The current work builds a definition of irritability from both academic definitions and lay perspectives. In Study 1, a quantitative content analysis of academic definitions resulted in eight main content categories (i.e., behaviour, emotion or affect, cognition, physiological, qualifiers, irritant, stability or endurance, and other). In Study 2, a community sample of 39 adults participated in qualitative interviews. A deductive thematic analysis resulted in two main themes. The first main theme dealt with how participants positioned irritability in relation to other (...) negative states. The second dealt with how participants constructed irritability as both a loss of control and as an experience that should be controlled. The discussion integrates the findings of both studies and provides a concise, but comprehensive definition. (shrink)

Teniendo en cuenta que la filosofía es hija de la polis, a primera vista, el tema de la filosofía de la ciudad puede no revelar nada nuevo. De hecho, la filosofía y la ciudad cuentan una historia paralela. Es en el ágora, un espacio privilegiado para el ejercicio de la ciudadanía, donde la filosofía se desarrolla como debate de argumentos. Pero, aunque a lo largo de la historia las ciudades puedan reflejar un deseo civilizatorio, lo cierto es que la ciudad (...) contemporánea refleja muy poco de la realidad política de la polis, de la indiferenciación medieval entre lo público y lo privado o de la racionalidad normativa de la ciudad moderna. Las ciudades en el siglo xx, y especialmente en el siglo xxi, tienen que ver más con las relaciones sociales y económicas de la ciudad industrial y posindustrial. La progresiva mecanización del siglo xix y su extensión, en el siglo xx, a la automatización y a la digitalización, cambian definitivamente la forma en que nos relacionamos, pensamos y trabajamos —en resumen, cómo vivimos—. Con el establecimiento de un capitalismo de orden económico que afecta a todas las dimensiones de la vida de la ciudad, esta queda delimitada por el poder, revela las contradicciones de las sociedades urbanas diseñadas por los mercados y da lugar, según David Harvey, a la apropiación privada de la vida y los espacios. (shrink)

The seminal 1993 article by LaFollette and Shanks “Animal Models in Biomedical Research: Some Epistemological Worries” introduced an influential taxonomy into the debate about the value of animal experimentation. The distinction they made between hypothetical and causal analog models served to highlight a concern regarding extrapolating results obtained in animal models to human subjects, which endures today. Although their taxonomy has made a significant contribution to the field, we maintain that it is flawed, and instead, we offer a new practice-oriented (...) taxonomy of animal models as a means to allow philosophers, modelers, and other interested parties to discuss the epistemic merits and shortcomings, purpose, and predictive capacities of specific modeling practices. (shrink)

This article examines sexual identity formation among 346 lesbian-identified and 60 bisexual-identified women. On average, bisexuals come out at later ages and exhibit less “stable” identity histories. However, variations in identity history among lesbians and bisexuals overshadow the differences between them and demonstrate that coming out is not a linear, goal-oriented, developmental process. Sexual identity formation must be reconceptualized as a process of describing one's social location within a changing social context. Changes in sexual identity are, therefore, expected of mature (...) individuals as they maintain an accurate description of their position vis-à-vis other individuals, groups, and institutions. (shrink)

Acculturation is the process through which an individual's cultural behaviors and values change via contact with a majority or host culture. Although some individuals accomplish acculturation smoothly, most experience psychological stress during the acculturation process. When psychologists encounter individuals struggling to acculturate, they are mandated by ethical guidelines and principles to help through several steps: (a) recognize their own biases, beliefs, and attitudes that may influence their work with the acculturating individual; (b) develop competence to work with individuals whose cultural (...) beliefs and practices differ from their own; (c) counsel the acculturating individual using scientifically supported techniques; and (d) intervene without discrimination or disrespect. Two case studies are presented to illustrate how psychologists can ethically and effectively encourage mentally healthy acculturation. Keywords: acculturation, ethics, cultural differences. (shrink)

This article engages in debates about the potential for aesthetics to be a positive, ethical, and moral frame for relating to the environment. Human‐environment relations are increasingly tied up with aesthetics. We problematize this trend by contending that aesthetics is an insufficient paradigm to motivate and shape environmentalism because it exceptionalizes some landscapes while devaluing others. This article uses four illustrative case studies to complicate aesthetic environmentalist frames. These case studies indicate that even when positive aesthetic qualities are deployed in (...) environmentalist advocacy, their usefulness is mitigated by a range of factors including: sensationalization, obfuscation, and further degradation. (shrink)

J C Glass, W Johnson; Lakatosian Methodology and the Practical Implementation of a Liberal Notion of Education, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 25, I.

The data showed in this review exposes basic aspects that define organic foods and some factors that influence consumption by the population, ie, its production in the country and the motivations for the consumption of food produced in this system. This way of production, originated in the early decades in the 20th century, nowadays involves environmental, social and health aspects. Although the environment is a more evident aspect than other ones, economic output and potential beneficial to health are discussed further (...) in this description about organic foods. Brazil, has excelled in the growth of this type of farming, however holds the 6th position in the world and 2nd producer in Latin America, with grains and vegetables being the main products, although the livestock reaches the largest area. The consumption of these products is primarily motivated by the perception of organic food as healthier than other kinds of food. However, there are no conclusive studies about better nutritional value, where nutrient concentrations are often unchanged. In contrast the presence of more phytochemicals compounds and reduced pesticides’ content in vegetables, and lipid profile in animal products can justify the health benefits of the products obtained from the organic production system. (shrink)

Lakatos' MSRP is utilized to provide a response to Koertge's claim (in her ‘Does Social Science Really Need Metaphysics?’) that the heuristic significance of metaphysics has been vastly overrated. By outlining the hard cores and positive heuristics of the two major research programmes in economics (namely, the ‘orthodox’ and ‘Marxist’ research programmes), the paper demonstrates (in opposition to Koertge's claim) not only that the metaphysical statements in the respective hard cores are far from vague but also how these exert an (...) important regulative influence both on the theories and economic policy recommendations generated within the respective programmes. It also indicates how the adoption of the MSRP method of appraisal in economics would help to protect against the danger of entrenched metaphysical dogmatism with its implications not only for economic policy recommendations but also for moral and political recommendations. * We appreciate the assistance given by Professor N. Koertge, who provided us with translations of her articles, and the helpful comments of an anonymous referee. (shrink)

Some of the traditions and cultural beliefs and practices of the Idoma people of Nigeria have been influenced both positively and negatively as a result of the advent of Christianity in the area. The aim of this research is to investigate some of the cultural beliefs and practices of the Idoma people before the advent of Christianity, the people’s response to the new faith and the propelling factors behind the responses of the people. In doing so, a comparative study on (...) these beliefs and practices after the advent of Christianity in Idoma traditional society was done. The study adopts a qualitative phenomenological research design and descriptive method for data analysis. Personal interviews form a primary source of data collection, while the secondary source includes library sources. This method of study was chosen to allow the data collected to speak for themselves without any interference from the researchers. The study unveils that the advent of Christianity in the Idoma traditional society had some impact and consequences on the traditional and cultural practices of the people, such as death and burial ceremonies, the Aje-alekwu festival and widowhood practices among others. The study recommends that there should be a synergy between Idoma traditional beliefs and practices and Christianity for peaceful co-existence, progress and development in the area. Contribution: It is erroneously believed that in the contemporary society, traditional religious practices are going to die and become a thing of the past. However, one would observe from this study that Idoma people still hold their traditional beliefs and practices in high esteem despite the influence of Christianity in the area. (shrink)

The research focuses on the patterns of traditional religious and cultural practices of the Idoma People of Nigeria. The study also seeks to investigate the cultural beliefs and practices of the Idoma traditional society which were affected by the advent of Christianity in the area. Some of the cultural beliefs and practices of the Idoma people before the advent of Christianity will be examined, as well as the people response to the new faith and the propelling factors behind the responses (...) of the people. The study adopted qualitative phenomenological research design and descriptive method of data analysis. Personal interview forms a primary source of data collection while the secondary source includes library sources. The study reveals that the advent of Christianity in the Idoma traditional society had some impact and consequences on their traditional and cultural practices. Some of the Idoma beliefs and practices affected include ancestor veneration, polygamous marriage, burial rites, widowhood practices, naming ceremony among others which are no longer practiced the way it used to be practiced before the advent of Christianity. The study recommends among other things that, there should be a synergy between Idoma traditional beliefs and practices and Christianity for peaceful co-existence, progress and developments in the area. (shrink)

This chapter reflects on some of the major themes of this volume, as it takes up the question: is truth a value in political discourse? As a preliminary step, we evaluate a view of political discourse that answers this question negatively: the identity-expression view. According to this view, political claims function to express commitments central to an individual’s political self-conceptions, rather than to state truths in the political domain. While we often assess political claims as true or false, the identity-expression (...) view maintains that such assessments are nothing more than our way of affirming or rejecting such claims—assessments of truth in politics are themselves only ways of expressing the political identity of the assessor. We explore the implications of the identity-expression view for the analysis of political disagreement and argue that, while some political disagreements may be best modeled this way, it is not clear that all of them are: at least sometimes, political disagreements are clearly responsive to the exchange of truth-apt reasons. Indeed, the structure of political disagreements (and some cases of polarization) suggest that truth continues to play an important aspirational role in many political exchanges. This leads us to embrace a pluralist picture of the function of political discourse: political discourse performs multiple functions, including reaching political decisions based on a public exchange of truth-apt reasons, and motivating political action via expressions of identity-forming political commitments. We also draw some broader implications of this pluralist position about the function of political discourse for theories of truth. This includes deflationist approaches to truth making a good fit for expressive uses of political claims in disagreement in attitude, whereas substantive theories of truth appear better suited to explain factual political disagreements. (shrink)

From the back cover: This book offers a collection of papers on focal themes in truth research, including minimalism, pragmatism and pluralism, and philosophical logic. It further provides valuable hindsight with contemporary perspectives on the works of Frege, Wittgenstein, Ramsey, Strawson, and Evans on truth, and it features recent discussions on the role and value of truth in politics and political discourse. The collection is based on groundbreaking presentations hosted by the Virtual International Consortium for Truth Research (VICTR), including talks (...) given at the TRUTH 20/20 conference. -/- The volume features exclusive transcriptions of panel discussions on truth and factuality with Huw Price, Douglas Edwards, Cheryl Misak, and Amie Thomasson, and on truth and polarization with Michael Lynch, Maria Baghramian, and Cailin O’Connor. It includes the transcript of a televised 1973 conversation between Peter Strawson and Gareth Evans. And the volume features new contributions from established and early career researchers in the field. Anyone interested in the nature and value of truth will find this volume to be indispensable. (shrink)

Western media coverage of female genital modifications in Africa has been hyperbolic and one-sided, presenting them uniformly as mutilation and ignoring the cultural complexities that underlie these practices. Even if we ultimately decide that female genital modifications should be abandoned, the debate around them should be grounded in a better account of the facts.

Although we find Gangestad & Simpson's argument intriguing, we question some of its underlying assumptions, including: (1) that fluctuating asymmetry (FA) is consistently heritable; (2) that symmetry is driving the effects; (3) that use of parametric tests with FA is appropriate; and (4) that a short-term mating strategy produces more offspring than a long-term strategy.

The ethical principle of respect for autonomy has come into its own In American medicine since World War II as equal in importance to the traditional medicomoral principles of nonmaleficence and beneficence. Respect for autonomy provides the ethical underpinning for the patient's right to exercise an informed choice – whether to consent to or to refuse recommended medical treatment. However, an informed choice demands a certain level of competence. Typical criteria for patient competence to accept or to refuse medical treatments (...) Include ability to make a choice and ability to comprehend the nature of the treatment, as well as the risks and benefits of accepting or refusing the treatment. (shrink)

This book highlights some of the most pressing safety, ethical, legal and societal issues related to the diverse contexts in which robotic technologies apply. Focusing on the essential concept of well-being, it addresses topics that are fundamental not only for research, but also for industry and end-users, discussing the challenges in a wide variety of applications, including domestic robots, autonomous manufacturing, personal care robots and drones.

Although research has found that long-term mindfulness meditation practice promotes executive functioning and the ability to sustain attention, the effects of brief mindfulness meditation training have not been fully explored. We examined whether brief meditation training affects cognition and mood when compared to an active control group. After four sessions of either meditation training or listening to a recorded book, participants with no prior meditation experience were assessed with measures of mood, verbal fluency, visual coding, and working memory. Both interventions (...) were effective at improving mood but only brief meditation training reduced fatigue, anxiety, and increased mindfulness. Moreover, brief mindfulness training significantly improved visuo-spatial processing, working memory, and executive functioning. Our findings suggest that 4 days of meditation training can enhance the ability to sustain attention; benefits that have previously been reported with long-term meditators. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to present the theoretical and philosophical assumptions of the Nursing Manifesto , written by three activist scholars whose objective was to promote emancipatory nursing research, practice, and education within the dialogue and praxis of social justice. Inspired by discussions with a number of nurse philosophers at the 2008 Knowledge Conference in Boston, two of the original Manifesto authors and two colleagues discussed the need to explicate emancipatory knowing as it emerged from the Manifesto . (...) Our analysis yielded an epistemological framework based on liberation principles to advance praxis in the discipline of nursing. This paper adds to what is already known on this topic, as there is not an explicit contribution to the literature of this specific Manifesto , its significance, and utility for the discipline. While each of us have written on emancipatory knowing and social justice in a variety of works, it is in this article that we identify, as a unit of knowledge production and as a direction towards praxis, a set of critical values that arose from the emancipatory conscience-ness and intention seen in the framework of the Nursing Manifesto. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to present the theoretical and philosophical assumptions of the Nursing Manifesto, written by three activist scholars whose objective was to promote emancipatory nursing research, practice, and education within the dialogue and praxis of social justice. Inspired by discussions with a number of nurse philosophers at the 2008 Knowledge Conference in Boston, two of the original Manifesto authors and two colleagues discussed the need to explicate emancipatory knowing as it emerged from the Manifesto. Our analysis (...) yielded an epistemological framework based on liberation principles to advance praxis in the discipline of nursing. This paper adds to what is already known on this topic, as there is not an explicit contribution to the literature of this specific Manifesto, its significance, and utility for the discipline. While each of us have written on emancipatory knowing and social justice in a variety of works, it is in this article that we identify, as a unit of knowledge production and as a direction towards praxis, a set of critical values that arose from the emancipatory conscience-ness and intention seen in the framework of the Nursing Manifesto. (shrink)

Cells fine‐tune their DNA repair, selecting some regions of the genome in preference to others. In the paradigm case, excision of UV‐induced pyrimidine dimers in mammalian cells, repair is concentrated in transcribed genes, especially in the transcribed strand. This is due both to chromatin structure being looser in transcribing domains, allowing more rapid repair, and to repair enzymes being coupled to RNA polymerases stalled at damage sites; possibly other factors are also involved. Some repair‐defective diseases may involve repair‐transcription coupling: three (...) candidate genes have been suggested.However, preferential excision of pyrimidine dimers is not uniformly linked to transcription. In mammals it varies with species, and with cell differentiation. In Drosophila embryo cells it is absent, and in yeast, the determining factor is nucleosome stability rather than transcription.Repair of other damage departs further from the paradigm, even in some UV‐mimetic lesions. No selectivity is known for repair of the very frequent minor forms of base damage. And the most interesting consequence of selective repair, selective mutagenesis, normally occurs for UV‐induced, but not for spontaneous mutations. The temptation to extrapolate from mammalian UV repair should be resisted. (shrink)

Social interactions typically involve movements of the body that become synchronized over time and both intentional and spontaneous interactional synchrony have been found to be an essential part of successful human interaction. However, our understanding of the importance of temporal dimensions of social motor synchrony in social dysfunction is limited. Here, we used a pendulum coordination paradigm to assess dynamic, process-oriented measures of social motor synchrony in adolescents with and without autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Our data indicate that adolescents with (...) ASD demonstrate less synchronization in both spontaneous and intentional interpersonal coordination. Coupled oscillator modeling suggests that ASD participants assembled a synchronization dynamic with a weaker coupling strength, which corresponds to a lower sensitivity and decreased attention to the movements of the other person, but do not demonstrate evidence of a delay in information transmission. The implication of these findings for isolating an ASD-specific social synchronization deficit that could serve as an objective, bio-behavioral marker is discussed. (shrink)

Research on corporate political activity has considered a number of antecedents to a firm’s engagement in politics. The majority of this research has focused on either industry or firm-level motivations that lead to corporate political activity, leaving the role of the firm’s leader noticeably absent in such scholarship. This article combines ideas from Upper Echelons Theory with research in corporate political activity to bridge this important gap. More specifically, this research utilizes CEO demographic characteristics to determine whether a firm will (...) invest in political activity and how these characteristics influence the particular approach to political activity the firm undertakes. Considering 27 years of data from large U.S. firms, we find that a CEO’s age, tenure, functional, and educational backgrounds influence whether and how the firm invests in political activity. (shrink)