Environment and Social Theory provides a concise introduction to the relationship between the environment and social theory, both historically and within contemporary social theory.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Triangular Landscapes: Environment, Society, and the State in the Nile Delta under Roman Rule by Katherine BlouinBrendan HaugKatherine Blouin. Triangular Landscapes: Environment, Society, and the State in the Nile Delta under Roman Rule. London and New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. xxvi + 429 pp. 14 halftones, 28 tables, 5 maps. Cloth, $150.00.American journalist Hal Boyle is often said to have remarked, “What makes a river (...) so restful to people is that it doesn’t have any doubt—it is sure to get where it is going and it doesn’t want to go anywhere else.” Restful, perhaps. But the single-mindedness of a river’s flow can also be a source of anxiety. In contemporary America, the Lower Mississippi’s steady westward shift is a prominent example. Were its floodgates removed and the river allowed to “get where it is going,” it would soon abandon the cities of Baton Rouge and New Orleans, decimating their port-dependent economies.An awareness of such fluvial hazards has percolated into the study of ancient history over the last decade and a half, and works on the ancient Mediterranean’s riverine environments have been appearing with frequency. As in ancient environmental [End Page 528] history more broadly, Francophone scholars have led the way; Philippe Leveau’s work on the Rhône and the multiple colloquia spearheaded by Ella Hermon are particularly notable (e.g., Philippe Leveau, ed. “Le Rhône romain,” Gallia 56 [1999]; Ella Hermon, ed. Riparia dans l’Empire romain [2010]). On the Anglophone side, Gregory Aldrete’s Floods of the Tiber in Ancient Rome 2007, Peter Thonemann’s The Maeander Valley 2011, and Brian Campbell’s Rivers and the Power of Ancient Rome 2012 are essential.Katherine Blouin’s new study of the Mendesian nome (administrative division) in Egypt’s northeastern Nile Delta unites these twin streams. The book, an updated version of a French dissertation supervised by Hermon, focuses on the changing course and eventual extinction of the Nile’s Mendesian branch, documenting the effects of a shifting fluvial landscape, environmental stressors, and Roman agro-fiscal policy on the society and economy of the Delta during the first few centuries c.e. By merging Francophone scholarship on rivers, theoretical perspectives drawn from American environmental history, and a thorough command of the papyrological evidence, Blouin has made a significant contribution to the emerging field of ancient environmental history.In her introduction, Blouin grounds herself in what Hermon dubs “l’approche écosystémique” to environmental history. Casting aside environmental determinism and lachrymose tales of pristine nature violated (“l’approche égologique”), ecosystems thinking characterizes environments as “dynamic, multidimensional entities made up of a complex amalgam of continuities and ruptures” (7). While humanity is regarded as a constituent element of the natural world, human beings nonetheless possess the ability to adapt natural phenomena in significant ways. Thus, nature’s impacts upon society are never predetermined, for they are always mediated by human decision-making at multiple levels.The rest of the book is divided into four thematic sections. Part I situates the reader within the geomorphological and hydrological contexts of the Mendesian nome and reviews the surviving evidence. Parts II and III reconstruct the landscape and investigate agricultural diversification. Part IV offers environmental perspectives on a fiscal crisis in the late second century c.e. and the famous revolt of the Boukoloi.Synthesizing previous geomorphological and archaeological scholarship, chapter 1 traces the evolution of the Nile Delta from at least seven major branches to the modern two—the Rosetta and Damietta—by the early Arab period, a process significantly abetted by large-scale canalization projects (35). (See also John P. Cooper, The Medieval Nile [2014], who carries the story forward.)In chapter 2, Blouin surveys the archaeological and papyrological evidence for the Mendesian nome. Although excavations at its two ancient metropoleis of Mendes (Tell al-Rub’a) and Thmuis (Tell al-Timai) are ongoing—the latter partly under Blouin’s own direction—their evidence is secondary to her arguments, which depend primarily upon the papyri. This corpus is comprised of some ninety texts spanning the fourth century b.c.e. to the sixth century c.e., the majority... (shrink)

Anthropology is a disciplined inquiry into the conditions and potentials of human life. Generations of theorists, however, have expunged life from their accounts, treating it as the mere output of patterns, codes, structures or systems variously defined as genetic or cultural, natural or social. Building on his classic work The Perception of the Environment, Tim Ingold sets out to restore life to where it should belong, at the heart of anthropological concern. Being Alive ranges over such themes as (...) the vitality of materials, what it means to make things, the perception and formation of the ground, the mingling of earth and sky in the weather-world, the experiences of light, sound and feeling, the role of storytelling in the integration of knowledge, and the potential of drawing to unite observation and description. Our humanity, Ingold argues, does not come ready-made but is continually fashioned in our movements along ways of life. Starting from the idea of life as a process of wayfaring, Ingold presents a radically new understanding of movement, knowledge and description as dimensions not just of being in the world, but of being alive to what is going on there. (shrink)

From climate change to fossil fuel dependency, from the uneven effects of natural disasters to the loss of biodiversity: complex socio-environmental problems indicate the urgency for cross-disciplinary research into the ways in which the social, the natural and the technological are ever more entangled. This ground breaking text moves between environmental sociology and environmental geography, political and social ecology and critical design studies to provide a definitive mapping of the state of environmental social theory in the age of the anthropocene. (...) Environments, Natures and Social Theory provokes dialogue and confrontation between critical political economists, actor network theorists, neo-Malthusians and environmental justice advocates. It maps out the new environmental politics of hybridity moving from hybrid neo-liberals to end times ecologists, from post environmentalists to cyborg eco-socialists. White, Rudy and Gareau insist on the necessity of a critical but optimistic hybrid politics, arguing that a more just, egalitarian, democratic and sustainable anthropocene is within our grasp. This will only be brought into being, however, by reclaiming, celebrating and channeling the reconstructive potential of entangled hybrid humans as inventive hominids, creative gardeners, critical publics and political agents. Written in an accessible style, Environments, Natures and Social Theory is an essential resource for undergraduate and postgraduate students across the social sciences. (shrink)

How do we understand the agency and significance of material forces and their interface with human bodies? What does it mean to be human in these times, with bodies that are inextricably interconnected with our physical world? Bodily Natures considers these questions by grappling with powerful and pervasive material forces and their increasingly harmful effects on the human body. Drawing on feminist theory, environmental studies, and the sciences, Stacy Alaimo focuses on trans-corporeality, or movement across bodies and (...) nature, which has profoundly altered our sense of self. By looking at a broad range of creative and philosophical writings, Alaimo illuminates how science, politics, and culture collide, while considering the closeness of the human body to the environment. (shrink)

Virtue ethics is now widely recognized as an alternative to Kantian and consequentialist ethical theories. However, moral philosophers have been slow to bring virtue ethics to bear on topics in applied ethics. Moreover, environmental virtue ethics is an underdeveloped area of environmental ethics. Although environmental ethicists often employ virtue-oriented evaluation (such as respect, care, and love for nature) and appeal to role models (such as Henry Thoreau, Aldo Leopold, and Rachel Carson) for guidance, environmental ethics has not been well informed (...) by contemporary work on virtue ethics. With _Character and Environment_, Ronald Sandler remedies each of these deficiencies by bringing together contemporary work on virtue ethics with contemporary work on environmental ethics. He demonstrates the many ways that any ethic of character can and should be informed by environmental considerations. He also develops a pluralistic virtue-oriented environmental ethic that accommodates the richness and complexity of our relationship with the natural environment and provides effective and nuanced guidance on environmental issues. These projects have implications not only for environmental ethics and virtue ethics but also for moral philosophy more broadly. Ethical theories must be assessed on their theoretical and practical adequacy with respect to all aspects of the human ethical situation: personal, interpersonal, and environmental. To the extent that virtue-oriented ethical theory in general, and Sandler's version of it in particular, provides a superior environmental ethic to other ethical theories, it is to be preferred not just as an environmental ethic but also as an ethical theory. _Character and Environment_ will engage any reader with an interest in environmental ethics, virtue ethics, or moral philosophy. (shrink)

Health policy frameworks usually construe environmental protection and human health as harmonious values. Policies that protect the environment, such as pollution control and pesticide regulation, also benefit human health. In recent years, however, it has become apparent that promoting human health sometimes undermines environmental protection. Some actions, policies, or technologies that reduce human morbidity, mortality, and disease can have detrimental effects on the environment. Since human health and environmental protection are sometimes at odds, (...) political leaders, citizens, and government officials need a way to mediate and resolve conflicts between these values. Unfortunately, few approaches to applied bioethics have the conceptual tools to do accomplish this task. Theories of health care ethics have little to say about the environment, and theories of environmental ethics don’t say much about human health. In this essay, I defend an approach to ethical decision-making that gives policy-makers some tools for balancing promotion of human health and protection of the environment. (shrink)

Niche construction theory (NCT) can be applied to examine the influence of culturally constructed learning environments on the acquisition and retention of beliefs, values, role expectations, and skills. Thus, NCT provides a quantitative framework to account for cultural-historical contingency affecting development and cultural evolution. Learning in a culturally constructed environment is of central concern to many sociologists, cognitive scientists, and sociocultural anthropologists, albeit often from different perspectives. This article summarizes four pertinent theories from these fields—situated learning, activity theory, practice (...) theory, and distributed cognition. As a basis for interdisciplinary investigation, the article considers how these theories may be addressed using a cultural niche-construction framework, including the utility of an embedded model that explicitly accounts for effects of the constructed learning environment on within-individual learning dynamics in an evolutionary framework. (shrink)

In Human Well-Being and the Natural Environment, Partha Dasgupta explores ways to measure the quality of life. In developing quality-of-life indices, he pays particular attention to the natural environment, illustrating how it can be incorporated, more generally, into economic reasoning in a seamless manner. Professor Dasgupta puts the theory that he develops to use in extended commentaries on the economics of population, poverty traps, global warming, structural adjustment programmes, and free trade, particularly in relation to poor countries. (...) The result is a treatise that goes beyond quality-of-life measures and offers a comprehensive account of the newly emergent subject of ecological economics. (shrink)

In public debates, agricultural biotechnology is almost invariably discussed as a potential threat to the environment and to human health. Without downplaying the risks associated with this technology we emphasize that if properly regulated, it can be a forceful tool to solve environmental problems and promote human health. Agricultural biotechnology can reduce environmental problems in at least three ways: it can diminish the need for environmentally damaging agricultural practices such as pesticides, fertilizers, tillage, and irrigation. It can (...) reduce the land area needed for agriculture, thus reducing the CO2 effect of agriculture and improving biodiversity. It can produce energy in a CO2-neutral way (especially if new technologies involving the cultivation of microalgae become successful). Furthermore, agricultural biotechnology can have positive effects on human health by decreasing occupational and dietary exposure to pesticides, improving the nutritional value of food, and producing pharmaceuticals more efficiently. We argue that those who wish to give high priority to environmental goals cannot afford any longer to be mere onlookers while others decide the future directions of agricultural biotechnology. (shrink)

The definitions and conceptualizations of health, and the management of healthcare have been challenged by the current global scenarios (e.g., new diseases, new geographical distribution of diseases, effects of climate change on health, etc.) and by the ongoing scholarship in humanities and science. In this paper we question the mainstream definition of health adopted by the WHO—‘a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity’ (WHO in Preamble to the constitution of (...) the World Health Organization as adopted by the international health conference, The World Health Organization, 1948)—and its role in providing tools to understand what health is in the contemporary context. More specifically, we argue that this context requires to take into account the role of the environment both in medical theory and in the healthcare practice. To do so, we analyse WHO documents dated 1984 and 1986 which define health as ‘coping with the environment’. We develop the idea of ‘coping with the environment’, by focusing on two cardinal concepts: adaptation in public health and adaptivity in philosophy of biology. We argue that the notions of adaptation and adaptivity can be of major benefit for the characterization of health, and have practical implications. We explore some of these implications by discussing two recent case studies of adaptivity in public health, which can be valuable to further develop adaptive strategies in the current pandemic scenario: community-centred care and microbiologically healthier buildings. (shrink)

The majority of the world’s population now lives an urban existence, spending as much as 95% of their lives indoors. The olfactory atmosphere in the built environment has been shown to exert a profound, if often unrecognized, influence over our mood and well-being. While the traditionally malodorous stench to be found indoors (i.e., prior to the invention of modern sanitation) has largely been eliminated in recent centuries, many of the outbreaks of sick-building syndrome that have been reported over the (...) last half century have been linked to the presence of a strange smell in the environment. At the same time, however, there is also growing evidence that consumer behavior can be manipulated by the presence of pleasant ambient odors, while various aromatherapy scents are said to improve our mood and well-being. This Anglophone review focuses primarily on indoor western urban developed spaces. Importantly, the olfactory ambience constitutes but one component of the multisensory atmosphere and ambient odors interact with the visual, auditory, and haptic aspects of the built environment. Surprisingly, the majority of published studies that have deliberately chosen to combine ambient scent with other sensory interventions, such as, for example, music, have failed to increase store sales, or to enhance people’s mood and/or well-being, as might have been expected. Such negative findings therefore stress the importance of considering multisensory congruency while, at the same time, also highlighting the potential dangers that may be associated with sensory overload when thinking about the effect of ambient smell on our well-being. (shrink)

In Human Well-Being and the Natural Environment, Partha Dasgupta explores ways to measure the quality of life. In developing quality-of-life indices, he pays particular attention to the natural environment, illustrating how it can be incorporated, more generally, into economic reasoning in a seamless manner. Professor Dasgupta puts the theory that he develops to use in extended commentaries on the economics of population, poverty traps, global warming, structural adjustment programmes, and free trade, particularly in relation to poor countries. (...) The result is a treatise that goes beyond quality-of-life measures and offers a comprehensive account of the newly emergent subject of ecological economics.With the publication of this new paperback edition, Professor Dasgupta has taken the opportunity to update and revise his text in a number of ways, including developments to facilitate its current use on a number of gradate courses in environmental and resource economics. The treatment of the welfare economics of imperfect economies has been developed using new findings, and the Appendix has been expanded to include applications of the theory to a number of institutions, and to develop approximate formulae for estimating the value of environmental natural resources. (shrink)

How have sociologists responded to the emergence of environmentalism? What has sociology to offer the study of environmental problems? This uniquely comprehensive guide traces the origins and development of environmental movements and environmental issues, providing a critical review of the most significant debates in the new field of environmental sociology. It covers environmental ideas, environmental movements, social constructionism, critical realism, "ecocentric" theory, environmental identities, risk society theory, sustainable development, Green consumerism, ecological modernization and debates around modernity and post- modernity. Philip (...) Sutton adopts a long-term view, which focuses on the relationship between ideas of nature and environment, ecological identities and social change, providing a framework for future research. Bringing environmental issues into contact with sociological theories, Nature, Environment and Society provides an up-to-date introduction to this important new field. It will be essential reading for all students of sociology, environmental studies and anyone interested in understanding environmental problems. (shrink)

Long before the origins of agriculture human ancestors had expanded across the globe into an immense variety of environments, from Australian deserts to Siberian tundra. Survival in these environments did not principally depend on genetic adaptations, but instead on evolved learning strategies that permitted the assembly of locally adaptive behavioral repertoires. To develop hypotheses about these learning strategies, we have modeled the evolution of learning strategies to assess what conditions and constraints favor which kinds of strategies. To build on (...) prior work, we focus on clarifying how spatial variability, temporal variability, and the number of cultural traits influence the evolution of four types of strategies: (1) individual learning, (2) unbiased social learning, (3) payoff-biased social learning, and (4) conformist transmission. Using a combination of analytic and simulation methods, we show that spatial—but not temporal—variation strongly favors the emergence of conformist transmission. This effect intensifies when migration rates are relatively high and individual learning is costly. We also show that increasing the number of cultural traits above two favors the evolution of conformist transmission, which suggests that the assumption of only two traits in many models has been conservative. We close by discussing how (1) spatial variability represents only one way of introducing the low-level, nonadaptive phenotypic trait variation that so favors conformist transmission, the other obvious way being learning errors, and (2) our findings apply to the evolution of conformist transmission in social interactions. Throughout we emphasize how our models generate empirical predictions suitable for laboratory testing. (shrink)

I defend the view that the design of the built environment should be a proper part of environmental ethics. An environmentally responsible culture should be one in which citizens take responsibility for the domesticated environments in which they live, as well as for their effects on wild nature. How we build our world reveals both the possibilities in nature and our own stance toward the world. Our constructions and contrivances also objectively constrain the possibilities for the development of a (...) human way of life integrated with wild nature. An environmentally responsible culture should require a built world that reflects and projects care and respect toward nature. (shrink)

For the legal system to function effectively people are generally viewed as autonomous actors able to exercise choice and responsible for their actions. It is conceivable that genetic traits associated with violent and antisocial behaviour could call into question an affected individual’s responsibility for acts of criminal violence. Evidence concerning genes associated with violent and antisocial behaviour has been introduced in criminal courts in USA and Italy, either alone or with associated environmental factors. One example of a ‘genetic defence’ is (...) based on low levels of monoamine oxidase A activity, with a prevalence of around thirty percent in Caucasian males. In countries with trial by jury it is particularly relevant to consider the views of publics on criminal liability and the significance they assign to evidence citing genetic influences on behaviour. This article draws on largely qualitative research looking at participants’ explanations of, and assigning of responsibility for, violent and antisocial behaviour where environmental or genetic influences are claimed. Genetic factors were not viewed deterministically by participants but were considered by most to be irrelevant to personal responsibility. Notions of human agency, free will and choice were crucial to explanations of problem behaviours and ensured that offenders could be held responsible despite evidence on environmental and genetic factors. (shrink)

There are inconsistencies in the treatment and attitudes of human beings to animals and much confusion in thinking about what are appropriate conditions for using and keeping animals. This article outlines some of these considerations and then proposes guidelines for designing animal management systems. In the first place, the global and local ecological effects of all animal management systems must be considered and an environment designed that will not rock the biospherical boat. The main points to consider (...) are the interrelatedness of living things with each other and the environment, the self-sustaining nature of ecosystems, and the importance of diversity in the stability and maintenance of ecosystems. These can and should be taken into account when assessing animal management. They are illustrated by examples of companion/urban dogs, as well as farm, zoo, and circus animals. The environment must also be considered from the point of view of the ethological needs of the animals. There are two possible approaches to this: (1) the reductionist approach, illustrated by the choice experimental tests; and (2) a holistic, evolutionist approach that concentrates on the degree of behavioral restriction and the identification of distress. The assessment of an animal's ethological needs, and thus the ethological soundness of an environment, must take into account the species needs (communication system, species-specific characteristics of the brain receptors and cognition) and the individual's needs (his past experience). The behavioral effects of domestication and how distress can be assessed are discussed. Different ethical positions toward animals and their treatment are briefly outlined, and it is argued that, provided animals are in ecologically and ethologically sound environments, their use by human beings is ethically acceptable. The animal-human association should be characterized by symbiosis—mutual benefit—rather than a parasitic or exploitative relationship—employer to employee, rather than master to slave. (shrink)

A textbook intended for undergraduates. Develops an overview of approaches to the philosophy of man (human beings) by presenting representative examples of major areas of emphasis. Drawing on the social sciences as well as philosophical works, the book presents the human phenomenon as a product of both heredity and environment (the "facticity" of man) and a source of new realities (the "transcendence" of man). Considered under the heading of man's facticity are aspects of corporeality and consciousness; (...) under the heading of man's transcendence, aspects of personal and societal development. Multicultural bibliographies provided. Regrettably, writing style of book is dated by use of male-only terminology. (shrink)

Jakob von Uexküll (1864–1944) was a biologist, but the impact of his work has been perhaps stronger and more persistent in philosophy and the humanities than in the natural sciences. As one of the contributors to this book observes, Uexküll's conception of biology is “more at home among the disciplines composing the Geisteswissenschaften [humanities] than those included in the Naturwissenschaften [sciences], insofar as Uexküll's biology put Verstehen [understanding] before Erklären [explaining].” Uexküll began his career as an experimentalist of a “proto-behaviorist” (...) kind but came rapidly to be dissatisfied with the reduction of physiology to action-and-reaction chains. He argued that the animal-as-machine, the model that lies behind behaviorism, cannot be the starting point of biology. The relation between cause and effect in a machine is direct: the wings of a windmill, say, transfer their movement to a cog even if no one is there to perceive the transfer. In contrast, in the realm of the living, “a stimulus must be ‘noticed’ by a subject” to have any effect. Thus, Uexküll claims, “the first task of [the biologist] consists in seeking out the animal's perception signs”—in searching for what, in its surroundings, an animal perceives and of what it takes notice.Uexküll defined surroundings (Umgebung) as the whole physical reality in the vicinity of an animal, whereas by the term environment (Umwelt) he meant only that part of an animal's surroundings that it perceives. Given Uexküll's understanding of biology as the study of signs of perception (Merkmale), it is no surprise that his work has been a crucial source of inspiration for semiotics. Only one chapter of this new book is devoted to that topic, since Uexküll's presence in the field of semiotics (and in biosemiotics more particularly) is already well documented and analyzed in many publications, whereas his impact on the field of philosophy has been less studied (Brett Buchanan's Onto-Ethologies is, to date, perhaps the best study of that kind). Martin Heidegger was not the first to import the Umwelt theory into philosophy (Max Scheller, Helmuth Plessner, and Ernst Cassirer did so before him, and to each of them a chapter is devoted), but Heidegger is the most famous. It was by reworking an example of Uexküll's—“the rock on which the lizard lies is not given to the lizard as rock, in such a way that it could inquire into its mineralogical constitution for example”—that Heidegger characterized the divergent ways in which animals and humans approach the world. The former can use the things of the world, but humans are uniquely capable of conceiving things as independent of their use of them. We have no more direct access to our physical surroundings than other animals do, but, Heidegger held, we are at least able to imagine our surroundings and the things that fill them as independent of us (and eventually to examine them in the way that a mineralogist examines stones).Thus, Heidegger used Uexküll to set out an “ontological difference” between humans and animals. Gilles Deleuze, on the other hand, made use of Uexküll to advance a nondualistic ontology in which “the affects [that animals] are capable of” is given as the definition of bodies—a definition, he emphasized, “no less valid for us, for humans, than for animals.” Other philosophers whose understanding and use of Uexküll are examined in detail include Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Georges Canguilhem, Hans Blumenberg, and Giorgio Agamben; in addition to the complementary chapter on Uexküll and semiotics, already mentioned, there is one on his place in hermeneutics and one on the influence of Kant. The final chapter concerns the remaking of Uexküll by artists. In this way, this collection of studies offers a varied, detailed, well-structured, and engaging presentation of one of the most original biologists of the last century. As a whole, this book is an example of philosophy at its best—which is: when it specifies, pluralizes, and intensifies the thoughts and works of others. (shrink)

The goals of this study are to evaluate a relatively novel learning environment, as well as to seek greater understanding of why human tutoring is so effective. This alternative learning environment consists of pairs of students collaboratively observing a videotape of another student being tutored. Comparing this collaboratively observing environment to four other instructional methods—one‐on‐one human tutoring, observing tutoring individually, collaborating without observing, and studying alone—the results showed that students learned to solve physics problems just (...) as effectively from observing tutoring collaboratively as the tutees who were being tutored individually. We explain the effectiveness of this learning environment by postulating that such a situation encourages learners to become active and constructive observers through interactions with a peer. In essence, collaboratively observing combines the benefit of tutoring with the benefit of collaborating. The learning outcomes of the tutees and the collaborative observers, along with the tutoring dialogues, were used to further evaluate three hypotheses explaining why human tutoring is an effective learning method. Detailed analyses of the protocols at several grain sizes suggest that tutoring is effective when tutees are independently or jointly constructing knowledge: with the tutor, but not when the tutor independently conveys knowledge. (shrink)

The present revolution in science and technology poses complex tasks in the sphere of management of production, tasks determined by the development of technology and technological communications. The essence of these tasks is determined primarily by objective technological and not by subjective organizational factors. The overall complexity of these tasks depends in the first place on the complexity of the development of production and not on the form of control of production adopted. The complexity of present-day production is such, however, (...) that the total mental capacity of the entire adult population would be insufficient to control it effectively. The solution of the problem lies in raising the productivity of labor in control systems, and this is impossible without employment of modern equipment, above all computers. (shrink)

With the advancement ofin vivomagnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique, more detailed information about the human brain at high altitude (HA) has been revealed. The present review aimed to draw a conclusion regarding changes in the human brain in both unacclimatized and acclimatized states in a natural HA environment. Using multiple advanced analysis methods that based on MRI as well as electroencephalography, the modulations of brain gray and white matter morphology and the electrophysiological mechanisms underlying processing of cognitive (...) activity have been explored in certain extent. The visual, motor and insular cortices are brain regions seen to be consistently affected in both HA immigrants and natives. Current findings regarding cortical electrophysiological and blood dynamic signals may be related to cardiovascular and respiratory regulations, and may clarify the mechanisms underlying some behaviors at HA. In general, in the past 10 years, researches on the brain at HA have gone beyond cognitive tests. Due to the sample size is not large enough, the current findings in HA brain are not very reliable, and thus much more researches are needed. Moreover, the histological and genetic bases of brain structures at HA are also needed to be elucidated. (shrink)

This book provides a systematic analysis of the ethical implications of traditional and complementary medicine, focusing on pragmatic solutions. The author uses a bioethical methodology called the “Ethical Matrix,” to consider the impact of T&CM use for animals and the environment as well as for humans. A systematic search of the literature reveals that most published ethical concerns are related to the safety of T&CM use for humans. However, application of the Ethical Matrix demonstrates that the ethical implications for (...) T&CM use are much broader. In this book, the author analyses the most serious implications, including adverse events related to homeopathy, the use of animals in T&CM products, and the impact of herbal medicine on the environment. Comparisons with the ethical implications of conventional biomedicine help readers to contextualise debate, and highlight aspects that may be unique to T&CM. Globally, many high-level health policy makers promote T&CM as an accessible and affordable healthcare option. However, their use is considered by some to be a waste of resources, unscientific, and unethical. Offering a frank analysis of this largely ignored field of healthcare ethics, this book is both timely and essential. It helps patients, policy makers, practitioners, researchers, and students gain the knowledge they need to make more informed decisions. (shrink)

In perception science, an alternative to focusing on individual sensory systems is to describe the environment to be perceived. We focus on the emergent dynamics of human-environment interactions as an important category of the environment to be perceived. We argue that information about such dynamics is available in subtle patterns of movement variability that, of necessity, stimulate multiple sensory systems.

The conceptualization of the lifeworld of any species includes a reformation of the matter found in the environment into concepts which make up the species-specific Umwelt. This paper argues that the human agency in conceptualising the Umwelt necessarily transforms what we usually call “nature” into so-called “culture”. Ultimatively, this human activity has two consequences which we cannot escape, but which have an influence not only on our perception of the environment, but also on our theorising about (...) what has been called the “nature-culture divide”, the “semiotic threshold” respectively: First, any environmental perception is at once conceived of in cultural terms. Second, whatever “nature” may be, our including it into the cultural discourse removes it from our immediate cognition. (shrink)

RFID tags, small microchips no bigger than grains of rice, are currently being embedded in product labels, clothing, credit cards, and the environment, among other sites. Activated by the appropriate receiver, they transmit information ranging from product information such as manufacturing date, delivery route, and location where the item was purchased to (in the case of credit cards) the name, address, and credit history of the person holding the card. Active RFIDs have the capacity to transmit data without having (...) to be activated by a receiver; they can be linked with embedded sensors to allow continuous monitoring of environmental conditions, applications that interest both environmental groups and the US military. The amount of information accessible through and generated by RFIDs is so huge that it may well overwhelm all existing data sources and become, from the viewpoint of human time limitations, essentially infinite. What to make of these technologies will be interrogated through two contemporary fictions, David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas and Philip K. Dick's Ubik. Cloud Atlas focuses on epistemological questions — who knows what about whom, in a futuristic society where all citizens wear embedded RFID tags and are subject to constant surveillance. Resistance takes the form not so much of evasion (tactical moves in a complex political Situation) but rather as a struggle to transmit information to present and future stakeholders in a world on the brink of catastrophe. Ubik, by contrast, focuses on deeper ontological questions about the nature of reality itself. Both texts point to the necessity to reconceptualize information as ethical action embedded in contexts and not merely as a quantitative measure of probabilities. (shrink)

Characterizations of the Anthropocene often indicate both the challenges that our new epoch poses for human well-being and a sense of loss that comes from a compromised environment. In this paper I explore a deeper problem underpinning both issues, namely, that decoupling humanity from the world with which we are familiar compromises human flourishing. The environmental conditions characteristic of the Anthropocene do so, I claim, by compromising flourishing on two fronts. First, the comparatively novel conditions of the (...) Anthropocene risk rupturing our narratives, putting at risk our sense of self and connections to familiar environments. Second, by undermining the connections between our environmental background and the sense of well-being conditioned by that background our ability to exercise options that constitute a recognizable good life are compromised. This paper argues that to the extent humanity is decoupled from their environments humans are not only less able to access opportunities our understanding of who we are, our identities, and our capacity to make sense of the world around us through those identities is compromised. I conclude that the Anthropocene does more than challenge our ability to utilize resources, it challenges our understanding of who we are in the world. (shrink)

It is natural to assume that we would not be willing to compromise the environment if the conveniences and luxuries thereby gained did not have a substantial positive impact on our happiness. But there is room for skepticism and, in particular, for the thesis that we are compromising the environment to no avail in that our conveniences and luxuries are not having a significant impact on our happiness, making the costs incurred for them a waste. One way of (...) defending the no-avail thesis fits neatly with what I will call the exalted view , according to which the key to human happiness lies in the mental (or spiritual) realm rather than in the material realm. After considering this familiar approach to defending the no-avail thesis, I sketch out a very different approach—one that will, I hope, appeal to those who have doubts about the familiar line of defense. The alternative and novel approach builds on a strand of empirical research on (self-reports concerning) happiness that suggests that we are, in a way, quite shallow, and that our happiness depends on whether we are keeping up with the Joneses. I call this view concerning happiness the worldly view . My reasoning suggests that even if the current rift between exalted pictures of human nature and happiness, on the one hand, and worldly pictures of human nature and happiness, on the other, cannot be repaired, it need not hinder agreement on the plausibility of the no-avail thesis; rather, with the rift come two different routes to the same thesis. I conclude that we should take the no-avail thesis very seriously, and that evidence that we are shallow materialists need not be bad news for the environment(alist). (shrink)

With the growing amount of clinical research, regulations and research ethics are becoming more stringent. This trend introduces a need for quality assurance measures for ensuring adherence to research ethics and human research protection beyond Institutional Review Board approval. Audits, one of the most effective tools for assessing quality assurance, are measures used to evaluate Good Clinical Practice and protocol compliance in clinical research. However, they are laborious, time consuming, and require expertise. Therefore, we developed a simple auditing process (...) and evaluated its feasibility and effectiveness. The screening audit was developed using a routine audit checklist based on the Severance Hospital’s Human Research Protection Program policies and procedures. The measure includes 20 questions, and results are summarized in five categories of audit findings. We analyzed 462 studies that were reviewed by the Severance Hospital Human Research Protection Center between 2013 and 2017. We retrospectively analyzed research characteristics, reply rate, audit findings, associated factors and post-screening audit compliance, etc. Investigator reply rates gradually increased, except for the first year. The studies were graded as “critical,” “major,” “minor,” and “not a finding”, based on findings and number of deficiencies. The auditors’ decisions showed fair agreement with weighted kappa values of 0.316, 0.339, and 0.373. Low-risk level studies, single center studies, and non-phase clinical research showed more prevalent frequencies of being “major” or “critical”. Inappropriateness of documents, failure to obtain informed consent, inappropriateness of informed consent process, and failure to protect participants’ personal information were associated with higher audit grade. We were able to observe critical GCP violations in the routine internal audit results of post-screening audit compliance checks in “non-responding” and “critical” studies upon applying the screening audit. Our screening audit is a simple and effective way to assess overall GCP compliance by institutions and to ensure medical ethics. The tool also provides useful selection criteria for conducting routine audits. (shrink)

Background Community involvement in research has been advocated by researchers, communities, regulatory agencies, and funders with the aim of reinforcing subjects’ protection and improving research efficiency. Community involvement also has the potential to improve dissemination, uptake, and implementation of research findings. The fields of community based participatory research conducted with indigenous populations and of participatory action research offer a large base of experience in community involvement in research. Rules on involving the population affected when conducting research have been established in (...) these fields. But what is the role of community engagement in clinical research and observational studies conducted in biomedical research outside of these specific areas? Main body of the abstract More than 20 years ago, in the field of HIV medicine, regulatory bodies and funding agencies recommended the constitution of a formal organism, the Community Advisory Board, as part of the study requirements for HIV trials. More recently, CABs have been adopted and used in other fields of medical research, such as malaria. CABs are not without limitations, however, and there is little research on the effectiveness of their use in achieving community protection and participation. Nevertheless, CABs could be a model to import into clinical trials and observational research where no alternative model of community representation is currently being used. Conclusions Allocating more resources to training and shifting more power to community representatives could be part of the solution to current CAB limitations. However, for researchers to be able to apply these recommendations on community involvement, certain conditions need to be met. In particular, funding agencies need to recognize the human and financial resources required for serious community involvement, and the academic environment needs to take community involvement into account when appraising, mentoring, and training researchers. (shrink)

Theoretically, a positive environment (PE) includes (a) tangible and intangible resources that satisfy human needs, (b) enablers of healthy, pro-social, and pro-environmental behaviors that guarantee socio-environmental quality and wellbeing, and (c) environmental challenges that must be faced and solved. One of the most salient challenges is the global COVID-19 pandemic. This study sought to investigate whether PEs can stimulate responsible actions (i.e., self-care and precautionary behaviors against COVID-19), while maintaining personal wellbeing. Nine hundred and forty-nine Mexicans participated in (...) an online survey encompassing five primary factors: resources, enablers, challenges, responsible health behaviors, and wellbeing. The first three factors examine “resources” such as physical infrastructure as well as family and social support, “enablers” which include information about protective health practices and perceived legitimacy of authorities in handling the pandemic, and “challenges” encompassing threat perception and social pressure to not engage in precautionary measures. Participants also self-reported hedonic wellbeing as well as self-care and precautionary behaviors, which formed the “responsible (health) behavior” factor. Structural equations model (n= 714 after list-wise deletion) showed that “resources,” “challenges,” and “enablers” form a second-order factor, “positive environments,” and this factor strongly covaries with “responsible behavior” and “wellbeing.” These results suggest that PEs are not only buffers against the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic but can also stimulate effective responses against a threat while maintaining individual wellbeing. These results can be used to inform the development and maintenance of PE frameworks aimed at minimizing the spread of COVID-19 and encouraging mental and physical health. (shrink)

Rights can be founded in a variety of ethical systems—e.g., on natural law, on the duties postulated by deontological ethics, and on the consequences of our actions. The concept of risk we will outline supports a theory of rights which provides at least individual human beings with the entitlement not to be harmed by the environmental impacts of biotechnology. The analysis can, we believe, also be extended to the rights of animals as well as ecosystems, both of which (...) can be harmed by human actions. We argue that further examination of these harms and rights would be the best way to proceed from emotional moral objections to truly ethical analyses in the context of biotechnology and the environment. (shrink)

The paper focuses on processes of normalization through which dis/ability is simultaneously produced in specific collectives, networks, and socio-technological systems that enable the construction of such demarcations. Our point of departure is the cochlear implant, a neuroprosthetic device intended to replace and/or augment the function of the damaged inner ear. Unlike hearing aids, which amplify sounds, the CI does the work of damaged hair cells in the inner ear by providing sound signals to the brain. We examine the processes of (...) the CI’s genesis as well as its specific uses by and interrelations to the different and divergent actors that the CI assembles. We argue that the technological device and the implicated normalization process mobilize complex effects in varying socio-technical arrangements. The CI is conceived as a “boundary object” [89] or a “quasi-object” [49, 83], i.e., a metastabilized medium of translation that coordinates social, cultural, and technological action. Although intended to transform non-hearing or hard of hearing people into competent and “normal” hearing subjects, the CI system reproduces the asymmetrical structures of the disability discourse [14] through its function of “developing and maintaining coherence between intersecting social worlds” [89, 393]. Additionally, it initiates controversial discourses that have resulted in new forms of biosocial collectivities ranging from cochlear implantees with normal human hearing to human configurations who have passed through human enhancement. Our approach is thus situated at the intersection of disability and media studies and tackles the particular conditions technological media configurations impose upon the production of dis/ability. (shrink)

“What is the nature of the beings that we are?” is perhaps the most difficult question. The difficulty lies in our being a natural animal in a normative environment. In harmony with John McDowell’s conception of a naturalism of second nature, this paper claims that we should not rest satisfied with the predominant scientific picture in which the seeming rift between our animality and our rationality is to be resolved by detailed studies of empirically knowable facts about our (...) animal modes of existence. Instead, appreciating the sui generis character of a distinctive mode of human engagement with the world is a necessary clearing of the ground and an essential first step toward addressing meticulously the above difficult question on human nature. The paper suggests that the human sciences in general and education studies in particular should start off not with disclosed first-natural facts but with a sensitivity to second-natural backgrounds that set the stage for the first-natural facts. (shrink)

Architectural adaptation, as an integral concept, involves all the actors, buildings and elements (technical, organic, material, social) of an inhabited site and allows for adaptive actions within a common development process in the face of the current crisis. In order to explore this, we re-actualize an integral notion of "Environments" introduced by artists and architects in the 1960s as open settings that challenge the boundaries and relationships between designers and visitors, art and life. Adaptation processes in architectural "Environments" evolve on (...) social, spatial and design levels and are based on reciprocity, inclusive communication and continuous negotiation between all actors. In this way, they can be understood as a medium between different needs and conditions, or as agents of mediation and negotiation for situational adaptation states. The development of an adaptive high-rise in Stuttgart shows that adaptive structures, due to their ability to react dynamically, have special media qualities that are important for negotiation processes with all actors in architectural 'Environments.' Each new form or state reflects and informs changing situations and relationships between actors and enables communication and interaction processes within Environments. Using pre-modern examples, we discuss how earlier 'Environments' formed a medium for and with (non-human and human) inhabitants, their practices, knowledge and history, and their surroundings over long periods of time. Historical research on communication processes in and with architecture shows how an exchange between all actors of 'Environments' can function in the future, for collaborative adaptation processes, for design interaction with human, plant and animal actors, and of natural processes and social practices. Based on concepts from media theory as well as design and empirical findings, we have developed designs with multiple media qualities in which different actors can be involved in a joint development process, e.g. with materials that allow for further processing and spatial structures that allow for remodeling. Architecture is a medium that allows for the creation of new forms, and adaptive buildings allow for multiple spatial states in dynamic adaptation processes. (shrink)

Events such as industrialization, population growth and old age have made the disability more visible. We think that the disabled people's attitude towards being disabled and religion is an important issue to be investigated in terms of formation of the social sensitivity about the learning of the thoughts of disabled people. In this context, it is aimed to investigate the function of the religion in terms of how the disabled identify, understand and overcome the problems related to being disabled. The (...) sample of the study consisted of 58 people, 20 (34.5%) female and 38 (65.5%) male. Semi-structured interview technique was used as the research qualitative research method and descriptive analysis technique was used in the analysis of the data. In the article, the relation between disability and religion has been tried to be understood in terms of sociology of religion in the context of functionalist approach. In general, disabled people evaluate disability (81.1%) as "examination", (10.3%) as "problem" and (8.6%) as "difference”. It is concluded that religion affects the thoughts of disabled person in a positive way to understand and accept the disability. It has been seen that the disabled people have applied to the state, social support systems and spiritual values ​​to overcome their problems. However, it is the duty of all social institutions to increase the social sensitivity to the disabled people.Summary: Events such as industrialization, population growth and old age have further increased disability. It is important that the social sensitivity towards disabled people and disabled people’s thoughts about disability should be learned. We think that the disabled people's attitude towards being disabled and towards religion is an important issue to be investigated. In this study, the functions of religion to overcome the problems related to the disability and the way how the disabled people define and understand the disability will be investigated. In this context, we think that an individual's overcoming the problems related to disability is an important issue that should be examined in terms of religion-referenced behavior.The sample of the study consisted of 58 people, 20 (34.5 %) female and 38 (65.5 %) male. Semi-structured interview technique was used as the research qualitative research method and descriptive analysis technique was used in the analysis of the data. In the article, the relation between disability and religion has been tried to be perceived in terms of sociology of religion in the context of functionalist approach.It is a fact that various approaches to disability in various societies have been made during the historical process. These approaches are known as moral, medicinal/medical, social, human rights and limitative models. Each of these approaches points to a specific direction and problems of disability. In other words, each model handles and predicts a different dimension of the subject.According to the Qur’ân, disability means not to be in a bodily sense, but to stay away from the truth and expressed in the way of not seeing the truth, not grasping and not hearing, that is, figuratively meaningful. Again from the point of view of the Qur’ân, the first cause of disability comes to people through the divine will and test. The others are due to people's own mistakes.The changing paradigm shift with the enlightenment process has changed the way people view each other. In this context, with the thought and modernization of enlightenment, people's view of human beings and environment has changed. The body which is thought as the trust of God has turned into a body in which one is his proprietor. Therefore, this situation brought the contest, the debate, the comparison and the alienation together.Today, people with disabilities face many financial, spiritual, social and cultural problems. Poverty arising from unemployment, livelihood, accommodation constitute financial problems that are the first to come to mind; access to places of worship, instruction of worship, fulfillment of worship, lack of spiritual care and support constitute spiritual problems; education, health, access and social exclusion constitute social and cultural problems.Disabled people ask themselves these questions related to disability: Why did it happen to me? If it is a test, why do not I start the test on equal conditions with healthy people? Here the disabled person consults the religion to understand and find an answer to the situation that he is in. Because religion is an important factor that responds to the search for meaning, it reduces the feeling of deprivation, and fulfills the task of compensation mechanism. In addition to this, religion gives life a goal and power to the person to overcome the problems he encounters with.In our research on the relationship between disability and religion, religion as in many subjects has contributed positively to the individual’s view towards the fact of disability and to overcome some problems. For example, as a result of the research, the participants evaluated "disability" (81.1 %) as ‘test’ (10.3%) as ‘problem’ and (8.6 %) as ‘difference’.They answered the question ‘How has the disability affected your religious thoughts?’, 71% of the participants expressed that it has affected in a positive way (as a test, made me closer to God, increased my loyalty to God, a motivation source). Besides, 23 % of the participants expressed that it hasn't caused any changes (already believed, fate, disability isn't an obstruct to worship) and 6 % of the participants expressed that it has affected in a negative way (my life is upside down, I am questioning this situation).In addition to those who answered the question ‘Has the disability affected your life?’ in a ‘positive’ way, there is a considerable amount of people who said that the entrances of the mosques are not suitable for the disabled people. In addition, the disabled people stated that they have problems with the way of worshipping (orthopedically disabled), listening to the Qur’ân, hearing the azan (hearing impaired), and cannot go to the mosques and cannot fast because of the health problems, all of which have affected their religious life in a ‘negative’ way. We can gather the answers given to the question in three categories about what kind of behaviors the disabled people do to overcome/eliminate problems. The first is that they receive a variety of services and assistance by applying to the state for material support in order to overcome the problems related to disability and the second is that the social support services are mainly given within the family and friends, and the third is they worship, pray and fast, which are must of Islam, to eliminate the spiritual distress.The rate of people, whose answers are ‘positive’ to this question ‘Does your religious belief have an effect to deal with the disability?’ because they believe the afterlife and who say they feel relieved by praying and worshipping, is very high (95%). Moreover, it is remarkable that the ones say they are ‘not positive’ still explain this with religious concepts such as test and examination which require patience. In short, religion relieves disabled people by fulfilling the task of compensation mechanism with understanding disability and overcoming problems.Almost half of the participants (45%) said no to the following question: Is there any kind of material/spiritual support given to you by the religious officials or religious people in your community? Some factors affecting this situation are that religious officials have no knowledge and education about how to treat disabled people and how to help them.As a result, disabled people face various financial and spiritual problems. They consult religion to solve some of these problems. The vast majority of the disabled consider disability as a test and a fate. Therefore, religion plays an important role for disabled people to understand disability and cope with it. Besides, disabled people have stated that they face various problems in fulfilling their worship and in accessing the places of worship. In this context, physically disabled people also need the supportive power of religion just like other disabled people. (shrink)

Why should the work of the ancient and the medievals, so far as it relates to nature, still be of interest and an inspiration to us now? The contributions to this enlightening volume explore and uncover contemporary scholarship's debt to the classical and medieval past. Thinking About the Environment synthesizes religious thought and environmental theory to trace a trajectory from Mesopotamian mythology and classical and Hellenistic Greek, through classical Latin writers, to medieval Christian views of the natural world and (...) our relationship with it. The work also offers medieval Arabic and Jewish views on humanity's inseparability from nature. The volume concludes with a study of the breakdown between science and value in contemporary ecological thought. Thinking About the Environment will be a invaluable source book for those seeking to address environmental ethics from a historical perspective. (shrink)

Humanism is charged with fostering a harmful anthropocentrism that has led to the exploitation of non-human beings and the environment. Posthumanist and transhumanist ideas prominently aim at rethinking our self-understanding and human-nature relations. Yet these approaches turn out to be flawed when it comes to addressing the challenges of the “age of the humanity”, the Anthropocene. Whereas posthumanism fails in acknowledging the exceptional role of human beings with regard to political agency and responsibility, transhumanism (...) overemphasizes human capabilities of controlling nature and only deepens the human-nature dualism. Therefore, a critical and humble version of humanism is suggested as a viable alternative. Drawing on pragmatist thinkers William James and F.C.S. Schiller, a resource for de-centering the human being is provided that critically reflects our role in the larger ecosystem and underlines human potentials as well as human responsibilities. (shrink)

The relationship between a human being and an AI system has to be considered as a collaborative process between two agents during the performance of an activity. When there is a collaboration between two people, a fundamental characteristic of that collaboration is that there is co-supervision, with each agent supervising the actions of the other. Such supervision ensures that the activity achieves its objectives, but it also means that responsibility for the consequences of the activity is shared. If there (...) is no co-supervision, neither collaborator can be held co-responsible for the actions of the other. When the collaboration is between a person and an AI system, co-supervision is also necessary to ensure that the objectives of the activity are achieved, but this also means that there is co-responsibility for the consequences of the activities. Therefore, if each agent's responsibility for the consequences of the activity depends on the effectiveness and efficiency of the supervision that that agent performs over the other agent's actions, it will be necessary to take into account the way in which that supervision is carried out and the factors on which it depends. In the case of the human supervision of the actions of an AI system, there is a wealth of psychological research that can help us to establish cognitive and non-cognitive boundaries and their relationship to the responsibility of humans collaborating with AI systems. There is also psychological research on how an external observer supervises and evaluates human actions. This research can be used to programme AI systems in such a way that the boundaries of responsibility for AI systems can be established. In this article, we will describe some examples of how such research on the task of supervising the actions of another agent can be used to establish lines of shared responsibility between a human being and an AI system. The article will conclude by proposing that we should develop a methodology for assessing responsibility based on the results of the collaboration between a human being and an AI agent during the performance of one common activity. (shrink)

What is the environment, and how does it figure in an ethical life? This book is an introduction to the philosophical issues involved in this important question, focussing primarily on ethics but also encompassing questions in aesthetics and political philosophy. Topics discussed include the environment as an ethical question, human morality, meta-ethics, normative ethics, humans and other animals, the value of nature, and nature's future. The discussion is accessible and richly illustrated with examples. The book will be (...) valuable for students taking courses in environmental philosophy, and also for a wider audience in courses in ethics, practical ethics, and environmental studies. It will also appeal to general readers who want a reliable and sophisticated introduction to the field. (shrink)

In this essay I attempt to move the aesthetics of human environments away from what I call the designer landscape approach. This approach to appreciating human environments involves a cluster of ideas and assumptions such as: that human environments are usefully construed as being in general ''deliberately designed'' and worthy of aesthetic consideration only in so far as they are so designed, that human environments are in this way importantly similar to works of art, and that (...) the aesthetics of human environments thus has much in common with the aesthetics of art. As an alternative to the designer landscape approach, I suggest that the aesthetics of human environments should be understood as a major area of the aesthetics of everyday life. To facilitate this shift I develop the idea of an ecological approach to the aesthetics of human environments and the related notion of functional fit. The ecological approach employs an analogy with natural ecosystems and, by stressing the role of functional fit in each, facilitates the appreciation of both natural and human environments in a way that I characterize as ''looking as they should.'' The upshot, I maintain, is a set of appreciative consequences constituting a more satisfying aesthetic experience of our everyday human environments. (shrink)

Stakeholder theory is often unable to distinguish those individuals and groups that are stakeholders from those that are not. This problem of stakeholder identity has recently been addressed by linking stakeholder theory to a Rawlsian principle of fairness. To illustrate, the question of stakeholder status for the non-human environment is discussed. This essay criticizes a past attempt to ascribe stakeholder status to the non-human environment, which utilized a broad definition of the term "stakeholder." This paper then (...) demonstrates how, despite the denial of stakeholder status, the environment is nonetheless accounted for on a fairness-based approach through legitimate organizational stakeholders. In addition, since stakeholder theory has never claimed to be a comprehensive ethical scheme, it is argued that sound reasons might exist for managers to consider their organization's impact on the environment that are not stakeholder-related. (shrink)

Recent advances in automation technology have increased the opportunity for collaboration between humans and multiple autonomous systems such as robots and self-driving cars. In research on autonomous system collaboration, the trust users have in autonomous systems is an important topic. Previous research suggests that the trust built by observing a task can be transferred to other tasks. However, such research did not focus on trust in multiple different devices but in one device or several of the same devices. Thus, we (...) do not know how trust changes in an environment involving the operation of multiple different devices such as a construction site. We investigated whether trust can be transferred among multiple different devices, and investigated the effect of two factors: the similarity among multiple devices and the agency attributed to each device, on trust transfer among multiple devices. We found that the trust a user has in a device can be transferred to other devices and that attributing different agencies to each device can clarify the distinction among devices, preventing trust from transferring. (shrink)

The convergence of nano-, bio-, information, and cognitive sciences and technologies (NBIC) is advancing continuously in many societal spheres. This also applies to the manufacturing sector, where technological transformations in robotics push the boundaries of human–machine interaction (HMI). Here, current technological advances in micro- and nanomanufacturing are accompanied by new socio-economic concepts for different sectors of the process industry. Although these developments are still ongoing, the blurring of the boundaries of HMI in processes at the micro- and nano- level (...) can already be observed. According to the authors, these new socio-technical HMIs may lead to the development of new work environments, which can also have an impact on work organization. While there is still little empirical evidence, the following contribution focuses on the question whether the “manufacturing (or working) life” using enhancement practices pushes the boundaries of HMI and how these effects enable new modes of working in manufacturing. Issues of standardization, acceleration of processes, and order-oriented production become essential for technological innovation in this field. However, these trends tend to lead to a “manufacturing life” in work environments rather than to new modes of work in industry. (shrink)

S'appuyant sur des témoignages de professionnels de santé, cet ouvrage permet de mettre en exergue le glissement de la médecine du thérapeutique vers l'amélioration de l'Homme. Il a pour objectif d'engager des réflexions pluridisciplinaires et internationales sur les évolutions biologiques et technoscientifiques susceptibles de bouleverser la condition humaine. Il s'agit notamment de déterminer si la médecine améliorative doit être autorisée, limitée ou prohibée, l'enjeu étant de parvenir à préserver l'humanité de l'Homme."--Page 4 of cover.

A utilização de um texto bíblico por um senador para justificar sua oposição a medidas de proteção ambiental é pretexto para uma série de considerações acerca da Teologia cristã sobre o meio-ambiente, e a relação entre religião e sociedade. Três questões são levantadas: a pretensa separação dos humanos da natureza, a pretensa homogeneização do "ser humano", e a pretensa simplicidade da interpretação teológica de um texto sagrado. O emprego dos verbos hebraicos KABASH e RADAHA abre uma discussão sobre o sentido (...) da dominação na teologia cristã, a partir do princípio hermenêutico básico de que o todo das Escrituras Sagradas deve ser interpretado à luz da revelação maior em Cristo. A partir daí, o artigo propõe uma articulação de parlamentos, como seria o caso de um parlamento teológico, para tratar de argumentos desse tipo, promovida a partir do Senado Federal para nortear decisões que afetam o bem-estar da sociedade como um todo. Palavras-chave : Ser humano; Natureza; Teologia cristã; Religião; Sociedade.The use of a biblical text by a Senator to justify his opposition to environmental protection measures works as a pretext for a series of considerations about Christian theology on environment, as well as the relationship between religion and society. Three questions are to put: the alleged separation of humans from nature, the alleged homogeneity of the "human being", and the assumed simplicity of the theological interpretation of a sacred text. The use of following Hebrew verbs KABASH and RADAHA opens a discussion about the meaning of domination in Christian theology, from the basic hermeneutic principle that Sacred Scriptures must be interpreted in the ligh of Christ Revelation. Thereafter, this article proposes an articulation of parliaments, as in the case of a theological parliament happen to deal with these kind of arguments, to be promoted from the Senate in order to guide decisions that affect the welfare of society as a whole. Key words: Human beings; Nature; Christian Theology; Religion; Society. (shrink)