Single-sided deafness (SSD) or profound unilateral hearing loss obligates the only serviceable ear to capture all acoustic information. This loss of binaural function taxes cognitive resources for accurate listening performance, especially under adverse environments or challenging tasks. We hypothesized that adults with SSD would manifest both functional and structural brain plasticity compared to controls with normal binaural hearing. We evaluated functional alterations using magnetoencephalographic imaging (MEGI) of brain activation during performance of a moderately difficult auditory syllable sequence reproduction task and (...) assessed structural integrity using diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging (DTI). MEGI showed the SSD cohort to have increased induced oscillations in the theta band over the left superior temporal cortex and decreased induced gamma band oscillations over the frontal and parietal cortices between 175-475 ms following stimulus onset. DTI showed the SSD cohort to have extensive fractional anisotropy reduction in both auditory and non-auditory tracts and regions. Overlaying functional and structural changes revealed by the two imaging techniques demonstrated close registration of cortical areas and white matter tracts that expressed brain plasticity. Hence, complete loss of input from one ear in adulthood triggers both functional and structural alterations to dorsal temporal and frontal-parietal areas. (shrink)

Compiled in China in the fourth-third centuries B.C.E., The Book of Lord Shang argues for a new powerful government to penetrate society and turn every man into a diligent tiller and valiant soldier. Creating a "rich state and a strong army" will be the first step toward unification of "All-under-Heaven." These ideas served the state of Qin that eventually created the first imperial polity on Chinese soil. In this new translation, The Book of Lord Shang's intellectual boldness and (...) surprisingly modern-looking ideas shine through, underscoring the text's vibrant contribution to global political thought. The Book of Lord Shang is attributed to the political theorist Shang Yang and his followers. It epitomizes the ideology of China's so-called Legalist School of thought. In the ninety years since the work's previous translation, major breakthroughs in studies of the book's dating and context have recast our understanding of its messages. This edition applies these advances to a whole new reading of the text's content and function in the sociopolitical life of its times and subsequent centuries. This fully annotated translation is ideal for newcomers to the book while also guiding early Chinese scholars and comparatists in placing the work within a timeline of influence. It highlights the text's practical success and its impact on the political thought and political practice in traditional and modern China. (shrink)

Although the Shang dynasty sometimes seems archaic and alien from the point of view of later periods, there are important elements of Shang culture that persevered in recognizable forms, even after allowing for adaptation to new historical realities, beyond the Zhou conquest in 1045 B.C. These points of continuity being generally underappreciated, five of the most salient are sketched below, in the hope of spurring renewed interest in China’s first historical dynasty: the ritual use of writing, particularly as (...) a mode of communication with the spirit world; the status of Chinese as the sole written language; the notion that some days are auspicious and others inauspicious; a patrilocal and patrilineal family structure that nevertheless accommodated mothers within its ritual order; and “the Deity’s command”. In keeping with the genre of “brief communication,” the examples adduced are illustrative rather than exhaustive; a full study of these themes would require an entire monograph. (shrink)

In International Law and World Order, B. S. Chimni articulates an integrated Marxist approach to international law combining the insights of Marxism, socialist feminism and postcolonial theory. The book uses IMAIL to systematically and critically examine the most influential contemporary theories of international law including new, feminist, realist and policy-oriented approaches. In doing so, it discusses a range of themes relating to the history, structure and process of international law. The book also considers crucial world order issues and problems that (...) the international legal process has to contend with, including the welfare of weak groups and nations, the ecological crisis and the role of human rights. This extensively revised second edition provides an invaluable, in-depth and updated review of the key literature and scholarship within this field of study. It will be of particular interest to students and scholars of international law, international relations, international politics and global studies. (shrink)

ObjectiveOur objective was to evaluate whether those individuals with previous involvement with formal clinical ethics processes differ in their attitudes towards the resolution of prototypical clinical ethics cases than general health care professionals. We hypothesized that those individuals with previous participation in ethics consultation would have significantly different attitudes on the appropriate role of ethics committees in the assessment and resolution of clinical ethical dilemmas than those who have not.MethodsWe conducted a case-based survey of health care professionals at six US (...) hospitals. We administered the survey to health care professionals in a variety of clinical roles at each center and further sub-categorized these by respondents reporting or not reporting their membership on an ethics committee or participation as an ethics consultant/requestor of ethics consult services. Using the analysis of variance test, we present the variation in attitudes using a 5-point Likert scale with 95% confidence intervals and significance set at p ≤ 0.05.ResultsA total of 240 respondents completed the survey (response rate: 63.6%) from all six surveyed centers (128 respondents with involvement with ethics consultation, 112 respondents without). Health care professionals not previously involved with formal clinical ethics processes were less likely to view the ethics committee as having a role in resolving the presented clinical ethical dilemmas ( p = 0.01 for analysis of variance comparison).ConclusionIn this multi-center survey study, health care providers without previous involvement with formal clinical ethics processes were less likely than those with previous involvement to support a role for ethics committees aiding in ethical case resolution. (shrink)

This paper investigates a well-known case of simultaneous discovery in twentieth-century chemistry, the origins of the concept of hybridisation, in the light of Kuhn's insights. There has been no ambiguity as to who discovered this concept, when it was "rst in print, and how important it was. The full-#edged form of the concept was published in 1931 independently by two American scientists John C. Slater (1900}1976) and Linus Pauling (1901}1994), although both of them had made their ideas public earlier: Slater (...) at the American Physical Society meetings in 1930, and Pauling in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 1928. Slater and Pauling both argued for the necessity of using an s orbital as well as three p orbitals in the carbon atom in order to explain carbon's four valences and the tetrahedral structure of methane. The metaphor &hybridisation' for denoting this mix of s and p orbitals was "rst used by Robert S. Mulliken and J. H. Van Vleck before gaining currency with the scienti"c community around 1935.2 The concept of hybridisation was indeed indispensable for extending the quantum-mechanical interpretation of the chemical bond as an electron pairing from diatomic molecules to polyatomic ones. To be sure, the emergence of hybridisation attests to scientists' growing interest in exploring the borderland between physics and chemistry, a trend that led to the creation of physical chemistry in the late nineteenth century and of chemical physics and quantum chemistry in the 1920s and 30s. Slater and Pauling themselves experienced and on many occasions talked about the fruitfulness of interdisciplinary research; and historians have legitimately illuminated their works by examining them in this broad context.3 Yet the careful analysis of their research notes and published papers reveals that Slater and Pauling were working in quite disparate disciplinary traditions, with di!erent approaches, for di!erent audiences, and towards di!erent goals. The aim of this paper is to explore their di!erent routes to a common destination*hybridisation*and thereby to explicate tensions existing between physics and chemistry amidst the institutional and conceptual overlapping of the two disciplines. (shrink)

Drawing from the Boulding''s (1956) framework for general systems theory, the need to employ richer paradigm in the study of organizations (Pondy and Mitroff, 1979) is reiterated. It is argued that a better understanding of organizational ethical behavior is contingent upon viewing organizations as symbol processing systems of shared language and meanings. Further, it is proposed that organizations, like individuals, develop into collectivities of shared cognitions and rationale, over a period of time. The study adapts Kohlberg''s (1983) model of moral (...) development to examine if organizations can be viewed as passing through different stages of moral development depending on the type of moral reasoning employed to explain their behaviors in the face of ethical crises. Several cases raising questions about the ethics of corporate behavior were researched. An instrument entitled Organization Response Analysis was constructed using statements made by various spokespersons representing five of these organizations. The instrument was administered to 246 graduate and undergraduate students of business (N = 246). Results indicated a great degree of concurrence among respondents of differing genders, levels of education and work experience in determining the stages of moral development of organizations. Limitations of the current study and implications for future research and practice are discussed. (shrink)

In his account of probable reasoning, Poincaré used the concept, or at least the language, of conventions. In particular, he claimed that the prior probabilities essential for inverse probable reasoning are determined conventionally. This paper investigates, in the light of Poincaré's well known claim about the conventionality of metric geometry, what this could mean, and how it is related to other views about the determination of prior probabilities. Particular attention is paid to the similarities and differences between Poincaré's conventionalism as (...) it applies to probabilities and de Finetti's subjectivism. The aim of the paper is to suggest that in accounts of the development of ideas about probable reasoning, particularly those customarily described as Bayesian, Poincaré's discussion deserves more attention than it has so far received. (shrink)

Lü-shih ch'un-ch'iu [Spring and Autumn of the House of Lü] appeared on the scene in 239 B.C. This was the latter part of the Warring States period. Our country's transition from slavery to feudalism had already been basically completed, but chaotic wars of secession among the feudal princes still occurred. Remnant forces of the slave system were still quite strong, and the restoration-counterrestoration struggle between the declining slave-owning class and the newly emerging landlord class was proceeding violently. Lü Pu-wei was (...) a careerist and plotter of the declining slave-owning class and a representative of the Confucians. In response to the needs of the slave-owning class's counterrevolutionary restoration, Lü adopted the tactic of "attacking the mind." He sneaked into the government of the newly emerging landlord class in the state of Ch'in and played the role of an ardent vanguard for restoration. This big commercial slave owner, who had originally run around among Ch'in, Chao, and other states, had amassed thousands of gold pieces at home and possessed more than ten thousand slaves. He played around with political conspiracies and became chancellor of the state of Ch'in. Before King Ying Cheng of Ch'in personally took power in 238 B.C., political power fell for a time into Lü's hands. Lü Pu-wei worked in collusion with Lao Ai, a eunuch he sponsored, and joined the industrial and commercial slave owners and the aristocratic slave owners to form a frenzied restorationist force. On the one hand, they formed factions to strengthen private interests, expanded their power, and prepared for an armed coup d'état. On the other hand, they took in riff-raff [literally, people who had surrendered and rebelled], assembled Confucian scholars, set to work on ideology, and grandly created public opinion for the restoration of the slave system. At that time, a reactionary adverse current favoring the restoration of the slave system hung over the state of Ch'in. Lü-shih ch'un-ch'iu, which was compiled under Lü's direction by his retainers, was the product of this adverse current. (shrink)

In his account of probable reasoning, Poincare used the concept, or at least the language, of conventions. In particular, he claimed that the prior probabilities essential for inverse probable reasoning are determined conventionally. This paper investigates, in the light of Poincare's well known claim about the conventionality of metric geometry, what this could mean, and how it is related to other views about the determination of prior probabilities. Particular attention is paid to the similarities and differences between Poincare's conventionalism as (...) it applies to probabilities and de Finetti's subjectivism. The aim of the paper is to suggest that in accounts of the development of ideas about probable reasoning, particularly those customarily described as Bayesian, Poincare's discussion deserves more attention than it has so far received. (shrink)

Simultaneous discovery in science has been a subject of close historical investigations, not only for assessing claims of priority, which occasionally generate controversy rather than consensus, but also for understanding the cultural and intellectual context of the time. Thomas S. Kuhn is a pioneer in the contextual study of simultaneous discovery, and his paper on the formulation of the first law of thermodynamics has already become a classic.

This paper addresses whether universal, general education programs are enough to satisfy basic criteria of human rights, or whether comprehensive family planning programs, in conjunction with universal education programs, might also be morally required. Even before the Reagan administration instituted the ‘global gag rule’ at the 1984 conference in Mexico City, prohibiting funding to nongovernmental organizations that included providing information about abortion as a possible method of family planning, the moral acceptability of family planning programs has been called into question. (...) This paper makes a moral argument for family planning by appealing to both data and to theory: data about the efficacy of universal and comprehensive family planning education programs at reducing fertility and infant mortality, and theory about what is required for the establishment of autonomy. It reasons that universal educational programs are insufficient for the promotion of autonomy, and therefore argues on substantive autonomy grounds for comprehensive family planning programs in addition to universal education programs. (shrink)