Child sexual exploitation and abuse has grave implications for the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people. It has been linked to a wide range of difficulties which may extend into adulthood. School-based prevention programs that aim to raise awareness are popular, however, have historically lacked robust and consistent evaluation. The purpose of the present study was therefore to explore young people’s experiences of attending a school-based theater-in-education program, and the impact this had on their awareness and understanding (...) of CSEA. Four focus groups of between four to six participants each were conducted with young people from two co-educational State schools in the United Kingdom. The approach of Template Analysis was used to analyze the data, and revealed a number of themes related to the superordinate themes of “Information and Detail Delivered” and “Format and Timing.” The results suggest that participants gained new awareness and understanding of aspects related to CSEA, including other forms of exploitation, as well as how to avoid harm and what to do “if bad things happen.” Participants further reported that the theater performance/live element of the program was particularly impactful, feeling that this was delivered to them at the right time, but suggesting that younger people would also benefit from the important messages. In addition, areas for improvement were identified in terms of the delivery of the program, and the issue of victim blaming. Findings are discussed with a view to practical implications and directions for future research. (shrink)

Now, twenty years later, this collection of fifteenessays brings her work into dialogue with those philosophical views that are at center stage today-- in critical theory, communitarianism, virtue theory, and feminism.

Our aim in this article is to define the difficulties that clinical ethics services encounter when they are asked to demonstrate the value a clinical ethics service (CES) could and should have for an institution and those it serves. The topic emerged out of numerous related presentations at the Un- Conference hosted by the Cleveland Clinic in August 2018 that identified challenges of articulating the value of clinical ethics work for hospital administrators. After a review these talks, it was apparent (...) that the field of clinical ethics may be at a crisis of sorts due to increased pressure to provide explicit measures to healthcare institutions to concretely demonstrate that CESs make a valuable difference in healthcare delivery. In this article, we grapple with how to satisfy the need for demonstrable value in a field in which metrics alone may not capture the scope of clinical ethics practice. We suggest that capturing the value of a CES has been difficult because the benefits of ethics consultation may be overt or attributable to the CES, but are often hidden due to the systems-level and process-oriented nature of clinical ethics work. Part of the difficulty in demonstrating the value of CESs is capturing and conveying all of the ways the integration of a CES throughout an institution positively affects patients, families, visitors, healthcare professionals, administrators, and the institution itself. Our aim is to (1) elucidate the multifaceted value added by a CES, including value that tends to be hidden and (2) suggest how to demonstrate value to others in a way that is not simplistic or reductionistic. (shrink)

Implantable brain-computer interfaces are being developed to restore speech capacity for those who are unable to speak. Patients with locked-in syndrome or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis could be able to use covert speech – vividly imagining saying something without actual vocalisation – to trigger neural controlled systems capable of synthesising speech. User control has been identified as particularly pressing for this type of BCI. The incorporation of machine learning and statistical language models into the decoding process introduces a contribution to the (...) output that is beyond the user’s control. Whilst this type of ‘shared control’ of BCI action is not unique to speech BCIs, the automated shaping of what a user ‘says’ has a particularly acute ethical dimension, which may differ from parallel concerns surrounding automation in movement BCIs. This paper provides an analysis of the control afforded to the user of a speech BCI of the sort under development, as well as the relationships between accuracy, control, and the user’s ownership of the speech produced. Through comparing speech BCIs with BCIs for movement, we argue that, whilst goal selection is the more significant locus of control for the user of a movement BCI, control over process will be more significant for the user of the speech BCI. The design of the speech BCI may therefore have to trade off some possible efficiency gains afforded by automation in order to preserve sufficient guidance control necessary for users to express themselves in ways they prefer. We consider the implications for the speech BCI user’s responsibility for produced outputs and their ownership of token outputs. We argue that these are distinct assessments. Ownership of synthetic speech concerns whether the content of the output sufficiently represents the user, rather than their morally relevant, causal role in producing that output. (shrink)

Domestic and sexual violence research has traditionally been associated with feminist qualitative methodology; however, quantitative methods are increasingly used by feminists in research examining the prevalence of and issues related to rape and sexual assault, either as standalone methods or in combination with other, qualitative methods (i.e. mixed methods). Freedom of Information (FOI) requests are a data collection tool that allow citizens to obtain data held by public authorities in the UK and are particularly useful for uncovering information on marginalised (...) groups who may be difficult to recruit in qualitative research. Whilst they are frequently used by journalists, their potential is yet to be fully realised by social researchers. This paper reflects on the use of Freedom of Information requests in a mixed-method feminist study exploring sexual violence against people aged 60 years and over. (shrink)

A biographical portrait of Hannah Arendt. Mentions her writings on Jewish subjects, and her work in fighting Nazism during the 1930s. Describes her attempt to explain Nazi genocide in "The Origins of Totalitarianism" (1951). She argued that antisemitism is partly caused by the Jews themselves, their economic position in modern society, and their refusal to take part in public life. Other factors leading to the Final Solution were imperialism and the rise of mass society, but the ultimate motivating force (...) was an impulse of "radical evil." Ch. 7 (p. 101-111) deals with Arendt's book "Eichmann in Jerusalem" (1961) and her ideas on the "banality of evil" as exemplified by Eichmann. (shrink)

Arbitrary communication systems can emerge from iconic beginnings through processes of conventionalisation via interaction. Here, we explore whether this process of conventionalisation occurs with continuous, auditory signals. We conducted an artificial signalling experiment. Participants either created signals for themselves, or for a partner in a communication game. We found no evidence that the speech-like signals in our experiment became less iconic or simpler through interaction. We hypothesise that the reason for our results is that when it is difficult to be (...) iconic initially because of the constraints of the modality, then iconicity needs to emerge to enable grounding before conventionalisation can occur. Further, pressures for discrimination, caused by the expanding meaning space in our study, may cause more complexity to emerge, again as a result of the restrictive signalling modality. Our findings have possible implications for the processes of conventionalisation possible in signed and spoken languages, as the spoken modality is more restrictive than the manual modality. (shrink)

The Principle of Procreative Beneficence (PB) holds that when a couple plans to have a child, they have significant moral reason to select, of the possible children they could have, the child who is most likely to experience the greatest wellbeing – that is, the most advantaged child, the child with the best chance at the best life.1 PB captures the common sense intuitions of many about reproductive decisions. PB does not posit an absolute moral obligation – it does not (...) dictate what people must do. Instead it holds that there is a significant moral reason to select the best child, but one that must be weighed against other reasons.Recent research suggests that it may become possible to derive gametes (eggs and sperm) from human stem cells in vitro, a process which we will term in vitro gametogenesis (IVG). The ability to create large numbers of eggs or sperm through IVG greatly increases our capacity to select the best child possible. (shrink)

There is a growing appreciation of the extent of transcriptome variation across individual cells of the same cell type. While expression variation may be a byproduct of, for example, dynamic or homeostatic processes, here we consider whether single‐cell molecular variation per se might be crucial for population‐level function. Under this hypothesis, molecular variation indicates a diversity of hidden functional capacities within an ensemble of “identical” cells, and this functional diversity facilitates collective behavior that would be inaccessible to a homogenous population. (...) In reviewing this topic, we explore possible functions that might be carried by a heterogeneous ensemble of cells; however, this question has proven difficult to test, both because methods to manipulate molecular variation are limited and because it is complicated to define, and measure, population‐level function. We consider several possible methods to further pursue the hypothesis that “variation is function” through the use of comparative analysis and novel experimental techniques. (shrink)

Anorectics typically maintain that they perceive their bodies as ‘fat’ and yet also state that they are aware of being ‘too thin.’ In this study, I use phenomenological insights from the work of Merleau-Ponty and Sartre to explore this apparent contradiction. I suggest that the anorectic experiences a pathological corporealization of the body, and show how this bodily experience may be described as ‘feeling fat’ due to cultural influences. In addition, I explore how this anomalous bodily experience may lead to (...) partial feelings of disassociation from visual perceptions of the body, allowing the anorectic to recognize the emaciation of a reflected image of herself without it impacting upon her subjective experience of the body as ‘fat.’. (shrink)

We use game theoretic models to take an in-depth look at the dynamics of discrimination and academic collaboration. We find that in collaboration networks, small minority groups may be more likely to end up being discriminated against while collaborating. We also find that discrimination can lead members of different social groups to mostly collaborate with in-group members, decreasing the effective diversity of the social network. Drawing on previous work, we discuss how decreases in the diversity of scientific collaborations might negatively (...) affect the progress of epistemic communities. (shrink)

One of the reasons why GMOs have met public resistance in the past is that they are perceived as “unnatural”. The basis for this claim has, in part, to do with crossing species boundaries, which is considered morally objectionable. The emergence of CRISPR is sometimes argued to be an ethical game-changer in this regard since it does not require the insertion of foreign genes. Based on an empirical bioethics study including individual interviews and focus groups with laypeople and other stakeholders, (...) this article analyses the normative role of appeals to naturalness in discussions about the moral acceptability of using CRISPR in salmon farming. It discusses two dimensions of naturalness found in the material– living by species-specific nature and being unaffected by humans– and argues that these dimensions put down criteria for the application of CRISPR that lead to a conflict between our moral duties towards the farmed salmon and those we hold towards the wild salmon as a threatened species. It also points to a paradox which is likely to gain traction with further climate change and biodiversity loss, namely that while nature, understood as that which is unaffected by humans, is presented as an ideal, conserving nature in its pristine state may rely on technology and human intervention. (shrink)

This paper critically assesses the current debates in philosophy of science that focus on the concept of values. In these debates, it is often assumed that all relevant non-epistemic influences on scientific research can be described as values and, consequently, that science carries social legitimacy if the correct values play their proper role in research. I argue that values are _not_ the only relevant non-epistemic influences on research: not unless our definition of values is so broad that it becomes unmanageable. (...) Other factors also affect the authority and social legitimacy of science. I employ political theorist Iris Marion Young’s concepts of social perspectives, opinions and interests to attempt a differentiation of contextual influences relevant to scientific research. While problems arising from these influences may overlap, they often differ in important ways too. As a consequence, I argue that contextual influences cannot be managed jointly but require distinct and complementary strategies. (shrink)

The study examines the employment experience of workers with intellectual disability in the hotel sector in Australia. Through a qualitative case study, we interviewed managers and WWID, and held focus groups with supervisors and colleagues at three hotels. We have used the theoretical framework of corporate social responsibility to investigate HR practices that create an ethical climate which promote authentic work experiences for WWID. The study found that participative work practices provide evidence of how WWID fit in at the workplace. (...) When workers are confronted with work-related anxieties, the pragmatic nature of existential authenticity becomes a reality. Our findings reveal that managing workers ethically can lead to more authentic work experiences. In turn, this may promote social inclusion of WWID and improve their reported well-being. (shrink)

As women advance into leadership roles, the gender discrimination they face is a pressing issue that demands attention from a business ethics perspective. This paper considers the downstream consequences of such gender discrimination on their subordinates. Previous research indicates that women leaders in male-dominated organizations often face gender bias, which may prompt them to distance themselves from their gender identity as a coping mechanism (self-group distancing behavior). By integrating concepts from management, psychology, and business ethics, we investigate the following research (...) question: What are the downstream consequences of gender discrimination experienced by women leaders on their subordinates? We hypothesize that women leaders’ self-group distancing responses create uncertainty belonging among women subordinates, which leads to adverse outcomes such as decreased leadership aspirations and increased turnover intentions. Our results suggest that when a woman leader engages in self-group distancing because of gender discrimination, women subordinates experience reduced feelings of belonging, increased differentiation, diminished leadership aspirations, and heightened turnover intentions. In contrast, male subordinates’ sense of belonging, differentiation, leadership aspirations, and turnover intentions do not significantly differ when a woman leader engages in self-group distancing behavior. (shrink)

Alexithymia is characterized by difficulty identifying and describing one’s own emotion. Identifying and describing one’s emotion involves several cognitive processes, so alexithymia may result from a number of impairments. Here we propose the alexithymia language hypothesis—the hypothesis that language impairment can give rise to alexithymia—and critically review relevant evidence from healthy populations, developmental disorders, adult-onset illness, and acquired brain injury. We conclude that the available evidence is supportive of the alexithymia–language hypothesis, and therefore that language impairment may represent one of (...) multiple routes to alexithymia. Where evidence is lacking, we outline which approaches will be useful in testing this hypothesis. (shrink)

The demand for donor organs for transplantation in the UK far exceeds the supply. A number of improvements in the infrastructure surrounding organ donation, as well as attempts to increase public awareness, have been made over recent years, but there remains a massive shortfall. It has been proposed that a system of presumed consent for organ donation, in which all individuals are considered to be potential organ donors after death unless they have previously opted out, may serve to increase the (...) supply of organs. Recently the Welsh Assembly passed a Bill introducing presumed consent by 2015, but the debates regarding legislative changes are still on-going in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The ethical implications of presumed consent legislation are at the centre of these discussions. When examined by a principlist approach, presumed consent may be deemed to be an ethically beneficial measure to increase organ donation rates. It is argued here that the system of presumed consent may actually be more respectful of the principle of autonomy than a system of explicit consent, on the basis that it goes against the wishes of the fewest number of people, and it has clear benefits in terms of beneficence and justice whilst also being compatible with the principle of nonmaleficence. Although there is some debate about the precise impact that presumed consent would have on donation rates, there is evidence to suggest that it would result in an increase in the donor organ supply, when combined with improvements in education and infrastructure. (shrink)

Surgical expertise does not have a clear definition and is often culturally associated with power, authority, prestige, and case number rather than more objective proxies of excellence. Multiple models of expertise progression have been proposed including the Dreyfus model, however, they all currently require subjective evaluation of skill. Recently, efforts have been made to improve the ways in which surgical excellence is measured and expertise is defined using artificial intelligence, video recordings, and accelerometers. However, these aforementioned methods of assessment are (...) still subjective or indirect proxies of expertise, thus uncovering the neural mechanisms that differentiate expert surgeons from trainees may enhance the objectivity of surgical expertise validation. In fact, some researchers have already suggested that their neural imaging-based expertise classification methods outperform currently used methods of surgical skill certification such as the Fundamentals of Laparoscopic Surgery scores. Such imaging biomarkers would not only help better identify the highest performing surgeons, but could also improve residency programs by providing more objective, evidence-based feedback and developmental milestones for those in training and perhaps act as a marker of surgical potential in medical students. Despite the potential advantages of using neural imaging in the assessment of surgical expertise, this field of research remains in its infancy. This systematic review identifies studies that have applied neuromonitoring in assessing surgical skill across levels of expertise. The goals of this review are to identify the strongest neural indicators of surgical expertise, the limitations of the current literature on this subject, the most sensible future directions for further study. We found substantial evidence that surgical expertise can be delineated by differential activation and connectivity in the prefrontal cortex across multiple task and neuroimaging modalities. Specifically, novices tend to have greater PFC activation than experts under standard conditions in bimanual and decision-making tasks. However, under high temporal demand tasks, experts had increased PFC activation whereas novices had decreased PFC activation. Common limitations uncovered in this review were that task difficulty was often insufficient to delineate between residents and attending. Moreover, attending level involvement was also low in multiple studies which may also have contributed to this issue. Most studies did not analyze the ability of their neuromonitoring findings to accurately classify subjects by level of expertise. Finally, the predominance of fNIRS as the neuromonitoring modality limits our ability to uncover the neural correlates of surgical expertise in non-cortical brain regions. Future studies should first strive to address these limitations. In the longer term, longitudinal within-subjects design over the course of a residency or even a career will also advance the field. Although logistically arduous, such studies would likely be most beneficial in demonstrating effects of increasing surgical expertise on regional brain activation and inter-region connectivity. (shrink)

The synergies between viral and bacterial infections are well established. Most studies have been focused on the indirect mechanisms underlying this phenomenon, including immune modulation and alterations to the mucosal structures that promote pathogen outgrowth. A growing body of evidence implicates direct binding of virus to bacterial surfaces being an additional mechanism of synergy at the host–pathogen interface. These cross‐kingdom interactions enhance bacterial and viral adhesion and can alter tissue tropism. These bacterial–viral complexes play unique roles in pathogenesis and can (...) alter virulence potential. The bacterial–viral complexes may also play important roles in pathogen transmission. Additionally, the complexes are recognized by the host immune system in a distinct manner, thus presenting novel routes for vaccine development. These synergies are active for multiple species in both the respiratory and gastrointestinal tract, indicating that direct interactions between bacteria and virus to modulate host interactions are used by a diverse array of species. (shrink)

In explaining the emergence of conventions surrounding human cooperation and helping of those in need, it seems as though honest communication of need is an essential part of the story. While previous results indicate that punishment promotes cooperation, this paper will argue that the story is more complicated. Namely, whether punishment promotes cooperation depends on what you punish. Punishment of those who lie about their need for a resource may instead impede cooperation, as the attempts to deceive that arise in (...) cooperative endeavors may be too costly to make cooperation worthwhile. (shrink)

Cora Diamond has criticized capacity-based approaches to determining the moral status of animals, arguing instead that the morally significant fact is that we have relationships to animals as our fellow creatures. This paper explores implications of her approach to fish and the practice of fish farming. Fish differ from most other animals due to their appearances and under-water existence, and it is not obvious that fish belong to our fellow creatures, and – if so – what it means for our (...) treatment of them. In particular: if fish are fellow creatures, can we treat them in the way done in contemporary salmon farming ? Iris Murdoch points out that moral differences are conceptual differences, that is differences in how we see the world. Similarly, Diamond argues that we should not consider ‘animal’ or ‘human’ as biological classifications – they are conceptual configurations that shape the way we think and make sense of the world. In this article, we explore the implication of the fellow creature concept for the case of fish, which challenge our ordinary understandings of companionship with animals. We argue that farmed salmon should be consibdered as a special kind of fellow creatures living in water, and discuss how scientific research on biological features of fish may influence how we see them. We also sketch how Diamond’s approach implies a need for reform of current salmon farming practices. (shrink)

Technologies controlled directly by the brain are being developed, evolving based on insights gained from neuroscience, and rehabilitative medicine. Besides neuro-controlled prosthetics aimed at restoring function lost somehow, technologies controlled via brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) may also extend a user’s horizon of action, freed from the need for bodily movement. Whilst BCI-mediated action ought to be, on the whole, treated as conventional action, law and policy ought to be amended to accommodate BCI action by broadening the definition of action as “willed (...) bodily movement”. Moreover, there are some dimensions of BCI mediated action that are significantly different to conventional cases. These relate to control. Specifically, to limits in both controllability of BCIs via neural states, and in foreseeability of outcomes from such actions. In some specific type of case, BCI-mediated action may be due to different ethical evaluation from conventional action. (shrink)

Up against capacity‐based approaches to animal ethics, Cora Diamond has put the idea of animals as our fellow creatures. The aim of this article is to explore the implications of this concept for our treatment of fish. Fish have traditionally been placed at the borders or even outside of the moral community, although there is growing evidence that they have perceptual and social capacities comparable to animals that are considered morally significant. Given that a fellow creature's approach is not primarily (...) concerned with capacities, fish may pose a challenge: Can fish be seen as our fellow creatures, and if so, on what grounds? In exploring these questions, we defend Diamond against Jeff McMahan's critique of her account and its implications that the fellow creature‐concept is reducible to either capacities or special relationships and leaves no room for argument‐based moral reform. We suggest that moral attention is key to grasping the moral significance of fish and discuss how scientific research can support such attention. In so doing, we demonstrate how Diamond's approach to animal ethics provides a viable alternative to the dominant animal ethics approaches. Finally, we indicate how this approach can be useful for discussions on industrial fish farming. (shrink)

Trait mindfulness confers emotional benefits and encourages skillful emotion regulation, in part because it helps people more deliberately attend to internal experiences and external surroundings. Such heightened attentional control might help skillfully deploy one’s attention towards certain kinds of stimuli, which may in turn help regulate emotions, but this remains unknown. Testing how trait mindful people deploy attention when regulating their emotions could help uncover the specific mechanisms of mindfulness that confer its emotional benefits. The present study aimed to determine (...) whether high trait mindfulness is associated with sustained attention biases to (i.e. longer gaze at) emotional scenes, when all participants are given the emotion regulation goal of staying in a positive mood. To measure this, we used eye tracking to assess selective attention to positive, neutral, and negative photographs. Higher trait mindfulness was associated with both a stronger attention bias for positive (vs. neutral and vs. negative) images, as well as greater success staying in a positive mood during viewing. Surprisingly, this attention bias towards the positive images did not mediate the relationship between mindfulness and maintenance of positive mood. Future work should compare visual attention to other emotion regulation strategies that may maximise positive affect for mindful people. (shrink)

ArgumentFilm scholars have long posed the question of the specificity of the film medium and the apparatus of cinema, asking what is unique to cinema, how it constrains and enables filmmakers and audiences in particular ways that other media do not. This question has rarely been considered in relation to scientific film, and here it is posed within the specific context of cell biology: What does the use of time-based media such as film coupled with the microscope allow scientists to (...) experience that other visualization practices do not? Examining three episodes in the twentieth-century study of the cell, this article argues that the apparatus of microcinematography constitutes what might be thought of as a technical portal to another world, a door that determines the experience of the world that lies on the other side of it. In this case, the design of apparatuses to capture time-lapsed images enabled the acceleration of cellular time, bringing it into the realm of human perception and experience. Further, the experience of the cellular temporal world was part of a distinct kind of cell biology, one that was focused on behavior rather than structure, focused on the relation between cells, and between the cell and its milieu rather than on cell-intrinsic features such as chromosomes or organelles. As such, the instruments and technical design of the microcinematographic apparatus may be understood as a kind of materialized epistemology, the history of which can elucidate how cinema was and is used to produce scientific knowledge. (shrink)

One of the main themes in Spinoza’s Ethics is the issue of human freedom: What does it consist in and how may it be attained? Spinoza’s ethical views crucially depend on his metaphysical theory, and this close connection provides the answer to several central questions concerning Spinoza’s conception of human freedom. Firstly, how can we accommodate human freedom within Spinoza’s necessitarianism—in the context of which Spinoza rejects the notion of a free will? Secondly, how can humans, as merely finite beings, (...) genuinely attain freedom? Can Spinoza defend his claim that we may even attain blessedness? I will argue that these questions are answered by appeal to a twofold in human nature. According to Spinoza, we are finite in infinity. (shrink)

It is intuitive to think that fiction is more imaginative or creative than nonfiction, and that creating or engaging with fiction involves the imagination in ways creating or engaging with nonfiction doesn't. However, philosophers debate whether imagination has a special connection to fiction. This chapter will argue that fiction is intimately connected to creativity and that creativity's connection to imagination produces the impression that fiction and imagination also share an intimate connection. The key ingredient of fiction that connects fiction to (...) creativity is fabrication. The chapter will also discuss how an author can produce fiction that is creative in content and form, how readers and critics use imagination in a creative manner when engaging with works, and how metaphysical debates about fiction affect the kind of creativity we may attribute to authors. (shrink)

When should doctors seek protective custody to override a parent’s refusal of potentially lifesaving treatment for their child? The answer to this question seemingly has different answers for different subspecialties of pediatrics. This paper specifically looks at different thresholds for physicians overriding parental refusals of life-sustaining treatment between neonatology, cardiology, and oncology. The threshold for mandating treatment of premature babies seems to be a survival rate of 25–50%. This is not the case when the treatment in question is open heart (...) surgery for a child with congenital heart disease. Most cardiologists would not pursue legal action when parents refuse treatment, unless the anticipated survival rate after surgery is above 90%. In pediatric oncology, there are case reports of physicians requesting and obtaining protective custody for cancer treatment when the reported mortality rates are 40–50%. Such differences might be attributed to differences in care, a reasonable prioritization of quality of life over survival, or the role uncertainty plays on prognoses, especially for the extremely young. Nonetheless, other, non-medical factors may have a significant effect on inconsistencies in care across these pediatric subspecialties and require further examinations. (shrink)

Philosophers ask just whose expression, if anyone’s, we hear in lyric poetry. Walton provides a novel possibility: it’s the reader who “uses” the poem (just as a speech giver uses a speech) who makes the language expressive. But worries arise once we consider poems in particular social or political settings, those which require a strong self-other distinction, or those with expressions that should not be disassociated from the subjects whose experience they draw from. One way to meet this challenge is (...) to consider the poem expressive of a plural subject, which frees us from looking for a particular individual whose voice we hear in the work, whether she be fictional or actual. Some lyrics give voice to a group whose experience is attended to in the work. This may be done through a posited fictional speaker, but the ontology of the speaker is shown to be less important. Attending to a group whose concerns are voiced allows us to explain how poems can manage to address our-worldly concerns even when lacking actual persons whose expressions we encounter in the poems. (shrink)

Humans are often altruistic in a variety of contexts, even toward strangers they may never meet again. What explains this behavior? Many argue that kin selection cannot explain it but group selecti...

Parentage analyses via microsatellite markers have revealed multiple paternity within the broods of polytocous species of mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fishes and invertebrates. The widespread phenomenon of multiple paternity may have attending relationships with such evolutionary processes as sexual selection and kin selection. However, just how much multiple paternity should a species exhibit? We developed Bayesian null models of how multiple paternity relates to brood sizes. For each of 114 species with published data on brood sizes and numbers of sires, we (...) compared our null model estimates to published frequencies of multiple paternity. The majority of species fell close to our null model, especially among fish and invertebrate species. Some species, however, had low probabilities of multiple paternity, far from the predictions of the null model, likely due to sexual selection and environmental constraints. We suggest a major division among species’ mating systems between those with close to random mating and high levels of multiple paternity, and those with constraints that produce low levels of multiple paternity. (shrink)

While prior models of the evolution of altruism have assumed that organisms reproduce asexually, this paper presents a model of the evolution of altruism for sexually reproducing organisms using Hardy–Weinberg dynamics. In this model, the presence of reciprocal altruists allows the population to evolve to a stable polymorphic population where the majority of organisms are altruistic. Further, adding stochasticity leads to even larger numbers of altruists, while adding stochasticity to an analogous asexual model leads to more selfish organisms. The contrast (...) between these outcomes demonstrates why it may be important to pay attention to the underlying genetics of a population. (shrink)

ABSTRACTWhether valence change during evaluative conditioning is mediated by a link between the conditional stimulus and the unconditional stimulus or between the CS and the unconditional response is a matter of continued debate. Changing the valence of the US after conditioning, known as US revaluation, can be used to dissociate these accounts. Changes in CS valence after US revaluation provide evidence for S-S learning but if CS valence does not change, evidence for S-R learning is found. Support for S-S learning (...) has been provided by most past revaluation studies, but typically the CS and US have been from the same stimulus category, the task instructions have suggested that judgements of the CS should be based on the US, and USs have been mildly valenced stimuli. These factors may bias the results in favour of S-S learning. We examined whether S-R learning would be evident when CSs and USs were taken from different categories, the task instructions were removed, a... (shrink)

ExcerptCarl Schmitt (1888–1985) is known as the most consequential German legal and political mind of the twentieth century.1 Many crimes of the Nazi regime found support in his conceptual justifications, and Schmitt is called the “Crown Jurist” of the Third Reich with good reason. Historians, political scientists, and sociologists must grapple with the author in order to understand the course of totalitarianism in modernity. Whether literary historians should do so is far less settled, though he was fascinated by their object (...) of study. His writings on literary topics are said to reveal much about Schmitt’s person, politics, and period, but little about literature itself.2 This explains why his “Don Quijote und das Publikum” (“Don Quixote and the Public”), published in the arts and cultural journal Die Rheinlande in 1912, was almost unknown in literary studies for a century.3 Schmitt’s text on the novel by Miguel de Cervantes has not been reprinted, and until recently it had not been translated from the original German. Size has a role too. At under two thousand words, the text has probably escaped notice due to its small scale.4 Recent English and Italian translations in major humanistic journals may signal the end of its obscurity though.5 “Don Quixote and the Public” is at the door of literary studies. The question now is not whether to respond, but how. (shrink)

Korean biobanks are now adapting to integrate the new paradigm of precision medicine into their fundamental role of promoting health technology. Since the enactment of Bioethics and Safety Act in 2004, the Republic of Korea has developed a regulatory framework that reflects ethical principles. However, the existing regulation of biobanks has recently proven to be limited in responding to newer ethical and legal issues that have arisen. First, as there is an emerging trend for human biospecimens to be stored, managed (...) and distributed as digitalized data, the current role of the Distributive Review Committee may become less important compared to the Data Access Committee. Second, even if public health data is anonymized, the risk of identifiability is growing. This makes a third point relevant, informed consent is crucial to respect the autonomy of patients and research subjects, but current consent rules need to change to reflect the interactive and dynamic communication process, in which information and communication technology plays an increasingly prominent role. Fourth, even though data sharing for research is expected to be altruistic and the sale of human biospecimens and genome data remains prohibited, data sharing practices have become more complicated and are closer to commercial use and commercialization. Given these challenges, there is a pressing need for continuing and deeper deliberation in order to develop a more comprehensive and responsive governance framework. (shrink)

In many communities around the world, speech to infants and small children has increased mean pitch, increased pitch range, increased vowel duration, and vowel hyper-articulation when compared to speech directed to adults. Some of these IDS and CDS features are also attested in foreigner-directed speech, which has been studied for a smaller range of languages, generally major national languages, spoken by millions of people. We examined vowel acoustics in CDS, conversational ADS, and monologues directed to a foreigner in the Towet (...) dialect of the Papuan language Nungon, spoken by 300 people in a remote region in northeastern Papua New Guinea. Previous work established that Nungon CDS entails optional use of consonant alteration, special nursery vocabulary, and special morphosyntax. This study shows that Nungon CDS to children aged 2;2–3;10 lacks vowel hyper-articulation, but still displays other common prosodic traits of CDS styles around the world: increased mean pitch and pitch range. A developmental effect was also attested, in that speech to 2-year-olds contained vowels that were significantly longer than those in speech to 3-year-olds, which in turn had vowels of similar duration to those in Nungon ADS. We also found that Nungon FDS vowel triangles, measured from monologues primarily directed to a non-native speaker, were significantly larger than those of either CDS or conversational ADS, indicating vowel hyper-articulation. The Nungon pattern may align with the patterns of vowels in Norwegian IDS, CDS, and FDS, where hyper-articulation is found in FDS, but not CDS or IDS. The languages of the New Guinea area constitute 20% of the world's languages, but neither an acoustic comparison of vowels in CDS and ADS, nor an acoustic study of FDS, has previously been completed for any language of New Guinea. The function of an FDS style in a small, closed community like those of much of New Guinea may differ from that in larger societies, since there are very few non-native speakers of Nungon. Thus, this study uses monologues recorded with a foreign researcher as interlocutor to study Nungon FDS. (shrink)

In this volume leading historians and anthropologists with an interest in law gather to analyse the nature and meaning of law in diverse societies. They start from the concept of legalism, taken from the anthropologist Lloyd Fallers, whose 1960s work on Africa engaged, unusually, with jurisprudence. The concept highlights appeal to categories and rules. The degree to which legalism in this sense informs people's lives varies within and between societies, and over time, but it can colour equally both 'simple' and (...) 'complex' law. Breaking with recent emphases on 'practice', nine specialist contributors explore, in a wide-ranging set of cases, the place of legalism in the workings of social life. The essays make obvious the need to question our parochial common sense where ideals of moral order at other times and places differ from those of modern North Atlantic governance. State-centred law, for instance, is far from a 'central case'. Legalism may be 'aspirational', connecting people to wider visions of morality; duty may be as prominent a theme as rights; and rulers from thirteenth-century England to sixteenth-century Burma appropriate, as much they impose, a vision of justice as consistency. The use of explicit categories and rules does not reduce to simple questions of power. The cases explored range from ancient Asia Minor to classical India, and from medieval England and France to Saharan oases and southern Arabia. In each case they assume no knowledge of the society or legal system discussed. The volume will appeal not only to historians and anthropologists with an interest in law, but to students of law engaged in legal theory, for the light it sheds on the strengths and limitations of abstract legal philosophy."--Publisher's description. (shrink)

Stem cell tourism is a small but growing part of the thriving global medical tourism marketplace. Much stem cell research remains at the experimental stage, with clinical trials still uncommon. However, there are over 700 clinics estimated to be operating in mostly developing countries – from Costa Rica and Argentina to China, India and Russia – that have lured many patients, mostly from industrialized countries, driven by desperation and hope, which in turn continue to fuel the growth of such tourism.While (...) much research has focused on such dimensions as the promotions that allow such businesses to make their services known, media coverage, some patient research, and regulatory conditions for developing country clinics, little attention has been paid to the non-affected members of the general population, the future potential users of such services. This empirical study based on five focus group discussions with a diverse group of healthy adults in a Canadian city, explored participant views of patients who use stem cell tourism services, the likelihood they would avail themselves of such services if they were to suffer similar illnesses, and the conditions under which they might do so, and the impact that admonitions and advice from international expert bodies might have on their decisions. Our findings suggest that these healthy adults are sympathetic to the drivers of hope and desperation, and, despite cautions about research limitations, may seek such treatments themselves under similar conditions. These findings are discussed in the context of the policy and ethical issues raised by this form of medical tourism. (shrink)

Competitive pressures, resource constraints, high shareholder/stakeholder expectations, and other dynamics may lead to organizations putting pressure on employees to act unethically to meet goals. Yet, the effects of this pressure on employee health and factors that can abate it are unclear. Based on the job demands-resources model, this study examines whether, how, and when organizational ethical pressure harms employees' psychological and physical health and what factors can buffer its negative effects. According to the findings of a two-wave lagged data study (...) involving 212 healthcare employees, results show that organizational ethical pressure causes ethical strain in employees, resulting in both psychological and physical health problems, with these effects less pronounced when employees have higher levels of ethical efficacy. An integrated effect was also discovered, in which employees' ethical efficacy increases when led by a more ethical leader, thereby buffering the effect of ethical pressure on ethical strain and health problems. Overall, our research identifies organizational ethical pressure as a significant threat to employee health and provides preliminary approaches to mitigate its effects. (shrink)

Background: Cognitive Training may contribute to the maintenance and even enhancement of cognitive functions in healthy older adults. However, the question who benefits most from multi-domain CTs is still highly under-investigated.Objective: The goal is to investigate prognostic factors and models for changes in cognitive test performance in healthy older adults after a multi-domain CT.Methods: The data bases MEDLINE, Web of Science Core Collection, CENTRAL, and PsycInfo were searched up to July 2019. Studies investigating prognostic factors and/or models on cognitive outcomes (...) after conducting a multi-domain CT in healthy older adults were included. Risk of Bias was assessed using the QUIPS and the PROBAST tool.Results: 23 prognostic factor and model studies were included. Results indicate a high heterogeneity regarding the conducted multi-domain CTs, the investigated prognostic factors, the investigated outcomes, and the used statistical approaches. Age and neuropsychological performance at study entry were the most investigated predictors, yet they show inconsistent results.Conclusion: Data on prognostic factors and models of changes after multi-domain CT are still too rare and inconsistent to draw clear conclusions due to statistical shortcomings and low reporting quality. Approaches for future research are outlined.Registration:https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/, ID: CRD42020147531. (shrink)

In the United Kingdom, a number of National Health Service Clinical Commissioning Groups have proposed controversial measures to restrict elective surgery for patients who either smoke or are obese. Whilst the nature of these measures varies between NHS authorities, typically, patients above a certain Body Mass Index and smokers are required to lose weight and quit smoking prior to being considered eligible for elective surgery. Patients will be supported and monitored throughout this mandatory period to ensure their clinical needs are (...) appropriately met. Controversy regarding such measures has primarily centred on the perceived unfairness of targeting certain health states and lifestyle choices to save public money. Concerns have also been raised in response to rhetoric from certain NHS authorities, which may be taken to imply that such measures punitively hold people responsible for behaviours affecting their health states, or simply for being in a particular health state. In this paper, we examine the various elective surgery rationing measures presented by NHS authorities. We argue that, where obesity and smoking have significant implications for elective surgical outcomes, bearing on effectiveness, the rationing of this surgery can be justified on prognostic grounds. It is permissible to aim to maximise the benefit provided by limited resources, especially for interventions that are not urgently required. However, we identify gaps in the empirical evidence needed to conclusively demonstrate these prognostic grounds, particularly for obese patients. Furthermore, we argue that appeals to personal responsibility, both in the prospective and retrospective sense, are insufficient in justifying this particular policy. Given the strength of an alternative justification grounded in clinical effectiveness, rhetoric from NHS authorities should avoid explicit statements, which suggest that personal responsibility is the key justificatory basis of proposed rationing measures. (shrink)

ObjectivesQuality of Life depends on the discrepancy between desired and current experiences, thus in chronic illness, adjustment of expectations and interpretation of the current situation are crucial. Depression is known to influence this gap, and the present study aims to further assess the role of resilience and health locus of control.MethodsA total of 94 patients with neurological disorders were screened via telephone regarding depression, resilience and HLC. Current and desired state of several life domains were assessed, such as Fitness, General (...) Health, Pain, Daily Activities, Finances, Leisure, and Family. Elastic net regularization and analyses of variance were used to disentangle the impact of depression, resilience, HLC, and sociodemographic factors on the perception of current and desired state, and the gap between both.ResultsA gap was present for all domains but largest for pain. Interpretation of the current state was linked to desired state, HLC, and age. All gaps were related to depression; certain domains were in addition influenced by resilience, HLC and sociodemographic factors. Of note, for most domains, patients did not select the highest possible desired state.ConclusionOlder patients with neurological disorders report a gap between current and desired state for many aspects of life. Adjusting expectations is beneficial in the face of declining health, but a reasonably increased desired state may positively influence the perception of the current situation. Depression negatively influences the interpretation of the Calman gap. (shrink)

When managing their emotions, individuals often recruit the help of others; however, most emotion regulation research has focused on self-regulation. Theories of emotion and aging suggest younger and older adults differ in the emotion regulation strategies they use when regulating their own emotions. If how individuals regulate their own emotions and the emotions of others are related, these theorised age differences may also emerge for interpersonal emotion regulation. In two studies, younger and older adults’ intrapersonal and interpersonal emotion regulation strategy (...) choices were examined via self-report and behavioural assessments of regulating the emotions of another participant (Study 1; N = 80) and of a virtual human (Study 2; N = 100). Across both studies, younger adults reported greater intrapersonal suppression but not greater reappraisal. Younger and older adults were generally similar (supported by Bayesian analyses) for both self-reported and behavioural interpersonal emotion regulation strategies. Behavioural interpersonal emotion regulation was not related to self-reported intra- and interpersonal preferences. These results suggest interpersonal emotion regulation in ageing may show distinct patterns from theorised age differences in intrapersonal emotion regulation. (shrink)

Theorists have debated whether our ability to understand sarcasm (pertaining here to verbal irony) is principally determined by the context or by properties of the comment itself. The current research investigated an alternative view that broadens the focus on the comment itself, suggesting that mitigating a highly positive concept by using negation generates sarcastic interpretations by default. In the current study, pretests performed on the target utterances presented in isolation established their default interpretations; novel affirmative phrases (e.g., He is the (...) best lawyer) were interpreted literally, whereas equally novel negative counterparts (e.g., He isn’t the best lawyer) were interpreted sarcastically. In Experiment 1 (an eye-tracking study), prior context biased these utterances toward literal or sarcastic interpretations. Results showed that target utterances were easier to process in contexts supporting their default interpretations, regardless of affirmation/negation. Results from a second eye-tracking experiment suggested that readers’ tendency to interpret negative phrases sarcastically is related to their own tendency to use malicious humor. Our findings suggest that negation leads to certain ambiguous utterances receiving sarcastic interpretations by default and that this process may be further intensified by personality factors. (shrink)

A number of experiences have demonstrated how digital solutions are effective in improving quality of life (QoL) and health outcomes for older adults. Smart Health Age-Friendly Environments (SHAFE) is a new concept introduced in Europe since 2017 that combines the concept of Age-Friendly Environments with Information Technologies, supported by health and community care to improve the health and disease management of older adults and during the life-course. This chapter aims to provide an initial overview of the experiences available not only (...) in Europe, based on the research work of the participants of the International Interdisciplinary Network on Health and Well-being in an Age-Friendly Digital World (NET4Age-Friendly), which could be of interest to preventive, health and social authorities. The chapter reports good practices, pain points, and bottlenecks that may require a collaborative, interdisciplinary research approach to facilitate the transformations towards smart, sustainable, health and age-friendly cities and communities. (shrink)