The Aesthetics of Theory Selection and the Logics of Art

Philosophers of science discuss whether theory selection depends on aesthetic judgments or criteria, and whether these putatively aesthetic features are genuinely extra-epistemic. As examples, judgments involving criteria such as simplicity and symmetry are often cited. However, other theory selection criteria, such as fecundity, coherence, internal consistency, and fertility, more closely match those criteria used in art contexts and by scholars working in aesthetics. Paying closer attention to the way these criteria are used in art contexts allows us to understand some evaluative and developmental practices in scientific theory selection as genuinely aesthetic, enlarging the scope of the goals of science

THE CRIMINAL ENFORCEMENT OF ANTITRUST LAW – THE IMPORTANCE OF BUILDING AN ENFORCEMENT CULTURE AND HOW TO CREATE IT

There has been a proliferation of jurisdictions across the world seeking to use criminal sanctions to deter and punish cartels and many have enacted laws that criminalise this type of anticompetitive behaviour. However, other jurisdictions have failed to replicate the enviable success of the US. Reports to the OECD suggest that they have encountered difficulties ranging from procedural to legal, but also disincentives on the part of key players – like judges, the general public, prosecutors, and government – in the actual enforcement of such a regime. These experiences intimate that some of these jurisdictions – awestruck by the accomplishments of the US – have not developed the enforcement culture necessary to effectively implement and maintain a criminalised antitrust regime. This essay puts forward a rhetorical framework that other countries may draw upon when attempting to garner both public and political support in the criminalisation process. It will be argued that because of the global financial crisis leaving many countries in dire straits, regulators must seize this opportunity to leverage the universal concepts of inequality and financial hardship in demonstrating the pernicious nature of cartels and, as a result, highlight why the case for criminalisation is so strong

Theology and Christian discipleship

Consists of 5 parts, every part publishes under separate title. Part 1. What is ‘God’? Doctrine and Life, vol. 67, number 9, September 2017, pp. 3-7 Part 2. Are We Short of Priests?Doctrine and Life, vol. 67, number 10, December 2017, pp. 16-19 Part 3. Can We Share a Table? Doctrine and Life, vol. 68, number 1, January 2018, pp. 18-22 Part 4. Does the Spirit Speak in Every Heart? Doctrine and Life, vol. 68, number 2, February 2018, pp. 29-31 Part 5. Are People Really ‘Not Religious’? Doctrine and Life, vol. 68, number 3, March 2018, pp. 26-29

Performance comparison between a distributed particle swarm algorithm and a centralised algorithm

Particle Swarm optimisation (PSO) is a particular form of swarm intelligence, which itself is an innovative intelligent paradigm for solving optimization problems. PSO is generally used to find a global optimum in a single optimisation function. This typically occurs on one node(machine) but there has been a significant body of research into creating distributed implementations of the PSO algorithm. Such research has often focused on the creation and performance of the distributed implementation in an isolated manner or compared to different distributed algorithms. This research piece aims to bridge a gap in the existing literature, by testing a distributed implementation of a PSO algorithm against a centralised implementation, and investigating what, if any, gains there are to utilising a distributed implementation over a centralised implementation. The focus will primarily be on the time taken for the algorithm to successfully find a global minimum to a specific fitness function, but other elements will be examined over the course of the study

One Island, One People, One Nation: Early Latin Evidence for this Motif in Ireland

That the island of Ireland is the home of the Irish, and consequently that ‘the nation’ and the territory of the island mutually define one another, has been one of the central assumptions of Irish nationalism. Just as an island is a single discrete entity -- the very icon for something well marked off from other things by ‘clear blue water’ -- so the people on it have been assumed to be a distinct group. More than just a collection of individuals or families, they have been assumed to form a ‘nation’ with a separate identity and destiny from their neighbours. This distinction has been elaborated in several modes: culturally, linguistically, religiously, and most frequently politically; but the underlying theme is that Ireland (the island) is identical with Ireland (a cultural entity generated in the imagination: ‘the place we call home’), and can be identified with its nation, the Irish (an ethnic concept/entity) and with a political expression, ‘Ireland’ when this is the label placed before an ambassador

Gender-as-lived: The Coloniality of gender in schools as a queer teacher listens in to complicated moments of resistance

In this paper, I use Gloria Anzaldúa’s (1987) narrative method of “autohistoría” in concert with theoretical analysis to reflect on my experiences as a queer teacher in the heteronormative United States schooling system. These reflections are aimed at unpacking the ways in which racialization, sexual orientation and coloniality are inseparably tied to living out one’s gender. It is this phenomenon of “Gender-as-Lived” that I urge become a focus of identity development research in education studies and is my central concern in this post-intentional phenomenological study. Furthermore, Anzaldúa’s conceptualization of the liminal zone of “nepantla” as an embodied and in-between space of resistance offers to transform the practice of teaching into a vocation of healing