© 2017. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.We present new observations of the low-mass companion to HD 984 taken with the Gemini Planet Imager as a part of the GPI Exoplanet Survey campaign. Images of HD 984 B were obtained in the J and H bands. Combined with archival epochs from 2012 and 2014, we fit the first orbit to the companion to find an 18 au orbit with a 68% confidence interval between 14 and 28 au, an eccentricity (...) of 0.18 with a 68% confidence interval between 0.05 and 0.47, and an inclination of 119°with a 68% confidence interval between 114°and 125°. To address the considerable spectral covariance in both spectra, we present a method of splitting the spectra into low and high frequencies to analyze the spectral structure at different spatial frequencies with the proper spectral noise correlation. Using the split spectra, we compare them to known spectral types using field brown dwarf and low-mass star spectra and find a best-fit match of a field gravity M6.5 ±1.5 spectral type with a corresponding temperature of K. Photometry of the companion yields a luminosity of log=2.88 ± 0.07 dex with DUSTY models. Mass estimates, again from DUSTY models, find an age-dependent mass of 34 ±1 to 95 ±4 M Jup. These results are consistent with previous measurements of the object. (shrink)

I examine social capital’s impact on financial reports. Based on the social capital literature, I predict that the quality of the financial reports is higher when a firm is headquartered in a region with high social capital. Consistent with this prediction, I find that the firms that are headquartered in this type of region in the USA have a lower probability of committing fraud by misrepresenting financial information. Further, I find that the firms in regions with high social capital have (...) lower levels of discretionary accruals and much more readable annual reports. (shrink)

Describes and evaluates a number of existing criticisms of the formal theory of rationality and subjective expected utility theory. The author argues that rationality is not a behavioural entity, but rather has to do with the relation between an agent's preferences and his or her behaviour.

When weighing up which inhaler to prescribe, a doctor may prioritise a patient’s preferences over the expected harms from the associated carbon emissions. Parker argues that this is wrong.1 Doctors have a pro-tanto duty to switch from a high-carbon metered-dose inhaler (MDI) to a low-carbon dry-powdered inhaler (DPI)—even though this provides no direct patient benefit—unless switching would undermine trust or significantly worsen a patient’s health. He goes on to state that even if DPIs are more expensive for the National Health (...) Service (NHS) then this is justified so long as it does not ‘significantly threaten’ the NHS’ ability to protect and promote health. This may appear to be a radical proposal, challenging the ethical principles of autonomy, health entitlements and justly distributed resources. However, we will claim that it is only radical in so far as one perceives (A) patient autonomy and healthcare entitlements as existing within a vacuum, unrelated to other foundational ethics concerns and (B) the health consequences of a given healthcare budget are limited solely to the designated recipients rather than all affected parties. Here, we test the claim that our responsibility for promoting patient autonomy …. (shrink)

Autumn Fiester's “Neglected Ends: Clinical Ethics Consultation and the Prospects for Closure” (2015) demonstrates how a focus on recommendations in clinical ethics consultations (CECs) can fail to...

BackgroundInstitutional review boards (IRBs) have been criticised for delays in approvals for research proposals due to inadequate or inexperienced IRB staff. Artificial intelligence (AI), particularly large language models (LLMs), has significant potential to assist IRB members in a prompt and efficient reviewing process.MethodsFour LLMs were evaluated on whether they could identify potential ethical issues in seven validated case studies. The LLMs were prompted with queries related to the proposed eligibility criteria of the study participants, vulnerability issues, information to be disclosed (...) in the informed consent document (ICD), risk–benefit assessment and justification of the use of a placebo. Another query was issued to the LLMs to generate ICDs for these case scenarios.ResultsAll four LLMs were able to provide answers to the queries related to all seven cases. In general, the responses were homogeneous with respect to most elements. LLMs performed suboptimally in identifying the suitability of the placebo arm, risk mitigation strategies and potential risks to study participants in certain case studies with a single prompt. However, multiple prompts led to better outputs in all of these domains. Each of the LLMs included all of the fundamental elements of the ICD for all case scenarios. Use of jargon, understatement of benefits and failure to state potential risks were the key observations in the AI-generated ICD.ConclusionIt is likely that LLMs can enhance the identification of potential ethical issues in clinical research, and they can be used as an adjunct tool to prescreen research proposals and enhance the efficiency of an IRB. (shrink)

Recently, Kit Fine's (1994) view that modal truths aretrue in virtue of,grounded in, orexplained byessentialist truths has been under attack. In what follows we offer two responses to the wave of criticism against his view. While the first response is pretty straightforward, the second is based on the distinction between, what we call,Reductive Finean EssentialismandNon-Reductive Finean Essentialism. Engaging the work of Bob Hale onNon-Reductive Finean Essentialism, we aim to show that the arguments against Fine's view are unconvincing, while we acknowledge (...) the presence of a deep standoff between the two views. (shrink)

Images are an important source of data and information in the agricultural sciences. The use of image-processing techniques has outstanding implications for the analysis of agricultural operations. Fruit and vegetable classification is one of the major applications that can be utilized in supermarkets to automatically detect the kinds of fruits or vegetables purchased by customers and to determine the appropriate price for the produce. Training on-site is the underlying prerequisite for this type of arrangement, which is generally caused by the (...) users having little or no expert knowledge. We explored various methods used in addressing fruit and vegetable classification and in recognizing fruit disease problems. We surveyed image-processing approaches used for fruit disease detection, segmentation and classification. We also compared the performance of state-of-the-art methods under two scenarios, i.e., fruit and vegetable classification and fruit disease classification. The methods surveyed in this paper are able to distinguish among different kinds of fruits and their diseases that are very alike in color and texture. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to develop the theory of groups definable in the p-adic field ${{\mathbb {Q}}_p}$, with “definable f-generics” in the sense of an ambient saturated elementary extension of ${{\mathbb {Q}}_p}$. We call such groups definable f-generic groups.So, by a “definable f-generic” or $dfg$ group we mean a definable group in a saturated model with a global f-generic type which is definable over a small model. In the present context the group is definable over ${{\mathbb {Q}}_p}$, and (...) the small model will be ${{\mathbb {Q}}_p}$ itself. The notion of a $\mathrm {dfg}$ group is dual, or rather opposite to that of an $\operatorname {\mathrm {fsg}}$ group (group with “finitely satisfiable generics”) and is a useful tool to describe the analogue of torsion-free o-minimal groups in the p-adic context.In the current paper our group will be definable over ${{\mathbb {Q}}_p}$ in an ambient saturated elementary extension $\mathbb {K}$ of ${{\mathbb {Q}}_p}$, so as to make sense of the notions of f-generic type, etc. In this paper we will show that every definable f-generic group definable in ${{\mathbb {Q}}_p}$ is virtually isomorphic to a finite index subgroup of a trigonalizable algebraic group over ${{\mathbb {Q}}_p}$. This is analogous to the o-minimal context, where every connected torsion-free group definable in $\mathbb {R}$ is isomorphic to a trigonalizable algebraic group [5, Lemma 3.4]. We will also show that every open definable f-generic subgroup of a definable f-generic group has finite index, and every f-generic type of a definable f-generic group is almost periodic, which gives a positive answer to the problem raised in [28] of whether f-generic types coincide with almost periodic types in the p-adic case. (shrink)

This essay argues that important development and natural resource management initiatives that seek to expand meaningful participation by rural communities directly affected by such ventures can be usefully examined as democratic technologies. Drawing upon nearly two decades of experience designing, implementing, and researching forest co-management programs in India, the essay examines the analogous practices through which democracy and forest management science become contested regulatory ideals while creating the deliberative spaces in which post-Habermasian public spheres can be constructed. The analysis of (...) disciplinary tendencies, bureaucratic transition, and emerging solidarities among historically marginalised groups responding to the performance of democracy and scientific forest management is used to offer revisions to the more sweeping critiques of technology as fundamentally anti-democratic. (shrink)

Transcription is a fundamental cellular process and the first step in gene regulation. Although RNA polymerase (RNAP) is highly processive, in growing cells the progression of transcription can be hindered by obstacles on the DNA template, such as damaged DNA. The authors recent findings highlight a trade‐off between transcription fidelity and DNA break repair. While a lot of work has focused on the interaction between transcription and nucleotide excision repair, less is known about how transcription influences the repair of DNA (...) breaks. The authors suggest that when the cell experiences stress from DNA breaks, the control of RNAP processivity affects the balance between preserving transcription integrity and DNA repair. Here, how the conflict between transcription and DNA double‐strand break (DSB) repair threatens the integrity of both RNA and DNA are discussed. In reviewing this field, the authors speculate on cellular paradigms where this equilibrium is well sustained, and instances where the maintenance of transcription fidelity is favored over genome stability. (shrink)

Approximately two billion people lack access to medicines globally. People living with HIV, cancer patients, those suffering from tuberculosis or malaria, and other populations in desperate need of life-saving medicines are increasingly unable to access existing preventative, curative, and life-prolonging treatments. In many cases, treatment may be unavailable or inaccessible for even some of the most common and readily treatable health concerns, such as hypertension. In the developing world, many of the factors that contribute to making the world’s most vulnerable (...) and marginalized populations particularly susceptible to illness also operate to restrict their access to medicines. As a result of dramatic economic inequities and widespread poverty, it is not profitable for most originator pharmaceutical companies to develop new medicines for sale in developing markets or to lower the cost of existing drugs so that they are affordable for the majority of these populations. (shrink)

We introduce and study the notions of a PAC-substructure of a stable structure, and a bounded substructure of an arbitrary substructure, generalizing [10]. We give precise definitions and equivalences, saying what it means for properties such as PAC to be first order, study some examples (such as differentially closed fields) in detail, relate the material to generic automorphisms, and generalize a "descent theorem" for pseudo-algebraically closed fields to the stable context. We also point out that the elementary invariants of pseudo-algebraically (...) closed fields from [6] are also valid for pseudo-differentially closed fields. (shrink)

Sen’s capabilities approach offers a radical generalisation of the conventional approach to welfare economics. It has been highly influential in development and many researchers are now beginning to explore its implications for health care. This paper contributes to the emerging debate by discussing two examples of such applications: first, at the individual decision making level, namely the right to die, and second, at the social choice level. For the first application, which draws on Nussbaum’s list of capabilities, it is argued (...) that many capabilities are ambiguously or indirectly related to the right to die, but the ability to form a concept of the good life and plan one’s own life provides a direct justification for such a right. In the second application, the focus is specifically on healthcare rationing and it is argued that, although not committed to age based rationing, the capabilities approach provides a more natural justification of age related access to health care than the fair innings argument, which is often used to justify the alleged ageism inherent in quality adjusted life years maximisation. (shrink)

In this article we survey Ásta’s (2008, 2013) conferralist account of essence, which provides a broadly anti-realist picture of essence. We first offer some thoughts on the difference between realist and anti-realist accounts of essence in general. Then we present Ásta’s notion of a conferred property and sketch her conferralist account of essence. Finally, we examine some critical questions conferralism faces.

There are three theories in the epistemology of modality that have received sustained attention over the past 20 years: conceivability-theory, counterfactual-theory, and deduction-theory. In this paper we argue that all three face what we call the problem of modal epistemic friction. One consequence of the problem is that for any of the three accounts to yield modal knowledge, the account must provide an epistemology of essence. We discuss an attempt to fend off the problem within the context of the internalism (...) versus externalism debate about epistemic justification. We then investigate the effects that the PMEF has on reductive and non-reductive theories of the relation between essence and modality. (shrink)

An explicit formal-ontological representation of entities existing at multiple levels of granularity is an urgent requirement for biomedical information processing. We discuss some fundamental principles which can form a basis for such a representation. We also comment on some of the implicit treatments of granularity in currently available ontologies and terminologies (GO, FMA, SNOMED CT).

This paper uses Castoriadis’s idea of the imaginary and Agnes Heller’s conceptualization of modernity as an interplay of the historical and technological imaginations, to examine how modernity engages with the idea of development to foster a particular vision of the future as always in progression. It uses the examples of Tasmania and Kerala, in Australia and India, respectively, as case studies which challenge the dominant perception of development as a linear and progressive ideology of growth that translates into ‘the development (...) of productive forces and the rational mastery of nature’. The case studies also show how, despite the radically different paths through modernity, it is the same logics of modernity that are at work in both locations. (shrink)

Ancient and modern cosmopolitanisms -- The rise of economic individualism and the development of the commercial community -- Martha Nussbaum and the individual at the center: liberties and capabilities, theory and practice -- Jürgen Habermas and the individual in community: freedom and responsibility in the nation-state -- David Held: freedom and accountability beyond the nation-state -- Cosmopolitan virtues for a modern world -- Cosmopolitanism law -- Conclusion: our futures, together.

This study sought to identify content on the federal budget, national debt, and budget deficit in the 12 most commonly used high school and college-leveleconomics textbooks. Our systematic review of these sources leads to two key findings: (1) Textbooks are similar in how they represent fiscal policy yet treatthe federal budget, deficit, and debt differently across the sample, and (2) Textbooks treat the federal budget, budget deficit, and national debt as theoretical, without an examination of values and systemic electoral and (...) budgetary politics. These findings lead us to argue that curriculum is needed that will permit a careful examination of how everyday citizens can gain knowledge, acknowledge values, and work towards a reasoned and realitybased view of what is at stake with regard to these issues in the 21st Century. (shrink)

_Disaster Psychiatry: Intervening When Nightmares Come True_ captures the state of disaster psychiatry in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. This emergent psychiatric specialty, which is increasingly separated from trauma and grief psychiatry on one hand and military psychiatry on the other, provides psychotherapeutic assistance to victims during, and in the weeks and months following, major disasters. As such, disaster psychiatrists must operate in the widely varying locales in which natural and man-made disasters occur, and they (...) must establish their role among the chaotic array of organizations involved in direct disaster response. Editors Anand Pandya and Craig Katz have captured the challenge and promise of disaster psychiatry through first-person narratives. We hear from psychiatrists who have encountered disasters at various stages of their career and in widely varying social, political, and personal contexts. Accounts of psychiatric involvement with adults and children during and after 9/11 have understandable pride of place in this collection. But they are balanced by richly informative narratives about other domestic and international disasters. Fraught with the drama attendant to the events they describe, these essays delineate the dizzying array of challenges that confront the disaster psychiatrist. They range from the intense emotional responses that are part of the aftermath of any disaster, to the need to legitimize a psychiatric presence within diverse cultural and medical contexts, to the subtle task of providing therapeutic boundaries at a time when all rules seem to be suspended. Special attention is given to the daunting task of working with children whose parents' are disaster victims. What emerges from these testimonies is compelling documentation of skilled and compassionate psychiatrists at the outer limits of their specialty, pursuing their calling into uncharted realms of therapeutic engagement. (shrink)

"A rough spade for a rugged landscape" : on savage selves and more civil places -- "What remains of the harvest when the fence grazes the crop?" : on the proper violence of agrarian citizenship -- "The life of the thief leaves the belly always boiling" : on the nature and restraint of the criminal animal -- "Millets sown yield millets, evil sown yields evil" : on the moral returns of agrarian toil -- "Let the water for the paddy also (...) irrigate the grass" : on the sympathies of an aqueous self. (shrink)

Thomas Holden presents a fascinating study of theories of matter in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. These theories were plagued by a complex of interrelated problems concerning matter's divisibility, composition, and internal architecture. Is any material body infinitely divisible? Must we posit atoms or elemental minima from which bodies are ultimately composed? Are the parts of material bodies themselves material concreta? Or are they merely potentialities or possible existents? Questions such as these -- and the press of subtler questions hidden (...) in their amibiguities -- deeply unsettled philosophers of the early modern period. They seemed to expose serious paradoxes in the new world view pioneered by Galileo, Descartes, and Newton. The new science's account of a fundamentally geometrical Creation, mathematicizable and intelligible to the human inquirer, seemed to be under threat. This was a great scandal, and the philosophers of the period accordingly made various attempts to disarm the paradoxes. All the great figures address the issue: most famously Leibniz and Kant, but also Galileo, Hobbes, Newton, Hume, and Reid, in addition to a crowd of lesser figures. Thomas Holden offers a brilliant synthesis of these discussions and presents his own overarching interpretation of the controversy, locating the underlying problem in the tension between the early moderns' account of material parts on the one hand and the program of the geometrization of nature on the other. (shrink)

“Radical The paper provides a survey of arguments for claims that rational agents should have transitive preferences and argues that they are not valid. The presentation is based on a chapter for the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Rational and Social Choice.

This volume provides an overview of issues arising in work on the foundations of decision theory and social choice. The collection will be of particular value to researchers in economics with interests in utility or welfare, but also to any social scientist or philosopher interested in theories of rationality or group decision-making.

Breaking from prevailing conceptions of ethics and morality as matters of moral rule or principle, this volume calls attention to ethical life in South Asia—the moral dispositions at work in lived experience, and the embodied practices of ethical engagement through which such dispositions may be cultivated and shared. Taking up themes such as the transmission of tradition, ethical engagements with modernity, ethical practices of the self, and moral relations between self and others, this volume puts South Asian traditions of ethical (...) life into conversation with the Aristotelian, Christian, and liberal traditions that have been so consequential for ethical life in the West. (shrink)

The Norwegian Oil Fund (‘Government Pension Fund – Global’) is worth over NOK 10.6 trillion (USD 1.15 USD trillion)1 making it the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world (Norges Bank Investment...

ABSTRACTApproach-avoidance training has been shown to be effective in both clinical and laboratory research. However, some studies have failed to show the effects of AAT. Therefore, finding m...

The National Cancer Institute’s Thesaurus (NCIT) has been created with the goal of providing a controlled vocabulary which can be used by specialists in the various sub-domains of oncology. It is intended to be used for purposes of annotation in ways designed to ensure the integration of data and information deriving from these various sub-domains, and thus to support more powerful cross-domain inferences. In order to evaluate its suitability for this purpose, we examined the NCIT’s treatment of the kinds of (...) entities which are fundamental to an ontology of colon carcinoma. We here describe the problems we uncovered concerning classification, synonymy, relations and definitions, and we draw conclusions for the work needed to establish the NCIT as a reference ontology for the cancer domain in the future. (shrink)

The Unified Medical Language System and the Gene Ontology are among the most widely used terminology resources in the biomedical domain. However, when we evaluate them in the light of simple principles for wellconstructed ontologies we find a number of characteristic inadequacies. Employing the theory of granular partitions, a new approach to the understanding of ontologies and of the relationships ontologies bear to instances in reality, we provide an application of this theory in relation to an example drawn from the (...) context of the pathophysiology of hypertension. This exercise is designed to demonstrate how, by taking ontological principles into account we can create more realistic biomedical ontologies which will also bring advantages in terms of efficiency and robustness of associated software applications. (shrink)

The hard problem of consciousness arises in most incarnations of present day physicalism. Why should certain physical processes necessarily be accompanied by experience? One possible response is that physicalism itself should be modified in order to accommodate experience: But, modified how? In the present work, we investigate whether an ontology derived from quantum field theory can help resolve the hard problem. We begin with the assumption that experience cannot exist without being accompanied by a subject of experience (SoE). While people (...) well versed in Indian philosophy will not find that statement problematic, it is still controversial in the analytic tradition. Luckily for us, Strawson has elaborately defended the notion of a thin subject—an SoE which exhibits a phenomenal unity with different types of content (sensations, thoughts etc.) occurring during its temporal existence. Next, following Stoljar, we invoke our ignorance of the true physical as the reason for the explanatory gap between present day physical processes (events, properties) and experience. We are therefore permitted to conceive of thin subjects as related to the physical via a new, yet to be elaborated relation. While this is difficult to conceive under most varieties of classical physics, we argue that this may not be the case under certain quantum field theory ontologies. We suggest that the relation binding an SoE to the physical is akin to the relation between a particle and (quantum) field. In quantum field theory, a particle is conceived as a coherent excitation of a field. Under the right set of circumstances, a particle coalesces out of a field and dissipates. We suggest that an SoE can be conceived as akin to a particle—a SelfOn—which coalesces out of physical fields, persists for a brief period of time and then dissipates in a manner similar to the phenomenology of a thin subject. Experiences are physical properties of selfons with the constraint (specified by a similarity metric) that selfons belonging to the same natural kind will have similar experiences. While it is odd at first glance to conceive of subjects of experience as akin to particles, the spatial and temporal unity exhibited by particles as opposed to fields and the expectation that selfons are new kinds of particles, paves the way for cementing this notion. Next, we detail the various no-go theorems in most versions of quantum field theory and discuss their impact on the existence of selfons. Finally, we argue that the time is ripe for a rejuvenated Indian philosophy to begin tackling the three-way relationship between SoEs (which may become equivalent to jivas in certain Indian frameworks), phenomenal content and the physical world. With analytic philosophy still struggling to come to terms with the complex worlds of quantum field theory and with the relative inexperience of the western world in arguing the jiva-world relation, there is a clear and present opportunity for Indian philosophy to make a worldcentric contribution to the hard problem of experience. (shrink)

Business Ethics is a three-volume collection which provides students and researchers with the historically most important of the classic articles in business ethics, as well as the best of the contemporary and trendsetting work in this burgeoning area. The collection will serve as a sourcebook for academics and researchers entering or already established in the area of business ethics. The editors bring together a breadth of articles across business ethics, with an orientation that is diverse as well as international. The (...) three volumes are well organized to focus on the main topics in business ethics and are divided into corporate social responsibility , the employee-employer relationship, and distributive justice & dilemmas. Courses and research programmes in business ethics have multiplied in recent years alongside a growing concern with the ethical practices of business. This multi-volumed work provides a focused and well-balanced reference for academics and their students to acquire a thorough understanding of this now central topic. The SAGE Library in Business and Management is a first-class series of major works that brings together the most influential and field-defining articles, both classical and contemporary, in a number of key areas of research and inquiry in business and management. Each multi-volume set represents a collection of the essential published works collated from the foremost publications in the field by an Editor or Editorial Team of renowned international stature. They also include a full introduction, presenting a rationale for the selection and mapping out the discipline’s past, present and likely future. This series is designed to be a ‘gold standard’ for university libraries throughout the world with a programme or interest in business and management studies. (shrink)

The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health provides a classification of human bodily functions, which, while exhibiting non-conformance to many formal ontological principles, provides an insight into which basic functions such a classification should include. Its evaluation is an important first step towards such an adequate ontology of this domain. Presented at the 13th Annual North American WHO Collaborating Center Conference on the ICF, 2007.

(No abstract is available for this citation).

Writing about the history and politics of epidemics and pandemics requires stepping into a historiography that is expansive, transnational, and slotted into specific historical periods. This essay considers the main debates in this expansive historiography and highlights the strengths and limitations of dominant historiographical approaches to the study of epidemics and pandemics. This essay also interrogates the framing of three thematic periods, or categories, commonly identified by historians and social scientists in analyses of epidemics and pandemics: categories of “colonial health,” (...) “international health,” and “global health.” As this essay underscores, scholarship often analyzes epidemics and pandemics through overlapping and complex historical temporalities involving colonization, decolonization, and globalization. However, this approach is often constrained by the limitations of existing archives and the overwhelming focus of published scholarship on dominant institutions, scientific and political figures, and specific disease outbreaks that are commonly associated with categories of “colonial health,” “international health,” and “global health” from the late nineteenth to the present. As a result, scholarship may include linear narratives that flatten or generalize the legacies of epidemics and pandemics. The links between pathogens and pathologies are not linear, however, and colonial structures of power, disease tropes, and surveillance doctrines often persist across time and space. This essay ultimately seeks to challenge and complicate these dominant framings and categories from within. This approach highlights the connectedness—and complex continuities and discontinuities—in the political, economic, social, and scientific perceptions of and approaches to epidemic and pandemic risks. (shrink)

This volume represents an advanced, comprehensive state-of-the-art survey of the field of rational agency as it stands today. It covers the philosophical foundations of rational agency, logical and decision-theoretic approaches to rational agency, multi-agent aspects of rational agency and a number of approaches to programming rational agents. It will be of interest to researchers in logic, mainstream computer science, the philosophy of rational action and agency, and economics.