Cells express many proteins that bind to laminin, the major adhesive component of basement membranes. Some of these, specifically integrins, function as transmembrane receptors that ‘signal’ the presence of laminin on the cell surface to the cytoplasm. Lectins constitute a second class of laminin binding proteins that may augment integrin function by interacting with laminin carbohydrate. Caution must be used in ascribing functions to other laminin binding proteins, especially cytosolic proteins.

This research addresses the question of whether men and women in sales differ in their ethical attitudes and decision making. The study asked 209 subjects to respond to 20 ethical scenarios, half of which were "relational" and half "non-relational." The study concludes (1) that there are significant ethical differences between the sexes in situations that involve relational issues, but not in non-relational situations, and (2) that gender-based ethical differences change with age and years of experience. The implications of these finding (...) for sales organizations are discussed. (shrink)

Chaotic itinerancy is useful for illustrating transitions in attractor dynamics seen in the olfactory system. Cantor coding is a good model for information processing, but so far it lacks perceptual proof. The theories presented provide a large step toward bridging the use of chaos as an interpretive tool and hard examination of chaotic neural activity during perception.

In team-based tasks, successful communication and mutual understanding are essential to facilitate team coordination and performance. It is well-established that an important component of human conversation is the maintenance of common ground. Maintaining common ground has a number of associated processes in which conversational participants engage. Many of these processes are lacking in current synthetic teammates, and it is unknown to what extent this lack of capabilities affects their ability to contribute during team-based tasks. We focused our research on how (...) teams package information within a conversation, by which we mean specifically whether information is explicitly mentioned or implied, and how multiple pieces of information are ordered both within single communications and across multiple communications. We re-analyzed data collected from a simulated remotely-piloted aerial system task in which team members had to specify speed, altitude, and radius restrictions. The data came from three experiments: the “speech” experiment, the “text” experiment, and the “evaluation” experiment. We asked first whether teams settled on a specific routine for communicating the speed, altitude, and radius restrictions, and whether this process was different if the teams communicated in speech compared to text. We then asked how receiving special communication instructions in the evaluation experiment impacted the way the human teammates package information. We found that teams communicating in either speech or text tended to use a particular order for mentioning the speed, altitude, and radius. Different teams also chose different orders from one another. The teams in the evaluation experiment, however, showed unnaturally little variability in their information ordering and were also more likely to explicitly mention all restrictions even when they did not apply. Teams in the speech and text experiments were more likely to leave unnecessary restrictions unmentioned, and were also more likely to convey the restrictions across multiple communications. The option to converge on different packaging routines may have contributed to improved performance in the text experiment compared some of the conditions in the evaluation experiment. (shrink)

Colorado has consistently had one of the highest rates of suicide in the United States, and El Paso County has the highest number of suicide and firearm-related suicide deaths within the state. Community-based solutions like those of the Suicide Prevention Collaborative of El Paso County may be more effective in preventing suicide as they are specific to local issues, sensitive to local culture, and informed by local data, community members, and stakeholders.

Psychologists and philosophers have recently been exploring whether the mechanisms which underlie the acquisition of ‘theory of mind’ (ToM) are best charac- terized as cognitive modules or as developing theories. In this paper, we attempt to clarify what a modular account of ToM entails, and why it is an attractive type of explanation. Intuitions and arguments in this debate often turn on the role of develop- ment: traditional research on ToM focuses on various developmental sequences, whereas cognitive modules are thought (...) to be static and ‘anti-developmental’. We suggest that this mistaken view relies on an overly limited notion of modularity, and we explore how ToM might be grounded in a cognitive module and yet still afford development. Modules must ‘come on-line’, and even fully developed modules may still develop internally, based on their constrained input. We make these points con- crete by focusing on a recent proposal to capture the development of ToM in a module via parameterization. (shrink)

Several bioethical topics received a great deal of news coverage here in Scotland in 2009. Three important issues with transatlantic connections are the swine flu outbreak, which was handled very differently in Scotland, England and America; the US debate over healthcare reform, which drew the British NHS into the controversy; and the release to Libya of the Lockerbie bomber, which at first glance might not seem particularly bioethical, but which actually hinged on the very public discussion of the prisoner’s medical (...) records. On a national level, there have been attempts in both Scotland and England to change the law on assisted suicide, where success looks more likely than ever. This paper will discuss each of these issues, and hopefully raise awareness of how these issues were dealt with in the UK and its component countries. (shrink)

Number concepts must support arithmetic inference. Using this principle, it can be argued that the integer concept of exactly ONE is a necessary part of the psychological foundations of number, as is the notion of the exact equality - that is, perfect substitutability. The inability to support reasoning involving exact equality is a shortcoming in current theories about the development of numerical reasoning. A simple innate basis for the natural number concepts can be proposed that embodies the arithmetic principle, supports (...) exact equality and also enables computational compatibility with real- or rational-valued mental magnitudes. (shrink)

Oncologists frequently have to break bad news to patients. Although they are not normally the ones who tell patients that they have cancer, they are the ones who have to tell patients that treatment is not working, and they are almost always the ones who have to tell them that they are going to die and that nothing more can be done to cure them. Perhaps the most difficult cases are those where further treatment is almost certainly futile, but there (...) remains an extremely slim chance of yet more aggressive treatment having a near-miraculous effect. In such situations, it can be difficult for the oncologist to decide how to explain things to the patient, and how much to tell them. It can also be very difficult to achieve the correct balance between respecting the patient’s autonomy and not exposing them to harm. This paper examines an example of one such case and makes three suggestions. First, that respecting autonomy cannot be achieved by maximising information-sharing only to deny patients the chance to make decisions based on that information; second, that the simplistic application of the principles of nonmaleficence and respect for autonomy can lead to erroneous conclusions about the most ethical course of action; and third, that there is an extra reason, in addition to respecting patients’ autonomy, for attempting near-futile last-ditch interventions: when treating rare conditions, useful evidence can be generated that will benefit future patients. (shrink)

Oncologists frequently have to break bad news to patients. Although they are not normally the ones who tell patients that they have cancer, they are the ones who have to tell patients that treatment is not working, and they are almost always the ones who have to tell them that they are going to die and that nothing more can be done to cure them. Perhaps the most difficult cases are those where further treatment is almost certainly futile, but there (...) remains an extremely slim chance of yet more aggressive treatment having a near-miraculous effect. In such situations, it can be difficult for the oncologist to decide how to explain things to the patient, and how much to tell them. It can also be very difficult to achieve the correct balance between respecting the patient's autonomy and not exposing them to harm. This paper examines an example of one such case and makes three suggestions. First, that respecting autonomy cannot be achieved by maximizing information sharing only to deny patients the chance to make decisions based on that information; second, that the simplistic application of the principles of non-maleficence and respect for autonomy can lead to erroneous conclusions about the most ethical course of action; and third, that there is an extra reason, in addition to respecting patients' autonomy, for attempting near-futile last-ditch interventions: when treating rare conditions, useful evidence can be generated that will benefit future patients. (shrink)

Researchers now commonly collect biospecimens for genomic analysis together with information from mobile devices and electronic health records. This rich combination of data creates new opportunities for understanding and addressing important health issues, but also intensifies challenges to privacy and confidentiality. Here, we elucidate the “web” of legal protections for precision medicine research by integrating findings from qualitative interviews with structured legal research and applying them to realistic research scenarios involving various privacy threats.

A path space integral approach to modelling the job description of the cerebellum is proposed. This new approach incorporates the equation into a kind of generalized Huygens's wave equation. The resulting exponential functional integral provides a mathematical expression of the inhibitory function by which the cerebellum the intended control signal from the background of neuronal excitation.

To say that coronavirus is highly visible is a massive understatement in terms of its omnipresence in our lives and media coverage concerning it, yet also clearly untrue in terms of the virus itself. COVID-19 is our invisible enemy, changing our lives radically without ever revealing itself directly. In this paper I explore its invisibility and how it relates to and exposes other invisible enemies we are and have been fighting, in many cases without even realizing. First, I analyse the (...) virus itself and how its stealthy nature has transformed our lives. Second, I describe how the invisible epidemic of social media sharing of fake news about the virus worsens the situation further. Third, I explore how the virus has revealed to us what really matters in our lives and has forced us to re-evaluate our priorities. Fourth, I go on to explore the underlying structural weaknesses and disparities in society that have been exposed by the virus but previously remained unconsidered for so long that they too have become camouflaged, even if their effects are all too apparent; like the virus, neoliberal capitalism is an invisible enemy that has made prisoners of us all. I conclude by suggesting that the coronavirus pandemic represents a hidden opportunity to overcome perhaps the biggest invisible enemy of all: the moral distance that separates us from others. Only by rendering the rest of humanity morally visible to ourselves can we overcome capitalism and stop treating other people as invisible enemies. (shrink)

This paper examines the relationship between participation and motion with respect to the natural philosophy of the "Phaedo". Aristotle’s criticism of participation and its failure to account for motion shows the relevance of the dialogue to this problem. Challenging Aristotle’s critique, I interpret the "Phaedo" as offering a possible solution to the question of how forms cause motion in material beings. The verb ὀρέγεσθαι at 65c8, 75a2, and 75b1, together with the active ὀρέγειν at 117b2, ground an account of ontological (...) striving as a solution to the difficulties inherent in participation within the literary context of the dialogue. (shrink)

In the last few years, off-line simulation has become an increasingly important alternative to standard explanations in cognitive science. The contemporary debate began with Gordon (1986) and Goldman's (1989) off-line simulation account of our capacity to predict behavior. On their view, in predicting people's behavior we take our own decision making system `off line' and supply it with the `pretend' beliefs and desires of the person whose behavior we are trying to predict; we then let the decision maker reach a (...) decision on the basis of these pretend inputs. Figure 1 offers a `boxological' version of the off-line simulation theory of behavior prediction.(1). (shrink)

Discussions of surface pattern in Islamic art resonate within broader tensions about the role of figural representation in communicating meaning. The question of whether geometric pattern communicates—whether it functions as a language without a code—reflects broader tensions about the relationship between secular and spiritual communication. Poised between discussions of modernism and Islam, the attribution of linguistic capacity to geometry serves as a measure for the possibility of abstracting pure reason from the religious roots of representationalism. This paper explores this question (...) in four parts. First, it examines the articulation of geometric meaning in Islamic discourses. It then explores European discussions of geometry between language and ornament poised between a search for universal reason and universal spiritualism, both in modernist painting and in modern exhibitions. The final section the expressive capacity of artistic responses to historical Islamic isometric geometries in the adaptive reuse of historical Iranian arts as contemporary abstraction in the sculptures of Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian and in the popular transformation prints of M. C. Escher. It argues that the frequent recognition of intrinsic meaning in geometry, expressed in both premodern Islamic and modern secular interpretations, undermines art historical expectations of theorization as a necessary intermediary for communication. Geometry thereby functions as a language without a code. (shrink)

In The Global Financial Crisis, contributors argue that the complexity of the Global Financial Crisis challenges researchers to offer more comprehensive explanations by extending the scope and range of their traditional investigations.

The question 'Why should I obey the law?' introduces a contemporary puzzle that is as old as philosophy itself. The puzzle is especially troublesome if we think of cases in which breaking the law is not otherwise wrongful, and in which the chances of getting caught are negligible. Philosophers from Socrates to H.L.A. Hart have struggled to give reasoned support to the idea that we do have a general moral duty to obey the law but, more recently, the greater number (...) of learned voices has expressed doubt that there is any such duty, at least as traditionally conceived. (shrink)

The reward infrastructure in science centres on publication, in which journal editors play a key role. Reward distribution hinges on value assessments performed by editors, who draw from plural value systems to judge manuscripts. This conceptual paper examines the numerous biases and other factors that affect editorial decisions. Hybrid and often conflicting value systems contribute to an infrastructure in which editors manage reward through editorial review, commissioned commentaries and reviews and weighing of peer review judgments. Taken together, these systems and (...) processes push the editor into a role resembling censorship. Editors and authors both experience this phenomenon as an unintended side-effect of the reward infrastructure in science. To work towards a more constructive editor-author relationship, we propose a conversation, an exchange between editor and author in which value is collectively assessed as obligatory passage points in the publishing process are traversed. This paper contributes to the discourse on editorial practices by problematising editorial paradigms in a new way and suggesting solutions to entrenched problems. (shrink)

IntroductionThis editorial introduces this special issue of the Journal of Bioethical Inquiry on global health by presenting an analysis of the ethical implications of the Glasgow effect, the curious phenomenon whereby inhabitants of Scotland’s largest city have substantially higher mortality rates than their counterparts in similar British cities, despite adjustment for factors such as socioeconomic status, obesity, smoking, drinking, and drug use. The Glasgow effect represents a health inequality that cannot currently be addressed, as its causes are as yet unidentified. (...) As such, it raises several ethical issues. Parents may even have an ethical obligation to move their children away from Glasgow to prevent them being affected by the effect.The Glasgow effect is perhaps the most perplexing health inequality. It represents unfairness with an unknown cause and is composed of several different elements. The most basic fact is that socioeconomically disadvantaged people are worse of .. (shrink)