Für ökonomische Evaluationen medizinischer Leistungen steht ein etabliertes Methodenspektrum zur Verfügung. Ziel der Arbeit ist, anhand ausgewählter Aspekte herauszuarbeiten, inwieweit diese Methoden für den derzeit viel diskutierten Bereich der Personalisierten Medizin anwendbar sind bzw. welche Besonderheiten dabei auftreten und wie diese adressiert werden können. Für die vorliegende Arbeit wurde eine explorative Literaturrecherche durchgeführt. In Abgrenzung zur herkömmlichen Medizin kann je nach Blickwinkel die Personalisierte Medizin entweder hinsichtlich der physiologischen Unterschiede oder hinsichtlich der individuellen Präferenzen der Beteiligten betrachtet werden. Je nach (...) Betrachtungsweise ergeben sich unterschiedliche methodische Herausforderungen an gesundheitsökonomische Evaluationen. Verbesserte Ausrichtung der Versorgung an physiologischen Unterschieden stellt die Evaluation beispielsweise vor das Problem, dass aufgrund des oftmals kleinen Stichprobenumfangs häufig Evidenz zur Parametrisierung von Entscheidungsmodellen fehlt. Informationswertanalysen können Hinweise über den potenziellen Nutzen weiterer Forschung geben. Das Konzept des „Expected Value of Individualized Care“ bietet einen den Informationswertanalysen sehr ähnlichen Ansatz, um den potenziellen Wert eines Einbezugs individueller Präferenzen in die Versorgung zu quantifizieren. Welfarismus und Extra-Welfarismus bieten unterschiedliche Lösungsansätze, wie Nutzen Biomarker-basierter Information im Sinne von „Empowerment“ in Evaluationen einbezogen werden können. Generell sind die Methoden der gesundheitsökonomischen Evaluation auch auf den Bereich der Personalisierten Medizin anwendbar. Es stellen sich jedoch eine Reihe spezifischer Herausforderungen, zu deren Lösung weiterer Forschungsbedarf besteht. (shrink)

There is a gap between health economic evaluation methods and the value judgments of coverage decision makers, at least in Germany. Measuring preference satisfaction has been claimed to be inappropriate for allocating health care resources, e.g. because it disregards medical need. The existing methods oriented at medical need have been claimed to disregard non-consequentialist fairness concerns. The aim of this article is to propose a new, contractarian argument for justifying needs-based economic evaluation. It is based on consent rather than maximization (...) of some impersonal unit of value to accommodate the fairness concerns. This conceptual paper draws upon contractarian ethics and constitution economics to show how economic evaluation can be viewed as an institution to overcome societal conflicts in the allocation of scarce health care resources. For this, the problem of allocating scarce health care resources in a society is reconstructed as a social dilemma. Both disadvantaged patients and affluent healthy individuals can be argued to share interests in a societal contract to provide technologies which ameliorate medical need, based on progressive funding. The use of needs-based economic evaluation methods for coverage determination can be interpreted as institutions for conflict resolution as far as they use consented criteria to ensure the social contract’s sustainability and avoid implicit rationing or unaffordable contribution rates. This justifies the use of needs-based evaluation methods by Pareto-superiority and consent. The view of economic evaluation presented here may help account for fairness concerns in the further development of evaluation methods. This is because it directs the attention away from determining some unit of value to be maximized towards determining those persons who are most likely not to consent and meeting their concerns. Following this direction in methods development is likely to increase the acceptability of health economic evaluation by decision makers. (shrink)

Abstract (German version follows): -/- This paper develops a new proposal for a coherentist business ethic in which ethically justified and empirically supported proposed solutions to economic problems are developed through a coherentist process of adjustments between the three levels of (1) conception of problem and its solution, (2) positive economic theory, and (3) ethical theories. Using an example, it illustrates how in this framework, Homann's business ethics gains in validity and relevance but loses its claim to universality. // -/- (...) Diese Arbeit entwickelt eine kohärentistische Wirtschaftsethik, in der ethisch begründete und empirisch gestützte Lösungsvorschläge für ökonomische Probleme durch einen kohärentistischen Anpassungsprozess zwischen den drei Ebenen (1) Auffassung von Problem und Lösungsansatz, (2) positive ökonomische Theorie, sowie (3) ethischen Theorien erarbeitet werden. Anhand eines Beispiels wird illustriert, wie Homanns Wirtschaftsethik in diesem Rahmen an Validität und Relevanz gewinnt, jedoch ihren Universalitätsanspruch verliert. (shrink)

Schools of economic ethics inspired by Buchanan propose viewing ethical conflicts as prisoners’ dilemmas to facilitate solutions based on Pareto-improving institutional changes. Given that healthcare is determined by complex institutional arrangements, it has been claimed that this approach is also suitable for business ethics in healthcare. To scrutinize this claim, this research systematically searched for studies reporting PD structures in healthcare. PubMed, EconLit, and EconBiz were searched to find articles in German and English. Study type, characteristics of the game, and (...) the proposed means to overcome the dilemma were extracted and analyzed for aspects supporting or challenging the claim. Across 53 studies, 68 descriptions of various dilemmas in healthcare and public health were identified. Many authors successfully developed proposals for institutional change to overcome these dilemmas. However, many of these analyses exhibited limitations such as oversimplifications or inconsistencies. Also, the quality of evidence on both the characteristics of dilemmas and the effectiveness of proposed solutions was very poor. The subsamples of studies that explicitly cited the ethical approach were disjunct from those that applied empirical methods to analyze the dilemmas. The large number of identified PDs indicates that economic ethics is relevant to healthcare. However, there is a need for further evidence to substantiate both the descriptive and prescriptive claims of this ethical theory. It should thus be seen as a complement that needs justification, rather than a substitute superior to other ethical frameworks. (shrink)

Für ökonomische Evaluationen medizinischer Leistungen steht ein etabliertes Methodenspektrum zur Verfügung. Ziel der Arbeit ist, anhand ausgewählter Aspekte herauszuarbeiten, inwieweit diese Methoden für den derzeit viel diskutierten Bereich der Personalisierten Medizin anwendbar sind bzw. welche Besonderheiten dabei auftreten und wie diese adressiert werden können. Für die vorliegende Arbeit wurde eine explorative Literaturrecherche durchgeführt. In Abgrenzung zur herkömmlichen Medizin kann je nach Blickwinkel die Personalisierte Medizin entweder hinsichtlich der physiologischen Unterschiede oder hinsichtlich der individuellen Präferenzen der Beteiligten betrachtet werden. Je nach (...) Betrachtungsweise ergeben sich unterschiedliche methodische Herausforderungen an gesundheitsökonomische Evaluationen. Verbesserte Ausrichtung der Versorgung an physiologischen Unterschieden stellt die Evaluation beispielsweise vor das Problem, dass aufgrund des oftmals kleinen Stichprobenumfangs häufig Evidenz zur Parametrisierung von Entscheidungsmodellen fehlt. Informationswertanalysen können Hinweise über den potenziellen Nutzen weiterer Forschung geben. Das Konzept des „Expected Value of Individualized Care“ bietet einen den Informationswertanalysen sehr ähnlichen Ansatz, um den potenziellen Wert eines Einbezugs individueller Präferenzen in die Versorgung zu quantifizieren. Welfarismus und Extra-Welfarismus bieten unterschiedliche Lösungsansätze, wie Nutzen Biomarker-basierter Information im Sinne von „Empowerment“ in Evaluationen einbezogen werden können. Generell sind die Methoden der gesundheitsökonomischen Evaluation auch auf den Bereich der Personalisierten Medizin anwendbar. Es stellen sich jedoch eine Reihe spezifischer Herausforderungen, zu deren Lösung weiterer Forschungsbedarf besteht. (shrink)

In this thorough compendium, nineteen accomplished scholars explore, in some manner the values they find inherent in the world, their nature, and revelence through the thought of Frederick FerrZ. These essays, informed by the insights of FerrZ and coming from manifold perspectives—ethics, philosophy, theology, and environmental studies, advance an ambitious challenge to current intellectual and scholarly fashions.

Prof. Dr. Frieder Otto Wolf, President of the Humanistischer Verband Deutschlands, provides an overview of the main currents of modern humanism in Germany. He describes the central stream of German humanism as practical, in that it combines the principled imperative to overcome all structures and situations in which people are not treated as human beings with seeking to widen the horizons of humane existence in the arts and sciences and in capabilities of leading a fulfilling life. This humanism compels (...) resort to other criteria than nature, such as those logical, emotive, cultural, in order to gauge the acceptability of value claims. The practical efforts to humanize society and widen human horizons requires engagement in public policy debates and social organizing and programming on consensus issues. Accordingly, the HVD works on such diverse issues as strengthening the rights to bodily integrity and sexual autonomy, preventing economic collapse, accommodating immigrants, protecting personal privacy, limiting the use of military force, building intra- and international peace, and exposing anti-humanist prejudice. (shrink)

Originally published in 1930, this well-known text by the late British philosopher Abraham Wolf offers the student a practical, consistent, and comprehensive approach to logic which remains unique in its field. Dr. Wolf here deals systematically with the two main types of reasoning - formal logic and inductive logic - and their various applications. All the main elements of logic - such as inference, syllogism, dilemmas, evidence, deductive and inductive methods, and probability - are subsumed under these general (...) headings. Professor Wolf strongly emphasizes the fact that logic cannot be mastered without some practical application; at the end of this volume, therefore, he includes a section of exercises based on each chapter. His unusally interesting appendix examines such matters as symbolic as logic, fallacies, the law of contradiction, modal propositions, the existential import of categorical propositions, predictables, and categories. (shrink)

Gottfried Benn (1886–1956) was a major 20th-century German physician-poet and essayist. He successfully completed his medical studies and worked across several hospitals and disciplines, including pathology, performing many autopsies. Later in life, Benn ran his own practice to treat skin and venereal diseases in Berlin for many years. Benn is not well-known in English-speaking countries and only a few of his poems have been translated into English so far. One possible reason for this may have been his initial enthusiasm for (...) National Socialism (as documented in essays, see below), which led to a break with other authors of his generation who had to emigrate. His novella collection "Gehirne" (Brains), published in 1918, was a significant contribution to expressionist short prose. In this work, Dr. Rönne (Benn's alter ego) searches in vain for the soul and personality in the brain matter. This leads to increasing psychological instability and depression, and Rönne can no longer carry out his medical work. The purpose of this article is to familiarize the interested reader with Benn's biography and to analyze the novella in more detail, especially in terms of the concepts of the mind’s philosophy. (shrink)

The 2003 blackout in the northern and eastern U.S. and Canada which caused a $6 billion loss in economic revenue is one of many indicators that the current electrical grid is outdated. Not only must the grid become more reliable, it must also become more efficient, reduce its impact on the environment, incorporate alternative energy sources, allow for more consumer choices, and ensure cyber security. In effect, it must become smart. Significant investments in the billions of dollars are being made (...) to lay the infrastructure of the future Smart Grid. However, the authors argue that we must take great care not to sacrifice consumer privacy amidst an atmosphere of unbridled enthusiasm for electricity reform. Information proliferation, lax controls and insufficient oversight of this information could lead to unprecedented invasions of consumer privacy. Smart meters and smart appliances will constitute a data explosion of intimate details of daily life, and it is not yet clear who will have access to this information beyond a person’s utility provider. The authors of this paper urge the adoption of Dr. Ann Cavoukian’s conceptual model ‘SmartPrivacy’ to prevent potential invasions of privacy while ensuring full functionality of the Smart Grid. SmartPrivacy represents a broad arsenal of protections, encapsulating everything necessary to ensure that all of the personal information held by an organization is appropriately managed. These include: Privacy by Design; law, regulation and independent oversight; accountability and transparency; market forces, education and awareness; audit and control; data security; and fair information practices. Each of these elements is important, but the concept of Privacy by Design represents its sine qua non. When applying SmartPrivacy to the Smart Grid, not only will the grid be able to, for example, become increasingly resistant to attack and natural disasters—it will be able to do so while also becoming increasingly resistant to data leakage and breaches of personal information. The authors conclude that SmartPrivacy must be built into the Smart Grid during its current nascent stage, allowing for both consumer control of electricity consumption and consumer control of their personal information, which must go hand in hand. Doing so will ensure that consumer confidence and trust is gained, and that their participation in the Smart Grid contributes to the vision of creating a more efficient and environmentally friendly electrical grid, as well as one that is protective of privacy. This will result in a positive-sum outcome, where both environmental efficiency and privacy can coexist. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Dr. Jacques L. and Martin Hide-a-Guerre: The Subject of New HistoricismStephen Bretzius (bio)Joel Fineman. The Subjectivity Effect in Western Literary Tradition: Essays Toward the Release of Shakespeare’s Will. Cambridge: MIT P, 1991. [SW]Stephen Greenblatt. Learning to Curse: Essays in Early Modern Culture. New York: Routledge, 1990.Stephen Greenblatt. Shakespearean Negotiations: The Circulation of Social Energy in Renaissance England. Berkeley: U of California P, 1988.The word ‘theory’ stems from the Greek (...) verb theorein. The noun belonging to it is theoria. Peculiar to these words is a lofty and mysterious meaning. The verb theorein grew out of the coalescing of two root words, thea and horao. Thea (cf. theater) is the outward look, the aspect, in which something shows itself.... The second root word in theorein, horao, means: to look at something attentively, to look it over, to view it closely. Thus it follows that theorein is thean horan, to look attentively on the outward appearance wherein what presences becomes visible and, through such sight—seeing—to linger with it.—Martin Heidegger, “Science and Reflection”Hamlet: ‘Sblood, there is something in this more than natural, if philosophy could find it out. A flourish.Guildenstern: There are the players.—Hamlet 2.2.366–681In setting forth Shakespeare’s unique role within an important institutional appropriation of the early modern theater by the postmodern university, together with a corresponding postmodern theory already shaping the early modern theater, a highly stylized early play like Romeo and Juliet is a good place to begin. For here, and from the beginning, the play unfolds outside (and therefore inside) the “deconstructed” binarisms characteristic of a certain poststructural literary theory generally—womb-tomb, light-dark, female-male, Capulet-Montague, waking-sleeping, all-nothing, lark-nightingale, love-hate, late-early, vice-virtue, poison-remedy, mercy-murder, wedding-funeral, dove-raven, fiend-angel, wolf-lamb, miss-mend, stand-stir, haste-destiny, and so on. 1 Here the nonbinary language [End Page 73] of the theater anticipates the “unlimited semiosis” of postmodern literary and cultural theory precisely by extending that nonbinary language to the opposition theater-theory, which the play also undermines. To cite only one particularly central example, literary criticism’s ongoing concerns with the cultural and ritualistic origins of tragedy are not just explored but explained—theorized—by the play’s self-conscious identification of Juliet as both “dove” (“So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows” [1.5.48]) and “lamb” (“Juliet! Fast, I warrant her, she. / Why, lamb! Why, lady!” [4.5.1–2]). The theatrical experience of the play’s “poor sacrifices” [5.3.318] is further related to the Catholic mass, out of which Shakespeare’s own tragic theater significantly evolves, by “Come Lammas Eve at night shall she be fourteen” [1.3.17] (Lammas [hlammas] hlaf ‘loaf, bread,’ maesse ‘mass’) and “God’s bread, it makes me mad!” [3.5.176]. 2 Redoubling this Christian context for sacrifice, a seasonal parallel in the myth of Persephone stolen away by Pluto shows through “Death lies on her like an untimely frost / Upon the sweetest flower of all the field” [4.5.28–29] and “O son, the night before thy wedding-day / Hath Death lain with thy wife” [35–36]. Within the same ongoing theorization of the play’s own theater, the “pomegranate tree” in Juliet’s “It was the nightingale, and not the lark... / Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate tree” [3.5.2–4] further joins Juliet to Persephone, Lady Capulet to Ceres, and “love-devouring death” [2.6.7] to Hades.From the play to the theory, then, influential critiques of performative discourse and its ritualistic origins in postsubjective (post-Lacanian) sacrifice are generated not only by the postmodern university, but also, in Romeo and Juliet, by the early modern theater. For the play, and not simply the theory, is already about the play—and autobiographical, from Montague’s “Away from light steals home my heavy son, / And private in his chamber pens himself” [1.1.137–38] through Juliet’s “Was ever book containing such vile matter / So fairly bound” [3.2.83–84] to Romeo’s frantic “get me ink and paper... (shrink)

There is much that Christian churches can learn from relevant secularapproaches and adapt to support integration and participation within ourcongregations for adults with impairments. One of these approaches isSocial Role Valorization developed by Dr. Wolf Wolfensberger. In thisapproach, one considers the relevance of image and competency of deval-ued individuals and how these two areas impact access to “the good thingsof life.” This article applies these principles to the inclusion of vulnerablecongregational members into the life of the Christian church, asking (...) thequestion, “What would be better?” as a prompt for those in leadership toreflect on their current practices with an eye toward maturity in their prac-tices as they intersect the lives of devalued people. (shrink)

Die folgende Bibliographie wurde erstellt auf Anregungen mehrerer Autoren aus der ehemaligen DDR auf der vom APC organisierten Diskussionsrunde „Perspektiven der Philosophie der Chemie“ im November 1995 in der Humboldt-Universität Berlin (s. Mitteilungsblatt 1 (1995)). Im Sinne einer „unzensierten“ Bestandsaufnahme soll sie einen Überblick über chemiephilosophische Aktivitäten der DDR für sowohl systematische Anknüpfungen als auch philosophiehistorische Forschungen bieten. Unter den ebenfalls zahlreich vorliegenden chemiehistorischen Arbeiten sind nur ausgewählte begriffs-, theorien- und disziplinenhistorische sowie philosophiehistorisch relevante Texte berücksichtigt. Ebenfalls aufgenommen sind einige (...) chemiedidaktische Texte mit weltanschaulich-philosophischen oder erkenntnistheoretischen Inhalten. Das thematische Spektrum ist zwar weitgehend auf theoretisch-philosophische Fragen beschränkt, aber hierin durchaus weit gefächert. Hinsichtlich der wissenschaftlichen Originalität und Qualität sind ganz beträchtliche Differenzen festzustellen. Es bleibt dem Leser überlassen, zwischen den zahlreichen Kurzbemerkungen und Paraphrasierungen „offizieller“ Grundsätze des dialektischen Materialismus diejenigen Forschungsarbeiten zu selektieren, die eigenständig reflektierend chemiephilosophisches Neuland beschreiten und eine Grundlage für weitere Forschungen darstellen sollten. Die Bibliographie wurde z.T. aus Angaben der Autoren, überwiegend jedoch durch eigene Recherchen in Bibliographien, den Inhaltverzeichnissen diverser Zeitschriften sowie den Katalogbeständen der Deutschen Bibliothek Leipzig erstellt. Die Angaben sind zum größten Teil kontrolliert und vervollständigt. Mein Dank gilt Prof. Dr. Hubert Laitko (Berlin), Prof. Dr. Gustav Kertscher (Mühlhausen), Dr. Alfred Neubauer (Berlin), Dr. Reinhardt Pester (Berlin), Dr. habil. Horst Remane (Halle), Dr. Wolf-Dietrich Sprung (Rostock) für die Bereitstellung von Veröffentlichungsverzeichnissen sowie insbesondere Prof.. (shrink)

Based on the text Spinoza's Short treatise on God, man and his well-being, translated by Dr. A. Wolf from the Dutch [version of the author's Tractatus de Deo et homine].

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ethics CommentaryTamra Lysaght, Senior Research FellowThe case scenario reflects the dilemmas frequently faced by researchers who discover incidental findings in the course of their studies. Indeed, the literature suggests that the prevalence of incidental findings in neuroimaging research is common,1 and a recent meta-analysis found that such findings increase significantly with age.2 Thus, given the age of the study population and increased likelihood of co-morbidities, it is puzzling that (...) the research team did not anticipate the possibility of finding an anomaly. Even more puzzling is that the reviewing IRB did not detect this omission and require that the team build a plan into the research protocol for managing incidental findings. Following international recommendations,3 such a plan would have likely included protocols for obtaining consent in dealing with an incidental finding, a procedure for evaluating the clinical relevance of the finding, and arranging for suitable follow-up care if necessary.Nevertheless, the research team, not having obtained consent to disclose an incidental finding to the participant, or not, must decide whether to break protocol and contact the participant with information that could have serious health implications for his or her health, especially if the observed lesion turns out to be cancer or some other life-threatening neuropathology. Any decision to break the research protocol should be made in consultation with the approving IRB. The principal investigator, Dr. M, who is ultimately responsible for the ethical conduct of this study, has a number of factors to consider when making this decision. First and foremost, Dr. M will need to weigh up the risks and benefits of disclosing the findings to this 72-year-old [End Page 283] research participant who is presumably already experiencing cognitive impairments, if not early stage symptoms of dementia.Numerous international scholars agree that disclosure of incidental findings should rely on the net beneficence to an individual research participant.4 Specifically, Wolf et al. argue that there should be a strong net benefit for disclosing an incidental finding, such that the information reveals a condition that is likely to be either life-threatening or grave and can be avoided or ameliorated through an intervention. In such instances, the researchers have an ethical obligation to disclose the findings and potentially follow up with clinical care. However, if there is only a net possible benefit, such that the condition is not life-threatening but may be grave or serious and cannot be avoided or ameliorated, then investigators may consider other factors, such as the respect that is owed to research participants and their needs and preferences for information about their health and well-being. Where the condition is not likely to be serious, researchers are not compelled to disclose an incidental finding.In determining the seriousness of an incidental finding, a specialist with expertise in assessing the clinical significance of MRI scans is needed to examine the participants’ images.5 In this instance, Dr. M has a neurologist on the research team who has detected the lesion but is unable to ascertain its clinical relevance without further investigation. The reasons why follow-up information is required is not detailed in the case scenario, but may have arisen because the scans were taken for research purposes and may not be clinically validated for diagnostic purposes — a possibility given the aims of the study (i.e., to elucidate the transition of minimal cognitive impairment to dementia, not brain tumours). For whatever reason, the detected lesion is only a suspected incidental finding that may or may not be life-threatening or grave. Thus, the net benefit to the participant in disclosing this unclear finding is harder to judge.Assuming that the lesion is a serious or life-threatening condition, the team may consider whether it can be avoided or ameliorated with an intervention. The cognitively impaired, although still mentally competent, participant is 72 years old and may respond poorly to a neurosurgical intervention if the diagnosis of a tumour or malignancy is confirmed. The physical and emotional distress of such a procedure may exacerbate the existing cognitive impairments, reducing the net benefit ratio of the disclosure. Indeed, the team should consider the impact that the disclosure... (shrink)

In this paper we examine the case of Tay, the Microsoft AI chatbot that was launched in March, 2016. After less than 24 hours, Microsoft shut down the experiment because the chatbot was generating tweets that were judged to be inappropriate since they included racist, sexist, and anti-Semitic language. We contend that the case of Tay illustrates a problem with the very nature of learning software that interacts directly with the public, and the developer's role and responsibility associated with it. (...) We make the case that when LS interacts directly with people or indirectly via social media, the developer has additional ethical responsibilities beyond those of standard software. There is an additional burden of care. (shrink)

Kyiv-Mohyla Seminar on the History of Philosophy was established by the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy’s Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies in 2003. In this yearly seminar, the Department’s members as well as the historians of philosophy from other academic institutions regularly take part. Since 2003, 16 meetings of the seminar took place. They were focused on such topics as “Historiography of Philosophy in Ukraine: Current State and Perspectives”, “Actual Problems of the Source Studies in the Historiography of Philosophy”, “The Problem of (...) Text Interpretation in the Historiography of Philosophy”, “Dmytro Chyzhevskyi as a Historian of Philosophy”, “Historiography of Philosophy in Ukraine: Current State and Perspectives”, “The Problem of Method in the Historiography of Philosophy”, “Oleksii Losiev: Personality and Heritage ”, “Methodology of the Historiography of Philosophy: Actual Strategies”, “Wilhelm Windelband as a Philosopher and Historian of Philosophy ”, “Hegel’s Heritage in the Mirror of Interpretations”, “The Studies on the History of Philosophy: New Generation”, “Kant’s Criticism from the perspective of Wolf’s dogmatism”, “The Reception of Indian Philosophy in Ukraine: 1840s–1930s”, “Did Kant Answer the Question on What a Man Is?”. The proceedings of the early three meetings were published in a special volume. The current issue of “NaUKMA Research Papers in Philosophy and Religious Studies” contains the proceedings of the sixteenth meeting of Kyiv-Mohyla Seminar on the History of Philosophy, which took place at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy on February 1, 2017. The main speaker was Dr. Taras Lyuty, while the co-speakers included Dr. Mykhailo Minakov and Dr. Vakhtang Kebuladze. The meeting was conducted by Prof. Vadym Menzhulin. The audio recording of the meeting was deciphered by a PhD-student Taras Fostiak. (shrink)

Human interactions are often improvised rather than scripted, which suggests that efficient coordination can emerge even when collective plans are largely underspecified. One possibility is that such forms of coordination primarily rely on mutual influences between interactive partners, and on perception–action couplings such as entrainment or mimicry. Yet some forms of improvised joint actions appear difficult to explain solely by appealing to these emergent mechanisms. Here, we focus on collective free improvisation, a form of highly unplanned creative practice where both (...) agents' subjective reports and the complexity of their interactions suggest that shared intentions may sometimes emerge to support coordination during the course of the improvisation, even in the absence of verbal communication. In four experiments, we show that shared intentions spontaneously emerge during collective musical improvisations, and that they foster coordination on multiple levels, over and beyond the mere influence of shared information. We also show that musicians deploy communicative strategies to manifest and propagate their intentions within the group, and that this predicts better coordination. Overall, our results suggest that improvised and scripted joint actions are more continuous with one another than it first seems, and that they differ merely in the extent to which they rely on emergent or planned coordination mechanisms. (shrink)

There are well-known problems for formalist accounts of game-play with regards to cheating. Such accounts seem to be committed to cheaters being unable to win–or even play–the game, yet it seems that there are instances of cheaters winning games. In this paper, I expand the discussion of such problems by introducing cases of pre-game cheating, and see how a formalist–specifically a Suitsian–account can accommodate such problems. Specifically, I look at two (fictional) examples where the alleged game-players cheat prior to a (...) game-instance in such as a way as to cast doubt on whether the alleged game-players are truly playing the game. To escape the worries brought about by these examples of pre-game cheating, I will appeal to the concept of nested games. This concept will give us the needed tools to explain how the alleged players are cheating and how the alleged players are players. On the whole, this discussion should help illuminate some important issues with regards to cheating and rules on a Suitsian account of game-play, and help give support for formalist accounts more generally. (shrink)

Despite the fact that the requirement to obtain informed consent for medical procedures is deeply enshrined in both U.S. moral and legal doctrine, empirical studies and anecdotal accounts show that women's rights to informed consent and refusal of treatment are routinely undermined and ignored during childbirth. For example, citing the most recent Listening to Mothers survey, Marianne Nieuwenhuijze and Lisa Kane Low state that "a significant number of women said they felt pressure from a caregiver to agree to having an (...) intervention that they did not want during birth". Specifically, Nieuwenhuijze and Low cite that "19% of women who did not have epidural analgesia felt... (shrink)

(2013). Moral Ground. Ethics, Policy & Environment. ???aop.label???. doi: 10.1080/21550085.2013.844582.

Participant-driven research is a burgeoning domain of research innovation, often facilitated by mobile technologies. Return of results and data are common hallmarks, grounded in transparency and data democracy. PDR has much to teach traditional research about these practices and successful engagement. Recommendations calling for new state laws governing research with mHealth modalities common in PDR and federal creation of review mechanisms, threaten to stifle valuable participant-driven innovation, including in return of results.

Human genomics is a translational field spanning research, clinical care, public health, and direct-to-consumer testing. However, law differs across these domains on issues including liability, consent, promoting quality of analysis and interpretation, and safeguarding privacy. Genomic activities crossing domains can thus encounter confusion and conflicts among these approaches. This paper suggests how to resolve these conflicts while protecting the rights and interests of individuals sequenced. Translational genomics requires this more translational approach to law.

Previous research suggested a role of gaze in preference formation, not merely as an expression of preference, but also as a causal influence. According to the gaze cascade hypothesis, the longer subjects look at an item, the more likely they are to develop a preference for it. However, to date the connection between viewing and liking has been investigated predominately with self-paced viewing conditions in which the subjects were required to select certain items from simultaneously presented stimuli on the basis (...) of perceived visual attractiveness. Such conditions might promote a default, but non-mandatory connection between viewing and liking. To explore whether the connection is separable, we examined the evaluative processing of single naturalistic food images in a 2 x 2 design, conducted completely within subjects, in which we varied both the type of exposure (self-paced versus time-controlled) and the type of evaluation (non-exclusive versus exclusive). In the self-paced exclusive evaluation, longer viewing was associated with a higher likelihood of a positive evaluation. However, in the self-paced non-exclusive evaluation, the trend reversed such that longer viewing durations were associated with lesser ratings. Furthermore, in the time-controlled tasks, both with non-exclusive and exclusive evaluation, there was no significant relationship between the viewing duration and the evaluation. The overall pattern of results was consistent for viewing times measured in terms of exposure duration (i.e., the duration of stimulus presentation on the screen) and in terms of actual gaze duration (i.e., the amount of time the subject effectively gazed at the stimulus on the screen). The data indicated that viewing does not intrinsically lead to a higher evaluation when evaluating single food images; instead, the relationship between viewing duration and evaluation depends on the type of task. We suggest that self-determination of exposure duration may be a prerequisite for any influence from viewing time on evaluative processing, regardless of whether the influence is facilitative. Moreover, the purported facilitative link between viewing and liking appears to be limited to exclusive evaluation, when only a restricted number of items can be included in a chosen set. (shrink)

Researchers now commonly collect biospecimens for genomic analysis together with information from mobile devices and electronic health records. This rich combination of data creates new opportunities for understanding and addressing important health issues, but also intensifies challenges to privacy and confidentiality. Here, we elucidate the “web” of legal protections for precision medicine research by integrating findings from qualitative interviews with structured legal research and applying them to realistic research scenarios involving various privacy threats.

Product differentiation has emerged as a central dynamic in contemporary agrofood systems. Departure from the mode of standardization emblematic of agrofood modernization raises questions about future technical trajectories and the ways in which learning will be sustained. This article examines two innovation trajectories: the rapid coupling of biotechnologies and information technologies to yield products differentiated by constituent components—a model based on a cognitive logic of decomposition/ recomposition—and the proliferation of product networks that mobilize distinctive, localized resources to create complete identities—a (...) model based on a cognitive logic of identity. The article analyzes the information structures—institutional mechanisms that support information exchange and learning—in each of these opposed development paradigms. We find that knowledge creation under each of the logics occurs through mechanisms not recognized within the respective paradigms. On this basis, we derive institutional hybridity as a fundamental resource in systems of innovation. (shrink)

While the idea of philosophy as conceptual analysis has attracted many adherents and undergone a number of variations, in general it suffers from an authority problem with two dimensions. First, it is unclear why the analysis of a concept should have objective authority: why explicating what we mean should express how things are. Second, conceptual analysis seems to lack intersubjective authority: why philosophical analysis should apply to more than a parochial group of individuals. I argue that Hegel’s conception of social (...) ontology, focused on his concept of “ethical life” (Sittlichkeit), helps to explain how concepts (and their explication) have both objective and intersubjective authority in the social domain. Hegel claims that modern institutions are the product of self-conscious purposes, so that they are conceptually constituted. Concepts do not just represent these objects and so depend on a contingent relation to them. As many contemporary social ontologists agree, this means that our concepts of these institutions are uniquely epistemically “transparent.” They have objective authority. Concepts have intersubjective authority in the modern world as well, according to Hegel. However, I show that this feature of Hegel’s account does not rely on the solution to a philosophical problem. Rather, since the concepts of modern ethical life are “essentially contested,” their content depends on the practical and political agreement of modern subjects. This means that concepts can only have objective authority if some prior intersubjective agreement has been reached. The role of philosophy as conceptual analysis is thus importantly dependent on political developments. (shrink)

O dossiê A Democracia Antiga Revisitada, que a Revista Archai ora apresenta, resulta diretamente do XIX Seminário Internacional Archai dedicado a este tema e realizado na Universidade de Brasília entre os dias 22 e 26 de agosto de 2022.

Cells mitigate the detrimental consequences of DNA damage on genome stability by attempting high fidelity repair. Homologous recombination templates DNA double‐strand break (DSB) repair on an identical or near identical donor sequence in a process that can in principle access the entire genome. Other physiological processes, such as homolog recognition and pairing during meiosis, also harness the HR machinery using programmed DSBs to physically link homologs and generate crossovers. A consequence of the homology search process by a long nucleoprotein filament (...) is the formation of multi‐invasions (MI), a joint molecule in which the damaged ssDNA has invaded more than one donor molecule. Processing of MI joint molecules can compromise the integrity of both donor sites and lead to their rearrangement. Here, two mechanisms for the generation of rearrangements as a pathological consequence of MI processing are detailed and the potential relevance for non‐allelic homologous recombination discussed. Finally, it is proposed that MI‐induced crossover formation may be a feature of physiological recombination. (shrink)

Developing ethical standards for clinical use of large-scale genome and exome sequencing has proven challenging, in part due to the inevitability of incidental or secondary findings. Policy of the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics has evolved but remains problematic. In 2013, ACMG issued policy recommending mandatory analysis of 56 extra genes whenever sequencing was ordered for any indication, in order to ascertain positive findings in pathogenic and actionable genes. Widespread objection yielded a 2014 amendment allowing patients to opt-out (...) from analysis of the extra genes. In 2015, ACMG published the amended policy, providing that patients could opt out of the full set of extra genes, but not a subset. In 2016, ACMG enlarged the set and indicated planned expansion of the roster of extra genes to include pharmacogenetic findings. ACMG policy does not protect the respect for patient choice that prevails in other domains of clinical medicine, where informed consent allows patients to opt in to desired testing. By creating an expanding domain of genomic testing that will be routinely conducted unless patients reject the entire set of extra tests, ACMG creates an exceptional domain clinical practice that is not supported by ethics or science. (shrink)

Using testimonies from immigrants and examples of immigrant policies, this book proposes an interdisciplinary, feminist approach to immigration justice.