Mitigating response distortion in answers to sensitive questions is an important issue for business ethics researchers. Sensitive questions may be asked in surveys related to business ethics, and respondents may intend to avoid exposing sensitive aspects of their character by answering such questions dishonestly, resulting in response distortion. Previous studies have provided evidence that a surveying procedure called the randomized response technique is useful for mitigating such distortion. However, previous studies have mainly applied the RRT to individual dichotomous questions in (...) face-to-face survey settings. In this study, we focus on behavioral research examining the relationships between latent variables, which are unobserved variables measured by multiple items on Likert or bipolar scales. To demonstrate how the RRT can be applied to obtain valid answers from respondents answering a self-administered online questionnaire with Likert and bipolar scales, we build a behavioral model to study the effect of punishment severity on employees’ attitudes toward misuse of information systems resources in the workplace, which in turn influence misuse behavior. The survey findings meet our expectations. The respondents are generally more willing to disclose sensitive data about their attitudes and actual behavior related to misuse when the RRT is implemented. The RRT’s implications for causal modeling and the advantages and challenges of its use in online environments are also discussed. (shrink)

We propose a novel edge detector in the presence of Gaussian noise with the use of proximal support vector machine (PSVM). The edges of a noisy image are detected using a two-stage architecture: smoothing of image is first performed using regularized anisotropic diffusion, followed by the classification using PSVM, termed as regularized anisotropic diffusion-based PSVM (RAD-PSVM) method. In this process, a feature vector is formed for a pixel using the denoised coefficient’s class and the local orientations to detect edges in (...) all possible directions in images. From the experiments, conducted on both synthetic and benchmark images, it is observed that our RAD-PSVM approach outperforms the other state-of-the-art edge detection approaches, both qualitatively and quantitatively. (shrink)

Mitigating response distortion in answers to sensitive questions is an important issue for business ethics researchers. Sensitive questions may be asked in surveys related to business ethics, and respondents may intend to avoid exposing sensitive aspects of their character by answering such questions dishonestly, resulting in response distortion. Previous studies have provided evidence that a surveying procedure called the randomized response technique is useful for mitigating such distortion. However, previous studies have mainly applied the RRT to individual dichotomous questions in (...) face-to-face survey settings. In this study, we focus on behavioral research examining the relationships between latent variables, which are unobserved variables measured by multiple items on Likert or bipolar scales. To demonstrate how the RRT can be applied to obtain valid answers from respondents answering a self-administered online questionnaire with Likert and bipolar scales, we build a behavioral model to study the effect of punishment severity on employees’ attitudes toward misuse of information systems resources in the workplace, which in turn influence misuse behavior. The survey findings meet our expectations. The respondents are generally more willing to disclose sensitive data about their attitudes and actual behavior related to misuse when the RRT is implemented. The RRT’s implications for causal modeling and the advantages and challenges of its use in online environments are also discussed. (shrink)

We present the idea of searching for X-rays as a signature of the mechanism inducing the spontaneous collapse of the wave function. Such a signal is predicted by the continuous spontaneous localization theories, which are solving the “measurement problem” by modifying the Schrödinger equation. We will show some encouraging preliminary results and discuss future plans and strategy.

Human-Computer Interaction and games set a new domain in understanding people’s motivations in gaming, behavioral implications of game play, game adaptation to player preferences and needs for increased engaging experiences in the context of HCI serious games. When the latter relate with people’s health status, they can become a part of their daily life as assistive health status monitoring/enhancement systems. Co-designing HCI-SGs can be seen as a combination of art and science that involves a meticulous collaborative process. The design elements (...) in assistive HCI-SGs for Parkinson’s Disease patients, in particular, are explored in the present work. Within this context, the Game-Based Learning design framework is adopted here and its main game-design parameters are explored for the Exergames, Dietarygames, Emotional games, Handwriting games, and Voice games design, drawn from the PD-related i-PROGNOSIS Personalized Game Suite holistic approach. Two main data sources were involved in the study. In particular, the first one includes qualitative data from semi-structured interviews, involving 10 PD patients and four clinicians in the co-creation process of the game design, whereas the second one relates with data from an online questionnaire addressed by 104 participants spanning the whole related spectrum, i.e., PD patients, physicians, software/game developers. Linear regression analysis was employed to identify an adapted GBL framework with the most significant game-design parameters, which efficiently predict the transferability of the PGS beneficial effect to real-life, addressing functional PD symptoms. The findings of this work can assist HCI-SG designers for designing PD-related HCI-SGs, as the most significant game-design factors were identified, in terms of adding value to the role of HCI-SGs in increasing PD patients’ quality of life, optimizing the interaction with personalized HCI-SGs and, hence, fostering a collaborative human-computer symbiosis. (shrink)

In the film classic Blade Runner, the story explores the notion of personal identity through that of carefully crafted androids. Can an android have a personality; can androids be persons? The title of the original story by Philip K. Dick is Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? The story suggests that our sense of being a person depends on our having memories that connect us with our childhood. In the movie, the androids are only a couple of years old, but (...) have adult bodies. To complete them as persons they are given simulated memories of childhood. Some psychiatrists have decided that even humans dream only of electric sheep. I explore how Popper’s world 3 can help to defend a notion of personhood that can be used to criticize the thesis that persons are simply complex physical processes and that all their serious life-problems can be conceptualised as a form of physical illness. (shrink)

High-spin states have been studied in Pr-135(59), populated through the Cd-116(Na-23,4n) reaction at 115 MeV, using the Gammasphere gamma-ray spectrometer. The negative-parity yrast band has been significantly extended to spin similar to 45 (h) over bar and excitation energy 21.5 MeV, showing evidence for several rotational alignments. The positive-parity yrast band of Ce-135(58), populated through the p4n channel of this reaction, was also populated to spin similar to 38 (h) over bar and excitation energy 18 MeV. Cranking calculations indicate that (...) these nuclei are soft with respect to the triaxiality parameter gamma and that several competing nuclear shapes occur at high spin. (shrink)

High-spin states in the odd-odd N = Z nucleus Co-54 have been investigated by the fusion-evaporation reaction Si-28(S-32,1 alpha 1p1n)Co-54. Gamma-ray information gathered with the Ge detector array Gammasphere was correlated with evaporated particles detected in the charged particle detector system Microball and a 1 pi neutron detector array. A significantly extended excitation scheme of Co-54 is presented, which includes a candidate for the isospin T = 1, 6(+) state of the 1f(7/2)(-2) multiplet. The results are compared to large-scale shell-model (...) calculations in the fp shell. Effective interactions with and without isospin-breaking terms have been used to probe isospin symmetry and isospin mixing. A quest for deformed high-spin rotational cascades proved negative. This feature is discussed by means of cranking calculations. (shrink)

It feels like there’s two of you inside—like there’s another half of you, which is my anorexia, and then there’s the real K [own name], the real me, the logic part of me, and it’s a constant battle between the two. The anorexia almost does become part of you, and so in order to get it out of you I think you do have to kind of hurt you in the process. I think it’s almost inevitable. We came to the (...) concept of authenticity belatedly, one might say. We had been talking to people who had a diagnosis of anorexia nervosa about their experiences of living with their condition, and though we had not raised issues of authenticity or identity ourselves, they often did. They struggled with questions of .. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Whisper Before You GoJohn K PettyDavid came with a bang.1A momentary prelude from a dysphonic chorus of pagers announce “Level 1 Pediatric Trauma—MVC ejected” before the abrupt crescendo of the trauma bay doors opening. He is maybe two. Maybe three–years–old. It is hard to tell when a child is strapped in, strapped down, nonverbal, intubated, and alone.The flight team speaks for him, “Four–year–old boy improperly restrained in a single–vehicle (...) crash into a ditch. He was partially ejected. He was unresponsive and pulseless at the scene. He got CPR and code drugs, and they got a pulse back. Emergency medical service (EMS) took him to the nearest hospital where they needled his chest, called for air transport, and scanned him up. He has been shocky for us since we picked him up. Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) has been three the whole time. They said his head scan showed subarachnoid hemorrhage.”With the words of the flight team as background narrative, we get about doing our thing—hopefully more method and less madness. Bang, bang, bang! Check the tube. Vital signs. IV fluids. Place a chest tube. Hang the blood. Quick X–ray. Neuro exam—nothing. Get him off the board. Warm him up. Place the orogastric (OG) tube. Bang, bang, bang!The neurosurgery resident opens the CT scans from the other hospital. The brain and cervical spine scans show a disaster: some swelling and bleeding in the higher brain, but the worst damage is in the lower brain, brainstem, and top of the spinal cord. I have heard a neurosurgeon describe this pattern before as “internal decapitation.” Such language never makes it into the patient’s chart. For David the last two words of the neurosurgery consult note will eventually read, “Prognosis grim.”He remains unstable in the trauma bay. Inaction is death. We ultrasound his heart, abdomen, and pelvis. He has fluid that shouldn’t be around his heart. He is dying of the neuro injury we cannot control, but the pericardial fluid might be giving him shock, and we can control that. We can’t ignore the fluid. Shouldn’t ignore it. At least, wouldn’t ignore it. So, we bang up to the operating room. Squeezing blood. Spiking fluid. Oxygen tank and crash cart. Up we go.In the operating room, we do much and we do well. We release the fluid around the heart and find it was CPR, not heart injury that put it there. In the pericardial flash we get a view of the cardiac athlete, pounding like the 26th mile of the marathon. We explore the abdomen and find it swollen but innocent of an injury that would take his life. We place our lines and tubes as the neurosurgeons place theirs. If nothing else, we will be able to measure what lies ahead.“Good work, team,” and we bump the door on the way to the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU).The care in the PICU is more Apache brave than Gaelic knight—more bottles, fewer scissors. The curtains and carpets mute the tones. Our efforts continue, but I get a word that David’s father has arrived. He is sitting in a small, private waiting room off of the main PICU waiting room. The PICU staff colloquially refer to this as “the bad news room.” I take a seat next to a solitary man who is having the worst day of his life. His worst day so far.“I am Dr. Petty, and I am one of the doctors who is taking care of your son. I am very sorry about what has happened. Maybe you can tell me a little bit about what you understand is going on, and I’ll tell you what I know.” [End Page 17]He tells me that his wife was driving David back from her sister’s house, just the two of them. He doesn’t know what happened, but he got a call from the other hospital about the crash. His wife was badly hurt. He heard that David had died, but they got him back. Both were transferred up to the... (shrink)

It is shown that the 33 complex rays in three dimensions used by Penrose to prove the Bell-Kochen-Specker theorem have the same orthogonality relations as the 33 real rays of Peres, and therefore provide an isomorphic proof of the theorem. It is further shown that the Peres and Penrose rays are just two members of a continuous three-parameter family of unitarily inequivalent rays that prove the theorem.

Shortly after X-ray technology was discovered, it was utilized in war medicine. In this paper, the authors consider how the challenging context of war created fertile conditions for learning, as early radiologists were forced to find solutions to the unique problems posed during wartime. The “battlefield” became the “classroom” where radiologists constructed knowledge in X-ray instrumentation, methods, and education, as well as in medicine generally. Through an examination of two broad historical wartime examples, the authors illustrate how X-rays were used (...) as part of war medicine and offer a detailed sketch of instances of knowledge construction in war radiology. With a sociology of knowledge perspective, they conclude that the knowledge generated in war belongs also to civilian medicine. An understanding of war radiology’s role as a “springboard” for knowledge construction is thus crucial for a complete understanding of the history of radiology. (shrink)

Shortly after X-ray technology was discovered, it was utilized in war medicine. In this paper, the authors consider how the challenging context of war created fertile conditions for learning, as early radiologists were forced to find solutions to the unique problems posed during wartime. The “battlefield” became the “classroom” where radiologists constructed knowledge in X-ray instrumentation, methods, and education, as well as in medicine generally. Through an examination of two broad historical wartime examples, the authors illustrate how X-rays were used (...) as part of war medicine and offer a detailed sketch of instances of knowledge construction in war radiology. With a sociology of knowledge perspective, they conclude that the knowledge generated in war belongs also to civilian medicine. An understanding of war radiology’s role as a “springboard” for knowledge construction is thus crucial for a complete understanding of the history of radiology. (shrink)

Hegel's treatment of the Sublime is both self-consistent and distinctive. He not only defines sublimity, but discovers and ranks its types or stages from one select point of view—the viewpoint of God-world relation; and the way he does this, on the one hand, distinguishes him from many others who have contributed to an understanding of the concept, and, on the other hand, enables him to suggest, if but implicitly, a criterion for distinguishing the sublime from allied concepts. Besides, he discusses (...) the matter in the wide context of diverse cultures, making quite a few insightful references to Eastern literature; and, consistently with his own conception of philosophy, also from the viewpoint of historical necessity, so that the sublime appears, in his Aesthetik, as a specific stage which the evolving story of art must in fact traverse. (shrink)

Quantum dots (3–4 nm) of Zn1− x Cd x S (both free of Mn2+ and with Mn2+ incorporated) were synthesized through a novel solvothermal-microwave irradiation technique. Detailed structural analysis of the Zn1− x Cd x S and Zn1− x Cd x S:Mn2+ (x = 0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75 and 1) materials was carried out using powder X-ray diffraction technique. For all the compositions, the crystallite size was controlled to less than 1.5 nm. The optical energy gap for Zn1− x Cd (...) x S was found to vary from 3.878 to 2.519 eV and for Zn1−x Cd x S:Mn2+ it varies from 3.830 to 2.442 eV when x is increased from 0 to 1. Overall, the optical energy gap could be tuned from a minimum of 2.442 eV to a maximum of 3.878 eV. DC conductivity analysis (from 40°C to 150°C) and electrical energy gap analysis for all the compositions were also performed. The dc conductivity for Zn1− x Cd x S solid solutions varies from 0.3840 × 10−10 to 8.7782 × 10−10 mho/m at 150°C and for Zn1− x Cd x S:Mn2+ it varies from 0.5751 × 10−10 to 9.8078 × 10−10 mho /m at 150°C (for x = 0 to x = 1). The method of synthesis and the results observed in this investigation may assist in the fabrication of optical devices when the required operational performance falls under the range observed in the study. (shrink)

This essay seeks to clarify Gandhi's logic of self-suffering. Its inner accents have not received the attention they deserve. So I propose to emphasize them, though the context of such suffering and its impact on men too must be given due regard.

There is no doubt that custard apple diseases are among the important reasons that destroy the Custard Apple plant and its agricultural crops. This leads to obvious damage to these plants and they become inedible. Discovering these diseases is a good step to provide the appropriate and correct treatment. Determining the treatment with high accuracy depends on the method used to correctly diagnose the disease, expert systems can greatly help in avoiding damage to these plants. The expert system correctly diagnoses (...) Custard Apple disease to make it easier for farmers to find the right treatment based on the appropriate diagnosis. Objectives: A specialized syllable language system was established for the diagnosis of Custard Apple plant disease. (shrink)

It may be of interest to supplement the latter part of Professor Conway's article by a note applying the same standards to estimating the value of the other sources on which we have to rely for our knowledge of the Spirensian tradition. Apart from ‘L’ and Harl. 2684 Luchs used for this purpose three partially Spirensian sources: the one fourteenth-century and four fifteenth-century MSS whose archetype he called ‘R’ V, the fifteenth-century Vat. Pal. 876, and the fifteenth-century Flor. Laur. lxxxix. (...) inf. 1. The last mentioned may be dismissed as practically valueless and as supplying little more than new corruptions from an unusually contaminated intermediary. In addition to these deteriores Luchs used the Agennensis , but only for the Spirensian supplement in Book xxvi' and for the last part of Book xxx . He did not deal at all with the Spirensian textual correctors in A. (shrink)

This article investigates whether acts of plagiarism are predictable. Through a deductive, quantitative method, this study examines 517 students and their motivation and intention to plagiarize. More specifically, this study uses an ethical theoretical framework called the Theory of Reasoned Action and Planned Behavior to proffer five hypotheses about cognitive, relational, and social processing relevant to ethical decision making. Data results indicate that although most respondents reported that plagiarism was wrong, students with strong intentions to plagiarize had a more positive (...) attitude toward plagiarizing, believed that it was important that family and friends think plagiarizing is acceptable, and perceived that plagiarizing would be an easy task. However, participants in the current study with less intention to plagiarize hold negative views about plagiarism, do not believe that plagiarism is acceptable to family, friends or peers, and perceive that the act of plagiarizing would prove difficult. Based on these findings, this study considers implications important for faculty, librarians, and student support staff in preventing plagiarism through collaborations and outreach programming. (shrink)

Digital technologies can be an asset to serving communities and societies through data analytics and management to achieve greater good. However, care must be exercised in that societies without digital access do not get overlooked or, worse, face abuses of privacy disclosure or exploitation. Regulations exist to prevent this happening, but ethical considerations are important in deciding in what is allowable and what is not. The further risk of artificial intelligence where computers start to make autonomous decisions and the vulnerabilities (...) we are exposed to is considered. Steps are proposed to develop an ethics-based digital strategy and how to mitigate cyber risk. (shrink)

In this work, S.K. Chakraborty develops the themes propounded in his earlier work to provide a systematic presentation of the relevant vedantic and allied principles in a conceptual and empirical framework. From an overall perspective of vedantic ethical vision and its application to managerial and corporate ethical morality, the book examines what the Vedantic ethical system, and great thinkers like Tagore, Gandhi, Burobindo and others, can teach us about such questions as individual leadership, transformation of the work ethos, ethics and (...) productivity, and others. Throughout, the conceptual and the empirical are closely intertwined, and substantial graphic appendices on the Tata leadership crisis of 1991 and the securities scam of 1991-92 give an immediacy and relevance to the analysis. (shrink)

COVID-19 often manifests with different outcomes in different patients, highlighting the complexity of the host-pathogen interactions involved in manifestations of the disease at the molecular and cellular levels. In this paper, we propose a set of postulates and a framework for systematically understanding complex molecular host-pathogen interaction networks. Specifically, we first propose four host-pathogen interaction (HPI) postulates as the basis for understanding molecular and cellular host-pathogen interactions and their relations to disease outcomes. These four postulates cover the evolutionary dispositions involved (...) in HPIs, the dynamic nature of HPI outcomes, roles that HPI components may occupy leading to such outcomes, and HPI checkpoints that are critical for specific disease outcomes. Based on these postulates, an HPI Postulate and Ontology (HPIPO) framework is proposed to apply interoperable ontologies to systematically model and represent various granular details and knowledge within the scope of the HPI postulates, in a way that will support AI-ready data standardization, sharing, integration, and analysis. As a demonstration, the HPI postulates and the HPIPO framework were applied to study COVID-19 with the Coronavirus Infectious Disease Ontology (CIDO), leading to a novel approach to rational design of drug/vaccine cocktails aimed at interrupting processes occurring at critical host-coronavirus interaction checkpoints. Furthermore, the host-coronavirus protein-protein interactions (PPIs) relevant to COVID-19 were predicted and evaluated based on prior knowledge of curated PPIs and domain-domain interactions, and how such studies can be further explored with the HPI postulates and the HPIPO framework is discussed. (shrink)

In verse twelve of the Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu makes a curious claim about the five flavors; namely that they cause people not to taste or that they jade the palate. The five flavors are: sweet, sour, salt, bitter and spicy or hot as in 'heat'. To the Western mind, the claim, 'The five flavors cause them [persons] to not taste,' is counterintuitive; on the contrary, the presence of the five flavors in a dish or in a meal would (...) expand or enhance the senses and the palate, i.e., taste would be augmented by the five flavors. So what is the plausible meaning of the Taoistic claim? To answer this question, I look very briefly at the history of the doctrine of the five flavors and the history of Chinese cuisine. Lao Tzu probably has Confucian feasts in mind in making such a claim, but other interpretations are discussed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume XX, Number 2, November 1994, pp. 261-287 Collingwood's Understanding of Hume S. K. WERTZ What was David Hume's reception in the British idealistic tradition? In this paper, I shall contribute a short chapter on this question by examining Hume's place in R. G. Collingwood's thought.1 Such an examination has been lacking in the literature, so what follows is a comprehensive study of Collingwood's use of Hume (...) throughout all of R.G.'s writings. I shall mainly focus on two main, unrelated discussions of Hume: first is the theory of the imagination which primarily occurs in The Principles of Art, and second is the set of relations between human nature and human history which is principally found in The Idea of History. These sections will be followed by a section on minor discussions and omissions and a conclusion. It is a common misconception that Collingwood (1889-1943) has little to offer Hume scholarship, and I wish to amend that here. Actually, Collingwood has good insights into the nature of the imagination and its role in human understanding, besides instructive thoughts on Hume on human nature and history, even though his discussion of the latter is flawed. This essay serves both historical and philosophical purposes. It is to sample Hume's place in early twentieth century British idealism at a time when he began to emerge as an important philosophical figure worthy of careful study. (By "idealism," I mean the philosophical movement which takes ideas to be an irreducible part of the world and whose program is opposed to both materialism and realism.) So Collingwood's portrait is historically interesting. But over and above this, it carries significant philosophical amendments, S. K. Wertz is at the Department of Philosophy, Texas Christian University, Box 30781, Fort Worth, TX 76129 USA. e-mail: [email protected] 262 S. K. Wertz criticisms, and suggestions about Hume's thought and the eighteenth century intellectual climate. Collingwood has mostly been studied as a philosopher of history or as an aesthetician, but not in toto from the perspective of one of the historical figures to whom he is deeply indebted. Such a view affords a portrait of Hume that is instructive and rewarding. The comparison of Hume and Collingwood lead us to finer appreciation of both philosophers. Let us first look at Collingwood's positive contribution. Imagination Collingwood begins his analysis by declaring his intentions: I shall...try to show that there are such things, to be with what Hume (whose account of them I shall take as my starting-point) called 'ideas' as distinct from 'impressions'. I shall try to show that there is a special activity of mind correlative to them, and that this is what we generally call imagination, as distinct from sensation on the one hand and intellect on the other. (PA 170-71, emphasis added) Why would Collingwood start with Hume's distinction between impressions and ideas? Undoubtedly, this means that Collingwood is willing to accept the validity of the distinction and to build on it. Isn't this a strange place for an idealist to begin? Not really. When we look at British philosophy at the turn of this century, we find idealists preoccupied with the distinction,2 so it is not extraordinary to find Collingwood utilizing it to some extent. Like most Oxford students of the time, Collingwood read Locke, Berkeley, and Hume in his undergraduate program. Consequently we find them in the problems he addresses. "It was Hume who first perceived the [Lockean] problem [of confusing sensation with imagination]," Collingwood attributes, "and tried to solve it by distinguishing ideas from impressions" (PA 200). In detail: He [Hume] was right when he laid it down that the immediate concern of thought is not with impressions but with ideas; that it is ideas, not impressions, that are associated with one another and thus built up into the fabric of knowledge; and that ideas, though 'derived' from impressions, are not mere relics of them like an after-taste of onions or an after-image of the sun (as Lockeans like Condillac supposed), but something different in kind: different, if not in what he... (shrink)

It may be of interest to supplement the latter part of Professor Conway's article by a note applying the same standards to estimating the value of the other sources on which we have to rely for our knowledge of the Spirensian tradition. Apart from ‘L’ and Harl. 2684 Luchs used for this purpose three partially Spirensian sources: the one fourteenth-century and four fifteenth-century MSS whose archetype he called ‘R’ V, the fifteenth-century Vat. Pal. 876, and the fifteenth-century Flor. Laur. lxxxix. (...) inf. 1. The last mentioned may be dismissed as practically valueless and as supplying little more than new corruptions from an unusually contaminated intermediary. In addition to these deteriores Luchs used the Agennensis, but only for the Spirensian supplement in Book xxvi' and for the last part of Book xxx. He did not deal at all with the Spirensian textual correctors in A. (shrink)

Jean-François Revel is the first philosopher to take food seriously and to offer a topology for food practices. He draws a distinction between different kinds of cuisine -- popular (regional) cuisine and erudite (professional) cuisine. With this distinction, he traces the evolution of food practices from the ancient Greeks and Romans, down through the Middle Ages, and into the Renaissance and the Modern Period. His contribution has been acknowledged by Deane Curtin who offers an interpretation of Revel’s conceptual scheme along (...) Platonic lines. In this essay the author reviews Curtin’s interpretation, finds it wanting in certain respects, and develops an alternative reading of Revel along Hegelian lines. This interpretation, the author believes, does greater justice to Revel’s topology for food practices. (shrink)