8 results
Contributors
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- By Mitchell Aboulafia, Frederick Adams, Marilyn McCord Adams, Robert M. Adams, Laird Addis, James W. Allard, David Allison, William P. Alston, Karl Ameriks, C. Anthony Anderson, David Leech Anderson, Lanier Anderson, Roger Ariew, David Armstrong, Denis G. Arnold, E. J. Ashworth, Margaret Atherton, Robin Attfield, Bruce Aune, Edward Wilson Averill, Jody Azzouni, Kent Bach, Andrew Bailey, Lynne Rudder Baker, Thomas R. Baldwin, Jon Barwise, George Bealer, William Bechtel, Lawrence C. Becker, Mark A. Bedau, Ernst Behler, José A. Benardete, Ermanno Bencivenga, Jan Berg, Michael Bergmann, Robert L. Bernasconi, Sven Bernecker, Bernard Berofsky, Rod Bertolet, Charles J. Beyer, Christian Beyer, Joseph Bien, Joseph Bien, Peg Birmingham, Ivan Boh, James Bohman, Daniel Bonevac, Laurence BonJour, William J. Bouwsma, Raymond D. Bradley, Myles Brand, Richard B. Brandt, Michael E. Bratman, Stephen E. Braude, Daniel Breazeale, Angela Breitenbach, Jason Bridges, David O. Brink, Gordon G. Brittan, Justin Broackes, Dan W. Brock, Aaron Bronfman, Jeffrey E. Brower, Bartosz Brozek, Anthony Brueckner, Jeffrey Bub, Lara Buchak, Otavio Bueno, Ann E. Bumpus, Robert W. Burch, John Burgess, Arthur W. Burks, Panayot Butchvarov, Robert E. Butts, Marina Bykova, Patrick Byrne, David Carr, Noël Carroll, Edward S. Casey, Victor Caston, Victor Caston, Albert Casullo, Robert L. Causey, Alan K. L. Chan, Ruth Chang, Deen K. Chatterjee, Andrew Chignell, Roderick M. Chisholm, Kelly J. Clark, E. J. Coffman, Robin Collins, Brian P. Copenhaver, John Corcoran, John Cottingham, Roger Crisp, Frederick J. Crosson, Antonio S. Cua, Phillip D. Cummins, Martin Curd, Adam Cureton, Andrew Cutrofello, Stephen Darwall, Paul Sheldon Davies, Wayne A. Davis, Timothy Joseph Day, Claudio de Almeida, Mario De Caro, Mario De Caro, John Deigh, C. F. Delaney, Daniel C. Dennett, Michael R. DePaul, Michael Detlefsen, Daniel Trent Devereux, Philip E. Devine, John M. Dillon, Martin C. Dillon, Robert DiSalle, Mary Domski, Alan Donagan, Paul Draper, Fred Dretske, Mircea Dumitru, Wilhelm Dupré, Gerald Dworkin, John Earman, Ellery Eells, Catherine Z. Elgin, Berent Enç, Ronald P. Endicott, Edward Erwin, John Etchemendy, C. Stephen Evans, Susan L. Feagin, Solomon Feferman, Richard Feldman, Arthur Fine, Maurice A. Finocchiaro, William FitzPatrick, Richard E. Flathman, Gvozden Flego, Richard Foley, Graeme Forbes, Rainer Forst, Malcolm R. Forster, Daniel Fouke, Patrick Francken, Samuel Freeman, Elizabeth Fricker, Miranda Fricker, Michael Friedman, Michael Fuerstein, Richard A. Fumerton, Alan Gabbey, Pieranna Garavaso, Daniel Garber, Jorge L. A. Garcia, Robert K. Garcia, Don Garrett, Philip Gasper, Gerald Gaus, Berys Gaut, Bernard Gert, Roger F. Gibson, Cody Gilmore, Carl Ginet, Alan H. Goldman, Alvin I. Goldman, Alfonso Gömez-Lobo, Lenn E. Goodman, Robert M. Gordon, Stefan Gosepath, Jorge J. E. Gracia, Daniel W. Graham, George A. Graham, Peter J. Graham, Richard E. Grandy, I. Grattan-Guinness, John Greco, Philip T. Grier, Nicholas Griffin, Nicholas Griffin, David A. Griffiths, Paul J. Griffiths, Stephen R. Grimm, Charles L. Griswold, Charles B. Guignon, Pete A. Y. Gunter, Dimitri Gutas, Gary Gutting, Paul Guyer, Kwame Gyekye, Oscar A. Haac, Raul Hakli, Raul Hakli, Michael Hallett, Edward C. Halper, Jean Hampton, R. James Hankinson, K. R. Hanley, Russell Hardin, Robert M. Harnish, William Harper, David Harrah, Kevin Hart, Ali Hasan, William Hasker, John Haugeland, Roger Hausheer, William Heald, Peter Heath, Richard Heck, John F. Heil, Vincent F. Hendricks, Stephen Hetherington, Francis Heylighen, Kathleen Marie Higgins, Risto Hilpinen, Harold T. Hodes, Joshua Hoffman, Alan Holland, Robert L. Holmes, Richard Holton, Brad W. Hooker, Terence E. Horgan, Tamara Horowitz, Paul Horwich, Vittorio Hösle, Paul Hoβfeld, Daniel Howard-Snyder, Frances Howard-Snyder, Anne Hudson, Deal W. Hudson, Carl A. Huffman, David L. Hull, Patricia Huntington, Thomas Hurka, Paul Hurley, Rosalind Hursthouse, Guillermo Hurtado, Ronald E. Hustwit, Sarah Hutton, Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa, Harry A. Ide, David Ingram, Philip J. Ivanhoe, Alfred L. Ivry, Frank Jackson, Dale Jacquette, Joseph Jedwab, Richard Jeffrey, David Alan Johnson, Edward Johnson, Mark D. Jordan, Richard Joyce, Hwa Yol Jung, Robert Hillary Kane, Tomis Kapitan, Jacquelyn Ann K. Kegley, James A. Keller, Ralph Kennedy, Sergei Khoruzhii, Jaegwon Kim, Yersu Kim, Nathan L. King, Patricia Kitcher, Peter D. Klein, E. D. Klemke, Virginia Klenk, George L. Kline, Christian Klotz, Simo Knuuttila, Joseph J. Kockelmans, Konstantin Kolenda, Sebastian Tomasz Kołodziejczyk, Isaac Kramnick, Richard Kraut, Fred Kroon, Manfred Kuehn, Steven T. Kuhn, Henry E. Kyburg, John Lachs, Jennifer Lackey, Stephen E. Lahey, Andrea Lavazza, Thomas H. Leahey, Joo Heung Lee, Keith Lehrer, Dorothy Leland, Noah M. Lemos, Ernest LePore, Sarah-Jane Leslie, Isaac Levi, Andrew Levine, Alan E. Lewis, Daniel E. Little, Shu-hsien Liu, Shu-hsien Liu, Alan K. L. Chan, Brian Loar, Lawrence B. Lombard, John Longeway, Dominic McIver Lopes, Michael J. Loux, E. J. Lowe, Steven Luper, Eugene C. Luschei, William G. Lycan, David Lyons, David Macarthur, Danielle Macbeth, Scott MacDonald, Jacob L. Mackey, Louis H. Mackey, Penelope Mackie, Edward H. Madden, Penelope Maddy, G. B. Madison, Bernd Magnus, Pekka Mäkelä, Rudolf A. Makkreel, David Manley, William E. Mann (W.E.M.), Vladimir Marchenkov, Peter Markie, Jean-Pierre Marquis, Ausonio Marras, Mike W. Martin, A. P. Martinich, William L. McBride, David McCabe, Storrs McCall, Hugh J. McCann, Robert N. McCauley, John J. McDermott, Sarah McGrath, Ralph McInerny, Daniel J. McKaughan, Thomas McKay, Michael McKinsey, Brian P. McLaughlin, Ernan McMullin, Anthonie Meijers, Jack W. Meiland, William Jason Melanson, Alfred R. Mele, Joseph R. Mendola, Christopher Menzel, Michael J. Meyer, Christian B. Miller, David W. Miller, Peter Millican, Robert N. Minor, Phillip Mitsis, James A. Montmarquet, Michael S. Moore, Tim Moore, Benjamin Morison, Donald R. Morrison, Stephen J. Morse, Paul K. Moser, Alexander P. D. Mourelatos, Ian Mueller, James Bernard Murphy, Mark C. Murphy, Steven Nadler, Jan Narveson, Alan Nelson, Jerome Neu, Samuel Newlands, Kai Nielsen, Ilkka Niiniluoto, Carlos G. Noreña, Calvin G. Normore, David Fate Norton, Nikolaj Nottelmann, Donald Nute, David S. Oderberg, Steve Odin, Michael O’Rourke, Willard G. Oxtoby, Heinz Paetzold, George S. Pappas, Anthony J. Parel, Lydia Patton, R. P. Peerenboom, Francis Jeffry Pelletier, Adriaan T. Peperzak, Derk Pereboom, Jaroslav Peregrin, Glen Pettigrove, Philip Pettit, Edmund L. Pincoffs, Andrew Pinsent, Robert B. Pippin, Alvin Plantinga, Louis P. Pojman, Richard H. Popkin, John F. Post, Carl J. Posy, William J. Prior, Richard Purtill, Michael Quante, Philip L. Quinn, Philip L. Quinn, Elizabeth S. Radcliffe, Diana Raffman, Gerard Raulet, Stephen L. Read, Andrews Reath, Andrew Reisner, Nicholas Rescher, Henry S. Richardson, Robert C. Richardson, Thomas Ricketts, Wayne D. Riggs, Mark Roberts, Robert C. Roberts, Luke Robinson, Alexander Rosenberg, Gary Rosenkranz, Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal, Adina L. Roskies, William L. Rowe, T. M. Rudavsky, Michael Ruse, Bruce Russell, Lilly-Marlene Russow, Dan Ryder, R. M. Sainsbury, Joseph Salerno, Nathan Salmon, Wesley C. Salmon, Constantine Sandis, David H. Sanford, Marco Santambrogio, David Sapire, Ruth A. Saunders, Geoffrey Sayre-McCord, Charles Sayward, James P. Scanlan, Richard Schacht, Tamar Schapiro, Frederick F. Schmitt, Jerome B. Schneewind, Calvin O. Schrag, Alan D. Schrift, George F. Schumm, Jean-Loup Seban, David N. Sedley, Kenneth Seeskin, Krister Segerberg, Charlene Haddock Seigfried, Dennis M. Senchuk, James F. Sennett, William Lad Sessions, Stewart Shapiro, Tommie Shelby, Donald W. Sherburne, Christopher Shields, Roger A. Shiner, Sydney Shoemaker, Robert K. Shope, Kwong-loi Shun, Wilfried Sieg, A. John Simmons, Robert L. Simon, Marcus G. Singer, Georgette Sinkler, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Matti T. Sintonen, Lawrence Sklar, Brian Skyrms, Robert C. Sleigh, Michael Anthony Slote, Hans Sluga, Barry Smith, Michael Smith, Robin Smith, Robert Sokolowski, Robert C. Solomon, Marta Soniewicka, Philip Soper, Ernest Sosa, Nicholas Southwood, Paul Vincent Spade, T. L. S. Sprigge, Eric O. Springsted, George J. Stack, Rebecca Stangl, Jason Stanley, Florian Steinberger, Sören Stenlund, Christopher Stephens, James P. Sterba, Josef Stern, Matthias Steup, M. A. Stewart, Leopold Stubenberg, Edith Dudley Sulla, Frederick Suppe, Jere Paul Surber, David George Sussman, Sigrún Svavarsdóttir, Zeno G. Swijtink, Richard Swinburne, Charles C. Taliaferro, Robert B. Talisse, John Tasioulas, Paul Teller, Larry S. Temkin, Mark Textor, H. S. Thayer, Peter Thielke, Alan Thomas, Amie L. Thomasson, Katherine Thomson-Jones, Joshua C. Thurow, Vzalerie Tiberius, Terrence N. Tice, Paul Tidman, Mark C. Timmons, William Tolhurst, James E. Tomberlin, Rosemarie Tong, Lawrence Torcello, Kelly Trogdon, J. D. Trout, Robert E. Tully, Raimo Tuomela, John Turri, Martin M. Tweedale, Thomas Uebel, Jennifer Uleman, James Van Cleve, Harry van der Linden, Peter van Inwagen, Bryan W. Van Norden, René van Woudenberg, Donald Phillip Verene, Samantha Vice, Thomas Vinci, Donald Wayne Viney, Barbara Von Eckardt, Peter B. M. Vranas, Steven J. Wagner, William J. Wainwright, Paul E. Walker, Robert E. Wall, Craig Walton, Douglas Walton, Eric Watkins, Richard A. Watson, Michael V. Wedin, Rudolph H. Weingartner, Paul Weirich, Paul J. Weithman, Carl Wellman, Howard Wettstein, Samuel C. Wheeler, Stephen A. White, Jennifer Whiting, Edward R. Wierenga, Michael Williams, Fred Wilson, W. Kent Wilson, Kenneth P. Winkler, John F. Wippel, Jan Woleński, Allan B. Wolter, Nicholas P. Wolterstorff, Rega Wood, W. Jay Wood, Paul Woodruff, Alison Wylie, Gideon Yaffe, Takashi Yagisawa, Yutaka Yamamoto, Keith E. Yandell, Xiaomei Yang, Dean Zimmerman, Günter Zoller, Catherine Zuckert, Michael Zuckert, Jack A. Zupko (J.A.Z.)
- Edited by Robert Audi, University of Notre Dame, Indiana
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- Book:
- The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy
- Published online:
- 05 August 2015
- Print publication:
- 27 April 2015, pp ix-xxx
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List of contributors
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- By Alessandro Aiuppa, Nick T. Arndt, Jean Besse, Benjamin A. Black, Terrence J. Blackburn, Nicole Bobrowski, Samuel A. Bowring, Seth D. Burgess, Kevin Burke, Ying Cui, Vincent Courtillot, Amy Donovan, Linda T. Elkins-Tanton, Anna Fetisova, Frédéric Fluteau, Kirsten E. Fristad, Lori S. Glaze, Thor H. Hansteen, Morgan T. Jones, Jeffrey T. Kiehl, Nadezhda A. Krivolutskaya, Kirstin Krüger, Lee R. Kump, Steffen Kutterolf, Dimitry V. Kuzmin, Jean-François Lamarque, A. Latyshev, Kimberly V. Lau, Tamsin A. Mather, Katja M. Meyer, Clive Oppenheimer, Vladimir Pavlov, Jonathan L. Payne, Ingrid Ukstins Peate, David Pieri, Sverre Planke, Ulrich Platt, Alexander Polozov, Fred Prata, Gemma Prata, David M. Pyle, Andy Ridgwell, Alan Robock, Ellen K. Schaal, Anja Schmidt, Stephen Self, Christine Shields, Juan Carlos Silva-Tamayo, Alexander V. Sobolev, Stephan V. Sobolev, Henrik Svensen, Trond H. Torsvik, Roman Veselovskiy
- Edited by Anja Schmidt, University of Cambridge, Kirsten Fristad, Western Washington University, Linda Elkins-Tanton, Arizona State University
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- Book:
- Volcanism and Global Environmental Change
- Published online:
- 05 February 2015
- Print publication:
- 08 January 2015, pp viii-xii
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Contributors
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- By Lenard A. Adler, Pinky Agarwal, Rehan Ahmed, Jagga Rao Alluri, Fawaz Al-Mufti, Samuel Alperin, Michael Amoashiy, Michael Andary, David J. Anschel, Padmaja Aradhya, Vandana Aspen, Esther Baldinger, Jee Bang, George D. Baquis, John J. Barry, Jason J. S. Barton, Julius Bazan, Amanda R. Bedford, Marlene Behrmann, Lourdes Bello-Espinosa, Ajay Berdia, Alan R. Berger, Mark Beyer, Don C. Bienfang, Kevin M. Biglan, Thomas M. Boes, Paul W. Brazis, Jonathan L. Brisman, Jeffrey A. Brown, Scott E. Brown, Ryan R. Byrne, Rina Caprarella, Casey A. Chamberlain, Wan-Tsu W. Chang, Grace M. Charles, Jasvinder Chawla, David Clark, Todd J. Cohen, Joe Colombo, Howard Crystal, Vladimir Dadashev, Sarita B. Dave, Jean Robert Desrouleaux, Richard L. Doty, Robert Duarte, Jeffrey S. Durmer, Christyn M. Edmundson, Eric R. Eggenberger, Steven Ender, Noam Epstein, Alberto J. Espay, Alan B. Ettinger, Niloofar (Nelly) Faghani, Amtul Farheen, Edward Firouztale, Rod Foroozan, Anne L. Foundas, David Elliot Friedman, Deborah I. Friedman, Steven J. Frucht, Oded Gerber, Tal Gilboa, Martin Gizzi, Teneille G. Gofton, Louis J. Goodrich, Malcolm H. Gottesman, Varda Gross-Tsur, Deepak Grover, David A. Gudis, John J. Halperin, Maxim D. Hammer, Andrew R. Harrison, L. Anne Hayman, Galen V. Henderson, Steven Herskovitz, Caitlin Hoffman, Laryssa A. Huryn, Andres M. Kanner, Gary P. Kaplan, Bashar Katirji, Kenneth R. Kaufman, Annie Killoran, Nina Kirz, Gad E. Klein, Danielle G. Koby, Christopher P. Kogut, W. Curt LaFrance, Patrick J.M. Lavin, Susan W. Law, James L. Levenson, Richard B. Lipton, Glenn Lopate, Daniel J. Luciano, Reema Maindiratta, Robert M. Mallery, Georgios Manousakis, Alan Mazurek, Luis J. Mejico, Dragana Micic, Ali Mokhtarzadeh, Walter J. Molofsky, Heather E. Moss, Mark L. Moster, Manpreet Multani, Siddhartha Nadkarni, George C. Newman, Rolla Nuoman, Paul A. Nyquist, Gaia Donata Oggioni, Odi Oguh, Denis Ostrovskiy, Kristina Y. Pao, Juwen Park, Anastas F. Pass, Victoria S. Pelak, Jeffrey Peterson, John Pile-Spellman, Misha L. Pless, Gregory M. Pontone, Aparna M. Prabhu, Michael T. Pulley, Philip Ragone, Prajwal Rajappa, Venkat Ramani, Sindhu Ramchandren, Ritesh A. Ramdhani, Ramses Ribot, Heidi D. Riney, Diana Rojas-Soto, Michael Ronthal, Daniel M. Rosenbaum, David B. Rosenfield, Durga Roy, Michael J. Ruckenstein, Max C. Rudansky, Eva Sahay, Friedhelm Sandbrink, Jade S. Schiffman, Angela Scicutella, Maroun T. Semaan, Robert C. Sergott, Aashit K. Shah, David M. Shaw, Amit M. Shelat, Claire A. Sheldon, Anant M. Shenoy, Yelizaveta Sher, Jessica A. Shields, Tanya Simuni, Rajpaul Singh, Eric E. Smouha, David Solomon, Mehri Songhorian, Steven A. Sparr, Egilius L. H. Spierings, Eve G. Spratt, Beth Stein, S.H. Subramony, Rosa Ana Tang, Cara Tannenbaum, Hakan Tekeli, Amanda J. Thompson, Michael J. Thorpy, Matthew J. Thurtell, Pedro J. Torrico, Ira M. Turner, Scott Uretsky, Ruth H. Walker, Deborah M. Weisbrot, Michael A. Williams, Jacques Winter, Randall J. Wright, Jay Elliot Yasen, Shicong Ye, G. Bryan Young, Huiying Yu, Ryan J. Zehnder
- Edited by Alan B. Ettinger, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, Deborah M. Weisbrot, State University of New York, Stony Brook
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- Book:
- Neurologic Differential Diagnosis
- Published online:
- 05 June 2014
- Print publication:
- 17 April 2014, pp xi-xx
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Prioritizing “Psychological” Consequences for Disaster Preparedness and Response: A Framework for Addressing the Emotional, Behavioral, and Cognitive Effects of Patient Surge in Large-Scale Disasters
- Lisa S. Meredith, David P. Eisenman, Terri Tanielian, Stephanie L. Taylor, Ricardo Basurto-Davila, James Zazzali, Dickson Diamond, Barbara Cienfuegos, Sandra Shields
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- Journal:
- Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness / Volume 5 / Issue 1 / March 2011
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 08 April 2013, pp. 73-80
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While information for the medical aspects of disaster surge is increasingly available, there is little guidance for health care facilities on how to manage the psychological aspects of large-scale disasters that might involve a surge of psychological casualties. In addition, no models are available to guide the development of training curricula to address these needs. This article describes 2 conceptual frameworks to guide hospitals and clinics in managing such consequences. One framework was developed to understand the antecedents of psychological effects or “psychological triggers” (restricted movement, limited resources, limited information, trauma exposure, and perceived personal or family risk) that cause the emotional, behavioral, and cognitive reactions following large-scale disasters. Another framework, adapted from the Donabedian quality of care model, was developed to guide appropriate disaster response by health care facilities in addressing the consequences of reactions to psychological triggers. This framework specifies structural components (internal organizational structure and chain of command, resources and infrastructure, and knowledge and skills) that should be in place before an event to minimize consequences. The framework also specifies process components (coordination with external organizations, risk assessment and monitoring, psychological support, and communication and information sharing) to support evidence-informed interventions.
(Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2011;5:73-80)
TEXTING A NATION?
- DAVID S. SHIELDS
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- Journal:
- Modern Intellectual History / Volume 8 / Issue 2 / August 2011
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 28 July 2011, pp. 435-445
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Since its publication in 2007, Trish Loughran's The Republic in Print has earned a reputation as a trenchant critique of the vision of the pre-1876 United States as a state whose national integrity depended upon the dissemination of print. Commentators fixed particularly on its argument that the early republic never manifested that degree of integration of internal improvements, roads, print technology, and local interests to materialize the Federalist vision of nationhood. In some circles it was hailed as a salutary counter to historians who embrace Benedict Anderson's account of the national imaginary—a virtual nationhood irradiating citizens’ imaginations through reading newspapers and novels that impute national being. Loughran marshaled evidence that no newspaper, certainly no novel, and not even that most legendarily popular imprint, Thomas Paine's Common Sense, enjoyed sufficiently broad distribution to invoke even a coherent fantasy of national identity. In print-culture studies she has emerged as the most vocal chronicler of the fragmented republic. She has earned the respect of those political historians who have pondered the incapacity of public-sphere historiography to account for the republic's drift into the contending sections of the 1830s and the warring states of the 1860s.
Psychological Effects of Patient Surge in Large-Scale Emergencies: A Quality Improvement Tool for Hospital and Clinic Capacity Planning and Response
- Lisa S. Meredith, James L. Zazzali, Sandra Shields, David P. Eisenman, Halla Alsabagh
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- Journal:
- Prehospital and Disaster Medicine / Volume 25 / Issue 2 / April 2010
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 28 June 2012, pp. 107-114
- Print publication:
- April 2010
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Although information is available to guide hospitals and clinics on the medical aspects of disaster surge, there is little guidance on how to manage the expected surge of persons needing psychological assessment and response after a catastrophic event. This neglected area of disaster medicine is addressed by presenting a novel and practical quality improvement tool for hospitals and clinics to use in planning for and responding to the psychological consequences of catastrophic events that create a surge of psychological casualties presenting for health care. Industrial quality improvement processes, already widely adopted in the healthcare sector, translate well when applied to disaster medicine and public health preparedness. This paper describes the development of the tool, presents data on facility preparedness from 31 hospitals and clinics in Los Angeles County, and discusses how the tool can be used as a benchmark for targeting improvement. The tool can serve to increase facility awareness of which components of disaster preparedness and response must be addressed through hospitals' and clinics' existing quality improvement programs. It also can provide information for periodic assessment and evaluation of progress over time.
4 - Franklin in the republic of letters
- Edited by Carla Mulford, Pennsylvania State University
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- Book:
- The Cambridge Companion to Benjamin Franklin
- Published online:
- 28 January 2009
- Print publication:
- 15 January 2009, pp 50-62
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Summary
In October 1778, the German physician Johann Adolf Behrends wrote Benjamin Franklin the eighteenth-century equivalent of a fan letter. In Latin, the language of Europe's literati, the doctor confessed to admiring Franklin as a human trinity: “founder of the fatherland, doctor of the human race on the matter of the bodies' electrical energy and illustrious member of the Republic of letters” (P 27: 656). Readers today know Franklin well in his roles as founder and scientist, but his literary personality has been explored differently - as a rhetorician, a humorist, and a print journalist. Franklin's contemporary reputation as a member of the international community of thinkers and writers then known as the “republic of letters” has received less attention, even though his contemporaries hailed Franklin as an important citizen of this border-crossing “republic.” His work enabling the conversation of the artistic and learned and his labors securing the liberty of the international exchange of ideas clearly mattered to Franklin's contemporaries. What, precisely, was the republic of letters? How did Franklin come to loom so large in its affairs?
The name “republic of letters” came into being on the Continent and in England in the later 1600s to designate an imagined community made up of authors and readers who recognized neither national boundaries nor religious affiliations in their quest for the free exchange of ideas, beliefs, and convictions. This community, a republic, not a kingdom, was organized by an implied social contract among equals. Not heritage, nor wealth, nor civil rank affected one's status in the community.
BRITISH-AMERICAN BELLES LETTRES
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- By David S. Shields, The Citadel
- Edited by Sacvan Bercovitch, Harvard University, Massachusetts
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- Book:
- The Cambridge History of American Literature
- Published online:
- 28 March 2008
- Print publication:
- 25 February 1994, pp 307-344
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Summary
Belles letters has become a vague term, collecting so broad a reference that it now designates the whole of “humane letters” (litterae humaniores) – that is, all imaginative literature or all writing evincing “literariness.” Prior to the term's semantic expansion in the 1760s, it had a precise employment, naming a mode of writing that subordinated the traditional tasks of edification, revelation, and memorialization to the work of stimulating social pleasure. Belles lettres was characterized more by its effects than its forms. “Ease” and “agreeableness,” qualities adjusted to the taste of the “gentle reader,” were the primary belletristic virtues.
Edmund Waller imported the mode from France into the literary communications of the Stuart court. Belles lettres flourished in England in conjunction with the rise of urban sociability in the 1670s. New communities based on shared taste, friendship, or common interest formed in postfire London and in the burgeoning resorts. In the mixed-sex assemblies at the spas and in the male tavern clubs of the metropolis, aspirants to gentility embraced the court's new sociable manner of wit. Writing served talk in these circles, providing scripts for oral performance (club disquisitions, vers de société) and recording memorable sallies of wit (bon mots, toasts, impromptus, epigrams). Belles lettres disavowed writtenness, adopting the guise of conversation. Concomitantly, conversation assumed great weight in thought about society and letters. As the preamble to the 1728 constitution of the Harvard Philomusarian Club declared, conversation was “The Basis of Friendship, The fundamental Principle of Society, The Great Prerogative of Mankind.”
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