Today, more people want to know how to make a meaningful difference to what they care about. But for that, traditional approaches to learning often fall short. In this book, we offer a theoretical and practical way forward. We introduce the concept of social learning spaces for developing both new capabilities and a sense of agency. We provide a rich framework for focusing on the value of social learning spaces: how to generate this value, monitor it, and learn iteratively through (...) the process. The book is a useful extension and refinement of 'communities of practice' for those familiar with the theory. For those who are not, the chapters will lay out a new way to approach learning. This volume is written to serve the needs of readers across fields, including researchers, educators, and leaders in business, government, healthcare, and international development. (shrink)

This study constitutes a contribution to the discussion about moral reasoning in business. Kohlberg’s (1971, in Cognitive Development and Epistemology (Academic Press, New York), 1976, in Moral Development and Behavior: Theory and Research and Social Issues (Holt, Rienhart and Winston, New York)) cognitive moral development (CMD) theory is one explanation of moral reasoning. One unresolved debate on the topic of CMD is the charge that Kohlbergian-type CMD theory is gender biased. This research puts forth the proposal that the issue may (...) be elucidated by exposing an ambiguity in “gender” (Borna and White: 2003, Journal of Business Ethics 47, 89–99; Gentile: 1993, Psychological Science 4(2), 120–122; Unger: 1979, American Psychologist 34(11), 1085–1094). We use the Sociomoral Reflective Objective Measure (SROM) to measure CMD and the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) to measure gender as a psychosocial concept, rather than as a biological classification. The results of our study indicate that high femininity, measured as a psychosocial attribute, is associated with significantly lower Kohlbergian-type CMD scores among business practitioners. Sex moderates the effect of gender on CMD, but only indirectly. Our research also reveals that education plays a significant moderating role in the relationship between gender and moral reasoning. In addition, age has a significant direct effect on CMD scores of business practitioners. (shrink)

Objectives: Hospital ethics committees increasingly affect medical care worldwide, yet there has been little evaluation of these bodies. Israel has the distinction of having ethics committees legally required by a Patients' Rights Act. We studied the development of ethics committees in this legal environment.Design: Cross-sectional national survey of general hospitals to identify all ethics committees and interview of ethics committee chairpersons.Setting: Israel five years after the passage of the Patients' Rights Act.Main measurements: Patients' rights and informal ethics committee structure and (...) function.Results: One-third of general hospitals have an ethics committee, with committees concentrated in larger facilities. Hospitals without committees tended to lack any structure to handle ethics issues. Committees tend to be interdisciplinary and gender-mixed but ethnic mix was poor. Confidentiality is the rule, however, legal liability is a concern. One-third of patients' rights ethics committees never convened and most committees had considered fewer than ten consults. Access to the consultation process and the consultation process itself varied substantially across committees. Some patients' rights ethics committees attempted to solve cases, others only rendered decisions. Informal committees often refused to consider cases within Patients' Rights Act jurisdiction.Conclusions: Despite statutory requirement, many Israeli patients and clinicians do not have access to ethics committees. The scant volume of cases shows serious discrepancies between practice and Patients' Rights Act regulations, suggesting the need for education or revision of the law. Heterogeneity in committee function demonstrates need for substantial improvement. (shrink)

Marcantonio Raimondis Il Sogno and Albrecht Dürers Sea Monster share a number of compositional similarities as well as a fascination with the bizarre. The association of monstrous forms as an omen of grave misfortune, including pestilence and war, was particularly common at the beginning of the sixteenth century. In Marcantonios engraving the chimeric monsters, billowing inferno and shooting star can be perceived as a graphic warning that by 1509 Venices world was in deep peril.

Complementation and correction of a genetic defect with CNS manifestations lags behind gene therapy for inherited disorders affecting other organ systems because of shortcomings in delivery vehicles and access to the CNS. The effects of improvements in viral and nonviral vectors, coupled with the development of delivery strategies designed to transfer genetic material thoughout the CNS are being investigated by a number of laboratories in efforts to overcome these problems.

“Only about 25 percent of the employees in child-care operations around the country have had professional training in dealing with children.”—_Newsweek_ This book is a proven, practical approach to providing that training at a minimum of expense and disruption of services. Written for trainers, it may profitably be used by any individual who wants to know more about positive methods for working with children. The information provided here has been used extensively to train child-care providers throughout Illinois. Covered in detail (...) are discipline, professionalism, child and adult communication, child development, observation, assessment, play, nutrition, health and safety, parent involvement and education, child abuse, developmental care, and organization of the environment. Illinois Governor James Thompson, former DCFS Director Gregory Coler, and DCFS Director Gordon Johnson have all endorsed these materials by continuing to recommend them for day-care training in Illinois. (shrink)

This contribution to the Common Knowledge symposium on enmity argues that there is more to the problem of enmity than understanding, preventing, and resolving it: one must also recover from it and from its effects. Drawing on a psychoanalytic theory of shame that discriminates between narcissistic injuries that are enduring and those that can be overcome, this essay proposes a reading of Hester Prynne's transformation in The Scarlet Letter as a series of recognitions informed by her emotional relations to her (...) estranged husband, her lover, their daughter, and her fellow women. Nathaniel Hawthorne's heroine is condemned by her community for her adultery and suffers in silence for seven years before her shame erupts as anger at the men she had idealized and now recognizes as having betrayed her long before she deceived one of them. Only when she understands that the marriage arranged by her father to a man of his own age took advantage of her youth and legal powerlessness does she begin to redistribute blame for this sexual abuse. Refusing to serve the interests of her hated husband, she is able to forgive herself and eventually becomes a source of healing for other injured women. (shrink)

This paper provides new theoretical insights into the interconnections and relationships between women, management and globalization in the Middle East (ME). The discussion is positioned within broader globalization debates about women’s social status in ME economies. Based on case study evidence and the UN datasets, the article critiques social, cultural and economic reasons for women’s limited advancement in the public sphere. These include the prevalence of the patriarchal work contract within public and private institutions, as well as cultural and ethical (...) values which create strongly defined gender roles. The discussion examines the complexities of conceptualizing women’s equality and empowerment in Islamic states. The paper reveals that there have been significant achievements in advancing women in leadership and political roles, but that there are still institutional and cultural barriers embedded in business systems. Linking feminist, development and management theoretical strands a development framework is proposed which is sensitive to the Islamic Shar’ia encompassing government, organization and individual level strategies. It is suggested that scholars should integrate literatures from gender and management, development and Middle East studies, and in particular that critical scholars of gender and organization should consider the interrelations of the national and transnational in critiques of contemporary global capitalism to understand the complexity of women and social change in the ME. (shrink)

This discussion is grounded in Aristotelian–Thomistic realism and takes the position that nursing is a practical science. As an exposition of the title statement, distinctions are made between opinion and truth, and the speculative, productive and practical sciences. Sources of opinion and truth are described and a discussion follows that truth can be achieved through knowing principles and causes of the natural kind behind phenomena. It is proposed that humans are the natural kind behind nursing phenomena. Thus, human nature provides (...) proper principles (the truth) of nursing practice. (shrink)

We conducted a meta-analysis of 17 studies that tested for an association between grandparental survival and grandchild survival in patrilineal populations. Using two different methodologies, we found that the survival of the maternal grandmother and grandfather, but not the paternal grandmother and grandfather, was associated with decreased grandoffspring mortality. These results are consistent with the findings of psychological studies in developed countries (Coall and Hertwig Behavioral and Brain Sciences 33:1-59, 2010). When tested against the predictions of five hypotheses (confidence of (...) paternity; grandmothering, kin proximity, grandparental senescence, and local resource competition), our meta-analysis results are most in line with the local resource competition hypothesis. In patrilineal and predominantly patrilocal societies, the grandparents who are most likely to live with the grandchildren have a less beneficial association than those who do not. We consider the extent to which these results may be influenced by the methodological limitations of the source studies, including the use of retrospective designs and inadequate controls for confounding variables such as wealth. (shrink)

A careful reading of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics focusing on his treatment of politics reveals a multifaceted discipline with political science, legislation, practice and ethics. These aspects of the discipline bear clear resemblance to the multiple conceptions of nursing. The potential that nursing is a multifaceted discipline, with nursing science as just one facet challenges the author's own conception of nursing as a practical science. Aristotle's discussion would seem to argue that nursing science is nursing, but nursing is more. Nursing is (...) also ethical practice, or art, and legislative for health. The multifaceted discipline of politics is united by the end, the common good, a just community that makes human happiness possible. Reasoning in this way, nursing is unified by its end, health of individuals and communities. Since nursing is not unique in having health as its end, this discussion ends with the question of where its uniqueness lies, i.e. within the activities or the personal presence of its practitioners. This discussion also contains some of the contemporary ethical and legislative challenges with which nursing is confronted. (shrink)

Dans cet article, nous décrivons un schéma et des modèles de représentation développés pour structurer les corpus de communication médiée par ordinateur (CMC) en suivant les recommandations de la Text Encoding Initiative (TEI). Nous considérons le discours CMC comme un échange dialogique entre humains, organisé de manière séquentielle. Nous insistons d’abord sur le fait que de nombreuses caractéristiques de la CMC ne sont pas traitées de manière adéquate par les schémas et les outils actuels d’encodage de corpus. Nous formulons donc (...) un ensemble de recommandations pour représenter la CMC avec des schémas d’encodage, en insistant sur le fait que la TEI nous semble être un cadre particulièrement approprié pour l’encodage des corpus CMC. Nous proposons une modélisation des unités de base de la CMC (énoncés, messages et actions non verbales) ainsi que des structures de niveaux macro- et micro des interactions dans les environnements de la CMC. À partir de ces modèles, nous introduisons le CMC-core, un noyau TEI pour l’encodage des corpus CMC, qui définit un ensemble de traits d’encodage spécifiques à la CMC sur quatre niveaux: (i) éléments, (ii) classes de modèles, (iii) classes d'attributs et (iv) modules de l'infrastructure TEI. La description du noyau proposé est illustrée au moyen d’exemples extraits des corpus des chercheurs du groupe SIG TEI CMC, représentant une grande variété de genres de la CMC (le chat, le wiki talk, le tweet, le blog, les interactions Second Life…). Le matériel décrit, i.e. les schémas, les exemples d’encodage et la documentation, est disponible sur le Wiki du SIG CMC TEI et accompagnera une demande d’enrichissement de la TEI (TEI feature request) au conseil de la TEI à la fin de l’année 2019. (shrink)

A History of Chinese Letters and Epistolary Culture. Edited by Antje Richter. Handbuch der Orientalistik, vol. IV.31. Leiden: Brill, 2015. Pp. xx + 978. €231, $299.

Cet article propose une analyse croisée du discours médical sur la masturbation et sur la lecture en France au XVIIIe siècle. Son but est d’interroger la construction de la définition « naturalisante » des qualités attribuées à l’un et l’autre sexe. A partir de traités physiologiques sur les maladies des femmes, la réflexion porte sur trois points principaux. Pourquoi la lecture et la masturbation sont-ils devenus des problèmes médicaux? Comment un médecin neutralise-t-il le danger, pour une femme, de lire un (...) traité sur un sujet tel que la masturbation? Comment le discours sur la lecture et la masturbation fonctionne-t-il comme système discriminant entre les sexes? (shrink)

Inattentional blindness is described as the failure to perceive a supra-threshold stimulus when attention is directed away from that stimulus. Based on performance on an explicit recognition memory test and concurrent functional imaging data Rees, Russell, Frith, and Driver [Rees, G., Russell, C., Frith, C. D., & Driver, J. . Inattentional blindness versus inattentional amnesia for fixated but ignored words. Science, 286, 2504–2507] reported inattentional blindness for word stimuli that were fixated but ignored. The present study examined both explicit and (...) implicit memory for fixated but ignored words using a selective-attention task in which overlapping picture/word stimuli were presented at fixation. No explicit awareness of the unattended words was apparent on a recognition memory test. Analysis of an implicit memory task, however, indicated that unattended words were perceived at a perceptual level. Thus, the selective-attention task did not result in perfect filtering as suggested by Rees et al. While there was no evidence of conscious perception, subjects were not blind to the implicit perceptual properties of fixated but ignored words. (shrink)

These essays by some of the most prominent figures in linguistics, artificial intelligence, and psychology explore the problems involved in creating a general cognitive science that will treat language, thought, and behavior in an integrated fashion. They address the fundamental questions of the relations between linguistic structures and cognitive processes, between cognitive processes and language behavior, and between language behavior and linguistic structure. Contents: Introduction, Thomas G. Bever (Columbia University), John M. Carroll and Lance A. Miller (IBM Thomas J. Watson (...) Research Center). "Philosophy and "Linguistics: An Outline of Platonist Grammar, Jerrold J. Katz (CUNY). Sense and Reference in a Psychologically Based Semantics, Ray Jackendoff (Brandeis University). Some Thoughts on the Boundaries and Components of Linguistics, Charles J. Fillmore (University of California, Berkeley). Psychology: Approaches to the Study of the Psychology of Language, Walter Kintsch (University of Colorado). Toward An Abstract Performance Grammar, Charles E. Osgood (University of Illinois). Upgrading a Mind, David Premack (University of Pennsylvania). Computational "Models: "Memory, Meaning, and Syntax, Roger Schank (Yale University) and Lawrence Birnbaum (Yale University). Some Inadequate Theories of Human Language Processing, Mitchell P. Marcus (AT&T Bell Laboratories). (shrink)

In discussing the effects of grandparents on child survival in natural fertility populations, Coall & Hertwig (C&H) rely extensively on the review by Sear and Mace (2008). We conducted a more detailed summary of the same literature and found that the evidence in favor of beneficial associations between grandparenting and child survival is generally weak or absent. The present state of the data on human alloparenting supports a more restricted use of the term Human stem family situations with celibate helpers-at-the-nest (...) can be described as cooperatively breeding, but the term is a poor fit to many human family systems. (shrink)

In 2015, in preparation for implementation of the California End of Life Option Act, the UCLA Workgroup dedicated scores of hours to exploring the ethical underpinnings of aid-in-dying and the guid...

All scientific activity involves some method of observation and some method of recording what is observed. These activities can be carried out in ways that involve little interaction between subject and object, as is the case when a telescope observes a far-away star. At the other end of the scale are experiments in modern high energy physics in which there is little distinction between the observer and the observed, and the process of observation materially affects the data that are recorded. (...) In this regard, research on human phenomena resembles modern physics more than it does classical astronomy.Research on human phenomena, however, differs from modern physics in the way in which it affects that which is observed. Both the procedures and the findings of research on human phenomena alter the modes of thinking and the self-awareness of the objects of study. (shrink)

The speed and degree to which e- commerce is infiltrating the very fabric of our society, faster and more pervasively than any other entity in history, makes an examination of its ethical dimensions critical. Though ethical lag has heretofore hindered ourexplorations of e- commerce ethics, it is now time to identify and confront them. In this paper we define e- commerce and describe thecharacteristics that set it apart from traditional brick and-mortar business. We then examine the ethical foundation of e- (...) commerce, focusing on the question, “Is there a special e- commerce ethics?” Our answer is “no.” We support our answer by showing that the current issues in e- commerce ethics and brick-and-mortar business are fundamentally the same, but that e- commerce issues have different manifestations and scope. We then demonstrate that ethical principles and rules in e- commerce and brick-and-mortar business are fundamentally the same, but have different manifestations at the most specific level. We elucidate this point by discussing the use of personal information and the opt-in, opt-out debate. We conclude with a call for research on trust, a key value in the success of e- commerce. (shrink)

Preparing to lecture on Aristotle's contribution to Nursing at the International Philosophy of Nursing Conference August 22, 2016, in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada, I came upon the recently published article by my IPONS colleague, Allmark (2016), “Aristotle for Nursing.” Allmark (2016) provides a comprehensive and understandable overview of Aristotle's philosophical system including the substantial nature of being and the four causes of change. Nurses using Aristotle to support practice and theoretical research will benefit from a careful reading of Allmark to (...) enrich their use of the realist understanding of knowledge of nature (epistemology) and the matter–form causal relationships within natural being (ontology and teleology). Allmark carefully displays the distinction between good health and flourishing; a distinction sometimes hard to grasp. Nurses are concerned with the end of health, but cannot achieve for others, the fullness of living which is flourishing.We will limit ourselves to expanding three areas that seem important, first, that nursing is much more than a productive science or craft, second, that Aristotle does provide an important note on the persistence of the soul, and, third, while Aristotle does not address the possibility of a personal creative highest being as Allmark says, his references to the divine are worth considering. (shrink)

This essay presents an analysis in the area of the theory of human action. Philosophers and pschologists are interested in theories of action because action defines those behaviors that are under our control as opposed to behaviors that in some sense just happen. In its wider context, a theory of action has implications for legal reasoning or moral reasoning. Throughout the history of this topic, one of the leading theories of action has been the volitional theory. Volition, in its simplest (...) sense, refers to an act of will. In this essay, I evaluate the work of Carl Ginet, who is one of the leading modern advocates of the Volitional theory of action. I argue below that Ginet's sophisticated volitional theory of action suffers from certain internal problems that result from Ginet's project of removing causal relations from his account of action. Ultimately, I argue that when he does this, Ginet reduces the theoretical resources for explaning how volition is connected to both overt behavior and to the agent. Furthermore, I belive that elucidating such problems is valuable just because this process reveals why we should focus our efforts upon a leading alternative to the volitional theory, namely the belief/desire theory of action. In the way, my analysis of Ginet reveals the strengths of an externalist rather than an internalist approach to the problem of action. (shrink)

This article analyzes through a linguistic lens three official documents of the Roman Catholic Church on women’s ordination; it also identifies various discursive tactics utilized by text creators to reinforce gender hierarchy within the Church. Drawing from Fairclough’s three dimensional discourse framework, we examine the ideological message embedded in the linguistic features and the role each text plays within a matrix of power relations. Through close readings of Inter Insigniores: On the Question of Admission of Women to the Ministerial Priesthood, (...) Ordinatio Sacerdotalis of John Paul II, and Women and the Priesthood, we demonstrate how discourse analysis can serve as a useful tool for identifying logical fallacies, inconsistencies, dilemmas, and manipulative tactics in religious discourses. (shrink)