A Question of Character

2019 ◽  
pp. 28-52
Author(s):  
Quassim Cassam

This chapter focuses on epistemic vices that are character traits and, in particular, on the epistemic vice of closed-mindedness. The nature and significance of this epistemic vice is explained by reference of the failure of Israeli intelligence to anticipate the 1973 Yom Kippur surprise attack on Israel. Closed-mindedness is a high-fidelity epistemic vice, that is, one that requires a high degree of behavioural consistency. It is underpinned in many cases by a high need for closure and a low tolerance for ambiguity. Character accounts of epistemic vice are not undermined by situationism but they do need to acknowledge the insights of structuralism since flawed epistemic conduct can have structural as well as personal explanations.

Author(s):  
Hanjun Gao ◽  
Ming Qu ◽  
CaiKe Zhang ◽  
Kui Xu ◽  
PeiBang Liu ◽  
...  

The DCS simulator is a crucial component of FSS which is used for operator training and license examination. It is always divided into process control level (short for Level I) and supervisory control level (short for Level II). Among these, the Level II directly faces to operators and engineers. Therefore it requires a high degree of fidelity, reliability and good user experience. Be aimed at the requirement of the Level II, a high-fidelity simulation system based on MVC mode is constructed. And multiple technologies of self-dependent innovation and custom-built software are designed and developed, such as the data middleware, the configuration software, and the SimBase et al. The successful application in the HAINAN’s NPP proves that the DCS Level II’s simulator has a high fidelity, reliability, and accumulates valuable experiences for the development of our own DCS Level II as well.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Oziel

Case linkage is a statistical technique which connects multiple sexual assault cases to a single perpetrator and holds promise for informing criminal investigations. Further, examining the behaviours executed most consistently across serial offences committed by a given offender is crucial to linking offences. The current study investigated behavioural consistency in a sample of 49 male serial stranger sexual offenders responsible for 147 offences. For each offence, four crime aspects were identified: 1) pre-crime facilitators, 2) victim selection and characteristics, 3) approach and attack methods, and 4) crime scene characteristics. Consistency between and within each crime series and across offender types based on background characteristics was examined. Results indicated a high degree of behavioural consistency across all crime aspects. Behaviours occurring prior to the offence were particularly useful in establishing consistent offending patterns. The implications of these findings in the context of police investigations and their utility for clinical practice are discussed.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Oziel

Case linkage is a statistical technique which connects multiple sexual assault cases to a single perpetrator and holds promise for informing criminal investigations. Further, examining the behaviours executed most consistently across serial offences committed by a given offender is crucial to linking offences. The current study investigated behavioural consistency in a sample of 49 male serial stranger sexual offenders responsible for 147 offences. For each offence, four crime aspects were identified: 1) pre-crime facilitators, 2) victim selection and characteristics, 3) approach and attack methods, and 4) crime scene characteristics. Consistency between and within each crime series and across offender types based on background characteristics was examined. Results indicated a high degree of behavioural consistency across all crime aspects. Behaviours occurring prior to the offence were particularly useful in establishing consistent offending patterns. The implications of these findings in the context of police investigations and their utility for clinical practice are discussed.


2020 ◽  
Vol 636 ◽  
pp. 207-220
Author(s):  
MA Rodríguez-Malagón ◽  
LP Angel ◽  
CN Speakman ◽  
JPY Arnould

Animal diets often vary according to age, sex, experience and/or individual preferences, which, when maintained over time, can lead to behavioural consistency and individual specialisations within populations. In addition, behavioural and dietary similarity within breeding pairs confers reproductive benefits in some species. We investigated inter- and intra-individual variation in diet in Australasian gannets Morus serrator through analysis of voluntary regurgitations, blood plasma stable isotopes and reconstructed diets. Samples were collected from nesting adults (mostly partners) over 4 breeding seasons (2012-2015) at 2 colonies (Point Danger, PD; and Pope’s Eye, PE), 215 km apart and with divergent oceanographic conditions. Inter-individual variation in δ13C and δ15N values and reconstructed diets was associated with colony, year, breeding stage and sex. The diet of PD individuals was dominated by pelagic schooling prey species, whereas PE birds consumed a substantial amount of benthic/inshore species. Correspondingly, the proportional similarity in diet of individuals was greater at PD, where individuals foraged within a relatively uniform environment, than at PE, where birds had access to a greater diversity of foraging habitats. Intra-individual variation in isotopic values indicated that trophic consistency was higher over medium timescales (between breeding stages within breeding seasons) than longer timescales (between breeding seasons), in accordance with recently documented temporal patterns of behavioural consistency. Lastly, nest partners consumed prey of similar trophic level (δ15N values), although a high degree of similarity did not confer a reproductive advantage to nest partners, and the mechanisms for such similarity are unknown.


Open Mind ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katrina Ferrara ◽  
Sarah Furlong ◽  
Soojin Park ◽  
Barbara Landau

Previous studies have shown that adults are able to remember more than 1,000 images with great detail. However, little is known about the development of this visual capacity, nor its presence early in life. This study tests the level of detail of young children’s memory for a large number of items, adapting the method of Brady, Konkle, Alvarez, and Oliva ( 2008 ). Four- and six-year-old children were shown more than 100 images of everyday objects. They were then tested for recognition of familiar items in a binary decision task. The identity of the foil test item was manipulated in three conditions (Category, Exemplar, and State). Children demonstrated high accuracy across all conditions, remembering not only the basic-level category (Category), but also unique details (Exemplar), and information about position and arrangement of parts (State). These findings demonstrate that children spontaneously encode a high degree of visual detail. Early in life, visual memory exhibits high fidelity and extends over a large set of items.


Author(s):  
Adrian F. van Dellen

The morphologic pathologist may require information on the ultrastructure of a non-specific lesion seen under the light microscope before he can make a specific determination. Such lesions, when caused by infectious disease agents, may be sparsely distributed in any organ system. Tissue culture systems, too, may only have widely dispersed foci suitable for ultrastructural study. In these situations, when only a few, small foci in large tissue areas are useful for electron microscopy, it is advantageous to employ a methodology which rapidly selects a single tissue focus that is expected to yield beneficial ultrastructural data from amongst the surrounding tissue. This is in essence what "LIFTING" accomplishes. We have developed LIFTING to a high degree of accuracy and repeatability utilizing the Microlift (Fig 1), and have successfully applied it to tissue culture monolayers, histologic paraffin sections, and tissue blocks with large surface areas that had been initially fixed for either light or electron microscopy.


Author(s):  
Cecil E. Hall

The visualization of organic macromolecules such as proteins, nucleic acids, viruses and virus components has reached its high degree of effectiveness owing to refinements and reliability of instruments and to the invention of methods for enhancing the structure of these materials within the electron image. The latter techniques have been most important because what can be seen depends upon the molecular and atomic character of the object as modified which is rarely evident in the pristine material. Structure may thus be displayed by the arts of positive and negative staining, shadow casting, replication and other techniques. Enhancement of contrast, which delineates bounds of isolated macromolecules has been effected progressively over the years as illustrated in Figs. 1, 2, 3 and 4 by these methods. We now look to the future wondering what other visions are waiting to be seen. The instrument designers will need to exact from the arts of fabrication the performance that theory has prescribed as well as methods for phase and interference contrast with explorations of the potentialities of very high and very low voltages. Chemistry must play an increasingly important part in future progress by providing specific stain molecules of high visibility, substrates of vanishing “noise” level and means for preservation of molecular structures that usually exist in a solvated condition.


Author(s):  
P.R. Swann ◽  
A.E. Lloyd

Figure 1 shows the design of a specimen stage used for the in situ observation of phase transformations in the temperature range between ambient and −160°C. The design has the following features a high degree of specimen stability during tilting linear tilt actuation about two orthogonal axes for accurate control of tilt angle read-out high angle tilt range for stereo work and habit plane determination simple, robust construction temperature control of better than ±0.5°C minimum thermal drift and transmission of vibration from the cooling system.


Author(s):  
Willem H.J. Andersen

Electron microscope design, and particularly the design of the imaging system, has reached a high degree of perfection. Present objective lenses perform up to their theoretical limit, while the whole imaging system, consisting of three or four lenses, provides very wide ranges of magnification and diffraction camera length with virtually no distortion of the image. Evolution of the electron microscope in to a routine research tool in which objects of steadily increasing thickness are investigated, has made it necessary for the designer to pay special attention to the chromatic aberrations of the magnification system (as distinct from the chromatic aberration of the objective lens). These chromatic aberrations cause edge un-sharpness of the image due to electrons which have suffered energy losses in the object.There exist two kinds of chromatic aberration of the magnification system; the chromatic change of magnification, characterized by the coefficient Cm, and the chromatic change of rotation given by Cp.


Author(s):  
Robert F. Dunn

Receptor cells of the cristae in the vestibular labyrinth of the bullfrog, Rana catesbiana, show a high degree of morphological organization. Four specialized regions may be distinguished: the apical region, the supranuclear region, the paranuclear region, and the basilar region.The apical region includes a single kinocilium, approximately 40 stereocilia, and many small microvilli all projecting from the apical cell surface into the lumen of the ampulla. A cuticular plate, located at the base of the stereocilia, contains filamentous attachments of the stereocilia, and has the general appearance of a homogeneous aggregation of fine particles (Fig. 1). An accumulation of mitochondria is located within the cytoplasm basal to the cuticular plate.


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