several years because of the ice. Search though they did, Bardarson and his companions found no survivors, causing the priest to remark: “There was never a man.”This well‐written and copiously illustrated book will make excellent reading for generalist and professional alike. And for those wishing to introduce the subject of climate change to undergraduates by placing it within a historical context, The Little Ice Age offers an excellent place to start. (shrink)

This paper explores the epistemology of extrapolation from model organisms to humans in molecular medicine. We take into account two common views on the issue, the homology view and the disanalogy view. In response to both interpretations, we argue that the foundational basis of extrapolations cannot simply be provided by homology and that relevant disanalogies can, thanks to the techniques of molecular biology, be experimentally controlled and exploited to allow useful and reliable extrapolations. The case of "humanised mice" in the (...) context of cancer stem cell research provides evidence of how animal models can be construed to approximate bona fide causal analogue models of human diseases. To supplement this view we show how the epistemology of model organisms needs to take into account the engineering side of molecular medicine. Model organisms are often manipulated to create analogies or remove disanalogies with the target system. We maintain that highlighting this feature is fundamental to explain what warrants extrapolation in the search for the molecular causes of disease. (shrink)

This study focuses on retraction notices from two major Latin American/caribbean indexing databases: SciELO and LILACS. SciELO includes open scientific journals published mostly in Latin America/the Caribbean, from which 10 % are also indexed by Thomson Reuters Web of Knowledge Journal of Citation Reports. LILACS has a similar geographical coverage and includes dissertations and conference/symposia proceedings, but it is limited to publications in the health sciences. A search for retraction notices was performed in these two databases using the keywords (...) “retracted”, “retraction” “withdrawal”, “withdrawn”, “removed” and “redress”. Documents were manually checked to identify those that actually referred to retractions, which were then analyzed and categorized according to the reasons alleged in the notices. Dates of publication/retraction and time to retraction were also recorded. Searching procedures were performed between June and December 2014. Thirty-one retraction notices were identified, fifteen of which were in JCR-indexed journals. “Plagiarism” was alleged in six retractions of this group. Among the non-JCR journals, retraction reasons were alleged in fourteen cases, twelve of which were attributed to “plagiarism”. The proportion of retracted articles for the SciELO database was approximately 0.005 %. The reasons alleged in retraction notices may be used as signposts to inform discussions in Latin America on plagiarism and research integrity. At the international level, these results suggest that the correction of the literature is becoming global and is not limited to mainstream international publications. (shrink)

Moral distress has emerged as a significant concern for critical care nurses, particularly due to the complex and demanding care provided to critically ill patients in critical care units. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has introduced new ethical challenges and changes in clinical practice, further exacerbating the experience of moral distress among these nurses. This systematic review compares the factors influencing moral distress among critical care nurses before and during the COVID-19 pandemic to gain a comprehensive understanding of the impact of (...) the pandemic on moral distress. For this systematic review, PubMed, Scopus, ProQuest, Web of Science, medRxiv, bioRxiv, Embase, and Google Scholar were all utilized in the search. The search covered articles published from 2012 to December 2022, encompassing a 10-year timeframe to capture relevant research on moral distress among critical care nurses. In total, 52 articles were included in this systematic review. The findings indicate that personal, caring-related, and organizational factors can influence nurses' moral distress. Before the pandemic, factors including futile and end-of-life care, conflicts with physicians, nurse performance and authority, poor teamwork, decision-making regarding treatment processes and patient care, limited human resources and equipment, medical errors, patient restraints, and nurses' age and work experience affect critical care nurses' moral distress. Similarly, during the COVID-19 pandemic, factors contributing to moral distress include futile and end-of-life care, fear of contracting and spreading COVID-19, decision-making about treatment processes, poor teamwork, and being female. This study revealed that the factors contributing to moral distress were approximately similar in both periods. Futile care and end-of-life issues were critical care nurses' primary causes of moral distress. Implementing prevention strategies and reducing these underlying factors could decrease this major issue and improve the quality of care. (shrink)

This study focuses on retraction notices from two major Latin American/Caribbean indexing databases: SciELO and LILACS. SciELO includes open scientific journals published mostly in Latin America/the Caribbean, from which 10 % are also indexed by Thomson Reuters Web of Knowledge Journal of Citation Reports. LILACS has a similar geographical coverage and includes dissertations and conference/symposia proceedings, but it is limited to publications in the health sciences. A search for retraction notices was performed in these two databases using the keywords (...) “retracted”, “retraction” “withdrawal”, “withdrawn”, “removed” and “redress”. Documents were manually checked to identify those that actually referred to retractions, which were then analyzed and categorized according to the reasons alleged in the notices. Dates of publication/retraction and time to retraction were also recorded. Searching procedures were performed between June and December 2014. Thirty-one retraction notices were identified, fifteen of which were in JCR-indexed journals. “Plagiarism” was alleged in six retractions of this group. Among the non-JCR journals, retraction reasons were alleged in fourteen cases, twelve of which were attributed to “plagiarism”. The proportion of retracted articles for the SciELO database was approximately 0.005 %. The reasons alleged in retraction notices may be used as signposts to inform discussions in Latin America on plagiarism and research integrity. At the international level, these results suggest that the correction of the literature is becoming global and is not limited to mainstream international publications. (shrink)

We show that data collected from corpuses of documents violate the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt version of Bell’s inequality and therefore indicate the presence of quantum entanglement in their structure. We obtain this result by considering two concepts and their combination and coincidence operations consisting of searches of co-occurrences of exemplars of these concepts in specific corpuses of documents. Measuring the frequencies of these co-occurrences and calculating the relative frequencies as approximate probabilities entering in the CHSH inequality, we obtain manifest violations of (...) the latter for all considered corpuses of documents. In comparing these violations with those analogously obtained in an earlier work for the same combined concepts in psychological coincidence experiments with human participants, also violating the CHSH inequality, we identify the entanglement as being carried by the meaning connection between the two considered concepts within the combination they form. We explain the stronger violation for the corpuses of documents, as compared to the violation in the psychology experiments, as being due to the superior meaning domain of the human mind and, on the other side, to the latter reaching a broader domain of meaning and being possibly also actively influenced during the experimentation. We mention some of the issues to be analyzed in future work such as the violations of the CHSH inequality being larger than the ‘Cirel’son bound’ for all of the considered corpuses of documents. (shrink)

Max Black has included approximately one half of the essays that he has published since Models and Metaphors in this collection entitled Margins of Precision. All but two of the essays have appeared in various professional journals, the two exceptions being Chapter V on "Induction" and Chapter VI on "Probability," which are articles in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Paul Edwards. The final chapter, "Wittgenstein’s Views About Language," is an address delivered at the Israel Academy, Jerusalem in 1966 and (...) published in Iyyun. Margins of Precision is an apt title for this anthology. The problems of induction that are a perennial concern of Black lie at the basis for margins of precision. Among these problems are criteria for correct induction, reasoning with loose concepts, and the gap between "Is" and "Should." Professor Black states that "Only in recent times have serious efforts been made to escape from the spell of the deductive model, used by Hume and his innumerable followers, by inquiring whether there may not be other proper and relevant senses of ‘reasonable'." According to Black, there is a sense of "reasonable" according to which we can reason with loose concepts, and there is need to advance further in our search for criteria for induction. His discussion of the gap between "Is" and "Should" suggests that this problem in metaethics is basically one of induction. For those interested in the problems of induction, Professor Black’s book is stimulating. He admits that he has "chosen topics where there is still work to be done." Each chapter opens the door to further thought.—L. A. (shrink)

This paper gives a philosophical assessment of the Montevideo interpretation of quantum theory, advocated by Gambini, Pullin and co-authors. This interpretation has the merit of linking its proposal about how to solve the measurement problem to the search for quantum gravity: namely by suggesting that quantum gravity makes for fundamental limitations on the accuracy of clocks, which imply a type of decoherence that “collapses the wave-packet”. I begin by sketching the topics of decoherence, and quantum clocks, on which the (...) interpretation depends. Then I expound the interpretation, from a philosopher's perspective. Finally, in Section 6, I argue that the interpretation, at least as developed so far, is best seen as a form of the Everett interpretation: namely with an effective or approximate branching, that is induced by environmental decoherence of the familiar kind, and by the Montevideans’ “temporal decoherence”. (shrink)

The first brief description is given of a project aimed at searching for the neural correlates of consciousness through computer simulation. The underlying model is based on the known circuitry of the mammalian nervous system, the neuronal groups of which are approximated as binary composite units. The simulated nervous system includes just two senses - hearing and touch - and it History..

Each bibliography includes a comprehensive list of the theorist's works and critical studies of these works in English. Each bibliography contains approximately 600 to 900 entries. Books, journal articles, essays within edited books (in the manner of Essay and General Literature) and dissertations are included. References are provided from a wide variety of disciplines and bibliographic sources. The primary purpose of each bibliography is to provide access to the widely reprinted primary works in English and the critical literature in a (...) great variety of books and journals. The topical bibliographies include the authoritative works on the subject and are arranged in useful categories. The lively part of the modern/post-modern debate is generally taking place in alternative and left journals -- journals always included in the literature search in the compiling of the bibliographies. (shrink)

The first brief description is given of a project aimed at searching for the neural correlates of consciousness through computer simulation. The underlying model is based on the known circuitry of the mammalian nervous system, the neuronal groups of which are approximated as binary composite units. The simulated nervous system includes just two senses - hearing and touch - and it drives a set of muscles that serve vocalisation, feeding and bladder control. These functions were chosen because of their relevance (...) to the earliest stages of human life, and the simulation has been given the name CyberChild. The system's pain receptors respond to a sufficiently low milk level in the stomach, if there is simultaneously a low level of blood sugar, and also to a full bladder and an unchanged diaper. It is believed that it may be possible to infer the presence of consciousness in the simulation through observations of CyberChild's behaviour, and from the monitoring of its ability to ontogenetically acquire novel reflexes. The author has suggested that this ability is the crucial evolutionary advantage of possessing consciousness. The project is still in its very early stages, and although no suggestion of consciousness has yet emerged, there appears to be no fundamental reason why consciousness could not ultimately develop and be observed. (shrink)

This essay takes the last pages of Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time at its word: at the moment the narrator achieves a definitive conception of the work he intends to write, he sees society composed, not of people of flesh and blood, but of monsters fit for a museum of natural history. As the novel culminates in images and concepts that are essentially nonhuman, inhuman, or posthuman in character, it demonstrates an exacting knowledge of what the present (...) is only now beginning to realize: after two world wars and humanity’s recent entry into what is called the age of the Anthropocene, certain fundamental relations (between subject and object, between nature and history, between past, present, and future) must be rethought to account for both the eclipse of the human as well as nature’s ultimate survival. This essay seeks to develop a philosophical form that would approximate the novel’s discovery of this posthuman natural history. (shrink)

The 1981 Uniform Determination of Death Act (UDDA) established the validity of both cardio-respiratory and neurological criteria of death. However, many religious traditions including most forms of Haredi Judaism (ultra-orthodox) and many varieties of Buddhism strongly disagree with death by neurological criteria (DNC). Only one state in the U.S., New Jersey, allows for both religious exemptions to DNC and provides continuation of health insurance coverage when an exception is invoked in its 1991 Declaration of Death Act (NJDDA). There is yet (...) no quantitative or qualitative data on the frequencies of religious exemptions in New Jersey. This study gathered information about the frequency of religious exemptions and policy in New Jersey that was created out of respect for religious beliefs. Literature and internet searches on topics related to religious objections to DNC were conducted. Fifty-three chaplains and heads of bioethics committees in New Jersey hospitals were contacted by phone or email requesting a research interview. Respondents answered a set of questions about religious exemptions to DNC at the hospital where they worked that explored the frequency of such religious exemptions in the past five years, the religious tradition indicated, and whether any request for a religious exemption had been denied. This study was approved by the Northeastern University Institutional Review Board (IRB #: 16–03-15). Eighteen chaplains and bioethics committee members participated in a full research interview. Of these, five reported instances of religious exemptions to DNC occurring at the hospital at which they worked for a total of approximately 30–36 known exemptions in the past five years. Families sought religious exemptions because of faith in an Orthodox Judaism tradition and nonreligious reasons. No failed attempts to obtain an exemption were reported. Religious exemptions to DNC in New Jersey do occur, although very infrequently. Prior to this study, there was no information on their frequency. Considering religious exemptions do occur, there is a need for national or state policies that addresses both religious objections to DNC and hospital resources. More information is needed to better understand the impact of granting religious exemptions before new policy can be established. (shrink)

It is shown that in a range of models, the probability that a forager dies from starvation is, to a good approximation, an exponential function of energy reserves. Using a time and energy budget for a 19g passerine, we explore the consequences, in terms of starvation and predation, of various levels of energy reserves. It is shown that there exists an optimal level L of reserves at which total mortality (starvation plus predation) is minimized. L increases when the environment deteriorates (...) as a result of a decrease in either temperature or mean gross gain or an increase in the mean search time. The effect of combined deteriorations is greater than the sum of their individual effects. At L, the probability of predation is much higher than the probability of starvation. A simple analytic model suggests that this result will be fairly general, but also indicates conditions under which the result might not hold. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the search for explainable models and interpretable decisions in AI must be reformulated in terms of the broader project of offering a pragmatic and naturalistic account of understanding in AI. Intuitively, the purpose of providing an explanation of a model or a decision is to make it understandable to its stakeholders. But without a previous grasp of what it means to say that an agent understands a model or a decision, the explanatory strategies (...) will lack a well-defined goal. Aside from providing a clearer objective for XAI, focusing on understanding also allows us to relax the factivity condition on explanation, which is impossible to fulfill in many machine learning models, and to focus instead on the pragmatic conditions that determine the best fit between a model and the methods and devices deployed to understand it. After an examination of the different types of understanding discussed in the philosophical and psychological literature, I conclude that interpretative or approximation models not only provide the best way to achieve the objectual understanding of a machine learning model, but are also a necessary condition to achieve post hoc interpretability. This conclusion is partly based on the shortcomings of the purely functionalist approach to post hoc interpretability that seems to be predominant in most recent literature. (shrink)

In an era characterized by fast technological progress that introduces new unpredictable scenarios every day, working in the law field may appear very difficult, if not supported by the right tools. In this respect, some systems based on Artificial Intelligence methods have been proposed in the literature, to support several tasks in the legal sector. Following this line of research, in this paper we propose a novel method, called PRILJ, that identifies paragraph regularities in legal case judgments, to support legal (...) experts during the redaction of legal documents. Methodologically, PRILJ adopts a two-step approach that first groups documents into clusters, according to their semantic content, and then identifies regularities in the paragraphs for each cluster. Embedding-based methods are adopted to properly represent documents and paragraphs into a semantic numerical feature space, and an Approximated Nearest Neighbor Search method is adopted to efficiently retrieve the most similar paragraphs with respect to the paragraphs of a document under preparation. Our extensive experimental evaluation, performed on a real-world dataset provided by EUR-Lex, proves the effectiveness and the efficiency of the proposed method. In particular, its ability of modeling different topics of legal documents, as well as of capturing the semantics of the textual content, appear very beneficial for the considered task, and make PRILJ very robust to the possible presence of noise in the data. (shrink)

BackgroundEarly in the COVID-19 pandemic, the urgent need to discover effective therapies for COVID-19 prompted questions about the ethical problem of randomization along with its widely accepted solution: equipoise. In this scoping review, uses of equipoise in discussions of randomized controlled trials of COVID-19 therapies are evaluated to answer three questions. First, how has equipoise been applied to COVID-19 research? Second, has equipoise been employed accurately? And third, do concerns about equipoise pose a barrier to the ethical conduct of COVID-19 (...) RCTs?MethodsGoogle Scholar and Pubmed were searched for articles containing substantial discussion about equipoise and COVID-19 RCTs. 347 article titles were screened, 91 full text articles were assessed, and 48 articles were included. Uses of equipoise were analyzed and abstracted into seven categories.Results and discussionApproximately two-thirds of articles used equipoise in a way that is consistent with the concept. They invoked equipoise to support RCTs of specific therapies, RCTs in general, and the early termination of RCTs after achieving the primary outcome. Approximately one-third of articles used equipoise in a manner that is inconsistent with the concept. These articles argued that physician preference, widespread use of unproven therapies, patient preference, or expectation of therapeutic benefit may undermine equipoise and render RCTs unethical. In each case, the purported ethical problem can be resolved by correcting the use of equipoise.ConclusionsOur findings highlight the continued relevance of equipoise as it supports the conduct of well-conceived RCTs and provides moral guidance to physicians and researchers as they search for effective therapies for COVID-19. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to present a chaotic fruit fly algorithm as an optimization approach for solving engineering design problems. In CFFA, the fruit fly algorithm, which is recognized for its durability and efficiency in addressing optimization problems, was paired with the chaotic local search method, which allows for local exploitation. CFFA will be set up to work in two phases: in the first, FFA will be used to discover an approximate solution, and in the second, (...) chaotic local search will be used to locate the optimal solution. As a result, CFFA can address difficulties associated with the basic FFA such as falling into local optima, an imbalance between exploitation and exploration, and a lack of optimum solution acquisition. The chaotic logistic map is employed in the CLS because it has been demonstrated to be effective in improving the quality of solutions and giving the best performance by many studies. The proposed algorithm is tested by the set of CEC’2005 special sessions on real parameter optimization and many EDPs from the most recent test suite CEC’2020. The results have demonstrated the superiority of the proposed approach to finding the global optimal solution. Finally, CFFA′s results were compared to those of earlier research, and statistical analysis using Friedman and Wilcoxon's tests revealed its superiority and capacity to tackle this type of problem. (shrink)

Purpose ‐ The purpose of this paper is to explore the "resource curse" problem as a counter-example of creative performance and innovation by examining reliance on capital and physical resources, showing the gap between expectations and ex-post actual performance that became clearer under conditions of economic turmoil. Design/methodology/approach ‐ The analysis uses logistic regressions with dichotomous response and predictor variables on structured tables of count data, representing firm performance as an outcome of capital resources, physical resources and innovation where appropriate. (...) Findings ‐ Key findings relevant to economic and business practice follow. First, a typical characteristic of successful Vietnamese firms in the transition period is their reliance on either capital resources or physical asset endowments. Second, poor performers exhibit evidence of over-reliance on both capital and physical assets. Third, firms that relied on both types of resources tended to downplay creative performance. Some evidence suggests that firms face more acute problem caused by the law of diminishing returns in troubled times. Fourth, the "innovation factor" has not been tapped as a source of economic growth. Research limitations/implications ‐ This study has some limitations. The size of the survey sample is approximately 150 firms, while the potential sample of > 300 should be possible in the future. When the size increases, the research could be expanded to include further variables that will help investigate more deeply into the related issues and business implications. With regard to the implications of the study, the absence of innovations has made the notion of "resource curse" identical to "destructive creation" implemented by ex-ante resource-rich firms, and worsened the problem of resource misallocation in transition turmoil. The Vietnamese corporate sector's addiction to resources may contribute to economic deterioration, through a downward spiral of lower efficiency leading to consumption of more resources. Practical implications ‐ Insights obtained from this study could save transition economies' resources which have almost always been considered sine qua non before any critical major policymaking, while this is not necessarily true, and in many cases, even counterproductive. Originality/value ‐ Original data set on Vietnam stock market are collected, processed, prepared and used by the authors. Original design by the authors for regression equations with dichotomous predictor variables: dependence on endowed physical assets, reliance on capital resources and significant signs of creative performance/innovations. Original idea of viewing "resource curse" as absence of innovation and due to uncreative "destructive creation" of poor-performing commercial operations by resource-rich firms is used in the paper. We have searched the literature in business research and found that the empirical results have not been previously reported. (shrink)

Recent studies of semantic memory have investigated two theories of optimal search adopted from the animal foraging literature: Lévy flights and marginal value theorem. Each theory makes different simplifying assumptions and addresses different findings in search behaviors. In this study, an experiment is conducted to test whether clustering in semantic memory may play a role in evidence for both theories. Labeled magnets and a whiteboard were used to elicit spatial representations of semantic knowledge about animals. Category recall sequences (...) from a separate experiment were used to trace search paths over the spatial representations of animal knowledge. Results showed that spatial distances between animal names arranged on the whiteboard were correlated with inter-response intervals during category recall, and distributions of both dependent measures approximated inverse power laws associated with Lévy flights. In addition, IRIs were relatively shorter when paths first entered animal clusters, and longer when they exited clusters, which is consistent with marginal value theorem. In conclusion, area-restricted searches over clustered semantic spaces may account for two different patterns of results interpreted as supporting two different theories of optimal memory foraging. (shrink)

Recent studies have shown that population-level time perspectives can be approximated using “big data” on search engine queries, and that these indices, in turn, predict the per-capita Gross Domestic Product of countries. Although these findings seem to support Baumard's suggestion that affluence makes people more future-oriented, they also reveal a more complex relationship between time perspectives and economic outputs.

Solitons, i.e. solitary localized waves with particle-like behaviour, and multi-solitons occur virtually everywhere. There is a good reason for that in that there is a solid, albeit somewhat heuristic argument which says that for wave-like phenomena the 'soliton approximation' is the next one after the linear one. It is also not too difficult via some searching in the voluminous literature - many hundreds of papers on solitons each year - to write down a long list of equations which admit soliton (...) solutions and which model phenomena ranging over all the physical, biological, chemical and geological sciences as well as engineering. Yet, when lecturing on (mathematical) aspects of solitons I have found it not so easy to go beyond listing these equations. Largely because of lack of a book like this, which discusses where and how solitons arise, how they behave, whether or not they are stable and in what sense, which discusses approximate solitons and solitons in multidimensional spaces (which in a first simple natural formulation cannot exist), which discusses soliton (computer) experiments; all this for a wide range of phenomena especially in connection with solid state physics. There is a great deal of analytic material as well as there is especially a considerable collection of challenges for theoretical understanding. A great deal of the material covered in this book has not appeared in the monographic literature before. The phenomenology of solitons is very rich indeed. (shrink)

For nearly two thousand years Buddhism has mystified and captivated both lay people and scholars alike. Seen alternately as a path to spiritual enlightenment, an system of ethical and moral rubrics, a cultural tradition, or simply a graceful philosophy of life, Buddhism has produced impassioned followers the world over. The Buddhist saint Nagarjuna, who lived in South India in approximately the first century CE, is undoubtedly the most important, influential, and widely studied Mahayana Buddhist philosopher. His many works include texts (...) addressed to lay audiences, letters of advice to kings, and a set of penetrating metaphysical and epistemological treatises. His greatest philosophical work, the Mulamadhyamikakarika--read and studied by philosophers in all major Buddhist schools of Tibet, China, Japan, and Korea--is one of the most influential works in the history of Indian philosophy. Now, in The Foundations of the Philosophy of the Middle Way, Jay L. Garfield provides a clear and and eminently readable translation of Nagarjuna's seminal work, offering those with little of no prior knowledge of Buddhist philosophy a view into the profound logic of the Mulamadhyamikakarika. Translated from the Tibetan, the tradition through which Nagarjuna's philosophical influence has largely been transmitted, Garfield presents a superb translation of Mulamadhyamikakarika in its entirety. Illuminating the systematic character of Nagarjuna's reasoning, as well as the works profundity, Garfield shows how Nagarjuna develops his doctrine that all phenomena are empty of inherent existence and essenceless. But, he argues, phenomena nonetheless exist conventionaly, and that indeed conventional existence and ultimate emptiness are in fact the same thing. This represents the radical understanding of the Buddhist doctrine of the two truths, or two levels of reality. Nagarjuna reinterprets all of Buddhist metaphysics and epistemology through this analytical framework--"a systematic and beautifully elegant philosophical dissection of reality." In turn, Garfield goes on to offer the only verse-by-verse commentary based upon the Indo-Tibetan Prasangika-Madhyamika reading of Nagarjuna, the school most influential in the development of Mahayana philosophy in Tibet, China, Korea, and Japan. Written specifically for the Western reader, the commentary explains Nagarjuna's positions and arguments in the language of Western metaphysics and epistemology, and connects Nagarjuna's concerns tho those of Western philosophers such as Sextus, Hume, and Wittgenstein. A fascinating and accessible translation of the foundational text for all Mahayana Buddhism text, The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way will enlighten all those in search of the essence of reality. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Using The Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola as a Basis for a Buddhist-Christian RetreatLen Tischler and Andre Delbecqorigin of the retreatJesuit (Catholic) universities have struggled to preserve their religious worldview and pass it on to their students, faculty, and staff. Given that most faculty and administrators at these universities are laypeople and many are not Catholic, the universities depend largely on their campus mission/ministry offices for this purpose. (...) One of the primary methods of sharing their worldview has been to provide retreats for students.The retreats are introspective with a religious and Jesuit orientation. Most student retreats are conducted over a weekend; some over a full week. Most Jesuit universities get fewer than ten percent of their students to attend one retreat in their four years on campus. Far fewer students attend more than one retreat. These schools also attempt to encourage faculty and staff to attend similar retreats, and participation in these retreats is similarly modest.Retreats have been a primary tool for the formation of Jesuit priests. Their formation program includes taking at least two retreats of twenty-eight to thirty days each. These retreats use the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola, a specific pattern of reflective meditation and introspection over twenty-eight days that leads to greater clarity about one’s life. The Spiritual Exercises are deeply theistic and are focused on the person of Jesus.Jesuit universities have an increasing number of non-Catholics and non-Christians. For most Christians, shorter retreats or spiritually directed meditations based on the Exercises and undertaken over a number of weeks (referred to as the nineteenth annotation form) are the preferred form. However, there have been limited resources for juxtaposing the Ignatian Exercises with non-Christian traditions.With the above in mind, the authors designed a three-day retreat that follows the pattern and purpose of the Exercises for a Christian, but which presents in parallel [End Page 213] meditations and reflections from the Buddhist tradition. (Sarita Tamayo-Moraga, Bo Tep, and Juan Velasco were co-designers of the retreat and co-authors of the manuscript for the retreat.) This allows Ignatian perspectives on the unfolding spiritual journey and Buddhist wisdom to be shared between Christians and Buddhists. To test our design, a first retreat was undertaken by spiritually mature adults with some experience with the interface between Buddhism and Christianity.the retreatThe Spiritual Exercises are published with contemporary commentary in a number of books. Originally written in the early1500s, they have been rewritten or interpreted for modern times. Often both the original commentary by Ignatius and a contemporary interpretation are provided. Since our retreat was only three days, the essence of each section of the Exercises was summarized in a page or so. With the help of three Buddhist teachers (Sarita Tamayo-Moraga, Bo Tep, and Juan Velasco), we then spent the better part of a year meditating with the Ignatian passages and then searching a variety of Buddhist writings for passages that spoke to a similar spiritual challenge within the Buddhist worldview. A manuscript (Andre L. Delbecq, Sarita Tamayo-Moraga, Bo Tep, Len Tischler, and Juan Velasco, Ignatius and the Buddha in Conversation: A Resource for a Religiously Plural Dialog, self-published, 2014) was created that comprised six sections, each containing a summary of the essence of a section from the Exercises followed by the related Buddhist writings. Original artwork related to both traditions was prepared by a talented Zen artist.For the initial retreat we chose people who had a deep background in both traditions with approximately an equal number of Buddhists and Catholics. Since our focus was Jesuit universities, we chose mostly academics, but there were also two executives. Participants were asked to read the manuscript containing the reflections from the Exercises and Buddhist wisdom before the retreat so that they would be familiar with the content. Catholics and some Buddhists also read the Exercises in full. There were twelve participants.The retreat was structured into six parts. Each part began with two thirty-minute meditations, one on the Ignatian Exercises in the corner with the Ignatius icon, the other on the Buddhist quotes in the corner with... (shrink)

A* PCFG parsing can dramatically reduce the time required to find the exact Viterbi parse by conservatively estimating outside Viterbi probabilities. We discuss various estimates and give efficient algorithms for computing them. On Penn treebank sentences, our most detailed estimate reduces the total number of edges processed to less than 3% of that required by exhaustive parsing, and even a simpler estimate which can be pre-computed in under a minute still reduces the work by a factor of 5. The algorithm (...) extends the classic A* graph search procedure to a certain hypergraph associated with parsing. Unlike bestfirst and finite-beam methods for achieving this kind of speed-up, the A* parser is guaranteed to return the most likely parse, not just an approximation. The algorithm is also correct for a wide range of parser control strategies and maintains a worst-case cubic time bound. (shrink)

Each bibliography includes a comprehensive list of the theorist's works and critical studies of these works in English. Each bibliography contains approximately 600 to 900 entries. Books, journal articles, essays within edited books (in the manner of Essay and General Literature) and dissertations are included. References are provided from a wide variety of disciplines and bibliographic sources. The primary purpose of each bibliography is to provide access to the widely reprinted primary works in English and the critical literature in a (...) great variety of books and journals. The topical bibliographies include the authoritative works on the subject and are arranged in useful categories. The lively part of the modern/post-modern debate is generally taking place in alternative and left journals -- journals always included in the literature search in the compiling of the bibliographies. (shrink)

Although many physicists have little interest in philosophical arguments about their subject, an analysis of debates about the paradoxes of quantum mechanics shows that their disagreements often depend upon assumptions about the relationship between theories and the real world. Some consider that physics is about building mathematical models which necessarily have limited domains of applicability, while others are searching for a final theory of everything, to which their favourite theory is supposed to be an approximation. We discuss some particular recent (...) debates about quantum theory in which the underlying assumptions are not fully articulated. Introduction Setting the scene The Ghirardi, Rimini and Weber theory Quantum marbles Radioactive decay and isomerism The limits of quantum theory. (shrink)