BackgroundPreprint usage is growing rapidly in the life sciences; however, questions remain on the relative quality of preprints when compared to published articles. An objective dimension of quality that is readily measurable is completeness of reporting, as transparency can improve the reader’s ability to independently interpret data and reproduce findings.MethodsIn this observational study, we initially compared independent samples of articles published in bioRxiv and in PubMed-indexed journals in 2016 using a quality of reporting questionnaire. After that, we performed paired comparisons (...) between preprints from bioRxiv to their own peer-reviewed versions in journals.ResultsPeer-reviewed articles had, on average, higher quality of reporting than preprints, although the difference was small, with absolute differences of 5.0% [95% CI 1.4, 8.6] and 4.7% [95% CI 2.4, 7.0] of reported items in the independent samples and paired sample comparison, respectively. There were larger differences favoring peer-reviewed articles in subjective ratings of how clearly titles and abstracts presented the main findings and how easy it was to locate relevant reporting information. Changes in reporting from preprints to peer-reviewed versions did not correlate with the impact factor of the publication venue or with the time lag from bioRxiv to journal publication.ConclusionsOur results suggest that, on average, publication in a peer-reviewed journal is associated with improvement in quality of reporting. They also show that quality of reporting in preprints in the life sciences is within a similar range as that of peer-reviewed articles, albeit slightly lower on average, supporting the idea that preprints should be considered valid scientific contributions. (shrink)

All parties involved in researching, developing, manufacturing, and distributing COVID-19 vaccines need guidance on their ethical obligations. We focus on pharmaceutical companies' obligations because their capacities to research, develop, manufacture, and distribute vaccines make them uniquely placed for stemming the pandemic. We argue that an ethical approach to COVID-19 vaccine production and distribution should satisfy four uncontroversial principles: optimising vaccine production, including development, testing, and manufacturing; fair distribution; sustainability; and accountability. All parties' obligations should be coordinated and mutually consistent. For (...) instance, companies should not be obligated to provide host countries with additional booster shots at the expense of fulfilling bilateral contracts with countries in which there are surges. Finally, any satisfactory approach should include mechanisms for assurance that all parties are honouring their obligations. This assurance enables countries, pharmaceutical companies, global organisations, and others to verify compliance with the chosen approach and protect ethically compliant stakeholders from being unfairly exploited by unethical behaviour of others. (shrink)

A cross-sectional study to ascertain what the Singapore population would regard as material risk in the anaesthesia consent-taking process and identify demographic factors that predict patient preferences in medical decision-making to tailor a more patient-centered informed consent. A survey was performed involving patients 21 years old and above who attended the pre-operative evaluation clinic over a 1-month period in Singapore General Hospital. Questionnaires were administered to assess patients’ perception of material risks, by trained interviewers. Patients’ demographics were obtained. Mann–Whitney U (...) test and Kruskal-Wallis one-way analysis of variance was used. Statistical significance was taken at p < 0.05. Four hundred fourteen patients were eligible of which 26 refused to participate and 24 were excluded due to language barrier. 364 patients were recruited. A higher level of education, being employed and younger age group are factors identified in patients who wanted greater participation in medical decisions. Gender, marital status, type of surgery, and previous surgical history did not affect their level of participation. The complications most patients knew about were Nausea, Drowsiness and Surgical Wound Pain. Patients ranked Heart Attack, Death and Stroke as the most significant risks that they wanted to be informed about in greater detail. Most patients wanted to make a joint decision with the anaesthetist, instead of letting the doctor decide or deciding for themselves. Discussion with the anaesthetist is the preferred medium of communication compared to reading a pamphlet or watching a video. Age and educational level can influence medical decision-making. Despite the digital age, most patients still prefer a clinic consult instead of audio-visual multimedia for pre-operative anaesthetic counselling. The local population appears to place greater importance on rare but serious complications compared to common complications. This illustrates the need to contextualize information provided during informed consent to strengthen the doctor-patient relationship. (shrink)

In an attempt to learn from COVID-19, this essay features six responses to the question: what did COVID-19 teach us, expose in us, or purge out of us when it comes to spiritual formation in Christ? Each response was written independently of the others by one of the coauthors. Diane J. Chandler focuses in on how COVID-19 exposed grievous inequities for ethnic groups in the American church and broader society. Kelly M. Kapic reminds us of the goodness of human finitude (...) and how COVID restrictions have forced many of us to embrace our limitations. Siang-Yang Tan reflects on eight lessons he has learned during this pandemic year in his role shepherding a local church. James C. Wilhoit calls us to consider the structures that are needed for local church leadership to make wise and godly decisions in times of crisis. Richard Peace draws our attention to what might be learned from the forced monasticism brought about by COVID-19 quarantines. Finally, Ruth Haley Barton pauses to consider the interdependence of human life that has been dramatically illustrated by this pandemic. While these six responses certainly do not exhaust all there is for the church to learn from COVID, we present them in the spirit of “O Lord, teach us what we do not see” and hope they will inspire your own reflections. (shrink)

Differences in guidance from various organisations is preventing uniform standards of practiceThe emphasis in medical law and ethics on protecting the patient’s right to choose is at an all time high. Apart from circumscribed situations, for instance where the Mental Health Act 19831 is applicable, the only justification for medically treating an adult patient against his or her wishes is on the basis of common law, using the principle of best interests, and only when he or she lacks capacity to (...) refuse treatment. As a result, it is important that clinicians should be able to assess capacity to refuse treatment. Given that judgements of incapacity involve deciding that a person does not have the ability to refuse treatment, a great deal of care needs to go into the assessment and characterisation of incapacity.There is divergence between the characterisation of capacity that is used by the courts and that which is recommended by the British Medical Association . The BMA usefully expands on the first element of capacity as set out in the standard legal definition of capacity in the Re C judgment2 but ignores the other two elements. By doing this, the BMA makes it unclear whether it is rejecting these as relevant to capacity; it also misses the opportunity to expand on these elements in a clinically useful way.We will begin with a description of the BMA’s advice3 and the standard English legal definition of capacity.2,4 Then we will show that there are important discrepancies between these two sources of advice. We think that the BMA ought to clarify its position on capacity in order to safeguard the interests of physicians, healthcare workers, and patients.THE RE C TESTMr C was a patient in a psychiatric secure hospital who had chronic paranoid schizophrenia with …. (shrink)

Institutional Review Boards have expressed concern that research into sensitive topics such as mental disorder will cause participants undue distress. This study investigated the emotional responses of 5,220 Australians to a survey on mental-health-related discrimination. Participants were interviewed about their mental health and experiences of discrimination across 10 life domains and then the emotional impacts of the survey. Results suggested that a minority experienced a negative reaction in contrast to 88% reporting positive experiences. A mental health problem was associated with (...) both negative and positive reactions. (shrink)

In this article, we propose the Fair Priority Model for COVID-19 vaccine distribution, and emphasize three fundamental values we believe should be considered when distributing a COVID-19 vaccine among countries: Benefiting people and limiting harm, prioritizing the disadvantaged, and equal moral concern for all individuals. The Priority Model addresses these values by focusing on mitigating three types of harms caused by COVID-19: death and permanent organ damage, indirect health consequences, such as health care system strain and stress, as well as (...) economic destruction. It proposes proceeding in three phases: the first addresses premature death, the second long-term health issues and economic harms, and the third aims to contain viral transmission fully and restore pre-pandemic activity. -/- To those who may deem an ethical framework irrelevant because of the belief that many countries will pursue "vaccine nationalism," we argue such a framework still has broad relevance. Reasonable national partiality would permit countries to focus on vaccine distribution within their borders up until the rate of transmission is below 1, at which point there would not be sufficient vaccine-preventable harm to justify retaining a vaccine. When a government reaches the limit of national partiality, it should release vaccines for other countries. -/- We also argue against two other recent proposals. Distributing a vaccine proportional to a country's population mistakenly assumes that equality requires treating differently situated countries identically. Prioritizing countries according to the number of front-line health care workers, the proportion of the population over 65, and the number of people with comorbidities within each country may exacerbate disadvantage and end up giving the vaccine in large part to wealthy nations. (shrink)

University human research ethics application procedures can be complicated and daunting, especially for international students unfamiliar with the process and the language. We conducted focus groups and interviews with four research higher degree and 21 Master’s coursework international students at an Australian university to gain their views on the human ethics application process. We found the most important influences on their experience were: the time it took to do an application; support from supervisors, peers and others; their own language skills; (...) and their lack of familiarity with research ethics procedures. To improve the experience of international students undertaking research involving human research ethics applications, we recommend universities provide guidance on institutional ethics review processes, concepts and terminology, with translations in a range of languages, together with guidance on how to conduct research ethically within and outside the students’ own countries. We also recommend curricula be developed to further students’ understanding of the importance of ethical research practice, and that these curricula be embedded in undergraduate and postgraduate degree programs and reflected in course learning outcomes. (shrink)

Cells are the fundamental building blocks of organisms and their organization holds the key to our understanding of the processes that control Development and Physiology as well as the mechanisms that underlie disease. Traditional methods of analysis of subcellular structure have relied on the purification of organelles and the painstaking biochemical description of their components. The arrival of high‐throughput genomic and, more significantly, proteomic technologies has opened hereto unforeseen possibilities for this task. Recently two reports(1,2) show how much can be (...) gleaned from the combination of analytical centrifugation, mass spectrometry and advanced statistical techniques focused on a high‐throughput analysis of the content and organization of plant and animal cells. The results reveal intriguing possibilities for the future and the possibility of mapping much of the known proteome onto our current map of the cell. BioEssays 28: 780–784, 2006. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

COVID-19 vaccines are likely to be scarce for years to come. Many countries, from India to the U.K., have demonstrated vaccine nationalism. What are the ethical limits to this vaccine nationalism? Neither extreme nationalism nor extreme cosmopolitanism is ethically justifiable. Instead, we propose the fair priority for residents framework, in which governments can retain COVID-19 vaccine doses for their residents only to the extent that they are needed to maintain a noncrisis level of mortality while they are implementing reasonable public (...) health interventions. Practically, a noncrisis level of mortality is that experienced during a bad influenza season, which society considers an acceptable background risk. Governments take action to limit mortality from influenza, but there is no emergency that includes severe lockdowns. This “flu-risk standard” is a nonarbitrary and generally accepted heuristic. Mortality above the flu-risk standard justifies greater governmental interventions, including retaining vaccines for a country's own citizens over global need. The precise level of vaccination needed to meet the flu-risk standard will depend upon empirical factors related to the pandemic. This links the ethical principles to the scientific data emerging from the emergency. Thus, the FPR framework recognizes that governments should prioritize procuring vaccines for their country when doing so is necessary to reduce mortality to noncrisis flu-like levels. But after that, a government is obligated to do its part to share vaccines to reduce risks of mortality for people in other countries. We consider and reject objections to the FPR framework based on a country: having developed a vaccine, raising taxes to pay for vaccine research and purchase, wanting to eliminate economic and social burdens, and being ineffective in combating COVID-19 through public health interventions. (shrink)

Grossmann posits that heightened fearfulness in humans evolved to facilitate cooperative caregiving. We argue that three of his claims – that children express more fear than other apes, that they are uniquely responsive to fearful expressions, and that expression and perception of fear are linked with prosocial behaviors – are inconsistent with existing literature or require additional supporting evidence.

Whereas Phillips and colleagues argue that knowledge representations are more basic than belief representations, we argue that an accurate analysis of what is fundamental to theory of mind may depend crucially on the context in which mental-state reasoning occurs. Specifically, we call for increased study of the developmental trajectory of mental-state reasoning within socially evaluative contexts.

Deep Brain Stimulation is currently being investigated as an experimental treatment for patients suffering from treatment-refractory AN, with an increasing number of case reports and small-scale trials published. Although still at an exploratory and experimental stage, initial results have been promising. Despite the risks associated with an invasive neurosurgical procedure and the long-term implantation of a foreign body, DBS has a number of advantageous features for patients with SE-AN. Stimulation can be fine-tuned to the specific needs of the particular patient, (...) is relatively reversible, and the technique also allows for the crucial issue of investigating and comparing the effects of different neural targets. However, at a time when DBS is emerging as a promising investigational treatment modality for AN, lesioning procedures in psychiatry are having a renaissance. Of concern it has been argued that the two kinds of interventions should instead be understood as rivaling, yet “mutually enriching paradigms” despite the fact that lesioning the brain is irreversible and there is no evidence base for an effective target in AN. We argue that lesioning procedures in AN are unethical at this stage of knowledge and seriously problematic for this patient group, for whom self-control is particularly central to wellbeing. They pose a greater risk of major harms that cannot justify ethical equipoise, despite the apparent superiority in reduced short term surgical harms and lower cost. (shrink)

Malaysia had its first four patients with COVID-19 on 25 January 2020. In the same week, the World Health Organization declared it as a public health emergency of international concern. The pandemic has since challenged the ethics and practice of medicine. There is palpable tension from the conflict of interest between public health initiatives and individual’s rights. Ensuring equitable care and distribution of health resources for patients with and without COVID-19 is a recurring ethical challenge for clinicians. Palliative care aims (...) to mitigate suffering caused by a life-limiting illness, and this crisis has led to the awareness and urgency to ensure it reaches all who needs it. We share here the palliative care perspectives and ethical challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:What's so Important about Music Education?Leonard TanJ. Scott Goble, What's so Important about Music Education? (New York, NY: Routledge, 2010)In What's so Important about Music Education, J. Scott Goble proposes a new philosophical foundation for music education in the United States based on the theory of semiotics by American pragmatist Charles Sanders Peirce. Following a brief summary, I will note several merits in Goble's book before sketching four (...) recommendations for future editions.In Chapter One, Goble notes how the inclusion of non-Western musics in the public schools as espoused in the 1967 Tanglewood Declaration has raised two crucial questions: "Whose music should be included in the curriculum?" and "What is the role or social importance of public school music education in the United States as a postmodern society?" Noting that music education was established in the United States during the modern era, and that the Tanglewood Declaration did not account for vast differences in beliefs about music, Goble argues that there is a need to establish a new philosophical foundation that can accommodate the varied beliefs and practices of diverse cultural groups in postmodern United States.In Chapter Two, Goble sketches and critiques five cultural anthropologists. Of the five, he singles out Clifford Geertz's conception of culture as "semiotic [End Page 201] webs" (p. 20) as the conceptual foundation that is appropriate for this study. He then links Geertz's notion of culture to the semiotic theory of C. S. Peirce which is to become the theoretical underpinning of the book. Subsequently, he unpacks many key Peircian themes: human conceptions are maintained not individually but collectively in cultural groups, provisional truth (as opposed to absolute Truth) is relative and dependent on conceptions of communities, and the scientific method is the sole mode of inquiry by which people in communities may use to satisfy their doubts to formulate beliefs. Most importantly, Goble expounds the "pragmatic maxim" that since humans live in communities united by common beliefs, "the 'clear' meaning of an idea held by a member of the community will almost inevitably stem from the beliefs—or ways of understanding—held by members of that community" (p. 30). Goble concludes the chapter by presenting the Peircian semiotic system of cognition which posits that a "sign" is conceptualized in a triadic relationship: the Sign or "Firstness," the Object or "Secondness," and the Interpretant or "Thirdness" (p. 33).In Chapter Three, Goble considers how music is a sign based on the theoretical framework laid in Chapter Two. Drawing on the work of ethnomusicologists, anthropologists, psychiatrists, and a neuroscientist, he formulates a Peircian pragmatic approach to musical practices which posits that "the musical practices of different cultural communities represent a diverse cluster of community-specific ritualized behaviors involving sound" (p. 252). Furthermore, each of the musical practices "serves those persons who meaningfully participate in it as a means of psychophysiological, psychosocial, and/or sociopolitical equilibration relative to the worldview—or ordered conception of Reality—they tacitly share" (p. 252). For Goble, this pragmatist conception of musical practices is neither ethnocentric, universalist, nor relativist, and can serve as a conceptual framework for all diverse musical practices in postmodern United States.With the Peircian pragmatic conception in mind, Goble examines historical factors that contributed to current conceptions of music in the United States in Chapter Four. He laments that as a result of European Enlightenment and three socio-political phenomena in the United States (the separation of church and state, promotion of no other worldview than democracy, and adoption of democratic capitalism), music is no longer pragmatically oriented but trivialized and pursued by self-serving musicians.In Chapter Five, Goble traces the philosophical justifications for music education throughout the history of the United States. While the sign "musical practice" was conceptualized as "worship" in colonial America, the sign "music" was conceived as "art" during the age of Enlightenment, and as "product" during the age of science and technology. Noting that Bennett Reimer's music education as aesthetic education is limited in its Western focus on music as works [End Page 202] of artistic objects, Goble aligns his Peircian conception along praxial lines—in particular, with... (shrink)

Identity, Morality, and Threat offers a critical examination of the social psychological processes that generate outgroup devaluation and ingroup glorification as the source of conflict. Daniel Rothbart and Karyna Korostelina bring together essays analyzing the causal relationship between escalating violence and opposing images of the Self and Other.

Live donor kidney transplantation is the best treatment option for most patients with late-stage chronic kidney disease; however, the rate of living kidney donation has declined in the United States. A consensus conference was held June 5-6, 2014 to identify best practices and knowledge gaps pertaining to live donor kidney transplantation and living kidney donation. Transplant professionals, patients, and other key stakeholders discussed processes for educating transplant candidates and potential living donors about living kidney donation; efficiencies in the living donor (...) evaluation process; disparities in living donation; and financial and systemic barriers to living donation. We summarize the consensus recommendations for best practices in these educational and clinical domains, future research priorities, and possible public policy initiatives to remove barriers to living kidney donation. (shrink)

Since the publication of J. A. Hobson’s (1858–1940) Imperialism: A Study in 1902, the text has been studied—even celebrated—as a liberal or proto-Marxist critique of modern empires. This reputation stands in some tension with the text itself, which defends various forms of imperial domination. While scholars have addressed this tension, they remain divided over how best to understand Hobson’s imperial commitments. Offering a new response to this debate, I argue that a key dimension of Imperialism has been overlooked—namely, Hobson’s conception (...) of humanity as stratified into a hierarchy of racial “souls.” This deeply committed view of human difference undergirded Hobson’s arguments about the moral and practical limits of Western imperial power. This article shows how Hobson articulated imperialism as the “parasitic” rule of whites over the nonwhite world—the solution to which was not the rejection of empire but the reform of white imperial power in accordance with his normative vision of global racial hierarchy. This recovery reveals the redemptive critique at the core of Imperialism and enables us to more readily grasp the text as a form of imperial apologetics. The article concludes with the suggestion that Hobson is better understood not as a liberal- or socialist-imperialist but as a proponent of racial capitalism on a global scale. (shrink)

In his paper ‘The Problem of the Meaning of “Miracle” , Professor Michael J. Langford proffers a concept of miracles that derives its intelligibility from the familiar phenomenon of the interaction of minds. Miraculous occurrences are portrayed as a variant, though abnormal, form of what we may term ‘inter-psychosomatic influence’, God's mind being the ultimate determinant. Langford thinks that to speak significantly of miracles, the phenomenon should be understood as ‘not totally dissimilar to our previous experience’ ; hence the familiar (...) notion of inter-psychosomatic influence. He thinks, too, that to talk of miracles as God interfering directly with the natural order would be to admit that such interference would not upset our concept of human nature and responsibility, a consequence which, to Langford, would make it inconsistent for Christians to maintain the free-will defence in the face of the problem of evil. According to Langford, human interference with the natural order does not vitiate the preconditions of human responsibility, and so he thinks that his concept of miracle, which is only ‘an extension of the same phenomenon, of a kind that also does not disrupt either human freedom or the stable order that is the necessary context for human life’ , will provide a way out of the dilemma. Having agreed with Hume and Flew that it would be unreasonable ‘to explain an unusual event by introducing divine causation if we hadn't already got independent evidence for the divine’ , Langford nevertheless maintains that ‘unthought possibilities’ should not be ruled out in the manner of a ‘prejudiced theorist’ . He thinks that such possibilities are left open in his concept of miracle, which makes the prior assumption that ‘independent grounds for belief in God’ exist before affirming that, given that God exists, miracles may be consistently and substantively understood in terms of a special distinguishable sort of inter-psychosomatic influence. He concedes, of course that his concept would rule out ‘those miracles that appear to be quite apart from the working of grace through human minds’ . I think, however, that Langford's thesis is faulty at key places. (shrink)

In this essay, I draw upon Ellen J. Langer’s notions of mindlessness and mindfulness to identify and delineate Confucius’ views on mindfulness. Langer’s theory exemplifies a social-cognitive approach to mindfulness which is a prominent orientation in the extant research. I argue that Confucius, like Langer, rejects mindlessness that is characterised by an over-reliance on automatic responses based on past knowledge and experiences. Furthermore, Confucius supports Langerian mindfulness by underlining the importance of a flexible mindset that is demonstrated through making novel (...) distinctions, appreciating new perspectives and being sensitive to the context. But Confucius’ formulation of mindfulness goes beyond Langer’s by advocating the setting of one’s heart-mind on learning and the application of virtues. A Confucian interpretation of mindfulness debunks an East-West dichotomy on mindfulness and illustrates the harmonisation of the cognitive, affective, moral and social dimensions of mindfulness. (shrink)

Does a pharmacist have a right to refuse to fill certain prescriptions? In this paper, I examine cases in which an employee might refuse to do something that is part of his or her job description. I will argue that in some of these cases, an employee does have a right of refusal and in other cases an employee does not. In those cases where the employee does not have a right of refusal, I argue that the refusals are just (...) cause for termination of employment. I argue that there are moral principles that support the different outcomes in the cases under consideration. I turn to pharmacy cases at the end of the paper and argue that they are analogous to cases where an employee does not have a right of refusal and thus fall under the principle that refusing to fill birth control prescriptions constitutes just cause for termination. (shrink)

RESUMENLos resultados empíricos y los análisis teóricos en física cuántica ni apoyan ni refutan concluyentemente el realismo. Aunque se mostrara que la interpretación de Copenhague era la única viable de entre todas las posibles, todavía quedaría por probar que con eso se había conculcado cualquier tipo de realismo. Bohr mismo aceptaba un realismo con tintes kantianos y mostraba desagrado hacia el instrumentalismo de Heisenberg. Pero además de la interpretación de Copenhague existen interpretaciones rivales que, a pesar de no estar tan (...) desarrolladas como aquélla, dejan abierto el camino al realismo en la física cuántica. En particular la interpretación de David Bohm.PALABRAS CLAVEREALISMO CIENTIFICO – TEORIA CUANTICA – LOCALIDADABSTRACTThe empirical achievements and theoretical analyses in quantum physics neither support nor refute conclusively realism. Even if it were shown that Copenhagen Interpretation is the only feasible one between all the possible interpretations in quantum mechanics, it would remain to prove that it forbids every kind of realism. In fact, Bohr himself accepted a realism with Kantian aspects and disagreed whith Heisenberg’s instrumentalism. But there are interpretations, rival to Copenhagen’s, which in spite of not being son developped, smooth the way for realism in quantum physics. Particularly David Bohm’s interpretation.KEYWORDSSCIENTIFIC REALISM – QUANTUM THEORY – LOCALITY. (shrink)

Ciertas referencias biográficas son útiles para comprender un pensamiento tan articulado y complejo como el de Amartya Sen. Se destaca la importancia teórica de Sen para filósofos políticos, filósofos morales o filósofos de la ciencia. La reflexión filosófica, sobre métodos, sobre aspectos éticos y en general sobre cuestiones político culturales, es un asunto de primera importancia para la misma actividad interna a la ciencia económica. Para entender correctamente la obra de Sen resulta fundamental el trasfondo filosófico cultural, la comprensión del (...) individuo como parte de un compromiso social y la extracción sistemática de las consecuencias de ese tipo de compromiso. El desarrollo aparece como un proceso de expansión de las libertades reales que las personas disfrutan. La centralidad de la libertad para el proceso de desarrollo, la encuentra Amartya Sen en dos razones diferentes, una por razones evaluativas y otra por razones de eficacia. La evaluación del progreso podría hacerse teniendo en cuenta si de hecho se amplían las libertades que las personas tienen Se trata de interconexiones que ha encontrado Sen en muchos análisis empíricos que muestran cómo la responsabilidad “libre y sostenible” de los individuos emerge como la principal fuerza para el desarrollo. (shrink)

El deseo de modificar artificialmente la conciencia es un hecho tan antiguo como la humanidad pero no es hasta muy recientemente cuando surge el interés científico y social entorno a la relación entre enfermedad mental y drogas. En las últimas décadas esta preocupación se ha avivado vistos los efectos devastadores del consumo de algunas sustancia, la aparición de nuevas drogas y a los avances en la organización del saber en torno a la psicopatología. Entrar a fondo en el tema ser (...) ía largo, supondría exponer las definiciones y límites de los conceptos "enfermedad mental" y "toxicomanía" así como las interacciones entre ambos problemas que dan como resultado complejos entrecruzamientos intercmbios. (shrink)

This interdisciplinary book examines the work of several female artists since 1960 in the areas of dance, music, installation, photography, architecture, poetry, literature, theater, film, and performance art. Each chapter is primarily devoted to an important work by a single artist, seen within its historical context, and with particular attention to how each artist incorporated gender issues or feminist thought into her respective art form. Laurie Anderson, Gwendolyn Brooks, Jane Campion, Judy Chicago, Zaha Hadid, Pauline Oliveros, Yvonne Rainer, Cindy Sherman, (...) Amy Tan, and Paula Vogel have each made groundbreaking contributions to their fields. As a group, they represent a tremendous diversity of approaches to art making: from accessible to opaque, from overtly feminist to apolitical, from emotive to cool, from controversial to mainstream. (shrink)

Melanomas arise from transformed melanocytes, positioned at the dermal‐epidermal junction in the basal layer of the epidermis. Melanocytes are completely surrounded by keratinocyte neighbors, with which they communicate through direct contact and paracrine signaling to maintain normal growth control and homeostasis. UV radiation from sunlight reshapes this communication network to drive a protective tanning response. However, repeated rounds of sun exposure result in accumulation of mutations in melanocytes that have been considered as primary drivers of melanoma initiation and progression. It (...) is now clear that mutations in melanocytes are not sufficient to drive tumor formation—the tumor environment plays a critical role. This review focuses on changes in melanocyte‐keratinocyte communication that contribute to melanoma initiation and progression, with a particular focus on recent mechanistic insights that lay a foundation for developing new ways to intercept melanoma development. (shrink)

En todo el mundo el populismo está transformando la democracia y asentando el llamado “giro punitivo”. Tan pronto como los politicos populistas se hacen con el poder siguen tres estrategias: colonización el poder, clientelismo en masa y legislación discriminatoria, basada en la escisión schmittiana del demos entre amigos y enemigos, según tres sistemas de clases sucesivos: el clásico clasismo economicista, el metaclasismo y el hiperclasismo. El feminismo punitivo es así el resultado coherente de la evolución del populismo punitivo.

El problema del lenguaje es una de las fuerzas motivacionales detrás de los escritos tanto de Kierkegaard como de Wittgenstein. Después de clarificar este problema, el autor intenta esbozar las soluciones ofrecidas por estos dos filósofos tan distintos. En el caso de Wittgenstein, esto toma la forma de trazar el desarrollo de su noción de “juego del lenguaje”. En contraste, una consideración de Kierkegaard conduce a la pregunta por el engaño de cualquier solución. En qué sentido la expresión de experiencias (...) inmediatas en el lenguaje puede leerse como un “truco astuto” es algo que se deja al lector por decidir. (shrink)

This chapter examines some of the ethical issues associated with the persistent use of animals in the fashion and cosmetic industries. There are some cultural differences in the construction of what is considered a human need and what is luxury or simply a desire. Fashion and cosmetics are examples of self-determination, and people may also express their membership of a particular gender, indigenous or ethnicity through their fashion. There is discussion of opposition to the killing of animals for fur clothing, (...) and consideration of both the fur trapping industry and factory farm production. Particular issues are also raised through the killing of endangered animals and environmental pollution from tanning industry. There are also animals used for research aimed at increasing the productivity and efficiency of animals to produce fibre and safe ingredients for the cosmetic industry. The desire to dress attractively, and fashionably, is universal and applauded in most cultures, but our use of animals also shapes our moral community, and may also lead to legal reform. (shrink)