Developmental research suggests that young children tend to value dominant individuals over subordinates. This research, however, has nearly exclusively been carried out in Western cultures, and cross-cultural research among adults has revealed cultural differences in the valuing of dominance. In particular, it seems that Japanese culture, relative to many Western cultures, values dominance less. We conducted two experiments to test whether this difference would be observed in preschoolers. In Experiment 1, preschoolers in France and in Japan were asked to identify (...) with either a dominant or a subordinate. French preschoolers identified with the dominant, but Japanese preschoolers were at chance. Experiment 2 revealed that Japanese preschoolers were more likely to believe a subordinate than a dominant individual, both compared to chance and compared to previous findings among French preschoolers. The convergent results from both experiments thus reveal an early emerging cross-cultural difference in the valuing of dominance. (shrink)

Progressive supranuclear palsy is a movement disorder with prominent tau neuropathology. Brain diseases with abnormal tau deposits are called tauopathies, the most common of which is Alzheimer's disease. Environmental causes of tauopathies include repetitive head trauma associated with some sports. To identify common genetic variation contributing to risk for tauopathies, we carried out a genome-wide association study of 1,114 individuals with PSP and 3,247 controls followed by a second stage in which we genotyped 1,051 cases and 3,560 controls for the (...) stage 1 SNPs that yielded P ≤ 10-3. We found significant previously unidentified signals associated with PSP risk at STX6, EIF2AK3 and MOBP. We confirmed two independent variants in MAPT affecting risk for PSP, one of which influences MAPT brain expression. The genes implicated encode proteins for vesicle-membrane fusion at the Golgi-endosomal interface, for the endoplasmic reticulum unfolded protein response and for a myelin structural component. © 2011 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

This is an excerpt from the contentThe Khmer Rouge Tribunal is charged with prosecuting senior leaders and those most responsible for mass crimes committed in Cambodia during the 1970s. It has a unique structure as a court formally embedded in the Cambodian domestic system but with international participation by the UN. Under the agreement between Cambodia and the UN, the Tribunal has been composed of both local and international judges. On July 19, 2007, the prosecutors submitted a list of five (...) persons to the Tribunal’s co-investigating judges and requested that they be indicted and brought to trial.The current volume III of a series of volumes in this collection provides for the final trial evidence submitted by the co-lawyers for civil parties and the final closing statements by the co-prosecutors as of 2009 in the trial of Kaing Guek Eav , chairman of Tuol Sleng prison, Security Center 21 where at least 12,272 ‘enemies of the revolution’ were sent to be “smashed” . T. (shrink)

This essay surveys the main objections to aesthetic hedonism, the view that aesthetic value is reducible to the value of aesthetic pleasure or experience. Hedonism is the dominant view of aesthetic value, but a spate of recent criticisms has drawn its accuracy into question. I introduce some distinctions crucial to the criticisms, before using the bulk of the essay to identify and review six major lines of argument that hedonism's critics have employed against it. Whether or not these arguments suffice (...) to refute hedonism decisively, I argue that its privileged status, as the sole contender in aesthetic value theory, is detrimental to downstream research on aesthetic phenomena. The essay concludes with an overview of current work and promising avenues of inquiry into non-hedonic alternatives. (shrink)

Fabi and Goldberg have helpfully shed some light on the wrongs perpetuated by the current funding architecture on research, sponsorship, and career development in the field of bioethics. The...

Can a person’s degree of wellbeing be affected by things that do not enter her experience? Experientialists deny that it can, extra-experientialists affirm it. The debate between these two positions has focused on an argument against experientialism—the experience machine objection—but few arguments exist for it. I present an argument for experientialism. It builds on the claim that theories of wellbeing should not only state what constitutes wellbeing, but also which entities are welfare subjects. Moreover, the claims it makes about these (...) two issues should have a certain coherence with each other. I argue that if we accept a particular plausible answer to the second question—namely that all and only sentient beings are welfare subjects—extra-experientialist theories face a problem of coherence. While this problem can typically be solved, doing so will involve steps that are unattractive. On experientialist theories, on the other hand, the answer to these questions cohere perfectly. (shrink)

I identify two versions of the scientific anti-realist’s selectionist explanation for the success of science: Bas van Fraassen’s original and K. Brad Wray’s newer interpretation. In Wray’s version, psycho-social factors internal to the scientific community – viz. scientists’ interests, goals, and preferences – explain the theory-selection practices that explain theory-success. I argue that, if Wray’s version were correct, then science should resemble art. In art, the artwork-selection practices that explain artwork-success appear faddish. They are prone to radical change over time. (...) Theory-selection practices that explain theory-success in science are however not faddish. They are mostly stable; that is, long-lived and consistent over time. This is because scientists (explicitly or implicitly) subscribe to what I will call the testability norm: scientific theories must make falsifiable claims about the external physical world. The testability norm and not psycho-sociology explains the theory-selection practices that explain theory-success in science. Contra Wray, scientific anti-realists can then maintain that the external physical world (as expressed in the testability norm) explains theory-success. (shrink)

In a previous paper we developed a general theory of input/output logics. These are operations resembling inference, but where inputs need not be included among outputs, and outputs need not be reusable as inputs. In the present paper we study what happens when they are constrained to render output consistent with input. This is of interest for deontic logic, where it provides a manner of handling contrary-to-duty obligations. Our procedure is to constrain the set of generators of the input/output system, (...) considering only the maximal subsets that do not yield output conflicting with a given input. When inputs are authorised to reappear as outputs, both maxichoice revision in the sense of Alchourr6n/Makinson and the default logic of Poole emerge as special cases, and there is a close relation with Reiter default logic. However, our focus is on the general case where inputs need not be outputs. We show in what contexts the consistency of input with output may be reduced to its consistency with a truth-functional combination of components of generators, and under what conditions constrained output may be obtained by a derivation that is constrained at every step. (shrink)

How is Frege able to claim that the notion of judgement is essential to his logic without introducing a form of psychologism? I argue first that Frege’s logical notion of judgement is to be distinguished from an empirical notion of judgement, that it cannot be understood as an abstract, idealized notion, and that there are doubts concerning a transcendental reading of Frege’s writings. Then, I explain that the logical notion of judgement has to be understood from a first-person perspective, to (...) be contrasted with a third-person perspective, in which judgement is understood as an empirical, psychological phenomenon. Frege’s logic is essentially a first-person engagement, as each of us can make use of the ideography as a science of logic only if we ourselves have made the relevant judgements. Finally, I claim that the judging agent as conceived by Frege can, after all, be understood as a transcendental ego. (shrink)

In three experiments, picture quality between test items was manipulated to examine whether subjects’ expectations about the fluency normally associated with these different stimuli might influence the effects of fluency on preference or familiarity-based recognition responses. The results showed that fluency due to pre-exposure influenced responses less when objects were presented with high picture quality, suggesting that attributions of fluency to preference and familiarity are adjusted according to expectations about the different test pictures. However, this expectations influence depended on subjects’ (...) awareness of these different quality levels. Indeed, imperceptible differences seemed not to induce expectations about the test item fluency. In this context, fluency due to both picture quality and pre-exposure influenced direct responses. Conversely, obvious, and noticed, differences in test picture quality did no affect responses, suggesting that expectations moderated attributions of fluency only when fluency normally associated with these different stimuli was perceptible but difficult to assess. (shrink)

An unresolved issue in the occupational health literature that is of both theoretical and practical importance is whether interpersonal conflicts, aggression and bullying at work are distinct or overlapping phenomena for exposed workers. In this study, we addressed this question empirically by employing a Latent Class (LC) analysis using cross-industry data from 6,175 Belgian workers. We found that a two-factor solution with a conflict-aggression factor and a bullying factor had the best fit. Employees with low exposure to workplace conflicts-aggression and (...) bullying perceived the phenomena as mostly overlapping. Reversely, employees who were exposed more frequently to the phenomena perceived them as more distinct - especially so for workplace bullying. Conflicts-aggression and bullying seem to be perceived as separate phenomena given their distinctive relationships with criterion variables in the domain of well-being and strain. These findings entail that a simple unifying approach or a single label for the three phenomena is not appropriate, at least from a measurement point of view and from the different perspectives of those exposed. Our results have important implications for the theoretical understanding of the concepts of interpersonal conflicts, aggression and bullying, and for practitioners who have to assist those involved with how to handle these problems and who have to develop legal as well as internal policies for the prevention and management of these issues at the workplace. (shrink)

Qualitative Coalitional Games are a variant of coalitional games in which an agent's desires are represented as goals that are either satisfied or unsatisfied, and each choice available to a coalition is a set of goals, which would be jointly satisfied if the coalition made that choice. A coalition in a QCG will typically form in order to bring about a set of goals that will satisfy all members of the coalition. Our goal in this paper is to develop and (...) study logics for reasoning about QCGs. We begin by introducing a logic for reasoning about “static” QCGs, where participants play a single game, and we then introduce and study Temporal QCGs , i.e., games in which a sequence of QCGs is played. In order to represent and reason about such games, we introduce a linear time temporal logic of QCGs, called ℒ. We give a complete axiomatisation of ℒ, use it to investigate the properties of TQCGs, identify its expressive power, establish its complexity, characterise classes of TQGCs with formulas from our logical language, and use it to formulate several solution concepts for TQCGs. (shrink)

We investigated how the perception of being dissimilar to others at work relates to employees’ felt inclusion, distinguishing between surface-level and deep-level dissimilarity. In addition, we tested the indirect relationships between surface-level and deep-level dissimilarity and work-related outcomes, through social inclusion. Furthermore, we tested the moderating role of a climate for inclusion in the relationship between perceived dissimilarity and felt inclusion. We analyzed survey data from 887 employees of a public service organization. An ANOVA showed that felt inclusion was lower (...) for individuals who perceived themselves as deep-level dissimilar compared to individuals who perceived themselves as similar, while felt inclusion did not differ among individuals who perceived themselves as surface-level similar or dissimilar. Furthermore, a moderated mediation analysis showed a negative conditional indirect relationship between deep-level dissimilarity and work-related outcomes through felt inclusion. Interestingly, while the moderation showed that a positive climate for inclusion buffered the negative relationship between deep-level dissimilarity and felt inclusion, it also positively related to feelings of inclusion among all employees, regardless of their perceived (dis)similarity. This research significantly improves our understanding of how perceived dissimilarity affects employees by distinguishing between surface-level and deep-level dissimilarity and by demonstrating the importance of a climate for inclusion. (shrink)

This study explored the experiences and views of Dutch nurses on the content, function, dissemination and implementation of their codes of ethics. A total of 39 participants, who differed in age, qualifications, length of work experience and health care setting, took part in focus groups. The findings revealed common unfamiliarity with and a rather implicit use of codes, and negative comments on the growing number of codes available in the Netherlands. Limited dissemination, implementation and functioning of codes of ethics were (...) also identified. The findings were discussed using concepts from the literature, nursing practice and personal experience. (shrink)

The paper presents a renewed Habermasian view on transnational multi-stakeholder initiatives and assesses the institutional characteristics of the Equator Principles Association from a deliberative democracy perspective. Habermas’ work has been widely adopted in the academic literature on the political responsibilities of corporations, and also in assessing the democratic qualities of MSIs. Commentators, however, have noted that Habermas’ approach relies very much on ‘nation-state democracy’ and may not be applicable to democracy in MSIs—in which nation-states are virtually absent. We argue that (...) Habermas’ detailed conceptualization of the institutionalization of deliberative democracy can be applied to transnational MSIs if these initiatives can be said to have their own ‘dèmoi’ that can be represented in associational decision-making. Therefore, we develop a definition of the dèmos of an MSI based on the notion of collective agency. Subsequently, we explain how Habermas’ approach to democracy can be applied to MSIs and show that it has more to offer than hitherto has been uncovered. Our illustrative analysis of the EPA confirms the criticisms regarding this MSI which have recently been articulated by researchers and practitioners, but also yields new findings and possible avenues for the further development of the EPA: That is, although our assessment suggests that the EPA in its current state is still far from being a democratic MSI, the possibility of a sensible analysis of its democratic character indicates that transnational MSIs can, in principle, help to fill governance gaps in a democratic way. (shrink)

Since Gallie introduced the notion of essentially contested concepts, it has given rise to considerable debate and confusion. The aim of this paper is to bring clarity to these debates by offering a critical reconstruction of the notion of essential contestedness. I argue that we should understand essentially contestable concepts as concepts that refer to ideals or to concepts and phenomena that can only be fully understood in light of ideals and that are, as a consequence, open to pervasive contestation. (...) Moreover, some concepts are second-order essentially contested: it may be a matter of ongoing dispute as to whether they should be regarded as essentially contested. The concept of law is an example. Some authors argue that it is ideal-oriented, whereas others claim it is not. This insight that ‘law’ is a second-order essentially contested concept may explain some of the disagreements between legal positivism and its various opponents. (shrink)

In paediatric oncology, research and treatments are often closely combined, which may compromise voluntary informed consent of parents. We identified two key scenarios in which voluntary informed consent for paediatric oncology studies is potentially compromised due to the intertwinement of research and care. The first scenario is inclusion by the treating paediatric oncologist, the second scenario concerns treatments confined to the research context. In this article we examine whether voluntary informed consent of parents for research is compromised in these two (...) scenarios, and if so whether this is also morally problematic. For this, we employ the account of voluntary consent from Nelson and colleagues, who assert that voluntary consent requires substantial freedom from controlling influences. We argue that, in the absence of persuasion or manipulation, inclusion by the treating physician does not compromise voluntariness. However, it may function as a risk factor for controlling influence as it narrows the scope within which parents make decisions. Furthermore, physician appeal to reciprocity is not controlling as it constitutes persuasion. In addition, framing information is a form of informational manipulation and constitutes a controlling influence. In the second scenario, treatments confined to the research context qualify as controlling if the available options are restricted through manipulation of options. Although none of the influences is morally problematic in itself, a combination of influences may create morally problematic instances of involuntary informed consent. Therefore, safeguards should be implemented to establish an optimal environment for parents to provide voluntary informed consent in an integrated research-care context. (shrink)

To many in the Netherlands it seems that basic income’s time has come, following the wide appeal of several municipal experiments. These random-control trial designs study the effects on employment, social participation, health and well-being of exempting social assistance claimants from the duties of seeking work and participating in training activities under the workfare-oriented Participation Act. In some treatment groups, claimants also retain a larger percentage of earnings, thereby reducing the poverty trap. These two design features resemble an unconditional basic (...) income. I situate the experiments in the wider context of basic income and discuss their theoretical background and policy orientation. Under existing legal strictures, the experimental designs are too limited to judge the effects of replacing the conditional scheme of social assistance by an unconditional one. Yet these experiments point the way for future trials which can compare the effectiveness of basic income-oriented versus workfare-oriented treatments. (shrink)

This systematic review aimed to provide an overview of earlier research on the relationships between age conceptualizations and indicators of employability. We have conducted a systematic literature search using PsycINFO, Academic Search Premier, Business Source Complete, CINAHL, ERIC, MEDLINE, and Science Direct. Two raters evaluated the articles and subsequently distinguished k = 41 studies that met the inclusion criteria for this systematic review. Our review revealed that many researchers adopted different operationalizations to measure employability. Moreover, most studies included calendar age (...) as indicator of aging at work, and were based on a cross-sectional design. Based on the Standardized Index of Convergence method, different types of evidence were found for the relationships between age and the employability measures. For relationships between psychosocial age and lifespan age, on the one hand, and employability measures, on the other hand, too few studies were found to draw conclusions. Yet, for relationships between calendar age and labor market-based measures strong consistent negative relationships were found across the studies, and moderately strong positive relationships were found for functional age and labor market- based measures. For organizational age and both competence-based as well as labor market-based measures moderately strong negative relationships were found. We discuss the implications of these results and propose a research agenda for future studies. (shrink)

Het denken van de Nederlandse filosoof Leo Polak (1880-1941) heeft nog altijd niet aan actualiteit ingeboet. Hij bepleitte hartstochtelijk de autonomie van de menselijke rede, worstelde met de grondslag van onze ethiek en wierp zich in een tijd van politieke massabewegingen en toenemende verzuiling op als kampioen van het vrije denken. Zelfs tijdens de Duitse bezetting hield hij vast aan zijn zelfstandig oordeel – een houding die hij eind 1941 met de dood in een concentratiekamp moest bekopen. Al die jaren (...) hield hij een dagboek bij, voor hem een essentieel middel om greep te krijgen op zijn leven. Op basis hiervan worden in deze bundel nieuwe aspecten van Polaks leven en werk belicht: zijn denken over schuld en vergelding, zijn verhouding tot grote filosofen als Spinoza en Heymans en zijn houding tegenover het nationaalsocialisme, maar ook zijn familieleven, zijn boekenverzameling en zijn geestelijke nalatenschap. (shrink)

While having a breast reconstruction, women have certain expectations about their future breasted bodies. The aim of this paper is to describe and analyze these expectations in the process of reconstruction. By applying a qualitative, phenomenological study within a longitudinal research design, this paper acknowledges the temporarily complex, contextualized, embodied, and subjective nature of the phenomenon of expectations. The analysis identified expectations regarding three different aspects of women’s embodiment: their gazed body, their capable/practical body, and their felt body. After reconstruction, (...) these women try to reconfigure—adjust, level or retrospectively rewrite—their expectations. Further, some women face what apparently arrives totally unexpected, namely a strange feeling breast or a failed reconstruction. The development of these women’s expectations can be understood as an active, continuously evolving, difficult and sometimes impossible dynamic of expecting the surprise that is a breast reconstruction. Within this dynamic, women formulate and reconfigure—by definition—unrealistic expectations and validate and try to achieve unexpected futures. We suggest that medical professionals can facilitate this dynamic in various ways. (shrink)

Bowman-Smart and colleagues (2023) argue that techniques to screen and analyze the fetal genome are rapidly evolving, and are sometimes already offered commercially. These new developments will all...

From 1991 to 1994 the Dutch Health Insurance Council financed research on Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation . This is a technique for providing cardiopulmonary bypass to patients with pulmonary and/or cardiac failure. Most often, these patients are premature neonates. During ECMO, blood is drained from the right atrium, pumped along a membrane where gas exchange takes place, and then redirected to the aorta. To prevent blood clotting, heparin is added. However, with the heparin added, the risk of hemorrhage is considerably increased. (...) Therefore, both the chance of surviving and the chance of severe disability are higher with ECMO than with conventional treatment. (shrink)

The rise of unethical leadership practices suggests a need to emphasise value-based workplaces and leadership, encompassing workplace spirituality and spiritual leadership. Most previous research focusing on ethical behaviour in the work context has been conducted with larger organisations. This study examines the influence of workplace spirituality and spiritual leadership on ethical behaviour within the small business context. A quantitative survey research design was employed. The final sample consisted of 385 employees of small, medium, and micro enterprises (SMMEs) in various industries (...) in a central district of South Africa. Structural equation modelling was utilised during the data analysis process. The study revealed that workplace spirituality and spiritual leadership had a positive and statistically significant influence on ethical behaviour in SMMEs, and workplace spirituality mediates the relationship between spiritual leadership and ethical behaviour. The study extends on existing literature as this relationship has previously not been investigated in the African small business context. Also, the findings hold practical significance for small businesses struggling with unethical behaviours and leadership. The findings of the study imply that a culture of spirituality in the workplace enhances the impact of spiritual leadership in promoting ethical behaviour in the small business environment. (shrink)

The inherent normativity of HTA can be conceptualized as a result of normative commitments, a concept that we further specify to encompass moral, epistemological and ontological commitments at play in the practice of HTA. Based on examples from literature, and an analysis of the example of assessing Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing (NIPT), we will show that inevitable normative decisions in conducting an assessment commits the HTA practitioner to moral (regarding what makes a health technology desirable), ontological (regarding which effects of health (...) technology are conceivable), and epistemological (regarding how to obtain reliable information about health technology) norms. This highlights and supports the need for integrating normative analysis and stakeholder participation, providing guidance to HTA practitioners when making normative choices. This will foster a shared understanding between those who conduct, use, or are impacted by assessments regarding what are conceivable and desirable outcomes of using health technology, and how to collect reliable information to assess whether these outcomes are (going to be) realized. It also provides more insight into the implications of different normative choices. (shrink)

Ernest Mandel theorised the capitalist world economy as an articulated system of capitalist, semi-capitalist and precapitalist relations of production, linked to each other by capitalist relations of exchange and domination by the capitalist world market. This seems to be an interesting starting point for an historically well-founded theory, building on and going beyond Marx's work, of the worldwide expansion of the capitalist mode of production from its origins to the present. In his attempt to formulate his theory, Mandel did not (...) succeed in resolving all difficulties, however. His main works – Marxist Economic Theory and Late Capitalism – show a number of dangling loose ends. The central question is whether these loose ends are merely technical difficulties or whether they reveal fatal flaws in the theory as a whole. In order to come a step closer to answering this question, a conference was organised in Amsterdam, November 2003. This introduction formulates the five, closely interrelated issues that were highlighted at this conference. (shrink)

The discipline, Christian Spirituality, evokes a new interest in Early Christian spirituality. What conceived spiritualities were fostered when the early Christians read the documents that were written to them and how did it influence them? According to Wolfgang Iser, a ‘reader often feels involved in events which, at the time of reading, seems real to him’. This article looks into how John describes and explains the divinity of Jesus. It also attempts to determine conceived spiritualities (lived experiences) fostered when the (...) early Christians read John. The article starts with a brief orientation of what it means when a reader becomes entangled in the reading of a text. Then some mechanisms, as proposed by Waaijman and Iser, that can foster spiritualities are employed to examine the text, including the interaction between the text and the reader; the creation of images; the dialectic between retention and pretension and the filling of gaps. (shrink)