The Representation of Gender and Inflectional Class in Italian: A Reply to Kučerová 2018

In a recent article, Kučerová 2018 (henceforth K18) puts forward a novel theory of the morphology and interpretation of nominal gender in Italian. This paper takes issue with this theory from both empirical and theoretical standpoints. We first show that several generalisations presented as empirical support for it are in fact incorrect. We then point out a series of fundamental challenges for the theory. First, the proposed three-way classification of nouns misrepresents the full range of facts, because it does not take into account plural morphology or the interdependencies of CLASS and GENDER features. Second, the account of gender mismatch in terms of “semiconservativity” fails to capture the Italian data, once the full paradigm is considered. Finally, K18’s use of Phase Theory to model contextual valuation of gender faces an insurmountable lookahead problem.

A novel theory of life and its implications on viruses and robots

A novel theory of life is proposed and its implications on the viruses and the future robots are discussed. The universal laws of physics are inferred phenomena that originate from the observed regularity in the physical realm. An apparent distinct feature of living beings compared to the nonliving ones is the presence of a higher level of regularity, which is indicative of a supplemental set of governing laws within the sphere of life. In this article a living or animate being is defined concisely as a natural entity whose internal changes and external behavior cannot be predicted by the universal laws and forces of physics alone at all times. Everything else is nonliving or inanimate. Likewise, life is defined as a supplemental set of laws and influences that act over a confined space which constitutes the domain of life, superimposed on the universal laws and forces of physics. Also, life is shown to be a field phenomenon like a quantum field, except that life pervades a bounded region rather than the entire spacetime. It is argued that life is an agency with causal power rather than an ordinary emergent property, and that a virus qualifies as a living being. The proposed field theory of life predicts that the future robots are unlikely to acquire life, and that the notion of highly intelligent future robots posing an existential threat to humanity is, in all likelihood, an illusion.

A word-based account of comprehension and production of Kinyarwanda nouns in the Discriminative Lexicon

What are the cognitive units in the mental lexicon of Bantu speakers, words or morphemes? The very small experimental literature addressing this question suggests that the answer is morphemes, but a closer look at the results shows that this is answer is premature. A novel theory of the mental lexicon, the Discriminative Lexicon, which incorporates a word-based view of the mental lexicon and is computational implemented in the Linear Discriminative Learner (LDL), is put to the test with a data set of 11180 Kinyarwanda nouns. LDL is used to model comprehension and production of the nouns in the data set. LDL predicts comprehension and production of nouns with great accuracy. We conclude that the cognitive units in the mental lexicon of Kinyarwanda speakers are words.

The effect of repertoire, routinization and enacted complexity: Explaining task performance through patterns of action

We use pattern mining tools from computer science to engage a classic problem in organizational theory: the relation between routinization and task performance. We develop and operationalize new measures of two key characteristics of organizational routines: repertoire and routinization. Repertoire refers to the number of recognizable patterns in a routine, and routinization refers to the fraction of observed actions that fit those patterns. We use these measures to develop a novel theory that predicts task performance based on the size of repertoire, the degree of routinization, and enacted complexity. We test this theory in two settings that differ in their programmability: crisis management and invoice management. We find that repertoire and routinization are important determinants of task performance in both settings, but with opposite effects. In both settings, however, the effect of repertoire and routinization is mediated by enacted complexity. This theoretical contribution is enabled by the methodological innovation of pattern mining, which allows us to treat routines as a collection of sequential patterns or paths. This innovation also allows us to clarify the relation of routinization and complexity, which are often confused because the terms routine and routinization connote simplicity. We demonstrate that routinization and enacted complexity are distinct constructs, conceptually and empirically. It is possible to have a high degree of routinization and complex enactments that vary each time a task is performed. This is because enacted complexity depends on the repertoire of patterns and how those patterns are combined to enact a task.

Order preserving hierarchical agglomerative clustering

Partial orders and directed acyclic graphs are commonly recurring data structures that arise naturally in numerous domains and applications and are used to represent ordered relations between entities in the domains. Examples are task dependencies in a project plan, transaction order in distributed ledgers and execution sequences of tasks in computer programs, just to mention a few. We study the problem of order preserving hierarchical clustering of this kind of ordered data. That is, if we have $$a<b$$ a < b in the original data and denote their respective clusters by [a] and [b], then we shall have $$[a]<[b]$$ [ a ] < [ b ] in the produced clustering. The clustering is similarity based and uses standard linkage functions, such as single- and complete linkage, and is an extension of classical hierarchical clustering. To achieve this, we develop a novel theory that extends classical hierarchical clustering to strictly partially ordered sets. We define the output from running classical hierarchical clustering on strictly ordered data to be partial dendrograms; sub-trees of classical dendrograms with several connected components. We then construct an embedding of partial dendrograms over a set into the family of ultrametrics over the same set. An optimal hierarchical clustering is defined as the partial dendrogram corresponding to the ultrametric closest to the original dissimilarity measure, measured in the p-norm. Thus, the method is a combination of classical hierarchical clustering and ultrametric fitting. A reference implementation is employed for experiments on both synthetic random data and real world data from a database of machine parts. When compared to existing methods, the experiments show that our method excels both in cluster quality and order preservation.

A critical examination of Piaget's theory of child mentality

This thesis represents an attempt to exmine critically the theory of child mentality put forward by Professor Jean Piaget of Geneva. By experiment and observation Piaget has collected much valuable data from the children attending the Maison des Petits de l'Institute Rousseau: his results together with a somewhat novel theory to explain them are contained in his four volumed "The Language and Thought of the Child," "Judgegment and Reasoning in the Child," "The Child's Conception of the world " and "The Child's conceptoin of Causuality."

A critical examination of Piaget's theory of child mentality

This thesis represents an attempt to exmine critically the theory of child mentality put forward by Professor Jean Piaget of Geneva. By experiment and observation Piaget has collected much valuable data from the children attending the Maison des Petits de l'Institute Rousseau: his results together with a somewhat novel theory to explain them are contained in his four volumed "The Language and Thought of the Child," "Judgegment and Reasoning in the Child," "The Child's Conception of the world " and "The Child's conceptoin of Causuality."

What’s the Point? A Presentist Social Functionalist Account of Institutional Purpose

Although it is clear that many of the major contemporary social problems center on the extent to which social institutions do or do not function as they are meant to do, it is still unclear exactly what the function of a social institution is—and thus when this function is undermined. This paper presents and defends a novel theory of social functionalism—presentist social functionalism—to answer these questions. According to this theory, the function of social institutions is grounded in those of their features that, in the current cultural environment, increase their chances to survive or reproduce. To bring out the fruitfulness of this account, the paper analyzes the (still controversial) question of the function of corporations, and shows that present social functionalism (a) points to the kinds of data that would be helpful to determine this function, (b) brings up hitherto overlooked theoretical possibilities, and (c) allows for the clearer assessment and handling of corporate corruption.

Cancer Evo–Dev: A Theory of Inflammation-Induced Oncogenesis

Chronic inflammation is a prerequisite for the development of cancers. Here, we present the framework of a novel theory termed as Cancer Evolution-Development (Cancer Evo-Dev) based on the current understanding of inflammation-related carcinogenesis, especially hepatocarcinogenesis induced by chronic infection with hepatitis B virus. The interaction between genetic predispositions and environmental exposures, such as viral infection, maintains chronic non-resolving inflammation. Pollution, metabolic syndrome, physical inactivity, ageing, and adverse psychosocial exposure also increase the risk of cancer via inducing chronic low-grade smoldering inflammation. Under the microenvironment of non-resolving inflammation, pro-inflammatory factors facilitate the generation of somatic mutations and viral mutations by inducing the imbalance between the mutagenic forces such as cytidine deaminases and mutation-correcting forces including uracil–DNA glycosylase. Most cells with somatic mutations and mutated viruses are eliminated in survival competition. Only a small percentage of mutated cells survive, adapt to the hostile environment, retro-differentiate, and function as cancer-initiating cells via altering signaling pathways. These cancer-initiating cells acquire stem-ness, reprogram metabolic patterns, and affect the microenvironment. The carcinogenic process follows the law of “mutation-selection-adaptation”. Chronic physical activity reduces the levels of inflammation via upregulating the activity and numbers of NK cells and lymphocytes and lengthening leukocyte telomere; downregulating proinflammatory cytokines including interleukin-6 and senescent lymphocytes especially in aged population. Anti-inflammation medication reduces the occurrence and recurrence of cancers. Targeting cancer stemness signaling pathways might lead to cancer eradication. Cancer Evo-Dev not only helps understand the mechanisms by which inflammation promotes the development of cancers, but also lays the foundation for effective prophylaxis and targeted therapy of various cancers.

Truth

This chapter generalizes the modal theory of reasons to the epistemic domain and combines it with an independently motivated and substantive commitment, namely, that truth and truth alone makes for right belief. The result is a novel theory of epistemic reasons, according to which a reason for believing a proposition is a fact which stands in a modally robust relation to the truth of that proposition, hence, a reliable indicator of its truth. The chapter then explores and defends a consequence of this, namely, that a person may believe all and any truths. It asks whether reflection on Moorean beliefs counts for or against the view.