Objectives The objectives of the study are to understand the current practice of informed consent in medical research in public hospitals in Shanghai, and to share our views with other countries, especially developing countries. Methods In the study, 145 consent forms (CFs) of the selected research projects in eight public hospitals with ethics committees in Shanghai were audited, and the principle investigators (PIs) of these research projects and 40 student subjects who had participated in clinical drug tests were surveyed by (...) questionnaires. Results The CFs of medical researches in public hospitals with ethics committees in Shanghai were generally acceptable. However, there were some defects in the CFs. Although most of the surveyed PIs had correct recognition of informed consent, some processes of informed consent were not in accordance with generally accepted requirements. A large number of the PIs considered the greatest difficulty with informal consent was lack of correct recognition of subjects or legally authorised representatives on medical research. Discussion Informed consent in medical research should consider the research ethics, the background of potential subjects, the local resources and culture of medical research. In addition, special protection is needed for student subjects in informed consent as well as efforts for building and restoring the public's trust in biomedical research. Conclusion The informed consent in Shanghai's public hospitals with ethics committees was generally acceptable and the achievement of adequate informed consent is influenced by many factors. (shrink)

Objective: The objectives of this study are to understand the current functions, structure and operation of hospital ethics committees (HECs) in Shanghai and to facilitate their improvement. Methods: (1) A questionnaire survey, (2) interviews with secretaries and (3) on-site document reviews of HECs in Shanghai were used in the study, which surveyed 33 hospitals. Results: In Shanghai, 57.56% of the surveyed hospitals established HECs from 1998 to 2005. Most HECs used bioethical review of research involving human subjects as well as (...) bioethical review or consultation regarding medical care services and administrative decision- making. Of the surveyed HECs, 14.3% did not provide any formal bioethical training to the HECs’ members and many HECs had no standard operating procedures. Some HECs had no clear definition of what was “conflict of interest” that should be considered by the HECs, while 44.4% of the HECs did not perform continuing review. Discussion: After the issues of related national regulations, more and more hospitals established HECs in Shanghai, but the functions of HECs need to be further developed and formal training on bioethics should be provided to HEC members. To assure the independence and good performance of HECs, the conflict of interest procedure, the standard operating procedures and bioethical review should be improved. Conclusion: HECs in Shanghai had developed in the preceding 10 years and they played great roles in protecting the rights and welfare of human subjects and patients; some areas need improvement. (shrink)

Using data of 26 cities in China from 2004 to 2017, the green total factor productivity is investigated by the SMM-GML method. The corresponding empirical analysis is conducted with the DID model. This paper investigates the relation between low-carbon pilot policy and green total factor productivity and discusses the mediating effect of industrial structure and the number of R&D staff. First, we find that LCC has a significant effect on pilot cities’ GTFP. And, it also promotes GTFP via industrial structure. (...) Second, LCC can improve industrial structure optimization and realization, and industrial structure realization affects GTFP significantly, while optimization cannot. Third, LCC cannot attract more RDS, and RDS harms local GDFP because of talent misallocation. At last, the rate of GTFP presented different upward trends in the order of non-eastern cities and eastern cities. The effect of LCC on GTFP is significant in non-eastern cities, but not eastern ones, which clearly demonstrates the imbalanced development of the green economy. Therefore, the governments of eastern and non-eastern regions should adopt different measures based on local conditions in industrial structure transformation and recruitment and strengthen environmental regulations to make the effect of the low-carbon policy lasting and promote GTFP growth balance in all regions. (shrink)

Depression is a common mental health illness worldwide that affects our quality of life and ability to work. Although prior research has used EEG signals to increase the accuracy to identify depression, the rates of underdiagnosis remain high, and novel methods are required to identify depression. In this study, we built a model based on single-channel, dry-electrode EEG sensor technology to detect state depression, which measures the intensity of depressive feelings and cognitions at a particular time. To test the accuracy (...) of our model, we compared the results of our model with other commonly used methods for depression diagnosis, including the PHQ-9, Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, and House-Tree-Person drawing test, in three different studies. In study 1, we compared the results of our model with PHQ-9 in a sample of 158 senior high students. The results showed that the consistency rate of the two methods was 61.4%. In study 2, the results of our model were compared with HAM-D among 71 adults. We found that the consistency rate of state-depression identification by the two methods was 63.38% when a HAM-D score above 7 was considered depression, while the consistency rate increased to 83.10% when subjects showed at least one depressive symptom. In study 3, 68 adults participated in the study, and the results revealed that the consistency rate of our model and HTP drawing test was 91.2%. The results showed that our model is an effective means to identify state depression. Our study demonstrates that using our model, people with state depression could be identified in a timely manner and receive interventions or treatments, which may be helpful for the early detection of depression. (shrink)

« Apprendre » ( xue 學) se trouve être le tout premier mot des Entretiens associés à Confucius dont la compilation date d’il y a deux mille ans. Avons-nous depuis lors appris, voire commencé à devenir plus humains? L’histoire des temps modernes, jusqu’aux atrocités dont nous sommes témoins aujourd’hui, pointent vers une réponse négative. Serait-ce donc que l’enseignement confucéen avait raison de se concentrer sur le processus d’apprendre à faire de soi un être humain? Et avait-il quelque justification à placer (...) au cœur de ce processus le continuum entre l’homme et le cosmos, ainsi que la transmission entre générations humaines (notamment à travers le culte des ancêtres, les rites funéraires et la piété filiale)? Enfin, une telle conception de l’humain est-elle en droit d’être au fondement d’un humanisme confucéen et d’une universalité chinoise? Telles sont les questions qui sous-tendent l’exploration de sources textuelles de la Chine ancienne proposée ici. (shrink)

The Southern Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

This article deals with the complex relation between providence and descent in Neoplatonism, with particular reference to Proclus and especially his Commentary on the First Alcibiades. At least according to this work, descent is only a species of providence, because there can be providence without any descent. Whereas the gods provide for our cosmos without descending to it, a large group of souls provide for our cosmos by descending to it. The former kind of providence is better than the latter, (...) even if it is necessary that souls descend in order to give existence to the beautiful cosmos. The following study deals with providence as descent, looking at it from two angles. In the first section I show that Proclus designates this form of providence in two rather surprising ways. One term he uses for it, which will be well known to readers of Plotinus, is τόλµα —this despite the word’s negative connotations due to its Neopythagorean and Gnostic origin. A second name for descended providence is ἐπιστροφή. Again, this may be surprising, since we usually expect this term to express the ‘turning back’ of a lower effect to its cause. In Proclus, the word ἐπιστροφή too can have negative connotations, but he also uses it in a positive way when applying it to providence. In the second part of the paper, I explain how Socrates’ providence for Alcibiades can be undefiled, even if Socrates necessarily descends as he offers providential guidance. Proclus’ comparison of Socrates with Hercules, who went to the Underworld in order to save Theseus, serves as a positive illustration of Socrates’ divinelike providence, and marks the deficiency of Socrates compared to the transcendent and undefiled providence of Neoplatonic divinities. (shrink)

L'A. étudie le récit d'Eunapius concernant le règne d'Arcadius à partir de la mort de Théodose en 395 jusqu'en 404. Eunapius de Sarde est un sophiste, un philosophe et un historien grec païen qui a vécu de 347 à environ 414 ; il est un exemple de la rédaction helléniste et son travail peut être classé dans la fiction historique. Il s'oppose aux changements politiques, sociaux, économiques et religieux du 4e siècle ainsi qu'aux régimes de Constantin et Théodose. Son héros (...) est Julien l'Apostat. (shrink)

Georg Wilhelm Freidrich Hegel is now recognized as one of the great philosophers; his concept of the dialectic profoundly influenced the course of Western thought, and — particularly through the lens of Marxist philosophy — continues to exert great influence even today. Yet Hegel himself has often been accused of being a philosopher of reaction: on the political sphere the polar opposite of Marx. It was not until the publication of Jacques D'Hondt's Hegel en son temps that the vision of (...) Hegel as a supporter of the oppressive post-Napoleonic regime in Prussia gave way to the realization that Hegel was appointed by the liberal wing of the Prussian bureaucracy, that he frequently was at odds with the reactionary forces, and that he supported many of the leading student activists of his day. Hegel en son temps has previously been translated into German and Italian, but has never before been available in English. Its publication now will be welcomed throughout the English-speaking world by scholars and students alike. (shrink)

Theologien de haut vol et pasteur zele, Guillaume d'Auvergne a ete eveque de Paris de 1228 a 1249. Proche de la cour capetienne et des milieux mendiants de Paris, il a ete temoin et acteur des principaux evenements politiques et culturels qui ont caracterise la vie du royaume et de sa capitale. Ses sermons, au nombre de 582, dont 25 transmis en deux ou trois versions differentes et plusieurs sous la forme de reportationes, sont ici edites pour la premiere fois. (...) Apres les deux premiers volumes consacres aux sermons de tempore, les deux autres proposeront l'edition des sermons de sanctis et de communi sanctorum et de occasionibus.". (shrink)

Is cloning human beings morally wrong? The basis for the one serious objection to cloning is that, because of what a clone is, clones would have much worse lives than non-clones. I sketch a fragment of moral theory to make sense of the objection. I then outline several ways in which it might be claimed that, because of what a clone is, clones would have much worse lives than non-clones. In particular, I look at various ideas connected with autonomy. I (...) conclude that there is no basis to the claim that, because of what a clone is, clones would have much worse lives than non-clones. I therefore reject the claim that cloning human beings is morally wrong. (shrink)

T. 1. Metodologicheskie osnovanii︠a︡ i modeli, Bogopoznanie i nauchnoe znanie -- t. 2. Chislo. Garmonii︠a︡. Metafizika Sveta -- t. 3. Svet bogoslovskie osnovanii︠a︡ kreatologi.

Open peer commentary on the article “Body Awareness to Recognize Feelings: The Exploration of a Musical Emotional Experience” by Alejandra Vásquez-Rosati. Upshot: While generally supportive of the aims of Vásquez-Rosati’s target article, I suggest that it contains some theoretical and methodological shortcomings that could be addressed in future work. I also argue that if the author wishes to produce research that properly engages the enactivist perspective, then a number of additional dimensions are required. With this in mind, I outline the (...) basics of the 4E approach to cognition, suggesting that it may provide a useful framework for empirical research. (shrink)

In his Ars grammatica Fl. Sosipater Charisius quotes long portions of text which he has taken over from books of other grammarians. One of these quotations starts at 246.18 and continues up to 289.17. At 246.19–252.31 we find a long argument in which Romanus offers a sort of introduction to the theory of the adverb. This introduction is a surprise to modern readers because it is written in a very rhetorical manner. I mention this because otherwise one cannot understand why (...) at 251.22ff. the author of a Latin treatise on grammar should quote from a Greek work on Aristotle's Categories by a certain Aquila. (shrink)

The article of Shestopalets D.V. deals with the construction of theological discourse in the publications of the Spirituals Administration of Muslims of Ukraine. Special attention is devoted to the topics that represent the “proper” image of Islam, the problem of orthodoxy, approaches to interpretation of the Quran and legitimization of the religious authority of Muslim scholars.

The contents of Scala Graduum Caloris are described, supplemented by unpublished material. Both temperature measurements by his linseed oil thermometer and those based upon his law of cooling are shown to be reasonably accurate to 300°C, but above that value they are much too low. The apparent agreement and the deviation are explained by the differences between the assumptions that Newton made in deriving his law of cooling and the conditions in which he used it. Newton's attempts to link terrestrial (...) and celestial science in applications in the Principia are shown to fail from his confounding the concepts of temperature, heat and radiant intensity and his ignorance of most factors affecting the temperature rise of irradiated materials. Other comments on varied aspects of heat, mainly published in the Queries, are set out and analysed. His originality is assessed. (shrink)

The paper gives an analysis of the problem of character, which goes beyond the limits of the traditional ethics of virtue and which aims at the resolution of the essential dilemma - namely the role of determinism in the play of human fortune. The author focuses on two important French authors, whose conceptions of character were based on Kant's philosophy and on its criticism at the same time. Whereas Mounier defends the idea that the constitution of character is shaped by (...) the fundamental self-affirmation, Sartre's approach consists in accepting all the consequences of his own thesis of "the existence preceding the essence". In this context a distinctive character exists only as a transcendental meaning of every particular empirical choice. On the other hand, the author tries to show, that the understan_ding of the moral character as a dynamic form of motion oriented towards future does not keep these authors from defending certain essential tenor of a character, by which each particular decision participates in the construction of the overall picture of the concrete human being and his life objectives. (shrink)

The current discussion of the place of ethics in human life and of the prospectives of French ethical thinking has been given a new impulse by the tradition rooted in immanence. In this tradition the philosophy of B. Spinoza is taken as its explicit model. The paper focuses on the shift from dominating ontological problematic to ethics and on Misrahi's argumentation, which enables him to render Spinoza's ethics as subversive to the whole tradition of moral philosophy, based on the canon (...) of fear and obedience. Spinozian ethics should be grounded in the examination of human passions and desires; it should be an instrument for understanding people's actions and their highest visions. The author's question is, what consequences this interpretation might have for the contemporary understanding of morals and ethics. (shrink)

In conclusion of his Being and Nothingness Sartre articulated the problem of freedom as a moral one, promising to write a book concerning the problem. The work was published only posthumously. As a consequence of it he was reproached by his critics either for the absence of the moral problematic in his existentialism or for that in the long run the moral problem disappears . Some of them recognized his moral vision, but only in its negative form . In contrast (...) to these views the author tries to show, that the perspective of meaning and values is the core of Sartre’s phenomenological ontology, which is the necessary background of the ultimate objective of the French philosopher: a conception of morals, which would be concrete and historical at he same time. Her argumentation is based on the passages from Being and Nothingness, as well as from Sartre’s posthumous Cahiers pour un morale . A special attention is paid to problems such as the distinction between ethical anxiety and the everyday mo_rals, the spirit of seriousness, understanding man as useless passion and also the problema_tic of the motive and sense of moral conversion, articulated by Sartre. (shrink)