Seks is overal. In kranten en tijdschriften, in advertenties op bushokjes, op televisie en het internet, op Instagram en Snapchat. Seks beheerst en betovert onze beeldcultuur. Af en toe roept die onafgebroken stroom van seksuele beelden kritiek op. We lezen over de ‘pornoficatie’ van onze cultuur en hoe de modeindustrie zelfs kinderen verleidt om sexy strings te kopen. We horen dat we aan porno verslaafd zijn, dat alles van waarde vervliegt en dat we steeds intensere prikkels nodig hebben. Een zeldzame (...) keer merkt iemand op dat de constante seksuele objectivering van vrouwenlichamen de genderongelijkheid in stand houdt. Als seks overal is, is het niet verwonderlijk dat seks ook in kunst te vinden is. Kunst en pornografie lijken elkaar uit te sluiten: het ene maakt het mooiste en het beste in ons wakker, het andere onderwerpt ons aan hitsigheid en dierlijkheid. Het ene viert de schoonheid van de vrouw, het andere is een kwestie van geweld en onderwerping. Toch is de relatie tussen kunst en pornografie genuanceerder dan ze op het eerste gezicht lijkt. In deze filosofische verkenning nemen filosofen Petra Van Brabandt en Hans Maes zowel kunst als pornografie onder de loep en ontdekken ze dat de dingen soms helemaal niet zijn wat ze lijken. (shrink)

Dit jaarboek van het Studium Generale van de Hogeschool Gent bevat essays van de sprekers die tijdens het academiejaar 2013-2014 een lezing hebben gehouden over het jaarthema "Tijd? Altijd!". In deze bundel wordt stilgestaan bij de vraag hoe allerlei vormen van en opvattingen over tijd aan de orde zijn in de maatschappij, in de kunsten en in het wetenschappelijk onderzoek.0Deze lezingenreeks werd samengesteld en georganiseerd door Sofie Vandamme i.s.m. Jeroen Cluckers. Het boek bevat bijdragen van Sofie Vandamme, Benno Barnard, Mark (...) Fisher, Pedro De Bruyckere, Els Stuyven, Joke J. Hermsen, Marli Huijer, Dieter Ceustermans, Carl Devos, Petra Van Brabandt en Lisaboa Houbrechts"--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Research suggests that sedentary behavior is negatively associated with cognitive outcomes. Interrupting prolonged sitting has been shown to improve cognitive functions, including executive functioning, which is important for academic performance. No research has been conducted on the effect of standing on EF in VET students, who make up a large proportion of the adolescent population and who are known to sit more than other students of this age. In this study, we investigated the acute effects of reducing SB by short (...) time standing on EF in vocational education and training students. In a randomized crossover study, 165 VET students were first taught for 15 min in seated position. After this, they performed while seated the Letter Memory Test for updating, and the Color Shape Test for shifting and inhibition. Students were randomly assigned to a sitting or standing condition. All students were taught again for 15 min and then took the same tests in the condition they were allocated to, respectively, standing or seated. After 1 week, the test procedure was repeated, in which students switched conditions. Mixed model analyses showed no significant effect of sitting or standing on updating, shifting, or inhibition. Also, no significant differences were found for the order of condition on updating, shifting, or inhibition. Our results suggest that 40 min of standing does not significantly influence EF among VET students. (shrink)

Editors van Ditmarsch, Hendriks and Verbrugge of this special issue of topiCS on lying describe some recent trends in research on lying from a multidisciplinary perspective, including logic, philosophy, linguistics, psychology, cognitive science, behavioral economics, and artificial intelligence. Furthermore, they outline the seven contributions to this special issue.

This paper presents a study of the effect of working memory load on the interpretation of pronouns in different discourse contexts: stories with and without a topic shift. We discuss a computational model (in ACT‐R, Anderson, 2007) to explain how referring expressions are acquired and used. On the basis of simulations of this model, it is predicted that WM constraints only affect adults' pronoun resolution in stories with a topic shift, but not in stories without a topic shift. This latter (...) prediction was tested in an experiment. The results of this experiment confirm that WM load reduces adults' sensitivity to discourse cues signaling a topic shift, thus influencing their interpretation of subsequent pronouns. (shrink)

Linguistic category learning has been shown to be highly sensitive to linear order, and depending on the task, differentially sensitive to the information provided by preceding category markers (premarkers, e.g., gendered articles) or succeeding category markers (postmarkers, e.g., gendered suffixes). Given that numerous systems for marking grammatical categories exist in natural languages, it follows that a better understanding of these findings can shed light on the factors underlying this diversity. In two discriminative learning simulations and an artificial language learning experiment, (...) we identify two factors that modulate linear order effects in linguistic category learning: category structure and the level of abstraction in a category hierarchy. Regarding category structure, we find that postmarking brings an advantage for learning category diagnostic stimulus dimensions, an effect not present when categories are non‐confusable. Regarding levels of abstraction, we find that premarking of super‐ordinate categories (e.g., noun class) facilitates learning of subordinate categories (e.g., nouns). We present detailed simulations using a plausible candidate mechanism for the observed effects, along with a comprehensive analysis of linear order effects within an expectation‐based account of learning. Our findings indicate that linguistic category learning is differentially guided by pre‐ and postmarking, and that the influence of each is modulated by the specific characteristics of a given category system. (shrink)

We can understand and act upon the beliefs of other people, even when these conflict with our own beliefs. Children’s development of this ability, known as Theory of Mind, typically happens around age 4. Research using a looking-time paradigm, however, established that toddlers at the age of 15 months old pass a non-verbal false-belief task (Onishi and Baillargeon in Science 308:255–258, 2005). This is well before the age at which children pass any of the verbal false-belief tasks. In this study (...) we present a more complex case of false-belief reasoning with older children. We tested second-order reasoning, probing children’s ability to handle the belief of one person about the belief of another person. We find just the opposite: 7-year-olds pass a verbal false-belief reasoning task, but fail on an equally complex low-verbal task. This finding suggests that language supports explicit reasoning about beliefs, perhaps by facilitating the cognitive system to keep track of beliefs attributed by people to other people. (shrink)

In this review, we provide an overview of the dynamic changes within the microbiota and its metabolites that are implicated in establishing and maintaining gastrointestinal homeostasis during various stages of microbial colonization. The gradual conversion of the gut microbiota toward a mutualistic microbial community involves replacement of pioneer gut colonizers with bacterial taxa that are characteristic for the adult gut. An important microbial signature of homeostasis in the adult gut is the prevalence and activity of a diverse spectrum of bacterial (...) species that produce beneficial metabolites through metabolic interactions between microbial groups. Deciphering these microbial signatures and their metabolites that govern short and long‐term equilibrium, as well as imbalances in host‐microbial relationships, may provide novel diagnostic tools and/or therapeutic targets for specific disorders associated with intestinal dysbiosis and loss of homeostasis. (shrink)

In spatial sequence synaesthesia ordinal stimuli are perceived as arranged in peripersonal space. Using fMRI, we examined the neural bases of SSS and colour synaesthesia for spoken words in a late-blind synaesthete, JF. He reported days of the week and months of the year as both coloured and spatially ordered in peripersonal space; parts of the days and festivities of the year were spatially ordered but uncoloured. Words that denote time-units and triggered no concurrents were used in a control condition. (...) Both conditions inducing SSS activated the occipito-parietal, infero-frontal and insular cortex. The colour area hOC4v was engaged when the synaesthetic experience included colour. These results confirm the continued recruitment of visual colour cortex in this late-blind synaesthetes. Synaesthesia also involved activation in inferior frontal cortex, which may be related to spatial memory and detection, and in the insula, which might contribute to audiovisual integration related to the processing of inducers and concurrents. (shrink)

This study reports the findings of a 2.5 year intervention project to reduce psychosocial risks and increase employee well-being in 15 emergency departments in the Netherlands. The project uses the psychosocial risk management approach “PRIMA” which includes cycles of risk assessment, designing and implementing changes, evaluating changes and adapting the approach if necessary. In addition, principles of participative action research were used to empower the departments in designing and implementing their own actions during the project. Next to determining overall effects, (...) the study aims to assess potential moderators including the level of intervening, process variables and partaking in a Psychosocial Safety Climate intervention offered during the second half of the project. The results of linear mixed-model analyses showed that all job factors improved with the exception of autonomy, which did increase halfway the project but not when considering the entire timeframe. In addition, work engagement decreased and symptoms of burnout remained stable. Emergency departments that implemented more fitting actions, communicated better and involved their employees more in the process, had more favorable changes in job factors and more stable well-being. More activity and a multilevel approach regarding stress management did not lead to greater improvements. The Psychosocial Safety Climate intervention was effective in improving Psychosocial Safety Climate, but a longer follow-up period seems required to evaluate its effect on job factors and well-being. Overall, the project resulted in positive changes in most job factors, and its findings emphasize the importance of process variables in stress management interventions. Longer follow-up and higher quality multilevel interventions seem essential to also improve well-being. (shrink)

Background Genuine uncertainty on superiority of one intervention over the other is called equipoise. Physician-investigators in randomized controlled trials need equipoise at least in studies with more than minimal risks. Ideally, this equipoise is also present in patient-participants. In pediatrics, data on equipoise are lacking. We hypothesize that 1) lack of equipoise at enrolment among parents may reduce recruitment; 2) lack of equipoise during participation may reduce retention in patients assigned to a less favoured treatment-strategy. Methods We compared preferences of (...) parents/patients at enrolment, documented by a questionnaire, with preferences developed during follow-up by an interview-study to investigate equipoise of child-participants and parents in the BeSt-for-Kids-study. This trial in new-onset Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis-patients consists of three strategies. One strategy comprises initial treatment with a biological disease-modifying-antirheumatic-drug, currently not standard-of-care. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 23 parents and 7 patients, median 11 months after enrolment. Results Initially most parents and children were not in equipoise. Parents/patients who refused participation, regularly declined due to specific preferences. Many participating families preferred the biological-first-strategy. They participated to have a chance for this initial treatment, and would even consider stopping trial-participation when not randomized for it. Their conviction of superiority of the biological-first strategy was based on knowledge from internet and close relations. According to four parents, the physician-investigator preferred the biological-first-strategy, but the majority stated that she had no preferred strategy. In phase 2, preferences tended to change to the treatment actually received. Conclusions Lack of equipoise during enrolment did not reduce study recruitment, mainly due to the fact that preferred treatment was only available within the study. Still, when developing a trial it is important to evaluate whether the physicians’ research question is in line with preferences of the patient-group. By exploring so-called ‘informed patient-group’-equipoise, successful recruitment may be enhanced and bias avoided. In our study, lack of equipoise during trial-participation did not reduce retention in those assigned to a less favoured option. We observed a change for preference towards treatment actually received, possibly explained by comparable outcomes in all three arms. (shrink)

Taking regular walks when living with Parkinson’s disease has beneficial effects on movement and quality of life. Yet, patients usually show reduced physical activity compared to healthy older adults. Using auditory stimulation such as music can facilitate walking but patients vary significantly in their response. An individualized approach adapting musical tempo to patients’ gait cadence, and capitalizing on these individual differences, is likely to provide a rewarding experience, increasing motivation for walk-in PD. We aim to evaluate the observance, safety, tolerance, (...) usability, and enjoyment of a new smartphone application. It was coupled with wearable sensors and delivered individualized musical stimulation for gait auto-rehabilitation at home. Forty-five patients with PD underwent a 1-month, outdoor, uncontrolled gait rehabilitation program, using the BeatWalk application. The music tempo was being aligned in real-time to patients’ gait cadence in a way that could foster an increase up to +10% of their spontaneous cadence. Open-label evaluation was based on BeatWalk use measures, questionnaires, and a six-minute walk test. Patients used the application 78.8% of the prescribed duration and enjoyed it throughout the program. The application was considered “easy to use” by 75% of the patients. Pain, fatigue, and falls did not increase. Fear of falling decreased and quality of life improved. After the program, patients improved their gait parameters in the six-minute walk test without musical stimulation. BeatWalk is an easy to use, safe, and enjoyable musical application for individualized gait rehabilitation in PD. It increases “walk for exercise” duration thanks to high observance.Clinical Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02647242. (shrink)

Ethical guidelines protecting medical research participants have been criticized for stripping the sociocultural contexts of research. This critique is urgent considering ongoing calls to account for participant diversity in recruitment and inclusion procedures. Our intersectional analysis of illness narratives explores how sociostructural factors might play a role in participants’ exposure to research-related harm in clinical trials. Although widening participation does respond to generalizability concerns, we argue that gendered, classed, and ableist processes of self-silencing could simultaneously enhance risk of harm for (...) participants with multiple oppressed identities. To prevent this, researchers might actively involve participants when designing trials. (shrink)

Gender quota do not always go hand in hand with a considerable rise in the number of women elected. Although the number of fe/male representatives elected depends on several factors, we argue that the stipulations of gender quota acts influence to a large extent their impact on the sex ratios in politics. This is not so much due to the share of fe/male candidates parties have to present than to the extent to which a gender quota act anticipates the particularities (...) of the electoral system. A comparative analysis of three prominent cases, the Argentinean, Belgian and French gender quota acts, shows that the more a gender quota rule targets at the specificities of the electoral system in order to promote a gender balance in political representation, the more this rule 'guarantees' a result, even though gender quota acts concern but the input side of the electoral process. (shrink)

Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic globally disrupted lives and contributed to the exacerbation of pre-existing inequalities. Women in research were also affected. The prominent role that women played in professional and personal care duties had a detrimental effect on their research outputs, potentially hindering their career progression. Moreover, the challenges faced by women academics during the pandemic, including job loss, increased mental health issues, and the intersection of gender with other socio-demographic traits exacerbated existing gender disparities within academia. By systematically (...) scoping the qualitative literature on the experiences of women researchers during the pandemic, this study sought to explore how women experienced and reacted to the challenges generated by the COVID-19 pandemic. A qualitative meta synthesis of the included studies revealed three themes: gendered professional expectations, colliding identities and coping strategies. These themes show how gendered roles such as teaching and professional care work, associated with the hierarchical and gendered division of tasks both at home and in the workplace, made women feel unsupported and alienated as relevant agents in the academic context. The study reveals the importance of pastoral care, teaching and service work as the essential backbone of the academic infrastructure, especially in times of crises. It also exposes how productivity-focused researcher assessment criteria, rewarding mainly individual results and unrewarding of care and service work, can be viewed as perpetuating structural inequalities based on gender, parenting situations, contractual situations and background. In conclusion, this study exposes the need to proactively address the gendered practices and implicit biases which reproduce inequalities within academia and highlights how paying attention to the experiences and needs of women researchers is essential for improving the resilience and crises preparedness of academic the system. (shrink)

Reduced forms such as the pronoun he provide little information about their intended meaning compared to more elaborate descriptions such as the lead singer of Coldplay. Listeners must therefore use contextual information to recover their meaning. Across languages, there appears to be a trade‐off between the informativity of a form and the prominence of its referent. For example, Italian adults generally interpret informationally empty null pronouns as in the sentence Corre (meaning “He/She/It runs”) as referring to the most prominent referent (...) in the discourse, and more informative overt pronouns (e.g., lui in Lui corre, “He runs”) as referring to less prominent referents. Although children acquiring Italian are known to experience difficulties interpreting pronouns, it is unclear how they acquire this division of pragmatic labor between null and overt subject pronouns, and how this relates to the development of their cognitive capacities. Here we show that cognitive development can account for the general interpretation patterns displayed by Italian‐speaking children and adults. Using experimental studies and computational simulations in a framework modeling bounded‐rational behavior, we argue that null pronoun interpretation is influenced by working memory capacity and thus appears to depend on discourse context, whereas overt pronoun interpretation is influenced by processing speed, suggesting that listeners must reason about the speaker's choices. Our results demonstrate that cognitive capacities may constrain the acquisition of linguistic forms and their meanings in various ways. The novel predictions generated by the computational simulations point out several directions for future research. (shrink)

Editors van Ditmarsch, Hendriks and Verbrugge of this special issue of topiCS on lying describe some recent trends in research on lying from a multidisciplinary perspective, including logic, philosophy, linguistics, psychology, cognitive science, behavioral economics, and artificial intelligence. Furthermore, they outline the seven contributions to this special issue.

The Bewys van den waren Godsdienst and De veritate religionis Christianae originated against the background of Grotius’s familiarity with classical literature. To understand the innovative impact of these writings, the historical method applied must be considered. Grotius did not rely on authorities, but was compiling historical witnesses for the three religions. The availability and visibility of the witness reports are regularly referred to in the text. Thus, history and classical historians enter the picture. Interestingly, this cannot be separated from the (...) debate about the methods to be used in geography, a matter that gains importance as the difference between Bewys and De veritate is nowhere as visible as in the geographical references. The generous sprinkling of place names from different continents contributes to the poem’s factual character. The place names in the Bewys derive from the Dutch sea trade and can be found in the travel reports of the time. This is elucidated by two examples: the island Waygat in the Artic, and the coast of Mina in the Gulf of Guinea. In De veritate, however, all such references are removed. In their stead appear examples from ancient topography, to be annotated in the 1640 edition with ample quotations from Pliny, Strabo, Josephus and others. (shrink)

This issue is a special investigation into phenomenology of law through the thought of Bernard Waldenfels. Waldenfels, who is presently emeritus professor of philosophy at Ruhr Universität, Bochum, has made a name for himself in his own research and publications on the nexus surrounding the other as non-phenomenon, language as response, and the fissures of corporeality.Along side his expansive introduction and own separate article, guest editor Bert van Roermund has collected together six outstanding contributions to this ‘Waldenfeldian’ phenomenology of law.Waldenfels (...) himself kicks of this number with an original article outlining his conception of the legal order within a phenomenology of the other. Arguing that the legal order, like all orders, must have its own particular ‘outside’ or ‘unsaid,’ he investigates the critical perspectives that thus emerge.Then, David Janssens takes up Waldenfels’ treatment of Plato, which Janssens approaches through a Socratic investigation into the aporias at the foundation of the Platonic legal order. Waldenfels’ Plato seems rather Socratic in his confrontation of the reader with alterity.Next, William Conklin offers an in-depth investigation into the question as to how can human rights be considered universal by the very tribunals that also grant nations the right to define those who may legally be considered persons? Waldenfels’s notion of territorial structure offers its apparatus to Conklin’s substantial critique.Petra Gehring goes into the phenomenological theory of law, looking the ability of the law as an order to respond to claims of the alien. Claiming that law in fact is unable to respond, Gehring argues that phenomenology should legal phenomena critically as a problem of order within the double nature of what Waldenfels calls Anspruch and Antwort.Hans Lindahl analyzes the spatio-temporal borders of the European Union to lay bare the genesis of the Community’s legal order. Lindahl reveals this genesis to embody Waldenfels’ notion of the “chiasm of strangeness,” wherein the foundation of a Heimwelt simultaneously generates a Fremdwelt, and thus questions the very ability of Europe to be its own place.Finally, guest-editor Bert van Roermund supplements his introduction with yet another original contribution arguing that modern legislation is self-legislation. Attempting to identify the different voices comprising this self in an analytical scheme he terms [LEX], van Roermund borrows from Waldenfel’s notion of response and alterity in his analysis of how this structure responds to the classical notion of justice for every subject. (shrink)

Begriffsschrift, a formula language, modeled upon that of arithmetic, for pure thought (1879), by G. Frege.--Some metamathematical results on completeness and consistency; On formally undecidable propositions of Principia mathematica and related systems I; and On completeness and consistency (1930b, 1931, and 1931a), by K. Gödel.--Bibliography (p. [111]-116).

Some philosophers believe that a change in motive alone is sometimes sufficient to bring about a change in the deontic status (rightness or wrongness) of an action. I refer to this position as ‘weak motivism’, and distinguish it from ‘strong’ and ‘partial motivism’. I examine a number of cases where our intuitive judgements appear to support the weak motivist’s thesis, and argue that in each case an alternative explanation can be given for why a change in motive brings about (or, (...) in some cases, appears to bring about) a change in deontic status. (shrink)

In this thesis, I investigate realist, anti-realist and pluralist views in the philosophy of science and the philosophy of complexity. The philosophy of science can inform the philosophy of complexity and vice versa because we can consider scientific inquiry to largely involve the study of complex systems. I however find that the relevant realist, anti-realist and pluralist views are problematic in various ways, and that a version of pragmatism suggests a promising alternative. This version of pragmatism incorporates elements of pluralism, (...) but maintains a commitment to epistemic hierarchy, convergence and progress. The way to develop such a version of pragmatism is, I argue, by rebooting William Whewell’s 19th century philosophy of science. Whewell however held to the following two transcendental claims: 1. Empirical inquiry undertaken in science properly practiced can reveal necessary truths. 2. The revelation of such necessary truths grants us a glimpse of the mind of God. Such transcendental claims are obviously at odds with pragmatism. There are however core features of Whewell’s view that are notably pragmatist in nature, features that explicitly inspired Charles Sanders Piece’s convergent pragmatism. These are as follows: 3. Subject and object (or mind and world) are inextricably entwined during scientific inquiry; they are not separated by anything like a correspondence relationship. 4. Science progresses via what Whewell calls the consilience of inductions (an ongoing merging of scientific theories, a merging that increases our understanding of the world over time). I modify Whewell’s view by stripping away its transcendental elements while maintaining its pragmatist elements. What remains is, I argue, a robust and novel kind of pragmatism suitable for being introduced into the contemporary philosophy of science. Whewell suitably-pragmatised can offer new insights into ongoing debates, particularly those around the nature of scientific progress, scientific truth and scientific understanding. (shrink)

La longue histoire de l’Acropole d’Athènes est une vitrine fascinante de la façon dont un patrimoine ancien peut être transformé, d’un sanctuaire païen à un sanctuaire chrétien, à une forteresse islamique, à l’autel symbolique de la Grèce moderne. De plus, ce site a suscité l’admiration presque religieuse des chercheurs et, comme dans le cas des marbres d’Elgin, a été contesté à de nombreux égards. L’auteur du volume analysé, William St Clair, un spécialiste des marbres d’Elgin et de divers a...