A team of US researchers recently reported the design, assembly and in vivo functionality of a synthetic chromosome III (SynIII) for the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The synthetic chromosome was assembled bottom‐up from DNA oligomers by teams of students working over several years with researchers as the first part of an international synthetic yeast genome project. Embedded into the sequence of the synthetic chromosome are multiple design changes that include a novel in‐built recombination scheme that can be induced to catalyse intra‐chromosomal (...) rearrangements in a variety of different conditions. This system, along with the other synthetic sequence changes, is intended to aid researchers develop a deeper understanding of how genomes function and find new ways to exploit yeast in future biotechnologies. The landmark of the first synthesised designer eukaryote chromosome, and the power of its massively parallel recombination system, provide new perspectives on the future of synthetic biology and genome research. (shrink)

The radical redefinition of the landscape of physics that followed the contributions of Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg at the start of the 20th century led to plethora [of] new perspectives on age-old metaphysical questions on determinism and the nature of reality. The main contention of this article is that the work of Gilbert Simondon - whose magnum opus possesses a scope uniting the most basic philosophical concerns with the most recent breakthroughs in natural sciences - is highly relevant for (...) an adequate understanding of the split between determinism and indeterminism, as well as the underlying presuppositions which have driven some influential contributions to this topic. To this end, the article shows that the more deterministic interpretation of quantum mechanics offered by David Bohm and Louis de Broglie proves to be a valuable reference point for a more precise use and understanding of Simondon'ss transductive logic - especially when its philosophical lapses are considered closely. Finally, following the considerations of both thinkers, we aim at a more precise reconsideration of the stakes of indeterminism in modern physics, as well as a restructuration of what is often understood as a polarization. (shrink)

The physician charter on medical professionalism creates standards of ethical behaviour for physicians and has been endorsed by professional organisations worldwide. It is based on the cardinal principles of the primacy of patient welfare, patient autonomy, and social welfare. There has been little discussion in the bioethics community of the doctrine of the charter and none from a Jewish ethical perspective. In this essay the authors discuss the obligations of the charter from a Jewish ethical viewpoint and call on other (...) cultures to develop their own unique perspectives on this important document. (shrink)

We report a magnetization, magnetostriction, electrical resistivity, specific heat and neutron scattering study of a UNi 2/3 Rh 1/3 Al single crystal, a solid solution of an antiferromagnet UNiAl and a ferromagnet URhAl. The huge uniaxial magnetic anisotropy confining the principal magnetic response to the c axis in the parent compounds persists also for the solid solution. The magnetization curve at 1.6 K has a pronounced S shape with an inflection at 12 T. The temperature dependence of magnetic susceptibility exhibits (...) a maximum around 10 K and is magnetic history dependent at lower temperatures where the resistivity increases linearly with decreasing temperature. The low-temperature „ anomaly is removed in a magnetic field applied along c , which yields a large negative magnetoresistance amounting to m 46 z in 14 T . The C/T values exhibit a minimum around 12 K and below 8 K they become nearly constant , which is strongly affected by magnetic fields. Neutron scattering data confirm a non-magnetic ground state of UNi 2/3 Rh 1/3 Al. The bulk properties at low temperatures are tentatively attributed to the freezing of U magnetic moments with antiferromagnetic correlations. The additional intensities detected on top of nuclear reflections in neutron diffraction in a magnetic field applied along c are found to be proportional to the field-induced magnetization, which reflects field-induced ferromagnetic coupling of U magnetic moments. This scenario is corroborated also by finding low-temperature magnetostriction data that also scale with the square of magnetization. (shrink)

Women; ethics; religious aspects; ethics.

The author has recently shown that a mathematical question regarding the fundamental constituents of hardrons cannot be resolved unless the classical axioms of nonfinite mathematics are revised in such a way as to produce a new theory of particle motion in continuous space-time. Under this new theory, the instantaneous position of a moving object has a magnitude that is increasing as the object's velocity. The purpose of this paper is to show that, quite apart from the question of Cantorian axiomatics, (...) the new theory of motion is more consistent with what physicists really believe than the traditional theory of motion. (shrink)

Essentialists like J. Baird Callicott have argued that one cannot have an environmental ethic unless one adopts the nonanthropocentric principle, which holds that things other than humans can be morally considerable in their own right, typically because they are thought to be intrinsically valuable. Pragmatists like Bryan Norton reject this; they claim that environmental ethics has no core or essence, and hence that the nonanthropocentric principle is not essential to an environmental ethic. Norton advances as an alternative the Convergence Hypothesis, (...) which says that there are many different ways of justifying environmental principles and policies. In this paper I show that pragmatists and essentialists are arguing past one another because they fail to note two crucial points. First, they often propose different accounts of which principles constitute an environmental ethic and so they disagree about which principles must be justified. The nonanthropocentric principle may be required to justify the principles that Callicott believe to be constitutive of an environmental ethic, but it may be unnecessary to justify those principles that pragmatists think are constitutive. Second, essentialists and pragmatists often overlook the distinction to be made between the adequacy of a justification and its epistemic or rhetorical preferability. The nonanthropocentric principle may not be needed to provide an adequate justification of the constitutive principles and judgements, but a justification that contains the nonanthropocentric principle might nevertheless be epistemically preferable. (shrink)

The article is devoted to the problem of studying the activities of revolutionary and ideological virtuosi of the XX century by means of the historical sociology of modernity. It attempts both to identify the main trends in the participation of intellectually active strata of modern societies in the radical transformation of social reality, and to clarify the reasons that pushed them to do so. It is noted that the ideological background of such forms of socio-political radicalism were the symbolic means (...) of challenging the old forms of social reality and constructing new forms through secular ideologies of various types (socialism, communism, anarcho-syndicalism, fascism, national socialism, etc.). The role of conductors of the ideological message of these secular religions of salvation to the masses was usually performed by radical-minded intellectuals and students, for whom the worship of new idols and symbols of faith became the true meaning of life and struggle. In the XX century, it was the intellectuals who acted as the main creators and operators of collective salvation religions, and the social communities created on their basis. Moreover, they not only tried to save themselves with their help, but at the same time laid claim to the legitimate monopoly of determining who would be saved, and who would not. Thus, radical intellectuals acted as both the creators of the new norm and as agents of the policy of rationalization. The article pays special attention to the characteristics of the creators and social carriers of radical ideological views — and the worldviews based on them — as well as the refraction of these utopian visions in the socio-political practice of the last century. In conclusion, it is suggested that Max Weber’s historical sociology and Emile Durkheim’s symbolic theory of the “sacred”, supplemented by modern developments in the field of political sociology and socio-historical anthropology, can serve as a relevant system of theoretical coordinates for the study of ideological and revolutionary virtuosi of the XX century. (shrink)

(1978). Democratic Values and the Managerial Prerogative: a case study of headteachers and democratised school boards. Educational Studies: Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 29-44.

Imagination in Inquiry investigates the nature, kinds, component elements, functions, scope, and uses of the imagination that are at work in inquiry. It develops a homeostatic model and discusses its applications in various branches of philosophy, from the philosophy of science and the philosophy of technology to ethics and aesthetics.

A general theory of acts leads to a theory of cognition distinguishing between formation of apriorical knowledge about values, norms, and cognitive beliefs, based on conditioning by means of rewards and punishments, and formation of aposteriorical knowledge based on conscious, theoretical analysis of observations. The latter, rational layer of consciousness can be built on the former, irrational layer only, if certain conditions are fulfilled. It is shown that rational cognition of values presupposes a notion of aposteriorical value, which challenges some (...) conventions of the 'value-free' social science, in particular, the so called guillotine of Hume. (shrink)