Ceteris Paribus Laws

Laws of nature take center stage in philosophy of science. Laws are usually believed to stand in a tight conceptual relation to many important key concepts such as causation, explanation, confirmation, determinism, counterfactuals etc. Traditionally, philosophers of science have focused on physical laws, which were taken to be at least true, universal statements that support counterfactual claims. But, although this claim about laws might be true with respect to physics, laws in the special sciences (such as biology, psychology, economics etc.) appear to have—maybe not surprisingly—different features than the laws of physics. Special science laws—for instance, the economic law “Under the condition of perfect competition, an increase of demand of a commodity leads to an increase of price, given that the quantity of the supplied commodity remains constant” and, in biology, Mendel's Laws—are usually taken to “have exceptions”, to be “non-universal” or “to be ceteris paribus laws”. How and whether the laws of physics and the laws of the special sciences differ is one of the crucial questions motivating the debate on ceteris paribus laws. Another major, controversial question concerns the determination of the precise meaning of “ceteris paribus”. Philosophers have attempted to explicate the meaning of ceteris paribus clauses in different ways. The question of meaning is connected to the problem of empirical content, i.e., the question whether ceteris paribus laws have non-trivial and empirically testable content. Since many philosophers have argued that ceteris paribus laws lack empirically testable content, this problem constitutes a major challenge to a theory of ceteris paribus laws

A Modeling Approach for Mechanisms Featuring Causal Cycles

Mechanisms play an important role in many sciences when it comes to questions concerning explanation, prediction, and control. Answering such questions in a quantitative way requires a formal representation of mechanisms. Gebharter’s “A Formal Framework for Representing Mechanisms?” suggests to represent mechanisms by means of arrows in an acyclic causal net. In this article we show how this approach can be extended in such a way that it can also be fruitfully applied to mechanisms featuring causal feedback

Philosophy of Science in Germany, 1992-2012: Survey-Based Overview and Quantitative Analysis

An overview of the German philosophy of science community is given for the years 1992-2012, based on a survey in which 159 philosophers of science in Germany participated. To this end, the institutional background of the German philosophy of science community is examined in terms of journals, centers, and associations. Furthermore, a qualitative description and a quantitative analysis of our survey results are presented. Quantitative estimates are given for: (a) academic positions, (b) research foci, (c) philosophers' of science most important publications, and (d) externally funded projects, where for (c) all survey participants had indicated their five most important publications in philosophy of science. In addition, the survey results for (a)-(c) are also qualitatively described, as they are interesting in their own right. With respect to (a), we estimated the gender distribution among academic positions. Concerning (c), we quantified philosophers' of science preference for (i) journals and publishers, (ii) publication format, (iii) language, and (iv) coauthorship for their most important publications. With regard to research projects, we determined their (i) prevalence, (ii) length, and (iii) trend (an increase in number?) as well as their most frequent (iv) research foci and (v) funding organizations. We also distinguished between German-based and non-German-based journals, publishers, and funding institutions, making it thereby possible to evaluate the involvement of the German philosophy of science community in the international research landscape. Finally, we discuss some implications of our findings

Impairment-based assessments for patients with lateral ankle sprain: A systematic review of measurement properties

Study design Systematic review. Background and objective The International Ankle Consortium developed a core outcome set for the assessment of impairments in patients with lateral ankle sprain (LAS) without consideration of measurement properties (MP). Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate MPs of assessments for the evaluation of individuals with a history of LAS. Methods This systematic review of measurement properties follows PRISMA and COSMIN guidelines. Databases Pubmed, CINAHL, Embase, Web of Science, Cochrane Library and SPORTDiscus were searched for eligible studies (last search: July 2022). Studies on MP of specific tests and patient-reported outcome measurements (PROMs) in patients with acute and history of LAS (>4 weeks post injury) were deemed eligible. Results Ten studies of acute LAS and 39 studies of history of LAS patients with a total of 3313 participants met the inclusion criteria. Anterior Drawer Test (ADT) in supine position five days post injury and Reverse Anterolateral Drawer Test are recommended in acute settings in single studies. In the history of LAS patients, Cumberland Ankle Instability Tool (CAIT) (4 studies) as a PROM, Multiple Hop (3 studies) and Star Excursion Balance Tests (SEBT) (3 studies) for dynamic postural balance testing showed good MPs. No studies investigated pain, physical activity level and gait. Only single studies reported on swelling, range of motion, strength, arthrokinematics, and static postural balance. Limited data existed on responsiveness of the tests in both subgroups. Conclusion There was good evidence to support the use of CAIT as PROM, Multiple Hop, and SEBT for dynamic postural balance testing. Insufficient evidence exists in relation to test responsiveness, especially in the acute situation. Future research should assess MPs of assessments of other impairments associated with LAS

Integration der Maker Education in die Lehramtsausbildung – das Digitallabor der Universität Osnabrück

Der folgende Beitrag stellt das Konzept eines universitätsweiten Digitallabors der Universität Osnabrück vor, das in seinem Aufbau an Makerspaces und Fablabs angelehnt ist, insbesondere Lehramtsstudierende bei der Entwicklung von Digitalkompetenz fördert und Impulse für die Verwirklichung innovativer Lehr- und Lernsettings liefert. Es handelt sich um einen offenen Lernort mit mehreren Räumen für selbstorganisiertes Lernen, z. B. einem Maschinenpark sowie Podcast- und Videostudios. Da in Bezug auf Kompetenzentwicklungsmodelle, die die Anbahnung von Digitalkompetenz bei angehenden Lehrer:innen modellieren, eine Forschungslücke besteht, werden derzeit auf Basis von DigComp und DigCompEdu curriculare und extracurriculare Angebote im Digitallabor konzipiert, die der Zielgruppe den intrinsisch motivierten Zugang und das Entwickeln eines sich durch Digitalkompetenz auszeichnenden Profils ermöglichen sollen. Parallel zum Lernen vor Ort vermitteln praxisvorbereitende extracurriculare Online-Selbstlernmodule grundlegendes Technikwissen, wie am Beispiel des 3D-Drucks gezeigt wird. Der curriculare Ansatz basiert auf einem didaktischen Methodenmix inkl. eines E-Portfolios. Die Lernbegleiter:innen schaffen in Anlehnung an das Cognitive Apprenticeship-Modell einen geeigneten Rahmen, um authentische Probleme mit Lebensweltbezug im Sinne situierten Lernens abzubilden und intrinsische Motivation zu erzeugen. Ziel des Digitallabors ist es, so die Anbahnung von Digitalkompetenz in die Erfahrungswelt der Lernenden zu implementieren und Transferprozesse für spätere Herausforderungen anzustossen

Accurate stationary densities with partitioned numerical methods for stochastic partial differential equations

We consider the numerical solution, by finite differences, of second-order-in-time stochastic partial differential equations (SPDEs) in one space dimension. New timestepping methods are introduced by generalising recently-introduced methods for second-order-in-time stochastic differential equations to multidimensional systems. These stochastic methods, based on leapfrog and Runge–Kutta methods, are designed to give good approximations to the stationary variances and the correlations in the position and velocity variables. In particular, we introduce the reverse leapfrog method and stochastic Runge–Kutta Leapfrog methods, analyse their performance applied to linear SPDEs and perform numerical experiments to examine their accuracy applied to a type of nonlinear SPDE