bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Evolution of South Atlantic density and chemical stratification across the last deglaciation
Authors: Roberts Jenny , Gottschalk Julia , Skinner Luke C. , Peck Victoria L. , Kender Sev , Elderfield Henry , Waelbroeck Claire , Vázquez Riveiros Natalia , Hodell David A.
Published: January 2016

Significance

The cause of the rise in atmospheric pCO
2
over the last deglaciation has been a puzzle since its discovery in the early 1980s. It is widely believed to be related to changes in carbon storage in the deep ocean, but the exact mechanisms responsible for releasing CO
2
from the deep-ocean reservoir, including the role of ocean density stratification, remains an open question. Here we reconstruct changes in the intermediate-deep density gradient in the South Atlantic across the last deglaciation and find evidence of an early deglacial chemical destratification and a late deglacial density destratification These results suggest that other mechanisms, besides deep-ocean density destratification, were responsible for the ocean–atmosphere transfer of carbon over the deglacial period.
Separable roles forMycobacterium tuberculosisESX-3 effectors in iron acquisition and virulence
Authors: Tufariello JoAnn M. , Chapman Jessica R. , Kerantzas Christopher A. , Wong Ka-Wing , Vilchèze Catherine , Jones Christopher M. , Cole Laura E. , Tinaztepe Emir , Thompson Victor , Fenyö David , Niederweis Michael , Ueberheide Beatrix , Philips Jennifer A. , Jacobs William R.
Published: January 2016

Significance

Mycobacterium tuberculosis(Mtb) uses type VII secretion systems to secrete cognate protein pairs that alter host interactions. Here, we address the contributions of the ESX-3 secretion system to Mtb growth and pathogenesis through a combination of genetics, proteomics, and growth studies both in vitro and in vivo. ESX-3 is demonstrated to play a critical role in iron acquisition through secretion of a pair pf proteins belonging to the PE–PPE family (PE5–PPE4). In vivo, the importance of PE5–PPE4 secretion was found to depend upon host genotype, likely reflecting a host capacity to restrict iron availability. However, secreted effectors EsxG–EsxH play an iron-independent role in Mtb virulence. Therefore, ESX-3 secretes multiple effectors that target distinct host pathways to influence pathogenesis.
Epistemic perceptualism and neo-sentimentalist objections
Authors: Cowan Robert
Published: January 2016

Epistemic Perceptualists claim that emotions are sources of immediate defeasible justification for evaluative propositions that can (and do) sometimes ground undefeated immediately justified evaluative beliefs. For example, fear can constitute the justificatory ground for a belief that some object or event is dangerous. Despite its attractiveness, the view is apparently vulnerable to several objections. In this paper, I provide a limited defence of Epistemic Perceptualism by responding to a family of objections which all take as a premise a popular and attractive view in value theory – Neo-Sentimentalism – according to which values are analysed in terms of fitting emotions.
The influence of environmental context in interpersonal observation–execution
Authors: Roberts James W. , Bennett Simon J. , Welsh Timothy N. , Elliott Digby , Lyons Jim L. , Hayes Spencer J.
Published: January 2016

Cyclical upper-limb movements involuntarily deviate from a primary movement direction when the actor concurrently observes incongruent biological motion. We examined whether environmental context influences such motor interference during interpersonal observation–execution. Participants executed continuous horizontal arm movements while observing congruent horizontal or incongruent curvilinear biological movements with or without the presence of an object positioned as an obstacle or distractor. When participants were observing a curvilinear movement, an object located within the movement space became an obstacle, and, thus, the curvilinear trajectory was essential to reach into horizontal space. When acting as a distractor, or with no object, the curvilinear trajectory was no longer essential. For observing horizontal movements, objects were located at the same relative locations as in the curvilinear movement condition. We found greater involuntary movement deviation when observing curvilinear than horizontal movements. Also, there was an influence of context only when observing horizontal movements, with greater deviation exhibited in the presence of a large obstacle. These findings suggest that the influence of environmental context is underpinned by the (mis-)matching of observed and executed actions as incongruent biological motion is primarily coded via bottom-up sensorimotor processes, whilst the congruent condition incorporates surrounding environmental features to modulate the bottom-up sensorimotor processes.
The Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Paradox Reexamined
Authors: Nagasaka Gen-Ichiro
Published: January 2016

The Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox is an old problem which started back in 1935 with an article in Physical Review titled ‘Does Quantum Mechanics Describe Physical Reality Completely?’ These authors assert that quantum mechanics, being inconsistent, cannot describe physical reality completely. In the present paper the nature of the inconsistency will be analyzed and it will be shown that the E.P.R. paradox is essentially of formal nature and that the apparent formal inconsistency may be regarded as a consequence of unjustifiable presupposition.

According to quantum mechanical theory the states of a microscopic system may be represented by state vectors and in the absence of any disturbance from outside the state vectors will change continuously with time according to Schrodinger's equation.
‘Self-Supporting’ Inductive Arguments
Authors: Pole Nelson
Published: January 2016

Starting with David Hume, most philosophers have maintained that it is illicit to argue that inductive arguments will be successful in the future because they have been successful in the past. This philosophic tradition claims that such an argument is circular since it is an attempt to prove the principle that the future will resemble the past by means of an inductive argument which principle all inductive arguments presuppose. Hans Reichenbach is such a philosopher but he goes on to add that even though induction can not be so justified, our using induction may be justified. Max Black, on the other hand, may be identified as one of the leaders of the movement which accepts what others deem the circular argument. In this paper the position of Reichenbach and Black will be examined.
Did a (Kuhnian) Scientific Revolution Occur in Linguistics?
Authors: Winston Morton E.
Published: January 2016

It has become commonplace to claim that a scientific revolution has taken place in linguistics as a result of Noam Chomsky's contributions to the theories of syntax, linguistic metatheory and the philosophy of mind. Although the label ‘revolutionary’ was applied to these developments almost from the start (cf., [19], p. 375), the cliche has also been encouraged by the appearance of Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions in the early sixties at about the same time that the theory of transformational-generative grammar (hereafter abbreviated TG) was consolidating its position as the dominant school of linguistics and attracting the attention of the wider intellectual and scientific community. Because of this coincidence of currency, it was perhaps inevitable that many of those who were aware of the developments which had been taking place in linguistics would find themselves reading Chomsky's revolution into the pages of Kuhn's book.
The Ambiguous Role of Experience in Cartesian Science
Authors: Clarke Desmond M.
Published: January 2016

There is something methodologically amiss in Cartesian science. Apart from some recent commentators ([1], [12], [13]), the source of Descartes’ problems is usually located in a Rationalist preference for the evidentiary force of “reason” rather than “experience” in the construction and testing of scientific hypotheses. In other words, Descartes’ metaphysics and theory of knowledge are said to imply a scientific methodology which precludes, or greatly diminishes, the decisive role of empirical evidence in the development of a viable science of nature ([2]; [14], p. 384-5; [15]. P. 15; [16]).

I wish to agree in general with the recognition of some kind of miscarriage in Descartes’ methodology, but I locate the source of his scientific weakness elsewhere. I argue that there is no unusual or especially significant opposition between reason and experience in Cartesian methodology - nor do Descartes’ problems derive primarily from his. metaphysics.
On a K-Dimensional System of Inductive Logic
Authors: Niiniluoto Ilkka
Published: January 2016

Inductive logic studies the structural properties of epistemic probabilities. Its basic task is to determine how various factors may influence rational degrees of belief in the truth of hypotheses on the basis of some evidence. Its distinctive feature in comparison with other approaches to epistemic probabilities is the attention paid to the idea - not in vogue during the 1940's when Carnap started his program, but very influential in much of the contemporary work within the history and the philosophy of science - that our knowledge claims, or our rational beliefs about the reality, are significantly influenced or preconditioned. by language. While dependence on (formal) language is one of the “logical” aspects of inductive probabilities, the role of other relevant, possibly extra-logical, determinants of rational degrees of belief is expressed, within the systems of inductive logic, by means of at most a finite number of parameters.
Structure of Complex Systems
Authors: Nelson R. J.
Published: January 2016

The area of fuzzy complex systems is a good one for analytic philosophers to keep out of. If analysis is a way of getting straight on ideas or terms which enjoy wide philosophic and scientific currency and which have fairly well-fixed meanings awaiting illumination, then complex systems is no field for analysis. I have tried it; others have tried it; and it seems to me that the attempts amount to very little. Perhaps Professor Forrester and his MIT colleagues would say that positive feedback is at work. Just as expanded, low cost housing aggravates the housing situation in large cities, so attempts to shed philosophy's light on very large scale systems, fuzzy or not, brings darkness ([3], pp. 65ff.).

There appear to be two types of systems concept that are bothersome, one benign and the other not.
Only if Quanta had Logic
Authors: McGrath James H.
Published: January 2016

Perhaps no claim in the philosophy of logic has attracted as much attention in the last decade as one defended by Hilary Putnam: some of the so-called ‘necessary truths’ of logic may turn out to be false for empirical reasons and consequently “logic is, in a certain sense, a natural science.” (p. 216). Putnam and others have attempted to reinforce this position by citing findings from quantum mechanics, findings which are intended to provide empirical reasons leading to the conclusion that particular aspects of classical logic have in fact turned out to be false. In this paper I will challenge one of the major procedures leading to the conclusion that quantum mechanics provides ample reason to revise logic. Quantum mechanics, I will argue, has shown neither that logic is empirical nor that some aspect of classical logic is false.
Salmon, Statistics and Backwards Causation
Authors: Papineau David
Published: January 2016

Smokers are more likely to develop lung cancer than non-smokers. This statistical association gives us reason to suppose that smoking can cause lung cancer. But we would come to reject this supposition if we discovered that when family histories of lung cancer are taken into account smoking makes no further difference to the probability of lung cancer: that amongst those with a family history of lung cancer (and amongst those without) non-smokers are just as likely to develop lung cancer as smokers. Such a discovery would lead us to conclude that, despite initial appearances, smoking actually makes no causal contribution to lung cancer, but is statistically associated with it only because a genetic predisposition to lung cancer also somehow predisposes people to smoke.
The Non-Kuhnian Nature of the Recent Revolution in the Earth Sciences
Authors: Frankel Henry
Published: January 2016

It is without doubt that the earth sciences were rocked to the core by a revolution in the late sixties with the initial acceptance of Harry Hess’s hypothesis of seafloor spreading and subsequent development and acceptance of plate tectonics. The major aim of this essay is to show precisely why this revolution is not Kuhnian. However, my reasons for claiming that Kuhn’s model fails to apply are at variance with Ruse [27] but in much agreement with R. Laudan [18]. I shall highlight our differences as space permits.

There are two general accounts of the rise of continental drift and plate tectonics which satisfy Kuhn’s model of scientific growth and change. (1) The geosciences prior to the acceptance of seafloor spreading and plate tectonics were in a pre-paradigm state. Earth scientists solved no problems within geological domains, but only argued among themselves about which of the various schools of thought provided the best framework for attacking geological problems.
Philosophy of Science and Theory of Literary Criticism: Some Common Problems
Authors: Creed Walter
Published: January 2016

Almost since the theories of Einstein and the quantum physicists came into being, a small but significant number of novelists, poets, and playwrights have turned to them for everything from casual metaphors to justification for the philosophies underlying their works. Until fairly recently, however, literary critics have tended to avoid the new physics, finding it uncongenial if not irrelevant. But over the last twenty-five years an increasing number of them, especially critical theorists, have turned to physics and even philosophy of science in the belief that these disciplines offer epistemological and methodological models applicable, to the problems of literary criticism.

The primary reason for this increased interest in philosophy of science is the rise of critical formalisms, particularly structuralism and its variants. Structuralism usually regards Russian formalism as its most significant precursor, but Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism (1957) must also be seen as an important forerunner, since it provided formal criticism with a rationale.
Progress in Literary Study
Authors: Davenport Edward
Published: January 2016

Literary study, along with other social sciences, has been thought by many to be incapable of progress because it, like the other social sciences, is culturally defined. The aims and standards of literary study always depend on the value assumptions and preconceptions of the culture which fosters literary study—for literary study is a social institution. Because literary study and other social sciences are social institutions, obvious difficulties arise with transplanting the aims and standards of social science in one society into another society. The idea of progress, however, appears to demand that we have aims and standards which apply independently of particular social contexts, and independently of the boundaries of a culture or an age. Thus the cultural definition of literary study has sometimes been thought to prevent progress in this field.

Max Weber proposed a strategy for working toward objective knowledge and progress in the social sciences generally, which can be applied to literary study.
The Projection Postulate and Bohr's Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics
Authors: Teller Paul
Published: January 2016

Why does Bohr nowhere discuss the projection postulate? He has the courtesy to cast at least a few disparaging words at some other notions for which he has no use, such as quantum logic. But he will not even admit the projection postulate as a subject for discussion. Another way to raise the puzzle is to point out that, although Bohr has a lot to say about measurement, he won't even recognize the existence of what has come to be called the “problem of measurement”.

I have exaggerated slightly. We have one relevant comment, in the report of the discussion after Bohr's talk at the 1938 Warsaw conference:

Professor Bohr wished to say, relative to the question propounded by the president, that the duality he noticed in the interpretation of the formalism of quantum mechanics was, in his opinion, a question of choosing the most adequate description of the experiment.
Social Life and Social Science: The Significance of the Naturalist/Intentionalist Dispute
Authors: Hartsock Nancy C. M.
Published: January 2016

In recent years, historicist understandings of science have come to prominence in philosophy of science and philosophy of social science. These approaches have been credited with putting forward a persuasive case that social scientific theories, like societies, are themselves historical entities. (Laudan 1979, p. 43; McMullin 1979, p. 57). Historicist studies have forced a re-evaluation of a number of important issues, among them the question of how methodologies are to be evaluated, and questions about how the relation of theory to observation is to be understood. (Laudan 1979, pp. 47-48).

Despite their successes, however, historicist approaches fail in two important ways: 1) they are unable to solve the problems posed by methodological relativism, and 2) they fail to go beyond treating theories as personages to the important questions of how these theories arise from particular social structures.
Quantum Mathematics
Authors: Dunn J. Michael
Published: January 2016

It has been argued, most notably by Putnam (1969, 1974) that socalled quantum logic (which we shall often refer to as. orthomodular logic (OML)) is the one true logic,-as has been shown by quantum mechanical experiments. Putnam also has strong universalist tendencies, which would require him to use the same logic in all domains of reasoning, including mathematics, and it has been urged, recently (as one horn of a dilemma) by Hellman (1981), that there might be some problems in working out the classical mathematics of the Hilbertspace foundations of.quantum mechanics in a quantum logic framework.

In this paper we show (given one natural framework)(§3) first that if the first-order Peano arithmetic is formulated with quantum logic that it has the same theorems as the classical first-order Peano arithmetic. Distribution (for first-order arithmetical formulas) is a theorem not of quantum logic but rather of arithmetic.
The Rationality of the Copernican Revolution
Authors: Curd Martin V.
Published: January 2016

Given the central importance of the Copernican theory to the birth of modern science, it is somewhat surprising to learn that there were remarkably few committed Copernicans prior to 1600. In a recent study, Westman (1980) finds only ten, of whom fewer than five were major scientific figures. The vast majority of scientists in this period continued to accept the Earth-centered astronomy of Ptolemy or later switched to the geoheliocentric system of Tychp Brahe. This widespread reluctance to adopt the heliocentric theory suggests the following questions about the Copernican Revolution: When and why did it become rational to reject the Ptolemaic theory as false? When and why did it become rational to accept the Copernican theory as true? Or, to put these questions in the more familiar language of the epistemologist: When and why did the beliefs that the Ptolemaic theory is false and that the Copernican theory is true become justified beliefs?
Taxonomy and Theory
Authors: Snyder A. Aaron
Published: January 2016

Taxonomy is not destiny. In the context of scientific theories, it is explanation rather than taxonomy which should play the leading role. (The domain of any theory consists not of mere items—as in philately or genealogy—but of phenomena.) Unless biological taxonomy is guided by underlying theory—presumably, evolutionary theory, genetics, and molecular biology—systematics risks degenerating into mere genealogy.

David Hull believes that certain taxa employed in history of science should be conceived on the model of biological species. He first discusses the nature of species, indicating (in 1.) what they are not— they are not “natural kinds“—and then (in 2.) what they are—i.e., they are “historical entities”, “chunks of the genealogical nexus” which are individuated in relation to some arbitrarily selected and quite often atypical “type specimen”. The connection between the two points, the negative and the positive, is that conspecificity is determined by actual spatiotemporal contacts of the sort required by descent, rather than by any putative similarities among conspecific organisms.
Reflections on Peirce's Concepts of Testability and The Economy of Research
Authors: Foss Jeff
Published: January 2016

Could there have been a more down to earth philosopher of science than Charles Saunders Peirce? His later years are characterized by metaphysical opinions that are speculative. Yet throughout his career, his view of scientific method was quintessentially pragmatic. For instance, he reckons the testability of scientific hypotheses by these oft-repeated standards: “money, time, energy, thought” (7.220). He came to the philosophy of science from the laboratory by a route involving a dispute with leading scientists, carried on in the scientific journals and congresses of his day, and reported to the International Geodetic Committee. The dispute concerned the soundness of the design of certain experiments carried out by Peirce and others to measure the strength of the gravitational field at the Earth's surface. (Peirce's own account of these events is given in 7.1 - 7.20.
Darwinism Today—and Tomorrow, But not Yesterday
Authors: Rosenberg Alexande
Published: January 2016

A symposium is an occasion for broad brush strokes, and bold theses. We can qualify, indeed repent of these theses at leisure. But i t is only by bringing them into full view in their strongest form, that we may see where the issues lie , and be. instructed about our mistakes by our betters. I certainly count this distinguished company as my betters on the present subject, so I am unwilling to miss this opportunity to be instructed. I shall make claims with which all my fellow-symposiasts should disagree. (Indeed, in a cool hour, I may come to repudiate them too.)

One subject on which I shall have nothing to say is Darwinism-Yesterday, the historical and scholarly questions about what exactly Darwin said or thought. I am also not concerned with the social, psychological, or ideological causes of his and his successors’ beliefs.
Causal Propensity: A Review
Authors: Good I . J
Published: January 2016

“We can judge of the perfection to which a science has come by the facility, more or less great, with which it may be approached by calculation.”

Quetelet (1828), as quoted by Landau & Lazarsfeld in the International Encyclopedia of Statistics (p. 828).

Suppose that some event F occurs and later an event E either occurs or does not. I am going to talk about the extent to which F tends to cause E, or the causal propensity of E provided by F, or the propensity or tendency of F to cause E, denoted by Q(E:F). For example, F might be the event that the captain of a firing squad shouts “Fire” and E might be that the shootee's life is_ Ended (F for Fire, E for Ended). The negation of E is denoted by E, which in this example means that the shootee does not drop dead.
An Assessment of the Scientific Standing of Economics
Authors: Schabas Margaret
Published: January 2016

In his paper on the “Methodology of Positive Economics”, Milton Friedman warned his readers that, “more than other scientists, social scientists need to be self-conscious about their methodology.” (1953, p. 34). But until quite recently, he seems either to have spoken to deaf ears or, more plausibly, to have been so successful in promoting his own views on methodology as to lead economists to be complacent about the many problems which plague their discipline. Many current textbooks, for example the one by Eugene Silberberg, present economics as a science attaining the falsificationist standards once set down by Karl Popper, despite much evidence to the contrary. Indeed, as Douglas W. Hands (1985) has recently shown, even Sir Karl did not intend economics to be subjected to such severe standards.
Can Sociobiology Adapt to Cultural Selection?
Authors: Mitchell Sandra D.
Published: January 2016

Sociobiology is, in the words of Philip Kitcher (1985), a motley comprised of a variety of arguments defending biological explanations of behavior. Kitcher has shown that sociobiology offers no new theory to the corpus of evolutionary biology but, rather consists of the application of the neo-Darwinian synthesis to social behavior. In fact, one major line of attack on sociobiology (cf. Gould and Lewontin 1979, and Gould 1986) is to identify it as an instance of the worst kind of adaptationism found in evolutionary biology generally. In order to avoid the evil of just-so stories, this strategy aims to eliminate completely explanations by adaptation (including the sociobiological ones) from biology. I believe that explanations by adaptation can be legitimate provided certain necessary conditions are met. After laying out those conditions, I will address the question of the adequacy of explanations offered by William Durham (1976, 1978,1979,1982) in defense of human sociobiology.
Consensus and Dissensus in Science
Authors: Ackermann Robert
Published: January 2016

I want to claim that healthy science involves, at all times, a synchronic tensed suspension of consensus and dissensus between working scientists, which provides both the variety of opinion and the agreement in opinion essential to coherent scientific progress. The early philosophers of science and the early sociologists of science seem both to have worked with an oversocialized conception of scientific thought, philosophers regarding lapses from postulated objective standards of rationality as the unfortunate intrusion of emotional and personal factors into scientific reasoning, and the sociologists viewing the breakdown of shared values within research groups as the inexplicable accompaniment of emerging anomalies. More recently, sociologists working with a conception of the social construction of scientific thought have reversed the emphasis, suggesting that consensus is essentially a temporary and unstable phase in scientific development, and philosophers have recently crafted a new form of philosophical scepticism for science in suggesting that it is impossible ever to establish that a genuine consensus exists between scientists.
Ideological “Assumptions” in Physics: Social Determinations of Internal Structures
Authors: Baltas Aristides
Published: January 2016

It is certainly not excessively original to maintain that an empirically oriented theory on the structure and on the history of Physics—that is a theory that can and should be put to the test of what physicists, qua physicists, actually do and have been doing and of what they actually come up with—is still badly needed. And it is equally unoriginal to hold that the implementation of such a project cannot but somehow relate to The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Kuhn, 1962), a work which, to its author's mind at least, was meant to provide some kind of a starting point for such a project. But the fact is that The Structure (as well as all the other work of Kuhn of the same inspiration) has not, in the main, been read that way.
Extremality Assumptions in the Foundations of Mathematics
Authors: Hintikka Jaakko
Published: January 2016

The work by J.H. Conway (1976, ch. 4), Philip Ehrlich (1987, with further references) and others on absolute continua derives much of its philosophical and mathematical interest from its instantiating a more general approach to the foundations of mathematics. This approach focuses on the role of extremality (rnaximality and minimality) assumptions as a part of the basis of mathematical theories. The idea of extremality is potentially much more important than has recently been pointed out in the literature. It is illustrated by the principle of mathematical induction, which can be thought of as an attempt to enforce the requirement of minimality on the models of elementary number theory as well as by Hilbert's Axiom of Completeness (1971), which was calculated to enforce a kind of maximality on the models of axiomatic geometry. (These models were of course intended to be a species of continua.)
Cognitive Models in the Philosophy of Science
Authors: Giere Ronald N.
Published: January 2016

When attempting to introduce new ideas it is usually best to provide an exemplar which demonstrates, in a particular case, the usefulness of those ideas. It is also occasionally helpful to talk about why the new ideas might be useful. Given limited space, one cannot do both. I have chosen here to talk about the use of cognitive models in the philosophy of science, leaving the exhibition of their usefulness for other occasions.

Now if one is just going to talk about something rather than exhibit its potential, it is best not to be too general or abstract. After all, the objective is to convince one's audience that one has something to offer. Few people, including even philosophers, are easily convinced by generalities or abstractions. So I will begin by sketching an account of how I personally came to the conclusion that the cognitive sciences provide models that are useful to the philosopher of science.
Formal Learning Theory and the Philosophy of Science
Authors: Kelly Kevin T.
Published: January 2016

Consider the following collection of familiar questions in the philosophy of science.

Underdetermination: What collections of theories can be reliably distinguished from one another on a given sort of evidence presentation? How do differences in evidence presentation, background knowledge, and hypothesis vocabulary affect underdetermination?

Realism: How plausible is it that the methods employed by science are capable of arriving at the truth in a given domain of inquiry? If not, is it plausible that there exist such methods? How does the answer differ from domain to domain?

Scientific progress: Is it possible that scientific knowledge could be continually improved, even if it is never perfectly correct? Is there any sense to be made of the increasing verisimilitude of inquiry?

Methodology: How do standard methodological directives interact? Do different directives interfere with one another or do our favorite ideas about method complement one another? Is experiment really more powerful than passive observation?
Locality/Separability: Is This Necessarily a Useful distinction?
Authors: Cushing James T.
Published: January 2016

In the philosophy of science, we are to assess critically and on their
intrinsic merits various proposals for a consistent interpretation of
quantum mechanics, including resolutions of the measurement problem and
accounts of the long-range Bell correlations. In this paper I suggest that
the terms of debate may have been so severely and unduly constrained by the
reigning orthodoxy that we labor unproductively with an unhelpful vocabulary
and set of definitions and distinctions. I first review this situation and
how we arrived there. Then I present an alternative conceptual framework,
free of many of the standard conundrums, and ask why we seem unwilling to
pursue it as a serious possibility.

I begin by sampling how some of the central tenets of the standard, or
“Copenhagen”, theory of quantum mechanics came to be formulated. As is
typical for his writing on broader philosophical issues, Niels Bohr's
pronouncements on the interpretation of quantum mechanics are often
difficult to understand and at times just plain opaque.
Methodology, Epistemology and Conventions: Popper's Bad Start
Authors: Preston John
Published: January 2016

Popper's philosophy is founded on his early conceptions of the problem
of demarcation, of its solution, and of the roles of epistemology and
methodology. I shall give an account of these, and of his idea of the
alternative, ‘naturalistic’ conceptions. I then hope to show that Popper's
conceptions are confused.

At the beginning of The Logic of Scientific
Discovery Popper tells us that “the task of the logic of
scientific discovery, or the logic of knowledge, [is]… to analyse the method
of the empirical sciences” (Popper 1959, 27), and
that its first job is “to put forward a concept of
empirical science, in order to make linguistic usage, now
somewhat uncertain, as definite as possible, and in order to draw a clear
line of demarcation between science and metaphysical ideas” (1959,
38-39).
Is Seeing Believing?
Authors: Hilbert David
Published: January 2016

The precise nature of the connection between perceptual experience and
empirical knowledge is one of the traditional problems of philosophy. That
much of our knowledge is somehow based on our perceptual experience has been
a common element of many otherwise disparate views as to how beliefs about
empirical matters are justified. Although this relationship is now often
conceived to be causal rather than logical, it is still rarely doubted that
there is some kind of intimate connection between experience and justified
belief. Any view of this kind leads quite naturally to the idea that the
function of perceptual experience in our epistemic economy is to lead to
knowledge of those matters of fact that cause or are represented by that
experience. Although I do not wish to deny that this is one epistemic role
that experience can play, I will argue below that there are others as
well.
The Notion of Accuracy in Current Social Perception Research
Authors: Von Eckardt Barbara
Published: January 2016

There are many different kinds of psychology: abnormal, behavioral, clinical, cognitive, developmental, physiological, personality, and social, to name some of the major categories. In recent years, philosophers of psychology (in the sense under discussion today) have focused primarily on cognitive psychology and Freudian psychoanalysis (which cross-cuts abnormal and personality). In this paper, I propose to turn my attention to one of the least discussed of these fields: social psychology. Specifically, I will consider a debate currently raging in the sub-field of social psychology known as “social perception research.”

Social psychology is - to quote from a recent textbook - “the scientific study of the thoughts, actions, and interactions of individuals as affected by the actual, implied, or imagined presence of others…. The social emphasis distinguishes social psychology from [other fields of] psychology, and the emphasis on the individual distinguishes it from sociology” (Tedeschi, Lindskold, and Rosenfeld 1985, 4-5).
Quantitative BrdU immunoprecipitation method demonstrates that Fkh1 and Fkh2 are rate-limiting activators of replication origins that reprogram replication timing in G1 phase
Authors: Peace Jared M. , Villwock Sandra K. , Zeytounian John L. , Gan Yan , Aparicio Oscar M.
Published: January 2016

The Saccharomyces cerevisiaeForkhead Box (FOX) proteins, Fkh1 and Fkh2, regulate diverse cellular processes including transcription, long-range DNA interactions during homologous recombination, and replication origin timing and long-range origin clustering. We hypothesized that, as stimulators of early origin activation, Fkh1 and Fkh2 abundance limits the rate of origin activation genome-wide. Existing methods, however, are not well-suited to quantitative, genome-wide measurements of origin firing between strains and conditions. To overcome this limitation, we developed qBrdU-seq, a quantitative method for BrdU incorporation analysis of replication dynamics, and applied it to show that overexpression of Fkh1 and Fkh2 advances the initiation timing of many origins throughout the genome resulting in a higher total level of origin initiations in early S phase. The higher initiation rate is accompanied by slower replication fork progression, thereby maintaining a normal length of S phase without causing detectable Rad53 checkpoint kinase activation. The advancement of origin firing time, including that of origins in heterochromatic domains, was established in late G1 phase, indicating that origin timing can be reset subsequently to origin licensing. These results provide novel insights into the mechanisms of origin timing regulation by identifying Fkh1 and Fkh2 as rate-limiting factors for origin firing that determine the ability of replication origins to accrue limiting factors and have the potential to reprogram replication timing late in G1 phase.
Multi-tube area detector developed for reactor small-angle neutron scattering spectrometer SANS-J-II
Authors: Noda Y. , Koizumi S. , Yamaguchi D.
Published: January 2016

A newly developed multi-tube area detector for a small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) spectrometer (SANS-J-II) at the research reactor JRR-3 in Tokai, Japan, has been implementedviathe use of one-dimensional position-sensitive3He detectors (tubes). Ninety-six active tubes of 8 mm in diameter and 650 and 580 mm in length were filled with 15 atm (1.52 MPa) of3He and aligned vertically parallel in order to cover a sufficiently large area for small-angle scattering measurement. These tubes are enclosed in an air chamber together with neutron encode and GATENET modules (VME boards), which compose a standard data acquisition system for the spallation neutron source of the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex. This system facilitates the acquisition of time-of-flight neutron event data. The multi-tube detector is mounted on a truck moving in a vacuum chamber of the SANS spectrometer. After discriminating noise originating from γ-rays, and calibrating the positions and sensitivities of individual tubes, the resolution was determined (i.e.channel widths along parallel and vertical directions along a tube). The counting rate of one tube was determined to be 1.4 × 103counts per second with a counting loss of 1%. This implies that the new detector, composed of 96 tubes, can detect more than 105neutrons per second with a counting loss of 1%. To demonstrate its use, small-angle scattering originating from a diblock copolymer film with a highly oriented lamellar microdomain was observed. The data acquisition in event mode has a great advantage in time-resolved measurements that are synchronized with external stimuli imposed on a sample.
SENJU: a new time-of-flight single-crystal neutron diffractometer at J-PARC
Authors: Ohhara Takashi , Kiyanagi Ryoji , Oikawa Kenichi , Kaneko Koji , Kawasaki Takuro , Tamura Itaru , Nakao Akiko , Hanashima Takayasu , Munakata Koji , Moyoshi Taketo , Kuroda Tetsuya , Kimura Hiroyuki , Sakakura Terutoshi , Lee Chang-Hee , Takahashi Miwako , Ohshima Ken-ichi , Kiyotani Tamiko , Noda Yukio , Arai Masatoshi
Published: January 2016

SENJU is a new single-crystal time-of-flight neutron diffractometer installed at BL18 at the Materials and Life Science Experimental Facility of the Japan Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC). The diffractometer was designed for precise crystal and magnetic structure analyses under multiple extreme sample environments such as low temperature, high pressure and high magnetic field, and for diffraction measurements of small single crystals down to 0.1 mm3in volume. SENJU comprises three choppers, an elliptical shape straight supermirror guide, a vacuum sample chamber and 37 scintillator area detectors. The moderator-to-sample distance is 34.8 m, and the sample-to-detector distance is 800 mm. The wavelength of incident neutrons is 0.4–4.4 Å (first frame). Because short-wavelength neutrons are available and the large solid angle around the sample position is covered by the area detectors, a large reciprocal space can be simultaneously measured. Furthermore, the vacuum sample chamber and collimator have been designed to produce a very low background level. Thus, the measurement of a small single crystal is possible. As sample environment devices, a newly developed cryostat with a two-axis (ω and φ axes) goniometer and some extreme environment devices,e.g.a vertical-field magnet, high-temperature furnace and high-pressure cell, are available. The structure analysis of a sub-millimetre size (0.1 mm3) single organic crystal, taurine, and a magnetic structure analysis of the antiferromagnetic phase of MnF2have been performed. These results demonstrate that SENJU can be a powerful tool to promote materials science research.
A detailed calculation model for costing of green manufacturing
Authors: Orji Ifeyinwa , Wei Sun
Published: January 2016

Purpose

– Manufacturing firms are expected to implement green manufacturing and increase product complexity at a competitive price. However, a major problem for engineering managers is to ascertain the costs of embarking on green manufacturing. Thus, a planning and control methodology for costing of green manufacturing at the early design stage is important for engineering managers. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Design/methodology/approach

– This paper integrates “green manufacturing,” concepts of industrial dynamics, and product lifecycle aiming at developing a methodology for cost calculation. The methodology comprises of a process-based cost model and a systems dynamics (SD) model. The process-based cost model focusses mainly on carbon emission costs and energy-saving activities. Important metrics usually ignored in traditional static modeling were incorporated using SD model.

Findings

– Equipment costs and carbon emission costs are major components of costs in manufacturing. The total life cycle cost of product in green manufacturing is lower than that of same product in conventional manufacturing.

Research limitations/implications

– The specific results of this study are limited to the case company, but can hopefully contribute to further research on ascertaining cost of implementing “green issues” in manufacturing. The proposed cost calculation model can be efficiently applied in any manufacturing firm on the basis of accessibility of real cost data. This necessitates a comprehensive cost database. At the development of the model and database management system, time and cost resources could be demanding, but once installed, use of the model becomes less demanding.

Practical implications

– The cost model provides cost justifications of implementing green manufacturing. The reality is that green manufacturing will see its development peak with cost justifications. The results of the application show that the proposed detailed cost model can be effective in ascertaining costs of implementing green manufacturing. Manufacturing firms are recommended to adopt energy-saving activities based on the proposed detailed cost calculation model.

Originality/value

– The main contributions of the study includes: first, to help engineering managers more accurately understand how to allocate resources for energy-saving activities through appropriate cost drivers. Second, to simulate with SD the dynamic behavior of few important metrics, often ignored in traditional mathematical modeling. The detailed model provides a pre-manufacturing decision-making tool which will assist management in implementing green manufacturing by incorporating a life cycle assessment measurement into manufacturing cost management.
Fabrication and characterization of polyimide/Al2O3 composite films via surface modification and ion exchange technique
Authors: Zhang M.Y. , Liu L.Z. , Weng L. , Cui W.W. , Hui K.S.
Published: January 2016

Purpose

– The aim of this study was to fabricate polyimide (PI)/Al2O3 composite films via surface modification and ion exchange techniques, and examine their properties.

Design/methodology/approach

– The method involves hydrolyzing the PI film double surface layers in an aqueous potassium hydroxide (KOH) solution and incorporating aluminium ions (Al3+) into the hydrolyzed layers of the PI film via subsequent ion exchange, followed by a treatment of the Al3+-loaded PI films with an aqueous ammonia solution, which leads to the formation of Al(OH)3 in the surface-modified layers. After a final thermal annealing treatment in ambient air, the Al(OH)3 decomposes to Al2O3, and forms composite layers on both surfaces of the re-imidized PI film.

Findings

– The PI/Al2O3 composite film obtained with a 6 hours of KOH treatment exhibited excellent thermal stability, good mechanical properties and better electric breakdown strength and corona-resistance properties than the pristine PI film.

Practical implications

– The method for obtaining the composite films in this paper is worth consideration, but additional research will be needed. Furthermore, this method is of general importance for the fabrication of composite PI films with tailored properties.

Originality/value

– This study showed that surface modification and ion-exchange techniques are powerful methodologies for the fabrication of PI/Al2O3 composite films.
Wool dyeing with binary mixture of natural dyes
Authors: Dehnavi E. , Shams-Nateri A. , Khalili H.
Published: January 2016

Purpose

– This paper aims to focus on the absorption behaviour of single and binary mixtures of natural dyes on wool. Natural dyes are multi-components with different structures and properties.

Design/methodology/approach

– In this research, the absorption behaviour of single and binary mixtures of natural dyes was investigated on wool fibre. Study was conducted via some natural dyes, including pomegranate peel as a yellow natural dye with tannin, weld as a yellow natural dye without tannin and madder as a red natural dye without tannin. Applied mordant was alum, which was used in the pre-mordant method. Different shades were obtained by varying dye concentration in the binary mixture. The effect of tannin on absorption behaviour of binary mixture of natural dyes was investigated by spectral reflectance and colour parameters of dyed samples measurements.

Findings

– Obtained results indicate that tannin affects the absorption behaviour of natural dyes in binary mixtures.

Practical implications

– Because natural dyes are multi-components with different structure and properties, the study of compatibility and absorption behaviour of natural dyes in binary mixture on wool is important in applied researches.

Originality/value

– The study of compatibility and absorption behaviour of binary mixture of natural dyes on wool is novel.
A Global TrendEU‐style: Democracy Promotion in ‘Fragile’ and Conflict‐Affected South Caucasus
Authors: Babayan Nelli
Published: January 2016

This article examines theEU's democracy promotion in ‘fragile’ and conflict‐affected states. The article discusses theEU's perception of state fragility, contrasts it to the evolving understanding of the concept in the literature, and discusses its actions in the conflict‐affected states of the South Caucasus: Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. The analysis demonstrates that while theEUhas adjusted its democracy promotion policies following critical international junctures, it has not specifically addressed the perceived fragility or conflicts of states where it promotes democracy. While theEU's democracy promotion profile in the South Caucasus countries has become more visible, its involvement in the resolution of regional conflicts has remained marginal. Yet, by not following the trend of accentuating fragility, theEUmay have proven itself as a more nuanced democracy promoter, attempting to take into consideration local perceptions and realities.