Believe It or Not: On Multiplying Classes of Belief-like States

This paper explores whether it is justified to add any new taxa concerning informational states to our psychological taxonomy. Such exploration will not lead to a straightforward decision between remaining steadfast with the taxonomic status quo and adding only one new taxon. A careful analysis of when one would be warranted in positing a new taxon for informational states will reveal similarly compelling reasons to posit all sorts of additional taxa. As an antidote to such proliferation, I suggest a reinforcement of traditional taxonomies of the mental by allowing belief and a range of extant taxa to play their requisite explanatory roles, thereby obviating the need for the postulation of any novel taxa

Application of computational tools to analyze evolution of equine infectious anemia virus

Evolution is the study of how variation alters the phenotype and population dynamics over time. Population genetics theories fit viral evolution well because of the properties of a viral population. Retroviruses are characterized by a high mutation and replication rate, which produces a heterogeneous mixture of viral variants commonly referred to as a quasispecies. Equine infectious anemia virus (EIAV) infection is a well-studied model for retrovirus variation and evolution (32, 33, 34). EIAV infection is characterized by a rapid, variable, dynamic disease course. Dynamic features of clinical disease as well as the ability of the horse to control the infection makes EIAV an excellent system to study evolution of viral quasispecies during progression of clinical disease. Here, we describe analyses of genetic data from longitudinal studies of genetic variation in a horse experimentally infected with equine infectious anemia virus. These studies include the genes encoding the regulatory protein Rev and the surface envelope glycoprotein, SU.Phylogenetic and cluster analyses suggested that the population of Rev variants was comprised of two distinct quasispecies that co-existed during infection, the populations shifted rapidly during febrile and afebrile periods with as little as 10 days between changes in population dominance of populations. In this study, we also examined evolution of EIAV envelope quasispecies during chronic and inapparent stages of disease. The data suggests that viral quasispecies in the chronic period evolve by random processes while quasispecies in the inapparent period evolve by a combination of Darwinian selection and random processes. These results propose that the envelope evolves by different processes during different stages of disease. Different evolutionary mechanisms during different stages of disease require unique approaches to anti-retroviral therapy during different stages of disease. Together, these results suggest there are unique host environments and viral population interactions during different stages of disease. Multiple quasispecies and varying processes of evolution during persistent retrovirus infection challenges the current thinking and has important biological implications for control of viral infections

A scattering of orders

A linear ordering is scattered if it does not contain a copy of the rationals. Hausdorff characterised the class of scattered linear orderings as the least family of linear orderings that includes the class $\mathcal B$ of well-orderings and reversed well-orderings, and is closed under lexicographic sums with index set in $\mathcal B$. More generally, we say that a partial ordering is $\kappa$-scattered if it does not contain a copy of any $\kappa$-dense linear ordering. We prove analogues of Hausdorff's result for $\kappa$-scattered linear orderings, and for $\kappa$-scattered partial orderings satisfying the finite antichain condition. We also study the $\mathbb{Q}_\kappa$-scattered partial orderings, where $\mathbb{Q}_\kappa$ is the saturated linear ordering of cardinality $\kappa$, and a partial ordering is $\mathbb{Q}_\kappa$-scattered when it embeds no copy of $\mathbb{Q}_\kappa$. We classify the $\mathbb{Q}_\kappa$-scattered partial orderings with the finite antichain condition relative to the $\mathbb{Q}_\kappa$-scattered linear orderings. We show that in general the property of being a $\mathbb{Q}_\kappa$-scattered linear ordering is not absolute, and argue that this makes a classification theorem for such orderings hard to achieve without extra set-theoretic assumptions

Houston College Sport Programs’ Hurricane Harvey Communication: A Twitter Content Analysis

This study provides a Twitter content analysis of tweets by Houston-based Division I college sport programs during Hurricane Harvey. A content analysis was performed on the tweets appearing on the main intercollegiate athletics Twitter pages of University of Houston, Houston Baptist University, Prairie View A&M University, Rice University, and Texas Southern University in response to Hurricane Harvey. The researchers based their study on grounded theory informed by a study conducted by Inoue and Havard (2015). While this study examined tweets rather than newspaper and magazine articles like Inoue and Havard (2015), this study confirmed the theme findings in Inoue and Havard (2015) applied well in a Twitter social media setting as well. New themes that were added by the researchers in the current study proved to be applicable

Dawning of the age of quantitative/empirical methods in accounting research: Evidence from the leading authors of The Accounting Review, 1966-1985

This study documents changes that took place in The Ac­counting Review during 1966-1985 compared with earlier 20-year periods, 1926-1945 and 1946-1965. The comparisons are based on examining the articles published in The Accounting Review and writ­ten by its leading authors (i.e., those authors who published the most articles). The article considers topics, research methods, finan­cial accounting subtopics, citation analyses (including influential journals, articles, books, and authors), length, author background, and other items. This study shows that The Accounting Review evolved into a journal with demanding acceptance standards whose leading authors were highly educated accounting academics who, to a large degree, brought methods and tools from other disciplines to bear upon accounting issues

Generation of an intense cold-atom beam from a pyramidal magneto-optical trap: experiment and simulation

An intense cold-atom beam source based on a modified pyramidal magneto-optical trap has been developed and characterized. We have produced a slow beam of cold cesium atoms with a continuous flux of 2.2× 10^9 atoms/s at a mean velocity of 15 m/s and with a divergence of 15 mrad. The corresponding radiant intensity is 1.2×10^13 atom s^−1 sr^−1. We have characterized the performance of our beam source over a range of operating conditions, and the measured values for atom flux, mean velocity, and divergence are in good agreement with results from detailed Monte Carlo numerical simulations

The emergence of objects: A study in constitution.

In this dissertation I first motivate the need for the constitution relation by raising what Michael C. Rea has called the problem of material constitution and arguing that many of the so-called solutions of the problem do not in fact resolve it. I then look to recent accounts of constitution in the literature and focus on five for a thorough statement and critical appraisal: Frederick Doepke, Judith Jarvis Thomson, Lynne Rudder Baker, Samuel Levey, and Michael C. Rea. In each case I argue that the view is either incomplete, commits one to dubious entities and/or other consequences (e.g., top-down property borrowing) that are themselves unwarranted, or is incapable of accounting for paradigm cases of constitutionally related objects. Finally, I offer my own view of the constitution relation which accounts for an object's extrinsic relations as well as its intrinsic features, fully explains both the similarity and the dissimilarity among constitutionally related objects (without multiplying kinds), and is consistent with supervenience. In the end, I offer a view that is sufficiently robust to account for all constitutionally related phenomena in the world

Tracing the evolution of research in The Accounting Review through its leading authors: The 1946-1965 period

n order to better understand the development of accounting research, this paper examines the work of the leading authors of The Accounting Review (Leading Authors) during 1946-1965. An earlier study [Fleming, Graci and Thompson, 1990] concluded that the work of the Leading Authors during the 1926-1945 period was characterized by a practical orientation. The Accounting Review in many respects remained a practically oriented journal during 1946-1965. However, changes are evident that were contributing factors in the evolution of The Accounting Review into its current quantitative/empirical orientation