A Simple Incomplete Extension of T which is the Union of Two Complete Modal Logics with f.m.p.

I present here a modal extension of T called KTLM which is, by several measures, the simplest modal extension of T yet presented. Its axiom uses only one sentence letter and has a modal depth of 2. Furthermore, KTLM can be realized as the logical union of two logics KM and KTL which each have the finite model property (f.m.p.), and so themselves are complete. Each of these two component logics has independent interest as well.     

Persons,animals, and identity

The paper is concerned with how neo-Lockean accounts of personal identity should respond to the challenge of animalist accounts. Neo-Lockean accounts that hold that persons can change bodies via brain transplants or cerebrum transplants are committed to the prima facie counterintuitive denial that a person is an (biologically individuated) animal. This counterintuitiveness can be defused by holding that a person is biological animal (on neo-Lockean views) if the “is” is the “is” of constitution rather than the “is” of identity, and that a person is identical with an animal in a sense of “animal” different from that which requires the persistence conditions of animals to be biological. Another challenge is the “too many minds problem”: if persons and their coincident biological animals share the same physical properties, and mental properties supervene on physical properties, the biological animal will share the mental properties of the person, and so should itself be a person. The response to this invokes a distinction between “thin” properties, which are shared by coincident entities, and “thick” properties which are not so shared. Mental properties, and their physical realizers, are thick, not thin, so are not properties persons share with their bodies or biological animals. The paper rebuts the objection that neo-Lockean accounts cannot explain how persons can have physical properties. To meet a further problem it is argued that the biological properties of persons and those of biological animals are different because of differences in their causal profiles.     

U.S. Patent Policy: Crafting a 21st Century National Blueprint for Global Competitiveness

The paper begins with an overview of the legal, institutional, and public policy bases of the U.S. patent granting system and subsequently examines major deficiencies acknowledged in the existing U.S. patent system. The paper then catalogs the essence of four patent reform proposals of the Federal Trade Commission, the National Research Council, and academic economists (Jaffe/Lerner and Maskus), all of which focus on ameliorating alleged major weaknesses in the U.S. patent system. The paper concludes with an analysis of the above cited patent reform proposals, arguing for a proposed set of workable policy recommendations (reflecting recent changes in public policy) focused on patent cost controls, patent quality, patent uncertainty, and patent reform legislation, all designed to contribute to a globally competitive 21st century patent policy for the U.S. economy.

Plagiarism: Words and Ideas

Plagiarism is a crime against academy. It deceives readers, hurts plagiarized authors, and gets the plagiarist undeserved benefits. However, even though these arguments do show that copying other people's intellectual contribution is wrong, they do not apply to the copying of words. Copying a few sentences that contain no original idea (e.g. in the introduction) is of marginal importance compared to stealing the ideas of others. The two must be clearly distinguished, and the 'plagiarism' label should not be used for deeds which are very different in nature and importance.     

物体拓扑性质对背景线索效应的影响及其加工机制

背景线索效应是指在视觉搜索中由于场景的重复曝光而产生的行为便利。而以往研究关注于刺激的欧式性质所代表的属性信息对背景线索效应的影响, 然而在视知觉加工过程中扮演重要角色的拓扑性质对背景线索效应的影响仍缺乏相关实证研究。因此, 研究采用视觉搜索任务, 通过操控不同场景中刺激的拓扑性质或欧式性质的变化, 考察拓扑性质与欧式性质两种属性信息对背景线索效应的调制。结果发现：(1)拓扑性质和欧式性质与目标之间的联结关系均可促进行为反应, 获得背景线索效应; (2)视觉学习机制对拓扑性质的重复性更加敏感, 并且拓扑性质与目标之间联结关系的稳定性相对于欧式性质与目标之间的联结关系稳定性对于背景线索效应的获得具有更为重要的意义。     

从讲话者和听话者两个角度看韵律的句法解歧

综述了近年来韵律句法解歧方面的一些研究。首先介绍了韵律特征及其作用;其次,简单介绍了句法歧义及其加工模型;然后从讲话者和听话者两个角度,分析了讲话者在自然的情境中是否自发稳定的生成韵律线索,以及听话者是否能够即时的使用韵律信息引导最初的句法分析两个问题,并简要地阐述了汉语韵律和句法的独特特点以及国内的相关研究;最后,初步探讨了进行汉语相应研究应该注意的问题     

Chaos and self-organization: emergent patterns at critical life transitions

A feeling of chaos can accompany many real-life events over which we have little or no control, and latent developmental needs may create tension that manifests in symptoms of depression or anxiety. Particularly at critical life transitions, conflicts may arise which have no obvious solution. From an analytic perspective, recent scientific models from the area of complexity theory can prove illuminating as analogies to Jung's archetypal view of the individuation process. Throughout life, human beings, like many complex, open systems, pass from disordered phases to more complex stages of order. This paper shows how the scientific concept of self-organization can be compared with our physical and psychological developmental processes. From embryology, the model of the 'epigenetic landscape' (C.H. Waddington) is introduced as an analogy to Jung's individuation process, with a clinical example to illustrate these parallels. The emergent nature of behaviour and development is seen from the viewpoint of the organism as a dynamical system, and Jung's concept of the archetype viewed as an emergent property of the activity of the brain/mind.     

Dominions in quasivarieties of universal algebras

The dominion of a subalgebra H in an universal algebra A (in a class ) is the set of all elements such that for all homomorphisms if f, g coincide on H, then a^f = a^g. We investigate the connection between dominions and quasivarieties. We show that if a class is closed under ultraproducts, then the dominion in is equal to the dominion in a quasivariety generated by . Also we find conditions when dominions in a universal algebra form a lattice and study this lattice.Special issue of Studia Logica: Algebraic Theory of Quasivarieties Presented by M. E. Adams, K. V. Adaricheva, W. Dziobiak, and A. V. Kravchenko     

Strengthening the united states’ database protection laws: Balancing public access and private control

This paper develops three arguments for increasing the strength of database protection under U.S. law. First, stronger protections would encourage private investment in database development, and private databases have many potential benefits for science and industry. Second, stronger protections would discourage extensive use of private licenses to protect databases and would allow for greater public control over database laws and policies. Third, stronger database protections in the U.S. would harmonize U.S. and E.U. laws and would thus enhance international trade, commerce, and research. The U.S. should therefore follow the European example and develop two tiers of protection for databases: 1) protection for creative databases under copyright law; 2) protection for non-creative databases through a special type of sui generis protection. In order to balance private control of data and public access to data, sui generis protections should define a “fair use” exemption that permits some unauthorized extraction of data for private, educational, and research purposes, provided that such extraction does not adversely impact the economic value of the database.     

《管子》"道"、"德"的生命特性及对当代生态伦理建设的启示

在存在论的意义上,《管子》中的“道”、“德”是被作为重要的哲学范畴运用的,指生命产生的根源和生命存在的内在根据,二者是一体共在的关系。《管子》的“道”、“德”论揭示了人与万物在自然本性层面上的内在一体性和生态伦理的存在论维度,启示我们生态伦理应超越人与自然的外在关系,建立于人与自然内在关系的基础上。