Recent scholarship on the philosophy of time in pre-Qin Daoist thought has not yet produced a thorough examination of dao’s relationship to time. This essay resolves this omission through a systematic study of the concept heng 恒 in pre-Qin Daoist literature. While principally expressing the ‘constancy’ of dao, heng also significantly presupposes dao’s ability to change. This change is characterized in the texts as a cyclical movement of ‘return’ and identified with the universe’s circular metanarrative of generation and reintegration. The (...) essay turns to examine pre-Qin Daoist literature’s use of primal wu 無 metaphors to describe dao. It concludes that they present dao as undifferentiated infinitude, liberating dao as heng from the tense structure of past-present-future that divides life in time. These metaphors further associate the movement of dao with the flow of time, reformulating time’s relentless ever-greater advancement into an endless cycle of creative transformation. (shrink)

While the current debate highlights an increasing deficit of civic engagement, new - and often less visible - forms of “participation” are beginning to be detected, such as those implemented by citizens with migratory background living at the physical and symbolic margins of Western towns. Our study, part of the project “Abitare insieme” (Living together) in Milan’s multicultural suburbs, was developed with a dual purpose: to analyze the relationship between citizens with a migratory background, active citizenship, and their place representations/belongings; (...) to experiment the co-construction of innovative spaces of speech for citizens, through their dialogical involvement in the research. In a framework of participatory research to enhance reflexivity and transformative practices, a survey was designed and administered. In this paper we will discuss the survey results, along with some methodological implication. The aim is to contribute to reinvent the “active citizenship” construct from a transformative, pedagogical, and intercultural perspective. (shrink)

Keith Reader _Robert Bresson_ Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2000 ISBN 0 7190 5365 X (hardback) 0 7190 5366 8 (paperback) 166 pp.

The American regulatory model of corporate governance rests on the theory of self-regulation as␣the most effective and efficient means to achieve corporate self-restraint in the marketplace. However, that model fails to achieve regular compliance with baseline ethical and legal behaviors as evidenced by a century of repeated corporate debacles, the most recent being Enron, WorldCom, and Refco. Seemingly impervious to its domestic failure, Congress imprinted the same self-regulation paradigm on legislation restraining global business behavior, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. This (...) anti-bribery initiative prohibits unethical and illegal payments made to foreign public officials in an effort to eradicate bribery as a rational-choice global market entry strategy. However, this paper illustrates, using newly complied statistics from 1977 to 2008, that the FCPA has not had a dramatic impact on U.S. global corporate behavior despite its recent high profile coverage and the tough regulatory rhetoric about corporate compliance. The paper also extends the prior Cragg and Woof FCPA efficiency study and provides current empirical evidence to resolve several unanswered questions raised by that earlier study. (shrink)

Foreigners go home! This is a reverberating chorus at the heart of the migration crisis everywhere in the world. This call manifests itself in the recurring xenophobic or Afrophobic attacks directed at foreign nationals in South Africa. This article reflects on the most recent xenophobic attacks directed at foreign nationals during the anti-immigration march, held on 24 February 2017, in the City of Tshwane. This article states that calls for foreigners to go home and the xenophobic or Afrophobic (...) violent attacks that accompanied them were a direct attack on ubuntu. It was an attack that rendered ubuntu ‘homeless’ and reflected the direct opposite of what an African community generally stands for. It was also an attack directed towards the migrant God; hence, the article proposes a re-imagination of the theology of ubuntu and the agency of faith communities as an antidote to the recurring calls for foreigners to go home. (shrink)

Foreign Bodies analyzes how our culture elaborates for us the bodies we have by natural evolution. Calling on the new means contemporary thinkers have used to understand the body, Alphonso Lingis explores forms of power, pleasure and pain, and libidinal identity. The book contrasts the findings of theory with the practice of the body as formulated in quite different kinds of language--the language of plastic art (the artwork body builders make of themselves), biography, anthropology and literature. Lingis explains how we (...) experience our own powers of perception, our postures, attitudes, gestures and purposive action; how our susceptibility to pain and excitability by pleasure acquiesce in and resist the ways they are identified and manipulated today; how cultures code our sensuality with phallic and with fluid identities; how others dress appeals to and puts demands on us. (shrink)

Publication date: 25 October 2017 Source: Author: Ivana Slavoljub Domazet, Darko Milivoj Marjanović The main aim of this work is to determine, on the basis of empirical research, whether and to what extent foreign direct investment has impact on the overall economic development of selected countries in the Western Balkans. Analyses made for the purpose of this paper were performed on the basis of available secondary data possessed by the World Bank for the period of 2000-2012. The research methodology involved (...) the use of the techniques of linear regression and correlation analysis. The first task was to determine whether there is an impact of foreign direct investment on the overall economic development of these countries. Where such influence occurred, it was necessary to define its level in comparison to the influence of other variables. The results of the analysis in this paper suggest that inflow of foreign direct investment does not affect to a significant extent the economic development of selected countries in the Western Balkans. (shrink)

This article discusses the category of foreigner in the context of academia. In the first part I explore this category and its philosophical significance. A quick look at the literature reveals that this category needs more attention in analyses of dimensions of privilege and disadvantage. Foreignness has peculiarities that demarcate it from other categories of identity, and it intersects with them in complicated ways. Devoting more attention to it would enable addressing issues affecting foreigners in academia that go commonly (...) unnoticed. In the second part of the article I argue that current efforts to make academia a more inclusive environment should address the disadvantages that many foreign academics face. I focus on two senses of foreigner: working and living in a country that is not your country of origin, and being a nonnative speaker of the language in which you work. (shrink)

In The Law of Peoples Rawls claims that liberal well-ordered societies (LWOSs) should regard certain non-liberal societies, decent hierarchical societies (DHSs), as equal members of a just international order, a ‘Society of Peoples.’ Rawls maintains, however, that while the ‘basic structures’ (the main political and economic institutions) of LWOSs are fair systems of social cooperation, the basic structures of DHSs are only ‘decent’ systems of social cooperation. I explain why the basic structures of DHSs cannot be fair systems of social (...) cooperation. In doing so, I refute a recent defense of DHSs advanced by Samuel Freeman. I then argue that because the basic structures of DHSs cannot be fair systems of social cooperation, Rawls is not justified in holding that LWOSs should refrain always from offering economic incentives to DHSs in order to encourage them to liberalize their political institutions. The ultimate aim of the foreign policies of LWOSs should be a world in which liberal democratic rights are respected by all societies. (shrink)

This article analyses a recent discourse of responsibility that accompanies states’ foreign aid provision. States adopt this discourse of National Social Responsibility to show their complian...

. Foreign policy by indictment: Using legal tools against foreign officials involved in drug trafficking. Criminal Justice Ethics: Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 3-31.

Many have argued that moral judgment is driven by one of two types of processes. Rationalists argue that reasoned processes are the source of moral judgments, whereas sentimentalists argue that emotional processes are. We provide evidence that both positions are mistaken; there are multiple mental processes involved in moral judgment, and it is possible to manipulate which process is engaged when considering moral dilemmas by presenting them in a non-native language. The Foreign-Language Effect is the activation of systematic reasoning processes (...) by thinking in a foreign language. We demonstrate that the FLE extends to moral judgment. This indicates that different types of processes can lead to the formation of differing moral judgments. One implication of the FLE is that it raises the possibility that moral judgments can be made more systematic, and that the type of processing used to form them might be relevant to normative and applied ethics. (shrink)

Human rights have been the principal ethical ingredients of ‘ethical foreign policy’. Some human rights promulgated in UN and other Declarations are more aspirational than achievable; others are of variable importance. So we need to look behind the Declarations to see which human rights claims should be taken most seriously. I shall argue that we take rights seriously only if we take the counterpart obligations seriously, and can take obligations seriously only if we connect them to the capabilities of the (...) agents and agencies who will have to discharge them. A realistic view of those agents and agencies cannot be based on the assumption that the relevant agents are all of them states, since this line of thought collapses where states are weak or failing. A realistic account of agency, or of obligations, a fortiori of rights has to take certain types of non-state actors and their obligations seriously. (shrink)

On account of xenophobia, which seems to be a worldwide phenomenon, this article examines the issue of the ‘foreigner in our midst’ and approaches the problem from an Old Testament perspective. Firstly an overview is given on the concepts of ethnicity and group identity, and then two opposing groups of texts are briefly analysed: those that convey an exclusivist attitude and those that are more open and inclusive in their outlook. Consequently, the contexts in which these texts originated are examined. (...) It appears that both groups, the exclusivists and the inclusivists, share the same religious convictions, namely the worship of YHWH, the God of Israel. The article concludes by urging caution when using the Bible in order to address complex social and political issues in contemporary societies. (shrink)

Recent studies :98–144, 2002; Weismann, J Bus Ethics 88:615–66, 2009) revealed that in the first 28 years of its existence, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act was not enforced by the federal government. The Weismann study further concluded that the FCPA, designed by Congress as a self-regulatory model of corporate governance, failed to achieve the regulatory goal of deterring global bribery by U.S. companies. The current article addresses the reasons that the FCPA remains an ineffective measure to control bribery as a (...) global market entry strategy despite the highly publicized 2006 Department of Justice initiative to increase prosecutions and tighten enforcement efforts. The failure arises out of both the increased use of informal dispositions of case prosecutions,, which has made “getting caught” merely an increased “cost of doing business” and the failure to close the regulatory gaps in the statute that permit violators to slip through the enforcement net. The article updates and compiles the case prosecution data for every reported case prosecuted between 1977 and 2011. That data are then compared to the results of a 2010 integrity risk survey performed by Deloitte Financial Advisory Services and Forbes which reveal a widely held global business perception that compliance and integrity risks appear to be rising sharply and that the FCPA is ineffective in deterring bribery and corruption in foreign markets. The article aims to serve as a predictive tool for policy makers and business professionals in assessing risk in the global markets, particularly as commerce intensifies in the BRIC countries, notable for bribery and corruption. (shrink)

What role, if any, does the foreign ministry perform in contemporary world politics? Is the argument that it is in a state of terminal decline accurate or rooted in only partial understandings of its changing character? Foreign Ministries in the European Union explores this theme in the context of the EU where foreign ministry has played a key role in the development of integration but where its role is increasingly questioned. The contributors examine the foreign ministry in 13 member states (...) and draw conclusions that challenge some conventional wisdoms. (shrink)

Since 1990, the allocation of foreign development aid has come to be shaped by donors' concerns about promoting "good government" in developing countries. Yet the aid donors adopt a wide variety of implicit and actual definitions of "good government.".

The Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) objectives are an integral part of the overall objectives of the European Union and the policy area has developed from a purely intergovernmental form of cooperation in the days of the European political cooperation to an area in which the member states have increasingly accepted new forms of institutionalization. CFSP decisions are taken by the General Affairs Council, consisting of the ministers for foreign affairs of the member states. In spite of the growing (...) pains in the development of Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), the European Union has made significant strides in deploying crisis management operations. However, the issue of defining success of the CSDP is no longer measured in terms of merely launching missions, ensuring mission output, and gathering operational experience. Whenever a common policy does not prove possible, member states are free to pursue their own national foreign policies. (shrink)

One of the significant courses in Chinese universities is English. This course is usually taught by a foreign language instructor. There will, however, necessarily be some communication hurdles between “foreign language teachers” and “native students.” This research presents an emotion recognition method for foreign language teachers in order to eliminate communication barriers between teachers and students and improve student learning efficiency. We discovered four factors of emotion recognition through literature analysis: smile, eye contact, gesture, and tone. We believe that differences (...) in foreign language teachers’ performance in these four areas will have an impact on students’ emotion recognition and, as a result, on their learning efficiency. The influence of the foreign language teacher’s eye contact and gestures is larger in the decision whether can improve the students’ classroom learning efficiency, according to 43 of the questionnaire data analysis. The second is the tone and smile. Our research contributes to the body of knowledge on emotion recognition in university foreign language teachers by presenting a practical method for recognizing emotion in foreign language teachers. We recommend that college foreign language teachers pay attention to eye and gesture communication with students in English classrooms based on the findings. By enriching the style of emotional expression in class, college language teachers, particularly foreign language teachers, can improve communication, and connection with students. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAs a result of intensive mobility and migration over the last twenty-five years, multiculturalism and multilingualism have become a reality in European prisons. This “superdiversity” poses a serious challenge to the various stakeholders who need efficient and reliable communication. Yet this topic has been underresearched. According to statistics for the year 2014 issued by the Council of Europe, Belgium has a high rate of foreign inmates. Against this background, the aim of this exploratory research is to describe how the Flemish (...) penitentiary system tackles this linguistic challenge. Data were gathered through qualitative research methods such as desktop research and in-depth interviews with 8 stakeholders. Due to the scarcity of financial resources and the presence of organizational hurdles, the Ministry of Justice rarely assigns jobs in prison to interpreters; instead, they are replaced by cheaper and immediately available... (shrink)

The paper relates the concept of a European political identity to the development of the European Community's foreign policy. After a brief review of the idea of political identity as it developed in Europe over the last five centuries, the paper relates this concept to that of liberal democracy. It then turns to the European Community and the growth of its foreign policy. It addresses two questions: Could the concept of political loyalty to a territorially defined identity be replaced by (...) that of institutional loyalty to not one, but a variety of overlapping institutions? Secondly, can the development of the European Community's foreign policy contribute to the development of a European sense of identity? Two short case studies, one on Yugoslavia, and one on economic aid to Eastern Europe, illustrate recent European Community foreign policy. The paper concludes with some speculations as to the future European political system and its applicability to other parts of the world. (shrink)

We examine whether and how CEO foreign experience affects firm’s green innovation. Using a sample of Chinese public companies and hand-collected CEO foreign experience data, we document a positive association between CEO foreign experience and corporate green innovation. Furthermore, consistent with the view that CEOs with foreign experience would play a more significant role when provided with more resources, we find that the positive relationship is more pronounced in less financially constrained firms, in state-owned enterprises, and in less competitive industries. (...) Additional analyses indicate that enhanced environmental ethics and general competency are two potential mechanisms through which CEO foreign experience affects corporate green innovation. Finally, we find that CEO foreign experience is positively related to green innovation quality and internationalization. Collectively, these findings suggest that CEO foreign experience is a significant factor for corporate green innovation in emerging markets. (shrink)

China, which has made a major economic breakthrough, has become one of the most important actors in international politics by increasing its military power in recent years. China's increasing power and influence in the international arena arouses increasing curiosity about the country's foreign policy. With Xi Jinping becoming president, China began to display a more assertive attitude or behavior on many issues. This study basically seeks an answer to the question of what differences Xi Jinping brought to Chinese foreign policy. (...) What kind of changes do these differences lead to in Chinese foreign policy? In this study, the general tendencies and directions of Chinese foreign policy during the Xi Jinping period are discussed. The assertive foreign policy approach that Xi Jinping is trying to implement is analyzed. In this context, the visions of "Chinese dream", "new type of great power relations", "new type of international relations", “Belt and Road Initiative" and "a community with a common future for humanity", which reflect Xi's assertive foreign policy approach, are examined. At the same time, challenges to the assertive foreign policy implemented under Xi Jinping are discussed. The study mainly questions the extent to which Xi Jinping's assertive foreign policy approach is successful. The study concludes that Xi Jinping's active foreign policy approach has not increased China's sphere of influence in the international arena to the extent expected. As China becomes more visible in the international arena, the country's foreign policy challenges seem to be increasing. (shrink)

Foreign-accented speech is generally harder to understand than native-accented speech. This difficulty is reduced for non-native listeners who share their first language with the non-native speaker. It is currently unclear, however, how non-native listeners deal with foreign-accented speech produced by speakers of a different language. We show that the process of language acquisition is associated with an increase in the relative difficulty of processing foreign-accented speech. Therefore, experiencing greater relative difficulty with foreign-accented speech compared with native speech is a marker (...) of language proficiency. These results contribute to our understanding of how phonological categories are acquired during second language learning. (shrink)

This article explains a new ‘foreignizing’ approach to translation that was invented in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, especially by Herder and Schleiermacher, and that has since become the predominant approach in translation theory. The article argues that despite the great virtues of this approach, it was based on an unduly narrow restriction to Indo-European languages, which leaves considerable room for further improvement. Greater attention to Hebrew has since made up this deficit to a certain extent. But Chinese (...) holds the potential for even more important refinements of the original theory. The article explains the original theorists’ failure to exploit this case in terms of a certain prejudice against Chinese language and culture that had arisen at the time, and for which these theorists were themselves partly responsible. It then tries to show in some detail how deeply enriching for the theory a consideration of Chinese can be. (shrink)

The disclosure of corporate environmental performance is an increasingly important element of a firm’s ethical behavior. We analyze how the legal origin of foreign institutional investors affects a firm’s voluntary greenhouse gas emissions disclosure. Using a large sample of firms from 36 countries, we show that foreign institutional ownership from civil law countries improves the scope and quality of a firm’s greenhouse gas emissions reporting. This relation is robust to addressing endogeneity and selection biases. The effect is more pronounced in (...) firms from non-climate-sensitized countries, for which the gap between firms’ environmental standards and investors’ environmental targets is potentially larger, and in less international firms. Firms with a higher level of voluntary greenhouse gas emissions disclosure also exhibit higher valuations. (shrink)

This article addresses three questions: How can we define and measure what constitutes a foreign policy in human rights? How is it possible to explain both the activism of a state and its ideological orientation in the international promotion of human rights? What is the empirical evidence found when we try to answer these questions in intermediate states? Research done on four cases (Argentina, Australia, Brazil and South Africa) suggests a correlation between domestic efforts in the promotion of human rights (...) and international advocacy. It also shows that the greater the power of intermediate states, the greater their activism in human rights. Further, as development grows states show less support for economic, social and cultural rights. Last, the strategic relation with the USA shapes how states vote regarding human rights violators states. (shrink)

Have you ever felt nervous, inappropriate, insecure or worried when trying to communicate in a foreign language? Have you ever feared to make mistakes, being negatively judged or misunderstood when talking to foreigners? Do you know someone who has experienced those situations? If yes, please, keep on reading. All these negative feelings are common in many and diverse situations when using a foreign language. They are the result of experiencing Foreign Language Anxiety (FLA) a situational, dysphoric and debilitating anxiety (...) coined by Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope in 1986. Nowadays, multiculturalism and multilingualism are part of our daily lives as well as communication in a foreign language and with foreigners. Hence, FLA is not a problem restricted to foreign language learning scenarios anymore. This innovative session aims to inform and raise awareness of FLA presence and effects in professional and educational contexts, beyond FL classrooms and learning settings. (shrink)

This article examines the government affairs activities of foreign subsidiaries of multinational enterprises. The article develops hypotheses founded on resource dependence theory that examine organizational and environmental factors that might influence subsidiary government affairs activities. Primary data were gathered from 91 foreign subsidiaries of U.S.-based companies. Results from the empirical tests suggest that subsidiary top managers have a strong influence on the administration of their subsidiaries' government affairs activities.

This essay examines the many problems with public and private development aid and argues that global liberalization of trade and immigration would have a greater direct effect in reducing global poverty. It also examines and rejects the view that people in rich countries have a strong moral obligation to give to the global poor. Such an obligation is in tension with an ethic that prizes personal projects. A political morality of equal respect and concern is congenial not with foreign aid, (...) but with recognizing the agency of the global poor by lifting the many obstacles they currently face to participating in the market as producers and consumers. (shrink)

Peter Singer has famously argued that people living in affluent western countries are morally obligated to donate money to famine relief. The central premise in his argument is that, If it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do so. The present paper offers an argument to the effect that affluent people ought to support foreign aid projects based on a much weaker ethical premise. The (...) new premise states that, If it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of moral importance, we ought, morally, to do so. This premise, supplemented with a notion of final value drawing on Amartya Sen''s concept of freedom as capabilities and functionings, is conceived as a special version of a weak, egalitarian Pareto principle. (shrink)

While there had still been an increasing flow of foreign direct investment (FDI) into China during the 2002 downturn in FDI globally, such investments have historically been only sporadically successful. Much writing has detailed and discussed problems associated with China FDI but several costs remain dangerously overlooked. One such cost is that of micro-monitoring plants for work conditions and employee treatment in violation of local Chinese laws and possible home country ethics. Further, a more personal cost is presented – the (...) personal cost associated with maintaining an investment in a facility that violates standards of ethical employee treatment. Background information related to these issues is presented, along with a general overview of FDI in China. (shrink)

Despite the increasing number of empirical studies that investigated foreign language writing anxiety and its correlates, there is still a lack of quantitative meta-analytic attempt on the effect sizes among these studies. To bridge the gap, this study identified 84 effect sizes from 22 primary studies to meta-analyze the correlations of foreign language writing anxiety and several key high-and low-evidence correlates. For the two high-evidence correlates, moderator analyses were also conducted, which demonstrated that foreign language writing anxiety has a moderate (...) correlation with foreign language writing self-efficacy and foreign language writing performance. The three low-evidence correlates have positively moderate effects of foreign language listening anxiety, foreign language speaking anxiety and foreign language reading anxiety. The significant moderating effects of learners’ age and language proficiency were obtained. With respect to the results, pedagogical implications were discussed as well. (shrink)

This article discusses how pre-Genocide foreign missionary activity prepared the way for relief and existential support during and after the Armenian Genocide of 1915–1921. Examples are drawn from American, British, and German Protestant missionary organisations, especially the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, the Turkish Missions Aid Society or Bible Lands Missions Aid Society, and the Christlicher Hilfsbund im Orient. These agencies developed missionary and relief methods and transnational networks which were utilised by the Action Chrétienne en Orient and (...) other twentieth-century mission agencies in their work among Armenian communities. (shrink)

Do foreign direct investment (FDI) and international business ventures promote positive social and economic development in emerging nations? This question will always prove contentious. First, the impacts differ according to context. Second, the social consequences and spillover effects of knowledge diffusion and technology-sharing may be limited and hard to measure. Third, contributions to enhancing social responsibility and improving living standards in host countries are delayed in effect, causally complex, and also hard to measure. Outcomes often critically depend on collaboration of (...) governments, international institutions, the business world, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Research in this area is challenging and requires interdisciplinary collaboration between economists, financial experts, sociologists, ethicists, and other specialists. This paper explores: (1) the evidence to support the proposition that FDI and international business improve social conditions in less-developed countries, and: (2) how these improvements are linked to strategies of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and ethical business practice. The paper draws insights from development, FDI, poverty alleviation, and bottom-of-the-pyramid (BOP) literature. Applications are demonstrated using examples from poverty-stricken areas of Sub-Saharan Africa. The paper attempts not only to argue theoretically but also to provide practical evidence. The approach is simultaneously descriptive, analytical, and prescriptive in order to address a wide audience. It also highlights issues and trends for further academic research and presents the viewpoint that some limitations lie in the nature of ethics frameworks widely referenced in business and that these often fail to consider the compatibility of ethical constructs with relevant incentives. In this vein, we explore the application of Homann’s framework for advantage and incentive-based ethics. (shrink)

Foreign language anxiety has been identified as a crucial affective factor in language learning. Similar to the situation in language classes, university students in interpretation classes are required to perform in a foreign language when their language skills are inadequate. Investigations are needed to determine the specific impact of FLA on interpretation learning. This study investigated the effects of the specific interpretation classroom FLA on interpretation learning and dependency distance as an indicator of learners’ cognitive load. The participants were 49 (...) undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in English–Chinese interpretation classes at a university in Hong Kong. The results showed a significant negative correlation between ICFLA levels and consecutive interpretation achievement scores. ICFLA was also negatively correlated with DD in consecutive interpretations. Four factors underlying ICFLA were identified. The findings of this study would provide useful insights for researchers and educators to understand the nature and effect of FLA in different settings. (shrink)

The spectacular success of the Singapore table tennis team has rankled many, including Singaporeans. They take issue with the entire team having been recruited from China and specially naturalised to contribute towards Singapore?s sporting achievements. Is there good reason to oppose Singapore?s approach, which is increasingly common internationally? Would that opposition imply an indefensible form of self-reliance, whereby a country should reject all external assistance? This paper presents a reason to object to Singapore?s approach without promoting repugnant self-reliance. It builds (...) on existing critiques, which are largely based on how foreigners are naturalised, to argue against the underlying motivation for doing so. Three possible rebuttals are considered and rejected because they trade on conceptual confusions. Although the essay focuses on the national pursuit of sporting excellence, the fundamental issue extends beyond: similar concerns apply to other meaningful fields of endeavour that members of a community can engage in. (shrink)

This book describes the foreign policy of John Rawls and Amartya Sen while building up towards a policy recommendation. By redirecting some military spending to development goals, the core needs of more civilians can be better met – while simultaneously advancing human security.

Le but de cet article est d’étudier l’enseignement des mathématiques au Collège d’Artillerie espagnol de 1764 à 1842, et de repérer les influences étrangères sur elle. Après quelques hésitations, un programme standard est adopté commençant par l’arithmétique et finissant par le calcul différentiel et intégral et la mécanique. L’unique changement important fut en 1819 quand la mécanique devint une matière indépendante. Pendant les premières décennies, avec Giannini comme premier professeur, l’emprise italienne était importante, néanmoins il existait une influence française et (...) anglaise. Avec le temps l’inspiration française augmenta. Les manuels employés pendant la plupart du temps étaient ceux de Giannini ou Odriozola, professeurs du Collège; mais ils ont utilisé aussi des livres de mathématiciens français comme Lacroix, Legendre ou Monge. The present article studies the impact of foreign influence on mathematics education at the Spanish Royal College of Artillery from 1764 to 1842. After some vacillation, the academy’s standard teaching program included from arithmetic to calculus and mechanics. The most noteworthy change occurred in 1819 when mechanics would be considered as an independent subject. During the first decades during which time Giannini was first professor, the academy’s approach to teaching mathematics was mostly influenced by methods being used in Italy and, to a certain degree, in England and France. French influence increased considerably with time. While most of the textbooks used at the academy were authored by two of its professors, Giannini and Odriozola, the curriculum would be expanded to include works by French mathematicians such as Lacroix, Monge and Legendre. (shrink)

Hartmann Schedel’s Liber Chronicarum, better known as the Nuremberg Chronicle, pictures and describes world civilisations and illustrious individuals from Creation to 1493. Although its sources and circumstances of production have been extensively explored, the cultural significance of its many woodcut images has received far less attention. This preliminary study highlights relationships between images, audience and the humanist agenda of Schedel and his milieu by examining selected representations of cultural outsiders with reference to external illustrated genres that demonstrated the centrality of (...) Others in German Christian culture. I argue that the Chronicle’s images of ‘foreign bodies’ harnessed their audience’s established fascination with monsters, wonders, witchcraft, Jews and the Ottoman Turks to advance the German humanist goal of elevating the position of Germania on the world historical stage and in so doing, contributed to the emerging idea of a German national identity. (shrink)

In recent years, foreign language learning has been proposed as a possible cognitive intervention for older adults. However, the brain network and cognitive functions underlying FLL has remained largely unconfirmed in older adults. In particular, older and younger adults have markedly different cognitive profile—while older adults tend to exhibit decline in most cognitive domains, their semantic memory usually remains intact. As such, older adults may engage the semantic functions to a larger extent than the other cognitive functions traditionally considered the (...) most important. Using anatomical measurements and a cognitive test battery, the present study examined this hypothesis in twenty cognitively normal older adults, who participated in a two-month Italian learning programme. Results showed that the immediate learning success and long-term retention of Italian vocabularies were most consistently predicted by the anatomical measures of the left pars orbitalis and left caudal middle frontal cortex, which are implicated in semantic and episodic memory functions. Convergent evidence was also found based on the pattern of cognitive associations. Our results are consistent with a prominent role of semantic and episodic memory functions in vocabulary learning in older learners. (shrink)

In Foreign Native, RW Johnson looks back with affection and humour on his life in Africa. From schooldays in Durban -- fresh off the boat from Merseyside -- to later years as an academic, director of the Helen Suzman Foundation and formidable political commentator, he has produced an entertaining and occasionally eye-popping memoir brimming with history, anecdote and insight. Johnson charts his evolution from enthusiastic, left-leaning Africanist to political realist, relating the episodes that influenced his intellectual worldview, including time spent (...) among the exiled liberation movements in London during the 1960s, a sojourn in newly independent Guinea and more recent forays into Zimbabwe. There are wonderful stories, some hilarious, others filled with pathos, about the multitude of characters Harold Strachan, Tom Sharpe, Ronnie Kasrils, Helen Suzman, Frederik van zyl Slabbert, among many others that he met along the way. Perceptive, critical and full of verve, Foreign Native is leavened with a deep humanity that makes it a pleasure to read. (shrink)

This study explores the realm of sustainability by examining the influence of female directors' foreign experience on green innovation across various industry sectors and corporate board structures. Specifically, the research focuses on the impact of female directors' foreign experience on green innovation in Chinese listed firms from 2004 to 2021. Our findings show that female directors with foreign experience have a positive and significant effect on green innovation. Further analysis indicates that this relationship is positively and significantly moderated by state-owned (...) enterprises, larger firms, firms operating in polluting industries, environments with low market competition, and the presence of foreign directors on the board. The robustness of our results is confirmed through the use of different econometric techniques, alternative measures of dependent and independent variables, and addressing endogeneity concerns. Overall, our study suggests that female directors with foreign experience enhance the transfer of environmental and sustainable knowledge and practices, thereby fostering green innovation within Chinese listed firms. (shrink)

Background More than one in 10 of all prisoners in England and Wales are Foreign Nationals. This article discusses whether the research applications to one London prison are aimed at understanding a prisoner population characterised by significant multinational and multilingual complexity. Methods We studied all accessible documents relating to research undertaken at a women's prison between 2005 and 2009 to assess the involvement of Foreign National prisoners and women with limited English. The source of information was prison research applications and (...) protocols. We also looked at available final research reports and journal articles. Results Two key findings emerged from this study. First, studies at this prison frequently excluded Foreign National prisoners and women with limited English. Second, Foreign National prisoners were often clustered as a homogeneous category in the research reports reviewed. This is despite their diverse cultural backgrounds, their variable immigration status and their differing competence in English, all of which affect their lives. Conclusions The failure to include and/or identify social subgroups of the population can undermine the value of research, including, in the case of the study prison, funded health research. This can compromise associated needs assessments and service delivery, particularly important in already disadvantaged populations; this may encourage and/or perpetuate a range of health inequalities. There is a pressing need to examine cultural exclusion in other health and criminal justice settings, to assess the ways in which—and the extent to which—such exclusion may compromise the merit of proposed and completed health and social research. (shrink)

Inbound tourism as defined by the WTO is obviously the aspect of a nation’s tourism industry to which foreign languages are directly relevant: this aspect involves foreign tourists visiting the country of reference. This paper uses Leiper’s conceptualisation of the tourism system to examine the role of foreign languages in the operations of Nigerian inbound tourism from TGR and TDR perspectives. Among the most significant revelations of this examination are the facts that: i) tourism destinations in Nigeria are to be (...) advertised on the web and in print in the TGR countries using the languages of those countries; and ii) tour guides in Nigeria are to be trained in foreign languages to facilitate travels, stay and related transactions and activities of foreign tourists in Nigeria. These and other findings can enhance the Nigerian inbound tourism industry. (shrink)

In a large Colombian teaching hospital, a fifty-five-year-old woman complaining of stomach pain is examined by a foreign-exchange medical student from the United States. Speaking in Spanish, the student elicits a medical history that suggests a possible recurrence of gallstones, but nothing further. Upon discussing the patient's case in private with the attending physician, the student is shocked to learn that the patient is suffering from terminal, metastatic gastric cancer but is unaware of her diagnosis. The attending physician explains that (...) the patient's husband instructed the health care providers not to tell the patient what her diagnosis is. The medical student feels uncomfortable withholding the diagnosis from the patient. The thought of disclosure feels equally uncomfortable, however, as it would mean contradicting the instructions of the attending physician at the host hospital as well as violating what the student suspects, but is not sure, may be acceptable medical practice in Colombia. How should the medical student proceed? (shrink)