The only RNA molecules known to be branched are circular structures with tails known as lariats that arise during nuclear pre‐mRNA splicing. Lariats accumulate within a large multicomponent particle called a spliceosome that forms upon the addition of unspliced mRNA to nuclear extracts. Recently an RNA molecule has been observed to catalyze branch formation. In this case a single intron of a yeast mitochondrial pre‐mRNA participates in a self‐splicing reaction that results in the accumulation of branched lariats that are processed (...) to correctly spliced exons.An enzyme highly specific for branch removal found in the same extracts that form branches during pre‐mRNA splicing can debranch RNA lariats to their linear forms without loss of nucleotides.The chemical synthesis of branched RNA has recently been achieved. High yields of sequence‐specific oligonucleotides are now available for the analysis of RNA splicing by techniques dependent on branch‐site recognition. (shrink)

In recent years, the construct of character has received substantial attention among developmental scientists, but no consensus exists about the content and structure of character, especially among children and early adolescents. In a study of positive development among racially diverse Cub Scouts in the greater Philadelphia area, we assessed the construct and concurrent validity of a new measure of character, the Assessment of Character in Children and Early Adolescents, among 906 Scouts and 775 non-Scout boys and girls. We identified an (...) eight-correlated-factor model as providing the best fit with our data. We further established measurement invariance and explored latent mean differences for ACCEA scores across two Scout groups, non-Scout boys and non-Scout girls. Girls were generally superior than boys on all character attributes. We further examined concurrent validity of ACCEA by correlating the character attributes with youth sense of school competence, intentional self-regulation and parental perception of youth school performance. We discuss implications for future character research and point to the value of the ACCEA measure being used by practitioners in character development programs. (shrink)

Throughout the twentieth century calls to modernize natural history motivated a range of responses. It was unclear how research in natural history museums would participate in the significant technological and conceptual changes that were occurring in the life sciences. By the 1960s, the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at the University of California, Berkeley, was among the few university-based natural history museums that were able to maintain their specimen collections and support active research. The MVZ therefore provides a window to the (...) modernization of natural history. This paper concentrates on the directorial transitions that occurred at the MVZ between 1965 and 1971. During this period, the MVZ had four directors: Alden H. Miller (Director 1940–1965), an ornithologist; Aldo Starker Leopold (Acting Director 1965–1966), a conservationist and wildlife biologist; Oliver P. Pearson (Director 1966–1971), a physiologist and mammalogist; and David B. Wake (Director 1971–1998), a morphologist, developmental biologist, and herpetologist. The paper explores how a diversity of overlapping modernization strategies, including hiring new faculty, building infrastructure to study live animals, establishing new kinds of collections, and building modern laboratories combined to maintain collections at the MVZ’s core. The paper examines the tensions between the different modernization strategies to inform an analysis of how and why some changes were institutionalized while others were short-lived. By exploring the modernization of collections-based research, this paper emphasizes the importance of collections in the transformation of the life sciences. (shrink)

L’écrivain Edmond Jabès , d’abord de nationalité italienne en Egypte puis de nationalité française en France et de langue française, était d’origine juive. Ecrivain libre et solitaire, loin des partis et des groupes littéraires, la prise de conscience de sa judéïté marqua cette dimension littéraire, sans être réductible à cette judéïté. Héritière d’une tradition liée aux diverses interrogations sur Dieu, le désert, le silence et les textes millénaires, porteuse par sa modernité, de la question d’un « Judaïsme après Dieu (...) », l’œuvre de Jabès est également questionnement sur ce qui conduira le peuple juif de l’Exil à la Shoah et de la Shoah à la création de l’Etat d’Israël. J.-M. Sauvage tente dans cet article de comprendre et d’interpréter l’approche qu’a fait Jabès de cette question difficile et fondamentale : qu’est-ce qu’être juif lorsqu’on est juif athée en diaspora ?The writer Edmond Jabès , at first of Italian nationality in Egypt, then of French nationality in France and French-speaking, was of Jewish origin. A free and solitary writer who was far removed from literary parties and groups, the awareness of his Jewishness would mark this literary dimension without being reducible to this Jewishness. Heir of a tradition tied to diverse questions about God, the desert, silence, and millennial texts, carried by his modernity, of the question of a “Judaism after God,” the work of Jabès is equally a questioning of that which would lead the Jewish people from the Exile to the Shoah and from the Shoah to the creation of the State of Israel. In this article J.-M. Sauvage attempts to understand and interpret the approach that Jabès made to this difficult and fundamental question : what is it to be a Jew when one is an atheistic Jew in the Diaspora ? (shrink)

GREGORY McELWAIN | : This paper explores the intersection of animal and environmental ethics through the thought of Mary Midgley. Midgley’s work offers a shift away from liberal individualist animal ethics toward a relational value system involving interdependence, care, sympathy, and other components of morality that were often overlooked or marginalized in hyperrationalist ethics, though which are now more widely recognized. This is most exemplified in her concept of “the mixed community,” which gained special attention in J. Baird Callicott’s effort (...) to create a “unified environmental ethics.” In this, Callicott saw the potential in Midgley’s thought for bringing animal and environmental ethics “back together again.” However, this paper argues that he oversimplified and misapplied her complex concept. This is primarily due to his attempt to harmonize her approach with a rigid dichotomy between domestic and wild animals—as well as one between individuals and collectives—in his conception of the land ethic in the tradition of Aldo Leopold. Throughout, this paper also highlights Midgley’s value as an early contributor to the convergence of animal and environmental ethics. | : Cet article explore l’intersection entre l’éthique animale et l’éthique environnementale par le biais de la pensée de Mary Midgley. Le travail de Midgley prend ses distances d’une éthique animale libérale individualiste pour se rapprocher d’un système de valeurs relationnel qui implique l’interdépendance, le soin, la sympathie, et d’autres éléments de la morale qui ont souvent été négligés ou marginalisés dans le contexte de l’éthique hyperrationnaliste, bien qu’actuellement plus largement reconnus. Le meilleur exemple de cela se retrouve dans son concept de « la communauté mixte », lequel a bénéficié d’une attention particulière chez J. Baird Callicot et son effort pour créer une « éthique environnementale unifiée ». En cela, Callicot a vu le potentiel de la pensée de Midgley’s pour une « réunification » de l’éthique animale et l’éthique environnementale. Or, cet article soutient qu’il a simplifié et appliqué à tort le concept complexe de Midgley, en raison de sa tentative de concilier l’approche de cette dernière avec une stricte dichotomie entre animaux sauvages et domestiques – en plus d’une autre entre individus et collectivités – suivant sa conception de l’éthique de la terre dans la tradition d’Aldo Leopold. Tout au long du texte, cet article met en relief l’importance de Midgley comme l’une des premiers théoriciens à avoir contribué à la convergence de l’éthique animale et de l’éthique environnementale. (shrink)

The main subject of this paper is the two significant problems of environmental ethics which are ecofascism and speciesism. This scrutiny offers an evaluative perspective on the main problems of environmental ethics and is conducted with this aim. Most of the environmental philosophers, all the difficulties notwithstanding, try to find a middle way in the ecofascism-speciesism continuum and their theories get closer to one or the other edge of this continuum. John Baird Callicott is one of the environmental philosophers who (...) struggle with this issue when his theory indicates one of the problems or gets closer to one of the edges, he tries to find a new way to go. There are six turns in Callicott's philosophy starting with strong holism due to accepting Leopold's land ethic as a basis. Then, he constructed a theory that pushes him closer to the speciesist edge, and finally, he found a way out from these fatal consequences. However, all the environmental philosophers face the same problems in their journey although they are either holists or individualists in the end. In constructing a holistic environmental ethical theory, for instance, they may be in ecofascism difficulty because holism requires man to be an ordinary member of the biotic community as seen in the first turn. Or, establishing a special place for humankind to ditch the ecofascism crisis may cause another equally important crisis, namely, speciesism (see the third turn). Some philosophers prefer to be closer to one of the edges always being on guard against the other. Some others, like Callicott, try to find a middle way equally far from the edges. However, this choice is no easier. Selecting to be a member of both the human community and biotic community brings different problems, such as ranking problems between the duties and obligations toward the communities and their members, i.e. a challenge to decision-making processes. For such problems, they come up with some principles or rules like second-order principles (SOPs) as Callicott did (in the fifth turn). But, these rules or principles are not sufficient enough to solve the ranking problems of setting priorities among our duties to members of both communities, either. Thus, either there is a need for more regulations and rules, or these two communities should be separated in a different dimension and gathered at another level. The second choice is preferred by Callicott and used as a solution to the main problem: constructing an environmental ethical theory that involves whole nature with its members and which is free from two essential problems (see the sixth turn). As a final point, Callicott's last theory seems to point to the conclusion that an environmental ethical theory is possible without falling into the ecofascism and speciesism traps, i.e. his last stand can facilitate the attainment of the main subject of this essay. (shrink)

‘Poor Borelli!’ exclaimed Alexandre Koyre at the end of his wonderful and by now classic study of Borelli's ‘celestial mechanics’. Koyre frankly admitted that Borelli lacked Newton's genius and intellectual audacity. However, in his story Borelli deserved a place between Kepler and Newton for his ‘imperfect but decisive’ unification of terrestrial and celestial physics. This framework finds a powerful justification in Borelli's extensive usage of Keplerian astronomy and in Newton's references to Borelli's work on the Medicean planets, Theoricae mediceorum planetarum (...) , both in his correspondence with Edmond Halley, with regard to a controversy with Robert Hooke, and in Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica . Newton's own copy of Borelli's work with signs of his reading – the famous dog-earings – is preserved in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge. The magnitude of Newton's achievement has haunted Borelli's work ever since Principia mathematica appeared in print. For example, although Christiaan Huygens was sent a copy of Borelli's book by Prince Leopold in 1666, his marginal annotations in his own copy of the book were written after he had read Newton's masterpiece, as if Huygens had felt the need to read the book again after 1687. From then onwards Borelli's work has almost inevitably appeared in a new light that has coloured its subsequent readings.My ambition in this paper is to provide a fresh reading of Borelli's work by reconstructing its circumstances of composition, establishing a comparison with a relevant strictly contemporary source, and attending to the immediate reception of Theoricae. Borelli's work was written with an eye to a composite audience including Roman Jesuits, Sicilian intellectual circles and Leopold de' Medici's correspondents across the Alps, such as the Copernican astronomer Ismael Boulliau in Paris. Borelli was aware that his Sicilian readers were likely to have different concerns from those of Roman Jesuits or the Medici. Thus the task of charting the reception of his work is a formidable one. For a variety of reasons, including availability of sources, limitations of space, taste and competence, my analysis of Borelli's work on the Medicean planets is limited to a few themes and is not only no less partial than Koyre's, but in many respects it relies on it. If readers feel stimulated to re-read Koyre's text, one of the aims of this paper will have been fulfilled. (shrink)

Discussion of Wittgenstein's Tractatus is currently dominated by two opposing interpretations of the work: a metaphysical or realist reading and the 'resolute' reading of Diamond and Conant. Marie McGinn's principal aim in this book is to develop an alternative interpretative line, which rejects the idea, central to the metaphysical reading, that Wittgenstein sets out to ground the logic of our language in features of an independently constituted reality, but which allows that he aims to provide positive philosophical insights into (...) how language functions. McGinn takes as a guiding principle the idea that we should see Wittgenstein's early work as an attempt to eschew philosophical theory and to allow language itself to reveal how it functions. By this account, the aim of the work is to elucidate what language itself makes clear, namely, what is essential to its capacity to express thoughts that are true or false. However, the early Wittgenstein undertakes this descriptive project in the grip of a set of preconceptions concerning the essence of language that determine both how he conceives the problem and the approach he takes to the task of clarification. Nevertheless, the Tractatus contains philosophical insights, achieved despite his early preconceptions, that form the foundation of his later philosophy. -/- The anti-metaphysical interpretation that is presented includes a novel reading of the problematic opening sections of the Tractatus, in which the apparently metaphysical status of Wittgenstein's remarks is shown to be an illusion. The book includes a discussion of the philosophical background to the Tractatus, a comprehensive interpretation of Wittgenstein's early views of logic and language, and an interpretation of the remarks on solipsism. The final chapter is a discussion of the relation between the early and the later philosophy that articulates the fundamental shift in Wittgenstein's approach to the task of understanding how language functions and reveal the still more fundamental continuity in his conception of his philosophical task. (shrink)

This dissertation aims to construct a non-dogmatic defence of common sense. It tries to show why the absence of justification for the judgements of common sense, which the sceptic reveals, does not invalidate them.

This article examines some of the interactions between law, science, and society taking place during a trial. By focusing on a restricted set of scientific and nonscientific actors engaged in negotiating the meaning, relevance, and reliability of scientific evidence, the article illustrates how the categories—law, science, and society—are inextricably interrelated in the legal negotiations and outcome. The introduction of scientific evidence into adversarial legal settings produces strategies, opinions, and claims that are not shaped solely by scientists, lawyers, or legal processes. (...) The situated law-science negotiations provide a site where social order and scientific knowledges are mutually constituted. The outcome of specific law-science interactions will be open to a range of readings and constraints that are not reducible to some putatively correct scientific understanding nor adequately described as the distortion of scientific evidence by the legal system. (shrink)

At the moment of its decline, we clearly see that painting in oils developed an original poetics, and one that was all of a piece, throughout a renascent and modern West. From its birth and during a development lasting half a millennium we see it— in Florence, Bruges, Venice, Rome, Toledo, Nuremberg, Amsterdam and Paris—attentive to the sources of signification: languages, rites, myths, theater, tools, techniques and sciences and the urban context that wove them all together. In each case, for (...) one or the other of them, it brought a new relationship to the way of life and then left them to their social order of assimilation, keeping the initial contact for those who would be interested. It studded the West with centers of production that carried the practice and knowledge of art to their limits; engaged with the collective imagination, it punctuated history with decisive works, in which the desire to paint takes action and explains it. Marked by an impatience for change, oil painting revealed itself in a rapport with creativity akin to the other works of civilization. It is at the level of the bases of invention of the imaginary—which are in any expression the most profound structures—that the unfolding of oil painting is tightly bound. The establishment of modern national languages, the orderly rise, around a syntax and because of architecture, sculpture, music, song, tragedy, the systematic construction of scientific and technical expression, arose and grew quickly in importance in Western Europe during the same centuries as painting and with reciprocal correspondence. Dürer “who was the first to publish a treatise in which is collected all knowledge having to do with the expression of forms… wrote in his native tongue and in so doing was revealed as the creator of technical and scientific German.”. (shrink)

Games, festivals, folklore, a derivation of them, and artistic expression are manifestations of symbolic invention. To compare them is to bring out the differences in the order of the symbolic production and have, as a consequence, a differentiated perception of the way they function. It is also to put them into a perspective of filial relationship. In fact, a genealogy appears with the processes that regulate the passage from one to the other of these means of expression. Through the successive (...) dissipation of structural stabilizations that are in turn play, festival and folklore, a generative order of complexity is established of which art, with its dynamics open to all expressive invention, is the end result. Finally, it is to discover at the end of the process the literary text, conceived as a work of art, surrounded by expression and preceded by it, appearing from then on according to one of the precepts of the theory of the text, as a production “of society and history” and as issuing from the social phenomenon in its entirety. “I am not only undertaking a study of a sociology of games,” wrote Roger Caillois. “My idea is to lay the foundations for a sociology beginning with games.” We would say of a sociology in which we would be permitted to glimpse the achievement of the task of explaining the entire social phenomenon itself. (shrink)

There are, it is said nowadays, “Renaissances,” in order to emphasize the diversity of expressions in this period of civilization and because of the concern for restoring the originality of the historical situations experienced at that time by the peoples of Europe. It is true that from the fourteenth to the fifteenth centuries, the Renaissance touched many areas in order to provide a response to challenges of the times. But even though these responses were varied, the world view was the (...) same. (shrink)

“Given the fact that the consciousness of man is a linguistic consciousness, all models superimposed on consciousness, including art, can be understood as secondary modeling systems, “ wrote Yuri Lotman in Introduction à la structure du texte artistique.

In this paper I address the phenomenon of syncretism with respect to Chinese religions. An analysis of the syncretism that takes place between the three major Chinese religious traditions is first done in its personal and social dimensions. The social structure of Chinese religion is then used as a framework to understand how Buddhism and Daoism were made compatible with Confucianism. All this will serve as a background for the case study of Macau, where Chinese religious syncretism is very much (...) alive. Three popular religious festivals are celebrated annually and simultaneously on the eighth day of the fourth lunar month, namely, zuilongjie (醉龍節) Feast of the Drunken Dragon, tangongdan (譚公誕) Tam Kung Festival and fodanjie (佛誕節) Feast of the Buddha. (shrink)

Confucian education is best captured by the programme described in the Great Learning. Education is presented first as the process of self-cultivation for the sake of developing virtuous character. Self-cultivation then allows for virtue to be cultivated in the familial, social and international dimensions. My central thesis is that Confucianism can serve as a universal framework of educating people for the common good in its promotion of personal cultivation for the sake of human progress. On this account the common good (...) specifically refers to the social order accomplished by the virtuous behaviour found in the members of society. In this paper I argue that the Confucian notion of “lesser learning” sheds light on the concept of general education and the notion of “greater learning” improves our understanding of liberal education. Under this analysis the necessity of general education is assured although its importance should not be overly exaggerated. Furthermore, the objectives of liberal education deserve greater emphasis due to their historical importance and enduring relevance to promoting the common good of universal humanity. (shrink)

Euthanasia and assisted suicide have been legally possible in the Netherlands since 2001, provided that statutory due care criteria are met, including: voluntary and well-considered request; unbearable suffering without prospect of improvement; informing the patient; lack of a reasonable alternative; independent second physician’s opinion. ‘Unbearable suffering’ must have a medical basis, either somatic or psychiatric, but there is no requirement of limited life expectancy. All EAS cases must be reported and are scrutinised by regional review committees. The purpose of this (...) study was to investigate whether any particular difficulties arise when the EAS due care criteria are applied to patients with an intellectual disability and/or autism spectrum disorder. The 416 case summaries available on the RTE website were searched for intellectual disability and autism spectrum disorder. Direct content analysis was used on these nine cases. Assessment of decisional capacity was mentioned in eight cases, but few details given; in two cases, there had been uncertainty or disagreement about capacity. Two patients had progressive somatic conditions. For most, suffering was due to an inability to cope with changing circumstances or increasing dependency; in several cases, suffering was described in terms of characteristics of living with an autism spectrum disorder, rather than an acquired medical condition. Some physicians struggled to understand the patient’s perspective. Treatment refusal was a common theme, leading physicians to conclude that EAS was the only remaining option. There was a lack of detail on social circumstances and how patients were informed about their prognosis. Autonomy and decisional capacity are highly complex for patients with intellectual disabilities and difficult to assess; capacity tests in these cases did not appear sufficiently stringent. Assessment of suffering is particularly difficult for patients who have experienced life-long disability. The sometimes brief time frames and limited number of physician-patient meetings may not be sufficient to make a decision as serious as EAS. The Dutch EAS due care criteria are not easily applied to people with intellectual disabilities and/or autism spectrum disorder, and do not appear to act as adequate safeguards. (shrink)

For centuries, philosophy has been considered as an intellectual activity requiring complex cognitive skills and predispositions related to complex (or critical) thinking. The Philosophy for Children (P4C) approach aims at the development of critical thinking in pupils through philosophical dialogue. Some contest the introduction of P4C in the classroom, suggesting that the discussions it fosters are not philosophical in essence. In this text, we argue that P4C is philosophy.

N. Oresme passe pour l'un des rares grand universitaire médiéval mathématicien. C'est ainsi que son grand traité De Configurationibus qualitatum et motuum est vu traditionnellement comme un traité de mathématiques et analysé comme tel. En fait, l'examen de ses Questiones super Physicam montre qu'Oresme est un philosophe de la nature original. Ses thèses sont souvent en opposition avec celles de Buridan et saméthode est différente: ses arguments empruntent fort peu à la logique et presque exclusivement à la philosophie naturelle.

In recent decades a number of criminal convictions have been reversed on appeal, partially on the basis of problems associated with the use of scientific evidence adduced by the prosecution during the trial. These miscarriage of justice cases have received considerable attention from news media, legal commentators, criminologists and in formal public inquiries. Most responses to these cases have been critical of the scientific evidence originally relied upon at trial. Few commentators have been critical of, or even reflective about, the (...) scientific evidence used to acquit. Generally, their analyses have utilized idealized images of science and scientists. In contrast, by importing the concept of methodological symmetry from science studies, this paper aims to identify and explore the conceptual disparity (or asymmetry) between the assessment of scientific evidence used to convict and the scientific evidence used to acquit. In order to illustrate some of the limits to conventional approaches to miscarriages of justice as well as examine the judicial use of scientific evidence this will be undertaken in relation to the successful appeal of the Birmingham Six. (shrink)

This article reviews contemporary response to several contrasting strands of recent empirical work. It begins with discussing the scope and rationale of evidence law. Experimental studies on eyewitness memory and testimony illustrate the potential value of empirical studies to the practice of investigations, prosecutions, and appeals. This article discusses several lines of empirical inquiry employing diverse methodologies, experiments, surveys, and approaches and reviews their limitations, and implications and significance for the understanding and practice of law. Many of the contributions from (...) empirical legal studies are provisional and their precise value for practice is uncertain or ambiguous, but they raise important issues worthy of serious consideration. By identifying problems with eyewitness evidence and the limitations of many of the forensic sciences, and in many other ways, empirical and experimental studies have substantially outpaced legal experience. Indifference to empirical legal study is likely to reduce the social legitimacy of legal institutions. (shrink)

Over the last two decades judges (and regulators) in all common law jurisdictions have increased their reliance on published medical and scientific literature. During the same period biomedical research has undergone fundamental and unprecedented change. This article explores some of the changes to the location, organization and funding of biomedical research in order to assess their implications for liability and proof. Focusing on peer review and publication, along with reforms promoted by the editors of some of the world's pre-eminent general (...) medical journals (e.g. British Medical Journal, the Lancet, Journal of the American Medical Association and the New England Journal of Medicine), this article considers how judges might respond to recent findings which suggest that corporate sponsorship systematically biases biomedical research. Given that common law judges have been reforming rules of evidence and procedure in search of impartial expertise and privileging published biomedical research, how should they respond to the strategic manipulation of the scientific record? (shrink)

Abstract: Interpretations of the Tractatus divide into what might be called a metaphysical and an anti-metaphysical approach to the work. The central issue between the two interpretative approaches has generally been characterised in terms of the question whether the Tractatus is committed to the idea of ‘things’ that cannot be said in language, and thus to the idea of a distinctive kind of nonsense: nonsense that is an attempt to say what can only be shown. In this paper, I look (...) at this dispute from a different perspective, by focusing on the treatment of the concept of internal relations. By reference to the work of Peter Hacker, Hidé Ishiguro and Cora Diamond, I show how this concept is understood quite differently in each of the two interpretative traditions. I focus particularly on how Wittgenstein's idea of the ‘internal relation of depicting that holds between language and the world’ (Tractatus 4.014) might be understood within the two interpretative approaches. I offer some reasons in support of the anti-metaphysical treatment of the concept. (shrink)

Agonistic Democracy explores how theoretical concepts from agonistic democracy can inform institutional design in order to mediate conflict in multicultural, pluralist societies. Drawing on the work of Foucault, Nietzsche, Schmitt, and Arendt, Marie Paxton outlines the importance of their themes of public contestation, contingency and necessary interdependency for contemporary agonistic thinkers. Paxton delineates three distinct approaches to agonistic democracy: David Owen's perfectionist agonism, Mouffe's adversarial agonism, and William Connolly and James Tully's inclusive agonism. Paxton demonstrates how each is fundamental (...) to enabling citizens to cultivate better virtues for themselves and society (Owen), motivating democratic engagement (Mouffe) and enhancing relations of respect and understanding between conflicting citizens (Connolly and Tully). Situated within the context of a deeply polarised post-Trump America and post-Brexit Britain, this book reveals the need to rethink our approach to conflict mediation through democratic institutions. Pulling together insights from experimental research with deliberative democratic innovations, Paxton explores how agonistic theory might be institutionalised further. Through discussing ways in which agonistic institutions might be developed to render democracy more virtuous, more engaging, and more inclusive, Agonistic Democracy provides a unique resource for students of contemporary political theory. (shrink)