On AGM for Non-Classical Logics

The AGM theory of belief revision provides a formal framework to represent the dynamics of epistemic states. In this framework, the beliefs of the agent are usually represented as logical formulas while the change operations are constrained by rationality postulates. In the original proposal, the logic underlying the reasoning was supposed to be supraclassical, among other properties. In this paper, we present some of the existing work in adapting the AGM theory for non-classical logics and discuss their interconnections and what is still missing for each approach.

Bayesian Estimation of the Logistic Positive Exponent IRT Model

A Bayesian inference approach using Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) is developed for the logistic positive exponent (LPE) model proposed by Samejima and for a new skewed Logistic Item Response Theory (IRT) model, named Reflection LPE model. Both models lead to asymmetric item characteristic curves (ICC) and can be appropriate because a symmetric ICC treats both correct and incorrect answers symmetrically, which results in a logical contradiction in ordering examinees on the ability scale. A data set corresponding to a mathematical test applied in Peruvian public schools is analyzed, where comparisons with other parametric IRT models also are conducted. Several model comparison criteria are discussed and implemented. The main conclusion is that the LPE and RLPE IRT models are easy to implement and seem to provide the best fit to the data set considered.

Neuropsychological Assessment of Current and Past Crack Cocaine Users

Background: Cognitive changes due to crack cocaine consumption remain unclear Methods: For clarification, 55 subjects were assigned to three groups: control group, crack cocaine current users, and ex-users. Participants were submitted to Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and tasks evaluating executive functioning and verbal memory Mood state was also measured. Intergroup comparisons were carried out. Results: Control group performance on the MMSE was better than that of users and ex-users. Verbal memory performance for logical memory of users was impaired. Ex-users scored lower on DSST and Trail Making Test (Part B). Conclusion: Chronic crack cocaine use seems to disrupt general cognitive functioning (MMSE), verbal memory, and attentional resources, but findings suggest that some of these effects could be reversed by abstinence.

Influence of education and depressive symptoms on cognitive function in the elderly

Objective: The purpose of the present study was to investigate the influence that education and depression have on the performance of elderly people in neuropsychological tests. Methods: The study was conducted at the Institute of Psychiatry, University of Sao Paulo School of Medicine, Hospital das Clinicas. All of the individuals evaluated were aged 60 or older. The study sample consisted of 59 outpatients with depressive disorders and 51 healthy controls. We stratified the sample by level of education: low = 1-4 years of schooling; high = 5 or more years of schooling. Evaluations consisted of psychiatric assessment, cognitive assessment, laboratory tests and cerebral magnetic resonance imaging. Results: We found that level of education influenced all the measures of cognitive domains investigated (intellectual efficiency, processing speed, attention, executive function and memory) except the Digit Span Forward and Fuld Object Memory Evaluation (immediate and delayed recall), whereas depressive symptoms influenced some measures of memory, attention, executive function and processing speed. Although the combination of a low level of education and depression had a significant negative influence on Stroop Test part B, Trail Making Test part B and Logical Memory (immediate recall), we found no other significant effects of the interaction between level of education and depression. Conclusion: The results of this study underscore the importance of considering the level of education in the analysis of cognitive performance in depressed elderly patients, as well as the relevance of developing new cognitive function tests in which level of education has a reduced impact on the results.

Introducing Undergraduate Students to Science

Understanding the scientific method fosters the development of critical thinking and logical analysis of information. Additionally, proposing and testing a hypothesis is applicable not only to science, but also to ordinary facts of daily life. Knowing the way science is done and how its results are published is useful for all citizens and mandatory for science students. A 60-h course was created to offer undergraduate students a framework in which to learn the procedures of scientific production and publication. The course`s main focus was biochemistry, and it was comprised of two modules. Module I dealt with scientific articles, and Module II with research project writing. Module I covered the topics: 1) the difference between scientific knowledge and common sense, 2) different conceptions of science, 3) scientific methodology, 4) scientific publishing categories, 5) logical principles, 6) deductive and inductive approaches, and 7) critical reading of scientific articles. Module II dealt with 1) selection of an experimental problem for investigation, 2) bibliographic revision, 3) materials and methods, 4) project writing and presentation, 5) funding agencies, and 6) critical analysis of experimental results. The course adopted a collaborative learning strategy, and each topic was studied through activities performed by the students. Qualitative and quantitative course evaluations with Likert questionnaires were carried out at each stage, and the results showed the students` high approval of the course. The staff responsible for course planning and development also evaluated it positively. The Biochemistry Department of the Chemistry Institute of the University of Sao Paulo has offered the course four times.

Un estudio de La Sombra del Viento de Carlos RuizZafón desde una perspectiva de género

Esta tesina tiene el propósito de analizar las características de algunos de lospersonajes principales de La Sombra del Viento de Carlos Ruiz Zafón desde un punto de vistade género. El estudio se basa en diferentes teorías de género que pretenden funcionar comoherramientas para poder destacar las diferencias entre las descripciones femeninas y lasmasculinas que aparecen en la obra. Primero, definimos y concretamos el término género conla ayuda de las teorías de Yvonne Hirdman. En segundo lugar, presentamos la teoría deldualismo, de acuerdo con la cual Lena Gemzöe hace una división entre las cualidadesmasculinas y femeninas. El objetivo de nuestro estudio ha sido hacer un análisis de lascaracterísticas de algunos de los personajes principales de para demostrar si existenconstrucciones de identidad de género desde una perspectiva dualista. Como resultado denuestro estudio podemos afirmar que Zafón refuerza la división entre las cualidadesmasculinas y femeninas. Los personajes masculinos son descritos como fuertes, valientes,lógicos, intelectuales e independientes. Paralelamente, las mujeres son descritas como débiles,cobardes, intuitivas y dependientes. Además, consideramos que Zafón da a todos lospersonajes masculinos mayor espacio, estatus y protagonismo en el desarrollo de la historia.En todo momento, queda claro que Zafón crea de forma inconsciente el orden de género yrefuerza así las diferencias sexuales.

Heidegger and the Japanese connection

This collection of new essays on phenomenological themes reviews aspects of the philosophical movement which began with the publication in 1900-01 of Edmund Husserl's path-breaking Logical Investigations. A broad survey of phenomenology is particularly timely given that this philosophical movement is reaching a hundred years of its existence. The thirteen contributions represent a wide range of approaches and interests within the phenomenological framework. Some present approaches to Husserl, while others explore aspects of the fundamental texts of phenomenology and provide critical discussions of later thinkers such as Heidegger, Sartre, and Derrida whose relation to Husserl receives particular attention. The final section relates phenomenology to other disciplines and to broader issues in social thought and cultural studies. This book will enable students and professional philosophers alike to explore the various strands of this widely influential school of thought.

Overcoming principles: dialogue in business ethics

Basing itself upon a virtue-ethics approach, this paper questions the value of syllogistic or deductive approaches to teaching business ethics and to the modelling of the kinds of judgments that executives are asked to make in situations of moral complexity. It urges that the teaching of ethical theories, of ethical principles, and of logical methods of moral thinking, and the use of hypothetical or historical scenarios, be augmented by the method of `Real Case Dialogue' which more nearly models the eal and intense existential realities of ethical decision making. A brief description of such a dialogue is offered so aslo provide an example.

Polanyi's presagement of the incommensurability concept

Kuhn and Feyerabend have little to say about the thought of Michael Polanyi, and the secondary literature on Polanyi's relation to them is meagre. I argue that Polanyi's view, in Personal knowledge and in other writings, of conceptual frameworks ‘segregated’ by a ‘logical gap’ as giving rise to controversies in science foreshadowed Kuhn and Feyerabend's theme of incommensurability. The similarity between the thinkers is, I suggest, no coincidence.

Key success factors in bidding for hallmark sporting events

Hallmark sporting events often are commercially driven entertainment entities which represent an economically important part of the overall sport industry. Because of the high popularity of international sporting contests, hallmark sporting events attract significant commercial, media, and consumer attention. Cities around the world are beginning to understand the potential of using these events to draw attention to the host city, which is why the market for hallmark sporting events is becoming increasingly competitive. In order to award the hosting of the event to the most suitable organizer, event owners often require potential hosts to bid. The most important elements in this process have been largely based on logical assumptions rather than empirical data. This study focused on the bid process in order to ascertain the important elements essential in achieving a successful bid.

Plato's legacy : How to do philosophy

Although it has its origins earlier, philosophy as we know it in the West took its shape from the Socrates of Plato's Dialogues. It is not implausible to regard the Dialogues as heuristic devices designed for engaging in philosophical inquiry. As such, they would model the process of philosophical inquiry as well as illustrate the common pitfalls or errors to avoid when engaging in such inquiry. So it will not be surprising to see Socrates, the character of the Dialogues, modeling questionable, even poor, inquiry techniques as well as good; admonishing other characters for poor technique and reminding them of lessons they should have learned earlier in their tuition. Plato presumably would expect students reading and role-playing a Dialogue to recognise when and where such instances occur. It is instructive then to take a close look at one of the longer dialogues featuring Socrates engaging in such inquiry, not with an untutored interlocutor, but with a professional, the sophist Protagoras, in order to identify the features of the inquiry itself. For this will reveal something of what Plato conceived to be the activity of philosophy to which we are the heirs. The Protagoras can be read as an illustration (not a definition) of how to do philosophy. And to aid this reading, I propose to focus on the logical form of the inquiry, the moves made by the characters and the techniques displayed, rather than the adequacy of the substantive arguments they mount.

Response : A defensible and workable approach to the income tax treatment of financial instruments

It is a privilege to have the opportunity to respond to the comments on my monograph1 provided by Mark Gergen, Glenn May, and Gordon Longhouse. Their comments, which are inevitably coloured by their very different perspectives, reflect the considerable expertise that each one of them has in the area of the income taxation of financial instruments. Indeed, it is with some hesitation that I offer a response in defence of various portions of the analysis presented in my monograph in support of some pretty modest proposals in this extremely difficult area of income tax law. Although I spent considerable time exploring some necessary first principles and their implications for the design of a system for the income taxation of financial instruments, I made several concessions to certain practical constraints that led me to support, in some measure, the status quo reflected in certain of the existing literature, as well as the legislation in a select group of countries. On the assumption that many readers may be unfamiliar with the monograph, I propose to respond by outlining much of my analysis in the monograph and the proposals that are the logical outcome. Throughout the outline, I will highlight and respond to what I see as the important points of difference emphasized by Gergen, May, and Longhouse.

Dissected debt : developing a better legislative response to FCT v Myer Emporium Ltd

After many decades of actual and proposed reform, Australia's rules for the taxation of debt arrangements remain deeply flawed. A notable problem is the absence of appropriate rules for dissected debt arrangements, where a creditor dissects a debt into interest and principal
repayment components and disposes of one or both of these separately, as occurred in the leading case ofFCT v Myer Emporium Ltd. The knee-jerk reaction to Myer by the High Court and the legislature is a model of bad tax policy and bad tax law. The approach adopted overseas, using the United States as the clearest example, is a logical one for Australia to follow.

Two sources of Michael Polanyi`s prototypal notion of incommensurability: Evans-Pritchard on Azande witchcraft and St Augustine on conversion

Michael Polanyi argues in Personal Knowledge (1958) that conceptual frameworks involved in major scientific controversies are separated by a `logical gap'. Such frameworks, according to Polanyi (1958: 151), are logically disconnected: their protagonists think differently, use different languages and occupy different worlds. Relinquishing one framework and adopting another, Polanyi's scientist undergoes a `conversion' to a new `faith'. Polanyi, in other words, presaged Kuhn and Feyerabend's concept of incommensurability. To what influences was Polanyi subject as he developed his concept of the logical gap? The answer, as unfolded in this article, is twofold: Evans-Pritchard's Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande and the Confessions of St Augustine.

HRQOL and subjective well-being: noncomplementary forms of outcome measurement

This review considers some of the broad principles that concern quality of life assessment. These are discussed in relation to health-related quality of life (HRQOL) and the measurement of subjective well-being. It is argued that there are serious logical and methodological issues concerning HRQOL measurement, to the extent that the instruments may not be regarded as valid measures of life quality as this term is generally understood. It is recommended that HRQOL measurement be abandoned in favor of three separate forms of measurement as medical symptoms, subjective well-being and specific dimensions of psychological ill-being.