The behavior of some nightlife-setting patrons would be unacceptable in workplaces or public settings and could cause distress to other patrons. This quantitative study determined 381 young Australian’s descriptive and personal norms regarding four types of sexual behavior. Participants’ personal norms were that these behaviors are wrong, but they reported that the behaviors are common in a nightlife setting. Behaviors such as these could theoretically be prevented by modifying patrons’ descriptive norms with evidence that their beliefs are contrary to individuals’ (...) personal norms of acceptable behavior in nightlife settings. (shrink)

Approaching the idea from three viewpoints, The author contends that eternal recurrence is a central and unifying theme in nietzsche's thought. She first considers its scientific basis, Arguing for a reinterpretation of the doctrine because nietzsche did not subscribe to the classical atomism of his time. She then considers the idea in its metaphysical perspective: it represents a repudiation of platonism and an affirmation of life. Finally, Urging the unity of the metaphysical and the ethical in nietzsche's philosophy, The author (...) interprets eternal recurrence as an idea created by life itself to serve life by strengthening the will to power. (staff). (shrink)

This article examines the emergent relationship between epistemic responsibility and frame awareness in early childhood, wherein a mother uses language socialization practices to guide her child into a new frame. The pair co-constructs the parameters of the new frame through negotiation of epistemic responsibility and remedial interchanges. The analysis demonstrates that these remedial interchanges arise from conflicting understandings of the embeddedness of frames and the epistemic dynamics that these frames entail. The child maintains epistemic primacy in her concurrent play frame, (...) which carries over to the recording activity given that the recording activity is embedded within her larger play frame. I argue that the data predict epistemic responsibility to be acquired earlier than the ability to shift epistemic dynamics outside of role-play. This study contributes to our understanding of frame and epistemic development in early childhood. (shrink)

We must critically rethink race and genetics in the context of the new genetic breakthroughs and haplotype mapping. We must avoid the slippery slope of turning socially constructed racial categories into genetic realities. It is a potentially dangerous arena given the history of racialized science in the United States and globally. Indeed, the new advances must be viewed in the context of a long history of racial inequality, continuing into the current period. This is more than a question of how (...) carefully we use categories of analysis such as race. Justice and equity must be core to our considerations. There is a community stake in this work that must be seriously considered and included in decision making. A progressive and critical analysis is in order. (shrink)

The immune system distinguishes between two types of antigenic sites: one of these binds to immunoglobulins (IgGs) (i.e. antibodies), while the other binds to receptor molecules on T lymphocytes (i.e. the T‐cell receptors (TcRs)). The latter interaction occurs only when the antigen is presented in association with a self‐transplantation antigen, a so‐called MHC‐restriction element. This article discusses what is known about the structure of antigenic sites and their molecular interactions with antibodies, MHC‐restriction elements, and T‐lymphocyte receptors.

Previous work proposes that dispositional fear exists predominantly among political conservatives, generating the appearance that fears align strictly along party lines. This view obscures evolutionary dynamics because fear evolved to protect against myriad threats, not merely those in the political realm. We suggest prior work in this area has been biased by selection on the dependent variable, resulting from an examination of exclusively politically oriented fears that privilege conservative values. Because the adaptation regulating fear should be based upon both universal (...) and ancestral-specific selection pressures combined with developmental and individual differences, the elicitation of it should prove variable across the ideological continuum dependent upon specific combinations of fear and value domains. In a sample of ~ 1,600 Australians assessed with a subset of the Fear Survey Schedule II, we find fears not infused with political content are differentially influential across the political spectrum. Specifically, those who are more fearful of sharp objects, graveyards, and urinating in public are more socially conservative and less supportive of gay rights. Those who are more fearful of death are more supportive of gay rights. Those who are more fearful of suffocating and swimming alone are more concerned about emissions controls and immigration, while those who are more fearful of thunderstorms are also more anti-immigration. Contrary to existing research, both liberals and conservatives are more fearful of different circumstances, and the role of dispositional fears are attitude-specific. (shrink)

Transplantation research on samples and organs from deceased donors in England, Wales and Northern Ireland is under threat. The key problems relate to difficulties encountered in gaining consent for research projects, as distinct from consent to donation for clinical transplantation. They are due partly to the terms of the Human Tissue Act 2004 (the 2004 Act), and partly to its interpretation by the Human Tissue Authority (HTA). They include excessive interaction with donor representatives regarding ‘informed consent’ to research projects, uncertainty (...) as to the scope and duration of a donor's ‘authority’ over an organ, and restrictions caused by the apparent need for licensing of transplantation research under the 2004 Act, combined with lack of certainty, or guidance, as to the distinction between ‘research’, which requires a licence, and ‘service development’, which does not. In our view this confusion hinders and deters Specialist Nurses for Organ Donation in approaching donor representatives and discussing possible research projects with them. It has also, as we have reported elsewhere, led to abandonment of research projects for fear of liability, despite both Research Ethics Committee (REC) approval and donor consent. Such problems do not seem to occur under the transplant laws of most other comparable jurisdictions. The Transplantation Ethics Symposium, ‘The ethics of organ retrieval: goals, rights and responsibilities’, hosted by the MRC Centre for Transplantation at King's College London in December 2010, revealed that many senior clinicians and researchers, administrators, and lawyers are both unclear and in disagreement concerning the effects of the 2004 Act and the extent to which it is adhered to or ignored in practice. In this paper we examine the difficulties encountered and suggest solutions based on a less restrictive interpretation of the 2004 Act, or, more probably, a regulatory change under its authority. We propose that, in the long term, a law which includes consent for REC-approved research within the general consent for organ donation and transplantation seems preferable to the present system, both ethically and in practical terms. (shrink)

Earl Conee has argued that the metaphysics of personal identity is irrelevant to the morality of abortion. He claims that doing all the substantial work in abortion arguments are moral principles and they garner no support from rival metaphysics theories. Conee argues that not only can both immaterialist and materialist theories of the self posit our origins at fertilization, but positing such a beginning doesn’t even have any significant impact on the permissibility of abortion. We argue that this thesis is (...) wrong on both accounts. We do so, in part, by relying on a hylomorphic rather than a Cartesian conception of the soul. There are good reasons for believing such a soul theory can favor an earlier origin than the leading materialist accounts. We also show that the theological metaphysics of hylomorphism provide greater support for a pro-life position than the Cartesian position Conee discusses. However, we argue that even on a materialistic account of personal identity, metaphysics has substantial bearing upon the morality of early abortions. (shrink)

For an infinite cardinal K a stronger version of K-distributivity for Boolean algebras, called k-partition completeness, is defined and investigated . It is shown that every k-partition complete Boolean algebra is K-weakly representable, and for strongly inaccessible K these concepts coincide. For regular K ≥ u, it is proved that an atomless K-partition complete Boolean algebra is an updirected union of basic K-tree algebras. Using K-partition completeness, the concept of γ-almost compactness is introduced for γ ≥ K. For strongly inaccessible (...) K we show that K is K-almost compact iff K is weakly compact, and if K is 2K-almost compact, then K is measurable. Further K is strongly compact iff it is γ-almost compact for all γ ≥ K. (shrink)

Summary Despite his repudiation of antisemitism, Renan influenced the development of antisemitic ideologies in both France and Germany. His typology of ?Semite? and ?Aryan? was adopted especially in Germany and and combined with biological concepts of race to become the foundation of the concepts of ?Semitism? and ?Antisemitism?. Renan, however, always insisted on a linguistic/cultural definition of race and regarded the biological conception, while it might have had some primitive reality, as outmoded and immoral in European civilization. After 1870 the (...) growth of German racial antisemitism led Renan to elaborate repeatedly on race as a civilisational phenomenon that in modern Europe should have lost its biological origins. His argument that modern Jews were integral members of the French ?nation? and ?civilization? was profoundly influential on the emergence of the theory of the modern ?nation? as the liberal state. Gobineau's theory of race also lent itself to exploitation by racial antisemites, though it was not overtly antisemitic. Unlike Renan, however, Gobineau in his later years inclined to a vague personal antisemitism. The main difference was one of temperament as well as devotion on Renan's part to a liberal idea of the nation, as opposed to Gobineau's aversion to liberalism and modern civilization. (shrink)

Human ecology - the study and practice of relationships between the natural and the social environment - has gained prominence as scholars seek more effectively to engage with pressing global concerns. In the past seventy years most human ecology has skirted the fringes of geography, sociology and biology. This volume pioneers radical new directions. In particular, it explores the power of indigenous and traditional peoples' epistemologies both to critique and to complement insights from modernity and postmodernity.

No fresh-minted concept like the fluid genome or indeed sexual harassment , consciousness has become immensely fashionable, but this time round as part of the new found cultural popularity of the natural sciences. However, what is immediately noticeable about the proliferation over the past decade of books and journals with ‘consciousness’ in their titles or invoked in their texts is that they seem to be drawn to the cultural glamour of the concept, but with little sense that the concept of (...) consciousness has an entirely other history. Consciousness seems to lie around in the culture like a sparkling jewel, irresistible to the neuro-theorists. There seems to be no recognition amongst the many biologists, artificial intelligencers, physicists and philosophers who have played in print with their new toy that consciousness is part of another discourse and has an entirely other history. Above all, I want to underline that while for these neuro-theorists, consciousness is located within the individual human organism , the older tradition, coming from the humanities and social theory, sees consciousness as located in subjectivity and inter-subjectivity in historical context. The methodological individualism expressed in the objectivist language of the natural sciences erases both ‘me’ and ‘you'; by contrast, in social theory, both agency and structure are crucial. For social theory there can be no development of individual consciousness without a social context. (shrink)

Natural selection in the laboratory has been used to produce populations of Drosophila with genetically increased lifespan. These populations have been used to determine the physiological basis of postponed ageing and its pleiotropic concomitants. It appears that many loci and a number of physiological alterations are involved in increased lifespan.