Within a relatively brief period of time, there has been a veritable outpouring of research on anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. This article presents a concise overview of some of the major works on these eating disorders from a variety of disciplines including biomedicine, psychology, sociology, and history. The article establishes a general context of Americans' preoccupation with food and diet. However, since the majority of those suffering from anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa are female, this article places these eating (...) disorders in the specific historical context of American women's history. In earlier times, some women reacted to their role expectations with physical responses. While linking modern phenomena to these earlier physical reactions of American women, the article also highlights the various twentieth-century social and cultural factors that push some modern girls and women to respond to their situations either by refusing food or consuming and regurgitating large quantities of food.In addition to the historical perspective, which points to the relevance of social and cultural factors as well as biomedical and psychological ones, the article offers an overview of the various theories currently suggested to explain the meaning of food to those who suffer from these disorders. These theories range from the addiction model to food as a metaphor for control and self-definition. Whatever the meaning of food, it is important to note that both anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa are determined by an interaction of many factors both personal and biological and social and cultural. (shrink)

Should you take a pill that gives you all the health benefits of sleep and allows you to stay awake? I argue that you shouldn’t. I propose three reasons why sleeping, conceived of as a socially and culturally embedded human activity, is valuable. First, there is aesthetic value in the rituals that typically precede sleeping; second, there is interpersonal value in the intimacy that stems from sleeping with other people; third, there is ethical value in mere presence and in retreating (...) from consciousness. In order to fully support my argument, I situate it within a conception of goodness that embraces the fragility of the human condition and the limitations stemming from our corporeal nature. I conclude with some practical implications of my view. (shrink)

Where do values live in thought? A straightforward answer is that we (or our brains) make decisions using explicit value representations which are our values. Recent work applying reinforcement learning to decision-making and planning suggests that more specifically, we may represent both the instrumental expected value of actions as well as the intrinsic reward of outcomes. In this paper, I argue that identifying value with either of these representations is incomplete. For agents such as humans and other animals, there is (...) another place where reward can be located in thought: the division of the space of possibilities or ‘state space’. (shrink)

There has been a long history of tension between feminists and feminist philosophy, on the one hand, and logic, on the other hand. This tension expresses itself in many ways, including claims that logic is a tool of the patriarchy, that logic/rationality/analytical tools in philosophy need to be rejected if women are to fully participate, that women = body and man = mind, that to do feminist philosophy one must do it as a situated, embodied person, not as an impersonal, (...) disembodied mind, that logic is “a masculine subject”. However the tension is expressed, it is women in logic and women logicians who are caught in between. The goal of my paper is to explore a conception of logic that not only is not inconsistent with being a feminist, but is actively welcoming of women as logicians. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that Marxist Buddhism may provide a novel approach to envy in society. It has been argued that envy arises in response to socio-political inequality, which is considered a problem given the social and moral harms associated with envy. Thus, achieving equality is expected to solve the problem of envy. However, anecdotal and empirical evidence suggests that is not the case, and that, in particular, societies inspired by Marxist ideals are not envy-free—if anything, the opposite seems (...) true. Buddhism has traditionally condemned envy. It shares with Marxism the idea that individual wellbeing can be obtained, paradoxically, only through lessening emphasis on individuality—Marxism by means of economic collectivism, Buddhism by means of a spiritual transformation. Both aim at shrinking the self and are keenly aware of how quickly an emphasis on one’s own desires leads to greed and exploitation of others. However, Marxist ideals have failed to yield successful large-scale flourishing communities, while Buddhism is a religion practiced by millions of people but has not advanced a politically progressive agenda in particular. Marxist Buddhism—argue—may perhaps bring together the best of the respective traditions to solve the problem of envy. However, I end by cautioning against such a radical reshaping of our psychological makeup, especially given the evidence that shows that there are morally and prudentially good types of envy, and sketch the profile of a Buddhist-friendly type of envy as an alternative to total eradication. (shrink)

What does it mean to hold a belief? Some of our ways of speaking in English suggest that to hold a belief is to have something in your mind: beliefs are things we acquire, defend, recover, and so on (Abelson, 1986). That is, believing is a matter of being in a state of having a thing. In this paper, I will argue for an alternative: believing is something we do. This is not a new suggestion. For instance, Matthew Boyle (2011) (...) defends a theory of belief as an activity, which he traces back to Aristotle. This paper, however, makes two new contributions: first, I argue for an analogy between belief and planning that fleshes out what it would mean to understand belief as an activity, and second, I aim to show how the resulting view can help sense of a variety of theories in cognitive psychology that suggest cognitive information storage is dynamic and reconstructive. (shrink)

In this essay I identify a type of linguistic phenomenon new to feminist philosophy of language: biased evaluative descriptions. Biased evaluative descriptions are descriptions whose well-intended positive surface meanings are inflected with implicitly biased content. Biased evaluative descriptions are characterized by three main features: (1) they have roots in implicit bias or benevolent sexism, (2) their application is counterfactually unstable across dominant and subordinate social groups, and (3) they encode stereotypes. After giving several different kinds of examples of biased evaluative (...) descriptions, I distinguish them from similar linguistic concepts, including backhanded compliments, slurs, insults, epithets, pejoratives, and dog whistles. I suggest that the traditional framework of Gricean implicature cannot account for biased evaluative descriptions. I discuss some challenges to the distinctiveness and evaluability of biased evaluative descriptions, including intersectional social identities. I conclude by discussing their social significance and moral status. Identifying biased evaluative descriptions is important for a variety of social contexts, from the very general and broad (political speeches) to the very particular and small (bias in academic hiring). (shrink)

This paper brings two fresh perspectives on Lewis’s theory of time travel. First: many key aspects and theoretical desiderata of Lewis’s theory can be captured in a framework that does not commit to eternalism about time. Second: implementing aspects of Lewisian time travel in a non-eternalist framework provides theoretical resources for a better treatment of time travel to the future. While time travel to the past has been extensively analyzed, time travel to the future has been comparatively underexplored. I make (...) progress on this topic. Along the way, I discuss Lewis’s lesser-known time travel oeuvre, especially his volume of correspondence and lectures on the topic collected in Beebee and Fisher (2020) and Janssen-Lauret & MacBride (forthcoming). Lewis’s body of unpublished work on time travel yields fruitful insights into his broader thinking on the subject. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex has been mistakenly interpreted as a theory of gender, because interpreters have failed adequately to understand Beauvoir's aims. Beauvoir is not trying to explain facts, events, or states of affairs, but to reveal, unveil, or uncover (découvrir) meanings. She explicates the meanings of woman, female, and feminine. Instead of a theory, Beauvoir's book presents a phenomenological description of the sexual difference.

Prevention of age-related disorders is increasingly in focus of health policies, and it is hoped that early intervention on processes of deterioration can promote healthier and longer lives. New opportunities to slow down the aging process are emerging with new fields such as personalized nutrition. Data-intensive research has the potential to improve the precision of existing risk factors, e.g., to replace coarse-grained markers such as blood cholesterol with more detailed multivariate biomarkers. In this paper, we follow an attempt to develop (...) a new aging biomarker. The vision among the project consortium, comprising both research and industrial partners, is that the new biomarker will be predictive of a range of age-related conditions, which may be preventable through personalized nutrition. We combine philosophical analysis and ethnographic fieldwork to explore the possibilities and challenges of managing aging through bodily signs that are not straightforwardly linked to symptomatic disease. We document how the improvement of measurement brings about new conceptual challenges of demarcating healthy and unhealthy states. Moreover, we highlight that the reframing of aging as risk has social and ethical implications, as it is generative of normative notions of what constitutes successful aging and good citizenship. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to describe the development of a model of moral distress in military nursing. The model evolved through an analysis of the moral distress and military nursing literature, and the analysis of interview data obtained from US Army Nurse Corps officers (n = 13). Stories of moral distress (n = 10) given by the interview participants identified the process of the moral distress experience among military nurses and the dimensions of the military nursing moral distress (...) phenomenon. Models of both the process of military nursing moral distress and the phenomenon itself are proposed. Recommendations are made for the use of the military nursing moral distress models in future research studies and in interventions to ameliorate the experience of moral distress in crisis military deployments. (shrink)

The axiomatic presentation of modal systems and the standard formulations of natural deduction and sequent calculus for modal logic are reviewed, together with the difficulties that emerge with these approaches. Generalizations of standard proof systems are then presented. These include, among others, display calculi, hypersequents, and labelled systems, with the latter surveyed from a closer perspective.

This paper offers a new philosophical account of vocations as deeply personal but at the same time also communal and generational forms of multimodal intending. It provides a reconstruction and a systematic development of Edmund Husserl’s scattered discussions on vocations. On these grounds, the paper argues that vocational life is a general human possibility and not determined by any set of material values, religious, epistemic or moral. Rather, vocations are distinguished from other complexes of intentional acts and attitudes by certain (...) structural features of their core valuations and volitions. (shrink)

This paper offers a critical analysis of program evaluation in contemporary urban agriculture. Drawing on data from an exploratory study designed at the request of and in collaboration with urban agriculture practitioners in Massachusetts, it describes both their critiques of extant practices of program evaluation and their visions for alternative ways of telling the story of their work. Related, it explores practitioners’ interest in building capacity for policy advocacy, working collectively to create transformative social change, and, related, establishing new kinds (...) of relationships with state and philanthropic funders. Building on scholarship that has observed that urban agriculture is characterized by an internal contradiction—i.e., its simultaneous orientation to “neoliberal” and “radical” agendas —this analysis calls attention, especially, to the complex role of metrics, which may not only entrench neoliberalism in UA organizations, but also provide a mechanism for challenging its assumptions and advancing the radical project of food justice. (shrink)

It is unclear whether the regulatory distinction between non-identifiable and identifiable information—information used to determine informed consent practices for the use of clinically derived samples for genetic research—is meaningful to patients. The objective of this study was to examine patients' attitudes and preferences regarding use of anonymous and identifiable clinical samples for genetic research. Telephone interviews were conducted with 1,193 patients recruited from general medicine, thoracic surgery, or medical oncology clinics at five United States academic medical centers. Wanting to know (...) about research being done was important to 72% of patients when samples would be anonymous and to 81% of patients when samples would be identifiable. Only 17% wanted to know about the identifiable scenario but not the anonymous scenario. Curiosity-based reasons were the most common among patients who wanted to know about anonymous samples. Of patients wanting to know about either scenario, approximately 57% would require researchers to seek permission, whereas 43% would be satisfied with notification only. Patients were more likely to support permission in the anonymous scenario if they had more education, were Black, less religious, in better health, more private, and less trusting of researchers. The sample, although not representative of the general population, does represent patients at academic medical centers whose clinical samples may be used for genetic research. Few patients expressed preferences consistent with the regulatory distinction between non-identifiable and identifiable information. Data from this study should cause policy-makers to question whether this distinction is useful in relation to research with previously collected clinically derived samples. (shrink)

The timing of this special issue of AJOB probing whether public engagement (PE)1 might help achieve equity in genomics is no coincidence. While many issues discussed by the authors are not entirely...

The development of nursing ethics as a field of inquiry has largely relied on theories of medical ethics that use autonomy, beneficence, and/or justice as foundational ethical principles. Such theories espouse a masculine approach to moral decision-making and ethical analysis. This paper challenges the presumption of medical ethics and its associated system of moral justification as an appropriate model for nursing ethics. It argues that the value foundations of nursing ethics are located within the existential phenomenon of human caring within (...) the nurse/patient relationship instead of in models of patient good or rights-based notions of autonomy as articulated in prominent theories of medical ethics. Models of caring are analyzed and a moral-point-of-view (MPV) theory with caring as a fundamental value is proposed for the development of a theory of nursing ethics. This type of theory is supportive to feminist medical ethics because it focuses on the subscription to, and not merely the acceptance of, a particular view of morality. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to investigate, if there is a principal disagreement between Husserl's early concept of expression and his later discussions on gestures. In the early work Logical Investigations (1900–1901), Husserl quite bluntly excludes gestures from the category of meaningful expressions; thirty years later (1928), in the second volume of Ideas, he argues to the contrary that gestures are meaningful and expressive in the very same way as linguistic units, words and sentences. The question of this paper (...) is: What happened in Husserl's thinking in the two decades between Investigations and the last versions of Ideas II? I argue that the disagreement between Husserl's early statement and his later discussion on gestural expressions is due to a refinement in his account of embodiment. I claim that Husserl did not abandon his concept of expression, but dismissed his early analysis of embodiment as simplistic and as motivated by a certain preconception about the relationship between nature and spirit. This change became possible for him as he developed conceptual and methodic tools for distinguishing between different meanings of the body: the physical thing or the mere material body, the perceived body, and the sensuous body. The difference between the body as a physical thing and the body as a sensuous-spiritual unit proves to be crucial to the understanding of gestural expressions. (shrink)

RESUMEN Introducción: La educación en el trabajo es la forma fundamental del proceso docente educativo en las carreras de las ciencias médicas y en específico para la asignatura de Medicina Comunitaria de la carrera de Medicina. Objetivo: Exponer elementos referidos a una guía didáctica para la educación en el trabajo de la asignatura Medicina Comunitaria. Método: Se diseñó una guía didáctica para la educación en el trabajo, desde la asignatura Medicina Comunitaria. Se interactuó con estudiantes de segundo año de la (...) carrera de Medicina, la cuak abarcó 4 etapas. Resultados: Se ofrecen las tareas con sus objetivos y acciones a cumplimentar por los estudiantes, amparados por la guía actual de confección del Análisis de la Situación de Salud. Conclusiones: La guía constituye una herramienta que posibilita la realización de las actividades de la educación en el trabajo a la vez que permite el logro de competencias profesionales. ABSTRACT Introduction: The education in the work is the fundamental form of the educational teaching process in the careers of the medical sciences and in specific for the subject of Community Medicine of the career of Medicine. Objective: To exhibit elements referred to a didactic guide for the education in the work of the Community Medicine subject. Method: A didactic guide was designed for the education in the work, from the Community Medicine subject. It was interacted with students of the second year of the career of Medicine, which included 4 stages. Results: The tasks are offered with their objectives and actions to complete for the students protected by the current guide of preparation of the Analysis of the Situation of Health. Conclusions: The guide constitutes a tool that makes possible the achievement of the activities of the education in the work, simultaneously it allows the achievement of professional competitions. (shrink)

Patient-derived xenografts are currently promoted as new translational models in precision oncology. PDXs are immunodeficient mice with human tumors that are used as surrogate models to represent specific types of cancer. By accounting for the genetic heterogeneity of cancer tumors, PDXs are hoped to provide more clinically relevant results in preclinical research. Further, in the function of so-called “mouse avatars”, PDXs are hoped to allow for patient-specific drug testing in real-time. This paper examines the circulation of knowledge and bodily material (...) across the species boundary of human and personalized mouse model, historically as well as in contemporary practices. PDXs raise interesting questions about the relation between animal model and human patient, and about the capacity of hybrid or interspecies models to close existing translational gaps. We highlight that the translational potential of PDXs not only depends on representational matching of model and target, but also on temporal alignment between model development and practical uses. Aside from the importance of ensuring temporal stability of human tumors in a murine body, the mouse avatar concept rests on the possibility of aligning the temporal horizons of the clinic and the lab. We examine strategies to address temporal challenges, including cryopreservation and biobanking, as well as attempts to speed up translation through modification and use of faster developing organisms. We discuss how featured model virtues change with precision oncology, and contend that temporality is a model feature that deserves more philosophical attention. (shrink)

In contrast to mainstream accounts which explain the aesthetic experience of people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in terms of cognitive abilities, this paper suggests as an alternative explanation the “emotional abilities approach”. We present an example of a person with ASD who is able to exercise a variety of emotional abilities in aesthetic contexts but who has difficulties exhibiting their equivalents in interpersonal relations. Using an autobiographical account, we demonstrate first that there is at least one precedent where a (...) person with ASD can exercise a series of emotional abilities when engaging with art works. Second, we offer also an explanation about why aesthetic contexts might enable this person to exercise emotional abilities which in interpersonal contexts seem to be blocked. (shrink)

In the current American iconoclash, certain monuments are subject to vandalism and municipal removal from their pedestals. Phrases such as “the erasure of history” and “damnatio memoriae” point to concerns that iconoclasm is an attempt to censor history or even remove certain individuals from public memory altogether. Because these phrases beckon the past, this wave of iconoclasm calls for a close examination of previous image-breaking to establish motives. Drawing first from art history, we analyze Byzantine iconoclasm and anxieties over the (...) nature of icons’ power, before contextualizing these findings within image destruction from the Paleolithic to the present day. Each comparison is suggestive of an enduring aesthetic principle: that what appears inanimate is not always inert. Next, drawing from cultural anthropology, we argue that principles of sympathetic magic are at the heart of contemporary iconoclasms, but not in the way media outlets often suggest. Instead, the fear of history’s erasure betrays a deeply rooted equivalence between the representation and the represented. In perceiving their fates as shared, sympathetic magic is seen to persist in the way humans create, interpret, and desecrate images. We conclude with the speculative realist proposition that iconoclasm can produce new, original artworks, which carries implications for the autonomy of art and its distribution between artist and artwork. (shrink)

Charles Darwin's curiosity had a remarkable childlike enthusiasm driven by an almost compulsive appetite for a constant process of discovery, which he never satiated despite his many voyages. He would puzzle about the smallest things, from the wonders of barnacles to the different shapes, colours and textures of the beetles which he obsessively collected, from flowers and stems to birds, music and language, and would dedicate years to understanding the potential significance of everything he saw. Darwin's findings and theories relied (...) heavily on that same curiosity, on seeking and answering questions, however long these would take to clarify. His son Francis Darwin often recalls how "he would ask himself 'now what do you want to say' and his answer written down would often disentangle the confusion". In fact, "disentangling confusions" seems to have been the driving force behind Darwin's scientific pursuits, as he was struck with bewilderment when contemplating the luxuriousness of life. It was also the impetus for this book. The true implications of Darwin's legacy remain as controversial to the critics of our time as they were to his contemporaries. Darwin's impact within and beyond the biological sciences is both daunting and exhilarating, and attests to the need for an interdisciplinary approach by remaining a challenge to many scholars in the most diverse fields. The recent revival of his theories has opened a Pandora's box of different theoretical studies that are particularly receptive to exploring new and exciting angles of research. (shrink)

Perspective taking has been proposed to be impaired in persons with autism spectrum disorder, especially when implicit processing is required. In narrative texts, language perception and interpretation is fundamentally guided by taking the perspective of a narrator. We studied perspective taking in the linguistic domain of so-called Free Indirect Discourse, during which certain text segments have to be interpreted as the thoughts or utterances of a protagonist without explicitly being marked as thought or speech representations of that protagonist. Crucially, the (...) correct interpretation of text segments as FID depends on the ability to detect which of the protagonists “stands out” against the others and is therefore identifiable as implicit thinker or speaker. This so-called “prominence” status of a protagonist is based on linguistic properties, in other words, the perspective is “hidden” and has to be inferred from the text material. In order to test whether this implicit perspective taking ability that is required for the interpretation of FID is preserved in persons with ASD, we presented short texts with three sentences to adults with and without ASD. In the last sentence, the perspective was switched either to the more or the less prominent of two protagonists. Participants were asked to rate the texts regarding their naturalness. Both diagnostic groups rated sentences with FID anchored to the less prominent protagonist as less natural than sentences with FID anchored to the more prominent protagonist. Our results that the high-level perspective taking ability in written language that is required for the interpretation of FID is well preserved in persons with ASD supports the conclusion that language skills are highly elaborated in ASD so that even the challenging attribution of utterances to protagonists is possible if they are only implicitly given. We discuss the implications in the context of claims of impaired perspective taking in ASD as well as with regard to the underlying processing of FID. (shrink)

Novel neurotechnologies, like deep brain stimulation and brain‐computer interface, offer great hope for treating, curing, and preventing disease, but raise important questions about effects these devices may have on human identity, authenticity, and autonomy. After briefly assessing recent narrative work in these areas, we show that agency is a phenomenon key to all three goods and highlight the ways in which neural devices can help to draw attention to the relational nature of our agency. Drawing on insights from disability theory, (...) we argue that neural devices provide a kind of agential assistance, similar to that provided by caregivers, family, and others. As such, users and devices participate in a kind of co‐agency. We conclude by suggesting the need for developing relational agency‐competencies—skills for reflecting on the influence of devices on agency, for adapting to novel circumstances ushered in by devices, and for incorporating the feedback of loved ones and others about device effects on agency. (shrink)

Traditional flat-structured bigram and trigram models of phonotactics are useful because they capture a large number of facts about phonological processes. Additionally, these models predict that local interactions should be easier to learn than long-distance ones because long-distance dependencies are difficult to capture with these models. Long-distance phonotactic patterns have been observed by linguists in many languages, who have proposed different kinds of models, including feature-based bigram and trigram models, as well as precedence models. Contrary to flat-structured bigram and trigram (...) models, these alternatives capture unbounded dependencies because at an abstract level of representation, the relevant elements are locally dependent, even if they are not adjacent at the observable level. Using an artificial grammar learning paradigm, we provide additional support for these alternative models of phonotactics. Participants in two experiments were exposed to a long-distance consonant-harmony pattern in which the first consonant of a five-syllable word was [s] or [∫] (“sh”) and triggered a suffix that was either [-su] or [-∫u] depending on the sibilant quality of this first consonant. Participants learned this pattern, despite the large distance between the trigger and the target, suggesting that when participants learn long-distance phonological patterns, that pattern is learned without specific reference to distance. (shrink)

As a philosopher interested in biomedical ethics, I find recent advances in genetic technologies both fascinating and frightening. Future technologies for genetic therapies and elimination of clearly deleterious genes offer us the ability to get rid of the cause of much human suffering, seemingly at its physiological root. But memories of past eugenics programs gone horribly awry must make cautious our initial optimism for these generally well-intentioned programs. Most often the scientist proceeds in research with the best of intentions, but (...) that does not make all scientific investigation worth pursuing. (shrink)

Background Ethical behavior of health workers is an important part of health services. The aim of the present study was to determine the relationship between ethics and professional commitment and its relationship with the level of respect for patient rights in medical students. Material & methods A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted with the participation of nursing, midwifery and emergency medicine students of Ilam University of Medical Sciences. Sampling was done by stratified random method. The data was collected using Demographic, (...) Professional Commitment, Professional ethics and a researcher made questioner on compliance with patient rights questionnaires. Results 300 students were participated. The results showed that the average score of professional ethics in middle school students is high (64.07 ± 8.01), the average score of professional commitment is also high (64.07 ± 8.01) and the score of respect for patient rights is also high (10.74). ± 83.46) was obtained. The professional ethics score it showed a positive and statistically significant relationship with the patient’s rights compliance score. only professional commitment is related to gender, but the average of all three variables in different age groups and the type of residence (dormitory, private home, etc.) have meaningful statistical difference. Conclusion The findings of the study show that the level of ethics and professional commitment and respect for patient rights among nursing, midwifery and emergency medicine students was good. It is hoped that the results of this research will provide a basis for better planning for the development of knowledge and respect for patient rights among students. (shrink)

In 1672 John Eliot, English Puritan educator and missionary to New England, published The Logick Primer: Some Logical Notions to initiate the INDIANS in the knowledge of the Rule of Reason; and to know how to make use thereof (Eliot 1672) The Logick Primer: Some Logical Notions to Initiate the INDIANS in the Knowledge of the Rule of Reason; and to Know How to Make Use Thereof, Cambridge, MA: Marmaduke Johnson]. This roughly 80 page pamphlet introduces syllogistic vocabulary and reasoning (...) so that syllogisms can be created from Biblical texts. The use of logic for proselytizing purposes is not distinctive: What is distinctive about Eliot's book is that it is bilingual, written in both English and Massachusett (Wôpanâak), an Algonquian language spoken in eastern coastal and southeastern Massachusetts. It is one of the earliest bilingual logic textbooks and it is the first, and perhaps only, textbook in an indigenous American language.In this paper, we (1) introduce John Eliot and the linguistic context he was working in; (2) introduce the contents of the Logick Primer – vocabulary, inference patterns, and applications; (3) discuss notions of ‘Puritan’ logic that inform this primer; and (4) address the importance of his work in documenting and expanding the Massachusett language and the problems that accompany his colonial approach to this work. (shrink)

Objective: Appropriate reactivity to emotional facial expressions, even if these are seen whilst we are engaged in another activity, is critical for successful social interaction. Children with conduct problems (CP) and high levels of callous-unemotional (CU) traits are characterized by blunted reactivity to other people's emotions, while children with CP and low levels of CU traits can over-react to perceived emotional threat. No study to date has compared children with CP and high vs. low levels of CU traits to typically (...) developing (TD) children or each other, using a task that assesses attentional capture by irrelevant emotional faces. -/- Method: All participants performed an attentional capture task in which they were asked to judge the orientation of a single male face that was displayed simultaneously with two female faces. Three types of trials were presented, trials with all neutral faces, trials with an emotional distractor face and trials with an emotional target face. Fifteen boys with CP and high levels of CU traits, 17 boys with CP and low levels of CU traits and 17 age and ability matched TD boys were included in the final study sample. -/- Results: Compared to TD children and children with low levels of CU traits, children with CP and high levels of CU traits showed reduced attentional capture by irrelevant emotional faces. -/- Conclusions: This study is the first to demonstrate a different pattern in emotional attentional capture in children with CP depending on their level of CU traits. (shrink)

Achieving a good clinical trial design increases the likelihood that a trial will take place as planned, including that data will be obtained from a sufficient number of participants, and the total number of participants will be the minimal required to gain the knowledge sought. A good trial design also increases the likelihood that the knowledge sought by the experiment will be forthcoming. Achieving such a design is more than good sense—it is ethically required in experiments when participants are at (...) risk of harm. This paper argues that doing a power analysis effectively contributes to ensuring that a trial design is good. The ethical importance of good trial design has long been recognized for trials in which there is risk of serious harm to participants. However, whether the quality of a trial design, when the risk to participants is only minimal, is an ethical issue is rarely discussed. This paper argues that even in cases when the risk is minimal, the quality of the trial design is an ethical issue, and that this is reflected in the emphasis the Belmont Report places on the importance of the benefit of knowledge gained by society. The paper also argues that good trial design is required for true informed consent. (shrink)

Top-down causation is often taken to be a metaphysically suspicious type of causation that is found in a few complex systems, such as in human mind-body relations. However, as Ellis and others have shown, top-down causation is ubiquitous in physics as well as in biology. Top-down causation occurs whenever specific dynamic behaviors are realized or selected among a broader set of possible lower-level states. Thus understood, the occurrence of dynamic and structural patterns in physical and biological systems presents a problem (...) for reductionist positions. We illustrate with examples of universality and functional equivalence classes how higher-level behaviors can be multiple realized by distinct lower-level systems or states. Multiple realizability in both contexts entails what Ellis calls “causal slack” between levels, or what others understand as relative explanatory autonomy. To clarify these notions further, we examine procedures for upscaling in multi-scale modeling. We argue that simple averaging strategies for upscaling only work for simplistic homogenous systems, because of the scale-dependency of characteristic behaviors in multi-scale systems. We suggest that this interpretation has implications for what Ellis calls mechanical top-down causation, as it presents a stronger challenge to reductionism than typically assumed. (shrink)

Employers and governments are interested in the use of serological testing to allow people to return to work before there is a vaccine for SARS-CoV-2. We articulate the preconditions needed for the implementation of antibody testing, including the role of the U.S. Food & Drug Administration.

Defining quality of life is a difficult task as it is a subjective and personal experience. However, for the elderly, this definition is necessary for making complicated healthcare-related decisions. Commonly these decisions compare independence against safety or longevity against comfort. These choices are often not made in isolation, but with the help of a healthcare team. When the patient’s concept of quality of life is miscommunicated, there is a risk of harm to the patient whose best interests are not well (...) understood. In order to bridge this gap in understanding and unite seniors with their caretakers as a cohesive team, we need to establish a definition of quality of life. In this paper, my personal experiences with the elderly will be analysed along with five essays on the topic of ageing. These sources provide clear evidence that quality of life for seniors is majorly determined by the ability to preserve one’s lifelong identity. When making difficult decisions in geriatric healthcare, this greater understanding of the determinants of life quality will allow treatments to best serve the elderly. Defining quality of life allows healthcare providers to shift the focus from minimising disability toward maximising ability. I believe this shift would provide seniors with better health outcomes and properly enhance the quality of their years. (shrink)

Formal dialogue systems model rule-based interaction between agents and as such have multiple applications in multi-agent systems and AI more generally. Their conceptual roots are in formal theories of natural argumentation, of which Hamblin’s formal systems of argumentation in Hamblin (Fallacies. Methuen, London, 1970, Theoria 37:130–135, 1971) are some of the earliest examples. Hamblin cites the medieval theory of obligationes as inspiration for his development of formal argumentation. In an obligatio, two agents, the Opponent and the Respondent, engage in an (...) alternating-move dialogue, where the Respondent’s actions are governed by certain rules, and the goal of the dialogue is establishing the consistency of a proposition. We implement obligationes in the formal dialogue system framework of Prakken (Knowl Eng Rev 21(2):163–188, 2006) using Dynamic Epistemic Logic (van Ditmarsch et al. in Dynamic epistemic logic, Synthese Library Series. Springer, Berlin, 2007). The result is a new type of inter-agent dialogue, for consistency-checking, and analyzing obligationes in this way also sheds light on interpretational and historical questions concerning their use and purpose in medieval academia. (shrink)