Background: International developments suggest that providing clinical ethics services to help clinicians negotiate ethical issues that arise in clinical practice is beneficial and reflects best practice in promoting high ethical standards and patient-centered care. The aim of this study was to explore the needs and experiences of clinical staff members to inform the development of future clinical ethics support. Methods: Health professionals at a large regional health service completed an online survey containing questions about the frequency of ethical and legal (...) issues encountered in clinical practice, the type of situations that gave rise to the ethical and/or legal uncertainty or concern, how clinicians currently address these issues, and what support would be welcome. Results: The survey was completed by 369 staff members, including 61% with more than 10 years in the profession and 51% in nursing/midwifery. Two-thirds (66%) indicated they often considered ethical implications of their clinical decisions, and half (49%) often considered the legal implications. More than half (58%) were often/occasionally concerned about the ethically right thing to do. Patient requests for borderline treatment (47%), staff disagreements about patient care (48%), and patients declining recommended treatment (54%) were the most frequent reasons given for ethical or legal uncertainty. Sixty-nine percent of respondents indicated that the way their department addressed ethical issues could be improved and 85% agreed that there is a need for more discussion on ethical issues. The majority (82%) of respondents had encountered ethically challenging clinical situations where additional support would have helped. Common approaches to issues were discussion with colleagues/supervisor (91.1%), discussion at handover/group forums (50.8%), and consultation with guidelines/protocols (60.9%). Conclusions: A majority of clinical staff members surveyed have encountered ethically/legally challenging cases daily for which they have often sought additional advice. This study indicates that many clinical staff members would welcome some form of additional clinical ethics support including advice and education. (shrink)

euroscience of Rule-Guided Behavior brings together, for the first time, the experiments and theories that have created the new science of rules. Rules are central to human behavior, but until now the field of neuroscience lacked a synthetic approach to understanding them. How are rules learned, retrieved from memory, maintained in consciousness and implemented? How are they used to solve problems and select among actions and activities? How are the various levels of rules represented in the brain, ranging from simple (...) conditional ones if a traffic light turns red, then stop to rules and strategies of such sophistication that they defy description? And how do brain regions interact to produce rule-guided behavior? These are among the most fundamental questions facing neuroscience, but until recently there was relatively little progress in answering them. It was difficult to probe brain mechanisms in humans, and expert opinion held that animals lacked the capacity for such high-level behavior. However, rapid progress in neuroimaging technology has allowed investigators to explore brain mechanisms in humans, while increasingly sophisticated behavioral methods have revealed that animals can and do use high-level rules to control their behavior. The resulting explosion of information has led to a new science of rules, but it has also produced a plethora of overlapping ideas and terminology and a field sorely in need of synthesis. In this book, Silvia Bunge and Jonathan Wallis bring together the worlds leading cognitive and systems neuroscientists to explain the most recent research on rule-guided behavior. Their work covers a wide range of disciplines and methods, including neuropsychology, functional magnetic resonance imaging, neurophysiology, electroencephalography, neuropharmacology, near-infrared spectroscopy, and transcranial magnetic stimulation. This unprecedented synthesis is a must-read for anyone interested in how complex behavior is controlled and organized by the brain. (shrink)

Thomas Hornsby was a hard-working, scientifically ambitious and significant man of vision during the second half of the eighteenth century. He was a notable astronomical observer, founder of the Radcliffe Observatory at Oxford, a successful lecturer, a Commissioner of Longitude at a critical time, and editor of James Bradley's Astronomical Observations. This paper presents some long-neglected facts; in assembling scattered fragments into a coherent account, it raises new speculations.

Summary Edward Cocker was a well-known writing master and engraver during his lifetime, but is chiefly remembered for his posthumous arithmetic textbook, immortalized in the saying ?According to Cocker?. The book proved popular, being right for its time, and it remained in use for a century. It unexpectedly became the subject of controversy when Augustus De Morgan pronounced it to be the produce of its editor, John Hawkins. Research now shows that there is little doubt that it was really Cocker's (...) work. (shrink)

ArgumentApprenticeship was probably the largest mode of organized learning in early modern European societies, and artisan practitioners commonly began as apprentices. Yet little is known about how youths actually gained skills. I develop a model of vocational pedagogy that accounts for the characteristics of apprenticeship and use a range of legal and autobiographical sources to examine the contribution of different forms of training in England. Apprenticeship emerges as a relatively narrow channel, in which the master’s contribution to training was weakly (...) defined and executed conservatively. The creation of complementary channels of formal instruction was constrained by cost and coordination problems. When we consider a range of British youths who obtained advanced skills as artisan practitioners (and engaged in invention or pursued natural philosophical interests), we see the importance of individual agency over institutional structures. For these youths, training could involve rejecting apprenticeship, engaging in periods of advanced study, including time in multiple workshops after the end of apprenticeship, and parallel campaigns to access scarce books and communities of scholarship. (shrink)

In 2020, the University of Pennsylvania instituted a graduate certificate in public philosophy. In many ways, this certificate formalized and recognized the public engagement work that graduate students in the philosophy department and beyond had been involved with for some years. One element of the certificate, however, was pivotal in moving our work in public philosophy forward in important ways. This element is the research seminar in public philosophy. In this paper, we recount the motivation for the creation of the (...) certificate and especially the motivation for the inclusion of the research seminar. We also explore ways in which such a certificate, along with the deliberately self-reflective work of the research seminar, might help us reimagine the nature and value of philosophy and its connection with human life and flourishing. We focus on metaphilosophical themes such as the very nature of philosophy and the philosopher as well as the importance of cultivating a new generation of academic philosophers committed to transcending the distinction between the academy and the public and, relatedly, between academic philosophy and public philosophy. (shrink)

How does microbiota research impact our understanding of biological individuality? We summarize the interdisciplinary summer school on "Microbiota, Symbiosis and Individuality: Conceptual and Philosophical Issues" (July 2019), which was supported by a European Research Council starting grant project "Immunity, DEvelopment, and the Microbiota" (IDEM). The summer school centered around interdisciplinary group work on four facets of microbiota research: holobionts, individuality, causation, and human health. The conceptual discussion of cutting-edge empirical research provided new insights into microbiota and highlights the value of (...) incorporating into meetings experts from other disciplines, such as philosophy and history of science. (shrink)

As an emerging human resource issue in business ethics, work-life balance has been gaining increasing attention from both practitioners and scholars in recent years. In response to the call of Kelliher et al. :97–112, 2019), we addressed the research gap by examining the WLB of Chinese knowledge workers under flextime arrangement and the impact of work-life supportive culture on work-life spillover of the workers. Specifically, we examined the relationships between three components of work-life supportive culture, namely managerial support, career consequences, (...) and organizational time demands, and two aspects of work-life spillover, positive and negative spillover, perceived by the workers. A quantitative survey with 35 employees in a software development company in Hong Kong was conducted. The results of structure equation modelling showed that managerial support was positively related to positive work-life spillover while organizational time demands was positively related to employees’ negative spillover. WLB needs of knowledge workers and the role of organizational culture in effective implementation of WLB policies were discussed, and several feasible WLB policies were suggested for managers. (shrink)

One important aspect of the transition to modernity is the survival of elements of the Old Regime beyond the French Revolution. It has been claimed that this can explain why in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries some Western countries adopted national corporatist structures while others transformed into liberal market economies. One of those elements is the persistence or absence of guild traditions. This is usually analyzed in a national context. This article aims to contribute to the debate by (...) investigating the development of separate trades in Germany, the United Kingdom, and The Netherlands throughout the nineteenth century. We distinguish six scenarios of what might have happened to crafts and investigate how the prevalence of each of these scenarios in the three countries had an impact on the emerging national political economies. By focusing on trades, rather than on the national political economy, our analysis demonstrates that in each country the formation of national political economies and citizenship rights was not the result of a national pattern of guild survival. Rather, the pattern that emerged by the end of the nineteenth century was determined by the balance between old and new industries, and that between national and regional or local government. (shrink)

Joshua Glasgow has written a wonderful book on race (Glasgow 2009). Thoughtful, clear, and provocative, it advances the discussion in significant ways. Space is limited so I hope I can be excused for restricting my comments to Glasgow’s assessment of my 2003 Journal of Philosophy analysis of the ordinary concept of race. The last thing I would want to suggest is that this exhausts the interest of his book; for that is certainly not the case. My remarks can be regarded (...) as testimony to just how stimulating his fine account is. (shrink)

PrefaceList of AbbreviationsChapter One: The Mathematical Career of the Monster of MalmesburyChapter Two: The Reform of Mathematics and of the UniversitiesIdeological Origins of the DisputeChapter Three: De Corpore and the Mathematics of MaterialismChapter Four: Disputed FoundationsHobbes vs. Wallis on the Philosophy of MathematicsChapter Five: The "Modern Analytics" and the Nature of DemonstrationChapter Six: The Demise of Hobbesian GeometryChapter Seven: The Religion, Rhetoric, and Politics of Mr. Hobbes and Dr. WallisChapter Eight: Persistence in ErrorWhy Was Hobbes So Resolutely Wrong?Appendix: Selections (...) from Hobbes's Mathematical WritingsReferencesIndex Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved. (shrink)

This paper aims first and foremost to unravel and clarify an interesting 17th century controversy around superposition in projectiles, which allegedly existed between the French Jesuit Honoré Fabri and the Italian physicist and astronomer Giovanni Alfonso Borelli. This conflict – initially described by the English mathematician John Wallis in a letter from 1670 to the secretary of the Royal Society – has been erroneously identified with Fabri's Dialogi physici (1669), a work written in response to Borelli's De vi percussionis (...) (1669). In fact, this “conflict” was nothing but Wallis's account of a contradiction between Borelli's above mentioned work and Fabri's Tractatus physicus de motu locali from 1646, while Fabri's 1669 work expressed views very different from those contained in his Tractatus physicus. I will try here to reconstruct Fabri's change of heart between 1646 and 1669 concerning projectiles and superposition, while tracing the real bone of contention between (the later) Fabri and Borelli – superimposing contrary motions – to its Aristotelian origins. My analysis will lead me to problematize the way modern historians usually interpret the relation between Aristotle's physical thinking and projectile theories of early modern theoreticians (e.g. Nicollò Tartaglia's). (shrink)

This chapter provides an overview of Thomas Hobbes's materialistic philosophy of mathematics. Hobbes's mathematical ontology rejects the seventeenth century's received view of the subject and his proposed first principles departed quite significantly from the tradition. Hobbes's understanding of geometry as a generalized science of material bodies puts him at odds with the traditional notion that the objects of geometrical investigation are radically distinct from the realm of material things. Hobbes's methodology holds that demonstrative knowledge must be based on definitions that (...) identify the causes of things. Hobbes was quite hostile to the algebraic methods characteristic of Descartes's analytic geometry, and he found fault with some presentations of the “method of indivisibles” that is an important precursor to the calculus. Hobbes approved of Bonaventura Cavalieri's method while dismissing John Wallis's approach as incoherent. The chapter investigates Hobbes's controversy with Wallis. Any discussion of Hobbes's mathematics takes place against the background of his controversy with Wallis. (shrink)

Though he is known primarily for his mathematics, John Wallis was also a prominent natural philosopher and experimentalist. Like many experimental philosophers, including his colleagues in the Royal So­ciety, Wallis sought to identify the mathematical laws that govern natural phenomena. However, I argue that Wallis’s particular understanding of the laws of nature was informed by his reading of a thirteenth–century optical treatise by Robert Grosseteste, De lineis, angulis et figuris, which expresses the principle that “Nature doth not (...) work by Election.” Wallis’s use of this principle in his Discourse of Gravity and Gravitation helps to clarify his understanding of natural laws. According to Wallis, since nature cannot choose to act one way or another, natural phenomena are unfailingly regular, and it is this that allows them to be predicted, generalized, and described by mathematical rules. Furthermore, I argue that Wallis’s reading of Grosseteste reveals one way that medieval scholarship contributed to the “mathematization of nature” in the early modern period: historically–minded scholars like Wallis found insightful philosophical principles in medieval sources, and they transformed and redeployed these principles to suit the needs of early modern natural philosophy. (shrink)

This mini configurative review links theory of mind research with school-based social skills interventions to reframe theoretical understanding of ToM ability based on a conceptual mapping exercise. The review’s aim was to bridge areas of psychology and education concerned with social cognition. Research questions included: how do dependent variables in interventions designed to enhance child social-cognitive skills map onto ToM constructs empirically validated within psychology? In which ways do these mappings reframe conceptualization of ToM ability? Thirty-one studies on social-cognitive skill (...) with typically-developing children ages 3–11 were included as opposed to explicit ToM trainings in light of an identified performance plateau on ToM tasks in children. Intervention DVs mapped onto the following ToM constructs in at least 87% of studies: “Representation of Others and/or Self,” “Knowledge/Awareness of Mental States,” “Attributions/Explanations of Mental States,” “Social Competence,” “Predicting Behavior,” and “Understanding Complex Social Situations.” The absence of false-belief understanding as an intervention DV indicated a lack of direct training in ToM ability. A hierarchy to further organize the review’s ToM framework constructs as either skills or competences within the construct of ‘Representation of Others and/or Self’ is proposed. Implications for the conceptualization of ToM and social-cognitive research as well as educational practice are discussed, namely how school social skill interventions conceptualize skill along a continuum in contrast to the common artificial dichotomous assessment of ToM skill, yet the development of ToM can nevertheless be supported by the school environment. (shrink)

The Militant Listener: Reading Mongane Wally Serote's Sikhahlel' u-OR alongside Walter Benjamin's Theses on the Philosophy of History In Sikhahlel' u-OR: A Praise Poem for Oliver Tambo, Mongane Wally Serote presents an unflinching yet delicate meandering through the questions, reflections and provocations resistance history offers up through O. R. Tambo's life. As Ciraj Rassool points out, in this work Tambo appears not as an individual, but as an integral node in a web connecting various lives.1 This counter-neoliberal interpretation of Tambo's (...) life offers what Michael Löwy calls 'a heterodox form of the narrative of emancipation' rebuilding the struggle hero narrative along a decentred framework.2 By radically dislodging this narrative, Tambo is portrayed as the 'non-iconic icon' he was esteemed to embody, and in this move, the poem, notably, points to the dearth of dialectic politics, both in our quotidian praxis, and the commemoration of others.3 Aptly, Serote's work contributes to what Souleymane Bachir Diagne and Jean-Loup Amselle describe as a 'total decentring of all thought, one that rejects all "centrisms" and highlights instead branchings and connections, transfers, analogies and reciprocal influences between cultural places and intellectual fields that may be distant but are not distinct in space and time'.4 To this end, the poem presents us with a constellation of historical actors who flicker on the horizon, beckoning us to engage in the labour of freedom. (shrink)

The dispute that raged between Thomas Hobbes and John Wallis from 1655 until Hobbes's death in 1679 was one of the most intense of the ‘battles of the books’ in seventeenth-century intellectual life. The dispute was principally centered on geometric questions, but it also involved questions of religion and politics. This paper investigates the origins of the dispute and argues that Wallis’s primary motivation was not so much to refute Hobbes’s geometry as to demolish his reputation as an (...) authority in political, philosophical, and religious matters. It also highlights the very different conceptions of geometrical methodology employed by the two disputants. In the end, I argue that, although Wallis was successful in showing the inadequacies of Hobbes’s geometric endeavours, he failed in his quest to discredit the Hobbesian philosophy in toto. (shrink)

This chapter takes a closer look at the doctrine of common notions and universal consent developed by Nathaniel Culverwell (1619–51) in his Elegant and Learned Discourse of the Light of Nature, a work based on lectures delivered at Cambridge in 1645–46, but only published posthumously in 1652. I study Culverwell’s doctrine of common notions and universal consent from the perspective of his critical discussion of two contemporary works, namely Descartes’s Discours de la méthode (1637) and Robert Greville’s The Nature of (...) Truth (1640). I argue that, contrary to Wallis who was indeed an Aristotelian who rejected innate ideas entirely, Culverwell adopted a characteristically stoic position, according to which common notions do not directly derive from sense experience, but are innate dispositions common to all which become present to the mind only under the impact of the senses. (shrink)

Background and aim: Surgical intensive care nurses should have ethical sensitivity allowing them to identify ethical issues in order that they can recognize them and make the right decisions. This descriptive study was conducted with the aim of evaluating the ethical sensitivity of surgical intensive care nurses. Materials and methods: The research was carried out with the participation of 160 nurses in six Turkish hospitals, four state, one university, and one private. The data were collected using the “Nurse Description Form” (...) developed by the researcher and the “Ethical Sensitivity Questionnaire.” The percent, mean, standard deviation, median, minimum and maximum values, significance test for the difference between two means, variance analysis, Mann–Whitney U test, and Kruskal–Wallis Variance Analysis test were used to evaluate the data. Ethical considerations: Ethical commission permission and the corporate permission of the hospitals were received before conducting the research. Results: It was determined that the ethical sensitivities of surgical intensive care nurses were moderate based on the Ethical Sensitivity Questionnaire total score and subdimension score averages. A statistical difference was determined between the Ethical Sensitivity Questionnaire total score of surgical intensive care nurses and the institution where they worked, the period of working in the occupation, and the period of working in the intensive care unit. Conclusion: Based on the results of the research, the organization of training and studies devoted to the elimination of ethical sensitivity differences between institutions and workers is suggested. (shrink)

Introduction Ethical climate in medical contexts is referred to the organizational environment consisting of medical staff interpersonal relationships regarding patient care. This element affects staff behavior in an organization. The investigation and comparison of the effects of the interventions promoting ethical climate are among important nursing challenges that should be considered by researchers. The present study was conducted to compare the effect of nurses’ ethical decision-making skills and interpersonal communication training on their ethical climate. Materials and methods This experimental study (...) was performed on 90 nurses working in the general teaching hospitals of Mashhad, Iran. The sampling process was conducted in two stages. Nurses were divided into three groups: intervention 1, intervention 2 and control group. The intervention was separate 12-h workshops for each of the intervention groups. The ethical climate questionnaire by Victor and Cullen was used to assess the score of ethical climate in the three groups both at the beginning and 4 weeks after the workshop. The data were analyzed in Statistical Package for Social Sciences software using descriptive statistics, analysis of variance, Kruskal–Wallis, paired sample t-test, Wilcoxon test, and post hoc Tukey’s test. Ethical considerations were as follows: The study design was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences. Informed consent was obtained from all subjects, and they were ensured about the confidentiality terms. Results The mean scores of the ethical climate test at the first stage were obtained as 66.0 ± 5.5, 67.8 ± 6.9, and 67.7 ± 7.2 in the ethical decision-making, interpersonal communication, and control groups, respectively. Accordingly, the three groups were not significantly different in terms of this variable. However, after the intervention, a significant difference was observed among the three groups regarding the mean scores of the ethical climate test In this regard, the calculated mean scores in the ethical decision-making, interpersonal communication, and control groups were 99.3 ± 6.3, 90.4 ± 7.7, and 67.4 ± 7.9, respectively. Conclusion Training workshops about ethical decision-making skills and interpersonal communication on the ethical professional climate of nurses was effective. Nonetheless, the effect of ethical decision-making skill training was found to be higher than interpersonal communication skill training. Therefore, it is recommended that nursing managers hold training workshops to improve the ethical climate for nurses. (shrink)

Today, which is described as the information age, it is expected from schools where knowledge is produced, education-training activities are carried out, and education is realized, to raise a self-confident student profile in accordance with the requirements of this age. The learning climate is important in this regard. Learning climate, which is one of the new components used instead of organizational climate and school climate in the climate literature, includes all kinds of factors related to learning ability; human factors are (...) dealt with in many dimensions, especially the virtual/real spaces where learning takes place, and measurements are made with the tools developed to measure the learning climate. The data obtained is a source for improvement studies. In our study, the school learning climate was discussed in terms of school engagement, learning environment, and communication dimensions. As a type of self-efficacy, one of the basic concepts of Social Cognitive Theory, academic self-efficacy, which expresses the students' self-confidence in subjects that require academic study, can be explained as the individual's ability to use effective cognitive strategies in order to learn, effectively manage their learning environment and learning times, and effectively organize their own performance. Academic self-efficacy is considered by researchers in different dimensions, measurements are made with different scales. In our study, academic self-efficacy was handled in cognitive, social and technical dimensions. The main factors that make people strong in the flow of life are self-confidence, critical perspective, success in social relations; basic skills such as interest in any sporting, artistic or cultural field are possible with the students' gain from the school climate. In this case, we can say that having a good wind at school, creating a livable and lovable atmosphere, and sitting on an original and critical ground is only possible with a positive and sustainable school climate. The school climate, which positively nurtures academic self-efficacy, will bring the success of the human elements affected by the climate. A positive school climate and strong academic self-efficacy will become the greatest means of academic success. Measuring the learning climate, interpersonal relationships, role models, expectations, etc. in schools. It can help to understand the quality of life as well as the success and satisfaction of students. The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between the learning climate perceptions of students of higher religion and their academic self-efficacy and academic achievement. In this framework, four basic research questions have been tried to be answered: (i) What is the level of the learning climate and academic self-efficacy perceptions of higher religious education students? (ii) Is there a significant relationship between higher religious education students' learning climate and academic self-efficacy? (iii) Are the age, learning climate and academic self-efficacy beliefs of higher religious education students significant predictors of their academic achievement? (iv) What are the views of higher religious education students regarding their negative perceptions of the learning climate? The triangulation strategy was used in the study, which was patterned with mixed method and convergent parallel research design. In the quantitative section of this study, Academic Self-Efficacy Scale developed by Owen and Froman and adapted into Turkish by Ekici and the School Climate Scale for University Students, developed by Terzi was applied to 1147 students from six faculties, who study in high religious education in public universities within Turkey. In the qualitative part, interview forms were filled in by 18 students from the same faculties. Test of normality was applied to the quantitative data set obtained after the research conducted in May 2019. Independent Samples t-Test, Mann Whitney U Test, Levene test, One-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), Scheffe Test, Kruskal Wallis H Test, Pearson Product-Moment Correlation, Polyserial Correlation and Path Analysis were used to analyze the data. Qualitative data were analyzed by descriptive analysis. According to the results of the research, the perception of the learning climate and also of academic self-efficacy in general was negative for of the students of higher religious education. The correlation between general average of School Climate Scale and Academic Self-Efficacy Perception Scale is at medium level. According to the results of the research, the findings were discussed in the light of the literature, and after the comments, various solution suggestions were presented that are thought to provide a positive learning climate in higher religious education, strengthen the academic self-efficacy of higher religious education students and increase their academic success. (shrink)

Background: Compassion-based practices in midwifery are the most important expression of the depth of care quality. This concept is insufficiently represented in literature, therefore, studies on this subject are of utmost importance. Objectives: This study aims to determine the levels of compassion of midwives working in the delivery room and the factors affecting these levels. The study was carried out in Kocaeli, Turkey. Methods: This descriptive study was carried out from 1 February to 15 April 2019 in delivery rooms of (...) six different hospitals located in the provincial centre of Kocaeli, Turkey, with 78 actively working midwives. Data were collected using a ‘Compassion Scale’ and analysed using the Mann–Whitney U test, the Kruskal–Wallis H test and the Spearman correlation test. Ethical considerations: This study was conducted according to ethical scientific guidelines. Results: The compassion score of the midwives were found to be 4.19 ± 0.39. The total compassion score was affected by professional factors such as number of patients, alternating shift work, number of traumatic births and work satisfaction. While the kindness subscores decreased depending on shift work and number of traumatic births, it was determined that the midwives who were satisfied with their work had higher kindness scores than those who were not. Also, as the age and professional experience of the midwives and the number of traumatic births increased, their indifference score also increased. Midwives who reported that they were not satisfied with their job had higher scores regarding separation and disengagement scores than those who were satisfied with their job. Conclusion: It was determined that the compassion levels of midwives were found to be negatively affected by factors such as age, professional experience, job satisfaction and number of monthly traumatic births in a month. They should be reminded that compassionate midwifery care for women is a basic human right. (shrink)

"The development of the calculus during the 17th century was successful in mathematical practice, but raised questions about the nature of infinitesimals: were they real or rather fictitious? This collection of essays, by scholars from Canada, the US, Germany, United Kingdom and Switzerland, gives a comprehensive study of the controversies over the nature and status of the infinitesimal. Aside from Leibniz, the scholars considered are Hobbes, Wallis, Newton, Bernoulli, Hermann, and Nieuwentijt. The collection also contains newly discovered marginalia of (...) Leibniz to the writings of Hobbes."--BOOK JACKET. (shrink)

Background Many studies have investigated the adherence to professional codes of ethics by nurses. However, no study has explicitly examined the relationship between workload and adherence to professional codes of ethics among Iranian nurses. Objective This study aimed to explore the relationships between workload and adherence to professional codes of ethics among a sample of Iranian nurses. Materials and Methods A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted on 213 nurses who were randomly selected from the different wards of Shahid Beheshti Hospital (...) of Kashan, Iran. Data collection instruments included a personal characteristics questionnaire, the Nursing Ethics Questionnaire, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Task Load Index. The Chi-square, the Spearman correlation coefficient, the Kruskal–Wallis, and Mann–Whitney U tests were used to analyze the data. Results A majority of nurses were females, married, and permanently employed. The mean of the overall perceived workload and adherence to professional codes of ethics were 76.36 ± 13.64 and 13.98 ± 2.58, that were at high and moderated level, respectively. Spearman correlation test showed no significant correlation between perceived workload and adherence to professional codes of ethics. A significant difference was found between the mean scores of adherence to professional codes of ethics in nurses working in different departments. Conclusion Participating nurses perceived high levels of workload but their mean adherence to professional codes of ethics was at a moderate level. The perceived workload was indirectly correlated with adherence to professional codes of ethics. (shrink)

Background: The number of cancer patients is constantly growing. Both WHO and IARC report that this number may reach up to 24 million new diagnosed cases in the next two decades. The proposed treatment and especially the diagnosis can have a significant impact on an individual's approach to the disease, as well as on the patient's quality of life.Objectives: The study aimed to assess the quality of life, feelings, and fear of cancer-treating oncological patients, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.Material (...) and Methods: The study used the standardized WHOQOL quality of life questionnaire in a shortened version, the COVID-19 fear scale, and the AIS disease acceptance scale. The questionnaire survey was conducted among patients of cancer clinics. The study was conducted in two stages–before the COVID-19 pandemic and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data from 450 correctly completed questionnaires were analyzed statistically. The obtained data were statistically processed using the Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney U test.Results: Among the surveyed patients of the cancer clinic, the quality of life during the COVID-19 pandemic decreased by 2%, compared to the period before the pandemic. The frequency of negative feelings associated with cancer increased during the COVID-19 pandemic–by 11% more men, and 4.4% of women determined the frequency of negative feelings to be 2–3 times a week. The level of fear associated with COVID-19 was moderate, with women having a higher level of fear.Conclusion: The development of the epidemic is very important in terms of public health. COVID-19 should be considered as one of the factors that bring about sudden changes in the mental health of the population, which may result from the dynamic development of this disease, dramatic media coverage, and own experiences. It has been shown that the sudden appearance of such a large stressor causes a decrease in patients' quality of life and an increase in negative feelings associated with chronic disease. (shrink)

In this study, the relationship between adolescents' perception of God, forgiveness inclination and anger was examined. For this purpose, it was determined whether the perception of God, forgiveness inclination, the trait anger and anger expression styles of the adolescents studying in different educational institutions differ according to demographic variables and the relationship between the adolescents' perception of God, forgiveness inclination and anger was determined. The sample of the study consists of 596 10th grade students studying in different types of high (...) schools in the city center of Ankara. The Demographic Information Form, The Forgiveness Inclination Scale, The God Perception Scale, The Trait Anger and Anger Expression Style Scale were used as data collection tools. The obtained data were analyzed with the unrelated samples t test when the scale scores of the two-category variables were normally distributed and with the Mann-Whitney U test when there was no normal distribution. For variables with more than two categories, the analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used in cases where the scale scores were normally distributed, and the Kruskal-Wallis H test was used in cases where the normal distribution could not be determined. As a result of the research, statistically significant differences were found in the scores of the sub-dimensions of the scales applied according to the demographic variables. In addition between the Forgiveness Inclination Scale distancing sub- dimension and trait anger, anger-out dimensions; It was determined that there was a positive, moderately statistically significant relationship between the forgiveness inclination scale revenge sub- dimension and trait anger, anger-in, anger-out dimensions. The findings were discussed in the light of the literature. (shrink)

This chapter argues that the standard conception of Spinoza as a fellow-travelling mechanical philosopher and proto-scientific naturalist is misleading. It argues, first, that Spinoza’s account of the proper method for the study of nature presented in the Theological-Political Treatise (TTP) points away from the one commonly associated with the mechanical philosophy. Moreover, throughout his works Spinoza’s views on the very possibility of knowledge of nature are decidedly sceptical (as specified below). Third, in the seventeenth-century debates over proper methods in the (...) sciences, Spinoza sided with those that criticized the aspirations of those (the physico-mathematicians, Galileo, Huygens, Wallis, Wren, etc) who thought the application of mathematics to nature was the way to make progress. In particular, he offers grounds for doubting their confidence in the significance of measurement as well as their piece-meal methodology (see section 2). Along the way, this chapter offers a new interpretation of common notions in the context of treating Spinoza’s account of motion (see section 3). (shrink)

Background:It is stated that high ethical sensitivity positively affects the quality of nursing care. However, the relationship between nursing care quality and ethical sensitivity has not been clearly demonstrated in researches.Aim:This study was carried out to determine the relationship between surgical nurses’ care behaviors and their ethical sensitivity.Method:The sample of this cross-sectional, descriptive-correlational study consists of 308 nurses who worked at the surgical departments in four Turkish hospitals. The data were collected using the “Nurse Description Form” developed by the researcher, (...) “Caring Behaviours Inventory-24” and “Ethical Sensitivity Questionnaire.” Data were evaluated by the Mann Whitney U test, Kruskal Wallis one-way analysis of variance and Spearman correlation analysis.Ethical considerations:The study was approved by the ethics committee. Verbal and written consent was received from the nurses.Results:It was found in the study that nurses’ Caring Behaviours Inventory-24 total score median was 5.25 (4.83–5.58), nurses’ perception level of caring quality was high, median of Ethical Sensitivity Questionnaire total score was 89.00 (75.00–101.00) and nurses’ ethical sensitivity was moderate. A negative significant relation was found between nurses’ Caring Behaviours Inventory-24 total score and Ethical Sensitivity Questionnaire total score (r = -0.162; p = 0.009). A negative relation was also detected between nurses’ working period at the current clinic and providing benefit (r = -0.147; p = 0.012), holistic approach (r = -0.139; p = 0.018) and orientation (r = -0.175; p = 0.003) scores of Ethical Sensitivity Questionnaire sub-scales.Conclusion:Nurses’ perception levels of caring quality were high and their ethical sensitivity levels were moderate. It was found out that nurses’ ethical sensitivity increased together with their perception of caring quality, and as their working period at the current clinic increased, the ethical sensitivity also increased in terms of the sub-scales of providing benefit, holistic approach, and orientation. The factors that adversely affect the quality of nursing care and ethical sensitivity should be examined and attempts should be made to improve the working environment. (shrink)

The anonimous scholiumOn all forms of syllogism was copied in 1884 from the Paris Codex 2064 by E. Richter. In 1899 M. Wallies published it in the preface to Ammonius' commentary on the Prior Analytics of Aristotle. There appear in that scholium, apart from the complex figure of Galenos, other characteristic forms of inference.Among these forms I found five so-called non-demonstrable stoic syllogisms, three modifications of the law of transposition of which the third is not mentioned by the authors of (...) Princ pia Mathematica, and a modification of the form of inference known as Euclid's law. This form of inference was applied by Euclid in mathematics and by Saccherius in syllogistics; it is mentioned for the first time by Cardan in a treatise of 1570 and later by Clavius in his commentary of 1574 on the Elements of Euclid and in the commentary on Theodosius'Sphaerica of the year 1586.In 1658 Erhard Weigel made the first attempt at refuting the logical law of Euclid as formulated by Cardan and Clavius and in 1686 James Bernoulli tried to prove it. (shrink)

Sport is an emotional experience. Studies have shown that high emotional intelligence (EI) is associated with better sports performance, though different aspects of sports experience and their relationship with EI are still unclear. This study examined the possible relationships between sports experience and EI dimensions of undergraduate athletes. Likewise, according to the differences described in the literature between men and women, the secondary aim was to identify the possible relationship between EI and sports experience in both subgroups. A total of (...) 1784 [712 men (39.9%), 1072 women (60.1%); mean age = 21.3 years, SD = 4.2)] undergraduate athletes completed the Trait Meta Mood Scale and a sports experience questionnaire. Comparisons between groups were performed using Mann–Whitney-Uand H-Kruskal–Wallis tests and correlations between variables were analyzed using Spearman correlation. We found that the number of different sports practiced and the number of years practicing sports were positively associated with emotional repair (ER). However, the number of years practicing sports was negatively associated with emotional attention (EA). Male athletes who trained more and had a higher competitive level were more likely to show higher ER. In any case, it is necessary to take into account that all the associations were weak. Our study suggested that athletes tend to attend to and value their feelings and use positive thinking to repair their negative moods. (shrink)

Aristarchus’s De magnitudinis et distantiis solis et lunae was translated into Latin and printed by Federico Commandino in 1572. All subsequent editions of Aristarchus’ treatise, published by John Wallis (1688), Fortia d’ Urban (1823) and Thomas Heath (1913), followed Commandino’s work. In this article, through a philological approach to the geometric diagrams, I tracked down one of the Greek sources used by Commandino for preparing his Latin version. Commandino pays particular attention to drawing figures. This article sheds light on (...) the interaction between mathematical skills and the drawing of geometric diagrams implemented in his Latin edition of Aristarchus’ book. (shrink)

This study explored the associations between physical activity anxiety levels, and the perception of satisfaction of basic psychological needs, during Coronavirus Disease 2019 lockdown. Thus, 1,404 participants ranging from 18 to 89 years old completed a questionnaire in the period between 1st and 15th April 2021. The survey included sociodemographic data and the following validated instruments: the International Physical Activity Questionnaire, the Basic Need General Satisfaction Scale and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. The Kruskal-Wallis test was performed to examine variation (...) in anxiety levels and BPN satisfaction according to PA category. Spearman’s Rho correlations coefficients were used to determine the association between anxiety levels and psychological needs. Individuals presenting a higher level of PA revealed lower levels of anxiety-state. Differences between elements from different levels of PA were found for the autonomy, competence, and relatedness psychological needs, suggesting that those who feel their BPN as more satisfied have higher levels of PA. The study found statistically significant correlations between anxiety-state and the satisfaction of the needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. These findings support the importance that PA has in the anxiety levels during social isolation, emphasizing the importance of multidisciplinary teams in an individual-based approach. (shrink)

In this paper I show that proofs by contradiction were a serious problem in seventeenth century mathematics and philosophy. Their status was put into question and positive mathematical developments emerged from such reflections. I analyse how mathematics, logic, and epistemology are intertwined in the issue at hand. The mathematical part describes Cavalieri's and Guldin's mathematical programmes of providing a development of parts of geometry free of proofs by contradiction. The logical part shows how the traditional Aristotelean doctrine that perfect demonstrations (...) are causal demonstrations influenced the reflection on proofs by contradiction. The main protagonist of this part is Wallis. Finally, I analyse some epistemological developments arising from the Cartesian tradition. In particular, I look at Arnauld's programme of providing an epistemologically motivated reformulation of Geometry free of proofs by contradiction. The conclusion explains in which sense these epistemological reflections can be compared with those informing contemporary intuitionism. (shrink)

BackgroundConsenting for retrospective medical records-based research (MR) and leftover tissue-based research (TR) continues to be controversial. Our objective was to survey Saudis attending outpatient clinics at a tertiary care hospital on their personal preference and perceptions of norm and current practice in relation to consenting for MR and TR.MethodsWe surveyed 528 Saudis attending clinics at a tertiary care hospital in Saudi Arabia to explore their preferences and perceptions of norm and current practice. The respondents selected one of 7 options from (...) each of 6 questionnaires.ResultsRespondents' mean (SD) age was 33 (11) years, 42% were males, 56% were patients, 84% had ≥ secondary school education, and 10% had previously volunteered for research. Respectively, 40% and 49% perceived that the norm is to conduct MR and TR without consent and 38% and 37% with general or proposal-specific consent; the rest objected to such research. There was significant difference in the distribution of choices according to health status (patients vs. companions) for MR (adjusted Kruskal-Wallis test P = 0.03) but not to age group, gender, education level, or previous participation in research (unadjusted P = 0.02 - 0.59). The distributions of perceptions of current practice and norm were similar (unadjusted Marginal Homogeneity test P = 0.44 for MR and P = 0.89 for TR), whereas the distributions of preferences and perceptions of norm were different (adjusted P = 0.09 for MR and P = 0.02 for TR). The distributions of perceptions of norm, preferences, and perceptions of current practice for MR were significantly different from those of TR (adjusted P < 0.009 for all).ConclusionsWe conclude that: 1) there is a considerable diversity among Saudi views regarding consenting for retrospective research which may be related to health status, 2) the distribution of perceptions of norm was similar to the distribution of perceptions of current practice but different from that of preferences, and 3) MR and TR are perceived differently in regard to consenting. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to examine student perceptions of teaching behavior. Additionally the aim was to examine if teacher characteristics (educational level, gender, and teaching experience) could explain differences in student perceptions of their teachers. Teaching behavior was studied from the research on teaching and teacher effectiveness perspective. Secondary students (N = 7,114), taught by 410 teachers in Spain, participated in the study. Survey data were analyzed using non-parametric tests, Kruskal-Wallis, U Mann-Whitney with Bonferroni correction, and the (...) analysis of effect sizes. Furthermore, a regression model was applied. Results showed that teaching behavior was perceived as sufficient to good, depending on the teaching behavior domain. Results indicated interesting differences between lower secondary education, upper secondary education and vocational education and training teachers. The effect size values (rU statistic) ranged between 0.43 and 0.63, highlighting the significant effect of teachers’ teaching experience on the six teaching skills domains: learning climate, efficient classroom management, clarity of instruction, activating teaching, differentiation, and teaching learning strategies. Those teachers with less teaching experience were the ones who showed higher scores. Findings from the regression model showed that educational level had a significant predictive effect on the six teaching skills domains, mainly for male teachers. However, in several domains female teachers were perceived by students to outperform their male counterparts. (shrink)

This study aims to understand the relationship between religion and identity in adolescents and to determine the level of religious identity of adolescents; to reveal the predictive effects of the independent variables of gender, class level, type of school, mother’s educational status, father's educational status, socio-economic level, level of family religiosity and worship rate (praying) status on adolescents' religious identity levels; how adolescents define themselves as identities and determine the distribution of the findings about the identity definitions of adolescents according (...) to their religious identity levels. The research is in the relational survey model and the study group consists of 1000 high school students studying in the high schools of Konya Provincial Directorate of National Education. In this study, a “Religion-Identity Relationship Scale” was used to determine the religious identity levels. In order to determine the relationship between dependent variables and independent variables, non-parametric tests were used and cross-table, descriptive statistics, Chi-square, Mann Whitney U, Kruskal Wallis-H analysis method was used in the analysis of the data. As a result of the research, it was determined that the religious identity levels of adolescents differed significantly according to gender, class level (age), school type, mother education status, father education status, socio-economic level, level of family religiosity and worship rate (praying); 51.9% of the adolescents have their own identity “Religious Identity”; 25.6% of “T.C. Citizens”; It was found that 9.5% of the participants defined the “Ethnic Identity”. It was found that adolescents' identity definitions differ significantly depending on their religious identity levels. Adolescents with a high level of religious identity score identified their own identity as religious identity with 49.2%. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to determine the professional and personal values among midwifery students in Turkey and to identify whether the years of study affected these values. A total of 192 participants were asked to prioritize 16 professional and 36 personal values. The relationship between the year of study and value ranking was analyzed by Kruskal–Wallis test. The first three of the professional values were justice, equality, and human dignity. Equality ranked sixth among the personal terminal values, (...) and it increased with the years of study. Of personal instrumental values, responsibility and cleanliness ranked second and fifth, which are of central importance for the profession of midwifery. However, the other two important values, privacy and preventing unnecessary suffering, ranked lower when the years of study increased, in other words when the students confront clinics. Since these values are important for midwifery, ethics courses should be given throughout the midwifery education to prepare students for the challenges they face in the clinical environment. (shrink)

Background: Despite a gradual shift in the focus of medical care among terminally ill patients to a palliative model, studies suggest that many children with life-limiting chronic illnesses continue to die in hospital after prolonged periods of inpatient admission and mechanical ventilation.Objectives: To examine the characteristics and location of death among hospitalised children, investigate yearwise trends in these characteristics and test the hypothesis that professional ethical guidance from the UK Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health would lead to significant (...) changes in the characteristics of death among hospitalised children.Methods: Routine administrative data from one large tertiary-level UK children’s hospital was examined over a 7-year period for children aged 0–18 years. Demographic details, location of deaths, source of admission , length of stay and final diagnoses were studied. Statistical significance was tested by the Kruskal–Wallis analysis of ranks and median test , χ2 test and Cochran–Armitage test .Results: Of the 1127 deaths occurring in hospital over the 7-year period, the majority were among infants. The main diagnoses at death included congenital malformations , perinatal diseases , cardiovascular disorders and neoplasms . Most deaths occurred in an intensive care unit environment , with a significant increase over the years . There was a clear increase in the proportion of admissions from in-hospital among the ICU cohort . Infants with congenital malformations and perinatal conditions were more likely to die in an ICU , and older children with malignancy outside the ICU . Children stayed for a median of 13 days on a hospital ward before being admitted to an ICU where they died.Conclusions: A greater proportion of hospitalised children are dying in an ICU environment. Our experience indicates that professional ethical guidance by itself may be inadequate in reversing the trends observed in this study. (shrink)

The New Beginning Movement (NBM) (1971–1978) in Trinidad functioned as a voice of direct democracy and workers self-management through popular assemblies, and as a global coordinating council of a Pan-Caribbean International with linkages across the region, in Britain, the United States, and Canada. A crucial philosophical and strategic leaven in the 1970 Black Power Revolt led by Geddes Granger’s and Dave Darbeau’s National Joint Action Committee (NJAC) and the 1975 United Labour Front (ULF) in Trinidad, NBM aspired to interpret Afro-Trinidadians (...) and Indo-Trinidadians equally, and on their own autonomous terms, toward self-directed emancipation. Led by Bukka Rennie, Wally Look Lai, and Franklyn Harvey, NBM was inspired by C.L.R. James’s intellectual legacies. Through publications such as New Beginning, Caribbean Dialogue, and The Vanguard, these partisans advocated labor’s self-emancipation and critical perspectives on capitalism and state power, and exposed the limits of elite party politics and representative government. (shrink)

AimTo investigate the associations between Grit, connectedness, and parental involvement in Thai adolescents. Grit, perseverance, and passion for long-term goals are predictors of academic success and health. There is a small but developing knowledge of the predictors of Grit in Asia, especially Thailand. This paper investigates the proposition that connectedness and parental involvement are positively associated with Grit.MethodA total of 2,839 lower secondary, higher secondary, and vocational students from 21 schools in Chiang Mai, Thailand participated in a survey that measured (...) Grit using the Short Grit Scale. Bivariate analysis was conducted using the t-test, ANOVA, or Kruskal–Wallis H test as appropriate. Multiple ordinary least squares linear regression analysis was performed to determine factors associated with Grit.ResultsSatisfactory relationships with teachers, parental support, interest in school, having been asked by parents to do homework, and having been told by parents that they had done something bad associated with Grit. These findings can aid in design of tailored interventions to improve Grit in Thai adolescents. (shrink)

This paper seeks to discover whether companies that adopt a stakeholder approach, and thereby demonstrate a wider remit of corporate responsibility, provide inferior returns to those that embrace the shareholder value approach. To classify approaches, mission statements were analysed, the final sample comprising 32 shareholder oriented companies and 48 stakeholder oriented companies. To assess performance both accounting–based and market–based measures were used. A number of moderating variables were taken into account: systematic (beta) risk, gearing (long–term debt to total long–term finance), (...) tax ratios, and firm size. ANOVA and Kruskall–Wallis tests revealed that mission orientation did not affect performance, whether in terms of stock returns or excess returns. Neither were accounting returns on equity different overall, although shareholder oriented companies experienced wider variations in this measure. A number of multiple regressions were also performed. However, the mission dummy was not found to be a significant variable. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:New Light from Arabic Sources on Galen and the Fourth Figure of the Syllogism NICHOLAS RESCHER The Problem of the Origin of the Fourth Figure FLYING IN THE FACE of the long-standing tradition--going back in Europe to Renaissance times--which credits Galen of Pergamon with the origination of the fourth syllogistic figure, recent authorities have almost to a man evinced doubt about Galen's claim to this innovation. Heinrieh Scholz speaks (...) of "the Galenian syllogistic figure which has been attributed to him, probably wrongly." i j. W. Stakelum concludes his careful discussion of the matter with the categorical assertion that "Galen did not teach the fourth figure." ~ I. M. Bochenski--following Lukasiewicz (see below)--says that the fourth figure "was only ascribed to Galen by a misunderstanding." : William Kneale (also following Lukasiewicz) writes that "it is easy to see how misunderstanding.., by some Arabian philosopher... could have given rise to the tradition that Galen added a fourth figure to Aristotle's syllogistic theory." 4 The currently received account of the matter is that of Jan Lukasiewicz who, in his book on Aristotle's Syllogistic (1951; 2d ed., 1957), presents the known reports about Galen and the fourth figure as follows (I list them in the order in which they came to light) : 1) Several passages in Averroes' (d. 1198) Middle Commentary on Prior Analytics credit Galen with introducing a fourth figure (ad Anal. Pr. I, 5; I, 8; I, 23). These passages, known in Europe through a Renaissance Latin translation of a Hebrew version, provided the basis upon which Zabarella in his work, De Quarta Syllogismorum Figura (in his Opera [Leiden: 1587], pp. 41-53), popularized the "Galenian figure" in European logic. 2) In 1844 Minoides Mynas published in the Preface to his edition of Galen's EisagSg~ dialektik~ an anonymous Greek fragment (late, perhaps 6th century) which states that certain "later scholars" transformed the indirect moods of the first figure added by Theophrastus and Eudeffms into a new fourth figure, citing Galen as the originator of this doctrine.~ 1Abriss der Geschichte der Logik (Miinster: 1931), trans, into English by K. F. Leidecker, ConciseHistory of Logic (NewYork: 1961);p. 38ofthe Englishversion. "Why 'Galenian' Figure?" The New Scholasticism, XVI (1942),289-296. s Formale Logik (Miinchen-Freiburg:1956; 2nd. ed., 1962), trans, into English by Ivo Thomas, A History of Formal Logic (Notre Dame: 1961);p. 142of the Englishversion. Williamand Martha Kneale, The Developmentof Logic (Oxford: 1962),p. 184. Alsoprinted in Karl Kalbfieisch, ~ber Galen s Einleitung in die Logik, 2~. Supplementband der Jahrbi~cherfi~r klassische Philologie (Leipzig:1897), p. 707. This datum casts some 28 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 3) A Greek fragment was found around 1858 by Karl Prantl in a logical work of the Byzantine scholar Ioannes Italus (llth century) which says that Galen taught the existence of a fourth figure, adding sarcastically that he (Galen) thought thus to appear cleverer than the older logical commentators (presumably Theophrastus and Eudemus are intended), but fell far short.6 4) In 1899 Maximilian Wallies published7 an anonymous Greek scholium (of perhaps the 6th or the 7th century) on Ammonins' commentary on Prior Analytics which states that Galen "says in his Apodictic that there are four figures, because he looks at the compound syllogisms consisting of four terms (i.e., with three premisses )" rather than the simple (three-term, two-premiss) syllogisms of Aristotle. (The scholiast goes on to explain at some length how such compound syllogisms can be sorted into four groups.) It is readily seen that, given these data, two possibilities stand before us: a) Galen did actually invent the traditional fourth figure. Reports (1)-(3) are correct, and the anonymous scholiast of (4) was put on the wrong track by the fact that Galen also said that compound syllogisms of four terms can be classed into four groups. b) Galen did not invent the traditional fourth figure. Only after his time when once the indirect moods of the first figure had--somehow--become systematized into a separate "figure," was this credited to Galen by a mistake along the lines described by the anonymous scholiast. Thus (4) alone is right, and (1)-(3) are mistaken. Which of... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Scepticism in the Sixth Century? Damascius’ Doubts and Solutions Concerning First PrinciplesSara RappeThe Doubts and Solutions Concerning First Principles, an aporetic work of the sixth century Neoplatonist Damascius, is distinguished above all by its dialectical subtlety. Although the Doubts and Solutions belongs to the commentary tradition on Plato’s Parmenides, its structure and method make it in many ways unique among such exegetical works. The treatise positions itself, at least (...) in part, as a response to Proclus’ metaphysical system. Thus the first principles alluded to in its title refer to a metaphysical structure consisting of five central elements, the Ineffable, the One, and the Noetic Triad, which Damascius both adumbrates in opposition to Proclus1 as well as subjects to his own, internal critique. In this article, I will be asking whether or not Damascius’ critique of Neoplatonic metaphysics is informed or inspired by ancient Scepticism. No doubt this question catches the reader off guard: if the last exponent of ancient Scepticism is Sextus Empiricus, how could this sixth-century Neoplatonist Scholarch, the last officially appointed Platonic Successor, revert to a tradition that seemingly disappears for well over three centuries?2 In what [End Page 337] follows, I suggest that a plausible historical context for such a reversion can be found in contemporaneous Neoplatonic allusions to Sceptical readings of Plato. I then analyze the Sceptical techniques deployed by Damascius in his critique of Neoplatonist metaphysics, focusing especially on his attacks on Neoplatonic theories of intellect and causation. I conclude by speculating on some ideological factors that shaped Damascius’ Sceptical affiliations, suggesting that here it is possible to see an initial volley in what was to become a centuries-long skirmish between reason and revelation.1. the neoplatonists read the sceptics?R. T. Wallis has suggested that Plotinus borrows from the Sceptics’ arsenal in voicing his own objections against Stoic or Stoicizing epistemology and theology. The seemingly radical stance that Plotinus takes against Stoic notions of divine rationality, virtue, and providence is anticipated by the Sceptics’ refusal to grant that an omniscient mind could stand in need of rational deliberation or exercise virtues that imply the presence of corresponding vices, etc. Not only is it the case that Plotinus makes a detailed use of specific Sceptical arguments in his own polemics against the Stoics, he seems to have been the first philosopher to have grasped the implications of Sceptical challenges to Stoic theology, and to have circumvented Sceptical dilemmas by means of his highly original formulations of nondiscursive thinking and negative theology.That this Platonist might side with Sceptics against dogmatic philosophy would hardly be surprising to the modern student of Plato, but it is also true that historically, this has been an uneasy alliance. In fact, it is just this question, the alliance between Platonists and the Sceptics, that gets rehearsed in the sixth century. Olympiodorus devotes Chapter 10 of his Prolegomena to the Study of Platonic Philosophy to the refutation of an ephectic, or nondogmatic Plato3: “Plato also superseded the philosophy of the New Academy since that school gave precedence to akatalepsia (nonapprehension), while Plato demonstrated that there do exist cognitions grounded in genuine knowledge. Nevertheless, some assert, assimilating Plato to the ephectics and to the Academicians, that he too maintained the doctrine of akatalepsia.” These remarks are curious, for we have no indication that a Sceptical reading of Plato was current or even conceivable at this time. In fact, as the context makes clear, the Sceptics are represented in this passage as a prior philosophical school; chapters 7 through 10 present a concise history of philosophy that is remarkably free from any notions of philosophical currency attributable to any of the views that fall [End Page 338] under its purvue: “there has been no shortage of philosophical haireseis [schools] both before and after Plato, yet he surpassed all of them by his teaching, his thought, and in every possible way”4 (Prolegomena, 7.1).Olympiodorus performs the exegete’s role throughout his refutation of a non-dogmatic Plato, turning first to the grammatical item, Plato’s use of what Olympiodorus terms the “hestitating” adverbs, such as “probably,” “perhaps,” and “as I imagine.” Nevertheless Olympiodorus manages... (shrink)

This paper seeks to discover whether companies that adopt a stakeholder approach, and thereby demonstrate a wider remit of corporate responsibility, provide inferior returns to those that embrace the shareholder value approach. To classify approaches, mission statements were analysed, the final sample comprising 32 shareholder oriented companies and 48 stakeholder oriented companies. To assess performance both accounting–based and market–based measures were used. A number of moderating variables were taken into account: systematic (beta) risk, gearing (long–term debt to total long–term finance), (...) tax ratios, and firm size. ANOVA and Kruskall–Wallis tests revealed that mission orientation did not affect performance, whether in terms of stock returns or excess returns. Neither were accounting returns on equity different overall, although shareholder oriented companies experienced wider variations in this measure. A number of multiple regressions were also performed. However, the mission dummy was not found to be a significant variable. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Church for the World: A Theology of Public Witness by Jennifer McBrideGlen StassenThe Church for the World: A Theology of Public Witness Jennifer McBride New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. 310 pp. $74.00Jennifer McBride offers the brilliant proposal that Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s theme of repentance is the right ingredient for our pluralistic and democratic context, which needs a nontriumphal Christian witness. [End Page 199]My focus on confession and (...) repentance as a nontriumphal public witness is aimed... mostly at white Protestants who benefit in countless recognized and unrecognized ways from being part of the dominant culture, because this reflects my own social location and the churches and para-church groups in which I was raised. Bonhoeffer writes... from a position of social power and privilege and argues from that place that the acknowledgment of guilt is definitive for the church. My theology of public witness defines the church as the body called to repentance—as the body called, in the words of Bonhoeffer, to accept guilt or take responsibility for social sin.(9)McBride shows that “repentance” carries various connotations in Bonhoeffer’s writings. In Discipleship, he “links metanoia with the church’s conformation to the crucified Christ (a prevalent theme throughout his theology).” In Ethics, he links “repentance to the church’s this-worldly activity when he defines the church’s repentance as preparing this ‘penultimate’ world for its redemptive transformation.” In Letters and Papers from Prison, he defines metanoia as “living completely in” this world’s tasks, questions, successes and failures, experiences, and perplexities, taking seriously the suffering of God in the world (14). “As the acceptance of divine judgment, repentance participates in the unfolding of redemption. Thus, it is... energized by hope for the world and humanity, animated by joyful expectation as much as lament, and oriented toward future transformation as much as past and present sin” (107). Interpreting repentance through the person of Christ directly challenges the common understanding that repentance primarily concerns one’s individual standing before God; instead, as participation in Christ, repentance constitutes existence for others. Her interpretation is far richer and more insightful than I can represent in a short review.McBride bases her argument on three dimensions of Bonhoeffer’s theology: Christology, this-worldliness, and ecclesiology (12). By “Christology,” she is pointing to “nothing other than the crucified Christ who accepts responsibility for sin” (139). By “this-worldliness,” we can also point to Christology, in Bonhoeffer’s incarnational theme of entering into the full dimensions of human life. McBride’s ecclesiology urges “that the church’s presence in public life be conformed to Christ’s mode of being in the world” (54).In his Ethics (134–45) Bonhoeffer wrote a profound confession of his own, the churches’ and nation’s guilt that was taken up by some churches and church groups after the war’s end, and then by President Richard von Weizsäcker and Chancellor Willy Brandt. This public repentance has been the key to healing within Germany and in its relation with other nations.McBride credits Larry Rasmussen and John de Gruchy for inspiring us to develop new implications of Bonhoeffer’s theological ethics for our different contexts. So she goes “beyond Bonhoeffer with Bonhoeffer.” [End Page 200]McBride appreciates the pioneering work of Christine Schliesser, Everyone Who Acts Responsibly Becomes Guilty, for noticing that Bonhoeffer’s central concept of “acceptance of guilt has not been examined systematically by previous scholars.” She goes beyond Schliesser, emphasizing that as public witness, the church’s confession unto repentance consists of communal, more than individual, acceptance of guilt—“especially the myriad social/structural evils of our political, social, and economic systems.” She appreciates Stanley Hauerwas’s emphasis on ecclesiology but urges him to develop a theology of public witness that communicates that Christ and the church are for, not against, the world, with its pluralistic, not monolithic, culture. She appreciates Jim Wallis’s Call to Conversion, “a clear, detailed, and theologically sophisticated appeal for ecclesial conversion, especially in regard to poverty and war,” but criticizes God’s Politics for being insufficiently theological. She concludes with an ethnographic study of two emerging churches, Eleuthero in Maine... (shrink)

Early in his mathematical career Leibniz discovered some important methods and results but had to recognize that his findings had been anticipated by other mathematicians such as Pierre de Fermat, James Gregory, Isaac Newton, François Regnauld, John Wallis, etc. This paper investigates the cases of Isaac Barrow and Pietro Mengoli who, earlier than Leibniz, had been familiar with the characteristic triangle, transmutations methods, the inverse connection between determining tangents and areas of curves or the sums of the reciprocal figurate (...) numbers, and the harmonic triangle. To what extent was Leibniz aware of the results and publications of his predecessors? How did he assess their methods and results? Why did Leibniz never acknowledge any influence of these two mathematicians on his own studies? After publication of Leibniz’s manuscripts concerning the prehistory and early history of the calculus in the Academy Edition these questions can be investigated on the solid foundation of original texts. (shrink)

This descriptive and cross-sectional study aims to evaluate academic dishonesty among university nursing students in Turkey. The study’s sample included 196 students. Two instruments were used for gathering data. The first instrument, a questionnaire, which included some socio-demographic variables (age, class, gender, education, family structure, parents’ attitude and educators’ attitude) formed the first part. The second part included the Academic Dishonesty Tendency Scale developed by Eminoğlu and Nartgün. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and Kruskall Wallis, One-way Anova, (...) t- test and Mann-Whitney U test. It was found that academic dishonesty was at medium-level (2.60—3.39) in nursing students. (shrink)

Background The purpose of this study was to examine whether extended use of a variety of screen-based devices, in addition to television, was associated with poor dietary habits and other health-related characteristics and behaviors among US adults. The recent phenomenon of binge-watching was also explored. -/- Methods A survey to assess screen time across multiple devices, dietary habits, sleep duration and quality, perceived stress, self-rated health, physical activity, and body mass index, was administered to a sample of US adults using (...) the Qualtrics platform and distributed via Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). Participants were adults 18 years of age and older, English speakers, current US residents, and owners of a television and at least one other device with a screen. Three different screen time categories (heavy, moderate, and light) were created for total screen time, and separately for screen time by type of screen, based on distribution tertiles. Kruskal-Wallis tests were conducted to examine differences in dietary habits and health-related characteristics between screen time categories. -/- Results Aggregate screen time across all devices totaled 17.5 h per day for heavy users. Heavy users reported the least healthful dietary patterns and the poorest health-related characteristics – including self-rated health – compared to moderate and light users. Moreover, unique dietary habits emerged when examining dietary patterns by type of screen separately, such that heavy users of TV and smartphone displayed the least healthful dietary patterns compared to heavy users of TV-connected devices, laptop, and tablet. Binge-watching was also significantly associated with less healthy dietary patterns, including frequency of fast-food consumption as well as eating family meals in front of a television, and perceived stress. -/- Conclusions The present study found that poorer dietary choices, as well as other negative health-related impacts, occurred more often as the viewing time of a variety of different screen-based devices increased in a sample of US adults. Future research is needed to better understand what factors among different screen-based devices might affect health behaviors and in turn health-related outcomes. Research is also required to better understand how binge-watching behavior contributes impacts health-related behaviors and characteristics. (shrink)

PurposeThe aim of the study was to establish the differences in affective states of swimmers depending on the subjective rank of the competition and the relationship between affective states and performance in sports competitions of low, medium and high subjectively perceived rank.MethodsThe respondents aged from 15 to 23 years were studied using the psychological questionnaires Perceived Stress Scale, Profile of Mood State, and Positive and Negative Affect Schedule during sports events. 362 measurements using POMS and 232 measurements using PANAS before (...) the starts were collected. The significance of intergroup differences was determined using the Kruskal-Wallis test. A stepwise regression analysis was used to determine the emotional predictors of sports results.ResultsSubjective rank of sports competition differentiated significantly anger, confusion, depression, fatigue, vigour, positive emotions, and negative emotions. Regression analysis showed the influence of mood states and positive emotions on the sports result.ConclusionThe swimmers’ affective state changed depending on the subjective rank of the competition. Depression and positive emotional state made it possible to predict the result in medium- and high-rank competition. (shrink)