Background A biobank is a structure which collects and manages biological samples and their associated data. The collected samples will then be made available for various uses. The sharing of those samples raised ethical questions which have been answered through specific rules. Thus, a Biobank functioning under tight ethical rules would be immensely valuable from a scientific and an economic view point. In 2009, Côte d’Ivoire established a biobank, which has been chosen to house the regional biobank of Economic Community (...) of West African States countries in 2018. To ensure optimal and efficient use of this biobank, the scientific community must be aware of its existence and its role. It was therefore necessary to evaluate the knowledge of laboratories staff on the role and activities of a biobank. Methods This descriptive study was done by questioning staff from laboratories working on human’s health, animals or plants. The laboratories were located in southern Côte d’Ivoire. Results A total of 205 people completed the questionnaire. Of these 205 people, 34.63% were biologists, 7.32% engineers, 48.78% technicians and 9.27% PhD students. The average length of work experience was 10.11 ± 7.83 years. In this study, 43.41% of the participants had never heard of biobanking. Only 48.78% of participants had a good understanding of the role of a biobank. Technicians and PhD students were less educated on the notion of biobank. Conclusion The level of knowledge of laboratory staff about biobanking needs to be improved. Training on the role, activities and interests of the biobank is important. (shrink)

There is a dire need today to create spaces in which people can make meaning of their existence in the world, abiding by cultural frameworks and practices that acknowledge and validate a meaningful existence for all. People are not just isolated individuals but are connected in diverse ways with other persons within our natural and social environment which is part of the whole universe. The African philosophy of uBuntu or humaneness is re-emerging for its timely relevance and potential as indispensable (...) in our quest for global citizenship, peace, and mutual understanding in securing sustainable human development in the broader ecosystem. Comparative educationists have the challenge to devise theoretical frameworks, epistemological and pedagogical constructs as well as pragmatic, useful and effective ways of promoting the virtues of compassion and recognition of our common humanity in eliminating the ills of domination and control that are guided by greed, hatred, jealousy, and intolerance. Comparative Education for Global Citizenship, Peace and Shared Living through Ubuntu paves the way for a better understanding of the critical importance of the collective search and endeavor towards achieving the virtues of nonviolence, peace, shared values of living together, global citizenship, improved quality of life for all and a better appreciation of the positive implications of interdependence. (shrink)

In this article I analyze some of the cultural factors that have determined and influenced the teaching profession and its evolution in African countries. Firstly, I use an historical approach to review conceptual issues on teachers, teaching and learning; secondly, I examine salient features of the idea and practices of teachers and teaching in the pre-colonial and less Westernized contemporary African contexts and elements of Quranic schools; thirdly, I offer an account of how teachers were introduced to formal learning of (...) European education in the colonial era; and, fourthly, I examine the declining prestige and other outstanding issues of teaching and the teaching profession amidst the call of quality Education for All. In the main, most African countries have to grapple with the daunting challenges of providing quality education to the entire school-age populations in African countries, especially with the approaching 2015 date for meeting the second Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of achieving universal primary education and Education For All (EFA). At the secondary level and even more clearly articulated for higher education, there is a sense of urgency in providing quality education particularly in science and technology to position Africa with competent human resources in the global economy. Paradoxically, however, the perceived and actual prestige of the teaching profession and the social status of the teacher as a professional category, especially at the lower levels of the educational systems, have not consistently been positive. (shrink)

Islamic Business Finance is based on strong ethical regulations as suggested by Islamic Literature, such as the Quran and the Traditions of the Prophet of Islam, and could be considered as a subclass of the wider subject of ethical standards in business. This book highlights the basic principles of Islamic Business ethics and their implication in today's global business environment. It highlights the most important features of Islamic banking and finance in relation to the core principles of Shariah law. It (...) is the most comprehensive book to date, in terms of the number of Quranic verses and traditions of the Prophet relating to this subject, which are interspersed throughout the text. It explains how ethics are defined both in general terms and within the context of an Islamic perspective. In addition, it provides a logical interpretation of Islamic principles of business ethics through the use of contemporary business case studies. Topics such as digital currencies, money laundering, etc. are discussed at length. This book also discusses the new and emerging ethical issues faced by business and industry globally. This book will be a valuable reference guide for students, teachers and researchers of Islamic banking and finance. (shrink)

On conduct of life for Muslims and Islamic ethics.

The Euclidean algorithm on the natural numbers ℕ = {0,1,…} can be specified succinctly by the recursive programwhere rem is the remainder in the division of a by b, the unique natural number r such that for some natural number q,It is an algorithm from the remainder function rem, meaning that in computing its time complexity function cε, we assume that the values rem are provided on demand by some “oracle” in one “time unit”. It is easy to prove thatMuch (...) more is known about cε, but this simple-to-prove upper bound suggests the proper formulation of the Euclidean's optimality among its peers—algorithms from rem:Conjecture. If an algorithm α computes gcd from rem with time complexity cα, then there is a rational number r > 0 such that for infinitely many pairs a > b > 1, cα > r log2a. (shrink)

La notion de lieu occupe dans le système cartésien une place stratégique : elle en manifeste la singularité tant dans le domaine de la physique que dans celui de la métaphysique. En physique, les difficultés sont nombreuses : comment Descartes parvient-il à édifier une philosophie naturelle qui produit, notamment, les lois du choc et celle de la chute des graves, dans un cadre conceptuel qui nie l'existence du vide ainsi que celle de lieux différents? Jusqu'à quel point peut-on parler d'une (...) mathématisation du réel pour un corps de doctrine aussi peu algébrique que possible? Le spectre du roman cartésien doit être chassé afin de saisir la science cartésienne dans sa nouveauté radicale. Mais dès lors que l'on s'interroge sur les motifs conceptuels qui empêchent Descartes d'élaborer une mathématisation du réel, dont la Géométrie semble lui donner les moyens et les Regulae la méthode, on est conduit à préciser la nature des procédures résolutoires de la pensée, leur portée et leurs limites et, ainsi, à entrer de plain-pied dans le champ de la mathématique, tout d'abord, puis dans celui de la métaphysique. Dire ce qu'est et ce que peut un corps s'énonce à partir du savoir de ce qu'est et de ce que peut l'esprit. En effet, Descartes attribue à l'esprit la force et la puissance, non seulement d'inventer et de produire du nouveau, mais également celle, très concrète, d'imprimer une nouvelle détermination aux mouvements des esprits animaux. On peut considérer que la force chez Descartes est indexée au spirituel plutôt qu'au corporel et qu'en dehors de la question singulière de l'Eucharistie, elle n'est efficace qu'à la condition de ne pas être localisée stricto sensu en termes de lieu : Dieu agit dans le monde pour autant qu'il n'en fait pas partie et la glande pinéale est le siège principal de l'âme, sedes et non pas locus. Cette lecture de l'œuvre cartésienne trouve ainsi dans la notion de lieu un thème d'étude particulièrement fécond, dans la mesure où elle est mobilisée à la fois dans la physique et les mathématiques cartésiennes, mais également dans la question de la localisation de Dieu dans le monde, dans celle du Christ sous les espèces consacrées, et dans celle de l'âme dans le corps. Ainsi d'un lieu à un autre, nous sommes conduits au cœur du système cartésien, par un mouvement d'approfondissement réciproque des perspectives. (shrink)

Kānûn-i şâhenşâhî -- Mukaddime -- Birinci maksat -- Ikinci maksat -- Üçüncü maksat -- Dördüncü maksat.

Martha Nussbaum, à l'instar de Cavell ou de Murdoch, appuie sa pratique de la philosophie morale sur une analyse précise de textes littéraires. Dans cet article, on montre que ce recours à la littérature n'est pas illustratif, mais est cohérent avec un ensemble de thèses substantielles sur la nature même de la pensée morale et sur la méthode adaptée à la philosophie morale. C'est parce qu'elle accorde un poids particulier aux êtres et aux objets particuliers en éthique, ainsi qu'aux conflits, (...) et à la portée cognitive des émotions que Nussbaum peut considérer certains textes littéraires particuliers comme des exemples de philosophie morale. Cela explique également certaines caractéristiques de son propre style philosophique, en particulier son usage particulier du « je ». For Martha Nussbaum, as well as for Cavell or Murdoch, moral philosophy relies heavily on detailed analysis of literary texts. This paper shows that this use of literature in ethics, far from being only illustrative, is consistent with a set of substantial thesis on the nature of moral thought and on the method appropriate for moral philosophy. Nussbaum considers that some literary texts are instances of moral philosophy because she sees the individuality of beings and things, as well as conflicts, as crucial elements in ethics, and also because she attributes to emotions a cognitive aspect. These characteristics shed some light on some particularities of her own style, such as a remarkable use of the first person. (shrink)

When is it appropriate to harm a single person to help multiple others? Psychologists have investigated this question through the study of hypothetical “trolley” dilemmas involving extreme physical harm life-or-death situations that contrast outcome-focussed, consequentialist moral reasoning with principle-focussed, deontological moral reasoning. The present studies investigate whether participants’ preference for consequentialism generalises across domains. We administered traditional physical harm dilemmas as well as a trolley-type dilemma involving monetary harm. Across four studies (N = 809), an internal meta-analysis demonstrated that participants’ (...) responses to the traditional dilemmas predicted their responses to the monetary dilemma. Additionally, previous research has uncovered that primary psychopathy predicts consequentialist responses on physical harm dilemmas. The current work uncovers that this association does not generalise to monetary harm dilemmas, suggesting that the association between primary psychopathy and consequentialist reasoning is not related to consequentialist reasoning per se, but to the idiosyncrasies of traditional harm-centric trolley dilemmas instead. (shrink)

Let T be a complete o-minimal extension of the theory of real closed fields. We characterize the convex hulls of elementary substructures of models of T and show that the residue field of such a convex hull has a natural expansion to a model of T. We give a quantifier elimination relative to T for the theory of pairs (R, V) where $\mathscr{R} \models T$ and V ≠ R is the convex hull of an elementary substructure of R. We deduce (...) that the theory of such pairs is complete and weakly o-minimal. We also give a quantifier elimination relative to T for the theory of pairs (R, N) with R a model of T and N a proper elementary substructure that is Dedekind complete in R. We deduce that the theory of such "tame" pairs is complete. (shrink)

La mendicité, un phénomène très ancien, a connu au fil du temps une évolution et a pris des formes très diverses. Plusieurs études ont été menées sur la mendicité. Celles-ci ont présenté la mendicité comme un phénomène religieux et aussi comme un moyen de survie. Abidjan, la capitale économique de la Côte d’Ivoire n’est pas exempte de ce phénomène. Au-delà des mendiants ordinaires, cette ville connaît une catégorie de mendiantes dont des balayeuses de rue qui suscitent l’intérêt de cette étude. (...) Leur particularité est qu’elles sont des employées d’une entreprise de ramassage d’ordures ménagères. Elles sont donc des salariées. Ainsi, se pose la question du sens de leur mendicité. L’objectif de cette étude est de comprendre le sens de la mendicité pratiquée par ces employées. Les analyses nous montrent que la mendicité apparaît comme un moyen de pression ou de revendication dans un conflit entre employeur et employés. (shrink)

Let T be a complete o-minimal extension of the theory of real closed fields. We characterize the convex hulls of elementary substructures of models of T and show that the residue field of such a convex hull has a natural expansion to a model of T. We give a quantifier elimination relative to T for the theory of pairs (R, V) where $\mathscr{R} \models T$ and V ≠ R is the convex hull of an elementary substructure of R. We deduce (...) that the theory of such pairs is complete and weakly o-minimal. We also give a quantifier elimination relative to T for the theory of pairs (R, N) with R a model of T and N a proper elementary substructure that is Dedekind complete in R. We deduce that the theory of such "tame" pairs is complete. (shrink)

v. 1. Theg bźin mdzod -- v. 2. Chos dbyiṅs mdzod -- v. 3-4. Theg mchog mdzod -- v. 5. Gnas lugs mdzod ; Tshig don mdzod -- v. 6. Man ṅag mdzod ; Grub mthaʾ mdzod.

Leibniz said with a mixture of admiration and inspiration that the Duchess Sophie of Hannover always wanted to know the reason why behind the reason why. And that is just how rationality works: it wants to leave no loose ends to understanding, seeking to enable us to understand things through to the bitter end. In the twelve chapters that make up Satisfying Reason, Rescher develops and defends the following perspective: That rationality is a cardinal virtue in cognitive matters. That this (...) is not something simple and cut-and-dried: in the pursuit of truth through the development of knowledge we face obstacles -- sometimes even insuperable ones. All that we can do is the best we can, realizing that even our very best may still be imperfect. Nevertheless, the venture is far from hopeless. While absolutes are unattainable in the cognitive venture, some solutions are situationally optimal, being comparatively the best that can be managed under the circumstances. That reason itself enables us to come to terms with this state of affairs, urging us to accept the best we can do as good enough. Satisfying Reason is an explanation of the presuppositions and methods of rational enquiry, an original exercise in metaknowledge, developing a systematic body of knowledge about the scope and limits of knowledge itself. (shrink)

Joshua Parker’s article on green inhaler prescribing is important and timely. I agree with much of it, specifically regarding the institutional duty to make climate-friendly changes (from environmentally expensive prescriptions to ‘greener,’ similarly effective ones). The challenge, however, comes in determining how that institutional obligation impacts the rights and duties of patients. In this commentary, I want to offer a friendly alternative to Parker’s view of individual patient obligation, which I suggest is important for reasons that go beyond this one (...) case. Parker’s broad view is that, because metered-dose inhalers (MDIs) emit far more greenhouse gases (GHG) than do dry powder inhalers (DPIs), and the two are equally effective for most patients, the healthcare system should switch most patients on MDIs to DPIs, and the patients have a pro tanto duty to accept this change.1 The problem is that no individual inhaler use causes harmful climate change, and so it is difficult to explain a duty not to use MDIs. It seems that my individual behaviour ‘makes no difference’ to climate change, so familiar more principles have a difficult time justifying a prohibition of such behaviour. Parker’s response to this worry fits into the consequentialist tradition,2 3 as he argues that each individual contribution to climate change causes some amount of ‘expected harm,’ because it contributes a little bit to future climate changes which will cause harm. And since we have a duty to minimise expected harm, we have a duty not to make such small contributions to climate change. I think we should be sceptical of this sort of argument. It makes the most sense if we endorse a bathtub metaphor, in which the atmosphere is like a bathtub, and once it is full, every …. (shrink)

The present study explored the multidimensionality of moral identity. In four studies (N = 1,159), we compiled a comprehensive list of moral traits, analyzed their factorial structure, and established relationships between the factorial dimensions and outcome variables. The resulting dimensions are Connectedness, Truthfulness, Care, and Righteousness. To examine relations to personality traits and pro- and antisocial inclinations we developed a new instrument, the Moral Identity Profile (MIP). Our results show distinctive relationships for the four dimensions, which challenge previous unidimensional conceptualizations (...) of moral identity. We discuss implications, limitations, and how our conceptualization reaffirms the social aspect of morality. (shrink)

Lead (Pb) contamination of the environment is an important human health problem. Children are vulnerable to Pb toxicity; it causes damage to the central nervous system and, in some extreme cases, can cause death. Lead is widespread, especially in the urban environment, and is present in the atmosphere, soil, water and food. Pb tends to accumulate in surface soil because of its low solubility, mobility, and relative freedom from microbial degradation of this element in the soil. Lead is present in (...) soil as a result to weathering and other pedogenic processes acting on the soil parent material; or from pollution arising caused by the anthropogenic activities; such as mining, smelting and waste disposal; or through the adoption of the unsafe and unethical agricultural practices such as using of sewage sludge, and waste water in production of vegetable crops or cultivation of vegetables near highways and industry regions. Lead concentrations are generally higher in the leafy vegetables than the other vegetables. Factors affecting lead uptake included its concentration in the soil, soil pH, soil type, organic matter content, plant species, and unsafe agriculture practices. Generally, as Pb concentration increased; dry matter yields of roots, stems and leaves as well as total yield decreased. The mechanism of growth inhibition by lead involve: a decrease in number of dividing cells, a reduction on chlorophyll synthesis, induced water stress to plants, and decreased NO 3 - uptake, reduced nitrate and nitrite reductase activity, a direct effect of lead on protein synthesis, a decrease on the uptake and concentration of nutrients in plants. The strategies to minimize Pb hazard can be represented in: (a) Phytoremediation, through natural plants are able to bio-accumulate Pb in their above–ground parts, which are then harvested for removal such as, using Indian Mustard (Brassica juncea), Ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiifolia), Hemp Dogbane (Apocynum cannabium), or Poplar trees, which sequester lead in its biomass. (b) Good and ethical agricultural practices such as cultivation of vegetables crops as far from busy streets or highways and industry regions as well as nonuse of sewage sludge and waste water in cultivated soils. (c) Increasing the absorptive capacity of the soil by adding organic matter and humic acid. (d) Growing vegetable crops and cultivars with a low potential to accumulate lead, especially in soils exposed to atmospheric pollution. (e) Washing of leafy vegetables by water containing 1 % vinegar or peeling roots, tubers, and some fruits of vegetables before consumption may be an important factor in reducing the lead concentration. (shrink)

The present paper is an attempt to study the acts and intentions which set up for the subject, and for the community of subjects, a set of values and disvalues which impose themselves as valid upon everyone, and which everyone must tend to prescribe, or to warn against, for everyone. The acts which set up a formal apophantic and ontology have been studied by Husserl in his Formal and Transcendental Logic , but he has not set out a comparable theory (...) of the acts which set up a universally valid system of values and disvalues. He has not done so because he does not believe in such a system, because his thought goes no further than the values set up for and felt to hold in a given group or society. It is my view that there is an ineluctable progress from these relativistic group-values to a set of values and disvalues holding for everyone, and that moreover in their relation to everyone, and that these values and disvalues have definite and undeniable shapes and locations, even if these shapes also have somewhat nebulous contours. The views I am expounding on this occasion are not new: they are fully set out in my Values and Intentions and my Axiological Ethics and in other writings. Ideas, however, require restatement at intervals, with a suitable change of idiom and emphasis. And I feel my views on this topic to have a claim to truth simply because, quite differently from my views on other topics, and despite constant reflection, they have hardly changed over the last two decades. The inspiration for these views was only in part Husserlian, as I do not think that the emotional and the axiological are really Husserl's strong suit. Strangely enough, that dry thinker Meinong would seem to have had a much richer emotional life and the ability to frame a theory to fit it, than the much easier and at times effusive thinker Husserl. Meinong's 1917 Austrian Imperial Academy treatise, On Emotional Presentation , recently translated for the Northwestern Phenomenology series, is a much more systematic investigation of the presuppositions of value-theory than any writing of a professed phenomenologist. What I have to say will build considerably on Meinong, always a major influence in my thought. But I have also been much influenced in my approaches to value-theory by the transcendental methods of Kant. Kant, I think, could very well have worked out a transcendental deduction of the heads of value and disvalue, a deduction much more illuminating than the dogmatic intuitionism of Scheler and Hartmann, instead of producing the arid triad of categorical imperatives that were all that he actually deduced. Imperatives, I consider, are secondary structures in value-constitution: the primary structures are the ultimate objects of necessary, rational pursuit and avoidance which Kant wrongly thought of as involving heteronomy and a corruption of pure form by matter. There is, I shall argue, nothing more free from extraneous, pathological material than the objects of the pursuits and avoidances in question. (shrink)

Technical chronology establishes the structure of calendars and the dates of events; it is, as it were, the foundation of history, particularly ancient history. The chronologer must know enough philology to interpret texts and enough astronomy to compute the dates of celestial phenomena, above all eclipses, which alone provide absolute dates. Joseph Scaliger, so we are told, was the first to master and apply this range of technical skills: Of the mathematical principles on which the calculation of periods rests, the (...) philologians understood nothing. The astronomers, on their side, had not yet undertaken to apply their data to the records of ancient times. Scaliger was the first of the philologians who made use of the improved astronomy of the sixteenth century to get a scientific basis for historical chronology. So Mark Pattison. This verdict can be challenged on a number of grounds. The one relevant at present is simple: Scaliger himself claimed far less. He certainly said that technical chronology had been untouched in modern times — not an entirely fair judgement — but in antiquity it had been practised in exactly the manner he considered proper, or so he believed. In particular he singles out Censorinus, whose De die natali drew extensively on Varro's lost Antiquitates rerum humanarum, books 14–19, for information on chronology. Students of Varro have long appreciated the importance of Censorinus. His dry and compact treatise offers Varronian views on etymology, the human life-span, and the course of history itself, all couched in language so jejune as to suggest that he added little or nothing to what he read. (shrink)

Study and practice of Yantra Yoga accompanied with illustrated patterns.

In This Work, The Author Tries To Trace The Origin, Development, Rituals And Festivals, Religion And Philosophy Of The Jagannatha Cult As Enlightened In Sthala Purana `Niladri Mahoyam`.

Background Residual dried blood spots (rDBS) from newborn screening programmes represent a valuable resource for medical research, from basic sciences, through clinical to public health. In Hong Kong, there is no legislation for biobanking. Parents’ view on the retention and use of residual newborn blood samples could be cultural-specific and is important to consider for biobanking of rDBS. Objective To study the views and concerns on long-term storage and secondary use of rDBS from newborn screening programmes among Hong Kong Chinese (...) parents. Methods A mixed-method approach was used to study the views and concerns on long-term storage and secondary use of rDBS from newborn screening programmes among Hong Kong Chinese parents of children 0–3 years or expecting parents through focus groups (8 groups; 33 participants) and a survey (n = 1012, 85% mothers) designed with insights obtained from the focus groups. We used framework analysis to summarise the themes as supportive factors, concerns and critical arguments for retention and secondary use of rDBS from focus group discussion. We used multiple logistic regression to assess factors associated with support for retention and secondary use of rDBS in the survey. Results Both in focus groups and survey, majority of parents were not aware of the potential secondary use of rDBS. Overall secondary use of rDBS in medical research was well accepted by a large proportion of Hong Kong parents, even if all potential future research could not be specified in a broad consent. However parents were concerned about potential risks of biobanking rDBS including leaking of data and mis-use of genetic information. Parents wanted to be asked for permission before rDBS are stored and mainly did not accept an “opt-out” approach. The survey showed that parents born in mainland China, compared to Hong Kong born parents, had lower awareness of newborn screening but higher support in biobanking rDBS. Higher education was associated with support in rDBS biobanking only among fathers. Conclusion Long-term storage and secondary use of rDBS from newborn screening for biomedical research and a broad consent for biobanking of rDBS are generally acceptable to Hong Kong parents given their autonomy is respected and their privacy is protected, highlighting the importance of an accountable governance and a transparent access policy for rDBS biobanks. (shrink)

This paper responds to the question of whether the Internet has made lectures obsolete and Matthew Pickles’ investigation of why lectures persist. It is written as a pastiche of R.K. Narayan, about whom a somewhat parallel question is probably asked. Pickles refers to a logic lecturer so dry people went swimming, and a pastiche approach is an alternative.

The aim of my paper is to highlight the issues at stake in Nancy’s assertion according to which ‘‘there is no ‘(final) Sense of sense’ in any of the senses of ‘sense’”. To this end, I examine his acknowledgement of the complete drying up of the regime of sense that has sustained the history of the West, and I show how his deconstruction unburdens “the sense of the world” from principles, reasons and ends, in order to think the fundamental incompletness (...) of a sense that shelters the singular-plural unfolding of existence and that cannot be appropriated, since it sends itself, sends back itself, and circulates without ever being settled. (shrink)

L. van den Dries proved that the theory of n-valued rings has a model companion. We show here that this result is still true when the valuation rings are required to satisfy given inclusion relations (we restrict ourselves to the case of residual characteristic zero).

Electroacupuncture (EA) and electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) are often used in the management of schizophrenia. This study sought to determine whether additional EA and ECT could augment antipsychotic response and reduce related side effects. In this retrospective controlled study, 287 hospitalized schizophrenic patients who received antipsychotics (controls, n = 50) alone or combined with EA (n = 101), ECT (n = 55) or both (EA+ECT, n = 81) were identified. EA and ECT were conducted for 5 and 3 sessions per week, (...) respectively, with a maximum of 12 sessions for ECT during hospitalization. The Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms (SAPS) and Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS) were used to assess the severity of psychotic symptoms. Clinical response on SAPS and SANS, weight gain, and adverse events were compared. Survival analysis revealed that the ECT and EA+ECT groups had markedly greater clinical response rate than controls on SAPS [72.7% and 90.1% vs. 64.0%; relative risk (RR), 1.974 and 2.628, respectively, P ≤ 0.004] and on SANS (67.3% and 70.4% vs. 42.0%; RR, 1.951 and 2.009, respectively, P ≤ 0.015). A significantly greater response rate on SANS than controls was also observed in the EA group (64.4% versus 42.0%; RR = 1.938, P = 0.008). EA-containing regimens remarkably reduced weight gain and incidences of headache, insomnia, dry mouth, and electrocardiographic abnormalities. These results suggest that EA and ECT can serve as additional treatment for enhancing antipsychotic response and reduce the side effects in hospitalized patients with schizophrenia. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Rembrandt BookProfessor Emeritus John Adkins RichardsonThe Rembrandt Book by Gary Schwartz. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2006, 384 pp. $40.95, cloth.This truly is the Rembrandt book. Substantial in every way, it is physically imposing, magnificently printed on heavy, glossy stock and profusely illustrated with splendid color reproductions of all the master’s major works and many sketches and preparatory drawings, as well as etchings and dry-point engravings. Gary (...) Schwartz, who studied art history at New York University and Johns Hopkins University, is now living in the Netherlands. The merits of his book are enormous. Not only is it filled with magnificent reproductions, there are tables and graphs detailing such things as the number of Rembrandt paintings in catalogues from 1836 to 1992; analyses of the artist’s borrowings and adaptations in five-year periods; key dates in the life of the man; Rembrandt’s relation to the forms of sale for paintings in the Dutch seventeenth century; and so on. There is even a computer rendering of the famous depiction of Captain Banning Cocq’s Company of Guards at the Gates of Amsterdam (popularly called The Night Watch), specifying the weapons shown and identifying all present, either by name and title or by a description, such as “girl in gold and blue,” “pikeman,” “musketeer,” etc.A sampling of the chapter headings and subcategories suggests just how comprehensive is Schwartz’s treatment: 1. Introduction, 2. A Dutch Artist’s Life, 3. Family, Loved Ones, Households, 4. Craft, 5. Earning and Spending, 6. Patrons, 7. Landscape, 8. Humankind, 9. Man and God. Just the specifics of the last chapter are remarkably capacious: Holy Family; Christ’s Ministry; Passion, Death and Afterlife; Divine Intervention; Holy People; Moral Examples from the Old Testament; The Man of God, Simeon; Afterlife; and Rembrandt as a Christian Rhetorician of the Brush. It’s hard to imagine a better reference for the lay reader than The Rembrandt Book.The book is also full of interesting contrasts of opinion as well as some surprising remarks. As for one of the latter, Schwartz writes that Rembrandt’s “portraits are said to be more ‘psychological’ than those of his contemporaries. What this might mean I frankly do not understand” (213). He goes on to note that the field of psychology did not exist in Rembrandt’s time. However, from long before its invention people spoke of Rembrandt’s ability to reveal the soul of the sitter. Indeed, the reason I was not surprised, although somewhat distressed, when the Rembrandt Research Project—a group of connoisseurs set up in 1969 with the explicit charge of authenticating all works ascribed to the master—announced in 1985 that The Man with a Golden Helmet in Berlin was not by the master at all, was that I had all along been troubled by this face that lacked the quality of animation in repose so [End Page 115] characteristic of Rembrandt portraits. Schwartz thinks the artist would have to have relied upon the ancient theory of the humors to do “characterological descriptions” of his sitters, and that in portraiture, “such characterizations would quickly resemble caricatures.” And, indeed, they do, but in profoundly subtle ways, much as someone like the popular illustrator Norman Rockwell employed tiny caricature-like distortions to project a kind of homely Americanism. I’m not comparing Rockwell to Rembrandt but choosing a realistic illustrator in whose work the trick is more apparent. Caricature can be as broad as it is in Jacques Callot, William Hogarth, or Honoré Daumier and yet be a feature of true art. Or so it seems to me, admittedly, a sometimes cartoonist as well as painter and engraver.Schwartz’s completeness of coverage leads him to include, in addition to superb drawings and prints, some that are so careless and hasty as to make one doubt their authenticity. One of the works of marginal quality is an etching of Six’s Bridge, which is said to have been created outdoors, hastily, on the site. This is a hotly debated issue. Rembrandt is known to have carried “varnished”—that is, grounded—copper etching plates, so there wouldn’t seem much reason to... (shrink)

Skolem studied the germs at infinity of the smallest class of real valued functions on the positive real line containing the constant $1$, the identity function ${\mathbf {x}}$, and such that whenever f and g are in the set, $f+g,fg$ and $f^g$ are in the set. This set of germs is well ordered and Skolem conjectured that its order type is epsilon-zero. Van den Dries and Levitz computed the order type of the fragment below $2^{2^{\mathbf {x}}}$. Here we prove that (...) the set of asymptotic classes within any Archimedean class of Skolem functions has order type $\omega $. As a consequence we obtain, for each positive integer n, an upper bound for the fragment below $2^{n^{\mathbf {x}}}$. We deduce an epsilon-zero upper bound for the fragment below $2^{{\mathbf {x}}^{\mathbf {x}}}$, improving the previous epsilon-omega bound by Levitz. A novel feature of our approach is the use of Conway’s surreal number for asymptotic calculations. (shrink)

L’entre-deux nous le rencontrons, c’est l’autre. Pour nous, il fut présent dans les formations-recherches interculturelles des Offices des jeunesses : franco-allemand, germano-polonais, franco-québécois. L’autre, les ennemis ou les alliés? Ceux d’hier ou les nouveaux, alors, l’Est et l’Ouest. Leur rivalité pour l’espace nous référait à l’entre-deux du cosmos et de l’humain ; le cosmos, repère d’entre-deux. En microphysique, à chaque particule, son antiparticule. Le proton en noyau, les électrons alentour mais aussi le neutron. En cosmologie : rayonnement centrifuge des étoiles (...) ; gravitation centripète jusqu’au trou noir. Le monde du vivant n’est pas en reste. De la cellule à l’être pluricellulaire. De la scissiparité à la reproduction sexuée. Entre-deux du monde végétal et du monde animal ; de l’humain ouvert à l’infini et de l’univers plein. Mais s’ils se sentent vides, les humains tombent dans des absolus qui les opposent parfois jusqu’au meurtre de l’autre. L’antidote : vivre, penser, inventer les entre-deux de l’histoire et des civilisations. The in-between, we meet it: it is my neighbour. For me, it was present in the intercultural trainings-searches for the Services of the youths: French-German, German-Polish, French-from Quebec. The others: enemies or allies? Those of yesterday or the new, then, the East and the West. Their rivalry for space referred to us in the in-between of the cosmos and the human being; the cosmos, the mark of the in-between. In microphysics, in every particle, its antiparticle. The proton in core, electrons surrounding but also the neutron. In cosmology: brilliance of spin-dries stars; centripetal gravitation up to the black hole. Le Monde of the alive is not outdone. From the cell to the being pluricellulaire. From the fissiparity to the sexual reproduction. In-between of the vegetable world and of the animal kingdom; of the human being, open to the infinity, and of the full universe. But if they feel empty, the human beings fall in absolutes, which sometimes bring them to the murder others. The antidote: living, thinking, inventing the in-between of history and of the civilizations. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Horace and the Dialectic of Freedom: Readings in Epistles 1Barbara K. GoldW. R. Johnson. Horace and the Dialectic of Freedom: Readings in Epistles 1. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993. xiv 1 172 pp. Cloth, $27.50. (Townsend Lectures)A colleague once expressed shock that I was reading Horace’s Epistles. They are, she said, the most boring works in all of Latin literature. It seems likely that this was not an (...) idiosyncratic pronouncement: the Epistles are rarely the subjects of critical work and even less frequently taught.But now we have the second book to appear in the past decade on the first book of Horace’s Epistles. Ross Kilpatrick’s 1986 volume on The Poetry of Friendship: Horace, Epistles 1 focused closely on the theme of amicitia in these poems. Now Ralph Johnson has produced a new appreciation of Horace by tracing another theme through Horace’s letters to his friends: freedom. The book is less a critical exegesis of the Epistles than a highly personal and emotionally charged meditation on what drove Horace to write these so-called letters in the twilight of his composing years. The chapter headings indicate the unorthodox approach Johnson has chosen: “Running on Empty,” “In the Rag and Bone Shop,” “Gardens.”Johnson presents us with a Horace who is engaged in a “messy” and irresoluble dialectic with himself, his friends, and his readers. Neither Horace nor Johnson offers any comforting or banal bipolarities; Johnson cautions often against the sic et non approach whereby we, like boll weevils, bore through the haze of confusions looking for the “nugget” (Virginia Woolf’s word) behind the complexities instead of accepting the power of antinomies and their meaning for human experience (144). Johnson’s Horace is thus an ambivalent and protean creature: still a satirist, but somewhat softer now than he was in the 30s; an outsider looking in but never really a part of the hive; a man suffused with anger and resentment, yet capable of a dry and impartial skepticism and a sanguine hope about our ability to live our lives well; carnal and crazy, but mature and clear-headed; an Orphic shaman figure, who mediates between lowly humans and figures of the great (Augustus) or nature herself and delivers the truth from his lofty position, but also a poet of lowly beginnings, caught in embarrassing positions and forced to kowtow to his superiors; a man absolutely insistent on his [End Page 335] freedom and individuality yet part of a court circle of sorts; a wry picaro who nonetheless sometimes plays the role of Stoic progrediens: a naughty scarecrow in the garden, an agrarian sophist, with one foot in the city and one on his Sabine farm, trying to figure out how to be a proper gardener.But, for me, there are too many Horaces here, and they cannot all exist simultaneously. It is hard to see the spontaneous, wry picaro next to the poet who desires a return to civility and decorum or the committed city dweller who develops a love for the rural life. While it may be true that Horace changed masks when the occasion suited, his representations of himself seem to me to be fairly consistent by Ep. 1.20. The Horace I see here is more comfortable with himself than Johnson’s Horace is. He has come to terms with Maecenas, with his father, and with his life in Rome. He understands why it is necessary to avoid chasing after wealth (fuge magna, 10.32) in order to achieve the internal peace and true freedom that he seeks. But he is always a city dweller and never comfortable with his Sabine farm as more than a symbol of what the rural life could offer. (In an interesting aside, Johnson admits that he might be sentimentalizing Horace’s view of the farm: “I’m an ardent urbanite without even a window box” [150 n. 5].) Horace saw and used elements of nature throughout his poetry as evocative symbols of the place of human life in the larger natural universe, but I’m certain that he never got his hands dirty.It is, however, no wonder that so... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Rhetoric, Grief, and the Imagination in Early Modern EnglandStephen PenderIn 1633, the Northampton physician James Hart warned that excessive grief "will to some procure irrecoverable Consumptions," dry the brain and bone marrow, hinder digestion, interrupt rest, and "by consequent prove a cause of many dangerous diseases." The risk was grave: "Galen himself maketh answer that one may dye of these passions, and to this doe all Physicians assent; and (...) experience maketh it so appeare" (1633, 393–95).1 In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, physicians routinely treated grief and its effects, since it was commonly held that the passions were realized in matter.2 They applied an ensemble of remedies—bleeding, emetics, laxatives—predicated on sympathetic connection between bodies and souls, for disturbance "in the emotional climate of the body alters its inner temperature and causes in turn dangerous mutations in the balance and composition of the humours" (MacDonald 1981, 182).3 The spirits, too, were enlisted: for "the spirit being either withdrawne from the outwarde parts by vehement passio[n] of griefe," the "outward partes not only faile in their sense and motion, but even nourishment & growth thereby are hindered" (Bright 1586, 60; see also 47, 51–52). But grief also "besieged" the mind, weakened reason, hampered discourse, and impugned the will (Reynolds 1640, 229–30). By affecting mental faculties, passions subvented affliction, and thus physicians offered various prophylactics against fulminant emotion in the sick, most [End Page 54] of which focused on the imagination as potentially harmful faculty that prolonged or intensified suffering. A sufferer, Hart writes, "by reason of his sicknesse, hath sorrow enough, especially, if the party be of a feeble, fearfull and pusillanimous spirit, the phansie still framing unto it selfe new fears of some bad and sinistrous event." As wards against excessive passion, Hart recommends vigilance and circumspection, accommodation and distraction. First, physicians must guard against visitors who "prove the causes of infinite evills to the sicke" by occasioning overweening feeling. Drawing on Paul's distinction between worldly and "godly" sorrow in his second letter to the Corinthians, Hart recognizes that sufferers have just cause for fear, and physicians should not interrupt or retard "true sorrow for sinne," which offers comfort to a "drouping and sorrowfull soule." But the effects of any lenitive passion are endangered by "indiscreetly" compounding fear and grief "at an unseasonable time" (1633, 400). To avoid odium, a counselor's efforts must conform to "time, place, and person" (Wilson 1994, 120). Second, a physician should "accommodate himselfe to the severall dispositions of his patients, and to many particular circumstances concerning them," adjusting therapies and practices to individual sufferers. Finally, if not too fragile, the sick should be distracted with mirth (1633, 400).Those expressing "true sorrow for sinne" should read. Hart recommends one of the "many volumes written by our learned Divines, concerning this subject," Robert Bolton's 1631 Instructions for a Right Comforting Afflicted Consciences with Speciall Antidotes Against Some Grievous Temptations. Bolton, who was rector of Broughton, Northamptonshire, and a popular conformist preacher, insists that divines sometimes held even "godly sorrow" unseasonable, "when it unfitteth the body or minde to good duties" (1641, 587). Excessive grief is particularly foul: of "all other passions of the Soule," he writes, "sadnesse, and grief grates most upon the vitall spirits; dries up soonest the freshest marrow in the bones; and most sensibly suckes out the purest, and refinedst bloud in the heart" (1641, 21). Bolton's remedies are to avoid idleness and solitude, for both render the soul susceptible to disquiet (1641, 582), and to read: the sorrowful and the melancholy find succor in scripture. Although both forms of suffering may be treated medically, one remedy for an afflicted conscience is "Gods blessed Booke" (1641, 211–15). One early seventeenth-century Sussex physician turned to Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy (1621) for assistance.4Like most physicians in the period, both Hart and Bolton differentiate grief occasioned by humoral imbalance from sorrow born of a repentant conscience, and both confirm that the "phantasie" is central to physical and [End Page 55] moral therapy.5 For Bolton, grief, melancholy, and "terror of conscience" dwell chiefly in the imagination (1641, 212... (shrink)

Fruto de una convergencia de motivos e intereses procedentes de diversas disciplinas, los estudios sobre la argumentación han adquirido sus propias señas de identidad como conocimiento, análisis y evaluación del discurso argumentativo a través de sus dimensiones o proyecciones lógica, dialéctica, retórica y socio-institucional. La presente obra trata de reunir, precisar y articular las nociones básicas y los conceptos determinantes de los desarrollos que hoy tienen lugar en ese campo. Este Compendio de lógica, argumentación y retórica se ofrece como una (...) obra de referencia, una herramienta de trabajo y un estímulo para los estudiantes de —y los interesados o los preocupados por— la argumentación, tanto en el plano internacional como, primordialmente, en el medio cultural hispánico e hispanoamericano. No existía hasta ahora una publicación de estas características, a pesar de su necesidad tanto desde el punto de vista didáctico, y en atención a intereses prácticos, como desde el punto de vista teórico. Su elaboración ha ocupado a 59 autores, especialistas y estudiosos de diversos medios académicos y nacionalidades, en la confección de las 176 entradas de las que consta. (shrink)

It has been hypothesized that psychedelic experiences elicit lasting psychological benefits by altering narrative selfhood, which has yet to be explicitly studied. The present study investigates retrospective reports (n = 418) of changes to narrative self that participants believe resulted from, or were catalysed by, their psychedelic experience(s). Responses to open-ended questions were analysed using inductive and deductive thematic coding and interpreted within agent-centred approaches to development and well-being. Themes include decentred introspection, greater access to self-knowledge, positive shifts in self-evaluation (...) processes, greater psychological and behavioural autonomy, and enhanced connectedness with others and the world. While this explorative qualitative study offers some initial support for the explanation that changes to narrative self are a cornerstone of psychedelics' therapeutic and transformative potential, methodological and recruiting limitations preclude the ability to make objective claims and generalizations. Future scientific research is necessary to further elucidate this hypothesized mechanism. (shrink)