The computational genomics community has come increasingly to rely on the methodology of creating annotations of scientific literature using terms from controlled structured vocabularies such as the Gene Ontology (GO). We here address the question of what such annotations signify and of how they are created by working biologists. Our goal is to promote a better understanding of how the results of experiments are captured in annotations in the hope that this will lead to better representations of biological reality through (...) both the annotation process and ontology development, and in more informed use of the GO resources by experimental scientists. (shrink)

BackgroundInvolvement of adolescent girls in biomedical HIV research is essential to better understand efficacy and safety of new prevention interventions in this key population at high risk of HIV infection. However, there are many ethical issues to consider prior to engaging them in pivotal biomedical research. In Uganda, 16–17-year-old adolescents can access sexual and reproductive health services including for HIV or other sexually transmitted infections, contraception, and antenatal care without parental consent. In contrast, participation in HIV prevention research involving investigational (...) new drugs requires adolescents to have parental or guardian consent. Thus, privacy and confidentiality concerns may deter adolescent participation. We describe community perspectives on ethical considerations for involving adolescent girls in the MTN 034 study in Uganda.MethodsFrom August 2017 to March 2018, we held five stakeholder engagement meetings in preparation for the MTN 034 study in Kampala, Uganda (NCT03593655): two with 140 community representatives, two with 125 adolescents, and one with 50 adolescents and parents. Discussions were moderated by the study team. Proceedings were documented by notetakers. Summary notes described community perspectives of adolescent participation in HIV research including convergent, divergent or minority views, challenges, and proposed solutions.ResultsMost community members perceived parental or guardian consent as a principal barrier to study participation due to concerns about adolescent disclosure of pre-marital sex, which is a cultural taboo. Of 125 adolescent participants, 119 (95%) feared inadvertent disclosure of sexual activity to their parents. Community stakeholders identified the following critical considerations for ethical involvement of adolescents in HIV biomedical research: (1) involving key stakeholders in recruitment, (2) ensuring confidentiality of sensitive information about adolescent sexual activity, (3) informing adolescents about information to be disclosed to parents or guardians, (4) offering youth friendly services by appropriately trained staff, and (5) partnering with community youth organizations to maximize recruitment and retention.ConclusionsStakeholder engagement with diverse community representatives prior to conducting adolescent HIV prevention research is critical to collectively shaping the research agenda, successfully recruiting and retaining adolescents in HIV clinical trials and identifying practical strategies to ensure high ethical standards during trial implementation. (shrink)

The increasing use of cluster randomised trials in low-resource settings raises unique ethical issues. TheOttawa Statement on the Ethical Design and Conduct of Cluster Randomised Trialsis the first international ethical guidance document specific to cluster trials, but it is unknown if it adequately addresses issues in low-resource settings. In this paper, we seek to identify any gaps in theOttawa Statementrelevant to cluster trials conducted in low-resource settings. Our method is (1) to analyse a prototypical cluster trial conducted in a low-resource (...) setting (PURE Malawi trial) with theOttawa Statement; (2) to identify ethical issues in the design or conduct of the trial not captured adequately and (3) to make recommendations for issues needing attention in forthcoming revisions to theOttawa Statement. Our analysis identified six ethical aspects of cluster randomised trials in low-resource settings that require further guidance. The forthcoming revision of theOttawa Statementshould provide additional guidance on these issues: (1) streamlining research ethics committee review for collaborating investigators who are affiliated with other institutions; (2) the classification of lay health workers who deliver study interventions as health providers or research participants; (3) the dilemma experienced by investigators when national standards seem to prohibit waivers of consent; (4) the timing of gatekeeper engagement, particularly when researchers face funding constraints; (5) providing ancillary care in health services or implementation trials when a routine care control arm is known to fall below national standards and (6) defining vulnerable participants needing protection in low-resource settings. (shrink)

In the Reality we know, we cannot say if something is infinite whether we are doing Physics, Biology, Sociology or Economics. This means we have to be careful using this concept. Infinite structures do not exist in the physical world as far as we know. So what do mathematicians mean when they assert the existence of ω? There is no universally accepted philosophy of mathematics but the most common belief is that mathematics touches on another worldly absolute truth. Many mathematicians (...) believe that mathematics involves a special perception of an idealized world of absolute truth. This comes in part from the recognition that our knowledge of the physical world is imperfect and falls short of what we can apprehend with mathematical thinking. The objective of this paper is to present an epistemological rather than an historical vision of the mathematical concept of infinity that examines the dialectic between the actual and potential infinity. (shrink)

Desde una perspectiva transnacional y comparada, que incorpora la experiencia del exilio, este trabajo analiza las tensiones identitarias que afectaron a la juventud militante de la izquierda revolucionaria española y argentina durante los años setenta. A través de las relaciones familiares y de género, estudia las formas públicas y privadas del compromiso y la transgresión. Aborda cómo la politización de lo privado marcó a hombres y mujeres dentro de un proceso global contestatario, heredero del 68, para destacar las contradicciones que (...) afloraron entre la teoría y la práctica, el deseo y la realidad, que llevaron a los jóvenes militantes a asumir un régimen emocional en constante debate entre el ser y el deber ser. (shrink)

Human language has the characteristic of being open and in some cases polysemic. The word “infinite” is used often in common speech and more frequently in literary language, but rarely with its precise meaning. In this way the concepts can be used in a vague way but an argument can still be structured so that the central idea is understood and is shared with to the partners. At the same time no precise definition is given to the concepts used and (...) each partner makes his own reading of the text based on previous experience and cultural background. In a language dictionary the first meaning of “infinite” agrees with the etymology: what has no end. We apply the word infinite most often and incorrectly as a synonym for “very large” or something that we do not perceive its completion. In this context, the infinite mentioned in dictionaries refers to the idea or notion of the “immeasurably large” although this is open to what the individual’s means by “immeasurably great.” Based on this linguistic imprecision, the authors present a non Cantorian theory of the potential and actual infinite. For this we have introduced a new concept: the homogon that is the whole set that does not fall within the definition of sets established by Cantor. (shrink)

Lateral temporal measures of the auditory evoked potential including the T-complex, as well as an earlier negative peak index maturation of auditory/speech processing. Previous studies have shown that these measures distinguish neural processing in children with typical language development from those with disorders and monolingual from bilingual children. In this study, bilingual children with Turkish as L1 and German as L2 were compared with monolingual German-speaking children with developmental language disorder and monolingual German-speaking children with TD in order to disentangle (...) effects of limited language input vs. reduced perceptual abilities in the processing of speech and non-speech stimuli. Sensory processing reflected by the T-complex was compared in response to a German vowel and a sine-wave tone in the three groups of children, ages 5 through 6 years. Stimuli were presented while children watched a muted video. Auditory evoked potentials were time-locked to the vowels and tones. AEPs to the frequent stimuli within an oddball paradigm were analyzed at the left and right temporal electrode sites.The results revealed language status, stimulus, and language test measures all influenced the T-complex amplitudes. Particularly, the peak amplitude of Ta was modulated by language status and stimulus type. Bilingual children had significantly more negative Ta responses than the monolingual children with TD for both vowels and tones while DLD children differed from TD children only for the vowel stimulus. The amplitude of the T-complex was overall more negative at the left than at the right site. The Na peak latency was longer for the bilingual group than that observed for the two monolingual groups. The Tb latency was shorter for DLD and bilingual groups than that for TD children in the vowel condition, but no such latency difference between DLD and bilingual children was found. We suggest that the attenuated T-complex for bilingual children indicates continued plasticity of the auditory cortex to allow for learning of novel, second-language speech sounds. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to analyze the explanatory level of the variables advertising influence, verbal messages, social models and social situations as regards body dissatisfaction, weight worry, and bodily discomfort. The study was conducted in a convenience sample of 206 Mexican women with an average age of 22.12 years. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the direct and indirect effects of the independent variables on the dependent ones in three hypothetical models proposed. In the case of the (...) model proposed for body dissatisfaction, it was found that the set of variables had 79% of variance explained and showed adequate goodness-of-fit indices. The model for weight worry had 62% of variance explained and an acceptable goodness of fit. Finally, the model for bodily discomfort had 72% of variance explained and showed adequate goodness of fit. It is concluded that social influences have a significant impact on body image. Verbal messages had the strongest impact on the variables studied. (shrink)

The process of assessing executive functions through behavioral observation scales is still under theoretical and empirical construction. This article reports on the analysis of the factorial structure of the EOCL-1 scale that assesses executive functions, as proposed by the theory developed by Luria, which has not been previously considered in this type of evaluation. In this scale, the executive functions taken into account are error correction, internal behavioral and cognition regulatory language, limbic system conscious regulation, decision making, future consideration of (...) consequences of actions, goal-directed behavior, inhibitory control of automatic responses, creation of new behavioral repertoires, and cognitive–behavioral activity verification. A variety of validity and reliability analyses were carried out, with the following results: an adequate internal consistency level of executive functions between α = 0.70 and α = 0.83, significant convergent validity with a scale that assesses frontal deficits between r = −0.07 and r = 0.28, and the scale’s construct validity that proposes a model with an executive central factor comparative fit index = 0.93, root mean square error of approximation = 0.04, standardized root mean square residual = 0.04, and x2 = 789.29, p = 0.001. The findings are discussed based on previous literature reports and in terms of the benefits of using a scale to assess the proposed executive functions. (shrink)

Research has shown that both physical exercise and cognitive training help to maintain cognition in older adults. The question is whether combined training might produce additive effects when the group comparisons are equated in terms of exercise intensity and modality. We conducted a systematic electronic search in MEDLINE, PsycInfo, and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials databases to identify relevant studies published up to February 2021. Seven hundred and eighty-three effect sizes were obtained from 50 published intervention studies, involving 6,164 (...) healthy older adults, and submitted to a three-level meta-analysis. Results showed that combined training produced a small advantage in comparison to single cognitive training on executive functions, whereas both types of training achieved similar effects on attention, memory, language, processing speed, and global cognition. Combined training achieved higher training gains in balance than single physical training, indicating a transfer from cognitive training to balance. Performing cognitive and physical exercise simultaneously, and interactive training produced the largest gains in executive functions, speed, and global cognition, as well as the largest improvements in physical functions. Aerobic training was associated with higher effects in attention and fitness, whereas non-aerobic training produced larger effects in global cognition and balance. For all cognitive and physical outcomes, training resulted more advantageous when performed in a social context, even though individual training obtained similar results in balance as group training.Systematic Review Registration:www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/, identifier: CRD42020175632. (shrink)

This paper is about syllogistic reasoning, i.e., reasoning from such pairs of premises as, All the chefs are musicians; some of the musicians are painters. We present a computer model that implements the latest account of syllogisms, which is based on the theory of mental models. We also report four experiments that were designed to test this account. Experiments 1 and 2 examined the strategies revealed by the participants' use of paper and pencil as aids to reasoning. Experiment 3 used (...) a new technique to externalize thinking. The participants had to refute, if possible, putative conclusions by constructing external models that were examples of the premises but counterexamples of the conclusions. Experiment 4 used the same techniques to examine the participants' strategies as they drew their own conclusions from syllogistic premises. The results of the experiments showed that individuals not trained in logic can construct counterexamples, that they use similar operations to those implemented in the computer model, but that they rely on a much greater variety of interpretations of premises and of search strategies than the computer model does. We re‐evaluates current theories of syllogistic reasoning in the light of these results. (shrink)

There is a variety of way to organize and manage spatially knowledge in literature. In this present inquire only a few type relating to the context of education will be analyzed: two of the most widespread and oft-used in the field of didactic pedagogy and one that has recently been scientifically affirmed—though its study dates back twenty years. The parallel—and sometimes intertwining—analysis of these three interpretive perspectives could serve as an epistemological scaffolding allowing us to look out on a holistic (...) experimental paradigm on the topic of spatialization in/of cognitive processes. (shrink)

Through cultural transmission, repeated learning by new individuals transforms cultural information, which tends to become increasingly compressible . Existing diffusion chain studies include in their design two processes that could be responsible for this tendency: learning and reproducing . This paper manipulates the presence of learning in a simple iterated drawing design experiment. We find that learning seems to be the causal factor behind the increase in compressibility observed in the transmitted information, while reproducing is a source of random heritable (...) innovations. Only a theory invoking these two aspects of cultural learning will be able to explain human culture's fundamental balance between stability and innovation. (shrink)

The organizational changes that occurred within the Italian prison system led to profound modifications in the way juridical–educational professionals working in prison perceive themselves and their role. The present study aims at exploring the representations of their professional identity in two groups of JEPs working in as many correctional facilities in Italy. To reach this goal, the JEPs taking part to the research were administered the Symbolic Drawing of the Organizational Life Space, a graphic symbolic tool useful to understand the (...) main features, values, and culture of an organization. The analysis was performed on the drawings made by the JEPs along with the transcriptions of their discourses while performing the task. The outcomes, presented in a previous study published in Narrare I Gruppi call for a further, in depth, analysis of the JEPs discourses, therefore the present study focuses on such transcripts. This article aims at investigating the specific values connected to the JEPs' pro... (shrink)

A team of young scholars from the University of Babes-Bolyai, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, has received funding to edit Book I of the commentary on the Sentences by the Cistercian Iacobus de Altavilla, or James of Eltville, who is attested as lecturing on the Sentences at Paris in 1369. The project has made it possible to correct Friedrich Stegmüller's findings, removing from his list several wrongly attributed manuscripts and adding to the list a number of authentic copies or fragments. The present article (...) provides an inventory with short descriptions of the twenty-one manuscripts that preserve the whole or parts of James of Eltville's commentary, and presents new information about the manuscript tradition based on the preliminary results of the Romanian project. (shrink)

Stanovich & West interpret errors in syllogistic reasoning in terms of computational limitations. I argue that the variety of strategies used by reasoners in solving syllogisms requires us to consider also performance errors. Although reasoners' performance from one trial to another is quite consistent, it can be different, in line with the definition of performance errors. My argument has methodological implications for reasoning theories.

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)

Perception is commonly regarded by philosophers as being the only basis of empirical knowledge. I challenge this assumption by investigating how we come to have beliefs about the emotional experiences of ourselves and others, and how we come to have beliefs about the emotional properties of inanimate objects, such as the belief that the church is somber. Before presenting my account of this type of belief formation, I argue that the observation that someone is in a particular emotional state, or (...) the observation that an inanimate object displays an emotional property, should not be subsumed under the rubric of perception. I argue that this subsumption oversimplifies the nature of such observations and leaves too many interesting and important philosophical questions unanswered. In addition to suggesting how these sorts of beliefs are formed, I argue that philosophers should endeavor to include them in their discussions of knowledge, and I examine how three contemporary accounts of knowledge can be expanded to accommodate such beliefs in the capacity of knowledge claims. (shrink)

O artigo analisa a ideologia da equipe econômica do governo Fernando Henrique Cardoso, que orientou sua ação por uma racionalidade instrumental. Foi feita uma análise comparativa com as equipes econômicas dos governos anteriores, mostrando que a equipe do governo Cardoso abandonou o modelo desenvolvimentista para retomar o modelo clássico liberal. No entanto, o neoliberalismo da equipe de Cardoso não entende o mercado como um meio para se promover o desenvolvimento econômico e social. Herdeiros da geração pós Consenso de Washington, vêem (...) o mercado como um fim em si. A relação que esses economistas estabeleceram com o mercado é quase religiosa, porque nele depositaram total confiança. Para estes economistas, era como se o mercado fosse uma entidade superior que naturalmente resolveria os problemas econômicos e sociais. Sob esse pretexto, colocaram em prática no país políticas típicas do neoliberalismo, que prevêem o desmantelamento do Estado e das grandes conquistas políticas e sociais. Na verdade, essa idolatria em relação mercado configura a irracionalidade desses economistas que defendem explicitamente os interesses de um segmento da classe dominante, a saber, a burguesia financeira internacional. O que leva à conclusão de que não houve autonomia da equipe para elaborar as políticas econômicas do governo, porque seguem as receitas dos organismos internacionais. A autonomia só se estabeleceu em relação às classes trabalhadoras, que não participaram de qualquer negociação que lhes dizem respeito. (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)

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 1, January 2022.

Influential theories on moral judgments propose that they rely either on emotions or on innate moral principles. In contrast, the mental model theory postulates that moral judgments rely on reasoning, either intuition or deliberation. The theory allows for the possibility that intuitions lead to utilitarian judgments. This paper reports two experiments involving fifth-grade children, adolescents, and adults; the results revealed that children reason intuitively to resolve moral dilemmas in which action and inaction lead to different outcomes. In particular, the results (...) showed female children to be more utilitarian than female adults in resolving classical moral dilemmas: they preferred an action that achieved a good outcome for a greater number of people. Within the mental model theory’s framework there is no reason to expect that females and males differ in their ability to reason, but at the moment the results for females cannot be generalized to males who were not properly represented in the adults groups of the two experiments. The result revealing that (female) children are more utilitarian than (female) adults, which is hard to explain via many current theories, was predicted by the mental model theory. (shrink)

Dopo la Grande Guerra e la Rivoluzione d’Ottobre, l’Europa e la Russia vissero una intensa crisi. Il saggio ricostruisce la dimensione internazionale della situazione in Italia tra il 1919 e 1922. Esso si concentra in particolare su due “futuristi di sinistra”, Vinicio Paladini e Ivo Pannaggi, influenzati da Alexandr Bogdanov e Anatolij Lunačarskij, il futuro Commissario del Popolo per l’Istruzione. Esso si concentra anche sulla rivista “Vešč/Gegenstand/Objet", fondata da El Lissitzky e Ilya Ehrenburg a Berlino nel 1922, i suoi legami (...) con il Purismo francese e Pannaggi. (shrink)

In this article I argue the need for a reflexive use of photographic images in research, mainly in the publication and dissemination phase and specifically when the topic investigated relates to issues of visibility, in this case racism and understandings of beauty. This analysis draws on my work on contemporary practices of racism in Mexico, where personal photographs were used as research tools in life-story interviews, creating a sense of shared intimacy. Inspired by Barthes' refusal in Camera Lucida (2000) to (...) reproduce a photograph of his mother, in this article I focus on the dynamics between seeing and looking and suggest that `looking emotionally' at both participants' accounts and their photographic images, is a way to address the complexities of the gaze and discuss the specificity of different `ways of looking'. The notion of `looking emotionally' refers to an engagement, of researchers and audiences of research, with participants' lived emotional experiences that explicitly confronts the historical and social legacies of the visible. Here, photographs are understood not only as illustrative platforms from where experiences are organized, but also as `traps' that both inform and ensnare (Gell, 1999). As such, the argument aims to problematize the intimate relationship between gaze and photographic image in a context where racism is constrained to the visible, both in its reproduction and also in its pressing ongoing critique. (shrink)

This paper examines the association of the sociodemographic characteristics of women and the unobserved hospital factors with maternal mortality in Kenya using multilevel logistic regression. The data analysed comprise hospital records for 58,151 obstetric admissions in sixteen public hospitals, consisting of 182 maternal deaths. The results show that the probability of maternal mortality depends on both observed factors that are associated with a particular woman and unobserved factors peculiar to the admitting hospital. The individual characteristics observed to have a significant (...) association with maternal mortality include maternal age, antenatal clinic attendance and educational attainment. The hospital variation is observed to be stronger for women with least favourable sociodemographic characteristics. For example, the risk of maternal death at high-risk hospitals for women aged 35 years and above, who had low levels of education, and did not attend antenatal care is about 280 deaths per 1000 admissions. The risk for similar women at low-risk hospitals is about 4 deaths per 1000. To complement results from the analysis of individual patient records, the paper includes findings from hospital staff reports regarding the maternal mortality situation at the hospitals. (shrink)