As COVID-19 and its variants spread across Australia at differing paces and intensity, the country’s response to the risk of infection and contagion revealed an intensification of bordering practices as a form of risk mitigation with disparate impacts on different segments of the Australian community. Australia’s international border was closed for both inbound and outbound travel, with few exceptions, while states and territories, Indigenous communities, and local government areas were subject to a patchwork of varying restrictions. By focusing on borders (...) at various levels, our research traces how the logics of medico-legal bordering have filtered down from the international to the intra-national, and indeed, into hyper-local spaces. This is not just apparent in the COVID-19 moment but in previous pandemics of 1918 to 1919 influenza and smallpox, in which practices of quarantine and lockdowns were both unevenly distributed and implemented on multiple scales of social organization. An interdisciplinary approach between history and law reveals that human movement during pandemic times in Australia has been regulated in a manner that sees mobility as a risk to public health capable of mitigation through the strict enforcement of borders as a technology of both confinement and exclusion. (shrink)

In this path breaking volume, leading researchers from psychology, linguistics, philosophy and primatology offer complementary perspectives on the role of intersubjectivity in the context of human development, comparative cognition and...

It has been hypothesized that psychedelic experiences elicit lasting psychological benefits by altering narrative selfhood, which has yet to be explicitly studied. The present study investigates retrospective reports (n = 418) of changes to narrative self that participants believe resulted from, or were catalysed by, their psychedelic experience(s). Responses to open-ended questions were analysed using inductive and deductive thematic coding and interpreted within agent-centred approaches to development and well-being. Themes include decentred introspection, greater access to self-knowledge, positive shifts in self-evaluation (...) processes, greater psychological and behavioural autonomy, and enhanced connectedness with others and the world. While this explorative qualitative study offers some initial support for the explanation that changes to narrative self are a cornerstone of psychedelics' therapeutic and transformative potential, methodological and recruiting limitations preclude the ability to make objective claims and generalizations. Future scientific research is necessary to further elucidate this hypothesized mechanism. (shrink)

Context: There is a growing recognition in consciousness science of the need for rigorous methods for obtaining accurate and detailed phenomenological reports of lived experience, i.e., descriptions of experience provided by the subject living them in the “first-person.” Problem: At the moment although introspection and debriefing interviews are sometimes used to guide the design of scientific studies of the mind, explicit description and evaluation of these methods and their results rarely appear in formal scientific discourse. Method: The recent publication of (...) an edited book of papers dedicated to the exploration of first-and second-person methods, Ten Years of Viewing from Within: The Legacy of Francisco Varela, serves as a starting point for a discussion of how these methods could be integrated into the growing discipline of consciousness science. We complement a brief review of the book with a critical analysis of the major pilot studies in Varela’s neurophenomenology, a research program that was explicitly devised to integrate disciplined experiential methods with the latest advances in neuroscience. Results: The book is a valuable resource for those who are interested in impressive recent advances in first- and second-person methods, as applied to the phenomenology of lived experience. However, our review of the neurophenomenology literature concludes that there is as yet no convincing example of these specialized techniques being used in combination with standard behavioral and neuroscientific approaches in consciousness science to produce results that could not have also been achieved by simpler methods of introspective reporting. Implications: The end of behaviorism and the acceptance of verbal reports of conscious experience have already enabled the beginning of a science of consciousness. It can only be of benefit if new first- and second-person methods become well-known across disciplines. Constructivist content: Constructivism has long been interested in the role of the observer in the constitution of our sense of reality, so these developments in the science of consciousness may open new avenues of constructivist research. More specifically, one of the ways in which the insights from first- and second-person methods are being validated is by recursively applying the methods to themselves; a practical application of an epistemological move that will be familiar to constructivists from the second-order cybernetics tradition. (shrink)

Background Ethically, informed consent regarding randomised controlled trials (RCTs) should be understandable to patients. The patients can then give free consent or decline to participate in a RCT. Little is known about what patients really understand in consultations about RCTs. Methods Cancer patients who were asked to participate in a randomised trial were surveyed using a semi-standardised interview developed by the authors. The interview addresses understanding, satisfaction and needs of the patients. The sample included eight patients who participated in a (...) trial and two who declined. The data were analysed on the basis of Mayring's qualitative analysis. Results Patients' understanding of informed consent was less developed than anticipated, especially concerning key elements such as randomisation, content and procedure of RCTs. Analysing the result about satisfaction of the patients, most of the patients described their consultations as hectic and without advance notice. Health limitations due to cancer played a decisive role. However, most of the patients perceived their physician to be sympathetic. Analysing the needs of patients, they ask for a clear informed consent consultation with enough time and adequate advance notice. Conclusion This study fills an important empirical research gap of what is ethically demanded in an RCT consultation and what is really understood by patients. The qualitative approach enabled us to obtain new results about cancer patients' understanding of informed consent, to clarify patients' needs and to develop new ideas to optimise the informed consent. (shrink)

This study explores the complex relationships between anomalous experiences, mental health, creativity, and psi within a sample of 113 visual artists in three art schools. The main objective was to assess whether psi could play a role in the emergence of anomalous experiences and their association with mental health and creativity. Participants took part in a retro-priming task, already used by Bem to assess unconscious precognitive abilities. They then completed three questionnaires evaluating anomalous experiences, mental health, and creativity. The results (...) show no significant effect on the retro-priming task, but the number of anomalous experiences reported by each participant was significantly correlated with their retro-priming performance. Creativity did not correlate with retro-priming, except for one subscale, the use of analogies. Anomalous experiences as a whole were correlated with mental health and creativity, in keeping with the high rate of unusual experiences previously reported in artistic populations. The theoretical implication of these findings and possible directions for future studies are discussed. (shrink)

Compiled in the twelfth century A.D. by Chu Hsi, leading exponent of Neo-Confucianism, with the assistance of Lü Tsu-Ch'ien, Chin-ssu Lu serves as a summary of, and introduction to, the vast literature of Neo-Confucian philosophy. Adding a more rational theoretical foundation and new methods of moral cultivation and study to traditional thought and practice, Neo-Confucianism has exercised great influence upon thought and social life in East Asia in the past six hundred years. As the classical statement of this philosophy, this (...) anthology brings together passages from Chou Tun-i, Ch'eng Hao and Ch'eng I, and Chang Tsai on the Way, Learning, and Self-improvement, as well as assessments of the character of Sages and Worthies; also included is a chapter on the doctrines of Buddhism and Taoism, pointing out ways in which they deviated from the Confucian Way. It is a very stimulating work; indeed almost every sentence has spark and substance. Although it has been widely studied by East Asian scholars, so far in the West there has been only the translation into German by Father Olaf Graf, now virtually unobtainable. With his mastery of Chinese philosophical literature, his industriousness in research and his augmentation of the text by generous quotations from the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean commentaries, the translator has achieved extraordinary success in making the English version even more comprehensible than the original Chinese.--T. S. C. (shrink)

After a discussion of Bacon's views on the subject, Van Leeuwen examines a different theory of certainty. This is the theory that was elaborated by Chillingworth and Tillotson, two English Protestant clergymen, in the course of a controversy centering upon the problem of deciding with certainty which beliefs constituted a Rule of Faith, i.e., the basic requirements of belief for Salvation. Chillingworth and Tillotson attempted to avoid both dogmatism and total skepticism by insisting on the existence of levels of certainty (...) and maintaining that the criteria of common sense are appropriate for the solution of theoretical religious questions. According to Van Leeuwen, the application of this theory is extended to scientific contexts in the work of Wilkins and Glanvill and is inherent in the scientific work of such members of the Royal Society as Boyle and Newton. The exposition is good; but the author's claim to a rigorous evolutionary line in the development of the doctrine of certainty among the figures he has treated is sometimes overstated.—T. J. C. (shrink)

This paper is an exploration of a current environmental issue dividing two industries in the UK. The issue is offshore wind farms, and the industries are commercial fishing and wind energy. The controversy over offshore wind farms highlights three core issues of conflict: the adequacy of stakeholder consultation processes; the right to compensation for loss of livelihood; and the lack of adequate data. We find that the characterisations that developers, regulators, and fishers hold of each other critically inform their positions (...) on these issues. We examine the weak bargaining position of fishers, and the ‘power game’ that is played out between them and developers. We conclude that offshore wind farm development would be better managed if stakeholder consultation was more extensive, compensation claims were standardised, and scientific data were more readily available, but that in the meantime, fishers could improve their bargaining power by mobilising potential allies. (shrink)

Our study analyses the nature, quality and extent of human resource disclosures of UK Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 firms by relying on a novel disclosure index measuring the depth and breadth of disclosures. Contextually, we focus on the 5-year period following the then Labour government’s attempts to encourage firms to formally report on their human resource management practices and to foster deeper employer–employee engagement. First, we evaluate the degree to which companies report comprehensively on a number of HRD items (...) that we classify as “procedural” or “sustainable.” Second, we hypothesise that a company’s employee relation ideology is positively associated with HRD. Our results indicate that: whilst there has been an increase in the breadth of HRD in terms of procedural and sustainable items being disclosed, the evolution towards a more comprehensive and in-depth form of HRD remains rather limited; and there is a positive association between a company’s employee relation ideology and the level of HRD. Theoretically, we conceive of HRD both as a reflection of an organisation’s orientation towards a key stakeholder and a legitimacy seeking exercise at a time of changing societal conditions. We contribute to the scant literature on the extent and determinants of HRD since prior research tends to subsume employee-related disclosures within the broader concept of social, ethical or intellectual capital disclosures. We also propose a disclosure checklist to underpin future HRD research. (shrink)

It is shown, assuming the linear case of Schinzel's Hypothesis, that the first-order theory of the structure $\langle \omega; +, P\rangle$ , where P is the set of primes, is undecidable and, in fact, that multiplication of natural numbers is first-order definable in this structure. In the other direction, it is shown, from the same hypothesis, that the monadic second-order theory of $\langle\omega; S, P\rangle$ is decidable, where S is the successor function. The latter result is proved using a general (...) result of A. L. Semenov on decidability of monadic theories, and a proof of Semenov's result is presented. (shrink)

We discuss our surgical philosophy concerning the subtle interplay between the size of the surgical margin taken and the resultant morbidity from ablative oncological. procedures, which is ever more evident in the treatment of head and neck malignancy. The extent of tissue resection is determined by the "trade off" between cancer control and the perioperative, functional and aesthetic morbidity and mortality of the surgery. We also discuss our dilemmas concerning recent minimally invasive endoscopic microsurgical. techniques for the trans-oral laser removal. (...) or co-ablation of aero-digestive tract tumours, which result in a minimal. surgical margin of oncological clearance. By a process of inductive argument as to the nature of the surgical margin, we consider whether the risks of taking a lesser margin with adjuvant therapy is justified by the attendant gain in reduced surgical morbidity and the possible costs in tumour control. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Based on the institutional theory, this article attempts to examine two consecutive questions regarding the impact of various factors on corporate decision in environmental information disclosure (EID): (1) whether or not to disclose; and (2) the level of disclosure. The relevance of these factors is empirically tested using data collected from publicly listed manufacturing companies from 2006 to 2008 in China. Some interesting findings appear. We find that firms that are state-owned, those that operate in environmentally sensitive industries, those having (...) more industrial peers engaged in EID, and those with better reputation are more likely to disclose environmental information. When it comes to the content of EID, variables that attempt to capture external institutional pressures exhibit either no or weak explanatory power. Only the variable of organizational image and reputation is demonstrated to have a significant impact on both the act and the content of EID. This study provides a snapshot of the dialogues between constituencies in the organizational field and EID development. (shrink)

According to the prevailing paradigm in social-cognitive neuroscience, the mental states of individuals become shared when they adapt to each other in the pursuit of a shared goal. We challenge this view by proposing an alternative approach to the cognitive foundations of social interactions. The central claim of this paper is that social cognition concerns the graded and dynamic process of alignment of individual minds, even in the absence of a shared goal. When individuals reciprocally exchange information about each other's (...) minds processes of alignment unfold over time and across space, creating a social interaction. Not all cases of joint action involve such reciprocal exchange of information. To understand the nature of social interactions, then, we propose that attention should be focused on the manner in which people align words and thoughts, bodily postures and movements, in order to take one another into account and to make full use of socially relevant information. (shrink)