样例的概化水平对原理通达和运用影响的实验研究

用排列和组合原理为材料,探讨了编码样例解题步骤的子目标标签的概化水平对原理通达和运用的影响。实验1探讨不同概化水平的子目标标签编码样例解题步骤的情况下学习者原理通达的正确程度;实验2探讨不同概化水平的子目标标签编码样例解题步骤的条件下学习者原理运用的正确程度。结果表明：样例的概化水平影响原理学习过程中对原理的通达和运用;学习不同概括水平的样例,学习者获得图式的概括性也不同。     

Clinical trials: active control vs placebo — What is ethical?

The quest for effective medicines is very old. In modern times two important tools have been developed to evaluate efficacy of drugs: superiority and non-inferiority types of clinical trials. The former tests the null hypothesis of μ (the difference between a tested drug and comparator) ≤ 0 against μ > 0; the latter tests the null hypothesis of μ ≤ - Δ against, μ > - Δ, where Δ is the clinical difference from the comparator. In a superiority trial, a new drug is tested against a placebo; in a non-inferiority trial, a new drug is tested against active treatment. In this paper, arguments are presented to show that a superiority trial against a placebo is scientifically sound but ethically unacceptable, whereas a non-inferiority trial against active treatment is ethically sound but scientifically not reliable. Switching from a superiority type of trial with placebo to a non-inferiority trial with an active-control — following the latest revision of Declaration of Helsinki — is in practice switching from the violation of the uncertainty principle to uncertainty of results. Given human and financial resources, it appears an academic question as to which is more unethical: to violate patients’ rights or to produce results without scientific value. All presented considerations lead to the conclusion that the use of a superiority trial of design with an active control instead of placebo will satisfy scientific needs, expectation of patients, and the ancient quest for effective medicines. In the era of Good (Clinical, Laboratory, Manufacture) Practice, the attention of those performing clinical trials is focused on the procedure, not always on its essence. However even the excellent performance of a trial which is not worth doing is fruitless. An earlier version of this paper was presented at an international conference, “Placebo: Its Action and Place in Health Research Today,” held in Warsaw, Poland on 12–13 April, 2003.     

Response-restriction analysis: II. Alteration of activity preferences

We used response-restriction (RR) assessments to identify the preferences of 7 individuals with mental retardation for a variety of vocational and leisure activities. We subsequently increased their engagement in nonpreferred activities using several procedures: response restriction per se versus a Premack-type contingency (Study 1), supplemental reinforcement for engagement in target activities (Study 2), and noncontingent pairing of reinforcers with nonpreferred activities (Study 3). Results indicated that preferences are not immutable and can be altered through a variety of relatively benign interventions and that the results of RR assessments may be helpful in determining which types of procedures may be most effective on an individual basis.     

Judgments of Grammaticality of Japanese Sentences Violating the Principle of Full Interpretation

Two experiments investigated the linguistic intuition of Japanese speakers in which they judged the grammaticality of sentences violating Chomsky's principle of Full Interpretation. Experiment 1 used bitransitive sentences, which included an extra argument that assumed a role of either subjective, dative, or objective on the one hand and that specified semantically a preceding argument or stood in par with it on the other. Findings showed that the speakers judged ungrammatical sentences involving a dative or an objective extra argument as more grammatical than those involving a subjective extra argument. Ungrammatical sentences with an extra specified argument were judged more grammatical than those with an extra par argument when the extra argument was objective. Experiment 2 used sentences that included a verbal noun (VN) comprising a noun followed by a verb, shita (did). Ungrammatical VN sentences contained two arguments given the same objective marker. These sentences were judged to be highly grammatical despite the violation of the principle. Findings suggest that speakers' actual knowledge of language is not fully consistent with the knowledge they are alleged by Chomsky to possess, including the principle of Full Interpretation.     

What can we learn by looking for the first code of professional ethics?

The first code of professional ethics must: (1)be a code of ethics; (2) apply to members of a profession; (3) apply to allmembers of that profession; and (4) apply only to members of that profession. The value of these criteria depends on how we define “code”, “ethics”, and “profession”, terms the literature on professions has defined in many ways. This paper applies one set of definitions of “code”, “ethics”, and “profession” to a part of what we now know of the history of professions, there by illustrating how the choice of definition can alter substantially both our answer to the question of which came first and (more importantly) our understanding of professional codes (and the professions that adopt them). Because most who write on codes of professional ethics seem to take for granted that physicians produced the first professional code, whether the Hippocratic Oath, Percival’s Medical Ethics, the 1847 Code of Ethicsof the American Medical Association (AMA), or some other document, I focus my discussion on these codes. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

再论经济运行中政府制度行为的道德性

政府制度行为的根本目的就在于认同、尊重和保护市场经济运行中各个主体的合法利益,维护市场经济运行的正常秩序。但是市场经济条件下政府制度行为主体不是“经济阉人”,他们有着自己的效用函数,有着自己的价值追求,必定会影响到政府制度的制定和执行的道德合理性,这是关系到经济运行秩序是否道德公正的首要因素。政府制度的制定和执行是在一定的伦理原则支配下进行的,正确的制度伦理对经济运行秩序的健康发展有着重要的促进作用。     

Alcohol and nicotine intake and prenatal level of androgens measured by digit ratio

The purpose of this study was to examine the associations between using unhealthy substances and the digit ratio (2nd to 4th digit length ratio, 2D:4D) which is supposed to indicate the prenatal testosterone level. The subjects were 455 students, 225 women and 230 men. Participants declared their frequency of smoking and alcohol drinking. There was no significant difference in digit ratios between subjects regularly using both nicotine and alcohol and those who took none of them. When analyzing the two substances separately, there was no relationship between 2D:4D and alcohol drinking, whereas left hand 2D:4D was positively related to smoking only for women (nonsignificant trend was observed for right hand). Contrary to the previous study, our results indicate that there is no relationship between 2D:4D and alcohol drinking. There is, however, a subtle influence of prenatal testosterone levels for cigarette smoking habits in the case of women.     

A concise derivation of the contact conditions at a migrating sharp interface

A sharp interface model can be used to simulate the kinetics of diffusional phase transformations provided the transformation process is controlled by migration of the interface and by diffusion of components in the bulk phases only. The contact conditions at the migrating sharp interface can be derived by applying the principles of mass balance and maximum dissipation. A concise derivation of the contact conditions on this basis is presented in this work.     

Solute drag or diffusion processes in a migrating thick interface

Hillert proposed a new solute drag formula applicable not only to the migration of grain boundaries, but also to that of interfaces. Svoboda and co-workers derived an expression for the velocity of a migrating thick interface by applying the principle of maximum dissipation. In this article, it is shown that the expressions for the interface velocity, one obtained from Hillert's solute drag formula, and the other derived from the principle of maximum dissipation, are equal for steady-state conditions.     

Avicenna's Conception of the Efficient Cause

The concept of efficient causation originates with Aristotle, who states that the types of cause include ‘the primary source of the change or rest’. For Medieval Aristotelians, the scope of efficient causality includes creative acts. The Islamic philosopher Avicenna is an important contributor to this conceptual change. In his Metaphysics, Avicenna defines the efficient cause or agent as that which gives being to something distinct from itself. As previous studies of Avicenna's ‘metaphysical’ conception of the efficient cause attest, it takes God as a model agent. This essay considers whether Avicenna's ‘metaphysical’ conception of the efficient cause applies to natural agents. It ultimately argues that Avicenna offers a unified view of the efficient cause, which includes both divine and natural agents. On this view, an efficient cause gives being to another and is simultaneous with its effect. While Avicenna's defence of this view is an important chapter in the history of the concept of the efficient cause, it is also of interest in its own right. By appeal to a version of the principle of sufficient reason, it challenges a widespread view that causes are temporally prior to their effects.