This is a review of Patrick Meier’s 2015 book, Digital Humanitarians: How Big Data Is Changing the Face of Humanitarian Response. The book explores the role of technologies such as high-resolution satellite imagery, online social media, drones, and artificial intelligence in humanitarian responses during disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake. In this analysis, the book is examined using a humanitarian health ethics perspective.

Our economy is neither overwhelmingly capitalist, as Marxist political economists argue, nor overwhelmingly a market economy, as mainstream economists assume. Both approaches ignore vast swathes of the economy, including the gift, collaborative and hybrid forms that coexist with more conventional capitalism in the new digital economy. Drawing on economic sociology, anthropology of the gift and heterodox economics, this book proposes a groundbreaking framework for analysing diverse economic systems: a political economy of practices. The framework is used to analyse Apple, Wikipedia, (...) Google, YouTube and Facebook, showing how different complexes of appropriative practices bring about radically different economic outcomes. Innovative and topical, Profit and Gift in the Digital Economy focusses on an area of rapid social change while developing a theoretically and politically radical framework that will be of continuing long-term relevance. It will appeal to students, activists and academics in the social sciences. (shrink)

Placebos are commonly defined as ineffective treatments. They are treatments that lack a known mechanism linking their properties to the properties of the condition on which treatment aims to intervene. Given this, the fact that placebos can have substantial therapeutic effects looks puzzling. The puzzle, we argue, arises from the relationship placebos present between culturally meaningful entities, our intentional relationship to the environment and bodily effects. How can a mere attitude toward a treatment result in appropriate bodily changes? We argue (...) that an ‘enactive’ conception of cognition accommodates and renders intelligible the phenomenon of placebo effects. Enactivism depicts an organism’s adaptive bodily processes, its intentional directedness, and the meaningful properties of its environment as co-emergent aspects of a single dynamic system. In doing so it provides an account of the interrelations between mind, body and world that demystifies placebo effects. (shrink)

This article outlines the struggle between the power of the health care professional and the rights of the individual to choose freely a modality of treatment. Nurses are instrumental in assisting patients in making the best decision for a therapy they will have to assume for the rest of their lives. In guiding patients' decision, nurses must take into account these unavoidable contingencies: changes in lifestyle, nutritional restrictions, level of acceptance, compliance issues, ease of training and availability of support/facilities. Ensuring (...) that the patient makes an informed decision is therefore an ongoing challenge for nurses as they are taking part in a delicate balancing act between not directly influencing the patient's decision while making sure the patient is accurately informed. (shrink)

This work proposes a logical analysis for the kind of knowledge or insight provided by Buddhist enlightenment, which is often presented only in the form of contradictions and riddles. The comprehension of contradictions is perplexing to most western logic, and yet developed here is a theory demonstrating how a non truth-functional interpretation can be attached to certain naturalistic contradictions. In this way, the logical and psychological status of Enlightenment can be analysed in a manner consistent with the claims of much (...) Eastern thought. For example, it is argued that by breaking the logical principle of identity, it is possible to understand the contradiction "Everybody's friend is nobody's friend" in such a way as to learn something new about friendship, thereby causing us to modify our concept of friendship. In this way our grasp of contradictions can lead to conceptual change. -/- It is further noted that conflicts in all areas of life can be expressed by contradictions, so that our capacity in general to grasp naturalistic contradictions is also a basis for conflict-resolution -thus justifying the term 'Enlightenment'. This pragmatic comprehension of contradictions is thus shown to formalise, not only the Middle Way of Buddhism, but also Socratic dialectic. Finally, the analysis explains why gnomic utterances in every religion and Zen in particular, are sometimes expected to trigger spiritual enlightenment. (shrink)

Nurses working in correctional and forensic mental health settings face unique challenges in the provision of care to patients within custodial settings. The subjectivities of both patients and nurses are subject to the power relations, discourses and abjection encountered within these practice milieus. Using a poststructuralist approach using the work of Foucault, Kristeva, and Deleuze and Guattari, this paper explores how both patient and nurse subjectivities are produced within the carceral logic of this apparatus of capture. Recognizing that subjectivities are (...) fluid and dynamic, and capable of change, Deleuze and Guattari's concept of deterritorialization will illustrate opportunities for resistance, where nurses can begin to practice outside the dominant carceral logic (and restrictions) of the system. (shrink)

Recovery is a model of care in (forensic) mental health settings across Western nations that aims to move past the paternalistic and punitive models of institutional care of the 20th century and toward more patient‐centered approaches. But as we argue in this paper, the recovery‐oriented services that evolved out of the early stages of this liberating movement signaled a shift in nursing practices that cannot be viewed only as improvements. In effect, as “recovery” nursing practices became more established, more codified, (...) and more institutional(ized), a stasis developed. Recovery had been reterritorialized. The purpose of this paper is to examine some of the threads of recovery, from its early days of antipsychiatry activism to its codification into mental health—including forensic mental health—institutions through the lens of poststructuralist philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. We believe that Deleuze and Guattari's scholarship provides the necessary, albeit uncomfortable, framework for this critical examination. From a conceptualization of recovery as an assemblage, we critically examine how we can go about creating something new, caught in a tension between stasis and change. (shrink)

Using data from the National Hospital Discharge Survey, this paper analyzes the effect of Medicaid eligibility expansions from 1985 to 1996 on the health insurance coverage of women giving birth. We find that the eligibility expansions reduced the proportion of pregnant women who were uninsured by approximately 10%, although the magnitude of this decrease is sensitive to specification. The decrease in the proportion of uninsured pregnant women came at the expense of a substantial reduction in private insurance coverage (crowd-out) of (...) at least 55%. Substantial crowd-out and the relatively small change in the proportion uninsured suggest that Medicaid eligibility expansions may have had small effects on infant and maternal health. (shrink)

Several gaze contingent studies that used a fixed delay between physical eye movements and a display change documented a dip in the fixation duration distributions (e.g., Blanchard et al. 1984; McConkie et al. 1985; van Diepen et al. 1995). In a study by van Diepen et al. (1995), a moving mask paradigm was employed in which subjects searched line drawings of everyday scenes for non-objects. The appearance of the mask was delayed relative to the end of a saccade (beginning of (...) fixation) by 17, 46, 76 or 121 msec. All fixation duration distributions in the masking conditions exhibited a dip with longer masking delays resulting in the dip occurring at longer fixation durations. In contrast, a no-mask condition did not produce a dip. Similar effects in reading were reported by Blanchard et al. (1984), and McConkie et al. (1985). In both these studies the text was.. (shrink)

In 5 experiments, participants read text that was briefly replaced by a transient image for 33 ms at random intervals. A decrease in saccadic frequency, referred to as saccadic inhibition, occurred as early as 60 –70 ms following the onset of abrupt changes in visual input. It was demonstrated that the saccadic inhibition was influenced by the saliency of the visual event (Experiment 3) and was not produced in response to abrupt but irrelevant auditory stimuli (Experiment 1). Display changes restricted (...) to an area either inside or outside the perceptual span required for normal reading produced strong saccadic inhibition (Experiment 2). Finally, Experiments 4 and 5 demonstrated higher level cognitive or attentional modulation of the saccadic inhibition effect. (shrink)

Misinformation can have significant societal consequences. For example, misinformation about climate change has confused the public and stalled support for mitigation policies. When people lack the expertise and skill to evaluate the science behind a claim, they typically rely on heuristics such as substituting judgment about something complex (i.e. climate science) with judgment about something simple (i.e. the character of people who speak about climate science) and are therefore vulnerable to misleading information. Inoculation theory offers one approach to effectively neutralize (...) the influence of misinformation. Typically, inoculations convey resistance by providing people with information that counters misinformation. In contrast, we propose inoculating against misinformation by explaining the fallacious reasoning within misleading denialist claims. We offer a strategy based on critical thinking methods to analyse and detect poor reasoning within denialist claims. This strategy includes detailing argument structure, determining the truth of the premises, and checking for validity, hidden premises, or ambiguous language. Focusing on argument structure also facilitates the identification of reasoning fallacies by locating them in the reasoning process. Because this reason-based form of inoculation is based on general critical thinking methods, it offers the distinct advantage of being accessible to those who lack expertise in climate science. We applied this approach to 42 common denialist claims and find that they all demonstrate fallacious reasoning and fail to refute the scientific consensus regarding anthropogenic global warming. This comprehensive deconstruction and refutation of the most common denialist claims about climate change is designed to act as a resource for communicators and educators who teach climate science and/or critical thinking. (shrink)

Competency has become a key concept in education in general over the last four decades. This article examines the development of the competency‐based movement with a particular focus on the significance it has had for nursing education. Our hypothesis is that the competency movement can only adequately be understood if it is analyzed in relation to the broad societal transformation of the last decades—often summarized under the catchword neoliberalism—and with it the emergence of managerial models for Human Resource Management (HRM) (...) for the reorganization of social services. Classical professions, which were characterized under welfarism by an esoteric knowledge based on ethical norms, have now become marketable commodities that can be evaluated in the same way as other commodities. We want to underline that while this development is still under way, it is the concept of competency that was the decisive political instrument enabling this profound change. With the widespread implementation of competency‐based education that now governs nursing knowledge, the development of a critical, oppositional perspective becomes more challenging, if not entirely impossible. We will be focusing primarily on nursing education in Canada, although we maintain that it has relevance for nursing internationally. (shrink)

The pathway that controls sexual fate in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans has been well characterized at the molecular level. By identifying differences between the sex‐determination mechanisms in C. elegans and other nematode species, it should be possible to understand how complex sex‐determining pathways evolve. Towards this goal, orthologues of many of the C. elegans sex regulators have been isolated from other members of the genus Caenorhabditis. Rapid sequence evolution is observed in every case, but several of the orthologues appear to (...) have conserved sex‐determining roles. Thus extensive sequence divergence does not necessarily coincide with changes in pathway structure, although the same forces may contribute to both. This review summarizes recent findings and, with reference to results from other animals, offers explanations for why sex‐determining genes and pathways appear to be evolving rapidly. Experimental strategies that hold promise for illuminating pathway differences between nematodes are also discussed. BioEssays 25: 221–231, 2003. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Particular visions of urban development are often codified in multi-year resource management policies. These policies, and the negotiations leading to them, are based in specific problem frames and narratives with long legacies. As conditions change and knowledge improves, there is often a need to revisit how problems, opportunities, and development pathways were defined historically, and to consider the viability of alternative pathways for development. In this article, we examine the case of agriculture near Metropolitan Phoenix, in the Central Arizona region, (...) to highlight how frames and narratives embedded in policy can reinforce particular development pathways, even as information, conditions, and values evolve. Using expert interviews and secondary data, we document alternative frames and narratives that may offer different pathways for development and sustainability in the region. By highlighting alternative narratives, we demonstrate the uncertainties and limitations associated with all narratives about development pathways, and explore the possibilities that narrative shifts can alter future outcomes. (shrink)

Giving plays an important role in the contemporary economy, but this has been obscured by the perspectives of both mainstream economics and Marxist political economy. This paper draws on the work of J. K. Gibson-Graham to argue that this stunts our imagination about alternative futures, and on the work of Erik Olin Wright to suggest that gift-oriented economic practices could play a significant part in such futures. The most promising alternative economic futures involve not the replacement of a monolithic capitalism (...) with some other monolithic alternative, but rather a changing mix of already-diverse economic practices. One part of the Marxist tradition that stands in the way of such thinking is its employment of the concept of modes of production, and the paper proposes complexes of appropriative practices as an alternative or supplementary concept. (shrink)

With the rising poverty in the Philippines, Filipino farm workers in Agusan del Sur faced distinctive challenges in their homes and working environment. This study aimed to discuss Filipino farm workers’ lived experiences, challenges, and coping mechanisms. Filipino farm workers shared their experiences that tapped into their psychological aspects. Mainly, the problem was stress, worry, and frustration centered on poverty and educational attainment. Some farm workers were likely unaware of the main problem that prolonged their hardships. Still, most have managed (...) to fortify their mental health. This report indicates that most Filipino farm workers in Agusan del Sur have a healthy psychological well-being. However, this statement does not change the intensity of their struggle to survive. (shrink)

Within thirty years of first appearing, the networked digital economy has spread its tentacles into the lives of half the population of the world, and transformed the balance of power in the commercial economy. Social theory has been slow to recognize the significance and scale of these developments, and this special issue is a contribution to redressing the balance. It is organized around the concept of moral economies: the values and norms that underpin and shape our participation in larger economic (...) structures. The digital economy today is the site of a range of competing economic models, and this is reflected in clashes between a corresponding range of moral economies. The contributors to this special issue map these tensions in examples of both gift and commodity models of economy, analyse the implications for global risk, and re-evaluate classic analytic schemes to represent these tensions. Because the economy is built on moral economies, the process of economic change is already inherently a process of debate and contestation between different moral economies, with the consequence that academic work on the ethics of the economy can influence these processes of change. (shrink)

Cycling is one of the typical recreational activities, transportation, and sport among elderly adults in the Philippines. Based on the study, cycling provides many benefits to physical health, promotes well-being, contributes to improved quality of life, and is a great way for elderly adults to prevent depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues. As cycling becomes more prevalent during pandemics, the road has changed to include adding more bicycle lanes. Thus, the researchers explore the lived experiences of senior cyclists, specifically: (...) (1) to describe the experiences, (2) challenges, and (3) coping mechanisms. Correspondingly, the study used fifteen (15) participants in an Interpretative Phenomenology Analysis (IPA) procedure. The following findings are drawn from the study: (1) Most of the senior cyclists experienced life-threatening events while cycling, they experienced a high level of satisfaction and happiness, (2) Most senior cyclists are not bothered by the difficulties that others might view as a barrier to them continuing to pedal with passion. (3) Despite all the obstacles they may encounter, senior cyclists choose to get through those challenges by being understanding, patient, and calm. (shrink)

In 1974, the Liberal government of Pierre Trudeau released a “green paper” known as the Lalonde Report, after the health minister at that time. The report formulated perspectives on health and the main concepts and ideas developed in it, particularly the concept of “lifestyle,” which became the foundation of public health policies in many different European countries and the United States. The concept of “lifestyle” connected personal behaviour and habits to the individual health condition; people were not dying due to (...) a lack of access to medical care but because they lived a life prone to personal risk taking. Furthermore, what is seldom discussed is that this report not only propagated the (neo)liberal view of citizens as autonomous rational actors (homo oeconomicus), with personal responsibility for their health, but it was a first step in the transformation of Medicare and went far beyond the question of health promotion. Health was no longer something that happened to a person but was created through personal choice and, therefore, one had to assume responsibility for one's behaviour. Using Foucault's definition of government as the “conduct of conduct,” we will demonstrate that the Lalonde report must be understood as a specific “technology of government” and contributed to a neoliberal transformation of health care despite the fact that the Canadian system of Medicare was based on the idea of universality, meaning citizens had equal access to health care independent of their socio‐economic situation. As we will demonstrate, the Lalonde report undermined this foundation and initiated a profound reorientation, not only of the healthcare system, but even more importantly, it radically changed the way we think about our behaviour around health‐related issues. We will also discuss how the making of the report contributed to the redefinition of politics and demonstrated a lack of concern with liberal‐democratic decision‐making processes. (shrink)

Mitochondria have been fundamental to the eco‐physiological success of eukaryotes since the last eukaryotic common ancestor (LECA). They contribute essential functions to eukaryotic cells, above and beyond classical respiration. Mitochondria interact with, and complement, metabolic pathways occurring in other organelles, notably diversifying the chloroplast metabolism of photosynthetic organisms. Here, we integrate existing literature to investigate how mitochondrial metabolism varies across the landscape of eukaryotic evolution. We illustrate the mitochondrial remodelling and proteomic changes undergone in conjunction with major evolutionary transitions. We (...) explore how the mitochondrial complexity of the LECA has been remodelled in specific groups to support subsequent evolutionary transitions, such as the acquisition of chloroplasts in photosynthetic species and the emergence of multicellularity. We highlight the versatile and crucial roles played by mitochondria during eukaryotic evolution, extending from its huge contribution to the development of the LECA itself to the dynamic evolution of individual eukaryote groups, reflecting both their current ecologies and evolutionary histories. (shrink)

New concepts may prove necessary to profit from the avalanche of sequence data on the genome, transcriptome, proteome and interactome and to relate this information to cell physiology. Here, we focus on the concept of large activity-based structures, or hyperstructures, in which a variety of types of molecules are brought together to perform a function. We review the evidence for the existence of hyperstructures responsible for the initiation of DNA replication, the sequestration of newly replicated origins of replication, cell division (...) and for metabolism. The processes responsible for hyperstructure formation include changes in enzyme affinities due to metabolite-induction, lipid-protein affinities, elevated local concentrations of proteins and their binding sites on DNA and RNA, and transertion. Experimental techniques exist that can be used to study hyperstructures and we review some of the ones less familiar to biologists. Finally, we speculate on how a variety of in silico approaches involving cellular automata and multi-agent systems could be combined to develop new concepts in the form of an Integrated cell (I-cell) which would undergo selection for growth and survival in a world of artificial microbiology. (shrink)

Background The COVID-19 pandemic causes moral challenges and moral distress for healthcare professionals and, due to an increased work load, reduces time and opportunities for clinical ethics support services. Nevertheless, healthcare professionals could also identify essential elements to maintain or change in the future, as moral distress and moral challenges can indicate opportunities to strengthen moral resilience of healthcare professionals and organisations. This study describes 1) the experienced moral distress, challenges and ethical climate concerning end-of-life care of Intensive Care Unit (...) staff during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and 2) their positive experiences and lessons learned, which function as directions for future forms of ethics support. Methods A cross-sectional survey combining quantitative and qualitative elements was sent to all healthcare professionals who worked at the Intensive Care Unit of the Amsterdam UMC - Location AMC during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey consisted of 36 items about moral distress (concerning quality of care and emotional stress), team cooperation, ethical climate and (ways of dealing with) end-of-life decisions, and two open questions about positive experiences and suggestions for work improvement. Results All 178 respondents (response rate: 25–32%) showed signs of moral distress, and experienced moral dilemmas in end-of-life decisions, whereas they experienced a relatively positive ethical climate. Nurses scored significantly higher than physicians on most items. Positive experiences were mostly related to ‘team cooperation’, ‘team solidarity’ and ‘work ethic’. Lessons learned were mostly related to ‘quality of care’ and ‘professional qualities’. Conclusions Despite the crisis, positive experiences related to ethical climate, team members and overall work ethic were reported by Intensive Care Unit staff and quality and organisation of care lessons were learned. Ethics support services can be tailored to reflect on morally challenging situations, restore moral resilience, create space for self-care and strengthen team spirit. This can improve healthcare professionals’ dealing of inherent moral challenges and moral distress in order to strengthen both individual and organisational moral resilience. Trial registration The trial was registered on The Netherlands Trial Register, number NL9177. (shrink)

On 18 November 2014, the United Nations launched an urgent new campaign to end AIDS as a global health threat by 2030. With its proposed strategy, the UN follows leading scientists who had declared the failure of former prevention strategies and now were promoting a ‘Seek and Treat for Optimal Prevention’ (STOP) approach as the most cost‐effective response to the pandemic to meet the goal of ‘an AIDS‐free generation’. STOP combines antiretroviral therapy and routine HIV screening to find persons unaware (...) that they are HIV‐positive, because research has shown that people consistently change their behaviour (i.e. increase condom use, have fewer partners) after an HIV diagnosis. AIDS activists have broadly criticized this strategy on different levels. In this article, we go beyond these criticisms and try to analyse the political rationalities behind this ‘new’ strategy. We believe that it is necessary to put the rationale underpinning the STOP programme into the context of broader societal transformations that can best be captured as the development of advanced liberal societies and the new emphasis on self‐controlling or self‐responsibility rather than on disciplining behaviour. (shrink)

Most theories of slurs fall into one of two families: those which understand slurring terms to involve special descriptive/informational content (however conveyed), and those which understand them to encode special emotive/expressive content. Our view is that both offer essential insights, but that part of what sets slurs apart is use-theoretic content. In particular, we urge that slurring words belong at the intersection of a number of categories in a sociolinguistic register taxonomy, one that usually includes [+slang] and [+vulgar] and always (...) includes [-polite] and [+derogatory]. Thus, e.g., what distinguishes ‘Chinese’ from ‘chink’ is neither a peculiar sort of descriptive nor emotional content, but rather the fact that ‘chink’ is lexically marked as belonging to different registers than ‘Chinese’. It is, moreover, partly such facts which makes slurring ethically unacceptable. (shrink)

This paper investigates the effect of female representation on the board of directors on corporate response to stakeholders’ demands for increased public reporting about climate change-related risks. We rely on the Carbon Disclosure Project as a sustainability initiative supported by institutional investors. Greenhouse gas emissions measurement and its disclosure to investors can be thought of as a first step toward addressing climate change issues and reducing the firm’s carbon footprint. Based on a sample of publicly listed Canadian firms over the (...) period 2008–2014, we find that the likelihood of voluntary climate change disclosure increases with women percentage on boards. We also find evidence that supports critical mass theory with regard to board gender diversity. These findings reinforce initiatives being undertaken around the world to promote gender diversity in corporate governance while demonstrating board effectiveness in stakeholder management. (shrink)

Do sensory measurements deserve the label of “measurement”? We argue that they do. They fit with an epistemological view of measurement held in current philosophy of science, and they face the same kinds of epistemological challenges as physical measurements do: the problem of coordination and the problem of standardization. These problems are addressed through the process of “epistemic iteration,” for all measurements. We also argue for distinguishing the problem of standardization from the problem of coordination. To exemplify our claims, we (...) draw on olfactory performance tests, especially studies linking olfactory decline to neurodegenerative disorders. (shrink)

This paper argues for the existence of a fourth positive generic value relation that can hold between two items beyond ‘better than’, ‘worse than’, and ‘equally good’: namely ‘on a par’.

In virtue of what is something a reason for action? That is, what makes a consideration a reason to act? This is a metaphysical or meta-normative question about the grounding of reasons for action. The answer to the grounding question has been traditionally given in ‘pure’, univocal terms. This paper argues that there is good reason to understand the ground of practical normativity as a hybrid of traditional ‘pure’ views. The paper 1) surveys the three leading ‘pure’ answers to the (...) question of a normative ground, 2) examines one or two of the most difficult problems for each, proposing along the way a new objection to one, and 3) argues that a particular hybrid view about normative grounds –‘hybrid voluntarism’ – avoids each of the main problems faced by the three leading ‘pure’ views. (shrink)

This paper examines the influence of CEO career horizon problems on corporate social responsibility. We assume that as CEOs are getting older, they tend to disengage in CSR due to their shorter career horizons. We further argue that high levels of industry-level discretion and blockholder ownership amplify the negative effects of CEO age on CSR. Using a panel sample of US-based firms over 2004–2009, we do not find the main effect of CEO age on CSR, but find support for the (...) moderating effects, such that CEO age is negatively associated with CSR when there are high levels of ILD and blockholder ownership. Therefore, results suggest that CEO career horizon problems matter for CSR when CEOs have sufficient discretion over the firm’s strategic decisions and outside blockholders put more pressure on CEOs to engage in financial earning management. (shrink)

Theories of language production have long been expressed as connectionist models. We outline the issues and challenges that must be addressed by connectionist models of lexical access and grammatical encoding, and review three recent models. The models illustrate the value of an interactive activation approach to lexical access in production, the need for sequential output in both phonological and grammatical encoding, and the potential for accounting for structural effects on errors and structural priming from learning.

This paper presents the results of the authors’ study of the philosophical heritage of the Ancient Chinese philosopher Pan Maoming, who played an essential role in the development of spiritual culture, as well as Philosophy and Science of Ancient Southern China. The authors carried out historiographical research of currently available ancient and modern sources, which contain data on the life and philosophical ideas of Pan Maoming; reconstructed the Pan Maoming’s intellectual biography; revealed the main features of his worldview. The authors (...) reconstructed the social, cultural, and philosophical context of the historical epoch in which Pan Maoming’s philosophical and scientific views arose and developed; clarified the philosopher’s historical role in the development of local culture in the Southern region of Ancient China.The article contains the author’s description and interpretation of the main philosophical ideas of Pan Maoming, the main amid which the authors consider the ethical concept of “peace and emptiness,” the concept of “clumsiness”; the idea of “monasticism for the happiness of the people.” The authors compared Pan Maoming’s philosophical ideas with Lao-tzu’s philosophical doctrine and came to the conclusion that Pan Maoming formed his own unique and original elaboration of Taoist philosophy, significantly developed its linguistic apparatus and worldview. The authors paid particular attention to the description and analysis of Pan Maoming’s cosmological views, which include the doctrine of “Inner alchemy”, the doctrine of “chaos, order and causality.” The authors concluded that Pan Maoming’s cosmological ideas significantly developed a way of understanding the Universe, the relationship between “inert” and “living” matter, the “world of nature” and the “world of human” in the Taoist philosophical culture. The authors also presented and substantiated their point of view that some philosophical and cosmological ideas of Pan Maoming have not only of historical value but can also be used for developing and enriching the local spiritual culture of Guangdong Province in the form of ethical and educational practices, as well as practices of strengthening cultural unity and identity. (shrink)

‘Normative powers’ are capacities to create normative reasons by our willing or say-so. They are significant, because if we have them and exercise them, then sometimes the reasons we have are ‘up to us’. But such powers seem mysterious. How can we, by willing, create reasons? In this paper, I examine whether normative powers can be adequately explained normatively, by appeal to norms of a practice, normative principles, human interests, or values. Can normative explanations of normative powers explain how an (...) exercise of the will can afford us special freedom in determining our reasons? I argue that normative approaches to answering this question prove to be inadequate. To vindicate the thought that normative powers can make our reasons ‘up to us’, we need an altogether different approach to understanding them, one that is located not in the normative but in the metaphysical. I end the paper by sketching a metaphysical explanation of normative powers. This metaphysical defence of normative powers provides a window into a different, more agent-centered way of thinking about rational agency. (shrink)

This introductory article describes the phenomena of incommensurability and incomparability, how they are related, and why they are important. Since incomparability is the more significant phenomenon, the paper takes that as its focus. It gives a detailed account of what incomparability is, investigates the relation between the incomparability of values and the incomparability of alternatives for choice, distinguishes incomparability from the related phenomena of parity, indeterminacy, and noncomparability, and, finally, defends a view about practical justification that vindicates the importance of (...) incomparability — assuming it exists — for practical reason. (shrink)

This chapter argues that there is a particular kind of ‘internal’ commitment typically made in the context of romantic love relationships that has striking meta-normative implications for how we understand the role of the will in practical normativity. Internal commitments cannot plausibly explain the reasons we have in committed relationships on the usual model—as triggering reasons that are already there, in the way that making a promise triggers a reason via a pre-existing norm of the form ‘If you make a (...) promise to x, then you have a reason to x’. Instead, internal commitments are that in virtue of which one has the special reasons of committed relationships; they are the grounds of such reasons. In this way, the will is a source of practical normativity. (shrink)

This paper presents an argument against the widespread view that ‘hard choices’ are hard because of the incomparability of the alternatives. The argument has two parts. First, I argue that any plausible theory of practical reason must be ‘comparativist’ in form, that is, it must hold that a comparative relation between the alternatives with respect to what matters in the choice determines a justified choice in that situation. If comparativist views of practical reason are correct, however, the incomparabilist view of (...) hard choices should be rejected. Incomparabilism about hard choices leads us to an implausible error theory about the phenomenology of hard choices, threatens an unattractive view of human agency, and leaves us in perplexity about what we are doing when we choose in hard choices. The second part of the argument explores the main competitor to comparativist views of practical reason, noncomparativist view, according tow which a choice is justified so long as it is not worse than any of the alternatives. This view is often assumed by rational choice theorists but has its best philosophical defense in work by Joseph Raz. On Raz’s view, incomparabilism about hard choices avoids the problems faced if comparativism is correct, but it faces different difficulties. I argue that Raz’s noncomparativist view mistakenly assimilates practical reason to more restricted normative domains such as the law. (shrink)

Research from cognitive science and geoscience education has shown that sketching can improve spatial thinking skills and facilitate solving spatially complex problems. Yet sketching is rarely implemented in introductory geosciences courses, due to time needed to grade sketches and lack of materials that incorporate cognitive science research. Here, we report a design-centered, collaborative effort, between geoscientists, cognitive scientists, and artificial intelligence researchers, to characterize spatial learning challenges in geoscience and to design sketch activities that use a sketch-understanding program, CogSketch. We (...) developed 26 CogSketch worksheets that use cognitive science–based principles to scaffold problem solving of spatially complex geoscience problems and report observations of an implementation in an introductory geoscience course where students used CogSketch or human-graded paper worksheets. Overall, this research highlights the principles of interdisciplinary design between cognitive scientists, geoscientists, and AI researchers that can inform the collaborative design process for others aiming to develop effective educational materials. (shrink)

Tennis players have more physical training content, and the training items are complex. For athletes, training programs that adapt to their individual characteristics should be formulated according to their physical characteristics. The current development of big data has brought about changes in thinking, management, and business models. The combination of complex systems and big data can also make breakthroughs in the sports field. Based on this, this article proposes a tennis player training schedule intelligent formulation system based on complex system (...) big data. First of all, this article adopts the literature data method, comparative analysis method, experimental analysis method, etc., in-depth study of the concepts of big data, complex system, and the physical structure characteristics of tennis sports. This paper designs an intelligent system for making tennis players’ training schedule, which collects, transforms, and integrates tennis training data through the characteristics of big data. Then, the dynamic time regulation of tennis is performed through a complex system, and finally, the experimental system is analyzed. This article mainly analyzes the comparison of physical indicators between the experimental group and the control group before and after the experiment, the evaluation indicators of sports events, the strength training effects of tennis events, and the analysis of shoulder joint tests. There is no significant difference between the experimental group and the control group in the items before the experiment, P > 0.05, which suggests that the physical fitness of the two groups of athletes is similar; in the posttest data, the experimental group and the control group have significant differences, P < 0.05, indicating an effect from the experiment. In particular, in fan running, forward and backward strokes, and the serve, the scores of the experimental group were higher than those of the control group, indicating that the use of the formulated training system demonstrated significant results. (shrink)

We have lost one of the giants of the twentieth century physics when Yoichiro Nambu passed away in July, 2015, at the age of 94. Today's Standard Model, though still incomplete in many respects, is the culmination of the most successful theory of the Universe to date, and it is built upon foundations provided by discoveries made by Nambu in the 1960s: the mechanism of spontaneously broken symmetry in Nature (with G Jona-Lasinio) and the hidden new SU(3) symmetry of quarks (...) and gluons (with M-Y Han). In this volume honoring Nambu's memory, World Scientific Publishing presents a unique collection of papers written by his former colleagues, collaborating researchers and former students and associates, not only citing Nambu's great contributions in physics but also many personal and private reminiscences, some never told before. This book is a volume for all who benefited not only from Nambu's contributions toward understanding the Universe but also his warm and kind persona. It is a great addition to the history of contemporary physics. (shrink)