Introduction: Motor evoked potentials (MEPs) to transcranial magnetic stimulation are known to be susceptible to several sources of variability. However, conflicting evidences on individual characteristics in relatively small sample sizes have been reported. We investigated the effect of age, height, and sex on MEPs of the motor cortex and spinal roots in a large cohort. Methods: A total of 587 subjects clinically and neuroradiologically intact were included. MEPs were recorded during mild tonic contraction through a circular coil applied over the (...) “hot spot” of the first dorsal interosseous and tibialis anterior muscles, bilaterally. Central motor conduction time (CMCT) was estimated as the difference between MEP cortical latency and the peripheral motor conduction time by cervical or lumbar magnetic stimulation. Peak-to-peak MEP amplitude to cortical stimulation and right-to-left difference of each parameter were also measured. Results: After Bonferroni correction, general linear (multiple) regression analysis showed that both MEP cortical latency and peripheral motor conduction time at four limbs positively correlated with age and height. At lower limbs, an independent effect of sex on the same measures was also observed (with females showing smaller values than males). CMCT correlated with both age (negatively) and height (positively) when analyzed by a single regression; however, with a multiple regression analysis this significance disappeared, due to the correction for the multicollinearity within the dataset. Conclusions: Physical individual features need to be considered for a more accurate and meaningful MEPs interpretation. Both in clinical practice and in research setting, patients and controls should be matched for age, height, and sex. (shrink)

While foregrounding the historiography of HIV and AIDS in the South African context, this article analyses AIDS as simultaneously existing in three spheres: first, virtually – as the subject matter of electronically measurable research; second, academically – as a topic of research in the discipline of History; and third, actually – as a complex health concern and signifier that, via the field of Medical and Health Humanities, could allow for new collaborations between historians and others interested in understanding AIDS. Throughout, (...) the central focus is the discipline of History and the global trends that become evident when examining metrics about AIDS research, particularly those that show the hierarchies of knowledge ‘production’, the reinforcement of disciplinary boundaries, and the discrepancy between the amount of research ‘produced’ by scientific and humanities disciplines. Overall, the article suggests that ‘post-AIDS’ is not currently helpful to health historians working on South African and other majority world contexts. More specifically, the article reflects on what AIDS histories still need to be written, and I argue that Medical and Health Humanities could provide a space for historians to work within and across disciplinary boundaries given the ever evolving remit of AIDS histories, temporalities, and narratives. (shrink)

Texto presentado en el Congreso Internacional “Recepciones de Ortega y Gasset en Chile” celebrado en el Centro Cultural de España en Santiago durante los días 30 y 31 de mayo de 2018, en Santiago de Chile. Forma parte de la compilación recogida en número especial de la Revista de Filosofía Otrosiglo, en junio del 2023.

This paper discusses the legal implications of setting up two new biobanks in Belgium. The first is hospital-based and will archive tissue from patients with haematologic cancer, whereas the second is linked to a general practice based morbidity registry and will involve storage of blood samples. To date, Belgium has no specific legislation that regulates storage of human tissue and related databases. Several issues concerning the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal medical data are discussed from (...) the existing privacy legislation. We will address the principle of consent (broad versus specific) and the type of data recorded (anonymous, encoded and identifiable) for both biobanks. (shrink)

Background Ethical decision making in intensive care is a demanding task. The need to proceed to ethical decision is considered to be a stress factor that may lead to burnout. The aim of this study is to explore the ethical problems that may increase burnout levels among physicians and nurses working in Portuguese intensive care units . A quantitative, multicentre, correlational study was conducted among 300 professionals.Results The most crucial ethical decisions made by professionals working in ICU were related to (...) communication, withholding or withdrawing treatments and terminal sedation. A positive relation was found between ethical decision making and burnout in nurses, namely, between burnout and the need to withdraw treatments , to withhold treatments and to proceed to terminal sedation . This did not apply to physicians. Emotional exhaustion was the burnout subdimension most affected by the ethical decision. The nurses' lack of involvement in ethical decision making was identified as a risk factor. Nevertheless, in comparison with nurses , it was the physicians who more keenly felt the need to proceed to ethical decisions in ICU.Conclusions Ethical problems were reported at different levels by physicians and nurses. The type of ethical decisions made by nurses working in Portuguese ICUs had an impact on burnout levels. This did not apply to physicians. This study highlights the need for education in the field of ethics in ICUs and the need to foster inter-disciplinary discussion so as to encourage ethical team deliberation in order to prevent burnout. (shrink)

People with mental illness are subjected to stigma and discrimination and constantly face restrictions in the exercise of their political, civil and social rights. Considering this scenario, mental health, ethics and human rights are key approaches to advance the well-being of persons with mental illnesses. The study was conducted to review the scope of the empirical literature available to answer the research question: What evidence is available regarding human rights and ethical issues regarding nursing care to persons with mental illnesses? (...) A scoping review methodology guided by Arksey and O’Malley was used. Studies were identified by conducting electronic searches on CINAHL, PubMed, SCOPUS and Hein databases. Of 312 citations, 26 articles matched the inclusion criteria. The central theme which emerged from the literature was “Ethics and Human Rights Boundaries to Mental Health Nursing practice”. Mental health nurses play a key and valuable role in ensuring that their interventions are based on ethical and human rights principles. Mental health nurses seem to have difficulty engaging with the ethical issues in mental health, and generally are dealing with acts of paternalism and with the common justification for those acts. It is important to open a debate regarding possible solutions for this ethical dilemma, with the purpose to enable nurses to function in a way that is morally acceptable to the profession, patients and members of the public. This review may serve as an instrument for healthcare professionals, especially nurses, to reflect about how to fulfil their ethical responsibilities towards persons with mental illnesses, protecting them from discrimination and safeguarding their human rights, respecting their autonomy, and as a value, keeping the individual at the centre of ethical discourse. (shrink)

This paper takes a constitutivist approach to self-deception, and argues that this phenomenon should be evaluated under several dimensions of rationality. The constitutivist approach has the merit of explaining the selective nature of self-deception as well as its being subject to moral sanction. Self-deception is a pragmatic strategy for maintaining the stability of the self, hence continuous with other rational activities of self-constitution. However, its success is limited, and it costs are high: it protects the agent’s self by undermining the (...) authority she has on her mental life. To this extent, self-deception is akin to alienation and estrangement. Its morally disturbing feature is its self-serving partiality. The self-deceptive agent settles on standards of justification that are lower than any rational agent would adopt, and thus loses grip on her agency. To capture the moral dimension of self-deception, I defend a Kantian account of the constraints that bear on self-constitution, and argue that it warrants more discriminating standards of agential autonomy than other contemporary minimalist views of self-government. (shrink)

Neoliberal ideology and exclusionary policies based on racialized identities characterize the current contexts in North America and Western Europe. Nursing knowledge cannot be abstracted from social, political and historical contexts; the task of examining the influence of race and racial ideologies on disciplinary knowledge and inquiry therefore remains an important task. Contemporary analyses of the role and responsibility of the discipline in addressing race‐based health and social inequities as a focus of nursing inquiry remain underdeveloped. In this article, we examine (...) nursing's engagement with ideas about race and racism and explore the ways in which nursing knowledge and inquiry have been influenced by race‐based ideological discourses. Drawing on Henry and Tator's framework ofdemocratic racism, we consider how strategic discursive responses—the discourses of individualism, multiculturalism, colour‐blindness, political correctness and denial—have been deployed within nursing knowledge and inquiry to reinforce the belief in an essentially fair and just society while avoiding the need to acknowledge the persistence of racist discourses and ideologies. Greater theoretical, conceptual and methodological clarity regarding race, racialization and related concepts in nursing inquiry is needed to address health and social inequities. (shrink)

An attempt is made to answer this question by first analyzing the structure of Darwinian inheritance as it is exemplified in the current biological theory of evolution. Based on this analysis a generalized framework for Darwinian inheritance containing conditions which must be met by all proper Darwinian evolutionary theories is developed. Subsequently this framework is employed to assess, in part, the adequacy of Toulmin's evolutionary epistemology. Although Toulmin asserts that Darwinian inheritance operates in conceptual development, the framework is used to (...) show that the structure of concepts which he presents is unable to support the requirements for this kind of inheritance. It is concluded that Toulmin's evolutionary theory is not truly Darwinian. (shrink)

Congenital hip dysplasia is an abnormal formation of the hip socket that can cause painful arthritis of the joints. Early intervention is essential to ensure proper development of the bones that make up the hip joint, because the longer the condition goes undetected and untreated, the more difficult it is to correct. The assessment test to detect congenital hip dysplasia in newborns was first described by Marino Ortolani, an Italian pediatrician.Marino Ortolani was born in 1904 in Altedo, a small town (...) between Bologna and Ferrara in northeastern Italy. His parents were agricultural workers. He studied medicine at the University of Bologna and, after graduating in 1929, was awarded a medal for being the first.. (shrink)

In this article, the right to health is discussed as a social right and an essential requisite in the construction and guarantee of human rights, more precisely human dignity, considering this right as a complex but effective process in the transformation of the social reality. In the first place, the activities of the public power and its difficulties to guarantee universal access to health are highlighted. This scenario ends up inhibiting the practice of the right to health and prevents users (...) from enjoying and using it. In that sense, this article challenges and explores some alternatives to solidify and put in practice the right to health in Brazil. Departing from the analysis of the Unified Health System (SUS) and social participation in Brazil, this article discusses the judicialization of health in the country, highlighting the difficulties the State faces to equitably offer universal healthcare to society. This context offers an opportunity for reflection and a paradigm change, from the “judicialization of health” to the “judicialization of health policies.” Finally, the public health policies adopted by other countries are emphasized, in the attempt to construct the empowerment of human beings in the practice of their rights, particularly social participation and the discussion about the States’ responsibility to put their citizens’ right to health in practice. In conclusion, the political and collective construction of the right to health needs to be encouraged, distinguishing the legitimate interests of the different interlocutors involved. (shrink)

Nowadays, it seems easy to regard some of the values and purposes that have led us to the society we live in today as dysfunctional. However, searching for a villain that justifies all our pain and confusion in recent years is a vain undertaking. It is imperative to protect the good in our society and to discover what we need to improve and accomplish. In this sense, spirituality is our unresolved issue. The purpose of this article is to survey the (...) different deliberations about capital as a measurable value of companies and to explore whether spiritual capital can be a new one, or even more importantly, an important one. (shrink)

According to a traditional account, moral cognition is an achievement gained over time by sharing a practice under the guidance and the example of the wise, in analogy with craft and apprenticeship. This model captures an important feature of practical reason, that is, its incompleteness, and highlights our dependence on others in obtaining moral knowledge, coherently with the socially extended mind agenda and recent findings in empirical psychology. Insofar as it accords to exemplars decisive authority to determine the standard of (...) correctness for moral cognition, however, the model does not offer protection against arbitrariness and discrimination. The article argues that to understand the socially distributed nature of practical knowledge, we have to discard the notion of exemplars and reconceive of others as peers, i.e. having equal normative standing. This claim allows us to revisit the conception of autonomy as key to distributed practical knowledge. While autonomy does not amount to self-sufficiency and self-reliance, it does demand independence of judgment and stands in contrast to servility, submission, and other sorts of defective ways of relying on others. The requirement of equal standing provides the basis or distinguishing between proper and improper reliance on others. (shrink)

In this paper, I ask feminist philosophers and science studies scholars to consider the goals of developing critical analyses of evolutionary psychology. These goals can include development of scholarship in feminist philosophy and science studies, mediation of the uptake of evolutionary psychology by other academic and lay communities, and improvement of the practices and products of evolutionary psychology itself. I evaluate ways that some practices of feminist philosophy and science studies facilitate or hinder meeting these goals, and consider the merits (...) of critical engagement with some of the scientists themselves. Finally, I describe a community of feminist evolutionary psychologists with whom it might be both fruitful and interesting to engage, and identify ways that these interactions may benefit the science and the study of the science. (shrink)

Constructivism in ethics is the view that insofar as there are normative truths, for example, truths about what we ought to do, they are in some sense determined by an idealized process of rational deliberation, choice, or agreement. As a “first-order moral account”--an account of which moral principles are correct-- constructivism is the view that the moral principles we ought to accept or follow are the ones that agents would agree to or endorse were they to engage in a hypothetical (...) or idealized process of rational deliberation. As a “metaethical account” – an account of whether there are any normative truths and, if so, what they are like – constructivism holds that there are normative truths. These truths are not fixed by facts that are independent of the practical standpoint, however characterized; rather, they are constituted by what agents would agree to under some specified conditions of choice. In working to provide a more precise definition of constructivism in metaethics, the focus of this entry, one faces two main difficulties. The first difficulty is that constructivism comes in several varieties, each of which claims a different niche within metaethics, and some claim no space at all. The second difficulty concerns where to place constructivism on the metaethical map in relation to realism and anti-realism. These are terms of art, and it is highly contested which views count as realist and which as antirealist. These two difficulties will be addressed in what follows by focusing on the distinctive questions that constructivist theories are designed to answer. Section §1 defines the scope of constructivism in ethics, in contrast to constructivism in political theory. Sections §§2-5 illustrate the main varieties of metaethical constructivism, which are designed to account for the nature of normative truths and practical reasons. Section §6 presents the main varieties of constructivist accounts of the justification of moral judgments of right and wrong. Section §7 discusses the metaethical status of constructivism, and its distinctive import. (shrink)

Este artículo asocia la actividad tallerística de varios grupos contemporáneos de cine comunitario cordobés a una dinámica de legitimación de la “pedagogía decolonial”. Entiendo esta última como praxis de un “dispositivo” que identifico como el dispositivo decolonial pues sus relaciones de saber/poder son una práctica contra-hegemónica dentro de las dinámicas onto-epistemológicas de reproducción de aquello que Aníbal Quijano llamó “Colonialidad del poder”. El artículo observa como el cine comunitario sigue los dos estadios propuestos por la pedagogía decolonial como pasos ineludibles (...) hacia la emancipación de los sujetos subalternos. 1- la puesta en crisis de los saberes y las identidades hegemónicas, lo que se logra desde la identificación critica de su situación histórica y el aprendizaje de los artificios del lenguaje audiovisual en tanto aparato de reproducción ideológica colonial-capitalista. 2- Una propuesta teleológica por una vida decolonializada que emerge tanto de la apropiación tecnológica del lenguaje audiovisual desde el cual realizan su narración, su film, como también de las relaciones sociales “Otras” de producción de su mensaje. (shrink)

Wildlife conservation aims to protect the natural world, plant and animal species, and the habitats they form part of and rely on for survival. More particularly, it focuses on species that are considered important, be it from economic, ecological and other perspectives, and preventing harm to these species. While conservation activities, based on common conservation values such as species fitness and biodiversity, are no doubt beneficial to animals in general, there seems to be a fundamental disjoint between this approach and (...) the mainstay of current ethical theories regarding animals, which focus on the treatment and welfare of individual entities. I will argue that the conflict between wildlife conservation and animal ethics arises both in the aims, as well as the application of conservation. In its aims, the focus on species as a whole often comes at a cost to individual animals, and in its application individual animals are often harmed as well. To demonstrate these two points, I will use the case study of the cloning and reintroduction of the currently extinct northern white rhino. I will then conclude that wildlife conservation, while aiming to benefit animals, is fundamentally at odds with any animal ethic that considers individual wellbeing as central. (shrink)

Background: Publication of ethically uncertain research occurs despite well-published guidelines set forth in documents such as the Declaration of Helsinki. Such guidelines exist to aide editorial staff in making decisions regarding ethical acceptability of manuscripts submitted for publication, yet examples of ethically suspect and uncertain publication exist. Our objective was to survey journal editors regarding practices and attitudes surrounding such dilemmas. Methods: The Editor-in-chief of each of the 103 English-language journals from the 2005 Abridged Index Medicus list publishing original research (...) were asked to complete a survey sent to them by email between September-December 2007. Results: A response rate of 33% (n = 34) was obtained from the survey. 18% (n = 6) of respondents had published ethically uncertain or suspect research within the last 10 years. 85% (n = 29) of respondents stated they would always reject ethically uncertain articles submitted for publication on ethical grounds alone. 12% (n = 4) of respondents stated they would approach each submission on a case-by-case basis. 3% (n = 1) stated they would be likely to publish such research, but only with accompanying editorial. Only 38% (n = 13) give reviewers explicit instruction to reject submissions on ethical grounds if found wanting. Conclusions: Editorial compliance with the Declaration of Helsinki in rejecting research that is conducted unethically was difficult to ascertain because of a poor response rate despite multiple attempts using different modalities. Of those who did respond, the majority do reject ethically suspect research but few explicitly advise reviewers to do so. In this study editors did not take advantage of the opportunity to describe their support for the rejection of the publication of unethical research. (shrink)

Introduction to the special issue by editor Carla Fehr.

This paper argues that moral distress is a distinctive category of reactive attitudes that are taken to be part and parcel of the social dynamics for recognition. While moral distress does not demonstrate evidence of wrongdoing, it does emotionally articulate a demand for normative attention that is addressed to others as moral providers. The argument for this characterization of the deontic power of moral distress builds upon two examples in which the cognitive value of the victim’s emotional experience is controversial: (...) the case of micro-aggression, and the case of misplaced distress. In contrast to appraisal and perceptual models of distress, it is argued that its epistemic and normative value is dialogical rather than evidential, in that it presses claims that engage the audience in a normative discussion about the normative standing of the claimant, the proper grounds of the attitude, and the normative standards used to assess them. (shrink)

This paper explores cultural understandings of virtual sexual ageplay in the online world of Second Life. Online sexual ageplay is the virtual simulation of child abuse by consensual adults operating in-world with child computer characters. Second Life is primarily governed by Community Standards which rely on residents to recognise sexual ageplay and report it, which requires an appreciation of how residents view, understand and construct sexual ageplay. The research presented drew on 12 months of resident blog posts referring to sexual (...) ageplay: 263 total, with 91 residents. The analysis of this talk explores the cultural understandings of this banned behaviour and beliefs about the nature of Second Life which underpin residents’ likelihood to report sexual ageplay and so comply with the Community Standards. In considering these issues the paper is able to highlight issues regarding the unique cultural position of abuse against children and key concerns which underpin the reporting behaviour of residents. Key considerations relate to defining online sexual activity and child avatars; the moral status of ‘reporters’, and sexual ageplay as a form of edgeplay; belief in the harmfulness of sexual ageplay and its relationship to real world behaviours. (shrink)

This article explores twelve short narrative films created by women and trans people living with disabilities and embodied differences. Produced through Project Re•Vision, these micro documentaries uncover the cultures and temporalities of bodies of difference by foregrounding themes of multiple histories: body, disability, maternal, medical, and/or scientific histories; and divergent futurities: contradictory, surprising, unpredictable, opaque, and/or generative futures. We engage with Alison Kafer's call to theorize disability futurity by wrestling with the ways in which “the future” is normatively deployed in (...) the service of able-bodiedness and able-mindedness, a deployment used to render bodies of difference as sites of “no future”. By re-storying embodied difference, the storytellers illuminate ongoing processes of remaking their bodily selves in ways that respond to the past and provide possibilities for different futures; these orientations may be configured as “dis-topias” based not on progress, but on new pathways for living, uncovered not through evoking the familiar imaginaries of curing, eliminating, or overcoming disability, but through incorporating experiences of embodied difference into time. These temporalities gesture toward new kinds of futures, giving us glimpses of ways of cripping time, of cripping ways of being/becoming in time, and of radically re-presencing disability in futurity. (shrink)

The reform of the health care system will include a mandate: Individuals are required to purchase health insurance provided that affordable options are available. But what is affordable health insurance? Three accounts of affordability of health coverage have been advanced. The first two accounts are empirical. The third account is needs-based. All three accounts are inadequate. I propose a fourth, the reasonable tradeoff account, according to which individuals should only be required to make reasonable tradeoffs in order to pay for (...) their health coverage. That is, health insurance is affordable if in order to pay for it one does not to have to sacrifice other benefit(s) that are comparable in importance to the benefits of health coverage. (shrink)

Este trabalho aborda a questão da fotografia como dispositivo para a memória institucional e, dessa forma, apresenta conceitos do que vem a ser memória e memória institucional. Nesse sentido, a pesquisa descreve a fotografia como documento, em consequência, explica a importância e a relação da fotografia como um dispositivo para a memória. A pesquisa caracterizou-se como bibliográfica e o levantamento bibliográfico foi realizado na base BRAPCI, com o objetivo geral de demonstrar a fotografia como um dispositivo para a memória institucional. (...) Os resultados elucidaram a relação entre fotografia e memória, destacando a primeira enquanto um dispositivo de memória institucional. (shrink)

Disabled‐2 (Dab2) is a multimodular scaffold protein with signaling roles in the domains of cell growth, trafficking, differentiation, and homeostasis. Emerging evidences place Dab2 as a novel modulator of cell–cell interaction; however, its mode of action has remained largely elusive. In this review, we highlight the relevance of Dab2 function in cell signaling and development and provide the most recent and comprehensive analysis of Dab2's action as a mediator of homotypical and heterotypical interactions. Accordingly, Dab‐2 controls the extent of platelet (...) aggregation through various motifs within its N‐terminus. Dab2 interacts with the cytosolic tail of the integrin receptor blocking inside‐out signaling, whereas extracellular Dab2 competes with fibrinogen for integrin αIIbβ3 receptor binding and, thus, modulates outside‐in signaling. An additional level of regulation results from Dab2's association with cell surface lipids, an event that defines the extent of cell–cell interactions. As a multifaceted regulator, Dab2 acts as a mediator of endocytosis through its association with the [FY]xNPx[YF] motifs of internalized cell surface receptors, phosphoinositides, and clathrin. Other emerging roles of Dab2 include its participation in developmental mechanisms required for tissue formation and in modulation of immune responses. This review highlights the various novel mechanisms by which Dab2 mediates an array of signaling events with vast physiological consequences. (shrink)