The central focus of this paper is to motivate and explore the question, when is it permissible to endorse a psychologizing explanation of a sincere interlocutor? I am interested in the moral question of when (if ever) we may permissibly dismiss the sincere reasons given to us by others, and instead endorse an alternative explanation of their beliefs and actions. I argue that there is a significant risk of wronging the other person, and so we should only psychologize when we (...) are in a position to know that they are in bad faith. (shrink)

Recent data indicate that under a specific posthypnotic suggestion to circumvent reading, highly suggestible subjects successfully eliminated the Stroop interference effect. The present study examined whether an optical explanation could account for this finding. Using cyclopentolate hydrochloride eye drops to pharmacologically prevent visual accommodation in all subjects, behavioral Stroop data were collected from six highly hypnotizables and six less suggestibles using an optical setup that guaranteed either sharply focused or blurred vision. The highly suggestibles performed the Stroop task when naturally (...) vigilant, under posthypnotic suggestion not to read, and while visually blurred; the less suggestibles ran naturally vigilant, while looking away, and while visually blurred. Although visual accommodation was precluded for all subjects, posthypnotic suggestion effectively eliminated Stroop interference and was comparable to looking away in controls. These data strengthen the view that Stroop interference is neither robust nor inevitable and support the hypothesis that posthypnotic suggestion may exert a top-down influence on neural processing. (shrink)

The articles included in this Volume represent a broad and highly qualified view on the present state of general relativity, quantum gravity, and their cosmological and astrophysical implications. As such, it may serve as a valuable source of knowledge and inspiration for experts in these fields, as well as an advanced source of information for young researchers. The occasion to gather together so many leading experts in the field was to celebrate the centenary of Einstein's stay in Prague in 1911-1912. (...) It was in fact during his stay in Prague that Einstein started in earnest to develop his ideas about general relativity that fully developed in his paper in 1915. Approaching soon the centenary of his famous paper, this volume offers a precious overview of the path done by the scientific community in this intriguing and vibrant field in the last century, defining the challenges of the next 100 years. The content is divided into four broad parts: (i) Gravity and Prague, (ii) Classical General Relativity, (iii) Cosmology and Quantum Gravity, and (iv) Numerical Relativity and Relativistic Astrophysics. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to show the importance of moral sensitivity when including persons with dementia in research. The article presents and discusses ethical challenges encountered when a total of 15 persons with dementia from two nursing homes and seven proxies were included in a qualitative study. The examples show that the ethical challenges may be unpredictable. As researchers, you participate with the informants in their daily life and in the interviews, and it is not possible to plan (...) all that may happen during the research. A procedural proposal to an ethical committee at the beginning of a research project based on traditional research ethical principles may serve as a guideline, but it cannot solve all the ethical problems one faces during the research process. Our main argument in this article is, therefore, that moral sensitivity is required in addition to the traditional research ethical principles throughout the whole process of observing and interviewing the respondents. (shrink)

Recent work has argued that there may be cases where no attitude – including withholding – is rationally permissible. In this paper, I consider two such epistemic dilemmas, John Turri’s Dilemma from Testimony and David Alexander’s Dilemma from Doubt. Turri presents a case where one’s only evidence rules out withholding (without warranting belief or disbelief). Alexander presents a case where higher order doubt means one must withhold judgment over whether withholding judgment is rational. In both cases, the authors conclude that (...) no doxastic attitude is warranted. In this paper, I argue against the possibility of these epistemic dilemmas. I argue that withholding cannot be irrational in either case. But meditating on the dilemmas gives us an important – and overlooked – insight into the nature of rational withholding. First, rational withholding is a function of evidence failing to sufficiently support belief or disbelief. As a result, withholding is not symmetrical to belief and disbelief. Second, there can be two distinct grounds for rational withholding. First, propositional withholding, which arises when our evidence does not support belief or disbelief in p. And second, doxastic withholding, which arises when we cannot determine whether our evidence supports belief or disbelief in p. Accepting two grounds of rational withholding licenses a kind of Weak Permissivism. But this Weak Permissivism should not be troubling to anyone. (shrink)

SummaryThis report describes a family planning KAP survey conducted in 2000 households in rural Ghana between April and October, 1972, as one of the Danfa Project’s baseline studies. Subsequent re-surveys were done in 1975 and 1977 to assess changes related to project health education and family planning programmes.Reported knowledge about family planning was three times that reported in previous studies in rural Ghana. About 70% of the respondents approve of family planning, but most want a large family, with over six (...) children. At all ages, males wanted two or three more children than did women.The current 3% population growth rate in Ghana may increase due to continued early age of marriage, the rising size of the reproductive age group and improved pregnancy outcome.Although the expected relationships between knowledge and use of family planning and age and education were present, these differentials were typically only 10–15%. In the project area it appears that women will be most important in making the decision to practise family planning, although motivation of males is being stressed.Most villagers hear about family planning through informal, word-of-mouth channels with relatively little use of news media, family planning workers or clinic health personnel. To improve the practice of family planning, village-based health educators are working with volunteers including traditional birth attendants, community leaders, teachers and church groups. (shrink)

Gabbay has gathered an enormous amount of results; some of them important and novel, others important but already known, many rather routine, however. The organization of this material shows grave defects, both in the exposition and in its logical structure. Intensional logic appears as a vast collection of (often duplicated) loosely connected results. This may be a true reflection of the present state of the subject, but it does not contribute to a better understanding of it, let alone advance it.

Having a confirmation bias sometimes leads us to hold inaccurate beliefs. So, the puzzle goes: why do we have it? According to the influential argumentative theory of reasoning, confirmation bias emerges because the primary function of reason is not to form accurate beliefs, but to convince others that we’re right. A crucial prediction of the theory, then, is that confirmation bias should be found only in the reasoning domain. In this article, we argue that there is evidence that confirmation bias (...) does exist outside the reasoning domain. This undermines the main evidential basis for the argumentative theory of reasoning. In presenting the relevant evidence, we explore why having such confirmation bias may not be maladaptive. (shrink)

BACKGROUND: Reasoning biases have been suggested as risk factors for delusional ideation in both patients and non-clinical individuals. Still, it is unclear how these biases are longitudinally related to delusions in the general population. We hence aimed to investigate longitudinal associations between reasoning biases and delusional ideation in the general population. METHODS: We conducted an online cohort study with 1184 adults from the German and Swiss general population. Participants completed measures on reasoning biases (jumping-to-conclusion bias JTC, liberal acceptance bias LA, (...) bias against disconfirmatory evidence BADE, possibility of being mistaken PM) and delusional ideation at baseline, and delusional ideation 7 to 8 months later. RESULTS: A greater JTC bias was associated with a greater increase in delusional ideation over the following months. This association was better described by a positive quadratic relationship. Neither BADE, LA nor PM were associated with subsequent changes in delusional ideation. CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests that jumping-to-conclusions predicts delusional ideation in the general population but that this association may follow a quadratic trajectory. While no other associations turned significant, future studies with shorter temporal distances may shed further light on the role of reasoning biases as risk factors for delusional ideation in non-clinical samples. (shrink)

κάτοπτρον, which is in all the manuscripts, was emended by Canter to κάτοπτον, and this emendation, or Headlam's κατόπτην, has been received by subsequent editors. Those who read κάτοπτον have been in the habit of taking the word to mean here ‘looking down upon’, and in support of this interpretation they sometimes adduce a scholium in M, κατόψιον. This does seem to prove that the scholar, whose note is copied in our scholium, found κάτοπτον in his text. Presumably he took (...) Σαρωνικο πορθμο κάτοπτον to signify ‘descried from the Saronic gulf’, having very possibly in his mind the phrase in Euripides, Hippolytus 30, where the temple of Cypris is said to be κατόψιον γς τσδε, visible from Troezen. At least we ought not without proof to lay to his account what appears to be the solecism of regarding κάτοπτον as if it meant ‘looking down upon’. Headlam's κατόπτην has at least an active force, but I cannot find that it means ‘one who looks down upon’, if that is the sense desired; it is a ‘spy’ or an ‘inspector’. And, at the end of all discussion, when one asks what in fact is this peak or headland that ‘looks down upon the Saronic crossing’, then commentators take refuge in silence or tend to contradict one another. An emendation that nobody can be sure he understands can hardly be regarded as satisfactory. It may be feared that what has happened is this. In order to get rid of κάτοπτρον, which appeared to them devoid of meaning, editors have introduced into the text a word which does not mean what they want it to mean, and which, if it had that meaning, would still present us with a picture which no man can recognize. (shrink)

This talk was given Monday 13 May 2002 at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, and previously to summer visitors at the IBM Watson Research Center in 2001. There are no section titles; the displayed material is what I wrote on the whiteboard as I spoke.

The objectives of this study were to develop a high-density chromosome bin map of homoeologous group 7 in hexaploid wheat, to identify gene distribution in these chromosomes, and to perform comparative studies of wheat with rice and barley. We mapped 2148 loci from 919 EST clones onto group 7 chromosomes of wheat. In the majority of cases the numbers of loci were significantly lower in the centromeric regions and tended to increase in the distal regions. The level of duplicated loci (...) in this group was 24% with most of these loci being localized toward the distal regions. One hundred nineteen EST probes that hybridized to three fragments and mapped to the three group 7 chromosomes were designated landmark probes and were used to construct a consensus homoeologous group 7 map. An additional 49 probes that mapped to 7AS, 7DS, and the ancestral translocated segment involving 7BS also were designated landmarks. Landmark probe orders and comparative maps of wheat, rice, and barley were produced on the basis of corresponding rice BAC/PAC and genetic markers that mapped on chromosomes 6 and 8 of rice. Identification of landmark ESTs and development of consensus maps may provide a framework of conserved coding regions predating the evolution of wheat genomes. (shrink)

The meta-problem of consciousness (Chalmers, 2018) is the problem of explaining the behaviours and verbal reports that we associate with the so-called 'hard problem of consciousness'. These may include reports of puzzlement, of the attractiveness of dualism, of explanatory gaps, and the like. We present and defend a solution to the meta-problem. Our solution takes as its starting point the emerging picture of the brain as a hierarchical inference engine. We show why such a device, operating under familiar forms of (...) adaptive pressure, may come to represent some of its mid-level inferences as especially certain. These mid-level states confidently re-code raw sensory stimulation in ways that (they are able to realize) fall short of fully determining how properties and states of affairs are arranged in the distal world. This drives a wedge between experience and the world. Advanced agents then represent these mid-level inferences as irreducibly special, becoming increasingly puzzled as a result. (shrink)

Two experiments investigated the mechanism by which listeners adjust their interpretation of accented speech that is similar to a regional dialect of American English. Only a subset of the vowels of English (the front vowels) were shifted during adaptation, which consisted of listening to a 20‐min segment of the “Wizard of Oz.” Compared to a baseline (unadapted) condition, listeners showed significant adaptation to the accented speech, as indexed by increased word judgments on a lexical decision task. Adaptation also generalized to (...) test words that had not been presented in the accented passage but that contained the shifted vowels. A control experiment showed that the adaptation effect was specific to the direction of the shift in the vowel space and not to a general relaxation of the criterion for what constitutes a good exemplar of the accented vowel category. Taken together, these results provide evidence for a context‐specific vowel adaptation mechanism that enables a listener to adjust to the dialect of a particular talker. (shrink)

People’s comfort with and acceptability of artificial intelligence (AI) instantiations is a topic that has received little systematic study. This is surprising given the topic’s relevance to the design, deployment and even regulation of AI systems. To help fill in our knowledge base, we conducted mixed-methods analysis based on a survey of a representative sample of the US population (_N_ = 2254). Results show that there are two distinct social dimensions to comfort with AI: as a peer and as a (...) superior. For both dimensions, general and technological efficacy traits—locus of control, communication apprehension, robot phobia, and perceived technology competence—are strongly associated with acceptance of AI in various roles. Female and older respondents also were less comfortable with the idea of AI agents in various roles. A qualitative analysis of comments collected from respondents complemented our statistical approach. We conclude by exploring the implications of our research for AI acceptability in society. (shrink)

The controversies in Bristol, Alder Hey and elsewhere in the UK surrounding the removal and retention of human tissue and organs have led to extensive law reform in all three UK legal systems. This paper reports a short study of the reactions of a range of health professionals to these changes. Three main areas of ethical concern were noted: the balancing of individual rights and social benefit; the efficacy of the new procedures for consent; and the helpfulness for professional practice (...) of the new legislation and regulation. Recognition of these concerns may help in forging a new partnership between professionals and patients and their families. (shrink)

Aristotle claims man is a political animal and that the polis exists by nature. Taking literally his analogy between the legislator and the craftsman, Aristotle's critics contend that he 'blunders' because the polis is artificial, devised by a legislator/founder and imposed on a people. We defend Aristotle's claims by showing, first, how Aristotle's claim that man is by nature an animal possessing logos -- speech/reason -- grounds his account of the natural development of the polis out of the earliest partnerships (...) (which the critics concede are natural); second, that the person who first brought people together in a polis may well have done so without realizing the scope of his actions; and, finally, that the developmental process is clearly one of praxis (action), not poisis (making, the imposition of a form on matter). Aristotle's claims are evidenced by the Homeric hero Philoctetes, whom one critic takes to disprove Aristotle's theses. (shrink)

This article aims to initiate a discussion on the demarcation of the ethics of care. This discussion is necessary because the ethics of care evolves by making use of insights from varying disciplines. As this involves the risk of contamination of the care ethical discipline, the challenge for care ethical scholars is to ensure to retain a distinct care ethical perspective. This may be supported by an open and critical debate on the criteria and boundaries of the ethics of care. (...) As a contribution, this article proposes a tentative outline of the care ethical discipline. What is characteristic of this outline is the emphasis on relational programming, situation-specific and context-bound judgments, a political–ethical perspective, and empirical groundedness. It is argued that the ethics of care is best developed further by means of an intradisciplinary approach. Two intradisciplinary examples show how within the frame of one discipline, other disciplines are absorbed, both with their body of knowledge and their research methodology. (shrink)

Over 100 million Americans suffer from chronic pain, which causes more disability than any other medical condition in the United States at a cost of $560–$635 billion per year. Opioid analgesics are frequently used to treat CP. However, long term use of opioids can cause brain changes such as opioid-induced hyperalgesia that, over time, increase pain sensation. Also, opioids fail to treat complex psychological factors that worsen pain-related disability, including beliefs about and emotional responses to pain. Cognitive behavioral therapy can (...) be efficacious for CP. However, CBT generally does not focus on important factors needed for long-term functional improvement, including attainment of personal goals and the psychological flexibility to choose responses to pain. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy has been recognized as an effective, non-pharmacologic treatment for a variety of CP conditions. However, little is known about the neurologic mechanisms underlying ACT. We conducted an ACT intervention in women with chronic musculoskeletal pain. Functional magnetic resonance imaging data were collected pre- and post-ACT, and changes in functional connectivity were measured using Network-Based Statistics. Behavioral outcomes were measured using validated assessments such as the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire, the Chronic Pain Acceptance Questionnaire, the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, and the NIH Toolbox Neuro-QoLTM scales. Results suggest that, following the 4-week ACT intervention, participants exhibited reductions in brain activation within and between key networks including self-reflection, emotion, and cognitive control. These changes in connectivity strength were correlated with changes in behavioral outcomes including decreased depression and pain interference, and increased participation in social roles. This study is one of the first to demonstrate that improved function across the DMN, SN, and FPN may drive the positive outcomes associated with ACT. This study contributes to the emerging evidence supporting the use of neurophysiological indices to characterize treatment effects of alternative and complementary mind-body therapies. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to shape a theoretical framework of attentiveness in care, which may function as a background to study attentiveness in a health care setting empirically. More insight into the functions, forms, and aspects of attentiveness in a particular health care setting is important, as there is a lack of indicators and criteria that enable a sharp picture of the caring side of health provision. The concept of attentiveness and its relation to care have seldom been (...) examined thoroughly and broadly. This article argues that attentiveness is constitutive for good care, as it can create a space in which a relationship may arise. (shrink)

We are grateful to Friesen and colleagues for drawing attention to the tension between the protection of populations that may experience vulnerability with their inclusion in research (Friesen et a...

Coregulation refers to the process by which relationship partners form a dyadic emotional system involving an oscillating pattern of affective arousal and dampening that dynamically maintains an optimal emotional state. Coregulation may represent an important form of interpersonal emotion regulation, but confusion exists in the literature due to a lack of precision in the usage of the term. We propose an operational definition for coregulation as a bidirectional linkage of oscillating emotional channels between partners, which contributes to emotional stability for (...) both partners. We propose several distinctions and raise unanswered questions that will need to be addressed in order to understand the relevance of coregulation for well-being in adulthood. (shrink)

The ethical treatment of cancer patientsparticipating in clinical trials requiresthat patients are well-informed about thepotential benefits and risks associated withparticipation. When patients enrolled in phaseI clinical trials report that their chance ofbenefit is very high, this is often taken as evidence of a failure of the informed consent process. We argue, however, that some simple themes from the philosophy of language may make such a conclusion less certain. First, the patient may receive conflicting statements from multiple speakers about the expected (...) outcome of the trial. Patients may be reporting the message they like best. Second, there is a potential problem of multivocality. Expressions of uncertainty of the frequency type can be confused with expressionsof uncertainty of the belief type. Patients may be informed using frequency-type statements and respond using belief-type statements. Third, each speech episode involving the investigator and the patient regarding outcomes may subservemultiple speech acts, some of which may beindirect. For example, a patient reporting ahigh expected benefit may be reporting a beliefabout the future, reassuring family members,and/or attempting to improve his or her outcome by apublic assertion of optimism. These sources oflinguistic confusion should be considered injudging whether the patient's reported expectation isgrounds for a bioethical concern that there hasbeen a failure in the informed consent process. (shrink)

In the article, the problem of speech understanding/misunderstanding between non-native speakers using English as lingua franca is discussed. It is argued that the mechanism of EFL discourse comprehensibility and interpretability can be explained basing on Shannon’s model of information exchange, which is constructed of sender and receiver, message, two channels, coding and decoding of information, mutual feedback, noise and context. A malfunction of one or more of these components may result in ‘language noise‘ or interruption of intelligibility of speech. In (...) ELF communication malfunction of these components provokes deviations from language norms in pronunciation, grammar structure and semantics. Recurrent deviations in EFL speech production can increase or reduce noise in the coding and/or decoding channel and, correspondingly, in the information processing. Following Jenkins’ classification of kernel and non-kernel phonological deviations in EFL speech, the author maintains that the kernel deviations increase noise only if they are present in one channel and absent in the other one. If they are inherent to both speakers’ production they don’t hinder intelligibility. Non-kernel deviations affect intelligibility by the same pattern though in a weaker mode. It is claimed that comfortable intelligibility in transnational communication does not necessarily require standardization of norms and high ELF proficiency of speakers. (shrink)

Built-in decision thresholds for AI diagnostics are ethically problematic, as patients may differ in their attitudes about the risk of false-positive and false-negative results, which will require that clinicians assess patient values.

In the target article, Kirby (2014) explores conditions under which gestational surrogacy in developing countries (in this case India) may (or may not) be considered as exploitative. The author pro...

Stakeholder involvement in design is desirable from both a practical and an ethical point of view. It is difficult to do well, however, and some problems recur again and again, both of a practical nature, e.g. stakeholders acting strategically rather than openly, and of an ethical nature, e.g. power imbalances unduly affecting the outcome of the process. Hidden Design has been proposed as a method to deal with the practical problems of stakeholder involvement. It aims to do so by taking (...) the observation of stakeholder actions, rather than the outcomes of a deliberative process, as its input. Furthermore, it hides from stakeholders the fact that a design process is taking place so that they will not behave differently than they otherwise would. Both aspects of Hidden Design have raised ethical worries. In this paper I make an ethical analysis of what it means for a design process to leave participants uninformed or deceived rather than acquiring their informed consent beforehand, and to use observation of actions rather than deliberation as input for design, using Hidden Design as a case study. This analysis is based on two sets of normative guidelines: the ethical guidelines for psychological research involving deception or uninformed participants from two professional psychological organisations, and Habermasian norms for a fair and just process. It supports the conclusion that stakeholder involvement in design organised in this way can be ethically acceptable, though under a number of conditions and constraints. (shrink)

Scholars have critiqued mainstream economic approaches to environmental valuation for decades. These critiques have intensified with the increased prominence of environmental valuation in decision-making. This paper has three goals. First, we summarise prominent critiques of monetary valuation, drawing mostly on the work of Clive Spash, who worked extensively on cost–benefit analysis early in his career and then became one of monetary valuation's most thorough and ardent critics. Second, we, as a group of scholars who study relational values, describe how relational (...) values research engages with and addresses many of the critiques of monetary valuation. Third, we offer suggestions for relational values research that continues and deepens its ability to respond to critiques of monetary valuation and contributes to transformative change towards sustainability. (shrink)

Kwaku Marfo, Danielle Garcia, Saira Khalique, Karen Berger, Amy LuMontefiore Medical Center, Bronx, NY, USABackground: Medication errors are a prime concern for all in healthcare. As such the use of information technologies in drug prescribing and administration has received considerable attention in recent years, with the hope of improving patient safety. Because of the complexity of drug regimens in renal transplant patients, occurrence of medication errors is inevitable even with a well adopted computerized physician order entering system. Our objective was (...) to quantify medication error type and frequency in an inpatient renal transplant unit.Methods: Systemic evaluation of all medication errors during an initial 10-day audit and a 28-day follow-up audit in an inpatient renal transplant unit. Each error was concurrently evaluated for potential to result in adverse patient consequences, error type and associated medication class.Results: A total of 103 clinically significant medication errors were detected during the 10-day and 28-day audit time periods. The most common errors were wrong medication dose ordered and wrong time of drug administration. Thirty-six out of 66 prescribing/ordering errors reached the patient.Conclusions: Even with utilization of computerized physician order entry system in an inpatient renal transplant unit, post-kidney transplant patients are at risk for adverse outcomes due to medication errors. The risk factors may be multifactorial and will require both organizational and technical approaches to resolve.Keywords: medication errors, CPOE, inpatient, renal transplant patients. (shrink)

Background: Hospital nurses are frequently the first care givers to receive a patient’s request for euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide (PAS). In France, there is no consensus over which medical practices should be considered euthanasia, and this lack of consensus blurred the debate about euthanasia and PAS legalisation. This study aimed to investigate French hospital nurses’ opinions towards both legalisations, including personal conceptions of euthanasia and working conditions and organisation. Methods: A phone survey conducted among a random national sample of 1502 (...) French hospital nurses. We studied factors associated with opinions towards euthanasia and PAS, including contextual factors related to hospital units with random-effects logistic models. Results: Overall, 48% of nurses supported legalisation of euthanasia and 29%, of PAS. Religiosity, training in pallative care/pain management and feeling competent in end-of-life care were negatively correlated with support for legalisation of both euthanasia and PAS, while nurses working at night were more prone to support legalisation of both. The support for legalisation of euthanasia and PAS was also weaker in pain treatment/palliative care and intensive care units, and it was stronger in units not benefiting from interventions of charity/religious workers and in units with more nurses. Conclusions: Many French hospital nurses uphold the legalisation of euthanasia and PAS, but these nurses may be the least likely to perform what proponents of legalisation call “good” euthanasia. Improving professional knowledge of palliative care could improve the management of end-of-life situations and help to clarify the debate over euthanasia. (shrink)

In this paper a uniform methodology to perform natural\ndeduction over the family of linear, relevance and intuitionistic\nlogics is proposed. The methodology follows the Labelled\nDeductive Systems (LDS) discipline, where the deductive process\nmanipulates {\em declarative units} -- formulas {\em labelled}\naccording to a {\em labelling algebra}. In the system described\nhere, labels are either ground terms or variables of a given {\em\nlabelling language} and inference rules manipulate formulas and\nlabels simultaneously, generating (whenever necessary)\nconstraints on the labels used in the rules. A set of natural\ndeduction style (...) inference rules is given, and the notion of a\n{\em derivation} is defined which associates a labelled natural\ndeduction style ``structural derivation'' with a set of generated\nconstraints. Algorithmic procedures, based on a technique called\n{\em resource abduction\/}, are defined to solve the constraints\ngenerated within a structural derivation, and their termination\nconditions discussed. A natural deduction derivation is then\ndefined to be {\em correct} with respect to a given substructural\nlogic, if, under the condition that the algorithmic procedures\nterminate, the associated set of constraints is satisfied with\nrespect to the underlying labelling algebra. Finally, soundness\nand completeness of the natural deduction system are proved with\nrespect to the LKE tableaux system \cite{daga:LAD}.\footnote{Full\nversion of a paper presented at the {\em 3rd Workshop on Logic,\nLanguage, Information and Computation\/} ({\em WoLLIC'96\/}), May\n8--10, Salvador (Bahia), Brazil, organised by Univ.\ Federal de\nPernambuco (UFPE) and Univ.\ Federal da Bahia (UFBA), and\nsponsored by IGPL, FoLLI, and ASL.}. (shrink)

Self-understanding is to a great extent defined by narrative: who we are as human beings is determined by the stories we, and others, tell about ourselves. Yet many are unable to compose coherent personal narratives, as their experiences do not fall within the scope of an accepted conceptual framework. Survivors of trauma are particularly apt to fall into this “narrative rift,” where there can be no words to describe, and hence can be no assimilation of, their experiences. Using the example (...) of child sexual abuse, and drawing on the work of Bass, Spence, Schafer, and Guignon, I propose an examination of the nature of narrative fragmentation itself. Philosophical counselling may succeed where psychoanalysis might not: for where the latter has theoretical commitments to specific narratives, the former, through its reluctance to force epistemological or metaphysical assumptions on the narrator, may well facilitate a more comprehensive self-understanding. (shrink)

As a patient approaches death, family members often are asked about their loved one’s preferences regarding treatment at the end of life. Advance care directives may provide information for families and surrogate decision makers; however, less than one-third of Americans have completed such documents. As the U.S. population continues to age, many surrogate decision makers likely will rely on other means to discern or interpret a loved one’s preferences. While many surrogates indicate that they have some knowledge of their loved (...) one’s preferences, how surrogates obtain such knowledge is not well understood. Additionally, although research indicates that the emotional burden of end-of-life decision making is diminished when surrogates have knowledge that a loved one’s preferences are honored, it remains unclear how surrogates come to know these preferences were carried out. The current study examined the ways that next of kin knew veterans’ end-of-life preferences, and their ways of knowing whether those preferences were honored in Veteran Affairs Medical Center inpatient settings. (shrink)

The article is devoted to almost unknown monastery of the Russian Orthodox Church, a Holy Trinity Zosimo-Savvatievskaya Novo-Solovetskaya Krasnokholmskaya poustinia that was one of the important pilgrimage places of the royal family in the 17th century. Despite the fact that the monastery was founded in the reign of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, it is an important link in the historical and cultural development of our Fatherland, primarily because the extant architectural monuments of outstanding artistic qualities. That is why the architectural ensemble (...) of the monastery occupies a prominent place in the history of Russian culture. In addition, Novo-Solovetskaya poustinia is an important historical object providing data on the development of Russian spiritual and artistic culture of the late seventeenth century. The question of cultural-historical and social roles that Orthodox monasteries played in the history of Russia is still not sufficiently studied is. The modern development of the Russian state cannot be complete without the restoration of the positive legacy that has been lost in our culture and morality. In this regard, the study of development and formation of the Orthodox monastic culture may fill this gap. Historical development of the Zosimo-Savvatievskaya Novo-Solovetskaya Krasnokholmskaya poustinia, its architecture can contribute to the restoration of our historical memory, which is an important factor in the revival of our national identity. The author of the article also tells about the history of monastery in tough years of godless power and about the people, who died for their faith and who are called now the new martyrs. (shrink)

Amyloid-beta peptide plaque in the brain is the primary diagnostic criterion of Alzheimer's disease . The physiological role of Abeta are poorly understood. We have previously determined an Abeta interacting domain in the promoters of AD-associated genes . This AbetaID interacts in a DNA sequence-specific manner with Abeta. We now demonstrate novel Abeta activity as a possible transcription factor. Herein, we detected Abeta-chromatin interaction in cell culture by ChIP assay. We observed that human neuroblastoma cells treated with FITC conjugated Abeta1-40 (...) localized Abeta to the nucleus in the presence of H2O2-mediated oxidative stress. Furthermore, primary rat fetal cerebrocortical cultures were transfected with APP and BACE1 promoter-luciferase fusions, and rat PC12 cultures were transfected with polymorphic APP promoter-CAT fusion clones. Transfected cells were treated with different Abeta peptides and/or H2O2. Abeta treatment of cell cultures produced a DNA sequence-specific response in cells transfected with polymorphic APP clones. Our results suggest the Abeta peptide may regulate its own production through feedback on its precursor protein and BACE1, leading to amyloidogenesis in AD. (shrink)

Background Implicit biases are present in the general population and among professionals in various domains, where they can lead to discrimination. Many interventions are used to reduce implicit bias. However, uncertainties remain as to their effectiveness. -/- Methods We conducted a systematic review by searching ERIC, PUBMED and PSYCHINFO for peer-reviewed studies conducted on adults between May 2005 and April 2015, testing interventions designed to reduce implicit bias, with results measured using the Implicit Association Test (IAT) or sufficiently similar methods. (...) -/- Results 30 articles were identified as eligible. Some techniques, such as engaging with others’ perspective, appear unfruitful, at least in short term implicit bias reduction, while other techniques, such as exposure to counterstereotypical exemplars, are more promising. Robust data is lacking for many of these interventions. -/- Conclusions Caution is thus advised when it comes to programs aiming at reducing biases. This does not weaken the case for implementing widespread structural and institutional changes that are multiply justified. (shrink)

Background: Pulsed dye laser is the gold standard for treatment of port-wine stain birthmarks but multiple treatments are required and complete resolution is often not achieved. Posttreatment vessel recurrence is thought to be a factor that limits efficacy of PDL treatment of PWS. Imiquimod 5% cream is an immunomodulator with antiangiogenic effects. Objective: We sought to determine if application of imiquimod 5% cream after PDL improves treatment outcome. Methods: Healthy individuals with PWS were treated with PDL and then randomized to (...) apply posttreatment placebo or imiquimod 5% cream for 8 weeks. Chromameter measurements for 57 PWS sites were taken at baseline and compared with measurements taken 8 weeks posttreatment. The Δa and ΔE were measured to quantify treatment outcome. Results: Two patients developed minor skin irritation. Other adverse effects were not noted. Average a was 0.43 for PDL + placebo sites and 1.27 for PDL + imiquimod sites indicating a greater reduction in erythema with imiquimod. Average E was 2.59 for PDL + placebo and 4.08 for PDL + imiquimod, again indicating a greater color improvement with imiquimod. Limitations: Effects were evaluated after a single treatment and duration of effect is unknown. Conclusion: Combined selective photothermolysis and antiangiogenic therapy may enhance PWS treatment efficacy. © 2011 by the American Academy of Dermatology, Inc. (shrink)

There is quite some ethical controversy on Evidence-based Medicine (EbM) with regard to issues of physician autonomy as well as its allocative implications. Yet, there are some shortcomings in the current debate. First of all, some of the arguments brought up against EbM are similarly defaults of “classical medicine” as well, for instance its negligence of social aspects of medicine. Second, it is often maintained that EbM is just a tool to attain cost containment. This argument is false in two (...) regards for neither is there any idea of cutting costs in the roots of EbM nor does EbM once practiced necessarily lead to less costs as there can be underuse as well as overuse. Third, both opponents and proponents of EbM come up with the same arguments against each other. Both maintain that the other way of practicing medicine does not allow for physicians’ autonomy and free judgment. Therefore, we are going to search for the different presuppositions on which these “reproaches” rely. In this way we can demonstrate that both opponents and proponents rely on different notions of autonomy and free judgment in their argument. Finally, we hope to show that some of the ethical criticism may be raised against classical medicine as well and that allocation in terms of costs is not primarily an aim of EbM. (shrink)

A good deal of attention has been recently focused on the presumed advertising excesses of the healthcare industry in its promotion techniques to healthcare professionals, whether through offering gratuities such as gifts, honoraria, or travel support2-6 or through deception. Two basic concerns have been expressed: Does the acceptance of gratuities bias the recipient, tainting his or her responsibilities as the patient's agent? Does acceptance of the gratuity by the healthcare professional contribute to the high cost of healthcare products? The California (...) Society of Hospital Pharmacists was recently asked by its members to formulate a policy for an appropriate relationship between the Society and the healthcare industry, addressing these concerns. In formulating its policy, it became clear that the Society depended on healthcare industry support, gathered through journal advertising, fees for booths at its various educational events, and grants for speakers. (shrink)

The article starts with a clarification of the economic importance of certain material elements which underlie the agricultural labor process — land and water. Artificial irrigation has the significance of a primary determining factor, for, by requiring relatively intense forms of labor, it excludes slave labor as an essential element. The true „oriental“ form of production first arises when waterworks must be undertaken on a larger scale (for purposes of protection and irrigation). On a lower level of technical development, the (...) state then acquires a specific economic function : public works and astronomy. A differentiated form of society comes into being ; at its base are the peasants, either bound to the village or — later — free ; the upper ranks comprise the autocratic sovereign and an administrative, religious, and military bureaucracy. The pure oriental type in its simple form is exemplified by the old Inca society before its destruction. The higher form (with the development of inner contradictions) was attained by India, Babylonia, Assyria, Egypt, China, among others. The concentrated irrigational type, e.g. Babylonia, displays a different form of crisis from the less compact „B“ type of China. In the latter, the agricultural crisis is conditioned by extensive mobilization of arable land and by the cooperation of commercial capitalists with the centrifugal upper strata of society. Feudal or pseudo-feudal traits may be operative in creating a crisis, as in Egypt or China, but they are not the basis of the society, which is different from feudalism in its system of production, social organization, and state. Japan is feudal, or more correctly, „Asiatic“ - feudal. At most, the true oriental societies pass through an early feudal stage before developing into their own specific form based on large scale water works.The analysis of the organization of the productive forces makes it possible to explain the stagnation of the oriental agricultural society from the particular, centralized structure of the system of production based on irrigation. This is in contrast to the decentralized non-irrigational agriculture of feudal society, which did not hinder the development of towns and of an industrial capitalism fostered by late feudal absolutism.The theory of oriental society constitutes an attempt to describe both the western and eastern worlds as sectors of one human society, which develops and stagnates as movements of the same total historical process.L'article commence par éclaircir le rôle des deux éléments qui constituent le processus de travail agricole : la terre et l'eau. L'irrigation artificielle, premier facteur spécifique, exclut le travail des esclaves comme forme prédominante, du fait qu'il implique un mode de travail relativement intense. Cependant le type de production authentiquement „oriental“ apparaît seulement lorsque sont entreprises des constructions de grande envergure aux fins de protection ou d'irrigation. L'état assume alors une fonction économique propre : travaux publics et astronomie. C'est l'origine d'une société hiérarchisée qui va des paysans — liés d'abord au village, libres par la suite — au souverain autocrate, en passant par la bureaucratie administrative, sacerdotale et guerrière. La vieille société péruvienne des Incas représentait le type oriental pur dans sa forme simple. Les Indes, Babylone, l'Assyrie, l'Égypte, la Chine — entre autres — atteignirent une forme plus élevée avec développement des contradictions internes. Le type à technique hydraulique concentrée, exemple Babylone, manifeste des crises d'un autre caractère que le type à technique plus dispersée comme la Chine. Dans ce dernier pays, la crise était déterminée par une large mobilisation des terres cultivables et par l'action des capitalistes commerçants, jointe à celle du groupe supérieur centrifuge. Des caractères féodaux, ou pseudo-féodaux, peuvent bien contribuer — comme en Égypte et en Chine — à déterminer des crises, mais ne deviennent pas le fondement de la société qui, par la production, l'ordre social et l'État, diffère essentiellement de la féodalité. (Le Japon est féodal : c'est une féodalité „asiatique“ ; les sociétés authentiquement orientales traversent tout au plus une étape „pré-féodale“ avant de développer leur forme spécifique liée à la technique hydraulique.)L'analyse sociologique permet d'expliquer la stagnation de la société agraire orientale à partir de la structure spécifique centralisée du système de production inséparable de la technique hydraulique. En revanche, l'agriculture sans technique hydraulique de la société féodale n'oppose pas d'obstacles au développement des villes bourgeoises et d'un capitalisme industriel, favorisé, au terme de l'époque féodale, par l'absolutisme.La théorie de la Société orientale essaie d'esquisser un tableau où le monde occidental et le monde oriental sont comme des secteurs d'une société humaine. L'évolution de cette société aussi bien que sa stagnation représentent des mouvements partiels du même devenir historique total. (shrink)

To address the possibility that proliferative disorders may originate from interactions between multiple populations of proliferating and maturing cells, we formulate a model for this process as a set of coupled nonlinear first order partial differential equations. Using recent results for the asymptotic behaviour of the solutions to this model, we demonstrate that there exists a region of coupling coefficients, maturation rates, and proliferation rates that will guarantee the stable coexistence of coupled cellular populations. The analysis shows that increases in (...) the coupling between populations may ultimately lead to a loss of stability. Furthermore, the analysis indicates that increases (decreases) in the maturation and/or proliferation rates above (below) critical levels will lead either to instability in the populations or the destruction of one population and the persistence of the other. (shrink)

The neural representation of a repeated stimulus is the standard against which a deviant stimulus is measured in the brain, giving rise to the well-known mismatch response. It has been suggested that individuals with dyslexia have poor implicit memory for recently repeated stimuli, such as the train of standards in an oddball paradigm. Here, we examined how the neural representation of a standard emerges over repetitions, asking whether there is less sensitivity to repetition and/or less accrual of “standardness” over successive (...) repetitions in dyslexia. We recorded magnetoencephalography as adults with and without dyslexia were passively exposed to speech syllables in a roving-oddball design. We performed time-resolved multivariate decoding of the MEG sensor data to identify the neural signature of standard vs. deviant trials, independent of stimulus differences. This “multivariate mismatch” was equally robust and had a similar time course in the two groups. In both groups, standards generated by as few as two repetitions were distinct from deviants, indicating normal sensitivity to repetition in dyslexia. However, only in the control group did standards become increasingly different from deviants with repetition. These results suggest that many of the mechanisms that give rise to neural adaptation as well as mismatch responses are intact in dyslexia, with the possible exception of a putatively predictive mechanism that successively integrates recent sensory information into feedforward processing. (shrink)

Royzman and Kurzban suggest that disgust-related facial activity in response to unfairness may reflect a metaphorical communication rather than genuine feelings of disgust. We argue that this is a partial reading of our findings and that our experimental data, and those of others, are inconsistent with a social metaphor interpretation.

We would like to thank Dolega and Dewhurst for a thought-provoking and informed deconstruction of our article, which we take as applause from valued members of our audience. In brief, we fully concur with the theatre-free formulation offered by Dolega and Dewhurst and take the opportunity to explain why we used the Cartesian theatre metaphor. We do this by drawing an analogy between consciousness and evolution. This analogy is used to emphasize the circular causality inherent in the free energy principle. (...) We conclude with a comment on the special forms of active inference that may be associated with selfawareness and how they may be especially informed by dream states. (shrink)