Ends to Means

Ends to a means

Most of the familiar garden birds we see all the time have a very short life: just a few years for the commoner species. But some birds have the potential for a very long life and a new study has looked at chromosomal status that may be linked with longevity. A team of international scientists headed by Pat Monahan at the University of Glasgow report, in Proceedings B of the Royal Society (publ...

Applying means-ends analysis to spatial planning

Currently known methods for robot planning fall far behind human capabilities: they require approximations of shapes, and they cannot generate plans which involve moving obstacles to clear a path for the moving object. In this paper, we explore the hypothesis that means-ends analysis based on a world model involving mental imagery allows more human-like solutions. Our method is based on a novel...

Means-Ends Epistemology

This paper describes the cornerstones of a means-ends approach to the philosophy of inductive inference. I begin with a fallibilist ideal of convergence to the truth in the long run, or in the “limit of inquiry”. I determine which methods are optimal for attaining additional epistemic aims (notably fast and steady convergence to the truth). Means-ends vindications of (a version of) Occam’s Razo...

Tdp2: A Means to Fixing the Ends

Topoisomerases carry out the highwire act of changing DNA structure through transient DNA breaks. Breaks are needed because the topology of DNA can only be changed through cutting the DNA. Topoisomerases are well suited for this tricky enterprise; they hold on to DNA covalently, shielding DNA ends from participation in unwarranted repair signaling or reactions. A downside of this mechanism is t...

Means, Ends and Medical Care