Çin, son dönemlerde Körfez Bölgesine yönelik izlediği aktif politika, Çin Devlet Başkanı Xi Jipping’in (Şi Cinping), 7-9 Aralık 2022 tarihinde Körfez’e gerçekleştirdiği kapsamlı ziyaretle birlikte daha fazla dinamizm kazanmıştır. Bu ziyareti takiben yapılan analizler Çin’in, Körfez açılımını ABD’nin bölgesel hegemonyasını zayıflatmaya yönelik bir girişim olarak değerlendirmektedirler. Aynı ziyaret sırasında Pekin ve Riyad yönetimleri arasında imzalanan kapsamlı anlaşmalar ise ABD’nin Körfezdeki uzun erimli güvenlik partneri Suudi Arabistan’a ilişkin “eksen kayması” tartışmalarını başlattı. Bu çalışma güncelliğini koruyan iki tartışmanın kapsamlı bir muhakemesini yapmayı (...) hedeflemektedir. Bu amaçla uluslararası ilişkiler disiplinin son dönem fenomen teorisi olan hiyerarşinin ilgili argümanları kullanılmaktadır. Bu teorik çerçeveden hareketle, çalışmada ilk olarak Çin’in Körfez siyasetini şekillendiren stratejilerin fiyat arttırma (oubidding) ve negatif dengeleme (negative balancing) olduğu ve bu stratejilerin Körfez Bölgesi ülkeleri açısından yeni imkânlar yarattığı tespitinde bulunulmaktadır. Bunun yanı sıra Suudi Arabistan’ın, Çin ile gelişen ikili ilişkilerini hâlihazırda ABD ile sürdürmekte olduğu ilişkisine bir alternatif olarak görmediği, aksine Çin’in bahsi geçen stratejilerinden maksimum kazanım elde ederek otonomisini arttırmaya çalıştığı ayrıca belirtiliyor. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Sacramental Character and the Pattern of Theological Life:Medieval Context and Early Modern ReceptionReginald M. Lynch O.P.In question 63 of the tertia pars, Thomas Aquinas defines the so-called character that is conferred by certain sacraments (namely baptism, confirmation, and holy orders), as a secondary effect caused by the sacraments, with grace itself identified as the primary effect. As separated instruments of the humanity of Christ, in his mature work in (...) the Summa theologiae Aquinas argues that all Christian sacraments are perfective instrumental causes of the effect of the Incarnation in the human persons who receive them.1 As instrumental means by which these effects are conferred, therefore, for Aquinas the sapiential intelligibility of the sacraments is found in the larger sweep of sacra doctrina and the Incarnation, wherein the ratio and necessity of these larger theological themes contextualize Aquinas's understanding of the necessity of the sacraments themselves as instrumental extensions of the same.2 Taken in itself, aspects of what would later become the question of sacramental character for Scholastics first emerged as a doctrinal topic in the context of patristic debates over the permanence of the sacrament of baptism.3 In the Latin West, the influence of Augustine's distinction between the permanence of the sacramentum received in baptism and its use in charity proved to be a ubiquitous influence [End Page 1337] for later Latin theology.4 Concerning the metaphysical nature of this character, however, in both his Sentences commentary and Summa theologiae, Aquinas joins an ongoing conversation among thirteenth-century Scholastics about the utility of the Aristotelian categories for describing sacramental character. What is sacramental character specifically, and how should this be understood in relation to the wider speculative complexities of grace, the infused virtues and gifts, and beatitude? Because of continued controversy over the role of Aristotelianism in theology during the second half of the thirteenth century, many Scholastics of Aquinas's generation analyzed the quiddity of sacramental character from an Aristotelian perspective, working to describe the doctrine inherited from the Church's tradition using Aristotelian terminology. As will be shown, although some argued that sacramental character should be understood as a habitus, Aquinas argues that character is better understood as a power.The second and third sections of this article will explore the development of Scholastic accounts of the quiddity of sacramental character during the medieval and early modern periods, and the wider theological implications of these conversations. In the final analysis, it is my aim to show not only that Aquinas's account of sacramental character is intrinsically fitting on theological grounds, but that Aquinas's account of sacramental character as a qualitative power conveys and preserves the received theological tradition more effectively than the options proposed by some of his contemporaries. With these larger objectives in mind, the first section of this article serves as a necessary historical prelude—what, precisely, is at stake from the wider perspective of the Church's theological tradition in these medieval and early modern Scholastic debates? Accordingly, the first section will provide an overview of the historical development of the doctrine of sacramental character, focusing specifically on the way in which certain Augustinian doctrinal concepts and linguistic usages developed in later medieval usage and ultimately came to be incorporated into the framework of Peter Lombard's Sentences—the text that would serve as the common backdrop for the Scholastic conversations about the "quiddity" of this same doctrine.In the following, therefore, this article will begin by examining the origins of the doctrine of sacramental character in Latin theology in Augustine's baptismal theology. Building on this foundation, our attention will turn to Peter Lombard's reception of Augustine's as the context in which [End Page 1338] thirteenth-century Scholastic debates about sacramental character would develop. Although the specific metaphysical questions that Scholastics like Aquinas and Bonaventure would entertain do not form part of Augustine's approach to this issue, Lombard's particular articulation of Augustine's sacramental theology would provide the textual and conceptual backdrop against which these later Scholastic conversations would develop. Accordingly, the second section of this article will build on the first, beginning with a consideration of Aquinas... (shrink)

With the increasing prevalence of artificial intelligence (AI) and other digital technologies in healthcare, the ethical debate surrounding their adoption is becoming more prominent. Here I consider the issue of gaining informed patient consent to AI-enhanced care from the vantage point of the United Kingdom’s National Health Service setting. I build my discussion around two claims from the World Health Organization: that healthcare services should not be denied to individuals who refuse AI-enhanced care and that there is no precedence to (...) seeking patient consent to AI-enhanced care. I discus U.K. law relating to patient consent and the General Data Protection Regulation to show that current standards relating to patient consent are adequate for AI-enhanced care. I then suggest that in the future it may not be possible to guarantee patient access to non-AI-enhanced healthcare, in a similar way to how we do not offer patients manual alternatives to automated healthcare processes. Throughout my discussion I focus on the issues of patient choice and veracity in the patient–clinician relationship. Finally, I suggest that the best way to protect patients from potential harms associated with the introduction of AI to patient care is not via an overly burdensome patient consent process but via evaluation and regulation of AI technologies. (shrink)

This study was an attempt to investigate the nature of metaphor by doing a cross-cultural comparison of metaphor in 2 typologically different languages-English and Persian. For this purpose, animal metaphors were taken for comparison. The "GREAT CHAIN OF BEING" metaphor (Lakoff & Turner, 1989), along with the principle of metaphorical highlighting (Kovecses, 2002), were used as a framework in comparing different aspects of animal metaphors as interpreted by native speakers of the 2 languages. The results showed that although animal metaphors (...) in English and Persian are similar to a certain extent, many aspects of them are culture-specific. The similarities and differences among 44 animal metaphors in these 2 languages are shown and some possible explanations are put forward. (shrink)

This article is dedicated to the issue of achieving consensus in tabletop role-playing games and also addresses the question of how exactly play­ers gain power over the interpretation of events within a tabletop RPG. A tabletop role-playing game presupposes that its participants constantly articulate statements which shift the current configuration of in-game elements and also play the role of being artistic descriptions of said shifts. The alternation and interplay of performative and descriptive statements, their convolution and also the fact that, (...) in tabletop RPGs, unlike in the majority of the rest of the games known to humanity, the same words from natural languages are used both in order to produce a shift in abstract, symbolic structure of a game, and to artistically describe said shift, all lead to the situation where participants cannot tell a proper symbolic system of a given game from other symbolic systems which this game refers to. In this article, we propose an analytical model of a tabletop RPG which would make it possible to draw stricter borderlines between a given RPG’s fictional world and its inner symbolic structure. Furthermore, it would allow us to formulate a clearer question regarding the structures of power produced while playing an RPG, and what exactly players gain control over while playing it. Moreover, this model would enable us to explore in detail the processes of the individual and collective interpretation of events in a tabletop RPG, and classify facts within said interpretation in relation to whether they are held to be objectively or subjectively true. (shrink)

Even strong, fearless, and badass Black girls and Black women need affirmations-- now more than ever. Fievre shares inspirational words of wisdom through fabulous Black female trailblazers who changed the world. You don't always have to be strong. Sometimes taking a break to focus on your mental health is bravery in itself. We find ourselves needing reminders that we are incredible and more than enough. Fievre shares strategies that will give you the dose of radical self-affirmation you deserve. -- adapted (...) from back cover. (shrink)

The article analyzes the implementation of an online educational module and its impact on the organization of the classroom’s interaction order. The latter is institutionally constrained by the presence of a goal and the distribution of roles between teacher and students. The introduction of a digital learning platform adds a technological context to the institutional setting. The article considers technologies as possessing communicative affordances — opportunities for action made possible or delimited through their use. Technologies bring new interactive resources to (...) the process of ed­ucation and can affect the organization of the classroom’s interaction order. Using multimodal conversation analysis, we analyzed video recordings of the telemediated interaction of Russia-based students and teachers within a gamified online educational module. We investigate a case in which a student’s correct answer is nevertheless corrected by the teacher. We dem­onstrate that the teacher initiates the correction because they are guided by the ordering of the game elements within the interface. Based on a detailed analysis of the teacher’s mouse movement in relation to ongoing turns-at-talk, we show that this orientation is sustained by all participants. The work contributes to classroom interaction studies and affordance theory and develops the methodology of multimodal transcription for mediated contexts. The primary result of the study is an empirical demonstration that the relevance of technological affordances for interactants is situation­ally produced, and that this process is associated with the interweaving of the institutional and technical context of interaction. The conclusion discusses the relationship between affordances and institutional norms. (shrink)

Traditional Chinese commentators rightly see that understanding Zhuangzi's way with words is the presupposition for understanding Zhuangzi at all. They are not sure, however, if Zhuangzi's words are super-effective or pure nonsense. I consider Zhuangzi's experience with language, and then turn to Heidegger's word of being to see if it may throw light on Zhuangzi's way of saying. I argue that a conversation between Heidegger and Zhuangzi on language is possible, but only by expanding Heidegger's notion of Gestell (enframing) and (...) through a destruction of the dominant Confucian discourse that obscures Zhuangzi's way of saying. (shrink)

The development of gene expression profiling and next-generation sequencing technologies have steered oncogenomics to the forefront of precision medicine. This created a need for harmonious cooperation between clinicians and researchers to increase access to precision oncology, despite multiple implementation challenges being encountered. The aim is to apply personalised treatment strategies early in cancer management, targeting tumour subtypes and actionable gene variants within the individual’s broader clinical risk profile and wellbeing. A knowledge-generating database linked to the South African Medical Research Council’s (...) Genomic Centre has been created for the application of personalised medicine, using an integrated service and research approach. Insights gained from patient experiences related to tumour heterogeneity, access to targeted therapies and incidental findings of pathogenic germline variants in tumour DNA, provided practice-changing evidence for the implementation of a cost-minimisation pathology-supported genetic testing strategy. Integrating clinical care with genomic research through data sharing advances personalised medicine and maximises precision oncology benefits. (shrink)

The article considers Max Weber’s model of plebiscitary leadership and historical examples of plebiscitary democracy. It is argued that there is no clear distinction between plebiscitary democracy and dictatorship inWeber’s writings. As Stefan Breuer demonstrates, such a distinction allows us to broaden the application of Weberian concepts. Plebiscitary elements can be seen in the political life of non-Western states, which have been discussed from the multiple modernities perspective. However, while that perspective develops the Weberian sociological tradition, its representatives mostly do (...) not use the concept of plebiscitary leadership. Thus, Shmuel Eisenstadt draws primarily on Weber’s sociology of religion in his analysis of different types of modernity. Specifically, Eisenstadt considers the impact of civilizational legacies on political processes in India and Latin America. Peter Wagner discusses the relevance of Weber’s rationalization thesis and theory of capitalism rather than the concepts of Weberian political sociology. In his study of democratization in Brazil and South Africa, Wagner emphasizes the progressive character of political changes but does not consider the possibility of a reversal of these processes. The article argues that the contemporary reconstruction of Weber’s model of plebiscitary leadership can complement the analyses of democratization in non-Western societies from the multiple modernities perspective. (shrink)

A adoção de um catálogo constitucional de direitos e o fortalecimento do judicial review, trouxeram como consequência a judicialização da política em inúmeras democracias, onde se verifica uma expansão da atuação do Poder Judiciário em detrimento das esferas representativas do Estado. Neste contexto, tem se observado em países do Sul Global, o emprego de novos mecanismos procedimentais em casos que envolvem a violação contínua e generalizada de direitos fundamentais, de alguns grupos menos favorecidos, decorrente de bloqueios políticos e institucionais, denominados (...) de “litígios estruturais”. (shrink)