In the aftermath of World War II, the government of the United States provided considerable funding for military projects that promised to provide a technological edge during the nascent Cold War. The most famous example is likely the V-2 rocket-testing program that began in the late 1940s. The 67 rockets launched from White Sands developed a knowledge base that was critically important to the launch of the first U.S. satellite in 1958 and to the subsequent manned space program. Less well (...) known are the large-scale information technology projects, undertaken in the 1950s and early 1960s, that provided a significant catalyst for research into digital computing, information processing, and the. (shrink)

Various cell types cooperate to create a highly organized and dynamic micro-environmental niche in the bone marrow. Over the past several years, the field has increasingly recognized the critical roles of the interplay between bone marrow environment and hematopoietic cells in normal and deranged hematopoiesis. These advances rely on several new technologies that have allowed us to characterize the identity and roles of these niches in great detail. Here, we review the progress of the last several years, list some of (...) the outstanding questions in the field and propose ways to target the diseased environment to better treat hematologic diseases. Understanding the extrinsic regulation by the niche will help boost hematopoiesis for regenerative medicine. Based on natural development of hematologic malignancies, we propose that combinatory targeting the niche and hematopoietic intrinsic mechanisms in early stages of hematopoietic malignancies may help eliminate minimal residual disease and have the highest efficacy. The bone marrow is the home for blood-forming hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells. Normal generation of blood and immune cells depends on highly regulated interactions between these stem and progenitor cells with their surrounding environment. Emerging evidence suggests that therapeutic interventions directed at these cellular interdependencies can help boost hematopoiesis and eradicate malignant hematopoietic cells. (shrink)

Linear chromosomes shorten in every round of replication. In Drosophila, telomere‐specialized long interspersed retrotransposable elements (LINEs) belonging to the jockey clade offset this shortening by forming head‐to‐tail arrays at Drosophila telomere ends. As such, these telomeric LINEs have been considered adaptive symbionts of the genome, protecting it from premature decay, particularly as Drosophila lacks a conventional telomerase holoenzyme. However, as reviewed here, recent work reveals a high degree of variation and turnover in the telomere‐specialized LINE lineages across Drosophila. There appears (...) to be no absolute requirement for LINE activity to maintain telomeres in flies, hence the suggestion that the telomere‐specialized LINEs may instead be neutral or in conflict with the host, rather than adaptive. (shrink)

Since the Nuremberg trials (1947–1949), informed consent has become central for ethical practice in patient care and biomedical research. Codes of ethics emanating from the Nuremberg Code (1947) recognize the importance of protecting patients and research subjects from abuses, manipulation and deception. Informed consent empowers individuals to autonomously and voluntarily accept or reject participation in either clinical treatment or research. In some cases, however, the underlying mental or physical condition of the individual may alter his or her cognitive abilities and (...) compromise the informed consent process. This is particularly true in chronic psychiatric conditions such as Treatment-Resistant Depression (TRD), where individuals may fail to respond to traditional antidepressant treatments (e.g., psychotherapy, pharmacotherapy). Moreover, it may raise further concerns for an individual’s motivation to consent and the level of understanding of the treatment or research procedure. This paper focuses on the informed consent process for Vagus Nerve Stimulation (VNS) in the treatment of individuals diagnosed with TRD. Specifically, the paper addresses how depression may affect the decision-making capacity of an individual and the potential ethical and legal impact of failure to appreciate the seven elements of the consenting process (competence, voluntariness, disclosure, recommendation, understanding, decision, and authorization). To ensure the protection of vulnerable individuals with psychiatric disorders such as TRD and promote ethical behavior in biomedical research and patient care while avoiding potential legal pitfalls, we propose a paradigm that requires a stringent evaluation process of decision-making capacity for informed consent. (shrink)

This article describes the development and validation of a scale specifically designed to measure one's propensity for Objectivism. The scale developed in this article assesses metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and politics. A three-stage process of scale development results in a multidimensional scale that largely supports Rand's original conception of the construct in the United States and Lithuania. Several challenges are identified, including problems with select items referencing specific political preferences and addressing notions of a higher being. Prospects for future research are (...) identified, including tests for associations between Objectivism and individual factors such as leadership style, organizational commitment, and job performance. (shrink)

As the capabilities of Artificial Intelligence (AI) have increased over recent years, so have the challenges of how to govern its usage. Consequently, prominent stakeholders across academia, government, industry, and civil society have called for states to devise and deploy principles, innovative policies, and best practices to regulate and oversee these increasingly powerful AI tools. Developing a robust AI governance system requires extensive collective efforts throughout the world. It also raises old questions of politics, democracy, and administration, but with the (...) new challenges posed by AI's growing influence on markets, governing structures, international relations, healthcare, science, and political activism. The Oxford Handbook of AI Governance delineates the scope of these issues and addresses the key questions of AI governance. Across forty-nine chapters, organized in nine major sections, the Handbook covers the theoretical and ethical foundations of AI governance, different frameworks for developing a governance structure for AI, practical perspectives on AI governance in different policy domains, economic analyses of AI governance, and concrete lessons about the impact of AI governance domestically and internationally. Chapter authors come from a wide set of disciplines, areas of study, and cultural backgrounds, providing a global perspective on AI governance. (shrink)

BackgroundAs a number of commentators have noted, SARS exposed the vulnerabilities of our health care systems and governance structures. Health care professionals (HCPs) and hospital systems that bore the brunt of the SARS outbreak continue to struggle with the aftermath of the crisis. Indeed, HCPs – both in clinical care and in public health – were severely tested by SARS. Unprecedented demands were placed on their skills and expertise, and their personal commitment to their profession was severely tried. Many were (...) exposed to serious risk of morbidity and mortality, as evidenced by the World Health Organization figures showing that approximately 30% of reported cases were among HCPs, some of whom died from the infection. Despite this challenge, professional codes of ethics are silent on the issue of duty to care during communicable disease outbreaks, thus providing no guidance on what is expected of HCPs or how they ought to approach their duty to care in the face of risk.DiscussionIn the aftermath of SARS and with the spectre of a pandemic avian influenza, it is imperative that we (re)consider the obligations of HCPs for patients with severe infectious diseases, particularly diseases that pose risks to those providing care. It is of pressing importance that organizations representing HCPs give clear indication of what standard of care is expected of their members in the event of a pandemic. In this paper, we address the issue of special obligations of HCPs during an infectious disease outbreak. We argue that there is a pressing need to clarify the rights and responsibilities of HCPs in the current context of pandemic flu preparedness, and that these rights and responsibilities ought to be codified in professional codes of ethics. Finally, we present a brief historical accounting of the treatment of the duty to care in professional health care codes of ethics.SummaryAn honest and critical examination of the role of HCPs during communicable disease outbreaks is needed in order to provide guidelines regarding professional rights and responsibilities, as well as ethical duties and obligations. With this paper, we hope to open the social dialogue and advance the public debate on this increasingly urgent issue. (shrink)

We studied collaborative skill acquisition in a dynamic setting with the game Co-op Space Fortress. While gaining expertise, the majority of subjects became increasingly consistent in the role they adopted without being able to communicate. Moreover, they acted in anticipation of the future task state. We constructed a collaborative skill acquisition model in the cognitive architecture ACT-R that reproduced subject skill acquisition trajectory. It modeled role adoption through reinforcement learning and predictive processes through motion extrapolation and learned relevant control parameters (...) using both a reinforcement learning procedure and a new to ACT-R supervised learning procedure. This is the first integrated cognitive model of collaborative skill acquisition and, as such, gives us valuable insights into the multiple cognitive processes that are involved in learning to collaborate. (shrink)

Psychologists and philosophers who pose moral dilemmas to understand moral judgment typically specify outcomes as certain to occur in them. This contrasts with real-life moral decision-making, which is almost always infused with probabilities (e.g., the probability of a given outcome if an action is or is not taken). Seven studies examine sensitivity to the size and location of shifts in probabilities of outcomes that would result from action in moral dilemmas. We find that moral judgments differ between actions that result (...) in an equal increase in probability of harm (equal size), but have different end-states (e.g., an increase in harm probability from 25% to 50% or from 50% to 75%). This deviation from expected value is robust under separate evaluation, and increases when the comparison between shifts is made explicit under simultaneous evaluation. Consistent with the centrality of perceived harm in some models of moral judgment, perceived harm partially mediates sensitivity to location of harm probability shift. Unlike for shifts in harm probabilities, participants are insensitive to the location of shifts in probability of beneficial outcomes. They are also insensitive to the location of shifts in probability of analogous monetary losses and gains, suggesting an asymmetry between harm and benefit in moral reasoning, as well as an asymmetry between moral and monetary decision-making more broadly. Implications for normative philosophical theory and moral psychological theory, as well as practical applications, are discussed. (shrink)

A working assumption that processes of natural and cultural evolution have tailored the mind to fit the demands and structure of its environment begs the question: how are we to characterize the structure of cognitive environments? Decision problems faced by real organisms are not like simple multiple-choice examination papers. For example, some individual problems may occur much more frequently than others, whilst some may carry much more weight than others. Such considerations are not taken into account when (i) the performance (...) of candidate cognitive mechanisms is assessed by employing a simple accuracy metric that is insensitive to the structure of the decision-maker's environment, and (ii) reason is defined as the adherence to internalist prescriptions of classical rationality. Here we explore the impact of frequency and significance structure on the performance of a range of candidate decision-making mechanisms. We show that the character of this impact is complex, since structured environments demand that decision-makers trade off general performance against performance on important subsets of test items. As a result, environment structure obviates internalist criteria of rationality. Failing to appreciate the role of environment structure in shaping cognition can lead to mischaracterising adaptive behavior as irrational. (shrink)

Accreditation requirements for schools of education across the country have changed dramatically in recent years. Accreditation bodies are no longer willing to accept a proclamation that a particular standard or guideline is being addressed in a course through lecture or course requirements. Performance assessment is the current concept requiring schools of education to demonstrate student mastery of a standard and to provide data demonstrating this mastery. Case studies present a teaching and learning opportunity to demonstrate students have the ability to (...) master a particular accreditation standard or guideline while also providing a method to ensure an opportunity to develop higher order thinking skills. (shrink)

Testosterone fluctuates in response to competitive social interactions, with the direction of change typically depending on factors such as contest outcome. Watching a competition may be sufficient to activate T among fans and others who are invested in the outcome. This study explores the change in T associated with vicarious experiences of competition among combat sport athletes viewing a teammate win or lose and assesses how individual differences in social identification with one’s team relates to these patterns of T reactivity. (...) Twenty-six male combat athletes completed a social identity questionnaire on a neutral day. Later, salivary samples were obtained before and after athletes viewed a video of a teammate engaged in a formal contest. T reactivity to viewing a teammate compete varied among participants in both the magnitude and direction of change, independent of contest outcome. Individual differences in cognitive centrality, a core feature of social identification, showed a strong positive relationship with T reactivity, particularly if their teammate won. Initial findings suggest that dominance-linked androgen responses associated with watching a teammate win a competition might depend on the belief that team membership is central to one’s own identity. These exploratory results in a small sample of combat athletes should be interpreted with caution. Uncovering the role of social group dynamics in influencing T responses to competition is particularly important in light of the evolutionary history of coalitional combat in humans. (shrink)

Aworkshop was held August 26–28, 2015, by the Earth- Life Science Institute (ELSI) Origins Network (EON, see Appendix I) at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. This meeting gathered a diverse group of around 40 scholars researching the origins of life (OoL) from various perspectives with the intent to find common ground, identify key questions and investigations for progress, and guide EON by suggesting a roadmap of activities. Specific challenges that the attendees were encouraged to address included the following: What key (...) questions, ideas, and investigations should the OoL research community address in the near and long term? How can this community better organize itself and prioritize its efforts? What roles can particular subfields play, and what can ELSI and EON do to facilitate research progress? (See also Appendix II.) The present document is a product of that workshop; a white paper that serves as a record of the discussion that took place and a guide and stimulus to the solution of the most urgent and important issues in the study of the OoL. This paper is not intended to be comprehensive or a balanced representation of the opinions of the entire OoL research community. It is intended to present a number of important position statements that contain many aspirational goals and suggestions as to how progress can be made in understanding the OoL. The key role played in the field by current societies and recurring meetings over the past many decades is fully acknowledged, including the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life (ISSOL) and its official journal Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres, as well as the International Society for Artificial Life (ISAL). (shrink)

In this author-meets-critics dialogue, Sanjay Lal, author of, argues that Gandhian values of nonviolence raise aspirations of liberal democracy to a higher level. Since Gandhian values of nonviolence are closely associated with religious values, liberal democracy should make public commitments to religions on a non-sectarian basis, except for unreasonable religions. Critic Jeff Shawn Jose agrees that Gandhian values can strengthen liberal democracy. However, Jose finds a contradiction in Lal’s proposal that a liberal state should support reasonable religions only. A (...) more consistent Gandhian approach would focus on everyday interactions between citizens and groups rather than state-directed preferences. Critic Douglas Allen also welcomes Lal’s project that brings Gandhian philosophy into relation with liberal democratic theory; however, he argues that universalizing the Absolute Truth of genuine religion is more complicated than Lal acknowledges. D. Allen argues for a Gandhian approach of relative truths, which cannot be evaluated apart from contingency or context, and he offers autobiographical evidence in support of his critical suspicion of genuine religion. Critic Michael Allen argues that Lal’s metaphysical approach to public justification violates a central commitment of political liberalism not to take sides on any metaphysical basis. M. Allen argues that democratic socialism is closer to Gandhi’s approach than is liberalism. Lal responds to critics by arguing that Gandhi’s evaluation of unreasonable religions depends upon an assessment of violence, which is not as problematic as critics charge, either from a Gandhian perspective or a liberal one. Furthermore, by excluding unreasonable or violent religions from state promotion, Lal argues that he is not advocating state suppression. Finally, Lal argues that Gandhian or Kingian metaphysics are worthy of support by liberal, democratic states seeking to educate individuals regarding peaceful unity in diversity. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis review essay of Shawn Loht’s new book, Phenomenology of Film: A Heideggerian Account of the Film Experience, not only offers an ontological reading of the filmic experience inspired by Heidegger’s philosophy but also contributes substantially to the ongoing debate of whether or not film is a medium that is legitimately philosophical. In addition to confronting unique ideas about film that emerge from Loht’s analysis of Heidegger’s phenomenological ontology of Dasein, including a reading of later Heidegger of the “Turn,” (...) this essay also seeks to think with and then beyond Loht in a way that might inspire readers to further pursue these issues in relation to a potentially reconceived understanding of the practice of film-as-philosophy. (shrink)

This is a philosophical rumination on Shawn Loht’s important extension of “film as philosophy” into a Heideggerian phenomenological account of the philosophical response that cinema can engender. After considering the importance of these kinds of approaches, I turn to Loht’s phenomenological engagement with Terrence Malick’s early masterpiece, Days of Heaven (1978). After sympathetically reviewing his “interpretation”, I expand upon its delineation of “earth and world” to include the “fallenness” of the world as well as the possibility of a metanōetic (...) awakening to the vocation of “mud doctor”, that is, to heal the rift between earth and world, a rift made more exigent by world war, economic exploitation, and the ecological catastrophe of the Anthropocene. (shrink)

"The terrain of the self is vast," notes renowned psychiatrist Arnold Ludwig, "parts known, parts impenetrable, and parts unexplored." How do we construct a sense of ourselves? How can a self reflect upon itself or deceive itself? Is all personal identity plagiarized? Is a "true" or "authentic" self even possible? Is it possible to really "know" someone else or ourselves for that matter? To answer these and many other intriguing questions, Ludwig takes a unique approach, examining the art of biography (...) for the insights it can give us into the construction of the self. In The Biography of the Self, he takes readers on an intriguing tour of the biographer's art, revealing how much this can tell us about ourselves. Drawing on in-depth interviews with twenty-one of our most esteemed biographers--writers such as David McCullough (the biographer of Truman and Theodore Roosevelt), Wallace Stegner (John Wesley Powell), Gloria Steinem (Marilyn Monroe), Leon Edel (Henry James), Peter Gay (Freud), Diane Middlebrook (Anne Sexton), and many others--and interweaving fascinating observations of his own practice, Ludwig takes us through the labyrinthine hall of mirrors we term the self and shows us how malleable, elusive, and paradoxical it can be. In chapters such as "The 'Real' Marilyn," "Psychoanalyzing Freud," "How Did Hitler Live With Himself?" and "What Madness Reveals," we sit in as biographers talk not only about their work, but about their subjects (Allan Bullock on Hitler and Stalin, for instance, or Arnold Rampersad on Langston Hughes) and how their subjects saw themselves. Ludwig describes how biographers must impose a narrative structure on their subjects' lives to create order out of a mass of often contradictory views, baffling behavior, and inconsistent self-representations, much in the same way that psychotherapists try to foster self-awareness and understanding in their patients. In his concluding chapter, Ludwig introduces a new concept--biographical freedom--which brilliantly reconciles free will and determinism. We can, he asserts, become biographers of ourselves. Like the biographer, we are constrained to consider all the available facts of our lives--the personal experiences, cultural forces, and predetermined scripts that shape us--but we remain free to interpret, emphasize, and fashion these givens into a cohesive and meaningful narrative of our own choosing. This thought-provoking volume offers not only a wide-ranging and informative commentary on the biographer's art, but also a highly original theory of the self. Readers interested in biography and in the lives of others will come away with a new sense of what it means to be a "person" and, in particular, who they are. (shrink)

11We thank Rohan French for a detailed discussion of this review. We also wish to reciprocally thank Shawn Standefer for detailed discussions about the book.Logical pluralism is the view according...

11We thank Rohan French for a detailed discussion of this review. We also wish to reciprocally thank Shawn Standefer for detailed discussions about the book.Logical pluralism is the view according...

Authority in Morals: An Essay in Christian Ethics. By Gerard J. Hughes On Human Nature. By Edward O. Wilson Democracy and Ethical Life. By Claes G. Ryn The Foundations of Modern Political Thought. By Quentin Skinner. 2 vols. Phenomenology and the Social World: the Philosophy of Merleau‐Ponty and its Relation to the Social Conscience. By Laurie Spurting Philosophical Foundations of the Three Sociologies. By Ted Benton Christianity and the World Order. By Edward Norman. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1979, £3.50. The (...) Stoics. Edited by John M. Rist Descartes. By Margaret D. Wilson Physicalism. By K.V. Wilkes Kierkegaard as Educator. By R.J. Manheimer Two Ages: The Age of Revolution and the Present Age. By Søren Kierkegaard, translated and edited by Howard and Edna Hong Parables of Kierkegaard. Edited by Thomas C. Oden Thomas Carlyle: ‘Cahinist without the Theology’. By Eloise M. Behnken The Praise of 'Sons of Bitches’. By James V. Schall The Inner Eye of Love. By William Johnston The River Within. By Christopher Bryant The Religious Imagination and the Sense of God. By John Bowker Old Testament Theology: A Fresh Approach. By Ronald E. Clements What is a Gospel? By Charles H. Talbert Urchristliche Prophetic. By Gerhard Dautzenberg Amphttochii Icontensis Opera. Edited by Cornells Datema Man and Nature in the Renaissance. By Allen G. Debus The Church in Late Victorian Scotland 1874–1900. By Andrew L. Drummond and James Bullock. Ppix, 342, Edinburgh, The St Andrew Press, 1978, £10.50. From Office to Profession: The New England Ministry 1750–1860. By Donald M. Scott Bemard‐Lazare: Anti‐Semitism and the Problem of Jewish Identity in Late Nineteenth Century France. By Nelly Wilson. (shrink)

This study described the relationships between academic class and student moral sensitivity and reasoning and between curriculum design components for ethics education and student moral sensitivity and reasoning. The data were collected from freshman (n = 506) and senior students (n = 440) in eight baccalaureate nursing programs in South Korea by survey; the survey consisted of the Korean Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire and the Korean Defining Issues Test. The results showed that moral sensitivity scores in patient-oriented care and conflict were (...) higher in senior students than in freshman students. Furthermore, more hours of ethics content were associated with higher principled thinking scores of senior students. Nursing education in South Korea may have an impact on developing student moral sensitivity. Planned ethics content in nursing curricula is necessary to improve moral sensitivity and moral reasoning of students. (shrink)

In this article, we present a definition of a hyperintensionality appropriate to relevant logics. We then show that relevant logics are hyperintensional in this sense, drawing consequences for other non-classical logics, including HYPE and some substructural logics. We further prove results concerning extensionality in relevant logics. We close by discussing related concepts for classifying formula contexts and potential applications of these results.

Justification logics provide frameworks for studying the fine structure of evidence and justification. Traditionally, these logics do not impose any closure requirements on justification. In this paper, we argue that for some applications they should subject justification to closure under some variety of logical consequence. Specifically, we argue, building on ideas from Beall, that the non-classical logic FDE offers a particularly attractive notion of consequence for this purpose and define a justification logic where justification is closed under FDE consequence. We (...) show the resulting logic to be sound and complete. Lastly, we discuss how the closure of justification under FDE ontrasts closure under related non-classical logics and how our approach contrasts with some alternatives. (shrink)

Growth in CSR-washing claims in recent decades has been dramatic in numerous academic and activist contexts. The discourse, however, has been fragmented, and still lacks an integrated framework of the conditions necessary for successful CSR-washing. Theorizing successful CSR-washing as the joint occurrence of five conditions, this paper undertakes a literature review of the empirical evidence for and against each condition. The literature review finds that many of the conditions are either highly contingent, rendering CSR-washing as a complex and fragile outcome. (...) This finding runs counter to the dominant perception in the general public, among activists, and among a vocal contingent of academics that successful CSR-washing is rampant. (shrink)

Various theorists have endorsed the “communication argument”: communicative capacities are necessary for morally responsible agency because blame aims at a distinctive kind of moral communication. I contend that existing versions of the argument, including those defended by Gary Watson and Coleen Macnamara, face a pluralist challenge: they do not seem to sit well with the plausible view that blame has multiple aims. I then examine three possible rejoinders to the challenge, suggesting that a context-specific, function-based approach constitutes the most promising (...) modification of the communication argument. (shrink)

One of the many claims about the value of local food is that local food exchanges generate trust between producers and consumers. To what degree is this actually the case and how does such trust develop? Drawing on interview and fieldwork data in one local food system in the Northeastern U.S., I show how local food participants build trust and reciprocity with one another in order to mitigate the challenges imposed by the conventional system. This trust and reciprocity builds primarily (...) through three mechanisms: reliable, positive relationships; demonstrations of good will toward one another; and a shared understanding of the value of locally-oriented food. Through these mechanisms, local food operators are able to build a healthy, stable local food system, able to better resist the pressures of the conventional system in which it must continually operate. (shrink)

One of the many claims about the value of local food is that local food exchanges generate trust between producers and consumers. To what degree is this actually the case and how does such trust develop? Drawing on interview and fieldwork data in one local food system in the Northeastern U.S., I show how local food participants build trust and reciprocity with one another in order to mitigate the challenges imposed by the conventional system. This trust and reciprocity builds primarily (...) through three mechanisms: reliable, positive relationships; demonstrations of good will toward one another; and a shared understanding of the value of locally-oriented food. Through these mechanisms, local food operators are able to build a healthy, stable local food system, able to better resist the pressures of the conventional system in which it must continually operate. (shrink)