UNIVERSAL PEDAGOGICAL VALUES AND THE PROBLEM OF THEIR RECOGNITION (BASED ON THE WORK OF K. S. LEWIS “ MAN IS CANCELED...”)

The question of the existence of universal pedagogical values is a cornerstone in pedagogy. The English writer and philosopher C. S. Lewis in his work “Man is canceled...” gives his own version of the justification of these values. He designates them through the concepts of“tao”and opposes the attitudes of transhumanism. Lewis believes that the basic values of education exist independently of modern pedagogical attitudes – they are universal and eternal. These values are a manifestation of the highest moral principles and are the absolute measure of modern pedagogical theories. Christiananthropological pathos K. S. Lewis ‘ idea is to reject transhumanism and to defend traditional values in pedagogy. The appeal to universal pedagogical values enshrined in the traditions of various cultures will allow overcoming the consequences of crisis phenomena in the spiritual and moral sphere of modern society, according to the author of the article.

Absolute measurement of cellular activities using photochromic single-fluorophore biosensors

Genetically-encoded biosensors based on a single fluorescent protein are widely used to visualize analyte levels or enzymatic activities in cells, though usually to monitor relative changes rather than absolute values. We report photochromism-enabled analyte quantification (PEAQ) biosensing, a method that lever-ages photochromic properties of biosensors to provide an absolute measure of the analyte concentration or activity. We develop photochromic variants of the popular GCaMP family of calcium ion biosensors, and show that these can be used to resolve dynamic changes in the absolute Ca2+ concentration in live cells. We also show how our method can be expanded to fast imaging with reduced illumination intensities or to situations where the absolute illumination intensities are unknown. In principle, PEAQ biosensing can be applied to other biosensors with photochromic properties, thereby expanding the possibilities for fully quantitative measurements in complex and dynamic systems.

ON THE MEANING OF THE TERM “GOODNESS” AND THE NOTABLE FALLACY OF J. Е. MOORE

There are counterarguments both to the objections of J. E. Moore’s argument “open question”: and to the statement of the question itself with the argument that it is impossible to reduce the essence of good (goodness) to objective characteristics (physical or metaphysical). It is shown that the meaning of the term “good” is not a concept, but a sign in a linguistic act, which indicates the relationship to a particular object in view of the accepted evaluation criterion, ie “good” means the actual evaluation (value of evaluation judgment). So it is pointless to look for an absolute measure of goodness by referring to any objective characteristics (as Moore argues), but there is also no “goodness” of goodness. The content of the evaluation criterion, on which the speaker relies, expressing his attitude to something as good is completely arbitrary and always relative. However, the adoption of a certain criterion is not neutral in terms of its consequences for those who accept such a criterion, because if such a criterion motivates actions that reduce the viability of the community that cultivates it, then the death of this community leads to the elimination of such criteria. Thus, communities are selected for mental attitudes, tested for compatibility with living conditions and competition in them for vital resources with other communities, for resistance to factors that destroy the mechanism of reproduction of the organized whole. The presented considerations open the way for a reliable naturalistic substantiation of moral norms in the paradigm of evolutionary ethics.

Southern Hemisphere Breeding Stock D humpback whale population estimates from North West Cape, Western Australia

Estimates of the abundance of Breeding Stock D humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) are key to the conservation and management of what is thought to be one of the largest populations of the species. Five years (2000, 2001, 2006, 2007 and 2008) of aerial surveys carried out over an eight-year period at North West Cape (Western Australia) using line transect methodology allowed trends in whale numbers to be investigated, and provided a base for comparison with estimates made approximately 400km south at Shark Bay (Western Australia). A total of 3,127 whale detections were made during 74 surveys of the 7,043km 2 study area west of NWC. Pod abundance for each flight was computed using a HorvitzThompson like estimator and converted to an absolute measure of abundance after corrections were made for estimated mean cluster size, unsurveyed time, swimming speed and animal availability. Resulting estimates from the migration model of best fit with the most credible assumptions were 7,276 (CI = 4,993–10,167) for 2000, 12,280 (CI = 6,830–49,434) for 2001, 18,692 (CI = 12,980–24,477) for 2006, 20,044 (CI = 13,815–31,646) for 2007, and 26,100 (CI = 20,152–33,272) for 2008. Based on these data, the trend model with the greatest r 2 was exponential with an annual increase rate of 13% (CI = 5.6%–18.1%). While this value is above the species’ estimated maximum plausible growth rate of 11.8%, it is reasonably close to previous reports of between 10–12%. The coefficient of variation, however, was too large for a reliable trend estimate. Perception bias was also not accounted for in these calculations. Based on a crude appraisal which yielded an estimated p(0) of 0.783 (from independent observer effort, CV = 0.973), the 2008 humpback population size may be as large as 33,300. In conclusion, the work here provides evidence of an increasing Breeding Stock D population, but further surveys are necessary to confirm whether the population is indeed increasing at its maximum rate.

Object Colours, Material Properties and Animal Signals

Colour is commonly regarded as an absolute measure of object properties, but most work on visual communication signals is concerned with colour differences, typically scaled by just noticeable differences (JNDs). Object colour solids represent the colour gamut of reflective materials for an eye. The geometry of colour solids reveals general relationships between colours and object properties which can explain why certain colours are significant to animals and evolve as signals. We define a measure of colour vividness, such that points on the surface are maximally vivid and the ‘grey’ centre is minimally vivid. We show that a vivid colour for one animal is likely to vivid for others, and highly vivid colours are less easily mimicked than less vivid colours. Further, vivid colours such as black, white, red, blue and light, unsaturated shades are produced pure or orderly materials. This kind of material needs to created and maintained against entropic processes that would otherwise degrade or destroy them. Vivid coloration is therefore indicative of ecological affordance or biological function, so that it is valuable to have attentional biases towards these colours regardless of any specific significance.

Absolute moisture content in mid-latitude urban canopy layer

This part of the study on absolute moisture content in the mid-latitude urban canopy layer first gives a comparison on intra-urban relative and absolute humidity patterns showing an example based on a long dataset. The comparison clearly demonstrates the usefulness of the utilization of absolute measure opposite to the temperature dependent relative one. This supports the earlier statements found in the literature albeit these statements are based on only case studies or short datasets. Then a short overview follows which presents the main results of studies about urban absolute moisture content. These studies focused mainly on urban-rural and less on intra-urban humidity differences. The scale differences are used for the grouping of studies based on the number of available measurement sites as well as their spatial distribution and density in the investigated urban regions.

Introduction

This chapter details the widely accepted standard approach to arterial spin labeling (ASL) acquisition and the associated analysis needed to extract an image of perfusion in the brain, also known as the cerebral blood flow (CBF). Starting with pairs of images with and without labeling, a perfusion-weighted image can be generated. With the addition of a calibration image, this can be converted to an absolute measure of perfusion. Following the recommendations of the community for ASL acquisition, this chapter outlines the main steps of subtraction, kinetic model inversion, and calibration required for analysis of ASL data.

How predictable are symptoms in psychopathological networks? A reanalysis of 18 published datasets

BackgroundNetwork analyses on psychopathological data focus on the network structure and its derivatives such as node centrality. One conclusion one can draw from centrality measures is that the node with the highest centrality is likely to be the node that is determined most by its neighboring nodes. However, centrality is arelativemeasure: knowing that a node is highly central gives no information about the extent to which it is determined by its neighbors. Here we provide anabsolutemeasure of determination (or controllability) of a node – its predictability. We introduce predictability, estimate the predictability of all nodes in 18 prior empirical network papers on psychopathology, and statistically relate it to centrality.MethodsWe carried out a literature review and collected 25 datasets from 18 published papers in the field (several mood and anxiety disorders, substance abuse, psychosis, autism, and transdiagnostic data). We fit state-of-the-art network models to all datasets, and computed the predictability of all nodes.ResultsPredictability was unrelated to sample size, moderately high in most symptom networks, and differed considerable both within and between datasets. Predictability was higher in community than clinical samples, highest for mood and anxiety disorders, and lowest for psychosis.ConclusionsPredictability is an important additional characterization of symptom networks because it gives an absolute measure of thecontrollabilityof each node. It allows conclusions about how self-determined a symptom network is, and may help to inform intervention strategies. Limitations of predictability along with future directions are discussed.