Background: Monitoring the daily change in resting heart rate variability can provide information regarding training adaptation and recovery status of the autonomic nervous system during training camps. However, it remains unclear whether postural stabilization is essential for valid and reliable ultra-short-term recordings in short-term overseas training camps.Design: Observational and longitudinal study.Purpose: This study aimed to investigate ultra-short-term heart rate variability recordings under stabilization or post-stabilization periods in four overseas training camps.Participant: Twenty-seven U-20 male national team futsal players (...) voluntarily participated in this study.Method: Resting HRV was evaluated for 10 min during the early morning of each training camp. The natural logarithm of the root mean square of successive normal-to-normal interval differences was used for comparisons. Time segments of HRV were divided into two periods with three measures within each: the first 30-s, the first 60-s, and the 5-min standard during stabilization; the first 30-s, the first 60-s, and the 5-min standard after stabilization.Result: The results demonstrated trivial to small ES, very large to nearly perfect ICC, and narrow range of SEM when all time segments of HRVUST were compared to the 1st_5 min and 2nd_5 min HRV. Furthermore, the magnitude of the correlation coefficients ranged from very high to nearly perfect for all the time segments. The HRVUST posted excellent agreement in all time segments with/without postural stabilization. Trivial to small levels of effect size in all time segments of LnRMSSDmean and LnRMSSDcv across overseas training camps was identified.Conclusion: The first 30 or 60-s LnRMSSD recordings can be used to evaluate daily cardiac-autonomic function during overseas training camps in futsal players. The process for stabilization seems to be unnecessary for measuring the morning resting LnRMSSD in overseas training camps among young adult futsal players. (shrink)

So striking were the replies of Joshu to students' questions, that it was said that his "lips emitted light." His saysing were extremely influential throughout the Zen tradition and are included in many koan anthologies. Now here is the first full English translation of his sayings, lectures, dialogues, poems, and records from his pilgimages. The translation aims for readability rather than literalness; helpful notes illustrate features from the Chinese that might not be evident in English. A historical introudction by the (...) translator a short biography of Joshu, and a useful glossary make The Recorded Sayings of Zen Master Joshu an invaluable text for any student of Zen Buddhism. (shrink)

Individuals discovered to have engaged in serial plagiarism in philosophy are few, but the academic publishers falling victim to them are many. Some of the most respected publishing houses in philosophy have recently dealt with the problem of having published plagiarized material. The various responses by these publishers to an instance of serial plagiarism, one that involves forty-three articles and book chapters, provides a real-time snapshot of the practices for correcting the scholarly record. The analysis offered in this article (...) yields a twofold conclusion: first, there is relatively little uniformity among publishers in philosophy for responding to plagiarism; and second, in comparison with the natural sciences the discipline of philosophy often falls short of the accepted practices for correcting the scholarly record. The article considers only public, documented cases of academic plagiarism in philosophy and makes no new allegations of plagiarism. (shrink)

This volume is the first book-length study on post-publication responses to academic plagiarism in humanities disciplines. It demonstrates that the correction of the scholarly literature for plagiarism is not a task for editors and publishers alone; each member of the research community has an indispensable role in maintaining the integrity of the published literature in the aftermath of plagiarism. If untreated, academic plagiarism damages the integrity of the scholarly record, corrupts the surrounding academic enterprise, and creates inefficiencies across all (...) levels of knowledge production. By providing case studies from the field of philosophy and related disciplines, the volume exhibits that current post-publication responses to academic plagiarism are insufficient. It catalogues how humanities disciplines fall short in comparison with the natural and biomedical sciences for ensuring the integrity of the body of published research. This volume provides clarity about how to conceptualize the scholarly record, surveys the traditional methods for correcting it, and argues for new interventions to improve the reliability of the body of published research. The book is valuable not only to those in the field of philosophy and other humanities disciplines, but also to those interested in research ethics, meta-science, and the sociology of research. (shrink)

Qualitative data typically contain multiple identifiable characteristics about people, places and events, in the unique voice of each participant. This short report considers sensitivity and security of audio-recordings, drawing attention to a lack of guidelines for researchers on the preservation or destruction of such data. The authors urge debate on this issue, with due consideration to both ethics and scientific rigour.

During the years 800-1200 A.D., Arabic scholars studied many of the works of Greek philosophy, and recorded their interpretations. Significant Arabic interpretations of Aristotle's Prior Analytics, the key work of his logical Organon, however, have remained largely unavailable in the West. The recent discovery of several Arabic manuscripts in Istanbul revealed the “Short Commentary on Prior Analytics” by the medieval Arabic philosopher al-Farabi. Nicholas Rescher here presents the first translation of this work in English, and supplements this with an (...) informative introduction and numerous explanatory footnotes. (shrink)

Managing aggression in mental health hospitals is an important and challenging task for clinical nursing staff. A majority of studies focus on the perspective of clinicians, and research mainly depicts aggression by referring to patient-related factors. This qualitative study investigates how aggression is communicated in forensic mental health nursing records. The aim of the study was to gain insight into the discursive practices used by forensic mental health nursing staff when they record observed aggressive incidents. Textual accounts were extracted (...) from the Staff Observation Aggression Scale-Revised (SOAS-R), and Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis was used to identify short narrative entries depicting patients and staffs in typical ways. The narratives contained descriptions of complex interactions between patient and staff that were linked to specific circumstances surrounding the patient. These antecedents, combined with the aggression incident itself, created stereotyping representations of forensic psychiatric patients as deviant, unpredictable and dangerous. Patient and staff identities were continually (re)produced by an automatic response from the staff that was solely focused on the patient’s behavior. Such response might impede implementation of new strategies for managing aggression. (shrink)

The Ethics Consultation Quality Assessment Tool (ECQAT) establishes standards by which the quality of ethics consultation records (ECRs) can be assessed. These standards relate to the ethics question, consultation-specific information, ethical analysis, and recommendations and/or conclusions, and result in a score associated with one of four levels of ethics consultation quality. For the ECQAT to be useful in assessing and improving the quality of healthcare ethics consultations, individuals who rate the quality of ECRs need to be able to reliably use (...) the tool.We developed a short course to train ethics consultants in using the ECQAT, and evaluated whether the participants (1) achieved an acceptable level of calibration in matching expert-established quality scores for a set of ethics consultations, and (2) were satisfied with the course. We recruited 28 ethics consultants to participate in a virtual, six-session course. At each session participants and faculty reviewed, rated, and discussed one to two ECRs. The participants’ calibration in matching expert-established quality scores improved with repeated exposure at all levels of ethics consultation quality. Participants were generally more accurate when assessing consultation quality at the dichotomous level of “acceptable” (scores of three or four) versus “unacceptable” (scores of one or two) than they were with a more specific score. Participants had higher rates of accuracy with the extreme ratings of “strong” (level four) or “poor” (level one). Although participants were highly satisfied with the course, only a minority of participants achieved the prespecified acceptable level of calibration (that is, 80 percent or greater accuracy between their score and expert-established scores). These results suggest that ECQAT training may require more sessions or need modification in the protocol to achieve higher reliability in scoring. Such trainings are an important next step in ensuring that the ECQAT is a tool that can be used to promote improvement in ethics consultation quality. (shrink)

The most popular English arithmetic of the 16th century was Robert Recorde’s Ground of Artes. Of the many surviving editions (15 before 1600), only two were published during Recorde’s lifetime, and a third was published shortly after his death. The first two differ materially from the latter, which was the basis of the long series of „augmented“ or „revised“ editions which appeared from 1561 to 1699. Because of their greater accessibility, discussions of 16th-century arithmetics usually cite these later editions, sometimes (...) tacitly ascribing material to the early editions which does not appear before 1558. (shrink)

England, known as “the empire without sun settling down” and being among the final winners of the World War I (1914-1918), had one of the heaviest defeats of its history against the Ottoman Empire in the Kut al-Amara, which happened on 29 April 1916 close to Baghdad. Following the defeat of Kut al-Amara, which was the most important war trauma for England during the World War I, the Turks and Germans, as winner side of the battle were evaluated by British (...) prisoners from military, political, cultural and socio-psychological aspects in their memories. Content analysis method is used in the article for qualitative evalution of the data related to the Turkish and German image reflected in the memories of British prisoners after the siege of Kut al-Amara. The alliance between Turks and Germans is regarded as contrast in terms of important elements as national and ethnic identity, language, religion and culture in the main sources of the research as My Compain by Charles Townshend, Besieged in Kut and After by Barber, A Kut Prisoner by Bishop, In Kut and Captivity with the Sixth Indian Division by Sandes, The Secrets of a Kuttite by Mousley which occationally use exaggerated language and the subjective information due to the impact of traumatic defeat.Summary: Being a heroic epic in the war history of Turkey, Kūt al-‘Amāra has been the subject of very fewer researches until recently, despite its importance in Turkey’s history. This argument is supported by the fact that the memoirs by Ottoman soldiers related to the WWI, which also encompass information about Kūt al-‘Amāra, were published half a century after the war at the earliest. Unlike the records of Turkish soldiers participating in Kūt al-‘Amāra, the memoirs and the war diaries of British soldiers were published shortly after the war, as early as possible, between the years of 1918-1921. The authors of these memoirs and war diaries informed the public on the reasons for the defeat of Kūt al-‘Amāra on the one hand, and on the other hand created the Ottoman and Turkish image which was concidered differently in the British society in terms of culture and civilization. They also strengthened this image over that of German’s, with whom they shared many common values despite the fact that they represented the opposite fronts of the war.It is worthy mentioning that the role of the Ottoman army in the victory of Kūt al-‘Amāra was highly underestimated by the memoirs of the British prisoners. According to the authors, it is not the Turkish army that has achieved real victories over the British, but Germany’s support, notably General von der Goltz, the great strategist of Europe. The effects of bad weather conditions and geographical situation are also emphasized among the reasons of the defeat of Kūt al-‘Amāra. Consequently, the success of the Turkish army in the victory of Kūt al-‘Amāra was ignored, except for the role of Halil Pasha. The image of an army that knows the trench and defence techniques well, but fails to attack is one of the prominent evaluations in the memoirs related to the Turkish military characteristics.The British prisoners of war, who evaluate the Turkish and German image through the economic and political situation, draw a very desperate picture of the situation of the Turks in the mentioned areas. According to this image, corruption and bribery prevails at every stage of the Turkish government. The Turks are unable to repay their dept to Germany, which dominates the economy of the country completely. According to these records, besides ordinary people, the army is also facing great difficulties in meeting basic requirements. To convert the Ottoman Empire into their own property and keep the Turks under their control in military, economic and political spheres, the Germans lend a high amount of money.On the basis of Turkish soldiers encountered in Kūt al-‘Amāra, the British prisoners characterizes the Turks as physically large, hard and strong-bodied people. The authors also note that the Turks are not as cold-blooded, calm and obedient as they seem at first sight, rather they become rude people when they get angry. Another feature that British prisoners evaluate as a potential of the Turks, is their childish spirit. In as much as they are happy with small things and can be offended by small things. According to the memoirs, the Germans should not be allowed to benefit from these characteristics of the Turks, but the British should take the advantage of their potential power.The moral characteristics of the Turks and the Germans are among the most emphasized subjects. Written in exceptional time such as war, sometimes the diaries include exaggerated and sentimental phrases related to the moral attitudes enemy soldiers exhibited during siege, as well as captivity. Turks are regarded as negligent and careless rather than cruel or ruthless. They owe these characteristics to their Eastern identity, which is different from the Europeans having virtues such as task responsibility and diligence. The moral characteristic of the Turks regarding the duty, responsibility and kindness is evaluated comparatively with the civilized and humanistic behaviors of the Germans towards the prisoners. Being Europeans, the Germans often come to the fore because of their more polite treatment towards the British prisoners. Although the Germans as an enemy fought against the British on the front, they were kind to them in the Ottoman territories as the only civilized people among the barbarian peoples of the East.The Turks and the Germans are compared in the field of education, as well as other areas of development. The authors emphasize that the education level of the Turks is very low; Armenian and Greek subjects of the Empire are its brain and financial resources, which is the reason why the Turks are anxious about them. The Germans have the superiority in both transportation and communication technology in the Ottoman territories. One of the reasons they had a huge investment on the Ottoman territories is the Berlin-Istanbul-Baghdad-Basra railway. The British prisoners give details on the German communication technology they encountered during both the battle and the captivity days in Anatolia. In addition to the transport and communication technology, they also record much German-made military equipment, from weapons to maps.Evaluating the Turks and the Germans as opposites, the British prisoners draw an image for the latter, with whom they share a common cultural legacy, as a fully equipped enemy in terms of technology and strategy on the front, and the civilized Europeans characterized with their virtue in non-war situations. On the contrary, the Turks are described as a strong defender and daredevil soldiers on the front line, but strategically weak on the front. In terms of duties and responsibilities, the Turkish soldiers are presented with negligent and irresponsible approach towards their prisoners. The images of the Turks and the Germans, which are compared by the British prisoners, are often based on their Eastern and Western identity. The Turks symbolize the East with economic, political and cultural backwardness, yet quite the contrary, the Germans symbolize the West in terms of development, modernity and civilization. The British prisoners sometimes used exaggerated expressions in their approaches regarding both sides, as well as different details in terms of information and interpretation about the same event, due to the trauma of defeat. (shrink)

Gunn told me once that he had gone on a picnic on Primrose Hill with Ted and Sylvia. What was she like? She seemed a very good mother, Thom said, recalling the picnic basket she had prepared, adding that famous people never seemed to behave characteristically when he met them. Although neither Gunn nor Plath could have known it, they would come to have something deeply personal in common. Gunn's mother was a suicide who left her body for her children (...) (in her case, two teenage sons) to find in the morning. His poem about it is called “The Gas-Poker.”Readers may ask whether we do not already know enough about Sylvia and Ted. The bite mark on his cheek where she drew blood the night they met, the cup of warm milk set out for her toddlers to find with her body in the morning. This detail—the cup of warm milk cooled to frigid temperatures during a night that was one of the coldest on record locally—is, for me, the hardest to forgive. But Clark, drawing on a vast reservoir of evidence and anecdote amassed over years, is able to construct a more nuanced impression of Plath than we have had before. There are missteps, as when Clark complains of Plath's “popular, clichéd image as the Marilyn Monroe of the literati.” No one who has ever heard the breathy voice of Monroe singing “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” and compared it to the plummy, matronly, decidedly upper-class voice Plath cultivated for the BBC can believe that any such cliché exists. Plath mythologized her own life, but Clark succeeds in weaving a tight fabric of minutiae that permits the reader to see what Plath was doing at almost any hour of any particular day. In this steady neutral light, she becomes more fully human. (shrink)

Kyle Stanford has recently claimed to offer a new challenge to scientific realism. Taking his inspiration from the familiar Pessimistic Induction (PI), Stanford proposes a New Induction (NI). Contra Anjan Chakravartty’s suggestion that the NI is a ‘red herring’, I argue that it reveals something deep and important about science. The Problem of Unconceived Alternatives, which lies at the heart of the NI, yields a richer anti-realism than the PI. It explains why science falls short when it falls (...) class='Hi'>short, and so it might figure in the most coherent account of scientific practice. However, this best account will be antirealist in some respects and about some theories. It will not be a sweeping antirealism about all or most of science. (shrink)

Clinical responses to dopamine replacement therapy for individuals with Parkinson’s disease are often difficult to predict. We characterized changes in MDS-UPDRS motor factor scores resulting from a short-duration L-Dopa response, and investigated how the inter-subject clinical differences could be predicted from motor cortical magnetoencephalography. MDS-UPDRS motor factor scores and resting-state MEG recordings were collected during SDR from twenty individuals with a PD diagnosis. We used a novel subject-specific strategy based on linear support vector machines to quantify motor cortical oscillatory (...) frequency profiles that best predicted medication state. Motor cortical profiles differed substantially across individuals and showed consistency across multiple data folds. There was a linear relationship between classification accuracy and SDR of lower limb bradykinesia, although this relationship did not persist after multiple comparison correction, suggesting that combinations of spectral power features alone are insufficient to predict clinical state. Factor score analysis of therapeutic response and novel subject-specific machine learning approaches based on subject-specific neuroimaging provide tools to predict outcomes of therapies for PD. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to compare the acute effects of performing a lower body resistance training program in one long or two shorter sessions in 1 day on training volume and affective measures. Employing a randomized-crossover design, 23 resistance-trained women performed two training days consisting of one long or two short sessions separated by 3.5–5 h. Each training day was separated by 4-6 days and consisted of three sets to failure for six exercises. Training volume were recorded (...) during the sessions. Rating of perceived exertion for effort, rating of perceived exertion for discomfort, session displeasure/pleasure and exercise enjoyment were measured 10 min after each session. Participants also completed a readiness to train questionnaire, 24 h after each session, and which training protocol they preferred, 48 h after the last session. The long session led to higher RPE, RPD and sPDF compared to the short sessions. There was no difference in EES. The short sessions had 3% higher training volume than the long session. There were no differences in perceived readiness to train 24 h after the sessions. Twenty-two participants preferred the long session, while one preferred the short sessions. In conclusion, performing a longer, lower body, resistance training session led to greater perceptions of effort, discomfort and session pleasure than splitting the same program into two shorter sessions among resistance-trained women. However, two shorter sessions led to a greater training volume. (shrink)

To improve the understanding of film and television postproduction for college students in the era of intelligent media, a study is conducted on college students’ short video communication education and audience psychology based on the rapid development of virtual image and the Internet of Things. Primarily, the collaborative filtering algorithm is optimized and combined with the principle of Spark and Hadoop platforms as well as the IoT and virtual image technologies. Then, a hybrid computing model is proposed, and the (...) two algorithms are improved and combined, with 90,000 network video records as data samples. Finally, the push accuracy of the hybrid algorithm and the traditional algorithm is calculated and compared, and based on this, a questionnaire survey on the audience psychology of short video production is carried out for college students. The results show that the time user of the combined algorithm is always at least 0.4 s faster than that of a single algorithm and the running speed of the algorithm with five nodes is nearly 80% higher than the algorithm with a single node. The Spark algorithm with multinode has good versatility in image recording and processing of large groups of college students. When processing more than 100,000 image records, the deviation values of Spark and Hadoop with a single node exceeded 1.1, but the deviation value of the hybrid algorithm was still lower than 1.1. With the increase of data volume, the deviation values of the three algorithms are increasing. Compared with the traditional CFA algorithm, the optimized algorithm has a higher speed in processing data and is more accurate in content pushing. From the questionnaire survey of college students, it is found that contemporary college students are not active in learning knowledge of virtual images. Hence, it is concluded that colleges must carry out relevant courses based on short video communication education and strengthen the short video communication education of college students. A reference is provided for the development of college students’ short video communication education in the digital age. (shrink)

A short definitive account of Keith Ward's theology, based on the philosophy of Personal Idealism. It records Ward's views about God, revelation, the kingdom of God, life after death, the incarnation, atonement, and Trinity. In summary, it is a concise and clear account of most central Christian doctrines, formed in the light of modern science and Idealist philosophy.

This volume presents the first English translation of the complete set of Confucian classic, Four Books for Women, with extensive commentary by the 17th century literati Wang Xiang, and introductions and annotations by translator Ann A. Pang-White. Written by women for women's education, the Confucian Four Books for Women spanned the 1st to the 16th centuries, and encompass Ban Zhao's Lessons for Women, Song Ruoxin's and Song Ruozhao's Analects for Women, Empress Renxiaowen's Teachings for the Inner Court, and Madame Liu's (...) (Chaste Widow Wang's) Short Records of Models for Women. A female counterpart to the famous Sishu (Four Books) compiled by Zhu Xi, Wang Xiang's Nü sishu provides an invaluable look at the long-standing history and evolution of Chinese women's writing, education, identity, and philosophical discourse, along with their struggles and triumphs, across the millennia and numerous Chinese dynasties. Pang-White's new translation brings the authors of the Four Books for Women to life as real, living people, and illustrates why they wrote and how their work empowered women. This volume reveals the history and evolution of Chinese women's writing, education, identity, and philosophical discourse over a span of 1,600 years. (shrink)

This short article is based on my special lecture entitled "Aristotle and the Philosophy of Education" at Tamagawa University Research Institute in Tokyo on September 19, 2015, through a recording of the spoken language transcribed in written form with some corrections. The lecture delivered on that day consists of two parts: referring to historical research and a statistical survey, the first half focuses on uncovering the fact that the philosophy of education has been slighted both in Japanese and Western (...) academia and that this fact is valid for both Aristotle's and contemporary studies on the philosophy of education; the second half endeavors to describe two possible research projects - namely, a classical-philosophical and interpretative study of Aristotle's philosophy of education and a contemporary-philosophical and Aristotelian study of the philosophy education. Some of these topics have been published but others have not. This short article concerns the first half of the lecture and measures the gap between philosophy and the philosophy of education in Japan through a statistical survey of the largest competitive research funding database in Japan: KAKEN. (shrink)

The short hymn to Hypnos at the opening of the first komrnos of the Philoctetes is of particular interest in view of Sophocles' association with the cult of Asclepius. As suggested by the invocation the hymn is in fact intended to recall the paean, a form of liturgy with which Sophocles' audience must have become increasingly familiar in the years since the introduction in 420/19 of the Asclepius cult. Indeed if we are to judge by inscriptional and other remains (...) the output of hymns for the cult of the healing gods from the fifth century onwards must have been a prolific one and considerably in excess of that for other deities in the same period. It is well known that amongst the earliest writers of hymns for the cult was Sophocles himself. The Suda in the list of his works records one of which at least, a paean to Asclepius, was known as late as the second and third centuries A.D. Probably this is not to be identified with the Sophoclean paean on the Sarapion monument of the same period, which in so far as the extremely fragmentary state of the inscription will allow us to determine would seem to be addressed not to Asclepius himself but to his mother Coronis. (shrink)

The short hymn to Hypnos at the opening of the first komrnos of the Philoctetes is of particular interest in view of Sophocles' association with the cult of Asclepius. As suggested by the invocation the hymn is in fact intended to recall the paean, a form of liturgy with which Sophocles' audience must have become increasingly familiar in the years since the introduction in 420/19 of the Asclepius cult. Indeed if we are to judge by inscriptional and other remains (...) the output of hymns for the cult of the healing gods from the fifth century onwards must have been a prolific one and considerably in excess of that for other deities in the same period. It is well known that amongst the earliest writers of hymns for the cult was Sophocles himself. The Suda in the list of his works records one of which at least, a paean to Asclepius, was known as late as the second and third centuries A.D. Probably this is not to be identified with the Sophoclean paean on the Sarapion monument of the same period, which in so far as the extremely fragmentary state of the inscription will allow us to determine would seem to be addressed not to Asclepius himself but to his mother Coronis. (shrink)

The short hymn to Hypnos at the opening of the first komrnos of the Philoctetes is of particular interest in view of Sophocles' association with the cult of Asclepius. As suggested by the invocation the hymn is in fact intended to recall the paean, a form of liturgy with which Sophocles' audience must have become increasingly familiar in the years since the introduction in 420/19 of the Asclepius cult. Indeed if we are to judge by inscriptional and other remains (...) the output of hymns for the cult of the healing gods from the fifth century onwards must have been a prolific one and considerably in excess of that for other deities in the same period. It is well known that amongst the earliest writers of hymns for the cult was Sophocles himself. The Suda in the list of his works records one of which at least, a paean to Asclepius, was known as late as the second and third centuries A.D. Probably this is not to be identified with the Sophoclean paean on the Sarapion monument of the same period, which in so far as the extremely fragmentary state of the inscription will allow us to determine would seem to be addressed not to Asclepius himself but to his mother Coronis. (shrink)

Records the papers and commentaries, with an edited discussion, presented at an international consultation convened by the Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS) to guide revision of the CIOMS International Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research Involving Human Subjects. The Guidelines, first issued in 1982 and then revised in 1993, are being updated and expanded to address a number of new and especially challenging ethical issues. These include issues raised by international collaborative trials of drugs in developing countries, especially (...) expensive drugs, and the use of placebo controls in randomized clinical trials. Others arise from the complexity of research in human genetics, including stem-cell research, and in reproductive biology. Throughout, particular attention is given to the difficult questions that arose during the heated debate over trials in developing countries, of short-duration zidovudine (AZT) therapy to reduce perinatal transmission of HIV. The International Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research Involving Human Subjects set out a code of research ethics that is widely used by ethical review committees and other bodies responsible for reviewing and overseeing the ethical design of studies and conduct of research. The revision of the Guidelines is being coordinated by CIOMS, in collaboration with WHO. The consultation centered on seven specially commissioned papers, authored by international experts that explore some of the more difficult issues in depth. Each is followed by an invited commentary, often expressing opposing views, and a summary of the issues or conclusions that emerged during the subsequent debate. The first paper, on justice in international research, deals with the question of whether proposals for research to be conducted in a developing country should make provision for future access of the population involved to the interventions under investigation. Also considered are questions that arise when research uses populations in developing countries to investigate interventions that will be of exclusive benefit to the industrialized world. Case studies of recent drug trials and their research protocols are discussed to illustrate circumstances in which use of populations in developing countries is justified or constitutes exploitation. Ethical challenges of the randomized controlled trial are considered in the second paper, which includes a discussion on the equitable distribution of benefits and risks, the use of placebo for controls, and the obligation to ensure that the participation of controls does not compromise their medical care or endanger their health. A paper on informed consent in international health research considers how cultural factors influence communication and language in the informed-consent process and respect for privacy and confidentiality in the research. Subsequent papers address issues in genetics research and reproductive biology, including the moral status of fetuses and the use of embryos in research, and examine the contribution which international human rights instruments can make in the application of the general principles of ethics to research involving human subjects. The final paper gives an overview of capacity building and the role of communities in international biomedical research. (shrink)

This short text provides an introduction to the five papers that follow, all of which reflect on R.S. Peters, his founding importance for contemporary philosophy of education, and his continuing relevance. It sets the scene by referring to Peters’ early and important encounter with Israel Scheffler before going on briefly to acknowledge other work published over the past decade that examines Peters’ achievement. In addition, it explains the background to the fifth paper in this suite. This is Ieuan Lloyd's (...) record, posthumously published, of conversations about the philosophy of education with Rush Rhees, in which Peters’ work is considered. (shrink)

This volume, a powerful short prose piece by Blanchot with an extended essay by Derrida, records a remarkable encounter in critical and philosophical thinking.

This paper attempts an historical analysis of a dream of the physicist George Gamow recorded shortly before his death in 1968. The dream is contextualized through Gamow's extended scientific work and popular scientific efforts, and in light of enduring preoccupations with the notion of a complete science. The analysis extends to an examination of the relationship of the dream to dreaming practices and deliberations apart from Gamow’s, as evident in the relationship and collaboration between the physicist Wolfgang Pauli and C. (...) G. Jung. (shrink)

Electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings are increasingly used to evaluate patients with disorders of consciousness (DOC) or assess their prognosis outcome in the short-term perspective. However, there is a lack of information concerning the effectiveness of EEG in classifying long-term (many years) outcome in chronic DOC patients. Here we tested whether EEG operational architectonics parameters (geared towards consciousness phenomenon detection rather than neurophysiological processes) could be useful for distinguishing a very long-term (6 years) clinical outcome of DOC patients whose EEGs were (...) registered within 3 months post-injury. The obtained results suggest that EEG recorded at third month after sustaining brain damage, may contain useful information on the long-term outcome of patients in vegetative state: it could discriminate patients who remain in a persistent vegetative state from patients who reach a minimally conscious state or even recover a full consciousness in a long-term perspective (6 years) post-injury. These findings, if confirmed in further studies, may be pivotal for long-term planning of clinical care, rehabilitative programs, medical-legal decisions concerning the patients, and policy makers. (shrink)

In European philosophies of history, the linear paradigm that has prevailed for centuries as a derivative of Christian salvation history (Heilsgeschichte), ultimately lost its monopoly with the arrival of the “post-age.” The result of this has been that ideas that have survived on the margins, even the cyclical interpretation of time attached to religious traditions, now seem capable of outliving the short-lived belief in continuous progress. According to the cyclical view of history, those who came last will leave first, (...) with those who came first leaving as the last adherents of the driving force of Western rationalization. Thus, within a century, beginning with World War 2, a major turning point has been crossed: Socialism was the first to disappear, and it looks like Secular Liberalism will be the next; then Protestantism, followed by Islam, and so forth. As seductive as these images may appear, they only mirror an auto-destructive thread at the very center of Europe’s troubled Geist. But can anything be done to save the most important European values, and specifically, the ethical drive to say “no” to power, which is perhaps the most important legacy of monotheism? Either as a self-limitation from within powerful institutions or as a mode of resistance on the margins of powerful developments—there is a strong adherence to the good (often named God) that helps people and communities survive their diasporic state. I will present this kernel of ethical monotheism by two relatively unknown twentieth-century examples of “diasporic knowledge”: Rebecca West’s Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (1941), in which she recorded her observations of the devastating effects of empires on Yugoslavia, and two poems by Rosario Castellanos, who decades before the debate on postcolonialism voiced the concerns of displaced indigenous cultures in her Mexican homeland. I suggest that, paradoxically, attention to diasporic voices is one way of realizing the spirit of European self-limitation that is so much needed today to prevent further damage to our societies and environment wrought by the excessive drive for progress fostered by an unethical monorationalism. (shrink)

Several studies describe intersectoral collaboration in Western healthcare as hampered by lack of coordination of care and treatment and incoherent patient pathways. We performed an ethnographic study following elderly patients from admission to an emergency unit (EMU) to discharge and further treatment and care at other facilities in the healthcare system. The aim was to explore how health professionals work together across sectors in the Danish healthcare system and how they create patient pathways for elderly patients (+65) with multiple chronic (...) illnesses. Intersectoral collaboration was identified as distant relations between large numbers of health professionals, where communication was conveyed by electronic health record (EHR) formats which promoted information delivery that focused on patients’ immediate symptoms. Other significant ‘mediators’ of communication were the telephone that seemed to resemble face‐to‐face communication and the patient who delivered information from one professional to another. We suggest that the communication among professionals at various facilities interacts with the format and functionalities of the EHRs, which typically fall short in delivery of information across sectors, because the often complex needs of patients with multimorbidity do not fit in with the available functionalities of the EHR. (shrink)

This book records almost 50 years' worth of developing and explaining a new way of thinking about behavior. It represents a journey more than a goal. I came to see that the science of behavior needed a new paradigm, and two sorts of changes were required. First, the old molecular view inherited from the nineteenth century, based on discrete responses and contiguity, had to be replaced by a view based on the dynamics of behavior. Behavior is manifestly process and cannot (...) be contained in little momentary packets. Behavior is flow and requires measures and theories that acknowledge its temporal extendedness. Such a new ("molar") view offers plausible and elegant explanations both of laboratory results and of phenomena in the everyday world. The molecular view falls short on both counts. (shrink)

Since the demise of introspective techniques in the early twentieth century, experimental psychology has largely assumed an administrative arrangement between experimenters and subjects wherein subjects respond to experimenters’ instructions and experimenters meticulously constrain that relationship through experimental controls. During the postwar era this standard arrangement came to be questioned, initiating reflections that resonated with Cold War anxieties about the nature of the subjects and the experimenters alike. Albeit relatively short lived, these interrogations of laboratory relationships gave rise to unconventional (...) testimonies and critiques of experimental method and epistemology. Researchers voiced serious concerns about the honesty and normality of subjects, the politics of the laboratory, and their own experimental conduct. Their reflective commentaries record the intimacy of subject and experimenter relations and the plentiful cultural materials that constituted the experimental situation, revealing the permeable boundaries between laboratory and everyday life. (shrink)

When part of a person's body is separated from them, or when a person dies, it is unclear what legal status the item of bodily material is able to obtain. A 'no property rule' which states that there is no property in the human body was first recorded in an English judgment in 1882. Claims based on property rights in the human body and its parts have failed on the basis that the human body is not the subject of property. (...) Despite a recent series of exceptions to the 'no property rule', the law still has no clear answer as to the legal status of the body or its material. In this book, Wall examines the appropriate legal status of bodily material, and in doing so, develops a way for the law to address disputes over the use and storage of bodily material that, contrary to the current trend, resists the application of property law. Wall assesses when a person ought to be able to possess, control, use, or profit from, his or her own bodily material or the bodily material of another person. Bodily material may be valuable because it retains a functional unity with the body or is a material resource that is in short supply. With this in mind, Wall measures the extent to which property law can represent the rights and duties that protects the entitlement that a person may exercise in bodily material, and identifies the limits to the appropriate application of property law. An alternative to property law is developed with reference to the right of bodily integrity and the right to privacy. (shrink)

This volume records a remarkable encounter in critical and philosophical thinking: a meeting of two of the great pioneers in contemporary thought, Maurice Blanchot and Jacques Derrida, who are also bound together by friendship and a complex relation to their own pasts. More than a literary text with critical commentary, it constitutes an event of central significance for contemporary philosophical, literary, and political concerns. The book consists of _The Instant of My Death,_ a powerful short prose piece by Blanchot, (...) and an extended essay by Derrida that reads it in the context of questions of literature and of bearing witness. Blanchot's narrative concerns a moment when a young man is brought before a firing squad during World War II and then suddenly finds himself released from his near death. The incident, written in the third person, is suggestively autobiographical—from the title, several remarks in the text, and a letter Blanchot wrote about a similar incident in his own life—but only insofar as it raises questions for Blanchot about what such an experience might mean. The accident of near death becomes, in the instant the man is released, the accident of a life he no longer possesses. The text raises the question of what it means to write about a experience one cannot claim as one's own, and as such is a text of testimony or witness. Derrida's reading of Blanchot links the problem of testimony to the problem of the secret and to the notion of the instant. It thereby provides the elements of a more expansive reassessment of literature, testimony, and truth. In addressing the complex relation between writing and history, Derrida also implicitly reflects on questions concerning the relation between European intellectuals and World War II. (shrink)

This volume records a remarkable encounter in critical and philosophical thinking: a meeting of two of the great pioneers in contemporary thought, Maurice Blanchot and Jacques Derrida, who are also bound together by friendship and a complex relation to their own pasts. More than a literary text with critical commentary, it constitutes an event of central significance for contemporary philosophical, literary, and political concerns. The book consists of _The Instant of My Death,_ a powerful short prose piece by Blanchot, (...) and an extended essay by Derrida that reads it in the context of questions of literature and of bearing witness. Blanchot's narrative concerns a moment when a young man is brought before a firing squad during World War II and then suddenly finds himself released from his near death. The incident, written in the third person, is suggestively autobiographical—from the title, several remarks in the text, and a letter Blanchot wrote about a similar incident in his own life—but only insofar as it raises questions for Blanchot about what such an experience might mean. The accident of near death becomes, in the instant the man is released, the accident of a life he no longer possesses. The text raises the question of what it means to write about a experience one cannot claim as one's own, and as such is a text of testimony or witness. Derrida's reading of Blanchot links the problem of testimony to the problem of the secret and to the notion of the instant. It thereby provides the elements of a more expansive reassessment of literature, testimony, and truth. In addressing the complex relation between writing and history, Derrida also implicitly reflects on questions concerning the relation between European intellectuals and World War II. (shrink)

A physiological model for short-term memory (STM) based on dual theta (5–10 Hz) and gamma (20–60 Hz) oscillation was proposed by Lisman and Idiart (1995). In this model a memory is represented by groups of neurons that fire in the same gamma cycle. According to this model, capacity is determined by the number of gamma cycles that occur within the slower theta cycle. We will discuss here the implications of recent reports on theta oscillations recorded in humans performing the (...) Sternberg task. Assuming that the oscillatory memory models are correct, these findings can help determine STM capacity. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Cogito, Ergo Sum: The Life of René DescartesDennis Des CheneRichard Watson. Cogito, Ergo Sum: The Life of René Descartes. Boston: David R. Godine, 2002. pp. viii + 375. Cloth, $35.00.Somewhere between hagiography and debunking lies truth. Or so we may think: the biographer's sources are almost always tipped one way or the other, and it is his or her job to establish, or divine, the way of authentic (...) fact and, if facts fall short, then of sturdy sober hypothesis. In general the debunker has more fun, especially when the weight of tradition favors the ennobling, if not the beatification, of its subject.Descartes is a case in point. Until a few years ago, there was in English no satisfactory biography. Now there are three: an "intellectual biography" by Stephen Gaukroger, the Descartes of Geneviève Rodis-Lewis, and Watson's. Gaukroger dwells on Descartes's natural philosophy, especially in the early years. Only after 300 pages does he reach the period of the Discourse, Descartes's first published work. Rodis-Lewis offers a more even-handed treatment, the fruits of a lifetime of study. Her Descartes resembles, not the modern scientist or professional philosopher, but the ancient sage for whom metaphysics is a once-in-a-lifetime affair, and even natural philosophy subordinate to wisdom. Watson's Descartes is an altogether more worldly type, born into a family of lawyers, well-connected, touchy [End Page 113] about his place in social and scientific circles, and not all that interested in what we think of now as philosophy. Nor, for that matter, is Watson: you will look in vain for an analysis of the Meditations, a discussion of method, or a definition of générosité. (Watson does conclude, I should note, with a discussion of Descartes's doctrine on the soul, whose title might well have been "The future of an illusion" if Freud had not used it already.)If you like your philosophy uncluttered by context, if you find it worthwhile to read or write about "Cartesian skepticism" or "Cartesian dualism" without troubling yourself to understand who the historical Descartes was, or what might have moved him to confront the skeptics and save the soul, then Watson is not for you. It is emphatically a Life, not a Life and Works. It is, moreover, a life in the manner of many modern biographers, in which the biographer, rather than conceal himself behind the curtains of scholarly convention, figures into the narrative, retracing the steps of Descartes's passage to Italy, examining the baptismal certificate of Descartes's illegitimate daughter Francine, and eating lunch at the Queen Kristina restaurant "next door to the house in which Descartes died" (303). The quality of a biography thus written depends in part on the personality of its author (and in the case of Cogito Ergo Sum, the author's wife, who intervenes more than once on the side of common sense during their peregrinations). Watson is, to my mind, an agreeable companion, dedicated to the search for biographical truth, impatient with hagiographic fog and time-hallowed error, down-to-earth in his assessment of Descartes's motives and circumstances.One example to show the differences among the three biographies. In November 1618 Descartes met the future Latin schoolmaster Isaac Beeckman in Breda. Beeckman records with enthusiasm their joint endeavors in physico-mathematics over the next few months (Gaukroger has the details). It seems clear that the impetus for studying the various problems mentioned in Beeckman's Journal came from Beeckman, who had been pondering physical questions since 1613 or before. Descartes's contribution, at least at first, was his immense mathematical skill. Their interests lay largely within the "mixed mathematics" of the period, especially hydrostatics and mechanics. They also discussed music, an aspect of the "new science" now often neglected (but see H. F. Cohen, Quantifying Music [Dordrecht, 1984]). On New Year's day 1619 Descartes presented Beeckman with his Compendium musicæ (Gaukroger 74, Rodis-Lewis 51/29). A decade later, Descartes, having heard that Beeckman had appropriated the Compendium to himself, became angry and eventually, late in 1630, dismissed Beeckman with a masterpiece of de haut... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Cogito, Ergo Sum: The Life of René DescartesDennis Des CheneRichard Watson. Cogito, Ergo Sum: The Life of René Descartes. Boston: David R. Godine, 2002. pp. viii + 375. Cloth, $35.00.Somewhere between hagiography and debunking lies truth. Or so we may think: the biographer's sources are almost always tipped one way or the other, and it is his or her job to establish, or divine, the way of authentic (...) fact and, if facts fall short, then of sturdy sober hypothesis. In general the debunker has more fun, especially when the weight of tradition favors the ennobling, if not the beatification, of its subject.Descartes is a case in point. Until a few years ago, there was in English no satisfactory biography. Now there are three: an "intellectual biography" by Stephen Gaukroger, the Descartes of Geneviève Rodis-Lewis, and Watson's. Gaukroger dwells on Descartes's natural philosophy, especially in the early years. Only after 300 pages does he reach the period of the Discourse, Descartes's first published work. Rodis-Lewis offers a more even-handed treatment, the fruits of a lifetime of study. Her Descartes resembles, not the modern scientist or professional philosopher, but the ancient sage for whom metaphysics is a once-in-a-lifetime affair, and even natural philosophy subordinate to wisdom. Watson's Descartes is an altogether more worldly type, born into a family of lawyers, well-connected, touchy [End Page 113] about his place in social and scientific circles, and not all that interested in what we think of now as philosophy. Nor, for that matter, is Watson: you will look in vain for an analysis of the Meditations, a discussion of method, or a definition of générosité. (Watson does conclude, I should note, with a discussion of Descartes's doctrine on the soul, whose title might well have been "The future of an illusion" if Freud had not used it already.)If you like your philosophy uncluttered by context, if you find it worthwhile to read or write about "Cartesian skepticism" or "Cartesian dualism" without troubling yourself to understand who the historical Descartes was, or what might have moved him to confront the skeptics and save the soul, then Watson is not for you. It is emphatically a Life, not a Life and Works. It is, moreover, a life in the manner of many modern biographers, in which the biographer, rather than conceal himself behind the curtains of scholarly convention, figures into the narrative, retracing the steps of Descartes's passage to Italy, examining the baptismal certificate of Descartes's illegitimate daughter Francine, and eating lunch at the Queen Kristina restaurant "next door to the house in which Descartes died" (303). The quality of a biography thus written depends in part on the personality of its author (and in the case of Cogito Ergo Sum, the author's wife, who intervenes more than once on the side of common sense during their peregrinations). Watson is, to my mind, an agreeable companion, dedicated to the search for biographical truth, impatient with hagiographic fog and time-hallowed error, down-to-earth in his assessment of Descartes's motives and circumstances.One example to show the differences among the three biographies. In November 1618 Descartes met the future Latin schoolmaster Isaac Beeckman in Breda. Beeckman records with enthusiasm their joint endeavors in physico-mathematics over the next few months (Gaukroger has the details). It seems clear that the impetus for studying the various problems mentioned in Beeckman's Journal came from Beeckman, who had been pondering physical questions since 1613 or before. Descartes's contribution, at least at first, was his immense mathematical skill. Their interests lay largely within the "mixed mathematics" of the period, especially hydrostatics and mechanics. They also discussed music, an aspect of the "new science" now often neglected (but see H. F. Cohen, Quantifying Music [Dordrecht, 1984]). On New Year's day 1619 Descartes presented Beeckman with his Compendium musicæ (Gaukroger 74, Rodis-Lewis 51/29). A decade later, Descartes, having heard that Beeckman had appropriated the Compendium to himself, became angry and eventually, late in 1630, dismissed Beeckman with a masterpiece of de haut... (shrink)

These seven short essays record several recent explorations together with some corrections to earlier views which need revision in the light of further evidence. Topics considered include temporal atomism, a critique of nontemporal concresence, divine subjectivity and conceptual activity, a reexamination of physical purpose and negative prehension, and an alternate theory of life and mind.

Background Retraction is a mechanism for alerting readers to unreliable material and other problems in the published scientific and scholarly record. Retracted publications generally remain visible and searchable, but the intention of retraction is to mark them as “removed” from the citable record of scholarship. However, in practice, some retracted articles continue to be treated by researchers and the public as valid content as they are often unaware of the retraction. Research over the past decade has identified a (...) number of factors contributing to the unintentional spread of retracted research. The goal of the Reducing the Inadvertent Spread of Retracted Science: Shaping a Research and Implementation Agenda (RISRS) project was to develop an actionable agenda for reducing the inadvertent spread of retracted science. This included identifying how retraction status could be more thoroughly disseminated, and determining what actions are feasible and relevant for particular stakeholders who play a role in the distribution of knowledge. -/- Methods These recommendations were developed as part of a year-long process that included a scoping review of empirical literature and successive rounds of stakeholder consultation, culminating in a three-part online workshop that brought together a diverse body of 65 stakeholders in October–November 2020 to engage in collaborative problem solving and dialogue. Stakeholders held roles such as publishers, editors, researchers, librarians, standards developers, funding program officers, and technologists and worked for institutions such as universities, governmental agencies, funding organizations, publishing houses, libraries, standards organizations, and technology providers. Workshop discussions were seeded by materials derived from stakeholder interviews (N = 47) and short original discussion pieces contributed by stakeholders. The online workshop resulted in a set of recommendations to address the complexities of retracted research throughout the scholarly communications ecosystem. -/- Results The RISRS recommendations are: (1) Develop a systematic cross-industry approach to ensure the public availability of consistent, standardized, interoperable, and timely information about retractions; (2) Recommend a taxonomy of retraction categories/classifications and corresponding retraction metadata that can be adopted by all stakeholders; (3) Develop best practices for coordinating the retraction process to enable timely, fair, unbiased outcomes; and (4) Educate stakeholders about pre- and post-publication stewardship, including retraction and correction of the scholarly record. -/- Conclusions Our stakeholder engagement study led to 4 recommendations to address inadvertent citation of retracted research, and formation of a working group to develop the Communication of Retractions, Removals, and Expressions of Concern (CORREC) Recommended Practice. Further work will be needed to determine how well retractions are currently documented, how retraction of code and datasets impacts related publications, and to identify if retraction metadata (fails to) propagate. Outcomes of all this work should lead to ensuring retracted papers are never cited without awareness of the retraction, and that, in public fora outside of science, retracted papers are not treated as valid scientific outputs. (shrink)

We investigate the timing of pre-answer inbreaths in order to shed light on the time course of response planning and execution in conversational turn-taking. Using acoustic and inductive plethysmography recordings of seven dyadic conversations in Dutch, we show that pre-answer inbreaths in conversation typically begin briefly after the end of questions. We also show that the presence of a pre-answer inbreath usually co-occurs with substantially delayed answers, with a modal latency of 576 vs. 100 ms for answers not preceded by (...) an inbreath. Based on previously reported minimal latencies for internal intercostal activation and the production of speech sounds, we propose that vocal responses, either in the form of a pre-utterance inbreath or of speech proper when an inbreath is not produced, are typically launched in reaction to information present in the last portion of the interlocutor's turn. We also show that short responses are usually made on residual breath, while longer responses are more often preceded by an inbreath. This relation of inbreaths to answer length suggests that by the time an inbreath is launched, typically during the last few hundred milliseconds of the question, the length of the answer is often prepared to some extent. Together, our findings are consistent with a two-stage model of response planning in conversational turn-taking: early planning of content often carried out in overlap with the incoming turn, and late launching of articulation based on the identification of turn-final cues. (shrink)

The aim of the article. The aim of the article is to identify the components of social and economic systems life cycle. To achieve this aim, the article describes the traits and characteristics of the system, determines the features of social and economic systems functioning and is applied a systematic approach in the study of their life cycle. The results of the analysis. It is determined that the development of social and economic systems has signs of cyclicity and is explained (...) methodologically by the axiomatics, rules and laws. Understanding of circular patterns has been formed long ago and now is recorded by scientists monitoring the properties of natural and artificial environment of human activity. During the study, it was found out that in scientific literature there is no unified description of the life cycle elements of social and economic systems at personal, micro, meso, macro and global levels. The paper investigates the cyclical patterns in multilevel social and economic systems for a human, employee, family, product, company, city, industry, elite, macroeconomic indicators, humanity, global processes, global economic system and the Universe. It is noted that at grass-roots administrative levels of the global environment of a human life activity system, a thesis about the cyclicity of development and the stages of the life cycle is considered by a wide circle of scientists and is doubtless. On hierarchically higher management levels of the global environment of human activity system, the scientists noticed the similar patterns of the cyclical nature. Problematic and discussion questions about cyclic development of social and economic systems are identified: the uncertainty of the driving force source of repeated changes; the vague distinction between systemic (internal) and off-system (external) influence on development; the lack of a unified description of development nature at different managerial levels; the use of different descriptive terms for the same constituent elements of repeated changes (period, stage, phase, wave, cycle); the uncertainty of the number of repeated changes constituent elements; the absence of an identification mechanism of the exact time of changes in the constituent elements of repeated changes; the surface description of out-of-system period of the subjects activity («before-system» period of creation and «after-system» period of liquidation); attaching more importance to primary and less importance to ultimate component elements of the repeated changes; the lack of reliable mechanism for predicting and forecasting the dynamics of constituent components of repeated changes. It is noted that all social and economic systems are developed within repeated changes and they have the same attributes of cyclicity: the fluctuation of indicators is marked that characterize the condition of the subject; the presence of system (from creation to liquidation) and out-of-system (creation – «design» and liquidation – «disposal») periods are noted; the subjects are created by the actions of other subjects (that is, subjects do not arise «out of nowhere», but are the result of actions of other subjects – «constructors»); after cessation of subjects functioning, their resources are used by other subjects (that is, the subjects do not disappear «nowhere», and they are transformed into the resources of other subjects – «recovery»); a unidirectional life cycle from «birth» to «death» is observed in the subjects; the subjects do not have to undergo the whole life cycle (each time might be the last); the subjects display similar changes of the indicators during their activity; ascending, peak and descending fluctuations of indicators are observed in the subjects; minor fluctuations occur in the constituent elements; the subjects have individual nature of indicator fluctuations and duration of activity. Conclusions and directions of further researches. The scientific novelty of the study is identification structure of life cycle of social and economic system with definitions of: common («before-system state», «growth», «stabilization», «reduction», «after-system state») and specific («creation», «slow growth», «rapid growth», «growth stabilization», «short stabilization», «rapid reduction», «slow reduction», «liquidation») constituent elements of repeated changes; marginal borders of indicators; dynamics of constituent elements of life cycle; key points of changing nature of the indicators dynamics. Identification of the life cycle of social and economic systems characterizes potentially possible limits of their activity in time and provides the possibility of further research of aspects of the cyclical development for methodological basis formation and the development of applied measures of systemic development in the areas of marketing and management innovations. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:WisCon 46Laurie Fuller, Jenna N. Hanchey, and E. OrnelasExistence as Resistance, WisCon 46, May 26–29, 2023, Madison, Wisconsin, United StatesIn a world that seems structured to kill most of its occupants, there is a utopian impulse in the act of existence itself. WisCon 46 represented a prefigurative utopian impulse through centering continued marginalized existence as resistance.1 Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha calls “prefigurative politics” the “fancy term for the idea (...) of imagining and building the world we want to see now,” particularly in terms of access needs.2 The structure as well as the content of the convention itself created a space in which to set the groundwork for utopia: the ways that we live and act to resist structures of oppression in order to prefigure a better world.Since WisCon’s founding in 1977, its intended audience has been fans, authors, and academics interested in the intersection between feminism and “science fiction, fantasy, and speculative literature of all sorts.”3 While neither feminism nor speculative fiction could be solely defined as utopian, both do explore utopian impulses that inspire change for the better. Therein lies the hope of Alessa Johns’s proposal that “the utopian imagination has been crucial for feminists.”4 Lisa Yaszek agrees: “for nearly 200 years writers have used speculative fiction consciously and collectively to dramatize the political issues most central to women living in a technocultural world and to create a sense of wonder about the interrelated possibilities of social and scientific change.”5 Envisioning a liberatory world is a feminist imperative, and speculative fiction offers a unique venue to do so. This imperative informed WisCon this year, as participants collectively worked to imagine and enact a better future for marginalized folks, in and beyond the space of the conference. [End Page 618]Enabling Existence through Con StructuresWisCon is unique in attuning its organizational structure to the creation of liberatory futures in the here and now. WisCon is strongly attentive to disability access of all kinds, COVID safety, antiracist/anti-oppression principles, and safety and anti-abuse support for all these areas. In the contemporary US context—where COVID-19 remains a major barrier to disabled people wishing to participate in conventions, where racist violence continues to threaten BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) life, where queer and trans folks are under exacerbated legal attacks—creating a convention space that protects and enables marginalized participation becomes a means of prefiguring utopian potential through embodied praxis. As mask, capacity, and vaccination mandates disappear (despite these ongoing pandemic times), and as bigotry of all forms continues relatively unabated, WisCon 46 remains steadfast in its commitment to safety. In short, the conference itself aims to become a utopian space.WisCon organizers are also keenly aware of the challenges that many different bodyminds might encounter in large group settings.6 Trained monitors oversee in-person and online programming in an effort to discourage harmful words and actions as well as ensure the fullest participation for those most impacted. Hence, disability justice lies at the center of the Con’s policies and practices. The event is made as accessible as possible through careful attention to venue selection, including the availability of gender-neutral bathrooms, scent-free spaces, and quiet rooms, as well as the use of color communication badges.This year’s event followed strict masking and testing protocols: individually packaged rapid COVID-19 tests were available without cost at registration, as were KN95 masks. The Con kept an anonymized record of self-reported positive COVID-19 tests, in case of possible exposure. This mutual responsibility reflects the kind of utopianism inherent to disability politics; that is, disability “allows for reformulation of in/dependence and community,” a way of rethinking how we share space and produce knowledge together.7The conference’s decidedly feminist approach “to creating a space for feminism and its consideration within the science fiction community” is applied at every level. The Con’s general organization and procedures are structured as nonhierarchically as possible. There is a board of directors as well as co-chairs, but these are rotating positions. This “commitment to feminism” is [End Page 619] reflected... (shrink)

This book makes available five classic studies of the organisation of behaviour in face-to-face interaction. It includes Adam Kendon's well-known study of gaze-direction in interaction, his study of greetings, of the interactional functions of facial expression and of the spatial organisation of naturally occurring interaction, as recorded by means of film or videotape. They represent some of the best work undertaken within the 'natural history' tradition of interaction studies, as originally formulated in the work of Bateson, Birdwhistell and Goffman. Chapter (...) 2, written especially for this new book, provides an historical and theoretical discussion of this tradition, and a new final chapter takes up the theme of the organisation of attention in interaction. The introduction provides details of the circumstances of how each paper came to be written. Each of the papers reprinted is accompanied by a short postscript, placing the work in the context of more recent research. Several of the papers presented in this volume, although widely referred to, have long been difficult to obtain. Their republication will be warmly welcomed by all students and teachers who are concerned with face-to-face interaction. (shrink)

According to the paradigm of adaptive rationality, successful inference and prediction methods tend to be local and frugal. As a complement to work within this paradigm, we investigate the problem of selecting an optimal combination of prediction methods from a given toolbox of such local methods, in the context of changing environments. These selection methods are called meta-inductive strategies, if they are based on the success-records of the toolbox-methods. No absolutely optimal MI strategy exists—a fact that we call the “revenge (...) of ecological rationality”. Nevertheless one can show that a certain MI strategy exists, called “AW”, which is universally long-run optimal, with provably small short-run losses, in comparison to any set of prediction methods that it can use as input. We call this property universal access-optimality. Local and short-run improvements over AW are possible, but only at the cost of forfeiting universal access-optimality. The last part of the paper includes an empirical study of MI strategies in application to an 8-year-long data set from the Monash University Footy Tipping Competition. (shrink)

Rapid Ethical Assessment is an approach used to design context tailored consent process for voluntary participation of participants in research including human subjects. There is, however, limited evidence on the design of ethical assessment in studies targeting cancer patients in Ethiopia. REA was conducted to explore factors that influence the informed consent process among female cancer patients recruited for longitudinal research from Addis Ababa Population-based Cancer Registry. Qualitative study employing rapid ethnographic approach was conducted from May–July, 2017, at the Tikur (...) Anbessa Specialized Referral Hospital. In-depth and key informants’ interviews were conducted among purposively selected 16 participants. Regular de-briefings among the study team helped to identify emerging themes and ensure saturation. Interviews and debriefings were tape recorded in Amharic, and transcribed and translated to English. Coding of the transcripts was facilitated by use of NVivo software. Thematic analysis was employed to respond to the initial questions and interpret findings. Perceived barriers to voluntary study participation included lack of reporting back study results of previous studies, the decision making status of women, hopelessness or fatigue in the patients, shyness of the women, data collectors approach to the patient, and patient’s time constraints. Most of the patients preferred oral over written consent and face-to-face interview over telephone interview. Provision of detail information about the study, using short and understandable tool, competent, compassionate and respectful enumerators of the same gender were suggested to assure participation. Due to the perceived severity, the use of the term “cancer” was associated with fear and anxiety. Alternatively, uses of phrases like “breast or cervical illness/disease” were suggested during patient interviews. Voluntary participation is not straight forward but affected by different factors. Using competent, compassionate and respectful enumerators, short and precise questioning tools to limit the time of the interview could improve voluntary participation. Moreover, careful consideration of the patients and families concept of the disease such as wording and information has to be taken into account. This assessment helped in improving the consent process of the ongoing project on breast and cervical cancer patients. (shrink)

Technologies and artefacts have long played a role in the structure of human memory and our cognitive lives more generally. Recent years have seen an explosion in the production and use of a new regime of information technologies that might have powerful implications for our minds. Electronic-Memory, powerful, portable and wearable digital gadgetry and “the cloud” of ever-present data services allow us to record, store and access an ever-expanding range of information both about and of relevance to our lives. (...) Already, for a decade we have been carrying around expansive gadgetry which allows us to collect, store and use what would have been almost unimaginable amounts of digital information only a short time ago. Now, thanks to the wireless internet adding vast processing and storage potential to the powerful portable devices which many of us carry constantly or wear, this information can be accessed and customised in an ever-greater variety of ways. How should we assess the implications of the new portable and pervasive cognitive technologies on offer? Does E-Memory and the wider panoply of cloud-enabled cognitive technologies really promise, or threaten, a radical change to the human cognitive abilities and perhaps the very nature of our minds? If so, how are we to assess the possibilities and attempt to understand whether they offer a hopeful or dangerous turn in the human condition? This investigation is structured around four related factors of the new technology: Totality, Practical Incorporability, Autonomy and Entanglement. We use these factors to inquire into the implications of this cloud-based memory technology for our minds and our sense of self. (shrink)

Dying serves so often within the narratives of Western popular culture, as an exercise in self-improvement both to the individual dying and to those looking on. It enlightens, ennobles and renders exceptional all those affected by it. Though mainstream cinema's “grammar of dying” is mired in similar myths, film has the potential to do dying differently: it can, instead, connect us, ethically, to the vulnerability of others. The aim of this article is to pursue this potential of film. Using the (...) mainstream grammar of dying as a starting point, I will consider how the moving image, and this ethical potential, is harnessed within two hybrid-media pieces about a loved-one's decline and death: George Saxon's art installation, “A Record of Undying” (2014) and photographer Briony Campbell's short film The Dad Project (2009). While these works will be located within the traditions and transformations of moving image practice, the primary concern here is with how such emotionally resonant pieces navigate our relation to, and responsibility for, our own and others' harsh realities. In this way, the question of ethics is grounded not in the solipsistic circuits of affective modes – whether as the catharsis or betterment of mainstream myths, or what Jane Stadler privileges as the ethical effects of empathy – but in something more inherently, more inevitably, political. (shrink)

This short book is an interdisciplinary critique of conventional school examinations for older secondary students. -/- Chapter 1 is about their multiple shortcomings. -/- Chapter 2 asks why they have existed for so long, given that their deficiencies have been well-known for a century and more. It suggests that one factor in the UK has been their value to upper echelons of society as stepping stones to interesting careers; and documents attempts since 1900 to prevent other parts of society (...) from using them for the same purpose, except children allowed as a safety valve to climb the ‘ladder’. The chapter attempts to show continuities between the Coalition’s schools policies and these earlier developments, bearing in mind today’s greater need to attend to democratic legitimation. -/- This chapter continues the theme of social advantage and the protection of privilege concludes by looking at how nineteenth-century enthusiasm for exams was exported from the West to South and East Asia, leading to the so-called ‘examination hells’ that blight schooling there today. -/- Chapter 3 looks at suggestions for replacing school exams with something more educationally defensible. (shrink)