How to engage farmers that have limited formal education is at the foundation of environmentally-sound and equitable agricultural development. Yet there are few examples of curricula that support the co-development of knowledge with farmers. While transdisciplinary and participatory techniques are considered key components of agroecology, how to do so is rarely specified and few materials are available, especially those relevant to smallholder farmers with limited formal education in Sub-Saharan Africa. The few training materials that exist provide appropriate methods, such as (...) compost making, but do not explain relationships and synergies between nutrition, social inequalities, climate change and agroecology. Some food sovereignty and agroecology courses aim at popular political education for those with more formal education. Here we describe the process of development of an innovative curriculum, which integrates agroecology, nutrition, climate change, gender and other dimensions of social equity across 2 weeks of training explicitly for smallholders in southern Africa with limited formal education. The curriculum is highly participatory; we use concepts in popular education, transformative and experiential-based learning, and theatre. It is also integrative; we link agroecology with climate change, human and soil nutrition, gender, and related components of social equity. Developed in partnership with Malawian farmers, community development experts and academics from five countries, the curriculum was piloted with 520 smallholder farming households in Malawi and Tanzania, and evaluated using qualitative techniques. Clashes of language, cultural norms, and terminology were as great of a challenge as agreeing on and conveying technical information, to weave into a coherent whole. However, farmers who participated in the curriculum training demonstrated high interest, comprehension of material and interest in immediate application to their lives. (shrink)

The progression of research and scholarly inquiry does not occur in isolation and is wholly dependent on accurate reporting of methods and results, and successful replication of prior work. Without mechanisms to correct the literature, much time and money is wasted on research based on a crumbling foundation. These guidelines serve to outline the respective responsibilities of researchers, institutions, agencies, and publishers or editors in maintaining the integrity of the research record. Delineating these complementary roles and proposing solutions for common (...) barriers provide a foundation for best practices. (shrink)

Alternative food networks, such as farmers’ markets and community-supported agricultural and fishery programs, often struggle to reach beyond a consumer base that is predominantly white and affluent. This case study explores seven inclusion strategies deployed by a community-supported fishery program (Fishadelphia, in Philadelphia, PA, USA) including discounting prices, accepting payment in multiple forms and schedules, offering a range of product types, communicating and recruiting through a variety of media (especially in person), and choosing local institutions and people of color (POC) (...) as pickup location hosts. Our analysis indicated that all of these strategies were associated with increased participation of customers of color and/or customers without a college degree. For Asian customers, accepting cash, offering whole fish, recruiting in-person, and POC-hosted pickup locations were key factors. For Black customers, discounted price, accepting cash, offering fillets, and communicating through means other than email were most important. Discounted price and communicating through means other than email were most important for customers without a college degree. Payment method, payment schedule and communication method were highly correlated with other strategies; we suggest that these strategies work in synergy to make the program attractive and feasible to these customers. We consider how Fishadelphia’s inclusion efforts have benefitted from both tactical approaches (i.e., programmatic features) and a structural approaches (i.e., the people and places represented within the project), and suggest that elements of both tactical and structural inclusion can be applied in other contexts. This work is crucial for increasing food access, and underscores the importance of relationships in recruiting diverse customers. (shrink)

Social cognition is the ability to identify, understand, and interpret mental states and emotions. Psychopathic traits are typically described in two ways; Primary: shallow affect, emotional detachment, and relationship difficulties, and Secondary Psychopathic Traits: antisocial traits, impulsiveness, and emotional dysregulation. People with high psychopathic traits tend to perform lower on measures of social cognition. This study investigated the relationship of social cognition to primary and secondary psychopathic traits in a non-clinical sample, and investigated the psychometric properties of the Reading the (...) Mind in the Eyes Test Short Forms. A community-based male sample was recruited through an online platform. Psychopathic traits were measured using Levenson, Kiehl, and Fitzpatrick's Self-Report Psychopathy Scale, and stratified into Primary and Secondary Psychopathic traits. Secondary validation of the RMET Short Forms was completed investigating scale reliability, and validity. Findings suggest excellent psychometrics in a large community cohort for the RMET Short Forms, with significant negative correlations on social cognitive performance and high self-report psychopathy. The item valence within the social cognitive measure was also examined, and correlated significantly with both Primary and Secondary Psychopathic traits. This study provides further validation of the RMET Short Forms, and adds to the literature on the scale by investigating performance on short-form specific valence. This study further suggests that in a non-clinical community sample of males, that higher psychopathic traits correlated significantly, and negatively, with social cognitive performance. (shrink)

Two fundamentally different perspectives on knowledge diffusion dominate debates about academic disciplines. On the one hand, critics of disciplinary research and education have argued that disciplines are isolated silos, within which specialists pursue inward-looking and increasingly narrow research agendas. On the other hand, critics of the silo argument have demonstrated that researchers constantly import and export ideas across disciplinary boundaries. These perspectives have different implications for how knowledge diffuses, how intellectuals gain and lose status within their disciplines, and how intellectual (...) reputations evolve within and across disciplines. We argue that highly general claims about the nature of disciplinary boundaries are counterproductive, and that research on the nature of specific disciplinary boundaries is more useful. To that end, this paper uses a novel publication and citation network dataset and statistical models of citation networks to test hypotheses about the boundaries between philosophy of science and 11 disciplinary clusters. Specifically, we test hypotheses about whether engaging with and being cited by scientific communities outside philosophy of science has an impact on one’s position within philosophy of science. Our results suggest that philosophers of science produce interdisciplinary scholarship, but they tend not to cite work by other philosophers when it is published in journals outside of their discipline. Furthermore, net of other factors, receiving citations from other disciplines has no meaningful impact—positive or negative—on citations within philosophy of science. We conclude by considering this evidence for simultaneous interdisciplinarity and insularity in terms of scientific trading theory and other work on disciplinary boundaries and communication. (shrink)

How to engage farmers that have limited formal education is at the foundation of environmentally-sound and equitable agricultural development. Yet there are few examples of curricula that support the co-development of knowledge with farmers. While transdisciplinary and participatory techniques are considered key components of agroecology, how to do so is rarely specified and few materials are available, especially those relevant to smallholder farmers with limited formal education in Sub-Saharan Africa. The few training materials that exist provide appropriate methods, such as (...) compost making, but do not explain relationships and synergies between nutrition, social inequalities, climate change and agroecology. Some food sovereignty and agroecology courses aim at popular political education for those with more formal education. Here we describe the process of development of an innovative curriculum, which integrates agroecology, nutrition, climate change, gender and other dimensions of social equity across 2 weeks of training explicitly for smallholders in southern Africa with limited formal education. The curriculum is highly participatory; we use concepts in popular education, transformative and experiential-based learning, and theatre. It is also integrative; we link agroecology with climate change, human and soil nutrition, gender, and related components of social equity. Developed in partnership with Malawian farmers, community development experts and academics from five countries, the curriculum was piloted with 520 smallholder farming households in Malawi and Tanzania, and evaluated using qualitative techniques. Clashes of language, cultural norms, and terminology were as great of a challenge as agreeing on and conveying technical information, to weave into a coherent whole. However, farmers who participated in the curriculum training demonstrated high interest, comprehension of material and interest in immediate application to their lives. (shrink)

Glioblastoma is a brain tumor condition marked by rapid neurological and clinical demise, resulting in disproportionate disability for those affected. Caring for this group of patients is complex, intense, multidisciplinary in nature, and fraught with the need for expensive treatments, surveillance imaging, physician follow-up, and rehabilitative, psychological, and social support interventions. Few of these patients return to the workforce for any meaningful time frame, and because of the enormity of the financial burden that patients, their caregivers, and society face, utilization (...) reviews become the focus of ethical scrutiny. (shrink)

While primary malignant brain tumors account for only two percent of all adult cancers, these neoplasms cause a disproportionate amount of cancer-related disabilities and death. The five-year survival rates for brain tumors are the third lowest among all types of cancer. Malignant gliomas comprise the most common types of primary central nervous system tumors and have a combined incidence of five to eight cases per 100,000 people. The median survival rate of conservatively treated patients with malignant gliomas is 14 weeks; (...) with surgical resection alone, 20 weeks; with surgery and radiation, 36 weeks; and with the addition of newer biochemotherapies such as temozolomide and bevacizumab, upward of 14-18 months.The profound cost of caring for terminally ill patients with primary malignant brain tumors raises ethical considerations for the American public; the stewardship of health care dollars for the population at large maintains a juxtaposed tension against a dynamic, necessary balance of hope, care, rehabilitation and research efforts for affected patients and their advocates. (shrink)

Three experiments demonstrate that biological movement facilitates young infants’ recognition of the whole human form. A body discrimination task was used in which 6-, 9-, and 12-month-old infants were habituated to typical human bodies and then shown scrambled human bodies at the test. Recovery of interest to the scrambled bodies was observed in 9- and 12-month-old infants in Experiment 1, but only when the body images were animated to move in a biologically possible way. In Experiment 2, nonbiological movement (...) was incorporated into the typical and scrambled body images, but this did not facilitate body recognition in 9- and 12-month-olds. A preferential looking paradigm was used in Experiment 3 to determine if infants had a spontaneous preference for the scrambled versus typical body stimuli when these were both animated. The results showed that 12-month-olds preferred the scrambled body stimuli, 9-month-olds preferred the typical body stimuli and the 6-month-olds showed no preference for either type of body stimuli. These findings suggest that human body recognition involves integrating form and movement, possibly in the superior temporal sulcus, from as early as 9 months of life. (shrink)

In January 1917 on the anniversary of Bloody Sunday, the 1905 massacre that sparked the first Russian revolution, Lenin gave a speech at a meeting of young workers in the Zurich People's House. In that speech he claimed that the 1905 events were a prologue to a wider European revolution that, he believed, would inevitably happen given the horrors and suffering caused by World War I.1 Lenin's words were to a degree prophetic because, only a month and a half (...) later, a revolution of sorts did happen spontaneously and without apparent leadership, but again in Russia. A year and one more revolution later, Russia's industry was in the hands of workers' councils, and the Bolsheviks were running the... (shrink)

World Philosophy mourns the loss of Professor Yegane Shayegan. Half Iranian and half Georgian, Professor Shayegan was destined to a cosmopolitan life from a young age. She studied Islamic philosophy in Geneva (Switzerland) and at Harvard University where she received her PhD degree with a dissertation entitled Avicenna on Time (1986). She was a research scholar at the University College in London, taught at the Sorbonne, Paris, and finally at the Iranian Institute of Philosophy, Tehran (2003-2007). She was a (...) fine translator of Aristotle, Alexandre of Aphrodisias, and Ibn Sina (Avicenna). Her scholarly work adorned some of the most important publications within the research on Islamic philosophy. She thus contributed to An Anthology of Philosophy in Persia (ed. by Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Mehdi Aminrazawi, 1999) and History of Islamic Philosophy (ed. by Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Oliver Leaman, 1996. Her perhaps greatest gift was her ability to convey her passion for Greek philosophy and the history of its reception in Islamic sources to a great number of students. Not surprisingly, when Professor Shayegan left her comfortable position at the Sorbonne to teach in Tehran, she took her private philosophical library with her. Students could thus consult books not available in Iranian libraries in the privacy of her home. The author of these lines was privileged to be a guest in Professor Shayegans home in Tehran in May of 2004. Her home was a salon in the classical sense of the word. It welcomed Tehrans finest intellectuals and artists. Professor Shayegan died in Paris on June 5, 2007 at the age of seventy. (shrink)

At the 2022 Clinical Ethics Unconference, the authors perceived a significant lack of racial and ethnic diversity, which was consistent with their experiences in other clinical ethics settings. As a result, they convened a working group to address the pervasive lack of diversity present in the field of clinical ethics and to propose strategies to increase the representation of people from racial and ethnic minority populations. This article identifies the harms associated with the lack of diversity in the healthcare setting (...) and translates these to the field of clinical ethics. The article then proposes a framework that may be used to help diversify the field of clinical ethics. Specifically, the authors identify existing barriers to appropriate diversity, actionable steps to increase diversity, and tools the field can utilize to systematically assess its progress with respect to achieving diversity. (shrink)

What were Shakespeare's final thoughts on history, tragedy, and comedy? Shakespeare's Last Plays focuses much needed scholarly attention on Shakespeare's "Late Romances." The work--a collection of newly commissioned essays by leading scholars of classical political philosophy and literature--offers careful textual analysis of Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, The Tempest, All is True, and The Two Noble Kinsmen. The essays reveal how Shakespeare's thought in these final works compliments, challenges, fulfills, or transforms previously held conceptions of the playwright (...) and his political-philosophical views. (shrink)

In response to a growing perception that America's youth lack the necessary values to grow and develop into adulthood in a socially healthy manner, character education has emerged as a rapidly growing proactive approach that serves to develop good character among young people. The authors examine several of the virtues thought to underlie good character from Character Counts!, a popular character education program, and emphasize the cultural complexities involved when promoting character education in a pluralistic society. 2012 APA, all (...) rights reserved). (shrink)

Journal Name: The Law & Ethics of Human Rights Issue: Ahead of print.

The research is aimed at outlining aspects of the influence of the achievements of the culture of the third information revolution on the formation of the young generation in the philosophical discourse of the French philosopher M. Serres, revealing the features of the achievements of the third information revolution of modern culture, in particular in the spatial, temporal and, in fact, human dimensions, their influence on the formation of personality of the “hopthumb”. The theoretical basis of the study is (...) based on culturological and anthropological aspects of the influence of information and computer technology on the formation of personality, human self-awareness in the modern world. The methodology of M. Serres is used in the work. The scientific novelty of the proposed article is the analysis of the philosophical and pedagogical achievements of the French philosopher M. Serres, in particular, argued the presence in the scientific heritage of a famous contemporary doctrine of special characteristics and features of the modern young man, which the author calls " hopthumb" against the background of the formation of a new space of culture. In addition, the study of the theoretical constants of M. Serres made it possible to outline the signs of the third information revolution, to generalize and actualize the philosophical reflection on the self-identification of the individual in the new conditions. Based on the analysis of the work of the modern philosopher, the connection between the rapid achievements of the information revolution and the culture of younger generations was revealed and understood. (shrink)

Euclid discusses the ex aequali relationship twice in the Elements. The first is in Book V, during his discussion of arithmetical relations between mathematical magnitudes in general. The second is in Books VIIIX, he was not much troubled by the differences between his treatment of ex aequali ratios in these two contexts. Later generations of mathematicians, however, found these differences less acceptable and tried to minimize them in various ways. This paper summarizes Euclid's use of the ex aequali relation in (...) developing his mathematics. The paper then outlines the fate of the post-Theonine Greek attempts to the Euclidean discussion when the Elements entered the Arabic/Islamic intellectual tradition. The study concludes with the attempts by Ibn al-Hayam and Ibn al-Sarī to improve the parallelism between the discussions of ex aequali ratios in Book V and Book VII. (shrink)

Prospective memory is the ability to perform a planned action at a future time, while carrying on with other unrelated tasks. Implementation Intentions is a promising metacognitive strategy for improving PM in older adults, though its generalization and longer-term effects are not well-understood. We examined the effects of II on PM in 48 community-dwelling older adults and 59 young adults. Participants were randomly allocated to a conventional instruction or II group and administered a laboratory-based PM task in the first (...) session. In the second session, participants returned to complete a similar but new laboratory-based PM task and an ecological PM task without prompts to use a strategy. We found strong age effects on PM performance whereby older adults performed worse than young adults across all PM tasks. While the overall facilitation effect of II was not statistically significant, there was a trend that this strategy facilitated PM performance on the laboratory-based PM task in the first session for older adults with a medium sized effect. The generalization and longer-term effect of II were not significant for either the similar laboratory-based or the ecological PM task. These results suggest that a single-session II intervention may not be sufficient to elicit transfer to other similar new PM tasks in healthy populations. (shrink)

The acquisition of English noun and verb morphology is modeled using a single-system connectionist network. The network is trained to produce the plurals and past tense forms of a large corpus of monosyllabic English nouns and verbs. The developmental trajectory of network performance is analyzed in detail and is shown to mimic a number of important features of the acquisition of English noun and verb morphology in young children. These include an initial error-free period of performance on both nouns (...) and verbs followed by a period of intermittent over-regularization of irregular nouns and verbs. Errors in the model show evidence of phonological conditioning and frequency effects. Furthermore, the network demonstrates a strong tendency to regularize denominal verbs and deverbal nouns and masters the principles of voicing assimilation. Despite their incorporation into a single-system network, nouns and verbs exhibit some important differences in their profiles of acquisition. Most importantly, noun inflections are acquired earlier than verb inflections. The simulations generate several empirical predictions that can be used to evaluate further the suitability of this type of cognitive architecture in the domain of inflectional morphology. (shrink)

COVID-19 severity and mortality risk are greater for older adults whereas economic impact is deeper for younger adults. Using the Health Belief Model as a framework, this study used a web-based survey to examine how perceived COVID-19 susceptibility and severity and perceived efficacy of recommended health behaviors varied by age group and were related to the adoption of health behaviors. Proportional odds logistic regression was used to examine the relationship between age group and perceived COVID-19 susceptibility, severity, impact, and health (...) behavior efficacy and adoption. Structural equation modeling based on HBM constructs examined the relationships between health beliefs and behaviors. Data from 820 participants were analyzed. Middle-aged and older adults reported greater concerns about the personal risk of hospitalization and mortality, economic impact, and social impact of COVID-19 than young adults. Middle-aged adults also reported greatest concern for other age groups. Adoption and perceived efficacy of health behaviors was similar across age groups with few exceptions. Both middle-aged and older-adults were more likely to perceive their own and each other's age groups as responding adequately to COVID-19 compared to young adults. Structural equation modeling indicated perceived benefits of health behaviors were the primary driver of behavior uptake, with socioeconomic factors and perceived severity and susceptibility indirectly associated with uptake through their influence on perceived benefits. Overall, these results suggest adoption of health behaviors is very high with few differences between age groups, despite differences in perceived impact of COVID-19. Public health communications should focus on the benefits of health behaviors to drive adoption. (shrink)

The article discusses the affinity of the ideas of two prominent Russian scholars N.N. Moiseev and V.S. Stepin. This affinity of their ideas is above all expressed in the global scale of their thinking, in their orientation toward the search for the ways of mankind development. Both thinkers sought a way out of the limitations and crisis of technological civilization through the promotion of basic values of harmony in the evolution of society and the biosphere. They made an enormous contribution (...) to the development of both humanitarian and natural sciences areas of knowledge related to social management and development, techonology, economics, law, medicine, ecology, education, etc. They worked in an interdisciplinary areas and were successful integrators of natural science and humanities. Simultaneously with the scientific work, Moiseev and Stepin were excellent teachers and mentors of both young and mature researchers. They have created successful scientific schools that include many dozens of outstanding scientists. They devoted much attention and much time to social work, primarily in various structures of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The affinity of Moiseev’s and Stepin’s ideas is shown in four areas of their activities: overcoming the crisis of technological civilization and the limitations of the concept of sustainable development, research into socio-humanitarian cybernetics, development of advanced education models, implementation of successful scientific diplomacy projects. The author of this article participated in joint research projects with Moiseev and Stepin, the personal communication with them and their ideas significantly influenced author’s life path, interests and research results. (shrink)

Of course you know the movie, just by cultural assimilation if not by having seen it. There’s this young elephant, Dumbo, who has laughably big ears and has been pitiably separated from his mom. He’s aided by a friendly talking mouse[ii] into translating those otherwise hapless ears into the power of flight, which he eventually uses to rescue his mom and live happily ever after. The way the wily mouse gets Dumbo to believe that he could fly is to (...) give him a “magic feather” which, held in his trunk, demonstrably imparts the gift of flight. Naturally the mouse believes throughout all this that Dumbo can fly anyway, but he also knows that Dumbo needs the feather as a confidence-builder to do so. At the critical juncture of the tale Dumbo loses the feather after being pushed off a precipice, and he thus plummets perilously towards earth—only to find at the last moment that he can indeed fly on his own. (shrink)

Of course you know the movie, just by cultural assimilation if not by having seen it. There’s this young elephant, Dumbo, who has laughably big ears and has been pitiably separated from his mom. He’s aided by a friendly talking mouse2 into translating those otherwise hapless ears into the power of flight, which he eventually uses to rescue his mom and live happily ever after. The way the wily mouse gets Dumbo to believe that he could fly is to (...) give him a “magic feather” which, held in his trunk, demonstrably imparts the gift of flight. Naturally the mouse believes throughout all this that Dumbo can fly anyway, but he also knows that Dumbo needs the feather as a confidence-builder to do so. At the critical juncture of the tale Dumbo loses the feather after being pushed off a precipice, and he thus plummets perilously towards earth—only to find at the last moment that he can indeed fly on his own. (shrink)

A t first glance you might not noorder, which afflicts about 0.5 percent of tice anything odd on meeting a American children. Neither researcher young boy with autism. But if had any knowledge of the other’s work, you try to talk to him, it will and yet by an uncanny coincidence each quickly become obvious that gave the syndrome the same name: autism, something is seriously wrong. He may not which derives from the Greek word autos, make eye contact (...) with you; instead he may meaning “self.” The name is apt, because avoid your gaze and fidget, rock his body the most conspicuous feature of the disorto and fro, or bang his head against the der is a withdrawal from social interacwall. More disconcerting, he may not be tion. More recently, doctors have adopted able to conduct anything remotely resemthe term “autism spectrum disorder” to bling a normal conversation. Even though make it clear that the illness has many rehe can experience emotions such as fear, lated variants that range widely in severity rage and pleasure, he may lack genuine but share some characteristic symptoms. empathy for other people and be oblivious Ever since autism was identified, reto subtle social cues that most children searchers have struggled to determine would pick up effortlessly. what causes it. Scientists know that sus- In the 1940s two physicians—Americeptibility to autism is inherited, although.. (shrink)

In late 2005, the General Medical Council carried out several consultations. In the review of procedures for sick doctors were proposals to strengthen powers to monitor doctors and plans to introduce unannounced drug testing of doctors whose behaviour raised concerns.1 The GMC consultation on the strategic options for undergraduate medical education considered how education is changing in the light of social and clinical demands. It focused, in part, on developing guidance on medical students’ health and conduct and a proposed national (...) registration system for medical students.2 The most significant consultation in terms of medical ethics was the GMC’s review of Good Medical Practice – its main ethical guidance for doctors.3 The GMC’s aim was to re-define practical and attainable modern standards. A proposed draft emphasised partnership in the doctor-patient relationship, human rights, and doctors’ obligations and responsibilities towards children—all of which are issues increasingly significant in medicine. The consultation also opened up discussion on how far the GMC should be concerned about doctors’ behaviour in their private lives. Should it be concerned, for example, about clinically successful consultants being obsessed with hardcore pornography or having affairs with very young women?4 Questions were also posed about how far doctors can exercise a conscientious objection. Should they be able to refuse to refer pregnant women for abortions because they themselves consider it wrong?5 Other potentially contentious issues questioned the extent to which doctors have rights to protect themselves against risks from patients. British Medical Association policy, dating from the era when HIV first began to be diagnosed, stated that it is unethical to withhold treatment solely because a patient’s condition poses risks to doctors’ health. At the time it was adopted, this policy was intended to be anti-discriminatory as HIV patients were already stigmatised. Doctors …. (shrink)

The scientific career of the outstanding Russian physiologist A. A. Ukhtomskii was complex and full of contradictions. A descendant of Prince Vsevolod Big Nest [Bol'shoe Gnezdo] of Suzdal', he was strongly influenced by the traditions and legends of his caste. As a juvenile he was sent to the Nizhnii Novgorod Corps of Cadets where he developed a profound interest in philosophy, psychology, history, and literature. His fellow cadets of the same age were amazed at, and sometimes ridiculed the young (...) Ukhtomskii's attempts to find answers to the burning questions of the day in the books of Shakespeare and Dostoevsky and in scientific works. Ukhtomskii's notebooks and synopses of those years show how this youth, from age 15 to 17, pondered over cardinal problems of world view, the contradictions of Russian society, and the future of science. The barracks life of the cadets, the rigorous schedule and supervision did not suppress Ukhtomskii's persistent desire to get a closer knowledge of the life of Nizhnii Novgorod, a major mill town and river port. He managed to make the acquaintance of members of a group of Marxist workers and maintained contact with one of them, M. Ia. Iakovlev , for over 40 years. (shrink)

The current market environment is defined by constant financial and global changes. For companies operating in market business activities it has been increasingly difficult to adapt and remain competitive in such environment. In accordance with the exclusive survey among young entrepreneurs, one in four of them starts their business without training and about a one third has no idea how to get to the customers. Constant financial and global changes cause that existing organizations realizing business activity adapt and remain (...) competitive ability with increasing difficulties. Several organizations, as self-employed units are not able to cope with handicaps or use the positives that globalization brings on the world's markets. The process of globalization requires highly flexible receiving of innovative solutions which often especially SMEs are not able to carry out. One of the possible strategies which organization can receive to maintain its competitive advantage is the “cluster” formation. (shrink)

One of the most persistent and popular bourgeois myths about Spinoza is that of his unwillingness to participate in any kind of political struggle whatever. This myth is sustained particularly by those non-Marxist historians of philosophy who contend that the essence of Spinozism is the development of a new form of religiosity, free of the limitations of any national religion. Such a conception of the Dutch thinker is partially based on facts related by his first biographers, particularly Lucas. As we (...) know, Lucas, in his Life of Benedict Spinoza, written in French between 1678 and 1688, writes that the philosopher's father, Michael de Spinoza, lacking funds and being unable to establish his son in commerce, chose for him the career of a rabbi, and with this in mind placed the young Spinoza in the Amsterdam kheder, where he gained an excellent knowledge of classical Hebrew and studied to perfection the Old Testament and the considerably more voluminous Talmud. Even during his period of instruction, Spinoza, having found many contradictions in the Bible and Talmud, placed the rabbis who were his teachers in untenable positions and this subsequently led to a conflict between him and the leadership of the Amsterdam Jewish community. This report by Spinoza's first biographer suggests the idea that the young Spinoza had crystallized his ideas as early as his stay in the kheder. This we find stated in many of the non-Marxist studies devoted to him. Soviet writings on Spinoza also usually repeat Lucas' view entirely without criticism . However, certain foreign researches of recent decades, which have given consideration to documents and firsthand reports published in 1932 by the Dutch researcher Vaz Dias and, more recently, certain other documents have necessitated considerable corrections in the biographies both by Lucas and Colerus. In these works — of which the book by the French researcher Madeleine Francés, Spinoza dans les pays Neerlandais de la seconde moitié du XVII siècle, Vol. I, Paris, 1937, and that of the American researcher, Lewis Feuer, Spinoza and the Rise of Liberalism, Boston, 1958, are particularly worthy of mention — serious attempts are made to demonstrate the social roots and essence of Spinozism. The biographical data presented in these works contribute to a clarification of the real reasons for the conflict between the young Spinoza and the leadership of the Jewish community of Amsterdam. According to these writers, Spinoza's father was a wealthy man and, in all probability, did not intend to make a rabbi of his son. There can be no question that the young Spinoza attended the elementary classes of the Jewish school, but his name is not found in the lists of students in its higher grades, from which future rabbis emerged. Beginning approximately at the age of thirteen, Bento helped his father in his commercial and financial operations. However, after his father's death, Baruch himself took charge of these matters during the period 1654-1656 and, as these documents suggest, demonstrated considerable skill in commercial and financial affairs. However, the activities of merchant and financier did not appeal to the young man. The discrepancy between his intellectual interests and the nature of his occupation proved so irreconcilable that the future philosopher, who had established numerous scholarly and personal ties outside the Jewish community, drifted farther and farther both from his business and the community, until finally he was excommunicated, and broke with the community. (shrink)

Aberrant consumer behaviour costs firms millions of pounds a year, and the Internet has provided young techno-literate consumers with a new medium to exploit businesses. This paper addresses Internet related ethics and describes the ways in which young consumers misdemean on the Internet and their attitudes towards these. Using a sample of 219 generation Y consumers, the study identified 24 aberrant behaviours which grouped into five factors; illegal, questionable activities, hacking related, human Internet trade and downloading. Those perceived (...) as least wrong were; "Downloading movie and music files from the Internet for free". The consequences of these behaviours have implications for educators, consumer policy and marketers. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Moral Foundation The Legal Requirement for Consent in Therapeutic Settings The Exceptions References.