OPTIMIZING HYBRIDISM: A CRITIQUE OF NATURALIST, NORMATIVIST AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL ACCOUNTS OF DISEASE IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF MEDICINE

This dissertation represents an investigative critique of the philosophical approaches to defining health and disease, going beyond pure conceptual analysis and straight into historical-philosophical analysis in an attempt to unpack the very discourse which underpins the discussion. Drawing on the notion of language as a medium of social instruction, it problematizes various specific features of the debate’s intellectual format, for example pointing out that its preoccupation with linguistic precision ought to be replaced with a focus on expressing the complex multidimensional nature of disease in a relatable manner. After presenting evidence of clinical reasoning’s inherent susceptibility to bias, the thesis exposes naturalism’s historical roots as an ideologically driven counter-reaction to nineteenth century vitalism, thereby discrediting the ideal of neutrality. Despite this skeptical start, it rejects eliminativist positions that philosophical attempts to produce health/disease definitions are pointless and unnecessary, and argues that the debate needs to be maintained due to such discussions’ important implications for medical and social identities, patient narratives, the negotiation of treatment objectives, or even the effectiveness of public health programmes (as a population’s inclination to comply with state-mandated public health measures is directly influenced by the notions it holds about health and disease). This is followed by an exploration of the conceptual limitations faced by the most commonly applied strategies of defining disease, after which their advantages are re-combined in an optimized hybrid account of disease supported by a philosophical distinction between the categories of ‘symptoms’ and ‘clinical signs’. Finally, this account is tested on a wide range of problematic cases, to ensure its capacity to deliver the promised results whilst also overcoming challenging influences such as the ones posed by bias, discursively shaped diagnostic labels, or unwarranted pathologization

Dagstuhl News January - December 2011

"Dagstuhl News" is a publication edited especially for the members of the Foundation "Informatikzentrum Schloss Dagstuhl" to thank them for their support. The News give a summary of the scientific work being done in Dagstuhl. Each Dagstuhl Seminar is presented by a small abstract describing the contents and scientific highlights of the seminar as well as the perspectives or challenges of the research topic

From learning to e-learning: mining educational data. A novel, data-driven approach to evaluate individual differences in students’ interaction with learning technology

In recent years, learning technology has become a very important addition to the toolkit of instructors at any level of education and training. Not only offered as a substitute in distance education, but often complementing traditional delivery methods, e-learning is considered an important component of modern pedagogy. Particularly in the last decade, learning technology has seen a very rapid growth following the large-scale development and deployment of e-learning financed by both Governments and commercial enterprises. These turned e-learning into one of the most profitable sectors of the new century, especially in recession times when education and retraining have become even more important and a need to maximise resources is forced by the need for savings. Interestingly, however, evaluation of e-learning has been primarily based on the consideration of users’ satisfaction and usability metrics (i.e. system engineering perspective) or on the outcomes of learning (i.e. gains in grades/task performance). Both of these are too narrow to provide a reliable effect of the real impact of learning technology on the learning processes and lead to inconsistent findings. The key purpose of this thesis is to propose a novel, data-driven framework and methodology to understand the effect of e-learning by evaluating the utility and effectiveness of e-learning systems in the context of higher education, and specifically, in the teaching of psychology courses. The concept of learning is limited to its relevance for students’ learning in courses taught using a mixture of traditional methods and online tools tailored to enhance teaching. The scope of elearning is intended in a blended method of delivery of teaching. A large sample of over 2000 students taking psychology courses in year 1 and year 2 was considered over a span of 5 five years, also providing the scope for the analysis of some longitudinal sub-samples. The analysis is accomplished using a psychologically grounded approach to evaluation, partially informed by a cognitive/ behavioural perspective (online usage) and a differential perspective (measures of cognitive and learning styles). Relations between behaviours, styles and academic performance are also considered, giving an insight and a direct comparison with existing literature. The methodology adopted draws heavily from data mining techniques to provide a rich characterisation of students/users in this particular context from the combination of three types of metrics: cognitive and learning styles, online usage and academic performance. Four different instruments are used to characterise styles: ASSIST (Approaches to learning, Entwistle), CSI (Cognitive Styles Inventory, Allinson & Hayes), TSI (Thinking Styles Inventory and the mental self-government theory, Sternberg) and VICS-WA (Verbal/Imager and Wholistc/Analytic Cognitive style, Riding, Peterson) which were intentionally selected to provide a varied set of tools. Online usage, spanning over the entire academic year for each student, is analysed applying web usage mining (WUM) techniques and is observed through different layers of interpretation accounting for behaviours from the single clicks to a student’s intentions in a single session. Academic performance was collated from the students’ records giving an insight in the end-of-year grades, but also into specific coursework submissions during the whole academic year allowing for a temporal matching of online use and assessment. The varied metrics used and data mining techniques applied provide a novel evaluation framework based on a rich profile of the learner, which in turn offers a valuable alternative to regression methods as a mean to interpret relations between metrics. Patterns emerging from styles and the way online material is used over time, proved to be valuable in discriminating differences in academic performance and useful in this context to identify significant group differences in both usage and academic performance. As a result, the understanding of the relations between e-learning usage, styles and academic performance has important practical implications to enhance students’ learning experience, in the automation of learning systems and to inform policymakers of the effects of learning technology has from a user and learner-centred approach to learning and studying. The success of the application of data mining methods offers an excellent starting point to explore further a data-driven approach to evaluation, support informed design processes of e-learning and to deliver suitable interventions to ensure better learning outcomes and provide an efficient system for institutions and organization to maximise the impact of learning technology for teaching and training

The Psychology of Human Thought

The “Psychology of Human Thought” is an “open access” collection of peer-reviewed chapters from all areas of higher cognitive processes. The book is intended to be used as a textbook in courses on higher process, complex cognition, human thought, and related courses. Chapters include concept acquisition, knowledge representation, inductive and deductive reasoning, problem solving, metacognition, language, expertise, intelligence, creativity, wisdom, development of thought, affect and thought, and sections about history and about methods. The chapters are written by distinguished scholarly experts in their respective fields, coming from such diverse regions as North America, Great Britain, France, Germany, Norway, Israel, and Australia. The level of the chapters is addressed to advanced undergraduates and beginning graduate students.„Psychology of Human Thought“ ist eine Sammlung frei zugänglicher, qualitätsgeprüfter Kapitel aus allen Gebieten höherer Kognition. Sie ist gedacht als Lesebuch zum Studium komplexer Kognition und des menschlichen Denkens. Die Kapitel umfassen die Themen Begriffserwerb, Wissensrepräsentation, induktives und deduktives Schließen, Problemlösen, Metakognition, Sprache, Kultur, Expertise, Intelligenz, Kreativität, Weisheit, Denkentwicklung, Denken und Gefühle. Auch Kapitel zur Geschichte und zu Methoden sind dabei. Die Kapitel sind von weltweit führenden Experten aus den USA, Großbritannien, Frankreich, Norwegen, Israel, Australien und Deutschland verfasst. Das Niveau ist ausgerichtet auf fortgeschrittene Studierende

Education Reform at the "Edge of Chaos": Constructing ETCH (An Education Theory Complexity Hybrid) for an Optimal Learning Education Environment

EDUCATION REFORM AT THE "EDGE OF CHAOS":CONSTRUCTING ETCH (AN EDUCATION THEORY COMPLEXITY HYBRID) FOR AN OPTIMAL LEARNING EDUCATION ENVIRONMENT AbstractCurrently, the theoretical foundation that inspires educational theory, which in turn shapes the systemic structure of institutions of learning, is based on three key interconnected, interacting underpinnings -mechanism, reductionism, and linearity. My dissertation explores this current theoretical underpinning including its fallacies and inconsistencies, and then frames an alternative educational theoretical base - a hybrid complex adaptive systems theory model for education - that more effectively meets the demands to prepare students for the 21st century. My Education Theory Complexity Hybrid (ETCH) differs by focusing on the systemic, autopoietic nature of schools, the open, fluid processes of school systems as a dissipative structure, and nonlinearity or impossibility of completely predicting the results of any specific intervention within a school system.. In addition, I show how ETCH principles, when applied by educational system leaders, permit them to facilitate an optimal learning environment for a student-centered complex adaptive system.ETCH is derived from Complexity Theory and is a coherent, valid, and verifiable systems' framework that accurately aligns the education system with its goal as a student-centered complex adaptive system. In contrast to most dissertations in the School Leadership Program, which are empirical studies, mine explores this new theoretical orientation and illustrates the power of that orientation through a series of examples taken from my experiences in founding and operating the Lancaster Institute for Learning, a private state-licensed alternative high school in eastern Pennsylvania

Planning for post-industrial society : a theoretical framework

Bibliography: leaf 395-409.This research stems from the proposition that important qualitative changes are occurring within Western Society, and that these changes call for new forms of individual and organisational adaptation. Planning is a pre-eminently suitable way of adapting in an appropriate fashion to the complexities of change, rather than through ad hoc responses. Four tendencies appear to be prevalent and to persist within what may be termed these technologically advanced societies; these are: high and accelerating rates of technological and social change; an unevenness in these rates of change, especially among different parts of the environment in which organisations operate; an increasing interconnectedness and interdependence among these environmental parts; and an increasing overall size and complexity of the environment and its consistuent organisations. System's theory, it is felt, will provide a particularly apt conceptual framework for the consideration of these problems, which will be made explicit and amplified primarily through an exploration of these concepts which are central to a theory of behavioural systems. It is argued that the conditions in which social activity occurs are, in many parts of the world, becoming subject to important qualitative changes which demand new responses and modes of adaptation of behaviour, which look to what may be termed a new 'appreciative' outlook, in which a central element will be a recognition that units within ecological consideration must become the basis for achieving equitable outcomes. Chapters 7 and 8 discuss planning, the method which all social units at all levels use when attempting to regulate relations with others in order to continue functioning effectively. Here, the conceptual framework will be used to examine this problem of planning. Further, to refine the notion of planning, technical, natural, institutional, economic, conflict and social systems will be examined. In particular, urban planning will be looked at as of increasingly critical concern as the result of the world urbanisation process. A new paradigm for planning will be suggested which draws together the main elements of the thesis, in which the aims and techniques of enquiry will be from the making of explanations which derive from single purpose approaches to the furtherance of understanding desired from a more inclusive and comprehensive standpoint

Social technologies and collective intelligence

Social Technologies and Collective Intelligence is a monograph written by 24 international researchers in the field of Social Technologies and edited by prof. dr. Aelita Skaržauskienė from Mykolas Romeris University in Vilnius, Lithuania. As an academic discipline, social technologies is a highly interdisciplinary research field that focuses on applying existing ICT as well as newly emerging technologies to improve society. This work highlights the dominance of the non-technological social aspect of technology and its interaction with people, emphasizing the institutional power of Collective Intelligence through soft technology. By going through the book, the reader will gain insight and knowledge into the challenges and opportunities provided by this new exciting research field. Scientists will appreciate the comprehensive treatment of the research challenges in a multidisciplinary perspective. Practitioners and applied researchers will welcome the novel approaches to tackle relevant problems in their field. And policy-makers will better understand how technological advances can support them in supporting the progress of society and economy. The book is divided into six parts, each dealing with a well-defined research area at the intersection of Social Technologies and Collective Intelligence. Instead of being split up five ways among particular groups of collaborating authors, each individual author contributes to all five parts of the book their specific knowledge and insights, which makes this monograph a truly collaborative effort and a prime example of collective intelligence