WHY “CONSCIOUSNESS” MEANS WHAT IT DOES

Psychogenic pain-what it means, why it does not exist, and how to diagnose it.

The concept of psychogenic pain has stimulated controversy in the field of pain medicine, not only regarding its prevalence, but indeed its very existence. Some would even hold that the term is fundamentally meaningless. Whether meaningless or not, it is often hated—by physicians in pain medicine whose patients have been harmed by not having been taken seriously, and by patients who experience ...

Socially Situated AI: What It Means and Why It Matters

Classical AI focuses agent design purely on the agent. Various alternatives to classical AI, such as behavior-based AI and situated action, propose that agent design should include, not just the agent, but also its environment. These alternatives fall short of their own stated goals, however, in that they tend to include only the physical objects with which the agent interacts, leaving out such...

Social Mobility : What is it and why does it matter ?

Teacher agency: what is it and why does it matter?

The concept of teacher agency has emerged in recent literature as an alternative means of understanding how teachers might enact practice and engage with policy (e.g. Lasky, 2005; Leander & Osbourne, 2008; Ketelaar et al., 2012; Priestley, Biesta & Robinson, 2013). But what is agency? Agency remains an inexact and poorly conceptualised construct in much of the literature, where it is often not ...

Atherosclerosis: what is it and why does it occur?

are largely spared while others such as the coronary arteries are at high risk. Similarly, in the same individual the degree of coronary, cerebral, and carotid atherosclerosis is often disparate. Atherosclerosis is a focal not a diffuse intimal disease. The focal nature can be appreciated by examining the intimal surface of an opened artery, when discrete lesions or plaques are visible. Lipid a...