Continuous recordings of brain electrical activity were obtained from a group of 176 patients throughout surgical procedures using general anesthesia. Artifact-free data from the 19 electrodes of the International 10/20 System were subjected to quantitative analysis of the electroencephalogram (QEEG). Induction was variously accomplished with etomidate, propofol or thiopental. Anesthesia was maintained throughout the procedures by isoflurane, desflurane or sevoflurane (N = 68), total intravenous anesthesia using propofol (N = 49), or nitrous oxide plus narcotics (N = 59). A set (...) of QEEG measures were found which reversibly displayed high heterogeneity of variance between four states as follows: (1) during induction; (2) just after loss of consciousness (LOC); (3) just before return of consciousness (ROC); (4) just after ROC. Homogeneity of variance across all agents within states was found. Topographic statistical probability images were compared between states. At LOC, power increased in all frequency bands in the power spectrum with the exception of a decrease in gamma activity, and there was a marked anteriorization of power. Additionally, a significant change occurred in hemispheric relationships, with prefrontal and frontal regions of each hemisphere becoming more closely coupled, and anterior and posterior regions on each hemisphere, as well as homologous regions between the two hemispheres, uncoupling. All of these changes reversed upon ROC. Variable resolution electromagnetic tomography (VARETA) was performed to localize salient features of power anteriorization in three dimensions. A common set of neuroanatomical regions appeared to be the locus of the most probable generators of the observed EEG changes. (shrink)

This paper deals with an (otherwise classical) two-(non-interacting) particle system immersed in a common stochastic zero-point radiation field. The treatment is an extension of the one-particle case for which it has been shown that the quantum properties of the particle emerge from its interaction with the background field under stationary and ergodic conditions. In the present case we show that non-classical correlations—describable only in terms of entanglement—arise between the (nearby) particles whenever both of them resonate to a common frequency of (...) the field. For identical particles the entanglement becomes maximum and must be described by totally (anti)symmetric states. (shrink)

The present paper reveals (non-relativistic) quantum mechanics as an emergent property of otherwise classical ergodic systems embedded in a stochastic vacuum or zero-point radiation field (zpf). This result provides a theoretical basis for understanding recent numerical experiments in which a statistical analysis of an atomic electron interacting with the zpf furnishes the quantum distribution for the ground state of the H atom. The action of the zpf on matter is essential within the present approach, but it is the ergodic demand (...) what ultimately leads to the matrix formulation of quantum mechanics. The paper thus represents a step forward in the quest for an elucidation of the fundamentals of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

In this aricle, I argue that Descartes can be seen as a occupying a distinct middle ground between ancient music theory, which was being revived in the Renaissance, and eighteenth-century aestheticians. Descartes’ approach to music had its roots in humanist thought but, even from the start, it wasn’t simply another humanist theory of music. The views Descartes begins to develop in his early years, in the Compendium musicae (1618), is continuous with the views he articulates near the end of his (...) life in the Passions of the Soul (1649). And the position on the effects of music is an interesting and important one, bridging humanist thought with the new philosophy. Unlike the humanists, Descartes will be unwilling to identify particular musical proportions as intrinsically connected with pleasure or other affects, but he will nevertheless develop an objective account of aesthetic value. (shrink)

The best-interests standard is a widely used ethical, legal, and social basis for policy and decision-making involving children and other incompetent persons. It is under attack, however, as self-defeating, individualistic, unknowable, vague, dangerous, and open to abuse. The author defends this standard by identifying its employment, first, as a threshold for intervention and judgment (as in child abuse and neglect rulings), second, as an ideal to establish policies or prima facie duties, and, third, as a standard of reasonableness. Criticisms of (...) the best-interests standard are reconsidered after clarifying these different meanings. (shrink)

Oxford Scholarly Classics is a new series that makes available again great academic works from the archives of Oxford University Press. Reissued in uniform series design, the reissues will enable libraries, scholars, and students to gain fresh access to some of the finest scholarship of the last century.

1. Hŏryŏng, t'ŏng piŏ yŏnghwarhan maŭm -- 2. Ajik tŭrŏnaji anŭn maŭm esŏ chigak i kanŭng han'ga -- 3. Mibal kwa kijil ŭn ŏttŏn kwan'gye in'ga -- 4. Umjiginŭn maŭm kwa koyohan maŭm -- 5. Chigak ŭi sŏnggyŏk kwa kŭ yŏnwŏn e kwanhan munje.

Peace is a hallmark of human societies. However, certain ant species engage in long-term intergroup resource sharing, which is remarkably similar to peace among human groups. We discuss how individual and group payoff distributions are affected by kinship, dispersal, and age structure; the challenges of diagnosing peace; and the benefits of comparing convergent complex behaviours in disparate taxa.

Recalcitrant disputes among health care providers and patients or their families may signal deep cultural differences about what interventions are needed or about clinicians’s professional duties. These issues arose in relation to a mother’s request for hymenoplasty or revirgination for her minor daughter to enable an overseas, forced marriage and protect her from an honor killing. The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology committee recommends against members performing a hymenoplasty or other female genital cosmetic surgeries due to a lack of (...) data concerning their safety and efficacy. A key issue in such cases is how to determine what is in the minor’s best interest and the scope of health care moral or professional’s duties. The Best Interests Standard can serve as a powerful moral tool for resolving cross-cultural disputes and identifying needed policy. (shrink)

There is a popular hypothesis that performance on implicit and explicit memory tasks reflects 2 distinct memory systems. Explicit memory is said to store those experiences that can be consciously recollected, and implicit memory is said to store experiences and affect subsequent behavior but to be unavailable to conscious awareness. Although this division based on awareness is a useful taxonomy for memory tasks, the authors review the evidence that the unconscious character of implicit memory does not necessitate that it be (...) treated as a separate system of human memory. They also argue that some implicit and explicit memory tasks share the same memory representations and that the important distinction is whether the task (implicit or explicit) requires the formation of a new association. The authors review and critique dissociations from the behavioral, amnesia, and neuroimaging literatures that have been advanced in support of separate explicit and implicit memory systems by highlighting contradictory evidence and by illustrating how the data can be accounted for using a simple computational memory model that assumes the same memory representation for those disparate tasks. (shrink)

A Papyrus commentary on Alcman published in 19571 brings us news of a poem in which Alcman “physiologized”. The lemmata and commentary together witness to a semi-philosophical cosmogony unlike any other hitherto known from Greece. The evidence is meagre, but it seems worth while to see what can be made of it; for it is perhaps possible to go a little farther than has so far been done.

Bioethics is best viewed as both a second-order discipline and also part of public discourse. Since their goals differ, some bioethical activities are more usefully viewed as advancing public discourse than academic disciplines. For example, the “Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights” sponsored by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization seeks to promote ethical guidance on bioethical issues. From the vantage of philosophical ethics, it fails to rank or specify its stated principles, justify controversial principles, clarify key (...) terms, or say what is meant by calling potentially conflicting norms “foundational.” From the vantage of improving the public discourse about bioethical problems and seeking ethical solutions in the public arena, however, this document may have an important role. The goals and relations between bioethics as a second-order discipline and public discourse are explored. (shrink)

Background Moral sensitivity and academic integrity discernment hold paramount importance for healthcare professionals. Owing to distinct undergraduate educational backgrounds, nurses and physicians may exhibit divergent moral perspectives, academic integrity cognisance, and moral sensitivity within clinical environments. A limited number of studies have investigated the disparities and congruencies pertaining to moral sensitivity and academic ethical awareness among nursing and medical students. Objective The study compares moral sensitivity and academic ethical awareness of undergraduate nursing and medical students with and without clinical exposure. (...) Research design A self-administered cross-sectional survey conducted from January to February 2022 was used to collect data from a medical school in Hong Kong. Participants and research context A total of 545 respondents, including 137 nursing students and 408 medical students, completed the questionnaire. Ethical consideration Ethics approval of the study was obtained. Written consent was waived to maintain anonymity because completing the questionnaire was considered implied consent. Findings Both groups of undergraduates demonstrated a high level of bioethics knowledge. In terms of academic integrity, medical students were found to have a less concerned attitude towards punctuality, attendance, and skipping classes. Regarding moral sensitivity, senior medical students with clinical experience put less emphasis on decision-making involving patient participation, while senior nursing students were more hesitant in withholding treatment for incompetent patients who refused treatment. Both nursing and medical students showed decreased moral sensitivity in the ‘conflicts’ domain with increased clinical exposure. Conclusion Study findings contribute to the discussion comparing the ethical attitudes of nursing and medical students. More effort should be made in nursing and medical education to promote practices in line with high academic integrity and to develop the ability to be morally sensitive in professional settings. (shrink)

This edition of Giraldus Odonis' Logica for the first time gives access to an important and original treatise, which has unduly been neglected since the author's death. It is also important in that it gives evidence of interesting achievements in the field of logic outside the anti-metaphysical circle surrounding Ockham.

In the long section of anapaests with which they make their entry, the old men of Argos methodically deliver three essential messages to the audience: 40–71. It is the tenth year of the Trojan War. 72–82. We are men who were too old to go and fight in it. 83–103. Some new situation seems to be indicated by the fact that Clytemnestra is organizing sacrifices throughout the town.

Purpose. Based on the study of philosophical anthropological concepts, to highlight the project of personality in different historical periods, to reveal the meaning of humanistic issues in the postmodern epoch, to identify the essential features of the image of human of the second half of the XX the beginning of the XXI century. Theoretical basis. The methodological basis of the article is the principles of historicism, integrity, objectivity regarding the mastery of the issue of person’s image in postmodernism. The research (...) applied comparative-historical, culturological, analytical, axiological approaches to reveal the problem of individuality in the second half of the XX the beginning of the XXI century. The theoretical basis of the article consists of scientific works in the field of philosophical anthropology, history, cultural studies, and aesthetics. Originality. The author revealed the peculiarities of transformation of the personality model from antiquity to postmodernism, specified the image of man of the second half of the XX the beginning of the XXI century. Conclusions. The analysis of anthropological ideas of Western philosophy of different ages shows the variety of views about understanding the nature of the person, its complexity and ambiguity. In the epoch of postmodernism humanistic issues are of particular relevance, which is connected with social and political uncertainty, domination of mass consciousness, loss of national and cultural identity. The image of a person of this period is deprived of a solid foundation, it is blurred and relative. The destruction of faith in the absolute in the context of the second half of the twentieth century contributed to the formation of confidence in the interdependence of all things, raised the problem of the personality image to a new ontological level. Orientation in the achievements of European civilization, perception of its anthropological experience, intercultural dialogue contribute to the productive use of the achievements of mankind in order to understand the modern person and to form its adequate image. In its essence, postmodernism does not set the goal to realize a retrospection of subject type. However, separating from the cultural memory the excerpts of ideas about a person, by certain styles and directions, it builds on their formations its own eclectic image of the individual. (shrink)

It is generally accepted that the Homeric Hymn to Apollo was not conceived as a single poem but is a combination of two: a Delian hymn, D, performed at Delos and concerned with the god's birth there, and a Pythian hymn, P, concerned with his arrival and establishment at Delphi. What above all compels us to make a dichotomy is not the change of scene in itself, but the way D ends. The poet returns from the past to the present, (...) and takes leave of his audience; farewell, he says, and remember me ever after. He is quite clearly finishing. Whereupon there is an abrupt and unsatisfactory transition to P. (shrink)

Background: The search for genetic variants between racial/ethnic groups to explain differential disease susceptibility and drug response has provoked sharp criticisms, challenging the appropriateness of using race/ethnicity as a variable in genetics research, because such categories are social constructs and not biological classifications.Objectives: To gain insight into how a group of genetic scientists conceptualise and use racial/ethnic variables in their work and their strategies for managing the ethical issues and consequences of this practice.Methods: In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with a (...) purposive sample of 30 genetic researchers who use racial/ethnic variables in their research. Standard qualitative methods of content analysis were used.Results: Most of the genetic researchers viewed racial/ethnic variables as arbitrary and very poorly defined, and in turn as scientifically inadequate. However, most defended their use, describing them as useful proxy variables on a road to “imminent medical progress”. None had developed overt strategies for addressing these inadequacies, with many instead asserting that science will inevitably correct itself and saying that meanwhile researchers should “be careful” in the language chosen for reporting findings.Conclusions: While the legitimacy and consequences of using racial/ethnic variables in genetics research has been widely criticised, ethical oversight is left to genetic researchers themselves. Given the general vagueness and imprecision we found amongst these researchers regarding their use of these variables, they do not seem well equipped for such an undertaking. It would seem imperative that research ethicist move forward to develop specific policies and practices to assure the scientific integrity of genetic research on biological differences between population groups. (shrink)

In this paper we focus on the modularity of visual functions in the human visual cortex, that is, the specific problems that the visual system must solve in order to achieve recognition of objects and visual space. The computational theory of early visual functions is briefly reviewed and is then used as a basis for suggesting computational constraints on the higher-level visual computations. The remainder of the paper presents neurological evidence for the existence of two visual systems in man, one (...) specialized for spatial vision and the other for object vision. We show further clinical evidence for the computational hypothesis that these two systems consist of several visual modules, some of which can be isolated on the basis of specific visual deficts which occur after lesions to selected areas in the visually responsive brain. We will provide examples of visual modules which solve information processing tasks that are mediated by specific anatomic areas. We will show that the clinical data from behavioral studies of monkeys (Ungerleider and Mishkin 1984) supports the distinction between two visual systems in monkeys, the 'what' system, involved in object vision, and the 'where' system, involved in spatial vision. (shrink)

City archives, mined by Aristotle for his Didaskaliai, preserved a reasonably complete record of dramatic productions in the fifth century. But how far back did these archives go? The so-called Fasti, an inscription set up c. 346 and listing dithyrambic, comic and tragic victors year by year, must have been based on the same archives, but went back, it is thought, only as far as 502/1. Its heading πρ]τον κμοι ἦσαν τ[ι διονσ]ωι τραγωιδο δ[, however supplemented, implies an intention of (...) going back to the beginning of things, in other words to the beginning of the archival record. This raises serious doubt as to whether that record went back to the alleged date of Thespis' première, or indeed to those given for Choerilus' and Phrynichus'. (shrink)

This article critically evaluates the central claims of the various feminist responses to new reproductive arrangements and technologies. Proponents of a “progressivism” object to naive technological optimism and raise questions about the control of such technology. Others, such as the FINRRAGE group, raise concerns about the potentially damaging consequences of the new technologies for women. While a central concern is whether these technologies reinforce harmful biologically determinist stereotypes of women, it may be that these critiques function with a devastating gender (...) blindness that puts women at risk in other, heretofore unnoticed, ways. (shrink)

By the colours and decoration of a vase fragment one determines the period and style to which the original belonged; while its physical contours show from what part of the original it comes. The material may be insufficient for a reconstruction of the whole design. But it is often legitimate to go beyond what is actually contained in the preserved pieces.

Several of the treatises and lectures that make up the Hippocratic corpus begin with more or less extended statements about the physical composition and operation of the world at large, and approach the study of human physiology from this angle. We see this, for example, in De Natwra Hominis, De Flatibus, De Carnibus, De Victu; it was the approach of Alcmaeon of Croton, Diogenes of Apollonia, and according to Plato of Hippocrates himself. The work known as De Hebdomadibus would appear (...) to be a prime example of the type. The first twelve chapters are cosmological. They are dominated by two ideas: that everything in nature is arranged in groups of seven, and that the human body is constructed on the same pattern as the whole world. In the later part of the book we pass to the subject of fevers, their causation and treatment. But as Roscher observed, the cosmology and the pathology do not belong together. (shrink)

There are practically no sincere and consistent "Westernizers" left in our country after the almost universal "Westernist" euphoria at the end of the eighties. This applies equally to active politicians of all camps and to the predominant moods in society.