The co-occurrence of stress-induced posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and obesity is common, particularly among military personnel but the link between these conditions is unclear. Individuals with comorbid PTSD and obesity manifest other physical and psychological problems, which significantly diminish their quality of life. Current understanding of the pathways connecting stress to PTSD and obesity is focused largely on behavioral mediators alone with little consideration of the biological regulatory mechanisms that underlie their co-occurrence. In this work, we leverage prior knowledge to (...) systematically highlight such bio-behavioral mechanisms and inform on the design of confirmatory pilot studies. We use natural language processing (NLP) to extract documented regulatory interactions involved in the metabolic response to stress and its impact on obesity and PTSD from over 8 million peer-reviewed papers. The resulting network describes the propagation of stress to PTSD and obesity through 34 metabolic mediators using 302 documented regulatory interactions supported by over 10,000 citations. Stress jointly affected both conditions through 21 distinct pathways involving only two intermediate metabolic mediators out of a total of 76 available paths through this network. Moreover, oxytocin (OXT), Neuropeptide-Y (NPY), and cortisol supported an almost direct propagation of stress to PTSD and obesity with different net effects. Although stress upregulated both NPY and cortisol, the downstream effects of both markers are reported to relieve PTSD severity but exacerbate obesity. The stress-mediated release of oxytocin, however, was found to concurrently downregulate the severity of both conditions. These findings highlight how a network-informed approach that leverages prior knowledge might be used effectively in identifying key mediators like OXT though experimental verification of signal transmission dynamics through each path will be needed to determine the actual likelihood and extent of each marker’s participation. (shrink)

One of the world’s leading philosophers offers aspiring thinkers his personal trove of mind-stretching thought experiments. Over a storied career, Daniel C. Dennett has engaged questions about science and the workings of the mind. His answers have combined rigorous argument with strong empirical grounding. And a lot of fun. Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking offers seventy-seven of Dennett’s most successful "imagination-extenders and focus-holders" meant to guide you through some of life’s most treacherous subject matter: evolution, meaning, mind, and (...) free will. With patience and wit, Dennett deftly deploys his thinking tools to gain traction on these thorny issues while offering readers insight into how and why each tool was built. Alongside well-known favorites like Occam’s Razor and reductio ad absurdum lie thrilling descriptions of Dennett’s own creations: Trapped in the Robot Control Room, Beware of the Prime Mammal, and The Wandering Two-Bitser. Ranging across disciplines as diverse as psychology, biology, computer science, and physics, Dennett’s tools embrace in equal measure light-heartedness and accessibility as they welcome uninitiated and seasoned readers alike. As always, his goal remains to teach you how to "think reliably and even gracefully about really hard questions." A sweeping work of intellectual seriousness that’s also studded with impish delights, Intuition Pumps offers intrepid thinkers—in all walks of life—delicious opportunities to explore their pet ideas with new powers. (shrink)

Different disciplines converge to trace language evolution from motor skills. The human ability to use tools has been advocated as a fundamental step toward the emergence of linguistic processes in the brain. Neuropsychological and neuroimaging research has established that linguistic functions and tool-use are mediated by partially overlapping brain networks. Yet, scholars still theoretically debate whether the relationship between tool-use and language is contingent or functionally relevant, since empirical evidence is critically missing. Here, we measured both linguistic production and tool-use (...) abilities in the same participants, as well as manual and linguistic motor skills. A path analysis ruling out unspecific contributions from manual or linguistic motor skills, showed that motor proficiency using a tool lawfully predicts differences in individual linguistic production. In addition, more complex tool-use reveals stronger association between linguistic production and tool mastery. These findings establish the existence of shared cognitive processes between tool-use and language. (shrink)

Bipedalism in the earliest hominid specimens is always accompanied by the reduction of projecting canine teeth. Body size is smaller than chimpanzees or humans, but molar teeth are markedly larger. Use of a pointed stick for defensive purposes on the one hand, and digging for USOs on the other, may be why bipedalism was selected for. Passing such learned behavior to the next generation may have played a role in selecting for language.

In this paper we attempt to analyze the concept of quantum probability within quantum computation and quantum computational logic. While the subjectivist interpretation of quantum probability explains it as a reliable predictive tool for an agent in order to compute measurement outcomes, the objectivist interpretation understands quantum probability as providing reliable information of a real state of affairs. After discussing these different viewpoints we propose a particular objectivist interpretation grounded on the idea that the Born rule provides information about an (...) intensive realm of reality. We then turn our attention to the way in which the subjectivist interpretation of probability is presently applied within both quantum computation and quantum computational logic. Taking as a standpoint our proposed intensive account of quantum probability we discuss the possibilities and advantages it might open for the modeling and development of both quantum computation and quantum computational logic. (shrink)

The role of interaction in learning is essential and profound: it must provide the means to solve open problems (those only vaguely specified in advance), but cannot be captured using our familiar formal cognitive tools. This presents an impasse to those confined to present formalisms; but interaction is fundamentally dynamical, not formal, and with its importance thus underlined it invites the development of a distinctively interactivist account of life and mind. This account is provided, from its roots in the interactivist (...) biological constitution of life, through the evolution of the dual internal regulatory capacities expressed as intentionality and intelligence, to its expression in self-directed anticipative learning in persons and in science. (shrink)

Returning genomic research results to family members raises complex questions. Genomic research on life-limiting conditions such as cancer, and research involving storage and reanalysis of data and specimens long into the future, makes these questions pressing. This author group, funded by an NIH grant, published consensus recommendations presenting a framework. This follow-up paper offers concrete guidance and tools for implementation. The group collected and analyzed relevant documents and guidance, including tools from the Clinical Sequencing Exploratory Research Consortium. The authors then (...) negotiated a consensus toolkit of processes and documents. That toolkit offers sample consent and notification documents plus decision flow-charts to address return of results to family of living and deceased participants, in adult and pediatric research. Core concerns are eliciting participant preferences on sharing results with family and on choice of a representative to make decisions about sharing after participant death. (shrink)

Analysis of sites of newly integrated DNA in cellular genomes is important to several fields, but methods for analyzing and visualizing these datasets are still under development. Here, we describe tools for data analysis and visualization that take as input integration site data from our INSPIIRED pipeline. Paired-end sequencing allows inference of the numbers of transduced cells as well as the distributions of integration sites in target genomes. We present interactive heatmaps that allow comparison of distributions of integration sites to (...) genomic features and that support numerous user-defined statistical tests. To summarize integration site data from human gene therapy samples, we developed a reproducible report format that catalogs sample population structure, longitudinal dynamics, and integration frequency near cancer-associated genes. We also introduce a novel summary statistic, the UC50, which provides a single number summarizing possible clonal expansion. Using these tools, we characterize ongoing longitudinal characterization of a patient from the first trial to treat severe combined immunodeficiency-X1, showing successful reconstitution for 15 years accompanied by persistence of a cell clone with an integration site near the cancer-associated gene CCND2. Software is available at https://github.com/BushmanLab/INSPIIRED. (shrink)

In the majority of academic institutions nursing and medical students receive a traditional education, the content of which tends to be specific to their future roles as health care professionals. In essence, each curriculum design is independent of each course. Over the last decade, however, interest has been accumulating in relation to interprofessional and multiprofessional learning at student level. With the view that learning together during their student training would not only encourage and strengthen future collaboration in practice settings but (...) also enhance patient care, the University of Dundee decided to run a pilot study to explore shared teaching in ethics between medical and nursing students. This article presents a report on the reasons for selecting health care ethics as a precursor for shared teaching, the educational tool used for the sessions, and the results of student and facilitator evaluation of the short course. Overall, despite problems such as poor attendance by some students, and facilitation and timetable difficulties, most of the feedback from students and facilitators has been positive. In essence the ‘idea’ has gone from strength to strength and there are now three levels of shared teaching in ethics between nursing and medical students, with plans to include further sessions with students from other disciplines. Within the text, ‘health care ethics’ will be referred to as ‘ethics’; nursing students/nurses encompasses midwifery students/midwives. (shrink)

A landslide inventory is a detailed register of the spatial distribution, geometry, and attributes of landslides and is essential for landslide hazard analysis, risk management, regional planning, and land use management and development, especially in landslide-prone regions. However, the development of a national landslide inventory is time-consuming and costly. Accordingly, most developing countries, including Sri Lanka, have basic landslide databases, which identify the location, date, and time of occurrence on a point map. This study, therefore, aimed to introduce a new (...) method to report landslide information via a mobile application based on a participatory approach with information recorded in a web portal called the participatory landslide inventory. Twenty-one landslide site locations and their attributes were captured on the PLI web portal using the PLI mobile app. The system administrator then demarcated the landslide boundaries and performed geometrical calculations for each landslide to complete the inventory. Finally, the landslide information was published through the PLI web portal. The PLI is an effective and efficient tool for developing a landslide inventory economically. (shrink)

Crowdsourcing platforms are powerful tools for academic researchers. Proponents claim that crowdsourcing helps researchers quickly and affordably recruit enough human subjects with diverse backgrounds to generate significant statistical power, while critics raise concerns about unreliable data quality, labor exploitation, and unequal power dynamics between researchers and workers. We examine these concerns along three dimensions: methods, fairness, and politics. We find that researchers offer vastly different compensation rates for crowdsourced tasks, and address potential concerns about data validity by using platform-specific tools (...) and user verification methods. Additionally, workers depend upon crowdsourcing platforms for a significant portion of their income, are motivated more by fear of losing access to work than by specific compensation rates, and are frustrated by a lack of transparency and occasional unfair treatment from job requesters. Finally, we discuss critical computing scholars’ proposals to address crowdsourcing’s problems, challenges with implementing these resolutions, and potential avenues for future research. (shrink)

The paper describes supportive actions for users of NC machine tools. From the technical point of view, this comprises new input/output media for interaction with the machine as well as new software tools for help systems. From the organisational point of view, concepts for group work are to be supported and a methology for participation of users in the development process is suggested. A software tool for job order planning is presented which combines organisational and technical aspects. One of the (...) aims of the research reported here, is to explore options of systems which keep the human expert in the loop of shopfloor production. (shrink)

This study examines the relation between firms' corporate philanthropic giving and their performance in three other social domains - employee relations, environmental issues, and product safety. Based on a sample of 384 U.S. companies and using data pooled from 1998 through 2000, we find that worse performers in the other social areas are both more likely to make charitable contributions and that the extent of their giving is larger than for better performers. Analyses of each separate area of social performance, (...) however, indicate that the relation between giving and negative social performance only holds for the environmental issues and product safety areas. We find no significant association between corporate philanthropy and employee relations concerns. In general, these findings suggest that corporate philanthropy may be more a tool of legitimization than a measure of corporate social responsibility. (shrink)

Scholars have focused on algorithms used during sentencing, bail, and parole, but little work explores what we term “carceral algorithms” that are used during incarceration. This paper is focused on the Pennsylvania Additive Classification Tool used to classify prisoners’ custody levels while they are incarcerated. Algorithms that are used during incarceration warrant deeper attention by scholars because they have the power to enact the lived reality of the prisoner. The algorithm in this case determines the likelihood a person would endure (...) additional disciplinary actions, can complete required programming, and gain experiences that, among other things, are distilled into variables feeding into the parole algorithm. Given such power, examining algorithms used on people currently incarcerated offers a unique analytic view to think about the dialectic relationship between data and algorithms. Our examination of the PACT is two-fold and complementary. First, our qualitative overview of the historical context surrounding PACT reveals that it is designed to prioritize incapacitation and control over rehabilitation. While it closely informs prisoner rehabilitation plans and parole considerations, it is rooted in population management for prison securitization. Second, on analyzing data for 146,793 incarcerated people in PA, along with associated metadata related to the PACT, we find it is replete with racial bias as well as errors, omissions, and inaccuracies. Our findings to date further caution against data-driven criminal justice reforms that rely on pre-existing data infrastructures and expansive, uncritical, data-collection routines. (shrink)

We present the system SUBSEXPL used for simulating and comparing explicit substitutions calculi. The system allows the manipulation of expressions of the λ-calculus and of three different styles of explicit substitutions: the λσ, the λse and the suspension calculus. A variation of the suspension calculus, which allows for combination of steps of β-contraction is included too. Implementations of the η-reduction are provided for each style. Other explicit substitutions calculi can be easily incorporated into the system due to its modular structure. (...) The uses of the system include: the visualization of the contractions of the λ-calculus in de Bruijn notation, and of guided one-step reductions as well as normalization via each of the associated substitution calculi. Many useful facilities are included: reductions can be easily recorded as text files, LATEX outputs can be generated and several examples for dealing with arithmetic operations and computational operators such as conditionals and repetitions in the λ-calculus are available. The system can be executed over Emacs using the x-symbol mode in such a way that λ-terms and terms of the explicit substitutions calculi are represented in its natural syntax avoiding the necessity of repeatedly generating LATEX outputs. The system has been of great help for systematically comparing explicit substitutions calculi, as well as for understanding properties of explicit substitutions such as the Preservation of Strong Normalization. In addition, it has been used for teaching basic properties of the λ-calculus such as: computational adequacy, the usefulness of de Bruijn's notation and of making explicit substitutions in real implementations. (shrink)

It is true that Hegelian historicism has indeed led to a dominant ethos of moral relativism bound up with the belief that individual self-actualization is the highest value, thus creating a society that is, in the phrase of H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr. “after God.” Nevertheless, this egocentric and nihilistic relativism exists alongside a robust and militant moral totalitarianism enforced by the modern clerisy of the media, multi-national corporations, and government bureaucrats, that is, a “managerial elite.” This article argues that the (...) transcendental idealism of Kant and the subsequent historicization of Kant’s dialectic by Hegel has served to reconceptualize the older, Baconian view of science, creating the idea that scientific progress is moving toward the goal of a future perfection of absolute rational unity. The a priori rational structure of reality that makes science possible is not a Platonic Ideal, but something that unfolds within history. This is what allowed Marx to conceive of dialectical materialism as a science, and this is what allows the managerial elite of the present to claim a scientific and objective basis for their programs while at the same time using the tools of historical and cultural criticism to relativize and historicize the claims of all competing moral and social “constructs.”. (shrink)

First-year university students have multiple motives for studying and these motives may interact. Yet, past research has primarily focused on a variable-centered, dimensional approach missing out on the possibility to study the joint effect of multiple motives that students may have. Examining the interplay between motives is key to better explain student differences in study success and wellbeing, and to understand different effects that interventions can have in terms of wellbeing and study success. We therefore applied a student-centered, multidimensional approach (...) in which we explored motivational profiles of first-year university students by combining three dimensions of motives for studying which have been shown to be differently related to academic functioning. Using cluster analysis in two independent, consecutive university student cohorts, we identified four meaningful profiles and coined them motivational mindsets. We validated the four mindset profiles not only within each student sample but also found almost identical profiles between the student samples. The motivational mindset profiles were labeled: high-impact mindset, low-impact mindset, social-impact mindset, and self-impact mindset. In addition to validating the paradigm, we developed a mindset classification tool to further use these mindsets in practice and in future research. (shrink)

Despite its long tradition in social psychology, we consider that Cognitive Dissonance Theory presents serious flaws concerning its methodology which question the relevance of the theory, limit breakthroughs, and hinder the evaluation of its core hypotheses. In our opinion, these issues are mainly due to operational and methodological weaknesses that have not been sufficiently addressed since the beginnings of the theory. We start by reviewing the ambiguities concerning the definition and conceptualization of the term cognitive dissonance. We then review the (...) ways it has been operationalized and we present the shortcomings of the actual paradigms. To acquire a better understanding of the theory, we advocate a stronger focus on the nature and consequences of the cognitive dissonance state itself. Next, we emphasize the actual lack of standardization, both in the ways to induce cognitive dissonance and to assess it, which impairs the comparability of the results. Last, in addition to reviewing these limits, we suggest new ways to improve the methodology and we conclude on the importance for the field of psychology to take advantage of these important challenges to go forwards. (shrink)

The release of AlphaFold2 (AF2), a deep‐learning‐aided, open‐source protein structure prediction program, from DeepMind, opened a new era of molecular biology. The astonishing improvement in the accuracy of the structure predictions provides the opportunity to characterize protein systems from uncultured Asgard archaea, key organisms in evolutionary biology. Despite the accumulation in metagenomics‐derived Asgard archaea eukaryotic‐like protein sequences, limited structural and biochemical information have restricted the insight in their potential functions. In this review, we focus on profilin, an actin‐dynamics regulating protein, (...) which in eukaryotes, modulates actin polymerization through (1) direct actin interaction, (2) polyproline binding, and (3) phospholipid binding. We assess AF2‐predicted profilin structures in their potential abilities to participate in these activities. We demonstrate that AF2 is a powerful new tool for understanding the emergence of biological functional traits in evolution. (shrink)

Repression has remained controversial for nearly a century on account of the lack of well-controlled evidence validating it. Here we argue that the conceptual and methodological tools now exist for a rigorous scientific examination of repression, and that a nascent cognitive neuroscience of repression is emerging. We review progress in this area and highlight important questions for this field to address.

In her groundbreaking book, Epistemic Injustice, renowned moral philosopher and social epistemologist Miranda Fricker coined the term epistemic injustice to draw attention to the pervasive impact of epistemic oppression on marginalized social groups. Fricker’s account spurred a flurry of scholarship regarding the discriminatory impact of epistemic injustice and gave birth to a domain of philosophical inquiry that has extended far beyond the disciplinary boundaries of philosophy. In this interview, Fricker responds to questions posed by A. C. Nikolaidis and Winston C. (...) Thompson that address the ways in which epistemic injustice intersects with education as a human endeavour and social institution. In doing so, Fricker reflects on her motivations in writing her book more than fifteen years ago and explicitly addresses some of the most significant contributions of the concept of epistemic injustice as a tool for analysing issues in education. She also offers insights on the purpose of education, outlines educational manifestations of epistemic injustice, and discusses the virtues that educators must exhibit and inculcate in their students in order for epistemic justice to obtain. (shrink)

Family carers of individual’s living with Huntington’s Disease (HD) manage a distinct and unique series of difficulties arising from the complex nature of HD. This paper presents the validation of the definitive measure of quality of life for this group. The Huntington’s Disease Quality of Life Battery for carers (HDQoL-C) was expanded and then administered to an international sample of 1716 partners and family carers from 13 countries. In terms of the psychometric properties of the tool, exploratory analysis of half (...) of the sample, demonstrated good internal consistency and reliability. Some items on the full version did not meet psychometric thresholds and a short version (HDQoL-Cs) was developed based on more stringent criteria. Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the model structure showed a good fit for all Factors and, indicated that the HDQoL-C and HDQoL-Cs are psychometrically robust measures of quality of life. We found that carers who lived with and looked after their spouse/partner had reduced sense of coping, hope for the future and overall quality of life. Carers with children who were at risk, carried the gene or were symptomatic also had poorer quality of life outcomes. Findings indicated the HDQoL-C and HDQoL-Cs are valid in multiple languages and across varied cultures as measures of self-reported quality of life in family carers of individual’s living with HD. These psychometrically validated tools can aid and guide the implementation of therapeutic interventions to improve life quality in this population. (shrink)

This paper develops a general language of event configurations to discuss and compare various modes of proposition formation. It is shown that any finite orthogonality space can be numerically encoded. This encoding is applied to show that the quasimanual of all orthogonal subsets of any finite point-determining orthogonality space may be decomposed into a union of manuals and that the logic of these quasimanuals may be regarded as a composite of interlocking associative orthoalgebras.

The research investigates the role of leadership in the transformation of denominational structures towards a missional ecclesiology, and focusses on the Highveld Synod of the Dutch Reformed Church. It describes the missional journey of the denomination, and interprets the transformation. The theory of ‘complex leadership’ in complex systems is applied to the investigation of the impact of leadership on a denominational structure. The theory identifies three mechanisms used by leaders as enablers in emergent, self-organisation systems: Leaders disrupt existing patterns, they (...) encourage novelty, and they act as sensemakers. These insights are applied as a tool to interpret the missional transformation of a denomination. (shrink)

Recent scholarship, focusing on the rapid decline of microscopy after the late 1680's, has shown that the limitations of microscopy and the ambivalent meaning of its findings led to a wide-spread sense of frustration with the new instrument. The present article tries to connect this fall from favor with the microscope's equally surprising but hitherto little noticed late rise to prominence. The crucial point is that when the microscope, more than a decade after the telescope, finally managed to arouse the (...) interest of natural philosophers, it did so as a corpuscularian tool, and as such it came to share the difficult fate of seventeenth-century corpuscularianism. The essay ends with the claim that the fall of microscopy was not only due to the failure of microscopy to corroborate corpuscularianism, but also to the changing definition of natural philosophy in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries and to the separation of the domains of living matter from a physica whose recent mathematical framework excluded the organic world. (shrink)

Background: Funding organisations and research ethics committees should play a part in strengthening attention to gender equality in clinical research. In the research policy of European Union , funding measures have been taken to realise this, but such measures are lacking in the EU policy regarding RECs.Objective: To explore how RECs in Austria, Germany, Ireland, The Netherlands and Sweden deal with gender equality issues by asking two questions: Do existing procedures promote representation of women and gender expertise in the committee? (...) How are sex and gender issues dealt with in protocol evaluation?Methods: Two RECs were selected from each country. Data were obtained through interviews with key informants and content analysis of relevant documents .Results: All countries have rules to ensure the presence of women on RECs; gender expertise is not required. Drug study protocols are carefully evaluated, sometimes on a formal basis, as regards the inclusion of women of childbearing age. The reason for excluding either one of the sexes or including specific groups of women or making a gender-specific risk–benefit analysis are investigated by some RECs. Such measures are, however, neither defined in the regulations nor integrated in review tools.Conclusions: The RECs investigated in five European member states are found to pay limited attention to gender equality in their working methods and, in particular in protocol evaluation. Policy and regulations of EU are needed to strengthen attention to gender equality in the work of RECs. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Modern Biblical Criticism as a Tool of Statecraft (1700–1900) by Scott W. Hahn and Jeffrey L. MorrowSteven C. SmithModern Biblical Criticism as a Tool of Statecraft (1700–1900) by Scott W. Hahn and Jeffrey L. Morrow (Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Academic, 2020), 312 pp.Almost anyone who has suffered through a course in biblical studies at a secular (or, increasingly so, Christian) university, read a book, or heard a lecture from (...) one of its scholarly progenies is acquainted with the litany of hermeneutical absolutes. Among the factum historicum are the following certainties: the Enlightenment rescued the Bible from the Dark Ages; the Old Testament was shaped out of the mythical clay of Hellenism; Israel's priesthood was a lamentable development that hijacked an earlier, socially oriented love-of-neighbor religion, replacing it with its bloodthirsty, sacrificial cult; the Documentary Hypothesis is not merely a theory, but the scientific truth of how the Pentateuch emerged; one must separate the Jesus of history from the Christ of faith; Peter and Paul clashed over their dueling Christianities; and above all, historical criticism is the only reliable lens by which the Bible is to be studied.In Modern Biblical Criticism as a Tool of Statecraft (1700–1900), Hahn and Morrow expose such positivisms as the outflow of Europe's secularized universities over these centuries. Not only did politically motivated institutions seek to diminish the theological truths of Scripture (and sadly, were often successful at it), but they eventually repurposed the Bible as "a work of historical fiction," such that the Sacred Page was "to be studied like other ancient myths and fairy tales; it is one fairy tale among many" (24). The authors present a thoroughly researched and meticulously detailed study of the period, and throughout the book amply demonstrate that the aforementioned tropes (and numerous others), no matter how often or how confidently recited, are merely one slant on "the story of biblical criticism" in the modern age.Taking their lead from the lead of Pope Benedict XVI, Hahn and Morrow provide a much-needed critique of historical biblical exegesis and its "appearance of quasi-scientific certainty."1 These salient words of the biblical-theologian Pope, articulated in a variety of contexts (e.g., Verbum Domini), provide the jumping-off point for this robust three-hundred-page voyage. And it is a journey through a divided and secularized Europe, with notable stops in England, France, and above all, Germany. This "divided" Europe, the authors explain, was not a result of the Protestant [End Page 985] Reformation, nor of the so-called "war of religions" that sprang from it—no. The divisions run much deeper still. Drawing upon Andrew Jones's important Before Church and State, Hahn and Morrow rightly lament the societal competition that developed within late medieval Christendom between church and state.2Building upon Jones's work, the authors rightly stress that there indeed existed "a unified medieval worldview wherein what we might think of as temporal authorities and spiritual authorities were united in a single purpose—the extension of the kingdom of God—and this was the background that unified Christendom" (3). As Jones point out, this earlier period of European history "was a world not of the religious and the secular, but of the New Testament and the Old, of virtue and vice, grace and law.... It was an integral vision which included all of societal reality."3 Sadly, the reality of "sacramental kingdoms," in which there lived a reciprocal respect and vision of unity between throne and alter, was torn asunder long before the 1700s, the time at which the present volume commences. Over time, this formerly unified European world gave way to the very complicated, deeply skeptical, and highly politicized world of nation-states. And biblical criticism (along with many other worthy and creative endeavors), became deeply mired in "statecraft."Here, it is worth mentioning that the book should be approached as the rightful heir to an earlier volume (which involved one of its authors, Hahn), Politicizing the Bible.4 While Modern Biblical Criticism may be intelligently read upon its own merits, the reader would do well to pick up the earlier... (shrink)

This essay outlines the moral dilemma of funding orphan drug research and development. To date, ethical aspects of priority setting for research funding have not been an issue of discussion in the bioethics debate. Conflicting moral obligations of beneficence and distributive justice appear to demand very different levels of funding for orphan drug research. The two types of orphan disease, rare diseases and tropical diseases, however, present very different ethical challenges to questions about allocation of research funds. The dilemma is (...) analysed considering utilitarian and rights based theories of justice and moral obligations of non-abandonment and a professional obligation to advance medical science. The limitations of standard economic evaluation tools and other priority setting tools used to inform health policy decision makers on research funding decisions are outlined. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 53, Issue 2-4, pp 294 - 321 Manuscript London, British Library, Burney 330 contains an anonymous collection of grammatical sophisms, dating in all probability from early 13th-century France or England, and all based on problematic biblical, liturgical or religious propositions. After a presentation of the manuscript and collection, this article examines two analysis tools that are applied in the majority of the sophisms, viz. a distinction between three layers of grammatico-semantic perfection or completeness, and the grammatical and (...) semantic supposition doctrines. It appears that these sophisms pay prominent attention to improper or figurative supposition, but are not intended for highly advanced readers. These preliminary results suggest that the Burney Sophismata Collection constituted an exercise tool to support textbook-based instruction in theological grammar, which was developed by such masters as Peter the Chanter and William de Montibus in the late 12th and early 13th centuries. (shrink)

We identify a normative paradox of responsible management education. Business educators aim to promote social values and develop ethical habits and socially responsible mindsets through education, but they attempt to do so with theories that have normative underpinnings and create actual normative effects that counteract their intentions. We identify a limited conceptualization of freedom in economic theorizing as a cause of the paradox. Economic theory emphasizes individual freedom and understands this as the freedom to choose from available options. However, conceptualizing (...) individuals as profit-maximizing actors neglects their freedom to reflect on the purposes and goals of their actions. We build on the work of pragmatist philosopher John Dewey, who distinguishes between habitualized and creative problem-solving behaviors, conceptualizes knowledge construction as a process of interdependent scientific social inquiry, and understands actors as having the freedom to determine what kind of people they wish to be. We apply pragmatist theory to business education and suggest equipping students with a plurality of theories, supplementing neoclassical economics with other economic perspectives and views from other disciplines on economic behavior. Moreover, we suggest putting students into learning situations that require practical problem solution through interdependent social inquiry, encouraging ethical reflection. In doing so, we contribute by linking the problematic conceptions of freedom identified in economic theorizing to the debate on responsible management education. We conceptualize a pragmatist approach to management education that explicitly re-integrates the freedom to discursively reflect on the individual and societal purpose of business activity and thereby makes existing tools and pedagogies useful for bringing potential freedom back into business. (shrink)

Although risk and uncertainty are inevitable aspects of the sustainability problem, they are often neglected in the sustainability discourse, especially in the economic analysis of sustainable development. We argue that this deprives the sustainability discourse of interesting connections to risk management. We show that defining sustainability as the obligation to limit the risk of harming future individuals provides a framework in which tools from risk management, like mean-variance analysis, can be employed to analyze planning decisions and to calculate a risk-minimizing (...) policy mix. Furthermore, we discuss whether such a notion of sustainability can be an ethically tenable sustainability concept and how a positive probability of harming future individuals might be defended. (shrink)