The current paper highlights a new, interactive Shiny App that can be used to aid in understanding and teaching the important task of conducting a prior sensitivity analysis when implementing Bayesian estimation methods. In this paper, we discuss the importance of examining prior distributions through a sensitivity analysis. We argue that conducting a prior sensitivity analysis is equally important when so-called diffuse priors are implemented as it is with subjective priors. As a proof of concept, we conducted a small simulation (...) study, which illustrates the impact of priors on final model estimates. The findings from the simulation study highlight the importance of conducting a sensitivity analysis of priors. This concept is further extended through an interactive Shiny App that we developed. The Shiny App allows users to explore the impact of various forms of priors using empirical data. We introduce this Shiny App and thoroughly detail an example using a simple multiple regression model that users at all levels can understand. In this paper, we highlight how to determine the different settings for a prior sensitivity analysis, how to visually and statistically compare results obtained in the sensitivity analysis, and how to display findings and write up disparate results obtained across the sensitivity analysis. The goal is that novice users can follow the process outlined here and work within the interactive Shiny App to gain a deeper understanding of the role of prior distributions and the importance of a sensitivity analysis when implementing Bayesian methods. The intended audience is broad and can include those with limited exposure to Bayesian methods or the specific model presented here. (shrink)

When Bayesian estimation is used to analyze Structural Equation Models, prior distributions need to be specified for all parameters in the model. Many popular software programs offer default prior distributions, which is helpful for novel users and makes Bayesian SEM accessible for a broad audience. However, when the sample size is small, those prior distributions are not always suitable and can lead to untrustworthy results. In this tutorial, we provide a non-technical discussion of the risks associated with the use of (...) default priors in small sample contexts. We discuss how default priors can unintentionally behave as highly informative priors when samples are small. Also, we demonstrate an online educational Shiny app, in which users can explore the impact of varying prior distributions and sample sizes on model results. We discuss how the Shiny app can be used in teaching; provide a reading list with literature on how to specify suitable prior distributions; and discuss guidelines on how to recognize behaving priors. It is our hope that this tutorial helps to spread awareness of the importance of specifying suitable priors when Bayesian SEM is used with small samples. (shrink)

In this article, the author examines an exemplary part of the Soviet media discussion following the Chernobyl disaster. She traces transformations in this discourse affecting the concepts of risk and uncertainty and indicates their relevance for the reconfiguration of the relationships between the state, scientific experts, and the public. Chernobyl occurred during a period of unprecedented potential for change: in the wake of Gorbachev’s perestroika, newly emerging environmental groups gradually managed to gain access to a previously closed forum, the national (...) print media. During the ensuing public debates between environmentalists and energy officials, nuclear risks or uncertainties were used as powerful, yet flexible, rhetorical tools for articulating political positions, for assigning or denying authority and legitimacy, and for reconceptualizing “the public.” The shorthand “Chernobyl” came to be deployed strategically to solicit change, to challenge old practices, and to legitimize the continuation and extension of these practices. (shrink)

This chapter highlighted some salient trends in pediatric ethicsEthics, pediatric from different parts of the globe. It is interesting to note that although diverse, there are many similarities between ethical challenges in pediatrics in different parts of the world.

Even though there is ample evidence from the sentence- comprehension literature for specialized working memory systems in normal and patient populations, some open questions remain. One of them is an explanation for a missing “post-interpretive” processing deficit in a variety of accuracy-judgment tasks in an aphasic patient with a severe verbal working memory problem.

Neurocognitive models (e.g., Schirmer & Kotz, 2006) have helped to characterize how listeners incrementally derive meaning from vocal expressions of emotion in spoken language, what neural mechanisms are involved at different processing stages, and their relative time course. But how can these insights be applied to communicative situations in which prosody serves a predominantly interpersonal function? This comment examines recent data highlighting the dynamic interplay of prosody and language, when vocal attributes serve the sociopragmatic goals of the speaker or reveal (...) interpersonal information that listeners use to construct a mental representation of what is being communicated. Our comment serves as a beacon to researchers interested in how the neurocognitive system “makes sense” of socioemotive aspects of prosody. (shrink)

Social Transformation was not the only perspective coming out of Lausanne 74; there was also the focus on closure on the task of evangelisation with an emphasis on unreached peoples. The function of those with this latter vocation must not be understood as a different trend as though they dismissed the importance of social transformation. There is simply a difference of function between planting churches and nurturing them. Escobar's role is as a scholar rather than a front line evangelist; his (...) cultural perspective is still from a western perspective that moved south, and he did not work closely with McGavran. The grassroots task of bringing the Word to unreached peoples in non-Western cultures in many unmanaged ways is the bedrock base for the ministry of social transformation Escobar espouses. (shrink)

Social and personality psychology have been criticized for overreliance on potentially biased self-report variables. In well-being science, researchers have called for more “objective” physiological and cognitive measures to evaluate the efficacy of well-being-increasing interventions. This may now be possible with the recent rise of cost-effective, commercially-available wireless physiological recording devices and smartphone-based cognitive testing. We sought to determine whether cognitive and physiological measures, coupled with machine learning methods, could quantify the effects of positive interventions. The current 2-part study used a (...) college sample (N = 245) to contrast the cognitive (memory, attention, construal) and physiological (autonomic, electroencephalogram) effects of engaging in one of two randomly assigned writing activities (i.e., prosocial or “antisocial”). In the prosocial condition, participants described an interaction when they acted in a kind way, then described an interaction when they received kindness. In the “antisocial” condition, participants wrote instead about an interaction when they acted in an unkind way and received unkindness, respectively. Our study replicated previous research on the beneficial effects of recalling prosocial experiences as assessed by self-report. However, we did not detect an effect of the positive or negative activity intervention on either cognitive or physiological measures. More research is needed to investigate under what conditions cognitive and physiological measures may be applicable, but our findings lead us to conclude that they should not be unilaterally favored over the traditional self-report approach. (shrink)

_Re-Imagining Relationships in Education_ re-imagines relationships in contemporary education by bringing state-of-the-art theoretical and philosophical insights to bear on current teaching practices. Introduces theories based on various philosophical approaches into the realm of student teacher relationships Opens up innovative ways to think about teaching and new kinds of questions that can be raised Features a broad range of philosophical approaches that include Arendt, Beckett, Irigaray and Wollstonecraft to name but a few Includes contributors from Norway, England, Ireland, Scotland, Spain, Sweden, (...) and the U.S. (shrink)

Re-Imagining Relationships in Education re-imagines relationships in contemporary education by bringing state-of-the-art theoretical and philosophical insights to bear on current teaching practices. Introduces theories based on various philosophical approaches into the realm of student teacher relationships Opens up innovative ways to think about teaching and new kinds of questions that can be raised Features a broad range of philosophical approaches that include Arendt, Beckett, Irigaray and Wollstonecraft to name but a few Includes contributors from Norway, England, Ireland, Scotland, Spain, Sweden, (...) and the U.S. (shrink)

The ArgumentThe “raison d'être” of this paper is my dissatisfaction with current portrayals of the place and the fate of the so-called rational sciences in Muslim societies. I approach this issue from the perspectives of West European visitors to the Ottoman and Safavid Empires during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. I show that these travelers encountered educated people capable of understanding and answering their visitors' scholarly questions in non-trivial ways. The travels and the ensuing encounters suggest that early modern Muslim (...) societies and their institutions, their ways of producing knowledge, the types of their knowledge, and their material resources contributed important elements to various early modern West European approaches to gaining knowledge about nature, history, and politics. (shrink)

The spatial dynamics of the optical emission from an array of 50 times 50 individual microcavity plasma devices is investigated. The array is operated in argon and argon-neon mixtures close to atmospheric pressure with an ac voltage. The optical emission is analysed with phase and space resolution. It has been found that the emission is not continuous over the entire ac period, but occurs once per half period. Each of the observed emission phases shows a self-pulsing of the discharge, with (...) several bursts of emission of fixed width and repetition rate. The number of emission bursts depends on applied voltage and frequency. Spatially resolved measurements prove that the emission bursts are formed by overlapping emission pulses from single discharge cavities. Intensity differences between positive and negative half-wave can be interpreted through spatially resolved measurements of single discharge cavities. (shrink)

On the basis of a reconstruction of legal theory in the tradition of Marx - a current that has been more or less silenced since the end of the 1970s - Subjectivation and Cohesion develops a critical counter-pole to the theories of law that predominate in social theory today. To this end, the works of Franz Neumann, Otto Kirchheimer, Evgeny Pashukanis, Oskar Negt, Isaac D. Balbus, the so-called 'State-derivation School', Antonio Gramsci, Nicos Poulantzas and Michel Foucault are first analysed for (...) their strengths and weaknesses, and then combined to form a new construction: a materialist legal theory that is up to date and can avoid the shortcomings of existing theories - above all their disregard for gender relations and the reductive consequences of functionalist, economic or politicist approaches to law. (shrink)

Les falsifications idéologiques qui voient dans la puissance le seul déchaînement de la nature, des pulsions et des forces de domination, mobilisent la volonté et les instincts les plus agressifs pour les mettre au service de leur idéal de maîtrise. Vouloir la domination, telle est bien l'interprétation de la puissance que se font les impuissants. Cette interprétation a pour elle la force de l'évidence car c'est toujours la maîtrise, comme fonctionnement institué de la puissance, que nous percevons d'un œil grossier. (...) Les lectures réactives de Nietzsche se trouvent ainsi piégées lorsqu'elles mettent en avant certaines " valeurs nietzschéennes ". Elles ne font que révéler l'idéal de maîtrise qui anime leurs interprétations de la volonté de puissance. Elles oublient de se voir fonctionner en Nietzsche. Inutile pour cette raison de chercher la Grande Politique de Nietzsche dans un programme ou une institution. L'institution des valeurs se fait toujours au détriment de la puissance active d'évaluation individuelle. Alors que les lectures réactives de Nietzsche réduisent l'expression de cette puissance d'évaluation à un non-lieu, les lectures actives de Nietzsche en font une force de libération. De cette force, recouverte ou occultée par les plus grands interprètes de Nietzsche, dépend l'actualité critique d'une pensée pour tous, une pensée dont personne ne peut se prévaloir d'en être le seul maître. (shrink)

The Reshaping of Phytogeographical Knowledge as the “Transition zone” Wallacea: An American Expansion Project in the Philippines, 1902–1928. This paper examines the development of a concept that to this day plays an important role in biogeography: the region Wallacea. Focussing on the work of the American tropical botanist Elmer D. Merrill in the Philippines, I argue that his research on the geographical movement and settlement of Philippine plants reflects a shift in the United States’ scientific and cultural understanding of the (...) Pacific area towards a notion of “American tropics”. While inventorying plants for the American administration from 1901 to 1923, the composition of Philippine flora prompted Merrill to question biogeographical regionalization in Wallace's Malay Archipelago. Not being able to situate the Philippine flora within “Asian” or “Australasian” biota, Merrill described the islands as an area of trans‐regional plant migration. Together with the paleontologist Roy E. Dickerson, he later conceptualized the region Wallacea as biogeographical “transition zone” between the Philippines and Australia. In addition to the scientific conceptualization, Wallacea constitutes a space between two biogeographical subregions, whose flora was considered as being part of both, but could not be unambiguously attributed to either of these regions. In this respect, the plants resembled the inhabitants of the United States’ insular overseas territories, who were legally defined neither as aliens nor as citizens. In this sense, Wallacea embodies epistemic as well as geopolitical boundaries, while its case also illustrates some of the ways in which colonial interests in the usability of plants found expression in botanical research during the early period of American overseas expansion. (shrink)

Dans le contexte pénitentiaire actuel de la lutte contre la désocialisation, des associations offrent un soutien psychologique et social aux familles des prisonniers. La recherche-action « Regards d’enfants sur l’incarcération » dont rend compte cet article, menée en collaboration avec deux de ces associations, consiste à créer des groupes de soutien pour les enfants qui ont un parent ou un proche en prison. L’objectif de cette recherche-action est d’évaluer les conditions, moyens et outils qui permettraient d’offrir une possibilité d’échange aux (...) enfants pour leur rendre possible de partager leurs expériences et d’exprimer ce qui ne peut être dit à des parents, des proches et à leur environnement social (amis, école, voisins...). Les résultats confirment le besoin manifeste de renforcer les pratiques professionnelles autour des familles, et notamment des enfants, grands absents dans nos dispositifs d’accompagnement français. (shrink)

Dans le contexte pénitentiaire actuel de la lutte contre la désocialisation, des associations offrent un soutien psychologique et social aux familles des prisonniers. La recherche-action « Regards d’enfants sur l’incarcération » dont rend compte cet article, menée en collaboration avec deux de ces associations, consiste à créer des groupes de soutien pour les enfants qui ont un parent ou un proche en prison. L’objectif de cette recherche-action est d’évaluer les conditions, moyens et outils qui permettraient d’offrir une possibilité d’échange aux (...) enfants pour leur rendre possible de partager leurs expériences et d’exprimer ce qui ne peut être dit à des parents, des proches et à leur environnement social (amis, école, voisins...). Les résultats confirment le besoin manifeste de renforcer les pratiques professionnelles autour des familles, et notamment des enfants, grands absents dans nos dispositifs d’accompagnement français. (shrink)

This article examines Harold Ramis’s 2005 noir comedy _The Ice Harvest_ as the critically dystopian counter-panel to his beloved 1993 film _Groundhog Day_, a film frequently discussed within the paradigm of utopia. While starkly different in genre, tone, and reception, the two films comprise a dialectical dyad that registers the historical transition from the utopian cultural effervescence of the early 1990s to the tragic foreclosure of imaginative horizons and the dystopian transformation of economic, political, and social landscapes in the new (...) millennium. In _The Ice Harvest_, the author argues, this is achieved through a strategic reactivation of film noir as a variant of the critical dystopia. (shrink)

While outcomes for children with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia have improved dramatically, survival rates for patients with relapsed/refractory disease remain dismal. Prior studies indicate that glucocorticoid resistance is more common than resistance to other chemotherapies at relapse. In addition, failure to clear peripheral blasts during a prednisone prophase correlates with an elevated risk of relapse in newly diagnosed patients. Here we show that intrinsic GC resistance is present at diagnosis in early thymic precursor T-ALLs as well as in a subset (...) of non-ETP T-ALLs. GC-resistant non-ETP T-ALLs are characterized by strong induction of JAK/STAT signaling in response to interleukin-7 stimulation. Removing IL7 or inhibiting JAK/STAT signaling sensitizes these T-ALLs, and a subset of ETP T-ALLs, to GCs. The combination of the GC dexamethasone and the JAK1/2 inhibitor ruxolitinib altered the balance between pro- and anti-apoptotic factors in samples with IL7-dependent GC resistance, but not in samples with IL7-independent GC resistance. Together, these data suggest that the addition of ruxolitinib or other inhibitors of IL7 receptor/JAK/STAT signaling may enhance the efficacy of GCs in a biologically defined subset of T-ALL.Leukemia advance online publication, 30 May 2017; doi:10.1038/leu.2017.136. (shrink)

While information technologies present organizations with opportunities to become more competitive, unsettled social norms and lagging legislation guiding the use of these technologies present organizations and individuals with ethical dilemmas. This paper presents two studies investigating the relationship between intellectual property and privacy attitudes, Machiavellianism and Ethical Ideology, and working in R&D and computer literacy in the form of programming experience. In Study 1, Machiavellians believed it was more acceptable to ignore the intellectual property and privacy rights of others. Programmers (...) and R&D workers considered violating intellectual property rights more acceptable. Programmers did not consider violating privacy rights more acceptable, but R&D workers did. Finally, there was an interaction between Machiavellianism, programming and R&D. Machiavellians who also had programming experience or worked in R&D found violations of intellectual property much more acceptable. The effect of Machiavellianism on attitudes toward violations of privacy was enhanced by working in R&D, but not by programming experience. In Study 2, idealists believed it was less acceptable to ignore the intellectual property and privacy rights of others. Relativists found it more acceptable to violate intellectual property rights, though they did not consider it more acceptable to violate privacy rights. Those with programming experience were more accepting of intellectual property rights violations, but not of privacy violations. Finally, programming experience moderated the relationship between idealism, relativism and attitudes toward these unethical information practices. Implications for diminishing unethical behavior among Machiavellians, Relativists, programmers and those in R&D are discussed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:20. HUME ON REASON1 One of the main concerns of Hume's Treatise of 2 Human Nature (T) is the investigation of the role that reason plays in belief and action. On the standard interpretation, Hume is taken to argue that neither our beliefs nor our actions are determined by reason; Books I and III are thus seen as sharing a common theme: the denigration of reason's role in human (...) affairs. Arguing for this view, Kemp Smith claims that "Hume's principle of the subordination of reason to the passions runs through his whole philosophy ", not merely through Books II and III. This interpretation of Hume's enterprise presupposes that the faculty of reason whose role in action is discussed in Book III is the same faculty which has been shown not to determine belief in Book I. In this paper I argue that a univocal reading of 'reason' and related terms like 'reasoning' throughout the Treatise has the consequence that there are major internal inconsistencies in Hume's philosophy, cannot account for some important sections of the work, and leads to misinterpretation of the nature of his overall argument. In its place I develop an interpretation which avoids these difficulties and emphasizes the radical nature of Hume's naturalism. The Argument of the Treatise Let me begin by reviewing the salient features of the main argument of the Treatise. In Book I, Hume is concerned to show that our most fundamental beliefs — e.g., about the continued and distinct existence of object, about what we are not presently observing, and in the existence of the self — are not acquired by reason, but instead by the imagination, influenced by custom and habit. In a typical passage, he argues: Reason can never shew us the connexion of one object with another, tho' aided by experience, and the observation of their constant conjunction in all past instances. When the mind, 21. therefore, passes from the idea or impression of one object to the idea or belief of another, it is not determin'd by reason... (T92)4 In Book III, and in Book II, Part III, Section III (Of the influencing motives of the will), Hume is concerned to show that reason alone can never produce any action, or give rise to volition (T414), and the same faculty is as incapable of preventing volition, or of disputing the preference with any passion or emotion (T414-415). Hume uses this result in Book III, Part I, Section I, to show that the rules of morality...are not conclusions of our reason (T457). Proponents of the univocal reading of 'reason' would hold that the Treatise thus constitutes a continuous attack on reason, showing that it causes neither our most fundamental beliefs nor our actions and moral judgments. But if this reading were correct, Hume would fail to avail himself of an obvious and persuasive argument for the conclusion he reaches in Books II and III, and in the latter books he would contradict the results of Book I. Conflict between Book I and Books II and III If Hume did have the same faculty in mind throughout the Treatise, a strong argument to show that reason does not cause action would be available to him in Books II and III, utilizing the results he has established in Book I. The principal way in which reason would be thought to influence action is by informing us of facts about efficient means to achieve our ends and about the possible effects of actions — facts about causal relations. Since the conclusion of Book I is that judgments about causal relations do not result from reason, it follows that even if such beliefs did cause action, it would still not be the case that reason caused action. But Hume not only does not make such an argument in Books II and III, he denies one of its premises — the claim that beliefs about causal relations do not result from reason — which was the main conclusion of Book I. In the 22. later books he asserts repeatedly that reason can cause beliefs about causal relations. For example, in Book III, he says:...reason, in a strict and philosophical... (shrink)

Chater & Loewenstein thoughtfully express their disillusionment with contemporary applied behavioral science, particularly as it pertains to public policy. Although they fault an overemphasis on i-frame approaches, their proposed alternatives leave doubt regarding whether behavioral science has much, if anything, useful to offer policy. We offer two critical principles to guide and motivate more relevant behavioral science.

DP hypothesis of Abney (1987), the syntactic unit that had formerly been known as noun phrase should in fact be analyzed as a phrase headed by a determiner, hence the label DP. Quite independently of this syntactic development, Partee (1987) proposed a type shifting paradigm for the semantic analysis of nominals (now called DPs). In Partee's proposal DPs are ambiguous between a referential reading of type e, a predicative reading of type et and a quantificational reading of type (et)t. DP (...) meanings can flexibly move between their different readings due to covert application of semantic operators. The present paper proposes some strong relationships between these syntactic and semantic paradigms. It is argued that the structure of the DP affects its semantics in that the NP level within the DP is purely predicative and the DP level itself is purely quantificational. However, the intermediate D' level is flexible between the predicate/quantifier semantic categories, due to the covert application of semantic operators at this level. Partee's assumption, adopted from Discourse Representation Theory and more traditional approaches in philosophical logic, that some DPs need to have a (discourse) referential reading, is withdrawn. Instead of Partee's type shifting operators between the three semantic categories she assumes, two operators are used between predicates and quantifiers. The choice function operation of Reinhart (1997) and Winter (1997) is used as a general operator from predicates to quantifiers. The minimum operator of Winter (1996) is used as a general operator from quantifiers to predicates. These two operations, referred to as category shifting operators , account for most of the Partee data and substantially extend the theory of flexibility to treat some intricate phenomena in the domains of coordination, plurality and scope. (shrink)