The additional data, perspectives, questions, and criticisms contributed by the commentaries strengthen our view that local cortical processors coordinate their activity with the context in which it occurs using contextual fields and synchronized population codes. We therefore predict that whereas the specialization of function has been the keynote of this century the coordination of function will be the keynote of the next.

This article attempts a foray into the linguistic study of vocalization traditions in Christian Arabic by examining the patterns of 3rd person pronominal suffix harmonization in some vocalized Christian Arabic gospel manuscripts. In normative Classical Arabic, the 3rd person suffixes harmonized with a preceding -i, -ī, or -ay. However, early grammarians documented a much greater diversity of patterns. I document the patterns of nine vocalized Christian Gospel manuscripts, and show that several patterns are attested, including the normative Classical Arabic pattern, (...) that parallel those attested in the early grammarian and Quran reading traditions. I argue that Christians were clearly aware of, and participants in, a range of performative linguistic traditions, and retain them when elsewhere they were marginalized or lost. I conclude by pushing both for more vigorous study of this vocalized layer of Christian Arabic tradition and reframing the context within which the study of Christian Arabic is undertaken. (shrink)

Do noncombatants in warfare receive immunity because of their subjective or objective characteristics? Can a noncombatant be ‘weaponized’, and if so, how does this weaponization change the noncombatant's moral status as protected from direct attack? The purpose of this article is to analyze the moral issues that arise when noncombatants are made into weapons, specifically as delivery systems for biological weaponry. Examining such a tactic, I go on to explore how the problems that arise from ‘weaponized’ noncombatants illustrate deeper problems (...) in the theorization of noncombatant status. (shrink)

I argue that Taylor’s engagement with secularity demonstrates his deep concern for preserving key humanist insights, an abiding commitment to moral pluralism, and the sincerity of his religious faith. Taylor insists on transcendence as the best hope for securing the continued commitment to the moral legacy of humanism in the west, but while he personally advocates a renewed Christian humanism, his notion of transcendence is amenable to other interpretations, including non-religious options, and so allows for a potential overlapping consensus on (...) humanism from what Taylor calls the “transformation perspective.”. (shrink)

The inculcation of academic integrity among post-graduate students is an ongoing concern for universities across the world. While various researchers have focused on causal relations between forms of instruction, student characteristics, and possession of academic integrity, there is need for an increased examination of the role of supervisors in shaping student perceptions of academic integrity. Unlike the undergraduate level, where student interaction with professors is often limited, post-graduate students have an ongoing relationship with their supervisors, whether at the Masters or (...) Doctorate level. In some ways like masters over apprentices, rather than teachers over students, supervisors engage in continued interaction with post-graduate students, shaping these students views not only on the substance of their research, but also in how researchers “should” act. As part of a larger project in examining post-graduate student opinions on academic integrity and research ethics, we conducted surveys to investigate the relationship between student perceptions of their supervisors and student perceptions of academic integrity. We use survey data from a population of post-graduate students at a comprehensive research university in Hong Kong to analyze student perceptions of academic integrity and how students might be influenced by their supervisors’ service as mentors and/or ethic exemplars. (shrink)

Schyns et al. make a strong case for context-dependent feature discovery. The features computed from specialized and diverse data-sets help to coordinate their activity by adapting so as to emphasize what is related across sets. Their perspective can be strengthened and extended by formal arguments for the contextual guidance of learning and processing and by neurobiological and psychological evidence of structures and processes that implement this guidance.

This collection examines the classical liberal perspective within the professional study of history. The contributors investigate the origins and development of the classical liberal approach, argue for its revival within academia, and analyze its relevance to such topics as economics, civil liberties, feminism, and civil rights.

In their 2010 article ‘Research Integrity in China: Problems and Prospects’, Zeng and Resnik challenge others to engage in empirical research on research integrity in China. Here we respond to that call in three ways: first, we provide updates to their analysis of regulations and allegations of scientific misconduct; second, we report on two surveys conducted in Hong Kong that provide empirical backing to describe ways in which problems and prospects that Zeng and Resnik identify are being explored; and third, (...) we continue the discussion started by Zeng and Resnik, pointing to ways in which China's high-profile participation in international academic research presents concerns about research integrity. According to our research, based upon searches of both English and Chinese language literature and policies, and two surveys conducted in Hong Kong, academic faculty and research post-graduate students in Hong Kong are aware of and have a positive attitude towards responsible conduct of research. Although Hong Kong is but one small part of China, we present this research as a response to concerns Zeng and Resnik introduce and as a call for a continued conversation. (shrink)

While public administration research is thriving because of increased attention to social scientific rigor, lingering problems of methods and ethics remain. This article investigates the reporting of ethics approval within public administration publications. Beginning with an overview of ethics requirements regarding research with human participants, I turn to an examination of human participants protections for public administration research. Next, I present the findings of my analysis of articles published in the top five public administration journals over the period from 2000 (...) to 2012, noting the incidences of ethics approval reporting as well as funding reporting. In explicating the importance of ethics reporting for public administration research, as it relates to replication, reputation, and vulnerable populations, I conclude with recommendations for increasing ethics approval reporting in public administration research. (shrink)

Does responsible conduct of research (RCR) training improve levels of trust between researchers? Using data gathered as part of a survey on the attitudes of master's and doctoral-level students toward RCR, we found that RCR training correlated with a weakened beliefs of students toward their supervisors' ethicality but a stronger belief in the ethicality of their peers. We believe that these findings point to new avenues of research on trust in the academic setting and to needs for curriculum changes in (...) RCR training. (shrink)

This study uses three audit-specific ethical dilemmas to assess the level of ethical reasoning between Chinese accounting students (as proxies for new entrants to the auditing profession) and experienced auditors. A sample of U.S. accounting students is used as a base for comparison. Consistent with expectations based on particularly salient aspects of Chinese national culture, we find the Chinese students’ levels of ethical reasoning to be significantly lower than those of their U.S. counterparts in the two cases that invoked these (...) cultural attributes. In contrast, the Chinese students’ level of ethical reasoning is slightly higher than that of the U.S. students in the third, control case. We further find that the Chinese auditors’ levels of ethical reasoning are even lower than those of the Chinese students in two cases, while not being significantly different in the third. Together, these findings suggest that cross-national differences in auditors’ ethical reasoning depend on the nature of the ethical dilemma and caution against wholesale inferences about ethical reasoning levels in China. (shrink)

The paper examines the emphasis on knowing the inner life of Jesus by a prominent 19th century Liberal Protestant, and Albert Schweitzer's decisive blow to the Life of Jesus movement at the beginning of the 20th century. It gives critiques to both the former and the latter, and identifies the approach of the Liberal Protestants as ‘subjective’ in two senses. While the subjectivity of an interpreter can pose problems in the interpretation of Jesus, it is maintained that the possibility of (...) knowing some aspects of the subjectivity of Jesus cannot be ruled out a priori. A method of correlation is suggested to give a more objective and connected interpretation of Jesus' outer words/actions and his mind. (shrink)

This essay attempts to answer the question of how one commemorates the event of thinking by raising it in relation to some commemorative texts. Derrida’s Demeure, Athènes provides an exemplary point of departure, but the seminars concerned with the death penalty raise the stakes in readings that deeply trouble an inheritance fixated on the determination of death, with Socrates and Oedipus as ancient figures of an enduring culture. The essay touches on Freud and Heidegger as dissenting figures and concludes by (...) commemorating three distinctive thinkers: Lauren Berlant, Jean-Luc Nancy and Bernard Stiegler. (shrink)

Nothing survives deconstruction unless we accept that survival in some sense attaches to the ghostly or etiolated figures (the marks and traces) of things, by which deconstruction proceeds. If the ghostly figure survives then it may be because it is undeconstructible. Yet the spectral figure would no doubt remain insignificant if it was not for the force it brings to bear on more central and familiar categories of philosophical and literary discourse. These categories, like style, friendship, justice and hospitality, tend (...) to occupy those spectral spaces that mark the structural difference between philosophy (conceptual, abstract, universal) and literature (figurative, concrete, singular). Yet nothing defines such spaces so well as the trace and its paradoxical structure. And nothing describes the structure of the trace so well as that of the signature. This paper identifies the movement of the trace as occupying and to a great extent defining the difference between philosophy and literature. The example, in this case, is the appearance of asphodels in Homer's Odyssey, according to which the fields where ghosts live are thick with the so-called grave-flower. But the asphodel on closer examination breaks down into mere traces of itself in a series of insoluble philological problems. The larger implications have to do with death, the signature of the writer, the relation between philosophy and literature and their respective modes of survival. There is no philosophy (no truth, no good, no chance) without its attachment to the etiolated figure, the trace of itself. The paper proposes readings of Blanchot, Derrida, Hegel and Plato, in addition to a focus on the main philological problem in Homer and its implications for a tradition of literary allusion, as a way of establishing the consistency of the paradoxical structure of the signature. (shrink)

Comparisons are drawn between two theories of visual perception and two modes of information processing. Characteristics delineating dorsal and ventral visual systems lack internal consistency, probably because they are not completely separable. Mechanism is inherent when distinguishing these systems, and becomes more apparent with different processing domains. What is lacking is a more explicit means of linking these theories.