Differences in undergraduate students' perceptions of unequal status dating relationships in academia were investigated. Two hundred sixty college undergraduates from a private northeastern university evaluated three types of dating relationships: (a) professor-undergraduate student, (b) professor-graduate assistant, and (c) graduate assistant-undergraduate student. Fictional scenarios were used to assess participants' perceptions of the three types of dating relationships. Responses were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. Quantitative results indicated the professor-undergraduate student dating relationship was labeled unethical whereas the qualitative results revealed a possible (...) gender effect. (shrink)

People remember disgusting stimuli better than fearful stimuli, but do disgust’s memory-enhancing effects extend to involuntary memory? This question is important because disgust reactions occur following trauma, and trauma-related involuntary memories are a hallmark of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptoms. In two experiments, we presented participants (n = 88 Experiment 1; n = 106 Experiment 2) with disgust, fear, and neutral images during an attention-monitoring task. Participants then completed an undemanding vigilance task, responding any time an image involuntarily came to (...) mind. We measured the frequency and characteristics of these involuntary memories (e.g. emotional intensity) immediately after encoding and over a 24-hour delay (Experiment 2 only). Our main findings were mixed: participants experienced similarly frequent (Experiment 2) – or more (Experiment 1) – disgust as fear involuntary memories. Therefore, when controlling for memory-enhancing confounds (e.g. distinctiveness), in-laboratory disgust memory enhancement does not extend to involuntary memory. Disgust memories were more emotionally intense than fear memories over the 24-hour delay– but not immediately after encoding – suggesting disgust elicits additional consolidation processes to fear. Participants paid more attention towards the disgust images, but the attention did not account for the memory of disgust. In sum, disgust and fear have both similar and distinct cognitive effects. (shrink)

Whether “information” exists in biology, and in what sense, has been a topic of much recent discussion. I explore Shannon, Dretskean, and teleosemantic theories, and analyze whether or not they are able to give a successful naturalistic account of information—specifically accounts of meaning and error—in biological systems. I argue that the Shannon and Dretskean theories are unable to account for either, but that the teleosemantic theory is able to account for meaning. However, I argue that it is unable to account (...) for error. Thus I conclude that while talk of informational meaning is justifiable within a naturalistic framework, talk of informational error is not, and must be used in a metaphorical sense only. (shrink)

Ejes de la territorialidad patriarcal -- Fronteras y antifaces del signo mujer -- En el flujo heterogéneo de la liberación.

The importance of working memory in reading and mathematics performance has been widely studied, with recent research examining the components of WM and their roles in these educational outcomes. However, the differing relationships between these abilities and the foundational skills involved in the development of reading and mathematics have received less attention. Additionally, the separation of verbal, visual and spatial storage and processing and subsequent links with foundational skills and downstream reading and mathematics has not been widely examined. The current (...) study investigated the separate contributions of processing and storage from verbal, visual and spatial tasks to reading and mathematics, whilst considering influences on the underlying skills of verbal comprehension and counting, respectively. Ninety-two children aged 7- to 8-years were assessed. It was found that verbal comprehension was predicted by verbal storage and reading was predicted by verbal and spatial storage. Counting was predicted by visual processing and storage, whilst mathematics was related to verbal and spatial storage. We argue that resources for tasks relying on external representations of stimuli related mainly to storage, and were largely verbal and spatial in nature. When a task required internal representation, there was a draw on visual processing and storage abilities. Findings suggest a possible meaningful separability of types of processing. Further investigation of this could lead to the development of an enhanced WM model, which might better inform interventions and reasonable adjustments for children who struggle with reading and mathematics due to WM deficits. (shrink)

Food-specific inhibition training (FSIT) is a computerised task requiring response inhibition to energy-dense foods within a reaction-time game. Previous work indicates that FSIT can increase the number of healthy foods (relative to energy-dense foods) children choose, and decrease calories consumed from sweets and chocolate. Across two studies, we explored the impact of FSIT variations (e.g., different response signals, different delivery modes) on children’s food choices within a time-limited hypothetical food-choice task. In Study 1, we varied the FSIT Go/No-Go signals to (...) be emotive (happy vs. sad faces) or neutral (green vs. red signs). One-hundred-and-fifty-seven children were randomly allocated to emotive-FSIT, neutral-FSIT, or a non-food control task. Children participated in groups of 4–15. No significant FSIT effects were observed on food choices (all values ofp> 0.160). Healthy-food choices decreased over time regardless of condition (p 0.050). Healthy choices decreased over time in the control group (p= 0.001) but did not change in the two FSIT groups (bothp> 0.300) supporting previous evidence that FSIT may have a beneficial effect on children’s food choices. Ensuring that children perform FSIT with high accuracy (e.g., by using FSIT in quiet environments and avoiding group-testing) may be important for impacts on food choices though. Future research should continue to explore methods of optimising FSIT as a healthy-eating intervention for children. (shrink)

This review is primarily concerned with two key issues in research on dystrophin: (1) how the protein interacts with the plasma membrane of skeletal muscle fibres and (2) how an absence of dystrophin gives rise to Duchenne muscular dystrophy. In relation to the first point, we suggest that the post‐translational acylation of dystrophin may contribute to its interaction with the plasma membrane. Regarding the second point, it is generally considered that an absence of dystrophin makes the plasma membrane susceptible to (...) damage by contraction/relaxation cycles. In this connection, we propose that the progressive nature of Duchenne dystrophy, and the phenotypic characteristics of mdx mice, are more consistent with dystrophin functioning as a mechanical transducer that transmits growth stimuli from the enlarging skeleton to the muscle. On the basis of this hypothesis, dystrophin‐deficient muscles would be unable to grow at the same rate as the skeleton. (shrink)

Historically, researchers divided over whether the diverse representations of reality across languages were natural or conventional, but all tacitly assumed an optimal fit between language and reality. Twentieth century anthropological linguists interested in linguistic relativity have questioned this assumption and sought to characterize "reality" without it by using domain- or structure-centered approaches.

Ontic structuralists claim that there are no individual objects, and that reality should instead be thought of as a “web of relations”. It is difficult to make this metaphysical picture precise, however, since languages usually characterize the world by describing the objects that exist in it. This paper proposes a solution to the problem; I argue that when discourse is reformulated in the language of the calculus of relations ‐ an algebraic logic developed by Alfred Tarski ‐ it can be (...) interpreted without presupposing the existence of objects. What is distinctive about the language of the calculus is that it contains no operator that resembles a quantifier, and yet it can be used to paraphrase any sentence expressible in first‐order logic. Since the use of a first‐order quantifier (or some similar operator) is usually what establishes commitment to an ontology of objects, and since the calculus of relations eschews the quantifier in favor of a composition operator that can be given a natural interpretation consistent with structuralist metaphysics, the calculus is an ideal language for the structuralist to use to describe the world. (shrink)

Background At the beginning of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, many non-Covid healthcare services were suspended. In April 2020, the Department of Health in England mandated that non-Covid services should resume, alongside the continuing pandemic response. This ‘resetting’ of healthcare services created a unique context in which it became critical to consider how ethical considerations did (and should) underpin decisions about integrating infection control measures into routine healthcare practices. We draw on data collected as part of the ‘NHS Reset Ethics’ project, (...) which explored the everyday ethical challenges of resetting England’s NHS maternity and paediatrics services during the pandemic. Methods Healthcare professionals and members of the public participated in interviews and focus group discussions. The qualitative methods are reported in detail elsewhere. The focus of this article is our use of Frith’s symbiotic empirical ethics methodology to work from our empirical findings towards the normative suggestion that clinical ethics should explicitly attend to the importance of relationships in clinical practice. This methodology uses a five-step approach to refine and develop ethical theory based on a naturalist account of ethics that sees practice and theory as symbiotically related. Results The Reset project data showed that changed working practices caused ethical challenges for healthcare professionals, and that infection prevention and control measures represented harmful barriers to the experience of receiving and offering care. For healthcare professionals, offering care as part of a relational interaction was an ethically important dimension of healthcare delivery. Conclusions Our findings suggest that foregrounding the importance of relationships across a hospital community will better promote the ethically important multi-directional expression of caring between healthcare professionals, patients, and their families. We offer two suggestions for making progress towards such a relational approach. First, that there is a change of emphasis in clinical ethics practice to explicitly acknowledge the importance of the relationships (including with their healthcare team) within which the patient is held. Second, that organisational decision-making should take into account the moral significance afforded to caring relationships by healthcare professionals, and the role such relationships can play in the negotiation of ethical challenges. (shrink)

Like any discipline, bioethics is a developing field of academic inquiry; and recent trends in scholarship have been towards more engagement with empirical research. This ‘empirical turn’ has provoked extensive debate over how such ‘descriptive’ research carried out in the social sciences contributes to the distinctively normative aspect of bioethics. This paper will address this issue by developing a practical research methodology for the inclusion of data from social science studies into ethical deliberation. This methodology will be based on a (...) naturalistic conception of ethical theory that sees practice as informing theory just as theory informs practice – the two are symbiotically related. From this engagement with practice, the ways that such theories need to be extended and developed can be determined. This is a practical methodology for integrating theory and practice that can be used in empirical studies, one that uses ethical theory both to explore the data and to draw normative conclusions. (shrink)

Ce texte a déjà paru dans B. Lindorfer & D. Naguschewski, Hegel. Zur Sprache. Beiträge zur europäischen Sprachreflexion, Tübingen, Gunter Narr Verlag, 2002. Nous remercions Lucie Bourassa ainsi que les éditeurs de nous avoir autorisé à le reproduire ici. On a maintes fois relevé des affinités entre la poétique de Mallarmé et la philosophie de Hegel. Le poète a vraisemblablement lu des textes du philosophe, il a du moins pris connaissance de quelques-unes de ses propositions grâce à son ami - (...) Linguistique et théorie du langage – Nouvel article. (shrink)

The ethical conduct of research rests largely on researchers, and as such, an understanding of how they perceive and enact their role in research is paramount. However, the literature around ethics and research mostly focuses on researchers’ perception of Research Ethics Boards roles and functions. To fill that gap, we analyzed the perceptions of researchers, REB members, and influential parties about researchers’ role in the ethical conduct of research through discourse analysis. Three discourses emerged: researchers as reflective practitioners, protectors of (...) participants, and technicians. Understanding the commonalities and differences among the discourses may foster a shared and compelling institutional research culture. (shrink)

Lucy Allais presents an original interpretation of Kant's transcendental idealism. She argues that his distinction between things in themselves and things as they appear to us has both epistemological and metaphysical components. Kant is committed to a genuine idealism about things as they appear to us, but this is not a phenomenalist idealism. He is committed to the claim that there is an aspect of reality that grounds mind-dependent spatio-temporal objects, and which we cannot cognize, but he does not (...) assert the existence of distinct non-spatio-temporal objects. On Allais's account, we cannot understand Kant's idealism without a clear account of his notion of intuition and of the role of intuition in cognition: she understands Kantian intuitions as representations that give us acquaintance with the objects of thought. This enables us to make sense of Kant's central argument for his idealism in the Transcendental Aesthetic, and to see why he takes the complete idealist position to be established there. (shrink)

Environmental issues involve a wide range of actors often brought together in processes of collaborative environmental governance. Nonetheless, such actors frequently disagree on the definition of these issues. Even sharing an environmental concern does not preclude disagreements. This paper takes the concept of ecological embeddedness—so far analyzed in a single community—to explore differences of views among actors involved in collaborative environmental governance. It does so by pursuing a qualitative study of French River Basin Committees. Our findings show that Basin Committee (...) members take radically different approaches to ecological matters and therefore put forward opposing diagnoses and prognoses of their shared ecological context. We identify three dimensions of ecological embeddedness that are critical for collaborative governance, namely: ecological engagement; ecological ontology; and ecological knowledge. Our results indicate that different forms of ecological embeddedness can fuel long-lasting disagreements despite members’ shared appreciation of collaboration. This is especially so if the deliberations focus on ‘facts’—with actors pitting their ecological knowledge against one another—without facilitating discussions on ecological engagement and ontology. (shrink)

Social support networks play a key role in human livelihood security, especially in vulnerable communities. Here we explore how evolutionary ideas of kin selection and intrahousehold resource competition can explain individual variation in daily support network size and composition in a south-central Ethiopian agricultural community. We consider both domestic and agricultural help across two generations with different wealth-transfer norms that yield different contexts for sibling competition. For farmers who inherited land rights from family, firstborns were more likely to report daily (...) support from parents and to have larger nonparental kin networks. Compared with other farmers, firstborns were also more likely to reciprocate their parents’ support, and to help nonparental kin without reciprocity. For farmers who received land rights from the government, middle-born farmers reported more nonparental kin in their support networks compared with other farmers; nonreciprocal interactions were particularly common in both directions. This suggests a diversification of adult support networks to nonparental kin, possibly in response to a long-term parental investment disadvantage of being middle-born sons. In all instances, regardless of inheritance, lastborn farmers were the most disadvantaged in terms of kin support. Overall, we found that nonreciprocal interactions among farmers followed kin selection predictions. Direct reciprocity explained a substantial part of the support received from kin, suggesting the importance of the combined effects of kin selection and reciprocity for investment from kin. (shrink)

A new therapeutic strategy could break the stalemate in the war on cancer by targeting not all cancerous cells but the small fraction that lie at the root of cancers. Lucie Laplane offers a comprehensive analysis of cancer stem cell theory, based on an original interdisciplinary approach that combines biology, biomedical history, and philosophy.

This book places the European Referendum of 2016 into a historical context that began in the late nineteenth century through to the present day. It provides a constitutional and international perspective, and ask how far the original ideas lying behind the referendum were fulfilled in practice.

This article looks at the positioning of the aesthetic in microscopy to understand how it can be both side-lined and deployed. It considers the boundary between the pictorial and the notational in current microscopy practice and speculates on a space of mutual relation. Microscopy’s dual threads of capture for data analysis and capture for publication reveal complicated relationships and conflicted stances, reflective of a broader iconoclastic tendency in microscopy where the image as enacted perception is erased while the notation generated (...) and carried by these images is preserved. This article seeks to suggest a space in which phenomena are situated, materially embedded and emergent through imaging practices. I ground my position on experimental imaging of bacterial iridescence to consider the entanglement of microscopy’s living image with its processes of making-seen. Microscopy is instrumental in supporting descriptive-explanatory claims on biological life yet is also implicated in the generation of novel, hybrid phenomena and sensibilities. Exploring both tendencies exposes a microscopy of permeable membranes and suggests alternative orientations through microscopy practice and its images. (shrink)

In the early 1990s, Microcebus murinus, a small primate endemic to Madagascar, emerged as a potential animal model for the study of aging and Alzheimer’s disease. This paper traces the use of the lesser mouse lemur in research on aging and associated neurodegenerative diseases, focusing on a basic material precondition that made this possible, namely, the conversion of a wild animal into an experimental organism that lives, breeds, and survives in the laboratory. It argues that the “old” mouse lemur model (...) can be considered as an eco-zootechnical acquisition. This is shown by examining how, since the early 1970s, French mouse lemur researchers have articulated colony productivity and viability with the influence of environmental factors on the demographics and physiology of the species. The appearance and maintenance of a growing number of old mouse lemurs in French research facilities are related to three developments: the application of the ecological notion of “social stress” to the understanding and management of the behavior of the captive population; the experimental demonstration that a variety of seasonal physiological changes in the species were influenced by the photoperiod; and the related attempt to accelerate aging in mouse lemurs through the manipulation of annual light conditions. (shrink)

Uncertainty is a pervasive feature in natural resource management. Adaptive management, an approach that focuses on identifying critical uncertainties to be reduced via diagnostic management experiments, is one favored approach for tackling this reality. While adaptive management is identified as a key method in the environmental management toolbox, there remains a lack of clarity over when its use is appropriate or feasible. Its implementation is often viewed as suitable only in a limited set of circumstances. Here we restructure some of (...) the ideas supporting this view, and show why much of the pessimism around AM may be unwarranted. We present a new framework for deciding when AM is appropriate, feasible, and subsequently successful. We thus present a new paradigm for adaptive management that shows that there are no categorical limitations to its appropriate use, the boundaries of application being defined by problem conception and the resources available to managers. In doing so we also separate adaptive management as a management tool, from the burden of failures that result from the complex policy, social, and institutional environment within which management occurs. (shrink)

Anscombe thought that practical knowledge – a person’s knowledge of what she is intentionally doing – displays formal differences to ordinary empirical, or ‘speculative’, knowledge. I suggest these differences rest on the fact that practical knowledge involves intention analogously to how speculative knowledge involves belief. But this claim conflicts with the standard conception of knowledge, according to which knowledge is an inherently belief-involving phenomenon. Building on John Hyman’s account of knowledge as the ability to use a fact as a reason, (...) I develop an alternative, two-tier, epistemology which allows that knowledge might really come in a belief-involving and an intention-involving form. (shrink)

This work tests two conflicting views about double standards: whether they reflect evolved sex differences in behavior or a manipulative morality serving male interests. Two questionnaires on jealous reactions to mild (flirting) and serious (cheating) sexual transgressions were randomly assigned to 172 young women and men. One questionnaire assessed standards for appropriate behavior and perceptions of how young women and men usually react. The second asked people to report how they had reacted or, if naive, how they would react. The (...) questions concerned anger at and blame of partner and rival and the self-oriented responses of loss of self-esteem, feelings of hurt, and fear of losing the partner. As predicted by the idea of manipulative morality, both sexes advanced sets of double standards that serve the interests of their own sex at the expense of the opposite sex. Much of the data contradict the idea of a match between double standards and evolved sex differences. First, subjects who set self-serving double standards did not perceive gender differences in jealous reactions. Second, there were few gender differences in judgments regarding jealous responses. Third, in contrast with the familiar double standard, women were more aggressively reactive to a flirting rival than men. Fourth, self-reports of the strength of aggressive jealous reactions suggest that women’s behavior is stronger than the prescriptions for it. These data suggest that double standards represent a communication strategy which assists men’s control of women. The data on jealous reactions were interpreted in terms of the degree of threat to fitness posed by infidelity in different situations. (shrink)

BackgroundThe Health Research Council of New Zealand is the first major government funding agency to use a lottery to allocate research funding for their Explorer Grant scheme. This is a somewhat controversial approach because, despite the documented problems of peer review, many researchers believe that funding should be allocated solely using peer review, and peer review is used almost ubiquitously by funding agencies around the world. Given the rarity of alternative funding schemes, there is interest in hearing from the first (...) cohort of researchers to ever experience a lottery. Additionally, the Health Research Council of New Zealand wanted to hear from applicants about the acceptability of the randomisation process and anonymity of applicants.MethodsThis paper presents the results of a survey of Health Research Council applicants from 2013 to 2019. The survey asked about the acceptability of using a lottery and if the lottery meant researchers took a different approach to their application.ResultsThe overall response rate was 39%, with 30% from applicants in the years 2013 to 2018, and 68% for those in the year 2019 who were not aware of the funding result. There was agreement that randomisation is an acceptable method for allocating Explorer Grant funds with 63% in favour and 25% against. There was less support for allocating funds randomly for other grant types with only 40% in favour and 37% against. Support for a lottery was higher amongst those that had won funding. Multiple respondents stated that they supported a lottery when ineligible applications had been excluded and outstanding applications funded, so that the remaining applications were truly equal. Most applicants reported that the lottery did not change the time they spent preparing their application.ConclusionsThe Health Research Council’s experience through the Explorer Grant scheme supports further uptake of a modified lottery. (shrink)

On 17 May 2016 Lucy Welsh interviewed Annelise Riles about her work on the relationship between law and time as part of Welsh’s involvement with the AHRC Regulating Time network. Annelise Riles is the Jack G. Clarke Professor of Law in Far East Legal Studies and Professor of Anthropology at Cornell, and is Director of the Clarke Program in East Asian Law and Culture. Her work examines the transnational dimensions of laws, markets and culture across the fields of comparative (...) law, conflict of laws, the anthropology of law, public international law and international financial regulation. Most recently Professor Riles has been examining the nature and meaning of the settlement made on the so-called Comfort Women, and what impact that has for locating events in the past. The Comfort Women were Korean women who were essentially captured and forced to work as sexual slaves for the Japanese army during World War Two. In 2015, Japanese and South Korean ministers agreed a settlement in what they regarded as an irreversible and final settlement of the issue. Welsh and Riles exchange over their mutual interests in time and routinisation in this interview as they discuss what the story of the Comfort Women has to tell us. (shrink)

Craig Callender claims that ‘time is the great informer’, meaning that the directions in which our ‘best’ physical theories inform are temporal. This is intended to be a metaphysical claim, and as such expresses a relationship between the physical world and information-gathering systems such as ourselves. This article gives two counterexamples to this claim, illustrating the fact that time and informative strength doubly dissociate, so the claim cannot be about physical theories in general. The first is a case where physical (...) theories inform in directions that we have no reason to regard as temporal. The second is a case where our best physical theories fail to inform in directions that we have independent (pre-theoretic) reasons to regard as temporal. Taking these two cases into account suggests that the connection Callender makes between time and informativeness is perspectival. The second case demonstrates that although scientists often seek information in temporal directions, the behaviour of the physical world can present serious difficulties for finding it. In response, this article proposes a perspectival reading of Callender’s claim, according to which the connection between time and informative strength has more to do with the aims and objectives of science than the workings of the physical world. (shrink)

This article is concerned with a discussion of the plausibility of the claim that GM technology has the potential to provide the hungry with sufficient food for subsistence. Following a brief outline of the potential applications of GM in this context, a history of the green revolution and its impact will be discussed in relation to the current developing world agriculture situation. Following a contemporary analysis of malnutrition, the claim that GM technology has the potential to provide the hungry with (...) sufficient nourishment will be discussed within the domain of moral philosophy to determine whether there exists a moral obligation to pursue this end if and only if the technology proves to be relatively safe and effective. By using Peter Singer’s duty of moral rescue, I argue that we have a moral duty to assist the third world through the distribution of such GM plants. I conclude the paper by demonstrating that my argument can be supported by applying a version of the Precautionary Principle on the grounds that doing nothing might be worse for the current situation. (shrink)

Vivre avec la douleur neuropathique chronique lorsqu’elle est prise en charge par la stimulation de la moelle épinière (SME), laquelle est un type de technologie de neuromodulation, est une expérience dans laquelle différents vécus s’enchevêtrent. En m’appuyant sur le travail de terrain de type ethnographique que j’ai mené dans un hôpital néerlandais en 2012, je mobilise un cadre phénoménologique pour m’intéresser aux trois dimensions entrelacées qui constituent un tel vécu. Rendre compte de ce que signifie vivre avec la SME ne (...) peut se faire sans prendre en considération les expériences antérieures avec la douleur neuropathique chronique et avec la douleur neuropathique chronique prise en charge par des médicaments analgésiques. Si elles appartiennent a priori au passé, ces expériences sous-tendent ce qui peut être envisagé, et ce qui est craint, dans le présent et le futur. Alors que la douleur neuropathique chronique et la douleur neuropathique chronique prise en charge par des antalgiques perturbent l’intentionnalité corporelle de celles et ceux qui en font l’expérience (“je ne peux pas”), la SME est vécue comme une “reconstruction du monde,” lequel est, cette fois, défini par “je peux.” Un tel accomplissement n’est cependant ni aisé ni absolu. Au contraire, il exige qu’une attention soutenue soit portée au corps et à ses sensations. De même, bien vivre avec la douleur neuropathique chronique prise en charge par la SME demande un “travail de désenchevêtrement” (Oudshoorn, 2020) vis-à-vis d’autres objets technologiques potentiellement dangereux et vis-à-vis du regard des autres. “Je peux / je ne peux pas” n’est pas un trait du corps douloureux uniquement; il est aussi lié aux effets invalidants de l’environnement sociomatériel, lesquels font émerger des “inadaptations / inadapté.e.s” (Garland-Thomson, 2011). (shrink)