Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) has been employed to investigate the glass transition activation energy E g, thermal stability and glass-forming ability (GFA) of Se90In10− x Sb x (x = 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10) chalcogenide glasses. DSC runs were performed at six different heating rates. Well-defined endothermic and exothermic peaks were obtained at glass transition and crystallization temperature. The dependence of glass transition temperature T g on heating rate (α), as well as composition of Sb, has been studied. From (...) the dependence of glass transition temperature on heating rate, the E g has been calculated on the basis of the Kissinger [Anal. Chem. 29 (1957) p.1702] and Moynihan [J. Phys. Chem. 78 (1974) p.267] models. Thermal stability has been monitored through the calculation of temperature differences T c–T g, the stability parameter S, and the enthalpy released during crystallization H c. The GFA has been investigated on the basis of the Hruby parameter H r, which is strong indicator of GFA. Results for GFA are in good agreement with fragility index F i calculations, indicating that Se90In6Sb4 is an excellent glass-former. (shrink)

This new edition of Law and Medical Ethics continues to chart the ever-widening field that the topics cover. The interplay between the health caring professions and the public during the period intervening since the last edition has, perhaps, been mainly dominated by wide-ranging changes in the administration of the National Health Service and of the professions themselves but these have been paralleled by important developments in medical jurisprudence.

The capacity to control emotion is important for human adaptation. Questions about the neural bases of emotion regulation have recently taken on new importance, as functional imaging studies in humans have permitted direct investigation of control strategies that draw upon higher cognitive processes difficult to study in nonhumans. Such studies have examined (1) controlling attention to, and (2) cognitively changing the meaning of, emotionally evocative stimuli. These two forms of emotion regulation depend upon interactions between prefrontal and cingulate control systems (...) and cortical and subcortical emotion-generative systems. Taken together, the results suggest a functional architecture for the cognitive control of emotion that dovetails with findings from other human and nonhuman research on emotion. (shrink)

A set is said to be amorphous if it is infinite, but is not the disjoint union of two infinite subsets. Thus amorphous sets can exist only if the axiom of choice is false. We give a general study of the structure which an amorphous set can carry, with the object of eventually obtaining a complete classification. The principal types of amorphous set we distinguish are the following: amorphous sets not of projective type, either bounded or unbounded size of members (...) of partitions of the set into finite pieces), and amorphous sets of projective type, meaning that the set admits a non-degenerate pregeometry, over finite fields either of bounded cardinality or of unbounded cardinality. The hope is that all amorphous sets will be of one of these types. Examples of each sort are constructed, and a reconstruction result for bounded amorphous sets is presented, indicating that the amorphous sets of this kind constructed in the paper are the only possible ones. The final section examines some questions concerned with the resulting cardinal arithmetic. (shrink)

The literature on collective action largely ignores the constraints that moral principle places on action-prompting intentions. Here I suggest that neither individualism nor holism can account for the generality of intentional contents demanded by universalizability principles, respect for persons, or proactive altruism. Utilitarian and communitarian ethics are criticized for nominalism with respect to social intentions. The failure of individualism and holism as grounds for moral theory is confirmed by comparing Tuomela's reductivist analysis of we-intentions with Gilbert's analysis of social facts. (...) Tuomela's account founders over intentions to cooperate, and Gilbert's cannot accommodate legitimate authority, vicarious agency, or group structure. (shrink)

In this moderate realist account of the whole range of issues facing contemporary analytic philosophy, J. K. Swindler aims to fill the gap in the literature between extreme realism and extreme nominalism. He discusses such fundamental concepts as existence, property, universality, individual, and necessity; analyzes the paradoxes of negative existentials and the substitutivity of co-referential terms; and defends objectivity in philosophy. The study moves through three phases: first, an argument that objective philosophical truth is attainable; second, an extended realist analysis (...) of fundamental ontological concepts; and finally, a demonstration of advantages of this ontology over leading alternatives. Weaving: An Analysis of the Constitution of Objects will be of interest to all philosophers working in contemporary philosophy, philosophy of language, logic, and metaphysics, and will serve as an excellent text for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in metaphysics. (shrink)

Background: The American Medical Association, the British Medical Association and the Canadian Medical Association have guidelines that specifically discourage physicians from self-prescribing or prescribing to family members, but only the BMA addresses informal prescription requests between colleagues. Objective: To examine the practices of paediatric providers regarding self-prescribing, curbsiding colleagues, and prescribing and refusing to prescribe to friends and family. Methods: 1086 paediatricians listed from the American Academy of Paediatrics 2007 web-based directory were surveyed. Results: 44% of eligible survey respondents returned (...) usable surveys. Almost half of respondents had prescribed for themselves. An equal number had informally requested a prescription from a colleague. Three-quarters stated they had been asked to prescribe a prescription drug for a first-degree or second-degree relative, and 51% had been asked by their spouse. Eighty-six per cent stated that they had refused to write a prescription on at least one occasion for a friend or family member. The following reasons “strongly influenced” their decision to refuse a prescription request: outside of provider’s expertise ; patient’s need for his or her own physician ; not medically indicated ; need for a physical examination. Conclusion: These data confirm that most physicians have engaged in self-prescribing or curbside requests for prescriptions. It can be argued that curbsiding is more morally problematic than self-prescribing because it implicates a third party, and should be discouraged regardless of whether the requester is a colleague, family member or friend. (shrink)

Originally published in 1926, this book attempts to state 'what has been believed with regard to God's incapacity for suffering'. Mozley charts the development of the doctrine from the Apostolic Fathers through the Reformation to the modern influence of metaphysical philosophy and concludes with six questions intended to prompt further theological discussion on this point. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the history of Christian theology.

Recently, new developments took place in the Dutch debate on the legislation of euthanasia. After a brief account of that debate, the article discusses a new government proposal for legislation in this field, which was submitted to the Dutch parliament in November 1991. This proposal relates not only to euthanasia but also to some other medical decisions concerning the end of life. The author concludes that, for several reasons, it is unsatisfactory.

This article revisits long-standing questions about consent, membership and emigration in Locke’s thought. Commentators such as A John Simmons have argued that Locke opens political membership to both express consenters and some kind of tacit consenters, and not just to the former, as some have suggested. Simmons’s reading seems to render Locke more sensible in that it does not exclude large numbers of people from membership or burden the few members with all the civic duties, and also in that it (...) allows at least tacit-consenting members the right to relocate, while this right is denied to express-consenting members. Against this reading, the article shows, by resolving seemingly conflicting claims in the text, that people become members only by express consent. It also responds to the criticism that the express-consent-only reading would limit membership to a few and so would render Locke’s account implausible from a practical point of view. The article then addresses the purported restriction Locke imposes on express consenters’ right to emigrate, arguing that the restriction concerns the change of membership and not the right to relocate. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:MACINTYRE'S REPUBLIC J. K. SWINDLER Westminster College Fulton, Missouri CONTRARY TO HIS own evident intentions and perceptions, in After Virtue A'lasdair Macinty!l.·e is much more of a Ptlatonist 1than the A1 ristotelian he aims to be. I hase this judgment both on the positive evidence that Macintyre and Plato (in the Republic) m1gue for and against the same crucial theses and on the negative evidence that Plato has read (...) answers to the very issues which Macintyre finds 1 intractable from an AristoteHan point of viiew. My thesis can be made out in terms of a half dozen issues which Maclntyire takes as crucial to his case: (1) Can there he a science of government? (2) Is there an answer to the sophist's chaillenge to morality? (3) How oan the fragmentation of the modern self he theoretically overcome? (4) What are the hi1stocical and social determinants of morality? (5) Is there a unity of virtue in addition to individual virtues? (6) Can we reconcile ourselves to teleofogy, the absence of the polis, and the tragedy of human 1:ife? I will consider each of these in turn. I. Wisdom Plato defines wisdom as knowledge of how to rule, and Aristotle (in the Nichomachean Ethics) distinguishes between theoretical and practical wisdom, 1suggesting thereby an interesting ambiguity in Plato's view, an ambiguity of which Macintyre makes a great deal. One may rule eithecr hy law or by judgment. In his attack on the Enlightenment, MacIntyre showis quite clearly tha;t the idea of a social science that would p11ovide laws of human behavior, which could in 343 344 J. K. SWINDLER turn be used by il"ulers and managers to predict and therefore manipulate!human action, was an invention of the eighteenth century. He offers an extensive 1oritique o.f this conception of socirul science, grounded primarily in the claim that human.behavior is essentially unlawful, at least if we judge it by the standards of the physical sciences. There is in human affairs a farge 1and uneliminwble element of fortiuna which makes it impossrible rto.formulate laws of human nature or behavior that would he exceptionless and therefore underwrite predictions of behavior. For there is nothing to be done about the unpredictability of innovations or, from one's own point of view, of one's own future actions; nor can the uncertainties of gametheoretie decisions and 1 the general contingency of the outcomes of ruction,be remedied. There is therefore no possibility of a social science in the sense in which Hume tried to imitate Newton. So much for Marx and Weber and the horde of modern.social scientists. This is not to say that life is completely uncertain; on the contrary, there are genuine and general regularities in society, some natural, some social, ·some statistical, some causal, wihich make life bearable. But these provide a,ground for the Aristotelian idea, endorsed by MacIntyre, that the principles of conduct, such as they might be, hold only for the most part and not universa1ly. There is therefore in Maclntyre's view no justification for 1a mora;l oode in the modern sense, nor ev;en of moral principles of the kind we are used to from Kant ·and Mill, Rawls and Nozick, which purport to istand as a sufficient criterion of right in all cases. But, importantly, we do not find any such rules or codes in Pla.to either. For Plato, too, insists on the mixed reign of chaos and logos in the materia;l world and in our Jives and concludes that judgment is essential to· determining right conduct. He tellrs us that wise rule comes only &om good oharructer and good institutions, that legislating in such detaii1 as to eliminate judgment is "cut:ting off the heads of a hy:dra." One cannot help hut think that tMs (essentially Hemclitean) point is something Aristotle ~earned at his MACINTYRE'S REPUBLIC 345 master's knee. And both aspects of Plato's :point ~e ipresent in Aristotle, viz., that s~nce the:ve is chance in nature, there is luck (good 'and had) in life, and since no rule can capture the particularity of conorete situations right... (shrink)

IN THE beginning Parmenides sought to deny the void. But he found himself trapped by his language and his thought into admitting what he sought to deny. Wisely, he counseled others to avoid the whole region in which the problem arises, lest they too be unwarily ensnared. Plato, being less easily intimidated and grasping for the first time the urgency of the paradox, unearthed each snare in turn until he felt he had found a safe path through the forbidden terrain (...) in a new conception of being and the derivation of its linguistic consequences in the Sophist. Aristotle evidently took Parmenides’ advice; and save for a few groping scholastics, perhaps Leibniz, Brentano, and Meinong, and Frege only in passing, no one else attempted the crossing before Russell made his spectacular dash through the posted ground from the completely new direction of linguistic reference. Again the problem lay dormant for half a century until Strawson constructed a new low road through ordinary language and Quine improved Russell’s high algebraic pass. Refinements of these routes have been forthcoming, especially from Searle and Kripke, until today it might appear that there are two super highways through Parmenides’ forbidden country of nonbeing. In this essay I will first argue that these new linguistic highways are no more than flimsy camouflage hiding but not resolving the old paradoxes. I will then show how Plato’s ontological way out, though more difficult, is the straight and narrow path. (shrink)

Recent scholarship on technology-induced ‘conceptual disruption’ has spotlighted the notion of a conceptual gap. Conceptual gaps have also been discussed in scholarship on epistemic injustice, yet up until now these bodies of work have remained disconnected. This article shows that ‘gaps’ of interest to both bodies of literature are closely related, and argues that a joint examination of conceptual disruption and epistemic injustice is fruitful for both fields. I argue that hermeneutical marginalization—a skewed division of hermeneutical resources, which serves to (...) diminish the experiences of marginalized folk—does not only transpire because of conceptual gaps, but also because of two other kinds of conceptual disruption: conceptual overlaps and conceptual misalignments. Hence, there are multiple kinds of conceptual disruption that can be usefully studied through the normative lens of epistemic injustice. Technology can play different roles vis-a-vis epistemic injustices, both as a causal trigger of conceptual disruption, but also as a mediator of hermeneutical resources. Its role is normatively significant, in particular because socially disruptive technologies can have different epistemic implications for different groups: they may amplify the epistemic resources of some groups, while diminishing those of others. (shrink)

_Despite advances in standard of living of the population, the condition of widows and divorced women remains deplorable in society. The situation is worse in developing nations with their unique social, cultural and economic milieu, which at times ignores the basic human rights of this vulnerable section of society. A gap exists in life expectancies of men and women in both developing and developed nations. This, coupled with greater remarriage rates in men, ensures that the number of widows continues to (...) exceed that of widowers. Moreover, with women becoming more educated, economically independent and aware of their rights, divorce rates are increasing along with associated psychological ramifications. The fact that widowed/divorced women suffer from varying psychological stressors is often ignored. It has been concluded in various studies that such stressors could be harbingers of psychiatric illnesses (e.g., depression, anxiety, substance dependence), and hence should be taken into account by treating physicians, social workers and others who come to the aid of such women. A change in mindset of the society is required before these women get their rightful place, for which a strong will is needed in the minds of the people, and in law-governing bodies._. (shrink)

Psychiatry has come up as one of the most dynamic branches of medicine in recent years. There are a lot of controversies regarding concepts, nosology, definitions and treatments in psychiatry, all of which are presently under a strict scanner. Differences are so many that even the meaning of psychiatry varies amongst individual psychiatrists. For us, it is an art to practice psychiatry and give the patient what he needs. Still, it should be practiced with great caution and utmost sincerity towards (...) the patient, based on scientific knowledge and not to be guided by individual conceptions alone. Ethics in psychiatry forms an integral part of its basic concept and meaning, and a tight balance should be maintained between professional advancement and patient benefit. In recent years, the scope of psychiatry has enlarged considerably, with wide ranging influences from Sociology, Anthropology and Philosophy on the one hand, and Neurology and Medicine on the other. (shrink)

It is shown that all the countable superatomic boolean algebras of finite rank have the small index property.

Value-based education aims to train students with appropriate attitude and values when they are interacting with their friends, family and outside the school. It helps in developing the child’s Personality, Character, Citizenship, and Spirituality. Stories are an effective tool and an ideal medium through which children can be taught essential life lessons. In ancient India, children were taught values and ethics through the oral story-telling tradition. Stories from Indian Folk tales such as Panchatantra, Hitopodesha, Epics like Ramayana and Bhagavad Gita (...) were told to children during their childhood to teach them Ethics, Values which plays a significant role in their personality development. In this article, we have attempted to bring out the commonality between the values as given in Patanjali Yoga Sutras and HYP as Yamas (Social Discipline) and Niyamas (Personal Discipline) with the characters of Ramayana and the values given in Bhagavad Gita. It is easy to incorporate them in the curriculum with the help of stories class wise. (shrink)

In summary, the discussion by Professors Helmchen and Müller-Oerlinghausen of the morality of clinical trials has emphasized a point that is frequently overlooked. It is an essential to consider those situations in which it might be unethical not to conduct a trial as it is to be concerned about the ways in which trials might restrict the rights of the individuals taking part in them. They and I have dealt mainly with the first of these two issues because it has (...) been relatively neglected. The second is, of course, equally important and has rightly received much attention. Both matters deserve further public discussion. (shrink)

In recent years a novel picture of Mably's thought has begun to emerge within Anglo-American scholarship, suggesting perhaps a constructive alternative to both the �radical� and the �conservative� interpretations. On this reading, Mably should be seen as neither a proto-socialist nor a reactionary thinker, but as a republican -- a classical republican, in fact, whose writing represents a later Gallic contribution to the political tradition founded by Machiavelli and Harrington.3 In fact, nothing is more obvious to any reader than the (...) absolute centrality of the reference to Graeco-Roman antiquity in his writings, from beginning to end -- with precisely that celebration of the �mixed governments� of Sparta and Rome, and intense preoccupation with the politics of �virtue�, that we have come to associate with the civic humanist tradition. The object of this essay is to provide a brief introduction to this �new� Mably. It will do so chiefly through an examination of a single work, albeit a pivotal one in Mably's career. Entretiens de Phocion, a dialogue first published in 1763, introduced in print for the first time most of the major themes of his mature thought; and it remained by far the most popular work to appear in his lifetime. A brief look at it should give us the opportunity to test the cogency of the civic humanist reading of Mably's thought, as well as to suggest something of thespecific character of the French contribution to the �Atlantic republican tradition�. (shrink)