BackgroundStudies on different methods to supplement the traditional informed consent process have generated conflicting results. This study was designed to evaluate whether participants who received group counseling prior to administration of informed consent understood the key components of the study and the consent better than those who received individual counseling, based on the hypothesis that group counseling would foster discussion among potential participants and enhance their understanding of the informed consent.MethodsParents of children participating in a trial of nutritional supplementation were (...) randomized to receive either group counseling or individual counseling prior to administration of the informed consent. To assess the participant's comprehension, a structured questionnaire was administered approximately 48-72 hours afterwards by interviewers who were blinded to the allocation group of the respondents.ResultsA total of 128 parents were recruited and follow up was established with 118 (90.2%) for the study. All respondents were aware of their child's participation in a research study and the details of sample collection. However, their understanding of study purpose, randomization and withdrawal was poor. There was no difference in comprehension of key elements of the informed consent between the intervention and control arm.ConclusionsThe results suggest that the group counseling might not influence the overall comprehension of the informed consent process. Further research is required to devise better ways of improving participants' understanding of randomization in clinical trials.Trial RegistrationClinical Trial Registry - India (CTRI): CTRI/2009/091/000612. (shrink)

The issue of violence has been approached differently in various disciplines of social sciences. The ethical approach to the discourse of violence has often been ignored and thus need our attention. How the “body-subject” experiences the presence of violence as a ubiquitous phenomenon prevalent in the lived-world? I have made a distinction between grand narratives and small narratives1 within the discourse of violence in order to comprehend the operationality of violence in the inter-subjective world. My concern in this paper is (...) that the various discourses of social sciences on violence have not dealt with this issue adequately. Violence has been understood so far by social sciences in terms of finding causes and consequences of the event of violence rather than as an experience that affects the intentionality of an individual. Violence needs to be looked at as a phenomenon rather than as an abstract concept. Violence is experienced by the subject in one’s everyday existence when one is engaged with the “commonsense world”. How an individual makes sense of the lived-world and one’s existence within the pre-given structures of the lived-world? The prominence has been given to the existential/ first person perspective of an individual as an experiencing self and also as an acting self. To have the wholistic picture of violence one not only has to look at the various structures of the lived-world but also at different relations that an individual share with the pre-given inter-subjective world. (shrink)

This paper considers the issue of Bose–Einstein condensation in a weakly interacting Bose gas with a fixed total number of particles. We use an old current algebra formulation of non-relativistic many body systems due to Dashen and Sharp to show that, at sufficiently low temperatures, a gas of weakly interacting Bosons displays Off-diagonal Long Range Order in the sense introduced by Penrose and Onsager. Even though this formulation is somewhat cumbersome it may demystify many of the standard results (...) in the field for those uncomfortable with the conventional broken symmetry based approaches. All the physics presented here is well understood but as far as we know this perspective, although dating from the 60's and 70's, has not appeared in the literature. We have attempted to make the presentation as self-contained as possible in the hope that it will be accessible to the many students interested in the field. (shrink)

What if we began to speculate that intelligent things have an ethical agenda? Could we then imagine ways to move past the moral divide ‘human vs. nonhuman’ in those contexts, where things act on our behalf? Would this help us better address matters of agency and responsibility in the design and use of intelligent systems? In this article, we argue that if we fail to address intelligent things as objects that deserve moral consideration by their relations within a broad social (...) context, we will lack a grip on the distinct ethical rules governing our interaction with intelligent things, and how to design for it. We report insights from a workshop, where we take seriously the perspectives offered by intelligent things, by allowing unforeseen ethical situations to emerge in an improvisatory manner. By giving intelligent things an active role in interaction, our participants seemed to be activated by the artifacts, provoked to act and respond to things beyond the artifact itself—its direct functionality and user experience. The workshop helped to consider autonomous behavior not as a simplistic exercise of anthropomorphization, but within the more significant ecosystems of relations, practices and values of which intelligent things are a part. (shrink)

The Hartree–Fock–Popov theory of interacting Bose particles is generalized to the Cooper-pair system with a screened Coulomb repulsive interaction in high-temperature superconductors. At zero temperature, it is found that the condensate density \\) of Cooper pairs is of the order \\simeq 10^{18}\) cm\, consistently with the fact that a small fraction of the total p holes participate in pairing. We find that the phonon velocity c at zero temperature is of the order \\simeq 10\) km s\. The computation shows (...) that the transition temperature \ is a dome-shaped function of the p hole concentration \, which is consistent with experiments. At finite temperature, we find that the condensate fraction \/n\) decreases continuously from \/n\) to zero as the temperature increases from zero to the transition temperature \. For higher temperatures, we find that the repulsive interaction between Cooper pairs drives more Cooper pairs into the condensate. The computation reveals that the phonon velocity c decreases continuously from c to zero as the temperature increases from zero to the transition temperature \. The Cooper-pair system undergoes a first-order phase transition from the normal state to the BEC state. (shrink)

The evil - das Bose - stands for dreadful deeds and neglect. Its symbolism is that of the impure, the dark and the inferior. It takes hold through habits and institutions, in collective collaboration, in exclusion and marginalization, excessive punishments and despotism. Evil is also rife in the war against evil. As well as the means of prevention, a broad spectrum of reflection and consideration is also devoted to past evil in the form of remembering, guilt and remorse. As (...) responses to evil, reprimand and punishment are two-edged weapons. Corrective measures are considered, such as moderate and constructive egoism, rather than "solutions" to eliminate evil.". (shrink)

The "groupie" tendency of bosons has recently been demonstrated in a breakthrough experiment by Carl Wieman of the University of Colorado and Eric Cornell of the National Institute for Standards and Technology and their group. They were able to cool a gas of rubidium-87 atoms to a temperature so low that thousands of atoms coalesced into the same quantum state, forming a new state of matter called a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). This column is about that work.

We investigate the hypothesis that within a combination of a ‘number concept’ plus a ‘substantive concept’, such as ‘eleven animals’, the identity and indistinguishability present on the level of the concepts, i.e., all eleven animals are identical and indistinguishable, gives rise to a statistical structure of the Bose–Einstein type similar to how Bose–Einstein statistics is present for identical and indistinguishable quantum particles. We proceed by identifying evidence for this hypothesis by extracting the statistical data from the World-Wide-Web utilizing (...) the Google Search tool. By using the Kullback–Leibler divergence method, we then compare the obtained distribution with the Maxwell–Boltzmann as well as with the Bose–Einstein distributions and show that the Bose–Einstein’s provides a better fit as compared to the Maxwell–Boltzmann’s. (shrink)

Am 14. Juli 1995 berichteten die angesehene Wissenschaftszeitschrift Science sowie die berühmte amerikanische Tageszeitung New York Times – auf dem Titelblatt – gleichzeitig über die erstmalige experimentelle Erzeugung eines Bose-Einstein-Kondensates aus einem Gas schwach wechselwirkender Alkaliatome am Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophy- sics (JILA) in Boulder/Colorado (USA). Was war an dieser Leistung so bedeutsam, dass man sich entschloss, sie auf jene Weise bekannt zu geben?

Name der Zeitschrift: Frühmittelalterliche Studien Jahrgang: 46 Heft: 1 Seiten: 373-390.

ZusammenfassungDen Boden putzen, das Bett abziehen, einen Blumenstrauß arrangieren – Bemühungen um Sauberkeit sowie eine angenehme Raumatmosphäre obliegen im Krankenhaus meist weiblichen* Pflegerinnen, Reinigungskräften und Hauswirtschafterinnen. Im Klinikalltag vermischen sich Anforderungen an hygienische Sauberkeit unter Prozessen der Ökonomisierung mit Logiken des Marketings sowie mit affektiv-emotionalen Bedürfnissen der Akteur_innen dieser Räume. Obwohl die Maßstäbe klinischer Hygiene auf medizinischem Wissen basieren, sind die Arbeitsteilung sowie Ansprüche an Sauberkeit auf verschiedenen Hierarchieebenen zugleich von vergeschlechtlichten und teils rassifizierten Vorstellungen durchdrungen, die über den klinischen (...) Kontext hinausweisen. Dies legt schon eine Beschäftigung mit der Geschichte der Bakteriologie nahe: Die Logik und Sprache der Infektionsabwehr ist in Wissenschaft und Alltag auch verwoben mit sozialen Differenzmarkierungen.Unter Rückgriff auf die Ergebnisse einer Ethnografie zu Sauberkeit und Reinigungsarbeiten im Krankenhaus, die wissensgeschichtlich fundiert werden, wird in dem Beitrag die Frage nach der Sorge für die Umwelt mit der Frage nach der Atmosphäre klinischer Räume verknüpft. Auf welche Weise und mit welchen Effekten verschränken sich wissenschaftlich-medizinisches Hygienewissen mit einem alltäglichen, jedoch historisierbaren Wissen über schöne und angenehme Sauberkeit, das immer noch weiblich konnotiert ist? (shrink)

Jahrhunderts. Der Sammelband bietet ausgewählte Beispiele ihrer Rezeption. Näher in Betracht kommen F.H. Jacobi, C. Daub, A. Schopenhauer, J. Müller, S. Kierkegaard, P. Tillich und M. Heidegger."--Publisher's website.

Proclus' complex arguments developed in the context of his theory of evil often seem to reflect various earlier discussions of this topic. Above all, his predecessor Iamblichus seems to be a major source for his concept of evil. This becomes plausible when we attempt to outline Iamblichus' own philosophy of evil as revealed in such works as De mysterüs or De communi mathematica scientia. Particularly the latter work has not been sufficiently exploited in this respect, although the similarities with Proclus (...) are significant. All relevant ideas with regard to Proclus' notion of papnpóstasis are prepared and prefigured in Iamblichus. This essay discusses the mode of the existence of evil, the causation of evil and its relation to being according to Iamblichus. Moreover, comparison of Iamblichus' doctrines with those of his predecessors Plotinus and Porphyry reveals the design of his concept of evil as apparently directed at Plotinus. (shrink)

Cleaning the floor, stripping the bed, arranging a bouquet of flowers—such tasks are essential to keeping a hospital room clean and creating a pleasant atmosphere. They usually fall under the purview of female* nurses, cleaning staff and housekeepers. In everyday hospital life, the demands for hygienic cleanliness commingle with the imperatives of economization, marketing logic, and attention to the affective and emotional needs of the actors in these rooms. Although the standards of clinical hygiene are based on medical knowledge, the (...) division of labor and the demands for cleanliness at various hierarchical levels also reveal gendered and partly racialized ideas that point beyond the clinical context. This blending of imperatives in the hospital environment invites deeper consideration of the history of bacteriology: The logic and language of defense against infection in science and everyday life is also interwoven with social markers of difference.Drawing on the findings of an ethnography on cleanliness and cleaning work in hospitals, as well as a history of knowledge approach, the article links the question of (feminized) care for the environment with the question of the atmosphere of clinical rooms. In what ways, and to what effect, does scientific knowledge about medical hygiene also carry with it cultural and aesthetic perceptions of beautiful and pleasant cleanliness that reveal feminine connotations rooted in the nineteenth century? (shrink)

A major contradiction of globalisation lies in the universalisation of the imperatives of international finance-capital. The ascendancy of international finance has kept inter-imperialist rivalry under check since the past few decades, and imperialist nation-states under its imperatives have displayed greater unity under the leadership of the US. But the dominance of speculative finance and the deflationary impact it generates, threatens to precipitate worldwide recession. The US is trying to pre-empt any potential competition in this milieu, by pursuing an aggressive and (...) unilateralist military policy of endless war. However, the capacity of the US to sustain such high levels of military expenditure and debt-induced consumer spending is circumscribed by the fragility of the dollar hegemony in the backdrop of the growing indebtedness of the US vis-à-vis the rest of the world. Re-appearance of recessionary conditions in the US would be set the stage for inter-imperialist contradictions as well as the contradiction between imperialism and the Third World to play themselves out and create possible ruptures in the present world order. (shrink)

In der Schrift "Jenseits von Gut und Böse" erreicht Nietzsches philosophische Entlarvung des Nihilismus der überkommenen Werte ihre höchste und reifste Gestalt; als ›Vorspiel der Philosophie der Zukunft‹ konzipiert, inspiriert sie Nietzsche zu einer Neubewertung seiner frühen Schrift über "Die Geburt der Tragödie aus den Geiste der Musik", nun mit dem Vorwort: ›Versuch einer Selbstkritik‹._1885 faßte Friedrich Nietzsche den Entschluß, eine Neue Ausgabe seiner Schriften erscheinen zu lassen, die »das Eigene und Unvergleichliche in diesen Werken« herausstellen sollte. Diesem Konzept folgt (...) auch die von Claus-Artur Scheier neu herausgegebene Ausgabe der philosophischen Werke in sechs in Bänden.BAND 1 Jenseits von Gut und Böse Die Geburt der Tragödie X, 414 SeitenBAND 2 Menschliches, Allzumenschliches 1 VI, 358 SeitenBAND 3 Menschliches, Allzumenschliches 2 VI, 330 SeitenBAND 4 Morgenröthe VI, 330 SeitenBAND 5 Die fröhliche Wissenschaft / Wir Furchtlosen VI, 338 SeitenBAND 6 Zur Genealogie der Moral Götzen-Dämmerung VI, 314 SeitenDiese erste Ausgabe der philosophischen Werke Friedrich Nietzsches in der »Philosophischen Bibliothek« folgt dem 1885 von Nietzsche selbst gefaßten und begründeten Konzept einer Neuen Ausgabe seiner im eigentlichen Sinne »philosophischen« Schriften und bietet den Text nach den Originalausgaben von 1886/1887, ergänzt um die 1889 erschienene Götzen-Dämmerung.Eine »vollständige Ausgabe letzter Hand« nach dem Vorbild Goethes hat Friedrich Nietzsche nicht vorlegen können, denn am Ende war er nicht mehr Herr seiner Sinne. Doch gibt das wirklich Grund zur Klage? Oder anders gefragt: Hätte Nietzsche eine solche Ausgabe, die einfach alles versammelt, was er geschrieben hat, überhaupt gewollt und gutgeheißen? Die Frage muß offen bleiben. Doch es gibt gewiß Gründe, Nietzsche nicht mit jenen gleichzustellen, denen es auf diese Weise nur darum zu tun war, ihren Nachruhm zu sichern und nach eigenen Vorstellungen zu steuern. Denn es gibt sie ja, die von Nietzsche selbst gewollte und kritisch kommentierte Ausgabe ganz eigener Art: nämlich die durch Jenseits von Gut und Böse und die Genealogie der Moral eingerahmte Neue Ausgabe von 1886/87, die die vor dem Zarathustra veröffentlichten, mit neuen Vorreden versehenen philosophischen Schriften enthält, von denen der Autor selber sagte: »Sie werden bemerken, daß Menschliches, Allzumenschliches, die Morgenröte, die fröhliche Wissenschaft einer Vorrede ermangeln: es hatte gute Gründe, daß ich damals, als diese Werke entstanden, mir ein Stillschweigen auferlegte – ich stand noch zu nahe, noch zu sehr ›drin‹ und wußte kaum, was mit mir geschehen war. Jetzt, wo ich selber am besten und genauesten sagen kann, was das Eigene und Unvergleichliche in diesen Werken ist und inwiefern sie eine für Deutschland neue Literatur inaugurieren, würde ich mich zu solchen zurückblickenden und nachträglichen Vorreden gerne entschließen. Meine Schriften stellen eine fortlaufende Entwicklung dar, welche nicht nur mein persönliches Erlebnis und Schicksal sein wird: – ich bin nur der Erste, eine heraufkommende Generation wird das, was ich erlebt habe, von sich aus verstehn und eine feine Zunge für meine Bücher haben. Die Vorreden könnten das Notwendige im Gange einer solchen Entwicklung deutlich machen.« Mit der 1990 unter dem Titel ›Friedrich Nietzsche: Ecce auctor‹ vorgelegten Edition der Vorreden von 1886 hatte Claus-Artur Scheier zum ersten Mal darauf aufmerksam gemacht, daß Nietzsche die für die Neue Ausgabe seiner im eigentlichen Sinne »philosophischen« Schriften verfaßten Vorreden als in sich geschlossenen, genealogisch angelegten Versuch einer selbstkritischen Neubewertung und Einordnung seines Werkes ansah: »Von der Vorrede zur Geburt der Tragödie bis zur Vorrede des letztgenannten Buchs [der ›Genealogie der Moral‹] – das gibt eine Art ›Entwicklungsgeschichte‹«. Jetzt sah sich Nietzsche im Zenit seiner Schaffenskraft, und die Neue Ausgabe sollte den Mitte 1885 gefaßten Plan vorantreiben, »eine große Schul-Tätigkeit als Philosoph auszuüben […]. Die Bücher heraus aus diesem Winkel!!! Es sind meine Angelhaken; wenn sie mir keine Menschen fangen, so haben sie keinen Sinn!«. (shrink)

Animal personality refers to the consistency of variation in behavior among individuals which may be the driving force behind variations in complex behaviors as well. Individual personality could predict how well an organism would perform in behavior and cognition related tasks, as well as survive and thrive in its environment. Therefore, we would expect inter-individual variations in many behaviors, which would persist even if habituation to the experimental setup occurs, which generally results in convergence of behavior. Our study used wild-caught (...) zebrafish from three natural habitats with differing ecological regimes, to understand how consistency and repeatability in specific traits such as boldness, exploration, and spatial ability varies across and within populations even when habituation causes change in behavior. We found that the extent of individual variation differs between populations, with dynamic habitats showing similar repeatability. This indicates that habitat conditions are important drivers of individual variation in addition to other factors, such as sex or size of individuals within populations. Although we found that sex and size played an important role within some populations for some behaviors, in others, the variation was likely caused by other factors, for which we have not accounted. This study underlines the importance of studying inter-individual differences as the phenomenon that underpins multiple behavioral traits and explains the possible role of environmental and inherent factors that drive these differences. (shrink)

For decades, policy-makers in government, development banks and foundations, NGOs, researchers and students have struggled with the problem of how to protect people who are displaced from their homes and livelihoods by development projects. This book addresses these concerns and explores how debates often become deadlocked between 'managerial' and 'movementist' perspectives. Using development ethics to determine the rights and responsibilities of various stakeholders, the authors find that displaced people must be empowered so as to share equitably in benefits rather than (...) being victimized. They propose a governance model for development projects that would transform conflict over displacement into a more manageable collective bargaining process and would empower displaced people to achieve equitable results. Their book will be valuable for readers in a wide range of fields including ethics, development studies, politics and international relations as well as policy making, project management and community development. (shrink)

In the second book of the Confessions, Augustine flabbergasts his interpreters by exaggerating an adolescent escapade and making it a monstrosity. He conjectures that the pear thieves might have commited the theft purely for the sake of thieving, and thus, that they displayed a kind of evil that is not even presented by the arch-villain of Ciceronian antiquity, the conspirer Catilina. Following Aquinas’ interpretation this comparison has been considered a reductio in most of the relevant literature up to now. This (...) paper presents a different interpretation: Augustine is mostly serious about his claim – and there might be more to his argument than meets the eye. The interpretation developed in the present paper is based on a construal of the pear theft as collective agency. (shrink)

Die verbreitete Meinung, boses Tun erfordere eine bose Absicht, ist nach Ingolf U. Dalferth eine fragwurdige Ubervereinfachung. Der Primat des Bosen liegt nicht im Wollen, sondern in der Erfahrung des Bosen, im Widerfahrnis des Ublen. Was zahlt, ist das Leiden der Betroffenen. Aber auch dieser Ansatz kann zu abwegigen Ubervereinfachungen fuhren, wenn Leiden mit Bosem gleichgesetzt wird. An diesem Punkt beginnen die Uberlegungen der Studie. Fur Dalferth ist die entscheidende Frage, ob Leiden in jedem Fall als Boses verstanden werden (...) muss. Seine Antwort ist theologisch und ethisch differenziert und veranschaulicht in praziser Sprache die zu Grunde liegenden aktuellen Lebensphanomene an vielen gut verstandlichen Beispielen. Am Ende des Bandes werden Deutungs- und Bewaltigungsstrategien von Leiden und Bosem diskutiert, die den unverzichtbaren Beitrag von christlichem Glauben und Religion zum Umgang mit Leiden und Bosem aufzeigen und auch fur Nichtchristen verstehbar machen. Die Studie ist wahrend des Aufenthalts von Dalferth am Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin entstanden und in ihrer lebenspraktischen Ausrichtung ein hoch zu schatzender Gewinn fur alle Leserinnen und Leser. (shrink)

The Bose-Einstein condensation of free relativistic particles [ε=(M 2 c 4 +c 2 p 2 ) 1/2 −Mc 2 ] is studied rigorously. For massless bosons (ε=cp), the condensation transition of third (second) order occurs in2 (3) dimensions (D). The molar heat capacity follows the T 2 (T 3 ) law below the condensation temperature Tc [k B Tc=(2πħ 2 c 2 n/1.645) 1/2 [(π 2 ħ 3 c 3 n/1.202) 1/3 ], reaches4.38 (10.8) R at T=Tc, and approaches (...) the high-temperature-limit value2 (3) R with no jump (a jump equal to6.75R) in2 (3)D. For finite-mass (M) bosons, the phase transition occurs only in3D with the condensation temperature Tc always smaller than that of the corresponding nonrelativistic bosons [ε=(2M) −1 p 2 ]. If the mass M is reduced to zero, the condensation temperature Tc grows monotonically and reaches eventually that of massless relativistic bosons. This mass-dependence of Tc is therefore distinct from the case of nonrelativistic bosons, where Tc grows to infinity as M →0. A brief discussion is given for a possible connection with the normal-to-super transition of the independently moving Cooper pairs (bosons). (shrink)

In this paper I examine the connection between religious belief, despair and gender in Kierkegaard's Sickness unto Death and Fear and Trembling. I argue that despite Kierkegaard's abhorrent gender stereotyping, his concept of 'masculine despair' and its more extreme manifestation - the demonic - can be read ironically as a reductio ad absurdum of traditional 'male' virtues: pride, autonomy and dignity. That is to say, although the demonic is, according to Kierkegaard, the exact mirror-image of faith, it lacks precisely those (...) 'feminine' qualities - submissiveness and givingness - that would make faith a genuine possibility. Hence it would seem that Kierkegaard's bigotry notwithstanding, women are in fact constitutionally better equipped for the possibility of religious belief than are men, but given that this conclusion rests on very questionable premises, it presents at best a poisoned victory for the female sex. (shrink)