Genomic instability is a hallmark of cancer. Cancer cells that exhibit abnormal chromosomes are characteristic of most advanced tumours, despite the potential threat represented by accumulated genetic damage. Carcinogenesis involves a loss of key components of the genetic and signalling molecular networks; hence some authors have suggested that this is part of a trend of cancer cells to behave as simple, minimal replicators. In this study, we explore this conjecture and suggest that, in the case of cancer, genomic instability has (...) an upper limit that is associated with a minimal cancer cell network. Such a network would include (for a given microenvironment) the basic molecular components that allow cells to replicate and respond to selective pressures. However, it would also exhibit internal fragilities that could be exploited by appropriate therapies targeting the DNA repair machinery. The implications of this hypothesis are discussed. (shrink)

Fluid neural networks can be used as a theoretical framework for a wide range of complex systems as social insects. In this article we show that collective logical gates can be built in such a way that complex computation can be possible by means of the interplay between local interactions and the collective creation of a global field. This is exemplified by a NOR gate. Some general implications for ant societies are outlined. ©.

The search for a systems‐level picture of metabolism as a web of molecular interactions provides a paradigmatic example of how the methods used to characterize a system can bias the interpretation of its functional meaning. Metabolic maps have been analyzed using novel techniques from network theory, revealing some non‐trivial, functionally relevant properties. These include a small‐world structure and hierarchical modularity. However, as discussed here, some of these properties might actually result from an inappropriate way of defining network interactions. Starting from (...) the so‐called bipartite organization of metabolism, where the two meaningful subsets (reactions and metabolites) are considered, most current works use only one of the subsets by means of so‐called graph projections. Unfortunately, projected graphs often ignore relevant biological and chemical constraints, thus leading to statistical artifacts. Some of these drawbacks and alternative approaches need to be properly addressed. (shrink)

Written at an undergraduate mathematical level, this book provides the essential theoretical tools and foundations required to develop basic models to explain collective phase transitions for a wide variety of ecosystems.

Leigh Van Valen was an American evolutionary biologist who made major contributions to evolutionary theory. He is particularly remembered for his groundbreaking paper “A New Evolutionary Law” (1973) where he provided evidence from fossil record data that the probability of extinction within any group remains essentially constant through time. In order to explain such an unexpected result, Van Valen formulated a very influential idea that he dubbed the “Red Queen hypothesis.” It states that the constant decay must be a consequence (...) of evolutionary interactions among connected species within ecological networks. In Van Valen’s picture, species do not merely evolve: they also coevolve with other species. As a consequence, when thinking about adaptation to an external environment, the other species must be considered as part (maybe a major part) of such an external world. Van Valen’s law provided the first complex systems theory of coevolutionary dynamics and inspired a whole range of theoretical and experimental developments from very diverse fields, percolating far beyond its original formulation. Red Queen arms races are nowadays considered a widespread feature of complex adaptive systems. (shrink)

Human cancers comprise an heterogeneous array of diseases with different progression patterns and responses to therapy. However, they all develop within a host context that constrains their natural history. Since it occurs across the diversity of organisms, one can conjecture that there is order in the cancer multiverse. Is there a way to capture the broad range of tumor types within a space of the possible? Here we define the oncospace, a coordinate system that integrates the ecological, evolutionary and developmental (...) components of cancer complexity. The spatial position of a tumor results from its departure from the healthy tissue along these three axes, and progression trajectories inform about the components driving malignancy across cancer subtypes. We postulate that the oncospace topology encodes new information regarding tumorigenic pathways, subtype prognosis, and therapeutic opportunities: treatment design could benefit from considering how to nudge tumors toward empty evolutionary dead ends in the oncospace. (shrink)

Purpose. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the anthropological and socio-philosophical dimensions of human existence of the older age group given the challenges of pandemic threats caused by COVID-19. To this end, it is planned to solve a number of tasks, among which one should distinguish the following: 1) to investigate the manifestations of age discrimination in the context of the social and labor areas of human existence; 2) to focus on the asymmetry of the behavior of society (...) and the state relative to persons of the older age group in the field of healthcare in the context of a pandemic crisis; 3) to represent the anthropological features of changes in the socialization and activity of older people under the current conditions of globalization-pandemic challenges. Theoretical basis. Despite such a broad representation of the age-related issue in public relations, there are still no practical guarantees that would apply to discriminatory aspects of older age groups in various areas of their manifestation. The synergistic evolution of social reality requires substantive analysis of the issue under the current conditions for the transformation of social life, which is affected by globalization crises caused by the pandemic threats of COVID-19. Originality. The stereotypical assumptions underlying legal policy and established social relations are based solely on the application of chronological age. The novelty is in justifying an individual approach to the elderly through the personification of the personal characteristics of a person. The study of anthropological and socio-philosophical dimensions of the existence of a person of the older age group in the face of the challenges of pandemic threats caused by COVID-19 has made it possible to analyze the destructive nature of age discrimination in the context of the social and labor areas of human existence. As well as focus on the asymmetry of the behavior of society and the state in relation to these persons in the field of health care, and emphasize the anthropological features of changes in the socialization and human activity under the current conditions of globalization-pandemic challenges. Conclusions. External threats to human existence call for special attention to the implementation and protection of human rights, freedoms, individual freedoms, and identity. Pandemic threats have transformed all dimensions of human existence, especially for those groups of society that are less socially protected. The pandemic crisis has created additional grounds for discrimination against older people in various areas of human existence. Equalization of persons by age without personifying the personal characteristics of an individual is discrimination on an age basis, which violates the principles of democracy and humanism in the society, leads to stigmatization of the person, is the cause of the anthropological crisis of a person. (shrink)

Illness and hospitalization are sources of vulnerability; they arguably endow nurses and midwives with the moral obligation to develop caring relationships with patients. Fairness and the equal treatment of patients are central to moral practice; current government publications are giving this political emphasis. This article argues that patient partiality is one factor that may result in insidiously unequal caregiving. Data generated during a qualitative study into professional caring suggest that patient partiality is an accepted part of everyday practice. Factors such (...) as the patient’s personality, nurse-patient familiarity and the perceived level of patients’ understanding and interest in their illness emerged as possible sources of partiality and influence on practitioners’ interactions with patients. The article argues that patient partiality can be managed morally if practitioners develop self-awareness and constantly reflect on the moral integrity of everyday practice. Throughout the article, unless it is stated that specific reference is being made to either nurses or midwives, reference to a nurse or practitioner denotes both. It is also emphasized that no implication is intended that any study participants provided unequal care. Rather, data are utilized solely to generate focused discussion around the concept of patient partiality. (shrink)

In late 2005, the General Medical Council carried out several consultations. In the review of procedures for sick doctors were proposals to strengthen powers to monitor doctors and plans to introduce unannounced drug testing of doctors whose behaviour raised concerns.1 The GMC consultation on the strategic options for undergraduate medical education considered how education is changing in the light of social and clinical demands. It focused, in part, on developing guidance on medical students’ health and conduct and a proposed national (...) registration system for medical students.2 The most significant consultation in terms of medical ethics was the GMC’s review of Good Medical Practice – its main ethical guidance for doctors.3 The GMC’s aim was to re-define practical and attainable modern standards. A proposed draft emphasised partnership in the doctor-patient relationship, human rights, and doctors’ obligations and responsibilities towards children—all of which are issues increasingly significant in medicine. The consultation also opened up discussion on how far the GMC should be concerned about doctors’ behaviour in their private lives. Should it be concerned, for example, about clinically successful consultants being obsessed with hardcore pornography or having affairs with very young women?4 Questions were also posed about how far doctors can exercise a conscientious objection. Should they be able to refuse to refer pregnant women for abortions because they themselves consider it wrong?5 Other potentially contentious issues questioned the extent to which doctors have rights to protect themselves against risks from patients. British Medical Association policy, dating from the era when HIV first began to be diagnosed, stated that it is unethical to withhold treatment solely because a patient’s condition poses risks to doctors’ health. At the time it was adopted, this policy was intended to be anti-discriminatory as HIV patients were already stigmatised. Doctors …. (shrink)

1. Russian thought is a collective and symbolic concept. The intellect of any people on the planet Earth is great in its own way; nor can its contribution to the common planetary home of mankind be assessed on the basis of the generally accepted events of history. First, because these events in the history of mankind are overestimated; second, because many of them are still beyond the bounds of knowledge and understanding. The true mechanisms of the evolution of mankind are (...) still awaiting their Columbuses. The histories of the utilization of nature by social organisms, economics, natural science, culture, and religions are becoming increasingly disassociated; mankind, as the only cosmoplanetary system, remains in the world of hypotheses; pragmatic aspirations supplant strategies of development and survival. The established priority of scientific and technical thought rejects empirical and a priori indicators. The experience of mankind's survival is condescendingly received or arrogantly ignored if it does not accord with the contemporary paradigms of science. This total, hidden scientific-cognitive actualism as regards how we see the world was established as the highest level for the evaluation of national cultures in history and in modern times. The formula of civilized countries —"STP + Nature + Man"—is accepted as an ideal model for the world of the planet. Thus, for most Asian, African, and South American cultures, the contemporary civilizations of the developed countries are becoming a kind of sole ideal, the paths along which all the nations of the globe should move. The measure of this evaluation is the measure of STP, that is, of modern established science. (shrink)

Marquis’s account of the ethics of abortion is unsatisfactory but not as Christensen implies baseless. It requires to be amended rather than abandoned. It is true, as Marquis asserts that murder and abortion both might deprive people of something of value to them, in particular, the life of a sort that might have been to them worth living. However, it is mistaken to conclude, as Marquis does, that murder and abortion are thereby morally equivalent. Not all deprivation is wrongful. Not (...) all that is wrongful is wrongful because it deprives someone of something. Contrary to what Christensen asserts, and Marquis seems to accept, it is not solely those discernible people who currently exist who might be deprived by our current actions. It is not only towards and concerning such living discernible people that we can have moral duties. It is not only such living discernible people who can be the beneficiaries of our generosity. Hence, contraception and the emission of greenhouse gases are, like abortion, issues that raise significant moral questions; however, they might each be properly answered. Nonetheless, it does not follow that is morally equivalent to each other far less than they are all morally equivalent to murder. If and when they are morally wrong, they can be different wrongs. (shrink)

Mobile Health (m-health) technologies, such as wearables, apps, and smartwatches, are increasingly viewed as tools for improving health and well-being. In particular, such technologies are conceptualized as means for laypersons to master their own health, by becoming “engaged” and “empowered” “managers” of their bodies and minds. One notion that is especially prevalent in the discussions around m-health technology is that of empowerment. In this paper, I analyze the notion of empowerment at play in the m-health arena, identifying five elements that (...) are required for empowerment. These are (1) knowledge, (2) control, (3) responsibility, (4) the availability of good choices, and (5) healthy desires. I argue that at least sometimes, these features are not present in the use of these technologies. I then argue that instead of empowerment, it is plausible that m-health technology merely facilitates a feeling of empowerment. I suggest this may be problematic, as it risks placing the burden of health and behavior change solely on the shoulders of individuals who may not be in a position to affect such change. (shrink)

How do we understand moral theology within the context of Christian life and thought? In Be Good And Do Good, Bernard V. Brady addresses the main themes in fundamental moral theology from a novel perspective; rather than relying solely on traditional sources such as natural law theory, abstract philosophical principles, or popular theories of the individual, he focuses on biblical material, an emphasis on experience, and the social/relational spheres of human life.

This article finds little to disagree with in Neurophilosophy The sole area of disagreement is with Professor Churchland's attitude to common?sense psychology. Unfortunately, though, the author has already attempted to describe what should be the proper view of common?sense psychology in an earlier article in this very journal. Therefore the present article tries to build on the earlier one, advocating an instrumentalist constraal of many ordinary?language mental terms ? a construal with which Professor Churchland is unlikely to agree, but which, (...) if she did agree, would give her further ammunition with which to beat her opponents. The other main strand of this article suggests that Aristotle has anticipated Professor Churchland (and also most other theoreticians of psychology and physiology), and so, willy?nilly, we are ? correctly ? returning to an Aristotelian picture of human capacity and activity. (shrink)

SCHOLARS OFTEN VIEW MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO political theology in the context of his philosophy of nonviolence. Drawing on feminist and womanist thought, I reconstruct King's theopolitical practice to construe nonviolence more broadly as including any "agapic activity" that forms and sustains community. In doing so, I uncover in King's thought a conception of agape that resonates with feminist emphasis on the relational and community-oriented nature of love, and I draw on womanist thought to highlight the role of (...) creativity, not solely love or justice, to King's ethical thinking. Both emphases suggest a vision of churches as communities of creativity with community-creating practices at the heart of their political roles. (shrink)

Phylogenetic systematics is one of the most important analytical frameworks of modern Biology. It seems to be common knowledge that within phylogenetics, ‘groups’ must be defined based solely on the synapomorphies or on the “derived” characters that unite two or more taxa in a clade or monophyletic group. Thus, the idea of synapomorphy seems to be of fundamental influence and importance. Here I will show that the most common and straightforward understanding of synapomorphy as a shared derived character is not (...) sufficient and eventually must be rejected in favor of Nelson’s relational interpretation of such term. Arguing for this point and using three examples from previously published Apes’ genomic matrices, I explicitly demonstrate that the relationship )) with Hylobatidae as a sister taxon, may be successfully recovered by three-taxon statement analysis and three-taxon statement average consensus analysis even if all of the evident standard shared derived molecular characters of the relationship )) with Hylobatidae as a sister taxon, have been excluded from the molecular alignments. Neither conventional Maximum Parsimony nor Maximum Likelihood or Bayesian Inference can do this in such situation. Thus, our results show that the relationship )) with Hylobatidae as a sister taxon has appeared, in some way, behind standard shared derived characters: the last ones could be excluded, but the relationship remains the same. (shrink)

If our knowledge of human cognition were based solely on research with participants younger than the age of 2 years, there would be no basis for the relational reinterpretation hypothesis, and Darwin's continuity theory would be safe as houses. Because many of the shortcomings cited apply to human infants, we propose how a consideration of cognitive development would inform the relational reinterpretation hypothesis.

Empirical and theoretical evidence show that the astrophysical problem of dark matter might be solved by a theory of Einstein-Mayer type. In this theory, up to global Lorentz rotations, the reference system is determined by the motion of cosmic matter. Thus, one is led to a “Riemannian space with teleparallelism” realizing a geometric version of the Mach-Einstein doctrine. The field equations of this gravitational theory contain hidden matter terms, where the existence of hidden matter is inferred solely from its gravitational (...) effects. It is argued that, in the nonrelativistic mechanical approximation, they provide an inertia-free mechanics, where the inertial mass of a body is induced by the gravitational action of the comic masses. Interpreted from the Newtonian point of view, this mechanics shows that the effective gravitational mass of astrophysical objects depends on r such that one expects the existence of dark matter. (shrink)

The history of philosophy is rich in diverse and sometimes directly contradictory views on the character of the relation between science and art. There have been times when art was proclaimed as lower than science, as an inadequate form of assimilation of reality by man, while at others it was seen as the sole means of adequate reflection of the world hidden "behind Maia's mysterious veil." And although today we are far from overestimating or underestimating either of the ways in (...) which man perceives reality, the fact is that the problem of the relationship between science and art remains quite acute, as is shown in particular by the broad discussion on this question that has arisen in the pages of Problems of Philosophy [Voprosy filosofii] during the last three years. The present article is an attempt to treat yet another facet of the relationships between science and art, taking as point of departure the capacity of art to model not only certain aspects of reality but human reality itself, including that of scientific theory. From this standpoint art, as a meta-activity as it were, relates to positive cognition such as philosophy not so much "horizontally" as "vertically.". (shrink)

The fundamental Hennigian principle, grouping solely on synapomorphy, is seldom used in modern phylogenetics. In the submitted paper, we apply this principle in reanalyzing five datasets comprising 197 complete plastid genomes (plastomes). We focused on the latter because plastome-based DNA sequence data gained dramatic popularity in molecular systematics during the last decade. We show that pattern-cladistic analyses based on complete plastid genome sequences can successfully resolve affinities between plant taxa, simultaneously simplifying both the genomic and analytical frameworks of phylogenetic studies. (...) We developed “Matrix to Newick” (M2N), a program to represent the standard molecular alignment of plastid genomes in the form of trees or relationships directly. Thus, massive plastome-based DNA sequence data can be successfully represented in a relational form rather than as a standard molecular alignment. Application of methods of median supertree construction (the Average Consensus method has been used as an example in this study) or Maximum Parsimony analysis to relational representations of plastome sequence data may help systematist to avoid the complicated assumption-based frameworks of Maximum Likelihood or Bayesian phylogenetics that are most used today in massive plastid sequence data analyses. We also found that significant amounts of pure genomic information that typically accommodate the majority of current plastid phylogenomic studies can be effectively dropped by systematists if they focus on the pattern-cladistics or relational analyses of plastome-based molecular data. The proposed pattern-cladistic approach is a powerful and straightforward heuristic alternative to modern plastome-based phylogenetics. (shrink)

By analyzing various models of moral behavior, I wanted to show that humanity does not have any universal moral feeling. The positive and negative emotions I have described appear in concrete situations in various ways. The dominant role goes to negative emotions provoked in response to possible or real violations ofmoral demands. This, by the way, explains the fact that most well-known moral rules have a negative character (don't lie, don't use others solely as a means to your own ends, (...) don't commit adultery, and so on). The positive motivations are mainly represented in situations where shared values influence the process of satisfying highly developed human needs. Traditional approaches to ethics (especially Immanuel Kant's) stressed the separation of moral motives from other socially and naturally caused behavioral stimuli that finally obstruct possibility to explain positive moral motivation. So in order to understand the role of positive motivation in moral we need a new methodology. The basis of this new methodology has to be a complementary principle which allows us to show how differentmotivations can be combined under one nature without mutually suppressing each other. (shrink)

Until recently, cardiotoxicity in the setting of a malignant disease was attributed solely to the detrimental effects of chemo‐ and/or radio‐therapy to the heart. On this account, the focus was on the evaluation of well‐established cardiac biomarkers for the early detection of myocardial damage. Currently, this view has been revised. Cardiotoxicity is not restricted to a single organ but instead affects the endothelium as a whole. Indeed, it has come into light that not only cancer therapy but also malignant cells (...) per se can impair the cardiovascular system, through a paracrine and endocrine mode of action. Even more intriguingly, a clear interplay between molecular pathways involved in cancer and cardiovascular disease has become prevalent, suggesting a common nominator that governs the pathophysiology of these two entities. Taken together, our strategy in the quest of novel biomarkers in the emerging field of cardio‐oncology should be critically reshaped. (shrink)

OBJECTIVES: To study the resuscitation preferences, choice of decision-maker, views on the seeking of patients' wishes and determinants of these of elderly hospital in-patients. DESIGN: Questionnaire administered on admission and prior to discharge. SETTING: Two acute geriatric medicine units (Southampton and Poole). PARTICIPANTS: Two hundred and fourteen consecutive consenting mentally competent patients admitted to hospital as emergencies. RESULTS: Resuscitation was wanted by 60%, particularly married and functionally independent patients and those who had not already considered it. Not wanted resuscitation was (...) associated with lack of social contacts. Sixty-seven per cent welcomed enquiry about their preferences and 78% wanted participation in decision, 43% as sole decision-maker. Wishing to choose oneself was associated with not wanting resuscitation, prior knowledge of it, and lack of a spouse. Patients' opinions remained stable during their admission. CONCLUSIONS: Discussion of resuscitation is practical on hospital admission without causing distress and the views expressed endure through the period of hospitalisation. Elderly patients' attitudes depend partly on personal health and social circumstances. This may assist doctors when patients are unable to participate themselves. (shrink)

BackgroundResponsive neurostimulation has been utilized as a treatment for intractable epilepsy. The RNS System delivers stimulation in response to detected abnormal activity, via leads covering the seizure foci, in response to detections of predefined epileptiform activity with the goal of decreasing seizure frequency and severity. While thalamic leads are often implanted in combination with cortical strip leads, implantation and stimulation with bilateral thalamic leads alone is less common, and the ability to detect electrographic seizures using RNS System thalamic leads is (...) uncertain.ObjectiveThe present study retrospectively evaluated fourteen patients with RNS System depth leads implanted in the thalamus, with or without concomitant implantation of cortical strip leads, to determine the ability to detect electrographic seizures in the thalamus. Detailed patient presentations and lead trajectories were reviewed alongside electroencephalographic analyses.ResultsAnterior nucleus thalamic leads, whether bilateral or unilateral and combined with a cortical strip lead, successfully detected and terminated epileptiform activity, as demonstrated by Cases 2 and 3. Similarly, bilateral centromedian thalamic leads or a combination of one centromedian thalamic alongside a cortical strip lead also demonstrated the ability to detect electrographic seizures as seen in Cases 6 and 9. Bilateral pulvinar leads likewise produced reliable seizure detection in Patient 14. Detections of electrographic seizures in thalamic nuclei did not appear to be affected by whether the patient was pediatric or adult at the time of RNS System implantation. Sole thalamic leads paralleled the combination of thalamic and cortical strip leads in terms of preventing the propagation of electrographic seizures.ConclusionThalamic nuclei present a promising target for detection and stimulation via the RNS System for seizures with multifocal or generalized onsets. These areas provide a modifiable, reversible therapeutic option for patients who are not candidates for surgical resection or ablation. (shrink)

The susceptibility of decision-makers’ choices to variations in option framing has been attributed to individual differences in cognitive style. According to this view, individuals who are prone to a more deliberate, or less intuitive, thinking style are less susceptible to framing manipulations. Research findings on the topic, however, have tended to yield small effects, with several studies also being limited in inferential value by methodological drawbacks. We report two experiments that examined the value of several cognitive-style variables, including measures of (...) cognitive reflection, subjective numeracy, actively open-minded thinking, need for cognition, and hemispheric dominance, in predicting participants’ frame-consistent choices. Our experiments used an isomorph of the Asian Disease Problem and we manipulated frames between participants. We controlled for participants’ sex and age, and we manipulated the order in which choice options were presented to participants. In Experiment 1 (N = 190) using an undergraduate sample and in Experiment 2 (N = 316) using a sample of Amazon Mechanical Turk workers, we found no significant effect of any of the cognitive style measures taken on predicting frame-consistent choice, regardless of whether we analyzed participants’ binary choices or their choices weighted by the extent to which participants preferred their chosen option over the non-chosen option. The sole factor that significantly predicted frame consistent choice was framing: in both experiments, participants were more likely to make frame consistent choices when the frame was positive than when it was negative, consistent with the tendency towards risk aversion in the task. The present findings do not support the view that individual differences in people’s susceptibility to framing manipulations can be substantially accounted for by individual differences in cognitive style. (shrink)

Much insect sounding is beyond the limits of typical human hearing ability. This sonic separation is exacerbated by a socialized narrative of fear and avoidance of insects in many western societies. With the use of audio technologies to expand our senses, we can embrace opportunities to get to know sensory and communicative insect sound-worlds beyond our own. Ecological sound art – sound art that has an environmentalist intent – is a tangible and accessible means of listening to these sounds. In (...) the series Built Hidden Soundscapes, the primary author (Schonberg) composes imagined soundscapes existing solely of sounds that are beyond the limits of typical human hearing ability. In this article we introduce two compositions in this series, Reserva Florestal Adolpho Ducke and Pipeline Road. These compositions offer a temporary expansion of our aural senses that can increase listeners’ awareness of cryptic insect existences/ecologies. We suggest that this listening practice might prompt future auralization (sounding or hearing in the mind) of insect sound for the listener. (shrink)

The prevailing scientific paradigm is that matter is primary and everything, including consciousness can be derived from the laws governing matter. Although the scientific explanation of consciousness on these lines has not been realized, in this view it is only a matter of time before consciousness will be explained through neurobiological activity in the brain, and nothing else. There is an alternative view that holds that it is fundamentally impossible to explain how subjectivity can arise solely out of material processes—“the (...) hard problem of consciousness”—and instead consciousness should be regarded in itself as a primary force in nature. This view attempts to derive, for example, the laws of physics from models of consciousness, instead of the other way around. While as scientists we can understand and have an intuition for the first paradigm, it is very difficult to understand what “consciousness is primary” might mean since it has no intuitive scientific grounding. Here we show that worlds experienced through virtual reality are such that consciousness is a first order phenomenon. We discuss the Interface Theory of Perception which claims that in physical reality perceptions are not veridical and that we do not see the “truth” but that perception is based on evolutionary payoffs. We show that this theory may provide an accurate description of perception and consciousness within VR, and we put forward an experimental study that could throw light on this. We conclude that VR does offer an experimental frame that provides intuition with respect to the idea that “consciousness is first” and what this might mean regarding the perceived world. However, we do not draw any conclusions about the veracity of this notion with respect to physical reality or question the emergence of consciousness from brain function. (shrink)

The pre-emption doctrine as applied to food and drug law argues that manufacturers whose products gain Food and Drug Administration marketing approval are immune from tort liability in state court solely on the basis of their FDA approval. This pre-emption protection applies both to claims of direct damages caused by the product and as well as indirect damages claims.The recent 8-1 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Riegel v. Medtronic, Inc. upheld the manufacturer’s contention that the pre-emption provision in the 1976 (...) Medical Device Amendments of 1976 to the 1938 Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act completely precluded civil damages suits by injured plaintiffs in state court. Justice Ginsburg was the lone dissenter. (shrink)

Aspiring to deal with the full complexity of the Catholic reformation, the May 2012 workshop in Bologna placed a particular focus on the reform of religious orders in the first half of the sixteenth century. While it is true that internal reform initiatives instigated by the Church or highly placed Church officials were important and should be considered, this, in my view, is an issue that should not only be addressed from a narrow institutional perspective. For this reason, the Libellus (...) ad Leonem X provides a good example of the reformist aspirations cutting across the Church in this particular period. However, it would be a mistake to assume that the reform impulse came solely from the Church. We should also.. (shrink)

This commentary proceeds as follows. First, it is argued from both ethical and legal perspectives through an analysis of Court precedents that Etzioni’s has improperly developed a too narrow First Amendment interpretation and conclusion that Apple should comply with the FBI’s demand to provide the FBI with a key to open iPhones. That is, broad First Amendment considerations and not solely narrow First Amendment “compelled speech” or only Fourth Amendment privacy issues are offered and analyzed from both ethical and legal (...) perspectives. A key point here is that broad First Amendment considerations protect, with exceptions, political and ethical discretion space for “Press” organizations to exercise, or not, ethical responsibilities, including rights to publish or not publish information and opinions, rather than compliance with government orders to publish or not publish. Further, Court cases are discussed from both legal and ethical perspectives where the Courts have established that social media organizations such as Facebook and Twitter do and should have broad First Amendment protection of free expression and peaceful assembly as traditional media such as newspapers have. It is suggested that Apple can and should be considered a social media organization. In addition, special First Amendment protection and limitations concerning national security are analyzed. Second, it is suggested that Etzioni’s point that Apple protected its clients soley for “business profitability” reasons is also a too narrow interpretation since there are more complex, mixed, and combined ethical and political-economic reasons for protecting clients and First Amendment protections. Third, the philosopher Paul Ricoeur’s ethics process responsibility framework concerning relationships between ethics and law and the need for an ethics responsibility rather than a compliance approach, which is similar to Brandeis’ legal ethics approach, is compared with and offered as an alternative to Etzioni’s compliance based “Liberal communitarian” approach. It is suggested that the difference between the Rocoeur and Etzioni approaches is similar to the difference between compliance and ethics responsibility process programs in organizations. (shrink)

The question of „objectivity in the law and in legal science“ was first posed in the jurisprudence of the German-speaking countries at the end of the eighteenth century, a period marked by the supplanting, at last, of the traditional subjective concept of science through the objective concept of science as definitively established by Kant in the Critique of Pure Reason. The present study takes up both Georg Friedrich Puchta and Rudolf von Jhering, the former reflecting the then-prevailing scientific paradigm set (...) by the philosophy of German idealism, the latter, a generation later, reflecting the changes in the scientific paradigm that were drawn from new developments in natural science. Both thinkers, as the study shows, sought in their different ways to establish the possibility of objectivity in the science of law. While Puchta believed he could find scientific truth in the law itself, namely in the system of subjective legal rights, Jhering saw the guarantee of scientific objectivity solely in the method of legal science, understood as having universal validity. Thus, both Puchta and Jhering find themselves in agreement not only with the prevailing scientific views of their respective times but also with their own views of correct law. (shrink)

A prologue translates and discusses 341b7–344d3 of Plato’s Seventh Letter. Traditional readings have not made clear why Socrates must act as “midwife” who leads people to discover for themselves the natures of things. Beets argues that truth is ineffable; it is, however, already present but dormant in the mind. Those two points combined require Socratic midwifery. The significance of Socrates’ “divine guide” has also been left dark. Beets argues that Socrates’ daimon provides infallible access to this ineffable and perfect truth. (...) Ultimately, Socrates’ sole purpose in arguing with any interlocutor is simply to show the shortcoming of intuition and discursive reasoning and to awaken him to the “infallible guide within himself”. (shrink)

In Kitzmiller v. Dover (2005), the only U.S. federal case on teaching Intelligent Design in public schools, the plaintiffs used the same argument as in the creation-science trials of the 1980s: Intelligent Design is religion, not science, because it invokes the supernatural; thus teaching it violates the Constitution. Although the plaintiffs won, this strategy is unwise because it is based on problematic definitions of religion and science, leads to multiple truths in society, and is unlikely to succeed before the present (...) right-leaning Supreme Court. I suggest discarding past approaches in favor of arguing solely from the evidence for evolution. (shrink)

In Kitzmiller v. Dover (2005), the only U.S. federal case on teaching Intelligent Design in public schools, the plaintiffs used the same argument as in the creation-science trials of the 1980s: Intelligent Design is religion, not science, because it invokes the supernatural; thus teaching it violates the Constitution. Although the plaintiffs won, this strategy is unwise because it is based on problematic definitions of religion and science, leads to multiple truths in society, and is unlikely to succeed before the present (...) right-leaning Supreme Court. I suggest discarding past approaches in favor of arguing solely from the evidence for evolution. (shrink)

W. V. Quine calls some general methods of science maxims: general defeasible principles that call on us to approximate, maximize, or minimize a state and that are interpreted and weighed in context-sensitive ways. On my reading, his empiricism asks us to maximize accepting overall theories empirically equivalent to ours but to minimize accepting sentences that both do not affect the empirical content of our overall theory and do not simplify our overall theory. His naturalism asks us to maximize accepting sentences (...) that are solely supported by standards that support our best current scientific theory. Drawing on the Quine archive at Houghton Library at Harvard, I support and apply these interpretations by investigating his rapidly evolving later work on empirical content and empirical equivalence, including some of his views on translation in this later work and his vacillation between what he calls the ecumenical and sectarian attitudes. (shrink)

Epitome V (1621), and consisted of matching an element of area to an element of time, where each was mathematically determined. His treatment of the area depended solely on the geometry of Euclid's Elements, involving only straight-line and circle propositions – so we have to account for his deliberate avoidance of the sophisticated conic-geometry associated with Apollonius. We show also how his proof could have been made watertight according to modern standards, using methods that lay entirely within his power. The (...) greatest innovation, however, occurred in Kepler's fresh formulation of the measure of time. We trace this concept in relation to early astronomy and conclude that Kepler's treatment unexpectedly entailed the assumption that time varied nonuniformly; meanwhile, a geometrical measure provided the independent variable. Even more surprisingly, this approach turns out to be entirely sound when assessed in present-day terms. Kepler himself attributed the cause of the motion of a single planet around the Sun to a set of `physical' suppositions which represented his religious as well as his Copernican convictions; and we have pared to a minimum – down to four – the number he actually required to achieve this. In the Appendix we use modern mathematics to emphasize the simplicity, both geometrical and kinematical, that objectively characterizes the Sun-focused ellipse as an orbit. Meanwhile we highlight the subjective simplicity of Kepler's own techniques (most of them extremely traditional, some newly created). These two approaches complement each other to account for his success. (shrink)

Для широкого круга читателей (слушателей, аспирантов, преподавателей) интересующихся данной проблемой.

Overview The evolution of multicellularity raises questions regarding genomic and developmental commonalities and discordances, selective advantages and disadvantages, physical determinants of development, and the origins of morphological novelties. It also represents a change in the definition of individuality, because a new organism emerges from interactions among single cells. This volume considers these and other questions, with contributions that explore the origins and consequences of the evolution of multicellularity, addressing a range of topics, organisms, and experimental protocols. Each section focuses on (...) selected topics or particular lineages that present a significant insight or challenge. The contributors consider the fossil record of the paleontological circumstances in which animal multicellularity evolved; cooptation, recurrent patterns, modularity, and plausible pathways for multicellular evolution in plants; theoretical approaches to the amoebozoa and fungi (cellular slime molds having long provided a robust model system for exploring the evolution of multicellularity), plants, and animals; genomic toolkits of metazoan multicellularity; and philosophical aspects of the meaning of individuality in light of multicellular evolution. Contributors Maja Adamska, Argyris Arnellos, Juan A. Arias, Eugenio Azpeitia, Mariana Benítez, Adriano Bonforti, John Tyler Bonner, Peter L. Conlin, A. Keith Dunker, Salva Duran-Nebreda, Ana E. Escalante, Valeria Hernández-Hernández, Kunihiko Kaneko, Andrew H. Knoll, Stephan G. König, Daniel J. G. Lahr, Ottoline Leyser, Alan C. Love, Raul Montañez, Emilio Mora van Cauwelaert, Alvaro Moreno, Vidyanand Nanjundiah, Aurora M. Nedelcu, Stuart A. Newman, Karl J. Niklas, William C. Ratcliff, Iñaki Ruiz-Trillo, Ricard Solé . (shrink)