BackgroundThe ARRIVE (Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments) guidelines are widely endorsed but compliance is limited. We sought to determine whether journal-requested completion of an ARRIVE checklist improves full compliance with the guidelines.MethodsIn a randomised controlled trial, manuscripts reporting in vivo animal research submitted to PLOS ONE (March–June 2015) were randomly allocated to either requested completion of an ARRIVE checklist or current standard practice. Authors, academic editors, and peer reviewers were blinded to group allocation. Trained reviewers performed outcome adjudication (...) in duplicate by assessing manuscripts against an operationalised version of the ARRIVE guidelines that consists 108 items. Our primary outcome was the between-group differences in the proportion of manuscripts meeting all ARRIVE guideline checklist subitems.ResultsWe randomised 1689 manuscripts (control: n = 844, intervention: n = 845), of which 1269 were sent for peer review and 762 (control: n = 340; intervention: n = 332) accepted for publication. No manuscript in either group achieved full compliance with the ARRIVE checklist. Details of animal husbandry (ARRIVE subitem 9b) was the only subitem to show improvements in reporting, with the proportion of compliant manuscripts rising from 52.1 to 74.1% (X2 = 34.0, df = 1, p = 2.1 × 10−7) in the control and intervention groups, respectively.ConclusionsThese results suggest that altering the editorial process to include requests for a completed ARRIVE checklist is not enough to improve compliance with the ARRIVE guidelines. Other approaches, such as more stringent editorial policies or a targeted approach on key quality items, may promote improvements in reporting. (shrink)

We investigate the emergence of iconicity, specifically a bouba-kiki effect in miniature artificial languages under different functional constraints: when the languages are reproduced and when they are used communicatively. We ran transmission chains of participant dyads who played an interactive communicative game and individual participants who played a matched learning game. An analysis of the languages over six generations in an iterated learning experiment revealed that in the Communication condition, but not in the Reproduction condition, words for spiky shapes tend (...) to be rated by naive judges as more spiky than the words for round shapes. This suggests that iconicity may not only be the outcome of innovations introduced by individuals, but, crucially, the result of interlocutor negotiation of new communicative conventions. We interpret our results as an illustration of cultural evolution by random mutation and selection. (shrink)

The employment of mythological language and imagery by an Epicurean poet - an adherent of a system not only materialist, but overtly hostile to myth and poetry - is highly paradoxical. This apparent contradiction has often been ascribed to a conflict in the poet between reason and intellect, or to a desire to enliven his philosophical material with mythological digressions. This book attempts to provide a more positive assessment of Lucretius' aims and methodology by considering the poet's attitude to myth, (...) and the role which it plays in the De Rerum Natura, against the background of earlier and contemporary views. The author suggests that Lucretius was not only aware of the tension between his two roles as philosopher and poet, but attempted to resolve it by developing his own, Epicurean poetic, together with a bold and innovative theory of the origins and meaning of myth. (shrink)

Cheryl Hall has argued that framing of climate change must acknowledge the sacrifices needed to reach a sustainable future. This paper builds on that argument. Although it is important to acknowledge the value of what must be sacrificed, this paper argues that current frames about the environment falsely portray humans and the environment as in a zero-sum game, and in doing so ask people to give up the wrong things. This could undermine the public’s trust in environmentalism, and might even (...) create a backlash against action on climate change. I propose we need alternative framing that portrays humans as a keystone species, and highlights positive human activity. (shrink)

Starting from a brief history of how Nietzsche was considered and used as an argumentative piece in animalistic literature, this study focuses on seeking an understanding of the contributions that Nietzsche's philosophy can make to the field of critical studies of animality, an interdisciplinary field that focuses on the study of animals, their ways of being and living on the planet, their links with the rest of reality, and their rights.

Biennials – periodic, independent and international exhibitions surveying trends in visual art – have with startling speed become key nodes in linking production, distribution and consumption of contemporary art. Cultural production and consumption have been typically separated in research, neglecting phenomena, like biennials, sitting in between. Biennials have become, however, key sites of both the production of art’s discourse and where that discourse translates into practices of display and contexts of appreciation. They are, this article argues, key sites of art’s (...) symbolic production. Symbolic production is what makes a work, an artist, or even a genre visible and relevant, providing its sense in a system of classifications and, in an exhibition like a biennial, literally giving it a place in the scene. This article proposes a cultural analysis of biennials, focusing on the Venice Biennale, founded in 1895 and the first of the genre, through which we can trace biennials’ rise and transformations. (shrink)

This article examines debates about political forgiveness in liberal, pluralist societies. Although the concept of forgiveness is not usually taken up by liberals, I outline a plausible conception by exploring two recent approaches. The first, ‘unattached articulation’, concept requires no real emotional change on the forgiver’s part, but rather a form of civic restraint. In contrast, the second version highlights a strong form of empathy for perpetrators. In spite of their advantages, each concept proves too extreme. The problems are revealed (...) by focusing on the case of the Harkis, who fought for the French during the Algerian war. Often still marginalised in French society, their case helps to highlight the conceivability of a ‘middle-ground’ or moderate concept of political forgiveness. Its core rests on the forgiver’s care for the social world. While this concept brings considerable challenges also, and is not inevitable in any particular case, it entails a more plausible combination of emotional and rational shifts in the forgiver’s world-view. Although the article does not recommend forgiveness by any person or group, it observes, recalling Arendt’s idea of amor mundi or ‘love of the world’, that political forgiveness may sustain a viable connection between diverse citizens’ public and non-public lives. (shrink)

Teachers committed to seeing philosophy as a way of life (PWOL) often focus on assignments that help students develop personal practices, so they experience peace of mind, independence, and a cure from anguish. While we applaud these goals, our work highlights another important aspect of philosophy as a way of life that sometimes is overlooked. We want our students to experience a transformation toward seeing themselves as moral agents, growing in civic virtues, and developing “cosmic consciousness.” To reach this end, (...) we utilize a civic engagement (CE) project that we call the “Experiments in Ethics.” This CE project consists of a series of small, interrelated assignments or “experiments” that help students develop habits and certain civic dispositions. While students complete the experiments throughout the semester, we argue that civically engaged philosophy as a way of life extends beyond the confines of the classroom and the semester as our students cultivate the ability to see themselves as ethical agents capable of making changes in their own lives and the communities in which they live. (shrink)

Com base no referencial teórico do professor Dermeval Saviani, o presente artigo revisitou suas contribuições teóricas sobre a política educacional brasileira. Através de revisão de literatura, foi realizada uma sucinta contextualização dos anos iniciais da formação familiar e acadêmica do autor, bem com a constituição do grupo de pesquisa, referências fundamentais à consolidação de conceitos e ideários que se tornaram basilares às análises da trajetória das ações políticas dirigidas a educação nacional, percorrendo desde o Brasil Colônia à atualidade, com a (...) homologação da Lei 9394/96. Percurso histórico que possibilitou ao autor destacar quatro características recorrentes nas ações da gestão educacional: filantropia, protelação, fragmentação e improvisação. Mesmo com as constatações, Saviani conclama à luta pela construção de uma educação pública responsável e comprometida com os valores à uma sociedade mais justa e igualitária. (shrink)

Children’s unpleasant experiences with misuse of their personal information online is among the rapidly increasing online ‘risks’. Among these, four were chosen for this study: dealing with their own hacked accounts, dealing with others’ fake accounts, dealing with fake accounts impersonating them and sending rude messages on their behalf with the intent of damaging their reputation, and dealing with receiving rude messages from hacked accounts of friends were reported as most bothersome in EU Kids Online III. These four subtypes of (...) problematic situations related to privacy were strategically chosen to illustrate children’s coping responses to situations that are related but increasingly complex, distinctions related to whether situations involved peers or strangers, whether children were direct victims of hacked accounts, or recipients of unwelcomed or rude messages sent from fake profiles and/or hacked accounts. Furthermore, the four situations were chosen to develop a more inclusive coping typology for EU Kids Online data, which can span across different types of risks. This article relies heavily on theoretical work put forward by research on coping with general and specific stressors but integrates approaches to children’s dealing with online issues relevant for online safety measures. (shrink)

unSecretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld, who in September 1961 died in a plane crash in Africa, became to most of his successors and many more people all over the world a role model in moral leadership. Both in his work and in his speeches he promoted an attitude of international service. He perceived the quest for maturity and maturity of mind as basic elements of this attitude. This article explores Hammarskjöld’s search for maturity in three aspects: first in his capacity as an (...) international civil servant; then the personal quest of his inner person; and finally in his role as moral leader. As an explorative case study, the article traces Hammarskjöld’s main thoughts and insights in response to his mission to Beijing and its follow-up in 1955. It further illustrates the relevance of his approach in the world we live in today. (shrink)

The Cistercian Humbert de Preuilly played an important role as an early intellectual guide for the members of his Order. He delivered his lectures on the Sentences at Paris around 1290, from which we have the first Cistercian commentary on the Sentences in the form of Conclusiones that summarize the views of Giles of Rome in Book I and of Thomas Aquinas in Books II-IV. Preserved in some 46 manuscripts, Humbert's Conclusiones super librum Sententiarum clearly served as an introduction to (...) systematic theology for the White Monks. This article presents a new catalogue of manuscripts, a transcription of the Prologue and the tabula questionum. (shrink)

The overwhelming importance of Lucretius' De Rerum Natura for the interpretation of the Georgics is recognized by almost all critics. As W. Y. Sellar expressed it over a hundred years ago, ‘the influence, direct and indirect, exercised by Lucretius on the thought, composition and even the diction of the Georgics was perhaps stronger than that ever exercised, before or since, by one poet on the work of another’. Richard Thomas' recent commentary attempts to play down the extent of this influence, (...) contending that ‘the debt of Virgil to Lucretius in the Georgics is predominantly formal’, and manifests itself chiefly on a verbal level, whereby the poet seeks ‘to create a didactic appearance for his poem’. The aim of this paper is to reassert the pervasive importance of Lucretian ideas, as well as Lucretian language, throughout the poem, and particularly in Virgil's presentation of the physical and metaphysical relationships between man and beast. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the bias in favor of the interests of the members of some species of non- human animals and against the interests of the members of other species of non-human animals. This view, which I call modified speciesism, is perhaps related to Singer’s speciesism, but neither entails nor is entailed by it. The argument takes the following form: given that exploited animals are morally equivalent to non-exploited animals and given that non-exploited animals are morally entitled to (...) the way that we treat them, exploited animals are entitled to such treatment as well. I will give a descriptive account of how modified speciesism is prevalent in our world today which serves as at least a partial defense of the first premise. I will then give a Humean defense of the second premise based on the notion that it is wrong to inflict unnecessary pain and suffering on animals. (shrink)

The purpose of this dissertation is to present what I think is a particularly compelling normative version of sentimentalism. The moral principle which is the foundation of this ethic is: An act, or a failure to act, is morally wrong if and only if it is committed by, contributed to by, or allowed by a moral agent, and both the motive is disapproved of by the impartial spectator and any consequence is disliked by the impartial spectator. I begin this dissertation (...) by explaining and defending the moral principle noted above. I then show how this normative sentimentalist ethic handles the issues raised by factory farming and using animals for research. Next, I present the two most well-known arguments regarding the treatment of animals, Peter Singer's preference utilitarianism and Tom Regan's rights theory, as well as key objections to these theories. I follow this by showing how the version of sentimentalism presented in this dissertation overcomes the objections to the animal ethics of Singer and Regan. To conclude, I address and respond to possible criticisms of the normative sentimentalist theory itself. (shrink)

Las infraestructuras de la energía se han visto tensionadas por una serie de demandas y responsabilidades que tienden a solucionar problemas cruciales de la actualidad y del futuro, como el cambio climático y la justicia distributiva. En este artículo planteo que, para armonizar muchos de estos asuntos, una mejor comprensión de la relación entre usuarios e infraestructuras debe ser alcanzada. Para ello, sostengo que los estudios infraestructurales, en combinación con los análisis de usuarios provenientes de los estudios de Ciencia, Tecnología (...) y Sociedad (CTS), pueden contribuir significativamente a esa tarea. De este modo, desde una perspectiva genealógica y mediante el análisis de documentos de archivo de la Administración Pública de Chile, analizo el caso de los colgados: grupo de usuarios de la energía eléctrica sin relación contractual con las empresas de distribución, que emergió como un problema durante la década de los ochenta, cuando se comenzó a privatizar la infraestructura en medio de la dictadura militar. El análisis del caso de los colgados permite notar que, a pesar de la evidencia presentada en los estudios encargados para el conocimiento del perfil de este tipo de usuarios, quienes estaban a cargo de la infraestructura -empresarios, economistas y políticos- interpretaron en todo momento los resultados de dichos estudios dentro del marco racional-económico con el que se diseñan las políticas públicas a partir de esa época en Chile. Así, este caso de estudio sirve como un ejemplo de la obstinación con que se aplican los supuestos de racionalidad-económica. A pesar de la evidente contradicción entre el comportamiento de los usuarios y los supuestos con que operaban las políticas públicas, la ilusión de la racionalidad-económica como explicación representativa del comportamiento de los usuarios, continuó siendo el eje articulador de las relaciones infraestructurales. (shrink)

People with anorexia nervosa commonly exhibit social difficulties, which may be related to problems with understanding the perspectives of others, commonly known as Theory of Mind processing. However, there is a dearth of literature investigating the neural basis of these differences in ToM and at what age they emerge. This study aimed to test for differences in the neural correlates of ToM processes in young women with AN, and young women weight-restored from AN, as compared to healthy control participants. Based (...) on previous findings in AN, we hypothesized that young women with current or prior AN, as compared to HCs, would exhibit a reduced neural response in the medial prefrontal cortex, the inferior frontal gyrus, and the temporo-parietal junction whilst completing a ToM task. We recruited 73 young women with AN, 45 WR young women, and 70 young women without a history of AN to take part in the current study. Whilst undergoing a functional magnetic resonance imaging scan, participants completed the Frith-Happé task, which is a commonly used measure of ToM with demonstrated reliability and validity in adult populations. In this task, participants viewed the movements of triangles, which depicted either action movements, simple interactions, or complex social interactions. Viewing trials with more complex social interactions in the Frith-Happé task was associated with increased brain activation in regions including the right TPJ, the bilateral mPFC, the cerebellum, and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. There were no group differences in neural activation in response to the ToM contrast. Overall, these results suggest that the neural basis of spontaneous mentalizing is preserved in most young women with AN. (shrink)

This paper highlights alternative responsible business models with an outspoken and profound dedication to contribute to a sustainable development. Themarket of alternatives and their networking activities to make the alternative market grow will be discussed in terms of programs and anti-programs. Another issue brought up is their ability to stick to the responsible knitting, as they grow and develops in a capitalistic market surrounding.

While the right to freedom of expression is of great importance in liberal societies, liberal governments should be wary of speech that disparages minority groups. This issue is particularly problematic when minority women publicly criticise gender oppression within their communities. By focusing on the controversy over the play Behzti in 2004, this article explores the difficulties involved in protecting individual women’s rights to criticise injustice, when doing so risks perpetuating negative stereotypes in society at large. If liberal polities wish to (...) preserve an ethos in society that enables minority women to speak out about their experience of oppression, then there is sometimes a case for restricting the right to free speech in these cases. By comparing Behzti with two other works, the article proposes a three-part test to indicate when liberals should seriously consider informal restrictions on free speech when this problem arises. (shrink)

RESUMO Este artigo problematiza certos conceitos e proposições da obra de Iuri Lotman que retratam concepções do autor sobre memória e tempo, tais como semiosfera, texto, pancronia e explosão. No âmbito das teatralidades juvenis, mapear tal escopo teórico tem por objetivo compreender a produção de memórias e as codificações temporais como instâncias comunicativas. Consideram-se objetos empíricos, as teatralidades steampunks, experimentadas em encontros presenciais. Esta análise se faz nos espaços urbanos da região Sudeste do Brasil; vale-se de pesquisa bibliográfica voltada a (...) teorias da memória; utiliza pesquisa de campo, seguindo a metodologia da flânerie em eventos frequentados por esses grupos de jovens. Espera-se demonstrar o diálogo entre a semiótica desenvolvida por Lotman e as representações mnésicas e temporais presentes nestas teatralidades. ABSTRACT This paper problematizes certain concepts and propositions of Iuri Lotman that portrayed his conceptions of memory and time, such as semiosphere, text, panchronism and explosion. In the context of juvenile theatricalities, mapping such a theoretical scope aims to understand the production of memories and the temporal codifications as communicative instances. Steampunk theatricalities experienced in face-to-face meetings are considered empirical objects. This analysis is conducted in urban areas of the Southeast of Brazil, counting on a bibliographic research focused on theories of memory, a field work following the flânerie methodology in events attended by these youth groups. It aims to demonstrate the dialogue between the semiotics developed by Lotman and the mnemonic and temporal representations present in these theatricalities. (shrink)

It is clear that the visual representations of the so-called digital aesthetics are linked to social processes and institutional functions intrinsically, and they bring with them the following paradox antagonistically but not contradictorily. On the one hand, they oppose the coercion of the historical-social-cultural system, because they try to deal with the transformation of the reality in a critical way. On the other hand, they meet the growing of the world net of computers, which are becoming more and more invisible (...) and captivating and are diluting the bond between culture and communication and the technological dimension in a subliminal way a lot of times. The aim of this article is to examine historically and culturally the emergence of so-called digital aesthetics. The article will also identify which mutations are related to this kind of aesthetics. It will not only examine the representation models that sustain the modern and the high-tech aesthetics but also the relations of power and knowledge that operate directly over the receiver in these two moments. (shrink)

Gregory Conti’s Parliament the Mirror of the Nation: Representation, Deliberation, and Democracy in Victorian England offers a carefully researched, fine-grained historical reconstruction of ninete...

Cet ouvrage riche et complexe de Manuela Martini, nourri d'une vaste exploitation archivistique et d'une bibliographie solide, vient combler une lacune historiographique. Malgré la multiplication durant ces deux dernières décennies des études d'histoire de la famille, les recherches centrées sur les familles de l'élite bolognaise de l'ancien régime et de l'époque contemporaine restent peu nombreuses et centrées sur leurs dynamiques de classes les plus globales. L'ouvrage, qui fait part...

This book is about the methods used for unifying different scientific theories under one all-embracing theory. The process has characterized much of the history of science and is prominent in contemporary physics; the search for a 'theory of everything' involves the same attempt at unification. Margaret Morrison argues that, contrary to popular philosophical views, unification and explanation often have little to do with each other. The mechanisms that facilitate unification are not those that enable us to explain how or (...) why phenomena behave as they do. A feature of this book is an account of many case studies of theory unification in nineteenth- and twentieth-century physics and of how evolution by natural selection and Mendelian genetics were unified into what we now term evolutionary genetics. (shrink)