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A Neurolinguistic Theory of Bilingualism
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- This volume is the outcome of 25 years of research into the neurolinguistic aspects of bilingualism. In addition to reviewing the world literature and providing a state-of-the-art account, including a critical assessment of the bilingual neuroimaging studies, it proposes a set of hypotheses about the representation, organization and processing of two or more languages in one brain. It investigates the impact of the various manners of acquisition and use of each language on the extent of involvement of basic cerebral functional mechanisms. The effects of pathology as a means to understanding the normal functioning of verbal communication processes in the bilingual and multilingual brain are explored and compared with data from neuroimaging studies. In addition to its obvious research benefits, the clinical and social reasons for assessment of bilingual aphasia with a measuring instrument that is linguistically and culturally equivalent in each of a patient's languages are stressed. The relationship between language and thought in bilinguals is examined in the light of evidence from pathology. The proposed linguistic theory of bilingualism integrates a neurofunctional model (the components of verbal communication and their relationships: implicit linguistic competence, metalinguistic knowledge, pragmatics, and motivation) and a set of hypotheses about language processing (neurofunctional modularity, the activation threshold, the language/cognition distinction, and the direct access hypothesis).
The Aconceptual Mind
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- According to Heidegger, naturalistic thinking is naive and unable to deal with its own essence and limitations. It can only serve the veiled interests of modern Western technology in its inherent inclination to attain global dominance. But these eight thematically intertwined essays face Heidegger's critique of naturalistic thinking habits. The author develops a holistic and antirealistic version of naturalism. This 'holistic naturalism' does not approach nature as a set of entities or things which can be used for technological purposes. Instead, nature is approached as human experience which originally lacks conceptual structure and which can therefore not be fully controlled by a rational subject. (Series A)
Alignment in Communication
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- Alignment in Communication is a novel direction in communication research, which focuses on interactive adaptation processes assumed to be more or less automatic in humans. It offers an alternative to established theories of human communication and also has important implications for human-machine interaction. A collection of articles by international researchers in linguistics, psychology, artificial intelligence, and social robotics, this book provides evidence on why such alignment occurs and the role it plays in communication. Complemented by a discussion of methodologies and explanatory frameworks from dialogue theory, it presents cornerstones of an emerging new theory of communication. The ultimate purpose is to extend our knowledge about human communication, as well as creating a foundation for natural multimodal dialogue in human-machine interaction. Its cross-disciplinary nature makes the book a useful reference for cognitive scientists, linguists, psychologists, and language philosophers, as well as engineers developing conversational agents and social robots.
Analogy as Structure and Process
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- The concept of analogy is of central concern to modern cognitive scientists, whereas it has been largely neglected in linguistics in the past four decades. The goal of this thought-provoking book is (1) to introduce a cognitively and linguistically viable notion of analogy; and (2) to re-establish and build on traditional linguistic analogy-based research.
As a starting point, a general definition of analogy is offered that makes the distinction between analogy-as-structure and analogy-as-process.
 Chapter 2 deals with analogy as used in traditional linguistics. It demonstrates how phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and diachronic linguistics make use of analogy and discusses linguistic domains in which analogy does or did not work. The appendix gives a description of a computer program, which performs such instances of analogy-based syntactic analysis as have long been claimed impossible.
Chapter 3 supports the ultimate (non-modular) 'unity of the mind' and discusses the existence of pervasive analogies between language and such cognitive domains as vision, music, and logic.
The final chapter presents evidence for the view that the cosmology of every culture is based on analogy.
At a more abstract level, the role of analogy in scientific change is scrutinized, resulting in a meta-analogy between myth and science.
Animating Expressive Characters for Social Interaction
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- Animated interactive characters and robots that are able to function in human social environments are being developed by a large number of research groups worldwide. Emotional expression, as a key element of human social interaction and communication, is often added in an attempt to make them appear more natural to us. How can such artefacts be given emotional displays that are believable and acceptable to humans? This is the central question of Animating Expressive Characters for Social Interaction.
The ability to express and recognize emotions is a fundamental aspect of social interaction. Not only is it a central research question, it has been explored in animated films, dance, and other expressive arts for a much longer period. This book is unique in presenting a multi-disciplinary approach to animation in its broadest sense: from internal mechanisms to external displays, not only from a graphical perspective, but more generally examining how to give characters an "anima", so that they appear as life-like entities and social partners to humans. (Series B)
Anthropology of Color
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The field of color categorization has always been intrinsically multi- and inter-disciplinary, since its beginnings in the nineteenth century. The main contribution of this book is to foster a new level of integration among different approaches to the anthropological study of color. The editors have put great effort into bringing together research from anthropology, linguistics, psychology, semiotics, and a variety of other fields, by promoting the exploration of the different but interacting and complementary ways in which these various perspectives model the domain of color experience. By so doing, they significantly promote the emergence of a coherent field of the anthropology of color.
Now Open Access as part of the Knowledge Unlatched 2017 Backlist Collection.
Attention and Implicit Learning
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- Attention and Implicit Learning provides a comprehensive overview of the research conducted in this area. The book is conceived as a multidisciplinary forum of discussion on the question of whether implicit learning may be depicted as a process that runs independently of attention. The volume also deals with the complementary question of whether implicit learning affects the dynamics of attention, and it addresses these questions from perspectives that range from functional to neuroscientific and computational approaches. The view of implicit learning that arises from these pages is not that of a mysterious faculty, but rather that of an elementary ability of the cognitive systems to extract the structure of their environment as it appears directly through experience, and regardless of any intention to do so. Implicit learning, thus, is taken to be a process that may shape not only our behavior, but also our representations of the world, our attentional functions, and even our conscious experience. (Series B)
Awakening and Sleep–Wake Cycle Across Development
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- Sleep and wakefulness undergo important changes with age. Awakening, a crucial event in the sleep-wake rhythm, is a transition implying complex physiological mechanisms. Its involvement in sleep disturbances is also well known. This collective volume is the first attempt to systematically approach awakening across development.A methodological section considers criteria to define awakening in a developmental perspective. Theoretical considerations on development of wakefulness and on its relation to consciousness are included and provide a vigorous impulse to go beyond present criteria and classifications.
Age changes are the core of studies on development: a section of the book examines old and new data from preterm to infants up to children, underscoring the main turning points along this developmental path. As for other aspects of development, awakening and the sleep-wake cycle are also influenced by external factors, both physical and human. Several contributions deal with this topic, in particular focusing on the parent-infant interaction and the influences of culture.
Clinical contexts offer an opportunity to show both quantitative and qualitative changes of awakening and arousals in different pathological conditions. Either partial changes of one physiological variable or global and massive changes can be observed. (Series B)
Becoming Human
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- What do the pointing gesture, the imitation of new complex motor patterns, the evocation of absent objects and the grasping of others' false beliefs all have in common? Apart from being (one way or other) involved in the language, they all would share a demanding requirement – a second mental centre within the subject. This redefinition of the simulationism is extended in the present book in two directions. Firstly, mirror-neurons and, likewise, animal abilities connected with the visual field of their fellows, although they certainly constitute important landmarks, would not require this second mental centre. Secondly, others' beliefs would have given rise not only to predicative communicative function but also to pre-grammatical syntax. The inquiry about the evolutionary-historic origin of language focuses on the cognitive requirements on it as a faculty (but not to the indirect causes such as environmental changes or greater co-operation), pays attention to children, and covers other human peculiarities as well, e.g., symbolic play, protodeclaratives, self-conscious emotions, and interactional or four-hand tasks.
Being in Time
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- Given that a representational system's phenomenal experience must be intrinsic to it and must therefore arise from its own temporal dynamics, consciousness is best understood — indeed, can only be understood — as being in time. Despite that, it is still acceptable for theories of consciousness to be summarily exempted from addressing the temporality of phenomenal experience. The chapters comprising this book represent a collective attempt on the part of their authors to redress this aberration. The diverse treatments of phenomenal consciousness range in their methodology from philosophy, through surveys and synthesis of behavioral and neuroscientific findings, to computational analysis. This collection's broad scope and integrative approach, characterized by the view of the brain as a dynamical system that computes the mind's representation space, will be of interest to researchers, instructors, and students in the cognitive sciences wishing to acquaint themselves with the current thinking in consciousness research. Series B.
Beyond Dissociation
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- Analysis and dissociation have proved to be useful tools to understand the basic functions of the brain and the mind, which therefore have been decomposed to a multitude of ever smaller subsystems and pieces by most scientific approaches. However, the understanding of complex functions such as consciousness will not succeed without a more global consideration of the ways the mind-brain works. This implies that synthesis rather than analysis should be applied to the brain. The present book offers a collection of contributions ranging from sensory and motor cognitive neuroscience to mood management and thought, which all focus on the dissociation between conscious (explicit) and nonconscious (implicit) processing in different cognitive situations. The contributions in this book clearly demonstrate that conscious and nonconscious processes typically interact in complex ways. The central message of this collection of papers is: In order to understand how the brain operates as one integrated whole that generates cognition and behaviour, we need to reassemble the brain and mind and put all the conscious and nonconscious pieces back together again. (Series B)

Beyond Physicalism
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- Unlike standard attempts to address the so-called 'hard problem' of consciousness, which assume our understanding of consciousness is unproblematic, this book begins by focusing on phenomenology and is devoted to clarifying the relations between intentionality, propositional content and experience. In particular, it argues that the subjectivity of experience cannot be understood in representationalist terms. This is important, for it is because many philosophers fail to come to terms with subjectivity that they are at a loss to provide a convincing solution to the mind-body problem. In this light the metaphysical problem is revealed to be a product of the misguided attempt to incorporate consciousness within an object-based schema, inspired by physicalism. A similar problem arises in the interpretation of quantum mechanics and this gives us further reason to look beyond physicalism, in matters metaphysical. Thus the virtues of absolute idealism are re-examined, as are the wider consequences of adopting its understanding of truth within the philosophy of science.
This book complements the arguments and investigations of The Presence of Mind, which it partners. (Series A)
Bi-Directionality in the Cognitive Sciences
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- Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary study of the human mind. As far as the exact relationship between the cognitive sciences and other fields is concerned, however, it appears that interdisciplinary exchange often remains unrealized, possibly because of the uni-directional application of theories, concepts, and methods, which impedes the productive transfer of knowledge in both directions. In the course of the 'cognitive turn' in the humanities and social sciences, many disciplines have selectively borrowed ideas from 'core cognitive sciences' like psychology and artificial intelligence. The day-to-day practice of interdisciplinarity thus thrives on one-directional borrowings. Focusing on cognitive approaches in linguistics and literary studies, this volume explores bi-directionality, a genuine transdisciplinary interchange in which both disciplines are borrowing and lending. The contributions take different perspectives on bi-directionality: some extend uni-directional borrowing practices and point to avenues and crossroads, while others critically discuss obstacles, challenges, and limitations to bi-directional transfer.
Biological Foundations of Linguistic Communication
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- This is the second of two volumes – the first volume being Waltraud Brennenstuhl's Control and Ability (P&B III:4) – treating biocybernetical questions of language. This book starts out from an investigation of the (neuro-)biological relevancy of natural language from the point of view of grammar and the lexicon. Furthermore, the basic mechanisms of the self-organization of organisms in their environments are discussed, in so far as they lead to linguistic control and abilities.
Body Image and Body Schema
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- The body, as the common ground for objectivity and (inter)subjectivity, is a phenomenon with a perplexing plurality of registers. Therefore, this innovative volume offers an interdisciplinary approach from the fields of neuroscience, phenomenology and psychoanalysis. The concepts of body image and body schema have a firm tradition in each of these disciplines and make up the conceptual anchors of this volume.
Challenged by neuropathological phenomena, neuroscience has dealt with body image and body schema since the beginning of the twentieth century. Halfway through the twentieth century, phenomenology was inspired by child development and elaborated a specifically phenomenological account of body image and schema. Starting from the mirror stage, this source of inspiration is shared with psychoanalysis which develops the concept of body image in interaction with the clinic of the singular subject. In this volume, the creative encounter of these three perspectives on the body opens up present-day paths for conceptualisation, research and (clinical) practice. (Series B)
Brain and Being
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- This book results from a group meeting held at the Institute for Scientific Exchange in Torino, Italy. The central aim was for scientists to "think together" in new ways with those in the humanities inspired by quantum theory and especially quantum brain theory. These fields of inquiry have suffered conceptual estrangement but now are ripe for rapprochement, if academic parochialism is put aside. A prevalent theme of the book is a moving away from individual elements and individual actors acting upon each other, toward a coordinate hermeneutic dynamics that manifests as a coherent totality. Among the topics covered are image in photography and in neuroscience; language; time; brain and mathematics; quantum brain dynamics and quantum communication.
Caging the Beast
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- A major obstacle for materialist theories of the mind is the problem of sensory consciousness. How could a physical brain produce conscious sensory states that exhibit the rich and luxurious qualities of red velvet, a Mozart concerto or fresh-brewed coffee? Caging the Beast: A Theory of Sensory Consciousness offers to explain what these conscious sensory states have in common, by virtue of being conscious as opposed to unconscious states. After arguing against accounts of consciousness in terms of higher-order representation of mental states, the theory claims that sensory consciousness is a special way we have of representing the world. The book also introduces a way of thinking about subjectivity as separate and more fundamental than consciousness, and considers how this foundational notion can be developed into more elaborate varieties. An appendix reviews the connection between consciousness and attention with an eye toward providing a neuropsychological instantiation of the proposed theory. (Series A)
The Caldron of Consciousness
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These new studies by prominent neuroscientists, psychologists and philosophers work toward a coherent framework for understanding emotion and its contribution to the functioning of consciousness in general, as an aspect of self-organizing, embodied subjects. Distinguishing consciousness from unconscious information processing hinges on the role of motivating emotions in all conscious modalities, and how emotional brain processes interact with those traditionally associated with cognitive function. Computationally registering/processing sensory signals (e.g. in the occipital lobe or area V4) by itself does not result in perceptual consciousness, which requires subcortical structures such as amygdala, hypothalamus, and brain stem. This interdisciplinary anthology attempts to understand the complexity of emotional intentionality; why the role of motivation in self-organizing processes is crucial in distinguishing conscious from unconscious processes; how emotions account for 'agency'; and how an adequate approach to emotion-motivation can address the traditional mind-body problem through a holistic understanding of the conscious, behaving organism.
(Series B)
Categorical versus Dimensional Models of Affect
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One of the most important theoretical and empirical issues in the scholarly study of emotion is whether there is a correct list of "basic" types of affect or whether all affective states are better modeled as a combination of locations on shared underlying dimensions. Many thinkers have written on this topic, yet the views of two scientists in particular are dominant. The first is Jaak Panksepp, the father of Affective Neuroscience. Panksepp conceptualizes affect as a set of distinct categories. The leading proponent of the dimensional approach in scientific psychology is James Russell. According to Russell all affect can be decomposed into two underlying dimensions, pleasure versus displeasure and low arousal versus high arousal.
In this volume Panksepp and Russell each articulate their positions on eleven fundamental questions about the nature of affect followed by a discussion of these target papers by noted emotion theorists and researchers. Russell and Panksepp respond both to each other and to the commentators. The discussion leads to some stark contrasts, with formidable arguments on both sides, and some interesting convergences between the two streams of work.
Cognition Distributed
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- Our species has been a maker and user of tools for over two million years, but "cognitive technology" began with language. Cognition is thinking, and thinking has been "distributed" for at least the two hundred millennia that we have been using speech to interact and collaborate, allowing us to do collectively far more than any of us could have done individually. The invention of writing six millennia ago and print six centuries ago has distributed cognition still more widely and quickly, among people as well as their texts. But in recent decades something radically new has been happening: Advanced cognitive technologies, especially computers and the Worldwide Web, are beginning to redistribute cognition in unprecedented ways, not only among people and static texts, but among people and dynamical machines. This not only makes possible new forms of human collaboration, but new forms of cognition. This book examines the nature and prospects of distributed cognition, providing a conceptual framework for understanding it, and showcasing case studies of its development. This volume was originally published as a Special Issue of Pragmatics & Cognition (14:2, 2006).
Cognition and Technology
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- This new collection of contributions to the field of Cognitive Technology (CT) provides the (to date) widest spectrum of the state of the art in the discipline — a disciple dedicated to humane factors in tool design. The reader will find here a summary of past research as well as an overview of new areas for future investigations. The collection contains an extensive CT agenda identifying many as yet unsolved, CT-related, design issues. An exciting new development is the concept of 'natural technology'. Some examples of natural technologies are discussed and the merits of empirical investigations (into what they are and how they develop), of interest to cognitive scientists and designers of new (corrective, digital) technologies, are pointed out. Another distinctive feature of the collection is that it provides examples of scientists' tools; important, too, is its emphasis on ethics in tool design. The collection ends with a provocative coda (any responses can appear in the new, annual, CT forum of the Pragmatics and Cognition journal). The collection will appeal to all scientists, humanists and professionals interested in the interface between human cognitive processes and the technologies that augment them.
Cognitive Linguistic Studies
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- Cognitive Linguistic Studies is an interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, and transdisciplinary journal of cognitive linguistics, cognitive science, and cognitive neuroscience. It explores implications from and for psycholinguistic, computational, neuroscientific, cross-cultural and cross-linguistic research.

Cognitive Linguistic Studies provides a forum for high-quality linguistic research on topics which investigate the interaction between language and human cognition. It offers new insights not only into linguistic phenomena but also into a wide variety of social, psychological, and cultural phenomena. The journal welcomes authoritative, innovative cognitive scholarship from all viewpoints and practices.

Cognitive Semantics and Scientific Knowledge
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- The book focuses on the question of how and to what extent cognitive semantic approaches can contribute to the new field of the cognitive science of science. The argumentation is based on a series of instructive case studies which are intended to test the prospects and limits of the metascientific application of both holistic and modular cognitive semantics. The case studies show that, while cognitive semantic research is able to solve problems which have traditionally been the domain of the philosophy of science, it also encounters serious limits. The prospects and the limits thus revealed suggest new research topics which in future can be tackled by cognitive semantic approaches to the cognitive science of science.
Consciousness & Emotion
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The papers in this volume of Consciousness & Emotion Book Series are organized around the theme of "enaction." Enactive emotional processes are not merely the recipients of information or the passive victims of input and learning. The organism first is engaged in an ongoing, complex pattern of self-organizational activity, for the purpose of maintaining a dynamical continuity of pattern across changes of subserving micro-constituents and environmental conditions, making use of multiple shunt mechanisms, feedback loops, and other complex dynamical features. Self-organizational structure is used to distinguish between action and mere reaction. Accordingly, the papers of this volume by leading students of emotion such as Jaak Panksepp, Luc Ciompi, Thomas Natsoulas, Farzaneh Pahlavan, Michela Balconi, Todd Lubart, Louise Sundararajan, Jordan Petersen and others address three main issues:
I. Emotional influences on perception and thought
II. Agency and choice
III. Agency and moral value
Consciousness Emerging
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- This study of the workings of neural networks in perception and understanding of situations and simple sentences shows that, and how, distributed conceptual constituents are bound together in episodes within an interactive/dynamic architecture of sensorial and pre-motor maps, and maps of conceptual indicators (semantic memory) and individuating indicators (historical, episodic memory). Activation circuits between these maps make sensorial and pre-motor fields in the brain function as episodic maps creating representations, which are expressions in consciousness. It is argued that all consciousness is episodic, consisting of situational or linguistic representations, and that the mind is the whole of all conscious manifestations of the brain. Thought occurs only in the form of linguistic or image representations. The book also discusses the role of consciousness in the relationship between causal and denotational semantics, and its role for the possibility of representations and rules. Four recent controversies in consciousness research are discussed and decided along this model of consciousness:
• Is consciousness an internal or external monitoring device of brain states?
• Do all conscious states involve thought and judgement?
• Are there different kinds of consciousness?
• Do we have a one-on-one correspondence between certain brain states and conscious states.

The book discusses also the role of consciousness in the relationship between causal and denotational semantics, and its role for the possibility of representations and rules. (Series A)
Consciousness Evolving
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- A collection of stimulating studies on the past, the present, and the future of consciousness, Consciousness Evolving contributes to understanding some of the most important conceptual problems of our time. The advent of the modern synthesis together with the human genome project affords a platform for considering what it is that makes humans distinctive. Beginning with an essay that accents the nature of the problem within a behavioristic framework and concluding with reflections on the prospects for a form of immortality through serial cloning, the chapters are divided into three sections, which concern how and why consciousness may have evolved, special capacities involving language, creativity, and mentality as candidates for evolved adaptations, and the prospects for artificial evolution though the design of robots with specific forms of consciousness and mind. This volume should appeal to every reader who wants to better understand the human species, including its distinctive properties and its place in nature. (Series A)
Consciousness Recovered
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- This integrated approach to the psychology of consciousness arises out of Mandler's 1975 paper that was seminal in starting the current flood of interest in consciousness. The book starts with this paper, followed by a novel psychological/evolutionary theoretical discussion of consciousness, and then a historically oriented presentation of relevant functions of consciousness, from memory to attention to emotion, drawing in part on Mandler's publications between 1975 and 2000.
The manuscript is controversial; it is outspoken and often judgmental. The book does not address speculations about the neurophysiological/brain bases of consciousness, arguing that these are premature, and it is highly critical of philosophical speculations, often ungrounded in any empirical observations. In short it is a psychological approach — pure and simple.
Consciousness and Intentionality
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- Is there an internal relationship between consciousness and intentionality? Can mental content be described in such a way so as to avoid dualism? What is the influence of social context upon consciousness, conceptions of self and mental content?
This book considers questions such as these and argues for a conception of consciousness, mental content and intentionality that is anti-Cartesian in its major tenets. Focusing upon the rule governed nature of concepts and the grounding of the rules for concept use in the practical world, intentional consciousness emerges as a phenomena that depends upon social context. Given that dependence, the authors consider and set aside attempts to reduce human consciousness and intentionality to phenomena explicable at biological or neuroscientific levels. (Series A)
Consciousness and Object
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What is the conscious mind? What is experience? In 1968, David Armstrong asked "What is a man?" and replied that a man is "a certain sort of material object". This book starts from his question but proceeds along a different path. The traditional mind-brain identity theory is set aside, and a mind-object identity theory is proposed in its place: to be conscious of an object is simply to be made of that object. Consciousness is physical but not neural.
This groundbreaking hypothesis is supported by recent empirical findings in both perception and neuroscience, and is herein tested against a series of objections of both conceptual and empirical nature: the traditional mind-brain identity arguments from illusion, hallucinations, dreams, and mental imagery. The theory is then compared with existing externalist approaches including disjunctivism, realism, embodied cognition, enactivism, and the extended mind. Can experience and objects be one and the same?
Consciousness and Qualia
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- This is a philosophical study of qualitative consciousness, characteristic examples of which are pains, experienced colors, sounds, etc. Consciousness is analyzed as the having of qualia. Phenomenal properties or qualia are problematical because they lack appropriate bearers. The relation of having is problematical because none of the typical candidates for this relation — introspection, inner monitoring, higher level thoughts — is capable of explaining what it looks like to have a quale . The qualia problem is solved by introducing a bundle theory of phenomenal objects. Phenomenal objects are bundles of qualia. Thus there is no need for independent qualia bearers. The having problem is solved by introducing a bundle theory of the self. To have a quale is for it to be in the bundle one is. Thus no further relations are needed to explain how qualia are had. This study strives for phenomenological adequacy. Thus the first-person point of view dominates throughout. (Series A)
Consciousness and Self-Consciousness
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- This interdisciplinary work contains the most sustained attempt at developing and defending one of the few genuine theories of consciousness. Following the lead of David Rosenthal, the author argues for the so-called 'higher-order thought theory of consciousness'. This theory holds that what makes a mental state conscious is the presence of a suitable higher-order thought directed at the mental state. In addition, the somewhat controversial claim that "consciousness entails self-consciousness" is vigorously defended. The approach is mostly 'analytic' in style and draws on important recent work in cognitive science, perception, artificial intelligence, neuropsychology and psychopathology. However, the book also makes extensive use of numerous Kantian insights in arguing for its main theses and, in turn, sheds historical light on Kant's theory of mind. A detailed analysis of the relationships between (self-)consciousness, behavior, memory, intentionality, and de se attitudes are examples of the central topics to be found in this work. (Series A)
Consciousness, Emotional Self-Regulation and the Brain
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- During the last decade, the study of emotional self-regulation has blossomed in a variety of sub-disciplines belonging to either psychology (developmental, clinical) or the neurosciences (cognitive and affective). Consciousness, Emotional Self-Regulation and the Brain gives an overview of the current state of this relatively new scientific field. Several areas are examined by some of the leading theorists and researchers in this emerging domain. Most chapters seek to either present theoretical and developmental perspectives about emotional self-regulation (and dysregulation), provide cutting edge information with regard to the neural basis of conscious emotional experience and emotional self-regulation, or expound theoretical models susceptible of explaining how healthy individuals are capable of consciously and voluntarily changing the neural activity underlying emotional processes and states. In addition, a few chapters consider the capacity of human consciousness to volitionally influence the brain's electrical activity or modulate the impact of emotions on the psychoneuroendocrine-immune network. This book will undoubtedly be useful to scholars and graduate students interested in the relationships between self-consciousness, emotion, the brain, and the body. (Series B)
The Constitution of Phenomenal Consciousness
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- Philosophers of mind have been arguing for decades about the nature of phenomenal consciousness and the relation between brain and mind. More recently, neuroscientists and philosophers of science have entered the discussion. Which neural activities in the brain constitute phenomenal consciousness, and how could science distinguish the neural correlates of consciousness from its neural constitution? At what level of neural activity is consciousness constituted in the brain and what might be learned from well-studied phenomena like binocular rivalry, attention, memory, affect, pain, dreams and coma? What should the science of consciousness want to know and what should explanation look like in this field? How should the constitution relation be applied to brain and mind and are other relations like identity, supervenience, realization, emergence and causation preferable? Building on a companion volume on the constitution of visual consciousness (AiCR 90), this volume addresses these questions and related empirical and conceptual territory. It brings together, for the first time, scientists and philosophers to discuss this engaging interdisciplinary topic.
The Constitution of Visual Consciousness
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- This volume examines the neuroscience of visual consciousness, drawing on the phenomenon of binocular rivalry. It provides overviews of brain structure and function, the visual system, and neuroscientific methodologies, and then focuses on binocular rivalry from multiple perspectives: historical, psychophysical, electrophysiological, brain-imaging, brain stimulation, clinical and computational, with a glimpse also into the future of research in this exciting field. This is the first collected volume on binocular rivalry in nearly a decade and will be of special interest to researchers, scholars and students in the vision sciences, and more broadly in the psychological and clinical sciences. In addition, it lays foundations for a forthcoming interdisciplinary volume in this series on the constitution of phenomenal consciousness, making it essential reading for anyone interested in the science and philosophy of consciousness.
Constructing the Self
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- Constructing the Self analyzes the narrative conception of self, filling a serious gap in philosophy and grounding discussion in other disciplines. It answers the questions:
 • What are the connections between our interpretations, selfhood, and conscious phenomenal experience?

 • Why do we believe that our interpretations of our life-defining events are narrative in nature?

 • From the myriad of thoughts, actions, and emotions which constitute our experiences, how do we choose what is interpretively important, the tiny subset that composes the self?

By synthesizing the different approaches to understanding the self from philosophy of mind, developmental psychology, psychopathology, and cognitive science, this monograph gives us deeper insight into what being minded, being a person, and having a self are, as well as clarifies the difference and relation between conscious and unconscious mental states and normal and abnormal minds. The explication also affords new perspectives on human development and human emotion. (Series A)
Constructional Approaches to Language
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The series brings together research conducted within different constructional models and makes them available to scholars and students working in this and other, related fields.
The topics range from descriptions of grammatical phenomena in different languages to theoretical issues concerning language acquisition, language change, and language use. The foundation of constructional research is provided by the model known as Construction Grammar (including Frame Semantics). The book series publishes studies in which this model is developed in new directions and extended through alternative approaches. Such approaches include cognitive linguistics, conceptual semantics, interaction and discourse, as well as typologically motivated alternatives, with implications both for constructional theories and for their applications in related fields such as communication studies, computational linguistics, AI, neurology, psychology, sociology, and anthropology.
This peer reviewed series is committed to innovative research and will include monographs, thematic collections of articles, and introductory textbooks.
Controversies and Subjectivity
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- This collective volume focuses on two closely connected issues whose common denominator is the embattled notion of the subject. The first concerns the controversies on the nature of the subject and related notions, such as the concepts of 'I' and 'self'. From both theoretical and historical viewpoints, several of the contributors show how different and incompatible perspectives on the subject can help us understand today's world, its habits, style, power relations, and attitudes. For this purpose, use is made of insights in a broad range of disciplines, such as sociology, psychoanalysis, pragmatics, intellectual history, and anthropology. This interdisciplinary approach helps to clarify the multifaceted character of the subject and the role it plays nowadays as well as over the centuries.
The second issue concerns the subject in inter-personal as well as in intra-personal controversies. The enquiry here focuses on the ways in which different aspects of the subject and subjective differences affect the conduct, content, and rationality of controversies with others as well as within oneself on a variety of topics. Among such aspects, the contributors analyse the subject's emotions, cognitive states, argumentative practices, and individual and collective identity. The interaction between the two issues, the controversies on the subject and the subject of controversies, sheds new light on the debate on modernity and its alleged crisis.
Creative Confluence
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- Creative Confluence is a highly original work, building bridges between physics, biology, technology, economy, organizations, neuropsychology, literature, arts, and cultural history. It is an attempt to explain the process of creativity as a universal principle of nature, cutting through the composition of atoms as well as human design of novel combinations. Creative Confluence is yet another impressive book and a sequel to Epistemics of the Virtual, indicating that perception and imagination operate in close contact. In a clear and light tone, the work holds that rational problem-solving strategies are most relevant in deterministic problem spaces whereas creativity is pertinent in more probabilistic situations. Theories of creativity and innovation are explored by means of computer simulations. Conditionals that favor creativity such as diversity, tolerance, and openness are discussed, forwarding a compelling vision of creative leadership.
Curious Emotions
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- Emotion drives all cognitive processes, largely determining their qualitative feel, their structure, and in part even their content. Action-initiating centers deep in the emotional brain ground our understanding of the world by enabling us to imagine how we could act relative to it, based on endogenous motivations to engage certain levels of energy and complexity. Thus understanding personality, cognition, consciousness and action requires examining the workings of dynamical systems applied to emotional processes in living organisms. If an object's meaning depends on its action affordances, then understanding intentionality in emotion or cognition requires exploring why emotion is the bridge between action and representational processes such as thought or imagery; and this requires integrating phenomenology with neurophysiology. The resulting viewpoint, "enactivism," entails specific new predictions, and suggests that emotions are about the self-initiated actions of dynamical systems, not reactive "responses" to external events; consciousness is more about motivated anticipation than reaction to inputs. (Series A)
The Development of Implicit and Explicit Memory
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- This is the only book that examines the theory and data on the development of implicit and explicit memory. It first describes the characteristics of implicit and explicit memory (including conscious recollection) and tasks used with adults to measure them. Next, it reviews the brain mechanisms thought to underlie implicit and explicit memory and the studies with amnesics that initially prompted the search for different neuroanatomically-based memory systems. Two chapters review the Jacksonian (first in, last out) principle and empirical evidence for the hierarchical appearance and dissolution of two memory systems in animal models (rats, nonhuman primates), children, and normal/amnesic adults. Two chapters examine memory tasks used with human infants and evidence of implicit and explicit memory during early infancy. Three final chapters consider structural and processing accounts of adult memory dissociations, their applicability to infant memory dissociations, and implications of infant data for current concepts of implicit and explicit memory. (Series B)
Developmental Psycholinguistics
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- How do infants and young children coordinate information in real time to arrive at sentence meaning from the words and structure of the sentence and from the nonlinguistic context? This volume introduces readers to an emerging field of research, experimental developmental psycholinguistics, and to the four predominant methodologies used to study on-line language processing in children. Authored by key figures in psycholinguistics, neuroscience and developmental psychology, the chapters cover event-related brain potentials, free-viewing eyetracking, looking-while-listening, and reaction-time techniques, also providing a historical backdrop for this line of research. Multiple aspects of experimental design, data collection and data analysis are addressed in detail, alongside surveys of recent important findings about how infants and children process sounds, words, and sentences. Indispensable for students and researchers working in the areas of language acquisition, developmental psychology and developmental neuroscience of language, this volume will also appeal to speech language pathologists and early childhood educators.
Dialogue – The Mixed Game
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- The 'Mixed Game Model' represents a holistic theory of dialogue which starts from human beings' competence-in-performance and describes how language is integrated in a general theory of human action and behaviour. Human beings are able to adapt to changing conditions and to pursue their interests by the integrated use of various communicative means, mainly verbal, perceptual and cognitive. The core unit is the dialogic action game or 'the mixed game' with human beings at the centre acting and reacting in cultural surroundings. The key to opening up the complex whole is human beings' nature. The Mixed Game Model demonstrates how the different disciplines of the natural and social sciences and the humanities are mutually interconnected. After a detailed overview of the state of the art, the fundamentals of the theory are laid down. They include a typology of action games which ranges from minimal games to complex institutional games. The description is illustrated by analyses of authentic games.
Discourse, Vision, and Cognition
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- While there is a growing body of psycholinguistic experimental research on mappings between language and vision on a word and sentence level, there are almost no studies on how speakers perceive, conceptualise and spontaneously describe a complex visual scene on higher levels of discourse. This book explores the relationship between language, eye movements and cognition, and brings together discourse analysis with cognitively oriented behavioral research. Based on the analysis of data drawn from spoken descriptive discourse, spontaneous conversation, and experimental investigations, this work offers a comprehensive picture of the dynamic natures of language, vision and mental imagery. Verbal and visual data, synchronised and correlated by means of a multimodal scoring method, are used as two windows to the mind to show how language and vision, in concert, can elucidate covert mental processes.
Document Design
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- As of 2004 this journal has been merged with Information Design Journal.
Emotional Cognition
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- Emotional Cognition gives the reader an up to date overview of the current state of emotion and cognition research that is striving for computationally explicit accounts of the relationship between these two domains. Many different areas are covered by some of the leading theorists and researchers in this area and the book crosses a range of domains, from the neurosciences through cognition and formal models to philosophy. Specific chapters consider, amongst other things, the role of emotion in decision-making, the representation and evaluation of emotive events, the relationship of affect on working memory and goal regulation. The emergence of such an integrative, computational, approach in emotion and cognition research is a unique and exciting development, one that will be of interest to established scholars as much as graduate students feeling their way in this area, and applicable to research in applied as well as purely theoretical domains. (Series B)
Empiricism and the Foundations of Psychology
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- Intended for philosophically minded psychologists and psychologically minded philosophers, this book identifies the ways that psychology has hobbled itself by adhering too strictly to empiricism, this being the doctrine that all knowledge is observation-based. In the first part of this two-part work, we show that empiricism is false. In the second part, we identify the psychology-relevant consequences of this fact. Five of these are of special importance: (i) Whereas some psychopathologies (e.g. obsessive-compulsive disorder) corrupt the activity mediated by one's psychological architecture, others (e.g. sociopathy) corrupt that architecture itself.
 (ii) The basic tenets of psychoanalysis are coherent.
 (iii) All propositional attitudes are beliefs.
(iv) Selves are minds that self-evaluate.
And:
(v) It is by giving our thoughts a perceptible form that we enable ourselves to evaluate them, and it is by expressing ourselves in language and art that we give our thoughts a perceptible form. (Series A)
Epistemic Modality, Language, and Conceptualization
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- The relationship between language and conceptualization remains one of the major puzzles in language research. This monograph addresses this issue by means of an in depth corpus based and experimental investigation of the major types of expressions of epistemic modality in Dutch, German and English. By adopting a systematic functional orientation, the book explains a whole range of peculiarities of epistemic expression forms (synchronically and diachronically), and it offers a clear perspective on which cognitive systems are needed to get from the concept of epistemic modality to its linguistic expression. On that basis the author postulates a sophisticated, layered view of human conceptualization. This book is of interest both to scholars working on modality and related semantic dimensions, and to the interdisciplinary field of researchers concerned with the cognitive systems involved in language use.
Exploring Inner Experience
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- Written for the psychologist, philosopher, and layperson interested in consciousness, Exploring Inner Experience provides a comprehensive introduction to the Descriptive Experience Sampling (DES) method for obtaining accurate reports of inner experience. DES uses a beeper to cue participants to pay attention to their experience at precisely defined moments; participants are then interviewed to obtain high-fidelity accounts of their experience at those moments. Exploring Inner Experience shows (a) how DES uncovers previously unknown details of inner experience; (b) how the implications of this method affect our understanding of inner experience and the human condition more generally; (c) how DES avoids the traps that destroyed the introspections of the previous century; (d) why DES reports of inner experience should be considered reliable and valid; and (e) how to use the DES method. This book will be basic reading for all psychologists, philosophers, and students interested in consciousness, as well as anyone who is seriously concerned with understanding the human condition.(Series B)
Exploring the Self
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- The aim of this volume is to discuss recent research into self-experience and its disorders,and to contribute to a better integration of the different empirical and conceptual perspectives. Among the topics discussed are questions like 'What is a self?,' 'What is the relation between the self-givenness of consciousness and the givenness of the conscious self?','How should we understand the self-disorders encountered in schizophrenia?' and 'What general insights into the nature of the self can pathological phenomena provide us with?' Most of the contributions are characterized by a distinct phenomenological approach.
The chapters by Butterworth, Strawson, Zahavi, and Marbach are general in nature and address different psychological and philosophical aspects of what it means to be a self. Next Eilan, Parnas, and Sass turn to schizophrenia and ask both how we should approach and understand this disorder, and, more specifically,what we can learn about the nature of selfhood and existence from psychopathology. The chapters by Blakemore and Gallagher present a defense and a criticism of the so-called model of self-monitoring, respectively. The final three chapters by Cutting, Stanghellini, Schwartz and Wiggins represent anthropologically oriented attempts to situate pathologies of self-experience.
(Series B)
The Expressiveness of Perceptual Experience
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- A face strikes us immediately as sad, and so, too, do a mourner, a willow tree, a house on a prairie, and a group of onlookers. The spontaneous emergence of affective and other qualities of people, things, places, and events falls under the heading of physiognomy, a phenomenon discussed since at least Aristotle, and a key feature of evolutionary theory, psychology, and perception as well as professional practice ("profiling") and popular talk. However, physiognomy is a controversial topic because of a suspect history, and is often renamed as non-verbal communication.The Expressiveness of Perceptual Experience: Physiognomy Reconsidered examines this venerable, attractive, and contentious topic within the unique perspective of research-oriented psychology. Included are the processes involved, primarily perceptual; origins, mainly evolutionary; and social-cultural factors as supplements. Discussed within a holistic-experiential (phenomenological)-aesthetic framework are physiognomy's ties to the arts as well as emotions, synesthesia, learning, development, and personality. Empirical investigations are summarized, including the author's.


text:
Yesterday I read the news from an online news portal. The words May 13 caught my eye. Yes that date does that to Malaysians of my generation. What caught my attention next was this statement by the head of Umno Youth, Khairy Jamaluddin. He was reported as saying...
"In history, it is already written what happened in this tragedy; everyone also knows who was responsible for it."
The questions that immediately jumped into my simple mind were:-
a) Already written? By whom? Which version is the truth?
b) Everyone also knows who was responsible? Really? Who then?
This morning I trawled out this from somewhere on the Internet. It is purportedly a letter written by Malaysia's 1st Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra in 1972, 3 years after the May 13, 1969 racial riots.
"It was clear to me as well as the police that in the highly charged political atmosphere after the police were forced to kill a Chinese political party worker on May 4th, 1969, something was bound to happen to threaten law and order because of the resentment towards the Government by the KL Chinese on the eve of the general election. This was confirmed at this man's funeral on the 9th May when the government faced the most hostile crowd it had ever seen.Therefore, when the opposition parties applied for a police permit for a procession to celebrate their success in the results of the general election, I was adamant against it because the police were convinced that this would lead to trouble.I informed Tun Razak about this and he seemed to agree. Now, without my knowledge and actually"behind my back," there were certain political leaders in high positions who were working to force me to step down as a PM. I don't want to go into details but if they had come to me and said so I would gladly have retired gracefully.Unfortunately, they were apparently scheming and trying to decide on the best way to force me to resign.The occasion came when the question of the police permit was to be approved.Tun Razak and Harun Idris, the MB of the state of Selangor, now felt that permission should be given knowing fully well that there was a likelihood of trouble. I suppose they felt that when this happened they could then demand my resignation.To this day I find it very hard to believe that Razak, whom I had known for so many years, would agree to work against me in this way. Actually, he was in my house as I was preparing to return to Kedah and I overhead him speaking to Harun over the phone saying that he would be willing to approve the permitwhen I left. I really could not believe what I was hearing and preferred to think it was about some otherpermit. In any case, as the Deputy Prime Minister in my absence from KL, he would be the Acting PMand would override my objection. Accordingly, when I was in my home in Kedah, I heard over the radio that the permit had been approved.It seems as though the expected trouble was anticipated and planned for by Harun and his UMNO Youth. After the humiliating insults hurled by the non-Malays, especially the Chinese, and after the seeming loss of Malay political power to them, they were clearly ready for some retaliatory action. After meeting in large numbers at Harun's official residence in Jalan Raja Muda near Kampong Bahru and hearing inflammatory speeches by Harun and other leaders, they prepared themselves by tying ribbon strips on their foreheads and set out to kill Chinese. The first hapless victims were two of them in a van opposite Harun's house who were innocently watching the large gathering. Little did they know that they would be killed on the spot.The rest is history. I am sorry but I must end this discussion now because it really pains me as the Father of Merdeka to have to relive those terrible moments. I have often wondered why God made me live long enough to have witnessed my beloved Malays and Chinese citizens killing each other."
Now, I don't know if this letter from the Tunku is real or not but it also raises some other questions...
a) Does Khairy agree with the Tunku's version? "In history, it is already written..." ma.
b) Is Khairy calling the Tunku a liar because he (Khairy) knows exactly what happened? Everyone also knows who was responsible ma.
Hiyoh! Malaysian politics damn difficult to faham la.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
SMART Optimus 400GB Enterprise SSD Review
Final Thoughts
The SMART Optimus sets a standard with an approach that we expect to see much more of in the future. The future of SSD flash management is going to lean heavily towards adaptive flash interaction and DSP technologies. Dynamically learning from and adjusting the very NAND itself over the lifetime of the SSD brings unbelievable endurance from standard MLC. The exponential endurance gains from this type of technology are sure to be utilized among a wide variety of vendors as time progresses.
SMART feels like they are ahead of the game in this respect, helping to pioneer the technology has given them a great position early. Developing IP and already holding several patents in this arena serves to provide them the high ground in the high endurance MLC field.
With new higher-endurance versions of the SMART Optimus already in the pipeline, SMART is poised to deliver SLC-like endurance at close to MLC price points. The new Optimus Ultra+ is capable of a shocking 50 Drive Writes Per Day (DWPD) from simple everyday MLC NAND. This is approaching SLC endurance levels, according to our rough math this is nearly 90,000 IOPS from MLC NAND.
Providing SLC-like endurance from MLC NAND sounds like a magic trick or marketing hype at its finest. Breaking it down and looking at the various technologies that SMART has developed with the Guardian Technology Platform helps to understand the methods taken to ensure data reliability in the long run. Pairing these ultra-endurance parts with enterprise-class features and performance is important. The SMART Optimus delivers blazing speeds that are remarkably consistent in our test regimen. We observed very little variability in the course of our testing.
Dual Port SAS brings deployments into High-Availability environments into the picture, and the active-active dual port functionality provides up to 1GB/s from a single SSD. SAS also brings the advantages of the SCSI command set, which allows seamless use when pairing these SSDs with HBAs and other SCSI devices.
The 10 DWPD endurance offered by the Optimus is backed up with a five year warranty. Perhaps most impressive is the fact that SMART designs their SSDs to operate within 1% of performance variability over the service life of the device.
Several sales wins have brought the Optimus into the limelight. RAID, Inc. has recently integrated the Optimus into its EBOD Storage Solution touting 1 million IOPS and X-IO is integrating the SSD into the Hyper ISE 7-Series. Expect SMART to continue to develop the Optimus line extensively into the future. In concert with their extensive Tier-1 OEM customers, the Optimus should enjoy great success in the market.
With its innovative new approaches to adaptive flash management and increased endurance, we give the Optimus the TweakTown Editor's Choice Award.
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text:
Polar bears Frosty and Voda were swimming in snow this morning.
The Denver Zoo introduced them to the shipwreck added to their habitat today as heavy flakes swirled around the snow-loving pair.
The curious bears were all over the new addition to their home, the zoo said in a news release, looking for hidden food, climbing on it and playing with the attached balls and ropes.
"The shipwreck is a great way to stimulate natural behaviors in the bears," said Emily Insalaco, the Denver Zoo's manager of behavior programs. "We have seen more of some behaviors, such as foraging for food, digging and manipulating objects, but we have also seen more variety of behaviors, including vocalizing and a bouncing behavior that we usually only see them do on ice or with favorite toys."
One of the behaviors zookeepers were hoping to see is an ice-breaking behavior: In the wild, polar bears must push up and down with their front paws to break through ice and get to the food underneath. The zoo bears have shown this behavior several times on the shipwreck.
The male, Frosty, and female, Voda, have been joined on the shipwreck by Olaf, a male, and Soosha, a female.
The zoo said the $23,000 ship was assembled over days in the polar-bear habitat. It is made of steel and all-natural woods and finishes.


text:
This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 5th International Workshop on Machine Learning in Medical Imaging, MLMI 2014, held in conjunction with the International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention, MICCAI 2014, in Cambridge, MA, USA, in September 2014. The 40 contributions included in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 70 submissions. They focus on major trends and challenges in the area of machine learning in medical imaging and aim to identify new cutting-edge techniques and their use in medical imaging.Learning Distance Transform for Boundary Detection and Deformable Segmentation in CT Prostate Images Yaozong Gao1, 2, Li Wang1, Yeqin ... boundary is often ambiguous and hard to recognize, which leads to inconsistent manual delineations across different clinicians. ... Specifically, to automatically segment the prostate, we integrate the estimated boundary distance map into a level set formulation.
|Machine Learning in Medical Imaging
|Guorong Wu, Daoqiang Zhang, Luping Zhou
|Springer - 2014-09-05
You must register with us as either a Registered User before you can Download this Book. You'll be greeted by a simple sign-up page.
Once you have finished the sign-up process, you will be redirected to your download Book page.How it works:


text:
9 Ways to Know a Company is Living Its Values
It's not hard to identify companies that have violated their values. They're in the news, and not for good reasons. Just a few examples: Wells Fargo, Volkswagen, Toshiba, and Deutsche Bank.
What about the many companies that are not receiving negative media attention? How do we know they are not a problem waiting to be exposed?
We live in a time where confidence in business leaders is at an all time low. It might appear that no company can be trusted to live by their values.
Yet, the truth is there are many good companies doing good work. The leaders, managers, and employees at many businesses are living out their values every day. These companies will likely never be in the news for violating their values. Instead, they quietly go about their business, adding value to customers, providing a safe and enjoyable work environment for employees, and generating reasonable returns for shareholders.
Is there a way to identify such companies?
Indeed, there are various ways to determine if a company is living its values.
Signs a Company is Living by Its Values
Here are nine ways to know if a company is living by its values.
- All employees can state all of the values – by heart. They can also explain what each value means for the company, in practical ways. [Hint: this means there are only a few values, making it easy to remember]
- The values are often referenced and discussed. Values are not meant to just hang on the wall. They need to be discussed in the hall. (And in meetings, and with suppliers, and even with customers). As decisions are being considered, everyone is checking to see if they are aligned with the values.
- Decisions can be easily questioned by anyone. Protecting the integrity and future of the company is in the best interest of all employees. Also, when a decision is being questioned, the focus is on the topic, issue, or rationale, not the person (or people) who made it.
- Employees hold each other accountable for their behavior. Monitoring employee behavior is not the sole responsibility of the leaders. Peer-to-peer accountability is the best way to reinforce values.
- There are no lawsuits for violating the values. The leaders are also not being called before a congressional committee regarding questionable decisions or policies.
- Values are applied to everyone, including senior leaders. No one is exempt from having the values apply to them. In fact, a great testimony that values matter is when a senior leader (including the CEO) is openly reprimanded for violating a stated value.
- Values are part of employee reviews. One of the best ways to make values part of daily thinking and work habits is for employees to expect regular assessments of how their decisions and behaviors align with the company's values.
- Reward & recognition are aligned with values. The fact there is a defined reward & recognition program is the first good sign. The second is when the program rewards and/or recognizes decisions and behaviors aligned with stated values.
- There's a high regard for the integrity of the company (even if it's not a stated value). When customers, employees, suppliers, and even the community say good things about a company, it's a positive sign the company is living its values. Positive word-of-mouth is how great brands are built.
Ideally, a values-driven company is demonstrating all nine of these. But evidence of even a few of these signs is a good indication the company is trying to live by its values.
Simple put, if values are treated with high regard, the company can be too.
What are other ways to know a company is living its values?


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text: At Dial a Geek, we're here to help you focus on what you do best, by offering you all the benefits of in-house IT team at a fraction of the cost. We're experts at apprehending technical glitches and computer problems before they get the chance to affect productivity or performance. And with 30 years of combined experience supporting businesses of every size, we also know how to explain whats's wrong with your system without resorting to the usual geek jargon.


text:
Don't lower your expectations to meet your performance. Raise your level of performance to meet your expectations. Expect the best of yourself, and then do what is necessary to make it a reality. -Ralph Marston
Today's Newsletter:
· Last Night: More winning trade-calls! Crude Oil and Gold
· Markets Today: All markets moving lower… but will it last?
· News for Tomorrow: Red-Star News in Europe and US Session, Crude Oil Inventories
· Trading Opportunities: Selling Crude Oil, Waiting on Gold and Mini-Russell
Notes for Tonight's Newsletter:
· Gold Trade-Call: Short @ 1294.0, Profit-target at 1284.7 (winner)
· Crude Oil Trade-Call: Short @ 99.47, Profit-target at Lows (winner)
· Red-Star News in Europe and US sessions tomorrow
· Geo-political news still remains a big concern for the markets
· Markets appeared to be 'exhausted' today, we are watching the market-personality and price-action closely ahead of Wednesday's session
· Direction Bias = SHORT / Neutral
· Daily Chart: trading in the middle of the range, pushing lower
· Daily Chart: support at the lows of the price wedge @ 1265.8
· 16-Anchor Chart: short-term price wedge with bearish bias
· Profit-targets below @ 1281.0, 1274.5, 1267.9
Crude Oil:
· Direction Bias = SHORT
· Daily Chart: testing major support at price channel lows @ 97.12
· Entry short triggered today @ 8am @ 98.47
· Re-Entry opportunities @ 97.84, 98.03, 98.31 and 98.48
· Profit-targets @ 95.92 and 95.17
· Direction Bias = SHORT / Neutral
· Daily Chart: doji candle, balanced session near the range lows and support @ 1103.3
· 32-Anchor Chart: trading sideways with bias to the short-side
· 16-Anchor chart: trading sideways, waiting for new lower-lows below 1110.4 for more entries short down to 1103.1 and lows of the price channel.
· Profit-targets @ 1103.3, 1101.5, 1089.6 and 1084.6
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text:
Anna Haycraft (A.K.A. Alice Thomas Ellis)
The Post Vatican II Chesterton
The more I read of this lady, the more I like her. An English convert, raised a Secular Humanist. There must be something in that British water...
But anyhow, her criticism of the Second Vatican Council and it's subsequent "fruits" are just as thought provoking (and hilarious) as anything that good ol' Gilbert ever wrote. Just a few examples:
She declared that the Second Vatican Council had unleashed a "tide of sewage", and lashed out at guitars and ecumenical priests - all the "Protestantised happy-clappy stuff" which would end in the "triumph of Chaos and old night".
"Nowhere have I found any evidence of Vatican II having had a beneficial influence."
"In place of the old rigours we have sentimentality, confusion, untruth, meaningless talk of renewal and improvement, and sharing and caring where once these were taken for granted and practised in a specifically and recognisably Catholic fashion."
"Now the Church has lost its head, priests feel free to say what they think themselves, and they don't have any thoughts at all except for some rubbish about the brotherhood of man. They seem to regard Our Lord as a sort of beaten egg to bind us all together."
How she viewed The Church since Vatican II (and my personal favorite) - "It is as though one's revered, dignified and darling old mother had slapped on a mini-skirt and fishnet tights and started ogling strangers. A kind of menopausal madness, a sudden yearning to be attractive to all. It is tragic and hilarious and awfully embarrassing. And of course, those who knew her before feel a great sense of betrayal and can't bring themselves to go and see her any more."
On Ecumenism - "I have never been in favour of ecumenism, either wide or narrow, for it reminds me of those promiscuous bouquets concocted by florists wherein bullied blossoms, chronologically and geographically incompatible, wilt miserably.... It may seem like a sweet idea, but it doesn't work."
Her personal feelings on the post-conciliar Church, she found herself "in uncharted territory in an almost dreamlike state of disorientation, in an atmosphere so unfamiliar that it seemed unreal. New or re-ordered churches of Lutheran barrenness, all Catholic culture, all tradition lost."
On her on-going battle with ultra-liberal Liverpool Archbishop Derek Worlock (and this applies to every other cleric in Western Europe and North America) - "But look what he did for the ecumenical movement," his friends cry. "And look what he did to the Church," we respond....Ecumenism seems to mean taking something pure and strong, mixing it up with something weak and polluted, slashing it about, watching the churches empty and then congratulating yourself on your progress.
Was this gal great, or what? May His Perpetual Light shine upon you, Anna.


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US Navy Commissions Green Housing for Sailors
If you've ever spent any time in housing compounds on a US military base, you know that the homes occupied by soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines are... well, let's say "functional." The Navy, however, is breaking that mold with the release of its plans for Market Style Apartments, a housing community for its Naval Station Norfolk in Hampton Roads, Virginia. The plans for the complex emphasize creating an "...outstanding quality of life standards for its seamen," and for contractor VOA Associates Inc., this means incorporating green features into the development:
The architects have specified building products made from recycled materials, and the project will register for the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification. The design team is expecting a 20 percent energy reduction, utilizing insulated walls and windows. The community will be outfitted with low-flow fixtures, automated water shut-offs and efficient showerheads. In addition, the project is expected to meet the volatile organic compounds (VOC) limit for paints, sealants, carpets and other interior products.To top it off, there's nothing "olive drab" about the atmosphere designers want to build: "To create a visually pleasing landscape, VOA designed six courtyards surrounded by the residences to conceive a townhouse-style aesthetic." Officers may find it difficult to coax sailors back onto their ships... ::Multi-Housing News via Jetson Green


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Gorilla trademarketing
Donkey Kong is a world renowned gorilla from a computer game of Nintendo. And now also registered as a three-dimensional mark in the European Union. Other cartoon characters such as characters from Mario Bros have also been registered recently by Nintendo. Even the famous Pokeball has been filed as a trademark. Cartoon characters can take […]


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ANTITHESIS: What have been some of the responses to your book since its release?
HUBER: Well, the author is probably the last person to give you an objective answer to that, but I'll try... I'd say clearly the people who are very much opposed to the liability system as it now stands have agreed with me entirely and enjoyed it immensely. Equally clearly, the people at the other pole who like the liability system a lot have despised the book and have worked fairly hard to discredit the book. And I think the middle ground has been entertained and provoked a little bit by the book and have found some things to agree with and others to disagree with.
ANTITHESIS: It seem like there's also a moral perspective, a moral dimension involved here. What is your response to those plaintiffs' attorneys that recognize the problem, that recognize that the system is a money machine --it is a great way to fleece rather innocent defendants -- yet nevertheless go about making their living at this?
HUBER: The problem is overwhelmingly that the plaintiff P[ersonal] I[njury] attorneys have utterly persuaded themselves that they doing good by doing well. They sincerely believe in a wicked, unaccountable, callous corporate America. They don't like doctors. They don't like companies, large companies. They despise insurance companies. There is a very strong populist streak to them, a kind of "Let's get em somehow", and they sincerely believe they're on the side of the angels. I don't think they are.
What should one say to them? I think the most one can say to people in that position is this: When you truly and passionately believe you're on the side of the angels (and I suppose this extends to authors who make money writing books on the other side of the issue as well!) you should always stop and ask, "How objective am I? How objective can I be, when my livelihood depends so critically on this?" One needs to have a little bit of humility in this, and the simple fact is one does not become a successful PI lawyer by being humble.
I don't suppose one becomes a successful author by being humble either, so it cuts both ways. (laughter)
I think there's an incredible lack of introspection on their part. One wants to state this clearly without being so blunt, but the fact is they do tremendously well at this business. They make lots and lots of money. The richest of them make truly phenomenal amounts of money -- in the millions and tens of millions of dollars a year. While I have nothing against making money -- I think it can be a very commendable act and I'm in favor of it --you do have to sit back and ask, "Am I making this money in a way that's good for other people in my society or perhaps not for good?" As I conclude in my book, I sincerely believe that despite the best intentions and the constant repetition within the profession that they're doing a great thing in going after wicked people. I think at this point, with the system stretched to the limits that it's now at, they're doing more harm than good.
ANTITHESIS: Well, at the beginning of your book you discussed how the law of contract arose in the common law, in response to England's transition from a feudalistic to a mercantile society. Do you think the system we inherited from the 50's, 60's and 70's was likewise a response to the welfare state...
HUBER: Oh, very much so!
ANTITHESIS: ...the idea being to externalize the costs of the welfare state onto the private sector?
HUBER: Very much so. I think you have to be blunter. There were very strong collectivist "spread-the-wealth" instincts behind a lot of this. There was the notion that we've all got to hang together here, that a lot of individuals lack something or other -- the will or education or information needed to make wise choices for themselves -- and when people make foolish choices we can't just leave them lying bleeding in the streets. ... One has to put oneself back into the mindset of those days. All the other areas of the law were moving forward; it was a time of high optimism and social programs. And the tort lawyers got caught up in the excitement of it all and decided they were going to reform their little neck of -- what once had been a little neck of -- the woods. It was part of a move toward collectivizing a lot of rights and diffusing a lot of responsibilities, raising money more broadly and distributing it in ways thought wiser, more generous and more compassionate.
ANTITHESIS: Do you see any signs that make you hopeful? For example, the Nally v. Grace Community Church decision, where the California Supreme Court refused to create a new tort of "clergy malpractice".
HUBER: Oh, sure, there are some hopeful signs. In California -- especially since the California Supreme Court has changed substantially and it's a much more conservative court. There have been similar changes in Texas which are encouraging. Quite a few state legislatures are beginning to try and close down on this a little bit.
There are also some discouraging signs. There's a counter-revolution in progress that's trying to bring all of this back to the insurance companies and say, "Look. There's nothing wrong with the legal system. All we've got to do is put price controls on the insurance industry." ... I think some would very much like to see the state take over much of the insurance industry and run one giant kind of state pool of insurance. ... [A lot of people would like to eliminate risk factor categories entirely and] ... homogenize the insurance industry to the point where it becomes a state operation like Medicare. So those are some rather discouraging signs that move away from the market, away from treating individuals as individuals, toward a more collectivist notion.
ANTITHESIS: So then we haven't reached the end of this revolution by any means?
HUBER: Oh, no! It would be a very grave mistake to assume that the tort lawyers are running out of steam and will die a natural death if we just let them. (laughter) ... If one wants the system to stop, people are going to have to work at it affirmatively. It is very much a very self-perpetuating, self-fueling system because it's avaricious. Despite all its excesses we still have a huge economy out there that is potentially a target.
ANTITHESIS: Then if change is possible, if the plaintiff attorneys can be contained, from what sector of society do you see change coming from? The legislature?
HUBER: Well, profound change -- and we are talking about profound change -- ultimately has to come at every level. But I think if one has to name a first line, it will have to be in the state courts. They were the ones who brought us down this road primarily and it is the state judges who have the principal power to put a check on this.
I'd say the next most potent line of defense is the state legislature. Statutory restraint. They can, for instance, change things like joint and severable liability .... just in a stroke they can say it's no longer there and henceforth we will have responsibility proportional to actual fault; no more, no less. Also, and this is much more controversial, they can say, "Look. We recognize pain and suffering as real. But we also recognize that it's arbitrary. So we're going to put some limits on where these damages can go. Not because these limits are inherently just. But because a system without any order or limits is unquestionably unjust." They can change things like the rules of evidence to keep some of the "junk science" out of court.
And a very poor third line of defense, and I'd say they run about even, is either the U.S. Supreme Court or the U.S. Congress. Probably the U.S. Supreme Court can do a few tiny things like due process and punitive damages or rules of evidence in the federal courts. Congress can pass bills. It's had very little success in doing that, but theoretically stands there as well.


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Naughty Thailand monkeys vandalize polling stationRate this title
A large mischievous group of macaque monkeys in northern Thailand raided a Buddhist temple serving as a polling station and tore up paper voter lists.
In the bushes on the grounds behind the Wat Hat Mon Krabue Buddhist temple, which lies some 220 miles north of Bangkok, Thailand, there is much monkey business afoot. There resides a significant cluster of macaque monkeys, who generally don't get involved with politics, but a few days ago made their mysterious intentions known.
Monkeys invade polling station and destroy voter lists.
The temple's open hall has been used as a voting site many times in Thailand's history of national elections. This event marks the first occurrence of any kind of interference. This time, the hall was set up for an up-and-coming national vote on a proposed new constitution slated for August 7th.
Last week, more than 100 pig-tailed macaques dissidents invaded the temple and tore up one-third of the voter rolls. They didn't stop there and also demolished other important election-related documents, including voter instructions posted publicly for voters.
Why did the macaque monkeys attack this non-threatening voting station?
Thailand election officials were at a loss as to how to deal with the marauding and very undemocratic invaders. Some brought food and vegetables to the scene, but they proved ineffective and other measures, such as installing heavy glass doors, may need to be taken. Prayoon Jakkraphatcharakul, Phichit district's election official, told the Bangkok Post: "The glass cases should deter the monkeys, but if they are smart enough to find a way to open the door, that could be problematic."
Although no one can say for sure why the monkeys attacked the voter lists, Prayoon believes that the allure might have been their color, which was bright pink.
In his own words: "There were only a couple of lists left on the board by the time the police got there. Some of the monkeys were still even holding onto the papers."
Why is this up-and-coming election so important?
For the last two years, a junta government has ruled Thailand and activists have boldly defied the military, pushing publicly for a return to an egalitarian way of life. The government has enacted a law forbidding criticism either for or against the proposed referendum. The powers-that-be promise a harsh, 10-year prison sentence to all those who question the ruling. Although some brave citizens have dared to call their bluff and have been arrested, so far there have been no convictions.
Although it is not likely that the monkeys are secret agents for the junta aimed at destroying the right of citizens to vote in Thailand, one can only wonder about what they will pull next. Is the paper escapade only the beginning of the monkeys' bid for attention and expression, and will it influence the actions of dissident voters in the future? Perhaps time will tell. After all, monkey-see, monkey-do.


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April went so fast! In all honestly, life is going fast these days.
A bunch of my friends entered into relationships in April, which was scary - it hit me that I'm entering into a time of life where people start seriously looking for their significant other. That freaked me out a little, since I don't think I'm ready to enter that time of life, and I have so many things I want to do with my life, probably by myself.
My two week break speed by, with a bunch of friends having birthdays and there being parties to go to, on top of assignments. One weekend was a friends 20th, and the next we went camping for an 18th, both of which were a blast. I also got to catch up with my drama class from high school which was really cool. We were a pretty tight group and it was good to see each other and just have some laughs.
I've been working really hard on growing as a person this year, mostly into someone who is more positive and happy. Almost everyday I ask myself "if I was today, would I be happy with how I spent the last week? How would I want to change the way I'm using my time?". I feel happier, and less stressed, as I've stopped focusing on my grades so much. I've found a solid work/life balance.
So, 13 Reasons Why managed to use up 13 hours of my life in April, my main interest in it coming from having read the book. The show wasn't as good as the book, and it's a bit of a hard watch (for me, a lot of the topics hit home). It's been interesting to hear what everyone else thinks about it, and the amount of discussion about in New Zealand has been mind blowing.
Life is good, my human beans. University is good. Every day is special and a chance to do something cool for the people in your life. Let's make May a good one!