Serum prolactin has been measured in single blood samples collected within the first 22 post-partum months from 97 nursing mothers from an urban area (Bukavu) of Zaïre. Nursing mothers are hyperprolactinemic, higher serum prolactin levels being associated with more frequent suckling episodes per day. Furthermore, serum prolactin declines rapidly in mothers who are giving the breast less than four times per day: the levels are within the normal range found in non-lactating women after the 6th post-partum month. Among mothers giving (...) the breast more than six times per day, serum prolactin does not decline significantly during the 1st post-partum year. (shrink)

Hospital ethics committees have become widespread over the last 25 years, stimulated by the Quinlan decision of the New Jersey Supreme Court, the report of a President's Commission, and most recently by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations , which now man dates that each hospital seeking accreditation have a functioning process for the consideration of ethical issues in patient care. Laws and regulations in several states require that hospitals establish ethics committees, and some states stipulate that (...) certain types of cases and disputes be taken to such committees. At least one state grants legal immunity to those who implement recommendations of an ethics committee. (shrink)

Theories of cognitive development must address both the issue of how children bring their knowledge to bear on behavior in-the-moment, and how knowledge changes over time. We argue that seeking answers to these questions requires an appreciation of the dynamic nature of the developing system in its full, reciprocal complexity. We illustrate this dynamic complexity with results from two lines of research on early word learning. The first demonstrates how the child's active engagement with objects and people supports referent selection (...) via memories for what objects were previously seen in a cued location. The second set of results highlights changes in the role of novelty and attentional processes in referent selection and retention as children's knowledge of words and objects grows. Together this work suggests that understanding systems for perception, action, attention, and memory, and their complex interaction, is critical to understand word learning. We review recent literature that highlights the complex interactions between these processes in cognitive development and point to critical issues for future work. (shrink)

This empirical study concerns the authorship credit decision-making processes and outcomes that occur among coauthors in cases of multiauthored publications. The 2002 American Psychological Association (APA) Ethics Code offers standards for determining authorship order; however, little is known about how these decisions are made in actual practice. Results from a survey of 109 randomly selected authors indicated that most authors were satisfied with the decision-making process and outcome with few disagreements. Participants reported cases of both undeserved authorship being given and (...) omission of deserving contributors' names as coauthors. Some factors associated with authorship decisions included "sense of loyalty or obligation," "publish or perish pressures," and "power differentials." Authors who used APA standards were significantly more satisfied with both the process and outcome of authorship credit decisions. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to look at the arguments advanced by three Parisian arts masters about how to understand Prior Analytics II 4 and the more general discussion that medieval authors situate...

In the last 30 years there has been growing interest in and a greater appreciation of the unique contributions that medieval authors have made to the history of logic. In this thesis, we compare and contrast the modal logics of Robert Kilwardby and John Buridan and explore how their two conceptions of modality relate to and differ from modern notions of modal logic. We develop formal reconstructions of both authors' logics, making use of a number of different formal techniques. In (...) the case of Robert Kilwardby we show that using his distinction between per se and per accidens modalities, he is able to provide a consistent interpretation of the apodictic fragment of Aristotle's modal syllogism and that, by generalising this distinction to hypothetical construction, he can develop an account of connexive logic. In the case of John Buridan we show that his modal logic is a natural extension of the usual Kripke-style possible worlds semantics, and that this modal logic can be shown to be sound and complete relative to a proof-theoretic formalisation of Buridan's treatment of the expository syllogism. (shrink)

This article explores the carnal dimensions of existence through ethnographic research in a mixed martial arts club. Mixed martial arts (MMA) is an emergent sport where competitors in a ring or cage utilize strikes (punches, kicks, elbows and knees) as well as submission techniques to defeat opponents. Through data gathered from in-depth interviews with MMA practitioners and participant observation in an MMA club, I elucidate the social processes that are integral to the production of an MMA fighter habitus. I examine (...) how body techniques are learned and become attached to the identity of mixed martial arts fighters. Using Crossley’s concept of reflexive body techniques, I examine how MMA fighters engage in body callusing through use of reflexive body techniques thereby allowing them to withstand the rigors of the sport. (shrink)

Social dilemmas occur when the pursuit of self-interest by individuals in a group leads to less than optimal collective outcomes for everyone in the group. A critical assumption in the human sciences is that people's choices in such dilemmas are individualistic, selfish, and rational. Hence, cooperation in the support of group welfare will only occur if there are selfish incentives that convert the social dilemma into a nondilemma. In recent years, inclusive fitness theories have lent weight to such traditional views (...) of rational selfishness on Darwinian grounds. To show that cooperation is based on selfish incentives, however, one must provide evidence that people donotcooperatewithoutsuch incentives. In a series of experimental social dilemmas, subjects were instructed to make single, anonymous choices about whether or not to contribute money for a shared “bonus” that would be provided only if enough other people in the group also contributed their money. Noncontributors cited selfish reasons for their choices; contributors did not. If people are allowed to engage in discussion, they will contribute resources at high rates, frequently on irrational grounds, to promote group welfare. These findings are consistent with previous research on ingroup biasing effects that cannot be explained by “economic man” or “selfish gene” theories. An alternative explanation is that sociality was a primary factor shaping the evolution ofHomo sapiens. The cognitive and affective mechanisms underlying such choices evolved under selection pressures on small groups for developing and maintaining group membership and for predicting and controlling the behavior of other group members. This sociality hypothesis organizes previously inexplicable and disparate phenomena in a Darwinian framework and makes novel predictions about human choice. (shrink)

This conversation returns to Robyn Wiegman's field-defining Object Lessons, reflecting on the book's travels, resonances, and continued importance a decade after its publication.

Why are disembodied extraordinary beings like gods and spirits prevalent in past and present theologies? Under the intuitive Cartesian dualism hypothesis, this is because it is natural to conceptualize of minds as separate from bodies; under the counterintuitiveness hypothesis, this is because beliefs in minds without bodies are unnatural—such beliefs violate core knowledge intuitions about person physicality and consequently have a social transmission advantage. We report on a critical test of these contrasting hypotheses. Prior research found that among adult Christian (...) religious adherents, intuitions about person psychology coexist and interfere with theological conceptualizations of God (e.g., infallibility). Here, we use a sentence verification paradigm where participants are asked to evaluate as true or false statements on which core knowledge intuitions about person physicality and psychology and Christian theology about God are inconsistent (true on one and false on the other) versus consistent (both true or both false). We find, as predicted by the counterintuitiveness hypothesis but not the Cartesian dualism hypothesis, that Christian religious adherents show worse performance (lower accuracy and slower response time) on statements where Christian theological doctrines about God's physicality (e.g., incorporeality, omnipresence) conflict with intuitions about person physicality. We find these effects for other extraordinary beings in Christianity—the Holy Spirit and Jesus—but not for an ordinary being (priest). We conclude that it is unintuitive to conceptualize extraordinary beings as disembodied, and that this, rather than inherent Cartesian dualism, may explain the prevalence of beliefs in such beings. (shrink)

BackgroundThere is increasing need for peer reviewers as the scientific literature grows. Formal education in biostatistics and research methodology during residency training is lacking. In this pilot study, we addressed these issues by evaluating a novel method of teaching residents about biostatistics and research methodology using peer review of standardized manuscripts. We hypothesized that mentored peer review would improve resident knowledge and perception of these concepts more than non-mentored peer review, while improving review quality.MethodsA partially blinded, randomized, controlled multi-center study (...) was performed. Seventy-eight neurology residents from nine US neurology programs were randomized to receive mentoring from a local faculty member or not. Within a year, residents reviewed a baseline manuscript and four subsequent manuscripts, all with introduced errors designed to teach fundamental review concepts. In the mentored group, mentors discussed completed reviews with residents. Primary outcome measure was change in knowledge score between pre- and post-tests, measuring epidemiology and biostatistics knowledge. Secondary outcome measures included level of confidence in the use and interpretation of statistical concepts before and after intervention, and RQI score for baseline and final manuscripts.ResultsSixty-four residents (82%) completed initial review with gradual decline in completion on subsequent reviews. Change in primary outcome, the difference between pre- and post-test knowledge scores, did not differ between mentored (−8.5%) and non-mentored (−13.9%) residents (p = 0.48). Significant differences in secondary outcomes (using 5-point Likert scale, 5 = strongly agree) included mentored residents reporting enhanced understanding of research methodology (3.69 vs 2.61; p = 0.001), understanding of manuscripts (3.73 vs 2.87; p = 0.006), and application of study results to clinical practice (3.65 vs 2.78; p = 0.005) compared to non-mentored residents. There was no difference between groups in level of interest in peer review (3.00 vs 3.09; p = 0.72) or the quality of manuscript review assessed by the Review Quality Instrument (RQI) (3.25 vs 3.06; p = 0.50).ConclusionsWe used mentored peer review of standardized manuscripts to teach biostatistics and research methodology and introduce the peer review process to residents. Though knowledge level did not change, mentored residents had enhanced perception in their abilities to understand research methodology and manuscripts and apply study results to clinical practice. (shrink)

This study tested the hypothesis that in the minds of adult religious adherents, acquired beliefs about the extraordinary characteristics of God coexist with, rather than replace, an initial representation of God formed by co-option of the evolved person concept. In three experiments, Christian religious adherents were asked to evaluate a series of statements for which core intuitions about persons and acquired Christian beliefs about God were consistent or inconsistent. Participants were less accurate and slower to respond to inconsistent versus consistent (...) statements, suggesting that the core intuitions both coexisted alongside and interfered with the acquired beliefs. In Experiment 2 when responding under time pressure participants were disproportionately more likely to make errors on inconsistent versus consistent statements than when responding with no time pressure, suggesting that the resolution of interference requires cognitive resources the functioning of which decreases under cognitive load. In Experiment 3 a plausible alternative interpretation of these findings was ruled out by demonstrating that the response accuracy and time differences on consistent versus inconsistent statements occur for God—a supernatural religious entity—but not for a natural religious entity. (shrink)

Polysemy, understood as instances of a single linguistic expression having multiple related senses, is not a homogenous phenomenon. There are regular (apparently, rule‐based) cases and irregular (resemblance‐based) cases, which have different processing profiles. Although a primary source of polysemy is pragmatic inference, at least some cases become conventionalised and linguistically encoded. Three main issues are discussed: (a) the key differences between regular and irregular cases and the role, if any, of a “core meaning”; (b) the distinction between pragmatic polysemy and (...) semantic polysemy; and (c) the role of syntactic meaning in both generating and constraining polysemy. (shrink)

The co-occurrence of stress-induced posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and obesity is common, particularly among military personnel but the link between these conditions is unclear. Individuals with comorbid PTSD and obesity manifest other physical and psychological problems, which significantly diminish their quality of life. Current understanding of the pathways connecting stress to PTSD and obesity is focused largely on behavioral mediators alone with little consideration of the biological regulatory mechanisms that underlie their co-occurrence. In this work, we leverage prior knowledge to (...) systematically highlight such bio-behavioral mechanisms and inform on the design of confirmatory pilot studies. We use natural language processing (NLP) to extract documented regulatory interactions involved in the metabolic response to stress and its impact on obesity and PTSD from over 8 million peer-reviewed papers. The resulting network describes the propagation of stress to PTSD and obesity through 34 metabolic mediators using 302 documented regulatory interactions supported by over 10,000 citations. Stress jointly affected both conditions through 21 distinct pathways involving only two intermediate metabolic mediators out of a total of 76 available paths through this network. Moreover, oxytocin (OXT), Neuropeptide-Y (NPY), and cortisol supported an almost direct propagation of stress to PTSD and obesity with different net effects. Although stress upregulated both NPY and cortisol, the downstream effects of both markers are reported to relieve PTSD severity but exacerbate obesity. The stress-mediated release of oxytocin, however, was found to concurrently downregulate the severity of both conditions. These findings highlight how a network-informed approach that leverages prior knowledge might be used effectively in identifying key mediators like OXT though experimental verification of signal transmission dynamics through each path will be needed to determine the actual likelihood and extent of each marker’s participation. (shrink)

À son niveau le plus fondamental, la doctrine du péché originel se développe en réponse au problème du mal. Elle tente d'expliquer pour­quoi les choses « sont ce qu'elles sont », pourquoi il y a du mal dans le monde, pourquoi l'humanité semble condamnée à prendre part à ce mal. C'est en contexte principalement chrétien que la doctrine reçoit sa forme articulée, quoiqu'elle puise aussi dans la tradition juive et dans la culture païenne. Et quoique son but soit de s'accommoder (...) de la condition humaine, elle est formulée dans une perspective selon laquelle le mal n'a pas le dernier mot. Pour croire en l'existence d'un péché des origines, on doit d'abord croire au pouvoir de la grâce, et l'on ne peut y croire qu'en croyant de manière simultanée que le mal n'a pas son origine en Dieu.At its most fundamental level, the doctrine of original sin was developed in answer to the problem of evil. It tries to show why things « are as they are », why there is evil in the world and why humanity seems to be condemned to take part in evil. It is mai nly in a Christian context that the doctrine receives its articulated form, even though it also searches in the jewish tradition and in pagan culture. And even though its end is to accommo­date itself to the human condition, it is formulated in a perspective according to which evil does not have the last word. To believe in the existence of a sin from the beginning, one should first believe in the power of grace, and one can not believe in it but by believing simultaneous1y that evil does not have its origin in God. (shrink)

Biochemists investigating the problem of the vitamins in the early years of the twentieth century were working without an object, as such. Although they had developed a fairly elaborate idea of the character of the ‘vitamine’ and its role in metabolism, vitamins were not yet biochemical objects, but rather ‘functional ascriptions’ and ‘explanatory devices’. I suggest that an early instance of the changing status of the object of the ‘vitamins’ can be found in their stabilization, through the course of World (...) War I, as bio-political objects for the British and Allied war effort. Vitamins emerged as players, active agents, in Britain’s wartime bio-political problems of food distribution and population health and because of this they became increasingly real as bio-political objects, even prior to their isolation as bio-chemical molecules. I suggest that the materiality of our biology has agency in the development of political regimes and schemes. (shrink)

Mutations in the C. elegans maternal-effect gene clk-1 are highly pleiotropic, affecting the duration of diverse developmental and behavioral processes. They result in an average slowing of embryonic and post-embryonic development, adult rhythmic behaviors, reproduction, and aging.(1) CLK-1 is a highly conserved mitochondrial protein,(2,3) but even severe clk-1 mutations affect mitochondrial respiration only slightly.(3) Here, we review the evidence supporting the regulatory role of clk-1 in physiological timing. We also discuss possible models for the action of CLK-1, in particular, one (...) proposing that CLK-1 is involved in the coordination of mitochondrial and nuclear function. BioEssays 22:48–56, 2000. ©2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume 29, Number 1, April 2003, pp. 89-98 Another "Curious Legend" about Hume's An Abstract of a Treatise of Human Nature MARK G. SPENCER I In 1938, J. M. Keynes and P. Sraffa edited and introduced for Cambridge University Press a reprinting of An Abstract of A Treatise of Human Nature.1 The Abstract they claimed in their subtitle was "A Pamphlet hitherto unknown by DAVID HUME." (...) Arguing against a number of nineteenth and early-twentieth -century scholars who attributed authorship of an abstract of the Treatise to Adam Smith, Keynes and Sraffa convincingly documented in their introductory essay many solid reasons for thinking that the pamphlet being reprinted was Hume's.2 Sixty years on, their account dispelling this "curious legend" of Smith's authorship has now become the received opinion. T.E. Jessop accepted Keynes and Sraffa's argument (having seen it in proof before the edition was published) in his bibliography of 1938, and Norman Kemp Smith gave their version an early supportive review.3 E.C. Mossner, in his well-known biography of Hume, accepted wholeheartedly Keynes and Sraffa's findings.4 When in 1978 the Selby-Bigge's edition of Hume's Treatise saw its second edition the text of the Abstract was appended and a note gave P.H. Nidditch's opinion that "Hume's authorship is overwhelmingly likely."5 More recently Mark G. Spencer is Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Department of History, University of Toronto. Sidney Smith Hall, 100 St. George St., Toronto, Ontario MSS 3GS, Canada. spencer@uwo.ca 90 Mark G. Spencer in the pages of this journal, Jeff Broome, David Raynor, and David Fate Norton have all helped buttress the case for Hume's authorship, as did R. W. Connon and M. Pollard elsewhere.6 Despite an occasional dissenting voice,7 the Abstract is now widely, and rightly (or so it seems to this author), thought to have been Hume's. But with all of this scholarly attention focused on confirming Hume's authorship, another much more contentious aspect of Keynes and Sraffa's interpretation has gone largely unnoticed. Keynes and Sraffa's billing of the Abstract as "A Pamphlet hitherto unknown by DAVID HUME," suggested that before 1938 the Abstract had not been attributed publicly to Hume and that the contents of the pamphlet also had been completely unknown. "Students of Hume have known that an abstract of the Treatise was made and intended for publication," wrote a reviewer of Keynes and Sraffa, "[b]ut no copy of this abstract was known to exist: indeed it was usually supposed that the abstract had never been printed at all."8 Relying on Keynes and Sraffa it would be easy to suppose that the Abstract was never publicly ascribed to Hume and even that the contents of the pamphlet had been overlooked entirely until Keynes and Sraffa came along. One of the purposes of the present short essay is to dispel, once and for all, that misunderstanding about the Abstract. Norman Kemp Smith went part of the way toward that end in 1938 when he reviewed Keynes and Sraffa's edition. But in the process Kemp Smith introduced another "curious legend" that has slipped into scholarly acceptance with little comment and no debate. We will see that it is a mistake to argue, as Kemp Smith did, that Hume's authorship of a sixpenny pamphlet was known to readers of An universal biographical and historical dictionary, published in 1800. There is no discussion of Hume's Abstract in that book. However, the Abstract was discussed in print in at least three different publications between 1818 and 1827, long after its initial publication in 1740 and long before Keynes and Sraffa brought it to the attention of their audience in 1938. While pre-1938 Hume scholars had overlooked the Abstract, at least one of Hume's early nineteenth-century critics knew of the Abstract's existence, attributed the work to Hume, and even quoted extensively from Hume's "Preface." Most interesting of all, Hume's authorship of the Abstract was interpreted in ways that are telling of the historical reception of... (shrink)

TheSatyricahas long been associated with a Neronian courtier named Petronius, mentioned by Tacitus in hisAnnals. As such, the text is usually dated to the mid first centuryc.e.This view is so established that certain scholars have suggested it is ‘little short of perverse not to accept the general consensus and read theSatyricaas a Neronian text of the mid-60sad’. In recent years, however, there has been a groundswell of support for re-evaluating this long-held position. Laird, after comparing the ‘form and content’ of (...) the text to the Greek novel, came to the ‘unattractive’ conclusion that the text may be second century. Similarly, in two recent pieces inCQ, Roth argues that the manumission scene in theCenaestablishes a newterminus post quemfor the text; she suggests that the freedoms granted by Trimalchio closely parallel—and parody—descriptions of awardingciuitasfound in the letters of Pliny the Younger. Indeed, the three slaves manumitted in the novel are associated with a boar (Sat.40.3–41.4), Dionysus (Sat.41.6–7) and a falling star (Sat. 54.1–5); likewise, the three slaves that are the subject of Pliny's letter are C. Valerius Aper (boar), C. Valerius Dionysius (god of wine) and C. Valerius Astraeus (stars). Roth's argument suggests that the author of theSatyricawas not Nero's contemporary but a member of Pliny's intellectual circle, offering strong circumstantial evidence that troubles the accepted tradition on the work's authorship and date. (shrink)

ObjectivesTo describe reporting of informed consent in pragmatic trials, justifications for waivers of consent and reporting of alternative approaches to standard written consent. To identify factors associated with (1) not reporting and (2) not obtaining consent.MethodsSurvey of primary trial reports, published 2014–2019, identified using an electronic search filter for pragmatic trials implemented in MEDLINE, and registered in ClinicalTrials.gov.ResultsAmong 1988 trials, 132 (6.6%) did not include a statement about participant consent, 1691 (85.0%) reported consent had been obtained, 139 (7.0%) reported a (...) waiver and 26 (1.3%) reported consent for one aspect (eg, data collection) but a waiver for another (eg, intervention). Of the 165 trials reporting a waiver, 76 (46.1%) provided a justification. Few (53, 2.9%) explicitly reported use of alternative approaches to consent. In multivariable logistic regression analyses, lower journal impact factor (p=0.001) and cluster randomisation (p<0.0001) were significantly associated with not reporting on consent, while trial recency, cluster randomisation, higher-income country settings, health services research and explicit labelling as pragmatic were significantly associated with not obtaining consent (all p<0.0001).DiscussionNot obtaining consent seems to be increasing and is associated with the use of cluster randomisation and pragmatic aims, but neither cluster randomisation nor pragmatism are currently accepted justifications for waivers of consent. Rather than considering either standard written informed consent or waivers of consent, researchers and research ethics committees could consider alternative consent approaches that may facilitate the conduct of pragmatic trials while preserving patient autonomy and the public’s trust in research. (shrink)

By conceiving of autism and psychosis as diametrically opposite phenotypes of underactive and overactive mentalizing, respectively, Crespi & Badcock (C&B) commit themselves to a continuum view of intercorrelated mentalizing functions. This view fails to acknowledge dissociations between mentalizing functions and that psychotic people show a mixture of both hypo- and hyper-mentalizing.

This paper develops a view on which: (a) all fundamental facts are absolute, (b) some facts do not supervene on the fundamental facts, and (c) only relative facts fail to supervene on the fundamental facts.

Introduction: Schools have become a primary setting for providing mental health care to youths in the U.S. School-based interventions have proliferated, but their effects on mental health and academic outcomes remain understudied. In this study we will implement and evaluate the effects of a flexible multidiagnostic treatment called Modular Approach to Therapy for Children with Anxiety, Depression, Trauma, or Conduct Problems on students' mental health and academic outcomes.Methods and Analysis: This is an assessor-blind randomized controlled effectiveness trial conducted across five (...) school districts. School clinicians are randomized to either MATCH or usual care treatment conditions. The target sample includes 168 youths referred for mental health services and presenting with elevated symptoms of anxiety, depression, trauma, and/or conduct problems. Clinicians randomly assigned to MATCH or UC treat the youths who are assigned to them through normal school referral procedures. The project will evaluate the effectiveness of MATCH compared to UC on youths' mental health and school related outcomes and assess whether changes in school outcomes are mediated by changes in youth mental health.Ethics and Dissemination: This study was approved by the Harvard University Institutional Review Board. We plan to publish the findings in peer-reviewed journals and present them at academic conferences.Clinical Trial Registration:ClinicalTrials.gov ID: NCT02877875. Registered on August 24, 2016. (shrink)

Most substantive (content-bearing) words are polysemous, but polysemy is cross-categorial; for instance, the lexical forms ‘stone’ and ‘front’ are associated with families of interrelated senses and these senses are spread across their manifestations as three words, noun, verb and adjective. So, the ultimate unit underpinning polysemy is not a word but the categoryless root of the related words, which must, in some sense, track the interrelated families of senses. The main topic of this paper is the vexed question of the (...) meaning of roots and the backdrop is a view of words as delineated syntactic domains which allow assignment of atomic content (non-compositional meaning), and whose actual meanings are, in the first instance, pragmatically inferred in the throes of communication, some of them subsequently becoming established, so stored in a lexicon and directly retrieved in comprehension. Three different positions on the meanings of roots are outlined, and their merits and shortcomings are discussed: (a) inherent underspecified meanings; (b) meanings conditioned by grammatical context (allosemy); (c) meaninglessness. I argue that, overall, the current state of the evidence favours the third position: roots are categoryless, meaningless (perhaps phonological) indices. (shrink)

John Searle’s Chinese Room Argument purports to demonstrate that syntax is not sufficient for semantics, and, hence, because computation cannot yield understanding, the computational theory of mind, which equates the mind to an information processing system based on formal computations, fails. In this paper, we use the CRA, and the debate that emerged from it, to develop a philosophical critique of recent advances in robotics and neuroscience. We describe results from a body of work that contributes to blurring the divide (...) between biological and artificial systems; so-called animats, autonomous robots that are controlled by biological neural tissue and what may be described as remote-controlled rodents, living animals endowed with augmented abilities provided by external controllers. We argue that, even though at first sight, these chimeric systems may seem to escape the CRA, on closer analysis, they do not. We conclude by discussing the role of the body–brain dynamics in the processes that give rise to genuine understanding of the world, in line with recent proposals from enactive cognitive science. (shrink)