Interactive technology assessment (iTA) provides an answer to the ethical problem of normative bias in evaluation research. This normative bias develops when relevant perspectives on the evaluand (the thing being evaluated) are neglected. In iTA this bias is overcome by incorporating different perspectives into the assessment. As a consequence, justification of decisions based on the assessment is provided by stakeholders having achieved agreement. In this article, agreement is identified with wide reflective equilibrium to show that it indeed has the potential (...) of justifying decisions. We work out several conditions for this agreement to be achievable and just. (shrink)

(1941). A survey of the growth of knowledge about certain parts of the foetal cardio-vascular apparatus, and about the foetal circulation, in Man and some other mammals. Part I: Galen to Harvey. Annals of Science: Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 57-89.

Background: Nursing students on clinical placements as part of their professional training are routinely faced with situations involving ethical conflicts. The initial act of perceiving a situation as causing an ethical dilemma is the result of both the students’ personal values, drawn from their culture and families, and of the professional knowledge and values that they have acquired through training and experience. Objectives: Nursing students’ experiences on clinical placements in primary care settings were investigated in order to identify situations that (...) they perceived as involving ethical conflict and describe the elements they took into consideration during their decision-making processes in these situations. Methods: The research design was qualitative descriptive case study. Around 50 students from three different intakes to a nursing degree answered a questionnaire and discussed it in focus groups. Ethical considerations: The study was designed in accordance with the principles guiding research with human beings and was approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee. Results: Synthesised into two principal axes: (a) ethical conflicts in primary care, linked with the domains of working processes, professional nursing ethics and human and social rights and (b) students’ decision-making processes – realisation, reflection and intervention. Conclusion: The student nurses saw themselves both as actors and spectators in situations involving ethical problems and demanding moral deliberation, demonstrating the ability to base their arguments soundly. They tended to emphasise the possibilities offered by dialogue and that different ethical values must be respected to find fair solutions to ethical problems. (shrink)

We introduce a linear analogue of Läuchli's semantics for intuitionistic logic. In fact, our result is a strengthening of Läuchli's work to the level of proofs, rather than provability. This is obtained by considering continuous actions of the additive group of integers on a category of topological vector spaces. The semantics, based on functorial polymorphism, consists of dinatural transformations which are equivariant with respect to all such actions. Such dinatural transformations are called uniform. To any sequent in Multiplicative Linear Logic (...) , we associate a vector space of“diadditive” uniform transformations. We then show that this space is generated by denotations of cut-free proofs of the sequent in the theory MLL + MIX. Thus we obtain a full completeness theorem in the sense of Abramsky and Jagadeesan, although our result differs from theirs in the use of dinatural transformations.As corollaries, we show that these dinatural transformations compose, and obtain a conservativity result: diadditive dinatural transformations which are uniform with respect to actions of the additive group of integers are also uniform with respect to the actions of arbitrary cocommutative Hopf algebras. Finally, we discuss several possible extensions of this work to noncommutative logic.It is well known that the intuitionistic version of Läuchli's semantics is a special case of the theory of logical relations, due to Plotkin and Statman. Thus, our work can also be viewed as a first step towards developing a theory of logical relations for linear logic and concurrency. (shrink)

We present a full completeness theorem for the multiplicative fragment of a variant of noncommutative linear logic, Yetter's cyclic linear logic (CyLL). The semantics is obtained by interpreting proofs as dinatural transformations on a category of topological vector spaces, these transformations being equivariant under certain actions of a noncocommutative Hopf algebra called the shuffie algebra. Multiplicative sequents are assigned a vector space of such dinaturals, and we show that this space has as a basis the denotations of cut-free proofs in (...) CyLL + MIX. This can be viewed as a fully faithful representation of a free *-autonomous category, canonically enriched over vector spaces. This paper is a natural extension of the authors' previous work, "Linear Lauchli Semantics", where a similar theorem is obtained for the commutative logic MLL + MIX. In that paper, we interpret proofs as dinaturals which are invariant under certain actions of the additive group of integers. Here we also present a simplification of that work by showing that the invariance criterion is actually a consequence of dinaturality. The passage from groups to Hopf algebras in this paper corresponds to the passage from commutative to noncommutative logic. However, in our noncommutative setting, one must still keep the invariance condition on dinaturals. (shrink)

We discuss five kinds of representations of rationales and provide a formal account of how they can alter disputation. The formal model of disputation is derived from recent work in argument. The five kinds of rationales are compilation rationales, which can be represented without assuming domain-knowledge (such as utilities) beyond that normally required for argument. The principal thesis is that such rationales can be analyzed in a framework of argument not too different from what AI already has. The result is (...) a formal understanding of rationales, a partial taxonomy, and a foundation for computer programs that represent and reason with rationales.The five kinds of rationales are as follows: (c)ompression and (s)pecialization, which yield rules, and (d)isputation, which yields a decision. These are modeled as potentially changing the focus of the dispute. Then there are (f)it, a rationale for rules, and (r)esolution, a rationale for decisions. These cannot be modeled as simply; they force disputation to a meta-level, at least temporarily. (shrink)

The current article aims to provide an up-to-date synopsis of available techniques to study affect dynamics using intensive longitudinal data (ILD). We do so by introducing the following eight dichotomies that help elucidate what kind of data one has, what process aspects are of interest, and what research questions are being considered: (1) single- versus multiple-person data; (2) univariate versus multivariate models; (3) stationary versus nonstationary models; (4) linear versus nonlinear models; (5) discrete time versus continuous time models; (6) discrete (...) versus continuous variables; (7) time versus frequency domain; and (8) modeling the process versus computing descriptives. In addition, we discuss what we believe to be the most urging future challenges regarding the modeling of affect dynamics. (shrink)