A cross-sectional study to ascertain what the Singapore population would regard as material risk in the anaesthesia consent-taking process and identify demographic factors that predict patient preferences in medical decision-making to tailor a more patient-centered informed consent. A survey was performed involving patients 21 years old and above who attended the pre-operative evaluation clinic over a 1-month period in Singapore General Hospital. Questionnaires were administered to assess patients’ perception of material risks, by trained interviewers. Patients’ demographics were obtained. Mann–Whitney U (...) test and Kruskal-Wallis one-way analysis of variance was used. Statistical significance was taken at p < 0.05. Four hundred fourteen patients were eligible of which 26 refused to participate and 24 were excluded due to language barrier. 364 patients were recruited. A higher level of education, being employed and younger age group are factors identified in patients who wanted greater participation in medical decisions. Gender, marital status, type of surgery, and previous surgical history did not affect their level of participation. The complications most patients knew about were Nausea, Drowsiness and Surgical Wound Pain. Patients ranked Heart Attack, Death and Stroke as the most significant risks that they wanted to be informed about in greater detail. Most patients wanted to make a joint decision with the anaesthetist, instead of letting the doctor decide or deciding for themselves. Discussion with the anaesthetist is the preferred medium of communication compared to reading a pamphlet or watching a video. Age and educational level can influence medical decision-making. Despite the digital age, most patients still prefer a clinic consult instead of audio-visual multimedia for pre-operative anaesthetic counselling. The local population appears to place greater importance on rare but serious complications compared to common complications. This illustrates the need to contextualize information provided during informed consent to strengthen the doctor-patient relationship. (shrink)

The first English translation of Fichte’s second set of 1804 lectures on the Wissenschaftslehre.

The texts collected in this volume, which was originally published in 1969, contain Herder's most original and stimulating ideas on politics, history and language. They had for the most part not been previously available in English. In his introduction, Professor Barnard analyses the basic premises of Herder's political thought against the background of the Enlightenment. He examines Herder's concepts of language, community and culture, his theory of historical interaction, and his approach to the problem of change and progress. Finally, he (...) provides a brief comparative analysis of traditionalist thought following the French Revolution, showing how substantive writers like Burke differed from Herder despite the close similarity of political vocabulary. (shrink)

This essay is written on the following premises and argues for them. “Enlightenment” is a word or signifier, and not a single or unifiable phenomenon which it consistently signifies. There is no single or unifiable phenomenon describable as “the Enlightenment,” but it is the definite article rather than the noun which is to be avoided. In studying the intellectual history of the late seventeenth century and the eighteenth, we encounter a variety of statements made, and assumptions proposed, to which the (...) term “Enlightenment” may usefully be applied, but the meanings of the term shift as we apply it. The things are connected, but not continuous; they cannot be reduced to a single narrative; and we find ourselves using the word “Enlightenment” in a family of ways and talking about a family of phenomena, resembling and related to one another in a variety of ways that permit of various generalizations about them. We are not, however, committed to a single root meaning of the word “Enlightenment,” and we do not need to reduce the phenomena of which we treat to a single process or entity to be termed “the” Enlightenment. It is a reification that we wish to avoid, but the structure of our language is such that this is difficult, and we will find ourselves talking of “the French” or “the Scottish,” “the Newtonian” or the “the Arminian” Enlightenments, and hoping that by employing qualifying adjectives we may constantly remind ourselves that the keyword “Enlightenment” is ours to use and should not master us. (shrink)

Two classic learning situations are critically reviewed and interpreted from a synergetic point of view: human learning of complex skills, and animal discrimination learning. Both show typical characteristics of nonlinear phase transitions: instability, fluctuations, critical slowing down and reorganisation. Plateaus in the acquisition curves of complex skills can be viewed as phases of arrested progress in which a reorganisation of simple skills is necessary before their integration into complex units is possible. Fluctuations and critical slowing down are expressed in instances (...) of "vicarious trial-and-error," which describe the oscillating behavior of rats at a choice point that is shown only just before discrimination learning is completed. It is concluded that education might pay more attention to the role of individual learning rhythms. (shrink)

It is shown that an approach to quantum phenomena in which charged particles are treated as macroscopically extended periodic disturbances in a nonlinear c-number field, interacting with each other via massless excitations of that field, leads almost uniquely to the five basic equations of classical electrodynamics: the Lorentz force law and Maxwell's equations. The fundamental electromagnetic quantity in this approach is the 4-vector potential Aα—interpreted absolutely as a measure of the local shift of each particle off its mass shell—rather than (...) theE andB fields, and it thus provides a new viewpoint on the questions of Aharonov-Bohm phase shifts, the existence of magnetic monopoles, and the role of gauge invariance. (shrink)

This paper examines the identity of Asian swamp buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) from different value orientations. Buffalo were introduced into Northern (Top End) Australia in the early nineteenth century. A team of transdisciplinary researchers, including an ethicist, has been engaged in field research on feral buffalo in Arnhem Land over the past three years. Using historical documents, literature review, field observations, interviews with key informants, and interaction with the Indigenous land owners, an understanding of the diverse views on the scientific, cultural, (...) and economic significance of buffalo was obtained. While the diverse stakeholders in buffalo exploitation and management have historically delivered divergent value orientations on the nature of the human–buffalo relationship, we argue that over time there is the possibility of values and ethical convergence. Such convergence is possible via transdisciplinary and transcultural agreement on the value stances that constitute the construction of the being or identity of buffalo in the face of the overwhelming need to manage population density and gross numbers. (shrink)

Originally published in 1932, this book presents a comprehensive study regarding the life and works of Peter Abelard. The text reflects the renewed interest in medieval thought at the time of publication, incorporating ideas from a broad variety of perspectives. A preface is included by the renowned theologian and biblical scholar Alexander Nairne. Detailed notes, appendices and a bibliography are also contained. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in logic, medieval philosophy and theology.

The rôle of mathematical models in growth studies is discussed and a distinction made between the structural and descriptive aspects of a mathematical formulation. A simple scheme is set up to represent in broad outline the simultaneous growth and interaction of larval and adult systems inMyrmica rubra and is matched against observed results.