This paper provides a glimpse of some different theoretical frameworks and empirical methods in the author's search for theories and practices that might improve the utility and usability of computer artifacts. The essay touches on some problematic aspects of currently accepted theories and techniques in the cognitive sciences, especially in their application to the field of human-computer interaction, and mentions some alternative conceptions based on a cultural-historical approach. The intent is to widen the nature of the debate about appropriate frameworks (...) for discussing human activities especially when we discuss design activities in the context of computer systems development. The paper concludes with some suggestions for more fruitful research directions that involve the active participation of those for whom the research is ostensibly being done, and a greater emphasis on understanding how artifact design and use are inextricably intertwined. (shrink)

Background 300 million operations and procedures are performed annually across the world, all of which require a patient’s informed consent. No standardised measure of the consent process exists in current clinical practice. We aimed to define a core outcome set for informed consent for therapy. Methods The core outcome set was developed in accordance with a predefined research protocol and the Core OutcoMes in Effectiveness Trials methodology comprising systematic review, qualitative semi structured interviews, a modified Delphi process and consensus webinars (...) to ratify outcomes for inclusion in the final core outcome set.. Participants from all key stakeholder groups took part in the process, including patients and the public, healthcare practitioners and consent researchers. Results 36 outcome domains were synthesised through systematic review and organised into a consent taxonomy. 41 semi-structured interviews were performed with all consent stakeholders groups. 164 participants from all stakeholder groups across 8 countries completed Delphi Round 1 and 125 completed Round 2. 11 outcomes met the ‘consensus in’ criteria. 6 met ‘consensus in’ all stakeholder groups and were included directly in the final core outcome set. 5 remaining outcomes meeting ‘consensus in’ were ratified over two consensus webinars. 9 core outcomes were included in the final core outcome set: Satisfaction with the quality and amount of information, Patient feeling that there was a choice, Patient feeling that the decision to consent was their own, Confidence in the decision made, Satisfaction with communication, Trust in the clinician, Patient satisfaction with the consent process, Patient rated adequacy of time and opportunity to ask questions. Conclusion This international mixed-methods qualitative study is the first of its kind to define a core outcome set for informed consent for intervention. It defines what outcomes are of importance to key stakeholders in the consent process and is a forward step towards standardising future consent research. (shrink)

PTEN‐induced kinase 1 (PINK1) is a Parkinson's disease gene that acts as a sensor for mitochondrial damage. Its best understood role involves phosphorylating ubiquitin and the E3 ligase Parkin (PRKN) to trigger a ubiquitylation cascade that results in selective clearance of damaged mitochondria through mitophagy. Here we focus on other physiological roles of PINK1. Some of these also lie upstream of Parkin but others represent autonomous functions, for which alternative substrates have been identified. We argue that PINK1 orchestrates a multi‐arm (...) response to mitochondrial damage that impacts on mitochondrial architecture and biogenesis, calcium handling, transcription and translation. We further discuss a role for PINK1 in immune signalling co‐ordinated at mitochondria and consider the significance of a freely diffusible cleavage product, that is constitutively generated and degraded under basal conditions. (shrink)

The use of hydraulic fracturing (‘fracking’) to extract oil or gas from shales is a subject of controversy. There are many scientific questions about the risks associated with the technique, and much research remains to be done. ReFINE (Researching Fracking In Europe) is a research consortium led by Newcastle University and Durham University in the UK, focusing on the environmental impacts of shale gas and oil exploitation using fracking methods. The project was established to answer questions raised by members of (...) the public across Europe on the risks of fracking. It aims to inform the debate surrounding fracking by undertaking scientific research, which will be peer-reviewed and openly accessible. This case study discusses the structure of ReFINE and the issues associated with using funding from oil and gas companies to support the research. (shrink)

The current study examined the effects of cardiorespiratory fitness, identified with a continuous graded cycle ergometry, and aerobic exercise on cognitive functioning and entropy of the electroencephalogram (EEG) in 30 adolescents between the ages of 13 and 14 years. Higher and lower fit participants performed an executive function task after a bout of acute exercise and after rest while watching a film. EEG entropy, using the sample entropy measure, was repeatedly measured during the 1500ms post-stimulus interval to evaluate changes in (...) entropy over time. Analysis of the behavioural data for lower and higher fit groups revealed an interaction between fitness levels and acute physical exercise. Notably, lower fit, but not higher fit, participants had higher error rates for NoGo relative to Go trials in the rest condition, whereas in the acute exercise condition there were no differences in error rates between groups; higher fit participants also had significantly faster reaction times in the exercise condition in comparison with the rest condition. Analysis of EEG data revealed that higher fit participants demonstrated lower entropy post-stimulus than lower fit participants in the left frontal hemisphere, possibly indicating increased efficiency of early stage stimulus processing and more efficient allocation of cognitive resources to the task demands. The results suggest that EEG entropy is sensitive to stimulus processing demands and varies as a function of physical fitness levels, but not acute exercise. Physical fitness, in turn, may enhance cognition in adolescence by facilitating higher functionality of the attentional system in the context of lower levels of frontal EEG entropy. (shrink)

Metabolic pathways underlying brain function remain largely unexplored during neurodevelopment, predominantly due to the lack of feasible techniques for use with awake infants. Broadband near-infrared spectroscopy provides the opportunity to explore the relationship between cerebral energy metabolism and blood oxygenation/haemodynamics through the measurement of changes in the oxidation state of mitochondrial respiratory chain enzyme cytochrome-c-oxidase alongside haemodynamic changes. We used a bNIRS system to measure ΔoxCCO and haemodynamics during functional activation in a group of 42 typically developing infants aged between (...) 4 and 7 months. bNIRS measurements were made over the right hemisphere over temporal, parietal and central cortical regions, in response to social and non-social visual and auditory stimuli. Both ΔoxCCO and Δ[HbO2] displayed larger activation for the social condition in comparison to the non-social condition. Integration of haemodynamic and metabolic signals revealed networks of stimulus-selective cortical regions that were not apparent from analysis of the individual bNIRS signals. These results provide the first spatially resolved measures of cerebral metabolic activity alongside haemodynamics during functional activation in infants. Measuring synchronised changes in metabolism and haemodynamics have the potential for uncovering the development of cortical specialisation in early infancy. (shrink)

Political theorists have increasingly sought to place Plato in active dialogue with democracy ancient and modern by examining what S. Sara Monoson calls “Plato’s democratic entanglements.” More precisely, Monoson, J. Peter Euben, Arlene Saxonhouse, Christina Tarnopolsky, and Jill Frank approach Plato as both an immanent critic of the Athenian democracy and a searching theorist of self-governance. In this guide through the Political Theory archive, we explore “entanglement approaches” to the study of Plato, outlining their contribution to our understanding of Plato’s (...) political thought and to the discipline of political theory. (shrink)

Literatures of Madness: Disability Studies and Mental Health brings together scholars working in disability studies, mad studies, feminist theory, Indigenous studies, postcolonial theory, Jewish literature, queer studies, American studies, trauma studies, and comics to create an intersectional community of scholarship in literary disability studies of mental health. The collection contains essays on canonical authors and lesser known and sometimes forgotten writers, including Sylvia Plath, Louisa May Alcott, Hannah Weiner, Mary Jane Ward, Michelle Cliff, Lee Maracle, Joanne Greenberg, Ann Bannon, (...) Jerry Pinto, Persimmon Blackridge, and others. The volume addresses the under-representation of madness and psychiatric disability in the field of disability studies, which traditionally focuses on physical disability, and explores the controversies and the common ground among disability studies, anti-psychiatric discourses, mad studies, graphic medicine, and health/medical humanities. (shrink)

Traditionalism is a shadowy philosophy that has influenced much of the twentieth century and beyond: from the far-right to the environmental movement, from Sufi shaykhs and their followers to Trump advisor and right-wing provocateur Steve Bannon. It is a worldview that rejects modernity and instead turns to mystical truth and tradition as its guide. Mark Sedgwick, one of the world's leading scholars of Traditionalism, presents a major new analysis, pulling back the curtain on the foundations of Traditionalist philosophy, its (...) major proponents-René Guénon, Julius Evola, and Frithjof Schuon-and their thought. One of Traditionalism's fundamental pillars is perennialism, the idea that beneath all the different forms of religion there lies one single timeless and esoteric tradition. A second is the view that everything is getting worse, rather than better, over time, leading to the Traditionalist critique of modernity. Sedgwick details Traditionalism's unique ideas about self-realization, religion, politics, and many other spheres. Traditionalism provides an expansive guide to this important school of thought-one that is little-known and even less understood-and shows how pervasive these ideas have become. (shrink)

Peter Singer argues that when some fail to do their part in alleviating suffering, the rest of us must take up their slack. In response, L. J. Cohen, Liam Murphy, and David Miller argue that such a requirement would be unfair. No one, they contend, should be required to contribute more than she would be required to under full compliance. I argue against Cohen, Murphy, and Miller that we are obligated to take up slack left by noncontributors, but agree (...) that we are thereby treated unfairly. Drawing on the literatures on group causation and moral responsibility, I argue that noncontributors wrong those they fail to help and those who take up their slack. I refer to the latter kind of wrong as “burden dumping.” Furthermore, I argue that my account applies whether we conceive of rescue duties as discretionary or nondiscretionary. One might think that if my duties to rescue do not require me to contribute to any particular rescue effort, I do not dump burdens on anyone when I do nothing. In reply, I argue that when I have a nondiscretionary duty to contribute to a particular rescue effort, I unfairly dump burdens on those contributing to that effort when I fail to do my part. Similarly, when my duty to rescue is discretionary and I do nothing, I unfairly dump burdens on everyone whose rescue efforts I might have contributed to. Using this apparatus, we can account for the force of arguments such as Singer’s as well as the idea that those who dump burdens are blameworthy for treating other rescuers unfairly. (shrink)

In studying Plato’s Crito with a primary concern for Plato's friend Crito, this book reveals the rarity of the philosopher, the tension between the citizen’s natural understanding of justice and the city’s necessary understanding of justice, and how one might attempt to ease this tension.

What duties do people have in the face of noncompliance of others with their duties? The paper defends the duty to take up the slack when slack taking is necessary to assist those in dire need. This duty has been criticized by J. L. Cohen, Liam Murphy and, more recently, David Miller. The duty is defended against arguments that appeal to the structure of the duty to aid, fair shares, responsibility, counterintuitiveness, and perverse consequences. The paper considers the implications (...) of the duty for the case of aiding refugees. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:REVIEW SYMPOSIUM 327 claims. And both these tasks, perhaps more especially the former, are of urgent importance for the Christian theological community today. University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana PAUL J. GRIFFITHS WII,LIAM CHRISTIAN AND COMMUNITY DOCTRINES W ILLIAM CHRISTIAN'S book Doctrines of Religious Communities * is a vital contribution to the philosophy of religion, for a number of reasons. First, it goes beyond the individualism that (...) secretly underlies much writing in the field, where in effect the reader is invited to make judgments in isolation. Here he consciously addresses the problems raised by supposing realistically that we are dealing for the most part with more or less recognizable traditions and subtraditions embodied in various communities. Second, the logic of doctrinal claims has not been explored systematically before in relation to both their truth (or rightness, where they incorporate practical tenets) and their authenticity, as genuine do.ctrines of a given community. Third, the book raises some vital questions about the present shape of the world. For instance, the way in which the analysis fits non-religious but analogous cases (e.g. Romanian Marxism) is important; as also the question of how modern eclecticism fits into the picture. Moreover, it leads us to reflect on what happens when a community cannot decide whether certain doctrines or claims are authentic. One of the models Christian contemplates is represented as T/R-A, namely "}'or any sentence (s), ifs is true or right, then s is an authentic doctrine of the community": he offers this as a logical possibility though it is quite doubtful if any community holds it. He uses it to illuminate the alternative A-T/R. It is possible of course to make T/R-A more plausible by placing a restriction on the kind of truth or rightness involved, namely if it "New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987. 328 REVIEW SYMPOSIUM were in the same class as community doctrines, as defining a worldview and mode of conduct. Most truths of science would not be included, but some generalizations might he, e.g. statements about the srale of the universe or the evolution of homo sapiens which might be held to possess existential impact and a cosmological significance relevant to humanity's "place" in the universe. Christian deals with such problems in treating what he describes as alien secular claims, that is, claims which arise out of secular knowledge, and which may attract a positive evaJuation from the religious community. The evaluation itself would belong to the community 's doctrines and it would (let us suppose) commend the findings of science, for example as aiding a more discriminating worship of the Creator. But I think there is a discomfort in spiritual and intellectual life which arises because we typically belong to more than one community. Let us look upon the most typical primary communities as being four in number-the religious (or ideological) community, the nation, the world of science and practical knowledge, and humanity as a whole. the last is less developed in much human consciousness, but it is at least flickeringly there in most human beings. In modem times loyalties have been sectionalized by the nation State, which is manifested in a mosaic across the planet's surface embracing all human beings. Now it is often the case, and was more so in the past, that nation and religion were made artificially to coincide: to be an English citizen was to be an Anglican: as now you are supposed to be a Marxist if you are a Romanian. At the same time in most countries, through the agency of the State, there is universal education in which to some degree or other a person is inducted into the community of science and practical knowledge. The different communities tend to be in conflict, and so the individual is easily tom. Let me first, before tackling these issues, say a word about the notions of religion and ideology. It appears to me obvious that in many respects ideologies such as Marxism fulfil a function, or set of functions, very similar to those fulfilled by religions. Moreover, Marxisms are often in severe conflict with, and opposition to, religions... (shrink)

J. L. Ackrill; VIII*—Aristotle's Definitions of Psuche, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 73, Issue 1, 1 June 1973, Pages 119–134, https://doi.org.

In this book, J.H. Plumb investigates the way that humankind has, since the beginning of recorded time, molded the past to give sanction to their institutions of government, their social structure and morality. The past has also been called upon to explain the nature of our destiny in order both to strengthen the objectives of society and to reconcile us to our lot. J.H. Plumb questions this sanction of the past, the force that it has on our sense of destiny (...) and its relevance to our own times. This classic text is now reissued with a new introduction by Niall Ferguson, placing it within a contemporary context, and with a new foreword by the eminent historian Simon Schama, a former student of J.H.Plumb himself. (shrink)

With an intellectual autobiography by Hans J. Morgenthau.

To be free is to escape all limitations and obstacles—or so we think at first. But if we probe further, we discover that freedom embraces its own necessities, a set of conditions without which it could not exist. _Freedom's Embrace_ explores these necessities of freedom. J. Melvin Woody surveys competing conceptions of freedom and traces debates about the nature and reality of freedom to confusions about knowledge, humanity, and nature that are rooted in some of the most fundamental assumptions of (...) modern Western thought. The preemption of freedom as an exclusively human privilege with all nature relegated to mechanical necessity is a fatal error that renders both humanity and nature equally unintelligible. What distinguishes human beings from other animals is not freedom but the use of symbols, which vastly extends the range of available options and enables us to envision freedom as an ideal by which customary institutions and norms may be judged and transformed. By carefully surveying its necessary conditions and limitations, Woody reconciles the salient competing conceptions of freedom and weaves them together into a richer and broader theory that resolves old controversies and opens the way toward an ethics of freedom that can meet the challenges of relativism and nihilism that arise from recognizing the historicity and malleability of culture. (shrink)

In a discussion-note in Mind, Father P. M. Farrell, O.P., gave an account, in what he admitted to be an embarrassingly brief compass, of the Thomist doctrine concerning evil. There is one sentence in this discussion which at first glance appears paradoxical. Father Farrell has been arguing that a universe containing ‘corruptible good’ as well as incorruptible is better than one containing ‘incorruptible good’ only. He continues: ‘If, however, they are to manifest this corruptible good, they must be corruptible and (...) they must sometimes corrupt.’ The final words, despite Father Farrell's italics, strike one as expressing, not a self-evident truth, but a non sequitur. The fact that I am capable of committing murder does not entail that I will at some time commit it. It is not immediately obvious that a similar entailment holds in the case of corruption and corruptibility. (shrink)

J. J. Valberg; VIII*—Improper Singular Terms, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 71, Issue 1, 1 June 1971, Pages 121–146, https://doi.org/10.1093/a.

J. Robert Oppenheimer, a leading physicist in the Manhattan Project, recognized that scientific inquiry and discovery could no longer be separated from their effect on political decision-making, social responsibility, and human endeavor in general. He openly addressed issues of common concern and as a scientist accepted the responsibility brought about by nuclear physics and the atom bomb. In this collection of essays and speeches, Oppenheimer discusses the shift in scientific awareness and its impact on education, the question of openness in (...) a society forced to keep secrets, the conflict between individual concerns and public and political necessity, the future of science and its effects on future politics---in short, the common and uncommon sense we find in our modern day reality. (shrink)