This paper studies the effects of social comparison on risk taking behavior. In our theoretical framework, decision makers evaluate the consequences of their choices relative to both their own and their peers’ conditions. We test experimentally whether the position in the social ranking affects risk attitudes. Subjects interact in a simulated workplace environment where they perform a work task, receive possibly different wages, and then undertake a risky decision that may produce an extra gain. We find that social comparison matters (...) for risk attitudes. Subjects are more risk averse in the presence of small social gain than social loss. In addition, risk aversion is decreasing in the size of the social gain. (shrink)

Las migraciones representan el principal desafío para la sociedad global, tanto por sus dimensiones como por sus causas. Ante el fracaso de las propuestas puramente liberales o cuantitativas, es necesario buscar nuevas soluciones a la crisis, en la línea de la filosofía moral y de la creación de una cultura de la acogida. A este efecto, se analiza la propuesta de Bauman, porque en su pensamiento se reúnen la experiencia del exilio y una reflexión sociológica humanista y especialmente cercana a (...) la filosofía. Tras exponer su experiencia del exilio, fundamental en la comprensión que Bauman tiene de los extraños, se revisa su crítica a las actitudes de indiferencia o rechazo social a los migrantes, y su propuesta para crear una cultura ética, que identifica con una cultura de la acogida e integración de los extraños. Las propuestas de Bauman no son políticas ni inmediatas, porque se proponen estimular el pensamiento de una población civil responsable, que también pueda exigir medidas de acogida a sus gobernantes. (shrink)

The Congress for Cultural Freedom is remembered as a paramount example of the “cultural cold wars.” In this paper, I discuss the ways in which this powerful transnational organization sought to promote “science studies” as a distinct – and politically relevant – area of expertise, and part of the CCF broader agenda to offer a renewed framework for liberalism. By means of its Study Groups, international conferences and its periodicals, such as Minerva, the Congress developed into an influential forum for (...) examining the ways Big Science impacted the relations between science, society, and politics, thus constituting a semi-institutional niche for Science Studies before its professionalization within academia during the 1970s. I argue that the Congress contributed to the construction of public space in which the relations between science, society and politics were debated, and science was reconceptualized as a social activity. The vision of “science studies” the CCF-associated intellectuals promulgated was different from the science studies we know today. Yet, this alternative vision, in which the issues of science politics appeared inseparable from those of science policy, science organization, and science governance, constituted the “pre-history” of science studies today. (shrink)

Symmetry, intended as invariance with respect to a transformation (more precisely, with respect to a transformation group), has acquired more and more importance in modern physics. This Chapter explores in 8 Sections the meaning, application and interpretation of symmetry in classical physics. This is done both in general, and with attention to specific topics. The general topics include illustration of the distinctions between symmetries of objects and of laws, and between symmetry principles and symmetry arguments (such as Curie's principle), and (...) reviewing the meaning and various types of symmetry that may be found in classical physics, along with different interpretative strategies that may be adopted. Specific topics discussed include the historical path by which group theory entered classical physics, transformation theory in classical mechanics, the relativity principle in Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, general covariance in his General Theory of Relativity, and Noether's theorems. In bringing these diverse materials together in a single Chapter, we display the pervasive and powerful influence of symmetry in classical physics, and offer a possible framework for the further philosophical investigation of this topic. (shrink)

Driven by technological innovations, newborn screening (NBS) panels have been expanded and the development of genomic NBS pilot programs is rapidly progressing. Decisions on disease selection for NBS are still based on the Wilson and Jungner (WJ) criteria published in 1968. Despite this uniform reference, interpretation of the WJ criteria and actual disease selection for NBS programs are highly variable. A systematic literature search [PubMED search “Wilson” AND “Jungner”; last search 16.07.22] was performed to evaluate the applicability of the WJ (...) criteria for current and future NBS programs and the need for adaptation. By at least two reviewers, 105 publications (systematic literature search, N = 77; manual search, N = 28) were screened for relevant content and, finally, 38 publications were evaluated. Limited by the study design of qualitative text analysis, no statistical evaluation was performed, but a structured collection of reported aspects of criticism and proposed improvements was instead collated. This revealed a set of general limitations of the WJ criteria, such as imprecise terminology, lack of measurability and objectivity, missing pediatric focus, and absent guidance on program management. Furthermore, it unraveled specific aspects of criticism on clinical, diagnostic, therapeutic, and economical aspects. A major obstacle was found to be the incompletely understood natural history and phenotypic diversity of rare diseases prior to NBS implementation, resulting in uncertainty about case definition, risk stratification, and indications for treatment. This gap could be closed through the systematic collection and evaluation of real-world evidence on the quality, safety, and (cost-)effectiveness of NBS, as well as the long-term benefits experienced by screened individuals. An integrated NBS public health program that is designed to continuously learn would fulfil these requirements, and a multi-dimensional framework for future NBS programs integrating medical, ethical, legal, and societal perspectives is overdue. (shrink)

This essay offers an overview of the diversity of women’s prose writing that emerged on the Czech cultural scene in the post-communist era. To that end it briefly characterizes the work of eight Czech women authors who were born within the first two decades after World War II and began to create during the post-1968 era of ‘normalization’. In this broad sense they belong to a single generation. With rare exception their work was not officially published in their homeland until (...) the 1990s. The writers included are: Lenka Procházková, Tereza Boučková, Alexandra Berková, Zuzana Brabcová, Daniela Hodrová, Sylvie Richterová, Iva Pekárková, and Eva Hauserová. The overview is followed by a concise comparative analysis of texts by three very different writers (Procházková, Pekárková, and Hodrová), using a feminist critical approach. There is also an appendix of works by these writers available in English translation. (shrink)

We define proof nets for cyclic multiplicative linear logic as edge bi-coloured graphs. Our characterization is purely graph theoretical and works without further complication for proof nets with cuts, which are usually harder to handle in the non-commutative case. This also provides a new characterization of the proof nets for the Lambek calculus (with the empty sequence) which simply are a restriction on the formulas to be considered (which are asked to be intuitionistic).

One third of all materials extracted from the Earth is used in the furniture industry. Of these, timber counts for 25%: the furniture industry is key to save one of the most important commons – our forest. Starting from the assumption that a better knowledge of consumers’ attitude and behaviour towards sustainable furniture is essential to spur the industry all along the chain to take action towards more sustainable operations, this study explores the actual offer of sustainable furniture in the (...) Netherlands and consumers’ attitude towards it in order to determine opportunities for the furniture sector to take a more sustainable stance. (shrink)

Meta-accuracy of first impressions on the Internet has the potential to shape subsequent interactions. Aiming to enhance understanding of the underlying perceptual dimensions, the contribution of social competence, and the existence of positive/negative bias in first impressions’ meta-accuracy online, we conducted a study in a simulated asynchronous social-media-type setting. Target participants uploaded a selfie, wrote a short description of themselves, provided estimates of how warm and competent they believed others would find them based on their selfies and texts, and completed (...) two social competence questionnaires. Perceiver participants assessed the warmth and competence of the selfies and texts as well. Meta-accuracy was measured as the absolute difference between metaperception and others’ perception. Through correlational analyses, we confirmed that meta-accuracy of first impressions on the Internet aligned with the universal dimensions of social cognition, found sporadic evidence for the positive association between meta-accuracy and social competence, and showed that meta-accuracy for specific Internet expressive means varied with varying proficiency in these means. Through t-tests, we demonstrated positive meta-accuracy bias for selfies along the warmth dimension and negative bias for text along the competence dimension. Overall, our results suggest the primacy of warmth and uniqueness of the male targets-female perceivers combination for meta-accuracy on the Internet. Our findings expand knowledge about first impressions’ meta-accuracy on the Internet. (shrink)

It has been demonstrated that executive functions play a significant role in different aspects of the development of children. Development of language is also one of the most important accomplishments of the preschool years, and it has been linked to many outcomes in life. Despite substantial research demonstrating the association between executive function and language development in childhood, only a handful of studies have examined the direction of the developmental pathways between EF skills and language skills, therefore little is known (...) about how these two constructs are connected. In this review paper, we discuss three possible directional relationships between EFs and language development throughout childhood. First, we discuss how EF might affect language functioning. Next, we discuss how language functioning might affect EF. Lastly, we consider other possible relationships between EF and language. Given that children with better EF and language skills are more likely to succeed in educational settings and demonstrate greater social–emotional competencies, investigating the relationship between EF and language in the preschool period provides insight into mechanisms that have not been extensively studied. Furthermore, it could create new opportunities for designing effective and efficient interventions aimed at addressing EF and language deficits during the preschool period which could in turn influence later development. (shrink)

The seventeen contributions constituting this edited volume focus on archaic Greek thought — Presocratics broadly understood, including Sophists, Archaic poets, or Tragedians — and its multiform reception, use or appropriation through times and lands. -/- The first chapters deal with the direct reconstruction and understanding of early Greek thought, from the very first philosophical writings to the last Presocratic philosopher. By alternating discussions of editorial and translation issues, stylistic analysis, geographical study and history of science, these contributions question the value (...) of the testimonies or fragments attributed to those early thinkers and challenge our understanding of the texts at the origin of western philosophy. -/- The volume subsequently focuses on the echoes of those Archaic voices, over a long period of time from Aristotle to the 20th century. From their early reception in Greek and Roman time to their adaptation in contemporary poetry, by way of their appropriation and use in Islamic philosophy or in Latin-America colonization, the contributions gathered in this second part illustrate the large scope of influence of ancient philosophers and of their ideas in various times and places. (shrink)

Most of the Latin American population, including in places like Mexico and Brazil, is becoming extremely poor, slipping in the last ten years from poverty to extreme poverty. Native communities are in this condition: to live only to survive, lacking any opportunity to improve or at least meet their basics needs of food and shelter. I practiced P4C in the multicultural community of Juchitán, Oaxaca, to find if P4C overcame the limitations of extreme poverty, respecting the cultural diversity while obtaining (...) positive results. (shrink)

This paper presents two projects concerned with the application of natural language processing technology for improving communication between Public Administration and citizens. The first project, GIST,is concerned with automatic multilingual generation of instructional texts for form-filling. The second project, TAMIC, aims at providing an interface for interactive access to information, centered on natural language processing and supposed to be used by the clerk but with the active participation of the citizen.

In this paper, we introduce the subject of the special issue Trends in Argumentation Logic. Here we mainly describe two approaches to argumentation logic with explicating monotonic and non-monotonic, or defeasible, reasoning and explain the role of artificial intelligence in applying argumentation logic. Then we give a short overview of the papers contributed to the special issue.

This book is an excellent and accessible overview of the position that children learn the meanings of words by applying a variety of nonlinguistic cognitive tools to the problem. We take issue with Bloom's emphasis on Theory of Mind as an explanatory mechanism for language learning; and with his claim that only unitary objects are nameable.

In recent decades, affective scientists have begun using concepts and tools from dynamical systems theory (DST) to characterise emotional processes. This article considers how the concept of emergence might be used to develop this approach. Emotions are explicated as ‘emergent products’ that diachronically constrain the operations of their parts in virtue of feedback loops (a classical feature of nonlinear dynamical systems). The explication is shown to be broadly consistent with what is sometimes called ‘pattern’ emergence. Casting emotions as emergent patterns (...) is shown to shed light on a major conceptual and empirical challenge emotion theorists have faced over the past century: identifying and measuring the presence of emotional episodes (Lindquist et al., 2012; Hollenstein & Lanteigne, 2014), dubbed here the ‘boundary problem’ (following Colombetti, 2014). In particular, the explication suggests seeing the emotional ‘signatures’ thought to accompany emotional episodes as fragile and context-bound: likely to hold under a relevant class of interventions (Woodward, 2005), but not without exception beyond that class. This in turn may suggest a need to significantly revise the statistical methods currently used to measure the presence of emotional ‘signatures’. The casting of emotions as emergent patterns also functions as a further case study supporting the value of ‘pattern emergence’ (Winning & Bechtel, 2019) as a powerful vehicle for characterising the objects of investigation — compound and context-sensitive — ubiquitous in the biological sciences. (shrink)

Se realiza una revisión bibliográfica con el objetivo de analizar los diferentes códigos éticos y deontológicos internacionales, regionales y nacionales de los que se nutre la especialidad de psiquiatría. Se concluye que el comportamiento ético se basa en el sentido de la responsabilidad individual de cada psiquiatra hacia cada paciente y en la capacidad de ambos para determinar cuál es la conducta correcta y más apropiada. Las normas externas y las directrices, tales como los códigos de conducta profesional, las aportaciones (...) de la ética y de las normas legales, no garantizan por sí solas la práctica ética de la medicina, pero constituyen un importante marco referencial. A literature review was performed with the objective of analyzing the various international, regional and national ethical and deontological codes that the psychiatry specialty feeds on. It is concluded that ethical behavior is based on the sense of individual responsibility of each psychiatrist to each patient and the ability of both to determine what the correct and appropriate behavior is. External standards and guidelines, such as professional codes of conduct, the study of ethics and legal standards alone do not guarantee the ethical practice of medicine but are an important framework. (shrink)

The subject of the study is the institution of the ancient Indian dispute, the theoretical understanding of which has become part of the doctrines of all religious and philosophical schools. The “Shraman period” (5th century BC) is considered in detail, during which there was a sharp controversy between religious and philosophical schools, during which effective methods of conducting disputes “crystallized” and developed argumentative normativity. It is shown that the pluralism and diversity of ontological models that existed in the spiritual culture (...) of that time were reflected in the logical and epistemological doctrine - pramana-vada. Thus, in the first (pre-logical) period, epistemological and logical questions were raised within the framework of anvikshika, “the science of conducting public disputes,” and the widespread culture of philosophical disputes and their actual practice were completely determined by the original cultural context. The argumentative canon of the Nyaya school is analyzed, the categories of the Indian and Western European traditions are compared, illustrating the discussion, in particular, of the Aristotelian syllogistic and the Nyayak five-term syllogism, the doctrine of the dispute between the ancient Chinese school of the late Mohists and ancient Chrya. The productive methodological ideas of the polemical strategy of conducting philosophical disputes in late Buddhism are revealed, the role of the dual unity of proof and refutation, as well as examples, questions and tricks, as topoi of the ancient Indian culture of dispute is shown. (shrink)

The phenomenon of information conflict at the moment is an actual research object of many social and humanitarian disciplines. On the other hand, there is a lack of fundamental theoretical, primarily philosophical and methodological, research on this issue. This is expressed, inter alia, in the absence of philosophical and methodological grounds for isolating an information conflict from the totality of all objectively observed communications, i.e. demarcation of the phenomenon. The problem of finding criteria for an information conflict is of key (...) importance in the formation of the methodological foundations and categorical apparatus for studying this phenomenon. In this regard, the need to develop theoretical foundations for the demarcation of information conflict is an urgent research task. The object of this work is the phenomenon of information conflict as part of the communicative process. The subject of the research is the problem of demarcation of information conflicts from all aggregate communications. The purpose of the study is to describe and substantiate the existing object-oriented methodologies that allow for the demarcation procedure. The following tasks are adequately formulated for the purpose of the study: 1) describe the problem of demarcation; 2) identify the communicative grounds of the information conflict; 3) analyze and highlight the main approaches to the problem of demarcation of information conflict. The novelty of the work lies in the systematic description and structuring of methodological approaches to the problem of demarcation of information conflicts, as well as analysis of the boundaries of methodologies and approaches. In the course of the work, it was determined and proved that, relying solely on the theory of communication, it is impossible to adequately carry out the demarcation procedure; it is necessary to use additional, non-communicative demarcation criteria, which is due to the variety of demarcation approaches in various studies. In conclusion, conclusions are formulated about the limitations of object-oriented approaches for solving the problem of demarcation of information conflicts. (shrink)

Salat, Levente, Multiculturalismul liberal: bazele normative ale existenþei minoritare autentice (Liberal Multiculturalism: the Normative Bases for a Genuine Minority Existence), Polirom Publishing House, Iaoi, 2001.

The present study focuses on the situation in which mind-reading machines will be connected, initially through the incorporation of weak AI, and then in conjunction to strong AI, an aspect that, ongoing, will no longer have a simple medical role, as is the case at present, but one of surveillance and monitoring of individuals—an aspect that is heading us towards a future techno-panoptic singularity. Thus, the general objective of this paper raises the problem of the ontological stability of human nature (...) which, within the limits of the technological singularity of mind-reading machines, leads to the loss of autonomy and a reduction in freedom when it comes to human thoughts. In this paradigm, the hypothesis of a future era of technological singularity is prefigured to be a cumulation of factors in which artificial intelligence holds a dominant position in relation to the human agent, in a techno-panoptic system of human supervision, in the form of a new world order of manifestation/imposition of power—that of a “singleton.” The theoretical objective analyzes the phenomenon of “deterritorrialization” of the Foucauldian panoptic mechanism —which is based on the “biopolitical” system of “biopower”—and its “reterritorialization” in the “territory” of the techno-panoptic singularity, where the scenario of a strong AI “singleton”, represents the alienation of the Being into a hard technological determinism. (shrink)

Providing insights into the interrelation between scientific and religious belief, this work covers features of belief in general and discusses distinctive properties between belief, knowledge and acceptance. These properties are considered in relation and comparison to religious belief.".

The most enigmatic feature of polytene chromosomes is their banding pattern, the genetic organization of which has been a very attractive puzzle for many years. Recent genome‐wide protein mapping efforts have produced a wealth of data for the chromosome proteins of Drosophila cells. Based on their specific protein composition, the chromosomes comprise two types of bands, as well as interbands. These differ in terms of time of replication and specific types of proteins. The interbands are characterized by their association with (...) “active” chromatin proteins, nucleosome remodeling, and origin recognition complexes, and so they have three functions: acting as binding sites for RNA pol II, initiation of replication and nucleosome remodeling of short fragments of DNA. The borders and organization of the same band and interband regions are largely identical, irrespective of the cell type studied. This demonstrates that the banding pattern is a universal principle of the organization of interphase polytene and non‐polytene chromosomes.Editor's suggested further reading in BioEssaysCaught in the act: Rapid, symbiont‐driven evolution AbstractFunction and evolution of sex determination mechanisms, genes and pathways in insects Abstract. (shrink)