We identify two aspects of the problem of maintaining perceptual stability despite an observer's eye movements. The first, visual direction constancy, is the (egocentric) stability of apparent positions of objects in the visual world relative to the perceiver. The second, visual position constancy, is the (exocentric) stability of positions of objects relative to each other. We analyze the constancy of visual direction despite saccadic eye movements.Three information sources have been proposed to enable the visual system to achieve stability: the structure (...) of the visual field, proprioceptive inflow, and a copy of neural efference or outflow to the extraocular muscles. None of these sources by itself provides adequate information to achieve visual direction constancy; present evidence indicates that all three are used.Our final question concerns how information processing operations result in a stable world. The three traditionally suggested means have been elimination, translation, or evaluation. All are rejected. From a review of the physiological and psychological evidence we conclude that no subtraction, compensation, or evaluation need take place. The problem for which these solutions were developed turns out to be a false one. We propose a “calibration” solution: correct spatiotopic positions are calculated anew for each fixation. Inflow, outflow, and retinal sources are used in this calculation: saccadic suppression of displacement bridges the errors between these sources and the actual extent of movement. (shrink)

In this article we present a notion of “logical perfection”. We first describe through examples a notion oflogical perfectionextracted from the contemporary logical concept of categoricity. Categoricity (in power) has become in the past half century a main driver of ideas in model theory, both mathematically (stability theory may be regarded as a way of approximating categoricity) and philosophically. In the past two decades, categoricity notions have started to overlap with more classical notions of robustness and smoothness. These have been (...) crucial in various parts of mathematics since the nineteenth century. We postulate and present the category of logical perfection. We draw on various notions of perfection from mathematics of the 19th and 20th centuries and then trace the relation to the concept of categoricity in power as a logical notion of what a “mathematically perfect” structure is. (shrink)

The article elaborates on the emergence of a new social category: the “worker incapable of working,” which has not yet been recognized in the scientific literature. In Germany, people excluded from the labour market are increasingly employed in workshops for people with disabilities due to what is defined as a total incapacity to work. In addition to the objective of labour market participation of people with disabilities, these workshops assume the aim of (re)establishing their performance and monitoring their reintegration into (...) the general labour market. Changes in the profiles of people working in the workshops and their recent expansion are described, as well as the transformation of working processes and conditions, especially through digitalisation. The consequences of these transformations are studied within the framework of “activating” policies. (shrink)

The volume collects classics of Marxist historiography of science, including a new translation of Boris Hessen's “The Social and Economic Roots of Newton's ...

Sleep spindles are frequently studied for their relationship with state and trait cognitive variables, and they are thought to play an important role in sleep-related memory consolidation. Due to their frequent occurrence in NREM sleep, the detection of sleep spindles is only feasible using automatic algorithms, of which a large number is available. We compared subject averages of the spindle parameters computed by a fixed frequency (11-13 Hz for slow spindles, 13-15 Hz for fast spindles) automatic detection algorithm and the (...) individual adjustment method (IAM), which uses individual frequency bands for sleep spindle detection. Fast spindle duration and amplitude are strongly correlated in the two algorithms, but there is little overlap in fast spindle density and slow spindle parameters in general. The agreement between fixed and manually determined sleep spindle frequencies is limited, especially in case of slow spindles. This is the most likely reason for the poor agreement between the two detection methods in case of slow spindle parameters. Our results suggest that while various algorithms may reliably detect fast spindles, a more sophisticated algorithm primed to individual spindle frequencies is necessary for the detection of slow spindles as well as individual variations in the number of spindles in general. (shrink)

Social networks play a significant role in learning and thus in farmers’ adoption of new agricultural technologies. This study examined the effects of social network factors on information acquisition and adoption of new seed varieties among groundnut farmers in Uganda and Kenya. The data were generated through face-to-face interviews from a random sample of 461 farmers, 232 in Uganda and 229 in Kenya. To assess these effects two alternative econometric models were used: a seemingly unrelated bivariate probit model and a (...) recursive bivariate probit model. The statistical evaluation of the SUBP shows that information acquisition and adoption decisions are interrelated while tests for the RBP do not support this latter model. Therefore, the analysis is based on the results obtained from the SUBP. These results reveal that social network factors, particularly weak ties with external support, partially influence information acquisition, but do not influence adoption. In Uganda, external support, gender, farm size, and geographic location have an impact on information acquisition. In Kenya, external support and geographic location also have an impact on information acquisition. With regard to adoption, gender, household size, and geographic location play the most important roles for Ugandan farmers, while in Kenya information from external sources, education, and farm size affect adoption choice. The study provides insight on the importance of external weak ties in groundnut farming, and a need to understand regional differences along gender lines while developing agricultural strategies. This study further illustrates the importance of farmer participation in applied technology research and the impact of social interactions among farmers and external agents. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to assess nurses’ and physicians’ ethical dilemmas in clinical practice. Nurses and physicians of the Clinical Hospital Centre Rijeka were surveyed (N = 364). A questionnaire was used to identify recent ethical dilemma, primary ethical issue in the situation, satisfaction with the resolution, perceived usefulness of help, and usage of clinical ethics consultations in practice. Recent ethical dilemmas include professional conduct for nurses (8%), and near-the-end-of-life decisions for physicians (27%). The main ethical issue is (...) limiting life-sustaining therapy (nurses 15%, physicians 24%) and euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (nurses 16%, physicians 9%). The types of help available are similar for nurses and physicians: obtaining complete information about the patient (37% vs. 50%) and clarifying ethical issues (31% vs. 39%). Nurses and physicians experience similar ethical dilemmas in clinical practice. The usage of clinical ethics consultations is low. It is recommended that the individual and team consultations should be introduced in Croatian clinical ethics consultations services. (shrink)

Recently, there has been a strong push for binding human rights due diligence (HRDD) legislation, both at the national and European levels. As empirical evidence of such legislation's impact gradually emerges, it is time to take stock. In this article, we conduct a systematic literature review to assess available empirical evidence on (1) how HRDD legislation affects the policies and practices through which companies engage with human rights; (2) how these policies and practices, in turn, affect different actors in companies’ (...) value chains. While it is too early to make conclusive judgements, existing evidence allows us to identify several worrying trends: most companies opt for managerialist and compliance-oriented approaches to HRDD; revert primarily to earlier (and flawed) private governance mechanisms; and try to cascade responsibilities and costs in their supply chain. This risks perpetuating or reinforcing marginalisation and exclusion dynamics. Based on these findings, we formulate some lessons for policy-makers. (shrink)

This volume sets out to address the question as to whether and how the critical conception of objectivity could still be relevant in contemporary philosophy. This means reflecting on the validity of the ascription of certaindefects to the Kantian system, as well as on their very description as defects. In order to do so, the volume brings together presentations that treat Kantian objectivity from many different angles. Some are more traditionally exegetical in nature, and discuss the interpretation of concepts within (...) or traits of Kant’s philosophy. Others trace the fate of the Kantian legacy in later philosophical and scientific thought. Still others reflect on the potential of transcendental perspectives for con-temporary philosophy and science. It is this variety in focus that makes the engagement with critical objectivity in this volume of interest not only to professional historians of philosophy and science, but to researchers engaged with the philosophical aspects of objectivity in their fields in general. (shrink)

Commonly, a switch between networks mediating memory encoding and those mediating retrieval is observed. This may not only be due to differential involvement of neural resources due to distinct cognitive processes but could also reflect the formation of new memory traces and their dynamic change during consolidation. We used resting state fMRI to measure functional connectivity (FC) changes during post-encoding rest, hypothesizing that during this phase, new functional connections between encoding- and retrieval-related regions are created. Interfering and reminding tasks served (...) as experimental modulators to corroborate that the observed FC differences indeed reflect changes specific to post-encoding rest. The right inferior occipital and fusiform gyri (active during encoding) showed increased FC with the left inferior frontal gyrus and the left middle temporal gyrus (MTG) during post-encoding rest. Importantly, the left MTG subsequently also mediated successful retrieval. This finding might reflect the formation of functional connections between encoding- and retrieval-related regions during undisturbed post-encoding rest. These connections were vulnerable to experimental modulation: Cognitive interference disrupted FC changes during post-encoding rest resulting in poorer memory performance. The presentation of reminders also inhibited FC increases but without affecting memory performance. Our results contribute to a better understanding of the mechanisms by which post-encoding rest bridges the gap between encoding- and retrieval-related networks. (shrink)

The Ukrainian photographer Sergey Bratkov started his career in 1987 with his first solo shows in Kharkiv, Cheb, and Tel Aviv. He has since enjoyed international recognition from solo and group exhibitions in Europe an.

BackgroundThe UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and the reformed guardianship law in Germany, require that persons with a disability, including people with dementia in Alzheimer’s disease (PwAD), are supported in making self-determined decisions. This support is achieved through communication. While content-related communication is a deficit of PwAD, relational aspects of communication are a resource. Research in supported decision-making (SDM) has investigated the effectiveness of different content-related support strategies for PwAD but has only succeeded in improving understanding, (...) which, although one criterion of capacity to consent, is not sufficient to ensure overall capacity to consent. The aim of the ‘spatial intervention study’ of the DECIDE project is to examine an innovative resource-oriented SDM approach that focuses on relational aspects. We hypothesise that talking to PwAD in their familiar home setting (as opposed to a clinical setting) will reduce the complexity of the decision-making process and enhance overall capacity to consent. MethodsPeople with a suspected or confirmed diagnosis of dementia in Alzheimer’s disease will be recruited from two memory clinics (N = 80). We will use a randomised crossover design to investigate the intervention effect of the decision-making place on capacity to consent. Besides reasoning capacity, which is part of overall capacity to consent and will be the primary outcome, various secondary outcomes (e.g., other aspects of capacity to consent, subjective task complexity, decisional conflict) and suspected moderating or mediating variables (e.g., meaning of home, demographic characteristics) will be assessed.DiscussionThe results of the study will be used to develop a new SDM strategy that is based on relational resources for PwAD. If a change in location achieves the anticipated improvement in capacity to consent, future research should focus on implementing this SDM strategy in a cost-effective manner in clinical practice.Trial registration: DRKS00030799. (shrink)

This volume brings together the religious and philosophical writings of the founders of Russian religious philosophy, Aleksei Khomiakov and Ivan Kireevsky. Both began their intellectual careers in the literary world of the 1820s. The texts collected here make the philosophical concepts of Sobornost (community, universality, wholeness, ecumenicity) and integral knowledge, available to western readers. Based on the primacy of the heart, the spiritual wholeness of the human being and the cognitive will, integral knowing moves beyond rationality to union with the (...) object of knowledge in knowing. This book provides an introduction to Russian religious philosophy, and a profound, meditative text for anyone concerned with human and spiritual unity. Also included are two responses to Slavophile ideas by the prominent Russian philosophers Pavel Florensky and Nikolai Berdiaev. (shrink)

We describe approximation algorithms for MAX SAT with performance ratios arbitrarily close to 1, in particular, when performance ratios exceed the limits of polynomial-time approximation. Namely, given a polynomial-time α-approximation algorithm , we construct an -approximation algorithm . The algorithm runs in time of the order ck, where k is the number of clauses in the input formula and c is a constant depending on α. Thus we estimate the cost of improving a performance ratio. Similar constructions for MAX 2SAT (...) and MAX 3SAT are also described. Taking known algorithms as , we obtain particular upper bounds on the running time of. (shrink)

Mindfulness-based interventions have proved effective in reducing various clinical symptoms and in improving general mental health and well-being. The investigation of the mechanisms of therapeutic change needs methods for assessment of mindfulness. Existing self-report measures have, however, been strongly criticized on various grounds, including distortion of the original concept, response bias, and other. We propose a psychophysiological method for the assessment of the mindfulness learned through time-limited mindfulness-based therapy by people who undergo meditation training for the first time. We use (...) the individual pre-post-therapy changes (dERPi) in the event-related brain potentials (ERPs) recorded in a passive meditation task as a measure of increased mindfulness. dERPi is computed through multivariate assessment of individual participant's ERPs. We tested the proposed method in a group of about 70 recurrently depressed participants, randomly assigned in 1.7:1 ratio to mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) or cognitive therapy (CT). The therapy outcome was measured by the long-term change (dDS) relative to baseline in the depression symptoms (DS) assessed weekly, for 60 weeks, by an online self-report questionnaire. We found a strong, highly significant, negative correlation (r = -0.55) between dERPi (mean = 0.4) and dDS (mean = -0.7) in the MBCT group. Compared to this result, the relationship between dDS and the other (self-report) measures of mindfulness we used was substantially weaker and not significant. So was also the relationship between dERPi and dDS in the CT group. The interpretation of dERPi as a measure of increased mindfulness was further supported by positive correlations between dERPi and the other measures of mindfulness. In this study, we also replicated a previous result, namely, the increase (dLCNV) of the late contingent negative variation (LCNV) of the ERP in the MBCT group, but not in the control group (in this case, CT). We interpreted dLCNV as a measure of increased meditative concentration. The relationship between dLCNV and dDS was, however, very week, which suggests that concentration might be relatively unimportant for the therapeutic effect of mindfulness. The proposed psychophysiological method could become an important component of a "mindfulness test battery" together with self-report questionnaires and other newly developed instruments. (shrink)

Cocaine use disorder is associated with maladaptive decision-making behavior, which strongly contributes to the harmful consequences of chronic drug use. Prior research has shown that cocaine users exhibit impaired neuropsychological test performances, particularly with regard to attention, learning, and memory but also in executive functions such as decision-making and impulse control. However, to what extent cocaine users show impaired decision-making under risk without feedback has not yet been investigated systematically. Therefore, to examine risk-taking behavior, 31 chronic cocaine users and 26 (...) stimulant-naïve healthy controls who were part of the Zurich Cocaine Cognition Study, performed the Randomized Lottery Task (RALT) with winning lotteries consisting of an uncertain and a certain prospect. Results revealed that risky decisions were associated with male sex, increased cocaine use in the past year, higher cocaine concentrations in the hair, and younger age. In addition, higher levels of cocaine in the hair and cumulative lifetime consumption were associated with risky decisions, whereas potentially confounding factors including cognition and psychiatric symptoms had no significant effect. Taken together, our results indicate that cocaine users who increased their consumption over a period of 1 year show deficits in the processing of risky information accompanied with increased risk-taking. Future research should analyse whether risky decisions could potentially serve as a prognostic marker for cocaine use disorder. (shrink)

Moral Constraints on War offers a principle-by-principle presentation of the transcultural roots of the ethics of war in an age defined by the increasingly international nature of military intervention.

Starting from the idea that functions are formally similar to actions in that they are described and explained in a similar way, so that both admit of an accordion effect, I turn to Anscombe’s insight that the point of practical reasoning is to render explicit the relation between the different descriptions of an action generated by the accordion effect. The upshot is, roughly, that an item has a function if what it does can be accounted for by functional reasoning. Put (...) differently, a part of a system has a function if what it does is a functional part of what the system does. (shrink)

We realize the Jiang-Su algebra, all UHF algebras, and the hyperfinite II1factor as Fraïssé limits of suitable classes of structures. Moreover by means of Fraïssé theory we provide new examples of AF algebras with strong homogeneity properties. As a consequence of our analysis we deduce Ramsey-theoretic results about the class of full-matrix algebras.

One of the great problems of caregivers and health professionals in recent times has been the so-called compassion fatigue and its association with burnout syndrome. Another pole of compassion has been described in terms of compassion satisfaction. Both propositions could be problematic in the caregiving setting. This is an analytical reflective article that through an apparent aporia tries to problematize and propose a theoretical synthesis that allows to denote compassion as a virtue in Aristotelian terms. To this end, it resorts (...) to etymologies, translations and mainly to the classical theoretical references regarding compassion fatigue, compassion satisfaction and, of course, Aristotelian ethics. This is a theoretical bet that leaves open the discussion regarding the dichotomies compassion fatigue and compassion satisfaction; apathy and hyperpathy; and proposes to rethink compassion as a virtue, a reasoned middle ground, contextualized in the framework of care between two possible excesses. (shrink)

Boris Kment takes a new approach to the study of modality that emphasises the origin of modal notions in everyday thought. He argues that the concepts of necessity and possibility originate in counterfactual reasoning, which allows us to investigate explanatory connections. Contrary to accepted views, explanation is more fundamental than modality.

The presence of ibuprofen in wastewater is a topic of global interest, and the mechanisms and behavior of its correlation with its elimination in ecological systems, such as constructed wetlands, is a little known topic. The objective of this study was to perform a correlational analysis of the behavior of the emerging contaminant ibuprofen in a horizontally constructed wetland in a tropical climate planted with the ornamental plant Spathiphyllum blandum. 10 experimental units were used at the mesocosm level of 20 (...) L, 5 planted with Spathiphyllum B., and 5 without plants. The elimination of ibuprofen was measured and the correlation was analyzed using computational methods and neural networks. Spathiphyllum blandum was used in this study. The removal of ibuprofen in HC was significantly improved by up to 23% compared with that in non-planted systems. Based on the prediction obtained from ibuprofen in the effluent, it can be concluded that it has an exponential decay behavior tending to zero, and the model obtained explains in an acceptable way the relationship between the height of the plant and the concentration of ibuprofen in the effluent, reaffirming that this relationship is inverse. Further studies should be conducted to understand the behavior of these compounds in relation to different species of tropical plants. (shrink)

Using the Friedman-Koepke Hyperfine Structure Theory of [2], we provide a short construction of a gap 1 morass in the constructible universe.

Résumé Cet article interroge la place du platonisme de Lautman dans la tradition épistémologique en France à partir de Brunschvicg. Nous soutenons que, malgré sa position originale, le platonisme de Lautman s’intègre en effet dans cette tradition et doit être compris dans ce contexte. La première partie rappelle certains éléments du relativisme critique de Brunschvicg. La seconde tente une reconstruction de la philosophie de Lautman. Nous concluons en montrant comment le rôle donné par Brunschvicg à « l’expérience » se traduit (...) chez Lautman dans une difficulté propre, concernant la « matière » dans laquelle se réalisent les « Idées ».This paper considers the position of Lautman’s Platonism in the French tradition of epistemology starting with Brunschvicg. We claim that Lautman’s Platonism does indeed belong to this tradition and can only be properly understood in this context. The first section discusses Brunschvicg’s “critical relativism”. The second section aims at reconstructing in this context Lautman’s philosophy. Finally, we show that Brunschvicg’s inheritance — or, more specifically, the role that Brunschvicg gives to “experience” — leads in Lautman’s texts to a particular problem, concerning the “material” in which “Ideas” are realized. (shrink)