An inequality in quantum mechanics, which does not appear to be well known, is derived by elementary means and shown to be quite useful. The inequality applies to 'all' operators and 'all' pairs of quantum states, including mixed states. It generalizes the rule of the orthogonality of eigenvectors for distinct eigenvalues and is shown to imply all the Robertson generalized uncertainty relations. It severely constrains the difference between probabilities obtained from 'close' quantum states and the different responses they can have (...) to unitary transformations. Thus, it is dubbed a master inequality. With appropriate definitions the inequality also holds throughout general probability theory and appears not to be well known there either. That classical inequality is obtained here in an appendix. The quantum inequality can be obtained from the classical version but a more direct quantum approach is employed here. A similar but weaker classical inequality has been reported by Uffink and van Lith. (shrink)

This philosophical narrative delves into deepening crises afflicting modern democracies, when extreme inequality and its resultant alienation grips not just adults but, even more anguishingly, children. These children and often their parents come in far under the social radar, so out-of-touch that even census takers overlook them. In this milieu, weapons and narcotics are as much an unquestioned part of life as breathing. The world beyond this invisible cage entirely escapes them, nor does the larger society miss them or know (...) about them. This documentary narrative follows a thirteen-year-old who forces himself to escape his oblivious father, not out of hope, but for sheer escape from the execrable situation, without even the will to be himself, whatever that is. He also must navigate through his nightmare existemce, relying on an illicit business, the only thing he knows as well as breathing. If the individuals in this milieu--which cut across racial boundaries--ever even hear of voting, they are drawn to strong-arm politicians, who appeal to these scattered inhabitants, as examples of strength, no-nonsense, even hatred. The ethics of such circumstances' mere existence--further extreme than even those in Les Miserable--in our societies poses a formidable challenge to the ethics of social and political philosophy and are hardly touched upon in the academic literature. The central philosophical question is whether it is possible for a political system to preempt such conditions, particularly when these individuals, especially the children, are veritably invisible. The metaphilosophical issue is why philosophy does not focus more concern about this ignored human morass. To say an indictment of soiciopolitical philosophy is not justified here, that the persons encountered here are merely messed-up self-indulgent people, only adds cause to the charge. (shrink)

As engineers propose constructing humanlike automata, the question arises as to whether such machines merit human rights. The issue warrants serious and rigorous examination, although it has not yet cohered into a conversation. To put it into a sure direction, this paper proposes phrasing it in terms of whether humans are morally obligated to extend to maximally humanlike automata full human rights, or those set forth in common international rights documents. This paper’s approach is to consider the ontology of humans (...) and of automata and whether ontological difference between them, that pertains to the very bases of human rights, affects the latter’s claims to full human rights. Considering common bases of human rights, can these bases tell us whether a certain ontological distinction of humans from automata—or a de facto distinction about humans tacitly acknowledged by full-rights-recognizing societies—makes a difference in whether humans are morally obligated to assign these entities full rights? Human rights to security also arise. The conclusion is that humans need not be under any moral obligation to confer full human rights on automata. The paper’s ultimate point is not to close the discussion with this ontological cap but to set a solid moral and legal groundwork for opening it up tout court. (shrink)

Thanks to mounting discussion about projected technologies’ possibly altering the species mentally and physically, philosophical investigation of what human beings are proceeds robustly. Many thinkers contend that whatever we are has little to do with how we should behave. Yet, tampering with what the human being is may tread upon human rights to be whatever one is. Rights given in widely recognized documents such as the U.N. Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples assume what humans are and need depends (...) upon ontological assumptions about human existence. Godman turns to human ontology—just what kind of beings humans are (from an angle distinct from the other two books) and how these play into rights. She is concerned with how well the social sciences accord with what we are. Gunkel homes in on a more specific moral topic than Godman's general concern with identity’s role in rights: automata moral status and rights. He enjoins us to inquire into what human rights are before we take on the new technologies’ challenge to it. Schneider’s Artificial You, while not explicitly about rights, poses a rights quandary. Certain individuals with reputable resources and practical backing explicitly seek to evolve the species as they see fit. The urgency among these works concerns how we need a sharper idea of what we are, how we should act and be treated, and how our rights fare among potential human improvements. (shrink)

Since the Nuremberg Code and the first Declaration of Helsinki, globally there has been increasing adoption and adherence to procedures for ensuring that human subjects in research are as well informed as possible of the study’s reasons and risks and voluntarily consent to serving as subject. To do otherwise is essentially viewed as violation of the human research subject’s legal and moral rights. However, with the recent philosophical concerns about responsible robotics, the limits and ambiguities of research-subjects ethical codes become (...) apparent on the matter of constructing automata that maximally resemble human beings (as defined hereunder). In this case, the automata themselves, as products of research and development, are in the very process of their construction subjects of research and development. However, such research faces a paradox: The subjects cannot give their informed consent to this research for their own development, although their consent would be needed for the research. According to ethical codes, this research would be unethical. The article then explores whether the background concepts giving rise to this paradox could be reframed in order to allow such research to proceed ethically. (shrink)

Metacognition is the capacity to evaluate the success of one's own cognitive processes in various domains; for example, memory and perception. It remains controversial whether metacognition relies on a domain-general resource that is applied to different tasks or if self-evaluative processes are domain specific. Here, we investigated this issue directly by examining the neural substrates engaged when metacognitive judgments were made by human participants of both sexes during perceptual and memory tasks matched for stimulus and performance characteristics. By comparing patterns (...) of fMRI activity while subjects evaluated their performance, we revealed both domain-specific and domain-general metacognitive representations. Multivoxel activity patterns in anterior prefrontal cortex predicted levels of confidence in a domain-specific fashion, whereas domain-general signals predicting confidence and accuracy were found in a widespread network in the frontal and posterior midline. The demonstration of domain-specific metacognitive representations suggests the presence of a content-rich mechanism available to introspection and cognitive control. (shrink)

There is a conflict between a strictly political approach to LGBT rights, in which the battle must never cease. and the less encountered notion that individuals can let the battle settle into the background and simply get on with unpolitical life. at least unpolitical at home. The article takes the example of India as a salient place to view this conflict. As a democratic nation, India has had some limited progress in protecting LGBT rights. How its massively differentiated and traditional (...) society has adopted and tolerated this moral enjoinder is another matter. Certainly, acceptance is as important as legal recognition. But how are the politics faring at the individual level? One of the best media for feeling a nation’s political pulse is not internet or television but literature. Two current Indian authors exemplify how, at the personal level, some sexual politicking has already succeeded, in some social realms, by almost disappearing from the narrative. (shrink)

As to what distinguishes music from other sound, some investigators in both philosophy and cognitive scientists have answered “tonality.” It seems subservient even to rhythm. Tonality is considered to be the central factor around which the piece is oriented; it gives a sense of home, expectation, and completeness. Most important, much of this inquiry builds on naturalistic, evolutionary explanation to account for human nature and behavior. The conclusion of such line of thought is that sounds missing tonality or tonal focus (...) cannot be music. This article challenges such sort of naturalistic criteria distinguishing music from nonmusic. Permitting certain sets of sounds to be considered music does not necessitate denial or approval of naturalistic explanations but does allow nontonal music to serve a part of human and musical evolution. (shrink)

The problem with reductionism in biology is not the reduction, but the implicit attitude of determinism that usually accompanies it. Methodological reductionism is supported by deterministic beliefs, but making such a connection is problematic when it is based on an idea of determinism as fixed predictability. Conflating determinism with predictability gives rise to inaccurate models that overlook the dynamic complexity of our world, as well as ignore our epistemic limitations when we try to model it. Furthermore, the assumption of a (...) strictly deterministic framework is unnecessarily hindering to biology. By removing the dogma of determinism, biological methods, including reductive methods, can be expanded to include stochastic models and probabilistic interpretations. Thus, the dogma of reductionism can be saved once its ties with determinism are severed. In this paper, I analyze two problems that have faced molecular biology for the last 50 years—protein folding and cancer. Both cases demonstrate the long influence of reductionism and determinism on molecular biology, as well as how abandoning determinism has opened the door to more probabilistic and unconstrained reductive methods in biology. (shrink)

Care is more than dispensing pills or cleaning beds. It is about responding to the entire patient. What is called “bedside manner” in medical personnel is a quality of treating the patient not as a mechanism but as a being—much like the caregiver—with desires, ideas, dreams, aspirations, and the gamut of mental and emotional character. As automata, answering an increasing functional need in care, are designed to enact care, the pressure is on their becoming more humanlike to carry out the (...) function more effectively. The question becomes not merely whether the care automaton can effect good bedside manner but whether the patient’s response is not feeling deceived by the humanlikeness. It seems the device must be designed either to effect explicit mere human-“likeness,” thus likely undermining its bedside-manner potential, or to fool the patient completely. Neither option is attractive. This article examines the social problems of designing maximally humanlike care automata and how problems may start to erode the human rights of users/patients. The article then investigates the alternatives for dealing with this problem, whether by industrial and professional self-regulation or public-policy initiatives. It then frames the problem in the broader historical perspective in terms of previous bans, moratoria, and other means of control of hazardous and potentially rights-violating techniques and materials. (shrink)

Autonomy, equality and freedom often appear to be significantly interrelated with one another. However, it has been a challenge to unite these concepts. This article attempts to take up the challenge and demonstrate how these interrelate: .

Most current dental ethics curricula use a deontological approach to biomedical and dental ethics that emphasizes adherence to duties and principles as properties that determine whether an act is ethical. But the actual ethical orientation of students is typically unknown. The purpose of the current study was to determine the ethical orientation of dental students in resolving clinical ethical dilemmas. First-year students from one school were invited to participate in an electronic survey that included eight vignettes featuring ethical conflicts common (...) to the health care setting. The Multidimensional Ethics Scale was used to evaluate the students’ ethical judgments of these conflicts. Students rated each vignette along 13 ethically relevant items using a 7-point scale. Nine of the thirteen items were analyzed because they represent the dominant ethical theories, including deontology. One hundred sixteen dental students successfully completed the survey. Of the analyzed items, those associated with deontology had comparatively weak associations with whether students judged the action to be ethical and whether students judged themselves likely to perform the action. Whether an action was judged to be caring had the strongest association with whether the action was judged to be ethical and whether students judged themselves likely to perform the action. These results suggest that adherence to duties or principles has weaker association with students’ ethical judgments and behavior compared to caring, which was found to be more influential in their ethical judgments and behavior. Current dental school curricula with a primary focus on deontology may no. (shrink)

Two Socratic dialogues often considered “comic”—Ion and Hippias Major—have also been contested as to their Platonic authenticity. Plato’s dialogues; while certainly engaging, can also seem grim in their philosophical intensity: At least one author has contended that the dialogue more firmly established as genuinely by Plato, Symposium; has some comic elements: This article goes a step further in suggesting that this dialogue does not merely have comic elements but is in fact a comedy. It draws on several texts in the (...) literature on Greek comedy over the past century and suggests that; although the dialogue sets itself serious philosophical challenges, its structure; style; and method are deeply steeped in comedic modes from around Plato’s day. This is not to presume whether Plato was deliberately writing a comedy. In general, writers are often strongly influenced by literary fashions of the day, so it would not be far stretching the matter to understand the work as comedic. Thereby, the article offers, via textual analysis, an argument for how the dialogue is a comedy along withcounter-arguments against such a notion. In the end, indeed, acknowledging it is a comedy promises to open up new angles on interpreting that dialogue. (shrink)

The aspiration for volitional evolution, or human evolution directed by humans themselves,has increased in philosophical, scientific, technical, and commercial literature. The prospect of shaping the very being who is the consumer of all other innovations offers great commercial potential, one to which all other innovations would in effect be subservient. Actually an amalgam of projected technical/commercial developments, this prospective innovation has practical and ethical ramifications. However, because it is often discussed in a scientific way (specifically that of evolutionary theory), it (...) first calls for examination in terms of common scientific approaches to evolution. Yet, as evolutionary-theory controversies point up, evolution may be considered as neither a directed nor a directable process – a problem for the ontology of volitional evolution. One challenge for theories and programs aiming to implement the proposed innovation is then whether it is theoretically coherent. While I offer responses to the challenge in the form of objections, these in turn remain problematic. Two central issues of responsible innovation arise: (1) If this prospect were feasible, would it be responsible to implement it, and (2) if it is not even theoretically coherent, is it responsible for innovators, even this early-on, to keep promoting it as if it were? (shrink)

Human-sciences research often focuses on social problems to create tools for solving them. Yet, in using common prejudices in gathering and sorting data on their subjects, they risk propagating those same prejudices. This article proposes that a major subject matter of human sciences is human concepts themselves. Concepts about “what we are,” individually and as a species, are deeply embedded, if not essential. It concludes that for greater precision, practitioners in human sciences must take maximum advantage of this characteristic of (...) the subject, making individuals’ concepts about what they consider themselves to be integral criteria of data gathering and sorting. (shrink)

One of the most salient contemporary concerns in academic debates and pop culture alike is the extent to which new technologies may re-cast Homo sapiens. Species members may find themselves encased in a type of existence they deem to be wanting in comparison with their present form, even if the promised form was assured to be better. Plausibly, the concern is not merely fear of change or of the unknown, but rather it arises out of individuals’ general identification with what (...) they are and what their friends and family are. In altering that identity beyond a point, they lose it and thus lose themselves in a kind of living death. The three volumes analysed in this essay offer widely differing perspectives on the relations between humans and new technology. As the three works reviewed here together make clear, a whole, fully coherent, definitive work on the composite redesign of human nature (CROHN) still has yet to materialize. (shrink)

This narrative commentary on Nietzschean ambitions, in part influenced by Zarathustra and Ecce Homo, centers on a long, ongoing, expansive, and highly imaginative technological projects by two men, Stuart Beholt and Alby Tolby. Having worked up adventurous software in university days, their experiences interwoven with their friendship bring out a panoply of current philosophical issues--and beyond. This narrative philosophy evokes and explores more issues than current philosophical debates concerning emerging technologies can include in a more conventional work. At the same (...) time, this structure makes the read readily accessible , including such issues as the intriguing recent flirtation of religion and materialism that have only been broached in the literature. At the same time, high finance and monetary issues, besides the alluring beauty of solving tremendous engineering problems, pull the two übermensch into ever greater schemes, well evoking the question of the limits of ethics and epistemology. Even if this approach does not coincide with the reader's research, it can offer an enjoyable delving into philosophical problems. (shrink)

Recent years have seen a surge of interest in the question of whether humans should reproduce. Some say human life is too punishing and cruel to impose upon an innocent. Others hold that such harms do not undermine the great and possibly unique value of human life. Tracing these outlooks historically in the debate has barely begun. What might philosophers have said, or what did they say, about human life itself and its value to merit reproduction? This article looks to (...) Kant, who wrote much on whether, by reproducing, humans do wrong or right morally. It assesses two main arguments: one examining whether perfect or imperfect duties condone reproduction, the other whether Kant’s teleological or, in the opposite sense, his eschatological outlooks can salvage reproduction. These two arguments are essential for building the entire argument. This article finds that, although Kant’s arguments against reproducing are strong, some of his writing seems to support reproduction as a good. Yet, must we must assume an author, even one who strove for systematicity, must be consistent over his entire oeuvre on every issue, especially if not handled directly in a single work? The article concludes that Kant does not sufficiently, systematically support anti-natalism as more moral than pro-natalism. It is best for the current debate to grapple with the very dilemma that daunted Kant. (shrink)

Over the past several decades environmental ethics has grown markedly, normative ethics having provided essential grounding in assessing human treatment of the environment. Even a systematic approach, such as Paul Taylor’s, in a sense tells the environment how it is to be treated, whether that be Earth’s ecosystem or the universe itself. Can the environment, especially the ecosystem, as understood through the study of ecology, in turn offer normative and applied ethics any edification? The study of ecology has certainly increased (...) awareness of the fact that it is not possible for a moral agent within the ecosystem to step outside its intricate mesh of actions and events, of causes and effects. That is, absolutely everything that an agent can do can have some, often unforeseeable, outcome in the environment. An incompletely snuffed-out match tossed out a car window can cause a forest fire, which causes biome destruction, which causes x, y, and z. In sum, the ecosystem can edify ethics in terms of the scope of ethics, which remains an unsettled, if too-often ignored, matter. By such an inclusive view of moral scope, as derived in part from ecology and as presented here, the scope of moral behavior would include—whether or not adventitiously—every action an agent may do. By this view, moral scope is, in essence, unlimited. The article offers some ramifications of this view of moral scope. (shrink)

Nihilism is in the air. Yet, it is hard to say to what profit—beyond that for marketers and manufacturers of electronic devices. Advertisements paradoxically take on a bravura of appealing to targeted-consumers’ nihilism in the guise of bold autonomy dependent on one’s incorporating their brand names into one’s life. Social analysts themselves, reporting on such phenomena, seem to shy from too much criticism of the trend lest they appear out of touch. We seem to have ended up in a sociopolitical (...) condition in which everyone senses some kind of social and ecological disaster looms but the free market of ideas should not disturb itself too much about it. (shrink)

Despite the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, assimilationist policies continue, whether official or effective. Such policies affect more than the right to group choice. The concern is whether indeed genocide or “only” ethnocide (or culturecide)—the elimination of a traditional culture—is at work. Discussions of the distinction between the two terms have been inconsistent enough that at least one commentator has declared that they cannot be used in analytical contexts. While these terms, I contend, have distinct senses, (...) yet in cases of governmental and other institutional assimilationist policy for indigenous peoples, such ethnocide effectively entails genocide. Insofar as any people’s cultural practices and beliefs are essential for life and health, individuals in groups value, if tacitly, their culture as highly as their language or any artifact: Thus, attempts to eradicate a culture through assimilation in fact eradicate individuals’ lives and health and so are effectively murderous. Acknowledgement by worldwide organizations that assimilationist ethnocide is effectively genocide should affect policy concerning indigenous peoples and thus has significance for international law. (shrink)

A dissociated area of medical research warrants bioethical consideration: a proposed transplantation of a donor’s entire body, except head, to a patient with a fatal degenerative disease. The seeming improbability of such an operation can only underscore the need for thorough bioethical assessment: Not assessing a case of such potential ethical import, by showing neglect instead of facing the issue, can only compound the ethical predicament, perhaps eroding public trust in ethical medicine. This article discusses the historical background of full-body (...) transplantation, documents the seriousness of its current pursuit, and builds an argument for why prima facie this type of transplant is bioethically distinct. Certainly, this examination can only be preliminary, indicating what should be a wide and vigorous discussion among practitioners and ethicists. It concludes with practical suggestions for how the medical and bioethics community may proceed with ethical assessment. (shrink)

If any area of current philosophy is so incendiary as to veer on violence, it is argument about a divide being’s existence. Hinman’s sober offering is possibly one of the most thorough apologetics in contemporary times, meriting serious consideration yet certain to draw fire. Since Darwin, the religious have taken up arms, both metaphorically and, in the case of World Trade Center and its imitators, literally. In turn, growing atheist movements reacted against such defensiveness. This upsurge in side-taking and regrouping (...) evidences a powerful human need for settling the issue. A peek at the arguments reveals a mess. One advantage of Hinman’s new work is that, among other goals, it attempts to order the mess. The work exudes care and some respect for the various perspectives. Its sheer breadth and depth of scholarship and capacity in articulating it attests the generally due respect of the many sides, which often exhibit the rational and irrational in one commentator. The central theme tying the various arguments together is that ideologies outside of the sciences’ themselves are informing science-based, evidential arguments about any divine’s existence. Many sides of the debate, including the monotheistic, are equally guilty. (shrink)

The ongoing debates about what rationality consists in remain unsettled and leave plenty of interpretation for what is rational in belief formation and action. Hinman risks a large step in seeming to assume that it is rational not to contravene scientific theories and findings and irrational to disallow this openness. These -- possibilities lending a potential for deistic beliefs not to be inconsistent with rationality. The presumed scientific approach to allowing a rationality in such belief revolves around the development of (...) the so-called "M-scale" in the psychology of belief. The other, even more intense, global debate here is whether such an approach to rationality and rational belief is indeed valid, that is, the ongoing concen of whether such belief is consistent or not with scientific practice, understanding, and method. Readers interested in these debates should be interested in this unusual work and its purports. (shrink)

One purpose for the field of consciousness studies may be to increase general understanding about consciousness and its place in human life, thereby possibly aiding us in living in better harmony within our societies and with our fellow humans. Neil Levy’s new work is a candidate for this latter purpose for the field. Consciousness studies may help us better understand how we function as conscious agents—or what role consciousness plays in our agency—and aid in our more just construction of laws, (...) especially those dealing with culpability. (shrink)

Science fiction has served the film industry like a dreamy stepchild. It gets only scant accolades from its master but must do heavy lifting: that is, make money. While science-fiction films often emphasize spectacle and action, they also inspire philosophical contemplation. Why? Science fiction, dating back to Shelley and Verne, came into existence speculating about humanity's social and physical worlds. Many books and articles over the past several years discuss the philosophical issues that films raise. One fairly new school of (...) thought, "posthumanism," explicitly deriving from postmodernism, with touches of critical theory, has seized on science-fiction movies as support for its theorizing. This volume and its 42 authors from film theory, science and technology studies, literary criticism, media studies, and philosophy, offer an array of posthumanist scholarship. (shrink)

The nature-nurture debate rages so, one cannot help but wonder why the sides are so vehemently partitioned. What's at stake? It is simply not clear why a great amount of people embrace either one side or the other, but dare not even blow a kiss to the opposite opinion. Prinz does an excellent job of arguing for the nurture position, zeroing in on some of the most preciously held nature arguments including the basis of knowledge, thought, and feelings in experience (...) and cultural values, increasing as a child grows. Most prominent of the nature hypothèses that Prinz takes on may be that of language acquisition and the Chomskyean notion of inborn lingusitic knowledge, via the proposed universal language. He contends that children's language acquisition--even the notion that the supposed inborn language device shuts off somewhere in mid-childhood, meaning most people will not be fully bilingual--need not demand such a natural language faculty in the brain, as general learning strategies can account for language acquisition. His arguments can stimulate both nurturists and naturists. Yet, in the end--realizing how much of the human arise from the genes--one still cannot help wonder why the two debated positions so rally to one flag or the other. (shrink)

RESUMO A alimentação é o fator que mais onera um sistema de produção animal. Assim, a utilização de diferentes estratégias de alimentação dos animais ainda é o grande desafio da nutrição animal, principalmente, levando em consideração as exigências nutricionais de diferentes categorias de ruminantes, em especial bovinos em regiões tropicais, haja vista que a sazonalidade na produção de forragens afeta diretamente a produção bovina, promovendo inadequação no atendimento das exigências nutricionais dos animais principalmente em minerais e vitaminas. Uma alimentação que (...) não atenda as exigências nutricionais dos ruminantes gera prejuízos no sistema de produção, além de, em casos mais graves, ocasionar a perda do animal. Estudos que abordam o efeito e a importância de vitaminas e minerais na nutrição bovina são escassos e necessários. Recentemente a National Research Council (NRC) apresentou novos registros das exigências nutricionais das vitaminas e minerais. Essas alterações proporcionam um impacto econômico significativo em relação à nutrição animal. Nesse sentido, objetivou-se com esta revisão trazer informações acerca de vitaminas e minerais na nutrição de bovinos em pastejo. -/- Palavras-chave: Alimentação animal; forragem; pastagem; requerimentos nutricionais; ruminantes; vitaminas lipossolúveis (Source: AGROVOC). -/- ABSTRACT Animal feed is the factor that most burdens a production system. Thus, the use of different animal feeding strategies is still the great challenge of animal nutrition, taking into account the nutritional requirements of different categories of ruminants, especially cattle in tropical regions, given that seasonality in forage production directly affects cattle production, promoting inadequacy in meeting the nutritional requirements of animals, mainly in minerals and vitamins. A diet that does not meet the nutritional requirements of ruminants generates losses in the production system, in addition to, in more serious cases, causing the loss of the animal. Studies that address the effect and importance of vitamins and minerals in bovine nutrition are scarce and necessary. Recently the National Research Council (NRC) presented new records of the nutritional requirements of vitamins and minerals. These changes provide a significant economic impact on animal nutrition. In this sense, the objective of this review was to bring information about vitamins and minerals in the nutrition of grazing cattle. -/- Keywords: Animal feeding; fat soluble vitamins; forage; nutritional requirements; pasture feeding; ruminants (Source: AGROVOC). -/- REFERÊNCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS -/- 1. Cavalcanti CPL, Silva e Macedo TJ, Gois GC, Menezes VG, Monte APO, Silva AD, Silva DJM, Silva EO, Araújo GGL, Rodrigues RTS, Wischral A, Matos MHT, Queiroz MAA. 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Avaliação dos efeitos de fontes de fósforo na dieta sobre parâmetros do meio ruminal e eficiência de síntese microbiana, digestibilidade dos nutrientes e fósforo plasmático em bovinos. Rev Bras Zootec. 2009; 38:760-769. 34. Yamada S, Inaba M. Potassium metabolism and management in patients with CKD. Nutr. 2021; 13:1-19. 35. Martinsen TC, Fossmark R, Waldum HL. The phylogeny and biological function of gastric juice—Microbiological consequences of removing gastric acid. Int J Mol Sci. 2019; 20:1-22. 36. González FHD, Silva SC. Minerais e vitaminas no metabolismo animal. 1st ed. Porto Alegre: Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul; 2019. 37. Melo RR, Gonçalves SLS, Baccarin FJB, Vasconcelos WA, Miranda SC. Influência de altas dosagens de cloreto de potássio no desenvolvimento de espécies em cultivo hidropônico. Pubvet. 2020; 14:1-9. 38. Araújo WAG, Rostagno HS, Albino LFT, Carvalho TA, Ribeiro Neto AC. Potássio na nutrição animal. Rev Eletr Nutr. 2010; 7:1280-1291. 39. NRC. 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The story is written as a dialogue between a farmer and a politician. In response to the politician's indignity toward the farmer, the farmer explains his philosophy regarding ethics in contemporary society and its inevitable impossibility.

The higher number of species on Earth is equivalent to the higher number of possibilities humans can take inspiration from for innovations. Many technological innovations have been successfully generated based on inspirations from wildlife species, such as parasitic wasp-inspired needles, gecko-inspired surgical glue, peacock-inspired biosensors, fiddler crab-inspired artificial vision system, etc. Or, why don’t you imagine what human societies would have been without Penicillin if Alexander Fleming had not observed the Petri dishes containing Staphylococcus bacteria and noticed something strange. (...) Therefore, it is argued that conserving biodiversity sustains our livelihood and contributes to advancing human civilizations. (shrink)

A. A. Long, one of the world's leading writers on ancient philosophy, presents eighteen essays on the philosophers and schools of the Hellenistic and Roman periods--Epicureans, Stoics, and Sceptics. The discussion ranges over four centuries of innovative and challenging thought in ethics and politics, psychology, epistemology, and cosmology.

The emergence of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) from Wuhan city of China engulfed almost the entire world and created a global pandemic. Several countries declared this pandemic as national emergency, forcing millions of people to go into lockdown. This sudden social isolation has caused enormous disruption of daily routine for the global community, especially children. To minimize the transmission of this virus all the educational institutions were closed and moved to online learning to encourage and adhere to social distancing guidelines issued (...) by the authorities from time to time. This abrupt change in the learning environment, restrictions in social interaction and other activities caused unusual situation in the development of child brain. Therefore, it is important and obligatory for the scientific community and healthcare workers to access and analyse the impact of Covid -19 pandemic on the mental health of children. The present article is a case study and was conducted in Doda of Jammu and Kashmir regarding the impact of quarantine on the children. (shrink)

This article serves as either an addendum or as an expansion of ideas and work developed in my 2024 book, The Rationality Project: Across the Millennia, issued by Palgrave Macmillan. The book explores 21 potential theories for explaining rationality in terms of why and how one among these can serve in the position of explanatory power. The book does not fully explain all of these candidate theories, assigning that complete role to this addendum or work-in-progress. The main reason for this (...) abbreviation in assessing all the theories in the book is that the complete coverage—which this addendum allows—of all 21 theories would become too detailed for some philosophical readers. This addendum; one may consider, is then for the more technically minded reader—although certainly not-too-technically minded readers are welcome to explore it. If it becomes too bogged in detail for those latter kinds of readers, they may end up skimming the material in this addendum, trying at least to get the general idea of how these addendum sections fit into the book's goals. (shrink)

In this paper, we introduce and study the concept of" neutrosophic closed set" and" neutrosophic continuous function". Possible application to GIS topology rules are touched upon.

Cardiotocography data uncertainty is a critical task for the classification in biomedical field. Constructing good and efficient classifier via machine learning algorithms is necessary to help doctors in diagnosing the state of fetus heart rate. *e proposed neutrosophic diagnostic system is an Interval Neutrosophic Rough Neural Network framework based on the backpropagation algorithm. It benefits from the advantages of neutrosophic set theory not only to improve the performance of rough neural networks but also to achieve a better performance than the (...) other algorithms. *e experimental results visualize the data using the boxplot for better understanding of attribute distribution. *e performance measurement of the confusion matrix for the proposed framework is 95.1, 94.95, 95.2, and 95.1 concerning accuracy rate, precision, recall, and F1-score, respectively. WEKA application is used to analyse cardiotocography data performance measurement of different algorithms, e.g., neural network, decision table, the nearest neighbor, and rough neural network. *e comparison with other algorithms shows that the proposed framework is both feasible and efficient classifier. Additionally, the receiver operation characteristic curve displays the proposed framework classifications of the pathologic, normal, and suspicious states by 0.93, 0.90, and 0.85 areas that are considered high and acceptable under the curve, respectively. Improving the performance measurements of the proposed framework by removing ineffective attributes via feature selection would be suitable advancement in the future. Moreover, the proposed framework can also be used in various real-life problems such as classification of coronavirus, social media, and satellite image. (shrink)

In this paper, we present an expansion of one of the well-known classical inventory management models, which is the static model of inventory management without a deficit and for a single substance, based on the neutrosophic logic, where we provide through this study a basis for dealing with all data, whether specific or undefined in the field of inventory management, as it provides safe environment to manage inventory without running into deficit , and give us an approximate ideal volume of (...) inventory. Since the ideal size is affected by the rate of demand for inventory, we present in this paper a study of the rate of demand for inventory when it is not precisely refined, and we find that the indeterminate values of the demand rate cannot be ignored, because they actually affect determining the ideal size of inventory and calculating its costs, thus affecting on the efficiency of the facility and achieve great profits for it. (shrink)

The objective of this paper is to develop neutrosophic quadruple algebraic hyperstructures. Specifically, we develop neutrosophic quadruple semihypergroups, neutrosophic quadruple canonical hypergroups and neutrosophic quadruple hyperrings and we present elementary properties which characterize them.

Where does the mind begin and end? Most philosophers and cognitive scientists take the view that the mind is bounded by the skull or skin of the individual. Robert Wilson, in this provocative and challenging 2004 book, provides the foundations for the view that the mind extends beyond the boundary of the individual. The approach adopted offers a unique blend of traditional philosophical analysis, cognitive science, and the history of psychology and the human sciences. The companion volume, Genes and the (...) Agents of Life, explores the theme in the biological sciences. Written with verve and clarity, this ambitious book will appeal to a broad swathe of professionals and students in philosophy, psychology, cognitive science, and the history of the behavioural and human sciences. You can download the table of contents here. (shrink)

“Neutrosophics Knowledge” has been created for publications on advanced studies in neutrosophy, neutrosophic set, neutrosophic logic, neutrosophic probability, neutrosophic statistics that started in 1995 and their applications in any field, such as the neutrosophic structures developed in algebra, geometry, topology, etc. The submitted papers should be professional, in good English and Arabic, containing a brief review of a problem and obtained results. Neutrosophy is a new branch of philosophy that studies the origin, nature, and scope of neutralities, as well as (...) their interactions with different ideational spectra. (shrink)

Surprisingly little has been written about hedged assertion. Linguists often focus on semantic or syntactic theorizing about, for example, grammatical evidentials or epistemic modals, but pay far less attention to what hedging does at the level of action. By contrast, philosophers have focused extensively on normative issues regarding what epistemic position is required for proper assertion, yet they have almost exclusively considered unqualified declaratives. This essay considers the linguistic and normative issues side-by-side. We aim to bring some order and clarity (...) to thinking about hedging, so as to illuminate aspects of interest to both linguists and philosophers. In particular, we consider three broad questions. 1) The structural question: when one hedges, what is the speaker’s commitment weakened from? 2) The functional question: what is the best way to understand how a hedge weakens? And 3) the taxonomic question: are hedged assertions genuine assertions, another speech act, or what? (shrink)

Common everyday materials such as textiles, foodstuffs, soil or skin can have complex, mutable and varied appearances. Under typical viewing conditions, most observers can visually recognize materials effortlessly, and determine many of their properties without touching them. Visual material perception raises many fascinating questions for vision researchers, neuroscientists and philosophers, yet has received little attention compared to the perception of color or shape. Here we discuss some of the challenges that material perception raises and argue that further philosophical thought should (...) be directed to how we see materials. (shrink)

Hope, in its propositional construction "I hope that p," is compatible with a stated chance for the speaker that not-p. On fallibilist construals of knowledge, knowledge is compatible with a chance of being wrong, such that one can know that p even though there is an epistemic chance for one that not-p. But self-ascriptions of propositional hope that p seem to be incompatible, in some sense, with self-ascriptions of knowing whether p. Data from conjoining hope self-ascription with outright assertions, with (...) first- and third-person knowledge ascriptions, and with factive predicates suggest a problem: when combined with a plausible principle on the rationality of hope, they suggest that fallibilism is false. By contrast, the infallibilist about knowledge can straightforwardly explain why knowledge would be incompatible with hope, and can offer a simple and unified explanation of all the linguistic data introduced here. This suggests that fallibilists bear an explanatory burden which has been hitherto overlooked. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt of proposing the processing approach of neutrosophic technique in image processing.

This is an introductory article on sociobiology, particularly its relationship to eugenics. Sociobiology developed in the 1960s as a field within evolutionary biology to explain human social traits and behaviours. Although sociobiology has few direct connections to eugenics, it shares eugenics’ optimistic enthusiasm for extending biological science into the human domain, often with reckless sensationalism. Sociobiology's critics have argued that sociobiology also propagates a kind of genetic determinism and represents the zealous misapplication of science beyond its proper reach that characterized (...) the eugenics movement. More recently, evolutionary psychology represents a sophistication of sociobiology that attends to the mind as the "missing link" between evolution and behaviour (Cosmides and Tooby 1992, Pinker 1997). (shrink)

Genes and the Agents of Life undertakes to rethink the place of the individual in the biological sciences, drawing parallels with the cognitive and social sciences. Genes, organisms, and species are all agents of life but how are each of these conceptualized within genetics, developmental biology, evolutionary biology, and systematics? The 2005 book includes highly accessible discussions of genetic encoding, species and natural kinds, and pluralism above the levels of selection, drawing on work from across the biological sciences. The book (...) is a companion to the author's Boundaries of the Mind (2004), also available from Cambridge, where the focus is the cognitive sciences. The book will appeal to a broad range of professionals and students in philosophy, biology, and the history of science. You can download the table of contents and the first chapter here. (shrink)

The study aims to identify the efficiency of the university education performance from the perspective of postgraduate and undergraduate students in international and Palestinian universities. The analytical descriptive approach was used for this purpose and the questionnaire was used as a main tool for data collection. The study community consists of: post graduate students, (23850) graduate students and (146355) undergraduate students. The sample of the study was 378 graduate students and 383 undergraduate students. The random stratified sample was used. The (...) Statistical Package of Social Sciences (SPSS) was also used for data analysis. The study reached a number of results, the most important of which are: The level of efficiency of educational performance in Palestinian and international universities from the point of view of postgraduate and undergraduate students was high. And that there are significant differences between the average views of the sample of the study on the efficiency of educational performance in Palestinian and international universities attributed to the University and to the benefit of international universities. The study concluded many recommendations, the most important of which is the necessity of continuing to develop e-learning strategies that affect the efficiency of educational performance and research commensurate with the university's position in the local and international community, which puts it on the best classification between local and international universities through e-learning. (shrink)

Recent epistemology has focused almost exclusively on propositional knowledge. This paper considers an underexplored area of epistemology, namely knowledge of persons: if propositional knowledge is a state of mind, consisting in a subject's attitude to a (true) proposition, the account developed here thinks of interpersonal knowledge as a state of minds, involving a subject's attitude to another (existing) subject. This kind of knowledge is distinct from propositional knowledge, but it exhibits a gradability characteristic of context-sensitivity, and admits of shifty thresholds. (...) It is supported by a wide range of unexplored linguistic data and intuitive cases; and it promises to illuminate debates within epistemology, philosophy of religion, and ethics. (shrink)

Some philosophers oppose recent arguments for the Knowledge Norm of Assertion by claiming that assertion, being an act much like any other, will be subject to norms governing acts generally, such as those articulated by Grice for the purpose of successful, cooperative endeavours. But in fact, Grice is a traitor to their cause; or rather, they are his dissenters, not his disciples. Drawing on Grice's unpublished papers, I show that he thought of asserting as a special linguistic act in need (...) of its own norm, and he tied his maxim of Quality to knowledge. I also develop a simple Gricean-inspired argument showing that the Quality maxim is not dependent on the Cooperative Principle. If it is not thus dependent, then the Cooperative Principle cannot be the explanation of, or source of normativity for, the Quality maxim. Thus, leveraging the insights informing the maxim of Quality actually provides the resources for a distinctive positive case that knowledge is the constitutive norm of assertion. (shrink)

The problem of evil is the most prominent argument against the existence of God. Skeptical theists contend that it is not a good argument. Their reasons for this contention vary widely, involving such notions as CORNEA, epistemic appearances, 'gratuitous' evils, 'levering' evidence, and the representativeness of goods. We aim to dispel some confusions about these notions, in particular by clarifying their roles within a probabilistic epistemology. In addition, we develop new responses to the problem of evil from both the phenomenal (...) conception of evidence and the knowledge-first view of evidence. (shrink)