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The purpose of the study is to examine young children's (4- to 8-year-old) selective trust decisions in two different data sets; one was for interpersonal trust decision and the other was for epistemic trust decision. Children encountered with two assistants one provided them testimony about who trustworthy they are and the other assistant displayed trustworthy action while child was witnessing. Children in interpersonal trust study responded to three interpersonal trust questions. Children in epistemic trust study responded three ask questions. Findings showed that for interpersonal and epistemic trust decision young children did not differentiate between testimony and action. This tendency did not change with age and children's socio-economic status. The study pointed that young children in Şanlıurfa did not consider action as a more valuable evidence for trustworthiness compared to testimony. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social experiences carry tremendous weight in our decision-making, even when social partners are not present. To determine mechanisms, we trained female mice to respond for two food reinforcers. Then, one food was paired with a novel conspecific. Mice later favored the conspecific-associated food, even in the absence of the conspecific. Chemogenetically silencing projections from the prelimbic subregion (PL) of the medial prefrontal cortex to the basolateral amygdala (BLA) obstructed this preference while leaving social discrimination intact, indicating that these projections are necessary for socially driven choice. Further, mice that performed the task had greater densities of dendritic spines on excitatory BLA neurons relative to mice that did not. We next induced chemogenetic receptors in cells active during social interactions--when mice were encoding information that impacted later behavior. BLA neurons stimulated by social experience were necessary for mice to later favor rewards associated with social conspecifics but not make other choices. This profile contrasted with that of PL neurons stimulated by social experience, which were necessary for choice behavior in social and nonsocial contexts alike. The PL may convey a generalized signal allowing mice to favor particular rewards, while units in the BLA process more specialized information, together supporting choice motivated by social information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conceptual engineering takes a distinctively normative and reconstructive approach to our conceptual repertoire. This approach is congenial to the ideas defended by philosophers belonging to the multifaceted tradition of American and Cambridge Pragmatism. This special issue is devoted to the investigation and development of these connections. Our introduction maps some of the historical and theoretical entanglements between the two fields and gives a short overview of the contributions to the special issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Libraries are currently undergoing a significant transformation, emerging as dynamic advocates for environmental sustainability, surpassing their conventional roles as mere repositories of knowledge. In today's world, dominated by the growing climate crisis, these evolving institutions are poised to play a pivotal role in addressing climate change. However, they confront a range of challenges, including the need to establish sustainable operations, provide accessible climate information, engage diverse audiences and uphold ethical standards. Design/methodology/approach: The research methodology used for this study involves an extensive review of literature. The authors analyze existing studies concerning green libraries and their role as catalysts for climate change action globally. This analysis draws from a variety of scholarly sources, encompassing articles, books and reports, to provide a comprehensive overview of the subject. Findings: The findings indicate that despite the aforementioned challenges, libraries in developed countries worldwide have demonstrated noteworthy success through initiatives such as green building projects, community engagement programs, collaborative partnerships, expansion of digital resources, innovative climate literacy initiatives and a commitment to ethical stewardship. These achievements serve as a source of inspiration, fostering hope and spurring action as libraries empower communities to embrace environmental stewardship. They showcase the potential of libraries as catalysts for positive environmental change. Originality/value: The originality and value of this research lie in its insights into the potential of green libraries initiative as a catalyst for climate change action. Ultimately, this study opens the door to untold literary exploration, revolutionizing the art of green library capacity in the ever-evolving technological landscape. To augment their impact, libraries are encouraged to broaden the scope of their climate education initiatives, expand their digital resources, cultivate strategic collaborations, prioritize ethical responsibility and implement thorough evaluation and communication practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The gap between the limited human sense of how living entities change over time and the ways in which living systems change is one of the most potent uncertainties in ecological knowledge. This gap remains a significant source of problems and errors for those working with the transformations of living systems. This article foregrounds Mary Catherine Bateson's cybernetic practice of working with narratives in order to cultivate better understanding and responses to change, at the level of both societies and individuals. To do so, I investigate some significant moments, encounters and projects that connect her practice to the ecological ideas of her father, Gregory Bateson and situate their ideas on abduction, metaphor, recursion and narrative within broader discussions of ecological change. The Batesons did not seek a particular attitudinal change towards the transformation of selves, cities and worlds but rather sought to change the very understanding of what an attitude towards change should be, a distinction that is worth pondering given the challenges of attending to change within the present ecological crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scientific skepticism about attention has run deeply for a century. We are said to not know what attention is despite over 45 000 scientific papers published on attention since 1950. The theory of attention is shown to be logically inconsistent. Since too many things are said to be attention, the theory faces a dilemma: contradiction or confusion. Empirical methodology provides a solution, entailing a common conception of attention: attention is a subject mentally selecting a target to guide response. The common conception provides a methodological norm yielding a functional structure built into every attentional paradigm, so something we all accept and thereby know. The common conception unifies empirical work into an explanatory theory. Attention is typically what we are trying to explain (effect) and is not an explainer (cause). Attention is one of the most thoroughly investigated psychological phenomena, yet skepticism about attention is widespread: we do not know what it is, it is too many things, there is no such thing. The deficiencies highlighted are not about experimental work but the adequacy of the scientific theory of attention. Combining common scientific claims about attention into a single theory leads to internal inconsistency. This paper demonstrates that a specific functional conception of attention is incorporated into the tasks used in standard experimental paradigms. In accepting these paradigms as valid probes of attention, we commit to this common conception. The conception unifies work at multiple levels of analysis into a coherent scientific explanation of attention. Thus, we all know what attention is. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The two-times problem, where time as experienced seems to have distinctive features different than those found in fundamental physics, appears to be more intractable than necessary, I argue, because the two times are marked out from the positions furthest apart: neuroscience and physics. I offer causation as exactly the kind of bridge between these two times that authors like Buonomano and Rovelli (forthcoming) are seeking. It is a historical contingency from philosophical discussions around phenomenology, and a methodological artefact from neuroscience, that most studies of temporal features of experience require subjects to be sufficiently still that their engagement with affordances in the environment can be at best tested in artificial and highly constrained ways. Physics does not offer an account of causation, but accounts of causation are tied to or grounded in physics in ways that can be clearly delineated. Causation then serves as a bridge that coordinates time as experienced, via interaction with affordances in the environment, with time in physics as it constrains causal relationships. I conclude by showing how an information-theoretic account of causation fits neatly into and extends the information gathering and utilizing system (IGUS) of Gruber et al. (Front. Psychol., 13 , 718505). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to address issues of culture in counselling, with a particular emphasis on the links between culture, action, and counselling. It also addresses how action can be incorporated into counselling, with contextual action theory as an integrative framework. To this end, the article reviews the notion of culture and a general perspective of multicultural counselling that places culture into a helping context. It also discusses the issue of cultural values and norms, using individualism and collectivism as a major exemplar to illustrate how culture can affect action and interaction in a counselling context. It then provides ideas and helping methods of incorporating culture and action into counselling intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Action of a pomonoid on partially ordered sets (S -posets) has beautiful aspects in practical subjects such as automata theory, projection algebra and theoretical computer science which makes it always capture the interest of mathematicians. On the other hand, the study of different kinds of weakly injectivity (which category theory inherited from homological and commutative algebra) is an interesting subject for mathematicians. One of the important kinds of weakly injectivity is quasi-injectivity. In this paper, we study quasi-injectivity in the category of S -posets with respect to special kind of order embeddings, namely, down-closed embeddings (dc-quasi-injectivity). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study criticizes the explanation of the relationship between agent and structure by linking it to the metaphor of ground, which refers to an ontological hierarchy. For at this ontological plane, what has a presence on the ground makes the other thing an epiphenomenon, and constitutes and transforms it absolute. To the extent that struggles and possibilities are ignored, the abstraction has political consequences. The critique of the ontological plane, that is de-grounding, to eliminate these political consequences relies on an ensemble of action. This critique is not simply the replacement of the grounded agent or structure for the action, but the genealogical formation of the ontological plane. The de-grounding is best manifested in Michel Foucault's analysis of power. By defining power as an action and not as a privilege, Foucault offers a clear definition of the genealogical ontological plane and the ensemble of action that constitute things at this plane. From the same ontological perspective, this study explains the agent-structure relation through the concepts of action and contingency. Through this explanation, the agent-structure interaction constitutes an alternative that enables political possibilities and does not limit politics to certain spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Forests / Revista Pădurilor is the property of Societatea Progresul Silvic / Forest Progress Society and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Bulletin of Ablai Khan KazUIRandWL: Series 'Philological sciences' is the property of Kazakh Ablai Khan University of International Relations & World Languages and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

We prove that an action ρ:A→M(C0(G)⊗A) of a locally compact quantum group on a C∗-algebra has a universal equivariant compactification, and prove a number of other category-theoretic results on G-equivariant compactifications: that the categories compactifications of ρ and A respectively are locally presentable (hence complete and cocomplete), that the forgetful functor between them is a colimit-creating left adjoint, and that epimorphisms therein are surjective and injections are regular monomorphisms. When G is regular coamenable we also show that the forgetful functor from unital G-C∗-algebras to unital C∗-algebras creates finite limits and is comonadic, and that the monomorphisms in the former category are injective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Latinoamericana de Filosofía is the property of Centro de Investigaciones Filosoficas and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Two types of recurrence sets are introduced for inverse semigroup partial actions in topological spaces. Some applications to the basic dynamical properties of the action are indicated, covering topics as topological transitivity, limit points and periodic points. We then explore the connections of these recurrence sets with similar notions for related types of imperfect symmetries (prefix inverse semigroup expansions, partial group and groupoid actions). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent advancements in deep learning and video analysis, combined with the efficiency of contemporary computational resources, have catalyzed the development of advanced real-time computational systems, significantly impacting various fields. This paper introduces a cutting-edge video analysis framework that was specifically designed to bolster security in museum environments. We elaborate on the proposed framework, which was evaluated and integrated into a real-time video analysis pipeline. Our research primarily focused on two innovative approaches: action recognition for identifying potential threats at the individual level and trajectory extraction for monitoring museum visitor movements, serving the dual purposes of security and visitor flow analysis. These approaches leverage a synergistic blend of deep learning models, particularly CNNs, and traditional computer vision techniques. Our experimental findings affirmed the high efficacy of our action recognition model in accurately distinguishing between normal and suspicious behaviors within video feeds. Moreover, our trajectory extraction method demonstrated commendable precision in tracking and analyzing visitor movements. The integration of deep learning techniques not only enhances the capability for automatic detection of malevolent actions but also establishes the trajectory extraction process as a robust and adaptable tool for various analytical endeavors beyond mere security applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Excessive flow turbulence poses a threat to the development of drifting fish eggs, leading to mortality or developmental malformations and ultimately depleting early fish resources. Currently, there is a scarcity of quantitative studies investigating the effects of flow turbulence on the entire process of drifting fish egg development, from fertilized egg division to hatching. In this paper, the effects of different flow turbulence conditions (FTCs), including turbulent kinetic energy and shear stress, and action times on different stages of fish egg development were quantitatively explored using a transverse-oscillating-grids turbulence tank. Empirical formulas were established to predict the proportion of normal fish egg development under different FTCs within a selected range. The research findings provide a quantitative basis for protecting early fish resources, mitigating the biological invasion of specific fish, constructing fish-breeding facilities, and ensuring safe transfer and transportation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From Ibn Sina's point of view, the estimative faculty is one of the most important cognitive principles of action. The prior perception of action, the use of composite imagination for action, the emergence of desire and anger through the perception of profit and harm, helping practical intellect, creating some psychological qualities such as fear or hope, producing false statements, influencing outside the body and mediating between physical states and action are among the functions of this faculty. This faculty needs to be accompanied by other cognitive faculties to have its functions. Due to its association with intellect, human estimation has achieved another function such as dogmatic judgment and making universal propositions. Similarity, experience, needs of other faculties, and the merciful inspirations of God are among the ways through which estimation reaches its perceptions without the help of intellect. In most cases, estimation perceives benefits and harms without judgment but with conceptual perception. Ibn Sina's statements about image eliciting propositions and the passivity of the soul from imaginations prove this claim. Despite Ibn Sina's attention to various dimensions of estimation and its role in action, his thought is incoherent and ambiguous in some cases. For instance, attributing universal perception to estimation in some cases and the impossibility of explaining some functions of estimation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the prevalence of symbolic interaction's theory of the self, alongside alternative implicit models in dual-process and practice theory, sociology continues to struggle with incorporating affect into models of the self. To address this gap, we distinguish between the conventional sociological understanding of Goffman's self as cynical and masked and an alternative construct we excavate by paying close attention to negative cases like Goffman's Asylums and Stigma. This alternative theory of self treats self and situation not as one-sided but as mutually constitutive. Unlike most models of self, our alternative is continuously motivated by humans' desire to maintain reputation within a given situation; reputation making is dependent on the situation, and its ceremonial rules provide the context for the self's realization of affective rewards. After considering how reputational claims around ceremonial rules reveal an affectively driven, moral self, we consider the theoretical and methodological implications of the theory for major strands within symbolic interactionism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It's often assumed, especially in discussions of free will and moral responsibility, that unavoidable actions are possible. In recent years, however, several philosophers have questioned that assumption. Their views are considered here, and the possibility of unavoidable actions is defended and then applied to issues in action theory and in the literature on moral responsibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay argues that the history of rhetoric is a crucial resource for illuminating the theoretical importance of emotion in, for instance, reasoning, reading, knowing, acting, and judging. Taking its cue from two recent histories of rhetoric – Rita Copeland's Emotion and the History of Rhetoric in the Middle Ages (2021), and Benedict Robinson's Passion's Fictions from Shakespeare to Richardson (2021), which together trace thirteen centuries of the history of rhetoric, this essay reads these histories with one eye on their theoretical significance. It does so by extracting five theoretical vignettes concerning the role and value of emotion based on Copeland's and Robinson's histories of rhetoric: (1) emotional invention; (2) emotional style; (3) emotional knowledge; (4) emotional action; and (5) emotional judgement. In reading history in this way, i.e. for its theoretical significance, the essay seeks to carve out a middle space between theory and history, and thus offer a way of doing theoretically-minded history or historically-responsive theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge about sustainability problems as it is typically taught does not per se lead to action for tackling these problems. Environmental and sustainability education researchers have argued for teaching more action-oriented knowledge. This article addresses the 'didactical work' required for teachers to do so, both in preparing and implementing lessons. The authors employ transactional didactic theory and the analytical method Practical Epistemology Analysis to open-up the black box of teaching and learning action-oriented knowledge on sustainability issues. The methodology, that has a strong focus on classroom observations, allows to empirically investigate the influence of teachers' actions on students' learning. It is here applied to a case study in higher education where it is engineering teachers' explicit ambition for their students to explore and develop a wider area of knowledge about sustainability issues. Our findings shed light on what this requires in terms of the 'scripting', 'staging', and 'performance' of lessons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a mutual critique of the analytic and phenomenological theory of action. The first perspective focuses on the standard approach introduced by G.E.M. Anscombe. According to Anscombe, actions are events that are intentional under a description. Consequently, the distinction between action and mere behavior depends on the linguistic description of behavior. However, this perspective fails to address the possible transitions between behavior and action. One way to fill this gap is by investigating the specific form of intentionality belonging to striving or tendency. Such an investigation can complement the standard theory of action by illuminating the realm in which volitional and intentional actions are formed. In this regard, it is instructive to examine A. Pfänder's and E. Husserl's philosophy of striving and willing. Pfänder's Phenomenology of Willing (1900) and the essay Motives and Motivation (1911) reflect on the genesis of volition from striving. Both texts view willing as a particular form of striving that may, but does not have to, lead to action. Similarly, Husserl aims to retrace the pre-voluntary roots of willing, but unlike Pfänder, he considers willing and action to be necessarily connected. The second perspective focuses on what analytic philosophy contributes to philosophical action theory: the recognition of language's constitutive role in determining actions. This is evident not only in terms of how we describe actions (Anscombe), but also in how we ascribe willing, intending, and acting to one another in communicative contexts (H.L.A. Hart). Therefore, a phenomenological investigation of action should be complemented by linguistic analysis. This idea is already outlined in rudiments by Husserl and particularly by Pfänder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anti-capitalist subjectivities are produced through politically generative refusals of the divisive, profit-oriented, and manageable subject positions made available by capitalism's socio-symbolic order. Pushing back against liberal political theories which presume subjectivity to be a priori or coherent, this article employs psychoanalytic theory to grapple with the flowing, changing, patterned, and disjointed nature of anti-capitalist subject formations. Although mainstream psychoanalysis has, historically, aligned with the dictates of capital, I argue that psychoanalytic theory nonetheless offers a useful resource for understanding how anti-capitalist refusal can foster emancipatory desires and situated political commitments within and among subjects. In fleshing out these arguments, I engage with the role that fantasy plays in forming anti-capitalist subjectivities. I also consider what solidarity building and political action mean with respect to anti-capitalist subjectivity. By way of conclusion, I argue why we should make the case for anti-capitalist subjectivity, offering some directions that future work may take. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Art & Interpretation / Sanat ve Yorum is the property of Ataturk University Coordinatorship of Scientific Journals and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This research seeks to explain the relationship between thought and action according to Allameh Tabatabaei. The aim is to clarify this important principle of practical wisdom from the viewpoint of this neo-Ṣadrian philosopher which, with descriptive and analytical method, analyzes his works, and in cases where there is no explicit discussion, reconstructs it based on the principles accepted by him. The conclusion is: from the faspective of Allameh Tabatabaei, knowledge is the origin of all human actions. Knowledge and action are existential matters, and as a result, the intensity of knowledge causes the intensity of action. There is a two-way interaction between thought and action. Putting a special emphasis on the concept of concern, Allameh has been able to connect the infallibility of the infallible and the realization of moral habits with the nature of knowledge.The innovations of this search are as follows: organizing Allameh's scattered words in this discussion, finding four readings of the interaction process between thought and action, presenting an innovative interpretation of the effect of action on thought, completing Allameh's view with an existential approach and also involving the truth of conventional concepts, showing the consequences of this view in Humanities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the action analogy, emotions and actions have certain structural and normative similarities that no theory of emotions should ignore. The action analogy has recently been used in an objection against the so-called perceptual theory of emotions, often defended by means of an analogy between emotion and perception. Beyond the dialectical significance of the action analogy, one might wonder whether it can support a picture of emotions as fundamentally action-like—what I call an agential theory. This article is a first step in answering this question. After discussing various ways to formulate the agential theory, I sketch a version of it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dance Coherent Action Generation is a popular research task in recent years to generate movements and actions for computer-generated characters in a simulated environment. It is sometimes referred to as "Motion Synthesis". Motion synthesis algorithms are used to generate physically believable, visually compelling, and contextually appropriate movement using motion sensors. The Dance Coherent Action Generation Model (DCAM) is a generative framework for producing aesthetically pleasing movements using deep learning from small amounts of data. By learning an internal representation of motion dynamics, DCAM can synthesize long sequences of movements in which coherent patterns can be created through latent space interpolation. This framework provides a mechanism for varying the amplitude of the generated motion, allowing further realistic thinking and expression. The proposed model obtained 93.79% accuracy, 93.79% precision, 97.75% recall and 92.92% F1 score. DCAM exploits the balance between imitation and creativity by enabling the production of novel outputs from limited input data and can be trained in an unsupervised manner or fine-tuned with sparse supervision. Furthermore, the framework is easily extended to handle multiple layers of abstraction and can be further personalized to a particular type of movement, enabling the generation of highly individualized outputs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Cadernos de Dereito Actual is the property of Asociacion Xuristas en Accion and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Cadernos de Dereito Actual is the property of Asociacion Xuristas en Accion and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

According to ‘orthodox’ representationalism, perceptual states possess constitutive veridicality (truth, accuracy, or satisfaction) conditions. Typically, philosophers who deny orthodox representationalism endorse some variety of anti-representationalism. But we argue that these haven’t always been, and needn’t continue to be, the only options. Philosophers including Descartes, Malebranche and Helmholtz appear to have rejected orthodox representationalism while nonetheless endorsing perceptual representations of a fundamentally practical kind not captured by orthodox representationalism. Moreover, we argue that the perceptual science called on by contemporary philosophers to defend orthodox representationalism instead motivates a return to this older view, and we suggest that contemporary philosophers may conceptualize fundamentally practical perceptual representations as ‘de agendo’ representations, a species of representation that has constitutive appropriateness rather than veridicality conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the role that the examination of text plays in empirical language policy research. It begins by examining the state-of-the-art in language policy, observing that a core focus on action represents a shared characteristic of the various strands of discursive and ethnographic research over the last two decades. That is, the emergence of these approaches has accompanied an implicit or explicit shift away from the once dominant conceptualization of language policy as status quo and toward a focus on the dynamic processes through which power is exercised over language use. Reflecting on the widespread use of ethnographic methods to catalogue such processes, I argue that there is a need to reconsider how policy texts are conceptualized and studied from a discursive perspective. While much of the available toolkit treats policy texts as static products, giving little consideration to how they are embedded in the dynamics of policy, I propose an expanded focus on language policy as (re)entextualization, in which text is continuously formed and re-formed through time-space. This better accounts for the reality of policy, which involves cycles of writing and rewriting, as well as interpreting and re-interpreting, by different actors with different agendas, in different spaces at different times. Such a reconceptualization also offers more backing for the study of how language policy texts are agentively transformed and fragmented, and better supports the investigation of how language is instrumentalized in exercises of power in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Observers experience visual biases in the area around handheld tools. These biases may occur when active use leads an observer to incorporate a tool into the body schema. However, the visual salience of a handheld tool may instead create an attentional prioritization that is not reliant on body-based representations. We investigated these competing explanations of near-tool visual biases in two experiments during which participants performed a target detection task. Targets could appear near or far from a tool positioned next to a display. In Experiment 1, participants showed facilitation in detecting targets that appeared near a simple handheld rake tool regardless of whether they first used the rake to retrieve objects, but participants who only viewed the tool without holding it were no faster to detect targets appearing near the rake than targets that appeared on the opposite side of the display. In a second experiment, participants who held a novel magnetic tool again showed a near-tool bias even when they refrained from using the tool. Taken together, these results suggest active use is unnecessary, but visual salience is not sufficient, to introduce visual biases in peri-tool space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We evaluate the actions of other individuals based upon a variety of movements that reveal critical information to guide decision making and behavioural responses. These signals convey a range of information about the actor, including their goals, intentions and internal mental states. Although progress has been made to identify cortical regions involved in action processing, the organising principles underlying our representation of actions still remains unclear. In this paper we investigated the conceptual space that underlies action perception by assessing which qualities are fundamental to the perception of human actions. We recorded 240 different actions using motion-capture and used these data to animate a volumetric avatar that performed the different actions. 230 participants then viewed these actions and rated the extent to which each action demonstrated 23 different action characteristics (e.g., avoiding-approaching, pulling-pushing, weak-powerful). We analysed these data using Exploratory Factor Analysis to examine the latent factors underlying visual action perception. The best fitting model was a four-dimensional model with oblique rotation. We named the factors: friendly-unfriendly, formidable-feeble, planned-unplanned, and abduction-adduction. The first two factors of friendliness and formidableness explained approximately 22% of the variance each, compared to planned and abduction, which explained approximately 7–8% of the variance each; as such we interpret this representation of action space as having 2 + 2 dimensions. A closer examination of the first two factors suggests a similarity to the principal factors underlying our evaluation of facial traits and emotions, whilst the last two factors of planning and abduction appear unique to actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As human beings, we do not live in a world devoid of value, but rather in what could be called a moral ecology that gives us reasons for action. Theorists of social practice such as Alasdair MacIntyre have analyzed the moral ecology as practices with inherent values and goods, but they have given less attention to the moral agents living in the moral ecology. In this article, I build on Hannah Arendt's analysis of promising and forgiving and argue that these are "stabilizers of action" that cut across various practices and constitute a moral life of self-constancy. Human beings are moral agents in virtue of these moral powers, and they must be cultivated within the social practices where humans develop. This is made difficult in a liquid modern world that puts emphasis on change and flexibility rather than on integrity and self-constancy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Working memory has been comprehensively studied in sensory domains, like vision, but little attention has been paid to how motor information (e.g., kinematics of recent movements) is maintained and manipulated in working memory. "Motor working memory" (MWM) is important for short-term behavioral control and skill learning. Here, we employed tasks that required participants to encode and recall reaching movements over short timescales. We conducted three experiments (N = 65 undergraduates) to examine MWM under varying cognitive loads, delays, and degrees of interference. The results support a model of MWM that includes an abstract code that flexibly transfers across effectors, and an effector-specific code vulnerable to interfering movements, even when interfering movements are irrelevant to the task. Neither code was disrupted by increasing visuospatial working memory load. These results echo distinctions between representational formats in other domains, suggesting that MWM shares a basic computational structure with other working memory subsystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how an Arendtian perspective on natality contributes to transcendence within a humanistic meaning-making framework in the practice of spiritual care. Through such a framework, individuals attribute meaning to the world around them. In this context, meaningfulness is understood as an orientation process within a meaning framework that provides direction towards 'the good'. For Hannah Arendt, natality refers to the capacity to do the unexpected, initiate something new, take action, and 'become someone'. This act of initiating something new can be preceded by significant moments of reflection or entering a moral space. Spiritual counsellors can support individuals in this moral orientation process towards the good. A meaning framework is part of a larger entity, referred to as the epistemic structure of our society, which traditionally focuses on mortality. This conventional understanding of death is crucial for reconciling with life. In contrast, the meaning of natality emphasizes the future, hope, and change through the initiation of new actions. Thus, the concept of natality has the potential to broaden our contemporary epistemic structure of meaning-making. Achieving this, however, requires study, deconstruction, and intentional change.

IntroductionHand gestures and actions-with-objects (hereafter ‘actions’) are both forms of movement that can promote learning. However, the two have unique affordances, which means that they have the potential to promote learning in different ways. Here we compare how children learn, and importantly retain, information after performing gestures, actions, or a combination of the two during instruction about mathematical equivalence. We also ask whether individual differences in children’s understanding of mathematical equivalence (as assessed by spontaneous gesture before instruction) impacts the effects of gesture- and action-based instruction.MethodAcross two studies, racially and ethnically diverse third and fourth-grade students (N=142) were given instruction about how to solve mathematical equivalence problems (eg., 2+9+4=__+4) as part of a pretest-training-posttest design. In Study 1, instruction involved teaching students to produce either actions or gestures. In Study 2, instruction involved teaching students to produce either actions followed by gestures or gestures followed by actions. Across both studies, speech and gesture produced during pretest explanations were coded and analyzed to measure individual differences in pretest understanding. Children completed written posttests immediately after instruction, as well as the following day, and four weeks later, to assess learning, generalization and retention.ResultsIn Study 1 we find that, regardless of individual differences in pre-test understanding of mathematical equivalence, children learn from both action and gesture, but gesture-based instruction promotes retention better than action-based instruction. In Study 2 we find an influence of individual differences: children who produced relatively few types of problem-solving strategies (as assessed by their pre-test gestures and speech) perform better when they receive action training before gesture training than when they receive gesture training first. In contrast, children who expressed many types of strategies, and thus had a more complex understanding of mathematical equivalence prior to instruction, performed equally with both orders.DiscussionThese results demonstrate that action training, followed by gesture, can be a useful stepping-stone in the initial stages of learning mathematical equivalence, and that gesture training can help learners retain what they learn.

This article investigates why the Ecumenical Church in South Africa has not responded effectively to social issues such as bad governance, corruption, inequality, crime, and ethical decline. It uses contextual and comparative analysis to examine the historical, political, and theological factors that influence the church’s role and identity. It draws on missiology, practical theology, and ecclesiology to argue that the church is neglecting its moral and prophetic duty to uphold human dignity and value, and to offer hope and healing to all. The investigation identified six reasons for the church’s social failure and proposes some practical and theological ways to improve its social responsibility and witness. Contribution: This article challenges the church to be a prophetic voice and witness for social transformation in South Africa. It calls for a national convention of Christian leaders to craft a unified vision for the country’s future and foster dialogue, cooperation, and social responsibility among diverse and complex churches.

This article offers some reflections on some features of human consciousness that are in need of an explanation. I wish to see if these features could be understood as solutions to design problems, solutions arrived at by evolution, but also, in the individual, as a result of a process of unconscious self-design. I consider this issue in the context of work in AI on the attempt to design intelligent robots – not “bed-ridden” expert systems, but systems that have to act in real time in the real world. How then does one partition the task of the robot so that it is apt to make reliable real time decisions? Any real, finite deliberator must partition the states of its world in such a way as to introduce the concept of possibility. This idea of partitioning the world into “possible” alternatives that remain “open” is very clearly the introduction of a concept of epistemic possibility. The article concludes with some reflections on the Frame Problem.

The global progress report was produced by the United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. It is the first report providing a comprehensive analysis of the progress made in achieving the targets outlined in Goal 16, for which there is sufficient data. Based on the available information, the report authors urge decision-makers to recognize that the current pace of change is insufficient to address some of the most significant challenges people are facing today. The inclusion of Goal 16 in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development acknowledged that peace, justice, inclusion, and development are closely interconnected, and all of them are equally necessary to create the fundamental conditions for implementing and achieving the other goals.

Regarding the analysis of voluntary action, there are two general attitudes in Western philosophy: causal explanation and non-causal rational explanation. The first view has been the classic and common theory in the history of Western philosophy and thought, but the second has been formed in the contemporary century. According to the first view, the inner elements of the agent, i.e., desire, intention and belief, have a causal relationship with his action, and the explanation of the action based on them is an example of causal explanation. John Searle, a famous contemporary philosopher who defends the second view, lists six assumptions for the first theory and criticizes them. Based on the words of Searle and other proponents of the first view, this article explains, rationally analyzes and evaluates Searle's six assumptions and his criticisms.The mentioned assumptions are: the causality of beliefs and desires for rational actions, rationality as following certain principles and rules, rationality as a separate cognitive faculty, weakness of will caused by disturbance in the psychological antecedents of the action, denial of desire-independent reasons for action and realization of rationality in the assumption of consistent collection of previous desires. Searle believes that these assumptions are incomplete. Some of Searle's criticisms and his positive views are debatable, including that the agent himself is the cause of action, not his beliefs and desires, and that Searle's idea of the desire-independent reason is incomplete and there is a desire in this kind of reason. The rationality includes primary goals and beliefs.

Active inference describes (Bayes-optimal) behaviour as being motivated by the minimisation of surprise of one’s sensory observations, through the optimisation of a generative model (of the hidden causes of one’s sensory data) in the brain. One of active inference’s key appeals is its conceptualisation of precision as biasing neuronal communication and, thus, inference within generative models. The importance of precision in perceptual inference is evident—many studies have demonstrated the importance of ensuring precision estimates are correct for normal (healthy) sensation and perception. Here, we highlight the many roles precision plays in action, i.e., the key processes that rely on adequate estimates of precision, from decision making and action planning to the initiation and control of muscle movement itself. Thereby, we focus on the recent development of hierarchical, “mixed” models—generative models spanning multiple levels of discrete and continuous inference. These kinds of models open up new perspectives on the unified description of hierarchical computation, and its implementation, in action. Here, we highlight how these models reflect the many roles of precision in action—from planning to execution—and the associated pathologies if precision estimation goes wrong. We also discuss the potential biological implementation of the associated message passing, focusing on the role of neuromodulatory systems in mediating different kinds of precision.

Dandruff is a scalp disorder characterized by itching. According to the Republic of Indonesia Health Research (Riset Kesehatan Republik Indonesia), 26% of Indonesians experience dandruff, with the teenage age group (15-24 years old) being the most affected. One of the contributing factors to dandruff is wearing a hijab, which restricts air flow. This research aims to identify the level of knowledge, accuracy of action, and product selection for treating dandruff among female students at Universitas Airlangga, Surabaya. This research employed quantitative descriptive research using survey methods. The sampling technique used in this research is by purposive sampling. The respondents in this study were 161 new students who wear hijab. The variables in this study are the level of knowledge, accuracy of action, and choice of shampoo products in treating dandruff. The research showed that 86.3% of respondents have experienced dandruff and 62.59% of respondents have a high level of knowledge about dandruff. Of the 87 respondents with high knowledge; 39 people (28.06%) were right in choosing action to treat dandruff; 47 people (33.81%) were somewhat accurate and only 1 person (0.71%) was incorrect. Meanwhile, respondents with a high level of knowledge and accuracy in choosing shampoo products 51 (36.69%) were accurate;25 (17.98%) were somewhat accurate; and 11 (7.91%) were incorrect. Based on the research results, it was concluded that the majority of respondents demonstrated a fairly good level of knowledge, accuracy in action and product selection in dealing with dandruff. However, further education still needs to be done to enhance these three things. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intention of this article is twofold. On one hand it exposes the problems that fits the political theory of Hannah Arendt. To perform this first work, we discuss the concept of action which we consider the touchstone of all their theoretical proposal. On the order hand, this article analyses, in the third section, the critique of western political philosophy, in particular the concept of freedom and authority, made by this autor of the previously considered category. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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