To challenge the Foucauldian legacy of Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon prison, scholars often highlight Bentham’s later writings on the democratic power of public opinion. In doing so, they reaffirm Bentham’s reputation as a unreserved proponent of transparency. To recover the limits of Bentham’s embrace of publicity, I examine the model of visibility exemplified by his designs for the Sotimion, a residence for unmarried, pregnant women. The Sotimion draws our attention to Bentham’s appreciation for concealment as a method of preventing individual and (...) social harms caused by publicity and his criticisms of ascetic sexual norms. By being able to see visitors without being seen by them, the residents of the Sotimion would have avoided social censure while continuing to meet with friends, family, and even lovers. The Sotimion designs eschewed the panoptic principle, the use of asymmetric surveillance to reform moral behavior, and offered what I call the “soteric principle,” the use of asymmetric surveillance to protect the observer from punishment. By comparing the Sotimion to the Magdalen Hospital for Penitent Prostitutes and Bentham’s discussions of panoptic institutions for women, I examine the Sotimion’s distinctiveness while acknowledging its normalizing effects for residents from lower socioeconomic classes. Just as the panopticon captured Bentham’s commitment to publicity, applying the soteric model to Bentham’s theory of public opinion highlights his commitment to secrecy for protecting critics of government abuses from retribution. (shrink)

How can we best understand the major debates and recent movements in contemporary empirical political theory? Is there a human nature on which we can construct scientific theories of political life? What is the role of culture in shaping any such nature? How objective and value-free can political theories be? These are only a few of the issues addressed by this collection of essays from a disparate group of contributors.

People diagnosed with cancer typically want information from their doctor or nurse. However, many individuals now turn to the Internet to tackle unmet information needs and to complement healthcare professional information. The purpose of this study was to qualitatively explore the content of commonly searched cancer websites from a critical nursing perspective, as this information is accessible, and allows patients to address their information needs in ways that healthcare professionals cannot. This qualitative examination of websites is informed by Carper's fundamental (...) patterns of knowing and complemented with the critical view to technology espoused by the philosophy of technology. We conducted a review of 20 websites using a two‐step interpretive descriptive approach and thematic analysis. We identified the dominant discourse to be focused on empirical information on treatment, prognosis, and cure, and a paucity of sociopolitical, ethical, personal, and esthetic information. In place of holistic, nuanced, and accurate knowledge nurses may provide, patients find predominantly empirical and biomedical information online. Discussion explores and critiques online cancer content, gaps in information, and the importance of information diversity. Implications focus on needed discourse around pervasive technologies and the nursing role in assessing and directing patients to holistic information. (shrink)

A relativistic one-particle, quantum theory for spin-zero particles is constructed uponL 2(x, ct), resulting in a positive definite spacetime probability density. A generalized Schrödinger equation having a Hermitian HamiltonianH onL 2(x, ct) for an arbitrary four-vector potential is derived. In this formalism the rest mass is an observable and a scalar particle is described by a wave packet that is a superposition of mass states. The requirements of macroscopic causality are shown to be satisfied by the most probable trajectory of (...) a free tardyon and a nontrivial framework for charged and neutral particles is provided. The Klein paradox is resolved and a link to the free particle field operators of quantum field theory is established. A charged particle interacting with a static magnetic field is discussed as an example of the formalism. (shrink)

In March 1996, the General Accounting Office (GAO) issued the reportScientific Research: Continued Vigilance Critical to Protecting Human Subjects.It stated that “an inherent conflict of interest exists when physician-researchers include their patients in research protocols. If the physicians do not clearly distinguish between research and treatment in their attempt to inform subjects, the possible benefits of a study can be overemphasized and the risks minimized.” The report also acknowledged that “the line between research and treatment is not always cleartoclinicians. Controversy (...) exists regarding whether certain medical procedures should be categorized as research.”This problem currently plagues gene transfer research. A few months prior to the GAO report, an ad hoc committee appointed by National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Harold Varmus expressed similar concerns in its assessment of NIH investment in research on gene therapy. (shrink)

In March 1996, the General Accounting Office issued the report Scientific Research: Continued Vigilance Critical to Protecting Human Subjects. It stated that “an inherent conflict of interest exists when physician-researchers include their patients in research protocols. If the physicians do not clearly distinguish between research and treatment in their attempt to inform subjects, the possible benefits of a study can be overemphasized and the risks minimized.” The report also acknowledged that “the line between research and treatment is not always clear (...) to clinicians. Controversy exists regarding whether certain medical procedures should be categorized as research.”This problem currently plagues gene transfer research. A few months prior to the GAO report, an ad hoc committee appointed by National Institutes of Health Director Harold Varmus expressed similar concerns in its assessment of NIH investment in research on gene therapy. (shrink)

The informed consent process is the legal embodiment of the fundamental right of the individual to make decisions affecting his or her health., and the patient’s permission is a crucial form of respect of freedom and dignity, it becomes extremely important to enhance the patient’s understanding and recall of the information given by the physician. This statement acquires additional weight when the medical treatment proposed can potentially be detrimental or even fatal. This is the case of thalassemia patients pertaining to (...) class 3 of the Pesaro classification where Allogenic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation remains the only potentially curative treatment. Unfortunately, this kind of intervention is burdened by an elevated transplantation-related mortality risk , equal to 30% according to published reports. In thalassemia, the role of the patient in the informed consent process leading up to HSCT has not been fully investigated. This study investigated the hypothesis that information provided by physicians in the medical scenario of HSCT is not fully understood by patients and that misunderstanding and communication biases may affect the clinical decision-making process. (shrink)

It is important to understandfactors that influence management decisionsthat determine the level of diversificationwithin cropping systems. Because of the widevariety of cropping systems within a region,our study focused on a single county in northwestern Minnesota. This county wasselected because it is in an area where farmerswere reevaluating their cropping practicesduring the 1990s in response to severe plantdisease outbreaks and economic stresses. Asurvey and follow-up interviews of representative farmers in Marshall Countyshowed that they were approaching theircropping systems management decisions underthese conditions (...) through a dominant conceptualframework and two secondaryconceptual frameworks, which we termed “mental causalmodels.” The study illustrates the ways farmersdefine and make decisions affecting theircropping systems diversity under conditions ofagronomic and economic adversity. It alsochallenges agricultural professionals to expandtheir thinking about educational strategiesthat are sensitive to the varied perspectivesof farmers beyond just the scientific mentalcausal model. (shrink)

For nearly half a century, Quentin Skinner has been the world's foremost interpreter of Thomas Hobbes. When the contextualist mode of intellectual history now known as the “Cambridge School” was first asserting itself in the 1960s, the life and writings of John Locke were the primary topic for pioneers such as Peter Laslett and John Dunn. At that time, Hobbes was still the plaything of philosophers and political scientists, virtually all of whom wrote in an ahistorical, textual-analytic manner. Hobbes had (...) not been the subject of serious contextual research for decades, since the foundational writings of Ferdinand Tönnies. For Skinner, he was thus an ideal subject, providing a space for original research on a major figure, and an occasion for some polemically charged methodological manifestos. Both of these purposes animated his 1965 article “History and Ideology in the English Revolution,” and his 1966 article “The Ideological Context of Hobbes's Political Thought”. The latter of these remains to this day one of the most widely cited scholarly articles in the fifty-year run of Cambridge's Historical Journal. Among other results of these early efforts was the scholarly controversy during which Howard Warrender chided Skinner for having reduced the “classic texts in political philosophy” to mere “tracts for the times”. (shrink)

The field of behavioral ethics has seen considerable growth over the last few decades. One of the most significant concerns facing this interdisciplinary field of research is the moral judgment-action gap. The moral judgment-action gap is the inconsistency people display when they know what is right but do what they know is wrong. Much of the research in the field of behavioral ethics is based on early work in moral psychology and American psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg’s foundational cognitive model of moral (...) development. However, Kohlberg’s model of moral development lacks a compelling explanation for the judgment-action gap. Yet, it continues to influence theory, research, teaching, and practice in business ethics today. As such, this paper presents a critical review and analysis of the pertinent literature. This paper also reviews modern theories of ethical decision making in business ethics. Gaps in our current understanding and directions for future research in behavioral business ethics are presented. By providing this important theoretical background information, targeted critical analysis, and directions for future research, this paper assists management scholars as they begin to seek a more unified approach, develop newer models of ethical decision making, and conduct business ethics research that examines the moral judgment-action gap. (shrink)

Some patients who have been diagnosed as “dead by neurologic criteria” continue to exhibit certain brain functions, most commonly, neuroendocrine functions. This preservation of neurologic function after the diagnosis of “brain death” or “brainstem death” is an ongoing source of controversy and concern in the medical, bioethics, and legal literatures. Most obviously, if some brain function persists, then it is not the case that all functions of the entire brain have ceased and hence, declaring such a patient to be “dead” (...) would be a false positive, in any nation with so-called “whole brain death” laws. Furthermore, and perhaps more concerning, the preservation of any brain function necessarily entails the preservation of some amount of brain perfusion, thereby raising the concern as to whether additional areas of neural tissue may remain viable, including areas in the brainstem. These and other considerations cast significant doubt on the reliability of diagnosing either “brain death” or “brainstem death.”. (shrink)

Brain dead organ donors are the principal source of transplantable organs. However, it is controversial whether brain death is the same as biological death. Therefore, it is unclear whether organ removal in brain death is consistent with the ‘dead donor rule’, which states that organ removal must not cause death. Our aim was to evaluate the public9s opinion about organ removal if explicitly described as causing the death of a donor in irreversible apneic coma. We conducted a cross-sectional internet survey (...) of the American public (n=1096). Questionnaire domains included opinions about a hypothetical scenario of organ removal described as causing the death of a patient in irreversible coma, and items measuring willingness to donate organs after death. Some 71% of the sample agreed that it should be legal for patients to donate organs in the scenario described and 67% agreed that they would want to donate organs in a similar situation. Of the 85% of the sample who agreed that they were willing to donate organs after death, 76% agreed that they would donate in the scenario of irreversible coma with organ removal causing death. There appears to be public support for organ donation in a scenario explicitly described as violating the dead donor rule. Further, most but not all people who would agree to donate when organ removal is described as occurring after death would also agree to donate when organ removal is described as causing death in irreversible coma. (shrink)

Dr. Gary R. Collins provides an overview and evaluation of the field of contemporary psychology, and identifies the presuppositions that underlie this discipline. As a Christian, he looks beyond the dilemmas of modern psychology and sees hope -- for humanity and for "the science of human behavior." The Rebuilding of Psychology makes a bold proposal for rebuilding psychology on the theistic premise that "God exists and is the source of all truth." - Back cover.

The Hadza foragers of Tanzania are currently experiencing a nutritional shift that includes the intensification of domesticated cultigens in the diet. Despite these changes, no study, to date, has examined the possible effects of this transition on the food collection behavior of young foragers. Here we present a cross-sectional study on foraging behavior taken from two time points, 2005 and 2017. We compare the number of days foraged and the type and amount of food collected for young foragers, aged 5–14 (...) years, in age- and season-matched samples. Compared with 2005, in 2017 fewer subadults left camp to forage, and overall, they targeted a smaller variety of wild foods, with the noticeable absence of wild honey, figs, and tubers. In addition, participants in 2017 were significantly more likely to have attended school. Despite the increased presence of domesticated plant foods in the diet and increased attendance at school, some young foragers continue to be highly productive in collecting wild, undomesticated foods. Despite the preliminary nature of our results, our findings suggest that the range of wild foods targeted by subadults is decreasing as the amount of domesticated cultigens in the diet increases. These data underscore the importance of studying diet composition and foraging decisions across temporal, nutritional, and ecological landscapes. (shrink)

Research suggests political identity has strong influence over individuals’ attitudes and beliefs, which in turn can affect their behavior. Likewise, firsthand experience with an issue can also affect attitudes and beliefs. A large survey of Americans was analyzed to investigate the effects of both political identity and personal impact on individuals’ reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic. Results show that political identity and personal impact influenced the American public’s attitudes about and response to COVID-19. Consistent with prior research, political identity exerted (...) a strong influence on self-reports of emotional distress, threat perception, discomfort with exposure, support for restrictions, and perception of under/overreaction by individuals and institutions. The difference between Democrats and Republican responses were consistent with their normative value differences and with the contemporary partisan messaging. Personal impact exerted a comparatively weaker influence on reported emotional distress and threat perception. Both factors had a weak influence on appraisal of individual and government responses. The dominating influence of political identity carried over into the bivariate relations among these self-reported attitudes and responses. In particular, the appraisal of government response divided along party lines, tied to opposing views of whether there has been over- or under-reaction to the pandemic. The dominance of political identity has important implications for crisis management and reflects the influence of normative value differences between the parties, partisan messaging on the pandemic, and polarization in American politics. (shrink)

A. P. Martinich's The Two Gods of Leviathan appeared in 1992, and J. R. Collins's The Allegiance of Thomas Hobbes in 2005. Martinich offered a revisionist interpretation of Thomas Hobbes's religious commitments. He rebuked the conventional view that Hobbes was an atheist and placed him within particular traditions of reformed Christian theology. Collins's book strongly differed from these conclusions, and reasserted Hobbes's hostility to traditional Christianity as part of a general contextualization of his writings within the period of (...) the English Revolution. The following exchange between Martinich and Collins was first aired in 2007 as a debate at the Southwestern Political Science Association's Annual Conference. (shrink)

By 2014, each of the fifty states and the District of Columbia will have a new health insurance exchange, or marketplace, established under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. These exchanges are the centerpiece of the reform law: they will be the main portals where people who do not have health insurance coverage through their jobs and small businesses will go, either in person or online, to find a health plan and to learn about and apply for federal subsidies. (...) The most immediate challenge facing all fifty‐one exchanges is fulfilling their most basic role: ensuring that all who are eligible to enroll in qualified health plans and to receive federal subsidies in fact enroll. (shrink)

Moral stress is an increasingly significant concept in business ethics and the workplace environment. This study compares the impact of moral stress with other job stressors on three important employee variables—fatigue, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions—by utilizing survey data from 305 customer-contact employees of a financial institution’s call center. Statistical analysis on the interaction of moral stress and the three employee variables was performed while controlling for other types of job stress as well as demographic variables. The results reveal that (...) even after including the control variables in the statistical models, moral stress remains a statistically significant predictor of increased employee fatigue, decreased job satisfaction, and increased turnover intentions. Implications for future research and for organizations are discussed. (shrink)

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights refers to the importance of cultural diversity and pluralism in ethical discourse and care of humanity. The aim of this meta-narrative review is to identify indigenous ethical values pertaining to the Ojibway, Xhosa, and Mayan cultures from peer-reviewed sources and cultural review, and to ascertain if there are shared commonalities. Three main themes were identified, namely illness, healing, and health care choices. Illness was described with a (...) more complex and dynamic picture than from the western view, as illness is not considered to be one dimensional. Healing needs to take place on various levels in order to restore a state of equilibrium between the different spheres. Health care choices were also considered from a multi-level perspective. In all three of the indigenous cultures explored, good decision-making is seen to have occurred when choices are informed by commitments to one’s moral and ethical responsibilities towards the community, nature, and the spirit world. (shrink)

One cannot but notice Plato's interest in prophecy and divination. He speaks disparagingly of the art and of those who practised it, yet it seems to have held some fascination for him. Moreover, he frequently uses the language of prophecy in a metaphorical sense, and it is this which I am to examine. Often, of course, this use is facetious, especially with the nouns ‘prophet’ and ‘prophecy’: he is ridiculing obscurity or playfully lending dignity to an obvious inference. But I (...) suggest that this facetious usage is common enough to be in itself evidence for the familiarity of Plato with this way of thinking. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes and John Locke sit together in the canon of political thought but are rarely treated in common historical accounts. This book narrates their intertwined careers during the Restoration period, when the two men found themselves in close proximity and entangled in many of the same political conflicts. Bringing new source material to bear, In the Shadow of Leviathan establishes the influence of Hobbesian thought over Locke, particularly in relation to the preeminent question of religious toleration. Excavating Hobbes's now (...) forgotten case for a prudent, politique toleration gifted by sovereign power, Jeffrey R. Collins argues that modern, liberal thinking about toleration was transformed by Locke's gradual emancipation from this Hobbesian mode of thought. This book investigates those landmark events - the civil war, Restoration, the popish plot, the Revolution of 1688 - which eventually forced Locke to confront the limits of politique toleration, and to devise an account of religious freedom as an inalienable right. (shrink)

Desmosomes are junctions involved in intercellular adhesion of epithelial cells and hemidesmosomes are junctions involved in adhesion of epithelia to basement membranes. Both are characterised at the ultrastructural level by dense cytoplasmic plaques which are linked to the intermediate filament cytoskeleton of the cells. The plaques strongly resemble each other suggesting a relationship between the two kinds of junctions, as implied by their names. Recent characterisation of the molecular components of the junctions shows they are, in fact, quite unrelated implying (...) that structural similarity is fortuitous. The molecular biology raises many fascinating problems relating to their structure and function. (shrink)

Oxidised bases, such as 8-oxo-guanine, occur in cellular DNA as a result of attack by oxygen free radicals. The cancer-protective effect of vegetables and fruit is attributed to the ability of antioxidants in them to scavenge free radicals, preventing DNA damage and subsequent mutation. Antioxidant supplements (e.g., β-carotene, vitamin C) increase the resistance of lymphocytes to oxidative damage, and a negative correlation is seen between antioxidant concentrations in tissues and oxidised bases in DNA. Large-scale intervention trials with β-carotene have, however, (...) led to increases in cancer. Recent measurements of the frequency of oxidised DNA bases indicate that earlier estimates were greatly exaggerated; there may be only a few thousand 8-oxo-guanines per cell. Convincing evidence for mutations resulting from oxidative damage, in tumours or cultured cells, is lacking. It seems that efficient antioxidant defences together with DNA repair maintain a steady-state level of damage representing minimal risk to cell or organism. BioEssays 21:238–246, 1999. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

The Allegiance of Thomas Hobbes offers a new interpretation of Thomas Hobbes's response to the English Revolution. By focusing on his religious thought, it debunks the standard view of him as a royalist, and recovers his sympathies with the religious projects of the 1640s and 1650s. This reinterpretation culminates with an exploration of Hobbes's surprising sympathies with Oliver Cromwell and his supporters. By placing Thomas Hobbes within fresh contexts, Professor Collins offers a new angle of vision on the religious (...) significance of the English Revolution itself. (shrink)

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Experts often communicate probabilities verbally (e.g., unlikely) rather than numerically (e.g., 25% chance). Although criticism has focused on the vagueness of verbal probabilities, less attention has been given to the potential unintended, biasing effects of verbal probabilities in communicating probabilities to decision-makers. In four experiments (Ns = 201, 439, 435, 696), we showed that probability format (i.e., verbal vs. numeric) influenced participants’ inferences and decisions following a hypothetical financial expert’s forecast. We observed a format effect for low probability forecasts: verbal (...) probabilities were interpreted more pessimistically than numeric equivalents. We attributed the difference to directionality, a linguistic property that biases attention toward an outcome. In the high-probability conditions, the directionality of verbal and numeric probabilities aligned (both were positive), whereas they differed in the low-probability conditions (verbal probabilities were more negative). Participants inferred recommendations congruent with the communicated direction and these inferences mediated the effect of probability format on decisions. (shrink)

Cross-cultural sex differences in mobility and harm avoidance have been widely reported, often emphasizing fitness benefits of long-distance travel for males and high costs for females. Data emerging from adults in small-scale societies, however, are challenging the assumption that female mobility is restricted during reproduction. Such findings warrant further exploration of the ontogeny of mobility. Here, using a combination of machine-learning, mixed-effects linear regression, and GIS mapping, we analyze range size, daily distance traveled, and harm avoidance among Hadza foragers during (...) middle childhood and adolescence. Distance traveled increased with age and, while male adolescents had the longest daily ranges, average daily distance traveled by each sex was similar. We found few age- or sex-related patterns in harm-avoidant responses and a high degree of individual variation. When queried on the same issues, children and their parents were often in alignment as to expectations pertaining to harm avoidance, and siblings tended to behave in similar ways. To the extent that sex differences in mobility did emerge, they were associated with ecological differences in physical threats associated with sex-specific foraging behaviors. Further, we found no strong association between harm avoidance and mobility. Young Hadza foragers of both sexes are highly mobile, regardless of how harm avoidant they are. Taken together, our findings indicate that the causal arrows between harm avoidance and mobility must be evaluated in ecologically specific frameworks where cultural expectations of juvenile mobility can be contextualized. (shrink)

It is shown that the Hilbert space formalism of quantum mechanics can be derived as a corrected form of probability theory. These constructions yield the Schrödinger equation for a particle in an electromagnetic field and exhibit a relationship of this equation to Markov processes. The operator formalism for expectation values is shown to be related to anL 2 representation of marginal distributions and a relationship of the commutation rules for canonically conjugate observables to a topological relationship of two manifolds is (...) indicated. (shrink)

We thank the authors of commentaries for their thoughtful discussion of our target article. Here we briefly summarize the points made in the target article (Nair-Collins and Joffe 2023). Then we em...

Apoptosis is now widely recognized as a common form of cell death and represents a mechanism of cell clearance in many physiological situations where deletion of cells is required. Peptide growth factors, initially characterised as stimulators of cell proliferation, have now been shown to inhibit death in many cell types. Deprivation of growth factors leads to the induction of apoptosis, i.e. condensation of chromatin and degradation in oligonucleosomesized fragments, formation of plasma and nuclear membrane blebs and cell fragmentation into apoptotic (...) bodies which can be taken up by neighbouring cells. Here we discuss the mechanism(;s) by which growth factors may inhibit apoptosis. (shrink)