The reader of Catullus' fiftieth poem can hardly fail to be struck by the poet's use of erotic language to his friend Calvus. Sleeplessness and lack of appetiteare symptoms of love, and the threat of Nemesis is commonly used againsta haughty beloved; miserum, incensus, and indomitus furore are words to describe a lover, and ocelle, as Kroll observes, is naturally addressed to a beloved. Even ut tecum loquerer simulque ut essem suggests a lover's yearning, if we recall how Plato in (...) erotic contexts stresses the desire to have company and conversation with the beloved. It is strange then that Kroll should comment onpreces in line 18 that their content is not clear. (shrink)

Over the past twenty years, the annual meetings of the Semiotic Society of America have tracked the growth and development of modern sign theory in American scholarship. Since 1981, the published proceedings of SSA meetings have included representative semiotic work from a wide range of disciplines and every extant -system- of semiotic thought. The papers have especially represented some of the leading intellectual descendants of C.S. Peirce and Ferdinand de Saussure in the United States and Canada. On this ground, the (...) series remains the primary record of North American contributions to sign perspectives, embracing world-wide philosophical, literary, and scientific bases for a 21st-century -doctrine of signs-. The proceedings project has consistently pursued excellent scholarship, representative diversity, and quality production. With publication of Semiotics 1996, general editor John Deely and the Semiotic Society continue the record of -representing- American semiotics. The SSA also plan to incorporate more voices from Mexico in an effort to achieve a comprehensive North American -semiotic- which is strongly linked to practical and theoretical developments across the world.". (shrink)

This book would be very important indeed if Mr. Spencer Brown had substantiated his claims “that the concept of probability used in statistical science is meaningless in its own terms” , and that confirming this is the only significance of experiments in psychical research. The six short introductory chapters need not be discussed here. It is in Chapters VII to IX that the author develops his thesis that the concept of randomness is self–contradictory, and the statistician's concept of probability consequently (...) meaningless. I shall examine what I take to be the central argument leading to this conclusion. This is developed from a distinction between “primary chance or randomness” and “secondary chance or randomness” . The former concept is to be applicable only to individual events and is to depend upon their “unexpectedness or unpredictability”; the latter concept, applicable only to a series as such, is denned as “possessing no discernible pattern” . The definition of “primary randomness” is amplified, but not clarified, on page 49: “An event is primarily random in so far as... one cannot be sure of its occurrence... The only relevant criterion is that we are able to guess ”. We are then told that primary randomness “admits of analysis in subjective terms”, since the same event may be predictable by one person but unpredictable by another; whereas secondary randomness is “a more objective concept”. (shrink)

have recently provided a compelling demonstration of enhanced attentional control under post-hypnotic suggestion. Using the classic color-word interference paradigm, in which the task is to ignore a word and to name the color in which it is printed (e.g., RED in green, say ''green''), they gave a post-hypnotic instruction to participants that they would be unable to read. This eliminated Stroop interference in high suggestibility participants but did not alter interference in low suggestibility participants. replicated this pattern and further demonstrated (...) that it is not due to a visual strategy (such as blurring or looking at a different location). As a historical footnote, we describe a ''case study'' from 18 years ago in which we observed the same result using a hypnotic instruction to a single highly suggestible individual that he could not read. The elimination of Stroop interference has important implications for both the study of attention and the study of hypnosis. (shrink)

A coordinate-free formulation is established for (semi) classical particle-field interactions. The exterior language of spacetime chains and De-Rham currents enables the description to include extended strings and membranes besides point particles. Treating physical fields in terms of sections of particular bundles, a unified account of interactions is presented in terms of an intrinsic action principle on a bundle of jets over spacetime. The theory is illustrated by considering the specific model of point particles with intrinsic spin covariantly coupled to theU(1) (...) andSL(2, C) connections describing the electromagnetic and gravitational fields, respectively. The notion of dual spin is examined in this context and coupled equations for this particle-field system are explicitly derived in a local chart. Attention is drawn to the global implications of the theory. (shrink)

Adaptive management is commonly identified as a way to address situations where ecological and social uncertainty exists. Two discourses are common: a focus on experimentation, and a focus on collaboration. The roles of experimental and collaborative adaptive management in contemporary practice are reviewed to identify tools for bridging the discourses. Examples include broadening the scope of contributions during the buy-in and goal-setting stages, using conceptual models and decision support tools to include stakeholders in model development, experimentation using indicators of concern (...) to stakeholders, an experimental focus that reflects the level of statistical confidence required by management, and the engagement of stakeholders in data interpretation so that those affected by management outcomes can learn and adapt accordingly. In this context, a framework of questions that managers can use to reflect on both ecological and social uncertainties as they relate to individual management contexts is proposed. (shrink)

C W Evers, J C Walker; Knowledge, Partitioned Sets and Extensionality: a refutation of the forms of knowledge thesis, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume.