The genetic communication system includes the following components: the parent, which represents the information source and which emits messages; the gametes, which are the messenger carriers; and the offspring, which results from the decoding of two of these messages and can, in turn, become an information source.In a diploid species, a pair of heterozygous homologous loci may emit two equally probable messages, the quantity of genetic information (Q) produced being equivalent to: Q=log2 2=1 bit. For n independent (...) pairs of heterozygous homologous loci, Q=n.log2 2=n bits. The evolution of Q is examined whenever the parent is used in inbreeding or crossbreeding. In the case of inbreeding, the initial Q is depleted as the loci become homozygous; for hybridization the evolution of Q is unpredictable. (shrink)

Idioms are the unity of figurative and formulaic expressions, driving a variety of creative variants used in everyday life. This study explored how Chinese readers made sense of Chinese idioms and their variants, with possible constraints from their strength in overall inhibitory control (OIC). Our new attempt at a comprehensive measure of inhibitory control managed to predict the readers’ self-paced reading behavior in the context of the idioms written in the Chinese ideographic script. Those with poorer OIC were assumed to (...) show more difficulties in inhibiting the literal meaning of a Chinese idiom as the supportive context unfolded. Such constraints from OIC also resurfaced during the comprehension of the Chinese variants employed in this study that were likely treated as novel idioms. We thereby assumed a hybrid route for the comprehension of Chinese idiomatic expressions. Nonetheless, idiom familiarity or decomposability exerted limited influence during these processes. The current study enriches the individual-difference approach to idiom comprehension by further expounding how its account varies with an ideographic writing system characterized by symbolic glyphs. (shrink)

Marketers are increasingly relying on promotional practices (variously labeled as stealth marketing, hybrid messages, covert advertising) based on the diffusion of product information by third parties that appear to be independent of advertisers. In this paper, we examine to what extent the media treat their advertisers favorably, providing these advertisers’ products extra visibility in supposedly neutral editorial content. Empirically, we model the determinant of media coverage of Italian fashion products in an extended dataset of consumer magazines in Italy, (...) France, Germany, UK, and the USA. Research findings show that advertising is an important determinant of product placements in editorial content, and this result is consistent across countries and publishers. Our results imply that resource-rich advertisers engaging in compensatory advertising (that is, advertising investments that compensate poor product quality) might bias media coverage in their favor. Consumers will consequently be exposed twice to favorable messages about those products, in both advertisements and media content, resulting in higher purchases and reduced consumer welfare. (shrink)

Despite the frequent interpretation of any Early-Christian-era art that contains both Christian and pagan imagery as being solely Christian in meaning, this paper argues that the identification of these images as being Christian in nature, with the pagan imagery only present as borrowed ideas to support a Christian message, is problematic. By assessing some of the existing scholarship surrounding this topic, I attempt to problematize the assumptions made that lead to these widely-accepted interpretations.

After the Covid-19 vaccination started, social media users created an enormous amount of content on the vaccines. Especially in the early stages of vaccination, people searched and watched YouTube videos sharing personal experiences after getting the vaccines (i.e., vaccine review videos), usually titled “I got the COVID-19 vaccine.” Few studies have examined the characteristics and impacts of vaccine review videos on viewers’ responses (e.g., likes, dislikes, comments). This study investigates the content of, and reactions to, the most-viewed Covid-19 vaccine review (...) videos on YouTube, based on the social communication framework. A quantitative content analysis of 148 vaccine review videos revealed their unique characteristics, including source expertise, message valence, narration, and topics. Most of the videos had a positive tone, with some urging vaccination and showing pro-vaccine attitudes. Furthermore, source expertise and hybrid message types (messages conveyed in narrative and informative ways) were not significantly related to positive responses. Rather, non-expert videos received more positive responses. The findings concern the public opinions surrounding new vaccines, including related concerns and attitudes. Given the positive tone of the content, vaccine review content made by diverse groups can be encouraged by public health institutions regardless of the creators’ expertise. (shrink)

Our study focuses on the impact of American advertising on local consumers and industry and discusses the relationship between standardization and localization on the global market. Although America seems to be a hybridized, ‘McDonald-ized’ reality, it is in fact grounded on a multicultural and social mix that deems it highly recognizable. Consequently, we argue that reconstructing American identity means sharing similar values with other cultural spaces, whose history, religion, and social customs require a different approach to daily life and finding (...) new means of expression. Our main argument is that advertising disseminates its message in foreign markets and that American campaign models were implemented despite cultural differences. Therefore, we will study the way American heterogeneity becomes homogeneous in the advertising realm, and explain the relationship between standardization and localization in promoting brand values. Our analysis relies on examples of the post-1990 Romanian advertising revolution that showcase the global American influence on Romania’s local industry as reflected by celebrations (Valentine’s Day, Man’s Day) and other American symbols (the cowboy image, the impact of the English language) present in locally broadcast advertisements. Consequently, our paper asks a very controversial question: Does market globalization embed the American spirit in indigenous cultures through advertising, bypassing local culture, ideology and society? (shrink)

The content of a work of literature, Walter Benjamin reminds us in “The Author as Producer,” is inextricably bound up with its form. Hence, it is hardly astounding that much critical attention has been focused on the proper generic classification of Harriet E. Wilson’s Our Nig . This task, though, has not been easy. Henry Louis Gates, rediscoverer and earliest critic of Our Nig, for example, goes to great length discussing parallels between Wilson’s work and Nina Baym’s ‘overplot’ of the (...) ‘women’s novel,’ before settling on reading it as a new form of distinctly African-American lit- erature that combines “conventions of the sentimental novel with certain key conventions of the slave narratives” . Elizabeth Ammons, by contrast, places Our Nig squarely in the feminist tradition of the sentimental novel and argues that “the ideal of mother love explicit in Uncle Tom’s Cabin operates implicitly in Our Nig.” 4 2 3 Contesting Ammons’ claim, Eric Gardner asserts that Our Nig is not a ‘novel of abolition’ but “a novel about Northern racial issues, a young black woman’s bildungsroman, and, as such, is far from Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” 5 Echoing some of Gardner’s points, Elizabeth Breau contends that Our Nig “is actually satiric” and therefore gives an overly “bleak picture of northern antebellum society.” Foregrounding neither Bildung nor “ironic inversions” but the “politics of rage at work in Wilson’s tale,” Julia Stern argues that Our Nig “used the sentimental form to mask a gothic message.” 7 Rejecting Gates’ attempt to posit Our Nig as “a significant beginning of an African-American literary mode, a distinctive first in a century of firsts,” John Ernest wants to read Wilson’s work as a traditional “blend of autobiography and fiction,” hoping to ‘re-place’ it “within the racial, gender, and economic matrix of secular history.” R.J. Ellis, while accepting Gates’ assessment that Our Nig “draw[s] on the genres of sentimental fiction and abolitionist slave narrative,” stresses the ways in which the ‘hybrid’ work “fractures generic boundaries” in order to provide a “full retrieval of Frado’s pain, her experience of body politics.” Lastly, offering a reading that links Our Nig to the Puritan tradition, Elizabeth West argues that Our Nig “manipulates well-known trappings of the conversion narrative” by telling “the story of the heroine’s failed initiation into the community of earthly saints.”. (shrink)

ResumeLa question du filtrage de ľinformation génétique dans la cellule est fondamentale. Comment la cellule sélectionne‐t‐elle, avant de les transformer en RNA puis en protéines, certaines parties bien déterminées de son information génétique? Il ne sera probablement pas possible de donner une explication cohérente du développement embryonnaire, de la différentiation cellulaire et du maintien de ľétat différencie tant que nous n'aurons pas repondu de manière satis‐faisante à cette question.Dans un premier chapitre, quelques notions de base concernant ľexpression génétique sont préséntées. (...) Le dogme de flux de ľinformation génétique dans la cellule, DNARNA protéine est valable à la fois pour les procaryotes et les eucaryotes malgré des différences significatives au niveau de la structure et de la régulation des gènes. Contrairement aux génes procaryotes, la plu‐part des gènes eucaryotes sont morcelés. Le DNA codant pour une protéine est interrompu par des régions non‐codantes dont les transcrits sont éliminés par excision pendant la maturation du RNA messager ultérieurement traduit en protéine. Une grande variété de mécanismes interviennent dans la régulation de ľactivité de ces gènes.Le pouvoir et les limites des méthodes modernes de ľanalyse structurale et fonctionnelle des génes sont discutés dans la deuxième partie de ľarticle. Ľhybridation moléculaire reposant sur la complémentarité des bases azotées des acides nucléiques joue un rôle déterminant dans ľétude de la complexity des génomes et de leur expression. Récemment, ľapplication de la technologie du DNA recombinant et des techniques annexes a permis ľisolement ainsi que la caractérisation de plusieurs génes eucaryotes. La question de ľexpression différentielle de ces génes est actuellement intensément étudiée dans plusieurs systèmes de transcription ayant chacun ses points forts et ses faiblesses.En guise de conclusion, quelques implications de ľessor prodigieux que connaît la génétique moléculaire sont discutées.SummaryThe question of selective expression of genetic information in the cell is fundamental. How does a cell choose particular parts of its genetic information prior to transforming them into RNA and then into proteins? It will probably not be possible to give a coherent explanation of embryonic development, of cell differentiation, and of the maintenance of the differentiated state as until we have answered this question satisfactorily.In the first chapter, several basic notions concerning genetic expression are presented. The central dogma of the flow of genetic information in the cell, DNARNA‐ protein is valid both for prokaryotes and eukaryotes despite significant differences at the level of gene structure and regulation. In contrast to prokaryotic genes, most eukaryotic genes are split. The DNA coding for a protein is interrupted by non‐coding regions whose transcripts are eliminated by excision during the maturation of the messenger RNA which will subsequently be translated into protein. A wide variety of mecanisms are implicated in the regulation of these genes.The scope and limits of modern methods for the structural and functional analyses of genes are discussed in the second part of the article. Molecular hybridization, which is based on the complementarity between the bases of the nucleic acids, plays a key role in the study of the complexity and expression of genes. Recently, the application of recombinant DNA technology and associated techniques has allowed the isolation as well as the characterization of several eukaryotic genes. The question of the differential expression of these genes is currently studied intensively in many transcription systems which all have their strengths and weaknesses.As a conclusion, several implications of the prodigious progress of molecular genetics are discussed.ZusammenfassungDie Frage nach der selektiven Expression der genetischen Information in der Zelle ist fundamental. Wie wählt eine Zelle bestimmte Teile ihrer genetischen Information, um diese dann in RNA und Proteine zu übersetzen? Wahrscheinlich wird es nicht möglich sein, eine vollständige Erklärung für die Embryonalentwicklung, für die Zeildifferenzierung und für di Aufrechterhaltung des differenzierten Zustandes zu geben, bevor wir eine befriedigende Antwort auf diese Frage gefunden haben.Im ersten Kapitel sind mehrere grundlegende Erkenntnisse über die Genexpression dargestellt. Das zentrale Dogma über den Fluss der genetischen Information in der Zelle, DNA RNA Protein, gilt sowohl für Prokaryonten als auch für Eukaryonten trotz bedeutender Unterschiede auf der Ebene der Genstruktur und Genregulation. Im Gegensatz zu den Genen von Prokaryonten sind die meisten Gene der Eukaryonten unterteilt. Die DNA, welche für ein Protein kodiert, ist durch nicht‐kodierende Regionen unterbrochen, welche wahrend des Reifungsprozesses der messenger RNA herausgeschnitten werden. Diese messenger RNA wird schliesslich in ein Protein iibersetzt. Sehr verschiedenartige Mechanismen sind an der Regulation dieser Gene beteiligt.Im zweiten Teil des Artikels werden Ziele und Grenzen moderner Methoden zur Analyse von Struktur und Funktion von Genen diskutiert. Molekulare Hybridisation, welche auf der Komplementarität zwischen den Basen der Nukleinsäuren beruht, spielt eine Schlüsselrolle in der Analyse der Komplexität und Expression der Gene. Die Anwendung der rekombinanten DNA Technologie sowie damit zusammenhängender Methoden hat kürzlich die Isolierung und Charak‐terisierung verschiedener eukaryontischer Gene erlaubt. Die Frage nach der differenziellen Expression dieser Gene wird gegenwärtig mit Hilfe verschiedener Transkriptionssysteme, welche alle ihre Stärken und Schwächen haben, intensiv studiert.Zusammenfassend werden verschiedene Implikationen des gewaltigen Fortschrittes der molekularen Genetik diskutiert. (shrink)

This paper focuses on a methodological question regarding a content analysis tool in populism studies, namely the explicit and implicit populism approach. The study argues that scholars adopting this approach need to conduct content analysis simultaneously on different coding unit lengths, because the ratio of explicit and implicit messages varies significantly between units such as single sentences and paragraphs. While an explicit populist message consists of at least one articulated dichotomy between the “good” people and the “harmful” others, implicit (...) populism implies that only one of the core features of the populist style is present: either people-centrism or antagonism. Due to the often fractured and occasionally dichotomous nature of populist styles, this research revolves around the idea that the explicit and implicit populist content analysis method should be performed on coding units of different lengths, as these units can yield significantly different results in the detection of populist styles. Hybrid content and statistical analyses were operationalized to scrutinize to what extent explicit, implicit, or non-populist styles change in three coding unit types with diverging lengths. The outcome supports the following suggestion: Explicit and implicit populism demand scrutiny simultaneously on one narrow and one extended textual unit. (shrink)

The essay examines the various manifestations of Russian influence on present-day Bulgarian nationalism. Although this phenomenon dates back to the early days of Bulgarian nationalist thought in the 19 th century, it gained particular prominence in recent years, especially in the context of Russian hybrid warfare. After outlining the political landscape of Bulgarian nationalism in the post-communist period, the article offers an in-depth analysis of the dominant pro-Russian narratives that are vociferously reproduced by the country’s major nationalist actors. While (...) some of these messages have been firmly adapted in the collective memory of generations of Bulgarians due to various historical reasons (e.g., the narrative of the “Russian liberators”), others are a direct product of today’s Kremlin propaganda (the notions of the alleged “decadence” of the West). Furthermore, the growing divisions within Bulgarian society that took shape against the background of this prolonged Russian influence have also been thoroughly addressed. The paper argues that Kremlin-backed actors are trying to monopolize and privatize the patriotic discourse in Bulgaria, thereby disrupting the country’s pro-Western orientation. (shrink)

The Ukrainian–Russian conflict of 2013–2017 is characterized as ‘hybrid’ warfare, with a crucial role of informational component. Using ideological discourse analytic tools, this article demonstrates how two prominent Russian TV channels shaped the persuasive message, creating strong unity and mobilizing a high level of support among the national audience. Based on legitimation and de-legitimation patterns, Channel One and Russia-1 built ideologically polarized opposition between ‘Our’ and ‘Their’ sides of the conflict. The wide range of editorializing tools, socio-cultural and historical (...) Soviet-time constructs, and references to gay culture served to promote one group and to debase the opposition. Close institutional ties between government and media in Russia sustain multiplicity and intertextuality of ‘general line’, thus eliminating discordant interpretations. The article shows strong evidence that the analyzed TV news programs present a typical illustration of ideological discourse, exploited by the Russian government in order to achieve its political goals. (shrink)

The article examines the national worldview codes as a prerequisite for national revival. The urgency of studying world outlook codes in modern Ukraine is primarily due to the actualization of powerful manipulative anti-Ukrainian processes that often take the form of “hybrid wars”. The purpose of the article is to show how and based on what principles the main national world outlook codes function during important historical transformations. For this purpose, the article investigates two information and cultural fields, which are (...) based on world-view structures of the mythological type – national and imperial myths. These structures have their branched code systems, which are updated and described in the form of mythology, symbols and signs. Two important issues are additionally considered: encoding information through the codes of other systems and the use of different languages for transmitting the message, which may cause its distortion. The components of Ukraine’s image as the main mythological image with the national code base are analyzed. Much attention is paid to describing the basic code in the national unconscious of the Ukrainian people and its differences from the imperial view of the world. The historical retrospective is depicted on the example of the “Cossack era”, the activities of the “Central Council”, the “Time of Independence”, the “Orange Revolution – 2004”, the “Dignity Revolution – 2013–2014”, military operations in the ATO-zone, etc. Modern examples show the influence of actualization of relevant world outlook codes on political, social, and cultural life. The mechanisms of combining and enhancing world outlook codes, actualized in various spheres – politics, religion, culture, in particular, mass culture, social life – are discussed. The author also considers the distribution of influence of these codes on other areas of life for describing the surrounding world by ordinary citizens. The idea of three waves of national revival in modern Ukraine is proposed. Attention is drawn to the possible risks of ceasing the nation-building processes in the present, as well as numerous perspectives should this “wave” be as productive as possible. (shrink)

Generating group interaction is a necessary part of teaching philosophy, but there are many obstacles to creating it in a traditional classroom. We propose that philosophy courses can be improved by turning to hybrid models that integrate classroom discussion with online message boards, or forums. Using anecdotes and a comprehensive survey, we argue that using forums helps instructors overcome time constraints in the classroom, helps some students overcome anxiety over contributing, improves discussion, reduces the need to review, and gives (...) instructors a better view of how their students encounter philosophy. We also provide examples of how to use forums and forum assignments. (shrink)

. As a discipline, semiotics has gained recognition in many fields. Cultural background plays an important part in the field of the visual art. Given the rich cultural context of the pictorial hybridization Chinese-European in the early Qing dynasty, the pictorial works can be used in studying semiotics. This article addresses a discourse on some semiotic reflections in painting. It focuses on the application of the theory of the semiotic scientist Charles Peirce that has proven to be suitable for analyzing (...) pictorial works. The model chosen as a subject for investigation is a painting in ink on silk titled “Portrait of Qianlong’s Consort with Yongyan as a Child,” painted using Western techniques in the eighteenth century. The analysis of the portrait offers an appropriate basis to develop some semiotic reflections on this work of art by contributing to aesthetic and artistic awareness. Semiotic structures were employed to develop an understanding of the pictorial forms by turning each element into a tool of communication. The semiotic reading of this work is concerned with the visual art education and sensorial message of the painting. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Rushdie’s Dastan-e-Dilruba: The Satanic Verses As Rushdie’s Love Letter to IslamFeroza Jussawalla (bio)Meheruban likhoon ya dilruba likhoon hyran hoon ke apke khat me kya likhoonYe mera prempatr padh kar ke tum naraz na hona ke tum meri zindagi ho ke tum meri bandagi ho[Should I address you as respected one Should I address you as beloved one I am so distraught about how I should address youWhen you read (...) my love letter You should not be disappointed Because you are my life and you are my “life’s work”]—Popular Hindi film song from Raj Kapoor’s Sangam (1964) [my translation]Salman Rushdie has been classified as a postcolonial 1 writer whose fiction depicts the hybrid nature of postcolonials in their migrations and movements, their merging and mixing. Rushdie has variously been called a “Third World Cosmopolitan” [Brennan, Salman Rushdie viii], a “metropolitan intellectual,” and “a hybrid” but most often a [End Page 50] “postcolonial,” because of his “birth” as a “Midnight’s child”—a child born as India was gaining independence at midnight on 14 August 1947 2 —his subsequent education in England, and the making of his home in metropolitan London. Such a perspective is eurocentric and does not provide complete answers to Rushdie’s complex works or the complicated response to his work. For the very hybridity that Rushdie manifests results from his being not only a “post-British” colonial but also a “post-Mughal” colonial.The British were not the only colonizers of India. In fact, Indian historians have traditionally identified several waves of colonization. Journalists Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre best summarize the two major waves of colonization as follows:Hinduism itself had been brought to India by the Indo-European hordes descending from the North to wrest the subcontinent from its ancient Dravidian inhabitants.... The faith of the Prophet had come much later, after the cohorts of Genghis Khan and Tamurlane had battered their way down the Khyber Pass to weaken the Hindus’ hold on the great Gangetic Plain. For two centuries, the Moslem Mogul emperors had imposed their sumptuous and implacable rule over most of India, spreading in the wake of their martial legions the message of Allah, the One, the Merciful.[Freedom at Midnight 36]While the British were actually occupying India, post-Mughal colonialism in the form of Persian poetry, literature, and the general “sumptuousness” of its art and architecture held sway. The Persian language begot Urdu, often described by linguists as a “camp language” of the Muslim invaders of the Subcontinent. However, Persian, Arabic, and Hindi had come together to create a new language for the poetry, literature, arts, and in general the “high culture” of today’s Indian Muslims. Jawaharlal Nehru, in his definitive history of India entitled Discovery of India, wrote,The Mughals were outsiders and strangers to India and yet they fitted into Indian structure with remarkable speed and began the Indo-Mughal period.... Their dynasties became completely Indianized with their roots in India, looking upon India as their homeland, and the rest of the world as foreign.[236]A synthesis worked itself out: new styles of architecture arose; food and clothing changed; and life was affected and varied in many other ways.... The Persian language became the official court language and many Persian words crept into popular use.[237]Persian was the lingua franca of the incoming Muslims from AD 1193 onward, and Persian literature became the favored literature of India for approximately five centuries [Ali 3–4].It is in this tradition of post-Mughal Urdu high culture that Rushdie grew up. In a 1983 interview with Michael Kaufman, Rushdie said,My grandfather, my father’s father, was a good Urdu poet. My father is not a writer but he’s a very literary and literate man, a student of both Arabic and Persian Literature and of Western Literature. At Cambridge he was quite scholarly. So I grew up in an atmosphere of books. And both my parents, in their different ways, were very gifted storytellers. [End Page 51]My mother, in common with most Eastern women and perhaps even women of the West, was the... (shrink)

This paper is reporting on electronic implementation of a three-dimensional autonomous system with infinite equilibrium point belonging to a parabola. Performance analysis of an adaptive synchronization via relay coupling and a hybrid steganography chaos encryption application are provided. Besides striking parabolic equilibrium, the proposed three-dimensional autonomous system also exhibits hidden chaotic oscillations as well as hidden chaotic bursting oscillations. Electronic implementation of the hidden chaotic behaviors is done to confirm their physical existence. A good qualitative agreement is shown between (...) numerical simulations and OrCAD-PSpice results. Moreover, adaptive synchronization via relay coupling of three three-dimensional autonomous systems with a parabolic equilibrium is analysed by using time histories. Numerical results demonstrate that global synchronization is achieved between the three units. Finally, chaotic behavior found is exploited to provide a suitable text encryption scheme by hidden secret message inside an image using steganography and chaos encryption. (shrink)

ArgumentDuring the second quarter of the nineteenth century, an argument raged about the identity of a small freshwater fish: was the parr a distinct species, or merely the young of the salmon? This “Parr Controversy” concerned both fishermen and ichthyologists. A central protagonist in the controversy was a man of ambiguous social and scientific status: a gamekeeper from Scotland named John Shaw. This paper examines Shaw’s heterogeneous practices and the reception of his claims by naturalists as he struggled to find (...) a footing on the “gradient of attributed competence” (Rudwick 1985). The case demonstrates the context-specific nature of expert-lay boundaries and identities and explores a range of material and linguistic resources available for negotiating them. Arguing for a view of Shaw’s trajectory as simultaneously one of being a “practical man” and of becoming a naturalist, the paper explores both the permeability of social hierarchies in knowledge production and their effective role in the regulation of competency. (shrink)

We investigate the semantics of messages, and argue that the meaning ofa message is naturally and usefully given in terms of how it affects theknowledge of the agents involved in the communication. We note thatthis semantics depends on the protocol used by the agents, and thus not only the message itself, but also the protocol appears as a parameter in the meaning. Understanding this dependence allows us to give formal explanations of a wide variety of notions including language dependence, (...) implicature, and the amount of information in a message. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that the recent emphasis on compassion in healthcare practice lacks conceptual richness and clarity. In particular, I argue that it would be helpful to focus on a larger concept of empathy rather than compassion alone and that compassion should be thought of as a component of this larger concept of empathy. The first part of the article outlines a critique of the current discourse of compassion on three grounds. This discourse naturalizes, individualizes, and reifies compassion (...) leading to a decontextualized and simplified understanding of failures in healthcare practice. The second part uses resources from phenomenology and contemporary moral philosophy to construct a “hybrid” concept of empathy that includes both pre‐reflective/intuitive and cognitive/imaginative components. This “hybrid” concept of empathy leads to a more complex understanding of the multiple responses to others' distress. I conclude that there are no straightforward normative naturalistic responses to others' distress. Rather than conceptualizing compassion as a naturalistic impulse or a character‐based trait, we need to consider the complexity of our empathic recognition of vulnerable others. (shrink)

How should scarce health-related resources be allocated? This paper argues that values that apply to these decisions fail to always fully determine what we should do. Health maximization and allocation-according-to-need are suggested as two values that should be part of a general theory of how to allocate health-related resources. The “small improvement argument” is used to argue that it is implausible that one alternative is always better, worse, or equal to another alternative with respect to these values. Approaches that rely (...) on these values are thus incomplete. To deal with this, it is suggested that we ought to use incomplete theories in a two-step process. Such a process first discards ineligible alternatives, and, second, uses reasons grounded in collective commitments to identify a unique, best alternative in the remaining set. (shrink)

Hybrid expressivists depart from pure expressivists by claiming that moral sentences express beliefs and desires. Daniel Boisvert and Michael Ridge, two prominent defenders of hybrid views, also depart from pure expressivists by claiming that moral sentences express general attitudes rather than an attitude towards the subject of the sentence. This article argues that even if the shift to general attitudes helps solve some of the traditional problems associated with pure expressivism, a view like Ridge's, according to which the (...) descriptive meaning is speaker relative, turns out to have problems explaining moral disagreement. (shrink)

Social media offers a platform for diffused stakeholders to interact with firms—alternatively praising, questioning, and chastising businesses for their CSR performance and seeking to engage in two-way dialogue. In 2014, 163,402 public messages were sent to Fortune 200 firms’ CSR-focused Twitter accounts, each of which was either shared, replied to, “liked,” or ignored by the targeted firm. This paper examines firm reactions to these messages, building a model of firm response to stakeholders that combines the notions of CSR (...) communication and stakeholder salience. Our findings show that firm response to a stakeholder on social media is positively and most significantly associated with what we refer to as the stakeholder’s connective power but negatively associated with the firm’s own connective power. To a lesser extent, firm response is positively associated with the stakeholder’s normative power but negatively associated with the firm’s own normative power. Firm response is also shown to be positively associated with stakeholder urgency in terms of both the originality of a stakeholder message and the expression of positive sentiment. (shrink)

Three popular views regarding the modal status of the laws of nature are discussed: Humean Supervenience, nomic necessitation, and scientific/dispositional essentialism. These views are examined especially with regard to their take on the apparent modal force of laws and their ability to explain that modal force. It will be suggested that none of the three views, at least in their strongest form, can be maintained if some laws are metaphysically necessary, but others are metaphysically contingent. Some reasons for thinking that (...) such variation in the modal status of laws exists will be presented with reference to physics. This drives us towards a fourth, hybrid view, according to which there are both necessary and contingent laws. The prospects for such a view are studied. (shrink)

This article focuses on reporting the relationship between research integrity and research supervision. Initially, it briefly discusses the positive research supervision. By following a detailed thematic analysis methodology, 66 published sources were compiled, disassembled, reassembled and interpreted. The findings of this study highlight that maintaining research integrity is the responsibility of all, and that more responsibility falls onto the shoulders of instructors and supervisors who need to ethically perform research supervision to maintain further research integrity. Further, they show crises related (...) to how research supervision is at danger, and how danger at supervision exists. The insights reported in this study help raise further awareness towards effective research supervision that in return and in effect enhances the overall research integrity. The review also concludes with three critical messages for a practical implementation. (shrink)

We study whether robots can satisfy the conditions of an agent fit to be held morally responsible, with a focus on autonomy and self-control. An analogy between robots and human groups enables us to modify arguments concerning collective responsibility for studying questions of robot responsibility. We employ Mele’s history-sensitive account of autonomy and responsibility to argue that even if robots were to have all the capacities required of moral agency, their history would deprive them from autonomy in a responsibility-undermining way. (...) We will also study whether humans and technological artifacts like robots can form hybrid collective agents that could be morally responsible for their actions and give an argument against such a possibility. (shrink)

Hybrid metaethical theories have significant promise; they would have important upshots if they were true. But they also face severe problems. The problems are severe enough to make many philosophers doubt that they could be true. My ambition is to show that the problems are just instances of a highly general problem: a problem about what are sometimes called ‘intensional anaphora'. I'll also show that any adequate explanation of intensional anaphora immediately solves all the problems for the hybrid (...) theorist. We should regard hybrid tools as among the most legitimate tools in our toolkit—at least when we use them properly. (shrink)

Health promotion messages that evoke fear are often used to decrease unrealistic optimism regarding risks, convince people to control their behaviour, and make risks memorable. The relations among emotions, risk and control judgements, and memory are not well understood, however. In the current study, participants (N = 94) were assigned to fearful, angry, happy, or neutral emotion-elicitation conditions. They then rated the likelihood of experiencing 15 negative and 15 positive matched outcomes and rated their degree of control over each (...) outcome. A surprise memory test followed. Fear decreased unrealistic optimism, but the greater the intensity of fear reported the less control participants believed they had over outcomes. Fear also led to poorer memory for outcomes. Across all participants, the lower their ratings of optimism and control concerning outcomes, the less likely they were to recall them. Implications for the use of emotionally evocative material in health promotion messages are discussed. (shrink)

Ethical challenges that arise within healthcare delivery institutions are currently categorized as either clinical or organizational, based on the type of issue. Despite this common binary issue-based methodology, empirical study and increasing academic dialogue indicate that a clear line cannot easily be drawn between organizational and clinical ethics. Disagreement around end-of-life treatments, for example, often spawn value differences amongst parties at both organizational and clinical levels and requires a resolution to address both the case at hand and large-scale underlying system-level (...) confounders. I refer to issues that contain elements of both clinical and organizational issues as hybrids and propose a new taxonomy to characterize hybrid cases. I contend that salient contextual features of an ethical issue, such as where it is identified, who it impacts and where it is ideally resolved in relation to its scope of impact, should inform procedure. Implementation of a Hybrid taxonomy viewing ethical issues as existing on a continuum furthers that end. The primary goals are to 1) systematize thinking about ethical issues that arise within healthcare delivery institutions and 2) allow the content of the ethical challenge to drive the process, rather than continuing to rely on the traditional binary issue-based choice. Failure to capture the complexity of hybrid situations perpetuates incomplete information and ultimately an inchoate resolution that creates more questions than answers. (shrink)

The present research was guided by the important need for a diversion from an economistic to a humanistic management perspective of sustainability. It concentrates on the current importance of digital strategic communication, particularly regarding the concept of corporate sustainability in the context of the conflict arena of the oil industry. The focus is on the comparison of the persuasive effectiveness of the framings of corporate versus activist NGO website communications and their impacts on the perception of the triple pillars of (...) sustainability and, corporate greenwashing with respect to a proposed bituminous oil pipeline in Canada. The results of these pro and con messages were analyzed within the Elaboration Likelihood Model demonstrating a “non expert” peripheral route to a positive persuasion from exposure to the corporate communication versus an “expert” central route to a negative persuasion from the activist NGO communication. Subsequent exposure to the opposite website communication further emphasized the predominance of a negative persuasion based on both groups now being motivated as “expert” viewers of these strategic communications, leading to an important perception of greenwashing by participants resulting from vague claims, visual and linguistic contents of the corporate communication versus the mainly verifiable factual ones in that of the activist NGO. (shrink)

The Sleeping Beauty problem is test stone for theories about self-locating belief, i.e. theories about how we should reasons when data or theories contain indexical information. Opinion on this problem is split between two camps, those who defend the "1/2 view" and those who advocate the "1/3 view". I argue that both these positions are mistaken. Instead, I propose a new "hybrid" model, which avoids the faults of the standard views while retaining their attractive properties. This model _appears_ to (...) violate Bayesian conditionalization, but I argue that this is not the case. By paying close attention to the details of conditionalization in contexts where indexical information is relevant, we discover that the hybrid model is in fact consistent with Bayesian kinematics. If the proposed model is correct, there are important lessons for the study of self-location, observation selection theory, and anthropic reasoning. (shrink)

This article employs Spinoza’s ideas as a springboard for developing a novel philosophical interpretation of today’s technologically enhanced world. As a starting point, today’s digitized and datafied world has brought about fundamental changes not only to the ways in which humans live their lives but also to our understanding of the role and place of the human person as such. As the conditions and, in many cases, the content of everyday life are shaped by data, code, devices and the infrastructure (...) necessary for connectivity and interoperability, anthropocentric notions of the human begin to fall apart. Hence, this article embraces the post-humanist displacement of the human by demonstrating human beings to be merely parts of hybrid agglomerations, united by the flows of affect. It is within these affective flows that agency and (true to Spinozist thinking) existence are seen to be located. Moreover, through appreciation of Spinozist monism, it becomes evident that today’s hybrid agglomerations, understood as manifestations of a single substance under the attributes of thought and extension, are not aberrations but merely manifestations of natural human embeddedness. (shrink)

Gambling addiction is special type of addiction not only through the object of the addiction, the psychobiological constitution of the individual, and the pattern of the development of a pathological behaviour and condition, but also through the methods available for preventing and fighting against it and their effectiveness. This latter specificity has not been clearly established and thus has not been exploited much in problem-gambling research; but specificity should be reflected in warning messages and counselling content.

The article analyzes Yuka Hui's concept of the transformation of modern technology. He is a well-known Hong Kong philosopher of technology, well acquainted with both Western and Eastern (Chinese) philosophy. He is an obvious follower of Martin Heidegger, who proposes to consider language and art, but not modern, but authentic, given in historical reconstructions, as a means of transforming technology. Specifically, Hui considers Chinese reconstructed art and worldview to be the tools of such a transformation. To convince readers of this, (...) both Western and Eastern, Hui, on the one hand, turns to the analysis of Chinese Shan Shui painting, which he considers an example of "cosmo-art", on the other ‒ to Western concepts of second-order cybernetics, the concept of autopoiesis, studies of individuation by the French philosopher J. Simondon. The author shows that Hui's thinking and discourse are hybrid, including, on the one hand, cultural logic, on the other ‒ cybernetic and autopoetic, on the third hand, modernized ancient Chinese logic. Hui connects them quite organically, although for a Western reader, such logic still looks contradictory. Especially when it comes to understanding the third logic, when Hui, for example, comments and clarifies ideas about the Tao, pointing to such signs as invisibility, obscurity, a combination of natural and anthropological properties (Heaven and the virtuous path). At the end of the article, the author discusses whether Hui managed to outline an effective solution to the problems posed by him and Heidegger. He examines the arguments for and against and tends to conclude that the proposed solutions look dubious, in the sense that they are almost impossible to implement. In addition, the author draws attention to the fact that the interpretation of modern technology as a "delivery" is clearly insufficient to solve these problems. In reality, modern technology is a more complex phenomenon; in the philosophy of technology, in addition to delivery, other aspects are considered in it (engineering, technology, technical environment, technosocial large projects, the Internet, robotics, AI). These and other considerations, especially regarding the conditions for the implementation of projects such as those proposed by Hui, incline the author to a pessimistic point of view about the transformation of modern technology. (shrink)

In _Phenomenology, Naturalism and Empirical Science_, Jack Reynolds takes the controversial position that phenomenology and naturalism are compatible, and develops a hybrid account of phenomenology and empirical science. Though phenomenology and naturalism are typically understood as philosophically opposed to one another, Reynolds argues that this resistance is based on an understanding of transcendental phenomenology that is ultimately untenable and in need of updating. Phenomenology, as Reynolds reorients it, is compatible with liberal naturalism, as well as with weak forms of (...) methodological naturalism. Chapters explore areas where scientific and phenomenological work overlap and sometimes conflict, contesting standard ways of understanding the relationship between phenomenological philosophy and empirical science. The book outlines the significance of the first-person perspective characteristic of phenomenology—both epistemically and ontologically—while according due respect to the relevant empirical sciences. This book makes a significant contribution to one of the central issues in phenomenology and argues for phenomenology’s ongoing importance for the future of philosophy. (shrink)