It's not what you did, it's what you could have done

We are more likely to judge agents as morally culpable after we learn they acted freely rather than under duress or coercion. Interestingly, the reverse is also true: Individuals are more likely to be judged to have acted freely after we learn that they committed a moral violation. Researchers have argued that morality affects judgments of force by making the alternative actions the agent could have done instead appear comparatively normal, which then increases the perceived availability of relevant alternative actions. Across four studies, we test the novel predictions of this account. We find that the degree to which participants view possible alternative actions as normal strongly predicts their perceptions that an agent acted freely. This pattern holds both for perceptions of descriptive normality (whether the actions are unusual) and prescriptive normality (whether the actions are good) and persists even when what is actually done is held constant. We also find that manipulating the prudential value of alternative actions or the degree to which alternatives adhere to social norms, has a similar effect to manipulating whether the actions or their alternatives violate moral norms, and that both effects are explained by changes in the perceived normality of the alternatives. Finally, we even find that evaluations of both the prescriptive and descriptive normality of alternative actions explains force judgments in response to moral violations. Together, these results suggest that across contexts, participants’ force judgments depend not on the morality of the actual action taken, but on the normality of possible alternatives. More broadly, our results build on prior work that suggests a unifying role of normality and counterfactuals across many areas of high-level human cognition.

Plánované vysokorychlostní železnice v České republice a hlavní konkurenční dopravní módy

The paper deals with comparative analyses of the main competing transport modes in terms of the planned construction of high-speed rail / HSR. In the conditions of the Czech Republic, it is practically only bus transport and individual car transport (including relevant alternative types of transport). In this context, based on available data from traffic statistics, the existing traffic flows in passenger transport on the roads corresponding to the planned HSR routes are analysed. The main goal of the article is to present the results of comparative analyses of transport modes representing the most important potential competitors of the planned HSR and the subsequent synthesis of the obtained results. In accordance with the fact that the key destination is of course Prague, followed by Brno, especially their planned interconnection using HSR (assuming an adequate supply of a competitive solution) has greatest potential for shifting part of demand from bus but also from individual car transport to rail.

Saliva, a relevant alternative sample for SARS-CoV2 detection

BackgroundCurrently, COVID-19 diagnosis relies on quantitative reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) from nasopharyngeal swab (NPS) specimens, but NPSs present several limitations. The simplicity, low invasive and possibility of self-collection of saliva imposed this specimen as a relevant alternative for SARS-CoV-2 detection. However, the discrepancy of saliva test results compared to NPSs made of its use controversial. Here, we proposed to assess Salivettes®, as a standardized saliva collection device, and to compare SARS-CoV-2 positivity on paired NPS and saliva specimens.MethodsA total of 303 individuals randomly selected among those investigated for SARS-CoV-2 were enrolled, including 30 (9.9%) patients previously positively tested using NPS (follow-up group), 90 (29.7%) mildly symptomatic and 183 (60.4%) asymptomatic.ResultsThe RT-qPCR revealed a positive rate of 11.6% (n=35) and 17.2% (n=52) for NPSs and saliva samples, respectively. The sensitivity and specificity of saliva samples were 82.9% and 91.4%, respectively, using NPS as reference. The highest proportion of discordant results concerned the follow-up group (33.3%). Although in the symptomatic and asymptomatic groups the agreement exceeded 90.0%, 17 individuals were detected positive only in saliva samples, with consistent medical arguments.ConclusionSaliva collected with Salivette® demonstrated more sensitive for detecting symptomatic and pre-symptomatic infections.

Administration of Criminal Justice Act of Nigeria 2015

The quality of any legislation is determined chiefly by its ability to accurately communicate its intention as well as its capacity to meet the society’s expectations and needs at every point in time. Language is the tool of communication. Legislative competence requires a good mastery of the use of written language and the relevant techniques for translating legislative intent into properly structured sentences that serve the goal of the legislation. Nigeria’s Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) 2015 was long overdue and well received. It aimed at tackling the multi dimensioned problems that plagued the criminal justice system for decades. Through a desk review, this article examines certain legislative expressions in the Act. It finds that the Act is plagued by a significant measure of substantive and legislative expression gaps, which diminish its quality and negatively impact its implementation. The article proffers relevant alternative redrafts and suggestions. Its position is that if these gaps are not timely addressed, they may further affect the effective implementation of the Act. It, therefore, recommends the amendment of the Act along the line of the issues identified in the article, in addition to all other related issues in the Act.

Efficiency of PEG secondary concentration and PCR for the simultaneous concentration and quantification of foodborne bacteria, viruses and protozoa

ABSTRACT Fresh fruits are a potential source of many different pathogens, including bacteria, enteric viruses and protozoa that may pose serious health risks. The consumption of raspberries has been widely associated with large foodborne outbreaks and because of the low concentration at which most of these pathogens are found, sensitive and accurate detection methods are required. Methods that would allow for an accurate and sensitive simultaneous elution and concentration of the different classes of pathogens would decrease the time for analysis, the costs associated and the expertise necessary. In this study we explored the use of polyethylene glycol (PEG) secondary concentration to simultaneously concentrate bacteria, enteric viruses and protozoa from raspberries. PEG secondary concentration showed good recovery rates for all the organisms tested. This work indicates that PEG secondary concentration followed by quantitative (Reverse Transcription) Polymerase Chain Reaction (q(RT)PCR) may be a relevant alternative to standardized methods for the simultaneous concentration of bacteria, enteric viruses and protozoa.

Linguistic Conventionality and the Role of Epistemic Reasoning in Children’s Mutual Exclusivity Inferences

To interpret an interlocutor’s use of a novel word (e.g., “give me the papaya”), children typically exclude referents that they already have labels for (like an “apple”), and expect the word to refer to something they do not have a label for (like the papaya). The goal of the present studies was to test whether such mutual exclusivity inferences require children to reason about the words their interlocutors know and could have chosen to say: e.g., If she had wanted the “apple” she would have asked for it (since she knows the word “apple”), so she must want the papaya. Across four studies, we document that both children and adults will make mutual exclusivity inferences even when they believe that their interlocutor does not share their knowledge of relevant, alternative words, suggesting that such inferences do not require reasoning about an interlocutor’s epistemic states. Instead, our findings suggest that children’s own knowledge of an object’s label, together with their belief that this is the conventional label for the object in their language, and that this convention applies to their interlocutor, is sufficient to support their mutual exclusivity inferences. Additionally, and contrary to the claims of previous studies that have used mutual exclusivity as a proxy for children’s beliefs that others share their knowledge, we found that children — especially those with stronger theory of mind ability — are quite conservative about attributing their knowledge of object labels to others. Together, our findings hold implications for theories of word learning, and for how children learn about the scope of shared conventional knowledge.

Economics and the Shop Floor: Reflections of an Octogenarian

In 2000, the Post-Autistic Economics Newsletter began covering the resistance of French students against the “uncontrolled use of mathematics” in their discipline. The students spoke of a “need to liberate economics from its autistic obsession with formal models that have no obvious empirical reference.” (Post-Autistic Economics Newsletter, issue 3, 27 Nov 2000) In an earlier newsletter they had elaborated, too often the lectures leave no place for reflection. Out of all the approaches to economic questions that exist, generally only one is presented to us. This approach is supposed to explain everything by means of a purely axiomatic process, as if this were THE economic truth. We do not accept this dogmatism. We want a pluralism of approaches, adapted to the complexity of the objects and to the uncertainty surrounding most of the big questions in economics (unemployment, inequalities, the place of financial markets, the advantages and disadvantages of free-trade, globalization, economic development, etc.) (Post-Autistic Economics Newsletter, issue 2, 3 Oct 2000). The students did not object to economics being a science; they just wanted to make it empirically relevant. This search for an empirically relevant science of economics has been a hard slog, for if the effort to show the autistic nature of orthodox nomothetic neoclassical economics has been relatively easy, the search for a praxis relevant alternative has not. I suggest that in looking for empirical relevancy primarily through expansion into the social sciences, post-autistic economists have been looking in the wrong place. For empirical relevance they need to focus on the relationship between economics and the shop floor.