The theme of the third annual Spring workshop of the HUPO-PSI was proteomics and beyond and its underlying goal was to reach beyond the boundaries of the proteomics community to interact with groups working on the similar issues of developing interchange standards and minimal reporting requirements. Significant developments in many of the HUPO-PSI XML interchange formats, minimal reporting requirements and accompanying controlled vocabularies were reported, with many of these now feeding into the broader efforts of the Functional Genomics Experiment data (...) model and Functional Genomics Ontology ontologies. (shrink)

Throughout the biological and biomedical sciences there is a growing need for, prescriptive ‘minimum information’ (MI) checklists specifying the key information to include when reporting experimental results are beginning to find favor with experimentalists, analysts, publishers and funders alike. Such checklists aim to ensure that methods, data, analyses and results are described to a level sufficient to support the unambiguous interpretation, sophisticated search, reanalysis and experimental corroboration and reuse of data sets, facilitating the extraction of maximum value from data sets (...) them. However, such ‘minimum information’ MI checklists are usually developed independently by groups working within representatives of particular biologically- or technologically-delineated domains. Consequently, an overview of the full range of checklists can be difficult to establish without intensive searching, and even tracking thetheir individual evolution of single checklists may be a non-trivial exercise. Checklists are also inevitably partially redundant when measured one against another, and where they overlap is far from straightforward. Furthermore, conflicts in scope and arbitrary decisions on wording and sub-structuring make integration difficult. This presents inhibit their use in combination. Overall, these issues present significant difficulties for the users of checklists, especially those in areas such as systems biology, who routinely combine information from multiple biological domains and technology platforms. To address all of the above, we present MIBBI (Minimum Information for Biological and Biomedical Investigations); a web-based communal resource for such checklists, designed to act as a ‘one-stop shop’ for those exploring the range of extant checklist projects, and to foster collaborative, integrative development and ultimately promote gradual integration of checklists. (shrink)

Combining testimonial reports from independent and partially reliable information sources is an important epistemological problem of uncertain reasoning. Within the framework of Dempster–Shafer theory, we propose a general model of partially reliable sources, which includes several previously known results as special cases. The paper reproduces these results on the basis of a comprehensive model taxonomy. This gives a number of new insights and thereby contributes to a better understanding of this important application of reasoning with uncertain and incomplete information.

Research seeking a scientific foundation for the theory of art appreciation has raised controversies at the intersection of the social and cognitive sciences. Though equally relevant to a scientific inquiry into art appreciation, psychological and historical approaches to art developed independently and lack a common core of theoretical principles. Historicists argue that psychological and brain sciences ignore the fact that artworks are artifacts produced and appreciated in the context of unique historical situations and artistic intentions. After revealing flaws in the (...) psychological approach, we introduce a psycho-historical framework for the science of art appreciation. This framework demonstrates that a science of art appreciation must investigate how appreciators process causal and historical information to classify and explain their psychological responses to art. Expanding on research about the cognition of artifacts, we identify three modes of appreciation: basic exposure to an artwork, the artistic design stance, and artistic understanding. The artistic design stance, a requisite for artistic understanding, is an attitude whereby appreciators develop their sensitivity to art-historical contexts by means of inquiries into the making, authorship, and functions of artworks. We defend and illustrate the psycho-historical framework with an analysis of existing studies on art appreciation in empirical aesthetics. Finally, we argue that the fluency theory of aesthetic pleasure can be amended to meet the requirements of the framework. We conclude that scientists can tackle fundamental questions about the nature and appreciation of art within the psycho-historical framework. (shrink)

In a world that has become increasingly dependent upon employee ownership, commitment, and initiative, organizations need leaders who can inspire their␣employees and motivate them individually. Love, forgiveness, and trust are critical values of today’s organization leaders who are committed to maximizing value for organizations while helping organization members to become their best. We explain the importance of love, forgiveness, and trust in the modern organization and identify 10 commonalities of these virtues.

Population counts and longitude and latitude coordinates were estimated for the 50 largest cities in the United States by computational linguistic techniques and by human participants. The mathematical technique Latent Semantic Analysis applied to newspaper texts produced similarity ratings between the 50 cities that allowed for a multidimensional scaling (MDS) of these cities. MDS coordinates correlated with the actual longitude and latitude of these cities, showing that cities that are located together share similar semantic contexts. This finding was replicated using (...) a first‐order co‐occurrence algorithm. The computational estimates of geographical location as well as population were akin to human estimates. These findings show that language encodes geographical information that language users in turn may use in their understanding of language and the world. (shrink)

In everyday life, as well as in science, we have to deal with and act on the basis of partial (i.e. incomplete, uncertain, or even inconsistent) information. This observation is the source of a broad research activity from which a number of competing approaches have arisen. There is some disagreement concerning the way in which partial or full ignorance is and should be handled. The most successful approaches include both quantitative aspects (by means of probability theory) and qualitative aspect (by (...) means of graphical or causal models or logic). Some of these approaches have important impacts on various disciplines including philosophy, computer science, statistics, mathematics, physics, and social science. Most notably, the relation between causal and probabilistic information is a topic of interest in all of these fields. The general question of how uncertainty is related to ignorance, and the connection thereof to causality, have been the key topics of the international summer school at the University of Konstanz, Germany, in August 2004. This was the third event in a series of summer schools organized by the interdisciplinary research group “Philosophy, Probability, and Modeling”. The group was in operation from September 1st, 2001, until August 31, 2005. The first summer school, held in September 2002, focused on the application of probability theory to topics of philosophical interest. Problems and questions that arise when probabilistic models and techniques are being applied in the special sciences were then discussed during the second summer school, held in July 2003. The fourth and final event in the series, in August 2005, was devoted to philosophical questions related to the application and interpretation of probabilities in physics. Each of the four summer schools attracted 40–50 people from many different countries. It was an inspiring forum for an interdisciplinary discussion among researchers and students from many different areas. This special issue collects a selection of the invited and contributed papers presented at the summer school in 2004. We acknowledge the generous support of the Center for Junior Research Fellows at the University of Konstanz, the Gesellschaft für analytische Philosophie e.V., the Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science at the London School of Economics, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the Program for the Investment in the Future (ZIP) of the German Government through a Sofja Kovalevskaja Award. We thank the referees of the papers for their work, and James Moor for his interest in dedicating a special issue of this journal to Causality, Uncertainty and Ignorance. (shrink)

Critics of the target article objected to our account of art appreciators' sensitivity to art-historical contexts and functions, the relations among the modes of artistic appreciation, and the weaknesses of aesthetic science. To rebut these objections and justify our program, we argue that the current neglect of sensitivity to art-historical contexts persists as a result of a pervasive aesthetic–artistic confound; we further specify our claim that basic exposure and the design stance are necessary conditions of artistic understanding; and we explain (...) why many experimental studies do not belong to a psycho-historical science of art. (shrink)

This book examines the presence of idealism in modern philosophy from the seventeenth century to the turn of the twenty-first. We define idealism proper as the position that reality is ultimately mental or conceptual in nature, to be contrasted to materialism or physicalism. So defined, idealism has hardly been a popular view, at least in the twentieth century. But we distinguish between metaphysical and epistemological arguments for idealism, and argue that while the former have rarely been popular, the latter are (...) so, and present in many philosophers who would hardly call themselves idealists. We conclude that metaphysical arguments in favor of a reduction of all reality to either mind or matter are highly questionable, because we have no reason to believe that we have arrived at an adequate understanding of either. However, epistemological arguments in favor of idealism that point to some version of conceptual idealism or other are indeed difficult to avoid. (shrink)

Using fictionalized case studies this series follows four patients through the medical process, from onset through Diagnosis, Treatment and PrognosisVolume 1: Symptom. Examines the idea of 'symptom' as a route to understanding the structure of clinical practice -- Volume 2: Diagnosis. Explores the meaning of 'diagnosis' as a complex, culturally mediated interaction between individuals, scientific discoveries, social negotiation and historical change. -- Volume 3: Treatment. Considers the concept of treatment as an active process which produces an outcome, be it effective, (...) inappropriate or inadequate. Enlightening reading. -- Volume 4: Prognosis. Contemplates the challenge of the prognosis, attempting to make sense of life and death. Considers, through personal and professional perspectives, the role of the medical profession in guiding patient experience.--. (shrink)

En radicalisant le projet d'une phénoménologie de l'affectivité, en interrogeant l'abîme intérieur de l'éprouver, et en y resaissisant la source de toute création possible, cet ouvrage fait de la question du pâtir le point de départ d'une nouvelle théorie de l'agir.

Ästhetik, Schönheit? beides geläufige Begriffe. Jedoch konnte die Wissenschaft die Frage nach einem universellen Prinzip Schönheit bisher nicht beantworten: Was gefällt uns? Warum ist etwas schön? Warum gibt es das Phänomen Schönheit überhaupt und wie funktionieren die Mechanismen der Schönheit? 0Dieses wissenschaftlich fundierte Buch untersucht das Phänomen mit klarem Blick und gibt Antworten auf komplizierte Fragen. Dabei werden unterschiedliche wissenschaftliche Sichtweisen zu kognitiven Modellen zusammengeführt. Von Kunst und Architektur bis hin zu Logodesign und Popkultur werden zahlreiche ästhetische Ausdrucksformen mit einbezogen. (...) 0Ausgewählte Themen aus Wissenschaft, Literatur und Philosophie liefern einen neuen Blick auf die Ästhetik. Anhand überraschender Beobachtungen und faszinierender Bildbeispiele offenbart das Buch, wie grundlegend die Ästhetik für den modernen Menschen ist und wie unser Denken und Handeln vom?Prinzip Schönheit? geprägt wird. (shrink)

In der 1970 gegründeten Reihe erscheinen Arbeiten, die philosophiehistorische Studien mit einem systematischen Ansatz oder systematische Studien mit philosophiehistorischen Rekonstruktionen verbinden. Neben deutschsprachigen werden auch englischsprachige Monographien veröffentlicht. Gründungsherausgeber sind: Erhard Scheibe (Herausgeber bis 1991), Günther Patzig (bis 1999) und Wolfgang Wieland (bis 2003). Von 1990 bis 2007 wurde die Reihe von Jürgen Mittelstraß mitherausgegeben.

We investigated how color preferences vary according to season and whether those changes could be explained by the ecological valence theory. To do so, we assessed the same participants’ preferences for the same colors during fall, winter, spring, and summer in the northeastern United States, where there are large seasonal changes in environmental colors. Seasonal differences were most pronounced between fall and the other three seasons. Participants liked fall-associated dark-warm colors—for example, dark-red, dark-orange, dark-yellow, and dark-chartreuse—more during fall than other (...) seasons. The EVT could explain these changes with a modified version of Palmer and Schloss’ weighted affective valence estimate procedure that added an activation term to the WAVE equation. The results indicate that color preferences change according to season, as color-associated objects become more/less activated in the observer. These seasonal changes in color preferences could not be characterized by overall shifts in weights along cone-contrast axes. (shrink)

Research shows that after layoffs, employees often report decreased commitment and performance which has been coined the survivor syndrome. However, the mechanisms underlying this effect remain underexplored. The purpose of the paper is to show that reduced organizational identification can serve as an explanation for the survivor syndrome. We conducted a laboratory experiment, in which participants work as a group of employees for another participant who acts as employer. In the course of the experiment, the employer decides whether one of (...) his or her employees should be laid off or not. Mediation analysis supports a social identity-based explanation for the emergence of the survivor syndrome: downsizing causes lower identification with the employer which in turn relates to lower performance of employees. (shrink)