Surgical Informed Consent has long been recognized as an important component of modern medicine. The ultimate goals of SIC are to improve clients’ understanding of the intended procedure, increase client satisfaction, maintain trust between clients and health providers, and ultimately minimize litigation issues related to surgical procedures. The purpose of the current study is to assess the comprehensiveness of the SIC process for women undergoing obstetric and gynecologic surgeries. A hospital-based cross-sectional study was undertaken at Hawassa University Comprehensive Specialized Hospital (...) in November and December, 2016. A total of 230 women who underwent obstetric and/or gynecologic surgeries were interviewed immediately after their hospital discharge to assess their experience of the SIC process. Thirteen components of SIC were used based on international recommendations, including the Royal College of Surgeon’s standards of informed consent practices for surgical procedures. Descriptive summaries are presented in tables and figures. Forty percent of respondents were aged between 25 and 29 years. Nearly a quarter had no formal education. More than half of respondents had undergone an emergency surgical procedure. Only 18.4% of respondents reported that the surgeon performing the operation had offered SIC, while 36.6% of respondents could not recall who had offered SIC. All except one respondent provided written consent to undergo a surgical procedure. However, 8.3% of respondents received SIC service while already on the operation table for their procedure. Only 73.9% of respondents were informed about the availability of alternative treatment options. Additionally, a majority of respondents were not informed about the type of anesthesia to be used and related complications. Only 54.2% of respondents reported that they had been offered at least six of the 13 SIC components used by the investigators. There is gap in the provision of comprehensive and standardized pre-operative counseling for obstetric and gynecologic surgeries in the study hospital. This has a detrimental effect on the overall quality of care clients receive, specifically in terms of client expectations and information needs. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that meditation has a direct bearing upon philosophical discourse by enabling us to distance ourselves from the basic structure of subjectivity that often limits the scope of reason. Recent neurobiological hypotheses are discussed in conjunction with the method of hermeneutic phenomenology to argue that interpretations on the level of our neurobiology underly and construct our experience of ourselves as subjects and the sense of explicit rational understanding that arises from it. This implies that prediscursive embodied (...) practice can play a crucial role in freeing our philosophical understanding from implicit assumptions. (shrink)

How do people create coherence? Is it this creation of coherence which makes life understandable? Is not also faith, the belief in God, grounded on such a belief that the universe is understandable, although not to us? Our coherence building is not merely an individual activity, but thoroughly influenced by our education, religion, culture, and the society we live in. These provide us with conventions of thinking and knowledge, they are the building blocks of our construction of coherence. However, sometimes (...) they have become the fossilized ideas never to be questioned. The main question of this article is if linearity in the western tradition of causal thinking is not such a fossilized idea. Starting point is the story of the beginning in Gen. 1, because it is one of the fundamental proteins in the DNA string of the Jewish and Christian linear thinking. The aim of the article is to show how a non-linear approach to our conventions of coherence building may offer a more comprehensive view on causality, and how tales of vision in the Hebrew Bible, and especially in Genesis 1-3, support and broaden this view. (shrink)

This paper examines the role of managerial self-interest in the merger market. It looks at factors influencing managers'' merger decisions by analyzing managerial expense preference factors on cross-sectional data employing non-parametric statistical methods. The same factors are examined for acquiring, acquired, and merging firms, and control groups used in each case. The results support the authors'' contention that managerial discretion is a significant motivating factor for mergers. The changes in expense preference factors indicate management decisions which provide conditions allowing management (...) to indulge in management preferred expenditures, while reducing risk to their career. The authors then provide a moral/philosophic framework of ethical analysis for examining manager''s merger decisions, using teleological and deontological theories. They conclude that merger decisions motivated or influenced by self-interest are unethical and, in the process, provide managers facing a merger decision with a framework for making an ethical decision. (shrink)

Replication protein A (RPA), the major single‐stranded DNA‐binding protein in eukaryotic cells, is required for processing of single‐stranded DNA (ssDNA) intermediates found in replication, repair, and recombination. Recent studies have shown that RPA binding to ssDNA is highly dynamic and that more than high‐affinity binding is needed for function. Analysis of DNA binding mutants identified forms of RPA with reduced affinity for ssDNA that are fully active, and other mutants with higher affinity that are inactive. Single molecule studies showed that (...) while RPA binds ssDNA with high affinity, the RPA complex can rapidly diffuse along ssDNA and be displaced by other proteins that act on ssDNA. Finally, dynamic DNA binding allows RPA to prevent error‐prone repair of double‐stranded breaks and promote error‐free repair. Together, these findings suggest a new paradigm where RPA acts as a first responder at sites with ssDNA, thereby actively coordinating DNA repair and DNA synthesis. (shrink)

This book presents a multidisciplinary perspective on chance, with contributions from distinguished researchers in the areas of biology, cognitive neuroscience, economics, genetics, general history, law, linguistics, logic, mathematical physics, statistics, theology and philosophy. The individual chapters are bound together by a general introduction followed by an opening chapter that surveys 2500 years of linguistic, philosophical, and scientific reflections on chance, coincidence, fortune, randomness, luck and related concepts. A main conclusion that can be drawn is that, even after all this time, (...) we still cannot be sure whether chance is a truly fundamental and irreducible phenomenon, in that certain events are simply uncaused and could have been otherwise, or whether it is always simply a reflection of our ignorance. Other challenges that emerge from this book include a better understanding of the contextuality and perspectival character of chance (including its scale-dependence), and the curious fact that, throughout history (including contemporary science), chance has been used both as an explanation and as a hallmark of the absence of explanation. As such, this book challenges the reader to think about chance in a new way and to come to grips with this endlessly fascinating phenomenon. (shrink)

Im Zentrum des vorliegenden Sammelbandes steht die Frage nach dem Bösen in Religionen, die als monotheistisch verstanden werden oder für die zumindest die Herrschaft des Hauptgottes über alle anderen Götter und Mächte ein entscheidendes Anliegen ist. Der Schwerpunkt liegt auf dem sich formierenden Judentum und Christentum sowie dem Alten Testament. Besonderes Interesse gilt den Texten aus Qumran, und darüber hinaus erfolgt ein Blick auf mittelalterliche Heiligenlegenden. Die Beiträge des Bandes zeigen, dass es in den antiken jüdischen und christlichen Texte eine (...) große Vielfalt von Verkörperungen des Bösen gibt, sei es extern als Dämon oder Teufel, sei es intern als die menschliche Fähigkeit, Böses zu tun. Außerdem stellt sich heraus, dass in der jüdisch-christlichen Literatur Dualismus nicht grundsätzlich abgelehnt wird, aber nur Formen von Dualismus vorkommen, in denen das Böse Gott und dem Guten letztlich untergeordnet ist. Mit Beiträgen von: Jörn Bockmann, Miryam T. Brand, Jan Dochhorn, Matthew Goff, Erkki Koskenniemi, Michael Morris, Hector M. Patmore, Susanne Rudnig-Zelt, Markus Saur, Ryan E. Stokes, Oda Wischmeyer, Benjamin Wold. (shrink)

This paper analyses the Marxian theory of exploitation. The axiomatic approach standard in social choice theory is adopted in order to study the concept of exploitation—what it is and how it should be captured empirically. Two properties are presented that capture some fundamental Marxian insights. It is shown that, contrary to the received view, there exists a nonempty class of definitions of exploitation that preserve the relation between exploitation and profits—called Profit-Exploitation Correspondence Principle—in general economies with heterogeneous agents, complex class (...) structures, and production technologies with heterogeneous labour inputs. However, among the main approaches, only the so-called ‘New Interpretation’ satisfies the Profit-Exploitation Correspondence Principle in general. (shrink)

Models of collective deliberation often assume that the chief aim of a deliberative exchange is the sharing of information. In this paper, we argue that an equally important role of deliberation is to draw participants’ attention to pertinent questions, which can aid the assembly and processing of distributed information by drawing deliberators’ attention to new issues. The assumption of logical omniscience renders classical models of agents’ informational states unsuitable for modelling this role of deliberation. Building on recent insights from psychology, (...) linguistics and philosophy about the role of questions in speech and thought, we propose a different model in which beliefs are treated as answers directed at specific questions. Here, questions are formally represented as partitions of the space of possibilities and individuals’ information states as sets of questions and corresponding partial answers to them. The state of conversation is then characterised by individuals’ information together with the questions under discussion, which can be steered by various deliberative inputs. Using this model, deliberation is then shown to shape collective decisions in ways that classical models cannot capture, allowing for novel explanations of how group consensus is achieved. (shrink)

This essay revisits some classic problems in the philosophy of space and time concerning the counting of possibilities. I argue that we should think that two Newtonian worlds can differ only as to when or where things happen and that general relativistic worlds can differ in something like the same way—the first of these theses being quaintly heterodox, the second baldly heretical, according to the mores of contemporary philosophy of physics.

Fifteen Million Merits depicts a reality remarkably similar to our own, in which technology has developed to the point where we could, in principle, work less, and reproduce the basic goods and services needed to survive into the future without arduous effort. Nevertheless, we cycle endlessly, towards nothing, and the only motivation keeping our feet rigidly attached to our peddles is vacuous entertainment in the form of pornography, video games, cruel comedy, and the improbable prospect of becoming a celebrity. (...) Each of these lurid topics is explored in this chapter, with a special focus on the philosophers Marx, Marcuse, Adorno, and Lukacs. Finally, the issue as to whether or not resisting entertainment‐capitalist is possible is raised and addressed, albeit with pessimism. (shrink)

For over two decades, the debate about whether legally to recognize environmental refugees as refugees has been ongoing. Because their numbers are growing, environmental refugees should be recognized as convention refugees or a new UN convention should be drafted to address their needs. A typology of the environmental refugee should be developed to make the term more concrete and useful.

Is morality as we share it a good place to start on a large question of responsibility?

L'histoire n'est pas avare de paradoxe. C'est à Alger qu'est signée l'ordonnance du 21 avril 1944 qui accorde aux femmes françaises le droit de vote, mais c'est aussi à Alger, ou plus exactement en Algérie, que son champ d'application fut le plus restreint : si les Algériennes de souche européenne ont bénéficié des dispositions nouvelles, les Algériennes musulmanes, soit environ un million et demi de femmes, ont été privées du droit de vote. Si l'ordonnance du 7 mars 1944 qui (...) proclam... (shrink)

The most recent work toward compiling a comprehensive database of adenosine‐to‐inosine RNA editing events suggests that the potential for RNA editing is much more pervasive than previously thought; indeed, it is manifest in more than 100 million potential editing events located primarily within Alu repeat elements of the human transcriptome. Pairs of inverted Alu repeats are found in a substantial number of human genes, and when transcribed, they form long double‐stranded RNA structures that serve as optimal substrates for RNA (...) editing enzymes. A small subset of edited Alu elements has been shown to exhibit diverse functional roles in the regulation of alternative splicing, miRNA repression, and cis‐regulation of distant RNA editing sites. The low level of editing for the remaining majority may be non‐functional, yet their persistence in the primate genome provides enhanced genomic flexibility that may be required for adaptive evolution. (shrink)

Navigation ability varies widely across humans. Prior studies have reported that being younger and a male has an advantage for navigation ability. However, these studies have generally involved small numbers of participants from a handful of western countries. Here, we review findings from our project Sea Hero Quest, which used a video game for mobile and tablet devices to test 3.9 million people on their navigation ability, sampling across every nation-state and from 18 to 99 years of age. Results (...) revealed that the task has good ecological validity and across all countries sufficiently sampled (N = 63), age is linked to a near-linear decline in navigation ability from the early 20s. All countries showed a male advantage, but this varied considerably and could be partly predicted by gender inequality. We found that those who reported growing up in a city were on average worse at navigating than those who grew up outside cities and that navigation performance helped identify those at greater genetic risk of Alzheimer's disease. We discuss the advantages and challenges of using a mobile app to study cognition and the future avenues for understanding individual differences in navigation ability arising from this research. (shrink)

Despite increasing the presence of ‘ethics talk’ in business and management curricula, the ability of business ethics educators to question the system and support the development of morally responsible agents is debatable. This is not because of a lack of care or competence; rather, this situation points towards a more general tendency of education to become focused on economic growth, as Nussbaum claims. Revisiting the nature of ethics education, I argue that much moral learning occurs through the imagination, and not (...) solely through the rational mind. Individuals are complex, and a great part of what we are lies below the threshold of consciousness. In this respect, ethics education must take into account the psyche and its influence on conscious behaviour, which can best be apprehended through the imagination. Echoing Jung’s concerns about unconscious and indiscriminate masses, I thus explore how imagination and creative material contribute to enhancing both self-knowledge and ethical reflection in the context of organisational life and business education. I especially consider how moral development and social awareness are tied up with individual psychological understanding, and argue that Jung’s analytical psychology offers insightful tools to explore our individuality. (shrink)

In A Million Years of Music, Gary Tomlinson develops an extensive evolutionary narrative that emphasises several important components of human musicality and proposes a theory of the coalescence of these components. In this essay I tie some of Tomlinson’s ideas to five constraints on theories of music’s evolution. This provides the framework for organising my reconstruction of his model. Thereafter I focus on Tomlinson’s description of ‘entraining’ Acheulean toolmakers and offer several criticisms. I close with some tentative proposals for (...) further theorising. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: People have inferred that our lives are absurd from the supposed fact that nothing we do will matter in a million years. In this article, I critically discuss this argument for absurdity. After explaining how two refutations in the literature fail to undermine the best version of the argument, I produce several considerations that together do take much of the force out of the argument. I conclude by suggesting that these considerations not only refute this argument for absurdity, (...) but also constitute a motivation to be moral.RÉSUMÉ: On a pu déduire que nos vies sont absurdes en supposant que rien de ce que nous faisons n’aura d’importance dans un million d’années. Dans cet article, j’évalue cet argument en faveur de l’absurdité. Après avoir expliqué comment deux réfutations formulées dans la littérature sur le sujet sont impuissants à contrecarrer la meilleure version de cet argument, je formule plusieurs considérations qui concourrent à réduire de beaucoup la force de cet argument. Je conclus en suggérant que ces considérations non seulement réfutent l’argument en faveur de l’absurdité, mais aussi justifient l’agir moral. (shrink)

Many scholars assume that industry meddles in scientific research in order to defend their products. But this article shows that industry meddling in science can have a variety of consequences. American food manufacturers long denied that trans fats were associated with disease. Academic scientists, government scientists, and activists in fact endorsed trans fats as a healthier alternative to saturated fats. But in 1990, a high-profile study showed that trans fats increased risk factors for heart disease more than saturated fats did. (...) Industry funded a U.S. Department of Agriculture study that they hoped would exonerate trans fats. But the industry-funded U.S. Department of Agriculture study also indicated that trans fats increased risk factors for heart disease more than saturated fats. Industry quickly began developing trans fat alternatives. This confirms that corporations get involved in science in order to defend their products. But involvement in science can be the very means by which corporations persuade themselves to change their products. (shrink)

Borrowing Timothy Morton’s notion of hyperobject, this article explores questions of network and scale in generative adversarial networks (GAN) images. In this context, the term network refers to the omnipresence of algorithmic images today and their significant impact on our lives. Such images are massively distributed in time and space beyond any sensible human-scale. Scale, in this context, denotes the relations between different operational layers of algorithmic images, such as the pictorial layer in contrast to the data layer. An algorithmic (...) image is simultaneously a visual image, a symbol, a data point and part of a mass visual milieu. Its meaning is thus polymorphic and can, arguably, never be exhausted. The article explores these terms through analysis of the website www.thispersondoesnotexist.com. (shrink)

In the television show Deal or No Deal, a contestant is endowed with a sealed box containing a monetary prize between one cent and half a million euros. In the course of the show, the contestant is offered to exchange her box for another sealed box with the same distribution of possible monetary prizes inside. This offers a unique natural experiment for studying endowment effects under high monetary incentives. We find evidence of only a weak endowment effect when contestants (...) exchange their box for another box with the same distribution of possible prizes. (shrink)