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This précis provides a summary of the book, What's the Use of Philosophy? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Realistic and interactive visualization of individual trees is a desirable functionality in numerous applications for landscape planning, ecosystem simulations, and forest management. However, achieving a persuasive visualization of extensive forests while maintaining an interactive experience remains a challenge. This paper introduces a new framework for a convincing and interactive visualization of large-scale forests originating from forest growth simulation. First, the GPU-based self-organizing tree synthesis algorithm is adapted to produce detailed tree models on-the-fly with the desired level of detail and at interactive rates. Next, the algorithm is enhanced to generate tree models corresponding to the forest simulation results and local growth conditions. Finally, a forest succession model, based on single trees, is linked to the tree synthesis algorithm, to produce detailed tree models that concur with the results of forest simulation. The results demonstrate that the generated trees follow predicted height from forest simulation, are adapted to their neighbors properly, and retain the typical form of the corresponding species. A decimation technique, integrated directly into tree geometry construction, lowers memory requirements for interactive visualization of forests containing thousands of trees. Finally, a combination of the GPU-based tree synthesis and load balancing enables interactive tree synthesis in-between individual frames. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to introduce a new approach for the synthesis and analysis of multidimensional poverty and well-being indicators. Our general perspective is inspired by the theoretical foundations of the capability approach and sustainable human development paradigm. The new synthesis of indicators aims at monitoring outcomes of units of interest. Its defining features include: full sensitiveness, continuity, flexibility in substitution between dimensions, and the straightforward interpretation of the results. All these properties are obtained through a transparent and accountable process that is fully open to public scrutiny and reason (as suggested by Amartya Sen). The main contribution of this approach is that the degree of substitutability between dimensions can be directly linked to the general level of well-being of a person, which addresses the so-called 'inescapable arbitrariness' issue discussed by Anand and Sen (Concepts of human development and poverty: a multidimensional perspective. Human Development Papers. UNDP, New York, 1997). The new synthesis proposed opens up new possibilities for different types of applications, including monitoring and evaluating development programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Synthesis is the automated construction of a system from its specification. The system has to satisfy its specification in all possible environments. The environment often consists of agents that have objectives of their own. Thus, it makes sense to soften the universal quantification on the behavior of the environment and take the objectives of its underlying agents into an account. Fisman et al. introduced rational synthesis: the problem of synthesis in the context of rational agents. The input to the problem consists of temporal logic formulas specifying the objectives of the system and the agents that constitute the environment, and a solution concept (e.g., Nash equilibrium). The output is a profile of strategies, for the system and the agents, such that the objective of the system is satisfied in the computation that is the outcome of the strategies, and the profile is stable according to the solution concept; that is, the agents that constitute the environment have no incentive to deviate from the strategies suggested to them. In this paper we continue to study rational synthesis. First, we suggest an alternative definition to rational synthesis, in which the agents are rational but not cooperative. We call such problem strong rational synthesis. In the strong rational synthesis setting, one cannot assume that the agents that constitute the environment take into account the strategies suggested to them. Accordingly, the output is a strategy for the system only, and the objective of the system has to be satisfied in all the compositions that are the outcome of a stable profile in which the system follows this strategy. We show that strong rational synthesis is 2 ExpTime-complete, thus it is not more complex than traditional synthesis or rational synthesis. Second, we study a richer specification formalism, where the objectives of the system and the agents are not Boolean but quantitative. In this setting, the objective of the system and the agents is to maximize their outcome. The quantitative setting significantly extends the scope of rational synthesis, making the game-theoretic approach much more relevant. Finally, we enrich the setting to one that allows coalitions of agents that constitute the system or the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Niche Construction Theory (NCT) provides a powerful conceptual framework for understanding how and why humans and target species entered into domesticatory relationships that have transformed Earth's biota, landforms, and atmosphere, and shaped the trajectory of human cultural development. NCT provides fresh perspective on how niche-constructing behaviors of humans and plants and animals promote co-evolutionary interactions that alter selection pressures and foster genetic responses in domesticates. It illuminates the role of niche-altering activities in bequeathing an ecological inheritance that perpetuates the co-evolutionary relationships leading to domestication, especially as it pertains to traditional ecological knowledge and the transmission of learned behaviors aimed at enhancing returns from local environments. NCT also provides insights into the contexts and mechanisms that promote cooperative interactions in both humans and target species needed to sustain niche-constructing activities, ensuring that these activities produce an ecological inheritance in which domesticates play an increasing role. A NCT perspective contributes to on-going debates in the social sciences over explanatory frameworks for domestication, in particular as they pertain to issues of reciprocal causation, co-evolution, and the role of human intentionality. Reciprocally, domestication provides a model system for evaluating on-going debates in evolutionary biology concerning the impact of niche construction, phenotypic plasticity, extra-genetic inheritance, and developmental bias in shaping the direction and tempo of evolutionary change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consideration was given to the problem of control synthesis in systems obeying Boolean equations with a time parameter. An algorithm was suggested to solve the problem on the basis of the method of substitutions relating the state variables at the subsequent time instants with the current values. The advantage of the proposed method over the Boolean differential, for example, lies in that there is no need to seek all solutions of the initial system of disjuncts, as well as in that it is possible to determine the substitutions once and forever and use them for various initial and objective system states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This synthesis is designed to provide insight into the most important issues involved in a large-scale implementation of inquiry-based learning (IBL). We will first turn to IBL itself by reflecting on (1) the definition of IBL and (2) examining the current state of the art of its implementation. Afterwards, we will move on to the implementation of IBL and look at its dissemination through resources, professional development, and the involvement of the context. Based on these theoretical reflections, we will develop a conceptual framework for the analysis of dissemination activities before briefly analyzing four exemplary projects. The aim of our analysis is to reflect on the various implementation strategies and raise awareness of the different ways of using and combining them. This synthesis will end with considerations about the framework and conclusions regarding needed future actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Philosophy may relate to interdisciplinarity in two distinct ways On the one hand, philosophy may play an auxiliary role in the process of interdisciplinarity, typically through conceptual analysis, in the understanding that the disciplines themselves are the main epistemic players. This version of the relationship I characterise as 'normal' because it captures the more common pattern of the relationship, which in turn reflects an acceptance of the division of organized inquiry into disciplines. On the other hand, philosophy may be itself the site for the production of interdisciplinary knowledge, understood as a kind of second-order understanding of reality that transcends the sort of knowledge that the disciplines provide, left to their own devices. This is my own position, which I dub 'deviant' and to which most of this article is devoted. I begin by relating the two types of interdisciplinarity to the organization of inquiry, especially their respective attitudes to the history of science. Underlying the two types are contrasting notions of what constitutes the 'efficient' pursuit of knowledge. This difference is further explored in terms of the organization of the university. The normal/deviant distinction was already marked in the institution's medieval origins in terms of the difference between Doctors and Masters, respectively, an artefact of which remains in the postgraduate/undergraduate degree distinction. In the context of the history of the university, the prospects for deviant interdisciplinarity were greatest from the early sixteenth to the early nineteenth century-the period called 'early modern' in the philosophy curriculum. Towards the end of that period, due to Kant and the generation of idealists who followed him, philosophy was briefly the privileged site for deviant interdisciplinarity. After Hegel's death, the mantle of deviant interdisciplinarity increasingly passed to some version of 'biology'. I explore the ' Natur-' and ' Geisteswissenschaft' versions of that post-philosophical vision, which continue to co-exist within today's biological science. I then briefly examine the chequered reputation of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, someone who exemplified the promise and perils of deviant interdisciplinarity over the past 200 years. I conclude with an Epilogue that considers contemporary efforts to engage philosophy in interdisciplinary work, invoking William James as an exemplar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I open my eyes and see that the lemon before me is yellow. States like this-states of seeing that $$p$$-appear to be visual perceptual states, in some sense. They also appear to be propositional attitudes (and so states with propositional representational contents). It might seem, then, like a view of perceptual experience on which experiences have propositional representational contents-a Propositional View-has to be the correct sort of view for states of seeing that $$p$$. And thus we can't sustain fully general non-Propositional but Representational, or Relational Views of experience. But despite what we might initially be inclined to think when reflecting upon the apparent features of states of seeing that $$p$$, a non-propositional view of seeing that $$p$$ is, I argue, perfectly intelligible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we overview the design and implementation of the second generation of Kansas Lava. Driven by the needs and experiences of implementing telemetry decoders and other circuits, we have made a number of improvements to both the external API and the internal representations used. We have retained our dual shallow/deep representation of signals in general, but now have a number of externally visible abstractions for combinatorial and sequential circuits, and enabled signals. We introduce these abstractions, as well as our abstractions for reading and writing memory. Internally, we found the need to represent unknown values inside our circuits, so we made aggressive use of associated type families to lift our values to allow unknowns, in a principled and regular way. We discuss this design decision, how it unfortunately complicates the internals of Kansas Lava, and how we mitigate this complexity. Finally, when connecting Kansas Lava to the real world, the standardized idiom of using named input and output ports is provided by Kansas Lava using a new monad, called Fabric. We present the design of this Fabric monad, and illustrate its use in a small but complete example. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]