The influence of historical-causal theories of reference developed in the late sixties and early seventies by Donnellan, Kripke, Putnam and Devitt has been so strong that any semantic theory that has the consequence of assigning disjunctive representational content to the mental states of twins (e.g. [H2O or XYZ]) has been thereby taken to refute itself. Similarly, despite the strength of pre-theoretical intuitions that exact physical replicas like Davidson's Swampman have representational mental states, people have routinely denied that they have any (...) intentional/representational states. I want to focus on a particular brand of causal theory that is not historical, the so-called pure informational or nomic covariance theories, and examine how they propose to handle twin cases and replicas like Swampman. In particular, I will take up Fodor. (shrink)

Our preoccupation with pain can seem an eccentricity of philosophers. But just a little reflection leads one into the thickets. When I see a pencil on my desk, I’m aware of a physical thing and its objective properties; but what am I aware of when I feel a pain in my toe? A pain, perhaps? Or my toe’s hurting? But what is the nature of such things? Are they physical? Are they objective? To avoid unexperienced pains, we might say they (...) are subjective, or are themselves experiences. But do those with hurting toes therefore have experiences in their feet? The issues rapidly proliferate. Many of them are addressed in this interesting collection of original essays by philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists, edited by Murat Aydede. (shrink)

Dear Colleagues, -/- We are delighted to share the new issue (June 2023, volume 29, Issue 2) of the European Journal of Therapeutics (Eur J Ther). Furthermore, we are honored to be appointed as the New Editor-in-Chief and New Deputies Editor-in-Chief of Eur J Ther, the international publication of the Gaziantep University Faculty of Medicine published since 1990. -/- First, we would like to thank the previous Editor-in-Chief, Prof. M. Murat Sucu, and his team for their hard work during (...) their tenure. They significantly increased its contribution to the field and international reputation by further developing the journal. -/- In addition, we would like to express our gratitude to all the editors, authors, referees, and technical team who have contributed to the journal since 1990, when our journal first started being published. -/- Unfortunately, due to the change of publishing house, there were some technical problems and interruptions on the web page of Eur J Ther in the first few months of 2023. So, we regret to inform you that there are delays in the evaluation stages of some manuscripts sent to the journal. However, we would like to let you know that from now on, your valuable works submitted to Eur J Ther will be evaluated as quickly as possible. In addition, we would like to announce that all articles accepted for publication in our journal, which is considered an essential innovation, will be published on the web page of our journal as Early View / Accepted Articles in a short time. This innovation will expedite the citation process for your publications. -/- As the New Editor-in-Chief and New Deputies Editor-in-Chief, we aim to increase the quality and visibility of Eur J Ther and to improve its indexes. -/- We want to remind you that the journal’s target audience is researchers, physicians, and health professionals interested in or working in all medical and dental disciplines. Therefore, we request you submit your valuable research to Eur J Ther to contribute to the development and content of the journal. -/- Sincerely yours,. (shrink)

In this eleventh book of scilogs – called in-turns and out-turns –, one may find new and old questions and solutions, referring mostly to topics on Neutrosophy, but also Multispace, with miscellaneous addition of topics on Physics, Mathematics, or Sociology – email messages to research colleagues, or replies, notes about authors, articles, or books, spontaneous ideas, and so on. -/- Exchanging ideas with Prem Kumar Singh, Feng Liu, Nicolae Bălașa, Jimmy Quellet, Minodora Rușchița, Frank Gelli, A. R. Vătuiu, Victor Christianto, (...) Vladimir I. Rogozhin, Robert Neil Boyd, Akira Kanda, Stefan Spaarmann, Oliver Consa, Yabin Shao, Junle Zhuo, Nivetha Martin, Said Broumi, Jean Dezert, Erick González, Tomasz Witczak, B. De Baets, I. Couso, D. Dubois, L. Good, Mihaela Colhon, Atiqe Ur Rahman, Muhammad Saeed, Muhammad Ihsan, Edeline Nancy, Shawkat Alkhazaleh, Shazia Rana, Vasantha Kandasamy, Santanu Acharjee, Mohamed Al-Shmrani, Parimala Manie, Mehmet Unver, Murat Olgun, Adel Aleidhri, Akira Kanda, Ilanthenral Kandasamy, Mircea Zărnescu, R. Tayebi Khorami, Arsham Borumand Saeid, Maisam Jdid, M. Abobala, Riad Hamido, Rafael Rojas, Esmaeil Zarei, Faisal Khan, Rouzbeh Abbassi, Adel Al-Odhari, Henry Garrett, Ackbar Rezaei, Saeid Jafari, Karthika Muthusamy, Harish Garg, Huda E. Khalid, Gonca D. Güngör, Muslim A. Noah Zainal, Fakhry Asad Agusfrianto, Madeleine Al-Tahan, Mariam Hariri, Yudi Mahatma, Masoud Ghods, Marco Brigliadori, Luis Enrique Aponte Pérez, Amr Mohammed, M. Aslam (in order of reference in the book). (shrink)

It is often assumed that adaptation — a temporary change in sensitivity to a perceptual dimension following exposure to that dimension — is a litmus test for what is and is not a “primary visual attribute”. Thus, papers purporting to find evidence of number adaptation motivate a claim of great philosophical significance: That number is something that can be seen in much the way that canonical visual features, like color, contrast, size, and speed, can. Fifteen years after its reported discovery, (...) number adaptation’s existence seems to be nearly undisputed, with dozens of papers documenting support for the phenomenon. The aim of this paper is to offer a counterweight — to critically assess the evidence for and against number adaptation. After surveying the many reasons for thinking that number adaptation exists, we introduce several lesser-known reasons to be skeptical. We then advance an alternative account — the old news hypothesis — which can accommodate previously published findings while explaining various (otherwise unexplained) anomalies in the existing literature. Next, we describe the results of eight pre-registered experiments which pit our novel old news hypothesis against the received number adaptation hypothesis. Collectively, the results of these experiments undermine the number adaptation hypothesis on several fronts, whilst consistently supporting the old news hypothesis. More broadly our work raises questions about the status of adaptation itself as a means of discerning what is and is not a visual attribute. (shrink)

In The Elm and the Expert (1994), Fodor rejects the notion of narrow content as superfluous. He envisions a scientific intentional psychology that adverts only to broad content properties in its explanations. I show that there has been no change in Fodor's treatment of Frege cases and cases involving the so‐called deferential concepts. And for good reason: his notion of narrow content (1985‐91) couldn't explain them. The only apparent change concerns his treatment of Twin Earth cases. However, I argue that (...) the notion of broad content that his purely informational semantics delivers is, in some interesting sense, equivalent to the mapping notion of narrow content he officially gave up. I also critically reconstruct the evolution of Fodor's thinking between 1980 and 1994. (shrink)

After introducing the new field of cultural evolution, we review a growing body of empirical evidence suggesting that culture shapes what people attend to, perceive and remember as well as how they think, feel and reason. Focusing on perception, spatial navigation, mentalizing, thinking styles, reasoning (epistemic norms) and language, we discuss not only important variation in these domains, but emphasize that most researchers (including philosophers) and research participants are psychologically peculiar within a global and historical context. This rising tide of (...) evidence recommends caution in relying on one’s intuitions or even in generalizing from reliable psychological findings to the species, Homo sapiens. Our evolutionary approach suggests that humans have evolved a suite of reliably developing cognitive abilities that adapt our minds, information-processing abilities and emotions ontogenetically to the diverse culturally-constructed worlds we confront. (shrink)

[Penultimate draft] I present the perceptualist/representationalist theories of pain in broad outline and critically examine them in light of a competing view according to which awareness of pain is essentially introspective. I end the essay with a positive sketch of a naturalistic proposal according to which pain experiences are intentional but not fully representational. This proposal makes sense of locating pains in body parts as well as taking pains as subjective experiences.

I distinguish between two claims of transparency of experiences. One claim is weaker and supported by phenomenological evidence. This I call the transparency datum. Introspection of standard perceptual experiences as well as bodily sensations is consistent with, indeed supported by, the transparency datum. I formulate a stronger transparency thesis that is entailed by representationalism about experiential phenomenology. I point out some empirical consequences of strong transparency in the context of representationalism. I argue that pain experiences, as well as some other (...) similar experiences like itches, tickles, orgasms, hedonic valence, etc., are not transparent in this strong sense. Hence they constitute empirical counterexamples to representationalism. Given that representationalism is a general metaphysical doctrine about all experiential phenomenology for good reasons, I conclude that representationalism about phenomenal consciousness is false. Then, I outline a general framework about how the introspection of phenomenal qualities in perceptual experience works in light of the transparency datum, but consistent with the rejection of strong transparency. The result is a form of qualia realism that is naturalist and intentionalist, and has close affinities to the adverbialist views developed in the latter part of the last century. I then apply this framework to pain experiences and their bodily locations. (shrink)

Abstract: Potatoes are edible tubers, available worldwide and all year long. They are relatively cheap to grow, rich in nutrients, and they can make a delicious treat. The humble potato has fallen in popularity in recent years, due to the interest in low-carb foods. However, the fiber, vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals it provides can help ward off disease and benefit human health. They are an important staple food in many countries around the world. There are an estimated 200 varieties of (...) potatoes, which can be classified into a number of categories based on the cooked texture and ingredient functionality. Using a public dataset of 2400 images of potatoes, we trained a deep convolutional neural network to identify 4 types (Red, Red Washed, Sweet, and White).The trained model achieved an accuracy of 99.5% of test set, demonstrating the feasibility of this approach. (shrink)

The official definition of ‘pain’ by the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) hasn’t seen much revision since its publication in 1979. There have been various criticisms of the definition in the literature from different quarters: that the definition implies a dubious metaphysical dualism, that it requires a strong form of consciousness as well as linguistic abilities, that it excludes many vulnerable groups that are otherwise perfectly capable of experiencing pain, that it has therefore unacceptable practical as well (...) as ethical consequences, that it is unhelpful to the health-care professional as an operational definition, that it is too narrow, and many others. In my view, most of these criticisms depend on misunderstandings or on uncharitable interpretations. My aim is to go over the definition, clarify some potential ambiguities, and argue that these criticisms don’t cut much ice. At the end, I will present a few slightly reworded versions of the definition that I claim are more felicitous and capture the original intended meaning by the members of the taxonomic committee in a much better and transparent way that avoids all the major extant criticisms in the literature. (Written for interdisciplinary audiences.). (shrink)

Machine learning algorithms may radically improve our ability to diagnose and treat disease. For moral, legal, and scientific reasons, it is essential that doctors and patients be able to understand and explain the predictions of these models. Scalable, customisable, and ethical solutions can be achieved by working together with relevant stakeholders, including patients, data scientists, and policy makers.

Social norms – rules governing which behaviours are deemed appropriate or inappropriate within a given community – are typically taken to be uniquely human. Recently, this position has been challenged by a number of philosophers, cognitive scientists, and ethologists, who have suggested that social norms may also be found in certain non-human animal communities. Such claims have elicited considerable scepticism from norm cognition researchers, who doubt that any non-human animals possess the psychological capacities necessary for normative cognition. However, there is (...) little agreement among these researchers about what these psychological prerequisites are. This makes empirical study of animal social norms difficult, since it is not clear what we are looking for and thus what should count as behavioural evidence for the presence (or absence) of social norms in animals. To break this impasse, we offer an approach that moves beyond contested psychological criteria for social norms. This approach is inspired by the animal culture research program, which has made a similar shift away from heavily psychological definitions of ‘culture’ and to become organized around a cluster of more empirically tractable concepts of culture. Here, we propose an analogous set of constructs built around the core notion of a normative regularity, which we define as a socially maintained pattern of behavioural conformity within a community. We suggest methods for studying potential normative regularities in wild and captive primates. We also discuss the broader scientific and philosophical implications of this research program with respect to questions of human uniqueness, animal welfare and conservation. (shrink)

The IASP definition of 'pain' defines pain as a subjective experience. The Note accompanying the definition emphasizes that as such pains are not to be identified with objective conditions of body parts (such as actual or potential tissue damage). Nevertheless, it goes on to state that a pain "is unquestionably a sensation in a part or parts of the body, but it is also always unpleasant and therefore also an emotional experience." This generates a puzzle that philosophers have been well (...) familiar with: how to understand our utterances and judgments attributing pain to body parts. (The puzzle is of course general extending to all sensations routinely located in body parts.) The present work tackles this puzzle. I go over various options specifying the truth-conditions for pain attributing judgments, and at the end make my own recommendation which is an adverbialist, qualia-friendly proposal with completely naturalistic credentials that is also compatible with forms of weak intentionalism. The results are generalizable to other bodily sensations and can be used to illustrate, quite generally, the viability of a qualia-friendly adverbialist (but naturalist and weakly intentionalist) account of perception. (shrink)

Abstract: To improve the countries’ pharmaceutical situation and to monitor the progress, the World Health Organization (WHO) and member states developed a system of indicators to measure the respective important aspects as a prerequisite step. Level I indicators to assess the country’s pharmaceutical situation include the national drug policy; legislation and regulations; drug accessibility and affordability; essential drug list; quality control; pharmacovigilance; storage and distribution; information and rational use. This study is aimed to document the professional opinion of 20 pharmacy (...) practice professionals on Libya’s current pharmaceutical situation, utilizing WHO indicator-based approach. The core indicators measure the most important information needed to understand the pharmaceutical situation in a country. A closed-end questionnaire was distributed to ten practicing pharmacists and ten pharmacy teaching staff members who practice pharmacy. The questionnaires were handed over personally and collected on the same day. The responses were analyzed using simple statistics. The results were argued in the light of the first author’s observation and view, being expert in this field, with reference to the other experts’ views, relevant publications’ findings and WHO reports’ conclusions on these indicators. Suggestions and recommendations for a proper situation assessment, planning and action taking are presented. Primarily, government’s commitment towards appropriate restructuring, management and monitoring of the pharmaceutical sector is crucial. That is to enhance the country’s pharmaceutical situation, to provide and sustain efficient pharmaceutical services and to improve the overall health care system’s performance. (shrink)

This is a piece written for interdisciplinary audiences and contains very little philosophy. It looks into whether, or in what sense, pains and pleasures are emotions.

The study aimed to identify the knowledge management processes and their role in achieving competitive advantage at Al-Quds Open University. The study was based on the descriptive analytical method, and the study population consists of academic and administrative staff in each of the branches of Al-Quds Open University in (Tulkarm, Nablus and Jenin). The researchers selected a sample of the study population by the intentional non-probability method, the size of (70) employees. A questionnaire was prepared and supervised by a number (...) of specialists in order to obtain the results of the study. The study concluded that there is a positive direct relationship, that is, the higher the degree of application of knowledge management processes, the greater the degree of competitive advantage. Knowledge Technology came first with a score of 80.02% on all items. Competitive advantage came second with 81.74%. In the third place came "knowledge generation" where the total score on all paragraphs in this area (78.24%). In the fourth place, "knowledge transfer" (77.21%). "Developing and storing knowledge" came in fifth place (77.13%). "Acquisition of knowledge" came in sixth place (76.45%). Knowledge Organization ranked seventh (74.26%). The study recommended that the university should enable the employees to benefit from the experiences and expertise available to help generate knowledge. The University encourages the creation of knowledge through the system of incentives and open the way for creators to apply their creations and spread and invest in excellence and creativity. The university should design work performance levels based on the integration of knowledge and organize it according to policies that support freedom of research. The need for Palestinian universities to adopt a knowledge management approach. The need to adopt a system of incentives that rewards cognitive efforts, and give workers enough freedom to enable them to apply their knowledge. (shrink)

Introductory Chapter to the _Cambridge Handbook of Situated Cognition_ (CUP, 2009).

Abstract: Retama raetam (RR) is a traditional medicinal plant belongs to fabaceae family which grows in North Africa and East Mediterranean region. Locally, RR is used in several diseases including diabetes mellitus and hypertension. Thus, this study aims to investigate certain behavioral and central effects of methanolic extract of RR seeds in experimental animals (male Albino adult mice of 20 – 35 gm). Three exploratory behavioral models are used in this study, open field, elevated plus maze and light-dark box models, (...) in addition, picrotoxin induced seizure model in mice. In elevated plus-maze test of anxiety, a dose of 25 mg/kg of RR induced a significant increase in number of open arms entries and time spent on open arms of the maze compared to the control. In light-dark model, time spent on light area and number of light-dark transitions are significantly increased after treatment with 25 mg/kg RR extract of seeds. Open field model also revealed a significant increase in general motor activity of the mouse after 25 mg/kg of RR. On the other hand, a dose of 50 mg/kg of RR significantly induced a profound central and peripheral analgesic responses. In summary, this study concludes that RR seeds have a profound anxiolytic-like effect and analgesic response with delay in latency time of seizure induced by picrotoxin in mice. (shrink)

Background: A bean is the seed of one of several genera of the flowering plant family Fabaceae, which are used as vegetables for human or animal food. They can be cooked in many different ways, including boiling, frying, and baking, and are used in many traditional dishes throughout the world. Beans are one of the longest-cultivated plants. Broad beans, also called fava beans, in their wild state the size of a small fingernail, were gathered in Afghanistan and the Himalayan foothills. (...) In a form improved from naturally occurring types, Beans were an important source of protein throughout old and new world history, and still are today. Objectives: The main goal of this expert system is to get the appropriate diagnosis of disease and the correct treatment. Methods: In this paper, the design of the proposed Expert System was produced to help farmers and those interested in agriculture in diagnosing many of the Bean diseases such as Fusarium wilt, Charcoal rot or ashy stem blight, Bacterial leaf spot and blight, Mung bean yellow mosaic virus, Cercospora leaf spot. The proposed expert system presents an overview of Bean diseases are given, the cause of diseases outlined and the treatment of disease whenever possible is given out. CLIPS Expert System language was used for designing and implementing the proposed expert system. Results: The proposed Bean diseases diagnosis expert system was evaluated by Agricultural experts and some friends interested in agriculture and they were satisfied with its performance. Conclusions: The proposed expert system is very useful for Farmers and those interested in agriculture. (shrink)

The current IASP definition of pain has come under renewed criticisms recently. There is a new momentum for its revision as reflected by the fact that IASP has now a Presidential Task Force dedicated to look into whether there is enough warrant to update the definition. I critically review all the major criticisms of the current definition in detail, and raise new difficulties rarely discussed before. I show that none of the major criticisms has enough warrant to force us to (...) substantially revise the current definition. Combined with the discussion of the new difficulties, there is nonetheless a need to restate the definition using slightly different terminology that will make the original intent of the current definition clearer and more precise. A restatement of the definition is proposed and its potential is discussed in light of some empirical questions that remain. [The IASP Council has now approved a revised definition and published its rationale here: Pain 2020 Sep 1; 161(9), pp. 1976–1982. The new definition follows (most of) my recommendations.]. (shrink)

[Special issue honoring Nikola Grahek] Representationalism in philosophy of perception has become more or less the dominant view. There are various versions of it not all of which are motivated by the same set of concerns. Different metaphysical and epistemological agendas are at work in different strands of the movement. In this paper, I will focus on what has come to be known as strong representationalism. This view has reductive and non-reductive versions, which are usually paired with realist and irrealist (...) versions respectively. First, I will develop a simple, largely empirical, argument against the realist reductive version. Later, rather more briefly, I will extend the argument to cover irrealist representationalism. (shrink)

The present study assessed the language teachers' pedagogical beliefs and orientations in integrating technology in the online classroom and its effect on students' motivation and engagement. It utilized a cross-sectional correlational research survey. The study respondents were the randomly sampled 205 language teachers (μ= 437, n= 205) and 317 language students (μ= 1800, n= 317) of select higher educational institutions in the Philippines. The study results revealed that respondents hold positive pedagogical beliefs and orientations using technology-based teaching in their language (...) classroom. Test of difference showed that female teachers manifested a firmer belief in student-centered online language teaching than their male counterparts. However, the utilization and attitude towards technology in the language classroom is favorably associated with the male teachers. As to students' level of language learning motivation and engagement, it was found out that male and female students have high level of language learning engagement. Further, the test of relationship showed that the higher the teachers' belief in utilizing student-centered teaching to integrate technology in the language classroom, the higher the students are motivated and engaged in learning. In like manner, it was also revealed that teacher-centered belief is negatively correlated to student’s motivation and engagement in online language learning. In this regard, the pedagogical assumptions that hold EFL teachers positively to integrate technology in the language classroom. This study generally offers implications for enhancing language teacher's digital literacy to promote motivating, fruitful, and engaging language lessons for 21ts century learning. (shrink)

In this article, we propose the Fair Priority Model for COVID-19 vaccine distribution, and emphasize three fundamental values we believe should be considered when distributing a COVID-19 vaccine among countries: Benefiting people and limiting harm, prioritizing the disadvantaged, and equal moral concern for all individuals. The Priority Model addresses these values by focusing on mitigating three types of harms caused by COVID-19: death and permanent organ damage, indirect health consequences, such as health care system strain and stress, as well as (...) economic destruction. It proposes proceeding in three phases: the first addresses premature death, the second long-term health issues and economic harms, and the third aims to contain viral transmission fully and restore pre-pandemic activity. -/- To those who may deem an ethical framework irrelevant because of the belief that many countries will pursue "vaccine nationalism," we argue such a framework still has broad relevance. Reasonable national partiality would permit countries to focus on vaccine distribution within their borders up until the rate of transmission is below 1, at which point there would not be sufficient vaccine-preventable harm to justify retaining a vaccine. When a government reaches the limit of national partiality, it should release vaccines for other countries. -/- We also argue against two other recent proposals. Distributing a vaccine proportional to a country's population mistakenly assumes that equality requires treating differently situated countries identically. Prioritizing countries according to the number of front-line health care workers, the proportion of the population over 65, and the number of people with comorbidities within each country may exacerbate disadvantage and end up giving the vaccine in large part to wealthy nations. (shrink)

A lot of qualitatively very different sensations can be pleasant or unpleasant. The Felt-Quality Views that conceive of sensory affect as having an introspectively available common phenomenology or qualitative character face the “heterogeneity problem” of specifying what that qualitative common phenomenology is. In contrast, according to the Attitudinal Views, what is common to all pleasant or unpleasant sensations is that they are all “wanted” or “unwanted” in a certain sort of way. The commonality is explained not on the basis of (...) phenomenology but by a common mental, usually some sort of conative, attitude toward the sensation. Here I criticize both views and offer an alternative framework that combines what is right in both while avoiding their unintuitive commitments. The result is the reductive (psychofunctionalist) adverbial sensory modification view of pleasure and displeasure. (shrink)

Endocrinologists apply the idea of feedback loops to explain how hormones regulate certain bodily functions such as glucose metabolism. In particular, feedback loops focus on the maintenance of the plasma concentrations of glucose within a narrow range. Here, we put forward a different, organicist perspective on the endocrine regulation of glycaemia, by relying on the pivotal concept of closure of constraints. From this perspective, biological systems are understood as organized ones, which means that they are constituted of a set of (...) mutually dependent functional structures acting as constraints, whose maintenance depends on their reciprocal interactions. Closure refers specifically to the mutual dependence among functional constraints in an organism. We show that, when compared to feedback loops, organizational closure can generate much richer descriptions of the processes and constraints at play in the metabolism and regulation of glycaemia, by making explicit the different hierarchical orders involved. We expect that the proposed theoretical framework will open the way to the construction of original mathematical models, which would provide a better understanding of endocrine regulation from an organicist perspective. (shrink)

This paper aims to measure Knowledge Management Maturity (KMM) in the universities to determine the impact of knowledge management on high performance. This study was applied on Al-Quds Open University in Gaza strip, Palestine. Asian productivity organization model was applied to measure KMM. Second dimension which assess high performance was developed by the authors. The controlled sample was (306). Several statistical tools were used for data analysis and hypotheses testing, including reliability Correlation using Cronbach’s alpha, “ANOVA”, Simple Linear Regression and (...) Step Wise Regression.The overall findings of the current study suggest that KMM is suitable for measuring high performance. KMM assessment shows that maturity level is in level three. Findings also support the main hypothesis and it is sub- hypotheses. The most important factors effecting high performance are: Processes, KM leadership, People, KM Outcomes and Learning and Innovation. Furthermore the current study is unique by the virtue of its nature, scope and way of implied investigation, as it is the first comparative study in the universities of Palestine explores the status of KMM using the Asian productivity Model. (shrink)

Some sensory experiences are pleasant, some unpleasant. This is a truism. But understanding what makes these experiences pleasant and unpleasant is not an easy job. Various difficulties and puzzles arise as soon as we start theorizing. There are various philosophical theories on offer that seem to give different accounts for the positive or negative affective valences of sensory experiences. In this paper, we will look at the current state of art in the philosophy of mind, present the main contenders, critically (...) compare and contrast them. In particular, we want to examine how they handle the reason-giving power of affective states. We will look into two representationalist proposals (Evaluativism and Imperativism) and a functionalist proposal, and argue that, contrary to their own advertisements, the representationalist proposals don’t have good accounts of why and how sensory affect can motivate, rationalize, and justify subsequent behavior and intentional mental activity. We will show that our own functionalist proposal does a much better job in this regard, and that when the representationalist proposals are modified to do a better job, they fare better not because of their representationalist credentials but due to their functionalist ones. (shrink)

This is the text of an invited talk exploring the connections between two apparently distinct notions of affect, sensory versus core affect. It is basically a progress report. It is exploratory and tentative. It starts from a mild puzzle about the apparent mismatch between the notion of affect that affective neuroscientists generally deploy and the notion of affect that emotion psychologists deploy. The notion favored by psychologists is the notion of core affect. The phenomenon studied by affective neuroscientists is usually (...) the notion of sensory affect. It's not clear how these two notions are related to each other. I'll present the main outlines of both notions, make some critical observations, and raise a few questions at the end. (shrink)

[This is the penultimate version, please send me an email for the final version]. Some sensations are pleasant, some unpleasant, and some are neither. Furthermore, those that are pleasant or unpleasant are so to different degrees. In this essay, I want to explore what kind of a difference is the difference between these three kinds of sensations. I will develop a comprehensive three-level account of sensory pleasure that is simultaneously adverbialist, functionalist and is also a version of a satisfied experiential-desire (...) account. (shrink)

Autonomy has been central to moral and political philosophy for millenia, and has been positioned as a critical aspect of both justice and wellbeing. Research in psychology supports this position, providing empirical evidence that autonomy is critical to motivation, personal growth and psychological wellness. Responsible AI will require an understanding of, and ability to effectively design for, human autonomy (rather than just machine autonomy) if it is to genuinely benefit humanity. Yet the effects on human autonomy of digital experiences are (...) neither straightforward nor consistent, and are complicated by commercial interests and tensions around compulsive overuse. This multi-layered reality requires an analysis that is itself multidimensional and that takes into account human experience at various levels of resolution. We borrow from HCI and psychological research to apply a model (“METUX”) that identifies six distinct spheres of technology experience. We demonstrate the value of the model for understanding human autonomy in a technology ethics context at multiple levels by applying it to the real-world case study of an AI-enhanced video recommender system. In the process we argue for the following three claims: 1) There are autonomy-related consequences to algorithms representing the interests of third parties, and they are not impartial and rational extensions of the self, as is often perceived; 2) Designing for autonomy is an ethical imperative critical to the future design of responsible AI; and 3) Autonomy-support must be analysed from at least six spheres of experience in order to approriately capture contradictory and downstream effects. (shrink)

Every person has his/her own unique signature that is used mainly for the purposes of personal identification and verification of important documents or legal transactions. There are two kinds of signature verification: static and dynamic. Static(off-line) verification is the process of verifying an electronic or document signature after it has been made, while dynamic(on-line) verification takes place as a person creates his/her signature on a digital tablet or a similar device. Offline signature verification is not efficient and slow for a (...) large number of documents. To overcome the drawbacks of offline signature verification, we have seen a growth in online biometric personal verification such as fingerprints, eye scan etc. In this paper we created CNN model using python for offline signature and after training and validating, the accuracy of testing was 99.70%. (shrink)

Abstract: As the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) continues to permeate various sectors, the legal domain stands on the cusp of a transformative era. This research paper delves into the multifaceted relationship between AI and the law, scrutinizing the profound implications and innovative applications that emerge at the intersection of these two realms. The study commences with an examination of the current landscape, assessing the challenges and opportunities that AI presents within legal frameworks. With an emphasis on efficiency, accuracy, and (...) accessibility, AI technologies are reshaping traditional legal processes, ranging from document analysis and contract review to predictive legal analytics. Furthermore, the paper scrutinizes the ethical considerations and potential biases inherent in AI algorithms, exploring the delicate balance between technological advancements and the preservation of legal principles such as fairness, accountability, and transparency. The research also delves into the evolving role of legal professionals in navigating and overseeing AI applications, emphasizing the importance of responsible AI deployment. Drawing on case studies and real-world examples, this paper showcases instances where AI has already demonstrated its efficacy in legal contexts, highlighting successful implementations and identifying areas for improvement. The discussion extends to the evolving regulatory landscape, as legal systems grapple with the need to adapt and establish frameworks that ensure the responsible and ethical use of AI technologies. In conclusion, this research contributes to the growing discourse on the dynamic interplay between AI and the legal domain. By illuminating the potential benefits, ethical considerations, and regulatory challenges, it provides a comprehensive overview for legal practitioners, policymakers, and technologists alike, fostering a nuanced understanding of the evolving landscape where artificial intelligence intersects with the law. (shrink)

Mental health among students is one of the major concerns amidst the pandemic. Employing a correlational design, this study investigates the relationship between emotional intelligence and mental health among 152 senior high school students. Based on the statistical analysis, the r coefficient of 0.82 indicates a high positive correlation between the variables. The p-value of 0.00, which is less than 0.05, leads to the decision to reject the null hypothesis. Hence, a significant relationship exists between emotional intelligence and mental health (...) among senior high school. Implications were discussed in the study. (shrink)

Background: Obstetrics and gynaecology are many and common, where a woman suffers from problems related to pregnancy or her reproductive organs. Any part of her body may be affected due to some symptoms that are completely related to the reproductive organs when she is in a critical period for her, whether in her menstrual cycle, pregnancy, or disease conditions. The bulk of cases of diseases related to women and childbirth are dealt with great care and special care, as all diseases (...) related to women are considered very sensitive diseases due to the presence of the disease in sensitive and not simple places. A gynaecologist is a specialist in all diseases and problems related to the female sexual organs. They perform regular preventive medical exams, such as cervical smear tests and breast exams. It also provides consultations for women of all ages about the problems of contraception, infertility and menopause. Objectives: The objective of this expert system is to help and facilitate women in diagnosing diseases related to their obstetrics and gynaecology, a simple expert system has been designed consisting of ten various common diseases that affect women whether During or without pregnancy, Methods: In this system, the system consists of a list of some common symptoms, the correct diagnosis adopted for these diseases, and how to treat diseases in the correct way with the help of a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist, Dr. Fathi Muhammad Al-Habibi, and these diseases are: uterine cancer, cervical cancer, Infertility, double uterus, ectopic pregnancy, endometrial cancer, female sexual dysfunction, endometriosis, faecal incontinence, female infertility, CLIPS Expert System language was used to design and implement the proposed expert system. Results: The proposed ten obstetrics and gynaecology diagnostic expert system was evaluated by medical students and they were satisfied with its performance. Conclusions: The proposed expert system is very useful for obstetricians and gynaecologists, patients with reproductive system problems, and recent graduates. (shrink)

The University of Vienna saw witness to the Opening Conference of the ESF-Research Networking Programme “The Philosophy of Science in a European perspective” (PSE) which was organised by the Vienna Circle Institute and took place on the 18-20 December at the Campus of the University of Vienna, 2008. Its overarching aim was to set the background for a collaborative project organising, systematising, and ultimately forging an identity for, European philosophy of science by creating research structures and developing research networks across (...) Europe to promote its development. As such under the general rubric of ‘the present situation in the philosophy of science’, the emphasis was on as a first step identifying traditions and research structures already present, and the directions in which this research was leading. (shrink)

Purpose This paper aims to formalize long-term trajectories of human civilization as a scientific and ethical field of study. The long-term trajectory of human civilization can be defined as the path that human civilization takes during the entire future time period in which human civilization could continue to exist. -/- Design/methodology/approach This paper focuses on four types of trajectories: status quo trajectories, in which human civilization persists in a state broadly similar to its current state into the distant future; catastrophe (...) trajectories, in which one or more events cause significant harm to human civilization; technological transformation trajectories, in which radical technological breakthroughs put human civilization on a fundamentally different course; and astronomical trajectories, in which human civilization expands beyond its home planet and into the accessible portions of the cosmos. -/- Findings Status quo trajectories appear unlikely to persist into the distant future, especially in light of long-term astronomical processes. Several catastrophe, technological transformation and astronomical trajectories appear possible. -/- Originality/value Some current actions may be able to affect the long-term trajectory. Whether these actions should be pursued depends on a mix of empirical and ethical factors. For some ethical frameworks, these actions may be especially important to pursue. (shrink)

Although there are many questions to be asked about philosophy of mathematics, the fundamental questions to be asked will be questions about what the mathematical object is in view of being and what the mathematical reasoning is in view of knowledge. It is clear that other problems will develop in parallel within the framework of the answers to these questions. For this rea­ son, when we approach Aristotle's philosophy of mathematics over these two basic problems, we come up with the (...) concept of abstraction. In our work, I will try to explain the mathematical abstraction that Aristotle has developed to understand mathematical philosophy. (shrink)

A pineapple is a tropical plant with eatable leafy foods most monetarily critical plant in the family Bromeliaceous. The pineapple is native to South America, where it has been developed for a long time. The acquaintance of the pineapple with Europe in the seventeenth century made it a critical social symbol of extravagance. Since the 1820s, pineapple has been industrially filled in nurseries and numerous tropical manors. Further, it is the third most significant tropical natural product in world creation. In (...) the twentieth century, Hawaii was a prevailing maker of pineapples, particularly for the US, be that as it may, by 2016, Costa Rica, Brazil, and the Philippines represented almost 33% of the world's creation of pineapples. In this paper, machine learning based approach is presented for identifying type pineapple with a dataset that contains 1,311images use 946 images for training, 197 images for validation and 168 images for testing. A deep learning technique that extensively applied to image recognition was used. use 70% from image for training and 30% from image for validation. Our trained model achieved an accuracy of 100% on a heldout test set. (shrink)

Representationalism is the view that the phenomenal character of experiences is identical to their representational content of a certain sort. This view requires a strong transparency condition on phenomenally conscious experiences. We argue that affective qualities such as experienced pleasantness or unpleasantness are counter-examples to the transparency thesis and thus to the sort of representationalism that implies it.

According to the increasingly popular perceptual/representational accounts of pain (and other bodily sensations such as itches, tickles, orgasms, etc.), feeling pain in a body region is perceiving a non-mental property or some objective condition of that region, typically equated with some sort of (actual or potential) tissue damage. In what follows I argue that given a natural understanding of what sensory perception requires and how it is integrated with (dedicated) conceptual systems, these accounts are mistaken. I will also examine the (...) relationship between perceptual views and two (weak and strong) forms of representationalism about experience. I will argue that pains pose very serious problems for strong representationalism as well. (shrink)

A comprehensive introduction to the Language of Though Hypothesis (LOTH) accessible to general audiences. LOTH is an empirical thesis about thought and thinking. For their explication, it postulates a physically realized system of representations that have a combinatorial syntax (and semantics) such that operations on representations are causally sensitive only to the syntactic properties of representations. According to LOTH, thought is, roughly, the tokening of a representation that has a syntactic (constituent) structure with an appropriate semantics. Thinking thus consists in (...) syntactic operations defined over representations. Most of the arguments for LOTH derive their strength from their ability to explain certain empirical phenomena like productivity, systematicity of thought and thinking. (shrink)

Families play an essential role in deceased organ procurement. As the person cannot directly communicate his or her wishes regarding donation, the family is often the only source of information regarding consent or refusal. We provide a systematic description and analysis of the different roles the family can play, and actions the family can take, in the organ procurement process across different jurisdictions and consent systems. First, families can inform or update healthcare professionals about a person’s donation wishes. Second, families (...) can authorize organ procurement in the absence of deceased’s preferences and the default is not to remove organs, and oppose donation where there is no evidence of preference but the default is to presume consent; in both cases, the decision could be based on their own wishes or what they think the deceased would have wanted. Finally, families can overrule the known wishes of the deceased, which can mean preventing donation, or permitting donation when the deceased refused it. We propose a schema of 4 levels on which to map these possible family roles: no role, witness, surrogate, and full decisional authority. We conclude by mapping different jurisdictions onto this schema to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the consent system for organ donation and some important nuances about the role of families. This classificatory model aims to account for the majority of the world’s consent systems. It provides conceptual and methodological guidance that can be useful to researchers, professionals, and policymakers involved in organ procurement. (shrink)

Important advances in biomedical and behavioral research ethics have occurred over the past few decades, many of them centered on identifying and eliminating significant harms to human subjects of research. Comprehensive attention has not been paid to the totality of harms experienced by animal subjects, although scientific and moral progress require explicit appraisal of these harms. Science is a public good and the prioritizing within, conduct of, generation of, and application of research must soundly address questions about which research is (...) morally defensible and valuable enough to support through funding, publication, tenure, and promotion. Likewise, educational pathways of re-imagined science are critical. (shrink)

This research paper presents the development and evaluation of an expert system for diagnosing kidney diseases. The expert system utilizes a decision-making tree approach and is implemented using the CLIPS and Delphi frameworks. The system's accuracy in diagnosing kidney diseases and user satisfaction were evaluated. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the expert system in providing accurate diagnoses and high user satisfaction.

Male genital problems and injuries may occur quite simply because of the scrotum and penis are not protected like other organs. Genital problems and injuries normally happen through: recreational activities (like Football, Hooky, biking, basketball), work- related tasks (like contact to irritating chemicals), downhill drop, and sexual activity. A genital injury frequently causes harsh pain that typically disappear fast without causing enduring harm. Home handling is generally all that is required for trivial problems or injuries. Pain, inflammation, staining, or rashes (...) that are coexist with other symptoms might be a source for concern. Genital problems in men is one of the most common problems which requires fast intervention. In this paper we present an expert system that help men diagnose their genital problems and give them the proper treatment. SL5 Object expert system language was used to design and implement this expert system. (shrink)

This essay is a sustained attempt to bring new light to some of the perennial problems in philosophy of mind surrounding phenomenal consciousness and introspection through developing an account of sensory and phenomenal concepts. Building on the information-theoretic framework of Dretske (1981), we present an informational psychosemantics as it applies to what we call sensory concepts, concepts that apply, roughly, to so-called secondary qualities of objects. We show that these concepts have a special informational character and semantic structure that closely (...) tie them to the brain states realizing conscious qualitative experiences. We then develop an account of introspection which exploits this special nature of sensory concepts. The result is a new class of concepts, which, following recent terminology, we call phenomenal concepts: these concepts refer to phenomenal experience itself and are the vehicles used in introspection. On our account, the connection between sensory and phenomenal concepts is very tight: it consists in different semantic uses of the same cognitive structures underlying the sensory concepts, such as the concept of red. Contrary to widespread opinion, we show that information theory contains all the resources to satisfy internalist intuitions about phenomenal consciousness, while not offending externalist ones. A consequence of this account is that it explains and predicts the so-called conceivability arguments against physicalism on the basis of the special nature of sensory and phenomenal concepts. Thus we not only show why physicalism is not threatened by such arguments, but also demonstrate its strength in virtue of its ability to predict and explain away such arguments in a principled way. However, we take the main contribution of this work to be what it provides in addition to a response to those conceivability arguments, namely, a substantive account of the interface between sensory and conceptual systems and the mechanisms of introspection as based on the special nature of the information flow between them. (shrink)

There are a lot of studies on Ahmed Cevdet Paşa who has been considered as statesman, politician, jurist, historian, sociologist and educationalist. At the same time Ahmet Cevdet Paşa’s studies on logic are critically important when we deal with the last period of the Ottoman Empire. His book which is called Miyar-ı Sedad had both influenced the development of instruction of logic education in madrasahs and created a turning point in the studies on modern logic. For this reason we have (...) discussed his opinions about logic and science in this study and we have also tried to show that how his opinions on these issues affecected the instruction and the other fields. (shrink)

A self-fulfilling prophecy in neuroprognostication occurs when a patient in coma is predicted to have a poor outcome, and life-sustaining treatment is withdrawn on the basis of that prediction, thus directly bringing about a poor outcome for that patient. In contrast to the predominant emphasis in the bioethics literature, we look beyond the moral issues raised by the possibility that an erroneous prediction might lead to the death of a patient who otherwise would have lived. Instead, we focus on the (...) problematic epistemic consequences of neuroprognostic SFPs in settings where research and practice intersect. When this sort of SFP occurs, the problem is that physicians and researchers are never in a position to notice whether their original prognosis was correct or incorrect, since the patient dies anyway. Thus, SFPs keep us from discerning false positives from true positives, inhibiting proper assessment of novel prognostic tests. This epistemic problem of SFPs thus impedes learning, but ethical obligations of patient care make it difficult to avoid SFPs. We then show how the impediment to catching false positive indicators of poor outcome distorts research on novel techniques for neuroprognostication, allowing biases to persist in prognostic tests. We finally highlight a particular risk that a precautionary bias towards early withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment may be amplified. We conclude with guidelines about how researchers can mitigate the epistemic problems of SFPs, to achieve more responsible innovation of neuroprognostication for patients in coma. (shrink)