妈祖文化与公共善

<正>"历史的目的在将过去的真事实予以新意义或新价值,以供现代人活动之资鉴。"——梁启超"公共善"(public good或common good或译"共同善")的思想因素在古代东西方的哲学     

Bridging philosophical and practical implications of incidental findings in brain research

Empirical studies and ethical-legal analyses have demonstrated that incidental findings in the brain, most commonly vascular in origin, must be addressed in the current era of imaging research. The challenges, however, are substantial. The discovery and management of incidental findings vary, at minimum, by institutional setting, professional background of investigators, and the inherent differences between research and clinical protocols. In the context of human subjects protections, the challenges of disclosure of unexpected and potentially meaningful clinical information concern privacy and confidentiality, communication, and responsibility for follow-up. Risks, including a blurring of boundaries between research and clinical practice, must be weighed against the possible benefit to subjects and a moral duty to inform. Identification and examination of these challenges have been met by scientific interest and a robust, interdisciplinary response resulting in the pragmatic recommendations discussed here.     

Chickenheads, agents, mommies, and jockeys: the social organization of transnational commercial sex

In the sex trafficking literature, the term ??trafficker?? is often used to refer to all the various actors who are involved in the business of transnational sex work. It thus includes those who recruit women in the source countries; those who transport victims across international borders; and those who manage and exploit the women in the various commercial sex venues in the destination countries. In this paper, we will look at some of the people who fall into these categories of being ??traffickers.?? Our goal is to better understand the many people who are facilitating transnational commercial sex. We will explore their background characteristics, the reasons for their involvement in sex trafficking, their roles and functions in the business, and the nature of their relationships with the women who sell sex. We will also discuss the issue of whether, and to what extent, organized crime groups are involved as traffickers in the transnational sex trade. Our discussion is drawn from face-to-face interviews with commercial sex workers, and with sex ring operators and a variety of government officials.     

Road aggression among drinking drivers: Alcohol and non-alcohol effects on aggressive driving and road rage

This study specified aggressive driving (AD) and road rage (RR) and examined a number of alcohol and non-alcohol effects on and the reciprocity between the two behaviors in a drinking driving population. The sample contained 431 clients (79 percent men) who volunteered to complete a self-report survey from fifty alcoholism and substance abuse treatment facilities across New York State. All subjects were undergoing alcoholism treatment because of a drinking driving-related reason. Structural equation modeling with the LISREL program was employed to estimate the reciprocal effects between AD and RR. The results demonstrated that AD and RR were two separate behaviors that simultaneously influenced each other. Additionally, AD and RR, as problem behaviors, tended to be affected mostly by other problem behaviors, such as alcohol problems, impaired driving, and feelings of depression, rather than general situations or behaviors, such as the frequency of alcohol use, driving after drinking, and the experience of stressful life events. The findings convey a message to the criminal justice field as well as alcoholism and substance abuse treatment professionals that addressing the problem of road aggression requires special attention to persons with alcohol problems and especially those with multiple drinking driving offenses.     

Death following acute poisoning by moclobemide

A fatality due to ingestion of a reversible inhibitor of monoamine-oxidase A (MAO-A) is reported. Moclobemide is generally considered as a safe drug far less toxic than tricyclic anti-depressants. However, severe intoxications may result from interactions with other drugs and food such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), anti-Parkinsonians of the MAOI-type (e.g. selegiline) or tyramine from ripe cheese or other sources. In the present case, high levels of moclobemide were measured in peripheral blood exceeding toxic values reported so far in the scientific literature. The body fluid concentrations of moclobemide were of 498 mg/l in peripheral whole blood, 96.3 mg/l in urine while an amount of approximately 33 g could be recovered from gastric contents. The other xenobiotics were considered of little toxicological relevance. The victim (male, 48-year-old) had a past history of depression and committed one suicide attempt 2 years before death. Autopsy revealed no evidence of significant natural disease or injury. It was concluded that the manner of death was suicide and that the unique cause of death was massive ingestion of moclobemide.     

Constituency Delimitation and Electoral Authoritarianism in Malaysia

This article explains how the electoral one-party state of United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) in Malaysia is maintained through constituency delimitation. It examines how the means of inter-state malapportionment, intra-state malapportionment, gerrymandering, pre-delimitation boundary changes and seat increase are used in the on-going delimitation exercises. Malapportionment and gerrymandering in the last cycle of delimitation exercises in 2003–5 had secured Prime Minister Najib Razak a comfortable 60% parliamentary majority in 2013 despite winning only 47% of popular votes. While Razak may suffer greater attrition of votes due to his global financial scandal involving Malaysia’s state sovereign fund, 1MDB, he may still win a bigger parliamentary majority in the upcoming election, which must be held latest by August 2018. The article questions if the First-Past-the-Post (FPTP) electoral system, which is not only susceptible to manipulations, but also very winner-takes-all in nature, suits Malaysia’s plural society.     

Precarious Work and its Complicit Network: Migrant Labour in Singapore

ABSTRACT

How does precarious work entail social vulnerabilities and moral complicities? Theorists of precarity pose two challenges for analysing labour conditions in Asia. Their first challenge is to distinguish the new kinds of social vulnerability which constitute precarious work. The second is to assign moral responsibility in the social network that produces vulnerability in depoliticised and morally detached ways. In this article, the social and normative dimensions of precarious work are connected through a conceptual investigation into how Singapore allocates responsibility for managing temporary migrant labour. First, it analyses how various management strategies, driven by globalisation and government deregulation, increase worker vulnerabilities. These strategies intensify relations of dependence, disempowerment and discrimination, which the workers may accommodate or resist in limited ways. Second, it assesses why the strategies leave the state, employers, agents and others complicit in producing the vulnerabilities. These actors enable, collaborate with, or condone the production of precarity. Their complicity is complicated by varying support or resistance to reforms. The result is a novel conceptual scheme for analysing the complicit network behind precarious work, which can be used in other sites of precarity where some are complicit in the vulnerability of others.