Ethics guidance and ethical frameworks are becoming more explicit and prevalent in health policy proposals. However, little attention has been given to evaluating their roles and impacts in the policy arena. Before this can be investigated, fundamental questions must be asked about the nature of ethics in relation to policy, and about the nexus of the fields of applied ethical analysis and health policy analysis. This paper examines the interdisciplinary stretch between bioethics and health policy analysis. In particular, it highlights (...) areas of scholarship where a health policy ethicsspecialization—as distinctive from bioethics—might develop to address health policy concerns. If policy and ethics both ask the same question, that question is: “What is the good, and how do we achieve (create, protect, cultivate) it?” To answer this question, the new field of “health policy ethics” requires development. First, we should develop a full set of ethical principles and complementary ethical theories germane to public policy per se. Second, we must understand better how explicit attention to ethical concerns affects policy dynamics. Third, we require new policy and ethical analytic approaches that contribute to constructive (not obstructive) policy making. Finally, we need indicators of robust, high quality ethical analysis for the purpose public policy making. (shrink)

Research ethicists have recently declared a new ethical imperative: that researchers should communicate the results of research to participants. For some analysts, the obligation is restricted to the communication of the general findings or conclusions of the study. However, other analysts extend the obligation to the disclosure of individual research results, especially where these results are perceived to have clinical relevance. Several scholars have advanced cogent critiques of the putative obligation to disclose individual research results. They question whether ethical goals (...) are served by disclosure or violated by non-disclosure, and whether the communication of research results respects ethically salient differences between research practices and clinical care. Empirical data on these questions are limited. Available evidence suggests, on the one hand, growing support for disclosure, and on the other, the potential for significant harm. (shrink)

This contribution reflects on the current role of ontologies in terminology research and practice and their future role, especially with a view to the creation of fully digital terminographic resources. The very notion of (domain) ontology, its concept and term, is discussed, highlighting metaterminological differences and substantial ambiguities arising from the interdisciplinary contact between Ontology Engineering and Terminology. Major challenges in ontology building, e.g. subjectivity, are mentioned, also with respect to the distinction between realist and non-realist ontologies and their relevance (...) in Terminology. In addition, this contribution presents some examples of terminology resources with a distinct ontological component, showing a diversity of approaches depending on the purpose of the resource and its scope. In this context, more specific topics are addressed, such as the acquisition of ontological data and suitable formats and models for representing domain knowledge. The contribution ends with a vision of the integration of complex concept systems such as ontologies in future terminology work: here, the development of models based on terminology-specific requirements and typical users will be fundamental. (shrink)

L’intelligenza artificiale (IA) ha compiuto recentemente un’evoluzione radicale, passando dai sistemi esperti, dove gli umani impartivano regole esplicite, a sistemi di apprendimento automatico, dove l’IA analizza grandi quantità di dati per dedurre relazioni statistiche. Questo cambio di paradigma rimane poco noto al grande pubblico. L’articolo analizza la natura di questa “intelligenza aliena”, così denominata per il suo modo peculiare, e in parte oscuro per gli esseri umani, di processare informazioni. A partire da queste caratteristiche, si esplorano tre potenziali questioni emergenti (...) dall’uso diffuso dell’IA, sottolineando che ogni innovazione ha conseguenze su equilibri di potere e dinamiche sociali: la sfida del potere e della sorveglianza; quella della qualità della sfera pubblica, infine quella della sostituzione intellettuale e della diseguaglianza. L’articolo si conclude sottolineando la necessità di un profondo esame etico e normativo dell’IA nei prossimi decenni. (shrink)

An examination of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French history indicates that the relationship between the Jesuits and Quietism was shaped by politics as well as by concerns of theological orthodoxy. During the late 1690s, the Jesuits championed François Fénelon accused of Quietism at the same time as they spearheaded an attack against Quietism in Burgundy, emphasizing crimes of spiritual incest or the abuse of clerical authority. Such ambiguity indicates that the Jesuits were motivated by a desire to consolidate political power in (...) Louis XIV... trades court. However, the fusion of Quietist heresy, charges of spiritual incest, and political gamesmanship would ultimately make the Jesuits themselves vulnerable to claims of heresy and abuse when the Girard/Cadière affair became a national scandal in 1731. This essay argues that this disquiet over clerical behavior and power was articulated in a changing political culture between the late seventeenth century and the 1730s. Growing dissatisfaction against the crown established a new political consciousness, one that regarded the politics of secrecy as problematic if not outright illegitimate. The secrecy of the confession, the emphasis on interiority seemingly at the expense of morality, and the enigmatic language of mysticism, all associated with Quietism played into fears of clerical (or “Jesuit”) cabal and conspiracy. When Jesuit opponents linked the order to Quietism, they presented the Jesuits as threats to an emerging set of political values in which legitimate authority was transparent and open while illegitimate power operated in the shadows. (shrink)

Resumen: Durante la década del sesenta, la revista Movie hereda de Cahiers du cinéma las preferencias por la politique des auteurs y por cierto cine norteamericano. No obstante, sin abandonar esa predilección por un “cine de directores”, a lo largo de su trayectoria la revista británica intentará desarrollar un riguroso método de análisis formal a través de detallados close readings de los films. Algunos de sus integrantes buscan aplicar al cine los planteos de F. R. Leavis y la revista Scrutiny (...) a propósito de la crítica literaria. Es esta modulación analítica la que será puesta en cuestión con el auge del estructuralismo y el posestructurailsmo a los que se asocia la revista Screen en los años 70.: During the sixties, the journal Movie inherits from Cahiers du cinéma the preferencies for a politique des auteurs and for certain american films. However, never abandoning this tendency towards a “cinema of directors”, the british journal develops a rigorous method of formal analysis and detailed close readings. Some of its members try to apply to cinema the concepts elaborated by F. R. Leavis and the journal Scrutiny in reference to literary criticism. It is precisely this analytic method that will be questioned during the boom of structuralism and post structuralism to which the journal Screen will be asociated in the 70s. (shrink)

The right to refuse medical intervention is well established, but it remains unclear how best to respect and exercise this right in life support. Contemporary ethical guidelines for critical care give ambiguous advice, largely because they focus on the moral equivalence of withdrawing and withholding care without confronting the very real differences regarding who is aware and informed of intervention options and how patient values are communicated and enacted. In withholding care, doctors typically withhold information about interventions judged too futile (...) to offer. They thus retain greater decision-making burden and face weaker obligations to secure consent from patients or proxies. In withdrawing care, there is a clearer imperative for the doctor to include patients in decisions, share information and secure consent, even when continued life support is deemed futile. How decisions to withhold and withdraw life support differ ethically in their implications for positive versus negative interpretations of patient autonomy, imperatives for consent, definitions of futility and the subjective evaluation of benefits and burdens of life support in critical care settings are explored. Professional reflection is required to respond to trends favouring a more positive interpretation of patient autonomy in the context of life support decisions in critical care. Both the bioethics and critical care communities should investigate the possibilities and limits of growing pressure for doctors to disclose their reasoning or seek patient consent when decisions to withhold life support are made. (shrink)

Sustainability is normatively defined as the interconnectedness of policy goals and actions; the partnership among governments, civil society, and the private sector; and a transformational vision pursuing structural change against marginalization and environmental degradation. This article provides the conceptual basis for a meso policy analysis and evaluation framework to address the normative dimensions of sustainability-centered policies. Drawing on complexity, behavioral, and sustainability sciences, a meso interpretative lens contributes to articulating the ethical and techno-scientific norms underlying SDGs discourses. Through knowledge co-production, (...) and collaborative governance, a meso policy analysis and evaluation approach can help overcome centralized politics and techno-scientific rationalization. (shrink)

Written in honor of Dale K. Van Kley, leading specialist on religion and politics in the Old Regime and the French Revolution, these essays examine how Jansenist belief shaped enlightenment ideas, cultural identities, social relations and politics in France throughout the long eighteenth century. Van Kley's work has invited scholars to think beyond the traditional parameters of the Enlightenment and to consider how religious faith functioned in the broader context of Old Regime, Revolutionary, and post-Revolutionary France. In different ways, each (...) essay challenges the idea of an inherent opposition between faith and Enlightenment, which likewise equates modernity with secularization. The authors within this volume address two main questions. Firstly, how did religious belief continue to shape identities and experiences in the long eighteenth century? Secondly, how does this narrative of enduring religious belief in eighteenth-century France help historians rethink the Enlightenment and the French Revolution? The various methodologies used by the contributors illustrate how belief, Enlightenment, and Revolution coexisted and indeed co-mingled in different contexts: politics and political culture, the social and cultural history of ideas, and the history of material culture. (shrink)

This article examines how the EU gender mainstreaming approach has addressed work and family reconciliation across Southern Italian regions, to foster a more egalitarian and socially inclusive development. Drawing upon a survey of women of different socioeconomic backgrounds and in-depth interviewing of regional policy-makers, this article assesses what gender equality policies do and don’t do for work–family reconciliation within the Italian Mezzogiorno. Findings show that while poor women may be stigmatized as inadequate mothers, middle-class women are pushed to join men (...) in employment and civic sphere at the expense of caring. As both public and private caring supply is underdeveloped and unevenly guaranteed between protected and unprotected workers, women may be constrained to reduce their participation in the labour market. Traditional gendered family roles and power relations within the household may further discourage women to work, form and maintain a family. (shrink)

A novel piecewise water flow technique for text line extraction from multi-skewed document images of handwritten text of different scripts is presented here. The basic water flow technique assumes that the hypothetical water flows from both left and right sides of the image frame. This flow of water fills up the gaps between consecutive objects but faces obstruction if any object lies in the path of the flow. All unwetted regions in the document image are then labeled distinctly to extract (...) the text lines. However, the technique fails when two neighboring text lines touch each other, as water gets obstructed by the touching segment. To get rid of this difficulty, we have modified the basic water flow technique by iteratively applying the same over the vertically segmented document images. The main purpose of this vertical segmentation is to localize the text line segment where two text lines get joined. These segments are then horizontally fragmented, and each fragment is placed suitably to the text line in which it actually belongs to. This way, the probable data loss during isolation of the touching text line segment is minimized. Both the techniques have been tested on three different databases, viz., CMATERdb 1.1.1, CMATERdb 1.1.2, and ICDAR2009 handwritten segmentation contest pages, respectively. The test results show that the present technique outperforms the basic one for all three databases. (shrink)

In this paper, a novel approach for word extraction and character segmentation from the handwritten Bangla document images is reported. At first, a modified Run Length Smoothing Algorithm, called Spiral Run Length Smearing Algorithm, is applied for the extraction of words from the text lines of unconstrained handwritten Bangla document images. This technique has helped to overcome some of the drawbacks of standard horizontal and vertical RLSA techniques. SRLSA technique has been applied on the Bangla handwritten document image database CMATERdb1.1.1 (...) and the success rate of the word extraction is found to be 86.01%. In the second part of the work, we have presented a useful solution to the problem on how best word images of handwritten Bangla script can be segmented into constituent characters. Moreover, the technique can segment the words having discontinuity in Matra, a prominent feature of Bangla script. It also optimizes the trade-off between under/over segmentation as Matra region and segmentation points are estimated more precisely. As a result, better word segmentation accuracy is achieved with minimal data loss. Here, a success rate of 92.48% is observed on a dataset of 750 handwritten Bangla words which is 3.35% higher than that of our earlier techniques. (shrink)

One hundred and fifty years ago, a hopeful young researcher reported a recent discovery he had made. Working in the bowels of a medieval castle in the German city of Tübingen, he had isolated a then entirely new type of molecule. This was the birth of a field that would fundamentally change the course of biology, medicine, and beyond. His discovery: DNA. His name: Friedrich Miescher. In this article, the authors try to find answers to the question why—despite the fact (...) that virtually everyone nowadays knows DNA—hardly anyone remembers the man who discovered it. In the history of science, the discovery of DNA was a seminal moment. Why then did it not enter into public memory? Ground‐breaking discoveries can occur in a historical context that is not ready to appreciate them. But that's not all that decides who is remembered and who is forgotten. Scientific pioneers sometimes fail to publicize their findings in a way that ensures that they receive the attention they merit. As discussed here, their personalities and habits may cause discoveries to be “overwritten” by more recent researchers, resulting in distorted cultural memories no longer reflecting the initial event. (shrink)

Philosophical debates on punishment mainly - and exhaustively - revolve around the traditional dipole “retribution - deterrence”; or, lately, seek for some alternative counterproposal (e. g. the contemporary topic of “restorative justice”). In all sides of the debates, Kant is standardly depicted as the advocate of a traditional, outmost punitive theory of justice; the kind of heritage modern-day “retributivists” seek to reassess, while “preventive” or “restorative” justice defenders aim to abandon. In the present paper, we intend to scrutinize Kant’s own (...) views on crime and punishment, as an integral part of his overall legal-practical philosophy; and, by doing so, to address that Kant is not at all the blind retributivist the above theorists perceive; what is more, he sets a philosophical framework that is able to overcome the flaws of all three, standard conceptions of criminal justice (retributive, preventive and restorative). Finally, in the light of the above, we bring forth the aspects of this Kantian framework, that are useful in assessing current legal systems and required legal reforms. (shrink)

Este artigo, de âmbito exploratório, objetiva oferecer uma visão geral sobre a sustentabilidade ambiental de eventos e estudo comparativo de normas correlatas. Os resultados apontam que as normas ABNT/ISO e ASTM estipulam exigências distintas quanto à certificação de sustentabilidade de eventos acerca dos aspectos relacionados com a comunicação e o meio ambiente.

This volume deals with collocations from a lexicographic perspective by addressing, in detail, the boundaries between collocations and other word combinations, the possibility of adapting the definition of collocation to the objectives of specific dictionaries, and approaches towards collocation extraction for lexicographic purposes.

This study investigates the risk and return characteristics of impact investing in the public equity market. We use a unique hand-collected dataset of 50 US listed firms whose product (or service) addresses at least one of the global social and environmental challenges, as defined by the United Nations Social Development Goals (SDGs). We designate such firms Impact Firms, and we compare their financial performance to a matched sample of Non-Impact Firms in the time span 2002–2019. Our results show that Impact (...) and Non-Impact Firms have similar level of financial performance and both volatility and systemic risk over the entire sample period. At the same time, Impact Firms show a slightly lower negative skewness of the returns over the entire sample period, but not during crisis periods. However, compared to matched Non-Impact Firms, Impact Firms outperform during periods of market crisis, generating a valuable dampening of downside risk. (shrink)

_:_ Habermas believes that the foundation of democracy is to be found in the discourse principle. Also, some cognitive and experimental studies have suggested that democratic procedures can promote a debate between different opinions and ideas, thus improving the decision-making performance of public authorities. However, Habermas believes that, while, on the one hand, the democratic community is based on the premise that participants in the discourse collectively strive to find the best solutions, on the other, the democratic process allows citizens (...) to irrationally misuse their political rights. If, therefore, reasoned decision and dialogue have an important role in the justification of democracy, but it is a limited role, we propose the idea of an imperfect dialogic democracy. _Keywords:_ Jürgen Habermas; Collective Reasoning; Cognitive and Experimental Studies; Democracy; Decision Making _____La democrazia dialogica imperfetta: il principio discorsivo di Habermas e gli studi sperimentali sul ragionamento collettivo___ _Riassunto:_ Secondo Habermas il fondamento della democrazia risiede nel principio del discorso. Alcuni studi cognitivi e sperimentali suggeriscono che le procedure tipiche delle democrazia siano in grado di promuovere un dibattito fra opinioni e idee diverse, capace di migliorare le performances decisionali delle autorità pubbliche. Tuttavia, da un lato Habermas ritiene che la comunità democratica sia basata sulla presupposto che chi partecipa a un pubblico discorso si impegni a trovare la migliore soluzione, dall’altro le procedure democratiche non impediscono che i cittadini utilizzino in maniera irrazionale i loro diritti politici. Se le decisioni ragionate e il dialogo hanno un ruolo importante nella legittimazione della demcocrazia, un ruolo che tuttavia resta limitato, allora suggeriamo l’idea di una democrazia dialogica imperfetta. _Parole chiave:_ Jürgen Habermas; Ragionamento collettivo; Studi cognitivi e sperimentali; Democrazia; Processi decisionali. (shrink)

La Genealogia della morale si presenta al lettore come un compatto ma articolato crocevia di temi e di problematiche del pensiero di Friedrich Nietzsche. L'opera è certo caratterizzata da una particolare unità tematica, ma è al tempo stesso ricca di spunti che offrono accessi a questioni di non secondaria importanza e che, nel loro complesso, definiscono la trama di un pensiero che manifesta la propria ricchezza e originalità al lettore più accorto. Di tale ricchezza si è cercato di rendere conto (...) nel presente volume, che raccoglie una serie di incursioni nel testo di Nietzsche a firma di studiosi italiani e stranieri, alcune delle quali sono state originariamente discusse nel corso di un seminario di ricerca svoltosi nell’ambito della Scuola di Dottorato in Filosofia dell’Università di Padova. Questi contributi affrontano, ciascuno a suo modo, la Genealogia della morale, illuminandone alcuni passaggi cruciali e intervenendo nella discussione di aspetti che si dimostrano significativi non solamente per approfondire ulteriormente la qualità e la rilevanza filosofiche dell'opera di Nietzsche, ma anche per valutarne il ruolo nella storia del pensiero occidentale contemporaneo. (shrink)

. Effective text region extraction and binarization of image embedded text documents on mobile devices having limited computational resources is an open research problem. In this paper, we present one such technique for preprocessing images captured with built-in cameras of handheld devices with an aim of developing an efficient Business Card Reader. At first, the card image is processed for isolating foreground components. These foreground components are classified as either text or non-text using different feature descriptors of texts and images. (...) The non-text components are removed and the textual ones are binarized with a fast adaptive algorithm. Specifically, we propose new techniques for foreground component isolation, text extraction and binarization of text regions from camera captured business card images. Experiments with business card images of various resolutions show that the present technique yields better accuracy and involves low computational overhead in comparison with the state-of-the-art. We achieve optimum text/non-text separation performance with images of resolution 800×600 pixels with an average recall rate of 93.90% and a precision rate of 96.84%. It involves a peak memory consumption of 0.68 MB and processing time of 0.102 seconds on a moderately powerful notebook, and 4 seconds of processing time on a PDA. (shrink)

This essay introduces the second installment of a symposium in Common Knowledge called “Apology for Quietism.” This introductory piece concerns the sociology of quietism and why, given the supposed quietude of quietists, there is such a thing at all. Dealing first with the “activist” Susan Sontag's attraction to the “quietist” Simone Weil, it then concentrates on the “activist” William Empson's attraction to the Buddha and to Buddhist quietism, with special reference to Empson's lost manuscript Asymmetry in Buddha Faces. The author, (...) who is also editor of the journal, argues against the effort of some contributors to substitute new terms for quietism and emphasizes instead what he calls “the need for repose.”. (shrink)

This essay introduces the second installment of a symposium in Common Knowledge called “Apology for Quietism.” This introductory piece concerns the sociology of quietism and why, given the supposed quietude of quietists, there is such a thing at all. Dealing first with the “activist” Susan Sontag's attraction to the “quietist” Simone Weil, it then concentrates on the “activist” William Empson's attraction to the Buddha and to Buddhist quietism, with special reference to Empson's lost manuscript Asymmetry in Buddha Faces (and to (...) Sharon Cameron's work on the topic in her book Impersonality). The author, who is also editor of the journal, argues against the effort of some contributors to substitute new terms for quietism and emphasizes instead what he calls (quoting Sontag) “the need for repose.”. (shrink)

Taking post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as an example, we present a concept for transdisciplinary cooperation between life sciences and humanities. PTSD is defined as a long-term persisting anxiety disorder after severe psychological traumata. Initially recognized in war veterans, PTSD also appears in victims of crime and violence or survivors of natural catastrophes, e.g., earthquakes. We consider PTSD as a prototype topic to realize transdisciplinary projects, because this disease is multifacetted from different points of view. Based on physiological and molecular biological (...) research to understand the causes of this disease, conventional academic medicine (to Western medicine) and pharmacology can offer a panel of drugs for treatment, albeit only with limited success. Hence, other treatment options are indispensable. Chinese medicine is frequently regarded as alternative to complement Western medicine. In fact, Chinese medicine offers a large array of both pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatments for PTSD patients. Narrative therapy represents a non-pharmacological approach combating PTSD both in Western medicine as well as in Chinese medicine to improve quality of life of affected patients. Narratives on traumatic experiences form a new genre of life writing in Asian American literature, whose excitement is considerably fueled by the tension between fictitious and very personal narratives taken from reality. Systematic academic reflections on narratives from PTSD patients in the field of Asian American studies may support the improvement of narrative therapy in medical practice. Chinese medicine has a strong philosophical background and may, therefore, serve as junction between life sciences with their strong rational and reductionistic way to generate new knowledge and more holistic approaches in traditional medicines and humanities. In this regard, Chinese medicine may represent a missing link between life science and life writing. (shrink)