1,753 research outputs found
What’s wrong with ‘mental’ disorders? : a commentary on ‘What is a mental/psychiatric disorder? : from DSM-IV to DSM-V’ by Stein et al
The editorial by Stein et al. (2010) is timely and
relevant given the development of DSM-V and the
likely impact that such a development will have on
mental health services in the USA. The revision of the
DSM will also affect international psychiatric research
and global practice thanks to the interplay between the
development of DSM and ICD (Fulford & Sartorius,
2009). The editorial by Stein and colleagues is very rich
and there are many themes suitable for further examination
and discussion. For this response, however,
we have chosen to focus on two themes: the use of the
term ‘mental’ and the idea of psychiatric disorders
being ‘in’ an individual
Moral responsibility and mental illness : a case study
Various authors have argued that progress in the neurocognitive and neuropsychiatric sciences might threaten the commonsense understanding of how the mind generates behavior, and, as a consequence, it might also threaten the commonsense ways of attributing moral responsibility, if not the very notion of moral responsibility. In the case of actions that result in undesirable outcomes (e.g., someone being harmed), the commonsense conception—which is reflected in sophisticated ways in the legal conception—tells us that there are circumstances in which the agent is entirely and fully responsible for the bad outcome (and deserves to be punished accordingly) and circumstances in which the agent is not at all responsible for the bad outcome (and thereby the agent does not deserve to be punished)
A Survey of the Effect of Mineral Salts on Direct Dyeings
A study of the effect of various minerals salts on dyeings made with direct dyes. Dyes were chosen for their frequency of usage in the paper industry; the salts were chosen for several reasons, the prime one being that they form a floc at approximately the same pH as that of the stock run over the paper machine, also for its cost and availability. Sheets were made with the various dyes and salts in severals percentages of each dried, out up into test sheets for fading and bleeding. The test sheets were examined visually for evidence of fading and bleeding and the results accordingly ware recorded . It was shown by this method that manganese chloride when used in connection with certain dyes improved the light fastness and bleeding resistance
In Defence of Modest Doxasticism About Delusions
Here I reply to the main points raised by the commentators on the arguments put forward in my Delusions and Other Irrational Beliefs (OUP, 2009). My response is aimed at defending a modest doxastic account of clinical delusions, and is articulated in three sections. First, I consider the view that delusions are in-between perceptual and doxastic states, defended by Jacob Hohwy and Vivek Rajan, and the view that delusions are failed attempts at believing or not-quite-beliefs, proposed by Eric Schwitzgebel and Maura Tumulty. Then, I address the relationship between the doxastic account of delusions and the role, nature, and prospects of folk psychology, which is discussed by Dominic Murphy, Keith Frankish, and Maura Tumulty in their contributions. In the final remarks, I turn to the continuity thesis and suggest that, although there are important differences between clinical delusions and non-pathological beliefs, these differences cannot be characterised satisfactorily in epistemic terms. \u
Uniform Penalty inversion of two-dimensional NMR Relaxation data
The inversion of two-dimensional NMR data is an ill-posed problem related to
the numerical computation of the inverse Laplace transform. In this paper we
present the 2DUPEN algorithm that extends the Uniform Penalty (UPEN) algorithm
[Borgia, Brown, Fantazzini, {\em Journal of Magnetic Resonance}, 1998] to
two-dimensional data. The UPEN algorithm, defined for the inversion of
one-dimensional NMR relaxation data, uses Tikhonov-like regularization and
optionally non-negativity constraints in order to implement locally adapted
regularization. In this paper, we analyze the regularization properties of this
approach. Moreover, we extend the one-dimensional UPEN algorithm to the
two-dimensional case and present an efficient implementation based on the
Newton Projection method. Without any a-priori information on the noise norm,
2DUPEN automatically computes the locally adapted regularization parameters and
the distribution of the unknown NMR parameters by using variable smoothing.
Results of numerical experiments on simulated and real data are presented in
order to illustrate the potential of the proposed method in reconstructing
peaks and flat regions with the same accuracy
Stability of fermionic Feshbach molecules in a Bose-Fermi mixture
In the wake of successful experiments in Fermi condensates, experimental
attention is broadening to study resonant interactions in degenerate Bose-Fermi
mixtures. Here we consider the properties and stability of the fermionic
molecules that can be created in such a mixture near a Feshbach resonance (FR).
To do this, we consider the two-body scattering matrix in the many-body
environment, and assess its complex poles. The stability properties of these
molecules strongly depend on their centre-of-mass motion, because they must
satisfy Fermi statistics. At low centre-of-mass momenta the molecules are more
stable than in the absence of the environment (due to Pauli-blocking effects),
while at high centre-of-mass momenta nontrivial many body effects render them
somewhat less stable
Delusional beliefs and reason giving
Delusions are often regarded as irrational beliefs, but their irrationality is not sufficient to explain what is pathological about them. In this paper we ask whether deluded subjects have the capacity to support the content of their delusions with reasons, that is, whether they can author their delusional states. The hypothesis that delusions are characterised by a failure of authorship, which is a dimension of self knowledge, deserves to be
empirically tested because (a) it has the potential to account for the distinction between endorsing a delusion and endorsing a framework belief; (b) it contributes to a
philosophical analysis of the relationship between rationality and self knowledge; and (c) it informs diagnosis and therapy in clinical psychiatry. However, authorship cannot provide a demarcation criterion between delusions and other irrational belief states
Threats to epistemic agency in young people with unusual experiences and beliefs
A good therapeutic relationship in mental health services is a predictor of positive clinical outcomes for people who seek help for distressing experiences, such as voice hearing and paranoia. One factor that may affect the quality of the therapeutic relationship and raises further ethical issues is the impact of the clinical encounter on users’ sense of self, and in particular on their sense of agency. In the paper, we discuss some of the reasons why the sense of epistemic agency may be especially fragile in young people with unusual experiences and beliefs. We argue that it is important to identify and avoid behaviours that can undermine young people’s contributions as epistemic agents in the clinical encounter
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