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)

Like every major new technology, genetic engineering is affecting the hopes and fears of many people. The risks involved are perceived differently by different groups. One group regards genetic engineering as a simple extension of older techniques with no special risks, e.g. traditional breeding. This conservative denial of special risks is confronted with a different kind of conservatism from a group which, in the name of the preservation of nature, opposes any kind of genetic engineering. A third group, rooted in (...) the liberal tradition, is prepared to accept the risks of genetic engineering as long as they are outweighed by prospective benefits. The liberal as well as the two conservative approaches, however, face serious difficulties in trying to develop a sound ethical argument concerning genetic engineering. In order to avoid these difficulties, an ethical approach focused on paradigmatic examples of good and evil is proposed. Such examples constitute rules of moral description, much as standards of measurement constitute rules of physical description. These rules are elaborated and interpreted in processes of social learning. In the present state of development of genetic engineering, such social learning requires appropriate institutional procedures. (shrink)

Interactive narratives are inextricable from the way that we understand our encounters with digital technology. This is based upon the way that these encounters are processually formed into a narrative of episodic events, arranged and re-arranged by various levels of agency. After describing past research conducted at the iCinema Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, this paper sets out a framework within which to build a relational theory of interactive narrative formation, outlining future research in the area.

I argue that lying in business negotiations is pro tanto wrong and no less wrong than lying in other contexts. First, I assert that lying in general is pro tanto wrong. Then, I examine and refute five arguments to the effect that lying in a business context is less wrong than lying in other contexts. The common thought behind these arguments—based on consent, self-defence, the “greater good,” fiduciary duty, and practicality—is that the particular circumstances which are characteristic of business negotiations (...) are such that the wrongness of lying is either mitigated or eliminated completely. I argue that all these “special exemption” arguments fail. I conclude that, in the absence of a credible argument to the contrary, the same moral constraints must apply to lying in business negotiations as apply to lying in other contexts. Furthermore, I show that for the negotiator, there are real practical benefits from not lying. (shrink)

The capacity to be creative, to produce new concepts, ideas, inventions, objects or art, is perhaps the most important attribute of the human brain. We know very little, however, about the nature of creativity or its neural basis. Some important questions include how should we define creativity? How is it related (or unrelated) to high intelligence? What psychological processes or environmental circumstance cause creative insights to occur? How is it related to conscious and unconscious processes? What is happening at the (...) neural level during moments of creativity? How is it related to health or illness, and especially mental illness? This paper will review introspective accounts from highly creative individuals. These accounts suggest that unconscious processes play an important role in achieving creative insights. Neuroimaging studies of the brain during "REST" (random episodic silent thought, also referred to as the default state) suggest that the association cortices are the primary areas that are active during this state and that the brain is spontaneously reorganising and acting as a self-organising system. Neuroimaging studies also suggest that highly creative individuals have more intense activity in association cortices when performing tasks that challenge them to "make associations." Studies of creative individuals also indicate that they have a higher rate of mental illness than a noncreative comparison group, as well as a higher rate of both creativity and mental illness in their first-degree relatives. This raises interesting questions about the relationship between the nature of the unconscious, the unconscious and the predisposition to both creativity and mental illness. (shrink)

The prospect of dealing with a rapidly and inexorably bleeding patient fills most medical practitioners with alarm. When that patient is a Jehovah's Witness, the knowledge that a blood transfusion is likely to be refused turns that alarm into a state of acute anxiety and conflict. This state is further heightened when the patient is young and otherwise healthy--a situation found particularly in obstetric practice with the occurrence of ante- and post-partum haemorrhage, and ectopic pregnancy. In the last 25 years (...) in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, there has been one maternal death in which the refusal to accept a blood transfusion has been considered to be an avoidable factor. In this article I have attempted to identify the magnitude of the problem in obstetric practice and have sought to clarify the moral and legal aspects. (shrink)

Stroud’s aim is threefold: 1) to provide an introduction for beginners, 2) "something of interest to Hume scholars," and 3) to "philosophers dealing with the problems he discussed". Stroud dissociates himself from those who regard Hume merely as a sceptic, from those who view Hume as a precursor of positivism, and from those who attribute to Hume an interest in analyzing or defining concepts. Instead, Stroud subscribes wholeheartedly to the Kemp Smith theses, and he emphasizes Hume’s positive theory of a (...) naturalistic science of man as a "completely comprehensive empirical investigation and explanation of why human beings are the way they are, and why they think, feel and behave as they do." Stroud then proceeds to interpret selected aspects of Hume with reference to the foregoing aim in conjunction with the "theory of ideas." The result is to see Hume’s positive theory as a form of projection, and some attempt is made to explore the relationship between an empirical investigation and a theory of projection. (shrink)

The overall purpose of Bricke’s book is to assess the prospects for a coherent theory of mind based on Humean principles. In the light of "recent work in philosophy" Bricke examines what is purported to be Hume’s philosophy of mind as found primarily in book 1 of the Treatise and the first Enquiry. The author also claims that he is "particularly concerned to give an accurate rendering: hence the amount of space devoted to close scrutiny of the texts, and of (...) any arguments Hume presents.... I make little effort to map my interpretation on to those of others.... In the relevant way my account saves the textual appearances". Bricke assesses the adequacy of these views, and attempts to make "some advance on the philosophical issues themselves.". (shrink)

Walsh admirably achieves the objective of this book, which is to supply the need for a lucid commentary on Kant’s first Critique that is both faithful to making the text clear and a sophisticated assessment of the arguments. Walsh’s work exemplifies patience, scholarship, and philosophical acumen. In response to the conventional criticism that Kant’s theses are marred by a psychological idiom, Walsh translates Kant into the contemporary linguistic idiom in a way that preserves the original remarkably well.

In pursuit of the first aim, Kekes directs his book to the attention of Anglo-American philosophers who have forsaken the key philosophical task. His approach is twofold. Writing in a post-Kuhnian period, he rebuts those versions of philosophical theorizing predicated on the distinction between discovery and justification. At the same time he presents an incisive running critique of scientism and the reduction of philosophy to its hand-maiden. He reminds us that science itself is only intelligible if there is already a (...) humanistic world-view. (shrink)

This article addresses ontological negotiations in the Global South through three case studies of community-based research in Brazil and Ghana. We argue that ontological perspectives of Indigenous people and local communities require an ontological pluralism that recognizes both the plurality of representational tools and of ways of being in the world. Locating these two readings of ontological pluralism in the politics of the Global South, the article highlights a wider dynamic from ontological paternalism to ontological diversity to ontological decolonization. We (...) conclude by arguing that this dynamic provides important lessons for the state for social ontology in academic philosophy and for the design of politically reflexive development interventions. (shrink)

A short review is given of the Nuffield Council’s report on behavioural genetics. This review is used as an entry point to a discussion of the factors that influence the presentation of behavioural genetics in the media and in the popular scientific press. It is argued that our interest in formulating narrative explanations of our individual lives puts pressure on publishers and editors to present behavioural genetics in a selective, misleading, way. Some other influences on presentation are discussed and it (...) is suggested that the Nuffield report is particularly useful in so far as it lacks these distorting influences. (shrink)

This article is currently available as a free download on ingentaconnect.

Philosophers, especially in recent years, have engaged in reflection upon the nature of experience. Such reflections have led them to draw a distinction between conscious and unconscious mentality in terms of whether or not it is like something to have a mental state. Reflection upon the history of psychology and upon contemporary cognitive science, however, identifies the distinction between conscious and unconscious mental states to be primarily one which is drawn in epistemic terms. Consciousness is an epistemic notion marking the (...) special kind of first-person knowledge we have of our own mental states. Psychologists have found it expedient, for explanatory reasons, to ignore or reject the assumption that we have exhaustive first-person knowledge of our mental states and, in doing so, use the term 'unconscious' to indicate the peculiar epistemic status of certain mental states.It is argued that epistemic consciousness is distinct from the subjective-experiential notion of consciousness, from 'access-consciousness' and from higher-order thought conceptions of mental state consciousness, and that epistemic consciousness has an important role to play in philosophy of mind and in the history of psychology. (shrink)

The traditional verbal/nonverbal dichotomy is inadequate for completely describing cerebral lateralization. Musical functions are not necessarily mediated by the right hemisphere; evidence for a specialist left-hemisphere mechanism dedicated to the encoded speech signal is weakening, and the right hemisphere possesses considerable comprehensional powers. Right-hemisphere processing is often said to be characterized by holistic or gestalt apprehension, and face recognition may be mediated by this hemisphere partly because of these powers, partly because of the right hemisphere's involvement in emotional affect, and (...) possibly through the hypothesized existence of a specialist face processor or processors in the right. The latter hypothesis may, however, suffer the same fate as the one relating to a specialist encodedness processor for speech in the left. Verbal processing is largely the province of the left because of this hemisphere's possession of sequential, analytic, time-dependent mechanisms. Other distinctions are special cases of an analytic/holistic dichotomy. More fundamentally, however, the left hemisphere is characterized by its mediation of discriminations involving duration, temporal order, sequencing, and rhythm, at thesensory level, and especially at themotorlevel. Spatial aspects characterize the right, the mapping of exteroceptive body space, and the positions of fingers, limbs, and perhaps articulators, with respect to actual and target positions. Thus there is a continuum of function between the hemispheres, rather than a rigid dichotomy, the differences being quantitative rather than qualitative, of degree rather than of kind. (shrink)