In a recent article in Philosophy of Science Janet Travis [13] seeks to refute the argument for evolutionary progressivism which is based on a series of dominant life forms on the grounds that there is no rigorous definition of that concept. In particular she claims that the definitions formulated by Sir Julian Huxley and George Gaylord Simpson fail adequately to exclude any group of organisms. The concept of dominance is therefore alleged to be meaningless and the argument for progress invalid.

This article examines the political perspective of corporate social responsibility from the standpoint of normative Islam. We argue that large firms within Muslim majority countries have the moral obligation to assist governments in addressing challenges related to sustainable socioeconomic development and in advancing human rights. In substantiating our argument, we draw upon the Islamic business ethics, stakeholder theory, and corporate governance literatures, as well as the concepts of Maqasid al Shariah (the objectives of Islamic law) and fard al ‘ayn (obligation (...) upon all individuals within society) versus fard al kifayah (obligation upon some individuals within society) to introduce a normative model elucidating critical Islamic precepts. Finally, we propose an Islamic “political” corporate governance framework, which democratizes firm decision making by embedding “core” stakeholders, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and Shariah scholars in the corporate board, thereby enhancing the ability of businesses to respond to stakeholder concerns and priorities, while mitigating interstakeholder and intraboard power asymmetries. (shrink)

Molecular genetic testing has increasingly been incorporated into clinical medicine, and this trend is likely to accelerate in the future. The introduction of genetic testing into medical practice is beginning to collide head on with patents that claim ownership of correlations between human genetic variants and predisposition to disease, response to therapeutic drugs, and susceptibility to pharmacologic side effects. Patent holders or licensees of genes, genetic variants, and their genotype-phenotype correlations are already using the threat of litigation to monopolize genetic (...) tests for important well-known syndromes like Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and inherited breast and ovarian cancer, in addition to a host of less commonly discussed conditions. (shrink)

Postnatally, heart muscle cells almost completely lose their ability to divide, which makes their loss after trauma irreversible. Potential repair by cell grafting or mobilizing endogenous cells is of particular interest for possible treatments for heart disease, where the poor capacity for cardiomyocyte proliferation probably contributes to the irreversibility of heart failure. Knowledge of the molecular mechanisms that underly formation of heart muscle cells might provide opportunities to repair the diseased heart by induction of (trans) differentiation of endogenous or exogenous (...) cells into heart muscle cells. We briefly review the molecular mechanisms involved in early development of the linear heart tube by differentiation of mesodermal cells into heart muscle cells. Because the initial heart tube does not comprise all the cardiac compartments present in the adult heart, heart muscle cells are added to the distal borders of the tube and within the tube. At both distal borders, mesodermal cell are recruited into the cardiac lineage and, within the heart tube, muscular septa are formed. In this review, the relative late additions of heart muscle cells to the linear heart tube are described and the potential underlying molecular mechanisms are discussed. BioEssays 26:248–261, 2004. Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

This study investigates potential differences in attitudes towards corporate social responsibility between Saudis and Muslims from other predominately Islamic countries. We propose that Saudi Arabia’s unique rentier-state welfare and higher education systems account for these distinctions. In evaluating our propositions, we replicate Brammer et al. :229–243, 2007) survey on attitudes towards CSR using a sample of Saudi undergraduate and graduate business students and compare the results against data from subjects in other majority Muslim countries. In addition, this work examines possible (...) differences within the Saudi sample with respect to sex and academic level. Our results indicate that our Saudi subjects maintain higher expectations for corporations’ social responsibility within their supply chain than the Brammer et al.’s sample. In contrast, Muslims in the Brammer et al.’s sample hold higher expectations for corporations in supporting societal development and poverty alleviation in comparison to the Saudi sample. We also find within the Saudi sample that females and subjects at higher academic levels are more inclined to hold corporations responsible for social issues related to CSR than males and subjects in lower academic levels. We examine these findings, explore their implications, and propose areas for future research. (shrink)

BackgroundKnowledge development depends on an unbiased representation of the available evidence. Selective citation may distort this representation. Recently, some controversy emerged regarding the possible impact of swimming on childhood asthma, raising the question about the role of selective citation in this field. Our objective was to assess the occurrence and determinants of selective citation in scientific publications on the relationship between swimming in chlorinated pools and childhood asthma.MethodsWe identified scientific journal articles on this relationship via a systematic literature search. The (...) following factors were taken into account: study outcome (authors’ conclusion, data-based conclusion), other content-related article characteristics (article type, sample size, research quality, specificity), content-unrelated article characteristics (language, publication title, funding source, number of authors, number of affiliations, number of references, journal impact factor), author characteristics (gender, country, affiliation), and citation characteristics (time to citation, authority, self-citation). To assess the impact of these factors on citation, we performed a series of univariate and adjusted random-effects logistic regressions, with potential citation path as unit of analysis.ResultsThirty-six articles were identified in this network, consisting of 570 potential citation paths of which 191 (34%) were realized. There was strong evidence that articles with at least one author in common, cited each other more often than articles that had no common authors (odds ratio (OR) 5.2, 95% confidence interval (CI) 3.1–8.8). Similarly, the chance of being cited was higher for articles that were empirical rather than narrative (OR 4.2, CI 2.6–6.7), that reported a large sample size (OR 5.8, CI 2.9–11.6), and that were written by authors with a high authority within the network (OR 4.1, CI 2.1–8.0). Further, there was some evidence for citation bias: articles that confirmed the relation between swimming and asthma were cited more often (OR 1.8, CI 1.1–2.9), but this finding was not robust.ConclusionsThere is clear evidence of selective citation in this research field, but the evidence for citation bias is not very strong. (shrink)

Since William Jones announced the kinship of Sanskrit and the European languages, a massive body of scholarship has illuminated the development of the so-called "Indo-European" language group. This new historical philology has enormous technical achievements to its credit. But almost from the start, it became entangled with prejudices and myths--with efforts to recreate not only the lost language, but also the lost--and superior--civilization of the Indo-European ancestors. This drive to determine the identity and nature of the first language of humanity (...) was deeply rooted in both near eastern and western traditions. The Bible described the perfect, transparent language of Adam and followed its degeneration, caused by human sin, into the multiple, opaque languages of later nations. The three sons of Noah became, for Jewish and early Christian writers, the founders of three distinct human groups. By the sixth and seventh centuries, historians began to magnify the deeds of certain later peoples, such as the Scythians and Goths, and to connect them with the biblical genealogy of languages and races. And in the Renaissance, speculative historical etymology took root and flourished, as national pride led European intellectuals to assert that their own modern languages--for example, Flemish--either could be identified with the original one or offered the closest surviving approximation to it. Japheth, Noah's favorite son and the forefather of the Europeans, emerged as the hero who had preserved the original language in its purity. A new history of the European languages developed, one which traced them back to the language of the barbarian Scythians and emphasized the connections between Persian and European languages. It came to seem implausible that the European languages derived from Hebrew. By the eighteenth century, in short, all the preconditions were present for a discovery that the ancestors of the Europeans, like the common ancestor of their languages, had been independent of Semitic influence. A modern scholarly thesis whose political and intellectual consequences are still working themselves out reveals the continuing impact of a millennial tradition of speculation about language and history. (shrink)

On March 23rd, 2020, elite soccer academies in the UK closed in compliance with the government enforced lockdown intended to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. This forced parents, players, and coaches to reconsider how they interacted with, and supported, one another. The aims of the present study were to explore the perceptions of players, parents, and coaches regarding how they interacted and collaborated with one another during the COVID-19 pandemic to support wellbeing and performance, and; to identify opportunities to enhance workings (...) of those within the athletic triangle resulting from adaptions made following enforced lockdown. Using an interpretive description methodology, semi-structured interviews were conducted with five coaches, six players, and six parents from an English elite academy soccer club. Interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis. Findings highlighted the importance of support and the different means of communication used between members of the athletic triangle to facilitate such support; the increased understanding of each member of the athletic triangle, leading to enhanced relationships, and; how members of the athletic triangle adapted practice to facilitate relationship development during the pandemic and beyond. The identification of these considerations has implications for coach and parent education initiatives to allow for optimal functioning of the athletic triangle as elite academy soccer clubs return from lockdown. These include the importance of continued communication between coach, athlete and parent; increasing understanding of each individual within the athletic triangle; and utilizing key interpersonal and technological skills learnt during the lockdown to further facilitate engagement within the athletic triangle. (shrink)

Citing of previous publications is an important factor in knowledge development. Because of the great amount of publications available, only a selection of studies gets cited, for varying reasons. If the selection of citations is associated with study outcome this is called citation bias. We will study determinants of citation in a broader sense, including e.g. study design, journal impact factor or the funding source of the publication. As a case study we assess which factors drive citation in the human (...) literature on phthalates, specifically the metabolite mono phthalate. A systematic literature search identified all relevant publications on human health effect of MEHP. Data on potential determinants of citation were extracted in duplo. Specialized software was used to create a citation network, including all potential citation pathways. Random effect logistic regression was used to assess whether these determinants influence the likelihood of citation. 112 Publications on MEHP were identified, with 5684 potential citation pathways of which 551 were actual citations. Reporting of a harmful point estimate, journal impact factor, authority of the author, a male corresponding author, research performed in North America and self-citation were positively associated with the likelihood of being cited. In the literature on MEHP, citation is mostly driven by a number of factors that are not related to study outcome. Although the identified determinants do not necessarily give strong indications of bias, it shows selective use of published literature for a variety of reasons. (shrink)

The imprints left by quantum mechanics in classical (Hamiltonian) mechanics are much more numerous than is usually believed. We show that the Schrödinger equation for a nonrelativistic spinless particle is a classical equation which is equivalent to Hamilton’s equations. Our discussion is quite general, and incorporates time-dependent systems. This gives us the opportunity of discussing the group of Hamiltonian canonical transformations which is a non-linear variant of the usual symplectic group.

«)La véritable philosophie est la sainteté de la raison. La volonté nous aliène et nous assimile à sa fin, l'entendement nous assimile et nous acquiert son objet): voilà pourquoi, en nous donnant à Dieu par un dévouement total, nous pouvons le mieux pénétrer par le regard); la pureté du détachement intérieur est l'organe de la vision parfaite. On ne peut le voir sans l'avoir, l'avoir sans l'aimer, l'aimer sans lui apporter l'hommage de tout ce qu'il est, pour ne retrouver en (...) tout que sa seule volonté et sa seule présence. Ce qu'il est, nous voulons qu'il le soit, quoi qu'il nous en coûte); et ainsi ce qu'il est en soi, il le devient en nous.)» Si l'on en croit l'aveu de Maurice Blondel, il y aurait dans sa réflexion philosophique un chemin de sainteté, voie étroite vers l'Amour qu'emprunte le philosophe d'Aix. Pour tenter d'en saisir le sens, le présent ouvrage entend réexaminer l'ensemble du projet philosophique blondélien au regard de cette nouvelle perspective. (shrink)