The sudden appearance in the fossil record of the major animal phyla apparently records a phase of unparalleled, rapid evolution at the base of the Cambrian period, 545 Myr ago. This has become known as the Cambrian evolutionary ‘explosion’, and has fuelled speculation about unique evolutionary processes operating at that time. The acceptance of the palaeontological evidence as a true reflection of the evolutionary narrative has been criticised in two ways: from a reappraisal of the phylogenetic relationships of the early (...) fossils, and from predicitions of molecular divergence times, based on six appropriate metazoan genes. Phylogenetic analysis of the arthropods implies an earlier, Precambrian history for most clades, and hence an extensive period of cladogenesis unrecorded by fossils. A similar argument can be applied to molluscs, lophophorates and deuterostomes. Molecular evidence implies divergence between clades to at least 1000 Myr ago. The apparent paradox between the sudden appearance of recognisable metazoans and their extended evolutionary history might be explained by a sudden Cambrian increase in body size, which was accompanied by skeletisation. A new paradigm suggests that the ‘explosion’ in the record may have been decoupled from the evolutionary innovation. (shrink)

Solving the 4-d Einstein equations as evolution in time requires solving equations of two types: the four elliptic initial data (constraint) equations, followed by the six second-order evolution equations. Analytically the constraint equations remain solved under the action of the evolution, and one approach is to simply monitor them (unconstrained evolution). The problem of the 3-d computational simulation of even a single isolated vacuum black hole has proven to be remarkably difficult. Recently, we have become aware of two publications that (...) describe very long term evolution, at least for single isolated black holes. An essential feature in each of these results is constraint subtraction. Additionally, each of these approaches is based on what we call “modern,” hyperbolic formulations of the Einstein equations. It is generally assumed, based on computational experience, that the use of such modern formulations is essential for long-term black hole stability. We report here on comparable lifetime results based on the much simpler (“traditional”) ${\dot g} - {\dot K}$ formulation. With specific subtraction of constraints, with a simple analytic gauge, with very simple boundary conditions, and for moderately large domains with moderately fine resolution, we find computational evolutions of isolated non-spinning black holes for times exceeding 1000 GM/c2. We have also carried out a series of constrained 3-d evolutions of single isolated black holes. We find that constraint solution can produce substantially stabilized long-term single hole evolutions. However, we have found that for large domains, neither constraint-subtracted nor constrained ${\dot g} - {\dot K}$ evolutions carried out in Cartesian coordinates admit arbitrarily long-lived simulations. The failure appears to arise from features at the inner excision boundary; the behavior does generally improve with resolution. (shrink)

Spiritual/religious coping has proven to be a fertile ground for investigating health-related spirituality in action. Ken Pargament and his colleagues have successfully demonstrated that spiritual/religious coping differs significantly from previously identified coping strategies. While much has been accomplished to date, there are undeveloped theoretical and methodological avenues that appear to provide important promise for understanding the complexities of this critical domain of coping. Some scholars have failed to conceptualize and research spiritual/religious coping as a contextual, temporally bounded process. This paper (...) explores the theoretical and methodological advantages of adopting a contextually embedded, process-oriented epistemology—contextual action theory. We propose that doing so will not only address some of the inadequacies of the extant literature but also aid researchers in exploring novel dimensions of spiritual/religious coping. From a contextual action-theory perspective, spiritual/religious coping is viewed as intentional, goal-directed behaviour that is embedded in a social and relational context. This teleonomic reconceptualization enables researchers to understand the constitution and development of intentions involved in the process of spiritual/religious coping over time. Further, a contextual action theory perspective transcends the narrow, individualistic lens of coping and explores joint and collective coping processes that emerge as people draw upon spiritual/religious practices to cope with distress. Thus, spiritual/religious coping is embedded in social and relational context and as part of personal, intentional goal-directed processes over time. The novel contributions of a contextual theoretical perspective to spiritual/religious coping research and theory are illustrated through a case example. (shrink)

Considering the enormous diversity of living organisms, representing mostly untapped resources for studying ecological, ontogenetic and phylogenetic patterns and processes, why should evolutionary biologists concern themselves with the remains of animals and plants that died out tens or even hundreds of millions of years ago? The reason is that important new insights into some of the most vexing evolutionary questions are being revealed at the interfaces of palaeontology, developmental biology and molecular biology. Attempts to synthesise information from these disciplines, however, (...) often encounter their greatest hurdles in considerations of the radiation of the Metazoa. Ongoing challenges relate to the origins of body plans, the relationships of the metazoan phyla and the timing of major evolutionary radiations. Palaeontology not only has its own unique contributions to the study of evolutionary processes, but provides a lynchpin for many of the emerging techniques. BioEssays 22:1142–1152, 2000. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

The collection presents a variety of promising new directions in Royce scholarship from an international group of scholars, including historical reinterpretations, explorations of Royce's ethics of loyalty and religious philosophy, and contemporary applications of his ideas in psychology, the problem of reference, neo-pragmatism, and literary aesthetics.

This book proposes a way to think and speak about God in and through our contemporary, secular society, bridging the theist/atheist divide by considering the divine through the lens of aesthetics. It represents a timely contribution to Continental philosophy of religion that includes some of the most respected and important voices in the field.

Being 'biblical' : contexts and starting points -- Jesus of Nazareth : great moral teacher or friend of sinners? -- Paul : follower or founder? -- Mark : suffering for the kingdom -- Matthew : being truly righteous -- Luke-Acts : a universal concern -- John : teaching the truth in love -- Apartheid : an ethical and generic challenge to reading the New Testament.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.1 (2001) 142-143 [Access article in PDF] Wright, John P. and Paul Potter, editors. Psyche and Soma: Physicians and Metaphysicians on the Mind-Body Problem from Antiquity to Enlightenment. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Pp. xii + 298. Cloth, $72.00. The mind-body problem has a long history that begins well before Descartes made it extreme by presenting mind as unextended active thinking and (...) matter as unthinking passive extension. This absolute division was motivated in some part by the desire to present the soul as an entity that can survive the death of the body. This is difficult to maintain if the soul is merely the form or the vital force motivating a human body. But the advance of physiology has led more and more to the conclusion that the functions often attributed to the soul are actually carried out by the brain. Thinking may be as natural (and perhaps as determined) a function of the body as is digestion. And if digestion does not survive the death of the body, maybe thinking does not either.This collection of studies provides a detailed introduction to both medical and metaphysical views and theories concerning the relation of mind to body. In particular, the first article by Beate Gundert on Hippocratic Medicine sets the stage by showing that "mind and body in the Hippocratic writings, while distinguished empirically by being related to different types of phenomena, are both ultimately accounted for by the same explanatory model: Human nature (physis), which embraces the totality of bodily structures, physiological processes, and psychic events" (35). T. M. Robinson shows that Plato admits of no solution as to how mind and body interact, and Philip J. van der Eijk argues that "to detach the essence of man completely from his physical make-up would run counter to Aristotle's biological approach to man as a natural living being, the ultimate implication of his view on the divinity of nous is that the fullest realization of what it is to be a human being is to go beyond the limits of corporeality and mortality, and to become, if only temporarily, a god" (77). Heinrich von Staden covers Epicurus, Herophilus, Erasistratus, the Stoics, and Galen, concluding that "The discovery of the nerves entailed the first significant erosion of the vast territory ruled by the soul in Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy, an erosion accompanied by an expansion of the rule of 'nature,' visible not only in medicine, but also in philosophy" (116). Theo K. Heckel discusses Saint Paul's insistence upon the whole person, and Gareth Matthews shows that, prior to Descartes, Augustine presents "a radically new argument for mind-body dualism... an internalist argument... that proceeds from what, allegedly, the mind can know concerning itself to the conclusion that the mind is incorporeal" (145). Emily Michael discusses Pomponazzi's view that we know the immortality of the soul only by faith and the scholastic attempts to show that the soul is a substantial form. Guillaume Lamy, for example, criticized Descartes for having a soul only of thinking, whereas the soul must be of life. Steven Voss shows how at the end of his life, Descartes did discuss in detail how thinking affects the body, particularly in the management of health and the curing of disease. But Descartes does not solve the problem of how this interaction takes place. Thomas Lennon discusses the views of Bayle on Leibniz's monadic forces and Locke's fideism. And Francois Duchesneu continues the discussion of Stahl and Leibniz, to [End Page 142] conclude that "Leibniz attempts to discover the formal foundation of the organism, which he locates in the capacity of perception-appetition proper to the dominant monad" (235).John P. Wright gives an exposition of a very important distinction between Cartesian dualism and the functional dualism that came to dominate medical thought, that is, the question of how the brain and vital organs interact. Roselyn Rey carries this discussion on to the development of theories... (shrink)

Juslin & Vll's (J&V's) discussions of evaluative conditioning and episodic memory focus on circumstances in which music becomes associated with arbitrary life events. However, analyses of film music suggest that viewers experience consistent pairings between types of music and types of narrative content. Researchers have demonstrated that the emotional content of film music has a major impact on viewers' emotional experiences of a narrative.

Control measures, such as “lockdowns”, have been widely used to suppress the COVID-19 pandemic. Under some conditions, they prevent illness and save lives. But they also exact an economic toll. How should we balance the impact of such policies on individual lives and livelihoods (and other dimensions of concern) to determine which is best? A widely used method of policy evaluation, benefit–cost analysis (BCA), answers these questions by converting all the effects of a policy into monetary equivalents and then summing (...) them up. A different method, social welfare analysis, proceeds by determining the effects of a policy on individual wellbeing and then applying an aggregation formula to them to evaluate the overall effects of a policy. In this chapter, we survey these methods and argue that social welfare analysis has important advantages. One crucial advantage is that it enables ethical considerations relating to the impact of policies on individual wellbeing and its distribution to be incorporated into policy assessments in a transparent way. We illustrate this with a simple numerical model for evaluating pandemic policies that vary in terms of the stringency of the controls that they impose on individual behaviour, showing how the evaluation depends on the ethical significance accorded to their impact on the wellbeing of different age and income groups. (shrink)

This volume has 41 chapters written to honor the 100th birthday of Mario Bunge. It celebrates the work of this influential Argentine/Canadian physicist and philosopher. Contributions show the value of Bunge’s science-informed philosophy and his systematic approach to philosophical problems. The chapters explore the exceptionally wide spectrum of Bunge’s contributions to: metaphysics, methodology and philosophy of science, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of physics, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of social science, philosophy of biology, philosophy of technology, moral philosophy, social and political (...) philosophy, medical philosophy, and education. The contributors include scholars from 16 countries. Bunge combines ontological realism with epistemological fallibilism. He believes that science provides the best and most warranted knowledge of the natural and social world, and that such knowledge is the only sound basis for moral decision making and social and political reform. Bunge argues for the unity of knowledge. In his eyes, science and philosophy constitute a fruitful and necessary partnership. Readers will discover the wisdom of this approach and will gain insight into the utility of cross-disciplinary scholarship. This anthology will appeal to researchers, students, and teachers in philosophy of science, social science, and liberal education programmes. 1. Introduction Section I. An Academic Vocation Section II. Philosophy Section III. Physics and Philosophy of Physics Section IV. Cognitive Science and Philosophy of Mind Section V. Sociology and Social Theory Section VI. Ethics and Political Philosophy Section VII. Biology and Philosophy of Biology Section VIII. Mathematics Section IX. Education Section X. Varia Section XI. Bibliography. (shrink)

Purpose This paper aims to introduce a special section based on papers from Australasian Conference for Information Systems 2014. Design/methodology/approach This paper comments on key contextualisation moments in relevant history. Findings This paper describes the initiative in Australia to widen Information and Communication Technology ethics awareness. Originality/value This is a new attempt to bring Ethics and Information Systems academics closer together.

The COVID-19 crisis has forced a difficult trade-off between limiting the health impacts of the virus and maintaining economic activity. Welfare economics offers tools to conceptualize this trade-off so that policy-makers and the public can see clearly what is at stake. We review four such tools: the Value of Statistical Life (VSL); the Value of Statistical Life Years (VSLYs); Quality-Adjusted Life-Years (QALYs); and social welfare analysis, and argue that the latter are superior. We also discuss how to choose policies that (...) differentially affect people’s wellbeing. We argue in favor of evaluating policies using a Social Welfare Function (SWF), which evaluates the possible distributions of wellbeing across individuals that may result from a policy. Such a function, we argue, should regard increases in the wellbeing of the less well-off as especially valuable. We then use a model to illustrate how such a framework can help evaluate two broad policy types in response to the pandemic: eradication of the virus, and more lenient control of the spread. Our model reveals how such evaluations depend on many empirical facts but also on key value judgments about the relative importance of health and on the extent of special concern for the worse off. The purpose of this brief is not to make precise recommendations, as conditions vary widely across countries and over time, but to provide a methodology. (shrink)

Although death by neurologic criteria is legally recognized throughout the United States, state laws and clinical practice vary concerning three key issues: the medical standards used to determine death by neurologic criteria, management of family objections before determination of death by neurologic criteria, and management of religious objections to declaration of death by neurologic criteria. The American Academy of Neurology and other medical stakeholder organizations involved in the determination of death by neurologic criteria have undertaken concerted action to address variation (...) in clinical practice in order to ensure the integrity of brain death determination. To complement this effort, state policymakers must revise legislation on the use of neurologic criteria to declare death. We review the legal history and current laws regarding neurologic criteria to declare death and offer proposed revisions to the Uniform Determination of Death Act and the rationale for these recommendations. (shrink)

Since the fundamental challenge that I laid at the doorstep of the pluralists was to defend, with nonderivative models, a strong notion of genic cause, it is fatal that Waters has failed to meet that challenge. Waters agrees with me that there is only a single cause operating in these models, but he argues for a notion of causal ‘parsing’ to sustain the viability of some form of pluralism. Waters and his colleagues have some very interesting and important ideas about (...) the sciences, involving pluralism and parsing or partitioning causes, but they are ideas in search of an example. He thinks he has found an example in the case of hierarchical and genic selection. I think he has not. (shrink)

Previous research on the use of diagrams for argumentation instruction has highlighted, but not conclusively demonstrated, their potential benefits. We examine the relative benefits of using diagrams and diagramming tools to teach causal reasoning about public policy. Sixty-three Carnegie Mellon University students were asked to analyze short policy texts using either: 1) text only, 2) text and a pre-made, correct diagram representing the causal claims in the text, or 3) text and a diagramming tool with which to construct their own (...) causal diagram. After a pretest and training, we tested student performance on a new policy text and found that students given a correct diagram significantly outperformed the other groups. Finally, we compared learning by testing students on a third policy problem in which we removed all diagram or tool aids and found that students who constructed their own diagrams learned the most. We describe these results and interpret them in a way that foreshadows work we now plan for a cognitive-tutor on causal diagram construction. (shrink)

ObjectivesThe purpose of the current study was to examine whether a self-report measure identifies prenatal substance use and predicts resulting adverse birth outcomes in a large cohort using electronic medical records.MethodsPregnant patients who were admitted between 2014 and 2015 at Christiana Care Health System and delivered singleton birth were included in the analyses. Participant demographic information, pregnancy comorbidities, self-reported substance use, and birth outcomes were retrieved from electronic medical records. Detailed descriptive analyses of prenatal substance use were conducted, and logistic (...) models were evaluated for the associations between substance use and each birth outcome.ResultsThe average maternal age was 30 years, 37% receiving Medicaid. Over 58% were White, 26% were Black, and 13% were Hispanic. Cigarette smoking only showed the highest prevalence among substance u... (shrink)

The Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI) is an ontology that provides terms with precisely defined meanings to describe all aspects of how investigations in the biological and medical domains are conducted. OBI re-uses ontologies that provide a representation of biomedical knowledge from the Open Biological and Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) project and adds the ability to describe how this knowledge was derived. We here describe the state of OBI and several applications that are using it, such as adding semantic expressivity to (...) existing databases, building data entry forms, and enabling interoperability between knowledge resources. OBI covers all phases of the investigation process, such as planning, execution and reporting. It represents information and material entities that participate in these processes, as well as roles and functions. Prior to OBI, it was not possible to use a single internally consistent resource that could be applied to multiple types of experiments for these applications. OBI has made this possible by creating terms for entities involved in biological and medical investigations and by importing parts of other biomedical ontologies such as GO, Chemical Entities of Biological Interest (ChEBI) and Phenotype Attribute and Trait Ontology (PATO) without altering their meaning. OBI is being used in a wide range of projects covering genomics, multi-omics, immunology, and catalogs of services. OBI has also spawned other ontologies (Information Artifact Ontology) and methods for importing parts of ontologies (Minimum information to reference an external ontology term (MIREOT)). The OBI project is an open cross-disciplinary collaborative effort, encompassing multiple research communities from around the globe. To date, OBI has created 2366 classes and 40 relations along with textual and formal definitions. The OBI Consortium maintains a web resource providing details on the people, policies, and issues being addressed in association with OBI. (shrink)

Conscientious refusal involves decisions by healthcare workers, on grounds of their conscience, to refuse to provide legal, professionally permissible and safe health interventions to patients. Conscientious provision involves decisions by healthcare workers, also on grounds of conscience, to provide safe and beneficial healthcare to patients that is prohibited by law or policy. Some bioethicists believe that the moral issues governing both are identical, and that if one permits conscientious refusals, one should also permit conscientious provisions. This article argues that this (...) assumption of symmetry is incorrect. To demonstrate this, it does the following: first, it establishes why it matters that we understand the difference between them; second, it describes three recent cases of conscientious provision in Canadian healthcare to help characterize its nature and scope; third, it situates these cases in a socio-economically nuanced analysis of the role of the conscientious provider under conditions or privilege and oppression; finally, it applies insights from the cases and the intersectional analysis to common criticisms of conscientious refusal to reinforce the fundamental asymmetries between conscientious refusal and conscientious provision. (shrink)

Private, voluntary compliance programs, promoted by global corporations and nongovernmental organizations alike, have produced only modest and uneven improvements in working conditions and labor rights in most global supply chains. Through a detailed study of a major global apparel company and its suppliers, this article argues that this compliance model rests on misguided theoretical and empirical assumptions concerning the power of multinational corporations in global supply chains, the role information plays in shaping the behavior of key actors in these production (...) networks, and the appropriate incentives required to change behavior and promote improvements in labor standards in these emergent centers of global production. The authors argue that it is precisely these faulty assumptions and the way they have come to shape various labor compliance initiatives throughout the world—even more than a lack of commitment, resources, or transparency by global brands and their suppliers to these programs—that explain why this compliance-focused model of private voluntary regulation has not succeeded. In contrast, this article documents that a more commitment-oriented approach to improving labor standards coexists and, in many of the same factories, complements the traditional compliance model. This commitment-oriented approach, based on joint problem solving, information exchange, and the diffusion of best practices, is often obscured by the debates over traditional compliance programs but exists in myriad factories throughout the world and has led to sustained improvements in working conditions and labor rights at these workplaces. (shrink)

The book is a multi-disciplinary philosophical exploration of the nature and ethics of torture. it offers a defence of the unconditional prohibition of torture.

The misconception that the application of statistical methods makes psychology a science is examined. Criticisms of statistical methods involving issues related to the generalization of aggregate-level findings to individuals, the impoverished language of numbers, the application of questions to methods, and the logic of statistical hypothesis testing are reviewed. It is not suggested, however, that statistical methods be abandoned. Instead, it is suggested that shortcomings of statistical methods indicate the importance of making ontological considerations a primary concern. Methodological considerations in (...) the absence of an understanding of the truth or ontological status of what is being studied will inevitably undermine psychologists’ efforts at understanding what it is to be human. Whereas the use of statistical methods in psychological research does not make the discipline a science, the truthful affiliation of methodology with ontology may. (shrink)

In colonial societies such as Canada the implications of colonialism and ethnocide (or cultural genocide) for ethical decision‐making are ill‐understood yet have profound implications in health ethics and other spheres. They combine to shape racism in health care in ways, sometimes obvious, more often subtle, that are inadequately understood and often wholly unnoticed. Along with overt experiences of interpersonal racism, Indigenous people with health care needs are confronted by systemic racism in the shaping of institutional structures, hospital policies and in (...) resource allocation decisions. Above all, racism is a function of state law – of the unilateral imposition of the settler society law on Indigenous communities. Indeed, the laws, including health laws, are social determinants of the ill‐health of Indigenous peoples. This article describes the problem of Indigenous ethnocide and explores its ethical implications. It thereby problematizes the role of law in health ethics. (shrink)

Selfhood and the Soul is a collection of new and original essays in honour of Christopher Gill, Emeritus Professor of Ancient Thought at the University of Exeter. Although they all share the same concern - the experience of being a person and the question of how best to live - as in the work of the honorand himself they are distinguished by a diversity of approach and subject matter, taking the reader on a journey from ancient philosophy to medical writing (...) via discussions of topics as varied as money, love, free will, and cookery. (shrink)

Cost-benefit analysis is a widely used governmental evaluation tool, though academics remain skeptical. This volume gathers prominent contributors from law, economics, and philosophy for discussion of cost-benefit analysis, specifically its moral foundations, applications and limitations. This new scholarly debate includes not only economists, but also contributors from philosophy, cognitive psychology, legal studies, and public policy who can further illuminate the justification and moral implications of this method and specify alternative measures. These articles originally appeared in the Journal of Legal Studies. (...) Contributors: - Matthew D. Adler - Gary S. Becker - John Broome - Robert H. Frank - Robert W. Hahn - Lewis A. Kornhauser - Martha C. Nussbaum - Eric A. Posner - Richard A. Posner - Henry S. Richardson - Amartya Sen - Cass R. Sunstein - W. Kip Viscusi. (shrink)

This book is a collection of secondary essays on America's most important philosophic thinkers—statesmen, judges, writers, educators, and activists—from the colonial period to the present. Each essay is a comprehensive introduction to the thought of a noted American on the fundamental meaning of the American regime.

Research Ethics, Volume 18, Issue 1, Page 51-63, January 2022. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australia, have historically experienced research as another means of colonialization and oppression. Although there are existing frameworks, guidelines and policies in place that respond to this history, the risk of exploitation and oppression arising from research still raises challenging ethical questions. Since the 1990s the National Health and Medical Research Council in Australia has developed specific sets of guidelines that govern research with these (...) populations in an attempt to redress injustices of the past. The current guidelines: Ethical Conduct in Research with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and Communities: Guidelines for Researchers and Stakeholders, 2018, emphasis six core values which are bound together by “spirit and integrity.” The values are reflected through respect for cultural inheritance, and genuine negotiation of partnerships between researchers, other stakeholders, and communities. We examine whether these guidelines can lead to research and research practices that redress some of the ongoing traumas of colonialization and racism. We draw upon Margaret Urban Walker’s formulation of restorative justice, based upon her “pragmatics of repair” which relies upon “voice, validation and vindication” and at its core, the restoration of relationships. (shrink)

In a recent article, Gross argues that physicians in decent societies have a civic duty to aid in the torturing of suspected terrorists during emergency conditions. The argument presupposes a communitarian society in which considerations of common good override questions of individual rights, but it is also utilitarian. In the event that there is a ticking bomb and no other alternative available for defusing it, torture must be used, and physicians must play their part. In an earlier article, Jones also (...) argues in favour of physician participation in torture, going so far as to enthusiastically endorse the allocation of research resources as well to ensure that the ability to meet emergency situations is as efficient as scientifically possible. I argue against both these views and defend the absolute prohibition against torture generally, and against any participation by physicians in particular. I show that these arguments are incompatible with liberal or decent societies, and that the institutional requirements for making torture effective would constitute an unacceptable degradation both of medical ethics and practice, as well as of political institutions in general. (shrink)

Throughout the biological and biomedical sciences there is a growing need for, prescriptive ‘minimum information’ (MI) checklists specifying the key information to include when reporting experimental results are beginning to find favor with experimentalists, analysts, publishers and funders alike. Such checklists aim to ensure that methods, data, analyses and results are described to a level sufficient to support the unambiguous interpretation, sophisticated search, reanalysis and experimental corroboration and reuse of data sets, facilitating the extraction of maximum value from data sets (...) them. However, such ‘minimum information’ MI checklists are usually developed independently by groups working within representatives of particular biologically- or technologically-delineated domains. Consequently, an overview of the full range of checklists can be difficult to establish without intensive searching, and even tracking thetheir individual evolution of single checklists may be a non-trivial exercise. Checklists are also inevitably partially redundant when measured one against another, and where they overlap is far from straightforward. Furthermore, conflicts in scope and arbitrary decisions on wording and sub-structuring make integration difficult. This presents inhibit their use in combination. Overall, these issues present significant difficulties for the users of checklists, especially those in areas such as systems biology, who routinely combine information from multiple biological domains and technology platforms. To address all of the above, we present MIBBI (Minimum Information for Biological and Biomedical Investigations); a web-based communal resource for such checklists, designed to act as a ‘one-stop shop’ for those exploring the range of extant checklist projects, and to foster collaborative, integrative development and ultimately promote gradual integration of checklists. (shrink)

A central ethical and political worry in Heidegger and Nietzsche is the philosophical irrelevance of everyday moral, epistemological and political norms, as well as of individual suffering and evil. In consequence they offer little to help us think about ethical experience. I argue that Albert Camus' analysis of moral and epistemic limits offers a more fruitful alternative. But this requires us to take ordinary experience as central to philosophical analysis, rather than simply viewing it as a clue to the real (...) philosophical issues. (shrink)

Heidegger famously diminishes the significance of everyday theories of truth like the correspondence theory, disparaging these as a matter of ‘mere’ correctness.They are among the starting points that lead to ‘the true’ but are not themselves genuine or authentic. Donald Davidson develops a theory of interpretation that suggests some reasons why the ordinary senses of truth should not be so mistreated: responsible theories of interpretation should treat the everyday senses of truth more seriously. This paper argues that the necessity of (...) convention T as a condition of interpretation means that correctness is essential both in philosophy and elsewhere. (shrink)

We study the notion of non-trivial elementary embeddings under the assumption that V satisfies ZFC without Power Set but with the Collection Scheme. We show that no such embedding can exist under the additional assumption that it is cofinal and either is a set or that the scheme of Dependent Choices of arbitrary length holds. We then study failures of instances of Collection in symmetric submodels of class forcings.

This comment responds to Maul’s (2012) article evaluating the validity evidence and argument for the Mayer–Salovey–Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT) as a measure of emotional intelligence (EI). We suggest that Maul’s standards for establishing validity evidence are unrealistically high, and may not be met by other established psychometric tests. As an example, we show that evidence for the validity of Raven’s Progressive Matrices (RPM) is of a similar standard to the MSCEIT.

1 Evidence-based policy requires researchers to provide the answers to ecological questions that are of interest to policy makers. To find out what those questions are in the UK, representatives from 28 organizations involved in policy, together with scientists from 10 academic institutions, were asked to generate a list of questions from their organizations. 2 During a 2-day workshop the initial list of 1003 questions generated from consulting at least 654 policy makers and academics was used as a basis for (...) generating a short list of 100 questions of significant policy relevance. Short-listing was decided on the basis of the preferences of the representatives from the policy-led organizations. 3 The areas covered included most major issues of environmental concern in the UK, including agriculture, marine fisheries, climate change, ecosystem function and land management. 4 The most striking outcome was the preference for general questions rather than narrow ones. The reason is that policy is driven by broad issues rather than specific ones. In contrast, scientists are frequently best equipped to answer specific questions. This means that it may be necessary to extract the underpinning specific question before researchers can proceed. 5 Synthesis and applications. Greater communication between policy makers and scientists is required in order to ensure that applied ecologists are dealing with issues in a way that can feed into policy. It is particularly important that applied ecologists emphasize the generic value of their work wherever possible. (shrink)

At the forefront of international concerns about global legislation and regulation, a host of noted environmentalists and business ethicists examine ethical issues in consumption from the points of view of environmental sustainability, economic development, and free enterprise.

Shame is one of the most stigmatized and stigmatizing of emotions. Often characterized as an emotion in which the subject holds a global, negative self-assessment, shame is typically understood to mark the subject as being inadequate in some way, and a sizable amount of work on shame focuses on its problematic or unhealthy aspects, effects, or consequences. Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Shame brings into view a more balanced understanding of what shame is and its value and social function. The contributors recognize (...) shame as a complex, richly layered, conscious or unconscious phenomenon, and the collection offers an understanding of what shame is, the scholarly discourse on shame, and how theories of shame help us to understand ourselves, others, and the world around us. It also highlights a diverse range of perspectives on shame, and how these unique perspectives can enlighten our understanding of both the positive and negative aspects of this powerful emotion. Edited by Cecilea Mun, the ten chapters by an international group of contributors reflect a broad range of methods, disciplinary perspectives, and both theoretical and practical concerns regarding shame. -/- 30% Discount Code: LEX30AUTH1. (shrink)

ObjectiveTo compare techniques for computing clustering and switching scores in terms of agreement, correlation, and empirical value as predictors of incident cognitive impairment.MethodsWe transcribed animal and letter F fluency recordings on 640 cases of ICI and matched controls from a national epidemiological study, amending each transcription with word timings. We then calculated clustering and switching scores, as well as scores indexing speed of responses, using techniques described in the literature. We evaluated agreement among the techniques with Cohen’s κ and calculated (...) correlations among the scores. After fitting a base model with raw scores, repetitions, and intrusions, we fit a series of Bayesian logistic regression models adding either clustering and switching scores or speed scores, comparing the models in terms of several metrics. We partitioned the ICI cases into acute and progressive cases and repeated the regression analysis for each group.ResultsFor animal fluency, we found that models with speed scores derived using the slope difference algorithm achieved the best values of the Watanabe–Akaike Information Criterion, but with good net reclassification improvement only for the progressive group. For letter fluency, different models excelled for prediction of acute and progressive cases. For acute cases, NRI was best for speed scores derived from a network model, while for progressive cases, the best model used clustering and switching scores derived from the same network model. Combining variables from the best animal and letter F models led to marginal improvements in model fit and NRI only for the all-cases and acute-cases analyses.ConclusionSpeed scores improve a base model for predicting progressive cognitive impairment from animal fluency. Letter fluency scores may provide complementary information. (shrink)

Comparisons of indirect measures with direct measures can help elucidate the relationship between nonconscious and conscious perception. We report three experiments on masked word priming in which we observed a negative correlation between prime discriminability and priming , i.e. where priming decreased with increasing prime visibility. While such observations are rare , they may indicate a conflict between conscious and nonconscious processing when primes are shown close to the subjective visibility threshold for the priming-relevant information. For instance, such a conflict (...) could occur between nonconscious processing of a prime’s meaning and conscious perception of prime letters. Theoretical accounts that discuss similar conflicts assume that the conflict is resolved either by automatically prioritising conscious processes or by discounting the estimated confusion caused by a prime-target pair . In both cases, priming is predicted to decrease when prime visibility increases from below threshold to perithreshold levels. Therefore, we suggest that negative priming-d’ relationships are most likely observed when the d’ measure assesses prime visibility at a level of representation that is below the level of representation at which priming arises, in terms of a putative hierarchy of word processing. (shrink)