As the expansion of the Internet and the digital formatting of all kinds of creative works move us further into the information age, intellectual property issues have become paramount. Computer programs costing thousands of research dollars are now copied in an instant. People who would recoil at the thought of stealing cars, computers, or VCRs regularly steal software or copy their favorite music from a friend's CD. Since the Web has no national boundaries, these issues are international concerns. The contributors-philosophers, (...) legal theorists, and business scholars, among others-address questions such as: Can abstract ideas be owned? How does the violation of intellectual property rights compare to the violation of physical property rights? Can computer software and other digital information be protected? And how should legal systems accommodate the ownership of intellectual property in an information age? Intellectual Property is a lively examination of these and other issues, and an invaluable resource for librarians, lawyers, businesspeople, and scholars. (shrink)

The parallels between Machiavelli's The Prince and Cicero's -- De Officiis have been frequently noted but seldom studied. An examination of the parallels suggests that Machiavelli intended The Prince to offer an improvement on Cicero's defence of the active life. He thus completes Cicero's intention in De Officiis to treat political life on its own terms, independent of philosophy. In so doing, he uncovers inconsistencies and tensions in the Ciceronian account of the ‘intermediate’ virtues of the statesman, tensions that are (...) the product of the classical framework within which Cicero is working. The statesman's activity secures the good of the polity, but to achieve the good one must know what is good. Ultimately for Cicero the statesman must depend on knowledge of the good that is the province of philosophy. In The Prince, Machiavelli shows how these tensions may be resolved. (shrink)

ADVICE TO THE PRIVILEGED ORDERS. INTRODUCTION. 'HE French Revolution is at last not plishment universally acknowledged, beyond contradiction abroad, ...

Philosophical influences in the personality and public life of Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus, consul in 147 and 134b.c., were once emphasized in scholarship. In 1892, Schmekel demonstrated the reception of Stoic philosophy in the second half of the second centuryb.c.among the philhellenic members of the governing elite in general, and statesmen like Scipio Aemilianus in particular, in what he called the ‘Roman Enlightenment’. In the 1920s and 1930s, Kaerst showed influences of Stoic philosophy on Scipio, contemporary politics and the Principate (...) to come, while Capelle and Pohlenz identified Stoic ideas in Scipio's foreign and domestic policies. Together they formed a body of scholarship which held that Scipio possessed a serious interest in philosophy which defined his character and informed his public life. In the 1960s, the challenge to this scholarship was led by Strasburger in two articles, and by Astin in his 1967 biography. Both scholars downplayed and devalued philosophical influences on Scipio and denied him the pursuit of the Greek virtuous life. They placed him within the traditions of the Roman elite, ambitious for glory and results-driven, and they have successfully formed influential views to this end, despite the critique made by Erskine. Astin remained the authoritative study of Scipio and there was much in hisRealpolitikthat scholarship found compelling, even when it allowed Scipio an attachment to Greek culture. For example, Gruen, Elvers and Badian acknowledged Scipio's interest in Greek culture and philosophy, in combination with the practices and goals of a traditional Roman aristocrat, but they placed their accent on the latter by affirming that Greek learning did not change the current of a traditional aristocratic life. The contention of this article is that the pre-Strasburger/Astin interpretation of Scipio, despite its shortcomings, was indeed correct to detect a deep current of philosophical influences on Scipio. The article argues that the evidence demonstrates that in education, character and public life Scipio was informed by the Greek moral and political tradition; that Scipio had claimed to possess the cardinal virtues, derived ultimately from Plato; and that he had acted under a moral imperative of power formulated by the Stoic philosopher Panaetius; the conclusion will address the ethical intention of Scipio. (shrink)

This book deals with the basic views of those philosophers and their influence on Chinese history and culture.

Outpatient services are increasingly recognised as an important component of health care provision and may be improved through the application of modern management techniques. We have performed a time and role audit of consultation and waiting times in two medical clinics using different queuing systems: namely, a serial processing clinic where patients wait in a single queue and a quasi-parallel processing clinic where patients are directed to the shortest queue to maintain clinic flow. Data collected were used to construct a (...) computer simulation of patient flows in clinic. Assessment of patient satisfaction in the clinic process was determined using a self-administered questionnaire. Mean waiting time was shorter in the quasi-parallel processing clinic: 26 (SD 17) minutes compared with 36(24) minutes in the serial processing clinic. In the serial processing clinic 61% of patients waited more than 30 minutes compared with 41% in the quasi-parallel processing clinic. In the serial processing clinic 8% of 142 patients surveyed complained of the time spent waiting. The computer simulation we produced was able to determine waiting times with different clinic structures. The simulation showed that reductions in waiting time up to 30% might be achieved by changing our serial processing clinic to a quasi-parallel processing one. Performance of medical outpatient clinics can be improved by examining and changing clinic management. Computer simulation of outpatient clinics offers a means of assessing the impact of such changes on waiting time in clinic and on waiting lists. (shrink)