Current UK legislation is impacting upon the feasibility and cost-effectiveness of medical record-based research aimed at benefiting the NHS and the public heath. Whereas previous commentators have focused on the Data Protection Act 1998, the Health and Social Care Act 2001 is the key legislation for public health researchers wishing to access medical records without written consent. The Act requires researchers to apply to the Patient Information Advisory Group for permission to access medical records without written permission. We present a (...) case study of the work required to obtain the necessary permissions from PIAG in order to conduct a large scale public health research project. In our experience it took eight months to receive permission to access basic identifying information on individuals registered at general practices, and a decision on whether we could access clinical information in medical records without consent took 18 months. Such delays pose near insurmountable difficulties to grant funded research, and in our case £560 000 of public and charitable money was spent on research staff while a large part of their work was prohibited until the third year of a three year grant. We conclude by arguing that many of the current problems could be avoided by returning PIAG’s responsibilities to research ethics committees, and by allowing “opt-out” consent for many public health research projects. (shrink)

In this study we examined the applicability of personality measures to assessing God representations, and we explored how the overlap between personality judgments of self and God relate to strength of (dis)belief and closeness to God among atheists and agnostics. Using sample of 1,088 atheists/agnostics, we applied Goldberg’s Big Five bipolar markers as a standardized measure of personality dimensions, along with measures of identity fusion with God, belief strength, and sociosexuality, as this trait has been shown to be relevant in (...) predicting religiosity. Our study revealed that personality measures can be used for research on the personality of supernatural agents. We also found that personality self-assessments were related to the assessments of God personality. Agreeableness was positively related to the perception of emotional stability of God, while conscientiousness and surgency were negatively related to perceived intellect and surgency of god, respectively. Also, intellect of the participants was related negatively to perceptions of God’s emotional stability and intellect. Perceived distance between the assessment of one’s own personality and the personality of God predicted the strength of (dis)belief, thus opening new interpretations into possible sources of belief and disbelief. Finally, echoing previous studies, we found that conscientiousness of God had a negative effect on SOI-R score. (shrink)

In: E. Vargios (ed.), Educational Psychology Research Focus, pp.1-26. Nova Science Publishers, Hauppauge, NY. 2007.

Nineteenth century hygiene might be a confusing concept. On the one hand, the concept of hygiene was gradually becoming an important concept that was focused on cleanliness and used interchangeably with sanitation. On the other hand, the classical notions of hygiene rooted in the Hippocratic teachings remained influential. This study is about two attempts to newly theorise such a confusing concept of hygiene in the second half of the century by Edward. W. Lane and Thomas R. Allinson. Their works, (...) standing on the borders of self-help medical advice and theoretical treatises on medical philosophies, were not exactly scholarly ones, but their medical thoughts - conceptualised as _hygienic medicine_ - show a characteristically holistic medical view of hygiene, a nineteenth-century version of the reinterpretation of the nature cure philosophy and vitalism. However, the aim of this study is to properly locate their conceptualisations of hygienic medicine within the historical context of the second half of the nineteenth century rather than to simply introduce the medical ideas in their books. Their views of hygiene were distinguished not only from the contemporary sanitary approach but also from similar attempts by contemporary orthodox and unorthodox medical doctors. Through a chronological analysis of changes in the concept of hygiene and a comparative analysis of these two authors’ and other medical professionals’ views of hygiene, this paper aims to help understand the complicated picture of nineteenth-century hygiene, particularly during the second half of the century, from the perspective of medical holism and reductionism. (shrink)

Left-wing authoritarianism remains far less understood than right-wing authoritarianism. We contribute to literature on the former, which typically relies on surveys, using a new social media analytic approach. We use a list of 60 terms to provide an exploratory sketch of the outlines of a political ideology – tribal equalitarianism – with origins in 19th and 20th century social philosophy. We then use analyses of the English Corpus of Google Books (n > 8 million books) and scraped unique tweets from (...) Twitter (n = 202,582) to conduct a series of investigations to discern the extent to which this ideology is cohesive amongst the public, reveals signatures of authoritarianism and has been growing in popularity. Though exploratory, our results provide some evidence of left-wing authoritarianism in two forms: (1) a uniquely conservative signature amongst ostensible liberals using measures derived from Moral Foundations Theory and (2) a substantial prevalence of anger, relative to anxiety or sadness, in tweets analyzed for sentiment. In general, results indicate that this worldview is growing in popularity, is increasingly cohesive, and shows signatures of authoritarianism. (shrink)

Constantine, the first Christian Emperor, bequeathed war against Persia to his son Constantius, a legacy which haunted the next two decades, culminating in Julian′s debacle in 363. Much has been written on the timing, motives, and strategy of these campaigns but the same role model appears at their beginning and end: Alexander the Great. Here, I wish to re-examine the evidence for his presence: recent scholarship has minimized it at one end and maximized at the other.

Computational models of learning provide an alternative technique for identifying the number and type of chunks used by a subject in a specific task. Results from applying CHREST to chess expertise support the theoretical framework of Cowan and a limit in visual short-term memory capacity of 3–4 looms. An application to learning from diagrams illustrates different identifiable forms of chunk.

Is the essay literature or philosophy? A form of art or a form of knowledge? The contemporary essay is torn between its belletrist ancestry and its claim to philosophical legitimacy. The Spanish philosopher Eduardo Nicol captured the genre's uncertain status when he dubbed it “almost literature and almost philosophy” (Nicol 1961:207). The problem is hardly a new one. It goes back to what Plato called the “ancient quarrel” between poetry and philosophy, and more recently to the German Romantic theorist, Friedrich (...) Schlegel, who called for a mode of criticism which would be at once philosophical and poetic. But today, when the status of critical discourse is up for grabs, reflecting the crisis of knowledge in the universities, the question of the essay takes on a new urgency. Now the predominant form of writing in the human sciences, it cannot avoid the challenge to define itself according to the prevailing standards of scientific knowledge and method. (shrink)

The thesis of this article is that there has never been any ground for the controversy between the doctrine of free will and determinism, that it is based upon a misapprehension, that the two assertions are entirely consistent, that one of them strictly implies the other, that they have been opposed only because of our natural want of the analytical imagination. In so saying I do not tamper with the meaning of either phrase. That would be unpardonable. I mean free (...) will in the natural and usual sense, in the fullest, the most absolute sense in which for the purposes of the personal and moral life the term is ever employed. I mean it as implying responsibility, merit and demerit, guilt and desert. I mean it as implying, after an act has been performed, that one " could have done otherwise " than one did. I mean it as conveying these things also, not in any subtly modified sense but in exactly the sense in which we conceive them in life and in law and in ethics. These two doctrines have been opposed because we have not realised that free will can be analysed without being destroyed, and that determinism is merely a feature of the analysis of it. And if we are tempted to take refuge in the thought of an "ultimate ", an "innermost" liberty that eludes the analysis, then we have implied a deterministic basis and constitution for this liberty as well. For such a basis and constitution lie in the idea of liberty. -/- The thesis is not, like that of Green or Bradley, that the contending opinions are reconciled if we adopt a certain metaphysic of the ego, as that it is timeless, and identifies itself with a desire by a " timeless act". This is to say that the two are irreconcilable, as they are popularly supposed to be, except by a theory that delivers us from the conflict by taking us out of time. Our view on the contrary is that from the natural and temporal point of view itself there never was any need of a reconciliation but only of a comprehension of the meaning of terms. (The metaphysical nature of the self and its identity through time is a problem for all who confront memory, anticipation, etc.; it has no peculiar difficulties arising from the present problem.) -/- I am not maintaining that determinism is true; only that it is true insofar as we have free will. That we are free in willing is, broadly speaking, a fact of experience. That broad fact is more assured than any philosophical analysis. It is therefore surer than the deterministic analysis of it, entirely adequate as that in the end appears to be. But it is not here affirmed that there are no small exceptions, no slight undetermined swervings, no ingredient of absolute chance. All that is here said is that such absence of determination, if and so far as it exists, is no gain to freedom, but sheer loss of it; no advantage to the moral life, but blank subtraction from it. -- When I speak below of "the indeterminist" I mean the libertarian indeterminist, that is, him who believes in free will and holds that it involves indetermination. (shrink)

This study represents an improvement in the ethics scales inventory published in a 1988 Journal of Business Ethics article. The article presents the distillation and validation process whereby the original 33 item inventory was reduced to eight items. These eight items comprise the following ethical dimensions: a moral equity dimension, a relativism dimension, and a contractualism dimension. The multidimensional ethics scale demonstrates significant predictive ability.

A photoaffinity analog of cGMP has been used to biochemically identify a new ligand-binding subunit of the retinal rod cGMP-activated ion channel, as well as amino acids in contact with cGMP in the original subunit. Covalent tethering of this probe to channels in excised menbrane patches has revealed a functional heteogeneity in the ligand-binding sites that may arise from the two biochemically identified subunits.

One of the more telling symptoms of the postmodern condition is the tendency of criticism to renounce any claim to explanatory or evaluative competence vis-à-vis its objects, and in some cases even to deny that it differs from those objects. This is especially evident in American deconstructionists of the Yale school, who have, with Derrida, rediscovered Nietzsche's insight that all language, whatever the genre, is inescapably metaphorical. From the admitted difficulty of drawing absolute ontological distinctions between the language of literature (...) and that of criticism, these critics infer that the attempt to maintain even a generic division between the two languages is at best a convenient fiction, at worst a repressive one. (shrink)

We discuss the relation of the Theory of Event Coding (TEC) to a computational model of expert perception, CHREST, based on the chunking theory. TEC's status as a verbal theory leaves several questions unanswerable, such as the precise nature of internal representations used, or the degree of learning required to obtain a particular level of competence: CHREST may help answer such questions.

Rousseau argued forcefully for the superiority of a life lived in accordance with “the simplest impulses of nature,” but his complex (somewould say contradictory) understanding of the relationship between humans and “nature” is rarely cited as a source of inspiration by those seeking to reform the human relationship with the natural world. We argue that the complexities of Rousseau's political thought illuminate important connections between his works and the programs put forth by deep ecology. In Part One, we explore the (...) theoretical connections between Rousseau's account of the human fall from nature and major works of radical environmentalism. In Part Two, we offer suggestions for a reconsideration of Rousseau's work that may illuminate the paradoxical political requirements of deep ecology's recommendations for a more ecological human life. We hope to illustrate howa careful reading of Rousseau'swork may serve as the basis for fruitful questioning of environmentalist thought. (shrink)

In this book, R.E. Allen provides a translation of the 'Parmenides' along with a structural analysis that procedes on the assumption that formal elements, logical and dramatic, are important to its interpretation and that the argument of the Parmenides is aporetic, a statement of metaphysical perplexities.

Children and adults from theus and China heard about people who died in two types of narrative contexts – medical and religious – and judged whether their psychological and biological capacities cease or persist after death. Most 5- to 6-year-olds reported that all capacities would cease. In theus, but not China, there was an increase in persistence judgments at 7–8 years, which decreased thereafter.uschildren’s persistence judgments were influenced by narrative context – occurring more often for religious narratives – and such (...) judgments were made especially for psychological capacities. When participants were simply asked what happens to people following death, in both countries there were age-graded increases in references to burial, religious ritual, and the supernatural. (shrink)

Should we let personal responsibility for health-related behavior influence the allocation of healthcare resources? In this paper, we clarify what it means to be responsible for an action. We rely on a crucial conceptual distinction between being responsible and holding someone responsible, and show that even though we might be considered responsible and blameworthy for our health-related actions, there could still be well-justified reasons for not considering it reasonable to hold us responsible by giving us lower priority. We transform these (...) philosophical considerations into analytical use first by assessing the general features of health-related actions and the corresponding healthcare needs. Then, we identify clusters of structural features that even adversely affected people cannot reasonably deny constitute actions for which they should be held responsible. We summarize the results in an analytical framework that can be used by decision-makers when considering personal responsibility for health as a criterion for setting priorities. (shrink)

Translational ethics (TE) has been developed into a specific approach, which revolves around the argument that strategies for bridging the theory‐practice gap in bioethics must themselves be justified on ethical terms. This version of TE incorporates normative, empirical and foundational ethics research and continues to develop through application and in the face of new ethical challenges. Here, I explore the idea that the academic field of bioethics has not yet sufficiently analysed its own philosophical foundation for how it can, and (...) should, be practically relevant; neither has it comprehensively discussed the limitations on what impacts bioethicists should pursue. As a result, there has not been adequate training on how to suitably and appropriately impact real‐world practices. Moreover, bioethical perspectives are often competing with other strong interests, for example, economic and political, which may weaken their impact on policy‐making. The TE approach I propose can not only facilitate practical impacts of academic bioethics by being better informed by real‐world ethical issues but it also supports targeted and ethical justifications of the actual impact of academic work in real‐world contexts. In this paper, I clarify the premises for this TE approach, identify further challenges and sketch out potential solutions for the implementation of this methodological framework. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility is a recognised and common part of business activity. Some of the regularly cited motives behind CSR are employee morale, recruitment and retention, with employees acknowledged as a key organisational stakeholder. Despite the significance of employees in relation to CSR, relatively few studies have examined their engagement with CSR and the impediments relevant to this engagement. This exploratory case study-based research addresses this paucity of attention, drawing on one to one interviews and observation in a large UK (...) energy company. A diversity of engagement was found, ranging from employees who exhibited detachment from the CSR activities within the company, to those who were fully engaged with the CSR activities, and to others who were content with their own personal, but not organisational, engagement with CSR. A number of organisational context impediments, including poor communication, a perceived weak and low visibility of CSR culture, and lack of strategic alignment of CSR to business and personal objectives, served to explain this diversity of employee engagement. Social exchange theory is applied to help explore the volition that individual employees have towards their engagement with CSR activities, and to consider the implications of an implicit social, rather than explicit economic, contract between an organisation and its employees in their engagement with CSR. (shrink)

When loyalty is discussed, a very rare thing in recent years, it is sometimes listed as one of the virtues and just as often derided. Its relationship to the virtues, or to the other virtues, is difficult to discern, and that is at least partly because the role that judgement plays in loyalty seems odd. The argument of this paper is that there is a core value to loyalty, and that understanding this core value is of critical importance in understanding (...) the virtues despite the fact that loyalty is not itself one of them. I shall suggest at the end of the paper that it is the raw material of the virtues and of at least some vices. (shrink)

No one is excused from doing what he ought to do merely because he is unwilling to do it. But what if others are unwilling to play their necessary role in some joint venture that you all ought to undertake: might that excuse you from doing what you yourself ought to do as part of that? It would, if you were genuinely willing to play your necessary part if they were. But the unwillingness of everyone involved cannot reciprocally serve to (...) excuse one another from doing what they ought to do. (shrink)