In the field of medically assisted reproduction (MAR), there is a growing emphasis on the importance of introducing new assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) only after thorough preclinical safety research, including the use of animal models. At the same time, there is international support for the three R’s (replace, reduce, refine), and the European Union even aims at the full replacement of animals for research. The apparent tension between these two trends underlines the urgency of an explicit justification of the use (...) of animals for the development and preclinical testing of new ARTs. Considering that the use of animals remains necessary for specific forms of ART research and taking account of different views on the moral importance of helping people to have a genetically related child, we argue that, in principle, the importance of safety research as part of responsible innovation outweighs the limited infringement of animal wellbeing involved in ART research. (shrink)

A simple but valuable experience that all humans have in common is that their life and their actions, the things they do and the things they omit to do, their reflection and their praxis are always marked by the tension which exists between what is factual and what is appropriate. Ethics can be described in simple terms as the systematic reflection on this tension, an endeavour to explicate how notions such as ‘appropriateness’ can be translated into categories such as ‘goodness’ (...) and ‘rightness’ in such a way that we do not remain bogged down in this experience but can develop some kind of assessment. One can also say, therefore, that ethics has a critical approach: the aforementioned tension is not merely noted and left at that, it is scrutinised, studied and assessed on the basis of a particular measure or criterion, thus making it possible, for example, to distinguish between the acknowledgement of changes and the appreciation of improvements .Every theory of ethics which consistently aspires to such a critical reflection, therefore, will have to deal with the question how the aforementioned criterion can be put into words. I already pointed to our common experience of the tension between the actual and the appropriate. In an effort to pin down the criterion in question, a useful point of departure might be to reflect for a moment on what is meant by appropriate. The term itself hints at some kind of relation or belonging to. If, then, the appropriate can be formulated in terms of belonging to ‘the human’ then an understanding of what it is to be human will always constitute the point of departure of any critical ethical reflection. For those who might be tempted to view this as too deductive, the whole approach can be turned on its head: the specific sort of reflection in which people engage with respect to the tension between the actual and the appropriate and in which the appropriate can be formulated in terms of the human, is ethics.[...]In the present article I intend to focus on the image of the human person which is compatible with such a notion of ethical obedience as responsibility to-be-taken-up. The fact that people speak today of a ‘changing of the guard’ when it comes to fundamental ethics is certainly no exaggeration. An ethics founded on natural law has been evolving towards the use of the notion personalism as a designation for an inclusive anthropology which is the expression of the appropriate. Experience teaches that a substantive explanation of personalism — which I provide in the third part of this article — is best preceded by a methodical sketch concerning the ‘status’ of personalism as a fundamental ethical category. In the fourth part of the article I will endeavour to outline the contours of a personalist theory of action. (shrink)

Recently, both in the Netherlands and in Belgium, legislation has been approved to depenalize »euthanasia «. From the background of a theological perspective and in the light of a justified aspiration for >death with dignity requirements of due care the gift of life<.

The role of membrane receptors is regarded as being to transduce the signal represented by ligand binding from the external cell surface across the membrane into the cell. Signals are subsequently conveyed from the cytoplasm to the nucleus through a combination of second-messenger molecules, kinase/phosphorylation cascades, and transcription factor (TF) translocation to effect changes in gene expression. Mounting evidence suggests that through direct targeting to the nucleus, polypeptide ligands and their receptors may have an important additional signaling role. Ligands such (...) as those of the platelet-derived and fibroblast growth factor classes, as well as cytokines such as interferon-γ and interleukins-1 and -5, have been found to localize in the nucleus through the action of nuclear localization sequences (NLSs). Where tested, these NLSs appear to be essential for full signaling activity and may be responsible for cotranslocating receptors to the nucleus in complexes with their ligands. The implication is that, subsequent to endocytosis at the membrane, particular polypeptide ligands or their receptors, or both, may translocate to the nucleus to participate directly in gene regulation. BioEssays 20:400–411, 1998.© 1998 John Wiley & Sons Inc. (shrink)

In the course of an immune response, antibodies undergo affinity maturation in order to increase their efficiency in neutralizing foreign invaders. Affinity maturation occurs by the introduction of multiple point mutations in the variable region gene that encodes the antigen binding site. This somatic hypermutation is restricted to immunoglobulin genes and occurs at very high rates. The precise molecular basis of this process remains obscure. However, recent studies using a variety of in vivo and in vitro systems have revealed important (...) regulatory regions, base motifs that are preferred targets of mutation and evidence that transcription may play an active role in hypermutation. BioEssays 20:227–234, 1998. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

This paper has two parts: in the first an analytical reading is offered of the various definitions of ‘euthanasia’ as used by the magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church concluding that they lack precision; in the second a moral theological reading is offered of the claim that because life is a gift of God, humans are not having the right to dispose of life themselves. As a result, the paper tries to show that the language of ‘ownership’ is unfitting for (...) the ethical questions at hand. (shrink)

Aim and MethodsThis perspective presents evidence of mature gratitude as a way of coping with the threats and boundaries of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). This narrative, non-systematic review will be based on studies from the COVID-19 period in association with more general literature on the characteristics of mature gratitude related to good mental health.ResultsThe results from the literature suggest that a confrontation with our existential vulnerability during a pandemic is not only a crisis but also an opportunity to view our (...) lives in a different way. Mature gratitude, as proposed in this perspective, can help us in coping with the threats and boundaries that are part of our lives due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This time of crisis gives us the opportunity to self-reflect on our current life and plans for the future and to reframe them through a positive lens which can encourage individuals to actively strengthen their psychological resilience and coping skills.ConclusionCultivating an attitude of mature gratitude through actions of kindness, expressing being thankful for life and God, and enjoying all the small things in life helps in coping with the current threats of COVID-19 and building lifelong resilience for the future. Knowledge about these associations can help psychologists, counselors, and coaches to support people who experience psychological issues due to the current pandemic and all crises to come. (shrink)

It will hardly come as a surprise to anybody even only remotely familiar with the general thrust and orientation of ‘Christian ethics’, that the question of euthanasia has been and still is seen in general as a moral disvalue and/or an evil that should be resisted. The bottom line of this approach is the theological notion that human life is a gift of the Creator and therefore a good to be nurtured, promoted and worth protection. Euthanasia, and especially its depenalization (...) and legalization to different degrees in the current laws of the Netherlands and Belgium, is evaluated as contrary to this requirement of protectability. Both during the debate on euthanasia and in reaction to various attempts to legislate on this matter, Christian churches in the Netherlands and Belgium have raised their voices and addressed the public at large, their own members and politicians in order to influence reflection and deliberation.In this article, I will first describe the argumentative way in which the major Christian churches in the Netherlands and Belgium have dealt with what they considered the challenge of the demand to legalize euthanasia in their respective countries. Given the important differences between the courses of events in both countries, the part on the interventions in the Netherlands will be considerably longer than the one on Belgium. No doubt, the most important reason for this difference is the fact that the public discussion on euthanasia together with efforts to change the penal law prohibiting it, took shape in the Netherlands already from 1968 on. Next to this, the fact that the major Christian churches in the Netherlands were not in agreement on the proper approach also contributes to a more differentiated picture. In the third part of this article, I will present some comments and a moral theological evaluation of the core of the argumentation forwarded by the Christian churches. (shrink)

The point of departure for this essay is a fourfold classification emerging from the European debate on the religious and ethical significance of the so-called Islamic headscarf, also known as hijab. Plurality promises a positive engagement in mapping multiculturalism toward intercultural dialogue and understanding. With a paradigm of an emergent intercultural ethics, the public leadership assumed by women in this debate testifies to the creativity by which imposed patterns of behavior are turned into strategies of resistance and liberation.

The article analyses ethnonational conflicts in Belgium and Canada during the period 1960-1989. Using the most similar case design, it is argued that the different policy performances in Belgium and Canada can be accounted for by the institutional context in which the conflicts occurred. The institutional setup in Canada and Belgium created different modes of joint decision making. Through an analysis of three joint decision variables, namely, decision rules, preferences and default conditions, two empirical cases are scrutinized. The Canadian Pension (...) Plan in Canada and the institutional reform efforts in Belgium highlight the importance of institutional default conditions. On the basis of these empirical cases it is argued that the different conditions of joint decision making in the two states lead to a continuous production of compromises in Belgium and a genuine absence of mutual agreement in Canada. (shrink)

AGAINST THE BACKGROUND OF VARIOUS EUROPEAN LEGISLATIVE INITIAtlves dealing with medical-ethical decisions at the end of life and an introduction on the Belgian "Act on Euthanasia," in the first part of this essay I present a concise comparison between the Belgian law and the provisions of Dutch legislation. In the second part of the essay I aim at a better understanding of the Belgian legislation by documenting two opportunities that might have enhanced the outcome by addressing the complexity of end-of-life (...) decisions and the proper position of palliative care. I offer some preliminary conclusions in light of the implementation of the law in Catholic institutions as well as its first official evaluation. (shrink)

Community energy initiatives are set up by volunteers in local communities to promote sustainable energy behaviors and help to facilitate a sustainable energy transition. A key question is what motivates people to be involved in such initiatives. We propose that next to a stronger personal motivation for sustainable energy, people’s perception that their community is motivated to engage in sustainable energy and their involvement in the community (i.e., community identification and interpersonal contact) may affect their initiative involvement. We tested this (...) proposition with a questionnaire study among inhabitants of seven local communities (N= 439). Results suggested that community factors are uniquely related to initiative involvement (willingness to actively participate and attendance of an initiative meeting) next to personal sustainable energy motivations. In particular, stronger community identification and more interpersonal contact with other community members increased the likelihood that people become involved in a community initiative, but the perception of the sustainable energy motivation of one’s community was not uniquely related to initiative involvement. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of these findings. (shrink)

The Papal Encyclical Veritatis Splendor (1993) proposes a model of moral theology based on the notion of universal and unchanging ethical principles that guide the Christian moral life. It also helps to clarify a number of questions about the moral teachings of the Post-Vatican II Church. But Veritatis Splendor has not been received without some serious criticisms. Among the various reservations about the encyclical are that it misrepresents the current state of the questions in contemporary moral theology, that it parodies (...) the positions of a number of responsible moral theologians, and that it offers a vision of moral-theological issues that does not correspond to the world with which most professional and pastoral workers are familiar. The contributors to this volume - all leading professional Roman Catholic theologians - clearly interpret various key statements made by Veritatis Splendor and assess the overall accuracy of the encyclical's moral vision. In the process these essays also demonstrate the true significance of this important Church document for Christians today. (shrink)

Purpose Late in 2019, massive protest demonstrations rocked both Chile and Colombia. They were an expression of discontent with the economic model and social policies implemented in both countries in recent decades. The purpose of this study is to investigate how Chilean and Colombian news websites framed these social protests and what aspects of the social movements promoted these media to public opinion. Design/methodology/approach The methodology of this research is empirical; the authors use quantitative and discourse analysis techniques to study (...) the news published by the top three most visited main news websites in each country and deduce the main frameworks emerging from them. After analyzing the framing of reality by media in 4,252 news items, the authors suggest that the main news portals in these Latin American countries not only portrayed the collective actions but also promoted interpretations that did not necessarily reflect the demands of the demonstrations. Findings The findings were that in the 2019 protests in Chile and Colombia, the media approach to collective action was not necessarily positive for the activists. This was mainly because framing in the Chilean and Colombian websites had to do with negative aspects of the movements, such as violence or economic costs. Originality/value The originality and value of this research is that despite the fact that there are abundant case studies on the relationship between social movements and media framing in the literature, this study adds to the current knowledge because it compares two Latin American countries and focuses on Web news portals. (shrink)

The Birth of String Theory by Cappelli et al. tells the story of the beginnings of string theory and of the evolutionary process it has undergone from its origins in S-matrix theory to its current status as a candidate unification theory. The book is intended for an audience of students and researchers in physics, as well as historians and philosophers of science with some background in quantum field theory.In the 50s and early 60s, theoretical particle physics focused on formulating a (...) theory to explain the strong interactions. Due to issues with the application of perturbative quantum field theory to the strong interactions, theoretical particle physicists shifted their attention to Heisenberg’s ‘S-matrix’ theory, which focused solely on observable quantities. This endeavour led in 1968 to the breakthrough of the famous ‘Veneziano amplitude’, which along with the Dolen–Horn–Schmid duality between the s- and the t-channels led to the dual resonance model . Following Ve .. (shrink)

This review explores the hypothesis that regulation of nucleocytoplasmic shuttling is a means of driving differentiation, using spermatogenesis as a model. The transition from undifferentiated spermatogonial stem cell to terminally differentiated spermatozoon is, at its most basic, a change in the repertoire of expressed genes. To effect this, the complement of nuclear proteins, such as transcription factors and chromatin remodelling components must change. Current knowledge of the nuclear proteins and nucleocytoplasmic transport machinery relevant to spermatogenesis is consolidated in this review, (...) and their functional linkages are highlighted not only as a means of regulating nuclear protein composition, but also as a key mechanism regulating gene transcription and hence cell fate. Through this, we hypothesize that male germ cell differentiation is mediated through regulation of nuclear transport machinery components, and thereby of the access of critical factors to the nucleus. The importance of nucleocytoplasmic trafficking to male germ cell differentiation is discussed, using the sex-determining factors Sry and SOX9, cell cycle regulators, CREM and cofactors and the Smads as specific examples, together with the roles in gametogenesis for particular nuclear transport factors in Caenorhabditis elegans and Drosophila. BioEssays 27:1011–1025, 2005. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Unlike the bulk of electronic media the computer game or video game is a distinctly gendered medium. All investigations confirm that we are dealing with a medium which almost exclusively appeals to and is used by, boys and young men. Therefore, the video games and computer games are very suited for investigating the form of entertainment, the pleasure, that appeals to men, i.e. the specific ‘masculine pleasure’.The paper deals with questions such as: What do computer games mean? What does violence (...) in computer games signify? Why do computer games, especially the violent ones, mean something special to a certain group of men? These questions are discussed from the perspective of semiotics, media and control studies.Finally, the paper discusses the connections between women and the male dominated video games, and attempts to explain why, nevertheless, some girls and women do play these games. (shrink)

A rigorous and wide-ranging discussion of the most ballyhooed emotion of all--and its surprising role in making us who we are. With Robert Solomon, Verna Gehring, and John Loughney.

Exploratory analyses are an important first step in psychological research, particularly in problem-based research where various variables are often included from multiple theoretical perspectives not studied together in combination before. Notably, exploratory analyses aim to give first insights into how items and variables included in a study relate to each other. Typically, exploratory analyses involve computing bivariate correlations between items and variables and presenting them in a table. While this is suitable for relatively small data sets, such tables can easily (...) become overwhelming when datasets contain a broad set of variables from multiple theories. We propose the Gaussian graphical model as a novel exploratory analyses tool and present a systematic roadmap to apply this model to explore relationships between items and variables in environmental psychology research. We demonstrate the use and value of the Gaussian graphical model to study relationships between a broad set of items and variables that are expected to explain the effectiveness of community energy initiatives in promoting sustainable energy behaviors. (shrink)

Patients with schizophrenia have an impairment in the inhibition of reflexive saccades, as a consequence of a functional impairment of the prefrontal cortex, which has not yet been encapsulated in terms of a formal model. A number of novel and testable hypotheses can be generated from the framework proposed by Findlay & Walker that will stimulate further research. Their framework therefore marks an important step in the development of a comprehensive functional model of saccadic eye movements. Further advances will be (...) assisted by (1) a recognition of important distinctions in the executive control of volitional saccades and (2) addressing the capacity for cross-model integration of spatial information in the generation of the spatial properties of saccadic eye movements. (shrink)

How can we judge the value of art? What are we to make of the idea of "found art" posited by Duchamp? Should artists pay any attention to making a living from their work? With John Brough, John Lynch, and Jon Eig.

Interaction of ligands such as epidermal growth factor and interferon‐γ with the extracellular domains of their plasma membrane receptors results in internalization followed by translocation into the nucleus of the ligand and/or receptor. There has been reluctance, however, to ascribe signaling importance to this, the focus instead being on second messenger pathways, including mobilization of kinases and inducible transcription factors (TFs). The latter, however, fails to explain the fact that so many ligands stimulate the same second messenger cascades/TFs, and yet (...) show distinct gene activation profiles. This is particularly apt in the case of the seven STAT TFs that are held to be the mediators of the distinct cellular functions of over 60 ligands. The current review focuses on five representative nuclear localizing ligands for which there is documentation of translocation into the cytosol and nucleus through well‐characterized pathways, in addition to a role in gene activation by ligand/receptor in the nucleus. BioEssays 26:993‐1004, 2004. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

This essay explores forms of religious narrative that shape self-understanding and engagement with the world through the idea of redemption. An analysis of the landscape of religious perspectives within the context of globalization shows a bifurcation between competing notions of redemption in fundamentalist and postmodern narratives. Where fundamentalism uses meta-narrative that is hyper-theistic, postmodernism uses contextual narratives that deconstruct narrative and can lose a sense of the transcendent. The purpose of the essay is to show how these two competing notions (...) can become entrenched and destructive to the very redemption they seek. Using Paul Tillich’s understanding of courage, these positions are placed into a dialectical tension that points to a third understanding of redemption as the perpetual mediation between the desire for belonging to a community and the desire to recognize the limitations of any individual or community’s perspective and understanding of the world in relationship to the holy. (shrink)

In Community Matters: Challenges to Civic Engagement in the 21st Century, six distinguished scholars address three perennial challenges of civic life: the making of a citizen, how citizens are to agree, and how to define the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. These essays will encourage students, academics, and interested citizens outside the academy to go farther and dig deeper into these vital issues.

Face à sa finitude, l'homme est désemparé. Il aborde l'existence par la question du " pourquoi ". " Pourquoi m'a-t-on donné la vie si c'est pour la reprendre? " Il est envahi par la colère, la révolte... puis, il cherche un sens à sa mort et pose un au-delà salvateur, un lieu où tout peut continuer autrement... ou encore il envisage une réincarnation; bref, quelque chose qui n'est plus " la fin de la fin ". Mais quand l'homme se fait (...) philosophe, comment appréhende-t-il cette idée qui sera aussi sa réalité ultime? (shrink)

La déréglementation brutale qui sévit depuis quelques années dans une région du monde jusque là fortement réglementée, l’Europe, n’est pas sans créer de nombreux problèmes pour les entreprises et leurs clients. Le double phénomène de la création du marché unique européen puis de la libéralisation accélérée des échanges mondiaux a fortement mis à mal l’édifice complexe des réglementations nationales et communautaires sans que l’on puisse affirmer que les clients ou l’éthique des affaires y aient beaucoup gagné. L’étude fournit de nombreux (...) exemples relatifs aux télécommunications, au gaz naturel, à l’électricité, la poste, les assurances, la grande distribution, la gestion de l’eau et des déchets ou les chemins de fer. Elle souligne les difficultés nouvelles qui apparaissent dans ces différents transferts de pouvoirs et de responsabilités. (shrink)