This paper is concerned with the target tracking problem of an autonomous surface vehicle in the presence of a maneuvering target. The velocity information of target is totally unknown to the follower vehicle, and only the relative distance and angle between the target and follower are obtained. First, a reduced-order extended state observer is used to estimate the unknown relative dynamics due to the unavailable velocity of the target. Based on the reduced-order extended (...) class='Hi'>state observer, an antidisturbance guidance law for target tracking is designed. The input-to-state stability of the closed-loop target tracking guidance system is analyzed via cascade theory. Furthermore, the above result is extended to the case that collisions between the target and leader are avoided during tracking, and a collision-free target tracking guidance law is developed. The main feature of the proposed guidance law is twofold. First, the target tracking can be achieved without using the velocity information of the target. Second, collision avoidance can be achieved during target tracking. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed antidisturbance guidance law for tracking a maneuvering target with the arbitrary bounded velocity. (shrink)

Quantum state targeting is a quantum game which results from combining traditional quantum state estimation with additional classical information. We consider a particular version of the game and show how it can be played with maximally entangled states. The optimal solution of the game is used to derive a Bell inequality for two entangled qutrits. We argue that the nice properties of the inequality are direct consequences of the method of construction.

During the last two decades, economic development has been slow in most of the countries of Sub-Saharan Africa (World Bank, 1981). In the middle of the 1970s when the world economy experienced inflation and recession, no where did the crises hit with greater impact than in Sub-Saharan Africa. This region shows slow overall economic growth, sluggish agricultural performance, rapid rates of population increase, and a balance of payment crises. Between 1960 and 1979, per capita income in 19 countries grew by (...) less than 1% per annum. During the last decade 15 countries recorded a negative rate of income growth per capita (World Bank, 1981).The economic state of the oil exporting countries (Angola, Congo and Nigeria) in Sub-Saharan Africa is not any different. The average annual growth rate of GNP per capita from 1960–1979 shows Angola at –2.1%, Congo at 0.9% and Nigeria at 3.7%. (shrink)

The UN Security Council's approach to counterterrorism, which the United States has greatly shaped, has generally shown a marked human rights deficit. The process for seizing the assets of and imposing travel bans on suspected terrorists and their financiers must be reformed.

We have identified an emerging tool being used by the UK government across a range of public bodies in the service of public policy - the online targeted advertising infrastructure and the practices, consultancy firms, and forms of expertise which have grown up around it. This reflects an intensification and adaptation of a broader ‘behavioural turn’ in the governmentality of the UK state and the increasing sophistication of everyday government communications. Contemporary UK public policy is fusing with the powerful (...) tools for behaviour change created by the platform economy. Operational data and associated systems of classification and profiling from public bodies are being hybridised with traditional consumer marketing profiles and then ‘projected’ onto the classification systems of the targeted advertising infrastructures. This is not simply a case of algorithms being used for sorting, surveilling, and scoring; rather this suggests that targeted interventions in the cultural and behavioural life of communities are now a core part of governmental power which is being algorithmically-driven, in combination with influencer networks, traditional forms of messaging, and frontline operational practices. We map these uses and practices of what we describe as the ‘Surveillance Influence Infrastructure’, identifying key ethical issues and implications which we believe have yet to be fully investigated or considered. What we find particularly striking is the coming-together of two separate structures of power - the governmental turn to behaviourism and prevention on one hand, and the infrastructures of targeting and influence on the other. We theorise this as a move beyond ‘nudge’ or ‘behavioural science’ approaches, towards a programme which we term ‘influence government’. (shrink)

Word in noise identification is facilitated by acoustic differences between target and competing sounds and temporal separation between the onset of the masker and that of the target. Younger and older adults are able to take advantage of onset delay when the masker is dissimilar to the target word, but only younger adults are able to do so when the masker is similar. We examined the neural underpinning of this age difference using cortical evoked responses to words (...) masked by either Babble or Noise when the masker preceded the target word by 100 or 600 ms in younger and older adults, after adjusting the signal-to-noise ratios to equate behavioural performance across age groups and conditions. For the 100 ms onset delay, the word in noise elicited an acoustic change complex response that was comparable in younger and older adults. For the 600 ms onset delay, the ACC was modulated by both masker type and age. In older adults, the ACC to a word in babble was not affected by the increase in onset delay whereas younger adults showed a benefit from longer delays. Hence, the age difference in sensitivity to temporal delay is indexed by early activity in the auditory cortex. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that an increase in onset delay improves stream segregation in younger adults in both noise and babble, but only in noise for older adults and that this change in stream segregation is evident in early cortical processes. (shrink)

Known terrorists are often targeted for death by the governments of Israel and the United States. Several thousand have been killed by drones or by operatives on the ground in the last twenty years. Is this form of killing justified? Is there anything about it that should disturb us? In this for-and-against book, political theorists Jeremy Waldron and Tamar Meisels engage in extended debate to illuminate these issues. They consider the actions of targeting and hunting down named individuals, and they (...) address concerns about the possibility of this practice getting out of hand and being extended beyond the realm of counter-terrorism. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is the analysis of both legal and ethical ways of justifying targeted killings. I compare two legal models: the law enforcement model vs the rules of armed conflicts; and two ethical ones: retribution vs the right of self-defence. I argue that, if the targeted killing is to be either legally or ethically justified, it would be so due to fulfilling of some criteria common for all acceptable forms of killing, and not because terrorist activity is (...) somehow distinguished and gives special privileges to a state that fights it. The practical implication of my analysis is that one of the most spectacular targeted killings, which was the targeting and killing of Osama bin Laden in May 2011, was not justified, because it was only supposed to be a retribution for the September 11th terrorist attacks. (shrink)

The question of how to contend with terrorism in keeping with our preexisting moral and legal commitments now challenges Europe as well as Israel and the United States: how do we apply Just War Theory and International Law to asymmetrical warfare, specifically to our counter terrorism measures? What can the classic moral argument in Just and Unjust Wars teach us about contemporary targeted killings with drones? I begin with a defense of targeted killing, arguing for the advantages of pin pointed (...) attacks over any alternative measure available for combatting terrorism. Assuming the legitimacy of killing combatants in wartime, I argue, there is nothing wrong, and in fact much that is right, with targeting particular terrorists selected by name, as long as their assassinations can be reasonably expected to reduce terrorist hostilities rather than increase it. Subsequently, I offer some further thoughts and comments on the use of remotely piloted aircrafts to carry out targeted killings, and address the various sources for discomfort with this practice identified by Michael Walzer and others. nema. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Terrorist Attacks, Disasters and States of Emergency Terrorism, Internal Armed Struggles and Theatres of War Targeted Killings Targeted Killings and the Problem of Dirty Hands Conclusion.

Persian possesses a number of stative complex predicates with _dâshtan_ ‘to have’ that express certain kinds of mental state. I propose that these _possessive experiencer complex predicates_ be given a formal semantic treatment involving possession of a portion of an abstract quality by an individual, as in the analysis of property concept lexemes due to Francez and Koontz-Garboden (Language 91(3):533–563, 2015 ; Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 34:93–106, 2016 ; Semantics and morphosyntactic variation: Qualities and the grammar of property (...) concepts, Oxford University Press, 2017 ). Augmented with an analysis of prepositional phrases introducing the target of the mental state and an approach to gradability in terms of measure functions (Wellwood in Measuring predicates, PhD dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park, 2014 ), the analysis explains various properties of possessive experiencer complex predicates, including the behavior of target phrases, the ability of the non-verbal element to be modified by a range of adjectives, the direct participation of the non-verbal element in comparative constructions, and the ability of degree expressions to modify both the non-verbal element and the VP containing the complex predicate. Theoretically, the analysis ties transitive mental state expressions to the grammar and semantics of property concept sentences, which are expressed via possessive morphosyntax cross-linguistically, and connects with syntactic proposals that independently argue for a universal underlyingly possessive morphosyntax for mental state predicates (Noonan in Case and syntactic geometry, PhD dissertation, McGill University, 1992 ; Hale and Keyser in Prolegomenon to a theory of argument structure, MIT Press, 2002 ). The work here also motivates modifications to Francez and Koontz-Garboden’s original proposal, and opens new questions in the original empirical domain of the analysis of possessive predicating strategies for the expression of property concept sentences. (shrink)

The federal government is funding a sea change in health care by investing in interventions targeting social determinants of health, which are significant contributors to illness and health inequity. This funding power has encouraged states, professional and accreditation organizations, health care entities, and providers to focus heavily on social determinants. We examine how this shift in focus affects clinical practice in the fields of oncology and emergency medicine, and highlight potential areas of reform.

This volume analyzes welfare policies by looking at the making of their target publics. It examines how these populations are identified and constructed by policy making. The contributors apply the classic theoretical question about who gets what, when, and how, but also suggest the revisiting of policy-feedback analysis. Coverage includes empirical case studies in different geographical areas. It looks at Europe, the United States and also considers Mayotte, set in a post-colonial context. The chapters also examine different aspects of (...) welfare, including the bureaucratic treatment of marginalized populations as well as the middle class. The authors draw on diverse conceptual approaches and investigative methodologies. They conduct participant observation in public or nonprofit organizations, explore administrative records, and interview actors at various stages of policymaking. This qualitative material is then combined with relevant quantitative data. Readers are guided through a multilevel approach of welfare policies, from their definition to their implementation. They gain insight into the targeting of publics, from the higher reaches of government to the most underprivileged groups of the social world. Overall, the book compares different national contexts and social policy fields. This approach unearths regularities, enabling the authors to reassess major contemporary transformations of the welfare State. (shrink)

Bringing the views of Grayling, Moyal-Sharrock and Stroll together, I argue that in On Certainty, Wittgenstein explores the possibility of a new kind of foundationalism. Distinguishing propositional language-games from non-propositional, actional certainty, Wittgenstein investigates a foundationalism sui generis . Although he does not forthrightly state, defend, or endorse what I am characterizing as a "new kind of foundationalism," we must bear in mind that On Certainty was a collection of first draft notes written at the end of Wittgenstein's life. (...) The work was unprogrammatic, sometimes cryptic. Yet, his exploration into areas of knowledge, certitude and doubt suggest an identifiable direction to his thoughts. (shrink)

From the daily life, how to get the access to philosophy, what is the approaches to philosophy? Regarding the big topics /big affair in the world, are they related to the philosophy? what and how shall the philosophy do? About some concept, word, have we already fully confirmed their meaning? What shall the philosophy do to make their meaning clear and confirmed? Refers to the philosophy itself, have we already confirmed its study object? What is Philosophy? what is the main (...) study object for the philosophy? It is the pity that till now, for the whole world philosophy field, the main study object for the philosophy have not been confirmed. There are various kinds of answer, this means philosophy, from the past one hundred years, till now, has not work out the state of downturn and confusion.Since the philosophy itself is not clear, then no wonder from the late of 19 century to now, philosophy seems did litting achievement for the human being, for the civilization, for the progress, its glory looks gray, compared with Science, which is in fact born by philosophy although. So, before the philosophy could work well for the civilization, firstly, we should make the philosophy clear, confirm the main object of philosophy, target the correct object for philosophy! Only after this first work, we could expect philosophy do well on its tasks and function. For my this paper, its essential point is to present an answer for the target object belongs to the philosophy. Through demonstrate as per scientific logic and philosophy’s whole history, this answer, namely, the only target object belongs to philosophyis the Ontology and Cognition. Let philosophy go back to its correct place, its correct way. Then, it could move ahead. only after we get new progress on the study of Ontology and Cognition, and with the help of this new achievement of Ontology and Cognition, we can get progress on the study of the fields related to the human being and progress of civilization. As far as what is the Ontology and Cognition, which kind new achievement of Ontology and Cognition we couldexpect, that is the next step. (shrink)

In international law and the ethics of war, there are a variety of actions which are seen as particularly problematic and presumed to be always or inherently wrong, or in need of some overwhelmingly strong justification to override the presumption against them. One of these actions is assassination, in particular, assassination of heads of state. In this essay I argue that the presumption against assassination is incorrect. In particular, I argue that if in a given scenario war is justified, (...) then assassination of the enemy state's leader is also justified, and in fact ought to be pursued as a means short of war. I defend this position on both consequential and deontic grounds, arguing that assassination is both more discriminate than war and serves to harm only those most responsible for the situation which justifies war in the first place. I conclude by arguing that a norm of assassination, far from being a destabilizing force, as some have argued, would in fact serve to reinforce international norms of rights and respect for persons by making clear that tyrants and would-be oppressors cannot hide behind military forces or notions of sovereignty to protect themselves from judgment and retribution. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article assesses whether the contemporary consensus of just war thinking to allow only for defence as just cause for war between states should also be applied to the practice of target...

The paper argues that ‘All varieties of gratitude are only overall fitting when targeted towards agents,’ for instance that any variety of gratitude for the beautiful sunset is only overall fitting if a supernatural agent such as God exists. The first premise is that ‘Prepositional gratitude is overall fitting only when targeted towards agents.’ For this premise, intuitive judgments are offered. The second premise is that ‘Prepositional gratitude is the paradigmatic variety of gratitude.’ For this premise, an aspect of the (...) common consent of philosophers about gratitude is noted and the metaphysical basicness of prepositional gratitude is argued for. This gives the intermediate conclusion that ‘The paradigmatic variety of gratitude is overall fitting only when targeted towards agents.’ The fourth premise is that ‘If the paradigmatic variety of gratitude is overall fitting only when targeted towards agents, then all varieties of gratitude are overall fitting only when targeted towards agents.’ To supply the conditional of this premise, the Paradigmatic Fittingness Principle is offered, which states that ‘Paradigmatic emotions set the fittingness conditions for their non-paradigmatic varieties.’ This principle is argued for by noting that it vindicates some popular and plausible intuitive judgements and gives an error theory of why one might think that gratitude could be fittingly targeted towards non-agents, and by suggesting the absence of any other plausible source of fittingness conditions for non-paradigmatic emotions. (shrink)

The paper argues that ‘All varieties of gratitude are only overall fitting when targeted towards agents,’ for instance that any variety of gratitude for the beautiful sunset is only overall fitting if a supernatural agent such as God exists. The first premise is that ‘Prepositional gratitude is overall fitting only when targeted towards agents.’ For this premise, intuitive judgments are offered. The second premise is that ‘Prepositional gratitude is the paradigmatic variety of gratitude.’ For this premise, an aspect of the (...) common consent of philosophers about gratitude is noted and the metaphysical basicness of prepositional gratitude is argued for. This gives the intermediate conclusion that ‘The paradigmatic variety of gratitude is overall fitting only when targeted towards agents.’ The fourth premise is that ‘If the paradigmatic variety of gratitude is overall fitting only when targeted towards agents, then all varieties of gratitude are overall fitting only when targeted towards agents.’ To supply the conditional of this premise, the Paradigmatic Fittingness Principle is offered, which states that ‘Paradigmatic emotions set the fittingness conditions for their non-paradigmatic varieties.’ This principle is argued for by noting that it vindicates some popular and plausible intuitive judgements and gives an error theory of why one might think that gratitude could be fittingly targeted towards non-agents, and by suggesting the absence of any other plausible source of fittingness conditions for non-paradigmatic emotions. (shrink)

Bone marrow is the main site for hematopoiesis in adults. It acts as a niche for hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) and contains non‐hematopoietic cells that contribute to stem cell dormancy, quiescence, self‐renewal, and differentiation. HSC also exist in resting spleen of several species, although their contribution to hematopoiesis under steady‐state conditions is unknown. The spleen can however undergo extramedullary hematopoiesis (EMH) triggered by physiological stress or disease. With the loss of bone marrow niches in aging and disease, the spleen (...) as an alternative tissue site for hematopoiesis is an important consideration for future therapy, particularly during HSC transplantation. In terms of harnessing the spleen as a site for hematopoiesis, here the remarkable regenerative capacity of the spleen is considered with a view to forming additional or ectopic spleen tissue through cell engraftment. Studies in mice indicate the potential for such grafts to support the influx of hematopoietic cells leading to the development of normal spleen architecture. An important goal will be the formation of functional ectopic spleen tissue as an aid to hematopoietic recovery following clinical treatments that impact bone marrow. For example, expansion or replacement of niches could be considered where myeloablation ahead of HSC transplantation compromises treatment outcomes. (shrink)

This article examines the emerging possibility of “brain-state transitioning,” in which one brain state is prompted through manipulating the dynamics of the active brain. The technique, still in its infancy, is intended to provide the basis for novel treatments for brain-based disorders. Although a detailed literature exists covering topics around brain-machine interfaces, where targets of brain-based activity include artificial limbs, hardware, and software, there is less concentration on the brain itself as a target for instrumental intervention. This (...) article examines some of the science behind brain-state transitioning, before extending beyond current possibilities in order to explore philosophical and ethical questions about how transitions could be seen to impact on assessment of responsibility and personal identity. It concludes with some thoughts on how best to pursue this nascent approach while accounting for the philosophical and ethical issues. (shrink)

This article introduces the themes and theoretical concerns of a special section that explores the various ways the specificities of the Mumbai attacks serve as a metonym for issues found in other urban sites within the conditions, concerns and vulnerabilities of globalization-as-urbanization and does so through the rubric of the city-as-target. As urbanization grows exponentially in unforecastable ways, the likelihood of violent urban targeting of many different kinds — state-sponsored, paramilitary, sectarian, economic, racial, tribal, etc., to name but (...) a few — grows as well. Mumbai is a specific event, but it is also the common-place, the cityscape that is our daily lives and quotidian existence rendered unusual in all the expected ways. With Mumbai, the article argues, one does not necessarily see the future of the urban, but rather a reminder of what the urban has always been, even from the great walled cities of antiquity: a target. There is an imperative, then, to rethink urban space at all levels. The pieces in this section consider immaterial and material aspects of the city: its plan, infrastructure, buildings and dwellings, polity and policy, protection and penetration. The technologies and technicities involved in the attacks, as well as the specific historicity, reveal a great deal about the Mumbai events, as well as revealing potential modes of engagement with cities in the present and future. (shrink)

Bacteria use trans‐translation to rescue stalled ribosomes and target incomplete proteins for proteolysis. Despite similarities between tRNAs and transfer‐messenger RNA (tmRNA), the key molecule for trans‐translation, new structural and biochemical data show important differences between translation and trans‐translation at most steps of the pathways. tmRNA and its binding partner, SmpB, bind in the A site of the ribosome but do not trigger the same movements of nucleotides in the rRNA that are required for codon recognition by tRNA. tmRNA‐SmpB moves (...) from the A site to the P site of the ribosome without subunit rotation to generate hybrid states, and moves from the P site to a site outside the ribosome instead of to the E site. During catalysis, transpeptidation to tmRNA appears to require the ribosomal protein bL27, which is dispensable for translation, suggesting that this protein may be conserved in bacteria due to trans‐translation. These differences provide insights into the fundamental nature of trans‐translation, and provide targets for new antibiotics that may have decrease cross‐reactivity with eukaryotic ribosomes. (shrink)

STORY L, MAYFIELD‐JOHNSON S, DOWNEY LH, ANDERSON‐LEWIS C, YOUNG R and DAY P. Nursing Inquiry 2010; 17: 373–384 Getting on Target with Community Health Advisors (GOTCHA): an innovative stroke prevention projectHealth disparities along with insufficient numbers of healthcare providers and resources have created a need for effective and efficient grassroots approaches to improve community health. Community‐based participatory research (CBPR), more specifically the utilization of community health advisors (CHAs), is one such strategy. The Getting on Target with Community Health (...) Advisors (GOTCHA) project convened an interdisciplinary team to answer the call from 10 counties in the rural Mississippi Delta area of ‘The Stroke Belt’ to meet the region’s identified health needs, and to impact the health of a disparaged state. This article explores this CBPR project including the community involvement strategies, innovative CHA training curriculum, evaluation plan, and implications to healthcare professionals, particularly nurses. (shrink)

Investor-state-dispute-settlement is an arbitration mechanism to settle disputes between foreign investors and host-states. Seemingly a technical issue in private international law, ISDS procedures have recently become a matter of public concern and the target of political resistance, due to the power they grant to foreign investors in matters of public policies in the countries they invest in. This article examines the practice of ISDS through the lenses of liberal-statist theories of international justice, which value self-determination. It argues that (...) the investor-state arbitration system illustrates how liberal-statist theories of international distributive justice ought to care about relative socioeconomic disadvantage, contra the sufficiency principle that they typically defend. The sufficiency principle draws on a questionable conception of the freedom that self-determination consists in. (shrink)

Event-based prospective memory tasks require the realisation of a delayed intention at the occurrence of a specific target event. The present research investigates how performance in this kind of prospective memory task is influenced by the current affective state. By manipulating participants’ mood during intention realisation we tested two competing models of mood effects on memory (i.e., a capacity consuming account and a processing style account). Furthermore, we manipulated the valence of the target event to investigate mood-congruency (...) effects in prospective memory. No evidence was found for a mood-congruency effect, but the results showed that prospective memory performance increased with a sad mood. This effect is consistent with recent theories on mood-dependent processing-style regulation, postulating that a sad mood produces a more analytic and detailed processing style whereas a happy mood produces a more global and less detailed processing style. (shrink)

People's treatment of others (humans, nonhuman animals, or other entities) often depends on whether they think the entity is worthy of moral concern. Recent work has begun to investigate which entities are included in a person's moral circle, examining how certain target characteristics (e.g., species category, perceived intelligence) and judge characteristics (e.g., empathy, political orientation) shape moral inclusion. However, the relative importance of target and judge characteristics in predicting moral inclusion remains unclear. When predicting whether a person will (...) deem an entity worthy of moral consideration, how important is it to know who is making the judgment (i.e., characteristics of the judge), who is being judged (i.e., characteristics of the target), and potential interactions between the two factors? Here, we address this foundational question by conducting a variance component analysis of the moral circle. In two studies with participants from the Netherlands, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia (N = 836), we test how much variance in judgments of moral concern is explained by between‐target differences, between‐judge differences, and by the interaction between the two factors. We consistently find that all three components explain substantial amounts of variance in judgments of moral concern. Our findings provide two important insights. First, an increased focus on interactions between target and judge characteristics is needed, as these interactions explain as much variance as target and judge characteristics separately. Second, any theoretical account that aims to provide an accurate description of moral inclusion needs to consider target characteristics, judge characteristics, and their interaction. (shrink)

Histone acetylation has been recognized as an important post‐translational modification of core nucleosomal histones that changes access to the chromatin to allow gene transcription, DNA replication, and repair. Histone acetyltransferases were initially identified as co‐activators that link DNA‐binding transcription factors to the general transcriptional machinery. Over the years, more chromatin‐binding modes have been discovered suggesting direct interaction of histone acetyltransferases and their protein complex partners with histone proteins. While much progress has been made in characterizing histone acetyltransferase complexes biochemically, cell‐free (...) activity assay results are often at odds with in‐cell histone acetyltransferase activities. In‐cell studies suggest specific histone lysine targets, but broad recruitment modes, apparently not relying on specific DNA sequences, but on chromatin of a specific functional state. Here we review the evidence for general versus specific roles of individual nuclear lysine acetyltransferases in light of in vivo and in vitro data in the mammalian system. (shrink)

Ainslie's target article provides a map of distinct mechanisms relevant to self-control, potentially providing needed precision to the field. He also breaks new ground in characterizing the symbiotic relationship between suppression and resolve. In this commentary, I argue that one behaviorism-based feature of his framework, present-state independence, is unjustified and unnecessary for the broader claims of the theory.

abstract Many reasons have been given as to why humanitarian intervention might not be justified even where rebellion with similar aims would be a morally legitimate option. One of them is that intervention involves the imposition of alien values on the target society. Michael Walzer formulates this objection in terms of a people's right to a state that ‘expresses their inherited culture’ and that they can truly ‘call their own’. I argue that this right can plausibly be said (...) to extend sovereignty to at least some illiberal governments, and therefore to impose at least some moral constraints on humanitarian intervention. The problem for Walzer is that this right cannot form the basis of a constraint that applies to foreign intervention exclusively. Once the details of Walzer's argument are teased out, it becomes apparent that civil war and revolution must be equally restricted by this right. Hence a people's prerogative to be governed in accordance with familiar traditions cannot coherently be invoked to show that intervention is impermissible in cases where insurrection is taken to be justified. (shrink)

What distinguishes full-on stating a proposition from merely communicating it? For instance, what distinguishes claiming/asserting/saying that one has never smoked crack cocaine from merely implying/conveying/hinting this? The enormous literature on ‘assertion’ provides many approaches to distinguishing stating from, say, asking and commanding: only the former aims at truth; only the former expresses one's belief; etc. But this leaves my question unanswered, since in merely communicating a proposition one also aims at truth, expresses a belief, etc. My aim is not to (...) criticize extant accounts of the state-versus-merely-convey contrast, but rather to draw on clues from Dummett, functional linguistics and moral theory, to offer a novel one. The main idea is that full-on stating is distinctively conventionalized in a way that conversationally implicating, hinting, giving to understand, etc., are not. Specifically, full-on stating is constitutively tied to a particular conventional, linguistic, function-bearing device, the declarative sentence. To full-on state that p is to hit that ‘target speech act’ which owes its existence to that special-purpose device. It is therefore also to make one's action lie-prone. Nonetheless, once that sui generis target is there to be aimed for, a person may reach it without using the special-purpose tool—e.g. one may full-on state using a mere word or phrase, or coded hand signals, or semaphore. I end by considering several philosophical implications of this means of capturing the contrast. (shrink)

In the United States people of Middle Eastern descent are legally/politically categorized as white, but in social encounters and popular representations Middle Eastern people are treated as a nonwhite inferior collective. In the absence of explicit systemic recognition through a protected class status, Middle Eastern Americans are not just vulnerable to the social-systemic violence that accompanies racialization; that violence is being tacitly permitted. I address this problem by describing the historical and political conditions that afford this racialization in the United (...) States. I argue that the racialization of Middle Easterners, best understood from a historical perspective, is rooted in the repetitive treatment of certain peoples as objects of war to be degraded, exploited, dominated, and destroyed. To be treated as inferior and disposable is a general function of racism, which is afforded by racialization; but, the historical conditions of the mistreatment of Middle Eastern peoples create a unique set of problems and tensions that assign specific meanings which must be addressed in combating racism. Included among these tensions is a problematic narrative that claims Middle Eastern peoples are an almost naturally warlike and thus fragmented collective. The problem of disunity results from being created and treated as objects of war. Thus, social recognition, or solidarity, is needed along with systemic recognition. As a more effective means of countering the repetitious practices of subjugation, I plea for a solidarity among Middle Eastern Americans in response to Orientalist-racist scripts that claim disunity and war are the preferred condition of Middle Eastern peoples. (shrink)

Between-subject variability in cognitive performance has been related to inter-individual differences in functional brain networks. Targeting the dorsal attention network we questioned whether resting-state functional connectivity within the DAN can predict individual performance in spatial attention tasks and whether there is short-term adaptation of DAN-FC in response to task engagement. Twenty-seven participants first underwent resting-state fMRI, they subsequently performed different tasks of spatial attention [including visual search ] and immediately afterwards received another rs-fMRI. Intra- and inter-hemispheric FC between (...) core hubs of the DAN, bilateral intraparietal sulcus and frontal eye field, was analyzed and compared between PRE and POST. Furthermore, we investigated rs-fMRI-behavior correlations between the DAN-FC in PRE/POST and task performance parameters. The absolute DAN-FC did not change from PRE to POST. However, different significant rs-fMRI-behavior correlations were revealed for intra-/inter-hemispheric connections in the PRE and POST run. The stronger the FC between left FEF and IPS before task engagement, the better was the learning effect in VS. And the faster the VS, the stronger was the FC between right FEF and IPS after task engagement. To conclude, DAN-FC relates to the individual performance in spatial attention tasks supporting the view of functional brain networks as priors for cognitive ability. Despite a high inter- and intra-individual stability of DAN-FC, the change of FC-behavior correlations after task performance possibly indicates task-related adaptation of the DAN, underlining that behavioral experiences may shape intrinsic brain activity. However, spontaneous state fluctuations of the DAN-FC over time cannot be fully ruled out as an alternative explanation. (shrink)

The title of this article, “The State at Dusk,” was adopted from the famous image of Minerva’s Owl in the Preface to Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. I chose it to capture the current mood of despair and foreboding about the state, both in its growing failure to protect individuals from the ravages of capital and in its malevolent capacity to destroy all life on earth. The threat of nuclear holocaust and the question of whether the welfare state (...) has a future are now urgent topics of political debate. Notwithstanding a few significant victories, however, the so-called New Right has achieved nothing like total success in its war against public-financed health care, education, and civil liberties, to name only a few of its targets. Moreover, despite the obvious madness of the nuclear arms race and two terms under the most reactionary of all modern U. S. presidents, the planet survives. As darkness gathers around the late twentieth century state, its outline appears much the same as it was at the outset of the conservative attack a decade ago. (shrink)

In 2014, the United States health care industry produced an estimated 480 million metric tons of carbon dioxide ; nearly 8% of the country's total emissions. The importance of sustainability in health care — as a business reliant on fossil fuels for transportation, energy, and operational functioning — is slowly being recognized. These efforts to green health care are incomplete, since they only focus on health care structures. The therapeutic relationship is the essence of health care — not the buildings (...) that contain the practice. As such, this article will first postulate reasons for a lack of environmental sustainability in US health care. Second, the article will focus on current green health care initiatives in the United States in which patients and physicians participate. Third, the rationale for participation in green initiatives will be explained. Fourth, the article will propose that, based on the environmental values of patients and physicians, health care insurance plans and health care insurance companies can be targeted for green health care reform, thereby closing the loop of sustainable health care delivery. (shrink)

This book brings together scholarship on three different forms of state violence, examining each for what it can tell us about the conditions under which states use violence and the significance of violence to our understanding of states. This book calls into question the legitimacy of state uses of violence and mounts a sustained effort at interpretation, sense making, and critique. It suggests that condemning the state's decisions to use lethal force is not a simple matter of (...) abolishing the death penalty or – to take another exemplary example of the killing state – demanding that the state engage only in just wars, pointing out that even such overt instances of lethal force are more elusive as targets of critique than one might think. Indeed, altering such decisions may do little to change the essential relationship of the state to violence. (shrink)

Cameron et al ’s1 ethical considerations about the ‘Dualism of Values’ in pandemic response emphasise the need to strike a fair balance between the interests of the less vulnerable to COVID-19 and the interests of the more vulnerable. Those considerations are at the basis of ethical defences of focused protection strategies.2 One example is the proposal put forward in the Great Barrington Declaration. It presented focused protection strategies as more ethical alternatives to lockdowns which would prevent lockdowns’ ‘irreparable damage, with (...) the underprivileged disproportionately harmed’.3 Here we want to suggest that a version of Cameron et al ’s analysis can be applied to the case of vaccines to support a focused protection vaccination strategy. At this stage, we should limit vaccination to the vulnerable and not target children in COVID-19 vaccination strategies. We argue that, given the current state of knowledge about COVID-19, immunity and vaccines, it would be wrong to pose the costs and risks of vaccines on children for three reasons. First, they are unlikely to benefit from COVID-19 vaccination …. (shrink)

Instances in which we cannot retrieve information immediately but know that the information might be retrieved later are subjective states that accompany retrieval failure. These are expressed in feeling-of-knowing and Tip-of-the-tongue experiences. In Experiment 1, participants with Parkinson’s disease and older adult controls were given general questions and asked to report when they experienced a TOT state and to give related information about the missing word. The PD group experienced similar levels of TOTs but provided less correct peripheral information (...) related to the target when in a TOT state. In Experiment 2, participants were given a Semantic and an Episodic FOK task. PD patients failed to accurately predict their future memory performance in response to both episodic and semantic cues. Results are interpreted in the context of recent frameworks of memory and metacognition. (shrink)

Ambient assisted living technologies are increasingly presented and sold as essential smart additions to daily life and home environments that will radically transform the healthcare and wellness markets of the future. An ethical approach and a thorough understanding of all ethics in surveillance/monitoring architectures are therefore pressing. AAL poses many ethical challenges raising questions that will affect immediate acceptance and long-term usage. Furthermore, ethical issues emerge from social inequalities and their potential exacerbation by AAL, accentuating the existing access gap between (...) high-income countries and low and middle-income countries. Legal aspects mainly refer to the adherence to existing legal frameworks and cover issues related to product safety, data protection, cybersecurity, intellectual property, and access to data by public, private, and government bodies. Successful privacy-friendly AAL applications are needed, as the pressure to bring Internet of Things devices and ones equipped with artificial intelligence quickly to market cannot overlook the fact that the environments in which AAL will operate are mostly private. The social issues focus on the impact of AAL technologies before and after their adoption. Future AAL technologies need to consider all aspects of equality such as gender, race, age and social disadvantages and avoid increasing loneliness and isolation among, e.g. older and frail people. Finally, the current power asymmetries between the target and general populations should not be underestimated nor should the discrepant needs and motivations of the target group and those developing and deploying AAL systems. Whilst AAL technologies provide promising solutions for the health and social care challenges, they are not exempt from ethical, legal and social issues. A set of ELSI guidelines is needed to integrate these factors at the research and development stage. (shrink)

What makes certain mental states subject to evaluation with respect to norms of rationality and justification, and others arational? In this paper, I develop and defend an account that explains why belief is governed by, and so appropriately subject to, evaluation with respect to norms of rationality and justification, one that does justice to the complexity of our evaluative practice in this domain. Then, I sketch out a way of extending the account to explain when and why other kinds of (...) mental states are rationally evaluable. I argue that the cognitive or psychological mechanisms that give rise to and sustain our mental states help to render our mental states appropriate targets for evaluation with respect to norms of rationality and justification when the operation of these mechanisms is responsive, in a specific way, to our judgments about which kinds of considerations constitute rationalizing and justifying reasons for being in states of the relevant sort. (shrink)

State provision of “merit goods” and of narrowly targeted cash payments has higher priority than large universal cash grants. Analysis of the Swedish budget shows that advanced countries do not have the taxing capacity to do both at once. Other problems with cash payments schemes include the disincentive to work for pay, reducing taxpaying capacity, and retrograde effects on gender equality. After the achievement of a welfare state, rises over time in productivity may gradually open up room in (...) the national budget for universal cash payments. (shrink)

The target article outlines a Future-State-Maximization approach whose focus on “rewarding” actions that lead to increased action possibilities serves as an alternative to standard value-….