Expert analysis is indispensable, especially in medical decision making, because it helps both physicians and patients in making rational decisions. In fact, medical expertise is the very reason pe...

Is there a connection between power struggles and urban context? How the urban space used for the symbolic manifestation of power and social control? How urban space becomes the site of conflict and resistance? How urban nodes like squares became political apparatus in social demonstrations and revolutions? How do specific squares become symbols of revolutions? This thesis investigated these questions by viewing the city as a place formed by politics, which built upon the central concept of Meydan (Public Square), as (...) the "political order in the ideogram of the city". Focusing on public squares, it traces their sociopolitical transformations as well as their role in instigating social transformations through examples that span from the pre-modern times to the present. As the embodiment of the square in the image of the city, the historical, social and theological concept of Meydan- a term, which has mostly applied, for Iranian public squares has been studied. The Empty Locus of Power rereads squares as peculiar urban forms and representations of political ideas, when the squares of the city has become the stage for the process of politicizing, de-politicizing or neutralizing space. This thesis tries to analyze the square beyond an architectural element in the city, but weaves this blank slate, with its contemporary socio political atmosphere as a new paradigm. This interpretation, suggested the idea of Meydan as the core of the projects on the city, which historically exposed in formalization of theological ideologies. Regarding this issue, urban space of traditional Iranian cities introduced as the medium through which theological ideologies and political sovereignty took place. In pursuing such analyses, this research engages with issues ranging from details of political histories of the case studies in public squares to the master plan of the city of VIII Tehran. During the recent century, various political events and social demonstrations have been staged in Tehran as Middle Eastern Capital, which emphasize the further discussions for analyzing the relationship between socio-political dimensions of city and its urban projects that ultimately led to occupy the city and reclaim the public spaces in Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1979. In this sense, analyzing the major political events in modern Tehran as a city loaded with politics will lead to trace the processes of its spatial transformation. In this regard, the thesis examines the relationship between affordances of public spaces, their histories, and the emergence of social events and movements. Building on this theoretical framework, this thesis stresses on the transformative dynamism of autocratic modernization, which motivate or shape a creative tension in the form of the city. The emergence of representative pseudo political public space for demonstration of power and national identity during the First Pahlavi Era (1925-41), reoccupation of public spaces by social movements and political parties during the nationalization of Iranian oil movement till 1953 Iranian coup d'etat will be the second part and socio- political arrangement of capital as ‘Metropolis of Tomorrow' and its urban transformation during the second Pahlavi Era (1941-79) till Islamic Revolution have been examined. Analysis suggests that spatial transformations and modernization politics have led to or facilitated (directly or indirectly and, or inadvertently) political changes. Building on the foundation of knowledge established in this research, the final part of research focuses on the centrality of squares in recent social protests. Using Middle East sociologist, Asef Bayat's theory of ‘Spatialities of discontent', the final chapter explores the spatial dimension of political spaces of the city and aims to theorize the necessity of urban social movements to approach democratic space in a global context. (shrink)

The authors meta-analytically examined the relationship between intrinsic religiosity and internal locus of control. Thirty-seven independent samples, comprising 9,924 participants, yielded an average effect size of r =.06, which was small, but significant, indicating a positive correlation between intrinsic religiosity and internal locus of control. Moderation analyses showed a significant trend of effects becoming weaker over time. The judged religiousness of samples significantly predicted the strength of the correlation, such that more religious samples showed stronger effect sizes.

Background:The understanding of factors that shape risk perception is crucial to modulate the perceived threat and, in turn, to promote optimal engagement in preventive actions.Methods:An on-line, cross-sectional, survey was conducted in Italy between May and July 2020 to investigate risk perception for COVID-19 and the adoption of preventive measures. A total of 964 volunteers participated in the study. Possible predictors of risk perception were identified through a hierarchical multiple linear regression analysis, including sociodemographic, epidemiological and, most of all, psychological (...) factors. A path analysis was adopted to probe the possible mediating role of risk perception on the relationship between the independent variables considered and the adoption of preventive measures.Results:Focusing on the psychological predictors of risk perception, high levels of anxiety, an anxious attachment, and an external locus of control predicted higher perceived risk. Conversely, high levels of openness personality and of avoidant attachment predicted a lower perception of risk. In turn, the higher was the perceived risk the higher was the adoption of precautionary measures. Furthermore, psychological factors influenced the adoption of preventive behaviors both directly and indirectly through their effect on risk perception.Conclusions:Our findings might be taken into high consideration by stakeholders, who are responsible for promoting a truthful perception of risk and proper compliance with precautionary measures. (shrink)

The issue of power has been addressed as part of human actions, which form the basis of the discussions of destiny in Islamic theology. Various schools of kalām have extensively discussed the issue of power throughout history. The locus of power is also one of the critical concerns that have been emphasized within these discussions. The schools of the Mu'tazila, al-Ashʿarī and al-Māturīdī have put forward different perspectives on whether the locus of power exists or not and where (...) it exists if it does so. Mutazilites are known to be in agreement with the view that te human body is the substrate of power. On the other hand, However, they hold different views, not only on the exact locus of power in the body but also on its type. While some argue that the locus of power in the body is the organs, others claim that it is not the organs. The schools of al-Ashʿarī and al-Māturīdī accept that there is no locus for power and emphasize that power is created by Allah the moment it would initiate action. When these views of the kalām schools are considered within the framework of the data from the modern science of anatomy, it is seen that what modern science has to say on this issue concurs well with the Mu'tazilite view that the locus of power is the body and that it creates the action by managing the organs from a single center. This is because, when considered from the lens of anatomy, what is meant by the schools of kalām with “power” is electrical activity (stimulus) that activates the muscles. Therefore, scientifically considered, for any movement to occur, an electrical activity must first begin in the brain and be transmitted to the muscles via motor nerves. If there were no electrical activity in the brain, the muscles and energy that make up the human movement system would not be active, so movement would hardly take locus. Therefore, the claim made some of the Mu'tazili scholars that the power is in the organs is scientifically not valid. As for the debates on whether the power in different organs is the same or different in terms of its type, the views of the scholars who argue that they are the same genus are apparently correct. This is because the electrical activity, which we accept as power, spreads to the organs after it is formed in the brain. This implies that the power which activates the organs is of the same type. However, it can be said that Mu'tazila’s idea of the constant presence of power in its locus conflicts with modern scientific data. The views of al-Ash'arite and al-Maturidite schools that power is free from being in a constant location are compatible with the findings of recent experiments on brain activities. That is, some experimental studies have indicated that the electrical activity that creates an act occurs in the brain before the act itself and outside the will of the human. In brief, the view of Ash'arite and Maturidite scholars that power is not constantly present in the body and that it is created by Allah each time it is needed is compatible with the creation of power, which we define as electrical activity. (shrink)

Analysis of the patterns of cell lineage observed during development of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, combined with selected cell ablation experiments, has revealed that while many cell fates are autonomously (intrinsically) determined, cell–cell interactions are required for a number of developmental decisions. Earlier genetic analysis of one key gene, lin‐12, had shown that this gene controls a number of bi‐potential fate decisions involving such cellular interactions. Molecular analysis of this gene is now providing clues to its mode (...) of action in mediating these cell‐fate decision. (shrink)

This study aims to examine the relationship between workplace and classroom incivility to learning engagement and the moderating role of internal locus of control in these relationships. An online questionnaire was administered to 432 students from three private universities in Jakarta, Indonesia. The regression analysis results showed that both workplace and classroom incivility has a negative and significant effect on learning engagement. In addition, the direct effect of workplace incivility on learning engagement is moderated by the locus (...) of control. The negative effect of workplace incivility on learning engagement is stronger for students with low levels of internal locus of control than for those students with high levels of internal locus of control. This study provides a better understanding of the internal mechanism condition to reduce the negative effects of incivility experiences that occur in the workplace and classroom among student employees. The implications and limitations are also discussed. (shrink)

Using core self-evaluation theory, the current study assesses the effect of internal work locus of control and bricolage on social entrepreneurship orientation. We adopted the cross-sectional survey design using a sampling frame to engage 400 top executives of social enterprises in mainland China. Three hundred and seventy-two of the executives replied, presenting a response rate of 93%. Results of structural equation modeling analysis show significant positive relationships between internal work locus of control, bricolage, and social entrepreneurship orientation. (...) The positive mediating effect of bricolage on the relationship between internal work locus of control and social entrepreneurship orientation was also found to be true. Consequently, to foster social entrepreneurship orientation, top executives of social enterprises need to gather available resources for bricolage tasks. These findings contribute new knowledge to how internal work locus of control affects social entrepreneurship orientation through the bricolage activity of Chinese social enterprises. Through core self-evaluation theory, we demonstrate the effect of internal work locus of control as a preceding factor in the relationship between bricolage and social entrepreneurship orientation. (shrink)

The growing body of whistleblowing literature includes many studies that have attempted to identify the individual level antecedents of whistleblowing behavior. However, cross-cultural differences in perceptions of the ethicality of whistleblowing affect the judgment of whistleblowing intention. This study ascertains how Chinese managers/professionals decide to blow the whistle in terms of their locus of control and subjective judgment regarding the intention of whistleblowing. Hypotheses that are derived from these speculations are tested with data on Chinese managers and professionals. Statistical (...) analysis largely supports the hypotheses, which suggests that an individual''s locus of control does moderate the relationship between ethical judgment and whistleblowing. (shrink)

Visual stimuli that are made invisible by a following mask can nonetheless affect motor responses. To localize the origin of these target priming effects we used the psychological refractory period paradigm. Participants classified tones as high or low, and responded to the position of a visual target that was preceded by a prime. The stimulus onset asynchrony between both tasks varied. In Experiment 1 the tone task was followed by the position task and SOA dependent target priming effects were observed. (...) When the visual position task preceded the tone task in Experiment 2, with short SOA the priming effect propagated entirely to the tone task yielding faster responses to tones on visually congruent trials and delayed responses to tones on visually incongruent trials. Together, results suggest that target priming effects arise from processing before and at the level of the central bottleneck such as sensory analysis and response selection. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THREE NOTIONS OF RESOLUTIO AND THE STRUCTURE OF REASONING IN AQUINAS 1 EILEEN c. SWEENEY Boston College Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts RESOLUTIO, better known by the English transliteration of its Greek counterpart, "analysis," has been touted as " the conceptual model for some of the most important ideas in the history of philosophy, including the history of the methodology and philosophy of science." 2 But while resolution /analysis (...) may be important in the histories of philosophy and science, its own history is, to say the least, confused. A Renaissance commentator, Jeremias Triverius gives some sense of this when, after giving a list of four methods of dialectic (division, definition, demonstration, and resolution),3 he writes, 1 I have used the following abbreviations for works by Thomas Aquinas. All translations of Aquinas are my own. Commentum in Quatuor Libros Sententiarum (ed. Busa): In Sent; Compendium Theologiae (ed. Busa): Comp Theo!; E:rpositio Super Librum Boethii De Trinitate (ed. Decker): Exp de Trin; In Aristotelis Libros Posterium Analyticorum (ed. Marietti) : In Anal Post; In Duodecem Libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis E:rpositio (ed. Marietti): In Meta; In Librum Beati Dionysii De Divinis Nominibus E:rpositio (ed. Marietti): In Div Nom; Sententia Libri Ethicorum Aristotelis ad Nichomachum: In Ethic; Sententia Libri Politicormn Aristotelis (ed. Leonine): In Pol; De Substantiis Separatis (ed. Busa): De Sub Sep; Summa Contra Gentiles (ed. Leonine): SCG; Summa Theologiae (ed. Leonine): ST; Questiones Disputatae de Veritate: QDV. 2 Jaakko Hintikka and Unto Remes, The Method of Analysis (Boston: D. Reidel, 1974), p. 1. s These four methods of dialectic are also given by a number of ancient commentators, for example, Ammonius (In Porphyrii Isagogen, in Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca [hereafter, CAG], ed. Maximilian Wallies [Berlin, 1891], vol. IV, pt. 6, p. 34, 11. 19-20) and a later commentator, David (Davidis Prolegomena et in Porphyrii Isagogen Commentarium, CAG, ed. Adolf Busse [Berlin, 1904], vol. 18, p. 88, 11. 6-10). 197 198 EILEEN C. SWEENEY Now anyone who has some knowledge of dialectical matters knows what Definition, Division, and Demonstration are. There is no general agreement, however, so far as I can see, on Resolution. Some identify it with Division. Others regard it as contrary [to Divi- • ] 4 S!On, ••• Triverius, like many modern commentators, adds to, rather than sorts out, the confusion, continuing, " And since each one is entitled to his opinion, I am now maintaining that Resolution is contrary to Demonstration...." 5 Many centuries before Triverius we find a similar ambiguity in Greek commentators on Aristotle, who outline several types of analysis. Unlike Triverius, however, most seem untroubled by the multiple types; Ammonius and David, without puzzlement, explain carefully that analysis is the opposite of each of the other three methods.6 The lack of 4 Jeremias Triverius, In texnhn [sic] Galeni clarissimi commentarii (Lyon, 1547), p. 14; cited and translated in Nea! Gilbert, Renaissance Concepts of Method (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), p. 106. Galen's opening remarks of the Ars medica, giving three methods of teaching (analysis, synthesis, and definition) is a common locus for the discussion of resolution/ analysis in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Galen's contribution, at least for Aquinas, seems to have been completely mediated by Medieval Arabic commentators. Galen's own discussions are either incomplete, as in the opening passage to the Ars medica (in Claudii Galeni Opera Omnia, ed. C. G. Kiihn, [Repr. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1965], vol. I, pp. 305-306), which merely mentions the word, or are unclear accounts of analysis (Cf. Galen's discussion of analysis in De Peccatorum, in Opera Omnia, vol. 5, ch. 5, pp. 80-81). On two of the Arabic commentaries' descriptions of analysis to accompany medieval translations of Galen, see below, nn. 80 & 83. On Galen's supposed contribution to the notion of resolution and method in the development of experimental science, see A. C. Crombie, Robert Grosseteste and the Origins of Experimental Science (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953), especially pp. 7680, and Gilbert, Renaissance Method, pp, 13-27, 44-46. 5 Triverius, In texnhn, p. 14; Gilbert, p. 106. 6 For analysis as the opposite of division, definition, and demonstration, see Ammonius, In Aristotelis Analyticorum Priorum Librum I Commentarium, CAG, ed. Maximilian Wallies, (Berlin, 1891... (shrink)

A search for consensus about the methodology of discovery among physicians and physiologists led the author to identify a crucial anomaly of medical historiography: in general, physicians stress the significance of clinicopathologic method, while physiologists emphasize the experimental. Hence, physicians and bench scientists might be perceived as members of epistemically distinct research traditions. However, analysis of the historical development of discoveries in medicine, exemplified by case studies in physiology, bacteriology, immunology, and therapeutics, reveals that the epistemic dichotomy is illusory. (...) Both physicians and bench scientists discover in the same way: by identifying and explaining clinical anomalies. It is argued that the sociological role of experimentation is to dramatize clinical hypotheses and not test them in a Popperian sense. Keywords: accident, anomaly, continuity, experiment, logic of discovery, psycholinguistic realm CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

This paper discusses the content of agency awareness. It contrast three elements in content: what the goal is, how it is to be reached, and who is having the goal/performing the action ? Marc Jeannerod's claim that goal representations are self-other neutral is discussed. If goal representations are essentially sharable, then we do not understand other people by projecting a piece of internal knowledge on to them, as often assumed. The problem which our brain has to solve is the converse (...) problem : determining who the agent is, once a goal is identified. This view has interesting consequences on the theory of mentalization. One can plausibly speculate that observing action, with an additional simulatory component for action memory, form major building blocks in understanding other minds. Metarepresenting, in this perspective, would depend on additional executive capacities for maintaining distinct the inferences from diverse simulated contexts of action. (shrink)

This report describes the rationale, approaches, organization, and resource development leading to a large-scale deletion bin map of the hexaploid wheat genome. Accompanying reports in this issue detail results from chromosome bin-mapping of expressed sequence tags representing genes onto the seven homoeologous chromosome groups and a global analysis of the entire mapped wheat EST data set. Among the resources developed were the first extensive public wheat EST collection. Described are protocols for sequencing, sequence processing, EST nomenclature, and the assembly (...) of ESTs into contigs. These contigs plus singletons were used for selection of distinct sequence motif unigenes. Selected ESTs were rearrayed, validated by 5′ and 3′ sequencing, and amplified for probing a series of wheat aneuploid and deletion stocks. Images and data for all Southern hybridizations were deposited in databases and were used by the coordinators for each of the seven homoeologous chromosome groups to validate the mapping results. Results from this project have established the foundation for future developments in wheat genomics. (shrink)

This dissertation examines a central tenet of Hannah Arendt's political philisophy--that the failure to distinguish between the social and the political, both theoretically and practically, obfuscates the nature and location of freedom in the modern world. The very tenability of the distinction as well as Arendt's historically-grounded method of drawing it has proven problematic. Some critics accuse her of elitism because they believe that, for Arendt, freedom entails the existence of poverty. Others, like Jurgen Habermas, charge that Arendt's analysis (...) deprives politics of its power. Recent proponents of civil society decry her "negativity" with regard to social movements and the institutional level of politics. But Arendt's discussion of "the social question" in On Revolution, her interpretation of the distinction between praxis and poesis found primarily in The Human Condition, but also in her political philosophy generally, and her nuanced drawing of appropriate distinctions throughout her work, provide evidence that, in her view, poverty mitigates against freedom, strategic violence can justifiably be eliminated from politics and advocates of civil society fail to draw certain important and necessary distinctions. ;In examining these texts, I argue that the key to understanding Arendt's interpretation of the social/political distinction is provided by her emphasis on the profound importance of public spaces--that is, on how their use or abuse may compromise, threaten, and redefine freedom in the modern world. (shrink)

This essay is an exposition and analysis of the contrast Michel Foucault draws in "The History of Sexuality Vol. 1", between an outmoded conception of power as negatively restraining and his notion of power as productive, ubiquitous, and strategically dynamic. In "The Order of Things", Foucault had already shown how the locus of sovereignty changes in the "classical age" without either its structure being called into question or its theoretical warrant being exhibited. But he shows this by utilizing (...) the term "sovereignty" himself in all its richness and ambiguity. Contrasting his use of "sovereignty" with his more radical notion of fragmentary and inescapable "power," the essay concludes by arguing that at issue here is not the preemptive self-control of critical theory but normalizing interventions in the domain of everyday behaviors and practices. (shrink)

When people make judgments about the effects of a perturbation on populations of species in a food web, their judgments exhibit the dissipation effect: a tendency to judge that effects of the perturbation weaken or dissipate as they spread out through the food web from the locus of the perturbation. In the present research evidence for two more phenomena is reported. Terminal locations are points in the food web with just a single connection to the rest of the web. (...) Judged changes tended to be higher for species at terminal locations than for species the same distance from the perturbation but at nonterminal locations. Branches are points in the web where a route splits into two or more routes. Judged changes tended to be lower for species following branching points than for species the same distance from the perturbation but not following branching points. It is proposed that the findings can be explained as effects of a mental model employing concepts of influence and resistance. Under this model a perturbation is a change in energy level at a point in the system that acts as an influence affecting the rest of the system. The basic concepts in this model are domain‐general and on that basis it is predicted that the dissipation effect should be found in judgments of any physical system to which notions of influence and resistance can be applied. (shrink)

There has been increasing interest in the attributes of successful entrepreneurs. Increasingly, too, research on entrepreneurship has focused on the identification of personality traits conducive to entrepreneurial success. The present study moves away from predicting entrepreneurial success and instead focuses on exploring and describing the personality traits of a successful entrepreneur, namely Steve Jobs. A psychobiographical case study design and qualitative approach were employed to explore the extent to which Steve Jobs displayed the personality traits identified by Rauch and Frese (...) (2007). Data collection and analysis were guided by three linked sub-processes proposed by Miles and Huberman (2002), which include (a) data reduction, (b) data display and (c) conclusion drawing and verification. The findings of this study show that, over the course of the subject’s life, the personality traits identified by Rauch and Frese (2007) as conducive to successful engagement in entrepreneurial activities were displayed, namely need for achievement, risk-taking, innovativeness, autonomy, internal locus of control, and self-efficacy. In so far as it can be argued that these personality traits inherently predisposed Steve Jobs to achieve the success he displayed as an entrepreneur, the findings of this study affirm the relevance of the personality trait perspective in describing and understanding the life course of successful entrepreneurs. (shrink)

This article concerns the emergence of psychological constructs of personal power and control in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s and the ways in which they contributed to contemporary political explanations of social unrest. While social scientists and politicians at the time saw this unrest as a social problem that posed threats to social cohesion and stability, they located its cause not in the power structure of society but in the individual’s sense of his or her own powerlessness. (...) The article discusses ‘locus of control’ as the central construct in new psychological explanations of powerlessness which drew on personality theory and behavioural psychology. The first half of the article traces the rise of the self-managing subject in behavioural psychology, identifying a key shift in conceptual, strategic and technical emphases, away from using behavioural approaches to modify the behaviour of others and towards developing ways of enabling people to manage their own behaviour. In the second half it examines the ways in which locus of control and related constructs were used to account for the educational under-achievement and political militancy of poor, black people in the United States. These explanations implicated individual helplessness and a sense of powerlessness in black people as a major social problem in the USA during this period: as a threat not only to personal development but, in particular, to social stability. In the process of this analysis I aim to demonstrate that the deployment of these constructs did more than reformulate old social problems in new ways; it enabled new social problems to be identified for which these constructs could offer explanations and solutions which both appealed to political authorities and helped to shape their conceptions of the ‘problem’. (shrink)

Contemporary research in the field of Foucauldian studies on education have pointed to a growing imbrication between educational practises and neoliberal ideas. The problematization of such scenario would lead to two premises, grounded on a general hypothesis for the analysis of the educational present. The first premise: nowadays, the educational or, to be more precise, educationalizing practises—since they would not deal only with the schooling effort, but also with the diffusion of a great number of pedagogical initiatives of non-formal (...) character—consists in an efficient rationality of governing of oneself and others. The second premise is that such educationalizing movement consists not only in the expression but also in the typical modus operandi of the current governmentalization processes, which aim at a large-scale administration of the multiplicity of populations now in terms of a lifelong educatibility for the citizens. These two premises sustain the hypothesis that the present educational practises do not restrict themselves to the mere condition of reiterative apparatus of imperatives extrinsic to them, but have in fact cemented themselves as a generative locus of the veridiction/subjectivization games capable of overrunning the whole social space. (shrink)

Analyses of Theories and Methods of Physics and Psychology was first published in 1970. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.This is Volume IV of the Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, a series published in cooperation with the Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Minnesota and edited by Herbert Feigl and Grover Maxwell. Dr. Feigl was the (...) director of the Center.In a preface to the first volume in the series, Professors Feigl and Michael Scriven noted the extensive concern of the Center with "the meaning of theoretical concepts as defined by their locus in the 'nomological net' and the related rejection of the reductionist forms of operationism and positivism." In this volume, several contributors are again concerned with philosophical, logical, and methodological problems of psychology. As before, some papers deal with broad philosophical issues, others with more specific problems of method or interpretation. However, a deep concern for logical and methodological problems of special relevance to the physical sciences is reflected in a number of essays.The contents are arranged in two sections, the first part being based on the papers and discussion from a conference held at the Center on the problems of correspondence rules. Contributors are Herbert Feigl, Paul K. Feyerabend, N.R. Hanson, Carl G. Hempel, Mary Hesse, Grover Maxwell, and William Rozeboom. The second group of essays, by various members of the staff of the Center and some of its visitors, reflects current issues and controversies of great interest. The contributors are William Demopoulos, Keith Gunderson, Paul E. Meehl (three essays), and Michael Radner. (shrink)

This paper is a preliminary analysis of two among the five definitions of falsity ( mithyātva ) presented by Madhusūdana Sarasvatī (MS) in his magnum opus , the Advaitasiddhi . It is mainly focused on the second and fourth definitions, which at first sight appear to be mere repetitions of one another. The first definition of falsity examined is Prakāśātman’s: “falsity is the property of being the counter-positive of the absolute absence of an entity in the [same] locus (...) in which it is perceived.” The other definition investigated was first given by Citsukha: “falsity is the property of being the counter-positive of the absolute absence residing in its own locus.” The mutual differences among these two definitions will be underlined following MS himself, as well as some other authors of the later Advaita Vedānta textual tradition. (shrink)

Although scholars have invoked the escalation framework as a means of explaining the occurrence of numerous organizationally undesirable behaviors on the part of decision makers, to date no empirical research on the potential influences of escalating commitment on the likelihood of unethical behavior at the individual level of analysis has been reported in either the escalation or the ethical decision-making literatures. Thus, the main purpose of this project is to provide a theoretical foundation and empirical support for the contention (...) that escalating commitment situations can induce unethical behavior in decision makers. An experimental research design utilizing a computerized investment task was administered to 155 undergraduate business majors as a means of assessing the hypotheses presented here. Results from a hierarchical logistic regression analysis found strong support for the contention that exposure to an escalation situation increases the likelihood of unethical behavior on the part of decision makers. Further, results also supported previous ethical decision-making findings by confirming the effects of locus of control (LOC) on ethical behavior. Specifically, the data indicated that individuals with an external LOC orientation were significantly more likely to select the unethical option than were individuals with an internal LOC orientation. Interestingly, support was not found for the effects of Machiavellianism or gender on ethical decision-making. (shrink)

Ethical work climate, introduced by Bart Victor and John Cullen, plays a central role in the business ethics literature due to its influence on employee’s ethical decision-making. Yet, the often-used framework is limited as a descriptive and prescriptive model because it lacks a normative focus and does not allow for organizations guided by universal ethical principles. We revisit Victor and Cullen’s original conceptualization of ethical climate and propose a reformulation of the ethical criteria to be conceptually consistent with Kohlberg’s theory (...) of cognitive moral development and to accommodate principled climates. We also describe how the locus of analysis dimension can be simplified to allow for a more parsimonious and potentially more valid theory. In doing so, we eliminate redundancy noted in the original model and clarify normative preference among the ethical climate types. We discuss implications for research, teaching, and practice. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Exploring the Depth of Dream Experience: The Enactive Framework and Methods for Neurophenomenological Research” by Elizaveta Solomonova & Xin Wei Sha. Upshot: Neurophenomenology requires a first-person report at the sub-personal level. Thus, the neurophenomenology of dreaming and sleep can be figuratively located in a model of perspectives and levels of analysis. Even when Solomonova and Sha do admit creativity to explain bizarreness and emphasize dreams’ enaction and, especially, dreams’ perception-dependence, an innate and developmental (...) framework of neurophenomenology becomes a requirement to understand fully its sub-personal counterpart, i.e., sleep, especially the evidence derived from innate processing observed during the sleep of neonates - even without the dreaming counterpart. Finally, precisions about the depth of dreaming in Hobson’s work are presented. (shrink)

In this text I concentrate on semiotic aspects of the theory of political identity in the work of Ernesto Laclau, and especially on the connection between metaphors, metonymies, catachreses and synecdoches. Those tropes are of ontological status, and therefore they are of key importance in understanding the discursive “production” of identity in political and educational practices. I use the conceptions of both Laclau and Eco to elucidate the operation of this structure, and illustrate it with an example of the emergence (...) of the “Solidarność” movement in Poland, expanding its analysis provided by Laclau. I focus on the moment when one of particular demands assumes the representation of totality, which, in Laclau, is left to “circumstantial” determination. This moment inspires several questions and needs to be given special attention if Laclau’s theory is to be used in theory of education. It is so because theory of education cannot remain on the level of the ontological, but has to theorize “non-ontological” dimensions as well, that is the ontic, the deontic, as well as what I call the deontological—the very relation between “what there is” and “what there is not” as the locus of education. (shrink)

The contributors to this issue offer applied critical and normative perspectives on central, yet overlooked, ethical aspects of migration management with a certain cosmopolitan lance in some capacity. However, cosmopolitanism might mean different things for transnational migration. It can refer to “political cosmopolitanism” that provides the reasons for why there should be certain global institutions governing migration. It can also refer to “moral cosmopolitanism” that simply represents a moral concern for individual rights and interests first and foremost. Cosmopolitanism can also (...) work as a lens that is based on a scepticism towards using the nation-state as the ultimate unit or locus of analysis. These perspectives are not mutually exclusive, and the contributions in this special issue accommodate a form of cosmopolitan outlook or stance to some extent in their discussion on migration management practices. (shrink)

This work lies at the juncture between religious epistemology and virtue epistemology. Currently, both fields in epistemology are burgeoning with interest and novel theories, arguments, and applications. However, there is no systematic or sustained overlap between the two. I aim to provide such a systematic connection. Virtue epistemology holds that epistemology should turn away from analyzing person-neutral concepts like evidence, reliability, etc. as the primary locus of analysis in favor of person-based properties like intellectual character traits. I develop (...) and defend a virtue-theoretic approach to religious epistemology; arguing that, in certain circumstances, faith can be an act of epistemic virtue. After developing my own account of epistemic virtue, I turn to an analysis of epistemic trust and argue that such trust is an epistemic virtue. To place epistemic trust in someone is to be disposed to see him/her as a kind of intellectual authority and depend on that authority—a kind relying confidence or confidence reliance. Next, I analyze the conceptual connections between faith and epistemic trust—arguing that robust religious faith is a species of epistemic trust. We should see faith as an expression of epistemic trust in certain ways; namely, for religious matters and for beliefs that matter deeply to one’s overall intellectual, moral, pragmatic, etc. worldview. Given my argument(s) that epistemic trust is a virtue, it follows that faith is a particular expression of that virtue. Therefore, faith (when expressed properly) is epistemically virtuous qua act of epistemic virtue. We have an epistemological analysis of faith rooted systemically and deeply in virtue epistemology. The overall upshot is that genuine faith expresses a epistemically virtuous character via trust and, as such, can confer positive epistemic status on religious beliefs. Moreover, genuine faith must fit the same framework as other virtues: it must admit of a mean between excess and deficiency, it must come under the direction of practical wisdom, it must be consistent with other virtues, and other key criteria. I end by discussing how my approach addresses serious issues in religious epistemology and I locate it in the landscape of major theories of proper religious belief. (shrink)

Although the relations between second formant (F2) onset and F2 vowel are extremely regular and contain important information about place of articulation of the voiced stops, they are not sufficient for its identification. Using quadratic discriminant analysis of a new data set, it is shown that F3 onset and F3 vowel can also contribute substantial additional information to help identify the consonants.

The redundant-signals paradigm (RSP) is designed to investigate response behavior in perceptual tasks in which response-relevant targets are defined by either one or two features, or modalities. The common finding is that responses are speeded for redundantly compared to singly defined targets. This redundant-signals effect (RSE) can be accounted for by race models if the response times do not violate the race model inequality (RMI). When there are violations of the RMI, race models are effectively excluded as a viable account (...) of the RSE. The common alternative is provided by co-activation accounts, which assume that redundant target signals are integrated at some processing stage. However, ‘co-activation’ has mostly been only indirectly inferred and the accounts have only rarely been explicitly modeled; if they were modeled, the RSE has typically been assumed to have a decisional locus. Yet, there are also indications in the literature that the RSE might originate, at least in part, at a non-decisional or motor stage. In the present study, using a distribution analysis of sequential-sampling models (ex-Wald and Ratcliff Diffusion model), the locus of the RSE was investigated for two bimodal (audio-visual) detection tasks that strongly violated the RMI, indicative of substantial co-activation. Three model variants assuming different loci of the RSE were fitted to the quantile reaction time proportions: a decision, a non-decision, and a combined variant both to vincentized group as well as individual data. The results suggest that for the two bimodal detection tasks, co-activation has a shared decisional and non-decisional locus. These findings point to the possibility that the mechanisms underlying the RSE depend on the specifics (task, stimulus, conditions, etc.) of the experimental paradigm. (shrink)

PURPOSE:To report the localization of a gene causing drusen and macular degeneration in a previously undescribed North American family. METHODS:Genetic mapping studies were performed using linkage analysis in a single family with drusen and atrophic macular degeneration. RESULTS:The clinical manifestations in this family ranged from fine macular drusen in asymptomatic middle-aged individuals to atrophic macular lesions in two children and two elderly patients. We mapped the gene to chromosome 6q14 between markers D6S2258 and D6S1644. CONCLUSIONS:In a family with autosomal (...) dominant drusen and atrophic macular degeneration, the gene maps to a 3.2-cM region on chromosome 6q14. This locus appears to be distinct from, but adjacent to, the loci for cone-rod dystrophy 7 (CORD7) and North Carolina macular dystrophy (MCDR1). Future identification of the gene responsible for the disease in this family will provide a better understanding of macular degeneration. (shrink)

We present the first large-scale, quantitative examination of mind and body concepts in a set of historical sources by measuring the predictions of folk mind–body dualism against the surviving textual corpus of pre-Qin (pre-221 BCE) China. Our textual analysis found clear patterns in the historically evolving reference of the word xin (heart/heart–mind): It alone of the organs was regularly contrasted with the physical body, and during the Warring States period it became less associated with emotions and increasingly portrayed as (...) the unique locus of “higher” cognitive abilities. We interpret this as a semantic shift toward a shared cognitive bias in response to a vast and rapid expansion of literacy. Our study helps test the proposed universality of folk dualism, adds a new quantitative approach to the methods used in the humanities, and opens up a new and valuable data source for cognitive scientists: the record of dead minds. (shrink)

The right temporo-parietal junction (rTPJ) has been associated with two apparently disparate functional roles: in attention and in social cognition. According to one account, the rTPJ initiates a “circuit-breaking” signal that interrupts ongoing attentional processes, effectively reorienting attention. It is argued this primary function of the rTPJ has been extended beyond attention, through a process of evolutionarily cooption, to play a role in social cognition. We propose an alternative account, according to which the capacity for social cognition depends on a (...) network which is both distinct from and in tension with brain areas involved in focused attention and target detection: the default mode network. Theory characterizing the rTPJ based on the area’s purported role in reorienting may be falsely guided by the co-occurrence of two distinct effects in contiguous regions: activation of the supramarginal gyrus (SMG), associated with its functional role in target detection; and the transient release, during spatial reorienting, of suppression of the angular gyrus (AG) associated with focused attention. Findings based on meta-analysis and resting functional connectivity are presented which support this alternative account. We find distinct regions, possessing anti-correlated patterns of resting connectivity, associated with social reasoning (AG) and target detection (SMG) at the rTPJ. The locus for reorienting was spatially intermediate between the AG and SMG and showed a pattern of connectivity with similarities to social reasoning and target detection seeds. These findings highlight a general methodological concern for brain imaging. Given evidence that certain tasks not only activate some areas but also suppress activity in other areas, it is suggested that researchers need to distinguish two distinct putative mechanisms, either of which may produce an increase in activity in a brain area: functional engagement in the task versus release of suppression. (shrink)

The RNAi machinery is not only involved with post‐transcriptional degradation of messenger RNAs, but also used for targeting of chromatin changes associated with transcriptional silencing. Two recent papers determine the global patterns of gene expression and chromatin modifications produced by the RNAi machinery in fission yeast.(9, 10) The major sites include the outer centromere repeats, the mating‐type locus and subtelomeric regions. By comparison, studies of Arabidopsis heterochromatin also implicate transposons as a major target for silencing. Analyses of siRNA libraries (...) from Drosophila, nematodes and Arabidopsis indicate that major repeats at centromeres, telomeres and transposable elements are likely targets of RNAi. Also, intergenic regions are implicated as targets in Arabidopsis. BioEssays 27:1209–1212, 2005. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

A growth in consumer and media ethical consciousness has resulted in the need for organizations to ensure that members understand, share and project an approved and unified set of ethics. Thus understanding which variables are related to sharing and variation of ethical reasoning and moral intent, and the relative strength of these variables is critical. While past research has examined individual (attitudes, values, etc.), social (peers, significant others, etc.) and organizational (codes of conduct, senior management, etc.) variables, it has focused (...) on their influence on the individual – and not on their role in relation to patterns of group sharing and variation in an organization. Introduced as a new methodology to study ethics, microcultural analysis stipulates that to explain patterns of sharing and variation, one must understand how individual, social and organizational variables influence sharing and variation. Key hypotheses predict that managers who share in individual, social or organizational determinants will be more likely to share in ethical reasoning and moral intent. Qualitative and quantitative research supports the key hypotheses, finding social ties, personal moral intensity, Machiavellianism, locus of control and codes of ethics as significant determinants. Individuals who share in these determinants are more likely to share in ethical reasoning and moral intent. Additionally, regression analysis reveals social ties and personal moral intensity to be the strongest determinants. Based on these results, managerial recommendations focus on a holistic approach, manipulating these three determinants to cultivate a unified code of ethics within an organization. (shrink)

This study interprets the movement of Heidegger's famous "turn" through an analysis of his critique of Kant, Schelling, and Hegel in the period spanning roughly 1925 to 1936. Heidegger's "turn" sought to overcome the traditional metaphysical conception of being that had come to absolute expression through Hegel's method of dialectical reflection. Heidegger was successful to the extent that he provided the final "con-text" of being as a discourse that both frames the historical "text" of being and permeates it, allowing (...) the coherence of that text to appear in a new light. Heidegger's interpretation of the original sense of time as temporality opposed the latent dogmatism in Kant's critique of reason by shifting the locus of unity in experience away from the spontaneity of the self toward an intuitional transcending of the self as "being-in-the-world." This pointed Heidegger toward a novel revelatory conception of freedom as "letting being be," which he posed as an alternative to the absolutizing of subjectivity that took place in German idealism. Heidegger used Schellings anti-Hegelian conception of the origination of freedom from nature to clarify the meaning of Hegel's key metaphysical notion of reflection. In so doing he developed an alternative interpretation of the "nothing," in contrast to Hegel's method of double negation, that set the meaning of negation into a greater contextual perspective. Heidegger's goal of uncovering the meaning and possibility of reflection as the original possibility of evil led him to a qualified retrieval of his early Roman Catholic orientation to thinking. Transforming these paradigms into a new deconstructive discourse, Heidegger advanced beyond Schellings critique of Hegel, allowing him to establish a hermeneutical relationship with Hegel's system that simultaneously confronts and preserves it. Heidegger's early phenomenological interpretation of Pauline eschatology and Augustinian original sin thus, finally situates his interpretation of the "nothing" as the abyss of being retrieved from the primal Greek conception of nature . Heidegger thereby provides the ultimate "con-text" of metaphysics in its necessary and reciprocal relation to Hegel's conception of presence as an all-encompassing, "self-absolving" system. (shrink)

Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a progressive and lethal neuromuscular disorder caused by a defective gene on the X chromosome. There is no effective treatment and the biochemical defect is yet unknown. Mapping of the DMD locus to band Xp21 in the short arm of the X chromosome has given rise to strategies to clone the gene from its known location in the chromosome. Two cloning strategies have led to the isolation of a gene that is the largest of (...) any yet described. Portions of the gene are deleted in about 8% of affected males, and rare translocations that disrupt the gene cause the disease in females. The isolation of expressed sequences from the DMD locus will undoubtedly lead to isolation of the gene product and ultimately to an understanding of the basic defect. In the meantime, DNA probes from the DMD locus provide a new and accurate approach for carrier identification and prenatal diagnosis of this dreaded disease. (shrink)

Implantable brain-computer interfaces are being developed to restore speech capacity for those who are unable to speak. Patients with locked-in syndrome or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis could be able to use covert speech – vividly imagining saying something without actual vocalisation – to trigger neural controlled systems capable of synthesising speech. User control has been identified as particularly pressing for this type of BCI. The incorporation of machine learning and statistical language models into the decoding process introduces a contribution to the (...) output that is beyond the user’s control. Whilst this type of ‘shared control’ of BCI action is not unique to speech BCIs, the automated shaping of what a user ‘says’ has a particularly acute ethical dimension, which may differ from parallel concerns surrounding automation in movement BCIs. This paper provides an analysis of the control afforded to the user of a speech BCI of the sort under development, as well as the relationships between accuracy, control, and the user’s ownership of the speech produced. Through comparing speech BCIs with BCIs for movement, we argue that, whilst goal selection is the more significant locus of control for the user of a movement BCI, control over process will be more significant for the user of the speech BCI. The design of the speech BCI may therefore have to trade off some possible efficiency gains afforded by automation in order to preserve sufficient guidance control necessary for users to express themselves in ways they prefer. We consider the implications for the speech BCI user’s responsibility for produced outputs and their ownership of token outputs. We argue that these are distinct assessments. Ownership of synthetic speech concerns whether the content of the output sufficiently represents the user, rather than their morally relevant, causal role in producing that output. (shrink)

Victor and Cullen (1987, 1988) developed a typology of ethical climates based upon the level of moral development of the work group (egoism, benevolence and principled a la Kohlberg, 1981) and the locus of analysis utilized in reaching decisions (individual, local, cosmopolitan). Building on this typology, data were obtained from a high technology company for the purpose of empirically extending the examination of the number of ethical climates that exist and portraying the relationship between ethical climates and the (...) ethical dimension of decisions.When faced with decisions posing various types of ethical dilemmas, most respondents indicated they would take the ethical path. The one exception involved bribery where respondents were about equally likely to make or withhold payment. One climate guided by laws/professional codes accounted for over half of the respondents. Several climates accounted for less than ten percent of the respondents. (shrink)

Entrepreneurship is a tool for driving economic and social progress. Especially in Hong Kong, the government has recently taken steps to encourage young people to engage in entrepreneurship. However, Hong Kong youths’ entrepreneurial intentions are still low. The objective of this study is to empirically explore the impacts of personality traits on start-up preparation among Hong Kong youths through the constructs of the theory of planned behavior. Through a multi-channel survey, we finally collected 230 valid respondents aged 18 to 40. (...) In addition, this study used SmartPLS software to conduct confirmatory factor analysis for the measurement model as well as path analysis for the structural model. This study’s results suggested that creativity, risk-taking propensity, need for achievement, and internal locus of control influence TPB models’ components and indirectly influence start-up preparation through TPB models’ components. Also, attitude and perceived behavioral control influence intention, and intention influences preparation. Furthermore, prior entrepreneurial experience and entrepreneurship education positively influence preparation. In conclusion, this study revealed the mediating effects of TPB components between four personality traits and start-up preparation. Finally, this study had theoretical implications by providing the influence of six personality traits on youths’ entrepreneurial intention and preparation through the TPB model and the human capital theory. This study also had practical implications by providing suggestions for the government and higher education institutions. (shrink)

This paper published in the 1999 volume of the “Logical Analysis” series serves doubles purpose. For the first, it offers a taxonomy of Russian statives (predicates of state) based on language-specific criteria, such as the (in)ability of Russian copular predicates to take animate dative subjects. For the second, it outlines the general idea that true stative predicates with an animate subject project a complex event structure with two animate participants — the Experiencer alias the Subject of State (X), and (...) the Subject of Evaluation (Y), whose role is to fix that the X is affected by the Stimulus (Z) during a time interval. The Stimulus (Z) is conceived as the Outer World or the Locus of State. X and Y can be different persons, if Y evaluates the stative spatiotemporal situation SZ from outside and concludes that some X  Y is cold, angry or disappointed during a time interval. X and Y can also be coindexed (Xi = Yi), in which case the person who experiences an affection or sensation is the primary source of information about her internal state. (shrink)

Continuous recordings of brain electrical activity were obtained from a group of 176 patients throughout surgical procedures using general anesthesia. Artifact-free data from the 19 electrodes of the International 10/20 System were subjected to quantitative analysis of the electroencephalogram (QEEG). Induction was variously accomplished with etomidate, propofol or thiopental. Anesthesia was maintained throughout the procedures by isoflurane, desflurane or sevoflurane (N = 68), total intravenous anesthesia using propofol (N = 49), or nitrous oxide plus narcotics (N = 59). A (...) set of QEEG measures were found which reversibly displayed high heterogeneity of variance between four states as follows: (1) during induction; (2) just after loss of consciousness (LOC); (3) just before return of consciousness (ROC); (4) just after ROC. Homogeneity of variance across all agents within states was found. Topographic statistical probability images were compared between states. At LOC, power increased in all frequency bands in the power spectrum with the exception of a decrease in gamma activity, and there was a marked anteriorization of power. Additionally, a significant change occurred in hemispheric relationships, with prefrontal and frontal regions of each hemisphere becoming more closely coupled, and anterior and posterior regions on each hemisphere, as well as homologous regions between the two hemispheres, uncoupling. All of these changes reversed upon ROC. Variable resolution electromagnetic tomography (VARETA) was performed to localize salient features of power anteriorization in three dimensions. A common set of neuroanatomical regions appeared to be the locus of the most probable generators of the observed EEG changes. (shrink)

Anthropologists, through participant observation, play a large role in creating the very locus of their research: socio-cultural context. Challenges to the social-scientific ‘objectivity’ of this process draw strength from historical precedent, and serve a vital role in the larger anthropological project of confronting, as both critic and product of Western thought, its inherent tensions. In this paper, I focus on two types of epistemological bias that construct and reinforce the validity of objective knowledge: objectivism and literalism. An analysis (...) of ethnographic treatments of the philosophical concerns of metaphor theory and phenomenology of the senses illustrates both the difficulty and utility of taking on the epistemological underpinnings of social science. (shrink)

In this paper, we aim to bring to discussion the concept of locus amoenus, a common denomination of locus communis (topos, for the greeks), that makes reference to the ideal landscape according to the norms of the ancient idyllic poetry. We will describe and analyze the locus amoenus from an 18th century Italian poetry perspective, more specifically from the fables of Luigi Fiacchi, a poet and Catholic priest of that century. The analysis will focus on the (...) references, either direct or not, that the author, known by the epithet ‘Il Casio’, does to the Classical Antiquity. (shrink)

While the design of sex robots is still in the early stages, the social implications of the potential proliferation of sex robots into our lives has been heavily debated by activists and scholars from various disciplines. What is missing in the current debate on sex robots and their potential impact on human social relations is a targeted look at the boundedness and bodily expressivity typically characteristic of humans, the role that these dimensions of human embodiment play in enabling reciprocal human (...) interactions, and the manner in which this contrasts with sex robot-human interactions. Through a fine-grained discussion of these themes, rooted in fruitful but largely untapped resources from the field of enactive embodied cognition, we explore the unique embodiment of sex robots. We argue that the embodiment of the sex robot is constituted by what we term restricted expressivity and a lack of bodily boundedness and that this is the locus of negative but also potentially positive implications. We discuss the possible benefits that these two dimensions of embodiment may have for people within a specific demographic, namely some persons on the autism spectrum. Our preliminary conclusion—that the benefits and the downsides of sex robots reside in the same capability of the robot, its restricted expressivity and lack of bodily boundedness as we call it—demands we take stock of future developments in the design of sex robot embodiment. Given the importance of evidence-based research pertaining to sex robots in particular, as reinforced by Nature for drawing correlations and making claims, the analysis is intended to set the stage for future research. -/- . (shrink)

Devotion to the Prophet Muḥammad was a major feature of late medieval and early modern Islamic religious life across much of the Islamic world. The history of this devotion remains understudied in relation to its importance and pervasiveness. This study takes as its locus of analysis a particular instance of early modern devotion: a weekly, public all-night session of ṣalawāt upon the Prophet that would become known as the maḥyā. Developed by the peasant-turned-shaykh Nūr al-Dīn al-Shūnī in late (...) Mamluk Egypt, performance of the maḥyā would spread over the following century throughout the Arab Ottoman world, undergoing changes, provoking controversy, and becoming embedded in the sacred spaces and ritual life of one city after another. I approach the history of the maḥyā as a discrete and legible instance of ritual change in an Islamic context, exploring this instance of communal devotion to the Prophet through such lenses as ritual studies and the spatial turn, examining the intersection of this devotional ritual with practices of subjectivity, the use and contestation of ritual space, and the meaning, regulation, and experience of the night. (shrink)