Ethical considerations and proposed guidelines for the use of radio frequency identification: Especially concerning its use for promoting public safety and national security

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is quickly growing in its applications. A variety of uses for the technology are beginning to be developed, including chips which can be used in identification cards, in individual items, and for human applications, allowing a chip to be embedded under the skin. Such chips could provide numerous benefits ranging from day-to-day convenience to the increased ability of the federal government to adequately ensure the safety of its citizens. However, there are also valid concerns about the potential of this technology to infringe on privacy, creating fears of a surveillance society. These are concerns that must be addressed quickly, with sensitivity to individual interests and societal welfare, allowing humanity to reap the benefits of convenience and safety without paying an unacceptable price in the loss of privacy. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2005 conference, Ethics and Social Responsibility in Engineering and Technology, Linking Workplace Ethics and Education, co-hosted by Gonzaga University and Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA, USA, 9–10 June 2005.     

MMPI中国常模中量表8及量表9K校正系数的探讨

本文针对MMPI中国常模中各临床量表一般不作K分校正的建议作了实证研究。其分析了912名被试的K、Sc及Ma量表数据资料,其中有345名精神分裂症患者,111名躁狂症患者以及456名正常被试。利用半和方区分比率法和频数分析法进行分析的结果表明,为了使MMPI在辅助诊断心理失常者时达到较好的效果,①量表8原始分数需加1K校正分数;②量表9原始分数以0.2K分数进行校正较不作校正为好。由此本研究建议,在应用MMPI时应采用加K分的中国常模。     

The robustness of the usual correction for restriction in range due to explicit selection

Corrections for restriction in range due to explicit selection assume the linearity of regression and homoscedastic array variances. This paper develops a theoretical framework in which the effects of some common forms of violation of these assumptions on the estimation of the unrestricted correlation can be investigated. Simple expressions are derived for both the restricted and corrected correlations in terms of the target (unrestricted) correlation in these situations.The author is grateful to D. Holt, C. J. Skinner and T. M. F. Smith (all University of Southampton) for their helpful comments. Research was initially supported by grant No. HR7152 from the Economic and Social Research Council.     

Testing for Granger Causality in the Frequency Domain: A Phase Resampling Method

This article introduces phase resampling, an existing but rarely used surrogate data method for making statistical inferences of Granger causality in frequency domain time series analysis. Granger causality testing is essential for establishing causal relations among variables in multivariate dynamic processes. However, testing for Granger causality in the frequency domain is challenging due to the nonlinear relation between frequency domain measures (e.g., partial directed coherence, generalized partial directed coherence) and time domain data. Through a simulation study, we demonstrate that phase resampling is a general and robust method for making statistical inferences even with short time series. With Gaussian data, phase resampling yields satisfactory type I and type II error rates in all but one condition we examine: when a small effect size is combined with an insufficient number of data points. Violations of normality lead to slightly higher error rates but are mostly within acceptable ranges. We illustrate the utility of phase resampling with two empirical examples involving multivariate electroencephalography (EEG) and skin conductance data.     

Who is having more and better sex? The Big Five as predictors of sex in marriage

Prior research has been somewhat inconsistent in demonstrating links between personality and sexual functioning. We pooled the data from three independent daily-diary studies of newlywed couples to examine the association between individuals’ Big Five traits and the probability of sex on a given day; we also pooled the data from the two studies that assessed satisfaction with sex to examine the association between these traits and individuals’ satisfaction with sex when it occurred. Couples with wives high in agreeableness engaged in more frequent sex. Husbands low in openness or neuroticism and wives low in neuroticism reported increased satisfaction with sex when it occurred. Partner personality was unrelated to satisfaction with sex when it occurred.     

Der Vergleich als Brücke zwischen Wissenschaftsgeschichte und Wissenschaftstheorie

Comparisons as a Bridge between History and Philosophy of Science. Both in history and philosophy of science, comparisons are looked upon with considerable skepticism. A widespread syndrome of casuitis, i.e., the tendency of historians of science to produce extremely narrow and local studies that do not present a case for any broader thesis of interest to philosophers, has widened the gulf between history and philosophy of science.This may be somewhat surprising to sociologists, philosophers, or general,legal and cultural historians, who have been using comparisons successfully for a long time–albeit not always without controversy. In the first part of this paper, I assess the status of comparisons in science studies, in order to explain why their systematic use is not nearly as natural as might elsewhere be expected. This critical section is followed by a very brief outline of the prerequisites for fruitful comparison as formulated by general and sociological historians in their detailed methodological discussions. To these are added some necessary conditions from the perspective of modern history of science. In the third part I present four examples of such systematic comparisons taken from my own research. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

“And yet it moves” or why grammar overrides frequency: a reply to Kempen and Harbusch

We show that Kempen and Harbusch's (Cognition (2003) this issue) arguments against our claims cannot be upheld. On the one hand, their alternative account of our data that is based on the availability of constructions with object-experiencer verbs is not compatible with the literature on the processing of these types of sentences in German. Moreover, their allegation that we failed to conduct an accurate corpus count is simply a misreading of our paper. Insofar, the commentary in no way casts doubt on our claim that grammatical regularities override frequency during online comprehension.     

The Role of Lexical Frequency in the Acceptability of Syntactic Variants: Evidence From that‐Clauses in Polish

A number of studies report that frequency is a poor predictor of acceptability, in particular at the lower end of the frequency spectrum. Because acceptability judgments provide a substantial part of the empirical foundation of dominant linguistic traditions, understanding how acceptability relates to frequency, one of the most robust predictors of human performance, is crucial. The relation between low frequency and acceptability is investigated using corpus‐ and behavioral data on the distribution of infinitival and finite that‐complements in Polish. Polish verbs exhibit substantial subordination variation and for the majority of verbs taking an infinitival complement, the that‐complement occurs with low frequency (<0.66 ipm). These low‐frequency that‐clauses, in turn, exhibit large differences in how acceptable they are to native speakers. It is argued that acceptability judgments are based on configurations of internally structured exemplars, the acceptability of which cannot reliably be assessed until sufficient evidence about the core component has accumulated.     

Behavioral genetics and development: Historical and conceptual causes of controversy

Traditional, quantitative behavioral geneticists and developmental psychobiologists such as Gilbert Gottlieb have long debated what it would take to create a truly developmental behavioral genetics. These disputes have proven so intractable that disputants have repeatedly suggested that the problem rests on their opponents’ conceptual confusion; whilst others have argued that the intractability results from the non-scientific, political motivations of their opponents. The authors provide a different explanation of the intractability of these debates. They show that the disputants have competing interpretations of the concepts of reaction norm, genotype–environment interaction, and gene. The common thread that underlies each of these disagreements, the authors argue, is the relevance of potential variation that is not manifest in any actual population to the understanding of development.