Synaesthesia is a condition in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another, as when the hearing of a sound produces photisms, i.e. mental percepts of colours. R is a 20 year old colour blind subject who, in addition to the relatively common grapheme-colour synaesthesia, presents a rarely reported cross modal perception in which a variety of visual stimuli elicit aura-like percepts of colour. In R, photisms seem to be closely related to the affective valence of stimuli and (...) typically bring out a consistent pattern of emotional responses. The present case study suggests that colours might be an intrinsic category of the human brain. We developed an empirical methodology that allowed us to study the subject's otherwise inaccessible phenomenological experience. First, we found that R shows a Stroop effect elicited by photisms despite the fact that he does not show a regular Stroop with real colours. Secondly, by manipulating the colour context we confirmed that colours can alter R's emotional evaluation of the stimuli. Furthermore, we demonstrated that R's auras may actually lead to a partially inverted emotional spectrum where certain stimuli bring out emotional reactions opposite to the normal ones. These findings can only be accounted for by considering R's subjective colour experience or qualia. Therefore the present paper defends the view that qualia are a useful scientific concept that can be approached and studied by experimental methods. (shrink)

The relevance of the research is the intensity of noise emitted by lorries depends on the regime of the vehicle movement. One of the main negative factors caused by road vehicles is air pollution with exhaust gases. The article presents results for noise caused by lorries and gas usage while the vehicle is accelerating. The subject of the study is 4 lorries, and they also feature fuel recording systems which are less than 5 years old. Research methodology. The level of (...) noise emitted by heavyweight transport vehicles is measured according to Lithuanian standard LST ISO 1996-2:2008 requirements. During the tests the noise levels of L A,eq, L C,eq, L C,peak were measured. The tests were done 5 times each and the results are presented as arithmetical averages. Fuel consumption is registered in vehicle data registration system. The researched vehicles have to comply with environmental safety normative requirements; that the vehicle carbon monoxide, particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, unburned fuel and other hazardous substances contained in the combustion gases must not exceed the prescribed limits. The results of the experimental studies show that EURO6 lorries noise level is the lowest compared to the EURO4 and EURO5. After carrying out the analysis of the caused noise and gas usage, it was found that noise pollution and gas usage are higher without speed control system. The noise caused by lorries can be described in square polynomial which defines the noise inclination change while vehicle is accelerating. Scientific novelty of the research a complex research on noise and fuel consumption of lorries by using and not using speed control system. Research idea and problem is to achieve sustainable transport development objectives, in particular the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions under the Kyoto Protocol. It is very important to find ways to forecast and reduce transport noise pollution, while also reducing overall pollution, as well as mitigating the impact on the global climate., Conclusion – after conducting a lorry noise and fuel consumption analysis, it was determined that not using speed control system increases the noise and fuel consumption and if the system is used both of these factors decrease drastically. (shrink)

An eminent psychologist and a gerontologist explain how to cope with the problems of aging and how to get the most out of one's later years.

The aim of this study is to explore how nurses perceive patient participations of patients over 75 years old undergoing hemodialysis treatment in dialysis units, and of their next of kin. Ten nurses told stories about what happened in the dialysis units. These stories were analyzed with critical discourse analysis. Three discursive practices are found: (1) the nurses’ power and control; (2) sharing power with the patient; and (3) transferring power to the next of kin. The first and the predominant (...) discursive practice can be explained with an ideology of paternalism, in which the nurses used biomedical explanations and the ethical principle of benefice to justify their actions. The second can be explained with an ideology of participation, in which the nurses used ethical narratives as a way to let the patients participate in the treatment. The third seemed to involve autonomous decision-making and the ethical principle of autonomy for the next of kin in the difficult end-of-life decisions. (shrink)

Over the past decades, the modernization of agriculture in the Western world has contributed not only to a rapid increase in food production but also to environmental and societal concerns over issues such as greenhouse gas emissions, soil quality and biodiversity loss. Many of these concerns, for example those related to animal welfare or labor conditions, are stuck in controversies and apparently deadlocked debates. As a result we observe a paradox in which a wide range of corporate social responsibility initiatives, (...) originally seeking to reconnect agriculture and society, frequently provoke debate, conflict, and protests. In order to make sense of this pattern, the present paper contends that Western agriculture is marked by moral complexity, i.e., the tendency of multiple legitimate moral standpoints to proliferate without the realistic prospect of a consensus. This contention is buttressed by a conceptual framework that draws inspiration the contemporary business ethics and systems-theoretic scholarship. From the systems-theoretic point of view, the evolution of moral complexity is traced back to the processes of agricultural modernization, specialization, and differentiation, each of which suppresses the responsiveness of the economic and legal institutions to the full range of societal and environmental concerns about agriculture. From the business ethics point of view, moral complexity is shown to prevent the transformation of the ethical responsibilities into the legal and economic responsibilities despite the ongoing institutionalization of CSR. Navigating moral complexity is shown to require moral judgments which are necessarily personal and contestable. These judgments are implicated in those CSR initiatives that require dealing with trade-offs among the different sustainability issues. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to provide a conceptual framework that will help in understanding and evaluating, along social and ethical lines, the issue of killing day-old male chicks and two alternative directions of responsible innovations to solve this issue. The following research questions are addressed: Why is the killing of day-old chicks morally problematic? Are the proposed alternatives morally sound? To what extent do the alternatives lead to responsible innovation? The conceptual framework demonstrates clearly that there is a (...) moral “lock-in”, and why the killing of day-old chicks is indeed an issue. Furthermore, it is shown that both alternative directions address some important objections with regard to the killing of day-old chicks, but that they also raise new dilemmas. It also becomes clear that the framework enables and secures anticipation, reflection, deliberation with and responsiveness to stakeholders, the four dimensions of responsible innovation, in a structured way. (shrink)

Plato is one of the key ancient authors studied by both classicists and philosophers. This long-awaited new edition contains seven of the dialogues of Plato, and is the first in the five-volume complete edition of his works in the Oxford Classical Texts series. The result of many years of painstaking scholarship, the new volume will replace the now nearly 100 year old original edition, and is destined to become just as long-lasting a classic.

2. The equal status mentioned in Thesis 2 need not mean, "equally concrete" or "inclusive," but only, "equally real," where "real" means having a character of its own with reference to which opinions can be true or false. But becoming or process is alone fully concrete or inclusive, since if A is without becoming, and B becomes, then the togetherness of AB also becomes. A new constituent means a new totality. In this sense, becoming is the ultimate principle.

When clinical services aspire to quality improvement, creative and innovative approaches to old problems are needed to drive such change. Whilst new ef orts should be applauded, information on this topic can be somewhat grey from an ethical and research point of view. Within the mental health profession there is currently an expectation to routinely evaluate care and disseminate i ndings. The notion of service enhancements under the guise of routine practice is an interesting and untested ethical issue. Should clinical (...) innovation continue to enjoy such impunity as patient autonomy is often compromised as they are often compelled to accept treatment under the coercion of mental health legislation? We believe that it should not. All involvement in any form of research is voluntary, thus patients should also have the right to decline participation in quality projects if they wish to do so. (shrink)

Interpretation of the classics in political theory seems to go in waves. For a while we had John Locke, the bourgeois thinker. Now we seem to be in a Locke-as-radical-democrat phase. Locke-the-bourgeois had problems of its own, but a radically democratic Locke -- not just the old Locke as liberal democrat but Locke as quasi-Leveller -- strains the interpretative imagination more than most; yet in recent years, several different kinds of argument have been advanced in support of it, both textual (...) and contextual. The most effective argument has proceeded by situating Locke in the context of radical Whig politics in the 1670s and '80s, the struggles over religious toleration and the royal succession, in particular the �Exclusion Crisis� of 1679-81. This contextual argument has been accompanied by various textual interpretations having to do with Locke's conceptions of property, consent, representation, the right of revolution and natural law. Among other things, these are supposed to show that while Locke had nothing explicit to say about the extent of the franchise, the weight of evidence suggests that he would have supported a fairly wide franchise, perhaps even something like the (almost) manhood suffrage advocated by the Levellers (at least according to some, and probably the most convincing, interpretations of their ideas). Most recently, in these pages, Martin Hughes, building on the work of James Tully and Richard Ashcraft in particular, has pushed the argument as far as it can probably go. His argument on taxation and suffrage has provided a motivation here for a wider exploration of Locke's views on representation, consent and the franchise. (shrink)

Synaesthesia is a condition in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another, as when the hearing of a sound produces photisms, i.e. mental percepts of colours. R is a 20 year old colour blind subject who, in addition to the relatively common grapheme-colour synaesthesia, presents a rarely reported cross modal perception in which a variety of visual stimuli elicit aura-like percepts of colour. In R, photisms seem to be closely related to the affective valence of stimuli and (...) typically bring out a consistent pattern of emotional responses. The present case study suggests that colours might be an intrinsic category of the human brain. We developed an empirical methodology that allowed us to study the subject's otherwise inaccessible phenomenological experience. First, we found that R shows a Stroop effect elicited by photisms despite the fact that he does not show a regular Stroop with real colours. Secondly, by manipulating the colour context we confirmed that colours can alter R's emotional evaluation of the stimuli. Furthermore, we demonstrated that R's auras may actually lead to a partially inverted emotional spectrum where certain stimuli bring out emotional reactions opposite to the normal ones. These findings can only be accounted for by considering R's subjective colour experience or qualia. Therefore the present paper defends the view that qualia are a useful scientific concept that can be approached and studied by experimental methods. (shrink)

Synaesthesia is a condition in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another, as when the hearing of a sound produces photisms, i.e. mental percepts of colours. R is a 20 year old colour blind subject who, in addition to the relatively common grapheme-colour synaesthesia, presents a rarely reported cross modal perception in which a variety of visual stimuli elicit aura-like percepts of colour. In R, photisms seem to be closely related to the affective valence of stimuli and (...) typically bring out a consistent pattern of emotional responses. The present case study suggests that colours might be an intrinsic category of the human brain. We developed an empirical methodology that allowed us to study the subject's otherwise inaccessible phenomenological experience. First, we found that R shows a Stroop effect (delayed response due to interference) elicited by photisms despite the fact that he does not show a regular Stroop with real colours. Secondly, by manipulating the colour context we confirmed that colours can alter R's emotional evaluation of the stimuli. Furthermore, we demonstrated that R's auras may actually lead to a partially inverted emotional spectrum where certain stimuli bring out emotional reactions opposite to the normal ones. These findings can only be accounted for by considering R's subjective colour experience or qualia. Therefore the present paper defends the view that qualia are a useful scientific concept that can be approached and studied by experimental methods. (shrink)

Institutional Review Board decisions hinge on the availability and interpretation of information. This is demonstrated by the following well-known historical example. In 2001, 24-year-old Ellen Roche died from respiratory distress and organ failure as a result of her participation in a study at Johns Hopkins Asthma and Allergy Center. The non-therapeutic physiological study, “Mechanisms of Deep Inspiration-Induced Airway Relaxation,” was designed to examine airway hyperresponsiveness in healthy individuals in order to better understand the pathophysiology of asthma. Participants inhaled hexamethonium, a (...) chemical ganglionic blocker that was not FDA-approved for use as specified in the experimental protocol. Risks of inhaling hexamethonium, including lung damage, had been reported in the 1950s and ‘60s. An investigation conducted after Roche's death determined that the study's principal investigator had failed to adequately search the medical literature; the protocol submitted for IRB review cited articles indexed in online literature databases that went back only as far as the 1970s. (shrink)

BACKGROUND: Serotonin transporter promoter genotype appears to increase risk for depression in the context of stressful life events. However, the effects of this genotype on measures of stress sensitivity are poorly understood. Therefore, this study examined whether 5-HTTLPR genotype was associated with negative information processing biases in early childhood. METHOD: Thirty-nine unselected seven-year-old children completed a negative mood induction procedure and a Self-Referent Encoding Task designed to measure positive and negative schematic processing. Children were also genotyped for the 5-HTTLPR gene. (...) RESULTS: Children who were homozygous for the short allele of the 5-HTTLPR gene showed greater negative schematic processing following a negative mood prime than those with other genotypes. 5-HTTLPR genotype was not significantly associated with positive schematic processing. LIMITATIONS: The sample size for this study was small. We did not analyze more recently reported variants of the 5-HTTLPR long alleles. CONCLUSIONS: 5-HTTLPR genotype is associated with negative information processing styles following a negative mood prime in a non-clinical sample of young children. Such cognitive styles are thought to be activated in response to stressful life events, leading to depressive symptoms; thus, cognitive styles may index the "stress-sensitivity" conferred by this genotype. (shrink)

Upshot: This response addresses the main points from the three commentaries, focusing particularly on additional terms and concepts introduced to the bridging metaphor. We further clarify our call for future research in the area and conclude with reflections about the practical implications emerging from our target article and the commentaries.

The usual way for new cells to come into being is by division of old cells. So the zygote, which is a—new—single cell formed from two, the sperm and ovum, is an exception. Textbooks of human genetics usually say that this new cell is beginning of a new human individual. What this indicates is that they suddenly forget about identical twins.

The usual way for new cells to come into being is by division of old cells. So the zygote, which is a—new—single cell formed from two, the sperm and ovum, is an exception. Textbooks of human genetics usually say that this new cell is beginning of a new human individual. What this indicates is that they suddenly forget about identical twins.

Throughout the Old Testament, the stories, laws, and songs not only teach a way of life that requires individuals to be moral, but they demonstrate how. In biblical studies, character ethics has been one of the fastest-growing areas of interest. Whereas ethics usually studies rules of behavior, character ethics focuses on how people are formed to be moral agents in the world. This book presents the most up-to-date academic work in Old Testament character ethics, covering topics throughout the Torah, the (...) Prophets, and the Writings, in addition to the use of the Bible in the modern world. In addition to Carroll and Lapsley, contributors are Denise M. Ackermann, Cheryl B. Anderson, Samuel E. Balentine, William P. Brown, Walter Brueggemann, Thomas B. Dozeman, Bob Ekblad, Jose Rafael Escobar R., Theodore Hiebert, Kathleen O'Connor, Dennis T. Olson, J. David Pleins, Luis R. Rivera Rodriguez, J. J. M. Roberts, and Daniel L. Smith-Christopher. (shrink)

Introduction This article is a response to Zagouras, Ellick, and Aulisio who presented a case study justifying the questioning of the capacity and autonomy of a young woman with a physical disability who was pregnant and facing coercive pressure to terminate. Case description Julia is described as a 26-year-old woman with a neurological disability that requires her to receive assistance with activities of daily living. She was described as living with her parents who provided her with personal care assistance. Julia (...) became pregnant and her parents wished her to terminate because they did not want to care for her child in addition to her. In fact, Julia's parents threatened her with institutionalization if she did not elect to terminate the pregnancy. Her health care team questioned her decision-making capacity based on her alleged “mental age” and experiences of being sheltered and excluded. The health care team used directive tactics to convince Julia to terminate the pregnancy, which describe as both an ethical and feminist intervention. Discussion The current authors take issue with the case analysis provided by and argue that they neglected to account for numerous instances of systemic ableism that adversely affected Julia, demonstrated prejudicial and judgmental attitudes toward pregnancy and disability, inappropriately questioned her decision-making capacity by infantilizing her, misconstrued the feminist concept of relational autonomy, and colluded with coercive interference from family members. This is a classic example of discriminatory and culturally incompetent reproductive health care for a disabled woman. (shrink)

Background: Medical chaperones (MC) are underutilised. The influence of Islamic culture on the use of MC is not known. Aim: To examine physicians’ use and perception of MC in Islamic culture. Setting: A major tertiary care hospital in Saudi Arabia. Methods: 315 self-administered questionnaires were distributed to attendees of grand rounds of 13 departments. Results: 186 (59%) questionnaires were completed. 64.5% of the respondents were 30–49 years old, 75.8% were men and 31.2% were in training; 79% had a clinic load (...) of under 50 patients per week and 47.8% had postgraduate training (PGT) in an Islamic country. MC were reported to be infrequently (⩽25% of the time) used by 44.1% (69.2% female vs 39% male physicians, p = 0.001; 58.6% in training vs 36.8% attending, p = 0.007; 52.1% PGT in Islamic vs 35.6% in western countries, p = 0.027), offered by 52.7% (78.9% female vs 46.8% male physicians, p<0.001) and requested by 79% of patients. MC were reported to be commonly (>75% of the time) used, offered by physicians and requested by patients by 38.2%, 29% and 7.5% of respondents, respectively. The most frequently cited reasons for not using MC were privacy/confidentiality (36.6%) and understaffing (30.5%). Equal numbers of respondents perceived MC use as a protection for physicians or patients (67.7% and 65.6%, respectively). Conclusions: MC are underutilised even in Islamic culture, especially among female physicians. Training in western countries is favourably associated with MC use. Underutilisation appears to be related to privacy/confidentiality, understaffing and failure of patients to request a MC. (shrink)

Models of recognition memory have traditionally struggled with the puzzle of criterion setting, a problem that is particularly acute in cases in which items for study and test are of widely varying types, with differing degrees of baseline familiarity and experience (e.g., words vs. random dot patterns). We present a dynamic model of the recognition process that addresses the criterion setting problem and produces joint predictions for choice and reaction time. In this model, recognition decisions are based not on the (...) absolute value of familiarity, but on how familiarity changes over time as features are sampled from the test item. Decisions are the outcome of a race between two parallel accumulators: one that accumulates positive changes in familiarity (leading to an ‘‘old’’ decision) and another that accumulates negative changes (leading to a ‘‘new’’ decision). Simulations with this model make realistic predictions for recognition performance and latency regardless of the baseline familiarity of study and test items. (shrink)

In a paper on “Beauty and Greatness in Art” discussed at a recent meeting of the Aristotelian Society, Professor Alexander says: “In Art there are two standards; there is the strictly æsthetic standard, Is the work beautiful or not; has it attained beauty? and there is the question, Is it great or small?… This contrast of beauty and greatness is the old contrast of form and subject-matter.” Here is offered a problem of capital importance and of age-long interest, but alongside (...) of it there is a subsidiary and a much slighter question which has been comparatively little noticed and which may yet have bearing on the larger issue. This question is the relation of actual size, of size-in-itself, to the other factors in a work of art, and the reaction, if such there be, of such a size-factor upon the aesthetic whole. (shrink)

The aim of this virtual special issue is to bring together philosophical and historical perspectives to address long-standing issues in the interpretation, utility, and impacts of quantitative genetics methods and findings. Methodological approaches and the underlying scientific understanding of genetics and heredity have transformed since the field's inception. These advances have brought with them new philosophical issues regarding the interpretation and understanding of quantitative genetic results. The contributions in this issue demonstrate that there is still work to be done integrating (...) old and new methodological and conceptual frameworks. In some cases, new results are interpreted using assumptions based on old concepts and methodologies that need to be explicitly recognised and updated. In other cases, new philosophical tools can be employed to synthesise historical quantitative genetics work with modern methodologies and findings. This introductory article surveys three general themes that have dominated philosophical discussion of quantitative genetics throughout history: (1) how methodologies have changed and transformed our knowledge and interpretations; (2) whether or not quantitative genetics can offer explanations relating to causation and prediction; and (3) the importance of defining the phenotypes under study. We situate the contributions in this virtual special issue within a historical framework addressing these three themes. (shrink)

(1984). Reading Accuracy as a Function of Teaching Strategy, Personality and Word Complexity in Seven‐year‐old Children. Educational Studies: Vol. 10, No. 3, pp. 263-272.

In 2035 global egg demand will have risen 50% from 1985. Because we are not able to tell in the egg whether it will become a male or female chick, billons of one day-old male chicks will be killed. International research initiatives are underway in this area, and governments encourage the development of an alternative with the goal of eliminating the culling of day-old male chicks. The Netherlands holds an exceptional position in the European egg trade, but is also the (...) only country in the European Union where the downside of the egg sector, the practice of killing day-old male chicks, is a recurrent subject of societal debate. ‘Preventing the killing of young animals’ and ‘in ovo sex determination’ are the two alternative approaches available to solve this problem. It is clear that both approaches solve the problem of killing day-old male chicks, either by keeping them alive or by preventing them from living, but they also raise a lot of new animal welfare-related dilemmas. A thorough analysis was undertaken of these dilemmas and the results are presented in this article. The analysis resulted in an ethical framework based on the two main approaches in bioethics: a consequentialist approach and a deontological approach. This ethical framework was used to develop an online survey administered to ascertain Dutch public opinion about these alternative approaches. The results show that neither alternative will be fully accepted, or accepted by more than half of Dutch society. However, the survey does provide an insight into the motives that are important for people’s choice: food safety and a good treatment of animals. Irrespective of the approach chosen, these values should be safeguarded and communicated clearly. (shrink)

Intended as a course for beginning students in philosophy, this anthology consists of three "Books": "The Search for Understanding," "Ethics," and "Practical Philosophy." The latter is a hodgepodge--largely of moral advice--with selections from Buddha and Christ, among others. Although the selections are representative of diverse positions, both old and new, they are too short to be informative, and some of them might easily be misleading.--J. E. M.

Intended as a course for beginning students in philosophy, this anthology consists of three "Books": "The Search for Understanding," "Ethics," and "Practical Philosophy." The latter is a hodgepodge--largely of moral advice--with selections from Buddha and Christ, among others. Although the selections are representative of diverse positions, both old and new, they are too short to be informative, and some of them might easily be misleading.--J. E. M.