No description available.

Reference is the relation held to obtain between an expression and what a speaker or thinker intends the expression to represent. Reference is a component of interpretation, the process of giving terms, sentences, and thoughts semantic content. An example of reference in a formal context involves the natural numbers, where each one can be taken to have a corresponding set-theoretic counterpart as its referent. In an informal context reference is exemplified by the relation between a name and the specific name-bearer when a speaker or thinker utters or has the name in mind. Recent debates over reference have concerned the mechanism of reference: How is it that we can refer? In informal contexts, externalists see the reference relation as explicable in terms of the salient causal relations involved in the naming of a thing, or a class of things, and the ensuing causal chains leading to a term’s use. Opponents of this view—internalists—see the reference relation as being conceptually direct, and they take the external approach to rely on untenable metaphysical assumptions about the world’s structure. Moreover, some internalists take the permutability—i.e. the consistent reinterpretation—of certain referential schemes to confound the externalist picture of reference. In this thesis I focus on the reference of theoretical terms in science, and I argue for an externalist treatment of natural kinds and other theoretical elements. Along the way I offer a defense of the externalist’s pre-theoretic metaphysical assumptions and emphasize their central role in the interpretation of scientific languages. The externalist approach acknowledges the necessary constraints on reference-fixing that account for the schemes we employ, and this, I argue, confounds the permutation strategy.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a debilitating condition that results from the experience of a traumatic event. Natural kinds are mind-independent entities found in nature and are the objects of scientific inquiry. It is common to deny that PTSD is a natural kind, but extant denials assume a thesis of natural kinds that can be called “essentialism”. According to essentialism, many entities are not natural kinds that one would expect should be natural kinds. The homeostatic cluster view of natural kinds offers an alternative that accommodates these cases, including, superficially, the claim that PTSD is a natural kind. I introduce two novel objections to this claim and recommend a distinction aimed to resolve the newly introduced problems.

Reference is the relation held to obtain between an expression and what a speaker or thinker intends the expression to represent. Reference is a component of interpretation, the process of giving terms, sentences, and thoughts semantic content. An example of reference in a formal context involves the natural numbers, where each one can be taken to have a corresponding set-theoretic counterpart as its referent. In an informal context reference is exemplified by the relation between a name and the specific name-bearer when a speaker or thinker utters or has the name in mind. Recent debates over reference have concerned the mechanism of reference: How is it that we can refer? In informal contexts, externalists see the reference relation as explicable in terms of the salient causal relations involved in the naming of a thing, or a class of things, and the ensuing causal chains leading to a term’s use. Opponents of this view—internalists—see the reference relation as being conceptually direct, and they take the external approach to rely on untenable metaphysical assumptions about the world’s structure. Moreover, some internalists take the permutability—i.e. the consistent reinterpretation—of certain referential schemes to confound the externalist picture of reference. In this thesis I focus on the reference of theoretical terms in science, and I argue for an externalist treatment of natural kinds and other theoretical elements. Along the way I offer a defense of the externalist’s pre-theoretic metaphysical assumptions and emphasize their central role in the interpretation of scientific languages. The externalist approach acknowledges the necessary constraints on reference-fixing that account for the schemes we employ, and this, I argue, confounds the permutation strategy.

No description available.

Varje dag utförs riskbedömningar inom rättspsykiatri och kriminalvård. Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka det vetenskapliga underlaget för riskbedömningar. Uppsatsen inleds med en kort beskrivning av i vilka sammanhang riskbedömningar används och den traditionella uppfattningen av hur området och instrumenten har utvecklats. Sedan följer en genomgång av olika studier som behandlar bedömningarnas träffsäkerhet generellt samt mellan olika generationer av bedömningar. Därnäst redovisas och framförs kritik mot validiteten i Psychopathy Checklist Revised (PCL-R, Hare, 1991) och dess tillämpning inom riskbedömningar. Avslutningsvis analyseras psykopatibegreppet utifrån Ian Hackings teorier om ”human kinds” och ”loopingeffekter” och det förs en kort diskussion av tänkbara konsekvenser av och farhågor kring användningen av PCL-R och psykopatibegreppet generellt. / Every day, forensic risk assessments are carried out. The aim of this thesis was to evaluate their scientific grounds. Initially, a short description of the contexts in which risk assesments are carried out, as well as a description of the historical development of risk assesment instruments are provided. A summary of evaluations of different types of risk assessments and their predictive validity is presented, followed by a critique on the validity of the Psychopathy Checklist Revised (PCL-R, Hare, 1991) and its use in risk assesments. The psychopathy construct is analysed in relation to Ian Hacking’s theories of human kinds and looping effects and potential risks and consequences of the application of PCL-R and the psychopathy construct are discussed.

No description available.

Submitted by Caroline Falcao (caroline.rfalcao@ufpe.br) on 2017-06-19T18:06:24Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 811 bytes, checksum: e39d27027a6cc9cb039ad269a5db8e34 (MD5) 2012-Dissertacao-Joselia-Costa.pdf: 1349636 bytes, checksum: 88cf55e2308a1c9c67f19704b47e3003 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-19T18:06:24Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 811 bytes, checksum: e39d27027a6cc9cb039ad269a5db8e34 (MD5) 2012-Dissertacao-Joselia-Costa.pdf: 1349636 bytes, checksum: 88cf55e2308a1c9c67f19704b47e3003 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-08-30 / O amor recentemente tornou-se, no campo empírico, objeto de investigação científica, embora tenha sido durante séculos,atributo de especulação de filósofos, poetas e compositores. Sua estrutura e dinâmica têm sido fonte de estudo de pesquisadores que se dedicam ao conhecimento de temáticas como relacionamentos românticos e sexualidade, referentes às relações interpessoais. Considerando que as transformações ocorridas referentes aos papéis e atitudes sexuais de homens e mulheres podem significar uma ruptura de papéis convencionais, sugerindo uma mudança de paradigmas e valores, o objetivo da presente dissertação é verificar a relação entre o fenômeno amor com a iniciativa sexual e com os valores humanos. Para tal, planejaram-se dois estudos. No primeiro, procurou-se verificar as relações existentes entre os componentes do amor (intimidade, paixão e compromisso), as sub-funções valorativas (existência, realização, normativa, supra pessoal, interacional e experimentação)e as dimensões da iniciativa sexual (afetividade/dependência e poder/independência). Este contou com a participação de 469 pessoas com idade média de 23 anos (amplitude de 17 a 73 anos)que responderam um livreto contendo a Escala Triangular do Amor de Sternberg (ETAS), o Questionário de Valores Básicos (QVB), e o Questionário de Iniciativa Sexual(QIS),bem como informações sócio-demográficas(sexo, nível de religiosidade, tipo de relacionamento). Os resultados evidenciaram que os três componentes do amor (intimidade, paixão e compromisso)se correlacionaram positivamente com a subfunção valorativa interacional. Quanto à iniciativa sexual o componente do amor paixão se correlacionou positivamente com a dimensão poder/independência. Já os componentes intimidade e compromisso se correlacionaram positivamente com a dimensão afetividade/dependência. O segundo estudo objetivou verificar a relação entre as representações dos participantes acerca de seus relacionamentos amorosos e as variáveis sócio-demográficas. Participaram deste estudo 349 indivíduos com idade média de 23 anos e em relacionamento estável. Constatou-se que somente as variáveis fixas nível de religiosidade, tipo e tempo de relacionamento demonstraram relevância na composição do espaço gráfico, haja vista a variável sexo não ter emergido no plano fatorial.Espera-se que todas as informações e os resultados encontrados possam contribuir para compreensão e para o avanço da pesquisa sobre este tema complexo e intrigante no âmbito das relações interpessoais, bem como forneçam dados para pesquisas futuras. / Love has recently become, at the empiric area, a scientific investigation goal, although during centuries it has been an speculation attribute for philosophers, poets and composers. Its structure and dynamism has been source of researches studies that dedicate themselves to the knowledge of subjects as romantic relationships and sexuality, related to interpersonal relationships.Considering that the transformations occurred on the roles and sexual attitudes of men and women may mean a rupture of conventional roles, suggesting a changing of paradigms and values, the goal of the present dissertation is to verify the relation between the love phenomena with the sexual initiative and the human values.For that, two studies were planned. At the first, it was sought to verify the relations existing between the love components (intimacy, passion andcommitment), the evaluative sub functions(preservation, promotion, normative, supra-personal, interactionaland experimential) and the sexual initiative dimensions (affectivity/dependencyand power/independency).This counted with the participation of 469 people at the average age of 23 years old(ranging from 17 to 73)who answered a booklet containing the Sternberg’s Triangular Love Scale (STLS), the Basic Values Questionnaire(BVQ), and the Sexual Initiative Questionnaire(SIQ),including alsosocio-demographic information(sex, level of religiosity, kind of relationship).The results showed that the three components of love (intimacy, passionand commitment) were positively correlated with the subfunction evaluativeinteractional. As long as the sexual initiative,the component of love passionwas positively correlated with the dimensionpower/independency. The components intimacy and commitment were positively correlated with the dimensionaffectivity/dependency.The second study aimedto investigate the relationbetween the representations of the participants about their love relationships and socio-demographic variables. Participants were 349 individuals at the average age of 23 years old and in a stable relationship. It was found that only the fixed variableslevel of religiosity, kind and timeof relationship showedrelevance in the composition of graphic space, once the variable sex didn’t emerged in the factorial plan.It is expected that all the information and the results founded may contributeto the comprehension and to the improvement of the research about this complex and intriguing theme in the interpersonal relationships area as well as supply data for future researches.

This thesis is focused on description, analysis and minimization of downtime periods related to electricity maintenance activities. In theoretical part various kinds of wasting are described, which can happen during the work of electrician. In the plant Ventily the most faulty machines were found out from analysis of records and appropriate solutions were proposed. In addition to this consecutive company profits were evaluated.

The automation of scientific discovery has been an active research topic for many years. The promise of a formalized approach to developing and testing scientific hypotheses has attracted researchers from the sciences, machine learning, and philosophy alike. Leveraging the concept of dynamical symmetries a new paradigm is proposed for the collection of scientific knowledge, and algorithms are presented for the development of EUGENE – an automated scientific discovery tool-set. These algorithms have direct applications in model validation, time series analysis, and system identification. Further, the EUGENE tool-set provides a novel metric of dynamical similarity that would allow a system to be clustered into its dynamical regimes. This dynamical distance is sensitive to the presence of chaos, effective order, and nonlinearity. I discuss the history and background of these algorithms, provide examples of their behavior, and present their use for exploring system dynamics. / Master of Science / Determining why a system exhibits a particular behavior can be a difficult task. Some turn to causal analysis to show what particular variables lead to what outcomes, but this can be time-consuming, requires precise knowledge of the system’s internals, and often abstracts poorly to salient behaviors. Others attempt to build models from the principles of the system, or try to learn models from observations of the system, but these models can miss important interactions between variables, and often have difficulty recreating high-level behaviors. To help scientists understand systems better, an algorithm has been developed that estimates how similar the causes of one system’s behaviors are to the causes of another. This similarity between two systems is called their ”dynamical distance” from each other, and can be used to validate models, detect anomalies in a system, and explore how complex systems work.