Glucocorticoids are understood to represent useful biomarkers of stress and can be measured in saliva, hair, and breastmilk. The collection of such biosamples is increasingly included in biobank and cohort studies. While collection is considered “non-invasive” by biomedical researchers (compared to sampling blood), community perspectives may differ. This cross-sectional, qualitative study utilising eight focus groups aimed to determine the feasibility and acceptability of collecting ostensibly “non-invasive” biological samples in Malawi. Breastfeeding women, couples, field workers, and healthcare providers were purposively sampled. (...) Data about prior understandings of, barriers to, and feasibility of “non-invasive” biosampling were analysed. Participants described biomaterials intended for “non-invasive” collection as sometimes highly sensitive, with sampling procedures raising community concerns. Sampling methods framed as physically “non-invasive” within biomedicine can consequently be considered socially “invasive” by prospective sample donors. Biomedical and community framings of “invasiveness’ can therefore diverge, and the former must respond to and be informed by the perspectives of the latter. Further, considerations of collection procedures are shaped by therapeutic misconceptions about the immediate health-related utility of biomedical and public health research. When researchers engage with communities about biosampling, they must ensure they are not furthering therapeutic misconceptions and actively seek to dispel these. (shrink)

Factors such as subsistence turnover, warfare, or interaction between different groups can be major sources of cultural change in human populations. Global demographic shifts such as the transition to agriculture during the Neolithic and more recently the urbanization and globalization of the twentieth century have been major catalysts for cultural change. Here, we test whether cultural traits such as patri/matrilocality and postmarital migration persist in the face of social upheaval and gene flow during the past 150 years in postcolonial South (...) Africa. The recent history of South Africa has seen major demographic shifts that resulted in the displacement and forced sedentism of indigenous Khoekhoe and San populations. During the expansion of the colonial frontier, the Khoe-San admixed with European colonists and enslaved individuals from West/Central Africa, Indonesia, and South Asia, introducing novel cultural norms. We conducted demographic interviews among Nama and Cederberg communities representing nearly 3,000 individuals across three generations. Despite the history of colonial expansion, and the subsequent incorporation of Khoe-San and Khoe-San-descendant communities into a colonial society with strong patrilocal norms, patrilocality is the least common postmarital residence pattern in our study populations today. Our results suggest that more recent forces of integration into the market economy are likely the primary drivers of change in the cultural traits examined in our study. Birthplace had a strong effect on an individual’s odds of migration, distance moved, and postmarital residence form. These effects are at least partially explained by the population size of the birthplace. Our results suggest that market factors local to birthplaces are important drivers of residence decisions, although the frequency of matrilocal residence and a geographic and temporal cline in migration and residence patterns also indicate the persistence of some historic Khoe-San cultural traits in contemporary groups. (shrink)

Results of R. Miller in 2009 proved several theorems about algebraic fields and computable categoricity. Also in 2009, A. Frolov, I. Kalimullin, and R. Miller proved some results about the degree spectrum of an algebraic field when viewed as a subfield of its algebraic closure. Here, we show that the same computable categoricity results also hold for finite-branching trees under the predecessor function and for connected, finite-valence, pointed graphs, and we show that the degree spectrum results do not hold for (...) these trees and graphs. We also offer an explanation for why the degree spectrum results distinguish these classes of structures: although all three structures are algebraic structures, the fields are what we call effectively algebraic. (shrink)

Contadini—peasant farmers—are central figures of belonging in a Northern Italian winegrowing community. The skills and languages in which contadini are fluent and who is recognized as one of them organize the values attached to various roles in this world. I show how the immigrant vineyard workers who maintain local landscapes engage with this identity, producing new selves through the labor of caring for vines. Earning the title of contadino allows some immigrants to cross social boundaries usually policed by strict ethnic (...) lines in Italy, generating recognition and benefits unavailable from the state. At the same time, Italian employers’ relation to the land changes as they hand off ways of knowing and doing to categorical outsiders. ‘Traditional’ labor and products are what pull these two groups into a collaborative encounter, but rather than simply keeping the past in practice, immigrants and Italians also generate new forms of personhood and value. (shrink)

This collection investigates the current state of play in studies informed by Marxism. It includes a magisterial essay on state theory by Bob Jessop, a discussion of fundamental socialist values using analytical Marxism by Alan Carling, an introduction to Fromm's humanist Marxism by Lawrence Wilde, and provocative pieces on Marxism and ecology, Marxism and feminism, the debate between Marxists and post-Marxists, the democratic Marxism of Hal Draper, the confrontation between Marxism and Liberalism, and Marxism's place in the history of political (...) thought. (shrink)

Debates about indoctrination raise fundamental questions about the ethics of teaching. This paper presents a philosophical analysis of indoctrination, including 1) an account of what indoctrination is and why it is harmful, and 2) a framework for understanding the responsibilities of teachers and other educational actors to avoid its negative outcomes. I respond to prominent outcomes-based accounts of indoctrination, which I argue share two limiting features—a narrow focus on the threat indoctrination poses to knowledge and on the dyadic relationship between (...) indoctrinator and indoctrinated person. I propose a system-based account of indoctrination in which actors with authority contribute to the production or reinforcement of closed-mindedness, which threatens both knowledge and understanding. By taking a system-based approach, my account is better equipped to identify the implications of indoctrination for educational policy and practice. (shrink)

Nassim Noroozi proposes a juxtaposition of pedagogy with and a characterization of it as justice. The term pedagogical here is not limited to “the educational,” nor is pedagogy limited to the methods of teaching. At the same time, the term justice will not be framed in terms of liberal conceptual grounds. Noroozi defines pedagogy as an arrangement of meaning so that it becomes impossible not to see injustice. Noroozi argues that “pedagogy-as-justice” concerns itself with exposing injustice in transformative ways, and (...) as such it is an ethical undertaking. She explores how philosophizing for struggle is inherently pedagogical and, because of our perception of “the pedagogical,” how it is inherently transformative. Furthermore, she argues that seeing pedagogy as justice will consequentially deem “the arrangements of meanings to engage others in the issues pertaining to injustice” as equally important to writing or thinking about those struggles. To illustrate the above points, Noroozi analyzes a case of public philosophical engagement against war. By expanding on this case, she proposes some central attributes of pedagogy-as-justice, namely its preoccupation with grounding abstract and anonymous concepts in their contested historical realities; its commitment to wrestling with an “opacity of concepts” or with “dishonest reasonings” that end up promoting suffering and injustice; and its recognition of the precarities inherent in undertaking pedagogy-as-justice. Noroozi traces a genealogy of the concept of pedagogy-as-justice going back to Socratic public philosophical engagements. (shrink)

Soltis' analysis of signal functions of young infants' cries stimulates testable questions regarding abuse, neglect, and infanticide. Nevertheless, his evolutionary perspective oversimplifies the cry event, and does little to promote developmental analysis of crying during infancy. Studies of the cry in its behavioral and developmental context are needed if we are to understand the proximate causes of optimal and suboptimal care.

Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross is credited as one of the first clinicians to formalize recommendations for working with patients with advanced medical illnesses. In her seminal book, On Death and Dying,...

At its birth, a new scientific discipline is baptized with the names of the two parent disciplines, Science X and Science Y. Subsequently, usage tends to shorten this compound name by giving preference to one or the other of the constituting terms so that the new term is less disconcerting and novel. Take biophysics, for example. Is it more closely related to physics than to biology, or the other way round? Today this question seems naive but it did not appear (...) so a scarce thirty years ago, that is, at the beginning of the creative activity of the most, eminent scientists in the field of biophysics: it was then the subject of intense discussion. (shrink)

Beginning from a basis in the theoretical analysis of comparative religious ethics provided by David Little and Sumner Twiss, this essay extends that analysis by sketching certain "benchmark" theoretical options in comparative religious ethics and by identifying certain fundamental questions which ethicists ought to address to the data supplied by descriptive studies of comparative religions. To illustrate the application of the theoretical model thus defined, the essay concludes with an analysis of selected themes in the essays by Campany, Guberman, and (...) Read in this Focus. (shrink)

_Endless Night: Cinema and Psychoanalysis, Parallel Histories_ Edited by Janet Bergstrom Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999 ISBN 0-520-20747-5 (hbk); 0-520-20748-3 (pbk) 307 pp.

_CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title 2022__ In this thought-provoking volume, editors Rebecca M. Taylor and Ashley Floyd Kuntz invite readers to explore the many facets of on-campus ethical dilemmas and the careful, nuanced decision-making processes required to address them._ Taylor and Kuntz demonstrate how to apply collaborative, multidisciplinary, philosophical inquiry to deeply complex issues. They present seven normative case studies focusing on a variety of campus quandaries, from urgent matters such as Title IX violations and free speech in social media (...) policy to long-simmering concerns such as admissions and access and the future of historically Black colleges and universities. The editors then bring together a diverse group of scholars and practitioners with a broad array of disciplinary and personal backgrounds to offer their commentary and insight on the cases. Leaders in higher education are under immense pressure to respond to campus crises quickly, to quell controversy, and to avoid the backlash of public scrutiny in an ever-shifting sociopolitical terrain. Yet, in tension with such pressures, adequate responses to these dilemmas require leaders to make ethical, contextual choices that effectively foster inclusion, respect individual and institutional freedoms, and promote equity. Expanding the scope of inquiry, the contributors challenge underlying assumptions, raise points that had been omitted from the original cases, and imagine alternative solutions. _Ethics in Higher Education_ appeals to readers to do the same, in the interest of advancing ethical decision-making on campuses. (shrink)

Under higher education’s contemporary consumer model, students are treated as customers and professors are encouraged to increase student engagement through more personal out-of-class interactions, often in social settings. In the course of this more personal student-faculty involvement, students inevitably encounter or learn of their professors’ occasional inappropriate or unethical behavior. In the present study, we investigated the impact of 145 American undergraduate Business students’ perceptions of their professors’ inappropriate out-of-class behavior on student beliefs and in-class behavior. Results indicate that student (...) perceptions of professors engaging in inappropriate out-of-class behavior were associated with students viewing these professors as lower in ethical character and reporting a stronger likelihood of attending these professors’ classes under the influence of alcohol and illicit drugs, swearing and using vulgarity in these professors’ class discussions, and showing disregard for these professors’ rules, time, and effort. These relationships held even when student grade satisfaction and professor in-class behavior were accounted for. Our results suggest professors’ behavior outside the classroom may impact students’ behavior inside the classroom, re-igniting dialogue regarding the professorial role and the boundaries on oversight of that role. We offer suggestions as to how higher education may address these concerns without infringing upon professors’ personal freedoms. (shrink)

While the definitions employed by different governmental agencies and scientific societies differ somewhat, the term “nanotechnology” is generally understood to refer to the manufacturing, characterization, and use of man-made devices with dimensions on the order of 1-100 nanometers. Devices that comprise a fundamental functional element that is nanotechnological are also frequently comprised within nanotechnology, as are manufactured objects with dimensions less than one micrometer. The differences in definition lead to occasional paradoxes, such as the fact that the most widely used (...) nanodrug is labeled a “nanopharmaceutical” by governments of European countries, Canada, and Australia, but it is not a nanotechnology for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. It is also common in scientific domains to restrict the term “nanotechnology” to objects that possess special, “emerging” properties that only arise because of their nanoscale dimension. (shrink)

Bluffing, a common and consequential form of competitive behavior, has been comparably ignored in the management literature, even though misleading one's rivals is suggested to be an advantageous skill in a multifaceted and highly competitive environment. To address this deficiency and advance scholarship on competitive dynamics, our study investigates the moral reasoning behind competitive bluffing and, using a simulated market-entry game, examines the performance effects of bluffing. Findings suggest that decision makers' views on the ethicality of bluffing competitors differ from (...) their beliefs on the ethicality of misleading other organizational stakeholders. Analysis also indicates that decision makers who view competitor bluffing as more ethical (less unethical) are more willing to engage in competitive bluffing. Finally, while bluffing is often thought to be an effective business practice, results show that in the context of repeated interaction, bluffing is not conducive to high levels of performance and, in fact, can have undesirable consequences. (shrink)

This paper argues that epistemic errors rooted in group- or identity- based biases, especially those pertaining to disability, are undertheorized in the literature on medical error. After sketching dominant taxonomies of medical error, we turn to the field of social epistemology to understand the role that epistemic schemas play in contributing to medical errors that disproportionately affect patients from marginalized social groups. We examine the effects of this unequal distribution through a detailed case study of ableism. There are four primary (...) mechanisms through which the epistemic schema of ableism distorts communication between nondisabled physicians and disabled patients: testimonial injustice, epistemic overconfidence, epistemic erasure, and epistemic derailing. Measures against epistemic injustices in general and against schema-based medical errors in particular are ultimately issues of justice that must be better addressed at all levels of health care practice. (shrink)

One of six commentaries on “Obesity: Chasing an Elusive Epidemic,” by Daniel Callahan, from the January‐February 2013 issue.

Activists have challenged the reach of the carceral state into higher education. Whether calling out the exclusion of currently and formerly incarcerated people from higher education or the ways campus police perpetuate the racial and economic biases that plague the US criminal legal system, these voices offer insights that higher education leaders should take seriously. Yet, these challenges are often met with appeals to safety, which purport to override concerns about the harms produced by extension of the criminal legal system (...) into educational contexts. Campus safety debates offer an opportunity to examine the role of wilful ignorance in the perpetuation of systemic injustices on college and university campuses, highlighting tensions between the testimony of those challenging these systems and practices and prevailing narratives around safety. In analysing the operation of wilful ignorance in this context, we will focus on campus policing as a manifestation of carcerality in higher education. We argue that the perpetuation of policing in higher education in the USA reflects wilful White ignorance that represents both an epistemic and moral failing on the part of higher education leaders. (shrink)

1. Sexual Brains and Body Politics 2. Hormones and Hardwiring 3. Making Sense of Brain Organization Studies 4. Thirteen Ways of Looking at Brain Organization 5. Working Backward from “Distinct‘ Groups 6. Masculine and Feminine Sexuality 7. Sexual Orienteering 8. Sex-Typed Interests 9. Taking Context Seriously 10. Trading Essence for Potential.

Normative case studies represent empirically grounded phenomena that raise normative philosophical questions. Growth in the popularity of case-based inquiry in philosophy reflects a recent trend in the field not to shy away from engaging with empirical realities, but instead to advance philosophical projects that recognize and speak directly to these realities, including social inequities endemic to our societies. Yet, as the use of case studies and other empirically engaged philosophical approaches has grown, concerns have been raised about whether these methods (...) risk reducing philosophy to social science and, in turn, burdening philosophy with the constraints of social science research. Responding to these concerns calls for more attention to the methodological dimensions of case-based inquiry in philosophy. In this article, Rebecca Taylor offers reflections on two core clarifying questions: (1) What makes normative case studies distinct from other related tools for inquiry — in particular, philosophical thought experiments and qualitative case studies? (2) What quality criteria should guide the development of normative case studies? (shrink)

Professors are increasingly encouraged to adopt multiple role relationships with their students. Regardless of professor intent, these relationships carry risks. Left unexamined is whether student–faculty social multiple relationships impact student in-class behaviors. Provocatively, our exploratory study provides empirical support suggesting that when undergraduate students perceive that their professors engage in the multiple faculty–student relationships of friendships, drinking (alcohol) relationships, and sexual partnerships, students report they are more likely to engage in uncivil behaviors in the professor’s classroom. Accordingly, our study provides (...) a backdrop against which to think more substantively about the professorial role and the boundaries that accompany it. (shrink)

New Zealand has an unspoken commandment: ‘thou shalt not be a tall poppy’. A tall poppy is someone who stands out from the crowd, usually by excelling at one or more pursuits. Sadly, many New Zealanders are all too familiar with this phrase as they have been ‘cut down’ by those around them, taunted for their success and discouraged from celebrating their achievements. This social phenomenon of cutting down tall poppies is called Tall Poppy Syndrome and is present in many (...) areas of New Zealand culture, such as sport, academic achievement, and entrepreneurship. Consequently, the church is not immune to this phenomenon. Tall Poppy Syndrome, whether within or outside the church, discourages excellence and prevents flourishing. This article engages Moral Foundations Theory to understand why Tall Poppy Syndrome exists in New Zealand, and then proposes Christian humility as a remedy for Tall Poppy Syndrome within the church. When humility and excellence can co-exist, then Tall Poppy Syndrome will no longer exist; thus the church could have an important role in enabling New Zealand to be a place where tall poppies can freely flourish. (shrink)

During the oppressive reign of Louis XIV, Gabrielle Suchon was the most forceful female voice in France, advocating women’s freedom and self-determination, access to knowledge, and assertion of authority. This volume collects Suchon’s writing from two works—_Treatise on Ethics and Politics_ and _On the Celibate Life Freely Chosen; or, Life without Commitments _—and demonstrates her to be an original philosophical and moral thinker and writer. Suchon argues that both women and men have inherently similar intellectual, corporeal, and spiritual capacities, which (...) entitle them equally to essentially human prerogatives, and she displays her breadth of knowledge as she harnesses evidence from biblical, classical, patristic, and contemporary secular sources to bolster her claim. Forgotten over the centuries, these writings have been gaining increasing attention from feminist historians, students of philosophy, and scholars of seventeenth-century French literature and culture. This translation, from Domna C. Stanton and Rebecca M. Wilkin, marks the first time these works will appear in English. (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 7, July 2019, Page 69-71.

Cadherin‐mediated cell‐cell adhesion is perturbed in protein tyrosine kinase (PTK)‐transformed cells. While cadherins themselves appear to be poor PTK substrates, their cytoplasmic binding partners, the Arm catenins, are excellent PTK substrates and therefore good candidates for mediating PTK‐induced changes in cadherin behavior. These proteins, p120ctn, β‐catenin and plakoglobin, bind to the cytoplasmic region of classical cadherins and function to modulate adhesion and/or bridge cadherins to the actin cytoskeleton. In addition, as demonstrated recently for β‐catenin, these proteins also have crucial signaling (...) roles that may or may not be related to their effects on cell‐cell adhesion. Tyrosine phosphorylation of cadherin complexes is well documented and widely believed to modulate cell adhesiveness. The data to date, however, is largely correlative and the mechanism of action remains unresolved. In this review, we discuss the current literature and suggest models whereby tyrosine phosphorylation of Arm catenins contribute to regulation or perturbation of cadherin function. (shrink)

In his book Neoliberalism’s War on Higher Education, Henry Giroux bemoans, “[H]igher education increasingly stands alone, even in its attenuated state, as a public arena where ideas can be debated, critical knowledge produced, and learning linked to important social issues.”1 Colleges of education, like public schools themselves, have become more fragmented and compartmentalized in recent years. Persistent at universities is “the view that students are basically consumers and faculty providers of a saleable commodity such as a credential or a set (...) of workplace skills.”2 Professors and teachers alike feel the impact of neoliberal policies aimed at efficiency and productivity, which further alienate and emphasize data... (shrink)