More than 15 million people have been affected by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) and it has caused 640 016 deaths as of July 26, 2020. Currently, no effective treatment option is available for COVID‐19 patients. Though many drugs have been proposed, none of them has shown particular efficacy in clinical trials. In this article, the relationship between the Adrenergic system and the renin‐angiotensin‐aldosterone system (RAAS) is focused in COVID‐19 and a vicious circle consisting of the Adrenergic system‐RAAS‐Angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (...) (ACE2)‐severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2) (which is referred to as the “ARAS loop”) is proposed. Hyperactivation of the ARAS loop may be the underlying pathophysiological mechanism in COVID‐19, and beta‐adrenergic blockers are proposed as a potential treatment option. Beta‐adrenergic blockers may decrease the SARS‐CoV‐2 cellular entry by decreasing ACE2 receptors expression and cluster of differentiation 147 (CD147) in various cells in the body. Beta‐adrenergic blockers may decrease the morbidity and mortality in COVID‐19 patients by preventing or reducing acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and other complications. Retrospective and prospective clinical trials should be conducted to check the validity of the hypothesis. Also see the video abstract here https://youtu.be/uLoy7do5ROo. (shrink)

Victims of injustice are prominent protagonists in efforts to resist injustice. I argue that they have a duty to do so. Extant accounts of victims’ duties primarily cast these duties as self-regarding duties or duties based on collective identities and commitments. I provide an account of victims’ duties to resist injustice that is grounded in the duty to assist. I argue that victims are epistemically privileged with respect to injustice and are therefore uniquely positioned to assist fellow victims. Primarily, they (...) discharge this duty through testimony: victims alert other actors to the need for assistance and initiate and coordinate resistance efforts. I briefly provide an account of oppression that ranges from persecution to structural injustice. Through the examples of torture and ‘manterrupting’, I illustrate the duty and its limits. I outline shortcomings in victims’ epistemic privilege and explore means by which these can be overcome. I respond to objections from demandingness and fairness, arguing that victims have an essential, albeit circumscribed, role to play in defeating injustice. (shrink)

This article reviews recent arguments in contemporary political philosophy on victims' duties to resist their oppression. It begins by presenting two approaches to these duties. First, that victims' duties are self‐regarding duties that victims owe to their self‐respect or to their well‐being, and second, that victims' duties are other‐regarding duties that arise from victims' duties of justice or of assistance. The second part elaborates on what resistance consists in. The article then considers and responds to two prominent objections to arguments (...) for victims' duties: that they are too demanding, and that they are unfair and exploitative. It concludes by gesturing towards future areas of engagement, in particular, theorising the agents and mechanisms of oppression, and more explicitly engaging with methodological debates about non‐ideal theory. (shrink)

Victims of oppression often disagree amongst themselves on how best to respond to their oppression. Often, these disagreements are cast as disagreements about what strategies of resistance would be most effective. In this article, I argue that victims have a wider repertoire of responses to their oppression which reflect the different underlying reasons they have to respond. I outline three distinct reasons for action—self-respect, assistance, and justice—and the respective responses to oppression—rejection, assistance, and resistance—that these reasons call for. I then (...) provide some general comments on how these distinct reasons and responses relate to one another. Appreciating a wider repertoire of reasons and responses can illuminate the nature of disagreement amongst victims, points to the unavoidability of conflict, and provides for a more nuanced understanding of resistance and its alternatives—an understanding that can aid in better responding to injustice. (shrink)

This study investigated the impact of three prior distributions: matched, standard vague, and hierarchical in Bayesian estimation parameter recovery in two and one parameter models. Two Bayesian estimation methods were utilized: Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) and the relatively new, Variational Bayesian (VB). Conditional (CML) and Marginal Maximum Likelihood (MML) estimates were used as baseline methods for comparison. Vague priors produced large errors or convergence issues and are not recommended. For both MCMC and VB, the hierarchical and matched priors showed (...) the lowest root mean squared errors (RMSEs) for ability estimates; RMSEs of difficulty estimates were similar across estimation methods. For the standard errors (SEs), MCMC-hierarchical displayed the largest values across most conditions. SEs from the VB estimation were among the lowest in all but one case. Overall, VB-hierarchical, VB-matched, and MCMC-matched performed best. VB with hierarchical priors are recommended in terms of their accuracy, and cost and (subsequently) time effectiveness. (shrink)

Recently, there has been an increased interest in developing statistical methodologies for analyzing single case experimental design data to supplement visual analysis. Some of these are simulation-driven such as Bayesian methods because Bayesian methods can compensate for small sample sizes, which is a main challenge of SCEDs. Two simulation-driven approaches: Bayesian unknown change-point model and simulation modeling analysis were compared in the present study for three real datasets that exhibit “clear” immediacy, “unclear” immediacy, and delayed effects. Although SMA estimates can (...) be used to answer some aspects of functional relationship between the independent and the outcome variables, they cannot address immediacy or provide an effect size estimate that considers autocorrelation as required by the What Works Clearinghouse Standards. BUCP overcomes these drawbacks of SMA. In final analysis, it is recommended that both visual and statistical analyses be conducted for a thorough analysis of SCEDs. (shrink)

A Duty to Resist: When Disobedience Should be Uncivil, by DelmasCandice. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp vii + 295.

Using the tools of normative political theory, this book explores the political relationship between exiles and the communities from which they have fled. It makes two central claims. First, exiles have rights and responsibilities in their homelands and are morally required and permitted to play particular roles in the homeland. Second, in playing these roles, exile politics can perform two corrective functions: it can repair defective political institutions at home and it can compensate for institutional shortcomings in the global domain. (...) In short, exiles engage in a ‘politics from below’ and ‘away’ that produces alternative sites of power and can mitigate the several failings of an international system of states in an unequal world. This normative exploration of exile politics has a few implications. It counters an overwhelming focus, in both political philosophy and public discourse, on the consequences of forced migration for receiving societies—a focus that often treats exiles as passive actors. Recognizing the political agency of exiles reveals another side of the migration story, and allows for a more fulsome exploration of what political obligation and membership mean in an increasingly transnational world. Identifying exiles as important domestic and transnational actors also points to the ways third parties ought to enable the different roles exiles play in their communities of origin and in the international domain. And recognizing exile agency highlights the shortcomings of an international system of refugee protection that focuses on exiles’ humanitarian needs but denies them their political rights and agency. (shrink)

In Citizenship in a Globalised World, Christine Hobden argues for a conception of citizenship that is state-based but globally oriented. She urges citizens of democracies to take seriously their me...

I argue that ascribing duties to the poor better realizes Deveaux’s methodological and normative commitments; address some of the concerns such ascription raises; and indicate how Deveaux’s rich description of collective and individual agency-building can contribute to theorizing moral agency in non-ideal circumstances more generally.

The contributions to this symposium offer thoughtful and engaging commentary on Citizenship in a Globalised World; I am deeply grateful to Anna Stilz, Ashwini Vasanthakumar, Shuk Ying Chan, and Ste...

This introductory article summarizes some key elements of Monique Deveaux’s book Poverty, Solidarity, and Poor-Led Social Movements and situates that book in the philosophical literature on global poverty. It then provides an outline of the symposium contributions by Ashwini Vasanthakumar, Luis Cabrera, Brooke Ackerly, Catherine Lu, and Avery Kolers.