Aesthetic experience and spiritual well-being: locating the role of theological commitments

I discuss three accounts of the spiritual significance of aesthetic experience. Two of these perspectives I have taken from the recent literature in theological aesthetics, and the third I have constructed, building on Thomas Aquinas’s conception of the goods of the infused moral virtues. This broadly Thomistic approach occupies, I argue, a middle ground between the other two, on account of its distinctive understanding of the role of theological context in defining spiritually significant goods. These perspectives are not mutually exclusive, but they do present rather different conceptions of the ways in which aesthetic goods can contribute to spiritual well-being, and provide a focus for religious practice

Reciprocity as a foundation of financial economics

This paper argues that the subsistence of the fundamental theorem of contemporary financial mathematics is the ethical concept ‘reciprocity’. The argument is based on identifying an equivalence between the contemporary, and ostensibly ‘value neutral’, Fundamental Theory of Asset Pricing with theories of mathematical probability that emerged in the seventeenth century in the context of the ethical assessment of commercial contracts in a framework of Aristotelian ethics. This observation, the main claim of the paper, is justified on the basis of results from the Ultimatum Game and is analysed within a framework of Pragmatic philosophy. The analysis leads to the explanatory hypothesis that markets are centres of communicative action with reciprocity as a rule of discourse. The purpose of the paper is to reorientate financial economics to emphasise the objectives of cooperation and social cohesion and to this end, we offer specific policy advice

Death and the Erotic Woman: the European Gendering of Mortality in time of Religious Change

This paper explores the use of European erotic death imagery produced in the Death and the Maiden (D&M) genre in two time periods. It compares and contrasts D&M imagery produced by the Germanic-speaking proto/early-Reformation artists, Hans Baldung (alias Grien) (c1484–1545), Niklaus Manuel (known as Deutsch) (c1484–1530) and Sebald Beham (known as Hans Sebald Beham) (1500–1550) which highlighted the folly, futility and transience of earthly vanities during the transition from Roman Catholic to Protestant Christianity, with contemporary calendar art produced by Cofani Funebri (from 2003) and Lindner (from 2010) which advertise coffins manufactured in the increasingly secular countries of Italy and Poland. Drawing on Biblical narrative, Augustinian theology and European socio-cultural perceptions of gender, this paper argues that these D&M images are highly eroticised and place woman as signifiers of transcient life (vanitas) and earthly pleasure (voluptas), juxtaposing her with a masculine/male representation of death; Death being imaged as an individual in the sixteenth century, and as a coffin in the contemporary works. The paper also contextualises the imagery in terms of traditional European Christian notions of life and death, as informed by the Biblical Fall narrative, with its elucidations of sin, concupiscence and punishment. It thus asserts that both socio-cultural and religious attitudes towards gender are highly significant in D&M imagery and indeed in terms of the artworks, argues that the masculine signifier of Death can be placed as Adam, whilst the Maiden, as fecund life, represents Eve. However, the overt eroticism of both sets of artworks also allows for a reading that draws on Messaris' [(1997). Visual persuasion; the role of images in advertising. London: Sage] notion that visual images ‘make a persuasive communication due to iconicity; the emotional response to the visual image presented’. Thus, this paper contrasts D&M imagery produced over 400 years apart to examine consciously erotic gendered thanantological allegories of women as vanitas and voluptas, and the male/masculine as representations of Death

Adverse Effects and Choice between the Injectable Agents Amikacin and Capreomycin in Multidrug-Resistant Tuberculosis

Background: The prolonged use of injectable agents in an MDR-TB regimen is recommended by the WHO despite association with ototoxicity and nephrotoxicity.Objective: We undertook this study to look at the relative adverse effects of capreomycin and amikacin.Methods: We reviewed the case notes of 100 consecutive patients treated at 4 MDR-TB treatment centres in the UK.Results: The median total duration of treatment with an injectable agent was 178 (IQR 109-192, n=73) days for those with MDR-TB, 179 (104-192, n=12) days for those with MDR-TB plus fluoroquinolone resistance and 558 (324-735, n=8) days for those with XDR-TB. Injectable use was longer for those started with capreomycin at 183 (IQR 123-197) days compared to 119 (IQR 83-177) days with amikacin (p=0.002). Excluding XDR-TB, 51 (51/85, 60%) patients were treated with an injectable for over 6 months and 12 (12/85, 14%) for over 8 months. 40 % of all patients discontinued the injectable due to hearing loss. 55% of patients experienced ototoxicity: 5 times (hazard ratio (HR) 5.2, CI 1.2-22.6, p=0.03) more likely in those started on amikacin compared to treatment with capreomycin only. Amikacin was associated with less hypokalemia than capreomycin (Odds ratios: 0.28 (0.11-0.72)), with 5 (5/37, 14%) patients stopping capreomycin due to recurrent electrolyte loss. There was no difference in the number experiencing a creatinine rise of > 1.5 times baseline.Conclusion: Hearing loss is frequent in this cohort, though significantly lower in those starting capreomycin which should be given greater consideration as a first line agent

[Introduction] Toward an anthropology of the just price: history, ethnography, critique

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Getting nowhere fast: a teleological conception of socio-technical acceleration

It has been frequently recognized that the perceived acceleration of life that has been experienced from the Industrial Revolution onward is engendered, at least in part, by an understanding of speed as an end in itself. There is no equilibrium to be reached – no perfect speed – and as such, social processes are increasingly driven not by rational ends, but by an indeterminate demand for acceleration that both defines and restricts the decisional possibilities of actors. In Aristotelian terms, this is a final cause – i.e. a teleology – of speed: it is not a defined end-point, but rather, a purposive aim that predicates the emergence of possibilities. By tracing this notion of telos from its beginnings in ancient Greece, through the ur-empiricism of Francis Bacon, and then to our present epoch, this paper seeks to tentatively examine the way in which such a teleology can be theoretically divorced from the idea of historical progress, arguing that the former is premised upon an untenable ontological privileging of becoming

Evaluation of high-dose rifampin in patients with new, smear-positive tuberculosis (HIRIF): study protocol for a randomized controlled trial.

BACKGROUND: Evidence has existed for decades that higher doses of rifampin may be more effective, but potentially more toxic, than standard doses used in tuberculosis treatment. Whether increased doses of rifampin could safely shorten treatment remains an open question. METHODS/DESIGN: The HIRIF study is a phase II randomized trial comparing rifampin doses of 20 and 15 mg/kg/day to the standard 10 mg/kg/day for the first 2 months of tuberculosis treatment. All participants receive standard doses of companion drugs and a standard continuation-phase treatment (4 months, 2 drugs). They are followed for 6 months post treatment. Study participants are adults with newly diagnosed, previously untreated, smear positive (≥2+) pulmonary tuberculosis. The primary outcome is rifampin area under the plasma concentration-time curve (AUC0-24) after at least 14 days of study treatment/minimum inhibitory concentration. 180 randomized participants affords 90 % statistical power to detect a difference of at least 14 mcg/mL*hr between the 20 mg/kg group and the 10 mg/kg group, assuming a loss to follow-up of up to 17 %. DISCUSSION: Extant evidence suggests the potential for increased doses of rifampin to shorten tuberculosis treatment duration. Early studies that explored this potential using intermittent, higher dosing were derailed by toxicity. Given the continued large, global burden of tuberculosis with nearly 10 million new cases annually, shortened regimens with existing drugs would offer an important advantage to patients and health systems. TRIAL REGISTRATION: This trial was registered with clinicaltrials.gov (registration number: NCT01408914 ) on 2 August 2011