Online research in philosophy

The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study found that even though children from all East Asian countries outperformed American children, American students reported higher self-evaluation of their math and science abilities than did students from East Asian countries such as China, Korea, and Japan (Mullis, Martin, Gonzalez, & Chrostowski, 2004). Such cross-cultural differences in self-appraisal fit the stereotype of the modest East Asian and contribute to the received view that East Asians have less positive self-concepts than Americans. This view (...) was summarized recently by Heine, Lehman, Markus, and Kitayama (1999) as follows: ‘‘The need for positive self-regard, as it is currently conceptualized, is not a universal, but rather is rooted in significant aspects of North American culture’’ (p. 766; but cf. Sedikides, Gaertner, & Vevea. (shrink)

Darwin’s insight that species are mutable, and descent, and origin by means of natural selection is one of the most widely acknowledged strategies for the origin of species and their survival in nature. In his famous contribution, however, Darwin also writes that he is convinced that “... Natural Selection has been the main but not exclusive means of modification ” (Darwin in The origin of species. Oxford Univeristy Press, Oxford, p. 7, 1996 ). This research suggests robustness as another fundamental (...) strategy for survival in nature. The paper does not contradict the popular view, which usually sees robustness as a feature making systems fault-tolerant, thereby focusing on the identification of strategies and techniques for making systems robust (i.e., how to achieve robustness). The paper rather extends this view with an interpretation resting on the question—WHY is robustness omnipresent in the world around us? From this point of view, robustness is interpreted as a fundamental mechanism that is in place because of another fundamental feature in nature—the design and use of sub-optimal systems. The paper argues that, in a sense, nature under-specifies systems but compensates for this by providing systems with various degrees of robustness. We believe that this interpretation may lead to fundamentally new design approaches and insights in several fields. (shrink)

This paper discusses how to refine a given initial legal ontology using an existing MRD (Machine-Readable Dictionary). There are two hard issues in the refinement process. One is to find out those MRD concepts most related to given legal concepts. The other is to correct bugs in a given legal ontology, using the concepts extracted from an MRD. In order to resolve the issues, we present a method to find out the best MRD correspondences to given legal concepts, using two (...) match algorithms. Moreover, another method called a static analysis is given to refine a given legal ontology, based on the comparison between the initial legal ontology and the best MRD correspondences to given legal concepts. We have implemented a software environment to help a user refine a given legal ontology based on these methods. The empirical results have shown that the environment works well in the field of Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. (shrink)

I CATEGORIES AND PRINCIPLES ii Introductory Remarks The value of linguistics as a cognitive science lies largely in its potential for providing insights ...

This squib aims to show that the acceptability status of sluicing examples with an implicit antecedent in islands varies and discusses what is responsible for this variability. After investigating two representative structural approaches to sluicing that posit unpronounced structure in ellipsis sites, namely, Chung et al.’s (Nat Lang Semant 3:239–282, 1995; in Mikkelsen et al. (eds) Representing language: Essays in honor of Judith Aissen, 2010) LF-recovery analysis and Merchant’s (The syntax of silence: Sluicing, islands, and identity in ellipsis. Oxford: Oxford (...) University Press 2001) PF-deletion analysis, we demonstrate that the acceptability data presented are challenging for both of them. Acceptable sluicing examples with implicit correlates in islands cast doubt on Chung, Ladusaw, and McCloskey’s strict locality requirement, while unacceptable or degraded sluicing examples necessitate additional constraints for Merchant, who employs E-type anaphora as an escape hatch for island violations in sluicing. The gradient nature of the acceptability status of the examples under discussion calls for a non-structural factor that controls their acceptability. We speculate that it is discourse activation of implicit correlates that plays this crucial role. (shrink)