Nyāya’s Response to Skepticism

The classical Indian school called Nyāya (literally “logic” or “right reasoning”), is arguably the leading anti-skeptical tradition within all of Indian philosophy. Defending a realist metaphysics and an epistemology of “knowledge sources” (pramāṇa), its responses to skepticism are often appropriated by other schools of thought. This paper examines its responses to skeptical arguments from dreams, from “the three times,” from justificatory regress, and over the problem of induction.

Standpoint Logic: Multi-Perspective Knowledge Representation

Ontologies and knowledge bases encode, to a certain extent, the standpoints or perspectives of their creators. As differences and conflicts between standpoints should be expected in multi-agent scenarios, this will pose challenges for shared creation and usage of knowledge sources. Our work pursues the idea that, in some cases, a framework that can handle diverse and possibly conflicting standpoints is more useful and versatile than forcing their unification, and avoids common compromises required for their merge. Moreover, in analogy to the notion of family resemblance concepts, we propose that a collection of standpoints can provide a simpler yet more faithful and nuanced representation of some domains. To this end, we present standpoint logic, a multi-modal framework that is suitable for expressing information with semantically heterogeneous vocabularies, where a standpoint is a partial and acceptable interpretation of the domain. Standpoints can be organised hierarchically and combined, and complex correspondences can be established between them. We provide a formal syntax and semantics, outline the complexity for the propositional case, and explore the representational capacities of the framework in relation to standard techniques in ontology integration, with some examples in the Bio-Ontology domain.

Author-sourced capture of pathway knowledge in computable form using Biofactoid

Making the knowledge contained in scientific papers machine-readable and formally computable would allow researchers to take full advantage of this information by enabling integration with other knowledge sources to support data analysis and interpretation. Here we describe Biofactoid, a web-based platform that allows scientists to specify networks of interactions between genes, their products, and chemical compounds, and then translates this information into a representation suitable for computational analysis, search and discovery. We also report the results of a pilot study to encourage the wide adoption of Biofactoid by the scientific community.

Literature and Cognitive Science

<p>The field of Literature and Cognitive Science is an emergent one. This thesis investigates ways in which knowledge generated about the brain and mind in the field of Literature can complement knowledge generated about the brain and mind in the field of Cognitive Science. The work of a representative selection of literary critics who identify themselves as working within and shaping the field of Literature and Cognitive Science will be examined, and the representation of brain-mind states in two contemporary novels, Haruki Murakami's Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World and Pat Cadigan's Tea from an Empty Cup, will be closely analysed. A principal aim of this investigation is to affirm the power of literary and literary critical texts as potent and relevant knowledge sources about the brain and mind that must be included in our understanding of cognition. In this respect it will support the position of those in the field of Literature and Cognitive Science who argue that knowledge created in the field of Literature can enrich the new understanding of human cognition being developed in the field of Cognitive Science.</p>

Literature and Cognitive Science

<p>The field of Literature and Cognitive Science is an emergent one. This thesis investigates ways in which knowledge generated about the brain and mind in the field of Literature can complement knowledge generated about the brain and mind in the field of Cognitive Science. The work of a representative selection of literary critics who identify themselves as working within and shaping the field of Literature and Cognitive Science will be examined, and the representation of brain-mind states in two contemporary novels, Haruki Murakami's Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World and Pat Cadigan's Tea from an Empty Cup, will be closely analysed. A principal aim of this investigation is to affirm the power of literary and literary critical texts as potent and relevant knowledge sources about the brain and mind that must be included in our understanding of cognition. In this respect it will support the position of those in the field of Literature and Cognitive Science who argue that knowledge created in the field of Literature can enrich the new understanding of human cognition being developed in the field of Cognitive Science.</p>

Foreign Technology Transfers in China

Innovation can be achieved via various channels, and the effectiveness of each channel depends on the stage of development as well as the local social-economic settings. Based on the concept that innovation is not only limited to invention but also characterized as a learning and adopting process, this chapter discusses the important role of foreign technology sources in China’s innovation path. Different types of foreign knowledge sources are reviewed, including trade, technology licensing, inward and outward foreign direct investment (FDI), internationalization of research and development (R&D), global value chain, and returnees. The discussion highlights the complementary effect between foreign knowledge sources and indigenous innovation efforts in fostering technological upgrading in China. To maximize the benefits from innovation and accelerate catching up, the explicit and well-focused encouragement of indigenous innovation and acquisitions of foreign knowledge must work in parallel.