Decreasing philanthropic funding from governments and foundations and increasing social needs are putting pressure on nonprofits to generate financial resources in more entrepreneurial ways. This type of social innovation within the nonprofit sector can be facilitated through collaborative alliances with universities, corporations and other public/private partnerships. This paper presents a case study of a university partnership between Institute of Social Innovation at Carnegie Mellon University and the Pittsburgh Social Innovation Accelerator.

The economic distinction between technological and market information offers a useful guide to the relationship between information and policy. The two types create different problems for markets and require different emphases in public policy, focusing on either the production or the distribution of information. The interaction of the two types creates familiar policy problems such as underinvestment in information, adverse selection and moral hazard. Indicators and other means of dealing with such problems constitute policies and demonstrate not only the importance (...) of information for policy but the necessity of policy for information. (shrink)

Engineering the Climate: The Ethics of Solar Radiation Management is a wide-ranging and expert analysis of the ethics of the intentional management of solar radiation. This book will be a useful tool for policy-makers, a provocation for ethicists, and an eye-opening analysis for both the scientist and the general reader with interest in climate change.

This study applies a theoretical framework, the theory of reasoned action, to the examination of unethical decision making in job-related situations encountered by CPAs. A survey methodology was employed in which respondents were asked to use both self-reported and randomized response techniques for reporting unethical behavior. The results indicate that individuals are unwilling to accurately report either unethical behavior or intention, particularly in situations where there is no question as to the unacceptability of the action or the potential penalty as (...) presented in the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct. Implications for the accounting profession and research are discussed. (shrink)

Population-based research is enhanced by biological measures, but biological sampling raises complex ethical issues. The third British National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal-3) will estimate the population prevalence of five sexually transmitted infections (STIs) (Chlamydia trachomatis, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, human papillomavirus (HPV), HIV and Mycoplasma genitalium) in a probability sample aged 16–44 years. The present work describes the development of an ethical approach to urine testing for STIs, including the process of reaching consensus on whether to return results. The (...) following issues were considered: (1) testing for some STIs that are treatable and for which appropriate settings to obtain free testing and advice are widely available (Natsal-3 provides all respondents with STI and healthcare access information), (2) limits on test accuracy and timeliness imposed by survey conditions and sample type, (3) testing for some STIs with unknown clinical and public health implications, (4) how a uniform approach is easier to explain and understand, (5) practical difficulties in returning results and cost efficiency, such as enabling wider STI testing by not returning results. The agreed approach, to perform voluntary anonymous testing with specific consent for five STIs without returning results, was approved by stakeholders and a research ethics committee. Overall, this was acceptable to respondents in developmental piloting; 61% (68 of 111) of respondents agreed to provide a sample. The experiences reported here may inform the ethical decision making of researchers, research ethics committees and funders considering population-based biological sampling. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.4 (2003) 571-572 [Access article in PDF] Simon Critchley and Robert Bernasconi, editors. The Cambridge Companion to Levinas. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. xxx + 292. Cloth, $65.00. Paper, $23.00. The goal of the Cambridge Companion to Philosophy series has been to "dispel the intimidation" that students and non-specialists often experience when faced with the works of a "difficult and challenging (...) thinker" (i). Indeed, Emmanuel Levinas would qualify as such a thinker, whose work is firmly rooted in two traditions: (1) the admittedly abstruse and seminal phenomenologies of Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger and (2) Judaism, including the Talmudic tradition, the philosophy of Franz Rosenzweig, as well as Levinas's experience with rampant anti-Semitism in twentieth-century Europe. The imminent danger in producing a collection with the express intent of making a challenging thinker accessible is that the force of the thought may become undermined by the process of simplification. The Cambridge Companion to Levinas, however, achieves its goal as a book that not only elucidates Levinas but also provides numerous essays that even the Levinasian scholar will find useful.Simon Critchley and Robert Bernasconi are directly responsible for the success of the Companion. These two editors have proven themselves as adept collaborators in the area of Levinasian philosophy with their earlier contribution to Indiana University Press's series Studies in Continental Thought: Re-reading Levinas (Simon Critchley and Robert Bernasconi, editors [Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991]). This new cooperative effort offers essays that introduce Levinas's thought from the perspective of some of the many fields upon which he has had an influence including the philosophy of language, art, feminism, Judaism, phenomenology, and the philosophy of religion.Even with the many tangential fields to which Levinas's thought contributes, the Companion often refers to Derrida's metaphor which describes Levinas's work as a wave, the "same" wave, crashing on the beach with increasing demand. Derrida, however, is also partly responsible for the intensifying return of Levinas's work. Derrida's critique of Levinas's Totality and Infinity was the impetus behind Levinas's subsequent focus on language and the problematic of "how" one speaks of that which is outside being. Certainly, the Companion could have spent the majority of its pages outlining this philosophical, textual conversation, but such an explication would have compromised the accessibility of this introductory text to the non-specialists to whom this series caters. The editors, instead, chose to avoid Derrida's difficult critique while having a significant concentration of essays that deal with Levinas's philosophy of language. This allows neophyte students of Levinas to discover his intricate thought on language without necessary knowledge of the context as well as provide those scholars interested in the debate access to the most contemporary thought on the matter—at least from the Levinasian perspective. Readers are assured, then, that the Companion covers the difficult concepts of the speaking face from the early period to the later distinction of the "saying" and the "said," inspired by Derrida's critique.The Companion, unfortunately, seems one sided concerning an important aspect of Levinas's philosophy. Throughout his entire corpus, Levinas attributes his thought to the seminal work of Edmund Husserl, continually inviting his readers to begin again with Husserl's phenomenology. Rudolph Bernet contributes to this collection an outstanding analysis of Levinas's critique of Husserl, describing some of the departures that Levinas makes from Husserl's phenomenology. The rest of the Companion, however, makes note to downplay Levinas's positive indebtedness to phenomenology. Hillary Putnam promises to explain Levinas with a "minimum of reliance on any prior knowledge of the two great 'H's (Husserl/Heidegger)" (40). Adhering to her word, in an otherwise insightful essay, means that the phenomenological issue remains superficial. While it is never absent, Bernet's essay seems to have set the tone, placing Levinas in a position of opposition with Husserl with a minimum of discussion of what Levinas has called his adherence to the "spirit" of phenomenology. To the Companion's credit... (shrink)

This paper challenges the traditional assumption that descriptive and prescriptive sciences are essentially distinct by presenting a study on the implicit normativity of the production and presentation of biomedical scientific facts within evidence-based medicine. This interdisciplinary study serves as an illustration of the potential worth of the concept of implicit normativity for bioethics in general and for integrated empirical ethics research in particular. It demonstrates how both the production and presentation of scientific information in an evidence-based decision-support contain implicit presuppositions (...) and values, which pre-structure the moral environment of the clinical process of decision-making. As a consequence, the evidence-based decision support did not only support the clinical decision-making process; it also transformed it in a morally significant way. This phenomenon undermines the assumption within much of the literature on patient autonomy that information disclosure is a conditional requirement before patient autonomy even starts; patient autonomy is already influenced during the production and presentation of information. These results imply an increased responsibility of those who produce and present evidence-based facts(i.e. scientists in general and physicians in particular). The insights of this study not only involve a different focus on both theory and practice of patient autonomy and informed consent, but they also call for a broader scope of morality than does traditional empirical research in bioethics. The concept of implicit normativity within integrated empirical ethics research calls for a strong cooperation between bioethicists and descriptive scientists, i.e., a cooperation that goes beyond the discipline-specific epistemic values and that takes place during all phases of the research process. (shrink)

We define a rich model to be one which contains a proper elementary substructure isomorphic to itself. Existence, nonstructure, and categoricity theorems for rich models are proved. A theory T which has fewer than $\min(2^\lambda,\beth_2)$ rich models of cardinality $\lambda(\lambda > |T|)$ is totally transcendental. We show that a countable theory with a unique rich model in some uncountable cardinal is categorical in ℵ 1 and also has a unique countable rich model. We also consider a stronger notion of richness, (...) and use it to characterize superstable theories. (shrink)

Let K be a finite set of finite structures. We give a syntactic characterization of the property: every element of K is injective in ISP(K). We use this result to establish that A is injective in ISP(A) for every two-element algebra A.

Dieser Sammelband hat zum Ziel, moderne atheistische Richtungen kritisch und wissenschaftlich zu betrachten. Mit diesen modernen atheistischen Richtungen ist vor allem der in Oxford unterrichtende Biologe und Religionskritiker Richard Dawkins verknüpft, bekennender Gegner von Kreationismus, Intelligent Design und Theologie, der schon 1976 mit der Veröffentlichung seines Buches "Der Gotteswahn" in der breiten Öffentlichkeit auf sich aufmerksam machte. Auch in jüngerer Vergangenheit, und zwar im Jahr 2006, war Dawkins mit seinem Buch (Dawkins 2006) an einem erneuten Aufflammen einer vor allem in (...) den USA geführten Diskussion rund um die Vereinbarkeit oder Unvereinbarkeit von theologischen und evolutionstheoretischen Ansätzen beteiligt. Beim Durchblättern dieses Buches wird spätestens beim Entdecken des vierten Kapitels, das den provokanten Titel "Warum es mit ziemlicher Sicherheit keinen Gott gibt" trägt, klar, dass Dawkins damit keine Brücke zwischen Evolutionsbiologie und Schöpfungstheologie schlagen möchte. Auch Dawkins selbst hält dieses Kapitel für das wichtigste seines Buches: "This chapter has contained the central argument of my book" (cf. Dawkins 2006, p. 187). -/- Dies ist Grund genug, uns dieses Kapitel aus Dawkins' Buch näher anzusehen. Schließlich verbindet Dawkins damit hohe Ansprüche: "If the argument of this chapter is accepted, the factual premise of religion - the God Hypothesis - is untenable. God almost certainly does not exist. This is the main conclusion of the book so far" (cf. Dawkins 2006, p.189). Sein Argument, im englischen Original "main argument" (hier: "Hauptargument") genannt, verdient also genauere Betrachtung und soll in diesem Artikel wissenschaftstheoretisch beleuchtet werden. (shrink)

We characterize the model companions of universal Horn classes generated by a two-element algebra (or ordered two-element algebra). We begin by proving that given two mutually model consistent classes M and N of L (respectively L') structures, with $\mathscr{L} \subseteq \mathscr{L}'$ , M ec = N ec ∣ L , provided that an L-definability condition for the function and relation symbols of L' holds. We use this, together with Post's characterization of ISP(A), where A is a two-element algebra, to show (...) that the model companions of these classes essentially lie in the classes of posets and semilattices, or characteristic two groups and relatively complemented distributive lattices. (shrink)

This paper presents a non-reductionist framework of eight nested modes of evolution that have successively emerged to organize the reproduction of all organisms, from the blue-green algae to our societies. The processes of biological, "Darwinian," evolution are those of drift during reproduction, and of selection. The key unit of evolutionary time is the generation, and its locus is the organisms' life-cycle setup. Different life-cycle setups support different mechanisms of reproduction, and therefore different modes of evolution. By tracing the different life-cycle (...) setups attested throughout Life's History, we are able to characterize the successive modes of evolution with which they are associated. The present attempt has led to a characterization of the following eight nested modes of evolution: Basic; Reptilian; Archaic Mammalian; Progressive Mammalian; Socio-cultural; Extrasomatically Enhanced Socio-cultural; Tinkering; and finally Para-biological. These successively emerging modes govern a progressively reduced number of life-forms. The first four modes are "Darwinian" in the strict sense. The fifth, or socio-cultural mode, which governs whale and elephant societies in addition to hominoids, is already not "Darwinian" in the traditional sense. The last three modes have emerged with the genus homo, through the progressive extension of its life-cycle setups. The present framework is to be used heuristically, as a prism with which to separate the evolutionary spectrum of the constituent elements of human behavior. An example of such a behavioral evolutionary spectrum is presented in the conclusion, and is used to compare the present framework with those recently proposed by Maynard Smith and Szathmáry and by Foley. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:nook REVIEWS 689 if everyone behaves as if everyone is saved the result is a world in which God could appear and not be crucified. To be sure, there is a chance of an infinite life. Pascal believed human beings are potentially infinite--as is shown by our capacity for extending our knowledge to the infinite--but we are also potentially nothing, as is shown by the fact that the person (...) never really appears in our scientific accounts. It is through God that our infinity is to be achieved, and so betting on God is also betting on ourselves in a perfectly intelligible way. This involw~s a notion of infinity not explored in any of these essays, which makes it possible to share with God without changing the divine nature (or losing ours). This sharing is a payoff which cannot be attained by.just any act. Our lives may also be endless and possessed of positive value because they are not lived in hell, but this is icing on a cake which you are supposed to eat anyhow. Still, though Pascal might have taught the authors a thing or two, he would have found this book handy for some of its new conceptual analyses and some of its classic essays. Ian Hacking's 1972 analysis of what he takes to be three different arguments in Pascal remains a good starting point and John K. Ryan's historical article of 1945 still has useful things to say about Tillotson, whose maximization-of-utility argument really was the one many commentators have taken to be Pascal's. (But Ryan misses much of the background in the combination of scepticism and fideism in Charron and La Mothe le Vayer.) Among the others Jeff Jordan does a good job on the "many gods" objections, Richard Foley's account of pragmatic grounds for belief adds some clear insights (though his account of rationality is open to some objections), and Thomas V. Morris's account of the problems of wagering and evidence will be a handy reference point. Edward F. McClennen's account of finite decision is a necessary counterpart to Sorensen's infinity paper, and Philip L. Quinn opens some of the moral issues involved in all such wagers. Finally, George Schlesinger's assessment of the subtleties of theistic argument well repays the time spent reading it. The bibliography is useful and up-to-date. The editor would probably cheerfully admit his book's shortcomings as a work in the history of philosophy, but the volume must nevertheless have a place on the bookshelf of everyone for whom these issues are central. LESI,IE ARMOUR Universityof Ottawa G. W. Leibniz. De Summa Rerum: MetaphysicalPapers, z675-76. Translated, with an Introduction and Notes, by G. H. R. Parkinson. The Yale Leibniz. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992. Pp lxiv + 145. Cloth, $37.oo. The YaleLeib,niz, under the general editorship of Daniel Garber and Robert C. Sleigh, Jr., will provide scholarly editions of Leibniz's original texts along with an English translation on facing pages. As the general editors explain in their introduction, each volume in the series will be "a collection of texts that constitute a natural unit," each will be edited and translated by a specialist who will also contribute an introduction, and 690 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 33:4 OCTOBER i99 5 each will include writings most of which either have not been published or, if published, have not been translated. The first volume of The Yale Leibniz, edited by G. H. R. Parkinson, is a tantalizing beginning. In it, Parkinson has collected, translated, and introduced some of the most interesting papers from the Academy edition's Series VI, Vol. 3, first published in 198o. In this volume the Academy editors have placed under the title of De Summa Return those papers which Leibniz wrote between late 1675 and December 1676 and which treat problems in the philosophy of mathematics (especially those of the infinite) and in metaphysics and philosophical theology. The papers are enormously important. Toward the end of his Paris stay (which lasted from March, 1672 to October 4, 1676) and after a breakthrough in his work on... (shrink)

BackgroundIt is commonly reported by editors that it has become harder to recruit reviewers for peer review and that this is because individuals are being asked to review too often and are experiencing reviewer fatigue. However, evidence supporting these arguments is largely anecdotal.Main bodyWe examine responses of individuals to review invitations for six journals in ecology and evolution. The proportion of invitations that lead to a submitted review has been decreasing steadily over 13 years (2003–2015) for four of the six (...) journals examined, with a cumulative effect that has been quite substantial (average decline from 56% of review invitations generating a review in 2003 to just 37% in 2015). The likelihood that an invitee agrees to review declines significantly with the number of invitations they receive in a year. However, the average number of invitations being sent to prospective reviewers and the proportion of individuals being invited more than once per year has not changed much over these 13 years, despite substantial increases in the total number of review invitations being sent by these journals—the reviewer base has expanded concomitant with this growth in review requests.ConclusionsThe proportion of review invitations that lead to a review being submitted has been declining steadily for four of the six journals examined here, but reviewer fatigue is not likely the primary explanation for this decline. (shrink)

BackgroundThere is concern in the academic publishing community that it is becoming more difficult to secure reviews for peer-reviewed manuscripts, but much of this concern stems from anecdotal and rhetorical evidence.MethodsWe examined the proportion of review requests that led to a completed review over a 6-year period (2009–2015) in a mid-tier biology journal (Molecular Ecology). We also re-analyzed previously published data from four other mid-tier ecology journals (Functional Ecology, Journal of Ecology, Journal of Animal Ecology, and Journal of Applied Ecology), (...) looking at the same proportion over the period 2003 to 2010.ResultsThe data from Molecular Ecology showed no significant decrease through time in the proportion of requests that led to a review (proportion in 2009 = 0.47 (95 % CI = 0.43 to 0.52), proportion in 2015 = 0.44 (95 % CI = 0.40 to 0.48)). This proportion did decrease for three of the other ecology journals (changes in proportions from 2003 to 2010 = −0.10, −0.18, and −0.09), while the proportion for the fourth (Functional Ecology) stayed roughly constant (change in proportion = −0.04).ConclusionsOverall, our data suggest that reviewer agreement rates have probably declined slightly but not to the extent suggested by the anecdotal and rhetorical evidence. (shrink)

Leslie, E. A. Albert Cornelius Knudson, the man.--McConnell, F. J. Bowne and personalism.--Brightman, E. S. Personality as a metaphysical principle.--Hildebrand, C. D. Personalism and nature.--Ramsdell, E. T. The cultural integration of science and religion.--Ensley, F. G. The personality of God.--Harkness, G. Divine sovereignity and human freedom.--Pfeiffer, R. H. Personalistic elements in the Old Testament.--Flewelling, R. T. Personalism and the trend of history.--Muelder, W. G. Personality and Christian ethics.--King, W. J. Personalism and race.--Marlatt, E. B. Personalism and religious education.