‘God’s Truth’: Kant, Mill and moral epistemology in Oliver Twist

This essay aims to demonstrate how Dickens’s search for ‘truth’ (and his understanding of what that abstraction consists of) entered into and emerged from one of the key philosophical discussions of the early nineteenth century: namely whether moral knowledge is the sum of one’s experiences or whether there are such things as a priori or ‘natural’ principles of ethics that transcend human practice.

Mid-term evaluation of African Technology Policy Studies Network Phase VI Strategic Plan: for the period January 1, 2009 to December 31, 2010

The African Technology Policy Studies Network (ATPS) is a multidisciplinary network of researchers, private sector actors, policymakers and civil society. ATPS has the vision to become the leading international centre of excellence and reference in science, technology and innovation (STI) systems research, training and capacity building, communication and sensitization, knowledge brokerage, policy advocacy and outreach in Africa. It has a Regional Secretariat in Nairobi Kenya, and operates through national chapters in 29 countries (including 27 in Africa and two Chapters in the United Kingdom and USA for Africans in the Diaspora) with an expansion plan to cover the entire continent by 2015. The ATPS Phase VI Strategic Plan aims to improve the understanding and functioning of STI processes and systems to strengthen the learning capacity, social responses, and governance of STI for addressing Africa's development challenges, with a specific focus on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). A team of external evaluators carried out a midterm review to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of the implementation of the Strategic Plan for the period January 1, 2009 to December 31, 2010. The evaluation methodology involved multiple quantitative and qualitative methods to assess the qualitative and quantitative inputs (human resources, financial resources, time, etc.) into ATPS activities (both thematic and facilitative) and their tangible and intangible outputs, outcomes and impacts. Methods included a questionnaire survey of ATPS members and stakeholders, key informant interviews, and focus group discussions (FGDs) with members in six countries. Effectiveness of Programmes Under all six strategic goals, very good progress has been made towards planned outputs and outcomes. This is evidenced by key performance indicators (KPIs) generated from desk review, ratings from the survey respondents, and the themes that run through the FGDs. Institutional and Programme Cost Effectiveness Institutional Effectiveness: assessment of institutional effectiveness suggests that adequate management frameworks are in place and are being used effectively and transparently. Also technical and financial accounting mechanisms are being followed in accordance with grant agreements and with global good practice. This is evidenced by KPIs generated from desk review. Programme Cost Effectiveness: assessment of cost-effectiveness of execution of programmes shows that organisational structure is efficient, delivering high quality, relevant research at relatively low cost by international standards. The evidence includes KPIs from desk review: administrative costs to programme cost ratio has fallen steadily, to around 10%; average size of research grants is modest, without compromising quality. There is high level of pro bono input by ATPS members. ATPS Programmes Strategic Evaluation ATPS research and STI related activities are indeed unique and well aligned with STI issues and needs facing Africa and globally. The multi-disciplinary and trans-boundary nature of the research activities are creating a unique group of research scientists. The ATPS approach to research and STI issues is paving the way for the so called Third Generation University (3GU). Understanding this unique positioning, an increasing number of international multilateral agencies are seeking partnership with ATPS. ATPS is seeing an increasing level of funding commitments by Donor Partners. Recommendations for ATPS Continued Growth and Effectiveness On-going reform of ATPS administrative structure to continue The on-going reforms that have taken place within the Board, Regional Secretariat, and at the National Chapter coordination levels are welcomed. Such reform should continue until fully functional corporate governance policy and practices are fully established and implemented across the ATPS governance structures. This will further strengthen ATPS to achieve the vision of being the leading STI policy brokerage organization in Africa. Although training in corporate governance has been carried out for all sectors of ATPS leadership structure in recent time, there is some evidence that these systems have not yet been fully implemented effectively within all the governance structures of the organization, especially at the Board and National chapter levels. Future training should emphasize practical application with exercises relevant to ATPS leadership structure from the Board to the National Chapter levels. Training on Transformational Leadership - Leading a Change Though a subject of intense debate amongst economists and social scientists, it is generally agreed that cultural mindsets and attitudes could enhance and/or hinder organizational progress. ATPS’s vision demands transformational leadership skills amongst its leaders from the Board members to the National Chapter Coordinators. To lead such a change, ATPS leaders must understand and avoid personal and cultural mindsets and value systems that hinder change, while embracing those that enhance it. It requires deliberate assessment of cultural, behavioural patterns that could hinder progress and the willingness to be recast into cultural and personal habits that make for progress. Improvement of relationship amongst the Board, Secretariat, and National Chapters A large number of ATPS members and stakeholders feel they do not have effective communications and/or access to Board, National Chapter Coordinators and Regional Secretariat activities. Effort should be made to improve the implementation of ATPS communication strategy to improve on information flows amongst the ATPS management and the members. The results of the survey and the FGDs suggest that progress has been made during the past two years in this direction, but more could be done to ensure effective flow of pertinent information to members following ATPS communications channels. Strategies for Increased Funding for National Chapters There is a big gap between the fundraising skills of the Regional Secretariat and those of the National Coordinators. In some cases, funds successfully raised by the Secretariat and disbursed to national chapters were not followed up with timely progress and financial reports by some national chapters. Adequate training in relevant skills required for effective interactions with STI key policy players should be conducted regularly for National Chapter coordinators and ATPS members. The ongoing training in grant writing should continue and be made continent-wide if funding permits. Funding of National Chapters should be strategic such that capacity in a specific area of research is built which, with time, will not only lead to a strong research capacity in that area, but also strengthen academic programmes. For example, a strong climate change programme is emerging at University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN), with strong collaborations with Universities from neighbouring States. Strategies to Increase National Government buy-in and support for STI Translating STI research outcomes into policies requires a great deal of emotional intelligence, skills which are often lacking in the first and second generation universities. In the epoch of the science-based or 2GUs, governments were content with universities carrying out scientific research and providing scientific education. Now they desire to see universities as incubators of new science- or technology-based commercial activities, whether by existing firms or start-ups. Hence, governments demand that universities take an active and leading role in the exploitation of their knowledge and they are willing to make funds available to support such activities. Thus, for universities to gain the attention of national leadership they must become centres of excellence and explicit instruments of economic development in the knowledge-based economy. The universities must do this while working collaboratively with government departments, parastatals, and institutions and dedicated research establishments. ATPS should anticipate these shifting changes and devise programmes to assist both government and universities to relate effectively. New administrative structures in member organizations to sustain and manage the emerging STI multidisciplinary teams Second Generation universities (2GUs) tend to focus on pure science and often do not regard the application of their know-how as their task. In contrast, Third Generation Universities (3GUs) objectively stimulate techno-starters – students or academics – to pursue the exploitation or commercialisation of the knowledge they generate. They view this as being equal in importance to the objectives of scientific research and education. Administratively, research in the 2GU era was mainly monodisciplinary and departments were structured along disciplines. The emerging interdisciplinary scientific teams with focus on specific research areas functionally work against the current mono-disciplinary faculty-based, administrative structure of 2GUs. For interdisciplinary teams, the current faculty system is an obstacle. There is a need for new organisational forms for university management that can create responsibilities for the task of know-how exploitation. ATPS must anticipate this and begin to strategize solutions for their member institutions to transition to 3Gus administrative structure, otherwise ATPS growth will plateau, and progress achieved so far may be stunted.

Fitness and dissemination of disinfectant-selected multiple-antibiotic-resistant (MAR) strains of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium in chickens

Objectives: The aims of this study were to determine whether strains of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium which had acquired low-level multiple antibiotic resistance (MAR) through repeated exposure to farm disinfectants were able to colonize and transmit between chicks as easily as the parent strain and, if such strains were less susceptible to fluoroquinolones, would high-level resistance be selected after fluoroquinolone treatment. Methods: Two mutants were compared with the isogenic parent. In the first experiment, day-old chicks were co-infected with both the parent and a mutant to determine their relative fitness. In the second experiment, parent and mutant strains (in separate groups of chicks) were assessed for their ability to transmit from infected (contact) to non-infected (naive) birds and with respect to their susceptibility to fluoroquinolone treatment. Birds were regularly monitored for the presence of Salmonella in caecal contents. Replica plating was used to monitor for the selection of antibiotic-resistant strains. Results: The parent strain was shown to be significantly fitter than the two mutants and was more rapidly disseminated to naive birds. Antibiotic treatment did not preferentially select for the two mutants or for resistant strains. Conclusions: The disinfectant-exposed strains, although MAR, were less fit, less able to disseminate than the parent strain and were not preferentially selected by therapeutic antibiotic treatment. As such, these strains are unlikely to present a greater problem than other salmonellae in chickens.

Does high-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation produce residual and/or cumulative effects within an experimental session?

A common procedure for studying the effects on cognition of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) is to deliver rTMS concurrent with task performance, and to compare task performance on these trials versus on trials without rTMS. Recent evidence that TMS can have effects on neural activity that persist longer than the experimental session itself, however, raise questions about the assumption of the transient nature of rTMS that underlies many concurrent (or "online") rTMS designs. To our knowledge, there have been no studies in the cognitive domain examining whether the application of brief trains of rTMS during specific epochs of a complex task may have effects that spill over into subsequent task epochs, and perhaps into subsequent trials. We looked for possible immediate spill-over and longer-term cumulative effects of rTMS in data from two studies of visual short-term delayed recognition. In 54 subjects, 10-Hz rTMS trains were applied to five different brain regions during the 3-s delay period of a spatial task, and in a second group of 15 subjects, electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded while 10-Hz rTMS was applied to two brain areas during the 3-s delay period of both spatial and object tasks. No evidence for immediate effects was found in the comparison of the memory probe-evoked response on trials that were vs. were not preceded by delay-period rTMS. No evidence for cumulative effects was found in analyses of behavioral performance, and of EEG signal, as a function of task block. The implications of these findings, and their relation to the broader literature on acute vs. long-lasting effects of rTMS, are considered.

Can Rachman’s indirect pathways be used to un-learn fear? A prospective paradigm to test whether children’s fears can be reduced using positive information and modelling a non-anxious response

This study investigated whether children’s fears could be un-learned using Rachman’s indirect pathways for learning fear. We hypothesised that positive information and modelling a non-anxious response are effective methods of un-learning fears acquired through verbal information. One hundred and seven children aged 6–8 years received negative information about one animal and no information about another. Fear beliefs and behavioural avoidance were measured. Children were randomised to receive positive verbal information, modelling, or a control task. Fear beliefs and behavioural avoidance were measured again. Positive information and modelling led to lower fear beliefs and behavioural avoidance than the control condition. Positive information was more effective than modelling in reducing fear beliefs and both methods significantly reduced behavioural avoidance. The results support Rachman’s indirect pathways as viable fear un-learning pathways and supports associative learning theories.

Collagen or collagen-related peptide cause (Ca2+)i elevation and increased tyrosine phosphorylation in human megakaryocytes.

Since megakaryocytes are the cellular precursors of platelets we have investigated whether they share responses to platelet agonists, in particular collagen. Although previous studies have reported responses to thrombin in non-human megakaryocytes, through studies of single cell calcium responses and protein tyrosine-phosphorylation we demonstrate for the first time that both isolated human megakaryocytes and CD41/61-positive megakaryocytes derived in culture from CD34+ cells share responses to the platelet agonists collagen, collagen-related peptide and thrombin. The responses to either collagen or CRP were seen only in the most mature megakaryocytes and not in megakaryocyte-like cell lines, suggesting that the response to collagen is a characteristic developed late during megakaryocyte differentiation. These primary cells offer the opportunity to use many molecular and cellular techniques to study and manipulate signalling events in response to platelet receptor agonists, which cannot be performed in the small, anucleate platelet itself.

The National Audit Office uses OR to assess the value for money of public services

Supreme audit institutions (SAIs) have an important role in assessing value for money in the delivery of public services. Assessing value for money necessarily involves assessing counterfactuals: good value for money has been achieved if a policy could not reasonably have been delivered more efficiently, effectively, or economically. Operations research modelling has the potential to help in the assessment of these counterfactuals. However, is such modelling too arcane, complex, and technically burdensome for organisations that, like SAIs, operate in a time- and resource-constrained and politically charged environment? We report on three applications of modelling at the UK's SAI, the National Audit Office, in the context of studies on demand management in tax collection, end-of-life care, and health-care associated infections. In all cases, the models have featured in the audit reports and helped study teams come to a value-for-money judgment. We conclude that OR modelling is indeed a valuable addition to the value-for-money auditor's methodological tool box.

Chercher pour or chercher après: arguing the case for contact-induced linguistic innovation in different varieties of French

This paper provides evidence for the claim made in Baetens Beardsmore (1971) that the grammatical collocation "chercher après" «to look for», which is very frequent in Brussels French, is the result of transfer from the contact language, Brussels Dutch. A detailed quantitative analysis of this construction in different varieties of French which have more or less contact with a Germanic language was made to investigate the likelihood of influence from the Germanic substrate. The differences between the meaning of "chercher" and "chercher après" are also analysed in some depth, to find out whether or not the particle is redundant. According to Trudgill (2004) redundant constructions are more often found in contact situations involving long-term, stable contact and child bilingualism. The particle "après" was found to add a particular shade of meaning to "chercher", and is thus not redundant. Therefore no evidence could be obtained from the current data for Trudgill’s (2004) claim.

To eat or not to eat? Kinematics and muscle activity of reach-to-grasp movements are influenced by the action goal, but observers do not detect these differences

Recent evidence suggests that the mirror neuron system responds to the goals of actions, even when the end of the movement is hidden from view. To investigate whether this predictive ability might be based on the detection of early differences between actions with different outcomes, we used electromyography (EMG) and motion tracking to assess whether two actions with different goals (grasp to eat and grasp to place) differed from each other in their initial reaching phases. In a second experiment, we then tested whether observers could detect early differences and predict the outcome of these movements, based on seeing only part of the actions. Experiment 1 revealed early kinematic differences between the two movements, with grasp-to-eat movements characterised by an earlier peak acceleration, and different grasp position, compared to grasp-to-place movements. There were also significant differences in forearm muscle activity in the reaching phase of the two actions. The behavioural data arising from Experiments 2a and 2b indicated that observers are not able to predict whether an object is going to be brought to the mouth or placed until after the grasp has been completed. This suggests that the early kinematic differences are either not visible to observers, or that they are not used to predict the end-goals of actions. These data are discussed in the context of the mirror neuron system

Does neural input or processing play a greater role in the magnitude of neuroimaging signals?

An important constraint on how hemodynamic neuroimaging signals such as fMRI can be interpreted in terms of the underlying evoked activity is an understanding of neurovascular coupling mechanisms that actually generate hemodynamic responses. The predominant view at present is that the hemodynamic response is most correlated with synaptic input and subsequent neural processing rather than spiking output. It is still not clear whether input or processing is more important in the generation of hemodynamics responses. In order to investigate this we measured the hemodynamic and neural responses to electrical whisker pad stimuli in rat whisker barrel somatosensory cortex both before and after the local cortical injections of the GABAA agonist muscimol. Muscimol would not be expected to affect the thalamocortical input into the cortex but would inhibit subsequent intra-cortical processing. Pre-muscimol infusion whisker stimuli elicited the expected neural and accompanying hemodynamic responses to that reported previously. Following infusion of muscimol, although the temporal profile of neural responses to each pulse of the stimulus train was similar, the average response was reduced in magnitude by ∼79% compared to that elicited pre-infusion. The whisker-evoked hemodynamic responses were reduced by a commensurate magnitude suggesting that, although the neurovascular coupling relationships were similar for synaptic input as well as for cortical processing, the magnitude of the overall response is dominated by processing rather than from that produced from the thalamocortical input alone.

Sustainable agricultural intensification or Jevons paradox? The role of public governance in tropical South America

The process of global deforestation calls for urgent attention, particularly in South America where deforestation rates have failed to decline over the past 20 years. The main direct cause of deforestation is land conversion to agriculture. We combine data from the FAO and the World Bank for six tropical Southern American countries over the period 1970–2006, estimate a panel data model accounting for various determinants of agricultural land expansion and derive elasticities to quantify the effect of the different independent variables. We investigate whether agricultural intensification, in conjunction with governance factors, has been promoting agricultural expansion, leading to a ‘‘Jevons paradox’’. The paradox occurs if an increase in the productivity of one factor (here agricultural land) leads to its increased, rather than decreased, utilization. We find that for high values of our governance indicators a Jevons paradox exists even for moderate levels of agricultural productivity, leading to an overall expansion of agricultural area. Agricultural expansion is also positively related to the level of service on external debt and population growth, while its association with agricultural exports is only moderate. Finally, we find no evidence of an environmental Kuznets curve, as agricultural area is ultimately positively correlated to per-capita income levels.

Morphological decomposition in Broca's aphasia

Background: Few studies have investigated how individuals diagnosed with post-stroke Broca’s aphasia decompose words into their constituent morphemes in real-time processing. Previous research has focused on morphologically complex words in non-time-constrained settings or in syntactic frames, but not in the lexicon. Aims: We examined real-time processing of morphologically complex words in a group of five Greek-speaking individuals with Broca’s aphasia to determine: (1) whether their morphological decomposition mechanisms are sensitive to lexical (orthography and frequency) vs. morphological (stem-suffix combinatory features) factors during visual word recognition, (2) whether these mechanisms are different in inflected vs. derived forms during lexical access, and (3) whether there is a preferred unit of lexical access (syllables vs. morphemes) for inflected vs. derived forms. Methods & Procedures: The study included two real-time experiments. The first was a semantic judgment task necessitating participants’ categorical judgments for high- and low-frequency inflected real words and pseudohomophones of the real words created by either an orthographic error at the stem or a homophonous (but incorrect) inflectional suffix. The second experiment was a letter-priming task at the syllabic or morphemic boundary of morphologically transparent inflected and derived words whose stems and suffixes were matched for length, lemma and surface frequency. Outcomes & Results: The majority of the individuals with Broca’s aphasia were sensitive to lexical frequency and stem orthography, while ignoring the morphological combinatory information encoded in the inflectional suffix that control participants were sensitive to. The letter-priming task, on the other hand, showed that individuals with aphasia—in contrast to controls—showed preferences with regard to the unit of lexical access, i.e., they were overall faster on syllabically than morphemically parsed words and their morphological decomposition mechanisms for inflected and derived forms were modulated by the unit of lexical access. Conclusions: Our results show that in morphological processing, Greek-speaking persons with aphasia rely mainly on stem access and thus are only sensitive to orthographic violations of the stem morphemes, but not to illegal morphological combinations of stems and suffixes. This possibly indicates an intact orthographic lexicon but deficient morphological decomposition mechanisms, possibly stemming from an underspecification of inflectional suffixes in the participants’ grammar. Syllabic information, however, appears to facilitate lexical access and elicits repair mechanisms that compensate for deviant morphological parsing procedures.

Probability distributions or point predictions? Survey forecasts of US output growth and inflation

We consider whether survey respondents’ probability distributions, reported as histograms, provide reliable and coherent point predictions, when viewed through the lens of a Bayesian learning model. We argue that a role remains for eliciting directly-reported point predictions in surveys of professional forecasters.

Type-1 error inflation in the traditional by-participant analysis to metamemory accuracy: a generalized mixed-effects model perspective

In order to examine metacognitive accuracy (i.e., the relationship between metacognitive judgment and memory performance), researchers often rely on by-participant analysis, where metacognitive accuracy (e.g., resolution, as measured by the gamma coefficient or signal detection measures) is computed for each participant and the computed values are entered into group-level statistical tests such as the t-test. In the current work, we argue that the by-participant analysis, regardless of the accuracy measurements used, would produce a substantial inflation of Type-1 error rates, when a random item effect is present. A mixed-effects model is proposed as a way to effectively address the issue, and our simulation studies examining Type-1 error rates indeed showed superior performance of mixed-effects model analysis as compared to the conventional by-participant analysis. We also present real data applications to illustrate further strengths of mixed-effects model analysis. Our findings imply that caution is needed when using the by-participant analysis, and recommend the mixed-effects model analysis.