In the second book of his Epitoma rei militaris Vegetius sets himself the task of describing the organization of the antiqua legio of the Roman Army, the units into which it was divided, its officers, the arms of its soldiers, and its tactical employment on the field of battle. Interspersed in this account are frequent references to changes that had been subsequently effected and were in operation in the author's lifetime. But although these annotations destroy the synthesis of the book, (...) and the transition from past to present is not always clearly indicated, the disentanglement of Vegetius' own additions from the material provided by his source or sources is not the chief difficulty that confronts the modern historian. For with few exceptions in chapters 4–14 Vegetius describes the antiqua legio in the imperfect, the legion of his own time in the present indicative, with the not infrequent addition of the word ‘nunc’ or ‘hodie.’ The great problem is to discover whether in his account of the antiqua legio the author is referring to any one period of Roman History, and, if so, whether its limits can be exactly defined. Many solutions have been attempted. Some scholars have thought that the period is earlier than Hadrian; the more generally accepted theory is that the antiqua legio can be identified with the legion as it was constituted in the reign of Diocletian. Recently two German historians have subjected the evidence to fresh consideration, and, while one of them agrees with the majority in selecting the age of Diocletian for his answer to the problem, the other believes that he can date the period to which Vegetius is referring to the late second century A.D. (shrink)

In the second book of his Epitoma rei militaris Vegetius sets himself the task of describing the organization of the antiqua legio of the Roman Army, the units into which it was divided, its officers, the arms of its soldiers, and its tactical employment on the field of battle. Interspersed in this account are frequent references to changes that had been subsequently effected and were in operation in the author's lifetime. But although these annotations destroy the synthesis of the book, (...) and the transition from past to present is not always clearly indicated, the disentanglement of Vegetius' own additions from the material provided by his source or sources is not the chief difficulty that confronts the modern historian. For with few exceptions in chapters 4–14 Vegetius describes the antiqua legio in the imperfect, the legion of his own time in the present indicative, with the not infrequent addition of the word ‘nunc’ or ‘hodie.’ The great problem is to discover whether in his account of the antiqua legio the author is referring to any one period of Roman History, and, if so, whether its limits can be exactly defined. Many solutions have been attempted. Some scholars have thought that the period is earlier than Hadrian; the more generally accepted theory is that the antiqua legio can be identified with the legion as it was constituted in the reign of Diocletian. Recently two German historians have subjected the evidence to fresh consideration, and, while one of them agrees with the majority in selecting the age of Diocletian for his answer to the problem, the other believes that he can date the period to which Vegetius is referring to the late second century A.D. (shrink)

Introduction In 2007, a national review committee was instituted in The Netherlands to review cases of active ending of life for newborns. It was expected that 15–20 cases would be reported. To date, however, only one case has been reported to this committee. Reporting is essential to obtain societal control and transparency; the possible explanations for this lack of reporting were therefore explored. Methods Data on end-of-life decision-making were scrutinised from Dutch nation-wide studies (1995, 2001 and 2005), before institution of (...) the committee. Physicians received a questionnaire about their medical decision-making for stratified samples of deceased infants up to 1 year, drawn from the central death registry. Results In 2005, 58% of all deaths were preceded by an end-of-life decision, compared with 68% in 2001 and 62% in 1995. The use of drugs with a possible life-shortening effect tended to be lower. In 2005, all four cases in the study in which an infants' life was actively ended were preceded by a decision to forego life-prolonging treatment. In three cases, the infant's life expectancy was short; one case involved a longer life expectancy. Discussion The expected number of cases is probably an overestimation due to changes in medical practice such as the tendency to attribute less life-shortening effects to opioids. The lack of reports is probably also associated with requirements in the regulation; it may be difficult to fulfil them due either to time constraints or the nature of the suffering that is addressed. If societal control of active ending of life is considered useful, changes in the regulation may be needed. (shrink)

In recent years, we have seen a new concern with ethics training for research and development professionals. Although ethics training has become more common, the effectiveness of the training being provided is open to question. In the present effort, a new ethics training course was developed that stresses the importance of the strategies people apply to make sense of ethical problems. The effectiveness of this training was assessed in a sample of 59 doctoral students working in the biological and social (...) sciences using a pre–post design with follow-up and a series of ethical decision-making measures serving as the outcome variable. Results showed not only that this training led to sizable gains in ethical decision making but also that these gains were maintained over time. The implications of these findings for ethics training in the sciences are discussed. (shrink)

This study described the relationships between academic class and student moral sensitivity and reasoning and between curriculum design components for ethics education and student moral sensitivity and reasoning. The data were collected from freshman (n = 506) and senior students (n = 440) in eight baccalaureate nursing programs in South Korea by survey; the survey consisted of the Korean Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire and the Korean Defining Issues Test. The results showed that moral sensitivity scores in patient-oriented care and conflict were (...) higher in senior students than in freshman students. Furthermore, more hours of ethics content were associated with higher principled thinking scores of senior students. Nursing education in South Korea may have an impact on developing student moral sensitivity. Planned ethics content in nursing curricula is necessary to improve moral sensitivity and moral reasoning of students. (shrink)

Introduction: The Dutch Euthanasia Act states that euthanasia is not punishable if the attending physician acts in accordance with the statutory due care criteria. These criteria hold that: there should be a voluntary and well-considered request, the patient’s suffering should be unbearable and hopeless, the patient should be informed about their situation, there are no reasonable alternatives, an independent physician should be consulted, and the method should be medically and technically appropriate. This study investigates whether physicians experience problems with these (...) criteria in medical practice.Methods: In 2006, questionnaires were sent to a random, stratified sample of 2100 Dutch physicians . Physicians were asked about problems in their decision-making related to requests for euthanasia or assisted suicide after enforcement of the 2002 Euthanasia Act.Results: Of all physicians who had received a request for euthanasia or assisted suicide , 25% had experienced problems in the decision-making with regard to at least one of the criteria of due care. Physicians who had experienced problems mostly indicated to have had problems related to evaluating whether or not the patient’s suffering was unbearable and hopeless and whether or not the patient’s request was voluntary or well considered .Discussion: Physicians in The Netherlands most frequently reported problems related to aspects in which they have to evaluate the patient’s subjective perspective. However, it can be questioned whether placing emphasis on these subjective aspects is an adequate fulfilment of the duties imposed on physicians, as laid down in the Dutch Euthanasia Act. (shrink)

This paper studies general numerical networks with support and attack. Our starting point is argumentation networks with the Caminada labelling of three values 1=in, 0=out and ½=undecided. This is generalised to arbitrary values in [01], which enables us to compare with other numerical networks such as predator?prey ecological networks, flow networks, logical modal networks and more. This new point of view allows us to see the place of argumentation networks in the overall landscape of networks and import and export ideas (...) to and from argumentation networks. We make a special effort to make clear how general concepts in general networks relate to the special case of argumentation networks. We pay special attention to the handling of loops and to the special features of numerical support. We find surprising connections with the Dempster?Shafer rule and with the cross-ratio in projective geometry. This paper is an expansion of our 2005 paper and so we also consider higher level features such as numerical attacks on attacks, and propagation of numerical values.We conclude with a brief view of temporal numerical argumentation and with a detailed comparison with related papers published since 2005. (shrink)

Peer review of grant applications, it has been suggested, might be distorted by what is popularly termed old boyism, cronyism, or particularism. We argue that the existing debate emphasizes the more uninteresting aspects of the peer review system and that the operation of old boyism, as currently understood would have little effect on the overall direction of science. We identify a phenomenon of cognitive particularism, which we consider to be more important than the institutional cronyism analyzed in previous studies. We (...) illustrate with material drawn from observation of grant-awarding commit tees of the Science and Engineering Research CounciL In the concluding discussion, we explore some of the possible implications for the peer review system. (shrink)

In list-method directed forgetting, reexposure to forgotten List 1 items has been shown to reduce directed forgetting. proposed that reexposure to a few List 1 items only during a direct test of memory reinstates the entire List 1 episode. In the present experiments, part-list reexposure in the context of indirect as well as direct memory tests reduced directed forgetting. Directed forgetting was reduced when 50% or more of the items were reexposed, and was intact when only 25% were reexposed. Furthermore, (...) part-list reexposure appeared to reinstate only reexposed items-not the entire List 1 episode. (shrink)

Ten years have passed since the National Council of Catholic Bishops presented their pastoral letter Economic Justice for All. For a democratic society to succeed, it must cultivate moral attachments. The following three questions are asked of all Americans regarding social ethics: l) How do my economic choices contribute to a sensitivity to those in need? 2) With what care, human kindness and justice do I conduct myself at work? 3) How do I strike a balance between labor and leisure (...) that enlarges my capacity for friendships, for family life, for community? The importance of a sense of shared humanity is discussed and recommendations are made regarding emotions as strategies in the process of moral decisionmaking. The task of sensitizing both the intellectual convictions and the emotional feelings of Americans towards a more compassionate stance vis-a-vis the disinherited in our midst is presented. (shrink)

The traditional Dung networks depict arguments as atomic and study the relationships of attack between them. This can be generalised in two ways. One is to consider various forms of attack, support, feedback, etc. Another is to add content to nodes and put there not just atomic arguments but more structure, e.g. proofs in some logic or simply just formulas from a richer language. This paper offers to use temporal and modal language formulas to represent arguments in the nodes of (...) a network. The suitable semantics for such networks is Kripke semantics. We also introduce a new key concept of usability of an argument. This is the beginning of a continuing research for adding contents to the nodes of an argumentation network. This research will allow us to address notions like ?what does it exactly mean for a node to attack another? or ?what does it mean for a network to be consistent? or ?can we give proper proof rules to manipulate networks?, and more. (shrink)

How can we distinguish one mind from another? How are we to determine what unifies the mind? Given radical mental disunity, these questions need to be answered.

An account of a language in terms of the sense and reference of its sentences is inadequate and must be supplemented by indicating the point of uttering different sentences. Assuming that a sense and reference account will be given in terms of 'truth' conditions, The article shows that such an account is framed in terms of the notion: member of the class of sentences a language user attempts to utter, Rather than the notion of truth, And that one such account (...) can suffice for two languages. To specify a language completely, We must, In addition to a sense-Reference account, Specify which class of sentences language users attempt to utter. (shrink)

Secondary qualities have peculiarities which are thought to threaten physicalism. It is argued that these peculiarities are only to be expected in a physicalist universe in virtue of the essential characteristics of a representing device. Any device representing the world such as a camera will have depictional qualities. Secondary qualities are a subset of these.

D. H. M. Brooks; III*—Dogs and Slaves: Genetics, Exploitation and Morality, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 88, Issue 1, 1 June 1988, Pages 31–6.