The Decision on Turkish EU accession in December 2002: The logic of anarchy, collective action problems and rhetorical action

Studies of the EU accession of the East and Central European Countries have stressed the importance of neo-liberal institutionalism as an explanation for Member State preferences. In this paper it is argued that Member States’ preferences over Turkish EU accession are better explained by power politics and neo-realism. It seems therefore that Turkey’s way to the EU follows another path than the East and Central Countries. Turkish accession raises the question of the EU’s role in a uni-polar world order – whether the EU should develop into an independent actor on the world stage or not. However, when it comes to the interaction among the Member States in order to decide on when to open accession negotiations with Turkey the constitutive values of the EU seriously modify the outcome that pure power politics would have let to.

Refutations and the Logic of Practice. 'Refutaciones y la Lógica de la Práctica'.

Resumen basado en el de la publicación

Probability and the logic of rational belief.

Includes bibliography.

Reconsidering the logic of World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies grading in patients with severe subarachnoid hemorrhage.

OBJECT Current data show a favorable outcome in up to 50% of patients with World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies (WFNS) Grade V subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) and a rather poor prediction of worst cases. Thus, the usefulness of the current WFNS grading system for identifying the worst scenarios for clinical studies and for making treatment decisions is limited. One reason for this lack of differentiation is the use of "negative" or "silent" diagnostic signs as part of the WFNS Grade V definition. The authors therefore reevaluated the WFNS scale by using "positive" clinical signs and the logic of the Glasgow Coma Scale as a progressive herniation score. METHODS The authors performed a retrospective analysis of 182 patients with SAH who had poor grades on the WFNS scale. Patients were graded according to the original WFNS scale and additionally according to a modified classification, the WFNS herniation (hWFNS) scale (Grade IV, no clinical signs of herniation; Grade V, clinical signs of herniation). The prediction of poor outcome was compared between these two grading systems. RESULTS The positive predictive values of Grade V for poor outcome were 74.3% (OR 3.79, 95% CI 1.94-7.54) for WFNS Grade V and 85.7% (OR 8.27, 95% CI 3.78-19.47) for hWFNS Grade V. With respect to mortality, the positive predictive values were 68.3% (OR 3.9, 95% CI 2.01-7.69) for WFNS Grade V and 77.9% (OR 6.22, 95% CI 3.07-13.14) for hWFNS Grade V. CONCLUSIONS Limiting WFNS Grade V to the positive clinical signs of the Glasgow Coma Scale such as flexion, extension, and pupillary abnormalities instead of including "no motor response" increases the prediction of mortality and poor outcome in patients with severe SAH.

Embracing transience and subjectivity in the conservation of complex contemporary artworks: contributions from ethnographic and psychological paradigms

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Conservação e Restauro, Perfil Ciências da Conservação Especialização em Arte Contemporânea

Mental Logic and the Denials of Conjunctions and Disjunctions

ABSTRACT: The mental models theory predicts that, while conjunctions are easier than disjunctions for individuals, when denied, conjunctions are harder than disjunctions. Khemlani, Orenes, and Johnson-Laird proved that this prediction is correct in their work of 2014. In this paper, I analyze their results in order to check whether or not they really affect the mental logic theory. My conclusion is that, although Khemlani et al.'s study provides important findings, such findings do not necessarily lead to questioning or to rejecting the mental logic theory.

Military competition and the emergence of nationalism: putting the logic of political survival into historical context

This essay aims to make a contribution to the conversation between IR and nationalism literatures by considering a particular question: What is the relationship between interstate military competition and the emergence of nationalism as a potent force in world politics? The conventional wisdom among international security scholars, especially neorealists, holds that nationalism can be more or less treated like a “technology” that allowed states to extract significant resources as well as manpower from their respective populations. This paper underlines some of the problems involved with this perspective and pushes forward an interpretation that is based on the logic of political survival. I argue that nationalism’s emergence as a powerful force in world politics followed from the “mutation” and absorption of the universalistic/cosmopolitan republican ideas that gained temporary primacy in Europe during the eighteenth century into particularistic nationalist ideologies. This transformation, in turn, can be best explained by the French Revolution’s dramatic impacts on rulers’ political survival calculi vis-à-vis both interstate and domestic political challenges. The analysis offered in this essay contributes to our understanding of the relationship between IR and nationalism while also highlighting the potential value of the political survival framework for exploring macrohistorical puzzles.

Citizens and the future of multilateralism in a polycentric world at 2030: the perspectives of emerging countries for the trading system: the impasse of WTO, the trends of mega agreements, the logic of value chains and the advent of consumers concerns on international trade

A new paradigm is modeling the World: evolutionary innovations in all fronts, new information technologies, huge mobility of capital, use of risky financial tools, globalization of production, new emerging powers and the impact of consumer concerns on governmental policies. These phenomena are shaping the World and forcing the advent of a new World Order in the Multilateral Monetary, Financial, and Trading System. The effects of this new paradigm are also transforming global governance. The political and economic orders established after the World War and centered on the multilateral model of UN, IMF, World Bank, and the GATT, leaded by the developed countries, are facing significant challenges. The rise of China and emerging countries shifted the old model to a polycentric World, where the governance of these organizations are threatened by emerging countries demanding a bigger participation in the role and decision boards of these international bodies. As a consequence, multilateralism is being confronted by polycentrism. Negotiations for a more representative voting process and the pressure for new rules to cope with the new demands are paralyzing important decisions. This scenario is affecting seriously not only the Monetary and Financial Systems but also the Multilateral Trading System. International trade is facing some significant challenges: a serious deadlock to conclude the last round of the multilateral negotiation at the WTO, the fragmentation of trade rules by the multiplication of preferential and mega agreements, the arrival of a new model of global production and trade leaded by global value chains that is threatening the old trade order, and the imposition of new sets of regulations by private bodies commanded by transnationals to support global value chains and non-governmental organizations to reflect the concerns of consumers in the North based on their precautionary attitude about sustainability of products made in the World. The lack of any multilateral order in this new regulation is creating a big cacophony of rules and developing a new regulatory war of the Global North against the Global South. The objective of this paper is to explore how these challenges are affecting the Tradinge System and how it can evolve to manage these new trends.

Caribbean and its incomplete class structure: essay on the logic of its negotiations with the metropolitan countries

Publicado también con el símbolo E/CEPAL/SEM.10/R.11

Aristotelian predicables, universality and realism: the logic of comparison in topics as denying the view that Aristotle was a realist

Aristotle is reportedly held to have been a Moderate Realist in that he would maintain that a concept derives from an act of grasping a mind-independent universal object that exists somehow inside of the many different things which the concept is predicated of. As far as a universal is independent of mind, it would stand for the proper object of a concept that subsumes a given number of things as its own instantiations. But we claim that Aristotle rejected such a view and instead did perceive and comprehend universality as a feature of thought rather than as a feature of reality in its own right. As showed in the chapters of Topics regarding the so-called logic of comparison (with the support of Albert the Great’s commentary), each predicate can be more or less consistent with the attribute of the subject of which it may be predicated. Both essential and accidental attributes assume a definite degree of being related to the degree of belonging to substance. Unlike particular things, the universality of a concept is to be understood always in comparison with another concept according to a hierarchy of predicates in terms of universality degree arranged by comparative terms such as ‘more’, ‘less’, and ‘likewise’. What is really mind-independent are the truth conditions which make a universal true when exclusively referring to a set of things identically meant by the same predicate whose universality is given by the place occupied in the hierarchy of predicates.