Medical schools, like all institutions, are conservative since they seek to maintain and expand on their accomplishments. Stakes are high in carceral medicine given the risks of replicating the inhumane social conditions that exist within prisons and allow prisons to exist. Given the increasing number of partnerships between state and municipal carceral systems with academic medical centers, medical schools must consider which guiding theory they will use to teach carceral medicine. The interdisciplinary theory of prison abolition is best fit for (...) the task of training medical students to think about the long term goals of societal change and public health. (shrink)

I here present two different models of oppressive speech. My interest is not in how speech can cause oppression, but in how speech can actually be an act of oppression. As we shall see, a particular type of speech act, the exercitive, enacts permissibility facts. Since oppressive speech enacts permissibility facts that oppress, speech must be exercitive in order for it to be an act of oppression. In what follows, I distinguish between two sorts of exercitive speech acts (the standard (...) exercitive and the covert exercitive) and I argue that each such exercitive affords a distinct model of oppressive speech. (shrink)

Janet Malek (91–102, 2019) argues that a “clinical ethics consultant’s religious worldview has no place in developing ethical recommendations or communicating about them with patients, surrogates, and clinicians.” She offers five types of arguments in support of this thesis: arguments from consensus, clarity, availability, consistency, and autonomy. This essay shows that there are serious problems for each of Malek’s arguments. None of them is sufficient to motivate her thesis. Thus, if it is true that the religious worldview of clinical ethics (...) consultants should play no role whatsoever in their work as consultants, this claim will need to be defended on some other ground. (shrink)

This paper argues that an addressee's failure to recognize a speaker's authority can constitutes another form of silencing.

This paper investigates necessary conditions for developing a participatory, rightsholder-driven approach to remedy for business-related human rights abuses by analyzing findings from a case study with the Fair Food Program. With the inclusion of human rights into discussions of business ethics and CSR, scholars and practitioners have made calls for participatory approaches to remedy to address cases of human rights abuses. However, a gap remains in our understanding of how to operationalize participatory approaches in a manner that empowers rightsholders, particularly (...) within contexts of severe power imbalances. The paper puts forth a rightsholder-driven theoretical framework for remedy, grounded on critical dialogic accountability principles and integrated with empirical analysis from the Fair Food Program case study. This framework defines remedy as a system comprising reinforcing aspects rather than standalone mechanisms. The critical dialogic accounting and accountability framework provides a theoretical framing of engagement that enables the inclusion of multiple, divergent voices and aims toward meaningful engagement with marginalized groups. The analysis of findings from the case study identifies enforcement and education as necessary conditions for effective and empowering rightsholder-driven approaches to remedy. The paper deconstructs these conditions to develop an understanding of the program’s unique approach to enforcement and education. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of rightsholder-driven remedy for Business and Human Rights and business accountability. (shrink)

Many liberal societies are deeply committed to freedom of speech. This commitment is so entrenched that when it seems to come into conflict with other commitments (e.g., gender equality), it is often argued that the commitment to speech must trump the other commitments. In this paper, we argue that a proper understanding of our commitment to free speech requires being clear about what should count as speech for these purposes. On the approach we defend, should get a special, technical sense, (...) different from its ordinary sense. We offer a partial characterization of this technical sense. Finally, we argue that if certain theorists (e.g., MacKinnon) are right about what (some) pornography does, then it should fall outside the scope of the free-speech principle. If so, then contrary to first appearances, pornography may not be a case in which our commitments to freedom and gender equality come into conflict. (shrink)

Clinical ethics consultants (CECs) are not moral authorities. Standardization of CECs’ professional role does not confer upon them moral authority. Certification of particular CECs does not confer upon them moral authority (nor does it reflect such authority). Or, so we will argue. This article offers a distinctly Orthodox Christian response to those who claim that CECs—or any other academically trained bioethicist—retain moral authority (i.e., an authority to know and recommend the right course of action). This article proceeds in three parts. (...) First, we discuss recent movements toward the certification of CECs in the United States, focusing primarily on proposals and programs put forth by the American Society for Humanities and Bioethics (ASBH). Second, we outline two secular reasons to be concerned about the relevant trends toward certification. For one thing, certification is currently being advanced via political dominance, rather than gaining authority by reliance on rigorous philosophical argument or reason. For another, the trends operate on the assumption that there exists a secular, content-full, canonical, morality. There is no such morality. Next, we argue that Orthodox Christians should resist the current trends toward certification of CECs. Specifically, we unpack ways in which the ASBH’s certification program (and those like it) conflict with Orthodox claims about moral authority and the moral life more generally. We conclude that Orthodox Christians should resist the current certification trends. (shrink)

Materializing absence, Jenny Hockey, Carol Komaromy and Kate Woodthorpe -- Never say die: CPR in hospital space, Susie Page -- Making hospice space, Ken Worpole -- Dying spaces in dying places, Carol Komaromy -- The materialities of absence after stillbirth: historical perspectives, Jan Bleyen -- Distributed personhood and the transformation of agency: an anthropological perspective on inquests, Susan Langer -- Behind closed doors? corpses and mourners in English and American funeral premises, Sheila Harper -- Private grief in public spaces: (...) interpreting memorialisation in the contemporary cemetary, Kate Woodthorpe -- Wandering lines and cul-de-sacs: trajectories of ashes in the United Kingdom, Leonie Kellaher, Jenny Hockey and David Prendergast -- Natural burial: the de-materialising of death?, Andy Clayden, Jenny Hockey and Mark Powell -- What will the neighbours say? reactions to field and garden burial, Tony Walter and Clare Gittings -- Memorialising the suicide victim: "walking the walk," Caroline Simone -- Potent reminders: an examination of responses to roadside memorials in Ireland, Una McConville and Regina McQuillan -- Geographies of the spirit world, Douglas J. Davies -- Recovering presence, Jenny Hockey, Carol Komaromy and Kate Woodthorpe. (shrink)

It has often been argued that charitable donations are not a sufficient response to global poverty; individuals need to address structural injustice. Proponents of the Effective Altruism (EA) movement have raised two main problems with this focus on structural injustice. In this paper, we respond to these concerns. The first problem raised by EA proponents is that focusing on structural injustice absolves individuals of any responsibility other than political ones. In response, we argue that discharging this duty requires more commitment (...) than EA defenders think, and we do so by framing individual responsibility in global structural injustice through the lens of Robin Zheng’s Role-Ideal Model (RIM). The second response given by EA proponents is that a focus on structural injustice does not provide concrete ways for any given individual to discharge such duties. To address this worry, we argue that RIM can be complemented with the Rawlsian account of moral maturation. This new framework makes it clear how individuals can form the right concept of justice and become responsible citizens who act in accordance with RIM. (shrink)

The rapid rise of generative AI, including LLMs, has prompted a great deal of concern, both within and beyond academia. One of these concerns is that generative models embed, reproduce, and therein potentially perpetuate all manner of bias. The present study offers an alternative perspective: exploring the potential of LLMs to detect bias in human generated text. Our target is genetic essentialism in obesity discourse in Australian print media. We develop and deploy an LLM-based classification model to evaluate a large (...) sample of relevant articles (n=26,163). We show that our model detects genetic essentialist biases as reliably as human experts; and find that, while genes figure less prominently in popular discussions of obesity than previous work might suggest, when genetic information is invoked, it is often presented in a biased way. Implications for future work are discussed. (shrink)

The Ethical Matrix was developed to help decision-makers explore the ethical issues raised by agri-food biotechnologies. Over the decade since its inception the Ethical Matrix has been used by a number of organizations and the philosophical basis of the framework has been discussed and analyzed extensively. The role of tools such as the Ethical Matrix in public policy decision-making has received increasing attention. In order to further develop the methodological aspects of the Ethical Matrix method, work was carried out to (...) study the potential role of the Ethical Matrix as a decision support framework. When considering which frameworks to apply when analyzing the ethical dimensions of the application of agri-food biotechnologies, it is important to clarify the substantive nature of any prospective framework. In order to further investigate this issue, reflections on the neologism “ethical soundness” of an ethical framework are presented here. This concept is introduced in order to provide more structured evaluations of a range of ethical tools, including ethical frameworks such as the Ethical Matrix. As well as examining the philosophical dimensions of the method, theoretical analysis and literature studies were combined with stakeholder engagement exercises and consultations in order to review the Ethical Matrix from a user perspective. This work resulted in the development of an Ethical Matrix Manual, which is intended to act as a guide for potential user groups. (shrink)

This commentary analyzes the extent to which the incommensurability problem can be resolved through the proposed alternative method of integrative experiment design. We suggest that, although one aspect of incommensurability is successfully addressed (dimensional incommensurability), the proposed design space method does not yet alleviate another major source of discontinuity, which we call conceptual incommensurability.

This paper, co-authored by undergraduate students and their instructor part of an educational psychology seminar, describes a participatory curriculum design approach for preservice teacher education that focuses on the use of the principles of second-order cybernetics to teach about teaching and learning. Using elements of an Open Source Educational Processes framework, our Spring ESEPSY2309 section created project-based collective hive minds of preservice teachers, relying on a cybernetic approach at the crossroads of Gregory Bateson and Gordon Pask's theories. The classroom community (...) used four innovative tool-mediated pillars to guide collaborative activity: 1) Live-chatting using the Reddit social media platform, 2) observation of the lives, strategies, and practices used by teachers and students in their own social networks through Soundcloud podcasting to expand their own perceptions of pedagogies and best practices that they could employ in their careers, 3) open-ended paper writing, exploring sources beyond the object language provided by the textbook through extensive dyadic conversations with the instructor, and 4) training in the use of the Alice 3 game creation tool for block programming enabling the accumulation of competence in designing classroom systems that may treat students these undergraduates would soon teach as active historical agents in learning environments, combining skills from varied subjects into transdisciplinary educational experiences. We showcase outcomes of our class projects using a narrative inquiry to describe podcast episodes, a topic network analysis to illustrate the expansive nature of Open Source writing activity, and a visual depiction of our class Alice 3 games. (shrink)

This paper puts forth a critical perspective on remedy for business-related human rights abuses. It reflects on the purpose of remedy in Business and Human Rights and argues that effective remedy should address the multiple root causes of abuses to prevent reoccurrences rather than focus on surface issues and isolated cases. To develop a theoretical framework to conceptualize preventative remedy that addresses multiple root causes, this research draws on Fraser’s radical democratic conception of justice and participatory parity. According to the (...) principle, justice is achieved through social arrangements that enable all actors to engage with one another as peers. To conceptualize effective remedy as participatory parity, the paper examines three dimensions—cultural, economic, and political—where injustices or root causes of abuses must be addressed to realize participatory parity. The paper analyzes the illustrative case of the Fair Food Program through the lens of Fraser’s framework. Analysis reveals effective enforcement as necessary to realize participatory parity and address the three dimensions of justice in the context of severe power asymmetries. In the theorized framework, remedy aims to address the multiple root causes of business-related human rights abuses toward prevention and empower rightsholders to engage meaningfully in remedial processes. (shrink)

Inadequate diet is the leading risk factor for morbidity and mortality worldwide. However, approaches to identifying inadequate diets in clinical practice remain inconsistent, and dietary interventions frequently focus on facilitating ‘healthy choices’, with limited emphasis on structural constraints. We examine the ethical implications of introducing a routine question in the medical history about ability to access food. Not collecting data on food security means that clinicians are unable to identify people who may benefit from support on an individual level, unable (...) to consider relevant dietary risk factors for disease and disease progression and unable to monitor population trends and inequalities in dietary access in order to design effective policy interventions. We argue that the current lack of routine screening for food insecurity is inconsistent with our approach to other health behaviours, as well as with doctors’ frequent informal role as gatekeepers to the food aid system, and recent calls for governmental action on food insecurity and health inequalities from individual clinicians and professional bodies. Potential ethical barriers to asking patients about food security are addressed, including concerns about stigma, limiting autonomy, fair resource allocation, unclear professional remits and clinicians’ ability to offer effective interventions. We suggest that there is an ethical imperative for doctors to ask patients about their ability to access healthy food. Gathering this data provides a valuable first step in re-framing the social determinants of health as modifiable risks, rather than inevitable inequities. No data are available. (shrink)

Changes in government policy over the last two decades have seen the traditional goals of criminal justice, namely prosecution and punishment, being replaced by an emphasis on prevention, fear reduction, security and harm reduction. During this time domestic abuse has gained a place on the political agenda, which has resulted in legislative initiatives in the form of civil protection orders across the U.K. which primarily focus on prevention but have also more recently begun to rely on the traditional criminal justice (...) responses should they fail to prevent further abuse. Drawing on international evaluations and a recent study conducted in Scotland (the Scottish study), the article examines whether legislation in the form of civil protection orders has the effect of curtailing the actions of abusers and if not, what occurs when the traditional criminal justice response comes into play. The strengths of civil protection orders and some explanations for the weaknesses of these orders are considered alongside the question of whether there is any value in women continuing to engage with the law in response to domestic abuse. (shrink)

‘@AP: Breaking: Two Explosions in the White House and Barack Obama is injured’. So read a tweet sent from a hacked Associated Press Twitter account @AP, which affected financial markets, wiping out $136.5 billion of the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index’s value. While the speed of the Associated Press hack crash event and the proprietary nature of the algorithms involved make it difficult to make causal claims about the relationship between social media and trading algorithms, we argue that it helps (...) us to critically examine the volatile connections between social media, financial markets, and third parties offering human and algorithmic analysis. By analyzing the commentaries of this event, we highlight two particular currents: one formed by computational processes that mine and analyze Twitter data, and the other being financial algorithms that make automated trades and steer the stock market. We build on sociology of finance together with media theory and focus on the work of Christian Marazzi, Gabriel Tarde and Tony Sampson to analyze the relationship between social media and financial markets. We argue that Twitter and social media are becoming more powerful forces, not just because they connect people or generate new modes of participation, but because they are connecting human communicative spaces to automated computational spaces in ways that are affectively contagious and highly volatile. (shrink)

Supported decision-making has been promoted at a policy level and within international human rights treaties as a way of ensuring that people with disabilities enjoy the right to legal capacity on an equal basis with others. However, little is known about the practical issues associated with implementing supported decision-making, particularly in the context of dementia. This study aimed to understand the experiences of people with dementia and their family members with respect to decision-making and their views on supported decision-making. Thirty-six (...) interviews were undertaken with fifty-seven participants across three states in Australia. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis was used as the methodological approach, with relational autonomy as a theoretical perspective. We identified two overarching themes relating to participants’ experiences with decision-making: “the person in relationship over time” and “maintaining involvement.” Participant views on the practical issues associated with supported decision-making are addressed under the themes of “facilitating decision-making,” “supported decision-making arrangements,” “constraints on decision-making,” and “safeguarding decision-making.” While participants endorsed the principles of supported decision-making as part of their overarching strategy of “maintaining involvement” in decision-making, they recognized that progressive cognitive impairment meant that there was an inevitable transition toward greater involvement of, and reliance upon, others in decision-making. Social and contextual “constraints on decision-making” also impacted on the ability of people with dementia to maintain involvement. These themes inform our proposal for a “spectrum approach” to decision-making involvement among people living with dementia, along with recommendations for policy and practice to assist in the implementation of supported decision-making within this population. (shrink)

Legal judgment writing mobilises a process of story-telling, drawing on existing judicial discourses, precedents and practices to create a narrative relevant to the specific case that is articulated by the presiding judge. In the Feminist Judgments projects feminist scholars and activists have sought to challenge and reinterpret legal judgments that have disadvantaged, discriminated against or denied women’s experiences. This paper reflects on the process of writing as a feminist judge in the Australian Project, in an intimate homicide case, R v (...) Middendorp. Drawing on the work of Judith Butler on intelligibility, iterability and the communality of violence and vulnerability, this article argues that feminist judgments necessarily require some uncomfortable compromises with unjust gendered institutions. While ‘donning the robes’ may be an uncomfortable process, a feminist re-articulation of the law’s carceral power serves to unsettle and challenge some aspects of gendered oppression, even though it cannot unsettle the operation of the institution. The article concludes that effective feminist interventions by members of the judiciary may require donning robes that are not entirely comfortable in order to persuade and advocate for change. (shrink)

An increase in the number of companies that publish corporate social responsibility (CSR) statements, and a rise in their ‘sustainability’ research, reflects a growing acceptance that broad ethical considerations are key for any type of company. However, little is known about how companies consider moral objectives for their research and development (R&D) activities, or the basis upon which these activities are chosen. This research involves qualitative investigation into Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) industry, (...) comprising 30 in-depth, pan-European interviews with key personnel in the industry, and focus groups with employees at 14 different companies. Through investigation of the ‘responsible’ activities these companies currently undertake, we shed light on the types of moral goals they set and their underlying ethical standpoints. By reviewing both the responsible innovation and sustainability discourses, and presenting phenomenological evidence, we demonstrate that companies have adopted some aspects of RRI, even though it might not be recognised as such. Our findings indicate that these innovators recognise some of the ethical and societal concerns associated with their activities but their approach is often piecemeal; primary focus is upon the most immediate issues and on legal compliance, to the detriment of broader societal issues and wider challenges. We recommend explicit mechanisms that draw upon established ethical thought and practical academic work to improve companies' abilities to carry out their sustainability activities, and incorporate them into a responsible business strategy. We conclude with recommendations for innovators, corporate research and development, and policy. (shrink)

Amazon Book Review Series of “Wild Wise Weird”.

Legal responses to battered women who kill have long animated scholarly debate and law reform activity. In September 2012 after 47 years of alleged abuse, Frenchwoman Jacqueline Sauvage fatally shot her abusive husband three times in the back. The subsequent contested trial, conviction for murder, unsuccessful appeal and later presidential pardon of Sauvage thrust the French law of self-defence into the spotlight. The Sauvage case raises important questions surrounding the adequacy of the French criminal law in this area, the ongoing (...) proliferation of gendered stereotypes in law and the need for reform. In the wake of the Sauvage case, this article provides a timely analysis of the gendered law of self-defence in France. Drawing from an in-depth analysis of the judgments imposed in the Sauvage case, this article examines the adequacy of French legal responses to battered women who kill and ignites an argument for further law reform. (shrink)

Causation has multiple distinct meanings in genetics. One reason for this is meaning slippage between two concepts of the gene: Mendelian and molecular. Another reason is that a variety of genetic methods address different kinds of causal relationships. Some genetic studies address causes of traits in individuals, which can only be assessed when single genes follow predictable inheritance patterns that reliably cause a trait. A second sense concerns the causes of trait differences within a population. Whereas some single genes can (...) be said to cause population-level differences, most often these claims concern the effects of many genes. Polygenic traits can be understood using heritability estimates, which estimate the relative influences of genetic and environmental differences to trait differences within a population. Attempts to understand the molecular mechanisms underlying polygenic traits have been developed, although causal inference based on these results remains controversial. Genetic variation has also recently been leveraged as a randomizing factor to identify environmental causes of trait differences. This technique—Mendelian randomization—offers some solutions to traditional epidemiological challenges, although it is limited to the study of environments with known genetic influences. (shrink)

The rapid pace of technological development often outstrips the ability of legislators and regulators to establish proper guardrails on emerging technologies. A solution is for those who develop, deploy, and use these technologies to develop themselves as moral agents—i.e., as agents capable of steering the course of emerging technologies in a direction that will benefit humanity. However, there is a dearth of literature discussing how to foster moral agency in computer science courses, and little if any research on the effectiveness (...) of such courses in computer science. This paper addresses this gap by providing an overview of an undergraduate course on technology ethics. It then shares and discusses a subset of data collected from a mixed-methods study using a pre-post design that sought to examine the course’s effectiveness in developing students’ moral, intellectual, and civic virtues, as well as related dispositions. (shrink)

Judicial independence is generally understood as requiring that judges must be insulated from political life. The central claim of this work is that far from standing apart from the political realm, judicial independence is a product of it. It is defined and protected through interactions between judges and politicians. In short, judicial independence is a political achievement. This is the main conclusion of a three-year research project on the major changes introduced by the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, and the consequences (...) for judicial independence and accountability. The authors interviewed over 150 judges, politicians, civil servants and practitioners to understand the day-to-day processes of negotiation and interaction between politicians and judges. They conclude that the greatest threat to judicial independence in future may lie not from politicians actively seeking to undermine the courts, but rather from their increasing disengagement from the justice system and the judiciary. (shrink)

In the words of Catharine MacKinnon, "a woman is not yet a name for a way of being human." In other words, women are still excluded, as authors and agents, from identifying what it is to be human and what therefore violates the dignity and integrity of humans. Recognition, Responsibility, and Rights is written in response to that failure. This collection of essays by prominent feminist thinkers advances the positive feminist project of remapping the moral landscape by developing theory that (...) acknowledges the diversity of women. (shrink)

This paper clarifies the legal right to free speech, identifies ways that speech can be harmful, and discusses pornography hate speech, and lies. It is also written for a non-technical audience.

This article explores the idea that there is a spectrum of individuals who feel compelled to dwell in the past, either due to psychological or social conditions. I analyze both conditions respectively by critically examining two cases: post-traumatic stress disorder and racialized oppression. I propose that individuals with PTSD can feel psychologically compelled to dwell in the past in a dually negative sense: the individual lives in the past but also broods on it, causing them to feel “stuck” in the (...) past. This kind of “dwelling” can cause individuals to suffer disruptions to their sense of self and intersubjectivity. After exploring the psychological case of dwelling in the past, I explore the social sense in which individuals can dwell in the past due to oppressive social structures by examining the case of racialized oppression. The case of racialization is philosophically stimulating because of its intersubjective dimensions—it subverts the idea that dwelling in the past is simply a psychological phenomenon by capturing that others can help or hinder us with maintaining a sense of self and future-directed intentionality. By putting the phenomenological work of Al-Saji into conversation with recent phenomenological research on incarceration, I propose that racialization can be similarly disruptive to one’s sense of self and intersubjectivity. The proposed account is suggestive that traumatic and oppressive experiences may amplify and compound each other in ways not yet well elucidated in the literature. If this account is taken to be persuasive, it is indicative that both psychological and social conditions mediate one’s temporality and well-being. (shrink)

This paper highlights the importance of considering both researcher and participant contexts when exploring everyday educational lives. It emerges during a period of increasing and sustained social inequality in England, and against a backdrop of increasingly tight research timeframes and resources in higher education. Drawing on a project engaging low-income families in Greater London, the paper takes the everyday as its conceptual focus and questions how we can be critically attentive to everyday educational lives if we struggle to access and (...) develop research relationships with particular social groups. We offer empirical insight into the hesitancies towards, and avoidances of, research participation that centre around knowledge, fear, and trust, and which are heightened concerns where aspects of family life, parenting, and children come to the fore. The paper considers how these can be mitigated in an academic environment where limited time and resourcing shape possibilities of research engagements and offers practical moves linked to research relationships, relevance and presence for how researchers can address these challenges to enable research to be more inclusive. (shrink)

It is widely recognized that Goodman's grue example demonstrates that the rules for induction, unlike those for deduction, cannot be purely syntactic. Ways in which Goodman's proof generalizes, however, are not widely recognized. Gruesome considerations demonstrate that neither theories of simplicity nor theories of empirical confirmation can be purely syntactic. Moreover, the grue paradox can be seen as an instance of a much more general phenomenon. All empirical investigations require semantic constraints, since purely structural constraints are inadequate. Both Russell's theory (...) of empirical knowledge and Putnam's model-theoretic argument against metaphysical realism illustrate the inadequacy of purely structural constraints. (shrink)

Conflict resolution practitioners consistently struggle with access to structured armed conflict data, a dataset already rife with uncertainty, inconsistency, and politicization. Due to the lack of a standardized approach to collating conflict data, publicly available armed conflict datasets often require manipulation depending upon the needs of end users. Transformation of armed conflict data tends to be a manual, time-consuming task that nonprofits with limited budgets struggle to keep up with. In this paper, we explore the use of a deep natural (...) language processing model to aid the transformation of armed conflict data for conflict analysis. Our model drastically reduces the time spent on manual data transformations and improves armed conflict event classification by identifying multiple incidence types. This minimizes the human supervision cost and allows nonprofits to access a broader range of conflict data sources to reduce reporting bias. Thus, our model contributes to the incorporation of technology in the peace building and conflict resolution sector. (shrink)

Regenerative agriculture is an approach that places soil conservation at the center of its practices. As part of this approach, regenerative agriculture seeks to address concerns related to environmental and socio-economic dimensions of food production through the promotion of a range of best management practices. While regenerative agriculture has received support at various levels in many countries, including Canada, adoption remains low. Systems thinking strength has been recognized as facilitating farmer adoption of several regenerative agricultural practices including rotational grazing (RG). (...) However, few approaches have examined multiple types of systems thinking nor the breadth of a system which may underlay the diverse ways that systems thinking influences agricultural practice adoption and persistence. Furthermore, few studies have taken a quantitative approach into understanding how different systems are emphasized by adopters of RG within the context of systems thinking. Using survey data from program participants in a national producer training program, we explored the use of two measures of systems thinking, systems thinking strength and diversity of a system in RG adopters. Our research highlights how the inclusion of the breadth of systems farmers consider can help us better understand RG adopters and support efforts to recruit new adopters. Furthermore, our results suggest that adopters are not homogenous in the types of systems they emphasize in their farming nor in the strength of their systems thinking. Future training programs can utilize these insights to leverage existing system emphases of RG producers and integrate them in the development of training programs to attract potential adopters. (shrink)

We are less optimistic than Madole & Harden that family-based genome-wide association studies (GWASs) will lead to significant second-generation causal knowledge. Despite bearing some similarities, family-based GWASs and randomised controlled trials (RCTs) are not identical. Most RCTs assess a relatively homogenous causal stimulus as a treatment, whereas GWASs assess highly heterogeneous causal stimuli. Thus, GWAS results will not translate so easily into second-generation causal knowledge.

With the powerful analyses and resources they enable, digital humanities tools have captivated researchers from many different fields who want to use them to study science. Digital tools, as well as funding agencies, research communities, and academic administrators, require researchers to think carefully about how they conceptualize, manage, and store data, and about what they plan to do with that data once a given project is over. The difficulties of developing strategies to address these problems can prevent new researchers from (...) sticking with digital tools and flummox even experienced researchers. To help overcome the data hurdle, we present five principles to help researchers, novice and experienced alike, conceptualize and plan for their data. We illustrate the use of those principles with two digital projects from the history of science, the Embryo Project and the Marine Biological Laboratory History Project, and their associated HPS Repository for data. The principles apply beyond the digital realm, so those who collect and manage data by more traditional means will also find them useful. (shrink)

The unbridled consumption of clothing threatens the environment. In fashion communities, a discussion is developing around the adoption of new materials and economic models to reduce the impacts of clothing production and use. We discuss these emergent technologies in the wider historical setting of the Anthropocene, a geologic term that denotes the global-scale environmental changes brought about by agricultural and industrial activity. The long history of human-environmental interactions is interwoven with the development of international garment economies that have shaped biological (...) and physical systems. This article provides an account of how changes in clothing manufacturing and consumption patterns have... (shrink)

The Mental Capacity Act (2005) was designed to protect and empower patients with impaired capacity. Despite an estimated 40% of medical inpatients lacking capacity, it is unclear how many patients undergo capacity assessments and treatment under the Act. We audited the number of capacity assessments on the general medical wards of an English-teaching hospital. A total of 95 sets of case notes were reviewed: the mean age was 78.6 years, 57 were female. The most common presenting complaints were feeling ‘unwell’ (...) (n = 25) and confusion (n = 24). In all, 52 patients had conditions, such as delirium (n = 26) and dementia (n = 15), which often impair capacity. Capacity was assessed in seven (7.4%) patients, all of whom disagreed with the medical team about their treatment. The number of documented assessments fell short of the estimated rate of incapacity, suggesting that some means of improving capacity assessment in busy medical environments is required. (shrink)