Designing for culture through intelligent tutoring systems is on the rise. The needs of military personnel to communicate and understand cultures other than their own in deployments, missions, and work-related assignments have strongly encouraged the creation of culturally aware tutoring systems (CATS) that teach about other cultures. This paper critically analyzes three systems (i.e., ELECT-BiLAT, Tactical Iraqi, and VECTOR) and the frameworks that guided the design and development process. The examination reveals that there is a need for comprehensive guidelines to (...) build CATS. Therefore, the Culture Based Model is offered as a framework to guide the design of culture-based information and communication technologies. (shrink)

We describe and analyze 13 cases handled by our ethics consultation service (ECS) in which families requested continuation of physiological support for loved ones after death by neurological criteria (DNC) had been declared. These ethics consultations took place between 2005 and 2013. Patients’ ages ranged from 14 to 85. Continued mechanical ventilation was the focal intervention sought by all families. The ECS’s advice and recommendations generally promoted “reasonable accommodation” of the requests, balancing compassion for grieving families with other ethical and (...) moral concerns such as stewardship of resources, professional integrity, and moral distress. In cases we characterized as finitegoal accommodation, a “reasonable accommodation” strategy proved effective in balancing stakeholders’ interests and goals, enabling steady progress toward resolution. When a family objected outright to a declaration of DNC and asked for an indefinite accommodation, the “reasonable accommodation” approach offered clinicians little practical direction, and resolution required definitive action by either the family or the clinical team. Based on our analysis and reflections on these 13 cases, we propose ethically justified and practical guidelines to assist healthcare professionals, administrators, and ECSs faced with similar cases. (shrink)

A proof of pragmatism is proposed in Peirce's 1903 lecture series on Pragmatism as a Principle and Method of Right Thinking. It is necessary first to define what pragmatism is, a task for which a practitioner of the pragmatic maxim would be fitted, but which, however, must be highly problematic to a potential practitioner who does not yet know its full meaning. In order to clarify its meaning, Peirce uses a method he recommends for such conundrums in his 1891 article, (...) “The Architecture of Theories,” that is, “to make a systematic study of the conceptions out of which a philosophical theory may be built, in order to ascertain what place each conception may fitly occupy in such a theory and to what uses it is adapted”. Peirce's systematic study of the basis of logic and pragmatism in relation to it begins to appear around 1898 and peaks in 1903 when pragmatism's definition and role within the sciences is established in these lectures. (shrink)

In this essay, I attempt to solve the problem of the existence of evil in a world created by an omniscient, omnibenevolent, omnipotent God. I conclude that evil exists because God wanted to create moral creatures. Because choice is necessary for morality, God created creatures with enormous capacities for choice—and therefore enormous capacities for evil. Material creatures are subject to pain and death because, for such creatures, moral choices are deeply serious. The laws that underlie the material world and from (...) which material life arises are such that, from their workings out on a planet that can support life, natural evils happen. (shrink)

A medical information commons is a networked data environment utilized for research and clinical applications. At three deliberations across the U.S., we engaged 75 adults in two-day facilitated discussions on the ethical and social issues inherent to sharing data with an MIC. Deliberants made recommendations regarding opt-in consent, transparent data policies, public representation on MIC governing boards, and strict data security and privacy protection. Community engagement is critical to earning the public's trust.

Evolutionary ethics posits the evolution of dispositions to love self, kin, and friend. Christianity claims that God's ethical demand is to love one's neighbor. I argue that the distance between these two positions can be interpreted theologically as original sin, the disposition to disobey God's command and practice self-love and nepotism rather than neighbor-love. Original sin requires Incarnation and Atonement to unite God and humanity. The ancient doctrine of the Atonement as educative does not invoke the Fall. Its revival may (...) help reconcile Christianity and evolutionary ethics. (shrink)

Studies on informed consent to medical research conducted in low or middle-income settings have increased, including empirical investigations of consent to genetic research. We investigated voluntary participation and comprehension of informed consent among women involved in a genetic epidemiological study on breast cancer in an urban setting of Nigeria comparing women in the case and control groups.

Gottlob Frege famously rejects the methodology for consistency and independence proofs offered by David Hilbert in the latter's Foundations of Geometry. The present essay defends against recent criticism the view that this rejection turns on Frege's understanding of logical entailment, on which the entailment relation is sensitive to the contents of non-logical terminology. The goals are (a) to clarify further Frege's understanding of logic and of the role of conceptual analysis in logical investigation, and (b) to point out the extent (...) to which his understanding of logic differs importantly from that of the model-theoretic tradition that grows out of Hilbert's work. (shrink)

Abstract:This essay suggests that the word decolonial offers analytic power for feminist historians of women. As a category, it creates interpretive space for female experience beyond the elite/subaltern binary, where arguably most women live and work in the modern period. As a reading practice, the decolonial fosters intellectual awareness of social and intellectual practices that neither address the state, as in “anti-imperialism,” nor proffer counter nationalism or counter racialization as responses to coloniality. Offering examples from the archive, the media, and (...) teaching, this essay describes the decolonial as a productive site of women's agency in domains all too easily overlooked when historians focus on the conventional categories of state and nation. (shrink)

While sympathetic to Tilley’s call for a practical philosophy of religion, I raise three questions: Does Tilley think that one can do philosophy of religion from a position other than that of a committed believer? Does Tilley’s description of the ordinary believer disburden most people from doubt and answerability? Does Tilley’s description of the role of the theologian place too much trust in the theologian? I suggest that some insights from contemporary phenomenology and hermeneutics would lead to a clearer understanding (...) of the role that philosophy of religion can play in the development of a practical philosophy of religion. (shrink)

While sympathetic to Tilley’s call for a practical philosophy of religion, I raise three questions: Does Tilley think that one can do philosophy of religion from a position other than that of a committed believer? Does Tilley’s description of the ordinary believer disburden most people from doubt and answerability? Does Tilley’s description of the role of the theologian place too much trust in the theologian? I suggest that some insights from contemporary phenomenology and hermeneutics would lead to a clearer understanding (...) of the role that philosophy of religion can play in the development of a practical philosophy of religion. (shrink)

This paper examines the connection between model-theoretic truth and necessary truth. It is argued that though the model-theoretic truths of some standard languages are demonstrably ''''necessary'''' (in a precise sense), the widespread view of model-theoretic truth as providing a general guarantee of necessity is mistaken. Several arguments to the contrary are criticized.

Clinical next generation sequencing is a term that refers to a variety of technologies that permit rapid sequencing of large numbers of DNA segments, up to and including entire genomes. As an approach that is playing an increasingly important role in obtaining genetic information from patients, it may be viewed by public and private payers either positively, as an enabler of the promised benefits of personalized medicine, or as “the perfect storm” resulting from the confluence of high market demand, an (...) uproven technology, and an unprepared delivery system. A number of recent studies have noted that coverage and reimbursement will be critical for clinical integration of NGS, yet the evidentiary pathway for payer decision-making is unclear. Although there are multiple reasons for this uncertain reimbursement environment, the situation stems in large part from a long-standing lack of alignment between the information needs of regulators and post-regulatory decision-makers such as payers. (shrink)

Human Specialization in Design and Technology explores emerging trends in learning and training-standardization, customization, personalization-with a unique focus on human needs and conditions. Analyzing evidence from current academic research as well as the popular press, this concise volume defines and examines the trajectory of instructional design and technologies toward more human-centered and specialized products, services, processes, environments, and systems. Examples from education, healthcare, business, and other sectors offer real-world demonstrations for scholars and graduate students of educational technology, instructional design, ICT, (...) and business development. (shrink)

This paper defends the view that Frege’s reduction of arithmetic to logic would, if successful, have shown that arithmetical knowledge is analytic in essentially Kant’s sense. It is argued, as against Paul Benacerraf, that Frege’s apparent acceptance of multiple reductions is compatible with this epistemological thesis. The importance of this defense is that (a) it clarifies the role of proof, definition, and analysis in Frege’s logicist works; and (b) it demonstrates that the Fregean style of reduction is a valuable tool (...) for those who would investigate the nature of arithmetical knowledge. (shrink)

Whenever one asserts a claim of any kind, one engages in a commitment not just to that claim itself, but to a variety of other claims that follow in its wake, claims that, as we tend to say, follow logically from the original claim. To say that Smith and Jones are both great basketball players is to say something from which it follows that Smith is a great basketball player, that someone is a great basketball player, that there is something (...) at which Smith is great, and so on. (shrink)

Callimachus' Victoria Berenices has received a good deal of scholarly attention since its first publication in 1976, both from textual critics, attempting to clarify uncertain readings, and from specialists in Latin poetry, eager to trace allusions to Callimachus in Vergil, Statius, or Ovid. While the search for Callimachean influence on the later texts has proved quite fruitful, it opens up the possibility of reading certain issues inappropriately backwards into the Hellenistic material. The discovery of parallels may lead to an assumption (...) of complete agreement that misrepresents the earlier, more fragmentary text. I would like to consider one particular incident in the Victoria Berenices that has fallen prey to this fate, namely the reception of Heracles by the farmer Molorcus. (shrink)

Callimachus' Victoria Berenices has received a good deal of scholarly attention since its first publication in 1976, both from textual critics, attempting to clarify uncertain readings, and from specialists in Latin poetry, eager to trace allusions to Callimachus in Vergil, Statius, or Ovid. While the search for Callimachean influence on the later texts has proved quite fruitful, it opens up the possibility of reading certain issues inappropriately backwards into the Hellenistic material. The discovery of parallels may lead to an assumption (...) of complete agreement that misrepresents the earlier, more fragmentary text. I would like to consider one particular incident in the Victoria Berenices that has fallen prey to this fate, namely the reception of Heracles by the farmer Molorcus. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction European Personalism American Personalism Conclusion Works cited.

A comprehensive look at fictive letters in Greek literature from Homer to Philostratus, first published in 2001. It includes both embedded epistolary narratives in a variety of genres, and works consisting solely of letters, such as the pseudonymous letter collections and the invented letters of the Second Sophistic. The book challenges the notion that Ovid 'invented' the fictional letter form in his Heroides and considers a wealth of Greek antecedents for the later European epistolary novel tradition. Epistolary technique always problematizes (...) the boundaries between fictionality and reality. Based on a process of selection and self-censorship, the letter is a construction, not a reflection, of reality. The author bypasses the question of sincerity for a close look at epistolary self-representation, the function of the letter form and the nature of the relationship between writer and reader in a wide range of ancient Greek texts. (shrink)

In 1785, George Washington described a “knowing farmer” as “one who can convert every thing he touches into manure, as the first transmutation towards Gold.” With these words, Washington linked the “knowing farmer” to the alchemist who endeavored to transform base metals into gold with the aid of a philosopher's stone. In each instance, the challenge was to convert raw materials into something new and precious.Today, the “knowing bioethicist” is in a similar position. American bioethics harbors a variety of ethical (...) methods that emphasize different ethical factors, including principles, circumstances, character, interpersonal needs, and personal meaning. Each method reflects an important aspect of ethical experience, adds to the others, and enriches the ethical imagination. (shrink)

While ethical conflicts in the provision of healthcare are common, the current third-party mediator model is limited by a lack of expert ethical mediators, who are often not on site when conflict escalates. In order to improve clinical outcomes in situations such as conflicts at the end of life, we suggest that clinicians—physicians, nurses and social workers—be trained to prevent and deescalate emerging conflicts. This can be achieved using a mediation model framed by a communication-training approach. A case example is (...) presented and the model is discussed. The implication of this preventative/early intervention model for improving clinical outcomes, in particular end-of life conflict, is considered. (shrink)

Much of the fascination that Petronius' Satyricon holds for its readers originates in the work's gleeful violation of traditional categories of classical genres. Critical terminology makes explicit the issue of unconventionality, as it is reduced to the neutral word ‘work’ in describing the Satyricon, which, as far as we can tell, belongs to no single category , but appropriates elements from many sources in both poetry and prose. Perhaps if we had more evidence with which to compare the work, such (...) as a greater selection of Menippean satire or proto-novels from antiquity, we might be able to identify it more accurately. But the suspicion remains that the intense variety of its evocations, allusions, and parodic passages differentiates it clearly from its component genres without allowing it to settle firmly in any one established genre. A certain amount of ‘Kreuzung der Gattungen’ is, of course, typical of both Alexandrian and consequently Roman texts. But the Satyricon seems to revel in its generic instability; it plays with the notion of ‘literariness’ by revealing impulses from non-literary forms such as mime and subliterary prose fiction, raising this material to an unfamiliar level of literary sophistication even as it debases other traditional genres through parodic techniques. One of the results of this open experimentation with style and decorum is an extremely dense fabric of literary allusion which some would label ‘literary opportunism’. The reader quickly learns to expect intertextual pyrotechnics, swift changes from the sublime to the ridiculous, and humorous incongruities in plot and form, as the stylistic disorder of the text reflects the topsyturvy Petronian world. The modern reader's response to this profusion of referents is to explore the recognizable categories and sources embedded in the work, to tease out the familiar elements in the hope of gaining a better understanding of the whole. Since a great deal of the allusion in the Satyricon functions parodically, there is yet another step necessary in the interpretation, namely taking into account the effect of the decontextualization of language and events from the source material and their recombination and transformation into the new text. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Credibility, Persuasiveness, and EffectivenessPatricia A. King (bio)Since the early 1970s, complex ethical, social, legal, and scientific controversies generated by biomedicine have been referred to governmentally created commissions, committees, boards, and panels that are commonly referred to as “ethics” committees. The Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments is the most recent example of such a group. Although it is too early to know the full impact of the Committee’s work, (...) it is important to reflect on aspects of its deliberations that shed light on the public policy role of ethics bodies. Specifically, I will reflect on matters that go to the credibility, persuasiveness, and effectiveness of these committees.The point should be made at the outset that these ethics committees are, first and foremost, public policy groups. Governmentally created bodies of all types, including ethics committees, are established to provide pragmatic advice to governments about specific problems and controversies or to complete specified tasks on behalf of governments. What distinguishes ethics committees from other advisory groups is that the issues assigned to them are presumed to be primarily ethical, as opposed to, say, economic, in nature. It is expected that ethical analyses and premises will play a significant, albeit not exclusive, role in the committee’s deliberations. 1 As with other advisory groups, the primary responsibility of ethics committees is to respond to the branches of government that were instrumental in their creation as well as to the public at large. Since political concerns undoubtedly play a role in the creation of these groups, it is understandable that political concerns have some impact on the committee’s work. Thus, ethics committees are generally cognizant of the need to ensure that their processes and substantive conclusions are credible, persuasive, and effective.In my experience, members of ethics commissions understand the need to offer principled arguments that are factually accurate to justify their recommendations and conclusions. They also appreciate the need for consensus and rightly worry about disagreement among members. I believe, however, that committee members are less attentive than they should be to the social and political contexts in which they operate. This is not surprising. Members of these committees, and often their staffs as well, are typically experts drawn from the academy. [End Page 313] Scholars traditionally offer advice or influence policy through articles and scholarly work undertaken individually or in cooperation with like-minded individuals who do not need to be persuaded about the merits of a specific position. Moreover, scholarly articles are often pitched at a level of abstraction that may be of limited utility in the context of concrete decision making.Scholarly efforts are important. Particularly in bioethics, these scholarly efforts often have furnished the conceptual frameworks that are critical to the efforts of those who grapple with complex matters, the appropriate resolution of which pose moral disagreement and genuine perplexity. Policy formulation by its very nature, however, requires more. Attention must be paid to competing moral and social frameworks. Logical, rational arguments and risk/benefit assessments are important, but emotion, passion and values grounded in experience also demand consideration. Policy formulation as a result can be a quite messy process.Members of the academy are often uncomfortable in this environment. Pursuing the messy details can be threatening and at times at odds with values that academics prize highly. I believe this discomfort was evident in the reluctance of several Advisory Committee members to obtain security clearances that were required in order to see classified material related to the Committee’s work. Secrecy may have seemed at odds with cherished values of openness. As a result the perusal of classified materials was left to those with clearances. Fortunately, the Committee was successful in having relevant information declassified so all committee members read and deliberated about the same information. Committees needing to see more contemporaneous classified information might not be so fortunate.Ethics commission members correctly worry about disagreement. The ability to reach consensus helps to give recommendations a compelling quality. Morris Abram, chairman of the President’s Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research, makes this point powerfully. He states that “a commission requires agreement that is as... (shrink)