Research has shown that processing dynamics on the perceiver's end determine aesthetic pleasure. Specifically, typical objects, which are processed more fluently, are perceived as more attractive. We extend this notion of perceptual fluency to judgments of vocal aesthetics. Vocal attractiveness has traditionally been examined with respect to sexual dimorphism and the apparent size of a talker, as reconstructed from the acoustic signal, despite evidence that gender-specific speech patterns are learned social behaviors. In this study, we report on a series of (...) three experiments using 60 voices to compare the relationship between judgments of vocal attractiveness, stereotypicality, and gender categorization fluency. Our results indicate that attractiveness and stereotypicality are highly correlated for female and male voices. Stereotypicality and categorization fluency were also correlated for male voices, but not female voices. Crucially, stereotypicality and categorization fluency interacted to predict attractiveness, suggesting the role of perceptual fluency is present, but nuanced, in judgments of human voices. (shrink)

Research indicates that academic growth and student behavior are inextricably linked. Schools that systematically address both academic and social/emotional learning (SEL) have shown increased student achievement when compared to schools that do not address both factors ( Elliott, Huai & Roach, 2007 ; Hawken, Vincent & Schumann, 2008 ). Even with this understanding, outcomes for students with emotional and behavioral disabilities (EBD) continue to be of concern ( Bradley, Doolittle & Bartolotta, 2008 ). This study explores the effectiveness of integrating (...) SEL and social studies learning in the self-contained special education classroom for students with EBD using Storypath, an inquiry-based social studies curriculum. We hypothesized that the systematic integration of SEL opportunities into meaningful, well-planned and engaging academic instruction could provide students with an opportunity to authentically learn and practice key social and academic skills. Quantitative findings via an online survey and qualitative findings via interviews and observations indicate that students with EBD can successfully engage in less structured and more cognitively challenging academic activities and use SEL skills effectively in the context of these lessons. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2017 Heft: 215 Seiten: 193-234.

We aimed to identify the critical insights from empirical peer-reviewed studies on online romance fraud published between 2000 and 2021 through a systematic literature review using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) protocol. The corpus of studies that met our inclusion criteria comprised twenty-six studies employing qualitative (n = 13), quantitative (n = 11), and mixed (n = 2) methods. Most studies focused on victims, with eight focusing on offenders and fewer investigating public perspectives. All the (...) victim-focused studies relied on data from the Global North, except for Malaysia. Five offender-focused studies used online data available in the public domain, and three derived their data from West Africa. Our review highlights offenders' techniques to deceive and manipulate victims, as revealed in these studies, and highlights some limitations of offender- and victim-focused studies. The dominant framework used across the studies was found to be the “Scammers Persuasive Techniques Model.” While this framework provides a helpful way of considering the stages of victim involvement, it also faces some limitations, which we highlight. Our study reviews the current state of empirical knowledge on romance fraud and identifies certain gaps and biases in the literature. We argue there is a need for further research into online romance fraud to enhance our understanding of it both from the perspective of the offender as well as the experience of the victim. We also highlight the need for a more inclusive and greater range of regional and global diverse range of data sources and perspectives. Given the scale and impact of online romance fraud, we conclude that its study would benefit from a richer empirical engagement that recognizes it as both a regional and global phenomenon. (shrink)

One of the earliest and most influential treatises on the subject of this volume is Aristotle's Categories. Aristotle's title is a form of the Greek verb for speaking against or submitting an accusation in a legal proceeding. By the time of Aristotle, it also meant: to signify or to predicate. Surprisingly, the "predicates" Aristotle talks about include not only bits of language, but also such nonlinguistic items as the color white in a body and the knowledge of grammar in a (...) man's soul. (Categories I/ii) Equally surprising are such details as Aristotle's use of the terms 'homonymy' and 'synonymy' in connection with things talked about rather than words used to talk about them. Judging from the evidence in the Organon, the Metaphysics, and elsewhere, Aristotle was both aware of and able to mark the distinction between using and men tioning words; and so we must conclude that in the Categories, he was not greatly concerned with it. For our purposes, however, it is best to treat the term 'predication' as if it were ambiguous and introduce some jargon to disambiguate it. Code, Modrak, and other authors of the essays which follow use the terms 'linguistic predication' and 'metaphysical predication' for this. (shrink)

This study investigates whether and how sex and race affect access to and rewards for job authority, using 1980 survey data for 1,216 employed workers. The authors examine whether, net of human-capital characteristics, sex and race affect access to and compensation for job authority. In addition, the authors examine whether the translation of credentials into authority and earnings varies depending on workers' sex or race.

A study of the major themes in traditional and contemporary philosophy.

Descartes's works are often treated as a unified, unchanging whole. But in Descartes's Changing Mind, Peter Machamer and J. E. McGuire argue that the philosopher's views, particularly in natural philosophy, actually change radically between his early and later works--and that any interpretation of Descartes must take account of these changes. The first comprehensive study of the most significant of these shifts, this book also provides a new picture of the development of Cartesian science, epistemology, and metaphysics. No changes in (...) Descartes's thought are more significant than those that occur between the major works The World and Principles of Philosophy. Often seen as two versions of the same natural philosophy, these works are in fact profoundly different, containing distinct conceptions of causality and epistemology. Machamer and McGuire trace the implications of these changes and others that follow from them, including Descartes's rejection of the method of abstraction as a means of acquiring knowledge, his insistence on the infinitude of God's power, and his claim that human knowledge is limited to that which enables us to grasp the workings of the world and develop scientific theories. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has raised a host of ethical challenges, but key among these has been the possibility that health care systems might need to ration scarce critical care resources. Rationing p...

Price is a central analytic concept in both neoclassical and old institutional economics. Combining the social network perspective with old and new institutionalist approaches to price formation, this article examines technological, economic, institutional, and political factors that shaped the earliest pricing systems for electricity used in the United States, between 1882 and 1910. We show that certain characteristics of electricity supply led to ambiguities in how the product should be priced, which created a politics of pricing among electricity producers. In (...) particular, we investigate why the “Wright system,” arguably inferior in productive efficiency to other alternatives, was widely adopted by 1900. We argue that this outcome resulted in part from the political and organizational clout of its supporters, as well as from their particular conceptions of the boundaries and future of the industry itself. The Wright system best suited the “growth dynamic” strategy promoted by the managers of large central stations in their fierce competition with smaller and more decentralized installations. Thus, even in this apparently highly technical and mainly economic issue of how to price the product, there was ample room for social construction and political manipulation. The outcome reached was by no means inevitable and had a highly significant impact on the shape of the American industrial infrastructure. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2016 Heft: 213 Seiten: 493-538.

This book approaches the topic of the subjective, lived experience of hate crime from the perspective of Husserlian phenomenology. It provides an experientially well-grounded account of how and what is experienced as a hate crime, and what this reveals about ourselves as the continually reconstituted “subject” of such experiences. The book shows how qualitative social science methods can be better grounded in philosophically informed theory and methodological practices to add greater depth and explanatory power to experiential approaches to social sciences (...) topics. The Authors also highlight several gaps and contradictions within Husserlian analyses of prejudice, which are exposed by attempts to concretely apply this approach to the field of hate crimes. Coverage includes the difficulties in providing an empathetic understanding of expressions of harmful forms of prejudice underlying hate crimes, including hate speech, arising from our own and others’ ‘life worlds’. The Authors describe a ‘Husserlian-based’ view of hate crime as well as a novel interpretation of the value of the comprehensive methodological stages pioneered by Husserl. The intended readership includes those concerned with discrimination and hate crime, as well as those involved in qualitative research into social topics in general. The broader content level makes this work suitable for undergraduate and postgraduate students, even professionals within law enforcement. (shrink)

Twentieth-century political philosopher Eric Voegelin is best known as a severe critic of modernity. Much of his work argues that modernity is a Gnostic revolt against the fundamental structure of reality. For Voegelin, “Gnosticism” is the belief that human beings can transform the nature of reality through secret knowledge and social action, and he considered it the crux of the crisis of modernity. As Voegelin struggled with this crisis throughout his career, he never wavered in his judgment that philosophers of (...) the modern continental tradition were complicit in the Gnostic revolt of modernity. But while Voegelin’s analysis of those philosophers is at times scathing, his work also bears marks of their influence, and Voegelin has much more in common with the theorists of the modern continental tradition than is usually recognized. _Eric Voegelin and the Continental Tradition: Explorations in Modern Political Thought _evaluates this political philosopher—one of the most original and influential thinkers of our time—by examining his relationship to the modern continental tradition in philosophy, from Kant to Derrida. In a compelling introduction, editors Lee Trepanier and Steven F. McGuire present a review of the trajectories of Voegelin’s thought and outline what often is portrayed as his derisive critique of modernity. Soon, however, they begin to unravel the similarities between Voegelin’s thought and the work of other thinkers in the continental tradition. The subsequent chapters explore these possible connections by examining Voegelin’s intellectual relationship to individual thinkers, including Hegel, Schelling, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Gadamer. The essays in this volume go beyond Voegelin’s own reading of the modern philosophers to offer a reevaluation of his relationship to those thinkers. In _Eric Voegelin and the Continental Tradition_, Voegelin’s attempt to grapple with the crisis of modernity becomes clearer, and his contribution to the modern continental tradition is illuminated. The book features the work of both established and emerging Voegelin scholars, and the essays were chosen to present thoughtful and balanced assessments of both Voegelin’s thought and the ideas of the other thinkers considered. As the first volume to examine the relationship—and surprising commonalities—between Voegelin’s philosophy and the continental tradition as a whole, this text will be of interest not only to Voegelin disciples but to philosophers engaged by continental modernism and all disciplines of political philosophy. (shrink)

Objective: Parental influence during children’s “everyday” pain events is under-explored, compared to clinical or experimental pains. We trialed two digital reporting methods for parents to record the real-world context surrounding their child’s everyday pain events within the family home.Methods: Parents completed a structured e-diary for 14 days, reporting on one pain event experienced by their child each day, and describing child pain responses, parental supervision, parental estimates of pain severity and intensity, and parental catastrophizing, distress, and behavioral responses. During the (...) same 2-week period, a subsample of parent-child pairs completed digital ecological momentary assessments, immediately after any chosen pain event. Children reported their current pain while parents estimated the child’s pain and indicated their own distress.Results: “Everyday” pain events frequently featured minor injuries to the child’s head, hands or knees, and child responses included crying and non-verbal comments. Pain events occurred less frequently when parents had been supervising their child, and supervising parents reported lower levels of worry and anxiety than non-supervising parents. Child sex was significantly associated with parental estimates of pain intensity, with parents of girls giving higher estimates than parents of boys. Child age was significantly associated with both the number of pain events and with parental estimates of pain intensity and child distress: the youngest children experienced the fewest pain events but received higher pain and distress estimates from parents than older children. Hierarchal Linear Modeling revealed that parental estimates of pain severity were significant positive predictors of parental distress and catastrophizing in response to a specific pain event. Furthermore, higher levels of parental catastrophic thinking in response to a specific pain event resulted in increased distress, solicitousness, and coping-promoting behaviors in parents. The EMA data revealed that children reported significantly higher pain intensity than their parents.Conclusion: The electronic pain diary provided a key insight into the nature of “everyday” pain experiences around the family home. Digital daily reporting of how the family copes with “everyday” events represents a viable means to explore a child’s everyday pains without disrupting their home environment. (shrink)

Purpose: This study explores social networkers' interest in and attitudes toward personal genome testing (PGT), focusing on expectations related to the clinical integration of PGT results. Methods: An online survey of 1,087 social networking users was conducted to assess 1) use and interest in PGT; 2) attitudes toward PGT companies and test results; and 3) expectations for the clinical integration of PGT. Descriptive statistics were calculated to summarize respondents' characteristics and responses. Results: Six percent of respondents have used PGT, 64% (...) would consider using PGT, and 30% would not use PGT. Of those who would consider using PGT, 74% report they would use it to gain knowledge about disease in their family. 34% of all respondents consider the information obtained from PGT to be a medical diagnosis. 78% of those who would consider PGT would ask their physician for help interpreting test results, and 61% of all respondents believe physicians have a professional obligation to help individuals interpret PGT results. Conclusion: Respondents express interest in using PGT services, primarily for purposes related to their medical care and expect physicians to help interpret PGT results. Physicians should therefore be prepared for patient demands for information and counsel on the basis of PGT results. (shrink)

Manuscript Add. 3965, section 13, folios 541r–542r and 545r–546r is in the Portsmouth Collection of manuscripts and housed in the University Library, Cambridge. These drafts contain a careful account, in Newton's hand, of his views on place, time, and God. They are part of a large number of drafts relating to the three official editions of the Principia published in Newton's lifetime.

Drawing on a landscape analysis of existing data-sharing initiatives, in-depth interviews with expert stakeholders, and public deliberations with community advisory panels across the U.S., we describe features of the evolving medical information commons. We identify participant-centricity and trustworthiness as the most important features of an MIC and discuss the implications for those seeking to create a sustainable, useful, and widely available collection of linked resources for research and other purposes.

This paper examines the relationship between CEO incentives and strong and weak corporate social performance. Using the KLD database we find that incentives have no significant relationship with strong social performance. Salary and long-term incentives have a positive association with weak social performance.

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2015 Heft: 204 Seiten: 253-290.

Descartes is always concerned about knowledge. However, the Galileo affair in 1633, the reactions to his Discourse on method, and later his need to reply to objections to his Meditations provoked crises in Descartes’s intellectual development the import of which has not been sufficiently recognized. These events are the major reasons why Descartes’s philosophical position concerning how we know and what we may know is radically different at the end of his life from what it was when he began. We (...) call this later position Descartes’s epistemic stance and contrast it with his earlier methodological, metaphysical realism. Yet Descartes’s epistemic views cannot be separated from other aspects of his work, for example, his views concerning God, causality, metaphysics, and the nature of science. A further meta-implication is that serious errors await any scholar who cites early Cartesian texts in support of late Cartesian positions, or who uses later texts in conjunction with early ones to support a reading of Descartes’s philosophy.Keywords: René Descartes; Nature; Motion; Method; Knowledge. (shrink)

The provision of standardized hearing aids is now considered to be a crucial part of the UK National Health Service. Yet this is only explicable through reference to the career of a woman who has, until now, been entirely forgotten. Dr Phyllis Margaret Tookey Kerridge was an authoritative figure in a variety of fields: medicine, physiology, otology and the construction of scientific apparatus. The astounding breadth of her professional qualifications allowed her to combine features of these fields and, later in (...) her career, to position herself as a specialist to shape the discipline of audiometry. Rather than framing Kerridge in the classic ‘heroic-woman’ narrative, in this article we draw out the complexities of her career by focusing on her pursuit of standardization of hearing tests. Collaboration afforded her the necessary networks to explore the intricacies of accuracy in the measurement of hearing acuity, but her influence was enhanced by her ownership of Britain's first Western Electric audiometer, which she placed in a specially designed and unique ‘silence room’. The room became the centre of Kerridge's hearing aid clinic that, for the first time, allowed people to access free and impartial advice on hearing aid prescription. In becoming the guardian expert and advocate of the audiometer, Kerridge achieved an objectively quantified approach to hearing loss that eventually made the latter an object of technocratic intervention. (shrink)

In 1996, President Clinton offered a promissory vision for human genetics when he said: “I think it won't be too many years before parents will be able to go home from the hospital with their newborn babies with a genetic map in their hands that will tell them, here's what your child's future will likely be like.”The rapid evolution of genetic sequencing technologies has advanced that vision. In October 2006, the cost of sequencing an entire human genome was $10.4 million; (...) by 2014 the cost had decreased a thousand fold. The term next generation sequencing describes a variety of laboratory methods that allow efficient determination of the precise order of nucleotides in a DNA sequence. The papers in this issue of the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics focus on “clinical NGS,” which refers to rapid DNA sequencing using second-, third- and fourth-generation sequencing technologies to perform genome-wide sequencing of multiple genes or alleles for clinical prognostic, diagnostic, and therapeutic purposes. (shrink)

In this paper, we explore the perspectives of expert stakeholders about who owns data in a medical information commons and what rights and interests ought to be recognized when developing a governance structure for an MIC. We then examine the legitimacy of these claims based on legal and ethical analysis and explore an alternative framework for thinking about participants' rights and interests in an MIC.

Current literature has documented the detrimental effects of cyberbullying which include a range of internalising and externalising problems for those involved. Although critical, this research can sometimes ignore social-ecological aspects of a child’s life that can potentially ‘buffer’ the negative psychological effects of such involvement. With this in mind, this cross-sectional investigation of 12-16 year olds [M(SD): 13.5(1) years] in Ireland focused on the role of friendship quality and gender in association with cyberbullying involvement and psychological well-being (N= 2410). The (...) Cyberbullying and Online Aggression Scale was used to measure cyber perpetration and victimisation. A modified version of the Cambridge Friendship Questionnaire was included to investigate peer friendship quality. Finally, the Moods and Feeling Questionnaire and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire were chosen to provide a measurement of psychological well-being. Prevalence rates for various types of cyberbullying roles (cyber bullies, victims and bully/victims) are presented, as well as differences for psychological well-being, friendship quality and cyberbullying involvement. In addition, regression models were used to determine the associations between gender, age, friendship quality and involvement in cyberbullying with psychological well-being. The results are considered in terms of the current literature and directions for future research are suggested. (shrink)

Pediatric psychopharmacology is a relatively new science. Although the use of psychotropic medications in children has risen in the past decade, there are few standard treatments for serious psychiatric or developmental disorders of childhood. The relative absence of standard treatments is further complicated by the fact that many of the agents used in pediatric psychopharmacology have been adapted from other fields. Therefore, investigators have a responsibility to make incremental progress from concept through pilot studies and large-scale, multisite efficacy and safety (...) trials. Thus, although there is a pressing need to conduct medication trials that can guide clinical practice, there are scientific and ethical considerations to bear in mind when designing clinical trials in pediatric psychopharmacology. This article reviews essential ethical and scientific issues that are relevant to designing clinical trials in children with psychiatric and developmental disorders. Using examples from recently published literature, the article describes the challenges and pitfalls of various clinical trial study designs. The application of sound ethical and scientific principles is necessary to ensure that clinical trials are properly conducted and to guard against ambiguous results that can not guide practice. (shrink)

: This article is concerned with Newton's appropriation of Descartes' ontology of true and immutable natures in developing his theory of infinitely extended space. It contends that unless the part played by the Platonic distinction between "being a nature" and "having a nature" in Newton's thinking is properly appreciated the foundation of his doctrine of space in relation to God will not be fully understood. It also contends that Newton's Platonism is consistent with his empiricism once the mediating role is (...) made clear that the geometry of moving loci play in grounding his intuitions concerning infinite natures. (shrink)

The new art of videogames -- What are videogames anyway? -- On definition -- Theories of gaming -- A definition of videogames -- Videogames and fiction -- From tennis for two to worlds of warcraft -- Imaginary worlds and works of fiction -- Fictional or virtual? -- Interactive fiction -- Stepping into fictional worlds -- Welcome to rapture -- Meet niko bellic -- Experiencing game worlds -- Acting in game worlds -- Games through fiction -- The nature of gaming -- (...) What are the rules of this game? -- Playing, cheating, fragging, and griefing -- Videogames and narrative -- The stories games tell -- Would you kindly put down that wrench? -- Reconciling games and narratives -- Emotion in videogaming -- How can we be moved by the fate of Niko Bellic? -- My fear of mutants -- The role of the emotions in gaming -- The morality of videogames -- The problem with crime simulators -- Are games bad for you? -- On being offensive -- Sticking up for videogames -- Videogames as art -- Are videogames art? -- A cluster theory of art -- The art in videogames -- New art from old bottles. (shrink)

E. L. Grant Watson, an English field naturalist, zoologist, and one of England's best-loved nature writers, spent a lifetime trying to bring nature and consciousness into a unified, holistic vision that would establish meaning in the world without losing wonder. The questions raised by facts of nature inexplicable in terms of conventional theories, together with insights gained from a reading of Jung--as well as by a study of early Christian gnostic literature and the anthroposophy of Rudolf Steiner--brought him to (...) an imaginative perception of living things based on the conviction of the presence in all things of a spiritual reality. "Love is of man, but wisdom is of nature, and there are times when it almost seems that the author's secret--as perhaps it will one day be the secret of a reformed scientific method--is to stand aside and let the wisdom of nature herself speak through him. "-Owen Barfield. (shrink)