There is increasing evidence that dynamic changes to chromatin, chromosomes and nuclear architecture are regulated by RNA signalling. Although the precise molecular mechanisms are not well understood, they appear to involve the differential recruitment of a hierarchy of generic chromatin modifying complexes and DNA methyltransferases to specific loci by RNAs during differentiation and development. A significant fraction of the genome-wide transcription of non-protein coding RNAs may be involved in this process, comprising a previously hidden layer of intermediary genetic information that (...) underpins developmental ontogeny and the differences between species, ecotypes and individuals. It is also evident that RNA editing is a primary means by which hardwired genetic information in animals can be altered by environmental signals, especially in the brain, indicating a dynamic RNA-mediated interplay between the transcriptome, the environment and the epigenome. Moreover, RNA-directed regulatory processes may also transfer epigenetic information not only within cells but also between cells and organ systems, as well as across generations. (shrink)

The House Sparrow (Passer domesticus), formerly a common bird species, has shown a rapid decline in Western Europe over recent decades. In The Netherlands, its decline is apparent from 1990 onwards. Many causes for this decline have been suggested that all decrease the vital rates, i.e. survival and reproduction, but their actual impact remains unknown. Although the House Sparrow has been dominant in The Netherlands, data on life history characteristics for this bird species are scarce: data on reproduction are non-existent, (...) and here we first present survival estimates based on live encounters and dead recoveries of marked individuals over the period 1976–2003, 14 years before and 14 years during the decline, reported to the Dutch Ringing Centre. We show that there is an indication that both juvenile and adult survival are lower during the period of decline. Secondly, to be able to analyse the relative impact of changes in the vital rates, we formulated a general matrix model based on a range of survival values between zero and one with a step size of 0.01 (both juvenile and adult yearly survival) and a range of realistic reproduction values (one, three or five fledglings per pair per year). With the matrix model, we calculated the finite rate of population change (λ) and applied elasticity analysis. To diagnose the cause of the decline in the Dutch House Sparrow, we parameterised the model with estimates of survival values before and during the decline and present the resulting λ. With the survival estimates from the declining period, λ < 1 only if reproduction is relatively low. We discuss this result within the light of available literature data on survival in the House Sparrow. Finally, we evaluate which of the suggested causes of population decline should be reversed to mitigate the decline and how this can be achieved. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAt present, the consequences and functions of experiences of shame are not yet well understood. Whereas psychology literature typically portrays shame as being bad for social relations, motivating social avoidance and withdrawal, there are recent indications that shame can be reinterpreted as having clear social tendencies in the form of motivating approach and social affiliation. Yet, until now, no research has ever put these alternative interpretations of shame-motivated behaviours directly to the test. The present paper presents such a test by (...) studying the extent to which shame motivates a preference for social withdrawal versus a preference for social approach. Two studies using different shame inductions both showed people experiencing shame to prefer to be together with others over being alone. In addition, the preference for a social situation was found to be unique for shame; it was not found for the closely related emotion of gui... (shrink)

In 2004 a survey was conducted in the member states of the European Union designed to gain greater insight into the views on control strategies for foot and mouth disease, classical swine fever, and avian influenza with respect to the epidemiological, economic and social-ethical consequences of each of these animal diseases. This article presents the results of the social-ethical survey. A selection of stakeholders from each member state was asked to prioritize issues for the prevention and control of these diseases. (...) A majority of stakeholders chose preventive measures as the preferred issue. An analysis was done to determine whether there were differences in views expressed by stakeholders from member states with a history of recent epidemics and ones without such a history, and whether there were regional differences. There were no differences between member states with or without a history of recent epidemics. There were indeed regional differences between the priority orders from Northern and Southern Europe on the one hand, and from Eastern Europe on the other. (shrink)

This article examines the role of experimental generalizations and physical laws in neuroscientific explanations, using Hodgkin and Huxley’s electrophysiological model from 1952 as a test case. I show that the fact that the model was partly fitted to experimental data did not affect its explanatory status, nor did the false mechanistic assumptions made by Hodgkin and Huxley. The model satisfies two important criteria of explanatory status: it contains invariant generalizations and it is modular (both in James Woodward’s sense). Further, I (...) argue that there is a sense in which the explanatory heteronomy thesis holds true for this case. †To contact the author, please write to: SNF‐Professorship for Philosophy of Science, University of Basel, Missionsstrasse 21, 4003 Basel, Switzerland; e‐mail: marcel.weber@unibas.ch. (shrink)

Shame has been found to promote both approach and withdrawal behaviours. Shame theories have not been able to explain how shame can promote such contrasting behaviours. In the present article, the authors provide an explanation for this. Shame was hypothesised to activate approach behaviours to restore the threatened self, and in situations when this is not possible or too risky, to activate withdrawal behaviours to protect the self from further damage. Five studies with different shame inductions and different dependent measures (...) confirmed our predictions. We therefore showed that different behavioural responses to shame can be understood in terms of restore and protect motives. Implications for theory and behavioural research on shame are discussed. (shrink)

The recent literature on causality has seen the introduction of several distinctions within causality, which are thought to be important for understanding the widespread scientific practice of focusing causal explanations on a subset of the factors that are causally relevant for a phenomenon. Concepts used to draw such distinctions include, among others, stability, specificity, proportionality, or actual-difference making. In this contribution, I propose a new distinction that picks out an explanatorily salient class of causes in biological systems. Some select causes (...) in complex biological systems, I argue, have the property of enabling coherent causal control of these systems. Examples of such control variables include hormones and other signaling molecules, e.g., TOR (target of rapamycin), morphogens or the products of homeotic selector genes in embryonic pattern formation. I propose an analysis of this notion based on concepts borrowed from causal graph theory. (shrink)

Emerging infectious diseases such as Ebola, Hendra, SARS, West Nile, Hepatitis E and avian influenza have led to a renewed recognition of how diseases in human beings, wildlife and livestock are interlinked. The changing prevalence and spread of such infections are largely determined by human activities and changes in environment and climate—where the latter are often also caused by human activities. Since the beginning of the 21st century, these insights have been brought together under the heading of OneHealth—a concept that (...) calls for interdisciplinary collaboration between various sciences as well as professional practices to promote and protect the health of human and non-human animals and the natural environment. Just as insights from public health have led to a broadened focus for health policy and medical care, from treating individual patients to protecting and promoting population health, OneHealth calls for an even broader perspective, including a concern for the environment and animals, and for social-cultural factors that affect human, animal and environmental health. OneHealth not only covers collaborative work to understand and control zoonotic diseases, but also other ways in which interactions between animals, plants and humans may positively or negatively impact on each other’s health. Thus, studies in veterinary medicine and environmental sciences may lead to new insights in human medicine, and vice versa. Acknowledgment of the links between environmental, animal and social health is of course not a novel insight. Hippocrates already pointed to the importance of a clean environment as a requirement for good health; the early public health movements emphasized hygienic living conditions including good-quality housing, sewage systems and clean air and water; and the founders of modern medicine such as William Osler and Rudolf Virchow promoted …. (shrink)

Background In the last years, there has been an increase in publication of systematic reviews of normative literature or of normative information in bioethics. The aim of a systematic review is to search, select, analyse and synthesise literature in a transparent and systematic way in order to provide a comprehensive and unbiased overview of the information sought, predominantly as a basis for informed decision-making in health care. Traditionally, one part of the procedure when conducting a systematic review is an appraisal (...) of the quality of the literature that could be included. Main text However, while there are established methods and standards for appraising e.g. clinical studies or other empirical research, quality appraisal of normative literature in the context of a systematic review is still rather a conundrum – not only is it unclear how it could or should be done, but also the question whether it necessarily must be done is not settled yet. Based on a pragmatic definition of “normative literature” as well as on a typology of different types of systematic reviews of normative literature/information, this paper identifies and critically discusses three possible strategies of conducting quality appraisal. Conclusions The paper will argue that none of the three strategies is able to provide a general and satisfying solution to the problems associated with quality appraisal of normative literature/information. Still, the discussion of the three strategies allows outlining minimal conditions that elaborated strategies have to meet in future, and facilitates sketching a theoretically and practically promising strategy. (shrink)

""Comment un philosophé a-t-il pu surgir des buissons corréziens?" C'est avec cette interrogation que Marcel Conche retrouve son pays natal. Qu'importe si la maison de son enfance ne ressemble plus à celle qu'il a connue et aimée. Il a fait sienne la philosophie dépouillée d'Épicure : la voie du bonheur passe par la réalisation des désirs naturels et nécessaires et le dédain des désirs vains. Alternant souvenirs d'enfance, chronique du monde paysan au début du XXe siècle, évocations de ses (...) amours et réflexions philosophiques, Marcel Conche nous offre ici une lumineuse leçon de vie et de sagesse."--Résumé de l'éditeur. (shrink)

" Ce qu'il y a de plus beau, de plus désirable sans doute au monde, c'est l'impossible, l'invraisemblable dans la mesure où on les réalise, où on les vit. " Les Eléments pour une éthique, comme chaque livre de Marcel Jouhandeau, ne sont pas ce qu'ils paraissent. On s'attend à recevoir une leçon de morale, et c'est une leçon de style qui nous est ici donnée. A soixante-sept ans, lorsqu'il publie ce texte (1955), Marcel Jouhandeau ne s'est pas (...) résigné à une sagesse de circonstance. Vivre, nous dit-il, nous sermonne-t-il plutôt, tel un prêtre hérétique, implique des règles esthétiques autant que des principes éthiques. Car mener une vie droite, c'est avant tout rester en quête du moment sublime, jouir de la " surprise d'exister ", c'est s'offrir un relais à l'Eternel. Dans une langue moins épurée que Bossuet ou La Rochefoucauld, Jouhandeau nous offre ici un bréviaire pour l'impossible. (shrink)

Esta conferencia de 1951, impartida por Gabriel Marcel en Marruecos, Brasil y otros países latinoamericanos, tiene dos pilares sobre los que está construida: la muerte y la intersubjetividad. Ambos corresponden a la inquietud que llevó a este autor a la filosofía: “¿Dónde están los muertos?”. O, en otras palabras: ¿Es posible sobrevivir a la muerte? Estas preguntas son producidas por la turbación que ge-nera el separarse de los seres amados, pues la unión intersubjetiva que se alcanza con ellos y (...) que se experimenta como plenitud, se ve allí comprometida. De hecho, este vínculo particular hace que Marcel distinga el plano de lo intersubjetivo de lo objetivo. Con base en ello, rechaza comprender la muerte del ser amado como si fuera éste un objeto para tratarlo como un sujeto –un tú–, abriendo así un camino diferente de reflexión sobre la inmortalidad. (shrink)

Biological modalities, i.e., biologically possible, impossible, or necessary states of affairs have not received much attention from philosophers. Yet, it is widely agreed that there are biological constraints on physically possible states of affairs, such that not everything that is physically possible is also biologically possible, even if everything that is biologically possible is also physically possible. Furthermore, biologists use concepts that appear to be modal in nature, such as the concept of evolvability in evolutionary developmental biology, or “evo-devo.” The (...) present chapter investigates what kind of modality underlies the concept of evolvability. This concept tries to capture the capacity of an organism or a lineage to sustain genetic changes that enable it to evolve or to evolve adaptively. The basic idea of the proposed approach is to construe evolvability as a kind of accessibility in a modal space. The difficult part is to specify this modal space and the relevant accessibility relation. While there may not be a general way of defining such a relation, there exist model systems for which it is possible, e.g., evolving small RNAs. The modal space in such cases turns out to be quite distinct from those constructed by philosophers, e.g., David Lewis’s similarity metric for possible worlds. Even though the biological case examined here is quite special, attending to the way in which biological possibilities are modeled in this case harbors some general lessons about biological modalities, in particular their dependence on the explanatory goals of the models modeling modality. (shrink)

Marcel Paquet croit au projet de constitution d'une Europe unie dans la démocratie en lutte contre les nationalismes et l'universalisme. Un nouveau moment de l'histoire européenne se prépare : l'éthico-politique.

La 4ème de couverture indique : "Notre époque fait le grand écart entre des connaissances ouvrant sur une utopie galopante et d'autres annonciatrices d'un abîme lié au modèle de développement qui domine le monde. La contradiction est béante. Un terme, celui de "transition écologique", est mobilisé, qui fait office de mot d'ordre pour la résoudre. Puisant dans l'histoire des deux siècles hérités de ladite "Révolution industrielle", Marcel Jollivet esquisse le chemin de la prise de conscience des risques que l'humanité (...) encourt en raison de ses agissements. Il en ressort l'importance du rôle que la société civile et la recherche ont joué dans cette prise de conscience. La radicalité des mutations sociétales à accomplir fait que la transition qui s'impose ne sera "écologique", au sens strict du terme, que si elle est appropriée par les citoyens. Il faut pour cela qu'advienne une véritable "démocratie technique et écologique participative". Cet avènement ne se produira que s'il est imposé par une mobilisation des forces vives de la société civile qui en portent le projet. En tant que participant de ces forces vives, les chercheurs ont tout particulièrement à s'interroger sur leur façon d'y contribuer. L'approfondissement du dialogue entre eux et la "société civile organisée" est la cheville ouvrière de la mobilisation nécessaire.". (shrink)

I examine different arguments that could be used to establish indeterminism of neurological processes. Even though scenarios where single events at the molecular level make the difference in the outcome of such processes are realistic, this falls short of establishing indeterminism, because it is not clear that these molecular events are subject to quantum mechanical uncertainty. Furthermore, attempts to argue for indeterminism autonomously (i.e., independently of quantum mechanics) fail, because both deterministic and indeterministic models can account for the empirically observed (...) behavior of ion channels. (shrink)

This paper examines causal theories of reference with respect to how plausible an account they give of non-physical natural kind terms such as ‘gene’ as well as of the truth of the associated theoretical claims. I first show that reference fixism for ‘gene’ fails. By this, I mean the claim that the reference of ‘gene’ was stable over longer historical periods, for example, since the classical period of transmission genetics. Second, I show that the theory of partial reference does not (...) do justice to some widely held realist intuitions about classical genetics. This result is at loggerheads with the explicit goals usually associated with partial theories of reference, which is to defend a realist semantics for scientific terms. Thirdly, I show that, contrary to received wisdom and perhaps contrary to physics and chemistry, neither reference fixism nor partial reference are necessary in order to hold on to scientific realism about biology. I pinpoint the reasons for this in the nature of biological kinds, which do not even remotely resemble natural kinds (i.e., Lockean real essences) as traditionally conceived. (shrink)

[1] Avec des "si" -- 2. Oisivetés -- 3. Noms -- 4. Diversités -- 5. Corsica.

Diario metafisico (1928-1933)--Abbozzo di una fenomenologia dell'avere.--Rilievi sull'irreligione contemporanea.--Riflessioni sulla fede.--Lineamenti di una filosofia concreta.--Nota.--Nota bio-bibliografica (p. 199-200).

Apresenta o desenvolvimento sustentável como uma utopia possível. Expõe as reflexões de pesquisadores que levantam críticas e apontam caminhos para a revisão do papel da universidade, da ciência e das políticas públicas.

Enigmatología es el término que ha sido usado para designar el estudio de los puzzles en la cultura humana. La estructura poética de los puzzles implica que quien intenta resolverlos debe literalmente imaginar escenarios que trasciendan un razonamiento lineal. En tiempo de Vico, el cartesianismo dominaba la escena académica de la época, haciendo que la vieja tradición, centrada en el estudio de la lengua y la literatura perdiera terreno frente a un énfasis puesto en la matemática, la filosofía crítica y (...) las ciencias. Los puzzles eran considerados como productos de un pensamiento lógico-racional. Pocos los consideraron como productos de una fuerza creativa más fundamental. El concepto de fantasia de Vico vino a proporcionar una poderosa estructura explicativa para comprender cualquier ingenio enigmatológico.Enigmatology is the term that has been used to designate the study of puzzles in human cultures. The poetic structure of puzzles implies that they require the solver to literally imagine scenarios in ways that transcend linear reasoning. In Vico's times, Cartesianism dominated the academic scene of the day, causing the older tradition, centered on the study of language and literature, to lose ground to an emphasis on mathematics, critical philosophy, and the sciences. Puzzles were viewed as products of rational-logical thinking. Few saw them as products of a more fundamental creative force. Vico's concept of fantasia came forward to provide a powerful explanatory framework for understanding enigmatological artifacts. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage interroge le penser épistémologique de K.R. Popper, à la fois dans ses fondements et dans son déploiement, en posant deux questions épistémo-logiques : celle du " paradoxe méthodologique" et celle de " l'exigence d'élargissement de la formule de la croissance du savoir scientifique.".

RESUMO Com base na noção de currículo como uma arena de embates discursivos, este artigo tem por objetivo principal analisar de que modo a Base Nacional Comum Curricular de Língua Portuguesa e Literaturas compreende os conceitos de fruição e de leitor-fruidor. Com efeito, é nossa intenção compreender como a ideia de leitura literária é proposta por esse documento oficial curricular. Para tanto, as habilidades e conteúdos indicados pela Base Nacional Comum Curricular foram analisados a partir de uma perspectiva metodológica interpretativista (...) e sob a perspectiva dialógica de análise do discurso desenvolvida pelo Círculo de Bakhtin. ABSTRACT Based on the notion of curriculum as an arena of discursive clashes, this paper aims at verifying how the Base Nacional Comum Curricular [Common Core] for Portuguese Language and Literature understands the concepts of fruition and reader-in-fruition. Indeed, it is our intention to understand the very idea of literary reading proposed by this official curriculum document. For this purpose, the skills and contents indicated by BNCC were analyzed from an interpretive research methodology view and under the dialogic perspective for discourse analysis developed by the Bakhtin Circle. (shrink)

This ar ti cle pres ents cer tain el e ments of what has been called the lan guage phi los o phy of Wittgenstein ac cord ing to re cent stud ies car ried out in sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics. Among these el e ments, a prag matic vi sion of lan guage and inter-sub jec tive forms of life..

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:GOD, EMOTION, AND CORPOREALITY: A THOMIST PERSPECTIVE 1 MARCEL SAROT University of Utrecht Utrecht, The Netherlands I. Introduction WHEN WE TAKE" impassibility" to mean" immutbility with regard to one's feelings or the quality of ne's inner life," 2 the number of adherents to the doctrine of divine impassibility has continuously decreased during the present century. Slowly but surely the concept of an immutable and impassible God has given (...) way to the concept of a sensitive, emotional, passionate God. Before the Second World War this tendency was restricted to British theology,3 but since then it has spread to the rest of Europe, notably to France and Ger1 A first draft of this paper was presented at a meeting of the Aquinas Research Group of the Catholic Theological University of Utrecht (The Netherlands ) in May, 1990. I would like to thank the other participants for their useful comments. The paper also profited from the valuable comments of Prof. Dr. Vincent Brummer and Dr. Christoph Schwi:ibel. The writing of this paper forms part of a research project on divine passibility, supported by the Dutch Research Foundation for Theology and Religious Studies (STEGON), and funded by the Netherlands Organization for the Advancement of Research (NWO). 2 I have argued for this definition in my article " Patripassianism, Theopaschitism and the Suffering of God: Some Historical and Systematic Considerations," Religious Studies 26 (1990) : 363-375. a See A. van Egmond, De Lijdende God in de Britse Theologie van de Negentiende Eeuw: De Bijdrage van Newman, Maurice, McLeod Campbell en Gore aan de Christelijke Theopaschitische Traditie (Amsterdam: VU Uitgeverij, 1986); J. Kenneth Mozley, The Impassibility of God: A Survey of Christian Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1926), pp. 127-166; Doctrine in the Church of England: The Report of the Commission o·n Christian Doctrine Appointed by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York in 1922 (London: SPCK, 1938), pp. 55-56. 61 62 MARCEL SAROT many, to the United States and to Asia.4 By now most of the theologians who explicitly state their views on divine impassibility hold that this doctrine is to a greater or lesser degree false, and Ronald Goetz rightly asserts "that the rejection of the ancient doctrine of divine impassibility has become a theological commonplace." 5 Nevertheless the debate on this issue is not yet closed. Recently Richard Creel published a thorough study in defense of divine impassibility,6 which, I expect, will prove quite influential. Other theologians who defend the doctrine can be cited as well.7 To a large extent, the arguments which these theologians put forward in favor of divine impassibility are taken from the classic Christian theological texts. Among these, the writings of Aquinas are not the least important and no one will be surprised to hear that he is frequently cited in this connection. However, what has surprised me in my study of the debate on the issue of divine impassibility is that one of the most important arguments Aquinas 4 On passibilist tendencies in modern theology, see Richard Bauckham, " ' Only the Suffering God Can Help ' : Divine Passibility in Modern Theology," Themelios 9 (1984) : 6-12; Warren McWilliams, The Passio1i of God: Divine Swffering in Contemporary Protestant Theology (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1985); Van Egmond, De Lijdende God, pp. 28-31, and "Theopaschitische Tendenzen in de Na-Oorlogse Protestantse Theologie," Gereformeerd Theologisch Tijdschrift 79 (1979): 161-177; Marcel Sarot, "De Passibilitas Dei in de Hedendaagse Westerse Theologie: Een Literatuuroverzicht," Kerk en Theologie 40-3 (1989) : 196-206. 5 Ronald Goetz, "The Suffering God: The Rise of a New Orthodoxy," The Christian Century 103 (1986): 385. Also see the literature cited in the preceding note. 6 Richard E. Creel, Divine Impassibility: An Essay in Philosophical Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986). 7 See, for instance, Brian Davies, Thinking about God (London: Chapman, 1985), pp. 155-158; William J. Hill, "Does Divine Love Entail Suffering in God?," in: B. L. Clarke & E. T. Long, eds., God and Temporality (New York: Paragon House, 1984), pp. 55-71 ; id., " The Doctrine of God after Vatican II," The Thomist 51 (1987); pp. 412-414; Herbert McCabe, "The Involvement of God," New Blackfriars 66 (1985) : 464-476, reprinted in Herbert McCabe... (shrink)

Several authors have used the notion of causal specificity in order to defend non-parity about genetic causes (Waters 2007, Woodward 2010, Weber 2017, forthcoming). Non-parity in this context is the idea that DNA and some other biomolecules that are often described as information-bearers by biologists play a unique role in life processes, an idea that has been challenged by Developmental Systems Theory (e.g., Oyama 2000). Indeed, it has proven to be quite difficult to state clearly what the alleged special role (...) of genetic causes consists in. In this paper, I show that the set of biomolecules that are normally considered to be information-bearers (DNA, mRNA) can be shown to be the most specific causes of protein primary structure, provided that causal specificity is measured over a relevant space of biological possibilities, disregarding physical as well as logically possible states of the causal variables. (shrink)