BackgroundApproximately 7% of the general population is affected by an orphan disease, which, in the United States, is defined as affecting fewer than 1 in 1500 people. Disease awareness is often low and time-to-diagnosis delayed. Different legislations worldwide have created incentives for pharmaceutical companies to develop drugs for orphan diseases. A journalistic article in Bloomberg Businessweek has claimed that pharmaceutical companies have tried marketing orphan drugs by placing a specific disease into the popular television series “House, M.D.” which features diagnostic (...) journeys and was produced between 2004 and 2012. This study aimed to describe the presentation of orphan diseases in the television series “House, M.D.”, to test in an exploratory fashion the hypothesis that treatable orphan conditions are overrepresented in “House, M.D.” and to discuss whether such marketing practices may or may not be ethical.MethodsA list of all medical cases depicted in the television series “House, M.D.” was obtained and classified as orphan or non-orphan according to the Orphanet database. The ratios of orphan diseases among all diseases, such with an orphan drug designation and such with an orphan drug approval by the FDA were then compared with conservative approximations of real world conditions (chi-squared tests for equality of proportions). STROBE criteria were respected.ResultsOut of a total of n = 181 different medical diagnoses, n = 42 (23.2%) were orphan diseases. The difference in percentages in between “House, M.D.” and reality was not statistically significant for orphan diseases overall (p = 0.96), yet was statistically significantly higher for both orphan diseases with one or more orphan drug designations (p = 0.0192) and such with one or more approved orphan drugs (p < 0.0001).ConclusionsOrphan diseases with a designated and/or approved orphan drug were overrepresented in the television series “House, M.D.” with statistical significance while orphan diseases overall were not. This may be explained by (so far) undocumented efforts of pharmaceutical companies to place their orphan drugs in the television series, as described in the article in Bloomberg Businessweek. Further research is needed into marketing practices in popular and emerging media formats. (shrink)

ABSTRACTOrganization and management researchers praise the value of care in the workplace. However, they overlook the conflict between caring for work and for coworkers, which resonates with the dilemma of care allocation highlighted by ethicists of care. Through an in-depth qualitative study of two organizations, we examine how this dilemma is confronted in everyday organizational life. We draw on the concept of boundary work to explain how employees negotiate the boundary of their caring responsibilities in ways that grants or denies (...) care to coworkers. We argue that the possibility of an ethics of care for coworkers requires boundary work that suspends the separation of personal and professional selves and constitutes the worker as a whole person. We contribute to research on care in organizations by showing how care for coworkers may be enabled or undermined by maintaining or suppressing the care allocation dilemma. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) aspirations by companies have been identified as a motivating factor for active employee participation in CSR implementation. However, a failure to practise what one preaches can backfire and lead to attribution of hypocrisy. Drawing on a qualitative study of an award-winning sustainability pioneer in the cosmetics sector, we explore the role of moral judgement in how and when employees interpret word–deed misalignment in CSR implementation as hypocritical. First, our case reveals that high CSR aspirations by companies (...) raise employees’ moral expectations. Second, we develop a framework that explains variations in employees’ hypocrisy interpretations based on consequentialist and deontological forms of moral judgement. Our research advances a contextual view of hypocrisy, not as an objective characteristic of an organisation, but as an outcome of interpretative processes of perceived motives and results in CSR implementation. Our framework thereby explains why even highly committed organisations may face accusations of hypocrisy. (shrink)

Immunology and its philosophy are a primary source for thinking about biological individuality. Through its discriminatory function, the immune system is believed to delineate organism and environment within one generation, thus defining the physiological individual. Based on the paradigmatic instantiations of immune systems, immune interactions and, thus, the physiological individual are believed to last only for one generation. However, in recent years, transgenerationally persisting immune responses have been reported in several phyla, but the consequences for physiological individuality have not yet (...) been explored. In this article, I will introduce an invertebrate immune system that is RNA-based and operates through a heritable silencing/licensing paradigm. I will discuss how such a perspective on immune systems can illuminate our conceptions of individuality. I will particularly introduce an account of immunological individuality that is not restricted to one generation. (shrink)

This essay reconsiders the role of irony in the Hegelian project of developing a theory of modern ethical life. It recognizes in Socratic irony the traces of an alternative concept of morality that leads both to an acknowledgement of Hegel’s convincing critique of the Kantian moral principle and to a rejection of Hegel’s misconception of Socratic and Romantic irony. Arguing against Hegel that irony cannot be reduced to a form of alienation from the normative dimension of ethical life as a (...) whole, but should instead be understood as a necessary component of a dynamic mediation between subjective freedom and ethical universality, the author further claims that irony, thus conceived, takes on the productive function that it should actually have had within the Hegelian system. That is, ironyis a phenomenon that, from the standpoint of morality, refers us to a form of ethical life in which subjective freedom and difference are respected. (shrink)

This study presents the evaluation of a computer-based learning program for children with developmental dyscalculia and focuses on factors affecting individual responsiveness. The adaptive training program Calcularis 2.0 has been developed according to current neuro-cognitive theory of numerical cognition. It aims to automatize number representations, supports the formation and access to the mental number line and trains arithmetic operations as well as arithmetic fact knowledge in expanding number ranges. Sixty-seven children with developmental dyscalculia from second to fifth grade (mean age (...) 8.96 years) were randomly assigned to one of two groups (Calcularis group, waiting control group). Training duration comprised a minimum of 42 training sessions à 20 min within a maximum period of 13 weeks. Compared to the waiting control group, children of the Calcularis group demonstrated a higher benefit in arithmetic operations and number line estimation. These improvements were shown to be stable after a 3-months post training interval. In addition, this study examines which predictors accounted for training improvements. Results indicate that this self-directed training was especially beneficial for children with low math anxiety scores and without an additional reading and/or spelling disorder. In conclusion, Calcularis 2.0 supports children with developmental dyscalculia to improve their arithmetical abilities and their mental number line representation. However, it is relevant to further adapt the setting to the individual circumstances. (shrink)

This study investigated whether age and/or differences in hearing sensitivity influence the perception of the emotion dimensions arousal (calm vs. aroused) and valence (positive vs. negative attitude) in conversational speech. To that end, this study specifically focused on the relationship between participants’ ratings of short affective utterances and the utterances’ acoustic parameters (pitch, intensity, and articulation rate) known to be associated with the emotion dimensions arousal and valence. Stimuli consisted of short utterances taken from a corpus of conversational speech. In (...) two rating tasks, younger and older adults either rated arousal or valence using a 5-point scale. Mean intensity was found to be the main cue participants used in the arousal task (i.e., higher mean intensity cueing higher levels of arousal) while mean F 0 was the main cue in the valence task (i.e., higher mean F 0 being interpreted as more negative). Even though there were no overall age group differences in arousal or valence ratings, compared to younger adults, older adults responded less strongly to mean intensity differences cueing arousal and responded more strongly to differences in mean F 0 cueing valence. Individual hearing sensitivity among the older adults did not modify the use of mean intensity as an arousal cue. However, individual hearing sensitivity generally affected valence ratings and modified the use of mean F 0. We conclude that age differences in the interpretation of mean F 0 as a cue for valence are likely due to age-related hearing loss, whereas age differences in rating arousal do not seem to be driven by hearing sensitivity differences between age groups (as measured by pure-tone audiometry). (shrink)

In his insightful review, Eugene V. Koonin discusses various aspects of CRISPR-Cas systems with a strong focus on their qualities as "adaptive immune systems". The CRISPR-Cas system is most famous for its application as a gene-editing tool. Koonin provides a deeper insight into its biological function in bacteria, which is to immunize the cell against parasite DNA. I shall comment on one issue discussed in the text, in two steps. First, I shall elaborate on CRISPR-Cas systems and their supposed Lamarckian (...) character. Criteria for calling biological phenomena genuinely Lamarckian will be narrowed down and then applied to the CRISPR-Cas system, considering interference-driven spacer acquisition as an instantiation of a truly Lamarckian paradigm. Second, I shall consider whether Lamarckian and "canonical" instances of inheritance are a case of theoretical pluralism, being two non-reducible, yet interconnected paradigms. (shrink)

Applying the framework of ecological rationality, the authors studied the adaptivity of group decision making. In detail, they investigated whether groups apply decision strategies conditional on their composition in terms of task‐relevant features. The authors focused on the recognition heuristic, so the task‐relevant features were the validity of the group members' recognition and knowledge, which influenced the potential performance of group strategies. Forty‐three three‐member groups performed an inference task in which they had to infer which of two German companies had (...) the higher market capitalization. Results based on the choice data support the hypothesis that groups adaptively apply the strategy that leads to the highest theoretically achievable performance. Time constraints had no effect on strategy use but did have an effect on the proportions of different types of arguments. Possible mechanisms underlying the adaptive use of recognition in group decision making are discussed. (shrink)

RESUMO: Ao posicionar-se no debate acerca dos fundamentos da moral, David Hume desenvolve uma concepção da moralidade segundo a qual esta diria respeito a ações e sentimentos desinteressados, que, frequentemente, relacionam-se diretamente com o interesse público. Nesse sentido, Hume mostra-se um crítico ferrenho de Bernard Mandeville, que teria defendido que a moralidade teria por base uma natureza humana governada apenas pelo amor próprio e pela vaidade. Ainda assim, não se pode perder de vista que os dois autores parecem se aproximar (...) no que diz respeito à origem da justiça e, por extensão, da sociedade tal como a conhecem. Isso porque ambos consideram que as regras sociais teriam surgido a partir da necessidade de satisfação de interesses. PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Hume, Mandeville, moralidade, sentimento, egoísmo. (shrink)

The Cambridge Companion to American Islam offers a scholarly overview of the state of research on American Muslims and American Islam. The book presents the reader with a comprehensive discussion of the debates, challenges and opportunities that American Muslims have faced through centuries of American history. This volume also covers the creative ways in which American Muslims have responded to the myriad serious challenges that they have faced and continue to face in constructing a religious praxis and complex identities that (...) are grounded in both a universal tradition and the particularities of their local contexts. The book introduces the reader to some of the many facets of the lives of American Muslims that can only be understood in their interactions with Islam's entanglement in the American experiment. (shrink)

How is admiration different from adoration? We provided one answer to this question by examining the pathways through which admiration and adoration linked to self-expansion in a questionnaire and an experimental (autobiographical recall of emotion episodes) study. Both emotions were associated with increased potential efficacy to accomplish goals (i.e., self-expansion), but different action tendencies accounted for these links. While our emotion inductions did not successfully distinguish between admiration and adoration, we could statistically disentangle their effects through mediator models. In both (...) studies, self-reported admiration linked to self-expansion through the tendency to emulate admired others. Adoration related to self-expansion through the tendency to affiliate with adored others. These findings were obtained after controlling for other emotions in response to the target person (awe, love, hope, benign envy) and mutuality of the relationship. Our findings also suggest that considering specific emotions (rather than undifferentiated positive affect) helps uncover different pathways to self-expansion. (shrink)

Walter Benjamin a suggéré de voir dans le fascisme une « esthétisation de la politique ». Avant lui, ce même diagnostic était appliqué non pas aux régimes autoritaires, mais, au contraire, aux régimes démocratiques. De Platon à Carl Schmitt, la philosophie a dénoncé la démocratie comme une multitude inconsistante et « bigarrée », qui préfère le jeu à l’ordre. Rebentisch estime que derrière ce jugement dépréciatif, les ennemis de la démocratie ont en fait parfaitement saisi quelques-uns de ses traits distinctifs (...) qu’il s’agit aujourd’hui de défendre dans une culture démocratique. La démocratie ne peut se passer de la mise en scène, car c’est sur scène qu’elle peut figurer le visage qu’elle veut se donner collectivement, consciente de l’écart qui subsiste toujours entre les identités actuelles et les identités possibles. (shrink)

In recent years, immune systems have sparked considerable interest within the philosophy of science. One issue that has received increased attention is whether other phyla besides vertebrates display an adaptive immune system. Particularly the discovery of CRISPR-Cas9-based systems has triggered a discussion about how to classify adaptive immune systems. One question that has not been addressed yet is the transgenerational aspect of the CRISPR-Cas9-based response. If immunity is acquired and inherited, how to distinguish evolutionary from immunological adaptation? To shed light (...) on this issue and obtain conceptual clarity, I will investigate the inheritance of small RNA responses to pathogens in the nematode C. elegans as a further potential instantiation of a transgenerational adaptive immune system. I will explore how to make sense of systems that lie at the crossroads between genetic, immunological, and evolutionary spheres and explore the consequences of a transgenerational perspective on immune systems for immunology and its philosophy. (shrink)

The discovery of RNA interference in 1998 has made a lasting impact on biological research. Identifying the regulatory role of small RNAs changed the modes of molecular biological inquiry as well as biologists' understanding of genetic regulation. This article examines the early years of small RNA biology's success story. I query which factors had to come together so that small RNA research came into life in the blink of an eye. I primarily look at scientific repertoires as facilitators of rapid (...) scientific change. I show that for a short period of time, between the years 1998 and 2002, different model organism communities, investigative strategies, technological innovations, and research interests could be successfully aligned to take small RNA research off the ground. I discuss how the keystone discoveries were situated in specific experimental traditions and what strategies were employed to establish these discoveries as more general phenomena. Providing thus a practice-based approach of rapid scientific change, I ask how to relate the change in propositional bits of scientific knowledge with changes in scientific practice. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility is often framed in terms of opposing constructions of the firm. These reflect, respectively, different accounts of its obligations: either to shareholders or to stakeholders. Although these opposing constructions of corporate responsibility are diametrically opposed, they are also much more fluid and mobile in certain contexts, since they can act as discursive resources that are deployed and brought into play in the struggle over shaping what responsibility means. They are less the fixed, ideological “signposts” they might appear, (...) and more like “weathervanes” that move alongside changing rhetorical currents. To show this, we analyse the Securities and Exchange Commission consultation process, and legislation, relating to the provenance of “conflict minerals”. We identify two dialectically opposed camps, each seeking to influence final legislation and with end goals in keeping with the shareholder/stakeholder dichotomy. One camp lobbied for firms to scrutinize their entire supply chain, constructing the firm as a “global citizen” with very wide social responsibilities. The second camp lobbied for a lighter touch approach, constructing the firm as a “trader”, with much narrower social responsibilities. We analyse the complex interplay between these two opposed camps, our contribution being to show how both deploy competing conceptions of the corporation as discursive resources. (shrink)

Machine learning has become a key component of contemporary information systems. Unlike prior information systems explicitly programmed in formal languages, ML systems infer rules from data. This paper shows what this difference means for the critical analysis of socio-technical systems based on machine learning. To provide a foundation for future critical analysis of machine learning-based systems, we engage with how the term is framed and constructed in self-education resources. For this, we analyze machine learning tutorials, an important information source for (...) self-learners and a key tool for the formation of the practices of the machine learning community. Our analysis identifies canonical examples of machine learning as well as important misconceptions and problematic framings. Our results show that machine learning is presented as being universally applicable and that the application of machine learning without special expertise is actively encouraged. Explanations of machine learning algorithms are missing or strongly limited. Meanwhile, the importance of data is vastly understated. This has implications for the manifestation of social inequalities through machine learning-based systems. (shrink)

While scientific pluralism enjoys widespread popularity within the philosophy of science, a related position, epistemic relativism, does not have much traction. Defenders of scientific pluralism, however, dread the question of whether scientific pluralism entails epistemic relativism. It is often argued that if a scientific pluralist accepts epistemic relativism, she will be unable to pass judgment because she believes that “anything goes”. In this article, I will show this concern to be unnecessary. I will also argue that common strategies to differentiate (...) relativism and pluralism fail. Building upon this analysis, I will propose a new way of looking at both positions’ relations. This article aims to understand what explains the friction between scientific pluralism and epistemic relativism. I will demonstrate that conceptualizing both epistemic relativism and scientific pluralism as “stances” sheds better light on their relation and demonstrates that it is, in principle, possible to support both positions at the same time. Preferred policies and levels of analysis, however, cause friction in practice. (shrink)

Scientific pluralism has become a household position within the philosophy of science literature. There are numerous accounts of plurality within various research fields. Most scientific pluralists, however, focus on the plurality of theories, explanations, or mechanisms, while other potential targets of plurality that the philosophy of scientific practice has particularly emphasized have so far not received extensive treatment. How should we approach such practice-based candidates of plurality? And what are potential pluralist positions concerning the objects of scientific practice? In this (...) article, I set out to answer these questions. I combine approaching a widely influential topic within the philosophy of science, scientific pluralism, with social science methodology. Using interview data combined with sociological analysis, I provide a nuanced picture of the dynamics of one particular research field that displays plurality. Focusing on how sociological configurations resonate with intellectual commitments within a research field, I disentangle practice-based from theoretical plurality. I consider how these empirical results should feedback on the scientific pluralism literature. (shrink)

This paper presents two studies that investigate how people praise and punish robots in a collaborative game scenario. In a first study, subjects played a game together with humans, computers, and anthropomorphic and zoomorphic robots. The different partners and the game itself were presented on a computer screen. Results showed that praise and punishment were used the same way for computer and human partners. Yet robots, which are essentially computers with a different embodiment, were treated differently. Very machine-like robots were (...) treated just like the computer and the human; robots very high on anthropomorphism / zoomorphism were praised more and punished less. However, barely any of the participants believed that they actually played together with a robot. After this first study, we refined the method and also tested if the presence of a real robot, in comparison to a screen representation, would influence the measurements. The robot, in the form of an AIBO, would either be present in the room or only be represented on the participants’ computer screen. Furthermore, the robot would either make 20% errors or 40% errors in the collaborative game. We automatically measured the praising and punishing behavior of the participants towards the robot and also asked the participant to estimate their own behavior. Results show that even the presence of the robot in the room did not convince all participants that they played together with the robot. To gain full insight into this human–robot relationship it might be necessary to directly interact with the robot. The participants unconsciously praised AIBO more than the human partner, but punished it just as much. Robots that adapt to the users’ behavior should therefore pay extra attention to the users’ praises, compared to their punishments. (shrink)

Although more women continue to enter the medical profession, disparities between the sexes in academic medicine persist. This “gender gap” has implications for academic advancement. In 2006, Jagsi and colleagues reported that, although the proportion of women among first and last authors in the United States had significantly increased since 1970, women still represented a minority of the authors of original research and guest editorials in six prominent medical journals.1 In a related 2008 study, Jagsi and colleagues found a substantial (...) increase in women’s representation on editorial boards and as editors-in-chief of several prominent journals.2 We collected more recent data about the gender distribution of authors, members of editorial boards, and peer reviewers for prominent medical journals. Using data from 2010-2011, we determined the proportion of women who were authors of original research or guest editorials, members of editorial boards, or reviewers at six major general medical journals: the Annals of Internal Medicine (Ann Intern Med), the British Medical Journal (BMJ), JAMA, JAMA Internal Medicine, the Lancet, and the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). (shrink)

Ibn Arfaʿ Raʾs es el autor de una colección famosa de poemas alquímicos titulada Šuḏūr al-ḏahab (Las Esquirlas de Oro). Además de Šuḏūr al-ḏahab compuso otras obras — en particular un comentario de las Šuḏūr que está descrito aquí por primera vez más detalladamente — así como poesía estrófica sobre alquimia. La atribución que se suele hacer de algunas obras a Ibn Arfaʿ Raʾs parece incorrecta, sobre todo en lo que se refiere a dos obras concretas sobre magia. Esta contribución (...) enfoca nuestros hallazgos sobre la identidad de Ibn Arfaʿ Raʾs y su vida, desafiando la identificación del alquimista Ibn Arfaʿ Raʾs con un erudito religioso Mālikī conocido como Ibn al-Naqirāt. Basado tanto en los manuscritos como en la literatura bio-bibliográfica, suponemos que dos personas diferentes, ambas del Marruecos del siglo VI/XII, probablemente han sido fusionadas en una en un período bastante temprano. Considerando todas las fuentes, sugerimos también que Ibn Arfaʿ Raʾs pueda haber dejado el Occidente Islámico y haber escrito por lo menos algunas de sus obras en Oriente, más específicamente en Egipto, lo que explicaría la recepción amplia de Šuḏūr al-ḏahab en todo el Mundo Islámico y especialmente en el Máshreq. (shrink)

Résumé L'article vise à montrer que le langage est intimement lié au monde social et que la clarification d'une telle relation dépend du fait de considérer sur un même plan les énoncés et les actions, ce qui conduit à considérer l'énonciation par le langage comme un type de comportement partagé. Cela signifie que la langue ne sert pas seulement les besoins de la vie sociale en tant que moyen d'intercompréhension. De façon relativement autonome, le langage fonctionne dans des conditions de (...) réalisation qui sont des relations sociales très segmentées et hiérarchisées. L'hypothèse est qu'il est nécessaire, comme point de départ de l'analyse du caractère social du langage, de reconnaître la valeur performative qu'ont les énoncés, du fait qu'ils contiennent, dans le domaine des actes de langage, un certain pouvoir effectif ajusté aux conditions sociales qui détermine leur énonciation. Resumen El artículo tiene el objetivo de mostrar que el lenguaje está íntimamente vinculado con el mundo social y que aclarar tal relación depende de considerar en un mismo plano de dependencia a los enunciados y a las acciones - lo que lleva a considerar al lenguaje como un tipo de comportamiento compartido. Eso quiere decir que el lenguaje no solo sirve a las necesidades de la vida social como medio de intercomprensión. Sobre un fondo relativamente autónomo -caracterizable en las consideraciones sobre los matices semánticos introducidos por las significaciones implícitas- el lenguaje funciona en condiciones de realización que son relaciones sociales altamente segmentadas y jerarquizadas. La hipótesis es que el lenguaje se realiza socialmente en la medida en que facilita a los individuos una forma de contacto. Pero también insistimos en que como punto de partida para el análisis del carácter social del lenguaje es necesario reconocer el valor performativo que tienen los enunciados en cuanto comportan, en el ámbito de los hechos del habla, un cierto poder realizativo ajustado a condiciones sociales que determinan los caminos de tal realización. (shrink)

In this paper, we explore how the development and affordances of predictive analytics may impact how teachers and other educational actors think about and teach students and, more broadly, how society understands education. Our particular focus is on the data dashboards of learning support systems which are based on Machine Learning. While previous research has focused on how these systems produce credible knowledge, we explore here how they also produce compelling, persuasive and convincing narratives. Our main argument is that particular (...) kinds of stories are written by predictive analytics and written into their data dashboards. Based on a case study of a leading predictive analytics system, we explore how data dashboards imply causality between the ‘facts’ they are visualising. To do so, we analyse the stories they tell according to their spatial and temporal dimensions, characters and events, sequentiality as well as tellability. In the stories we identify, teachers are managers, students are at greater or lesser risk, and students’ sociality is reduced to machine-readable interactions. Overall, only data marked as individual behaviours becomes relevant to the system, rendering structural inequalities invisible. Reflecting on the implications of these systems, we suggest ways in which the uptake of these systems can interrupt such stories and reshape them in other directions. (shrink)

In contrast to apes’ seemingly sophisticated skill at producing pointing gestures referentially, the comprehension of other individual’s pointing gestures as a source of indexical information seems to be less pronounced.One reason for apes’ difficulty at comprehending pointing gestures might be that in former studies they were mainly confronted with human declarative pointing gestures, whereas apes have largely been shown to point imperatively and towards humans. In the present study bonobos, chimpanzees and orangutans were confronted with a conspecific’s imperative pointing gesture (...) in a competitive context, therefore mirroring former studies that have investigated apes’ skills at producing these gestures.However, apes in the present study did not use their conspecific’s pointing gestures. Apes have been shown to use indexical information when provided noncommunicatively and to interpret other individuals’ actions in terms of motives. Thus, it is discussed whether apes treat a pointing gesture as intentional act of indexical reference. (shrink)

This article explores the therapeutic potential of narrative fiction during a global health crisis. We focus on The Decameron Project (2020), a collection of short fiction by writers from around the world, commissioned by the New York Times Magazine. The Decameron Project references the narrative framework established by Giovanni Boccaccio in the mid-14th century, when the Black Death devastated Europe. Drawing on aspects of psychoanalytic theory and principles of bibliotherapy employed since the Middle Ages, we argue that The Decameron Project (...) offers strategies to simultaneously confront and contain the anxious mind. Storytelling, according to both Boccaccio and to the editors of The Decameron Project, is not merely a source of distraction but a means of survival. (shrink)