Prospective memory (PM) enables people to remember to complete important tasks in the future. Failing to do so can result in consequences of varying severity. Here, we investigated how PM error-consequence severity impacts the neural processing of relevant cues for triggering PM and the ramification of that processing on the associated prospective task performance. Participants role-played a cafeteria worker serving lunches to fictitious students and had to remember to deliver an alternative lunch to students (as PM cues) who would otherwise (...) experience a moderate or severe aversive reaction. Scalp-recorded, event-related potential (ERP) measures showed that the early-latency frontal positivity, reflecting the perception-based neural responses to previously learned stimuli, did not differ between the severe versus moderate PM cues. In contrast, the longer-latency parietal positivity, thought to reflect full PM cue recognition and post retrieval processes, was elicited earlier by the severe than the moderate PM cues. This faster instantiation of the parietal positivity to the severe-consequence PM cues was then followed by faster and more accurate behavioral responses. These findings indicate how the relative importance of a PM can be neurally instantiated in the form of enhanced and faster PM cue recognition and processing and culminate into better PM. (shrink)

As social media becomes increasingly popular, human subjects researchers are able to use these platforms to locate, track, and communicate with study participants, thereby increasing participant retention and the generalizability and validity of research. The use of social media; however, raises novel ethical and regulatory issues that have received limited attention in the literature and federal regulations. We review research ethics and regulations and outline the implications for maintaining participant privacy, respecting participant autonomy, and promoting researcher transparency when using social (...) media to locate and track participants. We offer a rubric that can be used in future studies to determine ethical and regulation-consistent use of social media platforms and illustrate the rubric using our study team’s experience with Facebook. We also offer recommendations for both researchers and institutional review boards that emphasize the importance of well-described procedures for social media use as... (shrink)

This article shows how the construction of transnational migrant communities across international borders poses a challenge to the assumed "natural" isomorphism of space, nations, and cultures that typically exists in theories of cultural and cross-cultural psychology. One of the principal aims of this article is to add to the critical impulse that initially defined the vision of cultural psychology by analyzing how transnational diaspora communities have become new sites for the rethinking of core concepts such as culture, self, nation and (...) identity. By drawing on Gupta and Ferguson's work, I present three important ways through which cultural theorizing can be reconfigured in the present transnational context. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

Critical analyses of literatures of the Indian diaspora discuss the “home” of origin as a subtext and a site to which diasporas aspire to return even though it remains an unachievable ideal that is refracted through nostalgic retellings of a space that remains at best “imaginary” (Mishra 2007). Alternatively, some critics, as Roger Waldinger and David Fitzgerald point out, view diasporas’ relationship with the homeland in terms of “loyalty,” obscuring in the process the antagonisms that may arise depending upon one’s (...) circumstances, antagonisms that produce “interactions” between homes of residence and those of origin (2012). In South Asian drama in Canada, many of the concerns regarding race, multiculturalism, job discrimination and violence against women and other marginalized groups are propelled by their links to the playwrights’ “home” of origin. With attention to selected plays, this paper will analyze how the networks between home and spaces of residence in multicultural Canada come alive on theatre stages through visual motifs, actors, props, and photographic collages, which confront the different trajectories of “home” that resurface in these plays. Through live scenes of imagination that speak to spectators, several plays under discussion in this essay expose how, while providing emotional sustenance for some, the baggage of “home” may also pose challenges in the home of residence. So the questions I raise are: How does home appear? To what end? And what does returning “home” teach us about the inequalities and injustices underlying the current global order? (shrink)

Changes and development in education in India; a study.

Linear temporal logic is a widely used method for verification of model checking and expressing the system specifications. The relationship between theory of automata and logic had a great influence in the computer science. Investigation of the relationship between quantum finite automata and linear temporal logic is a natural goal. In this paper, we present a construction of quantum finite automata on finite words from linear-time temporal logic formulas. Further, the relation between quantum finite automata and linear temporal logic is (...) explored in terms of language recognition and acceptance probability. We have shown that the class of languages accepted by quantum finite automata are definable in linear temporal logic, except for measure-once one-way quantum finite automata. (shrink)

Previously published as a special issue of _Third World Quarterly_, this volume assesses the nature, power, role and function of names in global politics and the international media. Names are not objective, they accrue subjective associations, for example 'Terrorist' has a very different connotation to 'Freedom-fighter'. The contributors seek the truth beneath the names assigned in an effort to remove the obscurity created by the power of 'the politics of naming' to the reality of the situation, taking examples from Al (...) Qaeda, Russia's demonization of the Chechens and naming in the Israeli-Palestine conflict, among other important contemporary debates. _Terrorism and the Politics of Naming_ makes a substantial contribution towards elucidating the power of naming in the discourse of conflict and will be of great interest to students and scholars of political philosophy, political theory, and politics and the media. (shrink)

ABSTRACTHigh-level judgement and decision-making tasks display dynamic bidirectional relationships in which salient cues determine how responses are evaluated by decision-makers, and these responses in turn determine the cues that are considered. In this paper, we propose Kosko's bidirectional associative memory network, a minimal two-layer recurrent neural network, as a mathematically tractable toy model with which the properties of existing bidirectional models, and the behavioural implications of these properties, can be studied. We first derive results regarding the dynamics of the BAM (...) network, and then show how these results can be used to provide an analytically sound explanation for a number of important findings, including coherence shifts in judgement and choice, anchoring effects, and reference point effects. (shrink)

In recent versions of professional genre analysis, context has assumed increasingly critical importance, thus redefining genre as a configuration of text-internal and text-external factors. The emphasis on text-external properties of genre has brought into focus the notion of interdiscursivity as distinct from intertextuality, which is primarily viewed as appropriation of text-internal resources. Drawing evidence from a number of professional contexts, this article explores the nature, function, and use of interdiscursivity in genre theory, defining interdiscursivity as a function of appropriation of (...) generic resources across discursive, professional and cultural practices, which, it is claimed, is central to our understanding of the complexities of genres that are typically employed in professional, disciplinary, and institutional communication. (shrink)

The volume presents a set of invited papers based on analyses of legal discourse drawn from a number of international contexts where often the English language ...

In 2012, two major professional societies representing Europe and the United States released influential statements that would propel a commercial market for social egg freezing, in which women bank their oocytes for later use in order to avoid compromised fertility that comes with age. While the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology condoned SEF based on reproductive autonomy and justice, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine discouraged SEF based on insufficient data and concerns about false hope. In this article, (...) we map the contexts and discursive moves by which the biomedicalization of SEF proceeded since 2012. We compare professional bioethical arguments that made the case to approve SEF in Europe with news and popular media discourse that formed and shaped the commercial marketization of SEF in the United States despite the recommendation of the ASRM. While a statist pronatalist perspective informed the former, a distinctly private labor market recruitment strategy utilizing a Lean In efficiency model of feminism buttressed the latter. (shrink)

The global COVID-19 pandemic has brought the issue of rationing finite healthcare resources to the fore. There has been much academic debate, media attention, and conversation in the homes of everyday individuals about the allocation of medical resources, diagnostic testing kits, ventilators, and personal protective equipment. Yet decisions to prioritize treatment for some individuals over others occur implicitly and explicitly in everyday practices. The pandemic has propelled the socially taboo and unavoidably prickly issue of healthcare rationing into the public spotlight—and (...) as such, healthcare rationing demands ongoing public attention and transparent discussion. This article concludes that in the aftermath of COVID-19, policymakers should work towards normalizing rationing discussions by engaging in transparent and honest debate in the wider community and public domain. Further, injecting greater openness and objectivity into rationing decisions might go some way towards dismantling the societal taboo surrounding rationing in healthcare. (shrink)

The advent of techniques of sex selection that rely on assisted reproduction led to a questioning of whether sex selection should be deemed always and everywhere unethical. While China and India are normally associated with condemned practices, they are also implicated in processes that constitute globally stratified sex selection inclusive of its more valued form, often referred to as family balancing. Through an application of Ong and Collier’s concept of global assemblage, I demonstrate how family balancing, which has taken on (...) a “global form,” is tied to an “assemblage” of factors related to the anti-natal, population control contexts that have been pervasive in Asia. Three simultaneously occurring processes since the mid-1990s constituted stratified sex selection: the surfacing of China and India as figurative counter examples in deliberations of ethics on new techniques; active national surveillance of sex ratios as well as denunciation and criminalization of sex selective abortion in China and India; and the role of China and India in neoliberalizing population control and developing globalized markets in reproduction. Accounting for globally stratified sex selection requires a more robust interpretation of ethics that rethinks disciplinary approaches just as much as relativist ones in which respect for individual autonomy tends to overtake all other concerns. (shrink)

At first glance, this case might give the impression that a resolution would have been straightforward. A 17-year-old young man with moderate to severe learning disabilities and other conditions discussed below required a kidney transplant–the Court of Protection was tasked with determining whether this was in his best interests. However, the case of WV was in fact far more technical and required nuanced discussion and expert medical evidence from a range of specialists to objectively balance the needs of WV and (...) the risks to WV, and to ultimately determine his fate of life or death based on receiving a kidney transplant.Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust applied for a declaration in relation to the capacity of William Verdon and for the court to consider whether an order should be made that it was not in his best interests to have a kidney transplant with sedation and ventilation post-operatively. (shrink)

In light of the increasing presence of Muslims in the US, this article elucidates the perspectives, attitudes and practices of American evangelicals towards Muslims in the US. The discussion is informed by data that were gathered through a qualitative study of 40 lay American evangelicals and four pastors, as well as through a focus group study of an evangelical outreach ministry among Muslims. Literature on religious diversity in the US forms the background within which the information drawn from the qualitative (...) interviews and focus group study is discussed and analyzed. The respondents’ perspectives and attitudes towards Islam and Muslims in general are quite negative, as well as conflicted in that while the respondents claimed to be open to interacting and dialoguing with Muslims, their practices towards Muslims were often not so hospitable. This inhospitality was a result of a general fear of Islam and Muslims exhibited by the respondents. (shrink)

This paper discusses a central idea of our everyday life—human actions and the role of luck in the moral life. The aim of this paper is to formulate and discuss the problem of moral luck, thereby dealing with the question: ‘what is the status or role of luck in the moral life of an individual?’ Bernard Williams and Thomas Nagel highlight the juxtaposition of the two contradictory terms: ‘Luck’ and ‘Morality’ and used the term ‘moral luck’ which inculcates the view (...) that the factor of luck or fortune can affect the moral worth of an individual. In this context, the paper is specifically concerned with the philosophical problem of moral luck which raises a conceptual tension between morality and responsibility by emphasizing that moral assessment, evaluation and justification of human actions are all subjected to luck. Further, in the light of this philosophical problem, the paper also attempts to postulate a possible moral framework with an aim to analyse and conceptually map the status of the juxtaposition of luck and morality. (shrink)

Blumenthal-Barby (2024) argues that bioethicists should stop using the concept of "personhood" in both well-established bioethics debates (e.g., regarding cognitive disability) and emerging ones (e...

In this article, I examine reproductive travel for sex selection with reference to two distinct technologies—MicroSort and preimplantation genetic diagnosis. Available since the 1990s for sex-linked disease avoidance, I focus here on their imbrication in an emerging global form of nonmedical, lifestyle sex selection that elicits movements of information, biomaterial, patients, providers, and equipment across borders. This web of cross-border, interclinical, and laboratory transactions raises issues highly relevant to a feminist approach to the bioethics of sex selection. International documents, however, (...) have yet to account for their implication in an increasingly stratified system of global sex selection practices. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2017 Heft: 216 Seiten: 109-130.

In this article, we explore alternative conflict resolution strategies to assist families and clinicians in cases of intractable dissent in paediatric health care decision-making. We focus on the ethical and legal landscape using cases from the Australian jurisdiction in New South Wales, while referencing some global sentinel cases. We highlight a range of alternative means of addressing conflict, including clinical ethics support, and contrast and contextualise facilitative or interest-based mediation, concluding that legal intervention via the courts can be protracted and (...) distressing and should be a ‘last resort’. We acknowledge many might view this as the current status quo, but we go further to recommend strategies optimal for all parties to recognise early signs of conflict and prevent its harmful escalation. While more empirical research is needed, we contend that interest-based mediation may be a valuable adjunctive method of conflict resolution. If judiciously distinguished from and utilised with clinical ethical support, it can be an effective tool to address dissent and its negative sequelae in paediatric healthcare decision-making. (shrink)

This paper explores how political parties should be regulated in jurisdictions with anti-defection laws, which constitutionalise parties’ control over the legislative process. It begins by arguing that parties in such jurisdictions should be understood as neither private organisations nor quasi-public bodies but as legislative entities. Next, it argues that recognising the legislative status of the party should affect how we think about the legal regulation of its internal affairs. In particular, the law may justifiably demand that decision-making power within the (...) extra-parliamentary party be dispersed across multiple persons and not concentrated in the hands of a few. Finally, I examine the implications of this argument for India and Pakistan, two jurisdictions with anti-defection laws in place. (shrink)