Teleological Essentialism

Placeholder essentialism is the view that there is a causal essence that holds category members together, though we may not know what the essence is. Sometimes the placeholder can be filled in by scientific essences, such as when we acquire scientific knowledge that the atomic weight of gold is 79. We challenge the view that placeholders are elaborated by scientific essences. On our view, if placeholders are elaborated, they are elaborated Aristotelian essences, a telos. Utilizing the same kinds of experiments used by traditional essentialists—involving superficial change (study 1), transformation of insides (study 2), acquired traits (study 3) and inferences about offspring (study 4)—we find support for the view that essences are elaborated by a telos. And we find evidence (study 5) that teleological essences may generate category judgments

Colour Relations in Form

The orthodox monadic determination thesis holds that we represent colour relations by virtue of representing colours. Against this orthodoxy, I argue that it is possible to represent colour relations without representing any colours. I present a model of iconic perceptual content that allows for such primitive relational colour representation, and provide four empirical arguments in its support. I close by surveying alternative views of the relationship between monadic and relational colour representation

Using de-identified electronic health records to research mental health supported housing services: A feasibility study

BACKGROUND: Mental health supported housing services are a key component in the rehabilitation of people with severe and complex needs. They are implemented widely in the UK and other deinstitutionalised countries but there have been few empirical studies of their effectiveness due to the logistic challenges and costs of standard research methods. The Clinical Record Interactive Search (CRIS) tool, developed to de-identify and interrogate routinely recorded electronic health records, may provide an alternative to evaluate supported housing services. METHODS: The feasibility of using the Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust CRIS database to identify a sample of users of mental health supported accommodation services. Two approaches to data interrogation and case identification were compared; using structured fields indicating individual's accommodation status, and iterative development of free text searches of clinical notes referencing supported housing. The data used were recorded over a 10-year-period (01-January-2008 to 31-December-2017). RESULTS: Both approaches were carried out by one full-time researcher over four weeks (150 hours). Two structured fields indicating accommodation status were found, 2,140 individuals had a value in at least one of the fields representative of supported accommodation. The free text search of clinical notes returned 21,103 records pertaining to 1,105 individuals. A manual review of 10% of the notes indicated an estimated 733 of these individuals had used a supported housing service, a positive predictive value of 66.4%. Over two-thirds of the individuals returned in the free text search (768/1,105, 69.5%) were identified via the structured fields approach. Although the estimated positive predictive value was relatively high, a substantial proportion of the individuals appearing only in the free text search (337/1,105, 30.5%) are likely to be false positives. CONCLUSIONS: It is feasible and requires minimal resources to use de-identified electronic health record search tools to identify large samples of users of mental health supported housing using structured and free text fields. Further work is needed to establish the availability and completion of variables relevant to specific clinical research questions in order to fully assess the utility of electronic health records in evaluating the effectiveness of these services

Neural Correlates of the False Consensus Effect:Evidence for Motivated Projection and Regulatory Restraint

The false consensus effect (FCE), the tendency to project our attitudes and opinions on to others, is a pervasive bias in social reasoning with a range of ramifications for individuals and society. Research in social psychology has suggested that numerous factors (anchoring and adjustment, accessibility, motivated projection, etc.) may contribute to the FCE. In this study, we examine the neural correlates of the FCE and provide evidence that motivated projection plays a significant role. Activity in reward regions (ventromedial pFC and bilateral nucleus accumbens) during consensus estimation was positively associated with bias, whereas activity in right ventrolateral pFC (implicated in emotion regulation) was inversely associated with bias. Activity in reward and regulatory regions accounted for half of the total variation in consensus bias across participants (R2 = .503). This research complements models of the FCE in social psychology, providing a glimpse into the neural mechanisms underlying this important phenomenon

WalkMore: a randomized controlled trial of pedometer-based interventions differing on intensity messages

Pedometer-based programs have elicited increased walking behaviors associated with improvements in blood pressure in sedentary/low active postmenopausal women, a population at increased risk of cardiovascular disease. Such programs typically encourage increasing the volume of physical activity with little regard for its intensity. Recent advances in commercially available pedometer technology now permit tracking of both steps/day and time in moderate (or greater) intensity physical activity on a daily basis. It is not known whether the dual message to increase steps/day while also increasing time spent at higher intensity walking will elicit additional improvements in blood pressure relative to a message to only focus on increasing steps/day. The purpose of this paper is to present the rationale, study design, and protocols employed in WalkMore, a 3-arm 3-month blinded and randomized controlled trial (RCT) designed to compare the effects of two community pedometer-based walking interventions (reflecting these separate and combined messages) relative to a control group on blood pressure in sedentary/low active post-menopausal women, a population at increased risk of cardiovascular disease. 120 sedentary/low active post-menopausal women (45-74 years of age) will be randomly assigned (computer-generated) to 1 of 3 groups: A) 10,000 steps/day (with no guidance on walking intensity/speed/cadence; BASIC intervention, n = 50); B) 10,000 steps/day and at least 30 minutes in moderate intensity (i.e., a cadence of at least 100 steps/min; ENHANCED intervention, n = 50); or a Control group (n = 20). An important strength of the study is the strict control and quantification of the pedometer-based physical activity interventions. The primary outcome is systolic blood pressure. Secondary outcomes include diastolic blood pressure, anthropometric measurements, fasting blood glucose and insulin, flow mediated dilation, gait speed, and accelerometer-determined physical activity and sedentary behavior. This study can make important contributions to our understanding of the relative benefits that walking volume and/or intensity may have on blood pressure in a population at risk of cardiovascular disease. ClinicalTrials.gov Record NCT01519583, January 18, 2012

Formal change impact analyses for emulated control software

Processor emulators are a software tool for allowing legacy computer programs to be executed on a modern processor. In the past emulators have been used in trivial applications such as maintenance of video games. Now, however, processor emulation is being applied to safety-critical control systems, including military avionics. These applications demand utmost guarantees of correctness, but no verification techniques exist for proving that an emulated system preserves the original system’s functional and timing properties. Here we show how this can be done by combining concepts previously used for reasoning about real-time program compilation, coupled with an understanding of the new and old software architectures. In particular, we show how both the old and new systems can be given a common semantics, thus allowing their behaviours to be compared directly

Patterns of impact resulting from a 'sit less, move more' web-based program in sedentary office employees.

PURPOSE: Encouraging office workers to 'sit less and move more' encompasses two public health priorities. However, there is little evidence on the effectiveness of workplace interventions for reducing sitting, even less about the longer term effects of such interventions and still less on dual-focused interventions. This study assessed the short and mid-term impacts of a workplace web-based intervention (Walk@WorkSpain, W@WS; 2010-11) on self-reported sitting time, step counts and physical risk factors (waist circumference, BMI, blood pressure) for chronic disease. METHODS: Employees at six Spanish university campuses (n=264; 42±10 years; 171 female) were randomly assigned by worksite and campus to an Intervention (used W@WS; n=129; 87 female) or a Comparison group (maintained normal behavior; n=135; 84 female). This phased, 19-week program aimed to decrease occupational sitting time through increased incidental movement and short walks. A linear mixed model assessed changes in outcome measures between the baseline, ramping (8 weeks), maintenance (11 weeks) and follow-up (two months) phases for Intervention versus Comparison groups. RESULTS: A significant 2 (group) × 2 (program phases) interaction was found for self-reported occupational sitting (F[3]=7.97, p=0.046), daily step counts (F[3]=15.68, p=0.0013) and waist circumference (F[3]=11.67, p=0.0086). The Intervention group decreased minutes of daily occupational sitting while also increasing step counts from baseline (446±126; 8,862±2,475) through ramping (+425±120; 9,345±2,435), maintenance (+422±123; 9,638±3,131) and follow-up (+414±129; 9,786±3,205). In the Comparison group, compared to baseline (404±106), sitting time remained unchanged through ramping and maintenance, but decreased at follow-up (-388±120), while step counts diminished across all phases. The Intervention group significantly reduced waist circumference by 2.1cms from baseline to follow-up while the Comparison group reduced waist circumference by 1.3cms over the same period. CONCLUSIONS: W@WS is a feasible and effective evidence-based intervention that can be successfully deployed with sedentary employees to elicit sustained changes on "sitting less and moving more"

Novel colours and the content of experience

I propose a counterexample to naturalistic representational theories of phenomenal character. The counterexample is generated by experiences of novel colours reported by Crane and Piantanida. I consider various replies that a representationalist might make, including whether novel colours could be possible colours of objects and whether one can account for novel colours as one would account for binary colours or colour mixtures. I argue that none of these strategies is successful and therefore that one cannot fully explain the nature of the phenomenal character of perceptual experiences using a naturalistic conception of representation

The very large G-protein coupled receptor VLGR1: a component of the ankle link complex required for the normal development of auditory hair bundles

Sensory hair bundles in the inner ear are composed of stereocilia that can be interconnected by a variety of different link types, including tip links, horizontal top connectors, shaft connectors, and ankle links. The ankle link antigen is an epitope specifically associated with ankle links and the calycal processes of photoreceptors in chicks. Mass spectrometry and immunoblotting were used to identify this antigen as the avian ortholog of the very large G-protein-coupled receptor VLGR1, the product of the Usher syndrome USH2C (Mass1) locus. Like ankle links, Vlgr1 is expressed transiently around the base of developing hair bundles in mice. Ankle links fail to form in the cochleae of mice carrying a targeted mutation in Vlgr1 (Vlgr1/del7TM), and the bundles become disorganized just after birth. FM1-43 [N-(3-triethylammonium)propyl)-4-(4-(dibutylamino)styryl) pyridinium dibromide] dye loading and whole-cell recordings indicate mechanotransduction is impaired in cochlear, but not vestibular, hair cells of early postnatal Vlgr1/del7TM mutant mice. Auditory brainstem recordings and distortion product measurements indicate that these mice are severely deaf by the third week of life. Hair cells from the basal half of the cochlea are lost in 2-month-old Vlgr1/del7TM mice, and retinal function is mildly abnormal in aged mutants. Our results indicate that Vlgr1 is required for formation of the ankle link complex and the normal development of cochlear hair bundles