Towards biodeconstruction -- Between life and death: différance -- The absolute programme -- The text and the living -- Between life and death: the bond -- Beyond life death: autoimmunity -- Living on: the arche-performative.

Background Providing understandable information to patients is necessary to achieve the aims of the Informed Consent process: respecting and promoting patients’ autonomy and protecting patients from harm. In recent decades, new, primarily digital technologies have been used to apply and test innovative formats of Informed Consent. We conducted a systematic review to explore the impact of using digital tools for Informed Consent in both clinical research and in clinical practice. Understanding, satisfaction and participation were compared for digital tools versus the (...) non-digital Informed Consent process. Methods We searched for studies on available electronic databases, including Pubmed, EMBASE, and Cochrane. Studies were identified using specific Mesh-terms/keywords. We included studies, published from January 2012 to October 2020, that focused on the use of digital Informed Consent tools for clinical research, or clinical procedures. Digital interventions were defined as interventions that used multimedia or audio–video to provide information to patients. We classified the interventions into 3 different categories: video only, non-interactive multimedia, and interactive multimedia. Results Our search yielded 19,579 publications. After title and abstract screening 100 studies were retained for full-text analysis, of which 73 publications were included. Studies examined interactive multimedia, non-interactive multimedia, and videos, and most studies were conducted on adults. Innovations in consent were tested for clinical/surgical procedures and clinical research. For research IC, 21 outcomes were explored, with a positive effect on at least one of the studied outcomes being observed in 8/12 studies. For clinical/surgical procedures 49 outcomes were explored, and 21/26 studies reported a positive effect on at least one of the studied outcomes. Conclusions Digital technologies for informed consent were not found to negatively affect any of the outcomes, and overall, multimedia tools seem desirable. Multimedia tools indicated a higher impact than videos only. Presence of a researcher may potentially enhance efficacy of different outcomes in research IC processes. Studies were heterogeneous in design, making evaluation of impact challenging. Robust study design including standardization is needed to conclusively assess impact. (shrink)

BackgroundSonographic mesenteric pattern in celiac disease (CD) suggests a hyperdynamic circulation. Despite the well-known CD-related neurological involvement, no study has systematically explored the cerebral hemodynamics to transcranial Doppler sonography.Materials and methodsMontreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) and 17-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS) were assessed in 15 newly diagnosed subjects with CD and 15 age-, sex-, and education-matched healthy controls. Cerebral blood flow (CBF) velocities and indices of resistivity (RI) and pulsatility (PI) from the middle cerebral artery (MCA), bilaterally, and the basilar (...) artery (BA) were recorded. We also assessed cerebral vasomotor reactivity (CVR) through the breath-holding test (BHT).ResultsWorse scores of MoCA and HDRS were found in patients compared to controls. Although patients showed higher values of CBF velocity from MCA bilaterally compared to controls, both at rest and after BHT, no comparison reached a statistical significance, whereas after BHT both RI and PI from BA were significantly higher in patients. A significant negative correlation between both indices from BA and MoCA score were also noted.ConclusionThese treatment-naïve CD patients may show some subtle CVR changes in posterior circulation, thus possibly expanding the spectrum of pathomechanisms underlying neuroceliac disease and in particular gluten ataxia. Subclinical identification of cerebrovascular pathology in CD may help adequate prevention and early management of neurological involvement. (shrink)

According to a longstanding philosophical tradition dating back to Aristotle, certain proofs do not only certify the truth of their conclusion but also explain it. Lately, much effort is being devo...

In Biodeconstruction (2018) I argued that Derrida, in the Life Death seminar (1975–76), would have anticipated the most recent developments in epigenetics, a field in which the dogma of genetic determinism is radically challenged by noting the influence of the environment in the production of mutations in the genetic program, particularly when a genetic population is faced with a radical change in its environmental conditions, which I propose to call an ‘ecological event’. I explore a comparison between the Derridean deconstruction (...) of genetic determinism and the theoretical elaborations of epigenesis, referring to the work of Eva Jablonka and Marion J. Lamb, Evolution in Four Dimensions (2005). Jablonka and Lamb propose a theory of genetic variation in which mutations would be the result of the interpretation of unpredictable environmental events by the individual whose survival would be in danger. Through this comparison, I show that the study of ‘interpretive Mutations’ as reactions to unpredictable environmental events can be helpful in understanding the Derridean theme of the ‘event’, rearticulating it in relation to the radical environmental changes that humanity will sooner or later face. (shrink)

According to a testimony of Sextus Empiricus's Against the Physicists, Epicurus began to study philosophy because his grammar teacher, dealing with the birth of Chaos in Hesiod's Theogony, was not able to explain what the cause and origin of Chaos were. If this evidence is reliable, the question of disorder was extremely significant for Epicurean philosophy. Usually, ancient pagan and Christian critics of materialistic philosophies accused Democritus and Epicurus of denying the power of providence. To Dante, Democritus is the philosopher (...) who 'l mondo a caso pone in the sense that, according to the Atomist, the world derives from chance.Eva Marie Noller's book—specifically devoted... (shrink)

This short note deals with an epigram preserved by the Anthologia Palatina Book IX (360) attributed to a Metrodorus whom, especially for chronological reasons, one tends to identify with the Epicurean Metrodorus of Lampsacus, at least from the Phoinix von Kolophon by Gustav Adolph Gerhard (1909). This epigram looks like a “symmetrical” polemical reply to the immediately preceding one (AP IX 359), which can be attributed (but not without difficulty) to the Hellenistic poet Posidippus. The careful historical-philosophical examination of the (...) contents of this alleged Epicurean epigram (360) leads to believe that it is basically impossible that the author is an Epicurean philosopher such as Metrodorus. (shrink)

Journal Name: Apeiron Issue: Ahead of print.

Two Worlds represents an attempt to overcome the boundaries between science fiction and fantasy. The story is set in a remote future, on an Earth very different from today: the Chimeric development has taken human evolution on strange paths, paths that have led to the advent of other races; hybrid species that possess in their modified DNA genes coming from birds and fishes. The presence of a mysterious Tower of Seeds—a long forgotten place—will rekindle in some people new hopes and (...) the desire, perhaps utopian, to restore the ancient environmental balance with planet Earth. (shrink)

De Lubac did not fully condemn modernity as neotomism did, but he appreciated some positive aspects (such as the value of subject and of justice), even if he condemned atheism (in Comte and Marx).