Deep-brain stimulation has been used to treat advanced Parkinson disease and other neurological and psychiatric disorders that have not responded to other treatments. While deep-brain stimulation can modulate overactive or underactive regions of the brain and thereby improve motor function, it can also cause changes in a patient’s thought and personality. This paper discusses the trade-offs between the physiological benefit of this technique and the potential psychological harm.

The comorbidity of chronic pain and opioid addiction is a serious problem that has been growing with the practice of prescribing opioids for chronic pain. Neuroimaging research has shown that chronic pain and opioid dependence both affect brain structure and function, but this is the first study to evaluate the neurophysiological alterations in patients with comorbid chronic pain and addiction. Eighteen participants with chronic low back pain and opioid addiction were compared with eighteen age- and sex-matched healthy individuals in a (...) pain-induction fMRI task. Unified structural equation modeling (SEM) with Lagrange multiplier (LM) testing yielded a network model of pain processing for patient and control groups based on 19 a priori defined regions. Tests of differences between groups on specific regression parameters were determined on a path-by-path basis using z-tests corrected for the number of comparisons. Patients with the chronic pain and addiction comorbidity had increased connection strengths; many of these connections were interhemispheric and spanned regions involved in sensory, affective, and cognitive processes. The affected regions included those that are commonly altered in chronic pain or addiction alone, indicating that this comorbidity manifests with neurological symptoms of both disorders. Understanding the neural mechanisms involved in the comorbidity is crucial to finding a comprehensive treatment, rather than treating the symptoms individually. (shrink)

A remarkable event occurred at the December 3, 2004, meeting of the U. S. President’s Council on Bioethics. Council member William Hurlbut, a physician and Consulting Professor in the Program in Human Biology at Stanford University, formally unveiled a proposal that he claimed would solve the ethical problems surrounding the extraction of stem cells from human embryos. The proposal would involve the creation of genetically defective embryos that “never rise to the level of integrated organismal existence essential to be designated (...) human life with potential,” and therefore could be used as morally acceptable sources of stem cells for research and therapy. The aim of this essay is to show that Hurlbut’s proposal does not solve the ethical problems associated with human embryonic stem cell research. Two major reasons are presented. First, the proposal, which involves modification of a somatic cell nucleus, suffers from an ethical problem that is common to all types of human genetic engineering: since the procedure is not foolproof, there will be failures. In the case of the procedure Hurlbut proposes, some normal (albeit cloned) embryos will be produced. Second, the embryo engineered in the manner described is, at least in the early stages of its development, fully human despite its genetic defect. This essay also will show how a reasonable person might mistakenly view the proposal as legitimate if he or she makes the error of conflating genetic determinism with Aristotelian teleology. Finally, it will argue that ethical clarity can be achieved by seeing the embryo as a holistic entity possessing emergent properties that cannot simply be spelled out by genes. (shrink)

This essay aims to tell the story of the “altered nuclear transfer-oocyte assisted reprogramming,” or ANT-OAR, proposal—from its conception by Professor William Hurlbut of the President’s Council on Bioethics—to its adoption and promotion by a group of conservative, mostly Catholic philosophers, theologians and scientists—to its eventual demise in Congress. It also will give some reflections on how ANT-OAR promotes a genetically deterministic view of the human organism and can lead down a slippery slope into a future in which human cloning (...) and human genetic engineering are more acceptable. For these reasons, it will be argued, ANT-OAR should be opposed by all who are against human genetic modification regardless of their political orientation. (shrink)

In this paper we examine the relation between technologies that aim to remediate pollution and moral responsibility. Contrary to the common view that successful remediation technologies will permit the wheels of industry to turn without interruption, we argue that such technologies do not exculpate polluters of responsibility. To make this case, we examine several environmental and non-environmental cases. We suggest that some strategies for understanding the moral problem of pollution, and particularly those that emphasise harms, exclude an important dimension of (...) morality. In lieu of these strategies, we employ the concept of respect to characterise the type of attitude that underlies many of our judgments about responsibility. (shrink)

First put forth in June 2005, the altered nuclear transfer-oocyte assisted reprogramming (ANT-OAR) proposal has been promoted as an ethically-acceptable alternative to the embryo-destructive methods now used to obtain embryonic stem cells. According to its proponents, the goal of ANT-OAR is to use the cloning process to create a pluripotent stem cell. This would be achieved through overexpression of the transcription factor Nanog (or a hypothetical substitute) both in the enucleated egg cell and in the somatic cell prior to transfer (...) of its nucleus. Although the ethical acceptability of ANT-OAR has been publicly debated, its scientific feasibility has not. This paper aims to help rectify this situation. It argues that ANT-OAR, as currently conceived, cannot realistically work. It presents evidence from the scientific literature showing that Nanog cannot single-handedly establish pluripotency in cells, but rather works together with a network of other transcription factors to maintain pluripotency. It argues that ANT-OAR is based on a flawed understanding of stem cell biology, and emphasizes that, in this debate about embryonic stem cells, scientists must strive to accurately and realistically assess the feasibility of the embryo research strategies they propose. (shrink)

Directional deep brain stimulation contacts provide greater spatial flexibility for therapy than traditional ring-shaped electrodes, but little is known about longitudinal changes of impedance and orientation. We measured monopolar and bipolar impedance of DBS contacts in 31 patients who underwent unilateral subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation as part of a randomized study. At different follow-up visits, patients were assigned new stimulation configurations and impedance was measured. Additionally, we measured the orientation of the directional lead during surgery, immediately after surgery, and (...) 1 year later. Here we contrast impedances in directional versus ring contacts with respect to local anatomy, active stimulation contact, and over time. Directional contacts display larger impedances than ring contacts. Impedances generally increase slightly over the first year of therapy, save for a transient decrease immediately post-surgery under general anesthesia during pulse generator placement. Local impedances decrease at active stimulation sites, and contacts in closest proximity to internal capsule display higher impedances than other anatomic sites. DBS leads rotate slightly in the immediate postoperative period but otherwise remain stable over the following year. These data provide useful information for setting clinical stimulation parameters over time. (shrink)

Under the impact of cultural, economic and legislative forces the traditional role of the university health center is changing. The academic health center is rapidly evolving from a relatively undifferentiated general hospital, primarily responsible for the education of undergraduate students of medicine, into a center of clinical research, caring for very specialized mixes of patients, and having as its primary educational mission the training of subspecialists. The nature of the forces responsible for this change are analyzed, and some of its (...) possible consequences for the definition of quality health care, for the shape of medical practice and medical education, and for the allocation of resources for health care are explored. This exploration suggests that the functional separation of the medical school from the highly technical, clinical research center is inevitable. This in turn may exacerbate tensions within medicine between the physician as scientist and as healer, between curative and preventive practice and between personal and public health. Although the effects of this separation on medical education remain obscure, it has already occasioned the most comprehensive review of the medical curriculum since the time of Flexner. Out of this is likely to develop a more generalist view of the education of future physicians. (shrink)

As a result of being measured, individuals sometimes alter their behavior and attitudes to such extent that subsequent measurement results are affected. This ‘reactivity’ to measurement problematizes prediction and explanation, but some reactivity is nevertheless legitimate. Using the example of the measurement of race in the US Census, this article demonstrates that some forms of reactivity do not affect the accuracy of research. The article argues that legitimacy of reactivity depends on the metaphysical status of the phenomenon being measured. It (...) is argued that reactivity’s legitimacy is affected by the arbitrariness of a measure and the voluntariness of measurement results. (shrink)

We give a fairly complete account which first shows that the solution to the inner model problem for one supercompact cardinal will yield an ultimate version ofLand then shows that the various current approaches to inner model theory must be fundamentally altered to provide that solution.

Psychotropic and other drugs can alter brain mechanisms regulating the formation, storage, and retrieval of different types of memory. These include “off label” uses of existing drugs and new drugs designed specifically to target the neural bases of memory. This paper discusses the use of beta-adrenergic antagonists to prevent or erase non-conscious pathological emotional memories in the amygdala. It also discusses the use of novel psychopharmacological agents to enhance long term semantic and short term working memory by altering storage and (...) retrieval mechanisms in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. Although intervention in the brain to alter memory as therapy or enhancement holds considerable promise, the long term effects of experimental drugs on the brain and memory are not known. More studies are needed to adequately assess the potential benefits and risks of these interventions. (shrink)

Uchiyama et al. emphasize that culture evolves directionally and differentially as a function of selective pressures in different populations. Extending these principles to the level of families, lineages, and individuals exposes additional challenges to estimating heritability. Cultural traits expressed differentially as a function of the genetics whose influence they mask or unmask render inseparable the influences of culture and genetics.

continent. 1.4 (2011): 242—252. Introduction The following two works were produced by visual artist Jonas Staal and writer Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei during a visit as artists in residence at The Bag Factory, Johannesburg, South Africa during the summer of 2010. Both works were produced in situ and comprised in both cases a public intervention conceived by Staal and a textual work conceived by Van Gerven Oei. It was their aim, in both cases, to produce complementary works that could (...) be read “through each other,” in which the movement of artistic construction would be imitated by textual deconstruction and vice versa. Both works deal with the way in which capital, apartheid, and monumentality are interwoven in South-African society. The Missing Link addresses a monument for democracy, erected on the premises of a private corporation running both an amusement park and the Apartheid Museum franchise. The textual intervention accompanying this public intervention investigates the limits of the inclusiveness of the anti-discrimination section in the South-African constitution, itself a monumental work of democracy. The Monument for the Distribution of Wealth deals with the history and eventual dissolution of a monumental square, commemorating the Soweto Uprising, in one of the poorest townships of Johannesburg. The history accompanying this public dismemberment of memory is equally fragmented, which is expressed by the many voices recounting uncertain and perhaps even irrelevant “facts” about the genius loci, the way in which the memorial space has actually entered into the memory of the inhabitants surrounding it. Next to their individual practices, Staal and Van Gerven Oei have worked together on a number of projects ever since 2007, including several art residencies. Their work involves an investigation of the different interfaces between art, politics, and public space in media ranging from theater and public interventions, to video installations and (co-authored) textual works. The Missing Link Missing Link (1) Missing Link (2) Missing Link (3) Intervention on the monument entitled The Seven Pillars of the Constitution , part of the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg, South Africa. The Seven Pillars represent the constitutional values propagated in South Africa since the abolition of the apartheid regime. The monument and museum were built by the Gold Reef Resorts corporation, which is also responsible for the theme park and casino next to it. By placing the word “capitalism” on the wall surrounding the museum, the capitalist system and the constant social divisions that it implies are interpreted as sophistic continuations of apartheid politics. Through the capitalist system, apartheid is still operational within South African society. Whereas during the apartheid regime, the separation clearly ran along race divisions, in the current, “democratic” system, the same actual separation is sustained without it being an explicit element of the foundations of the country, i.e. the constitution. This intervention foregrounds the constant role of capitalism is both periods. At the same time the intervention acknowledges that contemporary Western artisthood is a mirror of the privileges that are offered by the capitalist system, and the type of artist that it produces. The intervention initiates a critical discourse concerning the capitalist system situated within the disaster of capitalism itself, in other words: through the desire to break with the presumption that art would be able to operate outside the capitalist system and to confirm that art—and the artist himself—is in fact modeled on this system. The public intervention by Staal was supplemented by a textual intervention by Van Gerven Oei: a proposition to alter the seventeenth amendment of the South African constitution. Even though the anti-discrimination legislation in South-Africa is one of the most stringent and inclusive in the world, one factor—wealth—remains outside its scope, thus continuing the schisms along racial lines produced during the apartheid regime: §9.3. The state may not unfairly discriminate directly or indirectly against anyone on one or more grounds, including race, gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, language, birth, and wealth. Monument for the Distribution of Wealth Intervention concerning the June 16 Memorial Acre in Central Western Jabavu, one of the poorest townships of Johannesburg. The monument comprises a park on which different are placed recalling an important protest the black population against the former apartheid regime. In 1976, from a school adjacent to the park, they started a massive protest against the introduction of Afrikaans in the school curriculum. The police reacted violently, and shot several hundreds of students. The construction of the June 16 Memorial Acre was started in 2005, and from the start was the paragon of corruption. Coordinated by local politicians, some family members of the protest leader from 1976 gained control of the realization of the monument, outside the regulation through external institutions. The available budget of 41 million rand (at that time well over 5 million euro) was largely embezzled. In the meantime, the monument has become fully dilapidated and defaced. The park has become overgrown with weeds and covered in a layer of dirt, and the local population is slowly plundering the square to use the material for the construction and decoration of their own houses. The Monument for the Distribution of Wealth develops the dynamics already existent around the June 16 Memorial Acre. Without obtaining official permission in advance, several local inhabitants were hired to break down the monument, sort the materials, and offer it to the neighborhood. Thus, the redistribution of wealth after the fall of the apartheid regime is finally taking place, albeit from the mere remains of the capital that was once invested in the community. The words “monument” and “for free” are spray-painted on the stacks of material, both in English and Zulu, as these are locally the most common languages. Van Gerven Oei supplemented Staal’s public intervention with an account of the history of the monument based on a series of interviews. The account clarifies how the different interests within the protest 1976 are reflected in the exceeding decay of the park, and how in the end those interests were represented by the June 16 Memorial Acre. Monument for the Distribution of Wealth 1: Removing stones Monument for the Distribution of Wealth 3: Pulling down statues Monument for the Distribution of Wealth 4: Offering the material Monument for the Distribution of Wealth 5: Offering the material Monument for the Distribution of Wealth 6 The next day A Fragmentary History of the Monument for the Distribution of Wealth, Formerly Known as the June 16 Memorial Acre in Central Western Jabavu, Soweto Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei The following text, based on interviews and online research aims to provide parts of a history of the park in front of Morris Isaacson High School in Central Western Jabavu, Soweto. The idea for the transformation of the park into a memorial site has its source in the events of June 16, 1976: the start of the the student uprising in Soweto. The development of the park was started in the early 1980s, and the actual transformation into a memorial site, the June 16 Memorial Acre, was initiated in 2005. Over the last few years, several monumental additions have been made to the park: A marble monument with three pillars was revealed on June 16, 2006. A sculpture of a book and several billboards on June 16, 2008. A sculpture of student leader Tsietsi Mashinini on June 16, 2010. The park was transformed into the Monument for the Distribution of Wealth on August 3, 2010. According to the entry “Youth Struggle” on the website South African History Online, the Bantu Education Act was introduced in 1953 . In 1954 , Dr Verwoerd, Minister of Native Affairs, stated: “What is the use of teaching the Bantu child mathematics when it cannot use it in practice? That is quite absurd.” According to the entry “Soweto uprising” on Wikipedia, the Afrikaans Medium Decree was issued in 1974 , forcing all black schools to use Afrikaans and English in a 50-50 mix as languages of instruction. The Regional Director of Bantu Education (Northern Transvaal Region), J.G. Erasmus, told Circuit Inspectors and Principals of Schools that from January 1, 1975 , Afrikaans had to be used for mathematics, arithmetic, and social studies from standard five (7th grade). English would be the medium for general science and practical subjects. Indigenous languages would be used for religion instruction, music, and physical culture. According the entry “Soweto uprising” on Wikipedia, on April 30, 1976 , students from the Orlando West Junior School in Soweto went on strike, refusing to go to school. Their example was followed by other schools in Soweto. A student from Morris Isaacson High School, Toboho “Tsietsi” Mashinini, proposed a meeting on June 13, 1976 to discuss further action. According to Weizmann Hamilton’s article “The Soweto Uprising 1976,” which appeared in the September 1986 edition of Inqaba Ya Basebenzi (Fortress of the Revolution), on June 13, 1976 , the South African Students’ Movement called a meeting at the Donaldson Community Center in Orlando. 300-400 Students representing 55 schools decided to hold a mass demonstration on June 16. According to Brian Mokhele, member of the Joint Community Safety Forum, Dr Edelstein was the first victim of the Soweto uprising and killed the day before the march on June 15, 1976 . Edelstein was an administrator at the pass office in Jabavu and gave golf courses to the local community. Edelstein was put in a garbage bin and pierced by pickaxes. The garbage bin was left at the very spot of the murder for many years. A few years ago, a child was beheaded at the same spot, and the basketball court next to it has been abandoned since. According to Marcus Neustetter, founder of the Trinity Session, this story is untrue. According the entry “Soweto uprising” on Wikipedia, on June 16 , Tsietsi Mashinini led students from Morris Isaacson High School to join up with others who walked from Naledi High School. A crowd of between 3,000 and 10,000 eventually ended up near Orlando High School. According to Raymond Marlowe, a local photographer, Tsietsi Mashinini was heading the march. According to the entry “Hector Pieterson” on Wikipedia, Dr Edelstein died on June 16, 1976 , stoned to death by mob and left with a sign around his neck proclaiming “Beware Afrikaaners.” The first child to die that day was called Hastings Ndlovu. According to Pat Motsiri, Orlando West is claiming struggle heritage through the Hector Pieterson Museum, while Hector Pieterson was from Jabavu. According to Pat Motsiri, his generation effectively struggled between 1980 and 1991, forcing the release of Nelson Mandela and negotiations with the apartheid regime while the 1976-generation was safely in exile. Nevertheless, this has not been recognized in any monument. After the abolition of apartheid, the generation from 1976 returned from exile, occupied important government and ANC positions, creating an abundance of 1976 memorials and refusing to acknowledge that this was only possible because of the younger generation’s struggle. He calls this a generational conflict. According to Archibald Dlamini, the park officer responsible for the Memorial Acre, he started working for the municipality in 1978. In 1981/82 , Isaac Makhele from Pimville, who used to work in the cemetery business, was the first developer of the park. It used to be just a normal park until City Parks decided to develop the Memorial Acre in 2006. In 2007 the work was stopped by the community. According to Brian Mokhele, he left the country in 1989 after he participated in the riots of 1986. But when he returned in 1999 he found that nothing had changed. He says that they were promised to be protected by the Constitution, but that reality is different. The police uses fear to suppress them so that they don’t come out to talk openly. He has been arrested twice, both times harassed and tortured by the police, but in the end always released without indictment. He says that this is their way to threaten communities to back off from politics. According to Moses, who is sitting outside rolling a joint, Brian knows everything. He tells Brian to tell me everything he knows. According to Brian Mokhele, Tsietsi Mashinini was possibly murdered in 1990 during his exile in New York. Two weeks before he was supposed to return to South Africa, his papers in order, he was found dead under mysterious circumstances. His coffin was sealed when he was buried. According to Pat Motsiri, he came up with the idea for the Memorial Acre in 2003 . He submitted the documents for the proposal to the council, which sidelined him as soon as the budget came out in 2005 . According to Brian Mokhele, there was on estimation R 41,000,000 spent to redesign the park and turn it into the Memorial Acre. The millions were divided by Amos Masondo, the mayor of Soweto, the local councilor Bongani D. Zondi, and the director of the city of Johannesburg, Pat Lephunya. They were dividing the money between several contractors: Tsietsi Mashinini’s brothers were involved in the development of the park, they got the tender to do the green areas, the landscaping. Construction was done by other companies, some did the paving, the toilets, etc. EMBA, a private company appointed by the municipality was in control of the money flow, but the money was quickly gone. According to Raymond Marlowe, the contractor bought a BMW with the money. According to Archibald Dlamini, the Mashinini brothers got the tender, so the space would look more like the other places around in Soweto. It was agreed that after they were done, they would return the property to the municipality. They did whatever they could do. According to Mafaisa, a member of the Jabavu business community, he was one of the contractors for the landscaping and the pavement under Mpho Mashinini, one of the brothers. He says that I should contact Mavi for information on Mpho. According to Poi Stuurman, a local youth worker, Mafaisa is one of the guys who ran away with the money. According to Mavi, Mpho Mashinini was never a contractor. The contracts were organized by Sbu Butelezi, the former head of the Gauteng Department for Public Works. The June 16 Foundation and the Mashinini brothers will be the beneficiaries of the park when it is finished. According to Brian Mokhele, City Parks did not accept the Memorial Acre because it was not finished. The rest of the year, the unfinished park is not maintained, as should have happened. This was done deliberately so that in the end they can just clean the whole thing up and have a reason to redo the whole park. According to Brian Mokhele, the Mashinini brothers now work for the government. People that manipulate for money purposes always come from the government’s side. Because the park was left unfinished, the people from the neighborhood are taking away the stones to decorate their own homes with. According to Archibald Dlamini, because City Parks doesn’t accept responsibility of the park, he officially has nothing the guard, except for his cottage, which is municipal property. The thieves come at night and destroy the park, but he cannot do anything because he is sleeping. According to the website of the Thanda Foundation on June 16, 2006 a bronze statue of Hector Pieterson, the first child to die in the 1976 protests, made by Kobus Hattingh and Jacob Maponyane was unveiled in the Maponya Mall in Soweto. The statue is sculpted after the famous image shot by Sam Nzima of Mbuyisa Makhubo carrying the dead body of the boy. The sculpture was sponsored by the Thanda Foundation, founded by the Swedish entrepreneur Dan Olofsson and South-African entrepreneur Matthews Phosa. According to the official website of the City of Johannesburg, the Memorial Acre and Artwork were unveiled in 2006. According to a blog post on sowetouprisings.com, the Memorial Acre was still under development on July 24, 2006. According to Archibald Dlamini, City Parks only cleans up the park once a year just before the June 16 celebrations. Everybody is waiting for the Mashinini brothers to finish their job. The last time he talked with them was in 2007 . According to a sign on the school grounds of the Morris Isaacson High School, the June 16 Trail will be finished in 2008 . According to a blog post on sowetouprisings.com, the Memorial Acre contains another monument erected in Tsietsi’s honor. The monument was created as part of the Sunday Times Heritage Public Art program. Its physical form resembles a giant book which symbolizes the crisis in education experienced in 1976. On the face of the book is the map of the route taken by the students from Morris Isaacson High School in Central Western Jabavu to Phefeni Junior Secondary in Orlando West (currently the site of the Hector Pieterson Museum), while the back cover of the ‘book’ is inscribed with a tribute to Tsietsi Mashinini. The monument was revealed on June 16, 2008 . According to Marcus Neustetter, the billboards on the Memorial Acre were part of a school project realized in 2008. Following several workshops, the students from different high schools along the June 16 Trail were invited to work with artists on the billboards, while the neighborhood community was invited to watch the process during the festivities on June 15 and 16, 2008 . The billboards were supposed to be removed because of construction works on the Memorial Acre, which never ended up happening. According to Brian Mokhele, the former toilet facilities were converted into a house for the park officer. This park officer has been working for city parks for more than 12-15 years, but does nothing here, because the park, including the new toilet buildings, is not finished. The government is now moving around looking for people to take this job because they stopped it. They confronted everybody who was going in and chased them away. According to John, in 2009 , some girls, around 16 or 17 years old, were raped by four men who had been drinking in a local shebeen. When the bar quit they said that they would go home by car, but instead raped the girls on the Memorial Acre nearby. This happened in the unfinished toilets, because the doors couldn’t be closed. According to Brian Mokhele, there used to be some fences around the park because of the construction work that was eventually stopped, but these were also stolen. According to Archibald Dlamini, people from the neighborhood started about two and a half years ago, and the last piece was stolen near the end of 2009 . Sometimes he would catch someone with a roll of fence, and then use it for his own cottage. According to the official website of the City of Johannesburg, a statue of Tsietsi Mashinini by Johannes Pokhela was revealed on June 16, 2010 , “Youth Day.” According to Shirley Makutoane, deputy principal of Isaac Morrison High School, the statue of Tsietsi Mashinini, funded by the June 16 Foundation, has temporarily been placed within the school perimeter. The statue will be moved to the Memorial Acre when it will be finished, in 2011 . According to Brian Mokhele, beside the June 16 Foundation, there is also a June 16 Memorial Acre Foundation. Both foundations are quarreling about the money involved in the Memorial Acre project. Nobody knows who’s involved in them. According to Marcus Neustetter, the June 16 Foundation consists of people that were part of 1976 protest movement, local government officials, representatives of the Hector Pieterson Museum, and the council. According to students from the Isaac Morrison High School, the statue of Tsietsi Mashinini is on the school ground because on the Memorial Acre it would be vandalized by youths from White City, an adjacent neighborhood. Accorcing to Brian Mokhele, the statue of Tsietsi should eventually be mounted on the Memorial Acre. It is wrong that the statue is in the school at the moment, because it is not a public school. He wants the statues to depict the massiveness of the force that was coming into Soweto after the protests. According to Brian Mokhele, City Parks, City of Jo’burg, City Lights, and SAPS are making some sort of plan to take the plan back. They want to remove the trees from the Memorial Acre, and redesign the Memorial Acre into a relaxing park, without political content. They want to depoliticize the square. In doing so,they will have their own employment and not use local workforces. According to Brian Mokhele, the community wants to remove the monuments, amphitheater, and sculptures from the Memorial Acre because they do not resemble anything. The sculptures should be depicting the truth of what happened, because the Memorial Acre is a political heritage site. He wants to involve the people that actually participated in the struggle to make the monument so that everyone can enjoy it and get a better understanding of the struggle heritage. Therefore, he proposes collective ideology in which everyone has a say. This would prevent future vandalization of the monument. According to Pat Motsiri, the sculptures must depict the event around June 16, 1976. Like the story of Dr Edelstein, who was pierced by pickaxes, forced into a garbage bin and burned alive. According to Jonas Staal, the Memorial Acre should be destroyed, its elements stacked on pallets, thus forming the Monument for the Distribution of Wealth . According to Mafaisa, his men can do the work quickly. He has about twenty men working under him. (shrink)

In this paper, we suggest the likely effects of the application of Emmanuel Levinas’s philosophy to the care ethic, particularly as it is represented by the author Joan Tronto, one of the most cogent exponents of care ethics.Thus, we ask: does Levinas’s philosophy have enough in common with the care ethic to be able to overlap it and fruitfully address shared issues of pressing importance? And, is Levinas’s philosophy different enough to challenge the care ethic and help it grow in (...) the ways that it must to become a more philosophically recognized and viable perspective? Our answer is affirmative in both regards.This paper does not intend to criticize the philosophy of Levinas on the basis of care ethics but instead lends the care ethic a perspective with the philosophical legitimacy that it has been hitherto lacking.In terms of alterations to the care ethics, we believe first and foremost that, from a Levinasian point of departure, it would be necessary for the care ethic to adopt a greater awareness of asymmetry in the ethical relation, as well as become more future-oriented towards the consequences of the individual agent’s actions. (shrink)

Thought is occupied as a rule with a stuff which is not thought. What could thinking mean without a topic, a grist as from outside ordinarily supplied by the senses? As cognitive beings we can have no quarrel with the supply--we accept; as practical beings we never simply accept. The gibe of Marx, that philosophy reflects on the world whereas the task is to change it, does but describe the daily program of everyman. Only, to alter fact is not to (...) escape fact. The degree to which fact is alterable, and by us, is itself a fact. Our problem is this unremoved enveloping factuality, the cosmic web into which all our struggling, shattering, reshaping more deeply enmesh us. What if anything our philosophies do with fact is today the chief test of their grasp of their proper business. (shrink)

We describe a logic which is the same as first-order logic except that it allows control over the information that passes down from formulas to subformulas. For example the logic is adequate to express branching quantifiers. We describe a compositional semantics for this logic; in particular this gives a compositional meaning to formulas of the 'information-friendly' language of Hintikka and Sandu. For first-order formulas the semantics reduces to Tarski's semantics for first-order logic. We prove that two formulas have the same (...) interpretation in all structures if and only if replacing an occurrence of one by an occurrence of the other in a sentence never alters the truth-value of the sentence in any structure. (shrink)

For the senseless inira some manuscripts have inire or in arva, and the latter stands in the text of Baehrens . The attempts at emendation may be divided into two groups, those altering only inira and those tampering with ibat as well. I pass over the latter group, as Robinson Ellis, in his commentary, p. 125, has defended ibat sufficiently by reference to the frequent ñει in Babrius, Avianus’ model. The former group is represented by Withof and Robinson Ellis himself (...) ; and the editors of the Loeb text of the Minor Latin Poets, in 1934, had the verse printed with this in ora. Nobody seems to have seen that the verse-maker had to express the idea of the panther's pride. Therefore I propose ibat in (astra, a metaphorical phrase for the animal's conceit. For this metaphor cf. Horace's famous feriam sidera, for ibat Virg. Aen. 9. 641 sic itur ad astra, for in astra at the same place of the pentameter after a verb of motion Prop. 3. 18, 34 cessit in astra; Ov. Fast. 2. 478 and 3. 186 venit in astra. Avianus himself has this in astra before the last word of the pentameter in two more passages, 15. 8,19. 6. (shrink)

The generation of viral mutants in vitro was demonstrated by treatment of the isolated RNA of Tobacco Mosaic Virus by nitrous acid. This agent causes deaminations converting cytosine into uracil, and adenine into hypoxanthine. Our assay for mutagenesis was the production of local lesions on a tobacco variety on which the untreated strain produces systemic infections only. A variety of different mutants are generated in this way. Quantitative analysis of the kinetics of mutagenesis leads to the conclusion that alteration of (...) a single out of the 6000 nucleotides of the viral RNA is sufficient for causing a mutation. (shrink)

PurposeThe ability to hear ourselves speak has been shown to play an important role in the development and maintenance of fluent and coherent speech. Despite this, little is known about the developing speech motor control system throughout childhood, in particular if and how vocal and articulatory control may differ throughout development. A scoping review was undertaken to identify and describe the full range of studies investigating responses to frequency altered auditory feedback in pediatric populations and their contributions to our understanding (...) of the development of auditory feedback control and sensorimotor learning in childhood and adolescence.MethodRelevant studies were identified through a comprehensive search strategy of six academic databases for studies that included real-time perturbation of frequency in auditory input, an analysis of immediate effects on speech, and participants aged 18 years or younger.ResultsTwenty-three articles met inclusion criteria. Across studies, there was a wide variety of designs, outcomes and measures used. Manipulations included fundamental frequency, formant frequency, frequency centroid of fricatives, and both fundamental and formant frequencies. Study designs included contrasts across childhood, between children and adults, and between typical, pediatric clinical and adult populations. Measures primarily explored acoustic properties of speech responses. Some studies additionally examined the association of these acoustic responses with clinical measures, and neural measures using electrophysiology and magnetic resonance imaging.ConclusionFindings indicated that children above 4 years generally compensated in the opposite direction of the manipulation, however, in several cases not as effectively as adults. Overall, results varied greatly due to the broad range of manipulations and designs used, making generalization challenging. Differences found between age groups in the features of the compensatory vocal responses, latency of responses, vocal variability and perceptual abilities, suggest that maturational changes may be occurring in the speech motor control system, affecting the extent to which auditory feedback is used to modify internal sensorimotor representations. Varied findings suggest vocal control develops prior to articulatory control. Future studies with multiple outcome measures, manipulations, and more expansive age ranges are needed to elucidate findings. (shrink)

This paper is an exploration of how we do things with music—that is, the way that we use music as an esthetic technology to enact micro-practices of emotion regulation, communicative expression, identity construction, and interpersonal coordination that drive core aspects of our emotional and social existence. The main thesis is: from birth, music is directly perceived as an affordance-laden structure. Music, I argue, affords a sonic world, an exploratory space or nested acoustic environment that further affords possibilities for, among other (...) things, (1) emotion regulation and (2) social coordination. When we do things with music, we are engaged in the work of creating and cultivating the self, as well as creating and cultivating a shared world that we inhabit with others. I develop this thesis by first introducing the notion of a musical affordance . Next, I look at how emotional affordances in music are exploited to construct and regulate emotions. I summon empirical research on neonate music therapy to argue that this is something we emerge from the womb knowing how to do. I then look at social affordances in music, arguing that joint attention to social affordances in music alters how music is both perceived and appropriated by joint attenders within social listening contexts. In support, I describe the experience of listening to and engaging with music in a live concert setting. Thinking of music as an affordance-laden structure thus reaffirms the crucial role that music plays in constructing and regulating emotional and social experiences in everyday life. (shrink)

This article combines the disciplines of textual/linguistic analysis, anthropology, and perceptual psychology to examine selected ancient Jewish mystical texts that claim to describe the praxis for ascents into heaven and encounters with angelic spirits in order to reconstruct the psychosocial context of these literary works. Specifically, the article examines Hekhalot or "Divine Palaces" texts that deal with hydromancy, giving attention to their mythic–symbolic assumptions, their described preparatory and triggering rituals, and their accounts of the ASC (altered states of consciousness) visions (...) resulting from these rituals that are experienced by the practitioners. The article suggests that these accounts correlate with ASC practices identified in the literature and additionally suggests that although the mystical texts are written to resemble biblical accounts of revelatory experiences, the texts under consideration are more than works of fabulous imagination; they are literary artifacts of an actual ecstatic ASC praxis among the Jews of Late Antiquity. (shrink)

In this collection of essays, Feinberg gathers together a number of articles which he has written over the past few years, most of which have appeared in print elsewhere. The few changes made for the present edition do not alter the fundamental content of any of the articles. In the introduction, Feinberg suggests that just as there are general areas of philosophical interest called "theory of value," "theory of knowledge," etc., so there should similarly be a general rubric for the (...) area dealing with questions which are applicable both to the philosophy of law and moral philosophy. For this purpose, Feinberg chooses "theory of responsibility." Both the title of the book and the name for this area of philosophical concern reflect the difficulties inherent in this general area. "Doing" can be applied to an individual who performs actions. Does "deserving" have an equivalent extension? "Responsibility" is a concept which covers both the moral notion of "culpability" and the legal notion of "liability." But is the same criterion for application of the concept of responsibility operative in both the legal and moral domains? Is the concept of "at fault" used univocally in moral and legal contexts? These are just a few of the many questions which arise when discussing a "theory of responsibility." Feinberg has answers for some. He points readers in a direction from which other answers might be found. If nothing else this book is a good launching pad into an area of philosophical concern which is just beginning to be explored.--W. P. G. (shrink)

Everyone knows the statement of Servius that Virgil was compelled by Augustus to alter the second half of the Fourth Georgic after the fall of Gallus, and that he substituted the story of Aristaeus for the laudes Galli. This statement, often doubted by older generations, has had such a remarkable success in recent years that anyone who ventures to impugn it must feel that he is pleading with a halter round his neck before a one-sided jury. It is notable, however, (...) that these jurors, though one-sided, are by no means united, save in their determination to uphold the credit of Servius. One group will assure us that the episode of Aristaeus shows obvious signs not only of haste but of immaturity, and they draw a pathetic picture of the grief-stricken Virgil, ordered to bring out a second edition minus the praises of his friend Gallus, and half-heartedly throwing together some bits of juvenile stuff which he happened to have handy. Others assure us that the tale of Aristaeus shows us a more mature Virgil, nearer to the Virgil of the Aeneid. But the Servians really cannot have it both ways. They must make up their minds in the one direction or in the other if they are to be taken seriously. They make it doubly difficult for us to take them seriously when they try to tell us what Servius meant—but of that more anon. The present paper is an attempt by a converted Servian to examine frankly the arguments which have been advanced in support of Servius. Most of these may be found in Skutsch, Aus Vergils Frühzeit, pp. 140–147. One is very reluctant to use disparaging words about an eminent scholar who has served the cause of learning in so many ways; but it can scarcely be denied that the work just mentioned, in spite of its ingenuity and enthusiasm, shows a lamentable lack of three great essentials—a judicial temper, accurate statement of facts, and cogent reasoning. There is also at times a regrettable vagueness of expression, suggesting that the author is concealing inward doubts or shrinking from thought. All these deficiencies are to some extent present in the section with which this paper is concerned. (shrink)

An intricate quantum statistical effect guides us to a deterministic, non-causal quantum universe with a given fixed initial and final state density matrix. A concept is developed on how and where something like macroscopic physics can emerge. However, the concept does not allow philosophically crucial free will decisions. The quantum world and its conjugate evolve independently, and one can replace fixed final states on each side just with a common matching one. This change allows for external manipulations done in the (...) quantum world and its conjugate, which do not otherwise alter the basic quantum dynamics. In a big bang/big crunch universe, the expanding part can be attributed to the quantum world and the contracting one to the conjugate one. The obtained bi-linear picture has several noteworthy consequences. (shrink)