In this article, we tackle the epistemological and ethical issues related to the use of race concepts in the genomics of sport performance and sport-related concussion (SRC). In the first part of the article, we show how the concept of race is ubiquitous in scientific literature, besides the fact that ‘race’ as other analogous population descriptors like ‘ancestry’ and ‘continent’ carry ancestral genetic heterogeneity and therefore they cannot be used to infer any kind of genetic or physiological property. Then, we (...) investigate the question of whether genomics research focusing on racial categories and race-specific genes of sport performance and of risk of health outcomes due to repetitive head impacts (RHI) is justified from an epistemological point of view, arguing that it is not; we show that the evidence supporting the existence of genetic variants determining an elite athlete status or a predisposition to health outcomes after SRC is scarce, and the use of racial categories (e.g. African or Black, Caucasian or White, Asian, etc.) as proxies for genetic variants associated with an elite athlete status/a predisposition to health outcomes after SRC is ill-conceived. In the second part of the article, we analyze the main ethical issues concerning the reification of race concepts in sport genomics, also considering the more general issue of the ethical and social impact of the use of a genetic framework in the explanation of individual differences in sport performance and SRC. (shrink)

Background The 2020-2021 coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic is just the latest epidemic event that requires us to rethink and change our understanding of health. Health should no longer be conceived only in relation to human beings, but in unitary terms, as a dimension that connects humans, animals, plants, and the environment (holistic view, One Health). In general, alterations occurring in this articulated chain of life trigger a domino effect. Methodology In this paper, we review the One Health paradigm in the light (...) of the Covid-19 pandemic and distinguish two approaches within it that might be dubbed the Prudent one and the Radical one. Each approach is structured in three levels – epistemological, medical, and ethical. Results In this way, we show how we humans can better address the pandemic today and how, in the future, we can treat the whole living system better, by renouncing our anthropocentric perspective on health. Conclusion We hold that the Prudent approach can be very helpful, and we discuss the medical and ethical issues related to it. We also consider the Radical view and the epistemological turn it requires compared to the Prudent one. (shrink)

In this paper we develop the notion of formal precover in a topos by defining a relation between elements and sets in a local set theory. We show that such relations are equivalent to modalities and to universal closure operators. Finally we prove that these relations are well characterized by a convenient restriction to a particular set.

En el trabajo se propone difundir la teoría y los enfoques referidos a la ciencia de la sostenibilidad, con especial énfasis en el contexto académico cubano, al relacionar su emergencia a las urgencias que surgen en los vínculos entre la ciencia, la naturaleza y la sociedad, así como mostrar las articulaciones de la Ciencia de la Sostenibilidad con la política científica, la educación universitaria y la salud pública. In this paper, the theory and the approaches of the science of sustainability (...) is promoted. Special emphasis is put on the academic Cuban context, when relating its emergence to the urgencies that appear within the links among science, nature and society. The interconnections of the science of sustainability with the scientific policy, the university education and the public health is shown as well as. (shrink)

This work presents the case of the Yanomami indigenous people from Brazil that were the object of US ethnography initiated in the 1960s. The research brought harmful repercussions to the life of the Indigenous people of Brazil for several decades, and it took more than 40 years until the beginning of a process of reparation involving the Brazilian government and American universities. Objective: to discuss the meaning of the return of Yanomami blood samples, as well as contributions from the epistemologies (...) of traditional Indigenous knowledge to the debate about research ethics and the structuring of means for the social control of researchers and the protection of participants in scientific studies, having as an example the Yanomami indigenous people from Brazil, subjected to noxious ethnography in the 1960s and the 1970s. This work used data reports recorded in secondary sources. In this article we argue that Bioethics needs to further diversify its epistemological foundations and to consider epistemologies and cosmologies beyond the frontiers of Western science, as the case of the abusive research involving the Yanomami indigenous people in Brazil reveals. We argue that traditional knowledge, such as those of indigenous and quilombolas, with their epistemologies and cosmologies, are fundamental for the election of less colonized and more efficient principles of research ethics, regarding the protection of the participants' rights in scientific studies. Traditional indigenous populations can teach us a great deal about doing research. (shrink)

Drug resistant epilepsy is one of the most complex, multifactorial and polygenic neurological syndrome. Besides its dynamicity and variability, it still provides us with a model to study brain-behavior relationship, giving cues on the anatomy and functional representation of brain function. Given that onset zone of focal epileptic seizures often affects different anatomical areas, cortical but limited to one hemisphere, this condition also let us study the functional differences of the left and right cerebral hemispheres. One lateralized function in the (...) human brain is emotional prosody, and it can be a useful ictal sign offering hints on the location of the epileptogenic zone. Besides its importance for effective communication, prosody is not considered an eloquent domain, making resective surgery on its neural correlates feasible. We performed an Electronic databases search (Medline and PsychINFO) from inception to July 2017 for studies about prosody in epilepsy. The search terms included “epilepsy,” “seizure,” “emotional prosody,” and “vocal affect.” This review focus on emotional prosody processing in epilepsy as it can give hints regarding plastic functional changes following seizures (preoperatively), resection (post operatively), and also as an ictal sign enabling the assessment of dynamic brain networks. Moreover, it is argued that such reorganization can help to preserve the expression and reception of emotional prosody as a central skill to develop appropriate social interactions. (shrink)

During the lengthy and complex process of human evolution our ancestors had to adapt to extremely testing situations in which survival depended on making rapid choices that subjected muscles and the body as a whole to extreme tension. In order to seize a prey traveling at speeds that could reach 36 km per hour Homo sapiens had just thousandths of a second in which to anticipate the right moment and position himself before the prey arrived. He also had to prepare (...) the appropriate gesture, tensing his muscles and overcoming the resistance determined by body weight. While we are no longer faced with an environment that is anything so threatening, our brain continues to use these mechanisms day in day out to save time and energy, enabling us to avoid situations of danger, sense in advance the intentions of an interlocutor, and more besides. In this article we set out to show that our brain is not only a reactive mechanism, capable of reacting quickly to the stimuli that arrive from the external environment, but is above all a pro-active mechanism that allows us to make hypotheses, anticipate the consequences of actions, and formulate expectations: in short, to wrong foot an adversary. (shrink)

After a brief introduction about the problem of leopardian sources, I wish to introduce here a description of the diffusion of Addison’s theories about the Imagination in Italy at the time of Leopardi, trying to highlight their influence on his thinking and his philosophy. The third chapter is dedicated to the analysis of an important excerpt of the Zibaldone where Leopardi quotes Addison and his Catone to introduce an interesting reflection about the pleasure of beauty and the role of imagination, (...) almost as a way to face Addison issues.This excerpt represents an occasion to compare the theories of Addison and Leopardi about Aesthetics and also the similarities and the differences between them. The last part of the paper is dedicated to the results of the analysis and the conclusions. (shrink)

OBJECTIVES: This reliability generalization study aimed to estimate the mean and variance of the interrater reliability coefficients (ryy) of supervisory ratings of overall, task, contextual, and positive job performance. The moderating effect of the appraisal purpose and the scale type was examined. It was hypothesized that the ratings collected for research purposes and multi-item scales have higher ryy. It was also examined whether ryy was similar for the four performance dimensions. METHOD: A database consisting of 224 independent samples was created (...) and hierarchical sub-grouping meta-analyses were conducted. RESULTS: The appraisal purpose was a moderator of ryy for the four performance dimensions. Scale type was a moderator of ryy for overall and task performance collected for research purposes. The findings also suggest that supervisors seem to have less difficulty evaluating overall job performance than task, contextual, and positive performance. The best estimates of the observed ryy for overall job performance are.61 for research-collected ratings and.45 for administrative-collected ratings. MAIN CONCLUSIONS: (1) Appraisal purpose moderates ryy and researchers and practitioners should be aware of its effects before collecting ratings or using empirically-derived interrater reliability distributions, (2) Scale type seems to moderate ryy in the case of the ratings collected for research purposes, only, (3) overall job performance is more reliably rated than task, contextual, and positive performance. Implications for research and practice are discussed. (shrink)

The ?West? is inclined to blame Asian countries, especially China, for its disrespect of human rights without looking at it's own record of human rights violations! This makes a fair dialogue very difficult till improbable. Social work on the international level can't avoid this dialogue if it wants to live up to its internationally consensual documents which all refer to human rights. The thesis of this article is, that it will only succeed, if it clarifies some philosophical and ethical premisses (...) of so-called ?western? and ?oriental/asian? thinking. Thus, the article tries to show that concepts of ?holism?, ?atomism/individualism? and ?systemic thinking? might be helpful for a ?rejonder? and discussion platform for the analysis of different modes of thinking about ethical issues. A systemic approach tries to avoid the problematic and combine the positive aspects of individualistic and holistic approaches. An example for this combination is the ?Asian Human Rights Charter: A People's Charter? of 1998 which doesn't divide the freedom and participatory versus social rights, a divide which is typical ? and problematic ? for the western version. (shrink)

This article examines two recent examples of feminist dystopias: Louise Erdrich’s Future Home of the Living God and Leni Zumas’s Red Clocks. True to their genre, these novels act as w...

What are the relevant values to the appraisal of research programs? This question remains hotly debated, as philosophers have recently proposed many lists of values potentially relevant to scientific appraisal. Surprisingly, despite being mentioned in many lists, little attention has been paid to fruitfulness. It is unclear how fruitfulness should be explicated, and whether it has any substantial role in scientific appraisal. In this paper, I argue we should explicate fruitfulness as the capacity to develop of research programs. Moreover, I (...) provide a novel strategy to assess and compare the fruitfulness of programs focused on their research questions and heuristics. To illustrate how this strategy would work, I will discuss a case study, namely the adaptationist program in evolutionary psychology. (shrink)

This essay argues that despite of the feminist critique of Merleau-Ponty his phenomenology can be positively appropriated to the theory of sexual difference. It focuses on three issues: the first one is closely linked to the Phenomenology of Perception and introduces a concept of "difference as differentiation". The second one is concerned with the intersubjective dimension of sexuality and will be called a "sexual syncretism". Finally, I’m referring to Merleau-Ponty's notion of "chiasm" in his late work The Visible and the (...) Invisible in order to apply it to the theory of sexual difference. At this point, the difference between sexual beings will be conceptualized as "chiasmatic intertwining". In doing so, I hope to show that Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology is a helpful resource for philosophical research that is mainly concerned with the questions of sexuality and sexual difference. (shrink)

How does personality influence the relationship between appraisals and emotions? Recent research suggests individual differences in appraisal structures: people may differ in an emotion's appraisal pattern. We explored individual differences in interest's appraisal structure, assessed as the within-person covariance of appraisals with interest. People viewed images of abstract visual art and provided ratings of interest and of interest's appraisals (novelty–complexity and coping potential) for each picture. A multilevel mixture model found two between-person classes that reflected distinct within-person appraisal styles. For (...) people in the larger class (68%), the novelty–complexity appraisal had a stronger effect on interest; for people in the smaller class (32%), the coping potential appraisal had a stronger effect. People in the larger class were significantly higher in appetitive traits related to novelty seeking (e.g., sensation seeking, openness to experience, and trait curiosity), suggesting that the appraisal classes have substantive meaning. We conclude by discussing the value of within-person mixture models for the study of personality and appraisal. (shrink)

Modulating connectivity measures in EEG-based neurofeedback studies is assumed to be a promising therapeutic and training tool. However, little is known so far about its effects and trainability. In the present study, we investigated the effects of up- and down-regulating SMR coherence by means of neurofeedback training on EEG activity and memory functions. Twenty adults performed 10 neurofeedback training sessions in which half of them tried to increase EEG coherence between Cz and CPz in the SMR frequency range, while the (...) other half tried to down-regulate coherence. Up-regulation of SMR coherence led to between- and within-session changes in EEG coherence. SMR power increased across neurofeedback training sessions but not within training sessions. Cross-over training effects on baseline EEG measures were also observed in this group. Up-regulation of SMR coherence was also associated with improvements in memory functions when comparing pre- and post-test results. Participants were not able to down-regulate SMR coherence. This group did not show any changes in baseline EEG measures or memory functions comparing pre- and post-test. Our results provide insights in the trainability and effects of connectivity-based neurofeedback training and indications for its practical application. (shrink)

This paper explores contract cheating from the perspectives of researchers at three post-secondary institutions in Alberta, Canada, describing their efforts to develop and advance awareness of, interventions against, and responses to contract cheating at their respective institutions. Contract cheating is when a third party produces or completes academic work for a student, and the student then presents the work as their own. The student might have personal connections to the third party, or the student might pay a fee and outsource (...) the academic work to the third party. All three institutions are experiencing an increase in the incidence of contract cheating, which is consistent with trends at colleges and universities across Canada and the world. Contract cheating is not a new phenomenon, but it is a growing one, due in part to students having access to thousands of online companies offering to help them with their academic work. This paper examines personal narratives from four researchers and identifies five key themes: types of contract cheating, students, awareness, evidence and policy implications, and educational development. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:This article aims to enhance understanding of employee anonymous online dissent (EAOD), a controversial phenomenon in contemporary digital environments. We conceptualise and scrutinise EAOD as a communicative and interactional process among four key actors: dissenting employees, online outlet administrators, audiences, and targeted organisations. This multi-actor, dialectical process encompasses actor-related tensions that may generate unethical consequences if single voices are not brought out and confronted. Appropriating a Habermasian ethical and discursive lens, we examine and disentangle three particular challenges emerging from the (...) EAOD process: lack of accountability and potential opportunism; equal participation and resolution of actor-related tensions; and organisational participation and internalisation of dissent. We show that EAOD can initiate plural dialogue that helps co-construct and balance different voices within an informal and noninstitutionalised context for interaction and public deliberation. We conclude our inquiry by offering reflections on practical implications and a research agenda for further investigation. (shrink)

Dieses Buch untersucht, was in den jeweiligen Theorieansätzen mit Bildhandeln‹ gemeint ist, indem eine Reihe von philosophischen und kunstwissenschaftlichen Ansätzen zum Verhältnis von Bild und Handlung vorgestellt und systematisiert werden. Vier paradigmatische Handlungstypen werden voneinander differenziert, die spezifische Verwendungsmöglichkeiten von Bildern umfassen. Die ersten zwei – Bildspiele‹ und Bildakte‹ – beruhen auf der sprachphilosophisch motivierten Prämisse, dass die Verwendung von Bildern der Struktur eines Sprachspieles oder eines Sprechaktes entspricht. Diese Prämisse bezieht sich auf Verwendungsweisen, durch die materiellen Gegenständen der Bildstatus (...) zugeschrieben wird. Demgegenüber werden zwei weitere Bildhandlungstypen vorgestellt, wonach Bilder nur dann verwendet werden können, wenn ihr Bildstatus bereits feststeht. Diese Bildhandlungstypen werden mit einem Vergleich von Bildern und Werkzeugen sowie der Kategorie Probehandlungen‹ thematisiert. (shrink)

Das Buch bietet die erste kritische Edition der Artikel XXV-XXVII der Summa (Quaestiones ordinariae) des Heinrich von Gent. Dabei leistet es einen Beitrag zur Geschichte der Formen und Pfade der Ideenvermittlung im Mittelalter und zur mittelalterlichen Buchkultur. Die Kollationierung der Handschriften der Artikel XXV-XXVII und die Untersuchung ihrer materiellen Überlieferung haben der Editorin erlaubt, den Prozess der Ausarbeitung, Publikation und Verbreitung einer Portion von Heinrichs Summa über einen längeren Zeitraum in großer Detailgenauigkeit zu rekonstruieren. Die hier edierten Artikel enthalten ein (...) Kernstück von Heinrichs theologischem und metaphysischem System. In der Behandlung von Einheit, Natur und Leben Gottes entfalten sie eine rationale Darstellung des ersten Prinzips. (shrink)

Public engagement is one of the fundamental pillars of the European programme for research and innovation _Horizon 2020_. The programme encourages engagement that not only fosters science education and dissemination, but also promotes two-way dialogues between scientists and the public at various stages of research. Establishing such dialogues between different groups of societal actors is seen as crucial in order to attain epistemic as well as social desiderata at the intersection between science and society. However, whether these dialogues can actually (...) help attaining these desiderata is far from obvious. This paper discusses some of the costs, risks, and benefits of dialogical public engagement practices, and proposes a strategy to analyse these argumentative practices based on a three-tiered model of epistemic exchange. As a case study, we discuss the phenomenon of vaccine hesitancy, arguably a result of suboptimal public engagement, and show how the proposed model can shed new light on the problem. (shrink)

Gaze plays a fundamental role in the processing of facial expressions from birth. Gaze direction is a crucial part of the social signal encoded in and decoded from faces. The ability to discriminate gaze direction, already evident early in life, is essential for the development of more complex socially relevant tasks, such as joint and shared attention. At the same time, facial expressions play a fundamental role in the encoding of gaze direction and, when combined, expression and gaze communicate behavioural (...) motivation to approach or avoid. However, the investigation of how gaze direction and emotional expression interact during the processing of a face has been relatively neglected, and is the key question of this review. (shrink)

In the spring of 1784 the Marquis of Puységur, a great landowner and colonel in an artillery regiment, was called to the bedside of Victor, the son of his steward, who was suffering from pneumonia. Puységur was a follower of the new holistic medicine taught in an atmosphere of intense enthusiasm and scandal by Franz-Anton Mesmer, an Austrian doctor who had been living in Paris for several years. As a disciple of Mesmer, he intended to direct his ‘vital fluid’ onto (...) the young patient, by means of ‘magnetic passes’, to provoke ‘spasms’ which would lead to a calm state and an improvement in health. But things did not go as anticipated. Instead of displaying the anticipated spasms, the young Victor sank into a strange state of unconsciousness which, at first sight, resembled a deep sleep. Then he revived once more and came to life with a new personality. Freed from his inhibitions, he no longer spoke his habitual dialect, but the French of aristocrats, and he had no hesitation in berating his school teacher, whose secret thoughts he appeared to be able to read. Finally, he forecast the stages by which he would be cured and the remedies which would be suitable for him. Puységur wrote down all these strange facts and the following year he published a report which caused a sensation. Soon, throughout France, somnambulists appeared and observations about their subjects gathered. From that time onwards, the incomprehensible facts apparently evident in ‘provoked’ or ‘artificial somnambulism’ and also in ‘magnetic sleep’ - such expressions were used by Puységur and his followers for the state that he had just discovered - were to give rise to huge controversy. The Marquis of Puységur triggered the development nineteenth century of a movement of reflections and practices which have generally been referred to by the expression ‘animal magnetism’, invented by Mesmer. On the eve of the Revolution and throughout the nineteenth century this movement held a real fascination for philosophers, writers, and scholars. But there has been a tendency to overlook this episode in European culture, which has ultimately become a “lost continent” in our own period. (shrink)

Attention, for Iris Murdoch, is a central concept in more than one sense. On the one hand, it appears to be one of the keys, if not the key, to goodness, the task of the moral subject, and the pre-requisite for right action. On the other, attention can function as the hinge around which Murdoch’s general ethical worldview (including psychology and metaphysics) can be made to revolve, and through which it turns away from the mainstream contemporary philosophy of her time. (...) Overwhelmingly inspired by Simone Weil, Murdoch presents attention as a truth-seeing and truth-discovering attitude and activity, animated by Platonic eros. (shrink)

Shannon Sullivan's critique of Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception is based on the argument that, due to his concept of the “anonymous body,” his theory of intersubjectivity omits the particularities of bodies, such as gender. I argue that Merleau-Ponty's “anonymous body” is not in fact “neutral” as Sullivan suggests, and moreover that he does not ignore differences but rather provides us with the idea of difference as a process of differentiation. Additionally, I argue that Sullivan's concept of “hypothetical construction,” which is (...) introduced as an alternative to Merleau-Ponty, turns out to be a conscious construction, not reflecting upon its very conditions. Thus, Sullivan's account fails by presupposing what in fact needs to be explained: the particularities. (shrink)