Using the Job Demands-Resources model literature and the life-span theory as scholarly frameworks, we examined the effects of job demands and job resources as mediators in the relationship between bundles of used HRM practices and employee outcomes. In addition, we tested for age differences in our research model. Findings confirmed the hypothesized original 2-factor structure representing maintenance and development HRM practices. Structural Equation Modeling analyses showed that the maintenance HRM bundle related directly and negatively to employee outcomes, without moderating effects (...) of age. However, job resources appeared to mediate this relationship in a positive way as it also did for the development HRM bundle. Whereas this study showed the ‘driving power’ of the actual use of HRM bundles through job resources, regardless of the employee’s age, this study also suggests a ‘dark side’ of HRM. In particular, we found that development HRM bundles may also increase job demands, which, in turn, may result in lower levels of beneficial employee outcomes. These empirical outcomes demonstrate the strength of the driving power eliciting from job resources preceded by any HRM bundle. Moreover, this effect appears to apply to employees of all ages. Our moderated-mediation model appeared robust for several control variables. Overall, this study provides an extension of the well-known Job Demands-Resources model by including maintenance and development bundles of HRM practices used by employees that have a differential effect on job demands and job resources which in turn have an impact on employee outcomes. (shrink)

There is a popular hypothesis that performance on implicit and explicit memory tasks reflects 2 distinct memory systems. Explicit memory is said to store those experiences that can be consciously recollected, and implicit memory is said to store experiences and affect subsequent behavior but to be unavailable to conscious awareness. Although this division based on awareness is a useful taxonomy for memory tasks, the authors review the evidence that the unconscious character of implicit memory does not necessitate that it be (...) treated as a separate system of human memory. They also argue that some implicit and explicit memory tasks share the same memory representations and that the important distinction is whether the task (implicit or explicit) requires the formation of a new association. The authors review and critique dissociations from the behavioral, amnesia, and neuroimaging literatures that have been advanced in support of separate explicit and implicit memory systems by highlighting contradictory evidence and by illustrating how the data can be accounted for using a simple computational memory model that assumes the same memory representation for those disparate tasks. (shrink)

The relation of the conformal group to various earlier proposed relativistic quantum mechanical dynamical groups (and other related groups) is studied in the framework of projective geometry, by explicitly constructing the contractions of the six-dimensional coordinate transformations. Five-dimensional realizations are then derived. An attempt is made to improve our physical insight through geometry.

IntroductionBisphenol A is highly debated and studied in relation to a variety of health outcomes. This large variation in the literature makes BPA a topic that is prone to selective use of literature, in order to underpin one’s own findings and opinion. Over time, selective use of literature, by means of citations, can lead to a skewed knowledge development and a biased scientific consensus. In this study, we assess which factors drive citation and whether this results in the overrepresentation of (...) harmful health effects of BPA.MethodsA citation network analysis was performed to test various determinants of citation. A systematic search identified all relevant publications on the human health effect of BPA. Data were extracted on potential determinants of selective citation, such as study outcome, study design, sample size, journal impact factor, authority of the author, self-citation, and funding source. We applied random effect logistic regression to assess whether these determinants influence the likelihood of citation.ResultsOne hundred sixty-nine publications on BPA were identified, with 12,432 potential citation pathways of which 808 citations occurred. The network consisted of 63 cross-sectional studies, 34 cohort studies, 29 case-control studies, 35 narrative reviews, and 8 systematic reviews. Positive studies have a 1.5 times greater chance of being cited compared to negative studies. Additionally, the authority of the author and self-citation are consistently found to be positively associated with the likelihood of being cited. Overall, the network seems to be highly influenced by two highly cited publications, whereas 60 out of 169 publications received no citations.ConclusionIn the literature on BPA, citation is mostly driven by positive study outcome and author-related factors, such as high authority within the network. Interpreting the impact of these factors and the big influence of a few highly cited publications, it can be questioned to which extent the knowledge development in human literature on BPA is actually evidence-based. (shrink)

BackgroundLarge-scale, centralized data repositories are playing a critical and unprecedented role in fostering innovative health research, leading to new opportunities as well as dilemmas for the medical sciences. Uncovering the reasons as to why citizens do or do not contribute to such repositories, for example, to population-based biobanks, is therefore crucial. We investigated and compared the views of existing participants and non-participants on contributing to large-scale, centralized health research data repositories with those of ex-participants regarding the decision to end their (...) participation. This comparison could yield new insights into motives of participation and non-participation, in particular the behavioural change of withdrawal.MethodsWe conducted 36 in-depth interviews with ex-participants, participants, and non-participants of a three-generation, population-based biobank in the Netherlands. The interviews focused on the respondents’ decision-making processes relating to their participation in a large-scale, centralized repository for health research data.ResultsThe decision of participants and non-participants to contribute to the biobank was motivated by a desire to help others. Whereas participants perceived only benefits relating to their participation and were unconcerned about potential risks, non-participants and ex-participants raised concerns about the threat of large-scale, centralized public data repositories and public institutes, such as social exclusion or commercialization. Our analysis of ex-participants’ perceptions suggests that intrapersonal characteristics, such as levels of trust in society, participation conceived as a social norm, and basic societal values account for differences between participants and non-participants.ConclusionsOur findings indicate the fluidity of motives centring on helping others in decisions to participate in large-scale, centralized health research data repositories. Efforts to improve participation should focus on enhancing the trustworthiness of such data repositories and developing layered strategies for communication with participants and with the public. Accordingly, personalized approaches for recruiting participants and transmitting information along with appropriate regulatory frameworks are required, which have important implications for current data management and informed consent procedures. (shrink)

This volume is a collection of testimonia and fragments of the Presocratics designed to introduce the Italian high school student to an understanding of what philosophy is. This purpose is so praiseworthy that it should deter the specialist from raising his eyebrows at the volume's shortcomings. Curi has selected only fragments of Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Pythagoras, Xenophanes, and the Eleatics. Empedocles, Anaxagoras and the Atomists are excluded from the selections, presumably because the editor holds, with many Italian scholars, the questionable (...) theory that by "Presocratics" is understood only those thinkers who lived before the birth of Socrates. The translation of texts from the sixth edition of Diels and Kranz is accurate and readable, and the selections of testimonia are more comprehensive than the ones found in the textbooks of Burnet, Nahm, and Robinson. It is pedagogically interesting to ask what the very young may learn from this volume. The answer lies in its short introduction and in the critical footnotes attached to each fragment. Unlike the aforementioned English and American authors, Curi avoids textual exegesis and analysis of the mythopoeic background of Homer and Hesiod to which the early philosophic views may be related. He centers his own comments on the intricate issues of ancient and modern historiography. He analyzes the history of ancient historiography from Aristotle to Mondolfo and concludes that Wilamowitz, Stenzel, and Jaeger are the only historiographers who have been able to capture the complexity of Presocratic philosophy. Curi's method of teaching philosophy and his own philosophical views goes beyond the scope of this notice, however we can not help but remark how much Croce's spirit still pervades the Italian class-room.--L. M. P. (shrink)

Three major problems continue to perplex every interpreter of Stoic logic since Lukasiewicz's [[sic]] revolutionary studies in 1932: the alleged opposition of Stoic dialectic to Aristotelian syllogistic; the baffling status of "implication" in Diodorus and Chrysippus; the questionable completeness of the Stoic system based on the five "indemonstrables." Expanding on Lukasiewicz's [[sic]] findings, Benson Mates and Mary Kneale argued for interpreting Stoic logic in terms of a logic propositions formally analogous to our propositional calculus. Furthermore Mates and, to a less (...) extent, Kneale cast doubts on the accepted opinion that Diodorus' "implication" was the ancient version of what C. I. Lewis calls "strict implication," and opted for B. Russell's "formal implication," while attributing the first type of implication to Chrysippus alone. Finally Mates, Kneale, and Reymond questioned the alleged completeness of the Stoic logic system. Among recent logicians this very question still calls for an answer. In form and content, Mignucci's knowledgeable study on the meaning of Stoic logic is a lucid restatement of his predecessors published conclusions. With the exception of the first chapter devoted to a résumé of the main contributions in the field, the remaining sections of his essay are organized around Mates' topical structure of Stoic epistemology and semantics, the doctrine of the proposition, and the theory of the five "anapodictics." Mignucci makes, however, two relevant additions which may raise suspicion among the most rigorous of logicians. In the first chapter and again in the conclusion of his essay, he analyzes carefully the alleged opposition of Aristotle's logic of classes to the Stoic logic of propositions. For Mignucci, the acceptance of the logic of propositions implies one's commitment to an ontological domain which is incompatible with the metaphysical discourse of the logic of classes. He argues that the two logics are complete and formally analogous only in the sense that from the Stoic first axiom and from the Aristotelian Barbara one can deduce all the rules which constitute their respective logics. This completeness is, however, logically dependent upon the Aristotelian and Stoic view of reality.--L. M. P. (shrink)

John Dewey is one of the American philosophers strongly influenced by Hegel. For this reason, perhaps, certain Italian scholars have always been attracted to him, even when, as in the case of Croce, they strove to repudiate his doctrines. In this tradition, Aloysio's volume blazes the trail for a new approach to Dewey's scholarship in Italy. The volume issues from a seminar held at the University of Aquila during which Aloysio and his students read five works of Dewey. Significantly enough, (...) the works chosen for such an enterprise belong to the period when Dewey bids farewell to the idealism of his youth and takes a critical look at his philosophical program of reconstruction. The chapters of the book are devoted to a critical analysis of the five books studied during the seminar: Reconstruction in Philosophy ; Human Nature and Conduct ; Experience and Nature ; The Quest for Certainty ; and, A Common Faith. The outcome is a refreshing exposition of Dewey's mature thought. The method of question and answer used throughout the book is exceptionally efficacious to evince the contemporary relevance of Dewey's fundamental notions of experience, nature, and human conduct.--L. M. P. (shrink)

The author has succeeded in producing a volume which will be valuable to anyone who wishes to acquire a more catholic view of British analytic philosophy than the one offered in the works of Urmson, Warnock, and Ayer. The bibliography contains 698 items, and each of the ten chapters is amply footnoted with suggestions for further investigations. In the first chapter, Riverso meets the charge of antihistoricism by arguing convincingly that twentieth century analysis is the culmination of a movement which (...) began with Descartes' Regulae ad directionem ingenii. In the following three chapters he considers the entire Cambridge movement from its origin in B. Russell's and G. E. Moore's refutation of idealism to the disintegration of logical atomism in the second Wittgenstein. Italian readers will find especially useful Riverso's clear discussion of the impact of Wittgenstein's Tractatus on the Vienna circle, of his analysis of Ayer's radical refutation of metaphysics, as well as of the polemics of Lazerowitz and Malcolm against the principle of verifiability. In the final four chapters, Riverso takes on the arduous task of telling the story of the whole Oxonian movement. He clarifies beautifully the reasons for the transformation from normal analysis to ordinary language, and finally to the various types of grammatical elucidations of Ryle, Austin, and Strawson. Riverso dedicates a chapter each to the language of perception, the concept of person, religious language, and metaethics. In the concluding pages, he launches into passionate defense of analysis as the best therapy for our social ills and as the only alternative to Marxist ideology.--L. M. P. (shrink)

The preoccupation evinced by Italian scholars for Protagoras and the Sophistic movement is extraordinary and somewhat comparable to the interest which American philosophers have recently shown in Parmenides and the Eleatics. Since the Protagoras revival in the 'Forties' numerous Italian editions of the Sophistic fragments have been published and a constellation of contradictory reconstructions of Protagoras' thought has been offered to a perhaps unduly tolerant public. In the present study Zeppi intends to refute all extant historiography from Gomperz to Capizzi (...) in the name of a unitary interpretation based upon the internal consistency of Protagoras' ethical and epistemological doctrines. Such an interpretation will do justice, Zeppi believes, to the complexity of Protagoras' thinking while revealing the central position he occupies in the philosophical tradition before Plato. Accordingly Zeppi devotes the first part of his essay to Protagoras' doctrines and the second to earlier Presocratics and the Sophists in general. Finally he offers thought-provoking studies on the Anonymus Iamblichi, on the Cyrenaic school, on Democritus' ethics and on its bearing on Protagoras. On the whole Zeppi is more convincing in demolishing the views of his predecessors than in presenting his own ideas. Nevertheless his hypothesis of Protagoras as an ethical emotivist, a sense-datum theorist and a thinker divorcing truth from morality is refreshingly questionable.--L. M. P. (shrink)

Of Peter Abelard's logical writings, the fruit of thirty-five years of his activity as a teacher and dialectician, there have been to date only four editions worthy of note: that of Cousin in 1836, of Geyer in 1919 and 1936, of Dal Pra in 1954, and lastly the critical reconstruction of Abelard's literal glosses by L. M. Rijk in 1956. With this handsome second edition of minor but relevant glosses of Abelard, Dal Pra aims to fill the gap still existing (...) in the previous collections. His volume includes Abelard's writings found in the Paris BN manuscripts n. 13.368 and 7493. Chronologically the former belongs to the period when Abelard was given the chair of dialectic at the University of Paris in 1114 and the latter to Abelard's more mature period when he began original speculations on the logical status of propositions in 1121. Dal Pra argues at great length that the glosses in the first manuscript are to be read as the best and only introduction to Abelard's own work on dialectic. Hence he suggests against Rijk the title Introductiones Dialecticae rather than Introductiones Parvulorum. He assembles them according to what he believes was Abelard's intellectual development at the time. They are: the glosses to Porphyrius, to Aristotle's Categories, to the De Interpretatione, and to Boethius' De Devisione. [[sic]] The second section of the volume contains the glosses Super Topica where Abelard discusses among other subjects his first position on the problem of universals. Against Geyer who had consigned these works to the literal glosses of Abelard, Dal Pra offers strong evidence for locating them in the bulk of Abelard's De Ingredientibus precisely between the De Interpretatione and the De Syllogismo Hypothetico. The modernity of Abelard's logical theory is well known among contemporary logicians. Dal Pra's finely planned and handsomely executed edition makes an excellent contribution to the history of medieval logic as well as to contemporary logical theories on names and propositions.--L. M. P. (shrink)

The focus of this study was to analyze the content, distribution, and comparative genome relationships of 996 chromosome bin-mapped expressed sequence tags accounting for 2266 restriction fragments on the homoeologous group 3 chromosomes of hexaploid wheat. Of these loci, 634, 884, and 748 were mapped on chromosomes 3A, 3B, and 3D, respectively. The individual chromosome bin maps revealed bins with a high density of mapped ESTs in the distal region and bins of low density in the proximal region of the (...) chromosome arms, with the exception of 3DS and 3DL. These distributions were more localized on the higher-resolution group 3 consensus map with intermediate regions of high-mapped-EST density on both chromosome arms. Gene ontology classification of mapped ESTs was not significantly different for homoeologous group 3 chromosomes compared to the other groups. A combined analysis of the individual bin maps using 537 of the mapped ESTs revealed rearrangements between the group 3 chromosomes. Approximately 232 of the consensus mapped ESTs matched sequences on rice chromosome 1 and revealed large- and small-scale differences in gene order. Of the group 3 mapped EST unigenes ∼21 and 32% matched the Arabidopsis coding regions and proteins, respectively, but no chromosome-level gene order conservation was detected. (shrink)

OBJECTIVES: To determine the relationship between ethical reasoning and gender and occupation among a group of male and female nurses and doctors. DESIGN: Partialist and impartialist forms of ethical reasoning were defined and singled out as being central to the difference between what is known as the "care" moral orientation (Gilligan) and the "justice" orientation (Kohlberg). A structured questionnaire based on four hypothetical moral dilemmas involving combinations of (health care) professional, non-professional, life-threatening and non-life-threatening situations, was piloted and then mailed (...) to a randomly selected sample of doctors and nurses. SETTING: 400 doctors from Victoria, and 200 doctors and 400 nurses from New South Wales. RESULTS: 178 doctors and 122 nurses returned completed questionnaires. 115 doctors were male, 61 female; 50 nurses were male and 72 were female. It was hypothesised that there would be an association between feminine subjects and partialist reasoning and masculine subjects and impartialist reasoning. It was also hypothesised that nurses would adopt a partialist approach to reasoning and doctors an impartialist approach. No relationship between any of these variables was observed. (shrink)

This brief monograph consists of three chapters on Nietzsche's sense of tragedy, on perspectivism and on the much debated theory of eternal recurrence. DeFeo believes that the first and last of Nietzsche's works represent the poles between which Nietzsche overthrew metaphysics. In the Birth of Tragedy, the discovery of the existential contradiction of the finite dimension of human existence obtains at the aesthetic level of tragedy. Here the human contradiction is evinced in the wisdom of Dionysius. In The Will to (...) Power, the existential contradiction is understood in the temporal form of an epic: it becomes the ability to overthrow any form of perspectivism. The motive of Nietzsche's philosophy is the search for a novel center of values which, DeFeo believes, Nietzsche finds in the Übermensch. Throughout his short essay, the author constantly cites Husserl, Sartre, and Heidegger. He explicitly interprets Heidegger in the tradition of Nietzsche. Yet it seems rather misleading to assimilate Nietzsche's reduction to Heidegger's existential analysis.--L. M. P. (shrink)

One hundred years separates the birth of T. Campanella from that of G. B. Vico. This collection of essays, published in 1969 by the Archives of Philosophy, is the end result of a congress held in Rome commemorating the birth of both philosophers. Campanella and Vico are celebrated in the same volume on the assumption of ideal affinities besides the accidental circumstances of having been born a century apart. Unfortunately, only one essay is expressly devoted to the analysis of Campanella's (...) and Vico's metaphysics. While the first two papers consider Campanella's medical biography and his epistemology, the last four are dedicated solely to various aspects of Vico's thought. On Iacobelli Isoldi falls the responsibility of justifying the title of the volume. But her attempt to demonstrate a family resemblance between Vico's and Campanella's metaphysics remains farfetched. For Campanella's way of solving the theoretical problem arising from Descartes' dualism issues in inevitable skepticism. Campanella never abandoned the position that the cogito is a vehicle of certainty, but not a criterion of truth. Vico on the other hand, overcomes his initial skepticism by transforming the criterion of truth into a criterion of certainty. In the New Science he demonstrates how man can possess true knowledge of the social and historical sciences. To demonstrate that this symposium had been assembled for reasons other than physical convenience, more papers on possible relations between the Dominican friar of Cosenza and the professor of eloquence of Naples would have been a desideratum.--L. M. P. (shrink)

The level of medical care to patients and the success of the implementation of the national project "Health" depend on the health status and doctor's professionalism. Modern healthcare reform is being implemented by optimizing costs, merging medical organizations, closing ineffective hospitals, expanding the use of high-tech care and informatization of the doctor's activities. All this makes it necessary to assess the health of doctors. Scientists have studied the quality of life and identified the professional burnout of doctors in children's clinics (...) in different age groups. Primary care pediatricians have a higher quality of life score when compared to the standard [1]. However, all groups have a high level of professional burnout. The pre-retirement group of doctors has more unfavorable profile. They are highly professional specialists but may experience emotional discomfort because the pension system has been reformed. This situation requires the introduction of preventive work with doctors of this age as a group with great potential and capable of professional longevity. (shrink)

In many animal species, the early development of the embryo follows a stereotypic pattern of cell cleavage, lineage allocation and generation of tissue asymmetry leading to delineation of the body plan with three primary embryonic axes. The mammalian embryo has been regarded as an exception and primary body axes of the mouse embryo were thought to develop after implantation. However, recent findings have challenged this view. Asymmetry in the fertilised oocyte, as defined by the position of the second polar body (...) and the sperm entry point, can be correlated with the orientation of the animal–vegetal and the embryonic–abembryonic axes in the preimplantation blastocyst. Studies of the pattern of morphogenetic movement of cells and genetic activity in the peri‐implantation embryo suggest that the animal–vegetal axis of the blastocyst might presage the orientation of the anterior–posterior axis of the gastrula. This suggests that the asymmetry of the zygote that is established at fertilisation and early cleavage has a lasting impact on the delineation of body axes during embryogenesis. BioEssays 23:508–517, 2001. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)