Logic and/of Truthmaking

The purpose of this paper is to explore the question of how truthmaker theorists ought to think about their subject in relation to logic. Regarding logic and truthmaking, I defend the view that considerations drawn from advances in modal logic have little bearing on the legitimacy of truthmaker theory. To do so, I respond to objections Timothy Williamson has lodged against truthmaker theory. As for the logic of truthmaking, I show how the project of understanding the logical features of the truthmaking relation has led to an apparent impasse. I offer a new perspective on the logic of truthmaking that both explains the problem and offers a way out

Validation of the ‘Test of the Adherence to Inhalers’ (TAI) for Asthma and COPD Patients

Background: To validate the ‘Test of Adherence to Inhalers’ (TAI), a 12-item questionnaire designed to assess the adherence to inhalers in patients with COPD or asthma. Methods: A total of 1009 patients with asthma or COPD participated in a cross-sectional multicenter study. Patients with electronic adherence ≥80% were defined as adherents. Construct validity, internal validity, and criterion validity were evaluated. Self-reported adherence was compared with the Morisky-Green questionnaire. Results: Factor analysis study demonstrated two factors, factor 1 was coincident with TAI patient domain (items 1 to 10) and factor 2 with TAI health-care professional domain (items 11 and 12). The Cronbach's alpha was 0.860 and the test-retest reliability 0.883. TAI scores correlated with electronic adherence (ρ=0.293, p=0.01). According to the best cut-off for 10 items (score 50, area under the ROC curve 0.7), 569 (62.5%) patients were classified as non-adherents. The non-adherence behavior pattern was: erratic 527 (57.9%), deliberate 375 (41.2%), and unwitting 242 (26.6%) patients. As compared to Morisky-Green test, TAI showed better psychometric properties. Conclusions: The TAI is a reliable and homogeneous questionnaire to identify easily non-adherence and to classify from a clinical perspective the barriers related to the use of inhalers in asthma and COPD

Evidence of cross gene regulation of some virulence factors of Porphyromonas gingivalis by Streptococcus intermedius

Periodontal disease has been associated with poor dental care, which promotes the accumulation of bacteria and the development of diseases of the mouth. Porphyromonas gingivalis are anaerobic Gramnegative bacteria found in the subgingival plaque. They are largely responsible for chronic periodontal disease. Streptococcus intermedius is a Gram positive coccus found in the supragingival plaque. The objective of the present work was to evaluate the expression of several virulence genes of P. gingivalis in a mixed culture with S. intermedius using qPCR and heterologous microarrays. P. gingivalis ATCC 33277 and W83 and S. intermedius ATCC 27335 strains were cultured and total RNA was extracted using the High Pure RNA isolation kit. Oligodeoxynucleotides were designed to make multiple comparisons with organisms. Microarray was performed to identify gene expression. To quantify gene expression, cDNA samples from three different P. gingivalis:S. intermedius ratios were diluted 10-1, 10-2 and 10-3. The microarray experiment indicated that in P. gingivalis, 29 genes were upregulated. The putative function of upregulated genes was the biosynthesis of different metabolic pathways. Heterologous microarrays are a new approach that are useful for investigating gene expression.Keywords: Porphyromonas gingivalis, Streptococcus intermedius, periodontal disease, virulence genes, cross gene regulation.African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 12(28), pp. 4498-450

Magnetic field dependence of the exciton energy in a quantum disk

The groundstate energy and binding energy of an exciton, confined in a^M quantum disk, are calculated as a function of an external magnetic field. The confinement potential is a hard wall of finite height. The diamagnetic shift is investigated for magnetic fields up to 40$T$. Our results are applied to $In_{y}Al_{1-y}As/Al_{x}Ga_{1-x}As$ self-assembled quantum dots and very good agreement with experiments is obtained. Furthermore, we investigated the influence of the dot size on the diamagnetic shift by changing the disk radius. The exciton excited states are found as a function of the magnetic field. The relative angular momentum is not a quantum number and changes with the magnetic field strength.Comment: 10 pages, 17 figure

Actitudes de la mujer ante el embarazo

El presente trabajo fue iniciado bajo los auspicios del Instituto de Psicología de la Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación dependiente de la Universidad Nacional de La Plata (Republica Argentina). El Dr. Mauricio Knobel, Director de ese Instituto nos ha propuesto continuar el trabajo ya iniciado en el Hospital Alvear de Buenos Aires, en torno a in administración y standarización de un nuevo test por él diseñado, presumiblemente apto para explorar las peculiaridades de in estructura psicológica de la mujer embarazada. Nuestro interés se centre en la consideración de las actitudes más frecuentes en esa etapa de in vida y en su relación con las características del parto.Trabajo presentado en el X Congreso Interamericano de Psicología (Lima, 1966).Departamento de Psicologí

Excited-State Effective Masses in Lattice QCD

We apply black-box methods, i.e. where the performance of the method does not depend upon initial guesses, to extract excited-state energies from Euclidean-time hadron correlation functions. In particular, we extend the widely used effective-mass method to incorporate multiple correlation functions and produce effective mass estimates for multiple excited states. In general, these excited-state effective masses will be determined by finding the roots of some polynomial. We demonstrate the method using sample lattice data to determine excited-state energies of the nucleon and compare the results to other energy-level finding techniques.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figure

Actitudes de la mujer ante el embarazo

El presente trabajo fue iniciado bajo los auspicios del Instituto de Psicología de la Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación dependiente de la Universidad Nacional de La Plata (Republica Argentina). El Dr. Mauricio Knobel, Director de ese Instituto nos ha propuesto continuar el trabajo ya iniciado en el Hospital Alvear de Buenos Aires, en torno a in administración y standarización de un nuevo test por él diseñado, presumiblemente apto para explorar las peculiaridades de in estructura psicológica de la mujer embarazada. Nuestro interés se centre en la consideración de las actitudes más frecuentes en esa etapa de in vida y en su relación con las características del parto.Trabajo presentado en el X Congreso Interamericano de Psicología (Lima, 1966).Departamento de Psicologí

Propiedades psicométricas de la escala de resiliencia versión argentina

Se indagó la validez y confiabilidad de una versión argentina de la Escala de Resiliencia (ER) de Wagnild y Young (1993) realizándose la traducción y adaptación al español hablado en Argentina. La ER consta de 25 ítems: 17 evalúan “Competencia Personal” y 8, “Aceptación de Sí Mismo y de la Vida”. La muestra estuvo compuesta por 222 argentinos (152 mujeres y 70 hombres). El rango de edad fue de 18 a 70 años (M=30,93; DE=12,12). En el análisis factorial fueron extraídos tres factores (capacidad de autoeficacia, capacidad de propósito y sentido de vida, y evitación cognitiva) que explican el 32,63% de la varianza; identificándose 4 ítems complejos. La consistencia interna según el Alfa de Cronbach de la ER total fue de 0,72. No hubo diferencia significativa entre el puntaje medio de varones y mujeres. Se concluye que la ER es un instrumento confiable para su aplicación en la población argentina