The combination of corporate-community conflicts and oil transnational corporations' (TNCs) rhetoric about being socially responsible has meant that the issue of community development and poverty reduction have recently moved from the periphery to the heart of strategic business thinking within the Nigerian oil industry. As a result, oil TNCs have increasingly responded to this challenge by adopting partnership strategies as a means to contribute to poverty reductions in their host communities as well as secure their social licence to operate. This (...) paper critically examines the strengths and weaknesses of the different community development partnership (CDPs) initiatives employed by Shell, Exxon Mobil and Total to contribute to poverty reduction within their host communities in the Niger Delta, Nigeria. Drawing on empirical data and critical analysis, the paper argues that while the CDP initiatives by SPDC, MPN and EPNL have the potential to contribute to community development, the failure to integrate negative injunction duties into existing partnerships means that the partnerships make no difference to how oil TNCs conduct their core business operation. Consequently, CDPs have had limited positive impact on poverty reduction in the Niger Delta. The paper concludes by examining the implications of the emerging issues for partnership and poverty reduction. (shrink)

Interest shown on the environmental impact of operations of multinational enterprises in developing countries has grown significantly recently, and has fuelled a heated public policy debate. In particular, there has been interest in the environmental degradation of host communities and nations resulting from the operations of multinational oil companies in developing countries. This article examines the issue of environmental costs and responsibilities resulting from oil exploitation and production in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. The case study is (...) based, in part, upon series of interviews with key stakeholders in the Nigerian oil industry. The article further examines the implications of the current practice and policies of multinational oil companies with respect to environmental impact of oil exploitation. The study’s findings illustrates that it is becoming increasingly apparent to oil companies that pollution prevention pays while pollution does not and under pressure from stakeholder groups, oil companies now routinely incorporate environmental impact assessments into their corporate strategy. (shrink)

This case study discusses the scope of responsibilities and the basis of legitimacy of multinational corporations in a complex operating environment. In January 2013 a precedent was set when Shell was held liable in The Hague for oil pollution in the Niger Delta. The landmark ruling climaxed the ongoing dispute over the scope of Shell’s responsibilities for both the company’s positive and negative impact. Shell’s was considered a forerunner in corporate social responsibility and had even assumed public responsibilities (...) in a context of a public responsibility void. However, the company remained a regular target of civil society activism and legal proceedings concerned with malpractice. The court case attracted international attention for its novelty and increasing media and civil society pressure required immediate action. How can Shell respond to this negative publicity to keep its license to operate? What is the scope of the company’s responsibilities in such a controversial human rights context? Students are expected to discuss these questions going beyond a simple moralistic or liability thinking. They are encouraged to take into account the complex structural processes that connect persons and institutions in very different social and geographical positions. The experiences of Shell are an excellent case in point since attention is drawn to the background conditions of globally operating companies, in which the isolation of perpetrators based on causality is not realistic. The case also reveals the particular challenges, which MNCs face in the context of increasing demands to take on public responsibilities while respecting their economic mandate. (shrink)

One of the fundamental group rights that belongs to ethnic people is selfdetermination. By this right, ethnic people determine how to control their destiny, life, identity, and resources. This right is often contested especially by modern nation-states as they often see it as a threat to the collective survival of the state. But because of oppression and violation of their group rights ethno-nations often assert their right to self-determination. The peoples in Nigeria’s Niger Delta are at the forefront (...) in campaigning for their right to selfdetermination, not secession. Through a critical analysis and evaluation this right is examined with how it has been championed in the region. The concern here is to argue in support of the right to internal self-determination as only this can guarantee social stability—political peace—and enable the people to flourish and protect their environment that has been damaged by both the Nigerian state and oil multinational forces. The conclusion is that the peoples of the Niger Delta have this right to self-determination and it should be enhanced by the Nigerian state. (shrink)

Women have played a prominent role in environmental preservation in all societies, including societies facing serious environmental problems. Women in places like Nigeria’s Niger Delta carry out tasks such as farming, fetching of firewood for domestic use, fetching of water, and the like. These activities involve the use of natural resources and thus make women more vulnerable when there are problems such as oil pollution, gas flaring, and other related activities that endanger the environment. In the Niger (...) Delta women have protested against oil related activities that damage their environment. They have also participated in other events to conserve their environment. The paper adopts an ecofeminist perspective in critiquing environmental mismanagement in the Niger Delta. It highlights the fact that women are prominent in campaigning for a sustainable Niger Delta. There is need for writers from academic and social circles writing on the Niger Delta not to ignore the women’s voices. (shrink)

(Unpublished writing, 2007) This article briefly introduces a new argument concerning corporate social responsibility, based in an analysis of values expressed by the recent and contemporary liberal economists Milton Friedman and Michael Jensen. I will provide the gist of the argument by considering implications of Friedman’s very familiar view, that “…there is one and only one social responsibility of business - to use its resources and engage in activities to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules (...) of the game.” Harvard professor Michael Jensen has argued from slightly different premises to a similar conclusion, that “social welfare is maximized when all firms in an economy attempt to maximize their own total firm value.” Vestiges of such influential argument are also easily spotted in American corporate culture (See Palmer, 2007). I suggest that these authors’ positions allow for possibilities that undermine their broader fundamental values, however. I will concentate especially on Friedman’s classic treatment of liberal politics and capitalist economics, Capitalism and Freedom, in which he alludes to the importance of accepting and promoting individual freedom. Such values demand governmental and social stability, and so, in some cases, particularly where business activity may destabilize society, it would appear that freedom may be seriously threatened by corporate activity that follows Friedman’s narrow prescription. Nowhere is this more evident, at present, than in the Niger River Delta, where the promise and profits of oil have produced a society in great disarray. A case study of the delta situation indicates the problems of the narrow view of business goals and business responsibility, and this article will go on to consider possible solutions to those problems that delineate general sorts of responsibilities. The solutions require corporations to take a much broader view of their activity: I suggest that Friedman’s flaw reflects a general weakness of liberal individualism, nicely exposed in Amartya Sen’s arguments that lead to the conclusion that, “we have to see individual freedom as a social commitment.” That social commitment includes the goal of promoting individual freedom, but reaching for the goal may proceed along lines that are not so narrowly economic as Friedman would have, indicating new roles for business and government cooperation even in less extreme cases than that of the Niger Delta. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Ethics and Time: Ethos of Temporal Orientation in Politics and Religion of the Niger DeltaMelissa BrowningEthics and Time: Ethos of Temporal Orientation in Politics and Religion of the Niger Delta Nimi Wariboko Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2010. 193 pp. $60.00In Ethics and Time: Ethos of Temporal Orientation in Politics and Religion of the Niger Delta, Nimi Wariboko offers a new definition of temporal (...) orientation, arguing that this new understanding of time can help us rethink social ethics, particularly economic ethics. He begins by citing literature showing that temporal orientation has always been used to speak about how a sociocultural group sees itself in light of a “time or origin” (such as a sacred past) or “time preference” (such as a preference for past, present, or future). Wariboko proposes a third way, redefining temporal orientation as a break or clearing in time between the past and the future—a kairos event. He goes on to say that understanding how members of a sociocultural group understand time is essential to understanding how they see themselves and their moral sources.Wariboko speaks of temporal orientation in terms of “time gaps,” contending that freedom and new beginnings are found within these gaps. Suggesting that these gaps are important to the process of defining subjectivity—since human beings live in a time-defined gap between birth and death—he coins the term “chronomethics” to refer to a new methodology where ethics is studied [End Page 213] through the lens of temporal orientation with attention to the analysis of cultural forms.Wariboko provides an exemplar of this methodology by doing an in-depth analysis of the Kalabari community of the Niger Delta in southern Nigeria. Through the use of ethnography, Wariboko explores politics, religious imagination, apocalypticism, and the philosophy of history in Kalabari beliefs and practices—setting African studies in dialogue with Western philosophy and theology. Here, and throughout the book, he draws heavily on the work of Hannah Arendt in his analysis.Although this ethnographic analysis makes an important contribution to ethical reflection, it is not without problems. Wariboko focuses almost exclusively on the chiefs of the Kalabari community, using both male language and male concepts. When Wariboko moves to a discussion of traditional Kalabari religion, he speaks mainly of the male or neuter aspect of God (which is called So, or so) and only briefly mentions the female aspect (Teme-órú). This leaves the reader to wonder whether the actors and agents Wariboko refers to include women. In sum, his descriptive analysis of Kalabari culture lacks a critique of patriarchy, which should be present in any analysis that seeks to make a contribution to Christian ethics.Perhaps the most significant contribution of the book is found in its chapter on imagination. Here Wariboko examines the ways in which the Kalabari people imagine their own society and construct a moral imagination. He pays significant attention to African conceptions of community and the ways in which individuals relate to their communities. Although Wariboko contributes an important original voice to this dialogue, this voice could be strengthened by incorporating the voices of other African philosophers and theologians rather than relying primarily on Western sources in his analysis of Kalabari culture.The book concludes by relating the newly proposed methodology (and to some extent the ethnography) to concrete applications within the realm of economic development. Here Wariboko focuses on the “kairos-ordering of society,” arguing that economic development will only be attained when the state maintains the rules of just conduct, nurtures kairos, develops human capabilities, embraces pluralism, and uses social practices to disperse knowledge. Although this final section is brief, it invites further reflection by delineating how temporal orientation could be used as a new methodology for Christian ethics. [End Page 214]Melissa BrowningLexington Theological SeminaryCopyright © 2012 The Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Ethics and Time investigates how temporal orientation influence social-ethics. Re-conceptualizing temporal orientation as the production of new temporalities that allow humans to manifest their potentialities and creatively resist obstacles that impede their flourishing, it shows how a social group's orientation to time frames, informs, and drives its politics and religion. It uses an African culture as a practical case study to concretely illustrate the form and dynamics of the interconnections.

The core theme of the special issue in which this article appears is the inherent impossibility of confining the knowledge required to build and sustain the instruments of travel to a single space or institution. This is certainly true for the ships that built empires – the large sailing and later steam ships produced by navies and companies in the process of European expansion. Ships traveled between polities and required repairs overseas, taking the construction knowledge and (...) practices with them. Skilled laborers – experienced shipwrights and increasingly also trained engineers – helped to transfer shipbuilding practices across oceans, and to adapt these practices to local conditions based on forms of “blended know-how.” This article explores how the circulation of shipbuilding knowledge and practices within and between maritime empires changed with the increasing pace of industrialization. It does so on the basis of three moments: the Dutch East India Company’s shipbuilding activities in Asia in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; the interaction between private industry and the Dutch state in advancing machine-manufacturing in both the Netherlands and on Java in the 1830s and 1840s; and the aid provided by Dutch engineers in laying the groundwork for Japanese industrial warship-construction in the second half of the nineteenth century. Such transfers put high demands on the capacities of states and naval administrators in controlling the flows of necessary resources and skilled labor, requiring complex arrangements between states and private capital. Industrialization did not change this basic fact, but it did change the nature of these arrangements. Although shipbuilding knowledge always remained practice-driven, highly mobile and susceptible to local adaptation, the increasing technological demands created by the transition from sail to steam and wood to iron, combined with the extension of the power of states and transnationally operating manufacturing companies, considerably changed the institutional embeddings and societal consequences of its circulation. (shrink)

Consumer-operated services organizations (COSOs) are independent, non-profit organizations that provide peer support and other non-clinical services to seriously mentally ill people. Mental health consumers provide many of these services and make up at least a majority of the organization’s leadership. Although the dominant conception of the COSO is as an adjunct to clinical care in the public mental health system, this paper reconceives the organization as a civic association and thereby a locus of citizenship. Drawing on empirical research on COSOs (...) in one state and the citizenship and civic democracy literatures, COSOs are analyzed here as membership organizations with democratic norms and strong ties to local communities. The suggestion is made that by embracing and enhancing their status as civic associations, COSOs may advance the goals of the social movement that spawned them and avoid predictable obstacles to further growth and development. (shrink)

In this paper we aim to show that based on an effective stakeholder management corporations are able to build and maintain three important licences tosuccessfully fulfil their fundamental value creation task, namely the licence to operate, the licence to compete and the licence to innovate. The corporation is regarded as an institution engaged in mobilizing resources for productive uses in order to create wealth with and for its stakeholders. Our concept of the three licences is based on the widely discussed (...) (e.g. Bracken, 2003; Buono, 2003; Caldwell, 2004; Jones, Wicks, & Freeman, 2002; Lamont, 2004; Walsh, 2005) “Stakeholder View” framework by Post, et al. (2002) which concerns the firm’s interactions with its stakeholders. Our concept of the three licences is supported by the results of our qualitative case research in the financial services and the telecommunications industry. (shrink)

The application of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) for ship and iceberg monitoring is important to carry out marine activities safely. The task of differentiating the two target classes, i.e. ship and iceberg, presents a challenge for operational scenarios. The dataset comprising SAR images of ship and iceberg poses a major challenge, as we are provided with a small number of labeled samples in the training set compared to a large number of unlabeled test samples. This paper proposes a semisupervised learning (...) approach known as pseudolabeling to deal with the insufficient amount of training data. By adopting this approach, we make use of both labeled data (supervised learning) and unlabeled data (unsupervised learning) to build a robust convolutional neural network model that results in a superior binary classification performance of the proposed method. (shrink)

We suggest that the classical version of the consequence argument contending that freedom and determinism are incompatible subtly misstates the core intuition, which is that if a true conditional and a true antecedent are jointly beyond our control, then so is the consequent. We show however that the improved version no less than the classical implies fatalism.Interestingly, the reasoning, that yields fatalism, undermines a direct argument for the soundness of the improved version. But if fatalism is sound, then trivially, (...) so is the new version. We shall however argue that the new version cannot be sound. A weaker version is proved sound but its domain of application excludes the most intuitive paradigm cases.We share van Inwagen's thought that his “‘N’is a very interesting operator” and debate some of its features. Our results, if sound, suggest that the consequence argument in terms of ensurable and non‐ensurable truth may not be the right way to approach issues of determinism and freedom. (shrink)

Traditionally, “the operator calculus of Born and Wiener” has been considered one of the four formulations of quantum mechanics that existed in 1926. The present paper reviews the operator calculus as applied by Max Born and Norbert Wiener during the last months of 1925 and the early months of 1926 and its connections with the rise of the new quantum theory. Despite the relevance of this operator calculus, Born–Wiener’s joint contribution to the topic is generally bypassed in historical accounts of (...) quantum mechanics. In this study, we analyse the paper that epitomises the contribution, and we explain the main reasons for the apparent lack of interest in Born and Wiener’s work. We argue that they did not solve the main problem for which the tool was intended, that of linear motion, because of their reluctance to use Dirac delta functions. (shrink)

Segmentation of post-operative glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is essential for the planning of Tumor Treating Fields (TTFields) treatment and other clinical applications. Recent methods developed for pre-operative GBM segmentation perform poorly on post-operative GBM MRI scans. In this paper we present a method for the segmentation of GBM in post-operative patients. Our method incorporates an ensemble of segmentation networks and the Kullback–Leibler divergence agreement score in the objective function to estimate the prediction label uncertainty and cope with noisy labels and inter-observer (...) variability. Moreover, our method integrates the surgery type and computes non-tumorous tissue delineation to automatically segment the tumor. We trained and validated our method on a dataset of 340 enhanced T1 MRI scans of patients that were treated with TTFields (270 scans for train and 70 scans for test). For validation, we developed a tool that uses the uncertainty map along with the segmentation result. Our tool allows visualization and fast editing of the tissues to improve the results dependent on user preference. Three physicians reviewed and graded our segmentation and editing tool on 12 different MRI scans. The validation set average (SD) Dice scores were 0.81 (0.11), 0.71 (0.24), 0.64 (0.25), and 0.68 (0.19) for whole-tumor, resection, necrotic-core, and enhancing-tissue, respectively. The physicians rated 72% of the segmented GBMs acceptable for treatment planning or better. Another 22% can be edited manually in a reasonable time to achieve a clinically acceptable result. According to these results, the proposed method for GBM segmentation can be integrated into TTFields treatment planning software in order to shorten the planning process. To conclude, we have extended a state-of-the-art pre-operative GBM segmentation method with surgery-type, anatomical information, and uncertainty visualization to facilitate a clinically viable segmentation of post-operative GBM for TTFields treatment planning. (shrink)

This paper outlines a novel solution to the Ship of Theseus puzzle. The solution relies on situations, a philosophical tool used in natural language semantics among other places. The core idea is that what is true is always relative to the situation under consideration. I begin by outlining the problem before briefly introducing situations. I then present the solution: in smaller situations the candidate is identical to Theseus’s ship. But in larger situations containing both candidates these identities are neither (...) true nor false. Finally, I discuss some worries for the view that arise from the nature of identity, and suggest responses. It is concluded that the solution, and the theory that underpins it, are worth further investigation. (shrink)

The ascription of intentional states to the self involves knowledge, or at least claims to knowledge. Armed with the working definition of knowledge as 'the ability to do things, or refrain from doing things, or believe, or want, or doubt things, for reasons that are facts' [Hyman, J. Philos. Quart. 49:432—451], I sketch a simple competence model of acting and believing from knowledge and when knowledge is defeated by un-experienced changes of state. The model takes the form of three concentric (...) circles. The 'periphery' is analogous to Fodor's [(1983), The modularity of mind. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA] input systems. The 'core' contains copies of peripheral representations, and between these representations there is executive competition. At the 'nucleus', operations are performed on the core representations of, at least, negation and recursion. I argue that this provides a fruitful way in which to conceptualise why theory-of-mind tasks challenge pre-school children, how some degree of first-person authority is mental state attribution is possible, and how executive inhibition is achieved. (shrink)

There are two foundational, but not fully developed, ideas in paraconsistency, namely, the duality between paraconsistent and intuitionistic paradigms, and the introduction of logical operators that express meta-logical notions in the object language. The aim of this paper is to show how these two ideas can be adequately accomplished by the Logics of Formal Inconsistency (LFIs) and by the Logics of Formal Undeterminedness (LFUs). LFIs recover the validity of the principle of explosion in a paraconsistent scenario, while LFUs recover the (...) validity of the principle of excluded middle in a paracomplete scenario. We introduce definitions of duality between inference rules and connectives that allow comparing rules and connectives that belong to different logics. Two formal systems are studied, the logics mbC and mbD, that display the duality between paraconsistency and paracompleteness as a duality between inference rules added to a common core– in the case studied here, this common core is classical positive propositional logic (CPL + ). The logics mbC and mbD are equipped with recovery operators that restore classical logic for, respectively, consistent and determined propositions. These two logics are then combined obtaining a pair of logics of formal inconsistency and undeterminedness (LFIUs), namely, mbCD and mbCDE. The logic mbCDE exhibits some nice duality properties. Besides, it is simultaneously paraconsistent and paracomplete, and able to recover the principles of excluded middle and explosion at once. The last sections offer an algebraic account for such logics by adapting the swap-structures semantics framework of the LFIs the LFUs. This semantics highlights some subtle aspects of these logics, and allows us to prove decidability by means of finite non-deterministic matrices. (shrink)

The economical/environmental scheduling problem of the ship integrated energy system has high computational complexity, which includes more than one optimization objective, various types of constraints, and frequently fluctuated load demand. Therefore, the intelligent scheduling strategies cannot be applied to the ship energy management system online, which has limited computing power and storage space. Aiming at realizing green computing on SEMS, in this paper a typical SIES-EESP optimization model is built, considering the form of decision vectors, the economical/environmental optimization objectives, and (...) various types of real-world constraints of the SIES. Based on the complexity of SIES-EESPs, a two-stage offline-to-online multiobjective optimization strategy for SIES-EESP is proposed, which transfers part of the energy dispatch online computing task to the offline high-performance computer systems. The specific constraints handling methods are designed to reduce both continuous and discrete constraints violations of SIES-EESPs. Then, an establishment method of energy scheduling scheme-base is proposed. By using the big data offline, the economical/environmental scheduling solutions of a typical year can be obtained and stored with more computing resources and operation time on land. Thereafter, a short-term multiobjective offline-to-online optimization approach by SEMS is considered, with the application of multiobjective evolutionary algorithm and typical schemes corresponding to the actual SIES-EESPs. Simulation results show that the proposed strategy can obtain enough feasible Pareto solutions in a shorter time and get well-distributed Pareto sets with better convergence performance, which can well adapt to the features of real-world SIES-EESPs and save plenty of operation time and storage space for the SEMS. (shrink)

The understanding of the interrelationship between brain and mind remains far from clear. It is well established that the brain's capacity to integrate information from numerous sources forms the basis for cognitive abilities. However, the core unresolved question is how information about the "objective" physical entities of the external world can be integrated, and how unifiedand coherent mental states (or Gestalts) can be established in the internal entities of distributed neuronal systems. The present paper offers a unified methodological and (...) conceptual basis for a possible mechanism of how the transient synchronization of brain operations may construct the unified and relatively stable neural states, which underlie mental states. It was shown that the sequence of metastable spatial EEG mosaics does exist and probably reflects the rapid stabilization periods of the interrelation of large neuron systems. At the EEG level this is reflected in the stabilization of quasi-stationary segments on corresponding channels. Within the introduced framework, physical brain processes and psychological processes are considered as two basic aspects of a single whole informational brain state. The relations between operational process of the brain, mental states and consciousness are discussed. (shrink)

There are two foundational, but not fully developed, ideas in paraconsistency, namely, the duality between paraconsistent and intuitionistic paradigms, and the introduction of logical operators that express metalogical notions in the object language. The aim of this paper is to show how these two ideas can be adequately accomplished by the logics of formal inconsistency and by the logics of formal undeterminedness. LFIs recover the validity of the principle of explosion in a paraconsistent scenario, while LFUs recover the validity of (...) the principle of excluded middle in a paracomplete scenario. We introduce definitions of duality between inference rules and connectives that allow comparing rules and connectives that belong to different logics. Two formal systems are studied, the logics mbC and mbD, that display the duality between paraconsistency and paracompleteness as a duality between inference rules added to a common core—in the case studied here, this common core is classical positive propositional logic. The logics mbC and mbD are equipped with recovery operators that restore classical logic for, respectively, consistent and determined propositions. These two logics are then combined obtaining a pair of LFI and undeterminedness, namely, mbCD and mbCDE. The logic mbCDE exhibits some nice duality properties. Besides, it is simultaneously paraconsistent and paracomplete, and able to recover the principles of excluded middle and explosion one at a time. The last sections offer an algebraic account for such logics by adapting the swap structures semantics framework of the LFIs the LFUs. This semantics highlights some subtle aspects of these logics, and allows us to prove decidability by means of finite nondeterministic matrices. (shrink)

Background 300 million operations and procedures are performed annually across the world, all of which require a patient’s informed consent. No standardised measure of the consent process exists in current clinical practice. We aimed to define a core outcome set for informed consent for therapy. Methods The core outcome set was developed in accordance with a predefined research protocol and the Core OutcoMes in Effectiveness Trials methodology comprising systematic review, qualitative semi structured interviews, a modified Delphi process (...) and consensus webinars to ratify outcomes for inclusion in the final core outcome set.. Participants from all key stakeholder groups took part in the process, including patients and the public, healthcare practitioners and consent researchers. Results 36 outcome domains were synthesised through systematic review and organised into a consent taxonomy. 41 semi-structured interviews were performed with all consent stakeholders groups. 164 participants from all stakeholder groups across 8 countries completed Delphi Round 1 and 125 completed Round 2. 11 outcomes met the ‘consensus in’ criteria. 6 met ‘consensus in’ all stakeholder groups and were included directly in the final core outcome set. 5 remaining outcomes meeting ‘consensus in’ were ratified over two consensus webinars. 9 core outcomes were included in the final core outcome set: Satisfaction with the quality and amount of information, Patient feeling that there was a choice, Patient feeling that the decision to consent was their own, Confidence in the decision made, Satisfaction with communication, Trust in the clinician, Patient satisfaction with the consent process, Patient rated adequacy of time and opportunity to ask questions. Conclusion This international mixed-methods qualitative study is the first of its kind to define a core outcome set for informed consent for intervention. It defines what outcomes are of importance to key stakeholders in the consent process and is a forward step towards standardising future consent research. (shrink)

From the known coordinate representation of these operators, a unified treatment of the abstract operators for curvilinear coordinates and their canonically conjugate momenta is given for systems in three dimensions. A configuration representation, corresponding to classical configuration space, exists in which description is simplified; the three-dimensional ket space factors into a direct product of one-dimensional spaces. Four cases are examined, according to the range of the continuous curvilinear coordinate. In addition to normalization of momentum eigenstates to the Kronecker delta (...) for finite range of coordinate and normalization to the Dirac delta for range on the entire real axis, normalization occurs to δ (or δ+) for range on the positive (or negative) part of the real axis. The domain of Hermiticity of curvilinear coordinate and conjugate momentum operators in each case is the entire three-dimension ket space. The fundamental commutation relations hold in all representations. Statements to the contrary for the radial and azimuth coordinates in spherical polar coordinates are seen to be erroneous. (shrink)

Actualists of a certain stripe—dispositionalists—hold that metaphysical modality is grounded in the powers of actual things. Roughly: p is possible iff something has, or some things have, the power to bring it about that p. Extant critiques of dispositionalism focus on its material adequacy, and question whether there are enough powers to account for all the possibilities we intuitively want to countenance. For instance, it seems possible that none of the actual contingent particulars ever existed, but it is impossible to (...) explain this by appealing to the powers of some actual thing or things to bring it about. I argue instead that dispositionalism, in the simple form championed by its proponents, is formally inadequate. Dispositionalists interpret the modal operators as simple existential claims about powers, but if we interpret the operators that way, the resulting system of modal logic is too weak to capture metaphysical modality. I argue that we can modify the standard dispositionalist interpretations of the operators to secure formal adequacy, but at the cost of accepting that not all modality is grounded in powers. This, I shall suggest, is not a bad thing—the resulting theory still has powers at its core and has certain attractive features, in addition to formal adequacy, that the standard theory lacks. (shrink)

Melville’s Benito Cereno (1855) concentrates a historico-political problematic in the figure of a ship named ›SAN DOMINICK‹. This paper focuses on the distinctive political character of the slave ship in revolt.The partisan uprising produces an interrogation of the concept of sovereignty and the operations of exclusion on which it is premised. Superimposing the sovereign ship of state and the slave ship, Melville’s novella presents a relation constitutive of the Atlantic world.

Spelke's What Babies Know masterfully describes infants’ impressive repertoire of core cognitive concepts, from which the suite of human knowledge is eventually built. The current commentary argues for the existence of a core concept that Spelke claims preverbal infants lack: social goal. Core social goal concepts, operative extremely early in human development, underlie infants’ basic abilities to interpret and evaluate entities within the moral world; such abilities support claims for a core moral domain.

Lynch et al., in an article in this issue, argue that an entire microbiome is rarely, if ever, the right target of analysis for causal explanations in microbiome research. They argue, using interventionist criteria of proportionality, specificity and stability, for restricting causal claims to the smallest subset of microbes—a causal core—that generate the effect of interest. A further question remains: what kind of interactions generate a consortium of microbes that can operate as causal agents in this manner? Here I (...) introduce two possible kinds of such consortia: ‘trojan horses’ and ‘syntrophic’ individuals. (shrink)

-/- This unique book develops an operational approach to preference and rationality as the author employs operators over binary relations to capture the concept of rationality. -/- A preference is a basis of individual behavior and social judgment and is mathematically regarded as a binary relation on the set of alternatives. Traditionally, an individual/social preference is assumed to satisfy completeness and transitivity. However, each of the two conditions is often considered to be too demanding; and then, weaker rationality conditions are (...) introduced by researchers. This book argues that the preference rationality conditions can be captured mathematically by “operators,” which are mappings from the set of operators to itself. This operational approach nests traditional concepts in individual/social decision theory and clarifies the underlying formal structure of preference rationality. -/- The author also applies his approach to welfare economics. The core problem of ‘new welfare economics,’ developed by Kaldor, Hicks, and Samuelson, is the rationality of social preference. In this book the author translates the social criteria proposed by those three economists into operational forms, which provide new insights into welfare economics extending beyond ‘new welfare economics.’ . (shrink)

The article contributes to debates about core executive capacity by analyzing the British and Japanese cases. First it examines the historical development, contemporary structures and current operations of the two cases. Then it compares their performance in five key areas: overseeing government policy in the domestic sphere; overseeing government policy in the external sphere; managing executive relations with the legislature; overseeing public finances; and managing public relations. It finds that the performance of the two systems is variable both internally (...) across distinct areas of business and, to a lesser extent, comparatively across similar areas. Overall, however, the British core executive is shown to have considerably greater capacity for coordinating and managing policy flows through the system than the Japanese. Governing from the centre is more feasible in Britain than in Japan. (shrink)

The philosophy of Confucius has often been accused of lacking classical definitions of its core concepts. However, as I shall argue, Confucius systematically used nonclassical definitions—to be precise, operational ones. The notion of operational definition comes from Percy Bridgman’s The Logic of Modern Physics and means that the definiendum is defined by a set of operations that results in determining the meaning of the term in question. In the case of Confucian argumentation, operational definitions are mostly nominal and, in (...) contrast to unambiguous methods of measurement, also context-dependent. This results in there being various yet not mutually inconsistent definitions of one term, and in “paradigmatic examples” playing a crucial role. As I show, this mode of defining things had major implications for the content of Confucius’ thought. In fact, many of its forms could be traced back to other Chinese philosophers, including those of non-Confucian provenance. (shrink)

Many efforts are focused on transformation to wellbeing economies as economies oriented towards equity, social justice, and human wellbeing in a flourishing natural environment (wellbeing economics). Drawing from analysis of innovations associated with these efforts, we emerge a framework of wellbeing-oriented ‘economic operating infrastructure’ (EOI). This is presented as a typology of six core types of economic transformation innovations nested from innovations with the broadest reach (narratives) to the most specific (products and services). Development of the typology was guided (...) by a set of wellbeing economies values that help in identifying which innovations to include. The innovations were identified by research on the internet, technical reports, and published articles. The typology elements are: innovations in economic narratives; governance; financing mechanisms; exchange mechanisms; business structures; and the products and services derived from them. Examples are presented in each category to illustrate how this infrastructure is emerging in alignment with establishing wellbeing economies. This exploratory and descriptive typology provides a preliminary framework for developing a strategic approach to economic transformation through wellbeing economic infrastructure development. Four EOI-based activities are identified to accelerate this transformation. (shrink)

The nature of “the self” has been one of the central problems in philosophy and more recently in neuroscience. This raises various questions: Can we attribute a self to animals? Do animals and humans share certain aspects of their core selves, yielding a trans-species concept of self? What are the neural processes that underlie a possible trans-species concept of self? What are the developmental aspects and do they result in various levels of self-representation? Drawing on recent literature from both (...) human and animal research, we suggest a trans-species concept of self that is based upon what has been called a “core-self” which can be described by self-related processing as a specific mode of interaction between organism and environment. When we refer to specific neural networks, we will here refer to the underlying system as the “core-SELF.” The core-SELF provides primordial neural coordinates that represent organisms as living creatures—at the lowest level this elaborates interoceptive states along with raw emotional feelings while higher medial cortical levels facilitate affective-cognitive integration . Developmentally, SRP allows stimuli from the environment to be related and linked to organismic needs, signaled and processed within core-self structures within subcorical-cortical midline structures that provide the foundation for epigenetic emergence of ecologically framed, higher idiographic forms of selfhood across different individuals within a species. These functions ultimately operate as a coordinated network. We postulate that core SRP operates automatically, is deeply affective, and is developmentally and epigenetically connected to sensory-motor and higher cognitive abilities. This core-self is mediated by SCMS, embedded in visceral and instinctual representations of the body that are well integrated with basic attentional, emotional and motivational functions that are apparently shared between humans, non-human mammals, and perhaps in a proto-SELF form, other vertebrates. Such a trans-species concept of organismic coherence is thoroughly biological and affective at the lowest levels of a complex neural network, and culturally and ecologically molded at higher levels of neural processing. It allows organisms to selectively adapt to and integrate with physical and social environments. Such a psychobiologically universal, but environmentally diversified, concept may promote novel trans-species studies of the core-self across mammalian species. (shrink)

Since the very begining of quantum theory there started a debate on the proper role of space and time in it. Some authors assumed that space and time have their own algebraic operators. On that basis they supposed that quantum particles had “coordinates of position”, even though those coordinates were not possible to determine with infinite precision. Furthermore, time in quantum physics was taken to be on an equal foot, by means of a so-called “Heisenberg’s fourth relation of indeterminacy” concerning (...) time and energy. In this paper, the proper role of space and time in the core of non-relativistic quantum phsysics is analyzed. We will find that, rigorously, that relation for time and energy shows a different root. For the role of space, it will be discussed that there is no “coordinate of position” in the conceptual structure of quantum physics because quantum particles are not point-like objects. (shrink)

In reality, most state actors—especially those in the developing world—are usually incapable of effectively governing all facets of their territory. This has necessitated the intervention of non-state actors (in this instance, corporations), who through their social responsibility engagements act as functional equivalents to state-driven government. Using empirical data, this article evaluates the “governance” interventions of corporations in the oil industry in Nigeria’s Delta region. While arguing that the area qualifies as an area of limited statehood, the article asserts that (...) corporate social responsibility practices that are based on Western (neoliberal) approaches cannot contribute effectively to the sustainable development of host-communities. In this context, the article contends that since the social responsibility engagements of corporations in the Niger Delta (as in most developing countries) are influenced by a pro-West philosophy, the end result is a business responsibility engagement which is ineffective as a development strategy. (shrink)

Witnessed Gödel logics are based on the interpretation of () by minimum instead of supremum . Witnessed Gödel logics appear for many practical purposes more suited than usual Gödel logics as the occurrence of proper infima/suprema is practically irrelevant. In this note we characterize witnessed Gödel logics with absoluteness operator w.r.t. witnessed Gödel logics using a uniform translation.

The purpose of this note is to make quite clear the relationship between two variants of the general notion of a preferential model for nonmonotonic inference: the models of Kraus, Lehmann and Magidor (KLM models) and those of Makinson (MAK models).On the one hand, we introduce the notion of the core of a KLM model, which suffices to fully determine the associated nonmonotonic inference relation. On the other hand, we slightly amplify MAK models with a monotonic consequence operation as (...) additional ingredient. (shrink)