Plausibility and Probability in Juridical Proof

This note discusses three issues that Allen and Pardo believe to be especially problematic for a probabilistic interpretation of standards of proof: (1) the subjectivity of probability assignments; (2) the conjunction paradox; and (3) the non-comparative nature of probabilistic standards. I offer a reading of probabilistic standards that avoids these criticisms

The Greek slave and photography in Britain

This essay explores some of the photographs of Hiram Powers’s Greek Slave sculpture taken and/or circulated in Britain in the nineteenth century. The statue’s popularity at the time makes it an effective case study through which to evaluate the early successes and failures of photography as a means of reproducing works of sculpture in the years before photographs could be efficiently printed in books and magazines through halftone reprographic techniques. As a visual essay, this piece invites the reader to look at the photographs as such—to focus on their materiality as objects made from various combinations of silver, metal, paper, leather, and card. In discussing the particular qualities of photographs in the form of daguerreotypes, calotypes, and stereoscopic slides, we will also see how these techniques allow for an experience that cannot be fully conveyed by their later reproductions

La gestione dei volatili in un centro di recupero per animali selvatici

Il lavoro di tesi si è incentrato sulle attività di un centro di recupero per animali selvatici ed esotici ed in particolare sulla gestione dei volatili. Abbiamo predisposto un protocollo di lavoro inerente alla gestione alimentare, sanitaria e igienico-sanitaria delle strutture degli uccelli selvatici autoctoni, e sono state fatte delle indagini statistiche relative alla sopravvivenza degli esemplari ricoverati nel centro e sono stati confrontati i giovani e gli adulti

Photographs of sculpture: Greek slave’s ‘complex polyphony’, 1847 - 1877

This article explores some of the representations, iterations, and appearances of Hiram Powers’s Greek Slave in London in the decades after its first exhibition in 1845, years in which a variety of new ‘engines of the fine arts’ were fuelling a widening market for art objects of all kinds, and popular culture could turn statues into celebrities appearing everywhere — exhibitions, photographers’ studios, newspapers, tableau-vivant shows, even confectionery shops. The article’s focus is on how sculpture was used in the reception and understanding of photography as a new medium of reproduction, and how the materiality of specific photographic ‘objects’ — daguerreotypes, paper prints, and stereographs — interacted with that of sculpture to affect the viewer, at a time when sculptural objects themselves blurred the boundaries between original and reproduction. The article ends with an analysis of stereoscopic cards of Greek Slave, as the first photographic reproductions that could really compete with wood engravings and statuettes in the dissemination and circulation of statues, arguing for their pleasurable interactivity as key to their success

Profile Evidence, Fairness, and the Risks of Mistaken Convictions

Many oppose the use of profile evidence against defendants at trial, even when the statistical correlations are reliable and the jury is free from prejudice. The literature has struggled to justify this opposition. We argue that admitting profile evidence is objectionable because it violates what we call “equal protection”—that is, a right of innocent defendants not to be exposed to higher ex ante risks of mistaken conviction compared to other innocent defendants facing similar charges. We also show why admitting other forms of evidence, such as eyewitness, trace, and motive evidence, does not violate equal protection

Neuronal modulation in the prefrontal cortex in a transitive inference task: evidence of neuronal correlates of mental schema management

When informed that A > B and B > C, humans and other animals can easily conclude that A > C. This remarkable trait of advanced animals, which allows them to manipulate knowledge flexibly to infer logical relations, has only recently garnered interest in mainstream neuroscience. How the brain controls these logical processes remains an unanswered question that has been merely superficially addressed in neuroimaging and lesion studies, which are unable to identify the underlying neuronal computations. We observed that the activation pattern of neurons in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) during pair comparisons in a highly demanding transitive inference task fully supports the behavioral performance of the two monkeys that we tested. Our results indicate that the PFC contributes to the construction and use of a mental schema to represent premises. This evidence provides a novel framework for understanding the function of various areas of brain in logic processes and impairments to them in degenerative, traumatic, and psychiatric pathologies. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT: In cognitive neuroscience, it is unknown how information that leads to inferential deductions are encoded and manipulated at the neuronal level. We addressed this question by recording single-unit activity from the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex of monkeys that were performing a transitive inference (TI) task. The TI required one to choose the higher ranked of two items, based on previous, indirect experience. Our results demonstrated that single-neuron activity supports the construction of an abstract, mental schema of ordered items in solving the task and that this representation is independent of the reward value that is experienced for the single items. These findings identify the neural substrates of abstract mental representations that support inferential thinking

Conceptions and action orientations toward the environment of academic groups. Motivational, political, disciplinary and institutional elements

Este trabajo analiza en forma comparada concepciones sobre el entorno y estrategias de interacción con agentes externos de grupos de investigación de dos universidades nacionales ubicadas en el conurbano sur de Buenos Aires, Argentina. A través del análisis de documentos y de la realización de entrevistas, se busca mostrar cómo tales concepciones y estrategias se comprenden a la luz de coyunturas políticas particulares, dimensiones subjetivas y/o grupales, dinámicas cognitivas-disciplinares del área de incumbencia y dimensiones institucionales.This paper compares the conceptions of environment and the interactional strategies with external agents supported by academic groups of two national universities situated in the south suburb of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Through documentary analysis and personal interviews here it is displayed how conceptions and strategies can be understood in the light of political situations, subjective and collective dimensions, cognitive and institutional dynamics.Fil: Di Bello, Mariana Eva. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Quilmes. Departamento de Ciencias Sociales. Instituto de Estudios Sociales de la Ciencia y la Tecnología; ArgentinaFil: Romero, Lucía. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Quilmes. Departamento de Ciencias Sociales. Instituto de Estudios Sociales de la Ciencia y la Tecnología; Argentin

Synergistic interaction of fatty acids and oxysterols impairs mitochondrial function and limits liver adaptation during nafld progression

The complete mechanism accounting for the progression from simple steatosis to steatohepatitis in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has not been elucidated. Lipotoxicity refers to cellular injury caused by hepatic free fatty acids (FFAs) and cholesterol accumulation. Excess cholesterol autoxidizes to oxysterols during oxidative stress conditions. We hypothesize that interaction of FAs and cholesterol derivatives may primarily impair mitochondrial function and affect biogenesis adaptation during NAFLD progression. We demonstrated that the accumulation of specific non-enzymatic oxysterols in the liver of animals fed high-fat+high-cholesterol diet induces mitochondrial damage and depletion of proteins of the respiratory chain complexes. When tested in vitro, 5α-cholestane-3β,5,6β-triol (triol) combined to FFAs was able to reduce respiration in isolated liver mitochondria, induced apoptosis in primary hepatocytes, and down-regulated transcription factors involved in mitochondrial biogenesis. Finally, a lower protein content in the mitochondrial respiratory chain complexes was observed in human non-alcoholic steatohepatitis. In conclusion, hepatic accumulation of FFAs and non-enzymatic oxysterols synergistically facilitates development and progression of NAFLD by impairing mitochondrial function, energy balance and biogenesis adaptation to chronic injury

Characterisation of AMS H35 HV-CMOS monolithic active pixel sensor prototypes for HEP applications

Monolithic active pixel sensors produced in High Voltage CMOS (HV-CMOS) technology are being considered for High Energy Physics applications due to the ease of production and the reduced costs. Such technology is especially appealing when large areas to be covered and material budget are concerned. This is the case of the outermost pixel layers of the future ATLAS tracking detector for the HL-LHC. For experiments at hadron colliders, radiation hardness is a key requirement which is not fulfilled by standard CMOS sensor designs that collect charge by diffusion. This issue has been addressed by depleted active pixel sensors in which electronics are embedded into a large deep implantation ensuring uniform charge collection by drift. Very first small prototypes of hybrid depleted active pixel sensors have already shown a radiation hardness compatible with the ATLAS requirements. Nevertheless, to compete with the present hybrid solutions a further reduction in costs achievable by a fully monolithic design is desirable. The H35DEMO is a large electrode full reticle demonstrator chip produced in AMS 350 nm HV-CMOS technology by the collaboration of Karlsruher Institut f\"ur Technologie (KIT), Institut de F\'isica d'Altes Energies (IFAE), University of Liverpool and University of Geneva. It includes two large monolithic pixel matrices which can be operated standalone. One of these two matrices has been characterised at beam test before and after irradiation with protons and neutrons. Results demonstrated the feasibility of producing radiation hard large area fully monolithic pixel sensors in HV-CMOS technology. H35DEMO chips with a substrate resistivity of 200$\Omega$ cm irradiated with neutrons showed a radiation hardness up to a fluence of $10^{15}$n$_{eq}$cm$^{-2}$ with a hit efficiency of about 99% and a noise occupancy lower than $10^{-6}$ hits in a LHC bunch crossing of 25ns at 150V

Time dynamics of background noise in geoelectrical and geochemical signals: an application in a seismic area of Southern Italy

We analyse geoelectrical and geochemical time series jointly measured by means of a multiparametric automatic station close to an anomalous fluid emission in Val d’Agri (Basilicata, Italy). The investigated area is located on Southern Apennine chain that in past and recent years was interested by destructive earthquakes. After a complete pre-processing of time series, we analyse the fluctuations triggered by the seasonal cycles and focus our attention on the possible link between geoelectrical and geochemical signals. In order to extract quantitative dynamical information from experimental time series, we detect scaling laws in power spectra that are typical fingerprints of fractional Brownian processes. After this analysis, the problem of the identification of extreme events in the time series has been approached. We consider significant anomalous patterns only when more consecutive values are above/below a fixed threshold in almost two of the time series jointly measured. We give the first preliminary results about the comparison between anomalous patterns detected in geoelectrical and geochemical parameters and the local seismic activity and, finally, analyse the implications with the earthquake prediction problem