Recent history makes clear that the quantum leaps being made in technology are the leading edge of a groundswell of paradigm shifts taking place in science, politics, economics, social institutions, and the expression of cultural values. Indeed it is the simultaneity and interdependence of these changes occurring in every dimension of human experience and endeavor that makes the present so historically distinctive. The essays gathered here give voice to perspectives on the always improvised relationship between technology and cultural values from (...) Africa, the Americas, Asia, Australia, Europe, and the Pacific. Contributors: Syed Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas, Roger T. Ames,Yoko Arisaka, Carl Becker, Francesca Bray, James Buchanan, Arindam Chakrabarti, Frank W. Derringh, Rolf Elberfeld, Charles Ess, Andrew Feenberg, Susantha Goonatilake, H. Jiuan Heng, Peter Hershock, Thomas P. Kasulis, George Khushf, David Farrell Krell, Joel J. Kupperman, William R. LaFleur, Lois Ann Lorentzen, David Loy, Joseph Margolis, Hans-Georg Möller, Robert Cummings Neville, Peimin Ni, Monica Atieno Opole, Kuruvilla Pandikattu SJ, Helen Petrovsky, Ramon Sentmartí, Kristin Shrader-Frechette, Vasanthi Srinivasan, Marietta Stepaniants, Vyacheslav S. Stiopin, Henk ten Have, Paul B.Thompson, Mary Tiles, David B.Wong. (shrink)

An overview of the concept of Strong Emergence, and a summary of the papers within the special issue.

A summary of the papers within the Philosophica special issue on Strong Emergence.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to analyse nurses’ professional dignity in their everyday working lives. We explored the factors that affect nursing professional dignity in practice that emerge in relationships with health professionals, among clinical nurses working in hospitals and in community settings in central Italy. The main themes identified were: (i) nursing professional dignity perceived as an achievement; (ii) recognition of dignity beyond professional roles. These two concepts are interconnected. This study provides insights into professional dignity in (...) nursing being perceived as an achievement linked to the intrinsic dignity of every human being. The ‘nursing professional dignity perceived as an achievement’ was perceived as having declined in different social factors. Some factors of nursing professional dignity perceived as an achievement were attained more easily in community settings. ‘Recognition of dignity beyond professional roles’ underpins the intrinsic dignity as an expression of humanity, embedded in persons regardless of any profession, and values, such as: respect, moral integrity, humility, working conscientiously and kindness. (shrink)

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

This paper attempts a partial, critical look at the construction and use of case studies in ethics education. It argues that the authors and users of case studies are often insufficiently aware of the literary nature of these artefacts: this may lead to some confusion between fiction and reality. Issues of the nature of the genre, the fictional, story-constructing aspect of case studies, the nature of authorship, and the purposes and uses of case studies as "texts" are outlined and discussed. (...) The paper concludes with some critical questions that can be applied to the construction and use of case studies in the light of the foregoing analysis. (shrink)

Objective: To evaluate existing ethical guidelines for the treatment of hunger strikers in light of findings on psychological changes that accompany the cessation of food intake.Design: Electronic databases were searched for editorials and ethical proclamations on hunger strikers and their treatment; studies of voluntary and involuntary starvation, and legal cases pertaining to hunger striking. Additional studies were gathered in a snowball fashion from the published material cited in these databases. Material was included if it provided ethical or legal guidelines; shed (...) light on psychological changes accompanying starvation, or illustrated the practice of hunger striking. Authors’ observations, opinions, and conclusions were noted.Conclusions: Although the heterogeneous nature of the sources precluded statistical analysis, starvation appears to be accompanied by marked psychological changes. Some changes clearly impair competence, in which case physicians are advised to follow advance directives obtained early in the hunger strike. More problematic are increases in impulsivity and aggressivity, changes which, while not impairing competence, enhance the likelihood that patients will starve themselves to death. (shrink)

We are printing in its entirety the discussion document which sets out a code of professional conduct for nurses published by the Royal College of Nursing in November 1976 together with commentaries by the Assistant Secretary of the British Medical Association, a professor of nursing studies, student nurses and a lawyer. The image of the nurse is still that of one of Florence Nightingale's young ladies or of a member of a religious order who is wholly dedicated to caring for (...) the sick. Today, as this document and the comments upon it show, 'dedication' is still part of the motive which leads a man or woman to become a nurse but in addition, and this is where the public may be ignorant or choose to be ignorant, nursing offers a career where intellectual achievement and the satisfaction of a demanding job bring their proper financial reward and place in the professional community. We are grateful to the Royal College of Nursing for permission to publish this document. (shrink)

Vraagt onze samenleving om een nieuwe politieke formule, om met Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) te spreken? Op het eerste gezicht niet. De democratie is stevig verankerd in de Grondwet en verdragen en is ingebed in de rechtsstaat, en zowel democratie als rechtsstaat maken deel uit van ons collectieve bewustzijn. Toch is er wat aan de hand in de verhouding tussen overheid, samenleving en individu, zoals de inmiddels structurele onvrede met het publieke domein laat zien. Dat vraagt om een richtinggevende doordenking (...) van de vooronderstellingen van ons democratisch bestel en de fundamenten waarop het berust. Dat is wat dit boek zich ten doel stelt. Het biedt toekomstgerichte ideeën voor ons publieke domein aan de hand van kernbegrippen als legitimiteit, staat, politiek, instituties, identiteit, burgerschap, kerk en theologie. Het gedachtegoed van Tocqueville, die geldt als een van de grootste en meest interessante denkers over de moderne democratie, de democratische samenleving en de democratische mens, vormt daarvoor de inspiratiebron. (shrink)

Aim: Patients with advanced cancer need information about end-of-life treatment options in order to make informed decisions. Clinicians vary in the frequency with which they initiate these discussions.Patients and methods: As part of a long-term longitudinal study, patients with an expected 2-year survival of less than 50% who had advanced gastrointestinal or lung cancer or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis were interviewed. Each patient’s medical record was reviewed at enrollment and at 3 months for evidence of the discussion of patient wishes concerning (...) ventilator support, artificial nutrition and hydration , resuscitation and hospice care. A Kaplan–Meier analysis was also performed and 2-year survival calculated.Results: 60 cancer and 32 ALS patients were enrolled. ALS patients were more likely than cancer patients to have evidence of discussion about their wishes for ventilator support , ANH , DNR and hospice care . At 6 months, 91% of ALS patients were alive compared with 62% of cancer patients; at 2 years, 63% of ALS patients were alive compared with 23% of cancer patients .Conclusions: Cancer patients were less likely than ALS patients to have had documented advanced care planning discussions despite worse survival. This may reflect perceptions that ALS has a more predictable course, that advanced cancer has a greater number of treatment options, or differing views about hope. Nevertheless, cancer patients may be less adequately prepared for end-of-life decision-making. (shrink)

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

The focus of this study was to analyze the content, distribution, and comparative genome relationships of 996 chromosome bin-mapped expressed sequence tags accounting for 2266 restriction fragments on the homoeologous group 3 chromosomes of hexaploid wheat. Of these loci, 634, 884, and 748 were mapped on chromosomes 3A, 3B, and 3D, respectively. The individual chromosome bin maps revealed bins with a high density of mapped ESTs in the distal region and bins of low density in the proximal region of the (...) chromosome arms, with the exception of 3DS and 3DL. These distributions were more localized on the higher-resolution group 3 consensus map with intermediate regions of high-mapped-EST density on both chromosome arms. Gene ontology classification of mapped ESTs was not significantly different for homoeologous group 3 chromosomes compared to the other groups. A combined analysis of the individual bin maps using 537 of the mapped ESTs revealed rearrangements between the group 3 chromosomes. Approximately 232 of the consensus mapped ESTs matched sequences on rice chromosome 1 and revealed large- and small-scale differences in gene order. Of the group 3 mapped EST unigenes ∼21 and 32% matched the Arabidopsis coding regions and proteins, respectively, but no chromosome-level gene order conservation was detected. (shrink)

To localize wheat ESTs on chromosomes, 882 homoeologous group 6-specific ESTs were identified by physically mapping 7965 singletons from 37 cDNA libraries on 146 chromosome, arm, and sub-arm aneuploid and deletion stocks. The 882 ESTs were physically mapped to 25 regions flanked by 23 deletion breakpoints. Of the 5154 restriction fragments detected by 882 ESTs, 2043 were localized to group 6 chromosomes and 806 were mapped on other chromosome groups. The number of loci mapped was greatest on chromosome 6B and (...) least on 6D. The 264 ESTs that detected orthologous loci on all three homoeologs using one restriction enzyme were used to construct a consensus physical map. The physical distribution of ESTs was uneven on chromosomes with a tendency toward higher densities in the distal halves of chromosome arms. About 43% of the wheat group 6 ESTs identified rice homologs upon comparisons of genome sequences. Fifty-eight percent of these ESTs were present on rice chromosome 2 and the remaining were on other rice chromosomes. Even within the group 6 bins, rice chromosomal blocks identified by 1-6 wheat ESTs were homologous to up to 11 rice chromosomes. These rice-block contigs were used to resolve the order of wheat ESTs within each bin. (shrink)