The Destiny of Creation: Theological Ethical Reflections on Laudato Si'

In this essay, I ask what the precise relation is between Laudato si's theology and its claims about our individual and corporate responsibility for the environment and the plight of the poor. To do so, I first clarify the relationship between the theological claims and its account of moral norms, situating the text within the history of western ethical theory. I then turn to reconstruct the submerged theology of the encyclical, focusing on Pope Francis's accounts of the techno‐economic paradigm and the possibility of an “integral ecology” paradigm. I end by assessing the text in terms of the coherence and plausibility of its argument as an ethical and theological statement.     

Reflection on metacognition in real life situations: the truth is out there

This article was prepared to extend the traditional view of metacognition to include the orientation of thematic and common features analyses of events in daily-life interactions. A brief historical development of metacognition was presented and discussed to pave the way for this new orientation. This heuristic conceptualization and direction of metacognition was realized and materialized due to research in deaf education. Metacognition, as presented in this article, dispelled misconceptions about the cognitive ability of individuals who live with deafness. It was viewed impetus for continued research.     

The effects of a public address system on the off-task behavior of elementary physical education students

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of teacher feedback delivered via a public address system on the off-task behavior of elementary-school physical education students. A multiple baseline design across three classes was used in this investigation. Results indicated a consistent decline in off-task behavior when the public address feedback system was used.     

A comparison of multiple reinforcer assessments to identify the function of maladaptive behavior

Functional analysis results indicated that maladaptive behaviors displayed by a 25-year-old man with profound mental retardation were maintained by attention from caregivers and possibly, to a lesser degree, by access to tangible items. A concurrent-schedules procedure was then used to study the relative reinforcing value for maladaptive behavior of attention versus tangible items. Results of the concurrent-schedules assessment and subsequent functional communication training indicated that preference for attention versus access to a tangible object varied.     

Evaluating the function of applied behavior analysis a bibliometric analysis

Analysis of scholarly citations involving behavioral journals reveals that, consistent with its mission, applied behavior analysis research frequently references the basic behavioral literature but, as some have suspected, exerts narrow scholarly influence.     

Drug discrimination under concurrent variable-ratio variable-ratio schedules

Pigeons were trained to discriminate 5 mg/kg pentobarbital from saline under concurrent variable-ratio (VR) VR schedules, in which responses on the pentobarbital-biased lever were reinforced under the VR schedule with the smaller response requirements when pentobarbital was given before the session, and responses on the saline-biased key were reinforced under the VR schedule with the larger response requirements. When saline was administered before the session, the reinforcement contingencies associated with the two response keys were reversed. When responding stabilized under concurrent VR 20 VR 30, concurrent VR 10 VR 40, or concurrent VR 5 VR 50 schedules, pigeons responded almost exclusively on the key on which fewer responses were required to produce the reinforcer. When other doses of pentobarbital and other drugs were substituted for the training dose, low doses of all drugs produced responding on the saline-biased key. Higher doses of pentobarbital and chlordiazepoxide produced responding only on the pentobarbital-biased key, whereas higher doses of ethanol and phencyclidine produced responding only on this key less often. d-Amphetamine produced responding primarily on the saline-biased key. When drugs generalized to pentobarbital, the shape of the generalization curve under concurrent VR VR schedules was more often graded than quantal in shape. Thus, drug discrimination can be established under concurrent VR VR schedules, but the shapes of drug-discrimination dose-response curves under concurrent VR VR schedules more closely resemble those seen under interval schedules than those seen under fixed-ratio schedules. Graded dose-response curves under concurrent VR VR schedules may relate to probability matching and difficulty in discriminating differences in reinforcement frequency.     

Concise formulas for the standard errors of component loading estimates

Concise formulas for the asymptotic standard errors of component loading estimates were derived. The formulas cover the cases of principal component analysis for unstandardized and standardized variables with orthogonal and oblique rotations. The formulas can be used under any distributions for observed variables as long as the asymptotic covariance matrix for sample covariances/correlations is available. The estimated standard errors in numerical examples were shown to be equivalent to those by the methods using information matrices.The author is indebted to anonymous reviewers for the corrections and suggestions on this study, which have led to improvements of earlier versions of this article.     

Sea lions and equivalence: expanding classes by exclusion

Experiments have shown that human and nonhuman subjects are capable of performing new arbitrary stimulus-stimulus relations without error. When subjects that are experienced with matching-to-sample procedures are presented with a novel sample, a novel comparison, and a familiar comparison, most respond by correctly selecting the novel comparison in the presence of the new sample. This exclusion paradigm was expanded with two California sea lions that had previously formed two 10-member equivalence classes in a matching-to-sample procedure. Rather than being presented with a novel sample on a given trial, the sea lions were presented with a randomly selected familiar member of one class as the sample. One of the comparisons was a randomly selected familiar member of the alternative class, and the other was a novel stimulus. When required to choose which comparison matched the sample, the subjects reliably rejected the familiar comparison, and instead selected the unfamiliar one. Next, the sea lions were presented with transfer problems that could not be solved by exclusion; they immediately grouped the new stimuli into the appropriate classes. These findings show that exclusion procedures can rapidly generate new stimulus relations that can be used to expand stimulus classes.     

Meaning and Circular Definitions

Gupta"s and Belnap"s Revision Theory of Truth defends the legitimacy of circular definitions. Circularity, however, forces us to reconsider our conception of meaning. A readjustment of some standard theses about meaning is here proposed, by relying on a novel version of the sense–reference distinction.