The output from motor neuron pools is influenced by the integration of synaptic inputs originating from descending corticomotor and spinal reflex pathways. In this study, using paired non-invasive brain and peripheral nerve stimulation, we investigated how descending corticomotor pathways influence the physiologic recruitment order of the soleus Hoffmann reflex. Eleven neurologically unimpaired adults completed an assessment of transcranial magnetic stimulation -conditioning of the soleus H-reflex over a range of peripheral nerve stimulation intensities. Unconditioned H-reflex recruitment curves were obtained by delivering (...) PNS pulses to the posterior tibial nerve. Subsequently, TMS-conditioned H-reflex recruitment curves were obtained by pairing PNS with subthreshold TMS at short and long intervals. We evaluated unconditioned and TMS-conditioned H-reflex amplitudes along the ascending limb, peak, and descending limb of the H-reflex recruitment curve. Our results revealed that, for long-interval facilitation, TMS-conditioned H-reflex amplitudes were significantly larger than unconditioned H-reflex amplitudes along the ascending limb and peak of the H-reflex recruitment curve. Additionally, significantly lower PNS intensities were needed to elicit peak H-reflex amplitude for long-interval facilitation compared to unconditioned. These findings suggest that the influence of descending corticomotor pathways, particularly those mediating long-interval facilitation, contribute to changing the recruitment gain of the motor neuron pool, and can inform future methodological protocols for TMS-conditioning of H-reflexes. By characterizing and inducing short-term plasticity in circuitry mediating short- and long-interval TMS-conditioning of H-reflex amplitudes, future studies can investigate supraspinal and spinal circuit contributions to abnormal motor control, as well as develop novel therapeutic targets for neuromodulation. (shrink)

When consumers choose to abstain from purchasing meat, they face some uncertainty about whether their decisions will have an impact on the number of animals raised and killed. Consequentialists have argued that this uncertainty should not dissuade consumers from a vegetarian diet because the “expected” impact, or average impact, will be predictable. Recently, however, critics have argued that the expected marginal impact of a consumer change is likely to be much smaller or more radically unpredictable than previously thought. This objection (...) to the consequentialist case for vegetarianism is known as the “causal inefficacy” (or “causal impotence”) objection. In this paper, we argue that the inefficacy objection fails. First, we summarize the contours of the objection and the standard “expected impact” response to it. Second, we examine and rebut two contemporary attempts (by Mark Budolfson and Ted Warfield) to defeat the expected impact reply through alleged demonstrations of the inefficacy of abstaining from meat consumption. Third, we argue that there are good reasons to believe that single individual consumers—not just consumers in aggregate—really do make a positive difference when they choose to abstain from meat consumption. Our case rests on three economic observations: (i) animal producers operate in a highly competitive environment, (ii) complex supply chains efficiently communicate some information about product demand, and (iii) consumers of plant-based meat alternatives have positive consumption spillover effects on other consumers. (shrink)

How do listeners learn about the statistical regularities underlying musical harmony? In traditional Western music, certain chords predict the occurrence of other chords: Given a particular chord, not all chords are equally likely to follow. In Experiments 1 and 2, we investigated whether adults make use of statistical information when learning new musical structures. Listeners were exposed to a novel musical system containing phrases generated using an artificial grammar. This new system contained statistical structure quite different from Western tonal music. (...) Our results suggest that learners take advantage of the statistical patterning of chords to acquire new musical structures, similar to learning processes previously observed for language learning. (shrink)

Using Twin Peaks' Agent Dale Cooper as an example, we explore the paradox of fiction. Employing resources from Aimee Thomasson's account of fictional characters in conjunction with some research on parasocial interaction, we make offer a potential solution for the paradox.

BackgroundAs a number of commentators have noted, SARS exposed the vulnerabilities of our health care systems and governance structures. Health care professionals (HCPs) and hospital systems that bore the brunt of the SARS outbreak continue to struggle with the aftermath of the crisis. Indeed, HCPs – both in clinical care and in public health – were severely tested by SARS. Unprecedented demands were placed on their skills and expertise, and their personal commitment to their profession was severely tried. Many were (...) exposed to serious risk of morbidity and mortality, as evidenced by the World Health Organization figures showing that approximately 30% of reported cases were among HCPs, some of whom died from the infection. Despite this challenge, professional codes of ethics are silent on the issue of duty to care during communicable disease outbreaks, thus providing no guidance on what is expected of HCPs or how they ought to approach their duty to care in the face of risk.DiscussionIn the aftermath of SARS and with the spectre of a pandemic avian influenza, it is imperative that we (re)consider the obligations of HCPs for patients with severe infectious diseases, particularly diseases that pose risks to those providing care. It is of pressing importance that organizations representing HCPs give clear indication of what standard of care is expected of their members in the event of a pandemic. In this paper, we address the issue of special obligations of HCPs during an infectious disease outbreak. We argue that there is a pressing need to clarify the rights and responsibilities of HCPs in the current context of pandemic flu preparedness, and that these rights and responsibilities ought to be codified in professional codes of ethics. Finally, we present a brief historical accounting of the treatment of the duty to care in professional health care codes of ethics.SummaryAn honest and critical examination of the role of HCPs during communicable disease outbreaks is needed in order to provide guidelines regarding professional rights and responsibilities, as well as ethical duties and obligations. With this paper, we hope to open the social dialogue and advance the public debate on this increasingly urgent issue. (shrink)

When consumers choose to abstain from purchasing meat, they face some uncertainty about whether their decisions will have an impact on the number of animals raised and killed. Consequentialists have argued that this uncertainty should not dissuade consumers from a vegetarian diet because the “expected” impact, or average impact, will be predictable. Recently, however, critics have argued that the expected marginal impact of a consumer change is likely to be much smaller or more radically unpredictable than previously thought. This objection (...) to the consequentialist case for vegetarianism is known as the “causal inefficacy” (or “causal impotence”) objection. In this paper, we argue that the inefficacy objection fails. First, we summarize the contours of the objection and the standard “expected impact” response to it. Second, we examine and rebut two contemporary attempts (by Mark Budolfson and Ted Warfield) to defeat the expected impact reply through alleged demonstrations of the inefficacy of abstaining from meat consumption. Third, we argue that there are good reasons to believe that single individual consumers—not just individual consumers taken as an aggregate—really do make a positive difference when they choose to abstain from meat consumption. Our case rests on three economic observations: (i) animal producers operate in a highly competitive environment, (ii) complex supply chains efficiently communicate some information about product demand, and (iii) consumers of plant-based meat alternatives have positive consumption spillover effects on other consumers. (shrink)

Increasing efficient production of commercial animal products has resulted in decreased quality of life and shorter life spans for animals being farmed and bred. Should this animal welfareproblem be blamed on farmers or consumers? Or should we blame the capitalist system? I argue that those elements that make the market economy successful also result in poor outcomes for animals in the system. Understanding the way in which capitalism is the problem allows us to think clearly about what reforms are necessary (...) to improve the lives of nonhuman animals. (shrink)

Developmental psychologists have long recognized the extraordinary influence of action on learning (Held & Hein, 1963; Piaget, 1952). Action experiences begin to shape our perception of the world during infancy (e.g., as infants gain an understanding of others’ goal-directed actions; Woodward, 2009) and these effects persist into adulthood (e.g., as adults learn about complex concepts in the physical sciences; Kontra, Lyons, Fischer, & Beilock, 2012). Theories of embodied cognition provide a structure within which we can investigate the mechanisms underlying action’s (...) impact on thinking and reasoning. We argue that theories of embodiment can shed light on the role of action experience in early learning contexts, and further that these theories hold promise for using action to scaffold learning in more formal educational settings later in development. (shrink)

This article reviews research on counterfactual, social, and temporal comparisons and proposes a Reflection and Evaluation Model (REM) as an organizing framework. At the heart of the model is the assertion that 2 psychologically distinct modes of mental simulation operate during comparative thinking: reflection, an experiential (“as if”) mode of thinking characterized by vividly simulating that information about the comparison standard is true of, or part of, the self; and evaluation, an evaluative mode of thinking characterized by the use of (...) information about the standard as a reference point against which to evaluate one’s present standing. Reflection occurs when information about the standard is included in one’s self-construal, and evaluation occurs when such information is excluded. The result of reflection is that standard–consistent cognitions about the self become highly accessible, thereby yielding affective assimilation; whereas the result of evaluation is that comparison information is used as a standard against which one’s present standing is evaluated, thereby yielding affective contrast. The resulting affect leads to either an increase or decrease in behavioral persistence as a function of the type of task with which one is engaged, and a combination of comparison-derived causal inferences and regulatory focus strategies direct one toward adopting specific future action plans. (shrink)

Can opium's tendency to induce sleep be explained by appeal to a "dormitive virtue"? If the label merely references the tendency being explained, the explanation seems vacuous. Yet the presence of a label could signal genuinely explanatory content concerning the (causal) basis for the property being explained. In Experiments 1 and 2, we find that explanations for a person's behavior that appeal to a named tendency or condition are indeed judged to be more satisfying than equivalent explanations that differ only (...) in omitting the name. In Experiment 3, we find support for one proposal concerning what it is about a name that drives a boost in explanatory satisfaction: named categories lead people to draw an inference to the existence of a cause underlying the category, a cause that is responsible for the behavior being explained. Our findings have implications for theories of explanation and point to the central role of causation in explaining behavior. (shrink)

There has been broad interest in the so-called rise of women farmers in United States (US) agriculture. Researchers have elucidated the diverse ways farmers ‘perform’ gender, while also examining how engaging in a masculine-coded industry like agriculture shapes individuals’ gendered identities as well as their social and mental wellbeing. While illuminating, this work is mostly focused on sustainable or direct-market farmers, with surprisingly little research examining women on conventional row crops operations. This paper works to fill this empirical gap and (...) further theorize gender-agriculture intersections through analyzing interviews with Iowa women row-crop farmers to understand the ways they perceive their gendered identities, and how they see them shaping their farming experience and mental wellbeing. Deploying a conceptual understanding of gender as both discursive and embodied as well as relational and fluid, I find respondents see themselves operating in a somewhat liminal gender identity, where they feel adept at moving between masculinized spaces of agriculture and more feminized domains of homes and office jobs. Critically, while women rarely expressed stress about doing “masculine” coded agricultural labor, they had more complex feelings towards either disliking or imperfectly completing feminized care and reproductive labor. Younger women expressed particular ambivalence about assuming the identity of farmer while also fulfilling gendered norms around (heterosexual) marriage and childbearing. The liminality of women’s gender performance also cut both ways, and while they feel able to access different gendered spaces some feel they are not fully accepted in either. I conclude by reflecting on what these particular forms of gendered subjectivity might mean for women’s mental wellbeing and how agencies might better support gender equity in agriculture. (shrink)

We discuss recent work on bounded rationality and learning in relation to Soros' principle of reflexivity and stress the empirical importance of non-rational, almost self-fulfilling equilibria in positive feedback systems. As an empirical example, we discuss a behavioral asset pricing model with heterogeneous expectations. Bubble and crash dynamics is triggered by shocks to fundamentals and amplified by agents switching endogenously between a mean-reverting fundamental rule and a trend-following rule, based upon their relative performance. We also discuss learning-to-forecast laboratory experiments, showing (...) that in positive feedback systems individuals coordinate expectations on non-rational, almost self-fulfilling equilibria with persistent price fluctuations very different from rational equilibria. Economic policy analysis may benefit enormously by focusing on efficiency and welfare gains in correcting mispricing along almost self-fulfilling equilibria. (shrink)

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander activists and researchers agree that print media discourses surrounding First Nations people in Australia remain negative and stereotypical. However, how these discourses are constructed in language – and therefore linguistic practices which should be avoided – has so far received minimal attention. Analysing a purpose-built corpus of Australian newspaper articles, this study uses the corpus linguistic technique of collocation analysis to identify relevant discourses and examines the linguistic construction of one discourse that had not yet (...) been identified: cooperation. It finds that although notions of cooperation are ostensibly positive, this is often undermined by syntagmatic processes which demote agential Aboriginal participants to prepositional phrases. Prepositions are often neglected in corpus linguistics and in critical discourse analysis, making this an important finding. (shrink)

The traditional concern of the academic literature on the ethics of humor is to determine whether ethical considerations influence comic amusement or, in other words, judge the impact of ethics over aesthetics. For some, ethically questionable dimensions bear no implication for the effectiveness of jokes; for others, they do, but this group disagrees on whether ethical problems make jokes less or more funny. This article attempts an alternative approach and explores the occurrences in which the aesthetic reaction to humor reveals (...) a more profound ethical commitment. It asks: What are the conditions under which laughter resulting from comic amusement reflects the moral stance of an individual? Or, more simply: Can one judge a person's character based on what this person is laughing at? The article starts by showing how humor can legitimately be taken as representative of the individual spirit, continues by identifying the subsection of humor that can offer an affirmative answer to the posed questions, highlights the power dynamics at play within this subsection of humor to justify its characterization as “fascist,” and concludes by offering guidance on identifying fascist laughter. (shrink)

The nutrition transition—a process of dietary change that describes the shift to calorie-dense, higher fat and protein diets from cereal based ones—is happening in India. This paper argues that relatively little is known about the nature of nutrition transition in India. This is a result of both a lack of adequate and timely data and a consequence of national and state-level statistics, which render an incomplete and potentially misleading picture of how these processes are unfolding in local contexts. This may (...) be especially true in India where very little ethnographic research has documented the dual edges of nutrition transitions. Analyzing data collected from the Kumaon Hills, Uttarakhand in 2013, this paper suggests the ways in which aspects of the nutrition transition have developed unevenly over space and time. In particular, while new types of calorie dense foods have infiltrated these rural, remote areas, the process has been uneven and fraught with contestation due to preexisting social practices. More troubling is the evidence that though incomes are rising, the predicted increases in high value, protein rich foods may actually be declining. This paper concludes by arguing that the widely influential nutrition transition literature needs look to ethnographic and in-depth qualitative methods to form better policies relevant to the contingencies of dietary and epidemiological change. (shrink)

In a September 2004 interview, Donald Trump agreed with Howard Stern’s statement that his daughter Ivanka is “a piece of ass.” This utterance is a synecdochical utterance targeting women, by which I mean that its form is such that a term for an anatomical part is predicated of, or could be used by a speaker to refer to, a woman. I propound a theory of what SUTW speakers do in undertaking an SUTW on which the SUTW speaker prompts the hearer (...) to engage in a certain derogatory pattern of associational thinking—that is, taking a “perspective” in Elisabeth Camp’s sense—on the female subject. This perspective is one that reduces her to the bodily part in question—that is, fragments her and biologizes her. Essentially, the hearer thinks of the woman as a “piece of meat.”. (shrink)

Au sein de la production de Cesare Lombroso, La Femme criminelle, ouvrage consacré à la criminalité féminine qu’il publie avec Guglielmo Ferrero en 1893, marque le moment où le criminaliste italien intègre de façon systématique l’univers animal dans ses explications de la déviance. Il mobilise alors une théorie générale de l’évolution centrée sur la féminité. L’article interroge le fonctionnement de ce dispositif sur le plan théorique et via un exemple précis : les brigandes. Il suggère que les stratégies textuelles et (...) visuelles de représentation, notamment de virilisation dont ces femmes font l’objet sont étroitement liées à la théorie de la « supériorité primitive de la femelle » et de l’indistinction entre les sexes chez les espèces animales « inférieures ». Paradoxalement, l’atavisme des criminelles les rapproche donc des qualités des hommes, en reprenant de façon perverse le chemin évolutif que la « femme normale », « homme arrêté dans son développement », a interrompu. (shrink)

This study explored attachment networks in long-term couples who differed in parenting choice and relationship status. Attachment networks were defined in terms of attachment functions, attachment strength, the presence of a primary figure, and full-blown attachments. Participants were 198 couples, married or cohabiting, either expecting their first child or childless-by-choice. Results indicated that partners were the most significant figures on all indicators. However, expectant women reported more proximity seeking and stronger attachments to mothers, while expectant men relied more on fathers (...) for safe haven. Married participants indicated less proximity seeking to partners than cohabiting couples, and married women reported less reliance on partners for safe haven than married men and cohabiting women. This study supports previous findings underlining the particular importance of partners for members of long-term couples. Further, it extends past research by showing the robustness of this finding across parenting choice, and by revealing gender differences in the attachment networks of committed couples. (shrink)

This paper explores the status of partial truths, i.e., statements that are partially true and partially false, in Aristotle’s Metaphysics. Contrary to what some scholars have suggested, it argues that partial truths are not confined to reputable opinions (endoxa) that have not yet been clarified and disambiguated. Rather, they have a more central role in Aristotle’s investigation. First, I propose that the fundamental question of being, namely, “What is substance?” is such that even our best attempts to answer it may (...) never yield a full or complete truth. Second, at least in some instances, Aristotle does not seem interested in disambiguating the assertions of previous thinkers to attain propositions that are fully true or fully false. This is the case because our capacity to gain insights into the nature of things is mediated by our reflections on previous theories and on the problems that they incur. It may thus be desirable to retain some partial truths that, owing to their very ambiguity, force us to interrogate the nature of things more deeply. (shrink)

This paper explores the status of partial truths, i.e., statements that are partially true and partially false, in Aristotle’s Metaphysics. Contrary to what some scholars have suggested, it argues that partial truths are not confined to reputable opinions that have not yet been clarified and disambiguated. Rather, they have a more central role in Aristotle’s investigation. First, I propose that the fundamental question of being, namely, “What is substance?” is such that even our best attempts to answer it may never (...) yield a full or complete truth. Second, at least in some instances, Aristotle does not seem interested in disambiguating the assertions of previous thinkers to attain propositions that are fully true or fully false. This is the case because our capacity to gain insights into the nature of things is mediated by our reflections on previous theories and on the problems that they incur. It may thus be desirable to retain some partial truths that, owing to their very ambiguity, force us to interrogate the nature of things more deeply. (shrink)

In order to grasp the distinctive character of the object imitated in tragedies, Aristotle's Poetics introduces a new notion of action, which does not refer to individual ethical deeds as in the Ethics. Rather, it signifies a whole with a beginning, a middle, and an end, whose constitutive components are events. This paper argues that the notion of agents undergoes a parallel transformation in the treatise on poetry. It no longer refers exclusively to the authors of ethical deeds, but to (...) the characters who enact the entire dramatic action. Their nature can be understood in terms of a potential story whose logos is a muthos. On this ground, the suggestion is made that the Poetics provides the elements of a narrative conception of human identity. (shrink)

Compassion, by the Pound is an excellent volume on the economics of animal agriculture. The authors’ analysis of animal welfare includes important contributions to the practice of cost-benefit analysis and a groundbreaking study of consumer preferences for more ethically produced animal products. Undergirding their economic analysis, however, is an inadequate engagement with animal ethics and economic ethics. This review highlights the strengths of this book and then considers three problems with the authors’ implicit ethical framework. This book highlights both the (...) value and the difficulty of using standard economic methods to contribute to the field of animal ethics. (shrink)

Denis Crispin Twitchett was always at the forefront in exploiting the great changes that took place. He had every reason for confidence. Twitchett knew the European languages from his schooldays and, by virtue of his command of East Asian written languages, was well qualified to provide intellectual and scholarly leadership. His reading of academic Japanese was effortless and this gave him ready access to the best body of secondary scholarship on medieval Chinese economic history of the middle decades of the (...) 20th century. Twitchett once said of himself that he ‘began life as a physical geographer, graduated in the high tradition of European Sinology, worked in the field of economic history, and administer[ed] a department of languages and literature’. All these very different fields exerted profound influence on his scholarship, interacting to make him the rounded humanist scholar that he became. (shrink)

This book is a new study of the leading seventeenth-century samurai Confucian, Kumazawa Banzan (1619-91). It describes his stormy life as a samurai, his interpretation of Confucian philosophy, and his imaginative commentary on Japan's greatest literary monument, The Tale of Genji. More than warrior and philosopher, Banzan is presented as a critic of the Japanese society of his day.

Since 1994, eleven ministerial public juridic persons have been established in Australia to take the education, health and community service ministries of the instigating religious institutes purposely into the future as ministries of the Catholic Church. Subsequently other ministries have been entrusted to established MPJPs, including some diocesan and parish health and aged care services. In the period from 2012 to 2016, representatives of the MPJPs explored means of fostering collaboration between the respective entities, leading to the founding of the (...) Association of Ministerial PJPs Ltd in May 2016. These are historic developments for the Australian Church in relation to lay ecclesial leadership, and offer a canonically recognised means of expanding lay women and men's participation in church governance. Table 1, in the pages that follow, summarises details of the Australian MPJPs. (shrink)

The Second Vatican Council promoted the calling of all the baptised to the mission of the church and highlighted the 'indispensable role' of the laity. The 1965 Decree on the Apostolate of Lay People stated: An indication of this manifold and pressing need is the unmistakable work being done today by the Holy Spirit in making the laity ever more conscious of their own responsibility and encouraging them to serve Christ and the Church in all circumstances.

The essays in this collection engage with Murasaki Shikibu's The Tale Genji as a work of philosophical significance, analyzing the text from a wide range of perspectives. The essays touch on almost all branches of philosophy and engage with topics such as the exercise of power, the concept of space, construction of personhood, cultural and artistic practices, and gender.

An original screenplay inspired by Sophocles’ Antigone, retold through the contemporary Greek crisis and modern European philosophy.

The problem of violence in the home is on the public agenda. Although many Christians are concerned to eliminate such abuse in their communities, the church has special problems when it tries to address the matter. Violence against family members is related to power and patriarchy, and solutions to the problem relate to the Christian understanding of the nature of the marriage bond, the confidentiality of the confessional and our understanding of the nature of God. In tackling this problem, the (...) church is as much part of the problem as an agent in the solution. (shrink)

An original screenplay inspired by Sophocles’ Antigone, retold through the contemporary Greek crisis and modern European philosophy.