Offers practical advice on how to make your way in a chaotic world, and how to make it well. The 300 aphorisms contained here remain remarkably relevant today, addressing us today as practical guides for civility in an often uncivil world, and may serve as invitations to participate in making an uncivil world as civil as possible.

Job Jindo applies recent studies in cognitive science and explores how we can view metaphor as the very essence of poetic prophecy—namely, metaphor as an indispensable mode to communicate prophetic insight.

Hand function improvement in stroke survivors in the chronic stage usually plateaus by 6 months. Brain-computer interface (BCI)-guided robot-assisted training has been shown to be effective for facilitating upper-limb motor function recovery in chronic stroke. However, the underlying neuroplasticity change is not well understood. This study aimed to investigate the whole-brain neuroplasticity changes after 20-session BCI-guided robot hand training, and whether the changes could be maintained at the 6-month follow-up. Therefore, the clinical improvement and the neurological changes before, immediately after, (...) and 6 months after training were explored in 14 chronic stroke subjects. The upper-limb motor function was assessed by Action Research Arm Test (ARAT) and Fugl-Meyer Assessment for Upper-Limb (FMA), and the neurological changes were assessed using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging. Repeated-measure ANOVAs indicated that long-term motor improvement was found by both FMA (F[2,26]= 6.367,p= 0.006) and ARAT (F[2,26]= 7.230,p= 0.003). Seed-based functional connectivity analysis exhibited that significantly modulated FC was observed between ipsilesional motor regions (primary motor cortex and supplementary motor area) and contralesional areas (supplementary motor area, premotor cortex, and superior parietal lobule), and the effects were sustained after 6 months. The fALFF analysis showed that local neuronal activities significantly increased in central, frontal and parietal regions, and the effects were also sustained after 6 months. Consistent results in FC and fALFF analyses demonstrated the increase of neural activities in sensorimotor and fronto-parietal regions, which were highly involved in the BCI-guided training.Clinical Trial Registration:This study has been registered atClinicalTrials.govwith clinical trial registration number NCT02323061. (shrink)

A physical basis for the minimal time-energy uncertainty relation is formulated from basic high-energy hadronic properties such as the resonance mass spectrum, the form factor behavior, and the peculiarities of Feynman's parton picture. It is shown that the covariant oscillator formalism combines covariantly this time-energy uncertainty relation with Heisenberg's space-momentum uncertainty relation. A pictorial method is developed to describe the spacetime distribution of the localized probability density.

Dag Svanæs is involved in the Norwegian public debate on how to handle the Corona pandemic. During the last year, he has written articles, participated in many debates and given lectures on the pandemic. He is the initiator of the website Coronakritikk.no, where they document the debate and present scientific knowledge about the pandemic. Svanæs is a professor at the Department of Computer Technology and Informatics at NTNU and studies the interaction between humans and technology. Svanæs received his Ph.D. in (...) Human-Computer Interaction from NTNU. His research over the last 15 years has been in the fields of HCI and Interaction Design. He has built up a full-scale usability laboratory that allows for simulation of use scenarios with multiple users and multiple devices in realistic settings – primarily for the medical domain. This allows for evaluations and empirical studies of embodied interaction. The basic theory that most inspires his work is the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Martin Heidegger. This was also the topic of his 2000 PhD. This shows Svanæs’ interest in technology, philosophy, health and the ability to have knowledge to predict what could happen in the future. (shrink)

This study looks at the differences and changes observed in the visual design of the covers of French editions of women’s fashion magazines over a period of twenty-one years. To this end, the study aims to identify the changes that can be observed over the years in the design of the covers of the magazines Vogue, Elle, Marie Claire, and Cosmopolitan. However, the main aim of the study is to analyze how these visual signs on the covers of French magazines (...) are designed “differently” and how these signs create a “difference” in comparison to each other. By analyzing these visual elements, the aim of the study is to show the development of design trends and their impact on the visual communication strategies and brand identities of magazines. (shrink)

Freely falling point-like objects converge toward the center of the Earth. Hence the gravitational field of the Earth is inhomogeneous, and possesses a tidal component. The free fall of an extended quantum mechanical object such as a hydrogen atom prepared in a high principal-quantum-number state, i.e. a circular Rydberg atom, is predicted to fall more slowly than a classical point-like object, when both objects are dropped from the same height above the Earth’s surface. This indicates that, apart from transitions between (...) quantum states, the atom exhibits a kind of quantum mechanical incompressibility during free fall in inhomogeneous, tidal gravitational fields like those of the Earth.A superconducting ring-like system with a persistent current circulating around it behaves like the circular Rydberg atom during free fall. Like the electronic wavefunction of the freely falling atom, the Cooper-pair wavefunction is quantum mechanically incompressible. The ions in the lattice of the superconductor, however, are not incompressible, since they do not possess a globally coherent quantum phase. The resulting difference during free fall in the response of the nonlocalizable Cooper pairs of electrons and the localizable ions to inhomogeneous gravitational fields is predicted to lead to a charge separation effect, which in turn leads to a large Coulomb force that opposes the convergence caused by the tidal gravitational force on the superconducting system.A “Cavendish-like” experiment is proposed for observing the charge separation effect induced by inhomogeneous gravitational fields in a superconducting circuit. The charge separation effect is determined to be limited by a pair-breaking process that occurs when low frequency gravitational perturbations are present. (shrink)

Este libro va dirigido esencialmente a los estudios de Postgrado de las Facultades de Filosofía de la UNED y de la UAM, en primer lugar, y de las universidades españolas e iberoamericanas en general. Pero sin duda interesará a cualquier persona que quiera estar al tanto del pensamiento filosófico actual. Es decir, de las Ideas propias de nuestro tiempo-espacio del pensar y de su diferencia histórica y mediática. La cuestión de la Filosofía de la Historia y la Historia Universal puesta (...) en cuestión, están en el centro de las investigaciones que se van hilvanando cronológicamente en estos dos libros dedicados al pensamiento y la intervención de Los hijos y las hijas de Nietzsche. Ya que estos dos libros: Materiales de Ontología Estética y Hermenéutica (Los hijos de Nietzsche I) y El retorno teológico-político de la inocencia (Los Hijos de Nietzsche II) tratan precisamente de eso: de dar cuenta de cómo y por qué se ha producido ese giro transhistórico: el que va, por así decirlo (y lo significativo es que se pueda decir así) desde la Dialéctica de La Historia Universal –Y la lógica de la Emancipación y Superación que la preside – hasta la Hermenéutica de la Historicidad Plural –y la lógica de la comprensión e interpretación dialogal que la constituye –, en busca de nexos o de acuerdos posibles entre las diferencias enlazadas. La percepción sincrónica y sus regímenes de enlace y sentido, como sobredeterminación condicional de los universos diacrónicos y cinéticos está en el centro operacional y corazón noético de todos estos escritos. Pues no otro sino el predominio condicionante de la sincronía sobre la diacronía expresa el giro esencial de nuestra época, en medio de las sociedades telemáticas de la comunicación. Estos trabajos que se entregan al lector, ya de escritura, ya de recreación audiovisual de la palabra, son solamente eso: materiales para una ontología estética y hermenéutica, del espacio y el tiempo, del acontecer del lenguaje del ser, en el que todos nosotros nos jugamos la vida–muerte que se construye entre todos; que cada cual puede construir a su manera para que podamos jugar juntos, con tal de respetar una sola regla: la ley del límite limitante que es condición del juego ontológico mismo y de su hermosa, inagotable, intensa, creatividad. Comprender que este desafío nos reclama hacia un nuevo pensar, viniendo desde la apelación de la propia voz del ser del tiempo, tal y como se vierte en las obras y en la experiencia del lenguaje de las acciones participativas extáticas, proporciona a la ontología estética (del espacio y el tiempo) y la ontología política (de la ley común) un complejo e inaplazable enclave: el de la ontología de nuestro propio presente, hoy todavía por emerger, y sometida a brutales fuerzas ilimitadas. (shrink)

An algebraic block-diagonalization of the Dirac Hamiltonian in a time-independent external field reveals a charge-index conservation law which forbids the physical phenomena of the Klein paradox type and guarantees a single-particle nature of the Dirac equation in strong external fields. Simultaneously, the method defines simpler quantum-mechanical objects—paulions and antipaulions, whose 2-component wave functions determine the Dirac electron states through exact operator relations. Based on algebraic symmetry, the presented theory leads to a new understanding of the Dirac equation physics, including new (...) insight into the Dirac measurements and a consistent scheme of relativistic quantum mechanics of electron in the paulion representation. Along with analysis of the mathematical anatomy of the Klein paradox falsity, a complete set of paradox-free eigenfunctions for the Klein problem is obtained and investigated via stationary solutions of the Pauli-like equations with respective paulion Hamiltonians. It is shown that the physically correct Dirac states in the Klein zone are characterized by the total particle reflection from the potential step and satisfy the fundamental charge-index conservation law. (shrink)

By comparing mechanisms in nativism, empiricism, and culturalism, the target article by Steels & Belpaeme (S&B) emphasizes the influence of communicational constraint on sharing color categories. Our commentary suggests deeper considerations of some of their claims, and discusses some modifications that may help in the study of communicational constraints in both humans and robots.

Los fenómenos urbanos son objeto de complejos modelos cuantitativos que persiguen explicar la emergencia de futuras tendencias. De similar manera, la intuición opera en algunos visionarios, cuya propiedad de percibir lo que esta por venir, los acerca a la realidad de un modo distinto. Este es el caso de Víctor Jara, cuya canción “Las Casitas del Barrio Alto” es objeto de estudio a través de un análisis crítico del discurso. En el trabajo se aprecia que Víctor Jara tiene la capacidad (...) de anticipar el futuro con esta canción, enunciando las características de lo que seria el porvenir urbano de Chile post dictatorial. (shrink)

As we journey into the fourth year of the COVID-19 pandemic, a majority of Americans express relief at a “return to normal,” experience pandemic fatigue, or embrace the idea of living with COVID-19 in much the same way we live with the seasonal flu. But transition to a new phase of life with SARS-CoV-2 does not diminish the importance of vaccination. The US Centers for Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration recently recommended another round of booster dose for (...) persons age 5 and up, or an initial series for those not previously vaccinated, with an updated bivalent formula that protects against both the original virus strain and Omicron subvariants that are now the dominant source of infection. By most accounts most of the population has been or will become infected with SARS-CoV-2. Suboptimal uptake of the COVID-19 vaccines among the approximately 25 million adolescents in the United States is a significant obstacle to population coverage, public health, and the health and well-being of adolescents. A major cause of low adolescent uptake is parental vaccine hesitancy. This article discusses parental vaccine hesitancy and argues that permitting independent adolescent consent to COVID-19 vaccination should be an ethical and policy priority as we continue to confront the threat of Omicron and other variants of the coronavirus. We discuss the central role of the pediatric healthcare team in caring for adolescent patients who disagree with their parents about vaccination. (shrink)