Throughout the biological and biomedical sciences there is a growing need for, prescriptive ‘minimum information’ (MI) checklists specifying the key information to include when reporting experimental results are beginning to find favor with experimentalists, analysts, publishers and funders alike. Such checklists aim to ensure that methods, data, analyses and results are described to a level sufficient to support the unambiguous interpretation, sophisticated search, reanalysis and experimental corroboration and reuse of data sets, facilitating the extraction of maximum value from data sets (...) them. However, such ‘minimum information’ MI checklists are usually developed independently by groups working within representatives of particular biologically- or technologically-delineated domains. Consequently, an overview of the full range of checklists can be difficult to establish without intensive searching, and even tracking thetheir individual evolution of single checklists may be a non-trivial exercise. Checklists are also inevitably partially redundant when measured one against another, and where they overlap is far from straightforward. Furthermore, conflicts in scope and arbitrary decisions on wording and sub-structuring make integration difficult. This presents inhibit their use in combination. Overall, these issues present significant difficulties for the users of checklists, especially those in areas such as systems biology, who routinely combine information from multiple biological domains and technology platforms. To address all of the above, we present MIBBI (Minimum Information for Biological and Biomedical Investigations); a web-based communal resource for such checklists, designed to act as a ‘one-stop shop’ for those exploring the range of extant checklist projects, and to foster collaborative, integrative development and ultimately promote gradual integration of checklists. (shrink)

Wicked problems—that is, problems that can be framed in a number of different ways, depending on who is looking at them—pose ethical challenges for professionals that have scarcely been recognized as such. Even though wicked problems are all around us, they are rarely addressed in education. A reason for this failure might be that wicked problems pose almost insurmountable challenges in educational settings. This contribution shows how students can learn to cope with wicked problems in problem-based learning projects that are (...) structured by the Reflect! platform. (shrink)

There are many advantages and disadvantages to central locations. These have shown themselves in the long course of European history. In times of peace, there are important economic and cultural advantages (to illustrate: the present area of the Czech Republic was the richest country in Europe between the two World Wars). There are cross-currents of trade and culture in central Europe of great advantage. For, cultural cross-currents represent a potential benefit in comprehension and cultural growth. But under threat of large-scale (...) conflict, these locations have proved extremely dangerous. Historically, Germany and Austria may be regarded as having had two chief models of their relationships to Europe. In the Holy Roman Empire, Germany was at the center of an aspiring “universalistic” European cosmopolitanism. (In some ways similar to the present situation of the European Union.) Austria maintained a great multi¬cultural empire, until it was destroyed in the First Word War. Generally, middle-European powers have promoted the integration of European diversity, when peace and stability have been plausible objectives. But when European diversity has declined toward ethnic or national conflict, Germany has drawn away from Europe and into itself, seeking inner unity and distinctness to protect it against possible combinations of enemies. This is true of central Europe generally, in degree, but interest often centers on Germany. Generally, central Europe is a cultural pressure cooker. (shrink)

Although there is increasing interest in philosophy of science in transcendental reasoning, there is hardly any discussion about transcendental arguments. Since this might be related to the dominant understanding of transcendental arguments as a tool to defeat epistemological skepticism, and since the power of transcendental arguments to achieve this goal has convincingly been disputed by Barry Stroud, this contribution proposes, first, a new definition of the transcendental argument which allows its presentation in a simple modus ponens and, second, a pragmatist (...) re-interpretation of this argument form that leaves it to the scientific community to debate, criticize, refine, or reaffirm its core claim: a premise which claims that the truth of a certain assumption is a necessary condition for something that is generally accepted. The proposed “logico-pragmatist interpretation” highlights the role of transcendental arguments as a methodological step to move science forward, just as abduction and inference to the best explanation do. (shrink)

This one-volume edition allows the general reader to appreciate Jung's ideas and personality, as they reveal themselves in his comments to his colleagues and to those who approached him with genuine problems of their own, as well as in his communication with personal friends. The correspondence supplies a variety of insights into the genesis of Jung's theories and a running commentary on their development. Originally published in 1984. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available (...) previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

In recent years the writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein have received much attention from philosophers in general and especially from philosophers interested in religion; and there is no doubt that Wittgenstein's legacy of thought is both highly suggestive and highly problematical. It seems likely, however, that the vogue which Wittgenstein now enjoys owes not a little to his peculiar place in the development of modern philosophy and, in particular, of that empiricist tradition in philosophy which stems from what has been called (...) the revolution in philosophy in the early decades of the present century. (shrink)

In this article, I consider the notion of facework in the context of unfinished turns in French conversation. Unfinished turns in French conversation normally occur in the environment of talk that can be characterized as delicate or problematic. They provide a mechanism for dealing with such talk in a way that both manages misalignment and divergence between the participants and minimizes possible threats to the participants' face. They provide a subtle avoidance or minimization mechanism in that they enable the participants (...) to hint at what remains unarticulated, whilst registering enough of the type of actions that they seek to accomplish. I conclude that, although unfinished turns can be seen as one way in which participants engage in facework, their analysis suggests that only an interactional-sequential account reveals the work that they accomplish, and insists upon a conceptualization of face/facework as interactional. (shrink)