There has been some concern m recent years that economic interests in the biotechnology area could, particularly through patenting, have a constricting influence on scientific research. Despite this concern, there have been no studies of this phenomenon beyond isolated cases. In this article we examine the evolution of the biomedical field of hybridoma/monoclonal antibody research with detailed examples of the three types of patent claims that have emerged there—basic claims, claims on application techniques, and claims on specific antibodies. We analyze (...) the impact of these claims and their legal histories on the free flow of scientific information and, the activity of scientific researchers. We conclude that such patent claims present severe restrictions for both, not only in the monoclonal area but in general, amounting to a subtle but significant shift in the political economy of science and technology. (shrink)

This paper provides a description of the role of the clinical ethicist as it is generally experienced in Canada. It examines the activities of Canadian ethicists working in healthcare institutions and the way in which their work incorporates more than ethics case consultation. The Canadian Bioethics Society established a Taskforce on Working Conditions for Bioethics (hereafter referred to as the Taskforce), to make recommendations on a number of issues affecting ethicists and to develop a model role description. This essay carefully (...) assesses this model role description. (shrink)

Thomas Pogge's Global Resources Dividend relies on a flat tax on the use of natural resources to fund the eradication of world poverty. Hillel Steiner's Global Fund taxes the full rental value of owned natural resources and distributes the proceeds equally. The paper compares the Dividend and the Fund and defends the Global Share, a novel proposal that taxes either use or ownership, does so (when possible) progressively, and distributes the revenue according to a prioritarian rather than a sufficientarian or (...) egalitarian principle. (shrink)

The Christian Church was intimately involved in the life of an individual within a family. Between state and church there was a mutual cooperation, the church having the right to exercise its moral jurisdiction, while the state controlled the civil and military aspects of family life, as well as children’s and wives’ inheritance and welfare. With the institution of an absolutist government in Transylvania in the 18th–19th centuries, the rela-tion between state and church changed, as the secular power began to (...) claim rights over the church and to subordinate it, limiting the coercive power of the church as a moral instrument. As the processes of secularisation and modernization gained ground, the church gradually lost its prerogatives to state institutions, a process reaching completion with the series of laws passed between 1894 and 1895 by the Hungarian state, whereby all registry documents concerning marital status, matrimony, and divorce came under state jurisdiction. (shrink)

At several places in this paper we have made use of a well-known rhetorical device: an argument was made; a character —dubbed “fictional reader” — was then evoked who voiced some objections against that particular argument; and finally, we answered those objections, thus bringing to a close, at least temporarily, our argument. The use of this device raises a question: “How is the presence of the ‘fictional reader” to be understood?” Is it a “mere” rhetorical tool, or does this character (...) designate some particular target? For instance, depending on the context, it could be seen as aimed at different straw men: traditionally minded sociologists, Whiggish historians, well-intentioned philosophers of science. Actually, none of these characters is behind the “fictional reader”. Rather, it refers, potentially, to any of the scientific actors (Milstein, Schwaber, Koprowski, Cohn, and so on) who inhabit our set of narratives. In other words, the “fictional reader” is an icon for the “native” reader/writer who simultaneously produces and questions the products of that particular literary activity known as scientific texts, by explicitly and implicitly raising the issue of the distinction between fact and technique.By following actors in their disputes about the novelty of K & M's contribution, it became apparent that it is not exactly clear which of the different elements of “hybridoma technology” should be regarded as “novel.” Was it the use of the P3 myeloma line? Was it the theoretical framework related to the notion of allelic exclusion? Was it ...? In each and every case, arguments can be made for or against the existence of a certain continuity or discontinuity with previous work. And in each case, the determination of novelty, as translated through the continuity/discontinuity issue, appeared to be hanging on the previous attribution of an epistemological status to the object that had allegedly been discovered: was it a fact or a technique?If one focuses on the relatively narrow network of immunogenetics, it could be argued that within that particular evidential context a series of “facts” had been established which, when transferred to other fields, such as the virological research being pursued in Koprowski's institute, were translated into a technique. However, as we have seen, even from an immunogenetic point of view the production of monoclonal antibodies can be viewed as being simultaneously a fact and a technique to establish that fact. Not only, as he himself noted,139 was Milstein not seeking to develop a technique for the production of monoclonal antibodies when the original experiments were carried out, but the significance later imputed to those experiments was not immediately attributed to them. The paper was seen as one among other papers that used cell fusion techniques to dissect the genetic control of antibody diversity. Distinctions that now appear crucial (e.g.: were the fusion partners two myelomas or a myeloma and a spleen cell?) were easily overlooked. At some point, around 1977, the production of monoclonal antibodies became a goal in itself, no longer linked to the initial immunogenetic network. The transformation of [MILSTEIN 75] into the foundational event of “hybridoma technology” was thus achieved. This transformation did not flow naturally from the original experiments. Rather, it involved specific investments which mobilized the activity of a large number of other scientific and industrial actors.140A tentative generalization can be deduced from our case study. The dichotomy between fact and technique that underlines much of contemporary science studies seem to be fundamentally misconceived, insofar as the determination of what counts as a fact and what counts as a technique is not possible on a priori grounds. Historians and sociologists of science are confronted with a field of heterogeneous interventions where particular pieces of work are constituted as discrete entities and simultaneously attributed a technical or a factual identity. “Novelty” and “innovation” are precisely the result of such polymorphic attributional processes. (shrink)

The At Home/Chez Soi project is a pragmatic trial that is intended to test the effectiveness of providing persons who are homeless and mentally ill with housing and support for their mental illnesses. Research undertaken in academic journals and the gray literature about the ethics of conducting pragmatic housing studies with persons who are mentally ill revealed the lack of published knowledge in this area of research ethics. Thus, the At Home/Chez Soi project had to tailor traditional research ethics thinking (...) and tools to best protect its stakeholders. In this article, we outline two of the modifications we made. First, we evaluate the ethical challenges present when participants want to withdraw from a housing study. And second, we describe how adverse events are addressed in our pragmatic trial, and how a specially convened safety committee protects participants and stakeholders. (shrink)

Tentaremos analisar o riso burlesco, erótico e satírico da obra de Petrônio, característico da sátira menipéia e do conto milesiano, como nos atesta Enylton Sá Rego na obra O calundu e a panacéia:Machado de Assis, a sátira Menipéia e a tradição luciânica ( 1989) e, também, Ettore Paratore no livro História da literatura latina (1987). A incursão do riso no Satiricon segue um caminho erótico e libertino e, para embasar teoricamente essa questão, buscamos o estudo do filósofo francês Michel Foucalt (...) com sua História da Sexualidade3: o cuidado de si ( 1988) e de do historiador Paul Veyne em seu artigo o Império Romano Nosso objetivo é confrontar passagens significativas de Brás Cubas com passagens semelhantes do Satiricon, sob a perspectiva, ou seja, através da visão do narrador-personagem. Por meio do sério-cômico e do distanciamento do estilo sátira menipéia, mostraremos que mesmo destituídas de intenções moralizantes de forma direta, ambas as obras fazem uma crítica ao comportamento da sociedade. Por fim, ao tratar o riso de Petrônio e Machado como uma forma de crítica social velada, tentarei mostrar que a obra inserida na categoria de sátira menipeia não precisa satisfazer necessariamente um caráter prosimétrico, ou seja, ser uma mistura de prosa e verso - já que, dessa forma, Memórias Póstumas estaria totalmente fora do estilo - mas, sim, estar dentro de um viés cômico-crítico em relação a sociedade de sua época. (shrink)

Este artículo tiene un doble objetivo: describir y analizar los aprendizajes de las cuestiones socialmente vivas con medios digitales y recursos multimediales; y caracterizar las potencialidades de estos medios en las clases de Ciencias Sociales a partir de la educación remota de emergencia. Estas transformaciones trajeron mutaciones en el oficio de ser estudiante. Desde la perspectiva instrumental identificamos aprendizajes vinculados con: la administración del tiempo personal, la organización de los recursos multimediales y las nuevas demandas de aprendizaje. Por su parte, (...) desde la perspectiva social los/as estudiantes de formación docente reconocen aprendizajes referidos a estas nuevas formas de participación en los medios digitales, vinculadas con: el uso de las redes sociales para las tareas de aprendizaje, la búsqueda, selección y lectura colaborativa de fuentes y documentos y el cuidado en internet. Y desde la perspectiva psíquica, se identifica un malestar asociado a la incertidumbre vinculada con los nuevos regímenes de cursada y acreditación. Estos resultados son de gran valor para pensar la enseñanza de las ciencias sociales en la etapa post pandemia. (shrink)

This article presents a review of the literature on science and religion in Nordic countries. Seventy-seven articles, books, and chapters on the topic were collected from five major scholarly databases between 1997 and 2018. We scrutinized how research in this data set was engaged with social scientific research. Most of the research was not social scientific. It was primarily philosophical, theological, and historical research; very little presented empirical and theoretical social scientific research. The studies reflected societal discussions, bringing out some (...) cultural dimensions and social issues, but not specifically in the Nordic context. Some societal aspects were highlighted, such as ethics and climate change, but these were not necessarily tied to the Nordic societies. We propose that in the Nordic context there seems to be a need for social scientific research on science and religion. This research could use theoretical perspectives from, for instance, sociology, science and technology studies, higher education studies, and anthropological research. (shrink)

Contrary to the widely held belief in the humanities that hysteria no longer exists, this article shows that the advent of new brain imaging technologies has reignited scientific research into this age-old disorder, once again linking it to hypnosis. Even though humanities scholarship to date has paid no attention to it, image-based research of hysteria via hypnosis has been hailed in specialist circles for holding the potential to finally unravel the mystery of this elusive disorder. Following a succinct overview of (...) how hypnosis was used in the nineteenth century hysteria research, the article details how the relationship between hysteria and hypnosis is currently renegotiated in the context of brain imaging studies. It shows that the current research has so far failed to deliver on its promise of uncovering the link between hysteria and hypnosis. It further argues that despite huge technological advances in imaging technologies, contemporary researchers grapple with conceptual problems comparable to those that plagued their nineteenth century predecessors. (shrink)

In this book chapter, Moya argues that recognizing, indeed mobilizing, identities in the classroom is a necessary part of educating for a just and democratic society. Only a truly multi-perspectival, multicultural education can create the conditions needed to alter the negative identity contingencies that minority students commonly face, while creating opportunities for all students. By treating identities as epistemic resources and mobilizing them, we can draw out their knowledge-generating potential and allow them to contribute positively to the production and transmission (...) of knowledge. (shrink)

A PROTEÇÃO DOS DIREITOS HUMANOS NO CONTINENTE EUROPEU: BREVES APONTAMENTOS.

The author investigates how to produce realistic and workable ethical codes or regulations in this rapidly developing field to address the immediate and realistic longer-term issues facing us. She spells out the key ethical debates concisely, exposing all sides of the arguments, and addresses how codes of ethics or other regulations might feasibly be developed, looking for pitfalls and opportunities, drawing on lessons learned in other fields, and explaining key points of professional ethics. The book provides a useful resource for (...) those aiming to address the ethical challenges of AI research in meaningful and practical ways. (shrink)

Climate change exposes ecological and socio-economic systems to risks. The identified disparities in knowledge about the social climate system are at the root of the difficulties in perceiving and understanding the diversity of risks related to climate change. The still huge gap between what science and technological innovation can contribute to mitigation and what is unmanageable by humans inevitably requires a continuous process of adaptation. This work is part of the research associated with the European project (under the ERA4CS) 'Citizen (...) Sensing - Urban climate resilience through participatory risk management systems', which proposes to develop a Participatory Climate Risk Management System, a two-way communication system where is part of a participatory risk management system, contributing to adaptive governance. These objectives will be achieved through the creation of a platform that will incorporate information gathered from four pilot studies: Norrköping (Sweden), Porto (Portugal), Rotterdam (The Netherlands) and Trondheim (Norway). Ultimately, the aim is to draw conclusions on how this application can contribute to improving citizens' literacy to cope with climate change adaptation and to raise awareness of this problem, as the involvement of citizens and stakeholders will only be improved if the perception of the risk of climate change is substantially increased. Awareness campaigns about the potential risks associated with extreme events are of great importance. Citizens tend to view climate change as a global phenomenon, ignoring and avoiding taking action until it is directly and seriously affected. (shrink)

Cet article entend faire se confronter deux fameux motifs de la tradition phénoménologique inaugurés par Husserl et développés par Merleau-Ponty : (1) le motif du « je peux » comme mode distinctif du corps propre (Leib) ; (2) et le motif de l’intercorporéité comme mode originaire de l’intersubjectivité. L’intercorporéité implique-t-elle le « je peux » comme unique mode de la corporéité? « Tout ce que je vois par principe est à ma portée, écrit Merleau-Ponty, du moins à la portée de (...) mon regar... (shrink)

Dialogar sobre a relação entre os Direitos Humanos e a educação matemática crítica é uma necessidade atual. Tal exigência se deve ao avanço de imperativos da realidade sobre a oferta educacional disponível aos cidadãos. Este ensaio teórico de cunho propositivo pretende apresentar as origens da reivindicação por educação na era moderna e o papel da educação matemática crítica no seu bojo. Ao mesmo tempo, tentaremos demonstrar que os limites atuais, tanto da efetivação dos princípios da dignidade humana, como do acesso (...) à educação, são determinados e limitados pelas decisões políticas tomadas nos mais altos escalões dos Estados nacionais e das corporações empresariais. Para esta discussão trazemos a formulação da equação civilizatória, como uma ferramenta de análise do real e defendemos a imbricação desta com as preocupações da educação matemática crítica de modo a assumir a maximização dos direitos humanos como meta para a transformação social. (shrink)

Across languages, we find indefinites that trigger modal inferences. This article contributes to a semantic typology of these items by contrasting Spanish alg´un with in-.

Neste trabalho são apresentados dados e reflexões sobre a proposta pedagógica de Ensino Médio Politécnico, implantada desde 2012 nas escolas públicas estaduais do Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil. Tendo como pano de fundo as concepções do Educar pela Pesquisa e da Interdisciplinaridade - eixos norteadores da parte diversificada denominada Seminário Integrado -, a investigação teve cunho qualitativo, apresentando inferências sobre as compreensões acerca do conceito de pesquisa alcançadas pelos estudantes. As intervenções pedagógicas da investigação foram desenvolvidas em quatro turmas de (...) uma escola em Porto Alegre, capital do Rio Grande do Sul, encaminhadas no início do ano letivo de 2015. Por meio da análise qualitativa das falas dos alunos, da identificação da ampliação da complexidade dos seus respectivos mapas conceituais, confeccionados no software CmapTools, assim como da avaliação quanto à profundidade dos projetos encaminhados, pôde-se evidenciar ampla evolução nas compreensões dos alunos quanto ao conceito de pesquisa, percebendo-se assim que a metodologia aplicada nessa investigação foi profícua. (shrink)

Weak determiners have both a presuppositional and a non presuppositional reading. Two ways of accounting for this fact have been proposed. The Ambiguity Approach (Partee 1989, Diesing 1992, de Hoop 1992) posits that weak determiners are ambiguous. The Pragmatic Approach (Büring 1996) claims that we do not need to postulate an ambiguity in the semantics: the presuppositional reading arises as a result of presuppositions triggered by topic/focus marking. In this paper we explore the possibility that both theories are needed. We (...) present as evidence the behavior of two Spanish weak determiners, unos and algunos. Algunos can get a presuppositional reading independently of topic/focus marking, as predicted by the Ambiguity Approach. Unos, on the other hand, exhibits the behavior predicted by the Pragmatic Approach: it is presuppositional only when marked either as contrastive topic or as focus. (shrink)

Across languages, we find epistemic indefinites, i.e. existential determiners that can convey information about the speaker’s epistemic state.1 One such indefinite is Spanish alg´un, which marks ignorance on the part of the speaker. By using alg´un in (1a) the speaker signals that he is unable (or unwilling) to identify the doctor that Mar´ıa married. Hence, it would be odd for him to add a namely continuation that explicitly identifies the doctor in question, as in (1b). From now on, we will (...) refer to the marking of the speaker’s lack of knowledge as an ‘epistemic effect.’ (Alonso-Ovalle and Men´endez-Benito, 2003). (shrink)

Review of La fotografía y el otro. Cuerpo y estética del retorno, by Diego Lizarazo Arias.