In the light of the results obtained during the last two decades in analysis of signals by time series, it has become evident that the tools of non linear dynamics have their elective role of application in biological, and, in particular, in neuro-physiological and psycho-physiological studies. The basic concept in non linear analysis of experimental time series is that one of recurrence whose conceptual counterpart is represented from variedness and variability that are the foundations of complexity in (...) dynamic processes. Thus, the recurrence plots and the Recurrence Quantification Analysis (RQA) are discussed. It is shown that RQA represents the most general and correct methodology in investigation of experimental time series. By it we arrive to inspect the inner structure of the time series connected to the signals under investigation. Linked to RQA we prospect also the method CZF, recently introduced by us. It is able to account for a true estimation of variability of signals in time as well as in frequency domain. And, consequently, it may be used in conjunction with classical Fourier analysis, accounting however that it is inappropriate in analysis of non linear and non stationary experimental time series. The use of CZF method in fractal analysis is also considered in addition to standard index as Hurst exponent. A large field of possible applications in neurological as well as in psycho-physiological studies is given. Also, there are given examples of other and (possibly linked) applications as example the analysis of beat-to-beat fluctuations of human heartbeat intervals that is sovereign in psycho-physiological studies. We give applications on some different planes to evidence the particular sensitivity of such methods. We reach the objective to show that the previously exposed methods are also able to predict in advance the advent of ventricular tachycardia and/or of ventricular fibrillation. The RQA analysis gives good results. The CZF method gives the most excellent results showing that it is able to give very significant indexes of prediction. We also apply such methods in investigation of state anxiety, and proposing in detail a quantum like model of such phenomenological status of the mind. (shrink)

Nicholas Rescher claims that rational decision theory “may leave us in the lurch”, because there are two apparently acceptable ways of applying “the standard machinery of expected-value analysis” to his Dr. Psycho paradox which recommend contradictory actions. He detects a similar contradiction in Newcomb’s problem. We consider his claims from the point of view of both Bayesian decision theory and causal decision theory. In Dr. Psycho and in Newcomb’s Problem, Rescher has used premisses about probabilities which he (...) assumes to be independent. From the former point of view, we show that the probability premisses are not independent but inconsistent, and their inconsistency is provable within probability theory alone. From the latter point of view, we show that their consistency can be saved, but then the contradictory recommendations evaporate. Consequently, whether one subscribes to evidential or causal decision theory, rational decision theory is not in any way vitiated by Rescher’s arguments. (shrink)

The SAIVA SIDDHANTHA sastra texts are not studied in debth and the interpretation varies from author to author on many issues. Besides the contemporary trends like hermeneutical and psycho-analytical interpretation are not done yet in the sastra texts. -/- A scientific study of the philosophy of the saiva doctrines especially the core philosophy is my aim. Traditional way to describe them would be to take up the three core issues of the saivite ontology that are the pathi, pasu and (...) pasam. -/- I have taken up the psychological analysis of these core issues. In addition the iruvinai oppu,malaparibaham and sakthinibatham aspects were compared with analytic connotations. The nittai theories and the sadhana aspects were compared with the modern insight and psychotherapy. The dheekai methods which are very much close to the psychotherapist’s style is also disussed in the last. -/- I have taken thiruvasagam,thirumandhitam and periyapuranam among the thirumurai texts. As for as the sandhana texts I have taken sivagnanabodham and sivagnanasiddhiyar. Among the pandara texts I have studied dhaskariam,panchkra pahrodai and nittai vilakkam. Besides these I have taken a few quotes from vallalar’s thiru-arutpa. -/- . (shrink)

The influence of parenting styles on the psychosocial wellbeing of Nigerian adolescents is yet to be given adequate research attention. This study bridges the gap in knowledge. Findings may be useful in planning appropriate interventions programme necessary to improve the psychosocial wellbeing of adolescents in Osun state, southwestern Nigeria and relation with similar social cultural background. Purposive sampling technique was used to select 332 (mean age = 14) in-school adolescents who responded to Mental Health Continuum – Short Form (MHS-SF) and (...) Parenting Style Instrument (PSI). Descriptive and inferential statistics (Regression, Independent sample t test and One Way ANOVA) were used for data analysis. A low level of psychosocial wellbeing was observed among the adolescents. Prevalence of very low levels of emotional wellbeing (16.9%), social wellbeing (22%), and psychological wellbeing (19.3%) were reported. Patterns of observed parenting styles are authoritative parenting style (45.5%, 41.6%, and 12.9%), authoritarian parenting style (53%, 30.7% and 16.3%); permissive parenting style (64.2%, 20.7% and 15.1%) for low, high and very high levels respectively. No significant gender difference was observed in the psychosocial wellbeing scores of the adolescents; a significant religious affiliation difference was found in the social wellbeing of the participants. Adolescents from public schools manifested higher levels of social wellbeing than their counterparts from private schools. Parenting styles significantly predict level of psychosocial wellbeing of the adolescents. Neither family type nor family size had significant influence on level of psycho-social wellbeing of the adolescents. (shrink)

Recent advancements in the brain sciences have enabled researchers to determine, with increasing accuracy, patterns and locations of neural activation associated with various psychological functions. These techniques have revived a longstanding debate regarding the relation between the mind and the brain: while many authors claim that neuroscientific data can be employed to advance theories of higher cognition, others defend the so-called ‘autonomy’ of psychology. Settling this significant issue requires understanding the nature of the bridge laws used at the psycho-neural (...) interface. While these laws have been the topic of extensive discussion, such debates have mostly focused on a particular type of link: reductive laws. Reductive laws are problematic: they face notorious philosophical objections and they are too scarce to substantiate current research at the intersection of psychology and neuroscience. The aim of this article is to provide a systematic analysis of a different kind of bridge laws—associative laws—which play a central, albeit overlooked role in scientific practice. (shrink)

The thesis that follows proffers a solution to the mind-matter problem, the problem as to how mind and matter relate. The proposed solution herein is a variant of panpsychism – the theory that all (pan) has minds (psyche) – that we name pansentient monism. By defining the suffix 'psyche' of panpsychism, i.e. by analysing what 'mind' is (Chapter 1), we thereby initiate the effacement of the distinction between mind and matter, and thus advance a monism. We thereafter critically examine the (...) prevalent view, antithetical to a pansentient monism, that mind is not identical to matter but emergent therefrom (Chapter 2). This anti-emergentist critique acts also as a fortification of the Genetic Argument for panpsychism: if mind is not emergent (nor distinct) from matter, mind must always have existed with matter. But what is 'matter'? Chapter 3 investigates what we understand by 'matter', or 'the physical', and exposes it as a highly deficient concept and percept that in concreto points to its identity with that denoted by 'mind'. This also acts as a fortification of the Abstraction Argument for panpsychism, employing a new taxonomy of physicalism and a new taxonomy of the varieties of abstraction. Thus do we reach a monism that is a parsimonious psycho-physical identity theory. But here we face what can be called The Identity Problem for Panpsychism: if our panpsychism is a psycho-physical identity theory, how can it respond to the powerful objections that beset the identity theory of the twentieth century? In Chapter 4 it will be argued that, like emergentism, this psycho-neural identity theory presupposed a deficient concept of 'matter', down to which mind was reduced away, let alone identified. But to identify down phenomena to what is actually an abstraction is to commit failure of explanation. When the theory is amended accordingly, we move from a psycho-neural identity theory to a genuine psycho-physical identity theory that as such can overcome the aforementioned identity problem. Furthermore, as Chapter 5 clarifies, our pansentient monism has, in addition to parsimony, the explanatory power to resolve the problem of mental causation that afflicts both the reductive physicalism of psycho-neural identity theory and the non-reductive physicalism of emergentism, by genuinely identifying physical and mental causation. Jaegwon Kim considers the place of consciousness in a physical world and the nature of mental causation to be the two key components of the mind-matter problem. Through the critical analysis of our prosaic understanding of mind and matter in this thesis, which incorporates the thought of both classical and contemporary thinkers through a novel fusion, it is hoped that both components are addressed and redressed. That is to say that I present this pansentient monism as a plausible, parsimonious, explanatory, and thus, I think, powerful position towards this ever-perplexing mind-matter mystery. -/- [This thesis was passed in January 2019 with viva examination from Galen Strawson and Joel Krueger. (shrink)

The aim of this work is to develop a comparative analysis of the discursive structures that underlie the socialized formation of the interpretative paradigms of reality. We analyse how both political ideologies and the so-called “conspiracy theories” can be understood starting from the structure and functioning of Marc Augè's ideo-logic, namely the systemic-discursive device that defines the field of all possible sentences defining the real. -/- .

This study explores the interface between conscious and nonconscious mental processes using phenomenological analysis, information processing cognitive psychology, connectionism and traditional aesthetic theories. It attempts to explain how global, evaluative information--especially the primitive feeling of 'rightness' or 'making sense'--is represented in consciousness. ;Many lines of evidence confirm and extend William James' nucleus/fringe model of consciousness: surrounding clear experience in focal attention is a fringe of vague experience. Context information in general, and the feeling of rightness in particular, occupy the (...) fringe. The fringe is vague because it works to finesse consciousness' limited capacity to articulate experience, and the fringe is elusive or 'ungraspable' because it helps to call new information into consciousness. The phenomenology of the fringe is thus a consequence of its cognitive functions. ;Meaningfulness is proposed to be a summary index of cognitive integration, signalling consciousness about the degree of global compatibility or 'fit' between a given content in the focus of attention and its nonconscious context. Though very similar to goodness-of-fit in a connectionist network, Meaningfulness is proposed to play an active feedback role in cognition, while goodness-of-fit, as currently used, is a passive measure of network integration. ;This analysis predicts that an intense feeling of Meaningfulness will have a characteristic 'profile,' and this profile is evident in many accounts of aesthetic experience: a feeling of unity and coherence that cannot be captured adequately in words, but which nevertheless seems to be a source of profound, and often "spiritual," knowledge. ;Many philosophical theories try to explain the unistic, ineffable, noetic, and transcendent aspects of the aesthetic. Platonic and Aristotelian traditions are considered, but the primary focus is on Kant. The Critique of Judgment created modern aesthetics, and in many ways it is remarkably compatible with current cognitive analysis. ;Beyond clarifying the cognitive foundation of aesthetic experience, this study offers new arguments against epiphenomenalism, provides further reason to doubt rule-based accounts of nonconscious processing, explains the isomorphism in aesthetic and mystical phenomenology, and develops a method to investigate consciousness called convergent phenomenology. (shrink)

Physics has been slowly and reluctantly beginning to address the role and fundamental basis of the ‘observer’ which has until now also been considered metaphysical and beyond the mandate empirical rigor. It is suggested that the fundamental premise of the currently dominant view of ‘Cognitive Theory’ - “Mind Equals Brain” is erroneous; and the associated belief that the ‘Planck scale, ‘the so-called basement level of reality’, as an appropriate arena from which to model psycho-physical bridging is also in error. (...) In this paper we delineate a simple, inexpensive experimental design to ‘crack the so-called cosmic egg’ thereby opening the door to largescale extra dimensions (LSXD) tantamount to the regime of the unified field and thus awareness. The methodology surmounts the quantum uncertainty principle in a manner violating Quantum Electrodynamics, (QED), a cornerstone of modern theoretical physics, by spectrographic analysis of newly theorized Tight-Bound State (TBS) Bohr orbits in ‘continuous-state’ transition frequencies of atomic hydrogen. If one wonders why QED violation in the spectra of atomic hydrogen relates to solving the mind-body (observer) problem; consider this a 1st wrench in a forthcoming tool box of Unified Field Mechanics, UF that will soon enough in retrospect cause the current tools of Classical and Quantum Mechanics to appear as stone axes. Max Planck is credited as the founder of quantum mechanics with his 1900 quantum hypothesis that energy is radiated and absorbed discretely by the formulation, E = hv. Empirically implementing this next paradigm shift utilizing parameters of the long sought associated ‘new physics’ of the 3rd regime (classical-quantum- unified) allows access to LSXD of space; thus pragmatically opening the domain of mental action for the 1st time in history. This rendering constitutes a massive paradigm shift to Unified Field Theory creating a challenge for both the writer and the reader! (shrink)

Explanatory pluralism holds that the sorts of comprehensive theoretical and ontological economies, which microreductionists and New Wave reductionists envision and which antireductionists fear, offer misleading views of both scientific practice and scientific progress. Both advocates and foes of employing reductionist strategies at the interface of psychology and neuroscience have overplayed the alleged economies that interlevel connections (including identities) justify while overlooking their fundamental role in promoting scientific research. A brief review of research on visual processing provides support for the explanatory (...) pluralist=s general model of cross-scientific relations and discloses the valuable heuristic role hypothetical identities play in cross-scientific research. That model also supplies grounds for hesitation about the correlation objection to the psycho-physical identity theory and complaints about an explanatory gap in physicalist accounts of consciousness. These takes on psycho-neural connections miss both the sorts of considerations that motivate hypothetical identities in science and their fundamental contribution to progressive research. Thus, their focus on the contributions of research at multiple levels of analysis does not bar explanatory pluralists from considering heuristic identity theory (HIT). Arguably, it encourages it. (shrink)

The present study aims to examine the relationship between the cortical midline structures (CMS), which have been regarded to be associated with selfhood, and moral decision making processes at the neural level. Traditional moral psychological studies have suggested the role of moral self as the moderator of moral cognition, so activity of moral self would present at the neural level. The present study examined the interaction between the CMS and other moral-related regions by conducting psycho-physiological interaction analysis of (...) functional images acquired while 16 subjects were solving moral dilemmas. Furthermore, we performed Granger causality analysis to demonstrate the direction of influences between activities in the regions in moral decision-making. We first demonstrate there are significant positive interactions between two central CMS seed regions—i.e., the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC)—and brain regions associated with moral functioning including the cerebellum, brainstem, midbrain, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, orbitofrontal cortex and anterior insula (AI); on the other hand, the posterior insula (PI) showed significant negative interaction with the seed regions. Second, several significant Granger causality was found from CMS to insula regions particularly under the moral-personal condition. Furthermore, significant dominant influence from the AI to PI was reported. Moral psychological implications of these findings are discussed. The present study demonstrated the significant interaction and influence between the CMS and morality-related regions while subject were solving moral dilemmas. Given that, activity in the CMS is significantly involved in human moral functioning. (shrink)

Artificial Psychology (AP) is a highly multidisciplinary field of study in psychology. AP tries to solve problems which occur when psychologists do research and need a robust analysis method. Conventional statistical approaches have deep rooted limitations. These approaches are excellent on paper but often fail to model the real world. Mind researchers have been trying to overcome this by simplifying the models being studied. This stance has not received much practical attention recently. Promoting and improving artificial intelligence helps mind (...) researchers to find a holistic model of mental models. This development achieves this goal by using multiple perspectives and multiple data sets together with interactive, and realistic models. In this book, the methodology of approximate inference in psychological research from a theoretical and practical perspective has been considered. Quantitative variable-oriented methodology and qualitative case-oriented methods are both used to explain the set-oriented methodology and this book combines the precision of quantitative methods with information from qualitative methods. This is a book that many researchers can use to expand and deepen their psychological research and is a book which can be useful to postgraduate students. The reader does not need an in-depth knowledge of mathematics or statistics because statistical and mathematical intuitions are key here and they will be learned through practice. What is important is to understand and use the new application of the methods for finding new, dynamic and realistic interpretations. This book incorporates theoretical fuzzy inference and deep machine learning algorithms in practice. This is the kind of book that we wished we had had when we were students. This book covers at least some of the most important issues in mind research including uncertainty, fuzziness, continuity, complexity and high dimensionality which are inherent to mind data. These are elements of artificial psychology. This book implements models using R software. (shrink)

Validity of physical laws for any aspect of brain activity and strict correlation of mental to physical states of the brain do not imply, with logical necessity, that a complete algorithmic theory of the mind-body relation is possible. A limit of decodability may be imposed by the finite number of possible analytical operations which is rooted in the finiteness of the world. It is considered as a fundamental intrinsic limitation of the scientific approach comparable to quantum indeterminacy and the theorems (...) of logical undecidability. An analysis of these limits, applied to dispositions of future behaviour, suggests that limits of decodability of the psycho-physic relation may actually exist with respect to brain states with self-referential aspects, as they are involved in mental processes. Limits for an algorithmic theory of the mind-body problem suggested by this study are formally similar to other intrinsic limits of the scientific method such as quantum indeterminacy and mathematical undecidability which are also related to self-referential operations. At the metatheoretical level, hard sciences, despite their reliability, universality and objectivity, depend on metatheoretical presuppositions which allow for multiple philosophical interpretations. -/- . (shrink)

Listening is not an incorporeal experience; we do not listen with our non-extended minds. We listen with all our body, and music can change completely our personal structure. It is through sound experience that we change and asset ourselves. Studies in the doctrine of affects often use sonorous metaphors and concepts such as Stimmung, resonance, consonance, that refer to sound experience. In this paper, I try first of all to show how listening is rooted in body experience. Then, I argue (...) for a new consideration of the notion of person that takes into account the fundamental sonorous basis – psycho-acoustic – of its constitution. Thanks to sounds we can reach a new conceptualization of emotional relations between persons which we attain through the person’s ordo amoris. Additionally, with the analysis of sounds we grasp some aspects of emotional experience related to the singular person (intra-personal). So, if sounds are profoundly related to corporeal experience, so strongly involving affects as to modify our personal structure and form a person’s constitution, and affects can really do that, their relationship need to be inquired where both sound experience and affection are rooted: corporeity. (shrink)

It is argued that colour name strategy, object name strategy, and chunking strategy in memory are all aspects of the same general phenomena, called stereotyping, and this in turn is an example of a know-how representation. Such representations are argued to have their origin in a principle called the minimum duplication of resources. For most the subsequent discussions existence of colour name strategy suffices. It is pointed out that the BerlinA- KayA universal partial ordering of colours and the frequency of (...) traffic accidents classified by colour are surprisingly similar; a detailed analysis is not carried out as the specific colours recorded are not identical. Some consequences of the existence of a name strategy for the philosophy of language and mathematics are discussed: specifically it is argued that in accounts of truth and meaning it is necessary throughout to use real numbers as opposed to bi-valent quantities; and also that the concomitant label associated with sentences should not be of unconditional truth, but rather several real-valued quantities associated with visual communication. The implication of real-valued truth quantities is that the Continuum Hypothesis of pure mathematics is side-stepped, because real valued quantities occur ab initio. The existence of name strategy shows that thought/sememes and talk/phonemes can be separate, and this vindicates the assumption of thought occurring before talk used in psycho-linguistic speech production models. (shrink)

This paper discusses two novels by contemporary writer Inga Iwasiów (b. 1963), Bambino (2008) and Ku słońcu [Towards the Sun] (2010), in the context of geopolitical, ideological, social and psycho-cultural transformations as they specifically affect different generations of inhabitants of the Polish city of Szczecin (pre-1945 German Stettin) from 1945 until the first decade of the 21st century. Bambino covers the years 1945–1981, but also contains flashbacks to pre-war memory of Stettin and to the suppressed experiences of the new (...) post-war inhabitants, as well as ‘flash-forwards’ to post-1989, post-communist reality; Ku słońcu covers 1981 to the first decade of 2000s. It shows how the novels portray these transformations through the experience primarily of women (but not only) — in Bambino, through the main protagonists: Ula (formerly Ulrike), Anna and Marysia, and through that of the hidden narrator Magda (Marysia’s daughter born in the same year as the author, Iwasiów, 1963); and in Ku słońcu, primarily through the experience of Magda herself, as well as through that of two generations of ‘feminist’ academics: Małgorzata and Sylwia (in which it is hard not to perceive the personal experience of the author, though she is at pains to emphasize elsewhere that her work is a collective biography of the city, not so much of herself). The analysis follows Katarzyna Chmielewska’s supposition that contemporary Polish fiction dealing with the past ‘constantly oscillates between memory and genealogy’, and that it raises raw issues not yet addressed by historians; it also derives inspiration from the new ‘postdependency’ studies proposed by Hanna Gosk and Ryszard Nycz. It also attempts to capture the specific nature of Iwasiów’s use of language, her style of feminism, her method of portraying place, and the connections in her prose between place and memory. (shrink)

Quantum gravity has required the consideration of fundamental epistemological questions, which can be identified in philosophy with the mind-body problem and the problem of free will. These questions influenced the epistemology of quantum mechanics in the form of von Neumann's "psycho-physical parallelism" and the subsequent analysis of the thesis by Wigner that "the collapse of the wave packet" occurs in the mind of the "observer". Quantum gravity in cosmology involves the problem of the experimenter's freedom to change local (...) physical conditions, a passive "observer". In any theory that describes a single universe, questions arise about the nature of causality in the traditional philosophical sense. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.24646.42567. (shrink)

I hope that this wonderful book, written with a passionate and sympathetic intelligence, reaches a wide audience. It's not an easy read, for Janice Haaken deliberately spins a dense web of reference, pursuing paths across the contemporary psycho-political landscape. But her scholarship is marvellously diverse and well-directed, and her writing easily shifts between sad or playful fantasy, and insistently engaged political or empirical analysis.

I will begin by proposing a taxonomy of taxonomic positions regarding the mind–brain: localism, globalism, revisionism, and contextualism, and will go on to focus on the last position. Although some versions of contextualism have been defended by various researchers, they largely limit themselves to a version of neural contextualism: different brain regions perform different functions in different neural contexts. I will defend what I call “environmental-etiological contextualism,” according to which the psychological functions carried out by various neural regions can only (...) be identified and individuated against an environmental context or with reference to a causal history. While this idea may seem innocuous enough, it has important implications for a structure-to-function mapping in the mind and brain sciences. It entails that the same neural structures can subserve different psychological functions in different contexts, leading to crosscutting psycho-neural mappings. I will try to illustrate how this can occur with reference to recent research on episodic memory. (shrink)

The present study aims to build a thorough understanding and causes of terrorism. It discusses probable psychological and sociological factors for terrorist activities. Paper elaborates the presence of psychopathologies and cultural influences that harbor mindsets of terrorist individuals. It also highlights the relationship between religion and violence and elaborates the impact of media and its role for terrorism. The identification of psycho-social factors linked with terrorism and violence serve as a way to better understand the phenomenon. This is likely (...) to promote peace, harmony, and love in Nigerian societies. (shrink)

The psycho-religious mechanism of suicide is an information processing mechanism of how the mind perceives the idea of self-killing, with a focus on the factor of trust as well as mortality-related information from religious sources. It can be considered an expansion of the new Mindsponge-based suicidal ideation mechanism.

A large amount of data is maintained in every Social networking sites.The total data constantly gathered on these sites make it difficult for methods like use of field agents, clipping services and ad-hoc research to maintain social media data. This paper discusses the previous research on sentiment analysis.

Andy Egan's Smoking Lesion and Psycho Button cases are supposed to be counterexamples to Causal Decision Theory. This paper argues that they are not: more precisely, it argues that if CDT makes the right call in Newcomb's problem then it makes the right call in Egan cases too.

The aim of this paper is to apply the metaphysics of John Duns Scotus in constructing a new conception of matter which does not stand in opposition to the mental realm, but is rather composed of both physical and mental elements. The paper is divided into four parts. Section one addresses Scotus’ claim that matter is intelligible and actual in itself. Section two aims to show that matter can be seen as a deprived thinking being. Section three analyzes Scotus’ conception (...) of place. The final section brings together the conclusions of the three preceding parts to confront the Cartesian psycho-physical problem anew and to suggest a viable solution. (shrink)

When scientists seek further confirmation of their results, they often attempt to duplicate the results using diverse means. To the extent that they are successful in doing so, their results are said to be robust. This paper investigates the logic of such "robustness analysis" [RA]. The most important and challenging question an account of RA can answer is what sense of evidential diversity is involved in RAs. I argue that prevailing formal explications of such diversity are unsatisfactory. I propose (...) a unified, explanatory account of diversity in RAs. The resulting account is, I argue, truer to actual cases of RA in science; moreover, this account affords us a helpful, new foothold on the logic undergirding RAs. (shrink)

In July 2017, China’s State Council released the country’s strategy for developing artificial intelligence, entitled ‘New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan’. This strategy outlined China’s aims to become the world leader in AI by 2030, to monetise AI into a trillion-yuan industry, and to emerge as the driving force in defining ethical norms and standards for AI. Several reports have analysed specific aspects of China’s AI policies or have assessed the country’s technical capabilities. Instead, in this article, we focus on (...) the socio-political background and policy debates that are shaping China’s AI strategy. In particular, we analyse the main strategic areas in which China is investing in AI and the concurrent ethical debates that are delimiting its use. By focusing on the policy backdrop, we seek to provide a more comprehensive and critical understanding of China’s AI policy by bringing together debates and analyses of a wide array of policy documents. (shrink)

Background: Food fortification refers to the process of adding nutrients to foods during their production. It is a cost-effective strategy with well-documented health, economic, and social benefits. Food fortification practices in school meal programs need guidance and legal support from various national policies. Aim: This study aims to analyze how various national policies—such as those related to school feeding, nutrition, health, food safety, agriculture, and the private sector—associate with the implementation of in-school food fortification among countries with school meals programs. (...) Methods: The Bayesian Mindsponge Framework, combining the reasoning strengths of Mindsponge Theory and inference advantages of Bayesian analysis, was employed on a dataset of 126 government representatives who manage large-scale school meal programs in 126 different countries. Results: Findings showed that food safety policy and agriculture policy were positively and significantly associated with the in-school food fortification practices, while school feeding policy and private sector policy had ambiguous relationships with these practices. Nutrition policy and health policy had a significant negative association with food fortification practices among countries implementing school meal programs. Conclusions: Findings underscore the strong position of food safety policy and agriculture policy in guiding food fortification practices in school meal programs. There is a need to re-assess the implemented nutrition policy and health policy due to their significant negative associations with these practices. Enhancing and strengthening the school feeding policy and private sector policy may increase their potencies in giving positive impacts on in-school food fortification practices. (shrink)

This paper presents an analysis of wh-complements in Montague Grammar. We will be concerned primarily with semantics, though some remarks on syntax are made in Section 4. Questions and wh-comple ments in Montague Grammar have been studied in Hamblin (1976), Bennett (1979), Karttunen (1977) and Hauser (1978) among others. These proposals will not be discussed explicitly, but some differences with Karttunen's analysis will be pointed out along the way.

Alexius Meinong developed a notion of defective objects in order to account for various logical and psychological paradoxes. The notion is of historical interest, since it presages recent work on the logical paradoxes by Herzberger and Kripke. But it fails to do the job it was designed for. However, a technique implicit in Meinong's investigation is more successful and can be adapted to resolve a similar paradox discovered by Romane Clark in a revised version of Meinong's Theory of Objects due (...) to Rapaport. One family of paradoxes remains, but it is argued that they are unavoidable and relatively harmless. (shrink)

The experimental philosophy movement advocates the use of empirical methods in philosophy. The methods most often discussed and in fact employed in experimental philosophy are appropriated from the experimental paradigm in psychology. But there is a variety of other (at least partly) empirical methods from various disciplines that are and others that could be used in philosophy. The paper explores the application of corpus analysis to philosophical issues. Although the method is well established in linguistics, there are only a (...) few tentative attempts of philosophers to utilise it. Examples are introduced and the merit of corpus analysis is compared to that of using general internet search engines and questionnaires for similar purposes. (shrink)

This essay concerns the question of how we make genuine epistemic progress through conceptual analysis. Our way into this issue will be through consideration of the paradox of analysis. The paradox challenges us to explain how a given statement can make a substantive contribution to our knowledge, even while it purports merely to make explicit what one’s grasp of the concept under scrutiny consists in. The paradox is often treated primarily as a semantic puzzle. However, in “Sect. 1” (...) I argue that the paradox raises a more fundamental epistemic problem, and in “Sects.1 and 2” I argue that semantic proposals—even ones designed to capture the Fregean link between meaning and epistemic significance—fail to resolve that problem. Seeing our way towards a real solution to the paradox requires more than semantics; we also need to understand how the process of analysis can yield justification for accepting a candidate conceptual analysis. I present an account of this process, and explain how it resolves the paradox, in “Sect. 3”. I conclude in “Sect. 4” by considering the implications for the present account concerning the goal of conceptual analysis, and by arguing that the apparent scarcity of short and finite illuminating analyses in philosophically interesting cases provides no grounds for pessimism concerning the possibility of philosophical progress through conceptual analysis. (shrink)

This paper employs a technical framework that integrates physical, historical, semiotic, and structuralist analyses to conduct a semiotic deconstruction of the "Thinker Man" statue. The study systematically examines the statue’s scale, materiality, and form, situating it within a mental health hospital to explore themes of resilience and legacy. Key signifiers are analyzed to uncover meanings related to contemplation and psychological strength, while structuralist methods highlight the interdependencies among these elements. Drawing a superficial analogy to state space representation from control systems (...) and dynamics, the interactions of semiotic components are modeled to illustrate the statue’s comprehensive significance. This analysis was conducted as a midterm assignment under the guidance of Ayşe Deniz Hakyemez in the Textual Analysis and Argumentation class. (shrink)

In recent years, many philosophers of religion have turned their attention to the topic of faith. Given the ubiquity of the word “faith” both in and out of religious contexts, many of them have chosen to begin their forays by offering an analysis of faith. But it seems that there are many kinds of faith: religious faith, non‐religious faith, interpersonal faith, and propositional faith, to name a few. In this article, I discuss analyses of faith that have been offered (...) and point out the dimensions along which they differ. (shrink)

I apply Kooi and Tamminga's (2012) idea of correspondence analysis for many-valued logics to strong three-valued logic (K3). First, I characterize each possible single entry in the truth-table of a unary or a binary truth-functional operator that could be added to K3 by a basic inference scheme. Second, I define a class of natural deduction systems on the basis of these characterizing basic inference schemes and a natural deduction system for K3. Third, I show that each of the resulting (...) natural deduction systems is sound and complete with respect to its particular semantics. Among other things, I thus obtain a new proof system for Lukasiewicz's three-valued logic. (shrink)

Originally applied on domestic and lab animals, assisted reproduction technologies (ARTs) have also found application in conservation breeding programs, where they can make the genetic management of populations more efficient, and increase the number of individuals per generation. However, their application in wildlife conservation opens up new ethical scenarios that have not yet been fully explored. This study presents a frame for the ethical analysis of the application of ART procedures in conservation based on the Ethical Matrix (EM), and (...) discusses a specific case study—ovum pick-up (OPU) procedures performed in the current conservation efforts for the northern white rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum cottoni)—providing a template for the assessment of ART procedures in projects involving other endangered species. (shrink)

The different approaches of the mind-body problem a fortiori have implications on the foundations of Psychology, Psychopathology and Psychiatry, leading to many clashing theories about the determinants of "normal" human behavior, as well of the mental illnesses. These schools of research on the human mind may on a first approach be divided in two main branches: 1) the neurogenetic ones; 2) the psychogenetic ones. This paper sprang up from a lifelong pondering on its subject by its author, while working as (...) a Clinical Psychiatrist and conducting a Ph D in Philosophy. (shrink)

Abstract: Lotteries have long been a source of fascination and intrigue, offering the tantalizing prospect of unexpected fortunes. In this research paper, we delve into the world of lottery predictions, employing cutting-edge AI techniques to unlock the secrets of lottery outcomes. Our dataset, obtained from Kaggle, comprises historical lottery draws, and our goal is to develop predictive models that can anticipate future winning numbers. This study explores the use of deep learning and time series analysis to achieve this elusive (...) feat. Through rigorous experimentation and data-driven approaches, we seek to determine the viability of AI in the realm of lottery predictions. Our findings reveal both the promise and limitations of AI in this context, shedding light on the complexities of lottery data and the potential need for quantum computing as a last resort. (shrink)

A critical survey of various positions on the nature, use, possession, and analysis of normative concepts. We frame our treatment around G.E. Moore’s Open Question Argument, and the ways metaethicists have responded by departing from a Classical Theory of concepts. In addition to the Classical Theory, we discuss synthetic naturalism, noncognitivism (expressivist and inferentialist), prototype theory, network theory, and empirical linguistic approaches. Although written for a general philosophical audience, we attempt to provide a new perspective and highlight some underappreciated (...) problems about normative concepts. (shrink)

This paper presents a semantical analysis of the Weak Kleene Logics Kw3 and PWK from the tradition of Bochvar and Halldén. These are three-valued logics in which a formula takes the third value if at least one of its components does. The paper establishes two main results: a characterisation result for the relation of logical con- sequence in PWK – that is, we individuate necessary and sufficient conditions for a set.

The analysis of world exports falls has been done. The changes in the structure and dynamics of the post-crisis world trade has been identified. The analysis of methods for assessing the limitations of the world trade has been done. The main trends in transport costs and the application of non-tariff regulation of international trade instruments has been identified.

Interactions between an intelligent software agent and a human user are ubiquitous in everyday situations such as access to information, entertainment, and purchases. In such interactions, the ISA mediates the user’s access to the content, or controls some other aspect of the user experience, and is not designed to be neutral about outcomes of user choices. Like human users, ISAs are driven by goals, make autonomous decisions, and can learn from experience. Using ideas from bounded rationality, we frame these interactions (...) as instances of an ISA whose reward depends on actions performed by the user. Such agents benefit by steering the user’s behaviour towards outcomes that maximise the ISA’s utility, which may or may not be aligned with that of the user. Video games, news recommendation aggregation engines, and fitness trackers can all be instances of this general case. Our analysis facilitates distinguishing various subcases of interaction, as well as second-order effects that might include the possibility for adaptive interfaces to induce behavioural addiction, and/or change in user belief. We present these types of interaction within a conceptual framework, and review current examples of persuasive technologies and the issues that arise from their use. We argue that the nature of the feedback commonly used by learning agents to update their models and subsequent decisions could steer the behaviour of human users away from what benefits them, and in a direction that can undermine autonomy and cause further disparity between actions and goals as exemplified by addictive and compulsive behaviour. We discuss some of the ethical, social and legal implications of this technology and argue that it can sometimes exploit and reinforce weaknesses in human beings. (shrink)

The two principal models of design in methodological circles in architecture—analysis/synthesis and conjecture/analysis—have their roots in philosophy of science, in different conceptions of scientific method. This paper explores the philosophical origins of these models and the reasons for rejecting analysis/synthesis in favour of conjecture/analysis, the latter being derived from Karl Popper’s view of scientific method. I discuss a fundamental problem with Popper’s view, however, and indicate a framework for conjecture/analysis to avoid this problem.

The use of protocol analysis in the traning of cognitive skills.

The paper explores the application of robustness analysis to the Hubble tension —the discrepancy between measurements of the Hubble constant from the cosmic distance ladder and the early universe. I argue that, depending on how robustness analysis is defined and applied, one might conclude that the tension stems either from unaccounted systematics or from new physics. Ultimately, I suggest that caution and a more refined robustness analysis are needed when comparing results from large-scale experiments and scientific collaborations (...) in cosmology. (shrink)

Abstract of a paper to be presented in an APA symposium on Classical Analysis, December 30, 1983, commenting on a paper by Ernest Sosa.

Since 2013, Vietnam has implemented a plan to reform the whole education sector. However, there is little understanding on the status of educational research in Vietnam, which may lay the foundation for such plan. Thus, this research aims to analyze the whole picture of educational research from Vietnam, as seen from the Clarivate Web of Science (WOS) database: 215 publications were recorded, ranging from 1991 to 2018. These 215 publications were further analyzed from five perspectives: 1) number of publications by (...) year; 2) research fields and levels of education; 3) top institutions with the highest number of publications; 4) international collaboration; and 5) quality. Some of the most notable results are: 1) the educational sciences in Vietnam have been still under-developed until recently; 2) among different research topics research among educational sciences, some (e.g., Vocational Education and Training or Early Childhood Education) seemed to be overlooked whereas others (e.g., Higher Education and Teaching and Learning) seemed to receive more attention from educational scholars; 3) all the most major education – specialized universities did not appear among the top five institutions with highest number of publications; 4) Australia, Thailand, the USA, New Zealand and China were the countries with the highest number of co-publications with Vietnamese researchers; and 5) The majority of publications belonged to low-ranked journals. Implications would be withdrawn for Vietnamese policymakers, education leaders, educational researchers and teachers in order to adjust their policies and/or action plans; thus, enhancing the performance and impacts of educational research in the future. (shrink)

An astonishing volume and diversity of evidence is available for many hypotheses in the biomedical and social sciences. Some of this evidence—usually from randomized controlled trials (RCTs)—is amalgamated by meta-analysis. Despite the ongoing debate regarding whether or not RCTs are the ‘gold-standard’ of evidence, it is usually meta-analysis which is considered the best source of evidence: meta-analysis is thought by many to be the platinum standard of evidence. However, I argue that meta-analysis falls far short of (...) that standard. Different meta-analyses of the same evidence can reach contradictory conclusions. Meta-analysis fails to provide objective grounds for intersubjective assessments of hypotheses because numerous decisions must be made when performing a meta-analysis which allow wide latitude for subjective idiosyncrasies to influence its outcome. I end by suggesting that an older tradition of evidence in medicine—the plurality of reasoning strategies appealed to by the epidemiologist Sir Bradford Hill—is a superior strategy for assessing a large volume and diversity of evidence. (shrink)

We are pleased to publish this WSIA edition of Trudy’s Govier’s seminal volume, Problems in Argument Analysis and Evaluation. Originally published in 1987 by Foris Publications, this was a pioneering work that played a major role in establishing argumentation theory as a discipline. Today, it is as relevant to the field as when it first appeared, with discussions of questions and issues that remain central to the study of argument. It has defined the main approaches to many of those (...) issues and guided the ways in which we might respond to them. From this foundation, it sets the stage for further investigations and emerging research. This is a second edition of the book that is corrected and updated by the author, with new prefaces to each chapter. (shrink)

Enterprise Risk Management and security have become a fundamental part of Enterprise Architecture, so several frameworks and modeling languages have been designed to support the activities associated with these areas. Archi- Mate’s Risk and Security Overlay is one of such proposals, endorsed by The Open Group. We investigate the capabilities of the proposed security-related con- structs in ArchiMate with regard to the necessities of enterprise security modeling. Our analysis relies on a well-founded reference ontology of security to uncover ambiguity, (...) missing modeling elements, and other deficiencies of the security mod- eling capabilities in ArchiMate. Based on this ontologically-founded analysis, we propose a redesign of security aspects of ArchiMate to overcome its original limitations. (shrink)