The indispensability argument seeks to establish the existence of mathematical objects. The success of the indispensability argument turns on finding cases of genuine extra- mathematical explanation. In this paper, I identify a new case of extra- mathematical explanation, involving the search patterns of fully-aquatic marine predators. I go on to use this case to predict the prevalence of extra- mathematical explanation in science.

Objective: A deep understanding of the relationship between a scarce drug's dose and clinical response is necessary to appropriately distribute a supply-constrained drug along these lines. Summary of key data: The vast majority of drug development and repurposing during the COVID-19 pandemic – an event that has made clear the ever-present scarcity in healthcare systems –has been ignorant of scarcity and dose optimisation's ability to help address it. Conclusions: Future pandemic clinical trials systems should obtain dose optimisation data, (...) as these appear necessary to enable appropriate scarce resource allocation according to societal values. (shrink)

Knowledge about aspects that influence recovery and adaptation in the postacute phase of disabling health events is key to understanding how best to provide appropriate rehabilitation and health services. Qualitative longitudinal research makes it possible to look for patterns, key time points and critical moments that could be vital for interventions and supports. However, strategies that support robust data management and analysis for longitudinal qualitative research in health‐care are not well documented in the literature. This article reviews three challenges encountered (...) in a large longitudinal qualitative descriptive study about experiences of recovery and adaptation after traumatic brain injury in New Zealand, and the strategies and technologies used to address them. These were (i) tracking coding and analysis decisions during an extended analysis period; (ii) navigating interpretations over time and in response to new data; and (iii) exploiting data volume and complexity. Concept mapping during coding review, a considered combination of information technologies, employing both cross‐sectional and narrative analysis, and an expectation that subanalyses would be required for key topics helped us manage the study in a way that facilitated useful and novel insights. These strategies could be applied in other qualitative longitudinal studies in healthcare inquiry to optimise data analysis and stimulate important insights. (shrink)

Plastic waste is a significant environmental problem for almost all countries; therefore, protecting the environment from the problem is crucial. The most sensible solution to these problems is substituting the natural aggregates with substantial plastic waste in various building materials. This study aimed to optimise the mixed design ratio of cement brick containing plastic waste as aggregate replacement. Plastic cement brick mixtures were prepared by the incorporation of four different types of plastic waste such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET), high-density polyethylene, (...) low-density polyethylene and polypropylene into cement bricks with different cement contents (150, 300 and 450 g) and plastic replacement percentages (0, 3 and 6%). Compressive strength and water absorption of the plastic cement bricks were analysed using a statistical model through the response surface methodology. It revealed the optimum cement brick mixed design is C3-1% PET with the compressive strength of 27.50 MPa and water absorption of 1.16%. The optimised plastic cement brick also satisfied the general ASTM C62-17 requirements for building bricks despite the higher porosity observed by the scanning electron microscopy. The results from Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy analysis also showed that the addition of the plastic waste into cement brick was unlikely to modify the chemical compound within the cement brick mixtures. Thus, the proposed mathematical model can predict the required hardened properties of plastic cement bricks and could lead to greater utilisation of plastic waste in building materials. (shrink)

This article argues that an artificial superintelligence (ASI) emerging in a world where war is still normalised constitutes a catastrophic existential risk, either because the ASI might be employed by a nation–state to war for global domination, i.e., ASI-enabled warfare, or because the ASI wars on behalf of itself to establish global domination, i.e., ASI-directed warfare. Presently, few states declare war or even war on each other, in part due to the 1945 UN Charter, which states Member States should “refrain (...) in their international relations from the threat or use of force”, while allowing for UN Security Council-endorsed military measures and self-defense. As UN Member States no longer declare war on each other, instead, only ‘international armed conflicts’ occur. However, costly interstate conflicts, both hot and cold and tantamount to wars, still take place. Further, a New Cold War between AI superpowers looms. An ASI-directed/enabled future conflict could trigger total war, including nuclear conflict, and is therefore high risk. Via conforming instrumentalism, an international relations theory, we advocate risk reduction by optimising peace through a Universal Global Peace Treaty (UGPT), contributing towards the ending of existing wars and prevention of future wars, as well as a Cyberweapons and Artificial Intelligence Convention. This strategy could influence state actors, including those developing ASIs, or an agential ASI, particularly if it values conforming instrumentalism and peace. (shrink)

A formal Ethics Consultation Service (ECS) can provide significant help to patients, families and hospital staff. As with any other form of clinical consultation, documentation of the process and the advice rendered is very important. Upon review of the published consult documentation practices of other ECSs, we judged that none of them were sufficiently detailed or structured to meet the needs and purposes of a clinical ethics consultation. Thus, we decided to share our method in order to advance the practice (...) of ethics consultation. Here, we describe a method of ECS documentation practice, including use of a formal consult report template, as well as a log for maintaining a chronological record of the consultations performed. These two documents facilitate order and organisation of the ECS. They also enable the ECS to keep an account of professional time and experience, enable quick consult trend assessments (by consult theme or ward, for example) and establish a potential registry of consults for future research study. This method of documentation, we believe, not only contributes significantly to the primary purpose of the consultation—namely, the evincing and sharing of ethical opinion about a case—but also enables consultants to improve their practice and to pursue research on clinical ethics consultation. (shrink)

A large proportion of nursing home residents in developed countries come from ethnic minority groups. Unmet care needs and poor quality of care for this resident population have been widely reported. This systematic review aimed to explore social conditions affecting ethnic minority residents' ability to exercise their autonomy in communication and care while in nursing homes. In total, 19 studies were included in the review. Findings revealed that ethno‐specific nursing homes create the ideal social condition for residents to express their (...) care needs and preferences in a language of choice. In nonethno‐specific nursing homes, staff cultural competence and nursing home commitment to culturally safe care are crucial social conditions that enable this group of residents to fulfil their autonomy in communicating and in participating in their care. In contrast, social conditions that undermine residents' ability to express their care needs and preferences include low levels of staff cultural awareness and cultural desire, negative attitudes towards residents and limited organisational support for staff to improve culturally responsive and culturally safe care. In conclusion, it is important to optimise the social conditions to support ethnic minority residents to communicate their care needs and preferences. (shrink)

The standard approach to solve prediction tasks is to apply inductive methods such as, e.g., the straight rule. Such methods are proven to be access-optimal in specific prediction settings, but not in all. Within the optimality-approach of meta-induction, success-based weighted prediction methods are proven to be access-optimal in all possible continuous prediction settings. However, meta-induction fails to be access-optimal in so-called demonic discrete prediction environments where the predicted value is inversely correlated with the true outcome. In this paper the problem (...) of discrete prediction environments is addressed by embedding them into a synchronised prediction setting. In such a setting the task consists in providing a discrete and a continuous prediction. It is shown that synchronisation constraints exclude the possibility of demonic environments. (shrink)

Endeavours of politicians, representatives of law enforcement institutions and courts to create simplified, accelerated and less human and time resources requiring legal procedures in criminal cases prompted the authors of this article to assess the possibilities to develop the written form of procedure in Lithuania. The goal of the authors of this article is to assess the origin and goals of the written form of procedure, as well as to define the main rules and points for discussions on the possibilities (...) to develop the written form of procedure in the Lithuanian criminal procedural law. The conclusion is drawn in this article to the effect that written form of procedure is seen as a condition for simplifying and accelerating the legal process, and choosing this form of procedure is not considered as denying or restraining the expectations of participants of criminal procedure towards a fair trial. The analysis provides the basis for the authors to make a conclusion on the appropriate limits of applying written or oral procedures for hearing criminal cases: Oral procedure must be guaranteed in cases where questions of criminal liability and personal guilt are solved at the first instance court hearings; Oral procedure usually has to be guaranteed in cases where during the procedure at the first instance court hearing the questions of criminal liability and personal guilt are solved, although oral procedure may be limited and the procedure may be conducted in written form if new evidence are not investigated and there is no doubt for deciding whether oral procedure is better for understanding the case; Oral procedure need not be guaranteed only in cases where questions of application of the law are solved and if oral procedure was guaranteed during the procedure at the court of first instance; Written procedure may guarantee the right to a fair trial, where the participants of the procedure are allowed to provide various explanations and written documents or a person is allowed to ask for an oral court hearing. (shrink)

This paper examines three approaches to the relationship between our moral reasons to bear costs for others’ sake before and beyond the call of duty. Symmetry holds that you are required to optimise your beneficial sacrifices even when they are genuinely supererogatory. If you are required to bear a cost C for the sake of a benefit B, when they are the only costs and benefits at stake, you are also conditionally required to bear an additional cost C, for the (...) sake of an additional benefit B, when enough other costs and benefits are at stake that both of your alternatives are presumptively supererogatory. Disconnection rejects the requirement to optimise when your options are presumptively supererogatory and maintains that you have an entirely free hand to choose as you will among them. Asymmetry holds that when acting beyond the call of duty you are entitled to a measure of additional freedom compared to when you are not taking on supererogatory costs—you can prioritise your own well-being and reasons to a greater degree—but places constraints on the options that you may permissibly choose. We defend a version of Asymmetry and explore its implications for recent debates on charitable giving. (shrink)

This book presents a coherent and systematic exposition of the mathematical theory of the problems of optimization and stability. Both of these are topics central to economic analysis since the latter is so much concerned with the optimizing behaviour of economic agents and the stability of the interaction processes to which this gives rise. The topics covered include convexity, mathematical programming, fixed point theorems, comparative static analysis and duality, the stability of dynamic systems, the calculus of variations and optimal control (...) theory. The authors present a more detailed and wide-ranging discussion of these topics than is to be found in the few books which attempt a similar coverage. Although the text deals with fairly advanced material, the mathematical prerequisites are minimised by the inclusion of an integrated mathematical review designed to make the text self-contained and accessible to the reader with only an elementary knowledge of calculus and linear algebra. A novel feature of the book is that it provides the reader with an understanding and feel for the kinds of mathematical techniques most useful for dealing with particular economic problems. This is achieved through an extensive use of a broad range of economic examples.This is suitable for use in advanced undergraduate and postgraduate courses in economic analysis and should in addition prove a useful reference work for practising economists. (shrink)

In the metabolic control theory, the control coefficient is a key parameter in quantifying the sensitivity of the flux towards an infinitesimal variation of enzyme activity. This concept does not apply just as it is for variations of enzyme concentrations whenever there is spatial, energy or resources limitations in the cell. Due to constraint on total enzyme concentration, the variation of concentration of any given enzyme may affect the concentrations of other enzymes. To take into account these correlations between enzyme (...) concentrations, we propose the concept of "combined response coefficient". Its definition is similar to that of the control coefficient, but its mathematical expression is different. Its range of variation is from – + 1, the null value corresponding to optimum enzyme concentration, i.e. to concentrations that maximise the flux, and the negative values to concentrations beyond the optimum value. A summation property could be derived using a simple weighting of the combined response coefficients, the sum of the weighed coefficient being 0. (shrink)

This French paper is a preliminary version of P. Mongin, "Does Optimization Imply Rationality?", Synthese, 124, 2000, p. 73-111, to which readers are referred to.

The IPAP Schizophrenia Algorithm was originally designed in the form of a flow chart to help physicians optimise the treatment of schizophrenic patients. We examined the current version from the perspective of recent work on terminologies and ontologies thereby drawing on the resources of Basic Formal Ontology, and this with the objective to make the algorithm appropriate for Semantic Web applications. We found that Basic Formal Ontology is a rich enough theory to represent all the entities involved and that applying (...) the theory to the IPAP schizophrenia algorithm results in a representation that can be used by software agents to perform monitoring and control in a referent tracking environment. (shrink)

Almaatouq et al. propose an integrative experiment design space combined with large samples for scientific advancement. We argue recent innovative designs combining closed-loop experiment designs and Bayesian optimisation allow for integrative experiments at an individual level during a single session, circumventing the necessity for large samples. This method can be applied across disciplines, including developmental and clinical research.

Food-specific inhibition training (FSIT) is a computerised task requiring response inhibition to energy-dense foods within a reaction-time game. Previous work indicates that FSIT can increase the number of healthy foods (relative to energy-dense foods) children choose, and decrease calories consumed from sweets and chocolate. Across two studies, we explored the impact of FSIT variations (e.g., different response signals, different delivery modes) on children’s food choices within a time-limited hypothetical food-choice task. In Study 1, we varied the FSIT Go/No-Go signals to (...) be emotive (happy vs. sad faces) or neutral (green vs. red signs). One-hundred-and-fifty-seven children were randomly allocated to emotive-FSIT, neutral-FSIT, or a non-food control task. Children participated in groups of 4–15. No significant FSIT effects were observed on food choices (all values ofp> 0.160). Healthy-food choices decreased over time regardless of condition (p 0.050). Healthy choices decreased over time in the control group (p= 0.001) but did not change in the two FSIT groups (bothp> 0.300) supporting previous evidence that FSIT may have a beneficial effect on children’s food choices. Ensuring that children perform FSIT with high accuracy (e.g., by using FSIT in quiet environments and avoiding group-testing) may be important for impacts on food choices though. Future research should continue to explore methods of optimising FSIT as a healthy-eating intervention for children. (shrink)

Modern optimisation is increasingly relying on meta-heuristic methods. This study presents a new meta-heuristic optimisation algorithm called Eurasian oystercatcher optimiser (EOO). The EOO algorithm mimics food behaviour of Eurasian oystercatcher (EO) in searching for mussels. In EOO, each bird (solution) in the population acts as a search agent. The EO changes the candidate mussel according to the best solutions to finally eat the best mussel (optimal result). A balance must be achieved among the size, calories, and energy of (...) mussels. The proposed algorithm is benchmarked on 58 test functions of three phases (unimodal, multimodal, and fixed-diminution multimodal) and compared with several important algorithms as follows: particle swarm optimiser, grey wolf optimiser, biogeography based optimisation, gravitational search algorithm, and artificial bee colony. Finally, the results of the test functions prove that the proposed algorithm is able to provide very competitive results in terms of improved exploration and exploitation balances and local optima avoidance. (shrink)

Applying causal methods to fields such as healthcare, marketing, and economics receives increasing interest. In particular, optimising the individual-treatment-effect – often referred to as uplift modelling – has peaked in areas such as precision medicine and targeted advertising. While existing techniques have proven useful in many settings, they suffer vividly in a dynamic environment. To address this issue, we propose a novel optimisation target that is easily incorporated in bandit algorithms. Incorporating this target creates a causal model which we (...) name an uplifted contextual multi-armed bandit. Experiments on real and simulated data show the proposed method to effectively improve upon the state-of-the-art. All our code is made available online at https://github.com/vub-dl/u-cmab. (shrink)

The permanent struggle for optimisation can be seen as one of the most significant cultural principles of contemporary Western societies: the demand for improved performance and efficiency as well as the pursuit of self-improvement are con-sidered necessary in order to keep pace with an accelerated, competitive modern-ity. This affects not only work and education, but also family life, parent–child relationships and intimate relationships in respect to the body and the self, in regard to the public as well as the (...) private realm. Bringing together contributions from renowned scholars from the fields of sociology, psychology and psycho-analysis, this book explores the impacts of optimisation on culture and psyche, examining the contradictions and limitations of optimisation, in conjunction with the effects of social transformations on individuals and shifts in regard to the meaning of ‘pathology’ and ‘normality’. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this article I pursue the implications of the statement that constitutional rights are – as Alexy’s principles theory argues – optimisation requirements, and show that they are not. I ar...

Optimising the 4E revolution in cognitive science arguably requires the rejection of two guiding commitments made by orthodox thinking in the field, namely that the material realisers of cognitive states and processes are located entirely inside the head, and that intelligent thought and action are to be explained in terms of the building and manipulation of content-bearing representations. In other words, the full-strength 4E revolution would be secured only by a position that delivered externalism plus antirepresentationalism. I argue that one (...) view in 4E space—extended functionalism—is appropriately poised to deliver externalism but not antirepresentationalism. By contrast, in the case of a competing 4E view—radical enactivism—even if that view can deliver antirepresentationalism, its pivotal notion of extensiveness falls short of establishing externalism. These conclusions are justified via an examination of, and by responding critically to, certain key arguments offered in support of their view by the radical enactivists. (shrink)

Pour répondre aux problématiques engendrées par la diffusion de plus en plus massive des corpus linguistiques et à l’hétérogénéité de leurs formats, nous proposons une méthode permettant de prendre en main des corpus langagiers oraux et de les convertir dans un format permettant leur exploitation outillée. Pour cette recherche, le corpus ESLO nous sert d’exemple par sa licence de diffusion, son format, son volume et ses atouts sociolinguistiques et diachroniques. Notre travail se fonde sur la compilation de ce corpus pour (...) le rendre compatible avec l’outil de textométrie TXM. Nous opérons un ensemble de transformations des données pour l’utiliser au mieux. Enfin, pour illustrer les apports de ces avancées méthodologiques, nous proposons une analyse fine et multidimensionnelle de l’usage des interrogatives dans le corpus ESLO. (shrink)

Recent advances in natural language generation (NLG), such as public accessibility to ChatGPT, have sparked polarised debates about the societal impact of this technology. Popular discourse tends towards either overoptimistic hype that touts the radically transformative potentials of these systems or pessimistic critique of their technical limitations and general ‘stupidity’. Surprisingly, these debates have largely overlooked the exegetical capacities of these systems, which for many users seem to be producing meaningful texts. In this paper, we take an interdisciplinary approach that (...) combines hermeneutics—the study of meaning and interpretation—with prompt engineering—task descriptions embedded in input to NLG systems—to study the extent to which a specific NLG system, ChatGPT, produces texts of hermeneutic value. We design prompts with the goal of optimising hermeneuticity rather than mere factual accuracy, and apply them in four different use cases combining humans and ChatGPT as readers and writers. In most cases, ChatGPT produces readable texts that respond clearly to our requests. However, increasing the specificity of prompts’ task descriptions leads to texts with intensified neutrality, indicating that ChatGPT’s optimisation for factual accuracy may actually be detrimental to the hermeneuticity of its output. (shrink)

The article aims to provide a justification for the claim that optimal development and becoming an optimiser are educational ideals that parents should pursue in raising their children. Optimal development is conceptualised as enabling children to grow into flourishing persons, that is persons who have developed their given possibilities to the full and optimally fulfil the domains that can be said to be objectively good for all people. This also comprises the development of children into persons who want to become (...) optimisers and pursue excellent aims in life, i.e. who pursue ideals. Optimal development is not only an ideal, it requires ideals too. With excellent examples of the objective goods that are good for all people, children are given examples of what it means to strive for the best and are thereby enabled to develop themselves to the full. Two main points of critique, namely that it leads to elitism and to neurotic perfectionism are discussed and rebutted. This leads to a defence of a form of realistic perfectionism. The article ends with a description of the way in which parents could aspire towards the ideal aim of realistic perfectionism. (shrink)

This article offers a new interpretation of Aristotle’s ambiguous and much-discussed claim that pleasure perfects activity. This interpretation provides an alternative to the two main competing readings of this claim in the scholarship: the addition-view, which envisages the perfection conferred by pleasure as an extra perfection beyond the perfection of activity itself; and the identity-view, according to which pleasure just is the perfect activity itself. The proposed interpretation departs from both these views in rejecting their assumption that pleasure cannot perfect (...) the activity itself, and argues that pleasure makes activity perfect by optimising the exercise of one’s capacities for that activity. Those who build or play music with pleasure do so better than those who do not delight in these activities. The basis of this interpretation is Aristotle’s little-read remarks from the following chapter, i. e. NE x.5, about how pleasure “increases” the activity. (shrink)

This article examines soldier performance optimisation, enhancement, and augmentation across the three dimensions of physical performance, cognitive performance, and socio-cultural understanding. Optimisation refers to combatants attaining their maximum biological potential. Enhancement refers to combatants achieving a level of performance beyond their biological potential through drugs, surgical procedures, or even gene editing. Augmentation refers to a blending of organic and biomechatronic body parts such as electronic or mechanical implants, prosthetics, and brain–machine interfaces. This article identifies that soldier optimisation (...) is a necessity to protect individual combatants and to give them the ability to make legal and morally justifiable decisions in battle. While enhancement and augmentation of military personnel can lead to accelerated and more destructive warfare, it can also be argued that there is an ethical and moral responsibility to provide combatants the best opportunity for survivability, and that better functioning, less fatigued, and better informed military personnel can make better decisions in battle. There is also a moral responsibility of the state for the combatants themselves, and short-term military success must be balanced against the short- and long-term health and wellbeing of the personnel. This article concludes that it is both the intent and the degree that decide the acceptability. (shrink)

Most jurisdictions require that a mental capacity assessment be conducted using a functional model whose definition includes several abilities. In England and Wales and in increasing number of countries, the law requires a person be able to understand, to retain, to use or weigh relevant information and to communicate one’s decision. But interpreting and applying broad and vague criteria, such as the ability ‘to use or weigh’ to a diverse range of presentations is challenging. By examining actual court judgements of (...) capacity, we previously developed a descriptive typology of justifications used in the application of the Mental Capacity Act criteria. We here critically optimise this typology by showing how clear definitions—and thus boundaries—between the criteria can be achieved if the ‘understanding’ criterion is used narrowly and the multiple rationales that fall under the ability to ‘use or weigh’ are specifically enumerated in practice. Such a typology-aided practice, in theory, could make functional capacity assessments more transparent, accountable, reliable and valid. It may also help to create targeted supports for decision making by the vulnerable. We also discuss how the typology could evolve legally and scientifically, and how it lays the groundwork for clinical research on the abilities enumerated by the MCA. No data are available. This paper does not report any original data. (shrink)

Definition of the problemThe article addresses the relationship between reproduction, time and the good life. Services offered by reproductive medicine and conceptions of the good life in time influence each other reciprocally. This interaction is characterised by implicit and explicit normative settings and expectations of appropriate temporality.ArgumentsWe first discuss the significance of time for the life course and for parenthood from a sociological and social psychological perspective. Reproductive medicine can increase the options for becoming a parent and thus for life-time (...) autonomy. However, in the context of societal imperatives for optimisation and efficiency, it can also have opposite effects and increase heteronomy. Overall, this leads to changed forms of adaptation and self-determination, new dilemmas and ambivalences in the temporal optimisation of parenthood.ConclusionsAgainst this background, we explain how the ethics of reproductive medicine could benefit from interdisciplinary research that focuses on life in its temporal course. (shrink)

Central to the argument of ‘Biodefense and the Production of Knowledge: Rethinking the Problem’ are claims that the vast majority of ethical debate about biodefense research to date has focused on the dual use problem, and the focus of ethical discussion of dual-use research has been on the need to strike ‘a proper balance of only two dominant values: biosecurity and “open science”’ —the idea being that ‘under current conditions other values can and ought to be ignored because the stakes (...) are so high’.1With regard to , Buchanan and Kelley's main point is that policy making regarding biodefense and dual use should be seen as an ‘optimisation problem’—the aim should be to achieve the greater good of society, where all relevant values are taken into account, rather than limiting attention to just two values—security and open science—in particular. While, as other commentators have argued, it is questionable whether these authors have provided an accurate account of ethical discussion of biodefense and dual use to date, in this brief commentary my purpose is to argue that the values of security and open science should themselves be seen as proxies for other values and that solution to …. (shrink)

This study suggests a new approach to EEG data classification by exploring the idea of using evolutionary computation to both select useful discriminative EEG features and optimise the topology of Artificial Neural Networks. An evolutionary algorithm is applied to select the most informative features from an initial set of 2550 EEG statistical features. Optimisation of a Multilayer Perceptron is performed with an evolutionary approach before classification to estimate the best hyperparameters of the network. Deep learning and tuning with Long (...) Short-Term Memory are also explored, and Adaptive Boosting of the two types of models is tested for each problem. Three experiments are provided for comparison using different classifiers: one for attention state classification, one for emotional sentiment classification, and a third experiment in which the goal is to guess the number a subject is thinking of. The obtained results show that an Adaptive Boosted LSTM can achieve an accuracy of 84.44%, 97.06%, and 9.94% on the attentional, emotional, and number datasets, respectively. An evolutionary-optimised MLP achieves results close to the Adaptive Boosted LSTM for the two first experiments and significantly higher for the number-guessing experiment with an Adaptive Boosted DEvo MLP reaching 31.35%, while being significantly quicker to train and classify. In particular, the accuracy of the nonboosted DEvo MLP was of 79.81%, 96.11%, and 27.07% in the same benchmarks. Two datasets for the experiments were gathered using a Muse EEG headband with four electrodes corresponding to TP9, AF7, AF8, and TP10 locations of the international EEG placement standard. The EEG MindBigData digits dataset was gathered from the TP9, FP1, FP2, and TP10 locations. (shrink)

In a series of recent publications, Gigerenzer and his collaborators have attempted to derive new norms of rationality from their psychological research in the Centre for Adaptive Behaviour and Cognition (ABC). Specifically, they have claimed that there are good reasons to replace the norms traditionally used to assess rational behaviour, which rest on the ideal of optimisation. Their proposal has considerable importance, as it has been laid out as a revision of the normative framework accepted in the social, behavioural, (...) and cognitive sciences. Still, whereas the ABC scholars present their approach as diametrically opposed to the framework of optimisation—two incompatible takes on the problem of defining rational behaviour—this paper argues that it is not entirely clear whether this is the case. I introduce a distinction between different kinds of reflection upon norms of rationality that has been neglected by ABC scholars, and provide reasons to think that the departure from the traditional framework might be less radical than ABC scholars suppose. (shrink)

A considerable number of areas of bioscience, including gene and drug discovery, metabolic engineering for the biotechnological improvement of organisms, and the processes of natural and directed evolution, are best viewed in terms of a ‘landscape’ representing a large search space of possible solutions or experiments populated by a considerably smaller number of actual solutions that then emerge. This is what makes these problems ‘hard’, but as such these are to be seen as combinatorial optimisation problems that are best (...) attacked by heuristic methods known from that field. Such landscapes, which may also represent or include multiple objectives, are effectively modelled in silico, with modern active learning algorithms such as those based on Darwinian evolution providing guidance, using existing knowledge, as to what is the ‘best’ experiment to do next. An awareness, and the application, of these methods can thereby enhance the scientific discovery process considerably. This analysis fits comfortably with an emerging epistemology that sees scientific reasoning, the search for solutions, and scientific discovery as Bayesian processes. (shrink)

This paper is a commentary on the focal article by Grafen and on earlier papers of his on which many of the results of this focal paper depend. Thus it is in effect a commentary on the “formal Darwinian project”, the focus of this sequence of papers. Several problems with this sequence are raised and discussed. The first of these concerns fitness maximization. It is often claimed in these papers that natural selection leads to a maximization of fitness and that (...) this view is claimed in Fisher’s “fundamental theorem of natural selection”. These claims are refuted, and various incorrect statements about the meaning and interpretation of the fundamental theorem of natural selection, in this sequence and in other papers by other authors, are discussed. Next, much of the work in this sequence rests on the first Price equation. In the deterministic (infinite population) case this equation is no more than the standard classical equation relating to changes in gene frequencies. In the stochastic case the equation gives the change in gene frequencies as the sum of two terms (the second of which vanishes in the deterministic case). These two terms are of essentially equal importance in the situation considered in the focal article, yet one of Grafen’s results ignores the second term in the stochastic analysis. This is associated with a wavering between deterministic and stochastic analyses and the use of the Price fitness concept and the classical fitness concept. These comments cast doubts on Grafen’s optimization theory. (shrink)

Smajdor addresses the problem of inferior clinical outcomes among adults with impairments of capacity to give informed consent (AWIC). She notes that AWIC are generally excluded from clinical trials to protect them against harms and avoid exploitation and claims there is a causal link between involvement in clinical trials and favourable outcomes. She argues, given this link, that we should increase AWIC representation in clinical trials and can justifiably do so by recognising the capacity of AWIC to assent. AWIC form (...) a diverse group, with multiple aetiologies, including, for example, Down syndrome, traumatic brain injury and dementia. In some cases, the inability to consent may fluctuate so that the same person could be AWIC only at certain times. Yet despite these differences, the group has a shared unmet need. We agree with Smajdor that AWIC outcomes should be improved, but question whether simply increasing representation in clinical trials is sufficient to achieve this. We identify the following points: 1. AWIC are under-represented in clinical trials. There is evidence of widespread exclusion of AWIC in clinical trials within the UK and abroad and it is often a specific exclusion criterion.1 2. AWIC have worse clinical outcomes and a lower life expectancy. The life expectancy …. (shrink)

Previous research studies of traffic networks are mainly based on planar networks and less considered the influence of multilayer networks, which illustrate and represent different appropriate urban traffic modes. Development of rail and road networks is inseparable from the development of a prosperous urban area; thus, research on multilayer networks has scientific potential and fulfils a real need. In this paper, a framework of complex network based integrated multilayer urban growth and optimisation model is proposed, to analyse the complex (...) relationships between the traffic network structure, the population growth, and the urban land-use. The innovation of this paper is the combination of the traffic complex multilayer networks and the “Four Step Model”. With the multiobjective, multilayer network coevolution and optimisation model, a more efficient traffic network layout was generated based on different land-use, population density, and travel speed scenarios. Then, this paper has proved that the proposed CNIMUGOM can save the traffic network construction investment, reduce the travel cost, make the urban traffic network more efficient, and decrease the total traffic flow amount. This research has connected the recent complex multilayer network related study and traditional urban economic model based study. The findings of the study afford to improve the current land-use and traffic integrated models and can provide traffic network planning suggestions for urban agglomeration development. (shrink)