This book presents a new approach to epistemology (the theory of human knowledge and reasoning). Its approach aims to liberate epistemology from the scholastic debates of standard analytic epistemology, and treat it as a branch of the philosophy of science. The approach is novel in its use of cost-benefit analysis to guide people facing real reasoning problems and in its framework for resolving normative disputes in psychology. Based on empirical data, the book shows how people can improve their reasoning by relying on Statistical Prediction Rules (SPRs). It then develops and articulates the positive core of the book. The view presented — Strategic Reliabilism — claims that epistemic excellence consists in the efficient allocation of cognitive resources to reliable reasoning strategies, applied to significant problems. The last third of the book develops the implications of this view for standard analytic epistemology; for resolving normative disputes in psychology; and for offering practical, concrete advice on how this theory can improve real people's reasoning.

We consider the design of bandwidth-demanding broadcasting applications using overlays in environments characterized by hosts with limited and asymmetric bandwidth, and significant heterogeneity in upload bandwidth. Such environments are critical to consider to extend the applicability of overlay multicast to mainstream Internet environments where insufficient bandwidth exists to support all hosts, but have not received adequate attention from the research community. We leverage the multitree framework and design heuristics to enable it to consider host contribution and operate in bandwidth-scarce environments. Our extensions seek to simultaneously achieve good utilization of system resources, performance to hosts commensurate to their contributions, and consistent performance. We have implemented the system and conducted an Internet evaluation on PlanetLab using real traces from previous operational deployments of an overlay broadcasting system. Our results indicate for these traces, our heuristics can improve the performance of high contributors by 10-240% and facilitate equitable bandwidth distribution among hosts with similar contributions.

This chapter focuses on the two opposing sides of the current rationality wars with the “heuristics and biases” researchers on the one hand, and the evolutionary psychologists on the other. The former group cites decades of evidence that people have systematic deviations from rationality, as evidenced by their performance on certain types of formal reasoning tasks. The latter group asserts the implausibility of the human architecture evolving with an inaccurate sense of probability and offers evidence that a representation of various formal problems in more ecologically valid forms makes the so-called irrational response patterns disappear. It is argued that the illusion that evolutionary psychology and the heuristics and biases tradition have a deep disagreement about how rational human beings are should disappear. This is not to say, however, that there are no genuine disagreements between these two research programs.

Hosts participating in overlay multicast applications have a wide range of heterogeneity in bandwidth and participation characteristics. In this paper, we highlight and show the need to systematically consider prioritization as a key criterion in the design of protocols for overlay multicast. We identify trade-offs in the design of prioritization heuristics in two important contexts. The first part of the paper considers prioritization strategies in the context of heterogeneity in node outgoing bandwidth and node stay time durations, and a lack of correlation between the two dimensions. The second part of the paper considers bandwidth allocation and prioritization policies with multi-tree data delivery in environments with heterogeneity in outgoing bandwidth and a certain degree of altruistic behavior. We conduct a systematic study of the trade-offs using both real trace data, and sensitivity studies using synthetic workloads. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work to identify and study these trade-offs, and to demonstrate the potential benefits of the resulting prioritization heuristics. TABLE I CONSTITUTION OF HOSTS IN DIFFERENT BROADCASTS, CONDUCTED USING AN OPERATIONALLY DEPLOYED BROADCAST SYSTEM BASED ON OVERLAY MULTICAST. Event Low High Mean Median Total Peak Speed Speed Session Session Size Group 100Kbps 10Mbps Duration Duration Size

Objective Rural doctors are difficult to recruit and retain. Burnout and stress in the medical workforce fluctuates according to location. Overall, doctors have an elevated risk of depression and suicide compared to the general population and other professionals. Higher levels of occupational stress also effect patient care, levels of work satisfaction and relationships with others. This study evaluated the effectiveness, acceptability, feasibility and sustainability of the Mindful Self‐Care and Resiliency Program. Design This was a sequential mixed‐method study involving the collection of both quantitative and qualitative data. Setting The study was conducted in Emerald, Queensland. Participants Thirteen doctors took part in the program with seven providing pre and post survey responses. Qualitative data were collected via semi‐structured telephone interviews with an additional four rural doctors. InterventionThe Mindful Self‐Care and Resiliency program consisted of a 4‐hour face‐to‐face session and three 1‐hour video‐conference follow up sessions.Main outcome measuresBurnout, negative affect, well‐being and psychological strain were assessed using self‐report measures before and after taking part in the program.ResultsThe majority (six out of seven) of the doctors showed reductions in burnout, psychological strain and negative affect following participation in the program. The qualitative data indicated that all doctors gained new skills: self‐awareness, reflection and self‐care. They also reported improved interaction with colleagues and patients, to whom they passed on their new learning.ConclusionThis preliminary investigation of the effectiveness and feasibility of Mindful Self‐Care and Resiliency for rural doctors indicates that the program has promise in improving the emotional well‐being of this occupational group. Although this study captured approximately one‐third of the Emerald workforce, further research with a larger sample is required to confirm these findings.