Hand motor impairment persists after stroke. Sensory inputs may facilitate recovery of motor function. This pilot study tested the effectiveness of tactile sensory noise in improving hand motor function in chronic stroke survivors with tactile sensory deficits, using a repeated measures design. Sensory noise in the form of subthreshold, white noise, mechanical vibration was applied to the wrist skin during motor tasks. Hand dexterity assessed by the Nine Hole Peg Test and the Box and Block Test and pinch strength significantly (...) improved when the sensory noise was turned on compared with when it was turned off in chronic stroke survivors. The subthreshold sensory noise to the wrist appears to induce improvements in hand motor function possibly via neuronal connections in the sensoriomotor cortex. The approach of applying concomitant, unperceivable mechanical vibration to the wrist during hand motor tasks is easily adoptable for clinic use as well as unsupervised home use. This pilot study suggests a potential for a wristband-type assistive device to complement hand rehabilitation for stroke survivors with sensorimotor deficit. (shrink)

The need for greater privacy protections in the United States has never been greater. In their work, “Ethical Responsibilities for Companies That Process Personal Data”, McCoy et al. (2023) correct...

In his recent article “Ethical Criteria for Health-Promoting Nudges: A Case-by-Case Analysis,” Bart Engelen (2019) develops a useful framework for evaluating health-related nudges in an attempt to...

The work of a clinical ethicist often focuses on identifying what goals an autonomous patient has for themselves, or on helping identify a surrogate when a patient lacks autonomy for a specific dec...

In popular culture, death is typically presented as clear and binary- someone is either walking and talking and alive, or very obviously still and dead. Reality is more complicated than the movies,...

Adolescence is a liminal space, with teens teetering between being big kids and young adults, sometimes on an hourly basis. In a few short years, they go from having few, if any, rights to make dec...

Clinical ethicists are frequently called upon to provide guidance about who can make medical decisions for an incapacitated patient, what decisions the surrogate can make, and how they ought to mak...

The Dobbs opinion emphasizes that the state’s interest in the fetus extends to “all stages of development.” This essay briefly explores whether state legislators, agencies, and courts could use the “all stages of development” language to expand reproductive surveillance by using novel developments in consumer health technologies to augment those efforts.

Misinformation is a serious concern for societies across the globe. To design effective interventions to combat the belief in and spread of misinformation, we must understand which psychological processes influence susceptibility to misinformation. This paper tests the widely assumed – but largely untested – claim that emotionally provocative headlines are associated with worse ability to identify true versus false headlines. Consistent with this proposal, we found correlational evidence that overall emotional response at the headline level is associated with diminished truth (...) discernment, except for experienced anger which was associated with increased truth discernment. The second set of studies tested a popular emotion regulation intervention where people were asked to apply either emotional suppression or emotion reappraisal techniques when considering the veracity of several headlines. In contrast to the correlation results, we found no evidence that emotion regulation helped people distinguish false from true news headlines. (shrink)

BackgroundThe Pacific Islander population is the second fasting growing population in the United States and Arkansas is home to the largest Marshallese population in the continental US. The Marshal...

Although ethics is an essential component of undergraduate medical education, research suggests current medical ethics curricula face considerable challenges in improving students’ ethical reasoning. This paper discusses these challenges and introduces a promising new mode of graduate and professional ethics instruction for overcoming them. We begin by describing common ethics curricula, focusing in particular on established problems with current approaches. Next, we describe a novel method of ethics education and assessment for medical students that we have devised, the Medical Ethics (...) Bowl. Finally, we suggest pedagogical advantages to MEBs when compared to other ethics curricula. (shrink)

This volume explores the role of some of the most prominent twentieth-century philosophers and political thinkers as teachers. It examines what obstacles they confronted as teachers and how they overcame them in conveying truth to their students in an age dominated by ideological thinking.

Rumination is an involuntary cognitive process theorized to prolong arousal and inhibit proper emotion regulation. Most available research has examined individual differences in cognitive dispositi...

Matter and Form explores the relationship between natural science and political philosophy from the classical to contemporary eras, taking an interdisciplinary approach to the philosophic understanding of the structure and process of the natural world and its impact on the history of political philosophy. It illuminates the importance of philosophic reflection on material nature to moral and political theorizing, mediating between the sciences and humanities and making a contribution to ending the isolation between them.

Rumination is a maladaptive form of emotion regulation associated with psychopathology. Research with adults suggests that rumination covaries with diurnal cortisol rhythms, yet this has not been examined among adolescents. Here, we examine the day-to-day covariation between rumination and cortisol, and explore whether trait rumination is associated with alterations in diurnal cortisol rhythms among adolescent girls. Participants provided saliva samples 3 times per day over 3 days, along with daily reports of stress and rumination, questionnaires assessing trait rumination related to (...) peer stress, and diagnostic interviews assessing depression and anxiety. Greater rumination than usual during the day was associated with lower cortisol awakening responses the following morning, but this effect was not significant after accounting for wake time and an objective measure of adherence to the saliva sampling protocol. Trait rumination was associated with lower average cortisol levels at waking and flatter diurnal slopes, accounting for wake time, protocol compliance, and other factors. These patterns may help to explain why rumination is related to the development of psychopathology. (shrink)

Çalışmanın konusunu Seyyid Burhaneddin’de ahlakî arınmanın incelenmesi teşkil etmektedir. İnceleme üç temel soru çerçevesinde yürütülür. İlk soru, kirlerin neler olduğu ve nelerin bu kirlerden arındırılması gerektiğine yöneliktir. Bu bağlamda Seyyid Burhaneddin’in beden, dünya, nefs, gönül, can, ruh vb. hususlarla alakalı görüşleri ele alınmaktadır. Diğer bir soru ise söz konusu arınmanın nasıl gerçekleştirileceğine ilişkindir ki Seyyid Burhaneddin’in mücahede, riyazat, söz, bilgi gibi kavramlara dair görüşleri doğrultusunda bir yanıt verilmeye çalışılır. Arınmanın ve buna binaen yetkinleşmenin sonucu kişinin ulaşacağı mertebe ne olacaktır? Son (...) olarak da bu soru çerçevesinde Seyyid Burhaneddin’in düşüncelerinin değerlendirilmesine çalışılmakta ve insanın beka ve ebediyete kavuşması ve namütenahi bir biçimde Allah’ta seyredişi ele alınmaktadır. (shrink)

Looking at set of 76 representative articles published by social psychologists between 2017 and 2023 (reviewed between December 2022 and February 2023), I examine the role of motivating examples---a kind of illustrative example, typically used by researchers at the beginning of their work to motivate the issue or problem they want to resolve or address in that work---in the social psychological work on conspiracy theory. Through an examination of the language around how motivating examples are introduced and used in the (...) social psychological literature, I argue that the abstract and vague way that social psychologists employ such examples ends up relying on what Joseph Uscinski and Adam Enders deem as an unviable and easily abused `I-know-it-when-I-see-it' standard. As will be demonstrated, much of the recent work in the social psychology of conspiracy theory assumes and thus fails to establish what is supposedly problematic about belief in the conspiracy theories used as motivating examples. As a consequence the surveyed work typically fails to adequately capture belief in actual conspiracy theories, let alone establish a case for a general suspicion of such beliefs. This work, then, adds to and extends upon existing critiques of the social psychology of conspiracy theory by members of the wider community of scholars studying conspiracy theories. The upshot of this research is that if social psychologists want their work to be of use to the broader scholarly community studying these things called `conspiracy theories', then they need to connect their work on the problems of conspiracy beliefs or mindsets to concrete examples of belief in unwarranted conspiracy theories. (shrink)

XENOLOGY AND XENOTOPOGRAPHY OF BERNHARD WALDENFELS The paper strives to adapt Bernhard Waldenfels’ xenology and so called ‘xenotopography’ for the philosophico-literary studies in fantastic world-building with a special concern of the ‘portal-quest’ model of fantasy and SF. Following Waldenfel’s remarks on the nature of post- Husserlian diastasis of our world [Heimwelt] and otherworld [Fremdwelt] and acknowledging the consequences of allocating one’s attitude towards the otherness in the symbolical borderland [‘sphere of intermonde’] in between, it is examined whether such a model (...) can occur in the fantastic literature and what may be the consequence of xenotopographic reconsideration of its basic ontological premises. Additionally, the article offers an original xenotopograpfic model of worldbuilding which addresses three carefully chosen case studies of fantastic worlds from Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game tetralogy, Neil Gaiman’s Stardust and George R. R. Martin’s The Song of Ice and Fire. In the end, it is suggested that hitherto presented xenotopography gravely inspired a postmodern shift in the genres of fantasy and SF which results in more ethically conscious representations of the otherness and even more concise and alien comprehensive world-building. (shrink)

Die einfache Entgegensetzung von Vernunft und Religion wirkt nach der Religionskritik des 19. Jahrhunderts und der Vernunftkritik des 20. Jahrhunderts philosophisch naiv und historisch unaufgeklart. Dadurch fallt aber ein neues Licht auf das Projekt der Gottesbeweise, die fur die Religion zentrale Gottesvorstellung dem Denken argumentativ zuganglich zu machen. Die Autoren der hier versammelten Uberlegungen beleuchten auf je eigene Weise die traditionellen und aktuellen Gottesbeweise mit dem leitenden systematischen Erkenntnisinteresse, ein neues Verstandnis von Vernunft und Religion zu gewinnen. Mit Beitragen von: (...) Svend Andersen, Thomas Buchheim, Markus Enders, Markus Gabriel, Jens Halfwassen, Friedrich Hermanni, Gunnar Hindrichs, Axel Hutter, Christian Illies, Anton Friedrich Koch, Armin Kreiner, John Leslie, Matthias Lutz-Bachmann, Friedo Ricken SJ, Friedrike Schick, Rolf Schonberger, Christoph Schwobel, Robert Spaemann, Richard Swinburne, Peter van Inwagen. (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: Part I. Introduction: 1. Personal epistemology in the classroom: a welcome and guide for the reader Florian C. Feucht and Lisa D. Bendixen; Part II. Frameworks and Conceptual Issues: 2. Manifestations of an epistemological belief system in pre-k to 12 classrooms Marlene Schommer-Aikins, Mary Bird, and Linda Bakken; 3. Epistemic climates in elementary classrooms Florian C. Feucht; 4. The integrative model of personal epistemology development: theoretical underpinnings and implications for education Deanna C. Rule and Lisa D. (...) Bendixen; 5. An epistemic framework for scientific reasoning in informal contexts Fang-Ying Yang and Chin-Chung Tsai; Appendices; 6. Who knows what and who can we believe? Epistemological beliefs are beliefs about knowledge (mostly) to be attained from others Rainer Bromme, Dorothe Kienhues, and Torsten Porsch; Part III. Students' Personal Epistemology, its Development, and Relation to Learning: 7. Stalking young persons' changing beliefs about belief Michael J. Chandler and Travis Proulx; 8. Epistemological development in very young knowers Leah K. Wildenger, Barbara K. Hofer, and Jean E. Burr; 9. Beliefs about knowledge and revision of knowledge: on the importance of epistemic beliefs for intentional conceptual change in elementary and middle school students Lucia Mason; 10. The reflexive relation between students' mathematics-related beliefs and the mathematics classroom culture Erik De Corte, Peter Op 't Eynde, Fien Depaepe, and Lieven Verschaffel; 11. Examining the influence of epistemic beliefs and goal orientations on the academic performance of adolescent students enrolled in high-poverty, high-minority schools P. Karen Murphy, Michelle M. Buehl, Jill A. Zeruth, Maeghan N. Edwards, Joyce F. Long, and Shinichi Monoi; 12. Using cognitive interviewing to explore elementary and secondary school students' epistemic and ontological cognition Jeffrey A. Greene, Judith Torney-Purta, Roger Azevedo, and Jane Robertson; Part IV. Teachers' Personal Epistemology and its Impact on Classroom Teaching: 13. Epistemological resources and framing: a cognitive framework for helping teachers interpret and respond to their students' epistemologies Andrew Elby and David Hammer; 14. The effects of teachers' beliefs on elementary students' beliefs, motivation, and achievement in mathematics Krista R. Muis and Michael J. Foy; Appendices; 15. Teachers' articulation of beliefs about teaching knowledge: conceptualizing a belief framework Helenrose Fives and Michelle M. Buehl; Appendices; 16. Beyond epistemology: assessing teachers' epistemological and ontological world views Lori Olafson and Gregory Schraw; Part V. Conclusion: 17. Personal epistemology in the classroom: what does research and theory tell us and where do we need to go next? Lisa D. Bendixen and Florian C. Feucht. (shrink)

How do we perdure when we and everything around us are caught up in incessant change? But the course of this change does not seem to be haphazard and we may seek the modalities of its Logos in the transformations in which it occurs. The classic term "Metamorphosis" focuses upon the proportions between the transformed and the retained, the principles of sameness and otherness. Applied to life and its becoming, metamorphosis pinpoints the proportions between the vital and the aesthetic significance (...) of life. Where could this metaphysical in-between territory come better to light than in the Fine Arts? In this collection are investigated the various proportions between the vital significance of the constructivism of life and a specifically human contribution made by the creative imagination to the transformatory search for beauty and aesthetic values. Papers by: Lawrence Kimmel, Mark L. Brack, Sheryl Tucker de Vazquez, William Roberts, Jadwiga Smith, Victor Gerald Rivas, Max Statkiewicz, Matti Itkonen, George R. Tibbetts, Linda Stratford, Jorella Andrews, Ingeborg M. Rocker, Stephen J. Goldberg, Leah Durner, Donnalee Dox, Catherine Schear, Samantha Henriette Krukowski, Gary Maciag, Kelly Dennis, Wanda Strukus, Magda Romanska, Patricia Trutty-Coohill, Ellen Burns, Tessa Morrison, Sabine Coelsch-Foisner, Gary Backhaus, Daniel M. Unger, Howard Pearce. (shrink)

contents -/- ONT vol 1 i. short review: Beyond the Black Rainbow ii. as you die, hold one thought iii. short review: LA JETÉE -/- ONT vol 2 i. maya means ii. short review: SANS SOLEIL iii. vocab iv. eros has an underside v. short review: In the Mood for Love -/- ONT vol 3 i. weed weakens / compels me ii. an Ender's Game after-party iii. playroom is a realm of the dead iv. a precise german History v. short (...) review: STATUES ALSO DIE vi. Kenneth Clark, curator for Fascism vii. a protest poem, in industry lit viii. Lawrence and the English Romance -/- ONT vol 4 i. short review: The Eyes of Tammy Faye ii. vR is efficient R iii. all thru Asia, robes for monks iv. same of God, and of the one God sent v. i thought of the Messiah / muse would be vi. conscience is strong vii. a monk's exalted end -/- ONT vol 5 -/- i. for Shakespeare's Richard the Third ii. the truth is i pass over so many words iii. the boori nazar / nadhar iv. i've awe for jihaad v. short review: Hail, Caesar! vi. a minute of Nothing, gone from YouTube vii. we were rivalrous friends, again viii. my bardo pdf ix. within i'm a weak old mandarin -/- ONT vol 6 i. short review: The Intern ii. the confusion of Chinatown iii. we'll remember water, in Theology iv. Respironics versus ResMed v. i'd bet my life for what vi. the Mad Max deity vii. they'd kill my rat, not heal him -/- ONT vol 7 i. Austen would eroticize all life ii. Merchant/Ivory, a name oddly right iii. Ellie Arroway / Agent Starling iv. abattoir / l’abattoir / laboratoire v. von Neumann's brain an anomaly vi. was terrified of death, delighted in the a-bomb vii. the Greatest Brain is variously named -/- ONT vol 8 i. the day they shot the sacrifice ii. Yay or Nay, on Animal Testing iii. an ought is an is / an is is an ought iv. Behaviorism is for zombies v. a finding from the neuro-lab, on empathy vi. i’ve never had discernible abs vii. a cowardice i'm assenting to perpetually -/- ONT vol 9 i. Day of the Locust / Triffids ii. we're wide on a Paramount soundstage iii. HOLLYWOOD, an ecologic history iv. yet one more site of end-time art v. he's "a bookworm with bulging lobes" vi. apartment is my state of being apart vii. enlightenment means a weight's release -/- ONT lates and xtras i. re Gödel's ontological argument ii. deep in pi's numeric noise iii. from Nothing, something iv. endless in the wrong direction, tragic v. they give you all Eternity to answer vi. what of God's mercy? vii. informed consent and prayer viii. i won't live on. a deed i've done may ix. my selective memory x. Janus means: in close-up foam, two faces xi. a liveable world is a readable world xii. what Supervenes from this? xiii. at each extreme our naming is anachronism xiv. Cat is a collapsing of the wave-function xv. diminishing returns in the history of Experiment xvi. all those undershared Nobels xvii. ice preserves the Cold from heat xviii. a desert spreads xix. Pinker's wit, on jokes xx. Rome surrounds St. Paul / Paul is now the center xxi. each is a gathering Ministry xxii. white boy shot execution-style xxiii. the McDonald's Statement of Claim xxiv. first & last: Don Quixote / Ulysses xxv. The Summer of Rave xxvi. this electro is intrinsically anonymous xxvii. all thru Asia, Drake-Rihanna xxviii. WHO IS BETTER: PLATON OR KANT? (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Rhetoricians Identified:A Call to Interdisciplinary Action and How it Resonated in the Field of RhetoricChristine Isager and Sine Nørholm Just"I actually like this book a lot, but I am not sure how comfortable I am with liking it," wrote William Keith (1995, 488) in a review of the original 1993 edition of Steve Fuller's Philosophy, Rhetoric, and the End of Knowledge (PREK), in which rhetoric is invited to participate (...) in the interdisciplinary reconfiguration of Science and Technology Studies (STS). This hesitant enthusiasm aptly exemplifies how an interdisciplinary invitation is likely to make its addressees squirm as they watch their professional aims being defined and then redefined by a disciplinary outsider who points out a place for them in a novel disciplinary constellation. Moreover, and more specifically, Keith's comment exemplifies how PREK was received by rhetoricians. On the surface, the reviews were glowing. In Philosophy and Rhetoric as well as in Philosophy of the Social Sciences, Keith expressed certain doubts about Fuller's work, but still he described it as "important," "exceptional," "superb" (1996; 1995). In the Quarterly Journal of Speech, Kenneth S. Zagacki called PREK both "excellent" and "exciting" (1995), and he was backed by John Angus Campbell and Keith R. Benson a year later when the same journal included PREK in an omnibus review entitled "The Rhetorical Turn in Science Studies" (Campbell and Benson 1996). Like Alan Gross, who reviewed the book in College English together with a number of works on workplace writing (1994), Campbell and Benson placed PREK at the cutting edge of rhetorical theory.The initial excitement over PREK forms a sharp contrast to the quite negligible impact that the book has had on the field of rhetoric in the decade that has passed since it was first published. In this essay we will undertake a close reading of the book along with the five above-mentioned reviews, looking for an explanation of the peculiar fate that met Steve [End Page 248] Fuller's proposal in the rhetorical disciplinary context. Our conclusion is that on reading the book, rhetoricians felt so flattered by Fuller's confident handling of rhetoric that the task of introducing and applying rhetorical theory in STS seemed, on the whole, to have been done for them. Furthermore, Fuller's attempts to construct a rhetorical agency are subverted by his idiosyncratic, i.e., inimitable, professional approach, which is also reflected in his style of writing. At once presumptuous and colloquial, his rhetoric serves to impress and entertain, but it fails to engage his audience substantially and to enact the interpenetrative stance that was intended to be the hallmark of PREK and that continues to be the commendable chief concern of Steve Fuller and his fellow social epistemologists.Text-Intertext and IdentificationInterdisciplinary invitations or, rather, interdisciplinary inspirational works of science were originally described as a noteworthy rhetorical genre by Leah Ceccarelli (2001). Ceccarelli explores how claims to scientific unity have handled a primary constraint: their multiple audiences. Fuller explicitly positions PREK within the genre of interdisciplinary inspiration by asserting that "the success of this book... should be measured in terms of its ability to persuade philosophers, theoretical humanists and social scientists, STS practitioners, and rhetoricians of science to see each other as engaged in a common enterprise" (1993, xii-xiii). We will not, however, be examining PREK's ability to be strategically opaque (as Fuller puts it), polysemous(Ceccarelli's term), or otherwise adapted to address its multiple audiences. Instead, we focus solely on Fuller's address to rhetoricians and study how he identifies with this particular audience. Ceccarelli recognizes the importance of ethical appeal in interdisciplinary invitations by positing the establishment of both an authoritative and personal authorial persona as a generic criterion. We follow this lead and add a Burkean emphasis on identification.According to Kenneth Burke, identification is a prior condition for persuasion "precisely because there is division" (Burke 1969, 22). The speaker's success depends on his ability to imitate the ways of his audience and to create a common ground or perspective that makes collective action possible. Burke's work allows us to distinguish three rhetorical strategies of identification. The first strategy... (shrink)

In the face of environmental crises such as climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss—which all adversely impact on health—Gils-Schmidt and Salloch explore whether physicians can be justified in taking climate issues into account in clinical care.1 While their approach centres on the ‘climate-sensitive’ decisions, physicians can carry out on the micro-level of clinical decision-making, they encourage further discussions on how climate-related issues can be included across different levels of decision-making in healthcare. We propose a list of tasks and a model (...) to assist with navigating the range of factors and structural elements an environmentally sensitive ethics must address. Stephen Gardiner’s notion of a perfect moral storm is central to understanding these issues.2 Gardiner describes how a perfect moral storm occurs in the centre of three overlapping conditions for human action and policymaking in the face of climate change. This storm is driven by: (1) a lack of interest among current generations to meet global needs and accommodate the well-being of future generations, (2) a lack of ecological concerns for other parts of nature than humans and (3) weak ethical and political theories and institutions shaping policy decisions on issues with severe implications across borders and generations. Moreover, these conditions are embedded in the existing, complex world of ethically unjustified power imbalances and social injustice. The growing awareness of healthcare’s climate footprint has amplified and accelerated global, grassroots action to make healthcare more environmentally friendly. This includes incorporating environmental impacts into quality improvement methodologies, building communities of practice to explore how to make …. (shrink)

Prevalence of contract cheating and outsourcing through organised methods has received interest in research studies aiming to determine the most suitable strategies to reduce the problem. Few studies have presented an international approach or tested which variables could be correlated with contract cheating. As a result, strategies to reduce contract cheating may be founded on data from other countries, or demographics/situations which may not align to variables most strongly connected to engagement in outsourcing. This paper presents the results of a (...) series of statistical analyses aimed at testing which variables were found to be predictors of students’ self-reported formal outsourcing behaviours. The data are derived from an international research study conducted in 22 languages, with higher education students (from Europe, the Americas and Australasia. Analyses found that country and discipline of study as well as the rate at which respondents n = 7806) believed other students to be cheating, were positively correlated to their cheating behaviours. Demographic variables did not show strong statistical significance to predicting contract cheating. (shrink)

Amidst expanding interest in local food and agriculture, food banks and allied organizations across the United States have increasingly engaged in diverse gleaning, gardening, and farming activities. Some of these programs reinforce food banks’ traditional role in distributing surplus commodities, and most extend food banks’ reliance on middle class volunteers and charitable donations. But some gleaning and especially gardening and farming programs seek to build poor people’s and communities’ capacity to meet more of their own food needs, signaling new roles (...) for some food banks in promoting community food security and food justice. This article reports the results of a national survey and in-depth case studies of the ways in which food banks are engaging in and with local agriculture and how this influences food banks’ roles in community and regional food systems. The patterns it reveals reflect broader tensions in debates about hunger relief and food security. (shrink)

In this study, we argue that contemporary nursing care has been overtaken by new public management strategies aimed at curtailing budgets in the public hospital sector in Australia. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 15 nurses from one public acute hospital with supporting documentary evidence, we demonstrate what happens to nursing work when management imposesroundingas a risk reduction strategy. In the case study outlined rounding was introduced across all wards in response to missed care, which in turn arose as a result (...) of work intensification produced by efficiency, productivity, effectiveness and accountability demands. Rounding is a commercially sponsored practice consistent with new public management. Our study illustrates the impact that new public management strategies such as rounding have on how nurses work, both in terms of work intensity and in who controls their labour. (shrink)

„My sole purpose in this paper is to try and correct what I take to be a common misinterpretation of Hume’s opinions on mathematics. I shall not enquire whether he was right or wrong in holding these opinions. Nor shall I offer opinions of my own.“.

R K Elliott; Education, Love of One’s Subject, and the Love of Truth, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 8, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 135–153, https:/.

We discuss the question of whether or not a general Weyl structure is a suitable mathematical model of space–time. This is an issue that has been in debate since Weyl formulated his unified field theory for the first time. We do not present the discussion from the point of view of a particular unification theory, but instead from a more general standpoint, in which the viability of such a structure as a model of space–time is investigated. Our starting point is (...) the well known axiomatic approach to space–time given by Elhers, Pirani and Schild. In this framework, we carry out an exhaustive analysis of what is required for a consistent definition for proper time and show that such a definition leads to the prediction of the so-called “second clock effect”. We take the view that if, based on experience, we were to reject space–time models predicting this effect, this could be incorporated as the last axiom in the EPS approach. Finally, we provide a proof that, in this case, we are led to a Weyl integrable space–time as the most general structure that would be suitable to model space–time. (shrink)

The international disparities in health and health-care provision comprise the gravest problem of medical ethics. The implications are explored of three theories of justice: an expanded version of Rawlsian contractarianism, Nozick's historical account, and a consequentialism which prioritizes the satisfaction of basic needs. The second too little satisfies medical needs to be cogent. The third is found to incorporate the strengths of the others, and to uphold fair rules and practices. Like the first, it also involves obligations transcending those to (...) an agent's relations and fellow-citizens. These conclusions are applied to international health-care provision, which they would transform. (shrink)