Ten years after the enactment of the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act, competition in biologics markets remains scant and far from sufficient for lowering prices of biologics to the level of 80-90% price drops seen in generic drug markets. This reality is not a result of one or two cardinal reasons, but many. If lowering the price of biologics is the goal and competition is the means by which we seek to achieve that goal, then there does not seem (...) to be a quick fix to address all of the many impediments to competition that plague biologics markets. Yet, certain changes to how the Food and Drug Administration evaluates and approves biologics may go a long way toward the creation of meaningful competition in biologics markets. One such change would be making original biologics' manufacturing information available to follow-on manufacturers.As recognized by several commentators, access to biologics manufacturing information is key to increasing competition in biologics markets. Without access to such information, making follow-on biologics is difficult and expensive, if not outright impossible. This is expected to be especially true for the highly anticipated class of interchangeable biologics, none of which has been approved by the FDA to date. Yet, it has long been the position of the brand-name pharmaceutical industry that biologics manufacturing information is proprietary and, thus, may not be shared. Congress has subscribed to the Industry's position, prohibiting the FDA from disclosing regulatory filings submitted by developers of original biologics, including manufacturing information, to third parties. That prohibition not only undermines competition in biologics markets, but is also wasteful, potentially unethical, and poses unnecessary risks to the health and safety of patients.This article makes the case for FDA sharing of original biologics manufacturing information with follow-on biologics developers. It is informed by the similar legal and commercial circumstances in the area of pesticides and the regulatory regime established by Congress in the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act, which is administered by the Environmental Protection Agency. The article reviews the FIFRA regime, including its upholding as constitutional by the United States Supreme Court, and then examines its applicability to the area of biologics. The article concludes with a proposal for a similar regime to be incorporated into the pathway for approval of follow-on biologics as a means of increasing competition in biologics markets. (shrink)

Brand names constitute a form of value for commercial products, because they suppose a savings of search costs for the consumer. The law, as a consequence, has the obligation to protect brand names. But the number of attractive brand names is not infinite and sometimes companies seek brand names which are reminiscent of others. In this article a conflict between two companies for the distinctiveness of two brand names is addressed: one Spanish company used the (...) English common noun doughnut for a product similar to the American pastry, while the other company had already registered donut as a brand name, in addition to its variants. This second company sued the first on the grounds that the names were not distinctive. Here we offer the arguments presented to the judge in defense of the distinctiveness of doughnut and the judgment. (shrink)

Brand names are endowed with personalities that appeal to consumers, and such personalities are often adjusted in translation. This research aims to explore the transference of brand personality dimensions in the Chinese-English translation of men’s clothing brands, which embody consumers’ values and self-perceptions as well as social cultural meanings, in the hope of revealing male consumers’ psychological characteristics and providing a reference for translators. This investigation studies the brand personality frameworks for English and Chinese consumers, analyzes a (...) corpus of 477 Chinese-English men’s clothing brands, summarizes the major personality dimensions for men’s clothing brands, and explores how they are transferred in translation. As brand personalities reflect target consumers’ psychology to a certain extent, exploring the transference of brand personality dimensions in the Chinese-English translation of men’s clothing brands can reveal the differences between Chinese and English male consumers’ values and mentality, which can serve as a reference for translators and international businesses. (shrink)

British art historian Charles Harrison presumes the existence of a patriarchal world with power in the hands of men who dominate the representation of women and femininity. He applauds the ground-breaking work of feminist theorists who have questioned this imbalance of power since the 1970s. He stops short, however, of accepting their claims that all women have been represented by male artists as images of “utter passivity” (p. 4), routinely reduced by the male gaze to the status of exploited sexual (...) objects, or that women’s subjectivity is eroded by the visual treatment they receive at the hands of male artists such as Manet and Picasso. He wants to show that what is depicted in the picture plane by the (typically male) artist and enjoyed by the (typically male) spectator is more nuanced than just a simple privileged understanding between two men. He adds a third (and possibly fourth or more) party to the mix when he significantly redefines and expands our concept of the gaze: “A gaze may also be conceived of as a function of a painting’s represented content” (p. 9). In other words, a gaze may be “addressed outward by a represented figure,” and regardless of who and where, “the assumption conveyed by the term [‘gaze’] is that some differential and usually asymmetrical relation will be at stake in any exchange between one who directs the gaze and another at whom it is directed. In fact, it is just this difference—in age, in sex, in class, in interest, in power —that the operation of the gaze tends to mark” (p. 9). Referring to a woman depicted within the picture plane, he asks us to consider, “What does it feel like to look like this?” (p. 21) in order to entertain our many emotional responses and interpretations. When he adds, “What does it feel like to whom?” the sexual difference of the spectator also clearly comes into play. (shrink)

This Special Issue [available free online] co-edited by Peg Brand Weiser (University of Arizona) and R. Scott Kretchmar (Pennsylvania State University) is entitled, "The Myles Brand (1942-2009) Era at the NCAA: A Tribute and Scholarly Review." The late Myles Brand was a philosopher (of action theory; social and political applied philosophy, philosophy of sport), former department chair (University of Illinois at Chicago; University of Arizona), dean (Arizona), provost (The Ohio State University), president (University of Oregon; Indiana University), (...) and fourth president of the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association). [An extensive website created in 2020 by Peg Brand Weiser of over 300 entries of his work--speeches, essays, podcasts, and videos--can be found at a website under his name.] This Special Issue includes insightful essays on the legacy of Myles Brand by authors who dig deeply into continuing controversies within higher education, intercollegiate athletics, and the values, principles, and style of Brand's leadership. They take up the gauntlet to dissect and disseminate Brand's lasting influence on the institution of the NCAA in terms of the decisions and policies enacted between 2003 and 2009 that continue to affect the well-being of today's student-athletes, the sustainability of high-cost intercollegiate competition, and now, the "threat to" or "abandonment of" (depending on your point of view) "amateur status" due to students' newfound economic agency and ability to profit from NILs (Name, Image, Likeness) monetary deals. Essays include a co-authored "Editors' Introduction;" an introductory preface by John R. Thelin ("From Chaos to Coherence: Myles Brand and the Balancing of Academics and Athletics"); a short remembrance by Josh Brand ("Myles Brand, My Father"); and essays by Peg Brand Weiser ("Life is an Adventure: From Action Theory to Action"); R. Scott Kretchmar ("President Brand's Gambit: Inviting Scholars Inside the Tent"); Walter Harrison ("Myles Brand and the Responsibility of Leadership"); Heather Reid ("Amateurism, Professionalism and the Value of College Sports"); Lou Mats ("Myles Brand: Intercollegiate Athletics Within the Limits of the Academic Mission Alone'); Welch Suggs and Jennifer Hoffman ("Myles Brand's Collegiate Model and the Post-Amateurism World of College Sports"); David K. Wiggins ("Myles Brand: A Leader Deeply Committed to Diversity, Inclusiveness, and Social Justice"); C. Keith Harrison, Bernard Franklin, and Whitney Griffin ("Myles Brand's Philosophy of the Value of Intercollegiate Athletics: A Collaborative Effort and the Perspective of Two Black Males on Educational Achievement at the NCAA"); and Rodney Fort ("Myles Brand's College Sports Sustainability: 'Amateurism,' Finances, and Institutional Balance. (shrink)

Neurosurgery is a topic that evokes many hopes and fears at the same time. One of these fears is concerned with the worry about losing one's identity. Taking this concern seriously, the article deals with the question: Can the concept of ‘personal identity’ be used successfully in normative considerations concerning neurosurgery? This question will be answered in three steps. First, a short introduction to the philosophical debate about personal identity is given. Second, a new theory of personal identity is presented. (...) This theory has two components. On the one hand, it explains the phenomenon of human existence through time. On the other hand, it demonstrates the normative concept of personal identity. The final step proves the explanatory power of the theory on the basis of a practical example, namely deep brain stimulation. It will be shown that personal identity alters quite easily, whereas human persistence is rather stable. The distinction between both concepts finally serves to develop a terminology that is able to structure normative debates very effectively. (shrink)

They have given particular attention to the argument from difference, namely that since everything is different from everything else, and the relation of difference is internal, everything is internally related to everything else. Mr. Doney replies that "difference" has two senses; it may mean either numerical or qualitative difference. And he does not think my conclusion follows on either interpretation.

In most western countries, there is a ‘human organ shortage’ with waiting lists for the performance of transplantation. In a recent report of the UNOS Ethics Committee it is stated that there are approximately 31,000 potential recipients on waiting lists, but only one fourth of potential donors gave their specific consent.Xenotransplantation – defined as the transplantation of animal cells, tissues or organs into human beings – is associated with particular ethical dilemmas, namely the problems of efficiency and safety of this (...) medical procedure. The objective of this study is to analyse the ethical dilemmas in xenotransplantation with the background of a personal view of moral life. Also, xenotransplantation will be evaluated as far as the legal regulation of transplantation is concerned. In particular, we will consider patients rights in accordance with existing laws on organ and tissue transplantation, animal research and clinical trials. (shrink)

Research on the cognitive abilities involved in decision making has shown that, under objective risk conditions (i.e., when explicit information about possible outcomes and risks is available), superior decisions are especially predicted by executive functions and exact number processing skills, also referred to as objective numeracy. So far, decision-making research has mainly focused on exact number processing skills, such as performing calculations or transformations of symbolic numbers. There is evidence that such exact numeric skills are based on approximate number processing (...) (ANP) skills, which enable quick and accurate processing of non-symbolic numbers (e.g. Chen and Li, 2014). Very few studies, however, have investigated ANP skills in the context of risky decision making and have analyzed direct associations among the aforementioned sub functions. Possible interactions between the closely related skills have not been considered. The current study (N = 128) examines interactions of ANP skills with executive functions and objective numeracy, in predicting risky choice behavior. ANP skills are represented by the accuracy in a dot-comparison task. Decision making is measured by two versions of the Game of Dice Task (GDT), which place different emphases on the reflection of potential risks. The results show two-way as well as three-way interactions between the measures of ANP skills, executive functions, and objective numeracy in predicting risky decisions in both GDT versions. The riskiest decisions were most frequently made in case of low scores in all of the three competencies, while good performance in any one of them resulted in significant reductions of disadvantageous decisions. The findings indicate that high ANP skills can positively affect choice behavior in individuals who have weaknesses in reflectively attributed skills, namely executive functions and objective numeracy. Potential compensatory effects and mechanisms of ANP in decision making are discussed. (shrink)

BackgroundDouble-blind peer review has been proposed as a possible solution to avoid implicit referee bias in academic publishing. The aims of this study are to analyse the demographics of corresponding authors choosing double-blind peer review and to identify differences in the editorial outcome of manuscripts depending on their review model.MethodsData includes 128,454 manuscripts received between March 2015 and February 2017 by 25 Nature-branded journals. We investigated the uptake of double-blind review in relation to journal tier, as well as gender, country, (...) and institutional prestige of the corresponding author. We then studied the manuscripts’ editorial outcome in relation to review model and author’s characteristics. The gender (male, female, or NA) of the corresponding authors was determined from their first name using a third-party service (Gender API). The prestige of the corresponding author’s institutions was measured from the data of the Global Research Identifier Database (GRID) by dividing institutions in three prestige groups with reference to the 2016 Times Higher Education (THE) ranking. We employed descriptive statistics for data exploration, and we tested our hypotheses using Pearson’s chi-square and binomial tests. We also performed logistic regression modelling with author update, out-to-review, and acceptance as response, and journal tier, author gender, author country, and institution as predictors.ResultsAuthor uptake for double-blind submissions was 12% (12,631 out of 106,373). We found a small but significant association between journal tier and review type (p value < 0.001, Cramer’s V = 0.054, df = 2). We had gender information for 50,533 corresponding authors and found no statistically significant difference in the distribution of peer review model between males and females (p value = 0.6179). We had 58,920 records with normalised institutions and a THE rank, and we found that corresponding authors from the less prestigious institutions are more likely to choose double-blind review (p value < 0.001, df = 2, Cramer’s V = 0.106). In the ten countries with the highest number of submissions, we found a large significant association between country and review type (p value < 0.001, df = 10, Cramer’s V = 0.189). The outcome both at first decision and post review is significantly more negative (i.e. a higher likelihood for rejection) for double-blind than single-blind papers (p value < 0.001, df = 1, Cramer’s V = 0.112 for first decision; p value < 0.001; df = 1, Cramer’s V = 0.082 for post-review decision).ConclusionsThe proportion of authors that choose double-blind review is higher when they submit to more prestigious journals, they are affiliated with less prestigious institutions, or they are from specific countries; the double-blind option is also linked to less successful editorial outcomes. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:274 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY poisoning, spying, etc., which would render postwar mutual confidence impossible, shall not be countenanced. It is mainly with an eye to these preliminary articles that Professor Wilhelm Miiller argues for Kant's relevance to contemporary political problems. Miiller begins by drawing an analogy between the Peace of Basle (1795) and the Treaty of Versailles: in both instances, it is claimed, secret reservations at the treaty table, (...) the identification of defeated nation with "guilty" nation, and the deprivation of an entire "guiltless" people of "the most primitive right to live" helped lay the foundations for future wars. Miiller sees in the willful dispersion, through motives of revenge and greed, of the possessions of conquered nations after both World Wars a "reversion to the wildest barbarism." He defends Kant's stricture against standing armies as being "simply and logically irrefutable" in spite of Kant's toleration--understandable in 1795--of limited and voluntary militias adequate for national defense. He infers from Kant's warning against national economic dependency the urgent need to exclude international capitalism from world politics. He suggests that Kant's principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of nations has been violated in the splitting of East from West Germany. And he insinuates that the present form of government in the U.S. is democratic and republican only in name, being in actuality a capitalist oligarchy whose two-party system tends to degenerate into a one-party system. Professor Miiller is entitled to his views. The reader, however, is entitled to a more objective exposition of Kant's essay and perhaps even to hope for a more critical and searching appraisal of Kant's doctrines. One opportunity for the latter surely offers itself in regard to Kant's analogy between personal and international morality. The analogy might conceivably break down over the difficulty of assigning collective moral and legal responsibility. If, as Kant maintains, a state is a moral person, it should follow that it and not merely its constituent members taken singly has moral responsibility for what it undertakes. Leaving aside the question of whether or not Kant thought through the implications of his premise, it is clear that Professor Miiller has not done so. Whereas he considers atrocious the branding of the German people as guilty of international crime in either World War, he allows himself the judgment that the "Christian" people of Europe and America were guilty of mass-murder on both occasions. The inconsistency is evident. Left unexamined and even unmentioned are the following: Kant's well-known ethical principles--the concept of practical reason, the phenomenal-noumenal duality, the notion of design in nature, the doctrine of the Categorical Imperative binding on any rational will--upon which he explicitly grounds Perpetual Peace; his efforts to refute the notion of theoretical conflict between morality and politics; his misleading use of the language of the social contract theorists throughout the essay; his proposal, anticipatory of later British philosophers, that the principle of publicity is a necessary if not sufficient condition of morally proper legislation. Perpetual Peace deserves more than Professor Mfiller has given it. PETER FUSS University of California, Riverside The Earlier Letters of John Stuart Mill 1812-1848. Edited by Francis E. Mineka, with an Introduction by F. A. Hayek. Two vols. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, Routledge g: Kegan Paul. Pp. xxvii + 784. $20.00.) These two volumes of early correspondence are the first volumes to appear of a projected new edition of Mill's collected works. If the subsequent volumes maintain the high level of competence achieved here, the new edition will prove a valuable assistance to nineteenth- BOOK REVIEWS 275 century scholars. Of the 537 letters published, 238 have never before been in print, and 72 others have hitherto appeared only in part. Most of the work of assembling the letters was done by F. A. Hayek, but the extremely useful annotation was prepared by Francis E. Mineka. We are told that he and Dwight N. Lindley are planning an edition of the later letters (1849-1873). The earliest letter extant (printed in facsimile and hitherto unpublished) was written, at the age of 6, to Bentham. It... (shrink)

This paper examines the legal conception of political parties. It does so by unearthing the history and ontology of the common law relating to political parties in international perspective. The flexibility of the unincorporated association, in which parties are understood through the private law of contract as networks of internal rules or agreements, rather than as legal entities, has proven to be a mask. In the common laws imagination, the ideal party is a ground-up organization animated by its membership. (...) But the law mandates no such thing, and in its statutory and constitutional conception intra-party democracy may be sublimated as parties need be no more than an electoral persona or brand. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:274 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY poisoning, spying, etc., which would render postwar mutual confidence impossible, shall not be countenanced. It is mainly with an eye to these preliminary articles that Professor Wilhelm Miiller argues for Kant's relevance to contemporary political problems. Miiller begins by drawing an analogy between the Peace of Basle (1795) and the Treaty of Versailles: in both instances, it is claimed, secret reservations at the treaty table, (...) the identification of defeated nation with "guilty" nation, and the deprivation of an entire "guiltless" people of "the most primitive right to live" helped lay the foundations for future wars. Miiller sees in the willful dispersion, through motives of revenge and greed, of the possessions of conquered nations after both World Wars a "reversion to the wildest barbarism." He defends Kant's stricture against standing armies as being "simply and logically irrefutable" in spite of Kant's toleration--understandable in 1795--of limited and voluntary militias adequate for national defense. He infers from Kant's warning against national economic dependency the urgent need to exclude international capitalism from world politics. He suggests that Kant's principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of nations has been violated in the splitting of East from West Germany. And he insinuates that the present form of government in the U.S. is democratic and republican only in name, being in actuality a capitalist oligarchy whose two-party system tends to degenerate into a one-party system. Professor Miiller is entitled to his views. The reader, however, is entitled to a more objective exposition of Kant's essay and perhaps even to hope for a more critical and searching appraisal of Kant's doctrines. One opportunity for the latter surely offers itself in regard to Kant's analogy between personal and international morality. The analogy might conceivably break down over the difficulty of assigning collective moral and legal responsibility. If, as Kant maintains, a state is a moral person, it should follow that it and not merely its constituent members taken singly has moral responsibility for what it undertakes. Leaving aside the question of whether or not Kant thought through the implications of his premise, it is clear that Professor Miiller has not done so. Whereas he considers atrocious the branding of the German people as guilty of international crime in either World War, he allows himself the judgment that the "Christian" people of Europe and America were guilty of mass-murder on both occasions. The inconsistency is evident. Left unexamined and even unmentioned are the following: Kant's well-known ethical principles--the concept of practical reason, the phenomenal-noumenal duality, the notion of design in nature, the doctrine of the Categorical Imperative binding on any rational will--upon which he explicitly grounds Perpetual Peace; his efforts to refute the notion of theoretical conflict between morality and politics; his misleading use of the language of the social contract theorists throughout the essay; his proposal, anticipatory of later British philosophers, that the principle of publicity is a necessary if not sufficient condition of morally proper legislation. Perpetual Peace deserves more than Professor Mfiller has given it. PETER FUSS University of California, Riverside The Earlier Letters of John Stuart Mill 1812-1848. Edited by Francis E. Mineka, with an Introduction by F. A. Hayek. Two vols. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, Routledge g: Kegan Paul. Pp. xxvii + 784. $20.00.) These two volumes of early correspondence are the first volumes to appear of a projected new edition of Mill's collected works. If the subsequent volumes maintain the high level of competence achieved here, the new edition will prove a valuable assistance to nineteenth- BOOK REVIEWS 275 century scholars. Of the 537 letters published, 238 have never before been in print, and 72 others have hitherto appeared only in part. Most of the work of assembling the letters was done by F. A. Hayek, but the extremely useful annotation was prepared by Francis E. Mineka. We are told that he and Dwight N. Lindley are planning an edition of the later letters (1849-1873). The earliest letter extant (printed in facsimile and hitherto unpublished) was written, at the age of 6, to Bentham. It... (shrink)

Imagine a drug—let's call it Curebitt—that is safe, cheap, and very effective: take a pill once a day and you will be healthier. Curebitt's taste is so unpleasant, so bitter, however, that a significant proportion of patients cannot bring themselves to ingest the pill regularly. Now suppose that after some time, another drug, Curesweet, hits the market. This drug is clinically equivalent to Curebitt and costs the same, but it is much more palatable, so adherence rates for it are significantly (...) higher than for Curebitt. Should physicians continue prescribing Curebitt, now that Curesweet is available? No, prescribing the bitter pill puts patients at a greater risk of nonadherence and ultimately results in reduced clinical benefit for a significant proportion of patients, whereas prescribing Curesweet benefits more patients and increases the probability that any given patient's health will improve. The Curebitt versus Curesweet scenario draws our attention to how a physician can fail her patients by prescribing drugs with lower adherence rates when equivalent drugs with higher adherence rates are available. What does this fictional case tell us about the real world? A lot. We know that adherence rates vary with out‐of‐pocket costs. Name‐brand drugs carry higher out‐of‐pocket costs than their generic counterparts; as a result, when name‐brand drugs are prescribed rather than their generic counterparts, fewer patients receive health benefits. If prescribing Curebitt is unethical, then so is prescribing the name‐brand drug. (shrink)

This book features thirty independent brands, telling the stories behind their origins, products, successes and brand philosophies.

Branding is a strategy designed by companies to help patrons or consumers quickly identify their products or organisations and give them a reason to choose their products or organisations over other competitors. In the Old Testament, God identified the Israelites as a unique brand. In the New Testament, Jesus Christ branded the church with the power of the Holy Spirit, miracles, signs and wonders. Reading the Acts of the Apostles, the church developed a brand of being Spirit-filled, communal-living (...) and mission-minded. It was out of this that early believers in Antioch were called ‘Christians’. The name ‘Christian’ therefore became a brand name for believers and followers of Jesus Christ. In view of this, one would expect that the concept of branding would be a major tool for modern-day churches. Although there are several publications on branding from the perspective of marketing and management, there is no such academic research on missional branding, hence this research. This article contributes to the interdisciplinary discourse on branding, with specific reference to the missional branding of the Church of Pentecost. (shrink)

The Internet presents opportunities for corporations to efficiently build their brands online and to enhance their global reach. But there are threats as well as opportunities, since anti-branding and free-riding activities are easier in cyberspace. One such threat is theunauthorized incorporation of a trademark into a domain name. This can lead to trademark dilution and cause consumer confusion. But some users claim a right to use these trademarks for the purpose of parody or criticism. Underlying these trademark conflicts is the (...) familiar tension between property rights and free speech rights. While some trademark scholars are reluctant to consider a trademark as property, we find strong support for the property paradigm in Hegel’s philosophy. Assuming that a trademark is an earned property right, we propose that a trademark owner should be allowed to control the permutations of its trademark incorporated into domain names unless a reasonable person would not confuse that domain name with the company’s mark. But we also conclude that there must be latitude to employ a domain name for negative editorial comment, so long as the source and purpose of that domain name is plainly apparent. (shrink)

The Internet presents opportunities for corporations to efficiently build their brands online and to enhance their global reach. But there are threats as well as opportunities, since anti-branding and free-riding activities are easier in cyberspace. One such threat is theunauthorized incorporation of a trademark into a domain name. This can lead to trademark dilution and cause consumer confusion. But some users claim a right to use these trademarks for the purpose of parody or criticism. Underlying these trademark conflicts is the (...) familiar tension between property rights and free speech rights. While some trademark scholars are reluctant to consider a trademark as property, we find strong support for the property paradigm in Hegel’s philosophy. Assuming that a trademark is an earned property right, we propose that a trademark owner should be allowed to control the permutations of its trademark incorporated into domain names unless a reasonable person would not confuse that domain name with the company’s mark. But we also conclude that there must be latitude to employ a domain name for negative editorial comment, so long as the source and purpose of that domain name is plainly apparent. (shrink)

Paper 3 This paper discusses how patriarchy made the name 'man' their Brand. It would guarantee their entitlement to rule and control the masses by repeating man in so many names. Partial lists are shown.

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2019 Heft: 226 Seiten: 135-152.

With the deepening of globalization, brand plays an important role in determining the competitiveness of enterprises. It is worth thinking about how to quantify the brand value reasonably to achieve the purpose of improving the competitiveness of enterprises. The research of commercial brands based on emotion analysis extracts the views of consumers on the evaluation data of brand attributes, analyzes the emotional tendency of consumers' views, and then helps enterprises adjust their production strategies. The purpose of emotion (...) analysis is to judge users' views and attitudes toward goods or services by analyzing texts. In this paper, the linear support vector machine model is used to extract and study the features in sentiment analysis. Then, the brand based on the fusion model is evaluated, and the experimental conclusions are drawn: the method of fusing the depth features extracted by word vector and the named entity extracted by CRF makes the brand effect of fusing emotional factors better than the feature extraction method only using CRF named entity recognition. It is proved that the model method proposed in this paper has a certain role in actual business. Feature fusion often combines shallow model methods and fuses various shallow feature screening technologies based on word segmentation results. This paper introduces fusion features and supplements feature vectors based on the results of the deep learning word vector model. Support Vector Machine maps feature vectors to some sample points in the space, finds a plane that can realize sample classification, and maximizes the distance between the two sample points closest to the plane in two types of samples, to maximize the classification performance and improve the generalization of the model. (shrink)

The Internet presents opportunities for corporations to efficiently build their brands online and to enhance their global reach. But there are threats as well as opportunities, since anti-branding and free-riding activities are easier in cyberspace. One such threat is theunauthorized incorporation of a trademark into a domain name. This can lead to trademark dilution and cause consumer confusion. But some users claim a right to use these trademarks for the purpose of parody or criticism. Underlying these trademark conflicts is the (...) familiar tension between property rights and free speech rights. While some trademark scholars are reluctant to consider a trademark as property, we find strong support for the property paradigm in Hegel’s philosophy. Assuming that a trademark is an earned property right, we propose that a trademark owner should be allowed to control the permutations of its trademark incorporated into domain names unless a reasonable person would not confuse that domain name with the company’s mark. But we also conclude that there must be latitude to employ a domain name for negative editorial comment, so long as the source and purpose of that domain name is plainly apparent. (shrink)

The ontology of marketing, particularly the question of what products and brands are, is still largely unexplored. The ontological status of brands hinges on their relationship with products. Idealists about brands see perceptual or cognitive acts of consumers grouped under the heading ‘brand awareness’ or ‘brand image’ as constitutive for the existence of brands so that, in their view, tools of the marketing mix can influence relevant mental dispositions and attitudes. Brand realists, on the other hand, reject (...) the view of brands as mere marks or names and interpret them as emergent products with properties that afford branding in the sense of Gibson’s ecological psychology. Brand strength is a function of the degree to which brands occupy defensible niches in product space. Branding as a process involves changing external or internal boundaries of products. Several arguments are proposed in favor of brand realism. The fragments of an ontology of marketing are developed in a broadly Aristotelian framework. Brand realism has significant implications for a new understanding of issues ranging from the effects of advertising to financial brand valuation, the nature of trademarks, and marketing strategy in general. It permits one to treat brand equity as a real phenomenon not dependent on associations, attitudinal states such as brand loyalty, or spurious constructs such as brand character or personality. (shrink)

Religion is considered a cornerstone of business ethics, yet the values held dear by a religion, when professed by business organizations serving heterogeneous market segments in secularized societies, can generate conflict and resistance. In this paper, we report findings from a study of stakeholder reactions to the renaming of an Italian public hospital. After the construction of new facilities, the hospital was renamed for the recently canonized Roman Catholic Pope John XXIII. Contrary to expectations, we found no evidence of public (...) criticism surrounding the name change. A fine-grained analysis of a sample of 734 respondents belonging to different stakeholder groups revealed that consumers predominantly supported the name change, while employees were often critical and concerned about possible religious influences on medical practice and scientific research. Moving beyond our empirical setting, we propose a process model of brand-religion alignment inspired by McCracken’s : 71–84, 1986) meaning transfer model, which considers both the alignment process and its reception by relevant audiences. The study also presents managerial implications useful for those brand managers who wish to create effective, respectful links with religion. (shrink)

Resumo: O pensamento de Nietzsche é recepcionado na Escandinávia, através do historiador dinamarquês Georg Brandes. O historiador é atraído pelo aspecto aristocrático, o qual se depreende da leitura que Nietzsche realiza sobre a cultura. A radicalidade, a originalidade e a minuciosidade psicológica, que se reconhece no espírito filosófico do pensador alemão, permeiam a leitura que Brandes faz do autor de Zaratustra. O próprio Nietzsche dá testemunho do quanto seu nome, graças a Brandes, passa a ser conhecido na Dinamarca, em suas (...) diversas cartas e outros escritos, atestando, inclusive, um correto entendimento de seu pensamento. Esta proposta tem o intuito de averiguar o papel que a memória, em seu sentido aristocrático, tem a contribuir na recepção nietzschiana, efetuada por Brandes. Em que medida a mnemotécnica pode apontar caminhos para uma cultura aristocrática, no contexto da Dinamarca de Brandes?: Nietzsche’s thought is received in Scandinavia through the Danish historian Georg Brandes. The historian is attracted by the aristocratic aspect that emerges from Nietzsche’s reading of culture. Radicality, originality and psychological detail, which can be seen in the philosophical spirit of the German thinker, permeate Brandes’ reading of the author of Zarathustra. Nietzsche himself testifies to how much his name, thanks to Brandes, comes to be known in Denmark in several of his letters and other writings, even attesting to a correct understanding of his thinking. Our proposal is intended to ascertain the role that memory, in its aristocratic sense, has to contribute to Brandes’ Nietzschean reception. To what extent can mnemotechnics point the way to an aristocratic culture for the Denmark’s context of Brandes? (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2018 Heft: 224 Seiten: 1-17.

Current research on choice overload has been mainly conducted with choice options not associated with specific brands. This study investigates whether the presence of brand names in the choice set affects the occurrence of choice overload. Across four studies, we find that when choosing among an overabundance of alternatives, participants express more positive feelings (i.e., higher satisfaction/confidence, lower regret and difficulty) when all the options of the choice set are associated with familiar brands, rather than unfamiliar brands or no (...) brand at all. We also find that choice overload only appears in the absence of brand names, but disappears when all options contain brand names—either familiar or unfamiliar. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (shrink)

This book discusses Asian medicine, which puts enormous emphasis on prevention and preservation of health, and examines how, in recent decades, medical schools in Asia have been increasingly shifting toward a curative approach. It offers an ethnographic investigation of the scenarios in China and India and finds that modern students and graduates in these countries perceive Asian medicine to be as important as Western medicine. There is a growing tendency to integrate Asian medicine with Western medical thought in the academic (...) curriculum that has led to a gradual decline of Asian medical thought and practices. At the same time, there has been a massive rise in patent drugs, health products and cosmetics being sold under the brand names of Asian medicine or herbal medicine. Most of these drugs and health products do not follow the classical formulas found in the Asian medical texts. The book analyses these texts and concludes that contemporary Asian medicine rarely follows the classical texts, and in fact uses Asian medicine brands to sell Western health products and practices. With a particular focus on the formal and professional sector of Chinese herbal medicine and Indian ayurvedic medicine in urban areas, this book appeals to a broad readership, including undergraduate students and academics as well as non-experts. Md. Nazrul Islam is an Associate Professor in the General Education Office, United International College, Beijing Normal University-Hong Kong Baptist University. He was a Visiting Associate Professor in the School of Population and Public Health, University of British Columbia (2015-16) during which time he completed this book manuscript. (shrink)

Religion is an organized collection of beliefs, cultural systems and world view that relate humanity to spirituality and sometimes also with moral values. It may be said that it is a belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe. Many religions have narratives, symbols and sacred history and traditions that are intended to give a meaning of life or to explain the origin of the life and the universe. They tend (...) to drive morality, ethics, faith and religious laws and or preferred a lifestyle from their ideas about the cosmos and human nature. But in the present world religious faiths are treated like a brand. The process of branding involved in creating a unique name and image for a product in the consumers' mind, mainly through advertising campaigns with a consistent theme. Branding aims to establish a significant and differentiated presence in the market that attracts and retains loyal customers. In a society overrun by commercial clutter, religion has become yet another product sold in the consumer marketplace, and faiths of all kinds must compete with a myriad of more entertaining and more convenient leisure activities. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2015 Heft: 207 Seiten: 451-473.

This research focuses on examining the relationship between some attributes of assurance providers and the level of sustainability assurance. By using the propensity to issue negative conclusions in the assurance statement as an indicator of the level of assurance, we examine whether the brand name and industry specialisation of the practitioners have an impact on the assurance opinion issued. Using an international sample of 1233 firm-year observations over the period 2007–2014, the findings document the impact of the brand (...) reputation and industry specialisation of assurance providers on the level of assurance. The probability of detecting material errors and omissions in a sustainability report is higher if it is verified by a Big 4 auditing firm and by an industry expert as an assurance practitioner. The greater experience in providing audit services and the relevant skills and training provided by Big 4 firms, as well as the greater knowledge and experience of industry experts, increase the propensity to report more accurate opinions about a sustainability report. The findings are robust for alternative measures for the level of assurance and the industry specialisation. (shrink)

From within a “systemic approach” to deliberative democracy, political parties can be seen as crucial actors in facilitating deliberation, by playing epistemic, motivational, and justificatory functions that are central to the deliberative ideal. However, we point out that if we assume a purely outcome-oriented conception of the role of parties within a deliberative system, we risk losing sight of a central tenet of deliberative democracy and of its distinctive principle of legitimacy, namely, that citizens must be able to exercise critical (...) reflection on the grounds of democratic decisions. We argue that parties have a special responsibility in making a deliberative system meet this requirement, and that such special role can be fulfilled only if parties’ programs, values, and strategies are shaped through intra-party deliberation. On the grounds of this discussion, we define a model of intra-party deliberation that is based on the principles of mutual acceptability, pluralism, and publicity. (shrink)

This paper offers a social phenomenological reading of the globally binding practice of 'social distancing' in light of the precautionary measures against the spreading of the Covid-19 virus. Amid speculation about the far-reaching effects of temporarily applicable measures and foresights about the advent of an ethos that has been heralded by the media as the 'new normal', the ubiquitous phenomenon of social distancing calls for a fundamental ontological elucidation. The purported hermeneutic that is situated in the broader place branding and (...) experiential marketing literatures places Covid-19 in the shoes of Being, and, therefore, imagines how Being would behave ontologically if it were a virus. By positing that the virus does operate like Being, five these are formulated as experiential interpretive categories with regard to the ontological status of Covid-19. The adopted approach makes the following contributions to the extant literature: First, it addresses a wholly new phenomenon in place branding, namely a pre-branded place that is non-negotiable, globally applicable and seemingly equivalent to pure void. Second, it advances the application of phenomenological research in experiential consumption by highlighting the aptness of the so far peripheral (in the marketing discipline) strand of Heideggerian fundamental ontology. Third, it expands the notion of place in the place branding literature, by showing how spatialization is the outcome of temporalization, in line with the adopted phenomenological perspective. (shrink)

SUMMARY The research focuses on the three main political parties in Albania, namely Socialist Party, Democratic Party and Socialist Movement for Integration. Its objectives are to measure the Intra-Party Democracy(IPD) in the Albanian political parties and to explore the meaning that party members attach to it. The IPD is understood and broken down into categories and sub-categories so that parties in particular and all interested actors in the field of political parties and democracy could understand, which (...) component of IPD parties are performing better and where they are performing worse. IPD is measured against two dimensions: inclusiveness and decentralization. Inclusiveness denotes the extent to which party members have the right to express their opinions and participate in the decision-making process. With decentralization is understood the process which makes possible the decentralization of the decision-making process from the highest national party level to party sub-national levels and party members. In a decentralized party, subnational party units enjoy a certain level of autonomy from the party in the center. The analysis is based on both primary and secondary data. Content analysis of party statutes particularly focuses on measuring IPD, while focus groups with party members and interviews with high-ranking officials of the political parties are used to explore the meaning that party members have on IPD, as well as validate content analysis findings. The main findings are: -/- Content Analysis of Party Statutes: Parties do have rules that govern their internal life, however these rules need to be improved in order to strengthen IPD. Especially problematic were the provisions for the role of the executive committee and party president, which provide these two institutions, especially the leader of the party with powers that don’t hold him/her accountable to the party members and middle level organs. Furthermore, members were not sufficiently involved in the procedures of candidate nominations for MPs, in the election of the national Executive and Executive Committee and in the election of the Party President. The analysis also finds that voting procedures are not sufficiently at place to allow members express their will and participate in the decision-making process and that members are not or little consulted in terms of programmatic issues. The analysis of the relationship between the national and subnational levels of party organization revealed that the center of the party has accumulated power to the detriment of the subnational units which enjoy little autonomy in the decision-making process. -/- Focus Groups and Interviews: The study finds that party members linked system-level democracy with IPD and that they have a very clear understanding if IPD: what it is and how it could be achieved. They linked IPD with the structure and organization of the party, seeing it as an important instrument that allows for decentralization of power and integration of rank and file into the decision-making process. The party members considered the statute as an important educational political tool and invoked it whenever disputes rose or decisions had to be taken. They linked IPD with the electoral system and considered that closed list proportional was a system that strengthened the power in the hands of the few at the party top executive level and weakened IPD. (shrink)

In this paper, I do several things. First, I present a definition of ‘corruption’ as ‘abuse of power that builds or maintains the abuser’s power’, arguing that this definition is more generally applicable than other definitions offered in the literature and that it highlights a crucial property of corruption, namely its tendency to metastasise, presenting a more and more serious danger to society. To defend the emphasis I place on this tendency, I then argue that corruption (as commonly understood) frequently (...) produces three mechanisms pushing it to reproduce: self-perpetuation by the corrupt actors to protect themselves, formation of networks between corrupt actors which ensnare new participants, and normalisation of specific kinds of abuse of power in the corrupt actors’ social environments. From here, I turn to political parties, arguing that they present fertile soil for the mechanisms just described. In their stead, I argue for sortition—a system whereby legislators are randomly selected from the population at large. I make the case that each of the three metastatic mechanisms I have described would have much more difficulty taking root in a sortitional-democratic system than in an electoral-democratic one, before concluding by responding to a major potential objection to such a proposal’s feasibility—namely, that sortitional juries would be less competent than elected legislatures—and presenting a sketch of a sortitional-democratic system setting out how it could discharge the government’s executive functions, in addition to the legislative functions already covered. The paper as a whole, in addition to its explicit arguments, may be considered to make an implicit case for non-ideal over ideal theory, in that it attempts to show the importance of that quintessentially non-ideal factor, corruption, to the nature of any political order. (shrink)

Political parties are taken for granted today, but how was the idea of party viewed in the eighteenth century, when core components of modern, representative politics were trialled? From Bolingbroke to Burke, political thinkers regarded party as a fundamental concept of politics, especially in the parliamentary system of Great Britain. The paradox of party was best formulated by David Hume: while parties often threatened the total dissolution of the government, they were also the source of life and (...) vigour in modern politics. In the eighteenth century, party was usually understood as a set of flexible and evolving principles, associated with names and traditions, which categorised and managed political actors, voters, and commentators. Max Skjönsberg thus demonstrates that the idea of party as ideological unity is not purely a nineteenth- or twentieth-century phenomenon but can be traced to the eighteenth century. (shrink)

Distant brand extension as an essential strategy of obtaining benefits was highly focused on the normal marketing practice and academic research. In the current study, we aim to recognize that how individuals with different levels of empathy respond to distant extensions under corporate social responsibility and corporate competence associations to explore the corresponding neural mechanisms using event-related potentials. We divided subjects into two groups involving a high empathy group and a low empathy group according to an empathy measure questionnaire. (...) The subjects first faced a brand name following the CSR or CC association descriptions, and then, they were asked to evaluate the new product of brand by a five-point scale. Current results revealed that the participants of the HE group were more apt to accept the distant extension products than those of the LE group. Additionally, in the HE group, products from a brand with CSR associations were more acceptable than CC associations. Moreover, a larger N2 amplitude was elicited in the LE group than in the HE group. For the LE group, an augment N2 was found under CSR than CC associations, reflecting that LE consumers might perceive conflict when evaluating distant extensions and allocate more cognitive resources to deal with CSR information. At the later stage, the HE group showed a greater P3 than the LE group. For the HE group, an increased P3 was elicited under CSR than CC associations, suggesting that empathic individuals might show motivational salience and helping willingness toward distant extension products, especially under the CSR scenario. These results provide potential electrophysiological evidence for the positive impact of brand associations on the evaluation of distant brand extension in the case of subdividing different empathic individuals. (shrink)

The article is about defining ethnic parties and their classification. We define and discuss the terms politics, political party, ethnis group and ethnical party. We state differences about the traditional model of politics and the modern one. We analyze the importance of the political parties in representing the political rights of the people and what is needed so a political party can be established in the Republic of Macedonia. Also we show how to determine which party (...) is an ethnical party and show a number of ethnic parties in Republic of Macedonia using the name of the party as an indicator. In this part we discuss the indicators and we state that good indicator is the program of the election campaign of the party. But still this is not 100% sure indicator if the party is ethnical. We concluded this because there are a lot of examples when the ruling party before the start of the election campaign does a research about the ethnical groups and after the research makes projects meant for the ethnic groups so the party can get the votes from the chosen ethnicity. At the end we concluded that the programs and the statues of the political parties are the best indicators and answer if a political party is a non-ethnical, multi-ethnical or ethnical political party. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is increasingly becoming a popular business concept in developed economies. As typical of other business concepts, it is on its way to globalization through practices and structures of the globalized capitalist world order, typified in Multinational Corporations (MNCs). However, CSR often sits uncomfortably in this capitalist world order, as MNCs are often challenged by the global reach of their supply chains and the possible irresponsible practices inherent along these chains. The possibility of irresponsible practices puts global (...) firms under pressure to protect their brands even if it means assuming responsibilities for the practices of their suppliers. Pressure groups understand this burden on firms and try to take advantage of the situation. This article seeks to challenge the often taken-for-granted-assumption that firms should be accountable for the practices of their suppliers by espousing the moral (and sometimes legal) underpinnings of the concept of responsibility. Except where corporate control and or corporate grouping exist, it identifies the use of power as a critical factor to be considered in allocating responsibility in firm-supplier relationship; and suggests that the more powerful in this relationship has a responsibility to exert some moral influence on the weaker party. The article highlights the use of code of conducts, corporate culture, anti-pressure group campaigns, personnel training and value reorientation as possible sources of wielding positive moral influence along supply chains. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2018 Heft: 221 Seiten: 53-69.