JOHN HAUGHT—FINDING CONSONANCE BETWEEN RELIGION AND SCIENCE

John Haught has awarded the debates between religion (Christianity in particular) and science a central place in his ongoing corpus of work. Seeking to encourage and enhance the conversation, Haught both critiques current positions and offers his own perspective as a potential ground for continuing the discussion in a fruitful manner. This essay considers Haught's primary criticisms of the voices on both sides of the debate which his work connotes as polarizing or conflating the debate. It also extrudes from Haught's work themes that provide alternative visions. The essay concludes with two questions for further consideration.     

浅析整合型医疗卫生服务系统

整合型医疗卫生服务系统是由医疗卫生服务机构通过自建、并购或签订合约等方式实现水平和垂直式整合后,所形成的为患者提供整合型卫生服务的系统。它遵循"以患者需求为中心"的理念,对于促进卫生资源的合理配置和利用,提高我国卫生服务的公平、效率和可及性具有十分重要的现实意义。     

Reasoning across continuous landscapes: A nonlinear dynamical systems theory approach to reasoning

Dual-processing theories of reasoning have gained renewed attention in recent years, particularly in the fields of decision-making under uncertainty, learning, and social judgment. Although the various accounts differ, the common thread is the distinction between two qualitatively different reasoning processes, such as automatic/controlled, fast/slow, and unconscious/conscious. Accordingly, much research is focused on elucidating the nature of the two processes in terms of the kinds of information they process and respond to. Less extensive are attempts to identify mediators that underlie changes between the two reasoning strategies. We argue that nonlinear dynamical systems theory may be able to provide a fresh perspective on reasoning. Nonlinear dynamical systems theory allows us to shift the perspective to the dynamic interactions and transitions among continuous yet qualitatively different reasoning processes. We apply the approach to reasoning in decision-making and judgment under uncertainty. Our primary claim is that using different reasoning strategies is better understood as phase transitions among a landscape of continuous reasoning capacities.     

Effects of task constraint on action dynamics

The actualization of action possibilities (i.e., affordances) can often be accomplished in numerous ways. For instance, an individual could walk over to a rubbish bin to drop an item in or throw the piece of rubbish into the bin from some distance away. The aim of the current study was to investigate the action dynamics that emerge from such under-constrained task or action spaces using an object transportation task. Participants were instructed to transport balls between a starting location and a large wooden box located 9 m away. The temporal interval between the sequential presentation of balls was manipulated as a control parameter and was expected to influence the distance participants moved prior to throwing or dropping the ball into the target box. A two-parameter state space derived from the Cusp Catastrophe Model was employed to illustrate how behavioral variability emerged as a consequence of the under-constrained task context. Two follow-up experiments demonstrated direct correspondence between model predictions and observed action dynamics as a function of increasing task constraints. Implications for modeling, the theory of affordances, and empirical studies more generally are discussed.     

From human to artificial cognition and back: New perspectives on cognitively inspired AI systems

We overview the main historical and technological elements characterising the rise, the fall and the recent renaissance of the cognitive approaches to Artificial Intelligence and provide some insights and suggestions about the future directions and challenges that, in our opinion, this discipline needs to face in the next years.     

Zur Rekonstruktion der Philosophischen Hermeneutik

Towards a reconstruction of philosophical hermeneutics. Following Nietzsche, Heidegger and, on the other hand, Cassirer and Wittgenstein, a philosophy of interpretation, i.e. a relativism of world-views, is at present increasing in continental as well as in analytical philosophy. From the basis of a critical fallibilism the shortcomings of the new epistemological antirealism are pointed out in general, and, hence, consequences are drawn for the more specialized case of metahermeneutics (hermeneutics being defined as a sort of pragmatical semiotics). A combination of realistic and antirealistic elements is recommended as unevitable. According to this, firstly, the key-concepts of hermeneutics must be differentiated, and, secondly, a fundamental set of criteria can be established that bridges the gap between metahermeneutics and hermeneutical practice.

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Der Artikel führt den überwiegend kritisch gerichteten Beitrag Thesen zur Philosophischen Hermeneutik, Internationale Zeitschrift für Philosophie 1993/1, 173–188 nach der konstruktiven und systematischen Seite hin weiter.     

A role for clinical psychology in health care and policy concerning the physical environment

Some persons adversely react to specific environments, while others are impervious or actually thrive. Medical attention often overlooks such sensitivities to the physical environment. Such sensitivities, including phobias and seasonal affectivity, fall within clinical psychology's purview. A theoretical/clinical approach called the Synchronous Systems Model, which defines and uses individual differences in people and in settings, could serve medical health care and policy. When specific people are matched appropriately with specific treatments within the most propitious settings, cost effectiveness and medical efficacy rise. Such documented accountability could make clinical psychologists central to triage of medical services as well as health care policy in these days of the shrinking health care dollar. The Synchronous Systems Model provides theory, supportive data, and clinical assessment devices to strengthen clinical psychology's role in medical settings.     

Systems measures of word use and differential diagnosis

This paper presents findings on the power of two systems measures of word use to discriminate four patient groups. The first is the slope of accumulated entropy or complexity of the sample (known to be logarithmic over time). The other is the average Poisson rate for the use of new words (known to be a Poisson process). The four groups consisted of cancer, depressed, paranoid, and somatization patients. The two word measures discriminate the first three groups from the fourth. There is evidence that larger samples will identify a similar discriminator for each of the first three groups from one another. The results are discussed in terms of how these methods may offer fresh insight into the relationship between language use and psychopathology.     

系统生物学引导阿尔茨海默病治疗新策略

阿尔茨海默病(AD)是一种发生于中老年期的退行性脑神经变性疾病,临床上以进行性智能衰退,伴有人格改变为主要特征.其发病过程涉及许多途径和靶点.现代医学认为脑内胆碱能递质功能紊乱、β-淀粉样蛋白沉积、tau-蛋白过磷酸化、炎症反应以及基因突变等在其发病过程中起着重要作用.治疗方法从胆碱酯酶抑制剂、神经递质受体阻滞剂到补气活血、益精填髓、化痰开窍等中医药疗法不等.但抑制剂、阻滞剂等药物阻滞疗法,从单一环节阻断发病途径,忽略了AD发病的整体复杂性.中医辨证论治从整体观念出发,在宏观上治疗AD,对AD的发病缺乏微观深入研究.AD治疗需要借助于“系统生物学”理论的指导.中西医结合为AD的治疗提供了较为科学、有效的途径和发展空间.