Fibers have the characteristics to enhance the endurance of concrete. One of them is carbon fiber. These carbon fibers have superb mechanical properties and maybe utilized more effectively. This study is focused towards analyzing the variation in strength of carbon fiber concrete at variable fiber contents and to establish it with that of conventional concrete. The mechanical properties analyzed are compressive strength, split tensile strength, flexural strength of carbon fiber concrete at (0%, 0.25%, 0.5%, 0.75%, 1%, 1.25%) percentages by volume (...) of concrete. Result data clearly shows percentage increase in compressive strength, split tensile strength and flexural strength for M25 grade of concrete in 7 days and 28 days with respect to the variation in % addition of carbon fibers. Maximum increase in strength was achieved at 1% addition of fiber content and it can be considered as optimum dosage. (shrink)

The production of Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) causes havoc to the environment due to the emission of CO 2 as well mining also results in unrecoverable loss to nature. Estimated carbon This Project deals with the details of optimized Mix Design for normal strength concrete using packing density method. Dredged Marine Sand (DMS) which is produced during the operation of dredging. DMS is mixed with M-Sand in different ratios & Packing density is obtained using sieve analysis experimentally. This ratio’s of (...) different fine aggregate is introduced into the geopolymer concrete is the concrete in which alternate material for cement is used also alkali activated solution is used and Concrete made up of cement, aggregates, water & additives is the world's most consumed construction material since it is found to be more versatile, durable and reliable. Concrete is the second most consumed material after water which required large quantities of Portland cementemissions from cement production in 1994 were 307 MtC, 160 MtC from calcination, and 147 MtC from energy use which account for 5% of 1994 global anthropogenic CO 2 emissions. (shrink)

What is it to know someone? Epistemologists rarely take up this question, though recent developments make such inquiry possible and desirable. This paper advances an account of how such interpersonal knowledge goes beyond mere propositional and qualitative knowledge about someone, giving a central place to second-personal treatment. It examines what such knowledge requires, and what makes it distinctive within epistemology as well as socially. It assesses its theoretic value for several issues in moral psychology, epistemic injustice, and philosophy of mind. (...) And it offers an account of the complex content in play if interpersonal knowledge is to be understood in terms of its mental states and their functions. (shrink)

Recently, due to the rapid progress of computer technology, researchers develop an effective computer program to enhance the achievement of the student in learning process, which is Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS). Science is important because it influences most aspects of everyday life, including food, energy, medicine, leisure activities and more. So learning science subject at school is very useful, but the students face some problem in learning it. So we designed an ITS system to help them understand this subject easily (...) and smoothly by analyzing it and explaining it in a systematic way. In this paper, we describe the design of an Intelligent Tutoring System for teaching science for grade seven to help students know the 7 characteristics for living things smoothly. The system provides all topics of living things and generates some questions for each topic and the students should answer these questions correctly to move to the next level. In the result of an evaluation of the ITS, students like the system and they said that it is very useful for them and for their studies. (shrink)

David Lewis objected to theories that posit necessary connections between distinct entities and to theories that involve a magical grasping of their primitives. In On the Plurality of Worlds, Lewis objected to nondescript ersatzism on these grounds. The literature contains several reconstructions of Lewis’ critique of nondescript ersatzism but none of these interpretations adequately address his main argument because they fail to see that Lewis’ critique is based on broader methodological considerations. I argue that a closer look at his methodology (...) reveals the broader objection he presented against nondescript ersatzism. This objection, I further argue, remains a challenge for the ersatzer who posits structure-less entities as possible worlds. (shrink)

Chest pain is the pain felt in the chest by infants, children and adolescents. In most cases the pain is not associated with the heart. It is mainly recognized by the observance or report of pain by the infant, child or adolescent by reports of distress by parents or care givers. Chest pain is not unusual in children. Lots of children are seen in ambulatory clinics, emergency rooms and hospitals and cardiology clinics. Usually there is a benign cause for the (...) pain for utmost children. Certain patients have conditions that are serious and perhaps life-threatening. Chest pain in pediatric patients needs careful physical examination and a detailed history that would point to the possibility of a serious cause. Researches of pediatric chest pain are scarce. It has been difficult to create evidence-based guidelines for evaluation. In this paper we propose an expert system to help doctors and parents, and care giver in diagnosing chest pain in infants and children. This expert System is design and implemented in SL5 Object language. (shrink)

This article outlines a program of ethnoontology that brings together empirical research in the ethnosciences with ontological debates in philosophy. First, we survey empirical evidence from heterogeneous cultural contexts and disciplines. Second, we propose a model of cross‐cultural relations between ontologies beyond a simple divide between universalist and relativist models. Third, we argue for an integrative model of ontology building that synthesizes insights from different fields such as biological taxonomy, cognitive science, cultural anthropology, and political ecology. We conclude by arguing (...) that a program of ethnoontology provides philosophers both with insights about traditional issues such as debates about natural kinds and with novel strategies for connecting philosophy with pressing global issues such as the conservation of local environments and the self‐determination of Indigenous communities. (shrink)

This paper responds to Kevin Krein’s claim in that the particular value of nature sports over traditional ones is that they offer intensity of sport experience in dynamic interaction between an athlete and natural features. He denies that this intensity is derived from competitive conflict of individuals and denies that nature sport derives its value from internal conflict within the athlete who carries out the activity. This paper responds directly to Krein by analysing ‘intensity’ in sport in terms of the (...) relationship between attention and reflection and the interaction between self and environment. I reply directly to Krein’s rejection of self-competition as based on a mischaracterisation of internal struggle and argue that the weighing of incompatible desires does not involve a fragmented self. I argue that the unique intensity to which Krein refers is strongly comparable to the Kantian conception of the sublime and explore how sublime experience fits Krein’s account and outline some serious problems that such an ideal of experience poses for nature sport. (shrink)

Attempts to ‘naturalize’ phenomenology challenge both traditional phenomenology and traditional approaches to cognitive science. They challenge Edmund Husserl’s rejection of naturalism and his attempt to establish phenomenology as a foundational transcendental discipline, and they challenge efforts to explain cognition through mainstream science. While appearing to be a retreat from the bold claims made for phenomenology, it is really its triumph. Naturalized phenomenology is spearheading a successful challenge to the heritage of Cartesian dualism. This converges with the reaction against Cartesian thought (...) within science itself. Descartes divided the universe between res cogitans, thinking substances, and res extensa, the mechanical world. The latter won with Newton and we have, in most of objective science since, literally lost our mind, hence our humanity. Despite Darwin, biologists remain children of Newton, and dream of a grand theory that is epistemologically complete and would allow lawful entailment of the evolution of the biosphere. This dream is no longer tenable. We now have to recognize that science and scientists are within and part of the world we are striving to comprehend, as proponents of endophysics have argued, and that physics, biology and mathematics have to be reconceived accordingly. Interpreting quantum mechanics from this perspective is shown to both illuminate conscious experience and reveal new paths for its further development. In biology we must now justify the use of the word “function”. As we shall see, we cannot prestate the ever new biological functions that arise and constitute the very phase space of evolution. Hence, we cannot mathematize the detailed becoming of the biosphere, nor write differential equations for functional variables we do not know ahead of time, nor integrate those equations, so no laws “entail” evolution. The dream of a grand theory fails. In place of entailing laws, a post-entailing law explanatory framework is proposed in which Actuals arise in evolution that constitute new boundary conditions that are enabling constraints that create new, typically unprestatable, Adjacent Possible opportunities for further evolution, in which new Actuals arise, in a persistent becoming. Evolution flows into a typically unprestatable succession of Adjacent Possibles. Given the concept of function, the concept of functional closure of an organism making a living in its world, becomes central. Implications for patterns in evolution include historical reconstruction, and statistical laws such as the distribution of extinction events, or species per genus, and the use of formal cause, not efficient cause, laws. (shrink)

This paper is an examination of the concept of recognition and its connection with identity and respect. This is related to the question of how women are or are not adequately recognised or respected for their achievements in sport and whether eliminating sex segregation in sport is a solution. This will require an analysis of the concept of excellence in sport, as well as the relationship between fairness and inclusion in an activity that is fundamentally about bodily movement. I argue (...) that attempts to address the problem of women’s recognition in sport need to do so in ways that neither eliminate sport as a fairness regulated system for developing individual excellence in bodily movement nor that prevent women’s achievement of sporting excellence, with the regard that belongs to them. Doing this requires us to decide whether sport is about champions or about individual excellence. (shrink)

The adequacy of similarity to prototype as an account of categorization in natural concepts was assessed by analyzing the monotonicity of the relation between typicality of an item in a category and the probability of a positive categorization response using data from McCloskey and Glucksberg (1978). The analysis revealed a strong underlying similarity-based threshold curve, with systematic deviations. Further data collection showed that deviations from the curve could be attributed to the effects of unfamiliarity and non-categorial associations on typicality judgments, (...) as well as differences between the perceptual appearance of an item (which tended to boost typicality) and its underlying nature (which tended to boost categorization). The results are discussed in terms of the different presuppositions and task constraints involved in rating typicality as opposed to performing a categorization. (shrink)

Academic institutions migrated to modular teaching-learning amid the COVID-19 pandemic. To ensure the quality of the pedagogical innovations employed, the study determined the students’ evaluation of the faculty prepared instructional modules for the courses they enrolled in during the first and second semesters of Academic Year 2020-2021. Employing a descriptive-correlational research design, the study was participated by 644 students from three colleges who were then available during the data gathering. Data gathered through online surveys were then analyzed using descriptive statistics (...) and Spearman's rank correlation coefficient utilizing jamovi software. Results revealed that the faculty-prepared instructional modules were acceptable and satisfactory to the students. Besides, the students' evaluation of the instructional modules was positively related to their level of satisfaction. Still, the students recommended that a review of the modules be done before sending the modules; a more extended time allotment is considered, and sufficient concrete examples are given in the modules. With this, the faculty concerned are encouraged to review the phases involved in the design, development, and distribution of the instructional modules to make them highly acceptable and very satisfactory to the students while maintaining the quality of both the content and aesthetics of the learning materials. Considering the study’s limitations, further endeavors may be carried out to validate this pedagogical innovation. (shrink)

Aristotle is history’s most famous and influential proponent of the view that there are exactly five senses. But was he entitled to hold this view, given his other commitments? In particular, was he entitled to treat touch as a single sense, given the diversity of its correlated objects? In this paper I argue that Aristotle wished to individuate touch on the basis of its correlated objects, just as he had the other four senses. I also argue, contrary to what is (...) often supposed, that he was well-placed to do so, given his other commitments and views. (shrink)

Abstract: Early detection of breast cancer is vital for improving patient outcomes and reducing mortality rates. Technological advancements have significantly enhanced the accuracy and efficiency of screening methods. This paper explores recent innovations in early detection, focusing on the evolution of digital mammography, the benefits of 3D mammography (tomosynthesis), and the application of advanced imaging techniques such as molecular imaging and MRI. It also examines the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in diagnostic tools, showing how machine learning algorithms are improving (...) imaging analysis and reducing diagnostic errors. Furthermore, the paper discusses advancements in genetic screening, liquid biopsies, and biomarkers, emphasizing their potential in identifying high-risk individuals and supporting personalized treatment plans. The paper provides a forward-looking perspective on the future of breast cancer detection, addressing both the opportunities and challenges associated with the adoption of these cutting-edge technologies to improve patient outcomes. (shrink)

I argue for a new interpretation of Locke’s account of akrasia. On this interpretation, akrasia occurs on Locke’s account because certain cognitive biases endemic to the human mind dispose us to privilege present over future happiness. As a result, we end up irrationally pursuing present pleasure and the removal of present pain even as we simultaneously judge that doing so runs contrary to our own greater good. In this sense, I argue that Locke seeks to diagnose akrasia by identifying its (...) underlying psychological causes. (shrink)

The modifier effect is the reduction in perceived likelihood of a generic property sentence, when the head noun is modified. We investigated the prediction that the modifier effect would be stronger for mutable than for central properties, without finding evidence for this predicted interaction over the course of five experiments. However Experiment 6, which provided a brief context for the modified concepts to lend them greater credibility, did reveal the predicted interaction. It is argued that the modifier effect arises primarily (...) from a general lack of confidence in generic statements about the typical properties of unfamiliar concepts. Neither prototype nor classical models of concept combination receive support from the phenomenon. 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Abstract: The convergence of nanotechnology and artificial intelligence (AI) represents a transformative frontier in modern science, with the potential to revolutionize multiple industries, particularly healthcare. Nanotechnology enables the manipulation of matter at the atomic and molecular scale, while AI offers sophisticated data analysis, pattern recognition, and decision-making capabilities. This paper explores the synergies between these two fields, focusing on their impact on medical diagnostics, targeted drug delivery, and personalized treatments. By leveraging AI's predictive power and nanotechnology's precision, healthcare can achieve (...) unprecedented levels of accuracy in disease detection and treatment, leading to improved patient outcomes. Beyond healthcare, this convergence extends to environmental monitoring, smart materials, and manufacturing, offering solutions to some of the world’s most pressing challenges. The paper also discusses the ethical considerations and potential risks of integrating AI with nanotechnology, emphasizing the need for responsible innovation. Together, AI and nanotechnology hold the promise of reshaping industries and improving quality of life on a global . (shrink)

This paper explores ludonarrative dissonance as it occurs in sport, primarily as the conflict experienced by participants between dominant narratives and self-generated interpretations of embodied experience. Taking self-narrative as a social rather than isolated production, the interaction with three basic categories of dominant narrative is explored: transformative, representing a spectrum from revelatory to distorting, bullying and colonising. These forms of dominant narrative prescribe interpretations of the player’s experience of play and of self that displace their own, with the end result (...) of dissonance and self-alienation. (shrink)

In De Anima II.6, Aristotle divides the objects of perception into three kinds: “special perceptibles" (idia aisthêta) such as colours, sounds and flavours, which can be perceived in their own right by only one sense; “common perceptibles" (koina aisthêta) such as shapes, sizes and movements, which can be perceived in their own right by multiple senses; and “incidental perceptibles,” such as the son of Diares, which can be perceived only “incidentally” (kata sumbebêkos). In this paper, I examine this division of (...) perceptibles and consider what it amounts to. First, I argue that Aristotle’s distinction between perceiving something in its own right (kath' hauto) and perceiving it incidentally marks a causal distinction: what is perceived in its own right causes perception as such, whereas what is perceived incidentally coincides with what is perceived in its own right. Second, I argue that for Aristotle special perceptibles, unlike common perceptibles, belong to homogeneous bodies on account of their chemical composition. Finally, I explain the primacy Aristotle assigns to special perceptibles and his claim that perception of them alone is free from error. I conclude with some brief remarks on Aristotle and the primary/secondary quality distinction. (shrink)

In On Not Expecting Too Much from Narrative, Lamarque (2004) challenges theories of narrative identity. For while narrativity might tell us something of interest about our selves, the requirements for this would be so strong that theories of narrative identity would not be able to meet them. In contrast, he identifies minimal conditions for narrativity, so that our identity could be of a narrative nature as well. But in that case, the concept of narrativity would be so weak that it (...) would hardly be able to tell us anything about ourselves. I first examine Lamarque's criticism of narrative concepts of identity. He shows that stories, understood in a minimal sense, are not found but told and that they establish a temporal relationship between at least two events. I then examine the concept of teleological explanations of action. Considering the problem of deviant causal chains that causalists are confronted with, they are at least a serious alternative to causal explanations of action. By doing that, I also attempt to render plausible the irreducibility of teleological explanations of action to causal ones. Subsequently, I outline some features of teleological explanations of action. Finally, I defend the idea that teleological explanations of action are essentially narrative explanations of action because they meet Lamarque's minimal conditions of narratives. I then make the case that these kinds of narratives are not trivial with respect to our personal identity but, on the contrary, are the prerequisite under which we can perceive ourselves as rational agents. (shrink)

Deafferented subjects, while lacking proprioceptive awareness of much of their bodies, are nevertheless able to use their bodies in basic action. Sustained visual contact with the body parts of which they are no longer proprioceptively aware enables them to move these parts in a controlled way. This might be taken to straightforwardly show that proprioceptive awareness is inessential to bodily action. I, however, argue that this is not the case. Proprioceptive awareness figures essentially in our self-conscious unity as practical subjects. (...) Recognizing this allows us to better understand the nature of the impairment with which deafferented subjects live. (shrink)

This paper analyses how security affects well-being. Security is understood as someone’s sureness of enjoying some good in the future; well-being is treated as a matter of human flourishing. Security can contribute to our well-being in various ways: if we are in fact bound to enjoy a good, in principle this is positive for our flourishing in the future; if we also believe that we will enjoy this good, we can be more efficient in pursuing our well-being; if we also (...) feel secure, this supports our enjoyment of our physical and mental capacities. For some of these benefits to obtain fully, however, it is important that our beliefs and feelings align with the facts. Furthermore, mirroring security’s upsides, there are also ways in which security can hamper our flourishing: it can obstruct the change, surprise, and pleasurable fear that are sometimes required for a good life too. (shrink)

In this paper, I try to cause some good-natured trouble. The issue is, when will we ever stop burdening the taxpayer with conferences devoted to the quantum foundations? The suspicion is expressed that no end will be in sight until a means is found to reduce quantum theory to two or three statements of crisp physical (rather than abstract, axiomatic) significance. In this regard, no tool appears better calibrated for a direct assault than quantum information theory. Far from a strained (...) application of the latest fad to a time-honoured problem, this method holds promise precisely because a large part---but not all---of the structure of quantum theory has always concerned information. It is just that the physics community needs reminding. (shrink)

A plausible explanation of the wrongfulness of threatening, advanced most explicitly by Mitchell Berman, is that the wrongfulness of threatening derives from the wrongfulness of the act threatened. This essay argues that this explanation is inadequate. We can learn something important about the wrongfulness of threatening (with implications for thinking about coercion) by comparing credible threats to some other claims of impending harm. A credible bluff threat to do harm is likely to be more and differently wrongful than making intentionally (...) false warnings about other sources of harm. This essay surveys some examples to secure this point, shows that Berman's moralized account of their wrongfulness is wanting, and offers the outline of an approach better suited to explain the wrongfulness of threatening.1. (shrink)

Across various fields it is argued that the self in part consists of an autobiographical self-narrative and that the self-narrative has an impact on agential behavior. Similarly, within action theory, it is claimed that the intentional structure of coherent long-term action is divided into a hierarchy of distal, proximal, and motor intentions. However, the concrete mechanisms for how narratives and distal intentions are generated and impact action is rarely fleshed out concretely. We here demonstrate how narratives and distal intentions can (...) be generated within cognitive agents and how they can impact agential behavior over long time scales. We integrate narratives and distal intentions into the LIDA model,and demonstrate how they can guide agential action in a manner that is consistent with the Global Workspace Theory of consciousness. This paper serves both as an addition to the LIDA cognitive architecture and an elucidation of how narratives and distal intention emerge and play their role in cognition and action. (shrink)

This paper addresses the cultural impact of genomics and the Human Genome Project on human self-understanding. Notably, it addresses the claim made by Francis Collins that the genome is the language of God and the claim made by Max Delbrück that Aristotle must be credited with having predicted DNA as the soul that organises bio-matter. From a continental philosophical perspective I will argue that human existence results from a dialectical interaction between two types of texts: the language of molecular biology (...) and the language of civilisation; the language of the genome and the language of our socio-cultural, symbolic ambiance. Whereas the former ultimately builds on the alphabets of genes and nucleotides, the latter is informed by primordial texts such as the Bible and the Quran. In applied bioethics deliberations on genomics, science is easily framed as liberating and progressive, religious world-views as conservative an... (shrink)

This article examines the various Liar paradoxes and their near kin, Grelling’s paradox and Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem with its self-referential Gödel sentence. It finds the family of paradoxes to be generated by circular definition–whether of statements, predicates, or sentences–a manoeuvre that generates pseudo-statements afflicted with the Liar syndrome: semantic vacuity, semantic incoherence, and predicative catalepsy. Such statements, e.g., the self-referential Liar statement, are meaningless, and hence fail to say anything, a point that invalidates the reasoning on which the various paradoxes (...) rest. The seeming plausibility of the paradoxes is due to the fact that often the sentence used to make the pseudo-statement is ambiguous in that it may also be used to make a genuine statement about the pseudo-statement. Hence, if a formal system is to avoid ambiguity and consequent paradox and contradiction, it must distinguish between the two statements the sentence may be used to make. Gödel’s Theorem presents a further complication in that the self-reference involved is sentential rather than statemental. Nevertheless, on the intended interpretation of the system as a formalization of arithmetic, the self-referential Gödel sentence can only be an ambiguous statement, one that is both a pseudo-statement and its genuine double. Consequently, the conclusions commonly drawn from Gödel’s theorem must be deemed unwarranted. Arithmetic might well be formalized in a proper system that either excludes circular definition or introduces disambiguators. (shrink)

Bernard Williams famously argued that eternal life is undesirable for a human because it would inevitably grow intolerably boring. I will argue against Williams and those who share his view. To make my case, I will provide an account of what staves off boredom in our current, earthly-mortal lives, and then I will draw on this account while advancing reasons for thinking that eternal life is desirable, given certain conditions. Though my response to Williams will partly overlap with some prior (...) responses to Williams, especially the one offered by J. M. Fischer, my response will also be distinctive in some important ways. For instance, it will be distinctive in that it will discuss the role that one’s part-whole-reality conception plays in fending off boredom, where by “one’s part-whole-reality conception” I mean “one’s conception of his or her place in the whole of reality.”. (shrink)

As social and interdependent beings, we have responsibilities to each other. One of them is to recognize each other appropriately. When we fail to meet this responsibility, we often stigmatize. In this paper, I argue that the COVID-19-related stigmatization is a variation of the lack of recognition understood as an orientation to our evaluative features. Various stereotypical behaviors regarding COVID-19 become stigmatized practices because of labeling, stereotyping, separation, status loss and discrimination, and power. When people stigmatize COVID-19 victims, they orient (...) themselves to their evaluative quality of being vulnerable to the SARS-CoV-2 virus by internalizing the victims as dangerous, understanding them as separable, and being motivated to act with them differently. All this causes the COVID-19 victims to lose status and suffer discrimination for which they do not experience participatory parity in different facets of their lives, rendering the COVID-19-related stigmatization an appalling example of misrecognition. (shrink)

Justo antes de la pandemia por COVID-19, la Organización Mundial de la Salud definió unas prioridades de trabajo para la década 2020-2030. Un grupo interdisciplinario de profesionales de la salud reflexiona sobre estas prioridades, determinando unas categorías de análisis y, desde una perspectiva bioética, analiza cada una de ellas, ve su pertinencia, algunos eventos causales, las implicaciones que pueden tener si no son enfrentadas adecuadamente y hace sugerencias sobre la forma de llevarlas a cabo. En esta primera entrega se analiza (...) el primer grupo de prioridades estratégicas: “poblaciones más sanas”. En las conclusiones se destaca la conveniencia de acometer cada una de ellas de una manera colaborativa, gubernamental y privada; de reestructurar el sector salud con base en estas prioridades, aprovechando la experiencia obtenida en la lucha contra el COVID-19. La relación del ser humano con el medio ambiente también debe cambiar, apelando a la responsabilidad humana por el cuidado del planeta. (shrink)

Advances in forensic techniques have expanded the temporal horizon of criminal investigations, facilitating investigation of historic crimes that would previously have been considered unsolvable. Public enthusiasm for pursuing historic crimes is exemplified by recent high-profile trials of celebrities accused of historic sexual offences. These circumstances give new urgency to the question of how we should decide which historic offences to investigate. A satisfactory answer must take into account the ways in which the passage of time can erode the benefits of (...) criminal investigation, the costs associated with investigating old crimes, and the need to prioritize investigations in the face of limited police resources. This article emphasizes the first of these factors. It begins by considering the moral goals of a criminal justice system and the contribution of criminal investigations to the achievement of these goals, distinguishing between contributions that depend on further steps in the criminal justice process, such as prosecution and punishment, and contributions that can have value independently of these further steps. Using this important distinction, the article then examines a range of factors that relate the passage of time to criminal justice goals, including the seriousness of the crime; deterioration of evidence; death of the offender, victim and others affected by the crime; and diminished psychological connectedness between those affected by the crime and their current selves. While the range and non-uniformity of relevant factors preclude a simple answer to the question of when historic crimes should be investigated and call instead for case-by-case assessment, we find that the analysis does support some general conclusions that can guide such an assessment. (shrink)

Both liberals and feminists have long criticized the paternalistic approach to prostitution found in most jurisdictions in the U.S. In his recent book Prostitution and Liberalism, Peter de Marneffe defends just such an intervention, arguing that the demonstrated harmfulness of a life of prostitution justifies paternalistic policies aimed at reducing the number of women who are involved in it. Although de Marneffe does not endorse the prohibitionist approach typical in the U.S., he argues that the best reasons for alternative approaches (...) to the practice (including some forms of regulated legalization) are necessarily paternalistic. In my paper, I question de Marneffe’s contention that the strongest reasons for state intervention with regard to prostitution are paternalistic in nature. I argue that reasonable state action toward prostitution is best understood not as a paternalistic intervention to remedy some moral or epistemological failure on the part of prostitutes, but rather as an attempt to advance the interests of vulnerable parties more generally concerning what they reasonably desire but could not otherwise ensure. I further argue that such an approach might favor abolitionist over regulatory policies, depending upon how the vulnerable class is defined. (shrink)

Generalized trust is widely said to be essential for social and economic cooperation, but—despite the large empirical literature—there is disagreement and confusion over how to understand generalized trust. This paper develops the conceptual options that can be drawn from the social science literature—with attention to the moral dimension in each, and with some attention to the different ways that generalized trust can serve as a foundation for the social order.

The Protein Ontology (PRO) web resource provides an integrative framework for protein-centric exploration and enables specific and precise annotation of proteins and protein complexes based on PRO. Functionalities include: browsing, searching and retrieving, terms, displaying selected terms in OBO or OWL format, and supporting URIs. In addition, the PRO website offers multiple ways for the user to request, submit, or modify terms and/or annotation. We will demonstrate the use of these tools for protein research and annotation.

En este artículo argumentamos que la naturaleza pública o privada de la educación tiene una incidencia directa en las instituciones que conforman la realidad social. Para sustentar lo anterior, en primer lugar discutimos cómo, según Searle, habitamos un mundo de instituciones gobernadas por reglas y poderes deónticos, ontológicamente irreductibles. Luego, postulamos que la intencionalidad colectiva requiere de la confianza para mantenerse, y esta aumenta cuando gobiernan reglas y poderes deónticos en circunstancias normales. Finalmente, planteamos que la educación pública es una (...) institución que, a diferencia de la privada, privilegia el espacio de lo común. Sócrates es un ejemplo de esto, al proponer una filosofía que no solo busca la verdad, sino que además privilegia el reconocimiento de la ley por sobre la satisfacción inmediata de deseos e inclinaciones personales. De todo esto se explica el círculo virtuoso: la educación pública, al ser inclusiva y beneficiar a todos, potencia las instituciones sociales que tutelan ese interés y, dentro de ellas, el servicio público. (shrink)

Ambiguity in the athlete’s perception and description of pain that opens the door to a series of reinterpretations of athletic experience and events that argue the development of an increasingly inauthentic relation to self and others on the part of those who consume performance as third parties (spectators) and ultimately those who produce it first hand (athletes). The insertion of the spectator into the sport situation as a consumer of the athlete’s activity and the preference given to spectator interpretation shift (...) control of meaning away from the athlete and encourage a demand for athlete suffering in aid of the spectator’s own need for meaning. Through discussions of the function of narrative in sport spectacle, the witnessing role of spectators, and the phenomenon of vicarious substitution, I discuss the representation of the athlete as a character ideal and moral exemplar. At a more developed level of external interpretation, the athlete (or team) becomes the champion of the spectator, the role model or focal point of civic pride whose victory asserts the ascendence of my team and town over yours; and finally, the athlete or team is the intentional object of fan identification: my team is me. I conclude that the existential commitment of the spectator as devoted fan is an inauthentic one. (shrink)

Many epistemologists endorse true-belief monism, the thesis that only true beliefs are of fundamental epistemic value. However, this view faces formidable counterexamples. In response to these challenges, we alter the letter, but not the spirit, of true-belief monism. We dub the resulting view “inquisitive truth monism,” which holds that only true answers to relevant questions are of fundamental epistemic value. Which questions are relevant is a function of an inquirer’s perspective, which is characterized by his/her interests, social role, and background (...) assumptions. Using examples of several different scientific practices, we argue that inquisitive truth monism outperforms true-belief monism. (shrink)

The sphere of international tourism for the period 2000–2018 has been explored and analyzed in the article. The dynamics of the world tourist flows development and income from international tourism are considered, the determinants of development are derived, the regional structure of the world market of tourist services is given. The development of the tourism industry in the world is analyzed by indicators: the number of tourist arrivals, tourism revenues at current prices, total contribution of tourism to GDP. The main (...) tourist regions are analyzed in the context of the study, they are compared both in terms of the number of tourist visits, and a list of the TOP 10 countries by volume of foreign exchange earnings from tourism in recent years. It is concluded that in recent years, there is a continuing upward trend in demand for emerging markets, with old markets such as the European market, partially losing its popularity. In the process of research, it is determined that in the conditions of development of the world economy, expansion of volumes of international trade, improvement of means of transport, communication, increase of internationalization and globalization of the world economy the demand for tourist services increases. One of the peculiarities of the development of the international tourist services market is the globalization of the market, which has reached all sectors of the tourism industry. It is concluded that nowadays international tourism is an important area of international economic activity, a complex sphere that significantly affects both the structure and the situation in the world economy as well as the economies of most individual countries and regions of the world. Tourism development has a stimulating effect on such sectors of the economy as transport, communications, trade, construction, agriculture, production of consumer goods, and іt is one of the most promising areas of structural restructuring of the economy, confirming the amount of foreign exchange earnings from tourism in the world in general and in individual countries. It is the increasing demand for tourism services and the volume of foreign exchange earnings from tourism in the world makes the topic relevant for further research. (shrink)

Libertarianism about free will conjoins the thesis that free will requires indeterminism with the thesis that we have free will. Here the claim that we have experiential evidence for the libertarian position is assessed. It is argued that, on a straightforward reading, the claim is false, for our experiences as agents don't support the claim that free will requires indeterminism. However, our experiences as agents may still have a role to play in an overall case for libertarianism, insofar as they (...) give us some (defeasible) reason to think that we have free will. This latter claim is defended against a pair of objections that have been leveled against it. (shrink)

The historic material culture produced by American Cold War nuclear weapons testing includes objects of scientific inquiry that can be generally categorized as being either ephemeral or enduring. Objects deemed to be ephemeral were of a less substantial nature, being impermanent and expendable in a nuclear test, while enduring objects were by nature more durable and long-lasting. Although all of these objects were ultimately subject to disappearance, the processes by which they were transformed, degraded, or destroyed prior to their disappearing (...) differ. Drawing principally upon archaeological theory, this paper proposes a functional dichotomy for categorizing and studying the historical trajectories of nuclear weapons testing technoscience artifacts. In examining the transformation patterns of steel towers and concrete blockhouses in particular, it explores an associated loss of scientific method that accompanies a science object's disappearance. (shrink)

Barbara Herman's account of rules of moral salience goes far in explaining how Kantian moral theory can integrate historically emergent normative criticisms such as that offered by feminists. The ethical motives that initially lead historical agents to expand our moral categories, however, are often at odds with Kant's (and Herman's) theory of moral motivations. I argue that Hegel offers a more accurate account of ethical motivation under oppressive conditions.

The paper addresses the philosophical presuppositions underlying the concept of the “international system.” It suggests that the international system is not a system in any technical sense of this term, but rather a static order – an international order – founded on international boundaries. Nor is there any place in reality that corresponds to the term “international” or, more broadly, the “international plane.” The international plane is a state analogous to the quantum state in physics – a quantum state writ (...) large. In reality, the international plane is reducible to an international event taking place on an international boundary. The international order of boundaries, in turn, is ultimately rooted in common sense and metaphysics – the two founding positions of modern philosophy. (shrink)

A major criticism of David Lewis’ counterfactual theory of causation is that it allows too many things to count as causes, especially since Lewis allows, in addition to events, absences to be causes as well. Peter Menzies has advanced this concern under the title “the problem of profligate causation.” In this paper, I argue that the problem of profligate causation provides resources for exposing a tension between Lewis’ acceptance of absence causation and his modal realism. The result is a different (...) problem of profligate causation—one that attacks the internal consistency of Lewisian metaphysics rather than employing common sense judgments or intuitions that conflict with Lewis’ extensive list of causes. (shrink)

To approach the many challenges involved in the notion of engineering concepts, it is important to have a clear idea of the starting point – the concepts that people use in their everyday lives, in conversations and in expressing beliefs, desires, intentions and so forth. The first Section of this chapter introduces evidence that I have accumulated over the last many years concerning the flexibility, context-dependence, and vagueness of such common concepts. The concept engineer needs to understand the structure of (...) the “raw material” with which she is working. In Section 2, I summarise some results concerning the amount of individual variation that exists within a single relatively homogenous population of individuals, both in what examples are considered most typical of a category, and in what properties are considered most central to a category (Hampton & Passanisi, 2016). The demonstration of a significant degree of reliable variation in responses to these questions, that is stable over time, illustrates the potential for conceptual engineering interventions to affect individuals’ concepts. Concepts are rarely fixed or uniformly understood in the same way. I then discuss the different ways in which concepts track the world, and I speculate about how different conceptual domains are governed by different criteria of validity or acceptability. This reflection will lead to Section 3 in which I summarise some results from recent research (Thorne, Quilty-Dunn, Smortchova, Shea, & Hampton, 2021), investigating for the first time how people view the value of different familiar concepts. Knowing how people appraise concepts will be a key to developing ideas for improving the reliability and validity of the concepts that they commonly use. A final section contains some (largely speculative) discussion about the implications of work in psychology of concepts for the project of conceptual engineering. (shrink)

Due to the tremendous progress in technology and the methods used in its application to facilitate and refine human's life, Intelligent Tutoring System was created to contribute in this era. In this study, the Intelligent Tutoring System was adopted as a platform in linking the complex Technological fields for obtaining information smoothly, and highlighting the importance of water issues and in the Gaza strip. In the light of the absence and inability of the formal education system to raise awareness of (...) the water crisis and its consequences on the daily life of the Gazans, the current Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) has been utilized to disseminate knowledge and enhance awareness of water problems. The ITS aims to embrace a new water conservation practices and ensure the sustainability of fresh water. Basically the software of the tutoring system is used to create a program which could be easily used by the public population and specialists in the water field. The resulting program was fed with plenty of information about the current local water status and its related problems which are considerably useful for anyone interested to raise his/her level of knowledge and awareness about the local water status in addition to the researchers by reducing their dependency on human sources. The ITS system was presented to two groups of people: The first one consists of specialized water experts and the other consists of master student enrolled in Institute of Water and Environment in Al-Azhar University in Gaza who are interested in water problems. Both groups were requested to use the final version of the system and give their feedback by filling a questionnaire, and then the averages of the answered questions were measured for each group. It was found that the overall impressions of the users were positive. (shrink)

[Edited from Conclusion section:] We have looked at various challenging issues to do with getting connectionism to cope with high-level cognitive activities such a reasoning and natural language understanding. The issues are to do with various facets of generalization that are not commonly noted. We have been concerned in particular with the special forms these issues take in the arena of propositional attitude processing. The main problems we have looked at are: (1) The need to construct explicit representations of generalizations, (...) not just generalize correctly to individual cases; (2) The need to be able to match two or more complex short-term information structures, to enable rapid generalization from recent examples rather than from long-term memories; (3) The need to represent and reason with anomalous combinations of concepts; (4) The need to perform embedded reasoning. This presents special problems for systems using non-concatenative representations (as in mainstream connectionist approaches). We also touched on vague quantification in attitude report complements. Neither this topic nor that of analogies between short-term structures (point 2) has been adequately addressed in the symbolic framework, let alone in connectionism. -/- The opportunities and problems covered are put forward as things worth being optimistic about or pessimistic about, respectively. They are not put forward as decisive arguments for or against connectionism. The hope is that this chapter contributes to a greater understanding of the connectionist/symbolist gap by presenting some unusual issues and by throwing new light on some well known ones. (shrink)

This study aimed to assess the effectiveness of remedial instruction in improving the numeracy skills of Grade 7 students at Malbug National High School during the school year 2023-2024. Adopting a quasi-experimental research design, the research focused on Grade 7 students at Malbug National High School, Cawayan East District, Masbate Province Division, Philippines, identified as non-numerates, employing pre-tests and post-tests as essential research tools. The independent variable was the remedial instruction in numeracy, while the dependent variable was students' numeracy performance (...) measured through pre-tests and post-tests. Before the intervention, the pre-test numeracy performance exhibited a varied distribution of students across different score ranges. A majority fell into the "Needs Major Support" category, emphasizing the necessity for targeted interventions. The post-test results, however, revealed a remarkable improvement, with 87.88% of initially non-numerate students achieving scores in the "Transforming" range. A thorough statistical examination validated a notable disparity in the scores obtained before and after the instructional intervention, substantiating the favorable influence of remedial instruction. The calculated t-value of 19.594, exceeding the critical t-value, led to rejecting the null hypothesis. In conclusion, the study emphasizes the need for tailored interventions based on the initial deficiency in numeracy skills. The post-test results underscored the success of remedial instruction in fostering substantial growth. The study recommends sustaining the remedial program, implementing periodic assessments, providing teacher training, involving parents in students' development, allocating adequate resources, and further research in other schools to strengthen findings. (shrink)

Hillel Steiner has recently attacked the notion of inalienable rights, basing some of his arguments on the Hohfeldian analysis to show that infinite arrays of legal positions would not be associated with any inalienable rights. This essay addresses the nature of the Hohfeldian infinity: the main argument is that what Steiner claims to be an infinite regress is actually a wholly unproblematic form of infinite recursion. First, the nature of the Hohfeldian recursion is demonstrated. It is shown that infinite recursions (...) of legal positions ensue regardless of whether inalienable rights exist or not. Second, the alleged problems that this might pose for the analysis are discussed. The conclusion is that one should not worry about the recursion as long as one understands correctly the role of the Hohfeldian analysis in normative reasoning. (shrink)

A comparison of the ways in which Hegel and Heidegger critique modernity.