The concept of mental integrity is currently a significant topic in discussions concerning the regulation of neurotechnologies. Technologies such as deep brain stimulation and brain-computer interfaces are believed to pose a unique threat to mental integrity, and some authors have advocated for a legal right to protect it. Despite this, there remains uncertainty about what mental integrity entails and why it is important. Various interpretations of the concept have been proposed, but the literature on the subject is inconclusive. Here we (...) consider a number of possible interpretations and argue that the most plausible one concerns neurotechnologies that bypass one’s reasoning capacities, and do so specifically in ways that reliably lead to alienation from one’s mental states. This narrows the scope of what constitutes a threat to mental integrity and offers a more precise role for the concept to play in the ethical evaluation of neurotechnologies. (shrink)

Objective: Traditional research often categorizes emotion regulation strategies as adaptive or maladaptive, overlooking crucial situational and individual differences that dictate their efficacy. The literature highlights the need for a more nuanced approach, like the role of emotion regulation flexibility. Despite its importance, research on developing and testing interventions that promote this flexibility is scarce. Addressing this gap, our study designed and tested an “Emotion Regulation Flexibility Booster Program” (ERFBP). We aimed to assess its efficacy in improving emotion regulation flexibility (ERF) (...) and its impact on various mental health indicators. Method: We recruited 153 participants with low emotion regulation flexibility, randomly assigning them to experimental, control, and no-treatment groups. The experimental group was provided with an intervention based on an ERF model. The control group received sessions on study habits, whereas no-treatment group received no training. Results: The analysis indicated that participants in the ERFBP group exhibited significant changes in ERF, subjective wellbeing, and emotion regulation goals and psychological distress compared to baseline measurements and post-intervention scores of other two groups. Conclusion: These findings support the effectiveness of the ERFBP in enhancing ERF and wellbeing. However, further research must confirm these findings across diverse contexts and populations. (shrink)

Trust is a natural mechanism by which an autonomous party, an agent, can deal with the inherent uncertainty regarding the behaviours of other parties and the uncertainty in the information it shares with those parties. Trust is thus crucial in any decentralised system. This paper builds on recent efforts to use argumentation to reason about trust. Specifically, a set of schemes is provided, and abstract patterns of reasoning that apply in multiple situations geared towards trust. Schemes are described in which (...) one agent, A, can establish arguments for trusting another agent, B, directly, as well as schemes that A can use to construct arguments for trusting C, where C is trusted by B. For both sets of schemes, a set of critical questions is offered that identify the situations in which these schemes can fail. (shrink)

This article presents the results of a study that investigated the roles that religiosity and ones money ethic play in determining consumer attitudes/beliefs in various situations regarding questionable consumer practices. One dimension of religiosity – intrinsic religiousness – was studied. Four separate dimensions of a money ethic scale were initially examined, but only one was used in the final analyses. Results indicated that both intrinsic religiousness and one’s money ethic were significant determinants of most types of consumer ethical beliefs.

In an ever more transparent, digitalized, and connected environment, customers are increasingly pressuring brands to embrace genuine corporate social responsibility practices and co-creation activities. While both CSR and co-creation are social and collaborative processes, there is still little research examining whether CSR can boost co-creation. In addition, while previous research has mainly related co-creation to emotional outcomes, limited empirical research has related it to rational and behavioral outcomes. To address these shortcomings in the literature, this paper examines the influence of (...) CSR on customer loyalty, considering the mediating roles of co-creation and customer trust. It also investigates the influence of co-creation on customer trust. The data were collected in Spain in late 2017 using an online survey, and the sample contained 1101 customers of health insurance services brands. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypothesized relationships simultaneously. The results show that CSR influences customer loyalty both directly and indirectly through co-creation and customer trust. However, the indirect impact is the stronger of the two, implying that embracing co-creation activities and developing customer trust can make it easier for CSR practices to enhance customer loyalty. In addition, co-creation has a direct effect on customer trust. (shrink)

Africa has a colonial past that renders it a linguistic melting pot, where language is not only important for communication but is inextricably related to cultural identity. In Africa, there are over 2000 languages that are still being used and spoken. Language diversity coupled with cultural diversity may affect the process of obtaining informed consent in data-intensive research. We explore some of the challenges and opportunities of multilingualism in handling informed consent in the context of data-intensive research. In multilingual contexts, (...) as in most African countries, language is exceptionally central, and translation has potential cultural, social, historical, functional and scientific importance. However, it is recognised that terminological and translation activities may not always be cost-effective or feasible. We consider alternative mechanisms of harmonisation of data-related terminology and concepts in multilingual contexts, such as iconography, graphic elicitation and other multimedia formats of information sharing. The inclusion of visual or multimedia explanations in informed consent forms can improve comprehension, enhance information transfer and learning, reduce potential vulnerabilities associated with low literacy levels or the inability to interpret technical language associated with data-intensive research, build trust with participants and their communities, and promote autonomy of potential participants. We recognise that the inclusion of visual or multimedia content to facilitate information transfer is only one component of the informed consent process for data-intensive research. Research ethics committees (RECs) should be mindful of other key considerations and challenges of informed consent for data-intensive research in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), and to explore whether these alternative forms of consent are ethical and effective in multilingual contexts. (shrink)

This paper explores the dilemma faced by mental healthcare professionals in balancing treatment of mental disorders with promoting patient well-being and flourishing. With growing calls for a more explicit focus on patient flourishing in mental healthcare, we address two inter-related challenges: the lack of consensus on defining positive mental health and flourishing, and how professionals should respond to patients with controversial views on what is good for them. We discuss the relationship dynamics between healthcare providers and patients, proposing that ‘liberal’ (...) approaches can provide a pragmatic framework to address disagreements about well-being in the context of flourishing-oriented mental healthcare. We acknowledge the criticisms of these approaches, including the potential for unintended paternalism and distrust. To mitigate these risks, we conclude by suggesting a mechanism to minimize the likelihood of unintended paternalism and foster patient trust. (shrink)

In developed economies, powerful legislative and regulatory frameworks, for people with disability over the last five decades, have provided major motivation for business compliance with disability in the workplaces. However, developing economy like India is marked by emergent disability legislation, weak institutional enforcement and an evolving disability rights movement. In the absence of strong institutional expectations, the private sector’s role in mainstreaming the disability agenda has been largely an act of voluntary participation. Drawing upon an in-depth, multilevel, cross-functional qualitative study (...) of four Indian information technology sector companies, this paper explores why these companies engage in pro-social corporate behaviour in favour of disability. The study locates itself in the context of conceptualization of PWD as employee stakeholders and the literature on strategic CSR. The findings reveal that strategic factors promote voluntary business engagement with disability at workplaces and contribute to understanding of workplace integration of minority employees. (shrink)

In this article, epoch-based dynamic features such as sequence of epoch interval values and epoch strength values are explored to classify infant cries. Epoch is the instant of significant excitation of the vocal tract system during the production of speech. For voiced speech, the most significant excitation takes place around the instant of glottal closure. The different types of infant cries considered in this work are hunger, pain, and wet diaper. In this work, epoch strength and epoch interval features are (...) used to represent infant cry-specific information from the acoustic signal. In this study, the proposed features such as epoch interval and epoch strength values are determined using zero-frequency filter-based method. Gaussian mixture models are used to classify the above-mentioned cries from the features proposed in this work. GMMs are developed separately for each of the cries using the proposed features. The infant cry database collected under a telemedicine project at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur has been used for this study. In the first step, infant cry recognition accuracy is investigated separately using epoch interval and epoch strength features. To enhance recognition performance, GMMs developed using various features are combined through score level fusion techniques. The recognition performance using a combination of evidence is found to be superior over individual systems. (shrink)

Yarkoni's analysis clearly articulates a number of concerns limiting the generalizability and explanatory power of psychological findings, many of which are compounded in infancy research. ManyBabies addresses these concerns via a radically collaborative, large-scale and open approach to research that is grounded in theory-building, committed to diversification, and focused on understanding sources of variation.

Technological evaluations have significantly enhanced college students’ fine arts competence development by providing advanced tools and platforms that foster creativity, improve technical skills, and enable innovative artistic expression. In this study 500 college students were mentioned as participators. The variables Technological Tools, Technical Proficiency, Advanced Technologies, Creativity and Innovation, Online Platforms, Skill Development, and Collaborative Competencies are built to evaluate various aspects of technological and creative capabilities in educational and professional settings. Fine arts competitions like the (Artificial Intelligence) AI art (...) contest, digital choreography competition, and speech AI innovation challenge are held for the students to improve their skill development. The questionnaires are taken to measure the student's technological skills development based on before and after competitions. The SPSS software version 28 is used to statistically analyze the data with multiple regression analysis and pearson correlation analysis. The results showed that the integration of technological tools and platforms significantly improved college student's technical proficiency, creativity, and collaborative skills in fine arts. Students exhibited notable enhancements in skill development and engagement with advanced technologies post-competition. Technology significantly enhances fine arts education by improving students' artistic skills and collaboration. Embracing digital tools offers valuable opportunities to enrich curricula and foster innovation. (shrink)

Although creativity and curiosity can be similarly construed as knowledge-building processes, their underlying motivation is fundamentally different. Specifically, curiosity drives organisms to seek information that reduces uncertainty so that they can make a better prediction about the world. On the contrary, creative processes aim to connect distant pieces of information, maximizing novelty and utility.

I consider cases of multifetal pregnancy in which one fetus with a fatal birth defect poses a risk to the survival of another healthy fetus to show that the substance view anti-abortion position leads to a contradiction. In cases of complicated multifetal pregnancy, if intervention by selective abortion to terminate the defective fetus is not performed, both fetuses will die due to the conditions created by the defective fetus’s fatal birth defect. Because abortion is wrong on the anti-abortion position, and (...) a moderate anti-abortion position cannot make an exception for selective abortion in cases of complicated multifetal pregnancy if it operates on the substance view, choosing selective abortion must be wrong, so one must let both fetuses die. However, the substance view anti-abortion position must take letting both fetuses die to be wrong, otherwise it will undermine itself as an anti-abortion position. Further, the substance view provides grounds for why letting fetuses die would be wrong anyway. Thus, the substance view anti-abortion position must take both having an abortion and not having an abortion to be wrong, which is a contradiction. Therefore, cases of complicated multifetal pregnancy show that the substance view anti-abortion position is false. (shrink)

In this commentary, I raise a few questions about Schmidt’s argument against (R-E): whether facts about incoherence are directly reasons for suspension on particular propositions, as opposed to reasons against sets of attitudes; whether (R-E) should really be formulated in terms of a broad category of “doxastic attitudes” that includes transitional attitudes like suspension; and whether incoherence-based reasons really must fit into the category of “epistemic reasons,” as opposed to be a more general category of right-kind reasons. Though my questions (...) reflect some skepticism about the specifics of Schmidt’s argument, I conclude that it succeeds in what I take to be its broader aim. (shrink)

Julietta Singh challenges the drive toward the mastery over self and others by showing how the forms of self-mastery advocated by anticolonial thinkers like Fanon and Gandhi unintentionally reproduced colonial logic, thereby leading her to argue for a more productive human subjectivity that is not centered on concepts of mastery.

I defend a relational account of difference in the moral status between fetuses and newborns. The difference in moral status between a fetus and a newborn is that the newborn baby is the proper object of ‘parental responsibility’ whereas the fetus is not. ‘Parental responsibilities’ are a moral dimension of a ‘parent-child relation’, a relation which newborn babies stand in, but fetuses do not. I defend this relational account by analyzing the concepts of ‘parent’ and ‘child’, and conclude that the (...) difference in the moral status between fetuses and newborns means one may claim abortion is morally permissible while also claiming infanticide is not morally permissible, without inconsistency between the two claims. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION ' Three passions have governed my life: The longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. ...

The concept of corporate social responsibility is becoming integral to effective corporate brand management. This study adopts a multidimensional and cross-country perspective of the concept and analyses consumer perceptions of behaviour of four leading consumer products manufacturers. Data was collected from consumers in two countries – Spain and the UK. The study analyses consumers’ degree of interest in corporate responsibility and its impact on their perception about the company. The findings here suggest a weak impact of company-specific communication on consumers’ (...) perception. The implications of this study are relevant to companies for strengthening their social responsibility associations with the consumers. (shrink)

We present evidence that preschool children oftentimes understand disjunctive sentences as if they were conjunctive. The result holds for matrix disjunctions as well as disjunctions embedded under every. At the same time, there is evidence in the literature that children understand or as inclusive disjunction in downward-entailing contexts. We propose to explain this seemingly conflicting pattern of results by assuming that the child knows the inclusive disjunction semantics of or, and that the conjunctive inference is a scalar implicature. We make (...) two assumptions about implicature computation in the child: that children access only a proper subset of the adult alternatives, and that children possess the adult capacity to strengthen sentences with implicatures. As a consequence, children are expected to sometimes not compute any implicatures at all, but in other cases they are expected to compute an implicature that is different from the adult implicature. We argue that the child’s conjunctive strengthening of disjunctive sentences realizes the latter possibility: the adult infers that the conjunction is false but the child infers that the conjunction is true. This behaviour is predicted when our assumptions about child development are coupled with the assumption that a covert exhaustive operator is responsible for strengthening in both the child and the adult. Specifically, children’s conjunctive strengthening is predicted to follow from the same mechanism used by adults to compute conjunctive free choice implicatures in response to disjunctive permission sentences. We furthermore argue that this parallel between the child and the adult extends to disambiguation preferences. In particular, we present evidence that children prefer to strengthen disjunctions to conjunctions, in matrix and embedded positions ; this result mirrors previous findings that adults prefer to compute free choice, at the root and under every. We propose a disambiguation strategy that explains the preference for conjunctive strengthening – by both the child and the adult – even though there is no general preference for exhaustification. Specifically, we propose that the preference for a conjunctive strengthening follows from a pragmatic preference for a complete answer to the Question Under Discussion. (shrink)

The uniqueness of Psychiatry as a medical speciality lies in the fact that aside from tackling what it considers as illnesses, it has perchance to comment on and tackle many issues of social relevance as well. Whether this is advisable or not is another matter; but such a process is inevitable due to the inherent nature of the branch and the problems it deals with. Moreover this is at the root of the polarization of psychiatry into opposing psychosocial and biological (...) schools. This gets reflected in their visualization of scope, in definitions and in methodology as well. Whilst healthy criticism of one against the other school is necessary, there should be caution against hasty application of one's frame of reference to an approach that does not intend to follow, or conform to, one's methodology. This should be done within the referential framework of the school critically evaluated, with due consideration for its methods and concepts. Similarly, as at present, there is no evidence to prove one or the other of these approaches as better, aside from personal choice. We can say so even if there is a strong paradigm shift towards the biological at present. A renaissance of scientific psychoanalysis coupled with a perceptive neurobiology which can translate those insights into testable hypotheses holds the greatest promise for psychiatry in the future. This suggests the need for unification of diverse appearing approaches to get a more comprehensive and enlightened worldview. It requires a highly integrative capacity. Just as a physicist thinks simultaneously in terms of particles and waves, a psychiatrist must think of motives, emotions and desires in the same breath as neurobiology, genetics and psychopharmacology. However, the integration must be attempted without destroying the internal cohesiveness of the individual schools. This will give a fair chance for polarization in which a single proper approach in psychiatry could emerge, which may be a conglomerate of diverse appearing approaches of today, or one which supersedes the rest. A synthesis of cognitive psychology and neuroscience offers the greatest promise at present. (shrink)

This study investigated the immediate effect of slow yoga breathing at 6 breaths per minute simultaneously on working memory performance and heart rate variability in yoga practitioners. A total of 40 healthy male volunteers performed a working memory task, ‘n-back’, consisting of three levels of difficulty, 0-back, 1-back, and 2-back, separately, before and after three SYB sessions on different days. The SYB sessions included alternate nostril breathing, right nostril breathing, and breath awareness. Repeated measures analysis of variance showed a significant (...) reduction in reaction time in 2-back condition immediately after ANB, RNB and BAW practices. Similarly, the accuracy was improved in the 0-back condition after RNB, and in the 2-back condition after ANB and RNB practices. These results suggest that SYB practice enhances cognitive abilities related to memory load and improves the functioning of cardiac autonomic activity, which is required for the successful completion of mental tasks.Trial registered in the Clinical Trials Registry of India. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt to examine critical ways of displacing the meaning of journey – as minor rhythms and motions of everyday life. The everyday and its cyclical nature embedded in a productive life within the capitalist social regime is seen as an unexotic site of quotidian struggle. It warrants our attention only when the body asserts its presence at the site of rebellion or resistance. This is frequently reported as an exception to the given norm. The concrete reality (...) of our given material conditions is always fermenting and churning towards the “not yet”. Patterns of the everyday are seen as an extraordinary event or rupture only when the body rebels. My contention is that this journey of the body-politic is not embedded in a certain moment of its arrival or departure, from point A to B, but marked by dynamic, shifting vectors that are capable of a “leap”. In, against and beyond the spectre of capital, this paper will try to outline and discuss these minor perforations in time through the Shaheen Bagh protests and the migrant exodus during the pandemic in India. (shrink)

Vedic Vision Of Consciousness And Reality Is An Attempt At A Systematic Presentation Of The Visions Of Vedic Seers Concerning Consciousness In Relationship To Reality. The Relevance Of This Attempt Has Got Enhanced Today Due To Latest Discoveries In Quantum Physics Tending To Accord Some Sort Of Substantiality To Consciousness. This Is The Position Vedic Seers Held Long Ago As Is Evident From The Vedanta. The Vedanta, However Has Ignored The Vedic Samhitas On Metaphusical Issues Including Consciousness. The Present Work (...) Has Come In Fulfillment Of This Lacuna In The Tradition Of Vedic Thought. It Has Been Shown Here Strictly On The Basis Of Textual Evidence How The Vedic Seers Were Involved In The Search For Consciousness In Its Purest Form Coinciding With Reality. The Coincidence Of The Modern Science In Its Latest Developments With The Vedic Viewpoint In This Regard, Suggests The Necessity Of A Paradigmatic Shift In The Human Thinking At This Juncture From Matter To Consciousness As The Most Fundamental Reality. These Issues Have Been Discussed Here From Various Viewpoints Including Scientific, Philosophical, Psychological, Theological And Epistemological. (shrink)

Classical treatise on the fundamentals of Nyaya philosophy with commentaries; critical edition.