Much attention has been focused in recent years on the ethical acceptability of physicians receiving gifts from drug companies. Professional guidelines recognize industry gifts as a conflict of interest and establish thresholds prohibiting the exchange of large gifts while expressly allowing for the exchange of small gifts such as pens, note pads, and coffee. Considerable evidence from the social sciences suggests that gifts of negligible value can influence the behavior of the recipient in ways the recipient does not always (...) realize. Policies and guidelines that rely on arbitrary value limits for gift-giving or receipt should be reevaluated. (shrink)

The cerebral cortex is a rich and diverse structure that is the basis of intelligent behavior. One of the deepest mysteries of the function of cortex is that neural processing times are only about one hundred times as fast as the fastest response times for complex behavior. At the very least, this would seem to indicate that the cortex does massive amounts of parallel computation.This paper explores the hypothesis that an important part of the cortex can be modeled as a (...) connectionist computer that is especially suited for parallel problem solving. The connectionist computer uses a special representation, termed value unit encoding, that represents small subsets of parameters in a way that allows parallel access to many different parameter values. This computer can be thought of as computing hierarchies of sensorimotor invariants. The neural substrate can be interpreted as a commitment to data structures and algorithms that compute invariants fast enough to explain the behavioral response times. A detailed consideration of this model has several implications for the underlying anatomy and physiology. (shrink)

Culture-independent high-throughput sequencing has provided unprecedented insights into microbial ecology, particularly for Earth’s most ubiquitous and diverse inhabitants – the viruses. A plethora of methods now exist for amplifying the vanishingly small amounts of nucleic acids in natural viral communities in order to sequence them, and sequencing depth is now so great that viral genomes can be detected and assembled even amid large concentrations of non-viral DNA. Complementing these advances in amplification and sequencing is the ability to physically link (...) fluorescently labeled viruses to their host cells via high-throughput flow sorting. Sequencing of such isolated virus–host pairs facilitates cultivation-independent exploration of the natural host range of viruses. Within the next decade, as these technologies become widespread, we can expect to see a systematic expansion of our knowledge of viruses and their hosts. (shrink)

Much attention has been focused in recent years on the ethical acceptability of physicians receiving gifts from drug companies. Professional guidelines recognize industry gifts as a conflict of interest and establish thresholds prohibiting the exchange of large gifts while expressly allowing for the exchange of small gifts such as pens, note pads, and coffee. Considerable evidence from the social sciences suggests that gifts of negligible value can influence the behavior of the recipient in ways the recipient does not always (...) realize. Policies and guidelines that rely on arbitrary value limits for gift-giving or receipt should be reevaluated. (shrink)

ObjectivesThis pilot study sought to develop and evaluate a novel online group-based intervention to help breast cancer survivors make healthy lifestyle changes intended to yield not only beneficial physical outcomes but also greater behavioral, and psychosocial well-being.MethodsAn exploratory single-arm, mixed-method triangulation design was employed to evaluate the feasibility and preliminary effectiveness of the HLM-ABC intervention for overweight BCSs. Fourteen women participated in the 10-week intervention and completed quantitative measures of the above-mentioned outcomes at baseline, post-treatment, 6-month, and 12-month follow-up time (...) points. Qualitative data were obtained post-treatment via semi-structured interviews and a treatment satisfaction questionnaire.ResultsParticipants lost an average of 2.83% of their baseline weight by 1-year follow-up, equal to a small effect size. Despite achieving only modest weight loss, participants achieved meaningful gains in the form of increased physical activity, discovery of gratifying movement, more intuitive eating habits, greater bodily and emotional awareness, and positive shifts in beliefs about being able to make healthy choices regarding food and physical activity. Furthermore, they demonstrated a slight improvement in body image and described feeling more self-compassionate, empowered, and acknowledging of variables beyond control that can present barriers to change.ConclusionAfter completing a 10-week online program, participants achieved meaningful and lasting changes on a number of healthful indicators, even when this did not correspond with a significant reduction in weight. Findings highlight the complex, multifaceted nature of “health” and lend support for promotion of healthier lifestyle following cancer treatment that encompasses not only physical weight, but also behavior, psychosocial well-being, and circumstances such as life-preserving hormonal treatments. (shrink)

The cerebral cortex is a rich and diverse structure that is the basis of intelligent behavior. One of the deepest mysteries of the function of cortex is that neural processing times are only about one hundred times as fast as the fastest response times for complex behavior. At the very least, this would seem to indicate that the cortex does massive amounts of parallel computation.This paper explores the hypothesis that an important part of the cortex can be modeled as a (...) connectionist computer that is especially suited for parallel problem solving. The connectionist computer uses a special representation, termed value unit encoding, that represents small subsets of parameters in a way that allows parallel access to many different parameter values. This computer can be thought of as computing hierarchies of sensorimotor invariants. The neural substrate can be interpreted as a commitment to data structures and algorithms that compute invariants fast enough to explain the behavioral response times. A detailed consideration of this model has several implications for the underlying anatomy and physiology. (shrink)

Cook et al. reported a 97% scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming (AGW), based on a study of 11,944 abstracts in peer-reviewed science journals. Powell claims that the Cook et al. methodology was flawed and that the true consensus is virtually unanimous at 99.99%. Powell’s method underestimates the level of disagreement because it relies on finding explicit rejection statements as well as the assumption that abstracts without a stated position endorse the consensus. Cook et al.’s survey of the papers’ authors (...) revealed that papers may express disagreement with AGW despite the absence of a rejection statement in the abstract. Surveys reveal a large gap between the public perception of the degree of scientific consensus on AGW and reality. We argue that it is the size of this gap, rather than the small difference between 97% and 99.99%, that matters in communicating the true state of scientific opinion to the public. (shrink)

EXCERPT.--With exception to early essays by George von Glahn and Mark Sanders, serious critical scholarship on the writings of Ted Kooser began after the 1980 release of the now-classic Sure Signs, Kooser’s fifth major collection of poems. Looking back over the thirty-plus years since then, only about a dozen or so significant studies—none of which book-length—currently boulder out against the relative flatscape of secondary materials constituted mostly by quick and dirty reviews. Aside from the essays by Wes Mantooth, Allan Benn, (...) and Mary K. Stillwell in this special issue of Midwestern Miscellany, the following works particularly stand out and, in my view, must be consulted by the Kooser scholar: David Baker’s “Ted’s Box”; William Barillas’s Chapter 7 of The Midwestern Pastoral; Victor Contoski’s “Words and Raincoats”; Dana Gioia’s “The Anonymity of the Regional Poet”; Jeff Gundy’s “Among the Erratics”; Jonathan Holden’s “The Chekov of American Poetry”; Denise Low’s “Sight in Motion”; David Mason’s “Introducing Ted Kooser”; and both Mary K. Stillwell’s “The ‘In Between’” and her “When a Walk is a Poem.”. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Introduction: Conflicting Interest in Medicine: Stories by Physicians on How Financing Affects Their WorkJames M. DuBois, Symposium EditorPhysicians frequently enter into special relationships that establish personal financial interests that could conflict with their patients’ best interests. Examples include receiving gifts from drug companies, sharing a patent on a medical device, or accepting funding from industry to conduct a drug study. In recent years, such “conflicts of interests” in medicine (...) have received growing attention from medical associations (Association of American Medical Colleges, 2008, 2010), policy bodies (Institute of Medicine, 2009), industry (Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, 2008), journalists (Caputo, 2009; Nguyen, Ornstein, & Weber, 2010), and even Congress, which included in the 2010 Patient Protection Affordable Care Act a Physician Payment Sunshine provision requiring industry to report a wide variety of ties to physicians. All of these efforts appear motivated by a similar assumption: Gifts and financially beneficial relationships can unconsciously motivate physicians to prioritize their own or industry’s interests over patients’ interests when providing care, conducting medical research, or educating physicians (American Association of Medical Colleges, 2008; Dana & Loewenstein, 2003).The call for stories produced for this narrative symposium provided the following request:We are interested in hearing about positive and negative experiences associated with a variety of financial relationships. The stories should give readers a sense of what it is like to be a physician in the midst of complex relationships to industry, physician practices, and third–party payers—relationships that go beyond ordinary reimbursement for care or research expenses.Obtaining stories proved more challenging than anticipated for reasons related to our theme. Precisely because access to physicians is considered valuable, it is highly restricted. Listservs and blogs that serve physicians typically prohibit postings from anyone except physician members, and even they are sometimes not allowed to post messages freely. While at least one listserv circulated our call to members (at the request of a member), others rejected our request, and one blog offered to post our call as a 1–month ad for $20,000. This contrasts radically with the relatively easy access we have had to other groups, including mental health consumers and living organ donors, who have broad grass root communication systems, and bioethicists, who have several listservs and blogs that readily share news about relevant scholarly opportunities.The collection of stories obtained resulted from extensive personal networking and a small amount of arm twisting. The collection was not what we expected to obtain, but is in many ways even more interesting. One story (Hodges) explicitly addresses the impact that pharmaceutical representatives can have on prescribing patterns—the classic, voluntary, conflicted relationship, insofar as sales reps are [End Page 65] welcomed in facilities, often bearing free samples, free lunches, and glossy articles on their products, all in the hopes of influencing prescribing patterns. But most stories do not fit the typical mold found in discussions of conflicts of interest. Among those expressing concerns about the impact of financial factors on medical practice, one focuses on the insufficient management of bias within the Food and Drug Administration (Perlmutter); three focus on the bias that is introduced through our current fee–for–service reimbursement system (Mikulec, Nagaldine, and Zientek)—of these, two illustrate ways that third parties seek to manipulate physician practices to maximize profits; one notes how any kind of clinical trial—whether government or industry sponsored—may affect patient care decisions (Cruz); while two argue that worries over industry sponsorship of research are disproportionate (Bierut and Sofair), and two address widespread concerns about industry sponsorship of educational activities, with one illustrating how bias might be reduced (Seitz & Diao), and another illustrating the potential harms of prohibiting educational sponsorship (Peppin).To be clear, all of these narratives are responsive to our call for stories that “describe positive and negative experiences associated with a variety of financial relationships.” Yet they are not classic conflict of interest stories; rather, they represent the conflicting interests that concern physicians today—conflicts that are often intrinsic to our current healthcare and research systems rather than special relationships courted by physicians.While making no pretense of representativeness or comprehensiveness, these stories provide fertile ground for reflection, as seen in our... (shrink)

This book contains the first English translations of The Origin of the Moral Sensations and Psychological Observations the two most important works by the German philosopher Paul Re. These essays present Re's moral philosophy, which ...

Research has shown that there has often been overlap between the humanities and the sciences. This essay brings to the fore a prominent borderline case in cultural history, where the mix of disciplines that could contribute to its study became an issue of debate. It examines the attempts made by botanists throughout the nineteenth century, culminating around 1900, to call into question the monopoly of the humanities on cultural history. Botanists argued that botanical objects, such as the original forms of (...) ancient grains, were important historical sources, and the renowned Georg Schweinfurth even advocated a new concept of “culture” that prioritized the sciences. The essay argues that this development is part of the period’s discourse on the origins of human civilization, which included more and less productive encounters between the botanical study of the migration and development of plants over time and the study of human history. (shrink)

It has been suggested that early cry parameters are connected to later cognitive abilities. The present study is the first to investigate whether the acoustic features of infant cry are associated with cognitive development already during the first year, as measured by oculomotor orienting and attention disengagement. Cry sounds for acoustic analyses (fundamental frequency; F0) were recorded in two neonatal cohorts at the age of 0-8 days (Tampere, Finland) or at 6 weeks (Cape Town, South Africa). Eye tracking was used (...) to measure oculomotor orienting to peripheral visual stimuli and attention disengagement from central stimuli at 8 months (Tampere) or at 6 months (Cape Town) of age. Only a marginal positive correlation between fundamental frequency of cry (F0) and visual attention disengagement was observed in the Tampere cohort, but not in the Cape Town cohort. This correlation indicated that infants from the Tampere cohort with a higher neonatal F0 were marginally slower to shift their gaze away from the central stimulus to the peripheral stimulus. No associations between F0 and oculomotor orienting were observed in either cohort. We discuss possible factors influencing the current pattern of results suggesting a lack of replicable associations between neonatal cry and visual attention and suggest directions for future research investigating the potential of early cry analysis in predicting later cognitive development. (shrink)

This collection of original essays examines the relationship between women and religion in the history of political thought broadly conceived. This theme is a remarkably revealing lens through which to view the Western philosophical and poetical traditions that have culminated in secular and egalitarian modern society. The essays also give highly analytical accounts of the manifold and intricate relationships between religion, family and public life in the history of political thought, and the various ways in which these relationships have manifested (...) themselves in pagan, Jewish, Christian and post-Christian settings. (shrink)

Critical discussion on definition of the work "Mithya" in the Advaitabrahamasiddhi of Madhusudanasarasvati.

This paper reviews the relationship between organisational leadership, corporate governance and business ethics, and considers the implications for management. Business ethics is defined, and the causes and consequences of unethical behavior are discussed. Issues pertaining to leadership, subordinate and organisation responsibility for business ethics are considered. The changing role of business leaders and the new concept of ''corporate governance'' are examined, with an increasing importance being placed on ethical and socially responsible attitudes towards business. Organisational effectiveness and organisational efficiency, formerly (...) central issues for practising managers, with directors thinking in terms of goal achievement for their respective organisations, have now been augmented by an awareness of issues in business ethics, and a requirement for members of the corporate governance to behave in more socially responsible ways. A secondary aim of the paper is to introduce an approach which illustrates how corporate governance and management could deal with some of the moral dilemmas that they may have to face. (shrink)

This book offers a comprehensive and unitary study of the philosophy of Francis Bacon, with special emphasis on the medical, ethical and political aspects of his thought. It presents an original interpretation focused on the material conditions of nature and human life. In particular, coverage in the book is organized around the unifying theme of Bacon’s notion of appetite, which is considered in its natural, ethical, medical and political meanings. The book redefines the notions of experience and experiment in Bacon’s (...) philosophy of nature, shows the important presence of Stoic themes in his work as well as provides an original discussion of the relationships between natural magic, prudence and political realism in his philosophy. Bringing together scholarly expertise from the history of philosophy, the history of science and the history of literature, this book presents readers with a rich and diverse contextualization of Bacon’s philosophy. (shrink)

Numerous functions, cognitive skills, and behaviors are associated with intelligence, yet decades of research has yielded little consensus on its definition. Emerging from often conflicting studies is the provocative idea that intelligence evolved as an adaptation humans needed to keep up with - and survive in - challenging new environments. The Handbook of Intelligence addresses a broad range of issues relating to our cognitive and linguistic past. It is the first full-length volume to place intelligence in an evolutionary/cultural framework, tracing (...) the development of the human mind, exploring differences between humans and other primates, and addressing human thinking and reasoning about its own intelligence and its uses. The works of pioneering thinkers - from Plato to Darwin, Binet to Piaget, Luria to Wechsler - are referenced to illustrate major events in the evolution of theories of intelligence, leading to the current era of multiple intelligences and special education programs. In addition, it examines evolutionary concepts in areas as diverse as creativity, culture, neurocognition, emotional intelligence, and assessment. Featured topics include: The evolution of the human brain from matter to mind Social competition and the evolution of fluid intelligence Multiple intelligences in the new age of thinking Intelligence as a malleable construct From traditional IQ to second-generation intelligence tests The evolution of intelligence, including implications for educational programming and policy. The Handbook of Intelligence is an essential resource for researchers, graduate students, clinicians, and professionals in developmental psychology; assessment, testing and evaluation; language philosophy; personality and social psychology; sociology; and developmental biology. (shrink)

Abstract: This paper provides a phenomenological interpretation of technological and natural childbirth. By using Heidegger’s ontology of technology to think about childbirth I argue that these two types of contemporary childbirth present us with a false dilemma as both reflect the same norms Heidegger associates with modernity, namely order, control, and efficiency. The paper briefly explains Heidegger’s concept of the enframing as the essence of the technological age while focusing on how it helps us to avoid falling into a technophilic (...) or technophobic trap. Although the technophobic approach popularized by Lamaze gained some favor with feminists who saw the increased use of reproductive technology as an extension of patriarchal control over women’s bodies, I argue that this natural birthing technique incorporated order and control in ways that are similar to its technophilic counterpart. In order to move beyond what I call the reproductive enframing, it is necessary to recognize the false dilemma presented by the technological and natural alternatives. (shrink)

Considerable attention has been paid recently to the gendering of organizations and occupations. Unfortunately, the gendered-organizations approach remains theoretically and empirically underdeveloped, as there have as yet been few clear answers to the question central to the perspective: What does it really mean to say that an organization itself, or a policy, practice, or slot in the hierarchy, is “gendered”? Reviewing literature in the gendered-organizations tradition, the author discusses three of the most common ways the perspective has been applied and (...) argues that all of these definitions pose potential problems for the project of meaningful social and organizational change. The article concludes with some suggestions about how a more useful conception of the gendered organization might be built. (shrink)

An Introduction to Proof via Inquiry-Based Learning is a textbook for the transition to proof course for mathematics majors. Designed to promote active learning through inquiry, the book features a highly structured set of leading questions and explorations. The reader is expected to construct their own understanding by engaging with the material. The content ranges over topics traditionally included in transitions courses: logic, set theory including cardinality, the topology of the real line, a bit of number theory, and more. The (...) exposition guides and mentors the reader through an adventure in mathematical discovery, requiring them to solve problems, conjecture, experiment, explore, create, and communicate. Ultimately, this is really a book about productive struggle and learning how to learn. This is a print version of the popular open-access online text by Dana C. Ernst. (shrink)

Benardete paradoxes involve infinite collections of Grim Reapers, assassins, demons, deafening peals, or even sentences. These paradoxes have recently been used in arguments for finitist metaphysical theses such as temporal finitism, causal finitism, and discrete views of time. Here we develop a new finite Benardete-like paradox. We then use this paradox to defend a companions in guilt argument that challenges recent applications of patchwork principles on behalf of the aforementioned finitist arguments. Finally, we develop another problem for those applications by (...) examining the notion of exact duplication. (shrink)

While ideals of racial purity may be out of fashion, other sorts of purity ideals are increasingly popular in the United States today. The theme of purity is noticeable everywhere, but it is especially prominent in our contemporary fixation on health and hygiene. This may seem totally unrelated to issues of racism and classism, but in fact, the purveyors of purity draw upon the same themes of physical and moral purity that have helped produce white identity and dominance in the (...) US. Historically, this is where the purity rhetoric gets its power. To invoke purity ideals in the US is to mobilize this genealogy of racialized associations. Today's zealous preoccupation with hygiene is part of our living heritage in a racist culture.Just as ideas of race and racial purity were debunked by biologists long before the public would begin to question them, ideals of extreme hygienic purity linger with us, even flourish, despite scientific evidence of their futility and harm. Why are we still so enamored with purity? Because, to some extent, our very self-conceptions are at stake. Other scholars have described how our process of self individuation is based upon exclusion. The unique contribution of a genealogical approach to this issue is that, instead of merely locating the problem in ideologies held by others, it can evoke self-recognition and self-transformation. We will tend to assume the problem lies elsewhere until we learn to recognize ourselves in practices that reproduce cultural ideals. As inheritors of this racist culture, we are all lovers of purity, and we are all responsible for rethinking this value. (shrink)

Theodor Adorno once wrote an essay to "defend Bach against his devotees." In this book Dana Villa does the same for Hannah Arendt, whose sweeping reconceptualization of the nature and value of political action, he argues, has been covered over and domesticated by admirers who had hoped to enlist her in their less radical philosophical or political projects. Against the prevailing "Aristotelian" interpretation of her work, Villa explores Arendt's modernity, and indeed her postmodernity, through the Heideggerian and Nietzschean theme (...) of a break with tradition at the closure of metaphysics.Villa's book, however, is much more than a mere correction of misinterpretations of a major thinker's work. Rather, he makes a persuasive case for Arendt as the postmodern or postmetaphysical political theorist, the first political theorist to think through the nature of political action after Nietzsche's exposition of the death of God. After giving an account of Arendt's theory of action and Heidegger's influence on it, Villa shows how Arendt did justice to the Heideggerian and Nietzschean criticism of the metaphysical tradition while avoiding the political conclusions they drew from their critiques. The result is a wide-ranging discussion not only of Arendt and Heidegger, but of Aristotle, Kant, Nietzsche, Habermas, and the entire question of politics after metaphysics. (shrink)

In everyday life, we assume that there are degrees of blameworthiness and praiseworthiness. Yet the debate about the nature of moral responsibility often focuses on the “yes or no” question of whether indeterminism is required for moral responsibility, while questions about what accounts for more or less blameworthiness or praiseworthiness are underexplored. In this paper, I defend the idea that degrees of blameworthiness and praiseworthiness can depend in part on degrees of difficulty and degrees of sacrifice required for performing the (...) action in question. Then I turn to the question of how existing accounts of the nature of moral responsibility might be seen to accommodate these facts. In each case of prominent compatibilist and incompatibilist accounts that I consider, I argue that supplementation with added dimensions is required in order to account for facts about degrees of blameworthiness and praiseworthiness. For example, I argue that the reasons-responsiveness view of Fischer and Ravizza requires supplementation that takes us beyond even fine-grained measures of degrees of reasons-responsiveness in order to capture facts about degrees of difficulty to extend the reasons-responsiveness view by appealing to such measures). I conclude by showing that once we recognize the need for these additional parameters, we will be in a position to explain away at least some of the appeal of incompatibilist accounts of moral responsibility. (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: Introduction; Part I. Theoretical Views about Pity and Fear as Aesthetic Emotions: 1. Drama and the emotions: an Indo-European connection? 2. Gorgias: a strange trio, the poetic emotions; 3. Plato: from reality to tragedy and back; 4. Aristotle: the first 'theorist' of the aesthetic emotions; Part II. Pity and Fear within Tragedies: 5. An introduction; 6. Aeschylus: Persians; 7. Prometheus Bound; 8. Sophocles: Ajax; 9. Euripides: Orestes; Appendix: catharsis and the emotions in the definition of tragedy (...) in the Poetics. (shrink)

Nelkin presents a simple and natural account of freedom and moral responsibility which responds to the great variety of challenges to the idea that we are free and responsible, before ultimately reaffirming our conception of ourselves as agents. Making Sense of Freedom and Responsibility begins with a defense of the rational abilities view, according to which one is responsible for an action if and only if one acts with the ability to recognize and act for good reasons. The view is (...) compatibilist -- that is, on the view defended, responsibility is compatible with determinism -- and one of its striking features is a certain asymmetry: it requires the ability to do otherwise for responsibility when actions are praiseworthy, but not when they are blameworthy. In defending and elaborating the view, Nelkin questions long-held assumptions such as those concerning the relation between fairness and blame and the nature of so-called reactive attitudes such as resentment and forgiveness. Her argument not only fits with a metaphysical picture of causation -- agent-causation -- often assumed to be available only to incompatibilist accounts, but receives positive support from the intuitively appealing Ought Implies Can Principle, and establishes a new interpretation of freedom and moral responsibility that dovetails with a compelling account of our inescapable commitments as rational agents. (shrink)