Much of the literature devoted to the topics of agent autonomy and agent responsibility suggests strong conceptual overlaps between the two, although few explore these overlaps explicitly. Beliefs of this sort are commonplace, but they mistakenly conflate the global state of being autonomous with the local condition of acting autonomously or exhibiting autonomy in respect to some act or decision. Because the latter, local phenomenon of autonomy seems closely tied to the condition of being responsible for an act, we tend (...) to think of the former, global phenomenon as a condition of responsibility as well. But one can act autonomously, or manifest autonomy with respect to some occurrent state, without satisfying the conditions for autonomous agency. Autonomous agency and responsible agency are logically distinct in part due to the varient conceptions of rationality each calls for. Both agent responsibility and holding a person responsible imply a fairly ``thick'''' form of rationality, where rationality embodies a normative component and is a matter of satisfying criteria that are objective in the sense that they are independent of what a person happens to want or to value. But autonomous agency calls for a quite different, ``thin'''' conception of instrumental rationality. (shrink)

We used computer simulations to study the possible role of the dispersion of cellular coupling, refractoriness or both, in the mechanisms underlying cardiac arrhythmias. Local ischemia was first assumed to induce cell to cell dispersion of the coupling resistance (Case 1), refractory period (Case 2), or both of them (Case 3). Our numerical experiments based on the van Capelle and Durrer model showed that vortices could not be induced by cell to cell variations. With cellular properties dispersed in a patchy (...) way within the ischemic zone, a single activation wave could give rise to abnormal activities. This demonstrates the stability of the wave front under small inhomogeneities. Probabilities of reentry, estimated for the three cases cited above showed that a severe alteration of the coupling resistance may be an important factor in the genesis of reentry. Moreover, use of isochronal maps revealed that vortices were both stable and sustained with an alteration of the coupling alone or combined with a reduction of the action potential duration. Conversely, simulations with reduction of the refractoriness alone, inducing only transient patterns, could exhibit functionally determined reentries. (shrink)

Moral taint occurs when one’s personality has been compromised by the introduction of something that produces disfigurement of the moral psyche. While taint may be traced to vicarious liability for our voluntary associations, the thought that we might be responsible for taint and that taint is something we must confront and make amends for becomes problematic when taint is acquired by circumstantial luck. I argue that the idea of circumstantial taint—for example, the idea that people can be morally compromised by (...) their heritage—is coherent. In such cases, although taint is not due to a deficient level of care or to an unsavory quality of will, shame is the appropriate affect and atonement the appropriate response. The concept of moral taint is helpful in assisting our comprehension of more vexing cases of responsibility and blame where shame and a need for atonement exist. (shrink)

The clinical introduction of medical devices often occurs with relatively little oversight, regulation and (long-term) follow-up. Some recent controversies underscore the weaknesses of the current regime, such as the complications surrounding the metal-on-metal hip implants and the scandal surrounding the global breast implant scare of silicone implants made by France's Poly Implant Prothese (PIP) Company. The absence of national registries hampered the collection of reliable information on the risks and harms of the PIP breast implants. To warrant long-term safety, a (...) case can be made for mandatory post-marketing surveillance by means of the establishment of compulsory registries. In this edition of Public Health Ethics, Schofield calls for debate on how such a registry system should be initiated and maintained and how it would relate to the ethical requirement of consent. Here we use breast implant registries as a case to discuss whether and when a so-called ‘thick opt-out’ would be an appropriate method to include people in medical device registries. We conclude that a thick opt-out procedure for medical device registries is only justifiable in cases where inclusion does not involve burdens (or very low), when it does not involve a sensitive subject and when the data are stored anonymously (or at least not directly linked to the medical record). Otherwise, inclusion should be sought by means of an opt-in. (shrink)

Mainstream accounts of responsible agency either overlook or discount wanton agents as plausible candidates for responsible agency. This is largely due to the compatibilist project of such accounts, and to their deemphasis of historical and modal considerations. I argue that wantons – those who are indifferent to the desires that move them to act – can and ought to be counted as responsible agents. Indeed, they deserve special blame for the acts of wrong doing that issue from their wanton behavior.

We demonstrate that the key components of cognitive architectures (declarative and procedural memory) and their key capabilities (learning, memory retrieval, probability judgment, and utility estimation) can be implemented as algebraic operations on vectors and tensors in a high‐dimensional space using a distributional semantics model. High‐dimensional vector spaces underlie the success of modern machine learning techniques based on deep learning. However, while neural networks have an impressive ability to process data to find patterns, they do not typically model high‐level cognition, and (...) it is often unclear how they work. Symbolic cognitive architectures can capture the complexities of high‐level cognition and provide human‐readable, explainable models, but scale poorly to naturalistic, non‐symbolic, or big data. Vector‐symbolic architectures, where symbols are represented as vectors, bridge the gap between the two approaches. We posit that cognitive architectures, if implemented in a vector‐space model, represent a useful, explanatory model of the internal representations of otherwise opaque neural architectures. Our proposed model, Holographic Declarative Memory (HDM), is a vector‐space model based on distributional semantics. HDM accounts for primacy and recency effects in free recall, the fan effect in recognition, probability judgments, and human performance on an iterated decision task. HDM provides a flexible, scalable alternative to symbolic cognitive architectures at a level of description that bridges symbolic, quantum, and neural models of cognition. (shrink)

Few residency training programmes explicitly require substantive exposure to issues in medical ethics and fewer still have a formal curriculum in this area. Traditional undergraduate medical ethics courses teach preclinical students to identify ethical issues and analyse them at a theoretical level. Residency training, however, is the ideal time to establish the critical behavioural link which makes ethics truly useful in clinical medicine. The General Internal Medicine Residency Training Program at Rhode Island Hospital has developed an integrated, three-year curriculum with (...) the goals of helping residents to perceive ethical issues in clinical practice, to utilise basic philosophical principles in resolving ethical dilemmas and to communicate these issues clearly and sensitively to patients. The curriculum has been well received by residents and has had a hospital-wide impact. We believe that training residents in medical ethics and communication skills is an effective approach to developing physicians' humane qualities. (shrink)

The ternary xV2O5–(40 − x)Li2O–60B2O3 glass system, where x = 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6 mol%, was prepared by normal quenching. Ultrasonic velocities and attenuation were measured at room temperature using a pulse-echo technique. Various parameters, such as elastic moduli, micro-hardness, Poisson's ratio and Debye temperature, were determined from the measured densities and velocities. The composition dependence of these parameters, in addition to the glass-transition temperature, suggested that vanadium ions were incorporated into these glasses as a network modifier, resulting (...) in the reconversion of BO4 tetrahedra to BO3 triangles by the breaking of B–O–B linkages and the formation of nonbridging oxygens (NBOs). The outcome was a reduction in network connectivity and rigidity with increasing V2O5 content. The results are explained quantitatively in terms of fractal bond connectivity, average atomic volume, network dimensionality, packing density, number of network bonds per unit volume, cross-link density and atomic ring size. The Makishima and Mackenzie model appears to be valid for the studied glasses when the fate of BO4 tetrahedra and creation of NBOs are taken into account. (shrink)

In Computer Science stepwise refinement of algebraic specifications is a well-known formal methodology for rigorous program development. This paper illustrates how techniques from Algebraic Logic, in particular that of interpretation, understood as a multifunction that preserves and reflects logical consequence, capture a number of relevant transformations in the context of software design, reuse, and adaptation, difficult to deal with in classical approaches. Examples include data encapsulation and the decomposition of operations into atomic transactions. But if interpretations open such a new (...) research avenue in program refinement, (conceptual) tools are needed to reason about them. In this line, the paper’s main contribution is a study of the correspondence between logical interpretations and morphisms of a particular kind of coalgebras. This opens way to the use of coalgebraic constructions, such as simulation and bisimulation, in the study of interpretations between (abstract) logics. (shrink)

A solution of the sourceless Einstein's equation with an infinite value for the cosmological constant Λ is discussed by using Inönü–Wigner contractions of the de Sitter groups and spaces. When Λ→∞, spacetime becomes a four-dimensional cone, dual to Minkowski space by a spacetime inversion. This inversion relates the four-cone vertex to the infinity of Minkowski space, and the four-cone infinity to the Minkowski light-cone. The non-relativistic limit c→∞ is further considered, the kinematical group in this case being a modified Galilei (...) group in which the space and time translations are replaced by the non-relativistic limits of the corresponding proper conformal transformations. This group presents the same abstract Lie algebra as the Galilei group and can be named the conformal Galilei group. The results may be of interest to the early Universe Cosmology. (shrink)

The framework of Findlay & Walker's target article provides a first attempt to model the saccadic system at all levels. Their scheme is based on two main principles. These are “parallel processing of saccade timing and metrics” and “competitive inhibition through winner-take-all strategies.” In our opinion, however, both concepts are in their strictest sense at odds with the current knowledge of the saccadic system, and need to be refined to make the scheme more relevant.

This paper reviews the relationship between organisational leadership, corporate governance and business ethics, and considers the implications for management. Business ethics is defined, and the causes and consequences of unethical behavior are discussed. Issues pertaining to leadership, subordinate and organisation responsibility for business ethics are considered. The changing role of business leaders and the new concept of ''corporate governance'' are examined, with an increasing importance being placed on ethical and socially responsible attitudes towards business. Organisational effectiveness and organisational efficiency, formerly (...) central issues for practising managers, with directors thinking in terms of goal achievement for their respective organisations, have now been augmented by an awareness of issues in business ethics, and a requirement for members of the corporate governance to behave in more socially responsible ways. A secondary aim of the paper is to introduce an approach which illustrates how corporate governance and management could deal with some of the moral dilemmas that they may have to face. (shrink)

The studies of urban popular culture in modern China in recent years have attracted wide attention from scholars in China and abroad. The symposium, which is composed by Ma Min’s “Injecting vitality into the studies of urban cultural history,” Jiang Jin’s “Issues in the studies of urban popular culture in modern China,” Wang Di’s “The microcosm of Chinese cities: The perspective and methodology of studying urban popular culture from the case of teahouses in Chengdu,” Joseph W. Esherick’s “Remaking the Chinese (...) city: Urban space and urban culture” and Lu Hanchao’s “From elites to common people: The downward trend in the studies of Chinese urban history in the United States,” provide valuable insights on the perspective, trend, and methodology of the studies. (shrink)