This study assessed challenges faced by researchers with the informed consent process (ICP). In‐depth interviews were used to explore challenges encountered by Investigators, Research assistants, Institutional Review Board members and other stakeholders. An electronic questionnaire was also distributed, consisting of Likert‐scale responses to questions on adherence to the ICP, which were derived from the Helsinki Declaration and an informed consent checklist of the US Department of Health and Human Research (HSS). Responses were weighted numerically and scores calculated for each participant. (...) The median score of the level of adherence to the informed consent process was 93%. Most of the respondents (60%) cited the lack of time for the ICP to be a challenge, with 65% indicating a lengthy consent document to be the main challenge with the informed consent document. Challenges with language and communication were the dominant theme among informants. Despite the high adherence of Ghanaian researchers and research assistants to the ICP, challenges are still prevalent, requiring diligent and continuous efforts in research implementation. (shrink)

To liberate African philosophy from the remnants of the colonial style of thought, Kwesi Wiredu promotes the idea of the conceptual decolonization of African philosophy. He argues that, to accomplish this project, African philosophers must theorize in African vernaculars. This article attempts to show that the project of the conceptual decolonization of African philosophy by recourse to theorizing in African vernaculars is challenging. It examines a particular strategy that Wiredu deploys in “Conceptual Decolonization as an Imperative in Contemporary African (...) Philosophy,” in which he hopes to demonstrate that the Akan conception of mind is superior to the Cartesian conception of mind. It demonstrates that Wiredu’s attempt to show the superiority of the Akan conception of mind is unsuccessful and that his project of conceptual decolonization fails. Nevertheless, it concludes that Wiredu’s conceptual decolonization project still shows promise even in light of our criticisms. (shrink)

In a democracy, when a group of deliberators have a set of differing (and contrary) views and beliefs about a particular policy or action, p, a recommended course of action is for them to pursue, and ultimately reach, a consensus on p. The pursuit of consensus allows deliberators to ‘reach over the aisle’ in accommodating dissenting views through rational dialogue until a consensual agreement is reached by all the deliberators. What fuels this pursuit of consensus is the ‘will to consensus’—a (...) ‘frame of mind’ or a ‘disposition’ to resolve disagreements into a consensus. In this paper, I will raise some conceptual problems with positing a ‘will to consensus’ that is prior to, and supervenes on, the rational discussion of deliberators. Instead of a ‘will to consensus’, democratic theorists should be content with the minimal claim of a ‘will to dialogue’. (shrink)

Davidson argues that metaphorical sentences express no propositional contents other than the explicit literal contents they express. He offers a causal account, on the one hand, as an explanation of the supposed additional content of a metaphor in terms of the effects metaphors have on hearers, and on the other hand, as a reason for the non-propositional nature of the “something more” that a metaphor is alleged to mean. Davidson’s account is meant to restrict the semantic notions of meaning, content, (...) and truth, to literal sentences. I argue that the Davidsonian causal account does not satisfactorily account for metaphor’s figurativeness, speakers’ assertion and hearers’ uptake of metaphor, and our discursive practices of using metaphors in disagreements and argumentation. I offer a non-compositional analysis of a semantic account of metaphor within which one can make sense of the applicability of the notions of meaning and content to metaphor. This analysis shows that metaphorical sentences have meanings other than, and in addition to, their literal meanings and what speakers can use them to mean. (shrink)

In a democracy, when a group of deliberators have a set of differing (and contrary) views and beliefs about a particular policy or action, p, a recommended course of action is for them to pursue, and ultimately reach, a consensus on p. The pursuit of consensus allows deliberators to ‘reach over the aisle’ in accommodating dissenting views through rational dialogue until a consensual agreement is reached by all the deliberators. What fuels this pursuit of consensus is the ‘will to consensus’—a (...) ‘frame of mind’ or a ‘disposition’ to resolve disagreements into a consensus. In this paper, I will raise some conceptual problems with positing a ‘will to consensus’ that is prior to, and supervenes on, the rational discussion of deliberators. Instead of a ‘will to consensus’, democratic theorists should be content with the minimal claim of a ‘will to dialogue’. (shrink)

In this paper, I take a critical look at the Davidsonian argument that metaphorical sentences do not express propositions because of the phenomenological experience—seeing one thing as another thing—involved in understanding them as metaphors. According to Davidson, seeing-as is not seeing-that. This verdict is aimed at dislodging metaphor from the position of being assessed with the semantic notions of propositions, meaning, and truth. I will argue that the phenomenological or perceptual experience associated with metaphors does not determine the propositional contentfulness (...) or truth-evaluability of metaphors. Truth-evaluability is not inconsistent but compatible with a perceptual model for metaphors. I argue for this partly by showing that seeing-as does not constitute understanding of metaphors when understanding is appropriately construed in terms of being able to use an expression. (shrink)

Brain-computer interfaces are communication bridges between a human brain and external world, enabling humans to interact with their environment without muscle intervention. Their functionality, therefore, depends on both the BCI system and the cognitive capacities of the user. Motor-imagery BCIs rely on the users’ mental imagination of body movements. However, not all users have the ability to sufficiently modulate their brain activity for control of a MI-BCI; a problem known as BCI illiteracy or inefficiency. The underlying mechanism of this phenomenon (...) and the cause of such difference among users is yet not fully understood. In this study, we investigated the impact of several cognitive and psychological measures on MI-BCI performance. Fifty-five novice BCI-users participated in a left- versus right-hand motor imagery task. In addition to their BCI classification error rate and demographics, psychological measures including personality factors, affinity for technology, and motivation during the experiment, as well as cognitive measures including visuospatial memory and spatial ability and Vividness of Visual Imagery were collected. Factors that were found to have a significant impact on MI-BCI performance were Vividness of Visual Imagery, and the personality factors of orderliness and autonomy. These findings shed light on individual traits that lead to difficulty in BCI operation and hence can help with early prediction of inefficiency among users to optimize training for them. (shrink)

In this paper, I take a critical look at the Davidsonian argument that metaphorical sentences do not express propositions because of the phenomenological experience—seeing one thing as another thing—involved in understanding them as metaphors. According to Davidson, seeing-as is not seeing-that. This verdict is aimed at dislodging metaphor from the position of being assessed with the semantic notions of propositions, meaning, and truth. I will argue that the phenomenological or perceptual experience associated with metaphors does not determine the propositional contentfulness (...) or truth-evaluability of metaphors. Truth-evaluability is not inconsistent but compatible with a perceptual model for metaphors. I argue for this partly by showing that seeing-as does not constitute understanding of metaphors when understanding is appropriately construed in terms of being able to use an expression. (shrink)

Mentoring Away the Glass Ceiling in Academia: A Cultured Critique describes how women of diverse backgrounds perceive their mentoring experiences or the lack of mentoring experiences in the academy. This book provides a space for envisioning strategies and practices to improve mentoring practices and the collegiate environment.

It is undeniable that people have beliefs about what actions are morally right. These beliefs play an important role in guiding moral action. Is it possible however to justify beliefs about what actions are morally right? How can beliefs of this sort be justified? Sinnott-Armstrong has advanced an epistemic regress argument against the justification of moral beliefs with the consequence that moral beliefs cannot be justified. This essay addresses the issue of the justification of moral beliefs to answer the question (...) about how moral beliefs can be justified in response to Sinnott-Armstrong’s epistemic regress argument. It argues for the plausibility of Rawls’ reflective equilibrium as an adequate method of justification of moral beliefs. Three problems arise in the attempt to show that reflective equilibrium can adequately respond to Sinnott-Armstrong’s regress argument. These are vicious circularity, arbitrariness and epistemic moral disagreement. It is shown in this essay that these problems can be satisfactorily dealt with. (shrink)

This paper outlines the main trends in higher education in the Baltic States and in particular in Estonia and Latvia, on the basis of the European Union concept of competitiveness and knowledge-based society development. Using the World Bank system of knowledge-based indicators, the position of the Baltic States is discussed and compared with international competitiveness ratings. We illustrate higher education systems in Estonia and Latvia by providing information on present institutional structures and by analyzing the key issues that contributed to (...) their adaptation to a market economy in the 1990s until they became members of the EU. The study suggests that the educational systems in Estonia and Latvia are rather similar and that they have been restructured in accordance with western educational requirements and quality standards. They have greatly benefited from international efforts to professionalize the faculty in these institutions. At the same time, the educational system is not yet fully adjusted to the dynamic needs of the labor market. In order to meet the needs of competitive development, the education systems of the Baltic States, as small open countries and new EU members, should focus on increasing the functional flexibility of the labor force. (shrink)

This study examines the direct and indirect effects of interpersonal fairness on employees’ willingness-to-stay and organisation-based self-esteem through affective commitment among manufacturing workers in Tema, Ghana. Using the survey design, 300 manufacturing workers in Tema were conveniently sampled for the study. The confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling were used to analyse the data. Results indicated that affective commitment partially mediated the relationship between interpersonal fairness and employees' willingness-to-stay. Affective commitment also fully mediated the interpersonal fairness- organisation based self-esteem (...) relationship. Results further showed that organisation based self-esteem partially mediated the affective commitment and willingness to stay relationship, such that, an increase in organisation-based self-esteem leads to a decrease in employees’ willingness-to-stay. These findings emphasised the roles of interpersonal fairness and affective commitment in organisations, where affective commitment increases as a result of an increase in interpersonal fairness and makes employees have an intention to stay. The findings imply that employees who are very confident and have higher organisation-based self-esteem stand lower chances of staying in their current organisations. This study is the first to examine how affective commitment transfers the effects of interpersonal fairness unto employees’ intention-to-stay among manufacturing workers in Ghana. (shrink)

Without guidance, students typically overestimate their understanding and memory of learning materials, which can have detrimental effects on the learning process. However, most students do not receive guidance or instruction about how to study. Moreover, students are largely unaware of strategies to self-regulate their learning and study effectively. Research has shown that prompting both cognitive and metacognitive strategies is effective to support self-regulated learning. Therefore we developed a mobile application, the Ace your self-study app, to prompt both cognitive and metacognitive (...) strategies to support learning processes. In this article a theoretical background, description of the app’s features and design choices are presented. Also, data from the application in presented to give provide an idea of how the app has been used. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe retrospective evaluation of an event tends to be based on how the experience felt during the most intense moment and the last moment. Two experiments tested whether this so-called peak-end effect influences how primary school students are affected by peer assessments. In both experiments, children assessed two classmates on their behaviour in school and then received two manipulated assessments. In Experiment 1, one assessment consisted of four negative ratings and the other of four negative ratings with an extra moderately (...) negative rating added to the end. In Experiment 2, one assessment consisted of four positive ratings, and the other added an extra moderately positive rating to the end. Consistent with the peak-end effect, the extended assessment in Experiment 1 and the short assessment in Experiment 2 were remembered as more pleasant and less difficult to deal with, which shaped children’s peer assessment preferences and prospective choices of which assessm... (shrink)

In his [Africans are not Black: The Case for Conceptual Liberation], Kwesi Tsri relies extensively on myths and non-fictional narratives to dictate the origin of the racial disparagement of Afro-Americans and Africans from south of the Sahara. Owing to the synonymy between ‘black’ and ‘Africa’ as well as the derogatory symbolism in the former that fuels the latter, Tsri submits the need to disassociate Africans from the concept, ‘black.’ Upon a critical conversation with Tsri’s text however, Chimakonam discerns three (...) flaws. Granted, the objections are salient, I augment herein, one of Chimakonam’s critiques – the exclusion by Tsri, of nonfictional or scientific texts on the race discourse. Whereas I agree with Chimakonam that both the fictional and non-fictional accounts on race are pertinent for intellectual balance in Tsri’s disquisition, I further suggest that in most cases, non-fictional or scientific theories on race are undergirded by the prejudice initiated by mythical and/or fictional narratives. I substantiate my thesis, relying on Karl Popper’s evolutionary epistemology, with 21 st century science admission that human genetic diversity cannot be captured by scientific theories of race. Keywords: Africa, Blackness, Jonathan Chimakonam, Karl Popper, Kwesi Tsri. (shrink)

The article examines two Ghanaian-born intellectuals – economist George Ayittey and anthropologist and sociologist Kwesi Kwaa Prah – and their positions on both local and global inequalities by studying their writings from the mid-1980s–1990s. It answers the questions of how and through which debates both intellectuals addressed and engaged with notions of global inequality. Methodologically anchored in global intellectual history, this article offers a historical, qualitative, and actor-oriented study. As emphasised by Jonathon Earle, the question of how African intellectuals (...) have shaped the intellectual history of the modern world represents an understudied field within global intellectual history.11 Earle, “African Intellectual History,” paragraph 45. In an attempt to address this void, I show how Ayittey and Prah invoked global inequalities through different notions of neo-colonialism as well as criticisms of African elites, such as their indigenous rootlessness. The article argues that their conceptions of global inequalities were hinged on broader debates revolving around issues of African (under)development while their proposed solutions were founded on notions of African indigeneity, drawing on earlier African thought. I show how they actively reused ideas of indigenous development as formulated by Gold Coast intellectual Joseph E. Casely Hayford (1866–1930) in the beginning of the twentieth century. (shrink)

Lilien paa Marken og Fuglen under Himlen.

Many have contended that non-classical logicians have failed at providing evidence of paraconsistent logics being applicable in cases of inconsistency toleration in the sciences. With this in mind, my main concern here is methodological. I aim at addressing the question of how should we study and explain cases of inconsistent science, using paraconsistent tools, without ruining into the most common methodological mistakes. My response is divided into two main parts: first, I provide some methodological guidance on how to approach cases (...) of inconsistent science; and second, I focus on a peculiar type of formal methodologies for the scrutiny of inconsistent reasoning, the _Paraconsistent Alternative Approach_ (henceforth, PAA) and argue that PAA can enhance a more accurate understanding of sensible reasoning in inconsistent contexts. (shrink)

This article develops a theory of reasons that has strong similarities to Peter Klein's infinitism. The view it develops, Framework Reasons, upholds Klein's principles of avoiding arbitrariness (PAA) and avoiding circularity (PAC) without requiring an infinite regress of reasons. A view of reasons that holds that the “reason for” relation is constrained by PAA and that PAC can avoid an infinite regress if the “reason for” relation is contextual. Moreover, such a view of reasons can maintain that skepticism is false (...) by the maintaining that there is more to epistemic justification than can be expressed in any reasoning session. One crucial argument for Framework Reasons is that justification depends on a background of plausibility considerations. The final section of the article applies this view of reasons to Michael Bergmann's argument that any nonskeptical epistemology must embrace epistemic circularity. (shrink)

RaTG13, MP789, and RmYN02 are the strains closest to SARS‐CoV‐2, and their existence came to light only after the start of the pandemic. Their genomes have been used to support a natural origin of SARS‐CoV‐2 but after a close examination all of them exhibit several issues. We specifically address the presence in RmYN02 and closely related RacCSxxx strains of a claimed natural PAA/PVA amino acid insertion at the S1/S2 junction of their spike protein at the same position where the PRRA (...) insertion in SARS‐CoV‐2 has created a polybasic furin cleavage site. We show that RmYN02/RacCSxxx instead of the claimed insertion carry a 6‐nucleotide deletion in the region and that the 12‐nucleotide insertion in SARS‐CoV‐2 remains unique among Sarbecoviruses. Also, our analysis of RaTG13 and RmYN02's metagenomic datasets found unexpected reads which could indicate possible contamination. Because of their importance to inferring SARS‐CoV‐2′s origin, we call for a careful reevaluation of RaTG13, MP789 and RmYN02 sequencing records and assembly methods. (shrink)

1. bd. Om størst udbytte af sjælsevner.--Holbergs træ i Fiolstræde.--Om ligeløb og kredsning i sjælelivet.--Om sjælelig ringhed.--2.bd. Naturalærens leve-ABC.--De sjælelige naturudviklingslove.--Breve for samlere.--Skønhed i det hæslige og hverdagsagtige.--Stemninger og billeder.--Om manglen paa forstaaelse imellem folkehøjskolen og den akademiske verden.

In this article, we argue that language-based techniques have the capacity to generate original ideas and thus account for progress in any discipline. We claim that language-based techniques used by some African scholars such as hermeneutics and related ones such as transliteration are creatively inadequate to inspire progress because they do not lead to the creation of new concepts and original ideas in African thought. We claim also that the technique of intellectual decolonisation with its foremost expression in Kwasi Wiredu’s (...) ‘conceptual decolonisation’ and Kwesi Tsri’s ‘conceptual liberation’, are two recent language-based strategies aimed at overcoming the creative problem inherent in the techniques of hermeneutics and transliteration. We argue that these two techniques are equally inadequate because they are tantamount to what can be called ‘conceptual manipulation’, which is not a creative strategy for progress in African thought. The goal of this paper therefore is to expose the creative weaknesses in these techniques in order to show that there is a dearth of creative language-based techniques in African studies and make a call for the formulation of one. Keywords: African philosophy, hermeneutics, transliteration, conceptual manipulation, conceptual decolonisation, conceptual liberation. (shrink)