BackgroundLimited research has been conducted on explanations and understandings of biobanking for future genomic research in African contexts with low literacy and limited healthcare access. We report on the findings of a sub-study on participant understanding embedded in a multi-disease community health screening and biobank platform study known as ‘Vukuzazi’ in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.MethodsSemi-structured interviews were conducted with research participants who had been invited to take part in the Vukuzazi study, including both participants and non-participants, and research staff that (...) worked on the study. The interviews were transcribed, and themes were identified from the interview transcripts, manually coded, and thematically analysed.ResultsThirty-nine individuals were interviewed. We found that the research team explained biobanking and future genomic research by describing how hereditary characteristics create similarities among individuals. However, recollection and understanding of this explanation seven months after participation was variable. The large volume of information about the Vukuzazi study objectives and procedures presented a challenge to participant recall. By the time of interviews, some participants recalled rudimentary facts about the genetic aspects of the study, but many expressed little to no interest in genetics and biobanking.ConclusionParticipant’s understanding of information related to genetics and biobanking provided during the consent process is affected by the volume of information as well as participant’s interest in the subject matter being discussed. We recommend that future studies undertaking biobanking and genomic research treat explanations of this kind of research to participants as an on-going process of communication between researchers, participants and the community and that explanatory imagery and video graphic storytelling should be incorporated into theses explanations as these have previously been found to facilitate understanding among those with low literacy levels. Studies should also avoid having broader research objectives as this can divert participant’s interest and therefore understanding of why their samples are being collected. (shrink)

With the desired outcome of social good within the wider robotics ecosystem, trust is identified as the central adhesive of the human–robot interaction (HRI) interface. However, building trust between humans and robots involves more than improving the machine’s technical reliability or trustworthiness in function. This paper presents a holistic, community-based approach to trust-building, where trust is understood as a multifaceted and multi-staged looped relation that depends heavily on context and human perceptions. Building on past literature that identifies dispositional and learned (...) stages of trust, our proposed decision to trust model considers more extensively the human and situational factors influencing how trust manifests within social relations. Priority is given to the human user of technology—the initiator of human—robot trust relations—at all stages of decision-making. The envisioned formation of optimal conditions in which trust emerges requires the collective participation of practitioners, policymakers, and members of the community. With trust facilitating the smooth transition of robots into more socially embedded roles, positive receptivity of the best engineering project arises from the presence of harmonious robot-human trust relations in community spaces. (shrink)

We show that the N₀-categorical structures produced by Hrushovski's predimension construction with a control function fit neatly into Shelah's $SOP_n $ hierarchy: if they are not simple, then they have SOP₃ and NSOP₄. We also show that structures produced without using a control function can be undecidable and have SOP.

ObjectiveTo prospectively study the cingulate cortex for the localization and role of the grasping action in humans during electrical stimulation of depth electrodes.MethodsAll the patients with intractable focal epilepsy and a depth electrode stereotactically placed in the cingulate cortex, as part of their pre-surgical epilepsy evaluation from 2015 to 2017, were included. Cortical stimulation was performed and examined for grasping actions. Post-implantation volumetric T1 MRIs were co-registered to determine the exact electrode position.ResultsFive patients exhibited contralateral grasping actions during electrical stimulation. (...) All patients had electrodes implanted in the ventral bank of the right cingulate sulcus adjacent to the vertical anterior commissure line. Stimulation of other electrodes in adjacent regions did not elicit grasping.ConclusionGrasping action elicited from a localized region in the mid-cingulate cortex directly supports the concept of the cingulate cortex being crucially involved in the grasping network. This opens an opportunity to explore this region with deep brain stimulation as a motor neuromodulation target for treatment in specific movement disorders or neurorehabilitation. (shrink)

Denton and Hockx present thirteen essays treating a variety of literary organizations from China's Republican era . Interdisciplinary in approach, the essays are primarily concerned with describing and analyzing the social and cultural complexity of literary groupings and the role of these social formations in literary production of the period.

:Empirical work has shown that patients and physicians have markedly divergent understandings of treatability statements in the context of serious illness. Patients often understand treatability statements as conveying good news for prognosis and quality of life. In contrast, physicians often do not intend treatability statements to convey improvement in prognosis or quality of life, but merely that a treatment is available. Similarly, patients often understand treatability statements as conveying encouragement to hope and pursue further treatment, though this may not be (...) intended by physicians. This radical divergence in understandings may lead to severe miscommunication. This paper seeks to better understand this divergence through linguistic theory—in particular, H.P. Grice’s notion of conversational implicature. This theoretical approach reveals three levels of meaning of treatability statements: the literal meaning, the physician’s intended meaning, and the patient’s received meaning. The divergence between the physician’s intended meaning and the patient’s received meaning can be understood to arise from the lack of shared experience between physicians and patients, and the differing assumptions that each party makes about conversations. This divergence in meaning raises new and largely unidentified challenges to informed consent and shared decision making in the context of serious illness, which indicates a need for further empirical research in this area. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue against Mark Bevir’s contention that Foucault is committed to reject autonomy but affirms agency. I argue that Bevir’s claim is extravagant, that (a) Foucault need not reject autonomy, and (b) the rejection of autonomy flies in the face of the emphasis Foucault placed on autonomy in his late work. Central to my argument is the distinction between autonomy as self-sufficiency and autonomy as self-rule. By deploying Harry Frankfurt’s structural account of identification, I show that (...) Foucault’s discussion of autonomy in his late work is best understood as self-rule. Such an interpretation has the virtue of not adopting the counter-intuitive view that Foucault is committed to reject autonomy. By way of conclusion, I explore how such a concept of autonomy as self-rule figures in Foucault’s project of self-formation in his late work. (shrink)

A central characteristic of people with Prader-Willi Syndrome (PWS) is an apparent insatiable appetite leading to severe overeating and the potential for marked obesity and associated serious health problems and premature death. This behaviour may be due to the effects of the genetic defect resulting from the chromosome 15 abnormalities associated with the syndrome. We examine the ethical and legal dilemmas that can arise in the care of people with PWS. A tension exists between a genetic deterministic perspective and that (...) of individual choice. We conclude that the determination of the capacity of a person with PWS to make decisions about his/her eating behaviour and to control that behaviour is of particular importance in resolving this dilemma. If the person is found to lack capacity, the common law principles of acting in a person's "best interests" using the "least restrictive alternative" may be helpful. Allowing serious weight gain in the absence of careful consideration of these issues is an abdication of responsibility. (shrink)

Sensation of Movement explores the role of sensation in motor control, bodily self-recognition and sense of agency. The sensation of movement is dependent on a range of information received by the brain, from signalling in the peripheral sensory organs to the establishment of higher order goals. Through the integration of neuroscientific knowledge with psychological and philosophical perspectives, this book questions whether one type of information is more relevant for the ability to sense and control movement. Addressing conscious sensations of movement, (...) experimental designs and measures, and the possible functions of proprioceptive and kinaesthetic information in motor control and bodily cognition, the book advocates the integration of neuroscientific knowledge and philosophical perspectives. With an awareness of the diverse ideas and theories from these distinct fields, the book brings together leading researchers to bridge these divides and lay the groundwork for future research. -/- Contributors: Thor Grünbaum and Mark Schram Christensen Andreas Kalckert Myrto Mylopoulos Mads Jensen, Mia Dong, Mikkel C. Vinding, and Morten Overgaard Anne Kavounoudias Matthew R. Longo Hong Yu Wong. (shrink)

Electroacupuncture (EA) and electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) are often used in the management of schizophrenia. This study sought to determine whether additional EA and ECT could augment antipsychotic response and reduce related side effects. In this retrospective controlled study, 287 hospitalized schizophrenic patients who received antipsychotics (controls, n = 50) alone or combined with EA (n = 101), ECT (n = 55) or both (EA+ECT, n = 81) were identified. EA and ECT were conducted for 5 and 3 sessions per week, (...) respectively, with a maximum of 12 sessions for ECT during hospitalization. The Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms (SAPS) and Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS) were used to assess the severity of psychotic symptoms. Clinical response on SAPS and SANS, weight gain, and adverse events were compared. Survival analysis revealed that the ECT and EA+ECT groups had markedly greater clinical response rate than controls on SAPS [72.7% and 90.1% vs. 64.0%; relative risk (RR), 1.974 and 2.628, respectively, P ≤ 0.004] and on SANS (67.3% and 70.4% vs. 42.0%; RR, 1.951 and 2.009, respectively, P ≤ 0.015). A significantly greater response rate on SANS than controls was also observed in the EA group (64.4% versus 42.0%; RR = 1.938, P = 0.008). EA-containing regimens remarkably reduced weight gain and incidences of headache, insomnia, dry mouth, and electrocardiographic abnormalities. These results suggest that EA and ECT can serve as additional treatment for enhancing antipsychotic response and reduce the side effects in hospitalized patients with schizophrenia. (shrink)

Wai-ying Wong's Confucian Ethics in Western Discourse is an unusual book. The majority of its content is republished material, with Wong citing in the Acknowledgments twenty previously published articles duplicated in its pages. The book is organized in four parts: The Characteristics of Confucian Ethics, Confucian Ethics in Western Discourse, The Heritage and Development of Neo-Confucianism: The Thought of [the] Cheng Brothers, and Confucian Ethics and Contemporary Cultural Phenomena. These sections are mostly composed of clusters of republished articles, (...) with the fourth section, markedly shorter, consisting of two republished articles. Occasional interstitial additions enrich Wong's discussions... (shrink)

In New Philosophy for New Media, Mark Hansen defines the image in digital art in terms that go beyond the merely visual. Arguing that the "digital image" encompasses the entire process by which information is made perceivable, he places the body in a privileged position -- as the agent that filters information in order to create images. By doing so, he counters prevailing notions of technological transcendence and argues for the indispensability of the human in the digital era.Hansen examines (...) new media art and theory in light of Henri Bergson's argument that affection and memory render perception impure -- that we select only those images precisely relevant to our singular form of embodiment. Hansen updates this argument for the digital age, arguing that we filter the information we receive to create images rather than simply receiving images as preexisting technical forms. This framing function yields what Hansen calls the "digital image." He argues that this new "embodied" status of the frame corresponds directly to the digital revolution: a digitized image is not a fixed representation of reality, but is defined by its complete flexibility and accessibility. It is not just that the interactivity of new media turns viewers into users; the image itself has become the body's process of perceiving it.To illustrate his account of how the body filters information in order to create images, Hansen focuses on new media artists who follow a "Bergsonist vocation"; through concrete engagement with the work of artists like Jeffrey Shaw, Douglas Gordon, and Bill Viola, Hansen explores the contemporary aesthetic investment in the affective, bodily basis of vision. The book includes over 70 illustrations from the works of these and many other new media artists. (shrink)

Because of the ease of their implementation, attribute-value based theories of grammar are becoming increasingly popular in theoretical linguistics as an alternative to transformational accounts and in computational linguistics. This book provides a formal analysis of attribute-value structures, their use in a theory of grammar and the representation of grammatical relations in such theories of grammar. It provides a classical treatment of disjunction and negation, and explores the linguistic implications of different representations of grammatical relations. Mark Johnson is assistant (...) professor in cognitive and linguistic sciences at Brown University. He was a Fairchild postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology during the 1987-88 academic year. (shrink)

This book is a philosophical study of the relations between hearing and thinking about music. The central problem it addresses is as follows: how is it possible to talk about what a listener perceives in terms that the listener does not recognize? By applying the concepts and techniques of analytic philosophy the author explores the ways in which musical hearing may be described as nonconceptual, and how such mental representation contrasts with conceptual thought. The author is both philosopher and musicologist (...) and uniquely combines the perspectives of both disciplines. Exploring the philosophical questions of mental representation in the relatively neglected, nonverbal domain of music, this study is a major contribution to the philosophical understanding of music perception and cognitive theory. (shrink)

For an action to be free, for an agent to be responsible for his action, it is sometimes thought that he must act from a will that is free or for which he is responsible. There is a connection between freedom of action and freedom or autonomy of will, but the connection cannot be the one envisaged here, modelling free will on a free action, for not only does that set off an obvious regress, but as importantly the elements of (...) the will, beliefs and desires, are not states within an agent's voluntary control, not states for which he is directly responsible. Though these states are not within an agent's control, whether he believes or desires autonomously has a crucial bearing on his responsibility for his subsequent actions. And though he is not directly responsible for these states, he can be indirectly responsible for them, and that factor too can have a crucial bearing on his responsibility for his actions, in particular for those actions that are produced by beliefs that are false. (shrink)

The English philosopher Herbert Spencer was a colossus of the Victorian age. His works ranked alongside those of Darwin and Marx in the development of disciplines as wide ranging as sociology, anthropology, political theory, philosophy and psychology. In this acclaimed study of Spencer, the first for over thirty years and now available in paperback, Mark Francis provides an authoritative and meticulously researched intellectual biography of this remarkable man that dispels the plethora of misinformation surrounding Spencer and shines new light (...) on the broader cultural history of the nineteenth century. In this major study of Spencer, the first for over thirty years, Mark Francis provides an authoritative and meticulously researched intellectual biography of this remarkable man. Using archival material and contemporary printed sources, Francis creates a fascinating portrait of a human being whose philosophical and scientific system was a unique attempt to explain modern life in all its biological, psychological and sociological forms. _Herbert Spencer and the Invention of Modern Life_ fills what is perhaps the last big biographical gap in Victorian history. An exceptional work of scholarship it not only dispels the plethora of misinformation surrounding Spencer but shines new light on the broader cultural history of the nineteenth century. Elegantly written, provocative and rich in insight it will be required reading for all students of the period. (shrink)

In his attack on the notion of immediate experience, Hans-Georg Gadamer argues that aesthetic experience should be absorbed into hermeneutics because alone it cannot account for the historical nature of experience ; predicated on an ontological theory of art, the unfathomable, therefore, is the sense we have of these infinite hermeneutic depths. I argue that this account is methodologically and existentially unacceptable: methodologically because it is overly speculative, and existentially because it betrays authentic existence. I critique Gadamer from the perspective (...) of William James’ Pragmatism and argue, inverting Gadamer’s main thesis, that hermeneutics should be reduced to aesthetic experience. The meaning that emerges in aesthetic experience does not ‘rise up’ from the depths but is immanent in what James calls ‘pure experience’. The unfathomable, therefore, is not a glimpse into the metaphysical abyss but a phenomenological insight into the immanent structure of experience. (shrink)

Transparency’s importance as an administrative norm seems self-evident. Prevailing ideals of political theory stipulate that the more visible government is, the more democratic, accountable, and legitimate it appears. The disclosure of state information consistently disappoints, however: there is never enough of it, while it often seems not to produce a truer democracy, a more accountable state, better policies, and a more contented populace. This gap between theory and practice suggests that the theoretical assumptions that provide the basis for transparency are (...) wrong. This article argues that transparency is best understood as a theory of communication that excessively simplifies and thus is blind to the complexities of the contemporary state, government information, and the public. Taking them fully into account, the article argues, should lead us to question the state’s ability to control information, which in turn should make us question not only the improbability of the state making itself visible, but also the improbability of the state keeping itself secret. (shrink)

Wie geartet ist das Verhältnis zwischen den zentralen Begriffen „Bewußtsein“ und „Reflexion“ in Lockes Essay? Sind diese Begriffe für Locke identisch oder voneinander verschieden? Falls sie verschieden sind, wie ist der Unterschied genau zu bestimmen? Diese Arbeit untersucht die Fragen, unter Berücksichtigung der unterschiedlichen Deutungen in der Sekundärliteratur; sie sichtet und prüft den Text des Essays sorgfältig und breitet ein breites Spektrum philosophischer Implikationen von Lockes Ausführungen über das „Bewußtsein“ und „Reflexion“ aus. Der abschließende Teil legt dar, daß Locke niemals (...) eine feste Position gegenüber dem Verhältnis zwischen den beiden Begriffen eingenommen hat, sondern daß er zwischen verschiedenen Positionen schwankte -als Resultat der starken philosophischen Kräfte, die ihn bald in die eine, bald in die andere Richtung zogen. (shrink)

MAN IS ALIENATED AND IN NEED OF RECONCILIATION. This idea is as old as human thought and appears in countless forms in the myths and religions that have come down to us. In these we learn how the cosmos—whether by necessity or chance—lost its original self-identity, experienced a division within itself, and passed this division down into the natural and human worlds. Man is alienated because the cosmos is alienated, and he will not be made whole until the One is (...) restored to itself. Whether the cosmos is fated to be reconciled, whether man must assist in bringing this about—on these matters opinions differ; but there is agreement across many traditions that man is estranged from his true being and must await a time when his wholeness will be restored. (shrink)

: Here it is demonstrated how, in the early ru philosophical discussions of human nature and the pivotal role of education, the concept of "custom" came to play a crucial role. This concept became the standard rubric for all defective education or upbringing. Custom was defective because it was partial, tied to the character of place, and dominated by the attraction of material objects. This contrasted with the "classicist" education of the ru that was all-encompassing, grounded in the refined culture (...) of the Zhou literary and musical heritage, and detached from the desire for material goods. (shrink)

Communitarian critics have derided case-based reasoning for ignoring the need to arrive at a shared hierarchy of goods prior to case.

The narrative of Plato’s cave story is loaded with ‘some of the most suggestive opposites in the repertoire, namely the contrasts between down and up, darkness and light, chains and freedom’ (Hrach...

In Sonic Virtuality: Sound as Emergent Perception, authors Mark Grimshaw and Tom Garner introduce a novel theory that positions sound within a framework of virtuality. Arguing against the acoustic or standard definition of sound as a sound wave, the book builds a case for a sonic aggregate as the virtual cloud of potentials created by perceived sound. The authors build on their recent work investigating the nature and perception of sound as used in computer games and virtual environments, and (...) put forward a unique argument that sound is a fundamentally virtual phenomenon.Grimshaw and Garner propose a new, fuller and more complete, definition of sound based on a perceptual view of sound that accounts more fully for cognition, emotion, and the wider environment. The missing facet is the virtuality: the idea that all sound arises from a sonic aggregate made up of actual and virtual sonic phenomena. The latter is a potential that depends upon human cognition and emotion for its realization as sound. This thesis is explored through a number of philosophical, cognitive, and psychological concepts including: issues of space, self, sonosemantics, the uncanny, hyper-realism, affect, Gettier problems, belief, alief, imagination, and sound perception in the absence of sound sensation.Provocative and original, Grimshaw and Garner's ideas have broader implications for our relationship to technology, our increasingly digital lives, and the nature of our being within our supposed realities. Students and academics from philosophy to acoustics and across the broad spectrum of digital humanities will find this accessible book full of challenging concepts and provocative ideas. (shrink)

Die folgenden Ausführungen gehen der Frage nach, ob Leibniz die Auffassung vertreten hat, daß nur Geister apperzipieren. Die Untersuchung dieser Frage führt zu neuen Einsichten in die Bedeutung des Begriffs der apperceptio, welcher zu den zentralen Begriffen der Leibnischen Philosophie gehört. Der Aufsatz ist in drei Teile gegliedert: 1. die herrschende Meinung, 2. Gegenargumente gegen diese Meinung, 3. die Bedeutung dieser Argumente fur die herrschende Auffassung.

This _Reader_ brings together primary sources from philosophy, theology and literature to chart the many and changing ways evil has been approached and understood, and to examine the diverse implications it has had for belief and unbelief. Will fill a major gap in the publishing market. Provides primary source readings for courses on religion and evil. A key issue in religious thought - this book will change the way the subject is taught. Author is one of the brightest young religious (...) philosophers in America. (shrink)

Contemporary civil libertarians claim that their works preserve a worthy American tradition of defending free-speech rights dating back to the framing of the First Amendment. _Transforming Free Speech_ challenges the worthiness, and indeed the very existence of one uninterrupted libertarian tradition. Mark A. Graber asserts that in the past, broader political visions inspired libertarian interpretations of the First Amendment. In reexamining the philosophical and jurisprudential foundations of the defense of expression rights from the Civil War to the present, he (...) exposes the monolithic free-speech tradition as a myth. Instead of one conception of the system of free expression, two emerge: the conservative libertarian tradition that dominated discourse from the Civil War until World War I, and the civil libertarian tradition that dominates later twentieth-century argument. The essence of the current perception of the American free-speech tradition derives from the writings of Zechariah Chafee, Jr., the progressive jurist most responsible for the modern interpretation of the First Amendment. His interpretation, however, deliberately obscured earlier libertarian arguments linking liberty of speech with liberty of property. Moreover, Chafee stunted the development of a more radical interpretation of expression rights that would give citizens the resources and independence necessary for the effective exercise of free speech. Instead, Chafee maintained that the right to political and social commentary could be protected independent of material inequalities that might restrict access to the marketplace of ideas. His influence enfeebled expression rights in a world where their exercise depends increasingly on economic power. Untangling the libertarian legacy, Graber points out the disjunction in the libertarian tradition to show that free-speech rights, having once been transformed, can be transformed again. Well-conceived and original in perspective, _Transforming Free Speech_ will interest political theorists, students of government, and anyone interested in the origins of the free-speech tradition in the United States. (shrink)

Contemporary bioethicists and scholars of ancient philosophy explore the import of classical ethics on pressing bioethical concerns.