The automated parsing of 130,213 news articles about the 2012 US presidential elections produces a network formed by the key political actors and issues, which were linked by relations of support and opposition. The nodes are formed by noun phrases and links by verbs, directly expressing the action of one node upon the other. This network is studied by applying insights from several theories and techniques, and by combining existing tools in an innovative way, including: graph partitioning, centrality, assortativity, hierarchy (...) and structural balance. The analysis yields various patterns. First, we observe that the fundamental split between the Republican and Democrat camps can be easily detected by network partitioning, which provides a strong validation check of the approach adopted, as well as a sound way to assign actors and topics to one of the two camps. Second, we identify the most central nodes of the political camps. We also learnt that Clinton played a more central role than Biden in the Democrat camp; the overall campaign was much focused on economy and rights; the Republican Party is the most divisive subject in the campaign, and is portrayed more negatively than the Democrats; and, overall, the media reported positive statements more frequently for the Democrats than the Republicans. This is the first study in which political positions are automatically extracted and derived from a very large corpus of online news, generating a network that goes well beyond traditional word-association networks by means of richer linguistic analysis of texts. (shrink)

There is wide support in logic, philosophy, and psychology for the hypothesis that the probability of the indicative conditional of natural language, P(if A then B), is the conditional probability of B given A, P(B|A). We identify a conditional which is such that P(if A then B)=P(B|A) with de Finetti’s conditional event, B | A. An objection to making this identification in the past was that it appeared unclear how to form compounds and iterations of conditional events. In this paper, (...) we illustrate how to overcome this objection with a probabilistic analysis, based on coherence, of these compounds and iterations. We interpret the compounds and iterations as conditional random quantities, which sometimes reduce to conditional events, given logical dependencies. We also show, for the first time, how to extend the inference of centering for conditional events, inferring B|A from the conjunction A ^ B, to compounds and iterations of both conditional events and biconditional events, B || A, and generalize it to n-conditional events. (shrink)

There is wide support in logic, philosophy, and psychology for the hypothesis that the probability of the indicative conditional of natural language, P(if A then B), is the conditional probability of B given A, P(B|A). We identify a conditional which is such that P(if A then B)=P(B|A) with de Finetti's conditional event, B|A. An objection to making this identification in the past was that it appeared unclear how to form compounds and iterations of conditional events. In this paper, we illustrate (...) how to overcome this objection with a probabilistic analysis, based on coherence, of these compounds and iterations. We interpret the compounds and iterations as conditional random quantities which, given some logical dependencies, may reduce to conditional events. We show how the inference to B|A from A and B can be extended to compounds and iterations of both conditional events and biconditional events. Moreover, we determine the respective uncertainty propagation rules. Finally, we make some comments on extending our analysis to counterfactuals. (shrink)

The process of completing, correcting and prioritising specifications is an essential but very complex task for the maintenance and improvement of software systems. The preservation of functionalities and the ability to accommodate changes are main objectives of the software development cycle to guarantee system reliability. Logical theories able to fully model such processes are still insufficient. In this paper we propose a full formalisation of such operations on software systems inspired by the Alchourrón–Gärdenfors–Makinson paradigm for belief revision of human epistemic (...) states. We represent specifications as finite sets of formulas equipped with a priority relation that models functional entrenchment of properties. We propose to handle specification incompleteness through ordered expansion, inconsistency through ordered safe contraction and prioritisation through revision with reordering, and model all three in an algorithmic fashion. We show how the system satisfies basic properties of the AGM paradigm, including Levi’s and Harper’s identities. We offer a concrete example and complexity results for the inference and model checking problems on revision. We conclude by describing resilience and evolvability of software systems based on such revision operators. (shrink)

In this paper we exploit the notions of conjoined and iterated conditionals, which are defined in the setting of coherence by means of suitable conditional random quantities with values in the interval [0,1]. We examine the iterated conditional (B|K)|(A|H), by showing that A|H p-entails B|K if and only if (B|K)|(A|H) = 1. Then, we show that a p-consistent family F={E1|H1, E2|H2} p-entails a conditional event E3|H3 if and only if E3|H3= 1, or (E3|H3)|QC(S) = 1 for some nonempty subset S (...) of F, where QC(S) is the quasi conjunction of the conditional events in S. Then, we examine the inference rules And, Cut, Cautious Monotonicity, and Or of System P and other well known inference rules (Modus Ponens, Modus Tollens, Bayes). We also show that QC(F)|C(F) = 1, where C(F) is the conjunction of the conditional events in F. We characterize p-entailment by showing that F p-entails E3|H3 if and only if (E3|H3)|C(F) = 1. Finally, we examine Denial of the antecedent and Affirmation of the consequent, where the p-entailment of (E3|H3) from F does not hold, by showing that (E3|H3)|C(F) is not equal to 1. (shrink)

Electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings are increasingly used to evaluate patients with disorders of consciousness (DOC) or assess their prognosis outcome in the short-term perspective. However, there is a lack of information concerning the effectiveness of EEG in classifying long-term (many years) outcome in chronic DOC patients. Here we tested whether EEG operational architectonics parameters (geared towards consciousness phenomenon detection rather than neurophysiological processes) could be useful for distinguishing a very long-term (6 years) clinical outcome of DOC patients whose EEGs were registered (...) within 3 months post-injury. The obtained results suggest that EEG recorded at third month after sustaining brain damage, may contain useful information on the long-term outcome of patients in vegetative state: it could discriminate patients who remain in a persistent vegetative state from patients who reach a minimally conscious state or even recover a full consciousness in a long-term perspective (6 years) post-injury. These findings, if confirmed in further studies, may be pivotal for long-term planning of clinical care, rehabilitative programs, medical-legal decisions concerning the patients, and policy makers. (shrink)

Background: Patients in a vegetative state pose problems in diagnosis, prognosis and treatment. Currently, no prognostic markers predict the chance of recovery, which has serious consequences, especially in end-of-life decision-making. Objective: We aimed to assess an objective measurement of prognosis using advanced electroencephalography (EEG). Methods: EEG data (19 channels) were collected in 14 patients who were diagnosed to be persistently vegetative based on repeated clinical evaluations at 3 months following brain damage. EEG structure parameters (amplitude, duration and variability within quasi-stationary (...) segments, as well as the spatial synchrony between such segments and the strength of this synchrony) were used to predict recovery of consciousness 3 months later. Results: The number and strength of cortical functional connections between EEG segments were higher in patients who recovered consciousness (P < .05 – P < .001) compared with those who did not recover. Linear regression analysis confirms that EEG structure parameters are capable of predicting (P = .0025) recovery of consciousness 6 months post-injury, whereas the same analysis failed to significantly predict patient outcome based on aspects of their clinical history alone (P = .629) or conventional EEG spectrum power (P = .473). Conclusions: The result of this preliminary study demonstrates that structural strategy of EEG analysis is better suited for providing prognosis of consciousness recovery than existing methods of clinical assessment and of conventional EEG. Our results may be a starting point for developing reliable prognosticators in patients who are in vegetative state, with the potential to improve their day-to-day management, quality of life, and access to early interventions. (shrink)

Murayama and Jach critically evaluate the idea that motivation is a dynamic that determines behavior and propose alternatively that it might be an emergent property that people construe through perceived regularities in experience and action. The critique has value but fails to appreciate the progress that has been made in moving beyond the idea of which the authors are critical.

We provide a full characterization of computational error states for information systems. The class of errors considered is general enough to include human rational processes, logical reasoning, scientific progress and data processing in some functional programming languages. The aim is to reach a full taxonomy of error states by analysing the recovery and processing of data. We conclude by presenting machine-readable checking and resolve algorithms.

This collection offers close examinations of the global impact of Dewey’s philosophies, both in his time and our own.

Although several studies propose that the integrity of neuronal assemblies may underlie a phenomenon referred to as awareness, none of the known studies have explicitly investigated dynamics and functional interactions among neuronal assemblies as a function of consciousness expression. In order to address this question EEG operational architectonics analysis (Fingelkurts and Fingelkurts, 2001, 2008) was conducted in patients in minimally conscious (MCS) and vegetative states (VS) to study the dynamics of neuronal assemblies and operational synchrony among them as a function (...) of consciousness expression. We found that in minimally conscious patients and especially in vegetative patients neuronal assemblies got smaller, their life-span shortened and they became highly unstable. Furthermore, we demonstrated that the extent/volume and strength of operational synchrony among neuronal assemblies was smallest or even absent in VS patients, intermediate in MCS patients and highest in healthy fully-conscious subjects. All findings were similarly observed in EEG alpha as well as beta1 and beta2 frequency oscillations. The presented results support the basic tenets of Operational Architectonics theory of brain-mind functioning and suggest that EEG operational architectonics analysis may provide an objective and accurate means of assessing signs of (un)consciousness in patients with severe brain injuries. Therefore this methodological approach may complement the existing “gold standard” of behavioral assessment of this population of challenging patients and inform the diagnostic and treatment decision-making processes. (shrink)

It has been argued that complex subjective sense of self is linked to the brain default-mode network (DMN). Recent discovery of heterogeneity between distinct subnets (or operational modules - OMs) of the DMN leads to a reconceptualization of its role for the experiential sense of self. Considering the recent proposition that the frontal DMN OM is responsible for the first-person perspective and the sense of agency, while the posterior DMN OMs are linked to the continuity of ‘I’ experience (including autobiographical (...) memories) through embodiment and localization within bodily space, we have tested in this study the hypothesis that heterogeneity in the operational synchrony strength within the frontal DMN OM among patients who are in a vegetative state (VS) could inform about a stable self-consciousness recovery later in the course of disease (up to six years post-injury). Using EEG operational synchrony analysis we have demonstrated that among the three OMs of the DMN only the frontal OM showed important heterogeneity in VS patients as a function of later stable clinical outcome. We also found that the frontal DMN OM was characterized by the process of active uncoupling (stronger in persistent VS) of operations performed by the involved neuronal assemblies. (shrink)

This article reflects on a survey carried out at a non-profit organization that deals with health care for oncological terminally ill in order to find out for those who are involved in this project each worker's time projection and well-being class. The survey has pointed out each single team member's time perspective and well-being class and allowed building a pedagogical path for work orientation that has involved the same team members.

Recently the complexity of discursive practices has been widely acknowledged by the humanities and social sciences. In fact, to know anything is to know in terms of one or more discourse. The "discursive turn" in psychology may be considered as a new paradigm oriented to a correct study of (wo)man only if it is able to grasp the semiotical ground of psychic experience both as an "effort after meaning" and as a "struggle over meaning." In this sense the notion of (...) "diatext" has been proposed as a contribution in working out a psychosemiotical approach to understand how the discursive practices assign subject-positions to the agents of each interlocution scenario. (shrink)

Giuseppe Fornari’s groundbreaking inquiry shows that Friedrich Nietzsche’s neglected importance as a religious thinker and his “untimeliness” place him at the forefront of modern thought. Capable of exploiting his own failures as a cognitive tool to discover what other philosophers never wanted to see, Nietzsche ultimately drove himself to mental collapse. Fornari analyzes the tragic reports of Nietzsche’s madness and seeks out the cause of this self-destructive destiny, which, he argues, began earlier than his rivalry with the composer and (...) polemicist Richard Wagner, dating back to the premature loss of Nietzsche’s father. Dramatic experience enabled Nietzsche to detect a more general tendency of European culture, leading to his archaeological and prophetic discovery of the death of God, which he understood as a primordial assassination from which all humankind took its origin. Fornari concludes that Nietzsche’s fatal rebellion against a Christian awareness, which he identified as the greatest threat to his plan, led him to become one and the same not only with Dionysus but also with the crucified Christ. His effort, Fornari argues, was a dramatic way to recognize the silent, inner meaning of Christ’s figure, and perhaps to be forgiven. (shrink)

Mainstream theories of decision making conceptualise uncertainty in terms of a well-defined probability distribution or weighting function. Following Knight, radical Keynesians consider subjective expected utility (SEU) theory and its variants as a restricted theory of decision-making applicable to situations of risk and, hence, of limited relevance to the understanding of crucial economic decisions under conditions of fundamental uncertainty in which probabilities are ill-defined, possibly non-existent. The objective of this paper is to outline a radical Keynesian theory of decision-making under uncertainty, (...) arguing that Keynes's suggestion to a two-dimensional probability-credence framework provides the basis for determining the limitations of mainstream approaches and points the way forward to the construction of a more general encompassing theory relevant to psychologists and economists outside of the Keynesian tradition. (shrink)

This paper proposes a critical analysis of that interpretation of the Nāgārjunian doctrine of the two truths as summarized—by both Mark Siderits and Jay L. Garfield—in the formula: “the ultimate truth is that there is no ultimate truth”. This ‘semantic reading’ of Nāgārjuna’s theory, despite its importance as a criticism of the ‘metaphysical interpretations’, would in itself be defective and improbable. Indeed, firstly, semantic interpretation presents a formal defect: it fails to clearly and explicitly express that which it contains logically; (...) the previously mentioned formula must necessarily be completed by: “the conventional truth is that nothing is conventional truth”. Secondly, after having recognized what Siderits’ and Garfield’s analyses contain implicitly, other logical and philological defects in their position emerge: the existence of the ‘conventional’ would appear—despite the efforts of semantic interpreters to demonstrate quite the contrary—definitively inconceivable without the presupposition of something ‘real’; moreover, the number of verses in Nāgārjuna that are in opposition to the semantic interpretation (even if we grant semantic interpreters that these verses do not justify a metaphysical reconstruction of Nagarjuna’s doctrine) would seem too great and significant to be ignored. (shrink)

The epistemology of computer simulations has become a mainstream topic in the philosophy of technology. Within this large area, significant differences hold between the various types of models and simulation technologies. Agent-based and multi-agent systems simulations introduce a specific constraint on the types of agents and systems modelled. We argue that such difference is crucial and that simulation for the artificial sciences requires the formulation of its own specific epistemological principles. We present a minimally committed epistemology which relies on the (...) methodological principles of the Philosophy of Information and requires weak assumptions on the usability of the simulation and the controllability of the model. We use these principles to provide a new definition of simulation for the context of interest. (shrink)

The present study analyses the typology and structure of Chinese Aid to Latin America and the Caribbean, considering the features of this kind of South-South Cooperation within the context of China’s aid policy and strategic aims in this region. The results of the study reveal the different patterns in the structure of Chinese aid to the LAC sub-regions. These patterns indicate that the most significant funds are focused on development and commercial projects in South America; that grants prevail in the (...) case of the Caribbean; and representational aid, which does not need major resources, is associated with Central America. As Wan states, this shows that China’s aid has a strategic role at a global level. (shrink)