The general notion of relative freedom is introduced. It is a kind of freedom that is observed everywhere in nature. In biology, incomplete knowledge is defined for all organisms. They cope with the problem by Popper’s trial-and-error processes. One source of their success is the relative freedom of choice from the basic option ranges: mutations, motions and neuron connections. After the conjecture is adopted that communicability can be used as a criterion of consciousness, free will is defined as a conscious (...) version of relative freedom. The resulting notion is logically self-consistent and it describes an observable phenomenon that agrees with our experience. (shrink)
The main objective of this paper was to examine the involuntary nature of music-evoked autobiographical memories. For this purpose, young adults, older adults, and patients with a clinical diagnosis of probable Alzheimer’s disease were asked to remember autobiographical events in two conditions: after being exposed to their own chosen music, and in silence. Compared to memories evoked in silence, memories evoked in the “Music” condition were found to be more specific, accompanied by more emotional content and impact on mood, and (...) retrieved faster. In addition, these memories engaged less executive processes. Thus, with all these characteristics and the fact that they are activated by a perceptual cue , music-evoked autobiographic memories have all the features to be considered as involuntary memories. Our paper reveals several characteristics of music-evoked autobiographical memories in AD patients and offers a theoretical background for this phenomenon. (shrink)
The democratic age -- A brief history of human liberty -- The twisted path -- Illiberal democracy -- The Islamic exception -- Too much of a good thing -- The death of authority -- The way out -- The 51st state.
In this essay I try to determine the extent to which it is possible to conceive robots and organisms as analogous entities. After a cursory preamble on the long history of epistemological connections between machines and organisms I focus on Norbert Wiener’s cybernetics, where the analogy between modern machines and organisms is introduced most explicitly. The analysis of issues pertaining to the cybernetic interpretation of the analogy serves then as a basis for a critical assessment of its reprise in contemporary (...) robotics and AI, where the line between organisms and technologies gets even more blurred. In brief, I argue for the necessity of defining the extent to which the analogy between robots and organisms applies in order not only to harness its heuristic potential, but also to keep track of the pivotal differences that distinguish the two classes of entities. Finally, I discuss how the ordinary use of language and the peculiar status of the idea of robot obstruct awareness of the differences between robots and organisms. (shrink)
In 2007 new meat inspection regulations standardizing meat production throughout the Province of British Columbia (BC), Canada came into effect moving food for local consumption closer to continentally harmonized production standards. Critics argue that the economic viability of small-scale livestock farmers is threatened. Small-scale women farmers are central to the creation of alternative local agri-food networks in BC. Using gender as an analytically enabling tool this paper argues that public food-safety regulation can create the conditions for the dominance of private (...) agri-food governance. The discursive creation of a feminized privileged consumer legitimates much non-democratic agri-food governance. The paper argues that more just and ecologically sustainable futures require a ‘gender troubling’ of agri-food governance in which the privileged identity of the food consumer is reconstructed as global citizen in the context of the food sovereignty of the farmers who produce their food. (shrink)
Public policy issues around access to networked information are explored and examined. Long viewed as the quintessential public good, information has evolved into a critically important market commodity in little more than a generation. New technologies and a political climate in which the meaning of universal access to information is no longer commonly understood and in which its importance is no longer taken for granted pose significant challenges for American society. Libraries, as information commons, offer the means of meeting those (...) challenges. Historical, economical, and professional factors that shape the conflict are described and discussed. (shrink)
The author argues that behind the apparent randomness of interactions between cabdrivers and their fares in Warsaw is a temporal structure. To capture this temporal structure, the author introduces the notion of a linking ecology. He argues that the Warsaw taxi market is a linking ecology, which is structured by religious time, state time, and family time. The author then focuses on waiting time, arguing that it too structures the interactions between cabdrivers and their fares. The author makes a processual (...) argument that waiting time has been restructured by the postsocialist transformation, but only because this transformation has been continually encoded through the defensive and adaptive strategies of cabdrivers responding to the repetitive and unique events located across the social space. The author concludes with the claim that linking ecologies are a recurring structure of the social process and that they form the backbone of globalization, financialization, and mediatization. (shrink)
We explain here how the natural selection theory of people's mutualistic sense of fairness and the biofunctional theory of human understanding are made for each other. We welcome the stage that the target article has already set for this convergence, and invite the authors to consider moving the two independently developed approaches a step closer to the natural selection level of biofunctional understanding.
Mu‘allâkâtların, tefsir, nahiv, sarf ve dil ilimlerindeki önemli rolünün yanı sıra Arap dili ve edebiyatı âleminde de yüksek ve önemli bir konumu bulunmaktadır. Cahiliye devri müfredatlarının pek çoğunu kapsamasından ötürü dil ve edebiyat erbabı ona önem atfetmiştir. Onlardan biri de, ‘Şerhü’l-Kasâ’idi’l-السبع’ adıyla el-Muâ‘llekât’a yaptığı şerhiyle Ebu Bekir Muhammed bin el-Kasım bin Beşar bin el-Anbari. Bu eserinde pek çok nahiv, zamirin aidiyeti, harflerin manası, zarf ile car ve mecrûrun bağlı olduğu yerin belirlenmesi, müfredatlarıni‘râbı, illetler arasındaki üstünlükler, kıyasa ve luğatta asıl olana, (...) kelimenin irabını belirlemede bazı seslerin etki nedenlerine, sarf, lügat, belağat, eleştiri vb. konulara değinmektedir. Bu itibarla bu araştırma, betimsel analitik yöntemini kullanarak et-Anbari’ninMu‘allâkât şerhindeki nahiv yöntemini, Arap nahiv ilminde iki önemli konu olan kıyas ve ta‘lîl ile ilgili duruşunu açıklayarak değerlendirmeyi hedeflemektedir. (shrink)
Although the integrative memory model proposed by Bastin et al. is interesting, particularly for Alzheimer's disease, it may benefit from incorporating the subjective experience of recollection. We therefore offer complementary lines of interpretation to explain how recollection and familiarity in Alzheimer's disease can be dissociated based not only on accounts of their neural correlates but, critically, on the subjective experience of memory in patients.
Credit risk analysis is important for financial institutions that provide loans to businesses and individuals. Banks and other financial institutions generally face risks that are mostly of financial nature; hence, such institutions must balance risks and returns. Analyzing or determining risk levels involved in credits, finances, and loans can be performed through predictive analytic techniques, such as an extreme learning machine. In this work, we empirically evaluated the performance of an ELM for credit risk problems and compared it to naive (...) Bayes, decision tree, and multi-layer perceptron. The comparison was conducted on the basis of a German credit risk dataset. The simulation results of statistical measures of performance corroborated that the ELM outperforms naive Bayes, decision tree, and MLP classifiers by 1.8248%, 16.6346%, and 5.8934%, respectively. (shrink)
Science, technology, engineering and mathematics is a comprehensive approach that integrates those disciplines into a cohesive learning paradigm. Applying this approach is very important to...
Mu‘allâkâtların, tefsir, nahiv, sarf ve dil ilimlerindeki önemli rolünün yanı sıra Arap dili ve edebiyatı âleminde de yüksek ve önemli bir konumu bulunmaktadır. Cahiliye devri müfredatlarının pek çoğunu kapsamasından ötürü dil ve edebiyat erbabı ona önem atfetmiştir. Onlardan biri de, ‘Şerhü’l-Kasâ’idi’l-السبع’ adıyla el-Muâ‘llekât’a yaptığı şerhiyle Ebu Bekir Muhammed bin el-Kasım bin Beşar bin el-Anbari. Bu eserinde pek çok nahiv, zamirin aidiyeti, harflerin manası, zarf ile car ve mecrûrun bağlı olduğu yerin belirlenmesi, müfredatlarıni‘râbı, illetler arasındaki üstünlükler, kıyasa ve luğatta asıl olana, (...) kelimenin irabını belirlemede bazı seslerin etki nedenlerine, sarf, lügat, belağat, eleştiri vb. konulara değinmektedir. Bu itibarla bu araştırma, betimsel analitik yöntemini kullanarak et-Anbari’ninMu‘allâkât şerhindeki nahiv yöntemini, Arap nahiv ilminde iki önemli konu olan kıyas ve ta‘lîl ile ilgili duruşunu açıklayarak değerlendirmeyi hedeflemektedir. (shrink)
In un periodo in cui la storiografia filosofica italiana andava ridefinendo la sua identità, dopo la crisi dell’"egemonia" crociana e gentiliana, quella di Valerio Verra è stata senz’altro una delle figure più notevoli. A lui si deve infatti la ridefinizione di alcune tra le più importanti categorie storiografiche, e l’idea che la ricerca storica sia indispensabile per riconoscere, al di là di preconcetti teorici, la natura e i compiti della filosofia contemporanea. A due anni dalla morte, queste pagine ne analizzano (...) l’attività di storico della filosofia nel contesto in cui si è formata, mettendone in evidenza tematiche, metodi e criteri. (shrink)
The importance of the Treatise on equations by Sharaf al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī has been brought to our attention by R. Rashed, who underlined the analytical aspects of this essentially algebraic work. Following Rashed, this article concentrates on one of these analytical concepts, namely the maximum of a polynomial expression f of degree 3. The purpose is to clarify the techniques that led al-Ṭūsī, when computing the maximum of f, to systematically display algebraic equations equivalent to f = 0. By demonstrating that (...) al-Ṭūsī's essentially algebraic proofs were also based on analytical procedures, we show that the presence of these equations was not fortuitous, but resulted from a correct understanding of the maximum of f. The accompanying geometrical representations were primarily for illustration. L'importance du Traité des équations de Sharaf al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī, a été mise en évidence par les travaux de R. Rashed, qui ont souligné les aspects analytiques de cette œuvre essentiellement algébrique. Parmi les notions analytiques qui figurent dans le Traité d'al-Ṭūsī, nous évoquerons uniquement celle du maximum d'une expression polynomiale du 3 e degré, f. La présente étude pourrait apporter une contribution à une problématique posée par R. Rashed: élucider les moyens et les techniques qui, lors du calcul du maximum, auraient conduit al-Ṭūsī à mettre systématiquement en valeur des équations équivalentes à fʹ = 0. Notre étude confirme que la présence de telles expressions n'est pas fortuite; elle découle d'une conception correcte du maximum de f. À cet effet, nous montrons que si les démonstrations utilisées par al-Ṭūsī sont essentiellement algébriques, elles s'appuient sur des procédés analytiques; les représentations géométriques qui les accompagnent constituent surtout des moyens de visualisation. (shrink)
This book presents a mathematical programming approach to the analysis of production frontiers and efficiency measurement. The authors construct a variety of production frontiers, and by measuring distances to them are able to develop a model of efficient producer behaviour and a taxonomy of possible types of departure from efficiency in various environments. Linear programming is used as an analytical and computational technique in order to accomplish this. The approach developed is then applied to modelling producer behaviour. By focusing on (...) the empirical relevance of production frontiers and distances to them, and applying linear programming techniques to artificial data to illustrate the type of information they can generate, this book provides a unique study in applied production analysis. It will be of interest to scholars and students of economics and operations research, and analysts in business and government. (shrink)
The present essay questions at the same time it acknowledges the historical and logical conditions of existence of painting as an expanded field. The expanded field of painting is presented using a Greimas rectangle that incorporates the notions of uniqueness/reproducibility, multidimensional affine spaces, and history. The essay provides an understanding of the discipline and of the art-works that make it possible to locate different artistic manifestations taking place today in society.
Teachable Moments will look at various pieces of the vocation of what it means to be a teacher in our school buildings today - through all of the most impactful reforms on the fabric of American education.
The analysis of the status of the constitutive metaphor in science is considered along with the examination of some principal models of metaphors among biology, medicine and neurosciences. This allows to highlight the two ages of the scientific metaphor, the crossover between metaphors and models, and some open questions about the hidden ideologies concealed in the scientific theoretical terms that come from the use of metaphors.
