The inclusion of stakeholders and knowledge systems is increasingly valued in research to address complex socio-ecological challenges around the world. Often these projects take place in cross-cultural setting where external researchers risk perpetuating historically extractive research models that not only harm local communities but damage the validity of research projects. Responsible community engagement is increasingly recognized as a practice that can improve researcher-community relationships and research quality by incorporating principles of ethics, reciprocity, and power sharing. In partnership with local community (...) leaders, researchers from a U.S. university coded 76 research articles for indicators of responsible community engagement conducted in the Samburu, Kenya community since 2000. Findings from this study suggest that most of the research in Samburu has followed extractive models. Of the 76 articles reviewed many failed to acknowledge ethical protocols, did not address relevance of the study to the local community, and did not report any indication of outreach or community change as a result of the research. While a portion of articles showed evidence of community involvement in the studies, the involvement was primarily limited to secondary roles with little to no shared decision-making power over the research process. We discuss methodological considerations for future research and steps that must be taken in order to shift the norm and practice of academic research in sites such as Samburu, Kenya. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Klio Jahrgang: 98 Heft: 1 Seiten: 118-138.

Deze studie wil de wijsgerig-ethische stromingen van de 19e en 20e eeuw op een overzichtelijke wijze presenteren. Zij biedt veel en ongetwijfeld kan zij dienst doen als een eerste oriëntatie. De continentale filosofie komt goed aan de orde, zij het dat de auteurs de aandacht voor de bibliografische notities vaak laten gaan ten koste van de toch al summiere inhoudelijke inleidingen. De auteurs beschrijven en beoordelen - dikwijls in moraliserende termen - maar gaan niet in dialoog noch met de behandelde (...) auteur noch met de lezer. De angelsaksische wereld komt nauwelijks aan de orde (29 blz.). De betekenis van de analytische ethiek voor de normatieve ethiek wordt niet gezien. Het boek stopt ook te vlug. De recente ontwikkelingen komen niet aan de orde. Over narratieve ethiek wordt niet gesproken. Maar evenmin over de hernieuwde aandacht voor de deugden-ethiek. Deze studie laat duidelijk zien dat de gigantische onderneming om een goede inleiding in de wijsbegeerte en de ethiek van de 19e en 20e eeuw te schrijven, niet door een of twee personen kan worden voltooid. (Biblion recensie, Prof. dr. F.J. Heggen.). (shrink)

The theme of this article is the Thespian Polyandrion and its mnemonic connections to local history, especially the Thespian role during the Persian Wars (480-79) and the Peloponnesian War (431-404). The Polyandrion was constructed after the Battle of Delion (424), a Boiotian victory over the Athenians. It will be argued that the sculptural scheme was shaped in reference to Leonidas’ memorial at Thermopylai. The reference was inspired by Thespian history; the city’s history was largely overshadowed in the memorial landscape of (...) the battlefield, and in narrative traditions of the Persian Wars Thespian efforts were often overlooked. As the Athenians were framed as the new Persians during the Peloponnesian War, the Battle of Delion and its aftermath provided the ideal opportunity to cultivate a lasting memory of Thespian contributions to the freedom of the Greeks. (shrink)

Testing of candidate biological control agents to estimate their likely field host ranges in the area of release has been part of weed biological control for several decades, with evolving techniques and goals. Similar efforts have been made less often for parasitoids and predators being introduced for arthropod biological control. Here, we review both techniques of host range testing and social objectives of such screening. We ask whether agents introduced for arthropod biological control should be subjected to host range testing (...) before release, and if so, are methods used for estimating host ranges of herbivorous arthropods appropriate, or are different approaches needed. Current examples in which host range testing has been employed for arthropod biological control are reviewed. We conclude with recommendations concerning guiding principles about use of host range testing. We recommend modest expansion of host range testing for arthropod biological control for projects on continents. We recommend more extensive testing for projects of introduction onto islands. We note that introductions to islands could provide opportunities to gain experience in use of host range estimation for this class of organisms and to conduct post release evaluations of host ranges. We urge caution in efforts to mandate host range testing but simultaneously recommend consultation between biological control workers and insect conservationists. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Journal of Ancient History Jahrgang: 5 Heft: 2 Seiten: 179-204.

— We prescnt here a comparative study on the decay of chlorophyll a fluorescence yield in thylakoid membranes and photosystem 11 ‐enriched samples, measured with multifrequency cross‐correlation phase fluorometry. These measurements confirm the general conclusions of Van Mieghem ef al., obtained with a flash method, on the effects of reduction of the primary quinone acceptor on ChI a fluorescence yield of PSI. Different states of the reaction centers of PSII were produced by: pretreatment with sodium dithionite and mcthyl viologen followed (...) by laser illumination: the doubly reduced QA centers: with laser illumination or pretreatment with diuron: QA‐ centers; and the addition of micromolar concentration of dichlorobenzoquinonc : oxidized QA centers. The data were analyzed with Lorentzian distribution as well as with multiexponential fluorescence decay functions. The analysis with Lorcntzian distribution function showed that upon formation of QA. the major lifetime distribution peak shifted to longer lifetimes: from 0.25 ns to 1.66 ns and from 0.24 ns to 1.31 ns. However, when QAHZ was formed, the lifetime distribution peaks shifted back to shorter lifetimes both in thylakoids and PSIl membranes. Multiexponential analysis showed three lifetime components: fast, middle and slow. When QA was formed in PS11 centers, the amplitude of the fast Component decreased, but both thc amplitude and the lifetime of the middle component increased severalfold. However, when QA was doubly reduccd, the amplitude of the fast component increased and the amplitude of the middle component decreased: in addition, the lifetime of the slow component increased. All of the above results are consistent with the conclusions that PS11 charge separation is decreased when QA is formed and increased when doubly reduced QA is formed. Copyright © 1993, Wiley Blackwell. All rights reserved. (shrink)

We assessed how synchronous speech listening and lipreading affects speech recognition in acoustic noise. In simple audiovisual perceptual tasks, inverse effectiveness is often observed, which holds that the weaker the unimodal stimuli, or the poorer their signal-to-noise ratio, the stronger the audiovisual benefit. So far, however, inverse effectiveness has not been demonstrated for complex audiovisual speech stimuli. Here we assess whether this multisensory integration effect can also be observed for the recognizability of spoken words. To that end, we presented audiovisual (...) sentences to 18 native-Dutch normal-hearing participants, who had to identify the spoken words from a finite list. Speech-recognition performance was determined for auditory-only, visual-only (lipreading) and auditory-visual conditions. To modulate acoustic task difficulty, we systematically varied the auditory signal-to-noise ratio. In line with a commonly-observed multisensory enhancement on speech recognition, audiovisual words were more easily recognized than auditory-only words (recognition thresholds of -15 dB and -12 dB, respectively). We here show that the difficulty of recognizing a particular word, either acoustically or visually, determines the occurrence of inverse effectiveness in audiovisual word integration. Thus, words that are better heard or recognized through lipreading, benefit less from bimodal presentation. Audiovisual performance at the lowest acoustic signal-to-noise ratios (45%) fell below the visual recognition rates (60%), reflecting an actual deterioration of lipreading in the presence of excessive acoustic noise. This suggests that the brain may adopt a strategy in which attention has to be divided between listening and lipreading. (shrink)

Successful surgical treatment of patients with focal drug-resistant epilepsy remains challenging, especially in cases for which it is difficult to define the area of cortex from which seizures originate, the seizure onset zone. Various diagnostic methods are needed to select surgical candidates and determine the extent of resection. Interictal magnetoencephalography with source imaging has proven to be useful for presurgical evaluation, but the use of ictal MEG data remains limited. The purpose of the present study was to determine whether pre-ictal (...) variations of spectral properties of neural activity from ictal MEG recordings are predictive of SOZ location.We performed a 4 h overnight MEG recording in an 8-year-old child with drug-resistant focal epilepsy of suspected right fronto-temporal origin and captured one ~45-s seizure. The patient underwent a right temporal resection from the anterior temporal neocortex and amygdala to the mid-posterior temporal neocortex, sparing the hippocampus proper. She remains seizure-free 21 months postoperatively. The histopathological assessment confirmed frank focal cortical dysplasia type IIa in the MEG-defined SOZ, which was based on source imaging of averaged ictal spikes at seizure onset. We investigated temporal changes together with spatial differences in spectral parameters of background brain activity, namely the aperiodic broadband offset and slope, and assessed how they confounded the interpretation of apparent variations of signal power in typical electrophysiological bands. Our data show that the SOZ was associated with a higher aperiodic offset and exponent during the seizure compared to control regions. Both parameters increased in all regions from 2 min before the seizure onwards. Regions anatomically closer to the SOZ also expressed higher values compared to contralateral regions, potentially indicating ictal spread. We also show that narrow-band power changes were caused by these fluctuations in the aperiodic component of ongoing brain activity. Our results indicate that the broadband aperiodic component of ongoing brain activity cannot be reduced to background noise of no physiological interest, and rather may be indicative of the neuropathophysiology of the SOZ. We believe these findings will inspire future studies of ictal MEG cases and confirm their significance. (shrink)

This paper presents a new modal logic for ceteris paribus preferences understood in the sense of "all other things being equal". This reading goes back to the seminal work of Von Wright in the early 1960's and has returned in computer science in the 1990' s and in more abstract "dependency logics" today. We show how it differs from ceteris paribus as "all other things being normal", which is used in contexts with preference defeaters. We provide a semantic analysis and (...) several completeness theorems. We show how our system links up with Von Wright's work, and how it applies to game-theoretic solution concepts, to agenda setting in investigation, and to preference change. We finally consider its relation with infinitary modal logics. (shrink)

Drawing on a global sample of microfinance institutions (MFIs), this paper offers insights into the trade-off versus synergy debate of adopting multiple institutional goals in hybrid organisations. Additionally, it unravels which organisation- and country-specific determinants associate with top joint performance using machine-learning techniques. We find that the synergy versus trade-off debate is not dichotomous. Rather, MFIs can be strong both socially and financially but not while charging low interest rates. In our sample, 17% of MFIs serve a low-income clientele in (...) need with a diverse range of services while remaining financially sustainable and ask a close-to-average interest rate. These organisations are larger and more mature as well as financially prudent in that they minimize both financial and credit risk. Moreover, they are located in countries where their services can create larger benefits regarding their underlying goals. (shrink)

Entrepreneurs who start a business to serve both self-interests and collective interests by addressing unmet social and environmental needs are usually referred to as sustainable entrepreneurs. Compared with regular entrepreneurs, we argue that sustainable entrepreneurs face specific challenges when establishing their businesses owing to the discrepancy between the creation and appropriation of private value and social value. We hypothesize that when starting a business, sustainable entrepreneurs feel more hampered by perceived barriers, such as the institutional environment and have a different (...) risk attitude and perception than regular entrepreneurs. We use two waves of the Flash Eurobarometer survey on entrepreneurship, which contains information on start-up motivations, start-up barriers, and risk perceptions of approximately 3000 business owners across 33 countries. We find that sustainable entrepreneurs indeed perceive more institutional barriers in terms of a lack of financial, administrative, and informational support at business start-up than regular entrepreneurs. Further, no significant differences between sustainable and regular entrepreneurs are found in terms of their risk attitudes or perceived financial risks. However, sustainable entrepreneurs are more likely to fear personal failure than regular entrepreneurs, which is explained by their varied and complex stakeholder relations. These insights may serve as an important signal for both governments and private capital providers in enhancing the institutional climate. (shrink)

1. Bd. Moralia Horatiana; das ist, Die horazische Sittenlehre, von P. von Zesen.--2. Bd. La doctrine des moeurs, tiree de la philosophie des stoiques, par M. Le R. de Gomberville.

Our think tank tasked by the Dutch Health Council, consisting of Radboud University Nijmegen Honours Academy students with various backgrounds, investigated the implications of Deep Brain Stimulation for psychiatric patients. During this investigation, a number of methodological, ethical and societal difficulties were identified. We consider these difficulties to be a reflection of a still fragmented field of research that can be overcome with improved organization and communication. To this effect, we suggest that it would be useful to found a centralized (...) DBS organization. Such an organization makes it possible to 1) set up and maintain a repository, 2) facilitate DBS studies with a larger sample size, 3) improve communication amongst researchers, clinicians and ethical committees, and 4) improve communication between DBS experts and the public at large. (shrink)

Ruminative thinking, characterized by a recurrent focus on negative and self-related thought, is a key cognitive vulnerability marker of depression and, therefore, a key individual difference variable. This study aimed to develop a computational cognitive model of rumination focusing on the organization and retrieval of information in memory, and how these mechanisms differ in individuals prone to rumination and individuals less prone to rumination. Adaptive Control of Thought-Rational (ACT-R) was used to develop a rumination model by adding memory chunks with (...) negative valence to the declarative memory. In addition, their strength of association was increased to simulate recurrent negative focus, thereby making it harder to disengage from. The ACT-R models were validated by comparing them against two empirical datasets containing data from control and depressed participants. Our general and ruminative models were able to recreate the benchmarks of free recall while matching the behavior exhibited by the control and the depressed participants, respectively. Our study shows that it is possible to build a computational theory of rumination that can accurately simulate the differences in free recall dynamics between control and depressed individuals. Such a model could enable a more fine-tuned investigation of underlying cognitive mechanisms of depression and potentially help to improve interventions by allowing them to more specifically target key mechanisms that instigate and maintain depression. (shrink)

Van de Vliert's findings fit nicely with our recent arguments implying that (1) differentiated selfhood is partly motivated by requirements of cultural groups, and (2) free will mainly exists within culture. Some cultural groups promote individual freedom, whereas others constrict it so as to maintain elites' power and privilege. Thus, freedom is, to a great extent, a creation of culture.

Ever since the start of the twentieth century, a growing interest and importance of studying fatwas can be noted, with a focus on Arabic printed fatwas (Wokoeck 2009). The scholarly study of end-of-life ethics in these fatwas is a very recent feature, taking a first start in the 1980s (Anees 1984; Rispler-Chaim 1993). Since the past two decades, we have witnessed the emergence of a multitude of English fatwas that can easily be consulted through the Internet (‘e-fatwas’), providing Muslims worldwide (...) with a form of Islamic normative guidance on a huge variety of topics. Although English online fatwas do provide guidance for Muslims and Muslim minorities worldwide on a myriad of topics including end-of-life issues, they have hardly been studied. This study analyses Islamic views on (non-)voluntary euthanasia and assisted suicide as expressed in English Sunni fatwas published on independent—i.e. not created by established organisations—Islamic websites. We use Tyan’s definition of a fatwa to distinguish between fatwas and other types of texts offering Islamic guidance through the Internet. The study of e-fatwas is framed in the context of Bunt’s typology of Cyber Islamic Environments (Bunt 2009) and in the framework of Roy’s view on the virtual umma (Roy 2002). ‘(Non-)voluntary euthanasia and assisted suicide’ are defined using Broeckaert’s conceptual framework on treatment decisions at the end of life (Broeckaert 2008). We analysed 32 English Sunni e-fatwas. All of the e-fatwas discussed here firmly speak out against every form of active termination of life. They often bear the same structure, basing themselves solely on Quranic verses and prophetic traditions, leaving aside classical jurisprudential discussions on the subject. In this respect they share the characteristics central in Roy’s typology of the fatwa in the virtual umma. On the level of content, they are in line with the international literature on Islamic end-of-life ethics. English Sunni e-fatwas make up an influential and therefore important developing body of Islamic orthodox normative authority on end-of-life ethics that is still open for further research. (shrink)

Abstract:The author begins by explaining a fourfold distinction among substances (things that exist without being dependent on anything else), dependent entities (things that exist only because certain other things exist and are the way they are), logical constructions (things that exist only in a manner of speaking, all talk of them being paraphrasable away), and nonentities (things that do not exist even in a manner of speaking). He then argues that shadows (in the literal sense of the term) are paradigm (...) examples of logical constructions, pace Roy Sorensen, who has worked out a theory of shadows as dependent but genuine entities. He goes on to argue that many other alleged types of dependent entities are really shadows in a metaphorical sense—they are only logical constructions. He defends the resulting ontology against the charge of being intolerably austere. (shrink)

The naturalized metaphysics promoted by Ladyman and Ross, among others, is often described as (neo)-Quinean metaphysics. This association with Quine's naturalism can, however, give a misleading impression of the aims and commitments of this kind of naturalized metaphysics. Contrary to Quine, these naturalized metaphysicians endorse metaphysical realism and offer wholesale arguments in favor of the epistemic standing of science-based metaphysics. Accordingly, this naturalized metaphysics comes closer to Roy Wood Sellars's evolutionary naturalism, especially since the theory of evolution is central to (...) the criticism that naturalized metaphysics levels at nonnaturalized metaphysics. The paper argues that Sellars's naturalism is furthermore helpful (1) for explicating the naturalism of naturalized metaphysics, (2) for theorizing a more general naturalist basis for naturalized metaphysics, and (3) for suggesting where naturalized metaphysics is perhaps not naturalist enough, especially when it comes to considering the implications of the theory of evolution for its positive program. (shrink)

In this article the focus is on ritual theory and its relevance for pastoral care during the grief process. For these purposes the first task at hand is finding an appropriate description of what ritual implies, especially in the context of pastoral care. It includes studying different descriptions from different study fields to provide a broad theoretical view of ritual and to identify relevant perspectives. This view is narrowed to ritual as performance as well as legitimisation of experience. Concerning the (...) pastoral aspect of grief care the research mainly focuses on the work of the Dutch practical theologian, Corja Menken-Bekius and the American practical theologian David Hogue. Menken-Bekius' works on ritual from a clinical pastoral perspective while Hogue gives a neuropsychological perspective. Included in the processing of these two views are the works of anthropologist, Roy Rappaport and psychologist, Onno Van der Hart. Finding a description of ritual is not an easy task. The one offered is created with careful consideration of the inclusions and exclusions within the 'idea' of ritual. Meaning is subjective when it comes to ritual. A general meaning might be ascribed to a specific ritual, yet each individual might have a different experience and might attach different meanings. This happens unwittingly and unwillingly. What is found to be important in the rituals proposed in this article, is the ability of rituals to provide a framework of order within a situation of chaos and that it also creates a moment of remembrance. (shrink)

In this honorific volume, his protigi F. LeRon Shults has gathered a chorus of excellent voices in van Huyssteen's main areas of philosophy, science, and ...

INTRODUCTION In The World as Will and Representation Schopenhauer writes: Death is the real inspiring genius or Musagetes of philosophy, and for this reason ...

Harris proposes a new theory of communication, beginning with the premise that the mental life of an individual should be conceived of as a continuous attempt to integrate the present with the past and future.

This book has a twofold purpose: the first is to trace the development of cosmology, the study of the universe, and the second is to demonstrate the limitation of science. Dr. Peacock questions the idea that the universe is infinite, showing that science can answer the hows of the universe, but not the whys.

The paper deals with the early Yogācāra strategies for explaining intersubjective agreement under a ‘mere representations’ view. Examining Vasubandhu, Asaṅga, and Sthiramati’s use of the example of intersubjective agreement among the hungry ghosts, it is demonstrated that in contrast to the way in which it was often interpreted by contemporary scholars, this example in fact served these Yogācāra thinkers to perform an ironic inversion of the realist premise—showing that intersubjective agreement not only does not require the existence of mind-independent objects (...) but is in fact incompatible with their existence. By delineating the phenomenological complexity underlying this account, the paper then proceeds to unpack the emergent Yogācāra account of intersubjectivity, its implications on the understanding of being, the life-world, and alterity, arguing that it proposes a radical revision of the way we conceive of the ‘shared’ and ‘private’ distinction in respect to experiences, both ordinarily and philosophically. (shrink)

In their target article, Moore and colleagues offer a valuable overview of the various ambivalence-related phenomena that may impede swift clinical decision-making. They argue that patients...

It's well known that we have lost touch with Nature. It is not so much that Nature has retreated, or that we have dismissed it, destroyed it, or denied it.