Book Review: "David Alan Grier. When Computers Were Human." Isis, 99 (4), December 2008, pp. 870-871.

Name der Zeitschrift: Byzantinische Zeitschrift Jahrgang: 108 Heft: 2 Seiten: 809-826.

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 11, Issue 7, Page 18-20, July 2011.

This year's volume of collected papers in the Current Legal Problems series provides in-depth analyses some important developments which have taken place in recent months. Public law has witnessed much activity both in the courts and in Parliament during the last twelve months and this is reflected in three essays which examine different aspects of human rights, equality, and the right to privacy. In the wake of the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice, two lengthy essays deal with evidence in police (...) investigations and the concept of due process and pre-trial criminal justice. (shrink)

Volume 1. The oppression of nonhuman animals as sources of food -- Volume 2. The oppressive and destructive role of capitalism.

This study utilises a posthuman perception to explore the psychological changes brought on by the relationship between humans and robots in the post-apocalyptic context with the schizoanalytic framework of Deleuze and Guattari. Through the analysis of Becky Chambers’ fiction, A Psalm for the Wild-Built, the article explores how the characters’ self-perceptions and psyche alter when they engage with sentient robots. In light of contemporary discussions around AI and technology, post-apocalyptic fiction also provides a forum for considering how human–machine relationships are (...) evolving. With the Schizoanalytic study, the creation of new reality, psyche, and subjectivity are analysed. Alongside, the idea of “Cyborg Embodiment” by Donna Haraway sheds light on how character’s concepts of embodiment and self are changing. The posthuman subjectivity framework of N. Katherine Hayles directs an examination of shifting emotional vistas. This study offers insights into the complex interplay between human and robot experiences by weaving these posthuman concepts along with schizoanalysis, thus enhancing our understanding of human psyche in the post-apocalyptic narratives. The analysis explores the relationship between human and robot experiences in post-apocalyptic fiction, using posthuman concepts, thereby contributing to the discourse at the intersection of Artificial Intelligence and society. (shrink)

From David Brat, the college professor who made political headlines when he unseated Majority Leader Eric Cantor, comes his plan for restoring fiscal liberty for America. Congressman David Brat's odds-defying win against Eric Cantor--a triumph of a modest $200,000 campaign fund against a $5 million war chest--immediately brought David Brat, heretofore a liberal arts college economics professor, into the political limelight. Now, in his first book, AMERICAN UNDERDOG, Brat examines how we brought down the status quo by (...) tapping into moral and economic lessons as old as our civilization and discusses how Washington can learn from history instead of ignoring it. A fighter for children, he illuminates how our current fiscal policies are selling their future, and outlines new ways to move forward with a conservative agenda that provides fairer treatment for all. (shrink)

This volume is a collection of essays by various contributors in honor of the late Laurence Berns, Richard Hammond Elliot Tutor Emeritus at St. John's College, Annapolis. The essays address the literary, political, theological, and philosophical themes of his life's work as a scholar, teacher, and constant companion of the "great books.".

Book reviewed in this article: The Moral Foundations of Professional Ethics. By Alan H. Goldman.

The central conflicts of the world today are closely related to cultural, traditional, and religious differences between nations. As we move to a globalized world, these differences often become magnified, entrenched, and the cause of bloody conflict. Growing out of a conference of distinguished scholars from the Middle East, Europe, and the United States, this volume is a singular contribution to mutual understanding and cooperative efforts on behalf of peace. The term paideia, drawn from Greek philosophy, has to do with (...) responsible education for citizenship as a necessary precondition for effective democracy. (shrink)

The Hausmans wed an intentional theory of ideas with a modern information theoretic approach in a critical tour of some of the most important issues in the philosophy of mind and some of the most outstanding figures in early modern philosophy.

Current fears of a “reproducibility crisis” have led researchers, sources of scientific funding, and the public to question both the efficacy and trustworthiness of science. Suggested policy changes have been focused on statistical problems, such as p-hacking, and issues of experimental design and execution. However, “reproducibility” is a broad concept that includes a number of issues. Furthermore, reproducibility failures occur even in fields such as mathematics or computer science that do not have statistical problems or issues with experimental design. Most (...) importantly, these proposed policy changes ignore a core feature of the process of scientific inquiry that occurs after reproducibility failures: the integration of conflicting observations and ideas into a coherent theory. (shrink)

Frank Ramsey (1931) wrote: If two people are arguing 'if p will q?' and both are in doubt as to p, they are adding p hypothetically to their stock of knowledge and arguing on that basis about q. We can say that they are fixing their degrees of belief in q given p. Let us take the first sentence the way it is often taken, as proposing the following test for the acceptability of an indicative conditional: ‘If p then q’ (...) is acceptable to a subject S iff, were S to accept p and consider q, S would accept q. Now consider an indicative conditional of the form (1) If p, then I believe p. Suppose that you accept p and consider ‘I believe p’. To accept p while rejecting ‘I believe p’ is tantamount to accepting the Moore-paradoxical sentence ‘p and I do not believe p’, and so is irrational. To accept p while suspending judgment about ‘I believe p’ is irrational for similar reasons. So rationality requires that if you accept p and consider ‘I believe p’, you accept ‘I believe p’. (shrink)

We describe a strategy for integration of data that is based on the idea of semantic enhancement. The strategy promises a number of benefits: it can be applied incrementally; it creates minimal barriers to the incorporation of new data into the semantically enhanced system; it preserves the existing data (including any existing data-semantics) in their original form (thus all provenance information is retained, and no heavy preprocessing is required); and it embraces the full spectrum of data sources, types, models, and (...) modalities (including text, images, audio, and signals). The result of applying this strategy to a given body of data is an evolving Dataspace that allows the application of a variety of integration and analytic processes to diverse data contents. We conceive semantic enhancement (SE) as a lightweight and flexible process that leverages the richness of the structured contents of the Dataspace without adding storage and processing burdens to what, in the intelligence domain, will be an already storage- and processing-heavy starting point. SE works not by changing the data to which it is applied, but rather by adding an extra semantic layer to this data. We sketch how the semantic enhancement approach can be applied consistently and in cumulative fashion to new data and data-models that enter the Dataspace. (shrink)

Expressions like "two novels" are traditionally taken to convey information about cardinality and are analyzed using a cardinality function. Salmon (Philosop Perspect 11:1–15, 1997), Liebesman (Australasian J Philos 93:21–42, 2015; Philos’ Impr 16:1–25, 2016; In D. W. Zimmerman (ed.), Oxford studies in metaphysics, Oxford University Press, Oxford, forthcoming), and Haida and Trinh (in: Dočekal, Wagiel (eds) Formal approaches to number in Slavic and beyond, Language Science Press, Berlin, 2001) argue against this traditional account, claiming that it can’t explain our use (...) of expressions like "two and a half novels". According to them, the proper analysis of such expressions requires a partiality measure, which maps entities to rational numbers such as 2.5. In this paper, we set out to defend the traditional account. To do so, we demonstrate that an analysis based on a partiality measure is inconsistent with the truth conditions of plural comparatives and equatives. We also show that such an account doesn’t provide an adequate analysis for expressions like "two novels and a half", nor for their French counterparts (e.g., "deux romans et demi"). Critically, such expressions contain no constituent that could refer to the number 2.5. We provide an alternative analysis for all these expressions, based on cardinality and an operation of non-overlapping summation. (shrink)

This is a “bottom-up” paper in the sense that it draws lessons in defining disciplinary categories under study from a series of empirical studies of interdisciplinarity. In particular, we are in the process of studying the interchange of research-based knowledge between Cognitive Science and Educational Research. This has posed a set of design decisions that we believe warrant consideration as others study cross-disciplinary research processes.

After encountering this book, you will never look at the tiniest sliver of your own backyard or neighborhood park the same way; instead, you will be stunned by the unexpected variety of species found in an area so small.

This book taps the best American thinkers to answer the essential American question: How do we sustain our experiment in government of, by, and for the people? Authored by an extraordinary and politically diverse roster of public officials, scholars, and educators, these chapters describe our nation's civic education problem, assess its causes, offer an agenda for reform, and explain the high stakes at risk if we fail.

Introducing Applied Ethics Edited by Brenda Almond, Blackwell, 1995. Pp. 375. ISBN 0-631-19389-8. 45.00 (hbk), 14.99 (pbk). Environmental Ethics Edited by Robert Elliot, Oxford University Press, 1995. Pp. 255. ISBN 9-19-875144-3. 9.95 (pbk) Medicine and Moral Reasoning Edited by K.W.M. Fulford, Grant Gillett and Janet Martin Soskice Cambridge University Press, 1994. Pp. 207. ISBN 0-521-45325-9 37.50 (hbk), 12.95 (pbk). Enlightenment and Religion. Rational Dissent in Eighteenth-century Britain Edited by Knud Haakonssen, Cambridge University Press, 1996. Pp. xii + 348. ISBN 0-521-56060-8. (...) 40.00. Dialettica, Arte e Societ : Saggio su Theodor W. Adorno By Giacomo Rinaldi, Quattroventi, Urbino, 1994. Pp. 205. L. 30,000. Relevance: Communication and Cognition, new revised edition, By Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson, Blackwell, 1995. Pp. 326. ISBN 0-631-19878-4. 15.99. Autobiographical Reflections By Eric Voegelin (Edited, with Introduction, by Ellis Sandoz), Louisiana State University Press, 1996. Pp. 131. ISBN 0807120766 $10.95. (shrink)

DNA joining enzymes play an essential role in the maintenance of genomic integrity and stability. Three mammalian genes encoding DNA ligases, LIG1, LIG3 and LIG4, have been identified. Since DNA ligase II appears to be derived from DNA ligase III by a proteolytic mechanism, the three LIG genes can account for the four biochemically distinct DNA ligase activities, DNA ligases I, II, III and IV, that have been purified from mammalian cell extracts. It is probable that the specific cellular roles (...) of these enzymes are determined by the proteins with which they interact. The specific involvement of DNA ligase I in DNA replication is mediated by the non‐catalytic amino‐terminal domain of this enzyme. Furthermore, DNA ligase I participates in DNA base excision repair as a component of a multiprotein complex. Two forms of DNA ligase III are produced by an alternative splicing mechanism. The ubiqitously expressed DNA ligase III‐α forms a complex with the DNA single‐strand break repair protein XRCC1. In contrast, DNA ligase III‐β, which does not interact with XRCC1, is only expressed in male meiotic germ cells, suggesting a role for this isoform in meiotic recombination. At present, there is very little information about the cellular functions of DNA ligase IV. (shrink)

This article provides current Schwartz Values Survey (SVS) data from samples of business managers and professionals across 50 societies that are culturally and socioeconomically diverse. We report the society scores for SVS values dimensions for both individual- and societal-level analyses. At the individual-level, we report on the ten circumplex values sub-dimensions and two sets of values dimensions (collectivism and individualism; openness to change, conservation, self-enhancement, and self-transcendence). At the societal-level, we report on the values dimensions of embeddedness, hierarchy, mastery, affective (...) autonomy, intellectual autonomy, egalitarianism, and harmony. For each society, we report the Cronbach’s α statistics for each values dimension scale to assess their internal consistency (reliability) as well as report interrater agreement (IRA) analyses to assess the acceptability of using aggregated individual level values scores to represent country values. We also examined whether societal development level is related to systematic variation in the measurement and importance of values. Thus, the contributions of our evaluation of the SVS values dimensions are two-fold. First, we identify the SVS dimensions that have cross-culturally internally reliable structures and within-society agreement for business professionals. Second, we report the society cultural values scores developed from the twenty-first century data that can be used as macro-level predictors in multilevel and single-level international business research. (shrink)

From the secrets of the universe to the healing powers of music, this book draws on the passions of eight professionals who explore the "power" behind their own particular fields of interest, from the arts and humanities to the natural sciences. Their essays span the fascinating world of microscopic biochemical machines; the power of the cinema screen; democracy; mathematical knot theory; innovative new ways of producing energy to meet increasing world demands as well as the power of life and death.