The multiplicity of deubiquitinating enzymes (DUBs) encoded by vertebrate genomes is partly attributable to whole genome duplication events that occurred early in chordate evolution. By surveying the literature for the largest family of DUBs (the ubiquitin-specific proteases), extensive functional redundancy for duplicated genes has been confirmed as opposed to singletons. Dramatically conflicting results have been reported for loss of function studies conducted through RNA interference as opposed to inactivating mutations, but the contradictory findings can be reconciled by a recently proposed (...) compensatory mechanism involving nonsense-mediated RNA degradation. Duplicated genes are often inactivated to become pseudogenes, and it is proposed that such is the fate of the USP15 gene of zebrafish, a commonly used model system. As it is reviewed here, these observations have implications not only for the interpretation of model system phenotypes but also for therapeutic interventions designed to target DUBs. (shrink)

BackgroundThe ARRIVE (Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments) guidelines are widely endorsed but compliance is limited. We sought to determine whether journal-requested completion of an ARRIVE checklist improves full compliance with the guidelines.MethodsIn a randomised controlled trial, manuscripts reporting in vivo animal research submitted to PLOS ONE (March–June 2015) were randomly allocated to either requested completion of an ARRIVE checklist or current standard practice. Authors, academic editors, and peer reviewers were blinded to group allocation. Trained reviewers performed outcome adjudication (...) in duplicate by assessing manuscripts against an operationalised version of the ARRIVE guidelines that consists 108 items. Our primary outcome was the between-group differences in the proportion of manuscripts meeting all ARRIVE guideline checklist subitems.ResultsWe randomised 1689 manuscripts (control: n = 844, intervention: n = 845), of which 1269 were sent for peer review and 762 (control: n = 340; intervention: n = 332) accepted for publication. No manuscript in either group achieved full compliance with the ARRIVE checklist. Details of animal husbandry (ARRIVE subitem 9b) was the only subitem to show improvements in reporting, with the proportion of compliant manuscripts rising from 52.1 to 74.1% (X2 = 34.0, df = 1, p = 2.1 × 10−7) in the control and intervention groups, respectively.ConclusionsThese results suggest that altering the editorial process to include requests for a completed ARRIVE checklist is not enough to improve compliance with the ARRIVE guidelines. Other approaches, such as more stringent editorial policies or a targeted approach on key quality items, may promote improvements in reporting. (shrink)

The aim of the SI is to bring to the fore the places in which cross-sector partnerships (CSPs) are formed; how place shapes the dynamics of CSPs, and how CSPs shape the specific settings in which they develop. The papers demonstrate that partnerships and place are intrinsically reciprocal: the morality and materiality inherent in places repeatedly reset the reference points for partners, trigger epiphanies, shift identities, and redistribute capacities to act. Place thus becomes generative of partnerships in the most profound (...) sense: by developing an awareness of their emplacement, CSPs commit to place, and through their place-based commitments produce three intertwined modalities of place-specific ethics that bind CSPs and place: ethic of recognition, an ethic of care, and an ethic of resilience. Our authors have found vivid examples of how emplaced CSPs embody these ethics, signaling hope for the sustainability of our (always hyper-local) life-worlds. (shrink)

In aging humans, aerobic exercise interventions have been found to be associated with more positive or less negative changes in frontal and temporal brain areas, such as the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and hippocampus, relative to no-exercise control conditions. However, individual measures such as gray-matter (GM) probability may afford less reliable and valid conclusions about maintenance or losses in structural brain integrity than a latent construct based on multiple indicators. Here, we established a latent factor of GM structural integrity based (...) on GM probability assessed by voxel-based morphometry, magnetization transfer saturation, and mean diffusivity. Based on this latent factor, we investigated changes in structural brain integrity during a six-month exercise intervention in brain regions previously reported in studies using volumetric approaches. Seventy-five healthy, previously sedentary older adults aged 63–76 years completed an at-home intervention study in either an exercise group (EG;n= 40) or in an active control group (ACG;n= 35). Measures of peak oxygen uptake (VO2peak) taken before and after the intervention revealed a time-by-group interaction, with positive average change in the EG and no reliable mean change in the ACG. Significant group differences in structural brain integrity changes were observed in the right and left ACC, right posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), and left juxtapositional lobule cortex (JLC). In all instances, average changes in the EG did not differ reliably from zero, whereas average changes in the ACG were negative, pointing to maintenance of structural brain integrity in the EG, and to losses in the ACG. Significant individual differences in change were observed for right ACC and left JLC. Following up on these differences, we found that exercising participants with greater fitness gains also showed more positive changes in structural integrity. We discuss the benefits and limitations of a latent-factor approach to changes in structural brain integrity, and conclude that aerobic fitness interventions are likely to contribute to brain maintenance in old age. (shrink)

Launched in 1999, at a time of radical change for the publishing industry, Persephone Books has become a successful independent publisher of neglected female authors mainly from the 20th-century inter-war period. Publishing being an industry primarily shaped by the differential distribution of symbolic and economic capital, competing principles of cultural legitimacy within an increasingly commercial climate clarify the position of modern publishing at the intersection of culture and commerce. This article explores how Persephone Books’ understated assertion of publishing’s ‘middle ground’ (...) and commitment to the historically reviled ‘middlebrow’ genre have reconciled the perennial tension between culture and commerce to create a thriving yet unintentional publishing brand. (shrink)

La 4ème de couverture indique : « Le portrait de Dorian Gray, exhibé dès les premières pages du livre de Wilde auquel il donne son titre, fascine d’emblée le lecteur. La lecture proposée ici souligne que ce portrait, pour ainsi dire jeté en pâture, sert d’écran ou de paravent à un autre portrait encore plus séducteur et inquiétant, en général moins remarqué, celui de la mère morte, représentée en bacchante, qui le hante secrètement. Outre L’imposture de la beauté, ce recueil (...) comprend une étude sur Le Moïse de Michel-Ange de Freud : Un autre Moïse, ou la Force de la loi ; deux lectures consacrées à Nietzsche : Nietzsche et Wagner, Nietzsche et Voltaire (Et pourtant elle tremble!) ; Un battu imbattable, à propos de Larmes de clown, du cinéaste Victor Sjöström ainsi que Angoisse et catharsis, sur The Lady Vanishes, d’Alfred Hitchcock. ». (shrink)

This open-ended anthology is a journey into the very canon that Mary Daly has argued to be patriarchal and demeaning to women. This volume deauthorizes the official canon of Western philosophy and disrupts a related story told by some feminists who claim that Daly’s work is unworthy of re-reading because it contains fatal errors. The editors and contributors attempt to prove that Mary Daly is located in the Western intellectual tradition. Daly may be highly critical of conventional Western epistemological and (...) theological traditions, but she nevertheless appropriates themes “out-of-context” for the building of her own systematic philosophy. The following are just a few of the many themes explored in this volume: • the question of subjectivity understood as an ongoing process of be-coming • the ambiguity of the need for feminists of colonial nations to speak out about violence against women in other parts of the world while that speaking carries with it the stamp of a colonial location • the territoriality of lesbian and women’s space • the theological dimensions of twentieth-century Western philosophy. Contributors are Wanda Warren Berry, Purushottama Bilimoria, Debra Campbell, Molly Dragiewicz, Frances Gray, Amber L. Katherine, AnaLouise Keating, Anne-Marie Korte, María Lugones, Geraldine Moane, Sheilagh A. Mogford, Laurel C. Schneider, Renuka Sharma, and Marja Suhonen. (shrink)

Research Ethics, Volume 18, Issue 1, Page 24-38, January 2022. Are social science, cross-border research projects, where recruitment and data collection are carried out remotely, required to follow similar ethical and data-sharing procedures as ‘on-the-ground’ studies that use traditional means of recruitment and participant engagement? This article reflects on our experience of dealing with this question when we had to switch to online data collection due to the restrictions posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, such as the inability to travel or (...) work in person with local communities and collaborators. Using social media platforms and online data collection when conducting research brings many advantages, such as being able to communicate remotely but directly with gatekeepers and collaborators, and in reaching potential participants on a global scale. However, neither the guidelines and advice for conducting ethically sound internet-based research, nor the academic literature focussed on building equitable research partnerships between the Global North and the Global South, offer much information regarding the ethical concerns, or address the grey areas, posed by this type of digital and distanced transnational research. In our experience, conducting research remotely made negotiations of access very challenging due to the politics of positionality between Global North and South researchers, lack of clarity on ethical processes and perceptions of gatekeepers who we could not meet in person. We hope the reflections on, and discussion of, our experience encourage deliberation on the present ethical challenges posed by online and social-media-disseminated data collection, particularly in cross-border circumstances. (shrink)

This article addresses the problem of writing the posthuman in educational research. Confronted by our own failures as educational researchers within posthuman and new materialist approaches, it seeks a more radical opening to Lather and St Pierre’s question: ‘If we give up “human” as separate from non-human, how do we exist? … Are we willing to take on this question that is so hard to think but that might enable different lives?’ We do this to enable different lives for the (...) planet in all of its manifestations, including its children of the Anthropocene. We begin with the insistent presence of mud in our deep hanging out in an early learning site and ask: what is mud, what does it do, where can mud lead us in its oozing at Grey Gums Preschool. From these explorations we include a scripted dialogue that was performed at a conference against a background of rolling images of the proliferation of mud’s play with children. We consider this scripted dialogue, and its performance, as data read in relati... (shrink)

A central problem for the international governance of heritable germline gene editing is that there are important differences in attitudes and values as well as ethical and health care considerations around the world. These differences are reflected in a complicated and diverse regulatory landscape. Several publications have discussed whether reproductive uses would be legally permissible in individual countries and whether clinical applications could emerge in the context of regulatory gaps and gray areas. Systematic comparative studies that explore issues related to (...) the governance of this technology from different national and international perspectives are needed to address the lack of knowledge in this area. In this research report, we contribute to filling this gap by presenting views of stakeholders in the United Kingdom on challenges to the governance of heritable genome editing. We present findings from a multistakeholder study conducted in the United Kingdom between October 2016 and January 2018 and funded by the Wellcome Trust. This research included interviews, literature analysis, and a workshop. We involved leading U.K. scientists, in vitro fertilization clinicians, and representatives from regulatory bodies, patient organizations, and other civil societal organizations, as well as fertility companies. Part one of this article explores stakeholder perceptions of possible global developments in heritable genome editing and associated risks and governance challenges. Part two presents a range of policy options that were generated during the workshop in relation to the challenges discussed in part one. (shrink)

Background Many indigenous people have died or been harmed because of inadequately monitored research. Strong regulations in Human Research Ethics (HRE) are required to address these injustices and to ensure that peoples’ participation in health research is safe. Indigenous peoples advocate that research that respects indigenous principles can contribute to addressing their health inequities. This scoping literature review aims to analyze existing peer reviewed and grey literature to explore how indigenous values and principles from countries of Oceania are incorporated (...) into HRE and the governance of research involving human participants. Methods A scoping literature review framework was used for this study. A search for peer reviewed and grey literature from Google, bibliographies, and electronic databases such as SCOPUS, SPRINGER, Medline (Ovid) and JBI Database of Systematic Reviews was conducted, limited to the years 2002–2020. Sixty (60) documents that focused on indigenous knowledge from Oceania region and HRE were included, from which key findings and themes were synthesized. Results Charting the data showed that more than half the eligible documents were peer-reviewed journal articles (54%). Other sources included: International Declarations on Human Research (8%); book chapters (8%); government documents (8%); HRE Guidelines or protocols (13%); news articles (7%) and PhD thesis (2%). The literature was from Australia, Cook Islands, Guam, New Zealand, Fiji, Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu, some of which focused specifically on HREs in the Pacific Region. Issues emerging from the literature were grouped into five themes (i) indigenous and cultural principles of HRE; (ii) informed consent in indigenous settings in Oceania; (iii) vulnerability and minority status of indigenous populations exploited for research; (iv) research ethics governance for Oceania indigenous peoples; and (v) research ethics committees in Oceania. Respect, relationship building, and trust were priority indigenous HRE principles that encompass the principles of partnership, capacity building, reciprocity, and equality. Relationship building and trust imply the equal distribution of benefits for indigenous population and researchers. Conclusion Indigenous principles of HRE identified were interconnected and interdependent. Recommendations were to incorporate indigenous principles of research in HRE regulations and processes of all countries with indigenous populations. This is especially pertinent for emerging national research committees in LMIC countries, including Fiji and Tonga. Relationship building among researchers and indigenous populations is key to successful research with indigenous populations. HRE principles important for relationship building include respect that is reciprocal among researchers and indigenous people. Elements of the principle of respect highlighted are empathy, collaboration, sharing of benefits, reciprocity, appreciation, empowerment, protection, safety and awareness of culture and languages. Indigenous ontology from the Oceania region involves spirituality, connectedness to land, religious beliefs and a participatory approach to HRE and should be respected in research. An ethical governance mechanism of HRE is one that incorporates indigenous principles and applications for the purpose of maximizing the protection of the dignity and rights of indigenous peoples of Oceania. (shrink)

In our descriptive exploratory qualitative study, we investigated the issue of contract cheating in Iranian higher education contexts. Through our analysis, we provide insights into measures taken in Iran to prevent contract cheating and mitigate its effects. Our study analyses secondary data including scholarly articles, published media, and the country’s current policies. Results showed that more empirical primary data from which to draw definitive conclusions is needed, and as such, developing an evidence-based body of knowledge about the prevalence and characteristics (...) of contract cheating in Iran remains a persistent call to action. Our analysis of scholarly studies (_n_ = 102) and grey literature sources (_n_ = 195) showed an overarching lack of university accountability; students’ motives for engaging in contract cheating; and lack of appropriate legislation were enabling factors. We conclude that Iran lags behind other countries with regards to what is known about contract cheating and how to address it; as such, we conclude with a call to action for increased supports for education; policy and legislation; and scholarship. (shrink)

An assessment of America's preference for "extra-large" shares examples ranging from mega churches and breast augmentation to landfills and mega-malls, in a cautionary report that reveals some of the consequences of these choices.

In this inspirational discourse, scholar Sarah Wider and Buddhist leader Daisaku Ikeda celebrate the great spiritual and literary figures, East and West, who have inspired their own work as educators, poets, and peace builders, including both the men and the women of the American Renaissance. They reserve their highest praise, though, for the lesser-known influences, especially teachers and mothers, whose humble, compassionate actions provide the truest foundation for the realization of ever-greater peace. Ultimately, the book is a tribute to (...) the bonds that give life meaning. These bonds are the ones built between friends and family; those who teach and those we might learn from; with the great thinkers of the past who live on in books, poetry, and art; with nature; and most of all with the best version of ourselves. (shrink)

Kant’s non-voluntarist conception of political obligation has led some philosophers to argue that he would reject self-government rights for indigenous peoples. Some recent scholarship suggests, however, that Kant’s critique of colonialism provides an argument in favor of granting self-government rights. Here I argue for a stronger conclusion: Kantian political theory not only can but must include sovereignty for indigenous peoples. Normally these rights are considered redress for historic injustice. On a Kantian view, however, I argue that they are not remedial. (...) Sovereignty rights are a necessary part of establishing perpetual peace. By failing to acknowledge the sovereignty of native groups, states once guilty of imperialism leave open the in principle possibility for future violence, even though no current conflict exists. Only in recognizing self-government rights can states truly commit to the cosmopolitan ideal. (shrink)

We often think about the alternatives to a decision that has been made. Thinking in this way is known as counterfactual thinking, that is, thinking about what could have been had an alternative dec...

inheritance reasoning in semantic networks allowing for multiple inheritance with exceptions. The approach leads to a definition of iaheritance that is..

Participants compared the mental capacities of various human and nonhuman characters via online surveys. Factor analysis revealed two dimensions of mind perception, Experience and Agency. The dimensions predicted different moral judgments but were both related to valuing of mind.

Generic generalizations such as ‘mosquitoes carry the West Nile virus’ or ‘sharks attack bathers’ are often accepted by speakers despite the fact that very few members of the kinds in question have the predicated property. Previous work suggests that such low-prevalence generalizations may be accepted when the properties in question are dangerous, harmful, or appalling. This paper argues that the study of such generic generalizations sheds light on a particular class of prejudiced social beliefs, and points to new ways in (...) which those beliefs might be undermined and combatted. (shrink)

This chapter begins with a discussion of Indian theories of inference. It identifies the unique features of Indian logic not found in Western logic. Indian theories of inference are primarily theories of adequate evidence, but they may also be viewed as systems of nonmonotonic reasoning, which is being used in modern computer simulation of actual human reasoning processes. The chapter then discusses Nyāya logic, Buddhist logic, Jaina logic, and Navya–Nyāya logic.

Ducks lay eggs' is a true sentence, and `ducks are female' is a false one. Similarly, `mosquitoes carry the West Nile virus' is obviously true, whereas `mosquitoes don't carry the West Nile virus' is patently false. This is so despite the egg-laying ducks' being a subset of the female ones and despite the number of mosquitoes that don't carry the virus being ninety-nine times the number that do. Puzzling facts such as these have made generic sentences defy adequate semantic treatment. (...) However complex the truth conditions of generics appear to be, though, young children grasp generics more quickly and readily than seemingly simpler quantifiers such as `all' and `some'. I present an account of generics that not only illuminates the strange truth conditions of generics, but also explains how young children find them so comparatively easy to acquire. I then argue that generics give voice to our most cognitively primitive generalizations and that this hypothesis accounts for a variety of facts ranging from acquisition patterns to cross-linguistic data concerning the phonological articulation of operators. I go on to develop an account of the nature of these cognitively fundamental generalizations and argue that this account explains the strange truth-conditional behavior of generics. (shrink)

A propositional system of modal logic is second-order if it contains quantifiers ∀p and ∃p, which, in the standard interpretation, are construed as ranging over sets of possible worlds (propositions). Most second-order systems of modal logic are highly intractable; for instance, when augmented with propositional quantifiers, K, B, T, K4 and S4 all become effectively equivalent to full second-order logic. An exception is S5, which, being interpretable in monadic second-order logic, is decidable.

"One of the most careful and intensive among the introductory texts that can be used with a wide range of students. It builds remarkably sophisticated technical skills, a good sense of the nature of a formal system, and a solid and extensive background for more advanced work in logic.... The emphasis throughout is on natural deduction derivations, and the text's deductive systems are its greatest strength. Lemmon's unusual procedure of presenting derivations before truth tables is very effective." --Sarah Stebbins, (...) The Journal of Symbolic Logic. (shrink)

This comprehensive Research Handbook explores the wide variety of work conducted in legal semiotics, providing a thorough understanding of how the law works through signs and symbols. Demonstrating that the law is a strategical system of fluctuating signs, contributors critically analyse the ever-evolving conceptualisations of law and legal discourse. Bringing together leading international experts, this Research Handbook focuses on the material, everyday forms of law comprised by non-verbal legal semiotics. Contributors conduct culturally nuanced semiotic analyses of the modern world, covering (...) topics from COVID-19, religion, and human rights, to comic books and music. Chapters consider the foundations of semiotics, as well as the philosophy of law, identifying the cross-cultural similarities in how legal semiotics and visual legal semiotics intersect. Ultimately, the Research Handbook demonstrates that the law is in a state of perpetual flux, with many unique dimensions only made visible by semiotic analysis. The Research Handbook on Legal Semiotics will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars of law, jurisprudence, legal culture, linguistics, and semiotics. It will also be an important guide for legal practitioners seeking to better understand the nuances of the legal system. (shrink)

One of the main themes that has emerged from behavioral decision research during the past three decades is the view that people's preferences are often constructed in the process of elicitation. This idea is derived from studies demonstrating that normatively equivalent methods of elicitation (e.g., choice and pricing) give rise to systematically different responses. These preference reversals violate the principle of procedure invariance that is fundamental to all theories of rational choice. If different elicitation procedures produce different orderings of options, (...) how can preferences be defined and in what sense do they exist? This book shows not only the historical roots of preference construction but also the blossoming of the concept within psychology, law, marketing, philosophy, environmental policy, and economics. Decision making is now understood to be a highly contingent form of information processing, sensitive to task complexity, time pressure, response mode, framing, reference points, and other contextual factors. (shrink)

Since it was presented in 1963, Chisholm’s paradox has attracted constant attention in the deontic logic literature, but without the emergence of any definitive solution. We claim this is due to its having no single solution. The paradox actually presents many challenges to the formalization of deontic statements, including (1) context sensitivity of unconditional oughts, (2) formalizing conditional oughts, and (3) distinguishing generic from nongeneric oughts. Using the practical interpretation of ‘ought’ as a guideline, we propose a linguistically motivated logical (...) solution to each of these problems, and explain the relation of the solution to the problem of contrary-to-duty obligations. (shrink)

We identify a class of paradoxes that is neither set-theoretical nor semantical, but that seems to depend on intensionality. In particular, these paradoxes arise out of plausible properties of propositional attitudes and their objects. We try to explain why logicians have neglected these paradoxes, and to show that, like the Russell Paradox and the direct discourse Liar Paradox, these intensional paradoxes are recalcitrant and challenge logical analysis. Indeed, when we take these paradoxes seriously, we may need to rethink the commonly (...) accepted methods for dealing with the logical paradoxes. (shrink)

On the ethics of extending human life: healthy people have a right to carry on livingHumanity has long demonstrated a paradoxical ambivalence concerning the extension of a healthy human lifespan. Modest health extension has been universally sought, whereas extreme health extension has been regarded as a snare and delusion—a dream beyond all others at first blush, but actually something we are better off without. The prevailing pace of biotechnological progress is bringing ever closer the day when humanity will be able (...) to act on the latter view by rejecting a clear and present opportunity for much longer healthy lives. Indeed, some biogerontologists contend that that day has already arrived, to the extent that our hesitation in embarking on a vigorous “war on ageing” is already delaying the point at which a cure for ageing will be developed. Here I consider whether our present caution concerning the wisdom of truly curing ageing is likely to survive the increased scrutiny that it will receive in coming years as a result of these technical advances. I conclude that it will not, because of its irreconcilability with values that are more deeply held by the large majority of humanity than any values that argue against the quest for a cure. I further conclude that all the major current reasons given for not curing ageing are mere crutches to help us cope with the immutability of ageing that we have been brought up to accept. Our failure to set aside such irrationality is already shortening potential longevity—quite probably of those already alive today—to a staggering degree. Once we realise this, our determination to consign human ageing to history will be second …. (shrink)

Following the pioneer work of Bruno De Finetti [12], conditional probability spaces (allowing for conditioning with events of measure zero) have been studied since (at least) the 1950's. Perhaps the most salient axiomatizations are Karl Popper's in [31], and Alfred Renyi's in [33]. Nonstandard probability spaces [34] are a well know alternative to this approach. Vann McGee proposed in [30] a result relating both approaches by showing that the standard values of infinitesimal probability functions are representable as Popper functions, and (...) that every Popper function is representable in terms of the standard real values of some infinitesimal measure. Our main goal in this article is to study the constraints on (qualitative and probabilistic) change imposed by an extended version of McGee's result. We focus on an extension capable of allowing for iterated changes of view. Such extension, we argue, seems to be needed in almost all considered applications. Since most of the available axiomatizations stipulate (definitionally) important constraints on iterated change, we propose a non-questionbegging framework, Iterative Probability Systems (IPS) and we show that every Popper function can be regarded as a Bayesian IPS. A generalized version of McGee's result is then proved and several of its consequences considered. In particular we note that our proof requires the imposition of Cumulativity, i.e. the principle that a proposition that is accepted at any stage of an iterative process of acceptance will continue to be accepted at any later stage. The plausibility and range of applicability of Cumulativity is then studied. In particular we appeal to a method for defining belief from conditional probability (first proposed in [42] and then slightly modified in [6] and [3]) in order to characterize the notion of qualitative change induced by Cumulative models of probability kinematics. The resulting cumulative notion is then compared with existing axiomatizations of belief change and probabilistic supposition. We also consider applications in the probabilistic accounts of conditionals [1] and [30]. (shrink)