This article examines whether people share the Gettier intuition (viz. that someone who has a true justified belief that p may nonetheless fail to know that p) in 24 sites, located in 23 countries (counting Hong Kong as a distinct country) and across 17 languages. We also consider the possible influence of gender and personality on this intuition with a very large sample size. Finally, we examine whether the Gettier intuition varies across people as a function of their disposition to (...) engage in “reflective” thinking. (shrink)

People prefer linguistic stimuli with an inward (e.g. BODIKA) over those with an outward articulation dynamic (e.g. KODIBA), a phenomenon known as the articulatory in-out effect. Despite its robustness across languages and contexts, the phenomenon is still poorly understood. To learn more about the effect’s boundary conditions, mental representation, and origin, we crossed the in-out effect with evaluative conditioning research. In five experiments (N = 713, three experiments pre-registered), we systematically paired words containing inward versus outward dynamics with pictures of (...) negative versus positive valence. Although this evaluative conditioning procedure reversed the preference for inward over outward words, this was the case only for words with the same consonant sequences as the conditioned words. For words with inward/outward dynamics but different consonant sequences than the conditioned ones, a regular in-out effect emerged. Also, no preference reversal at all emerged for the conditioned consonant sequences when the contingency between single consonants at specific positions and positive/negative valence was zero. Implications of these findings for the in-out effect and evaluative conditioning are discussed. (shrink)

Background: Dignity is a fundamental concept in healthcare. The symptoms of multiple sclerosis have a negative effect on dignity. Understanding of lived experience of dignity in people with multiple sclerosis is crucial to support dignity in practice. Research aim: The aim was to explore the sense of dignity experienced by people with multiple sclerosis. Research design and participants: An interpretative phenomenological analysis design was adopted, using data collected through face-to-face interviews with 14 participants. Ethical considerations: The study was approved by (...) the faculty Ethical Committee (No. EC 1828/2016). Findings: Four interconnected superordinate themes emerged from analysis: Loss of a fully-fledged life: Violating the dignity-of-self; To accept and fight: Promoting the dignity-of-self; Contempt and rudeness: Indignity-in-relation; and Those who know and see, help: Promoting dignity-in-relation. The loss of former fully-fledged life has a dramatic impact on integrity and impaired dignity-of-self. Accepting illness and changed identity impaired by multiple sclerosis was the step that the participants considered to be important for reacquiring the sense of dignity. The participants encountered misunderstandings, prejudices, embarrassment, insensitive remarks, labelling, unwillingness and impersonal treatment as indignities. Acceptance of their condition, needed support, the feeling of being part of a group, sensitivity and the sharing of problems had a positive effect on their dignity. Discussion: Continual changes in functional ability threaten an individual’s identity and were experienced as violations of dignity. Based on this, participant’s dignity-of-self was not a moral, but much more existential value. Acceptance of changed identity and fighting spirit were important for restoring their dignity-of-self. The misunderstandings, prejudices and unwillingness had a negative impact on their dignity-in-relation. On the other side, support from others in fighting promoted their dignity-in-relation. Conclusion: Dignity is manifested as a complex phenomenon of lived experience of people with multiple sclerosis and also an umbrella concept for providing good quality of person-centred care. (shrink)

Is behavioral integration a necessary feature of belief in folk psychology? Our data from over 5,000 people across 26 samples, spanning 22 countries suggests that it is not. Given the surprising cross-cultural robustness of our findings, we argue that the types of evidence for the ascription of a belief are, at least in some circumstances, lexicographically ordered: assertions are first taken into account, and when an agent sincerely asserts that p, nonlinguistic behavioral evidence is disregarded. In light of this, we (...) take ourselves to have discovered a universal principle governing the ascription of beliefs in folk psychology. (shrink)

BackgroundExisting clinical ethics support (CES) instruments are considered useful. However, users report obstacles in using them in daily practice. Including end users and other stakeholders in developing CES instruments might help to overcome these limitations. This study describes the development process of a new ethics support instrument called CURA, a low-threshold four-step instrument focused on nurses and nurse assistants working in palliative care. MethodWe used a participatory development design. We worked together with stakeholders in a Community of Practice throughout the (...) study. Potential end users (nurses and nurse assistants in palliative care) used CURA in several pilots and provided us with feedback which we used to improve CURA.ResultsWe distinguished three phases in the development process. Phase one, Identifying Needs, focused on identifying stakeholder and end user needs and preferences, learning from existing CES instruments, their development and evaluation, and identify gaps. Phase two, Development, focused on designing, developing, refining and tailoring the instrument on the basis of iterative co-creation. Phase three, Dissemination, focused on implementation and dissemination. The instrument, CURA, is a four-step low-threshold instrument that fosters ethical reflection.ConclusionsParticipatory development is a valuable approach for developing clinical ethics support instruments. Collaborating with end users and other stakeholders in our development study has helped to meet the needs and preferences of end users, to come up with strategies to refine the instrument in order to enhance its feasibility, and to overcome reported limitations of existing clinical ethics instruments. (shrink)

Supportive peer relationships are crucial for mental and physical health. Early adolescence is an especially important period in which peer influence and school environment strongly shape psychological development and maturation of core social-emotional regulatory functions. Yet, there is no integrated evidence based model of SPR in this age group to inform future research and practice. The current meta-analysis synthetizes evidence from 364 studies into an integrated model of potential determinants of SPR in early adolescence. The model encompasses links with 93 (...) variables referring to individual and environmental potential influences on SPR based on cross-sectional correlational data. Findings suggest the central importance of identity and social–emotional skills in SPR. School environment stands out as a compelling setting for future prevention programs. Finally, we underscore an alarming gap of research on the influence of the virtual and online environment on youth's social realm given its unquestionable importance as a globally expanding social interaction setting. Hence, we propose an integrated model that can serve as organizational framework, which may ultimately lead to the adoption of a more structured and integrated approach to understanding peer relationship processes in youth and contribute to overcoming marked fragmentation in the field. (shrink)

Teachers’ social-emotional competence is considered important to master the social and emotional challenges inherent in their profession and to build positive teacher-student relationships. In turn, this is key to both teachers’ occupational well-being and positive student development. Nonetheless, an instrument assessing the profession-specific knowledge and skills that teachers need to master the social and emotional demands in the classroom is still lacking. Therefore, we developed the Test of Regulation in and Understanding of Social Situations in Teaching (TRUST), which is a (...) theory-based situational judgment test measuring teachers’ knowledge about strategies for emotion regulation and relationship management in emotionally and socially challenging situations with students. Results from three studies (N = 166 in-service teachers, N = 73 in-service teachers, N = 107 pre-service teachers) showed satisfactory internal consistency for both the emotion regulation and relationship management subtests. Furthermore, confirmatory factor analyses supported the differentiation between the two facets of social-emotional competence. Regarding convergent validity, results from Study 3 revealed a positive association between the profession-specific TRUST and pre-service teachers’ general emotional intelligence. Furthermore, small to moderate correlations with the Big Five personality traits provided evidence for the discriminant validity of TRUST. In Studies 1 and 2, we found evidence for a correlation with external criteria, that is, teachers with higher test scores reported providing more emotional support for students and having better teacher-student relationships. For teachers’ occupational well-being, we found a link with symptoms of depersonalization and job satisfaction, but none for emotional exhaustion. We will discuss the use of TRUST in research, for the evaluation of interventions, in teacher education, and professional development and will illustrate ideas for enhancing the tool. (shrink)

Background: Frailty is a common syndrome among older adults and patients with several comorbidities. Grip strength is a representative parameter of frailty because it is a valid indicator of current and long-term physical conditions in the general population and patients with severe mental illnesses. Physical and cognitive capacities of people with SMIs are usually impaired; however, their relationship with frailty or social functioning have not been studied to date. The current study aimed to determine if GS is a valid predictor (...) of changes in cognitive performance and social functioning in patients with type-2 diabetes mellitus and SMIs. Methods: Assessments of social functioning, cognitive performance, and GS were conducted in 30 outpatients with type 2 diabetes mellitus, 35 with major depressive disorder, 42 with bipolar disorder, 30 with schizophrenia, and 28 healthy controls, twice during 1-year, follow-up period. Descriptive analyses were conducted using a one-way analysis of variance for continuous variables and the chi-squared test for categorical variables. Differences between groups for the motor, cognitive, and social variables at T1 and T2 were assessed using a one-way analysis of covariance, with sex and age as co-variates. To test the predictive capacity of GS at baseline to explain the variance in cognitive performance and social functioning at T2, a linear regression analysis was performed. Results: Predictive relationships were found among GS when implicated with clinical, cognitive, and social variables. These relationships explained changes in cognitive performance after one year of follow-up; the variability percentage was 67.7%, in patients with type-2 diabetes mellitus and 89.1% in patients with schizophrenia. Baseline GS along with other variables, also predicted changes in social functioning in major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia, with variability percentages of 67.3, 36, and 59%, respectively. Conclusion: GS combined with other variables significantly predicted changes in cognitive performance and social functioning in people with SMIs or type-2 diabetes mellitus. Interventions aimed to improve the overall physical conditions of patients who have poor GS could be a therapeutic option that confers positive effects on cognitive performance and social functioning. (shrink)

The study focuses on the implementation of curriculum reform in grammar schools in the Czech Republic. The purpose of this study was to explore the attitudes of grammar school teachers towards the reform and its implementation. The perceived benefits of and problems with the curriculum reform were measured using closed-ended items (on a Likert scale). The research sample of this questionnaire survey consisted of 1,098 teachers from 58 schools. The results indicate that the reform has been more readily accepted in (...) pilot schools than in non-pilot schools. In general, it can be concluded that although there was support for the main ideas behind the reform, the majority of teachers have not accepted the reform as a whole. The multiple regression analysis revealed that gender, position, length of teaching experience, and knowledge of specific characteristics of curriculum reform did not significantly contribute to teachers’ acceptance of the curriculum reform. (shrink)

In cultures with left-right-script, agentic behavior is mentally represented as following a left-to-right trajectory, an effect referred to as the Spatial Agency Bias. In this research, we investigated whether spatial representations of activities are universal across activities by analyzing the opposite concepts of “attack” and “defense”. Both behaviors involve similar actions but may differ in perceived agency. Moreover “defense” is necessarily always a response to an attack and may therefore be represented by a trajectory in the opposite direction. Two studies (...) found the classic SAB for activities representing attacking but a reduction and reversal for activities involving defense. Although the spatial representation of defense on the right was much weaker and less unequivocal than that of attack on the left, the results suggest that the spatial representations of defense and attack are located in different positions. Apparently not all actors and all activities are spatially represented on the left with a left-to-right trajectory but position and direction depend on the perceived agency. Directions for future research and applications of our findings are discussed. (shrink)

RESUMEN Introducción: El proceso de cuidar es el resultado de una construcción propia de cada situación, se origina con la identificación de los problemas de salud y las necesidades reales o potenciales de las personas, familia y comunidad que demandan cuidado. Objetivo: Evaluar el impacto del Diplomado Prevención del Síndrome de Burnout, en el autocuidado del personal de enfermería de la Atención Secundaria de Salud de la provincia Camagüey. Métodos: Se realizó un estudio descriptivo observacional, en el Hospital Amalia Simoni (...) Argilagos de Camagüey, durante el Diplomado Prevención del Síndrome de Burnout dirigido al personal de enfermería de la Atención Secundaria de Salud. Para ello se aplicó una encuesta y el Test Psicológico de Maslach y Jackson al inicio y al final de la aplicación del Diplomado. Los datos aportados por estos instrumentos se complementaron con los provenientes de la aplicación de la técnica del PNI. Resultados: Predominó el sexo femenino. El total de los cursistas son licenciados en Enfermería. Con la ejecución del diplomado se constatan cambios importantes en cuanto a la autopreparación, el rendimiento, los hábitos de descanso, satisfacción personal y realización de ejercicios físicos. Discusión: La aplicación del diplomado logró transformar estilos de trabajo, afrontamientos al estrés, así como una mejor satisfacción personal y colectiva. ABSTRACT Introduction: The process of taking care is the result of a proper construction of every situation, it originates with the identification of the problems of health and the real or potential needs of the persons, family and community that demand care. Objective: To evaluate the impact of Postgraduate Course Prevention of the Syndrome of Burnout, in the self-care of the personnel of infirmary of the Secondary Attention of Health of the Camagüey province. Methods: a descriptive, observational study was carried out in the Hospital Amalia Simoni Argilagos of Camagüey, during Postgraduate Course Prevention of the Syndrome of Burnout directed to the personnel of infirmary of the Secondary Attention of Health. For that reason, a survey and the Psychological Test of Maslach and Jackson was applied at the beginning and at the end of the application of the course. The information contributed by these instruments complemented itself with the originated ones from the application of the technique of the PNI. Results: The sex that predominated was the feminine one. All of the students are licensed in Infirmary. With the execution of the course important changes are stated as for the self-preparation, the yield, the habits of rest, personal satisfaction and achievement of physical exercises. Discussion: The application of the course managed to transform styles of work, confrontations to the stress, as well as a better personal and collective satisfaction. (shrink)

Modern theories of authoritarianism have stressed the importance of threat to the expression of authoritarian attitudes and intolerance. Arguably, authoritarian tendencies may have increased during COVID-19 pandemic, a major threat to life and security. One issue arising when comparing mean scores is that of measurement invariance. Meaningful comparisons are only possible, if latent constructs are similar between groups and/or across time. This prerequisite is rarely ever tested in research on authoritarianism. In this study, we aim to analyze the short scale (...) for authoritarianism KSA-3 by investigating its measurement invariance on two levels and latent mean changes using two German representative samples. Specifically, we look at differences before and during the pandemic. While measurement invariance holds across both levels in all conditions, we find a decrease in latent means in 2020, contrary to expectations and established theories. Moreover, latent means differ with regard to gender, education, and east–west Germany. We conclude that analyses of latent means and measurement invariance instead of mean comparisons with composites should become the standard. Future studies should focus on threat as a moderator between authoritarianism and intolerance, and on possible interactions with context variables. (shrink)

Engineering ethics can be divided into three spheres, namely the technical, the professional, and the social. Ideally, engineering students should engage with all three spheres of ethics, but the literature suggests that this might not be the case. How do engineering students engage with the three spheres of engineering ethics during a global pandemic? The COVID-19 pandemic represents a dramatic and ongoing real-world challenge affecting many students personally. This research explores the extent to which engineering students engage with each sphere (...) of engineering ethics by examining how engineering students understand their roles in addressing the pandemic and its implications. We conducted a survey with undergraduate engineering students (n = 410) at a university in the Midwest. Qualitative analysis suggests that there was low engagement with both social ethics and professional ethics among respondents, while there was higher engagement with technical ethics. Quantitative analysis suggests that non-conservative engineering students from less wealthy families in our study show higher engagement with technical ethics as compared to conservative engineering students from less wealthy families. Non-conservative engineering students from wealthy families, however, show similar engagement with technical ethics as compared to conservative engineering students from wealthy families. In addition, engineering students from both wealthy and less wealthy families show higher engagement with technical ethics if they reside in urban areas as compared to engineering students from both wealthy and less wealthy families in non-urban areas. In addition, the difference in terms of engagement with technical ethics between non-urban engineering students from less wealthy families and urban engineering students from less wealthy families is larger than the difference in terms of engagement with technical ethics between non-urban engineering students from wealthy families and urban engineering students from wealthy families. Further investigation will be needed to explain these findings. However, qualitative results confirm that, despite the potential for the pandemic to encourage engagement with all three spheres of ethics, there continues to be low engagement with ethics beyond the technical level. (shrink)

For us, narrative care is grounded in pragmatist philosophy and focused on experience. Narrative care is not merely about acknowledging or listening to people's experiences, but draws attention to practical consequences. We conceptualize care itself as an intrinsically narrative endeavour. In this article, we build on Lugones' understanding of playfulness, particularly to her call to remain attentive to a sense of uncertainty, and an openness to surprise. Playfulness cultivates a generative sense of curiosity that relies on a close attentiveness not (...) only to the other, but to who we each are within relational spaces. Generative curiosity is only possible if we remain playful as we engage and think with experiences and if we remain responsive to the other. Through playfulness, we resist dominant narratives and hold open relational spaces that create opportunities of retelling and reliving our experiences. Drawing on our work alongside older adults, as well as people who work in long‐term care, we show the possibilities of playfulness in the co‐composition of stories across time. By intentionally integrating playfulness, narrative care can be seen as an intervention, as well as a human activity, across diverse social contexts, places and times. (shrink)

RESUMO O artigo discute os princípios fundamentais de elaboração do projeto e anotação de corpora de fala no âmbito da Escola Fonológica de São Petersburgo e fornece os exemplos de utilização de dados de vários corpora na pesquisa em fonética. Um dos princípios fundamentais é analisar as amostras em todos os níveis: desde o segmento até a entoação, incluindo as disfluências da fala. Durante a anotação fonética, sugerimos ouvir cada som isoladamente e confiar nos dados do espectrograma. Na anotação silábica, (...) é crucial considerar a ressilabificação. Durante a anotação prosódica, sugerimos confiar na percepção do ouvinte e analisar as curvas melódicas. Um corpus de fala que segue esses princípios é uma fonte valiosa de dados fonéticos, uma vez que os fatores segmentais e prosódicos estão em constante interação e não se pode analisar as unidades de um nível de anotação sem fazer referência aos outros. (shrink)

In Koriat's paper ''The Feeling of Knowing: Some Metatheoretical Implications for Consciousness and Control,'' he asserts that the feeling of knowing straddles the implicit and explicit, and that these conscious feelings enter into a conscious control process that is necessary for controlled behavior. This assertion allows him to make many speculations on the nature of consciousness itself. We agree that feelings of knowing are produced through a monitoring of one's knowledge, and that this monitoring can affect the control of behavior (...) such as whether or not to search memory for an answer. Further, we believe that monitoring of performance with a strategy can also affect cognition control and strategy selection; however, we also believe that frequently this monitoring and control occurs without conscious awareness. Feeling of knowing has received an inordinate amount of attention because it lies behind the highly recognizable tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon that represents one of the rare cases of conscious monitoring. There are other feelings of knowing which are much more common and are not accompanied by conscious awareness. These are evident in the early selection of a strategy for answering a problem. In our view, the research on feeling of knowing will not resolve the question of whether consciousness is merely epiphenomenal. (shrink)

BackgroundScientific literature on posttraumatic growth after terrorist attacks has primarily focused on persons who had not been directly exposed to terrorist attacks or persons who had been directly exposed to them, but who were assessed few months or years after the attacks.MethodsWe examined long-term PTG in 210 adults directly exposed to terrorist attacks in Spain a mean of 29.6 years after the attacks. The participants had been injured by a terrorist attack or were first-degree relatives of people who had been (...) killed or injured by a terrorist attack. They completed diagnostic measures of emotional disorders and measures of PTSD and depression symptomatology, optimism, and PTG.ResultsMultiple regression analyses revealed gender differences and a positive linear relationship between PTG and cumulative trauma after the terrorist attack. Some PTG dimensions were significantly associated with PTSD symptomatology, these associations being linear, not curvilinear. However, PTG was not associated with depression symptomatology, diagnosis of emotional disorders, age, elapsed time since the attack, or optimism. In comparison with survivors assessed 18 years after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, Spanish victims of terrorism showed higher levels of appreciation of life, but lower levels of relating to others and spiritual change.ConclusionThe findings underscore the influence of gender on PTG and provide support to the hypothesis that some emotional distress may be a necessary condition of PTG. Future studies on PTG after terrorist attacks should take into consideration the characteristics of the terrorist attack itself and the contexts of violence and threat in which it occurred. The political, social, and cultural characteristics of the community affected by it and the profile and characteristics of other traumatic events suffered after the attack should also be taken into account in further research. (shrink)

Environmental research has usually highlighted that the existence of slack resources in an organization helps allocate investment to innovative initiatives. However, the existing literature has paid very limited attention to how slack resources can influence the effects of focused and diversified innovations in different ways. Agency theory scholars claim that a manager’s first preference when confronted with discretionary resources will not generate positive investments for the firm, but their own opportunistic preferences. The differences between focused and diversified environmental innovations allow (...) us to gain a better understanding of the financial impact of being focused and how slack resources matter in this context. We analyze a longitudinal sample of 5845 environmental patents from the 75 largest companies in the electrical components and equipment industry worldwide. Our results show that high levels of slack resources reduce the existing positive relationship between focused environmental innovations and a firm’s financial performance. These results contribute to delineating the theoretical and empirical implications of focused versus diversified environmental innovations and extend the literature on ethical dilemmas concerning managers’ use of slack resources in the firm. (shrink)

In this paper we will analyze critically the traditional interpretation of the principle of subsidiarity in the Chilean Constitution of 1980 and its influence on the configuration of our economic constitution. To this end, firstly we will study the traditional interpretation of the subsidiarity, trying to demonstrate its faults, and its relationship with neoliberalism. After, we will evaluate the influence of this position on the constitutional jurisprudence of recent years. And finally, considering the crisis of legitimacy of our political system, (...) we believe that the Welfare state could be a solution to the constitutional problem. (shrink)

The organizational climate is the work environment conceived by emotions and motivation of an organization and, an optimal way of increasing participation is with working groups in the dependencies to improve: objectives, processes, conflicts, leadership. Thus the objective was to determine the characterization of variables. The method incorporates the quantitative approach, non -experimental design, descriptive level, applied and transversal type, analysis and deductive methods. The results show, there is a high organizational climate level, due to the contribution of three dimensions (...) or aspects that are: economic conditions, management values and organizational policies. (shrink)

The world is increasingly developing towards complex and chaotic behaviour. Enterprises are challenged to establish flexible but trustworthy structures of doing business within global instability. We need to educate our students today for coping with such chaotic patterns in their professional future. As an example, the student-run Europe-wide organisation ESTIEM is offering the 2-week Summer Academy (SAC) to develop the communication skills corresponding. It also means among other aims to strengthen mutual trust through interaction of the students. In 2011, one (...) of the SAC took place in Serbia. About 15 students attended it from all over Europe. In the paper, three of these students report on their experiences as a set of suggestions of how to develop further engineering and economics teaching towards international trust and stability. (shrink)

Research on the predictors of outcome for early, community-based, and time-limited interventions targeted for clinical depression in adolescents is still scarce. We examined the role of demographic, psychosocial, and clinical variables as predictors of outcome in a trial conducted in Finnish school health and welfare services to identify factors associating to symptom reduction and remission after a brief depression treatment. A total of 55 12–16-year-olds with mild to moderate depression received six sessions of either interpersonal counseling for adolescents or brief (...) psychosocial support. Both interventions resulted in clinical improvement at end of treatment and 3- and 6-month follow-ups. Main outcome measures were self-rated BDI-21 and clinician-rated Adolescent Depression Rating Scale. Latent change score models were used to identify predictors of change in depressive symptom scores and clinical remission at end of treatment and 3- and 6-month follow-ups over the combined brief intervention group. Symptom improvement was predicted by younger age and having a close relationship with parents. Both symptom improvement and clinical remission were predicted by male gender, not having comorbid anxiety disorder, and not having sleep difficulties. Our results add to knowledge on factors associating with good treatment outcome after a brief community intervention for adolescent depression. Brief depression interventions may be useful and feasible especially for treatment of mild and moderate depression among younger adolescents and boys, on the other hand clinicians may need to cautiously examine sleep problems and anxiety comorbidity as markers of the need for longer treatment. (shrink)

This is an open access book. This book, the first edited collection of its kind, explores the recent emergence of philosophical research in astrophysics. It assembles a variety of original essays from scholars who are currently shaping this field, and it combines insightful overviews of the current state of play with novel, significant contributions. It therefore provides an ideal source for understanding the current debates in philosophy of astrophysics, and it offers new ideas for future cutting-edge research. The selection of (...) essays offered in this book addresses methodological and metaphysical questions that target a wide range of topics, including dark matter, black holes, astrophysical observations and modelling. The book serves as the first standard resource in philosophy of astrophysics for all scholars who work in the field and want to expand or deepen their knowledge, but it also provides an accessible guide for all those philosophers and scientists who are interested in getting a first, basic understanding of the main issues in philosophy of astrophysics. (shrink)

In cancer research, the term epigenetics was used in the 1970s in its modern sense encompassing non‐genetic events modifying the chromatin state, mainly to oppose the emerging oncogene paradigm. However, starting from the establishment of this prominent concept, the importance of these epigenetic phenomena in cancer rarely led to questioning the causal role of genetic alterations. Only in the last 10 years, the accumulation of problematic data, better experimental technologies, and some ambitious models pushed the idea that epigenetics could be (...) at least as important as genetics in early oncogenesis. Until this year, a direct demonstration of epigenetic oncogenesis was still lacking. Now, Parreno, Cavalli and colleagues, using a refined experimental model in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, enforced the initiation of tumors solely by imposing a transient loss of Polycomb repression, leading to a purely epigenetic oncogenesis phenomenon. Despite a few caveats that we discuss, this pioneering work represents a major breakpoint in cancer research. We are led to consider the theoretical and conceptual implications on oncogenesis and to search for links between this artificial experimental model and naturally occurring processes, while revisiting cancer theories that were previously proposed as alternatives to the oncogene‐centered paradigm. (shrink)

This article explores the emerging intersections between the shift towards higher quality food consumption in China and Chinese investment in overseas farmland. Based on an ethnographic study of a Chinese company acquiring one of Australia’s largest dairy farms, the article argues that the linkage between imported Australian milk and perceptions of safety and quality has served as a powerful driver of Chinese investment in overseas farmland—a linkage that has largely been overlooked by literature on China’s role in the global land (...) rush. Drawing on the notion of ‘quality imaginaries’, the paper shows how images of Australian farmland as natural, pure, and geographically isolated have been mobilized by the investor company to position itself as provider of fresh, premium milk in the Chinese market. While such place-based qualities constitute a prized advantage, ironically, they also present a looming risk as the investor company struggles to reconcile fresh milk’s perishability with the farm’s location at the ‘edge of the world’. Thus, the case study not only demonstrates how cultural meanings tied to food and eating shape the ways in which investors imagine land’s affordances and possibilities but also draws attention to land’s materiality as a factor that both facilitates and destabilizes investment in farmland. (shrink)

As the crisis around Covid-19 evolves, it becomes clear that there are numerous negative side-effects of the lockdown strategies implemented by many countries. Currently, more evidence becomes available that the lockdowns may have more negative effects than positive effects. For instance, many measures taken in a lockdown aimed at protecting human life may compromise the immune system, and purpose in life, especially of vulnerable groups. This leads to the paradoxical situation of compromising the immune system and physical and mental health (...) of many people, including the ones we aim to protect. Also, it is expected that hundreds of millions of people will die from hunger and postponed medical treatments. Other side effects include financial insecurity of billions of people, physical and mental health problems, and increased inequalities. The economic and health repercussions of the crisis will be falling disproportionately on young workers, low-income families and women, and thus exacerbate existing inequalities. As the virus outbreak and media coverage spread fear and anxiety, superstition, cognitive dissonance reduction and conspiracy theories are ways to find meaning and reduce anxiety. These behavioral aspects may play a role in the continuance of lockdown decisions. Based on theories regarding agnotology (i.e. the ways ignorance or doubt about certain topics is created by means of withholding or presenting information in a certain way), social influence, superstition and stress and coping, I seek to explain the social and behavioral aspects of human behavior in times of crises. Both the Covid-19 crisis itself as well as the resulting economic and (mental) health crisis are global problems that may require global solutions. I present a model of drivers and outcomes of lockdown behaviors and offer suggestions and a tool to counteract the negative psychological effects by means of online life crafting therapeutic writing interventions. (shrink)

As the United Nations declared the beginning of the “Decade of Family Farming” in 2017, scholars were increasingly questioning the romanticized and uncritical use of the term to mask some structural inequalities, including patriarchal ownership, colonialism, heteronormativity, family and child labor exploitation, poor labor standards, and environmental destruction. This introduction to a special symposium on the family farm differentiates scholarly approaches to studying family farming into three categories: celebratory, reformist, and abolitionist. After summarizing the papers included in this special issue, (...) this introduction contends that it may be time to move beyond biological and marital relations when analyzing the most effective ways to solve social and environmental problems related to agricultural production. (shrink)

Kunst als Projektionsfläche, Kunst als Ausdruck, Kunst als Gesellschaftskritik: Die Beitragenden dieses Bandes reflektieren unterschiedliche Dimensionen und Spannungslinien des Verhältnisses von Kunst und Kritik und untersuchen dabei das künstlerische Gestaltungs- und Inszenierungspotenzial aus interdisziplinärer Perspektive. Mit der Verflechtung von wissenschaftlichen Beiträgen und Kunstperformances erschliessen sie eine Bandbreite an unterschiedlichen Bedeutungszusammenhängen und Entwicklungsdynamiken von zentralen Diskursen der Kunstlandschaft unter Berücksichtigung u.a. architektonischer, philosophischer, kunsthistorischer, musikwissenschaftlicher und aktionistischer Aspekte"--Back cover.

Aufgrund der Dominanz eines okonomistisch verengten Rationalitatsideals wird Vertrauen zunehmend als Reputationskalkul oder quasi-vertragliche Kreditbeziehung definiert. MIchaela I. ABdelhamid zeigt: Was hier als "Vertrauen" bezeichnet wird, soll vielmehr der Wertschopfung sowie der Legitimation strategischer Entscheidungen, Sanktionen und Abhangigkeitsverhaltnisse dienen. MIt verstandlichen Analysen und Begriffsscharfungen bietet sie die Grundlage, um die Probleme solcher Inszenierungen erkennen oder auch die Gegenstande sogenannter Vertrauenskrisen reflektieren zu konnen.

Recent advances in spatially resolved transcriptomics have greatly expanded the knowledge of complex multicellular biological systems. The field has quickly expanded in recent years, and several new technologies have been developed that all aim to combine gene expression data with spatial information. The vast array of methodologies displays fundamental differences in their approach to obtain this information, and thus, demonstrate method‐specific advantages and shortcomings. While the field is moving forward at a rapid pace, there are still multiple challenges presented to (...) be addressed, including sensitivity, labor extensiveness, tissue‐type dependence, and limited capacity to obtain detailed single‐cell information. No single method can currently address all these key parameters. In this review, available spatial transcriptomics methods are described and their applications as well as their strengths and weaknesses are discussed. Future developments are explored and where the field is heading to is deliberated upon. (shrink)

I explore the view that metaphysics is essentially imaginative. I argue that the central goal of metaphysics on this view is understanding, not truth. Metaphysics-as-essentially-imaginative provides novel answers to challenges to both the value and epistemic status of metaphysics.

Agrobiodiversity is an evident outcome of a long-lasting human–nature relationship, as the continuous use, conservation and management of crops has resulted in biological as well as cultural diversity of seeds and breeds. This paper aims to understand the interlocking of formal and informal seed supply routes by considering the dynamic flow of seeds within networks across the intersections of gender, ethnicity and age in South India as social categories structuring human–nature relations. This changing relationship under formal and informal institutional settings (...) has consequences on performance for men and women in rice seed systems. Undertaking an empirical analysis of the organization of seed management and exchange, we seek to shed light on the gendered organization of agrobiodiversity as a social network. The study builds on Net-Map interviews conducted in 2012, embedded in the larger BioDIVA project in the district of Wayanad in Kerala, India. Based on network analysis, the interactive method employed has enabled identification of important actors in the seed system and the characteristics of their relationships. We look into the gendered structure of information exchange regarding seed varieties and actual seed transactions, while also examining clusters of actors collaborating regarding seed supply. Finally, we identify the institutional gap concerning seed sources left by formal and informal institutions, like the availability of varieties. We show how informal and formal seed systems coexist and overlap due to actors moving between systems and argue that the degree and areas of overlap are shaped by gendered human–nature relations. (shrink)