Understanding the relationship between obesity and fast food consumption encompasses a broad range of individual level and environmental factors. One theoretical approach, the health capability framework, focuses on the complex set of conditions allowing individuals to be healthy. This qualitative study aimed to identify factors that influence individual level health agency with respect to healthy eating choices in uniformly constrained environments. We used an inductive qualitative research design to develop an interview guide, conduct open-ended interviews with a purposive sample of (...) 14 student fast food workers, and analyze the data. Data analysis was conducted iteratively during the study with multiple coders to identify themes. Emergent themes included environmental influences on eating behaviors and internal psychological factors. A localized, embedded approach to analyzing the factors driving the obesity epidemic is needed. Addressing contextual interactions between internal psychological and external environmental factors responds to social justice and public health concerns, and may yield more relevant and effective interventions for vulnerable communities. (shrink)

Obesity is a public health problem influenced by behavioral patterns that span an ecological spectrum of individual-level factors, social network factors and environmental factors. Both individual and environmental approaches necessarily include significant influences from social networks, but how and under what conditions social networks influence behavior change is often not clearly mapped out either in the obesity literature or in many intervention designs. In this paper, we provide an analysis of recent empirical work in obesity research that explicates social network (...) influences on eating behaviors. We argue that a relational rather than individualistic view of personhood should help us better understand the content and context of social network relations that inform health behavior choices. We introduce the concept of ‘identity-constitutive affiliations’ as the glue that binds these social relationships together. Finally, we outline the implications for public health ethics in the development of effective interventions to address overweight and obesity, leveraging the content and context of social network ties to reinforce healthy (or alter unhealthy) eating. More complex treatment of positive and negative behaviors stemming from social network connections should lead to more comprehensive theoretical models of health behavior change and more effective public health interventions. (shrink)

Experimental philosophers advocate expansion of philosophical methods to include empirical investigation into the concepts used by ordinary people in reasoning and action. We propose also including methods of qualitative social science, which we argue serve both moral and epistemic goals. Philosophical analytical tools applied to interdisciplinary research designs can provide ways to extract rich contextual information from subjects. We argue that this approach has important implications for bioethics; it provides both epistemic and moral reasons to use the experiences and perspectives (...) of diverse populations to better identify underlying concepts as well as to develop effective interventions within particular communities. (shrink)

BackgroundInstitutional review boards (IRBs) are formally designated to review, approve, and monitor biomedical research. They are responsible for ensuring that researchers comply with the ethical guidelines concerning human research participants. Given that IRBs might face different obstacles that cause delays in their processes or conflicts with investigators, this study aims to report the functions, roles, resources, and review process of IRBs in Saudi Arabia.MethodThis was a cross-sectional self-reported survey conducted from March 2021 to March 2022. The survey was sent to (...) 53 IRB chairpersons and the administration directors (or secretary) across the country through email after receiving verbal consent. The validated survey consisted of eight aspects: (a) organizational aspects, (b) membership and educational training, (c) submission arrangements and materials, (d) minutes, (e) review procedures, (f) communicating a decision, (g) continuing review, and (h) research ethics committee (REC) resources. A total of 200 points indicated optimal IRB functions.ResultsTwenty-six IRBs across Saudi Arabia responded to the survey. Overall, the IRBs in this study scored a total of 150/200 of the points on the self-assessment tool. Relatively newer IRBs (established less than ten years ago) conducted meetings at least once in a month, had annual funding, had more balanced gender representation, tended to score higher than older IRBs. The organizational aspect score was the lowest among all items in the survey (14.3 score difference, p-value < 0.01). The average turnaround time for expedited research from proposal submission to final decision was 7 days, while it was 20.5 days for the full committee review.ConclusionSaudi IRBs performed generally well. However, there is room for focused improvement with respect to extra resources and organizational issues that require closer evaluation and guidance from the regulatory bodies. (shrink)

Nonverbal signals color the meanings of interpersonal relationships. Humans rely on facial, head, postural, and vocal signals to express relational messages along continua. Three of relevance are dominance-submission, composure-nervousness and trust-distrust. Machine learning and new automated analysis tools are making possible a deeper understanding of the dynamics of relational communication. These are explored in the context of group interactions during a game entailing deception. The “messiness” of studying communication under naturalistic conditions creates many measurement and design obstacles that are discussed (...) here. Possibilities for their mitigation are considered. (shrink)

This investigation sought to find the relationships among multiple dimensions of personality and multiple features of language style. Unlike previous investigations, after controlling for such other moderators as culture and socio-demographics, the current investigation explored those dimensions of naturalistic spoken language that most closely align with communication. In groups of five to eight players, participants from eight international locales completed hour-long competitive games consisting of a series of ostensible missions. Composite measures of quantity, lexical diversity, sentiment, immediacy and negations were (...) measured with an automated tool called SPLICE and with Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count. We also investigated style dynamics over the course of an interaction. We found predictors of extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism, but overall fewer significant associations than prior studies, suggesting greater heterogeneity in language style in contexts entailing interactivity, conversation rather than solitary message production, oral rather than written discourse, and groups rather than dyads. Extraverts were found to maintain greater linguistic style consistency over the course of an interaction. The discussion addresses the potential for Type I error when studying the relationship between language and personality. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 4, May 2020, Page 35-37.

This article addresses the role of social media fragments in the return of fascist politics It argues that beside or contrary to a conscious collective intelligence emerging through the internet, a collective unconscious has seized the political space, delegitimatizing modern institutions of documentary truth based on evidence, method, and the institutional construction of facts.

Smiles provide information about a social partner’s affect and intentions during social interaction. Although always encountered within a specific situation, the influence of contextual information on smile evaluation has not been widely investigated. Moreover, little is known about the reciprocal effect of smiles on evaluations of their accompanying situations. In this research, we assessed how different smile types and situational contexts affected participants’ social evaluations. In Study 1, 85 participants rated reward, affiliation, and dominance smiles embedded within either enjoyable, polite, (...) or negative (unpleasant) situations. Context had a strong effect on smile ratings, such that smiles in enjoyable situations were rated as more genuine and joyful, as well as indicating less superiority than those in negative situations. In Study 2, 200 participants evaluated the situations that these smiles were perceived within (rather than the smiles themselves). Although situations paired with reward (vs. affiliation) smiles tended to be rated more positively, this effect was absent for negative situations. Ultimately, the findings point toward a reciprocal relationship between smiles and contexts, whereby the face influences evaluations of the situation and vice versa. (shrink)

Today, I will discuss aspects of my project on the Spirit of Information. I will present part of a chapter of a new book that I am working on documentation and expression, where I discuss information as an attempt to break away from documentation during modernity and today. AARON SWARTZ E O ESPÍRITO DA INFORMAÇÃOResumo Hoje vou discutir aspectos do meu projeto sobre "O espírito da informação". Irei apresentar parte do capítulo de um novo livro em que estou trabalhando sobre (...) documentação e expressão, onde discuto a informação como uma tentativa de romper com a documentação durante a modernidade e hoje. (shrink)

This article was delivered as a public lecture at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, March 24, 2015. It discusses normative information and library ethics and then formal and critical information and library ethics, the latter being the preconditions to the existence of information access and user’s choices. Information professionals have strong responsibilities in creating the possibilities for information, and therefore, for truth and rights to truth, by their choices in constructing and making available or not information. Professional formal (...) and critical ethics are, thus, preconditions to information access and choices by users. ÉTICA INFORMACIONAL: AS PERSPECTIVAS NORMATIVA E CRÍTICA ResumoEste artigo foi apresentado como conferência pública na Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, em 24 de março de 2015. Discute regras referentes à informação e a ética biblioteconômica e, daí, critérios formais e críticos para a informação e a ética biblioteconômica, a última como precondição para existência do acesso à informação e escolha dos usuários. Os profissionais da informação têm grande responsabilidades na criação de possibilidades para informação e, daí, à verdade e ao direito à verdade, a partir de suas escolhas na construção e no fazer acessível ou não a informação. Critérios formais e ética crítica são, então, precondições para o acesso e escolha de informações pelos usuários. (shrink)

‘New media’ information technologies were recently thought to be so intrinsically different from ‘old,’ mass media, technologies that fascism would no longer be possible. Through new media information and communication technologies, the political ‘mass’ was supposedly replaced by the ‘crowd’ or the ‘swarm,’ and an old mass media replaced by a new media serving individual ‘information needs.’ However, extreme right-wing political populism and encroaching fascism today are world-wide phenomena in developed countries, not only despite new media, but partly because of (...) it. How is this possible? (shrink)

This paper examines the relation of social media to political discourse in light of Bruno Latour’s notion of political discourse being (innately and positively) “crooked” (se courber) in his book, An Inquiry into Modes of Existence: An Anthology of the Moderns. In this book, Latour argues for a geometry of political rhetoric and its claims to truth that is the reverse of the Western philosophic tradition’s. This article looks at that geometry from the aspect of rhetorical strategies of fragment and (...) punctuation, empowered by the form and use of social media. It examines such in the presidential campaign of Donald Trump in the United States of America during 2015-2016. Contrasts and connections to earlier, ‘old media,’ mediums and technologies, such as that of modern journalism and radio are made. (shrink)

The paper examines the legal, ethical, and public policy issues involved in the Union Carbide gas leak in India which caused the deaths of over 3000 people and injury to thousands of people. The paper begins with a historical perspective on the operating environment in Bhopal, the events surrounding the accident, then discusses an international situation audit examining internal strengths and weaknesses, and external opportunities and threats faced by Union Carbide at the time of the accident. There is a discussion (...) of management of the various interests involved in international public relations and ethical issues. A review of the financial ratio analysis of the company prior and subsequent to the accident follows, then an examination of the second tragedy of Bhopal — the tragic failure of the international legal system to adequately and timely compensate victims of the accident.The paper concludes with recommendations towards public policy, as well as a call for congressional action regarding international safety of U.S. based multinational operations. (shrink)

The computable Lipschitz reducibility was introduced by Downey, Hirschfeldt and LaForte under the name of strong weak truth-table reducibility [6]). This reducibility measures both the relative randomness and the relative computational power of real numbers. This paper proves that the computable Lipschitz degrees of computably enumerable sets are not dense. An immediate corollary is that the Solovay degrees of strongly c.e. reals are not dense. There are similarities to Barmpalias and Lewis’ proof that the identity bounded Turing degrees of c.e. (...) sets are not dense [2]), however the problem for the computable Lipschitz degrees is more complex. (shrink)

In this essay I argue the extent to which meaning and judgment in aesthetics figures in Wittgenstein’s later conception of language, particularly in his conception of how philosophy might go about explaining the ordinary functioning of language. Following a review of some biographical and textual matters concerning Wittgenstein’s life with music, I outline the connection among (1) Wittgenstein’s discussions of philosophical clarity or perspicuity, (2) our attempts to give clarity to our aesthetic experiences by wording them, and (3) the clarifying (...) experience of the dawning of an aspect, which Wittgenstein pictures as the perception of an internal relation. By examining Wittgenstein’s use of “internal relation” from the Tractatus to his later writings, I come to challenge the still prevalent understanding of Wittgenstein’s appeals to grammar as an appeal to something given (e.g., to a set of grammatical rules). Instead, as I argue, Wittgensteinian appeals to grammatical criteria should be understood as modeled by the form of justification found in our conversations about art. (shrink)

This is a welcome addition to the scant literature in English on the life of the great seventeenth-century German philosopher and polymath, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. No full-scale biography of Leibniz has appeared in English since John Milton Mackie devised a condensation of G. E. Guhrauer’s still standard work in 1845. Some material from unpublished papers was incorporated into J. T. Merz’s account. Since then virtually nothing has been attempted in this area of Leibniz scholarship, in spite of the fact that (...) much important work has been done, especially in German, culminating in the fine Leben und Werk von. G. W. Leibniz by Kurt Müller and Gisela Krönert. If for no other reason than the dearth of English treatments of the subject, Mr. Aiton’s biography would be a significant contribution. (shrink)

This is a welcome addition to the scant literature in English on the life of the great seventeenth-century German philosopher and polymath, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. No full-scale biography of Leibniz has appeared in English since John Milton Mackie devised a condensation of G. E. Guhrauer’s still standard work in 1845. Some material from unpublished papers was incorporated into J. T. Merz’s account. Since then virtually nothing has been attempted in this area of Leibniz scholarship, in spite of the fact that (...) much important work has been done, especially in German, culminating in the fine Leben und Werk von. G. W. Leibniz by Kurt Müller and Gisela Krönert. If for no other reason than the dearth of English treatments of the subject, Mr. Aiton’s biography would be a significant contribution. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to increase our understanding of what archaic verse epitaphs meant to contemporary readers. Section I suggests their fundamental message was praise of the deceased, expressed in forms characteristic of poetic encomium in its broad, rhetorical sense, i.e., praise poetry. In section II, the conventions of encomium in the epitaphs are compared to the iconographic conventions of funerary art. I conclude that verse inscriptions and grave markers, not only communicate the same message of praise, but (...) do so in a formally parallel manner. Section III, drawing on Pindar as a preserver of archaic thinking, attributes the parallelism between verse epitaph and grave marker to their common debt to funerary ritual. The epigrams will be seen to share with their monuments the goal of memorializing this ritual. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: What Is Historiographic Evidence? Bayesianism Bayesianism as a Model of Historiographic Reasoning Explanationism Towards an Explanationist Bayesianism Applications: Skepticism Applications: Underdetermination References Further Reading.

In 1956 W. B. Gallie advanced the thesis that certain political concepts, such as that of social justice, are .1 Since then, a considerable literature on the subject has developed, some of it in support of the thesis, some of it in opposition to it.2 W. E. Connolly is a leading supporter of it, and John Gray is a leading opponent of it. However, Connolly's advocacy of it in the second edition of his book is significantly more moderate than that (...) in the first (1974) edition of it. (shrink)

In disproof of the materialist principle, that common things exist unperceived, and in defence of the New Principle, Philonous here objects that it is inconceivable that a common thing should do so. Hylas replies that, on the contrary, we can and do think of, e.g., a tree standing alone as opposed to a tree being perceived by an observer. But Philonous counter-objects to this reply that it contains a contradiction, since it asserts that we can think of something which is (...) not thought of. (shrink)

EveryK-trivial set is computable from an incomplete Martin-Löf random set, i.e., a Martin-Löf random set that does not compute the halting problem.

Ever feel concerned that you may not achieve your career goals, or feel worried about where your life is going? Such examples may reflect the experience of status anxiety, that is, concerns that one may be stuck or not able to move up in life, or worries that one may be too low in standing compared to society’s standards. Status anxiety is believed to be exacerbated by economic inequality and negatively affect well-being. While job satisfaction is an important determinant of (...) well-being, no research has examined whether status anxiety can also help explain people’s satisfaction with their jobs. We tested whether status anxiety differs from other organizational constructs and uniquely relates to job satisfaction among full-time working adults. In a pilot study we found that status anxiety is separate from the concept of job insecurity (e.g.,, perceived threat of job loss). Results of our main study also indicated that higher status anxiety significantly predicted lower job satisfaction beyond several other indicators of organizational attitudes (job insecurity, occupational self-efficacy, distributive, procedural, and interactional justice), as well as the tendency to seek status and several background factors (e.g., income, education, perceived socioeconomic status). We discuss the unique role of status anxiety in job satisfaction and the implications of this research to our understanding of status concerns as well as organizational attitudes and policies. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION Back in the good old days of philosophy — say, around 400 BC, philosophers played a rather prominent role in the community at large. ...

This article presents a detailed study of an early section of the actual works and days of Hesiod's Works and Days. The treatment consistently eschews obsolete assumptions about this poem, in particular that it reduces to a didactic presentation to the early Greek farmer. A key principle of the method followed is to pay closer attention to the text's relation to epic forms than has been typical among the poem's commentators. The result is to find that a certain literary figure (...) gradually develops in the section discussed. Namely, the plowing nominally covered there stands for the section's portion on the human condition, a condition implicitly compared with that associated with traditional epic. The figure evokes a well-rounded person, aware of the divine and of the world's uncertainties, with a long-term sense of purpose involving good organization of one's life, as opposed to someone engaged in helter-skelter pursuit of transitory activities, perhaps war specifically. With this identification of virtual protagonist established by the end of the section, the ground is prepared for any further development of the figure as that entity's undertakings or adventures in the remainder of the poem. (shrink)

Apart from the names of Jan Baudouin de Courtenay (1845-1929), Mikołaj Kruszewski (1851-1887), and, later, Jerzy Kuryłowicz (1895-1978), Polish linguists and Polish linguistics generally have been little known in the West. The first two were mentioned with approval by Saussure in an unpublished paper, and this reference was picked up by Roman Jakobson and others many years later. Kuryłowicz, for his part, made himself well known in the West through his important work as Indo-Europeanist, even Semiticist, and as a general (...) linguist. The present volume is a first attempt to broaden the perspectives on the Polish contribution to linguistics both inside and outside of Poland during the past centuries. Specialists in their respective fields contributed chapters on the origins and development of general linguistics (Z. Wąsik), applied linguistics (F. Grucza), lexicology (T. Piotrowski), dialectology (St. Gogolewski), and onomastics (S. Gala), followed by five chapters presenting the theories of the arguably most remarkable Polish linguistic thinkers, from Baudouin de Courtenay (A. Adamska-Sałaciak), Kruszewski (F. M. Berezin), and Kuryłowicz (W. Smoczyński) to Mikołaj Rudnicki (1881-1978) and Ludwik Zabrocki (1907-1977) (both written by J. Bańczerowski). Detailed individual bibliographies, a full index of names (with life dates of Polish linguists from the Renaissance to the present day), and a thorough index of subjects and terms make this volume an important reference tool for anyone wishing to acquaint himself with the rich heritage of Polish linguistic thought. (shrink)

Clinical ethical support services (CESS) represent a multifaceted field of aims, consultancy models, and methodologies. Nevertheless, the overall aim of CESS can be summed up as contributing to healthcare of high ethical standards by improving ethically competent decision‐making in clinical healthcare. In order to support clinical care adequately, CESS must pay systematic attention to all real‐life ethical issues, including those which do not fall within the ‘favourite’ ethical issues of the day. In this paper we attempt to capture a comprehensive (...) overview of categories of ethical tensions in clinical care. We present an analytical exposition of ethical structural features in judgement‐based clinical care predicated on the assumption of the moral equality of human beings and the assessment of where healthcare contexts pose a challenge to achieving moral equality. The account and the emerging overview is worked out so that it can be easily contextualized with regards to national healthcare systems and specific branches of healthcare, as well as local healthcare institutions. By considering how the account and the overview can be applied to i) improve the ethical competence of healthcare personnel and consultants by broadening their sensitivity to ethical tensions, ii) identify neglected areas for ethical research, and iii) clarify the ethical responsibility of healthcare institutions' leadership, as well as specifying required institutionalized administration, we conclude that the proposed account should be considered useful for CESS. (shrink)

We propose that distinct leadership competencies differ in their development over time. Extending the integrative model of leader development (Day, Harrison, & Halpin, 2009), we further propose that leader identity will form complex relationships with leadership competencies over time. To test these propositions, we use longitudinal data (i.e., five month, four measurement points) of the 80 in total high-potential executives in a corporate leadership development program. We find significant difference in the initial levels and changes of eight distinct leadership competencies. (...) We also find that leader identity relates to the development of certain – but not all -- leadership competencies. Finally, we demonstrate the importance of developing leadership competencies by linking them to career advancement (i.e., job promotion). These findings are discussed in light of their theoretical and practical implications. (shrink)