Historically, entities with a vested interest in a product that critics have suggested is harmful have consistently used research to back their claims that the product is safe. Prominent examples are: tobacco, lead, bisphenol A, and atrazine. Research literature indicates that about 80–90% of studies with industry affiliation found no harm from the product, while only about 10–20% of studies without industry affiliation found no harm. In parallel to other historical debates, recent studies examining a possible relationship between mercury exposure (...) and autism spectrum disorder show a similar dichotomy. Studies sponsored and supported by industry or entities with an apparent conflict of interest have most often shown no evidence of harm or no “consistent” evidence of harm, while studies without such affiliations report positive evidence of a Hg/autism association. The potentially causal relationship between Hg exposure and ASD differs from other toxic products since there is a broad coalition of entities for whom a conflict of interest arises. These include influential governmental public health entities, the pharmaceutical industry, and even the coal burning industry. This review includes a systematic literature search of original studies on the potential relationship between Hg and ASD from 1999 to August 2015, finding that of the studies with public health and/or industry affiliation, 86% reported no relationship between Hg and ASD. However, among studies without public health and/or industry affiliation, only 21% find no relationship between Hg and ASD. The discrepancy in these results suggests a bias indicative of a conflict of interest. (shrink)

Historically, entities with a vested interest in a product that critics have suggested is harmful have consistently used research to back their claims that the product is safe. Prominent examples are: tobacco, lead, bisphenol A, and atrazine. Research literature indicates that about 80–90 % of studies with industry affiliation found no harm from the product, while only about 10–20 % of studies without industry affiliation found no harm. In parallel to other historical debates, recent studies examining a possible relationship between (...) mercury exposure and autism spectrum disorder show a similar dichotomy. Studies sponsored and supported by industry or entities with an apparent conflict of interest have most often shown no evidence of harm or no “consistent” evidence of harm, while studies without such affiliations report positive evidence of a Hg/autism association. The potentially causal relationship between Hg exposure and ASD differs from other toxic products since there is a broad coalition of entities for whom a conflict of interest arises. These include influential governmental public health entities, the pharmaceutical industry, and even the coal burning industry. This review includes a systematic literature search of original studies on the potential relationship between Hg and ASD from 1999 to date, finding that of the studies with public health and/or industry affiliation, 86 % reported no relationship between Hg and ASD. However, among studies without public health and/or industry affiliation, only 19 % find no relationship between Hg and ASD. The discrepancy in these results suggests a bias indicative of a conflict of interest. (shrink)

Data are lacking with regard to participants' perspectives on return of genetic research results to relatives, including after the participant's death. This paper reports descriptive results from 3,630 survey respondents: 464 participants in a pancreatic cancer biobank, 1,439 family registry participants, and 1,727 healthy individuals. Our findings indicate that most participants would feel obligated to share their results with blood relatives while alive and would want results to be shared with relatives after their death.

Background: Genomic analysis may reveal both primary and secondary findings with direct relevance to the health of probands’ biological relatives. Researchers question their obligations to return findings not only to participants but also to family members. Given the social value of privacy protection, should researchers offer a proband’s results to family members, including after the proband’s death? Methods: Preferences were elicited using interviews and a survey. Respondents included probands from two pancreatic cancer research resources, plus biological and nonbiological family members. (...) Hypothetical scenarios based on actual research findings from the two cancer research resources were presented; participants were asked return of results preferences and justifications. Interview transcripts were coded and analyzed; survey data were analyzed descriptively. Results: Fifty-one individuals (17 probands, 21 biological relatives, 13 spouses/partners) were interviewed. Subsequently, a mailed survey was returned by 464 probands, 1,040 biological family members, and 399 spouses/partners. This analysis highlights the interviews, augmented by survey findings. Probands and family members attribute great predictive power and lifesaving potential to genomic information. A majority hold that a proband’s genomic results relevant to family members’ health ought to be offered. While informants endorse each individual’s choice whether to learn results, most express a strong moral responsibility to know and to share, particularly with the younger generation. Most have few concerns about sharing genetic information within the family; rather, their concerns focus on the health consequences of not sharing. Conclusions: Although additional studies in diverse populations are needed, policies governing return of genomic results should consider how families understand genomic data, how they value confidentiality within the family, and whether they endorse an ethics of sharing. A focus on respect for individual privacy—without attention to how the broad social and cultural context shapes preferences within families—cannot be the sole foundation of policy. (shrink)

The informed consent process is the legal embodiment of the fundamental right of the individual to make decisions affecting his or her health., and the patient’s permission is a crucial form of respect of freedom and dignity, it becomes extremely important to enhance the patient’s understanding and recall of the information given by the physician. This statement acquires additional weight when the medical treatment proposed can potentially be detrimental or even fatal. This is the case of thalassemia patients pertaining to (...) class 3 of the Pesaro classification where Allogenic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation remains the only potentially curative treatment. Unfortunately, this kind of intervention is burdened by an elevated transplantation-related mortality risk , equal to 30% according to published reports. In thalassemia, the role of the patient in the informed consent process leading up to HSCT has not been fully investigated. This study investigated the hypothesis that information provided by physicians in the medical scenario of HSCT is not fully understood by patients and that misunderstanding and communication biases may affect the clinical decision-making process. (shrink)

In recent years, a great deal of evidence has accumulated on the health risks and environmental impacts of some herbicides. Both conventional agriculture and agroecology are searching for alternatives to address the challenges posed by the consequences of herbicide use. In this search, peasant and indigenous agroecosystems have much to contribute since their crops evolved thousands of years ago together with diverse communities of weeds, and farmers have carried out sophisticated strategies to manage them. Through participant observation, semi-structured interviews, free (...) lists, and botanical collection, we document a milpa design that integrates and manages spontaneous vegetation to take advantage of its presence and minimize risks of crop loss. The objective of this article is to critically contrast agroecological mechanisms in this milpa design which matches the prevention principle with a set of recommendations recognized as preventive in conventional weed science. (shrink)

Por medio de un ejercicio de lectura comparada, y siguiendo un método inductivo, el presente artículo identifica distintas formas de figurar o imaginar el cuerpo en un corpus de obras de la autora panameña Cheri Lewis G., observando las posibles relaciones, tensiones o contradicciones con este mismo tipo de representación ficcional en las obras narrativas de otras autoras centroamericanas contemporáneas. En los mundos ficcionales de la selección, por un lado, el cuerpo fragmentado, animalizado o hibridizado propone modos de contradecir, pensar, (...) resistir o criticar ciertos estándares opresivos hacia las mujeres; por otro, hace elaboraciones metafóricas sobre vínculos afectivos humanos con otras formas de vida, así como alegorías de la nación fragmentada. (shrink)

En esta obra se analizan las ideas estéticas más relevantes de tres filósofos contemporáneos, H. Marcuse, M. Merleau-Ponty y H-G. Gadamer, articuladas en torno a la productiva interrelación arte y filosofía y, todavía más concretamente, en torno a la preocupación por el tipo de razón y la búsqueda racional de la libertad que predomina en el ámbito artístico.

Autonomy is conceptualized as the need for agency, self-actualization and independence. Nowadays, financial independence and academic achievement for young populations may be considered as key aspects in the transition to adulthood in response to some contextual demands of different cultural environments. By means of a multi-level model, the present study aims to determine the influence and contribution of factors at individual-level (e.g. sex, age, socioeconomic status, family financial support, awarded scholarships, personal finance, student loans) and school-level (e.g. programme quality, online (...) programs, face to face programs) on the academic achievement of young higher education Colombian students. Data come from the scores of the national standardized academic achievement test administered in 2018 in Colombia. The sample included 234,386 students enrolled in 3,389 higher education institutions in Colombia. After controlling the effects of program quality, and the student's previous academic abilities and socio-economic conditions, results showed that students with scholarships had higher scores than financially-dependent students (those who had students loans) and financially-independent students (those who self-funded their studies or who worked during the week) who had low-scores in the national standardized academic achievement test. (shrink)

If the Bucolics as a whole ‘ look on us with dark enigmatical eyes,’ for long no more impenetrable darkness and no more compelling enigma could be found than that of the fourth poem in the collection. But Skutsch, the authors of Virgil's Messianic Eclogue, and more recently Mr. Royds in his Virgil and Isaiah, have done much to solve its many mysteries. Their efforts, however, were mainly directed towards the problems of fact contained in the Eclogue, and so far (...) little attention seems to have been given to an equally interesting point, that of its metrical arrangement. It is plain that we must consult the Sibyll for help: if it is not plain, that is not Virgil's fault. I hope to be able to show here that Virgil himself has left in this poem certain unmistakeable signs for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, besides his own rather casual reference to the Cumaeum carmen, and incidentally to dispose anew of the theory which reads in that expression an allusion not to the Sibyl but to Hesiod. (shrink)

I Agree with R. G. Austin, who in his recent paper, 107 ff.) showed that Virgil did not write this proem to the Aeneid, and suggested that it was produced in the first half of the first century, perhaps prompted by the problem mentioned by Servius on A. I. I: ‘multi varie disserunt cur ab armis Vergilius coeperit.’ I wish here to comment briefly on the content of the lines. graciliqui... carmen refers to the writing of the Eclogues. As (...) Austin points out, Virgil has gracilis only in E. 10. 70 ff., the conclusion of the whole of the Eclogues:Haec sat erit, divae, vestrum cecinisse poetam,dum sedet et gracili fiscellam texit hibisco,Pierides…. (shrink)

The Literature of Personalists of early Buddhism. Bhikshu Thích Thien Châu. Vietnam Buddhist Research Institute, Ho Chí Minh City 1996. xii, 241 pp. Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi 1999. xiv, 242 pp. Rs 295. ISBN 81-208-1622-6.

Charles Peirce is widely credited as the originator of semiotics, or the general theory of signs, and recognized as the founder of American pragmatism, albeit in that peculiar kind Peirce himself went on to distinguish as “pragmaticism.” The semiotic and pragmatist strands in Peirce’s thought come together in an appraisal of scientific diagrammatic representations. Peirce’s pragmatic maxim entails that the consequences of a sign inform our entire conception of the sign, while his most considered semiotic system entails that a complex (...) sign partakes of iconic, indexical, and symbolic aspects. We illustrate Peirce’s insights by means of the celebrated Feynman Diagrams in Quantum Electrodynamics. We argue that Peirce’s late, post-1903, semiotics provides an adequate characterization of such “hypoicons,” and his pragmatic maxim explains how they can motivate and drive inquiry. We conclude that Peirce’s pragmatic approach to scientific diagrams remains a viable position that skillfully avoids dogmatic scientism and nihilistic skepticism alike. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to investigate the consistency between the self-reports and teacher ratings of students’ emotional and social inclusion at school as well as for their academic self-concept. The German version of the Perceptions of Inclusion Questionnaire (PIQ) was administered to 329 grade 8 students (50.8% female, Mage = 14.5 years, SDage = 0.5 years) and their teachers. First, the three-dimensional structure of both PIQ versions was confirmed by confirmatory item factor analysis. The  and  coefficients (...) demonstrated good reliability for all scales. Second, a correlated trait-correlated method minus one model provided evidence that the method-specificity of teacher ratings was larger than the consistency between the self-reports and teacher ratings. Third, the results of a latent difference model indicated that general method effects can partly be explained by a student’s gender or special educational needs. Finally, the low consistency between self-reports and teacher rating is discussed. (shrink)

This article examines the centrality of Brazil within the future of climate policy and politics. The state of the carbon sink of the Amazon rainforest has long been an iconic marker of the condition of the Earth. Brazil has been innovative in developing many non-carbon forms of energy generation and use and it has played a major role in international debates on global warming since the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. We examine various ways in which climate change has come (...) to be centrally important in Brazilian public opinion. Survey evidence shows that Brazilians are the most concerned about issues of climate change – with less climate change scepticism as compared with more ‘advanced’ societies. Through using techniques of corpus linguistics we examine how Brazilian media has engendered and stabilized such a high and striking level of climate change concern. We show that the media helped to fix a ‘climate change framing’ of recent often strange weather. The article analyses the newly constructed Brazilian Corpus on Climate Change, presenting data on a scale and reach that is unique in this area of research. (shrink)

RESUMENCon ocasión del centenario del filósofo H. Marcuse, la autora reflexiona sobre el pensamiento del mismo tomando como hilo conductor su teoría estética tal y como se plasma a lo largo de su obra. la estrecha relación entre la concepción marcusiana del arte y la liberación humana es lo que hace que la comprensión de aquella resulte imprescindible para interpretar el proyecto filosófico de Marcuse. este artículo valora la paradójica propuesta de Marcuse de un arte autónomo y, a la vez, (...) transformador de la realidad y de la conciencia, con objeto de oponerse tanto al esteticismo, que amenaza con dominar al arte y a la sociedad actuales, como a la subordinación del arte a fines heterónomos.PALABRAS CLAVEMARCUSE-ESTÉTICA-TEORÍA CRÍTICA-LIBERACIÓNABSTRACTOn the occasion of H.Marcuse's centennary, the paper reviews Marcuse's writings on aesthetics. To interpret his philosophical project, it is necessary to combine his concept of art with his idea of human liberation. The paper assesses Marcuse's paradoxical claim for an autonomous art, wich transforms both reality and consciousness, that opposes aestheticism and the subordination of art to heteronomous ends.KEYWORDSMARCUSE-AESTHETICS-CRITICAL THEORY-LIBERATION. (shrink)

This paper aims at providing some insights into the philosophical tools that may help solve the huge problems of social justice. For that purpose, I focus on the concept of responsibility, since it could be a suitable catalyst for debate. This paper argues that we must necessarily develop an enhanced notion of responsibility and commit to it both at a social and institutional level. First, I will introduce the relation between ethics and politics—necessarily rather than contingently intertwined. I will elaborate (...) on the concept of poliethics coined by the Spanish philosopher Francisco Fernández Buey. Second, I will outline certain changes undergone in recent years to the understanding of the concept of responsibility in the field of ethics and politics. Finally, I will argue that a significant extension of the notion of responsibility is still necessary if it is to play a relevant role in the contemporary world. I will therefore contend that there are sufficient reasons why our societies should do the moral stretch exercises suggested by Günther Anders. For that purpose, I suggest ten tenets that could serve as a basis for this poliethics of enhanced responsibility and for a collective reflection on this issue. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this article, we discuss the concept of affiliation in the theoretical-methodological framework of Discourse Analysis to analyze the relationship between Benvenistian thought and Saussurian thought as a relationship of affiliation within the history of ideas that delimits the field of language studies. The analysis, which cuts out paraphrastic formulations from the Course in General Linguistics and Problems in General Linguistics, allowed the understanding of this affiliation relationship as a dialogue, in which a constitutive paradoxical relationship is materialized. This (...) relationship signifies the movement of approximation and displacement/detachment of Benvenistian thought to Saussurian thought. This understanding showed that the different ways of reading the Benveniste-Saussure relationship, already historicized in some way within the history of linguistic ideas belongs to the order of the effect of interpretation in the dispute of the history of science games. (shrink)

Una novedad relevante en la LOMLOE es la introducción de la memoria democrática como una nueva dimensión de la Educación para la Ciudadanía, con el objeto de promover la participación ciudadana en la vida pública. Sin embargo, el trabajo de Navarro-Medina, De Alba-Fernández y Pérez-Rodríguez (2023), señalando la ausencia en el actual currículo de conceptos clave como dictadura, franquismo, régimen totalitario, persecución, exilio o sublevación, nos sitúa en la tesitura de valorar las interpretaciones que han realizado de la actual ley (...) de educación el conjunto de comunidades autónomas del estado español. El problema de investigación del que partimos intenta valorar en qué medida ha influido el signo político de cada una, en la interpretación realizada de las indicaciones ministeriales. A tal fin, acometemos un estudio descriptivo-interpretativo de los decretos que establecen la ordenación del currículo en la etapa de Educación Primaria en las comunidades autónomas. (shrink)

El presente artículo pretende indagar desde el marco teórico-epistemológico de "imaginario social" de Cornelius Castoriadis (1922-1997), la subjetivación de la mujer trabajadora en el sistema de educación técnico-profesional en Chile. Se desarrolla una investigación filosófica y cualitativa que incluye análisis documental y entrevistas a sujetos del ámbito técnico-profesional secundario. A través de este marco teórico, desarrollamos las herramientas analíticas necesarias para poder leer e interpretar cómo a pesar de los aires de renovación del sistema técnico-profesional, la oferta política hacia la (...) mujer chilena trabajadora no cambia en realidad el "destino" que pesa sobre ella: ser, dicho peyorativamente "¡Buenas Trabajadoras, Buenas Madres!". This article seeks to investigate since the theoretical-epistemological frame of "social imaginary" of Cornelius Castoriadis (1922-1997), the subjectivity of the hard-working woman in the system of technical-professional education in Chile. It is carried out a philosophical and qualitative investigation including documentary analysis and interviews to subjects of the technical-professional secondary area. Through this theoretical frame, we develop the analytical tools needed to read and interpret how, despite the air of renewal of the technical-professional system, the political supply towards the Chilean woman worker in fact does not actually change the "destiny" hanging over her: to be, pejoratively said "Good Workers, Good Mothers"! (shrink)