Positive frequency dependent selection is a natural selection regime where the fitness of a phenotype increases with its frequency in the population. Examples can be typically found in the spread of disease tolerance strategies in a population. A characterizing feature of PFDS is that the focal allele may experience favorable selection only when it becomes more frequent in the population, while being selected against when it is rare. In this paper, by applying a solution concept from evolutionary game theory, we (...) hypothesize that the process of emergence of such alleles triggers selection for silence, where the emergence of alleles that can stay unexpressed for a period of time will be favored by selection forces. We illustrate our hypothesis using a mathematical model of a population of single locus diploid organisms with two alleles where a single mutant of an allele that experiences positive frequency dependent selection appears in a population where the other allele is a dominant. The model results show that the longer the silence interval of the new mutant before its expression, the better its chances of getting fixed in the population. However, this effect will be observable only to a certain limit after which further increase in the interval will not have an effect on the expected fixation rate. Two divergences from the simple scenario are also investigated: the nonsynchronous expression of the focal allele and its emergence in a spatial grid limited by a migration bottleneck. In all cases, it is shown that there is an evolutionary pressure inherent in the dynamics of positive frequency dependent selection on the genes to have a delayed expression. It is hypothesized that the regulation systems of such traits will be under selection for either internal silencing mechanisms or to be triggered by an external environmental condition. (shrink)

Background Reasonable disagreement about the role awarded to gamete donors in decision-making on the use of embryos created by gamete donation for research purposes emphasises the importance of considering the implementation of participatory, adaptive, and trustworthy policies and guidelines for consent procedures. However, the perspectives of gamete donors and recipients about decision-making regarding research with EGDs are still under-researched, which precludes the development of policies and guidelines informed by evidence. This study seeks to explore the views of donors and recipients (...) about who should take part in consent processes for the use of EGDs in research. Methods From July 2017 to June 2018, 72 gamete donors and 175 recipients completed a self-report structured questionnaire at the Portuguese Public Bank of Gametes. Agreement with dual consent was defined as the belief that the use of EGDs in research should be consented by both donors and recipients. Results The majority of participants were willing to donate embryos for research. Almost half of the donors and half of the recipients considered that a dual consent procedure is desirable. This view was more frequent among employed recipients than among non-employed. Donors were less likely to believe that only recipients should be involved in giving consent for the use of EGDs in research and were more frequently favourable to the idea of exclusive donors’ consent. Conclusions Divergent views on dual consent among donors and recipients indicate the need to develop evidence-based and ethically sustainable policies and guidelines to protect well-being, autonomy and reproductive rights of both stakeholder groups. More empirical research and further theoretical normative analyses are needed to inform people-centred policy and guidelines for shared decision-making concerning the use of EGDs for research. (shrink)

O envelhecimento populacional é uma preocupação mundial e exige medidas de prevenção de saúde a serem adotadas com a maior brevidade possível. Esse processo é, muitas vezes, acompanhado pelo declínio das habilidades cognitivas, como a memória e as funções executivas. O objetivo do presente estudo é ..

Prison work creates ethical challenges for which a training program was initiated for Dutch prison staff to foster their Moral Craftsmanship (MCS). The concept of MCS is not yet defined and operationalized in literature. This explorative study aims to 1) define MCS, 2) identify conceptual elements of MCS, and 3) develop a measurement tool for MCS. A document and literature study provided input for the definition and selection of conceptual elements related within DCIA policy documents, identifying three conceptual levels of (...) MCS: individual (cognition, attitude, and actions), team, and leadership. This first MCSQ consists of seventy-one items distributed across the domains: values and norms, judgment and reasoning, consultation, implementation, looking back, interactions, and leadership. We tested its usability via ‘think-aloud interviews.’ Validation of the current version of the MCS-Questionnaire and consensus among experts about what to include or exclude in the concept of MCS are needed for further development. (shrink)

Background: Due to the aging society the number of informal caregivers is growing. Most informal caregivers are women working as nurses within a health organization and they have a high risk of developing mental and physical exhaustion. Until now little research attention has been paid to the expectations and needs of double duty caregivers and the role of self-management in managing private-work balance.Objective: The overall aim of this study was to investigate the expectations and needs of double duty caregivers in (...) Netherlands, and to examine the meaning of self-management in managing work-life balance.Method: Different research methods have been applied in this exploratory study. Firstly, a scoping review has been conducted on the topics self-management and sustainable employability of double-duty caregivers using the search engines: CINAHL, MEDLINE, PubMed, and Google Scholar. Furthermore, a qualitative study has been conducted through focus groups with double duty caregivers.Results: Twenty studies that met the inclusion criteria could be identified. We found that double duty caregivers have different motivations for being a double duty caregiver based on internal and external expectations. Double duty caregiving causes a lot of mental and physical pressure for the caregiver. To be able to combine both duty’s, double duty caregivers need flexibility and understanding from the workplace. Through two focus groups we found that social support from the workplace is not enough to be able to manage the situation. Self-management skills are important to be able to communicate effectively with the workplace and community care organizations about the kind of support needed. Also, health care organizations should offer the same support to double duty caregivers as any other informal caregiver.Discussion: Double-duty caregivers are at high risk of developing symptoms of overload and risk of reduced self-management quality and employability levels across time. Health care organizations and the double duty caregiver often wait too long to act instead of taking more preventive measures. Furthermore, community care organizations should dialog with double duty caregivers about their wishes concerning the division of caring tasks. This finding calls for special attention, with long-term solutions at both macro, organizational, and employee level. (shrink)

Mi ensayo trata de mostrar que es insostenible la ficción de Rorty de una civilización avanzada científicamente cuyos habitantes no sintieran el dolor como una vivencia sufrida en primera persona y que únicamente lo captaran como una excitación objetiva de su sistema nervioso. Entre otras dudas relativas a que esa captación objetiva y exacta se hallaría en indefinida reconstrucción teórica y a que ella no puede ser la experiencia primera del dolor ni siquiera en esa otra galaxia, aduzco que tener (...) un estado fisiológico no equivale por principio a captarlo y que captar determinados rasgos objetivos no puede equivaler por principio a sufrir, a padecer. Concluyo señalando que Rorty, en su empeño por impugnar las representaciones mentales, pierde de vista cómo la experiencia del dolor manifiesta sobre todo la condición originaria del cuerpo vivido.My paper tries to show that Rorty’s fiction of a scientifically developed civilization whose inhabitants should not feel pain as a first-person experience, but would grasp it rather as an objective state of their nervous system, is unsustainable from a phenomenological point of view. I point out several doubts concerning the facts that such an objective apprehension would be in an indefinite process of theoretical reconstruction, and that even in that other galaxy it could not be valid as the original pain situation. But then I focus on the principles that to have a physiological state cannot be equiva-lent to grasping it, and second that to grasp several objective features cannot be equivalent to suffering or to undergoing pain. I conclude by suggesting that Rorty’s eagerness to discard mental representations made him neglect the lived body as implied in everyday experience: the body, not the mind, comes to the fore in the experience of pain. (shrink)

In my book, Cities and Immigration, I suggest shifting responsibilities for the integration of immigrants from the state to the city level. The articles in this issue challenge some of my suggestions. I discuss these challenges with regard to three questions: should a city enjoy greater autonomy to decide who, and how many, immigrants should settle within its borders? Should immigrants enjoy local voting rights even before naturalization? And is there a morally preferable model for integrating immigrants into the city?

Big Data are increasingly used in machine learning in order to create predictive models. How are predictive practices that use such models to be situated? In the field of surveillance studies many of its practitioners assert that “governance by discipline” has given way to “governance by risk”. The individual is dissolved into his/her constituent data and no longer addressed. I argue that, on the contrary, in most of the contexts where predictive modelling is used, it constitutes Foucauldian discipline. Compliance to (...) a norm occupies centre stage; suspected deviants are subjected to close attention—as the precursor of possible sanctions. The predictive modelling involved uses personal data from both the focal institution and elsewhere. As a result, the individual re-emerges as the focus of scrutiny. Subsequently, small excursions into Foucauldian texts discuss his discourses on the creation of the “delinquent”, and on the governmental approach to smallpox epidemics. It is shown that his insights only mildly resemble prediction as based on machine learning; several conceptual steps had to be taken for modern machine learning to evolve. Finally, the options available to those subjected to predictive disciplining are discussed: to what extent can they comply, question, or resist? Through a discussion of the concepts of transparency and “gaming the system” I conclude that our predicament is gloomy, in a Kafkaesque fashion. (shrink)

El artículo reflexiona sobre las políticas de la memoria que deberían desarrollarse en sociedades donde han ocurrido masivas violaciones de derechos humanos, y cuyos procesos se guían por los principios normativos de la justicia transicional. Se analizan primero los conceptos de memoria e historia, y la forma como el Holocausto transformó sus tareas en el siglo xx; luego se examinan dos modelos de responsabilidad propuestos por Iris Marion Young, y se propone cómo usarlos en la justicia transicional. Finalmente, se explican (...) las tareas de la política de la memoria en estos contextos. (shrink)

In this paper we present a new categorical approach which attempts to provide an original understanding of QM. Our logos categorical approach attempts to consider the main features of the quantum formalism as the standpoint to develop a conceptual representation that explains what the theory is really talking about —rather than as problems that need to be bypassed in order to allow a restoration of a classical “common sense” understanding of what there is. In particular, we discuss a solution to (...) Kochen-Specker contextuality through the generalization of the meaning of global valuation. This idea has been already addressed by the so called topos approach to QM —originally proposed by Isham, Butterfiled and D ̈oring— in terms of sieve-valued valuations. The logos approach to QM presents a different solution in terms of the notion of intensive valuation. This new solution stresses an ontological reading of the quantum formalism and the need to restore an objective conceptual representation and understanding of quantum physical reality. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This work aims to reflect on possible meanings for the evangelical faith based on utterances produced by three evangelical ministers in their social networks when they enunciate on themes that are linked, directly or indirectly, to political agendas. Based on the theoretical scope of studies in Applied Linguistics and on Bakhtinian conceptions of language, our analyzes point to three predominant meanings, which mean the evangelical faith as: i) reaffirmation of identity; ii) exercise of otherness and respect to the other; (...) and iii) political practice. Such meanings demonstrate that there are contradictions within the religious discursivity, which allows the beating between hate speeches and respect and empathy ones within the realm of the evangelical faith. Thus, looking for cracks in religious discourse that oppose fundamentalist and authoritarian discourses is an ethical duty of a religious leader who recognizes his social and discursive role as influential in taking positions and, therefore, in the lives of the members of their congregation. (shrink)

Within the philosophical discussion between Idealism and Romanticism that took place in Germany toward 1800, they were formed the basic directives that will guide all (critical or apologetical) later exposition about the subjectivity. The Idealism, represented by Fichte, Schelling and Hegel (its ..

The commons have emerged as a key notion and underlying experience of many efforts around the world to promote justice and democracy. A central question for political theories of the commons is whether the visions of social order and regimes of political economy they propose are complementary or opposed to public goods that are backed up by governmental coordination and compulsion. This essay argues that the post-Marxist view, which posits an inherent opposition between the commons as a sphere of inappropriable (...) usage and statist public infrastructure, is mistaken, because justice and democracy are not necessarily furthered by the institution of inappropriability. I articulate an alternative pluralist view based on James Tully’s work, which discloses the dynamic interplay between public and common modes of provision and enjoyment, and their civil and civic orientations respectively. Finally, the essay points to the Janus-faced character of the commons and stresses the co-constitutive role of public goods and social services for just and orderly social life while remaining attentive to the dialectic of empowerment and tutelage that marks provision by government. (shrink)

This article addresses the apparent tension in O’Donovan’s overall argument in The Ways of Judgment (2005): a tension between his constructive account of judgement (central to Parts I and II), and his endorsement of Jesus’ injunction not to judge (central to Part III). After clarifying exactly what kind of judgement O’Donovan intends in identifying judgement as the core political practice, the article highlights a few key aspects of O’Donovan’s political theology that might mitigate, or even take away, the tension in (...) his argument. The article then goes on to address a remaining issue, namely that O’Donovan seems to imply that Christians are to judge only in private, thereby leaving all public judgement to the secular authorities. In response to this impression the article will affirm, in the light of Rom. 12:1-8, that the church does exercise public judgement, by corporately discerning, formulating and enacting the implications of God’s judgement in Christ. (shrink)

Nicholson's goal is to show that interpretation of a text can be done rigorously and be true. He argues this by showing that perception also has an interpretative dimension yet we usually accept claims rooted in perception as true. This effort to show the soundness of hermeneutical criticism is in fact an attempt to show that anti-foundationalism does not default to relativism. I trace his well-prosecuted argument for the truth of interpretation to the point where it becomes opaque. The argument (...) is nonetheless instructive and helps to better see the conundrum that anti-foundationalists create for epistomologists and perhaps for themselves. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to show that arguments for and against cloning fail to make their case because of one or both of the following reasons: 1) they take for granted customary beliefs and assumptions that are far from being unquestionable; 2) they tend to ignore the context in which human cloning is developed. I will analyze some of the assumptions underlying the main arguments that have been offered for and against cloning. Once these assumptions are critically analyzed, (...) arguments both rejecting and supporting human cloning seem to lose weight. I will first briefly present the main arguments that have been proposed against cloning and I will argue that they fail to establish their case. In the next section I will evaluate some of the positive arguments that have been offered supporting such technology. This analysis will show that the case for cloning also fails. Finally, I will maintain that because critics and especially supporters of this technology neglect the context in which human cloning is developed and might be implemented, their arguments are far from compelling. (shrink)

En este trabajo hago un ejercicio filosófico de aplicación de una visión naturalista de la filosofía analizando desde esta perspectiva la discusión acerca de la naturaleza de la psicología folk, y mostrando la superioridad de la perspectiva de segunda persona para dar cuenta de este fenómeno. Para ello presentaré la perspectiva naturalista que adopto, luego presentaré brevemente las perspectivas clásicas cartesianas para, finalmente, presentar la perspectiva de segunda persona mostrando cómo se puede dar cuenta de las continuidades ontogenéticas y filogenéticas (...) que subyacen al desarrollo de la psicología folk, incorporando en esta explicación tanto elementos filosóficos como científicos. (shrink)

BackgroundDouble-blind peer review has been proposed as a possible solution to avoid implicit referee bias in academic publishing. The aims of this study are to analyse the demographics of corresponding authors choosing double-blind peer review and to identify differences in the editorial outcome of manuscripts depending on their review model.MethodsData includes 128,454 manuscripts received between March 2015 and February 2017 by 25 Nature-branded journals. We investigated the uptake of double-blind review in relation to journal tier, as well as gender, country, (...) and institutional prestige of the corresponding author. We then studied the manuscripts’ editorial outcome in relation to review model and author’s characteristics. The gender (male, female, or NA) of the corresponding authors was determined from their first name using a third-party service (Gender API). The prestige of the corresponding author’s institutions was measured from the data of the Global Research Identifier Database (GRID) by dividing institutions in three prestige groups with reference to the 2016 Times Higher Education (THE) ranking. We employed descriptive statistics for data exploration, and we tested our hypotheses using Pearson’s chi-square and binomial tests. We also performed logistic regression modelling with author update, out-to-review, and acceptance as response, and journal tier, author gender, author country, and institution as predictors.ResultsAuthor uptake for double-blind submissions was 12% (12,631 out of 106,373). We found a small but significant association between journal tier and review type (p value < 0.001, Cramer’s V = 0.054, df = 2). We had gender information for 50,533 corresponding authors and found no statistically significant difference in the distribution of peer review model between males and females (p value = 0.6179). We had 58,920 records with normalised institutions and a THE rank, and we found that corresponding authors from the less prestigious institutions are more likely to choose double-blind review (p value < 0.001, df = 2, Cramer’s V = 0.106). In the ten countries with the highest number of submissions, we found a large significant association between country and review type (p value < 0.001, df = 10, Cramer’s V = 0.189). The outcome both at first decision and post review is significantly more negative (i.e. a higher likelihood for rejection) for double-blind than single-blind papers (p value < 0.001, df = 1, Cramer’s V = 0.112 for first decision; p value < 0.001; df = 1, Cramer’s V = 0.082 for post-review decision).ConclusionsThe proportion of authors that choose double-blind review is higher when they submit to more prestigious journals, they are affiliated with less prestigious institutions, or they are from specific countries; the double-blind option is also linked to less successful editorial outcomes. (shrink)

Individuals who deviate from social norms by committing crimes may have reduced facial emotion recognition abilities. Nevertheless, a specific category of offenders – i.e. organised crime (OC) members – is characterised by hierarchically organised social networks and a tendency to manipulate others to reach their illicit goals. Since recognising emotions is crucial to building social networks, OC members may be more skilled in recognising the facial emotion expressions of others to use this information for their criminal purposes. Evidence of a (...) difference between OC and non-organised crime (NOC) offenders in terms of facial emotion recognition is still lacking. To fill this gap in the literature, we tested 50 OC, 50 NOC offenders, and 50 non-offender controls for their ability to identify six basic emotions (happiness, sadness, fear, anger, disgust, and surprise). All participants underwent a cognitive and psychological evaluation to avoid alternative explanations. Results show that OC members were more able to detect the expression of fear in others as compared to NOC. We interpreted this finding in light of the social context and the behavioural criminal attitude of OC members. (shrink)

O presente trabalho busca refletir, no sentido derridiano, sobre o ensino do Português Língua Estrangeira (PLE) à luz do Quadro Europeu Comum de Referência para a aprendizagem, ensino e avaliação de línguas (QECR). Tal documento, juntamente com o Portfólio Europeu das Línguas, se apresenta como um instrumento essencialmente linguístico para a harmonização do ensino de línguas vivas europeias e com uma perspectiva intercultural. Dessa forma, o QECR advoga que o ensino de língua deve promover o desenvolvimento do aprendiz, da sua (...) identidade em resposta à experiência enriquecedora da diferença na língua e na cultura. Exige-se do aluno muito mais do que simplesmente imitar ou memorizar. O QECR busca descrever exaustivamente aquilo que o aprendiz de uma língua, no nosso caso o PLE, tem que aprender para ser capaz de comunicar, interagir e quais os conhecimentos e habilidades ele tem de desenvolver para serem eficazes na sua atuação. A descrição abrange também o contexto cultural dessa língua. Sendo assim, o QECR é mais uma alternativa para aqueles que trabalham com o português na modalidade de língua 2 (PLE) no sentido da compreensão das alteridades, da cidadania e da democracia num mundo sem fronteiras em que “Navegar é preciso”, i.e., interagir, dialogar. (shrink)