IN his article, "Decision and Existence," Newton P. Stallknecht suggests that the insight of the existentialist should be brought to bear on the traditional problem of characterizing existence. In particular, he is concerned to show how the philosophy of Leibniz involves a mode of thinking which has "failed to apprehend the true quality of existence." Because the "extreme 'essentialism' of Leibniz's theology stands... in contrast with his keen sense of the individual and the spontaneous," this philosophy, the author contends, should (...) appeal to, and fascinate, the student of existentialism. Let us note that two questions are involved in the issue as presented by Mr. Stallknecht. (shrink)

I wish to comment upon Mr. Hendel's suggestion along two lines: 1) the feasibility of Hume's solution; and 2) the implications of empiricism for man's freedom as knower and agent. Of course, Hume's skepticism did draw the "sting out of physical necessity and made it harmless," as Hendel indicates. But the force of this skepticism was also to impugn reason--or reasoning--and this the philosophes were unwilling to countenance. That man was an unknowable factor in an equally unknowable universe did not (...) fit in with their notion of a proper fruit of the philosophical enterprise. And though they were caught between the demands of the moral life and the persuasion of the scientific world view, their belief, that they should stick with the problem of talking about man and his world in the same categories without being skeptical about either, was sound. They must have felt that skepticism was a relatively easy and simple expedient, and a position incompatible with that of scientific naturalism. (shrink)

Are there sex differences in pain? For experimentally delivered somatic stimuli, females have lower thresholds, greater ability to discriminate, higher pain ratings, and less tolerance of noxious stimuli than males. These differences, however, are small, exist only for certain forms of stimulation and are affected by many situational variables such as presence of disease, experimental setting, and even nutritive status. For endogenous pains, women report more multiple pains in more body regions than men. With no obvious underlying rationale, some painful (...) diseases are more prevalent among females, others among males and, for many diseases, symptoms differ between females and males. Sex differences in attitudes exist that affect not only reporting, coping, and responses to treatment, but also measurement and treatment. So many variables are operative, however, that the most striking feature of sex differences in reported pain experience is the apparent overall lack of them. On the other hand, deduction from known biological sex differences suggests that these are powerful sex differences in the operation of pain mechanisms. First, the vaginal canal provides an additional route in women for internal trauma and invasion by pathological agents that puts them at greater risk for developing hyperalgesia in multiple body regions. Second, sex differences in temporal patterns are likely to give rise to sex differences in how pain is and stimuli are interpreted, a situation that could lead to a greater variability and wider range of pains without obvious peripheral pathology among females. Third, sex differences in the actions of sex hormones suggest pain-relevant differences in the operation of many neuroactive agents, opiate and nonopiate systems, nerve growth factor, and the sympathetic system. Thus, while inductive analysis of existing data demonstrate more similarities than differences in pain experience between females and males, deductive analysis suggests important operational sex differences in its production. (shrink)

Sex is one of biology's, that is, life's most potent experimental variables. So, are there sex differences in pain? And are these sex differences applicable clinically? The answer to both questions is decidedly yes, of course. But we still have a long way to go. We have much to learn from the study of females, making use of the lifelong changes in their reproductive conditions as experimental variables. We also have much to learn from animals, especially if we apply what (...) we know about their social lives. However, the challenge in all of these studies is not first to look for some mythical neurological entity called pain experience and then to learn how sex modulates it, but rather to seek to understand the rules by which sex influences all of biology's mutually modulatory factors that collectively create the motivating circumstances we designate as pain. It appears almost beyond doubt that on the one hand these factors interact to make women more vulnerable to these circumstances than men, but on the other hand that women have more varied mechanisms for balance. Happily, the details of these sex differences at all levels biological (social to genetic) are now emerging in a rapidly growing body of literature that promises new insights into and applications for the individual person, male or female, in persistent pain. (shrink)

Computable analysis provides ways of representing points in a topological space, and therefore of defining a notion of computable points of the space. In this article, we investigate when two topologies on the same space induce different sets of computable points. We first study a purely topological version of the problem, which is to understand when two topologies are not $\sigma $ -homeomorphic. We obtain a characterization leading to an effective version, and we prove that two topologies satisfying this condition (...) induce different sets of computable points. Along the way, we propose an effective version of the Baire category theorem which captures the construction technique, and enables one to build points satisfying properties that are co-meager with respect to a topology, and are computable with respect to another topology. Finally, we generalize the result to three topologies and give an application to prove that certain sets do not have computable type, which means that they have a homeomorphic copy that is semicomputable but not computable. (shrink)

The article investigates the political cartoon construction of two major `players' on the contemporary political stage, and the semio-linguistic and visual rhetorical tools used to achieve this construction, through an analysis of semiotic-discursive aspects of a small corpus of political cartoons in English and Arabic, all about the two `players' — George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden — in the aftermath of 9/11 and within the ongoing `war on terror', followed by a more detailed analysis of two political cartoon (...) texts from the corpus — one in Arabic about Bush and the other in English about bin Laden. A rationale for the combination of semiotics and critical discourse analysis and a discussion of the nature and functions of political cartoon are provided. These are followed by a review of the relevant literature with a focus on political cartoons. The analysis, drawing upon the `dispositive' model and the incongruity theory of humor, addresses the verbal and visual aspects of the cartoons, instances of blending, incongruity and visual metaphors therein. Some major notions in CDA, for example Van Dijk's ideological square and Chilton's legitimation and proximization, are also utilized in examining the sample cartoons. The detailed analysis of the two cartoons elaborates on the salient features and generic aspects of the sample, specifically on incongruity, blending and visual metaphor, toward an understanding of the messages of the cartoons, the tools used to convey these messages and how they contribute to the ongoing war of ideological misrepresentation. (shrink)

Policy Interaction Graph Analysis is a Host-based Intrusion Detection tool that uses Linux MAC Mandatory access control policy to build the licit information flow graph and uses a detection policy defined by the administrator to extract illicit behaviour from the graph. The main limitation of this tool is the generation of a huge signature base of illicit behaviours; hence, this leads to the use of huge memory space to store it. Our primary goal in this article is to reduce this (...) memory space while keeping the tool’s efficiency in terms of intrusion detection rate and false generated alarms. First, the interactions between the two nodes of the graph were grouped into a single interaction. The notion of equivalence class was used to classify the paths in the graph and was compressed by using a genetic algorithm. Such an approach showed its efficiency compared to the approach proposed by Pierre Clairet, by which the detection rate obtained was 99.9%, and no false-positive with a compression rate of illicit behaviour signature database reached 99.44%. Having these results is one of the critical aspects of realizing successful host-based intrusion detection systems. (shrink)

Business performance is traditionally viewed from the one-dimensional financial angle. This paper develops a new approach that links performance to the ethical vision of Islam based on maqasid al-shari’ah . The approach involves a Pentagon-shaped performance scheme structure via five pillars, namely wealth, posterity, intellect, faith, and human self. Such a scheme ensures that any firm or organization can ethically contribute to the promotion of human welfare, prevent corruption, and enhance social and economic stability and not merely maximize its own (...) performance in terms of its financial return. A quantitative measure of ethical performance is developed. It surprisingly shows that a firm or organization following only the financial aspect at the expense of the others performs poorly. This paper discusses further the practical instances of the quantitative measurement of the ethical aspects of the system taken at an aggregate level. (shrink)

One of the most important rights of the child organized by Islamic law is the right of custody, and th performance of this right is shared between the spouses in the event of marriage. But if the marriage ends and the family contact is dissolved, the first to take custody of the child is his mother, unless there is an emergency that her right to so is waived. If the custody period ends, the rivalry between the parents intensifies, both of (...) which want to take the child to his side. Then who decides the fate of the child in this period and does his choice have a role in resolving the dispute. And what if he chooses him together or the child chooses someone else or refrain from the child's choice to keep the child with him. This research comes to answer these and other questions? by speaking briefly about the legality of custody and it's general principles. And then the scholar sayings that the child has the right to choose between his parents at the end of custody period, to give their evidence, to discuss them, to weigh these statements, and to make a statement that is applicable in most famous personal status laws in the Arab countries. (shrink)

We test conformity-related values applying the value-pragmatics hypothesis by evaluating how personal values related to compliance moderate the relationships between situational factors and unethical decisions. We examine the direct and indirect effects of the values of traditionalism, conformity, and stimulation, as they combine with the situational factors of rewards and punishments in the person–situation interaction model. We find strong support for the value-pragmatics view of ethical decision making and further build support for the person–situation interaction model.

We acknowledge the limitations in measures of moral reasoning and pursue an alternative technique by investigating past behaviors as they relate to present behavioral intentions. Our purpose is to evaluate the merits of patterned normative behavior for predicting present and future, morally relevant outcomes. Participants completed a policy capturing experimental design responding to questions that orthogonally varied the situational nature of the decision context. Results indicate that past normative behaviors are significantly and directly related to ethical behavioral intentions. Moreover, they (...) moderate the relationships between situational factors and intended outcomes as well as moral reasoning and intended outcomes. (shrink)

Replacing the value-free ideal (VFI) for science requires attention to the broader understanding of how science in society should function. In public spaces, science needed to project the VFI in norms for science advising, science education, and science communication. This resulted in the independent science advisor model and a focus on science literacy for science education and communication. Attending to these broader implications of the VFI which structure science and society relationships is crucial if we are to properly replace the (...) VFI with a better ideal. (shrink)

The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the considerable challenge of sourcing expertise and determining which experts to trust. Dissonant information fostered controversy in public discourse and encouraged an appeal to a wide range of social indicators of trustworthiness in order to decide whom to trust. We analyze public discourse on expertise by examining how social indicators inform the reputation of Dr. Didier Raoult, the French microbiologist who rose to international prominence as an early advocate for using hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19. To (...) comprehend how these indicators came to inform his reputation, we outline Dr. Raoult's rise to fame based on discourse about hydroxychloroquine. We then discuss why we trust in experts like scientist-practitioners. This is followed by an examination of how social indicators of trust like status, epistemic authority, influence and values have informed Dr. Raoult's reputation. We conclude with recommendations for how to improve the selection and evaluation social indicators of trust and reputations. Our aim here, instead of making a claim about the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine or Dr. Raoult's reputation per se, is to outline through this case study how social indicators of trust inform reputation and the challenge they present to evaluating expertise. (shrink)

Sex is a fundamentally important biological variable. Recent years have seen significant progress in the integration of sex in many aspects of basic and clinical research, including analyses of sex differences in brain function. Significant advances in the technology available for studying the endocrine and nervous systems are now coupled with a more sophisticated awareness of the interconnections of these two communication systems of the body. A thorough understanding of the current knowledge, conceptual approaches, methodological capabilities, and challenges is a (...) prerequisite to continued progress in research and therapeutics in this interdisciplinary area. Sex Differences in the Brain provides scientists with the basic tools for investigating sex differences in brain and behavior and insight into areas where important progress in understanding physiologically relevant sex differences has already been made. This book was edited and co-authored by members of the Isis Fund Network on Sex, Gender, Drugs and the Brain, sponsored by the Society for Womens Health Research. The book is arranged in three parts. The first part of the book introduces the study of sex differences in the brain, with an overview of how the brain, stress systems, and pharmacogenetics differ in males and females and how this information is important for the study of behavior and neurobiology of both genders. The second part presents examples of sex differences in neurobiology and behavior from both basic and clinical research perspectives, covering both humans and nonhuman animals. The final part discusses sex differences in the neurobiology of disease and neurological disorders. For interested individuals as well as those who are considering conducting research at the intersections of endocrinology, neuroscience, and other areas of biomedicine, the study of sex differences offers exciting and challenging questions and perspectives. This book is intended as a guide and resource for clinicians, scientists, and students. (shrink)

I served as a medical student and resident in the 1960s. Science as a belief system had reached a pinnacle. Yet Not infrequently in those days, I found myself caring, with little available backup, for a hospital ward filled with sick and dying people. It was a lonely and often frightening responsibility. I began to encounter situations that were at odds with our collective certainty that science would provide the answers. Some of these memories I repressed for almost a decade. (...) I was unable to process them until I had personally experienced a more humanistic side of medicine. (shrink)

The recent proposal by the Independent Expert Panel of the Stop Ecocide initiative to include the crime of ecocide in the International Criminal Court's Rome Statute has raised expectations for preventing and remedying severe environmental harm through international prosecution. As alluring as this image is, we argue that ecocide prosecutions may be the most difficult, perhaps even impossible, in precisely the cases that the ICC would need to be concerned with; namely, the gravest global incidents of environmental harm, including those (...) associated with planetary climate change. We explore a series of questions about the panel's formulation of ecocide that resonate with longer debates around criminalizing environmental harm but take on new dimensions amid the Anthropocene and after twenty years of ICC trials. Ecocide must contend with the hard lessons learned concerning the ICC's limitations in realizing justice in a fraught international political context and also with fundamental challenges to knowledge and legitimacy arising from the uncertainty and dynamic socioenvironmental context of the Anthropocene. The proposed amendment, if adopted, risks ineffective prosecutions or even perverse outcomes for the environment itself. This risk, however, may characterize any effort to prosecute ecocide internationally in the Anthropocene unless the terms of international criminal law are fundamentally rethought. (shrink)

La guerre d’Algérie a été l’occasion d’une remise en cause de l’image traditionnelle du combattant. Ni les formes de combat, ni les activités demandées aux soldats français, ni les ennemis qu’on les chargeait de poursuivre ne pouvaient les conforter dans l’image que les appelés du contingent avaient du statut militaire. Ces décalages eurent des conséquences sur les modèles de masculinité élaborés et éprouvés pendant la guerre, que ce soit entre hommes ou par rapport aux femmes.

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.