An incoherent feed‐forward loop (FFL) is one of the most‐frequently observed motifs in biomolecular regulatory networks. It has been thought that the incoherent FFL is designed simply to induce a transient response shaped by a ‘fast activation and delayed inhibition’. We find that the dynamics of various incoherent FFLs can be further classified into two types: time‐dependent biphasic responses and dose‐dependent biphasic responses. Why do the structurally identical incoherent FFLs play such different dynamical roles? Through computational studies, we show that (...) the dynamics of the two types of incoherent FFLs are mutually exclusive. Following from further computational results and experimental observations, we hypothesize that incoherent FFLs have been optimally designed to achieve distinct biological function arising from different cellular contexts. Additional Supporting Information may be found in the online version of the article. BioEssays 30:1204–1211, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Cellular circuits have positive and negative feedback loops that allow them to respond properly to noisy external stimuli. It is intriguing that such feedback loops exist in many cases in a particular form of coupled positive and negative feedback loops with different time delays. As a result of our mathematical simulations and investigations into various experimental evidences, we found that such coupled feedback circuits can rapidly turn on a reaction to a proper stimulus, robustly maintain its status, and immediately turn (...) off the reaction when the stimulus disappears. In other words, coupled feedback loops enable cellular systems to produce perfect responses to noisy stimuli with respect to signal duration and amplitude. This suggests that coupled positive and negative feedback loops form essential signal transduction motifs in cellular signaling systems. BioEssays 29: 85–90, 2007. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Die Idee des «Gesamtkunstwerks» war schon längst vor Wagner gegenwärtig. In zahlreichen Schriften der deutschen Frühromantiker wird das Auseinandergehen der einzelnen Künste betrachtet, aber ihr Zusammenwirken als Utopie ersehnt. Die Verfasserin versucht, ausgehend von der Stellung der Musik in der Frühromantik, die Möglichkeit im Blick zu behalten, die Sehnsucht nach der Einheit der Künste, die zunächst im literarischen sowie im philosophischen Bereich rein theoretisch, daneben jedoch auch praktisch in der Poesie und Malerei ihren Ausdruck fand, in die musikalische Romantik zu (...) übertragen, sowohl in kompositorischer als auch in wirkungsästhetischer Hinsicht. Dadurch erscheint der Zusammenhang zwischen Musik innerhalb der Idee des «Gesamtkunstwerks» in der Romantik in neuem Licht. (shrink)

Culture has been identified as a significant determinant of ethical attitudes of business managers. This research studies the impact of culture on the ethical attitudes of business managers in India, Korea and the United States using multivariate statistical analysis. Employing Geert Hofstede's cultural typology, this study examines the relationship between his five cultural dimensions (individualism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, and long-term orientation) and business managers' ethical attitudes. The study uses primary data collected from 345 business manager participants of Executive (...) MBA programs in selected business schools in India, Korea and the United States using Hofstede's Value Survey Module (94) and an instrument designed by the researchers to measure respondents' ethical attitudes (attitudes toward business ethics in general and toward twelve common questionable practices in particular). Results indicate that national culture has a strong influence on business managers' ethical attitudes. In addition to national culture, respondents' general attitudes toward business ethics are related to their personal integrity; their attitudes toward questionable business practices are related to the external environment and gender, as well as to their personal integrity. A strong relationship exists between cultural dimensions of individualism and power distance and respondents' ethical attitudes toward certain questionable practices. The analysis of the relationship between cultural dimensions of masculinity, uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation and respondents' ethical attitudes toward questionable practices produced mixed results, likely due to the lack of notable differences in cultural dimension scores among the countries surveyed. (shrink)

Although corporate social responsibility appears to be mutually beneficial for companies and consumers, the modern marketplace has left both parties in vulnerable positions. Consumers are increasingly subjected to incongruent CSR messages such as greenwashing, while companies are trapped in a strategic positioning dilemma with regard to how to most effectively and ethically approach CSR communication. This has led some companies to instead adopt a strategically silent approach, such as greenhushing. To capture this CSR positioning dilemma and test the positioning effects (...) on consumers’ attributions, this study applies attribution theory to conceptualize four distinct CSR positions which reflect varying combinations of congruence or incongruence between a company’s external CSR communication and its actual internal CSR actions. Using an online experiment, the effects of the CSR positions on consumer attributions for intrinsic and extrinsic CSR motivations and purchase intentions were tested across three CSR domains: environmental; labor; and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender inclusion. Overall, the findings attest to the significant effect of internal–external congruence-based CSR positioning on how consumers respond to CSR communication. Importantly, the results indicate that discreet positioning is perceived similarly to uniform positioning, while misleading and unethical tactics such as CSR-washing are sure to backfire. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed. (shrink)

THE PRIMARY GOAL OF THIS ESSAY IS TO BRING PUBLIC AWARENESS OF MILitary prostitution sprung up around U.S. military bases across the globe. With a focus on the lived experiences of Korean military prostitutes for American soldiers in South Korea, this essay argues that military prostitution should be considered a human reality in the realm of international politics: the U.S. empire building at the expenses of women's bodies. This argument further aims to foster Christian feminist—social ethics that reconstructs a Christian (...) realistic approach to globalized militarism, the relation between sensuality and sexuality, and transnational solidarity for peace. (shrink)

This paper investigates a first-order extension of GL called \. We outline briefly the history that led to \, its key properties and some of its toolbox: the \emph{conservation theorem}, its cut-free Gentzenisation, the ``formulators'' tool. Its semantic completeness is fully stated in the current paper and the proof is retold here. Applying the Solovay technique to those models the present paper establishes its main result, namely, that \ is arithmetically complete. As expanded below, \ is a first-order modal logic (...) that along with its built-in ability to simulate general classical first-order provability―"\" simulating the the informal classical "\"―is also arithmetically complete in the Solovay sense. (shrink)

Purpose The debate about the end-of-life care decision is becoming a serious ethical and legal concern in the Far-Eastern countries of Korea, China and Japan. However, the issues regarding end-of-life care will reflect the cultural background, current medical practices and socioeconomic conditions of the countries, which are different from Western countries and between each other. Understanding the genuine thoughts of patients who are critically ill is the first step in confronting the issues, and a comparative descriptive study of these perspectives (...) was conducted by collaboration between researchers in all three countries. Methods Surveys using self-reporting paper questionnaire forms were conducted from December 2008 to April 2009 in Korea (six hospitals in two regions), China (five hospitals in four regions) and Japan (nine hospitals in one region). The subjects were patients who were critically ill who had been diagnosed as having cancer. A total of 235 participants (Korea, 91; China, 62; Japan, 52) were eventually recruited and statistically analysed. Results Most respondents had sometimes or often thought of their own death, mostly fear of ‘separation from loved ones’. They wanted to hear the news regarding their own condition directly and frankly from the physician. A quarter of them preferred making end-of-life care decisions by themselves, while many respondents favoured a ‘joint decision’ with their family members. The most favoured proxy decision maker was the spouse, followed by the children. Most admitted the necessity of ‘advance directives’ and agreed with artificial ventilation withdrawal in irreversible conditions. The most common reason was ‘artificial prolongation of life is unnecessary’. Most respondents agreed with the concept of active euthanasia; however, significant differences were sometimes observed in the responses according to variables such as patient's country of origin, age, gender and education level. Conclusion Patients in Far-Eastern countries gave various responses regarding end-of-life care decisions. Although familial input is still influential, most patients think of themselves as the major decision maker and accept the necessity of advance directives with Westernization of the society. Artificial ventilation withdrawal and even active euthanasia may be acceptable to them. (shrink)

In the present paper we shall see that the different ways of understanding mind between Confucianism and Enlightenment in the 18th century. In this study each of these two different traditions is regarded as the East Asian context of mind study or as the Western European context of mind study. This idea comes from a kind of constructivism and constructive realism. The former, which comes from ideas of Lev Vygotsky, stresses that human mind is constructed on its cultural context. The (...) latter insisted by Fridriech Wallner approves that every truth constructed on its cultural context can be an absolute truth depending on its cultural context. Due to these two viewpoints, we can see that the truth about human mind is not singular but plural and it should be an important theme of discussionhow to communicate between different understandings of mind and cultural context. Therefore three steps to approach the difference between Asian and European should be discussed in the following way: first, I will explain Confucian ways of understanding mind. It is Confucian cultural context as a social being that used to be the basis of cultural construction of East Asian’s mind. There were three types of Confucianism in 18th century Korea; second I will explain Western European way of understanding mind and the philosophy of Enlightenment as the basic context of cultural construction of mind; and third, I will conclude by comparing these two different ways of understanding mind and mind construction and by looking for a feasible way to communicate and understand each other. (shrink)

The search for new ideas often frustratingly cycles back to old ones, a phenomenon known as fixation. Recent research has shown ways to kick‐start finding new uses for familiar objects, a prototypical creativity task: wandering in the mind or the world or working on a messy desk. Those techniques seem to succeed by helping break fixation, but do not guide the search for new ideas. The perspective‐taking or human‐centric or empathic mindset championed by many in HCI and in design firms (...) does provide a search strategy. We compared the mind‐wandering mindset to a perspective‐taking mindset, the latter priming thinking of ways that people in different roles (gardener, artist, etc.) might use the objects. In two studies, the Perspective‐Taking mindset yielded more ideas and more original ideas than Mind‐Wandering, which did not differ from a No‐Mindset control. Original ideas came late, rewarding persistence. The perspective‐taking mindset is productive for problem‐solving, forecasting, and social interactions as well as innovation. (shrink)

Background Nurses providing care to patients with end-of-life or terminal illnesses often encounter ethically challenging situations leading to moral distress. However, existing quantitative studies have examined moral distress using instruments that address general clinical situations rather than those specific to end-of-life care. Furthermore, qualitative studies have often been limited to participants from a single unit or those experiencing moral distress-induced circumstances. A comprehensive and integrated understanding of the overarching process of moral distress is vital to discern the unique circumstances surrounding (...) end-of-life care and its consequential impacts. Research objectives To explore the moral distress experiences of nurses who are frequently involved in caring for patients with end-of-life or terminal illnesses and apply it to two existing theories: the model of moral distress and the ecological model. Research design A qualitative descriptive approach was employed. Participants and research context Seven focus group interviews involving 30 nurses were performed. The subsequent transcriptions underwent rigorous content analysis. Ethical considerations We obtained Institutional Review Board approval from a university. Focus group interviews were conducted with nurses who agreed to participate and signed the consent form. Findings The moral distress-inducing factors and nurses’ perceived impact of moral distress were identified and categorized based on moral distress theories and ecological models. A total of 15 categories and 30 subcategories across the following 4 domains were derived: (1) intrapersonal, (2) interpersonal, (3) organizational, and (4) structural factors. Conclusions End-of-life-specific circumstances induced moral distress among nurses, with both negative and positive impacts identified. Effective organizational and policy support is essential to manage conflicts, form a healthy organizational culture, provide training, and prevent unnecessary expenses due to the negative consequences of moral distress. (shrink)

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

The significance of the discovery of half of Dewey’s most important China lecture series notes, “Social and Political Philosophy,” cannot be overestimated. These newly-discovered lecture notes provide us with a unique opportunity to conduct a translation case study in both directions: first, to check Hu Shi’s translation against Dewey’s lecture notes; and second, to check John Dewey: Lectures in China, 1919-1920, “back translations” in the terminology of translation studies, both against Hu’s translation and against Dewey’s original notes that the back (...) translators tried to reconstruct. More important, by treating translations as re-writes and as products of cultural and ideological manipulations, this case study enables us to analyze how Hu Shi appropriated Dewey’s ideas to advance his own cultural and political agenda while acting as the latter’s interpreter. (shrink)

The current study aims to separate conscious and unconscious behaviors by employing both online and offline measures while the participants were consciously performing a task. Using an eye-movement tracking paradigm, we observed participants’ response patterns for distinguishing within-word-boundary and across-word-boundary reverse errors while reading Chinese sentences . The results showed that when the participants consciously detected errors, their gaze time for target words associated with across-word-boundary reverse errors was significantly longer than that for targets words associated with within-word-boundary reverse errors. (...) Surprisingly, the same gaze time pattern was found even when the readers were not consciously aware of the reverse errors. The results were statistically robust, providing converging evidence for the feasibility of our experimental paradigm in decoupling offline behaviors and the online, automatic, and unconscious aspects of cognitive processing in reading. (shrink)

How vertebrates evolved different traits for acid excretion to maintain body fluid pH homeostasis is largely unknown. The evolution of Na+/H+ exchanger (NHE)‐mediated NH4+ excretion in fishes is reported, and the coevolution with increased ammoniagenesis and accompanying gluconeogenesis is speculated to benefit vertebrates in terms of both internal homeostasis and energy metabolism response to acidic stress. The findings provide new insights into our understanding of the possible adaptation of fishes to progressing global environmental acidification. In human kidney, titratable H+ and (...) NH4+ comprise the two main components of net acid excretion. V‐type H+‐ATPase‐mediated H+ excretion may have developed in stenohaline lampreys when they initially invaded freshwater from marine habitats, but this trait is lost in most fishes. Instead, increased reliance on NHE‐mediated NH4+ excretion is gradually developed and intensified during fish evolution. Further investigations on more species will be needed to support the hypothesis. Also see the video abstract here https://youtu.be/vZuObtfm-34. (shrink)

With a growing corporate interest in pursuing public goods, numerous firms today endeavor to practice corporate social responsibility. Utilizing a multilevel structural equation modeling approach, we investigated the topic of employees' pro-environmental behavior, contributing to the growing literature on “green” issues in the workplace. We incorporated self-determination theory to examine how individuals' perceptions regarding their corporate environmental policies reflected in firm-level green psychological climate influence their environment-specific self-regulation, and whether support of autonomy, relatedness, and competence psychological needs moderates this relationship. (...) The relationship between environment-specific self-regulation and employees' engagement in pro-environmental behavior was also further explained. Analysis of the data from 649 employees working in 37 major South Korean companies revealed that firm-level green psychological climate is positively related to employees' environment-specific self-regulation and that environment-specific self-regulation is also positively related to their pro-environmental behavior. Moreover, while we found that the positive association between firm-level green psychological climate and employees' environment-specific self-regulation was stronger when they had a higher level of relatedness need satisfaction, interactions between firm-level green psychological climate with autonomy and competence need satisfaction did not demonstrate any significant effects. Theoretical and practical contributions together with suggestions for related future research are discussed as well. (shrink)

Examines four notable thinkers in the field of modern social and political theory, with a view to determining how far it is possible to create and maintain a non-coercive but sustainable political order under conditions of diversity in contemporary Western democracies.

In a much-revised version of his 1980 doctoral dissertation in the history of science for Princeton University, Kim (history and philosophy of science, Seoul National U.) examines the knowledge about the natural world that informed Chu Hsi's renowned neo-Confucian synthesis. He sets out his basic concepts, reviews his understanding of the world, and examines the relationship between the two. He includes an extensive glossary with the English meaning and the Chinese characters. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR.

The experience of newborn screening for Krabbe disease in New York State demonstrates the ethical problems that arise when screening programs are expanded in the absence of true understanding of the diseases involved. In its 5 years of testing and millions of dollars in costs, there have been very few benefits, and the testing has uncovered potential cases of late-onset disease that raise difficult ethical questions in their own right. For these reasons, we argue that Krabbe screening should only be (...) continued as a research project that includes the informed consent of parents to the testing. (shrink)

This book explores the key motif of the religious Other in devotional (bhakti) literatures and practices from across the Indian subcontinent. The primary aim of this book is to reconsider and challenge inherited notions of the bhakta's or devotee's Other and unmask processes of representation that involve adoption, appropriation, and rejection of different social and religious agents. The book considers the ways in which bhakti might be conceived as having an inter-regional impact--as a force, discourse, network, mythology, ethic--while critically engaging (...) with extant scholarly narratives about what bhakti is and tracing when and how those narratives have been used. The sheer diversity of South Asia's devotional traditions renders them an especially rich resource for examining social and religious fault lines, thereby furthering scholarly understanding of how communalism and sectarianism originate and develop on local or regional levels, with wider geographic implications. Bringing together studies from a subcontinent-wide variety of linguistic, geographical, and historical frames for the first time, this book will be an important contribution to the literature on bhakti, and it will be of interest to scholars of South Asian Religion and Asian Religion. (shrink)

In business ethics, there is a large body of literature focusing on the conditions, factors, and influences in the ethical decision-making processes. This work builds upon the past critical reviews by updating and extending the literature review found in Craft’s :221–259, 2013) study, extending her literature review to include a total of 141 articles. Since past reviews have focused on categorizing results based upon various independent variables, we instead synthesize and look at the trends of these based upon the four (...) ethical decision making categories: Awareness, Behavior, Judgment, and Intention. We focus on the moderation and mediation effects found within these studies and provide an in-depth analysis of future trends. Furthermore, we also highlight key statistical and methodological concerns, outline overarching trends, and directions of future research in empirical ethical decision making. (shrink)

In "The Rise of Citizen Science in Health and Biomedical Research," Wiggins and Wilbanks present an analysis of the ethics of citizen science (Wiggins and Wilbanks 2019). The breadth of the analysi...

Teaching healthcare ethics at the doctoral level presents a particular challenge. Ethics is often taught to medical students, but rarely is medicine taught to graduate students in health care ethics. In this paper, Medicine for Ethicists [MfE] — a course taught both didactically and experientially — is described. Eight former MfE students were independently interviewed in a semi-structured, open-ended format regarding their experience in the experiential component of the course. Themes included concrete elements about the course, elements related to the (...) broader PhD student learning experience, and themes related to the students’ past and future career experiences. Findings are related to the educational philosophy of John Dewey and David Kolb’s experiential learning theory. Broader implications of this work are explored. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Operating in a Contemporary Safety NetJason D. KeuneIt is summer, and I have just started my fourth year of general surgery residency, having just returned from two years in the lab. My “lab years” were spent as a Scholar–in–Residence of the American College of Surgeons. The scholarship that I engaged in included obtaining an MBA and a Graduate Certificate in Professional Ethics. The ethics component was self–designed with help (...) from an advisor, and was made up of graduate courses in political theory, healthcare financing law and bioethics. To say that I was reflective as I returned to the clinical rotations of the fourth year of residency would be understated.During this two–year period, I did not operate. I did do some clinical work during this time, but there wasn’t anyone in town willing to hire a partially–trained surgeon to do anything operative. I ended my third year of residency very happy with my technical skills, and was not sure just how these skills would survive a two–year hiatus. The challenge, as I thought of it then, would be to return to clinical rotations with this insecurity in mind and try to gain insight into just how rusty my skills were in a short period of time, and rectify them. I was in for a surprise.I felt a chill of trepidation when I discovered that the rotation that had been selected for me to return to was one in which I would be assigned to operate on and care for a low–income population of uninsured or underinsured patients with surgical problems—with minimal attending supervision. The patients were referred from the Federally Qualified Health Centers in town. The rotation had arisen from altruistic roots. The surgical service, provided at a large, academic urban hospital, was established when the city’s last remaining public hospital closed its doors for surgical patients. The service was an upright attempt to provide surgical continuity for this population. As I started the rotation and performed my first surgeries in two years with very minimal supervision, I realized that I would be participatory in what sums to a thoroughly unjust healthcare system. I would be caught in a swirl of humanitarian justice celebrated and a focus on a justice that seemed to fall short of a mark.The indigent hospital itself managed the clinic with a full complement of staff befitting a contemporary surgical clinic, albeit with a rather rudimentary computer system. The recordkeeping mechanism in our surgical office, however, was done without administrative assistance. We occupied a small room amongst the academic surgical offices at our home institution. The chief resident sat at a large [End Page 12] desk, the intern at a smaller desk, and the medical student had a chair and a laptop. The recordkeeping mechanism tracking who needed surgery, who had had surgery, and who needed follow–up on pathology was maintained by all members of the team. It involved one labyrinthine Excel spreadsheet, with multiple tabs, and a complex color–coordinated scheme of organization. The team would scan the entire thing on a daily basis to make sure nothing would be missed.When it came time to schedule a patient for the operating room, it was my responsibility as a chief resident to get an attending to “cover the case”, which amounted to finding an attending who agreed, at the bare minimum, to be present for the “critical portion” of the case. If the case was complex or very difficult, an attending surgeon would have to be sought who would scrub in and help perform the procedure. Not every attending would cover a charity case—the reasons why were not forthcoming. One surgeon would scrub every case he was asked to cover, stating that he felt every patient should have the same chance at the best treatment. Another would come to the room, but sit along the wall and review manuscripts as we operated, there to grant reassurance, and answer questions, but not, presumably, to direct the overall decision–making. All patients with breast cancer were seen, and operated on by one very dedicated breast surgeon with a humanitarian bent.I... (shrink)

Singing a Hindu Nation: Marathi Devotional Performance and Nationalism. By Anna C. Schultz. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Pp. xii + 231. $21.95.

Say to the Sun, “Don’t Rise,” and to the Moon, “Don’t Set”: Two Oral Narratives from the Country- side of Maharashtra. Edited and translated by Anne Feldhaus, with Ramdas Atkar and Rajaram Zagade. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Pp. xii + 632, 3 illus. $99.

Hong Kong’s Covid-19 epidemic circumstances have given us a valuable opportunity to reflect on Hong Kong’s elderly care policies. This essay argues that Hong Kong should learn from the West and provide a subsidy to family caregivers for proper elderly care. We rebut the social and moralistic reasons for not introducing such a subsidy in Hong Kong. We indicate that providing cash subsidy to family caregivers does not monetize or tarnish Confucian filial obligation to take care of elderly people, but (...) enable adult children from low-income families to undertake this obligation effectively. In addition, we contend that providing such a subsidy would not significantly affect the job market in Hong Kong and that incurred financial and manpower costs for monitoring family care are controllable. (shrink)