Thought about Properties: Why the Perceptual Case is Basic

This paper defends a version of the old empiricist claim that to think about unobservable physical properties a subject must be able to think perception-based thoughts about observable properties. The central argument builds upon foundations laid down by G. E. M. Anscombe and P. F. Strawson. It bridges the gap separating these foundations and the target claim by exploiting a neglected connection between thought about properties and our grasp of causation. This way of bridging the gap promises to introduce substantive constraints on right accounts of perception and perception-based thought

Notes on Canadian Units and Formations Engaged: Battles of the Somme, March-April 1918

Although the Canadian Corps did not participate directly in the German Spring Offensives that began on 21 March 1918, detached Canadian cavalry, artillery, and motor machine gun units serving with British divisions played important roles at various points in the battles. In one of the better known instances, Canadian cavalry were instrumental in delaying a German drive on 30 March south of Amiens at Moreuil Wood where, in one of the most dramatic cavalry actions of the war, Lieutenant Gordon Flowerdew led a mounted charge with sabres drawn. For that action, he was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross. Le Corps canadien n’a pas participé directement aux batailles durant l’offensive du printemps des Allemands qui a commencé le 21 mars 1918, mais des unités de cavalerie, d’artillerie et de mitrailleuses du pays ayant servi au sein de divisions britanniques ont joué un rôle important à différents moments. Dans l’un de ces épisodes les mieux connus, la cavalerie canadienne a joué un rôle déterminant en retardant l’avance des Allemands, le 30 mars, au sud d’Amiens, au bois de Moreuil. Dans une des charges de cavalerie les plus mémorables de la Première Guerre mondiale, le lieutenant Gordon Flowerdew a dirigé ses hommes, armés d’épées déployées. Pour cet exploit, la Croix de Victoria lui a été attribuée à titre posthume

Squeezed in the Middle: The Middle Status Trade Creativity for Focus

Classical research on social influence suggested that people are the most conforming in the middle of a status hierarchy as opposed to the top or bottom. Yet, this promising line of research was abandoned before the psychological mechanism behind middle status conformity had been identified. Moving beyond the early focus on conformity, we propose that the threat of status loss may make those with middle status more wary of advancing creative solutions in fear that they will be evaluated negatively. Using different manipulations of status and measures of creativity, we found that when being evaluated, middle status individuals were less creative than either high status or low status individuals (Studies 1 & 2). In addition, we found that anxiety at the prospect of status loss also caused individuals with middle status to narrow their focus of attention and to think more convergently (Study 3). We delineate the consequences of power and status both theoretically and empirically by showing that, unlike status, the relationship between power and creativity is positive and linear (Study 4). By both measuring status (Studies 2 & 3) and by manipulating it directly (Study 5), we demonstrate that the threat of status loss explains the consequences of middle status. Finally, we discuss the theoretical implications of our results for future research on status and problem solving on tasks that require either focus or flexibility

Follow the Crowd in a New Direction: When Conformity Pressure Facilitates Group Creativity (And When It Does Not)

Adopting a person by situation interaction approach, we identified conditions under which conformity pressure can either stifle or boost group creativity depending on the joint effects of norm content and group personality composition. Using a 2 x 2 x 2 experimental design, we hypothesized and found that pressure to adhere to an individualistic norm boosted creativity in groups whose members scored low on the Creative Personality Scale (Gough, 1979), but stifled creativity in groups whose members scored high on that measure. Our findings suggest that conformity pressure may be a viable mechanism for boosting group creativity, but only among those who lack creative talent

MuSO: Aggregation and Peer Review in Music

This Level I project will fund a two-day workshop at Texas A&M University for 15 software engineers, music librarians, music encoding specialists, and music scholars from the U.S., Canada and abroad that will lay the foundation to launch MuSO (Music Scholarship Online). Using the period-specific virtual research environments, or research nodes, of the Advanced Research Consortium (ARC) as templates, this workshop will establish methods for aggregating and evaluating digital projects in the fields of music analysis, culture, history and literature. The workshop will address the metadata needs for media such as musical scores and audio recordings, and it will establish a standard and process for peer reviewing the projects that contribute to and participate in MuSO. The funded workshop will therefore produce a list of changes to the ARC metadata guidelines as well as a method for evaluating digital projects in music

Situated cognition and the culture of learning

Includes bibliographical references (p. 16-17

Design and Development of Software Tools for Bio-PEPA

This paper surveys the design of software tools for the Bio-PEPA process algebra. Bio-PEPA is a high-level language for modelling biological systems such as metabolic pathways and other biochemical reaction networks. Through providing tools for this modelling language we hope to allow easier use of a range of simulators and model-checkers thereby freeing the modeller from the responsibility of developing a custom simulator for the problem of interest. Further, by providing mappings to a range of different analysis tools the Bio-PEPA language allows modellers to compare analysis results which have been computed using independent numerical analysers, which enhances the reliability and robustness of the results computed.

How Political Engagement Helps Indigenous Communities in their Fight for Rights

How does political engagement help indigenous communities in fighting for their rights? Indigenous communities have faced immense levels of oppression and discrimination throughout history. A growing global trend shows that more communities are fighting back and gaining their rights through political means. This paper looks at the multiple ways communities have mobilized, focusing specifically on non-violent, political methods of resistance. This is done by examining politically active indigenous populations from North, Central, and South America and the states that they reside in. Even though the Inuit, Mayan, and Quechua communities have faced similar discrimination, have the same goals, and reside in democratic countries; they have chosen different methods of political engagement. Through conducting a Most Similar Systems study, we hypothesize that the percent of population that an indigenous group makes up in a state is a determining factor in what political methods that group utilizes. By understanding the reasons behind this, it will become easier to study how political engagement helps indigenous communities in gaining a voice. Some methods could be more effective for different communities based on their population make up. Nevertheless, this study can provide insight into the functioning of indigenous political resistance systems and assist in putting together the larger picture of effective activism for these communities

Culture wars and class conflicts: elites and the left behind. Discourses of identity and allegiance in the era of Trump and Brexit.

Alison Duguid, Università di Siena Culture wars and class conflicts: elites and the left behind. Discourses of identity and allegiance in the era of Trump and Brexit. Class is a demographic and socio economic description used by sociologists and economists to describe groups of people. The 2013 State of the Nation Report to Parliament claimed that the class effect is bigger than the gender effect. Such classifications and the conflict between the categories came to the fore recently in Britain and America, while in discussions about voting patterns class terms were used, in the campaigns themselves a greater variety of lexis was salient, among them divisions and allegiances expressed in terms of élites, the political class, the left-behind, the forgotten, deplorables. Identity politics, class conflict and culture wars surfaced remaining as yet unreconciled, with us and them discourses abounding. It is not so much the fact of the existence of diversity, division and inequality which is of interest to the investigating linguist but rather the way certain diversities are construed and constructed by the press. Questions of social groupings, diversity and discrimination have been investigated many times in corpus studies. Baker (2004, 2010); Baker and McEnery 46 (2005), Baker et al (2008), Duguid (2015). Gabrielatos and Baker (2008) Khosravinik (2010), Krishnamurthy (1996), Mautner (2007), Morley and Taylor (2012), Partington (2012); Taylor (2013). However, class itself has been touched on by corpus research mostly in terms of language features being preferred by one class or another in studies of the BNC, (e.g. Rayson et al 1997, Berglund 2000, Deutschmann 2006, Xiao and Tao 2007) while Duguid (2013) devoted a study to representations of class in the British broadsheets over 20 years. What a corpus analysis does best is uncover the subtle and pervasive meanings that construct identity. Corpora can provide a lens for viewing attitudes. This study is a corpus assisted comparative case study on the ways in which class itself is represented, using a search-word initiated investigation. and aims to look at the way in which class is handled in a range of corpora (a million words from broadsheets and tabloids, presidential and referendum campaign speeches and aggregator websites (Breitbart, Leave.Eu) between 2013-2017 built up in the context of the Brexit referendum and American elections