The current model of adult neurogenesis in mammals suggests that adult‐born neurons are generated by stem cells that undergo long‐term self‐renewal, and that a lifetime supply of stem cells resides in the brain. In contrast, it has recently been demonstrated that adult‐born neurons in crayfish are generated by precursors originating in the immune system. This is particularly interesting because studies done many years ago suggest that a similar mechanism might exist in rodents and humans, with bone marrow providing stem cells (...) that can generate neurons. However, the relevance of these findings for natural mechanisms underlying adult neurogenesis in mammals is not clear, because of uncertainties at many levels. We argue here that the recent findings in crayfish send a strong signal to re‐examine existing data from rodents and humans, and to design new experiments that will directly test the contributions of the immune system to adult neurogenesis in mammals. (shrink)

The intent of this article is to outline, integrate, and interpret relevant scientific, economic, and social issues of rbST technology that have contributed to the acceptance dilemma for this product. The public is divided into social groups, each with its own set of criteria on which they base rbSTs acceptability. Criteria for the scientific community may best be described as physiological. However, for consumers, criteria may be more practical, or procedural, including human health, animal welfare, environmental concerns, and overproduction. Because (...) the business of dairy production depends on demand from the consuming public, the criteria for acceptance of rbST by producers largely reflects those of the consumers. Of necessity, producers are also critical of rbST from a business and animal improvement standpoint. Although this article demonstrates that rbST has met most physiological criteria for acceptance, the consuming public has treated the acceptance issue with forceful skepticism. The question this article addresses is, why? The authors comment that with rbST and other biotechnologies applied to agricultural animal production, it will be the responsibility of government health agencies, scientists, and manufacturers of the products to provide early, adequate, and honest public education. Attention to the concerns of the public may be the only means to prevent hysteria over this and future agricultural products of biotechnology and will, therefore, allow the public to form logical and thoughtful criteria assessments with respect to acceptance or rejection of each product. (shrink)

What is the future of legal philosophy? No doubt it has many. But we are betting that jurisprudence will gravitate towards freedom. Freedom, the attribute of the human subject, has largely been absent from legal philosophy. This is a lack that psychoanalytic jurisprudence aims to correct. In this essay, drafted as chapter in "On Philosophy in American Law" (Francis Jay Mootz III, ed.) to be published by the Cambridge University Press, we set forth what we think are the primary differences (...) between a jurisprudence based in the Continental tradition of speculative philosophy, and the liberal jurisprudences that dominate in the American academy. Most importantly, all liberal theories start with some intuition of the free, autonomous individual. In contrast, psychoanalysis views the subject's definition as the problem of philosophy. For psychoanalysis, as reformulated by Jacques Lacan, personality and freedom cannot exist in any empirical or hypothetical state of nature because nature is unfree - bound by iron-clad laws of cause and effect. Personality and freedom are artificial creations - hard-won achievements. Subjectivity - the capacity to bear duties and rights - is a stage in this struggle. (shrink)

The intent of this article is to outline, integrate, and interpret relevant scientific, economic, and social issues of rbST technology that have contributed to the acceptance dilemma for this product. The public is divided into social groups, each with its own set of criteria on which they base rbSTs acceptability. Criteria for the scientific community may best be described as physiological. However, for consumers, criteria may be more practical, or procedural, including human health, animal welfare, environmental concerns, and overproduction. Because (...) the business of dairy production depends on demand from the consuming public, the criteria for acceptance of rbST by producers largely reflects those of the consumers. Of necessity, producers are also critical of rbST from a business and animal improvement standpoint. Although this article demonstrates that rbST has met most physiological criteria for acceptance, the consuming public has treated the acceptance issue with forceful skepticism. The question this article addresses is, why? The authors comment that with rbST and other biotechnologies applied to agricultural animal production, it will be the responsibility of government health agencies, scientists, and manufacturers of the products to provide early, adequate, and honest public education. Attention to the concerns of the public may be the only means to prevent hysteria over this and future agricultural products of biotechnology and will, therefore, allow the public to form logical and thoughtful criteria assessments with respect to acceptance or rejection of each product. (shrink)

This study provides an overview of the different forms of labor contracting in the Philippines, as found in the “formal” economy, i.e., the traditional sectors of Agriculture, Industry, and Services, as well as the “informal” or gig economy. It also discusses similarities and differences between the “formal” and “informal” economy, as well as the increasing precarity of labor contracting, regardless of industry sector and the nature of work. The paper concludes with recommendations to address the precariousness and inequality of labor (...) contracting within the immediate future. (shrink)

The cognitive and behavioral functions of the frontal lobes have been of great interest to neuroscientists, neurologists, psychologists and psychiatrists. Recent technical advances have made it possible to trace their neuroanatomical connections more precisely and to conduct evoked potential and neuroimaging studies in patients. This book presents a broad and authoritative synthesis of research progress in this field. It encompasses neuroanatomical studies; experiments involving temporal organization and working memory tasks in non-human primates; clinical studies of patients following frontal lobe excisions (...) for intractable epilepsy; metabolic imaging in schizophrenia and affective disorder; neurobehavioral studies of patients with dementia, frontal lobe tumors, and head injuries; magnetic resonance imaging methods for studying human frontal lobe anatomy; theoretical approaches to describing frontal lobe functions; and rehabilitation of patients with frontal lobe damage including their core problem of diminished awareness. Written by a distinguished group of neuroscientists, psychologists and clinicians, Frontal Lobe Function and Dysfunction provides the best current source of information on this region of the brain and its role in cognition, behavior and clinical disorders. (shrink)

ABSTRACTPast research reveals important connections between meditative practices and compassion. Most studies, however, focus on the effects of one type of meditation (vs. a no-intervention control...

The present study examined the effects of gender on the emotional responses (physiology, self-reports of emotion, and emotional facial behaviour) of European Americans (EA) and Hmong Americans (HA) while they relived past emotional events. Women were more emotionally reactive than men: They demonstrated greater changes in electrodermal reactivity overall, reported experiencing more intense emotion while reliving anger and love, and smiled more while reliving happiness and love. The pattern and magnitude of these differences were similar for EA and HA, suggesting (...) that to some degree, the effects of gender on emotional response may hold across ethnic groups. (shrink)

Previous research has shown that emotionally-valenced words are given higher judgements of learning (JOLs) than are neutral words. The current study examined potential explanations for this emotional salience effect on JOLs. Experiment 1 replicated the basic emotionality/JOL effect. In Experiments 2A and 2B, we used pre-study JOLs and assessed memory beliefs qualitatively, finding that, on average, participants believed that positive and negative words were more memorable than neutral words. Experiment 3 utilised a lexical decision task, resulting in lower reaction times (...) (RTs) for positive words than for neutral words, but equivalent RTs for negative and neutral words, suggesting that processing fluency may partially account for higher JOLs for positive words, but not for negative words. Finally, we conducted a series of moderation analyses in Experiment 4 which assessed the relative contributions of fluency and beliefs to JOLs by measuring both factors in the same participants, showing that RTs made no significant contribution to JOLs for either positive or negative words. Our findings suggest that although positive words may be more fluently processed than neutral words, memory beliefs are the primary factor underlying higher JOLs for both positive and negative words. (shrink)

The architects of punctuated equilibrium and species selection as well as more recent workers (Vrba) have narrowed the original formulation of species selection and made it dependent upon so-called emergent characters. One criticism of this narrow version is the dearth of emergent characters with a consequent diminution in the robustness of species selection as an important evolutionary process. We argue that monomorphic species characters may at times be the focus of selection and that under these circumstances selection at the organism (...) level is by-passed due to the absence of critical variance. Selection therefore shifts to the species level where variability reemerges in a clade. The absence of critical variance among organisms prevents effect macroevolution from operating. If species-wide properties are important in macroevolutionary processes, as we contend, systematists should pay more attention to their elucidation. (shrink)

Epistemological questions about the significance of disagreement have advanced in concert with broader developments in social epistemology concerning testimony, the nature of expertise and epistemic authority, the role of institutions, group belief, and epistemic injustice (among others). During this period, related issues in the epistemology of religion have reemerged as worthy of new consideration, and available to be situated with new conceptual tools. This volume explores many of the issues at the intersection of the epistemology of disagreement and religious epistemology: (...) in particular, how to think carefully about religious diversity and disagreement, balancing epistemic humility with personal conviction, the place of religious belief in our social lives, and how best to think about truths concerning religion. (shrink)

The role of Human Research Ethics Committees (HRECs) in health research is well established. Ethics committees have the good of research participants in mind but they must also assess scientific merit including the design and conduct of studies. In this article the authors’ focus is on qualitative research method and the challenge that the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (2007) poses for ethics committees when they assess proposals using the methods outlined in the National Statement.We set out (...) a process for judging the standard of qualitative research proposals and propose that qualitative health research can be assessed using a hierarchy designed for evaluating interview studies. We contrast well-designed studies with those that have design flaws in order to focus on the hallmarks of research merit in studies that use qualitative research methods. Finally, we show that our proposal is compatible with the National Statement.Ethics review provides an early opportunity to identify and redesign inadequate studies that will not contribute to our knowledge base. The challenge for members of ethics committees with little experience in qualitative studies is to be able to assess research excellence by assessing research merit in proposals, recognising the special design features of qualitative research methods. (shrink)

Members of the legal, medical and accounting professions are guided in their professional behavior by their respective codes of ethics. These codes of ethics are not static. They are ever evolving, responding to forces that are exogenous and endogenous to the professions. Specifically, changes in the ethical codes are often due to economic and social events, governmental influence, and growth and change within the professions. This paper presents an historical analysis of the major events leading to changes in the legal, (...) medical and accounting codes of ethics. (shrink)

In the twenty years since the first Earth Day, the environmental movement has become increasingly “commercialized.” In this paper, I examine why many environmental organizations now offer an array of products through catalogs and magazines, or manage stores and outlets. In part one, I explore some of the economic and political influences during the 1970s and 1980s that resulted in increased organizational sophistication and an increased production of environmental products. The part two, I explore the “commercialization” of environmentalism from two (...) angles. First, in terms of a deconstructionist critique of the system of commodities and image, I demonstrate that when environmental organizations partake in this consumer culture, they actually reproduce precisely the values and institutions that they criticize. Second, from a “constructionist” perspective, I argue that environmental products can re-enchant or reconnect people with nature, and thus can help change cultural attitudes about human-naturerelationships. I conclude that environmental products are contradictory because environmental merchandise is juxtaposed uneasily between environmental ideological rhetoric and material ambition. Environmental organizations must recognize this ambiguity before they can deal with the problem effectively. (shrink)

L'originalité de Jeanne Hersch est de réorganiser le développement de la philosophie en Occident à partir, non plus de ses principales thèses, mais de sa nature même, de son objet premier : l'étonnement. L'étonnement est cette capacité qu'il y a à s'interroger sur une évidence aveuglante, c'est-à-dire qui nous empêche de voir et de comprendre le monde le plus immédiat. La première des évidences est qu'il y a de l'être, qu'il existe matière et monde. De cette question apparemment toute (...) simple est née voilà des siècles en Grèce un type de réflexion qui depuis lors n'a cessé de relancer la pensée : la philosophie. L'histoire de cet étonnement, toujours repris, sans cesse à vif, continûment reformulé, Jeanne Hersch nous la raconte à partir de quelques philosophes occidentaux : les présocratiques, Socrate, Platon, Aristote, les épicuriens, les stoïciens, saint Augustin, Thomas d'Aquin, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Kant, Hegel, Comte, Marx, Freud, Bergson, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Jaspers. Aussi cette histoire de la philosophie nous dit-elle, en réalité, comment la philosophie fut en tout temps, actuelle. (shrink)

Fessard, G. Jeanne Hersch, genèse d'une œuvre.--Muralt, A. de. Phénoménologie et métaphysique.--Philonenko, A. Leibniz et le platonisme.--Christoff, D. Représentation et décision dans la temporalité selon Kant.--Tilliette, X. De l'illusion au savoir, la philosophie.--Widmer, G. Variations kierkegaardiennes sur l'édifiant.--Dufour-Kowalska, G. L'imagination maîtresse de vérité.--Leyvraz, J.-P. Des noms.--Piguet, J.-C. Liberté esthétique et liberté éthique.--Schaerer, R. Le philosophe entre oui et non.--Scheurer, P.-B. Vues nouvelles sur la science du temps et l'histoire.--Starobinski, J. La littérature et l'irrationnel.--Aron, R. De la libéralisation.--Werner, E. La (...) digue et la vie.--Cottier, G. La fascination du vide, éléments pour un diagnostic. (shrink)

19 janvier 2016 L’intérêt accru porté, depuis les années 2000 en France, aux questionnements réflexifs et à la méthodologie en sciences sociales succède à une longue phase d’invisibilisation des pratiques de l’enquête dans la littérature ethnologique, et surtout sociologique. L’ouvrage qui regroupe dix contributions d’ethnologues et de sociologues examine précisément ces façons de faire du terrain, en mettant en lumière leur dimension sexuée, autrement dit en questionnant l’impact du sexe et...

L’écoféminisme repose sur l’idée qu’il existe d’étroites « connexions » entre la domination des femmes et la domination de la nature : malgré leur apparente hétérogénéité, ces deux phénomènes convergeraient en une seule et même « matrice de domination ». C’est une telle thèse que nous souhaitons explorer ici : quel peut bien être ce « système » qui les relie en un tout? Comment penser les liens entre les différents axes de domination, sans pour autant les confondre en une (...) unité indistincte? Notre lecture de l’écoféminisme s’articulera autour du concept de « carno-phallogocentrisme » forgé par Derrida, qui semble approprié pour nommer synthétiquement cette thèse. Quels sont le sens et la pertinence de ce concept? Que vise-t-il : un travers particulier à la civilisation occidentale ou une structure commune à toute culture, voire inhérente à la conscience humaine? En quoi éclaire-t-il non seulement les rapports de domination dénoncés, mais toute la tradition philosophique occidentale? L’enjeu sera d’évaluer l’ambition constamment affichée par l’écoféminisme de constituer un nouveau paradigme, susceptible de dépasser enfin le fond misogyne et écocide de la civilisation occidentale. Peut-on vraiment lire l’écoféminisme non pas comme un courant particulier au sein de la pensée occidentale, mais comme son renversement? (shrink)

En répondant à des demandes émanant des institutions impliquées dans le domaine de la santé, l’Inserm prolonge sa mission de recherche par une activité de diffusion et de partage des connaissances et participe à la réflexion sur les implications collectives de cette recherche. Aujourd’hui intégrée à l’Institut de santé publique dans le cadre de l’Alliance nationale pour les sciences de la vie et de la santé , l’activité d’expertise collective participe au plan stratégique 2010-2015 de l’Inserm : « l’expérience acquise (...) en matière d’expertise collective sera renforcée au service d’une politique active de mise à disposition des connaissances disponibles pour l’aide à la décision des acteurs du système de santé et l’information des citoyens ».In response to demand from the institutions involved in public health, Inserm has taken its research mission further by becoming involved in knowledge sharing and dissemination and in discussions on the implications of its research for society. Now working as a member of the Public Health Institute through the National Alliance for Life and Health Sciences , INSERM’s collective expert studies are contributing to its strategic plan for 2010-2015: “the experience gained in collectively developed expert studies will be strengthened to serve an active policy for delivering available knowledge to support decision-making in the public health system and citizens’ information”. (shrink)

Bullying often results in negative coping in victims, including an increased consumption of alcohol. Recently, however, an increase in alcohol use has also been reported among perpetrators of bullying. The factors triggering this pattern are still unclear. We investigated the role of empathy in the interaction between bullying and alcohol use in an adolescent sample (IMAGEN) at age 13.97 (±0.53) years (baseline (BL), N = 2165, 50.9% female) and age 16.51 (±0.61) years (follow-up 1 (FU1), N = 1185, 54.9% female). (...) General empathic distress served as a significant moderator of alcohol use in perpetrators (F9, 493 = 17.978, p < 0.01), which was specific for males and FU1. Male perpetrators, who are generally less sensitive to distress, might thus be more vulnerable to alcohol abuse. (shrink)

Le statut des corps dans la metaphysique de Leibniz continue de resister a tout effort de reconstitution. Qu'il n'y ait au monde que les substances simples et leurs modifications ne presente plus l'evidence d'une position philosophique achevee. Dans le meilleur des mondes possibles, les ames ne sont jamais sans corps et la moindre portion de matiere renferme un univers de creatures vivantes. Au moment meme ou Leibniz semble embrasser une position idealiste en peuplant le monde d'une infinite d'entites psychiques, ne (...) developpe-t-il pas le concept d'organisme comme en marge de cette metaphysique? Deja, dans les annees ou la celebre theorie de la notion complete servait a penser la substance individuelle, la realite du corps organique imposait l'idee d'une substantialite proprement corporelle. Composition infinie irreductible aux modalites de l'etendue, le corps organique, machine de la nature, force a repenser les conditions d'existence de l'individualite vivante, dont l'ego cartesien n'est plus qu'une problematique modele. La question n'est plus tant de savoir si Leibniz a admis l'existence de substances corporelles en sus des monades, que de comprendre en quoi la realite organique devient le modele pour penser la connexion de toutes les substances, des simples aux composees, des brutes aux raisonnables. Du moi a la monade, comment la necessaire inscription corporelle de l'individualite s'opere-t-elle? De quelles modifications du concept de substance cette exigence s'accompagne-t-elle? (shrink)

This book proposes a taxonomy of jurisprudence and legal practice, based on the discourse theory of Jacques Lacan. In the anglophone academy, the positivist jurisprudence of H.L.A. Hart provides the most influential account of law. But just as positivism ignores the practice of law by lawyers, even within the academy, the majority of professors are also not pursuing Hart's positivist project. Rather, they are engaged in policy-oriented scholarship - that tries to explain law in terms of society's collective goals - (...) or in doctrinal legal scholarship - that does not try to describe what law is, or to supply justifications for it - but which examines the 'internal' logic of law. Lacan's discourse theory has the power to differentiate the various roles of the practicing lawyer and the legal scholar. It is also able to explain the striking lack of communication between diverse schools of legal scholarship and between legal academia and the legal profession. Although extremely influential in Europe and South America, Lacanian theory remains largely unexplored outside of the field of comparative literature. In taking up the jurisprudential ramifications of Lacan's work, _The Four Lacanian Discourses_ thus constitutes an original contribution to current theoretical and practical understandings of law. (shrink)