It is often assumed that graphemes are a crucial level of orthographic representation above letters. Current connectionist models of reading, however, do not address how the mapping from letters to graphemes is learned. One major challenge for computational modeling is therefore developing a model that learns this mapping and can assign the graphemes to linguistically meaningful categories such as the onset, vowel, and coda of a syllable. Here, we present a model that learns to do this in English for strings (...) of any letter length and any number of syllables. The model is evaluated on error rates and further validated on the results of a behavioral experiment designed to examine ambiguities in the processing of graphemes. The results show that the model (a) chooses graphemes from letter strings with a high level of accuracy, even when trained on only a small portion of the English lexicon; (b) chooses a similar set of graphemes as people do in situations where different graphemes can potentially be selected; (c) predicts orthographic effects on segmentation which are found in human data; and (d) can be readily integrated into a full-blown model of multi-syllabic reading aloud such as CDP++ (Perry, Ziegler, & Zorzi, 2010). Altogether, these results suggest that the model provides a plausible hypothesis for the kind of computations that underlie the use of graphemes in skilled reading. (shrink)

Epilepsy surgery is the most effective therapeutic approach for children with drug resistant epilepsy. Recent advances in neurosurgery, such as the Laser Interstitial Thermal Therapy, improved the safety and non-invasiveness of this method. Electric and magnetic source imaging plays critical role in the delineation of the epileptogenic focus during the presurgical evaluation of children with DRE. Yet, they are currently underutilized even in tertiary epilepsy centers. Here, we present a case of an adolescent who suffered from DRE for 16 years (...) and underwent surgery at Cook Children's Medical Center. The patient was previously evaluated in a level 4 epilepsy center and treated with multiple antiseizure medications for several years. Presurgical evaluation at CCMC included long-term video electroencephalography, magnetoencephalography with simultaneous conventional EEG and high-density EEG in two consecutive sessions, MRI, and fluorodeoxyglucose - positron emission tomography. Video long-term EEG captured nine focal-onset clinical seizures with a maximal evolution over the right frontal/frontal midline areas. MRI was initially interpreted as non-lesional. FDG-PET revealed a small region of hypometabolism at the anterior right superior temporal gyrus. ESI and MSI performed with dipole clustering showed a tight cluster of dipoles in the right anterior insula. The patient underwent intracranial EEG which indicated the right anterior insular as seizure onset zone. Eventually LITT rendered the patient seizure free. Retrospective analysis of ESI and MSI clustered dipoles found a mean distance of dipoles from the ablated volume ranging from 10 to 25 mm. Our findings highlight the importance of recent technological advances in the presurgical evaluation and surgical treatment of children with DRE, and the underutilization of epilepsy surgery in children with DRE. (shrink)

Young children help others in a range of situations, relatively indiscriminate of the characteristics of those they help. Recent results have suggested that young children’s helping behaviour extends even to humanoid robots. However, it has been unclear how characteristics of robots would influence children’s helping behaviour. Considering previous findings suggesting that certain robot features influence adults’ perception of and their behaviour towards robots, the question arises of whether young children’s behaviour and perception would follow the same principles. The current study (...) investigated whether two key characteristics of a humanoid robot (animate autonomy and friendly expressiveness) would affect children’s instrumental helping behaviour and their perception of the robot as an animate being. Eighty-two 3-year-old children participated in one of four experimental conditions manipulating a robot’s ostensible animate autonomy (high/low) and friendly expressiveness (friendly/neutral). Helping was assessed in an out-of-reach task and animacy ratings were assessed in a post-test interview. Results suggested that both children’s helping behaviour, as well as their perception of the robot as animate, were unaffected by the robot’s characteristics. The findings indicate that young children’s helping behaviour extends largely indiscriminately across two important characteristics. These results increase our understanding of the development of children’s altruistic behaviour and animate-inanimate distinctions. Our findings also raise important ethical questions for the field of child-robot interaction. (shrink)

The following statement is a report of the Committee on Philosophy in Education of the American Philosophical Association and was approved by the Association's Board of Officers in December, 1958. The Committee was composed of the following: C. W. Hendel, Chairman, H. G. Alexander, R. M. Chisholm, Max Fisch, Lucius Garvin, Douglas Morgan, A. E. Murphy, Charner Perry and R. G. Turnbull. Primary responsibility for the preparation of this report belonged to a subcommittee composed of Douglas N. Morgan, Chairman, (...) and Charner Perry. (shrink)

Increasingly, commissioners and providers of services for people with intellectual disabilities are turning to assistive technology and telecare as a potential solution to the problem of the increased demand for services, brought about by an expanding population of people with intellectual disabilities in the context of relatively static or diminishing resources. While there are numerous potential benefits of assistive technology and telecare, both for service providers and service users, there are also a number of ethical issues. The aim of this (...) paper is to raise these issues and to set them within the ethical framework proposed by Beauchamp and Childress. There is a need for a wider debate as a first step in the development of strategies to address the issues raised in the paper. (shrink)

Distributed cognition provides a theoretical framework for the analysis of data from socio-technical systems within a problem-solving framework. While the approach has been applied in tightly constrained activity domains, composed of well-structured problems and highly organised infrastructures, little is known about its use in other forms of activity systems. In this paper, we explore how distributed cognition could be applied in less well-constrained settings, with ill-structured problems and loosely organised resource sets, critically reflecting on this using data from a field (...) study. The findings suggest that the use of distributed cognition in an augmented form can be useful in the analysis of a wide range of activity systems in loosely coupled settings. (shrink)

Legal discourse consists largely of legal claims. These are claims that there is a legal obligation, legal right, or other legal incident. What is the meaning of “legal obligation”, “legal right” and so on in legal claims? The standard view among philosophers of law is that “legal” indicates that, according to law, there is a moral obligation, moral right or other moral incident. Here I set out a new objection to the standard view. The objection is that the standard view (...) is unable to account for the use of legal claims in some common forms of logically complex arguments. (shrink)

This chapter explores the notion of some philosophers that the self is a mysterious thing. It has been associated with a number of concepts, such as the souls of Christian theology, the essential natures that are passed along in reincarnation, or as noumenal objects that exist beyond normal space and time, outside of the causal realm, and join, in some Kantian way, with the primordial structure of reality to create the world as we know it. Hume, on the other hand, (...) believes that a bundle of perceptions serves as the self. This leads to two thoughts regarding the self: Hume’s bundle theory and the self as a person, thought of under the relation of identity. This chapter will delve into these two thoughts. (shrink)

In a celebrated article, published nearly a century ago, Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld endeavored to elucidate the various types of jural relations. Hohfeld’s scheme has been justly regarded as a seminal contribution to analytical jurisprudence, and has stimulated lively debate since. This Essay aims to refute one of Hohfeld’s fundamental and most influential theses: the axiom of right–duty correlativity. To do so, it employs the simplest refutation strategy in first-order logic, namely providing a valid counterexample. Part I discusses earlier attempts to (...) do likewise, and explains why they failed. For the most part, previous illustrations of ostensibly standalone rights or standalone duties neglected relevant parties who could owe the correlative duties or hold the correlative rights, respectively. Part II puts forward a simple argument: There are abstract duties in private law that ban certain types of conduct without reference to specific victims. Those duties are not necessarily correlative with rights, although their breach may generate secondary duties with corresponding rights. In particular, tort law allows plaintiffs to recover for harm caused by breach of duty that occurred before they acquired legal personality. This is tantamount to recognizing duties that are not correlative with rights, and therefore invalidates the correlativity axiom. (shrink)

When a caregiver names objects dominating a child’s view, the association between object and name is unambiguous and children are more likely to learn the object’s name. Children also learn to name things other than solid objects, including nonsolid substances like applesauce. However, it is unknown how caregivers structure linguistic and exploratory experiences with nonsolids to support learning. In this exploratory study of caregivers and children we compare caregiver-child free-play with novel solid objects and novel nonsolid substances to identify the (...) linguistic and exploratory experiences associated with children’s word learning. We found systematic differences in interactions with novel objects, such that children performed more manual actions on solids than nonsolids and caregivers named solids more than nonsolids. Additionally, there was less synchrony between caregivers’ naming and children’s manual and visual exploration of nonsolids than solids. Consistent with prior work, we found that synchronous naming was associated with accurate recognition of solid object names. However, naming synchrony was not associated with recognition of nonsolid substance names or with generalization. Together these findings, though exploratory, suggest the coordination of caregiver-child play can shape what children remember about novel word-object associations for solid objects, but not nonsolid substances. (shrink)

Alien species are considered by conservation biologists to be a major threat to biodiversity. To deal with alien invasions, they often recommend completely eradicating the invasive species. Animal rights groups have continually opposed eradication campaigns, sometimes successfully. One such case was the attempted eradication of the grey squirrel from northern Italy.

ABSTRACT The public controversy over sex‐based differentials in insurance pricing makes heavy use of terms like ‘fairness’ and ‘discrimination’; in particular, both sides argue that their position is the one dictated by considerations of fairness. Appeal to a basic principle of distributive justice shows that these differentials are not fair. Nevertheless, there is a substantial ethical argument to be made for the industry's status quo, based on the liberty of the low‐risk insurees. The paper considers an alternative reform proposal, with (...) a qualitatively different freedom cost; seven factors are then identified as useful in evaluating the trade‐off between the freedom and justice at stake in any questionable insurance classification variable. A brief concluding section attempts to generalise this analysis to provide a broad framework for the analysis of other discrimination issues. (shrink)

John Perry revisits the cast of characters of his classic _A Dialogue on Personal Identity_ and Immortality in this absorbing dialogue on consciousness. Cartesian dualism, property dualism, materialism, the problem of other minds... Gretchen Weirob and her friends tackle these topics and more in a dialogue that exemplifies the subtleties and intricacies of philosophical reflection. Once again, Perry’s ability to use straightforward language to discuss complex issues combines with his mastery of the dialogue form. A Bibliography lists relevant (...) further readings keyed to topics discussed in the dialogue. A helpful Glossary provides a handy reference to terms used in the dialogue and an array of clarifying examples. (shrink)

John Perry--author of the acclaimed _Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality_ --revisits Gretchen Weirob in this lively and absorbing dialogue on good, evil, and the existence of God. In the early part of the work, Gretchen and her friends consider whether evil provides a problem for those who believe in the perfection of God. As the discussion continues they consider the nature of human evil—whether, for example, fully rational actions can be intentionally evil. Recurring themes are the distinction between (...) natural evil and evil done by free agents, and the problems the Holocaust and other cases of genocide pose for conceptions of the universe as a basically good place, or humans as basically good beings. Once again, Perry’s ability to get at the heart of matters combines with his exemplary skill at writing the dialogue form. An ideal volume for introducing students to the subtleties and intricacies of philosophical discussion. (shrink)

John Perry offers a rethinking of Frege's seminal contributions to philosophy of language, which had a dominant influence on the subject in the twentieth century. He argues that Frege's famous doctrine of indirect reference led philosophers on a detour, and he advocates a move to a new framework for understanding reference.

John Perry connects the 'Johannine liberalism' of Locke and Rawls to contemporary debates about the place of religion in public life, arguing that disputes such as the culture wars must be understood theologically as fundamental conflicts of loyalty.

BackgroundThe sustained rise in negative mental health reports among university students is a source of continued global concern, and investigation continues into potential contributors to this rise. This includes the increased prevalence of risky sexual behaviors. Related is the increased prevalence of pornography use. Our study sought to explore the potential relationship between compulsive use of pornography and mental health in university students.MethodsOur sample consisted of university students from Franciscan University of Steubenville, Steubenville, Ohio. An anonymous survey was sent to (...) all students at the university over the age of 18. The survey was comprised of the following: demographic questions, questions on pornography use and perception, a modified version of the Compulsive Internet Use Scale assessing various factors associated with compulsive internet pornography use, questions assessing emotional and sexual states relative to pornography use, and the 21-question version of the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale.ResultsOur results indicate that 56.6% of those surveyed reported lifetime pornography use, with a significantly higher proportion of males than females reporting such use. The majority of students reported accessing pornography through internet-related technologies. Additionally, 17.0, 20.4, and 13.5% of students reported severe or extremely severe levels of depression, anxiety and stress, respectively, with compulsive pornography use significantly affecting all three mental health parameters in both sexes. Exploratory Factor Analysis identified three factors suggesting emotional coping, dependence and preoccupation for the mCIUS items and three factors reflecting interoceptive, impotent, and extrinsic characteristics for the EmSS items. Regression analysis indicated that various demographics, items pertaining to reduced control and social impairment, and other variables pertaining to pornography use predicted mental health outcomes. Faith, morals and personal motivation were the primary variables reported to help reduce pornography use.ConclusionOur analyses indicate a significant relationship between mental health and pornography use, including behaviors reflecting behavioral addictions, highlighting the necessity for a better understanding and consideration of the potential contribution of internet pornography to negative mental health among university students. (shrink)

Anticipation of future decisions can be important for individuals at risk for diseases to maintain autonomy over time. For future treatment and care decisions, advance care planning is accepted as a useful anticipation tool. As research with persons with dementia seems imperative to develop disease-modifying interventions, and with changing regulations regarding research participation in Germany, advance research directives (ARDs) are considered a solution to include persons with dementia in research in an ethically sound manner. However, little is known about what (...) affected people deem anticipatable.This contribution provides a critical reflection of the literature on anticipation and of a qualitative study on the assessment of ARDs with persons with cognitive impairment in Germany. It combines theoretical and empirical reflections to inform the ethical-legal discourse.Anticipation involves the conceptual separation of the past, the present, and the future. Including dimensions such as preparedness, injunction, and optimization helps in establishing a framework for anticipatory decision-making. While dementia may offer a window of time to consider future decisions, individual beliefs about dementia including fears about stigma, loss of personhood, and solitude strongly impact anticipating sentiments. Concepts of anticipation can be useful for the examination of uncertainty, changing values, needs, and preferences interconnected with the dementia trajectory and can serve as a means to make an uncertain future more concrete. However, fears of losing one’s autonomy in the process of dementia also apply to possibilities of anticipation as these require cognitive assessment and reassessment of an imagined future with dementia. (shrink)

As Federal Indian Law has evolved, many questions have been posed regarding tribal jurisdiction. This paper examines the jurisdiction tribes have over member Indians, non-member Indians, and non-member, non-Indians. It addresses the ethical challenge faced by tribal attorneys who represent non-member Indian clients in a manner that ultimately undermines tribal sovereignty.

When we mathematically model natural phenomena, there is an assumption concerning how the mathematics relates to the actual phenomenon in question. This assumption is that mathematics represents the world by “mapping on” to it. I argue that this assumption of mapping, or correspondence between mathematics and natural phenomena, breaks down when we ignore the fine grain of our physical concepts. I show that this is a source of trouble for the mapping account of applied mathematics, using the case of Prandtl’s (...) Boundary Layer solution to the Navier-Stokes equations. (shrink)

This lecture presents the text of the speech about English poet W.H. Auden delivered by the author at the 2008 Chatterton Lecture on Poetry held at the British Academy. It discusses criticism on Auden as a poet who somehow lived beyond the early moment of his greatest and most amazing genius, and as one whose latest effort represented nothing less than the decline and fall of modernist poetry. The lecture also provides a critical analysis of some of Auden's most notable (...) works. (shrink)

Drawing upon Leigh Schmidt’s work on the “spiritual left,” this article presents a genealogy of the Black Spiritual Left featuring W. E. B. Du Bois, Mary McLeod Bethune, Howard Thurman, and Black Lives Matter activists Opal Tometi and Patrisse Cullors. Black Spiritual Leftists are defined as Black figures who separated from or were not part of Black churches and yet took on a spiritual orientation important to their progressive activism. Their faith is Spiritual, but not necessarily religious. In its most (...) recent manifestation, the Black Spiritual Left argues—in opposition to some Black Church pastors—that defense of Black lives requires respect for marginalized Black women, LGBTQ, and criminalized Black men and boys. (shrink)

Drawing upon Leigh Schmidt’s work on the “spiritual left,” this article presents a genealogy of the Black Spiritual Left featuring W. E. B. Du Bois, Mary McLeod Bethune, Howard Thurman, and Black Lives Matter activists Opal Tometi and Patrisse Cullors. Black Spiritual Leftists are defined as Black figures who separated from or were not part of Black churches and yet took on a spiritual orientation important to their progressive activism. Their faith is Spiritual, but not necessarily religious. In its most (...) recent manifestation, the Black Spiritual Left argues—in opposition to some Black Church pastors—that defense of Black lives requires respect for marginalized Black women, LGBTQ, and criminalized Black men and boys. (shrink)

After briefly narrating the evolution of Western ethical reflections on suicide and euthanasia, I argue that because people have a prima facie right not to be killed, it is usually unethical to kill anyone who poses no imminent lethal threat to others or who has not committed a capital crime. But I’m also persuaded that some instances of mercy killing in war are not only morally justifiable, they can be more ethical than allowing someone to die in agony and distress (...) from their wounds. Thus I am uncomfortable with the current strict prohibition on battlefield euthanasia in the Geneva Conventions, which I think unfairly punishes some morally justified acts. But after considering the potential consequences of legalizing battlefield euthanasia, I conclude nonetheless that it is best to leave the prohibition intact. (shrink)

Books of extracts are often written to celebrate a reputation, or to move the reader to greater exertions by the words of the great. Neither of these reasons account for the assembling of this selection. For the traditional book of extracts reflects a traditional conception of their role, and below this conception is rejected. Rather, these extracts are thought of as working documents, selected to provide an occasion for critical and reflective thought, and presented in an order designed to ease (...) the strain we always feel when we think warily, acutely, and yet receptively. This book then deals with that contribution to discussion made by four past educationists. It is interesting to note how long their writing has formed part of the subject-matter of courses, without any precise ideas as to where they fit in the scheme of things. The layout of this introduction and the ordering of the following extracts is intended to try and help meet present needs. (shrink)

In this article I discuss a number of issues raised by Professor Jules Coleman's recent article "Beyond the Separability Thesis." I suggest, to begin, that Coleman is correct that neither a narrow nor a broad formulation of the separability thesis takes us very far towards a robust distinction between legal positivism and legal non-positivism. I then offer a brief discussion of methodology in jurisprudence, suggesting that Coleman accepts, at least implicitly, what I call a "methodology of necessary features." Since there (...) is reason to think that law possesses some necessary features that are non-normative (or descriptive) and others that are moral in character, the promise of this pluralistic approach is that it will be capable of bridging the gap between so-called "descriptive" and "normative" theories of methodology in jurisprudence. Since the distinction between descriptive and normative methodological theories is sometimes taken to be one way, among others, of drawing a distinction between positivist and non-positivist theories of law, the pluralism of the "methodology of necessary features" gives us yet one more reason to think that the distinction between positivism and non-positivism is not a theoretically fundamental one. Finally, I discuss Coleman's "moral semantics claim," i.e., the idea that "legal content is best understood as moral directives about what is to be done and who is to decide what is to be done." Coleman acknowledges that the moral semantics claim, when taken together with the social facts thesis, raises a well-known problem: How can social facts create content-independent reasons for action? I suggest that we are most likely to find the answer to this question by focusing directly on whether or not law's claimed moral authority—meaning its claimed moral power—can be justified, rather than by focusing indirectly, as many theorists have done, on the existence or non-existence of a general obligation to obey the law. (shrink)