Peopled Leadership empowers others to lead, be innovative, engage in collaboration, solve complex problems, and further outcomes.

Egon Brunswik is one of the most brilliant, creative and least understood and appreciated psychologists/philosophers of the 20th century. This book presents a collection of Brunswik's most important papers together with interpretive comments by prominent scholars who explain the intent and development of his thought. This collection and the accompanying diverse examples of the application of his ideas will encourage a deeper understanding of Brunswik in the 21st century than was the case in the 20th century. The 21st century already (...) shows signs of acceptance of Brunswikian thought with the appearance of psychologists with a different focus; emulation of physical science is of less importance, and positive contributions toward understanding behavior outside the laboratory without abandoning rigor are claiming more notice. As a result, Brunswik's theoretical and methodological views are already gaining the attention denied them in the 20th century. The plan of this book is to provide, for the first time, in one place the articles that show the origins of his thought, with all their imaginative and creative spirit, as well as thoughtful, scholarly interpretations of the development, meaning and application of his ideas to modern psychology. Thus, his views will become more understandable and more widely disseminated, as well as advanced through the fresh meaning given to them by the psychologists of the 21st century. (shrink)

Egon Brunswik is one of the most brilliant, creative and least understood and appreciated psychologists/philosophers of the 20th century. This book presents a collection of Brunswik's most important papers together with interpretive comments by prominent scholars who explain the intent and development of his thought. This collection and the accompanying diverse examples of the application of his ideas will encourage a deeper understanding of Brunswik in the 21st century than was the case in the 20th century. The 21st century already (...) shows signs of acceptance of Brunswikian thought with the appearance of psychologists with a different focus; emulation of physical science is of less importance, and positive contributions toward understanding behavior outside the laboratory without abandoning rigor are claiming more notice. As a result, Brunswik's theoretical and methodological views are already gaining the attention denied them in the 20th century. The plan of this book is to provide, for the first time, in one place the articles that show the origins of his thought, with all their imaginative and creative spirit, as well as thoughtful, scholarly interpretations of the development, meaning and application of his ideas to modern psychology. Thus, his views will become more understandable and more widely disseminated, as well as advanced through the fresh meaning given to them by the psychologists of the 21st century. (shrink)

My argument will be that our understanding of human beings, which is what I take the Christian doctrine of man to be concerned with, will benefit considerably from an examination of two different but related clusters of human attitudes which can be found respectively under the headings ‘optimism’ and ‘pessimism’. There are many pitfalls in the way of such an enterprise, and occasionally some prejudices to be overcome. For example L. E. Loemker in the relevant articles in the Encyclopedia of (...) Philosophy concludes a fairly lengthy discussion with the rather terminal judgement. (shrink)

ObjectivePatient involvement is used to describe the inclusion of patients as active participants in healthcare decision-making and research. This study aimed to investigate incoming year 1 medical (MBChB) students’ attitudes and opinions regarding patient involvement in this context.MethodsWe established a staff–student partnership to formulate the design of an online research survey, which included Likert scale questions and three short vignette scenarios designed to probe student attitudes towards patient involvement linked to existing legal precedent. Incoming year 1 medical students (n=333) were (...) invited to participate in the survey before formal teaching commenced.ResultsSurvey data (49 participants) indicate that students were broadly familiar with, and supportive of, patient involvement in medical treatment. There was least support for patient involvement in conducting (23.9%), contributing to (37.0%) or communicating research (32.6%), whereas there was unanimous support for patients choosing treatment from a selection of options (100%).ConclusionIncoming members of the medical profession demonstrate awareness of the need to actively involve patients in healthcare decision-making but are unfamiliar with the utility and value of such involvement in research. Further empirical studies are required to examine attitudes to patient involvement in healthcare. (shrink)

In the last ten years or so there has been some lively discussion of the questions of immortality and resurrection. Within the Christian tradition there has been debate at theological and exegetical level over the relative merits of belief in the immortality of the soul, and belief in the resurrection of the dead as an account of life after death. Further to this, however, there has been the suggestion that there may be good philosophical reasons for preferring the latter to (...) the former. It is just this contention which I propose to discuss. (shrink)

It is of course true that the articulation of religious and theological views depends upon and often masks philosophical presuppositions. For example, those who quote with approval Anselm's ‘credo ut intelligam’, ‘I believe so that I may understand’, seldom follow the good example set by Anselm, and make explicit, as Anselm does in the following sentence, the fact that this principle rests upon a further principle: ‘For I believe this also, that “unless I believe, I shall not understand”’ . This (...) paper is an attempt to track down and expose one very pervasive set of views about the nature of experience which is implicit in a wide range of religious and theological claims. (shrink)

Many countries have regulations that require firms to engage in minimum levels of corporate social activities in areas such as the environment and social welfare. In this paper, we argue that changes in a firm’s compliance with CS regulations are reflected in its reputation for corporate social responsibility, which affects the firm’s performance. The performance impacts depend on whether the firm’s CSR reputation in the current and prior periods is positive, neutral, or negative. Our theoretical framework draws on the reputation (...) literature and on the concepts of recency bias, which weights the present more heavily than the past, and negativity bias, which weights negative assessments more heavily than neutral or positive assessments. We test our hypotheses on a sample of 7317 banks over 1992–2007 where we compare a bank’s return on assets with its current and prior compliance ratings under the U.S. Community Reinvestment Act. We find that changes in CSR reputation have predictable, asymmetric, and sizeable impacts on firm performance. For example, for an average bank with $1 billion in assets, gaining a positive CSR reputation translates into a rise in profits of 4.04%; gaining a negative CSR reputation results in a drop in profits of − 7.8%. (shrink)

Recent writing on the idea of a form of life has tended to be critical of the use made of this notion by writers such as Peter Winch, D. Z. Phillips and Norman Malcolm. Rightly or wrongly these writers have been regarded as meaning by ‘a form of life’, something like ‘a way or style of life’, and recent explicatory work on the notion has largely tended to discount this as a plausible interpretation of what Wittgenstein meant in his use (...) of the expression. The intention of this paper is not that of direct intervention in this particular dispute, though the conclusions drawn, if correct, would have some bearing on it. The intention is rather to develop, in order to make use of it, the idea of a form of life within the context of a number of philosophical difficulties. I should certainly claim to be drawing upon the remarks made by Wittgenstein in his own use of the expression: but I should not claim to be expounding Wittgenstein. Hence I do not wish to enter into the disputes referred to above about what precisely Wittgenstein meant by the expression, though again, what I say, if not wholly misguided, should have some bearing on these disputes. (shrink)

Offers a thorough, multidisciplinary picture of the informational challenges of our media ecosystem, as well as collaborative strategies for addressing them.

It describes and explains the patient-centered model examining and evaluating qualitative and quantitative research. It comprehensively covers the evolution and the six interactive components of the patient-centered clinical method, taking the reader through the relationships between the patient and doctor and the patient and clinician. All the editors are professors in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada.

A decade on after it first published to international acclaim, the seminal Handbook of Organization Studies has been updated to capture exciting new developments in the field. Providing a retrospective and prospective overview of organization studies, this Handbook continues to challenge and inspire readers with its synthesis of knowledge and literature. As ever, contributions have been selected to reflect the diversity of the field. New chapters cover areas such as organizational change, knowledge management and organizational networks.

The notion that management knowledge is universal, culture-neutral, readily transferable to any country or situation, has come under mounting challenge. The Politics of Management Knowledge goes beyond such `broad-brush' assertions to explore in detail the relations between management knowledge, power and practice in a world where globalization highlights, rather than obscures, the locally specific character of many management recipes. The book recognizes the political nature of management knowledge as a discourse produced from, and reproducing, power processes within and between organizations. (...) This theme underpins discussion of the ways in which management ideas and practices `produce' managers of a particular kind. (shrink)

This study examines whether scenic beauty judgments based upon photographs of landscapes are similar to scenic beauty judgments based upon on-site experiences of landscapes. Two concerns are emphasized: a concern about the threat to the ecological validity of photo-based assessments caused by differences between on-site and photo-based contexts and a concern that the individual rater, rather than the group average, is the more appropriate unit of analysis for tests of validity of photo-based assessments. On-site scenic beauty assessments were collected from (...) day hikers. These data were compared to photo-based scenic beauty assessments collected from the same persons three months and nine months after their on-site experience. Approximately 38% of participants had insignificant correlations between their on-site and photo-based scenic beauty ratings. These and other results suggest that the validity of photo-based scenic beauty assessments is in doubt, at least for the situation studied here. Moreover, the results suggest that the difference between persons' on-site and photo-based ratings can be explained, in part, by contextual factors such as the mood, meaning, and novelty that differentiate photo-based from on-site landscape experiences. Group averaged on-site and photo-based assessments, however, were very similar, suggesting caution may be in order for studies interpreting summary measures. (shrink)

This dissertation discusses the work of Thomas Hobbes, and has two main themes. The first is Hobbes's materialism, and the second is Hobbes's relationships to other philosophers, in particular his place in the mechanist movement that is said to have replaced Aristotelianism as the dominant philosophy in the seventeenth century. -/- I argue that Hobbes does not, for most of his career, believe the general materialist view that bodies are the only substances. He believes, rather, that ideas, which are our (...) main mechanism for thinking about the world, allow us to understand many bodies, but not to understand every thing we recognize to exist. The incomprehensible things include God---and, early in Hobbes's career, the human mind. Discussing materialism and our knowledge of God leads me to engage with the debate over Hobbes's alleged atheism. I argue that the evidence for Hobbes's atheism is weak at best. Hobbes is a sincere theist, though his view is sometimes unusual. -/- My discussion of Hobbes's relationships to other philosophers has three parts. In chapter five I argue that Hobbes's views about method are in important ways similar to Zabarella's. In chapter six I look at Hobbes's rejection of the view, held by some scholastic Aristotelians, that accidents can sometimes exist without inhering in substances. Thus we see two sides of Hobbes's interaction with the Aristotelian tradition. Sometimes that interaction is just rejection, but at other times Hobbes takes over views from that tradition. Then in chapter seven I consider whether, and in what sense, Hobbes is a mechanist. I argue that the narrative of mechanism and Aristotelianism is a less powerful explanation than it has seemed to some to be, because it is hard to see what mechanists have in common. (shrink)

Paradox — the simultaneous existence of two inconsistent states — has become orthodox. The orthodox is now the paradox. The orthodox world of ordering, controlling and organizing is increasingly opposed to a normalizing world of disordering, disrupting and disorganizing. And organization studies cannot avoid changing its conceptions of reality as that reality changes. In the future, organization studies will be the study of paradox, how to understand it, how to use it. In this book of original contributions addressed to management (...) and organization paradoxes the authors address the new state of the field in terms of representations — representing paradoxes — and materialisations — materialising paradoxes. The themes — although varied, ranging from dialectics to internal tensions; from collaborations to ethics and value conflicts; from resistant labourers and wharfies to cartoon characters such as The Simpsons; from the irrationalities of finance to the psychoanalytic rationalities of auditing, and from issues of governance in Asian and international business to the composition of the new knowledge work force in the business professions — cohere around core aspects of paradoxicality. Overall, the contributions to Management and Organization Paradoxes are diverse and challenging. Each contribution takes a different angle on the central theme. All of the chapters illuminate diverse aspects of contemporary paradoxes in management and organization theory. The book provides, in each of its chapters, a challenge to the still overwhelmingly rationalist views of theory and practice that dominate the field and provides new directions for understanding organizations and management.The contributors are drawn from leading European, Australian and Latin American contributors. (shrink)

This paper explores the ethical and conceptual implications of the findings from an empirical study (reported elsewhere) of decision-making capacity in anorexia nervosa. In the study, ten female patients aged thirteen to twenty-one years with a diagnosis of anorexia nervosa, and eight sets of parents, took part in semistructured interviews. The purpose of the interviews was to identify aspects of thinking that might be relevant to the issue of competence to refuse treatment. All the patient-participants were also tested using the (...) MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool—Treatment test of competence. This is a formalized, structured, interviewer-administered test of competence, which is a widely accepted clinical tool for determining capacity. The young women also completed five brief, self-administered questionnaires to assess their levels of psychopathology. The issues identified from the interviews are described under two headings: difficulties with thought processing and changes in values. The results suggest that competence to refuse treatment may be compromised in people with anorexia nervosa in ways that are not captured by traditional legal approaches. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Diacritics 33.1 (2003) 60-79 [Access article in PDF] The Secret Power of Suggestion Scipio Sighele and the Postliberal Subject Suzanne R. Stewart-Steinberg He experiments one by one with about thirty young men. [...] Almost all of them respond immediately to his power of fascination by turning stiff throughout their bodies; their faces become contracted, terrified, sometimes cadaverous; they are at the mercy of the fascinator and follow his (...) movements like a magnet. [...] There is something pitiful, spasmodic in their features, something macabre in their gestures. [...] Donato has them all in his power, he attracts them in threes, in sixes, ten at a time, simply by rapidly staring into their eyes, even against their firm will and their obstinate efforts to resist his suggestion. [...] Donato, in the process, never speaks: he thinks, he wants and points. [...] —an eyewitness account, L'Italia (1886) Young male bodies that turn stiff despite their efforts to do otherwise—such were the events to be seen on the stage of the Teatro Scribe in Turin in 1886, events performed under the direction of "Donato" (the Belgian-born Alfred d'Hont), the new theatrical magnetizer of crowds. Enrico Morselli, one of Italy's leading psychiatrists of the period,1 assisted and himself succumbed to the fascination of Donato. In his important 1886 study on animal magnetism and hypnotic states, Morelli provided a rather positive portrait of the man. Donato, in his opinion, was not a vulgar man. First soldier, then state employee, journalist, novelist, poet, and finally student and apostle of animal magnetism, Donato had revolutionized hypnotic practice through his discovery of a phenomenon called "fascination." Donato was blessed with uncommon physical strength, quick and insistent eyes, a great agility of movement and much spirit. He had exchanged the magician's cap for the more sober tuxedo—quite appropriately, for he [End Page 60]rejects fluids, rejects the power and transmission of will; nor does he trade in somnambulist lucidity, in sight without eyes, in divination. He does not claim to have special secrets or gifts. Instead he claims that it is his quick and insistent "gaze" that produces a rapid and sudden shock to the nervous system of sensitive individuals. Where there is no "orgasm," he told me—but more accurately he should have said "predisposition"—his method does not work. [Morselli, Il magnetismo animale 281] What was then so revolutionary about Donato's method? Why were the spectacles at the Teatro Scribe perceived to be so radically new? And above all, why, as Morselli claims, did these shows come close to producing a political crisis right at the center of Europe [Magnetismo 271]?James Braid's discovery in 1842 that hypnotic sleep could be induced by the simple fixation on a luminous object had revolutionized magnetic theory and practice. Braid's was to prove an important discovery, for it made possible the shift from the putative supernatural powers of the hypnotist—based on the theory of the transmission of magnetic fluids or electric currents—to an analysis of characteristics thought to inhere in the hypnotized subject him- or herself. The real cause of hypnosis, its very effectivity, was to be found, as Morselli remarks, not in the magnetizer but in his subject [Magnetismo 32]. A rethinking, within the late-nineteenth-century literature on hypnotism, of what drives the subject, of what makes him act appears predicated then on a very peculiar form of interiority, of self-causation within the subject himself. At the end of its historical trajectory this rethinking would first result in the idea of auto-hypnosis or auto-suggestion, and then, by the beginning of the new century, it would found the psychoanalytic subject, traversed as he is by conflicting desires and topographically split between ego and superego. In both instances, however, obedience is exacted as a result of an internalized command and—and here lies the peculiarity and utter novelty of this subject—for that reason the subject ceases to be master of his own house.In the remarks that follow, I will leave aside Freud's own contributions... (shrink)

Stewart R. Sutherland; VII*—God, Time and Eternity, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 79, Issue 1, 1 June 1979, Pages 103–122, https://doi.org/10.

This paper examines ethics in organizations in relation to the subjectivity of managers. Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault we seek to theorize ethics in terms of the meaning of being a manager who is an active ethical subject. Such a manager is so in relation to the organizational structures and norms that govern the conduct of ethics. Our approach locates ethics in the relation between individual morality and organizationally prescribed principles assumed to guide personal action. In this way (...) we see ethics as a practice that is powerfully intertwined in an individual’s freedom to make choices about what to do and who to be, and the organizational context in which those choices are situated, framed and governed. (shrink)

This paper examines ethics in organizations in relation to the subjectivity of managers. Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault we seek to theorize ethics in terms of the meaning of being a manager who is an active ethical subject. Such a manager is so in relation to the organizational structures and norms that govern the conduct of ethics. Our approach locates ethics in the relation between individual morality and organizationally prescribed principles assumed to guide personal action. In this way (...) we see ethics as a practice that is powerfully intertwined in an individual’s freedom to make choices about what to do and who to be, and the organizational context in which those choices are situated, framed and governed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Stewart R. Sutherland LANGUAGE AND INTERPRETATION IN CRIME AND PUNISHMENT OF some novels it is possible to argue with justification that the problems of interpretation and understanding begin on the first page. Of Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment it is possible to contend that the problems of interpretation and understanding begin on the title page. The terms "crime" and "punishment" are overtly moral. The novel is read in the (...) context of a title which exhibits its values where they may be seen by all. What significance must we attach to the choice of such a title? It is possible that the title gives to us a characterization of the content of the novel which, retrospectively, we can only regard as either self-consciously ironical, or perhaps pathetically so, but how are we to decide whether this is more than a possibility? Having raised this question, I propose to set it aside in the hope of returning to it equipped with the experience derived from a number of literary and philosophical digressions. The literary and conceptual style of critical comment upon a novel often betrays much that is definitive of the response being elucidated. If one compares and contrasts Philip Rahv's essay on Crime and Punishment with the appropriate chapter of Mochulsky's Dostoevsky,2 the implication of this general claim may be clarified. My intention here is to use largely ostensive means to suggest the radically different accounts of the novel given to us by these two writers. That the conclusions are different is hardly in need of statement. What is worth examining is the character of the language and of the arguments used to substantiate those conclusions. The point of my discussion will rest not upon assessing the accuracy or legitimacy of particular judgments, but rather upon delineating the general contours of the intellectual contexts in which these judgments are offered. 223 224Philosophy and Literature Rahv's focus is on the character or psyche of Raskolnikov. The novel is seen largely in the form of a psychological study of the mind of the murderer. He reminds us that a central problem for Raskolnikov, for the reader, and for Dostoyevsky himself, is the identification of Raskolnikov's motive—not that there is an absence of motives, indeed quite the reverse: "He is soon lost in the maze of his own motivation" (p. 20). His mind spins incessantly upon an axis the nature of which is nowhere made unambiguously apparent. Nor, it seems, can we replace our search for a motive, or the sufficient reason for action, by identifying a supreme assertion of will: again, on the contrary, we are told, "Dostoyevsky is the first novelist to have fully accepted and dramatized the principle of uncertainty or indeterminacy in the presentation of character" (p. 21). Despite that, however, the success of the novel rests upon Dostoyevsky's skills in allying the insight "... that human consciousness is inexhaustible and incalculable" (p. 19), to "his capacity to combine [seeming contradictions] in a single brain and a single psyche, while staving off the danger of incoherence at one end and of the specious reconciliation at the other..." (p. 38). The mood ofRahv's treatment of the novel is dominated in this way by the language of (largely popularized) psychology—"pathological depression," "nameless guilt-feelings," "wishful fantasy"—and not surprisingly, he sees his own preoccupations as mirroring those of Dostoyevsky: "What Dostoyevsky has done in revising Raskolnikov's justification is to convert into a theory of human nature what is in Hegel not a psychological theory at all but a theory of men as subjects and objects of history" (p. 34). Mochulsky, on the other hand, breathes a very different atmosphere. From the outset he talks of "the spiritual existence of Dostoyevsky's heroes," and he says of a man who wills a murder or one who "betrays himself to the powers of dark necessity" (pp. 302-303), "The murderer has stepped beyond something more than the moral law: the very basis ofthe spiritual worlditself" (p. 303). "The whole tragedy of man-godhood," he tells us, "is expressed in these few words: 'It seems to me,' Raskolnikov says, 'truly great people experience an immense... (shrink)

The title of this paper proclaims its central interest—the relationship which holds between the concept of integrity and the concept of the identity of the self, or, for short, self-identity. Unreflective speech often suggests a close relationship between the two, but in the latter half of this century, notwithstanding one or two notable exceptions, they have been discussed with minimum cross-reference as if they belonged to two rather different philosophical menus which tended not to be available at the same restaurant (...) on the same night. My intention is to argue that our account of the one carried implications for the other and that this relationship is reflexive. My argument will proceed by stating and criticizing a common account of the relationship between each of these concepts which tends to offer mutual support for the implied account of each. Thereafter an alternative account will be outlined. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Studying Penguins to Understand BirdsJacinta O. A. Tan (bio), Anne Stewart (bio), Ray Fitzpatrick (bio), and Tony Hope (bio)Keywordsanorexia nervosa, treatment decision-making, competence, valuesWe are grateful to Grisso, Appelbaum, Charland, and Vollmann for their thoughtful commentaries on our paper. We would like to respond by picking up on some of the points they make, although we do not address all the issues raised.Our general aims in the paper (...) are less immediately pragmatic than are the central concerns of Grisso and Appelbaum. Our interest is primarily in a number of ethical, and related conceptual, issues that arise from empirical data. In the long run, of course, we believe that these ethical and conceptual issues are important to the care of people with mental disorders, but our focus is philosophical.Our central interest is what justifies overriding treatment refusal. We are unhappy with a "status" approach according to which, for example, the mere fact that a person suffers a mental disorder provides grounds for overriding her wishes. Such an approach, it seems to us, fails to identify reasons, and discriminates against those with mental disorder, a view shared by the Law Commission (The Law Commission 1995). We are, on the other hand, attracted by the approach that grounds any overriding of treatment refusal on lack of capacity (or competence) to make treatment decisions. The concept of capacity has been well developed through legal cases and conceptual analysis, not least by Grisso and Appelbaum themselves. We were struck, however, first through clinical experience, and subsequently from the pilot study reported in our paper, that many patients with anorexia nervosa who refuse treatment do not necessarily lack capacity, using the current criteria, and yet show features or give reasons that raise serious doubts as to whether it is right to respect their refusal of treatment.To avoid reliance on a "status" approach, the issue with which we are grappling is whether the concept of capacity (and therefore lack of capacity) can be developed to encompass some of our findings, and whether it is ethically right to do so. Charland makes the important point that the concept of competence, or capacity, has both a descriptive and a prescriptive component. It is for this reason that the question of whether, for example, we should extend the criteria for capacity is part of the question of when it is morally right to override treatment refusal.Grisso and Appelbaum suggest that our work advances "our thinking about appreciation, rather than requiring that we add new elements" (2006, 297). From our perspective, and at this stage, it is a secondary issue whether we are suggesting a development of appreciation, or a new element (e.g., "pathological values"). The primary issue for us is whether the reasons for refusal to which we draw attention provide grounds for overriding refusal, and if they do how they can be characterized in [End Page 299] such a way as to avoid the ever-present danger of simply overriding autonomy in a patient's best interests.We chose to study anorexia nervosa for various reasons, but we expect that the issues raised have a more general relevance (such as to substance abuse and impulse control disorders as Grisso and Appelbaum and Charland suggest). We do not expect the results to be relevant to all, or even most, mental disorders. Our main interest is not the specific management of people with anorexia, but how the data challenge, and help to develop, the concept of capacity, and the ethical analysis of overriding patient refusal of treatment. Our paper aims to address what we understand Charland to be referring to by the "pretheoretical desiderata" (2006, 283) of the concept of capacity. One reason why we chose anorexia as the focus of this work is because it is different from many mental disorders in the issues that it raises. In this it is, perhaps, rather like studying penguins to better understand the concept of bird just because penguins, although clearly birds, have unusual features.We agree, therefore, with Grisso and Appelbaum's caution that it would be unwise to jump in and change the MacCAT-T on the basis of the results... (shrink)

This paper presents a preliminary analysis of the first participatory budgeting experiment in the United States, in Chicago's 49th Ward. There are two avenues of inquiry: First, does participatory budgeting result in different budgetary priorities than standard practices? Second, do projects meet normative social justice outcomes? It is clear that allowing citizens to determine municipal budget projects results in very different outcomes than standard procedures. Importantly, citizens in the 49th Ward consistently choose projects that the research literature classifies as low (...) priority. The results are mixed, however, when it comes to social justice outcomes. While there is no clear pattern in which projects are located only in affluent sections of the ward, there is evidence of geographic clustering. Select areas are awarded projects like community gardens, dog parks, and playgrounds, while others are limited to street resurfacing, sidewalk repairs, bike racks, and bike lanes. Based on our findings, we offer suggestions for future programmatic changes. (shrink)

Adolescence methamphetamine use is an issue of considerable concern due to its correlation with later delinquency, divorce, unemployment and health problems. Understanding how adolescents initiate methamphetamine abuse is important in developing effective prevention programs. We formulate a mathematical model for the spread of methamphetamine abuse using nonlinear ordinary differential equations. It is assumed that susceptibles are recruited into methamphetamine use through imitation. An epidemic threshold value, Ra\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathcal {R}}_a$$\end{document}, termed the abuse reproduction (...) number, is proposed and defined herein in the drug-using context. The model is shown to exhibit the phenomenon of backward bifurcation. This means that methamphetamine problems may persist in the population even if Ra\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathcal {R}}_a$$\end{document} is less than one. Sensitivity analysis of Ra\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathcal {R}}_a$$\end{document} was performed to determine the relative importance of different parameters in methamphetamine abuse initiation. The model is then fitted to data on methamphetamine users less than 20 years old reporting methamphetamine as their primary substance of abuse in the treatment centres of Cape Town and parameter values that give the best fit are chosen. Results show that the proportion of methamphetamine users less than 20 years old reporting methamphetamine as their primary substance of abuse will continue to decrease in Cape Town of South Africa. The results suggest that intervention programs targeted at reducing adolescence methamphetamine abuse, are positively impacting methamphetamine abuse. (shrink)

As Hammond has argued, traditional explanations for disagreement among experts (incompetence, venality, and ideology) are inadequate. The character and fallibilities of the human judgement process itself lead to persistent disagreements even among competent, honest, and disinterested experts. Social Judgement Theory provides powerful methods for analysing such judgementally based disagreements when the experts' judgement processes can be represented by additive models involving the same cues. However, the validity and usefulness of such representations depend on several conditions: (a) experts must agree on (...) a problem definition, (b) experts must have access to the same information, and (c) experts must use the same organising principles. When these conditions are not met, methods for diagnosing and treating disagreement are poorly understood. As a start towards developing such an understanding, sources of expert disagreement are discussed and categorised. (shrink)

Animal and plant species exhibit an astonishing diversity of sexual systems, including environmental and genetic determinants of sex, with the latter including genetic material in the mitochondrial genome. In several hermaphroditic plants for example, sex is determined by an interaction between mitochondrial cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS) genes and nuclear restorer genes. Specifically, CMS involves aberrant mitochondrial genes that prevent pollen development and specific nuclear genes that restore it, leading to a mixture of female (male‐sterile) and hermaphroditic individuals in the population (...) (gynodioecy). Such a mitochondrial‐nuclear sex determination system is thought to be rare outside plants. Here, we present one possible case of CMS in animals. We hypothesize that the only exception to the strict maternal mtDNA inheritance in animals, the doubly uniparental inheritance (DUI) system in bivalves, might have originated as a mitochondrial‐nuclear sex‐determination system. We document and explore similarities that exist between DUI and CMS, and we propose various ways to test our hypothesis. (shrink)