BackgroundPrenatal and early postnatal choline supplementation reduces cognitive and behavioral deficits in animal models of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder. In a previously published 9-month clinical trial of choline supplementation in children with FASD, we reported that postnatal choline was associated with improved performance on a hippocampal-dependent recognition memory task. The current paper describes the neurophysiological correlates of that memory performance for trial completers.MethodsChildren with FASD who were enrolled in a clinical trial of choline supplementation were followed for 9 months. Delayed (...) recall on a 9-step elicited imitation task served as the behavioral measure of recognition memory. Neurophysiological correlates of memory were assessed via event-related potentials.ResultsDelayed recall on EI was correlated with two ERP components commonly associated with recognition memory in young children: middle latency negative component and positive slow wave. No significant ERP differences were observed between the choline and placebo groups at the conclusion of the trial.ConclusionAlthough the small sample size limits the ability to draw clear conclusions about the treatment effect of choline on ERP, the results suggest a relationship between memory performance and underlying neurophysiological status in FASD. This trial was registered.1. (shrink)

A paradigm for peace discovered in the cosmopolitan neighborhoods of poor urban immigrants.

The pandemic caused by the COVID 19 Virus creates an unprecedented situation of global confinement altering the development of competition and sports training at all levels of participation and in all sports, including rhythmic gymnastics (RG). To avoid possible effects of physical, technical and psychological detraining, coaches looked for home training alternatives. The objectives of the study were to know how rhythmic gymnastics training developed during the lockdown period (the conditions, type of training, performance monitoring means, and determinants of gymnasts’ (...) participation) and to provide recommendations for a possible future lockdown. Three hundred and two RG coaches from twenty-six different countries throughout the five continents and four professional levels took part in the study: national team (28), international (26), national (172) and regional (75). The data collection tool was a questionnaire consisting of 39 closed questions structured in three dimensions: identification data of the coaches, training data during confinement and gymnast participation data. The independent variable was the gymnasts’ performance levels and the dependent variables organized in four categories: the technical media used to conduct and monitor the training sessions, the type of training done, the mechanisms for monitoring training performance and the aspects that determined participation. Most coaches kept their gymnasts training during confinement, although 76.5% confirm abandonment of any of their gymnasts. The main means used were real-time video conferencing, although at the lower practice levels the media stand out in deferred time. The contents of the training were mainly body technique, physical preparation and body difficulties. For performance monitoring, challenges, physical, and technical tests were predominant. The determinants for the development of training in the confinement vary depending on the level of the gymnasts, connectivity and electronic resources at the highest level, and the availability of spaces and social distancing at lower levels. For future lockdowns, it is necessary to review the content of the trainings, as well as the performance evaluation and the means necessary for it. (shrink)

'Principles Of Mental Imagery' offers a broad, balanced, and up-to-date introduction to the major findings of this research and identifies five general principles that can account for most of them. It considers the development of experimental techniques that have solved many of the challenging methodological problems inherent in imagery research and includes recent experimental findings not covered in other imagery books..

Stiff Person Syndrome is a rare autoimmune disorder associated with antibodies against glutamic acid decarboxylase, the key enzyme in γ -aminobutyric acid synthesis. In order to investigate the role of cerebral benzodiazepinereceptor binding in SPS, we performed [ 11 C]flumazenil positron emission tomography in a female patient with SPS compared to nine healthy controls. FMZ is a radioligand to the postsynaptic central benzodiazepine receptor which is co-localized with the GABA-A receptor. In the SPS patient, we found a global reduction of (...) cortical FMZ binding. In addition, distinct local clusters of reduced radiotracer binding were observed. These data provide first in vivo evidence for a reduced postsynaptic GABA-A receptor availability which may reflect the loss of GABAergic neuronal inhibition in SPS. (shrink)

Recent advances in the field of creative cognition have helped to reveal the cognitive structures and processes that are involved in creative thinking and imagination. This article begins by reviewing recent studies of creative imagery that have explored the emergent properties of mental images. The geneplore model of creative cognition, which describes how preinventive structures such as creative mental images are generated and interpreted, is then discussed. In discussing this model and its implications, a distinction is made between aspects of (...) creative imagery that reflect conscious, deliberate control and those that reflect the absence of such control, as illustrated particularly by the emergence of unanticipated structures in imagined forms. The intentional, structured qualities of creative thinking are then contrasted with its spontaneous, unstructured qualities. The article concludes by discussing the recent topics of chaotic cognition and creative realism and how they bear on the general issue of balancing structured and unstructured processes in creative endeavors. (shrink)

In recent years there has been increased recognition of the importance of high standards in ethics, governance and the integrity of research. This paper is a case study of the University of Bristol's approach to address these important activities in a Higher Education Institution. It will highlight the importance of working closely with the academic research community to ensure maximum engagement, leading to a sustained culture change that recognizes faculty and departmental specific needs. A key tool to ensuring high standards (...) of research integrity and compliance with the legislative framework is the development of a supportive quality assurance programme. (shrink)

Disneyland is work disguised as play; school disguised as vacation. While Walt Disney’s curriculum deploys across all of its products, it literally engulfs the approximately 50 million ‘guests’ who visit the Disney Parks each year. Drawing on Sarah Ahmed’s phenomenological reading of orientation in Queer phenomenology, this article investigates the ways in which Disney’s didacticism is made material through practices and procedures designed to orient the park’s visitors, to ensure that those visitors always know where they are and who they (...) are, as a means of educating ‘good’ citizens. The argument focuses not on Disneyland’s narrative curriculum but on its corporeal one: visitors are enticed to make affective investments, to construct or reconstruct their identities to comply with the Disney version of the ideal American worker and consumer, as the park attempts to reorient those who resist those roles. (shrink)

Les programmes d’éducation inclusive (IE) visent à intégrer les enfants handicapés dans les écoles ordinaires en leur offrant une éducation de qualité dans un environnement sans obstacles. Si l’éducation inclusive fait désormais partie intégrante du programme de développement mondial, de nombreuses questions subsistent à propos de la meilleure façon de mettre en œuvre ces programmes d’éducation inclusive, compte tenu des contextes et des défis différents qui se présentent dans les pays en développement. “One Class for All” est un programme d’éducation (...) informelle financé par Light for the World, une ONG internationale, et mis en œuvre par 14 organisations partenaires éthiopiennes. Les auteurs de cet article ont utilisé un modèle d’évaluation descriptive de la mise en œuvre combinant des éléments qualitatifs et quantitatifs pour évaluer l’étendue, la qualité et la satisfaction des programmes d’éducation informelle mis en œuvre par un échantillon de partenaires de Light for the World. Les données utilisées comprenaient des données de suivi de la mise en œuvre de routine, une enquête auprès de tous les partenaires de mise en œuvre, des entretiens avec des informateurs clés et des observations structurées des écoles et des participants dans les écoles de l’échantillon en Éthiopie. L’évaluation a principalement indiqué la nécessité de plans de développement plus structurés pour chaque école et d’un programme de formation des enseignants plus structuré. Cette évaluation contribue à la littérature limitée sur la mise en œuvre d’un programme d’éducation inclusive dans un pays africain. (shrink)

This paper compares and contrasts two infinite regress arguments against higher-order theories of consciousness that were put forward by the Buddhist epistemologists Dignāga (ca. 480–540 CE) and Dharmakīrti (ca. 600–660). The two arguments differ considerably from each other, and they also differ from the infinite regress argument that scholars usually attribute to Dignāga or his followers. The analysis shows that the two philosophers, in these arguments, work with different assumptions for why an object-cognition must be cognised: for Dignāga it must (...) be cognised in order to enable subsequent memory of it, for Dharmakīrti it must be cognised if it is to cognise an object. (shrink)

Recently, the debate on human enhancement has shifted from familiar topics like cognitive enhancement and mood enhancement to a new and – to no one's surprise – controversial subject, namely moral enhancement. Some proponents from the transhumanist camp allude to the ‘urgent need’ of improving the moral conduct of humankind in the face of ever growing technological progress and the substantial dangers entailed in this enterprise. Other thinkers express more sceptical views about this proposal. As the debate has revealed so (...) far, there is no shared opinion among philosophers about the meaning, prospects, and ethical evaluation of moral enhancement. In this article I will address several conceptual and practical problems of this issue, in order to encourage discussion about the prospects of moral enhancement in the future. My assumption is that for the short term, there is little chance of arriving at an agreement on the proper understanding of morality and the appropriateness of one single ethical theory; apart from this, there are further philosophical puzzles loosely referred to in the debate which add to theoretical confusion; and even if these conceptual problems could be solved, there are still practical problems to be smoothed out if moral enhancement is ever to gain relevance apart from merely theoretical interest. My tentative conclusion, therefore, will be that moral enhancement is not very likely to be made sense of – let alone realized – in the medium-term future. (shrink)

Levinas's ethics has in the last decades exerted a significant influence on Nursing and Caring Science. The core of Levinas's ethics – his analyses of how our subjectivity is established in the ethical encounter with our neighbour or the Other – is applied both to healthcare practice and in the project of building an identity of Nursing and Caring Science. Levinas's analyses are highly abstract and metaphysical, and also non‐normative. Thus, his analyses cannot be applied directly to practical problems and (...) questions. Theorists in Nursing and Caring Science are generally aware of this. Nevertheless, many of them use Levinas's analyses to explore and solve questions of practical and normative character. This article focuses on the challenges and dilemmas of using Levinas in this manner.The article is divided into two parts. The first part presents some central ideas of Levinas's ethics based on the latter part of his authorship. The main focus is on the radicalism of Levinas's critique of the symbolic order (which includes concepts, categories, knowledge, etc.) – or as he puts it ‘the said’ – as a basis for subjectivity and responsibility. Levinas's notions of saying, anarchy, and singularity accentuate this point of view. These notions refer to conditions in the language, which counteract the symbolic order in the ethical encounter to such an extent that it becomes an incomprehensible. Levinas gives the argumentation a metaphysical frame: The encounter with the incomprehensible is an encounter with the Holy, which is not the ontological God, but a metaphysical desire. It is a mystery as to what this means, and herein lies possibly the main challenge when using Levinas's ethics in science and research: How to maintain the radicalism of his critique of the symbolic order when this is to be communicated in a scientific context that expects clarification of statements and ideas? The second part of the article explores this question by examining how some theorists use Levinas's ethics on questions and problems in the area of healthcare and Nursing and Caring Science. The focus is especially on the theorists' reception and use of the just mentioned notions. The study reveals that these theorists to a large extent transform Levinas's ethics according to their own approaches, with the result that his ethics loses its critical radicalism. Thus, I question the reason why they use Levinas. (shrink)

The concept of “self-awareness” ( svasaṃvedana ) enters Buddhist epistemological discourse in the Pramāṇasamuccaya and - vṛtti by Dignāga (ca. 480–540), the founder of the Buddhist logico-epistemological tradition. Though some of the key passages have already been dealt with in various publications, no attempt has been made to comprehensively examine all of them as a whole. A close reading is here proposed to make up for this deficit. In connection with a particularly difficult passage (PS(V) 1.8cd-10) that presents the means (...) of valid cognition and its result ( pramāṇa/pramāṇaphala ), a new interpretation is suggested, inspired by the commentary of Jinendrabuddhi. This interpretation highlights an aspect of selfawareness that has hitherto not been claimed for Dignāga: self-awareness offers essentially subjective access to one’s own mental states and factors. (shrink)

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.

The present study investigated whether infants learn the effects of other persons' actions like they do for their own actions, and whether infants transfer observed action-effect relations to their own actions. Nine-, 12-, 15- and 18-month-olds explored an object that allowed two actions, and that produced a certain salient effect after each action. In a self-exploration group, infants explored the object directly, whereas in two observation groups, infants first watched an adult model acting on the object and obtaining a certain (...) effect with each action before exploring the objects by themselves. In one observation group, the infants' actions were followed by the same effects as the model's actions, but in the other group, the action-effect mapping for the infant was reversed to that of the model. The results showed that the observation of the model had an impact on the infants' exploration behavior from 12 months, but not earlier, and that the specific relations between observed actions and effects were acquired by 15 months. Thus, around their first birthday infants learn the effects of other persons' actions by observation, and they transfer the observed action-effect relations to their own actions in the second year of life. (shrink)

The discussion on subjectivity isbased on the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan'sunderstanding of subjectivity as constructed inand through language, and the philosopherCharles Sanders Peirce's general ideas ofsignifying construction as an unlimitedsign-exchanging process – the idea of theunlimited semiosis. The article advocatescombining Lacanian subjectivity and Peirceansemiosis in a model of the formal structure ofthe semiosis of Lacanian subjectivity. In thelight of this model the article claims thatLacanian subjectivity opens to a process ofsubjectivization within the semiosis ofsubjectivity, whereby that which is other ismade our (...) own. Two researchers' differentarguments on subjectivity, both of which referto Lacan's ideas on subjectivity, are used asdiscussion partners in the exploration of thesemiosis of Lacanian subjectivity. While theone researcher claims that subjectivity is anideological construction, the other maintainsthat subjectivity is a free play of signs. Thearticle claims that neither of these tworesearchers considers that there may be aprocess of subjectivization in the semiosis ofsubjectivity. Thus the one researcher can claimthat subjectivity `is constituted outside ofitself', and the other can maintain that `thesubject is doomed to perpetual exile fromitself' in the construction of her or hissubjectivity. (shrink)

The processes associated with globalization have reinforced and even increased prevailing conditions of inequality among human beings with respect to their political, economic, cultural, and social opportunities. Yet-or perhaps precisely because of this trend-there has been, within political philosophy, an observable tendency to question whether equality in fact should be treated a as central value within a theory of justice. In response, I examine a number of nonegalitarian positions to try to show that the concept of equality cannot be dispensed (...) with in any adequate consideration of justice. (shrink)

The requirements of rationality are fundamental in practical and theoretical philosophy. Nonetheless, there exists no correct account of what constitutes rational requirements. This paper attempts to provide a correct constitutive account of ‘rationality requires’. I argue that rational requirements are grounded in ‘necessary explanations of subjective incoherence’, as I shall put it. Rationality requires of you to X if and only if your rational capacities, in conjunction with the fact that you not-X, explain necessarily why you have a non-maximal degree (...) of subjective coherence. (shrink)

Looking times and gaze behavior indicate that infants can predict the goal state of an observed simple action event (e.g., object‐directed grasping) already in the first year of life. The present paper mainly focuses on infants’ predictive gaze‐shifts toward the goal of an ongoing action. For this, infants need to generate a forward model of the to‐be‐obtained goal state and to disengage their gaze from the moving agent at a time when information about the action event is still incomplete. By (...) about 6 months of age, infants show goal‐predictive gaze‐shifts, but mainly for familiar actions that they can perform themselves (e.g., grasping) and for familiar agents (e.g., a human hand). Therefore, some theoretical models have highlighted close relations between infants’ ability for action‐goal prediction and their motor development and/or emerging action experience. Recent research indicates that infants can also predict action goals of familiar simple actions performed by non‐human agents (e.g., object‐directed grasping by a mechanical claw) when these agents display agency cues, such as self‐propelled movement, equifinality of goal approach, or production of a salient action effect. This paper provides a review on relevant findings and theoretical models, and proposes that the impacts of action experience and of agency cues can be explained from an action‐event perspective. In particular, infants’ goal‐predictive gaze‐shifts are seen as resulting from an interplay between bottom‐up processing of perceptual information and top‐down influences exerted by event schemata that store information about previously executed or observed actions. (shrink)

Until today, an externally imposed epistemological paradigm is dominant in most educational curricula at universities in Africa. Despite ongoing Eurocentrism and Western hegemony in mainstream agricultural trainings in Africa, Indigenous knowledge on agriculture still exists: it has been preserved for generations by farmers and wise elders in rural communities who often are knowledge authorities on African agrarian Indigenous knowledge, values and practices. An imposed epistemological paradigm on the African continent reinforces epistemic injustice by dominating and ignoring Indigenous African ways of (...) doing and knowing, which is deeply dehumanizing. Inspired by Paulo Freire’s ‘humanising pedagogy’ and Mogobe Ramose’s call for mothofatso in human relations, we explore a re-humanising pedagogy for African agrarian philosophy, which addresses the following questions: Can African agrarian philosophy contribute to re-humanization by reviving and restoring Indigenous agricultural knowledge, values and practices? If so, what pedagogy and educational methods are appropriate? In search for answers to these questions, we reflect on a two-week educational program on an endogenous approach to community resilience in Ghana, as a pedagogy that is emerging. In doing so, the chapter is firmly rooted in African soil, both practically—through trainings in Ghana—and theoretically—through African agrarian philosophy. By connecting educational experiences with insights from theory, seven themes for a pedagogy for African agrarian philosophy come to the front: an African agrarian philosophy with memory; a dialogical student–teacher relation; the value of lived experiences; intergenerational and spiritual methods of education; relationality of human beings and Mother Earth; unity between theory and practice; critical consciousness about people’s rights. The thesis defended is that African agrarian philosophy is without relevance if it remains a theoretical exercise that is not developed and put to use with farmers, wise elders and youth in the communities. Instead, when combined with a re-humanising pedagogy, African agrarian philosophy can contribute to reconnecting and reviving African agricultural knowledge, values and practices, which subsequently contributes to transforming African food systems that heals the environment and produces enough food to feed communities. (shrink)

Die schnell anwachsende Hinneigung zur Existentialanalytik, zur Lebensphilosophie und zur Ontologie am Anfang der 30er Jahre zwang Edmund Husserl dazu, die ursprungliche, als transzendentale ausgereifte Phanomenologie in methodischer und systematischer Hinsicht von diesen neuen Tendenzen scharf abzugrenzen. In den Jahren 1930 bis 1932 entwarf Eugen Fink im Auftrag seines Lehrers eine Reihe von Texten zur Phanomenologie, die grundlegende Bedeutung haben sollten fur ein Systematisches Werk der Phanomenologie bzw. als neue Meditations cartesiennes fur das deutsche Publikum gedacht waren. Diese Entwurfe (...) Eugen Finks kulminierten in der VI. Cartesianischen Meditation (1932), die u. a. von Gaston Berger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty und Tran Duc Thao in Frankreich rezipiert wurde, bevor Fink sie im Jahre 1946 als Habilitationsschrift an der Freiburger Universitat einreichte. Der vorliegende Band, der in chronologischer Reihenfolge die im Auftrag Husserls verfassten Entwurfe Finks aus den Jahren 1930-32 veroffentlicht, schliesst unmittelbar an die Bande 1 (Studien zur Phanomenologie) und 3 (Phanomenologische Werkstatt) der Eugen Fink Gesamtausgabe an. In diesen Texten gewinnt Finks origineller Beitrag zur Phanomenologie Husserls in der Freiburger Zeit eine Konturenscharfe, die von Sartre und Merleau- Ponty fruh erkannt wurde. (shrink)

Law firms, bars and lawyers associations qualify as ‘enterprises’ in the sense of all international CSR norms such as the UN Global Compact, the UN Guiding Principles, the OECD Guidelines for Multi...