Inventing Superstition weaves a powerfully coherent argument that will transform our understanding of religion in Greek and Roman culture and the wider ancient ...

DNA gyrase, an enzyme unique to prokaryotes, has been implicated in almost all processes that involve DNA. Although efficient inhibitors of this protein have been known for more than 20 years, none of them have enjoyed prolonged pharmaceutical success. It is only recently that the mechanisms of inhibition for some of these classes of drugs have been established unequivocally by X‐ray crystallography. It is hoped that this detailed structural information will assist the design of novel, effective inhibitors of DNA gyrase.

Everyday Humanism seeks to move the discussion of humanism's positive contributions to life away from the macro-level to focus on the everyday, or micro-dimensions of our individual and collective existence. How might humanist principles impact parenting? How might these principles inform our take on aging, on health, on friendship? These are just a few of the issues around everyday life that needed interpretation from a humanist perspective. Through attention to key issues, the volume seeks to promote the value of humanism (...) at the level of the ordinary, typical occurrences and conditions of our existence. (shrink)

Due to constraints on institutional capacity and financial resources, the road to universal health coverage (UHC) involves difficult policy choices. To assist with these choices, scholars and policy makers have done extensive work on criteria to assess the substantive fairness of health financing policies: their impact on the distribution of rights, duties, benefits and burdens on the path towards UHC. However, less attention has been paid to the procedural fairness of health financing decisions. The Accountability for Reasonableness Framework (A4R), which (...) is widely applied to assess procedural fairness, has primarily been used in priority-setting for purchasing decisions, with revenue mobilization and pooling receiving limited attention. Furthermore, the sufficiency of the A4R framework’s four criteria (publicity, relevance, revisions and appeals, and enforcement) has been questioned. Moreover, research in political theory and public administration (including deliberative democracy), public finance, environmental management, psychology, and health financing has examined the key features of procedural fairness, but these insights have not been synthesized into a comprehensive set of criteria for fair decision-making processes in health financing. A systematic study of how these criteria have been applied in decision-making situations related to health financing and in other areas is also lacking. This paper addresses these gaps through a scoping review. It argues that the literature across many disciplines can be synthesized into 10 core criteria with common philosophical foundations. These go beyond A4R and encompass equality, impartiality, consistency over time, reason-giving, transparency, accuracy of information, participation, inclusiveness, revisability and enforcement. These criteria can be used to evaluate and guide decision-making processes for financing UHC across different country income levels and health financing arrangements. The review also presents examples of how these criteria have been applied to decisions in health financing and other sectors. (shrink)

This World Bank Report offers a new conception of fair decision processes in health financing. It argues that such procedural fairness can contribute to fairer outcomes, strengthen the legitimacy of decision processes, build trust in authorities, and promote the sustainability of reforms on the path to health coverage for all.

We examine the problem of generating definite noun phrases that are appropriate referring expressions; that is, noun phrases that (a) successfully identify the intended referent to the hearer whilst (b) not conveying to him or her any false conversational implicatures (Grice, 1975). We review several possible computational interpretations of the conversational implicature maxims, with different computational costs, and argue that the simplest may be the best, because it seems to be closest to what human speakers do. We describe our recommended (...) algorithm in detail, along with a specification of the resources a host system must provide in order to make use of the algorithm, and an implementation used in the natural language generation component of the IDAS system. (shrink)

Consider the Strong Beneficence Principle (SBP): Persons of affluent means ought to give to those who might fail basic human subsistence until the point at which they must give up something of comparable moral importance. This principle has been the subject of much recent discussion. In this paper, I argue that no coherent interpretation of SBP can be found. SBP faces an interpretive trilemma, each horn of which should be unacceptable to fans of SBP; SBP is either (a) so strong (...) as to be patently absurd; (b) implausible given its acceptance of a form of numbers skepticism; (c) drained of all its demanding force. In the conclusion, I show how the problems with SBP generalize to all similarly demanding principles of beneficence. (shrink)

Critique of idealistic naturalism: methodological pollution in the main stream of American philosophy, by D. Riepe.--Ex nihilo nihil fit: philosophy's "starting point," by D. H. DeGrood.--An historical critique of empiricism, by J. E. Hansen.--Epilogue on Berkeley, by R. W. Sellars.--Mandala thinking, by A. Mackay.--An empirical conception of freedom, by E. D'Angelo.--Heidegger on the essence of truth, by M. Farber.--Minding as a material force, by H. L. Parsons.--The crisis of the 1890's and the shaping of twentieth century America, by R. B. (...) Carson.--Ideology, scientific philosophy, and Marxism, by J. Somerville.--Marx and critical scientific thought, by M. Marković.--Experimentalism extended to politics, by E. Guevara.--The unity of opposites: a dialectical principle, by V. J. McGill and W. T. Parry.--A need definition of "value," by R. Handy.--Alienation and social action, by A. Schaff.--Naturalism in the Tao of Confucius and Lao Tzu, by D. H.-F. Poe.--Bibliography (p. 260-269). (shrink)

Δωρίχα, ὀστέα μὲν σὰ πάλαι †κοιμήσατο δεσμῶνχαίτης† ἥ τε μύρων ἔκπνοος ἀμπεχόνη,ᾗ ποτε τὸν χαρίεντα περιστέλλουσα Χάραξονσύγχρους ὀρθρινῶν ἥψαο κισσυβίων·Σαπφῷαι δὲ μένουσι φίλης ἔτι καὶ μενέουσιν 5ᾠδῆς αἱ λευκαὶ φθεγγόμεναι σελίδες.οὔνομα σὸν μακαριστόν, ὃ Ναύκρατις ὧδε φυλάξειἔστ’ ἂν ἴῃ Νείλου ναῦς ἐφ’ ἁλὸς πελάγη.

This article introduces the Special Issue and its focus on research in language evolution with emphasis on theory as well as computational and robotic modeling. A key theme is based on the growth of evolutionary developmental biology or evo-devo. The Special Issue consists of 13 articles organized in two sections: A) Theoretical foundations and B) Modeling and simulation studies. All the papers are interdisciplinary in nature, encompassing work in biological and linguistic foundations for the study of language evolution as well (...) as a variety of computational and robotic modeling efforts shedding light on how language may be developed and may have evolved. (shrink)

In this paper, we conduct a secondary analysis of The Institute of Educational Sciences’ (IES) 2011-2012 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) data, a self-reported, nationally representative database to examine: (a) the average caseload of students with disabilities and emergent bilingual learners within and across social studies content areas, as well how social studies teachers’ caseloads compare with other content area disciplines and (b) the extent and perceived utility of professional development opportunities social studies teachers receive to support both students with (...) disabilities and emergent bilingual learners. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to revisit Brown as a paradigmatic understanding of social justice and its barriers, by reconsidering Brown in light of the three moral pillars of democracy identified by Cornel West (2004). West maintains that authentic deep democracy is grounded in three fundamental capacities and dispositions, or pillars: (a) Socratic questioning, (b) a prophetic commitment to justice, and (c) tragicomic hope. West's articulation of these pillars constitutes 20 a philosophical framework for the exploration of the basic (...) demands of justice in a democratic society. These moral pillars can also offer useful insights into this phase of living exploration of Brown and its central place in educational studies. (shrink)

Background: There is limited research on brain lesions in children with cerebral visual impairment of heterogeneous etiologies and according to associated subtyping and vision dysfunctions. This study was part of a larger project establishing data-driven subtypes of childhood CVI according to visual dysfunctions. Currently there is no consensus in relation to assessment, diagnosis and classification of CVI and more information about brain lesions may be of potential diagnostic value.Aim: This study aimed to investigate overall patterns of brain lesions and associations (...) with level of visual dysfunction and to compare the patterns between the classification subgroups in children with CVI.Methods: School-aged children with CVI received ophthalmological and neuro-psychological/developmental assessments to establish CVI-related subtyping. Other pediatric information was collected from medical records. MRI scans were coded according to a semi-quantitative template including brain regions and summed for total scores. Non-parametric analyses were conducted.Results: 28 children had clinical brain MRI scans available [44% of total sample, Group A n = 16, Group B n = 12]. Total brain scores ranged between 0 and 18 and were widespread across regions. 71 per cent had post-geniculate visual pathway damage. The median total brain and hemisphere scores of Group B were higher than subgroup A but differences did not reach statistical significance. No statistically significant associations were found between brain scores and vision variables.Conclusion: This study found a spread of lesions across all regions on the brain scans in children with congenital CVI. The majority had damage in the postgeniculate visual pathways and visual cortex region suggesting this is an area of interest and potentially informative for diagnosis. However the subtyping classification did not show differences in number or region of lesions though the trend was higher toward Group B. This study confirms the complex diffuse and variable nature of brain lesions in children with congenital CVI, many of whom have other neurological impairments. (shrink)

This essay examines an argument of perennial importance against naive Leibnizian absolute identity theory, originating with Ruth Barcan in 1947 (Barcan, R. 1947. ?The identity of individuals in a strict functional 3 calculus of second order?, Journal of Symbolic Logic, 12, 12?15), and developed by Arthur Prior in 1962 (Prior, A.N. 1962. Formal Logic. Oxford: The Clarendon Press), presented here in the form offered by Nicholas Griffin in his 1977 book, Relative Identity (Griffin, N. 1977. Relative Identity. Oxford: The Clarendon (...) Press). The objection considers the property of being necessarily identical to a specific object a as a counterexample to Leibnizian identity conditions, and more particularly to the indiscernibility of identicals, when it is only contingently true that a=b. The inquiry eliminates necessity and reference to a specifically designated object as responsible for the counterexample, leaving only identity. The requirements for an exact reinterpretation of Leibniz's Law in light of counterexamples involving converse intentional properties and the family of properties suggested by the property of being necessarily identical to a where a=b (or an equivalent definite descriptor variation) is only logically contingently true, are formalized in a more powerful, counterexample-resistant version of Leibniz's Law that does not succumb to relative identity as a necessary alternative motivated by desperation over the failure of the absolute identity principle. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:UntitledDale JacquetteI recently acquired the unpublished manuscripts of an obscureearly twentieth-century philosopher. Among the papers is included a detailed account of the semantics of untitled artworks and literary productions. I am convinced of the truth of this important aesthetic theory, and I wish to serve as editor to help see the work to publication. Unfortunately, the manuscript is untitled, which poses an interesting difficulty.The principles of the theory are (...) these:1. A title is an important part of any text or artwork.2. Every text and artwork must be titled for publication.3. ”Untitled” (and the equivalent) is a (convention-governed) title.4. When an author or artist titles a work “Untitled,” the decision may be (inclusively) made for these three reasons, and accordingly have (inclusively) these three implicit meanings or interpretations:a. The author or artist is unable to assign a more satisfactory content-descriptive or connotative title, and so by default, when nothing better offers, decides to title the work “Untitled.”b. The author or artist wishes for reasons of prestige to have the work included in the category of untitled productions (works left untitled often by famous authors or artists).c. The author or artist chooses the title “Untitled” as a purely arbitrary label for the work, in that the name is not supposed [End Page 102] to express any particular content-descriptive or connotative meaning, or intent to include the project in the established category of untitled works.5. When an author or artist leaves an untitled work to posterity, it is an editorial-curatorial offense according to condition (1) to impose a content-descriptive or connotative title on the work in order to satisfy condition (2) for purposes of publication.The author emphasizes the significance of titles as an integral part of any text or artwork. Titles do not merely name and identify a piece for purposes of reference, but are often as valuable as any component of the body of a production. Some works cannot be understood without their titles, while for others, especially in modern art and literature, the title may actually be the main point, to which the attached body of work is secondary and accidental.Although every text and artwork according to proposition (2) must be titled for public presentation, the theory maintains that it is the greatest presumption for an editor, literary executor, art dealer, museum curator, or the like to impose an unauthorized title on an untitled production, at the risk of contradicting, distorting, or misrepresenting an artist’s or author’s original ideas. The only proper, semantically neutral, procedure for publishing an artist’s untitled production is to title it “Untitled” (or the equivalent). The theory gains strength from the fact that it reasonably explains this frequently followed editorial-curatorial practice. It incorporates a normative judgment about the correct policy for managing certain literary and other art productions, based on a sensitive appreciation of the semantic role of titles in the holistic meaning of a text or artwork.Here is my problem. The theory seems correct to me; I accept the author’s injunction against the imputation of substantive titles on untitled works, and I want to act in accordance with it. Proposition (2) requires that I give the work a title if it is to be published. The manuscript cannot appear indecently with a blank cover page, and it cannot be cataloged, reviewed, or entered into bibliographies as a null entry. But if I title the work “Untitled,” as proposition (3) permits, I violate the injunction not to impose a content-descriptive or connotative title on the work for purposes of publication. This is unavoidable in the nature of this special case, simply because the manuscript happens to be about that which is untitled. The same is true if I try to title the piece “‘Untitled’” or “[No Title]” or “The Semantics of Untitled Productions.” These are also unauthorized descriptive editorial [End Page 103] impositions. If the theory is true, the manuscript cannot be legitimately titled, even as an untitled work. Oddly, what may well be the most correct theory of untitled productions forbids all and only the titling of untitled manuscripts... (shrink)

We present a setting in which the search for a proof of B or a refutation of B can be carried out simultaneously: in contrast, the usual approach in automated deduction views proving B or proving ¬B as two, possibly unrelated, activities. Our approach to proof and refutation is described as a two-player game in which each player follows the same rules. A winning strategy translates to a proof of the formula and a counter-winning strategy translates to a refutation of (...) the formula. The game is described for multiplicative and additive linear logic . A game theoretic treatment of the multiplicative connectives is intricate and our approach to it involves two important ingredients. First, labeled graph structures are used to represent positions in a game and, second, the game playing must deal with the failure of a given player and with an appropriate resumption of play. This latter ingredient accounts for the fact that neither player might win. (shrink)

This book offers a clear and highly readable introduction to the ethical and social-political philosophy of John Stuart Mill. Dale E. Miller argues for a "utopian" reading of Mill's utilitarianism. He analyses Mill's views on happiness and goes on to show the practical, social and political implications that can be drawn from his utilitarianism, especially in relation to the construction of morality, individual freedom, democratic reform, and economic organization. By highlighting the utopian thinking which lies at the heart of (...) Mill's theories, Miller shows that rather than allowing for well-being for the few, Mill believed that a society must do everything in its power to see to it that each individual can enjoy a genuinely happy life if the happiness of its members is to be maximized. Miller provides a cogent and careful account of the main arguments offered by Mill, considers the critical responses to his work, and assesses its legacy for contemporary philosophy. Lucidly and persuasively written, this book will be a valuable resource for students and scholars seeking to understand the continued importance of Mill's thinking. (shrink)