Armchair Access and Imagination

In this paper, I focus on the Armchair Access Problem for E=K as presented by Nicholas Silins (2005), and I argue, contra Silins, that it does not represent a real threat to E=K. More precisely, I put forward two lines of response, both of which put pressure on the main assumption of the argument, namely, the Armchair Access thesis. The first line of response focuses on its scope, while the second line of response focuses on its nature. The second line of response is the most interesting one, for it represents the framework within which I develop a novel account of second-order knowledge, one that involves evaluation of counterfactual conditionals and the employment of our imaginative capacities, i.e., an imagination-based account of second-order knowledge. The two lines of response are shown to be jointly compatible and mutually supportive. I then conclude that the Armchair Access Problem is not a challenge for E=K, yet it relies on the ambiguity of the notion of armchair knowledge underpinning the Armchair Access thesis

Reflective Access, Closure, and Epistemological Disjunctivism

In this paper, I consider the so-called Access Problem for Duncan Pritchard’s Epistemological Disjunctivism (2012). After reconstructing Pritchard’s own response to the Access Problem, I argue that in order to assess whether Pritchard’s response is a satisfying one, we first need an account of the notion of ‘Reflective Access’ that underpins Pritchard’s Epistemological Disjunctivism. I provide three interpretations of the notion of Reflective Access: a metaphysical interpretation, a folk interpretation, and an epistemic interpretation. I argue that none of these three interpretations comes without problems. I conclude that, until we have a clear and unproblematic account of Reflective Access, the Access Problem remains a challenge for Pritchard’s Epistemological Disjunctivism

Session 4 Presentation - Improved Coastal and Nearshore Wave Forecasting

Accurate nearshore and coastal wave forecasts are essential for the protection of life and property as well as enhancing the economy through safe and efficient commercial activities. Modeling the nearshore environment has remained both computationally intensive and challenging due to the strong interaction of waves with the ocean bottom in shallow water environments. Here we develop a new wave system approach for nearshore wave modeling that addresses these issues. Wave systems result from specific wind forcing events on the ocean surface. This approach extends earlier work on wave system partitioning and tracking to assimilate coastal buoy observations into model output at the wave system level and model wave system transition through the shallow water environment. The resulting model is affectionately called Nessie

Reassessing The Case Against Evidential Externalism

Non peer reviewe

Evidential Externalism

It is widely accepted, amongst epistemologists, that evidence plays an important role in our epistemic life. Crucially, there is no agreement on what evidence is. Following Silins, we can cash out the disagreement around the notion of evidence in terms of the opposition between Evidential Internalism and Evidential Externalism (Silins, 2005). Evidential internalists claim that evidence supervenes on one’s non-factive mental states, such as, beliefs, impressions (BonJour, 1999, Audi, 2001). Evidential Externalists deny that. In this Thesis, first, I contrastively assess the plausibility of two prominent contemporary externalist theories: Duncan Pritchard’s Epistemological Disjunctivism, the thesis on which one’s evidence in perceptual cases is truth-entailing and reflectively accessible (Pritchard, 2012), and Timothy Williamson’s E=K, the thesis on which one’s evidence is all and only the propositions one knows (Williamson, 2000). Second, I develop a novel externalist account of evidence that I call Ecumenical Evidentialism. I show how Ecumenical Evidentialism is able to bring together some of the benefits of both Pritchard’s Disjunctivism and Williamson’s E=K. This Thesis is structured into three sections, each of which addresses the following three questions respectively: Does the Access Problem represent a real threat to Evidential Externalism? Is Evidential Externalism committed to a sceptical variety of Infallibilism? How does Evidential Externalism understand the relation between evidence and epistemic justification? I argue that neither Epistemological Disjunctivism nor E=K are fully satisfying Externalist accounts of evidence. On one hand, I argue that Disjunctivism captures the orthodox intuition on which justification is a matter of being evidence-responsive, but it does so on pain of facing the so-called Access Problem. On the other hand, by rejecting any strong accessibility thesis, Williamson’s E=K is better positioned to resist both the Access Problem as well as the Infallibility Problem, but it does not vindicate the orthodox intuition on which justification is a matter of being evidence-responsive. Finally, I show that, while retaining the main commitments of Williamson’s theory of evidence, such as, E=K, my Ecumenical Evidentialism is able to capture the orthodox responsiveness intuition about epistemic justification

Linguistic prosody and comprehension of idioms and proverbs in subjects of school age

A crucial component of language is represented by the prosodic system because it provides essential elements to speaker about how a sentence should be interpreted or intended (Fodor, 2002). Increasing interest from researchers also relates to the understanding of figurative language (Levorato, & Cacciari, 2002). In the figures of speech that the speaker wants the listener intends something more or different than what is explicitly stated (Glucksberg, 2001).. In particular, prosodic intonation is crucial in the resolution of syntactic ambiguity and structural features that constitute the complex messages, such as idioms and proverbs. A crucial component of language, therefore, is represented by the prosodic system because it provides essential elements to talking about how a sentence should be interpreted or understood . The ability to relate to metalinguistic understanding the cognitive processes that allow you to reflect on language and manipulate its characteristics. These capabilities are essential to recognize and resolve the ambiguities of a complex message, you can control and plan the way we produce and understand language (Levorato, 2007). The study demonstrates that an understanding prosodic correlates with the understanding of idioms and proverbs, which are crucial for the achievement of metalinguistic awareness, are influenced by the level of schooling and socio-cultural

Shellzer: a tool for the dynamic analysis of malicious shellcode

Abstract. Shellcode is malicious binary code whose execution is triggered after the exploitation of a vulnerability. The automated analysis of malicious shellcode is a challenging task, since encryption and evasion techniques are often used. This paper introduces Shellzer, a novel dynamic shellcode analyzer that generates a complete list of the API functions called by the shellcode, and, in addition, returns the binaries retrieved at run-time by the shellcode. The tool is able to modify on-thefly the arguments and the return values of certain API functions in order to simulate specific execution contexts and the availability of the external resources needed by the shellcode. This tool has been tested with over 24,000 real-world samples, extracted from both web-based driveby-download attacks and malicious PDF documents. The results of the analysis show that Shellzer is able to successfully analyze 98 % of the shellcode samples

Evidence, Risk, and Proof Paradoxes: Pessimism about the Epistemic Project

Why can testimony alone be enough for findings of liability? Why statistical evidence alone can’t? These questions underpin the “Proof Paradox” (Redmayne 2008, Enoch et al. 2012). Many epistemologists have attempted to explain this paradox from a purely epistemic perspective. I call it the “Epistemic Project”. In this paper, I take a step back from this recent trend. Stemming from considerations about the nature and role of standards of proof, I define three requirements that any successful account in line with the Epistemic Project should meet. I then consider three recent epistemic accounts on which the standard is met when the evidence rules out modal risk (Pritchard 2018), normic risk (Ebert et al. 2020), or relevant alternatives (Gardiner 2019 2020). I argue that none of these accounts meets all the requirements. Finally, I offer reasons to be pessimistic about the prospects of having a successful epistemic explanation of the paradox. I suggest the discussion on the proof paradox would benefit from undergoing a ‘value-turn’

Need (more than) two to Tango: Multiple tools to adapt to changes in oxygen availability

Oxygen is a fundamental element for the life of a large number of living organisms allowing an efficient energetic utilization of substrates. Organisms relying on oxygen evolved complex structures for oxygen delivery and biochemical machineries dealing with its safe utilization and the ability to overcome the potentially harmful consequences of changes in oxygen availability. On fact, cells composing complex Eukaryotic organisms are set to live within an optimum narrow range of oxygen, quite specific for each cell type. Minute modifications of oxygen availability, either positive or negative, induce the expression of specific genes, the major actors of this responses being the transcription factors HIF and Nrf2 that control the attempt to cope with low oxygen (hypoxia) or to either high oxygen or to an oxygen “overflow,” respectively. This review describes the interaction between these two transcription factors and their interaction with the transcription factor NF-kB acting as a pivotal determinant of final cel

No Infelicity for the Infallibilist

According to Probability 1 Infallibilism (henceforth, Infallibilism), if one knows that p, then the probability of p given one’s evidence is 1. Jessica Brown (2018, 2013) has recently argued that Infallibilism leads to scepticism unless the infallibilist also endorses the claim that if one knows that p, then p is part of one’s evidence for p. By doing that, however, the infalliblist has to explain why it is infelicitous to cite p as evidence for itself. And yet, the infallibilist doesn’t seem to have a satisfying explanation available. Call this the Infelicity Challenge for Probability 1 Infallibilism. By exploiting the distinction between the justifying and the motivating role of evidence, in this paper, I argue that, contrary to first appearances, the Infelicity Challenge doesn’t arise for Probability 1 Infallibilism. However, after anticipating and resisting two objections to my argument, I show that we can identify a different version of infallibilism which seems to face a problem that is even more serious than the Infelicity Challenge