CB1 receptors are functionally present within brain mitochondria, although they are usually considered specifically targeted to plasma membrane. Acute activation of mtCB1 alters mitochondrial ATP generation, synaptic transmission, and memory performance. However, the detailed mechanism linking disrupted mitochondrial metabolism and synaptic transmission is still uncharacterized. CB1 receptors are among the most abundant G protein-coupled receptors in the brain and impact on several processes, including fear coping, anxiety, stress, learning, and memory. Mitochondria perform several key physiological processes for neuronal homeostasis, including (...) production of ATP and reactive oxygen species, calcium buffering, metabolism of neurotransmitters, and apoptosis. It is therefore possible that acute activation of mtCB1 impacts on these different mitochondrial functions to modulate synaptic transmission. In reviewing and integrating across the literature in this area, we describe the possible mechanisms involved in the regulation of brain physiology by mtCB1 receptors. Activation of mitochondrial CB1 but not of plasma membrane CB1 decreases brain mitochondrial activity, glutamatergic synaptic transmission, and memory performance. Several processes can be involved in this alteration of brain physiology, including mitochondrial ATP and ROS production, axonal mitochondrial transport, Ca2+ homeostasis, and/or metabolism of the neurotransmitter glutamate. (shrink)

After a generous introduction to the subject, essays follow on transcendence and spirituality from a multidisciplinary and multifaith perspective: a focus on Abrahamic, Oriental, and African religions, a study of transcendence in Nazism, etc.

As a preliminary step to beginning to assess the usefulness of clinical vignettes to measure ethical sensitivity in undergraduate medical students, five clinical vignettes with seven to nine ethical issues each were created. The ethical issues in the vignettes were discussed and outlined by an expert panel. One randomly selected vignette was presented to first, second and third year students at the University of Toronto as part of another examination. The students were asked to list the issues presented by the (...) patient problem. Responses from 281 students were obtained. These students identified an average of 2.72 ethical issues per vignette. Each response was classified under the domains of autonomy, beneficence and justice. Comparisons were made between classes and between vignettes. There was considerable variation between classes and the responses to different vignettes seem to indicate that different vignettes measure the various domains in different ways. It does appear that the use of vignettes is one way to measure aspects of ethical sensitivity in medical students but more study is required to clarify exactly what is being measured. (shrink)

An instrument to assess 'ethical sensitivity' has been developed. The instrument presents four clinical vignettes and the respondent is asked to list the ethical issues related to each vignette. The responses are classified, post hoc, into the domains of autonomy, beneficence and justice. This instrument was used in 1990 to assess the ethical sensitivity of students in all four medical classes at the University of Toronto. Ethical sensitivity, as measured by this instrument, is not related to age or grade-point average. (...) Sensitivity increases between the 1st and 2nd year and then decreases throughout the rest of undergraduate medical training, such that the 4th-year students identify fewer issues than those entering medical school. Students expressing a career choice of family medicine identify more issues than their peers. Several problems with the use of the instrument and the interpretation of the data were found. Nonetheless, these findings, if reproducible, are important and their meaning needs further discussion. (shrink)

Background In June 2016, the Parliament of Canada passed federal legislation allowing eligible adults to request Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID). Since its implementation, there likely exists a degree of hesitancy among some healthcare providers due to the law being inconsistent with personal beliefs and values. It is imperative to explore how nurses in Quebec experience the shift from accompanying palliative clients through “a natural death” to participating in “a premeditated death.” Research question/aim/objectives This study aims to explore how Quebec (...) nurses personally and professionally face the new practice of MAID and their role evolution. Research design A grounded theory design was used. Participants and research context We recruited 37 nurses who participated in or coordinated at least one MAID. Semi-structured interviews and focus groups were conducted and audiotaped. Data collection and analysis followed Strauss and Corbin steps. Ethical considerations Ethics approval was received from the investigator’s affiliated University. Participants were informed regarding the research goal, signed a written consent, and were assigned pseudonyms. Findings/results Results show that nurses experienced the wide range of paradoxe during MAID centering around the following eight elements: 1) confrontation abouth death, 2) choice, 3) time of death, 4) emotional load, 5) new Bill, 6) relationship with the person, 7) communication skills, and 8) healthcare setting. The shifting of views and values in this new role is presented by the contradiction of opposites. Conclusions A better understanding of the paradox experienced by nurses involved with MAID paves the way for the development of interventions. (shrink)

Doing Right: A Practical Guide to Ethics for Medical Trainees and Physicians is a concise and practical guide to ethical decision-making in medicine. The text is aimed at second- and third-year one-semester ethics courses offered in medical schools, health sciences departments, and nursing programs. By taking an applied approach rather than a theoretical approach, this text serves the needs of medical and nursing students, residents, and practicing physicians by sorting through questions of moral principles relevant to the diverse and growing (...) number of healthcare professionals. The many topics covered include truth telling, refusal of treatment, assisted suicide, managing error, and reproductive choice. (shrink)

This article presents the results of a research that aimed to examine the phenomenon of student cheating on exams in faculties of education in Quebec universities. A total of 573 preservice teachers completed an online survey in 2018. The questionnaire consisted of 28 questions with a Likert scale related to individual and contextual factors associated with the propensity to cheat on exams as well as two yes/no items on the arguments for cheating. Descriptive and hierarchical linear regression analyses highlighted the (...) existence of cheating but also how three factors influenced the students’ propensity to cheat: influence of peers, methods of cheating, and institutional context. (shrink)

This article seeks to define what is semiotic and what is Semiotics. Provided first is a brief presentation of various perspectives of Semiotics. Pursuant to this, we will seek to uncover Semiotics’ particulars by evaluating various approaches. We will commence by framing the definitions of the word “Semiotic” to consider then Semiotics via eight particular anthropic – human-related – levels. This partition, derived by the author from a Rastier typology, defines the following levels: noumenophysical, phenophysical, semiotic, representational (“mental images” and (...) concepts), sens (physical), felt (affects), cognitive other and transcendental. From here, we will consider the place of Semiotics among disciplines. Finally, the text presents a typology of relationship between disciplines, including semiotics: anadisciplinarity, disciplinarity, valodisciplinarity, intradisciplinary (such as intertheoricity), multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, metadisciplinarity). (shrink)

Ce texte a déjà paru dans L. Hébert (dir.), Signo, Rimouski (Québec), 2011. Nous remercions Louis Hébert de nous avoir autorisé à le reproduire ici. 1. Résumé Trois opérations sont nécessaires pour produire un rythme : la segmentation en unités, la disposition et la sériation de ces unités. « Disposition » désigne également la composante relative à la disposition des unités dans une étendue temporelle et/ou spatiale. Le rythme peut notamment être défini comme la configuration particulière que constituent au (...) (...) - Sur le concept de rythme – Nouvel article. (shrink)

Deontic modals are the topic of my dissertation. All deontic modals, yes, but justification in particular, and epistemic justification even more specifically. Deontic modals operate upon performances—they appraise performances. Positively appraised, a performance is appropriate, decent, justifiable, right, permissible, or proper; negatively appraised, inappropriate, indecent, unjustifiable, wrong, impermissible, or improper. Belief and knowledge and performances in exactly the same sense that action and intention are performances: all are products of powers that are in some sense responsive to reasons. The principal (...) difference is the direction of fit between mind and world. Knowledge and belief the product of cognitive powers aimed at adapting mind to world, action and intention the product of conative powers aimed at adapting world to mind. All are normatively evaluable and the characteristic normative appraisal of each is deontic. Epistemology, ethics, and rational choice all investigate the nature of deontic modals, differing only insofar as the central aims are epistemic, moral, or prudential in nature. In this sense, the general theory of deontic modals is the parent to epistemology, ethics, and rational choice. My project is to develop and defend a schematic theory of justification. I achieve this end by developing and defending a general theory of deontic modalities. Riffing on two pithy turns of phrase, the deontic theory may be tersely sloganized: value first and one must do the best one can. It is a teleological theory that defines all deontic concepts from the theoretically foundational notions of ability and value. Roughly, a belief is epistemically justifiable if, and only if, it is part of an epistemically optimific belief set the agent is able to have. Roughly, an act is morally justifiably if, and only if, it is part of a morally optimific action set the agent is able to perform. My pet interest is in the former. The resultant framework is enormously fruitful, especially in epistemology. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2017 Heft: 214 Seiten: 331-350.

A force de lire à chaud les débats actuels de la philosophie et s'habituer aux diverses technicalités d'interprétation s'alimentant de la structure ouverte du texte philosophique; à force de dépouiller catalogues d'éditeurs et programmes de congrès avec la rapidité de celui qui se sait dans le coup de la contemporanéité la plus sophistiquée, nous oublions parfois la pertinence et le sens de l'étrangeté radicale des classiques. Nous préférons croire que de leur hauteur à première vue inaccessible, un peu surannée, les (...) philosophes de cette époque et—par une métonymie à la limite typographique—les textes classiques modélent des paysages intérieurs révolus, raffinent la quintessence d'une civilisation qui aurait manqué nos propres moyens d'action « plus réels », plus appropries à la conscience foncièrement progressiste qui nous tenaille. (shrink)

Le volume réunit cinq essais qui abordent différents éléments du système judiciaire et réfléchissent sur leur fonctionnement et leur pertinence. Une part importante des exemples est empruntée à l'actualité canadiene et québécoise, mais le propos déborde ce contexte et envisage les mécanismes de la justice en tant que tels. Un exemple trop rare de réflexion sur l'appareil judiciaire qui, sans verser dans le populisme, demeure très abordable. [SDM].

We give a syntactic characterization of (finitary) theories whose categories of models are closed under the formation of connected limits (respectively the formation of pullbacks and substructures) in the category of all structures. They are also those theories whose consistent extensions by new atomic facts admit in each component an initial structure (respectively an initial term structure), and also thoseT for whichM(T) is locally finitely multi-presentable in a canonical way. We also show that these two properties of theories are nonuniform.

We give syntactic characterizations of1. the theories whose categories of models are closed under the formation of pullbacks, and of2. the locally ω-polypresentable categories.A somewhat typical example is the category of algebraically closed fields. Case is proved by classical model-theoretic methods; it solves a problem raised by H. Volger . The solution of case is in the spirit of the ones for the locally ω-presentable and ω-multipresentable cases found by M. Coste and P.T. Johnstone respectively. The problem was raised in (...) the context of Domain Theory by F. Lamarche. (shrink)

The central view of this dissertation is that a more comprehensive theory of scientific learning must incorporate insights from the disciplines of methodology and sociology. The standards of methodology play an indispensible role in learning by providing some of the principles necessary for theoretical evaluation. But such principles are not sufficient for socially embedded learning and they do not exclude the operation of social interests within science. It is the institutional structure of science that helps make up what abstract standards (...) alone lack: the material means with which to affect the advancement of learning. Institutions add something of their own dynamic to learning by helping to realize the abstract principles of methodology--they are never simply neutral husks. ;The views of a number of methodologists and sociologists are examined to demonstrate that this view of learning has not always been appreciated. Some methodologists have thought that by developing a theory of scientific method they were ensuring science's insulation from society at large. Such projects expect too much of methodology and the best methodology we have--fallibilism--leaves science open to social influence. Some sociologists have seen the role of a social theory as cutting across that of methodology--as if a social account of learning could only be at the expense of methodology. This had led some to deny methodology any explanatory power and others to limit sociology to accounting for merely the external aspects of scientific development. ;I throughout try to suggest how learning may be best accounted for by a fallibilist methodology combined with an institutional social theory. Such a dual view of learning is helpful because the advancement of learning is at times as dependent on its material constraints as on its intellectual ones. Thus, a comprehensive theory of learning can help science be a more critical enterprise and so contribute to its advancement. (shrink)

This book explains why Tocqueville saw the central task of modern statesmanship as combating 'individualism,' a type of civic apathy that he thought capable of robbing modern citizens of human virtue and issuing in a historically unprecedented form of despotism. It looks in depth at the mechanisms he proposed for avoiding the perils and securing the promise of democracy in his own day, and discusses how Tocqueville's insights might be applied in our own time.

This paper argues that the mode of statesmanship recommended in Utopia provides the framework for the Epigrams. While Utopia demonstrates the need for artful indirection by exposing the vices of a man too proud to adopt it, the Epigrams exhibit More's preparation for and practice of a tactfully philosophic statesmanship.