Research has demonstrated that employee reactions to monitoring systems depend on both the characteristics of the monitoring system and how it is implemented. However, little is known about the role individual differences may play in this process. This study proposes that individuals have generalized attitudes toward organizational control and monitoring activities. We examined this argument by assessing the relationship between employees’ baseline attitudes toward a set of monitoring and control techniques that span the employment relationship. We further explore the effects (...) of employees’ generalized attitudes toward monitoring and their individual ethical orientations on their attitudinal reactions to an Internet monitoring system implemented in their workplace. Results of a longitudinal study indicate that as expected, prior beliefs and ethical orientation interact to affect employees’ reactions to monitoring systems. Implications for research and practice are discussed. (shrink)

The problems of this passage were concisely stated by M. Platnauer more than thirty years ago and his suggestions for their solution have been adopted and developed in A. S. F. Gow's magnum opus. Its authority—so the present writer suspects—is liable at this point to eclipse the meaning of the text.

The conceptual framework of behaviorism is reconstructed in a logical scheme rather than along chronological lines. The resulting reconstruction is faithful to the history of behaviorism and yet meets the contemporary challenges arising from cognitive science, psycholinguistics, and philosophy. In this reconstruction, the fundamental premise is that psychology is to be a natural science, and the major corollaries are that psychology is to be objective and empirical. To a great extent, the reconstruction of behaviorism is an elaboration of behaviorist views (...) of what it is for a science to be objective and empirical. The reconstruction examines and evaluates behaviorist positions on observation and the rejection of introspection, the behavioral data language, theory construction, stimulus-response psychology, the organization of behavior, complex processes, agency, and the interpretation of mentalistic language. The resulting reconstruction shows behaviorism to be a pragmatic psychological version of positivism based on a behavioral epistemology. (shrink)

Mathematical modeling is a convenient way for characterization of complex ecosystems. This approach was applied to study the dynamics of zooplankton in Lake Sevan (Armenia) at different stages of anthropogenic eutrophication with the use of a novel method called discrete modeling of dynamical systems with feedback (DMDS). Simulation demonstrated that the application of this method helps in characterization of inter- and intra-component relationships in a natural ecosystem. This method describes all possible pairwise inter-component relationships like “plus–plus,” “minus–minus,” “plus–minus,” “plus–zero,” “minus–zero,” (...) and “zero–zero” that occur in most ecosystems. Based on the results, a working hypothesis was formulated. It was found that the sensitivity to weak external influence in zooplanktons was the greatest during the mid period of eutrophication in Lake Sevan, whereas in the final stages of eutrophication, an outbreak in the biomass production of cyanobacteria was evident. To support this approach, a weak external disturbance in the form of magnetic storm was used to see its effect on species Daphnia longispina sevanica. A statistically significant correlation between the frequency of magnetic storms and the number of this species was revealed and an increase in the number of toxic cyanobacteria species as a consequence of eutrophication. This paper, for the first time, suggests a DMDS method, to diagnose impact of anthropogenic eutrophication on environment. (shrink)

H G WellsHerbert George Wells, an English writer, was born on 21st 1866 and died on 13 Aug 1946. He was renowned for his works of science fiction especially 'The Time Machine'. He is also referred as 'The Father of Science Fiction'.

In the article "The Epistemological Nature of Information Modeling" [Gnoseologicheskaia priroda informatsionnogo modelirovaniia], Voprosy filosofii, 1963, No. 10, Academician V. M. Glushkov examines two important methodological aspects of the modeling of natural objects and phenomena in the contemporary natural sciences. The first consists of the informational nature of the models created, and the second of their dynamism. The dynamic nature of today's models in the natural sciences means that it is not so much the material structure of the object that (...) is modeled as its behavior and functions in some sphere of natural phenomena. In this sense, the models under examination may also be termed functional, as distinct from the structural models pertaining to a static description of objects. (shrink)

Wegner (2002) fails to (1) distinguish conscious will and voluntariness; (2) account for everyday willed acts; and (3) individuate thoughts and acts. Wegner incorrectly implies that (4) we experience acts as willed only when they are caused by unwilled thoughts; (5) thoughts are never true causes of actions; and (6) we experience ourselves as first performing mental acts which then cause our intentional actions.

This paper examines an issue that is becoming increasingly relevant as the pressures of a warming planet, changing climate and changing ecosystems ramp up. The broad context for the paper is the intragenerational, intergenerational, and interspecies equity implications of changing the climate and the value orientations of adapting to such change. In addition, the need to stabilize the planetary climate by urgent mitigation of change factors is a foundational ethical assumption. In order to avoid further animal and plant extinctions, or (...) at the very least, their increased vulnerability to becoming rare and endangered; the systematic assisted colonization of “at risk” species is being seriously considered by scientists and managers of biodiversity. The more practical aspects of assisted colonization have been covered in the conservation biology literature; however, the ethical implications of such actions have not been extensively examined. Our discussion of the value issues, using a novel case study approach, will rectify the limited ethical analysis of the issue of assisted colonization of species in the face of climate change pressures. Beyond sustainability ethics, both animal and environmental ethical approaches will be used and intrinsic versus instrumental value orientations in the literature shall form the basis of our discussion. After the application of all the ethical approaches to the case studies, we conclude that without mitigation and the prospect of a future stable climate, assisted colonization will be involved in an inherently unethical process and a “move and lose it” outcome. With mitigation, there is wide-ranging ethical support for assisted colonization. (shrink)

The human genome project's lasting legacies are the emerging insights into human physiology and disease, and the ascendance of biology as the dominant science of the 21st century. Sequencing revealed that >90% of the human genome is not coding for proteins, as originally thought, but rather is overwhelmingly transcribed into non‐protein coding, or non‐coding, RNAs (ncRNAs). This discovery initially led to the hypothesis that most genomic DNA is “junk”, a term still championed by some geneticists and evolutionary biologists. In contrast, (...) molecular biologists and biochemists studying the vast number of transcripts produced from most of this genome “junk” often surmise that these ncRNAs have biological significance. What gives? This essay contrasts the two opposing, extant viewpoints, aiming to explain their bases, which arise from distinct reference frames of the underlying scientific disciplines. Finally, it aims to reconcile these divergent mindsets in hopes of stimulating synergy between scientific fields. (shrink)

It is known that the Restricted Predicate Calculus can be embedded in an elementary theory, the signature of which consists of exactly two equivalences. Some special models for the mentioned theory were constructed to prove this fact. Besides formal adequacy of these models, a question may be posed concerning their conceptual simplicity, "transparency" of interpretations they assigned to the two stated equivalences. In works known to us these interpretations are rather complex, and can be called "technical", serving only the purpose (...) of embedding. We propose a conversion method, which transforms an arbitrary model of RPC into some model of the elementary theory TR, which includes three equivalences. RPC is embeddable in TR, and it appears possible to assign some "natural" interpretations to three equivalences using the "Track of Relation " concept. (shrink)

This essay is written on the following premises and argues for them. “Enlightenment” is a word or signifier, and not a single or unifiable phenomenon which it consistently signifies. There is no single or unifiable phenomenon describable as “the Enlightenment,” but it is the definite article rather than the noun which is to be avoided. In studying the intellectual history of the late seventeenth century and the eighteenth, we encounter a variety of statements made, and assumptions proposed, to which the (...) term “Enlightenment” may usefully be applied, but the meanings of the term shift as we apply it. The things are connected, but not continuous; they cannot be reduced to a single narrative; and we find ourselves using the word “Enlightenment” in a family of ways and talking about a family of phenomena, resembling and related to one another in a variety of ways that permit of various generalizations about them. We are not, however, committed to a single root meaning of the word “Enlightenment,” and we do not need to reduce the phenomena of which we treat to a single process or entity to be termed “the” Enlightenment. It is a reification that we wish to avoid, but the structure of our language is such that this is difficult, and we will find ourselves talking of “the French” or “the Scottish,” “the Newtonian” or the “the Arminian” Enlightenments, and hoping that by employing qualifying adjectives we may constantly remind ourselves that the keyword “Enlightenment” is ours to use and should not master us. (shrink)

This edition of G. E. Moore's notes taken at Wittgenstein's seminal Cambridge lectures in the early 1930s provides, for the first time, an almost verbatim record of those classes. The presentation of the notes is both accessible and faithful to their original manuscripts, and a comprehensive introduction and synoptic table of contents provide the reader with essential contextual information and summaries of the topics in each lecture. The lectures form an excellent introduction to Wittgenstein's middle-period thought, covering a broad range (...) of philosophical topics, ranging from core questions in the philosophy of language, mind, logic, and mathematics, to illuminating discussions of subjects on which Wittgenstein says very little elsewhere, including ethics, religion, aesthetics, psychoanalysis, and anthropology. The volume also includes a 1932 essay by Moore critiquing Wittgenstein's conception of grammar, together with Wittgenstein's response. A companion website offers access to images of the entire set of source manuscripts. (shrink)

More than twenty-five years after the first signs of potential harm, the US remains locked in the grip of an opioid epidemic, with more Americans dying from overdoses than ever before.1 Diversion of prescription opioids plays an important role in opioid-related harms. Much of the scientific and public health focus on diversion has been on end-users, given how commonly non-medical prescription opioid use occurs, as well as the proportion of individuals who report that their source of non-medical opioids was friends (...) or family. However, diversion of opioids, as well as their rampant oversupply, can be discerned higher up the supply chain, including among wholesalers, pharmacies and rogue prescribers whose behavior may trigger well-described “flags” warranting further evaluation and action. (shrink)

The paper offers an account of consciousness as a biological process. All its theoretical concepts are derived from the biological context and accurately defined in causal and functional terms. To cover the essence of what is commonly meant by the word ‘consciousness’, and to avoid confusion through a selective or theoretically biased interpretation of that word, the paper addresses the dimensions of awareness which the word denotes according to the dictionaries of the English language, viz., an awareness of the surrounding (...) world, of the self, and of one's thoughts and feelings. These are examined at the primary levels at which they might exist also in nonhuman species. (shrink)

Critics of Hannah Arendt's Lectures on Kant's Political Philosophy argue that Arendt fails to address the most important problem of political judgment, namely, validity. This essay shows that Arendt does indeed have an answer to the problem that preoccupies her critics, with one important caveat: she does not think that validity is the all-important problem of political judgment--the affirmation of human freedom is.