1,030 research outputs found
The Ontology of Intentional Agency in Light of Neurobiological Determinism: Philosophy Meets Folk Psychology
The moot point of the Western philosophical rhetoric about free will
consists in examining whether the claim of authorship to intentional, deliberative
actions fits into or is undermined by a one-way causal framework of determinism.
Philosophers who think that reconciliation between the two is possible are known as
metaphysical compatibilists. However, there are philosophers populating the other
end of the spectrum, known as the metaphysical libertarians, who maintain that claim
to intentional agency cannot be sustained unless it is assumed that indeterministic
causal processes pervade the action-implementation apparatus employed by the agent.
The metaphysical libertarians differ among themselves on the question of whether the
indeterministic causal relation exists between the series of intentional states and
processes, both conscious and unconscious, and the action, making claim for what has
come to be known as the event-causal view, or between the agent and the action,
arguing that a sort of agent causation is at work. In this paper, I have tried to propose
that certain features of both event-causal and agent-causal libertarian views need to be
combined in order to provide a more defendable compatibilist account accommodating
deliberative actions with deterministic causation. The ââagent-executed-eventcausal
libertarianismââ, the account of agency I have tried to develop here, integrates
certain plausible features of the two competing accounts of libertarianism turning
them into a consistent whole. I hope to show in the process that the integration of these
two variants of libertarianism does not challenge what some accounts of metaphysical
compatibilism proposeâthat there exists a broader deterministic relation between the
web of mental and extra-mental components constituting the agentâs dispositional
systemâthe agentâs beliefs, desires, short-term and long-term goals based on them,
the acquired social, cultural and religious beliefs, the general and immediate and
situational environment in which the agent is placed, etc. on the one hand and the
decisions she makes over her lifetime on the basis of these factors. While in the
ââIntroductionââ the philosophically assumed anomaly between deterministic causation
and the intentional act of deciding has been briefly surveyed, the second section is
devoted to the task of bridging the gap between compatibilism and libertarianism. The
next section of the paper turns to an analysis of folk-psychological concepts and
intuitions about the effects of neurochemical processes and prior mental events on the
freedom of making choices. How philosophical insights can be beneficially informed
by taking into consideration folk-psychological intuitions has also been discussed,
thus setting up the background for such analysis. It has been suggested in the end that
support for the proposed theory of intentional agency can be found in the folk-psychological intuitions, when they are taken in the right perspective
The Replication Argument for Incompatibilism
In this paper, I articulate an argument for incompatibilism about moral responsibility and determinism. My argument comes in the form of an extended story, modeled loosely on Peter van Inwagenâs ârollback argumentâ scenario. I thus call it âthe replication argument.â As I aim to bring out, though the argument is inspired by so-called âmanipulationâ and âoriginal designâ arguments, the argument is not a version of either such argumentâand plausibly has advantages over both. The result, I believe, is a more convincing incompatibilist argument than those we have considered previously
Gravitational decays of heavy particles in large extra dimensions
In the framework of quantum gravity propagating in large extra dimensions, we
analyze the inclusive radiative emission of Kaluza-Klein spin-2 gravitons in
the two-fermions decays of massive gauge bosons, heavy quarks, Higgs bosons,
and in the two-massive gauge bosons decay of Higgs bosons. We provide
analytical expressions for the square modulus of amplitudes summed over
polarizations, and numerical results for the widths and branching ratios. The
corresponding decays in the Z, top quark, and Higgs boson sectors of the
standard model are analyzed in the light of present and future experiments.Comment: 29 pages, 4 figures, notation slightly changed, a few comments adde
Window on Higgs Boson: Fourth Generation Decays Revisited
Direct and indirect searches of the Higgs boson suggest that 113 GeV
170 GeV is likely. With the LEP era over and the
Tevatron Run II search via arduous, we revisit a case where
or jets could arise via strong pair
production. In contrast to 10 years ago, the tight electroweak constraint on
-- (hence --) splitting reduces FCNC
, rates, making naturally competitive.
Such a "cocktail solution" is precisely the mix that could evade the CDF search
for , and the may well be lurking below the top. In
light of the Higgs program, this two-in-one strategy should be pursued.Comment: 4 pages, RevTex, 4 eps figures, One more figure, version to be
published in Phys. Rev.
Bounds on the mass of the b' quark, revisited
Recent results from the DELPHI collaboration led us to review the present
bounds on the b' quark mass. We use all available experimental data for m_b' >
96 GeV to constrain the b' quark mass as a function of the
Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa elements in a sequential four generations model. We
find that there is still room for a b' with a mass larger than 96 GeV.Comment: 9 pages and 7 figures. REVTEX
Definition and Calculation of Bottom Quark Cross-Sections in Deep-inelastic Scattering at HERA and Determination of their Uncertainties
The uncertainties involved in the calculation of bottom quark cross-sections
in deep-inelastic scattering at HERA are studied in different phase space
regions. Besides the inclusive bottom quark cross-section, definitions closer
to the detector acceptance requiring at least one high energetic muon from the
semi-leptonic \bquark decay or a jet with high transverse energy are
investigated. For each case the uncertainties due to the choice of the
renormalisation and factorisation scale as well as the \bquark mass are
estimated in the perturbative NLO QCD calculation and furthermore uncertainties
in the fragmenation of the bottom quark to a B-meson and in its semi-leptonic
decay are discussed
Heavy Quark Initiated Contributions to Deep Inelastic Structure Functions
We present O(alpha_s^1) corrections to deep inelastic scattering amplitudes
on massive quarks obtained within the scheme of Aivazis, Collins, Olness and
Tung (ACOT). After identifying the correct subtraction term the convergence of
these contributions towards the analogous coefficient functions for massless
quarks, obtained within the modified minimal subtraction scheme (MSbar), is
demonstrated. Furthermore, the quantitative relevance of the contributions to
neutral current (NC) and charged current (CC) structure functions is
investigated for several choices of the factorization scale.Comment: 29 pages, 6 figures; uses epsfig.sty, amssymb.sty, axodraw.sty; minor
changes for publication in Phys. Rev.
Risking innovation:Understanding risk and public service innovation - evidence from a four nation study
This paper presents new evidence about the governance of risk in public service innovation. It finds that risk is currently poorly understood with public service organizations. Either it is presented as a professional issue or it is dealt with purely as an actuarial or health and safety issue. There is little understanding of risk as a core component of innovation. In response, this paper argues for a more nuanced risk governance approach that calls for transparent decision-making on risk in public service innovation in relation to its intended outcomes. Politicians and public service managers need to understand that risk is an inherent element of innovation, because it engages with uncertain outcomes. A framework needs to be evolved to balance these risks against potential benefits and which can drive forward transparent risk governance involving politicians, public service mangers, citizens and local communities and other key stakeholders. This approach also needs to accept that failure can often by an outcome of innovation. The key here is not to maintain the blame culture that has dominate the debate to date but rather to embrace failure as an opportunity to learn and to improve public services and their outcomes
Vector boson pair production at the LHC
We present phenomenological results for vector boson pair production at the
LHC, obtained using the parton-level next-to-leading order program MCFM. We
include the implementation of a new process in the code, pp -> \gamma\gamma,
and important updates to existing processes. We incorporate fragmentation
contributions in order to allow for the experimental isolation of photons in
\gamma\gamma, W\gamma, and Z\gamma production and also account for gluon-gluon
initial state contributions for all relevant processes. We present results for
a variety of phenomenological scenarios, at the current operating energy of
\sqrt{s} = 7 TeV and for the ultimate machine goal, \sqrt{s} = 14 TeV. We
investigate the impact of our predictions on several important distributions
that enter into searches for new physics at the LHC.Comment: 35 pages, 14 figure
Hepatitis B virus infected health care workers in the Netherlands, 2000-2008
In response to the confirmed transmission of hepatitis B virus (HBV) from a surgeon to several patients in the Netherlands, a âCommittee for Prevention of Iatrogenic Hepatitis Bâ was established in 2000. During the years 2000â2008, the committee reviewed 99 cases of HBV-infected health care workers. Fifty of them were found to perform exposure prone procedures (EPPs). Because of high levels of HBV DNA (>100,000 copies/ml), a ban on performing EPPs was applied in 11/50 cases; 25/50 low-viremic health care workers were allowed to continue EPPs while their HBV load was being monitored; and 14/50 cases had stopped working or changed profession. In five restricted workers who started oral antiviral treatment, HBV replication was persistently suppressed, enabling the ban on EPPs to be lifted. Throughout the European Union different levels of HBV viremia have been chosen, above which health care workers are not allowed to perform EPPs. It remains unknown how this affects the safety of patients. Application in the Netherlands of a European or a British guideline would have, respectively, doubled or tripled the number of restricted health care workers
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