"This book explores the role of photography and media in transforming sports from a casual leisure activity into a spectacle of mass participation. It catalogs photography and other media exhibited at "The Sports Show" - an exhibit held at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, February 19 through May 13, 2012"--.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to inform or alert readers to the extensive use and ready availability of genetic information that poses varying degrees of social and legal danger. The eugenics movement of the 1920s and the general acceptance of genetic essentialism provide context for considering contemporary examples of the problem. Design/methodology/approach This paper takes an argumentative approach, supporting proposals with ideas from historical and current research literature. Findings The limits of data protection, extensive use of direct-to-consumer genetic (...) testing and use of genetic information in white nationalist circles portend a resurgence of eugenic beliefs from a century ago. Social implications Research-based recommendations may help to avoid extreme consequences by encouraging people to make informed decisions about the use of genetic information. Originality/value The paper counterposes contemporary understanding of genetic testing and data accessibility with the much older ideology of eugenics, leading to concerns about how white nationalists might further their aims with 21st century technology. (shrink)

A collection of personal narratives and essays, Living Professionalism is designed to help medical students and residents understand and internalize various aspects of professionalism. These essays are meant for personal reflection and above all, for thoughtful discussion with mentors, with peers, with others throughout the health care provider community who care about acting professionally.

INTRODUCTION Linguists who work within the tradition of transformational generative grammar tend to regard semantics as an intractable, perhaps ultimately ...

This essay presents and analyzes the recent work of four prominent contemporary Jewish ethicists: Eugene Borowitz, David Novak, Byron Sherwin, and Walter Wurzburger. These authors are united in their affirmation of covenant as the central category of Jewish moral obligation and their concern to construct a Jewish ethic out of the classical sources of Judaism. Yet, as an individual analysis of their books will show, they adopt markedly different views of the authority of traditional Jewish law , the (...) respective roles of individual and community in moral deliberation, and the degree to which changing historical circumstances alter moral truths. (shrink)

This article presents a new framework for unobtrusive observation analytics of knowledge and skills-in-action through continuous collection of data from individuals while they interact with digital assets either as individuals or on problem-solving teams. The framework includes measures of the skill and knowledge areas of collaboration, creativity, personal learning, problem solving, and global sustainability, which are observed during natural production and use of communications, intentional artifacts, and resources in a digital learning space designed for self-directed and team-based learning challenges. The (...) article describes the digital context for data collection and shows some example data and analyses. (shrink)

While prior research suggests a link between mindfulness and ethical decision-making, most of the evidence for this link is correlational and refers to self-focused ethical behaviors. The paucity of experimental evidence, coupled with a lack of clarity on what mechanisms underlie the effect, limits our understanding of whether and how mindfulness might foster other-focused ethical behaviors. In this research, we hypothesize that state mindfulness might promote other-focused ethical behaviors by increasing resourcefulness, which we define as a perceived state of resource (...) abundance. Across four experimental studies, we report causal evidence for the effects of state mindfulness instantiated through brief mindful meditation exercises on other-focused ethical behaviors, including choice of fair-trade products, charitable giving, and volunteering. Resourcefulness mediates the effects of mindfulness on other-focused ethical behaviors. Our work answers the call for more experimental research on mindfulness and its important implications for ethical decision-making. (shrink)

We have synthesized a 582,970-base pair Mycoplasma genitalium genome. This synthetic genome, named M. genitalium JCVI-1.0, contains all the genes of wild-type M. genitalium G37 except MG408, which was disrupted by an antibiotic marker to block pathogenicity and to allow for selection. To identify the genome as synthetic, we inserted "watermarks" at intergenic sites known to tolerate transposon insertions. Overlapping "cassettes" of 5 to 7 kilobases (kb), assembled from chemically synthesized oligonucleotides, were joined by in vitro recombination to produce intermediate (...) assemblies of approximately 24 kb, 72 kb ("1/8 genome"), and 144 kb ("1/4 genome"), which were all cloned as bacterial artificial chromosomes in Escherichia coli. Most of these intermediate clones were sequenced, and clones of all four 1/4 genomes with the correct sequence were identified. The complete synthetic genome was assembled by transformation-associated recombination cloning in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, then isolated and sequenced. A clone with the correct sequence was identified. The methods described here will be generally useful for constructing large DNA molecules from chemically synthesized pieces and also from combinations of natural and synthetic DNA segments. 10.1126/science.1151721. (shrink)

While environmental claims are increasingly used by companies to appeal consumers, they also attract greater scrutiny from independent parties interested in consumer protection. Consumers are now able to compare corporate environmental claims against external, often disconfirming, information to form their brand attitudes and purchase intentions. What remains unclear is how the level of information specificity of both the environmental claims and external disconfirming information interact to influence consumer reactions. Two experiments address this gap in the CSR communication literature. When specific (...) claims are countered by specific external information, consumers report more negative brand attitudes and lower purchase intentions. The effect is serially mediated by skepticism toward the claims and lack of corporate credibility. We conclude by discussing strategies that firms can utilize to avoid information dilution and ensure that external disconfirming information percolates to consumers as specific. (shrink)

Abstract:In this article, postmodernism is presented as posing a challenge to the role of philosophy within bioethics. It is argued that any attempt to develop a postmodern bioethics must respond to arguments concerning power, relational responsibility, and violence. Contemporary work on the topic of relational autonomy and naturalized bioethics is interpreted as engaging with the postmodern challenge. This article proposes that the role of philosophy in bioethics should be not to provide moral guidance but rather to adopt a critical approach (...) to the possible consequences of privileging any position or understanding over others. (shrink)

This book taps the best American thinkers to answer the essential American question: How do we sustain our experiment in government of, by, and for the people? Authored by an extraordinary and politically diverse roster of public officials, scholars, and educators, these chapters describe our nation's civic education problem, assess its causes, offer an agenda for reform, and explain the high stakes at risk if we fail.

As the expansion of the Internet and the digital formatting of all kinds of creative works move us further into the information age, intellectual property issues have become paramount. Computer programs costing thousands of research dollars are now copied in an instant. People who would recoil at the thought of stealing cars, computers, or VCRs regularly steal software or copy their favorite music from a friend's CD. Since the Web has no national boundaries, these issues are international concerns. The contributors-philosophers, (...) legal theorists, and business scholars, among others-address questions such as: Can abstract ideas be owned? How does the violation of intellectual property rights compare to the violation of physical property rights? Can computer software and other digital information be protected? And how should legal systems accommodate the ownership of intellectual property in an information age? Intellectual Property is a lively examination of these and other issues, and an invaluable resource for librarians, lawyers, businesspeople, and scholars. (shrink)

An introduction to the Death Scene issue of Cultural Studies Review, with reflections on the nature of the death scene in general and on the specific issues covered by contributors.

Measuring neuronal activity with electrophysiological methods may be useful in detecting neurological dysfunctions, such as mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI). This approach may be particularly valuable for rapid detection in at-risk populations including military service members and athletes. Electrophysiological methods, such as quantitative electroencephalography (qEEG) and recording event-related potentials (ERPs) may be promising; however, the field is nascent and significant controversy exists on the efficacy and accuracy of the approaches as diagnostic tools. For example, the specific measures derived from an (...) electroencephalogram (EEG) that are most suitable as markers of dysfunction have not been clearly established. A study was conducted to summarize and evaluate the statistical rigor of evidence on the overall utility of qEEG as an mTBI detection tool. The analysis evaluated qEEG measures/parameters that may be most suitable as fieldable diagnostic tools, identified other types of EEG measures and analysis methods of promise, recommended specific measures and analysis methods for further development as mTBI detection tools, identified research gaps in the field, and recommended future research and development thrust areas. The qEEG study group formed the following conclusions: 1. Individual qEEG measures provide limited diagnostic utility for mTBI. However, many measures can be important features of qEEG discriminant functions, which do show significant promise as mTBI detection tools. 2. ERPs offer utility in mTBI detection. In fact, evidence indicates that ERPs can identify abnormalities in cases where EEGs alone are nondisclosing. 3. The standard mathematical procedures used in the characterization of mTBI EEGs should be expanded to incorporate newer methods of analysis including nonlinear dynamical analysis, complexity measures, analysis of causal interactions, graph theory and information dynamics. 4. and 5. are too long to include here. (shrink)

Jurors customarily do their work with very little by way of instruction from the court, other than about the law. This suggests that they enter the jury room with the relevant cognitive and interactional tools at the ready, drawn from everyday life. This paper focuses on a specific conversational device jurors use to do their work: conditional-contrastive inculpations, whereby the defendant’s actions are compared unfavorably to what a normal, innocent person would have done, with the implication that the discrepancy indicates (...) guilt. We examine the logic, variants, sequential precursors, and immediate consequences of this phenomenon in two real-life American criminal juries deliberating the same charges. This study offers a rare glimpse into the operation of real juries, and specifically the way in which they appropriate a practice from ordinary conversation in order to perform the unordinary work demanded of them by the legal system. (shrink)

Throughout the biological and biomedical sciences there is a growing need for, prescriptive ‘minimum information’ (MI) checklists specifying the key information to include when reporting experimental results are beginning to find favor with experimentalists, analysts, publishers and funders alike. Such checklists aim to ensure that methods, data, analyses and results are described to a level sufficient to support the unambiguous interpretation, sophisticated search, reanalysis and experimental corroboration and reuse of data sets, facilitating the extraction of maximum value from data sets (...) them. However, such ‘minimum information’ MI checklists are usually developed independently by groups working within representatives of particular biologically- or technologically-delineated domains. Consequently, an overview of the full range of checklists can be difficult to establish without intensive searching, and even tracking thetheir individual evolution of single checklists may be a non-trivial exercise. Checklists are also inevitably partially redundant when measured one against another, and where they overlap is far from straightforward. Furthermore, conflicts in scope and arbitrary decisions on wording and sub-structuring make integration difficult. This presents inhibit their use in combination. Overall, these issues present significant difficulties for the users of checklists, especially those in areas such as systems biology, who routinely combine information from multiple biological domains and technology platforms. To address all of the above, we present MIBBI (Minimum Information for Biological and Biomedical Investigations); a web-based communal resource for such checklists, designed to act as a ‘one-stop shop’ for those exploring the range of extant checklist projects, and to foster collaborative, integrative development and ultimately promote gradual integration of checklists. (shrink)

Special relativity insists that the speed of light in a vacuum is constant for all inertial observers. This is often said to be counterintuitive: why should light alone, among all things in the world, return the same speed value to all inertial observers, regardless of their different states of motion? I argue that this question or puzzle arises because physics misconstrues light by characterizing it as a freestanding phenomenon. As James Gibson insisted, and as any analysis of the visual (...) experience makes plain, light, the agency of sight, cannot be overtaken by sight. A better characterization of light is Gibson's optic array, which prompts the realization that our prior complicity with light keeps us from getting leverage on it as a freestanding phenomenon, and this is why it returns the same speed value to all observers. To show the limitation of freestanding light, I offer two derivations of relativistic time dilation. The first imagines freestanding light and then, to complete the derivation, artificially requires light speed constancy; the second achieves the same result in a fully natural way?that is, without putting observers in an abstract, arguably impossible, situation?by merely attending to the seeing experience. (shrink)

Negative eugenics, purposive practices to eliminate some trait from our progeny, is a topic that commands discussion today. We have had the ability to practice negative eugenics for many years, perhaps for our entire history in one form or another, but today we have many options, several quite scientifically sophisticated, for such practices. What concerns me is that the easier is becomes to practice negative eugenics, the greater is the need for some consistent criterion of what makes a given trait (...) properly erasable. In this paper, I will argue that there is a need for a criterion of what makes a given trait properly a candidate for elimination through programs and practices of negative eugenics. I will begin by presenting the problem, then will proceed to explore the topic through a series of three questions: First, can we engage in programs of negative eugenics? Second, should we engage in any such programs? Third, which programs should we practice, and how should they be practiced? The paper will conclude with my own suggested criteria. (shrink)

In this thorough compendium, nineteen accomplished scholars explore, in some manner the values they find inherent in the world, their nature, and revelence through the thought of Frederick FerrZ. These essays, informed by the insights of FerrZ and coming from manifold perspectives—ethics, philosophy, theology, and environmental studies, advance an ambitious challenge to current intellectual and scholarly fashions.