BackgroundPhysical activity is known to improve mental health, and is regarded as safe and desirable for uncomplicated pregnancy. In this novel study, we aim to evaluate whether there are associations between maternal physical activity during pregnancy and neonatal brain cortical development.MethodsForty-four mother/newborn dyads were included in this longitudinal study. Healthy pregnant women were recruited and their physical activity throughout pregnancy were documented using accelerometers worn for 3–7 days for each of the 6 time points at 4–10, ∼12, ∼18, ∼24, ∼30, (...) and ∼36 weeks of pregnancy. Average daily total steps and daily total activity count as well as daily minutes spent in sedentary/light/moderate/vigorous activity modes were extracted from the accelerometers for each time point. At ∼2 weeks of postnatal age, their newborns underwent an MRI examination of the brain without sedation, and 3D T1-weighted brain structural images were post-processed by the iBEAT2.0 software utilizing advanced deep learning approaches. Cortical surface maps were reconstructed from the segmented brain images and parcellated to 34 regions in each brain hemisphere, and mean cortical thickness for each region was computed for partial correlation analyses with physical activity measures, with appropriate multiple comparison corrections and potential confounders controlled.ResultsAt 4–10 weeks of pregnancy, mother’s daily total activity count positively correlated (FDR corrected P ≤ 0.05) with newborn’s cortical thickness in the left caudal middle frontal gyrus (rho = 0.48, P = 0.04), right medial orbital frontal gyrus (rho = 0.48, P = 0.04), and right transverse temporal gyrus (rho = 0.48, P = 0.04); mother’s daily time in moderate activity mode positively correlated with newborn’s cortical thickness in the right transverse temporal gyrus (rho = 0.53, P = 0.03). At ∼24 weeks of pregnancy, mother’s daily total activity count positively correlated (FDR corrected P ≤ 0.05) with newborn’s cortical thickness in the left (rho = 0.56, P = 0.02) and right isthmus cingulate gyrus (rho = 0.50, P = 0.05).ConclusionWe identified significant relationships between physical activity in healthy pregnant women during the 1st and 2nd trimester and brain cortical development in newborns. Higher maternal physical activity level is associated with greater neonatal brain cortical thickness, presumably indicating better cortical development. (shrink)

The present study investigates the relationship between technology director, internationalisation, and firm performance, assuming the beneficial effect of digital-sustainable corporate governance reforms. We implied the presence of a technology director on the board and empirically examined its impact on firm performance. In addition, we also test business internationalisation as a mediator between the technology director on the board and firm performance. The empirical findings rely on the data retrieved from the S&P Dow Jones Sustainability Index 2019 for 115 top sustainable (...) EU firms and the Thomson Reuters Refinitiv Eikon database. The results reveal a significant positive relationship between the technology director's presence on the board and firm performance. We also find business internationalisation mediates the relationship between the technology director's presence on the board and firm performance. Overall, we try to lay a foundation for a digitally aware board and its impact on important firm decisions. (shrink)

We examine how corporate social responsibility (CSR) perceptions (association and participation) affect manager creativity at the workplace and its mediating link through organisational identification. We collected data from the National Forum of Environment and Health (NFEH) 2019 that awarded 52 companies in Pakistan. NFEH is a purely non-profit, non-governmental, and voluntary organisation registered under the Voluntary Social Welfare Agencies Ordinance 1961. We employed convenience sampling to collect data from managers of 52 CSR performing organisations in Pakistan. We analyse the data (...) with structural equation modelling (SEM) via R. Findings reveal that CSR association does not affect creativity. In contrast, CSR participation has a significant positive effect on manager creative performance. Furthermore, the decomposition analysis indicated that only in the case of CSR participation, OI has a mediating effect. (shrink)

This paper defends the ‘sexual pleasure view’ of sexual desire—that sexual desire is for sexual pleasure. It does so by explaining the various aspects of the view, especially that of ‘sexual pleasure’ on which it relies, by explaining its important implications, by responding to various objections against it (that it relies on an impoverished notion of pleasure, e.g.), and by arguing against some of its main contenders (that sexual desire is for sexual activity, e.g.).

The book address three central areas of our life—care, love, and sex—from the perspective of virtue ethics. The first chapter on care argues that care should be considered a virtue and embedded within virtue ethics. The second chapter on love argues that romantic love is not a virtue as other philosophers have claimed, but that the virtues enable its best forms. And the third chapter on sex investigates Aristotelian temperance, and it argues that contrary to conservative views of the virtue (...) of temperance, there is a way to conceive of temperance that allows for sexual practices (e.g., promiscuity and casual sex) that are not confined to relationships or marriages. (shrink)

This book highlights some of the most pressing safety, ethical, legal and societal issues related to the diverse contexts in which robotic technologies apply. Focusing on the essential concept of well-being, it addresses topics that are fundamental not only for research, but also for industry and end-users, discussing the challenges in a wide variety of applications, including domestic robots, autonomous manufacturing, personal care robots and drones.

The new wave of ‘foundation models’—general-purpose generative AI models, for production of text (e.g., ChatGPT) or images (e.g., MidJourney)—represent a dramatic advance in the state of the art for AI. But their use also introduces a range of new risks, which has prompted an ongoing conversation about possible regulatory mechanisms. Here we propose a specific principle that should be incorporated into legislation: that any organization developing a foundation model intended for public use must demonstrate a reliable detection mechanism for the (...) content it generates, as a condition of its public release. The detection mechanism should be made publicly available in a tool that allows users to query, for an arbitrary item of content, whether the item was generated (wholly or partly) by the model. In this paper, we argue that this requirement is technically feasible and would play an important role in reducing certain risks from new AI models in many domains. We also outline a number of options for the tool’s design, and summarize a number of points where further input from policymakers and researchers would be required. (shrink)

This paper shall make an attempt to critically reflect on the conceptualization of emotions in the Indian Philosophical systems. To bring out the insight, the paper is divided into three main sections. The first section of the paper entitled ‘The Body-Emotions-Mind Complex and the Question of Self: Understanding the Dualistic Tradition’ will make an analysis of emotions and the mind-body complex vis-à-vis the question of self or consciousness in Indian Philosophy with special reference to the study of Advaita Vedānta and (...) the philosophical position of Upaniṣadic teachings. It will also incorporate the Nyāya account of emotions in the Indian philosophical system. The second section of the paper is entitled as ‘Triguṇa and the Emotional Experience: A Perspective in Sāṃkhya Philosophy’. It will reflect on the systematic presentation of Sāṃkhya philosophical system on account of its relation between the two ontological realities — puruṣa and prakṛti. It is this prakṛti which is constituted of the three guṇas — sattva, rajas and tamas; and therefore is the embodied self having its association with emotions. The third section of the paper entitled ‘Understanding Religious Emotions: Towards a Positive Representation of Emotions in Indian Philosophy’ will make an attempt to critically reflect on the necessary shift required in conceptualizing emotions in the Indian Philosophical systems. That is to say, from a negative connotation of emotions to a more significant positive account of emotions in human-spiritual life. This necessary shift will be directed towards the understanding of Religious Emotions — faith and devotion which can serve as a guiding principle to justify the soteriological approach of Indian Philosophy, i.e. towards pure consciousness. Thereby the paper shall explore the consideration of the relevance of emotions in the Indian Philosophical System. (shrink)

This article discusses a peculiar Sā$$\dot {\text{n}}$$n˙khya-Yoga theory of transformation (pariṇāma) that the author of the Pātañjalayogaśāstra created by drawing upon Sarvāstivāda Buddhist theories of temporality. In developing his theory, Patañjali adaptively reused the wording in which the Sarvāstivāda theories were formulated, the specific objections against these theories, and their refutations to win the philosophical debate about temporality against Sarvāstivāda Buddhism. Patañjali’s approach towards the Sarvāstivāda Buddhist theories was possible, even though his system of Yoga is based on an ontology (...) that differs considerably from that of Sarvāstivāda Buddhism because both systems share the philosophical view that time is not a separate ontological entity in itself. Time is a concept deduced from change in the empirical world. This agreement results from the common philosophical orientation of Sarvāstivāda Buddhism and Yoga, which takes the phenomenon of experience as the basis of philosophical enquiry into the structure of the world. The intention that guided Patañjali’s adaptive reuse was twofold. On the one hand, he aimed at winning the debate with Sarvāstivāda Buddhism about how the problem of temporality can be solved. He thus integrated four mutually exclusive theories on temporality into a single theory of transformation of properties (dharma) involving a second-level and a third-level theory on the transformation of the temporal characteristic mark (lakṣaṇa) and on the transformation of states (avasthā), respectively. On the other hand, Patañjali intended to achieve philosophical clarification regarding the question of how exactly properties relate to their underlying substrate in the process of transformation of the three constituents or forces (guṇa) sattva, rajas and tamas of matter (pradhāna) that account for all phenomena of the world except pure consciousness (puruṣa). Patañjali’s theory of transformation is thus of central importance for his Sā$$\dot {\text{n}}$$n˙khya ontology, according to which the world consists of 25 categories or constituents (tattva), i.e., of primal matter (prakṛti) and its transformations and pure consciousness. (shrink)

Abstrak: Dalam artikel ini penulis mengeksplorasi gagasan kota utama yang diajukan oleh Abu Nashr al-Farabi (870-950 M), seorang filsuf Muslim di abad ke-10. Gagasan al-Farabi mengenai kota utama banyak penulis ambil dari karya utamanya yang sangat terkenal, Mabdi r Ahl al-Madinah al-Fdhilah yang secara harafiah berarti “Dasar-dasar Pandangan Warga Kota Utama.” Pandangan al-Farabi dalam karya ini banyak dipengaruhi oleh dua filsuf Yunani, yakni Plato dan Aristoteles. Kota utama adalah kota yang warganya mengerti hakikat kebenaran (teoritis) dan juga memiliki kemampuan bertindak (...) secara moderat (tawassuth) dengan mempertimbangkan tempat, waktu, pelaku dan juga alasan mengapa hal itu perlu dilakukan (phronesis). Keutamaan ini bisa mengantarkan para warganya untuk mencapai kebahagiaan (al-sa’dah). Kebahagiaan adalah tujuan hidup yang paling utama dan paling tinggi bagi manusia. Bagi al-Farabi, dalam upaya mewujudkan kota utama, peran filsuf raja menjadi sangat penting karena dia yang akan mendidik para warga untuk mengerti dan bisa bertindak sesuai dengan nilai-nilai keutamaan. Kata-kata Kunci: Kota utama, kebahagiaan, emanasi, neoplatonisme, penyatuan, phronesis. Abstract: In this article I will explore al-Farabi’s idea of virtuous city. Abu Nashr Al-Farabi is a Muslim philosopher who lived in 870 to 950. The idea of virtuous city much refers to his master piece, Mabdi r Ahl al-Madnah al-Fdhilah, which literally means “the principles of the views of citizens in virtuous city.” Al-Farabi’s concept of virtuous city in this book is much influenced by two Greek philosophers, i.e. Plato and Aristoteles. The virtuous city is the city in which the virtuous citizens live. The virtuous citizens are those who understand the nature of truth and have virtuous character (phronesis). This virtue will carry the citizens to happiness (al-sa’ dah). The happiness is the ultimate goal for all human beings. According to al-Farabi, to make virtuous city happen, the role of philosopher-king is very important. He will teach and educate the people to understand the nature of truth and act in accordance with virtuous character. Keywords: Virtuous City, happiness, emanation, Neoplatonism, union, phronesis. (shrink)

The paper considers the recently published British Medical Association Guidance on ethical issues arising in relation to rationing of treatment during the COVID-19 Pandemic. It considers whether it...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Semantic Powers: Meaning and the Means of Knowing in Classical Indian PhilosophyHarold CowardSemantic Powers: Meaning and the Means of Knowing in Classical Indian Philosophy. By Jonardon Ganeri. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Pp. x + 266.In Semantic Powers: Meaning and the Means of Knowing in Classical Indian Philosophy, Jonardon Ganeri adds to our understanding of the Nyāya philosophy of language in the modern English-speaking world. Building on Bimal (...) Matilal's introduction to Nyāya thought in Matilal's foundational Epistemology Logic and Grammar in Indian Philosophical Analysis (1971) and on Karl Potter and Sibajiban Bhattacharyya's Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika from Gangeśa to Raghunatha Siromani (1993), Ganeri's clearly written book valuably extends our knowledge of the Nyāya philosophy of language by its exposition of the seventeenth-century Nyāya philosopher Gadādhara's Saktivāda or "Essay on Semantic Power." Ganeri's exposition is based on having read the first half of the Saktivāda text with Matilal, before the latter's untimely death, and the second half with Bhattacharyya in Calcutta.In the Saktivāda, Gadādhara defends key Nyāya claims as to how language conveys meaning. In the first half of the text, the author deals with such questions as whether languages are convention-based, whether the central function of language is as an instrument of knowing, whether word meaning or sentence meaning is conceptually prior, and whether the notion of meaning is reducible to physical and/or psychological concepts. In the second half, Gadādhara looks at the semantic problems connected with particular constructions: notably proper and theoretical names, anaphors, indexicals, and the quantifiers. The English exposition of Gadādhara's text offered by Ganeri in this book covers the same topics.According to Gadādhara and the Nyāya philosophy, "the language faculty is a sui generis epistemic faculty, reducible to neither perception nor inference nor some combination of these two. The question for the Naiyāyika is: what properties must the language faculty have if it is in this way to be a source of knowledge?" (p. 15). The Nyāya approach also places an emphasis on testimony as a valid source of knowledge (pramāna), which it understands simply as the transmission by language of knowledge from the speaker to the hearer. The "Communication-intention" variable, discussed by recent thinkers such as McDowell, is not dealt with by Nyāya thinkers, who would deny that the acquisition of knowledge by testimony involves anything like the recognition of the speaker's intentions. Rather, the Nyāya thesis is "that understanding typically consists in direct, non-inferential assent, is in sharp contrast to the assumption implicit in McDowell's position: that assenting to another's utterance is never direct, but always depends on the speaker's intentions, or of the speech-act performed by the speaker" (p. 17). In supporting the Nyāya position, Ganeri appeals to Frege's theory of understanding.The basic idea in the Nyāya philosophy of language is that each of us is endowed with a language faculty, analogous to our perceptual faculty, which generates beliefs from perceived utterances. It has a meaning function. As Ganeri puts it: [End Page 419]My testimonial faculty fixes, as it were, a mapping from utterances of a given language to belief contents. The 'meaning' of a statement for me is, by definition, the belief content to which it is mapped by my testimony faculty. If I am able to understand every statement I hear, the language processing mechanism which underpins this faculty must have a certain compositional structure, and that leads to an assignment of belief-content components to subsequential elements in the language, (p. 29)This thought of Gadādhara, dating from about 1700 C.E., resonates with Chomsky's contemporary ideas of "deep structure" and, in classical Indian philosophy, with Bhartṛhari's fifth-century notion of innate-structuring ideas within consciousness (see Coward and Raja, Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies, vol. 5). Like Bhartṛhari, Gadādhara takes the sentence to be the irreducible meaning-bearing unit of language.While Karl Potter and Sibajiban Bhattacharyya's volume 6 of The Encyclopedia... (shrink)

Selected articles of Ēṭukūru Balarāmamūrti on Marxist philosophy; includes contributed on his life and work.

David Ricardo was a hugely influential British political economist and stock trader. This volume, first published in 1923, contains five important pamphlets published by him, edited and with an overarching introductory essay by E. C. K. Gonner. Each essay relates either to monetary and financial subjects - including the high price of Bullion, monetary theory and the position of the Bank of England - or to the agricultural conditions of Britain and proposed solutions to the problems discussed. This is a (...) fascinating and detailed work, which will be of great value to those with an interest in Ricardo’s theories and British economic history. (shrink)

Tsc question of the date of Ctesibius has been much obscured of late years by those German scholars1 who assert that Ctesibius the pneumatic and hydraulic engineer mentioned by Vitruvius IX. 8. 2 is distinct and separate from Κτησίβιος Κτησίβιος μηΧανικός who is mentioned by Athenaeus Mechanicus , Philo of Byzantium , and Hedylus ap. Athenaeum Naucratitam Deipn. XI., p. 497, d-e = Anthologia Graeca ed. Cougny, Paris , 1890, Vol. III., p. 298, n. 67.

Doprinos žena u razvoju kulture direktno je povezan sa samim pojmom colere, koji se izvodi iz aktivnosti oko uzgoja biljaka i obrađivanja zemlje, u čemu su osnovnu ulogu u početku imale žene. Kao skupljačice žene su kopale i otkopavale biljke kopljem i naučile kako ih same mogu saditi. Time je započela kultura vrtova koja je u svijest ljudi trajno usadila pojam raja, mjesta na zemlji gdje je čovjek sretan, ali i dovela do spoznaje o načinu začeća djeteta. Od kulture (...) vrta do zemljoradnje bio je samo jedan korak, ali presudan za društveni status žena. S patrijarhatom, koji se gradi na spoznaji o očinskoj ulozi, nastupa zaborav doprinosa žena u stvaranju kulture. Koplje, oruđe u rukama žene, postalo je i ostalo isključivo oružje u rukama muškarca. Osim što je potisnuta iz povijesti, žena je optužena za gubitak raja na zemlji, a s vremenom proglašena i za opasnost koja može ugroziti ulazak u neki budući raj. Svoj vrhunac patrijarhat doseže u kapitalizmu, ali se upravo iz noseće ideologije kapitalizma otvaraju i brojna pitanja o patrijarhatu. Njegovo održavanje postaje smetnja daljnjem društvenom razvitku. Stoga su nastojanja oko reinterpretacije prošlih događaja nužna za nepatrijarhalnu rekulturalizaciju koja bi omogućila budućnost čovjeka i kulture.The contribution of women in the development of culture is directly linked to the very concept of colere, which originates from the activity regarding the growing of plants and agriculture, in which women had a significant historical role. As gatherers, women dug up plants and learned how to grow them themselves. This started a culture of gardening that permanently implanted the concept of paradise, a place on earth where humans are very happy, in the human conscience. It took just one step from the gardening culture to agriculture, key for mankind as much as the social position of women. The role of women in creating the basis for developed cultures is gradually forgotten. A spear, tool in the hands of woman, have became and remained exclusively weapon in the hands of man. Besides, she was accused for the loss of paradise on earth, and with time pronounced as the danger for a potential life in a future paradise. Patriarchate as the rule of chosen men, experiences its pinnacle in capitalism, but it is also in that period and its ideology where many questions arose about it. Its maintenance becomes an obstacle for future social development. Therefore, the attempts to reinterpret past events are necessary for unpatriarchal re-culturization, which would enable a future of both man and culture. (shrink)

E. Rae Harcum argues that Christians do not have to give up their religious faith to keep the contributions of science. He confronts the relation between the human body and its non-material parts—the mind and spirit—and provides a way of looking at these metaphysical issues.

The crisis of western civilization is a crisis of public philosophy. This is the charge of Public Philosophy and Political Science, a stunning new collection of essays edited by E. Robert Statham Jr. Vividly cataloging the decay of the moral and intellectual foundations of civic liberty, the book portrays a generation of Americans alienated from institutions built on public philosophy. The work exposes the failure of America's political scientists to acknowledge and understand this alarming crisis in the American body politic. (...) The distinguished contributors examine the evolution of public philosophy; the inextricable relationship between politics and philosophy; and the interplay between public philosophy, the constitution, natural law, and government. They reveal the dire threat to deliberative democracy and the fundamental order of constitutional society posed by public philosophy's waning power to refine, cultivate, and civilize. The work is an indictment of a society which has discarded a way of life rooted in natural law, democracy and the traditions of civility; and is a denunciation of an educated elite that has divorced itself from the standards upon which public philosophy rests. It is essential reading for philosophers and political and social scientists seeking to resurrect the standards of American public life. (shrink)

Can there be such a thing as moral science, or a science of morality? And if so, what sense has the word science in such a connection? In the middle of the last century such a question would probably have seemed superfluous. Utilitarians, Comtists, and not a few “evolutionists” would all have claimed to be moralists, with this advantage over the metaphysical or theological moralists of an earlier day that their own moral doctrines were “scientific”.