Experiments may contribute to understanding the basic processes of cultural evolution. We drew features from previous laboratory research with small groups in which traditions arose during several generations. Groups of four participants chose by consensus between solving anagrams printed on red cards and on blue cards. Payoffs for the choices differed. After 12 min, the participant who had been in the experiment the longest was removed and replaced with a naı¨ve person. These replacements, each of which marked the end of (...) a generation, continued for 10 – 15 generations, at which time the day’s session ended. Time-out duration, which determined whether the group earned more by choosing red or blue, and which was fixed for a day’s session, was varied across three conditions to equal 1, 2, or 3 min. The groups developed choice traditions that tended toward maximizing earnings. The stronger the dependence between choice and earnings, the stronger was the tradition. Once a choice tradition evolved, groups passed it on by instructing newcomers, using some combination of accurate information, mythology, and coercion. Among verbal traditions, frequency of mythology varied directly with strength of the choice tradition. These methods may be applied to a variety of research questions. D 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Fourth-year medical students at the University of Colorado School of Medicine distributed cards to patients in the emergency department asking, "What Worries You Most?" The patients' responses provided insight about their most pressing concerns, often unrelated to their "chief complaints.".

An important function of the self is to identify external objects that are potentially personally relevant. We suggest that such objects may be identified through mere ownership. Extant research suggests that encoding information in a self-relevant context enhances memory , thus an experiment was designed to test the impact of ownership on memory performance. Participants either moved or observed the movement of picture cards into two baskets; one of which belonged to self and one which belonged to another participant. A (...) subsequent recognition test revealed that there was a significant memory advantage for objects that were owned by self. Acting on items had no impact on memory. Results are discussed with reference to the importance of self-object associations in cognition. (shrink)

ObjectiveParenting sensitivity and mutual parent-child attunement are key features of environments that support children’s learning and development. To-date, observational measures of these constructs have focused on children aged 2–6 years and are less relevant to the more sophisticated developmental skills of children aged 7–8 years, despite parenting being equally important at these ages. We undertook a rigorous process to adapt an existing observational measure for 7–8-year-old children and their parents. This paper aimed to: describe a protocol for adapting an existing (...) framework for rating parent-child interactions, determine variations in parents’ sensitive responding and parent-child mutual attunement by family demographics, and evaluate the psychometric properties of the newly developed measure.MethodParent-child dyads completed one home visit, including a free-play observation and parent questionnaire. Dyads were provided with three toy sets: LEGO® Classic Box, Classic Jenga®, and animal cards. The Coding of Attachment-Related Parenting was adapted for use with 7–8-year-old children, and rating procedures were streamlined for reliable use by non-clinician/student raters, producing the SCARP:7–8 Years. Trained staff rated video-recorded observations on 11 behaviors across two domains.ResultsData were available for 596 dyads. Consistently strong inter-rater agreement on the 11 observed behaviors was achieved across the 10-week rating period. Average ICCs were 0.77 for sensitive responding and 0.84 for positive mutuality. These domains were found to be related but distinct constructs. For both domains, average ratings were strongly associated with the main toy used during the observation. Adjusted multivariate linear regression models revealed that less sensitive responding was associated with younger parent, male parent, non-English speaking background, and greater neighborhood disadvantage. Construct validity was demonstrated using six parent-reported psychosocial and parenting measures.ConclusionThe SCARP: 7–8 Years shows promise as a reliable and valid measure of parent-child interaction in the early school years. Toy selection for direct observation should be considered carefully in research and practice settings. (shrink)

The die-hard viewpoint of an influential figure like President M.T. Steyn of the Republic of the Orange Free State led to the lengthening of the Anglo-Boer War by more than a year. The reasons for Steyn leading the Free State into this war, the reasons for his call not to surrender and the effect of the war on the Afrikaner, is discussed in this article. An ethical discussion of factors indicating a bitter end, is also on the cards. There was (...) a strong realisation among the representatives of the Republics of the Free State and the Transvaal in 1902 that this is the end of the war. (shrink)

This paper explores the role of NGOs in corporate social responsibility (CSR) through an analysis of various stakeholders’ perceptions and of NGOs’ self-perceptions. In the course of qualitative research based in Spain, we found that the perceptions of the role of NGOs fall into four categories: recognition of NGOs as drivers of CSR; concerns about their legitimacy; difficulties in the mutual understanding between NGOs and trade unions; the self-confidence of NGOs as important players in CSR. Each of these categories comprises (...) the various elements analysed in the paper. We found some discrepancies between the perception of others and the self-perceptions of NGOs, which explains why their role is often controversial. The research confirms that secondary stakeholders, such as NGOs, are key players in CSR, but their role is still regarded as controversial and their legitimacy contested. Deep-seated misunderstandings and mistrust among various stakeholder groups (particularly between NGOs and trade unions) are a possible hurdle to the integration of social and environmental concerns in business activity and corporate governance in Spain. The study finds that business managers need to take a less firm-centric and a more contextual approach, and look more closely into the relationship with and among stakeholder groups. For NGO managers, the research shows that NGOs are not always aware of the stereotypes they generate and the problems caused mainly by what is seen as ambivalent roles: critic and counsellor, accuser and judge, idealist and fund raiser. (shrink)

This paper reviews the development of socially responsible investment (SRI) in the Spanish financial market. The year, 1997 saw the appearance in Spain of the first SRI mutual fund, but it was not until late 1999, that major Spanish fund managers offered SRI mutual funds on the retail market. The development of SRI in the Spanish financial market has not experienced the high levels of development seen in other European countries, such as France or Italy, where interest in SRI began (...) during the same period. This paper presents an analysis of the impact of SRI mutual funds managed by Spanish fund managers comparing the evolution of managed assets and number of investors. We also analyse the investment strategies adopted by these funds, which mainly use negative screening criteria and the participation of non-governmental organisations as institutional investors. An analysis of the take up of socially responsible investment in the Spanish financial market shows majors deficits in this process. This is due to Spanish investors having limited sensitivity to social issues and knowledge of SRI, and a lack of development of SRI investment strategies, such as engagement or shareholder activism by fund managers. Furthermore, the take-up of SRI mutual funds in the Spanish financial market coincided with a fall in the stock market at the beginning of the 21st Century. We conclude with an analysis of the relationship between SRI and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). (shrink)

Let us call an integer part of an ordered field any subring such that every element of the field lies at distance less than 1 from a unique element of the ring. We show that every real closed field has an integer part.

This paper argues for the existence of two levels of stakeholder dialogue: a micro and a macro level. The first is the one companies have with their own stakeholder groups, the second is a broader social debate among different agents about the role of business in society. The paper argues why the macro level matters for CSR and why it can be called a dialogue. It also underlines the importance of mutual perceptions in the macro-dialogue. For this purpose we present (...) a research done in Spain about how different stakeholder groups perceive each other in relation to CSR and how they perceive the dialogue process. (shrink)

Prominent philosophers have argued that contradictions contain either too much or too little information to be useful. We dispute this with what we call the “Paradox of the Two Firefighters.” Suppose you are awakened in your hotel room by a fire alarm. You open the door. You see three possible ways out: left, right, straight ahead. You see two firefighters. One says there is exactly one safe route and it is to your left. The other says there is exactly one (...) safe route and it is to your right. While the two firemen are giving you contradictory information, they are also both giving you the perhaps useful information that there is a safe way out and it is not straight ahead. We give two analyses. The first uses the “Opinion Tetrahedron,” introduced by Dunn as a generalization of Audun Jøsang’s “Opinion Triangle.” The Opinion Tetrahedron in effect embeds the values of the “Belnap-Dunn 4-valued Logic” into a context of subjective probability generalized to allow for degrees of belief, disbelief, and two kinds of uncertainty—that in which the reasoner has too little information and that in which the reasoner has too much information. Jøsang had only a single value for uncertainty. We also present an alternative solution, again based on subjective probability but of a more standard type. This solution builds upon “linear opinion pooling.” Kiefer had already developed apparatus for assessing risk using expert opinion, and this influences the second solution. Finally, we discuss how these solutions might apply to “Big Data” and the World Wide Web. (shrink)

This paper aims to establish that Sorites reasoning, a fundamental part of Parfit's work, is more destructive that he intends. I establish the form that Parfit's arguments take and then substitute premises whose acceptability to Parfit I show. The new argument demonstrates an eliminativism or immaterialism concerning persons which Parfit must find repugnant.

J. M. Shorter; X*—Personal Identity, Personal Relationships, and Criteria, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 71, Issue 1, 1 June 1971, Pages 165–1.

With the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), global researchers were confronted with major challenges. The German National Pandemic Cohort Network (NAPKON) was launched in fall 2020 to effectively leverage resources and bundle research activities in the fight against the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. We analyzed the setup phase of NAPKON as an example for multicenter studies in Germany, highlighting challenges and optimization potential in connecting 59 university and nonuniversity study sites. We examined the ethics application (...) process of 121 ethics submissions considering durations, annotations, and outcomes. Study site activation and recruitment processes were investigated and related to the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infections. For all initial ethics applications, the median time to a positive ethics vote was less than two weeks and 30 of these study sites (65%) joined NAPKON within less than three weeks each. Electronic instead of postal ethics submission (9.5 days (Q1: 5.75, Q3: 17) vs. 14 days (Q1: 11, Q3: 26), p value = 0.01) and adoption of the primary ethics vote significantly accelerated the ethics application process. Each study center enrolled a median of 37 patients during the 14-month observation period, with large differences depending on the health sector. We found a positive correlation between recruitment performance and COVID-19 incidence as well as hospitalization incidence. Our analysis highlighted the challenges and opportunities of the federated system in Germany. Digital ethics application tools, adoption of a primary ethics vote and standardized formal requirements lead to harmonized and thus faster study initiation processes during a pandemic. (shrink)

On pages 490-491, in describing the results of Experiment 2, the authors state that out of a total of 3840 responses, only 355 (or 9%) fell outside the response deadlines. In fact, the total number of responses in Experiment 2 was 3200 and so the 355 responses represented 11%, not 9%, of the total. This error has no other implications. The authors are grateful to Peter Graf (personal communication, March 12, 2000) for pointing out the error.

A model for the trapping of animals with a circular pitfall is formulated. The model's assumptions are: The animals move independently according to the same Brownian motions. The boundary of the pitfall acts as an absorbing or elastic barrier. Initially a fixed number of animals is independently homogeneously distributed over a finite study area, or the initial positions follow a homogeneous planar Poisson process. The model depends on three free parameters: the motility of the animals, their reaction to the pitfall, (...) the initial density.It appears that the catches in disjoint time intervals are multinomially or independently Poisson distributed. The parameters of these distributions are obtained by solving certain partial differential equations. (shrink)

J. M. Howarth; III*—On Thinking of What One Fears, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 76, Issue 1, 1 June 1976, Pages 53–74, https://doi.org/10.109.

Cosmological boundary conditions for particles and fields are often discussed as a Cauchy problem, in which configurations and conjugate momenta are specified on an “initial” time slice. But this is not the only way to specify boundary conditions, and indeed in action-principle formulations we often specify configurations at two times and consider trajectories joining them. Here, we consider a classical system of particles interacting with short range two body interactions, with boundary conditions on the particles’ positions for an initial and (...) a final time. For a large number of particles that are randomly arranged into a dilute gas, we find that a typical system trajectory will spontaneously collapse into a small region of space, close to the maximum density that is obtainable, before expanding out again. If generalizeable, this has important implications for the cosmological arrow of time, potentially allowing a scenario in which both boundary conditions are generic and also a low-entropy state “initial” state of the universe naturally occurs. (shrink)

Cameron attacks the notion that words and sentences "stand for" thoughts--that thoughts are clothed diaphanously in prose, or attractively in verse. The thesis is that poetry enriches understanding of both oneself and others. A feeling is made available in its personal aspect through representation in a unique, non-paraphraseable poetic. --J. M.

Butchvarov is chairman of the department of philosophy at the University of Iowa. His book, a contribution to a new series, the Northwestern University Publications in Analytical Philosophy, deals with "the conceptual foundations of epistemology." It is divided into four main parts. The first undertakes an account of the general concept of knowledge. The second treats the objects of a priori knowledge; the third, the nature of primary a posteriori knowledge. The fourth part regards nondemonstrative inference and the nature of (...) derivative knowledge in general. The focus of the book is upon fundamental epistemic concepts rather than such particular issues as knowledge of the future, of bodies, of other minds, etc. Butchvarov urges that such specialized problems be treated only after the general conceptual framework has been investigated, lest one's common-sense opinions on the former unduly influence his philosophical conclusions as to the latter. For the inherent demands of the discipline itself must be respected: "In philosophy, as in any other purely theoretical discipline, it is better to be wrong as the result of inquiry and argument than to be right as the result of mere conviction." One of the author's central conclusions concerns evidential criteria. One unquestionable criterion of evidence is the impossibility of mistake, the "demonstrative" criterion. Is there, in addition, any "nondemonstrative" criterion of evidence, with the consequent possibility of nondemonstrative derivative knowledge or at least nondemonstrative rational belief? While not ruling out the possibility of such a criterion, Butchvarov judges that at least one has not yet been brought forth. Particular criteria proposed as nondemonstrative, such as inductive and behavioral, either presuppose the demonstrative criterion or else lack intelligible content. More generally, the nondemonstrative criterion either would or would not possess something in common with the demonstrative criterion, such that both could be understood as species of the same genus, "criterion of evidence." But no successful attempt has thus far been made in showing just what this shared trait might be; and the thesis that there can be multiple criteria of evidence without any generic commonality equivocates on the very notion of evidence. It follows, therefore, that knowledge and rational belief are much more restricted than one would ordinarily surmise. This book manifests both the scholar's mastery of his field and the teacher's concern for clear, well-structured presentation. It reads well, employs good examples, and includes the all-important index.--J. M. V. (shrink)

In this brief work of modest pretensions, the author brings together Islamic texts relevant to freedom from a great variety of sources. He ventures very little analysis or interpretation. Each chapter is copiously footnoted. Given its purely scholarly intentions and limitations, the work should provide a valuable aid for those interested in the study of this field.--J. M. W.