Amyloid fibril formation plays a central role in the pathogenesis of a number of neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer and Parkinson diseases. Transient prefibrillar oligomers forming during the aggregation process, exhibiting a small size and a large hydrophobic surface, can aberrantly interact with a number of molecular targets on neurons, including the lipid bilayer of plasma membranes, resulting in a fatal outcome for the cells. By contrast, the mature fibrils, despite presenting generally a high hydrophobic surface, are endowed with a low (...) diffusion rate and poorly penetrate the interior of the lipid bilayer. However, increasing evidence shows that both intracellular α‐synuclein fibrils, as well and as extracellular amyloid‐β and β2‐microglobulin fibrils, can release oligomers over time that quickly diffuse to reach the membrane of the neighboring cells. The persistent leakage of harmful oligomers from fibrils triggers an ongoing cascade of events resulting in a sustained injury to neurons and glia and also provides aggregates with the ability to cross biological membranes and diffuse between cells or cellular compartments. (shrink)

Merleau-Ponty. Une conception de l’empathie non centrée sur le sujet?Cet article étudie l’émergence du terme « empathie » dans les textes de Merleau-Ponty. Il souligne que le concept n’est pas avant tout présenté comme une catégorie épistémologique, remettant en question si et comment nous pouvons éventuellement connaître les autres. Au contraire, il est conçu comme une catégorie ontologique, pour dire notre appartenance à une nature commune. De ce point de vue, il propose une façon sensible pour comprendre les autres, basée (...) sur une proximité et un partage physiques.Mais, avec des références à l’actuel débat, le texte suggère que, dans les réflexions du phénoménologue français, il est possible de trouver un paradigme qui n’est pas centré sur une conception subjective de l’empathie – c’est a dire qu’il s’agit d’un paradigme qui ne suppose pas toujours une projection subjective de ma sensibilité sur celle des autres. Plutôt, il peut à la fois consister en un sentiment commun, prépersonnel, qui constitue l’arrière-plan de nos sensibilités conscientes, et aussi proceder de l’autre être humain à moi, alors que souvent je sens et comprendre moi-même par differentiation des autres personnes, qui s’imposent sur mes sentiments et sur mes mots.Merleau-Ponty. A Conception of Empathy not centered on the Subject?This paper investigates the emergence of the term “empathy” in Merleau-Ponty’s texts. It points out that the concept is not primarly introduced as an epistemological category, questioning if and how eventually we can know the others. On the contrary it is meant as an ontological category, in order to say our belonging to a common nature. From this point of view he proposes a sensible way to understanding the others, based on a bodily closeness and sharing.But, with references to the current debate, the text suggests that in the reflections of the French phenomenologist it is possible to find a not subjectively centered paradigm for understandig empathy – that is a paradigm which does not always presuppose a subjective projection of my sensibility on that of the other ones. It can rather both consist in a common, prepersonal feeling, costituting the background of our conscious sensitivities, and proceed from the other human being to me, so that I often feel and understand myself by differing from the other individuals, who impose themselves on my senses and on my words. (shrink)

It is well known that John Dewey was very far from embracing the traditional idea of cognition as something happening inside one’s own mind and consisting in a pictorial representation of the alleged purely external reality out there. His position was largely convergent with enactivist accounts of cognition as something based in life and consisting in human actions within a natural environment. The paper considers Dewey’s conception of cognition by focusing on its potential contributions to the current debate with enactivism. (...) It claims that Dewey’s anti-substantial, continuistic, and emergentistic conception of the mind as a typically human conduct pulls the rug out of the idea of cognition as representation, as well as pushes the current discussion towards a serious reconsideration of representationalist assumptions about conceptuality and language. The paper emphasises that Dewey—differently from enactivists—frames the role of cognition within experience: he argues that cognition concerns those intermediate phases of our experiences of the world which are characterised by an indeterminate or troubled situation, because he claims that human beings’ interactions with their own environment are qualitatively richer and broader than cognition, including as they do many different and intertwined modes of experience. Finally, the author suggests that a coherent development of Dewey’s lines of thought should avoid rigid distinctions and hierarchies between lower and higher degrees of cognition in humans, which are still maintained in certain forms of radical enactivism. Differently, we should consider the impact of the cultural and broadly linguistic configuration of the human–environment even on perception, motor action, and affective sensibility. (shrink)

Current corporate systems risk generating inequality among workers, insofar as they concentrate only on economic results by favoring, through the incentive and award system, only what can be seen, produced, and measured. As such, these systems are unable to recognize workers’ agapic behaviors – similar to the ones considered in organizational citizenship behavior literature – that cannot be quantified, i.e. workers’ generosity, humanity, kindness, compassion, help for others and mercy. Although these types of behaviors may appear unproductive or irrational, they (...) create symbols of belonging to the company and social cohesion. This article claims that beyond focusing on reward systems, companies should recognize agapic behaviors to increase workers’ intrinsic motivation. These behavioral attitudes allow fraternal relationships -as conceived in the Civil Economy tradition- to arise within organizations; moreover, they contribute to advancing new managerial practical implications in the humanistic management field. (shrink)

Recent discussions in the philosophy of biology have brought into question some fundamental assumptions regarding evolutionary processes, natural selection in particular. Some authors argue that natural selection is nothing but a population-level, statistical consequence of lower-level events (Matthen and Ariew [2002]; Walsh et al. [2002]). On this view, natural selection itself does not involve forces. Other authors reject this purely statistical, population-level account for an individual-level, causal account of natural selection (Bouchard and Rosenberg [2004]). I argue that each of these (...) positions is right in one way, but wrong in another; natural selection indeed takes place at the level of populations, but it is a causal process nonetheless. (shrink)

El artículo analiza cómo la revista Medicina e Morale ha afrontado en su historia el tema de la ética en la experimentación clínica, que representa una parte muy amplia y compleja de la bioética y también de la deontología médica. Los aspectos que esta temática comprende son ya numerosos y la literatura producida ingentísima. La ética de la experimentación ha recibido particular impulso y atención a continuación de diversas experimentaciones no éticas que han turbado profundamente la opinión pública y hecho (...) necesario una fuerte reconsideración en el ámbito de la investigación clínica. En general, de los años 60's a los años 80's del siglo XX, ha prevalecido en la literatura un intenso empeño e interés en la elaboración de los principios de referencia y en la reflexión teórica relativa a varias cuestiones . De los años 90 en adelante se ha en cambio intensificado -probablemente por las exigencias nacidas en seno de los Comités de ética que precisamente en aquel período han iniciado a difundirse masivamentela elaboración de códigos, reglamentos, líneas-guía que han orientado el desarrollo de la disciplina más en sentido de procedimiento y con un acercamiento ético-deontológico. En particular, Medicina e Morale, ha estado siempre en estas temáticas, desde los inicios de su historia, constituyendo una voz original en el debate, además que un instrumento de difusión de documentos nacionales y sobre todo internacionales. La Revista ha representado, sobre todo en los últimos treinta años, un verdadero punto de referencia a nivel nacional y en algunos casos también internacional, proponiendo a veces orientaciones originales, que han sido luego acogidas en el ámbito de líneas-guía y de normativas.The article deals with how the journal Medicina e Morale has faced ethics in clinical trials, which represents a very large and complex bioethical issue, but also deontological one. This area comprises many questions and the literature is huge. It has risen after unethical clinical trials that have shocked the public and have produced a big rethinking about it. In general, from the '60s to the '80s of the XXth century, an intense commitment and interest have prevailed on the elaboration of the reference principies and on theoretical reflection on various issues, such as informed consent, the ethical significance of clinical research, the protection of vulnerable people, the risk acceptability). Since the '90s onwards the development of codes, regulations, guidelines -that have guided the development of the discipline in a procedural and also deontological sense- has increased, probably due to the large diffusion of ethics committees. Particularly, the journal "Medicina e Morale" has always been present on these issues, since the beginning of its history, creating an original voice in the debate, as well as a dissemination tool of national and especially international documentabon. The journal has been, especially in the last thirty years, a real national, and sometimes international, be nchmark, offering original suggestions which are then accepted in guidelines and regulations. (shrink)

The latter half of the twentieth century has been marked by debates in evolutionary biology over the relative significance of natural selection and random drift: the so-called “neutralist/selectionist” debates. Yet John Beatty has argued that it is difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish the concept of random drift from the concept of natural selection, a claim that has been accepted by many philosophers of biology. If this claim is correct, then the neutralist/selectionist debates seem at best futile, and at worst, (...) meaningless. I reexamine the issues that Beatty raises, and argue that random drift and natural selection, conceived as processes, can be distinguished from one another. (shrink)

Much has happened in modal logic since 1947. In particular, in regard to the problem of interpreting such logics. In that fateful year Quine published his seminal paper “The Problem of Interpreting Modal Logic” from which this work takes inspiration. Since then a certain kind of model theory – universally referred to as “possible worlds semantics” – has come to dominate both advanced research and introductory textbooks. Many would say that the problem of interpreting modal logic has been resolved. In (...) the work below I argue that some of the 1947 problems raised by Quine have indeed been resolved by the possible worlds model theory. But I also claim – perhaps against common perception, but in line with Quine’s persisting fifty-year-old skepticism – that one problem of Quine’s original paper is still alive: the problem of interpreting modal logic. Surprisingly, Quine’s best ally on these matters turns out to be the very philosopher who engineered the possible worlds model theory: Saul Kripke. (shrink)

Even if Peirce were well understood and there existed· general agreement among Peirce scholars on what he meant by his semiotics, or philosophy of signs, the undertaking of this book-wliich intends to establish a theoretical foundation for a new approach to understanding the interrelations of law, economics, and politics against referent systems of value-would be a risky venture. But since such general agreement on Peirce's work is lacking, one's sense of adventure in ideas requires further qualification. Indeed, the proverbial nerve (...) for failure must in any case be attendant. If one succeeds, one has introduced for further inquiry the strong possibility that should our social systems of law, economics, and politics---our means of interpersonal transaction as a whole-be understood against the theoretical back ground of a dynamic, "motion-picture" universe that is continually becoming, that is infinitely developing and changing in response to genuinely novel elements that emerge as existents, then the basic concepts of rights, resources, and reality take on new dimensions of meaning in correspondence with n-dimensional, infinite value judgments or truth-like beliefs which one holds. If such a view, as Peirce maintained, were possible and tenable not only for philosophy but as the basis for action and interaction in the world of human experience and practical affairs, one would readily say that risk taking is a small price for the realization of such possibility. (shrink)

This chapter reconstructs the classical pragmatists’ position on human emotions, by assuming an original inquiring approach. It considers James’s, Dewey’s and Mead’s conceptions as contributions to an open theoretical laboratory in which the suggestions and unresolved difficulties presented by James were first discussed and developed by Dewey and then, immediately afterward, reconsidered and further articulated by Mead. At the same time, the paper develops a constant comparison with current contributions on this subject, coming from the most advanced trends in so-called (...) “4E cognition” studies. The chapter highlights some of the most relevant theses derived from the pragmatist debate, such as the continuity between bodily and mental aspects, as well as emotion and cognition, sensitiveness and appraisal. It shows the possibility of articulating this discourse by distinguishing between emotions and the pervasive aesthetic, qualitative and affective aspects of our experience. Furthermore, it focuses on the social dimension of emotions conceived as basic forms of gestural communication. Many interesting convergences are emphasized that derive from the abovementioned comparison, while Mead’s insight into a primary social configuration of emotions is presented in its enduring relevance for current inquiries in affective neurosciences. (shrink)

In the last decade, scholars have rediscovered the Italian tradition of Civil Economy and the different vision of the market it offers, one that is anchored on reciprocal assistance in market exchange relationships. So far, scholars are discussing Civil Economy especially in the fields of the history of economic though and in economics and philosophy. Nevertheless, this article proposes looking also at business ethics and organizational studies through the lens of Civil Economy, especially considering the notion of virtue provided by (...) civil economists. In particular, it sets forth an organizational model that derives from Civil Economy, i.e. the agape-based organization. (shrink)

Recent work on the heat-shock protein Hsp90 by Rutherford and Lindquist (1998) has been included among the pieces of evidence taken to show the essential role of developmental processes in evolution; Hsp90 acts as a buffer against phenotypic variation, allowing genotypic variation to build. When the buffering capacity of Hsp90 is altered (e.g., in nature, by mutation or environmental stress), the genetic variation is "revealed," manifesting itself as phenotypic variation. This phenomenon raises questions about the genetic variation before and after (...) what I will call a "revelation event": Is it neutral, nearly neutral, or non-neutral (i.e., strongly deleterious or strongly advantageous)? Moreover, what kinds of evolutionary processes do we take to be at work? Rutherford and Lindquist (1998) focus on the implications of non-neutral variation and selection. Later work by Queitsch, Sangster, and Lindquist (2002) and Sangster, Lindquist, and Queitsch (2004) raises the possibility that Hsp90 buffering may play the role that was played by drift in Sewall Wright's shifting balance model, permitting transition from one adaptive peak to another. However, Ohta (2002) suggests that much of this variation may be nearly neutral, which in turn, would imply a strong role for drift as well as selection. The primary goal of this paper is to illuminate the alternative scenarios and the processes operating in each. At the end, I raise the possibility of a synthesis between evo-devo and nearly neutral evolution. (shrink)

The first work to offer a comprehensive pragmatist anthropology focusing on sensibility, habits, and human experience as contingently yet irreversibly enlanguaged.

This article presents and discusses two contributions by Lélia Gonzales to the consolidation of an Afro-Latin-American feminism truly commited to breaking colonial oppression mechanisms and interested in the liberation of all human beings subjugated by the European colonization process. The first contribution pertains to the importance of understanding the formation of Brazilian society from a decolonial perspective. The second one concerns the need for feminist movements to include racial issues on their agendas in order to engage in the antiracist struggle.

Biologists studying ecology and evolution use the term “population” in many different ways. Yet little philosophical analysis of the concept has been done, either by biologists or philosophers, in contrast to the voluminous literature on the concept of “species.” This is in spite of the fact that “population” is arguably a far more central concept in ecological and evolutionary studies than “species” is. The fact that such a central concept has been employed in so many different ways is potentially problematic (...) for the reason that inconsistent usages (especially when the usage has not been made explicit) might lead to false controversies in which disputants are simply talking past one another. However, the inconsistent usages are not the only, or even the most important reason to examine the concept. If any set of organisms is legitimately called a “population,” selection and drift processes become purely arbitrary, too. Moreover, key ecological variables, such as abundance and distribution, depend on a nonarbitrary way of identifying populations. I sketch the beginnings of a population concept, drawing inspiration from the Ghiselin-Hull individuality thesis, and show why some alternative approaches are nonstarters. (shrink)

This article addresses keep-fit culture not as a collection of commercial images or as the product of broader cultural values, but as a set of situated body practices, that is practices taking place within specific institutions where these images and values are reinterpreted in locally prescribed ways and, to some extent, filtered. Relying on fieldwork, fitness gyms are revealed to be experienced as places with their own rules, pleasures and identity games. The ideal of the fit body is shown to (...) be filtered from its wider, typically gender- and class-specific charges, transformed into a pure instrument of training, a machine which does not bear resemblance to the organic body of the changing rooms, an objectified utility which is beyond any social role specification. Social roles and their body requirements are both important for individual clients' structural chances to join the gym and locally neutralized or reduced to tension-release mechanisms. Similarly, the cultural ideals of a fit and toned body contribute to the legitimation of the gym; yet the actual capacity to train is less the result of the direct grip of culture, than the outcome of clients' adjustment to playing a particular game of involvement with and detachment from the mechanistic and abstract exercise body. Body definitions are not simply imposed on clients, but continuously negotiated and transformed. (shrink)

The paper aims to show how and to what extent social and cultural cues influence figurative language understanding. In the first part of the paper, we argue that social-contextual knowledge is organized in “schemas” or stereotypes, which act as strong bias in speaker’s meaning comprehension. Research in Experimental Pragmatics has shown that age, gender, race and occupation stereotypes are important contextual sources of information to interpret others’ speech and provide an explanation of their behavior. In the second part of the (...) paper, we focus on gender stereotypes and their influence on the comprehension of figurative language, to show how the social functions of figurative language are modulated by gender stereotypes. We provide then an explanation of gender stereotypical bias on figurative language in terms of possible outcomes in the social context. (shrink)

This paper considers some thesis proposed by Maurice Merleau-Ponty during his lessons on sleeping and dreaming in the mid fifties, also with reference to the contemporary scientific debate. Dreaming and sleeping constitute a privileged perspective for considering the characteristic human interweaving of natural and cultural aspects, of animality and meaning. The immediate association of sleeping with a suspension of consciousness and with an absence of worldly contacts seems problematic. Furthermore the dualistic opposition between conscious activity and bodily passivity seems far (...) less obvious. Besides it appears as not taken for granted that human acting and experiencing could be always considered as first person's phenomena. (shrink)

To explain the menstrual cycle and menopause, human biologists during the past several decades have developed new models of the evolutionary origins and maintenance of female reproductive patterns that address both ultimate and proximate causation. Hypotheses proposed for these processes generally offer explanations for menstruation or for menopause, but not for both; ultimately, these explanations must be integrated. Reviewing current explanations, this paper offers an energetics-based evolutionary rationale compatible with past adaptations of Homo sapiens and with ecological patterns in small-scale, (...) preindustrial social systems in which food resources vary and sometimes are scarce. (shrink)

El empirismo puede ser caracterizado, por un lado, como una teoría acerca de los orígenes del conocimiento empírico; por otro, como una concepción epistémica acerca de la justificación de las creencias empíricas. Actualmente, esta última dimensión del empirismo ha sido criticada por diversos filósofos. Paradigmáticamente, Rorty ha sostenido que la experiencia es únicamente la causa de las creencias, pero no su justificación. La tesis de Rorty es que las creencias se relacionan con el mundo sólo causalmente. Este artículo posee dos (...) partes. En la primera, se argumenta, en contra de Rorty, que la experiencia debe ser una instancia de justificación si las creencias han de tener algún contenido. En la segunda, se propone una concepción pragmatista alternativa, que i) atribuye un papel epistémico a la experiencia sin recaer en "el mito de lo dado"; y ii) reintroduce el concepto de "representación" sin comprometerse con el representacionismo. Empiricism can be characterized, on the one hand, as a theory about the sources of empirical knowledge; on the other hand, as an epistemic outlook about justification of empirical beliefs. This last dimension of empiricism has been criticized by many philosophers nowadays. Paradigmatically, Rorty has said that experience is only the cause of beliefs, but not its justification. Rorty's thesis is that beliefs relate to the world only causally. This paper has two parts. In the first it is argued, against Rorty, that experience must be an epistemic instance of justification if beliefs are to have any objective content at all. In the second, it is proposed an alternative pragmatist conception of knowledge which i) attributes an epistemic role to experience without falling into "the myth of the given" and ii) reintroduces the concept of "representation" without compromising with representationalism. (shrink)

In this paper, I reconstruct Quine’s arguments against quantified modal logic, from the early 1940’s to the early 1960’s. Quine’s concerns were not technical. Quine was looking for a coherent interpretation of quantified-in English modal sentences. I argue that Quine’s main thesis is that the intended objectual interpretation of the quantifiers is incompatible with any semantic reading of the modal operators, for example as expressing analytic necessity, unless the entities in the domain of quantification are intensions, i.e. definitional entities. The (...) difficulty is that it makes no sense to say of an ordinary object that it bears a property necessarily or contingently when the necessity or contingency in question is analytic. However, starting in 1960, Quine claims that quantified-in modal sentences can be coherently interpreted only as essentialist predications. When we say about an object that it necessarily F ’s, we can only coherently mean that it essentially F ’s. In the paper, I argue that adequately qualified the thesis is plausible. Two important qualifications are needed. The first is the assumption that satisfaction is an irreducibly predicative notion, making any explication of satisfaction in terms of truth inadequate. The second is the ontological rejection of purely semantic, i.e. merely definitional, entities. With these qualifications in place, Quine’s rejection of the combination of objectual quantifiers and semantic modalities can be upheld. In this way, we vindicate a qualified version of Quine’s conjecture that quantified modal logic is committed to essentialism. (shrink)

This essay aims to bring to light the distinctive features of Fichte's construal of cosmopolitan right in the Foundations of Natural Right—in comparison to Kant's—in the light of the current philosophical debate on migration and global justice. The paper is articulated in three steps. First, it analyzes the addressees and content of Fichte's cosmopolitan right by emphasizing its limited scope: by focusing on those individuals who do not come “from any state,” Fichte's discussion of cosmopolitan right foreruns Arendt's philosophical theorization (...) of statelessness and the “right to have rights.” Second, it considers Fichte's justification of cosmopolitan right—and its compatibility with his justification of private property rights—by stressing its ontological anchoring in the notions of “absolute will,” “personhood,” and “original right.” Finally, the essay considers the systematic position of cosmopolitan right with regard to the “right of nations” and the “right of a state” in Fichte's doctrine of right by giving special attention to the range of reasons that, according to Fichte, can legitimate the rejection of a stranger. (shrink)

When philosophers of physics explore the nature of chance, they usually look to quantum mechanics. When philosophers of biology explore the nature of chance, they usually look to microevolutionary phenomena, such as mutation or random drift. What has been largely overlooked is the role of chance in macroevolution. The stochastic models of paleobiology employ conceptions of chance that are similar to those at the microevolutionary level, yet different from the conceptions of chance often associated with quantum mechanics and Laplacean determinism.

The capability approach developed by Amartya Sen focuses on the enhancement of people’s capabilities, i.e. their real freedom to choose a life course they have reason to value. Applying the CA to the organizational context, the focus of human resource management is transformed, shifting away from the needs of the organization to the freedoms of the individual. This shift happens also inside the so-called ‘liberated companies,’ firms with an organizational form that allows employees the complete freedom, along with the responsibility, (...) to take any actions they decide are best. In this paper we show the contribution of the capability approach for management and for organizational ethics by focusing on this innovative model of ‘liberated companies.’. (shrink)

Evolutionary theory (ET) is teeming with probabilities. Probabilities exist at all levels: the level of mutation, the level of microevolution, and the level of macroevolution. This uncontroversial claim raises a number of contentious issues. For example, is the evolutionary process (as opposed to the theory) indeterministic, or is it deterministic? Philosophers of biology have taken different sides on this issue. Millstein (1997) has argued that we are not currently able answer this question, and that even scientific realists ought to remain (...) agnostic concerning the determinism or indeterminism of evolutionary processes. If this argument is correct, it suggests that, whatever we take probabilities in ET to be, they must be consistent with either determinism or indeterminism. This raises some interesting philosophical questions: How should we understand the probabilities used in ET? In other words, what is meant by saying that a certain evolutionary change is more or less probable? Which interpretation of probability is the most appropriate for ET? I argue that the probabilities used in ET are objective in a realist sense, if not in an indeterministic sense. Furthermore, there are a number of interpretations of probability that are objective and would be consistent with ET under determinism or indeterminism. However, I argue that evolutionary probabilities are best understood as propensities of population-level kinds. (shrink)

This essay attempts at elucidating the relationships between cosmopolitanism and nationalism and between State and Nation in Fichte’s thought on the basis of the new evidence provided by the critical edition of his works. The analysis of the Reden an die deutsche Nation highlights the ambiguity of the concept of Nation, strictly connected to the thesis of the primacy of Germans. This position is discussed in the light of the reflections devoted to this matter by Fichte in his last months (...) of life, as recorded in his diary. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journey to WellnessRoberta PriceI should preface this by saying that as a child and early teen years I was lean, well within my weight range for my height of 5’3”. I was physically active as a snow skier, swimmer, hiker and biker. I started running in high school until I got pregnant at the age of 17 in 1988, but even then, my family and I had a gym (...) membership and I worked out with a trainer until my belly got too big and complications from pre–eclampsia forced me to bed rest the last four weeks of my pregnancy. I gained about 80 pounds, mostly water, during this time. Post pregnancy, I lost all my weight and resumed my active lifestyle of walking etc. It wasn’t until I got married in 1990 that I found my weight creeping up on me, slowly, every year. I was still active with three kids and a husband by then, but bad eating habits and cheap carbohydrates were not my friend.My efforts to return to leanness started a few years ago, about 2006. At that point, I weighed at least 200 pounds and I was not happy. Everyone knows the best way to lose weight is to exercise and watch what you eat, so I start daily walks. While walking I started having problems with my legs going numb to the point that I could not feel my feet hit the ground. At first I thought this feeling was due to a pinched nerve as a result of a single–vehicle car accident I was in earlier that year. Some days my legs would not bother me while walking and other days only a few steps would bring on the numbness. Also, I was susceptible to feelings of panic and a racing heart beat. My doctor at the time never once mentioned my weight being an issue. The nurse would write my weight on the chart, I would cringe as I waited for the lecture from my doctor about my weight to start. It never did. It was a strange, sort of “non–issue” with him as I had three kids so I was fat from that. My physician just said, “Lose the weight, I have no idea what is causing the numbness in your legs.”Fast forward to 2011, I am now under the care of a chiropractor in hopes of relieving the numbness that is happening all too frequently now. An ultrasound of my veins showed good blood flow so that ruled out a circulation issue. The chiropractor prescribed physical therapy to help ease my lower back pain hoping that would relieve the nerves I thought were pinched. I was prescribed high blood pressure medication by my doctor, with adverse side effects such as a nagging cough that would not go away—no matter how much cough medicine I consumed. It was during these sessions with my physical therapist that I was able to lose 10 pounds.There is a lot of self–talk in the life of an overweight or obese person. Everyday I woke up, knowing I had to lose weight. Every single time I looked in any mirror or saw any photo (which I was careful to be the photographer and not a subject as denial had become my best and worst friend). It was the subject of many a late night conversation with my husband, whom by the way, at his worst weight was 30 pounds over his preferred height to weight ratio. Not a single doctor I saw previous to this offered any hope for weight loss other than to shove a piece of paper at me telling me to eat these “healthy foods” listed. Since I was the family chef and chief purchaser of food, I was buying and eating vegetables, fruit, whole grains, and attempting to cut down on the processed foods—although, we were heavy eaters of potatoes, pastas, bagels, pizzas and other high carbohydrate foods. Over the years, [End Page 112] the most weight I had lost “counting calories” or portioning out “slow carbs” over “fast carbs” only afforded me a 15 pound loss, to be gained... (shrink)

A previous study has shown that the degree of trust into others might be biased by inducing either a more “inclusive” or “exclusive” cognitive-control mode. Here, we investigated whether the degree of interpersonal trust can be biased by environmental factors, such as odors, that are likely to impact cognitive-control states. Arousing olfactory fragrances (e.g., peppermint) are supposed to induce a more exclusive, and calming olfactory fragrances (e.g., lavender) a more inclusive state. Participants performed the Trust Game, which provides an index (...) of interpersonal trust by assessing the money units one participant (the trustor) transfers to another participant (the trustee), while being exposed to either peppermint or lavender aroma. All participants played the role of trustor. As expected, participants transferred significantly more money to the alleged trustee in the lavender as compared to the peppermint and no aroma conditions. This observation might have various serious implications for a broad range of situations in which interpersonal trust is an essential element, such as cooperation (e.g., mixed-motives situations), bargaining and negotiation, consumer behavior, and group performance. (shrink)

Biologists and philosophers have offered differing concepts of biological race. That is, they have offered different candidates for what a biological correlate of race might be; for example, races might be subspecies, clades, lineages, ecotypes, or genetic clusters. One thing that is striking about each of these proposals is that they all depend on a concept of population. Indeed, some authors have explicitly characterized races in terms of populations. However, including the concept of population into concepts of race raises three (...) puzzles, all having to do with time. In this paper, I extend the causal interactionist population concept (CIPC) by introducing some simple assumptions about how to understand populations through time. These assumptions help to shed light on the three puzzles, and in the process show that if we want to understand races in terms of populations, we will need to revise our concept(s) of race. (shrink)