Empty, Useless, and Dangerous? Recent Kantian Replies to the Empty Formalism Objection

Like two heavyweight boxers exchanging punches, but neither landing the knock-out blow, Kantians and Hegelians seem to be in a stand-off on what in contemporary parlance is known as the Empty Formalism Objection. Kant?s ethics is charged with being merely formal and thereby failing to provide the kind of specific guidance that any defensible ethical system should have the resources to provide. Hegel is often credited with having formulated this objection in its most incisive way, and a wealth of Kantian responses has been deployed to answer it. In this paper, I take up the objection as it appears in �135R of Elements of the Philosophy of Right in order to scrutinise the contemporary debate between the two camps. I propose that there are, in fact, three different, albeit connected objections and examine (what I take to be) the best Kantian replies to them. I will not adjudicate which of these replies is the most accurate interpretation of Kant?s texts, nor trace the particular historical context in which Hegel takes up Kant?s ethics, nor the way the Empty Formalism Objection fits into Hegel?s wider system. This is partly because of constraints of space, and partly because many of the contemporary Kantian replies ? for better or for worse ? treat the Empty Formalism Objection as a self-standing philosophical problem, irrespective of its historical context or systematic place in Hegel?s theory. My limited aim here is to show that, even if one grants ? for argument?s sake ? the legitimacy of such a non-contextual approach, significant difficulties remain

Thermally regenerable carbon dioxide absorbent system Final report, 1 May 1964 - 31 Jan. 1966

Carbon dioxide absorption by solid state ion exchange resin

Campylobacter fetus Subspecies Contain Conserved Type IV Secretion Systems on Multiple Genomic Islands and Plasmids

Acknowledgments We like to thank Dr. John Devenish and Dr. Brian Brooks (Canadian Food Inspection Agency) for providing strains. We thank Nathaniel Simon and Mary Chapman for the generation of Illumina MiSeq reads and we thank James Bono for the generation of PacBio RS reads. Funding: The authors have no support or funding to report.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Differences in Disease-specific Quality of Life in Patients with Actinic Keratosis in Australia and Denmark

Actinic keratosis (AK) negatively influence patients’quality of life as measured by the disease-specific AKQOL questionnaire. The quality of life in Australian patients are significantly less affected than in Danish patients. It is hypothesised that general factors, such as public awareness and cultural connotations, may  influence the impact of AK on QoL.</p

Exploring systemic RNA interference in insects: a genome-wide survey for RNAi genes in Tribolium

Tribolium resembles C. elegans in showing a robust systemic RNAi response, but does not have C. elegans-type RNAi mechanisms; insect systemic RNAi probably uses a different mechanism

Hidradenitis suppurativa is associated with higher heart rate but not atrial fibrillation: A comparative cross-sectional study of 462 individuals with hidradenitis suppurativa in Denmark

Hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) is a chronic inflammatory dermatological disease with inflammatory mechanisms overlapping those of psoriasis, and both diseases have been associated with cardiovascular risk factors i.e. smoking and metabolic syndrome. Two studies have recently linked psoriasis with Atrial Fibrillation (AF). AF is the most frequently occurring cardiac arrhythmia in the general population and is typically accompanied by increased heart rate. Both AF and heart rate are linked with inflammation.The aim of the study was to investigate a potential association between HS and increased heart rate as well as AF.We performed a comparative cross-sectional study using digital measurements of heart rate and resting 12-lead electrocardiography (ECG) in combination with self-reported information when diagnosing AF.Our study comprised 32 individuals with HS from the hospital (the hospital HS group), 430 from the general population HS group (the population HS group), and 20,780 controls. Age and sex adjusted analysis demonstrated a significantly higher heart rate in the HS groups vs. controls (15% (range: 8-23%) higher for the hospital HS group and 4% (2-5%) higher for the population HS group). We found no association between HS and AF (P=0.1670). </p

Dairy Intake and Acne Vulgaris:A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of 78,529 Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults

A meta-analysis can help inform the debate about the epidemiological evidence on dairy intake and development of acne. A systematic literature search of PubMed from inception to 11 December 2017 was performed to estimate the association of dairy intake and acne in children, adolescents, and young adults in observational studies. We estimated the pooled random effects odds ratio (OR) (95% CI), heterogeneity (I2-statistics, Q-statistics), and publication bias. We included 14 studies (n = 78,529; 23,046 acne-cases/55,483 controls) aged 7&ndash;30 years. ORs for acne were 1.25 (95% CI: 1.15&ndash;1.36; p = 6.13 &times; 10&minus;8) for any dairy, 1.22 (1.08&ndash;1.38; p = 1.62 &times; 10&minus;3) for full-fat dairy, 1.28 (1.13&ndash;1.44; p = 8.23 &times; 10&minus;5) for any milk, 1.22 (1.06&ndash;1.41; p = 6.66 &times; 10&minus;3) for whole milk, 1.32 (1.16&ndash;1.52; p = 4.33 &times; 10&minus;5) for low-fat/skim milk, 1.22 (1.00&ndash;1.50; p = 5.21 &times; 10&minus;2) for cheese, and 1.36 (1.05&ndash;1.77; p = 2.21 &times; 10&minus;2) for yogurt compared to no intake. ORs per frequency of any milk intake were 1.24 (0.95&ndash;1.62) by 2&ndash;6 glasses per week, 1.41 (1.05&ndash;1.90) by 1 glass per day, and 1.43 (1.09&ndash;1.88) by &ge;2 glasses per day compared to intake less than weekly. Adjusted results were attenuated and compared unadjusted. There was publication bias (p = 4.71 &times; 10&minus;3), and heterogeneity in the meta-analyses were explained by dairy and study characteristics. In conclusion, any dairy, such as milk, yogurt, and cheese, was associated with an increased OR for acne in individuals aged 7&ndash;30 years. However, results should be interpreted with caution due to heterogeneity and bias across studies

Visualization of personal history for video navigation

Figure 1. Our prototype history-based interface called the Video History System (VHS) aids navigation through the management of a user’s personal viewing history. Playback of video is controlled with familiar tools such as play/pause, seek and filmstrip (left)- the VHS records each part of the video viewed by the user. The history is then visualized in one of two ways: as Video Tiles (centre) or as a Video Timeline (right).1 We present an investigation of two different visualizations of video history: Video Timeline and Video Tiles. Video Timeline extends the commonly employed list-based visualization for navigation history by applying size to indicate heuristics and occupying the full screen with a two-sided timeline. Video Tiles visualizes history items in a grid-based layout by follow-ing pre-defined templates based on items ’ heuristics and or-dering, utilizing screen space more effectively at the expense of a clearer temporal location. The visualizations are com-pared against the state-of-the-art method (a filmstrip-based visualization), with ten participants tasked with sharing their previously-seen affective intervals. Our study shows that our visualizations are perceived as intuitive and both outperform and are strongly preferred to the current method. Based on these results, Video Timeline and Video Tiles provide an ef-fective addition to video viewers to help manage the growing quantity of video. They provide users with insight into their navigation patterns, allowing them to quickly find previously-seen intervals, leading to efficient clip sharing, simpler au-thoring and video summarization

Enteral supplementation with probiotics in preterm infants: A retrospective cohort study and 6-year follow-up

The objective of this retrospective cohort study was to assess the impact of an enteral probiotics supplementation protocol on the incidence of necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) in infants born &lt;33 weeks gestational age (GA) or birth weight (BW) &lt;1,500 g. In addition, a 6-year follow-up is presented after instigation of probiotic use. In October 2014, our NICU introduced an enteral probiotics supplementation protocol for infants born &lt;33 weeks GA or BW &lt;1,500 g. Infants received 0.5 g of Bifidobacterium breve HA-129, Lacticaseibacillus rhamnosus HA-111, Bifidobacterium bifidum HA-132, Bifidobacterium longum subsp. infantis HA-116, and Bifidobacterium longum subsp. longum HA-135 (FloraBABYⓇ) daily until discharge or transfer from hospital. The incidence of NEC was compared among infants for 2 years pre- and post implementation of the protocol then 6-years following continuous implementation of the probiotic use. In total, 370 infants not treated with probiotics between 2012 and 2014 were included with an incidence of NEC at 4.9%. In comparison, the 367 infants who received had a 67% reduction (4.9–1.6%, p = 0.01) in our Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). The results remained significant (aOR = 0.26; 95% CI: 0.09, 0.72; p &lt; 0.01) after adjusting for GA, small for gestational age, and antenatal corticosteroid use. Data from the Canadian Neonatal Network not only showed a consistently high rate of NEC in October 2014, but also identified exceedingly high rates (8.7–15.6%) in some hospitals up to 2021, while our rates have been consistently low with using the probiotic as standard therapy for low BW premature babies, with no serious side effects reported. In conclusion, the introduction of a five-strain probiotic natural health product has coincided with a reduced incidence and complications of NEC in our NICU setting