Although high-performance work practices have been shown to increase organizational performance and improve employee attitudes, it still remains unclear how they impact interpersonal relations in the workplace. While some argue that HPWPs lead to better interpersonal relations, others fear that HPWPs may increase competition and uncivil and abusive behaviors. In response to this, our aim is to examine whether and when HPWPs are associated with increased levels of competition and thereby more incivility. Given recent interest in how HR practices and (...) leadership may interact to produce certain outcomes, we study laissez-faire leadership as a possible moderator. A survey was conducted in Belgium, and a mediated moderation analysis using SEM performed using Mplus. The results suggest that in the absence of laissez-faire leadership, HPWPs are associated with less incivility, thus suggesting better interpersonal relations. However, the results also show that HPWPs may lead to increased competition and thereby somewhat more incivility, under conditions of laissez-faire leadership. The results thus point to the importance of studying interactions between HR practices and leadership in trying to understand employee outcomes. In terms of practical implications, the results suggest that investing in HPWPs may reduce incivility and thereby improve relationship wellbeing. However, HPWPs need to be combined with active leadership to avoid undesirable negative consequences. (shrink)

Solms and the other authors in this series of BBS target articles accept the findings that the executive control of the REM/NREM cycle is still localized within a narrow region of the pontine brainstem. However, recent findings challenge this notion. We will review the recent data and suggest instead that the hypothalamus is the primary regulator of states of consciousness. If the hypothalamus indeed controls all the fun stuff, such as sex, eating, drinking, sleeping, and so on, then one can (...) more easily accept Solms's argument that dreams are also generated from the forebrain. [Solms]. (shrink)

Human activities have become more and more internationalized in the course of recent decades and globalization is a major fact of our time. Latest changes in economics, politics and technology are not always well understood and well accepted. Many people consider globalization as detrimental since it is assumed that it destroys jobs in developed countries because of the alleged competition from low-wage countries, and that it could lead to a “standardization” of lifestyles and even cultures. Some wrongly believe that given (...) these dangers, the economic globalization should be accompanied by globalized economic policies, that actually curb freedom of trade. Our article clarifies the meaning of freedom of trade and competition, underlines the fact that there are two radically opposed approaches to integration and discusses, finally, accomplishments or projects concerning taxation, regulations, monetary integration and banking union. (shrink)

Confronted with the reality that our environment is dying, we must navigate feelings of grief and mourning. In this article, I set out to understand the emotion of climate grief, using the LBT model of emotions. I define climate grief as an emotion whose object is the loss of the local and global ecosystems as we rely on, value and relate to them. The rating of climate grief is strongly negative, such that we bleakly perceive our existence and our survival (...) as an ecosystem. In addition, I explore how self-defeating practical syllogisms can transform the healthy emotional grieving process into a destructive process. In particular, I investigate the LBT fallacies of "awfulizing", "damnation" and "can'tstipation". Finally, I propose a set of "climate-friendly virtues" and look at what all of us can do to mobilize our emotions of climate grief toward healthy, positive and sustainable action. (shrink)

The article proposes a new approach to understanding gamification. Its feature lies in taking into account the criticism expressed against gamifi­cation to date. The article examines in detail the history of gamification, it is shown that at its first stage (before 2015) approaches oriented towards extrinsic motivation prevailed, while at the second stage (after 2015) ap­proaches oriented towards intrinsic motivation began to prevail. Ignoring this point just leads to the fact that the criticism expressed in the early 2010s (its main (...) idea was that gamification is a new form of exploitation and manipulation) seems relevant today, although in fact it is no longer so. But it’s not just about rethinking criticism, it’s also about taking a fresh look at gamification itself, which has continued (since 2011) to be defined as «the use of game design elements in non-game contexts”. And this is even despite the fact that such a definition no longer corresponds to the current situation. First, it is confusing by mixing gamification with seri­ous games. Second, it is confusing by limiting gamification to non-game contexts. Third, it is silent about why gamification is used. Fourth, it does not explain exactly which elements are being implemented. Alternatively, we propose our own definition: gamification is a methodology for using metagame elements and mechanics to correct human behavior by creating a favorable emotional background. (shrink)

Informed consent is an essential requirement for the ethical conduct of research. It is also a necessary requirement for the lawful conduct of research. Informed consent provides a legal basis to enrol human subjects in clinical research. In paediatric research, where children do not generally enjoy a presumption of competence, a legal representative must authorise a child's enrolment. Determining who should act on behalf of the child is a matter of law, rather than ethical principle. But, if national laws are (...) lacking or do not reflect socio-cultural realities, legal uncertainty can arise, which can have implications for children's enrolment in clinical research. Using Thailand as its case study, this paper contemplates how international legal frameworks, such as the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, could be leveraged to navigate legal uncertainty in the informed consent process, enabling more children to access and participate in paediatric clinical research. (shrink)

It has been assumed that at the whole organismal level, the mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (ROS) production is proportional to the oxygen consumption. Recently, a number of researchers have challenged this assumption, based on the observation that the ROS production per unit oxygen consumed in the resting state of mitochondrial respiration is much higher than that in the active state. Here, we develop a simple model to investigate the validity of the assumption and the challenge of it. The model highlights (...) the significance of the time budget that mitochondria operate in the different respiration states. The model suggests that under three physiologically possible conditions, the difference in ROS production per unit oxygen consumed between the respiration states does not upset the proportionality between the whole animal ROS production and oxygen consumption. The model also shows that mitochondrial uncoupling generally enhances the proportionality. (shrink)

Researchers from diverse disciplines, including organismal and cellular physiology, sports science, human nutrition, evolution and ecology, have sought to understand the causes and consequences of the surprising variation in metabolic rate found among and within individual animals of the same species. Research in this area has been hampered by differences in approach, terminology and methodology, and the context in which measurements are made. Recent advances provide important opportunities to identify and address the key questions in the field. By bringing together (...) researchers from different areas of biology and biomedicine, we describe and evaluate these developments and the insights they could yield, highlighting the need for more standardisation across disciplines. We conclude with a list of important questions that can now be addressed by developing a common conceptual and methodological toolkit for studies on metabolic variation in animals. (shrink)

Il n’est pas toujours évident de rappeler aujourd’hui que l’économie politique contemporaine est née d’une fusion, et non seulement d’évictions successives, entre le formalisme moderne, des conceptions non formalisées – et peut-être dûment impossibles à formaliser – mais rationnelles, et des intuitions dont le statut philosophique a été – et demeure – l’une des grandes questions traitées en théorie de la connaissance, telle que l’a en particulier illustrée la tradition allemande depuis Kant jusqu’à nous. Une des tentatives majeures pour donner (...) un statut à l’Anschauung dans la théorie économique a été conduite en Allemagne, puis en Suisse, par Edgar Salin (1892-1974) dont l’œuvre, fut inspirée par l’atmosphère régnant dans le cercle réuni autour du poète Stefan George dans l’Entre-deux guerres. Elle se présenta comme une conception alternative à celles de Popper et de Weber, tant quant à l’usage possible de l’intuition en regard du cadre de la rationalité scientifique qu’eu égard à l’architectonique et aux visées de l’économie politique. La présente étude restitue, d’une part, une brève généalogie du concept philosophique d’intuition et, d’autre part, constitue un des rares exposés en français de la doctrine développée par Salin, une pensée que le travail mené par les auteurs les a conduits à revaloriser dans l’optique d’épistémologie comparative qu’ils ont ici adoptée. (shrink)

This chapter examines art-historical classification and style-dating and evaluates their applications in establishing the connections between Ireland and Anglo-Saxon England during the seventh century. It describes the animals and plants in Christian objects and suggests that they are variants of the Germanic Animal Style II defined by Bernhard Salin. The chapter also argues that these objects reflect the relationships between the Anglo-Saxon and Irish ruling elites.

The thirteenth-century Hebrew texts that discuss salinity all ultimately go back to Aristotle's treatment of the subject in the Meteorology. However, in these Hebrew texts the question of what exactly makes the sea salty is answered in diverging ways. The oldest of them, the Otot ha-Shamayim, being the Hebrew translation of the Arabic paraphrase of the Meteorology, proposes various causes of the sea's salinity, to wit, the dry exhalation, the action of heat, and the admixture of an earthy (...) substance. This is due partly to Aristotle's own ambiguity, and partly to the fact that his Greek commentators interpreted his words in different ways. Two later encyclopedias, the Midrash ha-Hokhma and the De'ot ha-Philosofim base their expositions of salinity on Ibn Rushd, whose two commentaries on the Meteorology contain various theories. The first encyclopedia opts for the action of heat as the major cause in producing saltiness, whereas the second attempts to explain in which way the various causes are interrelated by advisedly combining Ibn Rushd's accounts. (shrink)

The past 15 years of exceptionally severe water scarcity in the Islamic Republic of Iran have resulted in the desertification and salinity of formerly arable lands, drying out of Iranian lakes and rivers, and quickly shrinking groundwater resources, while water demand has risen, along with the size of the Iranian population, of which over 70% lives in urban areas now. We have aimed to discover the causes of water scarcity in the IR Iran and evaluated its social and economic (...) impacts. First, we computed the Weighted Anomaly Standardized Precipitation (WASP) Index for the period of 1979-2014. To illustrate the social impact of water scarcity, we analyzed the current water risk for the twenty most populous Iranian cities, by employing the composite index approach to translate hydrological data into comprehensible indicators of water related risks, and made a projection for 2020-2030, by modeling potential changes in the future demand and supply of water. To demonstrate the economic impact of water scarcity, we evaluated the overall agricultural contribution to the IR Iran GDP. We have found that the 1999 severe drought in the IR Iran commenced a period of unusually dry conditions that is still ongoing. The rapidly growing Iranian urban populations presently experience a medium to extremely high overall water risk, with extremely high baseline water stress that, in part, is due to the lack of upstream protected lands. The relationship between baseline water stress and drought severity has been determined as weak, confirming that other factors than drought are equally or more important contributors to the existing water risk. Our projection calculations indicate that Iranian urban populations will continue to experience an extremely high water stress for the coming decade. Due to the fast growth of these populations as well as considerable rise of value added to the IR Iran GDP by other sectors of the national economy, the contribution of agricultural production to the national GDP has declined from about 25% to under 10% (although its total yield has risen considerably) during the past 30 years. This decrease has been directly proportional to the increased foreign food imports, dependency on the IR Iran oil exports and reduction in the non-oil exports. The main causes of water scarcity in the IR Iran appear to be due to climatic factors, insufficient environmental protection, and over-exploitation and mismanagement of water resources, especially by the agricultural sector. In conclusion, our study proposes anti-wasting water management action plan that recommends shifting the IR Iran government response to water scarcity from reactive survival strategies to proactive crisis prevention, with emphasis on safeguarding, monitoring, early warning, and effective step-by-step preparedness and readiness, and by laterally integrating water management between all levels of the IR Iran government, including local, regional and national, for a sustainable, resilient and prosperous economy of the Islamic Republic of Iran now and in the future. (shrink)

This book is a collection and reworking of research done by Pascal Salin since around 1990. Salin is an economist in the tradition of the Austrian school of economics. He emphasizes the centrality of individual choice in an uncertain world in which individual actions interact to produce spontaneous orders. But he is no mere conduit of established ideas. He also offers his own highly original insights honed after a lifetime as an economist, one who has earned the respect in which (...) he is now held by his peers worldwide. The book makes delightful reading. Salin covers a lot of ground in this book, mostly within the topics indicated by the title, though in the final two chapters he goes beyond these and into the foundations of economic science. The book is divided into five parts: (1) firms, markets and competition, (2) globalization and international economic problems, (3) monetary integration, (4) money, finance and economic policies, and (5) foundations of economic theory. (shrink)

According to Plutarch (Sert. 7.1–2) and Sallust (Hist. 1.83–4), a certain P. Calpurnius Lanarius killed L. Livius Salinator, a member of Sertorius’ staff in charge of military operations in the Pyrenees, in the early stages of the Sertorian War (82–72 b.c.). Through the analysis of the verb δολοφονέω in Plutarch's and St. Jerome's use of Sallust's Histories, this article seeks to demonstrate that Lanarius was an exile of the Sullan regime who treacherously assassinated his superior Salinator. The article puts forward (...) the suggestion—not hitherto considered—that Lanarius was one of those proscribed. (shrink)