The debate around vaccine passports has been polarising and controversial. Although the measure allows businesses to resume in-person operations and enables transitioning out of lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, some have expressed concerns about liberty violations and discrimination. Understanding the splintered viewpoints can aid businesses in communicating such measures to employees and consumers. We conceptualise the business implementation of vaccine passports as a moral decision rooted in individual values that influence reasoning and emotional reaction. We surveyed support for vaccine (...) passports on a nationally representative sample in the United Kingdom in 2021: April (n = 349), May (n = 328), and July (n = 311). Drawing on the Moral Foundations Theory—binding (loyalty, authority, and sanctity), individualising (fairness and harm), and liberty values—we find that individualising values are a positive predictor and liberty values a negative predictor of support for passports, suggesting adoption hinges on addressing liberty concerns. Longitudinal analysis examining the trajectory of change in support over time finds that individualising foundations positively predict changes in utilitarian and deontological reasoning over time. In contrast, a fall in anger over time predicts increased support towards vaccine passports. Our study can inform business and policy communication strategies of existing vaccine passports, general vaccine mandates, and similar measures in future pandemics. (shrink)

Creativity is critical to organizational success. Understanding the antecedents of creativity is important. Although there is a growing body of research on how (mixed) emotions affect creativity, most of the work has focused on intrapersonal processes. We do not know whether contrasting emotions between interacting partners (i.e., interpersonal mixed emotions) have creative consequences. Building on information processing theories of emotion, our research proposes a theoretical account for why interpersonal mixed emotions matter. It hypothesized that mixed- (vs. same-) emotion interactions would (...) predict higher collective creative performance. We tested the hypothesis in two-party integrative negotiations (105 dyads). We manipulated negotiators’ emotional expressions (angry-angry, happy-happy, angry-happy dyads) and measured the extent to which they generated creative solutions that tapped into hidden integrative potential in the negotiation for a better joint gain. The results overall supported the hypothesis: i) there was some evidence that mixed-emotion dyads (i.e., angry-happy) performed better than same-emotion dyads; ii) mixed-emotion dyads, on average, achieved a high level of joint gain that exceeded the (non-creative) zero-sum threshold, whereas same-emotion dyads did not. The findings add theoretical and actionable insights into our understanding of creativity, emotion, and organization behavior. (shrink)

La couverture indique :"L'infini est le sujet le plus vaste que l'imagination puisse embrasser. Il a tout le temps fasciné les hommes, qu'ils soient artistes, philosophes ou scientifiques. Mais l'infini se manifeste-t-il vraiment dans la réalité physique, ou est-il seulement un concept de notre imagination, comme le pensait Aristote? Des artistes comme Escher, des écrivains comme Borges ont tenté de le représenter, mais c'est Georg Cantor qui assoit fermement l'infini dans le paysage des mathématiques et nous dévoile ses propriétés étranges (...) et magiques. L'univers est, par excellence, le lieu où l'infini se manifeste. Dans un univers infini, nous serions confrontés au paradoxe de l'éternel retour, où chacun de nous posséderait un nombre infini de sosies. Les avancées en physique de ces dernières décennies ont donné au mot "infini" un sens nouveau. Il se réfère non seulement à notre univers, mais aussi à une infinité d'univers parallèles, le tout formant un vaste et fantastique "multivers". A ces sujets vertigineux, Trinh Xuan Thuan apporte ses réflexions avec la pédagogie lumineuse, à la fois scientifique, philosophique et poétique qui lui est coutumière et qui fait le grand succès de La Mélodie secrète, du Chaos et l'harmonie, et, plus récemment, du Cosmos et le lotus.". (shrink)

By melodic landscape, this paper points to natural milieus such as mountains whose motifs are caught up in contrapuntal relations. With Merleau-Ponty, the structure of the world is a symphony, and the production of life which implicates both organism and environment as unfurling of Umwelt is ‘a melody that sings itself’. For the Chinese culture, mountains have been deemed virtuous in Confucianism, immortal by Daoists, and spiritual for a Buddhist to reach a substrate level of pure stream of a-subjective (...) consciousness. A Chinese painter-poet within the ‘mountain-water’ genre would consider mountains as performance of events, a concert of vibration of light, shape and sound, movement and rest. Insofar as art is to create energy transfer, Chinese artists of mountains aim at concerting with nature as organised by rhythms and conspecifics, unfolding contrapuntal melodies with all kinds of counterpoints. As Deleuze and Guattari's notion of refrains are the three forces or tempos of chaos, earth and world confronting/converging one another, this paper endeavours to find out, first, how Deleuze and Guattari's geological, organic and alloplastic stratifications can be put alongside mountains, animals, plants and arts, and second, how this notion can contribute to our new appreciation of the way Chinese mountains in arts can give out music. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:John Robert Leo CRITICISM OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN SHELLEY'S A DEFENCE OF POETRY IN his "Ode to Liberty" Shelley locates by encircling and enfolding metaphors a mythic Hellenic moment, one in which verse was yet "speechless" and philosophy still burdened with "lidless eyes." Greece— always for Shelley either the displaced Garden of prethematic unity or the mythic dream of integrated civic and aesthetic life—is about to inaugurate Athens and the (...) "wrinkled image" of historical consciousness.1 Poetry, thinking, and the tilling of an earth "to human use" are implicitly related and foreseen as destiny: from their enchanted caves Prophetic echoes flung dim melody. On the unapprehensive wild The vine, the corn, the olive mild, Grew savage yet, to human use unreconciled; And, like unfolded flowers beneath the sea, Like the man's dark thought in the infant's brain, Like aught that is which wraps what is to be, Art's deathless dreams lay veiled by many a vein Of Parian stone; and, yet a speechless child, Verse murmured, and Philosophy did strain Her lidless eyes for thee... (11. 49-60). Shelley could be describing the reading or speaking of a text, for poetic experience is an originating moment which unfolds our reflections and anticipations. Poetry elides speechlessness and the empty gaze. Its goings are all returnings, its experience is always inventive before meanings codify and resolve: "Every original language near to its source," we find in the Defence (p. 279), "is in itself the chaos of a cyclic poem; the copiousness of lexicography and the distinctions of grammar are the works of a later age and are merely the catalogue and the form of the creations of poetry." What was dark to experience is now illumined, 46 John Robert Leo47 as different regions in experience are uncovered or redistributed by language across our shifting horizons. Thus this bringing-foward-intoclarity, this moving of the previously inexpressed into articulation, is the pattern not only behind Shelley's view ofGreece producing a "sun-fire garlanded" Athens (1. 68), but also the more pervasive design describing other regarded experience. James Edie puts it this way: "We... can learn to make distinctions in our experience by attending to differences of meaning which are normally below the level of our own cultural threshold. By attending to a given region of experience, we can lower the differential thresholds already sedimented in our language almost indefinitely and make what was implicit in our experience more and more explicit."2 Edie's comments may be taken as responses to questions emerging from modernist readings of Shelley and other visionary poets—Blake, Hart Crane, or Charles Olson are instances—who sense the poetic project as a criticism of consciousness, within the lived body, as it struggles to make a world. How do language and the imagination consort in the critical regeneration of our lives? In what sorts of ways is renascence the uncovering and unfolding of an indefinite wholeness by the unlayering of fixed habits and attitudes? How does Shelley's Defence of Poetry, both a text on aesthetics and a reading of the world, suggest their alignment? What methods from critical discourse make Shelley's poetics present to our experience and thought? The adjustment of these issues is the task of the remainder of my article. First I examine Shelley's organization of consciousness into "reason" and "imagination" and trace the meanings of these functions in their immediate social context. A brief dispute with the reductive idealism of Platonic tradition allows for my third procedure, which is a phenomenological description of the imaginative field according to Husserl. Finally, I try to explicate Shelley's understanding of imaginative "decentering" within our experience. I Poetry and prose are saturated with references to phenomena. Texts refer to interior and exterior events (memory, rain), which are objects ofandfor consciousness. Shelley grasps this co-givenness of consciousness and world, their correlativity, as a condition revealed and strengthened by metaphor, which itself arrests us as "that of which we are speaking through words."3 But if it is the nature of language to be both perceptual and yet transcendental, both present and absent, it still exists as the imagination's voice in... (shrink)

In _Wild Blue Media_, Melody Jue destabilizes terrestrial-based ways of knowing and reorients our perception of the world by considering the ocean itself as a media environment—a place where the weight and opacity of seawater transforms how information is created, stored, transmitted, and perceived. By recentering media theory on and under the sea, Jue calls attention to the differences between perceptual environments and how we think within and through them as embodied observers. In doing so, she provides media studies (...) with alternatives to familiar theoretical frameworks, thereby challenging scholars to navigate unfamiliar oceanic conditions of orientation, materiality, and saturation. Jue not only examines media about the ocean—science fiction narratives, documentary films, ocean data visualizations, animal communication methods, and underwater art—but reexamines media _through_ the ocean, submerging media theory underwater to estrange it from terrestrial habits of perception while reframing our understanding of mediation, objectivity, and metaphor. (shrink)

To what extent do we pay attention to the text and images that cover our hospital walls and do we offer any critique either as professionals or service users? In the past we might have expected to see functional or helpful instructions about where to go (or not to go) and in more well‐endowed buildings, perhaps we would see some works of art, sculpture, stained glass even, with the intention to encourage, distract or even forewarn us. However, it is now (...) common in UK hospitals, for wall space to be used as a portal for a range of institutional political messages, that convey information about everything from its own values, behaviours to advertisements for products and services to requirements for rule following. Michel Foucault's ideas about Heterotopic space can help us to see that hospitals tend to fall (awkwardly) between being a public and personal health care space, and this is a possible explanation for the confused material culture and messages that are shared there. This paper draws on ethnographic methods to reflect on personal experience in order to offer a critique of the contemporary political discourse which has become 'literally' written onto our hospital walls. (shrink)

At the end of 2015‘s The Witch, isolated and beaten protagonist, Thomasin, ultimately rejects her puritanical upbringing to become a witch, accepting the invitation of the Devil (in the guise of the family’s goat Black Philip). This essay will discuss Thomasin’s sexual deliverance in terms of her turning away from the authoritarian ‘Law of the Father’ towards female liberation that comes in the form of the Witch. Thomasin transitions from girl to woman, but does not want to do so in (...) the restrictive Puritan fashion where patriarchy and oppression rules. She becomes a woman by embracing her sexuality in the figure of the witch and Black Philip as the figure of lust helping her become free. Western folklore posits the goat as a symbol of fertility, independence, and lust; Black Philip is a figure who represents a connection to wild desires. Therefore, Black Philip becomes not only a physical representation of the devil, but also a symbolic representation of Thomasin’s sexual desire. Drawing on theories of the monstrous-feminine (Creed, Kristeva, Arnold), the symbolism of folklore and Freud’s Electra complex, this work argues that, despite its message of feminine empowerment, The Witch cannot fully reject or escape patriarchal discourse. (shrink)

A central goal of typological research is to characterize linguistic features in terms of both their functional role and their fit to social and cognitive systems. One long-standing puzzle concerns why certain languages employ grammatical gender. In an information theoretic analysis of German noun classification, Dye, Milin, Futrell, and Ramscar enumerated a number of important processing advantages gender confers. Yet this raises a further puzzle: If gender systems are so beneficial to processing, what does this mean for languages that make (...) do without them? Here, we compare the communicative function of gender marking in German to that of prenominal adjectives in English, finding that despite their differences, both systems act to efficiently smooth information over discourse, making nouns more equally predictable in context. We examine why evolutionary pressures may favor one system over another and discuss the implications for compositional accounts of meaning and Gricean principles of communication. (shrink)

In this chapter, we will discuss three key ethical issues related to data collected in stakeholder-engaged research: (1) data ownership, (2) deciding how data are used, and (3) deciding what is published. We begin with the legal and regulatory policies of universities and sponsors around data ownership and data sharing. We then discuss the role of principal investigator(s) in a study and/or partnership leaders as data stewards for the development and implementation of partnership practices for data decision-making. We examine the (...) implications of funding and timing since many decisions related to data use and sharing often happen after the project has ended. Finally, we discuss the roles and responsibilities of different stakeholders (e.g., funder, researcher, and nonacademic partner) and offer lessons to be learned and resources for partnerships. (shrink)

A growing body of evidence suggests that emotional states under which individuals perform decision-making tasks modulate performance. Studies have mainly reported that negative emotions can differe...

In recent years, alternative teacher preparation programmes are globally emerging to address teacher quality in ‘hard-to-staff’ schools. These programmes commonly attract graduates from prestigious...

Considering the highly complex structure of quantum chaos and the nonstationary characteristics of speech signals, this paper proposes a quantum chaotic encryption and quantum particle swarm extraction method based on an underdetermined model. The proposed method first uses quantum chaos to encrypt the speech signal and then uses the local mean decomposition method to construct a virtual receiving array and convert the underdetermined model to a positive definite model. Finally, the signal is extracted using the Levi flight strategy based on (...) kurtosis and the quantum particle swarm optimization optimized by the greedy algorithm. The bit error rate and similarity coefficient of the voice signal are extracted by testing the source voice signal SA1, SA2, and SI943 under different SNR, and the similarity coefficient, uncertainty, and disorder of the observed signal and the source voice signal SA1, SA2, and SI943 verify the effectiveness of the proposed speech signal extraction method and the security of quantum chaos used in speech signal encryption. (shrink)

Background:At a time when British nursing has been under scrutiny for an apparent lack of compassion in education and practice, this paper based offers a perspective on the notions of vocation and altruism in nursing.Objectives:To understand the vocational and altruistic motivations of nurses through the application of Pierre Bourdieu's concepts of ‘symbolic capital’, ‘field’ and ‘habitus’ through a long interview with nurse respondents.Research design:A reflexive qualitative study was undertaken using the long interview. A thematic analysis of the data, using a (...) qualitative data software package for analysis, was undertaken. The ideas of Pierre Bourdieu (Habitus, Capital and Field) were used to analyse and explain the content of community nurses' ‘talk’.Participants:Twelve Community Nurses working in a variety of local primary care settings volunteered to participate in the study. It was a self-selecting convenience sample of nurses responding to an invitation to be interviewed.Research context:A study in support of a doctoral thesis conducted within NHS primary care settings with registered nurses.Ethical considerations:The key considerations for this study were to be mindful of the possibility of emotional harm or distress being caused to the respondents during the retelling of their experiences. It was also essential to ensure that the locations or names of patients or staff (if discussed) were anonymised. Ethical approval was sought and granted by both the Local NHS Primary Care and the University Ethics committees before the study commenced.Findings:The nurse respondents had highly individual and at times contradictory views on their motivations to nurse including their views on vocation and altruism in nursing careers.Discussion:Bourdieu's ideas apply well to the nursing context and provided a useful theoretical framework to explore the social and cultural influences on nursing careers. Gender is important consideration in all aspects of nursing but class and educational experience is an important dimension in the stories nurses tell.Conclusion:The culturally determined experiences of these nurses in practice offer an authentic and realistic insight into the complex motives and predispositions of community nurses. This paper argues that nurse motivations whether vocational or altruistic, are better understood as culturally, rather than spiritually, driven. (shrink)

Climate cuisine is about eating the future you want into being. In this article, I examine how seaweed recipes can be forms of climate fiction through the way that the reader is invited to participate in sustainable foodways. I examine several popularizations of seaweed aquaculture that imagine practices of eating and growing seaweeds. Their formal similarities center on participation: they include the direct address of the reader through the second person voice, and position themselves as instructional models. Bren Smith’s Eat (...) Like a Fish (Smith, Eat like a fish: My adventures as a fisherman turned restorative ocean farmer, Penguin, 2019) interpellates the reader as eater, invited to cultivate eating habits that, on a societal scale, would produce a more materially sustainable relation with the planet. The vignette “Ghost Bar,” which appears in Holly Jean Buck’s After Geoengineering: Climate Tragedy, Repair, and Restoration (Buck, After geoengineering: Climate tragedy, repair, and restoration, Verso, 2019), sensorily emplaces the reader in a future seaweed farm as a window into the kinds of livelihoods and forms of work that could be part of mitigating global warming. I trace the similarities between Smith's recipes and Buck’s interpellation of a reader, both of which use the second-person mode addressing an unmarked “you,” inviting this “you” to imagine and actualize the future dish or future scenario they sketch. While these texts have their own limitations at the level of the social imagination, such popularizations of seaweed aquaculture model an important way of understanding the intimacies of climate fiction and recipes. Recipes not only popularize the sustainable eating of seaweeds, but actively constitute a form of climate fiction through their intention to actualize more seaweedy futures. (shrink)

This study investigates the procedural learning, retention, and reactivation of temporal sensorimotor sequences in children with and without developmental coordination disorder. Twenty typically-developing children and 12 children with DCD took part in this study. The children were required to tap on a keyboard, synchronizing with auditory or visual stimuli presented as an isochronous temporal sequence, and practice non-isochronous temporal sequences to memorize them. Immediate and delayed retention of the audio-motor and visuo-motor non-isochronous sequences were tested by removing auditory or visual (...) stimuli immediately after practice and after a delay of 2 h. A reactivation test involved reintroducing the auditory and visual stimuli after the delayed recall. Data were computed via circular analyses to obtain asynchrony, the stability of synchronization and errors. Firstly, an overall deficit in synchronization with both auditory and visual isochronous stimuli was observed in DCD children compared to TD children. During practice, further improvements were found for the audio-motor non-isochronous sequence compared to the visuo-motor non-isochronous sequence in both TD children and children with DCD. However, a drastic increase in errors occurred in children with DCD during immediate retention as soon as the auditory stimuli were removed. Reintroducing auditory stimuli decreased errors in the audio-motor sequence for children with DCD. Such changes were not seen for the visuo-motor non-isochronous sequence, which was equally learned, retained and reactivated in DCD and TD children. All these results suggest that TD children benefit from both auditory and visual stimuli to memorize the sequence, whereas children with DCD seem to present a deficit in integrating an audio-motor sequence in their memory. The immediate effect of reactivation suggests a specific dependency on auditory information in DCD. Contrary to the audio-motor sequence, the visuo-motor sequence was both learned and retained in children with DCD. This suggests that visual stimuli could be the best information for memorizing a temporal sequence in DCD. All these results are discussed in terms of a specific audio-motor coupling deficit in DCD. (shrink)

Lying and deceit are instruments of power, used by social actors in the pursuit of their practices as they seek to maintain social order. All social actors, nurses included, have deceit and dishonesty within their repertoire of practice. Much of this is benign, well intentioned and a function of being sociable and necessary in the pursuit of social order in the healthcare environment. Lying and deceit from a sociological point of view, is a reflection of the different modes of domination (...) that exist within a social space. French philosopher Pierre Bourdieu theorized about the way that symbolic power works within social space. The social structures and the agency of individual actors moving within it are interrelated and interdependent. Bourdieu's ideas will be used to theorize about real clinical experiences where acts of deceit can be identified and a case example will be presented. Nurses are actors in the social space of clinical care, and their world is complex, challenging, and often fraught with the contradictory demands and choices that reflect and influence their behaviours. An exploration of lying and deceit in nursing as an instrument in the modes of domination that persist enables us to challenge some of the assumptions that are made about the motives that cause or tempt nurses to lie as well as to understand the way on which they are sometimes lied to, according to the acts of domination that exist in the field. Lying or acting dishonestly is a powerful act that is intent on retaining stability and social order and could be seen to be a justification of lying and deceit. However, we need to pause and consider, in whose interests are we striving to create social order? Is it in the end about the comfort of patients or for the comfort of professionals? (shrink)

Research investigating the underlying mechanisms and boundary conditions under which leader humility influences employee voice remains underdeveloped. Drawing from approach–inhibition theory of power and leader humility literature, we developed a moderated-mediation model in which personal sense of power (i.e., employees’ ability to influence other individuals such as their leader) was theorized as a unique mechanism underlining why employees feel motivated to speak up under the supervision of humble leaders. Additionally, the cultural value of power distance was proposed to be a (...) relevant boundary condition to influence such relationship. We tested the model using time-lagged supervisor–subordinate matched data. Results of mixed models analyses provided support for our hypotheses confirming that employees’ personal sense of power mediates the relationship between leader humility and employee voice, and such relationship was found to be stronger when employees’ power distance was lower rather than higher. (shrink)

When we say “I know why he was late”, we know not only the fact that he was late, but also an explanation of this fact. We propose a logical framework of “knowing why” inspired by the existing formal studies on why-questions, scientific explanation, and justification logic. We introduce the Kyi\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${{\mathcal {K}}{}\textit{y}}_i$$\end{document} operator into the language of epistemic logic to express “agent i knows why φ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} (...) \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\varphi $$\end{document}” and propose a Kripke-style semantics of such expressions in terms of knowing an explanation of φ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\varphi $$\end{document}. We obtain two sound and complete axiomatizations w.r.t. two different model classes depending on different assumptions about introspection. Finally we connect our logic with justification logic technically by providing an alternative semantics and an in-depth comparison on various design choices. (shrink)

Driven by the theory of sustainable development, Chinese firms have gradually realized the importance of ESG disclosure. Executives play a core role in ESG decision-making, but whether and how top management team (TMT) faultlines affect ESG disclosure has yet to be systematically discussed. Based on the attention-based view and faultline theory, we select 6456 observations of 910 Chinese A-share listed firms from 2012 to 2021 as the research object to empirically test the above critical practical issues that have not been (...) fully answered. We find that TMT information-based faultlines improve firms' ESG disclosure, but TMT social category faultlines reduce firms' ESG disclosure. In addition, the internal mechanism test showed that the TMT's future-oriented attention plays a mediating role in the above relationship. Finally, we also find that institutional shareholding enhances the positive impact of the TMT's future-oriented attention on ESG disclosure. This study enriches the literature on TMT faultlines and ESG disclosure, demonstrating that the composition of the TMT and its attention allocation are important factors for promoting firms' ESG disclosure. The conclusions of this study can help firms strengthen their ESG disclosure by building efficient TMTs and provide important implications for firms to better fulfill their ESG responsibilities. (shrink)

Children with autism spectrum disorder show marked difficulties in reading comprehension, a complex cognitive skill fundamental to successful daily functioning that is associated with core executive functions. However, the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying reading comprehension deficits in these children remain elusive. Twenty-one right-handed males with high-functioning ASD and 23 age-, IQ-, educational level-, sex- and handedness-matched typically developing individuals underwent a reading comprehension test and the semantic verbal fluency test that tapped core executive functions underlying reading comprehension during concurrent prefrontal functional (...) near-infrared spectroscopy measurement. Participants’ information processing efficiency was also assessed. High-functioning ASD children exhibited general reading comprehension [main effect of group: F = 7.58, p = 0.009], selective verbal fluency deficits [Group × category interaction: F = 4.90, p = 0.032] and slower processing speed. Regarding the hemodynamics of the prefrontal cortex, although ASD individuals showed comparable patterns of PFC brain activation to their healthy counterparts, lower PFC intrahemispheric [main effect of group: F = 11.36, p = 0.002] and interhemispheric [main effect of group: F = 7.79, p = 0.008] functional connectivity were evident during the semantic verbal fluency test. At the whole-group level, poorer reading comprehension performance was associated with poorer performance in the semantic verbal fluency test. Moreover, poorer semantic verbal fluency test performance was associated with slower information processing speed, which is associated with reduced left medial PFC functional connectivity. Abnormal intrahemispheric and interhemispheric prefrontal hypoconnectivity is associated with deficits in executive processes essential for reading comprehension in ASD. Our study has provided important implications for the neuropsychological and neurophysiological mechanisms underlying reading comprehension deficits in ASD. (shrink)

The existing ethico-legal regulation of adolescent children's participation in health research in South Africa is currently unclear. The article interrogates the existing framework governing children's consent to research participation, with specific emphasis on discrepancies in consent norms in law and ethical guidelines. Against the backdrop of the constitutional directive that requires that a child's best interests are of paramount importance in every matter concerning the child, the article assesses whether sufficient consideration is given to children's evolving maturity and capacities when (...) consent to their participation in health research is sought. The article provides specific recommendations and proposes a legislative change to consent provisions in the National Health Act 61 of 2003 in order to address the existing lacunae and to align the framework with constitutional imperatives and international fundamental rights considerations. (shrink)

In "Comparative Literature, Variation Theory, and a New Construction of World Literature" Wang Chao discusses Shunqing Cao's "variation theory" as a framework in the discipline of comparative literature and its applicability for a new construction of world literature. Wang argues that Goethe's concept of world literature can be expanded and developed for a new construction of the idea of world literature. Wang's principal argument is that comparative literature in today's heterogeneity and cross-cultural variabilities can be revived with the notions (...) of variation and its connecting aspect of world literature. Both variation theory and perspectives of the concept of "new world literature" are based in recent insights in comparative literature, on variations of literary exchange, on interpretation in cross-civilization literary circulation, translation, and production. Wang proposes that these views broaden and adjust the boundary of comparability, thus injecting much-needed vitality into comparative literature and world literature research. (shrink)

Past research shows that the bilingual experience may enhance cognitive executive function. In this experiment, we evaluated cognitive control in bilinguals relative to monolinguals by using a dimensional overlap model to predict performance in a task composed of Stroop and Simon stimuli. A group of 24 Spanish monolinguals and 24 bilinguals with differing first languages and all having Spanish as a second language did a picture naming task and a task composed of Stroop and Simon stimuli, where the effect of (...) different overlap conditions between stimuli and responses were examined. The tasks were performed in Spanish for both groups and performance was indexed with behavioral and electrophysiological measures. We hypothesized that the bilinguals’ daily language practice in L2 reflected overlap conditions similar to the Simon task. Both naming a picture in L2 and the Simon task would involve conflict at the response level. L2 picture naming entails interference between two potential oral responses, to name in L2 vs. L1. Similarly, incongruent stimuli in the Simon task produce interference because the irrelevant dimension overlap with an incorrect response. In contrast, the manual Stroop task involves a different type of conflict between two overlapping stimulus dimensions. We predicted for these reasons a superior performance in Simon tasks over Stroop tasks for bilinguals, while monolinguals were expected to have a similar performance in both tasks. We also expected to see a correlation between the performance on the picture naming task and the Simon task in bilinguals. However, the behavioral results did not confirm these hypotheses. In fact, both groups had similar congruency effects as measured by reaction times and error rates, and there was no correlation between the picture naming and Simon task in bilinguals. Despite this, the electrophysiological data suggested a relationship between the picture naming task and the P300 congruency effect in bilinguals. Our findings provide insights into the neurocognitive bases of language and serve as a research avenue for language behaviors in bilinguals. (shrink)

Background Continued advances in human microbiome research and technologies raise a number of ethical, legal, and social challenges. These challenges are associated not only with the conduct of the research, but also with broader implications, such as the production and distribution of commercial products promising maintenance or restoration of good physical health and disease prevention. In this article, we document several ethical, legal, and social challenges associated with the commercialization of human microbiome research, focusing particularly on how this research is (...) mobilized within economic markets for new public health uses. Methods We conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews (2009–2010) with 63 scientists, researchers, and National Institutes of Health project leaders (“investigators”) involved with human microbiome research. Interviews explored a range of ethical, legal, and social dimensions of human microbiome research, including investigators’ perspectives on commercialization. Using thematic content analysis, we identified and analyzed emergent themes and patterns. Results Investigators discussed the commercialization of human microbiome research in terms of (1) commercialization, probiotics, and issues of safety, (2) public awareness of the benefits and risks of dietary supplements, and (3) regulation. Conclusion The prevailing theme of ethical, legal, social concern focused on the need to find a balance between the marketplace, scientific research, and the public’s health. The themes we identified are intended to serve as points for discussions about the relationship between scientific research and the manufacture and distribution of over-the-counter dietary supplements in the United States. (shrink)

The study aims to help primary and secondary school students develop a good habit of physical exercise by exploring the current situation of physical exercise of primary and secondary school students and analyzing the factors affecting their physical exercise. Then, intervention strategies are figured out for different groups of students and help them develop a good habit of physical exercise. From the perspective of educational psychology and parents’ entrepreneurship education, the research on the physical exercise of primary and secondary school (...) students is conducted by a questionnaire survey, mathematical statistics and literature review. A total of 280 students from five schools in Tianjin are selected as the research subjects, and the current situation of students’ physical exercise in these five schools is investigated. The results show that 40.5% of boys and 39.4% of girls can take physical exercise more than three times a week; 48.9% of the students do physical exercise for more than 30 mins each time; the students who usually take regular exercise at school account for 82.1%. The physical exercise that students always do is running, badminton and table tennis, which rank the top three among the sports they do. The students usually play basketball, volleyball, and football, and they rarely do the sports like swimming, Wushu, and aerobics. This result is closely related to the characteristics and places of primary and middle school students. The survey shows that the physical exercise awareness of most primary and secondary school students is correct; most students can participate in physical exercise, but few students can do it regularly; parents’ support, parents’ habits of doing exercise, and family’s spending on physical exercise have a significant impact on developing students’ habits of doing physical exercise. Based on the above, it is concluded that the primary and secondary stage is very important for students. Physical education teachers should follow the principle of teaching different students with different methods, enrich teaching materials, and improve teaching quality. The study provides a reference for the reform of PE to guide primary and middle school students to participate in sports activities, improving students’ physical quality. (shrink)