The Tree of Life hypothesis frames the evolutionary process as a series of events whereby lineages diverge from one another, thus creating the diversity of life as descendent lineages modify properties from their ancestors. This hypothesis is under scrutiny due to the strong evidence for lateral gene transfer between distantly related bacterial taxa, thereby providing extant taxa with more than one parent. As a result, one argues, the Tree of Life becomes confounded as the original branching structure is gradually superseded (...) by reticulation, ultimately losing its ability to serve as a model for bacterial evolution. Here we address a more fundamental issue: is there a Tree of Life that results from bacterial evolution without considering such lateral gene transfers? Unlike eukaryotic speciation events, lineage separation in bacteria is a gradual process that occurs over tens of millions of years, whereby genetic isolation is established on a gene-by-gene basis. As a result, groups of closely related bacteria, while showing robust genetic isolation as extant lineages, were not created by an unambiguous series of lineage-splitting events. Rather, a temporal fragmentation of the speciation process results in cognate genes showing different genetic relationships. We argue that lineage divergence in bacteria does not produce a tree-like framework, and inferences drawn from such a framework have the potential to be incorrect and misleading. Therefore, the Tree of Life is an inappropriate paradigm for bacterial evolution regardless of the extent of gene transfer between distantly related taxa. (shrink)

In this article, I propose a business paradigm that allows and enables the integration of environmental ethics into business decisions while creating a competitive advantage through the use of an ethical framework based on classical American pragmatism. Environmental ethics could be useful as an alternative paradigm for business ethics by offering new perspectives and methodologies to grant consideration of the natural environment. An approach based on classical American pragmatism provides a superior framework for businesses by focusing on experimentation and innovation, (...) driving a long-term focus, and providing actionable clarity. Under a pragmatic approach to ethics, the choice for sustainability becomes self-evident for business performance and moral reasons. (shrink)

Concussions in professional sports have received increased attention, which is partly attributable to evidence that found concussion incidence rates were much higher than previously thought. Further to this, professional hockey players articulated how their concussion symptoms affected their professional careers, interpersonal relationships, and qualities of life. Researchers are beginning to associate multiple/repeated concussions with Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, a structural brain injury that is characterized by tau protein deposits in distinct areas of the brain. Taken together, concussions impact many people in (...) the sporting community from current and former professional athletes and their families to medical and health professionals and researchers. In light of the growing awareness and sensitivity towards concussions, the purpose of this paper is to provide recommendations that are designed to improve player safety in professional hockey and address the ethical issues surrounding these suggestions. (shrink)

Individuals are faced with the many opportunities to pirate. The decision to pirate or not may be related to an individual''s attitudes toward other ethical issues. A person''s ethical and moral predispositions and the judgments that they use to make decisions may be consistent across various ethical dilemmas and may indicate their likelihood to pirate software. This paper investigates the relationship between religion and a theoretical ethical decision making process that an individual uses when evaluating ethical or unethical situations. An (...) ethical decision making model was studied for general unethical scenarios and for the unethical behavior of software piracy. The research model was tested via path analysis using structural equation modeling and was found to be appropriate for the sample data. The results suggest that there is a relationship between religion and the stages of an ethical decision making process regarding general ethical situations and software piracy. (shrink)

The question of how inequality is generated and how it reproduces over time has been a major concern for social scientists for more than a century. Yet the relationship between inequality and the process of economic development is far from being well understood. These Raffaele Mattioli Lectures have brought together two of the world's leading economists, Professors Philippe Aghion and Jeffrey Williamson, to question the conventional wisdom on inequality and growth, and address its inability to explain recent economic experience. (...) Professor Aghion assesses the affects of inequality on growth, and asks whether inequality matters: if so why is excessive inequality bad for growth, and is it possible to reconcile aggregate findings with macroeconomic theories of incentives? In the second part Jeffrey Williamson discusses the Kuznets hypothesis, and focuses on the causes of the rise of wage and income inequality in developed economies. (shrink)

Some modem approaches to a Christological problem which has confronted theologians for centuries—the human consciousness of Christ. What kind of knowledge did Christ possess?

Why and how have supply chain codes of conduct diffused among lead firms around the globe? Prior research has drawn on both institutional and stakeholder theories to explain the adoption of codes, but no study has modeled adoption as a temporally dynamic process of diffusion. We propose that the drivers of adoption shift over time, from exclusively nonmarket to eventually market-based mechanisms as well. In an analysis of an original data set of more than 1,800 firms between the years 2006 (...) and 2015, we find that strong nonmarket labor institutions in a firm’s home country are critical to initiating and sustaining the diffusion process. Market mechanisms, such as investor scrutiny and brand risk, emerge as important later. Contrary to prior research, we did not find a significant effect from nongovernmental organization (NGO) pressure. We conclude that markets for corporate social responsibility can and do arise, but only after they are effectuated by nonmarket institutions. (shrink)

Corporate reputation is an intangible asset that is related to marketing and financial performance. The social, economic, and global environment of the 1990'shas resulted in environmental performance becoming an increasingly important component of a company'sreputation. This paper explores the relationship between reputation, environmental performance, and financial performance, and looks at the contingencies that impact environmental policy making.

We examine Twin Peaks' minor character Albert Rosenfeld's peculiar moral code. We make the case that Albert is the perfect exemplification of a perfect Kantian in an imperfect world.

Unraveling the molecular detail of insulin receptor activation has proved challenging, but a major advance is the recent determination of crystallographic structures of insulin in complex with its primary binding site on the receptor. The current model for insulin receptor activation is that two distinct surfaces of insulin monomer engage sequentially with two distinct binding sites on the extracellular surface of the insulin receptor, which is itself a disulfide‐linked (αβ)2 homodimer. In the process, conformational changes occur both within the hormone (...) and the receptor, the latter resulting in the disruption of the intracellular interactions that hold the kinase domains in their basal state and in the initiation of the phosphorylation events that drive insulin signaling. The purpose of this paper is to summarize the extant structural data relating to hormone binding and how it effects receptor activation, as well as to discuss the issues that remain unresolved. (shrink)

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

This paper is a response to Ray's recent proposal that the intellectual property rights attached to potentially life saving/life sustaining innovations should become public goods in cases where markets are either unable or unwilling to pay for the creation of the intellectual property. Using a free market approach to innovation based on Western moral philosophy, we suggest that treating intellectually protected life saving/life sustaining innovations as public goods will likely reduce social welfare over the long term.

Deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus is a clinically effective tool for treating medically refractory Parkinson’s disease, but its neural mechanisms remain debated. Previous work has demonstrated that STN DBS results in evoked potentials in the primary motor cortex, suggesting that modulation of cortical physiology may be involved in its therapeutic effects. Due to technical challenges presented by high-amplitude DBS artifacts, these EPs are often measured in response to low-frequency stimulation, which is generally ineffective at PD symptom management. This (...) study aims to characterize STN-to-cortex EPs seen during clinically relevant high-frequency STN DBS for PD. Intraoperatively, we applied STN DBS to 6 PD patients while recording electrocorticography from an electrode strip over the ipsilateral central sulcus. Using recently published techniques, we removed large stimulation artifacts to enable quantification of STN-to-cortex EPs. Two cortical EPs were observed – one synchronized with DBS onset and persisting during ongoing stimulation, and one immediately following DBS offset, here termed the “start” and the “end” EPs respectively. The start EP is, to our knowledge, the first long-latency cortical EP reported during ongoing high-frequency DBS. The start and end EPs differ in magnitude and latency, and the end, but not the start, EP magnitude has a significant relationship to ongoing high gamma power during the EP. These contrasts may suggest mechanistic or circuit differences in EP production during the two time periods. This represents a potential framework for relating DBS clinical efficacy to the effects of a variety of stimulation parameters on EPs. (shrink)

As more and more firms operate globally, an understanding of the effects of cultural differences on ethical decision making becomes increasingly important for avoiding potential business pitfalls and for designing effective international marketing management programs. Although several articles have addressed this area in general, differences along specific, cultural dimensions have not been directly examined. Hence, the purpose of this study was to examine differences in ethical decision making within Hofstede's cultural framework. The results confirm the utility of Hofstede's cultural dimensions (...) and place ethical decision making within an overall theoretical framework. Sales agents from a high power distance, uncertainty avoidant, Confucian, collectivist culture (i.e., Taiwan) placed more value on company and fellow employee interests (vis-à-vis self interests) than did managers from a masculine, individualistic culture (i.e., the United States). American and Taiwanese managers did not differ in their deontological norms or on the importance that they placed on customer interests. The theoretical and managerial importance of these findings are also discussed. (shrink)

Jnanasrimitra (975-1025) was regarded by both Buddhists and non-Buddhists as the most important Indian philosopher of his generation. His theory of exclusion combined a philosophy of language with a theory of conceptual content to explore the nature of words and thought. Jnanasrimitra's theory informed much of the work accomplished at Vikramasila, a monastic and educational complex instrumental to the growth of Buddhism. His ideas were also passionately debated among successive Hindu and Jain philosophers. This volume marks the first English translation (...) of Jnanasrimitra's Monograph on Exclusion, a careful, critical investigation into language, perception, and conceptual awareness. Featuring the rival arguments of Buddhist and Hindu intellectuals, among other thinkers, the Monograph reflects more than half a millennium of competing claims while providing an invaluable introduction to a crucial philosopher. Lawrence J. McCrea and Parimal G. Patil familiarize the reader with the author, themes, and topics of the text and situate Jnanasrimitra's findings within his larger intellectual milieu. Their clear, accessible, and accurate translation proves the influence of Jnanasrimitra on the foundations of Buddhist and Indian philosophy. (shrink)

This paper discusses how adoption of the social dimensions of the marketing concept may unintentionally restrict innovation and corporate entrepreneurship, ultimately reducing social welfare. The impact of social marketing on innovation and entrepreneurship is discussed using the case of multinational pharmaceutical firms that are under pressure when marketing HIV treatments in poor countries.The argument this paper supports is that social welfare may eventually be diminished if forced social responsibility is imposed. The case of providing subsidized AIDS medication to less developed (...) nations is used to illustrate how social blackmail may result in less innovation, entrepreneurship, and product development efforts by the pharmaceutical industry, ultimately reducing social welfare. (shrink)

As one of the most important ethicists to emerge since the Second World War, Alan Gewirth continues to influence philosophical debates concerning morality. In this ground-breaking book, Gewirth's neo-Kantianism, and the communitarian problems discussed, form a dialogue on the foundation of moral theory. Themes of agent-centered constraints, the formal structure of theories, and the relationship between freedom and duty are examined along with such new perspectives as feminism, the Stoics, and Sartre. Gewirth offers a picture of the philosopher's theory and (...) its applications, providing a richer, more complete critical assessement than any which has occurred to date. (shrink)

This study investigates whether the market valuation of the two summary accounting measures, book value of equity and net income, is higher for firms with reputation for sustainability leadership, when compared to firms that do not enjoy such reputation. The results are interpreted through the lens of a framework combining signalling theory and resource-based theory, according to which firms signal their commitment to sustainability to influence the external perception of reputation. A firm’s reputation for being committed to sustainability is an (...) intangible resource that can increase the value of a firm’s expected cash flows and/or reduce the variability of its cash flows. Our findings are according to expectations and show that the net income of firms with good sustainability reputation has a higher valuation by the market, when compared to their counterparts. (shrink)

The Monty Hall Problem (MHP), a process of two-stage decision making, was presented in atypical form via a custom software game. Differing from the normal three-box MHP, the game added one additional box on-screen for each game—culminating on game 23 with 25 on-screen boxes to initially choose from. A total of 108 participants played 23 games (trials) in one of four conditions; (1) “Vanish” condition—all non-winning boxes totally removed from the screen; (2) “Empty” condition—all non-winning boxes remain on-screen, but with (...) an “empty” label on them; (3) “Steroids” condition—all non-winning boxes removed from the screen, with initially chosen box becoming 25% larger; (4) “Steroids2” condition—all non-winning boxes removed from the screen, box not currently chosen becomes 25% larger. Results indicate second-stage on-screen presence of boxes influences switching; with their absence having the opposite effect. Size manipulation appears to elicit demand characteristics resulting in indeterminate influence. (shrink)

Driven by competitive pressure, organizations are empowering employees to use their judgment, creativity, and ideas in pursuit of enhanced organizational performance and both employee and shareholder satisfaction. This empowerment offers both benefits and potential harm. This article explores the benefits and harm associated with role, reward, process and governance empowerment and makes recommendations for minimizing the harm while maximizing the benefits.

The concept of altruism, or disinterested concern for another's welfare, has been discussed by everyone from theologians to psychologists to biologists. In this book, evolutionary, neurological, developmental, psychological, social, cultural, and religious aspects of altruistic behavior are examined. It is a collaborative examination of one of humanity's essential and defining characteristics by renowned researchers from various disciplines. Their integrative dialogue illustrates that altruistic behavior is a significant mode of expression that can be studied by various scholarly methods and understood from (...) a variety of perspectives in both the humanities and the sciences. Altruism and Altruistic Love establishes a framework for scholarship on altruism by presenting definitions, a historical overview, a review of contemporary research, and debates in various disciplines, as well as a discussion of directions for future work. (shrink)