Different methods have been developed to address ethical issues during research. Most of these methods were developed at universities. In this article ethical parallel research within a Research and Technology Organization is described. Within a European project about perceived security, CPSI, the ethical issues were identified by ethicists cooperating in the project. The project CPSI was aimed at developing a research method that can be used by (local) government to monitor or assess perceived and actual security. Together with the researchers (...) a way was sought to address the ethical issues. Several issues could be addressed by choices with regard to the design of the validation study, in this case a survey. The ethical and legal reasons that were relevant for choices in the design of the validation study were made an integral part of these decisions. Some issues were already identified during the writing of the proposal others were only identified during the research. Participating in the research gave the ethicists access to all relevant information. It made it possible to address the ethical issues when they became relevant. Ethical reasons were part of some of the discussions on research method. It proved possible to address most ethical issues satisfactorily during the research project. (shrink)

We consider three possible reasons why humans might accord a privileged status to emotional information when mentally traveling backward or forward in time. First, mental simulation of emotional situations helps one to make adaptive decisions. Second, it can serve an emotion regulation function. Third, it helps people to construct and maintain a positive view of the self.

Most research in environmental psychology is conducted in individualistic countries and focuses on factors pertaining to individuals. It is yet unclear whether these findings also apply to more collectivistic countries, in which group factors might play a prominent role. In the current paper, we test the individual-focused value–identity–behaviour pathway, in which personal biospheric values relate to pro-environmental actions via environmental self-identity, in an individualistic and a collectivistic country. Furthermore, we test in both countries whether a new group-focused pathway also exists, (...) in which group values relate to pro-environmental behaviour via environmental group identity, particularly in collectivistic countries. Questionnaire studies were conducted among Dutch and Chinese students. Our results indicated that personal biospheric values, mostly via environmental self-identity, predict pro-environmental behaviour in both countries. We also found initial support for our newly proposed value–identity–behaviour pathway at the group level, particularly in China. Yet, in both countries, the association between group-level variables and pro-environmental behaviour was weaker than for personal-level variables, and partly overlapped with personal-level variables. Our findings show the relevance of personal- and group-level factors in understanding pro-environmental behaviour in both individualistic and collectivistic countries, which has strong theoretical and practical implications, particularly for developing international strategies to promote pro-environmental actions across the world. (shrink)

In the interview in this article, Randall Collins discusses various aspects of his oeuvre. First, he considers why interaction rituals (IRs) in religion are special emotional transformers. This is followed by a discussion of IRs in the digital age and the symbolic and economic power that is required to orchestrate IRs in politics and revolutions. Then comes a discussion of social scientific research into violence, in the past and more recently. The interview continues with a reflection on the notion of (...) attention space, a concept which Collins has applied in analyses of violent interactions and the intellectual struggles between philosophers. Finally, the article considers the state of the art of sociology and its future prospects, evaluating its potential for rapid discovery and its position on the abstraction-reflexivity continuum. As the interview demonstrates Collins’s insightful sociological craftsmanship, it provides social scientists with a strong and optimistic lead in how to do social theory. (shrink)

Cross-education is the phenomenon in which repeated practice of a unilateral motor task does not only result in performance improvement of the trained limb, but also in the untrained contralateral limb. The aim of this study was to test whether cross-education or positive transfer of learning is also achieved for tasks in which both limbs contribute in different ways by using modified equipment that switches the limbs’ role. To this end, a reverse field hockey stick was used that requires a (...) mirroring of arm and hand use and dominance. Two groups of young skilled female field hockey players participated in a crossover-design, in which participants received four training sessions with a reverse hockey stick followed by four training sessions with a regular hockey stick, or vice versa. In a pre-test, intermediate test, a post-test and a retention test, participants’ performance on a field hockey skill test with a regular hockey stick was measured. The results revealed that training with the reversed hockey stick led to significantly increased improvements compared to training with a regular hockey stick. We conclude that modified equipment can be used to exploit positive transfer of learning by switching the limbs’ roles. The findings are discussed by referring to the symmetry preservation principle in dynamic systems theory and have clear practical relevance for field hockey trainers and players seeking to further improve field hockey skills. (shrink)

How can a realistic ethical imagination about the future of a technology take shape? This article contains a reflection which is based on the experiences of an embedded ethicist in the context of biophysical research conducive to the development of photoacoustic mammography, which is intended for the non-invasive detection of breast cancer. Imagination in this context already informs the activities of the biophysical researchers, but its role is limited: biophysical future scenarios concentrate on the technological advances that photoacoustics could bring (...) about. In this article it is argued that it is advisable to also consider the medical practice and the ways in which this practice is likely to change as an effect of the introduction of photoacoustic mammography into it. On the basis of this more encompassing imaginative endeavor it is possible to get a clearer idea about how new technologies are able to contribute to human well being, which is informative for the setting of research-goals/priorities and a responsible implementation of new technologies into the world. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Profit maximizers have reasons to agree with stakeholder theorists that managers may need to consider different values simultaneously in decision making. However, it remains unclear how maximizing a single value can be reconciled with simultaneously considering different values. A solution can neither be found in substantive normative philosophical theories, nor in postulating the maximization of profit. Managers make sense of the values in a situation by means of the many thick value concepts of ordinary language. Thick evaluation involves the simultaneous (...) consideration of different values: making sense of a value always involves knowing how to engage with it given the other values in the situation. This also goes for profit: maximization is only one way of engaging with the value of profit, and grasping whether maximization is appropriate involves considering other values. We discuss some consequences of our approach for stakeholder theorists and profit maximizers. (shrink)

This contribution is a gentle introduction to so-called dynamic epistemic logics, that can describe how agents change their knowledge and beliefs. We start with a concise introduction to epistemic logic, through the example of one, two and finally three players holding cards; and, mainly for the purpose of motivating the dynamics, we also very summarily introduce the concepts of general and common knowledge. We then pay ample attention to the logic of public announcements, wherein agents change their knowledge as the (...) result of public announcements. One crucial topic in that setting is that of unsuccessful updates: formulas that become false when announced. The Moore-sentences that were already extensively discussed at the conception of epistemic logic in Hintikka’s ‘Knowledge and Belief’ give rise to such unsuccessful updates. After that, we present a few examples of more complex epistemic updates. Our closing observations are on recent developments that link the ‘standard’ topic of belief revision, as in ‘On the Logic of Theory Change: partial meet contraction and revision functions’, by Alchourron et al. , to the dynamic epistemic logics introduced here. (shrink)

During the past decennium, one of the main issues discussed in research ethics has been focused on the care that should be provided to the control group in a clinical trial. This discussion is also called the standard of care debate . Current international research ethics guidelines contain a wide variety of standards for the standard of care—including the provision of the highest attainable, the best available, the best current, a proven , and an established effective treatment. In this article, (...) we systematically review the currently used standards and argue that none of the current standards is adequate to serve as a universal standard for the standard of care. Alex London has made a substantial proposal for a universal standard, but universally adopting his standard is problematic. In this article, we propose a revised version of London's standard. (shrink)

Due to its extraordinary predictive power and the great generality of its mathematical structure, quantum theory is able, at least in principle, to describe all the microscopic and macroscopic properties of the physical world, from the subatomic to the cosmological level. Nevertheless, ever since the Copen hagen and Gottingen schools in 1927 gave it the definitive formu lation, now commonly known as the orthodox interpretation, the theory has suffered from very serious logical and epistemologi cal problems. These shortcomings were immediately (...) pointed out by some of the principal founders themselves of quantum theory, to wit, Planck, Einstein, Ehrenfest, Schrodinger, and de Broglie, and by the philosopher Karl Popper, who assumed a position of radical criticism with regard to the standard formulation of the theory. The aim of the participants in the workshop on Open Questions in Quantum Physics, which was held in Bari (Italy), in the Department of Physics of the University, during May 1983 and whose Proceedings are collected in the present volume, accord ingly was to discuss the formal, the physical and the epistemo logical difficulties of quantum theory in the light of recent crucial developments and to propose some possible resolutions of three basic conceptual dilemmas, which are posed respectively ~: (a) the physical developments of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen argument and Bell's theorem, i. e. (shrink)

Research suggests that sedentary behavior is negatively associated with cognitive outcomes. Interrupting prolonged sitting has been shown to improve cognitive functions, including executive functioning, which is important for academic performance. No research has been conducted on the effect of standing on EF in VET students, who make up a large proportion of the adolescent population and who are known to sit more than other students of this age. In this study, we investigated the acute effects of reducing SB by short (...) time standing on EF in vocational education and training students. In a randomized crossover study, 165 VET students were first taught for 15 min in seated position. After this, they performed while seated the Letter Memory Test for updating, and the Color Shape Test for shifting and inhibition. Students were randomly assigned to a sitting or standing condition. All students were taught again for 15 min and then took the same tests in the condition they were allocated to, respectively, standing or seated. After 1 week, the test procedure was repeated, in which students switched conditions. Mixed model analyses showed no significant effect of sitting or standing on updating, shifting, or inhibition. Also, no significant differences were found for the order of condition on updating, shifting, or inhibition. Our results suggest that 40 min of standing does not significantly influence EF among VET students. (shrink)

Someone asked ‘What time is it?’ when her watch reads 3:08 is likely to answer ‘It is 3:10.’ We argue that a fundamental factor that explains such rounding is a psychological disposition to give an answer that, while not necessarily strictly truthful or accurate, is an optimally relevant one (in the sense of relevance theory) i.e. an answer from which hearers can derive the consequences they care about with minimal effort. A rounded answer is easier to process and may carry (...) the same consequences as one that is accurate to the minute. Hence rounding is often a way of optimising relevance. Three simple experiments give support and greater precision to the view that relevance is more important than strict truthfulness in verbal communication. (shrink)

A brain-computer interface technology that can decode the neural signals associated with attempted but unarticulated speech could offer a future efficient means of communication for people with severe motor impairments. Recent demonstrations have validated this approach. Here we assume that it will be possible in future to decode imagined (i.e., attempted but unarticulated) speech in people with severe motor impairments, and we consider the characteristics that could maximize the social utility of a BCI for communication. As a social interaction, communication (...) involves the needs and goals of both speaker and listener, particularly in contexts that have significant potential consequences. We explore three high-consequence legal situations in which neurally-decoded speech could have implications:Testimony, where decoded speech is used as evidence;Consent and Capacity, where it may be used as a means of agency and participation such as consent to medical treatment; andHarm, where such communications may be networked or may cause harm to others. We then illustrate how design choices might impact the social and legal acceptability of these technologies. (shrink)

The Rawlsian conception of constituent power in Alessandro Ferrara’s Sovereignty Across Generations is burdened by a deep contradiction that renders the central argument in the book highly questionable. On the one hand, Rawls is (correctly in my view) presented as the thinker that confronted contemporary political theory with the problem of divisive pluralism. On the other hand, Rawls is also presented (incorrectly in my view) as the thinker who then suddenly found a solution for this divisive pluralism in the ‘common (...) values’ that all the members of these divisively pluralist societies share ‘unproblematically’. The combination of these two moves leaves one with the sense that Rawls rather frivolously put up the problem of divisive pluralism like a strawman that he could shoot down again without much ado. This article proposes a different reading of Rawls that considers him a serious thinker who did not amuse himself and his readers with strawman-problems. For this reading of Rawls, guidance is drawn from Hans Kelsen, the very thinker whom Sovereignty Across Generations casually dismisses for failing to grasp or appreciate the ‘common values’ that pluralist societies share so ‘unproblematically’. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Match-fixing is a major ethical issue in sports. Although research interest in match-fixing has increased in recent years, we remain largely in the dark regarding how both betting- and non-betting-related match-fixing relate to the moral decision-making of those involved. Drawing on Rest’s theory of morality and on the perceptions of a large sample of participants in Flemish sports, this study indicates that most match-fixing incidents are non-betting-related, while moral motivation and associated challenges clearly differ according to the type of (...) match-fixing. Therefore, each type of match-fixing requires different preventive measures. (shrink)

Cigarette smoking and other addictive behaviors are among the main preventable risk factors for several severe and potentially fatal diseases. It has been argued that addictive behavior is controlled by an automatic-implicit cognitive system and by a reflective-explicit cognitive system, that operate in parallel to jointly drive human behavior. The present study addresses the formation of implicit attitudes towards smoking in both smokers and non-smokers, using a Go/NoGo association task, and behavioral and electroencephalographic measures. The GNAT assesses, via quantifying participants’ (...) reaction times, the strength of association between a target category and either pole of an evaluative dimension. EEG analysis is performed to determine the temporal course of the event-related potential components underlying Go/NoGo decisions and implicit attitude formation. Both smokers and non-smokers showed prolonged reaction times to smoking-related pictures when the pictures were coupled with positive evaluative words. This indicates negative implicit attitudes towards smoking in both groups alike at the time point of the behavioral response. However, only the non-smokers, not the smokers, were found to show a delay of the N200 component in the incongruent condition. This is interpreted as reflecting ambivalent or even positive implicit attitudes towards smoking in the smoker group at the time point of the N200. Our study thus provides evidence for the hypothesis that implicit attitudes are subject to changes within several hundred milliseconds after stimulus presentation, and can be altered in the course of their formation. (shrink)

Courses on ethics and technology have become compulsory for many students at the three Dutch technical universities during the past few years. During this time, teachers have faced a number of didactic problems, which are partly due to a growing number of students. In order to deal with these challenges, teachers in ethics at the three technical universities in the Netherlands — in Delft, Eindhoven and Twente — have developed a web-based computer program called Agora (see www.ethicsandtechnology.com). This program enables (...) students to exercise their ethical understanding and skills extensively. The program makes it possible for students to participate actively in moral reflection and reasoning, and to develop the moral competencies that are needed in their later professional practice. The developers of the program have tried to avoid two traps. Firstly, they rejected, from the outset, a cookbook style of dealing with ethical problems that applied ethics is often taken to be and, secondly, they wanted to design a flexible program that respects the student’s as well as the teacher’s creativity, and that tries to engage students in moral reflection. Agora meets these requirements. The program offers possibilities that extend beyond the requirements that are usually accepted for case-exercises in applied ethics, and that have been realised in several other computer models for teaching ethics. In this article, we describe the main considerations in the development of Agora and the features of the resulting program. (shrink)

This study assessed the International Critical Thinking Essay Test (ICTET-A) for inter-rater reliability, internal reliability, and criterion validity. A self-selecting sample of participants (N = 100) completed the ICTET-A and a comparison test online. We found the ICTET-A items to have moderate to good levels of inter-rater reliability, and overall excellent inter-rater consistency for total test scores. The test had good internal reliability. There was a strong correlation between scores on the ICTET-A and the comparison test. Factor analysis showed that (...) scores were best explained with one factor, suggesting the test measures a single construct. The ICTET-A can therefore be considered a valid measure of critical thinking. Additionally, we propose a short form of the test. (shrink)

The idea of progress was lent much importance by Collingwood, but it is difficult to elucidate his views on the idea. Considering his views of other related concepts -change, development, and process-aids the understanding of his idea of progress. Collingwood's treatment of the concept of historical progress shows a lack of consistency, when he denies on the one hand that ways of life can be grasped, while on the other he believes that historical periods may be understood. Collingwood denies the (...) possibility that historical periods can be compared, for each period is characterized and judged in terms of its own problems and the solutions it find's for them. It is possible to distinguish four different positions in Collingwood's attitude to the concept of progress: a) It is dependent on a point of view; b) It is meaningless when used in the realms of art, happiness, and morality; c) It is meaningful when applied to the identity of a certain problem; d) It is necessary in solving practical and theoretical problems. (shrink)

The Russian philosopher, poet and religious thinker Vladimir S. Solovyov is widely regarded as the most important Russian philosopher ever. The objective of this study is to investigate why this title might be justified. In doing so, it offers a general introduction to the life, thought, and works of Solovyov, with a clear accent onhis philosophical texts, and attempts to assess his status as a philosopher in the history of philosophy. As is shown, he developed a system of 'integral knowledge' (...) on the basis of a wide range of philosophical, religious, and scientific sources. What singles out his endeavour is that he neither subordinates doing to knowing or vice versa, nor either of them to making, but incorporates all three in a philosophy of life that ascribes equal autonomous status to all three while giving pride of place to mystical experience, a form of making next to technical and fine arts, as the ultimate means through which mankind can restore the bond between God and the created world. Influential in many directions, Solovyov has also, almost single-handedly, brought Russian philosophical culture at the same level as that of Europe, thus paving the way for the lively exchange of philosophical ideas in the first decades of the 20th century, after his untimely death. (shrink)

About a decade ago, the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency unwittingly embarked on a transition from a technocratic model of science advising to the paradigm of ‘‘post-normal science’’. In response to a scandal around uncertainty management in 1999, a Guidance for ‘‘Uncertainty Assessment and Communication’’ was developed with advice from the initiators of the PNS concept and was introduced in 2003. This was followed in 2007 by a ‘‘Stakeholder Participation’’ Guidance. In this article, the authors provide a combined insider/outsider perspective on (...) the transition process. The authors assess the extent to which the PNS paradigm has delivered new approaches in the agency’s practice and analyze two projects—on long-term options for Dutch sustainable development policy and for urban development policy—the latter in somewhat more detail. The authors identify several paradoxes PBL encounters when putting the PNS concept into practice. It is concluded that an openness to other styles of work than the technocratic model has become visible, but that the introduction of the PNS paradigm is still in its early stage. (shrink)

As humans, we frequently engage in mental time travel, reliving past experiences and imagining possible future events. This study examined whether similar factors affect the subjective experience associated with remembering the past and imagining the future. Participants mentally “re-experienced” or “pre-experienced” positive and negative events that differed in their temporal distance from the present , and then rated the phenomenal characteristics associated with their representations. For both past and future, representations of positive events were associated with a greater feeling of (...) re-experiencing than representations of negative events. In addition, representations of temporally close events contained more sensorial and contextual details, and generated a stronger feeling of re-experiencing than representations of temporally distant events. It is suggested that the way we both remember our past and imagine our future is constrained by our current goals. (shrink)

The growth of global value chains (GVCs) and the emergence of novel forms of value chain governance pose two questions for normative business ethics. First, how should we conceptualize the relationships between members of a GVC? Second, what ethical implications follow from these relationships, both with respect to interactions between GVC members and with respect to achieving broader transnational governance goals? We address these questions by examining the emergence of transnational eco-labeling as an increasingly prominent form of GVC governance that (...) is redefining the relationship between nominally independent firms. On the first question, we argue that GVCs occupy a middle ground between intrafirm and interfirm transactions, thereby posing a challenge to theoretical frameworks that attempt to apply ethical standards based on transaction types. On the second question, we argue that this unique institutional status leads to a range of novel ethical considerations and dilemmas for GVC members. Lead firms, their suppliers, and third-party standard-setters all confront new ethical quandaries when third-party eco-labeling is introduced to a GVC. The nature of these quandaries means that, while GVCs may be well-positioned to serve as instruments of transnational governance, they are frequently not well-oriented to do so. Our analysis marks an initial attempt to map the ethical considerations that apply to members of a GVC, and in doing so, places the literature on normative business ethics and transnational governance in a closer conversation. (shrink)

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors is a working group of editors of selected medical journals that meets annually. Founded in Vancouver, Canada, in 1978, it currently consists of 11 member journals and a representative of the US National Library of Medicine. The major purpose of the Committee is to address and provide guidance for the conduct and publishing of biomedical research and the ethical tenets underpinning these activities. This advice is detailed in the Committee's Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts (...) Submitted to Biomedical Journals: Writing and Editing for Biomedical Publication . Recently, the ICMJE has adopted an interventionist role to ensure transparency of conflict of interest revelations in the conduct and publication of industry supported research. It also pursues a policy for the lodgement with trial registries of specified details of Phase III clinical trials. Failure to comply would jeopardise publication of trial outcomes in ICMJE member journals. This policy has resulted in the coming on stream of trial registries, international agreement on trial minimal datasets and compliance with trial registration requirements. (shrink)

Is the law good? How can it be improved? These questions are frequently addressed, both in traditional doctrinal research and in interdisciplinary legal research. In this article, I elaborate a general argumentative framework for justifying evaluations and recommendations for legislative reform, and I identify the chains of argument for making evaluations and recommendations. This may help researchers to make their arguments explicit and transparent, and then to justify the choices made for each of the steps in the argument. This enables (...) readers - as well as authors - to assess whether the argument’s conclusions are sound and convincing. A key problem in making these arguments concerns the choice of standards for evaluation. I suggest that they can be best understood in terms of the underlying values. In order to make all-things-considered evaluations and normative recommendations, interdisciplinary cooperation between doctrinal, socio-legal, and legal-philosophical researchers is necessary. Therefore, individual researchers will usually have to settle for pro tanto evaluations and recommendations. (shrink)

ABSTRACTTaking its cue from Hannah Arendt’s comment that ‘truth gets lost in the Enlightenment’ and Lessing’s parable of God’s ‘left hand’, this paper traces a historical shift in moral and religious thought: roughly from truth to sincerity. From traditional conceptions of conscience as conditional on the objective truth of its content, the paper moves on, via the Reformation and seventeenth-century Augustinian turn, to early modern debates on toleration and the ‘erring conscience’. It is argued that Pierre Bayle’s Commentaire Philosophique of (...) 1686 can be read as a crucial catalogue for understanding the substitution of truth with sincerity : so that not truth but truthfulness is considered to be essential for moral and religious justification. Moving from Bayle to Immanuel Kant, the paper then shows how many of the same questions rise in Kant’s late essay on theodicy, which is also an essay on sincerity or integrity, via the Book of Job. Through these two thinkers, various themes are connected: from conscience and sincerity to the problem of the conscientious persecutor. Finally, these themes of truth, error and integrity are linked to the modern debate on authenticity, and a framework is proposed for conceptualising these various shifts. (shrink)

This response discusses the experiment reported in Krahmer et al.’s Letter to the Editor of Cognitive Science. We observe that their results do not tell us whether the Incremental Algorithm is better or worse than its competitors, and we speculate about implications for reference in complex domains, and for learning from ‘‘normal” (i.e., non-semantically-balanced) corpora.

Optimism has reigned supreme for a long time regarding the potential of education (schooling) to address the many societal ailments that humankind has had to deal with. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 shifted all such aspirations to the back-burner. Now, after just more than a year after the initial outbreak of the pandemic, the question can be raised whether those who managed the pandemic in the educational context followed the correct policies and instituted the correct (ethical, (...) moral) measures in combatting the pandemic. This comparison between the situation in the Netherlands and South Africa reveals that although the role-players in both countries had a good understanding of the situation and of their duties in such conditions, they tended to treat education as just another facet of society, thereby demonstrating a lack of empathy with the unique demands of education (schooling). CONTRIBUTION: In this article, the authors investigate the governance performance of two different countries during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic concerning education and judge that performance based on a Biblically driven ethical-moral-pedagogical framework. (shrink)

For a period of two years I used the Dutch translation of Kio & Gus in the classroom. I will shortly report on a number of sessions, notably those on sense-knowledge, on substance and on killing animals. I will also relate some of the views of children on what doing philosophy is.Following this report, I will elucidate how the philosophical discussion is a subtle interplay between concrete themes or subjects on the one hand, abstract philosophical questions and notions on the (...) other hand. This interplay makes the course of a discussion unpredictable and every discussion about the same story or subject matter different from the foregoing ones.The variability of the philosophical discussion requires much flexibility and insight from the teacher, who should not force his or her point of view or interest on the discussion, but should at the same time guarantee progress in the discussion. I will lay stress on some of the particular difficulties which teachers meet when they do philosophy in the classroom for the first time and try to formulate some requirements for teacher training. At the same time I will try to indicate which kind of course material could be of maximum help to the teacher. (shrink)

On a common view of evolution, natural selection is the major force that produces evolutionary change. Selection is thought to operate on different types (genotypes or phenotypes) in populations so as to generate differential reproductive survival of these types. This should engender changes in population composition. The conception of selection as a "force" should be considered as a convenient shorthand that easily misleads us. Selection is not a factor over and above items such as temperature regimes, predators, and so forth. (...) These items do causal work in evolutionary processes. The term "selection" is merely an abstract placeholder for them. Differential reproductive survival thus appears to depend on particular environmental items that influence different types in different ways. Such items are properly regarded as the selective agents. On the face of it, selection processes must always be due to the operation of such agents. I argue that this is a mistaken assumption. Processes of selection may well occur in the absence of selective agents. That is because environmental factors may contribute to differential reproductive survival even if they do not affect different genotypes or phenotypes in different ways. Considering the role of the environment in selection, we should distinguish between selective agents and contributive agents. (shrink)

This monograph-length contribution to the Common Knowledge symposium “Peace by Other Means” reviews and assesses the state of ethnographic and political scholarship concerning how nonstate, tribal societies deal with peacemaking and peacekeeping. A central argument is that the condition among nonstate societies was and is neither one of permanent war nor one of permanent peace but one of permanent peacelessness. Nonstate societies recognize the danger of warfare and take measures to reduce its likelihood, or at least try to mitigate its (...) destructiveness. This article treats the politics, strategies, and practices of peacemaking in tribal societies throughout the world, as well as the full spectrum of attempts at war mitigation. (shrink)

Augmented Reality is itself a technology in which two ways of seeing are crossed. Our field of vision is thereby superimposed with digital information and images. But before this, the real environment is already perceived by machine seeing, it is redoubled by a 3D-model, scanned, located and linked. In this brief investigation, I will face the way of seeing in AR with traditional procedures, like ‘trompe-l'œil’ and the so-called ‘velo’, to distinguish between what remains classic and what has changed. It (...) is important to examine this as layering, because it is a very thin stack of techniques, technology, materials and media, we seek to watch through. Subsequently, I shall analyze a painting of the contemporary artist Laura Owens in which both ways are crossed, the traditional one and the one concerning AR. (shrink)

Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.

Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.

Ministers of religion have a unique occupation with designated job demands and incongruous resources at their disposal. Literature indicates that stressors within the work environment are significant predictors of work-nonwork interference. Ministers play a key role within society and provide support for individuals on multiple levels. However, limited studies are found in South Africa focussing on ministers' job characteristics related to work-nonwork interference, and how ministers cope. The main objective of this study was to investigate job demands and job resources (...) as significant predictors of work-nonwork interference amongst ministers of religion, and to identify which coping strategies are most significant for ministers in dealing with work-nonwork interference. A cross-sectional survey design was used amongst ministers working in the three sister churches. Various instruments were administered to measure job characteristics, work-nonwork interference and coping strategies empirically. Statistical analyses included descriptive statistics, product-moment correlations and multiple regression analyses. Results indicated that for ministers different job demands and job resources significantly predicted work-parent, work-home and work-religion/spirituality interference. Results indicated turning to religion as the only significant coping strategy used by ministers to deal with work-parent interference and work-religion interference. Ministers of religion are continually exposed to increasing job demands and a lack of job resources, and therefore experience work-nonwork interference. Nevertheless, the ministers apparently cope by using the strategy best related to their profession, turning to religion/spirituality. Turning to religion/spirituality seems to be the most effective in dealing with work-nonwork interference. (shrink)