These range from merely good reads to really outstanding books. A raw ranking of them would be of little use to others, unless I explained why I gave them the ranks I did, and anyway I'd probably give different rankings by the time your read this. (When I know of an on-line review about a book which I agree with --- e.g., because I wrote it --- I've included a link; also some exceedingly short remarks about interesting cases.).

The Companion begins with a section-by-section overview of Being and Time and a chapter reviewing the genesis of this seminal work. The final chapter situates Being and Time in the context of Heidegger's later work.

Regional institutional marketing supports sustainable farming by bringing wholesome, nutritious food to members of the community. Schools, in particular, can benefit greatly from this arrangement in comprehensive efforts to address childhood obesity. Nineteen previous publications examined issues around supply of and/or demand for regional food procurement by institutions across the United States, including levels of interest, perceived benefits, and barriers to this arrangement. Food service directors, farmers, and/or distributors participated in surveys, interviews, workshops/forums, case studies, and one evaluation about regional (...) food procurement. Accounts of seven farmer cooperatives or networks indicate that institutional customers are more often restaurants (n = 5), health care facilities (n = 2), colleges/universities (n = 2), and other facilities (n = 2), than public schools (n = 1) or food retailers (n = 1). The studies agree that the main benefits offered by regional food procurement are support of the local economy and increased access to fresh and nutritious food. Barriers consistently faced by food services and farmers have to do with lack of infrastructure and financial support for processing and central distribution. Though obstacles vary by district and/or geographic characteristics, results indicate that across groups there is a clear need for better support mechanisms by which farms can connect with regional markets. The practice of farm-to-institution marketing holds the potential to improve nutritional status of community members and financial stability of farmers, though institutional support is needed for systemic transition to this purchasing method. (shrink)

The two books discussed here make important contributions to our understanding of the role of spacetime concepts in physical theories and how that understanding has changed during the evolution of physics. Both emphasize what can be called a ‘dynamical’ account, according to which geometric structures should be understood in terms of their roles in the laws governing matter and force. I explore how the books contribute to such a project; while generally sympathetic, I offer criticisms of some historical claims concerning (...) Newton, and argue that the dynamical account does not undercut ontological issues as the books claim. *Received January 2009; revised March 2009. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of Philosophy, 1423 University Hall MC 267, University of Illinois at Chicago, 601 S. Morgan Street, Chicago, IL 60607; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

I have enjoyed my six years as editor of this journal. I was pleased to be able to bring the journal to Purdue University Press and learn how to produce a first-rate academic journal. From the early days of choosing a cover design, to supervising my graduate assistant Jiwon Kim as she expertly sought indexing services, to acquiring an ISSN number, to being lucky to convince David Granger to become the book review editor and, with the next issue, editor, (...) I have been fortunate to work with excellent colleagues. I particularly want to thank the staff at Purdue University Press, especially its former director, Thomas Bacher, who agreed to publish the journal in 2004. Tom later moved the management of the journal's .. (shrink)

In the 1940s and 1950s _The Review of Politics_, under the dynamic leadership of Waldemar Gurian, emerged as one of the leading journals of political and social theory in the United States. This volume celebrates that legacy by bringing together classic essays by a remarkable group of American and European émigré intellectuals, among them Jacques Maritain, Hannah Arendt, Josef Pieper, Eric Voegelin, and Yves Simon. For these writers, the emergence of new dictatorial regimes in Germany and Russia and the (...) looming threat of another, even more devastating, European war demanded that one rethink the reigning philosophical perspectives of the time. In their view, the western world had lost sight of its founding principles. Individually and collectively, they maintained that the West could be saved only if its leaders embraced the idea that society should be governed by moral standards and a commitment to human dignity. Since the first issue appeared in 1939, _The Review of Politics_ has influenced generations of political theorists. To complement these essays A. James McAdams has written an introduction that discusses the history of the journal and reflects on the contributions of these influential figures. He underscores the continuing relevance of these essays in assessing contemporary issues. “The essays contained in this volume demonstrate why the _Review of Politics_ is a national treasure. From Jacques Maritain and Yves Simon to Hannah Arendt and Leo Strauss, it has consistently attracted writers of the highest quality to think about the deepest problems of politics and the twentieth century. The themes covered in this collection range from totalitarianism and nihilism to the value of education and the dignity of the individual. Their probity and intelligence show why the _Review of Politics _has remained the premier journal for serious students of political philosophy.” —_Steven B. Smith, Alfred Cowles Professor of Political Science, Yale University _ _ _ “The _Review of Politics_ has been essential reading for students of political philosophy and politics for more than two generations, including among its contributors internationally renowned scholars whose works are both enormously influential and increasingly look to be contemporary expressions of perennial wisdom. To make seminal essays of this remarkable journal easily accessible, with more to come in future volumes, is a great service to students of political science at every level.” —_Timothy Fuller, Lloyd E. Worner Distinguished Service Professor, Colorado College_ _ _. (shrink)

Background: Increasing collaboration between industrialised and developing countries in human research studies has led to concerns regarding the potential exploitation of resource deprived countries. This study, commissioned by the former National Bioethics Advisory Commission of the United States, surveyed developing country researchers about their concerns and opinions regarding ethical review processes and the performance of developing country and US international review boards .Methods: Contact lists from four international organisations were used to identify and survey 670 health researchers in (...) developing countries. A questionnaire with 169 questions explored issues of IRB review, informed consent, and recommendations.Results: The majority of the developing country researchers were middle aged males who were physicians and were employed by educational institutions, carrying out research on part time basis. Forty four percent of the respondents reported that their studies were not reviewed by a developing country IRB or Ministry of Health and one third of these studies were funded by the US. During the review process issues such as the need for local language consent forms and letters for approval, and confidentiality protection of participants were raised by US IRBs in significantly higher proportions than by host country IRBs.Conclusion: This survey indicates the need for the ethical review of collaborative research in both US and host countries. It also reflects a desire for focused capacity development in supporting ethical review of research. (shrink)

Based on research on the increasingly popular unconscious thought effect (UTE), it has been suggested that physicians might make better diagnostic decisions after a period of distraction than after an equivalent amount of time of conscious deliberation. However, published attempts to demonstrate the UTE in medical decision making have yielded inconsistent results. In the present study, we report the results of a meta-analysis of all the available evidence on the UTE in medical decisions made by expert and novice clinicians. The (...) meta-analysis failed to find a significant contribution of unconscious thought to the accuracy of medical decisions. This result cannot be easily attributed to any of the potential moderators of the UTE that have been discussed in the literature. Furthermore, a Bayes Factor analysis shows that most experimental conditions provide positive support for the null hypothesis, suggesting that these null results do not reflect a simple lack of statistical power. We suggest ways in which new studies could usefully provide further evidence on the UTE. Unless future research shows otherwise, the recommendation of using unconscious thought to improve medical decisions lacks empirical support. (shrink)

Time processing is a multifaceted skill crucial for managing different aspects of life. In the current work, we explored the relationship between interoception and time processing by examining research on clinical models. We investigated whether time processing deficits are associated with dysfunction of the interoceptive system and/or insular cortex activity, which is crucial in decoding internal body signaling. Furthermore, we explored whether insular activation predicts the subjective experience of time (that is, the subjective duration of a target stimulus to be (...) timed). Overall, our work suggests that alteration of the interoceptive system could be a common psychophysiological hallmark of mental disorders affected by time processing deficits. (shrink)

Global climate change raises profound questions for social and political theorists. The human impacts of climate change are sufficiently broad, and generally adverse, to threaten the rights and freedoms of existing and future members of all countries. These impacts will also exacerbate inequalities between rich and poor countries despite the limited role of the latter in their origins. Responding to these impacts will require the implementation of environmental and social policies that are both environmentally effective and consistent with the equality (...) and liberty of populations to which they are applied. This article considers whether global emissions trading, namely, the creation of a global market for tradable allowances conferring the right to emit a certain amount of greenhouse gas over a specified time period, is normatively defensible from a liberal egalitarian perspective. After a brief review of the theory and practice of emissions trading, a number of normative objections to the international trade in emissions allowances are analysed. These objections appeal to one, or a combination, of two claims. First, emissions trading schemes are likely to produce undesirable outcomes, such as environmental neglect, in the further future. I call these ‘instrumental objections’. Second, emissions trading schemes violate non‐consequential norms of justice and fairness. I call these ‘intrinsic objections’. It is argued that, when combined, instrumental and intrinsic objections indicate that instituting a global network of emissions trading schemes, as envisioned by a number of parties to the Kyoto Protocol and Copenhagen Accord, would be illegitimate in absence of significant procedural and consequential safeguards. (shrink)

Global climate change raises profound questions for social and political theorists. The human impacts of climate change are sufficiently broad, and generally adverse, to threaten the rights and freedoms of existing and future members of all countries. These impacts will also exacerbate inequalities between rich and poor countries despite the limited role of the latter in their origins. Responding to these impacts will require the implementation of environmental and social policies that are both environmentally effective and consistent with the equality (...) and liberty of populations to which they are applied. This article considers whether global emissions trading, namely, the creation of a global market for tradable allowances conferring the right to emit a certain amount of greenhouse gas over a specified time period, is normatively defensible from a liberal egalitarian perspective. After a brief review of the theory and practice of emissions trading, a number of normative objections to the international trade in emissions allowances are analysed. These objections appeal to one, or a combination, of two claims. First, emissions trading schemes are likely to produce undesirable outcomes, such as environmental neglect, in the further future. I call these ‘instrumental objections’. Second, emissions trading schemes violate non‐consequential norms of justice and fairness. I call these ‘intrinsic objections’. It is argued that, when combined, instrumental and intrinsic objections indicate that instituting a global network of emissions trading schemes, as envisioned by a number of parties to the Kyoto Protocol and Copenhagen Accord, would be illegitimate in absence of significant procedural and consequential safeguards. (shrink)

This is a bilingual edition of the selected peer-reviewed papers that were submitted for the International Symposium on Jesuit Studies on the thought of the Jesuit Francisco Suárez (1548-1617). The symposium was co-organized in Seville in 2018 by the Departamento de Humanidades y Filosofía at Universidad Loyola Andalucía and the Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies at Boston College. Suárez was a theologian, philosopher and jurist who had a significant cultural impact on the development of modernity. Commemorating the four-hundredth anniversary of (...) his death, the symposium studied the work of Suárez and other Jesuits of his time in the context of diverse traditions that came together in Europe between the late Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and early modernity. (shrink)

In the present article we argue that emotional interactions are not appropriately captured in present emotion research and theorizing. Emotional stimuli or antecedents are dynamic and change over time because they often interact and have a specific relationship with the subject. Earlier emotional interactions may, for example, intensify later emotional reactions to a specific person, or our anger reactions towards powerful or powerless others may differ considerably. Thus, we suggest that such social factors not only affect the intensity, but also (...) the nature of emotional experiences and expressions, and specifically the nature of the social movement (e.g., moving towards, away, or against). We discuss different processes that are implicated in the relation between the social environment and our emotions, describe how emotional expressions shape social behavior, and provide suggestions for incorporating the social dimension of emotion in future research. (shrink)

The notion of c̱onsistent e̱xpectations e̱quilibria (CEE) as propagated by Hommes/sorger (1998) is reviewed. Focusing on their example of a chaotic CEE constructed in the context of a cobweb model, it is argued that such an equilibrium is a temporary one. Assuming that an agent-modeled as an individual, versatile in applying the basic tools of linear time-series econometrics-has learned the CEE, I analyze the duration of the time period over which the agent maintains her/his beliefs concerning the perceived law of (...) motion (AR(1)). The analysis based on numerical simulations indicates that the use of techniques rooted in the linear paradigm is sufficient to generate convincing evidence against the underlying perceived law of motion. (shrink)

continent. 2.2 (2012): 155–158 Michel Serres. Biogea . Trans. Randolph Burks. Minneapolis: Univocal Publishing. 2012. 200 pp. | ISBN 9781937561086 | $22.95 Conveying to potential readers the significance of a book puts me at risk of glad handing. It’s not in my interest to laud the undeserving, especially on the pages of this journal. This is not a sales pitch, but rather an affirmation of a necessary work on very troubled terms: human, earth, nature, and the problematic world we made. (...) It is this world that aspirates the silence (so to speak), and therefore the subject which, along with the development of the “made world” exports the excess augmentation of the cosmically missing, this silence of the natural, et cetera. Had we learned from Locke that lesson of “labor,” to consume what we need… but perhaps we need more than what matters? Serres’ Biogea has several functions on this manner, if it is indeed a book to be consumed. First, readers searching for novelistic entertainment have a place to dwell. Biogea deserves a place in your back pocket; biographical generosity and poetic fluidity should satisfy most textual fetishes. For lay philosophers who want to refresh their acumen, Biogea deserves a place on the book shelf, one already reads a sorely needed postmodern tune-up here. Serres’ style is clearly French; he leaves few cheese crumbs on his words, rather preciseness and breathing in the work give way to a sweeping manner that breaks the narrative line of sight. A circular narrative and anachronistic fragmentation of terms allows an abyssal atmosphere to swell, if only to pump into the book the externality of its broader text. Biogea aspires to a higher standard and the book, at times, is thinking this negentropic problem too. Univocal, the publisher, has crafted a book appropriate for the hands to hold and the translations are an achievement of an otherwise difficult writer to translate. Terms are the conditions of a broader text. It is important to note that Serres’ content is as much a thinking of terminal ports. There is a regard for the transportation technology of the written word. For me, this is the mark of genius, a craftiness that tells of a book device that I may trust. Serres is an accomplished thinker and a necessary voice to check the putative trendiness of anti-postmodernist and market-driven theory of endless cultural liquidation. Offering interventions on subjectivity as an open system we are given a chance to affirm the human, not merely to discard it, but to engage its poetic image emotion, the calibratory silent sense of the analogic world; the terms on which we base our efforts. 1 The human is the center of its own negation, constantly mediating it. Something deeper at stake appears in the work then, and it is quite obvious from the onset. Certainly, a book is an intensification of possible text and those who brought this actual book into existence have captured a rarity in regards to the subject matter and artistic accomplishment. I mentioned terms as conditions, so let us understand Biogea as bio-yea, a yes to bios . An affirmation of living and accepting presence for all of its defiance of images, words, and things temporal. Therefore Serres’ existence and its existants plays parts; out of linearity and still like a porous bone pumping blood it manufactures into the fleshy life it becomes. Starting from a man named silence chaos emerges, or the man “Old Taciturn” takes up a journey anticipating a great flood. In other words, a development akin to the one in Genesis. In dealing with this ancestral occupation, fusing Genesis with contemporary philosophical terms, Serres initiates this anachronistic fragmentation under the forming subjectivity of his own autobiography. This mutation in the open system is precisely one of Serres’ terms. There an abyss is at work, stated, but also measured by heels on the ground—the abyss dispatching earthen tensions, that which plays our tunes, that which we abide by and recognize in volcanoes, rivers, oceans, earthquakes and weaponry in the battles of the world. Set in later stages of the book, such tensions are harnessed through scientific principles in an attempt to unify the terms of natural force if only to terminate the world. Thus the elevation of the earth into the world is clearly set forth. Here already, and few pages in, a resonance is set forth under appellations such as the river Garonne, a subjectivity as much as it is inhuman, the river is the inhuman that makes us human. I get the sense that Serres is taking up a challenge issued by Wallace Stevens; namely, that the great poems of heaven and hell have been written, but that only the poem of the earth has resisted composition. 2 On this level we cannot avoid the killing factor of silence, given that our cognition blocks its pure, radical obliteration. Thus a silence of attunement to the earth is in a novel dialectic of the rithmic and rhythm. A technological world, a triumph of termination is set forth. If a text imposes its will given the reader who authorizes it, it is made to convey or convect a presupposition to a reader or its inhabitant(s). Text is therefore both, in-content, contenting, contentedness, and in reading it, a way to navigate self-destruction (dis-content). Here then would one note that the “inhuman” reveals itself, “an aperiodic rhythm of lovers and beloved…the sea as our friend…but as our enemy…maternal vivifying sea.” The sea is an open book, or vaginal birth canal, where the engagement of text comes forth: “…woman sea, open vulva.” One sees like the sea, but only after it, when the uninhabitable truth of inhabiting it switches the polarity of the sailors soul: “I was seeing like the sea” (9-11). In other words, we are invited to embrace the nonsense of the visible. At this point I am taken to Jean-François Lyotard’s work The Inhuman , specifically the first entry on negentropy that would be congruent with Serres’ thematic. 3 The human being exports, deports, or transplants its relation through text, through the system— and this is its sense or relation to silence, to music. Unaware of Serres’ proximity to this work, the concept of gender interrelation as regards a solar catastrophe runs clear. It would be, on this basis, that Serres references his peers, the other texts that, as mentioned above, are discarded in philosophy today. For students of philosophy what we have here is perhaps a gift, a needed project. If silence and death are at work, there is a political valence to deal with, and here, much like the domain of the text and the dominion of the reader, we confront the world of natural, fluid violence. The anti-postmodernist critique is in part based on a weak idea that the loss of ideology, of a world vision, motivates the “correlationist” project. 4 Serres seems to offer another way to view this when he notes that whereas persons “sometimes kill,” it is clearly “the collective” that “always kills” (17). What is the collective today, if not an organizing function we never see yet acts in its favor in the name of truth? One feels a sense of enigma here, if only to link to what Stevens remarked of communism as a “grubby faith,” providing this applies for capitalism as well, namely any ideology of progress overly interested in absolutes. Here we get the sense that the inhuman, silence, this type of killing, always killing, could not be matched by human-made, political dynamos. Or that if it comes to an equilibrium, a catastrophe is never too far from us to read with our heels. We are left to note that the forces of nature presuppose and permeate political systems, the more these systems obtain force, the more the system takes upon itself the proper name of nature that motivates its dissemination, albeit falsely. This note, that in an age of ecocide and technological captivity (sustainability and transparency) political regimes won’t grow our soul-learning ears any larger than our tongues, stands clear to us. The promise of technological desubjectification is here pushed aside. Regarding politics, Serres illustrates this fact: Where did this corpse come from? Who was it? Who killed it? I don’t know. I won’t try to find out. I refuse to get vengeance for it. And I only see Garonne. For our victims, today, are the rivers, too. Their waters have irrigated my life, enchanted my thought, invigorated my body; I’ve known them to be threatening, untamable, as dangerous as the sea when it rages. Yes, murderous. They decided to control their courses; dams, sometimes senseless, destroying sites and valleys, reduced entire populations to servile displacements; programs for the irrigation of thirsty farmland, often beneficial of course, completed their drying up.(22) Serres enters into his idea concerning the captivity of language from the natural into a world system: For thousands of years, we have been licking things with our tongues, covering and daubing them so as to appropriate things for ourselves. If language boils down to a convention, this convention took place between the speakers without consulting the thing named, become as a result the property of those who covered it in this way with their drawn or voiced productions. Malfeasance analyzes these acts of appropriation. Thus every inert object, every living thing as well, sleeps under the covers of signs, a little in the way that, today, a thousand posters shouting messages and ugly riots of color drown, with their filthy flood, the landscapes, or better, exclude them from perception because the meaning, almost nil, of this false language and these base images forms an irresistible source of attraction to our neurons and eyes. This appropriation covers the world’s beauty with ugliness. (38-39) Technological concealment coming to bear, we begin to get a sense of another commentary on the condition of sensing, driving home the necessity of a text dealing with such subject matter to be what its terms insist. Thus toward new openings: The new opening. As low beneath our feet as you like, the Biogea opens us to another space, high enough for us to be able to acquire a wisdom there, that of redeveloping this same place differently from our fathers, this place that’s still politically cut up by old hatreds, beneath the flood of tears and blood that we call history. Without this soft place, spiritually very old, but newly conceived in this way, without the juridical construction of a common good, opposed to our filthy ownership, I don’t see how our planet, hard, will survive. Hardness that depends on a softness, material belonging that depends on this temporary rented location (51). Serres enters into a summit on the content and the structure of his work. Archimedes is brought in with the concept of three volcanoes. Meaning fire, but as well earth, water, air. For it was Archimedes’ war machines that sought to lift the earth, thus bringing in the question of principles of science: “can a principle be invented while controlling its consequences?” (66-7). May the earth be put in a sentence, terminated by terminology, appellations, gone wild? By means of these element-dominating laws, this old physicist began to tear nature away from the ancient myths; by a strange return, today we’re plunging our successes back into the anxieties and terrors from which that ancient physics was born. Yes, our new history of science and technology is plunging, today, as though in a loop, into the fundamental human myths from which Empedocles’ first laws came. A major progression and a regression on the nether side of the origins. Consequently, the contemporary time requires that we try to return to that unity in which the principles of hate and love are at the same time human, living, inert and global. We will never attain a deontology of our knowledge and actions without thinking the subjective, the objective, the collective, and the cognitive all together simultaneously. Here, hate and love are the result of these four components.(71) Working then on the concept of fire-starting mirrors to the atomic annihilation of the Second War, Serres works into the subjectivity in question on the matter of rhythm—say rithmic— precisely at that point: Knowledge is changing today. The all-political is dying; the monarchy of the sciences said to be hard is coming to a close. The science of the things of the world will have to communicate just as much as the things of the world do, which do it much better than humans do, who don’t always want to do it. Let’s celebrate two changes this morning. The first one strikes a new blow to our narcissism. No, knowledge and the world don’t resemble our analytical enjoyments of refined cutting up, of endless debates and of exclusions full of hate. They, on the contrary, form a bloc and a sum, alliance and alloys. Uniting the fields of knowledge among themselves the way the things are connected among themselves, the second newness puts into place sets united by interlacing, webs and simplexes that combine with the things of the world, themselves combined, the combined knowledge that understands them.(130-1) Biogea closes on its opening flood thematic, approaching the initial telos of Genesis. Here the trees are brought into a position with atmosphere, the opaque abyssal reservoir, the tomb of the sun, sea in the polarity of the earthen heaven and hell. The poem of the earth then is silent but deadly, indeed, as funny as that phrase is, mainly a tomb gas. The meaning of the living and the non-meaning of things converge in the muteness of the world; this meaning and non-meaning plunge there and come out, the ultimate eddy. Mundus patet: through a fissure, through an opening, a fault, a cleft come noises, calls as small as these apertures. I’m listening, attentive, I’m translating, I’m advancing in the scaled-down meaning and science. Mundus patet: should the world open greatly, it will launch me into its silence. The totality remains silent. Knowledge expanded in elation. White origin of meaning, fountain of joy. (198) Final Remarks One test of a review is the long term trajectory the referee thinks the book will have. I see Serres’ text lending greatly into the vision of Biogea . In fact, in the vision of the novel inquiries of Stephen Jay Gould’s work there is something to be thought on the level of the individual and the species; namely, that humanity and its uniqueness is in its deferral, its thinking and naming, a thinking surrounded by silence that filters into everything, that pulls us through the world, the kinetic pulse we recognize, and all of that we cleave away in the base philosophical maxim of difference itself. Unique individuals are spatial creatures: we dwell, and we ought to get good at it. Yet this is an imaginative space that, if you are crazy enough to believe it, de-term-ine the conditions of its own terms. That is why we are not merely creating spaces on the acceleration of time, or so this ignoramus thinks, to accidentally transcend. Imagination already has this insatiable silence that we drink up and fail to manifest. Space is timeless. The imagination itself, shared by humans for themselves, their objects, and the species as a whole, is a non-defined space of relation; a whole human trajectory as part of nature, and part of worlds that are the other side of thinking nature, the consequence of it, at least our attempt to do so. Our survival is based on our deliberation, our caution, our natural deconstructive sense toward this silence that is already part of the song, sung, singing of this century without end. Good books will let us inhabit this space and recognize a form of life. Serres’ text moves toward dwelling, as noted, in masterful and accessible ways. The pitched battles are the falling replays of anemic and dead politics. As soon as we realize there is humanity, we may be able to enjoy the end of it, our inhuman capability of listening to silence. NOTES 1. See Michel Serres. The Parasite . Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 2007. 2. Wallace Stevens, “Imagination as Value” [ca. 1945], in Collected Poetry and Prose . New York: The Library of America. 1997. 724-39. 3. Jean-François Lyotard. The Inhuman: Reflections on Time . Trans. Geoffrey Bennington & Rachel Bowlby. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. 1992. 4. See the introduction: Quentin Melliassoux. After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency . Trans. Ray Brassier. New York: Continuum. 2008. EDITOR'S NOTE: This review was updated on August 8, 2012. Substantial edits include block quotes from the book under review as well as the inclusion of comments from the author. (shrink)

The study aimed to identify the role of administrative procedures and systems in enhancing the performance of the educational institutions in the Islamic University in Gaza. To achieve the research objectives, the researchers used the analytical descriptive approach to collect information. The researchers used the questionnaire distributed to three categories of employees at the Islamic University (senior management, faculty members, their assistants and members of the administrative board). A random sample of 314 employees was selected and 276 questionnaires were retrieved (...) with a recovery rate of 88.1%. The Statistical Analysis Program (SPSS) was used to enter process and analyze data. The results of the research showed a positive role for the administrative procedures and systems in enhancing the performance of the Islamic University from the point of view of the members (senior management, teaching staff and their assistants and the administrative body), where the relative weight of all the paragraphs (73.728%). The analysis of the results revealed that the administrative procedures at the Islamic University in Gaza are used to an acceptable degree. The relative weight of all the paragraphs is 70%. This indicates a relationship between administrative procedures and regulations and the performance of the Islamic University in the Gaza Strip. The study found that there was a good degree of approval from the sample regarding the administrative procedures and their relationship to the job performance. There exist a sufficient degree of powers to the deans and department managers to carry out their tasks, with the use of plans as control tools. And that there are rules and procedures provided for decision-making in the University Council. It also has full powers to manage the university to improve the teaching and learning environment. The researchers also recommended a number of recommendations, including the need to follow up on the procedures and systems of management and update them continuously in the light of changes that may occur and to ensure the existence of a strong system of electronic information systems within the university. There is a need to provide mechanisms for obtaining information about the surrounding external environment, and effective mechanisms to provide managers with the necessary information in a timely manner. The importance of providing channels of communication that enables staff to communicate information about any violations and breaches. The study also recommended the follow-up, review, procedures and administrative systems, and work to modify them in line with the mission of the university and the objectives that the university seeks to reach. (shrink)

Max Black has included approximately one half of the essays that he has published since Models and Metaphors in this collection entitled Margins of Precision. All but two of the essays have appeared in various professional journals, the two exceptions being Chapter V on "Induction" and Chapter VI on "Probability," which are articles in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Paul Edwards. The final chapter, "Wittgenstein’s Views About Language," is an address delivered at the Israel Academy, Jerusalem in 1966 and (...) published in Iyyun. Margins of Precision is an apt title for this anthology. The problems of induction that are a perennial concern of Black lie at the basis for margins of precision. Among these problems are criteria for correct induction, reasoning with loose concepts, and the gap between "Is" and "Should." Professor Black states that "Only in recent times have serious efforts been made to escape from the spell of the deductive model, used by Hume and his innumerable followers, by inquiring whether there may not be other proper and relevant senses of ‘reasonable'." According to Black, there is a sense of "reasonable" according to which we can reason with loose concepts, and there is need to advance further in our search for criteria for induction. His discussion of the gap between "Is" and "Should" suggests that this problem in metaethics is basically one of induction. For those interested in the problems of induction, Professor Black’s book is stimulating. He admits that he has "chosen topics where there is still work to be done." Each chapter opens the door to further thought.—L. A. (shrink)

This monograph represents the first comprehensive study dedicated to the interdisciplinary French philosopher Michel Serres. As the title of this project unequivocally suggests, Serres s prolific body of work paints a rending portrait of what it means for a sentient being to live in the modern world. This book reflects Serres s profound conviction that philosopher c est anticiper / to philosophize (about something) is to anticipate ( Philosophie Magazine ). According to Serres, a philosopher is someone who possesses an (...) extremely broad base of knowledge coupled with the uncanny ability to envision what "might" transpire based upon his or her astute observations concerning phenomena that are already starting to unfold in a given society. Serres s explanation of what engaging in philosophical inquiry entails encourages us to imagine all of the present and future ramifications of certain trajectories that are clearly visible all around us. From 1968 to the present, Serres has been generating forceful, prophetic visions in his works that mingle philosophy, religion, theology, contemporary science, and literature. Comprehensive and insightful introduction both illuminates pressing contemporary issues and presages potential futures-to-come. This is a remarkable achievement and a genuine gift to readers both new and old to Serres s work. -Steven D. Brown, Professor of Psychology, University of Leicester An essential book for becoming aware of the threat of a return of obscurantism despite the development of new technologies and of the necessity of a new century of "Lumieres." -Issa Asgarally, Associate Professor, Mauritius Institute of Education, founder, Foundation for Interculturality and Peace Moser s engaging prose makes this study a great read, and he demonstrates a formidable grasp on the connections within Serres work, as well as the links between Serres and other major twentieth century thinkers. -Tom Trzyna, Professor Emeritus of English, Seattle Pacific University Both timely and thorough. His provocative critique of societal malaise, from our relationship to the planet, to ourselves, to each other, and to technology, as well as the solutions envisioned through an erudite and thoughtful analysis of Serres entire philosophical corpus is a remarkable contribution to Philosophy and French Studies. -Isaac Joslin, University of Denver Keith Moser s pioneering vision of the post-Marxist era, as reflected in the syncretism of philosophy, religion, theology, science and literature in Michel Serres body of work during the last half a century, transforms human consciousness beyond its illusory genophobia that has damaged the very semiotics of life. Moser s monograph taps into a tremendous flow of energy that evokes a passionate desire in a dead humanity to re-live and re-think. -Professor Ananta Sukla, Editor, Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics Keith Moser is Associate Professor of French at Mississippi State University. He is the author of "A Practical Guide to French Harki Literature, J.M.G. Le Clezio: A Concerned Citizen of the Global Village, Le Clezio dans la foret des paradoxes" (co-editor), and "Privileged Moments in the Novels and Short Stories of Le Clezio: His Contemporary Development of a Traditional French Literary Device." Moser has also contributed approximately forty essays to peer-reviewed publications such as "The French Review, The International Journal of Francophone Studies, Romance Notes, Dalhousie French Studies, Les Cahiers Le Clezio, Modern Language Review, French Cultural Studies, Forum for Modern Language Studies" (Oxford), "Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment" (Oxford), and "Pennsylvania Literary Journal."". (shrink)

Broken bodies, places and objects demonstrates the breadth of fragmentation and fragment use in prehistory and history, and provides an up-to-date insight into the current archaeological thinking around the topic. A seal broken and shared by two trade parties, dog jaws accompanying the dead in Mesolithic burials, fragments of ancient warships commodified as souvenirs, parts of an ancient dynastic throne split up between different colonial collections... Pieces of the past are everywhere around us. Fragments have a special potential precisely because (...) of their incomplete format - as a new matter that can reference its original whole but can also live on with new, unrelated meanings. Deliberate breakage of bodies, places and objects for the use of fragments has been attested from all time periods of the past. It has now been over 20 years since John Chapman's major publication introducing fragmentation studies, and the topic is more present than ever in archaeology. This volume offers the first European-wide review of the concept of fragmentation, collecting case studies from the Neolithic to the Modern, and extending the ideas of fragmentation theory into new directions. The book is written for scholars and students in archaeology but it is also relevant for neighbouring fields taking an interest in material culture, such as anthropology, history, cultural heritage studies, museology, art and architecture. (shrink)

This book explores how the trans phenomenon can challenge the existing concept of the Self and its nature. The catalyst is Moore’s Paradox: can a trans person coherently state ‘I am a girl but I don’t believe that’? More deeply, three fundamental philosophical questions arise, of ontological, epistemological, and conceptual significance: what Self understands that the natal-gender is ‘wrong’? How does the trans person know that the natal-gender is ‘wrong’ and what counts as evidence? And finally, how does this effect (...) the concept of Self itself? Seeking answers, Brakel considers various theories of the Self, including classical accounts, modern views, and models developed by selected gender theorists. The book then takes a biological turn, first developing an evolutionary proper-function analysis of gender and trans-gender and subsequently proposing the possibility of a new ontological phenotype. With a review of cutting-edge neuroscientific research conducted over the last twenty-five years, Brakel propels this timely and important investigation toward the future, using experimental philosophy empirical studies adapted from classic thought experiments on the nature of the Self. (shrink)

Studies have consistently shown that LGBTQ individuals are at increased risk for several mental and physical health challenges including suicidality. The relationship between religion and LGBTQ well-being in general and LGBTQ suicidality specifically has increasingly been the subject of scholarly investigation. This systematic review examines all peer-reviewed articles included in the EBSCO PsycInfo database since 2000 that examined the relationship between religiosity and LGBTQ suicide (50 studies in all). These studies reveal a complex relationship that is nuanced and, at (...) times, contradictory. Overall, 65% identified at least one religiosity-related predictor as a risk factor for LGBTQ suicidality, 41% identified at least one religiosity-related predictor as a protective factor against suicidality, while 53% found no associations between religiosity-related predictors and suicide risk. However, when specifically examining religious affiliation/denomination, salience, or beliefs and behaviors, typically, religiosity was either protective or unassociated with LGBTQ suicidality. This held particularly true for studies that had population-based samples, employed control variables and included comparison groups, thus enhancing their generalizability. The one religiosity-related predictor that was almost universally identified as a risk factor was when an individual felt conflicted between their religious and sexual-gender identities. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Without Buddha I Could not Be a ChristianPeter A. HuffWithout Buddha I Could not Be a Christian. By Paul F. Knitter. Oxford: Oneworld, 2009. xvii + 240 pp.Paul Knitter’s contributions to interfaith dialogue and Christian theologies of religions are well known and widely appreciated. Even critics of Christian theories of pluralism, most prominently Pope Benedict XVI, have acknowledged the significance of Knitter’s strategic integration of perspectives from liberation (...) theology into what is sometimes an overly abstract field of inquiry. Colleagues active in Buddhist-Christian studies hold Knitter in especially high esteem as a writer, teacher, translator, [End Page 211] editor, self-described interreligious theologian, and unapologetic person of faith. This book, his first major publication since accepting the Paul Tillich chair at Union Theological Seminary, offers a uniquely first-person reflection on the spiritual fruits of a career profoundly and provocatively shaped by two religious traditions.Written for a popular audience, the book, the author says, has been in the works “for the past forty years” (p. xv). The reader gains valuable insight into the professional and private life of a remarkable “dialogical theologian” (p. xv), whose experience includes a rather conventional upbringing in working-class Midwestern Catholicism, some twenty years of service as a seminarian and missionary priest with the Society of the Divine Word, graduate education in Europe with the likes of Bernard Lonergan (1904–1984) and Karl Rahner (1904–1984) during the revolutionary years of the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), and nearly four decades of pioneering work as a productive scholar-activist in mainstream academic theology. At times Knitter even quotes from his unpublished journals in an effort to document fully his unscripted intellectual and spiritual development.Though highly personal, the book is not primarily an autobiography or conversion narrative. Instead, it is an introspective analysis of the internal dialogue that virtually all participants in interreligious affairs recognize as the heart of the global ecumenical encounter. Knitter’s book serves as something of an apologia for what is known today as dual religious belonging or hyphenated religious identity. The author concludes his text with this intriguing but not surprising spiritual self-portrait: both lifelong baptized Christian and “card-carrying Buddhist” (p. 216). The challenge of accounting for this “both /and” orientation grants the book its distinctive character and its reason for being.Knitter borrows his method from the twentieth-century minor classic The Way of All the Earth: Experiments in Truth and Religion (1978). In that work, Notre Dame theology professor and Holy Cross priest James Dunne suggested that the path to holiness in the contemporary West leads inevitably through intimate engagement with the ancient wisdom traditions of the East. Even a casual review of the spiritual history of the last century or so will confirm how earnest seekers in modernity’s secular city have renewed, rediscovered, or critically redefined their native faith commitment through life-changing contact with the ideas and values of Asian religious traditions. It is a story familiar to anyone acquainted with the extraordinary religious pilgrimages of interfaith saints such as Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968), Thomas Merton (1915–1968), and Bede Griffiths (1906–1993).Dunne dubbed this experience the “spiritual adventure of our time” (p. 2); Knitter passionately agrees. He applies Dunne’s dialectical method and his special terminology to his own spiritual odyssey, “passing over” from Christian questions and problems to possible answers and solutions in the Buddhist tradition and then “passing back” to Christian belief and practice with enhanced purpose and a fresh sense of integrity.The starting point for Knitter’s project is cognitive, moral, even emotional dissatisfaction with some of the fundamental structures of the historic Christian worldview: God as transcendent creator and lord of history, Jesus Christ as incarnate Logos and [End Page 212] universal savior, and salvation as the survival of human personality after death and the eschatological redemption of all finite reality. In essence, Knitter claims, traditional theism and the core myth of Christianity as expressed in scripture, creed, and liturgy appear painfully ineffective and to a large extent incoherent in the context of modern life and the international interface of world religions. What especially drives the... (shrink)

Interest in sport cyberpsychology has become more popular over the last decade, primarily due to the increased use of technology and the online world, including social media, within sport settings. In 2020, this became even more apparent for many athletes, their support teams and their sport organisations, when their professional and social worlds became cyber-dominated due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many challenges were encountered by: the athletes, in their efforts to remain active and well during this time when all competitions (...) were cancelled and the healthcare professionals, working with these athletes, in their efforts to continue to support the athletes, when severe travel restrictions and social distancing were in place for considerable periods of time. The purpose of this paper, using a narrative review process, is to present and scrutinise an array of Internet interventions, remote psychological supports and applications that the athletes and their support personnel used to help them meet their physical, social, and emotional needs during the pandemic. The beneficial and restrictive features of these online options will be presented. Two main themes will be considered in order to focus this discussion, namely, the potential physical and mental opportunities and challenges using the online world extensively during this time presented for the individuals working in sport and suggestions for how such online interventions used by the athletes, their coaches and sport science personnel during the pandemic may be maintained in some positive ways into the future, to help the athletes prepare for their upcoming competitions, their training and their future careers when they retire from elite sport. (shrink)

As its subtitle indicates, Democracy’s Discontent is a study of the political philosophies that have guided America’s public life. The “search” Michael Sandel describes has, in his view, temporarily come to a disappointing resolution in America’s acceptance of a liberal “public philosophy” that “cannot secure the liberty it promises” and has left Americans “discontented” with their “loss of self-government and the erosion of community”. This theme is unlikely to surprise readers familiar with Sandel’s earlier work. What may surprise them is (...) how little of Sandel’s second book is devoted to his critique of liberal theory or to his defense of his favored “republican” alternative. Far less than 10 percent of the book is devoted to characterizing liberal and republican political philosophy and to argument concerning their relative theoretical virtues. The body of Democracy’s Discontent is a history of American Constitutional law and political/economic debate, from pre-Revolutionary times to the Clinton presidency, all designed to show that the republican vision that has animated so much of that history has been recently abandoned to our detriment, replaced by a liberal public philosophy whose dramatic failure in practice “recapitulates” its “poverty in theory”. Sandel’s history is lively and engaging, and many of his analyses are insightful and persuasive. But the looseness in his treatment of theory regularly infects the conclusions he draws from this history and undermines his efforts to show that American political practice indicts liberal political philosophy. (shrink)

Substance use disorders (SUDs) constitute a growing global health crisis, yet many limitations and challenges exist in SUD treatment research, including the lack of objective brain-based markers for tracking treatment outcomes. Electroencephalography (EEG) is a neurophysiological technique for measuring brain activity, and although much is known about EEG activity in acute and chronic substance use, knowledge regarding EEG in relation to abstinence and treatment outcomes is sparse. We performed a scoping review of longitudinal and pre-post treatment EEG studies that (...) explored putative changes in brain function associated with abstinence and/or treatment in individuals with SUD. Following PRISMA guidelines, we identified studies published between January 2000 and March 2022 from online databases. Search keywords included EEG, addictive substances (e.g., alcohol, cocaine, methamphetamine), and treatment related terms (e.g., abstinence, relapse). Selected studies used EEG at least at one time point as a predictor of abstinence or other treatment-related outcomes; or examined pre- vs. post-SUD intervention (brain stimulation, pharmacological, behavioral) EEG effects. Studies were also rated on the risk of bias and quality using validated instruments. Forty-four studies met the inclusion criteria. More consistent findings included lower oddball P3 and higher resting beta at baseline predicting negative outcomes, and abstinence-mediated longitudinal decrease in cue-elicited P3 amplitude and resting beta power. Other findings included abstinence or treatment-related changes in late positive potential (LPP) and N2 amplitudes, as well as in delta and theta power. Existing studies were heterogeneous and limited in terms of specific substances of interest, brief times for follow-ups, and inconsistent or sparse results. Encouragingly, in this limited but maturing literature, many studies demonstrated partial associations of EEG markers with abstinence, treatment outcomes, or pre-post treatment-effects. Studies were generally of good quality in terms of risk of bias. More EEG studies are warranted to better understand abstinence- or treatment-mediated neural changes or to predict SUD treatment outcomes. Future research can benefit from prospective large-sample cohorts and the use of standardized methods such as task batteries. EEG markers elucidating the temporal dynamics of changes in brain function related to abstinence and/or treatment may enable evidence-based planning for more effective and targeted treatments, potentially pre-empting relapse or minimizing negative lifespan effects of SUD. (shrink)

This study aimed to synthesize literature data on male judo combat time in international competitions between 2010 and 2019. The search was carried out from May 8th to June 11th, 2021, in electronic databases using the following keywords: AND. After the selection process, 8 articles were included in the systematic review and 7 in the meta-analysis. These studies analyzed 2,562 international male judo combats over the years 2010 to 2019. We observed that the average male judo combat time changed (...) after each rule change. There was a significant difference between combats that ended up to the regular time and those that needed overtime. There were differences between 60kg and +100kg categories and the others in 2011-2012. However, no significant difference was found between the combat time by weight division after the 2017 rule changes, although there are still differences in relation to the end of the combats. There were significant changes in the male judo combat time with each rule change, and the data from the included studies point to a trend of homogeneity in the combat time spent between the weight divisions over the years, and an increase in the occurrence of Golden Score. More studies need to be carried out to identify the new temporal behaviors of athletes. (shrink)

Context: Practice-based design research is becoming more widely recognized in academia, including at doctoral level, yet there are arguably limited options for dissemination beyond the traditional conference format of paper-based proceedings, possibly with an exhibition or “demonstrator” component that is often non-archival. Further, the opportunities afforded by the traditional-format paper presentations is at times at odds with practice-based methodologies being presented. Purpose: We provide a first-hand descriptive account of developing and running a new international conference with an experimental format that (...) aims to support more analogously the dissemination of practice-based design research. Method: Our approach herein is broadly interpretative, phenomenological and critically reflective in orientation, to analyze our own experiential insights from the conference conception, through to the event itself and post-conference reflections, alongside the reflections fed back by conference delegates. Results: We have found the roundtable format continues to function well for creating a discursive interactional context. However issues arose around the crucial nature of the session chair’s role in enabling rich and multi-voiced discussion and how presenters’, organizers’ and delegates’ voices were captured and documented, with implications for further developing the conference design. Looking forward, there are also questions raised about: balancing the stringency of a rigorous review process with provision of an encouraging platform for early-career researchers; and balancing the need for clear criteria and formatting standards with the “openness” of the submission template and formatting guidelines and/or writing. This includes designers who are new to research cultures. It should also appeal to those working in interdisciplinary research in collaboration with design practitioners (but who may not be practitioners themselves. The conference aims to foster and support a burgeoning “research through design” academic community and to provide a fitting dissemination platform for this community. We hope that the conference will encourage academic communities to give proper consideration to the concept of design as a knowledge-generating activity. Constructivist content: Knowledge about design research is generated from meaningful interaction between people and artifacts as part of the unfolding conference experience. The organizational features of the conference aim to support knowledge dissemination through dialogical relations between people and things in particular contexts of interaction. (shrink)

Anna Chavlovski,1 Greg A Knoll,1–3 Timothy Ramsay,4 Swapnil Hiremath,1–3 Deborah L Zimmerman1–31University of Ottawa, 2Ottawa Hospital, 3Kidney Research Centre, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, 4Ottawa Methods Centre, Ottawa, ON, CanadaBackground: In patients with end-stage renal disease, use of vitamin D and calcium-based phosphate binders have been associated with progression of vascular calcification that might have an impact on renal transplant candidacy. Our objective was to examine management of mineral metabolism in patients wait-listed for renal transplant and to determine the impact on (...) cardiac perfusion imaging.Methods: Data was collected retrospectively on patients wait-listed for a renal transplant, being either active and on hold. Demographic data, medications, serum concentrations of calcium, phosphate, parathyroid hormone, and cardiac perfusion imaging studies were collected from the electronic health record. Chi-square and Student’s t-tests were used to compare active and on-hold patients as appropriate. Logistic regression was used to examine variables associated with worsening cardiac imaging studies.Results: The wait-listed patients were of mean age 56 ± 14 years and had been on dialysis for 1329 ± 867 days. On-hold patients had received a significantly greater total dose of calcium and were more likely to have developed worsening cardiovascular imaging studies. Total doses of calcium and calcitriol were associated with worsening cardiovascular imaging studies.Conclusion: Patients on hold on the renal transplant waiting list received higher total doses of calcium. A higher total dose of calcium and calcitriol was also associated with worsening cardiovascular imaging. Time on dialysis before transplant has been associated with worse post-transplant outcomes, and it is possible that the total calcium and calcitriol dose received contributed to these inferior outcomes.Keywords: dialysis, calcium, cardiac, transplantation. (shrink)

Comparatively little scholarly attention has been given to the question of futility in chronic psychiatric disorders, with the exception of a small body of work on so-called end-stage anorexia nervosa. A review of this literature provides the background for a critical examination of whether the concept of futility has any clinically meaningful, ethically justifiable, and legally defensible application to AN. In this article, the arguments for and against futility judgments in AN are analyzed with special emphasis on determinations of (...) capacity in this serious mental illness. Parallels between the futility disputes in medical and psychiatric disorders, where applicable, will be drawn to further illuminate whether or not the concept that continued psychiatric treatment for AN is ever truly futile. (shrink)

This article is based on a discussion held in Athens in April 2002, in the framework of a research visit, supported by the National Technical University of Athens, among the following participants: Alexander Pavlovits Ogurtsov (APO), Svetlena Sergeevna Neretina (SSN), and Michalis Assimakopoulos (MA) who translated and annotated the Russian text. The later wishes to thank his Russian teachers in philosophy, E.A. Mamchur and language, A.A. Nekrasova The translation was reviewed and emended by E.M. Swiderski, editor of SEET.Svetlana Neretina is (...) senior researcher in the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), doctor of philosophy, titled professor for medieval philosophy, author of: The Conceptualism of Peter Abelard (1994), Believing Reason (1995), Tropes and Concepts (1999), Time of Culture (2000, with A. Ogurtsov), articles and translations on Philosophy of culture, email, [email protected]. (shrink)

OBJECTIVES: To compare the practices of local research ethics committees and the time they take to obtain ethical approval for a multi-centre study. DESIGN: A retrospective analysis of outcome of applications for a multi-centre study to local research ethics committees. SETTING: Thirty-six local research ethics committees covering 38 district health authorities in England. MAIN MEASURES: Response of chairmen and women, the time required to obtain approval, and questions asked in application forms. RESULTS: We received replies from all 36 chairmen contacted: (...) four (11%) granted their approval, and 32 (89%) required our proposal to be considered by their local research ethics committee. Three committees asked us to attend their meetings. The application was approved by all 36 local research ethics committees but the time to obtain ethical approval varied between six to 208 days. One third of the committees did not approve the project within three months, and three took longer than six months. There was considerable variation in the issues raised by local research ethics committees and none conformed exactly to the Royal College of Physicians' guidelines. CONCLUSION: Obtaining ethical approval for a multi-centre study is time-consuming. There is much diversity in the practice of local research ethics committees. Our data support the recommendation for a central or regional review body of multi-centre studies which will be acceptable to all local research ethics committees. (shrink)