A jiffy clock for the Apple IIc,II+, and IIe with a mouse

A “jiffy clock” is presented for the Apple lIc or other Apple II having Apple’s mouse card. The clock allows timing of events to tenths of a second, and is read from BASIC. A convenient elapsed timer function is provided as well.     

Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft Ein Grundbuch der modernen Philosophie

Zusammenfassung Kants kritische Philosophie hat Epoche gemacht. Sie bildet den Höhepunkt der neuzeitlichen Aufklärung. Mit der Kritik der reinen Vernunft hat Kant ein klassisches Werk geschaffen, das noch heute als Grundbuch der neueren Philosophie angesehen werden muss. Es erörtert die Möglichkeiten und Grenzen der menschlichen Vernunft und entwickelt dabei die normativen Grundlagen unseres Erfahrungswissens ebenso wie der wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnis. Der Beitrag gibt einen Überblick über Inhalt, Perspektiven und Bedeutung dieses Werkes und sucht zu verdeutlichen, inwiefern es Massstäbe für alle theoretischen wie praktischen Bereiche unseres Wissens gesetzt hat, die bis heute bestimmend geblieben sind.     

Reye-like syndrome following valproate therapy in an adult

Three months after anticonvulsive regulation by means of the spasmolytic agent Convulsofin, a 46-year-old man suffered severe hepatosis, and when the preparation was discontinued he suffered a severe cerebral dysfunction. The clinical picture is interpreted as being "similar to the Reye syndrome", and distinctions between this and previously reported cases are noted. There has been very little observation of such complications among adult patients.     

Technology: Autonomous or neutral

Two conflicting visions of technology nevertheless agree that scientists and engineers bear little moral responsibility for their inventions. According to one vision, technology is largely autonomous,” that is, self‐determinative operating according to its own blind laws independently of human will. According to the other, technology is fully controllable, but control rests solely with ‘end‐users’ as technology is, in itself, value‐neutral. After a brief characterization of the domain of technology, each vision of technology is criticized in turn. Despite the many penetrating insights offered by the best exemplar of the first approach— Jacques Ellul—it is shown that his approach rests on unacceptable metaphysical and epis‐temological assumptions: because it seemingly explains so much, it explains nothing; and it anthropomorphizes technology. Champions of the value neutrality thesis fail to sustain their argument because they overlook the ways in which various technologies embody the values of particular persons, institutions, or classes. Undermining these two prominent visions of technology opens the way for afresh consideration of the moral responsibilities of the creators and users of technology.     

The content of personality inventory items

Four aspects of the item content of personality inventories were studied: the area of psychological functioning addressed (cognitive, preferences, feelings, behavioral), degree of reference to situational factors, degree of reference to response frequency, and the nature of reference to time. Three judges rated items of the California Psychological Inventory, Eysenck Personality Inventory, Maudsley Personality Inventory, Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, Jackson Personality Research Form, and Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire. Behavioral acts were found infrequently addressed in inventory items, and the other areas of functioning were approximately equally represented. More than half of the items referred to situation characteristics, 39% included the notion of frequency of behavior or experience, and most referred to the present. Rating reliabilities were also presented, and results for individual inventories were compared. Implications for controversies in the field of personality were discussed.     

GOD'S PLACE IN A SPACE AGE

Abstract. The shift from a pre-Copernican to a Copernican world view has caused an ever increasing sense of homelessness for the idea of a theistically conceived God. This paper first traces the historical development of this problem and its implications for the Christian faith. Next it presents some historically evolved "rescue" attempts and examines them critically. Then follows an inquiry concerning the biblical understanding of God's relation to space and a critical presentation of some contemporary proposals to make God's presence intelligible. In conclusion we propose a dimensional model of relating God and the world, a model which allows for a reasonable discourse of God's immanence and transcendence.     

Conditionals and theory change: Revisions,expansions, and additions

This paper dwells upon formal models of changes of beliefs, or theories, which are expressed in languages containing a binary conditional connective. After defining the basic concept of a (non-trivial) belief revision model. I present a simple proof of Gärdenfors's (1986) triviality theorem. I claim that on a proper understanding of this theorem we must give up the thesis that consistent revisions (additions) are to be equated with logical expansions. If negated or might conditionals are interpreted on the basis of autoepistemic omniscience, or if autoepistemic modalities (Moore) are admitted, even more severe triviality results ensue. It is argued that additions cannot be philosophically construed as parasitic (Levi) on expansions. In conclusion I outline somed logical consequences of the fact that we must not expect monotonic revisions in languages including conditionals.I wish to thank Peter Gärdenfors for a number of helpful comments, André Fuhrmann and Wolfgang Spohn for extensive discussion of parts of this paper, and Winfred Klink for kindly checking my English.     

The development of Marx's economic theory

Marx develops his economic theory in Capital in a rather peculiar way. This paper focuses on some of these peculiarities, especially his attempt to base his account of prices and derivative entities (profit, rate of profit, etc.) on the labour theory of value. Although he may be said to have failed in this, there is still some kind of Marxist theory of prices possible. This is due to both, the so-called fundamental theorem (linking profit and surplus-value) and the possibility, shown by Sraffa and others, to determine prices from the physical parameters of production. By adding on an earlier paper of mine, in which the surplus-value theory has been reconstructed within the structuralistic framework, this paper sketches such a reconstruction for the basic parts of a full-blown Marxist economic theory of capitalistic production.I am indebted to Prof. Peter Flaschel for some useful hints.     

The Structural Memory: A network model for human perception of serial objects

Summary The Structural Memory, a network model for human perception of serial objects, such as series, is presented. Our theoretical assumptions originate from the Structural Information (Theory (SIT) (Buffart & Leeuwenberg, 1983; Leeuwenberg, 1969), a theory concerning the perceptible structures in an object and the human preference for one of these structures. A symbolic notation of such a perceptible structure in an object is called a representation. For a given maximum number of symbols we can generate all representations automatically. From this procedure we define G(eneration)-relations between the representations. We also define S(tructure)-relations based upon the structures described by the representations. The representations and relations can be seen as respectively the nodes and links in a network. This network is the basis for the Structural Memory. We therefore assign an activation value to each representation in the network, expressing the strength of the preference for the described structure at a certain moment. By means of a process model we are able to make predictions for the strength of the preference for a perceptible structure in an object. The process is only based upon the network structure, because of a relation found between the preference measure, used in SIT, for a perceptible structure in an object and the number of G- and S-relations of the corresponding representation in the network. It is shown that with two of these process models some experiments by Van Leeuwen and Buffart can be simulated.