While COVID-19 spreads aggressively and rapidly across the globe, many societies have also witnessed the spread of other viral phenomena like misinformation, conspiracy theories, and general mass suspicions about what is really going on. This study investigates how exposure to and trust in information sources, and anxiety and depression, are associated with conspiracy and misinformation beliefs in eight countries/regions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were collected in an online survey fielded from May 29, 2020 to June 12, 2020, resulting in (...) a multinational representative sample of 8,806 adult respondents. Results indicate that greater exposure to traditional media is associated with lower conspiracy and misinformation beliefs, while exposure to politicians and digital media and personal contacts are associated with greater conspiracy and misinformation beliefs. Exposure to health experts is associated with lower conspiracy beliefs only. Higher feelings of depression are also associated with greater conspiracy and misinformation beliefs. We also found relevant group- and country differences. We discuss the implications of these results. (shrink)

Reintroduction programs in which captive-bred or reared animals are released into natural habitats are considered a key approach for conservation; however, success rates have generally been low. Accounting for factors that enable individual animals to have a greater chance of survival can not only improve overall conservation outcomes but can also impact the welfare of the individual animals involved. One such factor may be individual personality, and personality research is a growing field. This type of research presents animal welfare scientists (...) with the opportunity to develop behavior profiles that may predict how particular individuals cope with challenges. This has direct implications for both in situ and ex situ populations and can bridge the gap between animal welfare and conservation. We designed a project to ascertain the presence of personality traits in Blanding’s turtles (Emydoidea blandingii), a species of special concern in the state of Michigan, and assess potential links between traits and post-release success. As hypothesized, the Blanding’s turtles in this study displayed behavioral responses to modified open field tests indicative of distinct personality traits: exploration, boldness and aggression. Additionally, the personality traits were correlated differently with survival and behavior patterns when the turtles were released into the Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge. More exploratory turtles had higher survival rates, while neither boldness nor aggression were related to survival. Exploratory turtles were also more likely to travel longer distances after release. The use of muskrat dens was related to increased survival, and both bolder and more exploratory turtles made higher use of this feature. Exploratory and aggressive turtles were found basking outside of water more often, while bold turtles were more likely to be found at the water surface. Both of these basking behaviors may increase the risk of predation and may be reflective of a trade-off between risk and behaviors related to physiological health. Understanding how personality affects behavior and survival post-release can be a critical tool for improving reintroduction success. Zoo animal welfare scientists and practitioners can implement approaches that improve the welfare of individuals within the context of conservation initiatives. (shrink)

Esta obra se concentra en cuatro temas cruciales de la formación de docentes, tanto antes como durante el servicio y en la enseñanza en diferentes áreas y niveles educativos. En primer lugar, se aborda el asunto de las creencias que los docentes tienen sobre el proceso educativo, las cuales parecen influir en la práctica profesional que estos desarrollan y, por lo tanto, deberían recibir la atención explícita de los procesos de formación de docentes que deseen promover prácticas específicas. El segundo (...) tema de la obra es la relación entre la formación de docentes y la política pública que la rige. En particular, se analizan las reformas curriculares implementadas por varias licenciaturas en universidades privadas colombianas, en respuesta a reformas a la normatividad sobre las condiciones de calidad que a las que deben ajustarse todas las licenciaturas del país. El tercer tema analizado es en qué medida los docentes en educación superior van más allá del dominio de su saber disciplinar atribuyendo importancia a la pedagogía, la didáctica y la práctica reflexiva en su propia práctica docente. Finalmente, se discuten aspectos de la formación de docentes relacionados con los procesos vividos y los retos encontrados por los docentes al entrar en la profesión, su socialización en la comunidad docente, sus identidades como maestros y su motivación para ser docentes. Vale la pena señalar que las contribuciones a este libro comparten el uso de metodologías cualitativas y presentan los resultados de historias de vida, entrevistas, observaciones, y análisis documentales, entre otros. (shrink)

The 2006 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revised recommendations for HIV testing in clinical settings contained seven specific changes to how health care facilities should provide HIV testing. These seven elements have been both supported and challenged in the lay and medical literature. Our first paper in BMC Medical Ethics presented an analysis of the three HIV testing procedural changes included in the recommendations. In this paper, we address the four remaining elements that concern HIV screening policy changes: (...) (1) nontargeted HIV screening, (2) making HIV screening similar to screening for other treatable conditions, (3) increasing HIV screening without assured additional funding for linkage to care, and (4) making patients bear the costs of increased HIV screening in health care settings. (shrink)

The golden rule -- The law of divine oneness -- The Law of Gratitude -- The Law of Love -- The Law of Frequency -- The Law of Intention -- The Law of Attraction -- The Law of Abundance -- The Law of Light -- The Law of Unity -- The Law of Purpose -- The Law of Harmony -- The Law of Action -- The Law of Affirmation -- The Law of Clarity -- The Law of Success -- The (...) Law of Relativity -- The Law of Correspondence -- The Law of Compensation -- The Law of Cooperation -- The Law of Perspective -- The Law of Thought -- The Law of Passivity -- The Law of Sacrifice -- The Law of Responsibility -- The Law of Attachment and Detachment -- The Law of Faith -- The Law of Attention -- The Law of Forgiveness -- The Law of Request -- The Law of Allowing -- The Law of Discipline -- The Law of Cycles -- The Law of Prosperity -- The Law of Patience -- The Law of Awakening -- The Law of Cause and Effect -- The Law of Balance and Polarity -- The Law of Supply and Demand --The Law of Potential. (shrink)

This essay is an attempt to point up the gap between, on the one hand, the methods currently available to the biologist in the laboratory and, on the other, the kind of data that he or she would need in order to characterise genetically engineered proteins of topical biological interest in such a way as to make use of the techniques of protein engineering.

Applied Ethics Under what conditions is an abortion morally permissible? Does a citizen have a moral obligation to actively participate (perhaps by voting) in the democratic process of one’s nation (assuming one is living in a democracy)? What obligations, if any, does one have to the global poor? Under what conditions is female genital excision […].

For more than fifteen years, Melissa Ann Pinney has been making photographs of girls and women, from infancy to old age, to portray how feminine identity is constructed, taught, and communicated. Her work depicts not only the rites of American womanhood—a prom, a wedding, a baby shower, a tea party—but the informal passages of girlhood: combing a doll's hair, doing laundry with a mother, smoking a cigarette at a state fair. With each view, we gain a greater understanding of (...) the connections between mother and daughter, and by extension the larger world of family, friends, and society. Pinney's approach to interpreting girlhood became more complicated and complex when her daughter, Emma, was born eight years ago. Emma's childhood evoked in Pinney her own girlhood and gave her work new meaning and purpose. Ultimately, Regarding Emma shares with all of us the incremental and the ritualistic changes that take place in a woman's life over time. Her photographs are artistic and social documents that reveal the subtle and bold aspects of feminine identity—documents whose reach will extend well beyond the walls of America's leading galleries and museums into the hearts and homes of everyday Americans. "Melissa Ann Pinney is making powerful art. In matters of light, color, and composition she is flawless. But these are not simply constructions of elements. These photographs bear witness to the speed at which the little girl becomes the old woman, to the fleeting, breathless beauty of childhood, to life itself, which leaves us stunned in its wake."—Ann Patchett, from the Foreword "Melissa Ann Pinney provides a compelling portrait of American girls as they make their way from infancy to adulthood. Using her daughter's childhood as a point of departure, she traces the complex terrain of adolescence and budding femininity. The results are photographs marked by empathy and grace."—Sylvia Wolf, Sondra Gilman Curator of Photography, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City "These photographs by Melissa Ann Pinney impart a sense of the special and sacred everyday rituals we take for granted. She appreciates at once the transient nature of what she finds and its gravity. Her pictures describe so well the wonder, and beauty, and centrality of the things we know best and the people we see often."—Sandra S. Phillips, Curator of Photography, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art "Melissa Ann Pinney's record of life with her daughter, Emma, adds a new and touching chapter to our knowledge of the lives of women and girls."—Adam Gopnik, author of Paris to the Moon and a staff writer for The New Yorker "Melissa Pinney's passionate, painstaking investigation of the stages of women's lives is impressive for its rigor and courage. Her themes aren't imposed on the pictures or on the women, men, and children who people them; instead, they arise from her attentive study of particularities— of the ways human lives are etched on the surfaces of faces and the positions of bodies in real spaces and places, mundane but radiant. When she turns from the lives of others to her own life, the shift is seamless but the volume swells, the emotions grow more pointed and the paradoxes more painful, joyous, and direct. This is remarkable work by an artist at the height of her powers."—Peter Bacon Hales, author of William Henry Jackson and the Transformation of the American Landscape. (shrink)

This paper demonstrates that accounting for the moral harm of selecting for deafness is not as simple or obvious as the widespread negative response from the hearing community would suggest. The central questions addressed by the paper are whether our moral disquiet with regard to selecting for deafness can be adequately defended, and if so, what this might entail. The paper considers several different strategies for accounting for the supposed moral harm of selecting for deafness and concludes that the deaf (...) case cannot be treated in isolation. Accounting for the moral harm of selecting for deafness necessarily entails moral implications for other cases of procreation and procreative decision-making, including unassisted coital reproduction. The lesson to be learned from the deaf case is that we need norms that govern not just the use of reproductive technology, but procreation and procreative decision-making in all of its various forms. (shrink)

For nearly thirty years, Melissa Ann Pinney has been photographing girls and women, from infancy to old age, to portray how feminine identity is constructed, taught, and communicated. Pinney’s work depicts not only the rites of American womanhood, but also the informal passages of girlhood and adolescence. With each view—from solitary subjects in pensive moments to complex family and social situations—the audience gains a richer understanding of the connections between a daughter and her parents, grandparents, and the larger world (...) of friends and society. The pictures also reflect the ways in which a girl’s world in 2010 differs from the world Pinney knew growing up in the 1960s, and the ways in which the making of a person can transcend time and place. Girl Ascending is a sequel to Pinney’s widely praised first book, Regarding Emma: Photographs of American Women and Girls. Of that previous book Janina Ciezaldo wrote in Aperture, “Pinney brings compositional integrity, knowledge of color, and a Midwestern richness of light to her inquiries.” This second volume is even more accomplished, mature, and stylistically consistent. As David Travis writes in his introduction, “Pinney has regained that sense of wonder, making her view of girls ascending into young women both believable and enchanting.” Pinney’s photographs are powerful and insightful. As social and artistic documents, they reveal the subtle and bold aspects of feminine identity as it is expressed in American places and spaces, both private and public. (shrink)

It has been claimed that the global pandemic is a ‘great equaliser’ that creates a sense of cohesion, however, this is problematic since COVID-19 has revealed the stark divisions in our societies. For instance, in the UK COVID-19 has hit northern cities particularly hard. Therefore, by focusing on the north of England, and Bradford especially, this paper offers suggestions which may help us see clearly through COVID-19, creating a future that is more equitable.

Whereas right-libertarians do not think that it is a requirement of justice that we raise revenues for persons with disabilities, both left-libertarians and liberal egalitarians think that there is such a requirement. An issue remains for the latter two theorists—how ought we to raise this revenue? Liberal egalitarians typically endorse either universal taxation or taxation of the wealthy. Left-libertarians, on the other hand, cannot so easily appeal to the methods of universal taxation and taxation of the wealthy, as they are (...) illegitimately coercive. One such method left open to the left-libertarian is one proposed by Michael Otsuka. He argues that both left-libertarians and liberal egalitarians should find the method of taxation of the unjust to be a reasonably strong way of raising revenue. In this paper, I point out problems with Otsuka’s argument, as well as directly criticize the method of taxation of the unjust. (shrink)

Schleiermachers Wissenschaftslehre wird in dieser Untersuchung als eine universale Prinzipienlehre und formale Strukturtheorie rekonstruiert. Es werden mit einem interdisziplinären Ansatz im Anschluß an und in Weiterführung von Überlegungen Schleiermachers zur Struktur von Wirklichkeit und zu ihrer Erkenntnis grundlegende Fragen der Bildung und Konzeptualisierung von Wissenschaften im allgemeinen und von Theologie im besonderen behandelt. Über seine Platoninterpretation, die Rolle der Naturphilosophie, und eine Analyse zentraler Texte Schleiermachers wird erkennbar, daß sich hinter der dyadisch bestimmten Semantik de facto eine triadische Elementarstruktur verbirgt, (...) die über das Operieren mit Dualen zu generieren versucht wird und von der her allererst seine Theorieanlage und Systementscheidungen plausibel werden. Diss. theol. Heidelberg 2000, ausgezeichnet mit dem Ruprecht-Karls-Preis 2000. (shrink)

Cet article analyse le genre de la citoyenneté et des droits dans la Tchécoslovaquie entre 1918 et 1945. En 1918 la nouvelle République démocratique a proclamé l’égalité, y compris l’égalité entre hommes et femmes. Aux femmes étaient accordés toute une série de nouveaux droits, le plus important étant le vote ; elles sont devenues, en principe, des citoyennes égales aux citoyens. Néanmoins, il est rapidement devenu évident que cette égalité citoyenne n’était appliquée que dans le domaine politique ; le genre (...) est resté un facteur important dans la détermination des droits civils des femmes. Ainsi, elles étaient « des femmes » d’abord, et leurs droits dépendaient des rôles considerés comme acceptables pour le sexe féminin. Cela est devenu très clair en 1939, quand le droit des femmes à la participation politique a été retiré parce que la vie politique est devenue « trop dangereuse » pour les femmes. (shrink)

We use discourse analysis to examine a group supervision meeting in which graduate students who are training to become school counselors discuss counseling experiences that they had at local high schools. Focusing on metadiscourse, or talk about talk, we integrate Ochs’ concepts of epistemic stance and affective stance and Tannen’s discussion of linguistic strategies as ambiguous and polysemous in terms of power and solidarity in order to demonstrate how counselors-in-training construct their identities as what Woodside et al. call ‘boundary-dwellers’ in (...) their professional community of practice. Examination of metadiscourse regarding address terms and the speech act of asking questions – and in particular highlighting how participants use negatively valenced affect words, the verb feel, and what Tannen calls ‘constructed dialogue’ – reveals their stances of uncertainty and discomfort, their transitional professional identities as entailing an uneasy navigation of relationships, and their recognition of the pivotal role of language in the process. (shrink)

Reflective essay focusing on a discussion of friendship with a group of fourth grade students. Includes a brief discussion of a learning game that focuses on the problems of listening to others.

Since ancient Athens, democrats have taken pride in their power and inclination to change their laws, yet they have also sought to counter this capacity by creating immutable laws. In Democracy and Legal Change, Melissa Schwartzberg argues that modifying law is a fundamental and attractive democratic activity. Against those who would defend the use of 'entrenchment clauses' to protect key constitutional provisions from revision, Schwartzberg seeks to demonstrate historically the strategic and even unjust purposes unamendable laws have typically served, (...) and to highlight the regrettable consequences that entrenchment may have for democracies today. Drawing on historical evidence, classical political theory, and contemporary constitutional and democratic theory, Democracy and Legal Change reexamines the relationship between democracy and the rule of law from a new, and often surprising, set of vantage points. (shrink)

Scholars exploring the logic of Rousseau's voting rules have typically turned to the connection between Rousseau and the Marquis de Condorcet. Though Condorcet could not have had a direct influence on Rousseau's arguments about the choice of decision rules in "Social Contract," the possibility of a connection has encouraged the view that Rousseau's selection of voting rules was based on epistemic reasons. By turning to alternative sources of influence on Rousseau--the work of Hugo Grotius and particularly that of Samuel Pufendorf--a (...) moral, and not purely epistemic, logic of rules governing collective decision making emerges. For Rousseau, as for Pufendorf, the proper choice of voting rule can elicit the appropriate attitude of an individual with respect to the decision of the whole, and can support the morally significant activity of acknowledging error upon discovering that one has voted against the general will. (shrink)

There can be no doubt that Kant thought we should be reflective: we ought to care to make up our own minds about how things are and what is worth doing. Philosophical objections to the Kantian reflective ideal have centred on concerns about the excessive control that the reflective person is supposed to exert over her own mental life, and Kantians who feel the force of these objections have recently drawn attention to Kant’s conception of moral virtue as it is (...) developed in his later work, chiefly the Metaphysics of Morals. Melissa Merritt’s book is a distinctive contribution to this recent turn to virtue in Kant scholarship. Merritt argues that we need a clearer, and textually more comprehensive, account of what reflection is, in order not only to understand Kant’s account of virtue, but also to appreciate how it effectively rebuts long-standing objections to the Kantian reflective ideal. (shrink)

Functional magnetic resonance imaging and the electroencephalography -based technology of Brain Fingerprinting have been hailed as the next, best technologies for lie detection in America, particularly in the context of post-9/11 anxiety. In scientific journals and the popular press, each has been juxtaposed and deemed superior to traditional polygraphy, which measures changes in the autonomic nervous system and correlates these fluctuations with emotions such as anxiety, fear, and guilt. The author contends that the juxtaposition of polygraphy and brain-based detection is (...) a rhetorical strategy that foregrounds the corrective advantage of brain-based techniques, creates an artificial rupture between contiguous technologies, and ignores the shared assumptions foundational to fMRI, EEG, and two older ``truth telling'' technologies: polygraphy and fingerprinting. Far from describing the brain and its functions, fMRI and Brain Fingerprinting produce models of the brain that reinforce social notions of deception, truth, and deviance. (shrink)