A Syntax-based approach to measuring the degree of inconsistency for belief bases

Measuring the degree of inconsistency of a belief base is an important issue in many real world applications. It has been increasingly recognized that deriving syntax sensitive inconsistency measures for a belief base from its minimal inconsistent subsets is a natural way forward. Most of the current proposals along this line do not take the impact of the size of each minimal inconsistent subset into account. However, as illustrated by the well-known Lottery Paradox, as the size of a minimal inconsistent subset increases, the degree of its inconsistency decreases. Another lack in current studies in this area is about the role of free formulas of a belief base in measuring the degree of inconsistency. This has not yet been characterized well. Adding free formulas to a belief base can enlarge the set of consistent subsets of that base. However, consistent subsets of a belief base also have an impact on the syntax sensitive normalized measures of the degree of inconsistency, the reason for this is that each consistent subset can be considered as a distinctive plausible perspective reflected by that belief base,whilst eachminimal inconsistent subset projects a distinctive viewof the inconsistency. To address these two issues,we propose a normalized framework formeasuring the degree of inconsistency of a belief base which unifies the impact of both consistent subsets and minimal inconsistent subsets. We also show that this normalized framework satisfies all the properties deemed necessary by common consent to characterize an intuitively satisfactory measure of the degree of inconsistency for belief bases. Finally, we use a simple but explanatory example in equirements engineering to illustrate the application of the normalized framework.

New Wave Italian Style

An investigation of the long controversy around the definition of an Italian New Wave cinema of the 1960s, this essay engages (and takes issue) with the reasons behind the critics’ reluctance to recognise its existence. After establishing a theoretical and historical framework for a transnational under- standing of the phenomenon of the European and World New Waves, it offers a reasoned analysis of the multiple industrial and artistic attempts at a generational renewal of Italian cinema that were made in Italy during the 1960s. Ultimately, the essay suggests that it would not only be appropriate, but also highly productive to reconsider the vibrant and heterogeneous young Italian cinema of the 1960s under the generational and transnational New Wave label, instead of continuing to approach the decade exclusively in the light of Neorealism.

Risk: A Study of Its Origins, History and Politics

Over a period of several centuries, the academic study of risk has evolved as a distinct body of thought, which continues to influence conceptual developments in fields such as economics, management, politics and sociology. However, few scholarly works have given a chronological account of cultural and intellectual trends relating to the understanding and analysis of risks. Risk: A Study of its Origins, History and Politics aims to fill this gap by providing a detailed study of key turning points in the evolution of society's understanding of risk. Using a wide range of primary and secondary materials, Matthias Beck and Beth Kewell map the political origins and moral reach of some of the most influential ideas associated with risk and uncertainty at specific periods of time. The historical focus of the book makes it an excellent introduction for readers who wish to go beyond specific risk management techniques and their theoretical underpinnings, to gain an understanding of the history and politics of risk.

“ Humanitarian Competition: An Intellectual History in Perspective”.

Competition has become the mantra for survival in a globalised world where meaningful existence is fraught with demands, which go beyond the material to the immaterial ‘byte-size’. This has been exemplified by our obsession with illusions of immediate fame and fortune. This paper contextualises and extends the debate about the role of competition in general. Here the four major myths of competition are explored and deconstructed, from a Darwinian perspective to a more demonstrably engaged perspective on ‘capabilities’ (Sen, 1999). The second section deals particularly with the key debates, theories that influenced Tsunesaburo Makiguchi’s seminal ideas of ‘humanitarian competition’ in 1903. The final part of the paper seeks to decipher the relevance of the key ideas of ‘humanitarian competition’ as proposed by Dr Daisaku Ikeda in his 2009 peace proposal. Here the transition from competition to cooperation is explored by tying together the key principles of global coexistence enunciated by both Makiguchi and Ikeda in the context of expanding spiritual influence by the forces of culture, morality and virtue. To engage with humanitarian competition calls for a major shift from hard power to soft power, from subordination to one of engagement. In other words this concept advances the Buddhist principle of peaceful co-existence, or Panchsheel, as a norm for human behaviour of love, kindness, sacrifice and peace through cooperation, where equality and mutual benefit are critical. Humanitarian competition provides the essential framework to establish a new world order as highlighted by both Makiguchi and Ikeda.

Biodiversity and ecosystem processes in shallow coastal waters: an experimental approach

The relationship between biodiversity and ecological processes is currently the focus of considerable research effort, made all the more urgent by the rate of biodiversity loss world-wide. Rigorous experimental approaches to this question have been dominated by terrestrial ecologists, but shallow-water marine systems offer great opportunities by virtue of their relative ease of manipulation, fast response times and well-understood effects of macrofauna on sediment processes. In this paper, we describe a series of experiments whereby species richness has been manipulated in a controlled way and the concentrations of nutrients (ammonium, nitrate and phosphate) in the overlying water measured under these different treatments. The results indicate variable effects of species and location on ecosystem processes, and are discussed in the context of emerging mainstream ecological theory on biodiversity and ecosystem relations. Extensions of the application of the experimental approach to species-rich, large-scale benthic systems are discussed and the potential for novel analyses of existing data sets is highlighted. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Discovery and evolving history of two genetically related but phenotypically different viruses, porcine circoviruses 1 and 2

Porcine circoviruses (PCVs) belong to the genus Circovirus, family Circoviridae. and are the smallest non-enveloped, single stranded, negative sense, circular DNA viruses that replicate autonomously in mammalian cells. Two types of PCV have been characterised, PCV1 and PCV2 and these two viruses show 83% sequence identity at open reading frame (ORF) 1 and 67% identity at ORF2. PCV1 is a nonpathogenic virus of pigs. In contrast, PCV2 has emerged as a major pathogen of swine around the world. The discovery of PCV1 and how the subsequent studies on this virus eventually led to the recognition and characterisation of PCV2, and the disease scenarios associated with PCV2, serve as a model of how multidisciplinary collaboration among field veterinarians, diagnosticians and researchers can lead to the rapid characterisation and control of a globally important emerging disease. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Doping, sport and the law: time for repeal of prohibition?

This article concerns the legal issues that surround the prohibition of doping in sport. The current policy on the use of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) in sport is underpinned by both a paternalistic desire to protect athletes’ health and the long-term integrity or ‘spirit’ of sport. The policy is put into administrative effect globally by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), which provides the regulatory and legal framework through which the vast majority of international sports federations harmonise their anti-doping programmes. On outlining briefly both the broad administrative structures of international sport’s various anti-doping mechanisms, and specific legal issues that arise in disciplinary hearings involving athletes accused of doping, this article questions the sustainability of the current ‘zero tolerance’ approach, arguing, by way of analogy to the wider societal debate on the criminalisation of drugs, and as informed by Sunstein and Thaler’s theory of libertarian paternalism, that current policy on anti-doping has failed. Moreover, rather than the extant moral and punitive panic regarding doping in sport, this article, drawing respectively on Seddon’s and Simon’s work on the history of drugs and crime control mentality, contends that, as an alternative, harm reductionist measures should be promoted, including consideration of the medically supervised use of certain PEDs.

If Music Be the Food of Love:An Acoustic ‘Fourth World’ in Ong Keng Sen’s Awaking”

Staged as an attempt to ‘bring together Shakespeare’s plays and Tang Xian Zu’s classical Kunqu opera, The Peony Pavilion,’ (Ong, Programme Notes) Awaking stands as Singapore Director Ong Keng Sen’s most recent and prominent attempt at engaging issues of the intercultural through music and sound. While Ong’s previous intercultural projects sought to explore the politics of intercultural performance through the exchange, layering, confrontation and inter-mixing of Asian performance modes as visual aesthetics, Awaking is a performance at the borders of theatrical and musical conventions, as it features the music and musicians as central performative devices of staging the intercultural. Northern Kunqu opera, Chinese classical music and Elizabethan folk tunes from Shakespeare’s plays were re-moved, re-contextualised, and juxtaposed to explore ‘differing yet connected philosophies on love, death, and the afterlife’ (Awaking, Publicity). These humanist and ‘universal’ themes found expression in the ‘universal’ language of music. Through a study of the musicalities and sonic expressions of Awaking, the paper seeks to explore the implications of such cultural-musical juxtapositions. The paper engages, specifically, with the problematics and possibilities of music as a ‘universal language’ as implied by Ong’s concordance of Eastern and Western sounds in the final act. It further considers the politics of an intercultural soundscape and the acoustemologies of such an intercultural approach.