Based on a survey of 2,361 directors in 291 of the largest companies of the Southeast States, this study empirically examined boards of directors' stakeholder orientations. The results indicate that there exist distinct stakeholder groups perceived by directors, directors have high stakeholder orientations, directors view some stakeholders differently depending on their occupation and type.

Is helping those whose subsistence needs are not meet a matter of charity or an obligation? What role should ordinary citizens of developed nations play? In a globalized world, the causes, connections, and responsibilities become complicated. Agriculture subsidies that keep food prices low for many in relatively rich countries may, for example, negatively impact poor farmers in developing countries. Students in Ethics/Philosophy 352 report on their project examining whether, and to what extent, a true obligation to aid exists.

Do the rich descriptions and narrative shapings of literature provide a valuable resource for readers, writers, philosophers, and everyday people to imagine and confront the ultimate questions of life? Do the human activities of storytelling and complex moral decision-making have a deep connection? What are the moral responsibilities of the artist, critic, and reader? What can religious perspectives—from Catholic to Protestant to Mormon—contribute to literary criticism? Thirty well known contributors reflect on these questions, including iterary theorists Marshall Gregory, James Phelan, (...) and Wayne Booth; philosophers Martha Nussbaum, Richard Hart, and Nina Rosenstand; and authors John Updike, Charles Johnson, Flannery O'Connor, and Bernard Malamud. Divided into four sections, with introductory matter and questions for discussion, this accessible anthology represents the most crucial work today exploring the interdisciplinary connections between literature, religion and philosophy. (shrink)

Background:Women's health has received renewed attention in the last few years including health rehabilitation options for women affected by breast cancer. Dancing has often been regarded as one attractive option for supporting women's well-being and health, but research with women recovering from breast cancer is still in its infancy. Dancing with Health is multi-site pilot study that aimed to evaluate a dance programme for women in recovery from breast cancer across five European countries.Methods:A standardized 32 h dance protocol introduced a (...) range of Latin American dances presented within a sports and exercise framework with influences from dance movement therapy. Fifty-four women (M age 53.51; SD 7.99) participated in the study who had a breast cancer diagnosis 6 weeks, no indication of metastasis, or scheduled surgery/chemotherapy/radiation treatment for the duration of the intervention. Primary outcome data was collected for anthropometric and fitness measures next to cancer-related quality of life.T-tests and Wilcoxon signed ranked tests were used to establish differences pre and post intervention. Cohen's d was also calculated to determine the effect size of the intervention.Results:Statistically significant changes were found for: (i) weight, right and left forearm circumference and hip; (ii) 6 min walking, right and left handgrip, sit-to-stand and sit-and-reach; (iii) the EORTC-QLQ C30 summary score as well as the subscales of emotional and social functioning and symptoms. In all cases the direction of change was positive, while Cohen's d calculated showed that the effect of the intervention for these parameters ranged from intermediate to large.Conclusion:Changes on the above anthropometric, fitness and quality of life measures suggest that the intervention was of value to the participating women recovering from breast cancer. Results also advocate collaborative efforts across countries to further research. (shrink)

Successful surgical treatment of patients with focal drug-resistant epilepsy remains challenging, especially in cases for which it is difficult to define the area of cortex from which seizures originate, the seizure onset zone. Various diagnostic methods are needed to select surgical candidates and determine the extent of resection. Interictal magnetoencephalography with source imaging has proven to be useful for presurgical evaluation, but the use of ictal MEG data remains limited. The purpose of the present study was to determine whether pre-ictal (...) variations of spectral properties of neural activity from ictal MEG recordings are predictive of SOZ location.We performed a 4 h overnight MEG recording in an 8-year-old child with drug-resistant focal epilepsy of suspected right fronto-temporal origin and captured one ~45-s seizure. The patient underwent a right temporal resection from the anterior temporal neocortex and amygdala to the mid-posterior temporal neocortex, sparing the hippocampus proper. She remains seizure-free 21 months postoperatively. The histopathological assessment confirmed frank focal cortical dysplasia type IIa in the MEG-defined SOZ, which was based on source imaging of averaged ictal spikes at seizure onset. We investigated temporal changes together with spatial differences in spectral parameters of background brain activity, namely the aperiodic broadband offset and slope, and assessed how they confounded the interpretation of apparent variations of signal power in typical electrophysiological bands. Our data show that the SOZ was associated with a higher aperiodic offset and exponent during the seizure compared to control regions. Both parameters increased in all regions from 2 min before the seizure onwards. Regions anatomically closer to the SOZ also expressed higher values compared to contralateral regions, potentially indicating ictal spread. We also show that narrow-band power changes were caused by these fluctuations in the aperiodic component of ongoing brain activity. Our results indicate that the broadband aperiodic component of ongoing brain activity cannot be reduced to background noise of no physiological interest, and rather may be indicative of the neuropathophysiology of the SOZ. We believe these findings will inspire future studies of ictal MEG cases and confirm their significance. (shrink)

Goldthorpe reveals the genealogy of present-day sociological science through studies of the key contributions made by seventeen pioneers in the field, ranging from John Graunt and Edmond Halley in the mid-seventeenth century to Otis Dudley Duncan, James Coleman and Raymond Boudon in the late twentieth. Goldthorpe's biographies of these figures and analyses of their work reveal clear lines of intellectual descent, building towards the author's model of sociology as the study of human populations across time and place, previously outlined (...) in his book Sociology as a Population Science. The extent to which recent developments such as computational sociology and analytical sociology are in continuation with the efforts of these influential thinkers is also critically examined. Pioneers of Sociological Science will appeal to students and scholars of sociology and to anyone engaged in social science research, from statisticians to social historians. (shrink)

Psychology and Buddhism. From Individual to Global Community. Edited by Kathleen H. Dockett, Rita Dudley-Grant and C. Peter Bankart. Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York 2003. xv, 308 pp. £47.00. ISBN 0-306-47412-3.

Ethical issues surrounding the marketing and trade of controversial products such as tobacco require a better understanding. Virginia Slims, an exclusively women’s cigarette brand first launched in 1968 in the USA, was introduced during the mid 1980s to major Asian markets, such as Japan and Korea, dominated by male smokers. By reviewing internal corporate documents, made public from litigation, we examine the marketing strategies used by Philip Morris as they entered new markets such as Japan and Korea and consider the (...) extent that the company attempted to appeal to women in markets where comparatively few women were smokers. The case study of Virginia Slims reveals that the classification of “vulnerable” consumers is variable depending on culture, tobacco firms display responsive efforts and strategies when operating within a “mature” market, and cultural values played a role in informing Philip Morris’ strategic decision to embrace an adaptive marketing approach, particularly when entering the Korean market. Finally, moral questions are raised with tobacco being identified as a priority product for export and international trade agreements being used by corporations, governments, or trade partners in efforts to undermine domestic public health policies. (shrink)

This essay argues that Mark C. Murphy's original contribution to natural law ethics succeeds in finding a way between older metaphysical and newer purely practical approaches in this genre. Murphy's reconstruction of the function argument, critique of subjectivist theories of well-being, and rigorous formulation of a flexible welfarist theory of value deserve careful attention. I defend Kant against Murphy's critique and argue that Murphy faces the problem of showing that all his basic goods are morally inviolable. Although I endorse Murphy's (...) critique of radical virtue ethics, I raise objections to the basic moral norms he derives from his list of goods, and to the analysis of peace of mind and happiness as basic goods. (shrink)

For some, ‘transformation’ is the new non-reductive and non-normative ‘development’, attracting attention from interdisciplinary array, but of particular theoretical and practical interest to Spirituality scholars. In philosophical context, transformation theory has suffered greatly from ’agency-structure’ dualism and suspension of ontology in body-mind dualism and rationalist virtue controversy. Drawing on the work of Bhaskar, Segal and Slote, a renegotiated and more meaningful sense of transformation emerges from their cumulative analytical and conceptual enrichment. In the complexity of possible relations between self, self-concept (...) and society, lies the traditionally neglected transformative middle of sui-generis human depth. In redress, arguably, Bhaskar’s meta-philosophy accommodates Segal’s experiential depth analysis and Slote’s understanding of empathy and receptivity as valuable insights for ’awakening’ to transformative process. (shrink)

Through a study of a sophisticated contemporary scientific experiment, it is shown how and why use of the term 'observation' in reference to that experiment departs from ordinary and philosophical usages which associate observation epistemically with perception. The role of "background information" is examined, and general conclusions are arrived at regarding the use of descriptive language in and in talking about science. These conclusions bring out the reasoning by which science builds on what it has learned, and, further, how that (...) process of building consists not only in adding to our substantive knowledge, but also in increasing our ability to learn about nature, by extending our ability to observe it in new ways. The argument of this paper is thus a step toward understanding how it is that all our knowledge of nature rests on observation. (shrink)

Preface: The target of film theory -- Camera searching in the world -- Is a camera essential? -- Cahiers axiom -- Tracing Bazin's trace -- Images contested today -- Editor's discovery of form -- Bazin's forerunners -- Documentaries in the cauldron of history -- Cahiers line -- Pursuing cinema in the twenty-first century -- Projector as spectator's searchlight -- Power of projection -- Opening the screen's dimensions -- Frame as threshold -- Writing out of the frame -- Evolution of the (...) subjects of cinema -- Modern film: Between classic and avant-garde -- Ontogeny of cinema -- Credits and auteurs: An ecology of adaptation -- Fidelity: The economy of adaptation. (shrink)

An examination of Galileo's thought and work that focuses on his contributions to modern science.

Concepts in Film Theory is a continuation of Dudley Andrew's classic, The Major Film Theories. In writing now about contemporary theory, Andrew focuses on the key concepts in film study -- perception, representation, signification, narrative structure, adaptation, evaluation, identification, figuration, and interpretation. Beginning with an introductory chapter on the current state of film theory, Andrew goes on to build an overall view of film, presenting his own ideas on each concept, and giving a sense of the interdependence of these (...) concepts. Andrew provides lucid explanations of theories which involve perceptual psychology and structuralism; semiotics and psychoanalysis; hermeneutics and genre study. His clear approach to these often obscure theories enables students to acquire the background they need to enrich their understanding of film -- and of art. (shrink)

The alleged problem of "incommensurability" is examined, and attempts to explain scientific change in terms of concepts of meaning and reference are analyzed and rejected. A way of understanding scientific change through a properly developed concept of "reasons" is presented, and the issues of reasons, meaning, and reference are placed in the context of this broader interpretation of scientific change.

“What do you see when you look at your face in the mirror?” asks J. David Velleman in introducing his philosophical theory of action. He takes this simple act of self-scrutiny as a model for the reflective reasoning of rational agents: our efforts to understand our existence and conduct are aided by our efforts to make it intelligible. Reflective reasoning, Velleman argues, constitutes practical reasoning. By applying this conception, _Practical Reflection_ develops philosophical accounts of intention, free will, and the foundation (...) of morals. This new edition of _Practical Reflection_ contains the original 1989 text along with a new introduction and is the latest entry in The David Hume Series of Philosophy and Cognitive Science Reissues, which keeps in print previously published indispensable works in the area of cognitive science. _ _ _ _. (shrink)