Moral Realism and Anti-Realism outside the West: A Meta-Ethical Turn in Buddhist Ethics

In recent years, discussions of Buddhist ethics have increasingly drawn upon the concepts and tools of modern ethical theory, not only to compare Buddhist perspectives with Western moral theories, but also to assess the meta-ethical implications of Buddhist texts and their philosophical context. Philosophers aiming to defend the Madhyamaka framework in particular - its ethics and soteriology along with its logic and epistemology - have recently attempted to explain its combination of moral commitment and philosophical scepticism by appealing to various forms of meta-ethical anti-realism. This paper argues that those attempts do not succeed, even in their own terms. Their emphasis on universal compassion, among other features of their approaches, is difficult to explain normatively so long as it is embedded within an anti-realist framework. Soteriological values - such as enlightenment and liberation - also seem to require a realist account of their normativity. Though many Buddhist philosophers disagree, there is at least one form of Buddhist philosophy, that of the Yogacara school, that can be interpreted as articulating a meta-ethical realism of the kind that the broader Mahayana tradition (if not other Buddhist traditions as well) seems to require. To a greater extent than stressing common anti-realist themes would allow, the paper argues that finding common ground, where Western moral realism and Buddhist moral realism can coalesce and jointly vindicate a repertoire of shared ethical concepts, may also facilitate the efforts of those engaged in comparative ethical theory

Particle production processes in high energy physics

Imperial Users onl

A study of the bacterial and fungal flora of the canine ear: with particular reference to the condition known clinically as 'canker' (otitis externa and media)

The commonest breeds to be affected with otitis were Spaniels and other long- haired dogs with overlapping ears.The most important of the predisposing factors to otitis were skin diseases from which 38 and 59 per cent respectively of the dogs in the unselected and chronic otitis groups were suffering. Only 13 per cent of the dogs were infested with ectoparasites.In most cases the primary lesion of otitis was due to the extension of a skin condition to the external acoustic meatus or, occasionally, to irritation by ear mites and foreign bodies such as grit and grass awns.Infection of the ear lesion was due either to commensal staphylococci or yeasts, or to faecal contamination with Pseudomonas, Proteus or coliform organisms.The incidence of Pseudomonas and Proteus was greatest in dogs with chronic otitis that were also suffering from a clinical skin disease. In a number of cases infection occurred during, or shortly after, a course of treatment with antibiotics.Pseudomonas, Proteus and coliform infections were generally associated with the copious, purulent types of discharge, whereas staphylococci and Pityrosporum predominated in the dryish, dark - coloured exudates.The tissue changes in affected ears were more closely related to the nature of the discharge and the identity of the infectious agent than to the duration of the condition. The numerous, large, cystic diverticula of the tubular portions of the modified ceruminous, or apocrine, glands were a constant feature of the more purulent forms of otitis.All the Pseudomonas strains from infected ears were identified as Ps. aeruginosa, a number of which were sensitive to phages of human strains.Pr. mirabilis accounted for 95 per cent of the Proteus strains, about half of which were antigenically similar. To some extent, species identification was determined by the strain's in vitro sensitivities to antibiotics.The commonest coliform organisms recovered from infected ears were faecal type 1 of E. coli.Unlike Group G. haemolytic streptococci, Group M. strains were rarely isolated from otitic material, although they were frequently present in the tonsils of healthy dogs.Canine staphylococci differed markedly from those from human and certain other animal sources. Most of the dog strains were non -pigmented and coagulated rabbit but not human plasmas. Their coagulase activity was positively correlated with the production of delta but not alpha haemolysin, while a number of coagulase positive strains formed a new haemolysin. Of the few (7 per cent) penicillin resistant dog staphylococci, most were of the alpha -delta haemolytic pattern and produced aureus pigment which which are features of human, rather than canine, strains.Pit rosporum species were isolated from most of the healthy and infected external ears, but from no other site, and differed from other members of the genus by growing well in maltose agar without the addition of oleic acid

Learning by Viewing: Generating Test Inputs for Games by Integrating Human Gameplay Traces in Neuroevolution

Although automated test generation is common in many programming domains, games still challenge test generators due to their heavy randomisation and hard-to-reach program states. Neuroevolution combined with search-based software testing principles has been shown to be a promising approach for testing games, but the co-evolutionary search for optimal network topologies and weights involves unreasonably long search durations. In this paper, we aim to improve the evolutionary search for game input generators by integrating knowledge about human gameplay behaviour. To this end, we propose a novel way of systematically recording human gameplay traces, and integrating these traces into the evolutionary search for networks using traditional gradient descent as a mutation operator. Experiments conducted on eight diverse Scratch games demonstrate that the proposed approach reduces the required search time from five hours down to only 52 minutes

NuzzleBug: Debugging Block-Based Programs in Scratch

While professional integrated programming environments support developers with advanced debugging functionality, block-based programming environments for young learners often provide no support for debugging at all, thus inhibiting debugging and preventing debugging education. In this paper we introduce NuzzleBug, an extension of the popular block-based programming environment Scratch that provides the missing debugging support. NuzzleBug allows controlling the executions of Scratch programs with classical debugging functionality such as stepping and breakpoints, and it is an omniscient debugger that also allows reverse stepping. To support learners in deriving hypotheses that guide debugging, NuzzleBug is an interrogative debugger that enables to ask questions about executions and provides answers explaining the behavior in question. In order to evaluate NuzzleBug, we survey the opinions of teachers, and study the effects on learners in terms of debugging effectiveness and efficiency. We find that teachers consider NuzzleBug to be useful, and children can use it to debug faulty programs effectively. However, systematic debugging requires dedicated training, and even when NuzzleBug can provide correct answers learners may require further help to comprehend faults and necessary fixes, thus calling for further research on improving debugging techniques and the information they provide.Comment: To appear at the 2024 IEEE/ACM 46th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE '24), April 14--20, 2024, Lisbon, Portuga

Beyond Contract-versus-Charity, Toward Participation and Provision: On the Concept of Social Citizenship

Also CSST Working Paper #76.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/51238/1/472.pd

The ABC of Pair Programming: Gender-dependent Attitude, Behavior and Code of Young Learners

Young learners are increasingly introduced to programming, and one of the main challenges for educators is to achieve learning success while also creating enthusiasm. As it is particularly difficult to achieve this enthusiasm initially in young females, prior work has identified gender-specific differences in the programming behavior of young learners. Since pair programming, which turns programming into a more sociable activity, has been proposed as an approach to support programming education, in this paper we aim to investigate whether similar gender-specific characteristics can also be observed during pair programming. Therefore, we designed a gender-neutral introductory SCRATCH programming course tailored for integrating pair programming principles, and conducted it with a total of 139 students aged between 8 and 14 years. To identify gender-dependent differences and similarities, we measure the attitude towards programming and the course setting, observe the behavior of the students while programming, and analyze the code of the programs for different gender-combinations. Overall, our study demonstrates that pair programming is well suited for young learners and results in a positive attitude. While the resulting programs are similar in quality and complexity independent of gender, differences are evident when it comes to the compliance to pair programming roles, the exploration of code, and the creative customization of programs. These findings contribute to an in-depth understanding of social and technical gender specifics of pair programming, and provide educators with resources and guidance for implementing gender-sensitive pair programming in the classroom

A Survey on What Developers Think About Testing

Software is infamous for its poor quality and frequent occurrence of bugs. While there is no doubt that thorough testing is an appropriate answer to ensure sufficient quality, the poor state of software generally suggests that developers may not always engage as thoroughly with testing as they should. This observation aligns with the prevailing belief that developers simply do not like writing tests. In order to determine the truth of this belief, we conducted a comprehensive survey with 21 questions aimed at (1) assessing developers' current engagement with testing and (2) identifying factors influencing their inclination toward testing; that is, whether they would actually like to test more but are inhibited by their work environment, or whether they would really prefer to test even less if given the choice. Drawing on 284 responses from professional software developers, we uncover reasons that positively and negatively impact developers' motivation to test. Notably, reasons for motivation to write more tests encompass not only a general pursuit of software quality but also personal satisfaction. However, developers nevertheless perceive testing as mundane and tend to prioritize other tasks. One approach emerging from the responses to mitigate these negative factors is by providing better recognition for developers' testing efforts

Control of Thermal Conductance is Insignificant to Thermoregulation in Small Reptiles

Five small species of Australian scincid lizard