‘In Stymphalos there is also an old sanctuary of Stymphalian Artemis. The image is of wood, mostly gilded. On the roof of the temple there are also representations of the Stymphalian birds. It was difficult to discern clearly whether they were made of wood or plaster, but my examination suggested that they were of wood rather than plaster.’Pausanias' reference to the Stymphalian birds of the temple at Stymphalos was taken by the German scholar, Bliimner, to indicate that stucco reliefs were (...) produced by the Greeks; and, despite the caution of Miss E. L. Wadsworth, 3 the inference that plaster was used for architectural sculptures of some form in Classical Greece has clearly been accepted by M. Cagiano de Azevedo and N. Bonacasa in the two great Italian encyclopedias of art. (shrink)

Social technology can improve the quality of older adults' social lives and mitigate negative mental and physical health outcomes associated with loneliness, but it should be designed collaboratively with this population. In this paper, we used participatory design methods to investigate how robots might be used as social facilitators for middle-aged and older adults in both the US and Japan. We conducted PD workshops in the US and Japan because both countries are concerned about the social isolation of these older (...) adults due to their rapidly aging populations. We developed a novel approach to participatory design of future technologies that spends 2/3 of the PD session asking participants about their own life experiences as a foundation. This grounds the conversation in reality, creates rapport among the participants, and engages them in creative critical thinking. Then, we build upon this foundation, pose an abstract topic, and ask participants to brainstorm on the topic based on their previous discussion. In both countries, participants were eager to actively discuss design ideas for socially facilitative robots and imagine how they might improve their social lives. US participants suggested design ideas for telepresence robots, social distancing robots, and social skills artificial intelligence programs, while Japanese participants suggested ideas for pet robots, robots for sharing experiences, and easy-to-operate instructor robots. Comparing these two countries, we found that US participants saw robots as tools to help facilitate their social connections, while Japanese participants envisioned robots to function as surrogate companions for their parents and distract them from loneliness when they were unavailable. With this paper, we contribute to the literature in two main ways, presenting: A novel approach to participatory design of future technologies that grounds participants in their everyday experience, and Results of the study indicating how middle-aged and older adults from the US and Japan wanted technologies to improve their social lives. Although we conducted the workshops during the COVID-19 pandemic, many findings generalized to other situations related to social isolation, such as older adults living alone. (shrink)

Nurses are experiencing new ethical issues as a result of global developments and changes in health care. With health care becoming increasingly sophisticated, and countries facing challenges of graying population, ethical issues involved in health care are bound to expand in quantity and in depth. Blended learning rather as a combination of multiple delivery media designed to promote meaningful learning. Specifically, this study was focused on two questions: (1) the students’ satisfaction and attitudes as members of a scenario-based learning process (...) in a blended learning environment; (2) the relationship between students’ satisfaction ratings of nursing ethics course and their attitudes in the blended learning environment. In total, 99 senior undergraduate nursing students currently studying at a public nursing college in Taiwan were invited to participate in this study. A cross-sectional survey design was adopted in this study. The participants were asked to fill out two Likert-scale questionnaire surveys: CAAS (Case Analysis Attitude Scale), and BLSS (Blended Learning Satisfaction Scale). The results showed what students felt about their blended learning experiences — mostly items ranged from 3.27—3.76 (the highest score is 5). Another self-assessment of scenario analysis instrument revealed the mean scores ranged from 2.87—4.19. Nearly 57.8% of the participants rated the course ‘extremely helpful’ or ‘very helpful.’ This study showed statistically significant correlations (r = 0.43) between students’ satisfaction with blended learning and case analysis attitudes. In addition, results testified to a potential of the blended learning model proposed in this study to bridge the gap between students and instructors and the one between students and their peers, which are typical of blended learning, and to create meaningful learning by employing blended pedagogical consideration in the course design. The use of scenario instruction enables students to develop critical analysis and problem solving skills through active learning and social exchange of ideas. (shrink)

ObjectiveTo investigate the short-term effect of music therapy combined with binaural frequency difference therapy on patients with consciousness disorder.Materials and methodsNinety patients with definite diagnosis of disorders of consciousness were selected. These patients were randomly divided into control group, experiment 1 group and experiment 2 group, with 30 patients in each group. The control group was treated with routine clinical treatment and rehabilitation. In experiment 1 group, music therapy was added to the control group. In experimental group 2, music therapy (...) combined with binaural α frequency difference therapy was added to the control group. All patients were assessed before and after 30 treatments. The assessment items included Glasgow Coma Scale, Coma Recovery Scale revised, electroencephalogram, upper somatosensory evoked potential, and brainstem auditory evoked potential.ResultsBefore treatment, there were no significant differences in GCS score, CRS-R score, USEP, BAEP, and EEG scores among the three groups. After 30 times of treatment, GCS score, CRS-R score, USEP, BAEP, and EEG scores in 3 groups were significantly higher than those before treatment. And the consciousness rate of experimental group 2 was better than experimental group 1, experimental group 1 was better than the control group and the difference was statistically significant.ConclusionMusic therapy combined with binaural α frequency difference therapy is more effective in stimulating DOC patients. (shrink)

abstract: Religion for many of Canada's earliest Chinese community was not about faith or belief in God, the Buddha, or the Goddess of Compassion (Guanyin). While the majority of Chinese migrants did not convert to Christianity or Buddhism before 1947, a very large number of them joined and became converted to Chinese nationalism (Zhongguo guomindang, aka KMT). This paper reflects on the findings of sixteen years of ethnographic and archival research to understand how sixty-two years of institutionalized racism in Canada, (...) along with bioregionalism and the built environment, determined Chinese migrant religious identities and behaviors in Canada up to 1947. Different Canadian provinces not only had different race-based laws that restricted individual rights and freedoms, they also had varying bioregional characteristics that influenced experiences and interactions with the built environments of churches, temples, and clubhouses. Chinese migrants adapted to legislation that limited their personal rights and freedoms by being efficacious or ling by professing Christian identities in public settings. They might have made offerings to Buddhist deities and frequented Buddhist temples in their home village before migration. But in Canada, being Buddhist was associated with being Japanese, and it was efficacious to be a practicing Buddhist in private. For Canada's Chinese migrants, it was conversion to Chinese nationalism and the veneration of Sun Yat-sen that was the epitome of ling. Being a devoted member met important practical as well as spiritual needs. (shrink)

Розкрито сутність поняття «рейтинг». Доведено значущість рейтингової оцінки для суб’єктів фінансового ринку, зокрема для страхових компаній, потенційних страхувальників, інвесторів та кредиторів.

‘Individualized medicine’ is an emerging paradigm in clinical life science research. We conducted a socio-empirical interview study in a leading German clinical research group, aiming at implementing ‘individualized medicine’ of colorectal cancer. The goal was to investigate moral and social issues related to physician–patient interaction and clinical care, and to identify the points raised, supported and rejected by the physicians and researchers. Up to now there has been only limited insight into how experts dedicated to individualized medicine view its problems. (...) Interviews with researchers and clinicians were based on a prestructured questionnaire. The content analysis revealed a broad spectrum of opinions. Major findings were disappointments with the limits of the current therapy regimen and clinical practice; problematic impacts on physician–patient relationship; and an informed consent procedure which is mainly based on paternalistic assumptions. According to our analysis, major problems will be uncertainties related to the biomarker's sensitivity and specificity, and the identification of ‘non-responders’. However, the findings also indicate that experts expect evidence-based medicine to replace decisions based on gut feeling or hierarchical structures. (shrink)

Prior research indicates that managers’ dark personality traits increase their tendency to engage in disruptive and unethical organizational behaviors including accounting earnings management. Other research suggests that the prevalence of dark personalities in management may represent an accidental byproduct of selecting managers with accompanying desirable attributes that fit the stereotype of a “strong leader.” Our paper posits that organizations may hire some managers who have dark personality traits because their willingness to push ethical boundaries aligns with organizational objectives, particularly in (...) the accounting context where ethical considerations are especially important. Using several validation studies and experiments, we find that experienced executives and recruiting professionals favor hiring a candidate with dark personality traits into an accounting management position over an otherwise better-qualified candidate when the hiring organization faces pressure to manage earnings. Our results help to illuminate why individuals with dark personality traits may effectively compete for high-level accounting positions. (shrink)

Voluntary disclosures of sustainability information have recently received considerable attention by investors, regulators, and public companies in improving reliability and integrity of corporate reporting. We examine the association between the quantity and quality of sustainability disclosures and earnings quality in the context of corporate ethical value and culture. We posit that sustainability disclosures of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance reports are linked to earnings quality, because of the importance of both earnings quality and ESG sustainability disclosures to investors and (...) trustworthiness of corporate reporting. We collect our sample of 35,110 firm-year observations between 1999 and 2015. Using both difference-in-difference tests and OLS regression, we find that sustainability disclosure quantity is positively associated with innate earnings quality and negatively correlated with discretionary earnings quality in mitigating managerial earnings manipulation and unethical opportunistic reporting behavior. Further tests illustrate that sustainability disclosure quality can strengthen the positive relation between innate earnings quality and sustainability disclosure quantity and mitigate the negative relation between discretionary earnings quality and sustainability disclosure quantity. Finally, additional tests suggest that the relation between earnings quality and sustainability disclosure quantity is moderated by corporate structure and prior-year sustainability performance. Our results provide policy, practical, and research implications as ESG sustainability reporting is being integrated into corporate culture and business models. (shrink)

Published in German during the last 15 years, the 13 essays in this volume provide readers with valuable knowledge of the much discussed theme of hermeneutics today. Gadamer was an early student of Martin Heidegger and has been a lifelong friend and interpreter. These essays are an outgrowth of Gadamer's Truth and Method. They can be understood, however, independently of it. Gadamer's standpoint is a blend of Hegel's and Heidegger's, with his own independent development in part. The book contains a (...) long and highly competent introduction by the editor, David E. Linge, who has translated most of the essays. - Choice, on back cover. (shrink)

In this study, we built and tested a theoretical model to determine how ethical leadership affects team creativity among teams composed of different characteristics. Following social learning theory and an antecedent–benefit–cost framework, we conducted analyses of multisource data from 50 team supervisors and 186 employees, which revealed an inverted U-shaped relationship between ethical leadership and team creativity. The teams exhibited more creativity when there was a moderate level of ethical leadership than when there were very low or very high levels. (...) Moreover, from an interactional perspective, we found that team faultlines significantly moderated the curvilinear relationship between ethical leadership and team creativity such that the inverted U-shaped relationship was more significant among teams with weak team faultlines. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

Bd. 1. System des menschlichen Erkennens -- Bd. 2. Die stammesgeschichtliche Entwicklung des menschlichen Sprechens -- Bd. 3. Die Entwicklung der Operation "Messen" -- Bd. 4. Die Evolution der instrumentellen Wahrnehmung -- Bd. 5. Die Genesis des schlussfolgernden Denkens -- Bd. 6. Die evolutionären Stufen der Analyse (des Scheidens und Unterscheidens) -- Bd. 7. Das Werden des Vorstellens (Geistes) -- Bd. 8. Die Mechanisierung und Automation der erkennenden Akte und Operationen -- Bd. 9. Die Entstehung des beziehenden Denkens -- Bd. (...) 10. Der phylogenetische Weg der Zeichengebung (Entwicklung der Elemente der Verständigung) -- Bd. 11. Der Irrtum -- Bd. 12. Kritik der Erkenntnislehre des transzendentalen Idealismus Immanuel Kants. (shrink)

Using Bakhtin's notion of polyphony, this study explored the discussion of the end-of-life issues in the Course on Life and Death Education in one Chinese university. Ethnographic methods were adopted to investigate the collision between the classroom voices and the voices of the mainstream culture on end-of-life in the process of developing students' attitudes toward death. The findings revealed that “to understand death” involved challenging the voice of “strangeness and fear of death”; “honestly facing up to and accepting the feelings (...) of the fear, pain, and helplessness” was the response to “be brave”; and the goal “to die peacefully” resisted the notion of “extending life at any cost.” Through the collision between these voices, students developed their attitudes toward death in facing, understanding, accepting, and choosing how to die. The analysis further revealed that providing only one “answer” to death by the teacher is not sufficient or effective to foster students' attitudes toward death because the students are a diverse group holding different views on the end-of-life issues, which demonstrated the importance of creating dialogues in the life and death education. (shrink)

This book offers a critical introduction to the work of American philosopher D. G. Leahy (1937-2014). Leahy's fundamental thinking can be characterized as an absolute creativity in which all creating is 'live' -- a happening occurring now that manifests a supersaturated polyontological actuality that is essentially created by the logic that characterizes it. Leahy leaves behind the categorial presuppositions of modern thought, eclipsing both Cartesian and Hegelian subjectivities and introducing instead an essentially new form of thinking founded in a nondual (...) logic of creation. The new thinking delineates the absolute unicity of existence as a creative interactivity beyond all traditional dichotomies (such as one vs. many, unity vs. plurality, identity vs. change): a fully "digitized" actuality that is nothing but newness, which inherently implies nothing but change. Through this new form of thinking, change itself is revealed to be the very essence of reality and mind. Any reader looking for a quantum leap beyond the thrall of modern and postmodern fixations is invited to hear and apprehend this new thinking that refuses to be conditioned by paradigms, categories, species, genera, walls, bridges, boundaries, or abstractions: an essentially free thinking that embodies creative novelty itself. (shrink)

PurposeTo examine the influence of family functioning on college students’ loneliness and the mediating effects of core self-evaluation and problematic mobile phone use.MethodsFamily Function Scale, Core Self-evaluation Scale, Problem Mobile Phone Use Scale, and Loneliness Scale were used to investigate 8,524 college students.Results Family functioning positively predicted core self-evaluation and negatively predicted loneliness ; Core self-evaluation negatively predicted problematic mobile phone use and loneliness ; Problematic mobile phone use significantly positively predicted loneliness ; Core self-evaluation and problematic mobile phone use (...) showed a significant chain-mediation effect between family functioning and loneliness.ConclusionThe results are helpful to comprehend the producing mechanism of loneliness and provide a theoretical basis for the intervention of loneliness. (shrink)

Uncertainty for policy makers is not new but the pressure to make decisions under conditions of uncertainty is perhaps greater than ever. The arrival of new scientific developments such as pharmacogenetics offers potentially great benefits . They have passionate supporters as well as doubters. The evidence is often extensive but unclear and policy makers may find themselves under pressure to make decisions before they feel that the evidence is compelling.The UK is particularly well placed to play a leading role in (...) the development of pharmacogenetics and is equally well placed to derive the benefits to both health and wealth that could flow from this. However, the uncertainties threaten to overwhelm the capacity of policy makers to act effectively. The uncertainties are both about the context within which the science and delivery of pharmacogentics is being developed and about the interests that could be served. This paper maps these uncertainties and concludes with some suggestions, drawing on deliberative democracy and futures thinking, as to how policy makers might manage the tensions and dilemmas they face by moving from an unstable, emergent policy arena to a more stable one. (shrink)