There are 2,000 hair cells in the cochlea, but only three cones in the retina. This disparity can be understood in terms of the differences between the physical characteristics of the auditory signal (discrete excitations and resonances requiring many narrowly tuned receptors) and those of the visual signal (smooth daylight excitations and reflectances requiring only a few broadly tuned receptors). We argue that this match supports the physicalism of color and timbre.

By their very nature, overseas medical missions (and even domestic medical charities such as free clinics ) are designed to serve vulnerable populations. If these groups were capable of protecting their own interests, they would not need the help of medical volunteers: their medical needs would be met through existing government health programs or by utilizing their own resources. Medical volunteerism thus seems like an unfettered good: a charitable activity provided by well-meaning doctors and nurses who want to give of (...) their time, skills, and resources to help those who would not otherwise be able to take care of their medical needs. In this article, I argue that if medical volunteerism is to be good, however, it must always meet certain basic ethical requirements. These requirements may be (and perhaps often are) overlooked in the rush to organize and carry out short-term medical missions. I illustrate my point with special reference to short-term medical missions designed to provide surgical repair of obstetric vesico-vaginal fistula, a condition in which the tissues that normally separate the bladder from the vagina are destroyed by obstetric trauma, leading to continuous and unremitting incontinence in the affected woman. (shrink)

Righteous Indignation explores the philosophy of Christian anger—for example what anger is, what it means for God to be angry, and when anger is morally appropriate. The contributors examine several dimensions of the topic, including divine wrath, imprecatory psalms, and the proper place of anger in the life of Christians today.

The National Center for Biomedical Ontology is a consortium that comprises leading informaticians, biologists, clinicians, and ontologists, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Roadmap, to develop innovative technology and methods that allow scientists to record, manage, and disseminate biomedical information and knowledge in machine-processable form. The goals of the Center are (1) to help unify the divergent and isolated efforts in ontology development by promoting high quality open-source, standards-based tools to create, manage, and use ontologies, (2) to create (...) new software tools so that scientists can use ontologies to annotate and analyze biomedical data, (3) to provide a national resource for the ongoing evaluation, integration, and evolution of biomedical ontologies and associated tools and theories in the context of driving biomedical projects (DBPs), and (4) to disseminate the tools and resources of the Center and to identify, evaluate, and communicate best practices of ontology development to the biomedical community. Through the research activities within the Center, collaborations with the DBPs, and interactions with the biomedical community, our goal is to help scientists to work more effectively in the e-science paradigm, enhancing experiment design, experiment execution, data analysis, information synthesis, hypothesis generation and testing, and understand human disease. (shrink)

Important features of the self-concept can be located outside of the individual and inside close or related others. The authors use this insight to reinterpret data previously said to support the empathy-altruism model of helping, which asserts that empathic concern for another results in selflessness and true altruism. That is, they argue that the conditions that lead to empathic concern also lead to a greater sense of self-other overlap, raising the possibility that helping under these conditions is not selfless but (...) is also directed toward the self. In 3 studies, the impact of empathic concern on willingness to help was eliminated when oneness--a measure of perceived self-other overlap--was considered. Path analyses revealed further that empathic concern increased helping only through its relation to perceived oneness, thereby throwing the empathy-altruism model into question. The authors suggest that empathic concern affects helping primarily as an emotional signal of oneness. (shrink)

The value of any kind of data is greatly enhanced when it exists in a form that allows it to be integrated with other data. One approach to integration is through the annotation of multiple bodies of data using common controlled vocabularies or ‘ontologies’. Unfortunately, the very success of this approach has led to a proliferation of ontologies which itself creates obstacles to integration. The Open Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) consortium has set in train a strategy to overcome this problem. Existing (...) OBO ontologies, including the Gene Ontology, are undergoing a process of coordinated reform and new ontologies being created on the basis of an evolving set of shared principles governing ontology development. The result is an expanding family of ontologies designed to be interoperable, logically well-formed, and to incorporate accurate representations of biological reality. We describe the OBO Foundry initiative, and provide guidelines for those who might wish to become involved. (shrink)

ABSTRACT BACKGROUND: The objective of this study was to identify factors motivating women to take part in endometriosis research and to determine if these factors differ for women participating in clinical versus basic science studies. METHODS: A consecutive series of 24 women volunteering for participation in endometriosis‐related research were asked to indicate, in their own words, why they chose to volunteer. In addition, the women were asked to rate, on a scale of 0 to 10, sixteen potentially motivating factors. The (...) information was gathered in the form of an anonymous self‐administered questionnaire. RESULTS: Strong motivating factors (mean score >8) included potential benefit to other women's health, improvement to one's own condition, and participation in scientific advancement. Weak motivating factors (mean score <3) included financial compensation, making one's doctor happy, and use of ‘natural’ products. No difference was detected between clinical and basic science study participants. CONCLUSION: This study is the first study to specifically investigate the factors that motivate women to take part in endometriosis research. Understanding why women choose to take part in such research is important to the integrity of the informed consent process. The factors most strongly motivating women to participate in endometriosis research related to improving personal or public health; the weakest, to financial compensation and pleasing the doctor. (shrink)

We provide a retrospective of 25 years of the International Conference on AI and Law, which was first held in 1987. Fifty papers have been selected from the thirteen conferences and each of them is described in a short subsection individually written by one of the 24 authors. These subsections attempt to place the paper discussed in the context of the development of AI and Law, while often offering some personal reactions and reflections. As a whole, the subsections build into (...) a history of the last quarter century of the field, and provide some insights into where it has come from, where it is now, and where it might go. (shrink)

The effect of oxytocin on cognitive bias was investigated in rats in a modified conditioned place preference (CPP) paradigm. Fifteen male rats were trained to discriminate between two different cue combinations, one paired with palatable foods (reward training), and the other paired with unpalatable food (aversive training). Next, their reactions to two ambiguous cue combinations were evaluated and their latency to contact the goal pot recorded. Rats were injected with either oxytocin (OT) or saline with the prediction that rats administered (...) oxytocin would display a shorter average latency to approach on ambiguous trials. There was no significant difference between latencies to approach on ambiguous trials compared to reward trials, but the rats were significantly slower on the aversive compared to the ambiguous conditions. Oxytocin did not affect approach time; however, it was unclear, after follow-up testing, whether the OT doses tested were sufficient to produce the desired effects on cognitive bias. Future research should consider this possibility. (shrink)

Given a set of objects characterized by a number of attributes, hidden patterns can be discovered in them for the grouping of similar objects into clusters. If each of these clusters can be considered as exemplifying a certain concept, then the problem concerned can be referred to as a concept discovery problem. This concept discovery problem can be solved to some extent by existing data clustering techniques. However, they may not be applicable when the concept involved is vague in nature (...) or when the attributes characterizing the objects can be qualitative, quantitative, and fuzzy at the same time. To discover such concepts from objects with such characteristics, we propose a Genetic-Algorithm-based technique. By encoding a specific object grouping in a chromosome and a fitness measure to evaluate the cluster quality, the proposed technique is able to discover meaningful fuzzy clusters and assign membership degrees to objects that do not fully exemplify a certain concept. For evaluation, we tested the proposed technique with simulated and real data and the results are found to be very promising. (shrink)

Given a set of objects characterized by a number of attributes, hidden patterns can be discovered in them for the grouping of similar objects into clusters. If each of these clusters can be considered as exemplifying a certain concept, then the problem concerned can be referred to as a concept discovery problem. This concept discovery problem can be solved to some extent by existing data clustering techniques. However, they may not be applicable when the concept involved is vague in nature (...) or when the attributes characterizing the objects can be qualitative, quantitative, and fuzzy at the same time. To discover such concepts from objects with such characteristics, we propose a Genetic-Algorithm-based technique. By encoding a specific object grouping in a chromosome and a fitness measure to evaluate the cluster quality, the proposed technique is able to discover meaningful fuzzy clusters and assign membership degrees to objects that do not fully exemplify a certain concept. For evaluation, we tested the proposed technique with simulated and real data and the results are found to be very promising. (shrink)

The past two decades of psychoanalytic discourse have witnessed a marked transformation in the way we think about women and gender. The assignment of gender carries with it a host of assumptions, yet without it we can feel lost in a void, unmoored from the world of rationality, stability and meaning. The feminist analytic thinkers whose work is collected here confront the meaning established by the assignment of gender and the uncertainty created by its absence. The contributions brought together in (...) _Psychoanalytic Reflections on a Gender-free Case_ address a cross-section of significant issues that have both chronicled and facilitated the changes in feminist psychoanalysis since the mid 1980s. Difficult issues which have previously been ignored are considered first. The book goes on to address family perspectives as they interact and shape the child’s experience of growing up male or female. Other topics covered are the authority of personal agency as influenced by the language and theory of patriarchy, male-centred concepts that consistently define women as inferior, and the concept of gender as being co-constructed within a relationship. The gender-free case presented here will fascinate all psychoanalysts interested in exploring ways of grappling with the elusive nature of gender, as well as those studying gender studies. (shrink)

Throughout the biological and biomedical sciences there is a growing need for, prescriptive ‘minimum information’ (MI) checklists specifying the key information to include when reporting experimental results are beginning to find favor with experimentalists, analysts, publishers and funders alike. Such checklists aim to ensure that methods, data, analyses and results are described to a level sufficient to support the unambiguous interpretation, sophisticated search, reanalysis and experimental corroboration and reuse of data sets, facilitating the extraction of maximum value from data sets (...) them. However, such ‘minimum information’ MI checklists are usually developed independently by groups working within representatives of particular biologically- or technologically-delineated domains. Consequently, an overview of the full range of checklists can be difficult to establish without intensive searching, and even tracking thetheir individual evolution of single checklists may be a non-trivial exercise. Checklists are also inevitably partially redundant when measured one against another, and where they overlap is far from straightforward. Furthermore, conflicts in scope and arbitrary decisions on wording and sub-structuring make integration difficult. This presents inhibit their use in combination. Overall, these issues present significant difficulties for the users of checklists, especially those in areas such as systems biology, who routinely combine information from multiple biological domains and technology platforms. To address all of the above, we present MIBBI (Minimum Information for Biological and Biomedical Investigations); a web-based communal resource for such checklists, designed to act as a ‘one-stop shop’ for those exploring the range of extant checklist projects, and to foster collaborative, integrative development and ultimately promote gradual integration of checklists. (shrink)

This study was conducted to determine the appropriateness and potential of a set of books as a resource for infusing character education in a social studies classroom. Based on a research review, the literature chosen was the past decade (2001–2011) of Newbery-Award winning books. As recipients of perhaps the most prestigious award for children's literature, Newbery books were of exceptional quality and widely available. Narrative analysis ( Neuendorf, 2002 ) allowed us to explore their suitability for character education. The Josepheson (...) Institute's character pillars, the Katz and Braly List of Verbal Stereotypes, identification of moral dilemmas in these stories, and factors of race, gender, and disability provided tools for coding elements as part of the narrative-analysis methodology. Additional literacy and social studies activities were developed to enhance peer interaction, a component determined essential to future programs ( Berkowitz & Bier, 2005 ). Ultimately these 10 books were deemed viable tools for addressing character education. The authors found a key benefit of our process to be the messy self-examination, the inward look at one's own values, beliefs, and behaviors, and the subsequent interaction and collaboration that either validated or challenged those beliefs. (shrink)

Two articles by Lewis Feuer caught my attention in the '40s when 1 was wondering, asa student physicist, about the relations of physics to philosophy and to the world in turmoil. One was his essay on 'The Development of Logical Empiricism' (1941), and the other his critical review of Philipp Frank's biography of Einstein, 'Philosophy and the Theory of Relativity' (1947). How extraordinary it was to find so intelligent, independent, critical, and humane a mind; and furthermore he went further, (...) as I soon realized when I looked for his name on other publications. I recall arguing with myself over his exploration of 'Indeterminacy and Economic Development' (1948), and even more when I read his 'Dialectical Materialism and Soviet Science' (1949). More papers, and then the fascinating, sometimes irritating, always insightful, books. His monograph on Psychoanalysis and Ethics 1955, the beautiful sociological and humanist study of Spinoza and the Rise of Liberalism (1958), his essays on 'The Social Roots of Einstein's Theory of Relativity' (1971) together with the book on Einstein and the Genera tions of Science (1974), the splendid reader from the works of Marx and Engels, Basic Writings on Politics and Philosophy (1959) which was a major text of the '60s, the stimulating essays on the social formation which seems to have been required for a modern scientific movement to develop, set forth most convincingly in The Scientific Intellectual (1963). (shrink)

We propose a framework for including information‐processing bounds in rational analyses. It is an application of bounded optimality (Russell & Subramanian, 1995) to the challenges of developing theories of mechanism and behavior. The framework is based on the idea that behaviors are generated by cognitive mechanisms that are adapted to the structure of not only the environment but also the mind and brain itself. We call the framework computational rationality to emphasize the incorporation of computational mechanism into the definition of (...) rational action. Theories are specified as optimal program problems, defined by an adaptation environment, a bounded machine, and a utility function. Such theories yield different classes of explanation, depending on the extent to which they emphasize adaptation to bounds, and adaptation to some ecology that differs from the immediate local environment. We illustrate this variation with examples from three domains: visual attention in a linguistic task, manual response ordering, and reasoning. We explore the relation of this framework to existing “levels” approaches to explanation, and to other optimality‐based modeling approaches. (shrink)

All the authors of the sixteen essays gathered in this volume are concerned, in their different ways, to clarify, criticize, and develop key ideas and insights of Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947), one of the towering figures of twentieth-century speculative thought, whose "process philosophy" has, in recent decades, aroused intense intellectual interest both in this country and abroad. The present volume is intended to complement, but not to duplicate, an earlier selection of important Whitehead studies, Alfred North Whitehead: Essays on His (...) Philosophy, ed. G. L. Kline (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1963). (shrink)