Bernard Mandeville and the doctrine of laissez-faire

The view of Mandeville as a pioneer of laissez-faire is difficultto reconcile with his repeated insistence that private vices were turnedinto public benefits by the ‘dexterous management of the skilfulpolitician’. Even if references to the skilful politician are regarded asshorthand for a legal and institutional framework, there remains thequestion of whether such a framework is a spontaneous order or theproduct of purposeful experiment as Mandeville thought? Mandevillewarned about the harmful effects of meddling but his complaint wasabout the actions of fashionable do-gooders rather than government. Heunderstood that the voluntariness of a transaction could be regarded asa defence against complaints of unfairness but he was quick to pointout the limitations of voluntariness especially in the market for labour.Mandeville’s objective was to teach people what they are not what theyshould be. He pointed to the strengths of the emerging market systembut was not afraid to expose its faults.

An evaluation of the Socrative (personal response system) app for increasing student engagement and learning in an undergraduate psychology curriculum.

Personal response systems using hardware such as 'clickers' have been around for some time, however their use is often restricted to multiple choice questions (MCQs) and they are therefore used as a summative assessment tool for the individual student. More recent innovations such as 'Socrative' have removed the need for specialist hardware, instead utilising web-based technology and devices common to students, such as smartphones, tablets and laptops. While improving the potential for use in larger classrooms, this also creates the opportunity to pose more engaging open-response questions to students who can 'text in' their thoughts on questions posed in class. This poster will present two applications of the Socrative system in an undergraduate psychology curriculum which aimed to encourage interactive engagement with course content using real-time student responses and lecturer feedback. Data is currently being collected and result will be presented at the conference.
The first application used Socrative to pose MCQs at the end of two modules (a level one Statistics module and level two Individual Differences Psychology module, class size N≈100), with the intention of helping students assess their knowledge of the course. They were asked to rate their self-perceived knowledge of the course on a five-point Likert scale before and after completing the MCQs, as well as their views on the value of the revision session and any issues that had with using the app. The online MCQs remained open between the lecture and the exam, allowing students to revisit the questions at any time during their revision.
This poster will present data regarding the usefulness of the revision MCQs, the metacognitive effect of the MCQs on student's judgements of learning (pre vs post MCQ testing), as well as student engagement with the MCQs between the revision session and the examination. Student opinions on the use of the Socrative system in class will also be discussed.
The second application used Socrative to facilitate a flipped classroom lecture on a level two 'Conceptual Issues in Psychology' module, class size N≈100). The content of this module requires students to think critically about historical and contemporary conceptual issues in psychology and the philosophy of science. Students traditionally struggle with this module due to the emphasis on critical thinking skills, rather than simply the retention of concrete knowledge. To prepare students for the written examination, a flipped classroom lecture was held at the end of the semester. Students were asked to revise their knowledge of a particular area of Psychology by assigned reading, and were told that the flipped lecture would involve them thinking critically about the conceptual issues found in this area. They were informed that questions would be posed by the lecturer in class, and that they would be asked to post their thoughts using the Socrative app for a class discussion. The level of preparation students engaged in for the flipped lecture was measured, as well as qualitative opinions on the usefulness of the session. This poster will discuss the level of student engagement with the flipped lecture, both in terms of preparation for the lecture, and engagement with questions posed during the lecture, as well as the lecturer's experience in facilitating the flipped classroom using the Socrative platform.

C Dupré, The Age of Dignity (Hart 2015)

Bob Dylan famously searched high and low for it and left us wondering ‘what it’s gonna take’ to find it. These days, the elusive dignity – and her equally, if not more, elusive cousin human dignity – has captured the imagination of not just the poet and philosopher, but also, in light of its increasing prominence in an array of legal contexts, the legal scholar. Catherine Dupré’s The Age of Dignity comes at a high point in (human) dignity scholarship, with the publication of numerous texts in the English language emerging on the subject, and with interest in it looking unlikely to dissipate any time soon. In this review, I consider (human) dignity’s promise and pitfalls as it transpires in Dupré’s wide-ranging and ambitious monograph.

French Autopathography

Reacting against the assumption that ill people ‘surrender’ their bodies to medicine, first-person illness narratives attempt to restore the patient’s voice to an often dehumanizing and bewildering medical experience. This special issue complements recent medical humanities scholarship on English-language illness narratives by investigating a distinctly rich tradition of French autopathography. Diverse approaches and methodologies will be used to consider first-person perspectives on a range of illnesses, disabilities and disorders, including AIDS, cancer, physical pain, mental health issues, anorexia, and locked-in syndrome. The issue aims to promote interdisciplinary dialogue across genres (literature, film, philosophy) and examine the creative potential that lies at the interface of medicine and the arts.

The OpenPMU Project: Challenges and perspectives:Challenges and Perspectives

The OpenPMU project is a platform for the development of Synchrophasor measurement technology, Phasor Measurement Units (PMU), in an open source manner. The project has now been operating for a number of years and has seen increased adoption at Universities and interest from electrical utilities. The OpenPMU device has recently been tested against the IEEE C37.118 standard and shown to operate within the specification. This paper discusses the OpenPMU project from the perspective of the past two years of experience and evaluates successes and opportunities for improvements in both the OpenPMU device and the philosophy of the design.