There is an evident lack of studies examining the pursuit of excellence in futsal. The aims of this study were to evaluate anthropometric and physiological variables that may contribute to distinguishing among performance levels in professional futsal players and to evaluate correlates of those variables. The participants were 75 male professionals (age = 25.1 ± 5.1 years, body height = 182.3 ± 6.2 cm, body mass = 80.8 ± 10.4 kg), who were divided into performance levels using two criteria: (i) (...) starters (first teams) vs. non-starters (substitutes) and (ii) top-level players (members of the national team and players who participated in top-level team competition in Europe) vs. high-level players (team players competing at the highest national competitive rank). Variables included anthropometrics (body height and mass, BMI, body fat percentage), generic tests of physiological capacities [5- and 10-m sprints, countermovement jump, broad jump, 20-yard test, reactive strength index (RSI)], and futsal-specific fitness tests [kicking speed by dominant and non-dominant leg, futsal-specific tests of change of direction speed, and reactive agility (FSRAG) involving/not involving dribbling the ball]. Top-level players outperformed high-level players in RSI, broad jump, kicking speed, and FSRAG involving dribbling. Starters achieved better results than non-starters in fewer variables, including kicking speed and RSI. Body fat percentage negatively influenced FSRAG involving dribbling, and RSI. FSRAG, RSI, and kicking speed were significantly correlated, indicating the similar physiological background of these capacities. The findings suggest that enhanced reactive strength and the ability to rapidly change direction speed in response to external stimulus while executing futsal-specific motor tasks (e.g., dribbling), along with players’ ability to kick the ball speedily, can be considered essential qualities required for advanced performance in futsal. Consequently, futsal strength and conditioning training should be targeted toward lowering relative body fat, maximizing lower-body reactive strength and including futsal-specific skills (e.g., dribbling, shooting) in reactive agility drills. (shrink)

To address the underrepresentation of women in philosophy effectively, we must understand the causes of the early loss of women. In this paper we challenge one of the few explanations that has focused on why women might leave philosophy at early stages. Wesley Buckwalter and Stephen Stich offer some evidence that women have different intuitions than men about philosophical thought experiments. We present some concerns about their evidence and we discuss our own study, in which we attempted to replicate their (...) results for 23 different responses to 14 scenarios . We also conducted a literature search to see if other philosophers or psychologists have tested for gender differences in philosophical intuitions. Based on our findings, we argue that that it is unlikely that gender differences in intuitions play a significant role in driving women from philosophy. (shrink)

This paper argues that healthcare aims at the good of health, that this pursuit of the good necessitates conscience, and that conscience is required in every practical judgement, including clinical...

La fraternidad es el pariente pobre de la tríada democrático-republicana moderna. No sólo políticamente. También filosóficamente: mientras que los conceptos de «igualdad" y "libertad" han sido concienzudamente explorados, "fraternidad», sigue pareciendo una noción amorfa. Este artículo presenta una reivindicación política, a la altura de finales del siglo XX, de la fraternidad, e intenta dibujar filosóficamente, tras un preámbulo histórico, un concepto algo preciso y proteico de ella.

The biological membranes of eukaryotic cells harbor sensitive surveillance systems to establish, sense, and maintain characteristic physicochemical properties that ultimately define organelle identity. They are fundamentally important for membrane homeostasis and play active roles in cellular signaling, protein sorting, and the formation of vesicular carriers. Here, we compare the molecular mechanisms of Mga2 and Ire1, two sensors involved in the regulation of fatty acid desaturation and the response to unfolded proteins and lipid bilayer stress in order to identify their commonalities (...) and specializations. We will speculate on the cellular significance of membrane property sensors in other organelles and discuss their putative mechanisms. Based on these findings, we propose membrane property sensors as an emerging class of proteins with wide implications for organelle communication and function. (shrink)

The article explores some of the issues that have arisen in the discourse on pharmaceutical cognitive enhancement (PCE), that is, the use of stimulant drugs such as methylphenidate, amphetamine and modafinil by healthy individuals of various populations with the aim of improving cognitive performance. Specifically, we explore the presumed sizes of existing PCE user populations and the policy actions that have been proposed regarding the trend of PCE. We begin with an introductory examination of the academic stances and philosophical issues (...) involved in defining PCE. We then focus on an examination of the population sizes of presumed current PCE users that have been listed in the academic literature on PCE, on presuppositions, which have been problematized by some authors as based on anecdotal or misinterpreted survey data. We follow this with an empirical examination of a potential PCE user population in a national context (students at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia). We then proceed to examine the regulatory options proposed in the academic literature to address PCE, finally comparing them with an empirical overview of the policy recommendations on PCE produced in the multinational context of several national ethics advisory bodies (EABs) in Europe. Our main conclusion is that there is still little debate among the national EABs on what type of public policy responses, if any, are needed to address PCE in European countries, and that the issues they do address are similar to those discussed and proposed in the academic articles on PCE. (shrink)

In The Value Gap, Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen addresses the distinction between what is finally good and what is finally good-for, two value notions that are central to ethics and practical deliberation. The first part of the book argues against views that claim that one of these notions is either faulty, or at best conceptually dependent on the other notion. Whereas these two views disagree on whether it is good or good-for that is the flawed or dependent concept, it is argued, (...) as against both approaches, that goodness and goodness-for are independent value notions that cannot be fully understood in terms of one another. The second part provides an analysis of good and good-for in terms of a fitting-attitude analysis. By elaborating a more nuanced understanding of the key elements of this analysis—reasons and pro-attitudes—Rønnow-Rasmussen challenges the widespread idea that there are no genuine practical and moral dilemmas. The result is that the gap between favouring for a reason what is good and favouring for a reason what is good for someone appears insurmountable. (shrink)

This study aims to determine possible associations between strength parameters, injury rates, and performance outcomes over six seasons in professional basketball settings. Thirty-six male professional basketball players [mean ± standard deviation : age, 30.5 ± 4.7 years; height, 199.5 ± 9.5 cm; body mass, 97.9 ± 12.9 kg; BMI 24.6 ± 2.5 kg/m2] participated in this retrospective observational study, conducted from the 2008–09 to the 2013–14 season. According to their epidemiological records, each player followed an individual plan designed within different (...) strength training programs: Functional, Eccentric, or Resistance. Seven hundred and fourteen valid records were obtained from 170 individual strength tests during 31 sessions. Tests performed were leg press, squat, and jerk. Parameters recorded were force, power, velocity, peak velocity, and time to peak velocity for strength; time loss injury and muscle injury for injury rate; and games won, games lost, and championships for performance outcomes. All the strength variables and injuries are independent of the strength programs. The correlation analysis showed very significant relationships between muscular injuries and time to peak velocity, significant relationships between force and games lost, and muscular injuries with games lost per season. Mean values per season described a possible association of force, time to peak velocity, and muscular injuries with performance outcomes. In this specific context, strength variables and injury rate data show no association with a single type of strength training program in this cohort of high-performance basketball players. (shrink)

(2006). Introduction. World Futures: Vol. 62, No. 7, pp. 477-480.

This article explores the potential of feminist new materialisms and theories of affect for reframing how we might think about beauty and the body. Through an exploration of girls, beauty and the school ball, the article engages with Karen Barad’s concept of intra-action to conceptualise beauty as an affective-material process. This perspective involves an ontological shift in how girls, bodies and beauty are understood; from thinking about beauty and the human as discursively produced, towards a relational approach that conceptualises materiality (...) and affect as co-constitutive forces. The article is interested in how such a framing might invite ways of understanding beauty that avoid binary frameworks, such as good/bad, subject/object and discourse/matter. I consider the potential this might offer feminist analyses of beauty, where the focus is less on what beauty is or what it means, and more on how it comes to be. (shrink)

En este texto analizaremos la obra de Anri Sala. Sus instalaciones audiovisuales utilizan los medios basados en el cine y el video, alterando los conceptos del espacio y el tiempo. En un primer apartado, proponemos la obra Time after Time (2003) donde rompe el tiempo y el espacio e introduce la idea de la disrupción de la cotidianeidad como tiempo de experiencia. En un segundo apartado, trataremos la obra Ravel, Ravel, Unravel (2013) en la que debatimos las manipulaciones del tiempo (...) y el espacio. Y concluiremos, cómo Anri Sala invoca en su trabajo tanto a la emoción como al cuerpo del espectador. (shrink)

Arianne Shahvisi has argued that a doctor’s conscientious objection to abortion is a misuse of their authority which unduly burdens patients and, moreover, does not succeed in its aim of exculpating objectors from participating in perceived evil. We examine these claims in this response. First, we ask what the ‘conscience clause’ really requires of doctors and whether Shahvisi has interpreted it correctly. Second, we explore the notions of vulnerability and power in the doctor–patient relationship and cast doubt on Shahvisi’s claims (...) about these. Third, we tackle Shahvisi’s claim that conscientious objection is self-defeating because it entails remaing causally implicated in a chain of events leading to abortion. We show that this claim entails absurdity, then revisit the classical framework for the ethics ethics of co-operation to show that conscientious objection can suceed in exculpating objectors from perceived wrongdoing. We briefly critically evaluate the General Medical Council’s guidance on conscie... (shrink)

In his pioneering work on Abstract Argumentation, P.M. Dung set a wide scenario by connecting stable models in Logic and Game Theory to simple Abstract Argumentation Frameworks ( AAF), which are essentially directed graphs in which arguments are represented as nodes, and the attack relation is represented by arrows. From such abstraction and simplicity, it is possible to capture important properties in many different fields. The Stable Marriage ( SM) problem is exactly one of such representable problems. Given two sets (...) of individuals partitioned into men and women, a matching is stable when there does not exist any man-woman match by which both man and woman would be individually better off than they are with the person to which they are currently matched. Stable matchings correspond to stable extensions if an AAF is correctly generated from the given SM problem. In this paper we elaborate on the original formulation by Dung, by also encoding SM problems with ties and incomplete preference lists into AAFs. Moreover, we use Weighted Abstract Argumentation to represent optimality criteria in the optimal extension of SM problems, where some matchings are better than others: criteria may consider only the preference of either men, or women, or a more global view obtained by combining the preferences of both. (shrink)

This is a stimulating and vivid area of philosophical research, but it has tended to monopolize the notion of 'good-for', linking it necessarily to welfare or ...

Although recent research suggests that women are underrepresented in philosophy after initial philosophy courses, there have been relatively few empirical investigations into the factors that lead to this early drop-off in women’s representation. In this paper, we present the results of empirical investigations at a large American public university that explore various factors contributing to women’s underrepresentation in philosophy at the undergraduate level. We administered climate surveys to hundreds of students completing their Introduction to Philosophy course and examined differences in (...) women’s and men’s feelings of belonging, comfort, and confidence in the philosophy classroom. We present findings suggesting various factors that contribute to women’s lower willingness to continue in philosophy compared to men’s, including perceptions about intuition-based methods in philosophy, the usefulness of the philosophy major, philosophy as a male discipline, and philosophical abilities as innate talents. We conclude by providing some suggestions for improving undergraduate philosophy courses in ways that would increase women’s willingness to continue in philosophy and may improve the courses for all students. (shrink)

Recent Work on Intrinsic Value brings together for the first time many of the most important and influential writings on the topic of intrinsic value to have appeared in the last half-century. During this period, inquiry into the nature of intrinsic value has intensified to such an extent that at the moment it is one of the hottest topics in the field of theoretical ethics. The contributions to this volume have been selected in such a way that all of the (...) fundamental questions concerning the nature of intrinsic value are treated in depth and from a variety of viewpoints. These questions include how to understand the concept of intrinsic value, what sorts of things can have intrinsic value, and how to compute intrinsic value. The editors have added an introduction that ties these questions together and places the contributions in context, and they have also provided an extensive bibliography. The result is a comprehensive, balanced, and detailed picture of current thinking about intrinsic value, one that provides an indispensable backdrop against which future writings on the topic may be assessed. (shrink)

This article examines parallels between the increasing mental burnout and environmental overshoot in the organisational context. The article argues that there is a particular philosophy of management that connects these two phenomena of overshoot and burnout, namely productivism. As there are boundaries in all ecological processes and systems, the productivist aim of having ever more output and growth is deemed absurd. It is proposed that productivity as a management philosophy not only leads to mental ill-health in organisations but also to (...) overshoot in the environment. The article concludes that productivism, which denies the limits in utilisation of humans and other natural resources, fits poorly with circular economy and sustainability. Hence, ecological management should be complemented with a more holistic and processual view of organizations, as well as have an aim of peaceful coexistence between all earthbound objects. This signifies acknowledging and caring for human and non-human needs both now and in future by applying the idea of moderation to production of goods and services. (shrink)

Section 2.1 identifies three notions of intrinsic value: the finality sense understands it as value for its own sake, the supervenience sense identifies it with value that depends exclusively on the bearer’s internal properties, and the nonderivative sense describes intrinsic value as value that provides justification for other values and is not justified by any other value. A distinction between final intrinsic and final extrinsic value in terms of supervenience is subsequently introduced. Section 2.2 contains a discussion of the debate (...) about instrumental value and other varieties of nonfinal extrinsic value. Finally, section 2.3 focuses on recent attacks on the very coherence of the intrinsic/extrinsic distinction and its role as a demarcation line between fundamental and nonfundamental value. (shrink)

It is argued that the so-called fitting attitude- or buck-passing pattern of analysis may be applied to personal values too if the analysans is fine-tuned in the following way: An object has personal value for a person a, if and only if there is reason to favour it for a’s sake. One benefit with it is its wide range: different kinds of values are analysable by the same general formula. Moreover, by situating the distinguishing quality in the attitude rather than (...) the reason part, the analysis admits that personal value is recognizable as a value not only by the person for whom it has personal value, but for everyone else too. We thereby avoid facing two completely different notions of value, viz., one pertaining to impersonal value, and another to personal value. The analysis also elucidates why we are justified in our concern for objects that are valuable for us; if value just is, as it is suggested, the existence of reasons for such a concern, the justification is immediately forthcoming. (shrink)

What does it mean that an object has instrumental value? While some writers seem to think it means that the object bears a value, and that instrumental value accordingly is a kind of value, other writers seem to think that the object is not a value bearer but is only what is conducive to something of value. Contrary to what is the general view among philosophers of value, I argue that if instrumental value is a kind of value, then it (...) is a kind of extrinsic final value. (shrink)

Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen | : This paper explores a novel metaethical theory according to which value judgments express conditional beliefs held by those who make them. Each value judgment expresses the belief that something is the case on condition that something else is the case. The paper aims to reach a better understanding of this view and to highlight some of the challenges that lie ahead. The most pressing of these revolves around the correct understanding of the nature of the (...) relevant cognitive attitudes. It is suggested that the distinction between “dormant attitudes” and “occurrent attitudes” helps us to understand these conditional beliefs. | : Cet article explore une nouvelle théorie méta-éthique selon laquelle les jugements de valeur expriment les croyances conditionnelles des sujets qui les font. Chaque jugement de valeur exprimerait la croyance selon laquelle quelque chose est le cas à la condition que quelque chose d’autre le soit. L’objectif de cet article est de parvenir à une meilleure compréhension de ce point de vue et de souligner certaines de ses difficultés. La plus urgente d’entre elles concerne la compréhension adéquate de la nature des attitudes cognitives pertinentes. Nous suggérons que la distinction entre « attitudes dormantes » et « attitudes occurrentes » permettrait de mieux comprendre les croyances conditionnelles. (shrink)

This paper presents a novel argumentation framework to support Issue-Based Information System style debates on design alternatives, by providing an automatic quantitative evaluation of the positions put forward. It also identifies several formal properties of the proposed quantitative argumentation framework and compares it with existing non-numerical abstract argumentation formalisms. Finally, the paper describes the integration of the proposed approach within the design Visual Understanding Environment software tool along with three case studies in engineering design. The case studies show the potential (...) for a competitive advantage of the proposed approach with respect to state-of-the-art engineering design methods. (shrink)

The endeavour to locate value in moral progress faces various substantive as well as more formal challenges. This paper focuses on challenges of the latter kind. After some preliminaries, Section 3 introduces two general kinds of “evaluative moral progress-claims”, and outlines a possible novel analysis of a descriptive notion of moral progress. While Section 4 discusses certain logical features of betterness in light of recent work in value theory which are pertinent to the notion of moral progress, Sections 5 and (...) 6 outline the ambiguous character of “making moral progress”. (shrink)

In this paper we explore the thesis that the role of argumentation in practical reasoning in general and legal reasoning in particular is to justify the use of defeasible rules to derive a conclusion in preference to the use of other defeasible rules to derive a conflicting conclusion. The defeasibility of rules is expressed by means of non-provability claims as additional conditions of the rules.We outline an abstract approach to defeasible reasoning and argumentation which includes many existing formalisms, including default (...) logic, extended logic programming, non-monotonic modal logic and auto-epistemic logic, as special cases. We show, in particular, that the admissibility semantics for all these formalisms has a natural argumentation-theoretic interpretation and proof procedure, which seem to correspond well with informal argumentation. (shrink)

The distinction between the agent-relative and the agent-neutral plays a prominent role in recent attempts to taxonomize normative theories. Its importance extends to most areas in practical philosophy, though. Despite its popularity, the distinction remains difficult to get a good grip on. In part this has to do with the fact that there is no consensus concerning the sort of objects to which we should apply the distinction. Thomas Nagel distinguishes between agent-neutral and agent-relative values, reasons, and principles; Derek Parfit (...) focuses on normative theories (and the aims they provide to agents), David McNaughton and Piers Rawling focus on rules and reasons, Skorupski on predicates, and there are other suggestions too. Some writers suspect that we fundamentally talk about one and the same distinction. This work is about practical reasons for action rather than theoretical reasons for belief. Moreover, focus is on whether reasons do or do not essentially refer to particular agents. A challenge that undermines the dichotomy in this sense is posed. After having rejected different attempts to defend the distinction, it is argued that there is a possible defence that sets out from Jonathan Dancy’s recent distinction between enablers and favourers. (shrink)

Conscientious Objection (CO) has become a highly contested topic in the bioethics literature and public policy. However, when CO is discussed, it is almost universally referred to as a single entity. Reality reveals a more nuanced picture. Healthcare professionals may object to a given action on numerous grounds. They may oppose an action because of its ends, its means, or because of factors that lay outside of both ends and means. Our paper develops a taxonomy of CO, which makes it (...) possible to describe the refusals of healthcare professional with greater finesse. The application of this development will potentially allow for greater subtlety in public policy and academic discussions – some species of CO could be permitted while others could be prohibited. (shrink)

Clinical ethics consultants should show bold moral courage in discharging their duties to patients, families, and healthcare providers. Given the corrosive impact on trust, and on the appropriate d...

People are prone to ascribe value to persons they love. However, the relation between love and value is far from straightforward. This is particularly evident given certain views on the nature of love. Setting out from the idea that what causes us to have an attitude towards an object need not be found in the intentional content of the attitude, this paper depicts love as an attitude that takes non‐fungible persons as intentional objects. Taking this view as a starting point, (...) the paper shows why it is difficult to combine with certain views on value. The main challenge comes from the idea that value judgments are universalizable. This view squares badly with the thought that the people whom we love are irreplaceable. Introducing the idea that properties may have different functions in the intentional content of the attitude, this paper determines what precisely it is about love that makes it hard to combine with universalizability. Moreover, it suggests two ways of meeting this challenge. (shrink)

Alongside the photographs are short pieces of critical commentary by Vicki Karaminas and Toni Johnson-Woods, shedding light on the city's changing culture and how this is expressed through the clothing choices of ordinary city-dwellers ...

The article examines the role played by policy advice institutions in the governance of ethically controversial new and emerging science and technology in Europe. The empirical analysis, which aims to help close a gap in the literature, focuses on the evolution, role and functioning of national ethics advisory bodies (EABs) in Europe. EABs are expert bodies whose remit is to issue recommendations regarding ethical aspects of new and emerging science and technology. Negative experiences with the impacts of science and technology (...) in the past have resulted in calls for increased transparency and broader participation and pluralism in expert advice and policy decision-making. Do national EABs function as inclusive, anticipatory “hybrid forums”? Or do they resemble more “classical” expert-oriented bodies, inspired by technocratic or decisionist approaches? As part of the empirical analysis of the role and functioning of institutional ethical advisory structures in 32 European countries, an extensive analysis of EAB websites and the content of publicly available documents on such institutions has been carried out, supplemented by an online survey of representatives of the EABs. One major finding of the empirical analysis is the very uneven distribution of “hybrid forum” features of EABs across Europe. (shrink)

The much endorsed idea that reasons are facts, gives raise to several issues, not least when it is applied to the distinction between agent-neutral and agent-relative reasons. The paper distinguish in broad terms between two important views on the nature of facts. Given in particular a view that conceives of facts as abstract entities, the dichotomy is not particularly problematic. We might run into problems when it comes to identifying which facts are reasons and which are not, but the very (...) dichotomy itself seems sound. On this, the so-called thin approach, it is at least a possibility that some reasons will be (in some sense of the dichotomy) agent-neutral and some will be agent-relative. The second approach, the thick account, is, much less popular. It is argued that the thin approach trivializes an interesting issue among practical philosophers. The thin account is also in one respect less appealing than its thick cousin. The thick account is not flawless, though. At the end, a couple of objections to it will be considered. (shrink)