We have studied the adaptation of mutation rates in a simple model of evolution. The model consists of a two-dimensional world with a periodically replenished resource and a uctuating population of evolving agents whose survival and reproduction are an implicit a function of their success at nding resources and their internal metabolism. Earlier work suggested that mutation rate is a control parameter that governs a transition between two qualitatively di erent kinds of complex adaptive systems, and that the power (...) of adaptive evolution is maximized when the mutation rate is around this transition. This paper provides evidence that evolving mutation rates adapt to values around this transition. Furthermore, the mutation rates adapt up (or down) as the evolutionary demands for novelty (or memory) increase. (shrink)

Spontaneous eye blink rate has been linked to attention and memory, specifically working memory. sEBR is also related to striatal dopamine activity with schizophrenia and Parkinson’s disease showing increases and decreases, respectively, in sEBR. A weakness of past studies of sEBR and WM is that correlations have been reported using blink rates taken at baseline either before or after performance of the tasks used to assess WM. The goal of the present study was to understand how fluctuations in sEBR (...) during different phases of a visual WM task predict task accuracy. In two experiments, with recordings of sEBR collected inside and outside of a magnetic resonance imaging bore, we observed sEBR to be positively correlated with WM task accuracy during the WM delay period. We also found task-related modulation of sEBR, including higher sEBR during the delay period compared to rest, and lower sEBR during task phases that place demands on visual attention. These results provide further evidence that sEBR could be an important predictor of WM task performance with the changes during the delay period suggesting a role in WM maintenance. The relationship of sEBR to DA activity and WM maintenance is discussed. (shrink)

Decision-makers in institutional and non-institutional contexts are sometimes confronted with the issue of whether to use generalisations expressing the statistical incidence of a negative trait in a disadvantaged and discriminated-against social group in order to draw an inference concerning a member of that group. If a criminal court were confronted with such a question, what answer should it give? First, the article argues that, our qualms notwithstanding, morality does not demand that these generalisations be disregarded. In doing so, the article (...) addresses the relationship between factual accuracy and the demands of morality in criminal trials. Second, the article considers the implications of this conclusion for the legal question as to whether the evidence at issue should be excluded, in particular, on grounds of unfairness — pursuant to section 78 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. (shrink)

ABSTRACT By means of the high ratings that they awarded to subprime mortgage‐backed bonds, the three major rating agencies—Moody's, Standard & Poor's, and Fitch—played a central role in the current financial crisis. Without these ratings, it is doubtful that subprime mortgages would have been issued in such huge amounts, since a major reason for the subprime lending boom was investor demand for high‐rated bonds—much of it generated by regulations that made such bonds mandatory for large institutional investors. And it is (...) even less likely that such bonds would have become concentrated on the balance sheets of the banks, for which they were rewarded by capital regulations that tilted toward high‐rated securities. Why, then, were the agencies excessively optimistic in their ratings of subprime mortgage‐backed securities? A combination of their fee structure, the complexity of the bonds that they were rating, insufficient historical data, some carelessness, and market pressures proved to be a potent brew. This combination was enabled, however, by seven decades of financial regulation that, beginning in the 1930s, had conferred the force of law upon these agencies' judgments about the creditworthiness of bonds and that, since 1975, had protected the three agencies from competition. (shrink)

In response to demand from investors and other stakeholders, companies have increased voluntary disclosure of climate change-related policies and performance. Information intermediaries have correspondingly emerged to provide needed credibility and commensurability of climate disclosures. However, the provision of performance ratings and lax audit capabilities creates opportunities for firms to manipulate those ratings for impression management. This article explains how firms may attain an intermediary’s favorable assessment of climate performance using varied methods of strategic disclosure. Using data from a prominent climate (...) intermediary (CDP, formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project), I find that strategic disclosure is widespread and effective in attaining higher ratings, particularly through disclosure of forward-looking factors, suggesting that ratings may not be an accurate indicator of a firm’s true underlying performance. This article contributes to commensuration and impression management literatures, offers guidance for mechanism design to improve the reliability of intermediated voluntary disclosure, and highlights important areas for future research. (shrink)

As research on mind wandering has accelerated, the construct’s defining features have expanded and researchers have begun to examine different dimensions of mind wandering. Recently, Christoff and colleagues have argued for the importance of investigating a hitherto neglected variety of mind wandering: “unconstrained thought,” or, thought that is relatively unguided by executive-control processes. To date, with only a handful of studies investigating unconstrained thought, little is known about this intriguing type of mind wandering. Across two experiments, we examined, for the (...) first time, whether changes in task demand influence rates of constrained versus unconstrained thoughts. In both experiments, participants completed either an easy (0-back) or hard (2-back) task and responded to intermittently presented thought probes that gauged thought constraint throughout the task. In Experiment 1, we found that participants completing the easy task engaged in unconstrained thoughts more frequently than those completing the difficult task. In Experiment 2, we replicated this result and further demonstrated manipulations of unconstrained thought while also measuring task-relatedness (a common dimension of mind wandering). Finally, exploratory analyses showed associations between constrained thought and age, verbal intelligence, and an assessment of flow (‘deep effortless concentration’), thereby adding further evidence to indicate a dissociation between task-relatedness and constraint. We discuss the methodological and theoretical applications of our findings to the burgeoning field of research on unconstrained thought. (shrink)

In the Netherlands, current policy opinion emphasizes demand-driven health care. Central to this model is the view, advocated by some Dutch health policy makers, that patients should be encouraged to be aware of and make use of health quality and health outcomes information in making personal health care provider choices. The success of the new health care system in the Netherlands is premised on this being the case. After a literature review and description of the new Dutch health care system, (...) the adequacy of this demand-driven health policy is tested. The data from a July 2005, self-administered questionnaire survey of 409 patients (response rate of 94%) as to how they choose a hospital are presented. Results indicate that most patients did not choose by actively employing available quality and outcome information. They were, rather, referred by their general practitioner. Hospital choice is highly related to the importance a patient attaches to his or her physician’s opinion about a hospital. Some patients indicated that their hospital choice was affected by the reputation of the hospital, by the distance they lived from the hospital, etc. but physician’s advice was, by far, the most important factor. Policy consequences are important; the assumptions underlying the demand-driven model of patient health provider choice are inadequate to explain the pattern of observed responses. An alternative, more adequate model is required, one that takes into account the patient’s confidence in physician referral and advice. (shrink)

Background: Heart rate variability (HRV) has been considered as a measure of heart-brain interaction and autonomic modulation, and it is modified by cognitive and attentional tasks. In cognitive tasks, HRV was reduced in participants who achieved worse results. This could indicate the possibility of HRV predicting cognitive performance, but this association is still unclear in a high cognitive load sport such as chess Objective: To analyse modifications on HRV and subjective perception of stress, difficulty and complexity in different chess (...) problem tasks. Design: HRV was assessed at baseline. During the chess problems, HRV was also monitored, and immediately after chess problems the subjective stress, difficulty and complexity were also registered. Method: A total of 16 male chess players, age: 35.19 (13.44) and ELO: 1927.69 (167.78) were analysed while six chess problem solving tasks with different level of difficulty were conducted (two low level, two medium level and two high level chess problems). Participants were classified according to their results into two groups: high performance or low performance. Results: Friedman test showed a significant effect of tasks in HRV indexes and perceived difficulty, stress and complexity in both high and low performance groups. A decrease in HRV was observed in both groups when chess problems difficulty increased. In addition, HRV was significantly higher in the high performance group than in the low performance group during chess problems. Conclusions: An increase in autonomic modulation was observed to meet the cognitive demands of the problems, being higher while the difficulty of the tasks increased. Non-linear HRV indexes seem to be more reactive to tasks difficulty, being an interesting and useful tool in chess training. (shrink)

We believe that when assessing the likelihood of uncertain events, statistically unsophisticated people utilize a coarse internal scale that only has a limited number of categories. The success of the nested sets hypothesis may lie in its ability to provide an appropriate set structure of the problem by reducing the computational demands.

Supply‐side economists claim that a low top marginal income‐tax rate accelerates investment, employment, and economic growth. But the economic literature cited to support the supply‐side hypothesis provides little to no empirical support for it. And a more comprehensive empirical examination of key parameters of U.S. economic performance in the postwar period, undertaken here, shows no association between low top marginal income‐tax rates and high real growth in investment, employment, or GDP. By contrast, the analysis yields strong evidence for the (...) economic‐growth benefits of a “demand‐side” approach to taxation policy. (shrink)

Unlike the many services already transformed by artificial intelligence (_AI_), the financial advice sector remains committed to a human interface. That is surprising as an AI-powered financial advisor (a _robo-advisor_) can offer personalised financial advice at much lower cost than traditional human advice. This is particularly important for those who need but cannot afford or access traditional financial advice. Robo-advice is easily accessible, available on-demand, and pools all relevant information in finding and implementing an optimal financial plan. In a perfectly (...) competitive market for financial advice, robo-advice should prevail. Unfortunately, this market is imperfect with asymmetric information causing generalised advice aversion with a disproportionate lack of trust in robo-advice. Initial distrust makes advice clients reluctant to use, or switch to, robo-advice. This paper investigates the ethical concerns specific to robo-advice underpinning this lack of trust. We propose a regulatory framework addressing these concerns to ensure robo-advice can be an ethical resource for good, resolving the increasing complexity of financial decision-making. Fit for purpose regulation augments initial trust in robo-advice and supports advice clients in discriminating between high-trust and low-trust robo-advisors. Aspiring robo-advisors need to clear four licensing gateways to qualify for an AI Robo-Advice License (AIRAL). Licensed robo-advisors should then be monitored for ethical compliance. Using a balanced score card for ethical performance generates an ethics rating. This _gateways-and-ratings_ methodology builds trust in the robo-advisory market through improved transparency, reduced information asymmetry, and lower risk of adverse selection. (shrink)

Background: Organ supply–demand in developing countries worldwide has continued to widen. Hence, using a large survey (n ¼ 10,412), this study seeks to investigate whether human psychology could be used to inculcate philanthropy to raise deceased organ donation rates. Methods: Three models were constructed to examine multidimensional relationships among the variables. Structural equation modeling was applied to estimate the direct and indirect influence of altruism, financial incentives, donation perception, and socioeconomic status simultaneously on willingness to donate deceased organs. Ethical considerations: (...) The study was approved by the University of Malaya ethics committee. Results: The results show that altruism amplifies the impact of socioeconomic status and donation perception on willingness to donate. Also, the results show that financial incentives cannot complement altruism to raise organ donation rates. Hence, investing in education and public awareness enhances altruism in people, which then increases the propensity to donate. Conclusion: Evidence suggests that governments should allocate resources to increase public awareness about organ donation. Awareness programs about the importance of philanthropic donations and the participation of medical consultants at hospitals in the processes form the foundation of such a presumptive approach. (shrink)

The current study examines similarity or disparity of a frontally mediated physiological response of mental effort among multiple executive functioning tasks between children and adults. Task performance and phasic heart rate variability (HRV) were recorded in children (6 to 10 years old) and adults in an examination of age differences in executive functioning skills during periods of increased demand. Executive load levels were varied by increasing the difficulty levels of three executive functioning tasks: inhibition (IN), working memory (WM), and (...) planning/problem solving (PL). Behavioral performance decreased in all tasks with increased executive demand in both children and adults. Adults’ phasic high frequency HRV was suppressed during the management of increased IN and WM load. Children’s phasic HRV was suppressed during the management of moderate WM load. HRV was not suppressed during either children’s or adults’ increasing load during the PL task. High frequency phasic HRV may be most sensitive to executive function tasks that have a time-response pressure, and simply requiring performance on a self-paced task requiring frontal lobe activation may not be enough to generate HRV responsitivity to increasing demand. (shrink)

An application of the entropic theory of perception to evolutionary systems indicates that environmental entropy increases will exert pressures on an organism to adapt. We speculate that the instability caused by such environmental changes will also cause an increase in the mutation rate of organisms leading to an eventual increase in their complexity. Such complexity generation allows organisms to adapt to the more entropic environment. Although we conclude that increases in environmental entropy cause an organism to evolve into a (...) more complex organism, increases in entropy may not be necessary for complexity generationper se. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Healthcare is Demanding:Patience is a Virtue!Andrea TorrenceNursing is a rewarding career, but it can also be extremely challenging, depending on the type of patient you are assigned to. In my career, I have had a number of "difficult" patients, and every situation required a specific type of approach. Understanding how to interact with a difficult patient is a talent and requires a level of patience that exceeds the normal (...) amount one may have. As a nurse, if you want to be successful, you must have patience. Along with many natural characteristics required to be successful in nursing, patience, in my opinion, is the most required quality required for nursing. The difficult patient can be an emotional burden to the care provider. These burdens are not always related to the tasks associated with care. The patient that is emotionally exhausting is far more complex than a patient who requires physical work. Nursing is a trying and risky career, but the nurse is obligated to provide the best care possible to all patients regardless of how difficult that person may be.Our cardiac surgical telemetry unit received a patient from the emergency room diagnosed with a minor psychiatric problem and tachycardia (a fast heart rate). This patient required medical clearance before going to the psychiatric unit for further evaluation. At our facility, this frequently happens, depending on how many psychiatric beds are available and on the patient's medical status. There were no clinical indications for this patient to require a bedside caregiver—a bedside caregiver is assigned to a patient that may somehow be classified as a danger to themselves or others—and the patient was not "pink-slipped." Patients who may not be safe to leave the hospital once they've been evaluated in the emergency room will be pink-slipped for an inpatient evaluation. Also, suicidal or homicidal patients are pink-slipped until they undergo an extensive evaluation and are deemed safe to leave on their own. A pink slip is a legal hold document. The patient that we received at the time of her admission required neither. The initial description of the patient revealed that she was a young, pleasant, ambulatory (able to walk with no problems) woman and completely oriented (understands and can comprehend). This patient did not have any pain or complaints documented on her emergency room assessment. She was corporative and followed instructions.As soon as we received the patient to the unit, she began to protest the need for pain medication. There were no orders for pain medication because there was no notation of pain in the emergency room. The nurse addressed the patient's pain with the admitting physician and Tylenol was ordered. When the patient heard that the physician ordered Tylenol, she became very angry. The patient wanted a stronger medication. I have a reputation for connecting with patients who become angry, and those who are classified as difficult, so the primary nurse asked me to speak to this patient. After a brief conversation, I was able to calm the patient, and she returned to her room quietly. The patient was apologetic and sincere. I used a calm approach, reassuring words of affirmation, and the perfect body language to de-escalate this patient. I was pleased with myself because only a simple combination of techniques was used to resolve the patient's anger, and at that time, a therapeutic connection was made.The nurse entered the patient's room and noticed that the roommate looked somewhat bewildered, [End Page E11] but she did not address the roommate. The nurse was focused on completing her patient's admission assessment. After the nurse completed the assessment, the order for the patient to wear telemetry was discussed. Telemetry is a physician's order to continuously monitor the heart's function while hospitalized. Because the patient was mildly tachycardic, telemetry was ordered. The patient immediately refused the order and told the nurse that she was not going to wear the monitor. The nurse explained the need and informed the patient that she would not be confined to the bed while wearing it. The nurse left the room to find me to discuss the... (shrink)

All capitalist economies experience fluctuations in employment and economic activity around a long-term growth rate. How is this cyclical pattern of growth to be explained? Are the causes of fluctuations in output and employment to be found outside the system or are they intrinsic to the system? Will the long-term growth rate correspond to the growth of the labour force? It is the search for answers to these questions which motivates Peter Skott's analysis. The book develops a theory (...) of dynamic interaction between three types of agent: firms, households and banks. Firms are profit-maximisers operating under conditions of imperfect competition and their production and investment decisions are influenced by monetary and financial factors as well as by the state of the labour market. Households hold financial assets, supply labour and have a direct influence on nominal wage rates. Banks set interest rates on bank loans and deposits. No assumptions are made about nominal price rigidities and the capital-output ratio is determined endogenously. Using a framework of analysis which is rigorous and which does not exclude traditional neoclassical mechanisms, this book demonstrates the validity of important Marxian and Keynesian insights into the growth process. (shrink)

Definition of the problem. During the last few years obstetricians have become concerned over an increasing rate of cesarean sections, especially an increasing rate of ”section on demand” for non-medical, but personal reasons of pregnant women. For physicians this is a question of risks and benefits for both mother and child. On the other hand, there is the duty to respect women’s autonomy. Arguments. Pregnant women are healthy and the act of giving birth to a child is a (...) physiological one. Thus, the indication has to be proved carefully for surgical intervention instead of vaginal delivery. Cesarean section for non-medical reasons may be helpful for women with an extreme fear of vaginal delivery or previous traumatic experiences. On the other hand the possibility for pregnant women to choose their preferred mode of delivery is combined with the question, whether cesarean section on demand fulfils their demand for a self-determined delivery. Conclusion. With a mode of delivery oriented to the person instead of to the method, self-determination can be realized. Cesarean Section on demand can achieve this in some individual cases. However women’s own ability, activity, and involvement in giving birth to a child may be a stronger manifestation of self-determination. (shrink)

Competition cannot stem the rise of health care expenditures because it leaves agency diffuse and transferred in part to the institutions of advanced capitalism, which excel in generating demand for their services. The United States should turn to state rate setting to concentrate purchasing power.

ObjectivesNovel information about the relationships between farmers’ job demands, lack of resource, burnout, and ill health is reported based on testing the so-called “health impairment process” of the Job Demands─Resources Model on a representative sample of Finnish dairy farmers. The aim was to find out whether two different job demand factors; workload, societal demands and lack of resource; loneliness, were related to the indicators of ill health via burnout.MethodsThe data is based on a postal survey of 400 Finnish dairy farms. (...) Altogether 265 questionnaires were received from 188 farms and included in the analysis. The response rate was 47 per cent among sample farms. Structural equation modelling was used to analyze the relationships between the variables. Explanatory factor analysis was used to group the job demand and lack of resource variables.ResultsWe identified two job demand factors, which we labelled workload and societal demands and one lacking job resource, loneliness. Our theoretical model was supported in that two of the factors, namely workload and loneliness, were related to ill health indirectly via burnout. In addition, workload was directly connected with ill health. Societal job demands were not significantly related to burnout, or to ill health.ConclusionOur results suggest that farmers could benefit from means to reduce workload, especially the physical load. This topic needs further research as the restructuring process has increased farm enterprise sizes. There is a need to develop tools and projects to alleviate loneliness among farmers. Lack of social support, high workload, ill health, and burnout among farmers may have serious direct and indirect negative consequences for the sustainability of farming. (shrink)

Throughout history, education has always been essential for humanity's justice and fundamental for the creation of a free and satisfying society with the dissemination of knowledge. Hence, in addition to the life occurrences educating people, traditional higher education methods have played an important role for a long period. However, the age of technology has changed the educational system along with the people's lifestyles to meet the continuously changing conditions. During the past twenty years, the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) led (...) to the emergence of e-learning non-traditional educational methods bringing about an innovative dimension of virtual learning. With its beneficial features provided by the Internet and various technologies, this method passes the control of time and location from the tutors to the students during the learning process. Despite the entrance of online education into the students' life many years ago, the Covid-19 outbreak initiated in 2020 turned this method into the only possible way of education for almost two years. Afterward, plenty of studies investigated its effects on students' social and academic life, mostly considering its negative impacts on their mental health and motivation due to interaction issues. They also pointed out the specific problems of tactile learner students in the lack of face-to-face design courses. As an innovative solution able to be adopted, game technologies, increasing immersion of the learner in a real-world skill, and triggering motivation are one of the best methods integrated into educational systems. Known as serious games, these games, adopted by almost any domain, convey educational content along with entertainment, increasing interaction. They train or enhance a certain skill or topic to the player by immersing them. While serious games are more expanded nowadays, they are still not being played by the mass public due to people's immersiveness expectations of a game. Hence, the Head-Mounted Displays (HMDs), with their emergence, increased the players' engagement and immersion with all types of virtual environments in digital games. This technology, however, evolved serious games area most, among others, by enabling the opportunity to provide a riskless and low-cost learning environment for real-world skills. In the process of suggesting serious games as a replacement for the traditional educational methods, the most important factor is being aware of their effectiveness for education. Generally, digital games, one of the world's biggest and fastest-growing industries, rely heavily on the virtual landscape, a major part of its development process. Its design demands remarkable effort, and it directly affects the whole game's characteristics. Hence, serious games, as a type of digital game, carry the same attributes. With the appearance of virtual reality technology, gaming started to gain more immersiveness and engagement with artificial elements and environments. Although virtual landscapes were always being developed since the emergence of digital games, the studies taking virtual landscapes into account are mostly using them as a tool for enhancing real spaces, not as a domain for the sake of its development. While other design domains are applying various design methodologies, it is challenging to find a standard design methodology for the design and production of virtual landscapes in the gaming industry, leading to inconsistent and low-quality results. Hence, it comes to the question of what is the virtual landscapes' role in serious games and their effect on the data comprehension rate. Since the literature lacks regarding the gradual change of the virtual landscape in serious games and the content they transmit, this thesis aims to figure out the gradual chronological evolution of the virtual landscapes in serious games. It also aims to seek how this change and the virtual reality technology invention have affected the contents transmitted by digital games and its influence on the player interaction and learning rate. To do so, in the process of this thesis, we developed, tested, and evaluated various serious games, both text-based and with 360° photos. The steps taken revealed the reluctance of the players to follow the providing educational content and their inadequacy of interaction. Hence, the thesis seeks the reasons ending to this result and the ways of increasing this learning rate. Afterward, the thesis uses a currently available but not massively used digital game classification methodology. This methodology, which is based on the principles of architecture, landscape architecture, and urban planning, classifies the games based on their constituting virtual landscapes. Hence, the thesis considers all Steam games, one of the biggest video game digital distribution services, filtered with the 'education' tag, ending in 2531 digital games. Afterward, adding the 'game' tag the result reduced to 1102 games. Finally, with some manual filterings ignoring the irrelevant content, the final number decreased to 702. Sorting chronologically, we made an Excel database including the games' introductory information, the content they transmit, their release date, if they support HMD or not, and whether they are simulation games or not. Due to Steam's dating spectrum, our database includes games dating back from 1992 to 2020. Afterward, we classified all of these games using the virtual landscape classification methodology and generated their related codes based on their player scale, story, dimension, space shape, and interaction level. Investigating the results, they revealed some growth patterns relating to the content educated in the game, the VR technology, and the virtual landscape evolution. Adding the user reviews of Steam, we reverse engineered five of the best serious games on the database due to the digital game design methodology. This methodology divides the games' virtual environment into five layers, namely, player activity map (PAM), story layer, natural environment layer, virtual environment layer, and media layer. Reverse engineering the five best digital games ever, based on the IGN database, enabled us to compare the outcomes. Due to released data, we understand how the games' assets are distributed within the various layers of the virtual environment in the most successful games. Finally, the thesis aims to provide a framework based on these results for developing serious games to increase player interaction and enhance the learning rate. However, these results can be expanded to any virtual landscape other than only serious games' for their interaction enhancement. Currently, the landscape architecture domain only adopts the virtual landscape area as a tool for enhancing design in the real world. However, in the near future, landscape architects will perform in the virtual landscape area as a domain to be enhanced. Hence, that day, the results of this study will play an important role and will be a roadmap for generating highly interactive virtual landscapes. (shrink)

The agricultural communicator is a key link in transmitting information to farmers. If agricultural communicators' ethics are compromised, the resulting biases in news production could have serious detrimental effects on the quality of information conveyed to farmers. But, to date, agricultural communicators' perceptions of ethical problems they encounter at work has not been examined. This study looks at the dimensions of ethical concerns for topics area (agricultural) journalists as defined by practitioners. To determine these dimensions, we sent open ended questionnaires (...) (50 percent response rate) to members of two professional agricultural journalist associations: the Newspaper Farm Editors of America and the American Agricultural Editors' Association.Agricultural communicators overwhelmingly focus on one specific threat to objectivity—advertising pressure. Both NFEA and AAEA respondents indicated that agricultural journalists' responses to advertising pressure adversely affected the entire profession. The responses indicated that agricultural writers were concerned with the different types of pressures and the effects of advertising pressure on the industry as a whole. NFEA and AAEA respondents mentioned both indirect pressure, “freebies,” conferences, trips and press releases from advertising or public relations sections of agri-business firms, and direct pressures from advertisers, salesmen and publishers. The respondents were clearly more comfortable when newspaper policy protected them from advertising pressure and when they had techniques to reduce this pressure. The editors' and reporters' perceptions of advertising pressure clearly indicates that advertising abuses are a clear and present danger and one worthy of far more attention than it has previously received. (shrink)

In this paper, we present an expansion of one of the well-known classical inventory management models, which is the static model of inventory management without a deficit and for a single substance, based on the neutrosophic logic, where we provide through this study a basis for dealing with all data, whether specific or undefined in the field of inventory management, as it provides safe environment to manage inventory without running into deficit , and give us an approximate ideal volume of (...) inventory. Since the ideal size is affected by the rate of demand for inventory, we present in this paper a study of the rate of demand for inventory when it is not precisely refined, and we find that the indeterminate values of the demand rate cannot be ignored, because they actually affect determining the ideal size of inventory and calculating its costs, thus affecting on the efficiency of the facility and achieve great profits for it. (shrink)

The finding that people tend to prefer logically valid conclusions over invalid ones is known in the literature as the logic‐liking effect and has traditionally been interpreted as evidence for the notion of so‐called logical intuitions. Results of more recent empirical studies investigating conditional and categorical syllogisms suggest, however, that previous instances of the logic‐liking effect can be accounted for by a confound in terms of surface‐feature atmosphere. But the true nature of this atmosphere effect has so far remained largely (...) elusive. Here, we address this issue and introduce two variants of disjunctive syllogisms that enable us to deconfound validity, possibility of the conclusion, and surface‐feature atmosphere, which has been impossible with simple disjunctive syllogisms used in earlier studies. Three experiments, in which participants were asked to provide liking and logic ratings for these arguments, revealed that the logic‐liking effect in disjunctive syllogisms can be explained by an atmosphere confound in combination with implied demand to consider logicality when judging likability. We also observed a strong atmosphere effect in logic ratings over and above an effect of logical validity per se. Furthermore, atmosphere effects appear to be induced only by specific surface features, namely those that are ecologically valid, if fallible, predictors for logicality. We conclude that acquired atmosphere heuristics provide proxies for logical validity that reasoners often take at face value. A comparison of the present results with previous findings from experiments that focused on conditional and categorical syllogisms additionally indicates that these atmosphere heuristics are used irrespective of an argument's complexity. (shrink)

In Canada, all research conducted by individuals associated with universities must be subjected to review by research ethics boards (REB). Unfortunately, decisions reached by REBs may seriously compromise the integrity of university-based research. In this paper attention will focus on how requirements of REBs and a legal department in four Canadian universities affected response rates to a survey of domestic and international students. It will be shown that in universities in which students were sent a legalistic cover letter to a (...) mail survey, or were required to sign a consent form, lower response rates were achieved than in universities in which students were sent a relatively friendly letter. In turn, lower response rates resulted in: sample characteristics that deviated from population characteristics; a reduction in the possibility of testing research hypotheses; and increased survey costs. As a consequence, it is argued that the unreasonable demands of REBs are seriously compromising the quality of research that can be carried out on Canadian university students. (shrink)

The demand for donor organs for transplantation in the UK far exceeds the supply. A number of improvements in the infrastructure surrounding organ donation, as well as attempts to increase public awareness, have been made over recent years, but there remains a massive shortfall. It has been proposed that a system of presumed consent for organ donation, in which all individuals are considered to be potential organ donors after death unless they have previously opted out, may serve to increase the (...) supply of organs. Recently the Welsh Assembly passed a Bill introducing presumed consent by 2015, but the debates regarding legislative changes are still on-going in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The ethical implications of presumed consent legislation are at the centre of these discussions. When examined by a principlist approach, presumed consent may be deemed to be an ethically beneficial measure to increase organ donation rates. It is argued here that the system of presumed consent may actually be more respectful of the principle of autonomy than a system of explicit consent, on the basis that it goes against the wishes of the fewest number of people, and it has clear benefits in terms of beneficence and justice whilst also being compatible with the principle of nonmaleficence. Although there is some debate about the precise impact that presumed consent would have on donation rates, there is evidence to suggest that it would result in an increase in the donor organ supply, when combined with improvements in education and infrastructure. (shrink)

The purpose of the study is to explore a new research methodology that will improve our understanding of “flow” through indicators of physiological and qualitative state. We examine indicators of “flow” experienced by musicians of a youth string quartet, two women (25, 29) and two men (23, 24). Electrocardiogram (ECG) equipment was used to record heart rate variability (HRV) data throughout the four movements in one and the same quartet performed during two concerts. Individual physiological indicators of flow were (...) supplemented by assessments of group “state flow” (means from standardized questionnaires) and a group interview in which the musicians provided qualitative data. A matrix was constructed for the characterization of different kinds of demands in the written music in each one of the four movements for each one of the musicians. HRV derived from ECG data showed non-significant trends for group state flow across the eight musical episodes. Individual-level analysis showed that compared to the other players the first violin player had the highest mean heart rate and the lowest increase in high frequency (HF) power in HRV during this particular movement, particularly during the second concert. The qualitative data illustrated how an interplay of synchronized social interactions between this player and their colleagues during the musical performance was associated with a feeling of group state flow and served to support the first violinist. The case illustrates that the proposed mixed methodology drawing on physiological and qualitative data, has the potential to provide meaningful information about experiences of a flow state, both at individual and group levels. Applications in future research are possible. (shrink)

BackgroundThe rating of perceived exertion scales with respiratory and muscular illustrations are recognized as simple and practical methods to understand individual psychometric characteristics in breathing and muscle exertion during exercise. However, the implementation of respiratory and muscular RPE to quantify training load in futsal training camps has not been examined. This study investigates respiratory and muscular RPE relationships during domestic training camps and overseas training camps in an under 20 futsal national team.MethodsData collected from eleven field players were used for (...) comparison in this study. All players reported Borg CR10 RPE and 7-scales respiratory RPE and muscular RPE after training sessions and matches. Additionally, total distance covered and training impulse were used to quantify external and internal loads via the Polar Team Pro system. Paired-sample t-tests were used to compare the RPECR10, RPErespiration, RPEmuscle, TD, and TRIMP between DTC and OTC. Furthermore, linear regression was performed to determine the relationships among all RPE scales, TD, and TRIMP.ResultsThe RPECR10, TD, and TRIMP showed significant difference between DTC and OTC. Furthermore, linear regression analyses showed significant correlation between RPErespiration and RPEmuscle, RPECR10 and RPErespiration, and RPECR10 and RPEmuscle.ConclusionPictorial RPErespiration or RPEmuscle can be used as an alternative to quantify perceived measures of internal loads during DTC and OTC in futsal players. Interpretation of perceived measures of training load and cardiac-related responses in association with external training loads during short-term training camps would be useful in further understanding the demands of futsal players’ experience in these circumstances. (shrink)

Malpractice insurance rates have created a crisis in American medicine. Rates are rising and reimbursements are not keeping pace. In response, physicians in the states hardest hit by this crisis are feeling compelled to take political action, and the current action of choice seems to be physician strikes. While the malpractice insurance crisis is acknowledged to be severe, does it justify the extreme action of a physician walkout? Should physicians engage in this type of collective action, and what are the (...) costs to patients and the profession when such action is taken? I will offer three related arguments against physician strikes that constitute a prima facie prohibition against such action: first, strikes are intended to cause harm to patients; second, strikes are an affront to the physician-patient relationship; and, third, strikes risk decreasing the public's respect for the medical profession. As with any prima facie obligation, there are justifying conditions that may override the moral prohibition, but I will argue that the current malpractice crisis does not rise to the level of such a justifying condition. While the malpractice crisis demands and justifies a political response on the part of the nation's physicians, strikes and slow-downs are not an ethically justified means to the legitimate end of controlling insurance costs. (shrink)

The increasing global demand for energy necessitates devoted attention to the formulation and exploration of mechanisms of thermal heat exchangers to explore and save heat energy. Thus, innovative thermal transport fluids require to boost thermal conductivity and heat flow features to upsurge convection heat rate, and nanofluids have been effectively employed as standard heat transfer fluids. With such intention, herein, we formulated and developed the constitutive flow laws by utilizing the Rossland diffusion approximation and Stephen’s law along with the (...) MHD effect. The mathematical formulation is based on boundary layer theory pioneered by Prandtl. Governing nonlinear partial differential flow equations are changed to ODEs via the implementation of the similarity variables. A well-known computational algorithm BVPh2 has been utilized for the solution of the nonlinear system of ODEs. The consequence of innumerable physical parameters on flow field, thermal distribution, and solutal field, such as magnetic field, Lewis number, velocity parameter, Prandtl number, drag force, Nusselt number, and Sherwood number, is plotted via graphs. Finally, numerical consequences are compared with the homotopic solution as a limiting case, and an exceptional agreement is found. (shrink)

The increasing demand for horticultural products for nutritional and economic purposes by lesser developed countries (LDC's) is well-documented. Technological demands of the LDC's producing horticultural products is also increasing. Pesticide use is an integral component of most agricultural production, yet chemicals are often supplied without supplemental information vital for their safe and efficient implementation. Illiteracy rates in developing countries are high, making pesticide education even more challenging. For women, who perform a significant share of agricultural tasks, illiteracy rates are even (...) higher than for men. The dilemma exists of how a developing country can improve its nutritional and economic situation without giving consideration to social and environmental consequences. (shrink)

The poor survival rate of primary sources for the history of Irish women in the early modern period is mitigated by the sophistication with which extant sources are now being analysed. When re-examined without reference to the demands of the traditional historical grand narrative, when each text itself is permitted to guide its own interrogation, previously undervalued texts are revealed to be insightful of individual existential experience. The memoir of eighteenth-century Dorothea Herbert, hitherto much ignored due to the authors (...) mental illness, is becoming increasingly respected not just for its historic evidential value but for the revelations it contains of a distressed individuals use of literature to manage her circumstances. The interpretive tools deployed on such a text by different research specialisms necessarily lead to divergent conclusions; this in turn may lead to creative re-imagining of history although they cannot all equally reflect what was likely to have been the lived reality of the original author. (shrink)

From humans to hermit crabs to deep water plankton, all living things compete for locally limiting resources. This universal truth unites three bodies of thought--economics, evolution, and history--that have developed largely in mutual isolation. Here, Geerat Vermeij undertakes a groundbreaking and provocative exploration of the facts and theories of biology, economics, and geology to show how processes common to all economic systems--competition, cooperation, adaptation, and feedback--govern evolution as surely as they do the human economy, and how historical patterns in both (...) human and nonhuman evolution follow from this principle.Using a wealth of examples of evolutionary innovations, Vermeij argues that evolution and economics are one. Powerful consumers and producers exercise disproportionate controls on the characteristics, activities, and distribution of all life forms. Competition-driven demand by consumers, when coupled with supply-side conditions permitting economic growth, leads to adaptation and escalation among organisms. Although disruptions in production halt or reverse these processes temporarily, they amplify escalation in the long run to produce trends in all economic systems toward greater power, higher production rates, and a wider reach for economic systems and their strongest members.Despite our unprecedented power to shape our surroundings, we humans are subject to all the economic principles and historical trends that emerged at life's origin more than 3 billion years ago. Engagingly written, brilliantly argued, and sweeping in scope, Nature: An Economic History shows that the human institutions most likely to preserve opportunity and adaptability are, after all, built like successful living things. (shrink)

Detractors of temporal passage often argue that it is meaningless to say that time passes or flows, else time would have to pass at a rate of one second per second, which is in fact not a rate but a number, namely one. Several attempts have been recently made to avoid this conclusion, by retorting that one second per second is in fact not identical to one. This paper shows that this kind of reply is not satisfactory, because (...) it demands a substantive revision of the algebraic behaviour of quantities. (shrink)

Academics and professionals working with young women face a series of paradoxes. Over the last 20 years, the lives of young women in the UK and Europe have been transformed. They have gained considerable freedom and independence, but at the very same time, new, less tangible forms of constraint and subordination now play a defining role in the formation of their everyday subjectivities and identities. Young women have come to exemplify the pervasive sensibility of self-responsibility and self-organisation. This new ‘gender (...) regime’ demands both conceptualisation and practical response, drawing on educational research, social and cultural theory, and contemporary feminist thought. Within the overarching theme of pedagogical responses to these trends, through work in schools and within young women’s online and face-to-face communities, this book interrogates the field of sexuality and its visualisation across new and old media in the context of often predictable and endemic ‘moral panics’ about teenage pregnancy rates, sexually transmitted diseases, and internet pornography. In exploring how girls and young women respond to increasing expectations of them as the vanguard of economic, social, and cultural change, contributors to this volume interrogate the ways in which social and educational aspiration interact with young women’s developing and embodied identities. This book was originally published as a special issue of _Pedagogy, Culture and Society. _. (shrink)

Egalitarian liberal political philosophers have been at pains to show that there is a nonnegligible “place” for liberty within the framework of an egalitarian theory of justice. Thus, many have insisted that, when redistribution is required in order to achieve greater equality, assets should be transferred in the most abstract form possible, ideally through a system of cash transfers. In this article we argue that this strategy has the potential to generate significant violations of neutrality. The problem arises from the (...) fact that individuals with certain rates of time preference often want to use social institutions as self-binding mechanisms and as a result may exhibit a preference for in-kind benefits or other institutional arrangements that are frequently misclassified as paternalistic. We argue that egalitarians who rely on cash transfers as a way of accommodating the demands of liberty do so at the expense of neutrality. (shrink)

From the INTRODUCTION. The measurement of intelligence at the present time is a well recognized part of psychology. The growth of this work and the interest shown in it during the last three decades have been truly remarkable. We have witnessed the establishment of innumerable clinics and the appearance of the "mental tester." This growth has been characterized by the practical considerations of clinical examinations. The need for a psychological examination has been recognized and answers to practical situations have been (...) demanded before the psychologist has really had time to formulate his own conceptions of the whole problem. Theoretical considerations have lagged behind the practical application of mental tests. We have been measuring intelligence long before we have decided as to what intelligence really is. Far from being a drawback, as this at first sight would appear to be, it has in fact proved' to be of distinct advantage, since the measurement of this something, that we have been making, is leading us slowly but surely to a real knowledge of what can with profit be called "general intelligence." Only after considerable work with mental tests did psychologists arrive at the now generally accepted definition of intelligence, as enunciated by Stern, that "Intelligence is a general capacity of an individual consciously to adjust his thinking to new requirements: it is general mental adaptability to new problems and conditions of life." Although even this definition of intelligence may be modified in the future, it serves, at the present time, as a good working hypothesis for the selection of tests for mental measurement. Other conceptions of general intelligence are numerous and many are very similar. Binet, for example, says: "It seems to us that in intelligence there is a fundamental faculty, the alteration or the lack of which is of the utmost importance for practical life. This faculty is judgment, otherwise called good sense, initiative, the faculty of adapting one's self to circumstances. To judge well, to comprehend well, to reason well, these are the essential activities of intelligence." Meumann says general intelligence depends on two qualities, "(1) on the capacity for independent, productive thought (productive, synthetic thinking).... (2).the intensity of the whole mental life." Ebbinghaus makes intelligence include abstraction and the ability to compare and contrast. Burt says that the result of his work "strongly suggests that it is one feature or function of attentive consciousness which forms the basis of intelligence, namely, the power of readjustment to relatively novel situations by organizing new psycho-physical co-ordinations." And lastly Hart and Spearman look upon general intelligence as a "common factor" or "central tendency" not exactly definable, but entering into all sorts of mental activities to a greater or less degree. In addition to these hypotheses as to the nature of intelligence, theoretical considerations as to the growth of intelligence and the general distribution of the various grades of intelligence are arising as a direct result of the practical work being done. Questions as to the rate of increase in normal mentality are being raised, and the theoretical assumptions, upon which we base our classification of individuals into different groups, are being discussed. (shrink)

During a pandemic, demand for intensive care often exceeds availability. Experts agree that allocation should maximize benefits and must not be based on whether patients could have taken preventive measures. However, intensive care units are often overburdened by individuals with severe COVID-19 who have chosen not to be vaccinated to prevent the disease. This article reports an experiment that investigated the German public's prioritization preferences during the fourth wave of the coronavirus pandemic. In a series of scenarios, participants were asked (...) to decide on ICU admission for patients who differed in terms of health condition, expected treatment benefits, and vaccination status. The results reveal an in-group bias, as vaccinated individuals preferred to allocate more resources to the vaccinated than to the unvaccinated. Participants also favored admitting a heart attack patient rather than a COVID-19 patient with the same likelihood of benefiting from ICU admission, indicating a preference for maintaining regular ICU services rather than treating those with severe COVID-19. Finally, participants were more likely to admit a patient to intensive care when this meant withholding rather than withdrawing care from another patient. The results indicate that lay prioritizations violate established allocation principles, presaging potential conflicts between those in need of intensive care and those who provide and allocate it. It is therefore recommended that allocation principles should be explained to enhance public understanding. Additionally, vaccination rates should be increased to relieve ICUs and reduce the need for such triage decisions. (shrink)

Trieste Publishing has a massive catalogue of classic book titles. Our aim is to provide readers with the highest quality reproductions of fiction and non-fiction literature that has stood the test of time. The many thousands of books in our collection have been sourced from libraries and private collections around the world.The titles that Trieste Publishing has chosen to be part of the collection have been scanned to simulate the original. Our readers see the books the same way that their (...) first readers did decades or a hundred or more years ago. Books from that period are often spoiled by imperfections that did not exist in the original. Imperfections could be in the form of blurred text, photographs, or missing pages. It is highly unlikely that this would occur with one of our books. Our extensive quality control ensures that the readers of Trieste Publishing's books will be delighted with their purchase. Our staff has thoroughly reviewed every page of all the books in the collection, repairing, or if necessary, rejecting titles that are not of the highest quality. This process ensures that the reader of one of Trieste Publishing's titles receives a volume that faithfully reproduces the original, and to the maximum degree possible, gives them the experience of owning the original work.We pride ourselves on not only creating a pathway to an extensive reservoir of books of the finest quality, but also providing value to every one of our readers. Generally, Trieste books are purchased singly - on demand, however they may also be purchased in bulk. Readers interested in bulk purchases are invited to contact us directly to enquire about our tailored bulk rates. (shrink)

Background: Providing oncological care to children is demanding and ethical issues concerning what is best for the child can contribute to moral distress. Objectives: To explore healthcare professionals’ experiences of situations that generate moral distress in Swedish paediatric oncology. Research design: In this national study, data collection was conducted using the Swedish Moral Distress Scale-Revised. The data analysis included descriptive statistics and non-parametric analysis of differences between groups. Participants and research context: Healthcare professionals at all paediatric oncology centres in Sweden (...) were invited to participate. A total of 278 healthcare professionals participated. The response rate was 89%. Ethical considerations: In its advisory statement, the Regional Ethical Review Board decided that the study was of such a nature that the legislation concerning ethical reviews was not applicable. All participants received written information about the aim of the study and confidentiality. Participants demonstrated their consent by returning the survey. Findings: The two situations with the highest moral distress scores concerned lack of competence and continuity of personnel. All professional groups reported high levels of disturbance. Nurses rated significantly higher frequencies and higher total Moral Distress Scale scores compared to medical doctors and nursing assistants. Discussion: Lack of competence and continuity, as the two most morally distressing situations, confirms the findings of studies from other countries, where inadequate staffing was reported as being among the top five morally distressing situations. The levels of total Moral Distress Scale scores were more similar to those reported in intensive care units than in other paediatric care settings. Conclusion: The two most morally distressing situations, lack of competence and continuity, are both organisational in nature. Thus, clinical ethics support services need to be combined with organisational improvements in order to reduce moral distress, thereby maintaining job satisfaction, preventing a high turnover of staff and ensuring the quality of care. (shrink)

In a crisis, societal needs take precedence over a patient’s best interests. Triage guidelines, however, differ on whether limited resources should focus on maximizing lives or life-years. Choosing between these two approaches has implications for neonatology. Neonatal units have ventilators, some adaptable for adults. This raises the question of whether, in crisis conditions, guidelines for treating extremely premature babies should be altered to free-up ventilators. Some adults who need ventilators will have a survival rate higher than some extremely premature (...) babies. But surviving babies will likely live longer, maximizing life-years. Empiric evidence demonstrates that these babies can derive significant survival benefits from ventilation when compared to adults. When “triaging” or choosing between patients, justice demands fair guidelines. Premature babies do not deserve special consideration; they deserve equal consideration. Solidarity is crucial but must consider needs specific to patient populations and avoid biases against people with disabilities and extremely premature babies. (shrink)

Resumen. En México, la mercadotecnia promocional se ha erigido como la segunda más grande inversión demercadotecnia, principalmente debido a que las compañías tienden con más frecuencia a subcontratar laresponsabilidad de los aspectos operativos de la mercadotecnia. Las empresas contratantes exigen cada vezmás la garantía de seguridad y certidumbre en la prestación de los servicios, por lo que la calidad de éste seha convertido en un factor determinante en la elección de una agencia de promociones. El presentedocumento técnico busca compartir un (...) caso de estudio relacionado a una empresa de promoción de ventasque enfrenta una alta tasa de deserción de clientes con su consecuente contracción en las ventas, pero quecontradictoriamente está inmersa en un mercado que tiene un crecimiento sostenido del 15 por ciento en losúltimos años. El problema fue abordado desde la perspectiva de la calidad en el servicio y la satisfacción delcliente a través de la aplicación de encuestas Servqual a algunos clientes de la compañía. Dichas encuestaspermitieron: identificar las dimensiones de calidad relevantes en el servicio, detectar las áreas de oportunidadentre el servicio esperado y el servicio real, y la elaboración de un plan de acción que posteriormente fuesistematizado e implementado. Los resultados muestran que la implementación del sistema de calidad redujola deserción de los clientes; además, se descubrió que las dimensiones de calidad del Servqual afectan enproporciones diferentes a la satisfacción del cliente.Palabras Claves. Calidad en el servicio, deserción de clientes, mercadotecnia promocional, promoción deventas, QFD, satisfacción del cliente, Servqual, sistema de calidad.. In Mexico, the promotional marketing has emerged as the second largest marketing investment,mainly because companies tend to outsource most often the operational aspects of marketing. Thosecompanies are increasingly demanding security and certainty in the delivery of services. As a consequence,service quality has become a determining factor in the election of a sales promotion agency. This technicalpaperwork shares a case study related to a sales promotion company facing high customer defection rate withits consequent contraction in sales, but ironically immersed in a market that has a sustained growth of 15 per cent in recent years. Approach of the problem was from quality service and customer satisfaction perspectivethrough the use of Servqual surveys applied to some customers. These surveys allowed: to identify relevantdimensions of quality service, to identify opportunities between the expected service and the actual service,and the development of an action plan which was later systematized and implemented. Results show that theimplementation of the quality system reduced customer desertion. Also, found that the quality dimensions of SERVQUAL affect customer satisfaction in different ways.Keywords. Customer defection, customer satisfaction, quality service, quality system, QFD, sales promotion,Servqual. (shrink)

During the 18th Century there was an explosion of female writing as well as a demand from women for fiction. This was predominently met by the growing number of circulating libraries and together with the rapid and rather inferior methods of production, precluded a high survival rate for the mass of this genre. This has resulted in a general scarcity and inaccessability of English novels of this period with, until recently, a corresponding shortage of critical knowledge and study. New (...) introductions specially commissioned from Dr Peter Garside, University of Wales Collge of Cardiff, and Dr Caroline Franklin, Trinity College Carmarthen, put these neglected works in the wider context of the development of English Literature. The choice of books reprinted in this first series of 'British Novels in the 18th and 19th Century' also reflects the varied motives of authorship during that period. (shrink)

Global food security challenges demand an understanding of farmers’ gendered practices and perspectives. This research draws on data from a quantitative survey and qualitative methods to explore gender differences related to farmers’ practices, perceptions, and knowledge of pesticides and other pest management practices in tomato growing regions of Ghana and Mali. A pathways approach based on participatory mapping integrates findings and reveals gender differences in labor and knowledge at different stages of tomato production. Farmers in both countries are heavily reliant (...) on pesticides, but there are also differences in pest management knowledge and practices between them. In Mali, farmers are more familiar with Integrated Pest Management practices, but less aware of potential health risks of pesticides and more likely to engage in dangerous agro-chemical practices. In both countries, women are significantly less aware of pesticide dangers and IPM techniques than men and exposed to pesticides though a variety of pathways. We argue that the gender division of labor and differences in access to resources, information, and power between the two sites leads to gendered pesticide exposure pathways that are often unseen by the biological scientists who tend to focus on the field. Gender inequalities in knowledge and unsafe practices were particularly apparent in Mali compared to Ghana, possibly due to the lower literacy rates and decision making power of women and their narrower range of involvement in tomato production. The article concludes with gender sensitive recommendations to improve IPM research methods, trainings, and technology diffusion. (shrink)

Trieste Publishing has a massive catalogue of classic book titles. Our aim is to provide readers with the highest quality reproductions of fiction and non-fiction literature that has stood the test of time. The many thousands of books in our collection have been sourced from libraries and private collections around the world.The titles that Trieste Publishing has chosen to be part of the collection have been scanned to simulate the original. Our readers see the books the same way that their (...) first readers did decades or a hundred or more years ago. Books from that period are often spoiled by imperfections that did not exist in the original. Imperfections could be in the form of blurred text, photographs, or missing pages. It is highly unlikely that this would occur with one of our books. Our extensive quality control ensures that the readers of Trieste Publishing's books will be delighted with their purchase. Our staff has thoroughly reviewed every page of all the books in the collection, repairing, or if necessary, rejecting titles that are not of the highest quality. This process ensures that the reader of one of Trieste Publishing's titles receives a volume that faithfully reproduces the original, and to the maximum degree possible, gives them the experience of owning the original work.We pride ourselves on not only creating a pathway to an extensive reservoir of books of the finest quality, but also providing value to every one of our readers. Generally, Trieste books are purchased singly - on demand, however they may also be purchased in bulk. Readers interested in bulk purchases are invited to contact us directly to enquire about our tailored bulk rates. (shrink)

Analysing the demands of global justice for the distribution of resources is a complex task and requires consideration of a broad range of issues. Of particular relevance is the effect that different distributions will have on global population growth and individual welfare. Since changes in the consumption and distribution of resources can have major effects on the welfare of the global population, and the rate at which it increases, it is important to establish meaningful principles to ensure a just (...) distribution of resources. In order to establish such principles we must consider the scope of any reproductive rights, and rights to other goods, such as food and health care, as well as examine the extent of duties correlating to those rights. In addition to the impact that distributions of global goods have on the welfare of current generations, it is also important to consider what duties we have, if any, to future generations. -/- The final version of this paper is available to download here: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9780470015902.a0024140. (shrink)

Dual process theories conceive human thinking as an interplay between heuristic processes that operate automatically and analytic processes that demand cognitive effort. The interaction between these two types of processes is poorly understood. De Neys and Glumicic (2008) recently found that most of the time heuristic processes are successfully monitored. This monitoring, however, would not demand as many cognitive resources as the analytic thinking that is needed to solve reasoning problems. In the present study we tested the crucial assumption about (...) the effortless nature of the monitoring process directly. Participants solved base-rate neglect problems in which heuristic and analytic processes cued a conflicting response or not. Half of the participants reasoned under a secondary task load. A surprise recall task was used as an implicit measure of whether the participants detected the conflict in the problems. Results showed that, even under load, base-rate recall performance was better for conflict problems than for no-conflict problems. Although participants made more reasoning errors under load, recall of the conflict problems was not affected by the working memory load. These findings support the claim about the successful and undemanding nature of the conflict detection process during thinking. (shrink)

Economic growth is determined by the supply and demand of investment capital; technology determines the demand for capital; while human nature determines the supply. The supply curve has two distinct parts; giving the world economy two distinct modes. In the familiar slow growth mode; rates of return are limited by human discount rates. In the fast growth mode; investment is limited by the world's wealth. Historical trends suggest that we may transition to the fast mode in roughly another century and (...) a half. Can some new technology switch us to the fast mode more quickly than this? Perhaps; but such a technology must greatly raise the rate of return for the world's expected worst investment project. It must thus be very broadly applicable; improving almost all forms of capital and investment. Furthermore; investment externalities must remain within certain limits. (shrink)

The growing gap between demands and resources is putting immense pressure on all government spending in Sweden. The gap is especially apparent in care and services for elderly people in light of the rapid aging of the population. The article considers the decisions and priorities concerning resource allocation in the welfare sector in general and in elderly care in particular. The aim is to describe the political and administrative setting and to provide a conceptual structure that outlines the nature of (...) the problem. Various levels of decision making are identified and discussed in the context of political accountability. Current transitions in elderly care are described with respect to service provision, marketisation, coverage rates, and eligibility standards. Basic principles of distribution are highlighted in order to clarify some central concepts of efficiency and justice, and a number of strategies for actual prioritising are identified. The article concludes with an endorsement of more conscious decisions in resource allocation. Existing knowledge and information concerning the effects of various strategies must be utilised, and the values and assumptions used for setting priorities must be made explicit. (shrink)

This volume presents critical writings on the work of the later mercantilists. Sir Josiah Child was elected a governor of the East India Company in 1681. His reputation as an economist rests on his book 'A New Discourse of Trade' published in 1693. His work stimulated a wide range of discussion of such topics as interest rates, population, wage policy, poor relief and colonization. Despite many liberal elements in his thinking, he was a typical Mercantilist in his preference for administrative (...) solutions to economic problems. John Locke, best known for his work on political philosophy, made a major contribution to the debate on the rate of interest in his essay 'Some Considerations of the Consequences of the Lowering of Interest and Raising the Value of Money' (1692). The central theme of that pamphlet was that the rate of interest, being the price for the hire of money, is determined by the demand for and supply of money, which Parliament is powerless to affect. Locke's other major contribution to economic thought was the so called labour theory of private property contained in the 'Two Treaties on Government' (1690), a classic in the history of political philosophy. (shrink)