Teleological Essentialism: Generalized

Natural/social kind essentialism is the view that natural kind categories, both living and non-living natural kinds, as well as social kinds (e.g., race, gender), are essentialized. On this view, artifactual kinds are not essentialized. Our view—teleological essentialism—is that a broad range of categories are essentialized in terms of teleology, including artifacts. Utilizing the same kinds of experiments typically used to provide evidence of essentialist thinking—involving superficial change (study 1), transformation of insides (study 2) and inferences about offspring (study 3)—we find support for the view that a broad range of categories—living natural kinds, non-living natural kinds and artifactual kinds—are essentialized in terms of teleology. Study 4 tests a unique prediction of teleological essentialism and also provides evidence that people make inferences about purposes which in turn guide categorization judgments

Symbolic Maximum Likelihood Estimation with Mathematica

Mathematica is a symbolic programming language that empowers the user to undertake complicated algebraic tasks. One such task is the derivation of maximum likelihood estimators, demonstrably an important topic in statistics at both the research and expository level. In this paper, a Mathematica package is provided that contains a function entitled SuperLog. This function utilises pattern-matching code that enhances Mathematica's ability to simplify expressions involving the natural logarithm of a product of algebraic terms. This enhancement to Mathematica's functionality can be of particular benefit for maximum likelihood estimation

THE APPLICATION OF CIVIL RIGHTS LAWS TO HOUSING COOPERATIVES: ARE CO-OPS BASTIONS OF DISCRIMINATORY EXCLUSION OR SELF-SELECTING MODELS OF COMMUNITY-BASED LIVING?

Despite one of the nation\u27s broadest civil rights laws for residents of housing cooperatives, few of New York City\u27s discrimination claims in the cooperative housing market are pursued. In this article, the authors provide an overview of the cooperative housing market in New York City, including anecdotal evidence of discrimination. Next, the article discusses the legal framework of the housing cooperative before a brief analysis of city, state and federal anti-discrimination laws applicable to cooperatives. Finally, the article undertakes an analysis of cases in which antidiscrimination laws have been applied to cooperatives. The author concludes with recommendations for cooperatives and prospective applicants

Learning medical alarms whilst performing other tasks.

Two studies are reported which first observe, and then attempt to replicate, the cognitive demands of intensive care unit (ICU) activity whilst concurrently learning audible alarms. The first study, an observational study in an ICU ward, showed that the alarms are very frequent and co-occur with some activities more than others. The three most frequently observed activities observed in the ICU were drugs (calculation, preparation and administration), patient observation and talking. The cognitive demands of these activities were simulated in a second, laboratory-based experiment in which alarms were learned. The results showed that performance in the alarm task generally improved as participants were exposed to more repetitions of those alarms, but that performance decrements were observed in the secondary tasks, particularly when there were two or three of them. Some confusions between the alarms persisted to the end of the study despite prolonged exposure to the alarms, confusions which were likely caused by both acoustic and verbal labelling similarities. PRACTITIONER SUMMARY: The cognitive demands of working in an ICU were observed and simulated whilst alarms were learned. Alarms should generally avoid sharing similar rhythmic (and other) characteristics. The simulation task described here could be used for testing alarm learning without requiring a clinical environment

Spectral Variations in Early-Type Galaxies as a Function of Mass

We report on the strengths of three spectral indicators - Mg_2, Hbeta, and Hn/Fe - in the integrated light of a sample of 100 field and cluster E/S0 galaxies. The measured indices are sensitive to age and/or and metallicity variations within the galaxy sample. Using linear regression analysis for data with non-uniform errors, we determine the intrinsic scatter present among the spectral indices of our galaxy sample as a function of internal velocity dispersion. Our analysis indicates that there is significantly more intrinsic scatter in the two Balmer line indices than in the Mg_2 index, indicating that the Balmer indices provide more dynamic range in determining the age of a stellar population than does the Mg_2 index. Furthermore, the scatter is much larger for the low velocity dispersion galaxies, indicating that star formation has occurred more recently in the lower mass galaxies.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, 1 table, to appear in the Astrophysical Journal Letter

What Have We Learned from Policy Transfer Research? Dolowitz and Marsh Revisited

Over the last decade, policy transfer has emerged as an important concept within public policy analysis, guiding both theoretical and empirical research spanning many venues and issue areas. Using Dolowitz and Marsh's 1996 stocktake as its starting point, this article reviews what has been learned by whom and for what purpose. It finds that the literature has evolved from its rather narrow, state-centred roots to cover many more actors and venues. While policy transfer still represents a niche topic for some researchers, an increasing number have successfully assimilated it into wider debates on topics such as globalisation, Europeanisation and policy innovation. This article assesses the concept's position in the overall ‘tool-kit’ of policy analysis, examines some possible future directions and reflects on their associated risks and opportunities

Surveyor ejecta detector model ML 256-1 and 185-1 and Surveyor ejecta detector ground support equipment model ML 260-1 Final engineering report

Engineering analyses on Surveyor lunar dust particle detector instrumentation, and ground support equipmen