Role Of Signs Research Articles

Kant’s Prize Essay and Nineteenth Century Formalism

Abstract Kant’s Prize Essay of 1764 emphasizes the importance for mathematical cognition of manipulating signs according to rules, which has led some recent commentators to ask whether Kant’s position there is a species of mathematical formalism. While most have hesitated to find formalism in the Prize Essay, this hesitation derives from misconceptions about what formalists actually believe. I therefore examine some nineteenth century formalists who were in dialogue with Kant, using their views as a model against which to compare the Prize Essay. I argue that Kant’s view in the Prize Essay is continuous with their formalism, since the Prize Essay shares the essential aspects of their views about the sign-signified relation in mathematics and the role of signs in mathematical reasoning.

Semantics and Internet Language

In this article the following topics have been under the discussion: the developmental stage of the relatively new field – semiotics, its relationship with the other traditional branches of linguistics, three modes with some relevant examples, the role of signs in the modern way of communication medium, opinions and expectations of several researchers about this constantly modernizing process. -

Can the puma Messi, the cheetah Gerda, the panther Luna, the wolf Kira be considered pets? (man in culture and the animal world)

The article discusses a new trend to have wild animals (big cats, foxes, ferrets, etc.) in some homes, and it turns out that since they have been raised since childhood, loved and cared for, they behave like pets (dogs and cats). The question is whether these animals can still be considered domestic or not. To solve this problem, characteristics are given that make it possible to distinguish between wild and domestic animals, and the question is raised whether they can be applied to this case. To understand this new class of animals, the concept of "anthropomorphic" is introduced and it is shown that their psyche differs from that of wild animals, it is closer to domestic ones. An explanation is offered for the experiments of geneticist Dmitry Belyaev on the domestication of silver foxes. The author argues that the evolution of foxes was influenced by two factors, not only genetic selection, as Belyaev believed, but also the impact of the environment created by man, an environment conducive to the formation of anthropoids. Attention is drawn to the fact that humans continue to crowd large wild animals. Humans increasingly need land for goats, cows, horses, pigs, poultry, and agricultural land. The paradox ‒ our big cats of anthropoids are fed the meat of these pets. At the end of the article, Belyaev's hypothesis, according to which we are "self-domesticated" monkeys, whose innate psychological tendencies, behavior and social structure have radically changed under the influence of selection for reduced aggressiveness, is compared with the author's hypothesis about the role of signs in human origin. He shows that domestication occurred as a result of the transition of hominids to "paradoxical behavior", which required the creation of a sign based on a signaling system. The latter allowed the hominids to act contrary to biological evidence at the command of the leader. A necessary condition for this was the imagination conditioned by signs, which helped to invent the first tools.

Piloting building early sentences therapy for pre-school children with low language abilities: An examination of efficacy and the role of sign as an active ingredient.

Early intervention is recommended for pre-school children with low language. However, few robustly evaluated language interventions for young children exist. Furthermore, in many interventions the theoretical underpinnings are underspecified and the 'active ingredients' of the interventions not tested. This paper presents a quasi-experimental study to test the efficacy and examine the active ingredients of Building Early Sentences Therapy (BEST): an intervention based on usage-based theory designed to support young children to understand and produce two-, three- and four-clause element sentences. BEST manipulates the input children hear to support them to harness the cognitive mechanisms hypothesized in usage-based theories to promote the development of abstract linguistic representations. One such input manipulation is the use of signing alongside verbal input signalling both content and morphology of target sentences. To examine whether (1) BEST is more efficacious than treatment as usual (TAU); and (2) signing of content and morphology is an active ingredient of the intervention. A quasi-experimental study recruited children aged 3;5-4;5 years from 13 schools. Schools were assigned to receive either BEST with sign, BEST without sign or TAU. The TAU group received their usual classroom provision. Across arms schools were matched with respect to classroom oral language environment and indices of deprivation. Participants were 48 children (28 boys) with expressive and/or receptive language abilities ≤ 16th centile measured using the New Reynell Developmental Language Scales (NRDLS). Outcomes gathered by researchers blind to treatment arm were NRDLS production and comprehension standard scores and measures of production of targeted sentence structures. Primary outcomes indicate that BEST with sign was significantly more efficacious than TAU with respect to NRDLS production standard score, but not comprehension. The advantage for production was maintained at follow-up. BEST without sign was significantly more efficacious than TAU on measures of targeted vocabulary, sentence structure and morphology. The results from this quasi-experimental study provide evidence for the efficacy of a usage-based intervention on expressive language outcomes for preschool children with low language abilities. There is also evidence to support the inclusion of sign as an active ingredient, and so efforts to train interventionists in its use are worthwhile. Patterns of findings across outcomes suggest signing of content and morphology may support the development of abstract linguistic representations and accelerate language learning. Given these positive results and the scale of this study, a fully powered randomized controlled trial is warranted. What is already known on the subject Robust language skills are crucial for positive social, emotional, academic and economic outcomes across the lifespan. There is a paucity of robustly evaluated interventions for preschool children with language difficulties. The development of such interventions is crucial for ameliorating language difficulties and promoting positive educational and psychosocial outcomes. What this study adds to the existing knowledge This paper evaluates BEST, a novel usage-based language intervention targeting children with language difficulties in the early years. Findings indicate that a usage-based intervention is efficacious for treating language difficulties. In particular, BEST benefited expressive language development, bringing benefits to both treated and untreated language structures and improving standard scores. The role of sign as an active ingredient is also supported. Further evaluation is warranted. What are the practical and clinical implications of this work? Findings suggest that BEST may be effective for targeting children who have been identified as having language difficulties. In particular, expressive language may be improved when the intervention is delivered as it was originally manualized, including a signing system to represent content and grammatical morphology. More broadly, these findings also provide preliminary evidence that the use of a signing system does not hinder oral language development in children with language difficulties and may conversely support their expressive language. Future research exploring the role and underpinning mechanisms of sign in language intervention is warranted.

A Dialogical Analysis of Decision-Making on Childbearing: A Penelopian Odyssey on the Boat of the Self in the River of Time

In decision-making, a person moves from desire to action and from imagination to actualization. How the objects of intentionality and reality relate in this process determines the outcome. Thus, every decision-making process has an inherent ambivalence; and the same is true about childbearing. A not yet being born child becomes an object of thought, a relationship is shaped with it, and a decision is made over bringing it into the world. The present study analyzes the decision-making process on childbearing according to the Dialogical Self Theory, with the methodology of Socio-Cultural Dynamics Semiotic Analysis, where the role of signs in giving meaning to what humans do as agents are central to the decision-making process. This paper analyzes one case from the whole corpus of data—selected for its complexity—by extracting the I-positions and their interactions in the person’s mind. The I-positions, mediated by signs, affect how individuals contemplate childbearing and their final decision. The analytic focus is on the unity of The Self and Time. On the Self dimension, the focus is primarily on the psychological borders emerging within oneself and between spouses. Four necessary fields of internal negotiations are found: The Self, The Spouse, The Imagery Child, and The Others. On the inevitable dimension of irreversible time, dialogues between the past, now, and future using intentionality and imagination are depicted. The analysis shows how ambivalence fields are shaped and how different parts and voices within the Self narrow or expand ambivalence fields. Without resolving these ambivalences, it is impossible to finalize a satisfying decision.

On the Role of Signs in Epicurus’ Legal Theory

Epicurus holds, in Key Doctrine 31, that what is just according to nature is a súmbolon or sign of the interest there is in neither harming one another nor being harmed. Certain readings of this maxim equivocate this legal sign with other signs found in nature, thereby failing to give sufficient weight to the role of reciprocity in its production. Other readings simply import a legal sense from outside of Epicurean doctrine, thereby failing to explain what makes Epicurean súmbola legal. A final set of readings attempt to find a legal rule as a kind of innate concept or Kantian ‘scheme’. This article identifies new sources for understanding súmbolon, drawn principally but not exclusively from Aristotle’s Eudemian Ethics. This article offers an original argument that Epicurus adopts Aristotle’s’ image of the tally stick (symbolon) as a meeting of often divergent interests which constitutes something new and particularly valuable to the Epicurean: friendship. A theoretical argument is also advanced to support this reading which claims that one person’s reflection on a ‘divine image’ of the end (telos) is insufficient to constitute a súmbolon; rather real (as opposed to abstract or ideal) individual interests are filtered via the mechanism of the tally, that is via the meeting of two given individuals who together generate a sign (symbolon) of reciprocal interest in neither harming nor being harmed.

On the Relation between Memory and Language from a Cultural-historical Perspective in Neurolinguistics

Abstract: In this essay, we reflect about the relationship between memory and language, conceiving both as complex functional systems, developed along the human history and strongly influenced by culture. We give special emphasis to the mediating role of signs, mainly based on the (neuro)psychological principles postulated by Vygotsky and Luria, but also in dialogue with several authors from the fields of Linguistics, Philosophy of Language and Semiotics, among which Mikhail Bakhtin, Aleida Assmann, Augusto Ponzio and Susan Petrilli. Two data are presented in order to contribute to our reflection – the first is extracted of a dialogical episode with a subject diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and the second episode with an aphasic individual. In sum, we argue that the cultural-historical approach may provide a better understanding of the interdependent and constitutive nature of the relationship between language and memory. Key-words: Memory, Language, Historical-Cultural perspective, Neurolinguistics, Semiotics

Semantic analysis of traditional Persian residential architecture with an emphasis on the role of signs (Case study: Traditional houses in hot-dry climate)

Semantic analysis of traditional Persian residential architecture with an emphasis on the role of signs (Case study: Traditional houses in hot-dry climate)

Prognostic value of signs and symptoms in heart failure patients using remote telemonitoring

Introduction Heart failure is a serious burden on health care systems due to frequent hospital admissions. Early recognition of outpatients at risk for clinical deterioration could prevent hospitalization. Still, the role of signs and symptoms in monitoring heart failure patients is not clear. The heart failure coach is a web-based telemonitoring application consisting of a 9-item questionnaire assessment of heart failure signs and symptoms and developed to identify outpatients at risk for clinical deterioration. If deterioration was suspected, patients were contacted by a heart failure nurse for further evaluation. Methods Heart failure coach questionnaires completed between 2015 and 2018 were collected from 287 patients, completing 18,176 questionnaires. Adverse events were defined as all-cause mortality, heart failure- or cardiac-related hospital admission or emergency cardiac care visits within 30 days after completion of each questionnaire. Multilevel logistic regression analyses were performed to assess the association between the heart failure coach questionnaire items and the odds of an adverse event. Results No association between dyspnea and adverse events was observed (odds ratio 1.02, 95% confidence interval 0.79–1.30). Peripheral edema (odds ratio 2.21, 95% confidence interval 1.58–3.11), persistent chest pain (odds 2.06, 95% confidence interval 1.19–3.58), anxiety about heart failure (odds ratio 2.12, 95% confidence interval 1.44–3.13), and extensive struggle to perform daily activities (odds ratio 2.23, 95% confidence interval 1.38–3.62) were significantly associated with adverse outcome. Discussion Regular assessment of more than the classical signs and symptoms may be helpful to identify heart failure patients at risk for clinical deterioration and should be an integrated part of heart failure telemonitoring programs.

Deleuzian actualizations of the multiplicative concept: a study of perceptual flow and the transformation of learning assemblages

This paper substantiates the notion of inclusive materialism by illustrating the role of signs and micro-perception in the learning process of multiplication. Inclusive materialism, offered by de Freitas and Sinclair, considers mathematical learning a process of becoming a learning assemblage, which embodies various materials in a Deleuzian sense. Drawing on the Deleuzian notions of the sign, micro-perception, and assemblage, we analyze a classroom dynamic in which students are involved in the actualization of the concept of multiplication. The analysis shows that the scale of micro-perception modifies the material condition and leads learners to be extricated from the previous signification and previous approaches. Through gesturing and diagramming activities, the learners’ perception was structured and new habits of handling multiplicative situations were embodied. Ultimately, this paper evidences that by drawing on key ideas from Deleuze, inclusive materialism provides a new framework for theorizing the relations between materials, perception, and learning.

Quality Education and Sustainable Learning Trajectories for Deaf Learners.

Quality Education and Sustainable Learning Trajectories for Deaf Learners Donald F. Moores (bio) Two hundred and fifty years ago, L'Epée and Heinicke were engaged in a disagreement over the role of signs in the education of deaf students, with L'Epée supporting both natural and methodical signs and Heinicke advocating for an oral method without a manual component (Garnett, 1968; Moores, 2001). This was the beginning of the oral/manual controversy. L'Epée was not opposed to speech or the teaching of articulation, but because he was responsible for teaching larger numbers of children, he did not believe he could devote significant time to the slow process of teaching speech, which would be detrimental to the development of intellectual capabilities. Heinicke, on the other hand, wrote that the Parisian (sign) method of tuition was an absolute detriment to advancement (Garnett, 1968). This controversy set a precedent for the ensuing centuries, throughout which supporters of manual communication, with few exceptions, acknowledged the importance of speech. Those supporting what might be considered a pure oral method typically argued that children, their parents, and their teachers should never resort to manual communication because of the perceived dangers to speech and socialization in the hearing world. Because of discrimination against deaf teachers and other deaf professionals, especially after the midnineteenth century, most decision makers have been hearing and the dominant philosophy has been oral. Most hearing parents, who comprise approximately 95% of the parents of deaf individuals, have little or no exposure to deaf individuals before the birth of their deaf child. Parents want their child to be a more perfect copy of themselves; in this case, they want their child to be hearing. For parents, the concentration may be more on speech, an outward manifestation, than on hearing itself, and there may be resistance to the use of signs, which might label the child as different. It is at this point that many well-meaning professionals provide the disservice of assuring the parents that the child will be all right; that is, he or she will speak if he or she does not sign. It is my belief that if there is any question about the effectiveness of oral/aural communication, signs should be introduced immediately. 1880 Conference of Milan After generations of conflict over teaching methods, the 1880 Milan Conference passed two resolutions (Moores & Moore, 2011): • The use of signs should not be allowed in the education of deaf individuals. [End Page 463] • The use of signs with speech should not be allowed in the education of deaf individuals. Deaf professionals played no role in the Congress, and none were allowed to vote. The resolutions of the Milan Conference, now identified as the Second International Congress on the Education of the Deaf, were viewed as the final victory of oralism (speech) over manualism (signs) (Moores, 2001). Shortly after these resolutions were made, only oral instruction was being used in schools throughout the world, and deaf teachers disappeared from schools in most countries. In France, for example, after 1884 deaf teachers were excluded from teaching in all schools (Quartararo, 2008). In a few countries, signs were allowed in some schools after age 12, and deaf teachers were employed in manual departments in those schools. There were no deaf administrators. Fast-Forward 130 Years In 2010, 130 years after the Milan Conference, in Vancouver, Canada, the 21st International Congress on the Education of the Deaf rejected the resolutions of the 1880 Conference and affirmed the benefits of sign. One may applaud the change. On the other hand, it is fair to ask why it took so many years and why there has been such strong opposition to the use of signs by so many hearing educators. Memoir Upon the Formation of a Deaf Variety of the Human Race Shortly after the 1880 Congress, Alexander Graham Bell (1883) published his influential Memoir Upon the Formation of a Deaf Variety of the Human Race. Bell was a genius with many interests and accomplishments, most notably the invention of the telephone. He also considered himself a teacher of the deaf and...

Re-signing: A Cultural-Historical Study of Signs for Supporting Young Children’s Development of Emotion Regulation

Recent cultural-historical literature stresses the need for understanding the role of signs in emotional development. This article examined how the signification of children’s emotions in everyday parent–child interactions creates the conditions for the emergence of intrapersonal emotion regulation. Four families with children ages 3–6 years were studied in Australia. Findings indicated that parents’ re-signing supported the emergence of children’s intrapersonal emotion regulation. We argue that the cultural line of emotional development needs to be foregrounded and the process of development theorized, thus contributing to better understandings of the process, rather than the product of children’s development of emotion regulation.

Molarity, Ecological Validity, Objectivity, and the Road to Ethology

This paper focuses on molarity, ecological validity, objectivity, vicarious functioning, and the historical roots of ethology as developed by Konrad Lorenz and Niko Tinbergen. Some of their views are shown to go back to the ideas of Karl Buhler and another of his students, Egon Brunswik, as well as a one-time visitor of Buhler and Brunswik in Vienna, E. C. Tolman. Especially Buhler’s views on Gestalt, the emphasis on the functional interaction between organism and its environment, and the relation to Buhler’s ‘organon theory of language’ are discussed. The ideas of molarity and Gestalt have found a place in ethology as a new way of explaining behaviour in biology (as an alternative to zoology or physiology in the biology of the 1930s). Buhler’s theory of the multiple role of signs (as a symptom, signal and symbol) in language found its way into Brunswik concept of vicarious functioning and his ‘lens model’, as well as into Tinbergen’s views on the ‘aims and methods of ethology’.

Signs and Phenomena: Phenomenological-Semiotic Considerations

Abstract Both phenomenology and semiotics have to do with the basic question as to how our experience functions. But considering the fact that phenomenology tries to go back to the intuitively given things themselves, whereas semiotics stress the mediating role of signs, there remains a certain tension between both approaches. This tension leads to unbridgeable conflicts only if one side tries to dominate or to replace the other. In this case the extreme attempt to proceed ultimately without using signs clashes with the opposite presumption that basically everything is made of signs or words. However, in my view we should and can seek the so-called things themselves through the medium of signs, of words, and of pictures and so on. There is an intermediary sphere closely connected with our own body and with the relations between one’s own and the Other’s body. This basic assumption shall be tested by referring to a series of key issues like saying and showing, materiality of signs, sign and trace, sign and affect, use and creation of signs. We will cite authors such as Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Derrida and Wittgenstein and, on the other side, authors such as Bakhtin, Bühler, Jacobson and Peirce. As to the bridging over civilisations, our considerations by no means leads to a global form of being everywhere, but rather to the chance to be at once here and elsewhere, leaving room for singularity and otherness.

The role of sign and the incompressible Navier–Stokes equation

Consider the incompressible axially symmetric Navier–Stokes equations. Let z-axis be the symmetric axis. As a possible blowup scenario, the fluid flows may move towards the z-axis and the radial velocity component may satisfy a negative sign condition, as time approaches a possible blowup time T. In this paper, we construct solutions to the axially symmetric Navier–Stokes equations whose radial velocity has a negative sign. Those solutions have infinite energy, but are globally smooth. Surprisingly, the “dangerous” sign condition plays an essential positive role in proving the global regularity of such solutions. Our result may have some implications on potential blowup scenarios of incompressible Navier–Stokes equations when a sign condition holds in a local dangerous area.

Brentano and the Theory of Signs

In this article the author discusses F. Brentano's theory of intentionality and the ontological status of the intentional object specifically with respect to symbolic presentations. The role and function of intentionality are compared to the process of semeiosis. Several interesting parallels can be found between fundamental problems in the interpretation of the Brentanian notion of intentionality and issues in semiotics. In particular, the author focuses on the theory of C.W. Morris and attempts to apply core notions of his semiotics to clarify Brentano's ambiguous account of intentional reference, the role of signs in symbolic presentations and how this relates to outer perception.

Dizziness, Unsteadiness, Visual Disturbances, and Postural Control

Synthesis and application of research. To provide a framework to consider the role of signs and symptoms of postural control disturbance in the transition to chronicity after a whiplash trauma. Dizziness is one of the most frequent complaints in those with persistent pain after a whiplash trauma and is often associated with postural control disturbances. Focus paper to review the causes, management, onset, and relationships of such signs and symptoms after a whiplash trauma to explore the role they may have in the transition to chronicity. Contemporary literature suggests these signs and symptoms are often, but not always, aligned with those with significant neck pain and disability and have been related to a poorer prognosis. There are obvious links between the cervical proprioceptors and the musculoskeletal system, but links to the autonomic nervous, vestibular, and visual systems and influence on pain modulation are important. Postural control may have potential to alter other systems and affect pain and should be considered as one of the processes that might influence the transition to chronicity after a whiplash trauma. Future research should monitor the effect that addressing abnormal cervical afferent input has on not just dizziness and postural control but other symptoms such as altered pain processing and psychological distress. The causes of transition into chronicity after a whiplash trauma are present early and appear to be multifactorial. Pain sensitivity and psychosocial distress have recently been considered but postural deficits and the symptom of dizziness also appear to have a role.It is recommended that future research address these issues to further the understanding of the transition to chronicity after a whiplash trauma.

The Role of Sign in Students' Modeling of Scalar Equations

Helping students set up equations is one of the major goals of teaching a course in physics that contains elements of problem solving. Students must take the stories we present, interpret them, and turn them into physics; from there, they must turn that physical, idealized story into mathematics. How they do so and what problems lie along the way are a major source of difficulty for us as instructors. In this paper, we consider just one such difficulty, getting the plus and minus signs correct when setting a net force equal to mass times acceleration. Even in such simple equations, we find that students make common errors in how they connect the mathematics and the physics. Specifically, we have seen college physics students use physical and mathematical reasoning inconsistently when determining signs of terms in equations. The problem seems to lie in how a vector equation gets interpreted into a scalar equation (whose form depends on one's choice of coordinate system).

Vygotsky’s Enlightenment precursors

This article seeks to recover a history of ideas about the role of signs in the development of mind that connects Vygotsky to major traditions in Enlightenment language studies. It offers historical perspectives on ideas about thinking and speaking that shed light on the scope and trajectory of Vygotsky’s conception of signs as psychological tools. The Soviet thinker was schooled in German humanities, philology and philosophy. He was also indebted to thinkers of the European Enlightenment, especially Bacon, Locke and Condillac, for ideas about the role of signs in the formation of mind. I explain how ideas about the relationship between words and ideas set down by Locke were taken up and extended by Condillac in a seminal theory of knowledge. According to Condillac, signs play a key role in the development of mind. Later, Herder and von Humboldt built on Condillac’s ideas. Herder suggested that individual psychologies are shaped in concrete, historical circumstances, and pictured an organizing, creative force driving linguistic activity. I give a brief account of the way that the concept of “genesis” migrated from biology into German philosophy of language, history and cultural theory. According to von Humboldt, language is an activity through which worlds are disclosed. His work on thinking and speaking, the “inner sense” of language and the constitutive role of signs in development is discussed. In some ways, however, it stands against the instrumental‐communicative picture of words handed down from Locke. By bringing Locke and Condillac into conjunction with Herder and von Humboldt I aim to offer a picture of the Soviet psychologist’s indebtedness to Enlightenment linguistic thought.

Représentations moléculaires et systèmes sémiotiques

Representing knowledge in the form of signs and symbols facilitates learning and teaching. Duval once proposed theoretical semiotic framework for the teaching of the maths organized in 3 areas. Firstly, the relationship between the sign and the signified. Secondly, the function of these representations. Thirdly, the co-existence of the various semiotic systems. This article applies this approach to the teaching of chemistry in order to analyse on a cognitive level a pupil’s understanding of substances and to analyse its role in learning on a molecular level. What results is the role of signs in the learning of chemistry as pertains to the correlation between a textbook course and its summary and the correlation between feedback generated by a teacher-taught course and its corresponding summary written by the teacher himself. The basis of this study lies in institutional publications such as textbooks as well as in classroom discussion. The approach led to the creation of clearly identified semiotic categories of the various understandings of bodies used here and also highlighted shortcomings and anomalies in how these representations are used in teaching and chemistry work.