Bovine fetuin, the first fetal protein to be described, has recently been shown to be a species homologue of a well known human plasma protein ‐ α2HS glycoprotein (α2HS). The fetuins are now known to be members of the cystatin superfamily. The structural properties of the six fetuins that have been fully sequenced are compared. Despite the structural homology of these proteins, their described properties in the literature make them appear to be quite different. The diverse in vitro properties claimed (...) for fetuin/α2HS are reviewed. In vivo, fetuins are involved in the acute phase response. In development, in all species studied so far, fetuins are present in a specific cell population that forms the developing neocortex. The possible functional significance of this distribution is discussed. (shrink)

This chapter describes the potential far‐reaching consequences of contemplative higher education for the fields of science and medicine.

In this paper we continue an ongoing dialogue that has as its goal the critical appraisal of theoretical perspectives on culture and health, in an effort to move forward scholarship on culture and health. We draw upon a programme of scholarship to explicate theoretical tensions and challenges that are manifest in the discourses on culture and health and to explore the possibilities Bourdieu's theoretical perspective offers for reconciling them. That is, we hope to demonstrate the need to move beyond descriptions (...) ‘of’ culture to an understanding of cultures as dynamic, and to show ways cultural practices create contexts that have the potential to foster or impede health.In our early research, largely undertaken in Canada's multicultural context, we sought to make visible the ways in which culture shaped conceptions of health and influenced health practices of immigrant groups. In recent years this focus has expanded to include populations that reflect the cultural and social diversity of our region. From the outset we attempted to move towards a conception of culture as negotiated, unifying, transformative and dynamic. While this position continues to hold appeal we are continually reminded that, despite our leanings towards constructivism, there is salience to the notion of culture as having enduring elements. It is this tension between the view of culture as embodied and enduring and culture as constructed and dynamic that we seek to examine.We explore whether Bourdieu's theoretical perspective offers promise for reconciling these apparently competing views. Using exemplars from our research we share insights that Bourdieu's work has offered to our analyses, thereby enabling us to move towards a view of culture that holds in tension these apparently contradictory positions of culture as both essence (albeit unstable, negotiated) and constructed. (shrink)

Tragedy and Citizenship provides a wide-ranging exploration of attitudes toward tragedy and their implications for politics. Derek W. M. Barker reads the history of political thought as a contest between the tragic view of politics that accepts conflict and uncertainty, and an optimistic perspective that sees conflict as self-dissolving. Drawing on Aristotle's political thought, alongside a novel reading of the Antigone that centers on Haemon, its most neglected character, Barker provides contemporary democratic theory with a theory of tragedy. He sees (...) Hegel's philosophy of reconciliation as a critical turning point that results in the elimination of citizenship. By linking Hegel's failure to address the tragic dimensions of politics to Richard Rorty, John Rawls, and Judith Butler, Barkeroffers a major reassessment of contemporary political theory and a fresh perspective on the most urgent challenges facing democratic politics. Derek W. M. Barker is a program officer at the Kettering Foundation. (shrink)

Cultural safety is a relatively new concept that has emerged in the New Zealand nursing context and is being taken up in various ways in Canadian health care discourses. Our research team has been exploring the relevance of cultural safety in the Canadian context, most recently in relation to a knowledge-translation study conducted with nurses practising in a large tertiary hospital. We were drawn to using cultural safety because we conceptualized it as being compatible with critical theoretical perspectives that foster (...) a focus on power imbalances and inequitable social relationships in health care; the interrelated problems of culturalism and racialization; and a commitment to social justice as central to the social mandate of nursing. Engaging in this knowledge-translation study has provided new perspectives on the complexities, ambiguities and tensions that need to be considered when using the concept of cultural safety to draw attention to racialization, culturalism, and health and health care inequities. The philosophic analysis discussed in this paper represents an epistemological grounding for the concept of cultural safety that links directly to particular moral ends with social justice implications. Although cultural safety is a concept that we have firmly positioned within the paradigm of critical inquiry, ambiguities associated with the notions of 'culture', 'safety', and 'cultural safety' need to be anticipated and addressed if they are to be effectively used to draw attention to critical social justice issues in practice settings. Using cultural safety in practice settings to draw attention to and prompt critical reflection on politicized knowledge, therefore, brings an added layer of complexity. To address these complexities, we propose that what may be required to effectively use cultural safety in the knowledge-translation process is a 'social justice curriculum for practice' that would foster a philosophical stance of critical inquiry at both the individual and institutional levels. (shrink)

It describes and explains the patient-centered model examining and evaluating qualitative and quantitative research. It comprehensively covers the evolution and the six interactive components of the patient-centered clinical method, taking the reader through the relationships between the patient and doctor and the patient and clinician. All the editors are professors in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada.

The initial motivating question for this thesis is what the standard of rigour in modern mathematics amounts to: what makes a proof rigorous, or fail to be rigorous? How is this judged? A new account of rigour is put forward, aiming to go some way to answering these questions. Some benefits of the norm of rigour on this account are discussed. The account is contrasted with other remarks that have been made about mathematical proof and its workings, and is tested (...) and illustrated by considering a case study discussed in the literature. On the view put forward here one can obtain a manner of informal, rigorous mathematics founded on any of a variety of proof systems. The latter part of the thesis is concerned with the question of how we should decide which of these competing proof systems we should base our mathematics on: i.e., the question of which proof system we should take as a foundation for our mathematics. A novel answer to this question is proposed, in which the key property we should require of a proof system is that for as many different kinds of structures as possible, when the proof system allows a generalization about that kind of structure to be proved, the generalization actually holds of all real examples of that kind of structure which exist. This is the requirement of soundness of the proof system. It is argued that the best way to establish the soundness of a proof system may be by giving an interpretation of its axioms on which they are established as true. As preparation for this discussion, the thesis first investigates the logical and conceptual basis of various arithmetic concepts, with the results obtained used in the final discussion of soundness. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Rita Gross's Contribution to Contemporary Western Tibetan BuddhismJudith Simmer-BrownI first met Rita Gross on 2 January 1978, on the day of my arrival to take a professor's post at Naropa University. She opened the front door of Reggie Ray's house, where she was a houseguest. Little did I know how long and active our friendship would be, and I'm delighted to contribute to this very special panel on her (...) work. During the decades since, she has been the only person in my life who has intersected academia, dharmic realms, feminism, and interreligious dialogue, the four most important areas of my life; still, I think it is in the area of her scholarly and personal contributions to Tibetan Buddhism that I can speak most directly.When I met Rita, she was new to Tibetan Buddhism and had faced many challenges in her religious and spiritual journey. When she was excommunicated from the German Lutheran Church at age twenty-one, it was because she asked too many questions and expressed too many opinions. She has never stopped. She briefly explored Judaism, and then became enamored in her feminist studies with the goddess traditions of India, also an interest of mine. She has been able to bring her critical mind, her devotional heart, her connection to practice, and her appreciation of community directly into her life as a Tibetan Buddhist, and I have had the privilege of being by her side during most of it.After Rita began her meditation practice in the mid-1970s, she became a student of the great Kagyu-Nyingma master Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, who is also my teacher. She and I have done meditation and study retreats from a few days to three months in length, sharing ritual practice, teachings and discussions, and challenging lives together as members of a vibrant spiritual community around a charismatic teacher. Together we served as the senior members of the Task Force on Women and the Feminine Principle in the large, international Shambhala community. Eventually, she took on another teacher, the female tulku Ven. Khandro Rinpoche, whom I also dearly love, and she has become one of her senior dharma teachers, or lopons. All of this has occurred while I became a senior dharma teacher, an ācārya, of Shambhala, where we both began.In her time in these two lively Western Tibetan Buddhist communities, she has [End Page 69] Buddhist-Christian Studies 31 (2011) 69-74. © by University of Hawai'i Press. All rights reserved. served as an accomplished dharma teacher and at alternating times a scholar, activist, and critic, while committing to thousands of hours of service to the development of a genuinely Western dharma. While doing this, she has made many contributions equivalent to those of many dedicated dharma students. My comments address the unique contributions she has made as a feminist scholar, historian of religion, and theologian to this western dharmic world.Ironically, our areas of specialty have also intertwined. Early in the 1980s we began a book project with SUNY that was to be a feminist critique of Buddhism (hers) and a Buddhist critique of feminism (mine). After several years of conversation and discussion, Rita and I decided that our agendas were sufficiently different and our styles sufficiently independent to warrant separate books. As our books emerged (mine two babies later than hers), our friendship has continued its evolution.The Prophetic VoiceThe first of Rita's unique contributions to Tibetan Buddhism in the West revolve around what she has called her "prophetic voice," a notion that first appeared in her landmark book, Buddhism after Patriarchy, in 1993. Rita has consistently asserted that the prophetic voice is "the missing element" in Buddhism, leading Buddhists to a kind of double standard in which teachings concerning compassion coexist with Buddhism's traditional disregard for social and political inequities in society. She claims that "Buddhists have generally not been willing to engage in social action to see the realization of that ethic" in these social and political realms, and speculates that for the Buddhist, individual liberation has taken precedence over societal transformation. Instead, Buddhists have a long-standing history of acceptance of the... (shrink)

For almost 30 years the ion channel that initiates the ON visual pathway in vertebrate vision has remained elusive. Recent findings now indicate that the pathway, which begins with unbinding of glutamate from the metabotropic glutamate receptor 6 (mGluR6), ends with the opening of the transient receptor potential (TRP)M1 cation channel. As a component of the mGluR6 signal transduction pathway, mutations in TRPM1 would be expected to cause congenital stationary night blindness (CSNB), and several such mutations have already been identified (...) in CSNB families. Furthermore, expression of TRPM1 in both the retina and skin raises the possibility that a genetic link exists between certain types of visual and skin disorders. (shrink)

This comprehensive Gandhi reader provides an essential new reference for scholars and students of his life and thought. It is the only text available that presents Gandhi's own writings, including excerpts from three of his books—An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth, Satyagraha in South Africa, Hind Swaraj —a major pamphlet, Constructive Programme: Its Meaning and Place, and many journal articles and letters, along with a biographical sketch of his life in historical context and recent essays by highly (...) regarded scholars. (shrink)

A paradigm shift in public health and medicine has broadened the field from a singular focus on the ill effects of negative states and psychopathology to an expanded view that examines protective psychological assets that may promote improved physical health and longevity. We summarize recent evidence of the link between psychological well-being and physical health, with particular attention to outcomes of mortality and chronic disease incidence and progression. Within this evolving discipline there remain controversies and lessons to be learned. We (...) discuss measurement-related challenges, concerns about the quality of the evidence, and other shortcomings in the field, along with a brief discussion of hypothesized biobehavioral mechanisms involved. Finally, we suggest next steps to move the field forward. (shrink)

Theories of consciousness have a long and controversial history. One well-known proposal — integrated information theory — has recently been labeled as ‘pseudoscience’, which has caused a heated open debate. Here we discuss the case and argue that the theory is indeed unscientific because its core claims are untestable even in principle.

Language's intentional nature has been highlighted as a crucial feature distinguishing it from other communication systems. Specifically, language is often thought to depend on highly structured intentional action and mutual mindreading by a communicator and recipient. Whilst similar abilities in animals can shed light on the evolution of intentionality, they remain challenging to detect unambiguously. We revisit animal intentional communication and suggest that progress in identifying analogous capacities has been complicated by (i) the assumption that intentional (that is, voluntary) production (...) of communicative acts requires mental-state attribution, and (ii) variation in approaches investigating communication across sensory modalities. To move forward, we argue that a framework fusing research across modalities and species is required. We structure intentional communication into a series of requirements, each of which can be operationalised, investigated empirically, and must be met for purposive, intentionally communicative acts to be demonstrated. Our unified approach helps elucidate the distribution of animal intentional communication and subsequently serves to clarify what is meant by attributions of intentional communication in animals and humans. (shrink)

Language’s intentional nature has been highlighted as a crucial feature distinguishing it from other communication systems. Specifically, language is often thought to depend on highly structured intentional action and mutual mindreading by a communicator and recipient. Whilst similar abilities in animals can shed light on the evolution of intentionality, they remain challenging to detect unambiguously. We revisit animal intentional communication and suggest that progress in identifying analogous capacities has been complicated by (i) the assumption that intentional (that is, voluntary) production (...) of communicative acts requires mental-state attribution, and (ii) variation in approaches investigating communication across sensory modalities. To move forward, we argue that a framework fusing research across modalities and species is required. We structure intentional communication into a series of requirements, each of which can be operationalised, investigated empirically, and must be met for purposive, intentionally communicative acts to be demonstrated. Our unified approach helps elucidate the distribution of animal intentional communication and subsequently serves to clarify what is meant by attributions of intentional communication in animals and humans. (shrink)

This reply addresses observations of Drs. Larsen, Kruse, and Sweeny, and Scherer in their reviews of our published work on the link between positive psychological assets and outcomes of physical health. Inspired by Obama’s Precision Medicine Initiative we argue that the interplay between the emotion spectrum and health is likely a complex and heterogeneous amalgam of known and yet unidentified elements melding at the individual level. When exploring the emotion–health link, researchers are challenged to grapple with complex system models by (...) considering multiple hierarchies of information that span individual-level factors, genetic blueprints, and cultural and environmental context. Research is needed to more fully elucidate the mechanism through which emotion influences health, with careful consideration of differences across race/ethnicity, culture, and context. (shrink)

Advanced Cell Technology's Ethics Advisory Board has been called window dressing for a corporate marketing plan. But the scientists and managers have paid attention, and the lawyers have gone along.

Humans have undergone a long evolutionary history of violent agonistic exchanges, which would have placed selective pressures on greater body size and the psychophysical systems that detect them. The present work showed that greater body size in humans predicted increased knockout power during combative contests (Study 1a-1b: total N = 5,866; Study 2: N = 44 openweight fights). In agonistic exchanges reflective of ancestral size asymmetries, heavier combatants were 200% more likely to win against their lighter counterparts because they were (...) 200% more likely to knock them out (Study 2). Human dominance judgments (total N = 500 MTurkers) accurately tracked the frequency with which men (N = 516) knocked out similar-sized adversaries (Study 3). Humans were able to directly perceive a man’s knockout power because they were attending to cues of a man’s body size. Human dominance judgments—which are important across numerous psychological domains, including attractiveness, leadership, and legal decision-making—accurately predict the likelihood with which a potential mate, ally, or rival can incapacitate their adversaries. (shrink)