In a context of global change, inland navigation transport has gained interest with economic and environmental benefits. The development of this means of conveyance requires the improvement of its management rules to deal with the increase of navigation and the potential impact of global change. To achieve this aim, it is first necessary to have a better knowledge about the dynamics of inland navigation networks and their interaction with the environment. Second, the potential effects of global change have to be (...) anticipated. This article focuses on the modeling of inland navigation reaches. An inland navigation network is a large-scale distributed system composed of several interconnected reaches. These reaches are characterized by non-linearities, time delays, and generally no significant slope. To deal with these particularities, a gray-box model is proposed. It consists in determining the delays according to the physical characteristics of the system. The parameters of the model are identified with measured data. The gray-box model is used to reproduce the dynamics of the Cuinchy–Fontinettes reach located in the north of France. (shrink)

Is it possible, and in the first place is it even desirable, to define what "development" means and to determine the scope of the field called "developmental biology"? Though these questions appeared crucial for the founders of "developmental biology" in the 1950s, there seems to be no consensus today about the need to address them. Here, in a combined biological, philosophical, and historical approach, we ask whether it is possible and useful to define biological development, and, if such a definition (...) is indeed possible and useful, which definition can be considered as the most satisfactory. (shrink)

Gperhard Heinzmann, Rédacteur en chef La philosophie est la mère des sciences. Il faut avoir une bonne mémoire pour se le rappeler. Quel bonheur lorsque ce rappel vient d’une collègue qui ne l’a pas appris, mais qui éprouve la nécessité de questionner sa pratique scientifique et actualise ainsi l’ancienne métaphore! C’était le cas de Catherine Dufour. On se connaissait vaguement depuis l’école maternelle des Trois Maisons que fréquentaient nos enfants. Je fus donc très heureux de découvrir,...

Researchers from diverse disciplines, including organismal and cellular physiology, sports science, human nutrition, evolution and ecology, have sought to understand the causes and consequences of the surprising variation in metabolic rate found among and within individual animals of the same species. Research in this area has been hampered by differences in approach, terminology and methodology, and the context in which measurements are made. Recent advances provide important opportunities to identify and address the key questions in the field. By bringing together (...) researchers from different areas of biology and biomedicine, we describe and evaluate these developments and the insights they could yield, highlighting the need for more standardisation across disciplines. We conclude with a list of important questions that can now be addressed by developing a common conceptual and methodological toolkit for studies on metabolic variation in animals. (shrink)

Solving poverty is a laudable public policy goal. While there are many approaches, one that has gained popularity is the conditional cash transfer that requires recipients to satisfy conditions imposed on them such as requiring regular medical checkups. Another approach, which is gaining interest is unconditional cash transfers that do not impose conditions. The question we ask in this paper is: what do these past and current attempts tell us about the implications for gender? To answer this question, we explore (...) two programs using a gendered framework: Brazil's Bolsa Familia,which is a conditional cash transfer, and Manitoba's Mincome experiment, which was an unconditional cash transfer in Canada. We then consider how this information might be used by states, particularly as it relates to ending social marginalization. Broadly, this research contributes to academic discussions of public policy, income, gender and social vulnerability. (shrink)

Objective: This study aims to compare the acoustic vocal analysis results of a group of transgender women relative to those of cisgender women.Methods: Thirty transgender women between the ages of 19 and 52 years old participated in the study. The control group was composed of 31 cisgender women between the ages of 20 and 48 years old. A standardized questionnaire was administered to collect general patient data to better characterize the participants. The vowel /a/ sounds of all participants were collected (...) and analyzed by the Multi-Dimensional Voice Program advanced system.Results: Statistically significant differences between cisgender and transgender women were found on 14 measures: fundamental frequency, maximum fundamental frequency, minimum fundamental frequency, standard deviation of fundamental frequency, absolute jitter, percentage or relative jitter, fundamental frequency relative average perturbation, fundamental frequency perturbation quotient, smoothed fundamental frequency perturbation quotient, fundamental frequency variation, absolute shimmer, relative shimmer, voice turbulence index, and soft phonation index. The mean fundamental frequency value was 159.046 Hz for the cases and 192.435 Hz for the controls.Conclusion: Through glottal adaptations, the group of transgender women managed to feminize their voices, presenting voices that were less aperiodic and softer than those of cisgender women. (shrink)

Este artigo é um relato de experiência do processo de implantação do ambiente virtual de aprendizagem do Programa Primeira Infância Melhor (PIM). O PIM é uma política pública intersetorial de promoção do desenvolvimento integral na primeira infância, implantada no Estado do Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil. Entre as atribuições do Governo do Estado está a formação das equipes em mais de 200 municípios. Por causa das restrições impostas pela pandemia de coronavirus, a política deixou de realizar formações presenciais e, de (...) forma emergencial, promoveu formações remotas, utilizando a ferramenta Google Drive. A partir desta experiência, foi decidido implantar uma plataforma de formação online. Para tanto, foi realizado um longo processo de planejamento, com análise dos materiais existentes, adequação aos objetivos pretendidos, criação do ambiente virtual e realização de uma formação piloto na modalidade educação à distância. (shrink)

This article proposes a reflection on the persistence of Nazi jurisdictional models in contemporary legal theory, briefly comparing the work of authors such as Wolf, Larenz, Schmitt, Dworkin and Alexy. It aims to demonstrate the authoritarian and radically undemocratic character of certain theoretical constructions used in adjudication, particularly in Brazil. For this purpose, three representative judicial decisions from 2016 are analyzed, highlighting typical structural features of Nazi legal theory which remain accepted by current legal theory, such as the disregard for (...) legality, the personification of the community as judge and the appeal to social values which are taken as self-evident. (shrink)

Purpose: This study aimed to develop a stroke effectiveness test in table tennis based on the temporal game structure to assess the ball speed and ball placement of the players, with a purpose to analyze its reproducibility and validity. Methods: Nineteen male table tennis players participated in this study. The test was performed twice during the first session and once during the second session to assess the intrasession and intersession reproducibility, respectively. Moreover, the test was examined on its ability to (...) discriminate between regional and local performance-level players and on the relationship between the test results and the table tennis performance to assess the discriminant and concurrent validity, respectively. In general, the test consisted of 11 simulated rallies of 2–5 balls with the effort and rest ratio of 0.5, and focused on attack with offensive strokes at defensive balls delivered by a robot randomly between the left and right positions on the table. Results: Ball speed, ball placement, and ball speed-ball placement index showed satisfactory reliability and agreement outcomes. Additionally, the Bland-Altman plots show the systematic error of the analyses closer to 0, and that most values were within the limits of agreements. Concerning validity analyses, regional players had higher scores of ball placement and ball speed-ball placement index as well as made fewer errors than local players. Moreover, ball placement, ball speed-ball placement index, and percentage error presented a strong and significant correlation with table tennis performance. However, ball speed was slightly different between the regional than local players and this variable was not related to table tennis performance. Conclusion: Our findings show evidences that the test is reproducible. Moreover, discriminant and concurrent validity are confirmed for ball placement and ball speed-ball placement index. (shrink)

BackgroundHIV cure research involving cell and gene therapy has intensified in recent years. There is a growing need to identify ethical standards and safeguards to ensure cell and gene therapy (CGT) HIV cure research remains valued and acceptable to as many stakeholders as possible as it advances on a global scale.MethodsTo elicit preliminary ethical and practical considerations to guide CGT HIV cure research, we implemented a qualitative, in-depth interview study with three key stakeholder groups in the United States: (1) biomedical (...) HIV cure researchers, (2) bioethicists, and (3) community stakeholders. Interviews permitted evaluation of informants’ perspectives on how CGT HIV cure research should ethically occur, and were transcribed verbatim. We applied conventional content analysis focused on inductive reasoning to analyze the rich qualitative data and derive key ethical and practical considerations related to CGT towards an HIV cure.ResultsWe interviewed 13 biomedical researchers, 5 community members, and 1 bioethicist. Informants generated considerations related to: perceived benefits of CGT towards an HIV cure, perceived risks, considerations necessary to ensure an acceptable benefit/risk balance, CGT strategies considered unacceptable, additional ethical considerations, and considerations for first-in-human CGT HIV cure trials. Informants also proposed important safeguards to developing CGT approaches towards an HIV cure, such as the importance of mitigating off-target effects, mitigating risks associated with long-term duration of CGT interventions, and mitigating risks of immune overreactions.ConclusionOur study identified preliminary considerations for CGT-based HIV cure across three key stakeholder groups. Respondents identified an ideal cure strategy as one which would durably control HIV infection, protect the individual from re-acquisition, and eliminate transmission to others. Known and unknown risks should be anticipated and perceived as learning opportunities to preserve and honor the altruism of participants. Preclinical studies should support these considerations and be transparently reviewed by regulatory experts and peers prior to first-in-human studies. To protect the public trust in CGT HIV cure research, ethical and practical considerations should be periodically revisited and updated as the science continues to evolve. Additional ethics studies are required to expand stakeholder participation to include traditionally marginalized groups and clinical care providers. (shrink)

While there is an extensive literature on the tendency to mimic emotional expressions in adults, it is unclear how this skill emerges and develops over time. Specifically, it is unclear whether infants mimic discrete emotion-related facial actions, whether their facial displays are moderated by contextual cues and whether infants’ emotional mimicry is constrained by developmental changes in the ability to discriminate emotions. We therefore investigate these questions using Baby-FACS to code infants’ facial displays and eye-movement tracking to examine infants’ looking (...) times at facial expressions. Three-, 7-, and 12-month-old participants were exposed to dynamic facial expressions of a virtual model which either looked at the infant or had an averted gaze. Infants did not match emotion-specific facial actions shown by the model, but they produced valence-congruent facial responses to the distinct expressions. Furthermore, only the 7- and 12-month-olds displayed negative responses to the model’s negative expressions and they looked more at areas of the face recruiting facial actions involved in specific expressions. Our results suggest that valence-congruent expressions emerge in infancy during a period where the decoding of facial expressions becomes increasingly sensitive to the social signal value of emotions. (shrink)

BackgroundThe pursuit of a cure for HIV is a high priority for researchers, funding agencies, governments and people living with HIV (PLWH). To date, over 250 biomedical studies worldwide are or have been related to discovering a safe, effective, and scalable HIV cure, most of which are early translational research and experimental medicine. As HIV cure research increases, it is critical to identify and address the ethical challenges posed by this research.MethodsWe conducted a scoping review of the growing HIV cure (...) research ethics literature, focusing on articles published in English peer-reviewed journals from 2013 to 2021. We extracted and summarized key developments in the ethics of HIV cure research. Twelve community advocates actively engaged in HIV cure research provided input on this summary and suggested areas warranting further ethical inquiry and foresight via email exchange and video conferencing.DiscussionDespite substantial scholarship related to the ethics of HIV cure research, additional attention should focus on emerging issues in six categories of ethical issues: (1) social value (ongoing and emerging biomedical research and scalability considerations); (2) scientific validity (study design issues, such as the use of analytical treatment interruptions and placebos); (3) fair selection of participants (equity and justice considerations); (4) favorable benefit/risk balance (early phase research, benefit-risk balance, risk perception, psychological risks, and pediatric research); (5) informed consent (attention to language, decision-making, informed consent processes and scientific uncertainty); and (6) respect for enrolled participants and community (perspectives of people living with HIV and affected communities and representation).ConclusionHIV cure research ethics has an unfinished agenda. Scientific research and bioethics should work in tandem to advance ethical HIV cure research. Because the science of HIV cure research will continue to rapidly advance, ethical considerations of the major themes we identified will need to be revisited and refined over time. (shrink)

Objetivou-se estratificar fatores de risco para doenças cardiovasculares (DCV) em dez anos em jogadores de basquetebol em cadeiras de rodas. O percentual de risco cardiovascular foi estratificado pelos escores de Framingham (ERF) e de Risco Global (ERG). Dos treze jogadores avaliados, 38,46% apresentava sobrepeso e obesidade e 77%, alterações na porcentagem de gordura corporal e na circunferência abdominal. O ERF identificou 15,38% dos jogadores com risco intermediário para desenvolvimento de DCV e pelo ERG, 15,4% dos homens apresentava risco intermediário, 7,7% (...) alto risco por diabetes e 7,7% muito alto risco por doenças ateroscleróticas. Os resultados de composição corporal demonstram uma predisposição para desenvolvimento de DCV, sendo que o ERG identificou indivíduos com alto risco e muito alto risco. Conclui-se que a identificação dos fatores de risco é útil para que ocorra uma maior prevenção das DCV e aconselhamento adequado sobre adoção de hábitos de vida saudáveis por esses indivíduos. (shrink)

How does science create knowledge? Epistemic cultures, shaped by affinity, necessity, and historical coincidence, determine how we know what we know. In this book, Karin Knorr Cetina compares two of the most important and intriguing epistemic cultures of our day, those in high energy physics and molecular biology. The first ethnographic study to systematically compare two different scientific laboratory cultures, this book sharpens our focus on epistemic cultures as the basis of the knowledge society.

Relational, selfless, caring, polite, nice, and kind are not how we imagine a woman giving birth in U.S. culture. Rather, we picture her as screaming, yelling, self-centered, and demanding drugs or occasionally as numbed and passive from pain-killing medication. Using in-depth interviews with women about their labor and childbirth, the author presents data to suggest that white, middle-class, heterosexual women often worry about being nice, polite, kind, and selfless in their interactions during labor and childbirth. This finding is important not (...) only because it contradicts the dominant cultural image of the birthing woman but because it reveals that an internalized sense of gender plays a role in disciplining women and their bodies during childbirth. The feminist sociological literatures on birth are concerned with how women and their bodies are controlled, yet they have overlooked this other dimension of control that is not institutional but is a product of how gender is internalized. (shrink)

Wheeler Winston Dixon _Visions of the Apocalypse: Spectacles of Destruction in American Culture_ London: Wallflower Press, 2003 ISBN 1-903364-74-4 169 pp.

Volume 19, Issue 4, August 2020, Page 309-313.

Karin Michels Werk hebt sich von der bisherigen Literatur zum Thema deutlich ab, indem sie zeigt, dass Kants Zeittheorie nicht ohne seine Theorie des Raumes und seine Idealismuskritik verständlich zu machen ist. Die Autorin legt eine Rekonstruktion von Kants Beweis der genuinen Subjektivität der Zeit vor. Sie berücksichtigt dabei Beweisform sowie Beweisinhalt und setzt sich außerdem durchgehend mit Kant-Kommentatoren und -kritikern auseinander. Verständlich wird dadurch nicht nur Kants radikaler Neuansatz in der Zeitphilosophie, sondern auch die Bedeutung des Beweises für sein (...) Gesamtprojekt der Vernunftkritik. (shrink)

Late Medieval and Early Modern Fight Books offers insights into the cultural and historical transmission and practices of martial arts, based on the corpus of the Fight Books (Fechtbücher) in 14th- to 17th-century Europe. The first part of the book deals with methodological and specific issues for the studies of this emerging interdisciplinary field of research. The second section offers an overview of the corpus based on geographical areas. The final part offers some relevant case studies. This is the first (...) book proposing a comprehensive state of research and an overview of Historical European Martial Arts Studies. One of its major strengths lies in its association of interdisciplinary scholars with practitioners of martial arts. Contributors are Sydney Anglo, Matthias Johannes Bauer, Eric Burkart, Marco Cavina, Franck Cinato, John Clements, Timothy Dawson, Olivier Dupuis, Bert Gevaert, Dierk Hagedorn, Daniel Jaquet, Rachel E. Kellet, Jens Peter Kleinau, Ken Mondschein, Reinier van Noort, B. Ann Tlusty, Manuel Valle Ortiz, Karin Verelst, and Paul Wagner. (shrink)

In the years 1919 to 1923, Otto Warburg published four papers that were to revolutionise the field of photosynthesis. In these articles, he introduced a number of new techniques to measure the rate of photosynthesis, put forward a new model of the mechanism and added a completely new perspective to the topic by attempting to establish the process’s efficiency in terms of the light quantum requirement. In this paper I trace the roots of Warburg’s series of contributions to photosynthesis research (...) by exploring three different contexts of inspiration: Warburg’s own research into cell respiration, his father’s work on the quantum yield of photochemical reactions in general and the photosynthesis work carried out by Richard Willstätter and Arthur Stoll. When these influences are considered together, it becomes clear that Warburg implemented a Building Block Strategy in his research: rather than inventing his photosynthesis model from scratch, he availed himself of fragments from other contexts, which he then recombined in a new and innovative way. This way of working is considered to be standard practice in scientific research. (shrink)

This book argues that the development of German philosophy from Kant, through post-Kantian German Idealism, to the thought of Franz Rosenzweig, was largely driven by the perceived promise of Kant's philosophy for solving the conflict of reason, but also by its perceived shortcomings in solving this conflict.

One of the most influential scientific treatises in Cauchy's era was J.-L. Lagrange's Mécanique Analytique, the second edition of which came out in 1811, when Cauchy was barely out of his teens. Lagrange opens his treatise with an unequivocal endorsement of infinitesimals. Referring to the system of infinitesimal calculus, Lagrange writes:Lorsqu'on a bien conçu l'esprit de ce système, et qu'on s'est convaincu de l'exactitude de ses résultats par la méthode géométrique des premières et dernières raisons, ou par la méthode analytique (...) des fonctions dérivées, on peut employer les infiniment petits comme un instrument sûr et commode pour abréger et simplifier les demonstrations.Lagrange's renewed enthusiasm for .. (shrink)

The authors of the paper ‘Advance euthanasia directives: a controversial case and its ethical implications’ articulate concerns and reasons with regard to the conduct of euthanasia in persons with dementia based on advance directives. While we agree on the conclusion that there needs to be more attention for such directives in the preparation phase, we disagree with the reasons provided by the authors to support their conclusions. We will outline two concerns with their reasoning by drawing on empirical research and (...) by providing reasons that contradict their assumptions about competence of people with dementia and the importance of happiness in reasoning about advance directives of people with dementia. We will draw attention to the important normative questions that have been overstepped in their paper, and we will outline why further research is required. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 8, August 2020, Page 90-92.

Children and adults with dementia are vulnerable populations. Both groups are also relatively seldom included in biomedical research. However, including them in clinical trials is necessary, since both groups are in need of scientific innovation and new therapies. Their dependence and limited decision-making capacities increase their vulnerability, necessitating extra precautions when including them in clinical trials. Beside these similarities there are also many differences between the groups. The most obvious one is that children have an entire life ahead of them (...) and will become persons with certain ideals and preferences, while adults with dementia have lived a life in which they have expressed their ideals and preferences. Some of the available research guidelines recognize these differences, setting one list of specific requirements for groups of incapacitated adults and another list for children. Other documents, however, do not differentiate and only set requirements for subjects unable to consent as a single category of subjects. In this article we analyse to what extent the similarities and differences between the two groups are represented in legal documents and ethical guidelines. The article presents an overview and an analysis of the requirements for doing research with children and dementia patients. We conclude with suggestions about how to better incorporate the morally relevant aspects of these two groups in legislation and ethical guidelines. (shrink)

El resurgir en los últimos años de los movimientos feministas en todo el mundo ha llevado a numerosas autoras a hablar de una cuarta ola del feminismo. Este es también el caso de España, donde ha tomado fuerza no solo el movimiento feminista autónomo sino también la participación de grupos y activistas feministas en diferentes protestas, movimientos sociales e incluso partidos políticos. Ejemplo de ello fue la alta implicación de activistas feministas en el movimiento 15-M, muchas de las cuales dieron (...) posteriormente el paso a la representación política, entrando a formar parte de partidos de nueva creación como Podemos. Esta participación constituye una muestra de su compromiso por el cambio social y del reconocimiento de la interseccionalidad de opresiones, pero también exige un complejo ejercicio de reconstrucción y defensa del espacio feminista. Precisamente, en este artículo proponemos el análisis de los debates en torno a propuestas y estrategias que han mantenido las feministas de Podemos que, después de haber militado en movimientos sociales, han decidido colaborar con esta plataforma política. (shrink)