We study some properties of the quotient forcing notions \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${Q_{tr(I)} = \wp(2^{< \omega})/tr(i)}$$\end{document} and PI = B(2ω)/I in two special cases: when I is the σ-ideal of meager sets or the σ-ideal of null sets on 2ω. We show that the remainder forcing RI = Qtr(I)/PI is σ-closed in these cases. We also study the cardinal invariant of the continuum \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathfrak{h}_{\mathbb{Q}}}$$\end{document}, the distributivity (...) number of the quotient \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${Dense(\mathbb{Q})/nwd}$$\end{document}, in order to show that \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\wp(\mathbb{Q})/nwd}$$\end{document} collapses \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathfrak{c}}$$\end{document} to \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathfrak{h}_{\mathbb{Q}}}$$\end{document}, thus answering a question addressed in Balcar et al. (Fundamenta Mathematicae 183:59–80, 2004). (shrink)

This study examines corporate publications of U.K. firms to investigate the nature of corporate social responsibility disclosure. Using a stakeholder approach to corporate social responsibility, our results suggest a hierarchical model of disclosure: from general rhetoric to specific endeavors to implementation and monitoring. Industry differences in attention to specific stakeholder groups are noted. These differences suggest the need to understand the effects on social responsibility disclosure of factors in a firm's immediate operating environment, such as the extent of government regulation (...) and level of competitiveness in the industry. (shrink)

This paper compares the results of large-scale U.S. and U.K. surveys designed to identify managers' major ethical concerns and to investigate how firms are formulating and communicating ethics policies responsive to these concerns.Our findings indicate some important differences between U.S. and U.K. firms in perceptions of what are important ethical issues, in the means used to communicate ethics policies, and in the issues addressed in ethics policies and employee training. U.K. companies tend to be more likely to communicate ethics policies (...) through senior executives, whereas U.S. companies tend to rely more on their Human Resources and Legal Departments. U.S. firms consider most ethical issues to be more important than do their U.K. counterparts, and are especially concerned with employee behavior which may harm the firm. In contrast, the issues which U.K. managers consider more important tend to be concerned with external corporate stakeholders rather than employees. (shrink)

Abstract:The randomized response technique (RRT) is used to study the deceptive behavior of purchasing agents. We test the proposition that purchasing agents’ perceptions of organizational expectations influence their behavior. Results indicate that perceived pressure to perform and ethical ambiguity on the part of the firm are correlated with purchasing agents’ unethical behavior, in the form of acknowledged deception of suppliers.

The U.S. and U.K. models of corporate social responsibility (CSR) are relatively well defined. As the phenomenon of CSR establishes itself more globally, the question arises as to the nature of CSR in other countries. Is a universal model of CSR applicable across countries or is CSR specific to country context? This article uses integrative social contracts theory (ISCT) and four institutional factors – firm ownership structure, corporate governance, openness of the economy to international investment, and the role of civil (...) society – to examine CSR in Singapore, Turkey, and Ethiopia. Field research results illustrate variation across the institutional factors and suggest that CSR is responsive to country differences. Research findings have implications for consideration of the tradeoff between global and local CSR priorities and practices. (shrink)

This paper considers future directions of empirical research in business ethics and presents a series of recommendations. Greater emphasis should be placed on the normative basis of empirical studies, behavior (rather than attitudes) should be established as the key dependent variable, theoretical models of ethical decision making should be tested, and empirical studies need to focus on theory-building. Extensions of methodology and the unit of analysis are proposed together with recommendations concerning the need for replication and validity, and building links (...) to managerial and public policy applications. (shrink)

A recurring complaint in the highly polemical chronicles of the medieval Veneto is that elite families misused marital alliances as instruments of political violence. This concern appears, in particular, in the Cronica in factis et circa facta Marchie Trivixane , by Rolandino da Padova , the most rhetorically coherent and thorough medieval history of the region. Rolandino's interest in abuses of the betrothal system is evident in his account of the serial marriages of Cunizza da Romano. Over fifty years before (...) Cunizza's posthumous celebration in Dante's Divine Comedy, Rolandino's discussion of her amours forms part of a long denunciation of her brother, Ezzelino III da Romano . Cunizza's brother was an imperial vicar who, at the height of his power, controlled the entire mainland of the Veneto, called the Marca Trevigiana in the Middle Ages. The powerful Ezzelino is implied in the chronicle to have manipulated Cunizza's marital alliances, and the suggestion is that the resulting strategic connections enabled him to foment war and injustice. This tale is but one of many in which the chroniclers of the region condemn elite marital practices deemed transgressive in terms of political oppression. The main purpose of this article is to chart the chroniclers' accusations that link misconduct in marriage agreements to violence in factional politics and abuse of power. I contend that the chronicles of the medieval Veneto represent tyranny in terms of the manipulation of marital alliances. (shrink)

In response to my book's finding that there is a tradeoff between two apparently desirable traits—a propensity to participate in politics, on the one hand, and to expose oneself to disagreeable political ideas, on the other—symposium participants suggest a number of reasons why this tradeoff should not trouble participatory democratic theorists. One argument is that electoral advocacy (the type of participation I measure) is not an important form of participation anyway, so we are better off without it. However, those people (...) who do not vote also tend not to participate in politics in other ways, so electoral advocacy is the lowest possible bar for defining participation. Partisans are also more likely to be well informed and to offer coherent reasons for their political preferences. A second argument suggests that deliberative theorists have somewhat contradictory views of social influence, encouraging it in the context of deliberative encounters but perceiving it as pernicious when members of political parties influence their members. A third response is to posit a division of labor between closed-minded partisan advocates and open-minded people who are exposed to cross-cutting debate. However, it is difficult to see how the benefits of cross-cutting exposure will be conveyed to the advocates who participate in meaningful ways. (shrink)

Hastings Center Report, Volume 52, Issue 2, Page 32-40, March‐April 2022.

Vallier’s analysis of the empirical literature on social trust and political polarization is an admirable attempt to integrate empirical findings into political philosophy. Nonetheless, it may not go far enough toward explicating what is and what is not the problem. The popular understanding of increasing political polarization does not distinguish adequately between various meanings of this claim, distinctions that might have helped to advance Vallier’s theory. In this brief essay I outline two areas that could be usefully incorporated into his (...) arguments. (shrink)

Abstract:Our research investigated pricing policies of fast-food restaurants in predominantly black neighborhoods. We argue that the lack of monitoring of franchisees’ pricing policies leads to higher prices. Results indicate that franchisees are significantly more likely than company-owned outlets to charge higher prices based on the proportion of blacks in a neighborhood. These price differences do not appear to be explained away by cost or competition factors. Our findings do not establish an intent to discriminate; nevertheless, we discuss the fairness of (...) the pricing structure found. (shrink)

Efforts to institutionalize ethics in corporations have been discussed without first addressing the desirability of norm conformity or the possibility that the means used to elicit conformity will be coercive. This article presents a theoretical context, grounded in models of social control, within which ethics initiatives may be evaluated. Ethics initiatives are discussed in relation to variables that already exert control in the workplace, such as environmental controls, organizational controls, and personal controls.

A project on teaching business ethics at The Wharton School concluded that ethics should be directly incorporated into key MBA courses and taught by the core business faculty. The project team, comprised of students, ethics faculty and functional business faculty, designed a model program for integrating ethics. The project was funded by the Exxon Education Foundation.The program originates with a general introduction designed to familiarize students with literature and concepts pertaining to professional and business ethics and corporate social responsibility. This (...) may be accomplished through orientation sessions, readings, packages, short classes and lectures. (shrink)

Abstract:This study tests the usefulness of a person-situation interactionist framework in examining the willingness of a salesperson to lie to get an order. Using a survey of 389 salespersons, our results demonstrate that organizational relationships influence willingness to lie. Specifically, salespersons are less willing to lie to their own company than to their customer, than to a channel partner, and finally, than to a competitor firm. Furthermore, respondents from firms with a clear and positive ethical climate are less willing to (...) lie. Finally, our study finds that interactions between personality factors, such as high Machiavellianism and high self-monitoring, and situational factors have an impact on willingness to lie. Our results suggest that firms can take steps to influence employee ethical behavior. (shrink)

BackgroundAn editorial expression of concern (EEoC) is issued by editors or publishers to draw attention to potential problems in a publication, without itself constituting a retraction or correction.MethodsWe searched PubMed, PubMed Central (PMC), and Google Scholar to identify EEoCs issued for publications in PubMed and PMC up to 22 August 2016. We also searched the archives of the Retraction Watch blog, some journal and publisher websites, and studies of EEoCs. In addition, we searched for retractions of EEoCs and affected articles (...) in PubMed up to 8 December 2016. We analyzed overall historical trends, as well as reported reasons and subsequent editorial actions related to EEoCs issued between August 2014 and August 2016.ResultsAfter screening 5076 records, we identified 230 EEoCs that affect 300 publications indexed in PubMed, the earliest issued in 1985. Half of the primary EEoCs were issued between 2014 and 2016 (52%). We found evidence of some EEoCs that had been removed by the publisher without leaving a record, and some were not submitted for PubMed or PMC indexing. A minority of publications affected by EEoCs had been retracted by early December 2016 (25%). For the subset of 92 EEoCs issued between August 2014 and August 2016, affecting 99 publications, the rate of retraction was similar (29%). The majority of EEoCs were issued because of concerns with validity of data, methods, or interpretation of the publication (68%), and 31% of cases remained open. Issues with images were raised in 40% of affected publications. Ongoing monitoring after the study identified another 17 EEoCs to year’s end in 2016, increasing the number of EEoCs to 247 and publications in PubMed known to be affected by EEoCs to 320 at the end of 2016.ConclusionsEEoCs have been rare publishing events in the biomedical literature, but their use has been increasing. Most have not led to retractions, and many remain unresolved. Lack of prominence and inconsistencies in management of EEoCs reduce the ability of these notices to alert the scientific community to potentially serious problems in publications. EEoCs will be made identifiable in PubMed in 2017. (shrink)

We explore two dimensions of situational factors expected to influence decision-making about ethical issues among sales representatives – universal vs. particular and direct vs. indirect. We argue that these distinctions are important theoretically, methodologically, and managerially. We test our hypotheses by means of a survey of 252 sales representatives. Our results confirm that considering universal and particular and direct and indirect situational factors contributes to our understanding of decision-making about ethical issues within a sales context, specifically willingness to engage in (...) an unethical act. We also find that personal factors act independently and interact with situational factors in decision-making about ethical issues. Both demographic factors, age and gender, and personality factors, Machiavellianism and self-monitoring, have main effects on decision-making, and some of these factors interact with situational factors to affect decision-making. For example, age of the decision-maker (younger) and size of commission (larger) interact such that the likelihood of choosing an unethical alternative is greater. (shrink)

Membership in voluntary organizations is associated with individual and social benefits. Due to the negative consequences of the global pandemic on older people, and the governmental challenges posed by population aging, voluntary membership is of great importance to society. To effectively promote volunteering among older people, it is necessary to understand the determinants of voluntary membership. This study analyses the influence of individual values—secular/traditional and survival/self-expression–on voluntary membership among European adults. Specifically, it examines which values orient two age groups, as (...) well as men and women toward a certain type of association. The sample of 31,985 comprises 60% of adults aged 50–64 and 40% aged 65–79; of which 56% are women and 44% men. The empirical estimation considers different levels of data aggregation: individual, national and welfare system, therefore multilevel analysis is used as an analytical strategy. Individual-level variables from the Integrated Values Survey and national-level variables from the World Bank and Eurostat are used. The results indicate that traditional and self-expression values promote membership in voluntary organizations in general more than secular and survival values. However, there are differences according to the type of organization. Furthermore, values are found to moderate the effect of age and gender on voluntary membership. (shrink)

La Corporación Universitaria Minuto de Dios, en su misión de aportar a la transformación de las realidades sociales, plantea en su enfoque educativo la estrategia que procura articular la teoría con la práctica —praxeología—. Por ello, la investigación formativa es un planteamiento que viabiliza que tanto estudiantes y docentes vivan y sientan realmente el conocimiento y que, a su vez, articulen e incidan en las comunidades. A este respecto, presentaremos una experiencia que da cuenta del enfoque praxeológico. La intención de (...) Uniminuto es, entonces, que el conocimiento transforme y genere reflexiones y acciones de cara a las necesidades de los contextos. La universidad de hoy no puede ni debe sustraerse a una mirada sobre el territorio, sus problemáticas y potencialidades, por tanto, estudiantes y docentes deben constituirse en conectores de espacios académicos con la realidad social. (shrink)

We study two ideals which are naturally associated to independent families. The first of them, denoted \, is characterized by a diagonalization property which allows along a cofinal sequence of stages along a finite support iteration to adjoin a maximal independent family. The second ideal, denoted \\), originates in Shelah’s proof of \ in Shelah, 433–443, 1992). We show that for every independent family \, \\subseteq \mathcal {J}_\mathcal {A}\) and define a class of maximal independent families, to which we refer (...) as densely maximal, for which the two ideals coincide. Building upon the techniques of Shelah we characterize Sacks indestructibility for such families in terms of properties of \\) and devise a countably closed poset which adjoins a Sacks indestructible densely maximal independent family. (shrink)

We study higher analogues of the classical independence number on $\omega $. For $\kappa $ regular uncountable, we denote by $i(\kappa )$ the minimal size of a maximal $\kappa $ -independent family. We establish ZFC relations between $i(\kappa )$ and the standard higher analogues of some of the classical cardinal characteristics, e.g., $\mathfrak {r}(\kappa )\leq \mathfrak {i}(\kappa )$ and $\mathfrak {d}(\kappa )\leq \mathfrak {i}(\kappa )$. For $\kappa $ measurable, assuming that $2^{\kappa }=\kappa ^{+}$ we construct a maximal $\kappa $ -independent (...) family which remains maximal after the $\kappa $ -support product of $\lambda $ many copies of $\kappa $ -Sacks forcing. Thus, we show the consistency of $\kappa ^{+}=\mathfrak {d}(\kappa )=\mathfrak {i}(\kappa )<2^{\kappa }$. We conclude the paper with interesting open questions and discuss difficulties regarding other natural approaches to higher independence. (shrink)

An action research project was carried out, using theater workshops and basic digital fabrication technology workshops to improve social skills—such as the expression of emotions, communication, self-control, and teamwork—in a group of 10 young individuals with autism spectrum disorder. This article focuses on the digital fabrication workshops, where participants worked on the fundamentals of electronics and programming, as well as 3D design and printing, to make props that were later used on stage in the theatrical performances in which they participated. (...) These workshops were systematized through observation guides. According to the results, it was evident that the participants not only enjoyed and gained technological knowledge, but that their social skill development needs were addressed. Professionals from the Special Education Faculty and the Fab Lab Kä Träre, both from Universidad Estatal a Distancia in Costa Rica, were in charge of the study during its first phase, executed in 2016 and 2017. (shrink)

Although the Neo-Darwin Theory of Evolution is one of the most celebrated theories in science, nonetheless it has received many criticisms. These criticisms are documented and a new transdisciplinary theory of origin is introduced. Darwin's original argument was that natural selection, through heritable changes, changed simple organisms over time. These heritable changes are responsible for the complex plethora of life seen around us today. Darwin's original theory, however, was deconstructed after the fact into a mutation-based theory. This mutation-based theory in (...) its current form is an insufficient and indeed unnecessary transdisciplinary explanation. A subsequent statistical comparison between the six extant scientifically based primary theories of origin was undertaken and based on current biological knowledge a statistically significantly best fit phenotypic model emerged. (shrink)

This multi-methodological study applied functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate neural activation in a group of adolescent students ( N = 88) during a probabilistic reinforcement learning task. We related patterns of emerging brain activity and individual learning rates to socio-motivational (in-)dependence manifested in four different motivation types (MTs): (1) peer-dependent MT, (2) teacher-dependent MT, (3) peer-and-teacher-dependent MT, (4) peer-and-teacher-independent MT. A multinomial regression analysis revealed that the individual learning rate predicts students’ membership to the independent MT, or the peer-and-teacher-dependent (...) MT. Additionally, the striatum, a brain region associated with behavioral adaptation and flexibility, showed increased learning-related activation in students with motivational independence. Moreover, the prefrontal cortex, which is involved in behavioral control, was more active in students of the peer-and-teacher-dependent MT. Overall, this study offers new insights into the interplay of motivation and learning with (1) a focus on inter-individual differences in the role of peers and teachers as source of students’ individual motivation and (2) its potential neurobiological basis. (shrink)

In his highly engaging The Books that Made the European Enlightenment, Gary Kates sets out to write a new social history of the books that ‘made’ the Enlightenment. An introductory chapter sets the...

In his highly engaging The Books that Made the European Enlightenment, Gary Kates sets out to write a new social history of the books that ‘made’ the Enlightenment. An introductory chapter sets the...

Interferons (IFNs) are a diverse group of cytokines whose potent antitumor effects have piqued the interest of scientists for decades. Some of the most sustained clinical accomplishments have been in the field of myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs). Here, we discuss how both historical and novel breakthroughs in our understanding of IFN function may lead to more effective therapies for MPNs. The particular relevance and importance of modulating the novel IFN‐regulated ULK1 pathway to optimize IFN responses is highlighted.

This book updates and adds to the classic Social Movements of the Sixties and Seventies, showing how social movement theory has grown and changed.

Scholars are increasingly calling for the environmental issues of the industrial agricultural system to be addressed via eventual agroecological system-level transformation. It is critical to identify the barriers to this transition. Drawing from Henke’s theory of “repair,” we explore how farmers participate in the reproduction of the industrial system through “discursive repair,” or arguing for the continuation of the industrial agriculture system. Our empirical case relates to water pollution from nitrogen fertilizer and draws data from a sample of over 150 (...) interviews with row-crop farmers in the midwestern United States. We find that farmers defend this system by denying agriculture’s causal role and proposing the potential for within-system solutions. They perform these defenses by drawing on ideological positions and may be ultimately led to seek system maintenance because they are unable to envision an alternative to the industrial agriculture system. (shrink)