Preschoolers favor the creator's label when reasoning about an artifact's function

The creator of an artifact, by virtue of having made the object, has privileged knowledge about its intended function. Do children recognize that the label an artifact's creator uses can convey this privileged information? 3- and 4-year-olds were presented with an object that looked like a member of one familiar artifact category, but which the speaker referred to with the label of a different familiar category (e.g. a key-like object was called a "spoon"). Children who heard the speaker refer to the object as something she made were more likely to assign its function on the basis of the anomalous label she used than those who heard it referred to as something the speaker found. Thus, even very young children expect a unique connection between the label the creator of an artifact uses and the function she intends it to have.     

Decomposition Proof Systems for Gödel-Dummett Logics

The main goal of the paper is to suggest some analytic proof systems for LC and its finite-valued counterparts which are suitable for proof-search. This goal is achieved through following the general Rasiowa-Sikorski methodology for constructing analytic proof systems for semantically-defined logics. All the systems presented here are terminating, contraction-free, and based on invertible rules, which have a local character and at most two premises.     

An Ecological Process Model of Systems Change

In June 2007 the American Journal of Community Psychology published a special issue focused on theories, methods and interventions for systems change which included calls from the editors and authors for theoretical advancement in this field. We propose a conceptual model of systems change that integrates familiar and fundamental community psychology principles (succession, interdependence, cycling of resources, adaptation) and accentuates a process orientation. To situate our framework we offer a definition of systems change and a brief review of the ecological perspective and principles. The Ecological Process Model of Systems Change is depicted, described and applied to a case example of policy driven systems level change in publicly funded social programs. We conclude by identifying salient implications for thinking and action which flow from the Model.     

Applying the Interactive Systems Framework to the Dissemination and Adoption of National and State Recommendations for Hypertension

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention (DHDSP), commissioned an Institute of Medicine (IOM) report to identify the highest priority action areas for CDC, state health departments, and other public health partners in their efforts to reduce and control hypertension. To assess the dissemination and adoption of the IOM report recommendations, DHDSP developed an evaluation based on the Interactive Systems Framework for Dissemination and Implementation (ISF). The evaluation incorporates data collection at critical points across 3 years. In this article, we focus on the ISF systems to describe the role of funded state partners and their relationship with CDC in implementing public health recommendations. We describe baseline results for three data collection activities: (1) key informant interviews, (2) a Web‐based survey, and (3) content analysis of state workplans to determine the degree of alignment with IOM recommendations. For example, currently 30 % of surveyed programs are implementing most (or all) of the recommendations in the IOM report, however 76 % intend to change hypertension program priorities based on the recommendations of the IOM report. Qualitative data suggest that there are several facilitators and barriers in implementing public health policy recommendations. DHDSP will use these baseline results to provide additional technical assistance and support to state health departments in their efforts to implement the IOM report's recommendations. Special Issue: Advances in Bridging Research and Practice Using the Interactive System Framework for Dissemination and Implementation; Guest Editors: Abraham Wandersman, Paul Flaspohler, Catherine A. Lesesne, Richard Puddy; Action Editor: Emilie Phillips Smith     

Design and Sociocultural Evolution: Theoretical and Practical Considerations

The two approaches described here may clarify the role of design in sociocultural evolution by making best use of information already available. The first, holistic in nature, explores possible advantages of a convergence between the design, systems, and social evolution communities which, to date, have worked largely in isolation of one another. The benefits of juxtaposing the three disciplines are examined by reviewing three works on social evolution for their insights into design practice. The second approach is reductionist in nature, and proposes working across the evolutionary literatures of disciplines contiguous with design, again in order to quickly inform design practice. The two approaches are considered complementary rather than exclusionary.     

Metaphilosophical Criteria for Worldview Comparison

Philosophy lacks criteria to evaluate its philosophical theories. To fill this gap, this essay introduces nine criteria to compare worldviews, classified in three broad categories: objective criteria (objective consistency, scientificity, scope), subjective criteria (subjective consistency, personal utility, emotionality), and intersubjective criteria (intersubjective consistency, collective utility, narrativity). The essay first defines what a worldview is and exposes the heuristic used in the quest for criteria. After describing each criterion individually, it shows what happens when each of them is violated. From the criteria, it derives assessment tests to compare and improve different worldviews. These include the is‐ought, ought‐act, and is‐act first‐order tests; the critical and dialectical second‐order tests; the mixed‐questions and first‐second‐order third‐order tests; and the we‐I, we‐it, and it‐I tests. The essay then applies these criteria and tests to a concrete example, comparing the Flying Spaghetti Monster deity with Intelligent Design. For another application, it draws more general fruitful suggestions for the dialogue between science and religion.     

The ABLe Change Framework: A Conceptual and Methodological Tool for Promoting Systems Change

This paper presents a new approach to the design and implementation of community change efforts like a System of Care. Called the ABLe Change Framework, the model provides simultaneous attention to the content and process of the work, ensuring effective implementation and the pursuit of systems change. Three key strategies are employed in this model to ensure the integration of content and process efforts and effective mobilization of broad scale systems change: Systemic Action Learning Teams, Simple Rules, and Small Wins. In this paper we describe the ABLe Change Framework and present a case study in which we successfully applied this approach to one system of care effort in Michigan.     

Evolution and Process Thought

Five topics arising from evolutionary biology open new possibilities for fruitful dialogue between scientists and proponents of the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. These topics (with the main authors whose views are discussed) are: (1) Contingency and Teleology, Stephen Jay Gould, Simon Conway Morris; (2) The Baldwin Effect and Interiority, Bruce Weber and David DePew, Daniel Dennett, Terrence Deacon, Susan Oyama; (3) Complexity and Design, Michael Behe, David Griffin; (4) Hierarchical Levels and Downward Causation, Theo Meyering, Charles Hartshorne; and (5) Self-organization and Emergence, Terrence Deacon, Philip Clayton. In the final section, I look at the relation of science and metaphysics and ask whether the subjectivity postulated by process philosophy is accessible to scientific investigation.     

Pedestrians as floating life - On the reinvention of the pedestrian city

Walking with its average speed of 5 km/h was for a very long period the primary mode of moving and engaging with the immediate material environment for humans. However, over the past half-century, the socio-technical systems of automobility as well as other forms of non-human powered mobility have changed the ways in which cities are experienced. Most recently, however, the pedestrian mode has been reprioritised resulting in a shift of emphasis, particularly in European cities, toward recognising the destructive forces of automobility. This shift has been accompanied by a variety of pedestrian reprioritisation strategies including the pedestrianisation of city streets as well as restricted vehicular access to particular inner city zones at prescribed times. The challenge for many cities is how to legitimately change mindsets, from automobility to walking. This paper explores the reprioritisation of urban walking not as ‘infrastructure’ or an ‘intervention’ but as transitory, ‘floating life’ across space and time. We conceptualise walking as a multi-sensorial, effective, and mobile engagement with the material environment. In doing so, we ask how the ‘floating life’ of pedestrianism may be reflected upon as part of the so-called ‘mobilities turn’ and in particular how theories of materiality, embodiment, design and experience interlink with walking. In this paper walking as a pedestrian is therefore a particular quality of mobility. The way in which we ‘inhabit’ the city is significant when we walk, and turning to walking as ‘floating life’ pays attention to this underemphasised ontological dimension.