Sustainable development (SD) – that is, “Development that meets the needs of current generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs and aspirations” – can be pursued in many different ways. Stakeholder relations management (SRM) is one such way, through which corporations are confronted with economic, social, and environmental stakeholder claims. This paper lays the groundwork for an empirical analysis of the question of how far SD can be achieved through SRM. It describes the so-called SD–SRM (...) perspective as a distinctive research approach and shows how it relates to the wider body of stakeholder theory. Next, the concept of SD is operationalized for the microeconomic level with reference to important documents. Based on the ensuing SD framework, it is shown how SD and SRM relate to each other, and how the two concepts relate to other popular concepts such as Corporate Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility. The paper concludes that the significance of societal guiding models such as SD and of management approaches like CSR is strongly dependent on their footing in society. (shrink)

Based on a theoretical exploration in a previous article, this paper empirically analyzes which issues of SD are taken into account by corporations and stakeholders in what way, and to what extent the concept of sustainable development (SD) can be achieved through stakeholder relations management (SRM) on the corporate level. An important basis for this empirical analysis is a referential framework, which specifies 14 issues of SD. In a first empirical step, the literature-based framework has been operationalized for the business (...) world by analyzing sustainability reports. In a second empirical step, the operationalized framework served as the basis for a survey of selected MNCs. The analyses of the sustainability reports and the survey show how MNCs deal with particular issues of SD and what role they perceive particular stakeholders play. A key conclusion of the article is that SRM indeed promotes SD, but that it is no alternative to predictable government regulation. (shrink)

Sleep spindles are frequently studied for their relationship with state and trait cognitive variables, and they are thought to play an important role in sleep-related memory consolidation. Due to their frequent occurrence in NREM sleep, the detection of sleep spindles is only feasible using automatic algorithms, of which a large number is available. We compared subject averages of the spindle parameters computed by a fixed frequency (11-13 Hz for slow spindles, 13-15 Hz for fast spindles) automatic detection algorithm and the (...) individual adjustment method (IAM), which uses individual frequency bands for sleep spindle detection. Fast spindle duration and amplitude are strongly correlated in the two algorithms, but there is little overlap in fast spindle density and slow spindle parameters in general. The agreement between fixed and manually determined sleep spindle frequencies is limited, especially in case of slow spindles. This is the most likely reason for the poor agreement between the two detection methods in case of slow spindle parameters. Our results suggest that while various algorithms may reliably detect fast spindles, a more sophisticated algorithm primed to individual spindle frequencies is necessary for the detection of slow spindles as well as individual variations in the number of spindles in general. (shrink)

Originally published in Common Knowledge 11, no. 2 (Fall 2005), this essay is reprinted in 2022 as the prelude to the first installment of a project titled “Antipolitics” and dedicated to the author's memory. “To really know” what a writer “is like,” Konrád writes here, “he would have to look back on his biography from after death” — and in this piece he hauntingly does so. Explaining that he composed his first autobiography upon being expelled from university in Hungary after (...) Stalin's death in 1953, he defines the process as “the main event in the ritual of political detention.” In an overview of the writer's life, he describes any act of writing as like scratching one's initials “into the brick of a prison wall” in an effort “to avoid dying completely.” The editors of Common Knowledge, of whose editorial board Konrád was a founding member, chose to reprint this statement at the head of a symposium whose purpose is, in no small part, to help secure his posthumous existence. (shrink)

Moral Sanctuary is used in this paper as a metaphor for any theory which makes actions immune from moral criticism. Three arguments favoring moral sanctuaries for business activities are countered. Two of the arguments rest on faulty analogies. One compares business activities to games, another to the behavior of machines. The third rests on the claim that business is a unique activity. This position is rejected by a reductio ad absurdum argument; it entails the immunity of all professional activities from (...) moral judgment. I argue that business managers are accountable to the combined requirements of professionalism and democratic citizenship, notions which are briefly described at the conclusion of the paper. (shrink)

Quantum mechanics is a theory whose foundations spark controversy to this day. Although many attempts to explain the underpinnings of the theory have been made, none has been unanimously accepted as satisfactory. Fuchs has recently claimed that the foundational issues can be resolved by interpreting quantum mechanics in the light of quantum information. The view proposed is that quantum mechanics should be interpreted along the lines of the subjective Bayesian approach to probability theory. The quantum state is not the physical (...) state of a microscopic object. It is an epistemic state of an observer; it represents subjective degrees of belief about outcomes of measurements. The interpretation gives an elegant solution to the infamous measurement problem: measurement is nothing but Bayesian belief updating in a analogy to belief updating in a classical setting. In this paper, we analyze an argument that Fuchs gives in support of this latter claim. We suggest that the argument is not convincing since it rests on an ad hoc construction. We close with some remarks on the options left for Fuchs' quantum Bayesian project. (shrink)

Expectations in the form of promises and concerns contribute to the sense-making and valuation of emerging nanotechnologies. They add up to what we call ‘de facto assessments’ of novel socio-technical options. We explore how de facto assessments of nanotechnologies differ in the application domains of water and food by examining promises and concerns, and their relations in scientific discourse. We suggest that domain characteristics such as prior experiences with emerging technologies, specific discursive repertoires and user-producer relationships, play a key role (...) in framing expectations of nanotechnology-enabled options. The article concludes by suggesting that domain-specific discourses may lead to undesirable lock-ins into specific de facto assessments pre-structuring anticipatory strategies of actors. (shrink)

BackgroundCentral to ethically justified clinical trial design is the need for an informed consent process responsive to how potential subjects actually comprehend study participation, especially study goals, risks, and potential benefits. This will be particularly challenging when studying deep brain stimulation and whether it impedes symptom progression in Parkinson’s disease, since potential subjects will be Parkinson’s patients for whom deep brain stimulation will likely have therapeutic value in the future as their disease progresses.MethodAs part of an expanded informed consent process (...) for a pilot Phase I study of deep brain stimulation in early stage Parkinson’s disease, an ethics questionnaire composed of 13 open-ended questions was distributed to potential subjects. The questionnaire was designed to guide potential subjects in thinking about their potential participation.ResultsWhile the purpose of the study (safety and tolerability) was extensively presented during the informed consent process, in returned responses 70 percent focused on effectiveness and 91 percent included personal benefit as potential benefit from enrolling. However, 91 percent also indicated helping other Parkinson’s patients as motivation when considering whether or not to enroll.ConclusionsThis combination of responses highlights two issues to which investigators need to pay close attention in future trial designs: (1) how, and in what ways, informed consent processes reinforce potential subjects’ preconceived understandings of benefit, and (2) that potential subjects see themselves as part of a community of Parkinson’s sufferers with responsibilities extending beyond self-interest. More importantly, it invites speculation that a different paradigm for informed consent may be needed. (shrink)

The book addresses the questions how literature can convey knowledge and how literary meaning can arise in the face of the fact that fictional texts waive the usual claim to truth. Based on the interdisciplinary cooperation of literary scholars and analytic philosophers, the present anthology attempts a) to analyze the possibility and conditions of gaining knowledge through literature, and b) to apply, in a fruitful way, philosophical theories of meaning and interpretation to the constitution of meaning within the language of (...) literature. The project is guided by the hypothesis that the cognitive function of literature cannot be understood without such fundamental modelings of the complex interaction of meaning, truth and knowledge. (shrink)

The Battle of Drepana in 249 b.c. marks the most significant defeat of Roman naval forces at the hands of their Carthaginian opponents during the First Punic War. Attempting to take the Punic fleet in the harbour of Drepana by surprise, the consul P. Claudius Pulcher sailed with his ships from Lilybaeum about midnight, and reached Drepana at dawn. Yet, owing to swift and level-headed counter-measures taken by the Punic commander, Adherbal, the unfolding fight – partly in the harbour, mostly (...) off the shore – turned into a fiasco for the Romans. The consul got away; he returned to Rome, where the Senate instructed him to appoint a dictator. How soon he returned, and by what route, is the question. (shrink)

Curio’s six lictors with laureled fasces (Cic. Att. 10.4.9) are best explained by his holding command in 49 BC not as Caesar’s legatus, but pro praetore with imperium nominally in his own right, granted (‘extra-constitutionally’) by Caesar directly, without vote of Senate and People.

Recently in this journal, R. Shaw-Smith suggested reading ‘citra Kal. Ian.’: ‘circa, implying that the consul died either before or after 1st January, will not do.’ Will the example of citra at Aug. 43.4, adduced by Shaw-Smith ] in support of the meaning ‘ before’?

Der Band vereint aktuelle Beiträge zu den Themenschwerpunkten Fiktion, Wahrheit und Interpretation im Hinblick auf fiktionale literarische Texte. Im Einzelnen werden Fragen wie die folgenden diskutiert: In welchem Verhältnis stehen Literatur und Wahrheit? Welche Rolle spielen Intentionen für die Interpretation? Sind fiktionale Texte ausschließlich fiktional? Lässt sich die Sprechakttheorie für die Beschreibung der in fiktionalen literarischen Texten enthaltenen Sätze fruchtbar machen? Warum nehmen wir Anteil an fiktionaler Literatur, obwohl wir wissen, dass die beschriebenen Personen und Ereignisse nicht real sind? Die (...) Beiträger nehmen diese Problemfelder aus einer interdisziplinären Warte zwischen Literaturtheorie und analytischer Philosophie in den Blick. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Der Islam Jahrgang: 93 Heft: 2 Seiten: 589-592.

It is generally believed that Polybios mistook L. Iunius Pullus (cos. 249) for one of the consuls of 248 B. C. The internal evidence of Polybios’ narrative shows clearly that he knew the correct year of Iunius’ consulship, and inadvertently created a false impression of the date by structuring his account so as to tell the story of the Roman siege of Lilybaeum without interruption, from its inception in 250 to Claudius Pulcher’s defeat at Drepana in the following year. This (...) narrative objective led him to postpone the paragraph (1.52.4-5) detailing the Roman reaction to the disastrous siege operations of 250 and the consular elections for 249 until after his account of Drepana, without considering how such an arrangement could mislead readers two millenia hence. (shrink)

It is argued that (1) the alleged violation of the auspices by both the Consuls of 249 B. C. did in fact occur and (2) resulted in separate prosecutions directed at each of them; (3) the name ‘Pullius’, reported for one of the plebeian Tribunes that prosecuted P. Claudius Pulcher, is probably authentic; (4) the cognomen of L. Iunius Pullus is not spun out the violation of the auspices attributed to him and his colleague; and (5) the cognomen ‘Pulcher’, first (...) born by the Consul of 249, may actually derive from his drowning of the Chickens. (shrink)

National and international research cultures for the innovation of new medicines involve various value claims about the ethics of the placebo entity as differentiating comparator. Yet, in turn, the instantiation of the placebo comparator as cultural artefact for the creation and identification of the ‘control group’ depends also upon prior social understandings of ‘comparability’. Reading back the ethics controversies surrounding the Risperidone psychiatry trials in India, the paper illustrates why drug efficacies need to be studied not only through comparative techniques (...) such as randomised controlled trials, but also through analytical modes of inquiry that can begin to place the problem of efficacy within particular social and cultural contexts, as well as across disciplines. It is suggested that future bioethics debates could benefit from a revised conception of the interdisciplinary placebo — one that is rooted in ‘placebo politics’ and that listens responsively to the voices of the global South. (shrink)

Studies have demonstrated that parents often exhibit a still face while silently reading their cell phones when responding to texts. Such disruptions to parent-child interactions have been observed during parental media use such as texting and these disruptions have been termed technoference. In the present study, we explored changes to mother-child interactions that occur before, during and after interruptions due to texting using an adapted naturalistic still face paradigm. Specifically, we examined the effect of an interruption due to either maternal (...) smartphone use or use of an analog medium on maternal interaction quality with their 20- to 22-month-old children. Mother-child interactions during free play were interrupted for 2 min by asking the mothers to fill out a questionnaire either by typing on the smartphone or on paper with a pen. Interactional quality was compared between free-play and interruption phases and to a no-interruption control group. Mixed ANOVA across phase and condition indicated that maternal responsiveness and pedagogical behavior decreased during the interruption phase for both the interruption groups but not for the no-interruption group. Children also increased their positive bids for attention during the paper-and-pencil and the smartphone conditions relative to the no-interruption control. These findings are consistent with a large body of research on the still-face paradigm and with a recent study demonstrating that smartphone interruptions decreased parenting quality. The present study, however, connects these lines of research showing the many everyday disruptions to parent-child interactions are likely to decrease parenting quality and that toddlers are likely to detect and attempt to repair such interruptions. (shrink)

In this autobiographical essay, written in 2018 and previously unpublished, the late György Konrád intertwines his memories as a child during World War II with more theoretical reflections (and unanswered questions) on the war, its repercussions, its lessons. Written in Hungarian not long before his death in 2019, Konrád goes back in this essay to the period following the arrest of his parents after the German invasion of Hungary. Aged eleven, he was able to escape the small town where he (...) was born—and hence the fate of its entire Jewish community. “The others had been turned to ash,” in Konrád's chilling words. Seventy years later, he proceeds from these events to reflect on guilt and contrition, on sympathy and empathetic suffering, on how friends can become enemies during war, as well as on the Jewish heritage underlying Christian culture. (shrink)

Contrary to the widely held view that the Roman-Carthaginian naval encounter Polybios reports at 1.21.9-11 was separate from the one off Mylae (260 BC) told at length right afterwards (1.23), the battle at the ‘Cape of Italy’ is in fact - as suspected by some scholars long ago - identical with the one at Mylae. However, far from mistaking (as has been suggested) Philinos’ account of the latter for a separate engagement, Polybios knowingly and deliberately told the battle of Mylae (...) twice: first in a brief summary, stripped of all detail, to illustrate how the Roman commander Cn. Scipio Asina (cos. 260) and his Punic counterpart, Hannibal, were both guilty of equally inappropriate acts of recklessness; then for a second time in detail and in its proper chronological place. Compositional considerations prompted this approach: to wait with the moralizing parallel until after his full account of Mylae (preceded in turn by the long technical disquisition on the Roman boarding bridges) would spoil the effect, and Polybios chose to place it immediately after Asina’s capture. (shrink)