Securities lending has been a lucrative business for mutual funds and exchange-traded funds over the past decade. Unfortunately for investors, the sponsors of these funds have not been very transparent with the details of their securities lending programs, and consequently most investors in these funds are unaware of their exposure to the risks inherent in securities lending. Interestingly, most funds do not return the full profits from securities lending activities to their investors. In this paper, we examine and discuss the (...) ethical considerations related to the securities lending activities of mutual funds and ETFs and offer a series of best practices that we believe will provide better transparency of these activities to fund investors. (shrink)

Life‐threatening illness is associated with financial burden among families. During this time, care‐related expenses often increase. The concept of financial burden has not fully been explored nor conceptually described in the literature. Our study coalesces the empirical literature on financial burden into a more comprehensive multidimensional theoretical framework to understand financial burden among patients and families dealing with serious illness. Using Jabareen's phased approach for building conceptual frameworks, we synthesized the existing scientific literature (including existing measures of financial burden) to (...) construct an empirically derived model. Definitions of financial burden are overlapping with similarities, but also inconsistencies. Many studies have focused more on objective and operational definitions, than subjective and conceptual aspects. Regarding measures for financial burden, many studies have only used a few items. The financial burden is dependent on the illness trajectories and duration. By considering multidimensionality, we illustrate potential financial burden factors (objective, coping, and subjective). Although anticipation and expectations about future financial issues are important, patients and caregivers generally experience objective aspects of burden, followed by subjective impressions of burden. Coping skills likely reduce subjective burden. Based on the results, we redefine the financial burden among patients with life‐threatening illness and caregivers. (shrink)

RAID-II is a high-bandwidth, network-attached storage server designed and implemented at the University of California at Berkeley. In this paper, we measure the performance of RAID-II and evaluate various architectural decisions made during the design process. We first measure the end-to-end performance of the system to be approximately 20 MB/s for both disk array reads and writes. We then perform a bottleneck analysis by examining the performance of each individual subsystem and conclude that the disk subsystem limits performance. By adding (...) a custom interconnect board with a high-speed memory and bus system and parity engine, we are able to achieve a performance speedup of 8 to 15 over a comparative system using only off-the-shelf hardware. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Christian Moral Life: Faithful Discipleship for a Global Society by Patricia Lamoureux, Paul J. WadellVictor Lee AustinThe Christian Moral Life: Faithful Discipleship for a Global Society Patricia Lamoureux and Paul J. Wadell Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2010. 306pp. $27.00In ten chapters, the authors provide what is in effect an introductory college textbook in Roman Catholic moral theology. They aim to ground their exposition in scripture and to (...) reach a broad audience by drawing on ecumenical and interfaith perspectives. Their organization is clear: they summarize each chapter in advance and then conclude it with a list of main points and questions for reflection. The index is extensive, the bibliography is large, and the table of contents is quite detailed. In short, the book aims to be accessible to undergraduates and helpful to more advanced students. (There is, unfortunately, no index of scriptural citations.) [End Page 201]The arc of their approach to moral theology is as follows. One should begin with discipleship and more specifically with its dynamic of call and response. Discipleship is a process in which one learns to see, particularly to see the reign of God. Sin and repentance are continually involved in discipleship. The development of the virtues is central because through them we learn to be good at being human. In the moral life, conscience is the central gift by which we learn to live by love in a Eucharistic life. Such life is informed by the resurrection as understood both “analogically and dialectically” (206), it is guided by the Spirit, and it is anchored in the shared resources and discernment of Christian community. Finally, the moral life is not private. Thus, the authors conclude with a chapter that draws out the implications for public discipleship.I venture three critiques that arise in part from my place as an Anglican moral theologian. The first deals with scripture. The authors are aware of the characteristic biases of preconciliar Roman Catholic moral theology. I am less certain that they are self-conscious of some of their own presuppositions. Commendably, they provide a verse of scripture at the head of each chapter, and they conceive of what they are doing as working from scripture throughout. Yet it is not clear to me that they present us with a moral theology that comes out of a prayerful wrestling with scripture. For example, their statement, “Jesus praises the [good] Samaritan” (46) is not strictly true. Rather, in telling that parable, Jesus holds back from stating a conclusion. Moreover, the authors are correct to say that parables are useful in transforming our vision. They make that point over eight pages (39–47), in which there are seventeen citations of secondary literature from six different authors. Yet, I would have preferred to see how the authors themselves digested, synthesized, and struggled with the parables, rather than simply discussing the conclusions of others.My second critique deals with conscience. When students start to think about how the moral life is grounded in scripture, they will at some point ask: What if my conscience tells me that something is right that scripture says is wrong (or vice versa)? This question, however, does not appear in this book. In their chapter on the centrality of conscience, it becomes clear that the authors see the primary challenge to the primacy of the conscience as coming from “church leaders.” This is, I think, a regrettable continuation of the tired struggle of Roman moral theologians with their church’s magisterium. At least to this outsider—who lives within an ecclesial context marked by extreme weakness of teaching—there seems to be a highly important and positive use of obedience, which is different from the “mystique of obedience” that these authors criticize (170–71). To be precise, “church leaders” can help us learn something about the relationship of conscience and scripture. This book does not show the place of obedience in the Christian moral life.My last point is a comment on textbooks. Although this book is quite long (I estimate it at 150,000 words), it has that textbook quality of passing lightly [End Page 202] from one thing to the next... (shrink)

In this collection of writings drawn from Jonathan Edwards’s essays and topical notebooks, the great American theologian deals with key Christian doctrines including the Trinity, grace, and faith. The volume includes long-established pieces in the Edwards canon, newly reedited from the original manuscripts, as well as documents that have never before been published and that in some cases reveal new aspects of his theology.

Before he joined the Communist Party, the young György Lukács published an outstanding history of the modern drama in which he combined sociological analysis with aesthetic judgment. By doing so he called his countrymen's attention to a new and insightful approach to the study of literature. At the same time, he made a strong case for the superiority of neoclassical tragedy—largely inspired by personal experience.

The most famous korean Poet Jiha Kim had turned toward the thoughts for life in the beginning of eighties in Korea. I will here introduce the causes and the basis of his thoughts. It has been recognized already that Korean traditional philosophy of DongHak (the learning in the East Asia) and the western philosophies, ie the theology of liberation, the philosophy of Bergson or Deleuze had influenced much to his thoughts for life. But the most determinate basis of his thoughts, (...) I think is the experiences in the movements for democracy in Korea. His thoughts represent the dear believes which the mass have won since the seventies.These believes resides in the not exhausting life powers of the Minjung (Peoples repressed and alienated). His thoughts has succeed to the modern philosophy of democratic resistance but also criticised the severe problems of modern philosophies. After the democratic movement in Korea there has taken place the cultural revolution movements in Korea by new generations, which can not be adjoined to the previous democratic movements without the thoughts for life of Jiha Kim. (shrink)

Ethics in Public Health and Population Health.

The structure and the energies are mutually relevant, in that each makes the other determinate. Without the social energies, the political forms of democracy are abstract and indeterminate; they lose their reference to the individual society, and there is left a structure which might be exemplified in any number of states, in any number of different ways. But in relation to the energies, the determinable structures become individualized, determinate forms. Conversely, apart from structure, the energies are indeterminate. Thus we say (...) of a man that his originality or ambition took a certain form. His creative powers found an outlet in science or in art; his ambition was channelled in a political career, or he became a business executive. Because of the mutual determination of structure and energies, the existent is an individual, and acts as a unit. (shrink)

Kant's transcendental deduction yields twelve and only twelve categories, but behind the argument lie two assumptions: 1) newtonian physics gives unalterable and certain knowledge of phenomena; 2) the subject-predicate logic is the correct tool for the analysis of knowledge. this article examines the place of both assumptions in kant's doctrine and the relevance of each today. both assumptions must be discarded, and with them goes the rigidity of the categories; but the article shows how kant's important insights into the place (...) of the categories in knowledge can be salvaged. (shrink)

Baudrillard's fatalism could be interpreted as a unique synthesis of poststructuralism and Eastern philosophy. It may be construed as an effort to integrate the critique of the political economy of the sign with a romantic anthropology of symbolic exchange that is partly influenced by Taoist philosophy. As a whole, it comprises a type of countercultural response to a burgeoning simulacral order. This is a response that draws upon some aspects of Taoist thought because it ideally provides a non-Marxist approach to (...) the critique of the sign, but is insufficiently developed to consider the problem of agency in Taoist non-causal action. This paper surveys the general direction of Baudrillard's writings and suggests possible areas of research emerging from the ambiguities of fatal theory. (shrink)

This book argues that Kierkegaard, influenced by Kant's critique of metaphysics, did not attempt to integrate human and divine agencies in any speculative theory. Instead, Kierkegaard deploys them to encourage different passions and dispositions that can be integrated in a coherent human life.

Frederic Lee sets out the foundations of a post-Keynesian price theory through developing an empirically grounded production schema. The administered, normal cost and mark-up price doctrines are explained in parts I-III of the book, as many of their theoretical arguments are important for developing the foundations. This involves discussing the work of Gardiner Means, Philip Andrews, and Michal Kalecki as well as the developers of the doctrines, such as Edwin Nourse, Paolo Sylos Labini, Harry Edwards, Josef Steindl and Alfred Eisner. (...) Drawing upon the arguments and formal modelling offered by the doctrines, in conjunction with empirical evidence from one hundred studies on pricing and production, Dr Lee develops an empirically grounded pricing model and production schema. He argues that the model and the schema together constitute the foundations for post-Keynesian price theory. (shrink)

This book is a collection of Lee McIntyre’s philosophical essays from over the last twenty years. Explaining Explanation focuses on the philosophy of social science and the philosophy of chemistry, but also covers more general problems such as underdetermination, explanatory exclusion, the accommodation-prediction debate, and laws in biological science.

This book addresses the theme of global sustainable development across two dimensions.First it introduces its progress and prospects in both rich and poor countries. It then outlines the major trends that will in practice influence the direction of sustainable development into the next century. It encompasses an understanding of sustainable development as both a theoretical framework for thinking about how to deal with human needs and environmental limits on the one hand, and a more material understanding of it as a (...) set of practices, on the other.The book is written by a group of internationally-recognised experts in the field, and is distinctive in offering a variety of philosophical and ethical reflections on sustainable development. Core issues covered include economic growth, poverty reduction, future generations, technology, population and diversity, making it an ideal text for students.Key Features: The only available text to introduce the philosophical and ethical issues surrounding sustainable developmentContributors are internationally-renowned experts in the field and include activists and policy makers, as well as academicsCore areas include global equality, technology, women and populationAn ideal course textbook for Politics, Philosophy and International Relations student. (shrink)

It is usual to read nomina, with which three interpretations are possible. The stronger arrogates to himself the titles of moderation and justice. So in the excellent Rumanian translation of 1871 by Gavrilu J. Munteanu: ‘Cându are sâ decida pumnulu, celu mai tare si atribue titlu de moderatu şi de onestu.’.

Eric Voegelin’s Asian Political Thought brings together scholars from both Asia and the West to reflect upon the political philosopher’s thought about China, Japan, Korea, Central Asia, and India, showing how Voegelin’s approach can illuminate the region but also what are the possibilities that Asia offers in the twentieth-first century.

Machine generated contents note: Part I -- Doctors -- Dr. Joseph Messer -- Dr. Sharon Sandell -- ER -- Dr. John Barrett -- Marc and Noreen Levison, a paramedic and a nurse -- Lloyd (Pete) Haywood, a former gangbanger -- Claire Hellstern, a nurse -- Ed Reardon, a paramedic -- Law and Order -- Robert Soreghan, a homicide detective -- Delbert Lee Tibbs, a former death-row inmate -- War -- Dr. Frank Raila -- Haskell Wexler, a cinematographer -- Tammy Snider, (...) a Hiroshima survivor (hibakusha) -- Mothers and Sons -- V.I.M. (Victor Israel Marquez), a Vietnam vet -- Angelina Rossi, his mother -- Guadalupe Reyes, a mother -- God's Shepherds -- Rev. Willie T. Barrow -- Father Leonard Dubi -- Rabbi Robert Marx -- Pastor Tom Kok -- Rev. Ed Townley -- The Stranger -- Rick Rundle, a city sanitation worker -- Part II -- Seeing Things -- Randy Buescher, an associate architect -- Chaz Ebert, a lawyer -- Antoinette Korotko-Hatch, a church worker -- Karen Thompson, a student -- Dimitri Mihalas, an astronomer and physicist -- A View from the Bridge -- Hank Oettinger, a retired printer -- Ira Glass, a radio journalist -- Kid Pharaoh, a retired "collector" -- Quinn Brisben, a retired teacher -- Kurt Vonnegut, a writer -- The Boomer -- Bruce Bendinger, an advertising executive and writer -- Part III -- Fathers and Sons -- Doc Watson, a folksinger -- Vernon Jarrett, a journalist -- Country Women -- Peggy Terry, a retired mountain woman -- Bessie Jones, a Georgia Sea Island Singer (1972) -- Rosalie Sorrels, a traveling folksinger -- The Plague I -- Tico Valle, a young man -- Lori Cannon, "curator" of the Open Hand Society -- Brian Matthews, an ex-bartender, writer for a gay weekly -- Jewell Jenkins, a hospital aide -- Justin Hayford, a journalist, musician -- Matta Kelly, a case manager -- The Old Guy -- Jim Hapgood -- The Plague II -- Nancy Lanoue -- Out There -- Dr. Gary Slutkin -- Day of the Dead -- Carlos Cortez, a painter and poet -- Vine Deloria, a writer and teacher -- Helen Sclair, a cemetery familiar -- The Other Son -- Steve Young, a father -- Maurine Young, a mother -- The Job -- William Herdegen, an undertaker -- Rory Moina, a hospice nurse -- The End and the Beginning -- Mamie Mobley, a mother -- Dr. Marvin Jackson, a son -- Epilogue -- Kathy Fagan and Linda Gagnon, mothers. (shrink)