Structuralism as a Response to Skepticism

Cartesian arguments for global skepticism about the external world start from the premise that we cannot know that we are not in a Cartesian scenario such as an evil-demon scenario, and infer that because most of our empirical beliefs are false in such a scenario, these beliefs do not constitute knowledge. Veridicalist responses to global skepticism respond that arguments fail because in Cartesian scenarios, many or most of our empirical beliefs are true. Some veridicalist responses have been motivated using verificationism, externalism, and coherentism. I argue that a more powerful veridicalist response to global skepticism can be motivated by structuralism, on which physical entities are understood as those that play a certain structural role. I develop the structuralist response and address objections

What is Conceptual Engineering and What Should it Be?

Conceptual engineering is the design, implementation, and evaluation of concepts. Conceptual engineering includes or should include de novo conceptual engineering (designing a new concept) as well as conceptual re-engineering (fixing an old concept). It should also include heteronymous (different-word) as well as homonymous (same-word) conceptual engineering. I discuss the importance and the difficulty of these sorts of conceptual engineering in philosophy and elsewhere

Illusions of gunk

The possibility of gunk has been used to argue against mereological nihilism. This paper explores two responses on the part of the microphysical mereological nihilist: (1) the contingency defence, which maintains that nihilism is true of the actual world; but that at other worlds, composition occurs; (2) the impossibility defence, which maintains that nihilism is necessary true, and so gunk worlds are impossible. The former is argued to be ultimately unstable; the latter faces the explanatorily burden of explaining the illusion that gunk is possible. It is argued that we can discharge this burden by focussing on the contingency of the microphysicalist aspect of microphysical mereological nihilism. The upshot is that gunk-based arguments against microphysical mereological nihilism can be resisted

La mente extendida

Where does the mind stop and the rest of the world begin? The question invites two standard replies. some accept the intuitive demarcations of skin and skull, and say that what is outside the body is outsider the mind. Others are impressed by the arguments of Putnam and Burge that the truth-conditions of our thoughts “just ain’t in the head”,[* and hold that this externalism about meaning carries over into an externalism about mind. We propose to pursue a third position. We will advocate an externalism about mind, but one that is in no way grounded in the debatable role of truth-conditions and referente in fixing the contents of our mental states. rather, we advocate an active externalism, based on the active role of the environment in driving cognitive processes..¿Dónde acaba la mente y dónde empieza el resto del mundo?. La pregunta invita a dos respuestas típicas. Algunas personas aceptan las demarcaciones de la piel, y el cráneo, y afirman que lo que se halla fuera del cuerpo está también fuera de la mente. Otros sin embargo se inclinan por el argumento de que los significados de las palabras “simplemente no están en la cabeza” y sostienen este externalismo del significado, extendiéndolo a toda la mente. Nosotros queremos proponer una tercera posición. Abogamos por un tipo diferente de externalismo: un externalismo activo, basado en el papel activo que el entorno tiene en la consecución de los procesos cognitivosOú commence la pensée et oú le reste du monde? la question nous invite à deux réponses communes. Quelques uns acceptent les démarcations intuitives de la peau et le crâne, en affirmant que ce que on voit dehors du corps est aussi dehors de la pensée. Des autres sont frappés par les arguments de hillary Putnam et de Burge sur les conditions de vérité de notres pensées, que ne “sont pas dans la tête”, et soutiennent que cet externalisme du sens implique l’externalisme de la pensée. Nous proposons une troisième position, à faveur du externalisme de la pensée, mais pas fondé sur la discussion des conditions de vérité et de la rëference dans la fixation des états mentaux. Au fait nous proposons un externalisme actif, fondé dans le rôle actif du environnement dans la direction des procès cognitifs

Backbone and side chain H-1, N-15 and C-13 assignments for the oxidised and reduced forms of the oxidoreductase protein DsbA from Staphylococcus aureus

The function and dynamics of the thiol-disulfide oxidoreductase DsbA in the low-GC gram positive bacterium, Staphylococcus aureus, are yet to be elucidated. Here we report 13C, 15N and 1H assignments for the oxidised and reduced forms of SaDsbA as a prelude to further studies on the enzyme

A pragmatic, multi-centered, stepped wedge, cluster randomized controlled trial pilot of the clinical and cost effectiveness of a complex Stroke Oral healthCare intervention pLan Evaluation II (SOCLE II) compared with usual oral healthcare in stroke wards

BACKGROUND: Patients with stroke-associated pneumonia experience poorer outcomes (increased hospital stays, costs, discharge dependency, and risk of death). High-quality, organized oral healthcare may reduce the incidence of stroke-associated pneumonia and improve oral health and quality of life.AIMS: We piloted a pragmatic, stepped-wedge, cluster randomized controlled trial of clinical and cost effectiveness of enhanced versus usual oral healthcare for people in stroke rehabilitation settings.METHODS: Scottish stroke rehabilitation wards were randomly allocated to stepped time-points for conversion from usual to enhanced oral healthcare. All admissions and nursing staff were eligible for inclusion. We piloted the viability of randomization, intervention, data collection, record linkage procedures, our sample size, screening, and recruitment estimates. The stepped-wedge trial design prevented full blinding of outcome assessors and staff. Predetermined criteria for progression included the validity of enhanced oral healthcare intervention (training, oral healthcare protocol, assessment, equipment), data collection, and stroke-associated pneumonia event rate and relationship between stroke-associated pneumonia and plaque.RESULTS: We screened 1548/2613 (59%) admissions to four wards, recruiting n = 325 patients and n = 112 nurses. We observed marked between-site diversity in admissions, recruitment populations, stroke-associated pneumonia events (0% to 21%), training, and resource use. No adverse events were reported. Oral healthcare documentation was poor. We found no evidence of a difference in stroke-associated pneumonia between enhanced versus usual oral healthcare (P = 0.62, odds ratio = 0.61, confidence interval: 0.08 to 4.42).CONCLUSIONS: Our stepped-wedge cluster randomized control trial accommodated between-site diversity. The stroke-associated pneumonia event rate did not meet our predetermined progression criteria. We did not meet our predefined progression criteria including the SAP event rate and consequently were unable to establish whether there is a relationship between SAP and plaque. A wide confidence interval did not exclude the possibility that enhanced oral healthcare may result in a benefit or detrimental effect.TRIAL REGISTRATION: NCT01954212

Efficient analytic computation of higher-order QCD amplitudes

URL: http://www-spht.cea.fr/articles/t95/026/ Le calcul analytique efficace des amplitudes aux ordres supérieurs en QCDWe review techniques simplifying the analytic calculation of one-loop QCD amplitudes with many external legs, for use in next-to-leading-order corrections to multi-jet processes. Particularly useful are the constraints imposed by perturbative unitarity, collinear singularities and a supersymmetry-inspired organization of helicity amplitudes. Certain sequences of one-loop helicity amplitudes with an arbitrary number of external gluons have been obtained using these constraints

The Operator Product Expansion for Wilson Loops and Surfaces in the Large N Limit

The operator product expansion for ``small'' Wilson loops in {\cal N}=4, d=4 SYM is studied. The OPE coefficients are calculated in the large N and g_{YM}^2 N limit by exploiting the AdS/CFT correspondence. We also consider Wilson surfaces in the (0,2), d=6 superconformal theory. In this case, we find that the UV divergent terms include a term proportional to the rigid string action.Comment: 22 pages LaTeX2e, using utarticle.cls (included) and AMS-LaTeX macro

Blurring the boundaries of the Mackintosh room

In this paper we describe a prototype interactive systemsupporting a shared synchronous experience for physical,World Wide Web and virtual reality visitors to anexhibition devoted to the designer and architect C.R.Mackintosh. The system provides awareness betweenvisitors that spans multiple media while also providinglocation- and device-sensitive content to each visitor