Commentary on Cristofaro - Cognitive Mechanisms Need to be Operationalized

Commentary on Cristofaro - Cognitive Mechanisms Need to Be Operationalized

Cognitive Mechanisms Need to Be Operationalized Comment on ‘ Semantic Maps and Mental Representation ’ by Sonia Cristofaro ( 2010 )

Cristofaro (2010) voices a growing trend within cognitive-functional linguistics to explain language universals in terms of productive processes in language use rather than in terms of universal conceptual representations. Such mechanisms include metonymy and generalization. Even though I fully agree with this general approach, the proposed mechanisms remain too fuzzy and incomplete to shed new...

Can Utilitarianism be Operationalized?

The Utilitarian ideal is equal regard for all individuals — those now living and those not yet born. This paper shows that operationalizing this ideal is problematic: the existence of preferences that regard all individuals equally and respect the Pareto ordering is undecidable on the basis of the axioms used in almost all of formal economics; in particular, such preferences cannot be “construc...

Commentary on Cristofaro - What Do Semantic Maps Tell Us?

Do Antibiotic Beads Need to be Removed?

Background: Polymethylmethacrylate antibiotic impregnated beads can be an effective treatment for chronicosteomyelitis or an adjuvant in the treatment of open fractures. It remains unclear however whether the beads causelong-term adverse events if not removed. The purpose of this study was to determine if removal of antibiotic beads wasrequired in order to avoid long term comp...