This book contains an introduction to symbolic logic and a thorough discussion of mechanical theorem proving and its applications. The book consists of three major parts. Chapters 2 and 3 constitute an introduction to symbolic logic. Chapters 4–9 introduce several techniques in mechanical theorem proving, and Chapters 10 an 11 show how theorem proving can be applied to various areas such as question answering, problem solving, program analysis, and program synthesis.

Humanitarian assistance in conflicts sometimes undermines local coping strategies, reinforces wartime economies, and strengthens the existing power structures. This article argues that some victims of conflicts are made extremely vulnerable and uniquely dependent on humanitarian agencies. In this case, humanitarian agencies have a distinct obligation to assist them. This article considers one novel account that justifies the continued provision of aid to victims of conflicts and rejects the widespread view that aid should be withdrawn to avoid its negative impact. This (...) article presents the “Distinct Dependence Argument” to address the aid dependency predicament in conflicts. It explores the degree of vulnerability and dependence of victims of conflicts and evaluates humanitarian agencies’ causal responsibility in causing such vulnerability and dependency. (shrink)

We live in the Age of Big Data. In medicine, artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms, fueled by big data, promise to change how physicians make diagnoses, determine prognoses, and develop new treatments. An exponential rise in articles on these topics is seen in the medical literature. Recent applications range from the use of deep learning neural networks to diagnose diabetic retinopathy and skin cancer from image databases, to the use of various machine learning algorithms for prognostication in cancer and (...) cardiovascular disease. Many factors are driving the adoption of AI in health care, from... (shrink)

The intent of this book focuses on Australia’s First Nations truth, voice, recognition, diversity, and respect. Hope O’Chin explains that knowledge about Australian First Nations culture and learning can be seen through new conceptual lens, which she refers to as an Ontology of Dreaming Hope for Australians. The book proposes to move from ontological propositions embedded in pedagogies and methodologies that center on the relevance of Indigenous epistemes and ways of doing. O’Chin offers a conceptual framing for engaging (...) with Indigenous peoples, and forming communities of belongingness and relationality. She offers suggestions for ways in which art and education can act as ‘healing’ and a way forward towards a more inclusive civil society. Reflexive practice, ethnographic principles, and action research is described in a way that methodologies provide an understanding of a sense of Belonging. O'Chin argues that theoretical research, art, and educational practice can add to the value of determining a strategy of Indigenous art investment within Australia, and to address how art and education can be used to validate contemporary expression of Aboriginality within contemporary Australian society. Ultimately, the book is about Indigenous strengths and what Indigenous ways of being, knowing and doing can offer, and how one might go about honouring and working in this way respectfully. (shrink)

The authority of the social : a pragmatic ethos of enquiry -- Rorty and continental political thought : ontology, naturalism and history -- Theorizing after foundations : ontology, language, and heidegger -- Reconstructing naturalism : pragmatic or ontological? -- History and modernity : self-assertion and critical reflexivity -- Rorty's insights for contemporary political theory : pragmatic socio- -- Political criticism -- Pragmatic political thinking : Rorty in contemporary critical social theory -- Rorty and political theory : how pragmatism constrains and (...) enables political -- Thinking. (shrink)

In the division between analytic and continental thought, pragmatism has often been cast as a middle way. Fundamentally critical of each, it also shares resonances with both of these traditions. However, while this observation is common, remarkably little has been done to examine its truth in contemporary political thought. Drawing on recent trends in political theory, including ‘New Realism’, critical genealogical methods and a surge in pragmatic approaches, this article identifies an emerging situated turn in political thought. Emerging from several (...) major traditions in contemporary political thinking, this trend has pragmatic themes at its centre. Having identified this as a fertile opportunity for inter-methodological work across the analytic/continental divide, it then turns to the late work of Richard Rorty in order to expose his productive framework for such cross-border exchanges. Arguing for its fundamentally democratic and pluralistic nature, this analysis also exposes this framework’s weaknesses before illustrating how recent methodological exchanges between genealogy and pragmatism rectify these deficiencies while providing a viable model for future work across traditional philosophical boundaries. (shrink)

This study empirically examined the effects of ethical leadership and ethical climate on employee ethical behavior in the international port context using survey data collected from 128 respondents who worked in Taiwan International Ports Corporation in Taiwan. Research hypotheses were formulated from the previous literature and tested using structural equation modeling. Results indicated that ethical leadership had a significant impact on ethical climate and the ethical behavior of TIPC employees. Ethical climate was found to be positively associated with employee ethical (...) behavior. The theoretical and practical implications of the research findings are discussed. (shrink)

Marxism came to China along with the Russian Revolution. Many Chinese scholars and students became interested in Marxism, which was interpreted in terms of patriotism and as an anti-imperialist movement. As a leader of the Christian Youth Student Fellowship of YMCA in Shanghai, YT Wu was deeply concerned with the nature of current thought on campus, and sought dialogue between Christianity and materialism. This article analyzes Wu's thought, especially his proposal of a Christian materialism which would reconcile the two. Like (...) Marxist thinkers in the West, Wu was highly critical of the modernity that was also influencing China. Wu finds the key to theology in an interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount, which he understands as a depiction of Christian materialism. (shrink)

The present study reconsiders Husserl’s method of eidetic variation and Schütz’s critique. The method of eidetic variation describes a complex process through which the eidos of empirical objects is obtained. This process has different steps, one of which is the free variation that is conducted by the act of free phantasy. According to Husserl, it is through this act that the transcendental consciousness can surpass the boundary established by empirical generalities and uncover the full extension of eidos as pure generality. (...) However, in Schütz’s analysis, he leaves a series of questions regarding the limitations of the free variation, which potentially leads to a serious consequence: eidos and type (empirical generality) are merely different in degrees. After examining Husserl’s account of the method and Schütz’s analysis, it appears that, although Husserl has noticed the potential questions posed by Schütz and provided an answer to them, the method still fails to provide a way to reveal the eidetic basis of variants. To solve this issue, I argue that an additional step is required for the method to succeed, which involves the act of productive phantasy that enables one to exclude the empirical influences of types. (shrink)

Naturalistic theories of disease appeal to concepts of biological function, and use the notion of dysfunction as the basis of their definitions. Debates in the philosophy of biology demonstrate how attributing functions in organisms and establishing the function-dysfunction distinction is by no means straightforward. This problematization of functional ascription has undermined naturalistic theories and led some authors to abandon the concept of dysfunction, favoring instead definitions based in normative criteria or phenomenological approaches. Although this work has enhanced our understanding of (...) disease and illness, we need not necessarily abandon naturalistic concepts of function and dysfunction in the disease debate. This article attempts to move towards a new naturalistic theory of disease that overcomes the limitations of previous definitions and offers advantages in the clinical setting. Our approach involves a re-evaluation of concepts of biological function employed by naturalistic theories. Drawing on recent insights from the philosophy of biology, we develop a contextual and evaluative account of function that is better suited to clinical medicine and remains consistent with contemporary naturalism. We also show how an updated naturalistic view shares important affinities with normativist and phenomenological positions, suggesting a possibility for consilience in the disease debate. (shrink)

Recent research has detailed the use of neuroscience in several jurisdictions, but Australia remains a notable omission. To fill this substantial void we performed a systematic review of neuroscience in Australian criminal cases. The first section of this article reports the results of our review by detailing the purposes for which neuroscience is admitted into Australian criminal courts. We found that neuroscience is being admitted pre-trial, at trial, and during sentencing. In the second section, we evaluate these applications. We generally (...) found that courts admit neuroscience cautiously, and to supplement more well-established forms of evidence. Still, we found some instances in which the court seemed to misunderstand the neuroscience. These cases ranged from interpreting neuroscience as “objective” evidence to admitting neuroscience when the same non-neuroscientific psychiatric evidence would be inadmissible for being common sense. Furthermore, in some cases, neuroscientific evidence presents a double-edged sword; it may serve to either aggravate or mitigate a sentence. Thus, the decision about whether or not to tender this evidence is risky. (shrink)

L'homme mène son existence dans un univers sensoriel et un univers de sens. Quelles significations prennent les perceptions sensorielles dans la vie sociale et culturelle? Cet ouvrage à plusieurs voix étudie les sens dans différentes circonstances de la vie collective : chamanisme, maladie, racisme, sexualité, rencontre, vie quotidienne, musique, etc. Le Brésil, la Mongolie, le Burkina-Faso, l'Inde, le Mexique, le Sénégal, la société touarègue... et bien entendu l'Europe. Anthropologie et ethnologie sont ici sollicitées dans ces études des relations symboliques entre (...) les sens et le sens. (shrink)

With the appearance of mankind, the history of mankind's understanding of the human body itself also began. This long process of development rang with the struggle of two world views. The history of the development of man's understanding of the structure and functions of the human body is the history of the unbroken triumph of materialism over idealism, of the dialectical over the metaphysical. This essay simply takes a preliminary look back at this struggle from several aspects in the hope (...) that it might be of use in promoting a deeper and more systematic study of the question. (shrink)

This paper provides evidence for a contrastive account of explanation that is motivated by pragmatic theories that recognize the contribution that context makes to the interpretation of a prompt for explanation. This study replicates the primary findings of previous work in explanation-based category learning, extending that work by illustrating the critical role of the context in this type of learning. Participants interacted with items from two categories either by describing the items or explaining their category membership. We manipulated the feature (...) overlap between the categories and examined both the explanations generated and acquired knowledge of the categories. Explanations for membership in a given category were influenced by the unprompted contrast category, indicating an important role for contrastive processing in the generation of explanations. The influence of the contrast category was similarly seen in the transfer performance of the participants. (shrink)

Non-medical or Social egg freezing (oocyte cryopreservation) is currently a controversial topic in Islam, with contradictory fatwas being issued in different Muslim countries. While Islamic authorities in Egypt permit the procedure, fatwas issued in Malaysia have banned single Muslim women from freezing their unfertilized eggs (vitrified oocytes) to be used later in marriage. The underlying principles of the Malaysian fatwas are that (i) sperm and egg cells produced before marriage, should not be used during marriage to conceive a child; (ii) (...) extraction of mature egg cells from single women being unacceptable; and (iii) fertility preservation in anticipation of late marriage is a conjecture that has not yet occurred. Ovarian tissue freezing can potentially be a more Shariah-compliant alternative to social egg freezing, because once the frozen ovarian cortical tissue sections have been re-transplanted back into the woman, mature egg cells can readily be produced, collected, and fertilized by the husband’s sperm only during the period of marriage contract (′akd al-nikāḥ). Unlike accidental mix-ups with frozen eggs, muddling of lineage (nasab) would be automatically avoided in ovarian tissue freezing due to immunological rejection. However, upon critical analysis based on Qawā’id Fiqhiyyah (Islamic Legal Maxims), Maqāṣid-al-Shariah (Higher Objectives of Islamic Law), and Maslaḥah-Mafsadah (benefits versus harmful effects on society), elective ovarian tissue freezing by healthy single women for social reasons would likely be a highly contentious and controversial issue within Muslim communities that may conflict with conservative social-religious norms. This thus needs further debate among Islamic jurists in dialogue with medical doctors and biomedical scientists. (shrink)

Inspired by Max Weber's thesis on the Protestant ethic, this volume sets out to understand the role and influence of Christianity on overseas Chinese entrepreneurs working in China during its transition from a centrally-planned economy ...

The COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated a rapid escalation in the use of telepsychiatry. Herein we revisit some of the ethical issues regarding its use, including patient benefice, distributive justice, privacy, and autonomy. Based on these considerations we would hold that telepsychiatry is a vital aspect of providing psychiatric care, and ethically should be offered as a format for treatment, likely beyond the pandemic period. Investigative and advocacy efforts will need to continue to determine its exact role within psychiatric care, and (...) expand its availability for those most in need. (shrink)

Elective egg freezing for fertility preservation - commonly referred to as social egg freezing or non-medical egg freezing, will be permitted in Singapore from 2023. There...

Learning general concepts in imperfect environments is difficult since training instances often include noisy data, inconclusive data, incomplete data, unknown attributes, unknown attribute values and other barriers to effective learning. It is well known that people can learn effectively in imperfect environments, and can manage to process very large amounts of data. Imitating human learning behavior therefore provides a useful model for machine learning in real-world applications. This paper proposes a new, more effective way to represent imperfect training instances and (...) rules, and based on the new representation, a Human-Like Learning (HULL) algorithm for incrementally learning concepts well in imperfect training environments. Several examples are given to make the algorithm clearer. Finally, experimental results are presented that show the proposed learning algorithm works well in imperfect learning environments. (shrink)

End-of-life decision making frequently occurs in the intensive care unit (ICU). There is a lack of information on how a do-not-resuscitate (DNR) order affects treatments received by critically ill patients in ICUs. The objectives of this study were: (1) to compare the use of life support therapies between patients with a DNR order and those without; (2) to examine life support therapies prior to and after the issuance of a DNR order; and (3) to determine the clinical factors that influence (...) the initiation of a DNR order in ICUs in Taiwan. A prospective, descriptive, and correlational study was conducted. A total of 202 patients comprising 133 (65.8%) who had a DNR order, and 69 (34.1%) who did not, participated in this study. In the last 48 hours of their lives, patients who had a DNR order were less likely to receive life support therapies than those who did not have a DNR order. Older age, being unmarried, the presence of an adult child as a surrogate decision maker, a perceived inability to survive ultimate discharge from the ICU, and longer hospitalization in the ICU were significant predictors of issuing a DNR order for critically ill patients. This study will draw attention to how, when, and by whom, critically ill patients’ preferences about DNR are elicited and honored. (shrink)