BackgroundUpper limb impairment is common after stroke, and many will not regain full upper limb function. Different technologies based on surface electromyography (sEMG) have been used in stroke rehabilitation, but there is no collated evidence on the different sEMG-driven interventions and their effect on upper limb function in people with stroke.AimSynthesize existing evidence and perform a meta-analysis on the effect of different types of sEMG-driven interventions on upper limb function in people with stroke.MethodsPubMed, SCOPUS, and PEDro databases were systematically searched (...) for eligible randomized clinical trials that utilize sEMG-driven interventions to improve upper limb function assessed by Fugl-Meyer Assessment (FMA-UE) in stroke. The PEDro scale was used to evaluate the methodological quality and the risk of bias of the included studies. In addition, a meta-analysis utilizing a random effect model was performed for studies comparing sEMG interventions to non-sEMG interventions and for studies comparing different sEMG interventions protocols.ResultsTwenty-four studies comprising 808 participants were included in this review. The methodological quality was good to fair. The meta-analysis showed no differences in the total effect, assessed by total FMA-UE score, comparing sEMG interventions to non-sEMG interventions (14 studies, 509 participants, SMD 0.14, P 0.37, 95% CI –0.18 to 0.46, I255%). Similarly, no difference in the overall effect was found for the meta-analysis comparing different types of sEMG interventions (7 studies, 213 participants, SMD 0.42, P 0.23, 95% CI –0.34 to 1.18, I273%). Twenty out of the twenty-four studies, including participants with varying impairment levels at all stages of stroke recovery, reported statistically significant improvements in upper limb function at post-sEMG intervention compared to baseline.ConclusionThis review and meta-analysis could not discern the effect of sEMG in comparison to a non-sEMG intervention or the most effective type of sEMG intervention for improving upper limb function in stroke populations. Current evidence suggests that sEMG is a promising tool to further improve functional recovery, but randomized clinical trials with larger sample sizes are needed to verify whether the effect on upper extremity function of a specific sEMG intervention is superior compared to other non-sEMG or other type of sEMG interventions. (shrink)

This article addresses the sacredness of Ayahuasca from the perspective of the global shamanic vocation. If encounters with Ayahuasca are said to revitalize forms of sacredness in contemporary societies, this is perhaps clearest in cases where individuals understand themselves to be called to lead ceremonies. Recognizing the global scale of Ayahuasca shamanism, we compare facilitators of ceremonies in two societies to discern differences and similarities in how Ayahuasca vocations exist in differently modernized societies: Peru, a predominantly Catholic society with a (...) substantial Indigenous Amazonian population and an active Ayahuasca shamanism tourism sector, and Denmark, a secular society in Northern Europe, where Ayahuasca is illegal. Building on recent reappraisals of Weber’s reflection on vocation and Durkheim’s theory of the sacred, we argue that being called by Ayahuasca to follow shamanic vocations in contemporary societies leads to tensions around the need to both justify and resist the rationalization of Ayahuasca. (shrink)

Alm, Margit Review of: Countdown: Our last, best hope for a future on earth?, by Alan Weisman, First Published in the US by Little, Brown and Company, Hachette Book Group ISBN 978-1-4087-0267-3.

Alm, Margit Review of: Growing for broke: How the government has sold out to private interests, by Peter North, Published in 2016 by Tomorrow Press, PO Box 238, Berwick, Vic. 3806 ISBN 978-168418977-9.

We define a complete theory SHF e of separably closed fields of finite invariant e (= degree of imperfection) which carry an infinite stack of Hasse-derivations. We show that SHF e has quantifier elimination and eliminates imaginaries.

Muscle synergies reflect the presence of a common neural input to multiple muscles. Steering small sets of synergies is commonly believed to simplify the control of complex motor tasks like walking and running. When these locomotor patterns emerge, it is likely that synergies emerge as well. We hence hypothesized that in children learning to run the number of accompanying synergies increases and that some of the synergies’ activities display a temporal shift related to a reduced stance phase as observed in (...) adults. We investigated the development of locomotion in 23 children aged 2–9 years of age and compared them with seven young adults. Muscle activity of 15 bilateral leg, trunk, and arm muscles, ground reaction forces, and kinematics were recorded during comfortable treadmill walking and running, followed by a muscle synergy analysis. We found that toddlers and preschoolers utilize a “walk-run strategy” when learning to run: they managed the fastest speeds on the treadmill by combining double support and flight phases. In particular the activity duration of the medial gastrocnemius muscle was weakly correlated with age. The number of synergies across groups and conditions needed to cover sufficient data variation ranged between four and eight. The number of synergies tended to be smaller in toddlers than it did in preschoolers and school-age children but the adults had the lowest number for both conditions. Against our expectations, the age groups did not differ significantly in the timing or duration of synergies. We believe that the increase in the number of muscle synergies in older children relates to motor learning and exploration. The ability to run with a FP is clearly associated with an increase in the number of muscle synergies. (shrink)

Emotional hardcore and other music genres featuring screamed vocals are puzzling for the appreciator. The typical fan attaches appreciative value to musical screams of emotional pain all the while acknowledging it would be inappropriate to hold similar attitudes towards their sonically similar everyday counterpart: actual human screaming. Call this the screamed vocals problem. To solve the problem, I argue we must attend to the anti-sublimating aims that get expressed in the emotional hardcore vocalist’s choice to scream the lyrics. Screamed vocals (...) help us see the value in rejecting (a) restrictive social norms of emotional expressiveness and (b) restrictive artistic norms about how one ought to express or represent pain in art, namely that if one is going to do so they must ensure the pain has been ‘beautified’. In developing this second point I argue that emotional hardcore is well-suited (though not individually so) for putting pressure on longstanding views in the history of aesthetics about the formal relationship between art and human pain. (shrink)

This article examines non-statutory executive powers, which are commonly employed in the modern state but rarely studied as a distinct concept. The article assesses three treatments of these powers available in current English public law—prerogative, common law powers which rely on analogies between the state and legal persons, and judicial review—and argues that they fail to provide a proper balance between legality and need. Royal prerogative connotes a shrinking reservoir of ancient powers, while non-statutory powers respond to unexpected futures and (...) statute’s intrinsic eventual failings. Analogies to legal persons fail to address the particularities of executive powers. Judicial review provides only a partial solution, since absence of parliamentary approval is not, in itself, ground for special treatment of executive action. The author joins calls for theoretization of public law and advances a model of executive powers that draws on a composite theory of the executive branch and its functions.This article examines non-statutory executive powers, which are commonly employed in the modern state but rarely studied as a distinct concept. The article assesses three treatments of these powers available in current English public law—prerogative, common law powers which rely on analogies between the state and legal persons, and judicial review—and argues that they fail to provide a proper balance between legality and need. Royal prerogative connotes a shrinking reservoir of ancient powers, while non-statutory powers respond to unexpected futures and statute’s intrinsic eventual failings. Analogies to legal persons fail to address the particularities of executive powers. Judicial review provides only a partial solution, since absence of parliamentary approval is not, in itself, ground for special treatment of executive action. The author joins calls for theoretization of public law and advances a model of executive powers that draws on a composite theory of the executive branch and its functions. (shrink)

Is there a limit to the legitimate demands of morality? In particular, is there a limit to people's responsibility to promote the well-being of others, either directly or via social institutions? Utilitarianism admits no such limit, and is for that reason often said to be an unacceptably demanding moral and political view. In this original new study, Murphy argues that the charge of excessive demands amounts to little more than an affirmation of the status quo. The real problem with (...) utilitarianism is that it makes unfair demands on people who comply with it in our world of nonideal compliance. Murphy shows that this unfairness does not arise on a collective understanding of our responsibility for others' well being. Thus, according to Murphy, while there is no general problem to be raised about the extent of moral demands, there is a pressing need to acknowledge the collective nature of the demands of beneficence. (shrink)

Although many modern philosophers of law describe custom as merely a minor source of law, formal law is actually only one source of the legal customs that govern us. Many laws grow out of custom, and one measure of a law's success is by its creation of an enduring legal custom. Yet custom and customary law have long been neglected topics in unsettled jurisprudential debate. Smaller concerns, such as whether customs can be legitimized by practice or by stipulation, stipulated by (...) an authority or by general consent, or dictated by law or vice versa, lead to broader questions of law and custom as alternative or mutually exclusive modes of social regulation, and whether rational reflection in general ought to replace sub-rational prejudice. Can legal rules function without customary usage, and does custom even matter in society? The Philosophy of Customary Law brings greater theoretical clarity to the often murky topic of custom by showing that custom must be analyzed into two more logically basic concepts: convention and habit. James Bernard Murphy explores the nature and significance of custom and customary law, and how conventions relate to habits in the four classic theories of Aristotle, Francisco Suarez, Jeremy Bentham, and James C. Carter. He establishes that customs are conventional habits and habitual conventions, and allows us to better grasp the many roles that custom plays in a legal system by offering a new foundation of understanding for these concepts. (shrink)

This article focuses on healthcare ethics discussions in Estonia. We begin with an overview of the reform policies that the healthcare institutions have undergone since the region regained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. The principles of distributing healthcare services and questions regarding just what ethical healthcare should look like have received abundant coverage in the national media. An example of this is the exceptionally public case of V—a woman with leukemia whose expensive drugs the national health insurance fund (...) refused to compensate. In our subsequent discussion, we focus on a grand-scale local healthcare and research project—the Estonian Genome Project—that attempts to include 1 million DNA samples into one database. (shrink)

As artificial intelligence systems are becoming increasingly autonomous and will soon be able to make decisions on their own about what to do, AI researchers have started to talk about the need to align AI with human values. The AI ‘value alignment problem’ faces two kinds of challenges—a technical and a normative one—which are interrelated. The technical challenge deals with the question of how to encode human values in artificial intelligence. The normative challenge is associated with two questions: “Which values (...) or whose values should artificial intelligence align with?” My concern is that AI developers underestimate the difficulty of answering the normative question. They hope that we can easily identify the purposes we really desire and that they can focus on the design of those objectives. But how are we to decide which objectives or values to induce in AI, given that there is a plurality of values and moral principles and that our everyday life is full of moral disagreements? In my paper I will show that although it is not realistic to reach an agreement on what we, humans, really want as people value different things and seek different ends, it may be possible to agree on what we do not want to happen, considering the possibility that intelligence, equal to our own, or even exceeding it, can be created. I will argue for pluralism which is compatible with objectivism. In spite of the fact that there is no uniquely best solution to every moral problem, it is still possible to identify which answers are wrong. And this is where we should begin the value alignment of AI. (shrink)

This book delivers a definitive contribution to the understanding of Habermas's oeuvre as it applies to education. The authors examine Habermas's contribution to pedagogy, learning and classroom interaction; the relation between education, civil society and the state; forms of democracy, reason and critical thinking; and performativity, audit cultures and accountability.

This article provides a short survey of Joachim Kopper’s understanding of Kant’s theory of cognition in CPR. Kant’s critical thought is developed via a dogmatic method but marks a transition to transcendental thought delivered from dogmatic assertions. The assertion that cognition emerges from the relation between mind and objects is made at the beginning of CPR. Kopper holds that transcendental reflection starts not on the basis of this distinction but on the impossibility of logical assertion about existence as it is (...) reached in antinomic. The fact of experience must thus be explained otherwise than by dogmatic assertions of relations between objects or between objects and thought. Reflection on necessity, affirmed by the law of causality, enables transcendental inspection to understand experience and human life in one unrelational meaning. (shrink)

Whereas in the 1970s early bioethicists believed that bioethics is an arena for the application of philosophical theories of utilitarianism, deontology, and natural law thinking, contemporary policy-oriented bioethicists seem rather to be keen on framing ethical issues through political ideologies. Bioethicists today are often labeled “liberal” or “communitarian,” referring to their different understandings of the relationship between the individual and society. Liberal individualism, with its conceptual base of autonomy, dignity, and privacy, enjoyed a long period of dominance in bioethics, but (...) it has increasingly come under attack from ideologies promoting a more salient role for concepts of solidarity, community, and public interest. (shrink)

This volume identifies, discusses and addresses the wide array of ethical issues that have emerged for engineers due to the rise of a global economy. To date, there has been no systematic treatment of the particular challenges globalization poses for engineering ethics standards and education. This volume concentrates on precisely this challenge. Scholars and practitioners from diverse national and professional backgrounds discuss the ethical issues emerging from the inherent symbiotic relationship between the engineering profession and globalization. Through their discussions a (...) deeper and more complete understanding of the precise ways in which globalization impacts the formulation and justification of ethical standards in engineering as well as the curriculum and pedagogy of engineering ethics education emerges. (shrink)

The Collective Imagination explores the social foundations of the human imagination. A comprehensive audit of the creativity claims of the post-modern age - that finds them badly wanting and looks to the future - this book will appeal to sociologists and philosophers concerned with cultural theory, cultural and media studies and aesthetics.

A challenging critique of narrative theologies, including the works of George Lindbeck, Robert Jenson, and Herbert McCabe. Francesca Aran Murphy argues that the use of the concept of story or narrative in theology is circular and self-referential, and that the widespread notion that the role of the theologian is to 'tell God's story' has not helped theology to advance the reality of its doctrines. Murphy contends that the scriptural revelation on which Christian theology depends is not a story (...) or a plot but a dramatic encounter between mysterious, free, and unpredictable persons. She offers her own alternative approach, making use of cinema and film theory, and engaging in particular in a dialogue with the work of Hans Urs von Balthasar. (shrink)

Habermas: a closet Kantian -- Kant -- Vattimo: a closet Kantian -- Gadamer and Lyotard on aesthetic judgment (I): some problems -- Gadamer and Lyotard on aesthetic judgment (II): the story of where they go wrong.

This reply focusses on three aspects: advantages and disadvantages of our proposed ‘cooperative entry certificates’ for the countries of origin, for the migrants, and for the host countries. It analyzes in what respects our proposal can be improved based on the valuable points made by the commentators. In addition, the question of how to deal with winners and losers within the three groups is discussed.

Large-scale migration is one of the most topical issues of our time. There are two main problems. First, millions of persons will enter Europe in the short and middle run in spite of the firewalls we have built. When the income levels in the development countries raises, the migration pressure will even become stronger for a long time. Second, the present integration policy in most European countries is deficient. In contrast to common knowledge, strong social benefits for migrants, multicultural policies (...) and fast naturalization do not further integration. To address these two problems we propose a procedure that takes into account that most migrants react to incentives in a rational way. Migrants in our countries are joining a cooperative and take advantage of many collective goods and social institutions the citizen of the immigration countries have provided. Migrants therefore should pay an entry fee to join the cooperative. This proposal has positive consequences for both the countries of immigration and of origin, as well as for actual and would-be immigrants. It has many advantages compared to other schemes. (shrink)

Performance evaluation in research is more and more based on numbers of publications, citations, and impact factors. In the wake of New Public Management output control has been introduced into research governance without taking into account the conditions necessary for this kind of control to work efficiently. It is argued that to evaluate research by output control is counterproductive. It induces to substitute the ‘taste for science’ by a ‘taste for publication’. Instead, input control by careful selection and socialization serves (...) as an alternative. (shrink)