The goal of this paper is to describe the link between financial performance and the level of sustainability. In a novel approach, the paper classifies firms based on past financial success to address a potentially reciprocal relationship. For the groups of better and worse performing firms and for the entire sample, the above link is then tested, also accounting for non‐linearity in the relationship. We show that environmental management system (EMS) implementation as a proxy for a firm's sustainability level is (...) only positively associated with the financial performance of financially well‐performing firms. Conversely, it has a negative association with the performance of less good firms. We show that this implies that firms cannot change from good to bad performance, and vice versa, solely through the implementation of an EMS, and also that the result remains when introducing non‐linearity in the link. Based on this result, we discuss implications for the direction of causality. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to describe the link between financial performance and the level of sustainability. In a novel approach, the paper classifies firms based on past financial success to address a potentially reciprocal relationship. For the groups of better and worse performing firms and for the entire sample, the above link is then tested, also accounting for non-linearity in the relationship. We show that environmental management system (EMS) implementation as a proxy for a firm's sustainability level is (...) only positively associated with the financial performance of financially well-performing firms. Conversely, it has a negative association with the performance of less good firms. We show that this implies that firms cannot change from good to bad performance, and vice versa, solely through the implementation of an EMS, and also that the result remains when introducing non-linearity in the link. Based on this result, we discuss implications for the direction of causality. (shrink)

A meta-analysis and an experiment show that the degree of compression of the in-depth dimension of visual space relative to the frontal dimension increases quickly as a function of the distance between the stimulus and the observer at first, but the rate of change slows beyond 7 m from the observer, reaching an apparent asymptote of about 50 %. In addition, the compression of visual space is greater for monocular and reduced cue conditions. The pattern of compression of the in-depth (...) dimension as a function of distance is similar to the ratio of in-depth to frontal visual angles of stimuli, but is not as extreme as this ratio would suggest, implying that observers are incapable of fully ignoring size information provided by cues to depth. Size and distance judgments may be described by an Affine transformation of physical space; however, the compression parameter in this model changes as a function of distance from the observer and other experimental conditions. (shrink)

Reducing prejudice is a critical research agenda, and never before has counterfactual priming been evaluated as a potential prejudice-reduction strategy. In the present experiment, participants were randomly assigned to imagine a pleasant interaction with a homosexual man and then think counterfactually about how an incident of sexual discrimination against him might not have occurred (experimental condition) or to imagine a nature scene (control condition). Results demonstrated a significant reduction in sexual prejudice from baseline levels in the counterfactual simulation group. Importantly, (...) whereas intergroup anxiety and motivation to control prejudice were not predictive factors, number of counterfactual thoughts generated independently predicted variance in prejudice reduction. Mechanisms for, and implications of, prejudice-reduction strategies including counterfactual thinking are discussed. (shrink)

Part I: Dimensions of time's enigma -- Is time real? -- Eleaticism, temporality, and time -- The makings of a temporal universe -- Pastness and futurity -- Synchronicity and synchronicity -- Temporal pace and measurement -- Presentness or the present -- Aristotle's real account of time -- Parmenidean time and the impossible now -- Cosmic motion and the speed of time -- Time as the motion of the cosmos -- Time as the cosmos itself -- Time as motion and all (...) change -- Temporal cognition and the return of the now -- Real temporality in an Aristotelian world -- Does Aristotle refute eleaticism? -- Bisection argument I -- Bisection argument II -- Bisection argument III -- Plotinus' vitalistic platonism and the real origins of time -- Temporality, eternality, and Plotinus' new metaphysic -- Plotinus' critique of Aristotelian motion -- Indefinite temporality and the measure of motion -- Plotinus' neoplatonic account of time. (shrink)

Mindfulness-based training programs are highly established in competitive and recreational sports. One of the best-known approaches is the Mindfulness-Acceptance-Commitment Approach by Gardner and Moore), which integrates mindfulness aspects of awareness, non-judgmental attitude, and focus. Based on these aspects, Thienot and colleagues developed and validated an English language sport-specific questionnaire, the so-called Mindfulness Inventory for Sport, for the assessment of mindfulness skills in athletes. The aim of this study is to psychometrically test a German language version of the MIS. To assess (...) the psychometric properties, the MIS-D was examined in an online survey with an integrated test–retest design for reliability, validity, and measurement invariance. The present results support the psychometric quality of the German language version of the MIS. Necessary replications should among others focus on checking the measurement invariance for further relevant subgroups. (shrink)

Lateral temporal measures of the auditory evoked potential including the T-complex, as well as an earlier negative peak index maturation of auditory/speech processing. Previous studies have shown that these measures distinguish neural processing in children with typical language development from those with disorders and monolingual from bilingual children. In this study, bilingual children with Turkish as L1 and German as L2 were compared with monolingual German-speaking children with developmental language disorder and monolingual German-speaking children with TD in order to disentangle (...) effects of limited language input vs. reduced perceptual abilities in the processing of speech and non-speech stimuli. Sensory processing reflected by the T-complex was compared in response to a German vowel and a sine-wave tone in the three groups of children, ages 5 through 6 years. Stimuli were presented while children watched a muted video. Auditory evoked potentials were time-locked to the vowels and tones. AEPs to the frequent stimuli within an oddball paradigm were analyzed at the left and right temporal electrode sites.The results revealed language status, stimulus, and language test measures all influenced the T-complex amplitudes. Particularly, the peak amplitude of Ta was modulated by language status and stimulus type. Bilingual children had significantly more negative Ta responses than the monolingual children with TD for both vowels and tones while DLD children differed from TD children only for the vowel stimulus. The amplitude of the T-complex was overall more negative at the left than at the right site. The Na peak latency was longer for the bilingual group than that observed for the two monolingual groups. The Tb latency was shorter for DLD and bilingual groups than that for TD children in the vowel condition, but no such latency difference between DLD and bilingual children was found. We suggest that the attenuated T-complex for bilingual children indicates continued plasticity of the auditory cortex to allow for learning of novel, second-language speech sounds. (shrink)

Regular musical activity as a complex multimodal lifestyle activity is proposed to be protective against age-related cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease. This cross-sectional study investigated the association and interplay between musical instrument playing during life, multi-domain cognitive abilities and brain morphology in older adults from the DZNE-Longitudinal Cognitive Impairment and Dementia Study study. Participants reporting having played a musical instrument across three life periods were compared to controls without a history of musical instrument playing, well-matched for reserve proxies of education, (...) intelligence, socioeconomic status and physical activity. Participants with musical activity outperformed controls in global cognition, working memory, executive functions, language, and visuospatial abilities, with no effects seen for learning and memory. The musically active group had greater gray matter volume in the somatosensory area, but did not differ from controls in higher-order frontal, temporal, or hippocampal volumes. However, the association between gray matter volume in distributed frontal-to-temporal regions and cognitive abilities was enhanced in participants with musical activity compared to controls. We show that playing a musical instrument during life relates to better late-life cognitive abilities and greater brain capacities in OA. Musical activity may serve as a multimodal enrichment strategy that could help preserve cognitive and brain health in late life. Longitudinal and interventional studies are needed to support this notion. (shrink)

Widowhood is common in old age, can be accompanied by serious health consequences and is often linked to substantial changes in social network. Little is known about the impact of social isolation on the development of depressive symptoms over time taking widowhood into account. We provide results from the follow-up 5 to follow-up 9 from the longitudinal study AgeCoDe and its follow-up study AgeQualiDe. Depression was measured with GDS-15 and social isolation was assessed using the Lubben Social Network Scale (LSNS-6). (...) The group was aligned of married and widowed people in old age and education through entropy balancing. Linear mixed models were used to examine the frequency of occurrence of depressive symptoms for widowed and married elderly people depending on the risk of social isolation. Our study shows that widowhood alone does not lead to an increased occurrence of depressive symptoms. However, "widowed oldest old", who are also at risk of social isolation, have significantly more depressive symptoms than those without risk. In the group of "married oldest old", women have significantly more depressive symptoms than men, but isolated and non-isolated do not differ. Especially for people who have lost a spouse, the social network changes significantly and increases the risk for social isolation. This represents a risk factor for the occurrence of depressive symptoms. (shrink)

This collection of essays addresses emergent trends in the meeting of the disciplines of phenomenology and performance. It brings together major scholars in the field, dealing with phenomenological approaches to dance, theatre, performance, embodiment, audience, and everyday performance of self. It argues that despite the wide variety of philosophical, ontological, epistemological, historical and methodological differences across the field of phenomenology, certain tendencies and impulses are required for an investigation to stand as truly phenomenological. These include: description of experience; a move (...) towards fundamental conditions or underlying essences; and an examination of taken-for-granted presuppositions. The book is aimed at scholars and practitioners of performance looking to deepen their understanding of phenomenological concepts and methods, and philosophers concerned with issues of embodiment, performativity and enaction. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Platonopolis: Platonic Political Philosophy in Late AntiquityMichael F. WagnerDominic J. O'Meara. Platonopolis: Platonic Political Philosophy in Late Antiquity. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003. Pp. xi + 249. Cloth, $55.00.Porphyry tells of Plotinus's failed petition to emperor Gallienus to (re)establish a "city of philosophers" conformed to Plato's laws, named Platonopolis (Vit. Plo.12). O'Meara here articulates primary themes and developments in philosophical political thought in the classical Neoplatonic period, from Plotinus's (...) day in the mid-third century into the sixth century. Concurrently, he addresses head on "the conventional view that the Platonist philosophers of Late Antiquity had no political philosophy" (3). This view exemplifies the more general perspective that the Neoplatonists were simply disinterested in this-worldly affairs in lieu of "an immaterial world... our true 'homeland,' where we can at last attain the good we desire" (3). Consequently, O'Meara provides both a unique study of an important [End Page 205] topic and a compelling case for a more complete, balanced understanding of Neoplatonic other-worldly-ness. O'Meara's study covers key figures from four main groups of (neo)Platonists: Plotinus and his students; the schools in Syria and Asia Minor inspired by Iamblichus; the Athenian school (Plutarch, Proclus, Damascius et al.); and the Alexandrian school (Hyapatia, Philoponus, Olympiodorus et al.). He organizes his investigation (chapters) into three Parts.The pivotal concept in O'Meara's two-pronged endeavor is divinization - "assimilation and unification, as far as possible, to god" (31, Proclus) - a concept whose meaning for classical Neoplatonists ranges from "becoming a god" to "imitating some form of divine life, in one way or another" (31). Part I focuses on the Neoplatonists' shared association of a human soul's divinization with virtue-osity [my jargon], beginning with Plotinus's distinction between political virtue(s) and purification—or purificatory virtue(s). O'Meara emphasizes the relevance of the resulting "scale of virtues" to a life of continued activity—for example explicating Plotinus's denial that a "purified" soul is somehow exempt from the rightness-of-acting expected of the politically virtuous soul: rather, "reaching higher principles and different measures he will act [directly, immediately] according to these" (43, En. I,2,7).Another organizing theme as O'Meara's investigations proceed beyond Plotinus is the significance of the increasing complexities of particular Neoplatonic metaphysical systems, and so also of their moral systems - e.g. their "scales of virtue." Part I also articulates related attempts (beginning with Porphyry and Iamblichus) to articulate programs of moral and philosophical study - i.e. a related "scale of sciences." Of special note here are proposals by some Neoplatonists to divide the "practical sciences" associated on this scale with political virtuousness into legislative science(s) and judicial science (56). Implicit in the Neoplatonic scale(s) of virtue(s) was the thesis that as one progresses towards divinization "lower" virtue-osity is not transcended in the sense of lost or dismissed but rather it is included or incorporated into a higher form. Arguably, "lower" sciences are likewise not merely aids or stepping-stones towards something "higher," but genuine topoi of study and knowledge in their own right.Part II is the true heart of O'Meara's outstanding scholarly and philosophical inquiry. Here is where he fulfills his intent to discern a substantive tradition of political philosophy and to articulate its key themes and concepts. Though he associates this part of his investigation with Plato's conceit of the philosopher's return to the cave, he immediately parses this "descent" as a "divinization of political life through philosophy" (71). He articulates various Neoplatonists' approaches to questions inspired by Plato's cave allegory—e.g. Is the philosopher socially obligated to "return"? Could s/he then still be happy? (His investigation here does seem to overlook Neoplatonic conceptions of choice, volition, or will as these might pertain to such questions.) O'Meara recognizes, however, that the more fundamental link between Neoplatonic metaphysics and Neoplatonic ethical-political thought derives from Plotinus's conception "of fecundity, of an [overflowing] abundance" (74) in his highest One, and so in a soul assimilated to It. In Proclus's formulation: "that which... (shrink)

Objectives:Social isolation is increasing in aging societies and several studies have shown a relation with worse cognition in old age. However, less is known about the association in the oldest-old (85+); the group that is at highest risk for both social isolation and dementia. Methods:Analyses were based on follow-up 5 to 9 of the longitudinal German study on aging, cognition, and dementia in primary care patients (AgeCoDe) and the study on needs, health service use, costs, and health-related quality of life (...) in a large sample of oldest-old primary care patients (AgeQualiDe), a multi-center population-based prospective cohort study. Measurements included the Lubben Social Network Scale (LSNS-6), with a score below 12 indicating social isolation, as well as the Mini-Mental Status Examination (MMSE) as an indicator of cognitive function. Results:Dementia-free study participants (n = 942) were M = 86.4 (SD = 3.0) years old at observation onset, 68.2% were women. One third (32.3%) of them were socially isolated. Adjusted linear hybrid mixed effects models revealed significantly lower cognitive function in individuals with smaller social networks (β = 0.5, 95% CI = 0.3-0.7, p <.001). Moreover, changes in an individual's social network size were significantly associated with cognitive changes over time (β = 0.2, 95% CI = 0.1-0.4, p =.003), indicating worse cognitive function with shrinking social networks. Conclusion:Social isolation is highly prevalent among oldest-old individuals, being a risk factor for decreases in cognitive function. Consequently, it is important to maintain a socially active lifestyle into very old age. Likewise, this calls for effective ways to prevent social isolation. (shrink)

This article investigates the role of prosody in conversational humor in the HBO series Sex and the City in an exploratory study. Specifically, we examine how pitch and pauses are part of the prosodic bundle that can be used to mark an utterance as humoristic. We find that the use of prosodic resources participates not only in the marking but also the creation of humor. In this regard, we view pitch variation and pauses as having communicative strategies and cognitive benefits. (...) They are part of the performance of humor and participate in the characterization of the personage. The authors suggest the existence of a repertoire of prosodic devices associated to humor and to a particular discourse. (shrink)

Historiography is becoming more critical of the typology/ population dichotomy introduced by Ernst Mayr. Therefore, one should look again at the problem of species in non-Darwinian theories: neo-Lamarckism and orthogenesis, and consider the possibility that this problem was overly simplified. What can be seen in both of them is the existence of a tension between the idea of evolution and the essence of species. In neo-Lamarckism, this tension was resolved by recognizing species as static entities which changed only when triggered (...) by external stimulus. In orthogenesis, evolution was seen as constant phenomena and species – as naturally changeable entities. However, orthogeneticists assumed that not only species, but also whole phyletic lines had essences that constrained their further evolution. Thus, in both cases we can see interpretation of species in tune with essentialism, but essentialism is widely differently integrated with each of these concepts of evolution. (shrink)

Fremtidsstaten og samfundsmaskinen – Social ingeniørkunst mellem teknokrati og produktivisme.

W pracy tej podejmowane jest zagadnienie form przejściowych ewolucji biologicznej w jej najbardziej znanej formie, czyli problemu „brakującego ogniwa”. Problem ten często pojawiający się w rozważaniach wczesnych darwinistów, został całkowicie zarzucony przez współczesnych ewolucjonistów. Zniknięcie kwestii brakującego ogniwa z zainteresowań współczesnej biologii tłumaczy się tym, iż poszukiwane formy przejściowe zostały już odnalezione. Sam zaś problem uważa się za nieistotny, gdyż spowodowany niekorzystnym wpływem różnych czynników pozanaukowych. Celem pracy jest wskazanie przyczyn, które doprowadziły do zmiany sposobu postrzegania owej problematyki. Szczególna uwaga (...) zostanie poświęcona relacji taksonomii do sposobu, w jaki postrzegano poszukiwane brakujące ogniwa. Cały zaś problem brakującego ogniwa, jego przyczyny i zniknięcia, jest interpretowany jako wynik przemian metanaukowych, jakie zaszły w trakcie rozwoju taksonomii. (shrink)

Original essays by leading scholars on Plotinus' philosophy of nature.

The paper analyzes the incompatibility of Evolutionary Epistemology of Theories (EET) with Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. The argument consists of four parts, each addressing a specific problem with EET and offering examples. Firstly, advocates of EET frequently misapply Darwin’s theory by asserting that evolution is teleological, which is at odds with Darwinism. Secondly, the “universal Darwinism” underlying EET is inconsistent with the relativism present in Darwin’s theory. Thirdly, because of the relativistic character of Darwin’s theory, philosophies that appeal to (...) it need to provide additional justification for using Darwin’s ideas outside of biology, which EET fails to do. Finally, the paper demonstrates that the Darwinocentric historiography proposed by EET underappreciates neo-Lamarckism, whose model of evolution is closer to that used in EET. (shrink)