1,721,021 research outputs found
MATHEMATICAL PLURALISM AND SOME GENERIC ABSOLUTENESS RESULTS IN SET THEORY: A PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY
Full text linkThe forcing technique was discovered by Paul Cohen in the early sixties. Since then forcing has appeared to be a very powerful tool to provide independence results in Set theory. Actually, because of the foundational role played by Set theory with regard to the rest of classical mathematics, and because of the possibility to mimic from the standard axiomatic basis of Set theory, ZFC, the proof of the existence of almost any mathematical object, forcing has been applied to different areas of mathematics revealing to us the undecidability of many different important questions connected with different branches of mathematics.
Given the pervasive presence of the independence phenomenon in Set theory determined by forcing, a natural philosophical question arises: is forcing the ultimate horizon of Set theory, or is it (as a source of undecidability) to be considered as a pathology that needs to be neutralised? A special kind of results in Set theory, known in literature as generic absoluteness results, give mathematical substance to the perspective that the real challenge that the discovery of the forcing technique places to the set theorist, as well as to the philosopher of mathematics, goes beyond the idea that the right answer to questions such as the Continuum Hypothesis is given by computing the precise extent of their undecidability. In fact, when it is possible to relieve generic absoluteness for a certain mathematical structure, a different framework appears where forcing can be exploited and, so we may say, integrated into the practice of the mathematician as a strong tool for proving theorems. In chapter 1 of my dissertation I recall some main aspects of the forcing technique developed following the Boolean valued-models approach introduced by Scott, Solovay, and Vopenka starting from 1965. In chapters 2 and 3 I analyze some main motivations behind Viale's and Woodin's alternative strategies for producing generic absoluteness for the structure at the level of the Continuum problem. I try to stress, in particular, the essential use of the so-called forcing axioms that is inherent Viale's generic absoluteness results and that, to some extent, conflicts with Woodin's choice to introduce a strong logic as the appropriate setting for studying the possibility of generic absoluteness at the level of the Continuum problem. In chapter 4 I open the philosophical discussion and I try to correlate the pure mathematical phenomenon of generic absoluteness described in chapters 2 and 3 to the more general philosophical debate concerning the question of Pluralism in Set theory and the search for new axioms. Insofar as we are interested in spell out Viale's and Woodin's absoluteness results in terms of the right axiomatisation for the structure theory where the Continuum problem is expressible, I try to sketch an argument according to which the possibility to unify the two distinct theories offered by Viale and Woodin emerges as one of notable philosophical importance
Involvement of brain serotonergic system in the antinociceptive action of acetylsalicylic acid in the rat
No full textThe pain-threshold in the hot-plate test and serotonin (5-HT) receptor binding capacity in the cortex and pontine areas of rat brain were studied after intraperitoneal (ip) administration of acetyl salicylate of lysine equivalent to 400 mg/kg of acetylsalicylic acid (ASA). The antinociceptive activity of ASA was prevented by ip pre-treatment with Parachlorophenylalanine (PCPA) at the rate of 100 mg/kg/day for 4 days. PCPA pre-treatment increased the number of 5-HT receptors and abolished the ASA-induced reduction in 5-HT receptor binding capacity in the cortex but did not affect serum salicylate levels. These results provide support for the hypothesis that the antinociceptive action of ASA, at least in the hot-plate test, involves the central serotonergic system
Duble-dissociation in working memory load effects induced by differential bilateral hemispheric modulations: a parietal tDCS study.
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Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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