The construction industry consistently ranks amongst the highest contributors to global gross domestic product, as well as, amongst the most corrupt. Corruption therefore inflicts significant risk on construction activities, and overall economic development. These facts are widely known, but the various sources and nature of corruption risks endemic to the Iranian construction industry, along with the degree to which such risks manifest, and the strength of their impact, remain undescribed. To address the gap, a mixed methods approach is used; with (...) a questionnaire, 103 responses were received, and these were followed up with semi-structured interviews. Results were processed using social network analysis. Four major corruption risks were identified: procedural violations in awarding contracts, misuse of contractual arrangements, neglect of project management principles, and, irrational decision making. While corruption risks in Iran align with those found in other countries, with funds being misappropriated for financial gain, Iran also shows a strong inclination to champion projects that serve the government’s political agenda. Root cause identification of corruption risks, namely, the noticeable impact of authoritarianism on project selection in Iran, over criterion of economic benefit or social good, is a significant outcome of this study. (shrink)

... 243-) INTRODUCTION §§243- constitute the eighth 'chapter' of the book. Its point of departure is a natural query with respect to the conclusion of the ...

The purpose of this essay is to investigate and critically analyse some of the formative factors which led to the spiritual maturation of a leading Vīraśaiva saint, Basava. This inquiry focuses on a single event in the life of this great reformer of medieval times, i.e. his spiritual conflict leading to his rejection of the upanayana ceremony. The study will proceed through an investigation of the earliest and subsequent sources which veil the personality of Basava. The traditional view will be (...) challenged as one-sided. By critically comparing the sources, a more comprehensive and plausible account will be suggested. (shrink)

Peer review of journal submissions has become one of the most important pillars of quality management in academic publishing. Because of growing concerns with the quality and effectiveness of the system, a host of enthusiastic innovators has proposed and experimented with new procedures and technologies. However, little is known about whether these innovations manage to convince other journal editors. This paper will address open questions regarding the implementation of new review procedures, the occurrence rate of various peer review procedures and (...) their distribution over scientific disciplines or academic publishers, as well as the motivations for editors or publishers to engage in novel review procedures. It shows that in spite of enthusiastic innovation, the adoption of new peer review procedures is in fact very slow, with the exception of text similarity scanners. For now, peer review innovations appear to be restricted to specific niches in academic publishing. Analysing these niches, the article concludes with a reflection on the circumstances in which innovations might be more widely implemented. (shrink)

"Neuroscience and Philosophy" begins with an excerpt from "Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience," in which Maxwell Bennett and Peter Hacker question the ...

This white paper aims to identify an open problem in 'Quantum Physics and the Nature of Reality' -namely whether quantum theory and special relativity are formally compatible-, to indicate what the underlying issues are, and put forward ideas about how the problem might be addressed.

Background: Debates over legalisation of physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia often warn of a “slippery slope”, predicting abuse of people in vulnerable groups. To assess this concern, the authors examined data from Oregon and the Netherlands, the two principal jurisdictions in which physician-assisted dying is legal and data have been collected over a substantial period.Methods: The data from Oregon comprised all annual and cumulative Department of Human Services reports 1998–2006 and three independent studies; the data from the Netherlands comprised all four (...) government-commissioned nationwide studies of end-of-life decision making and specialised studies. Evidence of any disproportionate impact on 10 groups of potentially vulnerable patients was sought.Results: Rates of assisted dying in Oregon and in the Netherlands showed no evidence of heightened risk for the elderly, women, the uninsured , people with low educational status, the poor, the physically disabled or chronically ill, minors, people with psychiatric illnesses including depression, or racial or ethnic minorities, compared with background populations. The only group with a heightened risk was people with AIDS. While extralegal cases were not the focus of this study, none have been uncovered in Oregon; among extralegal cases in the Netherlands, there was no evidence of higher rates in vulnerable groups.Conclusions: Where assisted dying is already legal, there is no current evidence for the claim that legalised PAS or euthanasia will have disproportionate impact on patients in vulnerable groups. Those who received physician-assisted dying in the jurisdictions studied appeared to enjoy comparative social, economic, educational, professional and other privileges. (shrink)

Davidson has attempted to integrate externalism into his account of meaning and understanding. He contends that what words mean is fixed in part by the circumstances in which they were learnt, in which the basic connection between words and things is established. This connection is allegedly established by causal interaction between people and the world. Words and sentences derive their meanings from the objects and circumstances in which they were learnt, which.

The considerable attention to financial interests in clinical research has focused mostly on academic medical centers, even though the majority of clinical research is conducted in community practice settings. To fill this gap, this article maps the practices and policies in 73 community hospitals and several hundred specialized facilities around the country for reviewing clinical investigators’ financial relationships with research sponsors. Community hospitals face a substantially different mix of issues than academic medical centers do because their physician researchers are usually (...) not employees, and more of their studies are later-phase, multicenter trials. Accordingly, community physicians stand to benefit personally from per capita payments, but they tend to have less direct influence over research findings when compared with their academic peers. These and other contrasts require separate guidance for community-based organizations that takes into account their particular needs, circumstances, and institutional capacities. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Baker's New Conception Waismann and Wittgenstein Wittgenstein on the Psychoanalytic Analogy Wittgenstein's Methodology Reconsidered Wittgenstein and Ryle 1: Categorial Confusions Wittgenstein and Ryle 2: Logical Geography Baker's Wittgenstein.

This third volume of the monumental commentary on Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations covers sections 243-427, which constitute the heart of the book. Like the previous volumes, it consists of philosophical essays and exegesis. The thirteen essays cover all the major themes of this part of Wittgenstein's masterpiece: the private language arguments, privacy, avowals and descriptions, private ostensive definition, criteria, minds and machines, behavior and behaviorism, the self, the inner and the outer, thinking, consciounesss, and the imagination. The exegesis clarifies and evaluates (...) Wittgenstein's arguments, drawing extensively on all the unpublished papers, examining the evolution of his ideas in manuscript sources and definitively settling many controversies about the interpretation of the published text. This commentary, like its predecessors, is indispensable for the study of Wittgenstein and is essential reading for students of the philosophy of mind. A fourth and final volume, entitled Wittgenstein: Mind and Will will complete the commentary. (shrink)