Paradigm Case Arguments

From time to time philosophers and scientists have made sensational, provocative claims that certain things do not exist or never happen that, in everyday life, we unquestioningly take for granted as existing or happening. These claims have included denying the existence of matter, space, time, the self, free will, and other sturdy and basic elements of our common-sense or naïve world-view. Around the middle of the twentieth century an argument was developed that can be used to challenge many such skeptical claims based on linguistic considerations, which came to be known as the Paradigm Case Argument ..

Chronic Stress and Plasticity in the Limbic System: Implications for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

abstract: The brain is a fundamental target of the stress response that promotes adaptation and survival but the repeated activation of the stress response has the potential alter cognition, emotion, and motivation, key functions of the limbic system. Three structures of the limbic system in particular, the hippocampus, medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), and amygdala, are of special interest due to documented structural changes and their implication in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). One of many notable chronic stress-induced changes include dendritic arbor restructuring, which reflect plasticity patterns in parallel with the direction of alterations observed in functional imaging studies in PTSD patients. For instance, chronic stress produces dendritic retraction in the hippocampus and mPFC, but dendritic hypertrophy in the amygdala, consistent with functional imaging in patients with PTSD. Some have hypothesized that these limbic region's modifications contribute to one's susceptibility to develop PTSD following a traumatic event. Consequently, we used a familiar chronic stress procedure in a rat model to create a vulnerable brain that might develop traits consistent with PTSD when presented with a challenge. In adult male rats, chronic stress by wire mesh restraint (6h/d/21d) was followed by a variety of behavioral tasks including radial arm water maze (RAWM), fear conditioning and extinction, and fear memory reconsolidation to determine chronic stress effects on behaviors mediated by these limbic structures. In chapter 2, we corroborated past findings that chronic stress caused hippocampal CA3 dendritic retraction. Importantly, we present new findings that CA3 dendritic retraction corresponded with poor spatial memory in the RAWM and that these outcomes reversed after a recovery period. In chapter 3, we also showed that chronic stress impaired mPFC-mediated extinction memory, findings that others have reported. Using carefully assessed behavior, we present new findings that chronic stress impacted nonassociative fear by enhancing contextual fear during extinction that generalized to a new context. Moreover, the generalization behavior corresponded with enhanced functional activation in the hippocampus and amygdala during fear extinction memory retrieval. In chapter 5, we showed for the first time that chronic stress enhanced amygdala functional activation during fear memory retrieval, i.e., reactivation. Moreover, these enhanced fear memories were resistant to protein synthesis interference to disrupt a previously formed memory, called reconsolidation in a novel attempt to weaken chronic stress enhanced traumatic memory. Collectively, these studies demonstrated the plastic and dynamic effects of chronic stress on limbic neurocircuitry implicated in PTSD. We showed that chronic stress created a structural and functional imbalance across the hippocampus, mPFC, and amygdala, which lead to a PTSD-like phenotype with persistent and exaggerated fear following fear conditioning. These behavioral disruptions in conjunction with morphological and functional imaging data reflect a chronic stress-induced imbalance between hippocampal and mPFC regulation in favor of amygdala function overdrive, and supports a novel approach for traumatic memory processing in PTSD.Dissertation/ThesisPh.D. Psychology 201

Introduction to location-based mobile learning

[About the book] The report follows on from a 2-day workshop funded by the STELLAR Network of Excellence as part of their 2009 Alpine Rendez-Vous workshop series and is edited by Elizabeth Brown with a foreword from Mike Sharples. Contributors have provided examples of innovative and exciting research projects and practical applications for mobile learning in a location-sensitive setting, including the sharing of good practice and the key findings that have resulted from this work. There is also a debate about whether location-based and contextual learning results in shallower learning strategies and a section detailing the future challenges for location-based learning

Augmenting the field experience: a student-led comparison of techniques and technologies

In this study we report on our experiences of creating and running a student fieldtrip exercise which allowed students to compare a range of approaches to the design of technologies for augmenting landscape scenes. The main study site is around Keswick in the English Lake District, Cumbria, UK, an attractive upland environment popular with tourists and walkers. The aim of the exercise for the students was to assess the effectiveness of various forms of geographic information in augmenting real landscape scenes, as mediated through a range of techniques and technologies. These techniques were: computer-generated acetate overlays showing annotated wireframe views from certain key points; a custom-designed application running on a PDA; a mediascape running on the mScape software on a GPS-enabled mobile phone; Google Earth on a tablet PC; and a head-mounted in-field Virtual Reality system. Each group of students had all five techniques available to them, and were tasked with comparing them in the context of creating a visitor guide to the area centred on the field centre. Here we summarise their findings and reflect upon some of the broader research questions emerging from the project

"The Extended Panda's Thumb and a New Global Financial Architecture"

An evolutionary theory of international financial institutions is developed and two broad types of possible (evolutionary) equilibrium Global Financial Architectures(GFAs) are identified. The first is called an overarching type, exemplified by the classical gold standard and the defunct Bretton Woods system. The second is called a hybrid form that allows for the existence and coevolution of some Regional Financial Architectures(RFAs) as well. The changing roles of the IMF and national economic policies are examined within these two possible financial architectures under globalization It is found that from an evolutionary perspective, a hybrid form with a reformed IMF and regional cooperation through appropriately designed RFAs can create the best possible institutional and policy environment for financial stability and sustained growth .An evolutionary argument, called "the extended panda's thumb", is advanced to establish the possibility of adapting many existing institutions including the IMF, for creating a hybrid GFA. The tentative steps taken towards regional cooperation in Asia after the financial crisis are discussed to illustrate the opportunities and challenges posed by the need to evolve towards a hybrid GFA.

Four Approaches to Supposition

The primary purpose of this paper is to shed light on the structure of four varieties of normative theories of supposition by systematically explicating the relationships between canonical representatives of each. These include qualitative and quantitative theories of indicative and subjunctive supposition. We approach this project by treating supposition as a form of 'provisional belief revision' in which a person temporarily accepts the supposition as true and makes some appropriate changes to her other opinions so as to accommodate their supposition. The idea is that suppositional judgments are supposed to reflect an agent's judgments about how things would be in some hypothetical state of affairs satisfying the supposition. Accordingly, our representative qualitative theories of indicative and subjunctive supposition are respectively based on AGM revision and KM update, while our representative quantitative ones are provided by conditionalization and imaging. We rely on a suitably adapted version of the Lockean thesis to generate qualitative judgments based on our representative quantitative theories. Ultimately, a number of new results are established that vindicate the often repeated claim that conditionalization is a probabilistic version of revision, while imaging is a probabilistic version of update

Cocreators' experiences and effectiveness of cocreated interventions in improving health behaviours of adults with non-communicable diseases: a systematic review protocol

INTRODUCTION: Improved health behaviours and help-seeking behaviour reduce morbidity and mortality from non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Compliance with the recommendations of lifestyle changes for the management of NCDs has been challenging, as patients find it difficult to change and sustain lifestyle behaviours for a long period of time. Studies have reported that cocreated interventions are promising in addressing negative health behaviours and improving health outcomes in people with NCDs; however, no conclusive evidence exists. Therefore, this review aims to evaluate cocreators' experiences and the effectiveness of cocreated interventions in improving the health behaviours of individuals with NCDs. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: This review will follow the recommendations described in the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses guideline and the Enhancing Transparency in Reporting the Synthesis of Qualitative Research statement for the synthesis of qualitative data. The following databases: Co-creation Database (https://zenodo.org/record/6773028%23.Y9h2sezP1pg), MEDLINE (via OVID), Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (via EBSCO Host), EMBASE (via OVID), PsycINFO (via OVID), Scopus, Web of Science, Cochrane Library and grey literature will be searched. The identified studies will be independently screened by two reviewers to determine their eligibility. The review will target to include studies that investigated the experiences of cocreators and/or the effectiveness of cocreated interventions on the health behaviour and/or health outcomes of adults with NCDs. Two independent reviewers will also appraise the quality of the included studies, as well as data extraction. A narrative synthesis will be used to summarise the findings. Thematic synthesis and meta-analysis will be conducted for the qualitative and quantitative data, respectively. The qualitative and quantitative findings will be integrated using the parallel result convergent synthesis. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: Ethics approval is not applicable because the review will only use data from the published studies. The findings will be disseminated through publication in peer-reviewed journals and conference presentations. PROSPERO REGISTRATION NUMBER: CRD42023391746.</p

Solution-focused approaches in adult mental health research: A conceptual literature review and narrative synthesis

Solution-focused approaches are one approach to treatment used in a wide variety of settings in modern mental healthcare services. As yet, there has been no overall synthesis of how this approach is understood in the adult mental health literature. This conceptual review aimed to synthesize the ways that solution-focused approaches have been conceptualized and understood, within the adult mental health literature, in the five decades since their conception. A systematic search followed by multiple techniques from the narrative synthesis approach were used to develop a conceptual framework of the extracted data. Fifty-six papers published between 1993 and 2019 were included in the review. These papers spanned a variety of clinical contexts and countries, but despite this the underlying key principles and concepts of solution-focused approaches were remarkably similar over time and setting. Thematic analysis of extracted data outlined five key themes relevant to the conceptualization of this approach. This conceptual framework will help support clinicians using solution-focused techniques or therapies by giving them a coherent understanding of such approaches, by what mechanisms they work, and how key principles of this approach can be utilized in adult mental health settings