scholarly journals Why the Empty Shells Were Not Fired: A Semi-Bibliographical Note

Episteme ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 301-308 ◽  
Author(s):  
Itzhak Gilboa

AbstractThis note documents Aumann's reason for omitting the “empty shells” argument for the common prior assumption from the final version of “Correlated Equilibrium as an Expression of Bayesian Rationality.” It then continues to discuss the argument and concludes that rational entities cannot learn their own identity; if they do not know it a priori, they never will.

Author(s):  
William Demopoulos ◽  
Peter Clark

This article is organized around logicism's answers to the following questions: What is the basis for our knowledge of the infinity of the numbers? How is arithmetic applicable to reality? Why is reasoning by induction justified? Although there are, as is seen in this article, important differences, the common thread that runs through all three of the authors discussed in this article their opposition to the Kantian thesis that reflection on reasoning with mere concepts (i.e., without attention to intuitions formed a priori) can never succeed in providing satisfactory answers to these three questions. This description of the core of the view differs from more usual formulations which represent the opposition to Kant as an opposition to the contention that mathematics in general, and arithmetic in particular, are synthetic a priori rather than analytic.


BMC Cancer ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cheng KKF ◽  
S. A. Mitchell ◽  
N. Chan ◽  
E. Ang ◽  
W. Tam ◽  
...  

Abstract Background The aim of this study was to translate and linguistically validate the U.S. National Cancer Institute’s Patient-Reported Outcomes version of the Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (PRO-CTCAE™) into Simplified Chinese for use in Singapore. Methods All 124 items of the English source PRO-CTCAE item library were translated into Simplified Chinese using internationally established translation procedures. Two rounds of cognitive interviews were conducted with 96 cancer patients undergoing adjuvant treatment to determine if the translations adequately captured the PRO-CTCAE source concepts, and to evaluate comprehension, clarity and ease of judgement. Interview probes addressed the 78 PRO-CTCAE symptom terms (e.g. fatigue), as well as the attributes (e.g. severity), response choices, and phrasing of ‘at its worst’. Items that met the a priori threshold of ≥20% of participants with comprehension difficulties were considered for rephrasing and retesting. Items where < 20% of the sample experienced comprehension difficulties were also considered for rephrasing if better phrasing options were available. Results A majority of PRO-CTCAE-Simplified Chinese items were well comprehended by participants in Round 1. One item posed difficulties in ≥20% and was revised. Two items presented difficulties in < 20% but were revised as there were preferred alternative phrasings. Twenty-four items presented difficulties in < 10% of respondents. Of these, eleven items were revised to an alternative preferred phrasing, four items were revised to include synonyms. Revised items were tested in Round 2 and demonstrated satisfactory comprehension. Conclusions PRO-CTCAE-Simplified Chinese has been successfully developed and linguistically validated in a sample of cancer patients residing in Singapore.


2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-54
Author(s):  
Camille Carbonnaux

Since the 1990s, European judicial and normative institutions have paid particular attention to the competitive practices of public undertakings. Consequently, their regime is governed by a significant number of rules pursuing objectives appearing, a priori, contradictory. In fact, public undertakings may experience difficulties in their management. In this context, an approach of public competition law through the prism of fair competition can be very useful. Regarding the uniformity of its judgment, fair competition appears as an objective capable of coordinating rules and overcoming their contradictions. It thereby offers a global and coherent reading plan of all the legal translations of the European competitive order being of some practical importance. In illuminating the common features of the different legal aspects of competition, we can easily switch from one to the other. It therefore makes the European approach to competition more accessible and understandable. Furthermore, and most importantly, it leads to identifying legal opportunities and threats in a cross-disciplinary way. So, from a “Law & Management” perspective, it appears to be a precious tool for the management of public undertakings. Key words: European competition law, public undertakings, fair competition, “Management & law”.


Author(s):  
Herbert Gintis

This chapter uses epistemic game theory to expand on the notion of social norms as choreographer of a correlated equilibrium, and to elucidate the socio-psychological prerequisites for the notion that social norms implement correlated equilibria. The correlated equilibrium is a much more natural equilibrium criterion than the Nash equilibrium, because of a famous theorem of Aumann (1987), who showed that Bayesian rational agents in an epistemic game G with a common subjective prior play a correlated equilibrium of G. Thus, while rationality and common priors do not imply Nash equilibrium, these assumptions do imply correlated equilibrium and social norms act not only as choreographer, but also supply the epistemic conditions for common priors.


Author(s):  
Paul K. Moser

A prominent term in theory of knowledge since the seventeenth century, ‘a posteriori’ signifies a kind of knowledge or justification that depends on evidence, or warrant, from sensory experience. A posteriori truth is truth that cannot be known or justified independently of evidence from sensory experience, and a posteriori concepts are concepts that cannot be understood independently of reference to sensory experience. A posteriori knowledge contrasts with a priori knowledge, knowledge that does not require evidence from sensory experience. A posteriori knowledge is empirical, experience-based knowledge, whereas a priori knowledge is non-empirical knowledge. Standard examples of a posteriori truths are the truths of ordinary perceptual experience and the natural sciences; standard examples of a priori truths are the truths of logic and mathematics. The common understanding of the distinction between a posteriori and a priori knowledge as the distinction between empirical and non-empirical knowledge comes from Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (1781/1787).


2008 ◽  
Vol 8 (12) ◽  
pp. 3081-3092 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. S. Kulawik ◽  
K. W. Bowman ◽  
M. Luo ◽  
C. D. Rodgers ◽  
L. Jourdain

Abstract. Non-linear maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimates of atmospheric profiles from the Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES) contains a priori information that may vary geographically, which is a confounding factor in the analysis and physical interpretation of an ensemble of profiles. One mitigation strategy is to transform profile estimates to a common prior using a linear operation thereby facilitating the interpretation of profile variability. However, this operation is dependent on the assumption of not worse than moderate non-linearity near the solution of the non-linear estimate. The robustness of this assumption is tested by comparing atmospheric retrievals from the Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer processed with a uniform prior with those processed with a variable prior and converted to a uniform prior following the non-linear retrieval. Linearly converting the prior following a non-linear retrieval is shown to have a minor effect on the results as compared to a non-linear retrieval using a uniform prior when compared to the expected total error, with less than 10% of the change in the prior ending up as unbiased fluctuations in the profile estimate results.


2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. E. Lage ◽  
N. M. M. Maia ◽  
M. M. Neves

This paper proposes the reconstruction of forces, based on the direct and inverse problems of transmissibility in multiple degree of freedom (MDOF) systems. The objective and novelty are to use the force transmissibility to calculate reactions given the applied loads (and vice versa). This method, relating two sets of forces, proves to be an alternative to the common inverse problem based on the measurement of FRFs and operational accelerations to determine operational forces, as it can be advantageous in some cases. This implies thea prioriknowledge of the transmissibility of the structure, either experimentally or numerically. In this study a finite element model is built, describing with enough accuracy the dynamic behavior of the structure. The numerical model will play a key role in the construction of the transmissibility matrix; this will be used to evaluate either the reaction or the applied forces, using experimental data. This constitutes a hybrid methodology, which is validated experimentally. The authors present several comparisons between reconstructed and experimentally measured sets of forces. It is shown that the proposed method is able to produce good results in the reconstruction of the forces, underlining its potential for other structures and possible applications.


Author(s):  
Thomas W. Bennett

For the first time in the history of South African law, a typically African concept – Ubuntu – has been adopted into the common law of the land (which is a mixture of English and Roman-Dutch law). Ever since colonial conquest, the indigenous normative orders of Africa have been treated as inferior. While South Africa’s new constitutional dispensation had the effect of elevating customary law to the same status as that of the common law, the traffic of ideas between the two systems continued to favour the latter as the superior system. The reception of ubuntu into the common law reversed this process. This paper examines the function of ubuntu in its new environment. Most of the discussion about the concept has concentrated on its meaning, a question that has been concentrated on finding a suitable English translation. The most obvious have been the calques, ‘humanity’, ‘personhood’ or ‘humaneness’, but none have been especially helpful, for they cannot hope to convey the full range of functions now performed by ubuntu. It is argued in this paper that searches for a priori meanings are unhelpful: words are continually being exploited by users to serve their own particular ends. In this regard, it must be appreciated that ubuntu is a loanword, and thus especially susceptible to manipulation. The paper shows that the courts have used ubuntu to supply a peculiarly African form of equity that has been used to solve hard cases and conflicts between rules, notably in the area of public law.


2014 ◽  
Vol 556-562 ◽  
pp. 3545-3548
Author(s):  
Hai Bo Yin ◽  
Jun An Yang ◽  
Jie Gong ◽  
Wei Dong Wang

Compressed Sensing is very efficient in reducing the relatively high sampling rate. But when it comes to the channel estimation of uncooperative communication, the common CS reconstruction algorithms seem impractical to implement since a pilot is required, which is difficult for uncooperative communication. In this paper, we combine the sparsity transform dictionary, which is formed by a sequence of delays of the template signal, together with the idea of alternative minimization to improve the traditional CoSaMP algorithm to reconstruct under-sampled UWB-2PPM signal transmitted by unkown complex channel without a knowledge of pilot. The theoretical analysis and simulations show that the proposed algorithm is capable of reconstructing the original transmitted signal without a pilot.


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