Fair equality of opportunity and decent minimums: a reply to Buchanan

Responding to criticism by Allen Buchanan in a Winter 1984 Philosophy and Public Affairs article on "The right to a decent minimum of health care," Daniels defends his thesis that if justice requires protecting equality of opportunity, then health care institutions should be governed by the principle of fair equality of opportunity because impairments of normal functioning, seen as impediments to opportunity, are obviated by good health care. He defines his concept of normal opportunity range, which is relative to certain social considerations, and shows that health care services affect the distribution of opportunity, but not the normal opportunity range, among individuals. He agrees with the criticism that his argument does not guarantee minimum health care or solve problems of resource allocation.     

Effects of indoor lighting (illuminance and spectral distribution) on the performance of cognitive tasks and interpersonal behaviors: The potential mediating role of positive affect

Three studies examined the effects of key aspects of indoor lighting (illuminance, spectral distribution) on the performance of tasks that did not primarily involve visual processing. It was hypothesized that lighting conditions which generated positive affect among subjects would influence behavior and cognition in ways consistent with the findings of previous research on the influence of such affect. Results of all three studies offered partial support for this hypothesis. In Study 1, male and female subjects exposed to relatively low levels of illuminance (150 lux) assigned higher performance appraisals to a fictitious employee and included a broader range of words in specific word categories than subjects exposed to relatively high levels of illuminance (1500 lux). In Study 2, subjects exposed to warm white light reported stronger preferences for resolving interpersonal conflicts through collaboration and weaker preferences for resolving conflicts through avoidance than subjects exposed to cool-white light. Additionally, illuminance and spectral distribution (color) interacted to influence subjects' self-set goals on a clerical coding task. In Study 3, receipt of a small, unexpected gift and exposure to warm-white light both increased the amount of time subjects were willing to donate as unpaid volunteers. In addition, in the absence of a gift, subjects volunteered more time under low than under high illuminance.This research was supported by funds from the Niagaru Mohawk Energy-Efficient Seed Research program and from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. Study 1 was conducted by Susan G. Daniels in partial fulfillment of requirements for the Master of Science degree. The authors wish to express their sincere appreciation to Marna Bronfen and Jill Thomley for their aid in collection of the data for Studies 2 and 3 and in statistical analyses. Thanks are also due to Sylvania, Inc., for supplying lamps, and to Bob Davis and Peter Boyce for their invaluable assistance in several respects.     

A second-order relevance logic with modality

In this paper a system, RPF, of second-order relevance logic with S5 necessity is presented which contains a defined, notion of identity for propositions. A complete semantics is provided. It is shown that RPF allows for more than one necessary proposition. RPF contains primitive syntactic counterparts of the following semantic notions: (1) the reflexive, symmetrical, transitive binary alternativeness relation for S5 necessity, (2) the ternary Routley-Meyer alternativeness relation for implication, and (3) the Routley-Meyer notion of a prime intensional theory, as well as defined syntactic counterparts, of the semantic notions of a possible world and the Routley-Meyer ^* operator.     

The impact of COVID-19 triggered changes to instruction and assessment on university students’ self-reported motivation,engagement and perceptions

Social Psychology of Education - During the northern hemisphere Winter 2020 academic term, university students had to adjust to remote learning in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This abrupt...     

Assessing Multicultural Competence: Perceived Versus Demonstrated Performance

This study compares self‐report scores generated by the Multicultural Awareness Knowledge Skills Survey‐Counselor Edition‐Revised (B. S. K. Kim, B. Y. Cartwright, P. A. Asay, & M. J. D'Andrea, 2003) with independent observer ratings of actual videotaped demonstrations of multicultural competence in response to a preselected case vignette. Implications for counselor training and future research are discussed.     

The factor structure of the Beck Depression Inventory-II: an evaluation

The Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) is a frequently used scale for measuring depressive severity. BDI-II data (404 clinical; 695 nonclinical adults) were analyzed by means of confirmatory factor analysis to test whether the factor structure model with a somatic-affective and cognitive component of depression, formulated by Beck and colleagues, has a good fit. We also evaluated 10 alternative models. The fit of Beck's model was not good for all criteria. Three of the alternative models had a better fit in both samples, but none of these met all criteria for good fit. Of the alternatives with a better fit, we selected the only model with unidimensional subscales, which assesses a somatic, affective, and cognitive dimension. For this model, which we recommend, as well as for Beck' original model, a good fitting structure containing 15 and 16 items was developed with an item-deletion algorithm.