We present a one per cent measurement of the cosmic distance scale from the detections of the baryon acoustic oscillations in the clustering of galaxies from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, which is part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III. Our results come from the Data Release 11 sample, containing nearly one million galaxies and covering approximately 8500 square degrees and the redshift range 0.2 < z < 0.7. We also compare these results with those from the publicly released (...) DR9 and DR10 samples. Assuming a concordance Λ cold dark matter cosmological model, the DR11 sample covers a volume of 13 Gpc3 and is the largest region of the Universe ever surveyed at this density. We measure the correlation function and power spectrum, including density-field reconstruction of the BAO feature. The acoustic features are detected at a significance of over 7σ in both the correlation function and power spectrum. Fitting for the position of the acoustic features measures the distance relative to the sound horizon at the drag epoch, rd, which has a value of rd,fid = 149.28 Mpc in our fiducial cosmology. We find DV = at z = 0.32 and DV = at z = 0.57. At 1.0 per cent, this latter measure is the most precise distance constraint ever obtained from a galaxy survey. Separating the clustering along and transverse to the line of sight yields measurements at z = 0.57 of DA = and H =. Our measurements of the distance scale are in good agreement with previous BAO measurements and with the predictions from cosmic microwave background data for a spatially flat CDM model with a cosmological constant. © 2014 The Author Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. (shrink)

On a souvent voulu expliquer les oeuvres par la vie de leur auteur. Ariel Suhamy fait l'inverse : il raconte ce qu'on sait de la vie de Spinoza à la lumière de sa doctrine. Son objet, c'est donc la vie humaine, la "vie véritable", celle qui ne se définit pas par la simple circulation du sang et la durée de l'existence, mais par l'intelligence de Dieu, du monde et de soi, et par les actes qui en découlent. Alors, comment (...) l'auteur de l'Éthique a-t-il vécu? Comment a-t-il mis en application sa pensée? Les mythes qui entourent cet homme, ce que l'Histoire peut reconstituer de sa vie, ne dérivent-ils pas aussi de cette pensée et de sa réception? Un livre novateur pour redécouvrir Spinoza."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Wigner time reversal implemented by antiunitary transformations on the wavefunctions is to be refined if we are to deal with systems with internal symmetry. The necessary refinements are formulated. Application to a number of physical problems is made with some unexpected revelations about some popular models.

Research Ethics Committees (RECs) are frequently a focus of complaints from researchers, but evidence about the operation and decisions of RECs tends to be anecdotal. We conducted a systematic study to identify and compare the ethical issues raised in 54 letters to researchers about the same 18 applications submitted to three RECs over one year. The most common type of ethical trouble identified in REC letters related to informed consent, followed by scientific design and conduct, care and protection of research (...) participants, confidentiality, recruitment and documentation. Community considerations were least frequently raised. There was evidence of variability in the ethical troubles identified and the remedies recommended. This analysis suggests that some principles may be more institutionalized than others, and offers some evidence of inconsistency between RECs. Inconsistency is often treated as evidence of incompetence and caprice, but a more sophisticated understanding of the role of RECs and their functioning is required. (shrink)

Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, frontline workers faced a series of challenges balancing family and work responsibilities. These challenges included making decisions about how to reduce COVID-19 exposure to their families while still carrying out their employment duties and caring for their children. We sought to understand how frontline workers made these decisions and how these decisions impacted their experiences.Methods: Between October 2020 and May 2021, we conducted 61 semi-structured interviews in English or Spanish, with individuals who continued to work (...) outside of the home during the pandemic and had children living at home. Interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using abductive methods.Results: Frontline workers experienced moral distress, the inability to act in accordance with their values and obligations because of internal or external constraints. Their moral distress was a result of the tensions they felt as workers and parents, which sometimes led them to feel like they had to compromise on either or both responsibilities. Individuals felt morally conflicted because 1) their COVID-19 work exposures presented risk that often jeopardized their family’s health; 2) their work hours often conflicted with their increased childcare responsibilities; and 3) they felt a duty to their colleagues, patients/customers, and communities to continue to show-up to work.Conclusions: Our findings point to a need to expand the concept of moral distress to include the perspectives of frontline workers outside of the healthcare professions and the fraught decisions that workers make outside of work that may impact their moral distress. Expanding the concept of moral distress also allows for a justice-based framing that can focus attention on the disparities inherent in much frontline work and can justify programmatic recommendations, like increasing paid childcare opportunities, to alleviate moral distress. (shrink)

SummaryP. Vardy asserts the thesis that the vicious circle principle has the same structure as Russell's paradox. But structure is not the thing itself. It is the thing objectivated from the wiewpoint of a mathematician. So this structure can be expressed in a mathematical formalism, e. g. the Λ‐calculus. Russell's paradox is understood as a result of the error of taking purely logical concepts, like negation, as lkiewise formalisable without change of meaning. The illusion of meaning in the liar's proposition: (...) Yl'am telling a lie can also be explained be the formalisable self‐referential structure of this proposition. Yet it remains an illusion because the logical intention cannot follow the structure.ResumeLe « Principe du cercle vicieux » a la même structure que le paradoxe de Russel: c'est une thèse de P. Várdy. Mais la structure n'est pas la chose même. Elle est la chose objectivée du point de vue du mathématicien et peut done être exprimée dans un formalisme mathématique, p. ex. le Λ‐calcul. L'erreur qui conduit au paradoxe de Russel, c'est de juger des concepts purement logique, p. ex. la négation, comme étant également exprimable dans un formalisme sans que leur sens ne change.L'illusion de sens que donne l'énoncé«je mens» dans le paradoxe du menteur peut aussi être expliquée par la structure formalisable d'autoréférence de cette proposition. Mais l'illusion persiste, parce que l'intention logique ne peut pas suivre la structure.ZusammenfassungRussells «Vicious circle principle» hat dieselbe Struktur wie die Russellsche Antinamie. So lautet die These P. Várdys. Aber die Struktur ist nicht die Sache selbst, sondern nur die vom mathematischen Standpunkte aus objektivierte Sache, die in einem Formalis‐onus ausgedrückt werden kann. Die Antinomie Russells wird Als Folge der irrigen Auffassung verstanden, rein logische Begriffe, wie z. B. die Negation, konnten formalisiert werden, ohne dass dabei ihr Sinn verwandelt würde. Die Sinnillusion des Satzes «Ich lüge» kann dann auch aus der selbstbezüglichen formalen Struktur des Satzes erklärt werden. Doch bleibt dies blosse Illusion, weil die logische Intention der Struktur nicht gerecht werden kann. (shrink)

BackgroundVarious forms of Clinical Ethics Support (CES) have been developed in health care organizations. Over the past years, increasing attention has been paid to the question of how to foster the quality of ethics support. In the Netherlands, a CES quality assessment project based on a responsive evaluation design has been implemented. CES practitioners themselves reflected upon the quality of ethics support within each other’s health care organizations. This study presents a qualitative evaluation of this Responsive Quality Assessment (RQA) project.MethodsCES (...) practitioners’ experiences with and perspectives on the RQA project were collected by means of ten semi-structured interviews. Both the data collection and the qualitative data analysis followed a stepwise approach, including continuous peer review and careful documentation of the decisions.ResultsThe main findings illustrate the relevance of the RQA with regard to fostering the quality of CES by connecting to context specific issues, such as gaining support from upper management and to solidify CES services within health care organizations. Based on their participation in the RQA, CES practitioners perceived a number of changes regarding CES in Dutch health care organizations after the RQA: acknowledgement of the relevance of CES for the quality of care; CES practices being more formalized; inspiration for developing new CES-related activities and more self-reflection on existing CES practices.ConclusionsThe evaluation of the RQA shows that this method facilitates an open learning process by actively involving CES practitioners and their concrete practices. Lessons learned include that “servant leadership” and more intensive guidance of RQA participants may help to further enhance both the critical dimension and the learning process within RQA. (shrink)