Metaphysics and religious experience

The thesis is entitled Metaphysics and Religious Experience and is concerned, in the main, to explore the degree to which metaphysical argument can, if at all, corroborate the professed insights of those who claim, or have claimed, to have personally encountered God, or a Divine Being. The thesis is divided into an introductory chapter and nine subsequent chapters. The introductory chapter is entitled "Does Religious Language convey an Intelligible Message?" and is concerned to clear the ground for talking about religion, by rebutting verificationist-inspired claims that religious language is not, and cannot be, cognitively meaningful. In Chapter One, which is entitled "Religious Experience and Knowledge of God" the question of whether it is legitimate to make truth-claims on the basis of ostensible religious experience is examined, and it is concluded that critics of religious experience such as Hepburn and Martin ultimately fail to prove their case. Chapter Two moves away from the critique of verificationism with which the first two chapters (including the introductory chapter) are concerned, to a consideration of whether the various subjects of supposed religious experience have in all ages and cultures been led through their experiences to make similar claims. Chapter Three is entitled "The Possibility of Metaphysics" and sets out to examine the major criticisms of the enterprise of metaphysical argument. Chapter Four is entitled "The Nature of Finite Individuals" and is concerned to argue for a metaphysical proposition, which, on the basis of more immediate intuitive experience, the mystics (and other subjects of ostensible religious experience) would also uphold. Chapter Five is entitled "Bosanquet's Refutation of Pluralism" and Chapter Six is entitled "The Position of J.N. Findlay on the Nature of Finite Individuals." The chapters primarily deal with the philosophers' respective arguments for the truth of the metaphysical proposition mentioned above. Chapter Seven is entitled "Man, Nature and the Primacy of the Subject" and is concerned to appraise arguments for and ultimately to defend the view that a further metaphysical proposition, supportive of the mystics' (& etc.) claims, may plausibly be affirmed, that proposition being that in addition to there being an ultimate confluence of finite minds, there is also an ultimate unity between mind and nature. Chapter Eight is entitled "The Testimony of Religion as it is Practised" and deals with the question of whether the ritualistic religious consciousness of' the ordinary religious believer contains any element of genuine insight. Chapter Nine, the final chapter, is entitled "Moral Experience as Evidence for the Mystical Absolute." This chapter is concerned to argue that deep philosophical reflection on the nature of our moral experience provides us with strong evidence that finite individuals have an acute, consciousness of a universal spiritual "state of being", transcending their natures as particulars. This "state of being" corresponds closely to the "Divine Being" or "Spiritual Presence" which mystics (& etc.) claim to have encountered, and thus moral experience provides further support for their claims. The Spiritual Reality revealed through metaphysical reflection transcends finite beings, but is immanent to them nonetheless. It constitutes a Reality which shows up the tragic limitation of finite life. Yet it also shows that the potential, value, and destiny of all finite life is to express an essence which goes far beyond the finite

Towards a Swiss National Research Infrastructure

In this position paper we describe the current status and plans for a Swiss National Research Infrastructure. Swiss academic and research institutions are very autonomous. While being loosely coupled, they do not rely on any centralized management entities. Therefore, a coordinated national research infrastructure can only be established by federating the various resources available locally at the individual institutions. The Swiss Multi-Science Computing Grid and the Swiss Academic Compute Cloud projects serve already a large number of diverse user communities. These projects also allow us to test the operational setup of such a heterogeneous federated infrastructure

High orientation of long chain branched poly (lactic acid) with enhanced blood compatibility and bionic structure

YesHighly-oriented poly (lactic acid) (PLA) with bionic micro-grooves was fabricated through solid hot drawing technology for further improving the mechanical properties and blood biocompatibility of PLA. In order to enhance the melt strength and thus obtain high orientation degree, long chain branched PLA (LCB-PLA) was prepared at first through a two-step ring-opening reaction during processing. Linear viscoelasticity combined with branch-on-branch (BOB) model was used to predict probable compositions and chain topologies of the products, and it was found that the molecular weight of PLA increased and topological structures with star like chain with three arms and tree-like chain with two generations formed during reactive processing, and consequently draw ratio as high as1200% can be achieved during the subsequent hot stretching. With the increase of draw ratio, the tensile strength and orientation degree of PLA increased dramatically. Long chain branching and orientation could significantly enhance the blood compatibility of PLA by prolonging clotting time and decreasing platelet activation. Micro-grooves can be observed on the surface of the oriented PLA which were similar to the intimal layer of blood vessel, and such bionic structure resulted from the formation of the oriented shish kebab-like crystals along the draw direction

Reading and Ownership

First paragraph: ‘It is as easy to make sweeping statements about reading tastes as to indict a nation, and as pointless.’ This jocular remark by a librarian made in the Times in 1952 sums up the dangers and difficulties of writing the history of reading. As a field of study in the humanities it is still in its infancy and encompasses a range of different methodologies and theoretical approaches. Historians of reading are not solely interested in what people read, but also turn their attention to the why, where and how of the reading experience. Reading can be solitary, silent, secret, surreptitious; it can be oral, educative, enforced, or assertive of a collective identity. For what purposes are individuals reading? How do they actually use books and other textual material? What are the physical environments and spaces of reading? What social, educational, technological, commercial, legal, or ideological contexts underpin reading practices? Finding answers to these questions is compounded by the difficulty of locating and interpreting evidence. As Mary Hammond points out, ‘most reading acts in history remain unrecorded, unmarked or forgotten’. Available sources are wide but inchoate: diaries, letters and autobiographies; personal and oral testimonies; marginalia; and records of societies and reading groups all lend themselves more to the case-study approach than the historical survey. Statistics offer analysable data but have the effect of producing identikits rather than actual human beings. The twenty-first century affords further possibilities, and challenges, with its traces of digital reader activity, but the map is ever-changing

Schoolbooks and textbook publishing.

In this chapter the author looks at the history of schoolbooks and textbook publishing. The nineteenth century saw a rise in the school book market in Britain due to the rise of formal schooling and public examinations. Although the 1870 Education and 1872 (Scotland) Education Acts made elementary education compulsory for childern between 5-13 years old, it was not until the end of the First World War that some sort form of secondary education became compulsory for all children

A realist analysis of hospital patient safety in Wales:Applied learning for alternative contexts from a multisite case study

Background: Hospital patient safety is a major social problem. In the UK, policy responses focus on the introduction of improvement programmes that seek to implement evidence-based clinical practices using the Model for Improvement, Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle. Empirical evidence that the outcomes of such programmes vary across hospitals demonstrates that the context of their implementation matters. However, the relationships between features of context and the implementation of safety programmes are both undertheorised and poorly understood in empirical terms. Objectives: This study is designed to address gaps in conceptual, methodological and empirical knowledge about the influence of context on the local implementation of patient safety programmes. Design: We used concepts from critical realism and institutional analysis to conduct a qualitative comparative-intensive case study involving 21 hospitals across all seven Welsh health boards. We focused on the local implementation of three focal interventions from the 1000 Lives+ patient safety programme: Improving Leadership for Quality Improvement, Reducing Surgical Complications and Reducing Health-care Associated Infection. Our main sources of data were 160 semistructured interviews, observation and 1700 health policy and organisational documents. These data were analysed using the realist approaches of abstraction, abduction and retroduction. Setting: Welsh Government and NHS Wales. Participants: Interviews were conducted with 160 participants including government policy leads, health managers and professionals, partner agencies with strategic oversight of patient safety, advocacy groups and academics with expertise in patient safety. Main outcome measures: Identification of the contextual factors pertinent to the local implementation of the 1000 Lives+ patient safety programme in Welsh NHS hospitals. Results: An innovative conceptual framework harnessing realist social theory and institutional theory was produced to address challenges identified within previous applications of realist inquiry in patient safety research. This involved the development and use of an explanatory intervention–context–mechanism–agency–outcome (I-CMAO) configuration to illustrate the processes behind implementation of a change programme. Our findings, illustrated by multiple nested I-CMAO configurations, show how local implementation of patient safety interventions are impacted and modified by particular aspects of context: specifically, isomorphism, by which an intervention becomes adapted to the environment in which it is implemented; institutional logics, the beliefs and values underpinning the intervention and its source, and their perceived legitimacy among different groups of health-care professionals; and the relational structure and power dynamics of the functional group, that is, those tasked with implementing the initiative. This dynamic interplay shapes and guides actions leading to the normalisation or the rejection of the patient safety programme. Conclusions: Heightened awareness of the influence of context on the local implementation of patient safety programmes is required to inform the design of such interventions and to ensure their effective implementation and operationalisation in the day-to-day practice of health-care teams. Future work is required to elaborate our conceptual model and findings in similar settings where different interventions are introduced, and in different settings where similar innovations are implemented. Funding: The National Institute for Health Research Health Services and Delivery Research programme

White Paper for a Swiss Information Provisioning and Processing Infrastructure 2020

Le «White Paper for a Swiss Information Provisioning and Processing Infrastructure 2020» a été élaboré au cours de la première année de la période de subventionnement, pour servir de guide de mise en oeuvre du programme CUS P-2. Il décrit les conditions-cadres du programme, conduit à la formulation d’une stratégie de mise en oeuvre via plusieurs étapes de travail et, pour finir, définit les mesures concrètes qui devront être encouragées pendant la période de subventionnement s’étendant jusqu’en 2016. Le Livre blanc forme la base d’élaboration et d’évaluation des propositions de projets traitées pendant cette période.The “White Paper for a Swiss Information Provisioning and Processing Infrastructure 2020” was compiled in the first year of the funding period as the basis for implementing SUC P2. It documents the framework conditions for the program, describes the development of an implementation strategy over several stages and finally sets out the concrete measures that are to be supported during the funding period up to 2016. The White Paper forms the basis for preparing and evaluating project applications during this period