Convergence strategies for theory assessment.

This paper addresses the issue of the import of convergence arguments in theory assessment. A first part is devoted to making the point of the different types of strategies based on convergence, providing new distinctions with respect to the existing literature. Specific attention is devoted to robustness vs consilience arguments and one representative example for each category is then discussed in some detail.

Renormalization group methods: Which kind of explanation?

Renormalization and Renormalization Group (RG) have proven to be very powerful tools in contemporary physics, with a decisive influence on how to conceive of key physical aspects, including theories themselves. While they can be tackled from a variety of standpoints, this paper focuses on a specific philosophical issue, that is, which kind of explanation can be provided by means of RG methods. After a short, historical overview to set out the physical context, we scrutinize recent debates on the topic, with a particular focus on Morrison's seminal work.

Occlusal Plane Changes After Molar Distalization With a Pendulum Appliance in Growing Patients with Class II Malocclusion: A Retrospective Cephalometric Study.

Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the skeletal and dental changes after distalization with a pendulum appliance in growing patients with Class II malocclusion, focusing on the occlusal plane (OP).

Methods: The sample included 24 patients with Class II malocclusion (10 boys, 14 girls); their mean age was 12.1 years.

Long lasting musical training modifies language processing: a Dichotic Fused Word Test study.

Musical training modifies neural areas associated with both music and language and enhances speech perception and discrimination by engaging the right hemisphere regions classically associated with music processing. On these bases we hypothesized that participants with extended musical training could have reduced left-hemisphere dominance for speech. In order to verify this hypothesis, two groups of right-handed individuals, one with long-term musical training and one with no musical training, participated to a Dichotic Fused Word Test consisting in the simultaneous presentation of different pairs of rhyming words and pseudo-words, one to the left ear and one to the right one.

Hypnotizability and the position sense: proprioceptive localization of the hand.

We  investigated whether healthy subjects with high (highs) and low (lows) hypnotizability scores differ in the ability to report the position of their right hand in the horizontal plane at the end of passive and active arm movements directed to lateral, intermediate and medial targets of the right hemispace under correct or incorrect visual feedback. Results showed that incorrect visual feedback increased the error in both groups. In lows, the error was similar after active and passive movements; in highs, it was lower for active than passive movements toward the medial position, but lower for passive than for active movements for the lateral one.