This study represents an improvement in the ethics scales inventory published in a 1988 Journal of Business Ethics article. The article presents the distillation and validation process whereby the original 33 item inventory was reduced to eight items. These eight items comprise the following ethical dimensions: a moral equity dimension, a relativism dimension, and a contractualism dimension. The multidimensional ethics scale demonstrates significant predictive ability.

We apply an online optimization process based on machine learning to the production of Bose-Einstein condensates. BEC is typically created with an exponential evaporation ramp that is optimal for ergodic dynamics with two-body s-wave interactions and no other loss rates, but likely sub-optimal for real experiments. Through repeated machine-controlled scientific experimentation and observations our ’learner’ discovers an optimal evaporation ramp for BEC production. In contrast to previous work, our learner uses a Gaussian process to develop a statistical model of the (...) relationship between the parameters it controls and the quality of the BEC produced. We demonstrate that the Gaussian process machine learner is able to discover a ramp that produces high quality BECs in 10 times fewer iterations than a previously used online optimization technique. Furthermore, we show the internal model developed can be used to determine which parameters are essential in BEC creation and which are unimportant, providing insight into the optimization process of the system. (shrink)

The Routledge Companion to Metaphysics is an outstanding, comprehensive and accessible guide to the major themes, thinkers, and issues in metaphysics. The Companion features over fifty specially commissioned chapters from international scholars which are organized into three clear parts: History of Metaphysics Ontology Metaphysics and Science. Each section features an introduction which places the range of essays in context, while an extensive glossary allows easy reference to key terms and definitions. The Routledge Companion to Metaphysics is essential reading for students (...) of philosophy and anyone interested in surveying the central topics and problems in metaphysics from causation to vagueness and from Plato and Aristotle to the present-day. (shrink)

DBS Think Tank IX was held on August 25–27, 2021 in Orlando FL with US based participants largely in person and overseas participants joining by video conferencing technology. The DBS Think Tank was founded in 2012 and provides an open platform where clinicians, engineers and researchers can freely discuss current and emerging deep brain stimulation technologies as well as the logistical and ethical issues facing the field. The consensus among the DBS Think Tank IX speakers was that DBS expanded in (...) its scope and has been applied to multiple brain disorders in an effort to modulate neural circuitry. After collectively sharing our experiences, it was estimated that globally more than 230,000 DBS devices have been implanted for neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders. As such, this year’s meeting was focused on advances in the following areas: neuromodulation in Europe, Asia and Australia; cutting-edge technologies, neuroethics, interventional psychiatry, adaptive DBS, neuromodulation for pain, network neuromodulation for epilepsy and neuromodulation for traumatic brain injury. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Book Reviews Die Megariker: Kommentierte Sammlung der Testimonien. By Klaus D~ring. (Amsterdam : Verlag B. R. Griiner N.V., 1972. Pp. xii q- 185) D~Sring has assembled the first complete collection of textual fragments concerning the Megarian philosophers of the fourth and third centuries B.c., together with a commentary. The fragments are divided by the author into four groups, each centered around one of the better-known figures of the school: (...) Euclid, Eubulides, Diodorus Cronus, Stilpo. Evidences concerning lesser-known personalities are included under the figure to whose "circle" they belonged. A fifth group of texts appears in an Anhang devoted to the sophist Bryson (often mistakenly associated with the Megarians) and his student Polyxenus. Divisions in the commentary parallel those in the text. The author also adds a stemma summarizing his conclusions about teacher-pupil relationships within the school, and there is a selective bibliography and a SteUenregister. An index, which in view of the work's organization would be helpful, is not included. Simply as a collection of texts, this is a major addition to the scholarship in its field; with the author's commentary, it is the most important work on the Megarians since Kurt von Fritz's Real-Encyclopiidie article.1 D~Sringpresents convincing evidence that some widely disseminated opinions about the school have little or no foundation. Some of his alternative views have important consequences, and not only for the history of the Megarians. DSring rejects the dates customarily assigned to the school's founder Euclid (ca. 450ca. 380), pointing out that there is actually no good evidence for them (pp. 73-74). His own figures (ca. 435-ca. 365) rely on the evidence of Plato's Theaetetus to give the year 369 as a terminus post quem for Euclid's death. The first consequence of this chronology is that the story of Euclid stealing into Athens disguised as a woman in order to avoid the anti-Megarian decree of 432 must be rejected; Dfiring feels that it is probably one of a family of tales elaborated by later writers "urn die Macht der Philosophie zu demonstrieren " (p. 74). A more important consequence is in store when this chronology is combined with a reassessment of the evidence relating to Euclid's philosophical position. D6ring rejects the traditional description of Euclid as a "neo-Eleatic" who attempted to combine a strict Parmenidean monism with Socrates' ethical views by identifying the "One" with the "Good." Following yon Fritz, he sees this as "eine ziemlich gewaltsame antike Doxographenkonstruktion" (p. 83). His own view reverses the importance of Socratic and Eleatic elements in Euclid's thought, making him "[ein] Sokratiker, der die dem Sokratischen Denken inh~ente eleatische Komponente weiterentwickelt hat" (p. 87). Together with the revision of Euclid's dates, this would appear to eliminate decisively Kr~imer's thesis that Euclid originated the "Gleichsetzung ontologischer und axiologischer Momente''e fundamental to Platonic metaphysics. First, Euclid was only a few years older than Plato (not "at least two decades," as KrOner requires); second, there is no evidence whatever that he had studied the Eleatic doctrines before meeting Socrates; and finally, the purported "Gleichsetzung" appears to be rather the work of doxographers (pp. 87-89). When we add DSring's skeptical assessment of the story of Plato's Megarian period (p. 76), there remains little evidence to support the theory that Euclid was the ultimate source of Plato'S metaphysics. The most famous achievements of the M~garians were in the sphere of logic. Here, x Suppl. V (1931), s. v. "Megariker." H. J. Kr~mer, Arete bei Platon und Aristoteles (Heidelberg, 1959), p. 506. [52H 522 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY Dtring's work should provide the impetus for further research; his collection of texts is much more comprehensive than anything previously available, and his commentary, although deliberately limited to an overview, at least provides a good account of the status quaestionis. The material on the paradoxes attributed to the Megarians (pp. 106-114) is particularly valuable; he gives a good conspectus of the extensive literature on the "Liar" and "sorites," and his remarks on the lesser-known paradoxes (the "Man Who Escapes Notice," the "Electra," the "Hooded... (shrink)

v. 1. Tema li︠u︡bvi v istorii filosofii i kulʹtury ; Li︠u︡bov v sovremennon mire -- v. 2. Antologii︠a︡ li︠u︡bvi.

Tax compliance is a concern to governments around the world. Prior research (Alm, J. and I. Sanchez: 1995, KYKLOS 48, 3–19) has attributed unexplained inter-country differences in compliance rates to differences in social norms. Economics researchers studying tax compliance in the United States (U.S.) (see for example J. Andreoni et al.: 1998, Journal of Economic Literature 36, 818–860) have called for more attention to social (as opposed to economic) influences on tax compliance. In this study, we extend this prior research (...) by explicitly examining the role of social norms [Cialdini, R. and M. Trost: 1998, The Handbook of Social Psychology (Oxford University Press, New York)] on tax compliance in three different countries. We test our research hypotheses using a hypothetical compliance scenario, which was administered in Australia, Singapore, and the U.S. There were differences in compliance rates and social norms among the three countries. Factor analysis of the social norm questions identified three distinct social norm constructs. Two of these factors were significant in explaining tax compliance behavior. The first and most influential factor was taxpayers’ own personal moral beliefs, along with the beliefs of those close to them (e.g., friends and important others). The second significant factor represented societal views of proper behavior. We conclude that social norms help to explain tax compliance intentions and why tax compliance rates are higher than would be predicted by strictly economic models. (shrink)

The quest for molecular mechanisms that guide axons or specify synaptic contacts has largely focused on molecules that intuitively relate to the idea of an “instruction.” By contrast, “permissive” factors are traditionally considered background machinery without contribution to the information content of a molecularly executed instruction. In this essay, I recast this dichotomy as a continuum from permissive to instructive actions of single factors that provide relative contributions to a necessarily collaborative effort. Individual molecules or other factors do not constitute (...) absolute instructions by themselves; they provide necessary context for each other, thereby creating a composite that defines the overall instruction. The idea of composite instructions leads to two main conclusions: first, a composite of many seemingly permissive factors can define a specific instruction even in the absence of a single dominant contributor; second, individual factors are not necessarily related intuitively to the overall instruction or phenotypic outcome. (shrink)

This paper considers the research contribution of OCMS as reflected in the theses presented for higher degrees by its students. This does not therefore include the very significant research productivity of OCMS staff. The OCMS processes and procedures for admitting, supervising and examining research students are first reviewed. The statistical evidence relating to successful completions is then presented and analysed. The scope of the research undertaken is examined in relation to the stated aims of OCMS, and this leads to the (...) conclusion that in general these aims have been impressively met, both academically and in serving the needs of the worldwide Church. (shrink)

Anselm saw theology as fides quaerens intellectum, faith searching for understanding. Theology concerns itself with human awareness of something that transcends humanity. It starts where we are and involves a given-ness which forms its fundamental basis. Human experience or awareness of God is interpreted from within this agreed framework. Theology is a way of experiencing and interpreting life but it is also dynamic body of knowledge. Within the Christian tradition, this can be seen in the theologies from the so-called ‘margins’. (...) The study of such a dynamic body of knowledge has been the concern of theology and religious studies degree programmes in modern Universities. Theology is however, not the preserve of the elite professionals. The professional theologians need to stand alongside ordinary people and learning from their experiences as much as theirs. (shrink)

Many medical ethicists accept the thesis that there is no moral difference between withholding and withdrawing life-sustaining therapy. In this paper, we offer an interesting counterexample which shows that this thesis is not always true. Withholding is distinguished from withdrawing by the simple fact that therapy must have already been initiated in order to speak coherently about withdrawal. Provided that there is a genuine need and that therapy is biomedically effective, the historical fact that therapy has been initiated entails a (...) claim to continue therapy that cannot be attributed to patients who have not yet received therapy. This intrinsic difference between withholding and withdrawing therapy is of moral importance. In many instances, patients will waive this claim. But when one considers withdrawing therapy from one patient to help another in a setting of scarce resources, this intrinsic moral difference comes into sharp focus. In an era of shrinking medical resources, this difference cannot be ignored. (shrink)

Recent studies in semantics of modal and superintuitionistic predicate logics provided many examples of incompleteness, especially for Kripke semantics. So there is a problem: to find an appropriate possible- world semantics which is equivalent to Kripke semantics at the propositional level and which is strong enough to prove general completeness results. The present paper introduces a new semantics of Kripke metaframes' generalizing some earlier notions. The main innovation is in considering "n"-tuples of individuals as abstract "n"-dimensional vectors', together with some (...) transformations of these vectors. Soundness of the semantics is proved to be equivalent to some non- logical properties of metaframes; and thus we describe the maximal semantics of Kripke- type. (shrink)

OBJECTIVE: To examine the long-term effects of an innovative curriculum on medical house officers' (HOs') knowledge, confidence, and attitudes regarding medical ethics. DESIGN: Long term cohort study. The two-year curriculum, implemented by a single physician ethicist with assistance from other faculty, was fully integrated into the programme. It consisted of monthly sessions: ethics morning report alternating with didactic conferences. The content included topics such as ethics vocabulary and principles, withdrawing life support, informed consent, and justice. Identical content was offered simultaneously (...) at the largest affiliated community hospital. SETTING: A multi-hospital university training programme from July, 1992 to June, 1994. PARTICIPANTS: Thirty-nine HOs responded in 92. Thirty HOs from the same cohort responded in 94 (response rates = 83% v 71%; P = 0.19). RESULTS: The curriculum was well received, with 96% of HOs finding the sessions stimulating. Previously validated scales of knowledge and confidence were administered at baseline and at follow-up. The average knowledge score improved 14% (P < 0.001). Confidence also improved, rising from 3.3 to 3.8 on a 5-point Likert scale (P < 0.001). These findings were independent of age, gender, religion, and prior education. The only attitudinal change was an increase in the proportion of residents who thought that ethics should be a required part of residency training (57% v 80%, P = 0.05). CONCLUSION: This curriculum appears practical, popular, and effective. It should be readily transferable to other institutions. (shrink)

This is an intellectual biography of Benjamin Kidd, a leading Social Darwinist in the years before World War I, and a social prophet in the tradition of Comte and Spencer. His first book Social Evolution, published in 1894, was an immediate and enormous success around the world. In it, Kidd developed a collectivist form of Social Darwinism in tune with the values of Progressivism in America and the 'new liberalism' in Britain. By many it was regarded as the basis for (...) a properly scientific sociology, and the combination of its claims to scientific methodology, with an emphasis on non-rational forces as the agents of progress accurately caught the temper of its times. Launched on his career as a writer, Kidd's subsequent books and journalism continued to exercise extraordinary influence. His 'social imperialism', linking a bio-political defence of empire with a programme of social reform, won currency in the Anglo-American world at a time of expansionary fervour. (shrink)

Everyone involved with the care and welfare of children and young adults is confronted with the issue of bullying. Bullying behaviors create an uncomfortable, threatening, and hostile environment that make it difficult for children to learn. 101 Facts about Bullying breaks down what the research says about bullying and its effects, offering ideas for what can and should be done to minimize or reduce it. Kevorkian systematically discusses topics ranging from relational bullying to cyber bullying to media and video violence (...) to the legal ramifications of bullying, debunking myth and uncloaking the facts about bullying and its prevention. (shrink)

We report the results of a randomized trial to assess the impact of an innovative ethics curriculum on the knowledge and confidence of 85 medical house officers in a university hospital programme, as well as their responses to a simulated clinical case. Twenty-five per cent of the house officers received a lecture series, 25 per cent received lectures and case conferences, with an ethicist in attendance, and 50 per cent served as controls. A post-intervention questionnaire was administered. Knowledge scores did (...) not differ among the groups. Confidence regarding ethical issues was significantly greater in the aggregate intervention group compared to the control group. Confidence regarding procedural issues related to ethics was significantly higher for the EI group than for the controls. Responses to a simulated case showed that significantly fewer house officers in the EI group would intubate a patient for whom such therapy would be futile. We conclude that ethics education can have an impact on house officers' confidence and their responses to a simulated case, and that the EI was more effective than the LI. Such results have implications regarding the implementation of ethics education during residency. (shrink)