The functional basis of disgust in disease avoidance is widely accepted; however, there is disagreement over what disgust is. This is a significant problem, as basic questions about disgust require...

Previous studies found similarities in adults’ disgust responses to benign (e.g. obesity) and actual disease signs (e.g. influenza). However, limited research has compared visual (i.e. benign and actual) to cognitive (i.e. disease label) disease cues in different age groups. The current study investigated disgust responses across middle childhood (7–9 years), late childhood (10–12 years), adolescence (13–17 years), and adulthood (18+ years). Participants viewed individuals representing a benign visual disease (obese), sick-looking (staphylococcus), sick-label (cold/flu), and healthy condition. Disgust-related outcomes were: (1) (...) avoidance, or contact level with apparel the individual was said to have worn, (2) disgust facial reactions, and (3) a combination of (1) and (2). Avoidance was greater for the sick-looking and sick-label than the healthy and obese conditions. For facial reaction and combination outcomes, middle childhood participants responded with greater disgust to the sick-looking than the healthy condition, while late childhood participants expressed stronger disgust towards the sick-looking and obese conditions than the healthy condition. Adolescents and adults exhibited stronger disgust towards sick-label and sick-looking than obese and healthy conditions. Results suggest visual cues are central to children’s disgust responses whereas adolescents and adult responses considered cognitive cues. (shrink)

As Children’s Laureate 2013–2015, Malorie Blackman raised awareness of the lack of racial diversity in children’s fiction. Underrepresentation of ethnic minorities in fiction and the publishing industry’s infrastructure is a severe problem in the world of children’s books, as illuminated by research into the publishing environment of the past 15 years, and the books populating current bestseller charts. Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of economic and symbolic capital is important to understanding how diversity is highlighted in the contemporary literary field, but his (...) polarization of the different form of capital as motivation for creating art is reductive. Storytelling is about combining voices and experiences, and publishers can, and should, combine economic and symbolic motivations in publishing diverse fiction for children. Publishing a book because it will be successful economically and because it is the right thing to do are not mutually exclusive; in publishing diverse children’s fiction, both motives can and should inspire us. (shrink)

Ample research demonstrates that parents’ experience-based mental representations of attachment—cognitive models of close relationships—relate to their children’s social-emotional development. However, no research to date has examined how parents’ attachment representations relate to another crucial domain of children’s development: brain development. The present study is the first to integrate the separate literatures on attachment and developmental social cognitive neuroscience to examine the link between mothers’ attachment representations and 3- to 8-year-old children’s brain structure. We hypothesized that mothers’ attachment representations would relate (...) to individual differences in children’s brain structures involved in stress regulation—specifically, amygdala and hippocampal volumes—in part via mothers’ responses to children’s distress. We assessed 52 mothers’ attachment representations and children’s brain structure. Mothers’ secure base script knowledge was significantly related to children’s smaller left amygdala volume but was unrelated to hippocampal volume; we found no indirect links via maternal responses to children’s distress. Exploratory analyses showed associations between mothers’ attachment representations and white matter and thalamus volumes. Together, these preliminary results suggest that mothers’ attachment representations may be linked to the development of children’s neural circuitry related to stress regulation. (shrink)

The source texts for Ovid's Heroides often contain precedents for his heroines as message senders at moments in their tradition especially ripe for elegiac refashioning. The first part of this paper suggests that the disputed first word of Heroides 1, a hanc with no apparent referent, signals Penelope's penchant for composing messages, both in Ovid's elegiac letter and in Homer's epic, and functions as a programmatic opening to the collection. The second part more briefly treats letters 4, 5, 6, 7, (...) 9, and 13 to show how their authors' previous mythographical correspondence also provides points of origin for the Heroides. (shrink)

Enrollers play a critical yet often overlooked role in clinical research, particularly in informed consent processes. Study retention may depend in part on how complex information is conveyed to potential participants. This qualitative study aimed to assess communicative barriers during consent and enrolment in two South African TB/HIV clinical studies. In particular, we compared our own perceptions of potential challenges to consent with that of thirteen enrollers, gained via reflective journaling and focus group discussions. Some overlap of identified challenges was (...) evident, including terminology, jargon and consent document format. However there were mismatches to identified challenges. Enrollers provided further insights into potential challenges to consent, in particular, blood withdrawal, discussion of sexual issues and misunderstanding of study participation. Enrollers also reported feeling ill‐equipped to provide counselling when participants became distressed. We offer several recommendations for strengthening the inclusion of enrollers in the development of clinical research protocols and consent documents. (shrink)

Reductionism is a central issue in the philosophy of biology. One common objection to reduction is that molecular explanation requires reference to higher-level properties, which I refer to as the context objection. I respond to this objection by arguing that a well-articulated notion of a mechanism and what I term mechanism extension enables one to accommodate the context-dependence of biological processes within a reductive explanation. The existence of emergent features in the context could be raised as an objection to the (...) possibility of reduction via this strategy. I argue that this objection can be overcome by showing that there is no tenable argument for the existence of emergent properties that are not susceptible to a reductive explanation. (shrink)

The lymphatic vasculature plays a critical role in the regulation of body fluid volume and immune function. Extensive research into the molecular mechanisms that control blood vessel growth has led to identification of molecules that also regulate development and growth of the lymphatic vessels. This is generating a great deal of interest in the molecular control of the lymphatics in the context of embryogenesis, lymphatic disorders and tumor metastasis. Studies in animal models carried out over the past three years have (...) shown that the soluble protein growth factors, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)‐C and VEGF‐D, and their cognate receptor tyrosine kinase, VEGF receptor‐3 (VEGFR‐3), are critical regulators of lymphangiogenesis. Furthermore, disfunction of VEGFR‐3 has recently been shown to cause lymphedema. The capacity to induce lymphangiogenesis by manipulation of the VEGF‐C/VEGF‐D/VEGFR‐3 signaling pathway offers new opportunities to understand the function of the lymphatic system and to develop novel treatments for lymphatic disorders. BioEssays 24:1030–1040, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

In 2012, a Venn diagram appeared on the blog The Kitchn detailing the characteristics of what it called the “worst dinner guest ever.” This maligned guest is not only vegan but also gluten and lactose intolerant and allergic to nuts and eggs. While a few commenters agreed with the implication that dietary constraints indicate a failure of appropriate guest behavior, most echoed what Lisa Heldke and Raymond Boisvert (2016) suggest is the dominant American view: hosts are generally obliged to accommodate (...) the dietary restrictions of their guests. For Heldke and Boisvert, this is most obviously true when guests have food allergies and serious harm can be easily avoided by a change in menu. In this essay I argue that epistemic barriers can obscure hosts’ perception of these ostensibly obvious cases, preventing them from fulfilling their obligations. Specifically, I argue that guests with food allergies and other “gut issues” can be subject to testimonial injustice that undermines their credibility, leading hosts to doubt or disbelieve their need for accommodation. Such guests may also be subject to testimonial smothering, discouraging them from disclosing their dietary restrictions in the first place. I argue that these forms of epistemic injustice raise multiple moral concerns and that hosts have a responsibility to practice epistemic humility regarding guests’ reports of gut issues. Overall, this paper aims to enable hosts and guests with gut issues alike to recognize and overcome epistemic obstacles to good hospitality—the importance of which extends far beyond the dinner table. (shrink)

This book explores Rousseau's contribution to the Republican tradition in political thought. Through comparisons with various Republican lineages, it addresses problems that have defined and redefined Republicanism: attaining virtue, preserving liberty, sustaining the social order, orienting persons toward the common good, and having the law rule over men.

Some science educators claim that children enter science classrooms with a conception of heat considered by physicists to be incorrect and speculate that “misconceptions” may result from the way heat is talked about in everyday language (e.g., Lautrey and Mazens, 2004 ; Slotta and Chi, 2006 ). We investigated talk about heat in naturalistic conversation to explore the claim that children often hear heat discussed as a substance rather than as a process, potentially hindering later learning of heat as energy (...) involved in emergent processes. We explored naturalistic speech among children and adults to understand the nature and the frequency of heat- and temperature-related conversations that young children are involved in. This study aims to investigate the actual linguistic resources that children have available as part of a sociocultural approach to cognitive development. Parents’ everyday conversations about heat and temperature with their 2–6-year-old children were drawn from the Child Language Data Exchange System (CHILDES) language database and from a parent–child book-reading study. Parents used the word heat rarely, but they did so in ways that implied it is a substance. Parents never talked about heat as an emergent process but sometimes as a direct causal process. Most of the heat- and temperature-related talk, however, focused on words like hot and cold to describe temperature as a property of objects. This investigation of what young children actually experience in everyday conversations is a step toward studying how everyday language may play a role in children’s understanding of heat and temperature. (shrink)

Alcohol displays on Facebook are ever present and can be socially desirable for college students. Because problematic drinking is a concern for college students, this research sought to understand how different types of information on a Facebook page influence first year college student likelihood to drink. Telephone interviews were conducted with 338 incoming college freshmen from two large national universities. Data were obtained from a vignette prompt that presented a scenario in which a senior college student’s Facebook profile displayed wall (...) posts, pictures, and status updates that were drinking related or prosocial in nature. Participants were asked to report intention to drink alcohol with that student if they were together at a party. Findings supported the following hypotheses: Wall posts were most influential (the stickiest), followed by pictures, followed by status updates. Findings provide additional empirical support for established online impression formation patterns, and also provide evidence that virtual cues are being ingrained as schemas in interpersonal communication. These results are discussed in relation to the concept of sticky cues in impression formation. (shrink)

Parents whose child is diagnosed with a serious disease such as trisomy 18 first rely on the medical community for an accurate description and prognosis. In the case of trisomy 18, however, many families are told the disease is “incompatible with life” even though some children with the condition live for several years. This paper considers parents’ response to current medical discourse concerning trisomy 18 by examining blogs written by the parents of those diagnosed. Using interpretive humanistic reading and foregrounding (...) Cathryn Molloy’s recuperative ethos theory, we find that parents demonstrate recuperative ethos in response to physicians’ descriptions of trisomy 18, particularly in rhetoric addressing survival, medicalized language, and religious and/or spiritual rhetoric. We argue that, by using language such as “incompatible with life,” physicians distance themselves from families, creating not care, but the very gulf that requires recuperation. We conclude that medical professionals would do well to engage with the trisomy 18 community—including learning from blogs and online forums— employ palliative care practices, and seek more accurate, descriptive language that is compatible with care. (shrink)

We investigated the ethical decision-making processes and intentions of 151 military personnel responding to 1 of 2 ethical scenarios drawn from the deployment experiences of military commanders. For each scenario, option choice and perspective affected decision-making processes. Differences were also found between the 2 scenarios. Results add to the emerging literature concerning operational ethical conflicts and highlight the complexity and challenge that often accompanies operational ethics.

Representing two generations of counselor education and practice, Megan Anna Neff and Mark McMinn provide practitioners with a fresh look at integration in a postmodern world. Modeling how to engage hard questions, they consider how different theological views, gendered perspectives, and cultures integrate with psychology and counseling.

Shavelson and colleagues (2023) describe how medical aid-in-dying laws in the United States prohibit assistance in administering aid-in-dying medication. This prohibition distinguishes aid in dying...

A currently popular proposal for fairly distributing emission quotas is the equal shares view, which holds that that emission quotas should be distributed to all human beings globally on an equal per capita basis. In this paper I aim to show that a number of arguments in favour of equal shares are based on a misleading analysis of climate change as a global commons problem. I argue that a correct understanding of the way in which climate change results from the (...) overuse of a global commons shows those who defend equal shares using commons arguments to be harbouring more controversial commitments than might at first appear. I then discuss two options for equal shares theorists who wish to maintain the view in the face of my critique, and attempt to show that one approach holds more promise than the other. (shrink)

Moral distress has been characterised in the nursing literature as a major problem affecting nurses in all healthcare systems. It has been portrayed as threatening the integrity of nurses and ultimately the quality of patient care. However, nursing discourse on moral distress is not without controversy. The notion itself is conceptually flawed and suffers from both theoretical and practical difficulties. Nursing research investigating moral distress is also problematic on account of being methodologically weak and disparate. Moreover, the ultimate purpose and (...) significance of the research is unclear. In light of these considerations, it is contended that the notion of moral distress ought to be abandoned and that concerted attention be given to advancing inquiries that are more conducive to improving the quality and safety of moral decision-making, moral conduct and moral outcomes in nursing and healthcare domains. (shrink)

The topic of fake news has received increased attention from philosophers since the term became a favorite of politicians (Habgood-Coote 2016; Dentith 2016). Notably missing from the conversation, however, is a discussion of fake news and conspiracy theory media as a market. This paper will take as its starting point the account of noxious markets put forward by Debra Satz (2010), and will argue that there is a pro tanto moral reason to restrict the market for fake news. Specifically, we (...) begin with Satz’s argument that restricting a market may be required when i) that market inhibits citizens from being able to stand in an equal relationship with one another, and ii) this problem cannot be solved without such direct restrictions. Our own argument then proceeds in three parts: first, we argue that the market for fake news fits Satz’s description of a noxious market; second, we argue against explanations of the proliferation of fake news that are couched in terms of “epistemic vice”, and likewise argue against prescribing critical thinking education as a solution to the problem; finally, we conclude that, in the absence of other solutions to mitigate the noxious effects of the fake news market, we have a pro tanto moral reason to impose restrictions on this market. At the end of the paper, we consider one proposal to regulate the fake news market, which involves making social media outlets potentially liable in civil court for damages caused by the fake news hosted on their websites. (shrink)

Persons with dementia often prefer to participate in decisions about their health care, but may be prevented from doing so because healthcare decision-making law facilitates use of advance directives or surrogate decision makers for persons with decisional impairments such as dementia. Federal and state disability law provide alternative decision-making models that do not prevent persons with mild to moderate dementia from making their own healthcare decisions at the time the decision needs to be made. In order to better promote autonomy (...) and wellbeing, persons with dementia should be accommodated and supported so they can make their own healthcare decisions. (shrink)

Public health nurses (PHN) have had a long history of working with new mothers in the community. Their practice includes collaboration, building therapeutic relationships, mutual goal setting, establishing trust, supporting clients’ strengths, empowerment and social justice. The wealth of information that new mothers receive both solicited and unsolicited may come from many different sources such as medicine, midwifery and those created personally by families. Although much of the information on mothering is presented with the intent of helping, it can also (...) be hegemonic and oppressive depending on different discourses, stereotypes and myths of mothering and therefore may cause confusion, guilt and uncertainty. Public health nurses often address conflicting social, cultural and personal discourses about mothering practices in order to support an empowering mothering experience. The term ‘social mediator’ was purposefully created in an attempt to describe the unique work of PHNs that this author has witnessed through her own research and practice as a PHN. This paper will present a discussion of the author's own work and research findings that will suggest how feminist poststructuralist theory may be used to guide and understand information exchange between PHNs and mothers as they mediate different social, cultural and personal discourses on mothering. (shrink)

In the 1830s and 1840s, the Hydrographic Office of the British Admiralty developed and oversaw one of the major state-run surveying projects of the nineteenth century. This involved a range of instruments whose circulation was increasingly regulated. Using extant museum collections and the correspondence of those involved, this article explores how such objects can be used to discuss both bureaucratic organization at a time of expanding government and the complex issues of sociability involved in hydrographic surveying. Surveying officers worked in (...) a context in which the propriety of property on public service was a pervasive question. Instruments might be given as gifts between officers, appropriated as recompense, absorbed as state property, and disputed between friends. The ownership, provision, and treatment of instruments in particular could be used to demonstrate an officer’s peculiar zeal or institutional neglect. To those outside the ship, what was understood as over-instrumentation became amusing spectacle. On board, their use was part of a deeply hierarchical order of work in regions of colonial and mercantile importance. In examining the relationships around these instruments of survey, the paper proposes a richer understanding of the material culture of hydrography in the early nineteenth century. (shrink)

Cancer cells seem to exploit mechanisms that evolve as part of physiological tolerance, which is a complementary and often beneficial form of defense. The study of physiological systems of tolerance can therefore provide insights into the development of a state of host tolerance of cancer, and how to break it. Analysis of these models has the potential to improve our understanding of existing immunological therapeutic targets, and help to identify future targets and rational therapeutic combinations. The treatment of cancer with (...) immune checkpoint inhibitors aims to reverse the progression to tolerance of cancer, and achieve an immunogenic, rather than tolerogenic, homeostasis. Broadening the efficacy and durability of checkpoint inhibitors focuses on reversing tolerance and stimulating immunogenicity in the cancer, host, and environment. Two examples of important physiological states of tolerance that may inform tolerance of cancer are microbial infection and placental reproduction. These states of tolerance result from bilateral shaping of host and non‐self, akin to immunoediting in cancer, and offer reliable models to study the immune tolerance paradigm. (shrink)

This article looks briefly at the theological history and contemporary issues surrounding children regarding sexuality and gender and explores what the future of feminist theologies has to offer them as autonomous subjects. Within this I suggest that the cross pollination of ideas from art, quantum theology and the new cosmology can enrich the future of feminist theologies by opening up the theological debate to new ways of thinking, doing and living more justly. The inclusion of children’s embodied lives in the (...) bigger theological cosmological picture allows us to engage with their subjectivity; it also challenges existing patriarchal values that dominate and affect the future flourishing of our radical human equality, the equality of all life and the planet Earth itself. (shrink)

Based on the poem by Saint Augustine "The Beauty of Creation Bears Witness to God," this is a story about how the author's son, Nick, sees the wonderful presence of God in nature, and how the wonder of Nick himself shines through the story of his wonder watching.

Evidence suggests that men are more confident and less risk averse in financial decision making. Researchers did not address how men and women respond differently to goals in financial decision situations, however. In the present study, men set more challenging personal goals and risked more resources than women in a complex financial decision task. Men did not report higher self-efficacy versus women. As expected, gender interacted with assigned goals to predict self-efficacy, risk behavior, and personal goals. Results concur with recent (...) financial decision research that suggests men and women differ in their use of externally-provided information such as assigned goals. Suggestions for future research are offered and limitations are discussed. (shrink)

Philosophical Issues, Volume 30, Issue 1, Page 86-101, October 2020.

I read Montesquieu’s 'Persian Letters' as an attempt to theorize a liberated alternative to despotic rule. As Montesquieu argues in 'The Spirit of the Laws,' fear—specifically fear of the ruler’s emotional and material excesses—dominates the life of the despotic subject. Although in the 'Letters' the seraglio is the despotic state’s parallel, the seraglio is the site of over owing and barely governed passions. Montesquieu’s solution to the excesses of the seraglio is not the eradication of emotion; rather, he o ers (...) a template for transforming negative passion—fear—into courage, a prelude to a potentially liberating experience. is transformation is portrayed most clearly in the character of Roxane, the rebellious wife whose courageous actions precipitate the collapse of the seraglio. I argue that Roxane’s insurrection and suicide evoke a model established by the Roman matriarch Lucretia. Though not traditional political actors themselves, both Lucretia and Roxane anticipate the possibility of a personal and political liberation through their refusal of fear-based, despotic politics in favour of alternative emotional regimes based in courage. (shrink)

In this discussion piece, eight scholars in geography, urban planning, and agri-food studies from the United States (US) and France engage in a bi-national comparison to deepen our collective understanding of food and land justice. We specifically contextualize land justice as a critical component of food justice in both the US and France in three key areas: access to land for cultivation, urban agriculture, and non-agricultural forms of food provisioning. The US and France are interesting cases to compare, considering the (...) differences and similarities in their colonial and agricultural histories, persistent and systemic race and class-based inequities in land access, and the roles of public bodies and social movements. In this paper, we synthesize literature, share reflections, and offer directions for future scholarship, including a broader comparative research agenda. An important difference we found is in the degree of scholarly attention to race and how it mediates access to land. We also observe that few scholars articulate a clear definition of justice in their work, nor do they share a common justice framework. We hope that this paper contributes to a more robust food and land justice framework for the use of scholars, practitioners and activists. (shrink)

JOHNSTONE M‐J. Nursing Inquiry 2012; 19: 107–115 [Epub ahead of print]Academic freedom and the obligation to ensure morally responsible scholarship in nursingAcademic freedom is generally regarded as being of critical importance to the development, improved understanding, and dissemination of new knowledge in a field. Although of obvious importance to the discipline of nursing, the nature, extent and value of academic freedom and the controversies surrounding it have rarely been considered in the nursing literature. It is a key aim of this (...) paper to redress this oversight by providing a brief examination of: (i) the principle of academic freedom; (ii) the distinction between academic freedom, freedom of speech, and the academic freedom to publish; (iii) the problem of ideological judgments being dressed up as scientific or discipline judgments to supports ‘bad’ conclusions; and (iv) the standards that might otherwise be appealed to for determining whether maverick manuscripts supporting morally abhorrent conclusions should be accepted for publication. It is suggested that the tenets of academic freedom require robust international debate, with due attention being given to such issues as the development of an international declaration on academic freedom to publish in nursing, how to ensure a robust rebuttal system in nursing journals to counter specious scholarship, and how to better promote the letters pages of nursing journals as a venue for facilitating debate on controversial issues. (shrink)

This article engages critically with Bourdieu’s notion of field. It questions the emphasis that Bourdieu places on what he terms ‘objective relations’ at the expense of the actual relations of those within a field. This not only involves relations between human actors but the interactions of humans with the non-human such as inanimate objects that over time, and in particular spaces, engender certain forms of embodiment. The intention of the article is to think through these phenomenological dimensions of field. It (...) does this by firstly examining these issues as theoretical questions before siting them within an empirical context, revisiting data from an earlier study into the differential achievement of students of Chinese-, Pacific Islander- and Anglo-Australian backgrounds to ascertain the ways in which various micropractices performed within the home promote different dispositions to learning, some more and some less of value at school. (shrink)