A proposal for a new system of credit allocation in science

This essay discusses some of the problems with current authorship practices and puts forward a proposal for a new system of credit allocation: in published works, scientists should more clearly define the responsibilities and contributions of members of research teams and should distinguish between different roles, such as author, statistican, technician, grant writer, data collector, and so forth. Dr. Resnik is an Associate Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for the Advancement of Ethics, University of Wyoming. Information is available on website: http://www.uwyo.edu/bu/acct/cae.htm     

Intermodal matching of vision and audition in infancy: A proposal for a new taxonomy

The aim of this review paper is first to devise a common framework for the various procedures used in experimental investigations of intermodal auditory – visual matching by human infants, and second to propose a new taxonomy of intermodal tasks in order to gain a better understanding of the perceptual-cognitive processing underlying these tasks and their relationships to other cognitive achievements such as the development of language. Based on an examination of the tasks used in the developmental literature, we suggest analysing them in terms of (a) their mode of presentation (simultaneous or sequential) for accessing the information in the two modalities (auditory and visual) and (b) the type of relation (amodal or arbitrary) between these two stimulus sources. A review of the literature in the light of this classification shows that most experimental studies employ parallel intermodal presentation (PIP) using both amodal and arbitrary relations between stimuli. Very few investigations have used sequential intermodal presentation (SIP) with amodal relations, and none have used SIP procedures with arbitrary relations. It is claimed here that this last approach might be the most appropriate one for furthering our understanding of (a) the categorical and semantic processing involved in intermodal matching and (b) how the developing infant learns to process words.     

Climate strength: a new direction for climate research

Climate strength was conceptualized within D. Chan's (1998) discussion of compositional models and the concept of culture strength from the organizational culture literature. Climate strength was operationalized in terms of within-group variability in climate perceptions-the less within-group variability, the stronger the climate. The authors studied climate strength in the context of research linking employee service climate perceptions to customer satisfaction. The hypothesis was tested that climate strength moderates the relationship between employee perceptions of service climate and customer satisfaction experiences. Partial support for the hypothesis was reported in both a concurrent and predictive (3-year) test across 118 branches of a bank. In the predictive study only the interaction of climate and climate strength predicted customer satisfaction. Implications for future research on climate and climate strength are discussed.     

In favour of a Millian proposal to reform biomedical research

One way to make philosophy of science more socially relevant is to attend to specific scientific practises that affect society to a great extent. One such practise is biomedical research. This paper looks at contemporary U.S. biomedical research in particular and argues that it suffers from important epistemic, moral and socio-economic failings. It then discusses and criticises existing approaches to improve on the status quo, most prominently by Thomas Pogge (a political philosopher), Joseph Stiglitz (a Nobel-prize winning economist) and James Robert Brown (a philosopher of science). Finally, it sketches an alternative proposal and argues for its superiority. The proposal has four components: changing the intellectual property regime; instituting independent clinical research; aligning innovators’ and patients’ interests; and enacting additional regulation.     

Sexuality and cyberporn: Towards a new agenda for research

This article presents theoretical considerations based on cultural analysis approaches to studying pornography and sexuality as a means of starting to suggest a new agenda for cyberporn research. By bringing to the forefront concepts of how subjectivity and sexuality are produced within the computer/Internet apparatus, I hope to diversify the focus in cyberporn research away from social science approaches and pre-Foucaultian assumptions of the subject which obscure understandings of new media and cyberporn use. Through a summary of visual culture studies and reception studies of pornography, I argue that cyberporn must be understood as contingent within the encoding and decoding processes and discourses of sexuality (Foucault) in which it is produced and consumed. My focus here is the home office/terminal as the site of reception/cyberporn use. While there is potential for a great variety of cultural analytic approaches to the study of cyberporn and how new media use influences sexuality, I end with specific suggestions for researching cyberporn reception in the home. The computer’s allure is more than utilitarian or aesthetic; it is erotic. Instead of a refreshing play with surfaces, as with toys or amusements, our affair with information machines announces a symbiotic relationship and ultimately a mental marriage to technology. Rightly perceived, the atmosphere of cyberspace carries the scent that once surrounded Wisdom. The world rendered as pure information not only fascinates our eyes and minds, but also captures our hearts. We feel augmented and empowered. Our hearts beat in the machines. This is Eros. (Michael Heim, The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality)     

The neural code for written words: a proposal

How is reading, a cultural invention, coded by neural populations in the human brain? The neural code for written words must be abstract, because we can recognize words regardless of their location, font and size. Yet it must also be exquisitely sensitive to letter identity and letter order. Most existing coding schemes are insufficiently invariant or incompatible with the constraints of the visual system. We propose a tentative neuronal model according to which part of the occipito-temporal 'what' pathway is tuned to writing and forms a hierarchy of local combination detectors sensitive to increasingly larger fragments of words. Our proposal can explain why the detection of 'open bigrams' (ordered pairs of letters) constitutes an important stage in visual word recognition.     

Measuring what counts: Development of a new four‐category measure of adult attachment

Measurement issues have plagued attachment research over the past 30 years. Concerns range from limitations of the original paragraph measure (C. Hazan & P. R. Shaver, 1987), low reliability of continuous scales of Bartholomew's 4‐category measure, limited interpretation of the 2 dimensions of the Experience of Close Relationships and the Experience of Close Relationships‐Revised (ECR/ECR‐R; K. A. Brennan, C. L. Clark, & P. R. Shaver, 1998; R. C. Fraley, N. G. Waller, & K. A. Brennan, 2000), and time‐consuming coding of attachment interviews. In this article, a revision of the Relationship Scales Questionnaire (RSQ) is introduced. The new 4‐category scales were found to have improved internal consistency when compared with the original RSQ scales as well as moderate to high test–retest reliability and good construct validity, thereby providing an alternative measure for researchers who are interested in assessing the effects of the 4‐category model of attachment.     

Ethical issues and approaches in stem cell research: from international insights to a proposal

In recent years and months, human stem cell research has dominated many scientists' interests, the media, public debate, and social policy. This paper aims to consider, first, the major scientific data on stem cell research that are available. Second, I reflect on them by examining how they shaped policies in Europe and the United States. I also point to current changes in policy-making concerning the creation of ad hoc committees to address this novel issue and how, in a few instances, different ethical positions are part of the documents produced. In other words, diverse approaches are not solved but kept in tension. Finally, I suggest that the current state of research on human stem cell will benefit from an ethics of risk.