Since the completion of the Human Genome Project, personalized medicine has become one of the most influential visions guiding medical research. This paper focuses on the politics of personalized medicine in psychiatry as a medical specialty, which has rarely been investigated by social science scholars. I examine how this vision is being sustained and even increasingly institutionalized within the mental health arena, even though related research has repeatedly failed. Based on a document analysis and expert interviews, this article identifies discursive (...) strategies that help to sustain this vision and its promises: “complexity talk,” “extension,” and “boundary work.” These practices secure its plausibility, protect it from criticism, and maintain stakeholder support. (shrink)

Recently, Hosmer (1994a) proposed a model linking right, just, and fair treatment of extended stakeholders with trust and innovation in organizations. The current study tests this model by using Victor and Cullen''s (1988) ethical work climate instrument to measure the perceptions of the right, just, and fair treatment of employee stakeholders.In addition, this study extends Hosmer''s model to include the effect of right, just, and fair treatment on employee communication, also believed to be an underlying dynamic of trust.More specifically, the (...) current study used a survey of 111 managers to test (1) whether right, just, and fair treatment influences trust, both directly as well as indirectly via communication, and (2) whether trust influences perceptions of commitment and innovation. Strong support for the study''s hypotheses and Hosmer''s (1994a) model was found. Such findings support those who argue that moral management may be good management. (shrink)

This guest editorial opens with a brief overview of the transformations of medicine and mental health that can be observed since the second half of the twentieth century. New genetics and biotechnologies hold out the promise of overcoming presumed limitations in the field of mental health care, that is, the fact that diagnostic procedures in psychiatry and clinical psychology still largely rely on the narratives of patients and questionnaires, supposedly subjective assessments by physicians and psychologists. It is envisioned that innovative (...) genetic and proteomic tools, imaging technologies, and objective laboratory tests for blood biomarkers will enable better diagnosis and treatment of mental diseases. We argue that emerging biotechnologies do not revolutionize mental health, despite their promise to do so. Instead, we observe a pluralization of research and treatment approaches in the domain of mental health. The second part of this editorial discusses the contributions to this special issue on emerging biotechnologies and mental health and outlines how they address some of the gaps in social studies of psychiatry and mental health in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

When a fragmented line-drawing of an object moves relative to a background of randomly oriented lines, the previously hidden object can be segregated from the background and consequently enters awareness. In this shape-from-motion paradigm, the percept of the object briefly persists after the motion stops, demonstrating the maintenance of a bound percept in awareness. This study investigated how the manipulation of object features that are crucial to recognition influences both the binding process and the maintenance of objects in awareness. Overall, (...) we found that objects that took longer to recognize were nonetheless maintained in awareness for longer. We argue that this effect is mediated by additional elaborative processing that is required to bind these less recognizable forms, which generates stronger and more robust representations. These representations are then more easily maintained in awareness, suggesting an important role of elaborative mechanisms for conscious representations. (shrink)

Comprehensive evaluation and study of man's theories and knowledge of genetical characteristics and the evolutionary processes.

Explores the development of the ideas of evolutionary biology, particularly as affected by the increasing understanding of genetics and of the chemical basis of inheritance.

Published just after the Second World War, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages is a sweeping exploration of the remarkable continuity of European literature across time and place, from the classical era up to the early nineteenth century, and from the Italian peninsula to the British Isles. In what T. S. Eliot called a "magnificent" book, Ernst Robert Curtius establishes medieval Latin literature as the vital transition between the literature of antiquity and the vernacular literatures of later centuries. (...) The result is nothing less than a masterful synthesis of European literature from Homer to Goethe. European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages is a monumental work of literary scholarship. In a new introduction, Colin Burrow provides critical insights into Curtius's life and ideas and highlights the distinctive importance of this wonderful book. (shrink)

Provides a philosophical analysis of such biological concepts as natural selection, adaptation, speciation, and evolution.

In the Preface of Animal Species and Evolution (1963), I wrote that it was "an attempt to summarize and review critically what we know about the biology and genetics of animal species and their role in evolution." The result was a volume of XIV ...

I analyze a number of widespread misconceptions concerning species. The species category, defined by a concept, denotes the rank of a species taxon in the Linnaean hierarchy. Biological species are reproducing isolated from each other, which protects the integrity of their genotypes. Degree of morphological difference is not an appropriate species definition. Unequal rates of evolution of different characters and lack of information on the mating potential of isolated populations are the major difficulties in the demarcation of species taxa.

This collection of revised and new essays argues that biology is an autonomous science rather than a branch of the physical sciences. Ernst Mayr, widely considered the most eminent evolutionary biologist of the 20th century, offers insights on the history of evolutionary thought, critiques the conditions of philosophy to the science of biology, and comments on several of the major developments in evolutionary theory. Notably, Mayr explains that Darwin's theory of evolution is actually five separate theories, each with its (...) own history, trajectory and impact. Ernst Mayr, commonly referred to as the "Darwin of the 20th century" and listed as one of the top 100 scientists of all-time, is Professor Emeritus at Harvard University. What Makes Biology Unique is the 25th book he has written during his long and prolific career. His recent books include This is Biology: The Science of the Living World (Belknap Press, 1997) and What Evolution Is (Basic Books, 2002). (shrink)

Provides a thorough overview of historical and contemporary theories of evolution, discusses key concepts and terms, and argues that our understanding of evolution has changed the beliefs and values of modern humankind. Reprint. 30,000 first printing.