Singular Concept Research Articles

Zen and behavior analysis.

Zen's challenge for behavior analysis is to explain a repertoire that renders analysis itself meaningless-a result following not from scientific or philosophical arguments but rather from a unique verbal history generated by Zen's methods. Untying Zen's verbal knots suggests how meditation's and koans' effects on verbal behavior contribute to Enlightenment and Samādhi. The concept of stimulus singularity is introduced to account for why, within Zen's frame of reference, its methods can be studied but its primary outcomes (e.g., Samādhi and Satori) cannot be described in any conventional sense.

Log canonical singularities are Du Bois

A recurring difficulty in the Minimal Model Program is that while log terminal singularities are quite well behaved (for instance, they are rational), log canonical singularities are much more complicated; they need not even be Cohen-Macaulay. The aim of this paper is to prove that log canonical singularities are Du Bois. The concept of Du Bois singularities, introduced by Steenbrink, is a weakening of rationality. We also prove flatness of the cohomology sheaves of the relative dualizing complex of a projective family with Du Bois fibers. This implies that each connected component of the moduli space of stable log varieties parametrizes either only Cohen-Macaulay or only non-Cohen-Macaulay objects.

Transverse singular effects in V-shaped notches stressed in mode II

The concept of a stress singularity is a cornerstone of modern fracture mechanics. A new mode of stress singularity, the out-of-plane singular mode or K O mode, was recently identified for V-shaped notches subjected to in-plane loading. This new mode is coupled with the shear mode and related to Poisson’s effect. The previous studies based on the first order plate theory focused on the derivation of a characteristic equation describing the strength of this singularity and provide no information regarding the intensity, extent and relevance of this mode to practical problems. This paper aims to fill this gap. The approach utilises the 3D finite element method and a standard regression technique for characterisation of the notch singular modes. A comprehensive study of the influence of Poisson’s ratio, plate thickness and notch opening angle on the value of the notch stress intensity factor associated with this mode is conducted for infinite plates. Additionally, to demonstrate the relevance of this new singular mode to practical problems an investigation of the out-of-plane mode and associated three-dimensional effects are presented for the case of a welded lap joint. Main areas of further research are also identified.

E-learning como agente de cambio. Diseño pedagógico de un proceso de formación

En este artículo se presenta el desarrollo y resumen de los resultados de una experiencia desarrollada en la Universidad de Extremadura para el diseño e implementación en Moodle de un Curso Virtual de Especialista Universitario en Docencia en Educación Secundaria. Nuestro grupo de trabajo, implicado en la enseñanza en línea desde hace más de una década, decidió emprender en el año 2004 una experiencia innovadora donde ensayar nuestra particular concepción del e-learning. De este modo, se inició el diseño de una acción formativa de posgrado a través de un proceso continuo de negociación grupal, en el que tratamos de experimentar nuevas fórmulas de aprendizaje que se alejaran del ya señalado tecnocentrismo. El diseño del curso pretende ser innovador desde su planteamiento tutorial y en su sistema de evaluación de los aprendizajes, pues buscamos la certeza de la calidad del aprendizaje en una evaluación realizada únicamente de modo virtual. Actualmente estamos estudiando los resultados del mismo, pero, tal y como exponemos en el artículo, ya comenzamos a entrever sus fortalezas y sus aspectos susceptibles de mejora, que sin duda alguna nos reorientan y guían hacia buenas prácticas de enseñanza virtual.

A comparison of the annual courses of the index of variability of circulation types: the example of the Hess-Brezowsky classification

Research on the variability of weather conditions over the year has been carried out for many decades. Barry and Chorley (1992, p. 193) wrote that “many calendars of singularities have been compiled, [...] but the early ones [...] did not prove very reliable”. These authors emphasized that investigations by Lamb for the British Isles and by Flohn and Hess for Central Europe were very successful. Lamb (1950) spoke appreciatively about investigations made by “a number of German workers” in the field of the concept of singularities. He quoted publications by Schmauss, Flohn, Baur and Hess. The Grosswetterlagen (GWL) conception was raised for several decades of the 20th century by Baur and afterwards was modified by Hess and Brezowsky (1952). Descriptions of this classification can be found both in articles (e.g. Gerstengarbe, Werner 1993, 1999, 2005) and in books (e.g. Barry, Perry 1973, A N N A L E S U N I V E R S I TAT I S M A R I A E C U R I E S K £ O D OW S K A L U B L I N – P O L O N I A VOL. LXV, 2 SECTIO B 2010 DOI: 10.2478/v10066-010-0025-1 I: 0.2478/v1 0 6-011-0057-1

Futures without financial crises: Utopian literature in the 1890s and 1930s

Australian utopian fiction of the 1890s and 1930s reflects the traumatic impact of the economic crises of these decades and expresses desire to avoid the insecurities of capitalism. There are significant differences, however, in the imaginative reach of the utopias devised in the 1890s and those formulated in the 1930s. In Australia in the 1890s, the possibilities for progress and perfection were varied. Unionism, socialist legislation, the formation of ideal communities based on socialist or anarchist principles, militant forms of protest, attempts to inaugurate direct rather than mere representative democracy were some of the various strategies pursued in this decade that promised a better world. The methods depicted in the utopian writings of the 1890s for achieving ideal societies are as diverse as the real politically radical currents of the time. By the 1930s, the starkly singular conception of emancipation offered by the Soviet model dominates the imagination of those who wrote of better futures. The utopian literature of the 1930s is thus diminished by its fascination with an alleged model of perfection in the real world. The differences between the utopian literatures of two decades undergoing similar upheavals confirms Darko Suvin's observation that the parameters of utopian imagination are produced by the particular radical milieux around those who dare to dream of alternatives.

A Concept Taxonomy and an Instrument Hierarchy: Tools for Establishing and Evaluating the Conceptual Framework of a Patient-Reported Outcome (PRO) Instrument as Applied to Product Labeling Claims

To facilitate development and evaluation of a PRO instrument conceptual framework, we propose two tools--a PRO concept taxonomy and a PRO instrument hierarchy. FDA's draft guidance on patient reported outcome (PRO) measures states that a clear description of the conceptual framework of an instrument is useful for evaluating its adequacy to support a treatment benefit claim for use in product labeling the draft guidance, however does not propose tools for establishing or evaluating a PRO instrument's conceptual framework. We draw from our review of PRO concepts and instruments that appear in prescription drug labeling approved in the United States from 1997 to 2007. We propose taxonomy terms that define relationships between PRO concepts, including "family,""compound concept," and "singular concept." Based on the range of complexity represented by the concepts, as defined by the taxonomy, we propose nine instrument orders for PRO measurement. The nine orders range from individual event counts to multi-item, multiscale instruments. This analysis of PRO concepts and instruments illustrates that the taxonomy and hierarchy are applicable to PRO concepts across a wide range of therapeutic areas and provide a basis for defining the instrument conceptual framework complexity. Although the utility of these tools in the drug development, review, and approval processes has not yet been demonstrated, these tools could be useful to improve communication and enhance efficiency in the instrument development and review process.

On the concept of spectral singularities

In this paper, we discuss the concept of spectral singularities for non-Hermitian Hamiltonians. We exihibit spectral singularities of some well-known concrete Hamiltonians with complex-valued coefficients.

Singularidade e formação (Bildung) em Schopenhauer como educador de Nietzsche

A partir do escrito Schopenhauer como educador, buscar-se-á explicitar a dimensão modelar de Schopenhauer, tanto para a constituição do ideal de filósofo e pensador que Nietzsche cria para si, quanto para a edificação da sua teoria da formação (Bildung). Isso será dado, num primeiro momento, pela apresentação do pendor crítico do pensamento schopenhaueriano e da sua insubmissão às tendências filosóficas e culturais do seu tempo; num segundo momento, pela elucidação da especificidade da teoria nietzschiana do autoconhecimento e da sua concepção da singularidade, com o que se revelará sua teoria do fundamento metafísico da natureza, que o leva a conceber o filósofo, o artista e o santo como os tipos singulares por excelência nos quais a natureza justifica os seus esforços e supera a mera necessidade. Essas tipologias revelam as tarefas que a educação deve, ao juízo de Nietzsche, perseguir se não quiser se tornar mero abstracionismo ou mera aderência acrítica ao mundo: jamais condescender aos modismos culturais; não separar pensamento e vida com o que se diz, também, que teoria e prática não estão separadas; incorporar a singularidade como aquilo que a educação promove; e, por fim, eleger a autossuperação como a tarefa mais imperiosa para a constituição do humano no seu sentido mais pleno.

Functional group based Ligand binding affinity scoring function at atomic environmental level.

Use of knowledge based scoring function (KBSF) for virtual screening and molecular docking has become an established method for drug discovery. Lack of a precise and reliable free energy function that describes several interactions including water-mediated atomic interaction between amino-acid residues and ligand makes distance based statistical measure as the only alternative. Till now all the distance based scoring functions in KBSF arena use atom singularity concept, which neglects the environmental effect of the atom under consideration. We have developed a novel knowledge-based statistical energy function for protein-ligand complexes which takes atomic environment in to account hence functional group as a singular entity. The proposed knowledge based scoring function is fast, simple to construct, easy to use and moreover it tackle the existing problem of handling molecular orientation in active site pocket. We have designed and used Functional group based Ligand retrieval (FBLR) system which can identify and detect the orientation of functional groups in ligand. This decoy searching was used to build the above KBSF to quantify the activity and affinity of high resolution protein-ligand complexes. We have proposed the probable use of these decoys in molecular build-up as a de-novo drug designing approach. We have also discussed the possible use of the said KSBF in pharmacophore fragment detection and pseudo center based fragment alignment procedure.

The Nation‐Form

It has been said time and again that the paradigm of Third World nationalism is the Hegelian narrative of lordship and bondage – the struggle for recognition. As the hegemonic petty‐bourgeois elite...

Mistakes, Changed Circumstances and Intent

A party to a may be allowed to escape contractual liability by resorting to one of several contract In this Article, I limit my discussion of defenses to those where there has been an error in a material to the transaction. Basic assumption defenses include mutual mistake, unilateral mistake, impossibility, frustration of purpose, and commercial impracticability. Several prevailing rationales explain why a party should be allowed to escape contractual liability despite the sufficiency of consideration where there has been a basic assumption error. No rationale or principle, however, unifies all basic assumption defenses. Further complicating matters, similar fact patterns applying a given doctrine often yield inconsistent results. This Article proposes that basic assumption defenses can best be explained and analyzed through the prism of contractual intent. Although typically discussed in terms of a singular concept, contractual intent in fact comprises various facets, which I refer to as volitional intent, cognitive intent, and contextual purposive intent. Volitional intent considers whether the party wanted to enter into the transaction. Cognitive intent captures whether the party understood what she or he was doing. Cognitive purposive intent reveals the party's reason or motive for entering into the transaction. This Article concludes that a dynamic approach applying this expanded intent analysis has several advantages over the existing basic assumption doctrines. First and foremost, it directly addresses law's two primary objectives, which are furthering autonomy and facilitating transactions. Second, because it removes artificial doctrinal distinctions, it simplifies analysis by focusing on what really matters in law ? the intent of the parties. Furthermore, it provides for greater consistency in judicial decisions. Finally, the approach is flexible and better accommodates technological advancements in the marketplace, such as Internet transactions where the buyer does not have the opportunity to meet the seller or physically examine a product prior to purchase.

Towards an Analysis of Compositional Strategies1

The author is interested in the process of composing, i.e. the invention of a piece of music from the initial spark of intuition to the final product. His study is based on the “Germinal” project, an experiment in composition involving fourteen composers working with identical technical resources in computer studio 123 of the grm (Groupes de recherches musicales) in Paris in 1985. Their creations all followed a common work schedule in four stages, with each composer adopting a very personal strategy at each of these stages. Describing their strategies amounts to giving an account not only of their actions, but also of the attitudes and decisions that led from an initial project to a final product. Four levels of criteria governing the decision-making process are then proposed: technical quality, grammaticality, the musical idea and the topic. The first two conform to a search for regularity while the latter two suggest a desire for singularity. These levels determine work attitudes in relation to sound and machines, i.e., poietic attitudes. From this comparative study several strategies have emerged, three of which are explained. Finally, the author develops the concept of singularity, which is a central concern of composers, and which may also be viewed as a challenge to computers and music analysis.

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Politics, Print Culture and the Habermas Thesis Cluster

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Politics, Print Culture and the Habermas Thesis Cluster

The Extreme Connection Between Bodies and Houses

The Extreme Connection Between Bodies and Houses

The initial prodrome of schizophrenia: different duration, different underlying deficits?

In light of various suggestions concerning underlying deficits and transition patterns, approaching the initial schizophrenic prodrome is a multifaceted enterprise. Recently, the prodromal phase has largely been viewed as a singular concept. However, observations of greatly varying prodromal time courses prompted us to investigate whether these differences suggest the existence of diverse prodrome subtypes. Our sample consisted of 160 patients from the Cologne Early Recognition study. The 79 patients transiting from prodrome to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders–Fourth Edition schizophrenia were divided into 3 time groups according to the length of the prodromal state and compared for their initial symptomatology. We found differences in the prominent clinical picture not only regarding single symptoms but also in logistic equations calculated for each group including cognitive deficits only. Our results indicate different underlying deficits: disturbances in bottom-up and top-down loop processes associated with a long prodrome and in top-down processes with medium prodrome, and a deficient central integrating system with short prodrome.

Fracture in plates of finite thickness

Application of the plane theory of elasticity to planar crack or angular corner geometries leads to the concept of stress singularity and stress intensity factor, which are the cornerstone of contemporary fracture mechanics. However, the stress state near an actual crack tip or corner vertex is always three-dimensional, and the meaning of the results obtained within the plane theory of elasticity and their relation to the actual 3D problems is still not fully understood. In particular, it is not clear whether the same stress field as found from the well-known 2D solutions of the theory of elasticity do describe the corresponding stress components in a plate made of a sufficiently brittle material and subjected to in-plane loading, and what effect the plate thickness has. In the present study we adopt, so called, first order plate theory to attempt to answer these questions. New features of the elastic solutions obtained within this theory are discussed and compared with 2D analytical results and experimental studies as well as with 3D numerical simulations.

On the Case

663 Thanks to Bradin Cormack, Richard Neer, and Tom Mitchell for reading beyond compare. Thanks also to Anat Benzvi, Burke Butler, Andrea Haslanger, Elizabeth Hutcheon, Jay Williams, Andrew Yale, and Abigail Zitin for their generous, creative, and rigorous editorial labor, without which none of this work would appear. 1. Peter Galison argues against the naive view of the self-evidence of case-study knowledge and the comparability of all case studies with each other in his “Specific Theory,”Critical Inquiry 30 (Winter 2004): 379–83. Nonetheless, the surge of the singularity concept in some contemporary humanist discussions—as that which resists being generalizable—runs antagonistically into the prevalence of case-study narrativity in scholarship, whichmobilizes a whole variety of descriptive and interpretive processes of determining likeness, generality, or patterning and whose interest in typification often (incoherently) produces evidences of singularity as the optimisticmoment of excess or surplus to its very analytic activity.Mark Seltzer provides great analyses of the legal and literary development of the situation of case logic in Serial Killers: Death and Life in America’s Wound Culture (New York, 1998). On the Case

Mistakes, Changed Circumstances and Intent

A party to a contract may be allowed to escape contractual liability by resorting to one of several "contract defenses." In this Article, I limit my discussion of contract defenses to those where there has been an error in a "basic assumption" material to the transaction. Basic assumption defenses include mutual mistake, unilateral mistake, impossibility, frustration of purpose, and commercial impracticability. Several prevailing rationales explain why a party should be allowed to escape contractual liability despite the sufficiency of consideration where there has been a basic assumption error. No rationale or principle, however, unifies all basic assumption contract defenses. Further complicating matters, similar fact patterns applying a given doctrine often yield inconsistent results. This Article proposes that basic assumption contract defenses can best be explained and analyzed through the prism of contractual intent. Although typically discussed in terms of a singular concept, contractual intent in fact comprises various facets, which I refer to as volitional intent, cognitive intent, and contextual purposive intent. Volitional intent considers whether the party wanted to enter into the transaction. Cognitive intent captures whether the party understood what she or he was doing. Cognitive purposive intent reveals the party's reason or motive for entering into the transaction. This Article concludes that a dynamic approach applying this expanded intent analysis has several advantages over the existing basic assumption doctrines. First and foremost, it directly addresses contract law's two primary objectives, which are furthering autonomy and facilitating transactions. Second, because it removes artificial doctrinal distinctions, it simplifies analysis by focusing on what really matters in contract law ? the intent of the parties. Furthermore, it provides for greater consistency in judicial decisions. Finally, the approach is flexible and better accommodates technological advancements in the marketplace, such as Internet transactions where the buyer does not have the opportunity to meet the seller or physically examine a product prior to purchase.

Sortal concepts and causal continuity: Comment on Rips, Blok, and Newman (2006).

L. J. Rips, S. Blok, and G. Newman (2006) proposed that singular concepts, which support the tracing of individual objects across their existence, are governed by a principle of causal continuity. They purported to show that causal continuity is better than existing theories at explaining judgments of the persistence of individual objects. This article makes 3 points. First, the construct of causal connectedness entails a wide variety of different explanatory factors; calling them all causal has questionable explanatory value. There is little evidence that the ultimate basis for identity judgments in many cases is causal. Second, the authors suggest that causal knowledge is indeed important to identity, but that it is important in the context of sortal concepts; different causal information matters for different kinds of things. Finally, the authors consider whether causal knowledge or sortal concepts are more fundamental to tracing individual identity, that is, whether causal knowledge is necessary for identity judgments. The authors appeal to research in developmental psychology that has begun to address this debate, supporting the primacy of sortal concepts. Although there continues to be shortcomings of all theories of object persistence, it is not clear that the causal continuer theory brings new clarity to the puzzle.