Reply to Pessoa, P.; Arderucio Costa, B., Comment on “Tsallis, C. Black Hole Entropy: A Closer Look. Entropy 2020, 22, 17”

In the present Reply we restrict our focus only onto the main erroneous claims by Pessoa and Costa in their recent Comment (Entropy 2020, 22, 1110).

Patterson D. M. Dworkin on the Semantics of Legal and Political Concepts / trans. from Engl. A. B. Didikin, S. A. Aleksandrov

In a recent comment on H. L. A. Hart’s «Postscript» to The Concept of Law, Ronald Dworkin claims that the meaning of legal and political concepts maybe understood by analogy to the meaning of natural kind concepts like «tiger», «gold» and «water». This article questions the efficacy of Dworkin’s claims by challenging the use of natural kinds as the basis for a semantic theory of legal and political concepts. Additionally, in matters of value there is no methodological equivalent to the scientific method. Thus, there is little hope of finding hidden essences to explain the meaning of legal and political concepts. Finally, even if there are natural kinds, Dworkin’s arguments for their efficacy in jurisprudence are problematic and unpersuasive. The problem for Dworkin is that his embrace of natural kinds undermines the «fit» side of the fit/justification model of adjudication that lies at the heart of his theory of law

Response to: Comment on “Does the Equivalence between Gravitational Mass and Energy Survive for a Composite Quantum Body?”

We have recently shown that both passive and active gravitational masses of a composite body are not equivalent to its energy due to some quantum effects. We have also suggested idealized and more realistic experiments to detect the above-mentioned inequivalence for a passive gravitational mass. The suggested idealized effect is as follows. A spacecraft moves protons of a macroscopic ensemble of hydrogen atoms with constant velocity in the Earth’s gravitational field. Due to nonhomogeneous squeezing of space by the field, electron ground state wave function experiences time-dependent perturbation in each hydrogen atom. This perturbation results in the appearance of a finite probability for an electron to be excited at higher energy levels and to emit a photon. The experimental task is to detect such photons from the ensemble of the atoms. More realistic variants of such experiment can be realized in solid crystals and nuclei, as first mentioned by us. In his recent comment on our paper, Crowell has argued that the effect, suggested by us, contradicts the existing experiments and, in particular, astronomic data. We show here that this conclusion is incorrect and based on the so-called “free fall” experiments, where our effect does not have to be observed.

Gimme 3 Steps (With a Nod to an American Rock Song from the 1970s)

The message that patients are frequently dissatisfied with their interactions with their physicians is a common one. And, articles about physician burnout are plentiful [Shanafelt 2015]. Indeed, a recent national survey showed a nearly 9 percent increase in burnout rates over just the last 3 years [Peckham 2015]. Many factors contribute to this problem, not the least of which is the push to use electronic medical records systems, as evidenced by the recent comment from the acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, Mr. Andy Slavitt, who said “we have to get the hearts and minds of physicians back. I think we’ve lost them” [McKnight 2016]. <br />While many of the factors contributing to physician dissatisfaction are, and will be, difficult to control, there is at least one source of satisfaction that is within the relatively easy purview of virtually all practicing physicians, and that source is the patients for whom all physicians care. Fortunately, there are some straightforward, simple, and efficient ways to improve the view patients have of their physicians and the satisfaction that physicians can derive from caring for their patients. Three simple steps that can make both physicians and their patients more satisfied with the interactions between patients and physicians are outlined here. These suggestions are primarily oriented toward physicians in training caring for hospitalized patients, though they are most certainly applicable to all physicians. These suggestions are based on what younger physicians can say to, ask of, or do for a patient under their care, all of which can be easily and efficiently accomplished.

The broad view of warfare ecology: response to Marler

SummaryA recent Comment article suggested replacing the established term warfare ecology with the name ‘military ecology’. This emerging and important sub-discipline requires an accurate, inclusive, and descriptive name. Maintaining the broad term warfare ecology reaches beyond the military to beyond to involve a much wider range of processes and stakeholders, including non-state parties and insurgencies, contractors, civilians, humanitarian and relief organizations, and reconstruction/restoration efforts. It has been adopted by practitioners from a similarly diverse range of disciplines, and used for important research that would not be included under a field limited to military studies.

Reply

Penny et al. recently showed that the midwinter suppression in storminess over the western and central Pacific Ocean is due to a reduction in the number and amplitude of “seed” disturbances entering the Pacific storm track from midlatitude Asia. In this reply, the authors strengthen the conclusions that were originally put forth and show that the apparent departure from this behavior presented in a recent comment originates in the commenters having undersampled the full dataset of interannual variability. It is shown that when the Pacific storm track is only weakly “seeded” by an upstream source, as is common during winter and uncommon during fall and spring, it is likely to be weaker than average, and this reduction is highly statistically significant and the amplitude compares well with the midwinter suppression.

More on Mesoamerican Cosmology and City Plans

In a recent comment Michael Smith argues that the cosmological interpretations of Maya urban layouts proposed in an article by Ashmore and Sabloff are vague and unconvincing. He also summarizes some other comparable studies in order to show that arguments for the cosmological significance of archaeologically recovered urban patterns are, in general, subjective and lack methodological rigor. I argue that his view is an unwarranted generalization and that his references to some archaeoastronomical interpretations do not adequately reflect the advances in this field of research and its relevance for the understanding of ancient city plans. I summarize the results of several studies in Mesoamerica, focusing on Teotihuacan and the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan discussed by Smith, to show that rigorous methods not only have been applied in archaeoastronomical research but also have resulted in explicit conclusions about specific aspects of worldview and political ideology underlying Mesoamerican architecture and urbanism.

Kantian Tunes on a Humean Instrument: Why Hume is not Really a Skeptic About Practical Reasoning

The theory that practical reasoning is wholly instrumental says that the only practical function of reason is to tell agents the means to their ends, while their ends are fixed by something other than reason itself. In this essay I argue that Hume has an instrumentalist theory of practical reasoning. This thesis may sound as unexciting as the contention that Kant is a rationalist about morality. For who would have thought otherwise? After all, isn't the ‘instrumentalist’ line in contemporary discussions of this topic descended directly from Hume himself? Contrast the following recent comment from Robert Audi's book on practical reasoning, holding the standard line, with the comment from Christine Korsgaard following it:Hume's conception of practical reasoning, so far as we can formulate it, can be located within … the foundationalist account of motivation in which reason plays the instrumentalist role … by virtue of arousing and directing our desires.

Cable and local economic development: Local authority roles and responses

Outline There has been much recent comment about the development of the "information superhighway" and the opportunities that this will create for economic development. Yet elements of such a superhighway are already in place through the activities of cable companies in the UK This paper outlines the development of cable to date and examines the response of local authorities to such developments.

Sociocultural Differences on Hostility in Alexithymic Persons

A recent comment by I. Alex Rubino on the personality correlates of alexithymia implied that there are several important areas for further discussion. Sociocultural differences in ethnicity (Japanese and Italian) may need to be taken into account for an understanding of the divergent findings.