Purpose This paper aims to discuss research ethics in mixed-methods research and MMR development with a focus on ethical challenges that stem from working with technical instruments such as mobile eye-trackers. Design/methodology/approach The case of an interdisciplinary mixed-methods development study that aimed at researching the impacts of emerging mobile augmented-reality technologies on the perception of public places serves as an example to discuss research-ethical challenges regarding the practical implementation of the study, data processing and management and societal implications of developing (...) instruments to track and understand human practices. Findings This study reports challenges and experiences in ethical decision-making in the practical implementation of the study regarding the relationship to research subjects, the use of mobile research instruments in public places and the interdisciplinary cooperation among research team members. Further, this paper expounds on ethical challenges and recommendations in data processing and management and with a view to societal implications of method development and the aspirations of transdisciplinarity. This study concludes that institutionalized ethics need to become more flexible, while applied ethics and reflection must make their entry into university curricula across disciplines. Originality/value Complex interdisciplinary mobile and mixed-methods projects that involve sensors and instruments such as mobile eye-trackers are on the rise. However, there is a significant lack of engagement with practical research ethical challenges, practices and requirements in both mixed-methods and method-development literature. By taking a context- and process-oriented perspective focusing on doing ethics, the paper contributes a concrete empirical case to these underdeveloped fields. (shrink)

In the past 15 years, influential concepts from geography, social, cultural and communication studies have been proposed that conceptualize (everyday) space in the digital age - such as the concepts of 'code/space', 'datafied space', 'atmospheres' and 'hybrid spaces'. These deliver important contributions to theorizing the active role of data, codes, and algorithms, as well as bodies, embodiment, and affects in producing space. Yet, they consider less the role of practices, social intra-actions and difference, as well as more-than-human actants and contexts (...) beyond technologies. In this article, the authors develop the cON/FFlating spaces concept as a link between relational, more-than-human, more-than-representational, posthumanist, and (post-)feminist conceptualizations of (everyday) space. Using Karen Barad's 'diffractive methodology', data and findings from three research projects are read through different theoretical-conceptual approaches - among others Barad's concepts of 'entanglements', 'intra-actions' and 'diffraction' as well as Doreen Massey's 'multiple historicities'. Building on this, we propose 8 theses on cON/FFlating spaces. These discuss the role of practices, power, technologies, non-linear, open and multiple historicities, entangled presences, more-than-human actants and contexts, bodies and affects, and difference/'diffraction' in producing space and collectivity. (shrink)

This paper aims to show that Frege’s and Hilbert’s mutual disagreement results from different notions of Anschauung and their relation to axioms. In the first section of the paper, evidence is provided to support that Frege and Hilbert were influenced by the same developments of 19th-century geometry, in particular the work of Gauss, Plücker, and von Staudt. The second section of the paper shows that Frege and Hilbert take different approaches to deal with the problems that the developments in 19th-century (...) geometry posed for the traditional Kantian philosophy of mathematics. Frege maintains that Anschauung is a source of knowledge by which we acknowledge geometrical axioms as true. For Hilbert, in contrast, axioms provide one of several correct “pictures” of reality. Hilbert’s position is thereby deeply influenced by epistemological ideas from Hertz and Helmholtz, and, in turn, influenced the neo-Kantian Cassirer. (shrink)

Frege ist bekannt für seinen Versuch, die Arithmetik aus der Logik herzuleiten. Doch welcher Begriff von Logik liegt diesem Projekt zugrunde? Wenn Logik die Grundlage der Arithmetik ist und die Arithmetik über Inhalte verfestigt, so muss die Logik selbst eine Wissenschaft mit eigenen Inhalten sein. Die Autorin zeigt, wie Frege logische Zeichen zu eigenständigen Begriffen aufwertet und dadurch eine inhaltliche Logikkonzeption überhaupt erst ermöglicht. In einem weiteren Schritt wird ein Kriterium vorgestellt, mit dessen Hilfe Frege logische Inhalte von den Inhalten (...) anderer Wissenschaften abgrenzt. Dabei wird jedoch deutlich, dass Frege bis in die 1890er Jahre braucht, um sich vollständig vom Kantischen Diktum zu lösen, die Logik sei nur ein negativer Probierstein der Wahrheit. Die Suche nach dem Grund, der Frege zu einer inhaltlichen Konzeption von Logik zwang, führt in die Geometriegeschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts. Vor ihrem Hintergrund werden schließlich die Anfangsparagraphen der Grundlagen der Arithmetik in einem neuen Licht interpretiert. (shrink)

English summary: The name Friedrich Nietzsche became important in the reception history of theology mainly due to his criticism of religion. In this study, Tabea Knura takes theological as well as pedagogical reception approaches and subsequently conceptualises impulses for an unprecedented debate with Nietzsche about religious education. She shows that the philosopher's critical analysis encourages looking critically at religious education, and that his reflections constantly initiate new construction processes, pointing to an affirmative and simultaneously epistemological attitude reflected in religious (...) education's mission. Questioning religious development processes therefore gives impetus to a cognitive-critical interpretation of reality that religious education must be based on. German description: Der Name Friedrich Nietzsche hat in der theologischen Rezeptionsgeschichte vor allem aufgrund seiner religionskritischen Ausserungen Bedeutung erlangt. Tabea Knura greift in dieser Studie theologische wie auch padagogische Rezeptionsansatze auf und konzipiert in der Folge Impulse fur eine bisher noch nicht erfolgte religionspadagogische Auseinandersetzung mit dem Philosophen. Sie zeigt, dass Nietzsches kritisches Denken dazu anregt, religiose Bildungsprozesse kritisch in den Blick zu nehmen. Seine religions- und bildungskritischen Uberlegungen initiieren immer neue Konstruktionsprozesse. Dies zeugt von einer affirmativen und zugleich erkenntniskritischen Haltung, die im religionspadagogischen Bildungsauftrag reflektiert wird. Religiose Entwicklungsprozesse zu hinterfragen wird so zum Impuls einer erkenntniskritischen Wirklichkeitsdeutung, die Fundament religioser Bildung sein muss. (shrink)

Studies on temporality in Sidonius’ letters have so far been dominated by narratological approaches. This article proposes an additional perspective by focusing on social and ethical dimensions of time issues. Drawing from scholarship on both imperial epistolography and ancient timekeeping, I develop a framework for studying temporal-behavior patterns as negotiations of elite habitus. Many letters that provide insights in temporal habits (chronotypes) define also in- and out-groups based on temporal conventions (chronotopes). Time management displays a life order Sidonius can approve (...) or disapprove of. The motif of the clepsydra illustrates this connection between temporal habits and senatorial ethos most vividly. (shrink)

From 1950 to 1952, statisticians W.G. Cochran, C.F. Mosteller, and J.W. Tukey reviewed A.C. Kinsey and colleagues’ methodology. Neither the history-and-philosophy of science literature nor contemporary theories of interdisciplinarity seem to offer a conceptual model that fits this forced interaction, which was characterized by significant power asymmetries and disagreements on multiple levels. The statisticians initially attempted to exclude all non-technical matters from their evaluation, but their political and personal investments interfered with this agenda. In the face of McCarthy’s witch hunts, (...) negotiations with Kinsey and his funding institutions became integral to the review group’s work. This paper analyzes the heavy burden of emotional and affective labor in this collaboration, the conflicts caused by competing visions of objectivity, and the uses of statistical knowledge to gain and sustain authority. Kinsey’s refusal to adopt the recommended probability sample damaged his already precarious position even further and marked him as a biased researcher who put his personal agenda above methodological rigor. Kinsey’s uncooperative demeanor can be explained by distrust resulting from numerous adverse reactions to his work and by fear of having his sexuality exposed. This case study illustrates that the very concept of valid numbers can become an arena for power struggles and that quantification alone does not guarantee productive exchanges across disciplines. It calls for a deeper conceptual analysis of the prerequisites for successful scientific collaborations. (shrink)

One of the still unsolved problems in liberal anarchism is a definition of social constituency in positive terms. Partially, this had been solved by the advancements of liberal discourse ethics. These approaches, built on praxeology as a universal framework for social formation, are detached from the need of any previous or external authority or rule for the discursive partners. However, the relationship between action, personal identity, and liberty within the process of a community becoming solely generated from the praxeological a (...) priori remains largely disputed. In order to develop a testable constitutional model, this study revises how the “ontological turn” was introduced into liberal theories and redefines the concept of liberty. Liberty is usually understood as a moral goal or measurement for just actions, as the generative principle of all social existence - individual and interpersonal. For this purpose, the function of performative contradiction within the mechanism of interpersonal “encounter”, as part of the co-generative process of the individual becoming and social formation was explored through the production of a game-based narrative historiography grounded on 19th century life writings. This narrative historiography was developed in the context of Swiss history, with a “design-based” research approach, and resulted in a prototype for networked storytelling through which the transformative learning process could be visible and the negotiation of competing individual visions of the future could be re-enacted. (shrink)

In what follows, the difference between Frege’s and Schröder’s understanding of logical connectives will be investigated. It will be argued that Frege thought of logical connectives as concepts, whereas Schröder thought of them as operations. For Frege, logical connectives can themselves be connected. There is no substantial difference between the connectives and the concepts they connect. Frege’s distinction between concepts and objects is central to this conception, because it allows a method of concept formation which enables us to form concepts (...) from the logical connectives alone. Schröder in contrast unifies the distinction between concepts and objects, but keeps the distinction between logical connectives and what they connect. It will be argued that Frege’s particular way of perceiving logical connectives is crucial for his foundational project. (shrink)

This article provides insight into the entwinement of the allegedly neutral category of handedness with questions of sex/gender, reproduction, dis/ability, and scientific authority. In the 1860s, Paul Broca suggested that the speech centre sat in the left brain hemisphere in most humans, and that right-handedness stemmed from this asymmetry. One century later, British psychologists Marian Annett and Chris McManus proposed biologically unconfirmed theories of how handedness and brain asymmetry were passed on in families. Their idea to integrate chance into genetic (...) models of handedness was novel, and so was their use of computerized statistics to parse out the incidence of handedness genotypes and phenotypes. Notwithstanding significant conceptual and methodological overlaps, McManus and Annett did not collaborate and proposed competing theories. I analyse the sexed/gendered dimensions of their controversy by drawing on published literature, unpublished documents, and oral history interviews. I first attend to the epistemological importance of sex/gender. Both psychologists published several iterations of their models, which increasingly relied on questions of sex/gender and reproduction. Annett additionally linked handedness with stereotypically gendered cognitive abilities. Second, I argue that using masculine-coded computer technologies contributed to Annett’s professional marginalization whereas similar methods endowed McManus with surplus authority. Finally, I show that Annett’s complicity in stabilizing sociocultural hierarchies within her theory mirrored her personal experience of marginalization based on sex/gender, age, education, and lack of institutional affiliation. This analysis exemplifies the entanglement of cognitive and social factors in scientific controversies and adds to the literature on 20th-century British women psychologists. (shrink)

Recent studies have highlighted the relevance of sleep for procrastination at work. Procrastination at work is defined as the irrational delay of the initiation or completion of work-related activities. In line with recent studies, we offer a self-regulation perspective on procrastination. We argue that procrastination is an outcome of depleted self-regulatory resources and that the restoration of self-regulatory resources during high-quality sleep at night would prevent procrastination.AimsIn an attempt to further develop this line of research, the current study aimed to (...) achieve a broader understanding of the relevance of sleep and circadian rhythm for procrastination. Therefore, we explored the effect of sleep quality on procrastination for different chronotypes. We also considered the shift to daylight saving time as a phenomenon that aggravates circadian misalignment and thereby later chronotypes' dependence on high-quality sleep. Specifically, we hypothesized that compared to employees with an earlier chronotype, employees with a later chronotype are more dependent on good sleep at night to prevent procrastination the next day. This effect would be especially pronounced after the shift to daylight saving time.MethodsFor this repeated-measures study, participants were 101 full-time employees. They completed a general questionnaire and day-specific questionnaires on the Monday before and the Monday following the shift to daylight saving time.ResultsThe multilevel analyses showed that employees procrastinated less on days following nights during which they slept better and that later chronotypes experienced more procrastination than earlier chronotypes. Our findings also supported the hypothesis that the relationship between sleep quality and procrastination is stronger for later chronotypes compared to earlier chronotypes on the Monday following the shift to daylight saving time. In other words, the lower the sleep quality of later chronotypes during the previous night, the more they procrastinated on the Monday following the shift to daylight saving time.DiscussionOur findings further corroborate the existing findings on the relevance of sleep and chronotype for well-being and performance at work. (shrink)

Background Palliative care is an integral part of health care, which in term has become increasingly technologized in recent decades. Lately, innovative smart sensors combined with artificial intelligence promise better diagnosis and treatment. But to date, it is unclear: how are palliative care concepts and their underlying assumptions about humans challenged by smart sensor technologies (SST) and how can care benefit from SST? -/- Aims The paper aims to identify changes and challenges in palliative care due to the use of (...) SST. In addition, normative guiding criteria for the use of SST are developed. -/- Methods The principle of Total Care used by the European Association for Palliative Care (EAPC) forms the basis for the ethical analysis. Drawing on this, its underlying conceptions of the human and its socio-ethical aspects are examined with a phenomenological focus. In the second step, the advantages, limitations, and socio-ethical challenges of using SST with respect to the Total Care principle are explored. Finally, ethical-normative requirements for the application of SST are derived. -/- Results and Conclusion First, SST are limited in their measurement capabilities. Second, SST have an impact on human agency and autonomy. This concerns both the patient and the caregiver. Third, some aspects of the Total Care principle are likely to be marginalized due to the use of SST. The paper formulates normative requirements for using SST to serve human flourishing. It unfolds three criteria according to which SST must be aligned: (1) evidence and purposefulness, (2) autonomy, and (3) Total Care. (shrink)

The use of Artificial Intelligence and Big Data in health care opens up new opportunities for the measurement of the human. Their application aims not only at gathering more and better data points but also at doing it less invasive. With this change in health care towards its extension to almost all areas of life and its increasing invisibility and opacity, new questions of transparency arise. While the complex human-machine interactions involved in deploying and using AI tend to become non-transparent, (...) the use of these technologies makes the patient seemingly transparent. Papers on the ethical implementation of AI plead for transparency but neglect the factor of the “transparent patient” as intertwined with AI. Transparency in this regard appears to be Janus-faced: The precondition for receiving help - e.g., treatment advice regarding the own health - is to become transparent for the digitized health care system. That is, for instance, to donate data and become visible to the AI and its operators. The paper reflects on this entanglement of transparent patients and (non-) transparent technology. It argues that transparency regarding both AI and humans is not an ethical principle per se but an infraethical concept. Further, it is no sufficient basis for avoiding harm and human dignity violations. Rather, transparency must be enriched by intelligibility following Judith Butler’s use of the term. Intelligibility is understood as an epistemological presupposition for recognition and the ensuing humane treatment. Finally, the paper highlights ways to testify intelligibility in dealing with AI in health care ex ante, ex post, and continuously. (shrink)

This paper presents a social-theologically informed interpretation of the term integrity, as it occurs in fundamental law. It explores the manifestations of integrity violations and proceeds to draw an inference: an integrity violation can directly emanate from a misconception regarding integrity itself, as well as the implementation of protective measures that follow it. Integrity in its wholeness dimension is understood as open-endedness and non-seclusion rather than as a substantial, clearly definable characteristic of a person. This open-endedness and non-seclusion results from (...) the relational constitution of an individual. Consequently, it follows that a violation of integrity occurs when the open-endedness and non-seclusion of a person and their relational Becoming is hindered. The new definition of integrity is particularly important when it comes to the governance of new health technologies, especially Digital Twins that can become representatives of a person. Human integrity is non-violated only when it is understood as open to relational Becoming and this Becoming shows its expression in the mutual enabling and support of self-articulation. (shrink)

Mr. Bork discusses concern over press power and irresponsibility, particularly the attitude of the press that the public's "right to know" gives them the right to publish anything. He expresses concern that the public backlash could lead to excessive restrictions on the press.

1.1 Erkenntnisinteresse und Fragestellung -- 1.2 Forschungsüberblick -- 1.3 Eine Typologie imaginärer Bibliotheken -- 1.4 Methodische Vorgehensweise -- 2. Im Fokus der Bibliothek: Theorie der Metapher -- 2.1 Ansätze der Metapherntheorie -- 2.1.1 Grundlagen einer 'modernen' Theorie der Metapher -- 2.1.2 Die Interaktionstheorie von Max Black -- 2.1.3 Hans Blumenbergs Metaphorologie -- 2.1.4 Metapher und 'kühne Metapher' bei Harald Weinrich -- 2.1.5 Zusammenfassung -- 2.2 Die Metapher in der ästhetischen Theorie.

The methodology of the empirical sciences is treated from a set-theoretical point of view. Starting from Tarski's formulation of the methodology of the deductive sciences, a relation between terms, called degree of centrality, is introduced. Epistemic correlation, and therefore the notion of interpretative system, is defined using this relation.

Since uncertainty is a major challenge in medicine and bears the risk of causing incorrect diagnoses and harmful treatment, there are many efforts to tackle it. For some time, AI technologies have been increasingly implemented in medicine and used to reduce medical uncertainties. What initially seems desirable, however, poses challenges. We use a multimethod approach that combines philosophical inquiry, conceptual analysis, and ethical considerations to identify key challenges that arise when AI is used for medical certainty purposes. We identify several (...) challenges. Where AI is used to reduce medical uncertainties, it is likely to result in (a) patients being stripped down to their measurable data points, and being made disambiguous. Additionally, the widespread use of AI technologies in health care bears the risk of (b) human physicians being pushed out of the medical decision-making process, and patient participation being more and more limited. Further, the successful use of AI requires extensive and invasive monitoring of patients, which raises (c) questions about surveillance as well as privacy and security issues. We outline these several challenges and show that they are immediate consequences of AI-driven security efforts. If not addressed, they could entail unfavorable consequences. We contend that diminishing medical uncertainties through AI involves a tradeoff. The advantages, including enhanced precision, personalization, and overall improvement in medicine, are accompanied by several novel challenges. This paper addresses them and gives suggestions about how to use AI for certainty purposes without causing harm to patients. (shrink)

Recent communication research indicates that approach and avoidance constitute two separate yet co-existing processes during media exposure. While many studies address TV approach behavior, little is known about TV avoidance behavior. Furthermore, personality has yet to be linked to avoidance behavior. This study analyzes the influence of personality on TV program avoidance. Data show that the “Big Five” personality characteristics and Risk and Fight Willingness influence program avoidance, albeit to varying degrees. While the specific correlations are discussed in the paper, (...) the results generally reveal that the combination of personality and avoidance has added value in terms of understanding of TV using behavior compared to the frequently analyzed link between personality and approach. For nearly all personality characteristics, data show that the avoidance perspective is more than the inversion of the approach perspective. The findings are discussed with reference to gratification and selectivity research. (shrink)

Alternative splicing is a critical post‐transcriptional event leading to an increase in the transcriptome diversity. Recent bioinformatics studies revealed a high frequency of alternative splicing. Although the extent of AS conservation among mammals is still being discussed, it has been argued that major forms of alternatively spliced transcripts are much better conserved than minor forms.1 It suggests that alternative splicing plays a major role in genome evolution allowing new exons to evolve with less constraint. BioEssays 25:1031–1034, 2003. © 2003 Wiley (...) Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Protein complexes perform many important functions in the cell. Large‐scale studies of protein–protein interactions have not only revealed new complexes but have also placed many proteins into multiple complexes. Whilst the advocates of hypothesis‐free research touted the discovery of these shared components as new links between diverse cellular processes, critical commentators denounced many of the findings as artefacts, thus questioning the usefulness of large‐scale approaches. Here, we survey proteins known to be shared between complexes, as established in the literature, and (...) compare them to shared components found in high‐throughput screens. We discuss the various challenges to the identification and functional interpretation of bona fide shared components, namely contaminants, variant and megacomplexes, and transient interactions, and suggest that many of the novel shared components found in high‐throughput screens are neither the results of contamination nor central components, but appear to be primarily regulatory links in cellular processes. BioEssays 26:1333–1343, 2004. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

We show how metagenomic analysis of the human gut antibiotic resistome, compared across large populations and against environmental or agricultural resistomes, suggests a strong anthropogenic cause behind increasing antibiotic resistance in bacteria. This area has been the subject of intense and polarized debate driven by economic and political concerns; therefore such recently available insights address an important need. We derive and compare antibiotic resistomes of human gut microbes from 832 individuals from ten different countries. We observe and describe significant differences (...) between samples from these countries in the gut resistance potential, in line with expectations from antibiotic usage and exposure in medical and food production contexts. Our results imply roles for both of these sources in increased resistance among pathogens in recent history. In contrast, other available metadata such as age, body mass index, sex, or health status have little effect on the antibiotic resistance potential of human gut microbes.Also watch the Video Abstract. (shrink)

Psychological constructs such as personality dimensions or cognitive traits are typically unobserved and are therefore measured by observing so-called indicators of the latent construct. The Common Factor Model models the relations between the observed indicators and the latent variable. In this article we argue in favor of interpreting the CFM as a causal model rather than merely a statistical model, in which common factors are only descriptions of the indicators. When there is sufficient reason to hypothesize that the underlying causal (...) structure of the data is a common cause structure, a causal interpretation of the CFM has several benefits over a merely statistical interpretation of the model. We argue that a causal interpretation conforms with most research questions in which the goal is to explain the correlations between indicators rather than merely summarizing them; a causal interpretation of the factor model legitimizes the focus on shared, rather than unique variance of the indicators; and a causal interpretation of the factor model legitimizes the assumption of local independence. (shrink)