The advent of simple in vitro fertilisation techniques has provided the reproductive biologist with an invaluable system for assaying sperm fertilising ability. In particular, they provide a useful way of identifying and characterising gamete‐specific proteins that play a role in sperm‐egg interactions, and in recent years, a growing number of sperm surface proteins have been identified that appear to be involved in these processes. Fertilin β was one of the first sperm membrane proteins to be implicated in egg interactions and (...) it has been proposed that this is mediated by means of binding of its disintegrin‐like domain to cognate integrin receptors on the egg plasma membrane. A recent paper in Science by Cho and colleagues [Cho et al. 1998. Fertilisation defects in sperm from mice lacking fertilin β. Science 281:1857–1859 (Ref. 1)] provides preliminary data on a fertilin β knockout mouse. Whilst fertilin βnull males had greatly reduced fertility, somewhat surprisingly, this could be largely attributed to causes other than impaired binding to the egg plasma membrane. BioEssays 21:183–187, 1999. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

This article focuses on the power of technological mediation from the point of view of autonomist Marxism. The first part of the article discusses the theories developed on technological mediation in postphenomenology and critical theory of technology with regard to their respective power perspectives and ways of coping with relations of power embedded in technical artifacts and systems. Rather than focusing on the clashes between the hermeneutic postphenomenological approach and the dialectics of critical theory, it is argued that in both (...) the category of resistance amidst power-relations is at least similar in one regard: resistance to the power of technology is conceptualized as a reactive force. The second part of the article reads technological mediation through the lens of the antagonistic power-perspective on class struggle developed in autonomist Marxism. The outline of a provisional autonomist philosophy of technology is developed using Foucauldian dispositifs of biopower in contrast to the hermeneutic and dialectical approach. It is thus argued that resistance should here be understood in terms of practice that subverts the technically mediated circuit of production itself. (shrink)

ABSTRACTOn 28 October 2012, Savita Halappanavar, an Indian woman living in Ireland, died in hospital while under medical care for a miscarrying pregnancy. According to her husband, her repeated requests for an abortion were ignored because of the presence of a foetal heartbeat. Ms Halappanavar’s death was a critical event in the process leading to a referendum on 25 May 2018, when the Irish electorate voted to repeal the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution, removing the constitutional ban on abortion. The (...) name Savita has become indelibly linked to the changing course of abortion politics, so it is timely to reassess the role of the media in shaping the parameters of the debate about the impact of her death on the issue. This study presents a frame analysis of Irish newspapers in the weeks following her death, mapping the political, medical, legal and socio-ethical discourses, as well as the related contemporaneous events that set the agenda for the type of debate that was to follow. It identifies four media frames: Public Tragedy, Political Opportunity, Abortion Legacy and Maternal Health. Our central argument is that the overall effect of media framing provided much face-saving for politicians in the way that the legislative issue was viewed through a conservative party-political lens, despite public outrage. (shrink)

The article looks at how the Internet can be imagined as a kind of psychedelic technology – in the sense of ‘manifesting’ new realities – through the lens of different ideas associated with Deleuze and Guattari. It considers a darker strain of their ideas and their reception, initially looking back to discussions from earlier cybertheory before taking as its case study the production of ‘microfascist’ subjectivities on the notorious website 4chan – arguably the point of origin of both the (...) ‘alt-right’ and ‘QAnon’. To unpack this case study, the article develops the idea of ‘weird mediation’ (in dialogue with Gilbert Simondon), as well as considering some ‘shamanic’ aspects from Deleuze and Guattari’s thought (in dialogue with Carlos Castenada), which together offer insights and warnings about the power of mind manifesting technologies. (shrink)

In 1890, the famous Jena Glass Works of Carl Zeiss released the Anastigmat photographic lens to great fanfare. The nearly faultless realism it generated seemed to conclude a chapter in optical technology that had progressed in a predetermined manner since photography’s origins. But why exactly had Zeiss developed its expensive mechanism, and what drove photographers to buy it? This article proposes that the consistent focus and varied depth of field that the Anastigmat provided were not in and of themselves (...) the desired goals of the new corrected lens, but that they were instead visible signals of a pictorial model that makers and consumers had been circling since the public introduction of photography in 1839. The goal was a strict verisimilitude that remained stubbornly external to the medium, an illusionistic standard that had largely been mediated by painting and was now apparently possible in photography as well. But this history of pictorial perfection and the Anagstimat was not inevitable. Other lenses developed around the same time answered to dramatically different technological and aesthetic imperatives. They tell an alternative story of photography’s identity that is less tethered to mimetic fidelity and the idealized human vision with which photography was increasingly associated. (shrink)

The recognition perspective is a valuable lens through which identity struggles and historical marginalization and abuses can be explored. This study analyzes Ireland’s Justice for Magdalene (JFM) campaign between 2009–2013; JFM was a group that fought for a state apology and redress for women and girls confined to Catholic-run laundries between the 1920s and 1990s. Such institutions formed part of the post-colonial Irish identity and church-state structure, within which many women and girls once suffered. We document the rhetorical dimension (...) of how a resolution was ultimately reached following the campaign’s transformation of women’s individual experiences into the collective voice of an advocacy group with targeted political goals. Focusing on JFM’s public press releases, we consider the media logic and rhetorical strategies of the group, which effectively built a case against the state. At the core of the discussion is the balance between the instrumental and constitutive functions of the organization’s messaging. (shrink)

Phenomenological accounts of technology, mediation, and embodiment are beginning to problematize traditional distinctions between subject and object. This shift is often attributed to a material or post-human turn since it is usually associated with an interest in the non-human actors and objects that make media interfaces possible. This article contends that these tendencies should also be considered part of a deeper lineage of dialectical thought in critical theory. Using videogames as an example, I argue that academic debates related to the (...) player/game relationship can be read through the lens of Adorno’s aesthetic theory. Developing Adorno’s concept of mimesis, I argue that the interface is often treated as a dialectical question of how the space between subject and object should be traversed. I reflect on the possible advantages of focusing on this contested space through a discussion of game controllers and the Aristotelian concept of techne. (shrink)

Phenomenological accounts of technology, mediation, and embodiment are beginning to problematize traditional distinctions between subject and object. This shift is often attributed to a material or post-human turn since it is usually associated with an interest in the non-human actors and objects that make media interfaces possible. This article contends that these tendencies should also be considered part of a deeper lineage of dialectical thought in critical theory. Using videogames as an example, I argue that academic debates related to the (...) player/game relationship can be read through the lens of Adorno’s aesthetic theory. Developing Adorno’s concept of mimesis, I argue that the interface is often treated as a dialectical question of how the space between subject and object should be traversed. I reflect on the possible advantages of focusing on this contested space through a discussion of game controllers and the Aristotelian concept of techne. (shrink)

Several philosophers of technology have argued that technology mediates human actions. For example, in the branch of post-phenomenology, authors such as Don Ihde and Peter-Paul Verbeek have described the mediating aspects of technology in terms of morality of technology (more prominent in Verbeek) as well as in the sense that technology changes our perception of ourselves and the world (more prominent in Ihde). In this article, different existing types of mediation are presented, critiqued, and enriched. The four types are (...) illustrated by referring to military high-tech environments with a focus on visual data and imaging technologies. These technologies can mediate actions (1) by inviting certain behavior, (2) through amplification and reduction, (3) through built-in norms, and (4) through interpretation. The four types of mediation mainly focus on the technology or technological artifact itself. What these approaches fail to grasp, however, is the specific user practices in which most technologies function. In this article, it is argued that to understand the mediating aspects of technology more fully, attention should be paid to the specific user context in which the technology functions. Therefore, an enriched understanding of the four types of mediation of technology is proposed by taking the lens of normative practices and analyzing the different types of mediation through this lens. The Kunduz airstrike incident, which took place in 2009 in Afghanistan, is a case in which a visual data sharing device called Rover played a prominent role. This case is used in this article to illustrate how technology mediates human actions in military practice. (shrink)

Several philosophers of technology have argued that technology mediates human actions. For example, in the branch of post-phenomenology, authors such as Don Ihde and Peter-Paul Verbeek have described the mediating aspects of technology in terms of morality of technology as well as in the sense that technology changes our perception of ourselves and the world. In this article, different existing types of mediation are presented, critiqued, and enriched. The four types are illustrated by referring to military high-tech environments with (...) a focus on visual data and imaging technologies. These technologies can mediate actions by inviting certain behavior, through amplification and reduction, through built-in norms, and through interpretation. The four types of mediation mainly focus on the technology or technological artifact itself. What these approaches fail to grasp, however, is the specific user practices in which most technologies function. In this article, it is argued that to understand the mediating aspects of technology more fully, attention should be paid to the specific user context in which the technology functions. Therefore, an enriched understanding of the four types of mediation of technology is proposed by taking the lens of normative practices and analyzing the different types of mediation through this lens. The Kunduz airstrike incident, which took place in 2009 in Afghanistan, is a case in which a visual data sharing device called Rover played a prominent role. This case is used in this article to illustrate how technology mediates human actions in military practice. (shrink)

Corruption devours profits, people, and the planet. Ethical leaders promote ethical behaviors. We develop a first-stage moderated mediation theoretical model, explore the intricate relationships between ethical leadership and employee ethical behaviors, and treat ethical climate and organizational justice as dual mediators and leaders’ moral attentiveness as a moderator. We investigate leadership from two perspectives—leaders’ self-evaluation of moral attentiveness and members’ perceptions of ethical leadership. We theorize: These dual mediation mechanisms are more robust for high moral leaders than low moral leaders. (...) Our three-wave data collected from multiple sources, 236 members and 98 immediate supervisors in the Republic of Iraq, support our theory. Specifically, ethical leadership robustly impacts organizational justice’s intensity and magnitude, leading to high employee ethical behaviors when leaders’ moral attentiveness is high than low. However, ethical leadership only influences the ethical climate’s intensity but has no impact on the magnitude when leaders’ moral attentiveness is high than low. Therefore, organizational justice is a more robust mediator than the ethical climate in the omnibus context of leader moral attentiveness. Our findings support Western theory and constructs, demonstrating a new theory for Muslims in Arabic’s emerging markets. Individual decision-makers apply their values as a lens to frame their concerns in the immediate and omnibus contexts to maximize their expected utility and ultimate serenity-happiness. Ethical leadership trickles down to employee ethical behaviors, providing practical implications for improving the ethical environment, corporate social responsibility, leader-member exchange, business ethics, and economic potentials in the global competitive markets. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between authentic leadership and the three dimensions of employee well-being. Furthermore, attachment insecurity was considered as a mediating factor between authentic leadership and the three dimensions of employee well-being. Data were obtained from a field sample of 212 health care providers with patient contact at five hospitals in the North East of Iran. Initially, collected data were analyzed with multiple confirmatory factor analyses. Then, structural equation modeling was applied to (...) test proposed hypotheses. First, it was shown that authentic leadership negatively impacted attachment insecurity. Second, attachment insecurity proved to be a factor impinging upon job satisfaction. On the contrary, higher levels of attachment insecurity was associated with higher levels of perceived stress and stress symptoms. Third, it was revealed that attachment insecurity partially mediated the relationship between authentic leadership and job satisfaction and fully mediated the relationship between authentic leadership, perceived stress, and stress symptoms. According to the literature of authentic leadership, this is one of the first research studies, and literally the first in the East exploring the effects of authentic leadership on the exclusive combination of dimensions offered in this paper. Moreover, researchers in the field of management have not delved enough into attachment and its antecedents and consequences in leader–follower relationship. This is one of the first studies to provide evidence of the relationship between authentic leadership, attachment security and employee well-being. As a further analysis, the final model was separately put under the two different lens of gender and some interesting findings were discussed in the discussion. (shrink)

Rising negative emotions are like “time bombs” that impede productivity in the workplace. The present investigation provides an insight into the effects of defensive silence and defensive voice on counterproductive work behavior through knowledge hiding in the context of knowledge workers in Chinese academic institutions. Partial least square structural equation modeling was applied to the current samples. The study obtained conjecture the proposed mediating role of knowledge hiding between the negative working attitude and counterproductive work behavior, which is against (...) the organizational norms and performance. The result indicates that the positive relationships exist from defensive silence and defensive voice to counterproductive work behavior, mediated by knowledge hiding. This study links knowledge hiding literature and stimulus-organism-response to better explore the academic behavior in a knowledge setting. (shrink)

While much is known about the prevalence and impact of incivility in the workplace, relatively less is known about those who instigate workplace incivility. This research aims to investigate incivility instigation through a moral lens by examining the roles of other-condemning moral emotions (contempt, disgust, and anger) and appraisals of coworkers’ morality as predictors of this behavior at work. In Study 1, we used structural equation modeling to analyze two waves of self-report data collected from a sample of 447 (...) full-time United States (U.S.) working adults. Findings from this study indicate that appraising coworkers as low in morality elicited feelings of contempt, disgust, and anger. However, only contempt predicted incivility instigation and mediated the relationship between appraising coworkers as low in morality and instigating incivility. In Study 2, we collected self-report data from a sample of 309 full-time U.S. workers using a critical incident technique. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data. Results from Study 2 replicated the association between low morality appraisals and contempt, anger, and disgust found in Study 1. However, anger predicted incivility instigation and mediated the relationship between appraising coworkers as low in morality and instigating incivility. Additionally, contempt and perceived civility norms had an interactive effect on instigated incivility. These studies provide insight into the roles of contempt, disgust, and anger in predicting incivility instigation, suggesting that employees may engage in incivility to condemn others who engage in moral transgressions. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (shrink)

Fitness apps on mobile devices are gaining popularity, as more people are engaging in self-tracking activities to record their status of fitness and exercise routines. These technologies also evolved from simply recording steps and offering exercise suggestions to an integrated lifestyle guide for physical wellbeing, thus exemplify a new era of "quantified self" in the context of health as individual responsibility. There is a considerable amount of literature in science, technology and society (STS) studies looking at this phenomenon from different (...) perspectives, linking it with the sociology of self-surveillance and neoliberal regimes of health. However, the human-technology interface, through which the micro- (behavioral) and macro- (social) aspects converge, still calls for extensive examination. This paper approaches this topic from the postphenomenological perspective, in combination with empirical studies of design analysis and interviews of fitness apps, to reveal the human-technology link between the design elements and people's perception through the direct experiences and interpretations of technology. It argues that the intentionality of self-tracking fitness app designs mediates the human-technology relations by "guiding" people into a quantified knowledge regime. It shapes the perceptions of fitness and health with representations of meanings about a "good life" of individual success and management. This paper also gives a critique of current individual, performance-oriented fitness app designs and offers the possibility of seeking alternatives through the multistable nature of human-technology relations—how altering interpretation and meaning of the design with a cultural or social context could change the form of technological embodiment. (shrink)

The overarching goal of this study was to look into the effects of academic self-efficacy and academic motivation on student long-term engagement and academic achievement. This study also sought to investigate the role of learning agility as a mediator in the relationship between academic self-efficacy and academic motivation. This study examined the impact of student sustainable engagement on student academic achievement as part of our model. A questionnaire technique was used to collect data from 325 music education students studying at (...) various music training institutions in China. The data were analyzed using the Smart-PLS software and a structural equation modeling technique. Academic self-efficacy and academic motivation were found to have a positive and significant relationship with student long-term engagement. The academic motivation was also found to have a positive relationship with student long-term engagement. Furthermore, learning agility was found to mediate the relationship between academic self-efficacy and student sustainable engagement. Furthermore, learning agility mediated the relationship between academic motivation and long-term student engagement. Furthermore, student sustainable engagement has a significant and positive relationship with student academic achievement. This paper made a valuable theoretical contribution by investigating the impact of academic self-efficacy and academic motivation on student sustainable engagement, as well as the impact of student sustainable engagement on student academic achievement. Furthermore, this study added to the body of knowledge by investigating the relationship through the lens of cognitive learning theory. In terms of practical implications, this paper would undoubtedly assist educational institutions in maintaining a fair and just learning environment that encourages students to be engaged and perform well. Future research can include other constructs to gain a better understanding of the factors that influence students’ academic engagement and achievement. (shrink)

Implications of algorithmic mediation can be studied through the artefact itself, peoples’ practices, and the social/political/economical arrangements that affect and are affected by such interactions. Most studies in Academic social media (ASM) focus on one of these elements at a time, either examining design elements or the users’ behaviour on and perceptions of such platforms. We take a multi-faceted approach using affordances as a lens to analyze practices and arrangements traversed by algorithmic mediation. Following our earlier studies that examined (...) the artefact, this study’s aim is to understand how algorithmic mediation in ASM may shape researchers’ perceptions. We conducted online in-depth interviews with show and tell (n = 11) with ASM users from four countries, about their use of ASM. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis, and the codes were clustered in themes and validated via peer debriefing process. Four themes—related to exposure to content, visibility, ethical or legal infringements, and engagement—are discussed considering implications of datafication and findability. We conclude that algorithmic mediation constructs a narration of the relevant other in ASM, configuring the other as participatory and productive. (shrink)

Metamodernism, which is used synonymous with post-postmodernism or neo-modernism, has come forward in response to postmodernism and the emerged crises, instabilities, and uncertainties in all areas of this epoch. Metamodernism is a perspective situated epistemologically with modernism, ontologically between modernism and historically beyond modernism. It seeks an oscillation between modernism and postmodernism with mediating between them and responding to existing cultural modes. Thus, metamodernism is a paradigm beyond modernism and postmodernism, trying to explain today’s cultural and intellectual developments which (...) are not sufficiently criticized by modernism nor postmodernism. This paper questions and discusses the understanding of this paradigm and its reflections on education, school leadership, and schooling in the Nordic countries. By reviewing education related reports, survey reports, books and articles about these countries, comprehending their philosophy of education throughout the years, and analyzing the ongoing educational developments, the main notion of metamodernism and its influences on schooling, leadership implications, classroom activities and research in education are focused on this paper. (shrink)

Metamodernism, which is used synonymous with post-postmodernism or neo-modernism, has come forward in response to postmodernism and the emerged crises, instabilities, and uncertainties in all areas of this epoch. Metamodernism is a perspective situated epistemologically with modernism, ontologically between modernism and historically beyond modernism. It seeks an oscillation between modernism and postmodernism with mediating between them and responding to existing cultural modes. Thus, metamodernism is a paradigm beyond modernism and postmodernism, trying to explain today’s cultural and intellectual developments which (...) are not sufficiently criticized by modernism nor postmodernism. This paper questions and discusses the understanding of this paradigm and its reflections on education, school leadership, and schooling in the Nordic countries. By reviewing education related reports, survey reports, books and articles about these countries, comprehending their philosophy of education throughout the years, and analyzing the ongoing educational developments, the main notion of metamodernism and its influences on schooling, leadership implications, classroom activities and research in education are focused on this paper. (shrink)

Metamodernism, which is used synonymous with post-postmodernism or neo-modernism, has come forward in response to postmodernism and the emerged crises, instabilities, and uncertainties in all areas of this epoch. Metamodernism is a perspective situated epistemologically with modernism, ontologically between modernism and historically beyond modernism. It seeks an oscillation between modernism and postmodernism with mediating between them and responding to existing cultural modes. Thus, metamodernism is a paradigm beyond modernism and postmodernism, trying to explain today’s cultural and intellectual developments which (...) are not sufficiently criticized by modernism nor postmodernism. This paper questions and discusses the understanding of this paradigm and its reflections on education, school leadership, and schooling in the Nordic countries. By reviewing education related reports, survey reports, books and articles about these countries, comprehending their philosophy of education throughout the years, and analyzing the ongoing educational developments, the main notion of metamodernism and its influences on schooling, leadership implications, classroom activities and research in education are focused on this paper. (shrink)

The article investigates the rhetorical means of mediating affective experience in occasioned storytelling. The completion of this article has been supported by The Emil Aaltonen Foundation and The Academy of Finland project (285144) The Literary in Life and The Academy of Finland project (326645) European Solidarities in Turmoil. We are interested in the forms and aspects of bodily action in signifying and communicating a “para-factual experience” that was triggered by a real-life incident, but in fact only took place in (...) a person’s imagination. We explore the case of a TV interview in which an American living in Finland narrates a personal, disturbing experience related to the news about 9/11. The story presents a visual scenario of the teller’s affective reaction towards two Muslim women in a grocery store. What is interesting in the story are its involuntary dimensions: the scenario portrays a picture of the teller that he finds unrecognizable and detached from his sense of self as a person. Even if the act was never actually realized, to the teller it felt real and compelling, as is manifest in the way he translates the scenario into a bodily performance. The teller not only uses his body to tell the story but momentarily turns the surrounding setting into a scene in the storyworld in which he plays the unidentified me. We call this physical performance of the imagined scene the embodied ekphrasis of experience. In Semiotica, the rhetorical device of ekphrasis has appeared before (see Frosh 2003; Hopkins 2015; Nesselroth 2016; Sarapik 2009) from such literary and linguistic perspectives, as well as through the lens of media research and cultural studies, to which our application will add from the viewpoint of ethnomethodology and the social sciences. Deploying research on multimodal interaction and intermediality, our empirical analysis explicates how the teller’s body, and not just words, build action, convey affective meaning, and resemiotize and mobilize a physical enactment of the past hypothetical scene. (shrink)

Land is a constitutional issue in Ethiopia. Article 40 of the FDRE constitution enshrines governing provisions about rural and urban land. Legislation power is given to the federal government (Article 51(5) of the constitution) although this power can be delegated to regions (Article 50(9) of the same constitution). In contrast, administration power is allocated to regions (Article 52 (2(d)) of the constitution). The federal government has enacted the Rural Land Administration and Use Proclamation 456/2005. Both federal and regional land laws (...) have Alternative Dispute Resolution clauses. However, the opportunities and challenges of these clauses from the access to justice perspective are not studied very well. The main objective of this paper is to assess the legal framework and practice of ADR mechanisms in the rural land administration system from the access to justice perspective and come up with a policy option. Doctrinal type of legal research is applied where it involves theory testing which deals with studying existing laws (both federal and regional laws). In addition, both primary and secondary sources have been used. Primary qualitative data was collected through semi-structured interviews. The study found that there are legal constraints. One significant legal constraint is the requirement for mandatory mediation in certain regional states before seeking recourse in a court of law. Mediation is not clearly and uniformly applied per the law and in practice (often the practice and legal framework confuse mediation with arbitration, inappropriately giving decision-making powers to mediators, and turning them into arbiters). Women and Vulnerable Groups are generally more negatively affected by the overreaching of mediators into decision-making, because the mediators are more easily influenced by the party opposing women and Vulnerable Groups, and/or the mediators are culturally biased. This study recommends that mediation should be made optional, where mediators are chosen by the parties and the legal framework is clear that the role of the mediators does not involve imposing decisions. For Oromia and SNNPR, the legal regime of mediation should be clarified to avoid confusion with the arbitration. It is necessary to train community-level mediators in the law and the protection of land rights of Vulnerable Groups against gender discrimination. (shrink)

Resumen El presente artículo investiga la visión de la presencia y ausencia de Dios en y después de Auschwitz en el pensamiento del filósofo judío Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995). Analizando especialmente los escritos judíos del autor publicados en el período post-Auschwitz, tras el horror del Holocausto, se muestra cómo responde Dios al clamor de los inocentes y sufrientes estableciendo una relación adulta que respeta la libertad humana y funda una responsabilidad infinita. Se destaca que el vínculo entre Dios y el ser (...) humano es una relación mediada por la experiencia de fidelidad a la Toráh y que la revelación de Dios, esencialmente mandamiento, implica una obediencia insoslayable. En fin, subraya que el contenido fundamental de la revelación divina es el “no matarás”, esto es, promover y defender en toda circunstancia la vida integral de los otros y otras, ejerciendo la responsabilidad y procurando una auténtica justicia social. Abstract This article investigates the presence and absence of God in and after Auschwitz in the thought of the Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995). Analyzing especially the author's Jewish writings published in the post-Auschwitz period, after the horror of the Holocaust, it shows how God responds to the cry of the innocent and suffering by establishing an adult relationship that respects human freedom and founds an infinite responsibility. The article emphasizes the bond between God and the human being, which is mediated by the experience of fidelity to the Torah, and that God's revelation, essentially a commandment, implies unavoidable obedience. Finally, it stresses that the critical content of divine revelation is "thou shalt not kill," to promote and defend the integral life of others in all circumstances, exercising responsibility and striving for authentic social justice. (shrink)

Investigating maternity tourism to the United States from Russia through the lens of technological mediation, this study foregrounds the geopolitical patterns of human reproduction that shape, and are shaped by, individual choices of maternal healthcare in a neoliberal healthcare market. Following the history of a highly popular Russian-language forum, I demonstrate how this online community gets imbricated into communicative biocapitalism – a neoliberal logic that commodifies the voice of an online user, turning networked publics into markets for medical services. (...) Adding to the literature on data colonialism, I explore a case in which data-driven algorithms effectively alter geographical distribution of reproductive bodies, outsourcing the production of new generations of neoliberal subjects through regimes of technological mediation. (shrink)

This paper analyses the role played by members of the Curie family in the visual diplomacy of cancer treatments. This relationship started in 1921, when Marie Curie travelled to the US, accompanied by her two daughters, Ève and Irène, to receive a gram of radium at the White House from President Warren Harding. In the years that followed, Ève Curie, as the biographer and natural heir of radium discoverers Marie and Pierre Curie, continued to contribute to the visual diplomacy of (...) cancer campaigning. Two events will be analysed through an interdisciplinary lens, merging history of science and visual-diplomacy studies, to show how the legacy of the Curies played out in the international consolidation of pre-war transnational alliances in the fight against cancer. One involves the picture of the chargé d'affaires of the France Republic, Jules Henry, receiving the biography authored by Ève,Madame Curie, at the French embassy in Washington. The other concerns the photograph of Ève visiting the Portuguese Oncology Institute (IPO) in 1940, which was immediately reproduced in the Institute's bulletin in order to raise awareness of cancer prevention strategies, and also captured in film as a propaganda tool for the Estado Novo regime (1933–74). (shrink)

The possibility of accomplishing sustainable objectives is largely connected to the management and flourishing of an organizational system which keeps human capital engaged and committed. Our study investigated the association of inspirational leadership and innovative communication with employee engagement and commitment under the lens of leader member exchange theory. Specifically, we emphasized the mediating role of mutual trust in connection to social sustainability facets. A survey of data from employees in the manufacturing sector of Yunnan, China was utilized (...) to test the hypothesized model. The study findings reported a significant association and came to the conclusion that a leader’s inspirational behavior coupled with innovative communication is a significant predictor of engagement and commitment in socially sustainable organizations. Moreover, mutual trust significantly mediated the relationship of innovative communication and inspirational leadership with employee engagement and commitment reaching the social perspective of sustainability. The current study added to the literature of sustainable organization by pointing out the social dimensions of sustainability. (shrink)

This paper considers the issue of computer-assisted composition in formal music education settings from the perspective of critical theory. The author examines the case of MIDI-based software applications and suggests that the greatest danger from the standpoint of ideology critique is not the potential for circumventing a traditional understanding of theoretical knowledge and notation when composing. Instead, it is false subjectivity, or the potential belief that what one creates is free from the mediation of tacit musical conventions and the ideological (...) biases of the technology itself. Developing a framework for critique that is partially based on the writings of Theodor Adorno and draws on a dialectical conception of composing, the author applies this framework to the issue of MIDI-based composition in order to make this case. (shrink)

Emotion is fundamental to human experiences influencing our daily activities including cognition, communication, learning, and decision-making, but the effect of emotion on knowledge management in firms receives a little attention, especially in the field of knowledge hiding behaviors. Drawing on the cognitive appraisal theory of stress and coping as a unique theoretical lens to explicate how knowledge hiding behaviors happen, this study investigates the mediating effect of job stress in the relationship between emotional intelligence and knowledge hiding behaviors. (...) We conducted a field study with 193 full-time employees in smart healthcare firms to test our hypotheses. Results supported the mediating effects of job stress in accounting for the relationship between EI and knowledge hiding behaviors. Our study is among the first to examine how emotional intelligence predicts knowledge hiding behaviors. This study contributes to the literature on knowledge management and emotional intelligence. (shrink)

This study examines the micro-level consequences of perceived corporate social responsibility and hypothesizes that perceived CSR affects the perception-emotion-attitude-behavior sequence. We hypothesized that perceived CSR affects organizational pride, affects affective commitment, and enhances the employees’ creative behaviors by using the lens of appraisal theory of emotion. This study also hypothesizes that the association of perceived CSR and employee creative behaviors is serially mediated by OP and AC. The time-lagged data were collected from employees of only those companies participating in (...) CSR activities to analyze the sequential mediation effect. We have tested the hypotheses of this study through Hayes approach. Results showed that perceived CSR kindles the employees’ creative behaviors. Furthermore, “organizational pride” and “affective commitment” serially mediate the association of perceived CSR and ECB. Hence, the hypothesized perception-emotion-attitude-behavior model received a significant support and demonstrated that micro-level positive consequences of CSR could be created through emotional, attitude, and behavioral mechanisms. The organization should promote their CSR activities using documentaries and contents to improve their perception of environmental and social issues, and it enhances employees’ pride and creativity. (shrink)

This contribution seeks to understand the pervasive phenomenon of work compulsion among knowledge workers in our present network society. Knowledge workers not only have to work all the time from anywhere, but they also appear to want to. This study argues that this curious phenomenon may be attributed to the thumotic satisfaction that knowledge work generates. What is more, the neoliberal theory of human capital has found a way to harness thumotic satisfaction to the profit incentive, and has created arguably (...) the most productive working subject to date. The argument is divided into four parts: First, the paper analyses the government(- ality) of control operative in the network society by defining “neoliberalism”. It then focuses on Foucault’s examinations of German and American neoliberalism in the 20th century, treating them as instances of governmentality. The aim is to assess whether employing a governmentality lens is a valid approach for critically analysing present-day neoliberalism. If it proves justifiable, which I argue it does, the study explores the potential valuable insights gained from examining contemporary neoliberalism through this particular analytical framework. Second, the study turns to the “spiritedness” of knowledge workers under the conditions of stealth control that typify the neoliberal network society. Curiously, these highly engaged workers have reportedly experienced increased overall well-being. However, their overinvestment in work appears to be disproportionate to absolute necessity, increased earnings or improved overall quality of life. This paper contends that work compulsion generates and is in turn fuelled by thumotic satisfaction. Third, the study tries to ascertain the connection between neoliberal governmentality and thumos. Neoliberal governmentality appears to have found a way to appropriate thumotic satisfaction to produce and sustain the competitive entrepreneurial spirit. The fourth part of the study considers how the knowledge worker might resist the compulsion to work incessantly. (shrink)

Originally published in 1986. All students of social science must confront a number of important philosophical issues. This introduction to the philosophy of the social sciences provides coherent answers to questions about empiricism, explanation and rationality. It evaluates contemporary writings on the subject which can be as difficult as they are important to understand. Each chapter has an annotated bibliography to enable students to pursue the issues raised and to assess for themselves the arguments of the authors.

Quantifiers are a test case for an interface between psychological questions, which attempt to specify the numerical content that supports the semantics of quantifiers, and linguistic questions, which uncover the range of possible quantifier meanings allowable within the constraints of the syntax. Here we explore the development of comprehension of most in English, of particular interest as it calls on precise numerical content that, in adults, requires an understanding of large exact numerosities (e.g., 23 blue dots and 17 yellow is (...) an instance of “most of the dots are blue”). In a sample of 100 children 2 to 5 years of age we find that (a) successful most comprehension in cases with two salient subsets is achieved at 3 years, 7 months of age, and (b) most comprehension is independent of knowledge of large exact number words; that is, knowledge of large exact number words is neither necessary, as evidenced by children who understand “most” but not “four,” nor sufficient, as evidenced by children who understand “nine” but not “most.”. (shrink)

It has become fashionable to question attempts to derive internationally agreed duties of clinical care from more general theories of human rights. For example, some argue that such attempts risk moral abstraction through their neglect for the importance of culture and community in shaping moral consciousness and are thus often unhelpful in the resolution of concrete moral dilemmas within medicine. Others denounce the importance of general moral principles altogether in bioethics and attempt to articulate what are claimed to be more (...) practical approaches to resolving moral conflict. This paper challenges such arguments. It does so through arguing that: i) all humans everywhere have the same basic human needs; ii) the satisfaction of these needs varies with culture; iii) the imputation of moral duties on others entails respect for their right to basic need satisfaction, including the right to choose between cultures; iv) internationally accepted clinical duties of care embrace presumptions about the duties and rights of patients which follow from these more general principles and v) problems of moral indeterminacy that arise from putting these principles into practice can be resolved through associated procedural policies of rational negotiation and compromise. The moral importance and practicality of respect for individual human rights within the practice of medicine is thus defended. Indeed, the paper concludes by arguing that without belief in human rights linked to a theory of basic human needs, communitarian theories of morality are incoherent. (shrink)

Invited media scholars and journalists examine the general issue of nuclear waste, risk and the sicentific promises that were made, but not kept, about safe disposal. The mass media uncovered and reported on nuclear waste problems at Rocky Flats in Colorado and Hanford in Washington. Two environmental journalists review efforts to expose problems at these sites, how secrecy hampered reporting, and the effects of media coverage on nearby residents. An environmental communications scholar evaluates media coverage, the role of the U.S. (...) Department of Energy, and the impact of secrecy on public risk perceptions and attitudes toward government nuclear waste policies. (shrink)

The intensity of the opposition to health reform in the United States continues to shock and perplex proponents of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The emotion and the apocalyptic rhetoric, render civil and evidence-based debate over the implications and alternatives to specific provisions in the law difficult if not problematic. The public debate has largely barreled down two non-parallel yet non-intersecting paths: opponents focus on their fear of government expansion in the future if PPACA is implemented now, while (...) proponents focus on the urgency and specifics of our health care market problems and the limited number of tools we have to address them. Frustration on both sides has led opponents to deny the seriousness of our health system’s problems and proponents to ignore the risk of governmental overreach. These non-intersecting lines of argument are not moving us closer to a desired and necessary resolution. (shrink)