The rapid dynamics of COVID-19 calls for quick and effective tracking of virus transmission chains and early detection of outbreaks, especially in the “phase 2” of the pandemic, when lockdown and other restriction measures are progressively withdrawn, in order to avoid or minimize contagion resurgence. For this purpose, contact-tracing apps are being proposed for large scale adoption by many countries. A centralized approach, where data sensed by the app are all sent to a nation-wide server, raises concerns about citizens’ privacy (...) and needlessly strong digital surveillance, thus alerting us to the need to minimize personal data collection and avoiding location tracking. We advocate the conceptual advantage of a decentralized approach, where both contact and location data are collected exclusively in individual citizens’ “personal data stores”, to be shared separately and selectively, voluntarily, only when the citizen has tested positive for COVID-19, and with a privacy preserving level of granularity. This approach better protects the personal sphere of citizens and affords multiple benefits: it allows for detailed information gathering for infected people in a privacy-preserving fashion; and, in turn this enables both contact tracing, and, the early detection of outbreak hotspots on more finely-granulated geographic scale. The decentralized approach is also scalable to large populations, in that only the data of positive patients need be handled at a central level. Our recommendation is two-fold. First to extend existing decentralized architectures with a light touch, in order to manage the collection of location data locally on the device, and allow the user to share spatio-temporal aggregates—if and when they want and for specific aims—with health authorities, for instance. Second, we favour a longer-term pursuit of realizing a Personal Data Store vision, giving users the opportunity to contribute to collective good in the measure they want, enhancing self-awareness, and cultivating collective efforts for rebuilding society. (shrink)

Despite a large and multifaceted effort to understand the vast landscape of phenotypic data, their current form inhibits productive data analysis. The lack of a community-wide, consensus-based, human- and machine-interpretable language for describing phenotypes and their genomic and environmental contexts is perhaps the most pressing scientific bottleneck to integration across many key fields in biology, including genomics, systems biology, development, medicine, evolution, ecology, and systematics. Here we survey the current phenomics landscape, including data resources and handling, and the progress that (...) has been made to accurately capture relevant data descriptions for phenotypes. We present an example of the kind of integration across domains that computable phenotypes would enable, and we call upon the broader biology community, publishers, and relevant funding agencies to support efforts to surmount today's data barriers and facilitate analytical reproducibility. (shrink)

The use of forward models is well established in cognitive and computational neuroscience. We compare and contrast two recent, but interestingly divergent, accounts of the place of forward models in the human cognitive architecture. On the Auxiliary Forward Model account, forward models are special-purpose prediction mechanisms implemented by additional circuitry distinct from core mechanisms of perception and action. On the Integral Forward Model account, forward models lie at the heart of all forms of perception and action. We compare these neighbouring (...) but importantly different visions and consider their implications for the cognitive sciences. We end by asking what kinds of empirical research might offer evidence favouring one or the other of these approaches. (shrink)

Qu'est-ce au juste que le mental? Les nouvelles "sciences de l'esprit" ne paraissent pas avoir de doute sur la réponse : c'est ce qu'il y a dans la boîte crânienne. L'idée que le mental puisse être autre chose que le côté "interne" d'une métaphore qui l'oppose à de l'externe, et qu'à ce titre il puisse s'avérer intrinsèquement social, leur paraît incongrue. C'est pourtant cette idée que le présent ouvrage s'applique à défendre. Il élabore une conception sociale du mental, en prenant (...) appui sur les courants de recherche qui, en philosophie et en sciences humaines et sociales, ont souligné, tant d'un point de vue conceptuel qu'empirique, l'imbrication du social et du mental. Cette élaboration passe par une clarification des deux concepts. D'un côté, il est nécessaire de remédier au rétrécissement du social non seulement par les sciences cognitives, mais aussi par une partie des sciences sociales. De l'autre, il faut proposer une nouvelle compréhension de ce que l'on entend par mental. La conception esquissée est une conception qu'on peut qualifier d'adverbiale : "mental" est un concept opératoire qui qualifie une modalité de l'action d'agents appartenant à une société. (shrink)

First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

In a letter addressed to Mercator in 1558, John Dee made an odd announcement, describing the Portuguese mathematician and cosmographer Pedro Nunes as the ‘most learned and grave man who is the sole relic and ornament and prop of the mathematical arts among us’, and appointing him his intellectual executor. This episode shows that Dee considered Nunes one of his most distinguished contemporaries, and also that some connection existed between the two men. Unfortunately not much is known about this connection, (...) and even such basic questions such as ‘What could John Dee know about this Portuguese cosmographer’s scientific work?’ or ‘When, why and where did this interest come about?’ still lack proper answers. In this paper I address this connection and examine Nunes’ influence on Dee’s mathematical work. I argue that Dee was interested in Nunes’ work as early as 1552 . I also claim that Dee was aware of Nunes’ programme for the use of mathematics in studying physical phenomena and that this may have influenced his own views on the subject. (shrink)

En el presente trabajo analizo críticamente dos estrategias empleadas para esclarecer la naturaleza modal de las estructuras tal como son concebidas por el realismo estructural óntico (reo) en su versión eliminativista: los patrones reales de Ladyman y Ross (2007) y las leyes y simetrías de French (2014). Ofrezco argumentos para mostrar que ambas resultan incapaces de brindar una caracterización de las estructuras como entidades inherentemente modales. Ese resultado impone serias dificultades al proyecto de presentar el reo como una posición realista (...) acerca del mundo físico. (shrink)