Throughout the last decades, state and civil society actors in Germany have undertaken a number of initiatives in order to enter into a structured conversation with Muslim communities, and to find spokespersons who serve as partners for political authorities. This process has commonly been analysed in terms of its empowering effects for Muslims via the emerging ‘institutionalisation’ of Islam. The modes and techniques of power at stake in this process have yet often been undermined. Through the lens of Foucault's concept (...) of governmentality, the starting point of my article is one particular dialogue forum, initiated by the German state in 2006 – the ‘Deutsche Islam Konferenz’ (DIK) – whose primary goal is to institutionalise and regulate the communication between Muslims and state actors and thereby to regulate the conduct of Muslims. Focusing mainly on the way in which gender and Islam have been coupled and played out in this initiative, I argue that the DIK is less a dialogical encounter than a tool of a broader civilising liberal project. Through the inquiry into the modes of power operating in this state led dialogue initiative the article shows that while aiming to secure Muslim's ‘integration’ into German society and to liberate Muslim women from restrictive gender norms, the DIK operates as an enactment of a particular notion of freedom with normative and normalising implications. (shrink)

This article critically addresses recent anthropological and feminist efforts to theorize and analyse Muslim women's participation in and support for the Islamic revival in its various manifestations. Drawing on ethnographic material from research on young Muslims engaged in Islamic youth and student-organizations in Norway, I investigate some of the challenges that researching religious subjectivities and practices pose to feminist theory. In particular, I deal with how to understand women's religious piety in relation to questions of self, agency and resistance. Engaging (...) with Saba Mahmood's work on The Politics of Piety, this article suggests ways of understanding the young women's religious engagement that move beyond the confines of a binary model of subordination and resistance, coercion and choice. Grounding the discussion in ethnographic analysis of how young Muslim women in Norway speak about the ‘self’, I argue that critically revisiting feminist notions of agency, autonomy and desire, is necessary in order to understand the kinds of self-realization that these women aspire to. However, the article argues against positing Muslim conceptions and techniques of the self as ‘the other’ of liberal-secular traditions. Rather, I show how configurations of personhood, ethics and self-realization drawn from Islamic and liberal-secular discursive formations inhabit not only the same cultural and historical space, but also shape individual subjectivities and modes of agency. (shrink)

Most prior research on figurative language has looked at the cognitive aspects of metaphoricity. The present research attempts at going beyond metaphor's cognitive impact and aims to view the social and discoursal aspects of metaphorical constructions in relation to people's identities and social realities. This article reports an analysis and discussion of figurative language used by Pakistani women while talking about their literacies and selfhood. The article makes two claims about figurative language: first, metaphorical constructions are cultural and therefore rooted (...) in social practices and discourses; second, figurative expressions are common to everyday talk, constrain and enable thinking processes and construct social reality. Methodologically too, the article offers an interesting departure from the traditional studies of metaphor as the data cited are `incidental' and natural, rather than elicited or experimental; the researcher `s aim was not to study figurative language but it turned out to be ubiquitous in women's everyday talk. Hence, the present data strengthen Tannen's and Carter's work that creativity and figurative language are not exclusive to literary discourse but are part of everyday discourses. (shrink)

Contributors to the recent disagreement debate have sought to provide a uniform response to cases in which epistemic peers disagree about the epistemic import of a shared body of evidence, no matter what kind of evidence they are disagreeing about. The varied cases addressed in the literature have included examples of disagreement about restaurant bills, court verdicts, weather forecasting, chess, morality, religious beliefs, and even disagreements about philosophical disagreements. The equal treatment of these varied cases has motivated the search for (...) a uniform response to peer disagreement wherever it is encountered. In this article I challenge this prevalent approach in the literature. I grant the notion of epistemic peer and accept that being a peer may amount to the same thing in different domains; nonetheless I contend that different domains appear to call for different responses to disagreement. I argue that the appropriate response to finding out about a disagreement with a peer is different in different domains. (shrink)

The acquaintance principle (AP) and the view it expresses have recently been tied to a debate surrounding the possibility of aesthetic testimony, which, plainly put, deals with the question whether aesthetic knowledge can be acquired through testimony—typically aesthetic and non-aesthetic descriptions communicated from person to person. In this context a number of suggestions have been put forward opting for a restricted acceptance of AP. This paper is an attempt to restrict AP even more.

The concept of “Time” seems to play out differently at various phases of our lives: In our teens and twenties, we experience the luxury of youth; we may feel invincible or even indomitable. Generally, we feel our whole lives are ahead of us, and we “take” time to enjoy, explore and experience our world. Concurrently, our physiology also goes through the phases of childhood, adolescence, puberty and into adulthood, or the “reproductive years”; and ultimately (for women) through menopause and “ageing”, (...) or, the “non- reproductive years”. In this paper I will submit, on what I believe, is the obligation of the health care community to disseminate information early to their patients. This might ensure that the choices that people make in specific phases of their lives are educated and informed choices. Early education would be invaluable if backed up by the benefit of research that already exists, some of it presented in this paper. If this research was to be made available, say, on a patient’s first visit to a gynaecologist, (presumably in their late teens, early twenties), to start the education process, I believe many patients could benefit from it. (shrink)

: By examining evidence from India, where quotas for women in local government were introduced in 1993, this article argues that institutional reform can disturb hegemonic discourses sufficiently to open a window of opportunity where deliberative democratic norms take root and where, in addition to the politics of recognition, the politics of redistribution also operates.

By examining evidence from India, where quotas for women in local government were introduced in 1993, this article argues that institutional reform can disturb hegemonic discourses sufficiently to open a window of opportunity where deliberative democratic norms take root and where, in addition to the politics of recognition, the politics of redistribution also operates.

By examining evidence from India, where quotas for women in local government were introduced in 1993, this article argues that institutional reform can disturb hegemonic discourses sufficiently to open a window of opportunity where deliberative democratic norms take root and where, in addition to the politics of recognition, the politics of redistribution also operates.

Recent data indicate that under a specific posthypnotic suggestion to circumvent reading, highly suggestible subjects successfully eliminated the Stroop interference effect. The present study examined whether an optical explanation could account for this finding. Using cyclopentolate hydrochloride eye drops to pharmacologically prevent visual accommodation in all subjects, behavioral Stroop data were collected from six highly hypnotizables and six less suggestibles using an optical setup that guaranteed either sharply focused or blurred vision. The highly suggestibles performed the Stroop task when naturally (...) vigilant, under posthypnotic suggestion not to read, and while visually blurred; the less suggestibles ran naturally vigilant, while looking away, and while visually blurred. Although visual accommodation was precluded for all subjects, posthypnotic suggestion effectively eliminated Stroop interference and was comparable to looking away in controls. These data strengthen the view that Stroop interference is neither robust nor inevitable and support the hypothesis that posthypnotic suggestion may exert a top-down influence on neural processing. (shrink)

Humans are capable of extracting recurring patterns from their environment via statistical learning (SL), an ability thought to play an important role in language learning and learning more generally. While much work has examined statistical learning in infants and adults, less work has looked at the developmental trajectory of SL during childhood to see whether it is fully developed in infancy or improves with age, like many other cognitive abilities. A recent study showed modality‐based differences in the effect of age (...) during childhood: While visual SL improved with age, auditory SL did not. This finding was taken as evidence for modality‐based differences in SL. However, since that study used auditory linguistic stimuli (syllables), the differential effect of age may have been driven by stimulus type (linguistic vs. non‐linguistic) rather than modality. Here, we ask whether age will affect performance similarly in the two modalities when non‐linguistic auditory stimuli are used (familiar sounds instead of syllables). We conduct a large‐scale study of children's performance on visual and non‐linguistic auditory SL during childhood (ages 5–12 years). The results show a similar effect of age in both modalities: Unlike previous findings, both visual and non‐linguistic auditory SL improved with age. These findings highlight the stimuli‐sensitive nature of SL and suggest that modality‐based differences may be stimuli‐dependent, and that age‐invariance may be limited to linguistic stimuli. (shrink)

The cliché of the clergymen or the religious scholars battling against modern science oversimplifies the history of the encounter between modern science and religion, especially in the case of non-Western societies. Many religious scholars, Muslim and Christian, not only did not oppose modern science but used it instrumentally to propagate their religions. Marwa Elshakry, in her brilliant study of Darwin's opinions among the Arab World, concentrates more on Arab Christians and Sunni Muslims rather than on Shiite Muslims. Muḥammad-Riḍā Iṣfahānī, a (...) Shiite clergyman educated in Islamic theology in Najaf, composed A Critique of Darwin's Philosophy in 1912 as a review of the theory of evolution. However, even before the publication of this book, controversy concerning this topic had been raging in the Arab World for decades. Under the influence of Muslim scholars (Sunni and Shiite) to reconcile modern science with Islam, Iṣfahānī did his best to gather knowledge of modern biology. He applied his self-taught knowledge of modern biology to find new solutions to the difficulties of establishing a dialogue between Islam and modern science. Thanks to the rationalism of his premodern scientific education, Iṣfahānī was more sympathetic towards science than many of his Arab counterparts and able to deeply engage in these debates. Iṣfahānī believed that the theory of evolution in nonhumans did not contradict Islamic discourse nor experimental and rational facts. Nevertheless, he denied the theory of human evolution as a nonscientific hypothesis. He justified his opinion through a detailed refutation of Darwin's heuristic evidence for human evolution in the first chapter of Descent of Man, such as the similarities between anatomy, embryology, and vestigial organs in humans and other animals. He also referred to other Western evolutionists of his time, such as Alfred Russel Wallace and Rudolf Virchow, who also rejected human evolution, and added some other scientific refutations of his own. Undoubtedly, Iṣfahānī's final aim was to demonstrate the possibility of reconciliation between religion in general, and Islam in particular, with modern science. This article provides a detailed consideration of Iṣfahānī's opinions, identifying his Arabic sources and comparing them to the original non-Arabic sources. I also examine the scientific details of Iṣfahānī's achievements and the roots of his misunderstandings. (shrink)

From the end of the 19th century until his death, one of history's most brilliant mathematicians languished in an asylum. The Mystery of the Aleph tells the story of Georg Cantor (1845-1918), a Russian-born German who created set theory, the concept of infinite numbers, and the "continuum hypothesis," which challenged the very foundations of mathematics. His ideas brought expected denunciation from established corners - he was called a "corruptor of youth" not only for his work in mathematics, but for his (...) larger attempts to meld spirituality and science. (shrink)

Despite the central place of suffering in medical care, suffering in infants and nonverbal children remains poorly defined. There are epistemic problems in the detection and treatment of suffering in infants and normative problems in determining what is in their best interests. A lack of agreement on definitions of infant suffering leads to misunderstanding, mistrust, and even conflict amongst clinicians and parents. It also allows biases around intensive care and disability to affect medical decision-making on behalf of infants. In this (...) paper, I propose the concept of suffering pluralism, which is a novel multidimensional view of infant suffering based on subjective and objective components. The concept of suffering pluralism is more inclusive of the multiple ways in which infant suffering can occur. It acknowledges and defines a subjective component to infant suffering, while also focusing moral attention on objective well-being by describing it using the language of suffering. This concept allows us to better weigh up subjective and objective components of well-being. It also encourages clarity and consistency in claiming suffering, which is likely to improve communication and reduce conflict in medical decision-making for unwell infants and children. I will end by exploring possible critiques and limitations of this concept. (shrink)

Der muslimische Scholastiker Al-Ğuwaynī lebte und wirkte in der als -formative Phase des Islam- bekannten Zeit. Diese wurde gepragt durch eine enorme theologische Dynamik, die zur Herausbildung diverser Denkschulen fuhrte. Diese Arbeit zeichnet diese Entwicklung anhand der Ansatze Al-Ğuwaynīs nach und setzt diese in Bezug zu den Positionen der traditionalistischen und rationalistischen Stromungen. Weiter fuhrt sie in die Grundfragen fruh-islamischer Theologie ein, behandelt methodische Aspekte zur Hermeneutik der Offenbarung und vermittelt einen Eindruck islamischer Argumentation und Dialektik.".

Ptolemy presents only one argument for the eccentricity in his models of the superior planets, while each one of them has two eccentricities: one for center of the uniform motion, the other for the center of the constant distance. To take into account the first eccentricity, he introduces the equant point, but he provides no argument for the eccentricity of the center of the deferent. Why is the second eccentricity different from the first one? The 13 th century astronomer Quṭb (...) al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī, a member of the famous school of Marāgha, who was interested in this problem, suggests the “retrograde arcs” as the empirical origin of the second eccentricity and develops an argument to justify this conjecture. Although his argument is not without difficulty, his suggestion is in line with the suggestions made by some historians of astronomy in recent decades. Résumé Ptolémée ne donne qu'un seul argument pour expliquer dans son système l'excentricité des planètes supérieures, alors que chacune d'elles a deux excentricités: l'une par rapport au centre du mouvement uniforme, l'autre par rapport au centre de la distance constante. Pour rendre compte de la première excentricité, il introduit le point équant, mais il ne donne en revanche aucun argument pour l'excentricité par rapport au centre du cercle déférent. Or, pourquoi la seconde excentricité est-elle différente de la première? Quṭb al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī, astronome du xiii e siècle membre de l'école de Marāgha, qui s'est intéressé à cette question, a fait l'hypothèse que les “arcs de rétrogradation” constituent l'origine empirique de cette seconde excentricité. Bien que l'argument sur lequel il appuie cette hypothèse ne soit pas exempt de difficultés, sa suggestion rejoint celles faites par des historiens de l'astronomie durant les dernières décennies. (shrink)

The existing research on Peshitta has mostly overlooked the translation techniques used in Peshitta Psalms. Prior studies have primarily focused on comparing Peshitta Psalms with the Masoretic Text (MT), the Septuagint and Targum, leaving a gap in the analysis of Peshitta Psalms within the context of Classical Syriac Poetry. This study will delve into how adeptly the Syriac translator employed poetic elements to construct strophic structures and poetic style within the Peshitta Psalm. This article presents an analysis of strophic structure, (...) word repetition, sound figures and versification in the Syriac translation of Psalm 29, comparing them with their Hebrew counterparts. In this study, the utilisation of the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS) is employed for the MT, while the ‘Leiden edition’ is employed for the Peshitta. The findings from this analysis reveal that the Syriac rendition of Psalm 29 within the Peshitta incorporates numerous poetic elements. This suggests the translator’s familiarity with the strophic arrangement, word repetition, alliteration and various other poetic characteristics utilised by Hebrew scribes. The Peshitta translation of Psalm 29 closely resembles the MT Hebrew text, resulting in a balance of fidelity and aesthetic elegance. The Syriac rendition incorporates poetic elements like strophic arrangement, word repetition and alliteration but employs these features in a distinct manner. The Syriac text has a lower frequency of alliteration and word repetition but still possesses appealing poetic characteristics. The Syriac approach to verse composition closely resembles the Hebrew method, with some exceptions. Contribution: This study explores the Syriac translator’s use of poetic elements in Peshitta Psalms, revealing their familiarity with Hebrew techniques and the unique incorporation of elements. It provides insights into the evolution of Classical Syriac Poetry and contributes to our understanding of Biblical and Syriac poetry. (shrink)

Schelling's philosophy can be seen as perpetrating the philosophical fallacy known as the Myth of the Given, in that it takes rational activity to be affected by an experience which is not conceptually mediated. This is supported by Schelling's repeated claim that there is an experience which is indescribable, and which forces us to silence. In the first part of the paper it will be shown how different readings of Schelling result in this fallacy. In the second and third parts (...) an alternative reading will be developed which avoids the fallacy while still making room for unsayable experience. Finally, the proposed interpretation will enable us to interpret Schelling's claim that expressing the unsayable, conveying it to another, is possible after all. »The wish for intelligibility is a terrible one. It means that we are willing to reveal ourselves through the self 's betrayal of itself.« (Stanley Cavell, The World Viewed. (shrink)

This paper shows how we can plausibly extend the guise of the good thesis in a way that avoids intellectualist challenge, allows animals to be included, and is consistent with the possibility of performing action under the cognition of their badness. The paper also presents some independent arguments for the plausibility of this interpretation of the thesis. To this aim, a teleological conception of practical attitudes as well as a cognitivist account of arational desires is offered.

Plagiarism has been on the rise amongst university students in recent decades. This study puts university teachers in the spotlight and investigates their role in raising students’ awareness about plagiarism. To that end, plagiarism policies in 207 Iranian university TEFL teachers’ syllabuses were analyzed. The researchers analyzed the syllabuses to find out if they contain a plagiarism policy, and if so, how the term is defined; whether they approach the issue of plagiarism directly; if they offer students any guidelines on (...) how to avoid plagiarism; and if the consequences of committing plagiarism are specified. The results indicated that the majority of the syllabuses (83.6%) lacked a plagiarism policy and those that did include a policy were often vague in their definition of the phenomenon. However, when there was a plagiarism policy in the syllabuses, the teachers tried to address the issue directly half of the time and offered students brief guidelines on how to avoid plagiaristic behavior, which was a small step in the right direction. It is recommended that other higher education institutions make it obligatory for their academic staff to include a plagiarism policy in their syllabuses if they wish to cultivate academic integrity in students. (shrink)

Physicalist epiphenomenalism is the conjunction of the doctrine that tokens of mental events are tokens of physical events and the doctrine that mental events do not exert causal powers by virtue of falling under mental types. The purpose of the paper is to show that physicalist epiphenomenalism, contrary to what many have thought, is not subject to the objections that have been raised against classic epiphenomenalism. This is argued with respect to five such objections: that introspection shows that our mental (...) properties are causally efficacious; that concrete existents and their properties necessarily possess causal powers; that the explanatory and predictive success of psychology implies that psychological properties exist and are causally efficacious; that epiphenomenalism cannot deal with the other minds problem, and that it is unlikely that our mentality does not endow us with evolutionary advantages and therefore it is unlikely that mental properties are not causally efficacious. (shrink)

Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), such as ChatGPT, shows great promise and potential and is gradually being used in mental health care, but it also raises ethical concerns. These relate t...

Using the Stroop paradigm, we have previously shown that a specific suggestion can remove or reduce involuntary conflict and alter information processing in highly suggestible individuals . In the present study, we carefully matched less suggestible individuals to HSIs on a number of factors. We hypothesized that suggestion would influence HSIs more than LSIs and reduce the Stroop effect in the former group. As well, we conducted secondary post hoc analyses to examine negative priming – the apparent disruption of the (...) response to a previously-ignored item. Our present findings indicate that suggestion reduces Stroop effects in HSIs. Secondary analyses show that LSIs had an NP effect at baseline and that suggestion influenced the NP condition. Thus, at least in this experimental context, suggestion seems to dampen a deeply-engrained and largely automatic process – reading – by wielding a larger influence on HSIs relative to comparable LSIs. (shrink)

This book provides a historical and comparative study of logic in Arabic in Bosnia and Herzegovina, from the first texts, 16th century, to the end of the 19th ...

This article aims to understand the concept of work in the teachings of Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Hacohen Kook. As the person who had the maximum impact on the religious Zionist sector, with its guiding principle of Torah va’avodah, meaning Torah and work, it is necessary to clarify his attitude towards work. Did he perceive work as a necessity, a part of one’s duty to support the members of the household, or perhaps also as an ideological value, part of a worldview (...) that combines religious values with extra-religious values, or then again maybe he perceived work as a religious value? This article shows that R. Kook’s positive attitude towards work differs from traditional perspectives on work because of a pantheistic influence. Pantheism made him redefine the boundaries of Torah and include work and materiality. (shrink)

Rabbi Chaim Hirschensohn was a religious Zionist thinker and one of the founders of the “Mizrachi” movement. The present article aims to trace his approach towards work: did he see work as a need, an obligation imposed upon the human being to sustain his household, or did he, perhaps, associate work with a religious value as an integral part of the theology which he steered by? The conclusion is that R. Hirschensohn's approach towards work is both a must for a (...) livelihood and part of Jewish and national identity, to the point where Redemption itself depends upon it. Work is also part of religious Zionist theology, one of whose proponents and founders Chaim Hirschensohn was. (shrink)

Cells live in dynamic environments that necessitate perpetual adaptation. Since cells have limited resources to monitor external inputs, they are required to maximize the information content of perceived signals. This challenge is not unique to microscopic life: Animals use senses to perceive inputs and adequately respond. Research showed that sensory‐perception is actively shaped by learning and expectation allowing internal cognitive models to “fill in the blanks” in face of limited information. We propose that cells employ analogous strategies and use internal (...) models shaped through the long process of evolutionary adaptation. Given this perspective, we postulate that cells are prone to “misperceptions,” analogous to visual illusions, leading them to incorrectly decode patterns of inputs that lie outside of their evolutionary experience. Mapping cellular misperception can serve as a fundamental approach for dissecting regulatory networks and could be harnessed to modulate cell behavior, a potentially new avenue for therapy. (shrink)

We sharpen Hájek’s Completeness Theorem for theories extending predicate product logic, \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\Pi\forall}$$\end{document}. By relating provability in this system to embedding properties of ordered abelian groups we construct a universal BL-chain L in the sense that a sentence is provable from \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\Pi\forall}$$\end{document} if and only if it is an L-tautology. As well we characterize the class of lexicographic sums that have this universality property.

The present essay explores the question of continuity and change between Kaneš and Ḫattuša in the cultic sphere, reviewing the cult of Parga, probably a fertility goddess of local Anatolian origin, in the Hittite sources. It reveals that Parga appears in several different cultic contexts but within a relatively invariable sequence of offerings, often appearing with the same, often “exotic” deities, such as Zūluma, Šišumma/i, and Šurra. The probable location for performance of many of these cultic sequences in the lower (...) town of Ḫattuša, one of the most ancient parts of the city, shows a great deal of continuity between the Old Assyrian and the Old Hittite periods, and may further highlight the antiquity of these cults. Since some of the cultic action considered in this essay took place in close proximity to the ašuša-gate, the evidence concerning the location of that gate, probably at the western or northwestern section of the fortification wall and near some of the institutions located in its vicinity, will be examined. (shrink)

Religious diversity is a key topic in contemporary philosophy of religion. One way religious diversity has been of interest to philosophers is in the epistemological questions it gives rise to. In other words, religious diversity has been seen to pose a challenge for religious belief. In this study four approaches to dealing with this challenge are discussed. These approaches correspond to four well-known philosophers of religion, namely, Richard Swinburne, Alvin Plantinga, William Alston, and John Hick. The study is concluded by (...) suggesting four factors which shape one’s response to the challenge religious diversity poses to religious belief. (shrink)

Journal Name: Semiotica Issue: Ahead of print.

Background:Ethical conflict is a barrier to decision-making process and is a problem derived from ethical responsibilities that nurses assume with care. Intensive care unit nurses are potentially exposed to this phenomenon. A deep study of the phenomenon can help prevent and treat it.Objectives:This study was aimed at determining the frequency, degree, level of exposure, and type of ethical conflict among nurses working in the intensive care units.Research design:This was a descriptive cross-sectional research.Participants and research context:In total, 382 nurses working in (...) the intensive care units in Iranian hospitals were selected using the random sampling method. Data were collected using the Ethical Conflict in Nursing Questionnaire-Critical Care Version (Persian version).Ethical considerations:This study was approved by the Medical Research Ethics Committee. Ethical considerations such as completing the informed consent form, ensuring confidentiality of information, and voluntary participation were observed.Findings:The results showed that the average level of exposure to ethical conflict was 164.39 ± 79.06. The most frequent conflict was related to “using resources despite believing in its futility,” with the frequency of at least once a week or a month (68.6%, n = 262). The most conflictive situation was violation of privacy (76.9%, n = 294). However, the level of exposure to ethical conflict according to the theoretical model followed was the situation of “working with incompetent staff.” The most frequently observed type of conflict was moral dilemma.Conclusion:The moderate level of exposure to ethical conflict was consistent with the results of previous studies. However, the frequency, degree, and type of ethical conflict were different compared to the results of other studies. Recognizing ethical conflict among intensive care unit nurses can be useful as it allows to consolidate those measures that favor low levels of ethical conflict, design appropriate strategies to prevent ethical conflicts, and improve the nursing work environment. (shrink)

Organs for transplantation are a scarce resource. Markedly, the transplant community’s primary challenge is the stark disparity between the number of patients awaiting deceased donor organ transplants and the rate at which organs become available. However, the allocation of a limited number of organs poses another constant challenge: maintaining an equilibrium between renal transplant utility and equity, that is, striking a balance between the utilitarian argument of medical efficiency and the principle of equity. In this comprehensive overview, the authors delve (...) into the challenge of maintaining an acceptable balance between equity and efficiency and elaborate on some of the factors that might inform a decisionmaker’s evaluation of the extent to which a given allocation scheme is efficient or equitable. (shrink)

Seeking Mandela is a disappointing book. This is not because it does injustice to the subject matter of its research. The opposite is true: the book deals with the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and with the historical transition of power in South Africa in a rigorous and attentive manner. The problem lies in the name that the authors, Heribert Adam and Kogila Moodley, chose to give the book. Seeking Mandela: Peacemaking between Israelis and Palestinians is a promising, hopeful title for a project. (...) The promise is, in fact, spelled out in the preface: “Our metaphor ‘Seeking Mandela’ speculates on what would have…. (shrink)