Ras proteins function as critical relay switches that regulate diverse signaling pathways between cell surface receptors and the nucleus. Over the past 2‐3 years researchers have identified many components of these pathways that mediate Ras activation and effector function. Among these proteins are several guanine nucleotide exchange factors (GEFs), which are responsible for directly interacting with and activating Ras in response to extracellular stimuli. Analogous GEFs regulate Ras‐related proteins that serve other diverse cellular functions. In particular, a growing family of (...) proteins (Dbl homology proteins) has recently been identified, which may function as GEFs for the Rho family of Ras‐related proteins. This review summarizes our current knowledge of the structure, biochemistry and biology of Ras and Rho family GEFs. Additionally, we describe mechanisms of GEF activation of Ras in signal transduction and address the potential that deregulated GEFs might contribute to malignant transformation through chronic Ras protein activation. (shrink)

Afferent feedback can appreciably alter the pharyngeal phase of swallow. In order to measure the stability of the swallow motor pattern during several types of alterations in afferent feedback, we assessed swallow during a conventional water challenge in four anesthetized cats, and compared that to swallows induced by fixed (20 Hz) and stochastic (1-20Hz) electrical stimulation applied to the superior laryngeal nerve. The swallow motor patterns were evaluated by electromyographic activity (EMG) of eight muscles, based on their functional significance: laryngeal (...) elevators (mylohyoid, geniohyoid, and thyrohyoid); laryngeal adductor (thyroarytenoid); inferior pharyngeal constrictor (thyropharyngeus); upper esophageal sphincter (cricopharyngeus); and inspiratory activity (parasternal and costal diaphragm). Both the fixed and stochastic electrical stimulation paradigms increased activity of the laryngeal elevators, produced short-term facilitation evidenced by increasing swallow durations over the stimulus period, and conversely inhibited swallow-related diaphragm activity. Both the fixed and stochastic stimulus conditions also increased specific EMG amplitudes, which never occurred with the water challenges. Stochastic stimulation increased swallow excitability, as measured by an increase in the number of swallows produced. Consistent with our previous results, changes in the swallow motor pattern for pairs of muscles were only sometimes correlated with each other. We conclude that alterations in afferent feedback produced particular variations of the swallow motor pattern. We hypothesize that specific SLN feedback might modulate the swallow central pattern generator during aberrant feeding conditions (food/liquid entering the airway), which may protect the airway and serve as potentially important clinical diagnostic indicators. (shrink)

En el presente artículo se defiende la tesis de que existe un concepto globalizable de justicia a pesar de las diferencias culturales. Este concepto se basa en la igualdad con miras al establecimiento de un orden jurídico global democrático que garantice la administración de la justicia al interior de y entre los Estados. El artículo ofrece un marco conceptual de la posibilidad de dicho orden jurídico global democrático y de los retos y tareas a los cuales se enfrenta en su (...) pretensión de suministrar criterios sociales y de protección del medio ambiente para la puesta en marcha de una política de desarrollo global. (shrink)

_Purpose._ The authors aim to reveal the influence of philosophical and esoteric principles on the formation and further development of Roberto Assagioli’s concept of psychosynthesis. _The theoretical basis_ of the study is determined by the latest methodological approaches in the study of the relationship between philosophical, psychological, and esoteric approaches in the study of the unconscious and the formation of a harmonious personality. _Originality._ For the first time, a systematic analysis of the anthropological foundations of Roberto Assagioli’s work has been (...) carried out in Ukrainian philosophical literature, the specificity of the connection between esoteric teachings and psychosynthesis has been revealed on the basis of a thorough study of primary sources and biographical evidence of the life and work of the famous Italian thinker. _Conclusions._ Psychosynthesis, which is one of the leading directions of modern psychology, has a rather multicultural philosophical and methodological basis. Its founder Roberto Assagioli, while developing his concept, was influenced by theosophical-esoteric, pragmatic kabbalistic, and Eastern religious concepts and practices. Unlike psychoanalysis, which saw the unconscious as physiological-naturalistic determinants of the human psyche and behavior, psychosynthesis considers the unconscious as a hidden potential for self-development of the individual. Roberto Assagioli went through a long and difficult way to finally form his own concept, which became the basis of the psycho-techniques of disidentification and work with subpersonalities, which help to discover the true transpersonal self, which is the source of human self-improvement. Modern discussions about the relationship between psychosynthesis and various forms of parapsychology once again testify to the synthetic nature of Assagioli’s teaching, which combines various psychotherapeutic practices. This is what gives psychosynthesis a new push for development in the conditions of wars, disasters, loneliness, and related psychological disorders. (shrink)

Humans can learn complex functional relationships between variables from small amounts of data. In doing so, they draw on prior expectations about the form of these relationships. In three experiments, we show that people learn to adjust these expectations through experience, learning about the likely forms of the functions they will encounter. Previous work has used Gaussian processes—a statistical framework that extends Bayesian nonparametric approaches to regression—to model human function learning. We build on this work, modeling the process of learning (...) to learn functions as a form of hierarchical Bayesian inference about the Gaussian process hyperparameters. (shrink)

Nurses are the closest healthcare providers to patients and emotional labor is the most invisible part of nursing work. However, the management of emotions to promote organizational goals and to ensure patient satisfaction may have both positive and negative impacts on nurses' working life. The purpose of this cross‐sectional, descriptive study was to examine the emotional labor behaviors of nurses and their opinions on emotional labor. Two hundred nineteen nurses working at public hospitals in Ankara between September and December 2018 (...) participated to this study. Data were collected using the sociodemographic characteristics form and “The Scale of Emotional Labor Behavior for Nurses.” Nurses had higher scores on the deep and sincere emotional acting subdimensions of the emotional labor scale than the surface acting subdimension. Findings suggest that nurses act deeply and intimately, instead of surface acting. Most of the nurses expressed that nurses were emotionally affected when caring for patients; however, nurses had to control their feelings toward patients and behave professionally to meet the expectations of their managers, which may lead to an implicit emotional dissonance. Based on the results of this study, we suggest to support nurses emotionally and to incorporate the topic of emotional labor into educational programs. (shrink)

In program synthesis, we transform a specification into a system that is guaranteed to satisfy the specification. When the system is open, then at each moment it reads input signals and writes output signals, which depend on the input signals and the history of the computation so far. The specification considers all possible input sequences. Thus, if the specification is linear, it should hold in every computation generated by the interaction, and if the specification is branching, it should hold in (...) the tree that embodies all possible input sequences. Often, the system cannot read all the input signals generated by its environment. For example, in a distributed setting, it might be that each process can read input signals of only part of the underlying processes. Then, we should transform a specification into a system whose output depends only on the readable parts of the input signals and the history of the computation. This is called synthesis with incomplete information. In this work we solve the problem of synthesis with incomplete information in its full generality. We consider linear and branching settings with complete and incomplete information. We claim that alternation is a suitable and helpful mechanism for coping with incomplete information. Using alternating tree automata, we show that incomplete information does not make the synthesis problem more complex, in both the linear and the branching paradigm. In particular, we prove that independently of the presence of incomplete information, the synthesis problems for CTL and CTL * are complete for EXPTIME and 2EXPTIME, respectively. (shrink)

The concept of guardianship, its associated principles, distinctions, and articulation of the legal needs of the elderly are introduced via a review of well-canvassed criticisms of Canadian guardianship legislation. Claims that the reformed legislation of Alberta, Quebec, and British Columbia represent models of adequate adult guardianship compared with traditional (archaic lunacy) law are examined. This paper argues that these renovated models exhibit a dubious normative advance over traditional legislation. Specifically, the normative presuppositions of the reformed legislation, such as, restriction to (...) an autonomy-paternalism framework, and the norms of the liberal individual and state, obscure important issues in at least two key areas which challenge the models' assumptions; namely, assessment and legal competence and assessment and need. The development of guardianship laws and of social arrangements that are more responsive to the life experiences of the elderly requires critical re-articulation of the nature of individuals and their communities. (shrink)

(1) It is not clear from Gold and Stoljar’s definition of biological neuroscience whether it includes computational and representational concepts. If so, then their evaluation of Kandel’s theory is problematic. If not, then a more direct refutation of the radical neuron doctrine is available. (2) Objections to the psychological sciences might derive not just from the conflation of the radical and the trivial neuron doctrine. There might also be the implicit belief that for many mental phenomena, adequate theories must invoke (...) neurophysiological concepts and cannot be purely psychological. (shrink)

Against the common assumption that modern medicine is altogether secular and scientific, this article argues that the practice of medicine manifests characteristic features of religion. This exposition is predicated upon a delineation of the phenomenological characteristics of religion and upon a critical analysis of the ways scientific medicine does or does not manifest these characteristics. Insofar as medical practice is unknowingly religious, that practice can cause harm and delusion. An acknowledgment that scientific medicine embodies features of religion is a beginning (...) point for scholarly reflection, criticism, and research from a variety of academic perspectives. (shrink)

Sosyal değişim her toplumsal yapıda aynı biçimde gerçekleşmemektedir. Bu bağlamda her toplum modernleşme sürecini kendine özgü dinamiklerle tecrübe etmektedir. Bu dinamikler, modernleşme sürecine dâhil olmak isteyen ülkeler için ya üstten ya dışarıdan bir müdahale ile başlamıştır. Devletin modernleşme girişimlerine bağlı olarak ise bireysel ve toplumsal yapıda pek çok farklılaşma baş göstermiştir. Zira devleti idare eden güçlerin kısa vadede birçok kez değişmesi ile asrîleşme yolundaki toplum, yeni bir düşünce yapısı ve buna uygun modernleşme adımları ile karşı karşıya kalmıştır. Ancak bu farklılaşma (...) her zaman devletin öngördüğü ve düzenlediği şekilde gerçekleşmemiştir. Bu anlamda toplum değişim hususunda farklı tepkiler ortaya koyarak kabullenme ya da direnç gösterme yoluna gitmiştir. Değişimin, halk nezdinde başarılı bir şekilde meşrulaştırılamaması buna rağmen çeşitli yaptırımlarla işe koşulması ise yeni normların halk arasında içselleştirilememesine sebep olmuştur. Toplum tarafından içselleştirilemeyen modernleşme hareketleri ise yüzeysel ve biçimsel olarak uygulanmaya çalışılmıştır. Ancak zaman içerisinde enformasyon olanaklarının gelişmesi ve devlet içerisindeki kademelerin hem siyasal hem de sosyal düzlemde birbirleriyle yakınlaşması neticesinde modernleşme kendi motivasyonunu içsel süreçlerden almaya başlamıştır. Böylece günümüze gelirken doğu-batı arasında ancak kendine özgü motifleri de sahiplenen eklektik bir kültür ortaya çıkmıştır. Bu çizgide yetişen bireyler de kendi modernleşme tecrübesini yaşarken toplumun kalıplarını da uygulayagelmiştir. Toplumda oluşan bu kalıplar bireylerin duygulanım ve mahcubiyet eşiklerini değiştirmiştir. Böylece insan uygarlaşırken dışarıdan başlayan kontrol duygusu öze doğru inmiştir. Bu alt yapıdan hareketle çalışmamızın amacı, Norbert Elias’ın uygarlık kuramı kapsamında, Türk modernleşmesinin beraberinde getirdiği değişimin sosyal ve bireysel anlamda tekil insanın duygulanım eşiğini nasıl değiştirdiğini kılık kıyafet üzerinden okumaktır. Çalışmanın ilerlemesi için literatür taramasını tercih edilmiştir. Araştırma, konu olarak kılık kıyafet, zamansal olaraksa II. Mahmud döneminden (1785-1839) erken Cumhuriyet devrine kadar olan süreç ile sınırlandırılmıştır. Böylece çalışma, 200 yıl öncesine dayanan Türk modernleşme serüvenine kadar geriye giderek bugüne dair çıkarımlar yapmıştır. Çalışma üç ana bölüme ayrılarak ele alınmıştır. Bu bölümler ortaya koyulurken konular sık sık “din” teması ile ilişkilendirilmiştir. (shrink)

Geçmişten günümüze Yahudi mistisizmi, Sabetay Sevi ve Sabetaycılık ile ilgili birçok eser yazılmıştır. Bu eserler arasında en fazla dikkat çeken, Kabala’yı akademik alanda çalışılan ve bilimsel metotlarla incelenen bir konu haline getiren Gershom Scholem’in çalışmasıdır. Goldish ise Sabetay Sevi ile ilgili geleneksel bakış açısına karşı tarihi perspektiften yaklaşmaktadır.

Muhtemelen her teist, Tanrı’nın iyi bir varlık olduğu konusunda hemfikirdir. Ancak kimilerine göre, Tanrı’nın iyi olduğu iddiası delilsiz bir varsayımdan ibarettir. Ne Tanrı’nın varlığına ilişkin argümanlar ne de başka gerekçeler, Tanrı varsa bile O’nun iyi olduğu sonucuna rasyonel bir yolla ulaşmak için yeterli değildir. Hatta bazı ateistlere göre, kötü bir tanrıya inanmak da iyi bir tanrıya inanmak kadar makuldür. Stephen Law, bu noktadan hareketle teizme karşı bir argüman geliştirir. İyi veya kötü tanrıya inanmak aynı oranda makulse, bunlardan birinin saçma olması (...) durumunda diğeri de saçma olmalıdır. Çünkü her iki tanrı anlayışı da aynı ya da benzer argümanlarla desteklenebilir. Örneğin, kozmolojik argüman veya tasarım kanıtı, iyi bir tanrının varlığını kanıtlamak için kullanılabileceği gibi, kötü bir tanrının varlığına delil olarak da kullanılabilir. Benzer şekilde, eğer dünyadaki iyiliklerden hareketle Tanrı’nın kötü olamayacağı iddia edilirse, dünyadaki kötülüklerden yola çıkarak O’nun iyi olamayacağı da iddia edilebilir. Kötülük probleminin hâlâ tartışmalı olduğu göz önünde bulundurulursa, evrenden hareketle Tanrı’nın iyi olduğu henüz ikna edici bir biçimde gösterilememiştir. Kısacası, iyi tanrı için geçerli olan argümanlar benzer şekilde kötü tanrı için de kurgulanabilir. Law, benzer argümanlarla desteklenen iki tezin aynı ölçüde rasyonel olması gerektiği iddiasını “simetri tezi” olarak adlandırır. O, kötü tanrı fikrini kimsenin makul bulmayacağını, bir diğer ifadeyle bu fikrin saçma olduğunu öne sürer. Dolayısıyla, onun simetriği olan ve benzer argümanlardan beslenen iyi tanrı fikri de makul görülemez. Bu argüman, Law’un isimlendirmesiyle, kötü tanrı itirazı (the evil-god challenge) olarak bilinir. Law’dan sonra da birçok düşünür tarafından geliştirilerek teizme karşı kullanılan bu itiraz, özellikle son on beş yılda din felsefesinin önemli meselelerinden biri hâline gelmiştir. Bu çalışmada, kötü tanrı itirazına karşı geliştirilen çeşitli çözümleri değerlendireceğim ve onun teizm açısından kayda değer bir sorun teşkil etmediğini öne süreceğim. Kötü tanrı itirazına yönelik burada ele alınacak çözüm önerilerini ana hatlarıyla sıralarsam; öncelikle iyi ve kötü tanrı inançlarının simetrik olduğu iddiasını tartışmaya açarak, dünyadaki düzenin kötü bir tanrıya işaret etmediğini öne süreceğim. Ardından, bir simetriden bahsedilecek olsa bile kötü-tanrı fikrinin saçma olmadığını, dolayısıyla simetriği olan iyi-tanrı anlayışının da bir çırpıda reddedilemeyeceğini iddia edeceğim. Son olarak, iyi-tanrı fikrinin temel inanç (basic belief) olabileceğini, ancak kötü-tanrı inancı için aynı durumun geçerli olmadığını savunacağım. (shrink)

At the current level of economic development, the digital transformation of society is an important factor in advancing any social structure. The purpose of the present study was to explore the transformation of a traditional society into a digital one, with a focus on ethical and environmental aspects. The study draws on a variety of information analysis methods to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of digitalization, including the environmental aspect. Our research revealed that in Russia, the only highly digitalized (...) sectors were information technology and finance. Digitalization is strikingly different in the European countries, where only transport and building industries slowly implemented digital technologies into their business processes. We also examined digitalization levels in 7 Moscow universities. The universities managed to improve their digitalization scores with the help of recommendations developed for online learning, such as selection of quality software, having qualified teaching staff, constant monitoring, and evaluation of knowledge. The findings can be used in economic, social, and environmental spheres since they highlight the ambiguous effects of digitalization using practical examples. (shrink)

The ontic structural realist stance is motivated by a desire to do philosophical justice to the success of science, whilst withstanding the metaphysical undermining generated by the various species of ontological underdetermination. We are, however, as yet in want of general principles to provide a scaffold for the explicit construction of structural ontologies. Here we will attempt to bridge this gap by utilizing the formal procedure of quantization as a guide to ontic structure of modern physical theory. The example of (...) non-relativistic particle mechanics will be considered and, for that case, it will be shown that a viable candidate for an ontic structural realism framework can be constituted in terms of the combination of a state-space with Poisson bracket structure, and a set of observables, with Lie algebra structure. 1 Introduction2 Formulation Underdetermination and Structural Ontologies3 Quantization and Structural Ontologies4 The Case of Non-relativistic Particle Mechanics4.1 Formulation underdetermination4.2 The classical ontology4.3 Quantum theory and the generalized structural ontology4.4 Interpretation of results5 Conclusion and Prospects. (shrink)

Richard Swinburne is one of the most important figures in philosophy of religion who took special interest in the soul. Also he is one of the most prominent defenders of dualism –also known as mind-body dualism or substance dualism– that regards humans as composed of two different substances called body and the soul. He defended the dualist view against contemporary problems of dualism and contributed to it with his three books, namely The Evolution of the Soul; Mind, Brain and Free (...) Will and Are We Bodies or Souls? alongside with other publications. In this paper, I will introduce Swinburne’s version of Cartesian dualism and critically investigate whether it provides us some reasons to believe in the soul. For this reason, I will examine the two principle arguments Swinburne offers in the explanations of dualism –one of them is known as the conceivability argument and the other is based on an imaginary scenario from transplants– along with their critics. To sum up, the main point drawn in this paper will be Swinburne’s arguments for dualism along with some of their critics. (shrink)

Prioritarianism says that benefitting people matters more the worse off those people are. This essay resolves a puzzle that threatens this view. The puzzle emerges from the phenomenon that Ruth Chang calls “parity”. The solution I advance construes prioritarianism as an essentially comparative view.

In recent decades, researchers have attempted to prospectively identify individuals at high risk of developing psychosis in the hope of delaying or preventing psychosis onset. These psychosis risk individuals are identified as being in an ‘At-Risk Mental State’ (ARMS) through a standardised psychometric interview. However, disclosure of ARMS status has attracted criticism due to concerns about the risk–benefit ratio of disclosure to patients. Only approximately one quarter of ARMS patients develop psychosis after three years, raising concerns about the unnecessary harm (...) associated with such ‘false-positive’ results. These harms are especially pertinent when identifying psychosis risk individuals due to potential stigma and discrimination in a young clinical population. A dearth of high-quality evidence supporting interventions for ARMS patients raises further doubts about the benefit accompanying an ARMS disclosure. Despite ongoing discussion in the bioethical literature, these concerns over the ethical justification of disclosure to ARMS patients are not directly addressed in clinical guidelines. In this paper, we aim to provide a unified disclosure strategy grounded in principle-based analysis for ARMS clinicians. After considering the ethical values at stake in ARMS disclosure, and their normative significance, we argue that full disclosure of the ARMS label is favoured in the vast majority of clinical situations due to the strong normative significance of enhancing patients' understanding. We then compare our framework with other approaches to ARMS disclosure and outline its limitations. (shrink)

As a version of creationism—which claims that fictional charac- ters are created by authors who write characters into existence by penning their names in their works—abstract creationism claims that fictional objects are abstract entities. However, I want to modify the conception of what constitutes a fictional object. In short, I am going to give a defense of abstract creationism that offers answers to the questions, as outlined by Stuart Brock, of ontology, identity, and plenitude by developing a claim that—except for (...) rigidly referring proper names—fictional terms and nonfictional terms are all abstract objects.Working off the debates surrounding abstract creationism, and with a nod to D. M. Armstrong's... (shrink)

David Friedell has recently discussed the relationship between intrinsic and extrinsic properties of art, specifically in music. Friedell claims that normative social rules dictate who can change the intrinsic or extrinsic properties of a piece of music. I claim that in text-based theater—as a particular art form—the dividing line between intrinsic and extrinsic properties of a play is sometimes tenuous. This tenuousness is due to a play's bifurcated existence as a dramatic text and as many theatrical performances.

The growing demand for uterus transplantation (UTx) invites continued philosophical evaluation of the function of UTx (and what constitutes its ‘success’), as well as the recipient eligibility for UTx. Currently, UTx caters to partnered, cisgender women of childbearing age looking to get pregnant and give birth to a biogenetically related child. The medical justification for this—the treatment of uterine infertility—explains the primacy of this practice. However, this dominant conceptualization of UTx does not necessarily capture the diverse needs for which both (...) cis- and transgender women might take interest in UTx that are not strictly procreative, such as bodily integrity and gender identity reasons. In this paper, I argue that non-procreative motivations for uterus acquisition ought to be taken seriously as a matter of non-discrimination and consistency. (shrink)

The necessity, method and content of childhood religious education are discussed from various perspectives in our country and around the world. The ‘Gift to the Child’ education method, which is applied in England where different religions live together, is a secular religious education approach with psychological, pedagogical and theological foundations. According to this method, which was developed with different methods from adult religious education and considering educational-scientific inferences, children can learn many information and skills based on religions and can transform (...) this into positive gains in their lives. The ‘Gift to the Child’ method processes concepts such as Allah, prophet, revelation and prayer with values such as responsibility, empathy, tolerance and love. It is distinguished from other religious education practices by aiming to highlight the child’s sense of holiness.This study examines the effect of the ‘Call to Prayer’ section, which is included in the ‘Gift to the Child’ method, one of the childhood religious education approaches, on children’s religious development in the Religious Culture and Moral Knowledge course. The applicability of the ‘Gift to the Child’ method, which aims to obtain educational-scientific inferences by comparing children with religious content, is discussed in terms of the educational process, teacher-student-material dimension and religious education.In examining the applicability of this approach, which evaluates religious development theory and development theories together and can be evaluated in terms of its achievements; After conducting a literature review from relevant sources, the data of the study were collected with the semi-structured interview technique, which is one of the qualitative research methods. The data of the study were collected through teacher interviews conducted with the cross-sectional research method. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 teachers working in secondary schools of official educational institutions affiliated to the Ministry of National Education. During the course, the teachers allowed the students to express their opinions on the subject and did not intervene in their questions and answers. As a result of the findings obtained from the data, it was observed that the use of achievements and materials prepared according to the ‘Gift to the Child’ method in religious education positively affected the religious development of the students. (shrink)

In this paper, we define the notions of (l,r)-symmetric bi-derivations and (r,l)-symmetric bi-derivations on UP-algebras and investigate some properties of them. For these derivations, we introduce the sets Kerd(U), Fixd(U) and FixD(U). Moreover, we examine with examples whether these sets are UP-subalgebra or UP-ideal.

Let ≤r and ≤sbe two binary relations on 2ℕ which are meant as reducibilities. Let both relations be closed under finite variation and consider the uniform distribution on 2ℕ, which is obtained by choosing elements of 2ℕ by independent tosses of a fair coin.Then we might ask for the probability that the lower ≤r-cone of a randomly chosen set X, that is, the class of all sets A with A ≤rX, differs from the lower ≤s-cone of X. By c osure (...) under finite variation, the Kolmogorov 0-1 aw yields immediately that this probability is either 0 or 1; in case it is 1, the relations are said to be separable by random oracles.Again by closure under finite variation, for every given set A, the probability that a randomly chosen set X is in the upper ≤r-cone of A is either 0 or 1; let Almostr be the class of sets for which the upper ≤r-cone has measure 1. In the following, results about separations by random oracles and about Almost classes are obtained in the context of generalized reducibilities, that is, for binary relations on 2ℕ which can be defined by a countable set of total continuous functionals on 2ℕ in the same way as the usual resource-bounded reducibilities are defined by an enumeration of appropriate oracle Turing machines. The concept of generalized reducibility comprises a natura resource-bounded reducibilities, but is more general; in particular, it does not involve any kind of specific machine model or even effectivity. The results on generalized reducibilities yield corollaries about specific resource-bounded reducibilities, including several results which have been shown previously in the setting of time or space bounded Turing machine computations. (shrink)