The vicinity of a critical end point is analyzed in order to reveal singularities arising in the form of the first-order phase boundary to the noncritical phase. Phenomenological arguments are presented and critically assessed that directly relate the nonanalytic behavior of the phase boundary to universal features of the bulk thermodynamics on the associated critical line. Explicit values are ...

Statistical literacy is the ability to read and interpret data: the ability to use statistics as evidence in arguments. Statistical literacy is a competency: the ability to think critically about statistics. This introduction defines statistical literacy as a science of method, compares statistical literacy with traditional statistics and reviews some of the elements in reading and interpreting...

Several theoretical and experimental aspects of sideband suppression in the nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectra of rotating solids are considered. The principles of sideband suppression are explored using general symmetry arguments and previous treatments are examined critically. Analytical solutions are given for sideband suppression pulse sequences employing four, five, six, and nine P p...

Recently, some evidence has shown that the failure of iron homeostasis may occur in critically ill patients and can lead to iron overload. Elevated ferritin levels as a body iron burden index in critically ill patients may be associated with depressed level of consciousness and greater mortality. However, the necessity of using iron-chelating agents in clinical situation is still unknown for th...

Event passives are verbal passives of causative predcates which involve only a causing event and no agent. Studying this kind of passive, I critically review the popular claim in research on passives and implicit arguments that verbal passives semantically always include an implicit argument (Bhatt & Pancheva 2006). I contend that this view is not very reasonable from a semantic perspective. Mo...

Abstract Panel peer review is widely used to decide which research proposals receive funding. Through this exploratory observational study at two large biomedical and health funders in the Netherlands, we gain insight into how scientific quality societal relevance are discussed panel meetings. We explore, ten meetings of funding programmes, composition formal assessment criteria affect argument...

I critically examine confirmational holism as it pertains to the indispensability arguments for mathematical Platonism. I employ a distinction between pure and applied mathematics that grows out of the often overlooked symbiotic relationship between mathematics and science. I argue that this distinction undercuts the notion that (pure) mathematical theories fall under the holistic scope of the ...

In Denis Walsh's Organisms, Agency, and Evolution, he argues that new developments in the science of biology motivate a radical change to our metaphysical picture of life: what he calls 'Situated Darwinism'. The central claim is that we should take the biological world to be at base about organisms, and organisms in a fundamentally teleological sense. We critically examine Walsh's arguments and...

The movement for a national pharmacare plan in Canada is growing, but at the same time the multinational pharmaceutical companies and their supporters are critical of such a move. The three major arguments that they make are that all that is needed is to “fill in the gaps,” ie, cover those who currently are uninsured or underinsured, that private drug plans are superior to public ones because t...

this article considers all the mulla sadra’s proofs of primacy of existence (asalat al-wujud) found in all his works‚ and concludes that sadra has two approaches in his arguments: (1) to prove the primacy of existence through negation of original attributes from quiddity (mahiyyah), (2) to refute the primacy of quiddity through indirect proof. at the end‚ we conclude that the first approach and...