The purpose of the present study was to address the shortcomings of Cronbach’s alpha concerning the semantic overlap between items. Using an example from a motivational measure, the correction of Cronbach’s alpha was applied by partialing out the effects due to conceptual overlap. The significance of Cronbach’s alpha was tested using simulated random data derived from the measure and by estimating the confidence intervals with known and unknown distributions. The results indicated that the uncorrected conceptual overlap coefficient alpha was equal (...) to 0.89 and 0.66 following the correction. After simulating the corrected statistical results, the distribution of alpha with random numbers had an estimate of 95%, equal to 0.41. The lower bound of the corrected alpha distribution was equal to 0.41, suggesting that the corrected alpha could easily belong to the distribution of alpha developed from simulated random numbers. Thus, the semantic overlap between items on a measure represents a significant threat to the validity of the alpha coefficient. (shrink)

The purpose of the present study was to test the hypothesis that goal orientation is associated with divergent forms of emotional reactivity under frustration. Goal orientations were assessed using bifurcations of performance goals described earlier. Physiological stress levels were measured via a blood volume pulse analysis after individuals were subjected to a computerized Stroop task using a malfunctioning mouse to induce enhanced frustration. The results indicated that performance-avoidance goals were associated with the highest levels of emotional reactivity, with normative outcome (...) goals being significantly more detrimental than ability goals. We concluded that the motivation to avoid failure or to outperform others is the most detrimental determinant of stress and needs to be avoided by all means. Instead, it is suggested that educators emphasize performance using personal best outcomes or by valuing engagement, deep processing and task completion. (shrink)

The purpose of the present study was to test the measurement invariance of the baby pediatric symptom checklist across gender and age as a means to provide for valid comparisons in point estimates across groups. A secondary goal involved confirming the earlier identified factor structure and re-examining the presence of differentially item functioning in the BPSC across grouping variables. Participants were 601 children aged below 1 year and 1 year to 12 months. Data were collected as part of the National (...) Health Interview Survey in 2020. Results related to gender indicated satisfying all five levels of measurement and structural invariance. When testing measurement invariance across age groups, a few modifications were necessary. Specifically, partial metric invariance was satisfied after freeing slope estimates of items 1 and 2, partial scalar after freeing intercept terms of items 6 and 10, and partial residual invariance through freeing error terms of items 2 and 12. These non-invariant estimates, however, provide support for partial invariance and do not invalidate the comparison of latent means. The BPSC can be used for the valid assessment of social–emotional skills in infants up to the age of 18 months. (shrink)

Digital technologies can be an asset to serving communities and societies through data analytics and management to achieve greater good. However, care must be exercised in that societies without digital access do not get overlooked or, worse, face abuses of privacy disclosure or exploitation. Regulations exist to prevent this happening, but ethical considerations are important in deciding in what is allowable and what is not. The further risk of artificial intelligence where computers start to make autonomous decisions and the vulnerabilities (...) we are exposed to is considered. Steps are proposed to develop an ethics-based digital strategy and how to mitigate cyber risk. (shrink)

The globalization in business and tourism becomes crucial more and more for the economical sustainability of local communities. In the presence of an epidemic outbreak, there must be such a decision on the policy by the host community as whether to accept visitors or not, the number of acceptable visitors, or the condition for acceptable visitors. Making use of an SIRI type of mathematical model, we consider the influence of visitors on the spread of a reinfectious disease in a community, (...) especially assuming that a certain proportion of accepted visitors are immune. The reinfectivity of disease here means that the immunity gained by either vaccination or recovery is imperfect. With the mathematical results obtained by our analysis on the model for such an epidemic dynamics of resident and visitor populations, we find that the acceptance of visitors could have a significant influence on the disease’s endemicity in the community, either suppressive or supportive. (shrink)

Sociology has largely followed Durkheim’s lead in ignoring the question: why do people die by suicide? This negation prioritizes a positivist, structuralist approach and stymies sociology’s contribution by closing off a wide range of tools sociologists might employ. An interpretivist turn in suicide studies accompanied by the growing adoption of qualitative methodology has opened up an array of opportunities to produce insights lost in a Durkheimian approach, but has yet to confront their own weaknesses. This paper shows we need not (...) abandon either tradition, advocating for a third path that integrates the strengths of both approaches. (shrink)

In the Ukrainian-Russian relations, especially in pre-revolutionary times, the religious component played an important role. The attitude of the Russian authorities toward Southwest Russia was shaped by the influence of several conceptions made in the church circles, which also significantly influenced the formation of Russian national identity.

Geoffrey Rose’s prevention paradox points to a tension between two prima facie plausible moral principles: that we should save the greater number and that weshould save the most at risk. This paper argues that a novel moral theory, ex-ante contractualism, captures our intuitions in many prevention paradox cases, regardless of our interpretation of probability claims. However, it goes on to show that it might be impossible to square ex-ante contractualism with all of our moral intuitions. It concludes that even if (...) ex-ante contractualism cannot furnish an entire ethics of risk, it does identify important considerations for any such theory. (shrink)

Geoffrey Rose’s prevention paradox points to a tension between two prima facie plausible moral principles: that we should save the greater number and that weshould save the most at risk. This paper argues that a novel moral theory, ex-ante contractualism, captures our intuitions in many prevention paradox cases, regardless of our interpretation of probability claims. However, it goes on to show that it might be impossible to square ex-ante contractualism with all of our moral intuitions. It concludes that even if (...) ex-ante contractualism cannot furnish an entire ethics of risk, it does identify important considerations for any such theory. (shrink)

According to the ethical system of eudaimonism, a philosophy that predates Aristotle, individuals have a responsibility to recognize and live in accordance with their daimon or "true self." The daimon refers to the potentialities of each person, the realization of which represents the greatest fulfillment in living of which each is capable. The daimon is an ideal in the sense of being an excellence, a perfection toward which one strives and, hence, it can give meaning and direction to one's life. (...) Eudaimonia, then, is activity in accordance with one's daimon. This is what is considered worth having in life. Since Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics is concerned with the proper ends of human functioning, he rejects the view of eudaimonia as a subjective state equivalent to, or similar to, hedonic enjoyment. But if psychologists are to be able to make productive use of the Aristotle's conception of eudaimonia, it must be rendered in a form more congenial to the field. In pursuing this goal, I have found it necessary to take several significant departures from the Aristotelian perspective, while I have endeavored to remain true to Aristotle's ethical objectives. The most important of these departures is to consider eudaimonia to have a subjective component embodying the experiences that flow from efforts to live in truth to one's daimon by striving to develop one's aptitudes and talents for purposes deemed worth having in life. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

This volume explores East Asian intellectual traditions and their influence on contemporary discussions of the ethics of war and peace. Through cross-cultural comparison and dialogue between East and West, this work charts a new trajectory in the development of applied ethics. A sequel to the volume Chinese Just War Ethics, it expands the range of the earlier work and includes attention to Japan and other Eastern and Western traditions for contrastive reflection and engages with the full range of Chinese intellectual (...) traditions for comparative analysis. The book scrutinizes pioneering works such as the Mengzi, the Han Feizi, and the Seven Military Classics, investigating their influence in subsequent times. It also engages with new texts and thinkers such as the Four Books of the Yellow Emperor, Zeng Guofan, Chiang Kai-shek, and Mao Zedong, along with examining recent writings of the scholars of the People's Liberation Army. The final section of the book identifies and discusses some emerging issues in the comparative study of military ethics, just war and peace that derive from the preceding sections. The volume editors then offer some concluding remarks at the end of the book. This book will be of much interest to students of the ethics of war and peace, just war theory, military ethics, Asian studies and International Relations in general. (shrink)

Parkinson schreibt, es sei nicht klar, daß Alexander selbst von Geburt an Merkmale oder Zeichen des Ortes seines zukünftigen Todes in sich getragen haben müsse, weil der vollständige Begriff von Alexander den Begriff des in Babylon Sterbens enthält. Die vorliegende Interpretation des Prinzips der Vorherbestimmtheit der Geschichte verdeutlicht dies mit Hilfe der bildlichen Ausdrücke, Pläne und Dispositionen und mit Hilfe einer aristotelischen Unterscheidung zwischen "going to be" und "will be" , fur welche ein formaler chronologischer Apparat ausgearbeitet ist. Die Arbeit (...) gibt ebenfalls Einblick in den Gedanken, daB die Gegenwart schwanger mit der Zukunft ist, und antwortet auf Reschers Kritik, daß Leibniz' Metaphysik von Grund auf statisch sei. (shrink)

This paper reports the introduction of electronic handsets, like those used on the television show 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?' into the teaching of philosophical logic. Logic lectures can provide quite a formidable challenge for many students, occasionally to the point of making them ill. Our rationale for introducing handsets was threefold: to get the students thinking and talking about the subject in a public environment; to make them feel secure enough to answer questions in the lectures because the (...) system enabled them to do this anonymously; and to build their confidence about their learning by their being able to see how they were progressing in relation to the rest of the students in the class. We have achieved all of these and more. Our experience has revealed that the use of handsets encourages a more dynamic form of student interaction in an environment - the lecture - that can, in the wrong hands, be utterly enervating, but they also provide an opportunity for the lecturer to respond to students' difficulties at the time when they really matter. In this paper, we discuss our case of rapid adoption, our grounds for judging it a success, and what that success seems to have depended on. (shrink)