The recently uncovered role of Fukutin‐related protein (FKRP) in fibronectin glycosylation has challenged our understanding of the basis of disease pathogenesis in the muscular dystrophies. FKRP is a Golgi‐resident glycosyltransferase implicated in a broad spectrum of muscular dystrophy (MD) pathologies that are not fully attributable to the well‐described α‐Dystroglycan hypoglycosylation. By revealing a new role for FKRP in the glycosylation of fibronectin, a modification critical for the development of the muscle basement membrane (MBM) and its associated muscle linkages, new possibilities (...) for understanding clinical phenotype arise. This modification involves an interaction between FKRP and myosin‐10, a protein involved in the Golgi organization and function. These observations suggest a FKRP nexus exists that controls two critical aspects to muscle fibre integrity, both fibre stability at the MBM and its elastic properties. This review explores the new potential disease axis in the context of our current knowledge of muscular dystrophies. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THOMISTIC PRIDE AND LIBERAL VICE 1 PAUL J. WEITHMAN University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana L IBERALISM IS often portrayed, and sometimes portrays itself, as a moral and political view that rejects the claims of tradition. Thus liberals characteristically claim that the traditional standing of a social arrangement contributes little or nothing to its political legitimacy. Whether an arrangement is legitimate depends upon whether or not those who (...) currently live under it can understand and accept its rationale. Members of each generation must be able to examine arrangements as if they themselves were signatories of the social contract; the justification of regimes must, as it were, be susceptible of renewal in every age and to every citizen. Jefferson gave this view its most extreme expression when he claimed that each generation has the right to begin its nation's political life anew, and that national constitutions should be rewritten every two decades.2 Liberals often seem no kinder to intellectual than to political traditions. As they think political life can periodically begin anew, so they sometimes seem to think that political and moral philosophy can begin anew. Hobbes famously castigated the obscurities of scholasticism and argued that political philosophy could achieve firm footing only if the rubble of the past were swept away.3 Liberal contract theorists have followed Hobbes's lead, developing political theories that rely not at all upon classi1 Thanks to Alasdair Macintyre, David O'Connor, Michael Pakaluk, David Solomon, Eleonore Stump, and Allen Wood for helpful comments on earlier drafts. This paper is dedicated to the memory of my teacher and friend, Prof. Judith Shklar. 2 See Jefferson's famous letter to Madison of September 6, 1789 (The Portable Jefferson, ed. Merrill D. Peterson [New York: Viking, 1977], 444ff.), as well as his lesser known missive to Samuel Kercheval of July 12, 1816 (ibid., SS2ff.). 3 See Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. C. B. MacPherson (New York: Penguin Books, 1985), 727, for an especially pungent expression of a view that runs throughout the Leviathan. 241 242 PAUL J. WEITHMAN cal and medieval moral philosophy. To take but one example of this neglect of the past, the ethical writings of scholasticism are dominated by richly detailed analyses of the virtues and vices, yet liberal writers roundly ignore these discussions. Liberals have been quick to defend their suspicions of the thought and politics of the past, but critics of liberalism have been equally quick to seize upon them. Champions of virtue ethics have been among the most vocal critics of liberalism in recent years, arguing that liberals court philosophical peril by neglecting the insights of earlier moral theories. Edmund Burke, the eighteenth-century opponent of liberalism, had an additional complaint. Burke discerned an arrogance in the liberal rejection of intellectual and political tradition. It was mere pride, Burke thought, to suppose that politics and political theory could be made transparent to the reason of every individual in the way that liberals sometimes claim.4 Burke's allegation that the liberal rejection of tradition reflects pride is ironic, for pride is a central element of one of the traditions of moral thought that liberals seem determined to reject. During a lengthy period of philosophy's history, pride was thought to be a motive of all wrong action. The biblical book of Sirach says that pride is the beginning of all evil5 and a long line of medieval moralists labored to explain how this might be so. Yet the tradition of moral thought that accorded pride so central a role now suffers from neglect at the hands of many philosophers. And pride itself is a vice that many philosophers now consider unworthy of attention. Most fail to consider it seriously as a motive for any wrong action at all. I have three aims in this paper. One is to examine pride's neglect more closely. I shall argue that pride suffers this neglect because of its centrality to a religiously based tradition of moral thought that many philosophers no longer accept. The alleged connection between pride and religion is, I shall argue, suggestive. It suggests what an account of pride would have to include 4 See Edmund Burke, Reflections on... (shrink)

Corporate psychopathy thrives perhaps as the most significant threat to ethical corporate behaviour around the world. We argue that Human Resources Management professionals should formulate strategic solutions metaphorically by balancing what strategic military planners famously call ‘Search and Destroy’ and ‘Hearts and Minds’ counter-terrorist strategy. We argue that these military metaphors offer creative inspiration to help academics and practitioners theorise CP in richer, more reflective and more balanced and complementary ways. An appreciation of both metaphors is likely to favour the (...) use of hybrid strategies comprising SD and HM elements, which may provide the best HRM solutions to CP for the same reasons as the military now considers parallel hybrid solutions optimal for combating terrorist and guerrilla insurgency. (shrink)

Powerful new social science data resources are emerging. One particularly important source is administrative data, which were originally collected for organisational purposes but often contain information that is suitable for social science research. In this paper we outline the concept of reproducible research in relation to micro-level administrative social science data. Our central claim is that a planned and organised workflow is essential for high quality research using micro-level administrative social science data. We argue that it is essential for researchers (...) to share research code, because code sharing enables the elements of reproducible research. First, it enables results to be duplicated and therefore allows the accuracy and validity of analyses to be evaluated. Second, it facilitates further tests of the robustness of the original piece of research. Drawing on insights from computer science and other disciplines that have been engaged in e-Research we discuss and advocate the use of Git repositories to provide a useable and effective solution to research code sharing and rendering social science research using micro-level administrative data reproducible. (shrink)

Dickens’s relationship with the Arts has confounded or silenced some of the most eminent critics from his day to ours. His own reticence on the topic likewise makes the idea of a book on Dickens and the Arts a little odd or dissonant. Though as this volume makes clear, he was well versed in a range of high and low arts, he was seemingly determined to embrace, if not the wrong side of the cultural track, metaphorically speaking, a different track. (...) The Introduction is structured around four broad areas which are key to an understanding of both the ideological underpinnings of shifting definitions of the Arts, and to an understanding of the reasons for Dickens’s complex relationship to the idea of the Arts: money/materialism; hierarchies of privilege; yardsticks of criticism or artistic judgement; the public good. There is an uneasy relationship between ‘the Arts’ and all four areas, between Dickens and all four, and between Dickens and the Arts understood via these frames, which are commonly invoked in discussions of the Arts. The contention of this volume is that, far from being a philistine who had no interest in the Arts, Dickens’s apparent reticence in an industrial age where the value and function of the Arts was uniquely important in public debate, masks a complex and sophisticated vision (if not theory) of the Arts in the modern era, which is, and was, ahead of its time. Dickens’s philosophy of art in fact works to complicate in subtle ways the idea of an opposition between idealist and integrationist views of the aesthetic, though its most characteristic thrust is integrationist. (shrink)

Transcription is a fundamental cellular process and the first step in gene regulation. Although RNA polymerase (RNAP) is highly processive, in growing cells the progression of transcription can be hindered by obstacles on the DNA template, such as damaged DNA. The authors recent findings highlight a trade‐off between transcription fidelity and DNA break repair. While a lot of work has focused on the interaction between transcription and nucleotide excision repair, less is known about how transcription influences the repair of DNA (...) breaks. The authors suggest that when the cell experiences stress from DNA breaks, the control of RNAP processivity affects the balance between preserving transcription integrity and DNA repair. Here, how the conflict between transcription and DNA double‐strand break (DSB) repair threatens the integrity of both RNA and DNA are discussed. In reviewing this field, the authors speculate on cellular paradigms where this equilibrium is well sustained, and instances where the maintenance of transcription fidelity is favored over genome stability. (shrink)

This chapter considers individual differences associated with alcohol effects. There is wide variability in subjective and other responses to alcohol. The sources of this variability include allelic variation in enzymes responsible for the metabolism of alcoholism, sensitivity, temperament, neurocognitive functioning, and social learning. These sources of heterogeneity in alcohol response appear to be very important not only in understanding the acute effects of alcohol on the individual but also in understanding risk processes underlying the development of alcohol use disorders.

Philosophy flourished in Australia after the war. There was spectacular growth in both the number of departments and the number of philosophers. On top of this philosophy spread beyond the philosophy departments. Serious studies, and interest in philosophy is now common in faculties as diverse as law, science and education. Neither is this development merely quantitative, the Australian researcher has come of age and contributes widely to international debates. At least one movement originated in Australia. This makes the study of (...) philosophy in Australia timely, evidenced by the number of articles concerned with this area that begin to appear in international journals. In Australia itself there is growing interest in the history of the country's philosophical development. There are discussions in conferences and meetings: the matter is now the subject of courses. (shrink)

This study investigated autobiographical memory processes in a group of individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia and matched controls. The schizophrenia group displayed an overgeneral style of autobiographical memory retrieval on two widely used measures, and displayed problems retrieving both autobiographical facts and events. They showed a specific impairment in the recall of autobiographical events and facts in early adulthood, around the time of onset of their illness. Retrieval deficits were independent of mood state and premorbid intellectual functioning. The magnitude of the (...) deficits in autobiographical memory retrieval specificity were considerably greater than any general impairments in episodic and working memory. (shrink)

ABSTRACTRemembering to perform a behaviour in the future, prospective memory, is essential to ensuring that people fulfil their intentions. Prospective memory involves committing to memory a cue to action, and later recognising and acting upon the cue in the environment. Prospective memory performance is believed to be influenced by the emotionality of the cues, however the literature is fragmented and inconsistent. We conducted a systematic search to synthesise research on the influence of emotion on prospective memory. Sixty-seven effect sizes were (...) extracted from 17 articles and hypothesised effects tested using three meta-analyses. Overall, prospective memory was enhanced when positively-valenced rather than neutral cues were presented. In contrast, negatively-valenced cues did not enhance prospective memory overall, but this effect was moderated by the timing of the emotional manipulation. Prospective memory performance was improved when negatively-valenced... (shrink)

This volume explores how Catholicism began and continues to open its doors to the wider world and to other confessions in embracing ecumenism, thanks to the vision and legacy of the Second Vatican Council. It explores such themes as the twentieth century context preceding the council; parallels between Vatican II and previous councils; its distinctively pastoral character; the legacy of the council in relation to issues such as church-world dynamics, as well as to ethics, social justice, economic activity. Several chapters (...) discuss the role of women in the church before, during, and since the council. Others discern inculturation in relation to Vatican II. The book also contains a wide and original range of ecumenical considerations of the council, including by and in relation to Free Church, Reformed, Orthodox, and Anglican perspectives. Finally, it considers the Council’s ongoing promise and remaining challenges with regard to ecumenical issues, including a groundbreaking essay on the future of ecumenical dialogue by Cardinal Walter Kasper. (shrink)

This chapter begins with a brief overview of the categories of subjective effects of alcohol, then considers the role of subjective effects from the context of prominent contemporary theories of alcohol use and misuse. Building on this conceptual foundation, it discusses important features of beverage and dose and characteristics of the setting that affect the subjective experience of drinking. It then considers what is known based on the various methodological approaches used to investigate subjective effects — including survey research on (...) alcohol expectancies and drinking motives, and ecological momentary assessment — with a particular emphasis on experimental research. (shrink)

The Multidimensional Religious Ideology (MRI) scale is a new 43-item measure that quantifies conservative versus liberal aspects of religious ideology. The MRI focuses on recurring features of ideology rooted in innate moral instincts while capturing salient differences in the ideological profiles of distinct groups and individuals. The MRI highlights how religious ideology differs from political ideology while maintaining a robust grounding in the social psychology of ideology generally. Featuring three major dimensions (religious beliefs, religious practices, and religious morality) and eight (...) subdimensions, the MRI is sensitive enough to generate novel insights into religious ideology across demographic groups and individual differences. The MRI is also summative, yielding a single quantitative measurement of left–right religious ideology with good scale and test–retest reliability. Analysis of 839 respondents across two studies confirmed the widespread assumption that religious ideology is a parallel construct to political ideology, emerging from similar foundations but following a distinct set of rules. The MRI shows the importance of conceptualizing ideology in ways that access the full spectrum of real-world ideological convictions—an important reminder, given the salience of religious factors for influencing ideology generally. (shrink)

Safe stair negotiation is an everyday task that children with developmental coordination disorder are commonly thought to struggle with. Yet, there is currently a paucity of research supporting these claims. We investigated the visuomotor control strategies underpinning stair negotiation in children with and without DCD by measuring kinematics, gaze behavior and state anxiety as they ascended and descended a staircase. A questionnaire was administered to determine parents' confidence in their child's ability to safely navigate stairs and their child's fall history. (...) Kinematics were measured using three-dimensional motion capture, whilst gaze was measured using mobile eye-tracking equipment. The parents of DCD children reported significantly lower confidence in their child's ability to maintain balance on the stairs and significantly more stair-related falls in the previous year compared to the parents of typically developing children. During both stair ascent and stair descent, the children with DCD took longer to ascend/descend the staircase and displayed greater handrail use, reflecting a more cautious stair negotiation strategy. No differences were observed between groups in their margin of stability, but the DCD children exhibited significantly greater variability in their foot-clearances over the step edge, which may increase the risk of a fall. For stair descent only, the DCD children reported significantly higher levels of state anxiety than the TD children and looked significantly further along the staircase during the initial entry phase, suggesting an anxiety-related response that may bias gaze toward the planning of future stepping actions over the accurate execution of an ongoing step. Taken together, our findings provide the first quantifiable evidence that safe stair negotiation is a significant challenge for children with DCD, and that this challenge is reflected by marked differences in their visuomotor control strategies and state anxiety levels. Whilst it is currently unclear whether these differences are contributing to the frequency of stair-related falls in children with DCD, our findings pave the way for future research to answer these important questions. (shrink)

M. J. Woods; XI*—Substance and Essence in Aristotle, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 75, Issue 1, 1 June 1975, Pages 167–180, https://doi.org/10.

Since the publication of Edmund Gettier's challenge to the traditional epistemological doctrine of knowledge as justified true belief, Roberts and Wood claim that epistemologists lapsed into despondency and are currently open to novel approaches. One such approach is virtue epistemology, which can be divided into virtues as proper functions or epistemic character traits. The authors propose a notion of regulative epistemology, as opposed to a strict analytic epistemology, based on intellectual virtues that function not as rules or even as (...) skills but as habits of the heart. To that end, they divide the task of clarifying and expounding their notion in the book's two parts.In the first part, Roberts and Wood examine various components that constitute their notion of regulative epistemology. The first are the epistemic goods or goals that drive the epistemic process. What is needed, claim Roberts and Wood, is an enriched notion of these goods rather than the restricted notion of justified true belief. Epistemic agents are more than calculating devices in that …. (shrink)

Efforts to bring science into early 19th century breeding practices in Central Europe, organised from Brno, the Hapsburg city in which Mendel would later turn breeding experiments into a body of timeless theory, are here considered as a significant prelude to the great discovery. During those years prior to Mendel's arrival in Brno, enlightened breeders were seeking ways to regulate the process of heredity, which they viewed as a force to be controlled. Many were specialising in sheep breeding for the (...) benefit of the local wool industry while others were showing an interest in commercial plants, especially fruit trees and vines, and later cereals. Breeders explained their problems in regulating heredity in terms of climatic influences disruption due to crossing sports or saltations. Practical experience led them to the concepts of 'inheritance capacity' and the 'mutual elective affinity' of parents. The former was seen to differ among individuals and also among traits; the latter was proposed as a means of adding strength to heredity. The breeders came to recognise that traits might be hidden and yet transmitted as a 'potential' to future generations. They also grew to understand that heredity would be strengthened when a quality was 'fixed' within a lineage by 'pure blood relations.' Continued selection of the desired quality might then lead to 'a higher perfection.' But the ultimate 'physiological' question about breeding, 'what is inherited and how?,' found no answer. Major figures in this development included Abbot Napp, the one who asked this question and who was due to receive Mendel into the monastery in 1843, and Professor Diebl whose lectures on agriculture and natural science at the Brno Philosophical Institute Mendel would attend in 1846. Here we analyse their progress in theorizing about breeding up until about 1840. In discussing this development, we refer to certain international contacts, especially with respect to information transfer and scientific education, within the wider context of the late Enlightenment. (shrink)

This paper is underpinned by an epistemological question: What are the types and ways of knowing that can be entailed in reflective leadership in its fullest sense? The question is explored through a mapping exercise which outlines a geography of reflective leadership in terms of three variables: type of knowledge, problem focus, and mode of learning (incorporating the notion of embodied learning). Particular attention is given to recognising within the terrain of reflective leadership the epistemic credentials of spiritual learning and (...) experiential awareness of spirituality. This paper was given the award of best paper at the Philosophy of Management Conference, University of Oxford, 11th–14th July 2008. (shrink)

Despite the ongoing need for managers to fire employees and the wide prevalence of downsizing and layoffs, little research has examined how the conduct of termination interviews affects employee reactions. The current research was designed to explore reactions to several commonly used termination interview practices. Two scenario-based experiments examined the effectiveness of having a third party (an HR manager or a security guard) present, mentioning the employee's positive characteristics and contributions, and using alone, discrete escort, or public escort modes of (...) exit from the interview. Perceptions of being treated with respect and empathy, levels of anger, and the likelihood of complaining to others and taking legal action were assessed. Support for the effectiveness of specific termination interview practices was mixed. Specifically, in Experiment 1, third party presence was viewed as demonstrating a lack of respect, whereas mentioning positive characteristics was generally viewed favorably. Experiment 2 showed the favorable effects of mentioning positive characteristics were eroded by a security guard escort from the interview, and actually reversed and became negative when that escort was public in nature. A public escort also produced the highest levels of anger. These results suggest that multiple aspects of the termination interview process should be considered carefully when developing managerial policies. (shrink)

The progression of research and scholarly inquiry does not occur in isolation and is wholly dependent on accurate reporting of methods and results, and successful replication of prior work. Without mechanisms to correct the literature, much time and money is wasted on research based on a crumbling foundation. These guidelines serve to outline the respective responsibilities of researchers, institutions, agencies, and publishers or editors in maintaining the integrity of the research record. Delineating these complementary roles and proposing solutions for common (...) barriers provide a foundation for best practices. (shrink)

Background: Homeless persons in the United States have disproportionately high rates of illness, injury, and mortality and tend to believe that the quality of their end-of-life care will be poor. No studies were found as to whether nurses or nursing students require moral courage to help homeless persons or members of any other demographic complete advance directives. Research hypothesis: We hypothesized that baccalaureate nursing students require moral courage to help homeless persons complete advance directives. Moral courage was defined as a (...) trait of a person or an action that overcomes fears or other challenges to achieve something of great moral worth. Research design: The hypothesis was investigated through a qualitative descriptive study. Aside from the pre-selection of a single variable to study (i.e. moral courage), our investigation was a naturalistic inquiry with narrative hues insofar as it attended to specific words and phrases in the data that were associated with that variable. Participants and research context: A total of 15 baccalaureate nursing students at a public university in the United States responded to questionnaires that sought to elicit fears and other challenges that they both expected to experience and actually experienced while helping homeless persons complete advance directives at a local, non-profit service agency. Ethical considerations: The study was approved by the Internal Review Board of the authors’ university, and each participant signed an informed consent form, which stated that the study involved no reasonably foreseeable risks and that participation was voluntary. Findings: Before meeting with homeless persons, participants reported that they expected to experience two fears and a challenge: fear of behaving in ways that a homeless person would deem inappropriate, fear of discussing a homeless person’s dying and death, and the challenge of adequately conveying the advance directive’s meaning and accurately recording a homeless person’s end-of-life wishes. In contrast, after their meetings with homeless persons, relatively few participants reported having encountered those obstacles. So, while participants required moral courage to assist homeless persons with advance directives, they required greater moral courage as they anticipated their meetings than during those meetings. Discussion: Our study breaks new ground at the intersection of nursing, moral courage, and advance directives. It might also have important implications for how to improve the training that US nursing students receive before they provide this service. Conclusion: Our results cannot be generalized, but portions of our approach are likely to be transferable to similar social contexts. For example, because homeless persons are misunderstood and marginalized throughout the United States, our design for training nursing students to provide this service is also likely to be useful across the United States. Internationally, however, it is not yet known whether our participants’ fears and the challenge they faced are also experienced by those who assist homeless persons or members of other vulnerable populations in documenting healthcare wishes. (shrink)

J. Baynard Woods - Plato's Dialectic at Play: Argument, Structure, and Myth in the Symposium - Journal of the History of Philosophy 44:1 Journal of the History of Philosophy 44.1 117-118 Kevin Corrigan and Elena Glazov-Corrigan. Plato's Dialectic at Play: Argument, Structure, and Myth in the Symposium. University Park: The University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004. Pp. xi + 266. Cloth, $55.00. Plato's Dialectic at Play succeeds in demonstrating what many scholars suspect, but find difficult to prove. Corrigan and Glazov-Corrigan show (...) that one cannot simply take the words of Socrates as the meaning of a given dialogue. They persuasively argue that one must consider a Platonic dialogue as a whole if one hopes to understand it. They accomplish this by a careful analysis of.. (shrink)

Correspondence and texts by Fichte and Schelling illuminate their thought and the trajectory of their philosophical falling out.