Indeterminacy and final causation in the process of sign determination

Lexical Processing during Sentence Comprehension: Effects of Higher Order Constraints and Implications for Representation

valued because of an atavistic rivalry between the two countries in this respect. The Club Committee decided to have lots drawn for the tickets and to ask the winners to contribute DFL30 to the club funds for the purpose of buying a TV set for the club canteen. The six boys who had won the quiz, and who had already received personal presents, were not given priority in the distribution of the tickets; this decision was later reversed under heavy pressure amounting to, among other things, anonymous telephone threats to the club chairman. Many more illustrations could be given for the strong feelings of aversion that are often evoked by using lottery as an allocative mechanism. On the other hand, rational arguments in favour of lottery have been put forward. Elster (1989a) discusses three types of indeterminacy that might justify random choice between options. One is strict equioptimality, as in choosing between cans of Campbell's tomato soup. A second is equioptimality within the limit of what it pays to find out, that is, the case in which the cost of gathering more information would exceed the marginal utility of the superior option. The third is the incommensurability of options; one might say that, in this case, any investments into the choice procedure are fruitless a priori. The present analysis takes the contrast between aversion and argument as its point of departure. Its scope is allocative problems and particularly those situations in which some public authority distributes scarce indivisible goods among people, rather than problems of choice between goods from a private point of view, whether individual or institutional. In the context of allocation, the question about the feasibility of lottery may be analysed as follows: from a rational point of view, the efficiency of distributive mechanisms is at stake, as it is in other problems of rational choice. However, the interplay between the allocative authority, the target subject, and the general public or common interest introduces two further aspects of feasibility. One is justness, that is, the extent to which the mechanism is compatible with written and

Providence and Science in a World of Contingency: Thomas Aquinas’ Metaphysics of Divine Action

Cassius’s exposition on the self-induced nature of visions, as presented in North’s Plutarch, is akin to Freud’s rational understanding of spectral visitations. Cassius’s consequent fall into superstitious thought is all the more notable. Shakespeare’s Brutus, in Julius Caesar, if not at the mercy of such mental swings as Cassius, is subject at one point in the play to a different type of indeterminacy, that regarding the nature of the future. On the day of the final battle he says: “O that a man might know/The end of this day’s business ere it come” (5.1.122–23). This “end”, however, is connected with the promised appearance of Caesar’s ghost. What does this future, containing both anticipated and unknown elements, mean to Brutus? Unlike the predictable future of everyday, this future (though involving the return of the ghost) cannot be prepared for, must remain unforeseen, as it depends on the fortunes of war. My article draws on Freud’s understanding of spectrality and Derrida’s linking of this to his sense of the unforeseen future, to examine Brutus’s relation to it, from the point of view of both classical antiquity’s daimonic lore and the dramatic sensibility of Shakespeare.

In this book, T. L. Short corrects widespread misconceptions of Peirce's theory of signs and demonstrates its relevance to contemporary analytic philosophy of language, mind and science. Peirce's theory of mind, naturalistic but nonreductive, bears on debates of Fodor and Millikan, among others. His theory of inquiry avoids foundationalism and subjectivism, while his account of reference anticipated views of Kripke and Putnam. Peirce's realism falls between 'internal' and 'metaphysical' realism and is more satisfactory than either. His pragmatism is not verificationism; rather, it identifies meaning with potential growth of knowledge. Short distinguishes Peirce's mature theory of signs from his better-known but paradoxical early theory. He develops the mature theory systematically on the basis of Peirce's phenomenological categories and concept of final causation. The latter is distinguished from recent and similar views, such as Brandon's, and is shown to be grounded in forms of explanation adopted in modern science.

There is a growing number of PhD students enrolled in Australian universities and yet there are high attrition rates and a decreasing number of permanent or tenured academic roles. Considerable discourse surrounds the purpose of the PhD (Group of Eight, 2013; McAlpine & Norton, 2006) and much less on the PhD experience from current student perspectives. Most research looks at ‘discrete’ aspects, such as supervision, gender or completion (Seagram, Gould & Pyke, 1998; Carter, Blumenstein, Cook, 2012; Green & Bowden, 2012; Jiranek, 2010). Of the research that focuses on the PhD experience, much is conducted upon completion of PhD study and is reflective—not adequately representing the PhD student, their circumstances or their personal experiences. Furthermore, research during the PhD experience mostly consists of one-off interviews and does not capture the longitudinal experience. This thesis reveals how a diverse cohort of PhD students reported their lived PhD experiences – critical reflections from the students’ point of view. This research did not presume or predetermine a framework. Instead, over a period of three-to-12 months, using a variety of introspective methods, 23 participants reported on their lived experience of being a PhD student. Following an initial thematic analysis, the findings were further analysed using Bandura’s (1986) social cognitive and self-efficacy theories. The findings are presented through an adaptation of Bandura’s (1997) reciprocal determinism theory model: to first, demonstrate from the students’ perspectives the bidirectional effects of the environmental, relational and behavioural dimensions; and second, identify the critical incidents that supported and reduced individual self-efficacy. This thesis presents the adventure park as a conceptual framework for the participants reported experiences of navigating the challenges encountered, which tested participants’ self-efficacy and sense of belonging, towards completion and ontological shift. The thesis concludes by introducing a telescopic lens to view the lived PhD experience as process aimed at developing new knowledge that shifts the individual’s way of being. The originality and contribution to knowledge of the outcomes of this research relate to: • the methodology adopted in this research • the process of the PhD • the outcomes of the PhD. vii The PhD experience is individual, based on the perceptions of PhD research and the expectations the individual brings with them. It is the process of being a PhD student and doing the research. It is not about the thesis or the knowledge they are creating; it is the process.

We consider opacity questions where an observation function provides to an external attacker a view of the states along executions and secret executions are those visiting some state from a fixed subset. Disclosure occurs when the observer can deduce from a finite observation that the execution is secret, the e-disclosure variant corresponding to the execution being secret with probability greater than 1 − e. In a probabilistic and non deterministic setting, where an internal agent can choose between actions, there are two points of view, depending on the status of this agent: the successive choices can either help the attacker trying to disclose the secret, if the system has been corrupted, or they can prevent disclosure as much as possible if these choices are part of the system design. In the former situation, corresponding to a worst case, the disclosure value is the supremum over the strategies of the probability to disclose the secret (maximisation), whereas in the latter case, the disclosure is the infimum (minimisation). We address quantitative problems (comparing the optimal value with a threshold) and qualitative ones (when the threshold is zero or one) related to both forms of disclosure for a fixed or finite horizon. For all problems, we characterise their decidability status and their complexity. We discover a surprising asymmetry: on the one hand optimal strategies may be chosen among deterministic ones in maximisation problems, while it is not the case for minimisation. On the other hand, for the questions addressed here, more minimisation problems than maximisation ones are decidable.

Deterministic and probabilistic service-hailing mode choice for on-demand service platforms

Both William James and Sigmund Freud were active during the crisis of late-positivistic psychology. Both contributed to put on a new basis the theory and practice of psychodynamic research from different points of view. Both showed a reciprocal high esteem in their meeting at Worcester University (1909). This paper discusses their divergent outlooks about the relationship between conscience and the unconscious, involving particularly the problem of free will and necessity in the domain of the psyche. Freud's rigid faith in determinism, as stated in his sktech «Project of a psychology» (1895), and thereafter in psycho-analytic theory and practice, seems to be less open to recent trends of research in the neurosciences than James' «dilemma of determinism», which founded free will rather on the basis of moral introspection than on that of experimental psychology.

This paper distinguishes types of point of view and their relationships to phases in the history of Western visual art.’ This supplies a context for considering the phenomenon which is the focus of the analysis, the experience of “no point of view”. The Ganzfeld Sphere created by the American artist James Turrell comes closest to enabling the perceptual experience of no-point-of-view with its dissolution of the phenomenological categories of inside-outside and here-there. In particular it seems to enable viewers to see their seeing. Using the work of the neurologist Antonio Damasio, the paper concludes with the speculation that Turrell has created the conditions which isolate for attention a particular neural representation of the body being changed by an object which Damasio proposes as central to subjectivity.

This thesis probes the essence and the self-cultivation theory in Ren Wu Zhi (Records of Personages) by Liu Shao, and states that they bear a close relationship to each other. Due to differences in interpreting the essence of Ren Wu Zhi, when one explains and comprehends it in various ways, one's viewpoint on self-cultivation will differ. This thesis holds that Liu Shao obviously wrote the book for political and practical purposes. However, from an aesthetic angle, some scholars regard its essential purpose as pursuing ideal character and building the essence of an aesthetic state of character and life. This thesis considers that this point of view is totally incompatible with Ren Wu Zhi's utilitarian functionality to politics and strong cognition. As for the self-cultivation theory in Ren Wu Zhi, Liu Shao's aptitude theory is usually called ”fatalism”; he asserts that a person's talent is a natural gift influenced by ”yin yang wu xing” (negative, positive and the five elements). Nonetheless, it is not totally proper to label Liu Shao's aptitude theory ”fatalism.” Strictly speaking, the natural gifts mentioned by Liu Shao infer only one kind of aptitude and potentiality. An acquired consequence possibly develops positively or negatively, such as that one may never deny there is an existence of a field in which a self-cultivation theory can be discussed. The key point is ”learning,” which determines natural gifts to develop positively or negatively after birth. We can say that ”learning” in this book means self-cultivation after one is born. Liu Shao cites four principles of Heaven and Earth: i.e. metaphysics, philosophy, ethics, and social psychology, and so-called ”learning” requires these four principles. On the whole, tagging Liu Shao's aptitude theory as ”fatalism” is to deny the existence of his self-cultivation theory, to overemphasize inborn determinism, and to ignore the necessity of diligent learning after birth that he doesn't exclude.

Turbulence is the time-dependent chaotic flow regime that we encounter every day in our environment. A turbulent flow includes a large range of scales which interact with each other in a complex dynamical way. Turbulent flowfields vary randomly in space and time; and are very difficult to analyze, understand and control. Intriguingly, this random flow field is described by the deterministic Navier-Stokes equation. However, so far a closed system of equations could not be produced for the statistical properties of the fluctuating flow. The existence and smoothness of Navier-Stokes equation are not mathematically proven yet. Understanding its solution is one of the seven most important open problems in mathematics identified by the Clay Mathematics Institute (the Millennium problems). A universal theory of turbulence does not exist: it is the last unsolved problem of classical physics. Dealing with turbulent flows is in the center of engineering applications and technological developments. On the other hand, in a physicist’s point of view its universality makes turbulence attractive. Since the pioneering work of Kolmogorov in 1941 a lot of work has been done on the universality of turbulence. His similarity hypotheses form the first statistical theory of turbulence which still remains as the most appropriate universal theory of turbulence although some aspects of it are questioned in the turbulence research community. In this thesis we address fundamental issues of the turbulence problem experimentally; but also indicate the importance of these problems in practical applications, and the directions of further developments. To achieve this goal we do experiments on especially engineered turbulent flows that in this way are tailored to the problem. The experiments have been done in the wind tunnel facility of Eindhoven University of Technology. To generate the proper turbulent flow in the wind tunnel we used an active grid and designed its time-dependent motion for each problem. High-Reynolds-number turbulent flows have been generated with finely tuned properties by stirring the laminar flow of the wind tunnel with innovative designs of active grid protocols. In order to study a specific problem in turbulence not only a flow with specific properties at high Reynolds numbers is needed but also an accurate and fast flow measurement system is necessary. This measurement system should be able to collect long time-series of the fast varying velocity fields. We use a multiple probe array filled with hot-wire sensors to monitor high-Reynolds-number turbulent flow fields locally at high frequencies. The electronics used for the 10 x-wire probes in the array have been optimized for a perfectly simultaneous multiprobe measurement. An intriguing question that we asked is how a turbulent flow responds to perturbations. In other words, when a turbulent flow has been perturbed howmuch itwill remember about the perturbations? Another question which has practical importance is thatwhether there is an optimumfrequency to stir turbulence. These questions are intriguing because how can a chaotic system be perturbed and how one can resonate with a system that has not a dominant time scale. We also experimentally confront the predictions of the above mentioned theory of Kolmogorov which assumes a universality of turbulent flows at the small scales and simply neglects the anisotropy in these scales. Since it is in the center of many turbulence models his theory has great importance for engineering applications.

Объяснение российских инверсий сталкивается с проблемами концептуального ха­рактера. Традиционно используемый концептуальный аппарат, набрасываемая на ре­альность теоретическая сетка, похоже, «не ловит» эту реальность, в лучшем случае пытается ее описать. Не улавливаются природа и механизмы, лежащие в особенно­стях российского общества, его динамики. Отсюда – заключения о патологии, колее, константной матричности и прочей безысходности и обреченности на воспроиз­водство «предрешенных» характеристик общественной жизни. Расширение концептуального аппарата конструктивным подходом в сочетании с конкретным историческим подходом позволяет выделить не одного актора модер­низационных процессов (политическую элиту, связанную с государственной вла­стью), а как минимум двух – власть и общество, причем конструктивно не связан­ных. С этой точки зрения инверсивный характер российских модернизаций имеет две причины. Одна – социальная, связанная с особенностями российского социума, доминированием в нем властной воли при неразвитости социальных сил, для фор­мирования которых нет достаточных условий. Вторая – связана с попытками модер‐низации, опирающимися на чей-то исторический опыт. Однако, в силу первой при­чины, эти попытки оказываются поспешными и непродуманными, порождая новые напряжения и деформации социума. Обе причины взаимодополняются и взаимо­переплетаются. Вместе с тем общецивилизационные процессы, такие как урбанизация, формиро­вание массового общества, изменяют характер российского общества, реализуя его втягивание в модернизационные процессы, включая формирование гражданского национального самосознания. Это создает предпосылки для качественно нового ха­рактера развития социума. Если главные факторы инверсионности со стороны «верхов» – поспешность и заимствование, то со стороны «низов» это замедленное становление буржуазии, которое, тем не менее, формирует условия для реальной медиализации. Анализ способов объяснения инверсивной модернизации российского общества об­наруживает особые возможности в плане методологической рефлексии и выявления перспектив конструктивистского и исторического подходов.

The complex mechanisms involved in cellular processes have been increasingly understood this past century and the central role of the DNA molecule has been recognized. The base pair sequence along a DNA fragment is observed not only to encode the genomic information, but also to induce locally very specific physical properties, such as significantly bent or stiff regions. These variations in the molecule constitution are for instance believed to be involved in DNA-protein recognition and in nucleosomes positioning. Modelling the sequence dependent DNA mechanical properties is consequently an important step towards understanding many biological functions. However, in a cell, vastly different length scales are involved, ranging from a few base pairs to several thousands, which makes difficult the definition of \textit{one} appropriate model. A promising strategy seems then to be given by the multi-scale modeling of sequence dependent DNA mechanics. In this framework, the sequence dependent rigid base and rigid base pair models have been proposed. In these coarse grain models either each base pair or each base is described as a rigid body configuration, which leads to either a chain or a bichain representation of the DNA molecule. A sequence dependent configurational distribution has then been parametrized, either from experimental data or directly from atomistic molecular dynamic simulations, and provides an efficient and realistic description at the scale of hundreds of base pairs. Important questions that can be studied in these models are for instance the influence of the sequence on the probability of contact of two sites, which are distant along the molecule length, or on the expectation of the relative configuration of these two sites. In this thesis, we propose to approach these physical situations both from the discrete and the continuum modeling point of view, and then to discuss in which sense they actually constitute only one multi-scale point of view. In the first part, we discuss mechanical properties of heterogeneous rigid body chains and bichains, as well as continuum rod and birods, in classical statics and in equilibrium statistical physics. Equilibirum conditions, variational principles and configurational distributions are studied for single chains and rods, and then extended to bichains and birods. We have introduced in particular an original coordinate free Hamiltonian formulation in arc-length of the birod equilibrium conditions, and the notion of the persistence matrix for the configurational moment for chains and rods. We then present deterministic and stochastic exponential Cauchy-Born rules allowing to bridge the scales between the discrete and continuum representations. In the second part, we present applications of the proposed multi-scale mechanical theory for chains and rods to sequence dependent DNA modelling. We discuss the approximation using the birod model of most probable bichain configurations satisfying prescribed end conditions. Similarly, we then present the computation of the sequence dependent frame correlation matrix and the Flory persistence vector for chains using a continuum rod model. In addition, a homogenization method is proposed. These results are believed to constitute a substantial improvement in the multi-scale modeling of DNA mechanics.

Is there an I that is Lord over his own house, the body or any personal reality is reduced to a set of neurophysiological order? There is consensus among scientists that is through the brain that occur all mental processes, not the soul within the meaning of the classical dualistic, as a substance separate and above the body. However, the self in its capacity of free choice remains a mystery not deciphered. Neurophilosophers naturalist guide propose that freedom and cerebral determinism are compatible and, in their point of view, this position allows – with limits – to continue talking about human responsibility for decisions. The phenomenon of consciousness and free will are not wonders of chance, but they are not mere products of a linear causality too. They lie in being that is always greater than the sum of all parties, in other words, not reducible to his brain. The weights on the results and interpretations of research surrounding the brain are, today, privileged places for a neuroethics with a whole-person view and assist to observe the possibilities and limits of neuroscience.