Nineteenth-century Russia reverberated with ideas of women's liberation as a condition of genuine equality in society. These ideas came to form the basis of an entire tradition linking the "woman's" question and the "social" question together and defining the democratic character of the women's movement in Russia.

One of the most important facts in the contemporary intellectual life of mankind is its increasing liberation from the shackles of religion and the church. This is admitted even by bourgeois ideologists. Gabriel Marcel speaks of "desacralization" and the loss of the sense of the "holy" . Martin Heidegger speaks of "atheization" , and at the Second Session of the 21st Ecumenical Council the Council fathers noted with alarm the "de-Christianization" of society.

Pancreatitis is a complex, progressively destructive inflammatory disorder. Alcohol was long thought to be the primary causative agent, but genetic contributions have been of interest since the discovery that rare PRSS1, CFTR and SPINK1 variants were associated with pancreatitis risk. We now report two associations at genome-wide significance identified and replicated at PRSS1-PRSS2 and X-linked CLDN2 through a two-stage genome-wide study. The PRSS1 variant likely affects disease susceptibility by altering expression of the primary trypsinogen gene. The CLDN2 risk allele is (...) associated with atypical localization of claudin-2 in pancreatic acinar cells. The homozygous CLDN2 genotype confers the greatest risk, and its alleles interact with alcohol consumption to amplify risk. These results could partially explain the high frequency of alcohol-related pancreatitis in men. © 2012 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

T. Mels (ed.), Reanimating Places : a Geography of Rhythms, Aldershot : Ashgate, 2004, 278 p. Quelques pages sont accessibles ici. For geographers, rhythm is one of the most seductive and elusive of concepts. And, as Tom Mels's expansive introductory essay to this collection demonstrates, it is possible to trace the 'lineage of a geography of rhythms' through various theoretical and empirical trajectories. The content and tone of this volume is, however, dominated by one particular (...) - Recensions.

The present work is an anthology of Kumarila Bhatta's works the Slokavarttika and the tantravarttika which deal with such subjects as the nature of the Atman the nature of the Dharma the nature of the Sabda the self Validity of the veda the concept of Sphota the nature of the svarga, generality, Individuality, negation, sunyata, Vijnanavada, Apohavada etc. according to Mimamsa shcool. A reader can derive a fair knowledge of the tenets of the Mimamsakas on different subjects. Besides the author (...) has supplied a short history of the Purvamimamsa in addition to details about Kumarila Bhatta Sabarasvamin Mandana Misra and other important writers of the sastra in the elaborate Introduction. (shrink)

What would a visual image of a philosophical idea look like? Aren't philosophical concepts, by virtue of their very abstractness, incapable of being rendered visually? These are some of the questions raised in this catalogue of an exhibition at the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, Mel Bochner: Illustrating Philosophy, which examines a specific project by the renowned conceptual artist. Curator and author Thomas E. Wartenberg explores Bochner's prints and drawings inspired by the writings of philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, a suite of (...) which was published as illustrations to the 1991 Arion Press edition of On Certainty. Through his sensitive analysis, Wartenberg shows how Bochner translates Wittgenstein's revolutionary claims about knowledge and doubt into visual images. Bochner's work presents an important corrective to a view of book illustrations as a crutch for understanding an author's meaning. Illustrations, in fact, can provide an alternative means of access to complex, even abstract ideas. This book will interest an academic audience, particularly in the areas of philosophy, art and art history, linguistics, and word and image studies. (shrink)

Laland and colleagues have sought to challenge the proximate–ultimate distinction claiming that it imposes a unidirectional model of causation, is limited in its capacity to account for complex biological phenomena, and hinders progress in biology. In this article the core of their argument is critically analyzed. It is claimed that contrary to their claims Laland et al. rely upon the proximate–ultimate distinction to make their points and that their alternative conception of reciprocal causation refers to phenomena that were already accounted (...) for by standard theory. (shrink)

The publication in 1957 of the Wolfenden Report occasioned a celebrated controversy in which profound theoretical issues concerning the relation between law and morality, and the legal enforcement of morality were discussed. The principal disputants were Lord Justice Devlin and Professor H. L. A. Hart. It is by now well known that the main recommendation of the Wolfenden Report was the reform of the criminal law so that homosexual behaviour in private between consenting male adults should no longer be a (...) criminal offence. As homosexual behaviour in Christendom was at the outset punishable in the ecclesiastical courts, and subsequently, with the demise of the ecclesiastical courts, in the secular courts, the Wolfenden recommendation on homosexuality marked a major departure from the prevailing state of affairs in which the precepts of Christian morality, especially relating to sexual morals, were at first enforced by the ecclesiastical courts, and then by the secular courts. (shrink)

Résumé En juin 2010, lors de l’exposition organisée par la galerie Nelson-Freeman à Paris, on pouvait découvrir une série d’œuvres inédites de Mel Bochner : loin de ses travaux des années soixante et soixante-dix proches de l’art conceptuel, ces tableaux de mots, qui ne sacrifient rien à la matérialité de la peinture, marquent un véritable tournant dans l’œuvre de Bochner. Cet article se propose de suivre la ligne des transformations que trace cette exploration de la peinture depuis maintenant plus de (...) deux décennies : comment Bochner a-t-il mis ses stratégies conceptuelles à l’épreuve du médium pictural? (shrink)

Objectives To conduct an independent evaluation of the first phase of the Health Foundation’s Safer Patients Initiative (SPI), and to identify the net additional effect of SPI and any differences in changes in participating and non-participating NHS hospitals. Design Mixed method evaluation involving five substudies, before and after design. Setting NHS hospitals in the United Kingdom. Participants Four hospitals (one in each country in the UK) participating in the first phase of the SPI (SPI1); 18 control hospitals. Intervention The SPI1 (...) was a compound (multi-component) organisational intervention delivered over 18 months that focused on improving the reliability of specific frontline care processes in designated clinical specialties and promoting organisational and cultural change. Results Senior staff members were knowledgeable and enthusiastic about SPI1. There was a small (0.08 points on a 5 point scale) but significant (P<0.01) effect in favour of the SPI1 hospitals in one of 11 dimensions of the staff questionnaire (organisational climate). Qualitative evidence showed only modest penetration of SPI1 at medical ward level. Although SPI1 was designed to engage staff from the bottom up, it did not usually feel like this to those working on the wards, and questions about legitimacy of some aspects of SPI1 were raised. Of the five components to identify patients at risk of deterioration—monitoring of vital signs (14 items); routine tests (three items); evidence based standards specific to certain diseases (three items); prescribing errors (multiple items from the British National Formulary); and medical history taking (11 items)—there was little net difference between control and SPI1 hospitals, except in relation to quality of monitoring of acute medical patients, which improved on average over time across all hospitals. Recording of respiratory rate increased to a greater degree in SPI1 than in control hospitals; in the second six hours after admission recording increased from 40% (93) to 69% (165) in control hospitals and from 37% (141) to 78% (296) in SPI1 hospitals (odds ratio for “difference in difference” 2.1, 99% confidence interval 1.0 to 4.3; P=0.008). Use of a formal scoring system for patients with pneumonia also increased over time (from 2% (102) to 23% (111) in control hospitals and from 2% (170) to 9% (189) in SPI1 hospitals), which favoured controls and was not significant (0.3, 0.02 to 3.4; P=0.173). There were no improvements in the proportion of prescription errors and no effects that could be attributed to SPI1 in non-targeted generic areas (such as enhanced safety culture). On some measures, the lack of effect could be because compliance was already high at baseline (such as use of steroids in over 85% of cases where indicated), but even when there was more room for improvement (such as in quality of medical history taking), there was no significant additional net effect of SPI1. There were no changes over time or between control and SPI1 hospitals in errors or rates of adverse events in patients in medical wards. Mortality increased from 11% (27) to 16% (39) among controls and decreased from 17% (63) to 13% (49) among SPI1 hospitals, but the risk adjusted difference was not significant (0.5, 0.2 to 1.4; P=0.085). Poor care was a contributing factor in four of the 178 deaths identified by review of case notes. The survey of patients showed no significant differences apart from an increase in perception of cleanliness in favour of SPI1 hospitals. Conclusions The introduction of SPI1 was associated with improvements in one of the types of clinical process studied (monitoring of vital signs) and one measure of staff perceptions of organisational climate. There was no additional effect of SPI1 on other targeted issues nor on other measures of generic organisational strengthening. (shrink)

A new term, "the new conservatism," has recently appeared in the American sociopolitical lexicon. The meaning given it does not resolve merely to a description of the current conservative trends in the United States , which until recently were termed neoconservative in the critical literature. A number of American writers have begun to employ the term "new conservatism" in a narrower sense: to denote the evolution of the sociopolitical views of those ideologists of capitalist reformism who were, until recently, known (...) as neoliberals. The term "new conservatism" was first employed in that sense by the American radical sociologist Michael Harrington in analyzing the evolution, in the realm of political ideas and social policy, of the views of such prominent bourgeois ideologists as Daniel Bell, Seymour Martin Lipset, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Nathan Glazer, and others. To those listed, this identification appeared so well chosen and reflective of the essence of the matter that subsequently they themselves began to speak of themselves as new conservatives. This term has become firmly established in the American sociological literature. It is the purpose of the present article to examine the "legitimacy" of the use of this term and the points of contact between this group and the conservatives or neoconservatives and the lines of demarcation between them. (shrink)

Study of the philosophical basis and elements of ayurvedic medicine in Garuḍapurāṇa.

T. A. Cavanaugh defends double-effect reasoning (DER), also known as the principle of double effect. DER plays a role in anti-consequentialist ethics (such as deontology), in hard cases in which one cannot realize a good without also causing a foreseen, but not intended, bad effect (for example, killing non-combatants when bombing a military target). This study is the first book-length account of the history and issues surrounding this controversial approach to hard cases. It will be indispensable in theoretical ethics, applied (...) ethics (especially medical and military), and moral theology. It will also interest legal and public policy scholars. (shrink)