The Buddha and the computer: Meditation in an age of information

Information overload is one of the factors behind current alarming statistics on stress. Meditation helps the body-mind resist the deleterious effects of the information onslaught. Though meditation is well known as a relaxation technique, its noetic value is often overlooked. Its benefits extend well beyond superficial soothing: it trains attention; it increases pattern recognition; and it reconnects us to the whole of our intelligence, enhancing coordination between its complementary poles. Meditation is a potent high-touch resource in a high-tech world.     

Expediency and human health: The regulation of environmental chromium

The complexity of chromium chemistry makes it an ideal example of how the Principle of Expediency, first articulated by sanitary pioneer Earle Phelps, can be used in a standard setting. Expediency, defined by Phelps as “the attempt to reduce the numerical measure of probable harm, or the logical measure of existing hazard, to the lowest level that is practicable and feasible within the limitations of financial resources and engineering skill”, can take on negative connotations unless subject to ethical guidance. In this paper we argue that without ethical principles as a rubric for negotiating environmental regulations, communities run the risk of slipping from the Principle of Expediency as defined by Phelps to the alternative usage of expediency meaning that which does not reflect ethical consideration or concern beyond self-serving interest. Three ethical ideals—justice, mercy and humility—are suggested as values to be considered while resolving regulatory issues related to environmental protection. The Principle of Expediency serves as a working principle, but not as a rigid algorithm, for setting regulatory limits for environmental concentrations of waste products like chromium. This paper is based on a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the PhD degree by Lauren Bartlett, Duke University, 1997. An earlier version of this paper was presented at a mini-conference, Practicing and Teaching Ethics in Engineering and Computing, held during the Sixth Annual Meeting of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics, Washington, D.C., March 8–9, 1997. This paper is one of a series edited by Michael C. Loui. See Volume 3, No. 4, 1997 for other papers in this series.     

Ethical aspects of bribing people in other countries

Some argue that individuals and organizations doing business in countries where corruption is prevalent should not be expected to adhere to strict standards of ethical practice. The basis for such arguments is faulty. Ethics, unlike etiquette, has a universal basis; it is fundamentally the same all over the world. Even in a practical sense, there are long range advantages to be gained by ethical behavior in these situations. Engineering employees of companies operating in areas where corruption is common are sometimes forced to make very difficult decisions. The focus in this paper is on the ethical aspects of the problem. Laws applying to companies doing business abroad, for example the US Corrupt Practices Act, are not discussed. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Engineering Foundation Conference on “Ethics for Science and Engineering Based International Industries”, Durham, NC, USA, September 1997.     

Recognition times of different views of 56 depth-rotated objects: A note concerning Verfaillie and Boutsen (1995)

The present study examines the effect of thegoodness of view on the minimal exposure time required to recognize depth-rotated objects. In a previous study, Verfaillie and Boutsen (1995) derived scales of goodness of view, using a new corpus of images of depth-rotated objects. In the present experiment, a subset of this corpus (five views of 56 objects) is used to determine the recognition exposure time for each view, by increasing exposure time across successive presentations until the object is recognized. The results indicate that, for two thirds of the objects,good views are recognized more frequently and have lower recognition exposure times thanbad views.     

Shape equivalence under perspective and projective transformations

When a planar shape is viewed obliquely, it is deformed by a perspective deformation. If the visual system were to pick up geometrical invariants from such projections, these would necessarily be invariant under the wider class of projective transformations. To what extent can the visual system tell the difference between perspective and nonperspective but still projective deformations of shapes? To investigate this, observers were asked to indicate which of two test patterns most resembled a standard pattern. The test patterns were related to the standard pattern by a perspective or projective transformation, or they were completely unrelated. Performance was slightly better in a matching task with perspective and unrelated test patterns (92.6%) than in a projective-random matching task (88.8%). In a direct comparison, participants had a small preference (58.5%) for the perspectively related patterns over the projectively related ones. Preferences were based on the values of the transformation parameters (slant and shear). Hence, perspective and projective transformations yielded perceptual differences, but they were not treated in a categorically different manner by the human visual system.     

Croyances de contrôle et rendement scolaire chez des élèves francophones du primaire au Québec

Recent research in educational psychology, both in the United States and Europe, suggested that students' control beliefs must be considered to understand interindividual variations in students' personal engagement in learning and academic achievement. The present study was conducted with 780 French-speaking elementary school children from grade four to six. The objectives were to examine: (1) the relation between dimensions of control beliefs, (2) whether there were age-related changes in children's control beliefs, and (3) the relation between control beliefs and academic achievement across school grades. Results showed that the relations between dimensions of control beliefs and children's judgements about their importance in school achievement were stable across school grades. No relation was found between children's judgements about usefulness of specific means and academic achievement, but children's beliefs about their capacity to use these means was a powerful predictor of academic achievement. The discussion focuses on similarities and dissimilarities of these findings with those of studies conducted in the United States and Europe.     

Functional reading for students with developmental disabilities who are linguistically diverse

Students with moderate and severe disabilities often have language deficits that make the acquisition of reading challenging. Sight word instruction of daily living skills is one method of intervention that benefits students with severe disabilities who have not achieved literacy. When students with developmental disabilities are also linguistically diverse, acquisition of reading skills becomes more complex. Sight words must be chosen that are relevant to the students own community. A critical decision in planning sight word instruction is whether to provide instruction in the student's primary language or in English. These issues are discussed and an illustration is given of the heterogeneity among students with developmental disabilities who are linguistically diverse.     

Is science socially constructed—And can it still inform public policy?

This paper addresses, and seeks to correct, some frequent misunderstandings concerning the claim that science is socially constructed. It describes several features of scientific inquiry that have been usefully illuminated by constructivist studies of science, including the mundane or tacit skills involved in research, the social relationships in scientific laboratories, the causes of scientific controversy, and the interconnection of science and culture. Social construction, the paper argues, should be seen not as an alternative to but an enhancement of scientists’ own professional understanding of how science is done. The richer, more finely textured accounts of scientific practice that the constructivist approach provides are potentially of great relevance to public policy. This paper is based on a Topical Lecture presented at AMSIE'96, the 162nd National Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Baltimore, Maryland, 8–13 February 1996. The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the opinions of the AAAS or its Board of Directors. For permission to cite or quote any part of this paper please refer to the author for permission.