Many upper limb amputees experience an incessant, post-amputation “phantom limb pain” and report that their missing limbs feel paralyzed in an uncomfortable posture. One hypothesis is that efferent commands no longer generate expected afferent signals, such as proprioceptive feedback from changes in limb configuration, and that the mismatch of motor commands and visual feedback is interpreted as pain. Non-invasive therapeutic techniques for treating phantom limb pain, such as mirror visual feedback (MVF), rely on visualizations of postural changes. Advances in neural (...) interfaces for artificial sensory feedback now make it possible to combine MVF with a high-tech “rubber hand” illusion, in which subjects develop a sense of embodiment with a fake hand when subjected to congruent visual and somatosensory feedback. We discuss clinical benefits that could arise from the confluence of known concepts such as MVF and the rubber hand illusion, and new technologies such as neural interfaces for sensory feedback and highly sensorized robot hand testbeds, such as the “BairClaw” presented here. Our multi-articulating, anthropomorphic robot testbed can be used to study proprioceptive and tactile sensory stimuli during physical finger-object interactions. Conceived for artificial grasp, manipulation, and haptic exploration, the BairClaw could also be used for future studies on the neurorehabilitation of somatosensory disorders due to upper limb impairment or loss. A remote actuation system enables the modular control of tendon-driven hands. The artificial proprioception system enables direct measurement of joint angles and tendon tensions while temperature, vibration, and skin deformation are provided by a multimodal tactile sensor. The provision of multimodal sensory feedback that is spatiotemporally consistent with commanded actions could lead to benefits such as reduced phantom limb pain, and increased prosthesis use due to improved functionality and reduced cognitive burden. (shrink)

In this volume, Randall B. Smith provides a revisionist account of the scholastic culture that flourished in Paris during the High Middle Ages. Exploring the educational culture that informed the intellectual and mental habits of Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure, he offers an in-depth study of the prologues and preaching skills of these two masters. Smith reveal the intricate interrelationships between the three duties of the master: lectio (reading), disputatio (debate), and praedicatio (preaching). He also analyzes each of Aquinas and (...) Bonaventure's prologues from their student days to their final works, revealing both their artistry and their instructional character. Written in an engaging style, this book serves as an invaluable resource that will enable scholars and students to read thirteenth-century sermons, prologues, and biblical commentaries with greater understanding and ease. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Bonaventure's Inception Address as Regent Master at Paris:Omnium ArtifexRandall B. SmithInception as Master and the Principium in AulaAfter nineteen years of study at the University of Paris—six in the study of Arts (1235–1241), two lecturing in the Arts (1241–1243), five as auditor theologiae (1243–1248), two as a baccalarius biblicus and as a lector biblicus for the Franciscans (1248–1251), two as a baccalarius sententiarius (1251–1253), and one as a baccalarius (...) formatus (1253–1254)—Bonaventure of Bagnoregio was incepted as magister regens (regent master) around Easter (12 April) in 1254 to replace William of Middleton in the Franciscan chair at the University of Paris.1At that time, the inception ceremonies for an incoming regent master consisted of several parts. On the appointed day, the candidate would be officially received by the chancellor of the university in the ceremonial hall, the aula, of the bishop before the assembled faculty and students of the university. The previous evening would have been spent responding to bachelors and masters in a complex series of "disputed questions."2 But on the morning of the next day, the presiding master would have stood and placed on Bonaventure's head a biretta and said aloud: "I place on you the magisterial biretta in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen." After birettas had been distributed to the other masters to place on their own heads, the gathered company sat down to hear the new master deliver his inaugural lecture, the principium in aula.According to University regulations, the principium address was to be a praise of sacred Scripture, and although it was one of the high [End Page 211] points in the inception ceremony, the inception address was supposed to be delivered "briefly" (breve) and "quickly terminated" (celeriter terminato).3 When Friar Thomas Aquinas incepted in 1256, two years after Bonaventure, his principium address was completed in about ten minutes. Brother Bonaventure's principium, a translation of which follows this introduction, would require about forty minutes or more to read out loud. But then, as Aquinas himself might have said, "briefly" can be said in several ways.4 A study of earlier principium addresses by other masters shows, moreover, that the length of these addresses varied from master to master.5The Principium in Aula and the Sermo Modernus StyleThe earliest records we have of masters who incepted at Paris reveal that their inception principia addresses were always delivered in the contemporary style of preaching, the so-called "sermo modernus" or "modern sermon" style. There is no need for our present purposes to trace the development of the sermo modernus style, other than to say that its origins lie in the late twelfth and early thirteenth century, and that it had become highly developed, with numerous preaching manuals and reference materials to help preachers master its forms, by the time Thomas and Bonaventure were incepted as masters at Paris, in 1256 and 1254 respectively.6 [End Page 212]In brief, three things were especially characteristic of these thirteenth century sermo modernus style sermons: (1) the thema, a biblical verse, usually from the day's readings that the preacher would use to lend structure and order to the entire sermon; (2) the divisio of the thema, and (3) the dilatatio of each of the parts created by this opening divisio.7The thema verse served as a structuring device which provided an outline of the topics to be covered in the sermon. When the sermon was preached, the thema verse also served as a mnemonic device to help the listeners identify their place within the progress of the whole and then recall the contents of the sermon after it was finished. To recall the contents of the sermon, one merely had to bring to mind the opening thema verse, and each word would suggest the topics the preacher had associated with it.8So, for example, in the principium address Bonaventure delivered at his inception as master, Bonaventure took as his opening thema a verse from Wisdom 7:1, Omnium artifex docuit me sapientia ("The maker of all things... (shrink)

In God, Morality, and Beauty, Randall B. Bush argues that a Trinitarian vision of reality, combined with the disciplines of aesthetics and ethics, is the most satisfactory way to address questions pertaining to the philosophy of value that are currently being debated in the social sciences and humanities.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Bonaventure's Reductio of the Nine Choirs of Angels:How Bonaventure Compressed Two Monumental Traditions into Nine Words and Nine Short PhrasesRandall B. Smith"There is probably no better illustration in medieval thought of how the genius of the symbolic imagination also involves deep speculative insight." So wrote Bernard McGinn of Bonaventure's Itinerarium mentis in deum in The Flowering of Mysticism: Men and Woman in the New Mysticism, 1200–1350.1 There is no (...) question that the Itinerarium is a book suffused with symbolic imagery; so much so, in fact, that it can sometimes seem to lapse into a confusing jumble.Certainly there are many sections of the Itinerarium that have baffled readers over the years, often because Bonaventure's use of imagery is so unique and creative and the truths he is attempting to enunciate are so far beyond our normal ways of thinking about God. But there is a short passage in chapter 4 of the Itinerarium that seems to defy interpretation precisely because of what one might describe as an almost austere terseness and brevity. The point Bonaventure wishes to make is one he communicates in little more than a list of nine words and nine short, parallel phrases.The passage I have in mind is this one in Itinerarium 4.4.When these things have been accomplished, and our spirit has been brought into conformity with the heavenly Jerusalem, it is ordered [End Page 583] hierarchically so that it can ascend upward. For no one enters into that city unless that city has first descended into the person's heart by means of grace, as John sees in his Apocalypse. It descends into the heart when our spirit has been made hierarchical by the reformation of the image, by means of the theological virtues, the enjoyment of the spiritual senses, and the ecstasy of rapture; for it has been purged, illumined and brought to perfection.In this way our spirit is adorned with nine orderly levels when within it the following are found in an appropriate order: announcing, dictating, leading, ordering, strengthening, commanding, receiving, revealing, and anointing. These correspond to the nine choirs of angels. The first three of the foregoing levels in the human mind relate to nature; the next three relate to work; and the final three relate to grace. When it has attained these, the soul, by entering into itself, enters into the heavenly Jerusalem where, as it considers the choirs of angels, it sees in them the God who dwells in them and who works in all their operations.Therefore, Bernard says to Pope Eugene that "God loves in the Seraphim as charity; knows in the Cherubim as truth; sits in the Thrones as justice; reigns in the Dominations as majesty; rules in the Principalities as a guiding principle; protects in the Powers as salvation; is at work in the Virtues as strength; reveals in the Archangels as light; assists in the Angels as kindness." From all this, God is seen as all in all when we contemplate God in our minds where God dwells through the gifts of the most generous charity.2Notice in the passage I have quoted above that Bonaventure says our spirit must be "brought into conformity with the heavenly Jerusalem," and that this requires it be "ordered hierarchically so that it can ascend upward." This serves as a transition into a rather odd pair of lists—one with nine words and the other with nine short, parallel phrases—that Bonaventure associates with the nine angelic choirs. These two lists of the nine choirs of angels do not, however, correspond exactly with one [End Page 584] another, for reasons I will explain below. And although these two lists of the nine ranks of angels in the angelic hierarchy take up just a few lines in Bonaventure's text, there is a lot of background information we will need to fill in to provide the necessary context to appreciate them. Indeed, as we will see, in this short passage, Bonaventure was able using the methods of the thirteenth-century sermo modernus style to reduce two monumental commentary traditions regarding the nine choirs of angels—one that... (shrink)

There are many similarities between the Christian concept of the Seven Deadly Sins, the Stoic concept of internal events, the Hebrew concept of 'awon (sin, punishment), and the existential concept of bad faith. All of these evidence a concern for an internalization of sin or bad faith, which is more common in Eastern than Western religions. These four views are contrasted with the English concept synne which represents the Western extemalization of sin or bad faith. This existential interpretation includes an (...) exploration of 'awon in the Cain and Abel story as well as several reflections concerning the difference between bad faith and good faith. (shrink)

In this article, we explore the ethical issues related to the reporting of suspected abuse or neglect in research involving children. Ethical dilemmas related to reporting child maltreatment are often complex because the rights of children and their adult caregivers may conflict and determinations of abuse or neglect are socially constructed judgments that depend on particular circumstances. We argue that when reporting is legally mandated, investigators must follow the law and report their suspicions to Child Protective Services. When reporting is (...) not legally mandated, investigators still have an ethical obligation to report to help prevent additional maltreatment and allow children to obtain access to services needed to recover from abuse or neglect. We also argue that investigators should include plans and procedures in the research protocol for making reports and training research staff in recognising evidence of child abuse or neglect. Although investigators should report evidence of abuse or neglect that is discovered incidentally, they have no mandate to actively search for such evidence when it is not related to the study’s objectives. Investigators should also inform parents and children about their obligations to report suspected abuse or neglect. (shrink)

I come from a medical family. My father and uncle were physicians, and my father also chaired a department at a West Coast medical school for over 30 years. I am sure I got my interest in teaching from him. My brother is a physician and is currently the safety and quality officer of a Canadian province. My mother operated the last non-automated medical laboratory in my state. I have always understood what sacrifices are made by health care professionals, and (...) I think I have managed to learn a bit about their motivations as well.I was in private practice for ten years with litigation firms, and the last five years of that time I worked for a firm that specialized in professional liability defense and health law. (shrink)

The essays in this volume apply philosophical analysis to address three kinds of questions: What are the implications of genetic science for our understanding of nature? What might it influence in our conception of human nature? What challenges does genetic science pose for specific issues of private conduct or public policy?

Applied Christian Ethics addresses selected themes in Christian social ethics. Part one shows the roots of contributors in the realist school; part two focuses on different levels of the significance of economics for social justice; and part three deals with both existential experience and government policy in war and peace issues.

I come from a medical family. My father and uncle were physicians, and my father also chaired a department at a West Coast medical school for over 30 years. I am sure I got my interest in teaching from him. My brother is a physician and is currently the safety and quality officer of a Canadian province. My mother operated the last non-automated medical laboratory in my state. I have always understood what sacrifices are made by health care professionals, and (...) I think I have managed to learn a bit about their motivations as well.I was in private practice for ten years with litigation firms, and the last five years of that time I worked for a firm that specialized in professional liability defense and health law. (shrink)

ABSTRACT There is limited guidance about whether and how to provide psychological assessment results to research participants. This paper considers several ethical challenges associated with offering individual research results in psychological assessment research. Additionally, the process used to return individual results within a study examining neurodevelopmental effects of anesthesia exposure in children and adolescents is described. Almost all participants requested to know if results were concerning; however, only around a third of those with concerning findings sought additional feedback. Ongoing research (...) and guidance are necessary to establish evidence-based practices and manage challenges that may emerge when disclosing such results. (shrink)

RationaleSurrogates of critically ill patients often have inaccurate expectations about prognosis. Yet there is little research on how intensive care unit clinicians should discuss prognosis, and existing expert opinion-based recommendations give only general guidance that has not been validated with surrogate decision makers.ObjectiveTo determine the perspectives of key stakeholders regarding how prognostic information should be conveyed in critical illness.MethodsThis was a multicenter study at three academic medical centers in California, Pennsylvania, and Washington. One hundred eighteen key stakeholders completed in-depth semistructured (...) interviews. Participants included 47 surrogates of adult patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome; 45 clinicians working in study ICUs, including physicians, nurses, social workers, and spiritual care providers; and 26 experts in health communication, decision science, ethics, family-centered care, geriatrics, healthcare disparities, palliative care, psychology, psychiatry, and critical care.Measurements and main resultsThere was broad support among surrogates for existing expert recommendations, including truthful prognostic disclosure, emotional support, tailoring the disclosure strategy to each family's needs, and checking for understanding. In addition, stakeholders offered suggestions that add specificity to existing recommendations, including: In addition to conveying prognostic estimates, clinicians should help families "see the prognosis for themselves" by showing families radiographic images and explaining the clinical significance of physical manifestations of severe disease at the bedside. Many physicians did not support using numeric estimates to convey prognosis to families, whereas many surrogates, clinicians from other disciplines, and experts believed numbers could be helpful. Clinicians should conceptualize prognostic communication as an iterative process that begins with a preliminary mention of the possibility of death early in the ICU stay and becomes more detailed as the clinical situation develops. Although prognostic information should be initially disclosed by physicians, other members of the multidisciplinary team-nurses, social workers, and spiritual care providers-should be given explicit role responsibilities to reinforce physicians' prognostications and help families process a poor prognosis emotionally.ConclusionsFamily members, clinicians, and experts identified specific communication behaviors that clinicians should use to discuss prognosis in the critical care setting. These findings extend existing opinion-based recommendations and should guide interventions to improve communication about prognosis in ICUs. (shrink)

Standard proofs of generalized Bell theorems, aiming to restrict stochastic, local hidden-variable theories for quantum correlation phenomena, employ as a locality condition the requirement of conditional stochastic independence. The connection between this and the no-superluminary-action requirement of the special theory of relativity has been a topic of controversy. In this paper, we introduce an alternative locality condition for stochastic theories, framed in terms of the models of such a theory (§2). It is a natural generalization of a light-cone determination condition (...) that is essentially equivalent to mathematical conditions that have been used to derive Bell inequalities in the deterministic case. Further, it is roughly equivalent to a condition proposed by Bell that, in one investigation, needed to be supplemented with a much stronger assumption in order to yield an inequality violated by some quantum mechanical predictions. It is shown here that this reflects a very general situation: from the proposed locality condition, even adding the strict anticorrelation condition and the auxiliary hypotheses needed to derive experimentally useful (and theoretically telling) inequalities, no Bell-type inequality is derivable. (These independence claims are the burden of §4.) A certain limitation on the scope of the proposed stochastic locality condition is exposed (§5), but it is found to be rather minor. The conclusion is thus supported that conditional stochastic independence, however reasonable on other grounds, is essentially stronger than what is required by the special theory.Our results stand in apparent contradiction with a class of derivations purporting to obtain generalized Bell inequalities from locality alone. It is shown in Appendix (B) that such proofs do not achieve their goal. This fits with our conclusion that generalized Bell theorems are not straightforward generalizations of theorems restricting deterministic hidden-variable theories, and that, in fact, such generalizations do not exist. This leaves open the possibility that a satisfactory, non-deterministic account of the quantum correlation phenomena can be given within the framework of the special theory. (shrink)

The rise of the phenomenon of virtue ethics in recent years has increased at a rapid pace. Such an explosion carries with it a number of great possibilities, as well as risks. This volume has been written to contribute a multi-faceted perspective to the current conversation about virtue. Among many other thought-provoking questions, the collection addresses the following: What are the virtues, and how are they enumerated? What are the internal problems among ethicists, and what are the objections and replies (...) to contemporary virtue ethics? Additionally, the practical implications following from the answers to these questions are discussed in new and fascinating research. Fundamental concepts such as teleology and eudaimonism are addressed from both a historical and dialectical approach. This tome will contribute not only to providing further clarity to the current horizons in virtue ethics, but also to the practical conclusion following from the study: to challenge the reader toward a greater pursuit of the virtuous life. (shrink)

In this article, the author examines the seemingly privileged position of technology in current educational thought. The article begins by considering Lewis Mumford’s notion of the myth of the machine and his insistence that only when tool making/using is modified by linguistic symbols, esthetic design, and socially transmitted knowledge does it become a significant contributor to human development. Through a sociohistorical critique, the author establishes a relationship between the ubiquity of the mythos and current educational discourse. The author provides examples (...) from various historical events that have contributed to (a) the tradition of print-based culture, (b) the origins of the mythos of technology, (c) the increasingly popular notion that technology offers apanacea for educational woes, (d) the marginalization of critical discourse in regard to educational technology, and (e) corporate involvement in maintenance of the mythos. (shrink)

The title of this paper represents a "trick question" of the sort an interlocutor might employ to solicit an answer which, if framed with specific regard to the question's implicatures, cannot fail to confirm that interlocutor's position or further his aims. The best-known query of this form is the cliched "Do you still beat your spouse?" To escape being trapped, the respondent must either (a) avoid answering or (b) point out and refute the implication(s) embedded in the question itself. In (...) practice, both options typically entail risk. Option (a) may violate the procedural form of the "language game" (cf. Wittgenstein, 1963) within which the question occurs, while option (b) may violate the thematic or orientational focus presumed or enacted in that language game. This paper is intended to outline a "trick question" (that of the title) which has over the years been a recurrent challenge slung at adherents of the theories which have brought us together here in Belo Horizonte. If the following text accomplishes my intentions, it will explain the challenge, assess our response(s) to date, and offer suggestions about what (if any) further action it may prudently motivate. (shrink)

The referential focus of this paper is not a hypothesis or theoretical point per se. Instead, it is the body of work (hereafter termed autopoietic theory) developed by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela. The intended audience is not a community of critical scholars per se. Instead it is the "community of interest" for whom autopoietic theory is at least an object of interest and at most an object of personal commitment. To the extent autopoietic theory has prospered and spread over (...) the last quarter century, it has often been a function of highly interactive, even personal, relationships among self-acknowledged adherents and those generally interested. Owing to the distribution of such correspondents across diverse disciplines, their cohesion as a "community" has been tenuous at best. I wish to step back from the usual scholarly perspective and use this venue to address what may be termed the pragmatics of autopoietic theory. The intention is to offer some sort of "state of the community" assessment, recommendations, and / or tips regarding: (a) autopoietic theory's documentary corpus; (b) discourse on autopoietic theory; and (c) applying the theory in the context of focused research. The goal is to help orient newcomers and provoke reflection among the "veterans.". (shrink)

The focus of this research concentrated on ascertaining the presence of ethical climate types and the level of analysis from which ethical decisions were based as perceived by lodging managers. In agreement with Victor and Cullen (1987, 1988), ethical work climates are multidimensional and multi-determined. The results of this study indicated that: (a) benevolence is the predominate dimension of ethical climate present in the lodging organization as perceived by lodging managers, and (b) the local level of analysis (e.g. immediate workplace (...) norms and values) is the predominate determinant of ethical decisions in the organization.The implication of this study is that the knowledge gained from understanding that ethical decision making in an organization is multidimensional and multi-determined will foster understanding of ethical decision formation in the organizational context. (shrink)

Pancreatitis is a complex, progressively destructive inflammatory disorder. Alcohol was long thought to be the primary causative agent, but genetic contributions have been of interest since the discovery that rare PRSS1, CFTR and SPINK1 variants were associated with pancreatitis risk. We now report two associations at genome-wide significance identified and replicated at PRSS1-PRSS2 and X-linked CLDN2 through a two-stage genome-wide study. The PRSS1 variant likely affects disease susceptibility by altering expression of the primary trypsinogen gene. The CLDN2 risk allele is (...) associated with atypical localization of claudin-2 in pancreatic acinar cells. The homozygous CLDN2 genotype confers the greatest risk, and its alleles interact with alcohol consumption to amplify risk. These results could partially explain the high frequency of alcohol-related pancreatitis in men. © 2012 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Acute exercise consistently benefits both emotion and cognition, particularly cognitive control. We evaluated acute endurance exercise influences on emotion, domain-general cognitive control, and the cognitive control of emotion, specifically cognitive reappraisal. Thirty-six endurance runners, defined as running at least 30 miles per week with one weekly run of at least 9 miles (21 female, age 18-30 years) participated. In a repeated measures design, participants walked at 57% age-adjusted maximum heart rate (HRmax) (range 51-63%) and ran at 70% HRmax (range 64-76%) (...) for 90 minutes on two separate days. Participants completed measures of emotional state and the Stroop test of domain-general cognitive control before, every 30 minutes during, and 30 minutes after exercise. Participants also completed a cognitive reappraisal task after exercise. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy tracked changes in oxygenated and deoxygenated hemoglobin levels in the prefrontal cortex (PFC). Endurance exercise elevated positive emotion and cognitive reappraisal success. Endurance exercise reduced Stroop response time and test-evoked PFC oxygenation during exercise. Results suggest that even at relatively moderate intensities, endurance athletes benefit emotionally from running both during and after exercise, and task-related prefrontal cortex oxygenation reductions do not appear to hinder prefrontal-dependent cognitive control. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.3 (2003) 41-57 [Access article in PDF] The Subordination of Aesthetic Fundamentals in College Art Instruction Randall Lavender we smile at a hasty philosopher who assures his disciples that art is about to be replaced with philosophy. 1Opportunities for college students of art and design to study fundamentals of visual aesthetics, integrity of form, and principles of composition are limited today by a (...) number of factors. With the well-documented prominence of postmodern critical theory in the world of contemporary art (and itsquestionable effects on higher education in art and design), the study of aesthetic fundamentals is largely subordinated to a multitude of conceptual, theoretical, and expressive priorities recycled from the art world. 2 Contemporary idea-based priorities tend to obviate, in the minds of many artists who teach, the "need" for aesthetic fundamentals in college art curricula. But as Rudolph Arnheim suggests, art is not easily replaced by ideas alone. For no matter how interested artists, instructors, or students may be in ideas, theory, or self-expression, today's college art/design students need to gain a solid grounding in aesthetic fundamentals early in their college art educations in order to become adept and well-informed makers of art and/or design.In this essay I argue for the value of aesthetic fundamentals in the education of artists and designers, and outline a series of factors that contribute to the subordination of aesthetics in college art instruction. I examine introductory-level college art/design curricula, including a pair of courses that are intended to provide students with visual, compositional, and/or aesthetic fundamentals, and explore why instructors, even in these courses, too often bypass such fundamentals in their teaching. Specifically, I discuss the ways in which traditions of art education, mixed with artist/teachers' own art training, lead to a virtual dismissal of aesthetic fundamentals. Certain assumptions that professional artists often bring to their teaching and how these contribute to the problem are examined. I identify a historical phenomenon [End Page 41] that plays a key role in the subordination of aesthetic fundamentals — the schism between "art" and "design." I suggest an approach for embracing aesthetic fundamentals in college art instruction that preserves students' individual and cultural differences, while at the same time enabling them to make aesthetic decisions in their work, and to discern aesthetic quality in each other's work. Finally, I conclude that students can fully succeed in more advanced explorations of the complex and controversial realm of contemporary art issues, and certainly in the applied arts, only after receiving a solid, balanced, and inclusive grounding in the profound aesthetic power of clear organizing principles of visual information. The Value of Aesthetic Fundamentals Why are aesthetic fundamentals — that is, principles and elements of visual organization — actually important to the education of college art students? Among other reasons, they are important because professional artists do somehow have to learn to make their work aesthetically convincing, even if they must manage other challenges as well, including "newness," historical relevance, and significance of idea. The National Association of Schools of Art and Design shares this reasoning, as evidenced by their requirement that B.F.A. students acquire "essential competencies," including becoming "visually literate," developing an "understanding of basic design principles, concepts, media, and formats," and "mastery of basic foundation techniques." 3 The problem we face in educating artists today is that the range of challenges inherent to a career in the art world often results in aesthetic considerations being assigned a low priority in visual arts curricula. Many contemporary artists teaching in college art programs see themselves as all but immune to the realm of visual aesthetics; they subscribe instead to the prevalent postmodern dictum that aesthetics are superfluous. As this way of thinking permeates college art instructors' thinking to an ever-greater extent, students of art and design find themselves increasingly distanced from aesthetic training, and from the aesthetic experience. This distancing is a loss to students.Students lose when aesthetic fundamentals are neglected because for all the effort they might make... (shrink)

Hausdorff's paradoxical decomposition of a sphere with countably many points removed actually produced a partition of this set into three pieces A,B,C such that A is congruent to B, B is congruent to C, and A is congruent to B ∪ C. While refining the Banach–Tarski paradox, R. Robinson characterized the systems of congruences like this which could be realized by partitions of the sphere with rotations witnessing the congruences: the only nontrivial restriction is that the system should not require (...) any set to be congruent to its complement. Later, J. F. Adams showed that this restriction can be removed if one allows arbitrary isometries of the sphere to witness the congruences. The purpose of this paper is to characterize those systems of congruences which can be satisfied by partitions of the sphere or related spaces into sets with the property of Baire. A paper of Dougherty and Foreman gives a proof that the Banach–Tarski paradox can be achieved using such sets, and gives versions of this result using open sets and related results about partitions of spaces into congruent sets. The same method is used here; it turns out that only one additional restriction on a system of congruences is needed to make it solvable using subsets of the sphere with the property of Baire with free rotations witnessing the congruences. Actually, the result applies to any complete metric space acted on in a sufficiently free way by a free group of homeomorphisms. We also characterize the systems solvable on the sphere using sets with the property of Baire but allowing all isometries. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.3 (2003) 41-57 [Access article in PDF] The Subordination of Aesthetic Fundamentals in College Art Instruction Randall Lavender we smile at a hasty philosopher who assures his disciples that art is about to be replaced with philosophy. 1Opportunities for college students of art and design to study fundamentals of visual aesthetics, integrity of form, and principles of composition are limited today by a (...) number of factors. With the well-documented prominence of postmodern critical theory in the world of contemporary art (and itsquestionable effects on higher education in art and design), the study of aesthetic fundamentals is largely subordinated to a multitude of conceptual, theoretical, and expressive priorities recycled from the art world. 2 Contemporary idea-based priorities tend to obviate, in the minds of many artists who teach, the "need" for aesthetic fundamentals in college art curricula. But as Rudolph Arnheim suggests, art is not easily replaced by ideas alone. For no matter how interested artists, instructors, or students may be in ideas, theory, or self-expression, today's college art/design students need to gain a solid grounding in aesthetic fundamentals early in their college art educations in order to become adept and well-informed makers of art and/or design.In this essay I argue for the value of aesthetic fundamentals in the education of artists and designers, and outline a series of factors that contribute to the subordination of aesthetics in college art instruction. I examine introductory-level college art/design curricula, including a pair of courses that are intended to provide students with visual, compositional, and/or aesthetic fundamentals, and explore why instructors, even in these courses, too often bypass such fundamentals in their teaching. Specifically, I discuss the ways in which traditions of art education, mixed with artist/teachers' own art training, lead to a virtual dismissal of aesthetic fundamentals. Certain assumptions that professional artists often bring to their teaching and how these contribute to the problem are examined. I identify a historical phenomenon [End Page 41] that plays a key role in the subordination of aesthetic fundamentals — the schism between "art" and "design." I suggest an approach for embracing aesthetic fundamentals in college art instruction that preserves students' individual and cultural differences, while at the same time enabling them to make aesthetic decisions in their work, and to discern aesthetic quality in each other's work. Finally, I conclude that students can fully succeed in more advanced explorations of the complex and controversial realm of contemporary art issues, and certainly in the applied arts, only after receiving a solid, balanced, and inclusive grounding in the profound aesthetic power of clear organizing principles of visual information. The Value of Aesthetic Fundamentals Why are aesthetic fundamentals — that is, principles and elements of visual organization — actually important to the education of college art students? Among other reasons, they are important because professional artists do somehow have to learn to make their work aesthetically convincing, even if they must manage other challenges as well, including "newness," historical relevance, and significance of idea. The National Association of Schools of Art and Design shares this reasoning, as evidenced by their requirement that B.F.A. students acquire "essential competencies," including becoming "visually literate," developing an "understanding of basic design principles, concepts, media, and formats," and "mastery of basic foundation techniques." 3 The problem we face in educating artists today is that the range of challenges inherent to a career in the art world often results in aesthetic considerations being assigned a low priority in visual arts curricula. Many contemporary artists teaching in college art programs see themselves as all but immune to the realm of visual aesthetics; they subscribe instead to the prevalent postmodern dictum that aesthetics are superfluous. As this way of thinking permeates college art instructors' thinking to an ever-greater extent, students of art and design find themselves increasingly distanced from aesthetic training, and from the aesthetic experience. This distancing is a loss to students.Students lose when aesthetic fundamentals are neglected because for all the effort they might make... (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to build upon previous ethical research; thereby, advancing the hospitality industry's understanding of ethical decision making in lodging operations. In particular, this study reviewed: (a) the primary normative ethical precepts (i.e., egoism, benevolence, and principle) used as a criterion in ethical decision making, and (b) the predominant locus of analysis (e.g., individual, local, or cosmopolitan referent sources) used in applying ethical precepts to ethical decisions.The sample consisted of 500 lodging operations as randomly abstracted from (...) the 1994 Hotel Travel Index produced by Reed Travel. The researcher selected full service, limited service, or as rooms-only lodging operations throughout the United States. A full service property offered guest rooms, meeting rooms, and food and beverage services. A limited service property offered a continental breakfast, small meeting facilities, and guest sleeping rooms. A rooms-only property only offered guest rooms. This purposive sampling process resulted in 198 usable surveys. (shrink)

PARLOUR R and MCCORMACK B. Nursing Inquiry 2012; 19: 308–321 Blending critical realist and emancipatory practice development methodologies: making critical realism work in nursing researchThis paper examines the efficacy of facilitation as a practice development intervention in changing practice within an Older Person setting and in implementing evidence into practice. It outlines the influences exerted by the critical realist paradigm in guiding emancipatory practice development activities and, in particular, how the former may be employed within an emancipatory practice development study (...) to elucidate and increase understanding pertinent to causation and outcomes. The methodology is based upon an emancipatory practice development approach set within a realistic evaluation framework. This allows for systematic analysis of the social and contextual elements that influence the explication of outcomes associated with facilitation. The study is concentrated upon five practice development cycles, within which a sequence of iterative processes is integrated. The authors assert that combining critical realist and emancipatory processes offers a robust and practical method for translating evidence and implementing changes in practice, as the former affirms or falsifies the influence that emancipatory processes exert on attaining culture shift, and enabling transformation towards effective clinical practice. A new framework for practice development is proposed that establishes methodological coherency between emancipatory practice development and realistic evaluation. This augments the existing theoretical bases for both these approaches by contributing new theoretical and methodological understandings of causation. (shrink)

Van Fraassen's Judy Benjamin problem asks how one ought to update one's credence in A upon receiving evidence of the sort ``A may or may not obtain, but B is k times likelier than C'', where {A,B,C} is a partition. Van Fraassen's solution, in the limiting case of increasing k, recommends a posterior converging to the probability of A conditional on A union B, where P is one's prior probability function. Grove and Halpern, and more recently Douven and Romeijn, have (...) argued that one ought to leave credence in A unchanged, i.e. fixed at P(A). We argue that while the former approach is superior, it brings about a Reflection violation due in part to neglect of a ``regression to the mean'' phenomenon, whereby when C is eliminated by random evidence that leaves A and B alive, the ratio P(A):P(B) ought to drift in the direction of 1:1. (shrink)