In this article, I engage with aesthetic experience as a central hermeneutic endeavour for theorising performing arts audiences in the Arab region. I argue that a critical engagement with Arab performing arts audiences’ aesthetic experiences necessitates both an archaeological manoeuver and a re-articulation of two keywords: ‘experience’ and ‘everyday’. The article advances, using evidence from research, that allowing the audiences of performing arts in the Arab region to speak may be a step towards democratising the triangular meaning (...) making process among the performer, the audience, and the art institution, and a means towards dislocating, if not liberating, the categories Arab culture, art, performance, and experience, from their teleological articulations. (shrink)

Here I examine the potential for art-science collaborations to be the basis for deliberative discussions on research agendas and direction. Responsible Research and Innovation has become a science policy goal in synthetic biology and several other high-profile areas of scientific research. While art-science collaborations offer the potential to engage both publics and scientists and thus possess the potential to facilitate the desired “mutual responsiveness” between researchers, institutional actors, publics and various stakeholders, there are potential challenges in effectively (...) implementing collaborations as well as dangers in potentially instrumentalizing artistic work for science policy or innovation agendas when power differentials in collaborations remain unacknowledged. Art-science collaborations can be thought of as processes of exchange which require acknowledgement of and attention to artistic agendas as well as identification of and attention to aesthetic dimensions of scientific research. I suggest the advantage of specifically identifying public engagement/science communication as a distinct aspect of such projects so that aesthetic, scientific or social science/philosophical research agendas are not subsumed to the assumption that the primary or only value of art-science collaborations is as a form of public engagement or science communication to mediate biological research community public relations. Likewise, there may be potential benefits of acknowledging an art-science-RRI triangle as stepping stone to a more reflexive research agenda within the STS/science communication/science policy community. Using BrisSynBio, an EPSRC/BBSRC-funded research centre in synthetic biology, I will discuss the framing for art-science collaborations and practical implementation and make remarks on what happened there. The empirical evidence reviewed here supports the model I propose but additionally, points to the need to broaden the conception of and possible purposes, or motivations for art, for example, in the case of cross-sectoral collaboration with community engaged art. (shrink)

Journalology is the science of publication practices and the study of these activities. This communication details a centre for Journalology run by the Ottawa Hospital, Canada. The Centre has a valued role to play in the publication practices, ethics, and guides that researchers need in order to identify suitable journals for their research. Such centres are needed in every university so that the best publication practices are promoted and scientific integrity is maintained and enhanced.

On philosophy of Śaṅkarācārya; portion of work on Indic philosophy.

Located in Kleinbasel close to the Rhine, the Kaskadenkondensator is a place of mediation and experimental, research-and process-based art production with a focus on performance and performative expression. The gallery, founded in 1994, and located on the third floor of the former Sudhaus Warteck Brewery (hence cascade condenser), seeks to develop interactions between artists, theorists and audiences. Eight, maybe, nine or ten 40 litre bags of potting compost lie strewn about the floor of a high-ceilinged white washed hall. Dumped, (...) split open, the soil mixed with iridescent specks of green, blue and red glitter. On the walls hang large black and white photographic images—negative and positive prints barely clean, hardly sharp, scavenged from the world and presented half processed. On a third wall, hangs a framed golden and charcoal surface. Finally, a huge stain of black dye runs down a wall that descends into a sunken quarter of the Kaskadenkondensator gallery space. The results of a collaboration between Oliver Minder and Walter Derungs reflect on themes addressed in the recent Aesthetics in the 21st Century conference held by the department of English, University of Basel. In particular, the joint show questions how an aesthetic experience may be other than a human-world interaction, hinting at the withdrawal and veiling that objects perform, while demanding that different works engage with each other and play out this game under the non-supervisory eyes of a human audience. Things here are becoming—sometimes it’s a movement towards a more complete ontic whole in a projection of finality, other times it’s a dispersal, an atrophy to rather disarrayed entities. Yet, in the moment and place in which the objects are, we take them as here and now. Let’s get to the material of the stuff that Minder and Derungs have assembled. Oliver Minder employs organic materials—potting earth, cuttlefish ink secretion, rice, and insects; yet his works hardly seem natural in the sense of a harmonic relation between material and the form they are constrained into, the objects they are compelled to occupy. For the substrates on, through, or within which these natural materials are mediated are harshly inorganic substances—Plexiglas, safety glass, acrylic resin, boat varnish, spray paint. Minder, thus, generates a conflict within the materiality of his work between two polar opposites—from the human perspective—in the contiguity of materials engaging with each other in a thrown together formation that nonetheless appears to keep the materials and the objects they make in happy accidental relation to each other. Let me expand a little: on the one hand, the things Minder makes query our belief in substance as belonging in a particular domain, an environment suited to precisely that stuff. We are focused on thinking categorically where things belong, both in terms of natural place and natural relations they might extend to each other. Hence, we are driven to think of environment and order. On the other hand, while extracting things from their conventional place and arranging them within awkward constellations that we as observers feel isn’t quite right, Minder manages to persuade the viewer that the materials are nonetheless “doing alright.” So, simultaneous to our awareness of the appropriateness of the world according to our global notions of accord and uniformity, we are forced to accept the local discrepancies of disassociation, inappropriateness and misplacement. The tension between these two vectors generates a vacillation that intensifies Minder’s work. In the Kaskadenkondensator works, then, it is vital to first consider the material of Minder’s works: potting compost—what is it doing here in the first place?—seems to enjoy being “polluted” by sparkly glitter. Glitter has a long history, used in cosmetics by the Egyptians, and in cave paintings, too, earlier made of beetle shells and mica, nowadays glitter is made of plastic cut to minute sizes down to 50 microns. So what’s the point here? Well shiny bits of dust-like material are actually generated from ultra-thin plastic sheets and are normally cut into shapes that fit contiguously on a two-dimensional surface: squares, triangles, hexagons etc. What then appears to be totally random, chaotic decoration, is actually an array of extremely regular identifiable objects. 1 Of course scale has a role to play here. The minuteness of the dimensions means the regularity is beyond our recognition—all we see are the twinkling surfaces of the multi-coloured grains of plastic. In contrast, potting compost, which appears to be unary in its dull unresponsive lumpen disposition, is in fact an amalgam of a variety of organic and inorganic materials: peat, bark, mushroom compost, and sand and perlite, and should perhaps be more proactively exciting to the viewer because of this complexity. Yes; we can (if we care to) identify different textures, different sizes in the mixture of the medium, but I claim that we tend to treat this organic/inorganic assemblage as just a simple substance. Further and crucially important to our consideration here is that the medium is partially contained, but also partially spilling from the split plastic bags in which it is sold in garden centres. That the compost spills out gives it a movement suggesting life; that the bags are cast here and there in a random fashion by Oliver Minder, lying like discarded carcasses, hacked torsos, dismembered bodies, suggests a horrific murder scene, a Tatort. 2 The glitter flourishes in the medium, lies happy and decorative; that is simply what it does, how it is—always already broken, made-for-scattering, designed to be incomplete; the taken-to-be-natural compost, in contrast, cannot rest content but is forced to speak to us metaphorically in its abject overflowing of violence and rupture. While Oliver Minder’s elements in the installation direct our attention to material, Walter Derungs’ works raise questions around seeing and making in photography. There is a simultaneous flicker between the materials and their use in the production of a sense making representation, on the one hand, and on the other the very notion of what is worthy of picturing, framing, representing on the other. Derungs' images are of non-places. Ranging from archaic decaying monster buildings, buildings that have gone far beyond the ravages of a time that we can safely associate with the genteel preservation of a Bernd and Hill Belcher post-industrial decline, to the background “noise” of an urban world that is falling apart, and to which we most of the time seem to pay little attention, and habitually just pass by. In this respect, their non-ness differs somewhat from the conventional association of the term with Marc Augé 3 , where emphasis is on the specifics (if we do care to examine them for their non-placedness) of the spatial or place containment in which movement between multimodal coordinates occurs in supermodern late capitalist post-urban spaces. In other words, we might be in an Augéian non-place and (not) experience—be impervious to—that environment, or we might in Derungs’ manner look out from such a position at the “scenery” around us. I claim scenery, as this is what Derungs seems to do with his partial photography—construct a very purposefully articulated, symmetric, flat world of image. Mostly depopulated, his images construct a space in which the direction of time is uncertain: are these partial structures falling apart, or perhaps terminated in a never-to-be-completed state, or are they a few steps from final completion? Temporal and spatial dimensions figure large in Derungs’ image-making: his world, and perhaps this is in fact the only way for it to be registered photographically, is already image before it is photographed. A key combination of images in this show is a matrix of six black and white negative prints measuring 300 x 215 cm that form the image of a semi-derelict (or is it yet incomplete) church, and adjacent on a perpendicular wall, a single black and white positive print 150 x 250 cm of two bricked-up windows of a late-Victorian industrial building. What are we led to believe that we see here? In the negative print, the conditions of perception 4 are sufficiently reproduced for us to recognise the structure of the building, to distinguish ground and form, to relate some partial elements of narrative, and to recognize symbols such as the alter cross and figure of Christ, a looming crane, a traffic cone, and banks of tiered seating. We piece the image together both from the individual forms which we recognize despite the tonal reversal, and we piece the six prints together as a whole, the matrix of lines between them emphasizing our purview onto the world. While we recognise the forms at work in the image and might possibly relate the negative reversals to other figurations such as Vera Lutter’s camera obscura exposures, we cannot but avoid seeing the partialness of the image in the sponge marks of the developer that was spread by hand across the prints. 5 Derungs’ thus intervenes with our usual conception of photography as the mimetic realist vehicle sine qua non , by exposing the viewer to tonal reversal and incomplete or over developed areas of the print. We thus confront both the idiom of such image making and its raw (chemical) materiality at once in the simultaneity of the recognition of what the image pictures and the recognition that it is in the act of picturing. The church image, taken from the series “BW Negativs 2011,” thus orients us towards how we see things in the world via photographs. The single image of the bricked-up wall presents us with a completely different visuality that relates to a faciality 6 which we cannot easily escape from. We look, or rather try to look with no success, through the face of the windows, through the classic Albertian screen 7 which has already been given to us in the church matrix beside. Yet although we should be able to make more of these concealed windows because they are a positive print, because they are complete, because they approach us on a more realistic scale, reproduced at life size, we cannot. The objects pictured here withdraw from us; furthermore, they merely mock our blindness at not seeing how we look. Blocked up with quite a hint of paned glass behind, one window is blanked out with a white blind, the other simply blankly dark. The apertures look like eyes with teeth in them, or a Dogon mask, or even Man Ray’s Noire et Blanche (1926) if we want to get really perverse. The height of elegant modernist chauvinist beauty thrown against the vacuity of post-industrial decline. Derungs thus catapults us consciously into a world enfolded with and through images, but in such a way that the images themselves become objects that stand resistant to us, impervious to our gaze, indifferent. We—and indeed they—do not attempt to reach out to a real that is beyond, rather the images play in a world that is just theirs, and we can only enter that world if we too submit to their regime: tonal reversal, segmented, partial, inadequate, still, wrenched out of time. In contemplation, in the flood of the image “falling” off the wall, we too become image-object. Perhaps enough has now been said about the works, yet enough can never really be said, we know the image will always exceed the word—let’s accelerate the critique: Derungs’ work continues in a second space partially partitioned from this first room. Opposing three more “BW Negativs” which figure yet more quotidian aspects of the world is Minder’s gold spray paint and cuttlefish secretion mix: things that just shouldn’t work together do in the dialogue between stuff that Derungs and Minder have constructed. Minder makes things; Derungs makes images; together they make objects which inhabit their own world which we can approach and sensually engage with and come to grips with only on those objects’ own terms. This is best summarised by a final work made by Oliver Minder which on a third wall faces these two semi-partitioned spaces. A deep black stain about 100 X 200 cm with streak marks running down a further 2 metres hovers positioned to observe the whole work, and also to be part of this installation, too. This liminal flat suzerain lies in/out of the whole work. The stain of cuttlefish secretion resonates with Derungs’ sponge strokes on the church image; it mirrors the iris of an all-seeing eye; it combines material in situ with the situation itself. Where Minder’s other works have material and medium or substrate upon which the material is exercised, this single black hole is image which sucks everything up into itself. It draws the viewer, who must otherwise look away attentively at the floor work, and imagine horror, or smile at the ironic play of glitter. Look away at the image constructions that suggest how it is we too look to our world. See the play of thing and image in a third area. Or, finally return to the base of the pyramid that triangulates, to realise the stuff-image that unlocks it all for us. Black on white, organic on inorganic, material to substrate, that which in the falling out of one on the other, in its running down the wall simply gives form to both content and expression in one direction, and content and expression to form in another. NOTES In fact, glitter is used as associative forensic evidence: the 20,000 or so varieties are all uniquely identifiable. Joel Sternfeld, Tatorte: Bilder gegen das Vergessen (München: Schirmer/Mosel, 1996). Marc Augé, Non­places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity trans. John Howe (London: Verso, 2006). An echo of the uneven paint strokes of light­sensitive chemicals in the paper preparations made by Henry Talbot some 170 years ago in the first sun drawings that also often pictured architectural forms. It was Talbot’s surprising discovery that where a weaker chemical solution was more thinly spread, greater light sensitivity was actualized, yet this virtual image had then to be chemically developed in a second step. Thus, Derungs unevenly finished spongings suggestively trace back to this originary technology (although his sweeps are the stains of uneven development and not those of the initial preparation of light–sensitive material). Umberto Eco, “Critique of the Image” in “Articulations of Cinematic Code” Cinematics 1, 1970. Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia trans. Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007). Geoffrey Batchen, Burning With Desire: the Conception of Photography (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1999). (shrink)

The article begins with a brief history of aesthetic theory. Particular attention is given to the postructuralist ‘aesthetic return’: the resurgence of interest in aesthetics as an ontological foundation for human being-in-the-world. The disordered individual-as-emergent-artist-and-artifact, who is at the centre of this ‘aesthetic return’, is then translated into the ‘dis’-organization that is the firm. The firm is thus defined in terms of its primal sensory impact on the world. It invokes a myriad of aesthetic relations (...) between its disorganized self and others: its essence resides within these relations; its power of being is determined by its ability to project a unified aesthetic ideal – a ‘mirror fantasy’. The firm thus emerges as a style: where style is defined as an organizing – a sculpting – of aesthetic chaos. In order to achieve a grand style, the firm projects itself through time as a unified aesthetic ideal; as an ongoing work of art. The article concludes with a discussion of how this aesthetic theory of the firm relates to other accepted theories of the nature and purpose of business organizations. (shrink)

The creation, components and mission of The Bertrand Russell Research Centre ("BRRC") at McMaster University are described. The components are _Russell_, the Russell Editorial Project's _Collected Papers_ and Russell-l. Plans are being laid to incorporate other activities relevant to Russell Studies.

Ethical questions normally arise in sport because its participants are human moral agents and because its practice community entails the observance of rules and responsibilities that humans generally owe one another in a social practice of voluntary competition. Since nature sports are not defined by this kind of inter-agential activity, it would appear that there are no comparable ethical constraints on their pursuit. This paper considers conflicts of preference versus right between humans, how these are resolved, and whether these rights (...) are relevant in assessment of nature sport activity vis-à-vis nonhuman creatures. Relying on a goods perspective instead of a rights framework, via Korsgaard, I argue against an assumption that human preference is sufficient to override consideration of nonhuman animals’ functional goods. (shrink)

The requirement by the National Science Foundation (NSF) that research proposals include plans for “broader impact” activities to foster connections between Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) research and service to society has been controversial since it was first introduced. A chief complaint is that the requirement diverts time and resources from the focus of research and toward activities for which researchers may not be well prepared. This paper describes the theoretical framework underlying a new strategy to (...) pair NSF-funded nano research centres with science museums in order to achieve greater success in the broader impact mission, and to transform the perceived burden of the requirement into an opportunity to provide enhanced value to the constituencies of the partnering organizations, as well as to the larger community. This partnership approach is presented as a model that also can be applied to NSF-funded research centres in other STEM fields, and to non-NSF-funded STEM research centres nevertheless looking to pursue broader impacts types of activities. The model also provides an opportunity to stretch the typical spectrum of broader impacts activities to include citizen engagement in science, technology and societal concerns. (shrink)

Revue d’études benthamiennes. Special issue edited by Hiroki UENO, Brian Chien-Kang Chen, and Michihiro KAINO, Winter 2022 In the last two decades, one of the most spectacular phenomena in contemporary research of the history of political thought and intellectual history is a turn to empire. This phenomenon has had an impact on the landscape of the doctrines, attracting more and more scholars devoted to the exploration of Enlightenment political thinkers’ observations, criticisms, or justific...

This article explores the multifaceted endeavour of enhancing soldiers' capabilities, particularly in light of emerging disruptive technologies, and underscores the imperative to assess the ethical, legal, and strategic implications thereof. Specifically, the study delves into a theoretical scenario involving the administration of a fear-reducing pill, positing its potential to substantially diminish the risk of PTSD without harmful side effects. The author examines whether fear, despite its reduction, remains an intrinsic and beneficial aspect of armed conflict and the military profession. This (...) inquiry is evaluated through considerations of resourcefulness and strategy, unit cohesion, the proportionality test within the targeting cycle, and the impact of fear on criminal deterrence effectiveness. The article contends that the elimination of fear can yield diverse outcomes, underscoring the necessity for further exploration in the realm of law and emotions. Such research is pivotal for adequately preparing for the advent of novel technologies, mitigating mental harm, and fortifying compliance with IHL and military ethics. (shrink)

Optimality Theory is a theory of the economy of constraint violation. Can this property of the theory be exploited in our understanding of economy effects in general? Can economy of structure and movement be derived without reference to economy of structure and movement? The central idea of this paper is that the choice between filling positions by movement and filling positions with independent material is determined by markedness and faithfulness constraints. There is no ‘economy of movement’ constraint, just economy of (...) movement effects. Economy of movement follows from the theory of what a chain is. (shrink)

Background: There is general consensus internationally that unfair distribution of the benefits of research is exploitative and should be avoided or reduced. However, what constitutes fair benefits, and the exact nature of the benefits and their mode of provision can be strongly contested. Empirical studies have the potential to contribute viewpoints and experiences to debates and guidelines, but few have been conducted. We conducted a study to support the development of guidelines on benefits and payments for studies conducted by (...) the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust programme in Kilifi, Kenya. Methods: Following an initial broad based survey of cash, health services and other items being offered during research by all programme studies (n = 38 studies), interviews were held with research managers (n = 9), and with research staff involved in 8 purposively selected case studies (n = 30 interviewees). Interviews explored how these ‘benefits’ were selected and communicated, experiences with their administration, and recommendations for future guidelines. Data fed into a consultative workshop attended by 48 research staff and health managers, which was facilitated by an external ethicist.FindingsThe most commonly provided benefits were medical care (for example free care, and strengthened quality of care), and lunch or snacks. Most cash given to participants was reimbursement of transport costs (for example to meet appointments or facilitate use of services when unexpectedly sick), but these payments were often described by research participants as benefits. Challenges included: tensions within households and communities resulting from lack of clarity and agreement on who is eligible for benefits; suspicion regarding motivation for their provision; and confusion caused by differences between studies in types and levels of benefits. Conclusions: Research staff differed in their views on how benefits should be approached. Echoing elements of international benefit sharing and ancillary care debates, some research staff saw research as based on goodwill and partnership, and aimed to avoid costs to participants and a commercial relationship; while others sought to maximise participant benefits given the relative wealth of the institution and the multiple community needs. An emerging middle position was to strengthen collateral or indirect medical benefits to communities through collaborations with the Ministry of Health to support sustainability. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 10.2 (2000) 175-188 [Access article in PDF] Scope Note 38 Bioethics Resources on the Web * Once described as an "enormous used book store with volumes stacked on shelves and tables and overflowing onto the floor" (Pool, Robert. 1994. Turning an Info-Glut into a Library. Science 266 (7 October): 20-22, p. 20), Internet resources now receive numerous levels of organization, from basic directory listings (...) to elaborate "links" (cross-references to other Internet documents) that flash and glow in the dark. In many ways, the Internet functions as a direct extension of the traditional library. Following linked references across various sites is an electronic version of browsing library stacks, and the serendipitous discoveries made while "surfing the Net" recall the wonders of physically going "book-to-book." Although many of the Internet's best aspects augment library strengths by eliminating physical distance from sources, Net resources pose unique problems for researchers. It is not always clear who is responsible for the content of Web documents, when the document was produced, or how often (if ever) it is updated. Internet resource tools, then, must enable researchers to identify appropriate resources and to evaluate what they find when they get there. Web Research as Taking "Snapshots" Given the Internet's visual nature and fluid content, the process of conducting research on the Web has been likened to taking an informal picture of information on a specific date at a particular time. This metaphor also conveys the "zoom-in" aspect of searching through Web pages by going from general to specific categories. In the first section of this Scope Note, National Reference Center for Bioethics Literature (NRCBL) staff present a snapshot of bioethics resources taken during the spring months of 2000. Entries are divided into the categories of directories, electronic journals, full-text documents, news/current awareness, and teaching resources. In the two subsequent sections, this series of categories is repeated for entries on a specific topic within bioethics-genetics-and again for general search and evaluation tools. Where a Web site may contain pages applicable [End Page 175] to more than one category, multiple entries are made for that site with appropriate information for each category.Much as telecommunication advances have strengthened the relationship of patients and providers as partners, the dynamic nature of the Internet acknowledges that the researcher functions as a librarian whenever accessing the Web. It is our hope that BIOETHICSLINE and the other NRCBL databases not only will enable researchers to search the Web more efficiently, but also will help them to evaluate what they find when they get there. Bioethicsline on the Web: An International Plan in Progress Once only available through libraries, the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), the funding agency for the ongoing development of the BIOETHICS LINE® database from the Kennedy Institute, has provided free Web access to that database of 63,000 citations since September 1998 through Internet Grateful Med. Plans are now underway to eliminate such specialty databases and incorporate all citations into PubMed (for journal articles) or LOCATORplus (for book-like materials and chapters in books). Both of these databases are likewise available at no cost on the Web. In the transition to PubMed and LOCATORplus some features of BIOETHICSLINE that presently are available may be lost. Researchers are encouraged to contact the National Reference Center for Bioethics Literature with search requests or for search strategy assistance with either the current or the future system ([email protected]).The inclusion of bioethics citations in PubMed and LOCATORplus will have several advantages. First, unique keywords from the Bioethics Thesaurus will be considered for inclusion in Medical Subject Headings (MeSH), the indexing vocabulary for PubMed and LOCATORplus, thereby enhancing retrieval of relevant clinical literature by offering more precise terminology covering ethical issues. Second, it will be easier to identify foreign-language materials, which are not currently included in the scope of BIOETHICSLINE. Third, the updating schedule will become more frequent. On the other hand, there may be some loss of searching precision because certain specialized features... (shrink)

BackgroundThere is general consensus internationally that unfair distribution of the benefits of research is exploitative and should be avoided or reduced. However, what constitutes fair benefits, and the exact nature of the benefits and their mode of provision can be strongly contested. Empirical studies have the potential to contribute viewpoints and experiences to debates and guidelines, but few have been conducted. We conducted a study to support the development of guidelines on benefits and payments for studies conducted by the (...) KEMRI-Wellcome Trust programme in Kilifi, Kenya.MethodsFollowing an initial broad based survey of cash, health services and other items being offered during research by all programme studies (n = 38 studies), interviews were held with research managers (n = 9), and with research staff involved in 8 purposively selected case studies (n = 30 interviewees). Interviews explored how these ‘benefits’ were selected and communicated, experiences with their administration, and recommendations for future guidelines. Data fed into a consultative workshop attended by 48 research staff and health managers, which was facilitated by an external ethicist.FindingsThe most commonly provided benefits were medical care (for example free care, and strengthened quality of care), and lunch or snacks. Most cash given to participants was reimbursement of transport costs (for example to meet appointments or facilitate use of services when unexpectedly sick), but these payments were often described by research participants as benefits. Challenges included: tensions within households and communities resulting from lack of clarity and agreement on who is eligible for benefits; suspicion regarding motivation for their provision; and confusion caused by differences between studies in types and levels of benefits.ConclusionsResearch staff differed in their views on how benefits should be approached. Echoing elements of international benefit sharing and ancillary care debates, some research staff saw research as based on goodwill and partnership, and aimed to avoid costs to participants and a commercial relationship; while others sought to maximise participant benefits given the relative wealth of the institution and the multiple community needs. An emerging middle position was to strengthen collateral or indirect medical benefits to communities through collaborations with the Ministry of Health to support sustainability. (shrink)

This paper presents a systematic account of ethical issues actualised in different areas, as well as at different levels and stages of health care, by introducing organisational and other procedures that embody a shift towards person centred care and shared decision-making (PCC/SDM). The analysis builds on general ethical theory and earlier work on aspects of PCC/SDM relevant from an ethics perspective. This account leads up to a number of theoretical as well as empirical and practice oriented issues that, in view (...) of broad advancements towards PCC/SDM, need to be considered by health care ethics researchers. Given a PCC/SDM-based reorientation of health care practice, such ethics research is essential from a quality assurance perspective. (shrink)

BackgroundObtaining a research participant’s voluntary and informed consent is the bedrock of sound ethics practice. Greater inclusion of children in research has led to questions about how paediatric consent operates in practice to accord with current and emerging legal and socio-ethical issues, norms, and requirements.MethodsEmploying a qualitative thematic content analysis, we examined paediatric consent forms from major academic centres and public organisations across Canada dated from 2008–2011, which were purposively selected to reflect different types of research (...) ethics boards, participants, and studies. The studies included biobanking, longitudinal studies, and gene-environment studies. Our purpose was to explore the following six emerging issues: (1) whether the scope of parental consent allows for a child’s assent, dissent, or future consent; (2) whether the concepts of risk and benefit incorporate the child’s psychological and social perspective; (3) whether a child’s ability to withdraw is respected and to what extent withdrawal is permitted; (4) whether the return of research results includes individual results and/or incidental findings and the processes involved therein; (5) whether privacy and confidentiality concerns adequately address the child’s perspective and whether standard data and/or sample identifiability nomenclature is used; and (6) whether retention of and access to paediatric biological samples and associated medical data are addressed.ResultsThe review suggests gaps and variability in the consent forms with respect to addressing each of the six issues. Many forms did not discuss the possibility of returning research results, be they individual or general/aggregate results. Forms were also divided in terms of the scope of parental consent (specific versus broad), and none discussed a process for resolving disputes that can arise when either the parents or the child wishes to withdraw from the study.ConclusionsThe analysis provides valuable insight and evidence into how consent forms address current ethical issues. While we do not thoroughly explore the contexts and reasons behind consent form gaps and variability, we do advocate and formulate the development of best practices for drafting paediatric health research consent forms. This can greatly ameliorate current gaps and facilitate harmonised and yet contextualised approaches to paediatric health research ethics. (shrink)

When it comes to the relationship between art and nature, research on Adorno’s aesthetics usually centres on his discussion of Kant and Hegel. While this reflects Adorno’s own position – his comprehension of this relationship is to a large extent developed through a critical re-reading of both the Kantian and the Hegelian position – I argue that we are able to gain important insights into Adorno’s aesthetics and the central art–nature relation by reading his ideas in the light of (...) Schelling’s conception of this relationship. The article focuses on the similarities between Schelling’s notion of nature’s productivity and Adorno’s understanding of natural beauty. It concludes with a discussion on Adorno’s re-evaluation of the reconciliatory power of the exemplary unity of the artwork in conjunction with Schelling’s comparison between artwork and organism, as well as his concept of the construction of nature. (shrink)

Excerpt from The Aesthetic Experience The enjoyment Of art is ordinarily looked upon as some thing detached from the serious business of life, as an episode in an existence otherwise fundamentally non-aesthetic. Art is conceived as shut up in books, concert-halls, and museums; as, perhaps, a legitimate preoccupation on a trip to Europe; but under ordinary circumstances a relaxation, and if more than that, a distraction or even a dissipation. For a few individuals, writers, musicians, or painters, it (...) is more than a by-play or avocation; but for the mass Of men concern with it is an interlude, and its production is of course out of the question. In this it resembles religion. TO go to a museum and to go to church alike involve a break with our usual habits. Both are expeditions into worlds other than that in, which our every-day Occupations go on. And both worlds are suspect from the point of view of the habitual dweller in the real world. The man who attempts to treat the pre cepts Of religion as applicable to his business or personal relations is as little to be considered fully sane as the man whose life centres about art: both are at least likely to be queer. A book which is thought Of as a work Of art is presumably to be read from a sense of duty, and in a frame of mind both self-conscious and self-congratulatory - a frame Of mind, at any rate, quite different from that of Simple straightforwardness with which we approach the merely enjoyable. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 14.1 (2004) 47-54 [Access article in PDF] Ethical Guidelines for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research*(A Recommended Manuscript) Adopted on 16 October 2001Revised on 20 August 2002 Ethics Committee of the Chinese National Human Genome Center at Shanghai, Shanghai 201203 Human embryonic stem cell (ES) research is a great project in the frontier of biomedical science for the twenty-first century. Be- cause the (...) research involves the use of human embryos, it triggers serious debate on ethical issues. Opponents consider the embryo to be an early form of human life that should be respected and not destroyed. However, the majority of scientists support embryonic stem cell research, believing that it offers good prospects for the treatment of diseases that have remained incurable until now and so will benefit humankind. The Ethics Committee of the Department of Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications of the Chinese National Human Genome Center at Shanghai seriously discussed the ethical debate initiated by embryonic stem cell research. We concluded that we should support the scientists of our country in actively carrying out human embryonic stem cell research for the noble cause of "medicine being a beneficent art." For the healthy and orderly development of human embryonic stem cell research in our country, we put forward the following recommended Ethical Guidelines for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research as a reference for leaders, administrative departments, and related scientists. Preface Article 1. Human embryonic stem cells are the primitive cells that play the main role in the growth and development of a human body. These [End Page 47] primitive cells have the potential for infinite proliferation, self-renewal, and multi-directional differentiation. If scientists can discover the mechanism of differentiation of human embryonic stem cells, it will be possible to induce differentiation of human embryonic stem cells to form various types of human cells for clinical cell therapy. If human embryonic stem cell research can be integrated with modern biomedical engineering techniques, it also will be possible to make repair and replacement of human tissues and organs a reality. Article 2. There are two ways to classify human embryonic stem cells. One way is to classify them according to their potential for differentiation. There could be three kinds of stem cells: totipotent stem cells, pluripotent stem cells, and unipotent stem cells.A totipotent stem cell has the potential to develop into a whole individual. It can differentiate into the more than 200 cell types in the whole body, construct any tissue or organ of the body, and finally develop into a whole individual. The fertilized egg and the cleavage cells at the very early stage of embryonic development are totipotent stem cells.A pluripotent stem cell has the potential to differentiate into many cell types derived from the three embryonic layers. However, it has lost the capacity to develop into a complete organism.A unipotent stem cell is derived from the further differentiation of the pluripotent stem cell. It can differentiate only into one cell type such as a hematopoietic stem cell, neural stem cell, and others.The other way is to classify human stem cells according to their source. There could be two kinds of human stem cells: embryonic stem cells and tissue stem cells (also called adult stem cells). The former involves experimentation with embryos, which has serious ethical implications. Ethical issues associated with the latter are mainly expressed in the various opinions regarding the allocation of health resources. Article 3. Human embryonic stem cells are the group of cells called the blastocyst inner cell mass during the early stage of embryonic development. They are the main source of totipotent stem cells, and hence the focal and hot point in stem cell research. Studies on the clinical application of embryonic stem cells probably will involve use of the somatic cell nucleus transfer (SCNT) technique, which destroys the early human embryo. At present, the ethical and moral debate is very serious in human embryonic stem cell research regarding whether the research will develop... (shrink)

This paper presents a segment of a broader research project titled “When Black Consciousness Meets White Consciousness,” which first developed out of my research work with White women in violence-against-women organizations. It documents an interview between a White woman and me, a Black South African philosopher. I lived and worked in Canada at the time but I traveled to the United States for conferences on a regular basis. I was presenting my work on Black consciousness, White consciousness, (...) and Black existentialism—relying on Derridean deconstruction and psychoanalysis—when I had the exchange with a White woman, a young faculty member in the philosophy department, which had jointly hosted the talk with the women and gender studies department. This paper offers a verbatim account of this dialogue wherein the history of philosophy is unraveled and where I draw on Jacques Derrida's “White Mythology” to demonstrate how White consciousness is engraved. It is out of this intertwined analysis that my work on White consciousness emerged in the 1990s—and with which I continue—as is evidenced throughout the paper. In unpacking this dialogue, I situate the complexities that arise from the pedagogical practices within philosophy when race takes center stage within a discipline that has written itself as though race does not exist. (shrink)

We place agency front-and-centre in the aesthetics of science via an analysis of experimental design and performance. This first involves developing an account of scientific agency relevant to experiment. We do this via an analogy between experiments and games (as understood by Suits and Nguyen): both involve artificial practical environments designed to enable participants to exercise particular forms of agency. Second, we consider how this account of agency might underwrite an aesthetics of experiment. Experiments are well-designed not only when (...) they generate clear, elegant results, but also when they actively confront the experimenter with experimental phenomena, afford the exercise of agency throughout experimental runs and in iterative design and tweaking, and underlie stable, intersubjective experiences across agents. We apply the account to Newton’s optical work, and contrast this with contemporary experimental practices, where significantly more ‘experimental distance’ holds between the experimenter and the result. Taking the agency of experimental practice seriously enables a richer account of the role of aesthetic values, sensibilities, and judgments in science. (shrink)

Technological development and increased international competition have imposed a significant burden on the product development function of many companies. The growing complexity of products demands a larger product development team with people having various competencies. Simultaneously the importance of good quality, usability and customisation of products is growing, and many companies want to involve customers and users directly in the development work. Both the complexity and quality demand new ways of working that support collaboration between people with various competencies, interests (...) and responsibilities both inside and outside the company. This paper reports experiences from using action research to introduce new user-centred work practices in two commercial product development projects. The interventions varied. In the first project it was found rewarding to engage customers and users in workshops based on participatory inquiry and collaborative design. The design process was iterative and the workshops took place several times involving concept through detailed design. In the second project, new design representations are introduced. The experiences highlight the importance of creating and reifying insights in design representations and using these to both support collaboration, and create continuity in the project. The paper ends with a discussion of scientific rigor in action research and what the new work practices imply for the development team. (shrink)

This essay surveys the main objections to aesthetic hedonism, the view that aesthetic value is reducible to the value of aesthetic pleasure or experience. Hedonism is the dominant view of aesthetic value, but a spate of recent criticisms has drawn its accuracy into question. I introduce some distinctions crucial to the criticisms, before using the bulk of the essay to identify and review six major lines of argument that hedonism's critics have employed against it. Whether or (...) not these arguments suffice to refute hedonism decisively, I argue that its privileged status, as the sole contender in aesthetic value theory, is detrimental to downstream research on aesthetic phenomena. The essay concludes with an overview of current work and promising avenues of inquiry into non-hedonic alternatives. (shrink)

At a time of increasing interest and advocacy in integrated and policy-oriented research, this paper offers an empirically-based view of the intellectual and practical challenges of undertaking such research. It analyses the experience of a long-standing university research and postgraduate training centre from 1973-2004: the Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies at The Australian National University. The paper discusses staff development issues, cross-disciplinary understanding, organisational requirements for collaborative research, postgraduate and early career considerations, a (...) range of integrative frameworks, and the tensions that arise for interdisciplinary research in the political and economic operating environments of modern universities. (shrink)

The volume represents a selection of the articles which were presented at a colloquium on new research topics in aesthetics at the Austrian Library in Pilsen in September 2010. Their authors, Czech and Austrian scholars, address various topics, ranging from the institutional history of aesthetics to the relationship between philosophical aesthetics and psychology, and from the philosophy of literature to the aesthetics of fine arts, dramatic arts, and architecture.

The present research examines whether individuation and categorization processes influence trust decisions about strangers at first and across repeated interactions. In a partial replication of the study reported by Cañadas et al. (2015), participants played an adaptation of the multi-round trust game paradigm and had to decide whether or not to cooperate with unknown partners. Gender (Study 1a) and ethnicity (Studies 1b, 2, and 3) served to create distinct social categories among the game partners, whose reciprocation rates were manipulated (...) at group and individual levels. At the group level, two social groups (i.e., ingroup vs. outgroup) were associated with opposite reciprocation rates (i.e., high vs. low reciprocation rate). At the individual level, consistency was manipulated by altering the reciprocation rate of one out of four members of each social group. That is, there was one inconsistent individual in each group showing a pattern of reciprocation opposite to the group reciprocation rate. Our data, contrary to Cañadas et al.’s (2015) findings, suggested that ingroup partners were individuated given that participants made their decisions to cooperate with the trustees according to their individual reciprocation rate and independently of the group reciprocation rate. In contrast, decisions about outgroup partners (i.e., men in Study 1a and Blacks in Studies 1b, 2, and 3) were affected by category-based thinking. At the same time, in comparison with ingroup, greater cooperation was observed with ethnic outgroups but not with gender outgroups. The consistency of our results with the previous literature on social categorization and across the three experiments seems to indicate they are reliable, supporting the hypothesis that categorization and individuation processes guide trust decision-making, promoting individuation mainly for ingroup and categorization among outgroup members. (shrink)

For nearly as long as the topic of sustainable business has been taught and researched in business schools, proponents have warned about barriers to genuine integration in business school practices. This article examines how academic sustainability centres try to overcome barriers to integration by achieving technical, cultural and political fit with their environment :67–92; Ansari et al., Academy of Management Review 35:67–92, 2010). Based on survey and interview data, we theorise that technical, cultural and political fit are intricately related, and (...) that these interrelations involve legitimacy, resources and collaboration effects. Our findings about sustainability centres offer novel insights on integrating sustainable business education given the interrelated nature of different types of fit and misfit. We further contribute to the literature on fit by highlighting that incompatibility between strategies to achieve different types of fit may act as a source of dynamism. (shrink)

In this book we attempted to gather together a set of chapters that describe new ways of approaching questions about aesthetics and innovation. Rather than going over old ground, the chapters describe attempts to break out in new directions. The book begins with a description of von Ehrenfels development of a Gestalt theory of aesthetics so evocative of the Vienna of 1900 that readers will wish that they had been there to experience the intellectual excitement and ends with a survey (...) the very latest research on brain scan research on perception of art. In between, we encounter chapters as diverse as a description of cognitive effects on art perception and on the analogies between oscillations in art history and waves in the physical world. About half of the book contains chapters by well known western psychological aestheticians and half chapters by Russian scholars many of whom will be new to western readers. As well as describing new methods and results, the chapters by Russian scholars will be novel to most western readers, because the Russian perspective on aesthetics and innovation is rather different than the traditional western perspectives. Looking at phenomena from new viewpoints never hurts and very often helps in science. (shrink)

The article clarifies the way in which ‘the aesthetic’ is conceptualised in relation to business ethics in order to assess its potential to inform theory building and developmental practices within the business ethics field. A systematic review of relevant literature is undertaken which identifies three ontologically based accounts of the relationship between the aesthetic and business ethics: ‘positive’ ones, ‘negative’ accounts and ‘Postmodern’ renderings. Five epistemologically based approaches are also made explicit: those in which the aesthetic is (...) thought to develop enhanced perceptual discernment, those in which the aesthetic catalyses emotional sensitivity, those in which the aesthetic contributes to imaginative capacity, those in which the aesthetic prompts integrative apprehension and those in which the aesthetic is seen to foster critical reflexivity. The review reveals two key findings: firstly, the dearth of empirically based research to substantiate claims made about the aesthetic’s ability to foster ethical capabilities, which leads to proposals for further research; secondly, the analysis indicates the significance of critical reflexivity both in resolving the apparent dichotomy between ontologically based perspectives asserting the aesthetic’s ability to lead to ethically sound or egregious behaviour, and in underpinning the capacities of perceptual discernment, emotional connectivity, imagination and integrative apprehension which epistemologically based approaches assert the aesthetic can foster. (shrink)

In this paper, the concept of Human-Centred Technology will be described with regard to the different dimensions of workplace, groupwork and networks and in terms of the frameworks of both society and the natural environment. These different aspects of Human-Centred Systems will be illustrated by a series of case studies representing several European countries. The report covers a wide range of research fields. The emphasis is on technology: the roles of control and information technology in enterprises today — including (...) issues of applying AI — and the strategies of designing and implementing technology taking into account the specific aspects which characterize human-centred systems. (shrink)

The aim of this article was to critically analyse the concept of person-centred participation in healthcare from patients’ perspectives through a review of qualitative research findings. In accordance with the integrative review method of Broom, data were retrieved from databases, but 60 studies were finally included in the study. The diverse attributes of person-centred participation in healthcare were identified and contrasted with participation that was not person-centred and analysed through framework analysis. Person-centred participation in healthcare was found to be (...) based on patients’ experiences, values, preferences and needs in which respect and equality were central. It manifested itself via three intertwined phases: the human-connection phase, the phase of information processing and the action phase. The results challenge in many aspects earlier concept analyses of patient participation in addition to illuminating patient participation that is not positively valued by patients. (shrink)

Governmental organizations funding science m several nations are creating large research centers that draw on several disciplines and that focus research on an area of immediate use to industrial concerns. I analyze eight proposals for a U.K. center devoted to human communication. I argue that the boundaries that such a center seeks to cross— between areas of knowledge, between disciplines, between academic and nonacademic research—are constructed in the proposals for strategic purposes m the immediate situations. The study (...) supports other recent work on the crucial role of texts as interme diaries in the science policy processes, and on the need to recognize the unexpected contingencies and unintended consequences of textual circulation. (shrink)

Aesthetic concepts and conceptions are structured mental representations partly composed of phenomenal concepts. I defend this claim by appealing to contemporary accounts of concepts and to the current literature on phenomenal concepts. In addition, I discuss the relationship between aesthetic concepts and aesthetic understanding — an epistemic state at the centre of much work in contemporary epistemology.