This paper explores the “triangulation approach” in social science research methods. Triangulation is an emerging method specifically in qualitative and multi-method studies. Researchers in the social sciences have increased their use of the triangulation approach recently due to the merits of this approach, especially to conduct in-depth studies through multiple inquiries. Simultaneously, this method has criticism and misconceptions among social researchers in terms of what it is, how it can be used, and the credibility of the findings when used. Therefore, (...) this paper analyses in depth what triangulation is, the types of triangulations and how they can be applied in the social sciences. The study basically adopted systematic literature review and used 30 articles published in scientific journals. The paper critically reviewed journal articles related to triangulation, revealed how different types of triangulation methods have been applied in the social sciences and highlighted the merits and cautions of applying this method. The paper theoretically contributes to understanding the phenomenon of the triangulation approach and how it connects with qualitative and multi-method studies. In addition, it revealed that the following data collection techniques from multiple sources can be exploited: in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, literature, documents, and surveys on the triangulation method to improve the credibility and reliability of the research. Furthermore, the study empirically contributes to social science researchers applying this approach with proper understanding. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Global multi-stakeholder initiatives are important instruments that have the potential to improve the social and environmental sustainability of global supply chains. However, they often fail to comprehensively address the needs and interests of various supply-chain participants. While voluntary in nature, MSIs have most often been implemented through coercive approaches, resulting in friction among their participants and in systemic problems with decoupling. Additionally, in those cases in which deliberation was constrained between and amongst participants, collaborative approaches have often failed to materialize. (...) Our framework focuses on two key aspects of these breakdowns: assumptions about the orientation of MSI participants, and the deliberation processes that participants use to engage with each other to create these initiatives and sustain them over time. Drawing from stakeholder and deliberation theories, we revisit the concept of MSIs and show how their deliberative capacity may be enhanced in order to encourage participants to collaborate voluntarily. (shrink)

This paper surveys the state-of-the-art in machine ethics, that is, considerations of how to implement ethical behaviour in robots, unmanned autonomous vehicles, or software systems. The emphasis is on covering the breadth of ethical theories being considered by implementors, as well as the implementation techniques being used. There is no consensus on which ethical theory is best suited for any particular domain, nor is there any agreement on which technique is best placed to implement a particular theory. Another unresolved problem (...) in these implementations of ethical theories is how to objectively validate the implementations. The paper discusses the dilemmas being used as validating ‘whetstones’ and whether any alternative validation mechanism exists. Finally, it speculates that an intermediate step of creating domain-specific ethics might be a possible stepping stone towards creating machines that exhibit ethical behaviour. (shrink)

How engineers know, and act on that knowledge, has a profound impact on society. Consequently, the analysis of engineering knowledge is one of the central challenges for the philosophy of engineering. In this article, we present a thematic multidisciplinary conceptual survey of engineering epistemology and identify key areas of research that are still to be comprehensively investigated. Themes are organized based on a survey of engineering epistemology including research from history, sociology, philosophy, design theory, and engineering itself. Five major interrelated (...) themes are identified: the relationship between scientific and engineering knowledge, engineering knowledge as a distinct field of study, the social epistemology of engineering, the relationship between engineering knowledge and its products, and the cognitive aspects of engineering knowledge. We discuss areas of potential future research that are underdeveloped or “undone.”. (shrink)

Niranjan Ramakrishnan examines the surprising extent to which Gandhi's writings still provide insight into current global tensions and the assumptions that drive them. This book explores how ideas Gandhi expressed over a century ago can be applied today to issues from terrorism to the environment, globalization to the 'Clash of Civilizations.' In particular it looks at Gandhi's emphasis on the small, the local, and the human – an emphasis that today begins to appear practical, attractive, and even inescapable. Written (...) in an accessible style invoking examples from everyday happenings familiar to all, this concise volume reintroduces Gandhi to today's audiences in relevant terms. (shrink)

In their discussion paper of November 2020, Cooket alpresent a draft protocol for navigating circumstances in which emergency services are overwhelmed. Their paper suggests that COVID-related triage decisions should be based on clinical assessment, patient and family consultation, and a range of ethical considerations. In this response, we note that the protocol exhibits an ambiguity that is likely to result in irresolvable dilemmas when put into practice. This ambiguity is exemplified in the paper’s prime ethical imperative (to ‘save more lives (...) and more years of life’), which takes the form of an undefined conjunction whose practical implications are left unspecified. We see this ambiguity in the prime imperative as one manifestation of a broader set of tensions in the protocol. We show that the discipline of human rights provides an essential supplement to the ethical framework on which Cook and colleagues rely, providing a framework for understanding and working through triage dilemmas involving age, discrimination and equality. (shrink)

During the 1980s and 1990s, the debate on the Marxist theory of history centred largely around the work of Robert Brenner’s property-relations-centred construal of it, and G.A. Cohen’s attempt to revive the classical, determinist argument. This article examines two influential arguments by Erik Wright and his colleagues, and by Alan Carling, which acknowledge important weaknesses in Cohen’s work, but which also try to construct a more plausible version of his theory. I show that the attempts to rescue Cohen are largely (...) unsuccessful. And, to the extent that they render the argument plausible, they do so at the cost of turning it, willy-nilly, into a kind of class-struggle theory. I conclude that this spells the demise of the classical version of historical materialism, but also observe that this does not leave us with a voluntaristic understanding of history, as some of its defenders fear. (shrink)

Poor working conditions remain a serious problem in supplier facilities in developing countries. While previous research has explored this from the developed buyers’ side, we examine this phenomenon from the perspective of developing countries’ suppliers and subcontractors. Utilizing qualitative data from a major knitwear exporting cluster in India and a stakeholder management lens, we develop a framework that shows how the assumptions of conventional, buyer-driven voluntary governance break down in the dilution of buyer power and in the web of factors (...) rooted in suppliers’ traditions, beliefs, local demands and resource dependency. We reveal out how success in governing collaborative global supply chains often falls short within the subcontracting stage, where a stakeholder management mindset is elusive to most participants. We suggest that success in governing collaborative global supply chains is dependent on concepts of stakeholder utility and the presence of shared value that is often at odds with the realities of power, information asymmetry and compliance/reward systems inherent in the non-market coordination of global supply chains. Our findings offer important insights for delineating the concepts of value creation from CSR concepts and practices, and for modifying the basic assumptions of conventional supply chain governance. (shrink)

Between 1983 and 2006 there were two distinct sorts of historical writings on Southeast Asian medical history, with quite different emphases. Some historians focused on the history of medicine in national contexts—a practice that resulted in the neglect of larger socioeconomic factors such as migration—that affected the trajectory of pandemics. At the same time, pursuing a different line of thinking, another group of historians focused on the history of specific diseases from a demographic perspective. These two approaches led to very (...) different conclusions about the nature of epidemic disease and pandemics that have beset the region since the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, regional histories of health are neglected in Southeast Asian medical history in favor of either local, national, or global histories. In this essay, I argue that if historians of global health have forsaken the region in favor of the wider world, Southeast Asian historians have neglected the region in favor of the nation. What is missing in Southeast Asian medical history is a regional perspective that would help understand the ways in which pandemic responses are shaped by colonial, Cold War, or national concerns. Beginning 2019, some historians and political analysts trying to understand global pandemics have adopted a regional approach by treating, as a monolithic group, the ASEAN—the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which is a regional grouping of Southeast Asian member states, established in 1967. By contrast, others explore specific geographic, political, or economic issues that have contributed to either the spread or containment of disease. In this regard, the COVID-19 crisis in Southeast Asia merits historical attention to comprehend the strengths and weaknesses of a regional approach. (shrink)

A challenge to Kant’s less known duty of self-knowledge comes from his own firm view that it is impossible to know oneself. This paper resolves this problem by considering the duty of self-knowledge as involving the pursuit of knowledge of oneself as one appears in the empirical world. First, I argue that, although Kant places severe restrictions on the possibility of knowing oneself as one is, he admits the possibility of knowing oneself as one appears using methods from empirical anthropology. (...) Second, I show that empirical knowledge of oneself is fairly reliable and is, in fact, considered as morally significant from Kant’s moral anthropological perspective. Taking these points together, I conclude that Kant’s duty of self-knowledge exclusively entails the pursuit of empirical self-knowledge. (shrink)

Adequate reprogramming of cellular metabolism in response to stresses or suboptimal growth conditions involves a myriad of coordinated changes that serve to promote cell survival. As protein synthesis is an energetically expensive process, its regulation under stress is of critical importance. Reprogramming of messenger RNA (mRNA) translation involves well‐understood stress‐activated kinases that target components of translation initiation machinery, resulting in the robust inhibition of general translation and promotion of the translation of stress‐responsive proteins. Translational arrest of mRNAs also results in (...) the accumulation of transcripts in cytoplasmic foci called stress granules. Recent studies focus on the key roles of transfer RNA (tRNA) in stress‐induced translational reprogramming. These include stress‐specific regulation of tRNA pools, codon‐biased translation influenced by tRNA modifications, tRNA miscoding, and tRNA cleavage. In combination, signal transduction pathways and tRNA metabolism changes regulate translation during stress, resulting in adaptation and cell survival. This review examines molecular mechanisms that regulate protein synthesis in response to stress. (shrink)

In her recent work, Nancy Folbre undertakes an ambitious effort: constructing an intersectional political economy that aims to identify the common mechanisms and logic underpinning the many wrongs that characterise capitalism. In this paper, we focus on what we deem the three fundamental theoretical pillars of her approach. First, she challenges the oppression/exploitation distinction within Marxian political economy and proposes a broader definition of exploitation that can take manifold forms. Second, she questions the Marxian concept of class, and emphasises the (...) variety of forms of subordination and exploitation related to social identities that cannot be reduced to Marxian classes. Finally, she advocates a more comprehensive notion of the economy beyond a focus on capitalist relations of production. It is difficult to understate the theoretical relevance of these claims, which highlight the importance of various contemporary forms of injustice—of which the exploitation of workers by capitalists is only one. As a complement to the Marxian theory of exploitation and class, Folbre’s approach would broaden our understanding of oppressive social relations. Yet as an alternative to Marxian political economy, it is ultimately unconvincing: a shift of emphasis to ‘manifold exploitations’, social groups, and the economy does not yield a gain in analytical insight but rather an impoverishment of our conceptual toolbox. The struggle against capitalism is different from the struggle against patriarchy and racism, even if the ultimate aim should be the removal of all structures of oppression and domination. (shrink)

To understand the variations in the financial characteristics, we examine the dynamical behaviors by considering the chaotic financial model with external force. First, the dynamical characteristics are analyzed by introducing the external driven force in the price index with commodity demand. We discover that the presence of an external force causes the alternate occurrence of oscillatory and steady states as a function of time. Interestingly, we find the existence of bifurcation delay during the transition from oscillatory to steady state or (...) vice versa. Bifurcation delay is a phenomenon in which the bifurcation does not occur at the actual bifurcation point but rather at a later time, which is referred to as bifurcation delay. To confirm the delay in bifurcation, we estimate the actual bifurcation point and compare it to the observed bifurcation transition. Furthermore, to understand the variations in the bifurcation delay, we estimate the delay time between each consecutive cycle and find random fluctuations in the BD. Following that, the BD is virtualized via a transformed phase portrait. In addition, we show decreasing the value of average BD while increasing the frequency of external forcing. Second, the presence of BD is explored by incorporating external forces into the investment demand with unit investment cost. We discover the existence of a similar phenomenon with a constant bifurcation delay. (shrink)

Although there is such a thing as Indian thought, it seems to play no role in the way social sciences and philosophy are practiced in India or elsewhere. The problem is not only that we no longer employ terms such as atman, avidya, dharma to reflect on our experience; the terms that we do indeed use—sovereignty, secularism, rights, civil society and political society, corruption—seem to insulate our experience from our reflection. This paper will outline Gandhi’s framing of our predicament in (...) Hind Swaraj. It will then discuss three very different examples taken from our peculiar life with concepts that will also serve to clarify and illustrate the framework I am outlining. It will then very briefly discuss how Gandhi saw the Gita as showing him a way out of the predicament. (shrink)

The role of various organizational pressures in influencing performance of firms has been an interesting research topic in a variety of fields and has received the attention of researchers working in the field of environmental strategy. Although there are previous studies that have looked at the influence of various pressures in influencing firms’ environmental strategies, our study provides a more holistic analysis considering a variety of such pressures in a single framework. We discuss a research study to analyze how pressures (...) from internal and external stakeholders of a firm, economic pressures, environmental regulations, and pressures of environmental compliance have affected environmental performance of firms using data collected from manufacturing firms in the United Kingdom. We have found that internal stakeholders provide the greatest impact in shaping environmental performance of firms, closely followed by economic pressures, environmental regulations, and external stakeholders in that order. Fears of penalties due to environmental compliance have the least impact, although this pressure also has a positive and significant impact on environmental performance. (shrink)

This article is a step towards a rethinking of the emergence of the modern state in Europe. Traditionally, war has been viewed as the central mechanism of state formation. This approach claims that war caused the emergence of the modern state in two significant ways: 1) by consolidating the politically fragmented world of the middle ages through conquest; and 2) through the pressure of competition in a Darwinian international system, which forced the polities of Europe to create the bureaucratic structures (...) fundamental to the authority of the modern state. This article seeks to undermine the first of these mechanisms by showing that the territorial consolidation of Europe was a logical result of dynastic lordship. I seek to show that the consolidation of territory and authority into fewer and fewer hands was a direct consequence of dynastic successional practices and therefore that the emphasis on coercion in European political development has been overplayed. (shrink)

This article discusses the importance of ‘public conscience’ in B. R. Ambedkar’s political thought. Ambedkar consistently defended public conscience as a democratic value in his writings and speeches. Public conscience referred to collective responsibility, social justice and the public deliberation of what constitutes the social good. Ambedkar consistently expressed the unequivocal belief that public conscience would bring about a moral transformation in Indian society through a collective ethical stance against all forms of social oppression. He conceptualized public conscience as a (...) method by which a democratic and ethical Indian society could come about and flourish. This article interrogates his ideas concerning public conscience through a detailed reading of his works, focusing particularly on his 1943 speech, Ranade, Gandhi and Jinnah. (shrink)

Micro RNAs (miRNAs) have been shown to control many cellular processes including developmental timing in different organisms. The prediction that miRNAs are involved in regulating hox genes of flies and mouse is quite a recent idea and is supported by the finding that mir‐196 represses Hoxb8 gene expression. The non‐coding regions that encode these miRNAs are also conserved across species in the same way as other mechanisms that regulate expression of hox genes. On the contrary, until now no homeotic phenotype, (...) a hallmark of any hox gene mutation, had been associated with any hox miRNA. Recent work on bithorax complex miRNA (miR–iab‐4–5p) shows, for the first time, that miRNAs can lead to homeotic transformation. This miRNA regulates Ultrabithorax (Ubx) and results in the transformation of haltere to wing.1 This study unveils a new complexity and finesse to the regulation of hox gene expression pattern that is needed for determining the anteroposterior body axis in all bilaterians. BioEssays 28: 445–448, 2006. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

The framing problematic of this dissertation is the political and epistemological relationship between metropolitan theory and post-colonial narrative. By providing multiple determinations to that problematic, I seek to situate the inventions of post-colonial identity. Using "detour" both as a privileged figure of contemporary theory and as the lived socio-historical experience of post-colonials, I examine the theoretical and political consequences using the former to translate the latter. Placing my own discourse at the limits of theory, I show that the predicament in (...) which contemporary theory finds itself is a result of the reduction of narrative to theory . ;I stage the negotiation between metropolitan theory and post-colonial narratives as an allegory of the post-colonial predicament. Finally, through a critique of certain post-colonial theorists , I plot the limits of the post-colonial space in the First World. I conclude that to invent the post-colonial space as a signifying space, we need to develop a poetics of retour which will be as complex and as ambiguous as the poetics of detour that the post-colonials have been living, narrating, and theorizing. ;Chapter I sets the theoretical context for posing the problem of post-colonial self-fashioning. In Chapter II, I sketch the trajectory of post-colonial detour through a close reading of V. S. Naipaul's The Mimic Men. In Chapter III, I interrogate Homi Bhabha's theory of cultural hybridity as a version of the poetics of detour. In Chapter IV, I offer a characterization of the predicament of theory. In the final chapter, I discuss the uses of theory by post-colonial intellectuals and offer a critique of their politics of cultural description and self-description. I argue that post-colonial theorists have evaded the question of inventing the post-colonial space as a signifying space by rewriting the narrative of their detour as a narrative of diplacement, as immigritude. (shrink)

Kant’s theory of moral action faces a serious difficulty concerning motivation: how do commands of pure practical reason solely move human agents to perform moral actions? In his response, Kant claims that human agents perform moral actions out of a feeling of respect for the moral law. However, attempts to accommodate a feeling of respect into Kant’s rigorously rationalist ethical theory have led to two diverging strands of interpretation in the secondary literature: intellectualism and affectivism. Against this context, this paper (...) proposes an interpretation of Kantian moral motivation with an appropriate place for the notion of respect within it to resolve the motivational problem concerning moral actions. According to the model of Kantian moral motivation that this paper develops, motivation to act morally takes place in two sequential stages, each involving the positive role of respect as a motive. By arguing for a positive role of the feeling of respect in the process of moral motivation, this model aligns with the affectivist school of interpretation. (shrink)

The main objective of my dissertation is twofold: (i) to investigate how the problem of moral motivation occurs in Kant’s texts, and (ii) to examine how Kant’s account of moral feeling serves as an appropriate solution to it. First, I argue that the problem of moral motivation occurs in Kant’s texts as a skeptical problem concerning the motivational efficacy of practical reason. My view that this problem is integral to Kant’s main ethical project goes against a scholarly trend that dismisses (...) the philosophical significance of motivational skepticism in Kant’s moral theory. Second, I argue that Kant develops a peculiar notion of moral feeling in his Critique of Practical Reason primarily to resolve the problem of motivational skepticism about pure practical reason. In doing so, I regard the notion of moral feeling as an essential component of both Kant’s moral motivational structure and his justification of the moral law. This inclusion of moral feeling makes my interpretation a better alternative not only to standard transcendental interpretations of Kant’s account of moral motivation, but also to other kinds of interpretations proposed in the recent literature. (shrink)

Many targets of the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway are regulated by TCF transcription factors, which play important roles in animal development, stem cell biology, and oncogenesis. TCFs can regulate Wnt targets through a “transcriptional switch,” repressing gene expression in unstimulated cells and promoting transcription upon Wnt signaling. However, it is not clear whether this switch mechanism is a general feature of Wnt gene regulation or limited to a subset of Wnt targets. Co-repressors of the TLE family are known to contribute to (...) the repression of Wnt targets in the absence of signaling, but how they are inactivated or displaced by Wnt signaling is poorly understood. In this mini-review, we discuss several recent reports that address the prevalence and molecular mechanisms of the Wnt transcription switch, including the finding of Wnt-dependent ubiquitination/inactivation of TLEs. Together, these findings highlight the growing complexity of the regulation of gene expression by the Wnt pathway. Wnt targets are regulated by a “switch” where TLE co-repressors are displaced from TCFs by β-catenin, leading to activation of transcription. Recent reports challenge this view and suggest that additional processes, including exchange of specific TCF proteins and Wnt-dependent ubiquitination of TLEs, play important roles in the Wnt transcriptional switch. (shrink)

Bortolotti’s Delusions and Other Irrational Beliefs defends the view that delusions are beliefs on a continuum with other beliefs. A different view is that delusions are more like illusions, that is, they arise from faulty perception. This view, which is not targeted by the book, makes it easier to explain why delusions are so alien and disabling but needs to appeal to forensic aspects of functioning.

We show, for various classes of totally ordered structures, including o‐minimal and weakly o‐minimal structures, that every definable partial order on a subset of extends definably in to a total order. This extends the result proved in for and o‐minimal.

In this paper, I aim to resolve the Frierson-Grenberg debate on the nature of Kant’s account of moral motivation that took place in the third issue of Con-textos Kantianos. In their respective interpretations, Frierson and Grenberg fail to accommodate the a priori status of moral feeling when incorporating it into Kant’s moral motivational structure. In response, I provide a novel transcendental interpretation – one that takes the a priori moral feeling both as an incentive of morality and as that which (...) conditions the possibility of morality in human agents. I argue that Kant developed the notion of moral feeling solely in order to resolve the problem of motivational skepticism concerning the moral law. Since this problem occurs as a part of Kant’s search for the supreme principle of morality, the notion of moral feeling becomes a part of both Kant’s moral motivational structure and his argument to justify the moral law. (shrink)

A proper elementary extension of a model is called small if it realizes no new types over any finite set in the base model. We answer a question of Marker, and show that it is possible to have an o-minimal structure with a maximal small extension. Our construction yields such a structure for any cardinality. We show that in some cases, notably when the base structure is countable, the maximal small extension has maximal possible cardinality.

Dynamical analysis, chaos suppression and electronic implementation of the synchronous reluctance motor without external inputs are investigated in this paper. The different dynamical behaviors found in the SynRM without external inputs are illustrated in the two parameters largest Lyapunov exponent diagrams, one parameter bifurcation diagram, and phase portraits. The three single controllers are designed to suppress the chaotic behaviors found in SynRM without external inputs. The three proposed single controllers are simple and easy to implement. Numerical simulation results show that (...) the three proposed single controllers are effective. Finally, the dynamical behaviors found in the SynRM without external inputs and the physical feasibility of the three proposed single controllers are validated through circuit implementation on OrCAD-PSpice software. (shrink)

We prove that a function definable with parameters in an o-minimal structure is bounded away from ∞ as its argument goes to ∞ by a function definable without parameters, and that this new function can be chosen independently of the parameters in the original function. This generalizes a result in [1]. Moreover, this remains true if the argument is taken to approach any element of the structure , and the function has limit any element of the structure.

The nature of the relationship between environmental performance and firm performance of corporations is a long standing and contentious issue in the literature. This study is intended to advance this debate by arguing for the existence of curvilinear relationship and empirically testing the same using survey data on UK manufacturing firms. FP is captured in terms of growth in sales and market share. Our results show evidence for a quadratic relationship—as firms improve their EP, they seem to achieve much higher (...) levels of FP. These results are consistent with the resource-based view of a firm; as firms engage in EP activities, they are able to gain inimitable knowledge that helps in further learning to further improve performance. Based on our results, we suggest that new studies focus on strategies to extend the period of increasing returns and maximizing the benefits of the positive association between EP and FP. (shrink)

For computer simulation models to usefully inform climate risk management, uncertainties in model projections must be explored and characterized. Because doing so requires running the model many ti...

The practice of ‘greenwashing’ may be characterized as the fabrication of green claims by organizations to portray a positive image. Greenwashing has not been examined in the United Arab Emirates, and the fashion sector is considered the second largest consumer of harmful chemicals, excessive water use, and non-compliant waste management practices behind the oil and gas sector. Using in-depth semi-structured interviews with fast fashion consumers in the UAE, an exploratory qualitative inquiry was conducted with a focus on the ‘seven sins (...) of greenwashing’ and ‘competitive altruism’ theories and the consumer perceptions of green claims made by major apparel manufacturing and retail firms in the UAE were investigated. A conceptual framework was developed to better understand the nature of corporate altruistic behavior and perceived advantages of green initiatives. The exploratory qualitative inquiry used for this study provided a great opportunity for gathering detailed information on consumer perceptions of greenwashing practices in the UAE. Future research and statistical representation are needed to cross reference the data and test the framework suggested here. (shrink)

This volume, an important contribution to dialogic and Bakhtin studies, shows the natural fit between Bakhtin’s ideas and the pluralistic culture of India to a global academic audience. It is premised on the fact that long before principles of dialogism took shape in the Western world, these ideas, though not labelled as such, were an integral part of intellectual histories in India. Bakhtin’s ideas and intellectual traditions of India stand under the same banner of plurality, open-endedness and diversity of languages (...) and social speech types and, therefore, the affinity between the thinker and the culture seems natural. Rather than being a mechanical import of Bakhtin’s ideas, it is an occasion to reclaim, reactivate and reenergize inherent dialogicality in the Indian cultural, historical and philosophical histories. Bakhtin is not an incidental figure, for he offers precise analytical tools to make sense of the incredibly complex differences at every level in the cultural life of India. Indian heterodoxy lends well to a Bakhtinian reading and analysis and the papers herein attest to this. The papers range from how ideas from Indo-European philology reached Bakhtin through a circuitous route, to responses to Bakhtin’s thought on the carnival from the philosophical perspectives of Abhinavagupta, to a Bakhtinian reading of literary texts from India. The volume also includes an essay on ‘translation as dialogue’ – an issue central to multilingual cultures – and on inherent dialogicality in the long intellectual traditions in India. (shrink)

The Homeobox (Hox) genes essentially define body regions in all animals including humans – responsible for determining two arms, two legs, one nose and so on. This gene is shared by all living beings – from the snail to the elephant to humans – and it can now be manipulated into transforming certain parts of the body into others. We have observed such transformations, such as that of an amputated antenna into a limb, as far back as 1901, termed neomorphosis (...) (Morgan 1901), and it has only recently re-emerged as an area of scientific study. Spontaneous transformations and induced regenerations are fascinating research topics that are fast becoming a reality; some scientists are postulating that it may be possible that the hox gene could be central to limb regeneration in the future. This article will present the Hox Zodiac project, which attempts to introduce this subject and push the ideas further into speculation of mutation (i.e. humans and animals) into creatures that may resemble the mythical beings we know as fiction. The starting point of this wheel of life is the Chinese zodiac, consisting of twelve animals that are associated with humans. In the process of development, it became interesting to note that half of the animals on the wheel are those used in the lab – rat, pig, monkey, dog, sheep and rabbit. The ox, tiger, horse, snake and rooster are considered mythical and the dragon could easily fall into the category of a genetically modified creature that is to re-emerge in the future. Since medical and scientific testing on humans is strictly forbidden, scientists have virtually shifted to animals for all such studies. Thus, everything that is used on our bodies and minds is directly related to the animal kingdom. The pig heart and rat mind are symbols for the paradox of science that uses animals in ways that are at once disconnected while subconsciously connecting us more than ever by using research results in medical and food products we consume. Although the controversy of using animals in labs is widely known and often violently opposed, the artist in the lab questions how this research impacts our collective consciousness, especially with the growing trend of brain-computer interfaces and particularly synthetic telepathy. This relationship of the human to the metaphorical meaning of the animal kingdom brought to mind Jung’s research on metaphors, symbolism and archetypes, which became central to the Hox Zodiac. (shrink)

Derek Parfit, who died in 2017, is widely believed to have been the best moral philosopher in well over a century. The twenty new essays in this book were written in his honour and have all been inspired by his work - in particular, his work in an area of moral philosophy known as 'population ethics', which is concerned with moral issues raised by causing people to exist. Until Parfit began writing about these issues in the 1970s, there was almost (...) no discussion of them in the entire history of philosophy. But his monumental book 'Reasons and Persons' (1984) revealed that population ethics abounds in deep and intractable problems and paradoxes that not only challenge all the major moral theories but also threaten to undermine many important common-sense moral beliefs. (shrink)

Identifying the determinants of reproductive success in small-scale societies is critical for understanding how natural selection has shaped human evolution and behavior. The available evidence suggests that status-accruing behaviors such as hunting and prosociality are pathways to reproductive success, but social egalitarianism may diminish this pathway. Here we introduce a mixed longitudinal/cross-sectional dataset based on 45 years of research with the Batek, a population of egalitarian rain forest hunter-gatherers in Peninsular Malaysia, and use it to test the effects of four (...) predictors of lifetime reproductive success: foraging return rate, sharing proclivity, cooperative foraging tendency, and kin presence. We found that none of these factors can explain variation in lifetime reproduction among males or females. We suggest that social egalitarianism, combined with strikingly low infant and juvenile mortality rates, can mediate the pathway between foraging, status-accruing behavior, and reproductive success. Our approach advocates for greater theoretical and empirical attention to quantitative social network measures, female foraging, and fitness outcomes. (shrink)